He hated to ask, because the words felt like such an obvious proposition. He was older than her, and he was a single man who had appeared suddenly and asked to sit with her. She had been the first to speak, but only out of courtesy – or even nervousness. There were empty tables, and he could have gone to one. In her position, he would be getting worried.
‘No,’ she said. ‘Thank you but… I am sleeping.’
‘Early night. Good.’
‘I was up very early today. I was travelling all day, and I lost my bag.’
‘You lost your bag?’
‘And I found it again. Someone helped me, but…’
She sighed.
‘I am so tired. You know this place? You know Higher Lee Ridge?’
Michael looked at the leaflet again, and decided to tell a lie. It wasn’t the first of the day, for he’d told people that he was going to the Highlands even after he’d abandoned the idea. He’d told the boys on Crewe station that the vending machine had malfunctioned, and he had an idea that he’d alluded to a son or daughter at the café he’d used in Gloucester. He hadn’t lied to the steam-train enthusiast, and to Percy’s grandparents he’d tried hard to tell only the truth – they just hadn’t wanted to hear it. Now, looking at the leaflet, and letting his gaze shift back to the blackest eyes he had ever seen, he said:
‘Yes. But I haven’t been there for a long while.’
‘You know this walk?’
‘Oh, I wouldn’t say that—’
‘But you’ve done it?’
‘Once,’ he said. ‘As a boy, I think – a while ago. When I was a boy.’
‘Is it easy to follow?’
He smiled, and she smiled back at him. He could see her anxiety so clearly now: she really thought she was heading into the wilds. He lied again.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I was thinking of going tomorrow, in fact – but a little later than you.’
‘You’re walking that way? To the Ridge?’
He was nodding.
‘I hadn’t decided. But I’d like to see it again.’
‘Are you going alone?’ she said.
‘Yes.’
‘Then we could go together. You could take me? You could guide me?’
‘I don’t know about that. I could try, but it’s quite easy, I think – you don’t need a guide.’
‘I do. I will get lost!’
‘I…’
He paused.
‘Look,’ he said. ‘I can’t just push in on your walk. Are you sure you don’t want to do it alone, at your own pace?’
‘No. I would like to walk with you. It would help me.’
She was staring at him, and still he wasn’t sure if she had recognised him. Would she say so, if she had? Perhaps she had been distracted? And yet there had been so few people on the bus.
‘What’s your name?’ she said suddenly.
‘Michael MacMillan.’
‘I’m Maria.’
She was lifting her hand and extending it. They shook hands.
‘How is your day, Michael MacMillan?’
‘It’s been good,’ said Michael.
‘And we’ll walk together? You promise?’
‘If you’re sure. Yes.’
‘Then I’ll see you for breakfast. Thank you.’
‘Seven o’clock?’
‘Seven o’clock, yes. Perfect.’
‘At this table?’
‘This table, that table. I don’t mind which table, but I’ll be here. Seven o’clock, Michael – you don’t change your mind!’
She looked at him and there was nothing in her eyes except relief.
He sat at the bar after she left, with another glass of wine.
Was it really so implausible? She had not recognised him from the train – that was to be expected, but he still couldn’t believe she hadn’t noticed him on the bus, because he’d climbed on board after her and passed her in the aisle. They were the only two passengers to alight at a remote moorland spot in the pitch dark – but she simply hadn’t been aware of him. Her priority must have been working out where the hotel was, of course, and he had followed at a distance – not because he had sinister designs, but because he’d been so uncertain as to where he was going.
That was the truth.
Now, however, he had set himself up as a protector – or as someone with knowledge and experience. He should be dead, but he wasn’t. Crewe station would have got back to normal by now, and he should be where? In a mortuary, of course. The shoe that was on his foot should be in a plastic bag, the details from the debit card logged into a computer. He should be a police officer’s routine nuisance, but instead he was holding a glass and the deep red of the wine made him think of all the blood that was still circulating in his veins, unspilled.
He could put the glass down on the table.
He could pick it up again and taste the wine.
By saying so little to Maria, and nodding his head, he had been promoted to someone not just safe but useful… essential, even. For whatever the weather threw at them, he would have to guide her over the moors to some place he’d never heard of called Higher Lee Ridge: he would have to follow the dots and the dashes. He had been there before, apparently – but a long time ago. He could hear his own voice as the wind buffeted them both, and they stared at the sodden map.
‘I’m sure we’re close,’ he could say. ‘I recognise that stile, that… sheep.’
He hadn’t suggested he knew the way intimately, so they could navigate together and he would simply give her the reassurance that if they did miss their way, they would do so together. The problem, of course, was that this was a wilderness, and it was bound to rain.
It was bound to rain, and he had absolutely no equipment.
23
Perhaps there was a God after all.
Morris’s right eye was swollen shut, but he hadn’t been blinded. One finger was broken, so the hospital would provide the splint – it would take time to heal, of course, but despite the savage kicking he wasn’t crippled. The bottle of wine on Ayesha’s table was empty, and her mother had cooked a leg of lamb, which they’d all enjoyed: they had enjoyed each other’s company again, and had been so carefully kind to one another. Most miraculous of all, though – most fortunate and unexpected – was the existence of a little cupboard in The Golden Fleece that Michael found when he visited the loos. It said Drying Room, and when he opened the door he found shelves and racks of boots and waterproofs.
