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despair and hatred in her huge, haunted eyes.
        I enjoyed staying at the castle, living in baronial comfort, and making the acquaintance of Rory’s black labrador Walter Scott, who had been living with Buster’s gamekeeper while he had been away. He was a charming dog, sleek, amiable, incurably greedy and not as well trained as Rory would have liked.
        After a few days we went back to live in Rory’s house (very pretty it looked, after it had been cleaned up) and began marriage proper.
        I didn’t find it easy. I was determined to be one of those wonderful little homemakers putting feminine touches everywhere but, as Rory remarked, the only feminine touches I added were dripping pants and stockings, and mascara on his towel.
        I tried to cook, too. I once cooked moussaka, and we didn’t eat until one o’clock in the morning. But Rory, who was used to Coco’s French expertise, was not impressed.
        I also took hours over the washing. There weren’t any launderettes m Irasa, and then it lay around for days in pillowcases waiting to be ironed; and Rory never seemed to have clean underpants when he needed them.
        After a couple of weeks he said, quite gently, ‘Look, housework obviously isn’t your métier - I’m not sure what is. I’ve hired a char, four days a week, and she can do the ironing and washing as well.’
        I felt humiliated but enormously relieved.
        The char, Mrs. Mackie, turned out to be a mixed blessing. She was wonderful at cleaning, but a terrible gossip, and obviously irritated Rory out of his mind. As soon as she arrived he used to disappear into the mountains to paint, and she and I sat round drinking cider and talking.
        ‘I’ve got a wicked bad leg,’ she said one morning. ‘I shall have to go and see Dr. Maclean.’
        ‘Finn Maclean?’ I said.
        She nodded.
        ‘What’s his sister Marina like?’
        ‘She’s no right in the head, although I shouldn’t say it. The old Macleans never had any money. Dr. Maclean, her father, was a gud doctor, but he dinna know about saving. Marina married this old man for his riches, and it’s dancing him into his grave she is. Perhaps now young Dr. Maclean’s come back he’ll keep her in order.
        ‘Why’s he come back when he was doing so well in London?’
        She shrugged. ‘Irasa has an enchantment. They all come back in the end.’

CHAPTER SEVEN
        
        IRASA - Island of the Blessed, or of the Cursed. I could understand why none of them could escape its spell, and why only here could Rory find the real inspiration for his painting.
        The countryside took your breath away; it was as though the autumn was pulling out all the stops before succumbing to the harshness of the Highland winter. Bracken singed the entire hillsides the colour of a red setter, the turning horse chestnuts blazed yellow, the acacias pale acid green.
        With Rory painting all day, Walter Scott and I had plenty of time to wander about and explore. The island was fringed with wooded points like a starfish. Out of the ten or so big houses, on one point lived Rory and me, on another Buster and Coco, on another Finn Maclean and on yet another Marina and Hamish. The islanders’ white cottages were dotted between.
        One afternoon in late October, I walked down to Penlorren, the island’s tiny capital.
        Penlorren was a strange sleepy little town, exquisitely pretty, like a northern St. Tropez. Wooded hills ringed the bay, but the main street was an arc of coloured houses, dark green, pink, white and duck-egg blue. In the boats the fishermen were sorting their slippery silver catch into boxes.
        As I walked about I was aware of being watched. Suddenly I looked round and there was the blue Porsche parked by the side of the road: the same red-headed girl was watching me with great undefended eyes. I smiled at her, but she started up the car and stormed down the main street,