The Things We Said Today

by Lise McClendon

  But Annie was fifty-five. Maybe her giddy days were past. But shouldn’t you dig up some girlish enthusiasm if you were going through this whole week-long rigamarole? What was the point of celebration if you drag your feet along morosely? Stasia frowned. Was that what Annie was doing? Just going through the motions? She felt a tight knot forming in her stomach. Was this all a mistake?

  She put the thought out of her head. It wasn’t up to her to judge. What was on the agenda today? Her mother was to be fitted for the dress that dear Fiona had bought for her. Why had Bernie agreed to this? Why had any of them? Because Annie asked, that was why.

  Oh, those dresses. Stasia cringed again, remembering how she looked in the mirror with that giant bow on one hip and plaid satin and chiffon everywhere. Like a ridiculous cake-topper or Barbie-goes-to-the prom. If only there was something to be done.

  Annie didn’t answer. She tried Francie. Also no answer. What was going on out at Kincardie House? Had the storm done something horrible? Were they without power? That made sense. All the phones had probably died.

  She pulled out a small notepad from her purse, and a pen. How could those dresses be improved, quickly and simply? She worked at a fashion magazine, in the legal department but often heard lectures from the designers and editors about dresses, how they were made, what was hip and up-and-coming. Tartan and chiffon was neither. But something could be done. Couldn’t it? Less fabric in the skirt, cut down the bodice froufrou, 86 the bow of course.

  She was engrossed in sketching when the nurse finally arrived to ask her to come back to the examination room. Dr. Fergus stood in the small room with Jack on the edge of the exam table, legs dangling. Bernie, still in her raincoat, sat rigidly in the only chair, her purse clutched in her lap. She looked up, fear in her eyes.

  “Doctor,” Stasia said, nodding to him as she closed the door. “How’s our patient?”

  “Oh, he’s a hearty one,” Fergus said cheerily. He was an apple-cheeked man of fifty or so, a fringe of hair over his ears, stocky with a round belly. “Appears your father has a little problem with his heart though. It’s something his physician at home has been watching, isn’t that right, Mr. Bennett?”

  Jack shrugged, looking guilty. Bernie hissed, “You never said a word.”

  “Didn’t want to up-end the wedding plans, eh? Keep the ladies happy. Good man.” The doctor rested a meaty hand on Jack’s shoulder. “But he’ll be needing to see a specialist in Aberdeen. I’ve made an appointment for this afternoon. With this wee rainstorm it might be slow going. You best be gettin’ along as soon as possible.” His tone was light but the urgency was unmistakable. He looked at Stasia. “You have a hired car, miss?”

  “No.” She looked at her mother who appeared both afraid and furious. “I could rent one.”

  Dr. Fergus waved a hand. “We’ll transport him in the emergency van. Faster that way and we’ll have help onboard.”

  “Is it an emergency? What sort of heart problem is it?” Stasia asked.

  “A rhythm problem,” the doctor said. “Not a true emergency but we need to get him under a specialist’s care to answer more.”

  Bernie stood up. “Then let’s go.”

  “Should I come with you, Mother?” Stasia asked. Jack slipped onto the floor and looked around for his coat. “I want to come.”

  Bernie reached out and squeezed her hand. “Wouldn’t go without you.”

  Dr. Fergus opened the door. “I’ll just be a moment making the call to the Service.” He turned back to Jack Bennett. “We’ll take good care of ye, sir. With these lovely lassies at your side, all will be well.”

  * * *

  The afternoon skies opened up over the Highlands, dumping their watery load where they were no longer welcome. Callum stood at the bank of Piney Burn, now unrecognizable with mud, sticks, leaves, heather, pinecones, and bluebells floating on its broad, level surface, even with the road. Once it had been twelve feet down a steep slope. A low spot in the opposite bank where he used to shinny down to play in gentle ripples now offered an opening, a detour for the water to overrun the yard, creating a vast muddy lake.

