Highland Fling Episode 40

Half an hour later, with Tash raised from slumber, the women piled into the car. It was cold. Motherly, Eleanor fixed the angle of Tash’s hat. “Better,” she said. Alan and Bruce stood in the open doorway and waved as Eleanor switched on the engine and turned the car in an arc so wide that the left side slumped off the driveway on to the damp grass. She gestured defiantly at her husband, tooted the horn as she righted the vehicle, and set off at speed. Tash slipped her arm through Mirabelle’s in the back seat and gave it a squeeze.

“Gorgeous morning,” she commented. “Miss Bevan has been digging dirt, Tash,” Eleanor called over her shoulder. “And has uncovered the matter of your godmother and Lady Gwendolyn Dougal.”

“Oh. That,” Tash sounded dismissive. “You knew?” Mirabelle said. Camera flashes sparked as they speeded through the estate gates, but Eleanor showed no sign of slowing as she swung the car on to the main road with more precision than she had managed at the top of the drive.

“Nina liked people,” Tash said. “But she liked people with titles best of all.”

Nobody said any more as they hurtled along. The sky was so clear today that Mirabelle could make out every detail – a flock of rooks dotted a stretch of open farmland and, above them, a scatter of lapwings; they hung elegantly in mid-air, where the cloud thinned to gossamer revealing a giddy slash of blue.

Gradually Eleanor speeded up, following the road through a stretch of bad bends, until she swerved through a bank of trees which gave on to an unexpected lake. She stopped dead a few feet from the shore, more abandoning the car than actually parking it. “Well, we’re here. That’s the loch-ch-ch,” she announced with vigour. “Took me a long time to get that.”

The woollen mill stood on the water, through a patch of fir trees. It comprised a collection of rough stone buildings that fitted together into a small campus, like a steading surrounded by trees. Between the evergreens, bare branches jutted like skeletons. Behind what Mirabelle assumed were the older, original buildings, an area had been cleared and a tidy array of Nissen huts had been added, corrugated iron furred with thick, green moss.

“Storage,” Tash explained. “They gave us the full tour when we came before.”

Eleanor abandoned the keys in ignition. “I feel sick,” said Tash.

Mirabelle had to concur. The bends were not compatible with the amount of gin she had consumed the night before. Eleanor was oblivious. “Come on.” She led the way down a path into a small reception area.

Inside, a worn wooden counter stood unmanned. Behind it, a sign outlined what to do in the event of a nuclear attack. Eleanor sighed, as if the staff ought to be in attendance, like the concierge in the reception of a grand hotel.

“There isn’t even a bell,” she said, testily. “I’ve told them a hundred times. There are the tourists to think of.”

Through the open door, Mirabelle regarded the deserted yard and thought of the route they’d driven without passing a single soul and only one small, handwritten sign pointing the way. She’d have been surprised if there was another living soul in miles and certainly no tourists. From the slate roof, two gulls eyed the women glassily and swooped over the water.

“Yoo-hoo!” Eleanor called and, when there was no reply, marched outside and knocked on another door, flecked with peeling paint. This yielded results. A nervous girl, rather younger than might be expected to be in full-time employment, emerged into the yard as if she had received an electric shock. She wore a green tweed skirt and a pale yellow sweater that certainly wasn’t cashmere.

“Mrs Robertson,” she squawked, an HB pencil gripped so tightly between her fingers that her knuckles whitened.

“Good morning, Margaret,” Eleanor said kindly. “Miss Orlova has come back to check on her order and I’ve brought Miss Bevan, who would like to do some shopping.”

“Right-o,” the girl said and, with a sense of purpose, she walked back into reception and smartly turned the key in a wooden door marked “showroom” at the end of the desk.

Inside, two fluorescent strips flickered into a harsh flood of light. Below them, spaced evenly, two plastic models sported cashmere polo necks over casual, tartan the

Mark Thatcher, centre, with his mother prime minister Margaret and father Denis, disappeared while on the 1982 Paris-dakar rally. skirts. Behind these, row upon row of shelves, floor to ceiling, contained folded woollen items in a rainbow of colours. Propped up against the shelves were two large photographs of stiff-looking models wearing colourful V-necks. Margaret switched on a two-bar electric fire.

“Obviously, they could do better for display,” Eleanor commented. “I mean, it doesn’t make one want to buy, does it? But look at this.”

She pulled a few sweaters off the shelf and laid them on a rickety trestle table that was erected to the side. “You have to feel it. Good cashmere will last you a lifetime,” she enthused. The wool smelled raw – fresh off the loom. It draped beautifully.

Behind her, Tash fitted a cashmere tippet on to the model. “That’s better,” she said. “And look at this,” she gestured as she picked a pale peach wrap from another shelf.

“It’s for you, Mirabelle,” she declared. “Orange is notoriously difficult to wear but you’ll do it. That evening dress you had on the first night you were here was so chic. Oh yes, that’s perfect.” She held the length of material up to Mirabelle’s cheek and called over her shoulder to Margaret, “Is there a mirror?”

“I’ll see.” The girl ducked out of sight. Eleanor mimed shooting herself in the head at the idiocy of not having a mirror in the showroom. “No customer service,” she proclaimed.

Tash smoothed the knit to Mirabelle’s skin. “People keep saying I should be a model,” she said, “but I don’t fancy it.” She struck a pose for an exquisite, frozen moment, arms outstretched. Then she smiled. “Nina was indulging me this trip, you know. I want to be a designer. That’s why I came along. She was having some of my designs made up, though she didn’t approve.”

“I don’t blame her.” Eleanor sounded startled. “Modelling pays so well. Girls are earning extraordinary sums these days.”

Nina liked people. But she liked people with titles best of all...

More tomorrow.

Copyright © Sara Sheridan 2020, extracted from Highland Fling, published by Constable, an imprint of Little, Brown Book Group, at £8.99 1628: Charles Perrault, French writer and collector of fairy tales, was born in Paris. His Tales Of Mother Goose included Sleeping Beauty and Puss In Boots.

1879: The British-zulu War began.

1970: Nigeria’s civil war ended when the Biafran army surrendered.

1976: Dame Agatha Christie, the world’s most successful detective story writer, died aged 85.

1982: Mark Thatcher disappeared in the Sahara while on the Paris-dakar rally. He was later spotted by a search plane and rescued.

1987: Prince Edward resigned from the Royal Marines.

1990: The break-up of the USSR began as the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania prepared for secession.

2010: A 7.0-magnitude earthquake hit Haiti. The death toll reached 150,000 in Port-auprince alone.

ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR: Several gorillas at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park tested positive for coronavirus, in what was believed to be the first known cases among such primates in the US and, possibly, the world.