Under Gemini

by Rosamunde Pilcher

  She remembered Antony telling her about Tarbole—how only a short time ago it had been simply a small fishing village, but lately it had become the center of a vast herring industry. Inevitably, all that prosperity had left its mark. As she came down the road from Fernrigg, Flora passed the new school which had been built to accommodate the growing population of Tarbole children. Council houses spread up the hill behind the town, and not only fish lorries, but cars as well, choked the narrow streets around the harbor.

  After driving Mr. Reekie’s van around in circles for five minutes, Flora finally parked it in front of the bank beside a sign which said, Parking Strictly Forbidden. She did her shopping—which did not take long, since most of the purchases were made in the same shop—and then without much difficulty found the post office. She bought a stamp which she stuck onto the envelope addressed to her father, and then hesitated only for a moment before dropping it into the box. She heard it land with a fat thud and stood for a moment, not sure whether she felt glad or sorry that it was actually gone, out of her hands, beyond control. She thought of her father receiving it, reading it first to himself, and then perhaps aloud to Marcia. Knowing Marcia would be with him made all the difference. Everything would seem less dramatic, and he would perhaps not think too badly of Flora. More important, Marcia would not let him think badly of himself.

  She made her way back to the car, but as she came around the corner was horrified to see a young constable standing waiting beside it. She began to run, meaning to apologize, beg for mercy, get into the car, and race away, but when she reached him, he only said, “You’ll be a friend of Mrs. Armstrong of Fernrigg?”

  Flora was taken aback. “Yes, I am.”

  “I thought I recognized the wee car.”

  “I am sorry, I thought…”

  “Have you more errands to do?”

  “Yes. I’ve got to deliver a pie to Dr. Kyle. And then I’ve got to get Jason from school.”

  “If you’re going to Dr. Kyle’s house, you’d be better to walk up the hill and leave the van here. Don’t be worrying, I’ll keep an eye on it.”

  “Oh. Thank you.”

  He opened the door for her, in a most courteous fashion. She tipped the parcels onto the seat and extracted the pie. The young constable smiled down at her benevolently.

  “You … you couldn’t tell me where he lives?”

  “Up the hill, out of the town. It’s the last house on the left, just before you get to the hotel. It has a garden in the front, and Dr. Kyle’s plate on the gate.”

  “Thank you so much.”

  The young constable smiled, bashful. “You’re welcome,” he said.

  The hill out of the town was very steep, so steep that the pavement had been graded into steps. It was a little like climbing a long, shallow flight of stairs. At first there were small terraced cottages flush with the street, and then a pub, and then more cottages. The houses became larger, each set in its own little garden. Finally, near the top of the climb Flora came to the last house of all, which was bigger than any of them, solid and unadorned, set back from the road, with a tiled path that led up from the gate to the porch. It had a white concrete building attached to its side which looked rather like an enormous shoebox. Though she did not need that last assurance, Flora inspected the wrought iron gate, and there was the brass plate with Hugh Kyle’s name upon it. Thinking that it could do with a good buffing, Flora opened the gate and went up the sloping path to the front door.

  She rang the bell, but as soon as she heard the mournful tinkle from the back of the house she knew that there was nobody in. The pie, after her climb up the hill, was beginning to become very heavy. She rang again for politeness’ sake, and then reached up as Mrs. Watty had bid her, to feel for the front door key. It was a large one, easily found, and Flora inserted it into the keyhole, turned it, and opened the door.

  Inside was a tiled hall, a staircase rising into gloom, and a smell like that of old antique shops, rather musty but quite pleasant. She went in, leaving the door open behind her. She saw the old-fashioned hatstand with a place for umbrellas, the pretty little inlaid table, the white painted wrought-iron banister. Everything was very dusty. There was a clock, but it had stopped. She wondered if it was broken or if nobody had remembered to wind it—or had the time to wind it.

