by Andrew Greig
Not in this life, my dear man.
He seemed to be on his knees on the narrow floor. His head on her breasts, soft under the knitted waistcoat. He smelled wet wool. He must be weeping.
*
He came in the scullery door, put down the tool-bag, straightened his shoulders and went through to the kitchen and all the warm familiar smells of Raeburn and child and cooking. Fiona looked up from a seed catalogue, the bairn on her lap.
Did you get it fixed?
More or less, he said. Enough to let them get on the road.
So they’re leaving soon? Before Christmas?
He shrugged. I think that’s the general idea.
She turned another page.
Must be nice being young and free, she said. In a way I’ll miss them, and she was always very good with babysitting. Ah well.
He reached down and lifted David from her lap. He seemed startled, his hands went back towards his mother but she’d got up to get another pre-lunch gin. Sim watched her go, her heavy solid shoulders, the sensible expensive tweed skirt. He held Davy tight. He had to learn to value all this again, it was all that was left him.
The child whimpered, he gently stroked its back, consoling as he would wish to be consoled. In his pocket he felt Jinny’s note crinkle against his leg, he must hide that with the journal. Hide everything, no one must ever know. Read it, she’d said. I tried to explain.
I expect you’ll miss them too, Fi said. Cheers.
*
Round the centre of the second Lovers’ Plate everything seems white. Images of winter, freezing winter, and a tall man hurrying across snowy fields sends a cloud of white into the air. The moon behind his shoulder is white as bone.
At night in Crawhill Cottage, she checks her notes and makes new ones. She replays Tat’s replies, fills in his gaps, hesitations, the moments when his empty-sky eyes turned from her. Times when he could have been blushing and she’d felt the urge to squeeze him like a stunted flower for its juice.
She shakes her head as she circles names and dates, draws double-headed arrows connecting one to another. She’s trying to make them hit the target, but they don’t quite. From time to time her eyes stray to the plate.
There’s a puzzle here, a sleight of hand. She can sense it like the blur that passes under the magician’s patter and distracting movements. But who’s the magician – Elliot? Tat? Or Jinny herself? She can’t do anything till she’s worked it out.
Keep your eye on the man who matters. She looks up but of course no one’s there. That thought was not one of her own, nor was the voice. Spook is busy again and it isn’t obeying her.
She props her head on her hand as she lets herself sink towards the centre, the heart of this mystery. She has to get it all in the right order, move scenes around till the dates fit and the sequence is clear. And where there are gaps, she must listen to the wind and the voices that whisper still in the corners of the cottage.
And that note Tat mentioned then clearly wished he hadn’t, the one Jinny had given Elliot when her period came, slipped into his hand as he left the caravan, spied on by Tat through the gorse. She wants to see that piece of paper so badly it burns like hard frost. Just to see Jinny’s writing and know her hand once moved there. Perhaps something was there even Tat had missed, for she thinks he spoke the truth as he knew it. He’d absolutely refused to pinch it for her and she hasn’t the levers yet to prise it out of him.
But it’s hard to see another way of getting that note, short of burgling the big house, which is getting into the realm of fantasy, and she tries not to dawdle overmuch there.
When there’s nothing else to trust, she must surrender to Spook. She turns back to the plates, her notes, and her beating heart. Outside the moon is on the rise, the Hunter is mid-leap across the northern sky.
*
Simon Elliot lies on his back in bed, lifts his journal and an old piece of paper falls onto his chest. The only note he has of hers, they were always careful not to put things on paper. It’s written on the back of a shopping list, he’s memorised that too. He turns it over. Domestos, library? green beans … She’d tucked it into his pocket as he’d left the caravan. He’d put his hand on it, turned and young Tat was snooping by the gorse with his queer long head and very sharp eyes like there was a hole in his head clean through to the horizon. Some things don’t need said. The boy knew.
Matches, aspirin, Tampax. She had headaches, yes. The Tampax, yes, once she’d known she wasn’t pregnant. It was just a shopping list. The real message was on the other side. The shopping list and the note – in which order did she write them? Did she write her brief explanation and apology then turn over and calmly jot down Potatoes, butter, candles? How the candles had tormented, knowing how she liked to make a ceremony of making love, and these candles weren’t for him now. She must have known he’d read it. I’ve had to think for both of us. She must have known.
Sim Elliot lies back in his sweat-wreathed bed by the moonlit window. He can follow the fleeting thought no further. He can hear voices downstairs, laughter of the young. His heart is thudding, missing beats. He really does not feel right.
*
A long brambly briar winds from one winter scene past several others you cannot bear to look at for they are too tender, to end inside a cave or little shed. The near-naked woman is standing over a bearded sleeping man who doesn’t look like her secret lover. Outside the thorns are huge but there are no leaves or berries, so it’s still winter. For a moment you forget to breathe. Shiver, for the stove’s going out and you don’t know what the date is or even what year you’re in, but like an eye opening in your forehead you begin to see how it might have been done.
In the little caravan Jinny rose from the mattress and stood a moment at the window. She has tried to make love with her husband with more attention and it has nearly worked. She pulled on her knickers, thinking of the precautions that didn’t get taken. Patrick lay wrapped silently in the blankets, only his beard showing. Soon it would be time to have another smoke and let the silences overflow into sleep. Nothing useful could be said now.
