Deep Beneath Us by Catriona McPherson

Author:Catriona McPherson [McPherson, Catriona]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Severn House
Published: 2024-02-14T00:00:00+00:00

SEVENTEEN

Tabitha

Because of course, I’m not just an owner of property. The tenant farms and commercial plantings mean that I’m a landlord. I must have been mad to think I could off-load Hawes, bring my deeds back to the house and deal with it all on my own. I’m on the phone to him ten times that first week as the letters start arriving: from Scottish Water, from SEPA, from DEFRA, from some other bunch I’ve never heard of and can’t find by googling. I take photos of everything and text it down to Hawes, Beattie and Thom. Then Tim Hawes, so he tells me, sends out letters saying Mr Muir’s estate is in probate and nothing’s going to happen till it clears. I told the farmer, Lorna, as much, over tea in the kitchen that day, as she looked around the rest of them and tried to sort us all into a shape that made sense to her. ‘Crack on as usual,’ I said. ‘Let’s wait for probate to go through and then we’ll see where we are. I’m not for making waves.’

Emptying the house is a nice human-scale distraction from all of that and Barrett’s been as good as his word, hauling off trailer-load after trailer-load to the tip for me, while Gordo takes care of catering. Or, if he can’t justify parking the van at Hiskith for the day, he sends up supplies with Barrett in the morning: thick soup, trays of brownies so rich I cut them as if they’re fudge, coffee in insulated cups with woolly jackets on top, so I still have to blow on the foam when Barrett hands one over the garden wall to me. I have got a kettle I text to Gordo one Thursday, embarrassed at so much giving, despairing about ever paying it back.

A mouse died in that kettle once, he texts back. I never know whether he’s joking, but I soak it with bicarbonate of soda before I make Barrett’s tea. It would be easier to brush it off as a wind-up if it wasn’t for the stuff we do find, day by day, as we chisel down into Davey’s hoard. Of course mice have nested in it, shredding paper and cardboard into cities of linked nests. Moths have been in the clothes, long gone now but leaving coloured dust behind them as well as the casings of their grub babies, dried out like the husks of a crop. I take to wearing a mask and gloves as I ferry it all out to the trailer. Willow and Sorrel have walked away from the cleaning completely, preferring to keep on at the ‘clues’, although today they’re out on the hill with Uggy and I’ve let Albie join them, mostly because he didn’t ask; just pleaded silently with his eyes the same way he used to plead for sweeties from his seat in the supermarket trolley.

I’ve completely given up thinking about clues for myself, trying to get the place cleared before the funeral.

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