After being alone with his mother for all those months, it was always a wrench when she left him to go off on one of her adventures with his father. How well he remembered those partings, as his mother would clutch him tightly and whisper in his ear, ‘I don’t want to go, James. I always miss you so, but what am I to do? I love you both. I want to be with you and I want to be with your father… You have me for most of the year, now it is your father’s turn. Don’t worry, I’ll be back before you know it.’
He would feel her tears wet his cheek and would smile bravely and tell her that it didn’t matter, that he didn’t mind so much. She tried her best to make him comfortable, but in truth he hated her leaving and over the years he had made miserable a succession of nursemaids and nannies. He didn’t like to be told what to do and they were no substitute for his real mother.
Often when his parents were away he would stay with one of his mother’s numerous relatives. She came from a large family and seemed to have aunts, uncles, sisters, brothers and cousins dotted all around Europe. There was even a branch of the family that had emigrated to Australia.
His father’s family was smaller, and consisted of his elder brother, Max, whom James barely knew, and his sister, Charmian.
Aunt Charmian was James’s favourite relative and he always enjoyed staying with her. She had a small house south-east of London, near Canterbury, in a tiny village called Pett Bottom, a name that always made James smile. Charmian had no children of her own and she treated James as an adult, letting him get on with things without constantly interfering.
Charmian was an anthropologist; she had studied many different peoples and cultures around the world, and her house was stuffed with paintings and books and odd objects that she’d collected on her travels. She was very well read and could talk to James about almost anything and, what’s more, make it interesting. There was always music playing on her gramophone or the wireless, and exotic food bubbling on the stove.
James felt completely at home in Pett Bottom, where he’d spend his days exploring the local countryside, building dens, getting lost in the fields and constructing elaborate dams in the little stream that ran behind the house.
James had no reason to think that moving from country to country, staying with odd relatives for long periods of time, speaking several languages and rarely seeing his father was in any way unusual. So he was surprised when his Aunt Charmian said to him one day, ‘You’re a strange boy, James. I would have thought most boys in your position would be rather unhappy.’
James was eleven at the time, and it was summer. His mother and father were on a climbing holiday in Aiguilles Rouges, above the skiing resort of Chamonix in France. They would be gone for three weeks and James had been packed off to England again to spend the time with his aunt. He’d said goodbye to his parents at the station in Basle at the start of his long voyage by train and boat. His mother had kissed him twice in the European fashion and his father had shaken his hand once in the Scottish fashion. As the train pulled away, James had looked back and seen them standing there, waving, his father tall and serious-looking, his mother elegant and pretty in a fashionable outfit. But before they were out of sight his father had turned and led his mother away, and they had disappeared into a cloud of steam.
James had frowned across the table at his aunt and wondered at her question. Charmian Bond was tall and thin like his father and, although James didn’t know a great deal about these matters, he felt that she was beautiful. She had jet-black hair, grey eyes, and seemed neither young nor old. Maybe this was because she had no children of her own.
‘Why should I be unhappy?’ James asked.
‘Oh, I’m not saying that you should be. I’m happy that you are not, but you’re forever being shunted around Europe like a piece of lost luggage, and now, here you are once again, having to spend the summer with me.’
‘I like you, Aunt Charmian,’ James said bluntly. ‘I like it here in Pett Bottom. I like your house. I like your cooking.’
‘Ah, you’re a charmer, James, you know the way to a woman’s heart, and you’ll no doubt break a few when you get the chance.’
James blushed.
‘But I do feel that life here can’t be very exciting for a young lad,’ Charmian added.
James shrugged. He didn’t know what to say. He’d never really thought about it before, he usually just got on with things.
Charmian stood up and began to tidy away the dirty dishes. ‘How about tomorrow we drive into Canterbury and visit the picture house?’
‘That would be fun,’ said James, who liked going to the cinema.
‘They’re showing a new Douglas Fairbanks film, The Iron Mask. Have you seen it? I think he plays D’Artagnan, rescuing the true King of France from scheming villains.’
‘I’ve not seen it,’ said James, ‘but I liked The Three Musketeers.’
‘Good, I should imagine there’ll be plenty of swinging on chandeliers, jumping off high walls and engaging in all sorts of wild swordplay.’ Charmian picked up a carving knife and brandished it at James, and he fought back with his spoon.
After supper, James had gone outside to enjoy the rest of the day. It was a perfect summer’s evening and the setting sun sent a golden glow over the fields. Inspired by thoughts of Douglas Fairbanks, James left the back garden by a little gate in the wall and went into the small orchard behind the house to finish building a rope swing that he’d hung above the stream from a thick branch. He’d just tried it for the first time and was about to shorten the rope when he saw his aunt coming through the gate, followed by two uncomfortable-looking policemen.
‘James,’ she said, trying to hide the catch in her voice. ‘I’m afraid something’s happened.’
The policemen looked so funny and awkward that James almost laughed. He tried to think if he’d done anything wrong… He’d scrumped some pears from an orchard down the road, he’d thrown some stones at an abandoned greenhouse at the back of Williams’s Farm, but surely that wasn’t serious enough to warrant a visit from the local police.
