Sally (28 page)

By the end of the week, the itching had abated but those spots Sally had unwittingly scratched were sore and scabby. Her mood was made even more foul after a phone call to Mr Tomlin. Sally used her brightest voice and breezed on about feeling ‘one hundred per cent' even if she did not look it. She begged, she pleaded, she even flirted to be allowed to return on Monday morning. Mr Tomlin, however, who liked to do things by the book – as is the wont of a headmaster – would hear none of it.

‘I believe the doctor suggested two weeks?'

‘Well …' started Sally.

‘Well then!' he declared in his most headmasterful voice. ‘And, Miss Lomax,' he warned, ‘considering that the chicken pox did not take hold first thing on Monday morning, we won't be counting this as a full week. We shall look forward to seeing you bright and early a fortnight on Monday – not a moment before.'

‘But that'll be nigh on three weeks!' Sally squealed.

With his most qualified stern-but-fair voice, Mr Tomlin delivered his
coup de grâce
: ‘Miss Lomax,' he said, ‘I've had calls from anxious parents.
Anxious parents
,' he reiterated gravely. ‘We simply cannot afford to have you back a minute too soon. I know you understand. Bright and early, a fortnight on Monday. Take care.'

In the face of such autocracy, Sally was as helpless as any pupil. Fearing that further begging would result in a metaphorical Detention and arguing would warrant something far worse, she let it be and sulked all afternoon, occasionally sucking in her pouting lower lip to swear at nothing in particular. There was no more ‘Gracious Good Lord' in Sally's pock-marked vocabulary; her atypical effing and blinding now rhymed Him with banker.

For perhaps the first time in her life, Sally felt thoroughly anti-social and was quite content to do nothing about it. She did not even feel like chatting to her plants, the kettle or to anything in particular – let alone to Diana or Richard who were both keeping a wise and generous distance. Sally found comfort and relief only in chocolate and soap operas (preferably those of Antipodean origin, made in the mid-seventies and screened in the early afternoon). She had neither the manners nor the goodwill to respond even to the Woodses' sumptuous flower arrangement.

Yet this is the girl who took such pride in her little cards of effusive thanks for even the humblest cup of tea; this is the girl or whom
Ps
and
Qs
had hitherto been the prerequisite for honourable living. This is the girl with manners and grace constituting the very essence of her being. But see her now, stomping and slouching and swearing indiscriminately. Look in the waste-paper basket and find a batch of ‘get well soon' cards barely out of their envelopes tossed nonchalantly away. See how the Woodses' bouquet could do with some water. Sally is feeling sorry for herself – and why shouldn't she? She is wallowing in a formidable sulk, seething at the cruel irony that the doctor has said she is probably contagious no longer. Even the mirror holds little solace, reflecting back a glowering, bespotted creature with a clump of spiky hair above her left temple.

There must be a solution. Someone must hold the key to unlock Sally from this unbecoming petulance. Indeed there
is
a key. It is nearly five hundred miles north and it is lying invisible in the lap of the treasured Aunt Celia.

As Sally flounces down into her Lloyd-Loom with a mug of cocoa and a sullen sigh, Aunt Celia has just come in from her small garden, ruddy-cheeked and eyes glistening. It is a glorious day on the Isle of Mull; crisp, clear and sunny with a fortifying breeze. If truth be known, it is also a lovely day in Highgate – but sulky Sal remains defiantly unconcerned.

A
rranging a fat bunch of daffodils from her lush crop in an old earthenware jug, Celia thinks of Sally. Admiring their sunny, joyous faces, she decides if Sally were to be a flower, she would most certainly be a daffodil.

And if I were to be a flower, I would be heather. Tough, not much to look at, but clinging on, year after year after year!

Celia Lomax, sister-in-law to Sally's late father, is now seventy but looks a good decade younger, a blessing she accredits to Mull's vitalizing air. She loves her western isle passionately. It has been her home for almost fifty years and every day she is thankful that she has the good fortune to live in such a wonderful place. The first twenty years of her life were spent, anaemic and entrenched, in Glasgow. Now every morning Celia still races to her doorstep to take greedy gulps of the clean, incomparable air, and she sleeps with the window open throughout the year.

