A Bunch Of Keys

"I feel like an old jailer with all these keys." Miss Jean McDonald joked as we walked down the gravel path towards the front door of the house. The keys were old, like the house, but Miss McDonald was neither old nor did she bear any resemblance to a jailer. She was young, slim and attractive with long auburn hair and the fair complexion that goes with it - the locals would call her a bonnie lassie. Slightly reserved in the way the Scots are with strangers, she was a clerk with a firm of solicitors in Portree on the Isle of Skye and was showing me the house on the outskirts of the small village of Fullford. It was to be sold as part of the estate of an old lady who had died recently.

I had moped around in Sydney for months not knowing what to do with myself after my wife died. Eventually, realising I had no real ties to anybody or anywhere in Australia, I decided to return to Scotland.

I am of Scottish descent, on my mother's side, but had never visited Scotland until I was nearly sixty years old. A proud Australian who loved his country, I was quite unprepared for the almost overwhelming feeling of connection to the rugged landscape which overcame me as we drove into the Scottish Highlands for the first time. Only then did I fully understand the almost religious attachment of aboriginal Australians to their land. Even though it was almost a century since my grandfather migrated to Australia, I knew immediately that I too had found my land.

For reasons which I did not fully understand at the time, I felt a particular attachment to the Isle of Skye. On returning to Sydney, I looked up the sketchy outline of our family history which my parents had scribbled down in the back of the family Bible. From this, it seemed that my grandfather had been born on Skye but I was unable to discover how long he continued to live in Scotland or when he migrated to Australia. Anyone who could have told me was long dead. I resolved that at least one of the family would return to die in the land of his fathers.

Although I did not feel in the least like dying, a specialist physician I was sent to consult after some blood tests by a GP took a more pessimistic view of my life expectancy. When pressed for more information he told me I was suffering from a rare condition with a long medical name I have forgotten.

"Your condition is rare, congenital and inoperable. Without the aid of a crystal ball, I can't accurately predict how much longer you may live. Quite frankly, you are fortunate to have survived this long. If you continue to live a quiet life, get some regular, gentle exercise, eat sensibly and avoid stress, my best guess would be that you have from two to four years left; but don't hold me to it."

I sold the house, the car, disposed of everything else and booked a passage on one of those cargo ships which carry a few passengers. Somehow it seemed more appropriate to return to Skye by sea rather than go hurtling to the other end of the world cooped up in the belly of a jumbo jet. I left the ship in Liverpool after a slow but pleasant voyage, bought a car and headed for Skye. The small of Fullford which I reached late on that first afternoon seemed like as good a base as any for my first few days. As well as a scattering of houses, the town consists of a few shops and a service station. There is one hotel and yes, they did have a room.

After dinner on that first night I started yarning to one of the locals in the bar and asked him about the town. Most of his reserve vanished when he realised that I was not English but Australian. After I told him I thought my grandfather had been born on the island, I could hardly shut him up. He went on interminably about the history and delights of Skye in general and Fullford in particular until finally, as he paused for breath, I managed to ask him if he knew of any houses for rent or for sale in the area. He thought for a moment and then replied,

"I think the place which belonged to old Miss Boswell is probably for sale. She died about a month ago and as far as anyone knows she had no relatives, leastways not in Scotland."

I asked him for directions and the next morning strolled out to have a look. It was a low, single story house with a grey slate roof, built of the same dark stone used in many of the local buildings. It stood at the top of a gentle slope in a well tended garden with a view across the water to the blue coastal hills of the mainland. I decided I was interested. Returning to the hotel, I went in search of the landlord.

"Yes," he said, "I understand the house is for sale through a solicitor in Portree who is looking after the estate."

He gave me the names of the two solicitors he thought most likely. I retired to the telephone booth in the foyer and ended up speaking to Miss Jean McDonald at Munro and Munro.

"Yes," she told me, "The house will be for sale when the formalities associated with winding up the Estate have been finalised. It has been left to Miss Boswell's cousin in Canada. She has no interest in retaining the property and has instructed us to sell."

I asked how long that would take and was told it would probably be another two or three months before the house would be available to a new owner. When I told her I was very interested in the property, she offered to come down to Fullford next day and show me through, if Mr. Munro agreed.

Mr. Munro had agreed and here we were at the front door with Miss McDonald trying to decide which of the strange keys would open it. A weathered, carved wooden sign informed us that the house was called 'Sunny Brae'. Eventually, the lock yielded and the door opened with a creak.

Once inside, I found the house quite charming. That is not a word I use very often but it is the only one which seems appropriate. It was furnished in an old fashioned but timeless way and I suspected much of the furniture would be regarded as valuable antiques back in Australia. The formal lounge room and the small dining room had an unused air. It appeared the old lady had confined her activities to the large kitchen, her bedroom, the room which she had used as a sewing room and office, and a small sitting room in the front corner of the house. The other notable feature was that there were books and bookshelves everywhere -- she must have been a great reader..

