‘There are only four daughters just now,’ said Mr Tait.
‘I know. Mrs Hemingborough, Mrs Palmer, Mrs McAdam, Mrs Torrance. But I’m sure someone else was there too. Who was it?’
‘Jock Christie was there and Captain Watson.’
‘I don’t mean them,’ I said. ‘There were five stone angels. Five… witches, shall we call them.’
‘You were not yourself that night,’ Mr Tait told me. ‘You could never have known if it was four or five.’
‘But could good have come from four?’ I insisted. ‘Would the same people who thought that having four around the farms instead of five had brought all their troubles have even tried with four? And that other night – would four have laid her to rest on top of the law and expected peace to follow?’
‘Don’t worry about it,’ said Mr Tait.
‘I’m not worried,’ I assured him. ‘I don’t believe it.’
‘None of it?’ said Mr Tait, giving me one of his amused looks.
‘Of course not!’ I exclaimed. He nodded slowly.
‘I see,’ he said. ‘You never felt anything… odd… up at Luckenheart Farm, for instance?’ I hesitated, remembering. He swept on. ‘No, of course you didn’t. It’s just harmless old stories and sayings, nothing in it at all.’
‘Well, whether I believe it or not,’ I said, colouring slightly, ‘I’m puzzled at the behaviour of those who do. And besides, I’m sure there were five. Four swooped down on Vashti and one – the biggest one – tended to Lorna. I know I was confused, but I remember that clearly.’
‘My advice is not to fret about it,’ said Mr Tait, and then he said what he had said before: ‘All shall be well and all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well. All manner of things, Mrs Gilver.’
‘Where in the Bible is that?’ I asked him. ‘It’s lovely but I can’t place it.’
‘It’s not from the Bible,’ said Mr Tait. ‘It was Julian of Norwich who said it.’
‘Who was he?’
‘She,’ he told me. ‘She. A woman of God.’ He sighed. ‘I always think she’d have finished up as the Pope if she’d been a man.’ He shook his head, but not sorrowfully this time. ‘Wouldn’t the world be a simpler place, Mrs Gilver, if a woman could be a priest and a man could be…’
‘A what?’ I asked him. He only looked back at me, with those kindly dancing eyes.
‘Oh Mr Tait!’ I said at last as, finally, I got it. He chuckled. ‘Please can I ask an enormous favour?’ I begged him. ‘Please can I be there if you ever tell Hugh?’
Topographical Note
Kellie Law and Largo Law are real, but the Lucken Law and the village of Luckenlaw are entirely from my imagination. Fife is a real place but none of this could ever have happened there.
I would like to thank:
My mother, Jean McPherson, who gave me Jam and Jerusalem: a pictorial history of the WI by Simon Goodenough and Wendy Bellars, who gave me The Wee Book of Calvin by Bill Duncan. These two together lit the spark.
Nan, (the spirit of) Jack, Grandad Hugh, Colin, Brian, Andrew, Ian, Elaine, Douglas, Aly, Mig, John, Gail and George for their Fifishness, the cadence of their voices and the gallows humour (I don’t think you even know you’re doing it). Thanks too to Ann and Elaine for the flavour of Aberdeen, which, of course, is even more so.
More thanks than usual to Lisa Moylett for steering everything through a difficult year and making it look easy and to Nathalie Sfakianos for the incisive comments on the first draft.
I am enormously grateful to Alex Bonham for her editing. This is a far better book than the one she first saw. Thanks too to Imogen Olsen, who has once again licked her hanky and wiped the face of the manuscript until it shines.
Finally, and most of all, I would like to thank my husband, Neil McRoberts, my favourite Fifer.
Catriona McPherson
aka Catriona McCloud
Catriona McPherson was born in South Queensferry. After finishing school, she worked in a bank for a short time, before going to university. She studied for an MA in English Language and Linguistics at Edinburgh University, and then gained a job in the local studies department at Edinburgh City Libraries. She left this post after a couple of years, and went back to university to study for a PhD in semantics. During her final year she applied for an academic job, but left to begin a writing career.
These days, McPherson lives with her husband on a farm in the Galloway countryside, where she spends her time writing, gardening, swimming and running.
