by Cathy Lamb
He turned toward me. “You do?”
“Yes. I can’t write anything at all. The story’s stuck.”
“I’m sorry about that.”
“Me too.” The pink in the sky had given way to a dark blue, shot through with turquoise and gold.
“Why do you think you have writer’s block, luv?”
Luv? Say it again, Toran, say it again. “I don’t know. I don’t know what to write. I don’t know where I want McKenzie Rae to time travel to. I don’t know what country, what time period, what she’s supposed to do.”
“When is your book due?”
I told him.
“Ah. That’s a wee problem.”
“Yes, it is.”
“What do you want to do besides write the story?”
“I—” I shut my untrustworthy mouth. I almost blurted out, “I want to make love to you in a multitude of positions.” I pushed my hair back. My clip came undone on top of my head, and my hair fell forward. I put my clip in my pocket. “The strange thing is, I like what I’m doing now. I like being here in Scotland. I like going to Gabbling Women and Gardening and Eating group, or whatever it’s called. I like being on your farm. I like doing the bookkeeping.”
“I like it, too.” He smiled. “I look forward to coming home and having you there, eating dinner, talking, chess, walks, and reading magazine articles together. And thank you for saving me and handling the books.”
“You’re welcome.” I wasn’t done organizing. I was working about eight hours a day, and I loved it. “I have a small, but mostly in control, obsession with numbers.”
“I’m glad for that. It’s my Scottish luck to have you here.”
“Thank you. I like going to the village. I like watching my house take shape. I like watching sunsets.”
“You are liking life, then.”
“Yes. That’s it.” I watched the white frothy trim pull in, then back out. “I am liking life.”
“Do you want to quit writing?”
That was the hard one. “Maybe. I don’t know.”
“Let’s talk about this. Maybe I can help.”
Maybe I can help.
Four of the best words in the English language, all strung together, a warm hand out to hold yours so you can walk through your problem together.
I took the hand, metaphorically speaking, as the sun went down, the moon popped out, white light shining, thanks to Blackburn “The Protector” Mackintosh and his spear.
I told him that all my ideas kept disintegrating, that I had no enthusiasm.
He listened. He asked me questions.
I thought about my own answers, spinning them around in my head.
The rain sprinkled down, not much; the waves with white trim rushed in, then out; the wind puffed through, then turned around.
I smiled at him, pushed my glasses up, hopeful.
He smiled back, loose and easy, sexy.
And it hit then: I loved Toran. Loved him.
I always had. I always would.
I stared out the window in my bedroom at Toran’s that night, darkness like a blue-black blanket over the farm. I held Silver Cat on my lap. She meowed. I meowed back.
I was physically humming in Toran’s presence. I wanted his naked body on mine. I felt his attention on me, how he listened, how he saw me. But he had never tried to kiss me. Now and then he would hug me, but not often.
We rarely held hands.
I was confused. Thrumming and humming and confused.
There was an embarrassing but realistic chance that the man was not attracted to me, that I was his best friend from childhood and he liked me. That was what a logical person would think, after these weeks together with no rolling and thrusting going on in the bedroom.
I didn’t want to think that, though.
I find people who do not live in reality, who do not think rationally, who deny in the face of overwhelming evidence what is in front of their face, to be irritating. That type of intellectual stuntedness and rigid mental clinginess makes friendship or relating to one another a troublesome barrier.
But I was doing it myself. I wanted Toran to bring those full lips down on mine. It hadn’t happened. There was no indication it was going to happen.
Therefore, ergo, he was not attracted to me.
But still, with stubborn intransience, I held on to zero factual evidence of attraction and hoped it would change.
I felt myself falling into a black pit. I was alone in the pit. It was a sad pit.
I put on my flowered nightgown. Covered now, from neck to toenails. I noticed a brown stain and a black one.
Super. I was a sad, alone, lonely woman in a black pit in a stained, high-necked nightgown.
What I could not be again, though, is a woman who misreads a man. I had done that before. The ending was an emotional collision.
Silver Cat meowed again. I meowed back. We stared at the blue-black blanket outside together.
Drew and I tried to hide our relationship from our colleagues. They noticed anyhow. I was embarrassed. What was I now? The object of gossip? Was I disrespected because of this romance? I wanted to be seen as a serious student and researcher of biology and gene therapy. Women were not common in labs, and I didn’t want to undermine myself or have to deal with any sexist language or condemning behavior.
They smiled. They made comments. Drew smiled back, and laughed. He seemed relaxed about the whole thing. I was not relaxed. When people said things to me about Drew, I cut them off and said, “We’re not talking about that subject. What will you be accomplishing today?”
Drew consistently treated me with respect and gentleness. I could tell him anything. He knew how to cheer me up and I knew how to cheer him up. He brought me little gifts, croissants and coffee, chocolates, a collection of rocks and crystals, a book on Marie Curie. He made me a silver necklace with a turquoise stone in it. Another time, he sewed me a scarf. His mother had taught him how to sew.
We did not have sex for a whole year while we were dating. We kissed and held hands. I wanted more, but he thought we should wait and be sure, so we did, and I used Dan Number One, my vibrator, as Drew was an attractive man. Then Dan Number One died and I bought Dan Number Two.
