‘You don’t look awful.’
‘No, neither do you. And you smell wonderful,’ she says, leaning towards his face. ‘Oh - we’re not supposed to do that sort of stuff any more, are we? Sorry.’
‘You wrote the rules, Rose. You can change them, I suppose... Are you walking over to Shona’s?’
‘Yes.’
‘May I walk with you?’
‘Of course.’
‘Before we go...’ He slides a hand inside his jacket, pulls out a folded sheet of paper and hands it to her. ‘Your next assignment.’
‘Another poem for the exhibition?’
‘Aye. Your mission - should you choose to accept it.’
She opens the sheet. There are twenty short handwritten lines. The poem is entitled ‘Rose Quartz’.
Her hand flies to her throat and she utters a small sound. She presses her lips together hard and shuts her eyes. When she opens them again they are full of tears. ‘Oh, shit! And I was doing so well! I’ve slept, I’ve eaten, I’ve taken a sodding tranquilliser, then you go and do something like this.’
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—’ He reaches for the sheet of paper but she snatches it away.
‘Oh, take no notice of me, Calum. I’m being an ungrateful cow - as usual. I’m choked and overwhelmed and behaving in an utterly graceless fashion. I’m very sorry. No one has ever written a poem for me or about me before. I presume it’s about me?’
‘Aye.’
‘Thank you. I’m absolutely thrilled.’ She sniffs and wipes her eyes. ‘And you’d like me to interpret it for the exhibition?’
‘Aye. If you can.’
‘I can and I will. But I’ll read it later, if you don’t mind. I daren’t read it now... You do understand, don’t you?’
He nods. ‘I’d rather not be around when you read it anyway.’
Rose looks at her watch, then takes his hand. ‘Come in, Calum, I want to show you something.’ She leads him into the workroom and positions him in front of her new work-in-progress. Calum stares in silence. Eventually he splutters ‘Bloody hell!’ in tones of fervent admiration.
Rose stands beside Calum, looking at the new wall-hanging. ‘Your mission - should you choose to accept it.’
‘What’s it called?’
‘Fool’s Gold. Subtitled Iron Pyrites.’
Calum studies the white and gold quilt then shakes his head. ‘It’s Gavin, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, I’m afraid it is. But your poem will be a response to the quilt, not Gavin.’
‘It’s magnificent, Rose. Stunning. You’ve done him proud. Are you pleased with it?’
‘Yes, I suppose so. It didn’t turn out quite how I expected, but then they never do.’
They stand side by side looking at Gavin’s wall-hanging. On the adjacent wall Basalt 2 hangs, the negative of Fool’s Gold, as dark and sinister as the other quilt is light and dazzling.
‘Was Basalt a memorial poem, Calum?’
‘Aye. In a way.’
‘So they’re a pair.’
‘And what a pair...’
Rose looks at Fool’s Gold, extends a hand to touch it gently and heaves a profound sigh. ‘It’s finished, Calum.’
He turns and looks at her profile, then back at the quilt. ‘Will you not bind the frayed edges? And take out the pins?’
‘Oh, I wasn’t talking about the quilt... Come on - Shona will wonder what’s happened to me.’
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Calum and I walk to Shona’s house, side by side in the darkness, as once we walked before in the opposite direction. Better prepared this time, I shine my flashlight ahead, avoiding the stones and potholes that caused me to stumble and take Calum’s proffered arm, an event I now recall with a pang as the first time we touched each other.
This time Calum doesn’t offer his arm, doesn’t speak. I am aware only of his steady footfall and the faint creak of his leather jacket as he walks beside me. A bitter February wind lifts my hair and tosses it across my face, blinding me. I bow my head and shiver inside my coat. For once I am looking forward to the stifling warmth of Shona’s overheated house where Donald - perpetually chilled from fishing or crofting activities - insists on sub-tropical temperatures being maintained at all times.
The distant grumble of the sea fades as we draw near to Shona’s. The yellow glow at the windows looks welcoming and I’m relieved that the far from companionable silence between Calum and me is about to end. I quicken my step as I approach the house but faced with the door, I hesitate before entering, turn back and look at him. As Calum draws level he remarks, ‘That was the longest silence there’s been between us since we met.’
