To Be Continued

by James Robertson

  ‘Yes, and maybe my head is going to explode,’ I reply. ‘Maybe I’m having an attack of Brigadoonism. Maybe Glentaragar House and all of you only appear every hundred years and any minute I’m going to find myself wandering around alone in the mist.’

  ‘Now you’re getting hysterical.’

  ‘Can you blame me? I seem to have my feet in two different worlds. I don’t know who’s who, what’s what or why anything. I feel there’s this big plan and I’m caught up in the middle of it, clueless. The guy on the train said I was going to be like Richard Hannay in The Thirty-Nine Steps. I don’t think that’s how he meant it but he was right.’

  Poppy has been adding various items to the pan on the range, including some stock, and now she puts a lid on it, comes over to where I’m sitting, crouches in front of me and seizes both my hands.

  ‘Listen to me,’ she says. ‘Some of what’s happened was planned, and some of it wasn’t. You have to believe that or this isn’t going to work.’

  ‘What, exactly, is or isn’t going to work?’

  ‘Us. Life.’

  Those are very wee words with quite a big capacity to frighten. I try not to show it in my face.

  ‘We’ve only just met.’

  ‘Don’t be frightened,’ Poppy says. ‘I want it to work. Don’t you?’

  ‘What makes you think I’m frightened?’

  ‘Because I am,’ she says.

  I look for signs but I don’t see any.

  ‘Poppy,’ I say, ‘I don’t know whether this is going to work or even if I want it to. I’m not even sure what “this” is. It’s all very sudden.’

  ‘That’s one way of looking at it,’ she says. ‘But once you’ve looked, it’s not sudden any more. It’s just what it is. You haven’t peeled the potatoes yet.’

  ‘No, I got distracted.’

  ‘We’ll do them together. The chicken will take about an hour. We’ll stick the potatoes in another pan and I’ll come back and deal with them later. Meanwhile, we can refill our glasses and take one up to Rosalind.’

  ‘Ah, Rosalind,’ I say. ‘What does she know about – well, about us?’

  ‘I haven’t said anything to her but she doesn’t miss much. She knows a lot of things.’

  ‘Does she know that Corryvreckan is insane?’

  ‘That’s another of those labels. He’s not insane. He’s just himself. Anyway, he’s not dangerous.’

  ‘He is when he’s MacCrimmon. Or MacLagan.’

  ‘But then he’s not himself.’

  ‘Now there’s another thing. He has a strange voice, Corryvreckan. And for all his tweedy get-up, he is not a mannish kind of man. In his other personae he wears a false beard.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Would I be right in thinking that Corryvreckan was once – a woman?’

  Poppy laughs like a drain. ‘What a sweet idea! Oh no, you’re very wide of the mark there. The truth is much stranger.’ She goes to the door and checks that nobody is outside. ‘Corryvreckan used to be – an Englishman.’

  ‘A Friend from the South?’

  ‘Not only that, from the Deep South. From Surrey, I believe.’

  ‘Good God! What on earth happened?’

  ‘He went native. It’s not uncommon in the Highlands. Admittedly Corryvreckan is quite an extreme case. Look, we should really go up to my grandmother. Grab the bottle and another glass and I’ll take ours.’

  I am still very angry with her, but there is something, since I am here for the night, that I need to establish.

  ‘Poppy? Are we going to have some time together? Real, proper time?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ she says, and kisses me. ‘Most definitely yes. I promise. Honestly.’

  This time I do not challenge the word. We gather ourselves together and head upstairs, leaving the chicken casserole simmering.

  DIFFERENT FOR TOADS

  The cat is padding back and forth at the top of the stairs, meowing piteously. She at once proceeds to rub herself against Poppy’s legs.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Poppy says. Sitka meows more loudly and accompanies us down the corridor. I open the door to Rosalind’s sitting room. Poppy enters first, followed by me and, finally, Sitka, who seems nervous.

  ‘Hello, Gran,’ Poppy says. ‘Everything all right? Sitka’s lively.’

  ‘I had to put her out,’ Rosalind says. ‘It’s her own fault. If she spent more time in the garden she wouldn’t have had such a surprise.’

