O Caledonia

Janet considered the matter of spring with a pang of longing. She remembered the vivid crocuses, purple, yellow, and white, of her early childhood. Oh, for some colour in the landscape. Then she felt guilty; she could scarcely believe that she had made a criticism of Auchnasaugh. She squashed the memory. Soon, in May, there would be the daffodils, thousands of them. People in these parts did not use the word spring. They said “the end of winter” or “the beginning of summer” or they used the month’s name; winter ebbed into summer, there seemed no transitional period, none of the joyous awakening so favoured by verse and song. Janet felt that this season, as described by the English, brought out the worst in them.

Spring, the sweet spring, is the year’s pleasant king;

Then blooms each thing, then maids dance in a ring.

Not here, they don’t, not likely, she thought with grim satisfaction. Even Shakespeare was afflicted:

It was a lover and his lass

With a hey and a ho and hey nonny no…

and worse still,

When birds do sing hey ding a dong ding…

She imagined herself coolly addressing the bard, “And tell me, pray, just what birds do you have in mind?” Even Polly could sing better than that. In fact, Polly could sometimes sing “Allons, enfants de la patrie.” That was the kind of stuff you expected from people like the Dibdins, not from the author of Macbeth.

Lulu’s birthday fell at the end of April, just before term time. Vera took them all to the zoo in her new car, a Triumph convertible. Janet didn’t want to go. She dreaded the journey and she did not care to leave Auchnasaugh at any time. Nor did she take pleasure in other people’s birthdays. This one had been more than usually provoking because Hector and Vera had given Lulu her very own shaggy black Shetland pony. Janet felt that ponies belonged to her personal area of expertise which she did not want to share with anyone. They were invading her territory. She also feared that Rosie might lose status to this upstart. So when Vera asked her to help prepare the pony for the great moment when Lulu would first see him, she refused. Vera was painting his hooves gold in the dining room; Janet said this was bad for him; poison would seep into his bloodstream. Vera hung red baubles and twined green ribbons in his mane and tail. Janet said the baubles would break and he would get glass in his feet. Janet also said that everyone knew Shetland ponies were totally untrustworthy; no one in their senses bought them for little children. Vera flung the dandy brush at her. “Out!” she screeched. “Just get out!”

Janet wandered off humming an insouciant hymn tune. Once she was out of earshot she sulked and brooded. She knew she was behaving horribly, she knew that she was indeed horrible, a despicable compound of arrogance, covetousness, and self-centred rage. She was like one of those seething, stinking mud spouts which boil up in Iceland and lob burning rocks at passers-by. She felt guilt for blighting Vera’s pleasure and excitement; she felt shame. Her shame and guilt only made her angrier. Where would it end? Her heart was pounding; any moment she might burst. And after everything, Lulu, in her ecstatic joy, pronounced that the pony’s name was to be Blackie. Blackie! Not Satan, not Lucifer, not Pluto, not even Midnight, but Blackie! It was as well for her that Janet was speechless. Anyhow, the morning’s events should put paid to her presence on the zoo trip. But after lunch Hector drew her aside: “I’m not going to discuss your behaviour. It is beneath contempt, as you well know. This is Lulu’s day and you will go to the zoo with the others and put a good face on it. That is final.”

The zoo was in a fold of the hills about twelve miles away. It was privately owned and it was reputed to be run on the lines of Whipsnade. This meant, Vera explained, that the animals ranged with some freedom over woodland, grassy slopes, or boulder-strewn scree, according to preference. They had enclosures, of course, but these were for their own protection. Wolves, after all, must be kept apart from deer. “What, do you mean they don’t have lions or elephants?” asked Rhona in disappointment. “Oh yes, I think they do; I’m sure they do.” “Well, how can animals from hot countries…” began Janet. Then she remembered her outcast status and was silent. She was feeling a little more benevolent. She watched the clouds shift and the sun appear. A group of Highland cows were standing, sturdy and placid in the rough wet heather, by the roadside; beyond them the sky was palest blue and the watery sunbeams limned them in burnished light. They look holy, she thought, visionary. A vision of gentle beasts; she loved this idea.