The Long Walk Home

by Will North

  “Alec, I just need to ask: that story about walkers and the farm gates?”

  “Insurance, Owen,” Alec said. “I’m guessing David has a life insurance policy. If he dies and the report suggests it was suicide, Fiona will get nothing. I’m not proud of lying; I’m just trying to protect Fiona. I got rid of the bottle, too.”

  Owen looked at Alec for a moment, then said, “I only wish I’d thought of it.”

  They turned and started down.

  twelve

  ALEC AND OWEN DESCENDED SLOWLY, staying as far away from the cliff edge as they could. The fading light drained the landscape of contrast, and it was hard to discern loose rock from solid. Alec was stiff from having sat with David for so long, but his muscles and joints loosened as he and Owen descended. Several times the scree let go beneath them, but each time they were able to arrest their slide. They passed the point where Alec had nearly gone over the edge earlier in the afternoon. By the time they reached the bottom, perhaps an hour later, Alec’s knees were rubbery and it was dusk. They climbed into the Land Rover by the shore of Llyn y Gadair. Owen turned the engine over and, with the headlights searching for the depressions the tires had made in the grass hours earlier, they slowly bumped and lurched downhill toward the farm. Every few hundred yards, Alec got out to close farm gates behind them.

  Fiona had stood at the window of the unoccupied upstairs guest room from the moment she first heard the helicopter until the light began to fail. It was as if she were trying to will outcomes: David’s survival; Alec’s and Owen’s safety. She found herself amazed that she could carry the hope of David’s safety and the yearning for Alec in her heart simultaneously, yet she could.

  The Llewellyns had come in, apparently seen the note, gone quietly to their room, and left shortly thereafter, presumably for dinner in town. She hadn’t bothered to greet them.

  It was nearly dark when she heard the engine of Owen’s old Land Rover laboring in low gear. She watched as the twin cones of its headlights bounced down the hill. When the lights neared the farm, she went downstairs, opened the back door, and waited there in the pool of light from the boot room. Owen and Alec got out of the car and walked stiffly to where she stood.

  “David?”

  “Alive, Fi,” Alec said.

  Fiona threw her arms around them and held them tight for several moments, the two men dwarfing her. It was only partly from gratitude; the fixed constellations of her world were suddenly whirling around her and she clung to the men as if to keep from being cast into the spinning void.

  “They’ve taken him to Aberystwyth,” she heard Alec say. “Have they called?”

  She shook her head, pulled away, and looked up at them.

  “Thank you. Both of you. Come in and I’ll put on the kettle.”

  They had only just reached the kitchen when the phone rang. The three of them were frozen in place for a moment, and then Fiona ran to the hall. The two men followed her.

  Her hand hesitated over the handle of the telephone and then she lifted it. “Hello, Tan y Gadair Farm,” she said. “Yes, this is she ... Yes ... I see, yes ... He is; wonderful! Yes, I understand. It was what? Yes, of course it would ... No, I’m all right, there’s someone here to look after me; thank you for asking. Yes, I’ll be right here by the phone ... Yes, good ... Thank you; thank you very much.”

  She put the phone back on its receiver and stared at it for a moment.

  “He’s alive. Barely. In a coma. They’re warming him but they’re also keeping him sedated; apparently that helps protect his brain somehow. They won’t let me see him just yet. Meanwhile, apparently they’ve done a few tests.”

  She looked at each of them in turn.

  “His blood alcohol level was very high. It was suicide, wasn’t it?”

  Owen looked at Alec and Alec answered, “Yes, Fi, it was. He’d thrown aside his coat, drunk maybe as much as a bottle of whisky, sat down among the rocks overlooking the farm, and waited. Perhaps we should have told you sooner. I’m sorry.”

  Fiona’s face was blank for a moment; then her eyes refocused. She squared her shoulders and smiled.

  “No need for apologies,” she said, “from either of you. David’s choices were his alone. Thanks to you two, he failed. What happens next is not in our hands. They’ve asked me to stay close to the phone and wait for further instructions.”

