Emotional Geology

by Linda Gillard

  ‘Enjoying yourself, Rose?’

  I’m startled by a familiar voice, but I cannot see who is speaking.

  ‘Why aren’t you dancing?’

  ‘Gavin?’

  ‘God, you are pissed.’

  ‘Not as pissed as you from the sound of it.’

  ‘What else is there to do but drink? No one will talk to me.’

  ‘You weren’t invited.’

  ‘A detail. I see you wore my favourite dress.’

  ‘I didn’t wear it for you.’

  ‘You going home with the teacher?’

  ‘No, of course not.’

  ‘You two still haven’t got it together then?’

  ‘With Megan here?’

  ‘Yeah, I can see that might cramp your style a bit. But from the looks of things you want to get a move on, Rosie old girl, or you might just miss the boat...’

  ~

  Megan is looking predatory. She sidles over to Calum and Murdo, glass in hand. Calum is talking and ignores her. She slips her arm round his waist and rests her delicate hand on his hip. I watch her fingers flex. When he finally turns towards her, her hand grazes the back pocket of his jeans, lingers, then flutters up to tweak her hair. As Calum speaks to her she tilts her head upwards, arching her neck, inviting. Her teeth flash in the subdued light, a white gleam, like the snarl of an animal.

  ~

  Calum is standing in front of me. One of us must be reeling because the room appears to sway.

  ‘Will you no’ dance with me, Rose?’

  ‘I don’t. I mean, I can’t.’

  Calum splutters. ‘Everyone can dance! You just haven’t drunk enough, woman.’ He raises a half bottle of whisky and aims it in the general direction of my glass.

  ‘No, I’ve got plenty—’ He pours anyway as I quickly retract my glass. The whisky from the bottle spills over my hand. The whisky in my glass slops over and trickles down inside my dress, gathering between my breasts. Calum watches it travel. I watch him watching.

  ‘So you won’t dance then?’

  ‘No... Thanks.’

  He sighs, then lifts my wet hand to his lips. I think he is about to kiss it but instead he licks off the spilt whisky, looking at me, not my hand.

  ~

  ‘Why didn’t you dance with him?’

  ‘It’s none of your business, Gavin.’

  ‘My, we’re touchy!’

  ‘Leave me alone, Gavin! You’re just a figment of my imagination anyway.’

  ‘You say the sweetest things. Why don’t you dance with him, just to spite me?’

  ‘It’s very tempting, but I’m afraid I don’t trust myself.’

  ‘You don’t trust yourself? Now, that’s the kind of excuse a guy could live with! What are you afraid you might do, Rose? Come on, you can tell me of all people - and you’ll have the added satisfaction of knowing that every word will hurt.’

  ‘Will it, Gavin?’

  ‘Like a knife.’

  ‘Well, in that case...’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘If I did dance with Calum - I have no intention of doing so, you understand - if I did, I don’t think I would be able to refrain from threading my fingers through his hair and cradling his head in my hands.’

  ‘Nice. For starters. Go on. You can do better than that, Rose. I hardly felt a thing.’

  ‘If I danced with Calum I don’t think I could cope with the feel of his chest against my breasts... Especially since he’s doused himself in champagne. All that damp wool...’

  ‘Now you’re talking.’

  ‘And if he were to exert the slightest pressure in the small of my back while we danced, I know my hips would gravitate towards his until I was grinding my pubic bone against his - hopefully - hard cock—’

  ‘Ouch.’

  ‘And if I allowed that to happen then no power on earth would be likely to stop me grabbing his arse and—’

  ‘OK, I get the picture. You are pissed, Rose.’

  ‘As a newt. Which is why I won’t be dancing with Calum. This party’s a family affair, Gavin. Pas devant les enfants... Especially not mine.’

  ~

  Calum dances instead with Eilidh. She stands as high as his elbow, gaudy in pink and silver lycra, like a diminutive pop star. At climactic moments in the music Calum lifts her effortlessly, high into the air, swinging her round. Her face is ecstatic. She gazes at Calum in frank adoration.

  So does Megan.

  ~

  It’s very late. Shona parks herself next to me on the sofa and extends her legs, flexing tired and swollen ankles.

