Part 13 (1/2)

SUSAN'S MOTHER'S SUMMER PUDDING 1 pound raspberries, strawberries 14 pound red or black currants (or any mixture of above fruits) 12 cup sugar day-old white bread, sliced as for sandwiches, crusts removed 2 teaspoons cherry brandy or blackberry ratafia (optional) Wash fruit and place about one cup of it in a saucepan with the sugar and liqueur, and cook lightly for three minutes. Cool.

Line a pudding basin with the bread, leaving no gaps. Gently spoon in the uncooked fruit interlaced with spoonfuls of the cooked fruit, pressing the fruit down gently with the back of a spoon. Place a ”hat” of bread on top when the basin is full, cutting bread to fit inside the surrounding bread.

Puddle remaining juice in center of the hat. Cover entire basin top with a piece of waxed paper or plastic wrap, and place a small plate on top so it fits inside the basin. Place a weight (such as a can of tomatoes) on top to hold it down. Refrigerate for 12 to 24 hours.

To serve: Remove saucer and waxed paper. Place serving platter over basin and invert. Your summer pudding should be quite pink. Use extra berry syrup to cover any white spots. Serve with ice cream.

Note: Ours rested only a few hours and was fine. We served it with good Scottish cream, rather divine.

The green countryside and quick little burns with lush gra.s.sy banks invite us to walk in the early morning and evening. The house is surrounded by pastures with paths that lead to oak copses and vistas of lochs. The s.h.a.ggy cows amble to the fence to greet us. Ed and I are out early. Over a rise we see a wooden cross, about thirty feet tall, with dangling leather straps hanging from the crux. This is not a piece of sculpture.

At breakfast Ed tells everyone about the cross on the hill. Then he discovers that he does not have his cell phone. When Kate comes downstairs, she's holding a pad. ”I counted eighty-six Jesuses and Marys. Also, just so you know, there are a hundred and twenty-nine paintings and prints on the walls. The downstairs bathroom is separate-ninety items on the walls. Not to mention that fake fish that sings 'Take me to the river, drop me in the water' when you sit down on the toilet.”

”I wish we could invite the owners for dinner,” I say. ”They must be fun.” We feel half acquainted with them and their four children through the distinct personality of the house.

Everyone searches each room for the cell phone. It's command central for our restoration-in-progress in Italy. The number of all the technicians and workers involved, and they are legion, are on that phone. We are in daily contact with the work going on. Ed has called so many times that the numbers have worn off the b.u.t.tons. He goes out and retraces our walk. We call the phone; no response. He searches the car. ”I'm sure I had it this morning because I meant to call Fulvio.” Lost.

Today we're driving over to Kinross. We're finding gardens we want to see, fine walks, and plenty to do nearby but nothing compelling, so we linger over coffee, catching up. Cole's music drifts through the rooms. We don't care if we get a late start. We brake for bakeries. We circle towns to look at mossy churches and prim houses enlivened by ma.s.ses of hollyhocks.

Kinross, a stately, austere Georgian house dating from 1693, stands inside a ten-acre walled garden that slopes down to Loch Leven. The present owners descend from the proprietor who took it over in 1902, after eighty years of neglect, and restored the original garden. They can look out their windows every morning and see that the ruined castle on a tiny island in Loch Leven is not at all the fairy-tale illusion it seems to be. Kinross's main garden axis lies from the front door of the house, down the gradually lowering garden, out the gate, and across the water straight to the castle. Famous for imprisoning Mary, star-crossed queen, the castle always was the focal point and orientation of Kinross and provides a thrilling prospect.

Mary tried several escapes during her ten months of confinement. One plan was to jump from the tower into a boat below. This made no sense until I learned that the water used to lap the castle before the loch was lowered in the nineteenth century. Mary endured, with the help of her cook, doctor, and two ladies-in-waiting. She loved falconry; I wonder if she was allowed out at all. Just before she was taken to Loch Leven Castle, she had given birth to stillborn twins and felt extremely weak from loss of blood. Her life rivals Job's, beginning with the death of her father when she was one week old. She finally did escape, when a servant grabbed the keys during a banquet and let her out. The daring episode did little good; she fled south to seek help from Queen Elizabeth, but the two had old issues, and her cousin promptly put her under lock and key again.

