O Caledonia

Tompkin, will you dance?

Tompkin, will you sing?Dance, then, dance, you merry little men…

Lila sat on the top of the fridge with her legs dangling down over the door. She still held the knife. “I am in mourning,” she announced. “I must go home.” “Aye, that you must,” said Dora. “And any minute now the car will be here. We’ll give you a hand with your things. Lucky you haven’t unpacked. Now just hand me the knife, there’s a good wee lass.” Lila dropped the knife. “Could you, very sweetly, pour me a tiny drop of whisky?” she asked in a soft, girlish voice. Dora’s heart melted. “Aye, gladly, and I’ll join you. Just a wee dram; I think we both need it.” Then she remembered the approaching policeman and doctor. “We’ll take it in the breakfast cups. Just for the look of things, ye ken.” She glanced at the elfin, melodious figure swaying over the table. “Herself won’t mind. She’s off in her own world, bless her. The best place tae be. Well now, here’s tae us. And a wee doch-an-dorris afore ye gang awa’!” Lila understood almost nothing of what she said, but she raised her cup and drank, although she could not smile, and did not speak.

Maisie was indeed in her own world, and farther than they thought. She was sitting on a lawn in Kashmir, under the greenish-black sweetness of a deodar tree. Her ayah’s arms were tight and loving and rocked her; she wore her muslin dress with rosebuds and the pink sash. Beside them on the grass lay the sweeper’s enchanting baby, clad only in a little shirt and a hat like a tea cosy. At a small distance the sweeper’s wife sat cross-legged, her dark face tranquil and beaming. Maisie sang to the baby. The baby rolled and wriggled and laughed. How he laughed! Each time he laughed her ayah hugged her tighter and kissed her, and she laughed too. The heavy perfumed branches curved down and hid them from the house. The sun dazzled and spotted through them. So secret, so happy. Such memories she had, but no one wanted to hear them. And tea chests of sepia photographs, but no one wanted to see them. “Dance, then, dance, you merry little men…” The sweet small feet beat the warm air; in the shining black eyes she could see her own reflection, and above, the great dark tree.

So it was that Lila returned to Auchnasaugh, silent and sedated, in the policeman’s Black Maria. Grimly the kitchen staff brought in her possessions; they were relieved to find that the old fur coats had been left in Edinburgh. Dora, valiant and fortified by her unaccustomed morning whisky, had said that she would burn them. Later she regretted this and was obliged to take another wee dram before dragging them out to the patch of frozen garden. She soaked them in paraffin, stood back, and tossed a lighted rag into the midst. A fireball shot towards the heavens, there was a mighty blaze and a dense pall of stinking smoke. “It’s a braw send-off for the old cat,” she heard herself remark. This wouldn’t do. No more whisky. She hurled the bottle onto the fire and went in for a good strong cup of tea with Maisie.

Meanwhile at Auchnasaugh Lila’s rooms were being reassembled. Vera found some suitably moth-eaten and dingy curtains and a dank old roll of doggy carpet; thank goodness she hadn’t yet painted the walls. What a waste of their time all that cleaning and fumigation had been. She was tense with fury. “I don’t believe she ever intended to make the slightest effort to build a life for herself,” she said to Hector. “After all I’ve done for her. It is absolutely too bad.” Hector took a more philosophical view. “It doesn’t really matter. Truth to tell, I didn’t feel too happy about her going to Edinburgh; she’s never lived anywhere like that and she’s too old to change her ways. Just let’s leave her in peace. I’ll sort something out for her.” By this Vera knew he meant that he would give Lila an allowance, to be squandered on whisky and cigarettes and tomatoes. She was too angry to argue, and at times she recognised in Hector a stubbornness greater than her own. This was such a time.