As she hung the blanket across the window she knew she’d done what was right for everyone. This is how it must be. She stared down into the valley where the power lines crackled and fizzed into dusk, then let the curtain fall.
*
Simon and Fiona Elliot stood together by the edge of the trees at the end of the shortest day, the very howe of winter. She had wanted to keep walking, into the wood and across the brig, maybe call in at Ballantyne’s the way they used to before David was born, but something has thickened about them and it seems impossible now to go into the trees or say what needs to be said.
She stops, helpless. She cannot continue whatever she was saying about her hopes for their son and the estate. The weave of her sweater tickles his cheek as he suddenly holds her. Her breath is hot and moist in the hollow of his throat, and it is impossible to say whether they are holding up or letting go each other.
The last of the light still shows above the long riggs that ride down about the dale and cut it off from the world. The moon has already set, the first star is in place and the rest will soon follow. They stand loosely linked looking round the fields of their estate. For a moment he thinks If this isn’t love, I do not know what is.
But he does know what is, and it is not this pained, shameful tenderness, this joint acquiescence. He looks at his wife, her face and averted eyes so familiar it’s hard to see her or feel anything at all. This is the life that has happened to him. He has chosen only one thing in his life, and it was wrong. And now it has ended. He and Jinny have sworn on that.
It’s very cold, the grass is stiff and crunchy at their feet. Skeins of geese stream over Ballantyne’s Farm repeating So what? So what? The moment when he should speak, or she could speak, rises like darkness from the ground.
But nothing is said, only a pressure on his arm and her throat clearing. They feel the lines of their ageing
deepening like furrows cut across the winter fields. They turn without a word, her arm loosely through his then back into her pocket, and set off home to where their duties and responsibilities wait behind the yellow lights in the valley below.
*
Sim Elliot wakes, at first not knowing time or place. Hazed moonlight spills like low-fat milk, thin and grey, over his face. He is unstoned, sober, and helpless. He’s in his chamber in the tower and his chest hurts somewhere about the lungs or heart. The doctor has warned him often enough – with his family history of heart disease, father and grandfather both gone well before their time, he must stop smoking if he wants to live long.
He reaches out to his right, grips the packet and papers then rolls a thin cigarette on his chest. How clear his lighter flame rises in the half-dark! The cigarette kisses his lips and makes the long watches of the night pass quicker. He is waiting for someone, and until she comes all he can do is remember.
*
Congratulations, he said and briefly kissed the side of Jinny’s cheek as it turned towards him. He shook Patrick’s hand and somehow looked him in the eye as Fiona opened the champagne.
It’ll be terrific to have another child on the estate, she burbled. I’m sure they’ll get on.
He looked to Jinny but she looped one arm round Patrick’s and reached out with the other for a glass.
Just a drop, she said. I’m already a bit queasy.
So, he said, where are you moving to now? A missed beat. He looked around but couldn’t find it anywhere. Hello, he said, have I missed something?
Fi handed him a glass. It was very cold in his hand.
They can’t have the baby in the caravan, Simon. Not through another winter like this.
She glanced at Jinny who nodded on cue. Patrick shuffled his glass against his beard and muttered they’d been saving but not much. The forestry work dried up in winter, but at least there’d be planting in spring.
So, Fi said.
They stood grouped round the fire in the sitting room. Simon Elliot felt the blaze warming his arse but the rest of him was frozen. No dusty-road caravan, no new life, no second degree in engineering. Above all, no perpetual adventure of passionate engagement with another human being. Just more of the same till the end. And now this, so soon after the false alarm. Her and Patrick’s baby.
Jinny glanced at him, quick as a touch on an electric fence and he felt the quiver up his arms.
I want our baby to be born in the Borderland, she said. We could move, but …
Another pause. They were all looking at him like he knew what to say. He began to giggle. Fi grasped his elbow and squeezed. He was deafened by the things he mustn’t say. He felt the pressure build in his chest like hiccups. He opened his mouth and knew with horror and relief he was going to say it. We’ve been having an affair. She thought she was pregnant and now she is – isn’t that hilarious?
He swallowed. Jinny went pale. She could always read his thoughts. He opened his mouth again. This time it would come out.
So! Fiona said. I was thinking about Crawhill Cottage now the Maxtons are leaving. Jinny can help me out here by way of rent.
He closed his eyes. Weighed the horror of seeing Jinny day after day with her new bairn against never seeing her again. He felt the arms of the balance buckle under the weight. He opened his eyes, looked at them all. Saw Jinny’s tiny nod, the twitch of the mouth he’d never kiss again. Or maybe he would. He had no idea what was being set up here.
He lifted his glass, lowered it again. Fi smiled encouragingly. He forced himself to look at Patrick.
Please, Patrick said. We’re pretty desperate, man.
Those lips on Jinny. Then the anxious eyes on him. He’d wronged this boy so badly. No one must ever know, ever. This secret went to the grave, whatever that cost.
Sure, he said. Have Crawhill. Why not, eh? Why bloody not?
