Sally looked at Lisa, blushed and replied, "I think so."
Lisa beamed back at her.
Corinna coughed loudly a couple of times and made a show of breaking up the moment. "I think we all walked straight into that one. But going back to what you asked about why people don't leave? I think there's something really special going on here. This is a really cool place to be. Our little 'community', or call it what you want, may have started out being made up of a bunch of nutters who were either hallucinating or had genuinely seen something special that hardly anyone else in the world had seen, but now it's more than that. We're a good group."
"A few of the people are a little quiet, and they hold back until they trust you, but, all in all, there's actually no one here that is genuinely mad or crazy." Nicholas added.
"Plus," Lisa added, joining them at the table. "I don't just think it's only the community or the monster, there's more to it than that. I think it's this place, too. It's really unique and it's got something going on which you can’t really put a finger on. Have you seen the standing stones on the other side of the ruined church at the end of the old road?" she said, pointing out the window. "You should go and have a look. There's a small stone circle, with an avenue of standing stones leading up to it. People have been coming here for thousands of years, drawn to it for whatever reason. Something that we've probably all lost touch with."
"Which is probably also why the monastery was built here?" Alessandra suggested. "Maybe this place has something religious or holy about it?"
"See," Nicholas laughed. "It's already getting to you! Welcome to the club."
Another little slap from Corinna. Which Alessandra now recognised more as flirting that anything else.
"I'm serious." Alessandra said. "Why build a monastery here? Surely, because they identified it as being a place of special interest too?"
"Maybe..." Nicholas replied, and a small paused followed. A pregnant, but not uncomfortable gap, during which everyone drank some more wine.
"Have you heard the latest?" Robert asked, the tone of his voice more serious.
"No," Lisa and Sally both replied together, as if they knew exactly what he was talking about.
"It's all very well us going on about how wonderful this place is, but according to Gavin, it looks like it could be going ahead after all."
"What?" Alessandra shook her head, "What are you talking about?"
"Apparently the Laird who owns this land is thinking about selling it. To a property developer." Sally explained. There's been a rumour going around for a few weeks now."
"What?" Alessandra immediately sat up straight, "When? Why?"
"We don't know. But it could be a couple of months, or longer... depending upon who buys it."
"Is there anything we can do to stop it?"
Nicholas and Sally shrugged their shoulders.
"I hope so. We're holding a meeting about it later this week. This community has been here for years. We must have some sort of rights. We're going to protest it, if we can. But until the Laird actually decides to put the land up for sale, there's nothing actually to protest about."
Alessandra felt curiously sad. She'd only just arrived, and wasn't a true, time-earned paid-up member of the community, yet, but the idea that it could be shut down deeply saddened her.
"It's shit," Lisa said, standing up. "I think we need more wine. I'll open your bottle, Alessandra?"
Alessandra nodded.
Lisa walked across the caravan to the kitchenette, picked up the bottle and started to fight with the metal wrapping around the cork.
Alessandra stood up and wandered across to her, annoyed that her fingers had started to tingle again. Maybe it was something to do with her elbow? Had she banged it and jarred a nerve? But it was in both hands. So that couldn't explain it.
Lisa looked across at her.
"The problem with expensive wines is that you can't bloody open them. What's with all this faffing around and putting metal around the cork? And then having to stick a corkscrew in to pull the cork out?"
"Actually, it's not that expensive," Alessandra confessed as she watched Lisa pick out a knife from a drawer and start digging at the metal covering to prise it off. "I just got it in the supermarket in town..."
Lisa was just about to reply when the knife slipped and jumped, and the tip of it sliced into one of Lisa's fingers.
Blood immediately started to well up from the cut.
"Shit," Lisa swore quietly, putting the bottle and the knife down.
Alessandra instinctively stepped forward, cupped a hand around each side of Lisa's hand and directed her gently but firmly to the sink.
Blood was now dripping from the cut.
Alessandra turned the tap on, and ran cold water over the finger, whilst Lisa used her other thumb to tease the cut open and see how deep it was. Blood surged out and was quickly washed away by the water.
It was pretty deep.
"Blast. What an idiot."
"Have you got any ice?" Alessandra asked.
"Ice? This is a caravan not the real Hilton hotel."
"Now you've washed the cut clean, push the skin back together. Hold it there for a moment longer. Have you got any plasters?"
"Under the sink. In the red tin."
Alessandra got the tin.
Her fingers were tingling so much now she found it difficult to open the little box and prise the lid up.
She put the tin down and wiggled her fingers in the air, looking first at her own hands and then when she wasn't able to spot anything obviously wrong with them, she glanced back at Lisa's finger.
Looking at the cut, a strange thought entered her head.
She glanced across at Robert, sitting comfortably with the others around the table. They were all chatting amongst themselves and occasionally laughing aloud, oblivious to the little drama unfolding at the other end of the caravan.
