Beneath the Abbey Wall

by A. D. Scott

  He watched her hurriedly clip her stockings to the garter belt. He saw her pulling her hair into an elastic band, then checking her eyes to make sure the liner was all scrubbed off. She bounced onto the bed and kissed him. “Let yourself out. The spare keys are in the kitchen drawer.”

  He went back to sleep and woke at ten. The cacophony of bells reminded him he was on Church Street with three churches within spitting distance and at least three more within throwing distance.

  He waited until the good folk of the town were safely inside and the first psalm sung, before dressing and leaving. He tried to lock the front door but the key was stiff. Often happens with the spare key, he thought, and the key to the gate worked so he didn’t worry.

  Walking across the suspension bridge, whistling into a biting wind, which he did not notice, whistling Bye bye love, which was currently his favorite, he decided Phil would be his alter ego, not Don.

  Don. Don McLeod in a prison cell. Don hearing the same Sunday-morning sounds he was hearing—the tolling of church bells, the wind that had increased in the night to nearly gale force. But Don, whose house he had slept next to, his editor, his mentor, and friend, was locked up, maybe forever.

  The walk home was cold. The prison must be colder. Rob increased his pace. Swung his arms. It didn’t help.

  * * *

  The night before, Chiara had heard the front door. Heard the murmur of voices. She knew Peter liked occasional late nights with friends. She didn’t, and had gone back to sleep.

  Early next morning when Joanne collected the girls for church, Peter was in bed with a coffee and a three-day-old Gazette, so he missed her.

  “Was that Joanne?” he asked when he came down for a refill.

  “The girls were here last night—or hadn’t you noticed?”

  “Funny. Neil was looking for her at the dance. I thought maybe she couldn’t find a babysitter.”

  “I told you the girls were coming here.”

  “Sorry, I didn’t remember . . . What is it?” Peter asked.

  Chiara sat down. “It’s Joanne,” she said. “She’s in love.”

  Peter was about to ask who with, but he knew better. He would be accused of noticing nothing—which was true; a sensitive man, he could never discern quite what Joanne was thinking because, to him, she always seemed so bright, so capable. He admired her.

  No, he said to Chiara, he hadn’t seen Joanne at the dance. He’d noticed McAllister at the bar at the beginning of the evening, but not later. It was only Neil who had come back here for some brandy, he told his wife, Rob was off with his new girlfriend. So, no, Joanne could not have been with Rob.

  At the end of this to-and-fro, Chiara worried even more.

  When Joanne had called in earlier in the morning to collect the girls for church, she had no time to chat. No time to tell Chiara about the dance, too busy fussing over the children, getting their coats on, their hats, making sure they had sixpence for the collection plate, telling them to hurry or they’d be late for church.

  “The rain’s cold,” Joanne had said, “the wind colder.” She was buttoning Jean’s yellow oilskin, and Annie kept repeating, “I hate this coat. We’re not fishermen, you know.”

  She said it once too often. Joanne slapped her on the back of her leg. Chiara caught a flash of the murderous look Annie gave her mother and didn’t like it one bit.

  They had all rushed out with hurried good-byes and thanks, to catch one of the few buses that ran on a Sunday, leaving Chiara wondering if they would get to church on time.

  Now this.

  “Peter, Joanne is . . . ” She stopped. No, maybe not. She had told Peter that Joanne was in love, but how could she explain that hopeless helpless passion, that was not love—it was obsession.

  He was waiting for an explanation, and as Chiara looked at him, she shivered. “I can’t believe how lucky I am,” she said and went over and pressed herself against him.

  He put his arms around her and her bump and said, “Nor can I.”

  * * *

  Church was an ordeal. And lunch. Everything seemed in slow motion. Joanne passed off her state, saying she thought she might be catching flu. Her sister looked at her, saw the feverish eyes, and agreed.

  “Would you like the girls to stay here this afternoon?” Elizabeth asked. “Duncan can run you home and you can sleep.”

  “Aren’t we going for ice cream wi’ Uncle Neil?” Jean asked.

