Mother took her pills from the large snakeskin handbag and popped one into her mouth. As she was screwing the lid back on, the bottle slipped out of her hands, and little white disks fell onto the floor, bouncing and rolling in all directions.
“Oh, oh!” she wailed. “Now, that’s your fault for rushing me.”
Then, to Marion’s disbelief, Mother got down on her knees and began searching for the pills that had gone just about everywhere one could imagine.
“Don’t just stand there like a slab of lard, help me.”
“But they’ve been on the floor!”
“What else am I supposed to do? We’re hundreds of miles from home, it’s not as if I can call Dr. Dunkerly and have him send over another prescription.”
Mother’s need for the medication must be pretty bad, Marion realized, if she could override her extreme fussiness to scramble around on a toilet floor picking them up; so she got down on her knees and began collecting pills in her cupped hand, hoping no one would come in and witness what they were doing.
“Make sure you get every single one,” urged Mother.
“Oughtn’t we rinse them under the tap?”
“No, no you can’t do that, they’ll dissolve just like little lumps of sugar.”
After they had retrieved as many as they possibly could, Marion and Mother returned to the restaurant car park, where John and Dad were waiting in the Bentley. They had been driving half an hour or so when John spoke:
“Can we stop to get something to eat? I’m starving.”
“But, John, you hardly ate a mouthful of your steak pie at the Little Chef,” said Mother.
“I told you, it tasted funny.”
Mother, sitting next to Marion because John got carsick in the back, tapped her husband on the shoulder. “Should we stop somewhere, Philip? Acid on his stomach could cause an ulcer.”
“Nowhere for mile and miles,” Dad answered resolutely. “He’ll have to wait until we get to the hotel.”
“If you’re desperate, I have half a banana sandwich.” Mother took a limp cellophane package from her handbag and reached over from the backseat to hand it to John. He grabbed hold of the snack, ripped off the cellophane, took a sniff, then threw it back so it bounced off Mother’s cameo broach and landed in her lap.
“I’m not eating that shit, you stupid cunt.”
After shooting a furious glare at John, Dad did something violent with the gears of the Bentley that made the engine howl in pain. As they sped forwards the car filled with earsplitting silence as in the aftermath of an explosion. Marion saw Mother reach into her handbag for her medication, then place two white disks on her narrow, slightly furred tongue. Marion’s lip curled back when she remembered picking pills up from close to the porcelain base of a public toilet, blowing on them to remove fluff and grit.
The rest of the journey went by in deepwater slowness. Mother gazing blankly out at the heather, the sandwich growing stale in her lap; Marion chewing Bettina’s ears for comfort and staring so hard at a single spot on the back of the car’s passenger seat, she wondered it didn’t singe the upholstery.
It wasn’t until almost 8 p.m. that they rolled up along the gravel driveway of the Brigadoon Hotel: a daunting stone building with a single turret overlooking Loch Lomond. The interior of the hotel was filled with tartan and taxidermy; a stuffed stag’s head with great twisted antlers stared out from above the reception, while the sweetly startled faces of deer lined the wood-paneled hall and sweeping oak staircase.
Mr. Galloway, the owner of the hotel, greeted them. He was dressed in kilt and blazer, his jolly smile propping up jaded, bloodshot eyes. Mother and Dad were shown to their usual room, the Balmoral Suite. Tam O’Shanter had been reserved for John and Marion.
As soon as they got to their room, John threw his case next to the bed and then went into the bathroom and slammed the door. After unpacking her suitcase, Marion wandered around examining the various stuffed birds and animals that decorated the room. A dusty mongoose was sprawled on the window ledge, a small white hare glanced nervously over its shoulder beneath a glass dome on the mantelpiece, and several stuffed birds stared down at her from the walls.
“Don’t you think now I’m almost thirteen and John is fifteen we should have our own rooms?” Marion had asked Mother a few weeks before the trip.
Mother seemed surprised by the suggestion. “But the two of you have always shared. I don’t see why this year should be any different.”
“But wouldn’t some people consider it weird?”
“What could possibly be weird about a brother and sister sharing a hotel room?” Mother inquired innocently.
Marion thought of the funky, spicy smell her brother had recently acquired and the habit he had of staring at her as if she’d just sprouted a second head, but she knew that if she tried to explain these things to Mother, she would be told she was being silly.
? ? ?
AT 9 P.M. they were the last guests eating dinner in the Walter Scott Room: brown soup, beef in gravy, ice cream in small metal dishes. Their parents chain-smoked from their own individual packets of cigarettes, Mother’s green and gold elegantly feminine, Dad’s red like the uniform of a royal guardsman. No one mentioned the incident in the car. It had become a feature of family life that such moments of brutal drama often slipped from everyone’s mind a few hours later, so that Marion was left wondering if she had imagined them altogether.
After the dinner they went to the bar. Marion had a little bottle of Britvic orange. Mother had a small sweet sherry and Dad drank whiskey. John insisted he wanted beer.
“Why not?” said Mr. Galloway, pouring himself a whiskey from the same glowing amber bottle he had served Dad. “The lad needs a few hairs putting on his chest.”
So John was given a half glass of milk stoat. After the first sip he licked away the foam mustache and gave a little sigh as if he were a workingman unwinding at the end of a long day.
Relaxed by the sherry, Mother got into conversation with Mrs. Galloway. Having presumably forgotten, if not forgiven, John’s earlier outburst, she began to brag about her son’s academic achievements. “John—John, what was the name of that thingummy—you know what I mean—the prize they gave you?” she asked, her voice slurring a little.
John gave an impatient huff.
“The Wilkinson Award for promise in scientific achievement.”
“Yes—the Wilson Award—”
“Wilkinson!” he snapped.
“Oops—silly old me. Wilkinson,” said Mother, shielding a guilty smile with one hand.
When Mrs. Galloway asked about Marion, she gave a shrug and said, “Marion is Marion,” as if that required no further explanation.
? ? ?