  ‘It’s been a great party, Shona. You should feel very proud of yourself.’

  ‘Aye, I think it’s only the bairns left now that are sober.’ She laughs and points. ‘Och, will you look at Murdo, now!’

  Murdo Maclean, got up in very unconvincing drag, is miming to Stand by your Man. Dr. Kerr appears to have left.

  ~

  Uilleam, Shona and Calum have been prevailed upon to play. Uilleam produces his accordion, Shona her whistle and someone lends Calum a fiddle. Calum claims he’s too drunk to play. Shona assures him their audience is too drunk to notice. They start their set with a reel and Duncan and Eilidh make the most of the limited floor space, swinging each other round and round, whooping and laughing. We all clap in time to the music. I catch Megan’s eye across the room. She is propped up between Rob and Murdo, looking very happy. She smiles, then waves at me, a pointless, child-like gesture of affection that brings drunken tears to my eyes.

  ~

  The party’s over. The last few guests congregate in the kitchen. Megan leans her head on Calum’s arm, her body sagging against him. Rose is stacking plates.

  ‘Will I see you two ladies home, then?’ Calum asks.

  ‘Yes please!’ Megan says eagerly. ‘My feet are killing me. God, you islanders certainly know how to party.’

  Calum looks down at her, frowning. ‘You disappoint me, Megan. Murdo says there’s a rave on at a bothy not far from here - are you telling me you’re no’ up for that?’

  Megan groans. ‘Home! Now!’

  ‘Come on, Rose. We mustn't keep these peely-wally youngsters from their beds.’

  Rose picks up an apron and ties it on, fumbling. ‘You go on, Calum, I’ll stay and help Shona clear up.’

  Shona calls out from the sink. ‘You’ll do no such thing, Rose Leonard!’

  ‘You heard what the lady said,’ Calum says briskly. ‘Don’t worry about clearing up. I'll come back and help after I’ve seen you home.’

  ‘No, really - I’d like to stay and help. It’s a good way to wind down.’

  ‘Look, don’t worry about me,’ Megan says impatiently, ‘I can find my own way home, honestly. Can someone lend me a torch?’

  ‘I’d rather Calum took you, Megan. You don’t realise how dark it is out there without streetlights. And you’ve had an awful lot to drink.’

  ‘Mum!’ Megan glowers at Rose.

  Calum raises his palms in a peacekeeping gesture. ‘No bother. I’ll see you home. Save some washing up for me, Shona.’ He steers a reeling Megan towards the back door.

  ~

  Shona plunges her hands into the suds and sighs. ‘Wee Calum Iain is forty! Och, it makes me feel about a hundred!’

  Rose takes a dinner plate from the draining board and wipes it. ‘Surely you’re not much older than him, Shona?’

  ‘Well, I was at school by the time he was born. I’ll leave you to make your own calculations.’

  ‘You still think of him as your kid brother?’

  ‘Aye! To me he was always the bairn. Until he was fourteen and suddenly grew taller than me! But I still think of him as wee Calum Iain.’

  ‘He’s the youngest?’

  ‘Aye. Our mother was forty-four when he was born. I’d two older sisters and I think I was supposed to be the last of the brood. Then Calum arrived, much to everyone’s surprise. A son after three daughters! Our parents were so pleased and prou
d.’ Shona turns to Rose and explains. ‘Sons are important in a crofting community. You need a man for the heavy work, whatever these feminists might say.’ Shona pronounces the word with a curious emphasis that conveys a mixture of scepticism and derision. ‘Aye, Calum was a bonny wee bairn, spoiled from the moment he was born, brought up as he was, almost entirely by women... Our father died when I was twelve - I suspect it was the drink that killed him, but Mother always said it was a heart attack. Calum would have been just seven. He became the wee man of the family. Mother hoped he’d work the croft like his father, but Calum was clever, we all knew it, and he wanted to try for the university. He wanted to travel, to see the world.’

  ‘When did he start climbing?’

