September

holiday to 'My Yorker' or 'Portjig-gal.' Or 'Grease.' Grease sounded a horrid place. Edie once told him about a lady who was very cut up because her daughter had married some fly-by-night who was not good enough for her. The poor lady, all cut up, had haunted his nightmares for weeks.

But the worst was the misunderstanding that had happened with his grandmother, and which might have come between them for ever and caused a lasting rift, had not Henry's mother finally found out what was bothering him and put it right.

He had gone to Pennybum one day after school to have tea with his grandmother, Vi. A gale was blowing and the wind howled around the little house. Sitting by the fire, Vi had suddenly made an exclamation of annoyance, got to her feet and fetched from somewhere a folding screen, which she set up in front of the glass door that led out into the garden. Henry asked her why she was doing this, and when she told him he was so horrified that he scarcely spoke for the rest of the afternoon. When his mother came to fetch him, he had never been so glad to see her and could not wait to scramble into his anorak and be out of the house, almost forgetting to thank Vi for his tea.

It was horrible. He felt that he never wanted to go back to Pennyburn, and yet knew that he ought to, if only to protect Vi. Every time his mother suggested another visit, he made some excuse or said he would rather go to Edie's. Finally, one night while he was having his bath, she came and sat on the lavatory and talked to him… she brought the conversation gently around to the touchy subject and at last asked him straight if there was any reason why he no longer wanted to go to Vi's.

'You always used to love it so. Did something happen?'

It was a relief at last to talk about it.

'It's frightening.'

'Darling, what's frightening?'

'It comes in, out of the garden, and it comes into the sitting-room. Vi put a screen up but it could easily knock the screen over. It might hurt her. I don't think she should live there any more.'

'For heaven's sake! What comes in?'

He could see it. With great tall spotted legs, and a long thin spotted neck, and great big yellow teeth with its lips curled back, ready to pounce, or bite.

'A horrible giraffe.'

His mother was confounded. 'Henry, have you gone out of your mind? Giraffes live in Africa, or zoos. There aren't any giraffes in Strathcroy.'

'There are!' He shouted at her stupidity. 'She said so. She said there was a horrible giraffe that came out of the garden, and through the door and into her sitting-room. She told me so.'

There was a long silence. He stared at his mother and she stared back at him with her bright blue eyes, but she never smiled.

At last she said, 'She wasn't telling you that there was a giraffe, Henry. She was telling you that there was a draught. You know, a horrid, shivery draught.'

A draught. Not a giraffe but a draught. All that fuss about a stupid draught. He had made a fool of himself, but was so relieved that his grandmother was safe from monsters that it didn't matter.

'Don't tell anybody,' he pleaded.

'I'll have to explain to Vi. But she won't say a word.'

'All right. You can tell Vi. But not anybody else.'

And his mother had promised, and he had jumped out of the bath, all dripping wet, and been gathered up into a great fluffy towel and his mother's arms, and she had hugged him and told him that she was going to eat him alive and she loved him so, and they had sung 'Camptown Races,' and there was macaroni and cheese for supper.

Edie had cooked sausages for his tea and made potato scones, and opened a can of baked beans. While he ploughed his way through this, sitting at her kitchen table, Edie sat opposite him, drinking a cup of tea. Her own meal she would eat later.

Munching, he realized that she was quieter than usual. Normally on such occasions they never stopped talking, and he was the willing recipient of all the gossip in the glen. Who had died and how much they had left; who had abandoned his father on the farm and hightailed it off to Relkirk to work in a garage; who had started a baby and was no better than she should be. But today no such snippets of information came his way. Instead Edie sat with her dimpled elbows on the table and gazed out of the window at her long, thin back garden.

He said, 'Penny for your thoughts, Edie,' which was what she always said to him when he had something on his mind.

She sighed deeply. 'Oh, Henry, I don't know, and that's for certain.'

Which told him nothing. However, when pressed, she explained her predicament. She had a cousin who had lived in Tullochard. She was called Lottie Carstairs and had never been bright. Never married. Gone into domestic service, but had proved useless even at that. She had lived with her mother and father until the old folks had died, and then turned very strange and had had to go to hospital. Edie said it was a nervous breakdown. But she was recovering. One day she would come out of hospital, and she was coming to stay with Edie because there was no other place for the poor soul to go.

Henry thought this a rotten idea. He liked having Edie to himself. 'But you haven't got a spare room.'

'She'll have to have my bedroom.'

He was indignant. 'But where will you sleep?'

'On the Put-U-Up in the sitting-room.'

She was far too fat for the Put-U-Up. 'Why can't Dotty sleep there?'

'Because she will be the guest, and her name's Lottie.'

'Will she stay for long?'

'We'll have to see.'

Henry thought about this. 'Will you go on being dinner-lady, and helping Mummy, and helping Vi at Pennyburn?'

'For heaven's sake, Henry, Lottie's not bedridden.¹'

'Will I like her?' This was important.

Edie found herself at a loss for words. 'Oh, Henry, I don't know. She's a sad creature. Nineteen shillings in the pound, my father always called her. Screamed like a wet hen if a man showed his face around the door, and clumsy! Years ago, she worked for a wee while for old Lady Balmerino at Croy, but she smashed so much china that they had to give her the sack. She never worked again after that.'

Henry was horrified. 'You mustn't let her do the washing-up or she'll break all your pretty things.'

'It's not just my china she'll be breaking…' Edie prophesied gloomily, but before Henry could follow up this interesting line of conversation she took a hold of herself, put a more cheerful expression on her face, and pointedly changed the subject. 'Do you want another potato scone, or are you ready for your Choc Bar?'

4

Emerging with Archie and Virginia from the front door of Balnaid, and descending the steps to the gravel sweep, Violet saw that the rain had stopped. It was still damp but now much warmer, and lifting her head she felt the breeze on her cheek, blowing freshly from the west. Low clouds were slowly being rolled aside, revealing here and there a patch of blue sky and a piercing, biblical, ray of sunshine. It would turn into a beautiful summer evening-too late to be of much use to anybody.

Archie's old Land Rover stood waiting for them. They said goodbye to Virginia, Violet with a peck on her daughter-in-law's cheek.

'Love to Edmund.'

'I'll tell him.'

They clambered up into the Land Rover, both with some effort, Violet because she was elderly, and Archie because of his tin leg. Doors were slammed shut, Archie started up the engine, and they were off. Down the curving driveway to the gate, out onto the narrow lane that led past the Presbyterian church, and so across the bridge. At the main road, Archie paused, but there was no traffic, and he swung out and into the street which ran