Murray kept his own voice calm, unsure of what he was about to hear.
‘That’s the way it is in Scotland.’
Mrs Dunn looked away from him, towards the curtained window.
‘It crept up on me like that. A feeling of dread. Then suddenly, I was terrified.’
‘Of the two men?’
‘Of the men, the room, my own hands, the grass outside, the sound of the birds. I’d been fascinated by the books, now I could see bright shadows of them, little diamonds floating in the air, as dazzling as the stained glass in St Mungo’s when the sun’s behind it. It should have been beautiful, but it was too strange. I’d thought I was going mad, alone without John in the cottage, now I knew that I was. Fergus and Bobby were still talking, but I had no idea of what they were saying. It was as if their sentences were overlapping and repeating. I would hear the same word recurring over and over again, but not the word that came before or the ones that came after.’ Her voice rose and fell as she repeated the words in a far-away chant,
‘I’d thought I was Red Riding Hood, now I was Alice fallen down the white rabbit’s burrow. I wanted to ask if it was a poem, but I couldn’t because worse than the strange sounds and moving colours was the fear. It paralysed me. I tried closing my eyes, but the shapes were still there, organising themselves into patterns behind my eyes. Did you ever have a kaleidoscope as a child?’
‘Yes.’
‘I didn’t. Maybe they weren’t invented, or maybe they were too expensive in those days for the likes of us, but years later my daughter Jennifer got one in a present. I took a wee look through it and felt like I was going to be sick.’
‘Because it was like your bad trip?’
‘You don’t even need me to tell you, do you, son?’
‘I’ve never taken drugs myself.’ It was true, except for the occasional joint, soggy with other tokers’ saliva, passed around at parties when he was an undergraduate. ‘But I’ve read about plenty in novels. You had no idea what was happening, or what they gave you?’
‘No idea at all.’ Her voice softened with the awfulness of the memory. ‘I thought I was going mad. On top of the fear and the visions, I had an urge to vomit and yet I wasn’t sick until it was all over.’
‘Did the others notice you were having a bad time?’
‘They must have, because hands — I’m not sure whose they were — took hold of me. I think I struggled. I have a memory of shouting and of hitting out and of something, someone, pinning me down, but then I was drifting, I’m not sure for how long, in a kind of trance, not awake, not asleep. I prayed I wasn’t dead, because if I had been I’d have stayed in that state for all eternity.’ She stopped speaking and the only sound in the room was the wind tearing down the empty road outside and the hiss of the gas fire. ‘That was the wrong thought to have, because then all of eternity seemed to open up in my head and it was terrifying.’
There was a bang at the window and Murray flinched.
‘It’s okay.’ Mrs Dunn gave him a reassuring smile. ‘That pane’s loose. I’ll need to get it seen to.’
Murray asked, ‘Why do you think they drugged you?’
Mrs Dunn opened her hands, revealing her empty palms.
‘Maybe they thought I would like it. After all, it had no bad effects on them. I suppose they were used to it. Or maybe they wanted to humiliate me.’
The anger was sharp in Murray’s voice.
‘It was themselves they humiliated.’
‘Maybe.’ Mrs Dunn gave a sad smile. ‘There was one particular thing, though, that’s given me the shivers ever since, whenever I think on it.’
She took a sip of her whisky and Murray said, ‘Just one thing?’
‘No, the whole day has the quality of a nightmare, when I remember it. That long walk in the blazing sunshine, the man falling at my feet laughing, Bobby’s scar and worst of all the colours loosening themselves from the books and floating in front of my eyes, no matter if I shut them or not.’
He wanted to ask her to scroll back and tell him the worst part of the memory, but his interruption had distracted her and she was moving on again.
‘I’m not sure if I slept, but I came to sometime hours later. I was in total darkness. I sat up and hit my head on the roof of the recess and for a second I thought I’d been mistaken for dead and buried alive. I would have screamed, except that the feeling of dread was still with me, not so intense, but strong enough to make me freeze.’
‘You were petrified.’
‘Yes.’ She gave him a grateful smile. ‘That’s the word for it, petrified. But I realised that I could hear voices beyond the darkness of what I thought was my coffin and stuck my hand out. It hit wood on one side, but then I found the curtain and drew it back.
‘It was still bright outside, but that didn’t mean much — it was summer and this far north it can still be daylight nigh-on midnight. Christie and your Archie were sat at the table with the other two. God only knows what I looked like, but they behaved as if it were nothing unusual to see a madwoman appear from nowhere. Maybe it wasn’t.
‘There was a bottle of spirits on the table. Fergus offered me a drink. It was almost as strange as the trip, the way they looked at me as if nothing had happened. The night was still warm, but Christie had this muckle big coat wrapped around her.’ Mrs Dunn shook her head. ‘It looked like something you might pick up at Paddy’s Market, but she couldn’t have been more elegant if she’d been dressed from head to toe in couture. I knew then I’d been foolish ever to imagine the two of us talking about hemlines over tea and cake. Christie was one of those women who make their own style. She glanced me up and down without a flicker of emotion, and then she turned to Fergus and said, “Leave her alone. Can’t you tell she’s pregnant?”’
Murray wondered why the landlady hadn’t mentioned it before and asked, ‘How advanced was your pregnancy?’
‘So early I didn’t know.’
‘So how could she?’
Mrs Dunn shrugged as if it was nothing remarkable.
‘Some women can tell these things. But of course it gave me a shock when she said it. The one with the scar laughed and said something like, “When did that ever make a difference to him?” But by then I had come to my senses. I just wanted to be away and home.’
‘What did Archie do?’
‘Nothing. Just sat there as if it had hee-haw to do with him, which I suppose it did, except for that fact that it was his house and his guests.’
‘And no one went with you?’
‘Fergus got to his feet, but Christie told him to sit down. She said something about him having done enough damage and me knowing the way back myself. Then Bobby got up, and for one dreadful moment I thought he was going to offer to escort me, but she said “And that goes double for you.”’ They obeyed her like she was the leader of their gang. I should have been grateful, but for some reason it made me dislike her more. I’d gone all that way, full of hope, and those men had abused me.’