Northanger Abbey

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

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.

‘Do keep up,’ Bella said impatiently.

And Cat obeyed, not quite sure why they were in such a hurry. But she had observed her friend with her sisters and understood that when Bella was in this mood, it was better to obey.

7

If the burghers of Edinburgh had conspired to transform the traffic flow of the capital into a circle of hell that Dante would have recognised, they could have done no better than their plan to bring trams back to the city. Road closures, diversions and temporary lights had made the centre almost impossible to navigate.

The junction of George Street and Charlotte Square had always been one of the most awkward street-crossings in the city, with a constant hurtling of vehicles back and forth and round the tight corners of roads built for carriages, not buses. But this year, the felony had been compounded by the closure to traffic of most of George Street. True, it had created a Continental feel the length of this major artery, with restaurant tables and temporary event venues in the middle of the road. But it had also funnelled the festival-fattened flow of traffic into ever fewer capillaries.

As they emerged on to the pavement, Cat was momentarily bewildered by the transition from the genteel crowds of the Book Festival. But Bella was as sharp-witted as ever. She pointed to her left, towards Bute House, the official residence of the Scottish First Minister. ‘Let’s walk this way, Cat,’ she urged, linking arms with her friend.

Cat couldn’t help but notice that the two young men from the coffee stand were crossing the quieter side of the square towards the First Minister’s grand grey Georgian pile. The realisation made her faintly uneasy, but before she could examine the feeling, the long bonnet of a bright scarlet sports car screeched to a halt beside them. Startled, she swung round to see two young men waving at her and Bella from their open-topped vehicle. As is often the way when we are confronted with those we know in unexpected situations, it took Cat some seconds to realise that the passenger was her brother James.

Any exclamation of surprise she may have uttered was lost in the screech of delight from Bella and the answering whoop from the driver.

‘Johnny! And Jamie,’ Bella screamed. ‘I don’t believe it. Totes amazeballs.’

The driver jumped out of the car without opening his door and bounded up the steps to the pavement level where the young women had stopped in their tracks. He threw his arms around Bella and the pair of them pogoed together in a tight circle that was clearly the product of much practice, all the while whooping like savages.

James Morland meanwhile made a more decorous exit from the passenger door and trotted up to his sister, giving her a quick hug. ‘What are you doing here?’ she demanded with a delighted laugh, pushing him away from her but holding firm to his upper arms.

‘Spur of the moment, Sis. Johnny turned up at my flat last night and persuaded me to join him. I think he’s missing his mum – I swear he’s got a boot full of dirty laundry for her.’ James gave her his familiar quick and easy grin, but she was so excited to see him, Cat failed to notice how his eyes kept flicking across to her friend.

‘Shouldn’t you be working?’

James winked. ‘My pupil master’s extended his holiday in Tuscany, so I’d just be twiddling my thumbs in chambers. They told me not to bother coming in, then Johnny showed up and twisted my arm.’ He was speaking to Cat, but his attention was all on Bella, whose ecstatic dance with her brother had just ended.

John Thorpe broke away from his sister and seized Cat’s hand, swooping low over it in a mock-heroic gesture. ‘And you must be the famous Cat Morland I’ve heard so much about from Bella and Jamie. I’m Johnny Thorpe, and you must be delighted to make my acquaintance.’ He released her hand and beamed at her, his plain face revealing how pleased he was with himself and his attempt at humour.

Cat giggled uneasily, not quite sure how to handle so bombastic an introduction. ‘Bella’s told me all about you.’ There was some truth in that, though his sister had not mentioned his paunch or his thinning hair.

He raised his eyebrows in an arch expression. ‘God, I hope not,’ he said in exaggerated style. ‘So, Cat, I bet you can’t guess how long it took us to drive up the bloody awful A1 from Newcastle.’

Cat, whose studies in British geography had left her with gaps the size of Wales in her knowledge, looked to James for help. ‘I don’t know how far it is.’

Her brother tore his attention away from Bella long enough to say, ‘About a hundred and twenty miles.’

‘More like a hundred and fifty,’ John corrected him. ‘Given the time it took. So, Cat, what do you think? How long?’

Cat frowned, trying to do the sums in her head. ‘About two and a half hours?’ she hazarded.

John slapped his thigh in a gesture of incredulity. ‘Are you kidding me? Have you seen my flying machine? An hour and twenty minutes. I noticed the church clock on Shieldfield Green said ten o’clock as we passed it on our way up from the Quayside.’

James laughed. ‘You’ve lost an hour, Johnny. We left at nine.’

John’s chest puffed up under his pink and grey striped polo shirt. ‘At nine?’ He turned to Cat for support. ‘Is he always like this? Picking a fight when he knows he’s in the wrong? I tell you, just look at this car of mine and tell me you think it would take two and a half hours to travel a hundred and fifty miles.’

‘A hundred and twenty,’ James said weakly.

‘It does look fast,’ Cat said, trying to make peace between the pair before their mock argument turned, as they so often do between men intent on impressing women, into the real thing.

‘Fast? She goes like the proverbial. Just touch the gas and she shoots forward like a bullet. She’s hand built, engine tuned to within an inch of its life. Look at that cream leather interior, the black walnut dash, the perfection of that chrome. Spring-loaded drink holders, on-board wifi and subwoofers to blow your ears off. And don’t get me started on the brake horsepower and the torque.’

Cat nodded politely, hiding the fervent hope that he would not indeed get started on those perplexing matters. ‘It looks very smart.’

