Janet was packed off to bed, where she continued to shake. She thought many thoughts, and the worst of all was that hateful Cynthia had had the courage to perform an act of mercy; she had failed through cowardice. “Well done, Cynthia.” Her teeth chattered. She slept. When she woke it was still light. Downstairs someone was practising the flute. Four o’clock on a wan Sunday afternoon in March; a bad time, a time that was endless.
Chapter Eight
In April, when Janet returned to Auchnasaugh, she was astonished and overjoyed to find that Lila was there. In fact, Lila had scarcely been away. The shock of the journey to Edinburgh and the unfamiliar central heating in the little house had proved too great for Mouflon and for three agonising days Lila had watched him die. She ignored Maisie and her nervous fluttering cries, her pleas for help up the stairs, for tea and shortbread, for a friendly chat. She sat in her room with a bottle of whisky, feeding the old cat hourly from a dropper; she entered the kitchen only to warm milk for him. She left the house only to fetch more whisky, which she put down on Maisie’s grocery bill. On the third day, when Mouflon was stiff and cold and dead she put him in the fridge, to await their return to Auchnasaugh, where he must be buried. Then she took the kitchen scissors from their hook above the sink (“A place for everything and everything in its place,” Maisie had quavered as she showed her around). She began to cut her hair off, sawing and wrenching at the resistant wiry locks. Long black hanks and twists drifted into the sink, blocking the drain outlet. The scissors were blunt. She hurled them across the room and seized a carving knife. Maisie heard the clatter and came creeping hopefully down the stairs. When she saw Lila her fey, small face lit up. “Och, that’s good,” she said. “Now you’re settled in at last. We’ll have a nice cup of coffee.” Lila stared blankly at her and went on slashing at her hair. Maisie, tremulously removing a bottle of Camp coffee from the cupboard, saw the sudden gleam of the knife in the neon strip light; she looked again at Lila, gasped, and sat down. The bottle smashed to the floor. Maisie began to cry. In bustled her cleaning woman, Dora. “Oh dear, what a mess. Never you mind, Miss Carstairs, it’s only a wee bit of broken glass, dinna fash, we’ll have it cleared in a minute.” She saw Lila. Her tone changed: “And what may you be doing? I’ll thank you to put that knife down. And if you’d be kind enough to move perhaps I could reach the brush and dustpan and perhaps I could get the milk for madam’s hot drink.” Lila stood with her back against the fridge door. “Go away,” she whispered. “Go away.” “I will do no such thing,” retorted Dora; she tugged at the door handle with one hand and grabbed at the knife with the other. Lila bit her arm. The fridge door swung open, revealing Mouflon’s outstretched pinkly lustrous figure and sightless glare. Dora shrieked, slammed it shut, and rushed from the room. She telephoned the doctor and the policeman before returning to the kitchen. Maisie was rocking from side to side on her chair; her eyes were shut; she sang a little ditty, beating time on the table:
Lila sat on the top of the fridge with her legs dangling down over the door. She still held the knife. “I am in mourning,” she announced. “I must go home.” “Aye, that you must,” said Dora. “And any minute now the car will be here. We’ll give you a hand with your things. Lucky you haven’t unpacked. Now just hand me the knife, there’s a good wee lass.” Lila dropped the knife. “Could you, very sweetly, pour me a tiny drop of whisky?” she asked in a soft, girlish voice. Dora’s heart melted. “Aye, gladly, and I’ll join you. Just a wee dram; I think we both need it.” Then she remembered the approaching policeman and doctor. “We’ll take it in the breakfast cups. Just for the look of things, ye ken.” She glanced at the elfin, melodious figure swaying over the table. “Herself won’t mind. She’s off in her own world, bless her. The best place tae be. Well now, here’s tae us. And a wee doch-an-dorris afore ye gang awa’!” Lila understood almost nothing of what she said, but she raised her cup and drank, although she could not smile, and did not speak.
Maisie was indeed in her own world, and farther than they thought. She was sitting on a lawn in Kashmir, under the greenish-black sweetness of a deodar tree. Her ayah’s arms were tight and loving and rocked her; she wore her muslin dress with rosebuds and the pink sash. Beside them on the grass lay the sweeper’s enchanting baby, clad only in a little shirt and a hat like a tea cosy. At a small distance the sweeper’s wife sat cross-legged, her dark face tranquil and beaming. Maisie sang to the baby. The baby rolled and wriggled and laughed. How he laughed! Each time he laughed her ayah hugged her tighter and kissed her, and she laughed too. The heavy perfumed branches curved down and hid them from the house. The sun dazzled and spotted through them. So secret, so happy. Such memories she had, but no one wanted to hear them. And tea chests of sepia photographs, but no one wanted to see them. “Dance, then, dance, you merry little men…” The sweet small feet beat the warm air; in the shining black eyes she could see her own reflection, and above, the great dark tree.
So it was that Lila returned to Auchnasaugh, silent and sedated, in the policeman’s Black Maria. Grimly the kitchen staff brought in her possessions; they were relieved to find that the old fur coats had been left in Edinburgh. Dora, valiant and fortified by her unaccustomed morning whisky, had said that she would burn them. Later she regretted this and was obliged to take another wee dram before dragging them out to the patch of frozen garden. She soaked them in paraffin, stood back, and tossed a lighted rag into the midst. A fireball shot towards the heavens, there was a mighty blaze and a dense pall of stinking smoke. “It’s a braw send-off for the old cat,” she heard herself remark. This wouldn’t do. No more whisky. She hurled the bottle onto the fire and went in for a good strong cup of tea with Maisie.