‘Would you like to see the house that William lived in, after he came back from Ireland?’
It wasn’t my branch of the family tree, but Ross seemed so pleased to have me there for company that I said yes, of course I would, and so we drove the short way down into Kirkcudbright.
It was one of the prettiest places I’d been to, its houses built shoulder to shoulder and painted soft yellow and grey, pink and blue—some whitewashed, some left plain of red stone or of dark stone, with their neatly painted window frames and tidy iron railings and the chimneys with their little rows of chimney pots.
The High Street was unusual in that it was an L-shape and, though I could see a few shops and commercial establishments, it seemed to otherwise be almost all residential.
‘Aye, it’s always been like that,’ said Ross. He drove us past the ancient Tollbooth with its pointed high roof tower, round the corner where the narrow street grew narrower from all the cars parked end to end along it, and he found a space to park his car among them, and we both got out.
The house in question was a stone-built, square-walled building huddled close against its neighbors, with a bright green-painted door and windows that were open to the warming air of spring.
Ross looked it over. ‘Now, I can’t be certain, mind you, but from letters that I’ve found describing where his house was situated, this is where I think he lived. A shame you didn’t come here last year, I’d have taken you inside—it was a bed and breakfast then. But it’s been bought up by a lad from Glasgow. Artist. Lots of artists live here now.’
I stopped. A breeze blew past, and something stirred. Enough to make me take my camera out, and snap off a few pictures of the street, the door, the windows…that far window, in particular. I said, to Ross, ‘I’m guessing David McClelland was here, too, at one time.’
‘Aye, it’s possible.’
It was a little more than that, I thought. And it was one of my regrets that, in the moment before Ross resumed our tour, I didn’t just step up and knock at that green door and ask the artist lad from Glasgow for a tour of his front rooms, and of the room in the far corner where the window seemed to watch me like a gently knowing eye.
I was restless that night.
I had wanted to treat Ross to supper, to thank him for taking me round, but he’d cheerfully waved off my offer. ‘No, no, there’s no need for that. The wife’s sister will be watching the door as it is, I’ve been gone so long. But,’ he’d said, ‘it was a pleasure, my dear, to have met you.’
Our handshake had easily turned to a hug.
‘Oh,’ he’d said, drawing back so he could search his coat pockets, ‘I nearly forgot. I was meaning to give you a catalogue.’
‘Catalogue?’
‘Aye, for the auction. I’ve sent one last week to your father, but I thought you might like to have one yourself. It’s the New York McClellands,’ he’d said. ‘Tom and Clare.’
‘Oh, yes.’ Tom was my Dad’s distant cousin, and traced his line back, as did we, to Sophia and David. Somehow or other his side of the family had managed to gain possession of most of the family’s historical keepsakes—our family Bible being the only notable exception—and Tom and his wife had a habit of blithely disposing of things to help fund their extravagant lifestyle, which left my dad fuming since often we didn’t find out until after the sale.
I’d looked at the catalogue cover to see what the date of the auction was—next Friday—and Ross had said, ‘Oh aye, I got that away in the post to your father as soon as I opened the envelope. Tom’s done this so many times now I’ve had to get one step ahead of him, so I set up an arrangement,’ he’d said, ‘with the auction house. Any time they take in something to do with McClellands, they send me their catalogues.’
‘Clever.’ I’d smiled. ‘I’m surprised Tom and Clare still have things left to sell. I’d have thought they’d cleared everything out by now.’
‘Oh, there’s not much this time. Only a table or two and some jewelry. But still, I thought you and your father would like to at least see the pictures.’
I’d thanked him, and tucked it away in my bag.
After supper, I’d gone for a walk and had sat for an hour on a bench at the back of the Greyfriars Church by the harbor. It wasn’t the kind of a harbor I’d thought it would be, after all that I’d read in the history books. Centuries ago the great Scottish patriot William Wallace had supposedly sailed from here after his failure at Falkirk, fleeing to the safety of the continent, and his arch-nemesis, the English King Edward I, had once landed his fleet of some sixty-odd ships in Kirkcudbright, so in my own mind I had pictured a harbor like those of the towns on the coast, but this hadn’t been like that. There had been little more than the river itself, with a wall at its edge where the boats could be moored. And at low tide those boats would be sitting on mudbanks, and anything larger would have to wait out in the river’s deep middle, at anchor.