by Leah Fleming
If only she didn’t feel so tired and indecisive. The truth was that since her return from Phetray after her mother’s death everything was an effort and the thought of standing up in front of the congregation, having to learn a new piece of music, was something she could do without.
‘I’ll think about it and let you know,’ she said hoping that he would now forget all about his request and she could just nestle behind the stone pillar with the other sopranos unnoticed.
There were so many alterations to oversee while Harry was away on yet another of his trips south: the new kitchen, and the stable block to be converted into a huge garage for the Pitlandry fleet, an expanding range of expensive cars.
Harry’s motors were like his baby son, cosseted and preened over, his pride and joy. Only behind a wheel driving fast did he seem to relax.
Minn drove a large shooting brake, a belated present for her birthday. At the time it felt more like an afterthought for Harry’s collection than a real expression of love to her.
Since Hew’s birth in the summer of 1949 their marriage seemed to be limping along. The birth of a son was the pinnacle of success for Harry but Minn felt so lethargic and depressed, unable to snap out of the doldrums, uninterested in the growing success of the Lennox Corporation.
Her world was shrinking to the nursery and schoolroom and taxiing her daughter to an exhausting array of lessons, pony club meetings and birthday parties. Harry spent more and more time in London and Edinburgh developing his ventures and she had no energy or desire to accompany him to all the dinners and business gatherings. Since her return from Phetray they both were busy avoiding each other.
The doctor had suggested she took herself off abroad into the sun to lift her spirits, but the thought of being stranded on some foreign beach seemed more effort than it was worth.
Since that fateful return from Mother’s funeral it was as if the two of them inhabited separate worlds now: she and the children lived in the Borders and Harry joined them at weekends for parties, balls and hunting in the season. Outwardly nothing had changed, inwardly she was in turmoil.
They were seldom alone for there was always some business visitor dragged up north to sample the splendours of Pitlandry hospitality and some good shooting. Harry would stay up late at these boozy functions, with the sort of businessmen who bored Minn rigid. Then he would stagger home legless at dawn, sleeping in his dressing room so as not to disturb her fitful sleep.
Life went on at Pitlandry House at its own pace in tune with the seasons. She never tired of its woodland beauty. She found she relaxed best helping Gil Chisholm in the vegetable garden digging over the fine tilth, planting out and planning new borders. Alone in the enclosed world of their kitchen garden there was no time to brood while Hew sat in the bucket pram, as had his sister before him, throwing his toys out on to the path for her to retrieve.
He was the image of his father with foxy hair and bright eyes and she adored his chubby arms around her neck. Anna was growing fast and about to start in the village school. She wore dark pigtails and an intense look in her eyes signalling determination to master every move with her pony. Dusky.
Sometimes when Anna frowned there was a v-shaped furrow over the bridge of her nose and for a second Minn would think she recognized something but then stop herself. It was no good moping about what had happened in the past: better to let things be now.
Singing in the church choir was another simple pleasure and now Archie was going to spoil it by suggesting she did a solo or took her musical interest seriously.
The ache in her heart for what might have been with Ewan had dulled over the past year. There was no point in telling Harry his deceit was unmasked. Why rake up old bones; better to leave them buried with her dreams. Yet it had brought up all her doubts about his honesty and destroyed her trust in him. What else did she not know about?
Now there was the joy of children, of course, but what about when they were sent away to school? Sometimes the emptiness inside her felt like a pain.
To the outside world Mairi Lennox had everything. She appeared like an elegant white swan gliding calmly through her commitments to the village: Women’s Rural, church, charity work without so much as a ripple on the surface, but Minn knew otherwise. Underneath all this graciousness and geniality was a darker unknown part of herself paddling like fury to keep afloat, with all those shadowy secrets that hid in the recesses of her mind.
Strange how the world she had coveted in the Crannog all those years ago no longer satisfied. Why when she had everything around her was she not content? Why was it when she looked at Harry, with his moustache already peppered with grey, his agate eyes and slight paunch, did she feel a growing sense of panic?
