The Piper's Tune

by Jessica Stirling

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t remember it,’ Lindsay said, not seriously.

  ‘I remember it as if it were yesterday,’ Kay said. ‘You squawking in my arms while she was upstairs breathing her last.’

  Lindsay felt her cheeks redden. An embarrassed silence came over her cousins. Uncle Donald cleared his throat. Then the young man said, ‘Time enough for reminiscences, Mam. Meanwhile, why don’t you introduce me?’

  He had a smooth Irish accent, soft but distinct.

  The haggard lines vanished from Kay’s face when she addressed her son.

  ‘Tell her yourself who you are, Forbes. Give her a hug if that’s what you fancy.’ She fashioned a scooping gesture to shoo her son out from behind the chair and drive him into the open. ‘She’s Anna’s daughter, her that died along about the same time as my sister Helen. Her father’s my second brother.’

  Lindsay assumed that he would have heard of her. She had certainly heard of him: Owen Forbes McCulloch: Welsh, Scottish and Irish rolled into one. He had dark hair, brown eyes and the sort of long lashes that a girl might envy. There was nothing remotely feminine about him, however. He was the handsomest man Lindsay had ever met, and he certainly wasn’t bashful. In fact, he was possessed of an easy self-assurance that made it difficult to believe that he was younger than she was. When he spoke in that soft lilting accent she could almost smell the lush green meadows of County Meath.

  Behind her, cousins Cissie and Mercy giggled, but their mirth seemed faded, almost remote. He did not hug her. He was not so bold, so modern as all that. He leaned across his mother and took Lindsay’s hand.

  She felt a little shiver go through her, a ripple of awe and something so novel that she did not recognise it as desire, a longing to have him touch her again or, more like the thing, never to let her go.

  ‘Cousin Lindsay,’ he said quietly.

  And equally quietly, she answered, ‘Cousin Forbes.’

  * * *

  For twenty minutes after his employer had passed, Tom Calder remained seated on a bench near the Memorial Fountain. The sun had not broken through and soon after three o’clock the air took on a chilly edge. Courting couples abandoned the daffodil slopes and families began to drift away towards the tenements that flanked Finnieston and Dumbarton Road or to catch the halfpenny omnibus that would carry them two or three miles to Whiteinch and Scotstoun. Forearms on knees, Tom observed the gradual exodus.

  He was not sly or threatening. He had no designs upon the girls, which was probably just as well, for there was something about the tall man with the weathered complexion that made the lassies who toured the park in search of romance a wee bit wary. At thirty-four, he was probably too old for most of them. His hair was thinning and he had the sort of lean, underfed features that only a desperate spinster would find attractive. His eyes were disconcertingly alert and at the same time unseeing, as if the best you had to offer might not be good enough for him. The impression he gave was not one of moodiness or melancholy but of indifference, and indifference was the one thing with which no girl, young or otherwise, could cope.

  Tom Calder, like his employer, was a widower. He had a daughter, Sylvie, who out of necessity he had relinquished into the care of his wife’s sister and her husband some years ago. He saw her by arrangement only once or twice a month unless he contrived to encounter her ‘by accident’ when Florence or Albert brought her to the park between Sabbath school and evening service. He knew that he had lost her and that it would be better to let her go. But some deep paternal instinct prevented it. At eight Sylvie had been ‘his little sweetheart’. At ten, after he had returned from Africa, she had still shown him some affection. Now twelve, she was his sweetheart no longer. She wasn’t even polite to him and would cling truculently to Florence or Albert whenever their paths crossed.

  Motionless as marble, Tom surveyed the Radnor Street gate and the circular path around the fountain basin. If Albert was Sylvie’s escort then the chance of a meeting was remote. Albert was too crafty to follow the same route week after week. If Florence was the guardian of the hour, however, the opportunity was much improved, for Florence, out of habit or lack of imagination, followed an identical path every Sunday.

  He heard the university bell call the half-hour. Several clocks in the old burgh steeples lightly answered it.

