Northanger Abbey

Cat frowned. She’d never seen her brother dance willingly at parties, never mind master the intricacies of Scottish country dancing. She thought Bella’s assertion a wild statement of faith in someone she knew rather less well than she supposed. ‘I guess we’ll never know,’ she said. ‘Since he’s not here.’ She sighed. ‘Do you think Henry’s gone back home? Without saying?’

‘Even if he has gone home, I bet he’ll be back soon as.’ Bella turned and took Cat’s face in her hands, gently moving it this way and that to catch the light. ‘I mean, now he’s seen how pretty you are, he won’t be able to stay away. Didn’t you say he’s a lawyer too? Maybe he knows Jamie. Maybe he can persuade Jamie to take a weekend off and come to Edinburgh? How hard can that be?’

They emerged into the evening air, relieved to be out of the humidity of the palm house. They found Martha Thorpe and Susie Allen sitting on a tartan rug sipping white wine spritzers on a grassy bank. Mr Allen was nowhere to be seen, and the women were engaged in a form of parallel monologue. Martha talked about her children and Susie about her wardrobe. Neither seemed to notice that their twin tracks had no connection; they were content to be in conversation with someone who never tried to wrench the discussion away from their favoured subjects.

Cat and Bella sat on the top of the bank, arms round their knees, leaning companionably into one another, comparing notes about the events they were most looking forward to at the Book Festival and discovering with delicious pleasure that they were of one mind on most of their selected authors.

The only surprise for Cat was that she seemed to have read much more widely than her new friend. But she supposed when you grew as old as Bella, there were more calls on your time and fewer opportunities to spend the evening on a chaise longue with a book. Certainly the Thorpes seemed to watch a great deal more television than the Morlands, whose viewing was, of financial necessity, restricted to those channels that were available free of charge. Their options were further circumscribed by their parents’ conviction that all soaps and most dramas were absurd and therefore not worth the time they demanded. Cat found little hardship in this edict, since there was always something else she would rather be doing.

But that evening in the Botanics, she luxuriated in sharing an intense conversation about the novels she inhabited in her imagination. This was entirely a novelty for Cat, since she was the only member of her family who set any store by fiction. Their views baffled her; fiction seemed to Cat to be the highest form of the writer’s art, depending as it did on the resourceful application of creativity and the necessity of direct communication with the reader.

For historians and writers of narrative non-fiction, all the building blocks of their work were already in place. They had nothing more to do than gather them and construct a pretty edifice. Conversely, the writers of fiction began with nothing other than the contents of their heads and their understanding of the human condition. They must comprehend the deepest and strangest elements of emotion and behaviour and render them accessible to those who lacked their wit and skill.

Poets, it might be argued, also relied on their own emotional and intellectual resources. But Cat had serious doubts about poets. She firmly believed that while some could thrill and excite, too many failed the fundamental test of communicating with their readers. The more obscure their verses, the more praise they appeared to garner. Annie had attempted to convince her that T. S. Eliot was a writer of incomparable ability but Cat had rebelled on the second page of The Waste Land. ‘Honestly, Mum, how can you say someone’s a great writer if you’ve no hope of understanding their work unless you’ve got a stack of reference books next to you? It’s just showing off. If I behaved like that in front of other people, you’d totally tell me off when we got home. So why is it all right for T. S. Eliot to swagger about like a complete know-all and make the rest of us feel stupid?’

Not for the first time, Annie had struggled to find an answer to her eldest daughter’s candour. ‘It’s a challenge,’ she’d finally said. ‘It makes you think. It makes you look beyond your own narrow horizons.’

‘But reading the Twilight novels makes me think,’ Cat replied defiantly. ‘Just because you’re not interested in thinking about the same things doesn’t mean it’s worthless.’

It wasn’t solely her mother who dismissed the power of fiction within the Morland household. Richard naturally read the Bible, though rather less than his parishioners might have hoped. He read a great deal, having the excuse of a weekly sermon to sprinkle with erudition. Most of his reading consisted of philosophy and natural history, with occasional forays into biography. The Internet had also afforded him access to a bewildering array of blogs, which he dipped into like a man sampling an all-you-can-eat buffet. He claimed he approached his reading with a measure of scepticism. Cat was less certain about that; she thought sometimes the blogs more closely resembled the condition of fiction than her father was willing to admit.

