Kingdom of Shadows

by Barbara Erskine

  ‘I don’t know. I hadn’t thought –’

  ‘Exactly. You hadn’t thought. Peter, your daughter’s Christmas holiday is important –’

  ‘I know –’

  ‘And so is mine.’ She sat down on the end of the bed next to him. ‘What’s the use? It’s never going to work, is it?’

  ‘What isn’t?’ He had gone white. ‘We both have to try, Emma.’

  ‘Yes. Both. When did you last make a compromise, Peter? When? When did you last think of me or Julia before the job?’

  Suddenly it was too late. She could not stop the flood of words.

  ‘When did you even consider letting someone else go for a change? When did you spend more than two months consecutively at home? When, Peter?’ She stood up and walked across to the bedroom door. ‘Not since Julia was a baby. That is how long it is. And I don’t think you have any intention of changing your way of life. Why should you? You obviously enjoy it!’

  ‘Emma –’ he called as she opened the door, but she walked out slamming it behind her and Peter was left staring at the presents which still lay untouched in his suitcase.

  It was lonely at Duncairn after Neil had left. Suddenly the intensity of physical life was gone and Clare missed it terribly. But still she was busy. An architect had to be consulted, the plans for the hotel improvement had to be drawn up and the campaign continued. She found herself sketching for the first time since she had left school – ideas for the hotel, layouts for leaflets, designs for posters – and when they were all done, just sketching for fun: the castle and the cliffs, the sunsets, the tortured east-coast trees. Then there was the office work – the phone calls to the printers, the mailing shots she was planning to be sent from Edinburgh. The business delighted her; the exhaustion, the importance of it all. She took over one of the empty bedrooms as an office and filled it rapidly with paper and envelopes, a copying machine, and even a word processor when, to her delight, Catriona shyly admitted having done a course on how to work them in Aberdeen after she left school.

  Neil hadn’t come back that first weekend as he had promised. She put down the phone after his call and sat for a moment, staring into space, fighting her desolation and disappointment, then abruptly she had whistled to Casta and shrugging on her Burberry had walked out into the cold rain.

  There was a mist over the cliffs, drifting up the wet granite ledges, dripping off the grass, hanging in chains and clusters of droplets from the spider webs which curtained the corners of the old stones. She touched one of the webs with a fingertip, watching as the raindrops shuddered to the ground and the threads stretched and coagulated into a sticky mat, destroying the beautiful symmetry. She felt empty and drained by her disappointment.

  For the first time in days she thought of Isobel. ‘Where are you?’ she whispered. ‘Are you here, or did you stay at Berwick?’

  Not once since they returned had Isobel come to her; nor had the nightmare of the cage. Her relief had been mixed with an inexplicable sense of loss, and the feeling that she had in some way betrayed a friend.

  She glanced round at the dissolving shapes of the ruined walls in the murk but there was no answer. Shivering, she pushed her hands further into her coat pockets. Casta was standing beside her, peering up at her face, her tail tucked between her legs.

  ‘She is not here, Casta.’ Clare crouched beside the dog and, putting her arms round her neck, glanced back into the shadows. The castle was suddenly very empty.

  She had been so sure that Neil would come back, so confident that he wanted her as much as she wanted him, but now her doubts flooded back. Had he after all been merely amusing himself with her – or just trying to be kind? Had he gone back to Kathleen? Were they even now joking about her, sharing a companionable beer in the Earthwatch office as the street outside darkened and the cars rattled over the old cobbles? She hugged Casta closer, kneeling in the wet cold grass. Neil and Isobel. They had both deserted her and she had never felt more alone.

  She awoke in the early hours of the morning, her body tense and aching, and lay there for a while, staring up at the ceiling before she realised that she had been counting in her sleep. For a moment she lay still, puzzled by the feeling of exultation that filled her. She hadn’t been dreaming; it was as if she had been working at some calculation, some niggling sum which refused to let her rest. For a moment longer she lay there, listening to the total enveloping silence, then suddenly she was sitting bolt upright in the dark. She groped for the light switch. The room was shadowy, cold, unnaturally quiet as she sat hunched in the bed, hugging her knees.

  She was nearly three weeks overdue.

