Bird of Passage

by Catherine Czerkawska

  ‘What kind of client?’ she asked, wondering if it was anybody famous.

  ‘Just somebody looking for a countryside retreat. He saw this place advertised and thought it might fit the bill.’

  ‘Not a farmer then.’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Well you can tell him from me, it won’t be what he expects.’

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘Because it never is, that’s why. I can tell you right now, he’ll find it too cold, too muddy, and not half civilised enough. You’ll be doing him a favour if you tell him to forget all about it. Find him a nice cottage in the Cotswolds. That’ll be more his style.’

  Grainger looked round the kitchen and cleared his throat. ‘Will you be needing all of your furniture, Mr Galbreath?’

  ‘I can’t take all of it with me, if that’s what you mean,’ said Alasdair. ‘Not to a house that size.’

  ‘It’s just that we could perhaps negotiate a price to include whatever furniture you want to leave. If he decides to take things further, of course.’

  Kirsty looked at her grandfather. ‘I suppose you might be able to leave some stuff here, grandad? Better than storing it at Ealachan. Mind you, it would have to be a separate sale; the furniture doesn’t belong to the estate.’ She frowned at the young man. ‘I know that sounds a bit odd, but I’m only here for my grandad’s sake. It’s been his home all his life, you know. And mine too. He doesn’t really want to leave.’

  ‘It must be quite a wrench.’ He seemed taken aback by Kirsty’s forthright declaration.

  ‘Yes. It is.’

  She felt sorry for him. After all, none of this was his fault.

  ‘What’s he like then, this client of yours?’

  ‘To tell you the absolute truth, I’ve never met him. He dealt with my boss. I’ll report back to him and, no doubt, he’ll tell the prospective purchaser all about the place. But it’ll only be one of a whole portfolio of properties he’ll be considering. That’s usually what happens.’

  ‘Oh well.’ She stood up, looking down at her grandad. Her heart ached for him. ‘Do you want to see anything else?’

  ‘No, thank-you. I’ve had a good tour of the house, and that’s all I need really.’ Kirsty saw that they had made him very uncomfortable and felt a pang of guilt.

  ‘What a lovely picture,’ he said, staring at the wall behind Kirsty’s head.

  She looked round and saw her own painting of Dunshee, with Hill Top Town behind. She had painted it in spring, exaggerating the dilapidation. The house was falling down but it looked as though it were falling into drifts of primroses and violets and bluebells, sinking slowly into swathes of yellow and purple that bruised the very land it stood on.

  ‘My grand-daughter’s work.’ Alasdair nodded proudly at Kirsty.

  ‘It’s very beautiful. Quite disturbing really. Tell me – you’re Kirsty Galbreath. I mean, the Kirsty Galbreath, aren’t you?’

  Kirsty used her own name on her paintings. As always, she was faintly embarrassed by praise of her work.

  ‘Why, have you seen my paintings before?’

  ‘Yes. In fact, we have one at home. It’s called Machair. My wife loves it. Well, I love it too. I bought it for her when we got married.’

  ‘I’m glad you like it. I’d better take you back to Ealachan. You’ll want to speak to my husband before you go.’

  ‘Yes please.’ He shook hands with Alasdair. ‘Thank-you very much for your time, Mr Galbreath.’

  To her considerable surprise, the sale went through. Dunshee was sold to a firm of solicitors with an address in Glasgow’s West End. Nicolas knew that this was a ‘back to back’ arrangement – the solicitor would instantly sell the property on to his client. He found this suspicious and wondered if there might be some business rivalry involved, but couldn’t fathom why any company would want to buy such a run-down farm, even as a toe-hold on the island. The planning regulations were too stringent to allow any unsuitable development. He decided that the buyer was simply obsessively secretive: a minor celebrity with delusions of grandeur. Besides, he badly needed the money. Under Scottish Law the sale became binding, once the offer was made and accepted. A formal entry date in October was set, though the cash for the property was paid immediately. The new owner would be visiting in September and he had asked that Kirsty’s grandfather should remain at the house, at least until after the visit.

  ‘Very strange to buy first and view later. He must be quite mad,’ said Nicolas.