  “All you think about is ice cream,” Joanne snapped. She saw her daughter’s lip quiver and the child looking at her, her eyes saying, What did I do? And she apologized. “Sorry, Jean, I’m not feeling too well.”

  “Well I’d like to stay here forever, Aunty Elizabeth,” Annie declared. Elizabeth joked it was only because Annie loved her apple charlotte. But she heard the bitterness in her niece’s voice.

  “Thanks, Elizabeth, I’ll take you up on the offer. But I’ll walk back.”

  “In this rain? No you won’t.”

  After her younger sister had left, Elizabeth worried about Joanne, and she too did not share her thoughts with her husband, choosing the influenza excuse.

  My poor wee sister, she thought as she waved cheerio to Joanne, you’ve not had much luck, have you?

  * * *

  In the midafternoon Neil knocked on the front door. Joanne did not answer. The bedroom curtains were shut. He won’t know I’m home. He knocked again, waited a moment, then left.

  Her brother-in-law, the Reverend Duncan Macdonald, brought the girls home, but not until after evening service. They had had supper, were in borrowed pajamas and dressing gowns but their own Sunday church shoes. They were tired and went straight to bed without arguing.

  “Hope you feel better tomorrow, Mum,” Jean called out as she climbed into bed. Annie said nothing.

  “Night-night, girls,” was all Joanne was able to say. “Night-night.”

  She made tea, even though she knew it would keep her awake. She sat in her chair that felt as though it had altered its shape from Neil sitting in it, claiming it.

  Feel better? No. I am terrified. I am ashamed, I am enchanted.

  The ridiculous thought, that a wicked witch had enchanted her, made her smile. I must tell McAllister . . . he would appreciate the idea of love as a wicked spell, an enchantment. She hugged herself, remembering. Him and his analyzing, he preferred Jung to Freud and Beethoven to Mozart. The way he would tell me his daft idea that Scotland would one day be independent again. The way he would tell me about the books he was reading. And tell me again about Spain, about camping under the pine trees, freezing cold in a forest high up in the mountains, eating olives and apricots, watching Franco’s troops prepare for the assault that killed his friends. And the aftermath of the war in Paris, how the cafés and bookshops and the painters along the banks of the Seine had returned in that first magical springtime, when the war was finally over.

  “McAllister,” she whispered, “talk to me.”

  CHAPTER 20

  Monday morning and the rain had not relented; the mandatory news meeting was accompanied by the smell of damp clothing and sniffs and sneezing and girning from Hector.

  “I’m never standing in the rain to watch a football match ever again,” he complained. “I’ll catch ma death a’ cold.”

  “Shut up, Hector.” Rob had been saying this since they were five years old in Miss Rose’s class at Central School. They grinned at each other. No one else felt cheerful, especially Joanne, and the morning dragged on.

  “I’m off to print up the sports shots,” Hector said as he closed his bag and pulled on his black-and-white Clach supporter’s scarf, “and Joanne, I’m sorry I can’t do those pictures for you and Betsy, ma granny would kill me.”

  “What was that about?” Rob asked her.

  “Mind your own business,” she snapped.

  Rob shrugged. He was aware Joanne was not happy, but she had Neil, so she didn’t need him.

  “I was looking for you on Saturday night
,” Neil said to Joanne when they were alone. “I really missed you.”

  “I was too tired,” she lied.

  “I came to your house on Sunday afternoon, but you were out.”

  “I was at my sister’s,” she lied.

  “I’m sorry we couldn’t be together,” he said. “I wanted to spend time with you, but we’ll have Wednesday night.”

  She didn’t reply.

  He looked at her. Head down, she was writing furiously on some notes handed in by the secretary of the Old High Church Women’s Guild, an event so boring she was tempted to add to the Christmas party notice, Saturday, two o’clock, church hall, all invited, including the Whores of Babylon—but the phrase was overlong to be a typo.

  Neil resolved to take her out for coffee whenever they had a break and tell her his news then. He gathered up some subbed copy and went to McAllister’s office.

  “Do you want to check these articles?” he asked.

  “I’m sure they are fine.” McAllister unscrewed his pen, got ink on his fingers, cursed, and signed the sheets of paper.