  She shook her head. “As if I might skip off to the cinema!”

  Alec wondered whether she had always been this resilient and guessed she had been, perhaps as far back as the day her father drowned.

  She took them both by the hand and they returned to the kitchen. The two men sat at the table and she poured water into the teapot.

  “Mrs. Edwards, ma’am,” Owen asked, “have you called Meaghan?”

  “I did, shortly after you left. There was no reply. Just as well, I suppose; I didn’t know whether David was alive or dead at that point.”

  They were silent again.

  “Speaking of calling,” Fiona said, “would you like to call your mam, Owen?”

  “Good idea,” he replied and went out to the hall to phone.

  Alec was slumped in his chair, staring blankly. He’d climbed the mountain twice and had been running on adrenaline for hours. Now that the crisis was over, he’d hit empty.

  Fiona sat beside him.

  He smiled at her.

  Owen returned. “Mam sends her love and prayers, Mrs. Edwards; says if there’s anything you need, just call. I think I’ll head home now if that’s okay.”

  “Of course, luv,” Fiona said. She gave him another quick hug. “A gem is what you are, Owen Lewis; I’m so glad you came to us.”

  Owen blushed. “Can’t think of anywhere I’d rather be, Mrs. Edwards. Will you be calling Meaghan again, then, later?”

  She looked at him, saw something she’d never seen before, and smiled.

  “I will, Owen.”

  When the young man had left, she sat down at the table opposite Alec.

  “If it hadn’t been for you, David wouldn’t be alive tonight. You were wonderful today and I’m beyond grateful. I have no idea what will happen next, but what you did was heroic. Insanely so, I suspect, but then I’m beginning to expect that sort of thing from you.”

  He looked across at her and shrugged.

  “You are the most wonderful man, Alec Hudson ... and you are very, very dirty.”

  Alec looked at himself for the first time. He was, indeed, filthy. In addition to the dirt, his arms and legs were a mass of bloody scratches from the rockslide.

  “Guess I could use a bath, huh?”

  He started to unlace his boots. Fiona rose and helped pulled them off. The tops of his socks were bloodstained. He stood up and groaned.

  She took his hand.

  “Come with me.”

  He followed her through the house to her private quarters. She sat him in the chair by the fireplace, then went into her bathroom and ran water in the big claw-foot tub. When it was nearly filled she went back to her sitting room and found him staring empty-eyed at the cold hearth. She pulled him up and took him to the bathroom.

  Slowly, tenderly, she helped him out of his clothes. There was a dark purple bruise the size of a dinner plate on his side.

  “What happened here?”

  “Tried to fall off the mountain. Almost succeeded.”

  “You idiot; I told you to be careful.”

  She helped him into the tub. He slid into the hot water, wincing. She kneeled beside the tub and poured hot water over his head several times, then squeezed shampoo into her hand and slowly washed his hair, massaging his scalp. Alec felt as if he were floating in the water, not reclining in it. When she finished, she poured more water over his head and rinsed his long hair thoroughly.

  “Soak here for a while,” she said. “Do your bones good, you old relic. I’m going to put together a simple cold dinner from whatever is in the fridge. We can have it in my sitting room, by the fire.”

/>   “I promise not to run away,” Alec said as his eyelids closed.

  She had just returned with a tray of bread and cheese and sliced apples and a bottle of wine, when the phone rang by her bed. She leaped at it.

  “Hello? This is she, yes. No, it’s quite all right, what’s happened? I see ... yes, I understand ... Yes, of course I will; I’m in Dolgellau, so it will be awhile ... Yes, I know you can’t, I understand. Thank you very much. Yes, fine; thank you for asking. No, I know where it is, thanks. Yes, bye.”

  She hung up. Alec was standing in the bathroom doorway, dripping wet.

  “He’s fibrillating, right?”

  “How did you know?”

  “It’s what happens. I didn’t want to tell you.”

  “I need to go to the hospital; they don’t know if they can keep him alive.”

  “We’ll both go,” Alec said as he began rubbing himself down with a towel.

