David's Sisters

by Forsyth, Moira;

  ‘It’s the bit of lace Mum got from that tinker woman, isn’t it?’ she asked Marion, coming back into the living room.

  ‘You did remember.’

  ‘Oh yes.’

  ‘I wonder what happened to her. She had a baby, didn’t she?’

  Eleanor’s face darkened, and Marion said, with a spurt of fear that had no reason in it, ‘What is it? Is something wrong? You don’t mind giving it away, do you?’

  ‘No, of course not. Get rid of it. Pity you hung on to it so long.’

  She was not sure if Marion knew how the woman had died. At any rate, she would not talk to her about it just now, or tell her how she had come back, and walked in the garden at Pitcairn.

  ‘Are you all right, Eleanor?’

  ‘It’s nothing, I’m just tired. All that driving. We’d better get home.’

  ‘Poor you. Sorry, it was selfish of me to keep you.’

  ‘I wanted to stay. I’ve missed you, Marion.’

  ‘Well, it’s not because I’m sparkling company at the moment, eh?’ Marion smiled, coming to the door with Eleanor.

  The hour had changed, so when Eleanor and Claire reached the cottage it was still daylight. They exclaimed over the tulips that had blossomed in front of the cottage in their absence, then they went in to unpack and have supper. In the evening, John Cairns telephoned.

  ‘I’ve had a call from Mamie,’ he said. ‘Alice isn’t too well. You don’t like to bother the doctor at night, but maybe I should get Mamie to ring for him, eh?’

  ‘What’s wrong – what did Mamie say?’

  ‘Just that Alice felt a bit faint, and went away to her bed.’

  ‘Do you want me to phone them?’

  ‘No, no. Mamie gets worked up about things these days. Probably just a cold coming on or something.’

  ‘I don’t know, Dad. I thought Alice didn’t look well when I saw her the other day.’

  ‘Och, I’m sorry I troubled you, lass. You’ve enough to worry about with Marion.’

  ‘Look – get Mamie to ring the doctor just to ask his advice, if she’s worried. She could do that, at least.’

  ‘Aye, that’s an idea. Maybe he’ll tell her nae to be so daft.’

  I’ll speak to you tomorrow,’ Eleanor promised. ‘See how she is.’

  When she called Pitcairn in the morning, around eleven, there was no reply. He’ll be in the garden, she told herself, he won’t hear the phone.

  In the afternoon, her father called her. Alice had had a heart attack, and was in hospital. It’s not the same thing, Eleanor told herself, I wasn’t there. I told him to call the doctor. It wasn’t up to me, it was up to Mamie. Mamie who had looked so vague and lost, and who for almost forty years, had let Alice make all the decisions. I told Dad to get the doctor. What else could I do? The old sick feeling rose again, overwhelming, and the drum-beat in her head, my fault, my fault.

  19

  ‘Alice will be all right,’ Marion said, when Eleanor called round later in the afternoon. ‘She’s tough.’

  ‘I’ll drive down and see her when Claire goes back to school,’ Eleanor said. ‘Just for the day.’

  Alice was not so tough, in the end. Who is, when it’s the heart that fails, Eleanor wondered, realising she would have to pack for a funeral on the day Gavin was due onshore.

  Claire, coming in from school on Tuesday afternoon to hear that Alice had died, cried a little, then said, ‘Auntie Mamie will miss her, won’t she?’

  ‘Yes, she will.’ Eleanor turned to the stove to check that her casserole was ready. It’s on Friday at two, the funeral. We’ll drive down in the morning, and come back the same day, so that Grandpa doesn’t have to make up beds or anything.’

  ‘Is Auntie Marion going?’

  ‘Yes, we all are.’

  ‘Eilidh and me came to Granny’s funeral, didn’t we? But Kirsty was too wee – is she coming this time?’

  ‘Yes, she is.’ Kirsty was the age Claire had been at her first funeral. Eleanor closed her eyes for a moment: the cold January day, Claire in her red coat and hat, because that was all she had to wear that was warm and smart. Like a jewel among all the black.

  ‘Set the table, Claire.’

  ‘What about Uncle David – is he coming?’

  ‘I haven’t managed to speak to him yet,’ Eleanor admitted. ‘Left a message on his answerphone. I’ll try tonight.’

