Cold, Lone and Still

11: Mugdock Wood or Thereabouts

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This interval of comparative peace gave me a chance of settling down to work again. I enjoyed my job and had always got on well not only with Sandy but with our office staff, so that everything connected with the agency always went smoothly except for an occasional breeze created by a dissatisfied author. These rufflings of the waters we had learned to encounter without trepidation, for they soon blew over and normal conditions were restored.

We had not, so far, worked the agency up to the stage where we could decline to represent an author until he had had at least one publication to his credit, but we had several good old faithfuls whose work we could always sell and Sandy had begun to talk hopefully of going over to America to canvass the possibilities of starting a branch of our business in the States.

What sometimes caused me a little disquiet was Hera’s changed behaviour and attitude towards me. I was not surprised any longer by her calm acceptance of our veto on a partnership for her. I guessed that she was biding her time until a new opportunity presented itself for a further onslaught on our defences. Sandy thought the same.

‘She has taken it much too well,’ he said, ‘for a woman who does not like to be thwarted. I hope she is all right — not sickening for anything or considering going into a nunnery or becoming a missionary or anything of that sort?’

‘If so, she doesn’t mention it. As for her health, she could not possibly be more blooming. She is lively and entertaining, has an excellent appetite and says she sleeps well.’

‘Says?’

‘She thinks we ought to pack that sort of thing up now until we are married. I’m in full agreement, so I have only her word for how well she sleeps.’

‘It didn’t seem to suit you too well on your Scottish tour.’

‘It was different then. We were together all day and every day, so it seemed strange to part at night. Under present circumstances, I’m all in favour of holding off until after the wedding.’

He eyed me and said, ‘Hm! Fancy that, now!’

‘Meaning what?’

‘Just hoping that abstinence, like absence, makes the heart grow fonder.’

‘She is much more companionable, less censorious and certainly more beautiful than I’ve ever known her.’

‘Bless you, my innocent boy!’

‘Meaning what?’ I asked for the second time.

‘Devious creatures, the females of the species. Speaking probably out of turn, but as an old friend and well-wisher, don’t you wonder what she’s up to?’

‘I know what she’s up to, and you and I have both given voice to it. It’s the lull before the storm. She hasn’t given up hope of storming this little fortress of ours. You don’t need to warn me about that. I’m quite ready for the bombardment when it comes. No, what worries me is the bloom on her cheeks and the light in her eyes.’

‘That’s what I meant,’ he said. ‘Watch out and don’t forget my holiday is due very soon. I shan’t be on hand to espouse your cause once I go on furlough.’

It was my turn to hold the fort while Sandy went on holiday. Even before I met Hera, one of the disadvantages of the agency had been that he and I could never take our holidays together as we had always done in the halcyon days at college. A week before he was due to take his three weeks’ leave I enquired what his plans were, for it was unlike him not to have mentioned them earlier. Usually he was full of enthusiasm and Hera and I knew weeks beforehand where he had decided to go and what he proposed to do when he got there.

‘My holiday?’ he said, when I mentioned it. ‘Oh, I’m going to walk the West Highland Way. You might lend me that rucksack of yours. No point in my buying one, is there?’

So I lent him the rucksack, my ashplant, my electric torch, my whistle and my maps and saw him off at Euston. I would have lent him my anorak and my nailed boots had they fitted him, but he is a big fellow with very wide shoulders and large feet. I was astonished when he told me that he was planning to walk The Way. His taste was for the exotic and he was, so far as he could afford to be, a sybarite, revelling in first-class cabins on cruises, luxury hotels on the French Riviera and beaches in the Bahamas. He lived quietly, almost frugally, all the year and then broke into a cascade of fireworks on holiday.

I suppose I looked as astonished as I felt, for he said defensively that I had made The Way sound very attractive, that he had some extra poundage of which he was determined to rid himself and that a man needed to commune with Nature from time to time if he wanted to retain possession of his immortal soul.

‘So what’s the real reason?’ I asked. He laughed.

‘You disbelieving old so-and-so!’ he said; but he offered no answer to the question.

When I told Hera, she said, ‘We’ve whetted his curiosity, that’s all. What a pity I’ve got to be in Paris next week. I could have come and helped you in the office. If it weren’t for Sandy, you would take me into partnership, wouldn’t you?’

It was the first I had heard of the Paris trip, but I blessed it. I had no mind to allow her to get her foot in at the office, so I did not answer her question. I was uneasy, however, for her remark indicated that she had not given up hope of being taken into partnership and I still envisaged stormy seas ahead.