  “No, Alec.”

  He looked up.

  “I know it’s your nature to want to be there, to help, to be supportive, but this is something I need to do myself.”

  She crossed the room and gave him a long hug. She heard the Llewellyns return from dinner and ignored them. They could fend for themselves.

  “I need to go now. I’ll call if ... anything happens.”

  “Fiona?”

  “Yes?”

  “I hope he’s okay.”

  “Thank you. Me, too.”

  A few moments later he heard her car start. The transmission whined as she reversed quickly out of the barn, there was the rattle of flying gravel, and she was gone. It was so quiet down in the valley that he could hear the pitch of the engine alter with each gear change as she raced up the main road to Dolgellau.

  ***

  THE CLOCK ON the dashboard said 10:15. Dolgellau’s tangled streets were nearly deserted and in minutes she was flying up the A470. She didn’t even pause at the Cross Foxes, she simply downshifted to third and roared up to the top of the pass. On the descent through the Bwylch Llyn Bach, she used the whole road, moving smoothly from the southbound to the northbound lanes, apexing each curve to straighten the road as it twisted down through the narrow valley. The engine whined as she upshifted and downshifted, but she never made a tire squeal. Fiona loved driving the way a chef loves his stove: the individual and the machinery became one.

  She reached the valley bottom near Tal y Llyn and downshifted again for the climb up through the pass to Corris. Then the road dove steeply down into the next valley under an arching canopy of black-leafed trees, the car’s headlights boring a tunnel through the darkness. The tarmac leveled suddenly and she crossed the old bridge over the river Dyfi. On the other side, as she entered Machynlleth, she stood on the brakes and brought the car down to the speed limit. There was no sense in getting a speeding ticket, assuming the police were even abroad at this hour. She passed the ancient clock tower at the western end of the town square. On the other side of town, she pushed the accelerator down again and raced south on the A487. The topography eased and the road straightened. The little red car flashed through the sleeping villages of Tal y Bont and Bow Street.

  When she reached the “Welcome to Aberystwyth” sign, the dashboard clock read 11:00. Forty-five minutes. Not bad for a one-hour drive.

  Fiona gave her name at the hospital reception desk and was directed to the intensive care unit, where a nurse met her. She was a big woman with a sweet smile and a gentle manner. Her lapel pin read Meudwen.

  “I’m sorry we dragged you down here at this hour,” the nurse explained, “but it was touch-and-go there for a bit and we thought we might lose him. We had to use the defibrillator on him twice, but he came back both times. His temperature is nearly back up to normal now. But we have no way of knowing whether he’ll come out of his coma when we reduce the sedation. Or, for that matter, what condition he’ll be in if and when he does. He’s got a good doctor, though: James Pryce. Young chap, and a mountaineer; he’s our expert on exposure.”

  The nurse led the way down a dimly lit corridor. Dark rooms flickered with little red and yellow and green lights and small video screens that kept a running record of vital signs. Fiona thought about how inadequate such machinery was to the task of monitoring a human spirit. The only sound on the ward was the ticking or beeping of the life-support equipment. Finally, the nurse turned into a room and said, “Here he is then, luv. If you need anything, I’ll be at the nurses’ station.” She checked the equipment and then left Fiona alone.

  Fiona drew up a chair and sat facing her unconscious husband. Thick, clear vinyl sheeting hung from a fixture in the ceiling and surrounded the bed to isolate David from chemicals in the hospital. A thin plastic tube fed oxygen through his nose.

  She’d spent half her life with this man and she did not want him to die. David had given her the life she now embraced as her own. He had brought her to his valley, and she had been happy for years, though in a quiet sort of way. The rhythms of the farm had been a source of genuine comfort to her. True, running the farm was something he seldom consulted her about. But while he resisted the bed-and-breakfast idea at first, and the implicit message that he wasn’t earning enough from the farm, she sensed the success of her business had become a source of pride for him. Then, after he’d become sick and knew she was carrying the household, he’d begun to resent her. It was understandable, if painful to live with. He was losing his hold on his own life. That’s what was so horrible about this situation, she thought: David was not now, nor had he ever been, a bad man. She knew women—women right in their own valley—whose husbands controlled every aspect of their lives. That was never David.