Morris would spend that night in a waiting room.
Ayesha would sleep in the room next to Kristin’s, and try not to wonder what he’d look like if only he’d reached seventeen. She had seen his ghost, just once – or hoped she had. It might have been her own reflection, but she wanted it to be him, flickering back from wherever he was. She lay in bed remembering the times they’d slept side by side, when he was little, and how he’d made her squeal by putting his ice-cold hands on her skin. If his thin ghost slipped in beside her now, she wouldn’t make a sound.
She closed her eyes, willing him to appear – as Michael looked at the abandoned clothes, and wondered if he dared borrow them. He knew he shouldn’t stand there for too long, in case he was disturbed, but it did seem extraordinary that his problems had been so easily solved. There were two cagoules, and they were both far more robust than the skimpy thing he’d been wearing. There was a big red coat and a pair of waterproof trousers next to it. There were various socks and three pairs of proper walking boots, the soles thick with hard, dry mud. Above them he could see a woolly hat, a single, solitary glove, and even a football scarf – but could they be lost property? He should ask the manager, obviously, but the thought of being thwarted at this stage was unbearable – and it mattered, because he couldn’t do a fourteen-mile walk over the moors in his own shoes. He scrunched up the toes of his left foot, and felt the debit card.
He would rise early and take what he needed.
He would risk using it, because it wouldn’t
be theft – by late afternoon he would be putting everything back in exactly the same place, and Maria needed a guide.
In fact, she didn’t – he was sober enough to know she didn’t. If he failed to appear at breakfast, she would set off at eight o’clock, fiercely alone with the leaflet in her hand and the map in her pocket. If the sun was eclipsed by the moon, and the ridge plunged into unnatural darkness, Maria would still be following those dots, and she’d get to whatever summit or stack he’d seen in the sketch – he knew she would. He had promised to lead her, but he would be the follower.
He lay in his bed, and the wind got stronger.
He could be in a ship, way out at sea. He could be in any random room, and he felt such a long way from the place he called home, where he had caused such pain. He had been right to withdraw from the wedding, though, and at this moment, he belonged here. If his credit card could go on for ever, this is where he would stay – and who knows? He might become essential to the hotel in some way, and find his pub-cleaning skills were suddenly appreciated.
Nobody polished brass like he did, they would say.
Nobody took the time to get under the toilet seat, and bleach the urinals so thoroughly, giving the disinfectant time to act before the water cleared it – was there an award the hotel could win for sheer cleanliness? Would someone write a letter, astonished that public spaces could be so immaculate?
He remembered James again, for no reason.
They did litter duty together on Tuesday after school, and he remembered James climbing a tree to get at a crisp packet that had stuck in its twigs. He’d taken his blazer off, and hauled himself higher and higher as everyone cheered. He remembered Amy, and making love with his eyes closed and knowing the lies between them now formed a very high wall indeed – he couldn’t scale it or tunnel under it, and walking round it would take for ever. The lies prevented progress, and he was so tired of his own head, tired of his own imagination… the lies told and thought until they stiffened into truth.
To whom could he talk? If there was only a way of shunting backwards, and owning up to poor, dear Amy with all her special range of vulnerabilities and hopes. He would have liked to call her now, or text her a straightforward So sorry – except he’d chosen not to bring his phone. He’d left it on the bed beside the envelope. In any case, it would make things worse. You never knew what rage people carried inside, any more than you knew the real extent of their grief, or their joy, or their sheer hollowed-out emptiness.
‘But I’m still alive,’ he said quietly.
A red light glowed on the TV. The kettle switch was blue. An alarm of some kind in the ceiling winked very faintly: the room was alive, too. Maria was nearby – he wasn’t sure where. They’d had a few more minutes before she left the bar, and he’d asked her where she was from. The Philippines, she’d said – which were way off in the South China Sea, somewhere near Japan. What an accomplishment it would be, simply to get to whatever ridge it was called – wherever it was. It would be a day spent better than many, and with that thought in his mind, he realised he was about to go to sleep, and the bed felt softer.
He thought of his mother, and the gentle face he no doubt misremembered, before she got so ill. Elizabeth, Monica, Amy – the girl in the Gloucester station café. The boys on the platform at Crewe, and his silly brother. There were so many other memories too, pounding just like the wind, begging to be let in. The wonder was that soon he would be sleeping, with every likelihood of waking up again, for breakfast.
Maria was thinking, too.
Her husband had texted, just a thoughtful midnight text of love and good wishes: the same as usual, for he was on late shift. It was extra sweet after his disapproval, if that’s what it had been. Perhaps his misunderstanding had been borne of her failure to communicate, but he hadn’t wanted her to make this trip. Now, in bed, she was imagining sleeping with him. Jao’s hard back was turned away from her, covered only by a sheet. Miguel, their youngest boy, was climbing in between them, silent and hopeful. Just minutes before they’d been making love, so what did that say for the child’s timing? He was worming his way in, all six years of him, unnerved by the rattling of the roof, or perhaps the knowledge that his father was off again soon, as his mother made top-secret plans – was she leaving too?