  For a while she seemed to have stopped breathing. She could feel her pulse drumming urgently in her ears. Her chest was tight, her stomach churning. It was several long minutes before she could move, then she slid out of bed. She groped in her bag for her diary but she didn’t need it. The years of counting, the months of tests, the rare occasions when for a day or two her hopes had been raised, had all taught her to be acutely aware of time. She carried it back to her bed and opened it, holding it directly under the shade of the bedside light. Her hands were shaking.

  Neil.

  That first time, with Neil, at his flat when they had flung themselves at each other in mutual recognition and anger. It had been her fertile period: the days marked out in every month in her diary; the days she would have been taking her temperature, watching and waiting, the days she and Paul had so clinically set aside for sex –

  She closed the diary and put it down, then she ran her hands slowly down over her stomach. She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

  Pulling her nightdress up over her head she walked naked to the old Victorian wardrobe, pulled it open. Inside the door was a mottled full-length mirror. She stared at herself. Neil had said she was putting on weight at last. Perhaps her face was fuller, less taut and aquiline than before – that was too many of Jack’s Scottish breakfasts – but her stomach was as flat as ever. Her eyes travelled slowly up her body to her breasts. Were they different? She stood nearer the mirror, frowning in the dim light, feeling herself beginning to shiver violently in the cold room. Surely they were larger? She stared down and was suddenly aware that where her breasts had been white below the slowly fading line of her bikini top and brown above it, now they were laced with a faint network of blue veins.

  She didn’t fall asleep until the cold dawn was throwing streaks of light across the sky. No one woke her. Casta, sleeping more and more often now downstairs beside the Aga in the hotel kitchen, was let out by Catriona, squatted as close to the back door as possible in the heavy wet driving snow, then ran back inside.

  Clare slept on, a deep, heavy, untroubled sleep.

  When she awoke she stood in front of the mirror again and stared at herself for a long, long time. Daylight had put a restraint on her euphoria. She must not let herself hope, not yet. It was too soon. It could be a false alarm; the change in lifestyle, the worry, the sudden intense swings of emotional stress, any of them could have done it. She must not tell anyone. It was too soon. If she were pregnant, then it was her secret; she would not even go to a doctor – there had been too many doctors. Nor would she tell Neil. It was not Neil’s child, it was hers. Above all she would not tell Paul. How strange that one of her first reactions, lying in bed in the early hours of the morning, had been to reach for the phone to tell Paul. But he must never know. The baby could not be his; he and she were no longer married in any way but the legal sense and soon she must take the first steps to finish that as well. Then she would be free.

  She walked across to the window and looked out. Normally it would have been the first thing she did. Every morning she leaned from the window to sniff the glorious air, no matter how damp or cold. Today she had not thought once about the air or the window.

  Outside there was a white blanket of snow across the garden. She frowned. That explained the eerie silence in the night. It was as if the whole world had been made ane
w. Pushing open the window she leaned out, her elbows on the granite sill, feeling the cold pure wetness of the sleet on her face.

  Paul was dozing by the fire at Airdlie when Archie called him to the phone. He sat for a long time after he put the receiver down, then slowly he stood up. Kathleen had been laughing as she spoke. ‘It was so obvious! They haven’t even tried to hide it. She went straight back to Duncairn after they returned from Berwick. She’s using the place as an office, openly. They think you’ve given up and gone back to London.’

  Paul had shaken his head. ‘Where’s Forbes?’

  ‘Oh, he is here.’ Paul could hear the purr in her voice. ‘And he’ll be here for the next couple of weeks. I’ve seen to that. You leave Neil Forbes to me.’

  She had told him she had been evicted.

  ‘Please, Neil, for old times’ sake. Let me stay, just for a few days until I find somewhere else.’

  By the time he came home that evening she had already brought four cases and two crates over to his flat and carried them herself up the long stairs. ‘I’ll sleep on the sofa. Clare will never know.’ She said it humbly, as though accepting defeat.

  Neil stood staring round, trying to hide his dismay and anger. ‘Kath –’

  ‘Please, Neil, don’t make me beg.’ She had taken a long time with her make-up, chosen her clothes with meticulous care, the understated style not to her taste but, she had to admit, making her look striking, even elegant. Her hair was newly tinted too and her nails manicured. She felt a million dollars and the feeling gave her confidence. Without knowing it she was exuding the charisma which usually only appeared when she was on stage and, unconsciously, already Neil was responding to it.

