Mrs Macdonald Gets A Surprise

19

Mrs Macdonald Gets A Surprise

    The wee bairn had been provided with Charlie Macdonald’s Glenda’s wee Catriona’s old cot, and she and her pretty little mother were nicely settled in. Though it was a mystery to Mrs Macdonald what the poor lassie found to do all day.

    “Aye, well, a walk’s nice... But what do you do with yourself, oot on the hills all day, ma lambie?” she asked worriedly.

    There were magnificent views all around them, was the woman blind? Presumably she was, yes. Mind you, you didn’t get the sweeping open spaces you did back home, it was all sort of... vertical, and rather closed in, really. A bit claustrophobic, actually. But it was very beautiful. Kitten didn’t make the mistake of trying to explain. Besides, she didn’t just go out to admire the view: she went to spy out the likely-looking fishing spots—there were already several fishermen in residence—where Hugo might head for. He was due very soon.

    “Are you sick of looking after Rose Anne?” she asked anxiously. “’Cos I could stay in—”

    “Och, no, ma deary! Whatever gave you that idea?” And etcetera and so forth. True, Kitten had said it deliberately, in order to elicit just this sort of response—not because she would have minded staying in and looking after Rose Anne herself, but—well, just because, really. Keeping in practice, kind of thing.

    The interview ended with Kitten being sat down in front of the fire with the somnolent Rose Anne on her knee and Mrs Macdonald bustling off to get her a cup of tea before “those men”—in tones of deepest scorn—got back, with or withoot the troot.

    “It’s a horrible warning,” breathed Kitten into the infant’s tiny shell-like ear.

    “Mum, Mum,” responded Rose Anne sleepily.

    “Yes, Mum, Mum! Good on ya, Rose Anne! –Keep it up, I’m dying for someone to have an intelligent conversation with,” she muttered.

    Those men eventually got back, more or less in time for what Mrs Macdonald called their tea but to which they referred as their dinner. Kitten was grimly following Mrs Macdonald’s example—well, for one thing, the usage was native to Australia as well, it was only the last generation of would-be trendies that used “dinner” instead—and for another, she’d had enough of up-themselves, up-market Poms, which was what they are all were. Monty Jackson’s wife was staying with her sister in Edinburgh, possibly in order to attend its Festival, Jimmy Protheroe’s wife had gone to the Bahamas with her frightful cousin Clara, and Adam Fairchild’s wife had as usual taken the kids to stay with her parents at their retirement villa in Spain, where he was slated to join them after his fortnight here. And Lochailsh town was becoming as frightful as Spain, actually: infested with tourists, didn’t Katryn think? Adam was a whinger, presumably you could be extremely affluent and also a whinger, if you were a Pom, and so Kitten had replied that she wasn’t surprised, Spain did sound pretty awful, full of expatriate British, only the part where her sister’s fiancé, Michael Stuart, had his villa, didn’t sound so bad. Rather unfortunately the penny dropped, and once he’d ascertained this was the Michael Stuart, Mr Fairchild was all over her. So was his mate and deadly fishing rival, Jimmy Protheroe, and so was Monty Jackson, to whom the glad tidings were also conveyed, even though they’d never met before this summer. Mrs Macdonald had advised her to pay them never no mind, or possibly not to pay them never no mind, was it? Whichever, Kitten had got the point and agreed they were nongs and suck-ups. After a moment for mental translation Mrs Macdonald had been very pleased with this reply and, unasked, imparted the recipe for her miraculous meat pie with the crisp pastry top. Kitten had received it with genuine gratitude, though reflecting that she certainly wouldn’t do it for Hugo too often, the pastry had lard in it.

    The intrepid fishermen hadn’t brought back any trout, funnily enough, so that night’s dinner consisted, alongside the best mashed potato Kitten had ever tasted, and gloriously fresh runner beans from the garden, of Mrs Macdonald’s rabbit stew. –Modestly so-called, it was more like food of the gods: she did it almost coq au vin-style, caramelising a dozen or so little onions for it first, and cooking it slowly in red wine with plenty of thyme, garlic and, when available, mushrooms. They did grow wild, aye, she had admitted earlier, but dinna you pick any, lassie, they might be toadstools: no, well, it wasna the season, in any case, but she had a few trays in the cellar.

