A Small Death in the Great Glen

by A. D. Scott

  “The worst thing for me will be facing McAllister in the office,” Joanne confessed.

  “Tell him you were drunk and fell off your bike, that’s what everyone else does.” They giggled.

  “Don’t make me laugh, Chiara, it hurts.”

  “Stop fussing,” Chiara commanded as her father rushed hither and yon, getting in everyone’s way and exasperating his sister, who was trying to serve brimming bowls of soup to the gathering around the table.

  “But I like fussing over two such bonnie lassies,” Gino protested. The Scottish phrase sounded so funny in Gino Corelli’s Italian accent that Joanne didn’t mind. Normally she hated it when non-Scots put on a cod Scottish accent. It made her cringe.

  “Peter, you help. Gino, you sit,” Aunty Lita commanded.

  Although not yet married to Chiara, Peter was a full-fledged member of the household, so Aunty Lita could boss him around as much as she did the others. For which Peter was grateful.

  “Maybe I fetch your wee girls from school, no?”

  “Thank you, Mr. Corelli, but they can walk home by themselves again. It’s quite safe now that this maniac is locked up.” Joanne caught the wince on Peter Kowalski’s face. “I’m so sorry, Peter. I’ve put my foot in it, haven’t I?”

  They all turned to their soup and for a good few minutes the only sound was of spoons chiming on china bowls and slurping.

  Peter thought about Joanne’s assumptions as he walked back across the river to his office. He had spent some considerable hours at Porterfield Prison with Karl. They had conceived of the simple strategy of Karl’s pretending his English was almost nonexistent and for some reason, Inspector Tompson had allowed Peter to act as interpreter. Now that Detective Chief Inspector Westland had joined the inquiry team, the inspector had become almost amenable. The senior detective was watchful but quiet. The new turn in the questioning had Peter extremely perplexed; questions about Karl’s past—his marital status, his sexual habits, did he like boys, distasteful questions, nasty, murky, insinuations that worried Peter, as he had no inkling what the policemen were referring to. This particular piece of information had somehow managed to remain secret.

  “Papa! Delivering Halloween lanterns in an ice-cream van. Honestly!”

  “Grandad and the girls loved it,” Joanne told her. “Mind you, Granny Ross looked as though she’d swallowed a soor ploom when she looked out the window.”

  “Then the chimes going off! And all those wee ones coming with their pennies, and no ice cream.” Chiara rolled her eyes.

  Oh my papa, to me he is so wonderful

  Oh my papa, to me he is so wise.

  They sang in unison the van jingle that Chiara had insisted her father install. When Gino played the chimes, children came running as though summoned by the Pied Piper of Hamelin himself.

  “It is good to see you laugh again, my beautiful Scotch friend.” Gino beamed.

  “Scots,” Joanne said automatically.

  “Scots, Scotch, sí, sí. Beautiful all the same. But we got all the lanterns delivered—twenty-eight of them.”

  Joanne stopped laughing.

  “I’m sorry I won’t be there—no party this year for me, not with this great keeker.”

  Chiara looked straight into her one open eye and the other, half-open.

  “You’ll have to be more careful and not go falling off your bike in future.”

  Aunt Lita broke the awkward pause. “Do you dress up for Halloween, like the little children?”

  “Every year, except this year …”

  “I have an idea.” Lita always wanted everything to be perfect. “We make you a … I don’t know the word, a man in a boat, from old times, with one eye and a big sword and a hat and feather.”

  “A pirate.”

  “Sí, sí. Wonderful. We make a frilly for a shirt and I find a hat and—a one-eye mask?”

  “An eyepatch. The sword?” queried Joanne.

  “I’ve my Highland dancing sword,” Chiara offered.

  “Perfect. Now all we is need a big feather,” ordered Lita.

  “Margaret has feathers,” cried Joanne, “but I’ll have to hurry, there’s only a few hours to the party.”