  ‘Let me take you out to dinner to say thank you.’ She smiled, relaxed, easy, the tightness of her nerves hidden. No emotional blackmail; no scenes; the cards had told her what to do.

  Neil was tired. He had been trying to phone Duncairn back but there was a fault on the line. He had heard the devastation in Clare’s voice when he told her he couldn’t make it this weekend either and it had irritated him. He didn’t want to feel tied; he didn’t want a permanent relationship. He had things to do in Edinburgh – the phone had never stopped ringing since the statement from Sigma. It seemed as if only three people in the world hadn’t phoned him. Doug Warner at Sigma, Paul Royland and now Clare herself. He wondered what she was feeling as angrily he jiggled the phone rest and dialled Duncairn again. Why hadn’t she mentioned the deal? Paul must have told her? He must have got her signature somehow. Or had he tricked her? Cheated her? Used one of his unspeakable relations to twist the law somehow? Clare would not have lied. He realised now how deep and passionate her relationship with Duncairn was. He wondered suddenly if she even knew it had been sold. He frowned and dialled again, cursing. Should he go up there after all, or should he wait?

  Tossing the phone on to the table, he threw himself back on the sofa and rubbed his hand across his face. They had not gone out to dinner. He had been too tired. Instead Kathleen had cooked moussaka, just the way he liked it.

  In the bathroom she was undressing. The scented bath oil she knew he liked – he had given it to her. She had bought the full-length black nightgown, trimmed with lace, at Jenners that afternoon. Her hair was loose, just slightly rumpled, her make-up still meticulous, if understated now that she had rubbed off the lipstick. Be casual; don’t be obvious or loud. Ignore him while I make the toddy. Play it cool. Remember the cards.

  Paul left a note for Antonia who had driven down to the post office in Dunkeld with Sarah.

  ‘Clare is back at Duncairn. I’ve gone to bring her home. Remember what we’ve decided. It’s for her sake. Remember we all love her. P.’

  Archie had gone out. The house was deserted. Paul threw his coat into the car, then slowly, almost as an afterthought, he walked back inside. He glanced into the drawing room then into the study. The top drawer of Archie’s desk was a couple of inches open. He had been afraid it would be locked. In it he could see a ring of keys, each meticulously labelled. He pulled open the drawer and took them out.

  In the gun room there was a long glass-fronted cupboard. In it were Archie’s own guns, James’s, Clare’s father’s and several museum pieces including two muskets from the ’45 which used to hang crossed above a door in the hall until the police had told Archie to lock them up. They were all there, carefully listed and locked in place. Paul stood in front of them for a moment, staring at them, then, hunching his shoulders, he selected a key from the ring in his gloved hand. Unlocking the cupboard door, he pulled it open and ran his hand lightly, almost sensually, in the soft leather, over the regimented barrels. The beautiful Purdeys, the two Remingtons, the air guns which had for a while in his early teens been James’s inseparable companions and which Antonia had disapproved of so strongly. His hand hovered over the rack and closed over the barrel of one of the hunting rifles. He unlocked the bar which held it in place and took it down, weighing it experimentally in his hand, then he turned to the safe where Archie kept the ammunition. He unlocked it, levered the two handles and swung open the heavy door. Taking a handful of 303 cartridges from the box he dropped them into the pocket of his jacket, then he slammed the door and relocked it. He closed the gun cupboard, relocked the room behind him and returned the keys to their drawer in Archie’s desk. Archie would miss the rifle within hours of course, but Paul would explain –

  He put it into the back of the Range Rover and threw a rug over it. He wasn’t entirely sure himself, yet, why he had taken it.

  Clare picked up the receiver yet again to check whether the phone was working. There was a silence, then a crackle and suddenly the purr of an open line. She dialled the Earthwatch offices but only the answering machine replied. Next she tried Neil’s flat but there was no answer there either. She hadn’t spoken to him for two days.

  When the phone rang later that afternoon she grabbed it, certain it would be him, but it was Emma.

