Highland Fling

by Anna Larner

  “We’ve been rowing, all right? She’s been away all night. I was thinking I should probably tell someone. Although my gut feeling is that she’s fine and she won’t want the fuss.” Eve did her best to keep it together as she said, “I think she’s going to dump me, Rox.”

  “Well, that might not be a bad thing, you can move on.”

  “What? I don’t want to move on. I want her. Remember what I said at The Brewer’s when you asked me about my ideal woman? She’s the one. Don’t you get it, Rox?”

  “No, as you’re asking, I don’t get it. Because unless I’m misunderstanding something here, you ring me in floods of tears because of her, and then she storms off and leaves you on your own all night in the middle of fucking nowhere. And all that’s okay with you because…?”

  Eve walked over to the veranda and sat wearily down.

  “Oh, and let’s not forget, Eve, she lies. She lied to you, she’s lied to everyone. Are you honestly telling me you don’t care about that?”

  “No, of course I’m not, Rox, but I kind of understand why she did. She’s hurting and lonely. I told you what the letter said, about her past, about Iris. She never meant to hurt me.”

  “No, Evie. She’s messing with your head, and she’ll break your heart all over again.”

  “You don’t know that. You don’t know her.”

  “And neither do you. For fuck’s sake, Eve.”

  “I do. I do know her. I know her in my heart.”

  Roxanne let out an exasperated, “Whatever.”

  “You don’t understand, Rox, when she looks at me, when she kisses me, I can tell she cares. And when we make love, she’s with me, completely. I’ve never felt this way about anyone before, really I haven’t. I can’t even bear the thought of spending another night without her.” Eve’s voice broke.

  “So have you spoken about the future?”

  “No, everything’s been a bit tense to talk properly. She’s struggling with her feelings, coming to terms with her past and stuff. It’s like she can’t move on. And I want to help her. I want to make everything okay for her.”

  “So what are you going to do?”

  “Wait for her.”

  “You might be waiting a hell of a long time, Evie. And in the meantime she’s hurting you.”

  “It doesn’t feel like pain so much. It feels more like—”

  “You’re going to say love, aren’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh God, I need more beer.”

  “So shall I ring you later then?”

  “Tonight. Ring me tonight. Right?”

  “Yes and thanks for being there for me. For always being there for me. You’re the best mate in the whole—”

  “Wide universe world. I know. Talk soon, mate. And get yourself on the train if it gets any shittier.”

  “Bye, Rox.”

  Eve held her mobile in her hand and sat looking out to the loch. She had spoken with such conviction about her feelings, about her hopes. And yet Eve knew that hoping wouldn’t bring Moira home. And hoping wouldn’t make everything right.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Moira told herself to expect to find that Eve had left. That love, once again, had left. She had spent the afternoon at work, delaying the inevitable. She steeled herself for the sight of the empty sitting room, the single glass by the decanter, the unintended order of a home lived in by one. She had not prepared herself for soil prints, muddy clothes, and the warmth of life waiting for her return.

  “Eve?”

  “Moira? I’m up here. I hope you don’t mind, I thought I’d take a bath. Hi.”

  “Hi.”

  “Are you okay? I was worried. I’m sorry for what I said. I thought it was John’s ring. Is it Iris’s? If it is, I’d never ask you to get rid of it. I wouldn’t do that to you, honestly. I know how much she meant to you. I know you think I don’t understand but really I’m trying.” Eve splashed out of the bath, the unrinsed soap shimmering over her body.

  “Slow down, Eve, slow down.” Moira’s voice shook with tiredness. Her eyes briefly flickered over Eve’s body.

  Eve bit her lip.

  Moira turned away and went to her bedroom, and sat heavily on the edge of her bed, her head in her hands. “Why are you still here?” Moira asked, shaking her head.

  Eve followed Moira into the bedroom and stood in front of her. “What?” Eve said, her voice trembling with alarm.

  “It makes no sense,” Moira said, looking at Eve. “When everything seems so…”

  “Stressful?”

  Moira nodded. She could see that Eve’s face had drained of colour. Looking down at the floor, she said quietly, “I don’t know why you didn’t go home.”

  “Is that honestly what you think? That I should have gone home?” Eve reached for Moira’s hand.

  Moira stood to walk away.

  “Then tell me to go, Moira. Have the guts to look me in the eye and tell me to go.”

  Moira stopped but didn’t turn round.

  “Tell me to my face. Tell me that everything we’ve been through so far was for nothing.” Eve’s voice broke. “Tell me that you don’t want me, that you don’t want to hold me ever again, or kiss me, or wake up in my arms…ever again. Tell me, Moira.”

  Moira turned round. “Stop talking, please, Eve.”

  “No.” Eve placed her hand on her hips. “No. It seems you can say what you like and I’m meant to somehow suck it up. Just so you know, I’m not still here because I’m some pushover you can treat like crap. I’m here for us. Yes. I’m being strong for us, because I believe in us, even if you—”

  Moira stood in front of Eve. “Did you want a towel?”

  “A towel?” Eve swallowed. Eve had been arguing naked, standing in the middle of Moira’s bedroom, dripping on the floor, a puddle of bathwater at her feet.

  Moira collected a towel from the bathroom and wrapped it around Eve. She placed her palm at Eve’s cheek. “I’m sorry for treating you this way.”

  Eve hugged Moira, whispering into her chest. “Sorry is a start but it’s not an explanation. We need to talk.”

  Moira held Eve tightly in her arms. “In the morning. I promise we’ll talk in the morning.”