  ‘At least you’ve got his phone number now,’ Claire remarked, sitting down to eat.

  In the evening, Eleanor called David again. It rang for a long time, but the answering service did not cut in, so she waited. Finally, David’s voice.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘David, it’s me. I’ve got some bad news.’

  ‘Marion—’

  ‘No, no, she’s all right. It’s Aunt Alice.’ A pause. The echo was there again, she heard it, heard David’s voice in the light blue hall of her English house, saying to Marion, Ian’s dead, saying it, letting people know, because she could not. And her father, much later, It’s your mother, Eleanor. How do you tell people this?

  ‘I’m sorry, David, I don’t know how to – she had another heart attack. She died this morning.’

  He would say something sympathetic, regretful, but that was all. He was so distant from them now; what could it mean to him that his eighty-year-old aunt was dead? But there was silence.

  ‘She was still in hospital,’ Eleanor went on. ‘Poor Mamie’s very upset, Dad says. I thought last time I was down that Alice—’

  ‘Alice is dead?’

  ‘Yes, her heart – you know she had a heart attack last week. Dad said he told you.’

  ‘Yes, but he said she was all right, she was getting better.’

  ‘Well, she was over eighty. I suppose her heart just couldn’t take it. I’m sorry. Davy, are you all right?’

  ‘Yes, of course I’m all right.’ But his voice was hard.

  ‘The funeral’s on Friday at two. Their church near Holborn, and then the crematorium. You could stay at Dad’s if you like. We’re all going back the same day to save making up beds. There’ll be seven of us – no, eight – I think Fergus’s mother is coming too.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Things are difficult here. Friday – I don’t think so, Eleanor. Sorry.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Sorry. Look, I’d better go. I’ve got someone here as it happens.’

  ‘Davy—’

  ‘I’ll call you later. If I can get away.’

  Marion, when Eleanor relayed all this to her, was impatient and annoyed.

  That’s just typical. I mean, he wasn’t particularly close to Alice, but for Dad’s sake, he really should be there.’

  ‘He did sound upset.’

  ‘Not upset enough to put himself out, obviously.’

  Eleanor, wanting to defend David, knew she could not. If Marion made the effort, exhausted as she was, surely he could be there? Things are difficult here. But they always were. Eleanor, with a flash of perception, realised the ‘someone’ with David had been a woman.

  Gavin telephoned on the Thursday evening.

  ‘My replacement’s sick,’ he said. ‘I might not be able to come in till Saturday.’

  ‘That’s all right – I’m away tomorrow.’ She explained what had happened. He sympathised, kindly but impersonally. An aunt who had lived over eighty years – you were sorry, but not shocked.

  Eleanor kept thinking of Mamie, and how lost she would be without Alice. Perhaps she would get a new lease of life, blossom on her own. Once, she would have done, Eleanor realised, but it was probably too late now.

  At the funeral, Mamie in navy blue with matching hat, was tearful, her face reddened and puckered in April sunshine. But she was composed, leaning on her cousin’s arm, shaking hands at the door of the kirk. A small funeral, but not so small as Eleanor and Marion had expected. Alice had still had a busy life and there were several rows of people they did not know, mo
st of them elderly women. A stooped old man, greeting John and Mamie as he went out, told them he had worked with Alice for thirty years. He looked round, his tortoise head and neck rising from black coat and stiff white shirt.

  ‘Where’s the boy?’ he asked. ‘Is the boy here?’ John and Mamie looked at each other, and John said, ‘No, he’s working away.’ The boy, Eleanor thought, going down the steps to the car, holding Claire’s hand (the first time for years, Claire solemn and overawed), the boy is David.

  Later, her father told her, ‘That was Peter Simpson. He was the senior partner when Alice joined Simpson and Dalgarno. He must be well over ninety by now.’

  ‘What about Dalgarno?’ Eleanor asked, wondering about Alice’s working life. An independent woman, at home in an office, efficient and indispensable. She could imagine that.

  ‘Oh, he’s been dead for years. Retired not long after Alice went there, I think. It was Fraser who was the other partner, Alex Fraser. And there was somebody else for a few years, another partner. Now that caused a bit of a furore. He left with more money than he was entitled to, went south.’

  ‘What – he stole it?’ Eleanor laughed. These old people, solicitors, respectable and dull, but one of them a rogue. Alice would have seen through him, though.