    Kitten had let her show her the Wee Highland Inn’s cellar, where she goggled round her in amazement. Not only were there trays of mushrooms—just champignons de Paris, but still!—there were also ranks and ranks of bottles. A lot of whisky, but also dozens and dozens of bottles of wine. Aye, well, the late Mr Macdonald, God bless him, had been a bit of a wine collector, and his father before him, and then, during the War they’d had a Froggy staying—she’d only been a bairn herself back then, of course, but she’d heard all about him—and Jock’s mother had looked after him so well—he’d been recuperating from his wounds, deary, the puir mon had lost an arm—Jock’s mother had looked after him so well that after he’d gone home to France he’d regularly sent over a couple of cases of red wine every Christmas, up until, when would it have been? About six years since, the puir mon had died. Aye, well, he wasna that old, but the War had taken it oot of that generation. Kitten had just discovered a clutch of the 1976 burgundies. She gulped. “Where did he live, Mrs Macdonald?” Och, well, Mrs Macdonald didn’t recall precisely, but she thought it was somewhere near where they grew all those French grapes. Kitten had nodded weakly. Next to the ’76 there were one, two, three—four dozen of the ’75, equally glorious! Er, three dozen plus eleven, actually. Mm, no doubt the “fishing gents” did like the Wee Inn’s wine, she had agreed feebly. After that she hadn’t dared, frankly, to inspect the bottle that Mrs Macdonald had happily emptied into the rabbit stew.

    There was pudding, of course—not only did the fishing gents expect it, it wouldn't have been proper to Mrs Macdonald’s mind not to offer pudding. Tonight it was “just some wee bowls of custard.” Crème brûlée, quite. So much better than the version Kitten had had in London that you wouldn’t have thought they came from the same planet. No wonder the fishing gents usually booked out the Wee Highland Inn!

    “Noo, there’s another fishing gent due today, but he won’t bother you, ma lambie!” beamed Mrs Macdonald the following morning, as she served Kitten’s breakfast—comfortably in the kitchen, thank goodness! Not that the fishing gents hadn’t already gone out, but heck, who wanted to eat in solitary state in the dining-room?

    “No—I mean, won’t he?” said Kitten faintly. There was only one empty room, so it must be Hugo.

    “Och, no, Mr Kent’s not that sort! He’s been coming here for—goodness, I canna remember! Well, all your lifetime, I dare say, Kitten, ma deary!” she said with her cosy laugh. –Kitten had asked her to call her that, though she'd told the fishing gents her name was Katryn. Well, it was, in fact, wasn’t it?—“A nice quiet gent, never gives any bother. An older mon, deary, not one of those sillies like that Mr Fairchild: he willna be pestering you. He likes ma rabbit stew and the wee bowls of custard, too,” she added comfortably.

    If he didn’t it’d be because he’d lost all his taste buds, reflected Kitten numbly. “Good,” she managed. Her throat had gone dry. “Um, Mrs Macdonald,” she croaked, “could I possibly have another glass of orange juice?”

    Of course she could, and it was verra good for you, full of vitamin C, wasn’t it? You young lassies needed it, especially when you’d been a nursing mother—

    Kitten just let her blah on. Now that the moment was almost upon her, she didn’t feel confident at all—though right up until now she’d been sure she could manage it. Now she felt shaky and, well, frankly, terrified.

    After quite some time, when she’d had the glass of orange juice followed by a cup of milky instant coffee—Mrs Macdonald’s one flaw, culinary-wise, was that she didn’t know what coffee was—and half a slice of wholemeal toast, she managed: “When’s the new man due, Mrs Macdonald?”

    Many people would simply have replied “Later this morning” or “Around eleven.” Mrs Macdonald gave her the whole bit, not omitting the usual scathing commentary on “that train”—the one that went to Skye, or the jumping-off point for it: the locals had one and all taken a scunner to it, goodness knew why; possibly because their district didn’t feature a train? Likewise the scathing commentary on “that bus” and its drivers, it being a toss-up as to whether that useless Sean McLeod, who hailed from Edinburgh, was worse than Jamie Dalziel, who’d grown up in the village, or Danny Hardwick, who was a Sassenach and Mrs Macdonald had nothing against them, mind, but the mon was incapable of keeping to the timetable! This was true, from what Kitten had gathered so far from the locals, in that Danny was always late, sometimes very late, and unfailingly blamed it on the rotten state of the road. On the other hand, neither Sean nor Jamie kept to the timetable either. Jamie, who was only about nineteen, drove like a demon, and was always early, leaving God knew how many potential passengers stranded by the roadside in his wake, and Sean was simply erratic.

    “I see, so he’s coming on the bus?” said Kitten limply when the noise had died away.

    Of course! Mr Kent always took the bus!

    Right. Presumably he left the chopper in, um, Edinburgh, or, who knew, Oban, if you were allowed to land there? And had himself chauffeur-driven to the dump that the bus left from: yeah. Kitten gave up any attempt at further conversation, got up, took her dishes over to the sink, ignored Mrs Macdonald’s tutting on the subject of not having eaten enough, young people needed their breakfast, and firmly helped her with the washing up. After that, informing her firmly that Rose Anne needed some fresh air, she liberated her infant from Mrs Macdonald’s clutches—or strictly speaking from the playpen, ex Charlie Macdonald’s Glenda’s wee Catriona, that had been installed in the kitchen—and escaped with her.

