Billie's Kiss

by Elizabeth Knox

  Murdo found Clara on the jetty, stuffing wetted moss into the silver horn of her posy holder. She was over the water, so had the posy holder’s ring on her finger and its chain looped twice around her wrist.

  Murdo sat down beside her and used his leg to hook the boat closer to them. Clara noticed that he was in long pants, and admired his cadet’s uniform. He held the boat steady as she got in, and she said, ‘Lord, Murdo! The size of your knees!’ She squeezed his knee under the navy serge. He passed her flowers down to her and got in the boat.

  The cushions and curtains had – Murdo saw – been soaked and dried, soaked and dried. He pushed off, pulled in the oars and let the boat carry on slowly into the deeper water. When he lay back against the stern his head raised the smell of mildew from the cushions. Clara talked about the ball – mathematically, the number of young couples who could stand up together. She discovered a grease of old pencil marks on the fan of bone dance cards attached to the top of her posy holder. She wet her handkerchief with spit and began to polish them. She consulted Murdo. Should she carry cedar leaves and carnations to say, ‘I live for thee. Alas, my poor heart?’ or little arum, for ‘ardour’, and, to mitigate, scarlet fuchsia for ‘taste’?

  Murdo told her he liked the white rosebuds.

  ‘Yes, aren’t they lovely.’ Clara stroked them. ‘They mean “a heart innocent of love”. Unfortunately they can also convey “girlhood” or “you’re too young for me”.’ Clara said she had plans, real plans for the evening. This year the girls in her school had practiced kissing as a kind of extension to their dance lessons – in the dormitory, after the lights went out, with the sophisticated and knowledgeable Anna Bergen testing them and judging their form. They practised prim kisses, and promissory kisses, and even passionate kisses. Anna Bergen would instruct: ‘Your lips must be firmer’ or ‘Don’t put your hand on his ear’ or ‘Melt, girl! Melt!’

  Murdo, who had been impressing the water with his breath, rolled over and regarded his cousin out of one eye. He said, experimentally, that he couldn’t imagine what she meant.

  ‘No, I suppose you can’t,’ Clara said. She was quiet for a while, only inspected her harvest of flowers. At last she said, defensive, that she preferred to be prepared.

  ‘Yes,’ Murdo said. ‘I see that. What I mean is that I can’t work out how your friend distinguishes one kiss from another. It’s all very well in a book, where one reads that some hero’s kiss is “forceful” or heroine’s kiss is “melting”, and one thinks ho-hum – is this only the same thing as saying, in a story, that “the sun beat down”? The sun does no such thing, the sun stays in its own round, thousands of miles removed from us. Surely, Clara, a prim kiss is a kiss on the cheek, like the kisses I give your mother. And what on earth is a promissory kiss?’

  ‘Sceptic,’ Clara said, more amused than irritated. She brushed the flowers from her lap, put down the posy holder, and crawled toward him.

  He squinted, so she opened her parasol and set it up beside his head. She bent over him. ‘This is a prim kiss,’ she said, and pressed her firm, closed lips briefly against his. ‘And this’ – she held up one finger – ‘is a promissory kiss – a delicate concoction, like a sorbet between courses.’ Murdo knew she was quoting Anna Bergen. His cousin touched her lips to his, softer, off centre, her lips moving to catch his lower lip momentarily, and pinch it gently.

  Murdo took a breath and, for the first time in his life, felt air as a solid, a thick, filling obstruction in his head and body, an indigestible richness.

  Clara sat back. ‘And I am not going to demonstrate a passionate kiss – because, for those, you have to be standing, and taller than me. Which you are not. Besides, I’ll only do so much even to furnish proof to a sceptic’

  ‘I have to stand up over you?’ Murdo rallied, he poured on the scorn. ‘Is that your sophisticated Anna Bergen’s whole prescription? What say I’d just fought a duel for you, and was lying on the dew-covered grass at dawn, bleeding from a fatal injury? I beg your pardon, Miss, but I can’t possibly get up. Is it not your job – no – your calling, to cover my face with burning kisses?’

  ‘Well – I’ve covered it with a parasol,’ Clara said. ‘That will have to do. I have to get these flowers out of the sun, and into clean water. Could you row us in, dear?’

  He put out the oars and rowed. He handed her ashore. He re-pressed his hair and restored his cap and helped her carry her flowers.

  The next morning he asked her whom she’d kissed. Or – if not whom – how many?