  They were late, or possibly did not intend to come at all. Perhaps his brother-in-law Albert Hartnell had spotted him and had whisked little Sylvie, not unwilling, up the hill to lead her home by the high back ways. He glanced bleakly along the gravel path – and there they were: Florence tall and spare in a costume of smooth-faced Venetian serge with hardly a frill to relieve its severity; Sylvie in the daft countrified style that Florence had foisted on her, in a kilted skirt, a jacket of fawn cloth with a sailor collar, a bonnet with velveteen tassels. Sylvie bore no resemblance to her mother except perhaps in the fine complexion, so pale and silken that it seemed less like flesh than an expensive Eastern fabric.

  Tom rose. He could not feign casualness. He was useless at pretence. He stalked towards them, arms swinging. Sylvie deliberately turned her back and surveyed the crenellated rooftops that overlooked the Clyde.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Florence asked.

  ‘Taking the air, just taking the air.’

  ‘Have you nothing better to do with yourself?’

  ‘No, nothing. How are you, Sylvie? Are you over your cold?’

  In spite of her apparent fragility Sylvie had so far shown no disposition towards the asthmatic condition to which her mother had eventually succumbed. Even so, Tom fretted over every little sniffle and cough and, in years past, had gone almost mad with worry when some epidemic or other swept through the city, scything down children like weeds. These days he was more sanguine about his daughter’s ability to survive.

  ‘Sylvie, answer your father.’

  ‘I am very well, thank you.’

  ‘Your cold?’

  ‘That’s gone,’ said Florence.

  ‘Has it really?’ said Tom. ‘I mean, really and truly?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘No after-effects?’

  ‘Do you think I’d have brought her out if she was ailing?’

  ‘No, Florence, of course you wouldn’t.’ Tom eyed his daughter in the vain hope that she had found it in her heart to forgive him whatever transgressions had turned her against him. ‘Is all well at school, dearest?’

  ‘Yes, thank you.’

  No ‘Papa’, no ‘Father’, no intimacies graced her reply. He wondered at what point along the way he had lost her.

  He had handed her over to Florence and Albert not long after Dorothy had passed on. His sister-in-law had understood the necessity not just of earning a living but of grinding on with a career. He in turn had convinced himself that Sylvie needed a woman’s care and a stable home and that all he would be able to provide would be servants and nannies. Florence and Albert had been only too willing to take Sylvie off his hands, for they were childless and Sylvie had seemed like a gift from God. He had no right to feel slighted that she was more attached to Florence and Albert than she was to him.

  Florence said, ‘I don’t know why you do this, Tom.’

  ‘Do what?’ he said, still trying vainly to attract Sylvie’s attention.

  ‘You are welcome to call at the house at any time, you know.’

  ‘I do not feel welcome,’ Tom said. ‘Besides, you are out so much these days that I can never be sure…’ He let the complaint trail off.

  ‘We’re never far away,’ Florence said. ‘Are we, dear?’

  Sylvie shook her head.

  ‘Out and about on the Lord’s business,’ Florence said. ‘I take it you haven’t sunk so far, Tom, that you would regard that as neglect?’ With a certain firmness, his sister-in-law manoeuvred Sylvie round to face him. ‘Now you’re here, however, there’s a certain matter I feel I must mention.’

  ‘Regarding money?’ Tom said. ‘School fees, by any chance
?’

  The cost of child-rearing seemed to escalate year by year. At Florence’s insistence Sylvie had been put to the Park School and Tom paid the fees, along with everything else on Florence’s carefully itemised account.

  ‘I have no intention of conducting monetary business in a public park on the Sabbath,’ Florence said. ‘I would be obliged if you would call at our house not later than Thursday. We will be at home, I believe, on Tuesday after nine o’clock, and from eight o’clock on Wednesday.’

  ‘I have a choir meeting on Wednesday,’ Tom said.

  Sylvie gave a huffy little grunt, her first unprompted utterance.

  Florence said, ‘Is a choir meeting more important than your daughter’s welfare?’

  ‘We’re joining in a special performance,’ Tom interrupted, ‘in the cathedral.’

  ‘Oh! That will be The Messiah?’

  ‘No, an Easter Cantata. Massed choirs with soloists.’ He risked touching his daughter’s shoulder. ‘Why don’t you ask Aunt Florence to bring you along, sweetheart?’ he said. ‘I’m sure you’ll enjoy it.’

  Again the grunt, a dainty snort; a flinching, flouncing away.