  Leaving the chatter and laughter of the Corelli household, Joanne realized what a good idea it had been to invite them to the Halloween party. Gino so wanted to be back as a member of his adopted community. As she neared the double-story council semi, to see the girls before dashing off to borrow feathers from Margaret McLean, Joanne remembered again the look on her mother-in-law’s face when the ice-cream van had arrived. Hilarious. And at the sight of her son’s handiwork—Joanne’s eye was still purple in parts, shaded with a bilious yellow green—at least she had the decency to look embarrassed.

  Joanne had not been back to the office. Yesterday, a quiet day at home, no work, no husband, children at school, had given her thinking space to wrestle with two puzzles in urgent need of resolution; a Fair Isle pattern in twelve colors for a jumper for Annie, and the perennial dilemma of her marriage. The knitting had resolved itself. The soft bright shades of Highland Glen wools, now unfankled, were framed in their traditional rows, formed a clear pattern. The puzzle of her marriage was harder to sort out. Leave? If I could, I would. Of this she was now sure. But where to? There was no solution to that.

  Grandad Ross was taking Annie and Wee Jean to the party. He loved all the Halloween rigmarole. Granny Ross was delivering baskets of tablet and toffee apples, as well as lending a tin bath for dooking apples. She was waiting for her church friends to pick her up in their car. She greeted Joanne’s news with a face like a disapproving duchess. But the girls had cheered.

  “You can’t come. Have you no shame, showing your face in public?” Granny Ross glared at her. “What will people think?”

  Joanne bit back the retort, “If your son had any shame, I wouldn’t need to hide my face,” and said nothing. As usual.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll be in disguise.”

  The girls cheered again and Grandad joined in.

  The feather stuck out from the pirate hat at a rakish angle and with one shapely leg extended, Joanne thanked her hostess with a principal-boy bow.

  “Thanks, Margaret. These feathers are the very dab. This sword, though, it’s impossible to sit down. I’ll have to be careful I don’t poke anyone anywhere sensitive.”

  Rob sauntered into the sitting room just as his mother and Joanne burst out laughing.

  “What’s the joke?” He stopped, stared, transfixed, then he wolf-whistled.

  “Less of that,” the pirate retorted.

  “You look smashing.”

  “Joanne is as lovely as always,” Margaret scolded, “but you don’t usually notice.”

  “She’s married.”

  Raising her sword above her head Joanne turned on him in mock anger.

  “So, married women are not allowed to be attractive, eh?”

  “Sorry, I surrender, Captain Blackheart. Or is it Long John Silver? No, no parrot.”

  Joking he may have been, but he sneaked another look. In a man’s white shirt, cinched tightly at the waist with Chiara’s best, bought in Edinburgh, wide patent leather belt, with handmade Madeira lace cascading at collar and cuffs, tight black trousers, and black riding boots that made her legs look even longer, she was indeed smashing. Lita had taken in the trousers so much, Joanne had had to lie down to pull them on.

  “The eyepatch looks great.” Rob chattered away in blissful ignorance of its real purpose. Joanne had had two days off with a cold, or so McAllister had informed him. “I almost wish I was coming to the hall.”

  He didn’t mean it. He was off to a much more sophisticated evening at the Pavilion in Strathpeffer. The new band had all the latest from America, and he had a date. With a policewoman.

  “Not so fast.” His mother handed him baskets of apples and sweeties.

  “I have to go soon, Mum. It’s a cold long drive on a motorbike.”

  “If you take us
to the church hall, your father will give you the car for tonight.”

  “I will?” Angus looked up from The Scotsman.

  “Unless you want to come to the Halloween concert instead?”

  At the very idea of sitting through endless turns by other people’s children, Angus readily agreed.

  “Avast, me hearties!” Rob picked up the baskets and led them in procession out to the car before his father changed his mind.

  In Scotland, Halloween was a Celtic festival with the night promising a delicious frisson of fear. The evening star hovered above the horizon, the starting signal for the annual visitation from the undead. Ring the doorbell, pretend to frighten the occupants, sing a song or recite a poem, then hold out the bag for the Halloween treats, that was the ritual. The guisers were well prepared for their task of fending off the lost spirits out and about on their annual night of home leave. Ghoulish lanterns, fiendish disguises and fire were tricks from time immemorial to confuse the undead and discourage them from overstaying their welcome.