"Here," Alessandra said, gently coaxing Lisa's hand onto the metal draining area of the sink. "Let me wrap a few paper towels around the finger..."
Lisa looked across at Alessandra, searching her eyes quizzically. But she didn't speak. Instead she complied with Alessandra's gentle authority.
"And now these...," Alessandra reassured her, wrapping the finger in some fresh paper towels she ripped off from the roll hanging on the wall.
"Lisa, I don't know what I'm doing, but for some reason I have an overwhelming urge to do it. So please, just go with the flow for a second and laugh me at afterwards, but for now... I just want to try something."
The tingling in Alessandra's fingers had got to the point where she once again felt as if little electrical sparks were jumping between them. It was a totally bizarre feeling. Weird. She didn't know what was going on. Yet at the same time, what she did next felt instinctive to her. Strangely natural.
With Lisa’s hand resting on the side of the metal sink, Alessandra slipped a hand underneath her cut finger, so that it rested in her palm, and then covered the top of it with her other hand, palm down.
She gently squeezed her two hands together, slowly increasing the pressure on the finger caught between the palms of her hands.
Alessandra's wrists started to feel uncomfortably warm. The heat she felt then moved slowly down through her hands to her fingers, until both her hands felt hot. At that moment, Alessandra's mind filled with thoughts of Lisa's finger. She imagined the finger being whole again, the cut closing and healing up. She willed it to be so. For the finger to be healthy. Virgin. Cleansed. The skin to be unblemished and intact.
The heat in her hands seemed to now concentrate around the finger enclosed within it, moving inwards, diffusing across the gap from her hand to Lisa's.
She felt the heat leave, and at the same moment she heard Lisa take a sharp intake of breath.
But then something else happened. Something unexpected.
She experienced an overwhelming compassion for Lisa. For something more than the finger. Something else, somethin
g almost intangible.
A hurt. An inner pain?
The pain confused Alessandra. She didn't understand it, she couldn't touch it. It made her feel strange. Dark. Uncomfortable. Heavy.
She quickly willed it to go away. To be replaced by lightness. Comfort. Warmth. Joy.
Alessandra felt a second sensation of warmth surge from within her, span her wrists, travel down through her hands and melt slowly across from her to Lisa.
Lisa breathed in deeply and that same moment Alessandra exhaled, blowing the air out of her lungs, expelling it forcibly from her airways and body.
Then it was gone.
The tingling in her fingers had left.
And with it all her strength.
Alessandra reached forward quickly for the edge of the sink and steadied herself.
Her heart started to pound within her chest and she felt suddenly light-headed. Nauseous.
Alessandra closed her eyes and rode a wave of dizziness. She took several deep, steady breaths.
"Are you okay?" Lisa asked. "What's the matter?"
"I'm fine. It's all good." Alessandra blinked her eyes open, and focused on Lisa, but continued holding tightly to the sink.
"What just happened?" Lisa asked, her eyes searching Alessandra's.
"I don't know. Sorry, I just got this urge... I can't explain it." Alessandra frowned, then nodded at Lisa's finger. "Can you take off the paper-towel? Let me see your finger?"
Lisa took the edge of the paper towel with her free hand and then looked back at Alessandra, hesitating.
"Show me. Take a look."
Lisa pulled the paper off.
Underneath the bleeding had stopped. The red blood, now dry and solid, encrusting the finger.
Lisa put the finger back under the running water from the tap and washed the dried blood off.
In a moment all signs of the blood were gone.
Lisa stared at the finger, lifting it closer to her eyes. She studied it, incredulous at what she was seeing.
There was no wound.
No cut.
No scar.
Nothing wrong with the finger at all.
The flesh was intact, vibrant and healthy.
As if Lisa had never been cut in the first place.
"I'm sorry," Alessandra said quietly. "I have to go now, I don't feel well. I need to rest, but please, don't tell anyone about this. Okay?"
Lisa opened her mouth to say something, but Alessandra stopped her.
"Promise me? And nothing about Robert either! You promise?"
Lisa was shaking her head, but her words were out of sync with her actions.
"I promise."
Alessandra nodded, turned and hurried out of the caravan door.
She vomited twice on the way back to her caravan, en route to the oblivion which immediately followed as soon as her head touched the pillow on her bed.
Chapter 15
Scotland
Edinburgh
Tuesday
8.00 p.m.
Fiona McKenzie sat on the top of Crow Hill, in a small round dip in the ground, sheltered by the wind from behind, and from the view of everyone clambering around the top of Arthur's Seat, the top of the other nearby hill less than a hundred metres away.
From her wonderful position, she had a panoramic sweeping view of the south of the city, out across the Firth of Forth and across the bay to North Berwick, and then continuing all the way around to the lowland hills which marked the beginning of the Borders.
Fiona had come here to get away from it all, her favourite spot in the whole of the Queen's Park in Edinburgh. As a little girl, she'd come here with a book and a picnic that her mum would make up for her.