    Mrs Macdonald’s garrulity had included the information that the meenute Mr Kent got here he always took a wee walk up to the Fairy Rock. And it was—without interest—a pretty view, wasn’t it? But he’d be oot to the troot stream first thing in the morning. Kitten’s plan was to hide from him all day, claim a headache in the evening and creep up to her room by the back stairs, having entered the Wee Inn by its back door, lurk in the room until the fishing gents had all left next morning, and then be glimpsed temptingly with her infant outlined against the sky some distance from his favourite fishing spot, which according to Mrs Macdonald was doon a ways from the fork where the Unpronounceable Beck joined the trout stream, the spot where all the rowans were, deary. Och, what was a rowan? Well, mebbe you didn’t have them in Australia, with all those gum trees and kangaroos. Just doon the road a wee bit, next to the old milestone, those were rowans. Kitten duly identified them, and then found the spot along the stream.

    It was at about at this point that she realised she’d lost her nerve completely. “I’ll never do it,” she said dully to Rose Anne.

    “Mum, Mum!”

    “Yeah. You’re getting heavy,” she discovered, sighing. She sat down, though the Scottish grass didn’t look particularly dry, and hugged her for a bit.

    “It’s no use,” she said at last: “if I don’t do it today I never will. We better head for the flamin’ Fairy Rock. –It’s got a perfectly good Gaelic name, old Jock Dalziel told me what it is but I’ve forgotten it. Don’t ask me why they don’t use it instead. The Fairy crap’s for the tourists, presumably—but as they all despise them, why bother? Oh, well: it’s their living, I s’pose.”

    “Mum, Mum!”

    “Yeah, Mum, Mum, good girl,” said Kitten heavily, sighing. “Come on, then: upsy-daisy!”

    Mrs Macdonald was just the same—she hadn't changed, in fact not in all the years Hugo had been coming here. Just got a little greyer, though as she’d had a mop of very light brown hair in her younger days it didn’t really look all that different now. Even twenty years ago she’d been cosy and motherly, though she couldn’t be much more than ten years his senior. Oh, well—presumably it had been a coping mechanism then, and had become a habit. It was of course too much to hope that she might have learned how to make real coffee over the last twelve months. Sure enough, she immediately offered him a nice hot drink, the choice being tea or instant coffee. He knew this, because the offer was being made in the kitchen and the things were set out ready on the bench. Hugo was aware that being asked into the kitchen was a signal honour, so he smiled very nicely at her and said he’d love a cup of her tea, Mrs Macdonald. Reflecting as he said it that even after all these years he had no idea what her first name might be.

    He finally got away from the cosy chatter about nothing and strode up the track to the so-called Fairy Rock, breathing in deep lungfuls of pure Scottish air and wishing very heartily—though he knew it was bloody ungrateful of him—that a stay at the Wee Highland Inn of Loch Dhu did not have to feature Mrs Macdonald’s chatter.

    The view was as glorious as ever, and for once it wasn’t raining. He sat down in the lee of the Rock with a sigh.

    After quite some time, during which he just let the view and the peace seep into his bones, a small voice said: “’Scuse me.”

    Hugo just about jumped out of his skin. “Yes? Who is it?” he said weakly.

    “I’m up here,” said the small voice. “It’s me, Kitten. I’m—I’m stuck.”

    His ears rang—yes, literally. “What?” he croaked.

    “It’s me, Kitten! I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to spring it on you: I was just gonna stroll up casually, only I lost my nerve and when I saw you coming I climbed up here and I’m stuck!”

    He got up unsteadily. “Are you on the bloody Rock?” –He couldn’t see a thing, there was a considerable overhang.

    “Yes,” said Kitten in a small voice. “Come round the other side.”

    Hugo had climbed the damned thing innumerable times and he knew bloody well it was nothing but an easy scramble. He went round to the far side where the way up was quite clearly marked by the boots of thousands of trippers, not to say some steps hacked out by the provident locals. “Where are you?” he said loudly.

    “On the top,” she said in a tiny voice.

    “Well, just come over to the gap in the rock where you got up.”

    There was silence from the top of the Fairy Rock.

    “Kitten?” said Hugo loudly. His voice rang in his ears in a weird, hollow fashion which he didn’t think was the effect of the bloody Rock itself, nor yet of the empty Scottish landscape.

    “I—I can get to the top of the thingo, the gap thingo. But I can’t get down!” wailed Kitten.

    He took a deep breath. “Don’t panic. It’ll probably be easier if you back down.”

    Kitten had worked that out, thanks. She was genuinely panicking: she couldn't see how to get down while she was holding Rose Anne. “Of course it’ll be easier, you nit! I’m not that thick, but I can’t do it with my baby!” she snapped.

    Hugo felt very sick. “What?”

    “I’ve got Rose Anne with me, and it was quite easy getting up but I can’t see how to get down! I might fall on her! Or droh-hop her!” wailed Kitten, bursting into tears.

    “Jesus,” said Hugo under his breath. “Hang on, I’ll come up. Don’t try to come down, the gap isn’t wide enough for two.”

    There was silence from the top of the Fairy Rock, so he climbed up. It took about two minutes.

    It was her, all right. Very teary and clutching a pink-cheeked infant in a fuzzy pink garment.

