by Lee Moan
But she was still here. Why?
When she’d finally been told the news—when that silly young male nurse had finally had the nerve to tell her this morning—she had fully expected her body to give up the fight within hours. But her withered body still clung onto life.
No one could understand how or why. Even Dr Rogers had come to the house and, although he hadn’t told her out straight (“You shouldn’t be here, Cynthia.”) she could read it in his sad old eyes.
You shouldn’t be here, Cynthia, she thought to herself.
What is it you’re waiting around for?
34
“I work for Hayden-Mills, Sam’s publisher,” Kelly explained. Sitting primly in one of the large lilac armchairs, she sipped the tea Rachel had given her, and glanced around the plush living room. Everything in this place had been paid for by Sam’s books. That thrilled her and made her heart ache even more for him. She couldn’t explain exactly why.
“When we heard of the tragedy,” Kelly explained, “we were going to send flowers, but I suggested it might be better if someone made a visit in person.”
Rachel stood in the archway which led to the kitchen. Kelly couldn’t help but notice that she hadn’t made herself a cup of tea, and her body language was very defensive. She also noticed that there were grey pockets under her eyes, suggesting a serious lack of sleep. No wonder, she thought with a small pang of sympathy. She’s been through a lot. But, she had to admit, she’s still here. They’re still together. Or are they?
“Sorry,” Kelly said, “where is Sam?”
“Oh,” Rachel said, “Sam went out this morning. To visit a friend.”
“Do you have any idea when he’ll be back?”
Rachel shook her head. She seemed distracted, irritated by something. “Sorry, what was your name again?”
Kelly tensed. “Kelly Burnett.”
“And what is it you do at Hayden-Mills?”
Kelly already had her answer prepared. “I’m a publicist.”
Rachel’s eyes narrowed to slits. “Kelly Burnett. I don’t recall Sam ever mentioning you before. I thought his publicist was Ronnie Gibson –”
Kelly put her cup down with a clink. “Yes, you’re right. Ronnie Gibson is in the South of France. I’m his right-hand woman, so to speak. Ronnie called me and asked me to come here on his behalf.”
There was a deep silence. Rachel stared at her visitor.
“I thought you said it was your idea to come here in person?” Rachel said.
Kelly maintained the smile for as long as she could, but after a while she realised it was pointless to continue. Rachel Thorne was not the dope she thought she would be. In the embarrassing silence which followed, Kelly tried to rearrange her plans again. She had already had to adapt things once, when she encountered Sam’s wife at the door instead of the man himself, the man she had really come to see. The man she had come to try and win over.
Kelly sat in the armchair, brushing imaginary crumbs from her dress, trying to decide which way she should go.
She arranged another smile, one that was not filled with good-natured brightness.
“Mrs Thorne, there’s something your husband hasn’t told you.”
35
The combination of drinking so early in the day and the lack of restorative sleep contributed to Sam’s mild stupor. As he drove up the drive to his house, narrowly missing a bollard and clipping the fence, he felt a little foolish at having allowed himself to get this way. Back in London, he would never have driven after a drink. Never. But here on the island, certain rules didn't apply—or, at least, they were ignored with a cough behind the hand. The chances of hitting anyone on these wide-open island roads, even when inebriated, were extremely unlikely. God, how irresponsible did that sound?
He parked the Land Rover in front of the garage and climbed out, a goofy grin on his face. I'll put her in the garage later, he told himself. After a few coffees.
When he fell in the front door, the smile evaporated instantly.
Two large suitcases rested in the hall at the bottom of the stairs. Rachel appeared from the kitchen, the phone pressed to her ear.
“Sorry, Mum,” she said into the mouthpiece. “Sam’s just come in. I’ll speak to you later.”
Sam closed the door slowly, the pleasant buzz of his lunchtime drink rapidly evaporating as his brain tried to adjust to the events unfolding before him.
“What’s going on, Rachel?” he said.
“Kind of obvious, I thought.” She hugged herself, unable to meet his eyes.
“You’re leaving me?”