My mind shuffles, plays the card before I’m even aware that I’m responding. ‘Apart from when we were both asleep.’ It’s hard to tell in the dim light of the doorway but I think he flinches minutely.
‘No... You talked even in your sleep.’ He pushes open the door and, unsmiling, ushers me into Shona’s kitchen.
I’m glad I took the tranquilliser.
I should have taken two.
~
Once through the door Calum goes into comedian kid brother mode, joking with Donald when he hands him a dram, admiring Shona’s appalling outfit which does nothing for her other than draw attention to her size. I remark that I have never seen her look lovelier - which is more or less true - and admire the fabric (polyester) and the striking colour scheme (a fuchsia print with citric accents of lemon and lime.) Shona sings the praises of her mail-order catalogue (the source of her astonishing wardrobe) and promises to lend it to me. At this point I catch Calum’s eye and wish I hadn’t. I concentrate firmly on the glass of whisky Donald has slipped into my hand while Shona prattles on, flushed and happy.
‘It’s so kind of you to baby-sit, Rose. Eilidh has been so excited! But I wish you were coming with us! I said to Calum, he should have invited you - och, it would do you good to get out.’
‘No, Shona, really - I’ve been working so hard this week and what with one thing and another...’ The sentence hangs in the air, lame, unfinished.
Calum, apparently deaf, is looking out of the kitchen window for the taxi. Shona shoots him a sidelong glance, looks back at me and, barely able to disguise her disappointment, changes tack immediately. ‘Fergus is asleep already and he’ll not wake, but if he does, give him a drink of milk and he’ll soon settle. Duncan and Eilidh go to bed at eight and Aly goes at nine-thirty. Don’t let them tell you any different now!’
Shona launches into a list of instructions as to the whereabouts of tea, coffee, biscuits, oatcakes, scones and jam. Eilidh tugs at my hand and mercifully drags me off to the sitting room where Donald has banked up the fire in my honour. Aly sits at the table, apparently doing homework, his eyes covertly following Batman on the TV. Duncan lies in the middle of the floor, his chin resting in his hands. Both boys mumble, ‘Hi, Rose,’ without looking up from the TV. Eilidh pulls me down onto the sofa and thrusts an open music-box in front of me and starts to chatter as a tiny ballerina in a pink tutu pirouettes dementedly to La Vie en Rose. Aly shouts, ‘Shut it, Eilidh!’ I’m not sure whether he is referring to the music-box or her conversation. Eilidh ignores him and pointedly winds up the clockwork mechanism.
I can see I am in for a long evening.
Shona pops her head round the door. ‘Did I tell you where the sugar is, Rose?’
‘No, but I’m sure I’ll find everything. Don’t worry about me.’ From the kitchen I hear Calum put on his teacher voice, cutting straight through Shona’s wittering, the music box and the Batman soundtrack, to summon his sister to her waiting taxi. Shona kisses her brood goodnight one by one, much to Aly’s disgust.
With Eilidh clamped to my side (where I suspect she intends to spend the rest of the evening) I follow Shona to the door and watch as she totters down the path in unaccustomed high heels, like a fastidious ewe picking her way delicately along a stony sheep track. Calum hands her into the taxi, shuts the door, looks back a
nd raises his hand in salute to Eilidh and me, then climbs into the front. As the car pulls away I notice Donald still has a whisky glass in his hand. Empty, no doubt.
~
I read two stories to Eilidh, quietly, so as not to encroach on Batman, then she offers to read to me. I take the opportunity to unpack my sewing bag and begin the tedious task of unpicking one of Megan’s old dresses, an emerald velvet party dress that I intend to cannibalise. Eilidh soon tires of her “reading”, which consists of running her finger along a line of text whilst improvising a story based on the illustrations.
She fingers the shiny velvet. ‘What are you making, Rose?’
‘I’m not making anything. I’m un-making. I’m taking this old dress apart so that I can use the fabric to make something else.’
‘She’s recycling it,’ Aly announces without looking away from the TV.
‘What are you going to make, Rose? Another dress?’