    “I’ll take the baby,” he said grimly.

    Kitten snuffled and wiped a grimy hand across her face. “But what if you drop her?”

    Silly little idiot. Hugo took a very deep breath. “My arms are longer than yours, and my hands are quite a lot larger. I’ll hold her in one arm. Now give her to me, unless you want to stay up here all night.”

    “No. Thanks.” She sniffled, but handed him the baby carefully.

    “Dad, Dad!” she said with a beaming smile as she was handed over.

    “Shit!” gasped Kitten.

    “Er—hardly, Baby,” said Hugo drily.

    Kitten had gone very red. She’d given up the effort to teach her not yet-one-year-old infant that Brucey was “Brucey”, not “Mum, Mum” and that Graeme was “Graeme”, not ditto, and that in fact everyone she met was not “Mum, Mum.” It had got very complicated, so Jay had suggested that if she could at least be trained to call males “Dad, Dad”, it’d be a start. And it must—brilliantly—be because she didn’t have a male rôle model in her life!

    “Sorry!” she gulped. “She hasn’t got a male rôle model in her life and she was saying ‘Mum, Mum’ to everyone, so me and Jay thought if she could at least learn ‘Dad, Dad’ to men it’d be a start!”

    “Or even more confusing, mm. Just wait there, Kitten, and don’t panic.” Tucking the child carefully up in one arm he climbed back down with very little effort. Honestly! The silly little thing could have done that!

    “Come on!” he said irritably. She came down backwards, very slowly. It was only when she was standing on the ground next to him that he realised how very small she in fact was. Oh, dear. No, it wouldn’t have been safe to try and get down with the baby—in fact how the Hell had she managed to get up there safely?

    “Never try that sort of trick again,” he said heavily, handing the child back.

    “It wasn’t a trick!” cried Kitten angrily, bursting into tears.

    “Uh—oh.” Hugo tried not to grin. “Come on, I didn’t mean that,” he said, resisting the temptation to pat her on the shoulder.

    “I don’t suppose,” she said drearily, with a horrible sniffle, “that anyone would believe me, but it wasn’t.”

    “I believe you. You look a complete mess,” said Hugo drily. Just whose was the kid, anyway, if the creature didn’t have a “male rôle model”—good grief!—in its life?

    Kitten snuffled miserably. “Have you got a hanky?”

    “Here. –You’d better give her to me again.” He took the baby, and handed her his handkerchief.

    Kitten blew her nose loudly and mopped her eyes, not looking at him.

    “Where are you staying?” he murmured. His brain had just about started to get into working order again and he found he could not believe that this was a coincidence.

    “At the Wee Inn,” said Kitten glumly.

    “I see. Come and sit down, Kitten.” He led the way round to the side of the rock with the view and sat down. “Sit—or is it too damp for you?”

    “No. Well, dunno. We were sitting down before, weren’t we, Rose Anne? –No, hang on, I’ll sit down and then you give her back to me.”

    She sat down. Hugo handed her the child carefully.

    “Mum, Mum!” she said brightly as her mother took her.

    “Yeah, good on ya, Rose Anne, ya got it right that time, Mum, Mum,” agreed Kitten on a glum note. “Well, go on,” she added.

    Hugo made a wry face. “Mm. I gather that none of this is a coincidence?”

    “I was really stuck!” she shouted.

    “Hush, you’ll scare the baby. I realise that, Kitten. The rest of it. The Wee Bloody Inn.”

    Kitten winced. “Don’t say that, I’ve been trying not to think up rude names for it ever since I got here. Um, no.”

    “No what?”

    “It’s not a coincidence,” she admitted glumly.

    “No,” said Hugo levelly. “So how did you know I’d be here? Uh—Ward?”

    “Eh? Nah, I don’t think he takes much notice of Pommy gentlemanly pursuits. It was really hard, as a matter of fact. I mean, I did remember you do trout fishing—well, I can’t remember if you told me or if I read it somewhere, actually, but I remembered that you did it. And I knew I’d never get near you at your office, so I thought I’d try it.”

    “Uh-huh. And the specific Wee Coy Inn?”

    She swallowed. “That’s worse, in a way. Um, well, it’s a long story... I got to know one of the blokes that works for Martin Jarrod—um, well, I better not tell you his name, it wouldn’t be fair—and got it out of him. I mean, you’re News to the staff, you see. They remember all the garbage they hear about you.”

    “Uh-huh. That’s the specific place, then. And the specific time?”

    “Well, heck, it’s the Pommy holidays!” said Kitten with sudden vigour. “And he said everyone takes their leave round about now, so I said surely not the very high-ups like Mr Jarrod or you and he said of course! So I thought I’d risk it.”

    “Right. Got it.”

    Silence fell in the lee of the Fairy Rock. In the distance a blue-grey cloud moved across the purple-blue face of Ben Whatever-It-Was.

    After quite some time Hugo said mildly: “It’s very different from the Outback, isn’t it?”