  There was a door on her right which she opened to find the most unlived-in-looking living room she’d ever seen, with nothing out of place, not a flower to be seen, and the blinds half-drawn. She closed that door and opened the one opposite to reveal a ponderous Victorian dining room. The table was mahogany and massive, and there was a sideboard of matching proportions ranged with decanters and silver wine-slides. All the chairs had been placed around the room against the wall, and here again the blinds were half-drawn. It had, thought Flora, all the cheer of a funeral parlor. Quietly, not wanting to disturb any ghosts, she closed that door and went down the hall toward the back regions of the house in search of the kitchen.

  Here the deathly order ceased abruptly. It was not a large kitchen. In fact, for the size of the house it was quite small, but even so every available horizontal space had collected a formidable amount of clutter. Saucepans, frying pans, casseroles were all piled on the draining board; the sink was stacked with dirty dishes, and the table in the middle of the room bore witness to a snatched meal—not a very appetizing one at that, unless one happened to enjoy cornflakes, fried eggs, and fruitcake all at the same time. The final touch was the half-empty bottle of whisky which stood in the middle of the table. For some reason it loaded the sad disorder of the scene with potential disaster.

  The refrigerator was in a corner by the cooker. Flora started towards it, tripped over the torn corner of a rug, and almost fell flat on her face. Inspecting the rug, she saw that the floor was dirty. It didn’t look as though it had been swept for a week, let alone scrubbed.

  She opened the fridge and quickly stowed away the pie before more horrors should offend her eye. Shutting the door, she turned and leaned against it, surveying the shambles as a number of thoughts ran through her mind. The most obvious was that Jessie McKenzie was a dirty slut and the sooner Hugh got rid of her the better. No man, however, feckless, could have got a kitchen into such a mess in a matter of days.

  She looked at it hopelessly and her heart ached for him, and at the same time she knew that he would be mortified beyond words if he found out that Flora had seen it all. With this in mind, her instinct was to tiptoe tactfully away and let him think it was Watty who had delivered the pie.

  Besides, she had to fetch Jason from school. Flora looked at her watch and discovered that it was only a quarter to three. She had an hour before she was due at the school. What could she do with the time? Walk around the harbor? Have a cup of coffee in Sandy’s Snack Bar? But of course she would do none of these things, because even while she was considering them, she pulled off her gloves, unbuttoned her coat, hung it on the peg behind the door, and rolled up her sleeves. You fool, she told herself and searched for an apron. She found one slung by the sink, a blue butcher’s apron, designed for a man and much too large for her. She tied it twice about her waist, found a dishcloth and turned on the hot tap. The water was boiling, and she told herself that this was the one good thing that happened since she walked into this benighted house.

  In a cupboard below the sink she found, somewhat unexpectedly, a sturdy scrubbing brush, quantities of soap powder and a packet of steel wool. (It seemed that Jessie McKenzie had good intentions, even if she didn’t carry them through.) These she made lavish use of. When it came to putting things away, Flora simply piled the clean dishes out of sight, hung cups and jugs on hooks, then turned her attention to the pile of saucepans. By the time she had finished they were not only clean but also shining, and when she had placed them nearly ordered as to size, on the shelf over the cooker, they looked not only businesslike but attractive. Once she had achieved a clean and empty sink, the transformation of Hugh Kyle’s kitchen too
k a surprisingly short time. She cleared the table, threw away the stale fruit cake, placed the whisky bottle tactfully out of sight, and shook the crumbs from the tablecloth. She wiped the table and various counters with a damp cloth. Everything shone. There is nothing in life so satisfying as rendering a very dirty room totally clean. Flora by now was enjoying herself. There remained only the floor. She checked the time and as it was only twenty past three, she took up the torn rug, bundled it out of the back door, and searched for a broom. That and a dustpan came to light in a dank cupboard which smelled of boot polish and mice. She swept the floor free of what appeared to be months of dirt, filled a bucket with boiling water and suds, and got down to work.

