The Credit Draper Episode 71

Donald Munro grunted as he poured himself a glass of whisky from a crystal decanter. He swept one of his wife’s samplers off an armchair and sat down. Pipe in one hand, glass in the other. “Go on.”

“It’s about the women protesting the landlords putting up the rents when their husbands are away fighting. It’s about socialism.”

“Socialism, is it?” Donald Munro snapped. “What do ye ken about socialism?”

Avram wrung his fingers behind his back. He recognised Donald Munro’s anger. He had seen it flash across his face at the stationmaster in Oban station.

“It puts people before profit.”

“It’s nothing of the kind, boy.” Donald Munro drank greedily then refilled his glass.

“It’s about a few teetotallers hungry for power. And using the ignorance of the workers to achieve it.

“If it’s true ethical guidance yer after, boy, better look to the kirk than to the Independent Labour Party. Or wherever it is you Jews go to for yer morality. Now show me these samples.”

Avram hastily brought over the book of swatches.

“Jean,” Donald Munro screamed. “Come in here.”

Attention

Jean Munro hurried into the room, wiping her hands nervously on her apron. Megan arrived behind her, and Donald Munro’s features visibly softened. “Megan. I didnae ken ye were here.” “Mr Munro,” she said with just the slightest curtsy.

He turned his attention back to his wife. “When is dinner ready?”

Jean stepped forward with her watch in the flat of her hand and showed him. “Good. They will stay to eat.”

Jean nodded.

“Now what do you think of these cloths?” Avram stood on one side, Jean on the other, as Donald Munro turned over the pages of swatches.

Every so often, he would pause at a particular material and she would nod or shake her head until a choice had been made.

Avram tried to offer his own opinion, but his advice was met with a grunt of dismissal.

Instead, as Donald Munro fussed and his wife stood anxiously behind him, Avram listened to the sound of Megan setting the table in the other room.

He imagined her fingers placing the cutlery just right or straightening a napkin, the same fingers which only a short time ago had tugged urgently at his vest, touched his lips, caressed his skin.

“Good,” said Donald Munro. He beckoned Avram over and indicated his choice. Then he snapped the book shut.

“Now, let’s eat.”

He stood up, took his wife’s arm, and Avram followed as together they walked into the dining room.

Slumped

By the time dinner had finished, Donald Munro was slumped florid in his chair, a decanter standing empty by his limp hand and unlit pipe.

It had been a joyless affair, centred around the man’s deteriorating speech, until there was almost no conversation at all.

Jean Munro had hardly touched her plate and sat staring at it with a look of sadness that Avram felt a thousand words on her lips could not describe.

He tried to imagine what it must be like when guests were not present. Jean Munro’s dumbness matched by her husband’s stupors.

A monstrous weight of silence – with no sound but the waves attacking the rocks, edging ever closer to this isolated mansion before swallowing it whole into their grasp.

Megan leaned forward across the table and looked straight at him. “Jean telt me what happened in the forest.”

Avram smiled. “How can she tell you anything, Megan Kennedy? She doesn’t speak a word.”

“I can read her signs. I’ve kent her for so long … it’s like she’s talking to me. Isn’t that right, Jean?”

Jean nodded.

“She telt me you heard music.”

“An intruder in the castle maybe. It didn’t half scare me.”

“It’s happened before. Jean’s heard it many times. Since she was a bairn. Me too. But just the once.

“It’s only when there’s a storm and the wind’s coming from a certain direction. Off the sea. Like today.”

“So what is it?”

“When we were little, we went in. There was a way in then. Not all boarded up like now. It was Jean’s idea. She made me follow. I didnae want to go.

“It was real dark at first. We could hardly see anything. Just the grand staircase. And this sound.

“A musical sound. Not a tune. Like a Jew’s harp. Long notes.”

Jean sat fiddling with a fork but her eyes showed an interest.

“Like a moaning,” he said, recalling that awful sound.

“Aye, like a moaning.”

“So go on. What was it?”

“Haud yer wheesht and let me finish. We climbed the staircase. Jean first, then me hauding her hand.

“And it was getting lighter, for there were spaces in the roof. Where the tiles had loosed or dropped away completely.

Snow palace

A monstrous weight of silence – with no sound but the waves attacking the rocks, edging ever closer to this isolated mansion

“And everything was covered up with sheets. It was like a snow palace. And all the time, there’s this sound. Getting louder all the time.

“And my heart is pumping like a piston on wan of these steam engines. And I dare say I can hear Jean’s doing the same.

“But she carries on, dragging me with her. Along these corridors full of portraits watching our every step with their dead eyes.

“Until we come to this doorway. Double doors.

“And whatever is making the sound is behind it. I’m greeting now. Pulling her hand.

“Take me home, I’m crying. Take me home.”

More on Monday.

The Credit Draper is the first in a trilogy by J. David Simons. He has written five novels and is published by Saraband. His work can be purchased at saraband.net.