  ‘Something a bit shady, anyway. No action was taken, as I remember. Alice went on working there – it was nothing to do with Peter Simpson.’

  ‘You mean they just sort of overlooked it? Embezzlement?’

  Her father looked startled. ‘What? Oh, it wasn’t as bad as that.’

  ‘But you said—’

  ‘See if Mamie wants a hand, there’s a good lass.’ Her father got to his feet. They were back at Pitcairn by this time, and had been sitting, the two of them, on the bench at the back door. It was getting chilly now the sun had gone in.

  Mamie had waved them out of the kitchen, saying she would make tea. She had a fruit cake, she told them. They weren’t to go off on that long journey home without a bit of cake. When they went back into the house she was sitting by the table, still wearing her hat and coat, doing nothing.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Eleanor asked.

  ‘Aye, I’m fine. A bittie tired, Eleanor. Still, no more traipsing up and down to the hospital.’

  John left them to it, as Eleanor had known he would. She helped Mamie set out cups and saucers, and cut the cake.

  ‘Are you going to be all right on your own?’ Eleanor had noticed how Mamie’s hands, plump and blue-veined, trembled as she poured milk into a jug.

  ‘Mercy aye, lass.’ She looked up and smiled. ‘I’ll miss her, Eleanor, but I can manage fine.’

  ‘You could come and stay with me for a while, if you like.’ Eleanor, moved by an impulse of pity, regretted the offer as soon as she had made it. Her tiny spare room, Gavin, the impossibility of concealing from Mamie what she was trying to keep from Claire. Suddenly, Eleanor was swept by fatigue, and sat down, overwhelmed. Mamie was rummaging in a drawer for teaspoons.

  ‘No, I hinna the memory these days, but Alice was aye impatient. If I’m left to myself, I manage fine. You don’t want an old wifie like me getting in your road.’

  ‘You’re not an old wifie,’ Eleanor protested, trying to smile.

  ‘Whiles I dinna feel like it, but that’s what I am.’ Mamie patted Eleanor’s shoulder. ‘You’re affa white-faced, Eleanor. What’s ado?’

  ‘Nothing. I just feel a bit sick. Probably the early start. Cup of tea will help.’

  ‘Just waiting for the kettle.’ But Mamie had forgotten to switch it on. ‘Dear me, nae wonder it’s takin a lang time. There, that’s it now.’ She sat down on the chair opposite Eleanor. ‘And how’s Marion doing? She’s gotten affa thin, puir lass.’

  ‘Last treatment coming up. Then maybe she’ll be able to pull round a bit.’

  ‘Aye, we’ll hope so. She’s had a sad time of it.’

  Eleanor still felt strange. Slowly, making an effort, she got up and made as if to lift the tray. Mamie stopped her.

  ‘That’s far ower heavy for you. Get David.’

  They looked at each other. ‘Now then, what am I saying? Ross. Marion’s laddie. Ross will carry it for us.’

  ‘I’ll get him.’ As she made for the door, Mamie said, ‘A pity he couldna come to his own mother’s funeral.’

  Eleanor hesitated, began to say, ‘But he did,’ then changed her mind, and went to ask Ross to fetch the tray.

  When Ross had disappeared into the kitchen, in his borrowed black tie and his father’s jacket (too wide at the shoulders), Eleanor sat by Marion and murmured, ‘I don’t think Mamie is quite right. She seems fine, then she says something way off beam.’

  ‘Well, no wonder, today. It’s awful for her. I think she’s coping really well.’

  Ross and Mamie were coming into the living room, so Eleanor said nothing more.

  The sisters drove the first part of the journey together, as they usually did, Claire and Eilidh in the back.

  ‘They’re stoics, that generation,’ Marion observed, when they began talking again about the funeral. ‘How long have Alice and Mamie lived together? A lifetime. But although Mamie had obviously had a few tears before she arrived, she didn’t show anything all the rest of the day. Neither did Dad. His own sister.’

  ‘They’ve been together,’ Eleanor said, working it out, ‘since the year before David was born. It’s his birthday at the end of the month.’

  ‘Well, at least we know where to send the card this year.’

