The Wicker Tree

by Robin Hardy

  'Serve you right, you creepin' Jesuses!' she shouted. 'Who the hail are you Yanks to come here and tell us what to do? What did your God ever do for us?' She was reaching behind her to re-open the door.

  'Run like hell, Beth!' shouted Steve. She ran. He followed.

  Looking round as he did so, he was relieved to see that Tyson was still inside, probably resisting any attempt to take his prize stick away from him. At the end of the road, they managed to flag down a bus going they knew not where, but well away from Tyson.

  Lolly Day

  THAT BLESSED MONDAY (Lolly Day as he had written on his calendar) had arrived for Undercover Detective Constable Orlando Furioso. He filled time while waiting for six o'clock to arrive with writing a report on what he had gleaned from Jack. Looking back on the interview, he now thought he had gone on too long, frustrated as he was by the interviewee's endless recourse to irrelevant verse. When he pressed the poor man very hard on the subject of some kind of ritual animal sacrifice (referred to in one of the letters) Jack had stiffened and croaked more than spoken in his sepulchral voice again:

  'When seeking an abstraction

  You'll get no satisfaction

  From an ugly rumour too,

  Too bizarre to be a clue,

  Yet of truth a vulgar fraction.'

  As he was trying to make some sense of Jack's words in his report he glanced up and saw Lolly walking up the street from the castle gates, heading for his front door. She was wearing a dress. Gone were the slightly mannish riding clothes she'd worn before, that so accentuated the lovely woman inside them. The dress looked, from a distance, as if it was made of loose leaves that partly clung to her form and partly fluttered around her long legs, caught in the breeze. She was very early. He was still in uniform. He went to the door to greet her, planning to give her a – what? – he couldn't serve a drink in the Police Station…

  On opening the door he saw that she was still twelve paces away. Her face, still thoughtful at that instant, still in shade, saw him, burst into a great sunburst of a smile and she was running, yes running, straight at him, throwing her arms around his neck, kissing him full on the mouth again.

  'Orlando!' she cried, 'I know I'm early, but I just couldn't wait.'

  Almost in shock, Orlando could see, in his peripheral vision, half a dozen passers-by, good citizens of Tressock, glancing up at them and smiling.

  'Come in. Come in. I can't be seen kissing you in uniform,' he said, leading her inside, shutting the door behind them. Lolly clung gently to his neck, cleaving her body to his, her mouth slightly open, her tongue ready as if she was about to lick some cream from his taut, embarrassed face. But she didn't speak, only searched his face with her eyes as if she were, ever so benignly, inspecting her prey.

  'I've reserved seats at the Odeon; it's the multiplex on the Kelso Road,' he said, feeling he was losing the initiative. 'They're showing the new Schwarzenegger movie. I'm that glad you're early because we can have a nice leisurely drink at the Slug and Lettuce first – they do real ale there. Good wine too. No rot gut. The lads at the Kelso cop shop recommended it highly. Then I've reserved a table at… I hope you like curry… the British Raj restaurant in Kelso. I thought I would surprise you… Is all that OK with you?'

  She was staring at him as if she hadn't heard a word he had said. It was the inquisitive stare of a woman who sought to look through his little torrent of words at what might lie behind them.

  'Would you like a – a cup of tea – while I go and change?'

  'Tea? No, Orlando. At the end of this evening you have so sweetly planned for us, don't think I am not grateful and flattered, what do you hope for as a finale?'

  Once again the element of romance seemed to be slipping away from Orlando, but somehow this time he felt he could trust Lolly to… what?

  'Make love?' he said hopefully.

  'Thank heavens for that!' she said. 'Tell me this. After goggling at Mr Schwarzenegger's pecs for an hour and a half will I want to make love to you more than I do now? After swilling real ale and wonderful cop-shop approved wine will you be a better lover? Will either of us, rumbling and farting with British Raj curry, be much of a treat for each other?'

  'So?' It had suddenly occurred to Orlando that in just a matter of minutes he could have skipped a long evening of expensive anticipation and be doing what the characters in a popular American sitcom call 'it' – more or less right away. 'So?' he repeated.

