Chapter Seventeen
Jane Hay was cooking Sunday lunch for the family. She didn’t feel like bothering, but she’d made a big deal about it earlier in the week:
‘You’re not at Mareel on Sunday, are you, Andy? Let’s get everyone together. We haven’t done a proper Sunday lunch for ages. Bring Gemma along too, Michael.’
So now she was in the kitchen peeling potatoes and parsnips, and the smell of the shoulder of lamb she was slow-roasting in the bottom of the Aga made her feel slightly sick. She told herself she was tired, that was all. It was her own fault, for being so ridiculous about Andy arriving home late last night. She couldn’t blame him. He was an adult and was used to having his own life away at university. He could have been up to anything in Glasgow and she’d never have known about it, so why did she expect him to keep her posted about his every move here?
She set down the knife, slipped her feet into the pair of rubber clogs that stood by the door and went out into the nearest polytunnel. She could do with more rosemary for the lamb and some mint for the sauce, but really she just needed a few minutes away from the house. Since the landslide, it had seemed like a different place. It wasn’t just that the view was disfigured and that now, looking down towards the coast, she could see the dark scar left by the mud. It was as if the shifting land had loosened the foundations of the family. There was nothing firm left. She couldn’t believe anything that either Kevin or the boys told her.
She pulled a couple of twigs of rosemary from the bush, gathered a handful of mint and returned to the kitchen. Andy was standing there. He was wearing tracksuit bottoms and a sleeveless vest that she didn’t recognize and he was staring into space.
‘I wasn’t expecting you up yet.’ Her voice sounded tinny and too bright and seemed to echo from the tiles and the shiny worktops. ‘You must have been late back. I was up chatting to Rachel on the phone until the early hours.’
He didn’t say anything. It seemed to her then that he was utterly miserable. She wanted to go up to him and hug him to her, rest his head on her shoulder and stroke the soft, dark hair away from his eyes. ‘Would you like a coffee?’ she said.
It took an effort for him to respond. ‘Yeah, that would be good.’
She turned her back on him to fill the filter machine with water and pour coffee into the paper, and when she turned back he was more his normal self. ‘I hope you weren’t worried. I only saw your texts this morning. No battery last night.’
‘Ah, I thought it would be something like that.’ She couldn’t quite lie to him, but she couldn’t tell him the truth. Of course I was worried. I was frantic. Don’t ever do that to me again. Because, in the cold light of morning, she could see that she’d been overreacting, that her panic had been ridiculous. Andy was clearly going through some sort of crisis. Some relationship had broken down. He was home now. Safe. He would tell her why he was so unhappy, when he was ready. She put out of her mind the vision of her son the night before, standing in the darkness, looking down over the ruined croft at Tain. What connection could there be between him and the middle-aged woman who’d died? The idea that he might have some knowledge of her death – played some part in it even – was ludicrous.
She poured out the coffee and Andy sat with her at the table. When he picked up the mug his hand was shaking. She struggled to find a question that wasn’t too intrusive or judgemental. What were you up to last night? That would surely alienate him. And she didn’t want to put him in a position where he would be forced to lie. In the end they sat for a moment in silence and then she began to whisk egg whites in a bowl to make a pavlova. She’d already taken raspberries from the freezer. There would be two puddings, one cold and one hot, because both boys had a sweet tooth. The lunch seemed to be taking on a great significance; it almost made her think of a last supper. She whisked the eggs by hand, because she didn’t want the noise of the machine. If the room was quiet, perhaps Andy would talk to her. But neither of them spoke and her arm became sore and strained with the beating, until she slipped the meringue into the bottom oven underneath the lamb.
Kevin was still out working on the road. Jane had been in bed when he left, but she’d been awake and had seen that he was jubilant because Sunday working meant extra money. He’d always valued his own worth according to the money he made for the farm. He’d brought her a cup of tea with two biscuits in the saucer and kissed her forehead before going out. Recently he’d been more thoughtful. It was like the old days when they’d first started dating.
Now she heard the tractor in the yard and he was there with them, in his stockinged feet after leaving his work boots in the porch. He pulled off his waterproofs and overalls. She was making a crumble now and looked up. ‘How’s it going?’
‘It’s going splendidly.’ He seemed to be bursting with health, his cheeks red, droplets of rain in his hair and his beard. ‘I suspect there’ll be no more work after tomorrow, and it’ll be left then to the council.’
He washed his hands under the tap by the sink. ‘Something smells good.’ He hadn’t picked up any tension in the room, had hardly acknowledged Andy sitting there.
‘I’ll make some fresh coffee.’ She rubbed her hands together to dust the flour from her fingers and waited for him to move away from the sink. ‘Are you ready for some more, Andy?’
The younger man shook his head, slid off his chair and wandered away.
‘What’s wrong with him?’ Kevin turned to look at the disappearing back. ‘A hangover maybe.’
‘Aye, maybe.’ But Jane knew that a hangover wasn’t always as uncomplicated as Kevin made out and she worried about her son all over again.
Michael and Gemma had got the bus from Lerwick and walked down the track from the main road. Michael had been staying with Gemma at her parents’ home in Lerwick. He gave his mother nothing to worry about, except that he might turn out to be a bit boring and she might end up with little to say to him. Jane could see his life unspooling ahead of him. He would marry Gemma and they’d build their own little house in Ravenswick. They’d have dull, well-behaved children and in ten years’ time she’d still be cooking Sunday lunch for them, pretending to be interested in Gemma’s work for the council and in Michael’s limited ambitions for the farm.
She was surprised that she could be so spiteful. Why did she think her own life was so interesting? Wouldn’t she be glad if Andy had his future mapped out and he gave her nothing to worry about?
A shaft of sunlight pierced the cloud and lit up the table. She’d decided that they would eat in the kitchen and was finishing the last-minute preparations for the meal, stirring a little flour into the meat juices to make the gravy. Kevin and Michael were in the living room, watching football on the television with cans of beer. Gemma was with her. She’d offered to help, but when Jane could think of nothing useful for her to do, she’d sat in the chair by the range to chat. Not quite in the way, so Jane couldn’t ask her to move, but too close for Jane to be able to cook without the feeling that she was being scrutinized. Gemma was a gossip. Her father worked in the finance department of the council office and sometimes the talk was of island politics, at other times she just rambled about school friends, teachers or relatives. Usually Jane found the one-sided conversations relaxing, even vaguely entertaining, but today she was in the mood to be irritated, and she refused to respond. Gemma continued talking; either she didn’t notice Jane’s lack of interest or she didn’t care. At least she wasn’t someone who would take offence.
Jane was draining cabbage into the sink when a phrase from Gemma filtered through the muddle and inconsequence of her conversation.