Women of the Dunes

by Sarah Maine

  “And you’ll stay?” He nodded. “Lady Macbeth gone?”

  “Aye. Now what?” David was running back towards them with the air of an emissary.

  “Why don’t you come out with us, then we could go beyond the rocks.”

  “Great idea,” said Alice. “Go stress-busting, Rodri.”

  Beyond the rocks a flock of terns was diving, flashes of white against an indigo blue. The sea was calm, and Libby could see that he was tempted. “Don’t stay because of me,” she said, “I’ll just sit here.” And drink in the loveliness of it all.

  “Off you go, man! How often do time and weather allow?” Alice gave him a push, and David, encouraged, grabbed his arm and pulled. A cheer went up from the watchers on the beach, and then there was a mad scramble for life jackets and paddles, and four kayaks were lifted down to the water’s edge.

  Alice stood beside Libby and watched them pull away from the shore. “Do him good,” she said. “Tea?” When was Alice without it? Libby thought, and followed her into the cottage.

  The room they entered was not large but was as neat as a pin. No clutter, the walls painted in pastel shades and hung with watercolour paintings, all seemingly by a single hand. Libby recognised the bay and the old jetty, but there were also places she didn’t know. The paintings were skilful and executed with an eye for the soft colours of dawn and the drama of evening. Alice or Maddy? she wondered, but somehow she knew it was Maddy.

  “So when did her ladyship leave?” Alice said.

  “This morning.”

  Alice gave a satisfied nod. “Good. It usually takes Rodri a day or two to recover, so the kayaking should help.” There were questions Libby badly wanted to ask. “Maddy’s out, but she’ll be back soon,” she called from the kitchen. “She’s gone to see her grandma.”

  Angus’s mother? Their best bet.

  Alice reappeared with two mugs a moment later, passed one to Libby, and picked up a pair of knitting needles. A colourful garment in a complex cable pattern was in progress, and Libby complimented her on it. “And are the paintings yours too?” she asked, gesturing at the walls.

  Alice shook her head, counting stitches under her breath. “Maddy’s.”

  “They’re very good.”

  “Aye. She’s brilliant.” She lowered the knitting to take a sip of tea. “What did Laila want, do you know?”

  “Something about a painting.”

  “Oh, aye. Which one?”

  “A landscape in the library.” Should she be telling Alice this?

  “The Nasmyth? And did she take it?”

  “No.”

  She began knitting again. “So where did Rodri hide it?”

  Libby laughed at the casual question. “Has this happened before?”

  “Oh, aye, it’s cat-and-mouse every time. But usually we have some warning that she’s coming and can put things away. Hiring a car and coming out of the blue is a new one. Must be getting desperate.” She switched needles and carried on. “As long as he didn’t stick it in the freezer, that’s fine. I found a silver snuff box there once, and a pair of candlesticks. She’s got a habit of grazing on small items, has Laila, but if she’s moved on to paintings we’re in trouble.”

  Libby looked at the petite figure opposite her, knitting busily away. We’re a good team, Alice had said, that first day. Then curiosity got the better of her. “But strictly speaking, aren’t the things hers?”

  “Rodri takes the view that they’re Hector’s, and unless he hears from Hector himself nothing leaves the house, but milady has a handbag like the Tardis and Rodri hears less and less from Hector. Except through the bank, of course, demanding more money.” Alice lowered her knitting again, her face sharp now and fierce. “So we knit and we paint and we make butter and we wrack our brains to think how on earth we’ll survive when Hector decides to come back and live here. We’ve got roofs over our heads, at least, because Rodri made Hector give Angus and Maddy tenancy of these cottages for life, rent-free, when Maddy came back with David. But we do need an income.”

  The questions were multiplying, and increasingly Libby needed to understand. “Came back from where?”

  Alice looked up. “He has told you, hasn’t he?”

  “I’m not sure—”

  “David’s Hector’s son. Can’t you tell, the boys all look so alike?”

  So that was it. “I’d noticed, yes, but I . . .” She stopped.

  Alice continued knitting and chuckled. “. . . drew the wrong conclusion? No, no—not Rodri’s. Though Rodri’s a father to all three lads, and makes no difference between them. He’d do anything for those boys, David included.”

