Fields of Blue Flax (19 page)

Silence.

‘Do you know something, Chris? Has Gerry said something?’ Mags’s voice was urgent.

‘Heavens no, sorry. No, listen, I think he’s maybe just going through some kind of weird midlife crisis. I mean, I thought Gerry was having an affair with his cleaning lady, Angie, till I realised she’s about ninety and the size of a house.’ There was forced laughter. ‘I think we’re all just too stressed at work. I know I am.’

‘Yeah, well I wish I was stressed at work too but I’ve got hardly any to do these days.’

‘Mags, you are so talented, that big cake contract will come your way. Just wait!’

‘Hmm. Maybe I just have too much time on my hands right now, and I’m overthinking everything.’

‘I’m sure that’s all it is.’

‘Yeah. Doug wouldn’t stray, would he?’

Silence.

‘Are you still there?’

‘Yes. Sorry, Mags, I’ve got to go, but no, I think he’s fine. The men just need a bit of space to work through their midlife crises. He’ll be back to normal soon, you’ll see.’

Mags came off the phone and went to the back door to get some fresh air. She opened it wide and stood on the step listening to a harsh squawking noise. She looked towards the pair of apple trees in the garden where two large crows were cawing menacingly at each other.

Doug wove his way through the tables towards the bar, acknowledging fellow drinkers with nods or quick exchanges of pleasantries. It was like watching a celebrity negotiate the paparazzi on the red carpet, such was the adulation for her handsome father from the locals.

‘What can I get you, Lotts?’

She looked up at him, taking in the thick mop of hair, greying at the sides, the heavy, dark eyebrows. And those eyes.

‘I’ll have another wine,’ said Lottie, pushing away her empty glass. ‘Red.’

Lottie watched her father banter with the barman as he pulled a pint. Doug brought the glass to his lips and sipped through the foam, waiting as the barman poured Lottie’s large glass of red.

‘Cheers!’ he said, sitting down and raising his glass to her. ‘So, tell me more about your weekend. You said the doctor’s given them the all-clear. Is Jack a hundred per cent now?’

Lottie sipped from her glass of wine then put it back on the beer mat. ‘Yup, fully fit, they’re both well.’ She brought her chair closer to the table and looked directly at Doug. ‘Anyway, I’d started to tell you about Katie and the genetics project. I’d told her I thought a couple with blue eyes can’t have a child with a different eye colour.’

Doug took a long draught of beer. ‘Like I said, Lotts, it’s a complete myth. Put that girl straight before she gets marked down. It’s not common, but it’s certainly possible for two blue-eyed parents to have a brown-eyed baby. Something to do with the blue gene being a broken one.’

Doug swigged from his glass and glanced over at Lottie, whose features were set rigid.

‘Dad,’ She leaned in so she was just inches from his face, ‘whether that genetics thing is true or not, I want you to answer me straight. Is Jack your son?’

He stared at her for a moment too long then laughed, a little too loudly. ‘What? Whatever makes you think that?’

She said nothing, and kept staring at his eyes. He looked away and downed his pint.

‘Want another one, Lotts?’

‘No. I want you to answer my questions truthfully, or…’

‘How’s it going, mate?’ A hearty clap on Doug’s back. ‘Not seen you for ages.’

‘Bill, how’re you doing? This is my daughter Lottie. Want to join us?’

Bill stretched out his hand to Lottie. She shook it and said, ‘Sorry Bill, nice to meet you but we’re having a kind of planning meeting, a secret family thing.’

‘No worries. See you later, mate.’

Doug stretched his neck from side to side, still avoiding his daughter’s gaze.

‘Dad, you can do all you want to get off the subject, do your physio in the middle of the pub if you like, but I’m not moving from here until you tell me the truth.’

Doug opened his mouth then put up his finger. He turned to Bill at the bar and shouted, ‘Bill, get me a pint, mate, would you?’

Bill nodded. Lottie and Doug were silent, Lottie finishing her wine while staring at her father, Doug clapping his hands together silently as if trying to get warm. Bill delivered the beer and left.

‘Well?’ said Lottie. ‘Is Jack your son?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

‘The letter in the piano was definitely your writing. I
looked in my old photo album and saw Grandpa’s writing – it’s nothing like yours. And Jack’s eyes… Dad, they’re just like yours.’ She strummed her fingers on the table.

