'I'm sorry, I can't make that promise, Great-aunt,' I told her. 'I might need to tell somebody else.'
'Oh.' She looked surprised. 'Oh. Well, I shouldn't tell you then, should I?'
'Great-aunt,' I said, taking her hand. 'I will promise not to tell anybody else unless to tell them is make things better for all of us.' I didn't feel that really said what I meant, and Zhobelia looked confused, so I fell back and regrouped for another try at it. 'I will promise not to tell anybody else unless telling them is to do good. You have my word on that. I swear.'
'Hmm. Well. I see.' She looked up at the ceiling, brows gathered. She looked at me again, still puzzled. 'What was I talking about?'
'The money, Great-aunt,' I said, wringing my poor tired brain of its last drops of patience.
'Yes,' she said, waggling my hand holding hers up and down urgently. The money.' She looked blank. 'What about it?' she asked, her face like a little girl's.
I felt tears prick behind my eyes. I just wanted to lie down and go to sleep. I closed my eyes briefly, which was a mistake, because it seemed to encourage my tears, leaving me with blurred vision. 'Where did this money come from, Great-aunt?' I asked wearily, in a kind of befogged daze. 'The money you were talking about, from the time of the fire; where did it come from?'
'Royal Scotland.' She nodded.
'Royal Scotland?' I said, baffled.
'The Royal Scottish Linen Bank.'
I stared at her, trying to work out what on earth she was talking about.
'That's what it said on the bag,' she said, back in her isn't-it-obvious attitude.
'What bag, Great-aunt?' I said, sighing. I had the impression 1 actually was already asleep and this was just me sleep-talking or something.
'The bag.'
'The bag?' I asked.
'Yes; the bag.'
A feeling of déjà vu, intensified by tiredness, swept over me. 'Where did the bag come from?'
'Royal Scotland, I suppose.'
I felt like one of two people rowing a boat, only my partner wasn't actually rowing, just stirring their oar in the water, so that we kept going round and round in circles.
'Where did you find the bag, Great-aunt?' I asked, flatly.
'On the-' she began, then sat forward and beckoned to me. I leaned towards her so that her mouth was at my ear. 'I forgot,' she whispered.
'Forgot what, Great-aunt?'
'We don't have it any more. We burned it. Saw what would happen and thought we'd get rid of it. I'm sorry.'
'But where did you get the bag, Great-aunt? You said-'
'From the chest.'
'The chest?'
'Our special chest. The one he didn't have a key to. That's where we kept it. And the book.'
'The book?' Here, I thought, we go again. But no:
'I'll show you. I still have a box, you know. The chest we lost in the fire, but I saved the book and the other things!' She clutched excitedly at my shoulder.
'Well done!' I whispered.
'Thank you! Would you like to see it?'
'Yes, please.'
'It's in the wardrobe. You get it for me, there's a good girl.'
I was directed to the full wardrobe, which was stuffed with colourful saris and other, plainer clothes. At its foot, amongst a litter of old shoes and fragrant white mothballs, there was a battered shoe-box secured with a couple of dark brown elastic bands. The box felt quite light when I lifted it and brought it over to Zhobelia, who seemed quite animated at the thought of what was inside. She bounced up and down on the bed and motioned me to bring her the box, for all the world like a child waiting on a present.
She pulled the elastic bands off the old shoe-box; one band snapped, seemingly just of old age. She put the lid of the box down on the bed beside her and started sorting through the documents, newspaper cuttings, old photographs, notebooks and other papers inside.
She handed me the old photographs. 'Here,' she said. 'The names are on the back.'
She shuffled through the other stuff in the box, stopping to read occasionally while I looked at the old snaps. Here were the two sisters, looking young, wary and uncertain in front of their old ex-library van. Here they were with Mr McIlone, whom I recognised from the few other photographs that we had at High Easter Offerance. Here was the farm at Luskentyre, here the old seaweed factory, before and after renovation, and before and after the fire.
There was only one photograph of Grandfather, sitting in bright sunlight on a kitchen chair outside what I guessed was Luskentyre, turning his head away and putting his arm up to his face in an action the camera had captured as a blur. It was the only representation I had ever seen of him, apart from a couple of even more blurred newspaper photographs. He was barely recognisable, but looked very thin and young.
'Ah. Here now…' Zhobelia lifted a small brown book - about the size of a pocket diary, but much thinner - from the shoe-box. She looked inside the little book, taking off her glasses to read. A piece of white paper fell out. She picked it up and handed it to me.
I put the photograph of my Grandfather down on the knee of my leather trousers. 'Ah-ha,' she said matter-of-factly.
I unfolded the piece of paper. It felt crinkly and old, but also thick and fibrous. It was a bank-note. A ten-pound note, from the Royal Scottish Linen Bank. It was dated July 1948.1 inspected it, turned it over, smelled it. Musty.
Zhobelia tapped my knee again. Having attracted my attention, she gave me a stagy wink as she handed me the small brown book.
I put the bank-note on my knee along with the photograph of Grandfather.
The little brown book looked faded and worn and very old. It was warped, too, as though it had once been saturated with water. There was a British Royal Crown on the front cover. It was really just two bits of card, one thinner piece placed inside the other thicker cover, and not secured. The inner card carried a list of dates and amounts of money, expressed in pounds, shillings and pence. The last date was in August 1948. That piece of card was marked AB 64 part two. I put it down on the bed cover. The other piece of card was marked AB 64 part one. It seemed to be some sort of pass book. It belonged, or had belonged, to somebody called Black, Moray, rank: private. Serial number 954024. He was five feet ten inches tall, weighed eleven stone five pounds and had dark brown hair. No distinguishing marks. Born 29.2.20.
The rest was a description of injections he had received and what sounded like army punishments: fines, detentions and losses of leave. Perhaps it was just tiredness that meant I didn't haul up short at the date of birth, for I found myself thinking that I had no idea what any of this had to do with anything, until I looked from the book to the photograph of my Grandfather as a young man, still on my knee.
The world tipped again, my head swam. I felt faint, dizzy and sick. A terrible shiver ran through me as my palms pricked with sweat and my mouth went dry. My God. Could it be? Height, weight; hair colour. Of course the scar wouldn't be there… And the birth-date, to settle it.
I looked up into the eyes of my great-aunt. I had to attempt to swallow several times before I had enough saliva in my mouth to make it possible to speak. My hands started shaking. I rested them on my thighs as I asked Zhobelia, 'Is this him?' I held up the small brown book. 'Is this my Grandfather?'
'I don't know, my dear. We found that in his jacket. The money was on the beach. Aasni found it.'
'The money?' I croaked.
'The money,' Zhobelia said. 'In the canvas bag. We counted it, you know.'
'You counted it.'
'Oh yes; there were twenty-nine hundred pounds.' She gave a sigh. 'But it's all gone now, of course.' She looked at the ten-pound note sitting on my knee. 'We burned all the rest, in the canvas bag.' She nodded at the white ten-pound note resting on my leg. 'That's the last one left.'