‘Oh, Sandy only expects to take a week, or very little longer, on the walk,’ I said. ‘Then he’ll pop back here for a couple of days to pack for Stockholm.’

‘What on earth does he want with Stockholm? I thought he never went on holiday further north than Funchal or Cannes.’

‘There’s a book fair. Some of our authors are represented, so he thinks one of us ought to show up. When do you set off for Paris?’

‘Tomorrow. You and Sandy will be busy if he’s going on Wednesday, so don’t come and see me off. There will be a party of us, all women except for Maurice, and you can’t stand him.’

Sandy had never written to me when he was on holiday, so I was very much surprised to get a letter in a large envelope with his unmistakable superscription on it, particularly as I should be seeing him again so soon. He had arranged to drop in at the office the day after he got back from Scotland and pick up some papers to take with him to Stockholm. He had gone off on the Wednesday and the letter came on the following Wednesday morning. It contained some very startling news which I might have found incredible except for my own experiences north of the Border and subsequently in London. He wrote:

‘This is in the form of a diary, as I want a record of my experiences. You might lock it away somewhere when you’ve read it. I shall have been discharged from hospital and on my way home. Not to worry and don’t tell Hera. No harm done and no bones broken and shall be joining you soon after you get this.

‘Wednesday. An easy train journey north by way of Warrington, Wigan, Preston, Lancashire and Carlisle. Put up at Renfrew for the night. Good room and good dinner. Hotel full, but much coming and going, as everybody very much a bird of passage. Met up with Mellish after dinner and we had a drink together. He goes on to Perth tomorrow. You remember him from college, I expect.

‘Thursday. Took a bus to Milngavie to start the walk. As I went to get on board in Buchanan Street, some careless oaf nearly shoved me underneath the bus. No idea who it was, as quite a mob got on. Irritated by the conductor, who said, when he collected my fare, “Ane o’ these days ye’ll dae yoursel’ a mischief gin ye’re sae precipitous.” It was like being rebuked by an elder of the kirk. In fact, I bet that’s what he is on Sundays. However, I know better than to argue with anybody in uniform in a foreign country, so I accepted my change and said nothing.

‘Began the walk in fine, clear weather and was soon descending through woods — silver birch mostly — to the banks of a river called the Allander Water. The track followed the stream for a bit. You and Hera missed some very pleasant walking by joining The Way at Drymen instead of doing the whole stint.

‘Up hill and away from the stream after that and got on to a piece of moorland which is one of Glasgow’s playgrounds.

‘Crossed the ridge and then had easy walking along a track which your guidebook informs me was once the drive up to a stately home. I went through more woods and came upon lots and lots of wild flowers. Am no botanist, but recognised yellow tormentil, heath bedstraw and scabious, but there were lots of others. Up to that point I had connected Scotland only with heather, harebells and cottongrass.

‘After the numbers of people who had been on the path of moorland — really a wild sort of park — I seemed to have the woods to myself. Sat down with my back to one of the thickets and took your guidebook out of your rucksack to bone up on The Way. Talk about history repeating itself! I was reading the piece about the history of smugglers taking cover behind thickets in this very Mugdock Wood and having a bloody set-to with excisemen and soldiers when it damn well happened to me! Somebody must have been in that thicket behind me and must have crept out with the intention of belting me over the head. Luckily I heard a warning sound and I was able to wrench myself to one side, so most of the blow struck my arm and shoulder — though it did open up a nasty cut above my right eye.

‘Whether the motive was robbery — and I can think of only one other — I don’t know. If it was robbery, my assailant could have had no time to steal anything and not much chance anyway, because all my money was in a safety belt underneath my shirt and there was nothing much in the rucksack except a spare shirt and socks, soft shoes and some emergency rations. Of course I only know what I’ve been told since, but it appears that a party consisting of a doctor, his wife and two grown-up sons found me almost at once. I suppose the mugger heard them and made off. Fortunately, also, they were local people and knew that a nearby track led to the main road. To cut the story short, especially as I have it only by hearsay, I found myself in hospital with the devil of a headache and a very stiff arm and shoulder, but apparently nothing worse.

‘I have had no chance to thank the doctor and his family. Having got me to hospital, they resumed their holiday or their day out, I suppose, and of course I shouldn’t recognise them if, by any chance, I ever met them again, for I never saw them properly because of the blood which was running into my eyes from the head wound. The doctor at the hospital told me the family were called McKillop, but that’s all I know.

‘Saturday. Discharged myself from hospital, as feel much better and don’t want to waste my holiday. Find myself reluctant to rejoin The Way, however, unless I can find at least one other person to accompany me. However, I have a powerful urge to find that stone building where you thought you found Carbridge’s body, so I have hired a car and a driver.

