The Piper's Tune

by Jessica Stirling

  He seated himself at the table and took Cissie’s hand. ‘I’ve been a pig for the past week or two, dearest. Please forgive me?’

  ‘You had every right to be nervous. There’s nothing to forgive.’

  Tom placed his hands behind his head and rocked placidly on the dining chair. It was late in the evening now. Sunlight had cooled to pale blue shadow and ridges of pink and gold cloud lofted high above the rooftops. He would not be required to attend the speed tests at the Gareloch tomorrow, thank the Lord. Peter Holt would cover them.

  ‘I really was terrified,’ he said. ‘But in a queer way I enjoyed it. She really is a superb machine. She slid down smoothly and surfaced without a hiccup. Sixty feet below the surface and you’d hardly have known you were underwater at all. Captain Bridges really knows his onions, of course. Talking of onions, darling, what’s for supper?’

  Cissie said, ‘Your daughter called this afternoon.’

  The legs of the chair came down with a thump. ‘My daughter?’

  Cissie watched him closely. ‘Your daughter Sylvie.’

  ‘Good God! I didn’t even know she was back in Glasgow.’

  ‘When did you last see her?’ Cissie asked.

  ‘Oh, not for years. Five years at least. I wrote to her care of the Coral Strand offices but my letters were returned unopened. I thought – I don’t know what I thought – that she had found a niche for herself in London.’

  ‘You didn’t try very hard to find her, did you, Tom?’

  ‘I suppose I didn’t, really.’

  ‘Apparently she didn’t go to London at all. She never left Glasgow.’

  ‘What?’ said Tom again. ‘But why didn’t she—’

  ‘She’s expecting a child.’

  ‘Sylvie married? That’s excellent. What does her husband—’

  ‘She isn’t married,’ Cissie said.

  ‘I see,’ Tom said. ‘I see. But where’s Albert? Where’s her stepfather?’

  ‘She claims he abandoned her,’ Cissie said.

  ‘Is it – is it Albert’s child? Could it be his child?’

  ‘It isn’t his child,’ Cissie said, white-faced.

  ‘Who then? Who is he? If he thinks—’

  ‘It’s Forbes McCulloch.’

  ‘Surely you’re mistaken.’ Tom was bewildered. ‘Forbes? Our Forbes?’

  ‘Lindsay’s husband, yes.’

  ‘Absolute nonsense!’ Tom protested. ‘Sylvie doesn’t know McCulloch. She’s never even met the man.’

  ‘I’m afraid she has, Tom. She claims to have known him since he was a student. She met him at some drinking club in Glasgow which he used to frequent quite regularly. She claims that Forbes promised to marry her.’

  ‘She’s making it up.’ He got unsteadily to his feet. He knew that Cissie was telling the truth but he continued to protest, to deny the cold, hard fact that Sylvie had come back into his life. ‘My daughter’s always been a bit fanciful. It’s my fault, I suppose. My fault, yes. I shouldn’t have let her go off without a word. My only excuse is that her mother cheated and deceived me and I took it out on Sylvie. I wanted rid of her.’ He heaved in a breath. ‘But this story she told you – no, that’s a lie. It must be a lie. I’ll bet that Albert’s behind it. He’ll be after money again. Forbes! How could Forbes possibly be the father of her child? Sylvie’s lying, she must be lying.’

  ‘Lindsay believed her. Lindsay thinks she’s telling the truth.’

  He opened his mouth, sucked air. ‘Lindsay?’

  Cissie nodded mournfully. She was close to tears now, afraid of a past that Tom never talked about, of what might be revealed now that his daughter had returned and how it would affect her husband and her marriage.

  ‘Do you mean to say that Lindsay was here when Sylvie called?’

  Cissie nodded again and softly began to cry. He sat down and reached for her hand.

  ‘Poor Lindsay,’ he said. ‘Poor, poor Lindsay.’

  Cissie sniffed. ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘What can I do, dearest? Lindsay isn’t my wife.’

  ‘About your daughter, I mean. She’s convinced, utterly convinced that Forbes intends to divorce Lindsay and marry her instead.’

  ‘How can she possibly believe that?’

  ‘Because he told her so. Because he promised.’

