The Family Secret. Tracy Buchanan
who was petite with blonde hair cut short.
‘This is Gwyneth, Mother,’ Dylan said to the woman at the head of the table as I took the seat next to him.
‘The trespasser,’ Oscar said with a wicked smile.
I felt my face flush.
‘It’s fine,’ the man next to Dylan said. ‘You had good reason, so I hear. I’m Cole, by the way.’ He was clean-shaven and handsome, wearing a dark suit and sitting straight-backed in his chair. He looked very much like Dylan but had their father’s blue eyes instead of their mother’s brown ones. ‘And this is my wife, Rhonda,’ he said, gesturing towards the blonde woman sitting across from me. ‘And that there is our boy, Alfie.’
Rhonda smiled at me. ‘I hear you’re a documentary-maker, how fascinating. Did you hear that, Alfie? This lady makes films about animals.’
The boy looked up from playing with some toy cars and gazed at me curiously. ‘Do you see dinosaurs?’
Everyone laughed, including Dylan’s mother, whose face lit up. I could see Heather in her now, the more elfin-like features compared to Oscar’s Romanesque handsomeness. Slimmer and more ethereal too.
‘She’d have to travel all the way to the land before time for that,’ the man next to Cole said. He looked younger than Dylan and Cole, slimmer and more elfin-featured too, like his mother and Heather. But he was still tall, broad by most standards, handsome too. He was wearing a jumper, but it wasn’t plain like the others. Instead, it was black with primary-coloured blocks around the arms, and his black hair was spiked up. Clearly a lover of fashion like some of the younger editors I sometimes worked with in the States.
‘I’m Glenn,’ he said, waving at me.
‘The baby of the family,’ Dylan explained.
‘My baby,’ his mother said, stroking his arm.
He jokingly swept her arm away. ‘I’m twenty-five, Mother.’
‘Oh, so you don’t want that loan you asked me for this morning?’ she asked, raising a cool eyebrow.
He leant in towards her, pretending to gurgle like a baby. ‘Yes please, Mama.’
Everyone laughed.
‘I’m Alison,’ the woman sitting beside Rhonda said. ‘One of the sisters,’ she added. She was wearing a long flowing dress and a tribal necklace, henna tattoos on her hands. She looked tanned compared to the others and I guessed was the oldest of the siblings, maybe in her late thirties.
‘Nice to meet you all,’ I said. ‘I appreciate you inviting me into your home despite—’
‘Illegally entering our land,’ Dylan’s mother finished for me in a cold voice, all the warmth she’d just shown to her family gone.
Everyone went quiet. It was clear she was the head of this family.
‘Mother …’ Dylan said in a low voice.
‘But she did, didn’t she?’ she replied.
‘For the right reasons, Mairi,’ her husband said.
‘No, she’s right,’ I said. ‘I shouldn’t have done it. I get carried away sometimes. Someone I used to know …’ I swallowed, the memory of my recent loss still so painful. I looked down at my napkin, pulling at it with my fingers. ‘He told me there’s a fine line between determination and rudeness.’ I looked up into Mairi’s eyes, suddenly so desperate for her approval, for all of their approval. ‘I crossed that line today. This is your land, your home. I was wrong and I will leave now, if that’s what you feel is best.’
I went to get up but she raised her hand to stop me. Then she gestured towards the candles that flickered on the sill of a small window above. ‘Each Christmas, we place candles in our windows to let strangers know they are welcome. You are welcome,’ she said, gesturing for me to sit back down. I did so hesitantly. ‘Just don’t trespass again,’ she added with a wink. The tension in the room suddenly dispersed. She turned to her family. ‘Shall we eat?’
Over the next two hours, we ate dinner, drank wine too, lots of it, served by a middle-aged woman with white hair who I presume was their housemaid.
I learnt Oscar had worked his way up from being a builder and woodsman to run a multi-million-pound building company that supplied many business and private owners with wood-clad buildings like this. His oldest son, Cole, was the managing director, Oscar taking a back seat for a reason nobody made clear. But I guessed from the fact he didn’t drink more than a glass of wine and resisted second helpings that it might have something to do with his health, despite how fit he looked.
Glenn, the youngest brother, wrote and illustrated children’s books that could be found in bookstores around the country, and Dylan’s older sister Alison, after ‘the most God-awful divorce’, as she described it to me, was trying to figure out her place in life, travelling and taking photos for a book she was planning. Cole’s wife Rhonda dedicated her time to volunteering and being a mum.
Despite their clear advantages – the apparent wealth and freedom with which they were able to live their lives – they seemed very down to earth. Maybe it was because of Mairi, who clearly kept a tight rein on them, scolding them with a look if any of them said something out of turn.
As they all talked, I watched Dylan at times. He could be playful and charming like his father, but I could see a hint of the serious intent his mother possessed. I thought of what he’d said earlier – ‘You’re beautiful’ – and realised he was simply stating what he thought, as his mother seemed to do. There really was nothing seedy about it.
‘Where’s your next shoot, Gwyneth?’ Oscar asked me.
‘Iceland. There’s a beach there made of ice where seals like to flock. It’s in the southeast on the Jökulsárlón glacial lagoon.’
‘I know it,’ Oscar said with a smile. ‘In fact, the first lodge Dylan ever worked on is based an hour or so away in Kirkjubæjarklaustur.’
Dylan looked up, eyes alight. ‘God, I loved working on that place.’
I smiled at his enthusiasm. Maybe he did enjoy his job?
‘How did you get into making documentaries, Gwyneth?’ Cole asked.
‘I had a mentor, Reginald Carlisle.’
‘That man’s a legend,’ Oscar said. ‘In fact, I have his book upstairs.’
Surprise registered on Mairi’s face. ‘He passed away a few months ago, didn’t he?’
I nodded. It still hurt to think of it, holding his frail hand as his ninety-year-old body finally gave in.
Mairi fixed me with her dark gaze. ‘He clearly meant a lot to you.’
Dylan watched me, the whole table silent.
‘He did,’ I whispered.
I thought back to the first time I met Reg. Some of the wildlife documentary-makers at the hotel I worked at would talk of one particular man with reverent awe. I looked out for him and eventually discovered who he was, a man in his sixties who would always be the first down for breakfast at 6.30am. He barely said a word and would often be reading a wildlife book, hardly looking up as I served him his breakfast, thick silver eyebrows knitted in concentration.
One day, while I was at the library borrowing one of the books I’d seen him read, I was shocked to find one with his face on the back. In the Deep Alaskan Winter by Reginald Carlisle. It turned out he was one of the pioneers of wildlife filming, a legend in the documentary-making community. I read that book every night, disappearing into the beautiful but savage Alaskan landscape he described, a landscape that nearly claimed his life when he was trapped in heavy snow there for two weeks while making a series for the BBC.
When I saw him again, I placed the book on his table as he