Chasing Angels (31 page)

There was no undue ceremony. Angus was placed in the coffin he had carved all those years ago just as he was, wearing the garb he wore every day of his life, and arrangements were made to take
him for cremation in Inverness, some seventy miles away. Bunty asked for a few moments alone with him before they left the house. ‘So, Macdonald,’ Kathy heard her say as she closed the
door behind her. ‘You’ve done it again, have you, you blaggard, gone away and left me behind here again?’

Kathy began weeping quietly, and Rory immediately grabbed her arm and held it hard.

‘Stop that right now!’ he said sternly. ‘My mother needs you, stop thinking of yourself!’

She hated him so much that she could’ve put her hands round his neck and choked him to death. Who did he think he was, the emotionless pig? She loved Angus, she worshipped him, which he
obviously didn’t, who was he to tell her not to cry? ‘Have you any feelings at all?’ she demanded. ‘Because it seems to me that I care more about your father than
you
do!’

‘That’s enough!’ he said. ‘This is neither the time nor the place!’

Bunty was too frail to go with Angus to Inverness the next day but she demanded her right to do so anyway, and all the way there she kept repeating, ‘This isn’t how it was meant to
be! I was supposed to go first!’ It was frightening how childlike she had become in little over twenty-four hours, looking to Rory and Kathy for reassurance on every detail, and much as she
hated him, Kathy was secretly relieved that Rory was there. Had she been left to cope with this on her own she didn’t think she could’ve done it. At the crowded crematorium Father
O’Neill gave a speech that was entirely non-religious. He spoke as Angus’s friend, not as a priest, and told some of the old stories, of the legendary bareknuckle fights with the old
Major, of his endless quest to learn as much as he could about every subject, of how he had no time for ‘things’, religion or religious people, except to beat them at chess. There were
murmurs of laughter, but Kathy couldn’t join in. She could only think of how impossible life would be without Angus, not only for Bunty, but for her too. And somehow her mother was mixed up
in the event too, it was almost like reliving the day they’d buried Lily in St Kentigern’s all those years ago. ‘
It’s me
,’ she thought miserably.
‘
Everybody I love dies, it must be something about me
.’

When they returned from Inverness Kathy had expected Angus’s ashes to be scattered, but Rory shook his head. ‘Why?’ she asked.

‘Because I say so,’ he replied.

‘But I
know
that’s what he would’ve wanted!’ she protested. ‘He would’ve hated being kept in an urn like some bloody icon! Why are you doing this to
him?’

Rory stared out of the window silently.

‘Why won’t you answer me?’ she demanded angrily. ‘You’re the most ignorant bastard I’ve ever met, but you could at least have the decency to explain this! I
knew Angus, I loved him, I know he wouldnae have wanted this!’

‘Control yourself!’ he said, his voice full of contempt. ‘You’re behaving like a fishwife. Maybe that’s what you are, but
I
know he wouldnae have wanted this
kind of behaviour in his house, on this day of all days, with his widow in the other room!’

The following week felt as though it had lasted a year. Bunty had withdrawn into herself, not leaving her bed and barely eating and, even then, only to please Kathy or Rory. Most of the time she
slept and they could hear her calling for Angus in her sleep. Kathy came downstairs one morning just after eight o’clock and headed for the kitchen, thinking what she could make for
Bunty’s breakfast that might tempt her to eat. As she passed the reading room she heard Rory’s voice. He was sitting at the table by the window.

‘Did you say something?’ she asked.

‘I said don’t bother.’

‘Rory, we’ve got to get her to eat again.’

‘She’s gone,’ he replied. ‘She died in her sleep. I heard her call for my father about four o’clock and when I came down she was dead.’

‘Why didn’t you call me?’ she demanded.

‘And what exactly do you think you could’ve done?’ he asked. ‘You’re good at resurrection, are you?’

Kathy stood by the window, looking out over the loch, her mind in turmoil once again.

‘Thank God she’s dead, it’s over,’ Rory muttered.

She gasped. Suddenly all the anger she had been holding in check, about losing Angus, losing Bunty and her happy home here, about Rory Macdonald himself, boiled up, and she slapped him hard
across the face. He put a hand up to grab her wrist and fixed her with a cold stare.

‘Don’t you understand anything? She couldnae have lived without him, you stupid bitch!’ he said sternly. ‘It’s a blessing for my mother that she didnae have to go
on too long. And I’ll give you that one slap, but you ever try it again and you’ll be leaving here in a hearse yourself!’ Still holding her wrist, he shook her so hard that she
felt the pain in her shoulder. ‘Understand?’ he asked, then he let go of her abruptly and left the room.

She looked at her wrist, the white patches left by his fingers were taking a long time to turn pink again, but more than that, she realised that she had been frightened. For a split second there
as he held her gaze, she had been scared of him, and she couldn’t figure out why. She had been battling people all her life, she had been facing them down and scaring them, yet with a few
stern words and the look in his eyes he had terrified her so much that goose pimples were standing out over her entire body.