    “Um, the view?” said Kitten in a tiny voice. “Yes.”

    “Mm. Pretty, of course. Hasn’t got that empty magnificence.”

    “No, that’s what I think,” said Kitten with a sigh of relief. “All those nongs at the Wee Dinky Inn, they been raving about it. Not that they look at it when they’re waiting for a fish to bite at their unlikely bits of fluff, mind you. Mum and Dad went to New Zealand once, yonks ago, to the thermal area, he managed drag her away from her computer those holidays, and Dad said they had huge trout there, like, um, kind of ornamental ones, I suppose—pets, really; and the tourists fed them on stale cake. They jumped right up out of the water for it.”

    Hugo had to swallow hard. “You mean all those years of effort with my rod and flies were wasted, and I should just have asked Mrs Macdonald for some stale cake?”

    “You got it.”

    He gulped, failed to control himself, and broke down in sniggers. “Lovely!” he gasped.

    Kitten smiled. “I thought you might appreciate it. I told it to one of the nongs and he thought I was getting at him.”

    “A nong, indeed,” he said sedately.

    “Yeah,” said Kitten with a sigh, leaning back against the rock face. “They all are, really.”

    “Including the baby’s father?” Hell! He hadn’t meant to say that; it had just come out. He bit his lip and didn’t look at her.

    “Um, no,” said Kitten in a tiny voice. “Um, I’m awfully suh-sorry, Hugo, I should of told you. She’s yours.”

    Hugo had been trying not to do the requisite arithmetic. His mouth tightened. After a moment he said: “I suppose that can be proven, one way or another.”

    “Yeah. Only I don’t want anything! I knew no-one’d believe me!” she burst out.

    “Then why are you here, Kitten?” he said evenly.

    Kitten’s jaw shook. “’Cos I had some barmy idea that if you suh-saw me again it’d—it’d all be all right!” She burst into tears again.

    Hugo sighed. He didn’t attempt to console her, or to say anything; he just waited it out.

    “Sorry,” said Kitten eventually, sniffing.

     “Don’t bawl again, you’ll upset the baby. Uh—what did you say her name was?”

    “Rose Anne. Two words,” said Kitten blearily.

    “Uh-huh. Pretty. –Not just Rose?”

    “No. I dunno why. And it’s not Roseanne!” she added with sudden vigour.

    “Er—I never said it was.”

    “Um, no. Sorry. A stupid TV programme.”

    “Rose Anne, then,” he said mildly. “What are the two of you living off, by the way?”

    Kitten gulped. “I said, I don’t want anything!”

    “Just answer the question, please, Kitten.”

    “Um, well, I saved most of what you gimme, I mean, I sublet the nest, and, um, well, I stayed with Pete for a while until she was due, you see.”

    “Pete?” he said neutrally.

    “Pete! From Muwullupirri!” said Kitten impatiently. “Pete Dawkins!”

    Hugo was blank. The only Pete he associated—very vaguely—with Muwullupirri was the fellow who’d helped out with the absurd “trek”.

    “You know,” she prompted, “you met him when we went on the trek with Wendy.”

    “Uh—that Pete,” said Hugo limply. “And when you say stayed with him—”

    “In his hut, not at the homestead,” said Kitten quickly. “I mean, Mrs Wainwright did have us over for tea, quite a lot of times, she was very kind to me, actually, but it was all over between me and Cal years back. Actually he can’t stand me. Not as a person.”

    Hugo found he was taking a deep breath. It was now blindingly clear—not that it hadn’t been, pretty much, all along—that in any relationship with Kitten, there would always be names of former boyfriends cropping up.

    “Mm, I see. And just to get it quite clear, Kitten, on what basis did you stay with Pete?”

    “I never said it’d be permanent or anything,” she replied, sounding puzzled. “I mean, he wasn’t dumb enough to think it might be, in any case.”

    “Did you sleep with him?” he demanded baldly.

    Kitten had assumed that he’d assumed she had—help! She stuck her chin out. “Yeah, ’course; it wouldn’t’ve been fair, otherwise.”

    “No,” said Hugo with a little sigh. “No, of course it wouldn’t. Very well, Kitten, let me get this straight. You sublet the flat and you saved most of what I gave you. Then, staying with Pete you’d have had no expenses, presumably. But there must have been the fares to and from South Australia, and then the cost of coming over here. Plus accommodation.” He waited.

    “Um, well, me and Nikki did have a flat for a bit. But apart from that I stayed with rellies—well, Maddalena and Brucey are our cousins—I mean, Aunty Ingrid dumped their father yonks back but his wife, she said we were very welcome, and, um, she’s one of those rather limp English ladies, but she was very kind to us. Um, Melodie as well. I mean, um, you probably don’t remember Nikki, but she was at Lallapinda with us,”—Hugo didn’t betray the swamping relief he felt as it was revealed that this was a female, not “Nicky”, male—“and, um, well, they came over first and stayed with Aunty Ingrid in Denmark for a bit. And, um, I stayed with her and Christina too, a couple of times. Well, for Christmas, first off.”

