A week after the opening he remembered sitting up all night with his mother, when time seemed to collapse, when all one could do was wait. It was so quiet that he could hear the cries of the foxes in the Parc Monceau. It was so quiet that he could hear his heartbeat. He sat in a small pool of candlelight and let himself drift, as if floating on the surface of a huge sea of grief. His mother’s breathing had become erratic, starting, then stopping, then starting again. At one point she opened her eyes and looked at him.
“I’m here,” he whispered, and took her hand again.
But his mother stared beyond him as if she could see someone else in the room.
“You brought her,” she said.
“There’s nobody here but us,” he said. The doctor had told him this might happen, that the morphine would give her hallucinations.
“You did love my son,” she said to the phantom in the room. “You did as I asked.”
“Mother,” he said softly. “You must rest.”
“Because you have responsibilities, Émile. She knows that you could never marry a woman like her. I told her so in the carriage.”
“What carriage? Who are you talking to?” he asked.
She looked at him and blinked twice.
“Why, she’s standing right behind you,” she said. “The Scottish woman.”
The train’s whistle blew as they sped along the tracks toward Inverkeithing. From there, the train was diverted to the river line, to Queensferry. There they were greeted by a guard of honor. A small band of drums and flutes was playing “God Save the Queen.”
William Arrol was waiting on the railway platform to greet them. This was the moment Émile had dreaded. How much did he know about what had happened? Would he be angry, dismissive, or rude? Hats, ribbons, and kilts all flew up in the biting easterly wind that whipped off the North Sea, but still the band kept playing.
But Arrol was taken up with the prince and his entourage and hardly gave anyone else a second glance. He ushered the royal party toward a small steamer that was waiting to take them out into the River Forth to see the great bridge from below. Émile climbed down from the train and paused for a moment, his face wet, his hands rapidly growing numb, his eyes blinking away the rain, as the rest of his party ran from the shelter of the train to the model room at the base of one of the huge pillars.
“Monsieur Nouguier!” a voice rang out. He turned. Jamie Arrol was approaching with his hand outstretched. “You came!”
“Wouldn’t miss it!” he replied. “It makes the tower look like a toy.”
“Hardly, although while your tower is the tallest building in the world, our bridge is the longest single-cantilever span.”
“Ours?” he said.
“Yes,” said Arrol. “When I came back, my uncle promoted me.”
Jamie Arrol smiled. He looked older now, more sober somehow. He had filled out, slowed down, come to his senses.
“And how was Panama?”
He looked away, his face suddenly seeming to sink in on itself. “I was there for a month before all the construction was halted. I didn’t do any work. I was too sick. If my uncle hadn’t wired money for a doctor, I probably would have died.”
He faced into the wind and his cheeks streamed with rain.
“It all seems so long ago now,” he said. “You, the tower, Paris.”
The royal party was docking again; after only a few moments on the boat it had been decided that the open water was far too stormy. Now, according to the printed itinerary, they would all get back on the train and return to the center of the bridge, where the prince would drive the final rivet, a ceremonial one made of gold, into the north girder.
The rain came down torrentially but neither moved.
“Alice is engaged to be married,” Jamie said. “To a man she met on the boat train. A lord, no less. He has an estate in Perthshire and a house in London. He’s terribly respectable. My uncle’s thrilled.”
“I’m happy for her,” said Émile. “And what about you?”
“You know me,” he replied. “I play the field. No point in getting attached at my age.”
His smile was fixed. Émile suddenly remembered Delphine, her face in the light of a half-forgotten afternoon.
“And you? Did you marry?” He was looking at Émile expectantly.
“It’s made of steel, I hear,” Émile said, changing the subject. “So much stronger than iron.”
Arrol smiled and followed the line of Émile’s gaze.
“It’ll stand for a hundred years or more. Guaranteed.”
They were silent for a moment, admiring the bridge in the rain.
“Well, it is nice to see you again,” Émile said. “Are you coming for the luncheon?”
“Not important enough to be invited.”
They bid each other farewell and Émile turned to step back onto the train. And then he stopped. This was his chance, his only chance. Had he learned nothing?
“How is Mrs. Wallace?” he asked.
Arrol took off his hat and shook it.
“I haven’t the faintest,” he said. “But I heard she left Glasgow, Scotland . . . Europe, in fact.”