So there they were, just over a week later, returning to Inverness with the other carved coffin. They spent the journey there and back in silence, as they had the days since Bunty’s death,
but when they arrived back at Glenfinnan Rory appeared in the kitchen doorway.

‘Come on,’ he said, and she followed wordlessly as he led the way to the hill outside. It was now October, dusk was falling and the wind was rustling the trees. Rory set the two urns
on a flat rock, poured the contents of one into the other, then threw them into the air. They stood for a few moments, then he left her, returning to the house in silence. So that was why he
hadn’t scattered Angus’s ashes. He had known from the start that Bunty wouldn’t survive long and he had wanted them to be together. She made her way back to the house. ‘Why
didn’t you tell me when I asked you?’ she asked.

‘Why should I?’ he replied calmly, but it wasn’t really a question.

They lived in the house for a few days more, passing each other in silence and making sure they didn’t have to meet, at least Kathy did, knowing Rory wasn’t bothered one way or the
other. Within a week her entire world had changed and she couldn’t quite work out what she should do next. There were phone calls for her about Con, as the doctors in the Southern General
tried to work out what had caused his sudden paralysis, but she couldn’t have cared less. She knew they thought she was heartless, but she didn’t care about that either, she had
something else on her mind, a numbing grief that had paralysed her just as surely as Con’s drinking had paralysed him. Then gradually she began to see a little more clearly. She would leave
here, she told Rory, she couldn’t stay any longer.

‘Why?’ he asked.

‘This is
your
home,’ she shrugged. ‘I was brought here to look after Bunty, and now Bunty’s gone.’

‘My father left a will,’ he said. ‘It’ll be a while before it’s sorted out, but he told me what was in it. The house and the grounds were to be left to both of us
once my mother had died.’

‘What?’

‘Which of those words did you have trouble understanding?’ he asked.

‘But I don’t want it! This is
your
house, not mine!’

Rory shrugged. ‘I don’t know what you’re making such a fuss about,’ he said quietly. ‘It doesn’t matter a damn to me, it’s only a thing, after
all.’

‘But it doesnae make any sense!’ she protested. ‘I canny take your house! Honestly, Rory, I swear I didn’t put him up to this!’

He sighed. ‘Why is it that you have this need for melodrama?’ he asked. ‘It’s simple enough, surely? Why must we have these hysterics at every turn?’

‘I’m not hyster—’

‘And it says a helluva lot for your knowledge of my father after all these years if you think
you
could’ve influenced him about anything!’ he said scathingly. ‘He
was his own man till the day he died.’

She sat down in Bunty’s chair by the fireside and, looking up, noticed that he was watching her. ‘I’m sorry!’ she said, jumping up. ‘I shouldnae have sat
there!’

‘Christ Almighty!’ he said, getting up from the table and throwing the chair back so hard that it fell on to the floor. ‘Here we go again! Everything always has to be a drama
with you! It’s only a bloody seat, woman, my mother’s not sitting there you know, you havnae sat on top of her!’ And with that he stormed out of the room. She had never seen him
genuinely angry before these last few days. Mostly he said little to her or quietly ignored her, so his sudden rage added to the general sense of the world being out of control. Two more days
passed in mutual avoidance before she tried to talk to him again, and she resolved to be as calm as she could. ‘We need to talk,’ she said, standing beside him as he read a newspaper in
his usual place.

He folded the paper. ‘As long as we can do it without the Oscar-winning performance,’ he said without looking at her.

She sat as far across the room from him as she could. ‘About Angus’s will. It doesnae matter what he wanted, I don’t want this house.’

‘You’ve only got a half share,’ he said.

‘Stop it, Rory,’ she said quietly. ‘Who’s acting up now?’

He didn’t answer.

‘And I’ll have to leave, we canny stay here together like this. You know how people talk.’

‘Is your mind that narrow that you’d care about that?’

‘Aye, it is.’

‘So where will you go?’

‘I was thinking. The wee cottage down the road at Drumsallie, your father said it was yours.’

He looked up in surprise. ‘Old Edith’s place?’ he asked.

‘I don’t know. Is it?’

He laughed. ‘Aye, it is. But you wouldnae want that, it hasnae had any work done on it for years now, I’ve just let it go.’ He sat in silence, looking at her. ‘It would
take a while to do it up, mind.’

‘Who was she? Edith?’

He laughed again. ‘She was a spinster lady of these parts!’ he said. ‘She was never married, but as they say, she was never neglected either! She dyed her hair orange, smoked
fags, drank whisky and entertained many men.’

‘She was an old slapper, then?’

‘No, she was not!’ he said sternly. ‘No money changed hands, there’s a subtle difference. Edith just lived life as she wanted and didnae give a damn about what people
thought. I used to drop in on my way back from school, got her messages, lit her fire, made sure she was all right. There was a lot of gossip about it at the time, she was seen as a bad influence
on a growing boy. People even took it upon themselves to talk to Angus about it.’ He gave another burst of laughter.

