In Storm and In Calm

by Lucilla Andrews

  The gangway was still crowded when I reached the head, as there was some hold-up at the foot. Then it cleared, I glanced down incuriously, and nearly had a coronary. Magnus was standing about a yard from the foot, wearing his dogtoothed tweeds and most bored expression. Suddenly he spotted me, and for a few seconds his face lit up with that glorious smile I had first seen that Sunday in the hills. It had vanished when I reached him, he took my luggage from me without a word, and put it down as if it were brittle. Still without either of us saying anything, he kissed me as he had the second time that Sunday, only this time I kissed him back. When he let go of my shoulders we both breathed too fast. He said unevenly, ‘Do you mind coffee for breakfast, Charlotte, or do you insist on tea?’

  I’d to wait for breath. ‘Coffee’ll do, thanks.’

  ‘I’m right in thinking you’ve not had breakfast?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I never bother crossing this way.’ He picked up my things. ‘My car’s back over there.’

  It was a newish white car with black leather upholstery. I didn’t notice the make. I felt too ill and too dead scared, with this happiness. ‘How’re the seamen?’

  ‘Picking up.’

  ‘Did one have a skull fracture?’

  ‘Hairline.’

  We were watching each other absently and having another unspoken conversation at the back of our eyes. ‘Good. See the mother last night?’

  ‘Yes. No further complications. Very bonnie bairn.’

  ‘So I’ve heard. Jolly good.’

  ‘Indeed. Your crossing very choppy?’

  ‘Bit. You flew over this morning?’

  ‘Landed at seven.’ He looked away. ‘Friend of mine ‒ oilman ‒ gave me a lift in his private plane. He’s offered me one back if I’m at the airport by five-thirty.’

  His averted face was taut, tired, but neither melancholy nor languid. Suddenly he reminded me of himself in action in the theatre. ‘Handy.’

  ‘Very.’ He turned back to unclip, shorten, and fix on my safety belt. He didn’t touch me. ‘Got your rail ticket and booked a seat?’

  ‘Neither. Everyone said there was no hurry so late in the season.’

  ‘True, but I think we should deal with it first. Mind waiting for breakfast?’

  ‘No. Station’s near, isn’t it?’

  ‘Only a few minutes drive.’

  We drove in silence out of the docks, up one hill, along a few turnings, down another hill into the wide yard of an inter-city terminus. He parked on a double yellow line directly up against a No Waiting sign. ‘I’ll not be a minute.’

  ‘You’ll want some money ‒’

  ‘Pay me when I return.’

  I watched his elegant back as he walked up to the booking office as if about to take it by storm. I wished he hadn’t left me alone, as instantly common-sense raised its infuriating head. This was wonderful now, but it was only going to make the inevitable hell more hellish.

  He was back. He gave me my ticket and seat booking and accepted the money. ‘As my flat isn’t mine for another week, I’ve laid on a picnic breakfast.’

  ‘Picnic?’

  ‘Don’t look so appalled. Not British Rail sandwiches. I’ve got the food in the boot. One of the hotels here fixed me a hamper while I was waiting for your steamer. Should be all right as it’s a good hotel. I took out the Head Waiter’s gallbladder last year and in consequence am the only person I know who can get one of his tables without booking a month ahead. He offered me one this morning. I declined. I’m sorry to be arbitrary, but I flatly refuse to discuss my future in hushed tones surrounded by solemn Sabbath faces dourly consuming bacon and eggs, grilled kippers, baps and marmalade.’ His enchanting voice made the words sound like poetry. ‘Roughly, we’ve two hours and a bit before your train.’

  ‘Magnus, I’m not sure ‒’

  ‘That you can tolerate ham baps, fruit and coffee in the car? Don’t worry. We’ll not eat in a side-street. We’ll get out of the city and if the rain keeps off we can sit outside.’

  ‘I didn’t mean that.’

  He had been about to start the car. He let go of the ignition and faced me. ‘No? Then what did you mean?’ He studied me searchingly, and very shrewdly. ‘Charlotte, we’ve little enough time for essentials. None at all for euphemisms, verbal fencing, or the type of communications problem we’ve previously experienced through our sharing a language but not nationalities. If you’re trying politely to say you’ve no interest in my future, please, say so.’