‘And you know what I paid? Three grand less than the list price. Three grand! Amazing, no? She’s the perfect car for me. In the City, success is ninety per cent front and ten per cent balls. And this beauty makes a statement about me. She lets people know I’m a man to be reckoned with. She was built for a Christ Church man, to his spec. But I heard he’d been a bit too flash with his cash so he was looking to offload her for readies. I ran into him in that Slovakian cocktail bar up near Hilda’s and he goes, “Johnny, Johnny, my man, do you know anybody who might be interested in the best car in Oxford? Only, I need to realise her capital value sharpish.” Now, I’d just had a spot of luck at the casino, so I made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. Et voilà.’

‘I don’t know much about cars, but it looks like you got a bargain.’

John gave a smug little smile and patted his hair in a self-satisfied gesture. ‘A total bargain. But you know, I was helping the poor guy out. You need a favour, I’m your man. Always ready to do my bit.’

Before he could preen further, his sister exclaimed, ‘Johnny, there’s a traffic warden heading straight for us.’

‘Buggering barnacles,’ he swore, turning his back on them all and returning to the car, this time opening the door. ‘Come on, girls, get in!’

Cat hung back, looking dubiously at the shallow parcel shelf behind the two seats. But Bella grabbed her hand and together they clambered inelegantly into the rear of the car. They’d barely squeezed in when John stamped on the gas and shot down the hill in a throaty roar of exhaust. Cat and Bella clung to each other, shrieking.

At the first set of traffic lights, John resumed the conversation. ‘I could have sold it for four grand more the day after I bought it. Jacko Jackson from Oriel offered me cash on the nail the next day in the King’s Arms.’

‘Yeah, but you’re forgetting your parking permit was included,’ James pointed out.

‘Like I’d be dumb enough to sell my parking permit after the amount I had to bribe the college porter to get it in the first place. Duh.’ The lights changed so once more communication was rendered impossible.

Before long, another set of traffic signals brought them to a halt. ‘Do you like a rag top, Cat?’ John asked.

‘He means a convertible, Sis. With the top down.’

‘Oh. Well, this is my first experience, unless you count a quad bike. But yes, I can see it might be fun if you were in a proper seat and not in fear of spilling out the back every time you accelerate.’

John roared with laughter. ‘God, Jamie, you never told me she was so funny. Cat, I’m going to take you for a spin every day I’m here. With the top down.’

It wasn’t that thrilling a prospect to Cat. ‘There’s a forecast of rain tomorrow.’

‘We’ll dodge the raindrops. I’ll drive you up the coast for fish and chips.’

‘Won’t you want to take it easy after your long drive today?’

He laughed again. ‘Call that a long drive? That was just a warm-up. No, it’s a date. Fish and chips at North Berwick for lunch.’

‘Oh, me too, me too!’ Bella exclaimed.

‘Are you kidding? I didn’t come to Edinburgh to drive my sister around. Jamie, it’s up to you to amuse Bella.’

And again, conversation was stilled by acceleration as they drove out across the Dean Bridge and down Queensferry Road a way towards the flat where Mrs Thorpe and her daughters were staying, some little distance from the Book Festival and most of the venues of the Festival Fringe. The one advantage their accommodation had over the Allens’ apartment was that it lay just outside the city centre’s restricted parking zone, so all that was required to find a parking space was for John Thorpe to drive round the block three or four times.

As they walked back up the hill to the Thorpes’ flat, John fell into step beside Cat. Desperate to avoid another lecture on the subject of his splendid car, Cat cast about for something to say. Given that Bella was his sister, she reasoned that they might share some tastes in common. ‘Bella has introduced me to the Hebridean Harpies series of novels,’ she said.

‘Oh my good lord,’ he groaned. ‘Spare me! Not another one. I’ve had Bella wittering on about those bloody books for ever. I don’t have time to waste on novels, but if I did, it wouldn’t be them I’d choose. Vampires and banshees – I ask you. Those books are dumber than a deaf mute with a mouthful of superglue.’

The image was so singularly unpleasant that Cat could think of no immediate riposte. ‘So what do you read?’ was all she could manage.

‘Only what I have to for work,’ he said. ‘I don’t have time to read. How can you bear to read when there’s cars to race and dragons to slay?’ He imitated the movement of his hands on a console controller, making the revving, screeching and gunshot sounds of a computer game.

‘Surely it’s just as dumb to slay imaginary dragons and drive imaginary cars as it is to read Morag Fraser’s books?’ Cat demanded.

He snorted. ‘Obviously you’re not a gamer, sweetheart. What I do sharpens my reflexes and keeps me on top of my game. Reading those stupid books just fills your head full of nonsense.’

It was true that there had never been a games console in the Morland household. But Cat had been in other homes where the children had had apparently unlimited access to a staggering range of virtual experiences. And from those encounters, she dredged up something she hadn’t known till she’d looked up Hebridean Harpies on Wikipedia. ‘Do you play DragonSky?’ she asked.

He nodded with enthusiasm. ‘I used to play it all the time. Not so much now that Felony Driver IV came out.’

‘Did you know that Morag Fraser was one of the writers on DragonSky?’

Taken aback, he goggled at her. ‘I don’t see how,’ he said. ‘You sure she didn’t just make the credits for being somebody’s girlfriend or something?’

Before Cat could muster a response, Bella, who had been walking ahead with James, turned and pointed at the building where their flat occupied part of the second floor. ‘This is us, Johnny.’

Although she had begun to feel quite cross with John Thorpe, the warmth with which he greeted his mother and sisters restored Cat’s general spirit of goodwill. Even so, she was taken aback by the apparent rudeness of the banter the Thorpes exchanged with one another. ‘Ma, dearest,’ John said, hugging his mother so tight she squealed. ‘Where in the name of God did you get that hat? It makes you look like the Wicked Witch of the West.’