Emotional Geology

by Linda Gillard

  ‘You threw him out?’

  ‘Didn’t have to. He started to pack his things then and there. Then apparently I went and walked through the French windows. I don’t really remember much about that... While I was in hospital he cleared all his stuff out. There wasn’t much. Mostly climbing gear. Books. Cameras. He’d never accumulated possessions. My place had never really been home to him. Just base camp, I suppose.’

  ‘Have you ever told anyone what happened?’

  ‘Psychiatrists... I didn’t tell my friends. I couldn’t. That’s why we lost touch really. They couldn’t understand the break-up and I couldn’t explain. They thought I should forgive Gavin. They couldn’t see why I was so angry. Everyone knew he’d been unfaithful before. They assumed we’d get back together when I came out of hospital.’

  She bows her head and is silent. Calum puts an arm round her shoulders and feels her body begin to shudder. Rose sobs silently until her ribcage heaves, then she throws back her head and cries out, ‘Make it stop, Calum! Please! Please make the pain in my head stop! Oh, dear God - make the past stop!’

  He cradles her, pulls her head onto his chest, murmurs words, some English, some Gaelic. He peels her tangled hair back from her wet face, holds her and waits. When he thinks there is a chance she might hear him, he says softly but firmly. ‘Only you can do that, Rose.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Start your future.’

  Breathing heavily, she swallows until her voice is almost steady. ‘Are you my future, Calum?’

  ‘Perhaps your immediate future... And you would appear to be mine. Which has a kind of reassuring symmetry to it, doesn’t it?’ He holds her, stroking her head until she gradually relaxes against him.

  She mumbles into his chest, ‘Calum, I want to sleep.’

  ‘Aye, I think it best. I’ll take you home.’

  She sits up and turns to look at him, her wet eyes huge, smeared with mascara. ‘Can I stay?’

  ‘Of course. Do you want me to ring Megan?’

  ‘No,’ she sniffs. ‘Megan can go to hell.’

  ‘Okay.’

  He stands and offers her a hand to help her up from the sofa. Rose does not rise but looks up at him for a long moment. She lifts both hands and slides them under his jumper, spreading them flat on his smooth, muscled stomach. She feels his diaphragm kick involuntarily with a sharp intake of breath. Her hands drop down to the zip of his jeans. Calum does not move. She tugs until his jeans gape open, then lays her fingers gently on the scar made by the ice-axe.

  ‘What was it you said, Calum, about the quilt on my bed? “So much pain... Yet it’s beautiful”.’ She presses her mouth to the scar.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  When I wake there is a strange man in my bed.

  Then I realise I’m not in my bed.

  My stomach churns like a washing machine and the room pirouettes. I close my eyes and remember nothing. I open them again and realise that the sleeping man who, with his tangled black curls, black stubble and improbably long black eyelashes lacks only an earring to resemble a pirate, is Calum.

  But I remember nothing.

  Calum’s torso projecting beyond the duvet is naked. I investigate no lower. With a sense of growing dismay I realise that I, too, am naked.

  But I remember nothing.

  He opens his eyes. They shift their focus. His smile is slow, lopsided. ‘Good morning, Rose.’

  ‘Good morning.’

  He frowns. ‘You look like you’ve just had another of your terrible nightmares.’

  ‘Do I? No, I’m just... confused... I don’t remember how I got here.’

  ‘How’s your head?’

  ‘Pounding. Awful. I drank a lot, didn’t I?’

  ‘Aye, we all did. It was a great party.’

  He doesn’t touch me. He is keeping his distance, which surely suggests...? ‘Calum, I don’t know quite how to put this... Did we - did we make love last night?’

  His eyebrows disappear beneath his fringe. ‘Well now, I don’t think of myself as Scotland’s answer to Casanova exactly, but I’ve never had a woman ask me if it happened before.’

  ‘Oh God, I’m sorry! All I can remember is you standing in front of me... Looking like St Sebastian without the arrows.’

  Calum laughs loudly and my head reels at the noise. He props himself up on one elbow and looks down at me, grinning. ‘No, Rose, nothing happened. Your virtue is still intact. D’you really no’ remember?’