Émile frowned. “I didn’t realize,” he said.
“With one thing and another, Paris was quite eventful for all of us.”
Out on the river, the fog began to roll in from the sea.
“Do you have any idea where she went?” Émile asked.
“Africa, I think,” he said. “Missionary work. Sorry.”
The Prince of Wales couldn’t manage the rivet. William Arrol came to his assistance and whacked the gold piece into its hole with a hammer.
West Africa, 1891
The children were singing as they ran: Someone is coming, someone is here. Cait pulled back her mosquito net, climbed out of bed, and opened the shutters. She couldn’t see anyone approaching on the wooden bridge across the river. And the steamer wasn’t due until the end of the month.
She dressed as fast as she could. No corset, no bustle, no chemise, just a simple white cotton gown with a belt around the waist. It was the dry season and the harmattan wind had been blowing down from the Sahara for weeks now, filling the air with dust and sand.
When she had arrived two years earlier with a trunk full of undergarments, bonnets, and walking dresses, she realized that nothing she had brought was any good at all. It was so hot. And the wind blew all day, filling up the layers of her old clothes, the pleats and folds, the boning and the padding, until she left small piles of red sand wherever she went. One by one she discarded the bustles, the swags, the overskirts, and finally the corset. A local tailor made her some new tea dresses and she used her old clothes as material for sewing projects.
A few girls were already waiting at her door. A few more came from the school and took her by the hands.
“Who is it?” she asked.
“Come and see,” they said.
Although she had been in Gambia for long enough, she was still taken aback by the way the people touched her: they held her hand, they caressed her face, they stroked her hair if she let them. It was true that she had changed much in the village—she cared less about God than she did about preaching the benefits of boiling water, of mosquito nets and vaccinations. Her work was teaching good hygiene and sanitation, medical and social issues rather than evangelical ones. She also had taught her girls to read, girls who otherwise would have remained illiterate and been married off by their families as young as ten. Her grandfather would have been proud of her.
Even from the beginning, however, her idea to build a school had been met with disdain by her organization. The village was many miles from anywhere. The bridge across the river to the main road to Georgetown was so dilapidated that all supplies had to come by boat. She had once heard her predecessor describing it in French as a mosquito-ridden hellhole when he thought she couldn’t understand.
The money she had earned for her time in Paris with the Arrols had covered her fa
re. Most of the money for building the school had come from donations from Scotland. Her sister, Anne, had been tireless in her efforts to fund-raise, and for that Cait was eternally grateful. William Arrol and Alice’s new husband had also both been extremely generous. And now it was finished—the only brick building in a village of mud huts, just one classroom and a small library of books. She had twenty pupils enrolled, but more came every week, some walking barefoot from distant villages.
Cait loved Africa. She not only loved the people, the wildlife, and the wide-open skies but she loved the sense that she could make things happen here, that what she did had an effect. Her days spent in Paris, and before that, in Scotland, seemed to belong to a different, heavier life.
A white man was standing on the riverbank in the shade of an acacia tree, staring out at the rickety wooden bridge. What now? she wondered. The dioceses had recently suggested closing the bridge to foot traffic, condemning the village farmers to take their crops to market by boat.
“Can I help you?” she asked.
The man turned around. Cait brushed her hair from her eyes. She opened her mouth to say something, but no words came out.
“I’ve been in Senegal just along the coast,” said Émile Nouguier. “We are putting in a proposal for a new bridge between Saint-Louis and Sor.”
She glanced around. He seemed to be alone.
“How did you find me?” she asked.
“It wasn’t hard.” He shrugged. “People know of you.”
He was staring at her, taking her in as the early-morning sunlight illuminated his face. He looked a little older, a little grayer around the temples, but it suited him. She stared back. She would not feel ashamed of her simple dress and unbrushed hair, of her bare hands and freckled skin. This is what she was now, she told herself, just this.
“And how are you?” he asked.
“Very well,” she replied. “Thank you for asking. And you?”
He took off his hat.
“You know I left Gustave Eiffel’s firm? Started up my own.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Why should you?” said Émile. He seemed to gather himself up for something difficult; he moistened his lips, took a deep breath, twisted his hat in his hands.
“I went to Edinburgh to see the opening of the bridge,” he said. “I thought I might see you there.”