  'We can do what you planned and skip the finale. Or go straight to the finale and make it…'

  'The main event?'

  By way of assent she kissed him again, this time quite chastely. Then she was walking through to his bed-sitting room while he was frantically locking the front door, pulling down blinds, drawing curtains and finding the Thai Opening Lotus condoms Mai Lin had given him as a farewell present.

  'Won't that old witch allow you to get rid of the birds?' she asked as she shrugged off the leafy looking dress, which seemed to be made of some gossamer material, revealing only the essential Lolly underneath.

  'So you think she's a witch too. Can there be white witches?' he asked as she helped him fling off his clothes.

  'Of course,' she replied. 'One day, a thousand years from now, I will tell you all about them.'

  From outside the Police Station a soft, warm light shone through the blinds of the bed-sitting room. Inside, Lolly and Orlando were slowly entering that breathless, post-coital quiet zone which is particularly poignant if, as on this occasion, all has gone very well. It was Lolly who broke the spell.

  'Or-lan-dooo!' she almost yodelled his name. 'What a fantastic lover you are. Is it being Italian, do you think?'

  'Sorry, Lolly, but that's bullshit,' he replied. 'Reckon I'm almost as Scottish as you are. My ma's pure Scot. My da's a Scot on his mother's side. It's just my grandad. He came over to sell ice cream after the war. So just a wee bit of me is Italian.'

  'Well, I think that must be the bit that was so fantastic,' said Lolly, giving him a languorous hug. 'And I wouldna call it wee. Let's do it again. Not exactly the same thing of course. I want to learn something new from you. Some wild, wicked Italian thing. Cover me with double virgin olive oil. Think of me as a Caesar salad.'

  'This is a Police Station, Lolly, not a delicatessen. But do you really think I'm a fantastic lover?' As he was saying this, Orlando had raised himself to kneel beside her on the rather precarious sofa-bed they were sharing, looking down into her eyes, those eyes that always seemed amused, as if she was nursing some cosmic joke he would never be able to share. Yet, in spite of this, there was something completely open about her. She always seemed to say exactly what she was thinking and say it at once without any calculation or hesitation. Her openness inspired him to be equally unguarded.

  'I could fall for you, Lolly. Really fall for you, and that's a fact.'

  He didn't know what he expected her reaction to be. But, in the event, it really surprised him. She seemed quite taken aback.

  'Oh no! No, no, no!' she was saying. 'Please don't say that, my lovely Orlando. Don't you see, I just like doing it? Particularly with someone who does it as well as you do. I never, ever fall in lerve.' She pronounced it rather self-consciously, as if it was not really part of her vocabulary. 'And Orlando, not that anything so silly would ever occur to you I hope, I am never, ever anybody's exclusive woman. Nor do I expect exclusivity in any man. Is that OK with you?'

  Orlando managed to laugh, but his mind reeled at what she had just said. She loved doing it with him, but she didn't want to be his girlfriend. What kind of an arrangement was that?

  'OK with me? Since you put it like that, Lolly, I guess it'll have to be.'

  'Thank heavens, another free spirit!' she cried. 'If I can use your shower, perhaps you'll join me and we'll think of something really wonderful for Act Two.'

  He wanted to believe she had really found him a wonderful lover. But he knew she had steered him away from what, before, had always been slightly mech
anical. She had created a sort of theatre of the erotic in his bed. Into his ears, she had whispered urgent cues; conjured up wild allusions; invented roles for him and assumed others for herself.

  'Let's imagine,' she had urged at one point, 'that you are the last man left on earth, and that I, among all the millions of women that remain, have won you in a lottery for this one night only. After this, I shall have to remember how you made love to me for the rest of my life… there can never be an encore.'

  Meanwhile, joined together in the shower, another highly imaginative act was starting and this time he, remembering the boastful talk he had shared with his team mates in the communal bath at their Glasgow clubhouse, couldn't resist reminding her that: 'This is number three, Lolly.'

  'So it is,' said Lolly, thoughtfully. 'You know a compatriot of yours, one Caesar Borgia, bet his father the Pope that he could do it five times with a poor little virgin princess on their wedding night. He had five horsemen waiting under the window of their bridal chamber and each time he came he shouted out to another horseman to ride and tell his father. If he could do that with some poor whimpering little lassie, straight out of a convent, just think what you could with me!'