    “So how much is left?” he asked baldly.

     Kitten swallowed. “Um, the thing is, Mrs Macdonald, she makes ya pay in adv—”

    “How much?” said Hugo grimly.

    Kitten looked defiant. “I can always put stuff on my credit c—”

    “How much?”

    “About twenty dollars in the bank,” she said sulkily.

    “Jesus!”

    “Look, I don’t want your ruddy money!”

    “That’s good, because I’m not offering you any,” said Hugo coldly. “Have you got a ticket back to London? –No,” he said grimly as she shook her head. “And, dare I ask, back to Australia?”

    “There’s always special off—”

    “Kitten,” said Hugo between his teeth, “tell me the truth before I strangle you!”

    “No, I haven’t,” she admitted sourly. “But—”

    “Shut up,” he said tiredly, passing his hand across his face. “Who did you imagine would come riding to your rescue? Your luckless father? One of your sisters?”

    “Um, well, Dad’d buy me a ticket, if I was really on my uppers. He’d be wild, though. I think I was relying on him, at the back of my mind,” Kitten admitted glumly. “Don’t say it—it was stupid and selfish. And childish.”

    “Yes,” said Hugo flatly.

    “I s’pose it’s no use saying I was desperate and I couldn’t see any other way of getting hold of you?”

    “No, Kitten, it isn’t. You could have written me a letter.”

    “Right, and flamin’ Martin Jarrod and all the minders he’s got round you would of let it get past them without a blink!”

    “What? Don’t be absurd, of course a personal letter would be passed straight on to me!”

    “Balls. Can’t you see that Martin saw our relationship—any sort of relationship you might have—as a rival to his influence over you? No way would he ever have let you get to know that you had a kid: he’s got himself lined up to take over from you, and then those boys of his that he forced to do economics and business management at uni and are in the firm already. He’d of seen your potential heir as a threat, Hugo! –I did think it over once she turned out to be a girl, but these days, a girl’d be just as much of a threat.”

    Hugo stared at her numbly.

    “Yes!” said Kitten vigorously, nodding hard.

    “Kitten, this is rampant paranoia,” he said weakly.

    “No, it isn’t. I was just a dumb Aussie blonde to him, that he’d of tried to pay off if I’d written a letter saying I was having your kid. Look, never mind for the moment that he's planning a Jarrod dynasty at KRP, just look at it objectively. Mega-rich boss that it’s his job to protect gets a blackmailing letter from a little Aussie tart that he’s been dumb enough to sleep with: what would any right-hand man do?”

    “Uh—” Hugo swallowed. “Hell. I think you're right.”

    “Yes,” said Kitten simply.

    He gnawed on his lip. “Mm... Why didn’t you write to me at home, though?”

    She sighed. “It’s worse than trying to contact the Queen, Hugo. At least if you write to Buckingham Palace one of her minders writes you an official brush-off! I couldn’t find out any of your addresses. I found a picture of that castle you used to own somewhere up here, but the article said you’d sold it. And I know you’ve got a flat in London but that’s all I could find out—that it existed. Likewise the dump in the West Indies. Well, according to the Frogs; but that article never even said what island it was on! –Aux Antilles,” she explained.

    He grimaced. “I see.”

    Kitten eyed him dubiously. “I don’t think you do, Hugo. I’m not blaming you for not giving me any of your addresses. You were very generous to me, and when you left it was obvious that you’d gone into a tidying-it-all-up mode. Part of the reason that I didn’t try to contact you before was that you wouldn’t have been prepared to listen: you’d of tidied me and Rose Anne away. I don’t mean denied paternity. Thrown money at us.” She shrugged.

    “I—” Hugo’s fists clenched. After quite some time he managed to say, though not managing not to sound very sour as he said it: “How well you know me.”

    “Yes,” agreed Kitten calmly.

    He stared blankly at the view. “I got rid of the bloody castle when I got rid of bloody Persse... Uh, that was just after I got back from Australia, come to think of it. I suppose I was in tidying-it-all-up mode, yes.” He grimaced. “Tidying up loose ends. The divorce’ll be through in a few months. We hadn’t lived together for years, in any case.”

    “Yes, you did mention that,” said Kitten calmly. “There was nothing about a divorce in the papers, though.”

    “Nothing newsworthy about it. We agreed that it was pointless to stay together. Er, well, she demanded her pound of flesh, but I was expecting that.” He shrugged slightly. “I let her have the place in the West Indies—on Mustique, Kitten. And the dump in the South of France—think I might have been there twice, in all. It was usually full of her Goddawful freeloading friends.” He eyed her drily. “Toffee-nosed Pommy gits.”

    Kitten smiled a little. “Goddit.”

    He leaned back against the Fairy Rock, and sighed. “So, where does that leave us, Kitten?”

    Well, not in a secluded little hideaway on Mustique, for a start! “Um, dunno,” she admitted in a small voice.