‘No. I’ll probably cut up the fabric into smaller pieces and use it to make a quilt. It’s a lovely colour, isn’t it?’
‘Can you not make it into another dress for Megan?’
‘Well, yes, I could - if I had some more of the same fabric. But I can’t make this into another dress for Megan. It’s too small. This was hers when she was young, about the same age Aly is now.’ Eilidh eyes the fabric, then looks up at me, a strange mix of excitement and apprehension on her little face. ‘Do you like the fabric? Would you like me to make it into something for you?’
Eilidh glances across at Aly and Duncan then takes my hand. She leads me out of the sitting room to the bedroom she shares with Fergus. As she opens the door I whisper, ‘Don’t disturb Fergus! What is it you want to show me?’
‘Wait here,’ she hisses and slips silently into the bedroom. I hear the sound of a drawer being opened and closed carefully. Eventually, Eilidh appears, flushed and excited, clutching a carrier bag. ‘Come to the kitchen, Rose.’ I follow, suppressing a smile at Eilidh’s mystery, wondering what her precious parcel contains.
In the kitchen she climbs onto a chair and kneels up at the table. She shakes out the contents of the bag and a swathe of peach satin slithers onto the table, followed by a tiny coronet of battered dried flowers. I lift up a tiny bridesmaid’s dress.
‘Oh, Eilidh - how pretty! Was this yours?’
‘Aye, but it doesn’t fit me now. Can you make it bigger?’
‘No, darling, I’m afraid I can’t - not without some more fabric.’ Her face falls and I can see she is close to tears. ‘But I might be able to find some fabric in my store that would go with it... Some white satin perhaps. We could probably manage to make something from it. But it wouldn’t look exactly like this.’ Her lip wobbles and a tear begins to slide out of the corner of her eye. I reach into my pocket for a tissue and dab at her face. ‘But now I come to think about it, if we dyed some white fabric the same colour, I’m sure we could come up with something pretty close.’ Eilidh brightens and rubs at her eyes with my tissue. She attempts to bundle the dress back into the bag. ‘Here, let me fold it for you... Show me what you looked like in your flowers.’ She places the coronet carefully on her head and smiles up at me, as if posing for a camera. ‘You look lovely! You must have looked very pretty on the day. Are there any photos of you?’
‘No.’
‘Really? Doesn’t Mummy have a photo of the wedding?’
‘No. The wedding didn’t happen.’ Eilidh begins to look uncomfortable. She snatches the bag away from me and hugs it to her chest.
‘Oh, that’s a shame. Was the wedding called off? I mean, did the couple change their minds about getting married?’
‘No. Christina died.’
‘Oh... How terribly sad.’
‘There was an accident.’
‘A car accident?’
‘No. In the mountains.’
My innards turn to ice-water. I already know the answer to my next question. I should spare the child, spare myself, but I ask anyway. ‘Eilidh... Who was Christina going to marry?’
‘Uncle Calum, of course.’
‘But... she died?’
‘Aye. In an avalanche.’ She pronounces the difficult word with an effort. ‘So they couldn’t get married and I couldn’t wear my dress. I cried and cried... Everybody cried,’ she says, with a shrug of her little shoulders.
‘How old were you when this happened - can you remember?’
‘I think I was... four.’
‘And you’re seven now?’
‘Aye... It was years and years ago.’
‘I’ve never heard anyone talk about Christina before.’
‘Uncle Calum called her Chris, but I liked to call her Auntie Christina. She would have been my auntie if she hadn’t died,’ Eilidh explains. ‘But we don’t ever talk about her now. After she died Mummy said we must never talk about her in front of Uncle Calum because it made him so sad... Och, don’t you be sad too, Rose!’ She unfolds her used tissue and presses it into my hand. ‘Mummy says Christina is asleep in Heaven now and very peaceful and she says Uncle Calum will surely find someone else who will make him just as happy as Christina did! But when he does I’ll have to have a new bridesmaid’s dress, won’t I?’ She places her little hand on mine and squeezes. ‘Will you make it for me, Rose? And can it be the exact same colour as this one? Please?’