The gate, which frames the castle from Kinross, has an arched door. Over it there's a carved stone basket full of the seven types of fish of the lake: salmon, blackhead, pike, perch, speckled trout, char, gray trout. When the loch was lowered, the char died out, and the salmon could no longer reach the loch.

Robin remarks on the variegated sage as a border. The soft gray-green with some leaves edged with pink, some purple, frames the beds delicately. Four stone arches parallel a path in the garden at the side of the house, two with sculptures underneath. The arches are not to walk through; they serve as architectural points in the rectangular garden. Susan identifies a plant I don't know as fleabane. We're all charmed with the informality of the formal rose garden-a big mix of colors, all vying for attention. Clumps of catnip throw off a lavender haze. John is snapping millions of photographs. I take one note: plant variegated sage along the top of a wall at Bramasole.

Lochiehead-head of the lake?-is the name of our house. I wish one of us could buy it so we could come back often. Christmas would be ideal. July is perfetto too-no rain, balmy days. Cole goes fis.h.i.+ng. Susan reads in the living room, and everyone else goes for a walk. Ed launches into making ragu for dinner. The downstairs fills with aromas of sauteeing carrots, celery, and onion. Soon a big pot will be simmering on the Aga. I take a book down to the secret garden. A little bell chime rings in a tree somewhere on the land. There is no wind; who is ringing it? I envision a hidden stone church under immense trees. A robed monk tolling the hours, forgetting the hour and just ringing the bell for the pure tone settling over the countryside. The serene landscape has moved into me, and I feel sleepy all the time. I want to curl up under the potting table in the greenhouse, fall deeply into the sofa cus.h.i.+ons, tune out as we hurtle along the wrong side of the road toward a tearoom or a castle where the docent will go on forever with cute anecdotes about the earl. At the castles I want to throw myself onto the earl's bearskin by the fireplace and snooze. I'm walking through the gardens like a somnambulist. The light swaying of the ma.s.sed delphiniums puts me into a trance. The nearby river walks only make me want to lie down in the shallow water and drift. Can it be that I am finally relaxed?

Kate, our house sleuth, solves the mystery of the cross on the hill. She's read a framed article in the downstairs powder room, the one with ninety separate objects on the walls, and discovered that the house's owners put on a play every year and people come from miles around to see the reenactment of the crucifixion. ”Hence the donkey,” she says. We all rush to the bathroom. She points out, too, a faded photo of the walled garden. Only ten years ago the s.p.a.ce was derelict. We read other articles-a miraculous sighting of the Virgin in now-ex-Yugoslavia, a prize at a dog show. Is that our Trumpet, the Scottie, in the picture? I gaze at the derelict secret garden. The owners have performed their own miracle.

Violet arrives early, bearing a ginger cake with toffee sauce. We fall upon it for breakfast and ask her for the recipe. She has wiry curls and a fresh Scottish complexion. She tells us how terrible traffic will be if we go to Glamis Castle. She does not say Glahmiss, as we do. She says Glams.

VIOLET'S HOT TOFFEE SAUCE FOR GINGERBREAD 6 ounces soft brown sugar 4 ounces b.u.t.ter 14 pint double cream Heat in a pan until sugar dissolves and b.u.t.ter melts. Bring quickly to a boil, then switch off.

She serves this also on waffles. At home we don't get the same kind of double cream that blesses the British desserts. Heavy cream, perhaps thickened with a little creme fraiche, would subst.i.tute.

