Chasing Angels (30 page)

‘I see Sassenach women don’t hold their drink any better than Highland women,’ he said mildly.

But Kathy wasn’t in the mood for witty repartee. ‘Oh shutup, you arse!’ she replied, shutting her door. She heard him laughing but she hadn’t the strength to argue just
then; she’d get him back for it later, she promised herself, as she fell asleep.

Rory left a week later and life settled down again. She was glad to see the back of him, the man irritated her so much that he actually affected her happiness. She couldn’t find the key to
whatever personality he had, that was what bothered her, and the fact that it bothered her bothered her even more. Bunty was becoming gradually frailer, she had never recovered her old vitality
after breaking her hip a few years before, and as they both neared eighty Angus was showing signs of slowing down too, in that his obsessions were becoming less physical, though he did fit in a
spell of Geology before concentrating on cerebral topics. He would set off with a little hammer and a cloth bag and return after hours spent tramping the hills, carrying various treasures. The
house overflowed with different pieces of rock and quartz that he arranged and labelled, but much of it could be done through reading too. His Fair Isle period had, as Bunty had predicted, resulted
in various sumptuous garments taking up residence with all the other products of his knowledge-seeking, among all the other items that were ‘just things’. These days, some four years
after Kathy’s arrival in Glenfinnan, he was more interested in projects he could work on without moving about too much, and languages fitted the bill. In no time at all he was fluent not only
in living languages, but in dead ones as well, though Kathy was never sure which category Esperanto fitted into. He was concentrating on Sanskrit when Rory came home again, announcing quietly that
his wandering days were over, this time it was for good. Kathy almost burst into tears of dismay and unhappiness.

‘He can’t!’ she protested to Bunty as they worked together in the kitchen.

Bunty laughed, misunderstanding Kathy’s alarm. ‘Och, I know!’ she said. ‘He loves to travel, I can hardly believe myself that he’s giving it all up. I have this
picture in my mind of him when he was much younger, you know the way you do? Then I look at him and I think to mysel’ that he’s nearly forty years old, he’s not a wild laddie any
longer, maybe he feels it’s time he settled down.’

Kathy was glumly silent. If he was intent on settling down, couldn’t he do it just as well in darkest Peru?

‘And I think it’ll be good for Angus too, you know, he’s getting on a bit.’

Kathy smiled at the thought of Bunty, who was eternally seventeen inside, conceding that Angus might just be ‘getting on a bit’. But Rory’s imminent arrival bothered her so
much that she began for the first time to think of leaving the home she had found. Was there any point, she wondered, in staying around just to be in a constant state of irritation, with all the
joy taken out of life in the house?

‘Maybe it’s time for me to go,’ she suggested to Bunty.

Bunty looked shocked, as though someone had hit her. ‘But why?’ she whispered.

‘Well, I came here to help you about the place, and with Rory coming home, maybe you won’t need extra help.’

‘But Rory will help Angus!’ Bunty protested. ‘You and me, we’re a good team about the house, I couldnae run it without you, Kathy. No, no, this is your home, Angus and me
couldnae think of you not being here, and Rory would be so upset too, you know how much he likes you!’

‘
Aye, right!
’ Kathy thought. ‘Look, we’ll see how it goes then. But if you think I’m getting in the way once he comes back, if you don’t need me as
much as you thought you would, just tell me.’

Bunty looked as though she might be about to cry and Kathy, feeling guilty, put her arms around her. ‘I don’t want to go,’ she lied. ‘I’m just thinking ahead,
giving you the option.’

‘Well,
don’t
!’ Bunty chided her. ‘We’ll hear no more about it. Is that understood?’