    “Best-case scenario?” said Hugo in a very neutral voice.

    Oh, cripes! But she couldn’t say she hadn’t asked for it. Scowling horribly, Kitten stuck her chin out and replied: “I think you know bloody well the best-case scenario for me ’ud be for us to get married as soon as we can and for you and me to bring up Rose Anne together.”

    Hugo waited but that seemed to be it. “And?”

    “Um, well, that’s it,” said Kitten uncertainly.

    “Uh—pre-nup? Settlements? Trust fund for the baby? Decent country house?”

    “Like, a trust find for Rose Anne as well as bringing her up together?” she ventured.

    “Mm.”

    “That’d be good.”

    Hugo passed his hand over his face. “Kitten,” he said clearly, “where do you envisage us living?”

    “Like, um, together.” She swallowed.

    “Yes, but where? London? The Cotswolds or similar? Australia?”

    Did it matter, at this stage? “Um, I wouldn’t want Rose Anne to go to a horrible Pommy boarding school,” she said cautiously.

    “Uh—girls’ public school, you mean? No, don’t want her to grow up despising her parents, do we? ...No, that is a point. There are decent grammar schools, though. Just ordinary day schools, where she’d get a good education. Or— Well, I don’t fancy going back to Melbourne. Sydney?”

    “The way rich people live there’s pretty disgusting, too.”

    “Mm. You wouldn’t fancy going back to the nest, then?”

    “You can’t bring a kid up in a bloody high-rise flat, Hugo!”

    Hugo’s mouth twitched slightly. “No. I’m sure we could find something with a garden and a harbour view—no, very well, it’d be pricey, and possibly many of the neighbours would be unbearable, but we’d have to see that she didn’t absorb their values, wouldn’t we?”

    “That sounds all right... But can you run the company from there?”

    “I think you mean, can I run the company from there while Martin’s over here, preparing a palace coup followed by the rapid installation of his dynasty, don’t you?”

    Kitten stuck her chin out. “Yeah.”

    “Well, I don’t know where you had your information from, but only one of his boys is a junior exec at KRP: Jimmy’s only a cadet, still finishing off at university, and Tommy’s only seventeen, still at school.”

    “Right: and according to your office gossip, after he does his Year Twelve—whaddever they call it—then he goes to uni and does the business degree!”

    “According to himself he joins up with an uncle who runs a racing stable.”

    That was exactly the sort of thing that fathers like Martin Jarrod got their sons out of, was he blind? Kitten gave up. At least he seemed to be seriously envisaging them living together—though why he was putting such insistence on where to live, God only knew!

    “All right, have it your own way, he’s gonna train horses. Anyway I don’t think it'll be sensible to be based in Sydney just at first. But I think we oughta start planning for your retirement now.”

    “I’m not in my dotage yet, thanks!”

    “No, but it’d be sensible. Give ourselves ten years here, maybe? But, um, Mum and Dad’d like to see something of Rose Anne,” she added awkwardly.

    “Yes, of course: get over to see them fairly often.”

    “Both of us,” warned Kitten.

    “That’s what I meant. Well, uh—start off at the flat, then?”

    Obviously! “Yes,” said Kitten firmly.

    “Um... Then maybe buy a nice house in London? Hampstead? Somewhere where we can have a garden for her to play in, I mean.”

    All right, he wanted to get it all cut and dried. “If Hampstead’s got houses with gardens, that’d be good, yeah. –Not too fancy,” she warned.

    Hugo smiled. “No.”

    That seemed to be it, then. Kitten tried to smile, and failed.

    He eyed her dubiously. “Sorry. Am I taking too much for granted?”

    “No,” she croaked.

    No, he didn’t really think he had been. Well—it was damned obvious it was still there, between them, wasn't it? Never mind the bloody age difference. Uh—Hell, perhaps that was the trouble?

    “Kitten,” he said uneasily, “I know I ought to say something sensible about being too old for you—“

    “No!” she cried.

    The word shimmered out across the placid Scottish view, and then there was a short silence.

    Kitten swallowed hard. “Objectively, you are,” she admitted. “I know it could mean we’ve only got about ten years together.”

    Until she was a left a very wealthy widow? “Mm,” he agreed on a dry note. “That's a possibility. But if I drop dead, you’ll be well taken care of—and free to marry again. But what if I merely become—well, not too put too fine a point on it, Kitten,” he said, grimacing, “incapable?”

    “You’re not having prostate trouble, are you?” she replied immediately.

    Hugo sighed. “No,” he said, putting a hand on her knee and squeezing hard. “Not at the moment, no, thank God. But you’re not really envisaging it, Kitten. Try to imagine yourself tied to a useless male who can’t do anything for you—it may not be prostate,” he said as she frowned and opened her mouth: “it could be anything. Stroke, for instance. Set aside any pretty picture of yourself hovering at the bedside in rose-scented clouds and just think about day-to-day existence.”

