A Winter Bride

by Isla Dewar

  Nell said she was.

  ‘No matter,’ said Byrony. ‘I’m not busy.’ She led the way upstairs. ‘The room has a view of the garden and over the rooftops to the sea. It’s one of our best. Ten shillings a night, breakfast is at eight, but you’ve missed supper. Bathroom’s across the hall.’ There was a large double bed, a small button-down chair and a desk by the window. It was perfect.

  ‘Where have you come from?’

  ‘Edinburgh.’

  ‘Well, that’s a way to come. Did you drive?’

  Nell shook her head. ‘Train and a couple of buses.’

  Byrony said she’d leave Nell to settle in. At the door she stopped. ‘I expect you’re hungry. I’ll make you a sandwich. It’ll be in the sitting room in ten minutes.’

  It wasn’t a sandwich. It was a heap of sandwiches on a platter, along with a slice of coffee cake, a selection of biscuits and a pot of tea.

  ‘Thank you,’ Nell said. ‘I don’t think I could eat all that food.’

  ‘Just take what you want.’ Byrony sat watching Nell as she bit into a sandwich. ‘Just when were you and your mum and dad here?’

  ‘About seventeen years ago,’ Nell told her.

  Byrony stared. ‘Don’t remember you. Sorry.’

  ‘I was just a kid. We only stayed for a week.’ She looked round. ‘Where are the other guests?’

  ‘There aren’t any,’ said Byrony. ‘I stopped doing bed and breakfast ten years ago.’

  Nell put down her sandwich. ‘I’m sorry. I should go. I didn’t know. It’s just this is where I stayed before. I didn’t think.’

  Bryony raised her hand to silence Nell. ‘When I saw you there at the door looking pale and worried and nervous, I couldn’t turn you away. Poor lost soul, I thought. Never mind, I’ll enjoy the company. Haven’t had any paying guests since my husband ran off with the postmistress. It wasn’t the same without him.’

  ‘Kelvin?’ said Nell.

  Byrony nodded.

  ‘I remember because of the name of the house,’ said Nell.

  Byrony said she always meant to take down the nameplate. ‘Never got round to it. I really should go back to being plain old number six. It’s this place, it makes you procrastinate. You never do today what you can put off till tomorrow. I think that’s the local hobby, procrastination.’ She stood up. ‘Bedtime for me. I’m an early riser. Busy day tomorrow. I’ve a whole lot of procrastinating to be getting on with.’

  Nell finished her sandwiches, ate the coffee cake and went to her room. She unpacked her case, cleaned her teeth in the bathroom across the hall, undressed and climbed into bed. It was soft and spacious. She spread herself out, sighed and slept.

  When she woke, Byrony was leaning over the bed, peering at her.

  ‘By God, you can sleep.’

  Nell rubbed her eyes, looked round and wondered for a moment where she was and what was happening.

  ‘You’re at the bed and breakfast house with me,’ said Byrony. ‘You turned up on my doorstep last night.’

  ‘Right,’ Nell said. ‘Of course. What time is it?’

  ‘Three o’clock.’

  Nell lay back. ‘It’s the middle of the night.’ She’d sleep some more.

  ‘It’s the middle of the afternoon. I was worried about you. Thought you might have died. I came up to check you were still alive.’

  Nell threw back the blankets. ‘I should get up.’

  ‘You’re on holiday. You’ve nothing to do. I’ll leave you to get washed and dressed; there will be some sort of breakfast for you when you come downstairs.’

  Nell spent what was left of her day looking round the village. It didn’t take long. She bought a pair of walking shoes at the general store, stared at the boats in the harbour, looked at piles of rope and lobster creels, threw a few pebbles from the narrow beach into the sea, and then went back to the B&B where Byrony had prepared an evening meal.

  ‘I only ate a couple of hours ago,’ Nell complained.

  ‘No matter, you can eat again. You need it. There’s nothing of you. Also, you can sign the visitor’s book. It’s in the hall.’

  Nell stood, pen in hand, debating what to write. Eventually she decided to use her maiden name. Nell McClusky, she wrote. She was done with the Rutherfords.

  Byrony invited her to eat in the kitchen with her. ‘No point you eating in one room, me in another. Your food’s on the table.’

