Bad Heir Day

by Wendy Holden

  “And you are?”

  Anna’s throat contracted with terror before she could fully release another scream. A strangled yelp emerged, like an indignant puppy. Having focused all her attention on the shore in front of her, she hadn’t heard anyone coming up from behind.

  “Come on, you can do better than that,” said the voice. “I heard you. Very impressive. You were doing a much better job than I was.”

  Anna felt her back crunch as she whipped round to find herself staring at a tall, broad-shouldered, and very untidy-looking young man. She was suddenly intensely aware of being a woman alone in the last landscape on earth; easy prey for any psychopath who happened to be passing. Perhaps she was jumping to conclusions, but this strange man, given that he was the person she had heard emitting terrifying howls a mere few minutes before, hardly struck her as particularly normal.

  “Oh. You heard me then?” Anna spoke steadily and quietly. Better not do anything to agitate him. But it was just her luck. Even on the remotest beach on the remotest island she’d not only ended up engaged to Mr. Wrong but meeting Mr. Possibly Extremely Dangerous into the bargain. Five minutes ago, she had wanted to die but was now acutely conscious that she hadn’t meant it really.

  “Yes,” he replied. “You see, I’ve been out yowling all morning as well.”

  It was fatal, she knew, to make eye contact with lunatics, but there being just the two of them, it was difficult not to. Anna drew a measure of relief from the fact that his pupils seemed warm rather than blazing insanely and that the grin looked more full of friendly enquiry than murderous intent. Yet complete peace of mind was prevented by the fact that, standing like a hedge between herself and reassurance was—a beard.

  Anna had read enough of Cassandra’s glossy magazines to know that beards, hitherto firmly beyond the style pale, had recently experienced a renaissance. She was aware that, when cut and shaped, they could even be fashionable. But there was nothing trimmed about this one. It was an out-of-control leylandii; large, abundant, and the sort of thing neighbours complain about. It was firmly of the variety favoured by geography teachers, vicars, and lunatics. Free range, to say the least. And very possibly organic.

  “Why were you yowling?” she asked him.

  The bearded youth smiled again. Looking at his extraordinarily strong-looking white teeth, Anna tried to banish all thoughts about The Silence of the Lambs. She also noticed that, apart from the bad hair day at the end of his chin, he had some distinctly deranged-looking clothes on. Torn and faded jeans that seemed to have been attacked by a wild animal and a cotton jumper that had more holes than a mesh tank peeped from under the wrinkled flaps of an ancient Barbour. “Yowling helps me in my work,” he said. “When I’m really letting it all out, I feel as if I’m communicating with a higher, creative force. With the Great One.”

  That rules out the geography teacher then, thought Anna. Which left only vicar or lunatic. Could be either, except that he’d mentioned his work. Vicar then. Must be.

  “An unusual approach to work.”

  “Not to mine.”

  “Really?” Some island parishes, Anna knew, adhered to practices considered extreme and unusual by those of more liberal beliefs and downright bizarre by those of no beliefs whatsoever. But those island priests, the ones who forbade even heating up tins of beans on Sundays on the grounds that it counted as work, hardly struck her as likely to go in for screaming on hillsides. Perhaps, Anna thought, the man before her was some sort of charismatic prophet, marrying people on clifftops and baptising others in the freezing real-ale coloured waves breaking ever closer up the shore behind them.

  “But what do your congregation think?”

  It was his turn to look wary. “Congregation?”

  “Aren’t you the vicar?”

  “No, I’m a writer. My name’s Robbie MacAskill. I’m the—”

  “Poet!” Anna finished. “Oh, it’s you. I read about you on the noticeboard. You give classes in creative writing. I’m so sorry.”

  “Well, they’re not that bad.”

  ***

  Anna had not expected to return to the castle feeling calmer than when she had left it. It was amazing how a few hours’ talking about writing soothed the nerves. Robbie was impressively passionate about it. The hilariously trite diktats he had invented for his creative writing classes had made her laugh for the first time in weeks.

