Silent Song

by Lucilla Andrews

  Very occasionally, I had wondered if George Farler had vanished from instinct, embarrassment, or the insight evolved from some personal experience. Only very occasionally, as to think of him at all cracked the dam. Someone, and it could have been him, gave me a quote to remember: ‘Grief is the agony of the moment. The indulgence of grief is the blunder of a lifetime.’

  Elspeth refilled my sherry. ‘No use offering you one, Hamish?’

  ‘Not with a Caesar lined up directly I get back. I’ll make up for it tonight.’ Hamish smiled at me. ‘You’ve given us the excuse to celebrate Hogmanay properly for the first time in years. You’ve heard we’ve dumped the kids and accepted the lot! First the dinner with our classy neighbours, and then we’ll away on to the medic party. That’ll be as crowded as Murrayfield for an International, but should be good value. Just now at the hospital they were asking, what’s your English friend like? Ach, well, I said, you’ve to remember she’s a trained nurse and English ‒ and we all know what English trained nurses are like.’

  I laughed. ‘Hamish, you haven’t changed!’

  ‘You have, my dear. The chubby bonnie lassie has turned into a knock-out. How’s she done it, Elspeth?’

  ‘Cut her hair, shed over a stone, and been fed champagne by an amorous Australian on the flight up.’

  ‘Not amorous, Elspeth. Just gently sloshed.’

  They gave me a long, sober, very Scottish look. ‘Next,’ observed Hamish gravely, ‘she’ll tell us there’s a Santa Claus.’

  I had a different problem on my mind. ‘This dinner. Won’t I wreck the numbers?’

  ‘On the contrary, our neighbour Mrs Mackenzie nearly fell on my neck yesterday afternoon when she came over to see if there was any hope of our getting a last-minute babysitter and heard you’d be with us. She has an extra man. Two nephews have driven up unexpectedly for the week-end, one’s engaged or something, but she has the other on her hands. She wants us over at eight, for eight-thirty. That’ll give us plenty of time as the medic party won’t get started till after midnight.’

  ‘Only then? How long does it last?’

  ‘Until the booze runs out. Could be before morning,’ said Hamish, ‘as this is Edinburgh. In the Highlands a good Hogmanay party can go on for a couple of days and nights. I much doubt in his youth Mr Mackenzie would’ve settled for a douce early dinner.’

  ‘He’s a Highlander?’

  ‘With an English wife.’

  ‘If you ask me,’ said Elspeth, ‘Mr Mackenzie has long settled for doing as his wife tells him. Not that he doesn’t appear to thrive on it. They’ve no kids, so keep open house for their young relatives. We don’t know them well ‒’

  ‘Nor move in their financial circle,’ put in Hamish, ‘but they’re most pleasant neighbours. We’ve only met them since we moved in here in March. Mr Mackenzie’s in oil, or natural gas ‒ I forget which. A man of substance and good sense, even if he married an Englishwoman.’

  ‘Hamish, dear, do you have the number of the Race Relations Board?’

  He offered me his diary. ‘Never move without it!’

  I enjoyed being with them again so much I was sorry I had left it for so long. We weren’t so much picking up old threads as going straight on with the conversation. Then I realized this couldn’t have happened had I not left it, since there had been months, if not a year or so, when I had been unable to talk anything but ‘shop’.

  Officially Hamish was off at five for the week-end. It was twenty to eight when he got back. Fifteen minutes later he had showered, shaved, and was adjusting his black tie in the hall mirror. ‘You look very nice, Anne.’

  ‘Thank you. And you. How was the Caesar?’

  ‘Just fine for mum and laddie. Dad passed out cold. We brought him round with the old “You’ll live, man. We’ve never lost a father yet”.’ His plain face lit up as Elspeth joined us. She looked unusually pretty in a long, cream lace dress and multi-coloured stole. ‘The wee wifie’s doing me proud.’

  Affectionately, she flicked a speck from his shoulder. ‘You don’t look so bad yourself, Dr Grant.’

