‘Aye, right, so,’ said Reid. ‘That’s all.’
‘And how did it go with Cissie?’ I asked.
He shot me a piercing look. ‘She never came to the door. She sent the cook. An’ I’m askin’ you again: what did you say to her?’
‘Oh Dandy, for heaven’s sake,’ said Alec. ‘What did you say to her? It was really none of your business, darling.’
‘Nothing!’ I said. ‘I’m sure of it. I think it’s a bit much getting her to caddy for you but I didn’t say a syllable about that. And I wonder what her mother would think of these moonlight walks of yours, but I said nothing about that either. Look, if I get a chance later, I’ll go to the Turners’ house on some pretext or other and I’ll ask Cissie, when she answers the door, what the matter is. All right? But I’m busy today. I’m hoping to crack the nut of St Columba’s, and if it turns out to be a police matter, Constable, I’ll give it into your hands and yours shall be the glory and the promotion; and then shall come the engagement and the orange blossom and the cottage with the roses round the door, and then maybe you’ll stop accusing me.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about half the time, missus,’ said Reid.
‘You follow as much as half?’ said Alec. ‘Good for you.’
I waited until I could be sure that Parents’ Day was in full swing before I climbed the cliff path for what I expected would be the final time. Splashes of yellow had swarmed over the terrace and headland all morning, clearly visible from the village below, as the girls prepared the grounds for the visitors. Bunting was strung around poles and cracked smartly in the sea breeze and a flag of indeterminate design (it might have been St Columba himself) was run up the pole. From eleven o’clock onwards motorcars began to arrive, an endless rumble quite audible down the hill, and also there was the odd pair of lost parents driving along the sea front and pointing upwards to the school before executing an awkward turn at the harbour head and retracing their steps to try again. When the strains of a small pipe band (although not small enough for my liking) began to be heard drifting down from the terrace, I put the examination papers in my bag, settled my hat firmly against the gusts and ventured forth.
It was a scene of some gaiety despite the chilly greyness of the day. Long tables with coffee and cakes had been set out along the terraces and little round tables with posies of roses on them were dotted here and there on the damp grass. The hardier parents were seated, the mothers eating cakes with one hand and holding their hats on with the other, while fathers hunched against the wind and tried to light cigarettes inside their lapels. The more tender parents were forced to shelter on the terrace itself in the lee of the building, even though that kept them in full blasting proximity to the band.
‘I hope to God luncheon is inside at least,’ said a skinny mother, shivering like a greyhound, as I passed her. ‘Darling, couldn’t you go and petition?’
‘Not my idea to come, if you remember, Ursie,’ said the man she was with, who was standing poker-straight and scowling at the nearest bagpiper. I decide to attach myself to them, since I could tell from the woman’s shoes, the man’s tie and the drawling voices of them both that these were what Hugh calls ‘our sort’. In other words, these parents were some of those I could not quite believe had a girl at Miss Shanks’s peculiar little school. Perhaps if I got them talking they could explain it to me.
‘One’s only hope,’ I said, turning towards them, ‘is for a downpour proper. It would get us inside and stop that dreadful din.’
In their eyes was the flash as they recognised their sort and they did a bit of polite tittering.
‘Do you have a girl here?’ said the father. ‘Excuse me! Magnus Duncan and this is my wife, Ursula.’
‘Dandy Gilver,’ I said. ‘How do you do. I think we both know the Esslemonts, don’t we?’
‘Oh, how do you do,’ said Mrs Duncan. ‘Yes, dear Daisy.’
‘I don’t have a girl here,’ I said. ‘Yet. I’m thinking about it, though.’ I crossed my fingers in hope that our acquaintance was too slight for them to remember that I had only sons. They exchanged a quick look, as husbands and wives will, but it was impenetrable to me.
‘Well, St Columba’s has been very good for our girl, hasn’t it, Ursie?’ said Mr Duncan.
‘Oh, quite,’ said his wife. ‘Thoroughly to be recommended.’ Then both of them looked down into their coffee cups and took up what promised to be a lasting silence.
‘Well, that’s very good to…’ I said, staring at their partings. ‘Excuse me, won’t you. I see someone I have to…’
I did, as a matter of fact. I saw the unmistakable back view of Candide Rowe-Issing, in a lavender linen frock and an outrageous yellow hat which clashed painfully with the yellow of the St Columba’s uniform. I made a bee-line for her but was waylaid before I was halfway there.
‘Miss Gilver!’ It was Eileen Rendall, as pretty as a picture with a yellow rose tucked behind one ear, one of the few girls not washed out by the uniform.
‘Goody Goody Gilver,’ said Spring, coming up behind her. ‘I thought you’d gone. We were admiring ourselves for our quickest work yet, weren’t we, girls?’
‘Oh, I was only ever a stop-gap,’ I said. ‘How are you getting on with Miss Glennie?’
‘Well, on the bright side,’ said Spring, ‘she hasn’t snatched the sonnets back from us.’
‘We’ll always have you to thank for the sonnets, Miss Gilver,’ said Katie, joining them and slinging an arm around the neck of each.
‘On the other hand, she knows a choking amount of guff about Milton,’ Spring finished.
‘And she’s a dab hand with a grammar exercise too, more’s the pity,’ said Katie.
‘Who’s this?’ It was Sally Madden. ‘Our Latin, French and English are all grammar exercises now. And since chemistry and algebra are grammar too, to my mind anyway, it’s syntax as far as the eye can see. I love it.’
‘Oh, Sally, shut up, you can’t,’ said Spring. ‘And you don’t love Highland Glennie. No one could love that old-’
‘Girls,’ I said. ‘I might not be your mistress any more but that’s no reason to suspend all civility around me.’
‘Sorry, Miss Gilver,’ said Eileen.
‘Where’s Stella?’ I asked, accustomed to seeing them all together.
‘Why do you ask?’ said Stella’s voice behind me. As usual, the insolence was as pronounced as it was indefinable. ‘Did you want to ask-’ Then her attention was caught by something behind me. ‘There’s Mummy at last,’ she said.
‘Ah,’ I said, attempting the same languid tone. ‘I must slope over and say hello.’
But the terrace between the lemon-yellow hat and me was stuffed with parents, rather like a church-hall jumble sale. Actually, as I looked around, a great deal like a church-hall jumble sale. Fathers in shiny suits with braces showing and mothers in patterned frocks and unfortunate hats on the backs of their heads. A mother standing very near me gave a shy smile and sidled up like a little water buffalo.
‘You’re one of the teachers?’ she said. ‘I heard those girls talking to you.’
‘I’m…’ I said. ‘English mistress.’ It was perhaps just vague enough not to be an out and out lie. ‘Now, which girl is yours?’ Of course, the chances of me having met their daughter in my one day of active service were slim and the chances of remembering her name if I had were even slimmer.
‘Tilly,’ said the father, giving me a toothy smile.
I opened my eyes wide. ‘Tilly Simmons?’
‘That’s our little darling,’ said the mother. ‘She’s good at English, isn’t she?’ She sidled even closer and gave me a nudge in the ribs with her plump elbow. I thought back to Clothilde Simmons’s laboured and mediocre translation and gave a thin smile. I could feel the Simmons letter in my bag as though it were a hot coal.