The Goldenacre

Episode 48

10.03pm. We picked strawberries that day. All day in the flat sun. It was so hot, I remember. And the strawberries so red. So sweet. My fingers were stained with the redness of them... Wooden punnets. It must have been the late-1970s.

I ate loads and slept in the front of the truck on the way back: just asleep on her warm legs, hearing pop music on the radio.

Where were you then? Fighting Communists? Some grimy coup in Africa? Assassinations in Iran? Turning some cancerous civil servant in Lübeck? There wasn’t a cloud in the sky, that day. I remember seeing the dome of the sky, properly, for the first time. How it deepens into dark blue, and is yellow-brown at the horizon. And the skiddy flat-bed, and my tiny body rolling over it.

Anyway – I am only telling you this, so you can remember it too, when I am gone. But you won’t be able to know if it is true, or not. Because you weren’t there. Bye.

-oShona Sandison stared at her phone. Her father was making a racket in the bathroom, and she was wondering what to say to the Civic Gallery in London. Tallis had worked there.

She did not really care about his life in London – nor would her paper’s readers. But there was something shadowy about him.

She had to find out what it was.

And she had to make some calls before she spoke to the man himself.

Sometimes, she knew, a reporter had to circle around a story – speaking to several sources, talking off the record, researching – before addressing it face on.

She could do this with stories she was familiar with: crime, corruption, malfeasance. But Shona did not know about the arts world, how it really worked.

And, given she could not bring herself to ask Ned Silver for help, she had decided to call the institution in London and see what happened.

She was going to ask them outright why Tallis had left, and whether he had signed a non-disclosure agreement. They may not answer. But it would rattle them, at the least.

Her father dropped something in the bathroom and swore loudly.

“Nothing broken!” he yelled through the door.

“I’m on the phone,” she shouted back. She was about to be. She called the number. It was still early, but someone in the press office of the Civic Gallery, South Bank, London, would answer. The phone was picked up by a young man with a tremulous voice. Shona introduced herself, and he did the same: his name was Nicolas.

“Hi, Nicolas, can I speak to your boss? The head of press?”

“External affairs?”

“Whatever you want to call it.”

“I am afraid she is in a meeting right now. Can I help?”

“Can she call me if I leave a number?” “She won’t be able to today.” “That’s some meeting she has,” Shona said. “What’s her name?”

“The head of external affairs, press and marketing?”

“Yes indeed, Nicolas.”

“The head of press and marketing is currently unavailable,” he said, suddenly robotic.

“What’s her name?”

Someone was whispering on the line. It wasn’t anyone in Shona’s bedroom, and it wasn’t her father. Someone in London was talking to this Nicolas.

“Erm. Can I ask you the nature of your query? Sorry – can you put the nature of your enquiry into an email and we will respond as soon as possible?” he said, quivering.

Shona shook her head.

Out of the corner of her eye, her sodden dad slumped through the hall with a towel wrapped around him, bubbles still clinging to his hairy back. He was softly singing a Tony Bennett number to himself. Shona smiled.

“Is that possible?” the young man said. “Are you reading from a cue card, Nicolas?”

“It’s my second day here,” he said, almost whispering. “I’m the intern.”

“You sound like a hostage reading a prepared statement. Look, give me your email and I’ll ping you some questions.”

There was an audible sigh, breathed heavily down the line from London to Edinburgh. “Thank you very much, Sheena.”

“One tip for nothing: get people’s names right and you’ll do all right. It’s Shona. Shona Sandison.”

“And how do I spell that?”

“I’ll give you three guesses.” “Thank you.”

“Nicolas – have a cup of coffee, read the papers, get some fresh air. Nothing’s that important. I’ll fire you my questions now. What’s yer email?”

He spelled it out for her.

“I will watch out for your message,” Nicolas said, his voice less strained.

“Make sure you do,” she said, and ended the call. Her side ached, and she put a hand to it.

“Trouble at mill?” her father yelled from his room.

“Always. What’s for breakfast?” she yelled back, opening her laptop.

An hour later, Shona slowly left the number twenty-one bus and walked through Edinburgh in the rain.

She trudged down the stately wide boulevard of George Street, with its clothing stores and coffee shops.

She turned into one, which was adjoined to a grand hotel. Her stick momentarily snagged on a carpet.

Out of the rain, the coffee shop was dark and thick with coffee fumes and the slick scents of pastries. Men and women in suits huddled around small round tables. A shriek of steam burst from the coffee machine. There were shadows in the corners, and the light was pearly, diffuse.

She stood in the queue, then noted with dismay that her colleague, Hector Stricken, was also in the queue. She was about to leave when he noticed her as he paid.

“Miss Sandison,” he said. “Let me get you a coffee.”

“Actually, I was just leaving.”

“But you’re only just here.”

“Yeah, well, I saw you and thought, ‘To hell with that’.”

“Nice. Latte with two More tomorrow.

Philip Miller lives in Edinburgh. An awardwinning journalist for 20 years, he is now a civil servant. The Goldenacre, published by Birlinn, follows his previous novels, The Blue Horse and All The Galaxies. His latest novel, The Hollow Tree, is to be a sequel to The Goldenacre.

There was something shadowy about him. She had to find out what it was