  ‘It’s not that ‒ it’s not as simple as that!’

  ‘Anything but simple ‒ which is precisely why I’m here. We’ve got to talk. There was never time on Thessa. Not ‒’ his faint smile was faintly nervous, ‘that I was ever sure on the island that you’d be interested in having this talk. Once or twice I wondered, but realized that could’ve been wishful thinking, until ‒ just now. Though your wee note last night was a not unhelpful pointer.’

  ‘Last night? How?’ I demanded. ‘It was only posted yesterday evening.’

  ‘It wasn’t posted. Your taxi-driver saw no occasion to waste a good stamp when he’d to pass the Frasers’ house on his way home to his tea. He handed it in to my sister. Thank you for writing.’ His smile deepened. ‘I hope you’ll not mind my adding it was the coldest wee farewell blast I’ve ever read. All but gave my hands frost-bite. Very English.’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘Yes. Yes. And as I have observed, never more so than when deeply stirred by emotion. Right?’ I nodded. ‘Having established that ‒ let’s away!’

  The traffic in the city was quite heavy and obeyed no rules I understood. It seemed the same for pedestrians. ‘Is the little red man a signal for Highlanders to cross, Magnus?’

  ‘One frequently has that impression.’

  Some minutes later we were on a broad two-way clearway running between new housing estates and dividing the length of the centre by banks of scarlet, pink, and crimson roses in full bloom. ‘How do they grow these roses this far north in autumn?’

  ‘Gulf Stream.’

  ‘I’d forgotten.’

  ‘Southerners often do.’

  ‘Like northerners forget south-east England has very cold winters being so much farther east?’

  ‘Quite.’ He turned off at the next roundabout and when we were stopped by lights, glanced at me. ‘I must remember to pack my ice-axe and snowshoes when I come south.’

  ‘When are you coming south?’

  ‘That remains to be fixed. Ah, good.’ The lights changed. ‘We’ll be down on the coast road directly and then it’s but a few miles to a rather attractive headland.’ He paused. Then, ‘Charlotte, you’ve missed your cue.’

  ‘Sorry. What should I’ve said?’

  ‘Jolly good!’

  I smiled, ‘Is tha’ a fact?’

  He glanced sideways, then quickly back at the road. ‘Please,’ he said in a different tone, ‘please don’t smile at me in that fashion while I’m driving.’

  ‘Sorry.’ I watched his colour return to normal in about the time it took my heart-rate to do the same. By then we were on the coast road running out of the city. The sea was on our right, the tide out, and for miles the grey rollers broke on the empty white sand. The headland jutted like a crouched cat into the sea and was dwarfed by distant black, white-streaked mountains that appeared much closer than they were in fact, in the extraordinarily clear morning air. Once we reached the headland the lack of trees, the turf, the heather, and the narrow grey road reminded me of Thessa. I told him.

  ‘I thought it would.’ He parked on the turf, got out and looked around. ‘Too chilly for you outside if we sit this side using the car as a windbreak?’

  I walked round to him. The air smelt of heather and salt, and though there were fewer birds there were enough to make the breeze alive with wings and squawks. The North Sea stretched ahead to the grey horizon. ‘No. It’s lovely out here. Straight on for Thessa?’

  ‘Verging nort
h-east.’ He produced a picnic basket and rugs and threw me one. ‘Wrap that round you.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  He glanced at me with an expression that made me violently aware of my temporal pulse. ‘Sit down and let’s eat first.’

  We ate and drank in silence, sitting against the car a few feet apart. The food looked good. I’d no idea how it tasted.

  ‘More coffee? Another bap? Apple? No? Right.’ He cleared the remains, closed the basket, sat back, folded his arms and crossed his ankles. ‘As time’s so short I’ll start at the end. May I tell you what I’ve in mind?’ I nodded. ‘Matrimony. With you.’

  I felt weak, but not just with joy. ‘Magnus. You don’t know me.’

