The Earl's place was nineteenth-century Gothic, a phoney Dracula's Castle with a lofty Great Hall that stank, the American thought, of aristocratic bullshit, domination and death.
He could tell the woman hated it too. Especially the skulls. Or maybe she had something else on her mind. She was worried; he could tell that much. Still, he wasn't about to miss this opportunity.
He kept glancing at her over dinner at the long baronial table, a couple of hours ago. All that wonderful long black hair, with the single streak of grey. He'd never seen her before, not in concert, not even on the TV, but he knew the face from the album covers, and he'd know the voice.
She was standing alone by the doorway, frowning at the gruesome trophies on the walls. Not talking to anyone, although there were people all around her, expensively dressed people, crystal glasses hanging from their fingers like extra jewellery.
He supposed she'd be a couple of years older than he was, which only added to that mysterious lustrous glamour. Pretty soon she'd pick up her guitar, and take her place on the central dais to sing for them all. Which didn't give him much time.
What he needed was a neat, elegant opening line. Kind of imagining – her general aura being so magical – that one would come naturally.
He carried his glass across, stood alongside her, following her gaze around the overloaded walls.
He said, 'Uh…'
And followed up with something so dumb he could only hope to attribute it to the impact of fifteen-year-old malt on an uncultured brain.
'Impressive, huh?' he said.
She looked at him. Coldly. Looked at him like she was thinking. Yeah, well you would have to be impressed by this kind of Victorian shit. Where you come from, pal, this most likely is what passes for ancient, right?
'After its fashion,' she said mildly.
From the middle of a cluster of people, the Earl was watching them. Or rather, watching him, because he was American and therefore could maybe buy this place and everything else of its kind between here and Pitlochry many times over.
The Earl was a sleek man, English all the way down to the tip of his sporran. But the Earl wanted to be a real Celt and no doubt was counting on the American wanting that too, all the way down to the deepest part of his wallet.
A discreet buff-coloured card, handed to him several weeks ago by his mother – who also, unfortunately, was his boss – had said:
THE CELTIC BOND: A major conference of politicians and poets, writers, broadcasters and business people, to establish an international support mechanism for the regeneration of a submerged European culture. Hosted, at his Scottish family seat, by…
'Shit,' he'd said in some dismay. 'You're kidding, aren't you?'
She wasn't. Since she lost the use of her legs, the single most important element in his mother's life had become her Scottish ancestry. 'We are Celts, Mungo,' she'd say. 'Above all, never forget that.' By which she meant her side of the family; hence he bore her family name rather than that of his long-gone, long-forgotten father.
'If I can say this,' he said now, politely, trying to recover some credibility, 'you don't seem too relaxed.'
'No?' She wore a long, black dress, very plain. He could sense no perfume.
'I mean I can't imagine you'd be nervous about performing.'
She wasn't looking at him. She was still looking at the heads. Huge sets of antlers protruding from bleached fragments of skull, all over three walls, from just above head-height to within a couple of feet of the lavishly moulded ceiling.
'And I guess you aren't the nervous kind, anyway,' he said. 'So…'
Wherever you sat, the remains of three or four dozen butchered stags were always in view. On the central wooden dais, where she'd sit to sing, she'd probably feel herself constricted by some grisly necklace of bone.
Gross.
'I was just wondering,' she said at last, 'when it must have been clear he wasn't going to go away, 'why people should be proud of being a Celt. Killing things for fun and showing off about it.'
A good work popped up in the American's head, like somebody had flashed him a prompt-card.
'Pantheistic,' he said. 'The old Celts were highly pantheistic. So I'm told.'
'That means they had respect for animals,' she said scornfully. She had a soft Scottish voice but not too much of an accent. 'A bit like your Red Indians.'
'Native Americans.' He smiled. 'To be politically and ethnically correct.' The smile was supposed to say, I may be devilishly attractive, with my untamed curly black hair, this cool white tuxedo, thistle in the buttonhole. But you can trust me. I'm a sincere guy. 'Can I get you another drink?'