  “Does Hector never see him?”

  “No. The Ice Queen can’t deal with it, having none of her own, and Hector’s a weak man.”

  “Poor David.”

  “Poor Hector, more like, it’s him that’s missing out. David’s doing fine. Between them Angus and Rodri make sure he’s not over-mothered, but David’s his own man these days. He’s grand.”

  It was beginning to come together, this odd ménage. “Rodri told me he’d move into the old manse if Hector comes back to live, and run the business from there.”

  The needles clicked away. “Aye, and that’ll not be easy.”

  “If the brothers don’t get on, wouldn’t he be better moving away?”

  “Rodri leave Ullaness?” She shook her head vigorously. “He’ll not do that again. Disaster from start to finish last time, apart from having the boys.” Alice seemed to sense the next question and spared her the need to ask. “He left in a fury and married the first woman he met, stupid man. She was killed in a car accident, years ago, but it was ages before he told us she’d been with another man that night, both stoned out of their minds when they drove into a wall. She was as bad a deal for him as Laila.” Laila? What did she mean? “Twice bitten was Rodri, but the lads are brilliant, a real credit to him. So he came back, and now his whole world is here, everything he cares about.” She switched needles and the clicking continued. “No, it’ll be Hector who suffers if he decides to return, he knows perfectly well he’s not wanted.” Alice’s voice had hardened again. “And he’d have to face Maddy, and David. And Angus,” she paused, “as well as Rodri. He simply hasn’t the guts. Have you ever read The Master of Ballantrae?”

  “No.” Libby was lost again.

  “Durisdeer all over. Two brothers in love with the same woman. The older leaves the estate in his brother’s care and then bleeds it dry. Except in Hector’s case, he took the woman when he went.—It’s a great read. Try it.” Alice gave her a slanting look, taking in her stunned look. “He hasn’t told you that either, has he?”

  “I don’t think he can have.”

  “No, I suppose maybe he wouldn’t. Laila came here as Rodri’s girlfriend”—Alice watched for her reaction—“then dumped him for Hector. She was a stunner by all accounts and Hector’s a self-centred soul with his brains in his balls, so he let Laila squeeze Maddy out, egged on by his stuck-up mama, and not a thought for Rodri, and they got engaged. Maddy’s got her pride and didn’t tell Hector she was pregnant and went to Glasgow, where we met. When Rodri came back and found out he took himself off and married his bimbo, the fool. It was a right old mess. Apart from the me and Maddy bit, of course.” There was the sound of a car pulling up outside, and Alice looked up. “Speak of angels,” she said, and got to her feet.

  Maddy came through the door and smiled at Libby. “Hello! You’re still here, how lovely!” And she gave Alice a quick hug and a kiss, and the last piece fell swiftly into place.

  “How was Jennet?” Alice asked.

  “Good. I said I’d bring her over for supper soon.” She nodded towards the window. “I see the kayaks are out.”

  “Aye, Rodri’s with them.”

  “It’ll do him good.”

  “And we’re having a cook-up, so I’ve thawed some sausages and put jacket potatoes in the oven. What else should we have? Excuse us a minute, Lib
by.” So for Maddy, at least, whatever had been damaged by Hector had been healed by Alice.

  A few minutes later she heard a shout and a burst of laughter as a kicked-off welly flew past the window. “You break that window, my lad,” came Rodri’s voice, “and I’ll hand you to Angus for a thrashing.” And then the room was full of life and chatter, and Rodri looked across the boys’ heads at her and smiled.

  Half an hour later they all trooped down to the pebble beach laden with food and drink. Just a little way above the strand line Libby saw a simple round hearth with fire-blackened stones, encircled by boulders worn smooth by countless tides. A jumble of pebbles, shells, and coloured fishing floats brought by ocean currents lay spread amongst the seaweed like pieces in some abandoned game.

  Angus called out to the boys, who were down on the beach collecting driftwood, and they came running, arms full. The fire was already lit. “How long are you staying?” Alice asked her as they stepped over the rocks, avoiding the slippery seaweed as they transported trays of provisions down the beach.