  The kitchen was large and cluttered, with a cooking range, plants on the windowsill, and a long pine table in the centre. Nell and Byrony sat either end. Then Byrony decided they were too far apart for comfortable passing of the bottle of tomato ketchup and conversation. She moved nearer to Nell. ‘Dig in. Fish is good for you. Helps your weary brain.’

  ‘My brain isn’t weary. It’s functioning as normal.’

  ‘I doubt that.’ Byrony pointed at the ring on Nell’s left hand. ‘Where’s your husband?’

  ‘He left me for my best friend.’

  ‘Well, with that and your parents dying your brain’s definitely weary. It’ll be struggling to cope.’

  They ate in silence for a while, till Nell asked what people did around here.

  ‘They get up in the morning, eat, work, come home again, eat some more, watch television and go to bed. They meet their friends, drink, worry about bills and make love. Just like anywhere, really.’

  ‘I mean, what sort of work do they do?’

  ‘There’s the fishing, hotel work, bar work, shop work. They work in the doctor’s or the solicitor’s. There are farms round about. But actually, there’s not a lot of employment for young people. Mostly they leave. Go to cities.’

  Nell said that was a shame.

  ‘It is,’ said Byrony, ‘but it’s the way of things. A lot of the people here are newcomers. Not born here. Not local. They come here, on the run, looking for a new life.’

  ‘From the law?’

  ‘No. From jobs they hated, or a broken marriage, businesses that failed, lost loves. They’re looking for shelter, for a bit of peace. Like you. They’re hiding from themselves.’

  ‘I’m not looking for shelter,’ said Nell. ‘I’m fine. Actually, before I decided to come here for a holiday, I was on my way to London.’

  ‘To do what?’

  ‘To work. To live.’

  ‘You’re not nearly ready for London. You’re too wobbly.’

  Nell suspected Bryony might be right.

  ‘What you want to do,’ Byrony told her, ‘is walk. There are good walks round here. Just moving along at your own pace, thinking and then not thinking. That’ll fix you.’

  Next day, Nell put on her walking shoes and set out to fix her wobbliness. On the far side of the harbour, she saw a telephone box, bright red against a grey sky. She cheered. She could phone her mother and father and tell them where she was. That would surprise them. Then she remembered. Oh, the sudden pain came. She couldn’t. They wouldn’t be home.

  She walked past it.

  About half a mile past the village boundary, there was a wide track leading, as far as Nell could tell, into the mountains. She decided to take it.

  She walked looking towards the mountains for an hour and then stopped. On either side of the track was an expanse of dense heather. Beyond that were pinewoods and beyond them hills that spread into mountains. It was silent. A small wind blew, ruffled her hair. It was all so huge, she felt suddenly small. She stared ahead, turned and looked back the way she’d just walked. Nobody. She felt insignificant and scared in the vastness. The world could have ended and she wouldn’t know about it. She hurried back to the road, panting and desperate to see another human being.

  Back in the village, she went into the café for a cup of coffee and a doughnut. Caffeine and sugar was what she needed.

  After that, she walked to the other end of Catto. The path led along the shore, the sea on one side and a scattering of houses on the other. This was better, she thought. She wasn’t far from humanity. There was a fishing bo
at on the water and washing flapping in the gardens of the houses. She sat on the verge and watched the water.

  Late in the afternoon, she went back to the B&B where Byrony was preparing supper.

  ‘Stew tonight,’ she said. ‘Have you had a good day?’

  Nell said she’d walked. ‘First one way out of the village, and then the other along the shore.’

  ‘You walked towards the forests first?’

  ‘Yes, but I turned back. It’s a bit lonely.’

  ‘That’s the big walk. I did that every day after Kelvin left me. I loved the loneliness of it. You’ll not be up to that yet.’

  Nell said she wasn’t. ‘It scared me. I felt like I was the only person in the world.’

  ‘Ah, yes. You feel conspicuous and vulnerable at the same time.’

  Nell said she wasn’t used to open spaces. ‘I like to have buildings either side of me, and people passing by.’

  ‘In big cities it’s the people passing by that make you lonely. It reminds you that you’re alone.’