~
When all three children are finally settled in bed I sit in an armchair and stare at the blank television screen, trying to piece together the fragments of information that Calum gave me. I try to work out if he has lied, misled me, or simply failed to tell me the whole truth. My exhausted brain stalls at a memory of him standing distraught and naked, reciting names, a litany of death. Al... Hamish... Hugh... Jim... and Chris.
Chris.
I feel as if the ground is giving way beneath me. I sink my fingernails deep into the hideous dralon of Shona’s three-piece suite, grip the arms of the chair as if I too might be swept away by an avalanche. The room spins and I’m consumed by the need to see Calum, speak to him, touch him, but I’m uncertain whether I’m more likely to strike him or take him in my arms.
I stare at the clock on the mantelpiece and listen out for the sound of a taxi.
~
Just before midnight the taxi arrives having dropped Calum off first. I decline Donald’s offer of a nightcap and plead exhaustion. I insist on walking home alone but as soon as Shona has shut the door behind me I set off with my torch along the road to Calum’s caravan, walking fast, tripping in my haste over several large stones. As I approach the caravan I can see the lights are still on. I bang loudly on the door and walk straight in. Calum wheels round, spilling the contents of a glass of whisky. He looks startled and dishevelled - bare-foot, his Mickey Mouse tie hanging loose round his neck, his shirt unbuttoned. He blinks at me while I catch my breath.
‘The poem was no’ that bad, surely?’
‘Why didn’t you tell me, Calum?’
‘Tell you what?’
‘About Chris.’
He stares at me for a moment, then asks quietly. ‘Shona?’
‘No, of course not! I imagine you’ve sworn her to secrecy otherwise she’d have told me long ago. It was Eilidh. She showed me her bridesmaid’s dress. Asked me if I could make it into a new dress for her.’
‘Ah.’ He studies the dregs of whisky in his glass.
‘Why, Calum?’
He looks up, his face a pale blank. ‘Why did Chris die?’
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘I did tell you.’
‘Don’t play games with me!’
‘I’m not playing games, Rose. I told you all you needed to know.’
‘But you weren’t being straight with me, you didn’t tell me the whole truth.’
‘And what, I wonder, makes you think you’re entitled to the whole truth? Shona doesn’t know what happened. Christina’s parents don’t. Nobody knows but me.’ He empties his glass and then his eyes scan the room,
searching, I know, for the bottle.
‘I don’t understand... Eilidh made it sound like Chris had died in an avalanche.’
‘Aye, she would. That’s what she was told. But it isn’t true. The truth is worse than that. The stuff of nightmares.’ He turns and heads for the kitchen. I follow.
‘Will you tell me what happened, Calum. Please.’
‘You don’t need to know.’
‘Maybe I don’t - but I think you need to tell.’
He bangs his empty glass down on the draining board and stands hunched over the sink, his shoulders tensed. I wonder if he is going to be sick. ‘If I tell you, Rose, it’s on the understanding that we never mention it again. I don’t talk about it. I have never, ever talked about it, except to tell kindly lies to interested parties who had a right to know what happened. They don’t know what happened, but they think they do... and that brings them a kind of peace.’
He yanks open a cupboard door and takes out a new bottle of whisky. Ignoring me, he walks back to the sofa, sits and pours himself a shot with trembling hands. He raises his glass. ‘A’ Chairistìona... mo chridhe.’ He drinks, then, staring at the floor, he begins. ‘Christina was my wife’s best friend. She and I had a lot in common. We both climbed, both loved the outdoors, we both came from Uist.’
I sit down next to him on the sofa. ‘She was a local girl?’
‘Oh aye.’ He risks a quick look at me. ‘We’re not just talking personal tragedy here. Chris’ death was a loss to the whole community. And it was my fault she died.’ He tugs at his tie, removes it and tosses it aside. ‘My marriage was a mistake. Things started to go wrong almost immediately... Being married wasn’t the same as living together. There were fights over my climbing, there was a lot of stress at work and I took it out on Alison. And after a couple of years of marriage she started the baby blackmail. I knew it was over but I was too tired and busy to deal with it. And too cowardly... To begin with, Chris wanted to try and patch us up but... things changed. Eventually she was wanting me to leave Alison.’
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