The small sitting room was a gem, with its cosy fireplace and a bay window looking out over the garden towards the water and the mainland beyond; but it was not just that room which made me decide to buy the house. It was more the indefinable feeling which permeated the whole place, as though someone had lived a long and happy life there. If houses can be said to express emotions, this house was both happy and contented with its lot.

With a plan beginning to form in my mind, I invited Miss McDonald to join me for lunch at the hotel. By the time we sat down to coffee in the lounge we were on first name terms and I asked Jean what she knew about the old lady and the house.

" I've had to go back through all the old files, checking on the title of the house and tracking down all her investments. I found out that Annie Boswell had been a client of our firm ever since she came to Fullford from London as a young woman after her parents were killed in some kind of accident almost sixty years ago. At that time the family had owned the house for about five years, using it only for summer holidays. In fact, we arranged the purchase for her father."

"She was well off having sold up everything in London. Mr. Munro's father invested it all for her. She was quite a shrewd investor, really. Always chopping and changing and usually making a handsome profit in the process. When she finally faced up to making her will, we even had to trace Mrs. Carstairs, the cousin in Canada, for her. We finally tracked her down with the help of a private inquiry agent in Toronto. Even then, it seems the old lady never bothered to contact her, leastways not according to Mrs. Carstairs. She was completely surprised when she received our letter telling her of her cousin's death and her inheritance and wrote back asking if we were sure we had the right person."

I put my plan to Jean. Did she think I could rent the house immediately with an option to purchase when the legal formalities had been finalised. Yes, she thought that should be possible but she would need to discuss it with Mr. Munro. She promised to telephone me the following morning.

It was Mr. Munro who phoned. He could see no problem with what I proposed but would have to obtain Mrs. Carstairs' agreement. He would write to her. Not wanting to be left hanging around in a hotel while this woman in Canada got around to answering his letter, I urged him to telephone her. He seemed to consider the telephone a far too expensive means of consulting a client over such a vast distance but, obviously unused to dealing with pushy Australians, finally agreed when I offered to pay for the call.

Two days later, Jean rang to tell me the Canadian cousin had agreed to my proposal. If I called at the office at the end of the week they would have the necessary papers prepared. Yes, I reflected, solicitors being solicitors, there would be papers to sign.

When I arrived in the office Jean introduced me to Alex Munro. He was much as I expected; tall, gaunt, in his mid-fifties with a dour Scottish manner befitting his profession.

He seemed to have been distressed by his first personal contact with the Canadian beneficiary. In the beginning she had objected to my proposal because she was afraid it would hold up the sale. When he assured her that, on the contrary, it would probably speed up the whole process, she readily agreed. It was her attitude to what he called Miss Boswell's personal effects which the solicitor found so unacceptable. By person effects, I presumed he meant clothing, jewelry, personal papers and that sort of thing.

"Just get rid of the lot," she had told him. "I don't want any of it. Never knew the woman. Just send the money as soon as possible."

She had obviously upset his well developed sense of family values, which prompted me to wonder just how much pressure he had exerted to convince Annie Boswell to search out her long lost cousin before making her will.

Not wanting to be delayed again by the disposal of the old lady's effects, I offered to sort them out and pack them after I moved in. To my surprise, he raised no objections but said he would send Jean down again early the following week to help. We discussed and agreed upon the rental and the purchase price and I signed all the papers.

By early afternoon, after taking Jean to lunch again to thank her for all her help, I was driving back to Fullford with that strange bunch of keys on the seat beside me. The following morning, Saturday, I booked out of the hotel, bought some basic supplies from the small supermarket, moved in and spent the rest of the day pottering around and getting to know my new home.

Sunday dawned as one of those magical days, which the locals think of as oppressively hot, when the island basks in the warm summer sun with just the faintest breath of a breeze off the water. They are to be treasured because they happen so infrequently. Abandoning the house, I packed some lunch and went for a long rambling walk along the shore.

News travels fast in Fullford. On Monday morning I had visitors. Fiona Cameron had been Annie's daily help, a kind of housekeeper and cook. Angus, her husband, looked after the garden. Without being asked, they had continued to keep their eye on things since the old lady died.

"Are you buying the house? Will you be requiring our services?" they inquired.

I asked how long they had worked for the old lady. After a 'What year was it Father died?' type of discussion, they decided it must have been about thirty years. They had taken over from Mrs. Cameron's parents, first Angus in the garden and later, Fiona inside. I explained there would be a lot of sorting out and rearranging to be done and told Fiona I thought I could manage on my own for a while but agreed to Angus continuing his two days a week in the garden. I asked them what kind of a person Miss Boswell had been.