  ‘Bastard!’ Tom spat the word out. ‘I’d like to go over to Brunswick Park right now and kill that little bastard.’

  ‘Oh, Tom, no.’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘No, of course I won’t.’

  ‘You’ll have to help her. Sylvie, I mean.’

  ‘How far is she gone?’ Tom asked.

  ‘She’s due soon to judge by the size of her.’

  ‘How has she supported herself all these years?’

  ‘Forbes has been keeping her as his – his mistress.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘She refused to tell us,’ Cissie answered.

  ‘Forbes will know where to find her.’ Tom released his wife’s hand, got to his feet and reached for his jacket. ‘I’m going over to Brunswick Park.’

  ‘Please, Tom, don’t. Not tonight.’

  ‘Cissie, I have to. You said yourself…’

  ‘Tomorrow, yes, but not tonight, Tom. Please.’

  ‘Why not do it now? Why not?’

  ‘Because I want you to stay here with me.’

  He was flooded with guilt and anger. He had laboured hard for security and, to achieve it, he had let Sylvie slip from him. He had seized his chance for happiness and had never regretted it. Cissie was everything that Dorothy had never been. What they said about blood and water was untrue: he cared less about Sylvie than he did about Cissie, or Lindsay for that matter. Cissie was right. He was too angry to confront Forbes McCulloch tonight. Tomorrow he would try to track down Albert Hartnell and wring the whole, sorry story from him. He seated himself once more. He did not understand the circles that fate had drawn around him, could not read the pattern, the grand design. Perhaps, like the Snark, the whole of life was nothing but an accumulation of separate bits and pieces that teetered on the edge of breakdown and disaster but that somehow mysteriously continued to function.

  He beckoned Cissie to him and took her on to his knee.

  He held her loosely, head against his chest, and stroked her hair.

  ‘I don’t want you to leave me, dearest,’ she said.

  ‘I won’t.’

  ‘Not ever?’

  ‘Not ever,’ Tom Calder said.

  * * *

  Keeping the secret to herself proved the easiest thing in the world. Cissie had promised to tell no one except Tom what had occurred and Lindsay had urged her cousin to dissuade Tom from rushing over to Brunswick Park that night. For the girl, for Sylvie, Lindsay felt only a thin, irritating pity. She too had obviously been taken in by Forbes’s callous charm, the charm that made no distinctions between them, that dictated that one became lover and one wife by a process not of adaptation or by choice but solely to satisfy his whim. Sylvie’s illusions were pathetic. She had swallowed all Forbes’s lies without question and had become enchanted by them.

  From the moment the drawing-room door had opened and the girl had entered, belly thrust out before her, a jaunty summer hat perched on her golden curls, Lindsay had recognised not a rival but a nemesis. She had glimpsed the girl in the Kelvingrove seven or eight years ago when Tom, Cissie and she had first come together to experiment with flirtation. She had seen her again at the launch of the Hashitaka when Forbes had become agitated and had dragged her away from the rail. She had had no inkling then that the silly child was Tom Calder’s daughter or Forbes’s mistress or that the same silly, shadowy child would one day become her saviour.

  She had felt no animosity, hardly even surprise when Miss Sylvie Calder had introduced herself and, with a gaiety that was anything but infectious, had accepted a chair at Cissie’s tea-table and helped herself to a scone. She had drunk tea, had eaten buttered tea-bread, had e
xplained herself and her situation, had issued her ultimatum and within a half-hour had gone off again, waddling out of the apartment shortly before Miss Runciman had brought the children back from the park. It had all been very genteel, very civilised. At first Lindsay had experienced no jealousy, no sense of outrage at having been systematically deceived by her husband for so many years. Instead, she had felt strangely liberated from the constraints that marriage to Forbes had placed upon her, as if she, like Pappy, had finally found a purpose in adversity.

  Geoffrey: she thought at once of Geoffrey. The time-honoured tradition of tit-for-tat meant that she was free now to become Geoffrey’s lover or, if she wished, his wife. Given the circumstances, the court would surely support a petition for divorce without quibble. Suddenly she was in a position to be shot of Forbes, not just Forbes but the whole McCulloch clan – Winn, Blossom, Gowry, even Aunt Kay – in one fell swoop, to shake them out of her life and her father’s life and send them packing back to where they belonged.

