Chapter 1
Asa
I reached Brackenbank Hall with my clipboard under one arm and my overnight bag bumping my knee, just as somebody inside said, “No, that corner’s for people who want to sit down.” I stopped moving a chair that had obstructed my entrance. Beyond it, Priyan was spreading a tablecloth over a low table while Owen investigated the difference between two apparently identical lamps.
“Leave it,” Priyan told me. “Come here.”
I propped the clipboard against my bag before accepting the hug. Eleven years of friendship had taught me that he would simply wait with his arms out until I stopped holding things. He squeezed hard, then drew back to examine my face.
“You’ve come straight from work, haven’t you?”
“No. I finished the handover yesterday. Early train from London this morning, then the car up here.”
“Did you eat?”
“Yes.” I had eaten a sandwich while checking whether my Sunday connection allowed enough time for the booked car from Dalreith. It did. I decided that answering the question about the sandwich did not require this information.
Owen put down the lamps and hugged me too. “We’ve got tea in the kitchen. Brodie can show you—oh, he’s already here.”
The man coming through the side door had chestnut hair caught behind his ears and a stack of empty mugs against his striped shirt. He set them down, smiled at me and reached for the canvas bag beside my feet.
“I’ll take this through to the kitchen, if you like.”
“That’s my bag.”
He glanced at the luggage label. “It says ‘Saturday clothing’.”
“Yes. Inside are Saturday’s clothes.”
“I thought it was one of our deliveries.” His hand fell away. “Sorry. We’ve got napkins arriving in bags marked ‘napkins’, and I was feeling quite pleased that everyone was being clear.”
Priyan made a noise into his sleeve. I looked at my bag, with my name and phone number on the other side of the label, and turned it round.
“I’m Asa.”
“Brodie. Owen’s brother, other best man, occasional carrier of things that actually need carrying. It’s good to meet you properly.”
I recognized his voice from a message about dance practice. He resembled Owen around the eyebrows, though he was broader. He waited while I worked out where to put my belongings.
We had exchanged messages for weeks without meeting. I knew which Friday session to attend and where the hall’s entrance was; I did not know whether I should shake his hand after the luggage discussion. He solved it by asking if I wanted tea.
“Please. I’ve checked into the room already, so this can stay here until I walk back.”
“How is it?”
“Lovely. Own bathroom, very quiet. I paid the balance and acquired a key. I’m completely settled.”
Priyan touched my sleeve. “Good. Then you can stop telling us you’re all right and have a cup of tea with us.”
I hadn’t intended a report. I put the bag beneath the table and helped Owen choose a lamp. He preferred the one with the warmer light, which I had failed to notice until he switched them on.
Brodie returned with tea and sat on a chair facing into the room instead of towards the entrance. I sat beside him, clipboard on my knees. Priyan brought over a little pack of cream cards held together by a blue paper band.
“We wanted to give you these together,” he said. “It’s the only shared list we’re asking you to do.”
Owen moved his chair close enough that their knees touched. “Mum used to write requests on cards for family parties. Usually things like ‘bring the folding table’, but there were some better ones. We borrowed the idea.”
“We’ve made ours less concerned with furniture,” Priyan said. He took off the band and spread the cards across the table. “Read them before you agree.”
I set my cup beyond the paper. The cards were numbered, with Owen’s larger handwriting on some and Priyan’s smaller writing on the rest.
Introduce our people to each other.
Bring a song to supper.
Tell one true story.
Help everybody join the dance.
Give us an hour to ourselves.
Hand over the rings, then take a seat.
I read the last one again, checking for anything on the reverse. There wasn’t.
“The rings are straightforward,” I said. “I’ll need the order and custody arrangements, obviously. For the hour, do you have a particular time in mind?”
“Friday, probably,” Priyan said. “We’ll tell you when we’ve settled it. An hour to eat and write our letters without being asked where the glasses are.”
“Which are in the kitchen,” Owen added. “And Merrin knows where the spare ones live.”
I drew a line down my working sheet. There were already headings for the ceremony and speeches; I could put the other requests alongside them.
“By everybody joining the dance, are we assuming—”
“People who want to,” Brodie said. “Some will watch. Some will want to try it sitting down. We can ask.”
Owen nodded. “That’s what we meant. Nobody has to be persuaded into a thing they don’t enjoy.”