  “Until tomorrow. Back to work on Monday.”

  “But you’ll be coming in the summer still? For the dig?”

  To dig what? she wondered. “I’m not sure.”

  “She will be,” said Rodri as he passed them, his arms full of bottles. “We sorted, then? Who’s cooking?”

  “Why does food cooked outdoors always taste so good?” Libby remarked, wiping her fingers on a patch of turf. It had been a riotous meal, with Rodri and Alice sparring with each other and teasing the boys, who gave back as good as they got, and Angus chuckling while Maddy tended to the food and laughed at them all. But the boys were now back down by the shoreline skimming stones across the still waters of the bay, leaving the adults around the fire, their faces aglow. Not quite the conventional family, Libby thought as she surveyed them, but it was working very well, and she felt its strength. The three boys had Alice and Maddy, a quixotic father/uncle, and a shared grandfather. Better than many kids these days. A good team.

  “The spice of adventure,” said Rodri. He looked relaxed now, that drawn expression softened in the evening light; the foray out on the ocean had done him good.

  “And you’re starving by the time it’s cooked.” Alice reached for a bottle of beer.

  Rodri laughed. “That too,” and then he turned to Maddy. “You visited Jennet today, Angus said. Is she up for visitors?”

  “Aye, she’d like that.”

  “Good. I thought I’d take Libby to see her first thing tomorrow. We’ve got some questions and I’m hoping her memory is long enough.”

  Angus had settled into what looked like his regular seat amongst the rocks, his back resting against a smooth boulder, and he was nursing a beer. “Long enough for what?”

  “Old scandals, past transgressions. Gossip, rumour. Jennet’s forte. We were looking through some old papers and found one which suggests that a Sturrock man ran off with a local woman sometime in the 1890s, then disappeared, and we wondered if there might be a tie-up with the body in the mound.”

  “Tell Jennet about the body and everyone will know by lunchtime,” said Alice.

  “I wasn’t planning to.”

  Angus was looking back at Rodri. “Old tragedies, then,” he said.

  Rodri paused, then flipped the top off a beer bottle and looked up. “Aye. Do you know something?”

  Angus shook his head. “No, I don’t. But it was a tragedy if it ended with a man’s death, whatever else it was. The only scandal I remember was about a minister who disappeared, but they said he’d been thieving and went off with a woman. The manse hasn’t been occupied since. But you knew that!”

  “Did I? Then I’d forgotten.”

  “Do you know when that was?” asked Libby.

  Angus shrugged. “Not really. But old folk still spoke of it when I was a lad. Gossip like that has an energy of its own, and it takes its time in fading.”

  Or becomes the stuff of legends.

  “Will Jennet know about it?” Rodri asked.

  “She’ll know the same gossip,” said Angus, “and maybe some more details, but I doubt she’ll know a date. What else did the letter say?”

  Rodri told her, making no reference to Libby’s connection, though he looked across the fire at her as he spoke, and she saw that he was leaving the matter to her. Somewhere along the line she had started reading his thoughts too— And she watched the circle of faces, shadowed now by the fading light, a small but tight-knit family making a success of lives fractured by others. And so she told them, not about the cross, but about her grandmother and Gosse Harbour and the stories she’d been told. Alice sat forward, eyes bright, and even Angus looked interested.

  “So it was meant!” said Alice with an air of satisfaction when she had finished. “I knew, right from the start, that—”

  “Oh Lord.” Rodri groaned and got to his feet. He picked up a piece of driftwood and began poking the fire. “We’ll not hear the end of it now. She’s convinced that everything is ‘meant,’ whatever ‘meant’ means. There’s a wacky side to our Alice.”

  “Aye, maybe.” Alice continued undaunted: “But some things in this life are meant to be. Like me and Maddy. It was no accident that Libby came here and that it was she who found the body. Remember how white she went? She’s a sensitive.”

  “I’m not sure that I am!” Libby said, but there was something very endearing about Alice.

  “If Alice says you are, then you are, so get used to it,” said Rodri, and he gave her his slanting smile. “They used to burn her sort at the stake, you know.” He stretched out on the beach again, leaning back on his elbow. “And old ways are good ways.” Angus chuckled, and Maddy put an affectionate arm around Alice and gave her a squeeze.

