The Winter Sea

Jimmy, who’d been having a look at my computer, added, ‘She’s a writer.’

‘Aye, I know she is,’ said Stuart.

‘She’ll be writin,’ Jimmy said, ‘aboot oor castle.’

Stuart looked at me with what might have been pity. ‘It’s a big mistake, to tell my Dad a thing like that.’

I set the kettle on to boil. ‘Why’s that?’

‘He’ll be up to the St Olaf for his lunch, that’s why, and by this afternoon the whole of Cruden Bay will know exactly why you’re here, and what you’re doing. You won’t have a moment’s peace.’

‘Ach, the loon disna ken fit he’s on aboot,’ Jimmy said. ‘I’ve nae time fer claikin.’

‘That’s “gossiping”,’ Stuart translated the word for my benefit. ‘And don’t believe him. He loves telling stories.’

His father put in, ‘Aye, and lucky fer me I’ve yersel tae keep geein me somethin tae tell aboot. Is that the kettle?’

It was. I made the coffee, and we sat around companionably and drank it, and then Jimmy checked his watch and said, ‘Weel, I’m awa hame.’ He jabbed a finger at his son. ‘And dinna ye stop here lang, either.’ And he thanked me for the coffee, and went out.

The fog was lifting, but the damp sea air surged in behind him, and I felt it even after I had closed the door. It made me restless.

‘Tell you what,’ I said to Stuart. ‘Why don’t I go get my coat, and you can give me the Cook’s tour of Cruden Bay?’

He cast an eye towards the window. ‘What, in this?’

‘Why not?’

‘Why not, she says.’ But he gave in, unfolding himself from the chair. ‘Well, the weather’s as good as you’re likely to get at this time of the year, I suppose, so all right.’

It was good to walk out in the wind, with my hair blowing loose and the spray from the sea carried up from the breakers that crashed on the empty pink beach. The path down the hill was still slippery with water and mud, but whatever misgivings I’d felt here last night in the dark were forgotten by day, and the harbor below looked quite friendly and welcoming.

It wasn’t a large harbor, just a small square of calm water behind a protective wall fronting the sea, and there were no boats actually moored there—the few I could see had been pulled up and out of the water completely to lie on the land, and I gathered that no one went fishing from here in the wintertime.

Stuart led me up the other way and past his father’s cottage and the others huddled tight beside it, with their roughened plaster walls and roofs of dripping slate. We passed the long, white-painted footbridge that crossed over to the high dunes and the beach, and while I would have liked to detour off in that direction, Stuart had another place in mind.

We’d turned the ‘S’ curve where the Harbour Street changed into Main Street, with its row of houses and its few shops climbing up the one side, and the lively stream cascading down the other, overhung by leafless trees. At the top of the hill, Main Street ended by running straight into the side of another main road—the same road I’d been driving on when I’d come through here last weekend, only I hadn’t stopped then till I’d followed it further and round through the woods. I’d been so focused that day on chasing my view of the ruins that I hadn’t taken much notice of anything else. Like the beautiful building that held court just over the road at the top of the Main Street.

It had red granite walls and white dormers and several bow-fronted two-storey projections that gave it a look of Victorian elegance. We were approaching it now from the side, but its long front looked over a lawn that sloped down to the stream which appeared to behave itself better up here, running quietly under a bridge on the main road as though it, too, felt that the building was owed some respect.

‘And this,’ said Stuart grandly, ‘is the “Killie”—the Kilmarnock Arms Hotel. It’s where your friend Bram Stoker stayed when he first came to Cruden Bay, before he moved to Finnyfall, the south end of the beach.’

‘To where?’

‘To Finnyfall. Spelt “Whinnyfold”, but everybody says it like you’d say it in the Doric. It’s not a large place, just a handful of cottages.’

Somehow I couldn’t imagine Bram Stoker at home in a cottage. The Kilmarnock Arms would have suited him better. I could easily imagine the creator of the world’s most famous vampire sitting at his writing-table in an upstairs window bay, and gazing out across the stormy coast.

‘We could go in,’ said Stuart, ‘if you like. They’ve got a Lounge Bar, and they serve a decent lunch.’

I didn’t need a second nudge. I’d always taken pleasure in exploring places other writers had been to before me. My favorite small hotel in London had once been a haunt of Graham Greene, and in its breakfast room I always sat in the same chair he’d sat in, hoping that some of his genius might rub off on me. Having lunch at the Kilmarnock Arms, I decided, would give me a similar chance to commune with the ghost of Bram Stoker.

‘All right,’ I said. ‘Lead on.’

The Lounge Bar had red upholstered banquet seats with brass and glass globe lamps set at their corners, and dark wood chairs and tables on a carpet of deep blue, but all the woodwork had been painted white, and all the walls, except the stone one at the far end, had been papered in a softly patterned yellow that, together with the windows and the daylight, gave the place a cheerful ambiance, not dark at all. No vampires here.