‘Eyes can be similar, of course they can.’ Doug looked down at the table. ‘Christ, Lottie, how many glasses have you had? You’re becoming like your mother, drinking too much. Talking nonsense.’

Lottie leant forward again and spoke in a low voice. ‘If you don’t tell me the truth, Dad, I’m going to tell Mum about my suspicions.’

‘Don’t. Please, Lotts, don’t mention a thing to Mum.’

‘Why not? If it’s not true then there’s nothing to worry about.’

Doug put his pint down with a thud. ‘You can’t. Please. It’s not as simple as that. The truth is… It’s not what you think. It wasn’t like that. It wasn’t an affair, it wasn’t.’

‘What the fuck do you mean?’

‘What I mean is, it was all an accident, she ensnared me, it was a trap and it should never have happened.’

Lottie’s eyes opened wide. ‘Who’s she? Auntie Chris?’

‘Obviously. She’s his fucking mother.’ He took a long drink and set down his glass again. His hand was shaking.

‘So it’s true. That note at the back of the piano was from you to Auntie Chris?’

His shoulders slumped. ‘Yes, I’d forgotten all about it. God knows how it ended up in there, I must have been trying to hide it. But you can see by what I wrote that the whole incident meant nothing. I never loved her. I love your mum, I always have. Always will.’

He shut his eyes and leant back. Lottie said nothing so he opened them and whispered, ‘Please don’t tell her.’

‘Give me one good reason why I should be on your side!
You’ve kept this secret for all these years. And doesn’t Jack have a right to know?’ She gasped. ‘That’s why you were so emotional when he had the accident, wasn’t it? I can’t believe this.’

‘Please. Just don’t tell Mum. Please. I’m begging you, I’ll do anything, Lotts.’ He bit his lip.

Lottie stood up and picked up her glass. ‘If this still had wine in it, I’d fling it in your face. You are nothing but a fucking liar. I hate you.’

She stormed towards the door and Doug strode after her. ‘Lotts, please, please don’t tell Mum,’ he whispered. ‘Give me time, I’ll explain it all to you.’

She wrenched the door open, refusing to look back at him as she strode out.

Chapter Thirty-four

4th June 1860

Maud Whyte emerged from the dim courtroom into broad daylight and blinked. She stretched out an arm to lean against the solid granite wall of Forfar Sheriff Court. She was trying to control her breathing, as the doctor had told her to do so often, to slow her racing heart.

‘My dear, shall you sit down to recover?’

‘I cannot sit down in the middle of Forfar High Street, Charles!’ she muttered to her husband.

‘I shall ask Grieve to fetch the carriage and you may sit there until the proceedings end.’ He raised a slender hand upwards and pointed one bony finger heavenward to beckon the driver.

‘I will be back presently.’ The Reverend Whyte turned and re-entered the court, his long black frock coat swinging wide behind him.

‘Madam, will you sit up here awhile?’ Grieve extended his hand to Mrs Whyte and gestured to the loupin’-on-stane. With his help, she managed to ascend and soon she sat back in the carriage, her powder blue dress gathered around her and her dark bonnet perched on top of her tight grey bun. She continued repeating the breathing exercises Doctor Macleod had taught her.

She really ought not to have come. Charles had tried to forbid it but she insisted, even though she knew her health was not up to it. But he was forever controlling her and she decided that, for once, she would do as she herself wished and would attend, for the sake of her daughter.
Even though she was permitted no contact with Charlotte, she could at least be there in the court for her. Maud felt a sudden sweat envelop her face and she rummaged in her bag for her smelling salts.

‘Is there anything I can get you, Mrs Whyte?’

‘Nothing, thank you, Grieve,’ she whispered, her voice as feeble as her body. She took out her fan and attempted to cool her face. When she shut her eyes, the frightful scenes she had just witnessed inside the court room loomed up once more.

She still did not understand why her husband had insisted on the paternity suit. The ignominy and shame of the whole situation had been bad enough, why he had demanded that David Barrie be named as the father on a legal document was beyond her comprehension. It was mystifying, but no one, not even his wife, dared to question his decisions.

Charles had always asserted his authority over her in everything, from what she was permitted to wear to whom she could invite to the manse for tea. And with her fragile health, it was simply too much to cause discord by attempting to disagree with him.

