What does she want? Fran knew it was ridiculous but she was starting to panic. Bella had the ability to intimidate. Perhaps she wants money from me, she thought. Compensation for the expenses involved with setting up the party and the lack of sales. And she had no money. But of course she would obey Bella’s summons.
‘Shall we meet in the Herring House café at twelve-thirty?’ she suggested tentatively. It would take her at least that long to dress and drive north.
‘No, no.’ Bella was impatient. ‘Not the Herring House. Here, at the Manse. As quick as you can.’
Driving to Biddista, Fran thought she should have put up more of a fight, arranged to come another day. Just because she admired Bella’s work didn’t mean she didn’t have a mind of her own. Once she’d been known as strong-willed, assertive. But that had been in the old days when she had a proper job and a bunch of friends and she lived in London. Now she was struggling as an artist and to find her place in the community. As she drove past the Herring House she was wondering what the girls from the magazine would have made of Perez, so she didn’t register the cars parked at the jetty or the small group of men standing outside the corrugated-iron hut. They were part of the landscape. Men planning to get out fishing. My friends would say he wasn’t my type, she thought. Not strong enough to take me on. They’d say the relationship would never last.
The Manse was a square, stone building, imposing, on a slight rise, looking down to the sea. Fran had seen it from outside but never been in. All her previous meetings with Bella had been in the Herring House café, with Martin Williamson dancing attendance with coffee or tall glasses of wine. Bella must have heard the car on the gravel because she had the door open before Fran had climbed out. She was wearing jeans and a loose linen shirt. Even at home she had style.
‘Come in.’
Once there had been a kirk standing between the house and the beach, and the architecture of the Manse reflected the religious connection. Inside, the staircase was lit by a tall thin window, two storeys high, a church window but with clear glass which let the sunlight in. Fran stood just inside the door and took it all in. ‘What a wonderful house!’ She saw at once that was the right thing to say. Bella knew it was a wonderful house, but she liked to be told. She relaxed a little, became less imperious.
‘Come into the kitchen. It’s last night’s leftovers, I’m afraid, but there are plenty of those.’
‘I’m so sorry so few of the people I invited came. I had asked them.’
‘Don’t blame yourself,’ Bella said. ‘Oh no, you mustn’t blame yourself.’
Fran expected some explanation then, but Bella was moving on and talking about Biddista and the house, not about the party.
‘I grew up in Biddista, you know. Not here in the Manse, but in one of the council houses down on the shore. They were council houses then. They’ve all sold now. None of the people I grew up with could afford them. Willy was the last of them to live there and even he wasn’t a council tenant in the end.’
Fran was a little flattered that Bella assumed she knew who she was talking about, was treating her as a Shetlander. She hadn’t a clue of course, but she let Bella continue.
‘There was still a minister living in the Manse in those days. An Englishman who’d been a missionary in the Far East and treated us as natives who needed educating. The kirk had already gone by then and he held services in the dining room. Sometimes in the middle of a dinner party, I think I can hear the hymns.’
The kitchen, at the back of the house, seemed a little dark after the sunlight in the hall. It too still had something of the church about it. A dark wood bench under the window which could have been a pew, a high ceiling. All the ceilings seemed very high to Fran. She was used to being able to reach up and touch hers. Bella lifted plates covered with clingfilm from the fridge and Fran recognized the buffet food from the night before.
‘I need wine,’ Bella said. ‘Let’s see if Roddy has left any. He was still up when I went to bed last night, but I doubt if even he could have drunk his way through everything that was left. There are cases still in the Herring House.’ She returned to the fridge and came back with a bottle. ‘Would you like a glass? This one’s rather good.’
Fran shook her head. ‘Will Roddy be joining us?’ Despite herself she was attracted by the celebrity of Roddy Sinclair. Being a Shetlander was his trademark and his unique selling point, but for her he represented life away from the islands, her old life of wine bars and serious shopping and tabloid gossip. She told herself that world was shabby and vulgar, but she missed it. She found it alluring, caught herself reading Hello! magazine when no one was looking.
Bella looked at the clock. ‘I don’t think Roddy’s been out of his bed before mid-afternoon since he left school. Unless he had a plane to catch.’ She set plates and cutlery on the table, lifted cling wrap from the trays of food.
Fran still didn’t understand the reason for the urgent summons. Was it just Bella reminding herself that she had the power to make things happen? ‘You said you wanted to talk to me. It sounded important.’
‘Perhaps I overreacted.’
‘I’m a busy woman, Bella. Will you tell me what this is about?’ Something of her old confidence reasserting itself.
Her tone seemed to shock Bella because there was a moment of silence. She is such a drama queen, Fran thought. She doesn’t move a muscle without calculating the impression she’ll make. Bella got to her feet, reached into her bag and pulled out a folded sheet of paper.
‘This is what it’s about. Andy from Visit Shetland dropped it in this morning. He couldn’t understand it, of course. He had a day off yesterday and came straight to the party from his home.’ She put the paper on the table, unfolded it and slid it towards Fran. ‘I don’t suppose you know anything about it?’
It was a computer-generated flyer, printed in red and black on white. Not professionally printed, but not badly designed. Fran noticed that before reading the words.
EXHIBITION OPENING CANCELLED
Because of a death in the family.
SHORELINES
An exhibition of original art by Bella Sinclair and Fran Hunter in The Herring House, Biddista has been cancelled.
The family requests privacy at this time.
Fran looked at it, confused. She could see that Bella expected a reaction, but felt foolish because she couldn’t understand what lay behind the scrap of paper. ‘What is this? Why would I know anything about it?’
‘They were all over Lerwick yesterday. Posted in the window of the tourist office, on the noticeboard in the library and handed out to visitors coming off the cruise ships. Scalloway too. It’s hardly surprising there wasn’t much of a turnout at the party.’
‘Of course I don’t know anything about it,’ Fran said. ‘I mean, nobody in my family’s died.’
‘Nor mine. So what is this about?’ Bella was in dramatic mode again. ‘A mistake? A tasteless prank? An act of sabotage?’
‘Why would anyone want to sabotage an art exhibition?’
Bella shrugged. ‘Jealousy. Spite. I don’t think I’ve upset anyone enough for them to bother with something like this. Not recently at least. What about you? A first exhibition’s a big deal. Anyone out there who’d want to spoil it for you?’
‘That’s a horrible idea. No. Absolutely not.’
‘It couldn’t be your ex playing games?’
‘Duncan and I are being civilized at the moment, for Cassie’s sake. Besides, it’s not his style. He has a temper but this is petty and unpleasant. Anonymous too. Duncan would want everyone to know it was him.’ She nodded towards the flyer. ‘He’d think that beneath his dignity.’