  A lot later Anthea McWhirter, a stable hand who worked for Lolly, was walking back from the Grove after an evening rehearsing May Day songs when she heard some sharp cries of pleasure coming from the Police Station. Wondering idly to herself what a person who is not a voyeur but a listener is called she paused long enough to hear Lolly give a triumphant shout of: 'Orgassissimo Orlando! Orgassissimo!'

  Walking Wounded

  THE GLASGOW ROYAL Infirmary has the usual complex parking system most hospitals support and Delia was anxious to arrive there before Beth was discharged. Beame was reassuring about her injuries. He'd spoken to the dog owner and reported that it was a simple bite in the girl's bottom, regrettable but not serious. Delia left the Rolls Royce, with Beame still hunting for a parking spot, and hurried into Accident and Emergency. Steve was sitting in the waiting room. Delia hurried over to him, her beautiful face a mask of concern and compassion.

  'Steve! How is she? Poor love! What a dreadful thing to happen. I am so glad you called me.'

  'She'll be OK I guess,' said Steve. 'They already gave her a tetanus shot. Right now they're putting a few stitches in her butt.'

  'Butt? Oh you mean her bottom. Poor old thing. Where is she..?'

  Steve pointed to a cubicle off to the right of a passageway, murmuring that he'd been asked to wait outside. But Delia wanted to make contact with Beth as soon as possible and was convinced no 'please wait outside' request could apply to her. She therefore invaded the cubicle just as a nurse was completing putting a dressing on Beth's upper thigh. A young woman doctor was there too.

  'D'you wear a bikini?' she was asking Beth.

  'Never have. Why?' asked Beth.

  'It could leave a bit of a scar,' said the doctor.

  'My vanity doesn't extend to my butt,' laughed Beth, not noticing Delia standing just inside the cubicle.

  Beth thanked the doctor and the nurse, wondering why no one had yet mentioned insurance or credit cards.

  'Take this to the pharmacy for your medication,' said the doctor.

  'Try and keep the dressing dry,' added the nurse.

  And they were gone. It was then that Beth saw Delia smiling sympathetically at her.

  'My dear Beth. You have been in the wars. I'm so relieved it is nothing worse than, as Steve puts it, a bite in your butt.'

  'Thank you so much for coming, Delia.' Beth was really grateful. Some of these Scottish people were so kind and thoughtful. Others were – well you'd find them in Texas too. She knew that, and added: 'Terry, our teacher, said there'd be days like this.'

  Beth had slipped on her clothes while Delia went to find Steve. On their return she was delving in her handbag for her credit cards.

  'So where do we pay?' she asked.

  'Pay? You don't pay. No one pays,' Delia told her. 'Now listen you two. Lachlan has this terrific idea. We want you to come home with us. We have some wonderful raw material for your mission. You never saw as many heathens as we have at Tressock, our place on the Borders. Lachlan, for one.'

  'Lachlan is a heathen?' Beth was astonished.

  'Lachlan's religion is music,' said Delia. 'If he weren't the chairman of a big company he would like to have written an oratorio like Handel. Call him agnostic if you like. Buddhism, Hinduism, Zoroastrianism are all one to him – manifestations of the Life Force. Christianity too of course. But, as I said, you'll find better missionary material within twenty miles of our home than in Papua New Guinea. Not like the lot you saw this morning. Nice people. People who probably deserve to be saved – starting with Lachlan. Me too perhaps.'

  'Sounds good to me. No mad dogs?' asked Steve.

  'Friendly dogs,' smiled Delia. 'We specialise in horses actually, Steve. Beautiful horses. Do come. We'll invite the whole of Tressock. Our little town.'

  But Delia could see that Beth was unconvinced. She wondered whether the girl had a bit of a martyr complex and really wanted to suffer for her cause.

  'You and Lachlan are both just so sweet to think of doing that,' said Beth without a great deal of conviction. 'But right now I think I'd feel I was running away from the challenge right here in Glasgow. Don't you, Steve?'