  It had taken hours to get the two miles from the village. Now there was nowhere else to go but back where he’d come. At the MacLaren Road turnoff a pine tree, fully thirty feet tall, lay across the road. He’d had to return to town for an axe. Now wet and filthy, his hands chilled in the sodden leather gloves more suited to Park Avenue than lumber-jacking, he looked across at Kincardie House. Shrouded in low clouds, wet, tattered and battered, shingles and shutters askew, it had never looked so sad. The large oak on the other side, once his tree fort and sanctuary, blocked most of the view. The roots faced him, upright and tangled. The oak had taken out the power lines, that was plain. The swollen burn, once a tiny mountain stream, had taken out the bridge.

  He blinked upstream, trying to see in the deluge. Was there another way across? Not with a vehicle. Maybe if a person hiked to the next glen? He tried to remember the geography. To the North was a large lake, the river dammed years ago. No doubt water over the dam today. To the South was what? He couldn’t recall. Another village maybe.

  Of all the luck. He ground his molars. Why hadn’t he gone back last night when he could? He kicked a large stick into the roiling water and watched it disappear. The weather report said the rain would slow later tonight, that the worst was over. By the looks of this mess it couldn’t be over soon enough. There would be days of repair and clean-up ahead.

  More immediately though, his fiancée and her sisters, plus the staff, were stranded in Kincardie House with no power. Had they got the generator going? His father had bought the first one when Callum was a child. Power outages weren’t unexpected. He tried to see lights in the house but all he could see was rain, mud, and dark windows.

  He’d been thinking about his father this week, especially being back in the house. They’d spent summer vacations in the Highlands, many happy days when Callum and Hugh were boys. But the happy days ended when his father began to withdraw, irritable and sullen, barking at them. The next summer he moved into the attic to be alone, had his food brought up on a tray. The summer after that he stayed in Edinburgh when they came to Kincardie, unable to manage the stairs.

  As a boy of seven Callum was hurt and confused by his father’s behavior. Now he understood it, knew it wasn’t his father’s fault. That it was the illness. But the pain of losing his father, gradually and then finally, never really diminished. Scotland was a place of sorrow to him, a place of dying. Being here in the Highlands again after so many years made the pangs of his childhood alive again.

  But he must deal with them. He must speak to Annie about his father, about their family. Hugh was right of course, although Callum would never give him the satisfaction of hearing it. She deserved to know everything. Why had he thought letting his mother plan this extravagant wedding was a good idea? She was so happy though. In New York last Christmas at the engagement party, she’d gushed to everyone about her ‘darling Callum,' about the amazing country estate she owned, about the traditions of Scotland that were so dear to her. How could he say no? How could he squash what may be the last happy family thing that happened to her?

  He climbed into the car, making a mess on the seat and floor with rainwater and mud. He pulled off his gloves and tried to call Annie again. It went straight to voicemail. He searched his phone, looking for a number for one of her sisters to no avail. Instead he called the Kincardie House line, knowing it wouldn’t work. A strange beeping, then nothing.

  The rain clattered on the car roof. He turned the key and the wipers flapped back and forth. In desperation he flashed the headlights off and on, hoping someone in the house was watching. No one appeared. He rummaged in the glove box for a map. There had to be alternate way to get to the vale. But there was no map. Instead he punched up a map program on his mobile, searching for a good aerial view. How did you search for a village if you didn’t know its name? He stared hard at his phone, zooming
in and out, willing the map to show him a way to his Annie.

  Resting his eyes he looked up to see a figure on the far side of the burn. Difficult to say who it was wearing a full-length black trench, hood tight against the head. One of the men? Yes, it was Pascal. Jamming his phone in his pocket Callum jumped out of the car again.

  Pascal was waving his hands around, yelling something. Callum stood as close to the raging river as possible and strained to hear. He shook his head and cupped his ear.

  “Call me,” Pascal hollered, putting fingers to ear and mouth in pantomime. But Callum didn’t know his number. Wait, he was putting up fingers. Callum raised a hand to slow him down and reached for his mobile. Hunching over to keep it slightly less damp he pointed at Pascal and yelled “go.”

  Painstakingly he punched out each number as the Frenchman held up fingers: 1-4-4-6-8-3 and on and on. Callum punched ‘Call’ and put the phone to his ear. Pascal did the same. An error message, something had gone wrong. They tried it again, slower. The second time Callum could hear the tiny whine of Pascal’s phone ringing and gave him a thumb’s up.