  ‘I like looking at people,’ said Nell. ‘I hated being out there alone.’

  ‘You’ll get used to it. You might even come to love it. There’s something comforting about being in the wild with nothing but your thoughts and the prospect of wonderful views not far ahead.’

  Nell laughed. ‘I’m a townie, simple as that. Some people don’t like the countryside as much as cities.’

  ‘Oh, I know that. I also know that until you make peace with what’s happened to you, you won’t be ready to move on. You’ll make mistakes. Like going to London.’

  On Saturday night, Byrony suggested that she and Nell went to the pub for a drink. ‘We’ll go to the Anchor. It’s the quietest.’

  For a May night, it was chilly out but diamond bright. Stars clustered the sky and a fat moon floated above the sea. Byrony said it was a night for things to happen. ‘There’s mischief in the air. Babies will be made tonight.’ She pointed upwards. ‘A shooting star. That’s lucky. Did you make a wish?’

  Nell said she didn’t. ‘I don’t believe in wishes anymore.’

  ‘Oh, that’s just silly. It’s an insult to the universe not to wish on a star. You don’t have to wish for riches or for a flash car to appear at your door. You could wish for illness to be cured or for starving people to be fed. It won’t happen, of course, but it shows you care.’

  The Anchor was crowded. Nell and Byrony squeezed to the bar where Byrony ordered two glasses of whisky. ‘Twenty-year-old malt. It’ll do you good.’ She started a conversation with the barmaid. ‘Busy tonight.’

  The barmaid said that the local football team had won a game against a neighbouring village. ‘Six–nil. There are celebrations going on. The team are doing the Catto Crawl.’

  ‘Well, there will be some sore heads in the morning,’ said Byrony.

  Nell asked what was the Catto Crawl?

  ‘They start at one end of the village, have a drink in each of the three pubs, plus the Fisherman’s Hotel at the end, then they drink their way back. Sometimes they do it all again. There will be drunken doings tonight.’ She poked Nell’s arm, ‘Your round. Same again, then a walk along the harbour and home.’

  The moon was higher by the time they left the Anchor. They walked towards the harbour and sat on a bench overlooking the sea. Paths of light on the water. A seal rose from the deep to look about. From further round the bay, they could hear them call, a long hungry sound.

  ‘Randy seals,’ said Byrony after a while. ‘It’s that sort of night. Brings out the wild in you.’

  The noise from the pub got bawdier. There was chanting. The cries of people being egged on.

  ‘Mischief,’ said Byrony.

  Suddenly the door of the Anchor burst open. People poured out. From the midst of the throng came four young men, all naked. As the crowd yelled, ‘Go, Go, Go,’ they sprinted along the street, rounded into the harbour and ran past Nell and Byrony.

  They were slim-hipped, tight-bummed and broad shouldered. Byrony clapped her hands and shouted, ‘Wonderful!’

  The men reached the lighthouse at the end of the harbour, smacked the wall, turned and hurtled back past the two women. They were panting, each trying to push past the others to be first back at the pub.

  Nell looked on, mouth open. She turned in astonishment to Byrony and said, ‘They’ll catch their death running about like that on a night like this.’

  Byrony was shocked. ‘You don’t have a woo or a wolf whistle in you, do you? You see young men, beautiful young men, Greek gods, stark naked and magnificent, running in the moonlight and that’s all you can say? Girl, you are definitely not ready for London.’

  Chapter Thirty-two

  This Will Do

  In keeping with the spirit of Catto, Nell procrastinated. She kept putting off going to London and six months later she was still living with Byrony. She was safe here. She walked and no longer felt conspicuous and vulnerable alone in a huge landscape. She enjoyed the loneliness and relished the vastness she was moving through. There was comfort in insignificance. This vast place had been here long before she arrived and would endure long after she’d gone.

  She listened to her breathing and pursued her thoughts till she was no longer thinking, just moving and noticing the scenery. One day, she realised she hadn’t thought about Carol and Alistair for weeks. That moment when she’d discovered the pair lying entwined on the sofa no longer crept uninvited into her brain. She didn’t wonder what they were up to, where they were living, and if they’d moved into a fabulous new house. It didn’t matter. She didn’t care.