"A lovely lady," Fiona replied. "A real dear. But, being from London and liking to keep herself to herself, she never really got to know people in the town. Even after all those years! I'm sure she was never lonely though, just liked being on her own."

Jean arrived the following morning and we started sorting out the clothing in the bedroom. It was the underwear she found hard to believe. I am no stranger to women's underwear myself after nearly forty years of marriage, but had certainly not seen anything like it either. Something from a bygone age. Alex Munro had decided that all the clothes should go to the church for distribution to the poor. Perhaps there were some old ladies on Skye who would even welcome the underwear, so we packed everything.

A cupboard and half the drawers in the bedroom were crammed with papers, as were the desk and two cupboards in the room she had used as an office. A search of the other rooms revealed several more hiding places. It soon became clear that our Annie had never, ever thrown away any personal papers. Jean threw up her hands in horror.

"How am I ever going to find the time to sort through all this!"

Fortunately, we found her cheque book, bank statements and recent accounts in the top drawer of the desk These were all Jean really needed.

"Would it help," I asked, "If I sorted through the rest of it. At least I could identify anything that looks important before we burn everything."

Jane readily agreed but I must admit my motives were not wholly altruistic. I was becoming intrigued by Annie and hoped I might find out more about her and the house from amongst that vast jumble of paper.

Over a late lunch in the garden, I asked Jean, a little diffidently, whether the old lady had made any provision in her will for Fiona and Angus.

"Oh, yes," she said, "Only the house goes to the woman in Canada. The balance of the Estate, after taxes, goes to the Camerons. They will really be quite well off."

I was relieved. I did not want to be their sole means of support for the rest of my uncertain future.

Annie's books came as a surprise. I had expected a lot of romantic novels but there were very few novels and all of those were classics. The rest were either biography or history, with a few well thumbed volumes of poetry. I had offered to buy some of them, particularly those about Scottish history but Annie had applied the same filing principles to the books as she had used with her papers and I spent a couple of pleasant days sorting them out. I had just started on the papers in the desk when a visitor arrived. A short, portly gentleman in a grey dust-coat and bowler hat with a clipboard under his arm, he announced self-importantly,

"I have come to value the property and the contents for the Probate.'"

He disturbed me twice, first when he asked me to hold the end of the tape while he measured up the house and later to ask if there was an attic or loft.

"Not as far as I know."

"Funny, these old places usually have one."

He tramped around the house until he found a well concealed trapdoor in the ceiling of the passage leading to the scullery. Using the long rod with a hook on the end of it which we found behind the scullery door, he pulled on the ring and down came one of those ingenious folding staircases. Descending later and dusting himself off, he complained,

"Nothing of any value up there. Just a few old trunks full of papers."

"Not more papers!" I muttered.

Two weeks later I had sorted through everything except the trunks in the attic. From a quick look, these seemed to be Annie's father's papers which she must have brought with her from London sixty years ago. I decided to look at them later and left them where they were.

I had learned a great deal about Annie. I now knew where she had bought her books, her clothes, even her underwear but I had found nothing about the early history of the house from that mountain of paper. Jane paid another visit and with Angus stoking the incinerator, we burned nearly everything. The only documents of any interest to her were in a neatly kept file containing details of some rather speculative investments which Annie had looked after herself. Glancing at the company names, Jane decided Alex Munro would not have approved.

I had been living in the house for almost three months when Jean telephoned to tell me they were ready to finalise the sale. On that visit to Portree, I took Jean and Alex for a celebratory lunch to thank them for all their help. Now the house was mine, I wanted to change most of the curtains and a few pieces of furniture and asked their advice on the best places to find what I needed.

Jean enthusiastically offered to help. She arrived at Sunny Brae the following Saturday loaded down with fabric samples and furniture catalogues. She stayed for the weekend and we had lively discussions about the fabrics to use, how to rearrange the furniture and what new items I should buy.

It was when she was up on a step ladder measuring for the new curtains, quietly singing to herself, that I realised she had fallen in love with the house. I invited her to visit as often as she liked and to encourage her, let her decide how to redecorate the second bedroom. She is pleasant and stimulating company and I am selfish enough to exploit her love of the house to help me avoid loneliness and boredom. She has now become a frequent weekend visitor.

Between us we had the house looking the way we wanted before the winter. Fiona came back for two days a week, mainly to clean, wash and iron. She cooks lunch or dinner occasionally, and insists on baking ample supplies of cakes and biscuits for me. She has never said anything but I can tell she does not approve of many of the changes we made. This did not prevent her accepting my gift of the furniture I replaced along with a number of pictures and ornaments I found too fussy or feminine.