  ‘No. I thought I remembered you putting your clothes back on again.’

  ‘Aye. After my wee tantrum I offered to see you home, but you said you wanted to stay. Then you started to remove my clothes again... And I returned the compliment. Then we got into bed... I kissed you... and you fell asleep! Kind of Sleeping Beauty in reverse.’

  ‘Oh, Calum, I’m sorry!’

  ‘Don’t be. I suspect you saved me from a terrible humiliation. I’d drunk a hell of a lot of whisky. I fell asleep too, almost straight away. Would you like some coffee?’

  ‘Yes, please.’ He gets out of bed and I see I have indeed spent the night with a naked man. The scars on his back are more noticeable in daylight. I pull the duvet up over my arms, suddenly self-conscious. Shivering, he lifts a dressing-gown from a hook and shrugs it on.

  ‘I need to pee, Calum. Where are my clothes?’

  ‘No idea.’ He opens a cupboard and pulls out a corduroy shirt. ‘Put this on. It’s warm and it’ll swamp you.’

  He tosses me the shirt and heads towards the kitchenette. I struggle to put the shirt on quickly while his back is turned. ‘It smells of you.’

  ‘It shouldn’t do - it’s clean.’

  ‘Oh... Maybe I smell of you.’

  His head swivels round suddenly and he looks at me, the mock jocularity gone, his eyes hungry. He swallows and I watch his Adam’s apple move behind the black stubble. ‘You look beautiful.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Whatever you wear, you look beautiful. And you were beautiful naked, Rose. I wasn’t too drunk to notice. The scars aren’t as bad as you think. And they’ll fade.’

  I get out of bed and pad towards the bathroom. ‘I have to pee.’

  ‘I’ll make some coffee.’

  When I return he has lit the stove and made mugs of coffee. I get back into bed and pull the still-warm duvet around me before it occurs to me that Calum might take this as a signal to join me, but he sits circumspectly in a chair, looking chilled and miserable. His dressing gown gapes, framing the scar on his chest, a pale gash against the almost hairless brown of his skin. I look down and my eyes light on his extraordinary feet, the right one two-toed. The skin on both feet is ugly, mottled greyish-mauve. I remember, with the force of a sudden blow, a wound like a mouth in his groin.

  ‘You’re cold. Get back into bed, Calum.’

  He shakes his head. ‘I meant what I said last night, Rose. But you probably don’t remember that either.’

  ‘I do. All or nothing.’

  ‘Aye. I’m sorry. But it’s been a long time for me too.’

  ‘How long?’

  ‘Since I got laid? It must be... nearly two years. Christ, time flies when you’re having fun.’ He gulps his coffee.

  ‘That’s seven years of celibacy between us.’

  ‘Aye.’ He’s watching me. Waiting.

  ‘We’ve got a lot of catching up to do... Come to bed, Calum. Let’s do it properly this time.’

  ~

  The weight of him

  pressing down

  pulling me apart

  the shock

  filling me

  filling the wound

  my hands slide over the smooth planes of his body

  slopes and dunes of muscle

  hard as bone

  my fingertips settle into pitted scars on his back

  clasp

  push

  press

  wounds like mouths

  in his chest

  in his groin
<
br />   his mouth a wound

  gaping

  his mouth

  on mine

  in mine

  I lay hands on him

  mouth on him

  I want to heal

  heal him

  dear God

  stop

  stop his mouth

  stop his mouth with my mouth

  stop all the mouths on his body

  fill

  fill them

  with love

  ~

  Rose lies with her head pillowed on Calum’s chest, her body moulded to the side of his. She rests her palm flat on the smooth concavity below his ribcage, feeling his diaphragm rise and fall.

  ‘Are you awake?’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘I ought to go.’ He groans. ‘Megan will wonder where I am.’

  ‘The hell with Megan. She’ll be asleep.’ He pulls Rose closer. She slides her hand down to rest on the hard peak of his hipbone. Calum sighs contentedly.

  ‘Was she very disappointed?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Megan.’

  ‘Disappointed? What about?’

  ‘Last night. When you turned her down.’

  ‘Och, I don’t know - how would I? We’d both had a fair bucket... She seemed a wee bit surprised.’