  This year, Margaret and Angus McLean noted, but didn’t mention, that there were fewer guisers calling at their door. Jamie’s disappearance, on this very stretch of street, the children didn’t yet talk about; it was too fresh. But instinctively, when the small gangs of witches or elves or ghosts or Vikings came to the beginning of what they judged to be the stretch where the boy had vanished, they ran, ran as if the devil or a hoodie crow was after them, about to swoop, to pick one of them out, to gather the victim up and take them to join wee Jamie. They ran and ran until they had turned the corner, then gathered to get their breath back, the girls laughing, clutching each other, the boys jumping around, kicking a fence or a tree, yelling out to the stars and the unknown, in a defiant display of bravado.

  Outside the church hall, a newly built rectangular construction of no architectural merit whatsoever, men and boys, like a stream of worker ants, were adding branches, off-cuts of wood, anything that could burn, to a dark tepee shape. This bonfire would blaze well into the night. At a clearing well away from the building, a trio of former soldiers was readying fireworks on frames and posts and mounds of earth. A bottle of fortified lemonade did the rounds of the men. The colored lights and bunting that transformed the hall on every festival throughout the year were supplemented by dozens of expertly carved ghastly grinning lanterns that sent dancing shadows across the walls.

  Fierce competition between the ladies of the Women’s Guild meant cakes galore, decorated in a Halloween theme, usually in green icing. Pyramids of sandwiches, crusts cut off, were served on large aluminum trays. Bowls of nuts were closely guarded, to stop boys sneaking handfuls of walnuts and hazelnuts for ammunition. Industrial-size teapots with industrial-strength tea and sticky, artificially bright Kia-Ora orange squash were served in the plastic cups that made all drinks smell and taste of plastic.

  At the far end of the hall below the stage, children jiggled and shrieked, impatient for their turn, mocking their friends as they had a go at dooking for apples. Scones dangled on strings from a clothesline, treacle dripping in dark gelatinous globs onto the painters’ drop cloths and the unwary, and hands behind backs, mouths open like baby cuckoos, the children would try to bite through a scone as it swayed in front of them. Invariably a passing prankster would jerk the rope, sending the treacle-soaked scones slap into someone’s face or hair or down the back of a neck, to shrieks and taunts of “I got you, I got you!”

  A small crowd surrounded their minister, Rev’rnt Mac as they called him, as he knelt down, hands behind his back, to dook for an apple. A passing wee lad jerked the clothesline and treacle droplets rained down on the minister’s dog collar.

  His mortified mother grabbed the boy by his ear and was about to skelp him on the backs of his knees, but the minister’s roar of laughter stopped her still. “That’s a good trick, Neil, and no mistake.”

  “He’s a good man, our minister,” she told her friends later, “not stuck-up like some. Did you see him laugh? All covered in treacle an’ all?”

  “Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls.”

  The microphone let out a banshee wail. Duncan caught the look of panic from the Boy Scout in charge of the electrics, switched the microphone off and continued in his Sunday sermon voice.

  “Ladies, gentlemen, children, we will now have the judging for the best costumes.”

  Boys on one side, girls on the other, the children lined up. One faerie, only three years old, wouldn’t join in without her mother. Duncan, his wife, Elizabeth, and Margaret McLean, with the surprise addition of John McAllister, began the judging. Children, wriggling around as though itching powder had been poured down their backs, watched the judges going up and down the rows inspecting the costumes, sometimes asking what the guiser was meant to be, occasionally conferring with each other.

  Annie was as excited as the others but refused to show it. She had a sneaking suspicion that she had no chance of winning because two of the judges were her uncle and aunty and they would never show favoritism. Just the opposite. A short whispered conference and the judging was finished. Duncan climbed back onto the stage, and not risking the microphone again, he announced the judges’ decisions.

  “Best turnip lantern, Jock Maxwell.” Everyone cheered. The best boys’ costume prize went to a boy in a box addressed to Australia, second prize to a Viking. Everyone cheered and stamped their feet.

  “Best costume, girls. First prize, Amy Wilson.”