  It would be a wonderful revenge, a triumph as thoroughly demeaning as any that Forbes could possibly devise – except that she would never be able to bring herself to go through with it. She had to pull back, not to protect Forbes or save face for the Franklins but for Tom’s sake; Sylvie was Tom’s daughter and Cissie was Tom’s wife and all three would be terribly damaged by the scandal of a prolonged and public divorce.

  White-faced and shocked, Cissie had stammered, ‘Do you believe her?’

  ‘Of course I believe her,’ Lindsay had answered.

  ‘Oh, God! Oh, dear God! I wish Pappy were still with us,’ Cissie had said, wringing her plump hands. ‘Pappy would know what to do.’

  ‘Are you implying that I don’t know what to do?’

  ‘You?’ Cissie had said. ‘But you’re – you’re the wife.’

  ‘That isn’t a fatal condition, Cissie, or one that precludes me from making my own decisions. As it so happens, I do know what to do.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’ll see,’ Lindsay had answered. ‘Wait a little while, dearest, then, believe me, you’ll see.’

  * * *

  Forbes had come home late, long after his mother and sisters had gone to bed. Lindsay had taken herself upstairs to the nursery after supper to give Philip his nightly feed then she had gone directly into the master bedroom to make ready.

  Below, in the piano parlour, Eleanor waited for Mr Arthur.

  He had been tempted by naval hospitality and had dined with the officers at the Coventry. It had been a jovial party and, as it happened, not at all awkward. Lieutenant Commander Paget had been present at the start of the proceedings but he had been called away to answer the telephone and, after making apologies to Commander Coles, had left the company soon after.

  Much as he liked the English officer Arthur had not been sorry to see him go. He was aware of the delicate relationship that existed between his daughter and Geoffrey Paget – how could he not be? – but he was prepared to take Eleanor’s word for it that there was nothing sinister in the friendship and that when Geoffrey left Glasgow in a week’s time that would be an end of it. Even so, the tension between Forbes and Geoffrey Paget had been palpable throughout the day and Arthur could not entirely relax until Paget had gone.

  Forbes and he had travelled home together on the last train. He had to put up with the young man’s infernal, slightly tipsy, bragging about the superiority of the Snark over anything that the Germans had built, as if he, Forbes, had contributed more to the building of the underwater craft than the settling of contracts for basic materials and a few specialised castings. They changed trains at Dalmuir, disembarked on the deserted platform at Partick West and walked home from there.

  The air had cooled but a long afterglow lingered in the western sky, mingling with the smoke from Clydeside furnaces and the faint, feeble glare from those yards that were fortunate enough to be operating a night shift. Tram-cars heading along Dumbarton Road to the depot threw out quick, clicking echoes that pealed away down sober side streets and rose tentatively into the heights of Brunswick Park. The trees in the little piece of park were motionless in the papery light of the gas lamps by the time Arthur and his son-in-law reached home and it seemed that the whole of the crescent was already fast asleep.

  Any rapport that had existed between Arthur and his son-in-law dwindled as they climbed the steps to the front door. Neither man dared ring the doorbell for fear of waking the children and Forbes was first to find his key. He let himself in first, turned, muttered, ‘Goodnight,’ and headed off up the staircase to his portion of the house. Relieved that the long, arduous day was finally over, Arthur opened the door of the parlour and peeped in.

  ‘Ah, Eleanor,’ he said, ‘you’re still up, I see.’

  ‘I am, Mr Arthur,’ Eleanor answered him. ‘Unfortunately, I am.’

  * * *

  Forbes went first to the lavatory and relieved himself. The walk from the station had cleared his head, leaving pleasant memories of the long day on the sea loch, the stimulation of travelling underwater and the triumph of browbeating Paget and forcing him to retreat. He was sure he had got his message over and that Paget had left the party early because he was too cowardly to stay for dinner.

  He paused on the landing, glanced up into the gloomy well of the nursery floor where, all snug and secure, his children slept. Then he opened the door of the master bedroom and stepped, unsuspectingly, inside.