  ‘Just think - you could have had us both.’

  ‘I’m not greedy.’

  ‘I suppose that’s a standard male fantasy, isn’t it - a man in bed with two women.’

  ‘Aye, maybe. Not mine. I know my limitations.’

  ‘It must have been Gavin’s.’

  ‘Do women no’ fantasise about being in bed with two men?’

  ‘I never did. Gavin was as much as I could handle.’

  Calum is silent for a while, stroking the hollow in the small of her back. ‘Rose... you said if you went to bed with me there might be three people in the bed.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Were there?’ His chest rises and falls. Once. Twice.

  She wants to lie, but cannot. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Oh... How did I do?’

  ~

  Calum strokes her arm gently, following with his fingers the silvery lines of scars, as if he is reading a map. He works his way from wrist to shoulder, then back down again by another route. Rose finds it oddly soothing.

  ‘Your body’s... crazed.’

  ‘Like my mind.’

  ‘I knew you’d say that. No, I mean, like pottery. There’s a pattern of cracks.’

  ‘Like crazy paving you mean?’

  ‘Och, will you stop taking the piss, woman!’

  ‘There are Crazy Quilts too, you know. ‘

  ‘Aye, I know. That one with the quilted vagina would take some beating.’

  ‘No, it’s a particular type of Victorian scrap quilt. Irregular shapes are sewn together any-old-how and the seams are decorated with embroidery in brightly coloured threads. It’s like fabric crazy paving. I’ve got one at home. I’ll show it to you. They’re chaotic, but beautiful.’

  ‘Like you.’

  ‘I knew you’d say that.’

  He resumes his tracing of the patterns on her arms, gently, minutely, as if reading Braille. ‘Gavin never saw these?’

  ‘My scars? No. I only ever saw him once after it happened. He came to the hospital... To say goodbye.’

  ‘So no one’s ever seen them... touched them before?’

  ‘Apart from the doctor who sewed me up, no.’ He is silent. Rose sighs. ‘I know what you’re thinking, Calum.’

  ‘No, you don’t!’

  ‘I bet I do.’

  ‘I bet you don’t.’

  ‘You were thinking, “Another first ascent”, weren’t you?’

  ‘Aye, I was.’

  ‘Bloody climbers! You’re all the bloody same!’ She elbows him in the ribs. He twists away, then pulls the duvet back. Rose sits up, alarmed, reaching for the cover, but he is too quick for her. He sits astride her so that the only way she can hide herself is to press her body against his.

  Calum lays his hands on her shoulders and gently pushes her away, back down on to the mattress. ‘Rose, you’ve nothing to be ashamed of. The scars don’t matter! I can feel them, but I can hardly see them. You’re beautiful, woman!’ He looks down as his cock begins to stir again. ‘You see?’ He utters something in Gaelic and smiles down at her.

  ‘What was that?’

  ‘A man’s penis never lies!’

  ‘That doesn’t sound like one of Shona’s.’

  ‘Er - no.’

  She runs her hands up over his belly, across the cushion of his chest and grasps the hard curves of his biceps. ‘You’re beautiful too, Calum, you know that? You may be The Pobble Who Had No Toes, but you are completely and utterly beautiful.’

  ‘Aye, I know. But as my big sister says...’ He lowers himself and with a deft twist of his hips spreads her willing thighs apart. ‘Beauty won’t boil the pot!’

  ~

  As Rose opens her front door Megan leaps to her feet like a startled cat. ‘Mum, I’ve been so worried about you! Where on earth have you been?’

  ‘Please don’t shout Megan, I’ve got a splitting headache.’

  ‘Is that all you’ve got to say? I’ve been worried to death! I rang Shona but there was no answer.’

  ‘They’ll be at church.’

  ‘Where have you been all night?’

  ‘In bed with Calum.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You heard.’

  ‘Calum?’

  ‘Why so surprised? I thought you rather fancied him.’ Megan stares, open-mouthed. ‘Oh, perhaps I misunderstood? You aren’t surprised that I wanted to bed Calum, rather that he wanted to bed me.’

  ‘I didn’t realise... you and he—’ Megan blushes. ‘Did he tell you?’

