CHAPTER VII

AN EXPLANATION?

With George gone Titty did not wait any longer.

"Nancy, where have you been, why didn't you or Daisy contact any of us? Peggy is worried, very worried, we all are! We got in touch with Mac and he said you had left months ago but he didn't know where to, no forwarding address or anything." Nancy looked slightly shamefaced.

"We're sorry if we've worried you." Dick was bemused to hear Nancy talk as part of a couple, but then he thought about himself and Titty, and what was to be said about that. "When we left Scotland we kept it discrete on purpose." Titty could not contain herself.

"Why, we've been worried!" Nancy continued.

"People were getting difficult. When we first went there being two women without men was bad enough, but they soon realised we were serious and willing to work hard. It took a few years to get accepted, then some people cottoned on that we were more than just two women sharing a croft without men and things got a bit difficult, nasty too sometimes." Titty must have looked shocked so Nancy elaborated. "The third spring they wrecked our garden just after planting, and then one summer they damned the beck from the loch to our land, stupid little things like that, and there was always one or two people in the nearby village who would ignore us." Titty could see from Daisy's face that she was not happy with this talk, and so she attempted to move the conversation on to more cheerful matters.

"So how did you get this cottage? What happened to the Witch?" Daisy smiled and Nancy took her hand in hers.

Nancy continued the story.

"Well, we'd been at the croft about fifteen years, and things were going quite well but then hippies and suchlike started to turn up, they were a nuisance, they never seemed to realise that just because we 'lived off the land' didn't mean we didn't pay rent and so on. Every year there was more and more of them, the peace and quiet we wanted disappeared so we decided to look for something else." Titty was now impatient.

"But how did you end up here?" Nancy continued while Daisy made more tea and served them all another slice of cake.

"Unbeknown even to Daisy the Witch as we called her was a distant relative of Daisy's. She died a few years ago and left Daisy the cottage, well she left it to her eldest female relative most closely related to her, and that turned out to be Daisy. It came along just at the right time. We could escape from Scotland and start again, but we decided that having got a property on private land we would have to be more discrete to hang on to our privacy, we'd had enough of native trouble."

"But Nancy, we're not natives, you could have told one of us at least!" Titty was almost angry with her.

"I know, I know, we're sorry, but we wanted to get established here, get accepted as two women before shocking them all with the rest. Daisy's still got family up near Pin Mill and they have never accepted what she is or will meet me, so we have learnt to be quiet and just get on with life." Daisy nodded and took over.

"My brothers don't even know we're here, not even that I inherited the cottage, none of us went to the funeral, nobody realised we were related. Don knew her but hadn't seen her for years, I wrote to him when I was told and he didn't know anything, who she was or anything. There was a trust fund as well, and the income from that should keep us ticking over each year."

Titty was still annoyed that Nancy had not contacted any of them.

"I do understand, I remember what you told me after the war, but it's us, why didn't you write or anything!" Dick was unsure what to say, he could understand why they kept quiet; his own experience during the war made him all too aware of when you say things and when you don't. But it did seem strange given how close they all had been over the years. Nancy sat back in her chair.

"I'm sorry, it must be hard to understand. Haven't you ever had something you can't say anything to anyone about?" Titty and Dick glanced at each other, both knew what each was thinking. "People just don't understand." There was a tone of despair in her voice that didn't go unnoticed by any of them, Titty felt guilty.

Daisy once again thought it best to change the subject.

"So did you come down here today? And why here?" Dick answered realising that she wanted to move away from why the two of them had chosen not to say where they were and why.

"We knew Daisy that you were from around here somewhere so it seemed a good place to start, so we came down by train yesterday." Nancy interrupted.

"Where did you stay last night?"

"The Albion, we're booked in there for tonight too." Neither he nor Titty elaborated that they had shared a room. Daisy thought for a moment.

"I don't know about these days but there was a time when it was one of the best in the Town. Do you have plans for tonight?"

"Not really, we hired a dinghy which we have to get back tomorrow, we moored at the Wade as we did hope to sail here, or at least Titty did but the tide beat us." Daisy seemed impressed.

"You did quite well given the tides. Look, why don't you eat with us tonight and Nancy can take you to the Albion in the Land Rover." She didn't wait for an answer, as always in the way of their friendships such suggestions were taken as accepted. Titty had been thinking.

"Do you have a boat? Something like Amazon?" Nancy looked wistful.

"Just a rowing boat so it doesn't compare, Amazon is still at Beckfoot, I think John and Peggy use her sometimes." Despite her best efforts Titty couldn't leave the subject of why they had shut themselves off from everyone alone. Before she could begin questioning Nancy again, she somehow assumed it was Nancy who had engineered the situation as it always seemed to be, she was thwarted.

Daisy interrupted them all as she got up from the table.

"Well I need to go in to the Town for some more food if we're all going to eat tonight, I still can't rely on Nancy for that, Dick do you want to come with me?" Dick actually didn't, but he realised that there were things that Titty and Nancy needed to clear between them, and his and Daisy's presence would not help matters.

"Of course, good idea." Daisy gave Nancy a kiss goodbye, which made Dick realise how Nancy had changed, and how much he wanted to do the same to Titty, but knew it would be so out of character, or at least the character they knew of him, it would be better not to.