'No,' she said. 'No, thank you.'
'I… ah…' He hesitated. 'I have a couple of your albums.'
'Oh?' She didn't seem too interested. 'Which ones?'
'Well, uh, my favourite, I guess, is still the one you did with The Philosopher's Stone. That'd be quite some years ago.'
'Oh.' She glanced away, as if looking for someplace else to put herself.
'Uh, I also have your first solo album,' he said quickly. 'How I recognized you. From the sleeve. You haven't changed.'
'Oh, I've changed, believe me. Look, I…'
'You never did cut your hair, though,' he said, urbanely displaying his knowledge of the album's prime cut.
'What?'
'"Never let them cut your hair,'" he quoted, '"or tell you where…" Listen, I… I just wanted to say it's real good to meet you… Moira. No one said you'd be here. Makes me glad I came after all.'
She said, 'I'm a last-minute replacement. For Rory McBain. He's sick. We have the same agent.'
A flunkey needed to come past with a tray of drinks, and he took the opportunity to manoeuvre her into a corner, unfortunately under two pairs of huge yellowing antlers. He said, 'Listen, that album – with the Stone – it had some magic.'
'He has bronchitis,' Moira said.
'Huh?'
'Rory McBain.'
He smiled. 'See, when I hear you sing, it always sounds to me like…'
'That album,' she said with an air of finality, 'was a mistake. I was too young, too stupid, and I never should have left Matt Castle's band.'
'Huh?'
She shook her head, wide-eyed, like she was waking up.
'Matt Castle?' He had his elbow resting on a wooden ledge below another damned antlered skull.
'He was… He was just the guy who taught me about traditional music when I was a wee girl. Look, I don't know why I said that, I…'
Her poise wavered. She looked suddenly confused and vulnerable. Something inside of him melted with pure longing while something else – something less admirable but more instinctive – tensed like a big cat ready to spring. The album cover hadn't lied. Even after all these years, she was sensational.
'Traditional music,' he said, looking into her brown eyes. 'That's interesting, because that's all you do these days, right? You used to write all your own songs, and now you're just performing these traditional folksongs, like you're feeling there's something that old stuff can teach you. Is that this, uh, Matt Castle? His influence?'
'No… No, Matt was a long time ago, when I was in Manchester. He… Look, if you don't mind…'
He was losing her. He couldn't bear it. He tried to hold her eyes, babbling. 'Manchester? That's the North of England? See, why I find that interesting, this guy was telling us at the conference this afternoon, how the English are the least significant people – culturally that is – in these islands. Unlike the Scottish, the Welsh, the Irish, the English are mongrels with no basic ethnic tradition…'
She smiled faintly. 'Look, I'm sorry, I --'
'See this guy, this Irish professor – McGann, McGuane? – he said there was nothing the English could give us. Best they could do is return what they took, but it's soiled goods. At which point this other guy, this writer… No, first off it was this Cornish bard, but he didn't make much sense… then, this writer – Stanton, Stanhope? – he's on his feet, and is he mad…This guy's face is white. I thought he was gonna charge across the room and bust the first guy, the professor, right in the mouth. He's going, Listen, where I come from we got a more pure, undiluted strain of, uh, heritage, tradition…than you'll find anywhere in Western Europe. And the guy, this Stanfield, he's from the North…'
Moira Cairns said, 'I'm sorry, I really do have to make a phone call.'
And she turned and glided out of the doorway, like the girl in the Irish folksong who went away from this guy and mov'd through the fair.
'…the North of England,' the American said to the stag's head.
This wasn't a new experience for him, but it was certainly rare. You blew it, he told himself, surprised. She could feel him watching her through the doorway, all the way down the passage.
Was he the one?
She took a breath of cool air. The man was a fanatic. Probably one of those rich New Yorkers bankrolling the IRA. Surely there was some other unattached female he could find to sleep with tonight. Why were fanatics always promiscuous?