    Kitten thought about it, scowling. Finally she admitted: “To be honest, I suppose I can't really envisage it, Hugo. But, um, well, you're right about the rose-scented clouds—well, not necessarily rose, but, um, yeah: I was romanticising it, I guess. In reality... Dunno. I’d probably walk out, I don’t think I could stick it out.” She looked at him miserably. “Sorry.”

    “No,” he said, taking a deep breath and squeezing the knee again. “Don’t be. At least that’s realistic. And I don’t want you to stick by a useless old crock out of some stupid feeling that it’s the right thing to do, or, God forfend, the correct self-sacrificing wifely attitude.”

    “Oh,” said Kitten numbly.

    “So—write it into the pre-nup?” he suggested. His lips twitched just a little.

    Sure enough, Kitten replied on a relieved note: “That’s a good idea! Then we’ll both know exactly where we stand!”

    Mm. Something like that. Okay, she was too young to be able to envisage life twenty years down the track. And when you came right down to it, who the Hell could, in reality? However level-headed you were, life still had plenty of curve balls to throw at you, didn't it? She was too young to really grasp that, either. But at least if they put it in writing there was some hope that she wouldn’t burden herself with a load of guilt if it did all get too hard and she left him.

    “Right,” he said firmly. “Settled.” He squeezed the knee again. “Your leg feels thinner,” he murmured.

    Help, did it? “Um, yeah, I did lose some weight,” admitted Kitten weakly.

    “Uh-huh. Did you feed the baby yourself?”

    “Um, yeah. ’Course. Well, I was lucky, some women can’t. Um, why?” she croaked.

    “Just envisaging it,” said Hugo with a smile. “So, seeing as how we seem to be almost semi-officially engaged, do you think I could kiss you?”

    “Mm. Don’t squash Rose Anne,” she ordered as he leaned towards her.

    Only just refraining from rolling his eyes madly, Hugo murmured: “I’ve no intention of squashing her. Though since she’s mine, I may just give her a kiss, too, in due course.”

    “All right, go on, but be careful,” replied Kitten on an uneasy note.

    “Kitten, I’m not going to squash her! I shall just lean over very carefully—like this—see?” He leaned over very carefully and kissed her.

    “All right?” he said at last, smiling.

    Kitten opened her eyes slowly. “I feel very peculiar.”

    “Good.”

    “It—it’s not a dream, is it?” she asked, the jaw beginning to wobble.

    What? Silly little—“No,” said Hugo very firmly indeed, taking her hand. “It isn’t a dream, Kitten. You’re here and I’m here and Rose Anne’s definitely here. And this is Scotland and we’ve got to get back before long and face Mrs Macdonald at the Wee Dinky Highland Inn, and what her reaction will be when it dawns we’re sharing a room I shudder to think!”

    “Mm,” said Kitten, with a very shaky smile.

    “Do not bawl,” said Hugo very clearly.

    “I can’t—help it!” she wailed. “I—love—you—Hugo! I thuh-thought I’d balled it uh-hup!”

    “Ballsed, isn’t it?” replied Hugo with complete calm, putting an arm round her shoulders. “We both bloody nearly did. So let’s not waste any more time.”

    Kitten snuffled and gulped.

    “Come on, darling, don’t cry. Think of how the Hell to tell Mrs Macdonald we require one room, not two—I can’t face the bloody woman. Or would it be better to just run away?”

    Not entirely to his surprise, his beloved at this sniffed hard, sat up straight within his arm and said firmly: “’Course not. We’ve booked in, it wouldn’t be fair, she’s counting on the income, she’d feel obliged to give us a refund. I’ll tell her, if you’re too chicken.”

    Not pointing out that he was the head of a large multinational corporation, Hugo replied with true gratitude: “Thanks, darling.”

    As Mrs Macdonald was later to report to her breathlessly interested neighbours, the two of them returned to the Wee Highland Inn smiling, arm-in-arm, Mr Kent carrying the wee bairn! You could have knocked her doon wi’ a feather. Especially when the pretty little lassie said—not him, mind—when she said, her verra words: “Mrs Macdonald, Hugo and I’ve met up again, we used to know each other, you see. And we’ve decided to move in together, so we’ll just use his room, but of course we’ll pay for the two rooms, it wouldn’t be fair on you otherwise.” Cool as a cucumber! Well! Never mind he was a big businessman and all that, it was clear the mon was set to let her rule him wi’ a rod of iron for the rest of his days! Aye, well, they were all the same when you came right doon to it, and at least the lassie could cook. –This clincher perhaps rather obscure to the uninitiate, but Mrs McGregor, Mrs Bruce Dalziel, Mrs Andy McGregor and the widowed Mrs Janet Campbell had no trouble whatsoever in grasping its import. Mrs Andy McGregor, who was the late Mr Macdonald’s sister, going so far as to add: “Aye, three hot meals a day and their minds making up for them is what they all want, you’re no’ wrong there, Mary Macdonald.”

Next chapter:

https://thelallapindarevenge.blogspot.com/2022/11/back-in-sydney.html