  ‘In his teens. He cut his teeth on the Cuillins and it became a passion with him, an obsession almost. Alison got him to settle down in Glasgow and they were happy for a while. But it was just one thing after another.’ Shona shakes her head and scours a pan vigorously. ‘That boy’s never been what you might call lucky.’

  ‘Calum told me about being attacked by a pupil. He still seems pretty disturbed by what happened.’

  ‘You think so?’

  ‘Yes. I think he possibly suffers from flashbacks. It’s a common side effect after traumatic events. Accidents and so on.’

  ‘Is that so?’

  ‘Did he have any counselling about what happened?’

  Shona scoffs. ‘Calum’s way of dealing with it was to pretend it hadn’t happened!’

  ‘Yes, that was my impression.’

  ‘He kept in touch with Davy after he’d been thrown out of school. Well, he tried. But it was no use. They never found a way of communicating again. The assault stood between them. And anyway Davy was into these hard drugs - heroin and the like. A year after the attack Calum heard the lad was dead of an overdose.’

  ‘Oh, no!’

  ‘Aye. Calum took it badly. Davy had been a good student, a bright boy apparently, before he got into the drugs. Such a terrible waste. Calum was more upset by Davy’s death than the assault.’

  ‘So that’s why he tries to make light of what happened to him. It’s all relative. Relative to death, I mean.’

  ‘Aye. It all came at a bad time for him. Things weren’t working out with Alison. He was disillusioned with teaching - not teaching itself, but the educational system. He stopped teaching and started climbing again. Serious, big climbs. Very expensive. Alison was not happy... They'd been married five years. She was in her thirties and wanted to start a family. Calum didn’t. He wanted to climb and write. It was inevitable, I suppose, that things would break down... A year after Calum was attacked they separated. Calum dealt with that by going climbing again. Then... Well, then there were all the tragedies.’ Shona looks up from the sink, her eyes troubled. ‘Has he told you about those?’

  ‘He mentioned that he’d lost some friends in climbing accidents.’

  ‘Aye, several... He went back to teaching. It was what he knew, what he loved. It provided him with a framework for his life and a secure income - which Heaven knows he needed. He’d run up terrible debts with his climbing expeditions and divorce doesn’t come cheap! But as they say, no door ever closed, but another opened... He started to get poems published, so he decided to teach part-time and devote more time to his writing.’

  ‘Did he give up climbing?’

  ‘Not altogether. It’s in his blood. He’ll never give it up. It’s a kind of addiction.’

  ‘Yes. I know all about that.’

  Shona looks up, intrigued. ‘Do you now?’

  ‘Yes. I lived with a climber for five years. He was a fanatic. A real adrenalin junkie.’

  Shona nods. ‘You’ll know then what Alison had to put up with?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Calum gave up the big expeditions after the accidents. He went to live on Skye and volunteered for the Mountain Rescue Team there.’

  ‘Trust Calum to be a hero!’

  ‘He didn’t see it like that. He saw it as a way of keeping his hand in, using his skills, climbing without all the expense of expeditions. He said saving lives was just an added bonus!’

  ‘Did you buy that?’

  Shona hoists an eyebrow. ‘With Davy and all the others dead? No, I did not! In fact I used to worry myself sick that he was just trying to find an honourable way to - to end it all, d’you know what I mean?... But I think the team sorted him out, thank the Lord. You met some of them tonight. They’re a grand bunch. Calum still goes over to Skye every summer and looks up his old pals. They have a great time.’ Shona scrapes plates noisily into the bin. ‘Och, I think he’s over the worst now. At least, I hope so,’ she adds uncertainly.

  ‘Yes, I hope so too.’

  ‘He’s certainly been a lot more cheerful since you and he became friends, Rose! I think you’ve done him a lot of good. And this exhibition you’re planning, that’s given him a real focus for his writing.’

  ‘What do you think of Calum’s poems, Shona?’

  Shona leans against the sink and stares down into the greasy, grey water, choosing her words carefully. ‘Do you no’ find his poetry a wee bit intense, Rose?’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  Shona searches for the words. ‘Och, it’s like eating a slice of cloutie dumpling - a little goes a long way! It sits inside you and weighs you down. And I find some of his poems depressing. But then I’m no’ what you’d call a poetry fan. I don’t have much time for reading but when I do, I like a good murder mystery!’