Her brother James wasn’t much of a reader. He’d dutifully read the Harry Potter books, but that was the last fiction he’d embraced. In his early teens, he’d discovered the true crime genre. Since then, his reading for pleasure had consisted of exploring the warped lives of serial murderers and spree killers. It was a fascination that puzzled Cat. It couldn’t even be explained as preparation for life at the bar, for James had no intention of pursuing criminal law. He was destined for family law, something of his father’s social conscience having rubbed off on him. And yet, he remained fascinated by the perverted actions of a psychopathic few.

And so Cat was stranded on the shores of fiction alone, save for the occasional forays of her younger sisters, both of whom preferred to fiddle with Facebook or tattle-tale with Twitter than sit down with a book. Cat had briefly cherished hopes of Emma becoming a reader like her when her younger sister had picked up the first volume of the Hunger Games trilogy. But it soon became clear that her interest had only been pricked because she’d seen the film of the book at a friend’s house, and that she had no sincere love for the written word per se.

And that was why Cat revelled so thoroughly in the company of Bella Thorpe, who might not have been the most assiduous reader in the city of Edinburgh, but who at least understood enough of the joys of novels to seek out the presence of their authors, if only to have her copies of their work signed. For once, Cat felt the fiction lovers were in the ascendancy. All they lacked was Henry Tilney who, she was sure, would only have enriched their conversation. But as her parents had been careful to teach her, Cat knew you couldn’t have everything. At least, not all at the same time.

6 (#ulink_0cd8cad1-ae90-5a7e-b2d3-684b479e794e)

Two days later, Cat rushed into the Spiegeltent at the Book Festival grounds, hot and damp and five minutes late. Bella waved at her from a far booth and she excused her way across the busy café and subsided on to the bench opposite her friend.

‘Where have you been?’ Bella’s voice was plaintive. ‘I’ve been waiting, like, forever.’

‘I’m hardly late at all,’ Cat protested mildly, taking off her father’s elderly Panama hat and shaking the rain from it. She had brought the hat to shelter her from the sun but so far it had done more service as protection from the squally East Coast showers.

‘Love the hat – that is so cool. I need one just like it. But seriously, what kept you?’ Bella pouted.

‘Well, technically it’s your fault.’

‘My fault? Like, how can it be my fault that you’re late? I even left early because it looked like rain and I didn’t want to get caught in it, which by the way I managed better than you did.’

Cat smiled, not caring that the sudden shower had left her a little bedraggled. It was a condition familiar to her at home, and Susie Allen was still at the flat and so had not been able to chide her for being less than perfectly turned out. ‘It’s your fault because you got me into Morag Fraser. I’d never even heard of the Hebridean Harpies series till you dragged me along to her event. And now I am totally hooked. I was reading Vampires on Vatersay till one in the morning. I just had to finish it. And then I started Banshees of Berneray at breakfast and I could hardly drag myself away from it to come and meet you.’

Bella squealed. ‘Have you got to the bit with the long black veil?’

‘How did you know? That’s exactly where I stopped.’

‘You stopped? How could you? Are you not wild to know what’s behind the long black veil?’

‘Of course I am. But I had to get out the door and up the hill or you’d be even more cross with me. I’m dying to know the dreadful secret behind the veil.’

‘Well, I’m not going to tell you,’ Bella said stoutly. ‘I’m not going to spoil it for you. But I swear you’ll have a heart attack, literally.’ She fished her phone out of her pocket and brought up a website. ‘I’m going to email you the link. It lists the whole series in order.’

‘What are they? Go on, tease me, tempt me, tell me.’

‘Ghasts of Gigha, Werewolves on Wiay, Poltergeist Plague of Pabbay, Shapeshifters of Shuna, Killer Kelpies of Kerrera and the latest, Maenads on Mingulay.’

‘That sounds so cool.’

‘You don’t know the half of it, girlfriend. You are going to be screaming like a Berneray banshee before you’re finished. You’re going to be looking over your shoulder every time you turn a corner.’