  ‘But his money’s good?’

  ‘Oh yes, his money is very, very good.’

  ‘Then what do you have to complain about?’

  ‘Nothing. Just so long as he doesn’t have anything to complain about either. But if he’s coming soon, I won’t be here you know. I’m going to be in the States. Can you manage on your own?’

  ‘I’m sure I can. Everything’s arranged. There are only a few details to finalise.’

  ‘I hate to land you in it, but I can’t avoid this trip you know.’

  ‘It’s alright, Nick. Besides, it’s probably better if it’s me who deals with him. It’s going to be very difficult for my grandad. You know that.’

  ‘Alasdair will be fine, once he’s installed in the new place. He’ll wonder why he didn’t move years ago.’

  ‘So he’s not to pack anything up until after the new owner has been and had a look at it?’

  ‘That’s what he said.’

  ‘ Do you think he’s going to make him an offer for the contents?’

  ‘Oh Christine,’ said Nicolas, shaking his head in disbelief. ‘There’s nothing very special up at Dunshee. I can’t see it. Can you?’

  He was happy to have the house off his hands. The contents were really none of his business. Nor was the buyer.

  Later that week, and just before Nicolas was due to leave on his trip to America, the solicitor phoned again to arrange his client’s visit. He would be coming over on an early ferry and spending only one day on the island.

  ‘Let’s hope he’s married with children,’ said Nicolas. ‘Somebody suitable for the girls to play with when they’re at home.’

  ‘They would have to be suitable, wouldn’t they Nick?’

  ‘Well. You know what I mean.’

  ‘Let’s hope he lives up to your expectations.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY NINE

  In the conservatory at Ealachan, Kirsty was waiting for Dunshee’s new owner. She was watching the clock, hearing its steady beat and the ‘ting’ as it struck the quarter hours, and she was visualising the ferry pulling in to the harbour. She found Nick’s absence a relief, but India was away at school in St Andrews now, and Kirsty missed her all the time. She poured herself another mug of coffee. Flora had already left for school. She had become very concerned about her clothes recently, spending all her pocket money on fashion magazines, but she was always forgetting things: her sweatshirt, her gym bag, her hairslide. She was so sweet natured and apologetic that it was hard to be cross with her. Kirsty felt that she was fending off the day when Flora too would be sent away.

  Before he left for the States, Nicolas had gone up to the farm accompanied by one of the gardeners, and they had moved a couple of decrepit vehicles and several heaps of scrap metal from the yard. Most of the animals had been sold off to neighbouring farmers, although a few remained, including the old horse and a small flock of sheep, which Alasdair couldn’t bring himself to part with. Jess, the arthritic collie, would go with him to his new house. There were a couple of semi-feral cats, which would just have to stay, since they had resisted all attempts to catch them. Alasdair had also kept a few chickens which he intended to house in the tiny back garden of his new bungalow, though his neighbours didn’t know it yet.

  ‘If the worst comes to the worst, we could always find room for the chickens here,’ said Nicolas.

  Kirsty had also been up to the farm and had filled half a dozen black bin bags with old newspapers, cardboard boxes, anonym
ous bits of plastic which Alasdair had been hoarding for God knows what purpose, alongside out-of-date packets and tins from the bathroom and kitchen cupboards. She had found a forgotten cache of her mother’s medicines at the back of a drawer: eleven year old tubes of ointment, bottles of sinister-looking liquid, medications that had done no good at all.

  That morning, Kirsty had already phoned her grandfather to make sure that he was up and about, the house spic and span, the range lit and the kettle boiled.

  ‘Aye,’ he said, in answer to all her questions. ‘And I’ve had a bath,’ he added, finally. ‘So I’ll not disgrace you, my Cairistiona.’

  ‘I’m sorry, grandad. I don’t mean to go on at you.’

  She didn’t much care what the new owner thought, but Nicolas had been nagging her about making a good impression. It was not like him either, this generalised anxiety. But the air of secrecy surrounding the sale seemed to have affected him. The arrangement was that the new owner would come first to Ealachan. Then, Kirsty would drive him up to Dunshee. She was more certain than ever that leaving the farm would break her grandfather’s heart. Sometimes she thought that it would break hers as well. India had wept over the sale and Kirsty had felt like weeping with her. She understood her daughter’s distress. When she was down among the trees the energy just drained out of her. India probably felt the same.