The minister had preached last week something from St Augustine about taking what you want in life but being prepared to pay the asking price for it. She had craved security and comforts all her life but there was little joy now in their acquisition. Even her collection of china no longer interested her.
No one had warned her that a cabinet of cold porcelain figurines was no substitute for real love. Ewan’s gift of the shepherd and shepherdess still stared from the shelf, unmoved by her restlessness. He no longer cared so why should she?
Perhaps what she needed was another interest, something to take her mind from everything, and listening to music was a great comfort to the soul. Should she take up Archie’s suggestion? A trip on the train to Edinburgh, shopping on Princes Street might shake her out of this lethargy. She might have tea with a friend.
What friend? Who are you kidding, she thought? Most of the wives she met with Harry were acquaintances, strictly for business with no common points of interest.
If one was as rich as one’s friends then she was a pauper, she sighed. To have a friend you have to be a friend and she was too wrapped up in the children and the house to take time to make any. She felt alone now in this marriage with just hired help and the children for company.
Edie and Gil Chisholm were the nearest she had to loyal friends, but they knew nothing of her private turmoil.
Perhaps a proper assessment of her vocal chords by a professional teacher would put paid to all this nonsense once and for all. Archie would be satisfied when he heard that his prodigy was after all just a middle-of-the-road mezzo-soprano.
*
The morning of her visit to Moira Sanderson in Elgin Square Minn dressed with care, not knowing how to present herself before the teacher: country housewife in tweeds, smart girl about town in a shapely two-piece with a peplum jacket and straight skirt or casual in a swagger coat, slacks and scarf? None of these seemed right somehow.
Minn the singer was plain Minn Macfee of Phetray and she would have worn a kilt and a Fair Isle jumper, her hair brushed back into a chignon and a beret. The songs she would sing would be the old ballads and she knew them by heart.
She had taken herself far from the island but no one could take the Hebridean childhood out of her soul, haunted as it was by such yearnings for escape. In her heart she was still that scraggy child singing by the shore in a dirty dress and bare feet. She would dress simply in a tartan and cashmere with a string of fine pearls just to give her courage.
She caught the early train with instructions left for the children to be good for Edie and a belated call from Harry wishing her luck for the audition. She was hours too early for her appointment and hung about the shops in Princes Street. The rationing seemed worse than ever and there was nothing to tempt her in the shop windows but paper displays.
Since the war everything looked shabby and tired, the buildings needing paint and shoppers all greys and duns with no colour anywhere.
There was plenty of time to stroll through the gardens and take in the latest exhibition at the Scottish Royal Academy. Here she could feast her eyes on some colour.
It felt so peaceful to walk through the Grecian splendour and the cool stillness of the viewing rooms after the bustle of the busy streets, her feet echoing on
the marble floors.
There was a mixed exhibition of young Scottish painters and sculptors. She glanced at the catalogue, recognizing Willie Wilson’s work, Joan Eardley’s paintings of the east coast and Ian Fleming’s stone harbours and harled cottages. The theme of the exhibition was Seascapes and Sky. Then she saw a canvas and her heart stopped.
It was a violent seascape of crashing waves and a shoreline on which a coiled lone figure was lying on the sand with dark hair streaming out like seaweed, naked, vulnerable against the power that had thrown the body back to the beach. She sat down breathless to search out the artist in the catalogue and saw the title. Agnes.
The signature was so familiar that she found she was shaking at the imprint of a memory she could never quite recall.
There were two other canvases by Ewan Mackinnon, both of Phetray, one of an upturned boat used as a shed by the beach, every detail lovingly coloured.
Ewan, dubh… Ciamar a tha thu? How are you doing? Can I never be free of you her heart cried as she sat transfixed by the oils, feeling the island tugging at her heart again. How could she be living so far from the sea? His pain and anger were in that canvas. Here were the rich blues and greens and greys, the white sands and all the colours she missed. She could feel the island’s breath on the salt air, taste the smoky tangle of shingle and rocks as she sat lost in time and memories until jolted back by her watch.