  I fill a glass with wine for Rosalind while the cat explores the room as if she suspects a trap.

  ‘Thank you, Douglas. What an interesting day it’s turned out to be! First you, then this.’

  ‘Then what?’ Poppy asks.

  ‘I’ve just been having the most fascinating conversation with a toad,’ Rosalind says.

  ‘At this time of the year?’ Poppy replies. It’s not the first question that springs to my mind. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Oh yes. I did think it was a mouse at first, crawling along the skirting board, but it wasn’t. Sitka thought so too. She was half-awake when she saw it and she actually came off her chair and tried to catch it. Well, didn’t she get a shock! Couldn’t get close to the creature at all. She tried from all angles, batting at it with her paws, but the toad wasn’t having any of that. He stood up and beat his chest, like a gorilla. Sitka ran to the door and scratched and screamed until I let her out. I’m surprised you didn’t hear her.’

  ‘It’s a long way down to the kitchen,’ I say.

  ‘We were busy,’ Poppy says.

  ‘I apologised to the toad but he was quite all right about it,’ Rosalind says. ‘He said he often has that effect on domestic animals. Far from taking offence, he finds it rather amusing.’

  ‘The toad told you that, did it?’ I ask.

  ‘He. It was a he. Mungo Forth Mungo.’

  ‘Oh, he told you his name as well?’

  ‘How else do you think I know it? It’s a very impressive name. One could go far with a name like that.’

  ‘Like Mungo Park,’ Poppy says. ‘What was he doing in here, though? Toads hibernate, don’t they?’

  ‘They do. He said he was late this year as it was so mild, but he expected to turn in for the winter any day now. As for being in the house, he was just exploring and hoped I didn’t mind. Which naturally I don’t.’

  ‘Naturally,’ I say. ‘He’s not still here, is he?’

  ‘No. I felt a little drowsy and must have dropped off, and when I woke up he was gone. No doubt he left the way he came in, through some hole or other. It wouldn’t be the first time we’ve had a toad in the house, would it, Poppy?’

  ‘No, but usually the wildlife comes in the summer, and stays in the basement. It’s quite a climb up here for a toad.’

  ‘It would be, unaided,’ Rosalind says, and she looks at me over the top of her pink glasses as if she and I are supposed to be in on some secret.

  ‘What did you and this toad talk about?’ I ask.

  ‘Oh, many things. Climate change, diet, folklore, sex, procreation, contraception. He didn’t see the point of contraception at all. He was terribly interested in the flora and fauna of the glen. Wanted to know all about the people too, why there weren’t any left, and so on.’

  ‘Is that right?’ I ask, and check to see how Poppy is reacting. She seems neither surprised nor concerned.

  ‘Yes,’ Rosalind says. ‘Mungo put it to me that the glen would still be full if there hadn’t been so much contraception. I had to put him straight on that but I don’t think he understood.’

  ‘Well, it’s different for toads, isn’t it?’ Poppy says.

  ‘Yes, one can’t blame him.’

  Once again I fear I have fallen among lunatics. Speaking to a toad is all very well – I’ve done it myself – but being spoken to by one is a different matter.

  ‘He seemed to know a great deal about you, Douglas,’ Rosalind says.

  This is too much. ‘Rosalind, how can a toad know anyt
hing about me? Have you two been eating magic mushrooms or something?’

  They both giggle. ‘I did once,’ Rosalind says. ‘It made me dreadfully sick. Did you ever, Poppy?’

  ‘No, Gran. I have lived a sheltered life.’

  ‘Mungo said you’re writing a novel,’ Rosalind says to me.

  ‘He said what?’

  ‘That you’re writing a novel. I told him I’d written a few and he said it was the most extraordinary waste of time he could imagine. Couldn’t see the point. Rather like contraception.’

  ‘I’m not writing a novel!’

  ‘Oh well, then, he was misinformed. Think of all the time you won’t waste.’

  ‘I don’t believe we are having this conversation.’

  ‘Well, we are. Aren’t we, Poppy?’

  ‘Yes we are.’

  ‘I mean, having a conversation about you having a conversation with a toad. It’s absurd.’

  ‘You were quite happy talking to the hens earlier.’