  “I’m sorry to let you down,” Neil began, “but I need to leave earlier than I expected. Next week.”

  McAllister said, “Sit down.”

  Neil sat and continued, “I know it puts you in a bit of a hole, but my ticket to Canada can’t be changed, and I have to look in the archives in Glasgow library plus the Glasgow Herald if possible.”

  “I can arrange the Herald for you, the editor is a friend,” McAllister offered. “Will you be gone before the trial?” He watched Neil, alert for a reaction.

  “Rob assures me Mr. McLeod has a good chance of being found not guilty.”

  “Do you care?”

  “I don’t know the man.”

  “Did you know Mrs. Smart?”

  “I heard she was really Mrs. McLeod.”

  McAllister said nothing.

  “I met her once,” Neil said. “Mrs. Rosemary Sokolov introduced us. I wanted to look through her family papers. She agreed. But she died before I had the chance.”

  “Was murdered,” McAllister reminded him. “She didn’t just die.”

  “Anyhow, I found the information I needed in Sutherland.”

  The reminder was painful, but McAllister couldn’t dislike Neil. At first he thought him all front, but underneath the shiny smiley exterior—which was only shiny in contrast to most of the citizens of Britain still, after twelve years, recovering from the war—there was a vulnerability in Neil that made him more likable. “Where were you in the war?”

  That Neil had been in the war, McAllister had no doubt; he sensed a man who had seen too much.

  “The Forty-eighth Highlanders of Canada.”

  “Messina?”

  “I was there.”

  “Joanne’s husband, Bill Ross, was there with the Lovat Scouts.”

  It was on the tip of Neil’s tongue to say, So we’ve something else in common, but common sense stopped him. “Like me, I imagine it is not someplace he wants to remember.”

  There was a pause as they both considered their own roll call of the war dead.

  “We’ll miss you,” McAllister said and, to his own surprise, meant it. “You’re a good journalist, and having you here has been a godsend.”

  “I’m a competent subeditor, not a journalist.” Neil smiled. “I prefer archives; the dead rather than the living are easier for me to fathom.”

  “Good luck.” McAllister could think of no more to say, but looking at Neil, seeing the way he was sitting, upright like a schoolboy before the headmaster, he sensed there was more in Neil’s future than small-town newspapers.

  When Neil left, McAllister tried to plow through the work but couldn’t concentrate; thoughts drifted in and out like the weather outside, and just as bleak.

  Late in the afternoon, after dealing with the printers, who were complaining more and more about the lateness of the copy and constant changes to the layout, he returned to his thinking chair. He was vaguely aware of the sounds of the newspaper office winding down around him, the sounds of “cheerio” and “see you tomorrow” echoing up the stairwell. He rose once to switch on the lights—it was dark by five o’clock at this time of year, and twice he went to the filing cabinet and poured himself a dram from the bottle of Aberlour—not the Mckinlay on show for visitors.

  He liked it like this—editor alone in his lair.

  Footsteps coming up the stairs intrigued yet vexed him; lately, unexpected visitors had not brought welcome news.

  “I’ll have a drop o’ the decent stuff, no’ thon shite.” Jimmy came in, nodding towards the visitors’ whisky.

  “You’re welcome to it. When I heard the footsteps, I was scared it might be the police.”

  “I’ve never been mistaken for the polis.” Jimmy’s eyes popped open wide, mock-askance at the very idea. He accepted a decent-sized dram before asking, “How long until the trial?”

  “It’s scheduled to start on Tuesday, a week tomorrow.” The warm single malt rolled around McAllister’s tongue, reminding him of his theory that Scotland’s literary and musical and philosophical brilliance, and the hardiness of her people, was because of whisky, the birthright of the nation.

  McAllister hesitated before saying, “We might have to do something to help Don’s cause.”

  “Aye, I was thinking the same. Any ideas?”

  “I fancy Smart for it.”

  “Did he do it?”

  “I can’t see how—but maybe we could point a jury in his direction.” McAllister was surprised by his hatred for the sergeant major.

  “Unfortunately the good folk of the town love a hero, especially a legless one. But the way he treats people, he deserves a wee whiley in prison.”