  ‘Marion, Mamie said something really weird this afternoon. It shook me.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s not just forgetfulness, she’s actually a bit confused.’ Eleanor lowered her voice, though the girls were oblivious in the back, Claire reading her magazine, Eilidh deep in a book. ‘She threw me completely. She said what a pity it was David didn’t come to Mum’s funeral. I don’t know whether she’s just forgotten he did – at the last minute, right enough – or if she thought it was Mum’s funeral today. It was really disconcerting. I didn’t know what to say, so I just sort of ignored it.’

  ‘I wouldn’t worry,’ Marion reassured her. ‘She seemed fine to me. She might actually get on all right by herself. She’s been bossed around by Alice for years.’

  But Eleanor remembered the tremor of Mamie’s hands, and her unfocused gaze as she sat at the kitchen table, doing nothing.

  ‘David might have come,’ she said aloud.

  ‘Ach, Eleanor, you shouldn’t be surprised. He never thinks about anyone but himself.’

  Marion leaned back and closed her eyes. Eleanor, glancing sideways, said no more. Let Marion sleep; two journeys along the A96 in one day were too much for her just now. But she had come, so why couldn’t David? She had missed him, wanting him there. He had been with her, she realised, in all the other crises of her life. Was this a crisis, Alice dying? Eleanor had a pang of pity for her aunt, recalling their last walk in winter cold at Christmas, Alice pausing, breathless for a moment. Not yet, thought Eleanor, the ready tears springing up, this crisis is not happening yet.

  As they neared home, she began to think about Gavin instead. Tomorrow. She would see him tomorrow.

  Before she did, David telephoned. It was Saturday morning. The sun shone, and a stiff breeze flapped Eleanor’s washing high in the air, white against blue, and bent the tulips sideways at the front door. She pinched off a sprig of rosemary from the bush by the front doorstep, as she stood watching the post van coming up the lane, the wind catching her hair. Edie had come out too, and was hurrying over to the fence.

  ‘Now then, you’ve had a sad time, how was your poor father? A lovely man, your father, always a smile.’

  ‘Dad’s fine.’

  They took in the post, exchanging comments on the weather with the postman, and went on talking together as he drove back down the lane, not stopping at Gavin’s cottage.

  ‘Him—’ Edie nodded at the third house. ‘He’s offshore again, is he?
You’ll know better than I would. His comings and goings.’ Eleanor flushed, but there was no malice in Edie, only curiosity. She had noticed, though; nothing had escaped her.

  ‘He’s due back tonight.’

  ‘Company for you dear, and I suppose he’s all alone now.’ Edie patted Eleanor’s arm. ‘Take care though, don’t you rush into anything. You’re awful pale, eh. I says to Jim, “She’s not looking well, it’ll be her auntie dying, and all the worry about Marion.” How is she, poor lass?’

  Going indoors a few minutes later, Eleanor thought how there were no secrets here. Your life was laid bare, known. But the love-making, that was secret – not that it happened (Eleanor flushed with annoyance), but how, and what you did together.

  She was in the kitchen when the phone rang. Claire picked it up in the bedroom and yelled downstairs a moment later. ‘Mum! Uncle David.’

  ‘Why didn’t you come?’

  ‘Sorry, sorry. How was it? Is Dad all right?’

  ‘Dad was fine. Mamie’s upset, and she was upset you didn’t turn up.’

  ‘I meant to.’

  ‘Well then?’

  ‘God, Eleanor, you wouldn’t – I can’t go into it. Sorry. I was thinking about you all. You’d be surprised how much.’

  ‘Yes, I would.’

  ‘Aw, come on. Makes no difference to Alice, does it?’

  Eleanor sighed. ‘No, I suppose. But that’s not the point.’

  ‘Anyway,’ David went on, ‘what’s happening about the house and everything?’

  ‘The house?’

  ‘Alice’s house.’

  ‘Mamie’s living in it, of course. It belongs to both of them, doesn’t it?’

  ‘No, I think it just belongs to Alice. Did she leave it to Mamie?’

  ‘Leave it to her? God, David, I don’t know. I suppose Dad’s next of kin, but I’m sure you’re wrong anyway. They used to tell us this story, well, Mamie did – you know, about buying the house when Alice’s flat was too small?’

  ‘She’ll have a will.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Alice worked in a lawyer’s office all her life. Must be a will.’

  What on earth was he getting at? Two old ladies, living on pensions – there couldn’t be any money to speak of. Just the house. David wanted money. Her heart sank.