  Three buckets and half a packet of soap powder later, she had just about finished. The linoleum shone wet, smelt clean, and revealed a pattern of brown and blue tiles, unexpectedly fresh and pretty. Only a dark cavern beneath the draining board remained, and into this Flora plunged head-first, by now so enthusiastic that she didn’t even quail at the thought of mousedroppings or cobwebs or possible scuttling spiders. As her scrubbing brush scraped and banged against the wainscoting, the small enclosed space grew thick with steam. At last she laid down the brush, wrung out the cloth, and wiped away the last of the suds.

  It was finished. Flora backed out from under the draining board and was just about to get to her feet when she noticed, through the legs of the kitchen table, planted fair and square in the middle of her clean floor, another pair of feet; brown leather shoes with rubber soles; the bottoms of tweed trousers. Sitting back on her heels, her gaze traveled slowly upward until it finally came to rest on Hugh Kyle’s astonished face.

  It was hard to say which of them was the more surprised. Then abruptly, Flora said, “Oh, damn.”

  “What’s that for?”

  “I hoped you wouldn’t come back.”

  He did not comment on this, simply stared about him, completely bewildered. “What the hell are you doing?”

  She was annoyed at being found out, not because of the lowly nature of her task, but because Hugh would be stupidly offended by her interference, and doubtless turn stuffy and dour. “What do you think I’m doing? I’m scrubbing the floor.”

  “But you shouldn’t be doing that.”

  “Why not? It was dirty.”

  He looked about him, taking in the sparkling shelves and counters, the shining sink, the squared-off order of saucepans and crockery. His eyes came back to her face. He still looked bewildered. He put up a hand to rub the back of his neck, the very picture of a man at a loss for words.

  “I must say, that’s extraordinarily kind of you, Rose. Thank you very much.”

  She did not want him to feel too grateful. She said, lightly, “It’s a pleasure.”

  “But I still don’t understand. Why are you here?”

  “Mrs. Watty cooked a pie for you and she asked me to deliver it. It’s in the fridge.” A thought occurred to her. “I never heard you come in.”

  “The front door was open.”

  “Oh, heavens, I forgot to shut it.”

  Her hair had fallen across her face. She pushed it back with her wrist and stood up. The huge apron drooped damply around her legs. She picked up the bucket, emptied it down the drain, wrung out the cloth, and slung the lot into the cupboard beneath the sink. She shut the door and turned to face him, rolling down her sleeves.

  “You have a useless housekeeper,” she told him, bluntly. “You should get someone else to look after you.”

  “Jessie does her best. It’s just that she’s been away. She had to go to Portree to see her mother.”

  “When is she coming back?”

  “I don’t know. Tomorrow or maybe the next day.”

  “Well, you should give her notice and find somebody else.” She felt brutal, but she was annoyed with him, because no man had the right to look so tired. “It’s ridiculous. You’re the doctor in this town. There must be somebody who’d help you. What about your nurse, the one who works in the surgery?”

  “She’s a married woman with three children to look after. She has more than enough to do.”

  “But wouldn’t she know somebody who could come and work for you?”

  Hugh shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said.

  She had seen that he was tired, but now she realized that at this moment he not only didn’t know, he didn’t care, whether anybody could find him a new housekeeper or not. She began to regret having attacked him, nagging at him like some discontented wife.

  She said, more gently, “You know, you surprised me just as much as I must have surprised you. Where did you suddenly appear from?”

  He looked around for something to sit on, saw the chairs which Flora had piled in a corner, and went to pick one up and set it by the side of the table.

  “Lochgarry,” he told her, settling back with his legs crossed and his hands in his pockets. “I’ve been to the hospital. I’ve been to see Angus McKay.”

  “Is that the old man you told me about who lived up Loch Fhada? The one who fell down the stairs?”

  Hugh nodded.

  “He finally agreed to go to the hospital then?”

  “Yes. He finally agreed. Or should I say, he was finally persuaded.”

  “By you?”

