Maybe David was in the woods now with Stanley. Eleanor slipped down the other side of the wall and landed in long grass. By the edge of the wood, smoke drifted. Not a bonfire – David was not allowed to light one on his own. He was not allowed to have matches at all, and there had been a big row only the week before when he and Stanley had set fire to some paper in their den down at the bottom of the garden. Faith had seen the smoke from the kitchen window, and had run down the garden. The boys stood back, curiosity and pride turning to trepidation as the fire caught hold, and dry leaves under the paper crackled, twigs snapped, suddenly alight.
Now, as Eleanor got closer, she saw the spiral of smoke was from a bonfire after all. Closer still, she saw signs of other people: clothes spread on the fence, a dog on a long rope, straining at it and barking; a small child running out, a man appearing for a moment, shouting. Then she saw there was a cart of some kind, which they must have pulled down the lane that skirted the other side of the wood, leading to the Smiddy in one direction, the Mains of Pitcairn in the other. The bonfire had a pot suspended above it on a framework of sticks, and a meaty smell came over the field towards her. A woman in a dark blouse and skirt, a man’s hat pulled down so you could not see her face, was stooping over the fire. Eleanor hesitated, afraid to go nearer. As the woman looked up and saw her, she turned and ran back across the wet grass to her safe place on the wall.
‘Travellers,’ her mother said, and, ‘Tinks,’ supplied Violet, turning her button nose up at ham and tongue salad, whispering to Marion that she did not like tomatoes, the seeds grew in your stomach.
‘Where are they travelling to?’ Eleanor asked.
‘Oh, they just keep moving on,’ her father said, as he sat down at the end of the table.
‘Don’t you go near them.’ Faith set out glasses of water, but Violet did not drink just water.
‘Have we got any ale?’ Marion asked, as if she did not know her mother had told the Hay’s Lemonade lorry not to stop. ‘She has ale at her house.’
‘There’s milk,’ said Faith, ‘or water.’
Later, Violet made up for the deficiencies of the meal by eating two plates of ice cream and jelly, which had been produced as a treat because Marion had a guest. Then, in the living room, she regaled the Cairns children with what she knew about travellers.
They’re dirty,’ she said. ‘My ma won’t let me speak to the kids. They dinna even ging to the school.’
They have to go to school.’
The attendance mannie goes after them, but sometimes he canna catch up. They’re aff somewey else.’
‘How long will they be here then, in our wood?’
‘Me and Stanley,’ David announced, ‘we went right up to them. Up to their camp.’
They’re filthy,’ Violet reiterated. ‘Disgustin. They never get a bath, and they’ve nae proper toilet.’
‘Well then, how—’ Eleanor broke in, but Violet shook her head, pursing her lips.
The dog’s all right,’ David said. ‘Dog’s really friendly, it doesn’t bite or anything if it likes you. And there’s two boys, younger than Stanley and me. The older one’s hardly ever gone to school.’ He sighed.
‘Can he read?’ Marion asked. David shrugged.
‘I would get leathered for speakin to tinks,’ Violet sniffed.
‘Scaredy cat,’ David grinned, leaning backwards over the sofa arm until he landed on the floor and rolled over. ‘Scaredy, scaredy,’ came his muffled voice as he rolled again, then got up and went out, bored with Violet.
Faith warned them again, next morning. It was Saturday, and although only breakfast-time, Stanley had appeared at the back door asking for David.
‘You two keep well away from that camp.’ But David and Stanley were speeding across the yard, so David’s answer might have been agreement, or it might not. Faith sighed, and turned back to the girls. ‘That goes for you as well.’
‘Violet says they’ve got fleas,’ Marion informed them, stacking plates neatly by the sink. ‘So don’t worry. I wouldn’t go near that camp.’
‘Well, I don’t know that …’ Faith was caught.
‘They’re doing no harm, are they?’ John had asked the night before, when Dan Mackie had come down to discuss what should be done.
‘Aye, but I dinna like that bonfire down by the woodies,’ Dan said. ‘Grass is like tinder, it’s that dry.’
‘Are you moving them on?’
