was a place he knew well, a place he had visited on several occasions as a student, a beautiful place, ruinous – including the hotel, he thought wryly – wild, unspoiled, peaceful, with several miles of rocky, dramatic coastline, which had to be preserved at any cost. He had wandered around all morning, going to the hotel for a pint of Export and some sandwiches for lunch, then, drawn back almost against his will, he had walked back to the sprawling ruins of the castle for one more look before driving back to Edinburgh.
It was then that he had seen her. He was certain it had been Clare Royland. Who else could it have been? She had arrived in a flash green Jag, dressed for a London garden party, even to the high-heeled shoes. Young, beautiful, oh yes, undeniably beautiful, rich, aristocratic – looking at him as though he had no right to be there, which, strictly speaking, he hadn’t, and then, later, looking through him as though he wasn’t there at all. Bitch. He remembered how the whole place changed after she arrived. The joy had gone out of his visit. It was as if her arrival had released strange, unhappy memories in those ancient stones. He shivered at the thought. The haar had come in off the sea, drifting up the cliffs and cutting off the sunlight, and he had left her to it.
She was the type who would sell, damn her. She might protest her love of the place, but in the end she would sell, if only because Paul Royland would see to it that she did. Neil smiled grimly as he turned off the desk lamp and began to pull on his patched tweed jacket. He had good reason to remember Paul Royland of old.
Henry Firbank paid off the cab at the bottom of Campden Hill and began to walk slowly up the road. When he had met Paul at the Guildhall, Paul was deep in conversation with Diane Warboys, one of the new brokers at Westlake Pierce, but he had paused long enough to explain that Clare had had a fainting fit at the office and decided to go home rather than come to the reception.
Later, when Paul had offered to take Diane out to dinner, Henry had made up his mind. He wasn’t being disloyal to Paul. It was merely natural concern to see how Clare was. He would knock, perhaps not even go in, just see she was all right … It never crossed his mind to telephone instead.
He could see a faint light showing at the crack in the heavy pale aquamarine silk curtains. Straightening his tie he lifted the knocker and let it drop, wishing he had thought to stop off and buy some flowers somewhere on the way. He waited, then he knocked again, louder this time. Perhaps she had fallen asleep in front of the television.
He wasn’t sure, afterwards, what made him do it, but when she failed to answer his third knock he found himself slinging one long leg over the low railings at the side of the steps and stepping into the paved front garden so that he could peer across the narrow barred area which lent light to the basement window and through the crack in the curtains.
Clare was seated cross-legged on the floor in front of a guttering candle. She was facing the window and he could see her clearly. Her face was serene, blank, her eyes closed; her whole attitude completely relaxed as the flickering candlelight played over her, illuminating her features, turning them to alabaster, picking out the glint of gold at her throat and wrists and on her fingers, sending darting shadows into the deep folds of green silk piled so carelessly around her on the floor.
Henry caught his breath. He watched her, fascinated, unable to tear his eyes away, as the candle slowly died, leaving her sitting in darkness alleviated only by the thread of light thrown across the floor by the street lamp behind him, and it was only the sound of footsteps walking down the road behind him in the distance which made him straighten suddenly, realising how he must look to a passerby, doubled up with his eye to a crack in the curtain.
Vaulting back over the railing, he stood uncertainly on the step, wondering what to do. Tentatively he knocked again, then, bolder, he rang the door bell. It pealed through the house, making him jump and he waited breathlessly. Minutes later a light came on in the hall and the door opened.
‘Henry?’ Clare stared at him, dazed.
‘Clare.’ He bent forward and kissed her cheek. ‘I’m sorry to call so late. If you’d rather, I’ll go away at once. Only Paul asked me to look in on my way home and see that you were all right. He has met up with a client, I gather, and he’ll be a bit late back – you know how it is.’ Paul hadn’t asked him to do anything of the sort.
Clare bit her lip. She looked tired and strained in the harsh light of the hall.
‘That was good of you, Henry. You’d better come in.’ She backed away from the door.
He followed her into the living room and he found himself looking at the rug where she had been sitting. There was no sign now of the remains of the candle, but he thought he could smell it, mixed with her subtle perfume in the air.
‘You’re sure you’re not too tired, Clare? Paul told me you weren’t feeling very well.’
‘No, I’m fine. Come on down and talk to me while I make us both some coffee. The lift at Coleman Street got stuck with me in it and I made a bit of a fool of myself, that’s all. I’m afraid it will be all around the bank tomorrow.’ She smiled wanly.
‘Oh Clare, how terrible.’ He followed her down the steep flight of steps.
‘I’ve been claustrophobic since I was a child. So silly really.’ She busied herself filling the kettle and plugging it in whilst he sat down on a stool watching her, his long legs folded under the breakfast bar.
‘Clare, I couldn’t help seeing, through the curtains, upstairs. What were you doing with that candle?’ He hadn’t meant to ask; hadn’t meant to admit to spying on her.
She glanced up at him sharply, but she smiled.
‘Meditating.’
‘You mean like praying?’ He looked embarrassed.
‘Perhaps, a little. Although, not the way I do it.’ She was playing with her sapphire engagement ring, twisting it around her finger so that the facets caught the light. ‘It’s very strange, Henry. Something I started doing to help me unwind a bit.’ Suddenly she found she wanted to tell someone about it. ‘When I was a child I had a sort of imaginary playmate – I think a lot of children do. She was called Isobel.’ She paused for such a long time that he wondered if she had forgotten he was there.
‘Go on,’ he said at last.
‘My brother was four years younger than me, and we never got on, really. We still don’t –’ she smiled wistfully. ‘So, I was a lonely child.’ Isobel’s brother was four years younger and a posthumous child, like James. She had stopped speaking and was staring into space, recognising the strangeness of the coincidence for the first time. With a little shake of the head she went on. ‘I suppose that’s how children always react to loneliness: an imaginary friend.’ She paused again.
Henry said nothing, afraid to interrupt her train of thought.
‘She was a real person,’ she went on, at last. ‘An ancestress of ours. My great aunt used to tell us stories about her. Long, involved, exciting stories. I don’t know where they came from, if they were true, or if she made them up, but they caught my imagination. I would act them out again and again in my head or in my games. Sometimes Isobel was my friend. Sometimes she was me and I was her …’ Her voice trailed away. Behind her the kettle boiled and switched itself off. Henry didn’t move.
‘I hadn’t thought about her for years – not until I went to Duncairn again in June. Now she has come back. Not to play with’ – she laughed, embarrassed – ‘not like when I was a child, but when I meditate. It