  “How is everyone doing?” Callum said, almost screaming in the rain.

  “We need gasoline,” Pascal said. “We have a generator but no fuel.”

  “Have you looked in the big yellow tank behind the coach house? The one up on stilts?”

  Pascal nodded. “Empty. All the cans too.”

  Callum looked at his watch. It was already four in the afternoon. Could he drive back to the village, get petrol, drive back then figure out a way to get it across the burn by dark?

  “I’ll do my best. But you should prepare for a dark night. You have candles and torches?”

  Pascal nodded. “We’ll manage. We’re eating everything in the refrigerator. And drinking all the wine. No clean water, I’m afraid.”

  The well pump, of course. Without power there would be no water. Callum sighed. So much water but not a decent drop to drink. “Drink it all,” he said. “I wish I could do more. I’m looking for another way to the house.” He felt useless on this side of the river. “How is Annie? I’ve been calling.”

  “Her phone is morte. All dead but mine and it’s almost gone. She’s okay. We’re all okay.”

  Callum nodded, grateful. “Thank you, Pascal. Tell Annie I love her, will you? And take care of those sisters for me?”

  “Bien sûr, mon ami. We will survive — and have good stories.” Pascal waved and punched a button to end the call.

  Callum got back in the car, drying his mobile on the seat. What a mess. He didn’t even want to think about the wedding on Saturday. There was so much to do, more immediate duties. He put the car in reverse and began to slowly back out, looking for a decent place to turn around where he wouldn’t get stuck in the mud.

  As he turned back to Kincardie House he saw Pascal in his black coat, up the hill past the barn, talking to someone in a yellow mac. Callum hadn’t paid much attention to the current staff. That was his mother’s job, running her precious inheritance. It sucked up pounds like a vacuum. Old Mrs. MacKeegan was an institution but the rest he wasn’t sure about.

  Callum squinted through the rain. It was the sheep man, he supposed, out looking for his beasts. The door to Moss Cottage opened and a short figure peered out, hand sheltering his eyes. That would be Mr. Craigg, the old caretaker, of course. Callum had almost forgotten about him. Craigg had been a second father to him for a time. Taught him how to fly fish and ride horses and train dogs and taste whisky. Lovely old man, bit grumpy but a good heart. Callum remembered an old grey horse that was Craigg’s favorite, now long gone.

  Why hadn’t Callum visited him? He felt ashamed, watching the solitary figure close the door. Was he all right, safe and dry?

  Nothing to be done now. Callum clenched his teeth again, turned back to the road, and pointed the car back to the village.

  16

  Kincardie House

  Merle looked down the gleaming old table with its rich black stain. The candlelight flickered, giving them all a cheery glow. Everyone looked better by candlelight, she thought, realizing she was quite tipsy despite her struggles to stay sober for the sake of the others. She gripped the beautiful old sterling knife, heavy and carved, and looked at her teeth in its reflection. Red, like the wine. Oh dear.

  Platters of food, wine bottles, plates, and napkins littered the length of the table. The cook had gone a bit crazy, trying to save all the food in the refrigerator. She’d roasted another leg of lamb, poached an enormous filet of salmon, and made a hearty soup with beef and vegetables and lots of red wine from the cellar. Wine was the theme tonight. They had no drinking water. What was a person to do?

  It was all quite decadent, like Marie Antoinette. But the day had been trying, and as night fell and the candles were lit, fires lit in stone grates, matches found, flashlights shared, all bets were off. Elise and Bruno had begun drinking at lunch. ‘And why not?’ Elise said when Annie had given her the eye. What else was there to do? They couldn’t get out. The rain continued like a vicious jailer. No car, no bridge, no phones, no power: what was a girl to do but drink wine? “When life gives you lemons, Annie,” Elise said, raising a glass.

  “Add vodka,” Francie said, joining in the early drinking without encouragement.

  Merle had waited until dinner. She and Pascal, plus some of the staff, had spent the afternoon trying to clean up debris, looking for tools, dragging limbs to a pile in the car park, struggling to move the downed oak tree. They’d failed on that count. The sheep man, Gunni, said he would bring the tractor out of the barn but it too needed gasoline.