  But she was unstoppable. “I read a book once which—”

  “Don’t read, Alice,” said Rodri. “Just make butter. Lots of butter. And shortbread. And knit.”

  Alice lobbed a pebble at him. “You’d do well to listen, Rodri Sturrock, and seize your chance.”

  “Shut up, Alice.”

  Libby felt her cheeks grow warm.

  “Nonsense aside,” said Angus, staying on topic, “this business gets complicated. We’ve a body and no local tale of a man missing, which is strange in itself. And now we’ve a missing Sturrock man who went to Canada, and from what Libby tells us, he took a woman from here with him.”

  “Except that Lady Sturrock’s envoy didn’t find them,” said Alice.

  Angus shook his head. “But they were there nonetheless, if their descendants are.”

  He was right, of course. But Libby’s grandmother had said nothing about a man coming with Ellen.

  “Perhaps the Sturrock man left her, came back, and was murdered,” Maddy suggested.

  “Or perhaps,” Angus continued, “they heard someone was asking questions and hid, not wanting to be found.”

  “Well, you wouldn’t, would you? If you’d killed a man.” A chill silence followed Alice’s words.

  It was what Libby hadn’t wanted to admit could possibly be true. And she wondered if she would have to tell her grandmother this, or if she could let it lie.

  “Maybe not.” Rodri looked across at her. “And yet, as Angus said, there’s no record here of a man being killed, or his murderer being looked for, just of a mother searching for her son.”

  The silence resumed; then Alice sat up. “I’ve just had a thought. If Libby’s descended from some Sturrock man, then she’s kin and maybe it’s Libby who ought to be living in Sturrock House, not Hector at all. So you can be her agent, Rodri, and you’d not chuck him out, would you, Libby?”

  The tension broke with laughter, but Libby was glad of the darkness. “That might depend—”

  Rodri got to his feet. “On what, I wonder?” he said, looking down at her. “And I’ll tell you straight, Liberty Snow, only the male line inherits.”

  “Time that was changed,” muttered Alice, but her words were drowned out b
y Rodri’s ear-splitting whistle as he summoned his offspring back from the shore.

  As they drove home to Sturrock House, the two boys plugged into earphones, Libby turned to Rodri. “About the summer—”

  “Yes?”

  “There’s hardly anything left of the mound now, so I’m not sure that we’ll be back.” It pained her to say so, but it was true. Unless—

  He glanced across at her, then back to the road. “You’ve still got the building recording in the church.”

  “Yes, but that won’t take long.”

  “And you spoke of doing a general survey, with little trial pits.”

  “You said no to that.”

  He kept his face forward. “And wasn’t there something about shell middens, and putting the site in a wider context?”

  “The estate said it would sanction no other work.”

  The corner of his mouth twitched. “My instructions were to do what I thought best,” he said as they took a hairpin bend at speed.

  “In that case, the ruin on the headland would bear further investigation, don’t you think?”

  “An excellent idea.”

  And again, that smile. Just a smile, but it was enough, and Libby settled back into her seat.

  Chapter 20

   Ellen

  Ellen was pleased with her new situation. Life at Sturrock House had become a game of hide-and-seek, and she had sensed a careless determination in Mungo when he had cornered her in the library. As long as he had nothing to occupy him, he would pursue her, of that she was certain. She was also in no doubt that it was Alick who had orchestrated the move to the manse, and her one regret about being here was that she would see less of him.

  The painted scenes in the library which fuelled her daydreams would also be lost to her, though every detail was now etched in her mind, and she had glanced across at them as she listened to Lady Sturrock explaining about the changes. “Mrs. Nichol is plagued by rheumatism,” her ladyship had said, “and will welcome some assistance. We must see that Mr. Drummond is comfortable so that he can attend to his duties, and your mother will be close by so you can be easy on that score too.” Something in her ladyship’s tone, and in the searching look that she gave Ellen, suggested that Alick had been forthright in giving his reasons for the move. Nothing was said, of course, so she had bobbed a curtsey and left.