  He looked down at her and, startled, recognised that she was spoiled, a ruined child still capable of cutting through his indifference like a hot knife through butter. It riled him that she should have so much power over him. For a moment he was linked to Sylvie not by love or guilt but by annoyance.

  Without quite knowing what he was doing, he bent his long shanks and crouched before her. She tried to sidle off but he would have none of it. He gripped her firmly by the shoulders. His hands looked huge against the rounded velveteen. He squared her, steadied her and peered into her grey petulant eyes.

  ‘Do you not know who I am?’ he asked.

  She said nothing.

  ‘Do you know who I am?’

  She nodded.

  He felt cruel, but unrepentant. ‘Tell me who I am, Sylvie.’

  ‘You’re my – you’re my – my father.’

  ‘And whether you like it or not I always will be.’

  ‘Tom, please don’t chastise…’

  He ignored Florence. ‘I will not be treated like a fool, not by you – especially not by you – or by anyone else. You may not like me, Sylvie, but at least you will do me the honour of being courteous. Do I make myself clear?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She pursed her small, sweet, rosebud lips and scowled defiantly. She sensed that she had been exposed, her power diminished, but she would not surrender everything to him, not all at once.

  ‘Yes, what?’ he said.

  ‘Yes, Papa.’

  Tom grinned a crooked grin, like a crack whispering across ice. It was a small triumph, petty in every respect, but decisiveness gave him a strange thrill, eliminating, if only for a little while, the hollowness within.

  He got nimbly to his feet.

  ‘That’s better,’ he said, then to Florence, ‘I’ll drop my cheque for the summer term round to the house on Tuesday.’

  ‘After nine o’clock, please,’ said Florence.

  ‘After nine o’clock,’ said Tom. ‘Is there anything else I have to pay for?’

  ‘I think that’s all in the meantime.’ Florence hesitated. ‘Do you wish me to bring her to the cathedral on Wednesday? If it means so much to you…’

  ‘It means nothing to me,’ Tom said. ‘I just thought she might enjoy it.’

  ‘Unfortunately she has no affinity for music,’ Florence said.

  ‘And I have a Mission class on Wednesday,’ Sylvie said, ‘Papa.’

  He nodded. ‘It would never do to miss a Mission class.’

  She was looking up at him, not hiding now. She had adapted quickly to his changed attitude. She had replaced truculence with coyness, a niceness that was entirely self-serving. Perhaps she was not so very different from her mother after all.

  ‘I will come to hear you sing very soon, Papa,’ she said, then, to his astonishment, lifted herself on tiptoe and presented her gossamer cheek for a kiss. ‘I promise.’

  He paused, then brushed his lips against her cold little brow.

  ‘Goodbye, Papa.’

  ‘Goodbye, sweetheart,’ he said and, with more relief than regret, watched Florence lead Sylvie away towards the Radnor gate.

  * * *

  Dining in the grand style had never been her grandfather’s forte: dining well was quite another matter. Owen Franklin, his sons, daughter and grandchildren were blessed with healthy appetites and a fondness for good food that kept cooks and kitchen hands thoroughly on their mettle. It was not uncommon for a dozen folk to settle around the long table in the dining-room and the entire domestic staff, including the latest fumble-fingered little parlour-maid, to be marshalled to lug tureens, trays and steaming casseroles up from the kitchens.

  The dining-table was the family’s meeting place. It was also the place where the Franklins’ wealth was most obviously displayed in silverware, tableware and fancy linens. Those who fancied themselves in the know – stockbrokers, accountants and lawyers – claimed that the Franklins devoured more in a week than the shipyard earned in a month. That if it hadn’t been for its appetite the family would have achieved a higher place on the social scale and that Owen, or possibly Donald, would have been elected to positions of civic responsibility. Although the slander contained more than a grain of truth, it took no account of the fact that Owen and his sons cared less about power than they did about pleasure and devoted themselves to good food and good music with a panache that, in some quarters, was regarded as vulgar.

