The Posy Ring Episode 45

Cal replied: “Maybe. There are quite a lot of Galbraiths on the island.” “Is Knockbaird still there?” “It is. It’s very small, though. Just a cottage, a bit like this one, not far from Dunshee.”

“So Lilias’s daughter married the boy next door?”

“She must have done. We used to know the people who lived at Knockbaird, but they moved away. I think somebody who works at the distillery has it now. You should take a run down there some time.”

It is very dark by now, and they have both drunk a lot of wine. She yawns, widely. “I should be getting back. But you’ve drunk as much as me.”

“I know. The police don’t tend to frequent this place at night, but all the same, I don’t feel very competent to drive. Do you want to stay the night?”

When she hesitates, although there seems to be no other option, he says quite casually: “This is a sofa bed. We often have visitors, or we used to, when Mum came. It’s quite comfortable. I can easily make it up for you.”

She really doesn’t want to go back to Auchenblae. Not now. Not in the dark. It’s one thing to be there and settled, quite another to arrive there with the vast house in darkness and the thought of the tower with its accumulation of possessions, the mice in the servants’ quarters, the monstrous fridge in the kitchen.

She wants to stay in this small cottage with the warmth from the stove, with Hector snoring in his bed, with Cal in the bedroom next door. To tell the truth, she wouldn’t mind being in bed with Cal. She can feel the warmth of him beside her. His energy. But she thinks it’s much too soon.

She hardly knows him. She has had too many near-disasters to be anything less than wary. And besides, he seems to be as careful as she is. Or perhaps she’s reading too much into it. Perhaps he doesn’t find her attractive at all.

“OK,” she finds herself saying. “Why not? I don’t much want to go back there in the dark anyway.”

“No. I can understand that.”

He finds a new toothbrush for her, still in its cellophane packet, in the bathroom cupboard. There’s a blue towelling dressing gown and a pair of pyjamas that he says belonged to his sister, although she isn’t entirely sure he’s telling the truth about that one. They are rather elegant and don’t fit in with his description of Catty at all. She wonders how many women he has brought back here, taken down to the beach, made omelettes for, charmed with his energy and his openness.

While she gets undressed in the shower room, he opens up the sofa bed, gets out the spare duvet, a soft wool blanket and a couple of pillows stored beneath it. The pyjamas are too tight across the top, and much too long in the leg. She hadn’t pictured Catty as being this tall and slender either, but maybe time will tell. Hector wakes up, wags his tail and gets back into his own bed, happy to have some company.

She lies, wakeful, for a long time, listening to the wind moaning around the cottage, to Hector’s rhythmic doggy snores, to the settling of logs in the stove. Cal’s bedroom door lies permanently ajar. He apologises for it. “It just won’t stay shut and if I try to close it, it will bang in the draught all night.”

“Don’t worry. It’s comforting, really.” Later, she wonders why she said that. He must think her pathetic. Especially after his sister who is allegedly afraid of nothing.

He has his bedside light on for a while, presumably reading, and then he switches it off and the house is in darkness, except for the subtle glow from the expiring logs through the glass door of the burner.

It surprises her that she trusts him so completely. She’s attracted to him, but there is no sense in which she feels anxious here. He seems absolutely trustworthy. In this at least.

She’s not so sure about him where her new possessions are concerned. It crosses her mind that he may quite deliberately be trying to gain access to those new possessions. That’s what Mr Cameron seemed to be implying, in the hotel. Well, he’ll be disappointed. She’s no fool. No pushover.

On the verge of sleep, she again hears the piercing note of a seabird passing over the house, an impossibly lonely sound, at once enchanting and saddening. She hears his voice from the next room, very low, in case she’s asleep.

“Oystercatcher,” he says. “St Bride’s bird.” She doesn’t respond. The image of Lilias comes into her head, a young woman gazing out of the picture, gazing enigmatically at the artist, looking into an exhausting future, but with hope in her eyes.

She’s woken in the morning by Hector, gently licking her nose. There’s a smell of coffee in the room. Cal, wearing shorts and a baggy white T-shirt, is prowling about the kitchen, trying to be quiet. He comes through with a couple of mugs of coffee. He has remembered how she likes it: milk and one sugar.

“Did you sleep well?”

“Like a log. I hadn’t realised how badly I’ve been sleeping since I got here. This is the best night I’ve had on the island.”

“Well that’s good to hear.” He smiles at her. “I don’t have much in for breakfast I’m afraid, but there’s toast.”

“Toast is fine.”

The shower room is warm and still scented with his shower gel. He must have crept in there and had a shower without waking her. By the time she has showered and dressed, he has already taken Hector down to the beach for a quick run and is back, slicing the bread.

“You’re very domesticated,” she remarks. “Comes of living alone for a while.” “You don’t have a partner?”

“Not right now. I lived with somebody who works in the shop for almost a year but it didn’t work out.”

“Does she still work in the shop?” “Annabel? Yes. It was all very amicable. And let’s face it, I’m not in the shop all that often. She sees more of my mum and dad. She was never going to leave a well-paid job just because she’d had enough of me. But that was a couple of years ago. Nothing serious since. What about you?”

“I was in a fairly serious relationship for while but it ended last summer.” “Puts you off, doesn’t it?”

She finds herself laughing. “Well, yes. In a way it does. You kind of need breathing space from all the angst.”

She wonders how many women he has brought back here, taken down to the beach, charmed with his openness

More on Monday.

The Posy Ring, first in the series The Annals of Flowerfield, is written by Catherine Czerkawska and published by Saraband. It is priced at £8.99.