“No, Sam. I’m going to live with my mum for a while. I just need to be alone right now.”
Sam sat down on the lower stairs. “That sounds pretty much like you’re leaving me.”
She looked at him, her eyes narrowed. “She was very pretty.”
Sam looked at her guardedly. “Who?”
“The young woman who came here today. Kelly, is it?”
Sam found it impossible to mask the shock. It was so overwhelming, so raw, that he found himself robbed of breath. In the end he looked away, afraid that the truth was written too large in his eyes.
“I can see why you would want to risk it all for a girl like that. I hope it was worth it.”
He raised his hand, trying to keep his shoulders from shaking. “Rachel, listen–”
“No, Sam, you listen: I’ve done a lot of thinking—nothing else but think, actually. The truth is Becky was the only thing keeping us together. Now she’s gone, I don’t see any future for us. Especially not now.” She shook her head. “I can’t believe you kept it a secret for so long.”
“Rachel . . .” He paused, suddenly aware of the precipice he found himself on. “Rachel, I did it for us. I did it to keep us together.”
“Don’t try and turn it into an act of heroism, Sam!”
His heart was burning. But he felt as though he had stepped out over the precipice now; the abyss beckoned.
“Just this morning, I said if we were to stay together we had to be honest with each other, no more secrets, no lies. So why didn't you tell me then, Sam?”
Sam breathed in and exhaled slowly through his nose. “Because I knew you would never forgive me. It wouldn’t matter how it happened, or why it happened—not to you. I know how unforgiving you are. Maybe if I thought for one minute that there was a chance you might forgive me, I might have told you the truth a long time ago. God knows I wanted to. I really did.”
Rachel fell against the wall, knocking one of the Degas prints askew. Her hands were trembling. “So this is my fault?” she said.
“No, that’s not what I’m saying. She was just interested and I – I was stupid, I let her move in, when I should have turned and ran, but–”
“Am I really so bad, Sam? Am I really that cold you had to run into the arms of the first woman who showed an interest?”
Tears stood in Rachel’s eyes.
Sam stared at her, unable to say the words. In the end, he didn’t have to. Rachel bowed her head, tears slipping down her face.
“Rachel, it was one night, one big mistake. I have never regretted anything so much–”
“Well, it doesn’t matter now, anyway.” She wiped away the tears and stood up straight.
“Rachel, I don’t want you to leave.”
She shook her head slowly. “This isn’t about what you want this time, Sam. I need to get away. I’ll see you at the funeral.”
“So, that’s it? Nothing I say will make you stay?”
“No.”
“We had something special,” he said.
“Yes,” she agreed, coolly. “Yes, we did.”
She brushed past him and started up the stairs. “I’m leaving here at five to catch the last ferry. I would appreciate it if you could be somewhere else.”
Outside, a single fork of lightning touched the horizon.
The first of many.
36
On Scalasay, it wa
s said, they buried their dead above ground.
The original cemetery had been on the land on which the Ashworth Estate now stands. In 1918, Richard’s grandfather Earl Ashworth bought twenty-five per cent of the island, including the mile-square plot reserved for Scalasay’s past, present and future dearly departed. Having more money than was healthy, Earl Ashworth set about having the cemetery moved to Rook Hill, which was on the opposite side of the island. This huge and costly operation was done so that he could build the twelve-room mansion which now dominates the skyline in the north-west. The only problem with Rook Hill was that the plateau was made up of hard slate bedrock (as was almost eighty per cent of the island), which naturally made interment almost impossible. Ashworth’s solution to this was to erect a community mausoleum, a beautifully sculpted series of chambers that would not only house the previous deceased, but generations of Scalasay to come.
Naturally, these plans caused outrage amongst the island’s inhabitants, but Earl Ashworth knew how to appease angry mobs. His years as a captain of industry had proven that. Earl Ashworth pumped so much money into the island – into the newly-built school, the shopping arcade, as well as improving the sewage and drainage systems and paying for the resurfacing of all the island’s main roads – that the locals’ protests were quickly reduced to muted cries of general dissatisfaction. By the time of his death ten years after the completion of Ashworth house, Earl Ashworth was regarded by the island community as one of its most revered citizens and benefactors. A bronze bust of the old man was erected in the town square, beside the water fountain which he had added to the shopping arcade in its centenary year.