  'No I don't. To be honest with you I figure a country soul is as good as a city soul any day. Let's go save some.'

  'But Steve, those poor city folks… OK so they called us Jesus freaks… but we haven't hardly started…'

  'Those city folks just hated our guts as soon as they saw us. A soul is a soul, Beth. Now maybe we got a real chance to save some, thanks to our friends here.'

  'Steve's right, Beth,' added Delia. 'Our people may be a bunch of heathens, but they'll hear you out, that I promise you. But we'd like to take you home with us tomorrow – quite early.'

  Beth managed a wan smile at them both. Then suddenly her usual ebullience reasserted itself.

  'OK, OK!' she cried. 'I'm being obsessive. You guys are so kind.'

  And suddenly she was hugging a rather startled Delia and giving a pleased and relieved Steve a kiss.

  Introducing Sulis

  THEIR DEPARTURE FROM Glasgow next morning was, as a result of their hosts' anxiety to get home as soon as possible, rather hectic. Beth was starting to see the virtue in the small amount of luggage she had been allowed. They took a limo to the airport to say goodbye to the Redeemers Choir, who were heading off to Austria to give another concert, this time with the Vienna Boys' Choir.

  At the airport, the Morrisons' Rolls Royce awaited them. While Lachlan was showing Beth a review of the concert in the Scotsman newspaper and Delia was supervising Beame in the stowing away of the luggage, Steve found himself examining the car. He had assumed it was a Rolls Royce, but the silvery lady on the radiator looked wrong. There were enough Rolls Royces around Dallas for him to be familiar with the classic radiator and the winged lady leaning forever into the wind. This lady seemed to be rising from a silver stream. Lachlan noticed him examining the little effigy and smiled.

  'You're very observant, Steve,' he said.

  Beame came forward to elaborate.

  'Normally, sir, that figure would be the Spirit of Ecstasy,' he said. 'That's what the Rolls Royce people like to call her. But this here is our Goddess Sulis. The Laird,' he nodded towards Lachlan, 'had her made special.'

  'Sulis is our Celtic name for her,' added Lachlan. 'The Romans, when they were here, called her Minerva. She doesn't suffer fools gladly. Among her many roles, she is the goddess of the bright, intelligent people we like to think we are.'

  The car threaded its way through the city of Glasgow before entering rich farmland as they headed south east.

  For Beth, the rolling hills and woodlands of Scotland on that sunny day were like a fairyland revealed. It was the kind of landscape the Disney people had used in heart-warming movies with the likes of Julie Andrews si
nging her great British heart out. Little sheep dotted around small fields on either side of the narrow, hedge-lined roads on which undersized cars sped along as if racing against the clock. The greenness of everything was broken only by brilliant white clumps of early May blossom.

  The air was so clear after the showers of the previous night that as every prospect revealed itself, it was like the Lord had suddenly given Beth the power to see all the way to what her camera's guide called infinity. Whatever that turned out to be. Of course Beth knew it was just a camera term, but she liked to think it was somewhere like the end of the Yellow Brick Road. And if, come to think of it, Lachlan and Beame were almost as weird as the Lion and the Tin Man, they certainly seemed just as friendly. While Delia, who sometimes looked as if she could play the Wicked Witch of the West quite convincingly, nevertheless smiled and smiled and smiled as if she knew the best joke in the world but wasn't telling.

  They talked first about the concert and Beth's voice. Lachlan wanted to know how she had trained it and why she had chosen to change the way she used her voice so radically. Beth explained how it had dawned on her only slowly how much bigger her voice was than the tasks it had been given. She started listening, at home, to recordings of great singers like Maria Callas and Joan Sutherland and buying the scores of operas she liked.

  'One day we were doing a gig some place, I think it was Kansas City,' she recounted. 'At the end the kids screamed for more. So I thought let's give them that great song Carmen sings in the tobacco factory. I put aside the mike and told the guys to kill the sound system. And I gotta admit I sang it real sexy – well that is what it is. The reaction was awesome. At first there was a minute of total silence. Then they just roared. Wanted me to do it again. But my dad, who was managing me at the time, he had them kill the show lights, put on the house lights and led me off the stage. He just hated it. Scared the hell out of him.'