‘Did you meet him?’
‘Archie Lunan?’
Murray nodded and Mrs Dunn looked away from him, towards the fireplace where all three bars glowed amber.
‘Not straight away. It’s easy to stay hidden, even in a small place like this, if you’ve a mind to.’
‘And Archie had a mind to?’
‘He must have. I heard reports, of course — they’d gone to the shop and bought provisions, he and Christie had been seen walking along the beach, the odd one with the scar had been spotted driving the old van they shared down to the pier — but I never saw them myself. So I decided to visit.’
Mrs Dunn got up and went to the sideboard. ‘I don’t normally take a drink, it’s not wise if you live on your own, but it can be a help sometimes.’
‘Medicinal.’
‘That’s the word. Will you join me?’
‘It would be my pleasure.’
She took out a bottle of malt and two glasses. The cat got to its feet and stalked from the room, tail held high, as if in disapproval at the early-evening drinking. Mrs Dunn followed it through to the kitchen and returned with a small blue water jug. She poured a measure of whisky into her own glass and a larger one into Murray’s, then topped her drink up with a little water. She pushed the jug towards him and he did the same. He thought she looked tired. He wondered about the children in the photographs that decorated this room as they had the hallway. Did they visit often? And what would they think if they could see him drinking whisky with their mother in the late afternoon, asking questions that made her go pale beneath her carefully applied make-up?
‘Are you sure you want to talk about this right now? We could do it tomorrow if you prefer.’
‘Some things are better spoken of after dark. I learnt that watching the old people at their ceilidhs. Daylight chases some memories away and the night can bring them on.’ Mrs Dunn cleared her throat and began her story. ‘I was probably fairly naïve when I married John, but I’d worked in an office and came from Glasgow, so I thought of myself as “with it” — “streetwise”, as Kirsty would say. I imagine there’s a point early in most marriages when you wonder if you’ve done the right thing. I think I’d reached that when I went looking for Christie.’
‘You wanted to meet Christie rather than Archie?’
‘I was desperate for the company of a woman my age, someone to talk to about music and the latest fashions. Even if there was no one to see me wearing them, I was still interested. I wasn’t bothered about Archie Lunan. I was wondering if I’d done the right thing settling in the middle of nowhere, but I loved my husband.’
Murray raised his glass of malt and took the smallest of sips. The iodine scent of it stung his eyes and burnt against his chapped lips, but it was smooth and warm on the way down. He set the glass on the table, though he wanted to knock the lot back and then pour himself another. He asked, ‘So what did you do?’
Mrs Dunn’s voice took on a thoughtful, far-away tone.
‘I turned into Little Red Riding Hood. I made a cake, packed it up and went through the forest until I met the wolves. That’s something the story got wrong, wolves don’t travel solo, they hunt in packs.’ She caught his eye and smiled as if laughing at her own fancy. ‘Archie’s croft wasn’t one of the better ones, and his uncle had been gone a while before he claimed it. Have you ever been in one of these old cottages?’
‘I’m camping in Pete Preston’s bothy.’
‘Of course you are. So you know well enough what they’re like — barely more than a small barn, no insulation beyond what’s offered by the stone walls. But back then people improvised with straw and wood, whatever they could lay their hands on, I suppose.’
‘Pete’s place is small. It’s hard to think of a family living there.’
‘Open-plan is nothing new. Everything happened in the one room. By the time I arrived that way of life was more or less gone and there were only a couple of blackhouses left. Like I said, they were basic, but they could be warm and cosy too. When I reached the croft where Christie was staying, I realised they could also be squalid.’
Archie the cat came back into the room, licking his lips as if he had just eaten something particularly choice. He pushed his front paws out in a long stretch that emphasised the length of his spine, then leapt onto Murray’s lap.
Mrs Dunn shook her head.
‘You’re not allergic, are you?’
He stroked a hand across the creature’s fur. Archie unsheathed his claws, hooked them through the fabric of Murray’s jeans and into his flesh. The cat purred and Murray tried to keep the pain from his face.
‘I don’t think so.’ He wasn’t sure.
‘I can’t remember anyone being allergic when we were young.’
He ran his hand over the animal’s fur again, fascinated by the way each hair sprang perfectly back into position, the tom’s tortoiseshell markings breaking up then reassembling themselves, an ordered universe.
‘We’ve grown softer.’
‘I wouldn’t say that. But sometimes when you think back it’s hard to remember how things were, how you were. It’s like looking at someone else. The girl who walked down to that blackhouse was nothing like the old lady sitting in front of you today, and yet they both are — were — me.’
Murray nodded. The man he had felt himself to be had changed since he started his quest for Archie.
Mrs Dunn went on, ‘I’m not sure what I expected. Someone a bit like myself, I suppose. A young woman missing the city, but enough in love with her man to shift to an island that didn’t even have a café, let alone a cinema or a dance hall.’
The cat had fallen asleep. Murray traced a finger down a black stripe dappled between its ears.
‘You were looking for a friend.’
‘I think I might have been.’ The landlady took a sip of her drink, and when she spoke again her voice was stronger. ‘I wasn’t certain where the croft was, and back then I didn’t drive. But like I said, in those days I could trek with the best of them, five miles was just a warm-up. Anyway, I had nothing better to do. John had gone to the rigs, to try and get a bit of money to help get us started. He’d wanted me to go to my mother’s in Glasgow while he was away, but that would have been like going back to being a daughter. I was determined to stay in our wee cottage.’
‘But you were lonely?’
‘Very. Still, I made my mind up to stick it out and make the best of things. Deciding to visit Christie was part of that.’
‘How did you know she would be there?’
‘I didn’t. Nowadays people don’t go anywhere without phoning first, but there were fewer phones around and time wasn’t so precious. You called round, and if the person was out, you went away. I simply stuck my cake in my bag and set off.’
‘So was she in?’
‘No.’ Mrs Dunn paused and took another sip of her drink. ‘I stopped a short way off from the cottage to tidy myself up. It was a warm day and I regretted not bringing a flask of water with me, but I’d brought what I considered the essentials: a hairbrush, powder and lipstick.’ She shook her head, but there was no mirth in her expression. ‘What was I thinking? I knew they were hippies, they were hardly going to be impressed by good grooming. Anyway, I was all straightened up and as ready to get acquainted as I ever would be when a man shot out of the cottage like a bullet from a shotgun.’ She shook her head again at her young self’s folly. ‘If he was the bullet, I was the rabbit. I froze and my eyes must have been wide as flying saucers. He tripped over a tussock of grass and landed almost at my feet. If we’d been in a romantic novel, it would have been the start of a great love affair. I certainly behaved like one of those stupid girls in the stories. I gave a silly scream and dropped my bag. The man on the ground started to laugh, and I did too, though whether it was because I thought it was funny or because I’d got a shock, I’m not sure. He got to his feet, graciously returned my bag and asked if I’d like to come in for a cup of tea.’