  But Alec’s appearance in her life had shone a spotlight on all the places in her marriage that had been in shadow, gathering dust. She and David did not have—had never had—the kind of deep intimacy she had hoped for. They had certainly never made love the way she and Alec had. They were more like business partners than “soul mates.” He helped with bringing up Meaghan, especially in her fierce early teens when she seemed to listen only to him. That was the most important thing they’d shared. But as she watched him behind his clear plastic curtain, she suddenly realized that in many other respects she and David had been living utterly separate lives, even when they still shared the same household and bed. She’d felt lonely all these years for the simple reason that she was, for all intents and purposes, alone. Their separate planets did not collide, but they didn’t orbit together, either. When he’d had to move out to the hay barn, she’d barely noticed the difference. She and Alec, on the other hand, were Earth and Moon, bound by their mutual gravitational pull.

  She watched the pattern of David’s heartbeats on the monitor beside his bed; a scrolling yellow line traced jagged peaks and valleys, the landscape of David’s being, across a black screen. Up, down. Pump, rest. Life, death.

  ***

  ALEC SAT BY the fire in Fiona’s sitting room and nibbled idly on the meal she’d left for him. He was still in his damp towel. He was too tired to dress, too tired even to be hungry. And too anxious. The situation in which he found himself was untenable. In a hospital room an hour away, David Edwards lay critically ill. His wife was at her husband’s bedside, willing her husband to live. This was as it should be. Alec was simply Fiona’s new friend, someone who’d wandered into her life, found her dying husband, and kept him alive until someone more capable could take over. That story made sense. What didn’t make sense was the other story, running in parallel, in which he and Fiona were lovers, and they were at the kitchen table enjoying dinner together, and they were in bed, and they were dreaming of being together forever.

  A part of him wished David had died—as David himself apparently had wished—and he was horrified he could feel that way. He thought about Gwynne’s death and the weeks he’d spent in her hospital room. He thought about his grief when she died, and the fact that divorce doesn’t sweep away the history of two lives lived together. Even death doesn’t do
that. If anything, death intensifies the memories. Gywnne was still with him, not just a memory but a palpable presence. He was sure there had been many happy times in Fiona’s and David’s marriage. As he watched the fire flicker, he imagined her reliving them right now.

  April 15, 1999

  thirteen

  A HAND TOUCHED FIONA’S SHOULDER and she jerked awake.

  “Mrs. Edwards?” It was Meudwen, the nurse. “Dr. Pryce is here.”

  Fiona stood quickly. Too quickly; she had to hold on to the chair while her head cleared.

  “I’m so sorry; I guess I fell asleep.”

  “I’m envious. If I weren’t on call tonight, I’d be asleep, too. Jamie Pryce,” the doctor said, extending his hand.

  James Pryce was a big man—a good six feet tall and broad-shouldered. Fiona took him to be about thirty years old. The nurse had said he was a mountaineer and she had no trouble believing it. He checked his patient and then turned to her. He had a warm and calming smile.

  “You’d like to know how your husband is doing, I’m sure, Mrs. Edwards, but there is not much that I can tell you with any certainty at this point. Your husband is alive. We have brought him out of his hypothermia. He has weathered two ventricular fibrillation events. To put it simply, we won’t know much until he wakes up.”

  “What will he be like when he does?”

  “I wish I could say. Between the hypothermia and the heart irregularities, the blood and oxygen flow to his brain have been compromised. He could be perfectly fine. He could have certain brain function impairments.”

  “What should we do next?”

  “If I were you, Mrs. Edwards, I’d go home and try to get some rest. I also know that is a ludicrous thing to say to a patient’s wife in this situation, but there is no way of knowing, really, how long this process will take. We’ll take him off sedation gradually and see what happens.”

  “Is David still in danger of dying?”