  ‘About you making a pass at him? Yes, he did. Rather reluctantly.’

  ‘Is that why you slept with him?’

  ‘No, of course not! Do you really think I’m that petty and vengeful, Megan?’

  ‘I wouldn’t blame you if you were.’

  ‘Well, I’m not. Calum and I were an item, as you would put it, before you arrived. Your arrival simply delayed things, that’s all.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘No need to be. You weren’t to know and I didn’t want to tell you.’

  ‘I hadn’t the faintest idea. I would never have - I mean, I wouldn’t have gone anywhere near him if I’d known.’

  Rose stares at her daughter. ‘Are you sure about that?’

  ‘Yes, of course! For God’s sake, Mum, I was seventeen. I was in love! Have I got to suffer for that for the rest of my life?’

  ‘No. I imagine you suffered enough when Gavin dumped you for the next incumbent.’

  ‘Gavin dumped me because he still loved you.’

  Rose looks away, her breath catching. ‘That’s not true.’

  ‘It is bloody true and I should bloody know! He wanted you back but he was too proud to crawl.’

  ‘Gavin wouldn’t crawl because he knew he’d be wasting his time. I would never have taken him back.’

  ‘Oh, Mum, do me a favour - you’d have taken him back like a shot! You’d take him back now! You still love him. You may have fooled Calum, but you don’t fool me. Did you sleep with Calum to get back at Gavin?’

  ‘I slept with Calum because the joys of celibacy are much overrated. And because I was curious to know how it feels to make love with a man you like, as opposed to worship. Not that it’s any of your damn business, Megan, who I sleep with or why.’

  Megan, abashed, stammers, ‘No, you’re right. It isn’t... Does Calum know about - me and Gavin?’

  ‘Yes, he does. I had to tell him in the end. He made some feeble joke about you and me having the same taste in men.’

  ‘Oh, God.’

  ‘Yes, it was rather unfortunate. But then you making a pass at Calum was rather unfortunate.’

  ‘Give me a break - I was drunk! He�
��s a nice guy.’

  ‘He’s twice your age. But then so was Gavin. What is it with you and older men, Megan?’

  ‘Mum, I’m twenty-two. It’s no business of yours who I sleep with or why.’

  ‘Touché.’ Rose sweeps past her into the kitchen and fills the kettle noisily. Megan follows.

  ‘Please, can we stop this? It’s horrible. Can we please stop hurting each other? I didn’t come here for this.’

  Rose ignores the proffered olive branch and puts both hands to her temples and rubs. ‘Do you have any paracetamol? Or aspirin? Anything... I don’t keep such things in the house. My head is pounding.’ She fills a glass with water and drinks it down.

  ‘Yes, in my handbag.’ Megan fetches her bag and hands over two foil-covered tablets.

  ‘Thanks.’ Rose refills her glass and swallows the tablets. ‘Megan, I want you to leave. I’m sorry, but I can’t deal with you and Calum. I’m not sure I can even deal with Calum. But it would make life easier for me - simpler - if you went home. I’m not really sure why you wanted to come out here anyway. In February.’

  Megan is silent for a moment, then breathes deeply before saying, ‘I came because I had some news for you. I wanted to tell you in person.’

  ‘Oh?’ Rose looks up and studies her daughter’s face. ‘Not good news from the looks of it.’

  ‘No. I’ve been waiting for a good time to tell you. But I can see there’s never going to be a good time. Not now.’

  ‘What is it? Are you ill? Tell me. Is it something serious?’

  ‘No, I’m fine. It's not me. It's Gavin... Mum, Gavin's dead.’

  The kettle clicks as it switches off.

  ‘Dead?’

  ‘Yes. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Gavin’s dead?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Last summer. July.’

  Rose’s mouth works for a moment before the word emerges. ‘How?’

  ‘A climbing accident. On Skye.’

  ‘Oh... He fell?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I see.’ Rose gazes past Megan and whispers, incredulous. ‘I always thought I would know... I thought maybe my heart would stop beating... How did you find out?’

  ‘I was at Simon’s wedding. Gavin wasn’t there. So...’ She shrugs. ‘I knew he must be dead.’