  ‘But that wasn’t really talking! And they weren’t really saying anything!’

  Rosalind and Poppy exchange glances. Poppy raises her eyebrows.

  ‘Well, let’s not fall out about it,’ Rosalind says. ‘Is Corryvreckan eating with us tonight?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Poppy says. ‘I think he’s away to Glen Araich.’

  ‘Then why don’t we have our dinner here? The dining room will be cold. You can set up that little table in the window. Or is it too much trouble to bring everything up?’

  ‘It’s no trouble at all,’ Poppy says. ‘Is it, Douglas?’

  I shake my head. I can’t see the point in arguing.

  ‘If there is a drop more wine,’ Rosalind says, ‘I would not object.’

  And thus the late afternoon slips into the darker peace of the evening.

  SMALL SCURRYING ANIMALS

  Rosalind retires to bed at nine o’clock, as she promised. She says she is tired after such a stimulating day, and will see us in the morning.

  ‘Douglas,’ she says, gathering herself, ‘I hope you will stay a day or two longer. I wish we could offer you that job. Thank you, Poppy, that was a lovely meal.’

  ‘What job?’ Poppy asks.

  ‘The one we don’t have,’ Rosalind says.

  Her granddaughter goes with her to her bedroom, which is next door, while I take the dinner things down to the kitchen and wash up. By the time Poppy rejoins me I have finished. We stand at the back door of the house for a few moments in a close embrace, which feels to me both dreamlike and a necessary anchoring to physical reality – even if it is the reality of Poppy Munlochy, with whom I am still very angry. The night is chill and calm, the unpolluted sky is scattered with many stars, and owls are hooting in the tall trees. I think of small scurrying animals and wish them well. We go in, find another bottle of wine and return upstairs to the fireside.

  I am nervous that Rosalind might reappear but Poppy assures me that she will already be fast asleep. Our only witness is Sitka, who is not really a witness as she is asleep as well, apparently recovered from her ordeal by toad. We make ourselves comfortable. This is a euphemism, though also true. I have never felt so relaxed, which are six words that don’t make much sense in the circumstances – the wider circumstances, I mean. Nevertheless, they also are true.

  We begin to do that thing that people do when they have been physically intimate – to reveal ourselves, cautiously, in other ways. I talk about my childhood, my parents. I talk about moving back home after my mother’s death, and about my father’s illness, and this allows me to mention my relationship with Sonya and that it is over. I can say this with a confidence and clarity I haven’t felt before, although it doesn’t follow that I am starting a new relationship with Poppy. We’re probably just ships passing in the night. I talk of the sadness of seeing my father in his present condition: his present absence. This leads us to the male absences in Poppy’s life. She doesn’t know who her father was or is: she doesn’t, she insists, need or want to. Her grandfather – Ralph – died when she was two. Corryvreckan has been around since she was eight or nine but he is not, and never has been, a substitute father figure. Rosalind educated her at home until she was eleven, then she went to the High School in Oban. It was too far to travel to every day so she boarded in the school hostel along with other pupils from distant locations. Her mother and Rosalind both drove, and one of them would bring her home every Friday and take her back on Sunday evening. The teachers and the hostel staff were strict but kind. She learned early to be independent and to do things in her own way. When she needed advice she turned to her grandmother.

  And what of her mother, who drowned when Poppy was a teenager? That must surely have been a devastating loss. Yes, she says, it was, but at the same time Georgina was a difficult woman. She had all the determination and intelligence of Rosalind but none of the grace or sense of purpose. She bashed her way through life, landing glancing blows on others along the way, and life bashed back. One day life – or death, which is life in another guise, Poppy says – delivered a knockout blow. Georgina was due to collect her from school one Friday afternoon but she didn’t show up. Poppy waited and waited, and still Georgina did not come. Eventually Rosalind arrived. By that time someone walking their dog on a beach had called the police. Georgina, it transpired, had come to Oban on the Thursday and stayed in a hotel. She’d had a few drinks, and then she’d driven to the spot where her grandfather had drowned all those years before, and gone for a swim. Was she tempting fate? In all probability. Was it a deliberate act, to meet death in that way? Perhaps. She was not a contented person. The procurator fiscal concluded that there were no suspicious circumstances, and accidental drowning was recorded as the cause of death.