‘What did Angus say?’

‘He just laughed at them! You know that way he had, you didnae so much hear it as see it in his eyes?’

Her eyes watered and she looked away.

‘Edith left me the cottage when she died. I was abroad at the time, I only found out when I came back years later. You havnae even seen inside it. You’re sure you want it?’

Kathy nodded. ‘I’ll pay you rent.’

‘Here we go again!’ he said. ‘I knew we couldnae get through this without the melodrama!’

‘What is it about you?’ she shouted. ‘Do you actually feel anything? I’m upset because two people I loved have died, and all you can do is make cracks!’

‘Just because I don’t carry a vale of tears around on my back doesnae mean I don’t feel anything!’ he shouted back. ‘They were in their eighties, they’d both
had a good innings and as far as I’m concerned, they went when they were ready! What is your problem with that?’

‘My problem is that I loved them both and I miss them, why are you so threatened by feelings?’

‘I’m not threatened by feelings!’ he yelled back. ‘Where do you get this stuff? Do you believe everything you read in my father’s psychology books? I’m not
like you, I don’t parade my feelings, I don’t go about with a bleeding heart on my sleeve. One of us going about the house like a wet rag is more than enough!’

‘You know,’ she shouted back, standing beside him with her fists clenched at her sides, ‘your mother used to say you were like Angus, but she was wrong. Angus was ten times the
man you’ll ever be!’

‘So now you’re taking it on yourself to tell me what my father was like, are you? He was the best man I ever knew, the best man you’ll ever meet, and you havnae even the
intelligence to begin understanding that!’ He looked at her fists. ‘So,’ he said, his angry tone suddenly changing. ‘You’re thinking of hitting me again, are you?
Think about it. What would you give for your chances, really?’

‘And you thought we could go on living together in this house, did you?’ she asked.

‘And you thought the only danger was your virtue being impuned,’ he shot back calmly. ‘Well, let me reassure you on that score at least!’ With that he turned back to his
newspaper, leaving her and her anger with nowhere to go.

In the kitchen she picked up the phone and dialled the monument tourist office’s number. ‘Mavis? It’s Kathy. Listen, I canny explain now, but can I stay with you for a few days
till I can get something sorted out?’

‘Aye, aye, of course you can. It’s a big flat and only me in it, and Donnie too if you want to count him. I’d be glad of the company. Are you OK? Is there anything
wrong?’

‘I’m fine,’ she said. ‘But if I don’t get out of this house now there’ll be another funeral, and I’m not sure if it’ll be mine or his!’

Mavis, being the manager, lived in a flat above the Tourist Centre with her husband, Donnie, and this was the beginning of the slack period. For six months from the end of September to early
April the Centre closed, though Mavis still had off-season work to do. An extension was being built to house a tearoom in the Centre and she was overseeing the efforts of the workmen, all of them
local, which was just as well. No one and nothing escaped Mavis’s attention, she enjoyed ordering people about and could never understand why anyone should take umbrage at being questioned,
supervised or dragooned into helping her. If a box of leaflets or postcards arrived she would look around to see who was available to take the package from where it was to where she wanted it to
be. And it didn’t matter whether or not they were employed by the National Trust, to Mavis any idle pair of hands was at her disposal. The only person who seemed to have worked out how to
cope with this was her husband of many years, Donnie, a retired railwayman who now worked on
The Jacobite
, a preserved steam locomotive that ran on the West Highland Line during the summer
months. Donnie was a good-natured man who, it was believed locally, was henpecked, though in that he was hardly alone, because Mavis’s enthusiastic ordering and opinion-giving stretched far
beyond her domain. But Donnie had his ways of evening the score denied to others. Under the influence of a dram he sang his own specially composed version of the old song, ‘Bonnie Mary of
Argyll’. Instead of ‘I have heard the mavis singing/Its love song to the morn’, Donnie’s version started off ‘I have heard the mavis singing/And it sounded like a
crow.’ Thereafter it descended in to innuendo and, if he was allowed to get that far, well beyond and, though Mavis pretended to join in the joke, everyone knew that she hated it. At every
gathering Donnie was sure to be asked to sing his song and, at their daughter Kirsty’s wedding, he had sung it several times till his wife threatened to knock him down. This was viewed as a
blow for all humanity on the West Coast, and a great cheer had gone up. His other ploy was to sound
The Jacobite
’s steam whistle every time the loco passed the Tourist Centre. To the
delight of those present, Mavis repeatedly looked at her watch as the train times neared, and shut her eyes and ground her teeth as the cheerful greeting from her affectionate husband rang out. He
did this to say ‘Hello’, if you listened to Donnie, to drive Mavis mad according to everyone else, Mavis especially.