Mull cannot cease to enthrall her. She finds she still stops in her tracks to listen and look about her in awe. She never tires of the sounds of the island – it might be an uncomfortable silence to a city-dweller, but for Celia there is a veritable din and her head is filled and thankful for it. Beneath it all, she tunes into the eternal sound of the ocean. Whistling in from the sea, she can listen to the dance of the thin wind slipping its way between the hills and shaking the Scots pine with regular rattles. Under the wind, she can pick out the shimmy of the heather and the rustle of the bracken; above it, the plaintive mew of buzzards, the caw-cawing of hooded crows, the calling of the gulls. Every day, for half a century, Celia Lomax has taken grateful stock of all that is on her doorstep. She can look about her panoramically, for no tenement buildings and no grimy haze deny her a horizon. There is so much sky for the gazing! Under it, the majestic hills are swathed in hues of blue and brown from the tracts of heather and cloaks of bracken. The single-track road winds out of sight, linking the humble white cottages that pepper its way. Pattern and colour, shape and light – the beauty of Mull is a revelation to Celia each day of her life.

Angus Lomax had brought his young Glaswegian wife to Mull soon after their honeymoon in the Cairngorms. Having worked for ten years as doctor in his childhood town of Oban, he leapt at the chance to take over the General Practice for North Mull. He had never wondered or worried whether his city-bred wife would adapt and be happy out on the isle. From the moment he met her, he knew at once that her eyes were those of Mull; they were the colour of heather and as glassy, private and deep as Loch na Keal. His intuition was proved right and Celia adapted to rural life with passion and with pleasure.

While Angus busied himself with the practice and the patients, Celia made home. She limewashed the exterior of the old cottage and painted the interior. She treated the wood, she cleared the chimney, she smoothed down and buffed up the old stone floors. She made curtains for the deep windows and cushions for every chair; the kitchen she filled with local pottery. Handmade shawls adorned the furniture and a painstakingly pieced quilt bedecked their great iron bed.

If her house was her castle, her small garden was her kingdom. She furrowed and she dug and she turned the land. The native peat was a godsend, the Gulf Stream a blessing. Tomatoes, marrow, potatoes, cabbage, beans, thyme, rosemary, alpine strawberries and fat blackberries – they all grew sweet and plentiful. Bulbs and shrubs vied for space amongst the liberally strewn wild flowers, and small alpines grew bravely in the picturesque rockery. Through every season, Celia's garden sang with colour.

At the moment, it is carpeted in yellow and blue as daffodils and crocuses run amok. The daffodils have called Sally, her favourite niece, to mind. A treasured rapport exists between them. Their bond is certainly stronger than that enforced between Sally and her mother and, secretly, they both glean a somewhat perverse satisfaction from it.

Mildred Lomax never liked Celia. (‘Your strange aunt up North.') Mildred Lomax was not in tune with the sky, the wind or the sea; she found little to wax lyrical about in heather, and growing your own vegetables seemed a downright tedious pastime. (‘Rather unnecessary and
affected
in this day and age, don't you think?') Mildred Lomax was a Home Counties, Women's Institute, Bridge Club and afternoon tea sort of woman. Her 1930s semi had been delectably interior designed and she had a cleaner (‘my daily') to administer its upkeep. A gardener tended a very neat garden where the lawn did not look real and hybrid roses were pruned to perfection. She had never had the inclination to bake bread nor to lift a needle and thread – after all, there was a most useful little lady down the road for all of that.

What really set Mildred against Celia was her late husband's fondness for the woman and her daughter's devotion to her. Family holidays on Mull, an annual occurrence until Sally was fifteen and her father dead, had been the bane of Mildred's life. She found Mull a forsaken and bleak place, invariably swamped by mist and midges. She did not like trudging across hillocky heather wearing wellington boots, and found all that sea air rather tiring. There was nothing for her to
do
on Mull, and Mildred Lomax was not very good at doing nothing. Of course, there were walks to go on, wild flowers to seek out and wildlife to watch, but such pursuits left her cold in every sense of the word.