Cat gave a delicious little shiver. Already, she’d categorised the dimly lit narrow alleys that threaded between the streets of the New Town as ripe territory for supernatural creatures to lurk among. Now, thanks to the apparently ordinary Morag Fraser, she’d have terror on one shoulder and horror on the other as she walked the streets after sunset. It was probably as well that Susie took care to stay close when they made their way back from evening events. ‘And they’re all as good as Vampires on Vatersay?’

Bella bumped shoulders with her. ‘They get even more scary, trust me. And it’s not just me saying that. My friend back home, Madison Crowley, she’s read them all too, and she says the same. She had to sleep with the light on for a week, she was so totally terrified after Shapeshifters of Shuna.’ She pouted. ‘I wish Maddy was here, you two would bond like sisters. Of course, she’d be left out a bit, she hasn’t got a gorgeous man in her life like Jamie or Henry. I’m always giving guys a hard time for not fancying her the way they do me.’

Cat struggled to make sense of Bella’s words. ‘You give boys a hard time because they don’t fancy your mate?’

Bella tossed her tawny hair back and tucked it behind her ear. ‘Well, duh. She’s my mate, so I have to put myself out for her. That’s what friends do for friends. I totally put my friends first. Like, we were at this party, some guy my brother Johnny knows was all over me and poor Maddy was all on her own, so I said to him, “You don’t even get to dance with me unless you dance with Maddy first. Because she is lovely inside.” He wasn’t happy, but he did try. She wasn’t having it, though. I guess he wasn’t her type. Anyway, that’s just a for example of how I am for my buds. If anyone dissed you, I would be all over their faces.’ She smiled. ‘But that’s not going to happen, you’re not going to be a wallflower. You’ll have to beat the guys off with a stick, you’re so pretty.’

Cat blushed, not least because she knew Bella was only being kind. She was well aware of how nondescript her looks were. ‘Now you’re having a laugh.’

‘No, but you are. See, you’re bubbly. And that’s what lets Maddy down. She can be really banal, you know? Now, when we were leaving here last night, there was this guy watching you, you could see he really fancied you. That would never happen to Maddy, she never does anything that would catch a man’s eye. But you didn’t even notice, did you? I bet he went home dreaming of you and you never even realised he cared. You’re so caught up in the invisible Mr Henry Tilney that it’s like all these other sweet guys don’t exist.’

‘I’m not that bothered about Henry,’ Cat lied. ‘He seems to have disappeared, anyway. So it would be pointless even if I was.’

‘I don’t believe you’re not bothered.’

‘Cross my heart. The Hebridean Harpies are much more interesting. I’m totally obsessing about what’s behind the long black veil. There’s no room in my head for Henry Tilney.’

‘I can’t believe you missed out on them, have you never seen the TV series?’

Cat shook her head. ‘We’re not big on TV in our house.’

‘Weird.’ Bella dismissed the subject. ‘So, Henry, is he your type, then? Because if he is, we need to keep an eye out for guys that look like that, to take your mind off him.’

Confused, Cat frowned. ‘I don’t think I have a type. I either like people or I don’t.’

Bella opened her eyes wide. ‘Double weird. You’re such a strange one, Cat. Now I know exactly the kind of man who makes my heart beat faster.’ She looked dreamily around the bustling Spiegeltent. ‘And I think you could probably guess what my type is without having to try very hard.’

‘I don’t—’

‘No, no, don’t embarrass me. I always give myself away.’ She raked around in her bag and took out a tiny mirror and her lipstick. As she applied a fresh coat of scarlet to her lips, she carried on talking. ‘There’s two guys over by the coffee counter, they totally can’t take their eyes off you.’

Startled, Cat followed her friend’s gaze. One of the young men in question gave her a louche wink, then nudged his friend, who had turned away to pick up two cartons of coffee. A moment later, they were gone. ‘You’re mistaken, Bella. They’ve gone off.’

Bella tutted and flicked her hair out on both sides in a gesture of impatience. ‘Oh, come on then, there’s nothing happening here. I’m literally going to die of boredom if I have to sit here a minute longer.’

Without checking whether Cat was ready to leave, Bella strode off, apparently driven by some inner urgency to be away from the confines of the Spiegeltent. They emerged into the humid air trapped beneath the tented walkways of the festival. Bella paused, like a pointer sniffing the air, then hustled off towards the exit. Cat thought she saw the two young men from the coffee counter ahead of them, but she couldn’t be certain.