  “You have to take the fear out of it,” he explained as they walked slowly back over the dripping heather. “Most people would rather show you their bottoms than their writing.” He turned to smile at her, his large teeth glinting in his beard. “You’re a writer, of course?”

  Anna nodded, flushing with both embarrassment and gratification. “In theory. How did you know?” Was it her eyes? Her hands? The creative aura around her?

  “Well, everyone’s a writer,” came the rather less flattering reply. “I tell everyone at the start of my course that a book is like an arsehole. Everyone’s got one in them. And most of what comes out is, of course, usually shit.”

  “Oh.” Anna wasn’t sure what she thought of this. Then Cassandra came to mind and she smiled.

  “But the point is,” said Robbie, helping her negotiate a shallow stream which would otherwise have flooded all over her shoes, “it’s better out than in. Most people feel a lot better afterwards, anyway. It helps them work out their frustrations. I’m a great believer in the therapeutic value of writing things down. If everyone did it, the world would be a better, calmer, less hysterical place. And if that means there are more bad novels about, so what?”

  With surprise, Anna saw that they were already approaching the castle entrance. She stopped and smiled at him. “This is where I live.” This, she decided, was as much as she would tell him.

  “I know.” But of course he did, she thought, feeling her former sour mood returning. Everyone on this island knew everything. Except her.

  “Come in for a coffee…or a drink?”

  “Thanks, but I’d better be getting back. I have a class to prepare. Mrs. McLeod has given me another chapter of her novel and I need to have read it with comments by tomorrow afternoon.”

  “Mrs. McLeod? The one who irons with discretion?”

  “The very same. And writes the raunchiest stuff I’ve seen this side of a Soho porn parlour. All that steam must go to her head.”

  “Not to mention all that underwear.”

  They said their goodbyes. “Come to my class,” Robbie told her. “Come tomorrow afternoon, if you feel like it.” He swung on his way back down the drive without looking back. But then, if he had, Anna realised, he would have probably broken his neck in a pothole.

  She stepped, heart sinking, into the flagged chill of the hall and wondered what on earth to do with herself. Where exactly did she go from here—in every sense of the word? But as she paused at the foot of the stairs, a strange, faint, and entirely new sound greeted her. A sound she had not heard since coming to Dampie. Someone, somewhere, was laughing.

  It seemed to be coming from somewhere upstairs. As Anna mounted the wide treads with their rotting red runner, she wondered who on earth it could be. Kate Tressell? Had one of the girls who had jilted Jamie dropped in for old times’ sake? The laughter rang out again down the second-floor passage. It was coming from the sitting room. Anna rounded the corner to the sitting-room doorway, and gasped as Nanny, looming terrifyingly out of the gloom like the Hound of the Baskervilles, rolled on past her down the corridor with the force of a juggernaut and a face like thunder.

  Whoever was laughing had made Nanny livid, which must by definition be good news. And, if she was not mistaken, before she had surprised her, Nanny had been bent double in the corridor with her ear shoved against the door. Which, come to think of it, seemed rather a good idea.

  “Is that the Angus tartan?” a woman’s voice was asking as Anna put her ea
r to the keyhole. Geri. It was Geri’s voice. Christ, she’d completely forgotten she was coming. Even though there didn’t seem much point in her being here now, Anna suddenly felt overwhelmingly glad she was.

  “Absolutely.” Jamie sounded almost incoherent with enthusiasm.

  Fools rush in, Anna told herself, taking her hand away from the doorknob she had been about to turn. Not that bloody tartan story again. On the other hand, what a heaven-sent opportunity to let Jamie reveal his true colours to Geri—in every sense of the word.

  Chapter Twenty

  Cassandra had had no idea she had such resilience. Driving around in a hire car. And by no means the biggest available at that. And actually surviving the experience. She’d rather have died than do this in Kensington, yet here she was just west of Inverness in her Weekend Bargain Class A three-door “Disco” with its denim-effect seats and tan plastic trim, and the God of Style had not struck her down. Not yet, anyway.