Cait shook her head. What could she tell him? Of arriving back in Glasgow, of deciding almost as soon as she had closed her front door that she would leave again? Of how many people had warned her against Africa? But still she had come.
“I—” she began.
Émile cocked his head, waiting for more. She would tell him one day, tell him a story, for that was all it was now. But not today.
“You look well,” she said instead.
Émile blushed and she felt a swell of tenderness for him.
“That’s nice of you to say,” he replied.
One of Cait’s younger pupils ran up and wrapped her arms around her legs. Instinctively, Cait stroked her hair. Émile watched, then took a deep breath. He seemed suddenly to take it in: the school, the village, and her place in it. He lowered his eyes. What was he thinking? That he should never have come? No, surely not that? She sent the little girl to get some water for their visitor.
He swept his hair from his forehead. She ran her finger along the neckline of her dress. Neither of them moved. The girl came back with the water. He drank the whole glass. The school bell began to ring. It was eight a.m.
“Life goes on,” he said. “Of course it does.”
She gave a small nod of agreement.
“Well,” he said, looking back over his shoulder at the way he had come. “I must make a start.”
Cait was breathing too fast and her hands trembled so much that she thrust them both in her pockets. She didn’t want him to go, not yet. She could suddenly sense the lack of him, the absence. Her tongue was tied, her mouth was full of moss, her head was clouded with cotton wool.
He placed his hat back on his head.
“We need a new bridge,” she blurted out.
He turned and looked at her.
“The old one, clearly, won’t last much longer.”
His shoulders seemed to relax.
“You know,” he said. “That thought did cross my mind. I could design you one.”
What was she thinking? She could barely afford to run the school, let alone pay for a new bridge.
“I’m afraid there isn’t any money to pay for it,” she admitted.
He stared out at the horizon, at the bright green of the bush and the crush of a vast blue sky.
“Let’s see,” he said. “I made a little money from the tower.”
“But surely you need it for other projects?”
“Not necessarily,” he said. “I’ll need to do a survey first.”
“Will that take long?”
“Hard to say,” he said.
They stood side by side in the middle of the old wooden bridge as the brown river water rushed beneath them on its way to the Gambia River and then on to the estuary and the wide-open North Atlantic Ocean.
“I thought I’d never see you again,” she said softly.
“I thought the same. But here I am.”
It all tumbled back, the crumple of white linen sheets, the bell ringing in the church of Saint-Séverin, the rumble of the Métro, their breath in the cold morning air, the warmth of his body next to hers. Paris.
“I think a cantilever bridge would do it,” Émile said after a few moments. “It’s simple but strong. Steel beams would project horizontally into space on opposite sides of a river until they meet. They wouldn’t support each other but would be fastened together with a pin.”
“Yes,” she said. “That sounds perfect.”
The wind blew hot and dry and red while in a baobab tree a waxbill began to sing.
Acknowledgments
___________________________
Thank you to Kate Johnson, my good friend and excellent agent, who navigates the waters with wisdom and grace. I would also like to thank Amy Einhorn for her unique vision, endless patience, and super-smart instinct. Thanks also to all at Flatiron Books, especially Caroline Bleeke, and all at Wolflit Literary Services for the help and support.
My father, Andrew Colin, gave me advice on aspects of Victorian engineering, although if there are any mistakes, they are mine. My mother, Veronica Colin, corrected my French. Thank you both. My thanks also extend to the staff and students at the University of Strathclyde, especially my colleague, David Kinloch, who listened to me enthuse about the tower for longer than it took to build it.
Thanks to my friends and family who offered coffee, a sympathetic ear, or a stiff drink, including Lydia and the Mazzotti family, Stephen, Frances, Laura and the Parsons family, Maureen, Stan and the Kulik family, Alison, Miranda, Zoe, Gaynor, Sara, Karen, Alison, Kirsty, Roz, Mari, Fiona, and Caroline.
Big thanks to my children, Theo, Frances, and Oscar; my sister, Kate, and her partner, Scott; and my brother, Andrew, and his wife, Linda. Lastly, thanks to Paul, who traveled with me, took the photographs, and remembered the passports. It would have been a lot less fun without you.
Recommend To Capture What We Cannot Keep
for your next book club!
Reading Group Guide available at
www.readinggroupgold.com
To Capture What We Cannot Keep Page 30