Being a Girl Read online

  ‘Have you found a job yet?’ she asked.

  ‘No,’ I answered.

  Her eyes grew big. ‘We’re going to go away for a holiday,’ she said, ‘and if you don’t come, Milly, I’ll never speak to you again.’

  I took another sip of champagne and the bubbles made me giggle as they went up my nose.

  ‘I don’t want to speak to you anyway,’ I said, and she drummed her nails on the tabletop until I continued. ‘All right,’ I added, ‘where?’

  ‘As far away as possible,’ she said breathlessly. ‘Let’s go to Scotland.’

  ‘Scotland?’

  ‘Yes, Scotland. We’ve never been there,’ she said. ‘You like doing things you’ve never done before, don’t you?’

  She turned sideways in her seat and slapped the side of her bottom.

  ‘Only if it’s fun.’

  ‘Well, you never know unless you try.’

  ‘I don’t know . . .’

  ‘Please, Milly, please. I’m dying to try out my car . . .’

  ‘Have you had it serviced?’ I asked. I was the practical one.

  ‘Yes, matron, everything’s ticketyboo.’

  She placed her pink boots up on the bench beside me and her skirt slipped over her thighs.

  ‘Everyone can see your knickers,’ I said and she sighed contentedly.

  ‘They’re new,’ she replied, and sipped her buck’s fizz.

  We were supposed to be looking for summer jobs, but Daddy had gone back to whatever it was he did for the EU in Brussels; Mummy was having an affair, and in the midst of these passions she didn’t mind what we did as long as we didn’t make any noise. Anyway, I deserved a break after the exams and raised my glass in a toast.

  ‘To Scotland.’

  We finished our drinks and I felt quite tipsy as I watched Binky skip between the cars back across the road to her pink Volkswagen. I had an interview for a job in a shoe shop and thought I’d let the fickle finger of fate decide on my future: if I got the job I would stay in London and, if I didn’t, I would go on an adventure with my little sister.

  I wandered off to the tube thinking about smelly feet. I was ten minutes late for the interview and was told by the woman who called herself Madame Dubarry that I was obviously ‘spoiled’ from having gone to boarding school and didn’t have the right ‘attitude’ to devote myself to the shoe trade.

  She was shaking her head and peering unpleasantly at my chest. ‘Selling shoes requires a certain discipline,’ she said. ‘You are clearly cut out for other, better things.’

  ‘I’m sure I am,’ I said sullenly and had a real spring in my step as I marched off to the map shop in Long Acre.

  During the coming days, I plotted the route, and Binky acquired a pair of pink flares to go with her Doc Martens. We set off the following weekend from Chelsea, up the motorway, and over the sea to Skye, which really was as beautiful as I’d imagined. We had a two-man tent and planned to camp, although I did have my doubts about Binky roughing it with her long nails and creamy white skin, much of which was on display in her Che Guevara T-shirt.

  I had dressed appropriately in walking shoes and a heavy sweater. Binky had made fun of my get-up on the long drive, but it turned out that I had made the right choice. We had left London early to avoid the jams and crossed to Skye just before six. It had been warm and sunny all day, but Scotland, we discovered, had its own way of doing things.

  We were driving west between high stone walls, the narrow lanes curvy and deserted. The sky grew darker and when the clouds ripped apart in a flash of lightning, we screamed as great hailstones the size of tennis balls started beating on the windscreen. The car misted up. The wipers were slowing and, when the engine conked out, the wipers froze solid and we couldn’t see a thing.

  We sat there for an hour. Binky wriggled into her sleeping bag and we watched the hail turning gradually to rain. The storm was passing, but when my sister went to start the car, it was dead. We got out and peered at the engine, the jumble of wires and rubber tubes sitting there all wet and cold, a complete and absolute mystery.

  ‘Typical!’ I said.

  ‘What is?’

  ‘African violet trim,’ I mocked. ‘Where did you get this car from, anyway?’

  ‘You know perfectly well where I got it from.’

  ‘How much did you pay for it?’

  ‘I exchanged it . . .’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘I’m not telling you.’