Oddly enough, Earl Ashworth was not buried in Rook Hill Cemetery. He, like so many other Scalasay residents, chose to pay a little extra after his demise to be buried on the mainland, in a traditional plot in a beautiful cemetery in the North of Scotland.
The mausoleum which now stands on Rook Hill was designed by a young architect in Ashworth’s employ called Joseph Farmer. His only design specification from the old man was to make the mausoleum—which could quite easily become an eyesore and enrage a community already smarting from the plans—blend in with the surroundings, and that included the thirteen mysterious stones which lined the outskirts of Rook Hill plateau. The stones were made of a dense metamorphic rock, completely alien to the island’s geological structure. And so, following Ashworth’s instructions, Farmer used a dark rock known as quartzite in the construction of the mausoleum.
The stones stand over ten feet tall, and even though they are now covered in moss and lichen, and are chipped and broken, they are still a formidable set of figures in the landscape. The Bruin stones are carved with intricate Celtic runes which predate anything that modern linguistic experts can understand. Some believe that the stones were used by some of the Norse armies which invaded the islands in the seventh Century, and it may have been the Norse ships which brought these strange rocks from Eastern Europe.
As the storm gathered, the Bruin stones looked on.
37
Father McNamara slipped into the chapel to extinguish the half dozen or so candles which were now burning down to their wicks, and was surprised to find a solitary figure sitting in the shadows below the small organ loft, a single shaft of moonlight falling across his neck and shoulders. For a split second, he imagined it was Ben Garrett. The troubled young man had often come into the church alone late at night, but whenever McNamara had tried to approach him or offer him counsel, he fled. The idea that this was him sent an icy shiver through his bones.
He peered into the shadows. “Hello?” he called. “Are you all right back there?”
The figure moved, and when the moonlight fell across the features, he saw that it was Sam Thorne. “Hello, Father.”
McNamara walked down the aisle and stopped a few feet from Sam’s pew. “Hello, Sam. I can’t say I’m surprised to see you here after what happened yesterday.”
Sam exhaled wearily. “I suppose I came for the quiet, the solace, maybe to seek some answers.”
“From me?” the priest asked with a jocular edge.
“I don’t know, Father. Got any?”
McNamara grinned and took the seat beside Sam.
“You know, I’m a little bit psychic,” the priest said.
“A little bit?”
“Aye. I bet I can tell you what you’re feeling right now.”
Sam regarded the old priest with a humorous squint. “Go on then, give it your best shot.”
“Okay, laddie.” McNamara looked to the heavens for a few moments. “You’re thinking, Why me? That’s a dead-cert.” Sam said nothing. “You’re also thinking that if there is a God, why does he let things like this happen? Why does a so-called loving God let six-year-old girls die in freak accidents?”
The old priest fixed his rheumy eyes on Sam’s own, but the humour had drained from them. Sam felt a tremble of emotion in his jaw at the way the discussion was going, but he was intrigued as to where the priest was taking him.
“Am I close?” asked McNamara.
“Pretty close.”
McNamara cleared his throat with an echoing cough. “May I be so bold as to tell you, the author, a little story?”
A smile tugged at Sam’s lips. “Okay.”
“Ever heard the story of the Third Ant?” he asked.
Sam shook his head.
“A colony of ants came under attack from a killer bee. A soldier ant went out to face this terrifying foe, believing in his heart that he would win because he had the cause of Right on his side. But the ant did not win. He was squashed, and tossed aside. A second ant came forward to defend his colony, employing a different tactic to that of the first ant. He, too, believed he would win, but he also perished under the bee’s merciless onslaught. And then a third ant stepped forward. He had observed the idealistic bravery of his two fellow ants, but he was more of a realist. He understood that an ant can never beat a bee. Not alone, at any rate. So he summoned his forces and the colony attacked the bee as one, and drove it away, never to return.” The old priest looked into Sam’s eyes. “You see, Sam, the third ant learnt from the mistakes of those first two ants and the cause of Right won out in the end.”