  ‘No. Not well. But I know myself. So I know I’m being honest with myself and you when I say I love you very much ‒ both rationally and ‒ er ‒ irrationally.’ He flushed and his faint smile was faintly self-derisive. ‘I’ve found the syndrome more than a wee bit disturbing since that Sunday we went up to the hills, though it had begun to bother me from our first meeting ‒’

  ‘But I thought Jenny ‒’

  ‘Och, no. Never. But I’d thought Rod Harding ‒’

  ‘Oh, no. No!’

  ‘I know.’ His eyes now were shy, gentle, and very vulnerable. ‘As I said at the station, latterly on Thessa, I wondered if what I’d begun to hope was just wishful thinking. I had to find out before you left and had intended flying over if I could this morning, before I read your letter last night. That made me ‒ well ‒ more curious. I had to see you ‒ to sort this out ‒ before we go our separate ways if we must, but don’t think,’ he added hastily as I was about to interrupt, ‘I’ve either the conceit or stupidity to ask you to have me this morning as I’m perfectly aware you’d turn me down flat. Wouldn’t you?’

  The word nearly strangled me but I had to say it. ‘Yes.’

  ‘I knew it. What I don’t ‒ och, Charlotte! Just straighten me out ‒’ his voice shook, ‘how exactly do you feel about me?’

  ‘I’m not sure ‒ no, that’s not true ‒ I think I am ‒ I think I love you like hell ‒ but only since the night before last! How can I honestly be sure I’m right?’

  Momentarily his whole face lit up and his arms moved towards me. Then he had things under control and took a new grip on his arms. ‘No, of course you can’t yet be sure. Love doesn’t appear in a blinding explosion that shoots up the pulse and blood-pressure. Sex does that job. Love needs time to grow, to put down roots. Forty-eight hours isn’t enough.’

  ‘You’ve only had a few weeks.’

  ‘Indeed.’ He got up, walked around the car, came and stood in front of me. ‘I’ve reminded myself of that since your sprint with that bairn your first evening. I’ve reminded myself I know of no evidence to support my conviction that in your presence, whatever the hour or place, the sun’s shining. But you do that for me.’ He dug his hands in his pockets, hunched his shoulders. ‘Now I’ve met you, I can’t understand how I managed before I knew you, before you turned up in my life and transformed it with your smile, your daft wee ways, the rock-like strength that lies underneath, and the comfort of your gentle silence. Remember that evening we’d a drink down by the harbour?’

  ‘Yes.’ I stood up, leant against the car. ‘Yes. Sister Olaf told me later about ‒ about the fire.’

  He nodded to himself. ‘I came to you for comfort ‒ and you gave it. I’ve never known any woman quite like you, or loved one in the way I love you. This is no reflection on my wife. I loved her greatly, but as she and I were so much younger than I am now, in retrospect I can see our relationship was much more immature. Inevitably. A laddie of twenty-two ‒ as I was when I met her ‒ and a man of thirty-five, as now, must either change or have stagnated emotionally. For some years I did that intentionally in self-defence. Once over that period I realized I’d changed beyond recognition from the man who’d been her husband and the father of ‒ of our son.’

  I said quietly, ‘Magnus, dear, I don’t think you’ve changed as much as you think.’ He was staring at the turf. ‘You’ve never got over his death, have you?’

  He looked up and pushed aside the hair the breeze had blown across his darkened eyes. ‘No. It’s strange, Charlotte, as I loved them both greatly, but I still can’t look at another bairn without ‒ without remembering him.’

  ‘ “What do you know of grief, you who have not lost a child?” ’

  He put his hands on my shoulders for support. ‘Who said that?’

  ‘Marcus Aurelius. After his son died.’

  He said unevenly, ‘He knew. You know ‒ understand so much ‒ I’ll tell you something. Remember that phalarope?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘He’d a wee bird he’d play with in his bath ‒ just like it.’

  ‘Oh, my darling!’ I put my arms round his neck and he lifted me up, and held me off the ground with both arms folded round my waist. For a few seconds, with our faces level, we looked at each other as we had for those few seconds in Harriet Ryan when I felt I was home. Then I kissed him and he kissed me back and went on kissing me as neither he nor any other man had kissed me before.

  Quite a while later, on the rug, he raised his face to look into mine. ‘Did you see us come in last evening?’

  ‘Yes. From the aft rail.’