  She didn’t need to tell me. Her cheeks were as red as her T-shirt. Binky really had grown up, and you didn’t have to be a nuclear scientist to know why.

  ‘I knew this would happen,’ I said.

  ‘How did you?’ she demanded.

  ‘Because something like this always happens.’

  ‘I thought you wanted to have some fun.’

  ‘This wasn’t what I had in mind when we left.’

  ‘I did,’ she said, and looked back at me with a scornful expression. ‘You’re such a virgin, Milly.’

  I took a deep breath. She had made her point. It was only a breakdown, after all. We had set out in search of adventure, and this was where it all began.

  Binky slammed the lid shut and tried the car once more. Nothing. She slipped her arms into her Afghan coat and pulled her big woolly hat over her eyes.

  ‘Are you ready?’

  ‘For anything,’ I said, and she smiled.

  We glanced back along the lane, but couldn’t remember having passed any houses for ages and it was too boring to retrace our steps. I zipped myself into my sensible parka and we set out in the direction we’d been going. We had our mobile phones but weren’t sure who to call.

  Further along the lane, we saw a building in the middle of a field. It had started to rain again and we were afraid the storm was returning. ‘Come on,’ Binky said, and she was already climbing the wall. I did have a faint hope that it was a farmhouse where an old lady with her hair rolled into a bun would be busy making scones, but it turned out to be a stone barn, the doors securely bolted. The sky had darkened and the rain was getting heavier. We walked around the outside of the building, but the windows were small and too high to reach.

  ‘What are we going to do?’ I said, as Binky vanished around the corner.

  She came back carrying an enormous rock and loomed over the new padlock.

  ‘Don’t,’ I screamed.

  But it was too late. She brought it down cleanly on the hasp and as the silver lock sprang open she turned to me with a look of wonder in her green eyes. We were standing close and Binky did something totally unexpected: she leaned forward and pressed her lips playfully to mine. It wasn’t a snog, just a peck, but she had never done anything like that before. Her lips were soft but firm and left a sweet taste that lingered on my senses.

  ‘That’s disgusting,’ I said.

  ‘Liar,’ she shot back.

  I pulled the door open and we shared the thrill of entering the unknown. The barn was dry with bales of hay stored in steps around the walls. Binky in one swift movement sprinted the length of the barn, vaulted a pile of bales stacked three high and landed perfectly, feet together. Binky was a good gymnast and had never quite seen the point of team games like hockey and lacrosse where the praise was shared. I clapped my hands and, as Binky caught her breath, we stood there in silence, not quite sure what to do. The slate-grey sky was lit by golden streaks of lightning and the sound of the rain running off the roof reminded me that I had not been to the bathroom since the motorway services.

  ‘I’m dying to use the loo,’ I said.

  ‘Me too.’

  Binky grinned. She was turning the breakdown into an escapade, and that old sense of fun came back to me as we squatted down on our private bales of hay.

  I peed for ages.

  ‘Wow, I needed that,’ I gasped.

  ‘So I see,’ she screamed, and it was totally embarrassing because she was standing there staring at me as I was still peeing. ‘Look at t
he steam. Or is that Scotch mist?’

  She spoke with a Scottish accent, and while we erupted in fits of giggles, the shock of a flashlight shining on me before I could pull up my jeans came as such a surprise I tripped and fell back in the hay. Binky laughed as she wriggled into her flares and we turned, blinded by the light.

  ‘What have we here then, some vagrants?’

  It was a man’s voice, the tone stern but melodic, his rrrs rolling poetically. The torchlight ran over us like eager hands.

  ‘We’re lost,’ Binky said in her little girl voice. ‘Our car broke down . . .’

  ‘You’re trespassing on private property.’

  Binky dropped her head to one side. ‘Can you help us?’ she pleaded.

  ‘Just the two of you, are there?’ the man asked, the flashlight probing the corners of the barn. ‘No other vagrants hiding in the hay?’

  ‘No, just us.’

  He shined the light on me. ‘You’re the quiet one, are you, the dark horse?’

  ‘No . . .’