‘Nae my land, yonder. I hinna ony right.’ Dan pushed back his flat cap, rubbing at his forehead. ‘I could spik to Archie, richt enough. I doubt he wants them either.’
He and John stood outside the back door in the heat, shirt-sleeves rolled up, Dan’s arms leathery brown, like his throat where the shirt opened. A little further down on his neck, you could see skin white as milk, and soft, where he did not expose it to the weather. Faith stood in the kitchen doorway, listening to them, wondering about the woman. She remembered a traveller coming several years ago, the first winter they were at Pitcairn, a woman with a baby, and pregnant. She was sure it was the same people.
‘Have they a van?’ she asked now. ‘They were here before, weren’t they? They had a van, then.’
‘Aye, they’ve been on the go a few years,’ Dan agreed. ‘I let them sleep in the barn, once, but her man smokes, and I wasna very easy aboot it.’ He turned to Faith. ‘He’s doon in the world this time – they’ve a cartie he pulls wi a their chattels, but nae van that I’ve seen.’
‘Well,’ John said, ‘they’ll need shelter. The air’s heavy – I doubt we’ll get a storm in the next day or so.’
‘What will they do?’ Faith asked. ‘Her with these two wee boys, and the baby.’
Dan shrugged. ‘I’m nae keen, but I suppose she could come in aboot the Mains again,’ he conceded. ‘Her and her bairns. It’s her man I canna abide. She’d a black eye afore she left the last time. He lifts his hand to her, it’s my belief.’ Dan’s face, wizened already, closed further in disapproval.
Faith turned indoors, a twist of pity knotting like fear in her chest. Maybe she could find some baby clothes, she could do that at least. She had been meaning to clear out the loft. In the kitchen, she cleared up the tea things, brisk and hurried, trying not to think of the tinker woman.
Now it was Saturday morning, and still the threat of storm hung in the air, though the sky was blue yet, and cloudless. Eleanor went down the path to her place on the wall. The smoke from the camp thinned slowly, vanishing upwards without seeming to move. Two boys, smaller than her brother, ran back and forth, and the dog leaped between them, barking. She waited, looking out for David and Stanley, but they were nowhere to be seen. After a few moments, she got down and started back for the house. The boys were in the yard again sitting side by side, cross-legged, playing jacks. Then suddenly, so suddenly it seemed as if she had simply materialised, there was the woman Eleanor had seen the day before, in her long skirt and man’s hat. Close up, she was thinner and younger. She wore short boots, tied up with twine instead of laces, and between boots and skirt, her legs were bare, and hairy. She was holding something out to the boys. In her other hand she held a wide basket. Eleanor reached the yard as David went into the house for his mother. The woman turned to Eleanor.
‘Buy some lucky heather, dearie, tell your fortune?’ Eleanor shook her head, backing off. Then Faith was there, and to Eleanor’s astonishment, invited the woman into the kitchen.
The children stood by the back door, listening. The woman’s voice was soft and coarse, with a lilt they had never heard before. It rolled on and on, a long spiel that made Faith shake her head. But in the end, she bought clothes pegs and a piece of lace. Then the woman came out, and stopped, seeing the children.
Two lovely bairns you’ve got,’ the woman said. ‘Two and no more, though one other has come to you. And there’s one you’ll lose.’ She touched David lightly on the head, and he squirmed. ‘A danger, this boy, and a wild one. Watch him. But never fear for him.’ She turned
back to Faith. ‘Thanks to you, madam, you’re a kind lady. Blessings.’
‘All nonsense,’ Faith said when she had gone. ‘Lot of rubbish. They seem to feel they’ve got to spout all that stuff so that you’ll buy something.’
Marion went off with the piece of lace. Eleanor never even touched it. David sat at the table eating bits of raw pastry from the pie Faith was making, and he and Stanley played soldiers with the clothes pegs.
After tea, when Eleanor went down to look, the travellers had gone, and all that was left of them was the blackened bit of ground where the fire had been, and a piece of rag caught on the fence.