  What the snobs would have made of Kay, who ate scallops with a spoon and chicken breasts with her fingers, was anyone’s guess. Safe to say that even the most high and mighty would have been impressed by soft-spoken Forbes whose combination of charm, rapacity and impeccable table manners few aristocratic heirs could match. Lindsay’s cousins, Cissie, Mercy and Pansy, were so impressed by Forbes that they neglected their own nutritional requirements and passed him salt cellars, pepper mills and mustard dishes at such a rate of knots that Grandfather Owen eventually had to tap his plate with a steak knife and wag a warning finger just to give the poor lad respite.

  Lindsay, too, was impressed by her Irish cousin. She was delighted by his attentions, attentions too discreet to draw sarcastic comment from Martin or Johnny but just obvious enough to confirm that he, Forbes, had also experienced an instantaneous rapport and that of all the girls at table she was the one he found most appealing. They were seated together at the end of the long table, separated from the girl cousins by Uncle Donald and Aunt Lilias. By mischievous coincidence Kay and Lindsay’s father had been placed side by side and, with slightly less tact than their offspring, soon fell to bickering and recrimination which, Lindsay guessed, echoed old rivalries between them.

  She was unsure just how serious the display of mutual animosity was until Forbes leaned towards her and murmured, ‘Mam’s bark is a lot worse than her bite, you know. She has a sharp tongue but a kind heart.’

  ‘I have never seen my father so heated,’ Lindsay whispered.

  ‘Is it not that he’s just enjoying himself?’ Forbes said.

  ‘No. I really don’t think they’re very fond of each other.’

  ‘Oh, now, and I’m sure that they are,’ said Forbes. ‘It would be a fine thing if they were still enemies after all these years, especially now I’m going to be one of you.’

  ‘What do you mean,’ Lindsay said, ‘one of us?’

  ‘I’m coming to stay in Glasgow while I study.’

  ‘Are you?’ Lindsay tried to hide her excitement. ‘What will you study?’

  ‘Engineering.’

  ‘Marine engineering?’

  ‘Well, that will be a part of the course,’ he said. ‘But it’s not on my mind to be going to sea as a regular thing. I’m aiming higher than ship’s engineer.’

  ‘What do you aim to be?’ said Lindsay.

  He eased himself away from he
r, not impolitely.

  He speared a final piece of beef from his plate and put it into his mouth. He did not appear to chew, merely to swallow.

  Lindsay watched his throat move, a soft undulation.

  Everything about him suggested precocious self-assurance, a physicality that she could not equate with a man – a lad – who was twelve or fourteen months younger than she was. She wondered if all young Dubliners were like this or if being the eldest in a family of ten had forced maturity upon him.

  He glanced at her, placed knife and fork evenly on his plate, and smiled.

  The smile was in lieu of an answer.

  She might have put the question again if Cissie, all broad cheeks and freckles, hadn’t leaned forward and told her excitedly, ‘He’s coming to stay here with us. Aren’t you, Forbes?’

  ‘I am; for a time at least.’

  ‘Here?’ Lindsay’s excitement diminished at the prospect of Forbes McCulloch lodging under the same roof as her predatory cousin. ‘I mean, here in Pappy’s house?’

  ‘In the boys’ room,’ Cissie said. ‘He’ll sleep in the boys’ room.’

  Martin laughed and informed his new-found cousin that he would have to sleep head to toe with Ross since there was no room for another bed. Ross protested. Johnny supported him. Aunt Lilias joined in the teasing. Lindsay stared down at her meat plate, watched the manservant’s gloved hand remove it and replace it with a small dish of iced sherbet.

  She could feel a tingle in the room, the family’s vibrant energy beginning to revolve like one of the new steam turbines that Donald had taken them to see at Spithead last summer. She could feel the energy beginning to flow about her and wondered why she no longer revelled in it, why she felt so cut off and apart. For the first time she felt obliged to acknowledge that Martin was not her brother, Cissie not her sister and that she stood a half-step apart from the others.

  She ate the sherbet ice, three small silver spoonfuls, cold and fizzy on her tongue; heard the laughter all about her.

  He did not laugh: Forbes did not laugh.

  He too had brothers, four of them, five sisters. He knew what to do, what to say, how to take care of himself in the maul. But he didn’t laugh, didn’t roar, didn’t clamour for attention. He smiled and watched, and swallowed the cold confection, his throat undulating as the sherbet slid smoothly down.