Rory’s homecoming was as low-key as those before had been. He arrived one afternoon, quietly announced he was home and then put his bags in his room upstairs. She never got over their lack
of excitement; it seemed to Kathy that the Macdonalds accorded each other total acceptance, never taking offence no matter the length of absence or silence. They seemed to have an ability to drop
into and out of each other’s lives without losing their closeness, and when they next saw each other it was as if they had been apart for only a few hours. And that, Kathy had to admit, was
how she felt about Rory’s visits, though she came at the problem from a vastly different angle; however long it had been since he’d gone, his return always came too soon for her. But
Bunty was right about him spending more time with Angus, even if the fact of his being there felt like having an itch she could never quite scratch. They went everywhere together, Rory doing the
driving, which was a relief to everyone in the area, given Angus’s disregard for the highway code. He bought a boat with an outboard motor for Angus to do his fishing from, so that he
wouldn’t have to row himself back and forth, and later the Mini went before it fell to pieces on the road, and a van arrived, with plenty of room in the back for shopping, fishing tackle and
whatever Angus needed. Over the months and years the two men worked together about the house. They installed central heating for the first time, oilfired, because there was no way gas would be
brought that far north, even if they were taking it from the North Sea fields on the other side of the country and piping it all the way down to London, which was considerably further away than
Glenfinnan. Rory measured all the windows and ordered double-glazed units, an innovation in the Highlands at the time; he replaced doors throughout the house, so that suddenly, with the gaps
blocked, they could appreciate how many draughts they had been used to living with up till then. He even laid a proper driveway from the main road, up the hill to the house, one that didn’t
wash away in heavy rain, leaving them negotiating something like the surface of the moon. It was a curious sight to see Angus gradually taking the back seat, and more curious still to watch Rory
subtly deferring to his father in things he obviously knew more about. Over the years Angus had kept the house from falling down with the odd repair here and there when necessary, but his endless
search for knowledge had taken precedence over major work, and that’s what Rory concentrated on once he came home. If she hadn’t hated him so much she might’ve liked him for his
gentle treatment of his father.

Then it happened, as it had to. The day had started like any other. Kathy had been down in Glasgow, called there by the first crisis of Old Con’s illness, though she hadn’t told
anyone the real reason for her visit to the city, her first in nearly fifteen years. It was business, she had said, something she had to attend to, and she’d be back in a few days, which she
was, wrestling with her changed perception of her cousin, Hari the guru, friend of spiders everywhere, and cursing herself for keeping in vague touch with him, but enough for him to find her. It
was September, the trees were turning a million shades of green, yellow and orange and the rowan trees were heavy with berries. Rory had taken Angus down to the loch that morning in the van and
watched him move across the water to his usual fishing spot. She looked out of the window and smiled, watching Angus propping up his latest language book – Urdu she thought it was – in
front of him, casting his line then sitting down. It was good to be home again, even Rory couldn’t spoil that, though it had to be said that they had rubbed along together better these ten
years or so than she could ever have imagined. They were both older, of course, maybe they’d mellowed, or maybe it was just a tacit understanding that Bunty and Angus wanted them both there,
and neither wanted to upset them. Later that morning she looked out again, and Angus was still there; everything was as it should be in the universe. Bunty was sitting by the fire in the reading
room doing a crossword as usual. She felt the cold more these days; even with the central heating on and the house like a furnace, she had to have a fire on too. Well, she was in her eighties now,
why not? She deserved a bit of comfort. Rory was by the window, reading, as Kathy brought in a tray with tea and biscuits. He had his binoculars up to his eyes, occasionally scanning the loch as he
always did.

‘I’ll be back in a minute,’ he said, and disappeared.

‘Aye, fine, Rory,’ Bunty smiled from beside the fire, barely looking up from her crossword.

Kathy had no idea what caused that tight feeling in her throat. Maybe it was the wheels of the van spinning more than usual as he drove off; he wasn’t like his father, he drove well. She
picked up the discarded binoculars and sat by the window, spinning the focus adjustment till Angus’s boat came sharply into view. He was still there, like a rock. Then she moved slightly to
where Rory was launching the old rowing boat and pulling hard towards Angus, and somewhere, somehow, she knew. Time stood still as she watched Rory tie his boat to his father’s and jump
aboard. Holding her breath she watched him bend over Angus and touch his shoulder, his face inclined towards the sitting figure. She saw Rory’s head drop, a gesture so heavy with meaning that
she had to bite her lip to stop from crying out, then he knelt in front of Angus and put his arms around him.

‘I’ve got this one wrong,’ Bunty said behind her. ‘Damn the thing to hell! Why does no one ever help a senile old woman with these crosswords?’

‘Because,’ said Kathy from a long, long way away, ‘you curse us all if we offer suggestions.’