  Does Poppy miss her? In all honesty, she says, no. Life with Georgina was stressful and unpredictable and it was a shock but almost immediately no surprise when it ended badly. Rosalind is and always was more of a mother to her. Does Rosalind miss her own daughter? Poppy shrugs. She doesn’t think so. Perhaps she feels guilty, but no, she doesn’t miss her either. Rosalind is so old now that if she missed everybody who was dead she would never be done with grieving. Her two husbands, all her siblings and her two younger children have predeceased her, and she has no contact other than an occasional card with her oldest, Gabriella. Gabriella has been in Los Angeles for fifty years, looks from photographs like a Californian prune and will doubtless live to be as old as her mother.

  We put another log on the fire and fill our glasses again.

  ‘Do you always drink so much?’ she asks.

  ‘No. Do you?’

  ‘Not as a rule. We seemed to drink a lot on Monday, and again tonight. Maybe we’re setting a bad precedent.’

  ‘I can go for months without a drink.’

  ‘I expect I could too if I put my mind to it. My mother couldn’t. She had a problem with drink. That scares me.’

  I think of the outbuilding at Glen Araich, stacked to the beams with illicit whisky.

  ‘MacCrimmon or MacLagan or Corryvreckan or whatever you want to call him has a problem. I don’t think you have a problem.’

  ‘You don’t know me. And by the way, Corryvreckan doesn’t. He hasn’t touched a drop for thirty years.’

  ‘Come on, Poppy, he shares the same body.’

  ‘I share the same genes as Georgina.’

  ‘That’s different. You share Rosalind’s genes too, and I don’t think she has a drink problem.’

  ‘Rosalind isn’t perfect. Don’t imagine she is.’

  ‘I won’t. I do understand why you might worry about what you’ll inherit. I worry that I’ll lose the plot, like my Dad. I had a great-uncle who lost it too, according to family tradition.’

  ‘What happened to him?’

  ‘He drowned in the sea.’

  ‘Oh.’

  After that we don’t talk for a while. And after that, with the fire reduced to a bed of embers, we pick up our shoes and clothes
and creak further along the corridor, away from Rosalind’s room and from mine, to Poppy’s.

  It’s a very large, messy room. She has piled clothes and other items, including a lot of books, into a semblance of order, but there is no getting away from the overall impression of untidiness. I am a tidy man. Mess distresses me. On this occasion I find I don’t give a damn. There is a table covered in paperwork, and plants in the window, an electric heater in the fireplace, and a big armchair beside it. There are books and CDs on shelves, and a music system, and that is one half of the room, and the other half is where her bed is, with a lamp lit on the table beside it, and the covers turned down.

  ‘And you went to the trouble of making up the other bed,’ I say. Poppy’s scent pervades the room, making me heady.

  ‘I did that last weekend,’ she says, ‘and I wasn’t so presumptuous as to unmake it when I got home. But it’s there if you want it.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I say, ‘but no.’

  A DIFFERENT TUNING

  In the middle of the night, apropos of nothing at all, Poppy says, ‘So, are you writing a novel?’

  I put as much authority into my voice as I can. ‘No, I am not. I don’t know where Rosalind got that idea.’

  ‘From a toad called Mungo, apparently.’

  ‘You didn’t seem to think it so odd earlier, that Rosalind should have been speaking to a toad.’

  ‘It wasn’t so odd earlier. I just thought your novel might also have come up for discussion when you and Rosalind were in the garden this afternoon.’

  ‘Well, it didn’t, for the simple reason that it doesn’t exist. I’m a journalist. I deal in facts, not fiction.’

  ‘Ha! Well, you seem like a man who could be harbouring a novel.’

  ‘I confess I have toyed with the possibility,’ I say, ‘but that’s as far as it’s gone, toying. And I definitely never said anything to Rosalind about it.’

  ‘How strange. I wonder where the toad picked up the idea.’

  ‘Poppy, can we get one thing straight? I know impossible things do happen – I never thought I would share a bed with someone called Poppy, for example – but toads do not pick up ideas and they do not talk to humans.’