Sam leaned forward. “So, you’re saying that life is a game of trial and error?”
The old priest shook his head. “I think the idea is that no death is meaningless. We may not realise it at the time, or agree with it, but every death has its place in the grand scheme. Every death eventually has some significance.”
The two men sat in silence for some time, and in those quiet few moments, Sam tried to consider what the priest was telling him, but his mind was filled with mental static.
Eventually, Sam stood up to leave. “I'm sorry, Father,” he said. “All I know is that I lost my daughter yesterday. Where’s the meaning in that?”
Silence fell over them. Sam felt tears threatening. He took several deep breaths to keep them at bay.
McNamara grabbed Sam's shoulder then and gave it a manly squeeze. “I know what you could use, Sam. A stiff drink.” He smiled. “We both do.”
38
“You just get yourself to Oban safely,” her mother’s reassuring voice told her through the handset, “and I’ll be waiting there for you.”
“Thanks, Mum,” she said.
“And Rachel?” she said, her tone deepening, growing cold. “I was right about him, wasn’t I?”
Rachel pressed her lips together hard. She wasn’t ready yet for that kind of talk. “Mum, I’ll see you at the ferry port,” she said. “Love you.”
She hung up, exhaled a long, trailing sigh and then saw something catch her eye in the garden outside.
She stepped out into the night air—humid for this time of year, as if the atmospheric pressure was building up to something—and crossed the garden to the small flowerbed by the shed. She crouched down and found that the yellow glint she had seen was the pot containing Becky’s very own geranium. It was
still in bloom, a miracle as she was certain it hadn’t been watered once since . . . since Becky last watered it.
At that moment a twin set of car lights swept across the front of the house and a horn beeped. The taxi was early. But that didn’t matter. She was packed, ready to go. She had everything she needed.
She looked back at the geranium and tears filled her eyes.
“Goodbye, my angel,” she said.
39
Sam and Father McNamara sat in front of a crackling fire at the Lighthouse Inn, sipping silently on their respective glasses of Scotch. The barroom was surprisingly quiet for a Sunday. A young couple sat in a cosy booth, looking too exhausted to enjoy each other’s company. A pair of giant backpacks rested at their feet. Day-trippers, Sam concluded. Scalasay got a lot of them in the summer, only a few in the autumn and winter months.
He glanced at the clock on the mantel. Five-fifteen.
Rachel would be leaving the cottage around now, would be loading the luggage into the back of a taxi and listening to her mother on the phone telling her only daughter that she’d been right about the good-for-nothing writer all along.
He’d been a fool. Some idiotic part of him had really believed that in withholding the truth of his indiscretion he had been protecting the fragile unit of his family. Instead that secret had become the final nail in the coffin of their marriage.
She would never come back to him. Maybe she was talking about a temporary separation, but he knew in his heart, had seen the cutting truth in her sad brown eyes, that something had died, something fundamental which they could never get back.
The past few hours had been a torture chamber of past memories. He found himself dwelling on particular memories that had once seemed so bright and filled with hope, but which now seemed designed to cut deep into his heart with maximum damage. Their first meeting was an unlikely collision on a university campus between an English Literature student and a medical student who had hated each other on first sight. He recalled that feeling of extreme dislike with a new intensity now. Oh, how he had despised that uptight, spoilt girl with the glossy blonde hair and the brown, heavily-lidded eyes. But he remembered the turn of his heart when she had softened, shown her vulnerability over the death of a mutual friend. He remembered the growing feelings of desire and unbound passion which burned deep within him, and the fear—yes, real fear—that she was beyond his reach because of their initial dislike. But the storm had broken one night, when he had been invited back to her dormitory and there in her tiny bed they had stripped each other bare in every sense, had made love again and again, as if their passion for each other was a beast which they could only put to rest through physical love – but by the end of that night they had barely troubled the beast.