  She’d kissed Anders Eglund. It was Anders she’d been planning and practising for all along. But, feeling her power, she also kissed two others – men, she supposed – anyway, older than her. She’d bitten off more than she could chew with Mr Trond. This morning after her bath she’d found a spotting of bruises in the small of her back, his fingerprints, and a corresponding thumb print on her side. ‘His grip was convulsive. He was very …’ Clara’s eyes grew opaque as she searched for a word, ‘… very stirred.’ Then she smiled. ‘And I kissed cousin James, who is so temptingly, so impregnably pompous!’

  ‘All promissory kisses?’ Murdo inquired.

  ‘Mr Trond was passionate. He was. I feel tenderised. The others were promissory. Anders is so backward.’

  ‘Were you afraid of Trond?’

  Clara laughed. ‘Not at all. I got him behind the big fern by the stairs. I could hear my papa and yours in the billiard room.’ Clara lay back on the damp cushions and smiled at Murdo. He was at the oars, rowing for exercise, as he had never done before, his shirtsleeves rolled up and sweat printed on the back of his shirt where his elasticised suspenders pressed under his shoulder blades and down his spine.

  ‘I have all summer to study,’ Clara said, and closed her eyes. She yawned, complained of tiredness.

  ‘Who was best?’ Murdo asked.

  ‘You were, dear. And Anna Bergen.’ Clara brushed a hand along her jaw, added, ‘No nasty whiskers.’

  CLARA SAID she didn’t often think of their boat. Minnie rolled over to peer at her mother and Murdo. Murdo rolled, too, so that his face was clear of Clara’s thoughtfully placed parasol, and he was looking up into Clara’s eyes, her face, thin and greenish in the shade of her hat. It was, for just an instant, like looking at his own face in a mirror. He would look at himself and he’d know what he was thinking. He would know because he was himself, not because his thoughts showed in his face. Looking at Clara was like that – but only for a moment. Then she was again the Clara after all these years, and after Ingrid. She wasn’t living foliage anymore, the makings of a posy, leaking green onto a white cotton summer dress. She was one of those concoctions of wax fruit and dried flowers and stuffed hummingbirds, under glass, a deceitful, fading, false thing.

  Murdo turned away, over onto his back, stared at the clouds and the broken rim of the Broch.

  The hatcheries tour returned. James got the idlers up to stretch their legs before the journey back. He walked his wife, used his hat to herd his daughter. He sent Murdo into the Broch to flush out Alan Skilling, who was climbing between its two walls – not really a safe thing to do.

  11

  Fortune and the Four Winds

  MURDO HAD hoped he could get away for a short time without any fuss. The few things he had to do for James he delegated to Rory Skilling. But Rory seemed offended at being left behind. He felt neglected, apparently, or supplanted by Geordie Betler.

  It was true that, lately, when Murdo had gone out in the execution of James’s business, he’d taken Geordie, even when Rory had presented himself early and eager. Sometimes Rory went as well, rode behind them, silent and sulky. It seemed that the trip to Ernol was a final insult. Rory wanted to know why Murdo had asked for his son Alan, not him? Did Mr Hesketh no longer have any confidence in him? ‘And you went out to Scouse Beach alone on that Sunday. Yet you knew I wouldn’t be at Stolnsay Kirk.’ Rory said all this while scuffing his feet on the gatehouse doorsill and swinging his head, a
s if checking the front of his new jacket for lint.

  Murdo couldn’t tell Rory that he had asked for Alan because he hoped Alan would translate while understanding little. Murdo didn’t trust anyone anymore – except, perhaps, these new acquaintances: Geordie, the innocuous Mr Maslen, dim, ‘innocent’ Miss Paxton, and the children, of course. But Geordie was the only one Murdo would allow to help him investigate. Besides, the rest of the Kiss household clearly thought the investigation was better left to experts. Clara seemed to consider Murdo’s investigation coarse and forward. And to James the sinking was only a puzzle, like a problem in chess, less interesting to him than the schemes he had in hand, or his new projects of patronage, of helping the survivors he had taken under his wing.

  Murdo said to Rory Skilling: ‘Please don’t take offence. I asked for Alan because Alan – despite Minnie’s silver – is really on his own time. You are in Lord Hallowhulme’s employ – and I mustn’t have you working illicitly on my investigation.’

  Rory Skilling nodded. He conceded this. ‘I have been meaning to tell you, sir, that Lord Hallowhulme has made me a very kind offer – I’m to be a manager at the Southport cannery when it’s finished. I’m to have a manager’s house. It’s on the strength of this that Fiona has said yes to me.’

