excuse being that they needed to get things sorted before the Saturday rush.
Except that there was no Saturday rush—Tartan Gifts not being the sort of shop that ever had customers trampling down the door. The truth of the matter was that Mrs. Witherspoon, with her violet, permed hair and mustached upper lip, thought being shop manager made her God, and that she had it in for Alison in a big way.
Having spent the last two hours on her knees in the shop’s back room, among dusty boxes filled with thistle- enameled thimbles, tartan teacups, and refrigerator magnets bearing the simpering likeness of Bonnie Prince Charlie, Alison was very tempted to tell Mrs. Witherspoon to stuff it.
She could have a Saturday morning lie-in for a change, watch the telly, maybe do a bit of shopping herself. Alison lit a cigarette and indulged the fantasy for a moment as she took a deep drag, but by the time she exhaled, reality had reared its ugly head. First of all, she had nothing to go shopping
Alison tugged up her tights where they’d bagged at the knees, eased the strap of her shoulder bag, and started down the hill towards her flat as the lights of Aviemore winked on in the dusk. The road was quiet, except for the traffic in and out of the supermarket. Most shops had closed for the day, but it was still too early for what nightlife the town boasted.
When she reached the forecourt of the flat, she stopped to finish her cigarette before grinding it into the pavement with her heel. She had no place to smoke these days; Chrissy complained if she smoked in the flat, Mrs. Witherspoon would have a coronary if she even thought about
smoking in the shop, and Donald . . . The thought of Donald made her grimace.
Around Donald, she washed her hands to get rid of the smoke smell, and sprayed her hair with perfume. He said tobacco kept you from distinguishing the finer points of a whisky, though personally she couldn’t tell one of the bloody things from the other, cigarettes or no. Not that she’d tell him that, mind—she’d learned to smile and mumble about “sherried oak” and “herbal bouquets” with the best of them.
She had met Donald Brodie at a party three months ago. He wasn’t part of her usual set—but that night he had come with a friend of a friend, slumming, she supposed he’d been, and rattling on to the uneducated about the merits of different whiskies. But he was different, and bonnie enough, and to her surprise she’d found she rather liked listening to him. When he’d noticed her, she had let him pick her up. He’d taken her home to his house by the distillery, and that evening Alison’s life had changed forever.
Benvulin House, it was called, after the distillery. It had been built by Donald’s great-great-grandfather, he told her, in the Scots baronial style. Oh, it was grand, all stone and warm wood, blazing fires and rich carpets and fabrics. This was how people ought to live, Alison had thought, and in that instant’s revelation she had known that it was how
Not like this, she thought now, gazing up at the damp-discolored concrete that made up the square blocks of her building. With a sigh, she went in and began the climb to her third-floor flat. The stairwell always smelled of urine, and as often as not, the lights were out. It worried her, especially on the short winter days when Chrissy came home alone from school in
the dark, but it was the best she could afford on her pay.
Nor was there anyone else to help out. Chrissy’s dad had buggered off when he learned Alison was pregnant, after claiming the baby wasn’t his, and not even Social Services had been able to track him down since. Alison’s mum lived on her pension in a two-room flat in Carrbridge, her dad having died of lung cancer before Chrissy was born.
And any hope Alison had had that Donald might change things was rapidly fading. He called less these days, and when he did he often made excuses for not being able to see her. Like this weekend—he’d told her he had a business meeting, a three-day conference with some European bigwig. “Right,” she said aloud, and her voice echoed cavernously in the stairwell. If it were true, which she very much doubted, why hadn’t he asked her along? She could have made coffee and been decorative in the corner; she knew when to keep quiet.
But then she’d have had Chrissy with her, and Alison supposed Donald didn’t want a nine-year-old running around interrupting his meetings. Not that Chrissy was ever any trouble, but that odious Heather Urquhart, the distillery manager, would complain.
Alison reached the top landing and unlocked the door to the flat, calling out, “Hi, baby, it’s me.” She sniffed as she hung up her jacket and bag in the tiny entry. Chips and fish sticks again, Chrissy’s favorite.
“I’ve saved you something for tea, Mama,” said Chrissy as Alison came into the sitting room and bent down to kiss her daughter.
“Thanks, baby. I could eat a horse.”
“Mama!” Chrissy protested, but she giggled, the smile lighting her rosy, heart-shaped face. She sat on the floor
in front of the hideous flowered settee—a s hand-me-down from Alison’s mum—and she still wore her jumper and tartan uniform skirt. With her feet tucked beneath her you couldn’t tell that one leg was twisted and shorter than the other. Chrissy had been born that way, a congenital defect, the doctors had told Alison, but it never seemed to occur to the girl that she couldn’t do anything the other children did.
Tonight she had the telly on as usual without the sound. She liked it for “company,” she said, when Alison teased her. Open on the floor beside her was one of her inevitable horse books, and lined up beside the cushions she’d placed in a square was a row of her plastic replica horses.
“Who’ve we got today, then?” asked Alison, kicking off her heels and squatting beside Chrissy as she mas- saged her aching toes.
“Man o’ War. And this one’s the Godolphin Arabian.”
Chrissy indicated a slightly smaller pony. “And this one’s Eclipse.”
“Are they going to have a race?”
Chrissy rolled her eyes. “ ’Course not. They’re at stud.
That’s the mares’ barn over there.” She pointed at another cushion.
“Oh, sorry.” It was Alison’s turn to roll her eyes. What business did a child her age have knowing all about mares and studs and breeding procedures? And where had it come from, this passion for horses? “Equimania,”
Donald called it. He found it amusing, and in one of his more benevolent moods he’d promised the girl a pony.
“Bastard,” Alison whispered, standing. Had he known what that promise would mean to Chrissy? And to Alison, who’d thought perhaps he meant to move them into Benvulin House, for how else could they stable and feed
a horse? But every day it became clearer that it had been a promise he hadn’t meant to keep, and Alison could happily have killed him.
“Did anyone ring?” she asked, although she knew Chrissy would have told her straightaway if Donald had returned her call.
“Callum,” answered Chrissy. “He said Max had a sore hoof. The blacksmith had to come today.”
Alison frowned but didn’t say anything. She’d have a word with Callum MacGillivray—she didn’t like him ringing up when Chrissy was home alone.
That had been a mistake on Alison’s part, going out with Callum, although he’d seemed harmless enough when she’d met him through the shop. His aunt Janet had a standing order for the small horse-shaped pins that she gave to the stables’ trekkers as souvenirs, and Callum had come in a few times to collect the shipment. A looker, she’d thought him, with his lean, muscular body, his sandy hair drawn back in a ponytail, his Hollywood stubble. And when he hadn’t said much, she’d thought him mysterious. It was only when they’d gone out a few times that she’d discovered the man was incapable of having a conversation that didn’t include horses, fishing, or Highland history. If you wanted to know where the Wolf of Badenoch had made his last stand, or where Cluny McPherson had hidden from the duke of Cumberland’s men, Callum could tell you, in nauseating detail. Otherwise, he was useless.
And worse, although MacGillivray’s Stables were just up the road from Benvulin, Callum lived in a hovel of a cottage that made Alison’s flat look palatial. Chrissy, of course, found the place fascinating and seemed equally taken with Callum, but Alison had been glad of an excuse to cut off the relationship when Donald came into her life.