  Kirsty was startled by the roar of an engine. A motorcycle had stopped right outside the front door, on the wide gravelled space there, throwing up a little shower of pebbles as it drew to a halt. She went to the window of the drawing room. Kirsty knew next to nothing about bikes, but she realised that this was an expensive machine, a powerful trail bike, designed for the hills. She found herself running through the hallway and out of the front door, onto the wide top step, her heart hammering. There was a rushing in her ears.

  The man riding the bike was wearing black leathers and a gleaming helmet. He dismounted from the bike with a sudden fluid movement and turned towards her, but she couldn’t see his face. She saw herself reflected in the helmet. Somewhere, in the deepest recesses of her mind, she knew it. She put out one hand as though to push something away. Or grasp something close. He pulled off the helmet and the glossy black hair, shot through with grey, spilled out.

  He said ‘Kirsty?’ Just her name. With a measure of uncertainty. ‘Kirsty?’ and finally ‘Cairistiona?’

  Everything started to go faint and far away. She could see a corona of stars in her field of vision, pinpricks of light that twinkled on and off. She tried to steady herself but her hands met empty air on both sides. The doorway was too wide to offer support. She saw that it really was Finn O’Malley and crumpled in a faint on the doorstep.

  When she came to herself, only a few seconds later, she was conscious that Finn was kneeling beside her, holding her hand. Even in all the confusion of the moment, even while her brain struggled to latch onto reality, she felt the intense pleasure of Finn’s fingers twined with her own. She struggled to sit up.

  ‘It’s really you!’ she kept saying, ‘Oh God it’s really you!’

  At last, Finn helped her up but still she wouldn’t let go of his hand, for fear that he should turn out to be a dream, a mirage, for fear that he should disappear forever.

  ‘D’you think we could go in?’ he asked, gently. ‘Kirsty?’

  She swayed a little, and he slipped his other arm round her. ‘You need to sit down,’ he said. ‘Through here?’

  She nodded. They went into the conservatory and – coming to herself at last – she moved away from him with a sudden, convulsive effort, and sat down.

  ‘It’s alright, Kirsty’ said Finn. ‘It’s alright, it’s alright.’ He was crouching in front of her and looking directly into her eyes. He looked older, with fine lines around eyes and mouth. But not that much different. ‘I shouldn’t have surprised you like this. It’s my fault.’

  ‘You’re not going, are you?’

  ‘I’m not going anywhere. Trust me.’

  ‘It’s you, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes. I’ve bought Dunshee. I’m the one you’re waiting for.’

  ‘Dear God, I knew it.’

  ‘Don’t say all that deception was for nothing.’

  He smiled at her and her heart turned over. Bizarrely, she had a sense of extreme terror. She wanted to take his hand, hold onto him and never let him out of her sight again. At the same time, she wanted to thrust him away from her, to run, run for all she was worth and hide from him in the furthest recesses of the house.

  ‘No. It worked alright. Nicolas fell for it hook line and sinker. ’

  ‘He always underestimated me. And you?’

  ‘I fell for it too, at first. But there was something about it, something about all those conversations about the house and the contents and my picture. It just seemed very peculiar. I hardly dared to hope but I had a feeling...’

  ‘But you didn’t mention it to Nicolas? This feeling?’

  ‘Of course not. He wouldn’t have believed me anyway. He would have thought I had finally gone crazy. Maybe I have. And why the secrecy, anyway?’

  ‘Because I thought Nicolas might not want to sell it to me if he knew who was buying it.’

  ‘You don’t know how strapped for cash my husband has been!’

  ‘Family firm in trouble?’

  ‘You know it is!’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Don’t say that, Finn. This family firm is mine as well.’

  ‘I know that. And I’m sorry. He isn’t here, is he?’

  ‘No. He’s in the States. But you knew that as well, didn’t you? Your solicitor told you.’