‘Just for a little while – I’ll be back soon!’
But what was a little while in the life of someone six years old? It was so hard to know what any of them really comprehended, and harder sometimes to know what they cared about – but Miguel was super-sensitive, unsettled and needy, and he slid between their bodies, moulding himself into her arms. When she held him tight he seemed to melt into her as if he was only in her imagination – he could almost be there in the hotel bed, as she rolled onto her side and caught the fragrance of his hair.
Inconceivable how sweet a child could smell, and how he could pad across the room wide awake but be so instantly asleep, and reassured – how his skull was already a magical miniature of Jao’s.
She held his ghost. She held it tight.
Morris was numb with fatigue, the pain dulled by sheer exhaustion. Ayesha ached for Kristin as she listened to her parents talking next door – his ghost was so shy. Perhaps ghosts feared rejection?
The fan turned and swung, breathing over Maria and her family every ten seconds.
Jao turned and reached for her. He found he was touching not her but their youngest son, and she was behind him with just the same eyes, light coming not from the stars or moon but from the street lamp.
‘We are making a better life.’
‘Of course.’
‘We’re lucky, aren’t we?’
It was just one of the memories Maria used, to ease herself into sleep – that precious, holy time of three in one, whispering while the other children slept. The wind rattled the window, but it was the harmless edge of a typhoon heading out to Manila Bay. Someone was walking across the landing outside, trying to be quiet, and she heard a door close softly.
She thought of the man with the kind eyes, whose name she had forgotten. He was quietly reassuring, and she now had a guide – she texted Jao to let him know, yearning to speak to her sister. Manila time ran seven hours ahead, so the house would be full of just the same soft breathing and snores as The Golden Fleece. Another hour before her district came to life, but the first jeepneys would be stopping already for those on the earliest shifts.
Her mind was full of numbers, and she tried to erase them.
The hundreds earned, and the hundreds sent. The thousands borrowed, and the thousands invested or promised – always set against the hundreds deducted and never seen, and the unforeseen expenses such as her housemate’s birthday – the contributions to which you could never say no, and to which you should never say no. She saw little Nikko’s eyes for a moment, and it was him beside her, replacing Miguel. She’d had to watch his birthday through the screen of her tablet – and she couldn’t resist the urge to call up the photographs right now, whatever the pain: she sat up and drank a little water. Two more years for her, and five for Jao… and there was Nikko, and here was she.
She opened another folder, and wondered if she could bear the whole birthday movie, and listen to her children’s voices. No, she couldn’t. Instead, she would listen to the rain that had already started, and thank God she had a guide. She was glad to be here, of course, but when had she last endured such solitude? The man’s name was Michael! She remembered it, and knew he’d been sent to look after her.
She thought of the woman – Ayesha – and the bag, and went through the consequences of losing it again. Still she couldn’t believe her own stupidity, and Ayesha’s kindness came back to her, as did that sudden revelation of her terrible wound – a wound that now seemed frightening, for it reminded her how easily a child is lost.
‘Will I ever be the same?’
That’s what Ayesha had asked, as if she wanted to go backwards. She’d told her no, and she shouldn’t have done: s
he should have said yes. The woman wanted reassurance, as everyone did – as she, Maria, did right now so far from home… why hadn’t she offered it? And what was the dead child’s name?
She remembered the guitar, but not the boy’s name, so again he’d been forgotten – and Ayesha would be wide awake, no doubt, aching with a pain only God could take away, if she believed in him. Maria knew that God came to her through dreams, and that when she was most desolate, sleep would bring the kind that didn’t simply nourish and revive: no, they resurrected.
And God had brought her Michael MacMillan.
She prayed for her own family and then for Ayesha. She prayed for the soul of her little brother, and suddenly remembered: his name was Kristin. And Kristin’s ghost stepped into the room and stood looking down at Ayesha, and Ayesha was fast asleep dreaming about him. Morris slept fitfully, aching all over, and Michael found that he was still so, so glad – just to be alive.
He was alive in a bed, not dead in a drawer.
24
‘Through the car park,’ he said. ‘I remember that much.’
‘It says that here,’ said Maria, checking the leaflet. ‘The first bit is easy, and we don’t get lost. Soon we get very lost – but not yet.’
She was laughing already.
‘We can’t,’ said Michael. ‘It’s going to be signposted all the way.’
The red coat was too big, and he felt like a lifeboat man ready for the storm. It had capacious pockets, so he’d folded the waterproof trousers into one of them, and put his packed lunch into his backpack. The hotel had provided that. The boots he’d chosen were a little tight, so he was wearing only his normal socks. He had taken the woollen hat too, and it was already on his head. As for Maria, her waterproof was purple, and it was belted in tight to her waist. The hood was up, and he watched as she secured it with flaps under her nose. The rain was on its way, and the wind was rising. It had pounded all night, rehearsing for a day of wild storms.
‘Okay,’ said Michael, smiling. ‘Follow me!’
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