As a child she was not a loner, far from it, but she loved this place. She adored the wildness and ruggedness of the park in the centre of the city. For those who lived near or around the Queen's Park, it dominated their view of everything and gave them a back garden to play in that others could only dream of.
Forget 'Swallows and Amazons', for Fiona this place had let her explore her imagination and allowed her and her friends to play pirates, Cowboys and Indians, and even 'Japs and Commandos', games which were probably frowned upon and not PC today, but were great fun for a little child growing up then.
Today, however, she came here to think. To ponder. To be sad, afraid, and lonely, and to try to find some strength within herself to figure out what on earth she should do next.
This was her favourite time of the evening. The sunshine, soft and gentle, stretched out far across the landscape which unfolded before her, and the sea air was a pleasure to breathe.
It invigorated her. Freshened her mind.
But sadly, did little to help alter the fact that she was dying.
The consultant had been brutal. Pleasant, friendly, measured, but... as direct as a sledgehammer encountering a pane of glass.
Not only had he shattered her life in a million pieces, but the unexpected news he had given her, on top of her already existing suspicions and fears, had ground any small, surviving shards of glass into dust.
The cancer was quite advanced.
Treatment should begin immediately.
It needed to be aggressive if there was to be any hope of killing the tumour and preventing it from spreading further.
There was not a second to spare.
Oh, and by the way, ... you're pregnant.
What?
Pregnant?
HOW?
'But I can't be!'
'I'm afraid you are. Ordinarily this would be a joyous occasion, but I'm afraid the pregnancy would not be able to survive the treatment we will need to give you.'
'What does that mean? I will lose the baby?'
A nod. Not even a formal acknowledgment.
'And if I don't take the treatment, will I live long enough for the baby to be born?'
'Perhaps. But as the cancer progresses, we cannot predict the effect it may have on the child in your womb.'
'What are you saying?'
'Perhaps the child will not survive, or it may not develop normally. On the other hand, it could live. Although, it will be without a mother.'
Silence.
Then...
'And if I don’t have the treatment... can I delay it? Long enough for a premature birth... giving the baby a better chance to survive...?'
'The longer you delay your treatment, the more chance you give for the cancer to spread, and the worse your prognosis will become.'
Then, a brief pause.
'However, I should add that if you have the treatment we would prescribe, a combination of chemotherapy and radiation therapy, should you survive, the treatments can affect your reproductive system and your fertility.'
'I might live, but not be able to have more children?'
'Yes. Although, depending upon how important it is for you to have children, there is an option you may wish to consider. We delay the treatment for a few days to let you consider everything carefully, and we try to harvest some of your eggs. After the treatment, we may be able to use the eggs to help achieve a successful pregnancy. With yourself, or perhaps via a surrogate. However there are no guarantees. The focus for us just now should be to treat the cancer and help you to survive.'
A hesitation by the consultant.
"May I ask, is there a Mr McKenzie? Or a partner, or someone else we could recommend to you to help you talk this through?'
At that point, things began to get too much. She just wanted to scream, "Information, I need more information! How can I make a decision now, without knowing ALL the facts?" but she could see that her time was up.
The consultant had smiled at her, tried to be as humane as possible, but as she was practically ushered out of the room, she could almost hear him shout, 'Next Please!' to another unlucky person in the waiting room.
Which was how Fiona had ended up sitting alone in the Park, surveying the world which stretched out below her.
Cancer was
a leveller. It brought everyone down to the lowest common denominator. Mankind, regardless of how clever or intellectual an individual may be, regardless of which university they had attended, how much money they had, or which religion they belonged to, all men, women and children were nothing more than an incredible, elaborate complex of cells. Cells which could go wrong. Malfunction. Fuck up.
'What was it that ministers say at funerals? Dust to dust?' Fiona pondered the pointlessness of it all. The cycle of life in which nutrients from dust and soil were absorbed into the cells of plants or animals and ultimately turned into food for animals and humans, which are eaten and turned into flesh on bodies, which grow and produce more flesh, which then die, rot, and disappear. Back to dust. No matter what, everyone ends up back as a handful of dust.
Fiona was far along that rat road. The dust bit was beckoning her.
She'd always wondered how she would react if she were ever the recipient of such bad news. How would she handle it? What would she feel?
Well now, she knew.
Fear. Frustration. Sadness. And anger.
And right now, a lot of that anger was directed at Campbell.
Where the hell was he? Where was the man she loved when she needed him most?
Tears began to flood down her cheeks.
She was a failure. Campbell had always wanted to have children and so had she. They had talked about it often, but until last week they had always believed that they had time. The clock had not yet started ticking for them. Or so they had thought. And now?
What the hell now?
She wiped away the tears from her cheeks and blinked, trying to see properly.
Resting a hand upon her womb, she comforted her child.
She comforted herself.
How could life be so cruel?
Only five days ago her life had been so good. Almost perfect.
The Assassin's Gift Page 14