She was wondering what to do next, thoughts rushing frantically about her mind. Rory was on his own out there, he would need some help.

‘That’s only because you get them all wrong,’ Bunty said. ‘Macdonald himself puts you up to it, I know that fine, he bribes the lot of you to give me bum steers.’
She looked up at Kathy and smiled. ‘What is it you’re watching this long time?’ she asked.

‘Oh, the loch, you know,’ Kathy said brightly. ‘I think it’s being away from it that makes it look so perfectly when you come back again that you can’t stop looking
at it.’

‘Aye, Rory used to say the same every time he came back,’ she said, returning to curse her crossword once more.

Kathy raised the binoculars to her eyes once more. She could hear her own breathing and heartbeat so loud in her ears that she wondered if Bunty could hear them too and tried to calm them. Rory
was still kneeling in the boat holding his father; she would have to
do
something. Just then the phone rang and she got up as slowly as she could and went to the kitchen to answer it.

‘It’s Father O’Neill here,’ said a voice. ‘I was wondering if Angus was on for a game tonight?’

‘Father! Thank God!’ Kathy whispered.

‘Now that can’t be you, Kathy Kelly,’ he chuckled.

‘Father, shutup and listen—’

‘Ah, now that’s more like it!’

‘Father, this is serious! Angus is out on the water, but something’s wrong. Rory’s with him, but he’ll need help bringing him in. I can’t leave Bunty, she
doesn’t know. Get your boat and go out and help him.’

She replaced the phone and went back into the reading room. ‘It was Father O’Neill,’ she said brightly. ‘He’s after another drubbing at chess, I told him to call
back later.’

Bunty nodded. ‘You know, I think I’ll have a lie down,’ she said. ‘I can’t seem to get heated up at all, maybe I need my rest a wee bit early today.’

Later, Kathy would go over that remark and wonder if Bunty already knew, if some sixth sense had alerted her. She helped Bunty to bed and put her electric blanket on.

‘Now, you’re sure this is safe?’ Bunty demanded. ‘I’m never sure if you’re in cahoots with Macdonald. Maybe he has put you up to this for a cut of the
insurance money, frying a helpless old woman in her bed!’

‘A helpless old woman!’ Kathy scoffed. ‘Listen to you, you’re more lethal now than you ever were! And yes, it is safe to have it on these days, move with the times,
woman!’

By the time she got back to the window and lifted the binoculars to her eyes the three boats had reached shore, Father O’Neill’s tied to Rory’s and trailing behind
Angus’s as the priest sat at the back, steering homewards, and Rory still holding his father. She watched as Rory jumped from the boat and made for the van, leaving Father O’Neill to
hold Angus, then between them they lifted him gently into the back of the van. As they brought him up the hill Kathy opened the front door.

‘My father’s dead,’ Rory said.

‘I know.’

‘Where’s my mother?’

‘She went for a rest, she’s probably asleep now.’

‘Good. We’ll take him into the reading room. Call the doctor.’

She nodded, but as she turned she caught sight of the lifeless figure in the back of the van and, feeling all the strength suddenly going from her legs, she steadied herself by holding on to the
door for a moment. She couldn’t take it in, it couldn’t be happening.

Rory looked at her sharply. ‘I don’t need this!’ he said angrily. ‘Pull yourself together and stop indulging yourself, there are things we have to do!’

A retort stuck in her throat, though she had no idea what it would have been.

‘Move!’ hissed Rory. ‘
Now!
’ and he pushed her roughly inside the house.

It seemed that Angus had been having heart trouble for years. When he first found out he wrote to Rory, and Rory had immediately come home. Many of those trips Rory had taken him on were for
checkups; he could’ve gone any time, but he’d lasted years longer than the doctors had predicted. He had told only Rory, he had even kept it from Bunty. When she woke from her sleep
that autumn day the doctor had already signed Angus’s death certificate, but he decided to stay on in case Bunty needed him. Rory went into the room alone and told her of Angus’s death.
Kathy never knew what words he used, but when she went in afterwards, Bunty was suddenly years older than she had been two hours before. Kathy sat on the bed beside her, the two of them wordlessly
holding hands. What was there to say when they were beyond grief?