He climbed down out of the tree and went over to them.
‘It concerns your mother and father…’ said Charmian and, as he got nearer, James saw that there were tears in her eyes.
‘What’s happened?’ said James, who suddenly felt very cold and strange. ‘It’s all right, Miss Bond,’ said one of the policemen. ‘The lad doesn’t need to know all the details.’
‘Yes, he does,’ his aunt snapped angrily. ‘He has to know. He’s old enough. We have always treated him as an adult and never kept anything from him. They’d want him to know…’
She paused, too upset to carry on, and looked away briefly, before pulling her shoulders back and turning to face the policeman.
‘It’s all right, you may go,’ she said to the visibly relieved men, and wiped her eyes. ‘I can deal with this.’
‘Very well, madam,’ said the more senior of the two policemen and, after one last confused glance at James, they had left.
‘Come and sit with me, James,’ his aunt said, settling on an ancient wooden bench covered with whorls of coloured lichen.
James joined her and for a moment they sat in silence, looking out past the stream and over the cornfields to where a flock of crows flapped about noisily.
‘There’s been an accident,’ said Charmian. ‘Nobody knows yet exactly what happened, but your mother and father, they…’ she sniffed. ‘Sorry. They won’t be coming home, James.’
‘What do you mean?’ said James, who knew what she meant but didn’t want to believe what he was hearing.
‘There’s no pretty word for it,’ said Charmian, ‘and no easy way to say it, so I will be blunt. They are both dead. They were climbing. There was a fall. They found their bodies at the foot of the mountain…’
The rest of what she said passed in a blur, the words tumbling towards him, not making any sense, and James not wanting them to make sense, hoping it was all a joke… And all the tim
e, that one simple but terrible word kept repeating in his head.
‘Dead.’
He hadn’t realised at the time how final that word was. How two people so familiar to him, that he’d taken so much for granted, that he’d thought would always be there, simply weren’t there any more, and would never be there again.
Because they were dead.
Two years had passed since then. Sometimes he could hardly remember what his parents had looked like. He’d picture them standing on the platform waving to him, but their faces were unclear, and before he could make them out they would turn and disappear once more into the steam. Then sometimes he would dream about them and they would be very clear to him and very much alive, and he’d wonder why he had ever thought that they were dead. He would get desperately upset and hug his mother and apologise to her, but always, before she spoke, he would wake up and be left feeling angry and cheated.
The dreams were less frequent now. He could cope with them better, but nothing could ever make up for his loss.
Of course he’d had arguments with his mother and taken her for granted. But he’d always known that if he cut his knee or felt unwell, she would be there to pick him up and hold him and tell him that everything was going to be all right.
And he wished that he had known his father better, but he’d so often been away. Whenever he came back, however, he’d never forget to bring James some small gift: chocolate or a toy soldier or a book. James smiled as he remembered waiting at the top of the stairs in his pyjamas for the sound of his father’s key in the lock, then he’d run down and wait impatiently for him to produce the little wrapped packet, teasing James all the while – ‘Now where did I put it? Oh, I think I may have forgotten it…’ and then producing it like a magician. ‘Aha, here it is!’
But the house was sold, and his mother would never again hold him, and his father would never again be coming home. James was alone in the world now, and he would have to make it on his own. Sure, it made him tough, but at times like this he would have traded in all his toughness for five more minutes with his mother and father.
In his sleeping berth at the front of the train, George Hellebore lay on his bunk and shivered. He couldn’t stop it – his whole body was shaking. He hadn’t spoken to his father since the race, he dreaded meeting him. He hoped that the train would never arrive, that he could just rattle on into the endless night on a journey to nowhere.
But he knew that couldn’t be… With every moment the train was taking him nearer to home. Nearer to everything he hated and feared.
Part Two: SCOTLAND
9
Max Bond
The powerful engine pulled the long train through the night, up the edge of England along the east-coast route, from York to Newcastle, then ploughing on north to Edinburgh and Perth and on to Fort William in the north-west of Scotland.
James slept well and woke at half past nine, with sunlight streaming in through the window and Kelly swinging his skinny legs down over the edge of the top bunk.
‘Wakey, wakey,’ he said, jumping down. ‘Och aye the noo and all that. Here we are in the land of the jocks, the old sweaty socks.’ He peered out of the window. ‘You know,’ he said, turning down his mouth, ‘it looks a lot like England. Fields, trees, houses, roads, clouds… miserable-looking people.’
‘What were you expecting?’ said James, looking out. ‘Men in kilts playing the bagpipes and Bonny Prince Charlie riding past with Rob Roy?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Kelly. ‘I never been in a foreign country before, I thought it would just look, you know, more foreign.’ They had stopped outside the station and could hear the train engine idling. ‘Look properly,’ said James. ‘Look beyond the houses. Look at the hills, and look over there.’
‘What is it?’
‘That’s Ben Nevis. The tallest mountain in Britain.’
Kelly peered out. ‘Can’t see much,’ he said gloomily as the train started forward again.
‘You never can,’ said James. ‘It’s nearly always in cloud, but if you’re lucky you might get a glimpse of it.’
‘I’ll take your word for it.’