He clicked his glass off the other three, saw Jinny’s slop and spill. Tiny bubbles fizzed and burst about the hairs along her forearm. He saw meltwater over grass where they had walked just weeks ago when she might be pregnant by him. He saw himself lap the champagne from the delicate pool between her finger and thumb.
No nay never no more! he shouted.
What are you on about? Fiona laughed. You can’t be drunk already.
Wild rover, he said. With the baby I mean. There’ll be no more of that.
Oh I don’t know, Jinny said. She glanced at Patrick. We don’t want to go entirely straight.
Aye, Patrick said. I told Jinny once the baby’s old enough we’ll move on. Just the first few months while I get the bread together.
They drank to the future. Early twilight outside, snowlight settling into the valley, ghost hills on the other side of the Border. Elliot drained his glass and felt the fire and the cold. Christmas cards still hung on ribbons down the walls, the uprooted tree shed dried needles onto his father’s Malay carpet. At least the old man had had his adventures before settling down. He’d had the war he never talked about, then years in the rubber estate, dawns in Rangoon, night boats across the Straits, women too most like. Sim suddenly wanted very much to find young Tat and go with him on long expeditions into the snowbound hills and valleys, trace the tracks of foxes and rabbits and the delicate-stepping deer, see the steam rising from sheep sheltering behind the dyke and hear as they moved the tinkling from all the teeny icicles stuck to their fleece.
That’s what they would do, stay out all day. He let his glass be filled again, heard Fi invite Jinny and Pat to stay for lunch. He and the boy would dig snowholes. He would dig into a snowbank at the edge of the woods, curl up and close his eyes and fall asleep under the pale cawing trees far from all this.
So – was this a happy accident? Fiona asked brightly.
He opened his eyes onto his own little corner of hell where Jinny had one hand over her belly, the other round her husband’s waist.
Yeah, Patrick said.
Sort of, Jinny said.
But it’s cool.
It’s worked out for the best.
He went to the window and stared out down the valley at his estate, his life. He’d never leave now. Soon Fi would start the campaign for a second child and in time he’d go along with it. He would carry on with nearly friends, neighbours, the county set and people in the estate-management business. Even with his wife he’d carry on making the right noises a fraction of a second too late, smiling after the joke, nodding to the pompous remark before following it with one of his own. He’d carry on as he had before, miming to his own life. There’d been only one brief time when he’d spoken and acted from the heart and not been on his own. Now it was by with. Whatever happened to everything that mattered? He heard again his exasperated cry. Gone, he thought vaguely, buried under winter snow, and around his neck for good measure the deadweight of estate and title and family.
Fi nudged him. He smiled at her.
It makes me think, Simon, isn’t it about time we …?
Her hand ran down the side of his leg. He worked very hard not to shift away, to smile down at her again. Presumably in time he’d be able to touch this woman again. She’d done nothing wrong. She was a better person than he was, and no duller.
No hurry, he said. We’re both still young yet.
He drank and felt old. It would have been kinder if he’d never met Jinny, never known a life other than pointless.
*
What the hell are you up to, Jinny?
She panted as she put the big box down on the kitchen table in the empty cottage. It was the first time they’d been alone together since she and Patrick had made their big announcement. Somehow she had taken herself away and left someone else in her place, and that person caused him mostly pain and irritation.
I know it’s a shock, she said at last. Coming so soon after our … scare.
You didn’t waste much time getting pregnant.
I had to try with Pat once we’d finished. And, um, this was the result.
He was already walking away, dragging the mattress into the bedroom.
By the window? he called.
Yes. I like to see an out.
And you found it.
Hey. Her voice was soft from the kitchen, personal for the first time in two months, and he had to strain to hear her. I had to think for both of us, and that’s what I did. It’s for the best, you must see that.
He sat heavily on the mattress and put his hands over his eyes. I’ll never get through this, he thought. Never.
I’d hoped you could be happy for me, she called through.
Did you love me? Was it for real?
Then there was no sound but the wind snuffling at the window. He opened his eyes and she was standing in the doorway, arms folded around herself.
Sim, please. That’s not fair.
Nor is this, and you know it.
She bowed her head.
Pat wanted us to stay. He’s got work and friends here. It wasn’t my idea, but I’m trying to make the marriage work, so I’m going along with it. She looked away, sounded unconvinced, almost shifty. Then she thumped the door frame with her fist. This dale is as much mine as yours. I want to stay and it’s not to hurt you.
Let me put it another way, he said. Do you love me?
She hesitated so long. She dropped her arms and for the first time looked at him directly.
From my heart, she said simply. But it must stay shut in there. He bowed his head. Does that help?
He got up quickly.
I’ve something for you, Jin.
Me too.
She was smiling as he fumbled in his pocket.
I kept it from the first time, up on the moor. I’ve had it made up so you can wear it close.
He opened his fist. She came nearer and looked down at the dull-glinting pewter brooch. Her thumb stroked the worn silver coin, emperor’s head at the centre, the VIIII scratched at the circumference. The only one of its kind ever found. She hesitated then her fingers brushed his and she was pinning it on her sweater.