It was time to run now to find the house and the stranger who would listen to her singing. Her throat was dry with emotion. How could she sing after such a shock? It was impolite not to turn up, but if only she could catch the first train home and forget those haunting images.
Moira Sanderson was tall and elegant in a jersey wool dress that emphasized her willowy shape, not at all the teacher that Minn was expecting. By the time she found Elgin Square she was breathless and pink.
‘I’m sorry, I’m late. I went to the exhibition and sort of lost track of time. I do apologize,’ said Minn, aware that her hair was sprouting out of its chignon and her cheeks were aflame.
‘Sit down and tell me a little about yourself, Mrs Lennox. Archie tells me you have a voice worth hearing,’ the teacher said, ushering her into a large drawing room with a grand piano in the corner.
‘I can’t sing now. I’ve had a shock,’ she replied, feeling the tears rising in her eyes. ‘Forgive me. I had a baby last year and I’ve not been myself. I greet at the slightest thing and I hate to be late. This is a terrible mistake. I’m sorry to waste your time,’ she said, rising to leave. ‘Please excuse me.’
‘I’ll be the judge of that. Sit down and take some deep breaths. There’s plenty of time to sing, but tell me more about you. I see you’re wearing tartan; which one?’ said Moira, sitting down, unperturbed by Minn’s anxiety.
‘It’s Macfee, my mother’s family. I’m from Phetray. I never knew my father,’ she said, aware of the big piano and her mother’s last words, feeling it was better to leave her history at that. ‘I sang a little as a child. I like music, any sort of music, but I’ve no training.’
‘You sang in the Mod?’ Moira asked.
‘No, I’m ashamed to say.’ How could she explain that the likes of her never were entered into a competition?
‘Then sing me something you would have sung then… in the Gaelic,’ the teacher asked.
‘I can’t remember… I brought some ballads,’ she offered half-heartedly, pulling out a few scores from her shopping bag.
‘Sing me something you would have sung as a child, anything will do, a lullaby, a waulking song, come on, don’t get upset. You’ve had a shock. Sing me something that tells me how you are feeling.’ The teacher was trying to coax the music out of her. It was not going to be easy.
Minn stood up and looked out across the beautiful square and the grand houses opposite. It was a city landscape of grey stone and porticos. She thought about Ewan’s pictures hanging in the gallery. He was an important artist now.
Then the memories of Phetray and the little girl who used to sing by the shore to the seal, the old Colonel, all those years ago came flooding back. If only you’d known then what you know now, she sighed to herself.
From somewhere deep inside came this groan of sorrow, of yearning for home, anguish for her lost love, and she sang the lament for the drowned brother: ‘Cumha Iain Ghairbh Ratharsair’. She sang through her tears in a language she thought she had abandoned and it soared across the room up into the high ceiling, out of the open window so people stopped and looked up to see who was singing, and then she stopped.
‘I can’t go on. I’m sorry. I have to go,’ she wept.
‘I’ve heard enough to know we must work on that voice and share it, Mrs Lennox. I can train people to breathe and enunciate but I cannot teach what you have just shown me. Your voice is rich and pure and unspoilt. Don’t waste your gift. Let me bring out its depth and tone. It would be a privilege to help such a sound go out into the world,’ the teacher said, touching her arm. ‘Who is the musician in the family to have passed this on to you?’
‘I don’t know, perhaps my father,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry to have wasted your time. I can’t sing. I won’t train. I have a family. It’s all too late now,’ said Minn desperate to leave the room. ‘It hurts me to sing. I have nothing to give.’
‘Oh but you have, and it’s never too late to sing but training is hard and needs practice. Come back to me when you have the time,’ said the teacher, reluctant to let her go.
‘It’s not that… I haven’t the heart for it. There’s no songs I want to sing. It is like bearing my soul and I couldn’t do that. Archie Carswell meant well but it was a mistake. I do apologize,’ Minn cried as she rushed down the steps and on to the pavement, blinded by tears.