Her disaffection for Mull, however, stretched far beyond its terrain and was deeper seated than a mere antipathy towards outdoor pursuits. It was seeing her husband so relaxed and rustic, her daughter so free and so
muddy
, that struck a dissonant chord within. It shamed her that their unbridled laughter, an integral and unforced part of such holidays, never rang out in Lincoln. Celia irritated her; she was so wholesome with her naturally tanned, attractively weathered skin, her lithe frame, her meals (
delicious, damn them
) thrown together effortlessly from fat, flavoursome, homegrown ingredients. Celia was unswervingly generous and accommodating towards Mildred; which of course made matters far worse. There really was nothing to dislike about Celia, yet Mildred's thoughts were wholly uncharitable. She did not envy Celia her life-style nor her skills, but she bitterly envied the adoration and respect she commanded from all who knew her.

As Sally finishes her cocoa and sighs again, Celia settles down with a nice cup of tea. Mildred meanwhile has just come in from arranging the flowers at the church. Sally's ears are burning but she puts it down to a vagary of her affliction; after all, she is not to know that both aunt and mother are dialling her number simultaneously. Anyway, the phone is still off the hook. Sally regards the telephone and replaces the handset with a despondent clatter. Almost immediately, it rings and Sally finds she is pleased.

‘Hullo?' she croaks in her finest ‘I'm-so-poorly' voice.

‘Hullo, my poppet,' soothes the familiar lilting accent. Celia has pipped Mildred to the post. Mildred has just slammed the receiver down on finding Sally's number still engaged. (‘
On her death-bed, I don't think!
')

Sally is delighted that it is Aunt Celia and she talks at length about the state of each spot. Forty years married to a General Practitioner has left Celia a legacy of surprisingly detailed medical knowledge.

‘You'll not be contagious any more, you know.'

‘Well, that's the daft thing, Aunt C. I've been literally quarantined,' Sally proclaims. ‘Banished,' she declares, ‘from school. I'm not allowed back until a fortnight on Monday!'

‘Tush tush!' sympathizes Aunt Celia.

‘I'm beside myself with boredom and ashamed of it. I feel so cooped up! I daren't go out because I look such a freak and if people stare and point, I'm sure to feel like one too!'

‘What you need is to convalesce,' says Aunt Celia.

‘I know, I know,' sighs a dejected Sally.

‘You need rest,' her wise aunt stresses. ‘You need rest, fresh air and good food.'

Sally agrees with her.

‘Well!' exclaims Aunt Celia. ‘When shall I expect you?'

Sally is stunned. The penny drops and a smile creeps across her face. She is at once galvanized and speechless; better already, to be sure.

‘You
mean
it?' Sally squeals. ‘Are you
sure
? Are you sure you've
had
chicken pox, that I'm not con-
ta
-gious? Can I really come up and stay? It won't be too much trouble for you?'

‘My wee bairn,' laughs Aunt Celia, ‘it's what the doctor ordered!' she declares, winking at a photograph of Angus.

‘Darling?'

‘Oh, hello, Mother.'

‘I've been trying for ages. You've been perpetually engaged. Per-
pet
-ually.'

‘Sorry. The phone's been off the hook. I needed to rest.'

‘Well, darling, I've been speaking to Dr Peabody. He doubts very much whether you are still con-ta-gious. I thought it would be a good idea for you to recuperate here; you know, let me look after you. Nothing that a bit of TLC and your old bedroom can't cure!'

‘Oh, Mum! That's very kind – truly. And I'm not contagious any more. And I do need to recuperate …'

‘Well then!'

‘… so I'm going up to Mull. To stay with Aunt Celia. All that lovely air. I'm leaving tomorrow.'

‘But it's
Feb
ruary! You'll catch your
death
! I'm not sure that your strange aunt up North has the
nous
to nurse you back to health. Darling, reconsider!'

‘Mother,' Sally took her time, ‘firstly, Aunt Celia is
not
strange. Secondly, I'll wrap up warm. Thirdly, I can't think of anywhere else where convalescence is a foregone conclusion. And fourthly,' she faltered, ‘fourthly, I can't think of any place I'd rather be. I can't
wait
to go.'

My heart is in the Highlands, my heart is not here.