James’s Aunt Charmian was waiting for him on the platform. He held out his hand for her to shake, but she brushed it aside and gave him a big hug.
‘You’re so formal, James. Sometimes a lady wants more than just a handshake.
’ Aunt Charmian was wearing olive-coloured trousers tucked into high riding boots and a matching jacket with a simple white silk shirt and scarf. You didn’t often see a woman in trousers, but Charmian carried herself so confidently that nobody would have dared to criticise her.
‘Let me look at you,’ she said, holding him at arm’s length. ‘See what that dreaded school has done to you.’
James smiled at her and tried not to blush under her scrutiny.
‘You’ll do,’ she decided. ‘Though they’ve obviously not been feeding you. You’re skinny as a rake.’
‘The food’s awful,’ he said.
‘Most English food’s awful, dear. You’d be lucky to get better in a top-class hotel. You’ve been spoiled by my cooking, you know.
’ Charmian had travelled all round the world, and brought back recipes and ingredients from the many countries she had visited. As a result, James had eaten pasta dishes from Italy, curries from India, couscous from north Africa, noodles from Singapore and he had once even tried chicken cooked in chocolate from Mexico, but that had not been a great success. It was no wonder that the dull, stodgy cooking at Eton didn’t exactly set his taste buds dancing.
‘You got the packages I sent? The cakes and biscuits.’
‘Yes, thanks, they certainly helped.’
Outside the station a jostling crowd of passengers was climbing aboard their various modes of transport. One group was piling on to a bus, a couple of gentlemen were putting their luggage into taxicabs, some local people were being met by family or friends with cars, and down at the other end James saw George Hellebore being helped into a fine black Rolls-Royce by a uniformed chauffeur.
‘All right, Jimmy?’
James turned to see Red Kelly striding towards them. ‘This your aunt?’ he said.
‘Yes…’
Before James could say anything else, Red vigorously shook Charmian’s hand. ‘Pleased to meet you, Aunty,’ he said, and winked. ‘Your Jimmy’s a good lad, look after him, now.’
‘Yes, I will,’ said Charmian, a little taken aback.
‘I’d best get me skates on, the bus’ll be off in a minute… Maybe see you around, Jimmy, eh?’
And with that Kelly was gone.
‘Who on earth was that?’ asked Charmian with a smile.
‘Oh, just someone I met on the train. He was good company.’
Aunt Charmian had her own car there, a heavy, four-and-a-half-litre, four-cylinder supercharged Bentley four-seater sports car. James loved the car and had decided that if he ever owned one, it would be this model. He slung his bag in the back and squeezed in next to his aunt on the hard leather seat. Charmian drove well but fast and had little patience for other motorists – which wasn’t a problem on these roads, as there was very little traffic, and sighting another car was something of an event.
‘We still have a fair old drive,’ Charmian shouted over the roar of the engine. ‘And I expect you’re famished. We’ll stop somewhere for breakfast. There’s a little cafe in Kinlocheil that does a half-decent breakfast. So, are you looking forward to your hols?’
‘Yes.’
‘I thought we might go to the circus tonight. They’ve pitched their tent in Kilcraymore. It shouldn’t be a total bore.’
‘That sounds fun,’ said James, who hadn’t been to a circus in years and wondered if it would still appeal to him.
‘We’ll try and make this a holiday to remember, eh?’
They drove round the end of Loch Linnhe and then took the Road to the Isles along the north shore of Loch Eil until they came to Kinlocheil at the fa
r end. There they parked the car and were soon sitting at a little square table in a cafe with views out across the water.
‘Best meal of the day, breakfast,’ said Charmian once she’d ordered scrambled eggs, bacon, toast and marmalade. ‘Sets you up for the day.’
The waitress came over and asked if they would like a pot of tea and Charmian exploded.
‘Tea? Good God, no. It’s mud. How the British ever built an empire drinking the filthy stuff is beyond me. And if we carry on drinking it, I’ve no doubt that the empire won’t last much longer. No, a civilised person drinks coffee.’
James smiled to himself. How many times had he heard Aunt Charmian’s speech about tea drinking? But the thing was, her views had slowly seeped into him. He no longer drank tea and had managed to acquire a taste for coffee, even though he’d found it very bitter and hard to swallow at first.
After breakfast, feeling full and contented, they wandered back to the Bentley and set off towards Mallaig.
‘How is Uncle Max?’ James asked.
‘Not good, I’m afraid, James. You haven’t seen him for a while, have you?’
‘Not since before Mother and Father died.’
‘Well, you’d best prepare yourself for a bit of a shock. He’s grown dreadfully thin of late, and he has a quite alarming cough.’
‘How serious is it?’ asked James.
‘As serious as it can be. The doctor said it’s a miracle he’s lasted this long, but your uncle’s a fighter, tough as old boots. It’s unfair, really, to think of all he’s been through, all he’s survived, only to be felled by a common or garden disease. But then – life is unfair. It’s his own body, really, killing him, creating more and more cancerous cells in his lungs, slowly choking him. It’s a ghastly business, cancer. But enough of this gloominess – he’s very much looking forward to seeing you. I think your visit will really lift his spirits.’