To the Highlands
Basil’s relief shows on his face when you hop out onto the doorstep before he knocks. You were watching for him from the morning room window with a sausage roll in one hand and a coffee in the other.
“So, where’s your stuff?” Basil asks.
You frown deeply and pointedly at him.
“That’s right. That’s right. It was late last night, cut me a break.” Instead, you hand him your coffee as you walk in the direction of Princes Street. “Is that smell you?” he asks.
You realize that, being an archeologist, his social skills may be primeval. You frown at him again.
“I mean, what is that unusual bouquet?” he amends.
“It’s called ‘Eau de Traveled-Overnight-and-Then-was-Robbed-of-Everything-and-Kidnapped-to-a-Dusty-Museum-Where-I-Was-Made-to-Draw-Noses-All-Night’. Kicky, isn’t it?”
“Tangy,” he agrees.
Princes Street is already a hornet’s nest of shoppers. Although you are a rabid antiquer, clothes shopping is something you’re always had to be in the mood for. And you’re not. Happily, Basil keeps pulling things off the rack and saying ‘What about this?’ Amazingly, he’s choosing some really lovely things. Skirts and dresses. You aren’t someone who typically wears skirts or dresses, but the lovely, Liberty prints are dancing with the promise of spring. Without consulting you, he adds a pair of Etruscan-looking hoops at the counter.
“Your thingies have holes, don’t they?” he asks, peering at your ears, and exhibiting an utter lack of women-talk. “Shoes! You need shoes! You can’t wear those sandals all the time; we may find ourselves in some murky places.”
You inform him that, while you’ve lost all your clothes, you do have your purse and your credit cards, but he won’t hear of it-- he is so absolutely sure that you’ll both be rolling in Lady Rackrent’s money soon.
“Basil!” you have to shout, to shoo him away from the hats. “I need some other things, if you know what I mean.”
His mouth drops open into an ‘O’, and he drags you next door, into a lingerie shop. He discreetly sinks onto a brocade sette and flaps open the newspaper. When you emerge from the dressing room, he springs up to the counter to pay.
“Anything else?” he asks, seemingly enjoying the novelty.
“No, nothing.”
“Nothing?” he asks. “Are you sure? What about a shower cap?”
“No.”
“Curlers?”
“What year do you think this is?”
“Perfume?”
You make a mean face.
He shrugs and unzips the suitcase he’s bought you. Carefully, as though he’s working through a Byzantine crypt, he arranges all your bags inside. Your train for Bantry Bay is already on the platform at Waverly Station. The conductor’s giving his last warning whistle and the porters are slamming the doors. Basil hurls your suitcases aboard. He physically lifts you onto the train as it begins to move. As a result of his gallantry, he has to run and hop onto the train like James Bond in order to catch up with it. You’re a nervous wreck for a moment, until he arrives in your cabin with a travertine godlike bound, and pulls the swinging door shut behind him.
“I’m too old for that, I fancy,” head admits, mopping his forehead with a handkerchief. Basil produces two first-class tickets (his and Margaret’s) when the porter appears. Soon after, the catering cart comes clattering up the aisle and Basil buys eight bottles of wine, six bacon sandwiches, two salads, and four bags of chips.
“Oh! And two Battenberg’s,” he adds. Then turning to you, “Do you think this will tide us over for a couple of hours?”
You roll your eyes. “I think this is enough to give us indigestion for a couple of weeks.”
He tears the plastic off his sandwich like a jackal approaches a rabbit carcass. “Which one?” he asks, holding out on unread Agatha Christie and a catalog from the British Museum.
You snatch the Agatha Christie. It’s the one about Miss Marple and the murder on the train. You’ve read it ten times at least, but eleven is your lucky number. Without any warning, Basil falls asleep; his heavy head finds the space between the seatback and the window. After a few spasmodic twitches and the repetition of a word that sounds like ‘crumpet’ he is in a very deep sleep.
You’re exhausted, and you should fall asleep too, but the thrill of the adventure has you ridiculously keyed up. How can the sight of grazing sheep and horses wearing plaid blankets be so thrilling? Everytime you spot a castle high up on a hilltop, you have to wake Basil and show him. To his credit, he appears to be excited, every time. When you hit a very long tunnel and the view is nothing but the reflection of your tired-looking face in the black window, you reach for the sketchbook sticking out of Basil’s open valise. You slip it out gingerly, and flip backward; admiring the paintings he’s made. You find a series of small landscapes: a garden in the rain hemmed in by a rustic fence…grey water lapping a rocky shore with wooden boats gently knocking each other…a village church at dawn atop a steep, crooked street… the exterior of the Sleeping Bee… the statue of the mounted rider holding his flag, opposite the Sleeping Bee. He must have done those on his way to get you that morning.
‘Did he really do all these?’ you mumble aloud, flipping through a series of vignettes. ‘St. Mary’s in Rye’, you say, recognizing the bell tower. He’s used every color in the paintbox to capture the swirls on a tearoom carpet, and a thousand shades of brick red to paint rectories and farmhouses. He seems to have invented a crimson that is reserved for rowboats and smoking jackets. And the walnut brown he used for the rat terrier! You are stunned. You close the sketchbook quietly and return to gazing dreamily out the window.
The train wheezes to a stop at Bantry Bay and you shake Basil. The moment you alight from the train, and glance around at the lush, green hills—rugged and jagged and lovely. A lifeless-looking man who resembles a zombie in tails is standing with a sign that says ‘Castle Rackrent’.
“Here’s our monster,” Basil jokes, “Going to take us to Castle Nightmare.”
He’s laughing but you’re suddenly having abdominal cramps. You manage to smile as Basil hands the zombie your suitcases.
Basil has made the choice for you…like it or not, you’re bound for Castle Rackrent. Your next decision will come tomorrow.
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