  ‘Well, now, we’d better see what the Laird has to say. He knows how to deal with young girls.’

  ‘We haven’t done anything,’ I said.

  ‘Aye,’ he replied as he led us out and closed the barn doors.

  He pocketed the broken lock. We climbed into the muddy Land Rover parked outside, and I thought at least we were going somewhere safe and warm. We sat in the back holding hands. The man was whistling to himself, and drove for ages over dark fields that looked like the sea at night, on and on, and it was a relief when a big manor house came into view in a dip between the hills. There was a warm light behind the ground-floor windows and I squeezed Binky’s fingers to show her I was enjoying myself.

  The man opened the car. He urged us up the steps and we passed through the high arched doors into a wood-panelled hallway. He hung his waterproofs on the stand, and I noticed now that he was wearing a kilt, the pleats swaying hypnotically above sturdy calves as we followed him along the passage below the glassy eyes of numerous stags’ heads. He stopped at a closed door and rapped with his knuckles.

  ‘You can wait here,’ he said.

  He went in and we looked at each other. Binky grinned and, as she raised her thin shoulders, I knew she was busy inventing some excuse for breaking into the barn.

  When the man opened the door, we entered a baronial hall dominated by a big log fire roaring between pillars of marble. There were various pieces of dark, heavy furniture: chests, a sideboard, a black piano. The extended dining table was framed by tall windows, and wood smoke clung in the defiles between the beams on the ceiling. Crossed swords and old blunderbusses decorated the walls among portraits of stern men with red beards and dour women who gazed out with severe unforgiving expressions. Above the fire was a life-sized painting of a beautiful woman with dark hair and dark unfathomable eyes.

  Like the men in the portraits, the man in the winged armchair at the fireside was red-bearded, his hands dwarfing the leather-bound book he was holding. He showed no interest in us as we stood before him. He finished reading to the end of the page before closing the volume. He stretched out his long legs, his feet crossed at the ankles. He was dressed in the classical Scottish way with a short black jacket, a dark plaid kilt and a ruffled shirt. His laced shoes nestled in the fleece surrounding the hearth and the sporran resting in his lap was the size of a small dog.

  ‘Are you related by any chance to the Laird Hamish of the Black Watch?’ He spoke quietly and seemed genuinely puzzled.

  We shook our heads, and he raised his voice.

  ‘I didnae hear you. Are you deaf?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I didnae think so. I’m the Laird Hamish of the Black Watch and I didnae believe you had naught to do with me.’

  ‘We were just . . .’

  Binky started speaking, cooing in her little voice, but he cut her off, holding up a huge hand the size of a dinner plate. ‘Can you kindly speak when you’re spoken to,’ he said, and turned to the other man. ‘Byron, did you get those logs in like I asked you?’

  ‘You know I didnae, Milord.’

  ‘Then what are you waiting for, mon? There’s no time like the present.’

  Byron nodded meaningfully in our direction. The Laird opened his book and we scurried towards the door.

  ‘And one more thing,’ he called, ‘will you have Mrs McTavish find that mobile phone. Damn thing’s got a mind of its own.’

  We were led through to the back of the house and set to work carrying logs from the pile at the end of the yard into the shed attached to the kitchen. It wasn’t at all polite to be treated in this way. In fact, it was very rude indeed and should have warned me what to expect. It did go through my mind that we should make our way back to the road, but it was a blustery night and we were miles from anywhere.

  We caught a glimpse of Mrs McTavish fussing about the big iron range and the smell of the food rising from the pots made my tummy rumble. We’d had a sandwich at lunchtime and I was famished.

  ‘Do you think he’s going to invite us to dinner?’ I whispered, and Binky was as confident as ever.

  ‘Course he is. He’s just making us do a bit of work first,’ she replied. She hefted up a big pile of logs. ‘Builds up the appetite.’

  ‘We mustn’t antagonise him, though,’ I said, but she was wandering up the path, and if she heard she didn’t answer.

  When the job was done, we trooped back to the hall. The fire had been built up and Mrs McTavish was setting three places at the long table.