  It was, Cassandra reflected, amazing what the human spirit could bear. A fortnight ago, failure to get a table at Bam Bou or an on-the-day appointment with Jo Hansford would have seen her booking straight into the Priory. Were she to go to Jo Hansford now, Cassandra thought, the celebrated colourist might be in need of a spot of trauma counselling herself, given the state of her highlights. For, at the base of each platinum coloured hair shaft lurked a good one and a half black and sinister inches. Cassandra ruffled them ruefully in the driving mirror. Talk about going back to one’s roots. For the time being, at least, she would have to go cold turkey on blonde. Gold turkey, if you liked. She hadn’t really had much choice.

  She hadn’t had much choice about the car either. It had been impossible to book a flight to Inverness for herself and Zak. How was she supposed to have remembered, with all the millions of other things she had to worry about, that Zak had been banned by BA after an incident involving an injured member of staff and unlocked central emergency doors eight miles above the Atlantic several months before? Those sorts of things just slipped one’s mind, although in this case they had been forcibly helped back into it again by the bookings clerk.

  Honestly, Cassandra thought. Some people were so petty. It wasn’t as if anyone important had been injured. Admittedly that ridiculous hostess Zak had been playing catch-the-gin-miniature with had ended up requiring plastic surgery, but quite frankly she’d needed that anyway. Face like a baboon’s bottom, learnt her makeup tips on the set of Star Wars, by the looks of things. Forget launching a thousand ships, you wouldn’t want to launch a range of frozen peas with that. Anyway, Cassandra thought indignantly, was it her fault they’d been stuck on the tarmac for at least ten minutes waiting for Air Traffic Control to relent? Which had hardly helped with the Zak situation. He’d got bored and playful, that was all.

  And harmless fun was all it had been—the door incident itself was merely the result of Zak playing at being an air steward. He’d only wanted to see what his emergency mask looked like when he pulled it down, and had only wanted to play at being a pilot when the captain—somewhat reluctantly, it had to be admitted—had allowed him into the cabin. Best draw a veil over that one, Cassandra thought. The memory of the sudden plummeting of the Boeing 747 made her blood run cold, just as it had made her Bloody Mary run cold all over her white Sulka shirt at the time.

  Still, hiring the car and booking the sleeper had worked out very well—not to mention cheaply. Once she had got over the shock of realising that the box on the train she had thought must be her wardrobe area was actually the entire cabin, the journey had passed without too much incident. Apart, of course, from that ludicrous nanny of the Tressells’ occupying the next door cabin and Zak’s ever-curious and enquiring mind bringing itself to bear on the communication cord.

  Bumping into Geri had proved useful, however; she’d now got Anna’s address and fully intended to use it. It had been obvious from the way Geri had so determinedly talked Dampie Castle down, dismissing it as freezing, tiny, and so damp it was probably wringing, that the place was vast, luxurious, and ramblingly romantic, probably complete with Jacuzzis and aubergine guest bathrooms. And, quite apart from the weight it would take off her bank account, staying in the castle would, Cassandra decided, prove a useful source of ideas. In the last few days she had been thinking the previously unthinkable—moving out of London. Property was so much cheaper up here; hopefully there’d be enough left after the divorce from Jett for a starter castle, at least. Reluctantly, Cassandra recognised she had to get out of her Kensington mind-set. She soon wouldn’t be able to afford anything more than a shoebox in W8 anymore. Location, location, location was all very well. But not if it was broom cupboard, broom cupboard, broom cupboard.

  And there were other reasons for being in Scotland. No school in England having been prepared to rise to what Cassandra, in her letters to the headmaster, called “the particular challenge of Zak,” the virtues of Scottish education were now being explored. Chief among these virtues, Cassandra decided, was instilling in the pupil the appropriate degree of fiscal ambition. She had little on which to base this conviction other than the names of some of the places—but how, after all, could anyone at school in Stirling have anything other than a healthy respect for cash in all its forms? Unfortunately, the headmaster hadn’t seemed interested in any of hers. The school called Dollar Academy had also struck, so to speak, the right note with Cassandra, and so it had been devastating to receive a letter pleading a waiting list longer than an M1 Bank Holiday traffic jam. In the end, Cassandra had decided she had no option but to take the bull—and the headmasters—by the horns and come up and sort things out herself. So far, her in-person surgical strikes on the schools had failed to make much difference—it had, incidentally, been amazing how many of them knew Mrs. Gosschalk. Bloody woman got everywhere.