“Thirty-six guests,” Priyan said, following my pen. “Including you two. You haven’t got to supervise thirty-six people.”
“And yourselves,” I said.
“We’re extra. But I can supervise myself for most of it.” He leaned over the table to straighten one card, smiling at Owen. “We have booked the hall, the food, the registrar, the musicians and the transport. We’ve paid people who know what they’re doing. Please don’t spend the weekend replacing them.”
I crossed out the heading I had just started: General assistance.
Brodie leaned nearer to read it, then sat back before I had to decide whether to cover it. “I can take you round and introduce you to a few folk as they arrive. There’s a woman coming who used to work in a museum. Not the same sort as yours, I think. And one of Owen’s friends is keen on old buildings, so—”
“I’m a collections registrar,” I said. “Buildings aren’t really my area.”
“What is your area?”
“Keeping track of objects. Where they are, where they’re going, what has to accompany them. Loans, mostly, at the moment.”
“That sounds satisfying.”
I looked up. He didn’t seem to be preparing a joke about lost property. “It can be. Yesterday something arrived exactly where it ought to, with all its paperwork. I was very pleased.”
“Tell him about the cupboard,” Priyan said.
“It was a storeroom.”
“There was definitely a cupboard involved.”
“There was, but that wasn’t the interesting part.”
Priyan grinned at Brodie. “He’ll tell you later. You have to allow for the cupboards first.”
The hall door opened before I could explain that there had been a legitimate location discrepancy. Owen went to welcome a pair of guests, and Priyan followed, leaving the cards on the table between Brodie and me.
“I could make a note of who’s met whom,” I said. “For the first request. Not everyone, necessarily. Just people who might otherwise stay with the group they know.”
“That would help. I know who most people are, but once I start telling you, I’ll remember another cousin or somebody they ought to talk to. We could have a few people over here and do it together.”
I pictured trying to take notes while three people spoke. “Perhaps one introduction first.”
“All right. Who?”
A woman standing near the welcome table had removed her coat but was still holding it. I recognized her photograph from the little guest information sheet Priyan had sent, with everyone’s permission. She was one of his Glasgow friends, formerly in retail management and now running a community garden. Owen’s colleague was beside the lamps, looking around for somewhere to put his tea.
I took my clipboard with me. Brodie came too.
“This is Priyan’s friend,” I began, supplying her name from memory before remembering I needn’t read everything aloud. “She worked in retail management for several years before moving into community gardening. You’re a radiographer at Owen’s hospital, so I thought there might be—”
I reached the end of my prepared information. Neither employment history provided a useful next sentence.
“There might be,” I said, and stopped.
The woman looked at the colleague. He looked at the coat. I could have taken it, but then I would be hunting for a hook while he stood with his tea and nobody to talk to. The introduction would still be taking place when I got back.
Brodie turned towards her. “Did you get your beans picked before you left? Priyan said you were worried about leaving them for the weekend.”
“Oh, I got most of them. Then my neighbour gave me a bag of hers. I’m going to come home to more beans than I left.”
The colleague laughed. “I’ve got the same problem with courgettes. I keep trying to leave them in the staff room, but someone else gets there first.”
They began comparing methods of giving vegetables away. Brodie offered to take the coat, and the woman passed it to him without having to pause her description of a suspiciously heavy shopping bag. He hung it on a peg behind us and returned while I was still holding the clipboard.
“I didn’t put that on the sheet,” I told him quietly.
“The beans?”
“I could have asked about the garden.”
“You can still ask. I don’t know a thing about gardening, so I’ll be listening.”
He stayed while I asked what would happen to the unpicked beans. She explained, the colleague disagreed about which ones were worth saving for seed, and I managed another question without consulting anything. When Owen called them over to see the welcome corner, they went together.
I let my pen hang at my side. Brodie watched them settle into the chairs, then turned back to me.
“Shall we work out the rest before supper? Side table, once I’ve put these mugs away. We can actually sit down and compare what we know.”
I could have copied the six cards and completed my half upstairs. Instead I checked the wall clock, which gave us plenty of time.
“I’ll get a fresh sheet,” I said. “I’ll meet you there in ten minutes.”
Brodie collected the mugs, leaving his own beside mine. I put the cards back under their blue band and carried both cups to the side table.