  The young Mary Queen of Scots was the obvious winner. With her natural flaming red hair and a costume her mother had worked on for weeks, she deserved her prize, a beautiful illustrated book of Bible stories.

  “Second prize, Annie Ross.”

  At first it didn’t register. Next thing she knew, Granny Ross was poking her. “Go on.” She rushed up to collect her book. John McAllister gave her a big wink as he handed over the prize. “The bow and arrows look as though they’re for real.”

  Annie tore off the paper there and then—her very own copy of Kidnapped. She’d heard it serialized on Children’s Hour, she’d read it from the library, but her very own copy! She was so glad she hadn’t won first prize. A whistle, applause and laughter made her look round. There was her mum, standing onstage, looking embarrassed. And there was Mr. McAllister with the microphone.

  “Of course, this prize must be fixed seeing as how I’m Mrs. Ross’s boss. Still, won fair and square, first prize, ladies’ best dressed, dinner for two at the Station Hotel.”

  He handed her an envelope to oohs and aahs and cheers and applause. All Joanne could think was, What on earth will I do with this?

  “I’d also like to add that Mrs. Ross is welcome to come to work dressed as a pirate anytime. Maybe she can frighten the accounts department into a pay rise.”

  More laughter and applause. Annie watched, so proud of her mum and glad her dad wasn’t there. The child knew this small scene would not have gone down well.

  The stage and games were cleared, supper was served, then cleared, tables were folded and chairs stacked, all tasks done with military precision.

  Margaret decided to stay on for the dancing. McAllister had offered her a dance and a lift home.

  “How can I refuse?” she replied.

  Joanne overheard the invitation and was amazed. Margaret, she knew, loved nothing better than a swift Strip the Willow, but McAllister?

  The crowd cheered through the concert, clapping everyone indiscriminately. After a sketch from the Girl Guides, Sheila Murchison, representing the Brownies, gave a recitation of one of the most maudlin of Sir Walter Scott’s heroic poems. Annie didn’t even notice her sworn enemy; she was engrossed in her book. Just when John McAllister thought he could take no more unintelligible recitations nor out-of-tune singing, Margaret motioned him to pass his cup.

  “No more tea, I couldn’t stand it.”

  “Wheesht.” She put a finger to her lips.

  He really liked that she was one of the few women of his p
resent acquaintance who wore deep red nail polish. He liked it even more when, out of her voluminous handbag, she produced a slim silver flask. McAllister held his cup below the table and she topped the tea up with a generous tot. Grinning like pupils up to no good behind the school bicycle sheds, they had a quick squint around, lest some harpy from the Women’s Guild, or an elder of the kirk, might be watching, then knocked their cups together.

  “Slàinte mhath.”

  The concert ended, the audience trooped outside for the next event. There was no wind, no moon that night, but millions of stars. The bonfire fired quickly; the gallon of paraffin helped. A circle formed, fronts toasting, backs freezing. Cheers, squeals and the howling of dogs accompanied the whiz and bang of the fireworks. The rockets were best, Joanne and her girls agreed, and she hugged them, one on each side, to keep herself warm. As the fire shifted and fell, sparks flew up to meet the constellations. The primitive enchantment of the blaze made even the most prosaic of Scottish souls lift in joy. When the flames died down to a dark red glow, the embers would be perfect for baking tatties. People had come prepared. Wrapped in silver foil, laid around the edge of the fire, the oversized potatoes would be ready for eating or as hand warmers on the walk home.

  A chord from the accordion was the signal for the final episode … the dancing. Joanne left the fire reluctantly but the opening chords of a Highland reel she could not resist. She stood at the edge of the crowd, clapping and swaying to the music. She waved and laughed as John McAllister and Margaret went swinging around in a hectic Strip the Willow. The past weeks dissolved in a joy of music.

  Grandad Ross joined her, Jean slumped over his shoulder.

  “I’ll take the wee soul home now. She’s exhausted.”

  “Are you sure, Dad? Don’t you want to hear the music?”

  Joanne knew how much he enjoyed the fiddle.

  “Call thon music? Seagulls following the plough’d be better than this lot.” Her father-in-law shouted to be heard above the band.