As the days became shorter and colder, Angus taught me the tricks required to keep a cheerful peat fire burning in the small sitting room. Having replaced Annie's elegant antique chairs with some better suited to my ample figure, I was spending most of my days in that comfortable room. It was time to look at Mr. Boswell's papers.

Angus helped me wrestle the five trunks down from the attic and pile them in the old sewing room cum office. If it was Annie who packed them all those years ago, she had been much more systematic then than she had ever been with her own papers. The first two trunks I examined only contained papers and ledgers relating to his business activities. On top of the papers in the third, slightly smaller, trunk were two neat bundles labelled Sunny Brae. I had found what I was searching for and excitedly took them into the sitting room.

The larger of the two bundles dealt with the repairs and renovations carried out after the house was purchased. Much had been done, including a new slate roof, indicating that the house had been in poor condition when acquired by the Boswells.

The other bundle related to the purchase. Suddenly a name leapt off the page at me and my heart missed a beat or two. The letter I was reading, dated 25th October 1927, was from G.H Munro, Solicitor of Portree, advising that the property in Fullford, in which Mr. Boswell had expressed an interest, was thought to belong to the estate of the late Mary McPherson. He would, if so instructed, make further inquiries. Fortunately, I had brought the old family Bible with me. My memory was not playing tricks. My great grandmother's name had been Mary Alice McPherson.

I searched for any other references to Mary McPherson but found nothing, nor was there any mention of further inquiries by G.H Munro, or whether he had ever been instructed to make them. I sat in front of the fire contemplating the tantalising possibility which this chance discovery suggested. Had I, by some quirk of fate, bought the house which once belonged to my great grandparents and in which my grandfather may have been born? I had to know.

G.H Munro was, presumably, Alex Munro's father or, more likely, his grandfather. Perhaps Jane could help me. I phoned her and told her what I had discovered and why I was so excited about it. She agreed to search the old records and bring copies of anything of interest with her when she visited at the weekend.

I waited impatiently for Saturday. Jean brought with her a copy of the first page of the contract for the purchase of the property which showed the vendor as the Estate of the late Mary Alice McPherson. She is a bright girl and being unable to find any further information about Mary McPherson from her own files, she prevailed upon her friend Betty, who worked for the firm which had acted for the McPherson estate, to see what she could find. With a dramatic flourish, she handed me copies of two letters from Ian McPherson, the son and sole beneficiary of Mary McPherson. The name, and the address at the top - Church Street, Parramatta - told me all I needed to know.

I can still clearly remember childhood visits to Ian and Rose McPherson, my maternal grandparents, in their old house in Parramatta. We lived on the other side of Sydney and these visits were both a special occasion and an exciting expedition. I even remembered that the house was in Church Street. Now I knew I was home.

For the whole weekend, Jean plagued me with questions about my grandparents, most of which I could not answer. She also expressed a determination to find out more about the early history of the house. I wished her luck but, as far as I was concerned, that could wait.

On Sunday afternoon, after she left, I sat in front of the fire, contentedly contemplating my luck. I have never believed in fate, or whatever you like to call it, but it was difficult not to give credit to some sort of guiding hand. Otherwise, how was it that, after a chance conversation in a bar on my first night on the Isle of Skye, I found myself buying a house which I loved and then discovering it was my grandfather's old family home.

That specialist physician I had consulted in Sydney had told me I might have four years left. I had used up the best part of the first year but I had enjoyed it thoroughly. I was now ideally placed to carry out his prescription for longevity but I did not have too much faith in it. I needed to decide what should happen to Sunny Brae when I am no longer here to enjoy it.

Like Annie Boswell, I have only one living relative -- my cousin Margaret in Melbourne. Unlike Annie, I know my cousin. We hated each other as children and the relationship deteriorated as we matured. There was no way that I would leave the house to her. Apart from my dislike of my cousin, I felt it was important that, when I had gone, the ownership of the house should remain on Skye. Jean was the obvious choice. We had become great friends and there was no doubt she loved the house and would want to keep it.

I gave myself a day to think about it, then phoned Alex Munro. I told him I needed to make my will and explained what I intended. He was surprised, a little shocked and very disapproving of what I wanted to do. When I threatened to go to another solicitor, he calmed down and stopped trying to bully me into doing something which he considered more acceptable. I explained the circumstances and stressed that the whole matter should remain confidential between the two of us with not even the faintest possibility of Jean finding out. If she was to be told, I would tell her at the appropriate time.

Perhaps prompted by the ghost of Annie Boswell, he eventually agreed to do as I asked. Even so, I could almost hear him thinking, 'These peculiar Australians.'