And was he the one whose examination she could feel all over her skin, like she was being touched up by hands in clinical rubber gloves?
'Phone?' she said to a butler-type person in the marble-tiled hallway.
'Next to the drawing room, madam, I'll take you.'
'Don't bother yourself, I'll find it.'
Dong.
She'd found herself, for no obvious reason, while this smoothie American was trying to come on to her, hearing the name Matt Castle, then saying it out aloud apropos of nothing… and then…
Dong.
This was the dong. The hollow chime. Not the link, not the ping.
Aw, hey, no, please…
The phone turned out to be in the room where she'd left her guitar, where it would be safe – the black case lying in state, like a coffin, across two Jacobean chairs. Safe here, she'd thought, surely. This is a castle. But she'd take it with her when she'd made her call.
She stood in front of the phone, picked it up and put it back a couple of times. She didn't know who to ring.
Malcolm. If in doubt, call Malcolm. She was planning, anyway, to strangle the bastard for tonight. 'You'll enjoy it,' he'd insisted. 'You'll find it absolutely fascinating. Rory's mortified.'
She rang him at home in Dumbarton. 'Malcolm,' she said, 'I may never convince myself to forgive you for this. I may even cast about in the shark-infested waters you inhabit for a new agent.
He didn't say a word. Had he heard all this before from her? More than once? Was she becoming querulous? Creeping middle age? She felt tired, woozy. She shook herself, straightened her back, raised her voice.
'Listen, there are so-called Celts here not only from Ireland and Wales and Brittany, but from Switzerland and Italy – with Mafia connections, no doubt – and America and some wee place nudging up to Turkey. And they are, to a man, Malcolm – they are a bunch of pretentious, elitist, possibly racist wankers.'
'Racism?' Malcolm said. 'I thought it was about money. EC grants. Cultural exchanges. More EC grants…'
'Aye, well…'
'Is it not a good fee for you?'
'Is it the same fee as Rory's fee would have been?'
'Oh, Moira, come now…'
'Forget it. Listen, the real reason I disturbed you on the sabbath…'
'Not my sabbath, as it happens.'
'… is my answering machine is on the blink and I suspect someone's trying to get hold of me, and it's no' my daddy because I called him.'
'Nothing urgent that I'm aware of, Moira, don't you worry your head."
'No messages?'
'None at all.' He paused. 'You aren't feeling unwell again, you?'
'I'm fine.' Her left hand found the guitar case, clutched at it. She had that feeling again, of being touched. She shivered. She felt cold and isolated but also crowded in, under detailed examination. Too many impressions: the hollow chime, the eyes, the touch – impersonal, like a doctor's. Too much, too close. She had to get out of here.
'It's none of my business, of course,' said Malcolm, who believed in the Agent's Right to Know, 'but what was it exactly that made you think someone wanted to contact you?'
'Just a feeling.'
'Just a feeling?'
'Aye,' she said wearily. There was nothing touching her now. The room was static and heavy, no atmosphere. The furniture lumpen, without style. A museum. Nothing here.
Nothing… right?
He said, 'You are a strange, witchy woman, Moira.'
'Malcolm,' Moira said. 'Go fuck yourself, huh?' From Dawber's Book of Bridelow: RELIGION (i)
Bridelow is dominated by the ancient church dedicated to Saint Bride and built upon a small rise, thought to be the remains of the 'low' or burial mound from which the village gets the other half of its name.
The tower is largely Norman, with later medieval embellishments, although there was considerable reconstruction work to this and to the main body of the church in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The clock was added to the tower following a donation by the Bridelow Brewery in 1889 and was subsequently illuminated, enhancing the role of the tower as a 'beacon' for travellers lost on Bridelow Moss.
The churchyard offers a spectacular view over the Moss and the surrounding countryside, which, to the rear, gives way to a large tract of moorland, uninhabited since prehistoric days.