We do drive to Glamis, a castle fit for Sleeping Beauty. We're Californians-what could Violet know about traffic? Almost no cars are on the roads. Glamis was the childhood home of the late Queen Mother. They must have longed for a cozy apartment in Edinburgh during the winters. Most rooms are small, probably the better to heat them, and chilly even in summer. Nothing opulent, all rather rigorous. The picturesque conical towers are, on the inside, spiral stairways of stone. Whence camest thou, worthy Thane? From Fife, great King. We could meet someone carrying a bloodied head but instead meet day-trippers like ourselves. The captivating room is the playroom, furnished with doll beds, small stove, high chairs, and stuffed toys. Odd to imagine a tiny Queen Mother there, rocking her bear.

We don't linger but instead drive over to St. Andrews. We stop first at a shop to buy a cloth-wrapped cheese from the Isle of Mull-nutty and golden-and several local pale cheddars and a blue similar to Roquefort. The produce looks better, though nothing compares with our secret garden's tender lettuces. The day is so warm that we're not attracted to the cashmere shops. The name of the town is most holy-St. Andrew, one of the apostles and the patron saint of Scotland. He, the venerable university, and the long history of golfing are the positive history. Much else seems to center on martyrdoms, sieges, reformations, and burnings at the stake. The notable local invention was the thumbscrew. All feels serene along the leafy streets and in the tidy shops. We walk the length of the bustling town and back, find a tearoom for lunch, then decide to go home.

The slack caused by my long absences from my friends seems taut again. I wonder if they a.s.sumed I had changed and now see that I did not, or if I did (and yes, I did), it's okay. When everyone walks the same path and then one veers off in a different direction, balance goes out of kilter. We've all always been independent and ambitious. Our first bond was books. Susan, Kate, and I wrote poetry and Robin published a range of poets in her spare hours outside her college teaching job. Kate and I went to graduate school in creative writing together, commuting up to San Francisco and trading secrets along Highway 280. After I graduated, I began to teach in the same program. Susan and Kate, with their friend Jerry, then opened Printers Inc., a literary bookstore on California Street in Palo Alto. They installed a coffee bar/cafe, which was revolutionary. No other bookstore in California, or maybe the United States, had done that in 1978. We were sipping cappuccino and reading Merwin at Printers long before Starbucks ever pulled an espresso. The bookstore for its whole life was a fulcrum for the entire community and surroundings. Meet me at Printers. Eventually they expanded into an adjacent building for a larger cafe. The reading series was stellar. They opened a second store. We always were swapping books, talking books, reviewing books, publis.h.i.+ng books. Kate began to study Chinese and travelled alone to China several times. Then she left to live in Vermont for a few years, and Susan and Jerry continued to run the stores. When she came back, she started her La Questa Press.

This afternoon we're staying home, the women dozing on the sofas, reading without the need to talk. One of us suddenly giggles. ”I just remembered.” (Discretion prevents identification of the speakers and person spoken to.) ”What?”

”The Valentine's Day when Philip got to your office early and filled the whole room with balloons and roses and left that note, If you're free some evening stop by for breakfast.”

”What a good memory you have.”

”Well, that affair with Philip raged for a year.”

”That note was the best. We all envied you.”

”Yes, more for the note than anything else!”

”He was divine. And so was that English guy you went off to St. Croix with.”

”We fell out of bed in a heap.”

”And that therapist who asked why you divorced your first husband, and you said 'I don't remember'?”

”What about that student?”

”Oh, come on, he was twenty-six. And had poetry on his lips.”

”That's not all he had on his lips.”

”What about that watch left on the bedside table?”

A slew of rowdy memories ensues. If men only knew how women talk.

We drive too far to a country inn for dinner. The wild salmon and game are delicious and the atmosphere clubby and cozy, a half-timbered room hung with copper, baronial tapestry chairs, and a long table set with crystal. I'm loving Scotland. This is my first time here. I want to go to the Hebrides and to the monks' island of Iona, if they allow women.

On our walk at midmorning Ed experiences a miracle in the shadow of the Golgotha cross. We're crossing the fields and meadows talking about the lost phone. ”The charge is probably dead,” Ed laments. At that instant we hear a ring in waist-high weeds next to the path. We both shout and begin parting the gra.s.ses. ”Hey!” Ed shouts and holds up the wet phone. He answers, ”p.r.o.nto.” Chiara is calling from Cortona, wanting to know how our trip is going. At the very instant we are pa.s.sing by. Four ragged cows witness the miracle of the phone.