  ‘I very happy for you, Rory.’ Murdo was – pleased, and rather surprised that James had recognised Rory’s qualities – loyalty and discretion. Murdo offered his hand, and Rory took it, shy. He then said, in a rush, ‘But for now, I’m still your man, Mr Hesketh. And you must remember me whenever you are off about anything I can share.’ His gaze, formerly lacking traction, caught on Murdo’s as he said this, and Murdo could see strong feeling, some kind of passion, sullen and reluctant.

  Murdo had encountered this look before, at other times, in other people. It made him impatient. He’d done as much as he meant to mollify Rory. He said he’d be back in under a week. They would speak further then.

  Murdo had set out from Kiss for the pier and his ship, a wind-dependent sloop, which would catch the tide at eight. He’d left before breakfast, and had slipped a note under Geordie’s door. ‘I’m off for perhaps a week to Oban. The window glass, rails, car, the materials for Lord Hallowhulme’s telephone exchange all came up to Oban by rail, and then went on to Luag, where they sat for a week awaiting the Gustav Edda. I want to track that cargo. I’ll stop for a day at Luag on my way back to ask about its final period of confinement. I realise you can’t be spared from Kiss, and I hope you have confidence in my ability to pursue this matter without you. Yours, M H.’

  However, Murdo wasn’t able to get quietly away. He was in the vessel, out of the way of the seamen, when Minnie arrived on the pier, alone in her trap and, without waiting for permission, came up the gangplank. She had a brown paper parcel under her arm. ‘Cousin Murdo, Father says he’s surprised you didn’t let him in on your intentions. Mr Betler told us at breakfast that you’d gone. I missed my breakfast to come down here and catch you.’

  ‘What have you there?’ Murdo pointed at the package.

  ‘Oh – this is just something Mr Gutthorm would like you to take to his aunt, the one who lives near the port in Luag. It’s addressed; he was intending to post it.’ She passed the package to Murdo, who gave it a squeeze – it was heavy, springy and yielding.

  ‘It’s tweed, I believe, a length of big cloth,’ Minnie said. ‘It’s not why I came. I’m not running messages for Gutthorm.’ Her gaze, usually forthright, was flitting and lighting from his face to their surrounds. ‘Damn!’ she said, then put her hands on his arms and moved him, bodily, so that his back was to the pier.

  ‘Minnie, you are not blocking a scene. I’m not one of your theatrical amateurs.’

  ‘Yes, yes, I know. I hate to take liberties, only I have something to say to you.’

  ‘Presumptuous, I hope,’ Murdo teased. Then he looked over his shoulder, to see what he was being prevented from seeing, what the distraction was.

  Billie Paxton was hurrying along the pier, on foot. She was wearing a summer dress, black silk with a thin violet stripe, mourning still, but elegant mourning.

  ‘She didn’t buy that,’ he said.

  ‘It’s one of the dresses Father had made for her,’ Minnie said. Then she stamped her foot. ‘Our performance is tomorrow evening. You knew that. You’d have enjoyed it. When I – chose it – I was thinking of you, of you too, that is.’

  ‘Minnie,’ Murdo said. ‘I didn’t think – I’m not –’

  ‘I know – you’re not to be entertained. You’re not to be included.’

  Billie Paxton arrived, in a surge, a lovely susurration of silk and breath. Her hair was loose, and everyone was looking at her. Apparently her arrival was the whole of her attack, because once she was on the deck beside them she stopped dead and stood dumb.

  Murdo tried to think of something to say to Minnie, something kindly. His own feelings failed him so he turned his attention to Billie. ‘And what do you want, Miss Paxton?’

  ‘A quick word.’

  ‘Miss,’ said the sloop’s captain to Minnie, ‘here is the tug. We must move out into the channel before we set our sails.’

  ‘I’m listening,’ said Murdo, to Billie.

  Again Minnie stamped her foot.

  ‘Really, Miss, I must insist,’ said the captain.

  ‘It’s very generous of you, Minnie, to ask me to take an interest in you.’ Murdo was out of patience with her, and with the captain. He wanted to hear what Billie had to say.

  ‘In private,’ Billie added.

  Minnie glared at her, but Billie wouldn’t meet her eyes.

  Minnie spun around and stamped off. The captain followed her for a few steps, apologising. Then he realised he hadn’t managed to evict both young women.

  Billie hunched her shoulders to hide something. She was fumbling with the purse on her belt.

  ‘One moment,’ Murdo told the captain, who looked at him with gratitude as Murdo took Billie’s arm and led her onto the pier, then, from the deck, with dismay as Murdo crossed the pier with Billie, so that they stood at the harbour’s outer wall. Murdo waited for Billie to notice where they were. He had a sudden recollection of himself watching a cat he’d had as a boy and waiting for the moment it discovered that its kittens – five cats too many – had been spirited away. Murdo registered this memory as a moment of conscience, and understood that his curiosity was cruel.