  From force of old habit with married chums at certain moments, I drifted back to the spare room, re-checked my appearance, decided midnight blue wasn’t my colour as it made me too pale but what the hell. I had packed the dress purely as a social precaution as, though long, being voile, it was very light. Elspeth yesterday hadn’t mentioned even the possibility of tonight’s parties and I had expected a domestic week-end. Being long over the anti-social stage I was quite amused by the prospect of the medical, if not the dinner party. As do most unattached girls I often found myself asked at the last minute to pair an extra man. On past showing one glance explained why he was extra. For a not inexplicable reason when hostesses found themselves landed with the type of extra man perfectly capable of getting himself a woman, they generally preferred to suffer an uneven dinner table.

  The Mackenzies were both very tall, very thin and in late middle age. Mr Mackenzie had a gentle, humorous, high-cheekboned face, and bowed over my hand. ‘It’s a great pleasure to welcome you to Edinburgh, Mrs Dorland.’ He said it as if I had made his night. Momentarily, he made mine.

  Mrs Mackenzie was from Yorkshire. ‘Still miss the riding, m’dear, after thirty-six years.’ She hurled a silver stole over her black velvet shoulder, and took a brisk, no-nonsense look round as if to assure herself all her guests had drinks in hand before nipping out to give the mare she had left tethered to a crescent lamp-post a good rub down. She had never been pretty, but had a cheerful, sensible face. She removed me firmly from the Grants. ‘I like m’guests to circulate, m’dear. The good doctor and his pretty wife should know all present as we’re all neighbours. So difficult for you, poor gel, the one stranger. Dreadful having to stand around pretending to enjoy it when one’d much rather take the dog for a walk. Come and admire my tree!’ She marched me to the great bay windows of a first-floor drawing-room that could have taken my entire flat. ‘Rather decent tree, don’t you think? The boys did it last night. Wouldn’t use any of my glass balls or plastic snow ‒ turned up their artistic noses. Just the stars, fronds and lights, they said. Left ’em to it! No artistic talent myself and just as well with so much of it in the family. I’m sorry you can’t meet both tonight.’ She re-hurled her stole with such force it caught in the tree. ‘Thanks, m’dear! So upsetting for the guests to see the hostess strangling. As I was saying ‒ the English boy can’t be with us as he already had a date ‒ charming gel, so pretty, in medicine, much too clever, poor child! Not that I’ve anything against brains. Used to wish I’d some. Not so sure now. Very clever people so often lack nous and nous can be a great deal more useful. Now, you’re Anne, aren’t you? You don’t object ‒ no ‒ not a gel your age! How long since you lost your husband ‒ no ‒ no ‒ shouldn’t have put it that way ‒ sounds so careless. Four years? Tch, tch, tch. Bad show. Poor child and you can’t have been much more. Not married again yet? Oh, shows you’re not yet ready. Very sensible to take your time! Where is that boy?’ She peered around. ‘Typical Highlander! Be late for his own funeral! Ah, there!’ She beamed, beckoned, and had so enchanted me that I had forgotten my gloom over the extra man until I saw him. ‘Anne, m’dear, let me introduce our Scottish nephew, Alistair Cameron. I should add, when not togged up like a gay young peacock, Alistair works for a London newspaper.’

  Alistair Cameron was a slighter, younger and near black-haired edition of his uncle. His eyes all but disappeared in the same way when he smiled. ‘If you’ll forgive me, Aunt Helen, you shouldn’t.’

  ‘Have I said the wrong thing? Of course!’ She turned to me. ‘The boys explained last night ‒ so disconcerting when one’s favourite words suddenly take on four-letter connotations. Or shouldn’t it be five letters, Alistair? No ‒ don’t tell me. Your uncle wouldn’t like it! Now, what haven’t I told you ‒ never mind ‒ you’ll find out better without me and I must see to the rest. Much enjoyed our little chat, Ann! Delightful to have you
with us!’

  I nearly clung to her stole and begged to be allowed to take the dog for a walk to give me time to recover from the shock of discovering there was a Santa Claus. In an old sweater and jeans Alistair Cameron would have been one of the most attractive men I had come across. In full Highland evening dress he was out of this world. Then I noticed he was watching me as if he had had a similar shock. We made polite small talk, but for some minutes I had the definite impression I was the only one actually listening to what we said. Possibly as I liked his lilting voice. He had more of a Scottish intonation than accent and he didn’t sound anything like an Englishman.