  Jimmy looked bleak when he said this. Unlike McAllister, he knew what it was to be locked in a freezing prison cell with the hard men of Scotland. He finished off his drink. “No more for me,” he said, even though it hadn’t been offered. “I came by to say Ma wants to talk to you.”

  “When?”

  “Now.”

  “Why?” The minute he asked, McAllister knew it was a stupid question; even if Jimmy did know, he wouldn’t tell. “I’ll lock up.”

  “Ma car’s outside—and bring the bottle.” Jimmy hadn’t meant it as an order but McAllister did as he was told, knowing Jenny would appreciate the Aberlour single malt—one of the best of Speyside.

  When Jimmy drove up Castle Street and turned left towards Crown Drive, McAllister was curious as to their destination. When the car stopped outside a house with few lights lit, Jimmy got out saying, “I won’t be a minute.”

  McAllister did not ask for an explanation, and was not disappointed.

  When Jimmy walked back to the car, with Neil Stewart in tow, he said nothing except, “Evening,” and Neil nodded back. This was Jenny McPhee’s show and they would know soon enough what was wanted of them.

  * * *

  Jenny was staying in her eldest son’s house, as he and his wife were in Glasgow. Keith McPhee was at the university, and Jenny told anyone and everyone of her scholar son’s achievements. A tinker at university? Would you credit it? she loved saying.

  Now she had bleaker thoughts on her mind; although they had not seen much of each other over the years since they were young, the death of her friend Joyce was a deep wound to her soul.

  “McAllister, Mr. Stewart,” she nodded as Jimmy showed them in to the small airless sitting room. The fire was banked up, the windows tight shut, curtains drawn; Jenny had been feeling the cold of late, and this worried Jimmy.

  She gestured to the chairs. They sat down. Jimmy did not offer a drink.

  That’s ominous, McAllister thought.

  “Mr. Stewart, do you mind telling me your date of birth?” she started without preamble.

  He stared at her, then smiled. It was a gentle smile, a smile from the eyes, and the heart. “I think you know that already, Mrs. McPhee.”

  “Aye.” She let the word
out in a long breathy drawl, “I think I do.”

  “When did you realize . . . ”

  “Who you are?” Again a long sigh, “It took a wee whiley. When I saw you, it was a shock, I couldn’t take it in. Then you telling me our Chrissie was gone, and you being like ma Keith, into all them auld papers and suchlike . . . Did you come here to look for . . . ?”

  “The solicitor told me where the money came from.”

  “So that was it.”

  Jimmy McPhee and McAllister were half following, and not quite making sense of all of it, but guessing. Neil was one of the stolen children. Which one was what McAllister wanted to know.

  “Jimmy, we’ll have a drink now.” Jenny seemed to settle herself into the chair more comfortably, loosening her shawl, easing her conscience. “You’ve turned out a fine man,” she said, “Chrissie would have been proud.”

  “She was. She was a good mother.”

  “She told you?”

  “She left a letter. After her death, the solicitor gave it to me, but she kept her promise and didn’t say who my birth mother is.”

  “It was a terrible time.” Jenny nodded thanks to Jimmy as he handed her the glass. She sipped at it, and McAllister watched as her eyes took on that faraway look he had seen before, the face of the storyteller, only this time the fire was indoors, not out in the glens with the sound of running water and the sighing of the birches to add music to the telling.

  “Chrissie, my mother, is she related to you?” Neil was breaking all the rules of Highland etiquette—wanting the ending, not the beginning, of his story.

  “A right bonnie lass Chrissie, a lovely person.” Not once did Jenny look at Neil as she spoke. McAllister thought she was scared. “She was fourteen when she went to work as a maid in the Mackenzie mansion in town. And a right good worker she was too.”

  Neil remembered his mother telling him of all the silver she had to polish and how she wore special gloves so as not to leave fingermarks. She said they polished the silver on rainy days when there was not much else to be done, and she loved sitting around the kitchen table blethering with the cook and the gardener, hearing their stories as she worked to make everything shine. Shiny like her eyes when she told me about her life in Scotland.