We not only had similar interests in physics, biology, cells, gene therapy, and research, we both liked going to lectures on all things science. We liked Star Trek. We liked routine and structure. We liked reading, hiking while discussing nature, ecology, and weather systems. We liked crime shows and, surprisingly, Tina Turner, romance movies, and tiramisu.
He would shop for clothes for me, as I hate shopping, and even brush out my hair at night.
He told me he loved me and asked me to marry him when we were atop the Space Needle in Seattle. I said yes. I loved him. I liked him. I tried not to think about Toran. That had been many years ago. Toran was married, and there was a continent and an ocean between us.
Drew wanted to wait until our wedding night to make love. “It will be special then.”
I said, “I think my vagina is going to protest.”
He laughed and said, “I will make it up to your vagina.” Worry crossed his eyes, a lightning flash, but I didn’t think much of it.
“How about we take a few test drives in my bed?”
“A test drive? I don’t need to test drive you, Charlotte. I love you.”
That I did not see the truth was almost willful ignorance and naiveté on my part.
Our wedding was in the university chapel and the guest list was about fifty people. My mother insisted on paying for it. She had it catered. We had steak and lobster, salads, and breads. She brought in a band and a cake in the shape of a spaceship. Everyone loved it.
I missed my father walking me down the aisle. My mother did the honors.
Drew and I happily danced. We liked to dance. Not only had we taken ballroom dancing but we’d learned the foxtrot and we could even whip our hips around to some salsa dancing. There was a lot of wine and hard liquor,
so everyone had an impossibly good time. People in our department talked about it endlessly.
We had our honeymoon in Maui. One would think we’d be sneaking off to make love in the ocean and bays. No.
In seven days we had sex twice, both quick.
I should have seen the warning signs before the wedding.
Blind.
I should have understood the warning signs on our honeymoon.
Confused.
I should have taken action on the warning signs when we returned to Seattle.
Socially inept me, with no clue to life’s realities or men in general.
Rippingly, roaringly painful.
It will be a horse and a bolt.
“What, Grandma?
She hugged me close. “It will be a horse. The sunset will be bright orange, on fire.” She ran a hand over her face, suddenly drooping with sadness. “It will be the time of the bees.”
“What are you talking about?”
I hugged her and she blinked her eyes. They filled with tears. She understood her own prediction this time.
“Charlotte, you must always be strong. There is no other way to get through this life. Promise me, granddaughter, to keep your head and your shoulders back, like a true Scotswoman, like a warrior, like your ancestors did.”
“I promise.”
I drove into the village for chocolate. It’s telling that I made a special trip for it, but chocolate is a gift that must be received often. I drove past the long blocks where the Zimmerman Factory had been before the fire. It was an ugly place in the midst of a charming place. I wondered why they hadn’t cleaned it up. I figured it was because of money.
Estelle’s Chocolate Room is on a corner. The sign is pink, as are the shutters and door. Inside, it’s pink and white. There are no better chocolates in the world.
Pherson and Toran used to buy Bridget and me chocolates here. None of us had much money, so a couple of pieces brought on some chocolate excitement.
When we were fourteen, Carney Ramsay caught Pherson and Bridget kissing. She had a box of Estelle’s Chocolates in her hand that Pherson had given her.
Carney was enraged. He had a creepy, obsessive personality when it came to Bridget. I don’t think he ever sexually abused her, but he lectured her endlessly about the importance of virginity and purity and if she ever gave it away before she was married she was a slut and a whore and God would punish her.
He forbid her to see Pherson again. He didn’t allow her to leave her house for a month. When she finally did come out, when my mother went over and talked to Carney, and told him that he was being repressive and overly punitive and she had been praying for him (she hadn’t), he finally let Bridget come over to our house again.
Carney warned her never to be with Pherson again. Or else.
From then on out, he suspected Bridget of meeting up with Pherson and other boys. “You’re like my mother. She was a lying whore, too!” he raged at her, and drilled her endlessly, accusing her of sneaking around, having sex.
Carney’s mother had cheated on his father, Rodric Ramsay, then left the village with the lover. Everyone knew. It was the gossip of the day. Carney was sixteen, his ego and bullying arrogance apparent even then, according to my father. Rodric had been overly strict, punitive, and a Catholic fanatic, too. No wonder the poor woman cheated and left. It was her last gasp, and in her last gasp she fell in love.
Carney and his father never forgot or forgave his mother, though she repeatedly tried to see her son. Carney’s father called the mother a slut and a whore, his own rigid Catholicism a straitjacket. My grandma had definitely married the better man when she chose my granddad, Brodie.
In turn, to prevent any cheating in his marriage, Carney browbeat his own wife, Bonnie, until she was a squeaky, smashed human mouse.
Control was the answer in Carney’s judgment. Women must obey and submit or their libidos would take over their feeble, weak minds and they would take off with other men.
He began smashing Bridget down, too, continuing to harp on her virginity, her innocence and purity, that sex was a sin. “Virginity is what a woman has to offer a man. Without it, she’s dirty. Spoiled. Used. Do you want that, Bridget?”
