A sudden gust of wind lifted Professor Cousins off his feet so that I had to reach out and grab his arm to stop him being blown away. That was when I felt the eyes on my back (‘Surely not?’ Professor Cousins said, looking alarmed). My watcher had returned, it seemed. She was standing amongst the old graves of the cemetery, up on the hill, solemnly watching the funeral, like an outcast mourner or an unnoticed ghost. She was partially obscured by the umbrella she was holding but the red coat flared like a signal. This, surely, must be the person whom I felt dogging my footsteps at every turn – or did her life take her to the same unlikely places as mine did? Or perhaps I was being followed by two people – one I could see and one I couldn’t.
My attention was diverted when Mrs McCue threw a handful of claggy soil onto the coffin lid, where it hit with a thud that made Professor Cousins wince (Maisie executed the clawing gesture again for my benefit), and when I looked again the woman had gone.
‘Well, I dinnae ken about you,’ Mrs Macbeth said as everyone started turning their backs on Miss Anderson, ‘but I could do with a nice cuppie.’ Mrs McCue rested on the ground a raffia shopping-basket that she was carrying. On the side of it the words ‘A Present From Majorca’ were worked in different-coloured raffia. It looked as though it weighed a ton and seemed to quiver every so often. An off-white ear poked out of one corner.
‘Janet,’ Mrs Macbeth whispered, ‘aff her legs again.’
‘ Achtung ,’ Mrs McCue whispered as a tall, slim woman approached, ‘ mein Führer ’s here.’
Mrs Macbeth parked her Zimmer in front of the shopping-bag while Mrs McCue translated for me. ‘The matron – Mrs Dalzell.’
Mrs Dalzell had an encouraging, Mary Poppins kind of demeanour and indeed she had the same hairstyle as Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music (or indeed most of her films) and was progressing rather regally around the graveside, checking on everyone’s happiness or lack of it and inviting the relatives back to The Anchorage for ‘a small tea’.
Unnoticed by Mrs Dalzell, Janet had escaped her shopping-basket and was now making a beeline for Miss Anderson. Mrs Dalzell’s Mary Poppins smile slipped slightly when she saw the dog. ‘Whose dog is that?’ she barked, looking round enquiringly at her charges. Janet had begun to dig furiously at the side of the grave, trying to cover the coffin with earth. ‘It’s your dog, isn’t it?’ Mrs Dalzell said accusingly to Mrs Macbeth. ‘It’s Janet, isn’t it?’ She frowned. ‘Have you been hiding her somewhere?’
Maisie ran forward and scooped up the muddy, bedraggled body of the gravedigging dog and said, ‘She’s my dog now. Mrs Macbeth gave her to me.’ Maisie pouted in a way that wasn’t very fetching and did her impression of a little girl, whereas in reality, as we all knew, she was a seventy-year-old woman trapped in the helpless body of a small child.
Mrs Dalzell didn’t look entirely convinced but she started to rally her flock and direct them towards the gates and the waiting minibus.
‘First stop Spandau,’ Mrs McCue said loudly as Mrs Dalzell snapped at her heels.
I followed them out of the cemetery, while Maisie pirouetted down the path. We were just in time to see Professor Cousins being herded onto the minibus. I shouted to him but he didn’t hear and it was Chick who hooked him by his thin elbow and steered him away.
‘If he goes in that place he’ll probably never get out again,’ he said to no-one in particular. Some bizarre sleight-of-hand then proceeded to take place whereby Janet was stuffed back in the shopping-basket and furtively returned to her rightful owner – Mrs McCue and Mrs Macbeth behaving throughout like rather poor amateur actors trying to recreate a Bond movie.
Chick looked at Maisie playing chalkless hopscotch in the rain. ‘I suppose you want taking home,’ he said gruffly to her, ‘whoever you are.’
‘Her name’s Lucy Lake,’ Professor Cousins said helpfully.
We got in the car and set off on the usual narrative detour – betting shops, off-licences, et cetera, even a rather lengthy sojourn for Professor Cousins and Chick in The Galleon Bar of the Tay Centre Hotel which Maisie and I preferred to sit out in the car, playing ‘Switch’ with Chick’s tasteless playing-cards.
Our route to Windsor Place took us past the university, now a hotbed of activity, people coming and going with a restless energy not hitherto witnessed on those premises. A crowd of people had gathered outside the Tower, from the fourth-floor balcony of which a bed sheet had been hung on which, in red paint that looked like blood (but presumably wasn’t), someone had written the words THE TIGERS OF WRATH ARE WISER THAN THE HORSES OF DESTRUCTION.