  * * *

  Lindsay had been drowsing over the Blackwood edition of Conrad’s Typhoon, but as soon as she heard the scrape of Forbes’s key in the front door she snapped awake. Suddenly beset by nerves, she dropped the book to the carpet and for a moment became so agitated that she could hardly breathe. She rocked forward in the chair, clenched her fists into her lap and willed herself not to dissolve in tears. She thought of Geoffrey, of Geoffrey’s voice on the telephone, so placid and soothing and unsurprised. Geoffrey would take over. Geoffrey would take command just as she had asked him to.

  The lavatory flushed. She listened to the deluge of water pouring from the cistern above the pedestal. Door opening. Door closing. She forced herself upright in the chair and willed herself to appear unruffled. Cold and calculating, that’s how she must be, like Forbes, just like Forbes.

  She groped for the book, found and opened it.

  Forbes entered the bedroom.

  ‘Lindsay! he exclaimed. ‘I thought you’d be in bed by now.’

  Sun and sea air had revitalised his tan. His hair was tousled, his dark eyes somnolent. He looked young, almost boyish with his jacket slung across his shoulder and his shirt sleeves unfastened. For a split second Lindsay questioned if this handsome young man, image of the boy she had once loved, could ever betray her. She wanted to cry out, to hold out her arms, have him comfort her as if she were still an innocent and unlettered in the ways of the world.

  ‘What the hell are you doing dressed up?’ Forbes said.

  ‘Waiting for you.’

  ‘Waiting for…’ He grinned, uncertainly. ‘Are we going somewhere, then?’

  ‘I am,’ Lindsay said.

  Her voice was remarkably firm. She had rehearsed it, planned it with the meticulousness of an engineer setting out a project. All she had to do now was square up to him and carry it through. She closed the novel and balanced it on the crocodile-hide portmanteau that Eleanor had packed for her. The portmanteau contained her vanity case, shoes, a summer hat, underclothing, nightgowns, ribbons and stockings, a blouse, a travelling skirt, two summer dresses and a useful coat in peau-de-soie: everything she needed, in fact, tucked neatly into an oblong of crocodile hide no larger than a footstool.

  ‘You are? You are what?’ Forbes said.

  ‘I’m leaving you.’

  ‘You’re what?’ He threw up a hand. ‘What’s this you’re telling me? Don’t you know what a day I’ve had? For God’s sake, Linnet, I haven’t the patience for any of your idiotic nonsense, not tonight.’ He thumped down
on the side of the bed, hands cupping thighs, elbows cocked. He glowered at her, guilt and uncertainty undercutting anger.

  He said, ‘Take that bloody coat off and put that bag away.’

  She turned her wrist and consulted the gold bracelet watch that her papa had given her. She said, ‘At midnight, in approximately fifteen minutes, Forbes, you will be rid of me for good and all.’

  ‘Rid of you? What the – what does that mean?’

  ‘Free to go to Sylvie or, if you wish, to bring Sylvie here to live.’

  ‘Ssssss … Sylvie?’

  ‘Once you explain the situation I’m sure your family will have no objection. I expect you’ll require the services of a midwife very soon, unless your mother feels she can cope with the birth herself. Winn – well, having another infant to care for won’t make much difference to Winn, will it?’

  ‘What the holy hell are you talking about?’ He got to his feet, not suddenly but sluggishly, as if a giant hand were pushing against him. ‘What the holy hell does Tom Calder’s – does this woman have to do with me?’

  ‘Please don’t raise your voice, Forbes, you’ll waken the children.’ He was vertical at last, hands clasping thighs, elbows cocked. Like a thin veneer of transparent varnish laid over pine, his tan had lost its shine. ‘I don’t think you want to waken the children, do you, Forbes?’ Lindsay continued. ‘I don’t think you want to waken anyone. I mean, surely it would be better if you had a good night’s sleep before you decide what you’re going to tell them. By the by, was it a difficult day on the Gareloch? You look rather tired.’

  ‘You’re going away with Paget, aren’t you?’

  ‘That,’ Lindsay said, ‘is irrelevant.’

  ‘Irrelevant! My wife running off with a bloody sailor isn’t irrelevant!’