  ‘I was on deck with the stretchers. I watched the steamer’s lights moving away and felt exactly as I imagine it feels to have an internal haemorrhage. Know what I mean?’

  ‘Very well.’ I stroked back his hair. ‘Get any sleep last night?’

  ‘Hour or two. You?’

  ‘About the same.’ He began kissing me again. ‘Magnus, wait ‒’ I held up his left wrist to look at his watch. ‘How long’ll it take to get back to the station?’

  ‘Twenty-five minutes. We’ve forty left. Must you go? Do you really have to be in London tomorrow?’

  ‘No.’ I told him about my holiday.

  ‘Indeed?’ His expression went blank. ‘But you’re still determined to leave today?’

  ‘Didn’t you say, five hundred miles give or take a few?’

  ‘Yes. From here. Supposing it were less? Say, a mile?’

  I tried unsuccessfully to sit up. ‘How?’

  ‘Benedict’s are advertising for a Consultant general surgeon. I applied two weeks ago. They’ve put me on the short list and want to see me this coming Thursday. From an old friend in high places, Tony Black tells me off the record I’ve a fair chance of getting it. This was one other matter I wanted to talk over with you today. Would you mind my working in London?’

  ‘Will you mind leaving the north? Your hills?’

  ‘I’ll miss them. There’ll be compensations, and I’m not merely thinking of you, vital though you’ve become to me. Benedict’s is a good hospital. It should be an interesting job and it’s time I saw something of England. Living up here has many advantages but the one great disadvantage that it breeds parochialism.’

  ‘What about your private patients?’

  ‘I don’t have any up here. I’m not yet clear of the position on that if I get to London.’ His eyes caressed me. ‘Dear heart, you’re now wearing your English English look, so let’s get something else straight ‒ naturally the thought of working near you is a tremendous attraction, but not even for you would I be daft enough to apply for a job I didn’t want.’

  I breathed out. ‘Thank God for that!’

  ‘So anxious not to have me as a millstone?’

  ‘So anxious not to mess things up for you. Or me. It’s still too soon. Even for you. Much too soon.’

  He sighed. ‘And if you insist on that train we’ll have to move even sooner.’

  ‘Oh, no! Why’s life always such a god-awful rush!’

  ‘Don’t be absurd, my darling. This rush, if it exists, is of your making. As you’ve this holiday, it seems to me a pity for more than the obvious reason. You’ve not seen the Highlands. Why not spend a few days up here looking around? My parents’ ho
me is only a six hour drive north-west, and Gairlie aside, the Highlands are full of places you really should see and might enjoy. Your train ticket’s valid for three months, so all you’ll waste’ll be the twenty-five pence for your reserved seat, which I’ll gladly refund. I’d as gladly have paid for the lot, but I didn’t care to risk it in case you mistook it for chauvinism.’ He paused. ‘Why not?’ I didn’t answer. ‘Still too involved with memory to wish this new involvement with me?’

  ‘It’s not Doug now.’ I told him of my thoughts after that party and then of the effect the trip in the lifeboat had had on me. ‘Thanks for taking me along.’

  His eyes were hurt, for me. ‘I felt sadistic, but I knew you’d manage professionally and I ‒ well ‒ I hoped having to sweat it out would prove personally therapeutic.’

  ‘Did.’ I kissed him. ‘You’re a pretty wonderful guy, Magnus.’

  He blushed, ‘Och, no! But I’ll tell you what you are ‒ and that’s gallant. Or as Sister Olaf put it last night ‒ a lass with right guts in right place.’

  I was scarlet. ‘She’s a dear old girl! How long exactly’ve we got?’

  ‘Five minutes, or miss your train?’

  He raised his eyebrows. ‘Well? Your choice?’

  I sat up, without difficulty. He got on to his feet, straightened his tie and hair, opened the boot and stacked in the spare rug and picnic basket. I hugged my knees and stared at the sea. ‘I’m so muddled, but not about my job. So there’s something I’ve got to get straight with you. I’ll never give up the chance of running Victoria for you.’

  ‘I know that. Nor have I any intention of suggesting you give it up for me.’

  I looked up at him. ‘I believe you. Now. But if you do get round to asking me to marry you and I do, will you or won’t you eventually expect me to chuck nursing, if only while the kids are young?’