‘Sunday. Am in the Kingshouse hotel. All the rest of my news when I see you next Thursday. Don’t know whether a post goes out from here today, but you should get this, with any luck, before I arrive.’

Hera was already home again. She had gone off on the Monday before Sandy travelled north on the Wednesday. She looked so haggard and exhausted that I was quite concerned and asked her whether she had been whooping it up in Paris. She turned on me in a bad temper and said that, if Sandy and I would see reason and take her into the partnership, she could give up the modelling jobs and all the travelling they entailed. She was in no state to be argued with, so I advised her to take things easy for a bit. This was at the office, where she had dropped in to tell me she was back. I was worried and I sent my secretary home with her with instructions to see that she had something to eat, and then went to bed. Our Miss Moore (Elsa to Sandy and me) is both firm and sympathetic. In any case, a woman is far better at coping with another woman than ever a man can be.

‘She is very tired and upset,’ said Miss Moore upon her return to the office. ‘She wanted to come in again tomorrow to help out while Alexander is away, but I told her that we had the Pallister contract to negotiate and her presence would only be a distraction, not a help.’

‘I hope you convinced her,’ I said. ‘She has wasted quite enough of our time already. People can’t come into a busy office and pick up the threads as though they were picking up dropped stitches in a piece of knitting.’

‘That is a very clever way of putting it, Comrie.’ (We all used first names in the office.)

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I’m a very brainy bloke when I make the effort.’ Elsa and I had a very pleasant no-nonsense relationship and I valued it very much.

Exactly what she had said to Hera I do not know, but whatever it was it seemed to have been effective, for Hera did not show up again at the office. I went round to see her each evening. She seemed unusually subdued. I would have told her about the thuggish attack on Sandy, but as soon as he got back he had repeated his request that I should not mention it. Hera enquired whether I had heard about his holiday, so I thought the safest thing was to say that since his return he had talked of nothing much except the proposed visit to Stockholm. This, up to a point, was true, although I could not understand at the time why I was not to mention to Hera that he had been attacked by a mugger in the well-named Mugdock Wood. As it turned out, he had not felt well enough to search for the stone building.

He telephoned me from Stockholm, told me everything was going very nicely and asked after Hera. He had negotiated contracts for two of our authors and obviously was feeling pleased with himself. I asked how his injuries were getting on. He said his arm and shoulder were still badly bruised and rather stiff, but the head wound was not troubling him and a woman at the book fair had told him that it gave him a very romantic appearance and had asked whether it was the result of a duel.

I was very glad to see him back. I was having a sticky time with Hera, who had recovered her health but not her temper, and my lot was not being made easier by the publisher of one of our authors who wanted us to persuade the lady to agree to a ten per cent royalty instead of the twelve and a half which she claimed she had been promised by word of mouth in the publisher’s office. She had nothing in writing, but stuck to her story and negotiations (if the acrimonious exchanges could be so called) were still going on when Sandy returned to the office and sorted things out.

‘Ten per cent and a slightly larger advance,’ he said to our author. ‘I can get them to agree to that, I’m sure. After all, Delia dear, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush and money in your bank account is better than looking for a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. Let’s put down a few figures on a bit of paper and then I’ll take you out to lunch.’

‘Thank God,’ I said to him later, ‘for the authors who don’t come to see us!’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I do feel that the personal touch is important. Besides, she’s not a bad old girl. As a matter of fact, I’m quite sure she really thinks she was promised twelve and a half.’

‘Not on the first five thousand,’ I said. ‘Not on her sales!’

‘She’s industrious and keeps up her output. We don’t want to lose her.’

‘You may not!’ I said, remembering various passages at arms we had had with the lady over a number of years.

‘How is Hera?’ he asked.

‘Prickly. I wonder what happened when she took that trip to Paris? I think something there must have upset her. Besides, she’s still brooding over our refusal to take her into partnership. We thought she would kick up sooner or later, and she has.’

‘I’m sorry about that, Comrie, but you agree it wouldn’t do, don’t you? Within a week she’d be trying to boss the whole show. We’ve always realised that, so we must both stand firm.’

‘Oh, I’ll hold the fort,’ I said. ‘It’s becoming a war of attrition, but I certainly shan’t give in.’

He looked at his reflection in a picture which hung on the office wall and touched the scar which ran down the right side of his forehead. It still looked rather angry, I thought. Knowing what I knew at that juncture, I ought to have recognised his touching it as being a symbolic gesture, but on this occasion what Hera (talking unkindly about my predilection for stumbling over dead bodies) has called my ‘ESP or whatever’ gave me no help at all.