  ‘Your first visit? And what do you think of Edinburgh? In the unlikely event that you’ve managed a wee glimpse now December has laid her black shroud over the city?’

  ‘I wouldn’t have called today shrouded. Bit dull, perhaps.’

  ‘Typical English understatement. We Scots, however, accept life for the sad, serious affair it is. Man is here to mourn. It’s nae so bad it canna be worse ‒ and if that doesn’t take the smile off your face, just you wait! I can keep this up all night.’ Suddenly his smile dropped off like a theatre mask. ‘What am I saying? What can I say but I am so sorry!’

  ‘Forget it. Tell me some more. I think they’re fun.’

  I did not yet know if I liked him, but I liked very much his acceptance of the situation without further embarrassment and the way he had forgotten his previous briefing that I was a widow. It was such a relief, if only for a few minutes, to be viewed without the label, that I wondered momentarily if in future I should leave off my wedding ring while at the same time knew very well I would never do that as long as my name was Anne Dorland.

  Alistair was explaining how he was in Edinburgh. ‘I worked over Christmas and didn’t know I’d have these days off till the night before last when they said as I’m a Scot they thought I’d want to get home and as I’ve to be in Glasgow Tuesday, I’d better go. I dwelt not upon the order of my going, packed a bag, rushed round to my cousin and hitched a lift up. Having no idea Aunt Helen would be laying on a black-tie affair tonight, I forgot to pack one, but fortunately was up here last month to be best man for an old friend and left this ‒’ he flipped his lace jabot with an elegant hand ‘ ‒ in the second spare room upstairs. Hence the statutory dark-avised Highlander for Hogmanay. No home should be without. And having given you my life and hard times ‒ may I ask what fortunate chance brought you here?’

  I told him about Sister Cardiac’s coming family wedding and saw his expression quicken when I named Martha’s. ‘You know my hospital?’

  ‘Very well by repute. It also, by one of those strange coincidences ‒’ he paused oddly ‒ ‘happens to be on the shortest route between my London flat and Heathrow.’

  I looked at him, thoughtfully. I could have been wrong but had the impression he had been about to say something else after that pause. ‘You never use Gatwick?’

  ‘I have this great affection for the Chiswick flyover.’

  ‘You fly a lot?’

  He told me quite a bit about his job and as he clearly loved it, I found him very interesting, amusing and restfully undemanding. I enjoyed that dinner party much more than I had anticipated and was pleased, if unsurprised, to hear he was coming on with us to the late party.

  ‘Hamish would’ve asked him in any event.’ Elspeth powdered her face when we retreated to put on our coats. ‘But he said just now Alistair Cameron looked ready to twist his arm had he not done so. You like him, Anne?’

  ‘Who wouldn’t in that gear? Come on. They said our taxi had come before we came up.’

  In the taxi Alistair handed me a minute bit of coal in an old envelope. ‘Put that in your bag. All the best first-footers bring coal.’

  There was just enough light to see he had added a phone number to his address on the envelope. I smiled slightly and mostly at myself. ‘Thanks.’

  A few minutes later I could have been back on Martha’s territory.

  That party was held in the ground-floor flat shared by some registrars from one of the general hospitals. The huge front room had been cleared for dancing, the walls lined with an assortment of aged sofas and chairs, and the dimmed lights and record-player were being organized by a hairy posse of medic students. With the exception of Alistair, every man present was in medicine and it was easy to sort out those qualified, by their slightly shorter and much cleaner hair and beardless chins. Every girl I spoke to was either a nurse or a doctor.

  Alistair briefly stopped the show by being the one man in the kilt. He took the admiring and bawdy comments with a rather impressive, good-humoured dignity, and danced only with Elspeth and myself. When we were dancing with others, he stood watching from the sidelines. After those other dances, all my partners said much the same: ‘Guess I’ll have to hand you back to your Highlander or from the look in his eyes, he’ll raise the clans.’

  That amused me so much I wondered if I were more of a little woman at heart than I realized, or just enjoying acting the little woman as much as I suspected Alistair was enjoying acting the proprietary male.

