The serial: Largie Castle, A Rifled Nest Day 5

All she had was a grieving mother, an uninterested older brother badly wounded during the war and a ruined castle once her home

Mummy stubbed out her cigarette on a pebble and gathered up the debris from our picnic. “It’s time to go!” Back in the car she slammed her foot on the accelerator and asked if we wanted to play I-Spy. “Why did he drown?” I wouldn’t let go of the subject. “I’m not talking about it, Mary!” At the head of the loch was Tarbet, not to be confused with the Tarbert we were aiming for farther away.

Following the twisting road we reached the Rest and be Thankful, whereupon Mummy burst into chatter. She was like that. We could drive from one county to another in silence and then without apparent cause, she plunged into telling us a story, sharing a joke or just reminiscing.

“In the old days”, she said, “when people travelled by horse and carriage they got tired climbing this hill, so at the top they took a rest and were thankful.”

Farther up the A83 we crossed a hump-back bridge outside Inveraray. “Look to your right, children.”

Bleak

I peered out of the window and saw a bleak castle of grey stone with pointed turrets. “That’s where the Duke of Argyll lives. And he’s a Campbell.” My mother’s lip curled in disgust.

“Macdonalds before me have always fought the Campbells.” “Do you still?” asked Elisabeth. “Don’t be silly.” Mummy chuckled. “That was ages ago.”

Clan lore and loyalty were alien concepts for us four born and brought up south of the Scottish geographical divide.

From my seat in the back I saw Mummy slacken her grip on the steering wheel. She was coming back to the west coast of Kintyre, bound by the Atlantic. But to what?

All she had was a grieving mother, an uninterested older brother badly wounded during the war and a ruined castle once her home.

The corkscrew bends stopped; we were now on a straight stretch of road sweeping south towards Campbeltown.

My mother gazed out of the car window to slithers of land surrounded by sea.

“There’s Jura and that’s Islay in the distance. See?” I could hear the excitement in her voice. That was the difference between her childhood and ours. Whereas she had salt in her veins we had mud, our young lives spent by an estuary, next to sluggish water belonging neither to river or sea.

“Down there is Gigha. And the little one is Cara where the Broonie lives.” “The Broonie?” I chimed. “I’ll tell you about him and if the sea is calm I’ll take you there.”

“I want out.” moaned Janet who, wriggling in her seat, made a lunge for the door handle.

Mummy swivelled her head round to see what my sister was up to and rammed her foot on the brake. “How dare you.” she spat. “I told you never, I repeat never to touch the door handle. I’ve a good mind to smack you.”

For a moment I thought Mummy might carry out her threat but she revved up the engine, urging the car down the road.

“There it is.” she waved towards a slope overlooking the sea. Half-hidden by a swathe of rhododendron was Ballure, Granny’s house now that Largie was in ruins.

She was there standing on the front doorstep as we drew up on the gravel, her white hair in a net at the nape of her neck.

She had strung a rope of pearls around her throat, whose loose skin hung in swags like snow drifts against a fence.

Granny never wore black; to do so was to admit that her lost son would never return. She preferred brown and wore as many different shades of it as she could muster.

On this day she had on a tweed skirt the colour of beech leaves in autumn and a twin set of donkey brown.

As I clambered out of the car, I came face to face with her feet enveloped in flat, brown shoes that looked like boats from which emerged stick-thin legs wrapped in beige silk stockings.

“Esther, darling.” she purred opening her arms to Mummy. “How lovely you’ve come. We must eat. Straight away.”

Her eyes, shielded by spectacles with dark brown circular frames, had a dewy appearance. They fixed on Mummy, following her as she walked through the Ballure public rooms and up the elegant staircase.

Granny ate at six. Never later. This was for Robert’s benefit because he liked his evenings off.

He was her cook but had once been the butler at Largie Castle. Then when its roof was removed after the last war, Robert took charge of the cart with all Granny’s furniture and possessions and helped her move into her new nearby home.

There they both remained, she in the front part of the house with its proportioned windows and portico entrance and he in the back, with its plain windows and door that led to the scullery and laundry at a lower-lying level.

Up the back stairs was his sitting room, bedroom and bathroom. The distinction between front and back was striking.

Granny’s quarters were embellished with rows of books in cases: Fielding, Scott, Stevenson and Dickens, collections in calf with gold tooled lettering. Her furniture was Jacobean mixed with 18th Century Sheraton tables, sideboards and consoles.

The staircase had a mahogany rail and brass rods at each tread that helped keep the carpet strip in place.

Poky

Robert’s domain was functional and poky with no carpet on the stairs. His rooms were out of bounds, so we could only imagine what they were like.

We knew he listened to the radio because in the garden we heard the nine o’clock news blaring from his window. He smoked a pipe; we sniffed its fumes as we passed him on the drive.

To us he spoke little and if he did it was usually to scold. “Don’t touch.” “Mind that kettle.” “Keep out of there.” “Away from the larder.”

Robert was always the same; he wore a blue apron over his trousers and shirt and served food better than he cooked it.

He carried hot dishes with a solemnity only seen in well-trained butlers and it pained him not to do the honours by serving personally each diner, as he had done at the castle.

In his demoted position as cook, all that was required after preparing and cooking the food was to carry it into the dining room and lay it on the sideboard.

(More tomorrow).

© 2017 Mary C Gladstone, all rights reserved, courtesy of the author and Firefallmedia; available in hardcover and paperback online and from all booksellers.