  ‘Actually, I don’t find Calum’s poems depressing. But then I first read them when I was very depressed. A long time ago, when I was ill. I found them... exhilarating. So alive. So vivid. They are dense, I know what you mean. And I’m not sure I always understand what he’s trying to say, but then I’ve never subscribed to the idea that you have to understand poetry to enjoy it, any more than you need to understand music to enjoy it.’

  ‘Have you told him what you think of his poems, Rose?’

  ‘I’ve tried to. He doesn't make it easy!’

  ‘Aye, I know.’

  ‘I suppose I found - I find - his poetry a comfort. A comfort because he seems to have made something beautiful out of all the pain, salvaged something from those wasted lives. I really admire that... I really admire him.’

  Shona gives Rose a long look. ‘A friend’s eye is a good looking-glass,’ she says with a warm smile. Rose is about to reply when the back door opens and Calum walks in. Shona thrusts a tea towel under his nose. ‘It’s yourself, Calum. We were wondering what had happened to you.’

  He pours a shot of whisky into a dirty glass and sits down on a kitchen chair. ‘That was a great party, Shona. Thanks a lot.’ He raises his glass to her, then downs the whisky.

  ‘Aye, well, I’ll expect the same from you next week when I’m twenty-one.’

  ‘It’s all in hand, Shona. I’ve booked the Scotland Rugby Team for a strip-o-gram.’

  ‘Och, well, that’ll be something to look forward to,’ Shona says mildly. ‘But it’s back to auld claes and porridge for you now, Calum,’ she says as she removes the empty glass from his hand and deposits it in the sink. ‘Will you not make yourself useful for once and see Rose home? Donald can finish the washing up. We’ve already done most of it, you were gone so long.’

  ‘Aye, sorry. Megan lost one of her shoes. Come on, Rose, I’ll see you home.’

  Rose ignores him, covering dishes with tinfoil. ‘What about these leftovers, Shona? Your fridge is full. Shall I take some back and put them in mine?’

  ‘No, don’t worry. Donald and the bairns will likely finish them up for breakfast. Away with you now. Do you know what time it is?’

  Rose nods and smiles. ‘Yes, I turned into a pumpkin hours ago.’

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Calum and Rose weave their way unsteadily along the road. Rose looks across to her house, just discernible in the moonlight.

  ‘Megan’s light is out already.’

>   ‘She was pretty tired.’

  ‘She might have left a light on for me. Young people can be so selfish.’

  ‘She was pretty drunk as well.’

  ‘Well, she’d better not puke over any of my work or there’ll be trouble.’

  ‘Why wouldn’t you dance with me, Rose?’

  ‘I didn’t dance with anybody, Calum.’

  ‘I know, I was watching. Not even Murdo McLean, Uist’s answer to Tom Cruise. Can you not just smell the testosterone coming off that guy? Or is it his aftershave, maybe? Heady stuff - but wasted on you, obviously... Why wouldn’t you dance with me?’

  ‘Was it really that important to you?’

  ‘Aye. You were the only woman I wanted to dance with. And the only woman I didn’t dance with.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I wanted to.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘I didn’t trust myself to. I thought everyone would guess what was going on. And I couldn’t face a ragging from Megan.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘When she’s not being totally inconsiderate she treats me with the deference one usually reserves for the elderly or the terminally ill. It’s very annoying and hardly conducive to letting your hair down... Calum, we’re going the wrong way.’

  ‘No, we’re not.’

  ‘You’re supposed to be taking me home.’

  ‘I didn’t say whose.’

  ‘No, it’s too late, I’m too tired, I don’t want to get into all that now—’

  ‘Just a coffee! And maybe one little dance? I won’t tie you to the bed, I promise.’

  ‘Calum—’

  ‘Please, Rose - I haven’t seen you alone for days and God knows when Megan’s going home. Can’t we just talk a wee while? I’ve put away so much whisky I’d be good for nothing more.’

  Rose sighs. ‘Oh, all right. One coffee then.’

  ~

  Calum puts the kettle on, selects a tape and drops it into his cassette-player.