”Ed! This is fantastic-Santa Chiara is the patron saint of telecommunications.”

”Thank you, Jesus.” With the remaining flicker of charge, he calls Fulvio.

Our favorite garden, probably because it seems within reach, is House of Pitmuies near Forfar. The felicitous and rambling house overlooks wide, blowsy borders blooming so overabundantly that as you walk between the paths, you're brushed by blue, lavender, and pink flowers. What a glory. Stacked from front to back with ascending blooms, they have a ”gay abandon about their dress.” Like a rigorously trained ballerina, the garden appears spontaneous, as though the flowers just happened, rather than having been carefully planted to bloom in height, sequence, and color shade vis-a-vis all the other plants in the border. The white lilies are not staked, but instead the gardener devised a taut string web for them to grow through. Each one's square opening supports it nicely. In the kitchen garden their berries are netted but not as elaborately as in our secret garden. Small flowerpots top the low posts around the perimeter of the bed, and the net drapes over them without snagging on the posts or tearing. Very clever. We wish the lady of the house would invite us into her sunroom, pour a smoky oolong tea, and tell us her life story.

Violet tells us to go to a field nearby for the Scottish games. We find the immense field, where men and boys are going at tug-of-war, vaulting, races, and wrestling with verve. We watch several bagpipe solo contests and follow a marching band of pipers around the field. Bagpipes make me smile. I can't understand how they ever worked as the music of war. An advancing group of mad pipers should make the enemy jump up and jig rather than shoot or run in terror. Several people ask where we're from and seem amused that we're on vacation where they live. Most of the men wear kilts in their family plaids. They look gorgeous. We're all glued to the Highland Fling and other traditional dance compet.i.tions performed by serious little girls in folk costumes. The sets begin with a group of eight or ten, and gradually the judges knock off one after the other until the winner is left performing alone. Only then does she usually break into a smile and miss her steps. The community has come together for this sunny afternoon of play. If we lived here, we'd be right where we are.

Having succ.u.mbed to sausage rolls at the games, we're content to stir up a simple risotto primavera, using carrots, onion, beets, and celery from the garden. And of course, we gather a magnificent salad, the best salad in the world. Kate quickly a.s.sembles Violet's toffee sauce recipe. She and Susan bake gingerbread, pouring the sauce onto the cake. Susan and Robin arrange a sublime bowl of roses for the table. Tonight we are launching into our summer-stock performance of Macbeth in the drawing room. Lay on, Macduff.

After our morning yoga session, the men propose a hike. Not that they have not enjoyed the endless a.n.a.lysis of herbaceous borders. All of them garden, too. John's guidebook describes a ten-mile coastal walk. Perfect for our last afternoon. Tomorrow we all will be folded into airline seats, except for Robin and John, who are spending another week farther north. We're the only ones on the trail for most of the way. The few we pa.s.s greet us heartily. I'm sore from all the yoga contortions. They've taken twice-weekly cla.s.ses for years, while the most exercise I've had has been on the computer keyboard and running for flights. The long motion of walking makes me breathe deeply. I imagine the sun warming every cell in my body. Everywhere the people have been effusively friendly, not just cordial. They're more like the Australians than the reserved English. We find a ruined tower to explore and s.h.i.+ning water to look at all the way. Lord, ten miles is long, and some of the paths cross loose sand. We've been only in this wee bit of Scotland, and yet I think we luckily found a core sample. I never came before because I thought it would not be exotic enough. I feared it would seem too familiar. I didn't know how deeply refres.h.i.+ng the landscape could be. The place does seem familiar, perhaps at a genetic level, but in a nouris.h.i.+ng way. Or maybe I'm just familiar with these friends, and when one is at home with friends, the surrounding world becomes friendly, too.

Aboard the

Cevri Hasan

Turkey's