  Billie had finally got her fingers into the overstuffed bag. She pulled out a crumpled wad, comprised of newspaper and a pound note. She said, ‘At a rehearsal the other day Minnie said to Alan, “Don’t you have any respectable shoes?” He doesn’t.’ She put the pound in Murdo’s hand then spread out the newspaper – two pieces of it, the scissored-out shapes of a pair of small feet. ‘I traced his feet. I took my tracings to the shops in Stolnsay, but I was told to make a mail order or to go to Luag.’ Billie put the scraps into Murdo’s hands. ‘They aren’t marked, but you’ll know which is right and which is left. Please, Mr Hesketh. I didn’t want to mention it in front of Minnie. I don’t want to embarrass her.’

  Murdo hesitated; didn’t immediately put the pound and papers in his pocket. He said, ‘A package for Gutthorm’s aunt. A pound for Alan’s shoes.’ He inclined very deliberately against one leg of the steel derrick that stood over the drowned ship. He saw Billie notice the derrick, then look down into the water. Murdo watched her realise, remember, suffer – but she did it all quietly, with resignation. She said, ‘Before – I would have left it to Edith to notice what needed doing, and to do it. I owe it to Edith to do what she would’ve done.’

  ‘I see. You mean to fill your sister’s shoes, so to speak.’ Murdo meant to insinuate, but heard his own voice, tense and harsh.

  Billie stared at him, then said, with implacable patience, ‘To do the kindness Edith would have done.’

  Murdo nodded, pocketed the pound and traced feet and walked away from her, bounded down onto the deck just as the towrope ti
ghtened between the sloop and the tug.

  GEORDIE WENT to the Stolnsay post office and found a package from Andrew Tannoy, the letters he’d asked for, Ian’s to him. Following Geordie’s instructions Tannoy had sent only the recent correspondence. Three years’ worth.

  Geordie opened the package and filled all his pockets, then, as he walked, he began reading from the beginning – Ian’s arrival on the island – looking for any mention of Ingrid Hallow.

  ‘She favours her mother,’ Geordie read. ‘Minnie is less fortunate, she has her father’s brains, but is a noisy, unladylike girl.’ Ian wrote that Rixon had taken to Murdo right away, and had Murdo teach him to shoot; they were often out after grouse. Murdo was in better spirits, but uncharacteristically docile. Clara was a great comfort to Murdo, Ian thought.

  While reading, Geordie had veered to the right, his whole body following the tendency of the words on the page. He was on the promontory road, its ragged right margin. He had got into the weeds, and a nettle caressed his ankle. Geordie jumped in shock, limped to the seawall, and sat down. He pulled up his trouser leg and looked where the nettle had touched, the welts white on his ankle above his drooping sock. He was annoyed with himself – his slipping standards – he’d neglected to put on his garters not just today, but yesterday, the day of the picnic, when he’d lain rucked and rumpled and unseemly against a wall at Ernol.

  Geordie picked a big dock leaf, crushed it, and rubbed its white sap on the welts. Then he opened a few further letters.

  Murdo was warm to Ingrid Hallow. She was the only one of James and Clara’s children he’d met before. When Minnie was a baby her mother had left her with a nurse and come to visit her own mother in Stockholm. She brought Ingrid with her. This was years before Ian was with Murdo, who was then between military school and the King’s Cavalry. His sister Ingrid Hesketh was ten, Ingrid Hallow was four. Murdo told Ian later that his sister had called Ingrid her little fairy – a dark-eyed, wispy, white-haired child in Paris dresses covered in ruffled lace, so that she seemed to carry her own cushion around with her always. Murdo and his sister took Ingrid sledding and skating and to matinees of plays about woodcutters’ daughters who fell in love with wolves. Ingrid doted on Ingrid (while Murdo, showing off to his suddenly solemn cousin Clara, fell from his horse and broke his collarbone, which put an end to the skating and sledding for that visit). Clara couldn’t dance attention on her daughter. She was tired. Rixon was possibly already on the way. ‘Clara only came to talk to her mother,’ Murdo told Ian. Really, he didn’t understand why she hadn’t left Ingrid at home also, except possibly his aunt had insisted Clara bring her eldest granddaughter. ‘Something was up. I can see that now, in hindsight,’ Murdo told Ian. ‘Or – well – Clara and I were once so alike, despite the differences in our ages, so much in sympathy, I can imagine what she’d have felt after several years of marriage.’