  “Yes. By me. The ambulance went out to Boturich and collected him this morning. I went over to see him this afternoon. He’s in a ward with five other old men, all staring at the opposite wall and waiting for death, and he doesn’t even know what’s hit him. I dispensed the usual dose of hearty good cheer, but he just lay there and looked at me. Like an old dog. I felt like a murderer.”

  “But you mustn’t feel like that. It’s not your fault. You said yourself that his daughter-in-law was at the end of her tether having to take care of him. And so far out in the country and everything. And he might have fallen downstairs again, or had some even worse accident. Anything could have happened.”

  He let her say all this without interrupting. When she finished speaking, he was silent for a little, watching her from beneath his heavy brows. Then he said, “He’s old, Rose. He’s frail and confused and now we’ve uprooted him. That’s a monstrous thing to do to any man. He was born at Boturich, his father farmed Boturich before him, and his grandfather. Angus brought his wife back to Boturich, and his children were born there. And now, at the end of the day, when we have no more use for him, we cart him off and stow him away, out of sight and out of mind, and leave him to be cared for by strangers.”

  Flora was astonished that he, a doctor, should allow himself to become so emotionally involved. “But that’s the way things are. You can’t change things like that. You can’t stop people’s growing old.”

  “But you see, Angus isn’t people. Angus is part of me, part of my growing up. My father was a busy doctor, and he didn’t manage to find much time to spend with a small boy, so on fine Saturdays I used to bicycle fifteen miles each way up Loch Fhada to Boturich to see Angus McKay. He was a tall, rangy man, strong as an ox, and I thought he knew everything. He did too, about birds and foxes and hares, and where to find the fattest trout, and how to tie a fly that not the wiliest salmon could resist. I thought he was the wisest being in the world. All powerful. Like God. And we’d go fishing together, or up the hill with a spyglass, and he’d show me where the golden eagles were nesting.”

  Flora smiled, liking the picture of the old man and the boy together. “How old were you then?”

  “About ten. A little bit older than Jason.”

  Jason. Flora had forgotten Jason. She looked at her watch, and then, in a panic, began to untie the strings of the apron. “I must fly. I’m meant to be fetching Jason from school. He’ll think he’s been forgotten.”

  “I was rather hoping you’d make me a cup of tea.”

  “I haven’t got time. I’m meant to be there at a quarter to four and it’s twenty to now.”

  “Supposing I call the headmaster and tell him to hang on to Jason for a bi
t.”

  Such a reaction on his part was unexpected. Why, thought Flora, he’s really trying to be nice to me. She laid down the apron. “Won’t Jason mind?”

  “He won’t mind.” Hugh got to his feet. “They’ve a train set up at the school and if the boys are good, they’re allowed to play with it. He’ll jump at the chance of getting it to himself.” He went out into the hall, leaving the door open. Flora stood where she was, staring after him. She had discovered that it is disconcerting when someone whom you think you have neatly pigeonholed starts acting out of character. She heard him dialing the school. She turned to fill the kettle, and put it on to boil. Hugh’s voice came down the hall.

  “Hello, Mr. Fraser? Dr. Kyle speaking. Have you got young Jason Armstrong there? Would you be so kind as to hold on to him for another fifteen minutes or so. Antony’s young lady’s on her way to fetch him and take him back to Fernrigg, but she’s going to be held up. Well, if you want the truth, she’s just about to make me a cup of tea. Yes, she’s here. Well, that would be very civil of you. Thank you. We’ll be here when he comes. Tell him not to bother to ring the bell, but just walk in. We’ll be in the kitchen. Very well. I’m obliged to you. Goodbye, Mr. Fraser.”

  She heard him put down the receiver, and the next moment he appeared back in the kitchen.

  “That’s all settled. One of the junior masters is going to bring Jason down in his car and drop him off at the gate.”

  “Does that mean he won’t get to play with the train set?”

  Hugh went to fetch a second chair from the corner. “I wouldn’t know.”

  Flora had found a teapot with a broken spout, a jug of milk in the fridge, and a couple of old, pretty Wedgwood mugs.

  “I don’t know where the sugar is, or the tea.”