She was still surprised that he had consented so readily to her suggestion that she accompany him this morning to Forfar and to the court. But as she sat there in the carriage, eyes still tight shut, heart pounding, she contemplated the prudence of her action.

A noise from the courtroom entrance made her open her grey eyes and turn round. Her heart seemed to race faster, if that was at all possible. It was Charlotte, alone, about to cross the road towards a woman standing with a bundle in her arms. That must be the child! She watched as her
daughter rushed to the woman and swept the baby into her arms.

Could she do this? Before he came back out from the court room, would she be able to see her grandchild, even though it was strictly forbidden? He would never forgive her, but there was surely time…

‘Grieve! Go and fetch Miss Charlotte. At once!’

Grieve nodded, jumped down from the carriage and sped over the road to speak to her. Maud saw Charlotte’s bewildered expression, but she followed Grieve and came to stand by the carriage. The baby was snuggled in tight to her chest. Maud took in her daughter’s face, her slate eyes lacklustre and her hair bedraggled. She reached out her hand and tucked a loose strand of hair behind her daughter’s ear underneath her bonnet.

‘Mother, how are you?’ The concern in her voice conveyed to Maud how dreadful she must look.

‘I am not well, Charlotte, but I had to come. Let me see the child. Please, before your father arrives.’

Charlotte glanced round to the courtroom entrance then turned the baby round to face Maud.

Charlotte tickled her chin. ‘Oh, Charlotte, look at her.’ There was such sadness in her mother’s faint voice. ‘Are you managing at Corrie?’

The baby stirred, and opened her large eyes, gazing straight at Maud.

‘Oh, look. How beautiful her eyes are, my love.’ Maud smiled then put down her fan and peered closely at the child. Suddenly she drew back, with a sharp intake of breath. ‘The eyes, they are so brown, so dark…’

Maud panted for a few moments while Charlotte tried to pat her mother’s narrow back, as she had been doing
for years when she had an attack. But Maud’s wheezing worsened. She struggled for breath, trying desperately to draw air into her tight chest. Her bony shoulders rose as she took one last strained gasp for air and slumped back onto the seat.

Charlotte put her hand on her mother’s brow. ‘Grieve, fetch a doctor. Now!’

Bob Grieve set off, running full speed up the street. A kerfuffle at the courtroom door drew Charlotte’s attention. It was her father.

She took one last look at her mother then bolted across the road back to the waiting woman and they both hastened away down the street. At the end, she turned back to see her father stride towards the carriage, three members of the kirk session behind him. They were all in black, tailcoats flapping; a murder of crows.

Chapter Thirty-five

2014

Christine and Mags were in Mags’s garden with a cup of tea, sitting on the wooden bench in a bower framed by two coral-pink rhododendron bushes.

‘Those apple trees give us too much shade at this time of year,’ said Mags. ‘I’ve asked Doug to chop off some of those high branches but he keeps wittering on about his fear of heights.’

‘Oh, I think it all looks gorgeous out here. You’re so lucky to have a well-established garden. Our hedge is so short, there’s no privacy from the nosey neighbours.’ Christine looked to her side. ‘Are those lily of the valley over there? I thought they were a spring flower?’

‘No, mine flower till July. The garden’s north facing so maybe that’s why. They’re on the wane.’ Mags sipped from her mug. ‘Are you looking forward to the summer holidays? I can’t believe it’s that time already, it feels like it was Easter just recently.’

‘I know! I thought we might do another visit to Register House if you’re up for it? See if we can pin down Elizabeth Barrie and try to check if her mother was the same person who was the minister’s daughter, the one with lily of the valley on her tombstone.’

‘That’s just so unlikely, Chris, and the more I think about it, why on earth would you have a paternity suit if it wasn’t for the money. You know, alimony. And surely a daughter of the manse wouldn’t need any? It’s not like they’d be paupers or anything.’

‘True, unlike the woman we thought was her mother, what was her name again?’

‘Margaret Barrie.’ Mags took a mouthful of brownie. ‘You’ve not tried these brownies yet – there’s a new flavour today, guess what’s in them?’

‘You know I’m rubbish at this.’ Christine nibbled on a corner. ‘Cinnamon?’

Mags nodded. ‘Yeah, your taste buds are improving! I was going to bake a different batch this afternoon. Why don’t I give you a couple to take down to Gateshead tomorrow? You can have them with your coffee, take your mind off the court thing.’

‘Thanks, that’d be great.’