  I was surprised by the number of Englishmen present until one explained they were all from St Benedict’s, the teaching hospital directly across the Thames from Martha’s, and the long connection between Benedict’s and Edinburgh. ‘We’ve had a colony up here since one of our chaps followed Lister first to Glasgow then here.’ He looked round, put names to faces, then exchanged smiles with a very pretty, petite blonde in a black evening trouser suit who had just arrived. ‘See Ruth Hawkins talking to that tall, fair, guy with his back to us? Came up in May. Medical registrar. Qualified ‒ oh ‒ year or two before I did. And you’re Martha’s. Where? Cardiac Unit? I say ‒ did you come across a chap we sent you last December? Chap who stopped an airgun pellet with his heart without stopping the heart? You did? How’d he do?’

  ‘Very well. We sent him up to Heart-Lung and the surgeons got it out.’

  ‘Thought they would. Do you have much to do with the surgical side?’

  ‘Not personally. I’m a staff in Coronary Care, (the cardiac intensive care unit). Fairly often we send our patients up for surgery, and then, of course, with very rare exceptions that’s the last we see of them. After the post-op stage they come down to a general ward.’

  ‘How do they do on balance? Well?’ he suggested gloomily.

  ‘Mostly.’

  ‘They would. Goes against the grain for a Benedict’s man to admit it, but we haven’t a heart-lung surgeon to touch your Roseburn.’ (Mr Roseburn was the consultant surgeon who was the leader and founder of Martha’s Heart-Lung Surgical Unit and operating team.) ‘If he doesn’t lead the world, he’s up in the front row. I was rather hoping to get in a post-grad with him,’ continued my partner, ‘but I got married, this job up here came up and as my wife’s a Scot ‒ you know how these things happen.’

  I said I did as the record ended.

  Alistair was at my elbow. ‘If I don’t rescue you from all these medics you’ll think yourself back on the job. Do they never talk anything but gruesome shop? Standing listening has turned the stomach of one who was once a junior reporter in Glasgow.’ Another record began. ‘Come and recapture the lost magic ‒ och no!’ Someone had fused the lights but not the record-player. ‘Never fear! Leave it to Cat’s-Eyes Cameron.’

  A few candles had been produced when a girl called, ‘Happy New Year, Alistair!’

  ‘And the same to you both, Ruth!’ Alistair drew me closer, rested his cheek against mine. He was a good dancer and, as he only just cleared my five-eight and heels, easy to follow. ‘My cousin’s dinner date,’ he said into my ear. ‘I thought they’d show up.’

  ‘Do you want to join them?’

  ‘Not just now, thank you. I’d much rather dance with you. Do you mind?’

  ‘Not at all.’

  ‘Fine.’ He kissed my cheek. ‘Just fine.’

  It was very late and the schmaltzy waltz and candlelight cont
ributed to the sensation of delightful unreality pervading me. The fuse was repaired and the lights were returned to their former dim level, without disturbing my mood. Consequently, it took me a little time to register another and less pleasant sensation. It was that sensation of being watched by an unseen observer. At first, I dismissed this as the normal curiosity of some sitter-out and almost certainly directed more at Alistair than myself. As it persisted after we sat down, I took a good look round the room.

  Temporarily the dancing had stopped, but a few couples were still standing around. Then two moved from the side of the room and I saw a face on the fairish man now sitting with Ruth Hawkins on a small sofa, and did a double-take. For a few moments, the man and I looked at each other and I smelt the steaming tarmac and felt the throb of the plane’s engines warming up.

  Civilization took over. I smiled mechanically. George Farler did the same.

  Chapter Two

  ‘That’s your cousin with Ruth Hawkins? Ask them over man!’ Hamish bounced up. ‘I’m not missing out on kissing the bonniest physician I’ve ever set eyes on!’

  The orgy of kissing and handshaking only lasted a few minutes. It seemed longer. Then Hamish danced with Dr Hawkins, Alistair with Elspeth, George Farler with me. I wasn’t clear how that happened as I was feeling too sick to notice.

  The music remained schmaltzy and we circled decorously. He wasn’t a good dancer. He was too stiff and his hold was too light for his height. At first, we kept to the dinner party, politely, casually, as strangers making small talk. ‘Ruth and I were sorry to have to miss it. I’m glad it went so well.’

  ‘Very.’ I watched his chin as it was my eye-level and felt him watching my face.

  ‘I didn’t realize you were one of Aunt Helen’s guests as no-one told me your name.’