  Cassandra had now moved on to the northwest Highlands, although getting around the place was driving her mad. These ridiculous little single tracks full of even more ridiculous people expecting her to stop for them, for some reason. Now she’d finally persuaded Zak he didn’t need to get out of the car to pee, be sick, or be bought things every five minutes, Cassandra had no intention of stopping for anyone. Zak had latched on with greater interest than she had anticipated to the idea of peeing into a plastic cup, although Cassandra had correctly assumed that anything to do with his willy would fascinate him.

  “It’s a good job you’re a boy,” Cassandra observed, hearing the gushing of urine into the cup behind her. Unusually, Zak had insisted on sitting in the back seat.

  “Why?”

  “Because you can aim straight.”

  “Cant bints aim straight?” demanded Zak, thrilled to be at last discussing his beloved subject. “Why don’t birds have cocks and balls?”

  Cassandra sighed. Buttock-clenchingly uncomfortable though she found sexual organs herself—both literally and metaphorically—she knew it was vital to be as patient as possible with Zak. His young mind, after all, was still forming and misunderstandings in this very delicate area—very delicate area—could result in a lifelong psychiatric condition. Everything had to be explained very carefully and accurately. “Ladies have whiskers and gentlemen have tails,” Cassandra said. “I told you on the train.”

  “But why don’t blokes have cunts?” yelled Zak with relish. “After all, everyone has arseholes.”

  Cassandra swallowed. “Darling, you know we call them front bottoms and back bottoms,” she said faintly, almost grateful for the sudden distraction of the flashing, frantic headlights of a car looming in her driving mirror. A few minutes later, Cassandra found herself faced with a furious dental supplies salesman from Aberdeen who had just received an unscheduled golden shower through the air conditioning system of his car. It suddenly became clear why Zak had insisted on being in the back seat.

  “When I said you could aim straight,” she said as she got back in the car having spent a fortune on mouthwash, enough dental
floss to last the rest of her life, and a state-of-the-art laser toothbrush apparently developed aboard a space shuttle, “I didn’t mean throwing the contents of your cup at any car that happened to be following us.” Sometimes, she thought ruefully, Zak really took the piss.

  Zak did not reply.

  Fearing one of his world-class sulks, Cassandra turned to see her son sitting rapt with the mobile glued to his ear. “Darling, give me that. I’ve told you before about dialling those 0898 numbers.”

  Cassandra wrested the mobile out of Zak’s grasp and decided to call the London answerphone again. You never knew. Of late, she had become addicted to dialling the Knightsbridge phone number and listening with bated breath as the pitiless woman on the other end informed her “you have no new messages.” Yet Cassandra could still not shake off the conviction that in her absence, every glossy magazine and national newspaper in Britain had called leaving urgent messages on the answerphone wanting interviews. One never, after all, knew when the Larry King Live show would get in touch. And there was always the possibility that another publisher would ring with a huge offer.

  Cassandra stabbed the autodial and listened. Fifteen messages! Fifteen! It was unbelievable. Clearly, her fortunes had undergone a transformation more dramatic than Jocelyn Wildenstein after plastic surgery. Hand shaking, Cassandra pressed two.

  Her dreams had come true. The Guardian, the Independent, the Daily Telegraph, The Times, the Daily Mail, and the Express had all called wanting interviews. Vogue wanted to set up a photoshoot and Harpers & Queen wanted to do an At Home. Radios One, Two, and Four had called, as had the long-awaited Larry King Live researcher and about three representatives of prestigious publishing houses. It was overwhelming. In the bright blue sky of Cassandra’s happiness, there was but one small cloud. None of the messages were for her.