It was about then that he met Father Angus Cruickshank.
Angus, too, believed in control.
And he wanted Bridget in his control, too.
For carnal, pedophiliac reasons.
“It must be hard, seeing your mum’s garden like this,” Toran said as we walked amidst the overgrown mess a few days later.
“Yes, it is. Not a garden anymore, though, is it?”
Three of the arcs my father built for my mother were sagging or breaking. The pergola in the middle of the backyard, over a cement slab my father poured for an outdoor table area, was missing wood slats and tilted. Everything was overgrown, the weeds and shrubs out of control. I was happy to see some of the plants, vines, and trees my parents had planted had survived, but they all needed serious pruning. Much of what she had planted was dead, though.
The birdhouses my mother loved, painted in reds and blues and greens, were now gray, the wood splintering. I found several, broken and cracked on the ground. One was long and green with four holes for birds; another was circular, Japanese style; a third was a tiny cottage; a fourth was shaped like a cat.
My mother had packed up a few of them, the ones my father had given her, and kept them all these years. She had put them on the mantel of our home, and we saw them every day, but there were many she left.
“It’s not a garden now, luv,” Toran said, “but we could make it one.”
“We?” I turned to him and pushed my glasses up my nose. The tape had come loose on the left side and was itching my temple.
“Yes, we. You and I and a few men who work for me. I have a small tractor and rototiller, a roller, and other manly man tools.” He winked at me. “We can do this. We can get it ready for you to work your gardening magic.”
“Toran, you’re busy. You have your farm. The blueberries are ripe. . . .”
“Not busy at all.”
“It’s a project.”
“I like projects.”
“I’ll do it. Give me the names of the men and I’ll hire them.”
“I’ll send them over. I’ll pay them. I’ll come, too. This weekend.”
“No, I can’t take advantage of your time like that—”
“Charlotte.” He cupped my face, and I sucked in a breath. “Once again, luv, you are not taking advantage. I want to do this. Your mother’s garden gave me a sense of peace, of safety.”
“It did?”
“Yes. When I was in your home, your father and mum around, or out in the garden, I knew my father wasn’t going to be there preaching, yelling, going off on one hellfire and damnation lecture or another, my mother cowering. He was afraid of your father, and your mother. Next to them, he knew he fell short.
“Your home was safe, happy. I liked helping your mum in the garden. I listened to her, and Bridget did, too. That’s why, when Bridget is home, our garden blooms. It changes under her hands. It’s beautiful. She remembers your mother, she remembers us, all together. We can’t let it go.” He put his hands on his hips, surveying the garden damage. “I see the love of your mother’s garden as a link between your family members, even between Bridget and me, don’t you?”
“I do.” I nodded. How could a man be so tough and hard on the outside and be so intuitive and sensitive on the inside? “A link between my mother, my father, his parents and grandparents who lived here before us who also liked to garden. We have trees planted by my great-grandparents here.”
“Let me help you, Charlotte. I want to make you happy, as we were before you moved.”
“I am happy here.” I paused. I fiddled with my button, high on my blouse. I was happy. Happy in Scotland, happy with Toran.
There was a problem, though. I decided to speak freely. “If I start to love being here, then what do I do? I need
to go home and write. I have a house on an island. I have four cats. They’ll need new sweaters soon.” I kept fiddling with the button. Maybe I would permanently unbutton the button, and not only when I was playing semidrunken poker at a bar. “That sounded breathtakingly bizarre. It’s not like my cats are pining to make a fashion statement. They probably don’t even like the damn sweaters.”
“If you love it here, I think it’s the Scot in you recognizing that you’re home. You can write here, right? We have pens and paper. I’ll buy you new journals. We’re on an island. We have an ocean, too. You can bring the cats over. They’ll need their sweaters more in Scotland than they do in America. Chilly cold here in the winter.”
“Move here, permanently?”
Those blue eyes were so bright. He smiled. “Someone has to take care of your mother’s garden, don’t they?”
I patted my hair down, made sure the clip on top of my head was on straight.
“Someone has to take care of your mother’s garden.”
“It is a wreck. The vines are out of control, I’m surprised they haven’t taken over the eastern half of Scotland yet.” I teared up. “I can see them both here, hear my father’s legends and stories, singing Scottish drinking songs with him, playing ‘Scotland the Brave’ on his bagpipes, my mother trimming her roses, humming Beatles songs and teaching me how to be a feminist. . . .”
“Me too, honey.”
He called me honey. I felt myself become warm . . . flushed.
I pulled on the top button of my shirt one more time. I think I could undo it.
Toran gave me a hug. In my mother’s overgrown garden, with my father’s bagpipes playing in my head, we hugged.
Three days later a pile of journals ended up on my desk in my bedroom. The covers told me all I needed to know.
Monet’s painting of his garden with the arched bridge in it. A man playing bagpipes. Irises in a vase. Swans, had to be from the swans I made out of the cloth napkins. A sailboat on an ocean. A desk with a quill and feather in the corner. Cats.