  ‘What shall we do with these two young criminals, Mrs McTavish?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I said what shall we do with these two?’

  ‘There’s nae need to shout,’ the woman said angrily.

  ‘If I didnae shout you wouldnae hear. You’re as deaf as a post, woman.’

  ‘I know what you said, mon, and you know what I think: girls who are disobedient need discipline.’

  ‘That’s what my father taught me, Mrs McTavish.’

  ‘Aye,’ she said darkly, ‘and me an’ all.’

  Her words hung in the air and the Laird nodded, considering the remark. ‘Thank you and bless you, Mrs McTavish,’ he then said, and held up a mobile phone that looked about the size of a postage stamp between his enormous fingers.

  When she left, Byron returned, closing the door. The Laird was warming his backside. Byron was tall, at least six foot, but the Laird must have been several inches taller. He continued to look at us while he spoke to his servant. ‘What’s wrong with you, mon, don’t we have a place to hang coats in this hoose?’

  ‘Aye, that we do.’

  Byron approached as we removed our coats. He glanced at Binky’s hat, she pulled it off, and he hurried out with everything in his arms.

  ‘I suppose you expect Mrs McTavish to clean up after you, do you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then take off your shoes and put them by the fire.’

  I did so, standing on one leg. Binky was wearing her pink boots; she sat on the floor to pull them off, the Laird watching as if she were performing a trick. We put our footwear and damp socks by the fire where we’d been told and stood with our backs straight like naughty schoolgirls.

  ‘Now, yoo, blondie, what’s your name?’ asked the Laird.

  ‘Roberta,’ said Binky formally.

  ‘So, Roberta, what’s this?’ he asked, producing the broken padlock from his sporran.

  ‘It was an accident.’

  ‘You destroy my property and call it an accident.’ He glanced at Byron, back now at his position by the door. ‘You hear what they’re telling me. It’s my fault for having a locked barn.’

  ‘That’s the English, Milord.’

  The big man stood back as if he’d been struck. ‘So, you’re from England, now are you?’ He was concentrating on Binky, terrorising her.

  ‘From London,’ she said in a whisper.r />
  ‘Look, we haven’t done anything,’ I said firmly, and he cut me off.

  ‘Yoo, lassie, you speak when you’re spoken to.’

  A shiver ran through me as he focused once more on my sister. ‘I went there once and I didnae like it. Everyone tearing aboot.’ He stared down at her flares. ‘You call those bell-bottoms, I suppose.’

  She nodded.

  ‘Can you see what they’re doing to my polished floor?’

  She looked down. ‘Dripping a bit,’ she answered.

  ‘Shall I call Mrs McTavish to come and clean up after you?’

  She shook her head and swallowed. ‘No, of course not . . .’

  ‘Then take them off, lassie, and hang them here where they can dry.’

  She stood there for a long time, eyes down, afraid to look at the Laird with his sharp eyes on her.

  ‘It must be that terrible traffic doon there in London that’s made you deaf,’ he roared, and Binky glanced at me, trembling as her hands went instinctively to the low-slung waist of her flares. She released the belt, unpopped the buttons, and wriggled her bottom as she pulled them down, sliding one at a time out of the legs and hanging the flares by the fire.

  The Laird spent like an hour studying her long white legs and then pointed to a straight-backed dining chair. ‘Sit,’ he said, and she did so.

  He turned his concentration to me. ‘I suppose it was your idea to climb my walls and trespass on my property. Did you break the lock on my barn?’

  ‘No. Yes. I mean . . .’

  ‘You’re not even sure. You gained entrance to my wee barn and what do you do, you soil the hay with your piddle.’ I hung my head. ‘Now, lassie, what would you do aboot this criminal behaviour on our wee island if you were in my shoes?’

  I looked down at his shoes. They were huge; he had the biggest feet I had ever seen. His kilt was the same colour as the flames climbing up the chimney, fiery red with maroon stripes running across vertical lines the same shade of African violet as the trim on the car. I could smell the heady scent of pine and wood smoke. Steam was rising from Binky’s flares. I looked up with a hopeless shrug.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I finally managed.