  ‘I cannot tell a lie. I knew it.’

  ‘I still don’t understand.’

  ‘How could I afford it, you mean?’

  ‘That too.’

  ‘Lot of water under the bridge, Kirsty. A lot of things have happened to me in the last eleven or twelve years and some of them have been – oh - quite lucrative. And now I’ve bought Dunshee off your husband. Or to be more accurate, my solicitor bought it and I bought it off him. We came to a little arrangement.’

  ‘Is that legal?’

  ‘Of course it’s legal. I’m not stupid, although Nicolas seemed to think I was, all those years ago.

  Kirsty was still gazing at him as though he might vanish, if once she let him out of her sight. He looked at her, dropped his gaze, looked at her again.

  ‘Ah, Jesus,’ he said ‘What have they done to your hair?’

  ‘It was me. I had it cut.’

  ‘So I see.’

  ‘You don’t like it?’

  ‘I don’t care, just so long as it’s your face I’m seeing.’

  ‘I think I must be dreaming. Am I dreaming? How long has it been? Eleven years. Not to phone or write in eleven years!’

  ‘I’m certain I thought about you a bit more than you ever thought of me,’ he said with a touch of bitterness.

  ‘That’s not true!’

  ‘Well, I can’t say I’m sorry if I gave you a few sleepless nights.’

  ‘And you’ve really bought Dunshee?’

  ‘I have.’

  ‘But how could you afford it?’

  ‘Well, for one thing, I got a tidy sum in compensation for the accident.’

  ‘I saw you. I saw you when you came off the rig. You were on the television news. I tried to contact you. But nobody would tell me where you were!’

  It came out as a wail, querulous and childish. She controlled herself with an effort. ‘And then I thought you might be married, with a family. And I didn’t want to intrude.’

  ‘No. I’m not married.’ He looked into her eyes, putting the smallest of stresses on the ‘I’.

  ‘You could have died.’

  ‘But I didn’t die. I’m here. It’s taken two years, but the money finally came through at the right time. Just as your husband decided to sell Dunshee over Alasdair’s head. Fortuitous, eh? Mind you, I would have tried to buy it anyway and
I might have scraped together enough, even without the compensation. The money just made things a whole lot easier.’

  Kirsty gazed at him, seeing him properly for the first time, thinking that he was different. Physically he hadn’t changed much. His face was more lined, more weather-beaten. There was the odd grey streak in the black hair. He still looked as though he would feel more at home outdoors than inside, but he had lost that shambling awkwardness that put him at such a disadvantage when it came to dealing with people like Nicolas. Now, he seemed like a force to be reckoned with, the accent moderated into a soft, educated burr. Finn neither looked nor behaved like a farmhand.

  ‘It’s alright,’ he said again. ‘I’m not going anywhere, I promise! But do you think we could have some coffee? I could really do with a cup of coffee.’

  ‘I’ll get Heather to make some. She’s in the kitchen.’

  ‘Heather?’

  ‘She helps out around the house.’

  ‘Jesus, Kirsty, how times have changed. You have servants now. Other than me, I mean.’

  ‘Not servants. No. She’s a housekeeper. Nick does a lot of entertaining. And you were never a servant.’

  ‘No, I was the brownie wasn’t I? Working for love.’

  ‘This is a big house. Nick works from home a lot. She just helps.’

  He had wrong footed her. She went into the kitchen, asked Heather to bring in a tray of coffee, and went back to the conservatory, half expecting to find that he had disappeared. But he was still there, pacing up and down, gazing out of the windows at the garden. They sat down on opposite sides of the table.

  ‘Nice room,’ he said, but his eyes were focussed on hers. ‘I was never in here before.’

  She was fighting every hungry inclination of her body. She wanted to rush at him and embrace him. She couldn’t think of anything to say to him. Or perhaps she could think of so much that she hardly knew where to begin. She just sat there, looking at him, twisting her fingers in her lap, torn between her dreadful fear of losing him again and her equal fear of what his presence might mean.

  ‘I can’t believe you’re here,’ she said. ‘I’ll wake up tomorrow and think it’s all been a dream.’