you may go to your room. I wish to talk to Mrs Barron alone.’
He moved stiffly in front of her into his study and turned to face her at once, before she had a chance even to open her mouth. ‘I would like you to take your old job back. There has to be someone to look after the boy.’
His words took her breath away. She had been ready for a fight. She clenched her fists. ‘I nearly had the doctor to him last night,’ she said defiantly.
She saw his jawline tighten, otherwise his face remained impassive. ‘It will not happen again, Mrs Barron.’
There was a moment’s silence between them, then she lifted her shoulders slightly. ‘I see.’ There was another pause. ‘Is Mrs Craig not coming back, then?’
‘No, Mrs Craig is not coming back.’ His knuckles went white on the desk as he leaned forward to ease his pain. The scattered pieces of Susan Craig’s note had disappeared.
Jeannie nodded in grim acknowledgement. ‘Very well then, Minister. I shall resume my position here. For the boy’s sake, you understand. But it must not happen again. Ever.’
Their eyes met and he inclined his head. ‘Thank you,’ he said humbly.
She stared at him in silence for a long moment, then she turned towards the door. ‘I’d best go and light the range.’
For Adam the days that followed were different. His father spoke to him seldom, and when he did he was distant, as though they were polite strangers. The boy had his breakfast and midday meal in the kitchen with Mrs Barron. Supper was always cold. Sometimes he and his father would sit opposite one another in silence in the dining room; sometimes, when Thomas was out, Adam would put his supper in a bag, stow it in his knapsack and escape onto the hill.
The holidays were drawing to an end. In a few days school would start again. He was glad. Something had happened between him and his friends which he didn’t understand. There was a new restraint between them – a slight embarrassment, almost an aloofness. He did not know that the news had sped round the district that Mrs Craig, the minister’s wife, had run away to Edinburgh with – the selection was varied – a travelling salesman, a university lecturer (he had been staying at the Bridge Hotel for two weeks over the summer), or the French wine importer who had been visiting the Forest Road Hotel along the river and who had left two days before Mrs Craig had disappeared. Nothing was said, but when he caught sight of Euan and Wee Mikey whispering behind the shop and heard their sniggers, hastily cut off as he approached, he felt himself colour sharply and he turned away. They had betrayed him. His best friend Robbie would have understood, perhaps (Robbie being one of the few friends to whose house he was allowed to go) but Robbie had not been at home all summer and a year ago, after his mother had died, had gone away to boarding school. So, instead of seeing his friends for the last precious days of the holidays, Adam amused himself and concentrated hard on the thought of school.
He had always enjoyed school and he enjoyed his work. He hadn’t told his father, yet, of his ambition to be a doctor, although he had no reason to believe the minister would object. In fact he would probably be pleased. Medicine was a respectable profession. Of one thing Adam was absolutely certain. He did not wish to go into the church. He hated the kirk. He hated the Sabbath. He hated the Bible and he hated the terrible guilt he felt about hating them all so much. Only one part of his duties as the minister’s child had ever appealed to him and that was visiting the poor and sick of the parish with his mother. It was something she had done extremely well and in spite of her English background they liked her. She did not condescend or patronise. She was cheerful, helpful and not afraid to roll up her sleeves. The people respected her and Adam had swiftly absorbed the fact that half an hour in her company clearly did more for an ailing woman or an injured man than hours of preaching from his father. Sometimes they met Dr Grogan on their rounds and Adam would, when permitted, or simply not noticed in the corner of the room, watch. He had been only ten when his medical ambition first began to take shape.
A week after his world had changed so abruptly Adam, a packed lunch in his bag as well as his supper because Mrs Barron had gone on the bus to Perth to see her sister as she did every week, set off up the hillside towards the carved stone.
He had thought often about Brid and her brother and her mother and their kindness, but he had told no one about them. His natural openness, his enthusiasm, his love of life had all gone. The beating and the loss of his mother had changed him. Jeannie Barron could see it and her heart bled for the boy. She mothered him as much as she could, but he shrank a little from her when she hugged him. He tolerated her affection courteously but no more. It was as though he had closed down some part of himself and surrounded it in a protective shell. And the new Adam was secretive. He could have told his mother about his new friends. Without her there, he would tell no one.
It was a blustery day with an exhilarating autumnal bite in the wind. Besides his food and his field glasses, which were hanging round his neck on a strap, he had his specimen boxes with him – to collect interesting things for his museum – his bird book and a notebook and pencil, and he had stolen four slices of chocolate cake from the pantry. The three extra pieces were for Brid and her family. He knew Mrs Barron would see but he knew she wouldn’t tell. His father didn’t know the cake was there. Almost certainly he would have disapproved of it.
He reached the stone, panting, and swung his bag off his shoulders. He already had three birds to put in his notebook. Grouse, of course, skylark and siskin. He pulled the battered volume out, his thin brown fingers fumbling with the buckle on the outside pocket of the green canvas knapsack and, sucking the pencil lead for a moment to make it write better, he began to make his notes.
He had planned to eat lunch, to watch birds, and then in the afternoon to make his way down the far side of the hill to Brid’s cottage.
The first part of the plan went well. He sat down on a slab of exposed rock, his back to the stone, facing the view down the heather-covered hill. It was growing brown in places now, the vibrant purple of the weeks before fading. He heard the lonely cry of an eagle, and putting down his wedge of pork pie he picked up his field glasses and squinted with them towards the distant cloud-hung peaks of the mountains behind the hill.
It wasn’t until he had finished the last of his food, drunk half his ginger beer and folded the remains of the greaseproof paper neatly into his knapsack beside the carefully preserved slices of cake that he stood up and decided to go and look for Brid.
The sun was out now. It blazed down on the heather from a strangely cloudless sky. He sniffed. He had lived in this part of the world all his life and he could read the weather signs clearly. The wind had dropped. He would have an hour, maybe two, then he would see the mist beginning to collect in the folds of the hills and drift over the distant peaks, which would grow hazy and then disappear.
He stood for a moment, staring round, and then he lifted the glasses and began a systematic search beyond the stand of old Scots pine for the track which had led to the burn next to which Brid’s cottage stood.
Spotting the track at last he set off, trotting confidently down the north-facing slope of the ridge, leaving the carved cross-slab behind him. He reached the trees and paused. The shadow he had thought was the track was just that, a shadow thrown by a slight change in the contour of the hill. He frowned, wishing he had taken more notice of where he was going when he had followed her before.
‘Brid!’