She soon forgot about them, in the hunt for David. He and Stanley had gone out again as soon as tea was over. David was supposed to walk Stanley to the end of the lane at half-past eight, then come home to bed. By half-past nine, he had still not reappeared. John and Faith set out to look for him, in a light that, for all it was August now, was still almost clear as day, the sky fading pink on the horizon, pearly overhead.
At half-past ten they brought him back, and he was put to bed in disgrace. At eleven, the Mackies’ barn, heating up like an oven, smouldering, burst into flames.
Everyone was up all night: the children forbidden to leave the house, but leaning out of their parents’ bedroom window, watching the red glow in the sky intensifying and rising, hearing the fire engines wailing, the shouts, the fearsome crackle and roar of the blaze. David ran from one window to another, trying to get the best view, white-faced, his eyes burning like coals, his breath coming fast and hard. The girls knew to ignore him; Faith often said he over-excited himself, and anyway, he was still in trouble.
Eventually, Faith came in and made them go back to bed. Their father was still at the Mains and would be there all night.
‘What a tragedy for the Mackies,’ she said. ‘Their straw, the hay bales – the barn destroyed. Terrible.’ But she spoke to herself, not to them. She tucked the girls in briskly, pulling the bedclothes far too tight, as if she hardly saw them, her whole mind elsewhere. They lay stiffly, pinned down by blankets, as she went to David next, and heard her hush him, her voice low.
He called after her as she hurried along the landing. ‘Go to sleep,’ she said, not pausing.
Downstairs, she made tea and sandwiches for the men, for all those still working at the site of the razed barn, choking in the black smoke that filled the air. The Mackie girls, Susan and Eileen, were with her, frightened and tearful, and Ruby from the village, and Mrs Masson from the Post Office. The girls could hear the women’s voices rise and fall and the clatter of dishes. Light was filling the bedroom again. At dawn, the girls slept.
Years later, they would still say to each other, when they heard of a fire, ‘Remember the night the Mackies’ barn went on fire?’
It was the fire they recalled, not the deaths, which were kept from them for a time, not talked about in front of children.
6
‘What do you think of him, then?’ Claire asked. Her voice was muffled because she was chewing her nails. She had grown them for Emma’s party, but now she was going to bite them again for a little while. Then she would start growing them for the school Christmas social. She liked the satisfying crunch of her teeth through a new bit of nail, the way you could nibble all the way round a long one, and the flaky texture of it in her mouth before she spat it out.
‘Who – Uncle David?’ Eilidh asked. She never bit her nails. She was painting alternate fingers green and black, and her bedroom was heady with acetone. ‘He’s all right.’
It was cosy in Eilidh’s room. The windows were steamed up with talking. Eilidh sat on a stool in front of her dressing table; Claire was on the bed, a cushion at her back and a sleeping cat over her feet.
Eilidh waved the finished hand to dry it. ‘My mum says he’s going to stay with you next.’
‘Yeah, Mum’s trying to clear the spare room. It’s been full of boxes since we moved. Now she’s put everything on the landing, so I have to climb over it to get to my room.’
‘I don’t know why he isn’t just staying here,’ Eilidh said, ‘since our house is much bigger.’
‘Well, your mum has your dad to talk to. My mum doesn’t.’
‘Does she still miss your dad?’
Claire shrugged. ‘I suppose so.’ Eilidh wanted to say ‘Do you?’ but sometimes Claire did not like to talk about that.
‘Uncle David never brought loads of presents, did he?’ Claire said. ‘When he stayed with us in England he always brought stuff.’
‘Yeah, he did with us, one Christmas. But Mum says he’s skint just now.’
‘You reckon?’
‘Well, he hasn’t got a job, has he?’ Eilidh pointed out.
‘No. He’s going to do something with computers, though.’
‘Is he? He’s pure mad, eh? You know, like at Halloween, when he got dressed up for all the kids coming round, and instead of just opening the door and standing there like the other mothers and fathers, he leaps out with a mask on—’
They both started giggling.
‘Yeah, I know, and the little Macleod girl, Rosie, she starts crying!’
‘And Mum goes, “David, you’re terrifying them!”’