  ‘Clare? Thank God, I had to speak to someone! Can I talk?’ Emma’s voice was blurred and unhappy. ‘It’s over between Peter and me, Clare. Our marriage is finished.’

  Clare was stunned. Sitting at the make-shift desk in her office overlooking the castle tower and the sea she felt a million miles from London. With an effort she wrenched her mind away from her own problems.

  ‘Is it Rex Cummin?’ When Emma had made her tearful confession that her dream American was the man who was trying to buy Duncairn Clare had been angry. Then later James had told her that it was Emma who had persuaded Rex to withdraw his offer and Clare had forgiven her, but it was a long time since they had talked.

  ‘No. No. It’s not Rex. It’s nothing to do with him, not really.’ Emma sounded very distant. ‘He’s a symptom, not a cause. Oh Clare, what am I going to do? How am I going to tell Julia?’

  ‘Where is Peter? Has he left you?’ Clare was trying to cope with this new crisis.

  ‘No … Yes.’ Emma was near tears. ‘It’s all very civilised. We’re not throwing things or anything. We’ve discussed it and we’ve agreed. He’s going back to the Far East next week. When he’s gone I’ll tell Julia.’ There was a pause. ‘I’ll tell her something. She sees so little of him perhaps she’ll hardly notice.’ Her voice was brittle with pain. ‘He’ll be away over Christmas.’

  ‘Oh, Em.’ Clare was almost crying in sympathy. ‘What will you do? Are you going to David and Gillian as usual?’

  ‘And end up in a house obsessed with that squawking brat? No thank you.’ There was a shudder in Emma’s voice. ‘It’s not as though you and Paul will be there, either. The whole family is breaking up. I’d rather stay here alone.’

  ‘You can’t do that. Come here.’ Clare suddenly brightened. ‘Come here, to Duncairn, Emma! You and Julia. It would be lovely. We’ll all have Christmas at the hotel with Jack and the Frasers.’

  All. She had not even thought about Christmas and Neil. Firmly she pushed him to the back of her mind.

  ‘A
re you sure?’ Emma’s voice had brightened.

  ‘Of course I’m sure.’ Clare was suddenly full of energy. ‘It will be lovely to have a child up here! We’ll form a Royland breakaway group.’ She laughed. ‘I’ve got so much to tell you, Em.’

  By the time Christmas came she would be sure one way or the other, and if the news was good, perhaps by then Emma would be up to hearing that another squawking brat was on the way.

  Singing, Clare ran downstairs to find Jack. He was sitting in the office, his feet on the desk, reading the Scotsman. He put it down as Clare came in. ‘My, and aren’t you looking bonnie today! You’re glowing, lass.’

  ‘Am I?’ Clare blushed. ‘I should be sad. Neil’s not coming up this weekend.’

  ‘I know. He called me before the phones went off.’ Jack frowned. It hadn’t been Neil who called, it had been Kathleen. ‘So, what can I do for you?’

  ‘I came to tell you I’ve asked my sister-in-law and her daughter here for Christmas with us. I hope that’s all right?’

  Jack grinned. ‘Does that mean a Christmas tree?’

  ‘Of course! You don’t mean you weren’t going to have one?’ She was appalled.

  He laughed. ‘Oh, I have one when I have guests, but I’ve not taken any Christmas bookings this year. With all the uncertainty I was afraid we might be closed by the end of December.’

  Clare stared at him, horrified. ‘With all my plans for the future?’

  ‘Och, this was before your plans, Clare lass. People book up for Christmas months ahead.’

  She sobered for a moment, then she smiled. ‘Well, as it happens I’m glad. We’ll have a small family Christmas, just you and me and Em and Julia and the Frasers, and –’ she hesitated. ‘And anyone else who wants to come.’

  ‘That’s fine by me.’ He stood up slowly and stretched. He could see how much she was in love with Neil and he didn’t want to see her hurt. And he didn’t want her to realise yet, how vain was their attempt to save Duncairn. It was strange, but she still didn’t seem to know that Paul had sold it. He edged the paper out of sight under some magazines. The headline today had been: ‘Government to investigate new onshore oil strikes in eastern Scotland. US oil internationals start buying up Scottish land.’ Duncairn was only the first name on a list of five.