  Pascal thought it odd that not a drop of gasoline could be found on a farm. Had someone deliberately poured the cans out? He was suspicious but had no theories about why someone would want them stranded, without communication. Just bad luck, Merle told him.

  She squinted at her wrist watch. “It’s nine-thirty,” Annie said, sitting across from her. Annie was subdued, melancholy almost, as if the disruption of her wedding plans was some signal of doom. Merle had tried to talk to her about it but she brushed her off. Just worried, she said. And Callum, stuck with his mother and his brother, neither of whom he particularly liked.

  This was the first Merle had heard of that but now, tipsy and warm, she wondered what had happened. Was there a rift, an argument? Why had he agreed to come over to Scotland for this wedding if he didn’t get along with them?

  Annie said, “Stop looking at your watch, Merle. You’ll go blind.” She held up a wine glass and drank deeply.

  “There is nothing left to do tonight,” Pascal said. He sat beside her, arm across the back of her chair.

  “It’s a good thing I’m drunk,” Merle whispered. “Otherwise I’d be going crazy. I’d want a hot bath and a ‘Downton Abbey’ repeat.” She glanced at him. “That’s a TV show.”

  “No television is a terrible thing,” Pascal said mockingly. “No billiards in this old house is completely unthinkable though. I must have a talk with Callum when he returns.”

  “He never came back?”

  “It was too much to hope. Besides how would we get a gasoline can across the river?”

  Merle said, “I’m sure you could have rigged up something.”

  “I am very clever that way.” He grinned at her.

  Francie stood up at one end of the table. She held herself up with both arms, leaning. “I’ve had enough of you bloody Bennetts. I am going to go out and look at the storm.”

  A chorus of voices proclaimed her too drunk and too unsteady. She stood straight then, both hands up as if being arrested, and stared at them. “I’m fine. I heard a rumor the moon is out. I intend to check.”

  Annie stood up. “I’ll go with you.”

  “I’m a grown woman,” Francie protested. “I’ll put on wellies.”

  “Wear my raincoat,” Merle called as Francie lurched out the doorway toward the back hall. “Should we follow her?” she asked Annie.

  �
��Let her splash around in the fresh air for a while, it’ll do her good. The moon is out. It’s cleared up finally. Maybe the sun will be out tomorrow and dry things up.”

  Elise hummed the tune, “The Sun’ll Come Out Tomorrow,” breaking into ‘Bet your bottom dollar, come what may’ until they all told her to shut up.

  Pascal carried a candelabra into the library where Bruno got out a pack of playing cards and proposed poker. “For matches, naturally,” he explained. “Come on, d’Onscon. Show me what you’ve got.”

  Annie wouldn’t play so Elise, Bruno, Merle, and Pascal made a foursome at the card table. Merle had no idea how to play poker but Bruno explained the rules, Elise doled out match sticks, and off they went. It would pass the time, Merle thought, even if she could barely see her cards in the dark.

  It was Merle’s turn to deal when they heard the commotion. Loud voices, doors slamming, feet stomping. Then the sheep man burst into the library, a vision of yellow wet in his full-length slicker. “It’s the sheep. They’re all in a guddle, feart and wet. They’re likely droont if we canna get them to the pasture.”

  Pascal stood up. Bruno froze, cards in hand. He whispered: “What did he say?”

  Behind the sheep man Jinty and Vanora Petrie stood, wringing their hands. “Where are they, man?” Pascal asked.

  “Come now. I’ll shew you.”

  Jinty stepped toward him. “Now, Gunni, these are guests. They can’t be troopin’ about, looking for lost lambs in the night. What if they git lost too? They don’t know the hills.”

  “Mucking about ain’t for fine ladies, Gunni,” Vanora complained.

  “You tell the missus then,” Gunni shouted at Jinty, panicked. “You tell ‘er how they wouldna help. How none of ye would rouse ya’selves. How all her precious sheep up and died.”

  “We’ll help,” Merle said. Annie stood up. “We’ll get our coats and meet you outside in a minute. Come on, Elise. On your feet.”