Claire shrieked, ‘And he goes, “It’s Halloween, isn’t it?”’ She was laughing so much the cat leapt from the bed. ‘You’re right,’ she told Eilidh. ‘Like, he’s always singing these songs, and they’re really rude, and Auntie Marion’s making a face at him—’
‘She says he’s going to do it sometime when the minister’s in, or Mrs Wylie, when she’s collecting for the jumble sale or whatever, just start singing out loud.’
‘He’s got a good voice though. He’s musical, like Auntie Marion.’
Eilidh laughed. ‘He’s nothing like my mother.’ She turned back to the mirror, and began on the other hand. ‘Don’t make me laugh now, or I’ll splodge this all over.’
There was silence, while Eilidh concentrated on keeping her hands steady, and Claire flicked over the pages of Bliss. She held it up to show Eilidh several photographs of a moody boy with a fringe of hair falling over one eye.
‘Which d’you think is best, this one or this?’
Eilidh turned for a moment and pointed with a black-tipped finger. That one.’
This or this?’
‘Na, I don’t like them.’
This one?’
‘Yeah.’
Claire leaned back on the cushion again, examining the photographs. ‘He’s gorgeous, isn’t he? Mum says Uncle David was quite tidy when he was young. Good-looking.’ Unable to imagine this, they looked at each other, screwing up their faces and giggling.
‘He didn’t have a beard then, of course,’ Eilidh conceded.
‘He’s only just grown that,’ Claire said. ‘And he told me he was going to shave it off.’
‘You know what?’ Eilidh swivelled to face Claire again. ‘He’s more like your mum than mine.’
‘He doesn’t look anything like—’
‘No, except they’re tall. But he doesn’t look like anybody in our family.’
‘Grandpa?’
‘We-ell … a bit,’ Eilidh conceded. ‘Not really. Their eyes are different, his whole face is different.’
‘It’s queer, isn’t it, the way people in families sometimes look like each other and sometimes don’t?’
Claire got up and came to sit on the edge of Eilidh’s stool. They gazed solemnly at their own reflections in the mirror: dark-haired and fair, round-faced Eilidh and Claire with her thin oval face and long blue eyes, thick-lashed as her father’s had been; Eilidh’s strong hand next to Claire’s narrow one. And yet they were alike, though neither of them thought so, each preferring the other’s appearance to her own. They did not see (looking for imperfections), the similar set of the jaw, curve of the mouth, and the likeness they had, simply in being both young, and sharing genes.
‘Know something?’ Claire said.
‘What?’
/>
‘See, he sings and makes jokes and all that? Well, underneath, I reckon he’s really worried shout something.’
‘What?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Actually,’ Eilidh said, ‘I think something’s bothering my mum. She’s a bit snappy.’
‘PMT?’
‘No, she’s just had that, and she’s still snappy. Then she starts apologising, and being really nice. It’s not like her, usually she’s sort of the same all the time.’
‘Menopause?’
‘She’s still too young for that, isn’t she?’
But they did not know. They only knew what they read in Bliss and Sugar, which concentrated on the other end of the hormone spectrum.
‘Maybe,’ Claire suggested, ‘they’re worried about the same thing.’
‘I thought it was because she was getting fed up with having Uncle David staying here.’
‘Oh, why, he’s such a laugh?’
‘Yeah, but he seems to get on her nerves a bit.’
A silence, while they remained baffled by adults. Then Claire dived back on to the bed and grabbed her magazine.
‘Come on, let’s do this quiz that tells you what kind of boy is most likely to be attracted to you.’
Downstairs, Eleanor had just tapped on the back door and come into the kitchen. ‘Hi, it’s me.’
‘Claire’s upstairs,’ Marion said, not turning from the sink for a moment.
‘What’s wrong?’ Eleanor looked at Marion’s back, her tense shoulders. ‘Something’s wrong – is it David?’
‘Oh, I can hardly blame him,’ Marion smiled, as she faced her sister. Eleanor’s heart sank, sank, as if something really moved downwards in her chest. ‘It’s nothing.’ Marion said, ‘almost certainly nothing.’
David's Sisters Page 6