  She could pass the telephone box without thinking she should phone home and tell her parents where she was. She didn’t have to fight the urge to fall on her knees and weep. Her mother and father were gone. She was learning to accept that. She thought they’d be happy for her. They’d smile if they knew where she was.

  She was still furious with May. If I saw her right now, she thought, I’d punch her nose. Striding up the path and into the forest, she cursed the glasses May had sent her. Months and months of work, and what do I get? Six bloody glasses. The cheek of the woman.

  She hadn’t gone to London, but London came to her. It was there on the radio that played all day, every day, in Byrony’s kitchen The Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the fashions, the new crazes – she followed it all. It was almost 1964, she’d be twenty-two in a few months, and she decided she was a new sixties woman. She took up the hems on her skirts, grew her hair long and told herself she was happy. Well, as happy as it’s possible to be.

  Her funds, however, were dwindling. Every night, she took her money out from the drawer of the cabinet beside her bed, laid it out and counted it. It was becoming obvious she’d have to do something. She could go to London or she could stay here, find a job, replenish her cash supply and then go to London.

  She took a job as a receptionist at the Fisherman’s Hotel. It suited her. She could watch the world from behind her desk and make up stories about the guests. Some she imagined were having affairs, some were on the run from their life and some were simply on holiday. She answered the phone, ‘Good morning, Fisherman’s Hotel. How can I help?’ She handed over keys, took orders for room service, organised fishing trips, advised guests on the best walks, and, when the dining room was busy, helped serve the food.

  It always surprised Nell how often she said hello these days. It was part of the village custom to acknowledge everyone you met. She counted fifteen hellos one morning on the way to work and a similar amount on the way back. ‘I’m accepted here,’ she said to Byrony one night. She hoped she might become ‘our Nell’ one day soon; she wanted to belong.

  The hotel was owned and run by Hamish Watson, a tweed-clad man who lived in a house he’d built in the grounds. With the guests, he was warm and hearty. With his staff, he was curt. Nell thought him intimidating. He reminded her of her physics teacher. For years she’d sat at the back of his classroom barely understanding what
he was talking about. He’d never once spoken to her or she to him.

  Once, after she’d left school, he’d come into the pen shop. She’d smiled to him and he’d stared at her blankly. ‘You used to teach me physics,’ she’d explained.

  ‘Did I?’ he’d replied. He shook his head and told her he didn’t remember her. He’d left without buying anything. Like Hamish, he had the knack of making her feel insignificant.

  Hamish Watson breezed past Nell every morning, giving her a curt nod. He checked the register, and gave another curt nod. When Nell left work to go home, she got a third curt nod.

  There were rumours about him. He’d fought in Korea, and had won many medals. He was fearless. His wife had died of cancer ten years ago. He drank too much whisky. He played the violin when alone at home, but he only played exquisitely sad music because his heart was broken. He was lonely.

  Nell dismissed these rumours. She figured in a place like this there were rumours about everybody. Along with procrastinating, believing and spreading rumours was a hobby. It passed the time. She knew the rumour about her was that she was the woman who’d appeared out of the blue while suffering a little bit of a breakdown. She didn’t deny it.

  One morning, just after nine, Nell was at the front desk pouring over an article in the newspaper. Hamish walked past and said his usual curt, ‘Good morning, Miss McClusky.’

  ‘Good morning, Mr Watson,’ she said, without looking up.

  He stopped. ‘Staff are not to read the morning papers before our guests.’

  ‘I’m really sorry. It’s just that something caught my eye.’

  He joined Nell behind the desk to look over her shoulder at the newspaper.

  Nell put her finger on a photograph. ‘My husband.’

  The article spoke of this promising lawyer who had helped with the successful defence of two schoolboys who’d been accused of writing and distributing pornographic material. They’d sold their alternative magazine in Edinburgh pubs. Along with music reviews it had contained parodies of fairy tales that were not in the best of taste. ‘It was innocent schoolboy fun,’ Alistair had said. ‘That’s all.’ The newspaper piece concluded that Alistair Rutherford was a great lawyer in the making: ‘erudite, wise and witty – he’s definitely one to watch.’