‘And he believed her and not you? Why would he do that?’
‘He and I...’ Clémence hesitated. ‘We have our own problems. He wanted to believe her.’
Clémence closed her eyes and shook her head. Her eyes were stinging, but she didn’t want to break down in front of the old man. She needed to keep control.
‘I’m so sorry,’ he said. And he was. She could tell from the tone of his voice that he was. ‘Have you told your boyfriend? Callum, was that his name?’
‘No!’ Clémence said. She found she couldn’t look at the old man. ‘I can’t tell him. What if he doesn’t believe me? What if he thinks I’m some slut who wants to jump into bed with middle-aged men? What then? I’d lose him!’
‘I’m sure he’d believe you.’
Clémence kept her eyes on the corner of the kitchen, where the orange plastic rubbish bin stood.
‘Of course he wouldn’t. That was what was so clever about what Patrick did. He took the initiative — got his retaliation in early. Everyone will believe him not me.’
‘I believe you,’ said the old man. ‘Look at me, Clémence.’
Clémence kept her eyes on the rubbish bin.
‘I said look at me.’
Reluctantly, she did.
‘I believe you. Of course I believe you.’
She sniffed. ‘You’re just saying that.’
‘No, I mean it. It’s obvious just looking at you, just listening to you, you’re an honest girl, Clémence. I’d bet my life on it.’
She looked into his eyes. He did mean it. There was something about that calm, steady gaze under those bushy eyebrows, the composure of that craggy face, that suggested reliability, authority, confidence. The reassurance of a wise doctor who spoke from decades of experience and would never deceive you. She smiled.
‘I’m glad you told me,’ he said.
‘So am I.’ And it was true, she did feel lighter. ‘But you can see how I might sympathize with Grandpa?’
‘I can,’ said the old man.
They both heard the front door open. ‘Hello!’ It was a woman’s voice.
‘They clearly don’t believe in ringing doorbells around here,’ Clémence muttered to the old man. ‘Yes, hello!’ she called, getting to her feet and going out to the hallway.
She was met by a small red-haired woman with a long freckled face, wearing a nurse’s uniform.
‘You must be Clémence,’ she said with a smile. ‘I’m Rose, the district nurse. I’ve come to check up on Dr Cunningham.’
‘Come through,’ said Clémence.
The nurse fussed over the old man and professed herself very happy with what she saw. Physically, he was recovering well, and she was glad that the memory jogging was going well. She checked that Clémence had made an appointment for Dr Cunningham to see Dr Stenhouse at the hospital in Inverness the following Monday, although Clémence hoped that by then Aunt Madeleine would be in charge.
Just as the nurse was leaving, they had another visitor: Jerry Ranger in his small blue Peugeot, hired at an airport, presumably.
He stood awkwardly in the doorway, tall and rangy. Just like his name. Which, it occurred to Clémence, didn’t sound like a real name at all; it must have been made up.
‘Hi, Alastair,’ he said tentatively to the old man. He proffered his hand, and the old man shook it, staring at Jerry hard. ‘I’m Jerry, your neighbour from Corravachie, the cottage further down the loch.’
The old man scratched his scalp and shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, Jerry. I’m afraid I’ve had an accident and my memory has gone.’
‘You don’t remember me at all?’
The old man’s eyes betrayed a mixture of sadness and frustration. ‘No. Were we friends?’
‘Kind of,’ said Jerry. ‘Good neighbours, certainly. I’ve only been here three weeks, but we have had a few conversations, a couple of drinks. I come from California? I write songs? You told me a lot about your time in Australia.’
‘Eagles,’ said the old man. ‘Wedge-tailed eagles. I remember those.’
‘That’s right. And being a doctor out there. And how the weather was much better than here.’
‘My wife. I had a wife called Helen. Did I talk about her much?’
Jerry winced. ‘A little. She was an ex-wife. To be honest, you didn’t seem to like her much. You’ve been divorced for years. She’s passed away now, so you said. Don’t you remember her at all?’
The old man shook his head. ‘Not in the slightest.’
Clémence made them all a cup of tea and they sat down around the kitchen table. Jerry, with his neatly trimmed beard, his jeans and the white T-shirt peeking out from under his lumberjack shirt, looked very American in this very Scottish cottage. The old man examined his neighbour closely, hungry for information, for memories.
‘So you don’t remember anything at all from before the accident?’
‘I’m beginning to,’ said the old man. ‘Thanks to Clémence.’
‘We’ve been reading a book together,’ she said. ‘It’s a kind of memoir, written by Alastair. It starts in the nineteen thirties.’
‘Oh, really?’ said Jerry. ‘That sounds fascinating. Can I take a look?’
Clémence nipped upstairs to fetch Death At Wyvis from her bedroom and handed it to Jerry. ‘Angus Culzie, huh? Just like this cottage. And you say that’s you, Alastair?’
‘It looks like it,’ said Clémence.
‘Can I read a bit?’ said Jerry.
Clémence reached out and grabbed the book out of his hands. She realized she didn’t want Jerry to read the first page, at least not in front of the old man. ‘Sorry. It’s, um, private. You might ask how a published novel can be private, but it is, at least for now. So please don’t read it.’
Jerry seemed a bit taken aback, but he shrugged. ‘OK.’ He glanced at the old man, who looked troubled. ‘So you think your memory is coming back?’
‘Slowly,’ said the old man. ‘But it’s just scraps of the past from many years back. Although, interestingly, I can remember my childhood quite well. It all goes very vague when I get to university.’
Jerry smiled. ‘I remember our talks together with pleasure,’ he said. ‘It’s a shame you’ve forgotten them.’
‘They might come back,’ said Clémence.
‘What do the doctors say?’
‘That the memories might come back,’ said Clémence. ‘Or they might not. “Jogging” helps, which is what we have been doing. But they really don’t know.’
‘Can you tell me a bit about Australia?’ asked the old man. ‘At least what I told you.’
Jerry told him what he could, but he couldn’t remember himself precisely what the old man had said. He had emigrated to Australia in the sixties, got a job in a town in the hills outside Perth — Jerry thought it was called Montgomery, but Clémence and the old man agreed it must have been Mundaring where Jeanette was the librarian. He had become an eager bird watcher and travelled around Australia, looking in particular for eagles. Jerry remembered a couple of stories featuring eccentric patients at his clinic and some barbed comments about Helen not letting him travel as much as he wanted to. There wasn’t really very much, but the old man lapped it up. Clémence could see that the dread he seemed to feel when listening to Death At Wyvis was banished.
By the time Jerry left, promising to drop in again the following day, the old man was in better spirits.
Jerry drove back to his own cottage. He made himself a cup of coffee and sat in the living room, looking out over the loch. He had had to check out the old man for himself, and he was relieved with what he had seen and heard.