Daguerreotype V

It was pouring. I abandoned the Japanese saloon on double yellows in front of the Glasshouse entrance. Dropping the keys on the desk in front of a sugar-frosted blonde, I gave my name.

'You have a reservation?'

She arched an eyebrow and it almost cracked her maquillage.

My clothes were sodden, but smart for a field trip, although perhaps not for a boutique hotel.

'Your computer will tell you, won't it? My car needs parking-'

'There is private parking just around-'

I cut her off, 'don't tell me, just get someone to park it.'

She glanced at the screen, looked at me as though hidden cameras were filming us.

'If you could just give me the card...'

I handed over the black plastic.

'There is room-service available, I take it?'

I wouldn't have booked without it. The look on her face was rewarding.

****

The room phone rang loud and long through a dream about balloonists and blunderbusses.

'Your alarm call, Ms. Feuerstein.' The connection was cut sharply.

My surname was the best thing to come out of a colossal mistake just after grad-school at MIT. I liked the idea of a geologist being called Flint, in whatever language. The failed marriage was as effective as the clothes at discouraging men in the field. It was funny how they assumed if you weren't interested in them, you must be interested in women. I was glad that misconception allowed me to pick and choose. I imagined Kate Adey, the reporter, had felt the same.

The cremation was to be at two in the afternoon. I was going to shower and send out for some clothes suitable for the day's main event.

****

At two I had already parked the rental car as close as I could get it to the Laburnum. Why it was being held out here I didn't know. Portobello was much more convenient for Tam's postcode. But then he'd been behaving oddly since I'd arrived in Scotland. It was a crisp and sunny day. Yesterdays dreech misery had evaporated like the colours of dreams. It was more than Da deserved, in my opinion. Thunder and lightning would have done him fine.

The hearse arrived with a two-car entourage. It was a puzzle who would be travelling in them. I was already here: Tam and Sheena would have taken the same car, surely? I followed the short motorcade through the wrought iron double gates, walking slowly so that I didn't catch up. Six funereally dressed longshanks were standing by the entrance to the chapel. Their cadaverous looks as Dickensian as their dress, I wondered if they had cost as much as the coffin that they set about removing, with some delicacy, from the hearse. Tam and Sheena got out of the car behind, they followed the coffin into the chapel, a good two feet separating them laterally, Sheena a half-step behind. A man got out of the final black vehicle: tall, quaintly dressed, houndstooth material and not a jot of black and wearing, of all things, a hat. He swept it from his head and affected a bow toward me. What caught my eye most was his lop-sided smile, as if found the whole business amusing, including me, in my little black dress that I'd probably never wear again.