Rain clouds were heading in from the sea on a damp wind. They were trailing long fingers over the water that had a black oily swell.
And then the midges came down, those Scottish mosquitoes, the plague of the Highlands. All during the long, dry spell, they had been mercifully absent. Now they descended in clouds, getting in his eyes and up his nose. He ran back into the kitchen, cursing, and shut the door.
The idyll was over. The weather had broken, Priscilla had returned with a man, and that couple had moved into Lochdubh, bringing with them an atmosphere of unease and trouble to come.
That evening, Dr Brodie settled down to a large dinner of steak and chips. He and his wife ate at the round kitchen table. He had long ago given up any hope of ever finding it clear. His plate was surrounded by books and magazines and tapes and unanswered letters. The fruit bowl in front of him contained paper clips, hairpins, two screwdrivers, a tube of glue, and a withered orange.
His wife was sitting opposite him, a book propped up against the wine bottle. Dr Brodie surveyed her with affection. She had a thin intelligent face and large grey eyes. Wispy fair hair as fine as a baby’s fell across her face and she put up a coal-smeared hand to brush it away. Dr Brodie was a contented man. He enjoyed his small practice in the village and although he sometimes wished his wife, Angela, were a better housekeeper, he had become accustomed to his messy, cluttered home. Angela’s two spaniels snored under the table and the cat promenaded on top.
“The cat’s just walked across your plate,” commented the doctor.
“Oh, did it? Shoot” said Angela, absent-mindedly, waving a hand and then turning another page of her book.
“There are new people at the Willets’s place,” said the doctor, pouring brown sauce over his steak and ketchup over his chips. He pulled away the wine bottle and poured himself a glass. Angela’s book fell over.
“I said there are new people at the Willets’s place,” repeated her husband.
His wife’s dreamy eyes focussed on him. “I suppose I had better go and welcome them tomorrow,” she said. “I’ll bake them a cake.”
“You’ll what? When could you ever bake a cake?”
Angela sighed. “I’m not a very good housekeeper, am I? But on this occasion, I am I going to be good. I bought a packet of cake mix. I can simply follow the instructions.”
“Suit yourself. Priscilla Halburton-Smythe called down at the surgery to pick up a prescription for I her father. She drove straight off afterwards.”
“And?”
“Well, she’s been back over a week and she hasn’t called at the police station once.”
“Poor Hamish. Why does he bother? He’s an attractive man.”
“Priscilla’s a very beautiful girl.”
“Yes, isn’t she,” said Angela in a voice which held no trace of envy. “Maybe I’ll bake a cake for Hamish, too.”
“The fire extinguisher’s above the stove, remember,” cautioned her husband. “The time you tried to make jam, everything went up in flames.”
“It won’t happen again,” said Angela. “I must have been thinking about something else.”
She rose to her feet and opened the fridge door and took out two glass dishes of trifle which she had bought that day at the bakery. The trifle consisted of rubbery custard, thin red jam, and ersatz cream. The doctor ate it with enjoyment and washed it down with Chianti and then lit a cigarette.
He was in his fifties, a slim, dapper little man with a balding head, light blue eyes, a freckled face, and dressed in shabby tweeds that he wore winter and summer.
After dinner, the couple moved through to the living-room while the cat roamed over the kitchen table, sniffing at the dirty plates.
The fire had gone out. Angela never raked out the ashes until the fireplace became so full of them that the fire would not light. She knelt down in front of the hearth and began to shovel out piles of grey ash into a bucket.
“Why bother?” said the doctor. “Light the electric fire.”
“Good idea,” said Angela. She rose to her feet, leaving ash all over the hearth and plugged in the fire and switched it on. Despite the warm weather, their house was always cold. It was an old cottage with thick walls and stone floors. Angela then went back to the table, absent-mindedly patted the cat, picked up her book, returned to the living-room, and began to read again.
The doctor had learned to live with his wife’s messy housekeeping. He would have been very surprised could he have known that Angela often felt she could not bear it any longer.
Often she thought of getting down to it and giving the place a thoroughly good clean, but a grey depression would settle on her. For relaxation she had once enjoyed reading women’s magazines but now she could not even bear to look at one, the glossy pictures of perfect kitchens and fresh net curtains making her feel desperately inadequate.
But on the following morning after she had served up her husband’s breakfast – fried black pudding, haggis, bacon, sausages, fried bread, and two eggs – she felt a lifting of her heart. She had a Purpose. She would behave as a good wife should and bake a cake and take it over to the new neighbours.
When she settled down to read the instructions on the back of the packet of Joseph’s Ready Mix, she experienced a strong feeling of resentment. If it was indeed a ‘ready mix’ then why did she have to add eggs and milk and salt and all these fiddly things that should have been in the packet already?
She searched around for the cake tin and then remembered the dogs were using it as a drinking bowl. She threw out the water and put the dogs’ water in a soup bowl instead, wiped out the cake tin with a paper towel, greased it, and started to work.
That afternoon, she set out for the Willets’s place – no, Thomas’s place, she reminded herself – feeling very proud of herself. She held in front of her, like a crown on a cushion, a sponge cake filled with cream.
There seemed to be a lot of activity around the old Victorian villa. Archie Maclean, one of the local fishermen, was carrying in a small table, Mrs Wellington, the minister’s wife, was cleaning the windows, and Bert Hook, a crofter, was up on the roof, clearing out the gutters.
The front door was open, and Angela walked inside. A tall woman approached her. “My name’s Trixie Thomas,” she said. “Oh, what a beautiful cake. We adore cake, but what with us being unemployed and living on government handouts, we’ve had to cut out luxuries like this.”
Angela introduced herself and felt a rush of pride when Trixie said, “In fact, we’re ready for a coffee break. We’ll have it now.”
She led the way into the kitchen. Her husband, Paul, was washing down the walls. “All the poor dear’s fit for,” said Trixie in a rueful aside. She raised her voice, “Darling, here’s the doctor’s wife with a delicious cake. We’ll take a break and have some coffee. Sit down, Angela.”
Angela sat down at a table covered with a bright red-and-white checked gingham cloth. Bluebottles buzzed against the window. “You should get a spray,” said Angela. “The flies are dreadful today.”
“I think there’s been enough damage to the ozone layer already,” said Trixie. “What I need are some old–fashioned fly papers.”
She was making coffee in what looked like a brand-new machine. “I grind my own beans,” she said over her shoulder. Paul was already seated at the table, looking at the cake like a greedy child. “Now, just a small piece, mind,” cautioned his wife. “You’re on a diet.”