‘Let it be for now, Mrs Lennox. The time’ll come when the songs’ll return to you. Your voice will have its day and I shall look forward to seeing you then.’ Moira Sanderson waved from the door.
Minn sat on the train going home. How could she have been so stupid? If she had stayed at home she wouldn’t have known about Ewan’s success and those terrible reminders. It was safer to go home and get on with her own life with her children and try to make up to Harry for not loving him.
*
One evening in September when the leaves were thick on the lawn and the rains had turned them into slippery, squelchy mulch, she dined alone listening to the wireless. Anna and Hew were asleep upstairs and Edie had retired to the new cottage. Harry was out at some golf club dinner and Hew was wailing from the sound of their little battery alarm.
He was not going to settle until she took him into her bed. She often slept better when his little body was curled up beside her. Harry would return when the spirit moved him. She did not hear him come back.
They all slept in late, and Harry came thundering through into their bathroom with a hangover demanding the keys to her shooting brake, muttering something about ‘Taking your car this morning, darling. Must dash!’ Next moment he had gone, leaving her to rouse the children for her own dash to Anna’s school along the narrow twisty lanes that edged the Tweed.
Minn refused to drive the scarlet Jaguar, Harry’s latest toy. It was fast and sleek but she found its speed deceptive and unnerving. She didn’t trust her turning on such slippery lanes.
Minn dropped off Anna by the school gate, stopping off on the way back at the post office for some stamps where she found herself standing in the morning queue behind whisperings and tuttings of village wives on their way home from the school gate.
‘Good morning. Mistress Lennox… fine the day?’ They turned to acknowledge her but carried on with their gossiping. She was used to being treated politely and kept at a distance but the shop was full of the dramas of some road accident and voices were loud with anxiety.
‘Shame about the Prentiss boy… knocked right off his bike in the early hours. He’s away to the big hospital. The bissom didna even stop! Terrible isn’t it, Mistress Lennox. Yon lad works in the mill, h
ome frae his shift on his bicycle… Found by the road unconscious. Some beggar must have knocked him off and kent fine what he’d done!’ said the postmistress with indignation.
‘Who’s the boy?’ Minn asked.
‘Maggie Prentiss’s son… just married and a bairn on the way… Works for Galbraith’s woollen mill. His mother’s in an awful state.’
Minn knew Maggie Prentiss from the Women’s Rural. She always won the competitions for the best sponge cakes. All the way home, Minn had a growing feeling of unease… Surely not… Harry wasn’t involved? What human being would hit and then run?
The roads were narrow and a cyclist on a pedal bike even with a dynamo lamp would be difficult to spot, like a pinprick in the dark. She found herself making excuses for why somebody might not stop to see what they had hit in the darkness, unless… What if the driver was going too fast and couldn’t stop? There would be skid marks and telltale signs, broken glass. What if the driver was drunk at the wheel?
Minn parked the estate van in its usual place, puzzled and not a little troubled as to why Harry should borrow her car this very morning. She peeped in the garage for the Jaguar but it was not in its usual berth. Perhaps Harry had parked it round the back in the courtyard so that Gil could give it a clear, but it was nowhere to be seen. Perhaps it had merely broken down in the lane, but she knew she had not passed the car.
Not to be thwarted in her search, Minn made for the back of the house to where the cobbled road petered out into a track alongside the old hay barns. There were tyre marks leading up to the door and her heart was thudding when the side door opened. She peered through the darkness with the help of a shaft of light from a glazed roof tile. There under the grainy spotlight was the Jaguar parked neatly with its face turned into the wall.
Now her heart was thudding with apprehension and dread. It had been well hidden from view. Few people ever bothered to come to this barn. She needed more light on the situation, so lifting the heavy bars from the byre doors she swung them open to let in the morning light and examined the front of the car carefully. Once glance told her all she needed to know: the nearside passenger light was cracked and the paintwork was dented and scratched.