  *

  “Are you going to work?” Eve fumbled for her watch on the bedside squinting at the hands that read eight thirty. “Don’t you have time for some breakfast?”

  Moira pulled on her jumper. “I’ve eaten. There’s coffee in the pot and I’ve cut some bread for toast. I’ll see you later.”

  “When exactly? Will you be away all day again? It’s just you said we’d talk. We need to talk. I’m going to have to go back soon and I need to know what’s going on between us. What’s going on with you.”

  “I’m not sure I know what to say, Eve.”

  Eve climbed out of bed, struggling into her jeans and T-shirt. “Then just tell me how you feel, how you really feel—what’s going on in your head.”

  “I’m going to be late.”

  “Talk to me, Moira.”

  Eve watched as the dark around Moira’s eyelids grew darker. It filled Eve with an awful sense of dread. She bravely continued, “You won’t let me in.”

  Moira looked down.

  “What kind of relationship can we have, Moira, if you won’t—can’t—talk to me? Or is it just about sex? Are we just sex?”

  Moira’s face creased with hurt. “Is that what you think?”

  “No, it’s how you make me feel.”

  “Then leave.”

  “What?” Please, no.

  Not bearing to see Eve’s face Moira turned away to say, “I think you should go home, I’ll give you some space to pack your things.” Without pausing to look at Eve, Moira left the room, but Eve followed.

  “Moira, I haven’t said these things because I want us to split up. Wait. I’ve said them because I want us to have a future, to be together.”

  “How can we have a future? You’re half my age, for God’s sake.�
��

  “What? I don’t care about that. I just want you.” Eve’s words travelled with her down the stairs as she followed Moira out into the garden.

  Moira stood looking at the newly organized vegetable patch.

  Eve said, “I didn’t know where everything went. But I’m willing to learn, really I am. Please let me try—”

  “It’s not about the vegetables, Eve.”

  “I know that. I’m just saying…please, Moira.”

  “What? You’re saying what? You’ll live here in Newland, leave your family, Roxanne? You’ll be content without the daily buzz of the city? Your gay bars? Will you?”

  “I…” Eve desperately searched for words. Tears were all that came.

  Moira looked at her vegetable patch, her hens, at Foxglove, and then at Eve crying. “It’s too much to ask you to cope here and I won’t leave Newland. You need to know that, Eve. You need to know that about me. I can’t leave here. I won’t leave. I won’t change.”

  “I don’t want you to—please—I love you.”

  “How can you?” Moira’s heart broke as she turned and walked away.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Moira hadn’t gone to work. Her breaking heart instead led her to the only place where it knew it could be safe, where it had always been safe.

  She stood in Angus and Elizabeth’s dining room, and had intended to calmly explain that she had asked Eve to leave and that this was for the best, and would it be possible to spend a little time with them to give Eve a chance to pack her things. She’d gotten as far as hello before crumbling in front of them. Elizabeth held her in her arms as Moira sat sobbing at the dining table, her head buried in her hands.

  “Why don’t you make us some tea, Betty.” Angus swallowed several times to find his voice. “I’ll stay with her.”

  Moira tried her best to rally, taking a handkerchief from Angus. “I’m sorry, I can’t seem to stop. I can’t…”

  “Let it all out, Moira. It’s perhaps time you did, don’t you think?”

  Angus and Elizabeth sat with Moira, Angus holding Elizabeth’s hand. They sat watching Moira cry, waiting for her to be able to talk.

  “I’ve told her to leave.” Moira took a deep breath and wiped at her cheeks with the back of her hand. “It’s for the best. I also wanted to say that I’m sorry”—tears glistened down Moira’s cheeks—“if by not handling things very well, I’ve caused you distress.”

  “How have you not handled things well?” Angus shook his head. “I don’t understand.” He looked at Elizabeth and tightened his hold of her hand.

  Stifling her embarrassment, Moira said, “My feelings—the dishonesty of it all.”

  “Oh, I see.” Angus lit his pipe and slipped it into his mouth. A mist of sweet smoke clouded the air, drifting and gathering like his thoughts. He looked closely at Moira. “Aye, well, if life has taught me anything, Moira, it is that honesty is sometimes overrated.”

  Moira blinked several times, surprised at Angus’s words. She would have thought that honesty would have meant everything to him.

  Angus continued, “Yes, I think you’ll find there is a good deal more decency in a well-meaning omission and far more cruelty in so-called honest words.” Angus took a long drag on his pipe.

  “Right.” Moira nodded slowly, her brow furrowed in thought. “So you don’t feel deceived—that I couldn’t tell you everything about me, the truth of my situation?” Moira looked at Elizabeth.

  Elizabeth replied gently, “Deceived? No, Moira—confused perhaps, worried about you at times, yes. But we have no right to expect you to tell us everything about yourself. After all, everyone has things that, for whatever reason, they don’t feel they wish to share with others. We understand that you value your privacy. We’ve always understood that. We’ve always tried our best to understand you, brave girl—so that we would know how to help.”

  “So are you saying you’ve always known about me?” Moira asked tentatively.

  Elizabeth nodded. “That you would follow your own path, definitely—that was obvious in your independent spirit that shone out in you so brightly, even as a young child. It was clear to us that you would never follow the crowd, and we were, are, so proud of you for that. But if you’re asking Angus and me whether we knew about your feelings for young Iris, and what that might tell us about you, then I can only say this—that it was less what you said, or perhaps tried to say, and more…” Elizabeth’s voice began to tremble.

  “We watched you grieve, Moira.” Angus quietly continued for his wife. “It was your terrible, terrible grief that gave your feelings away. For it wasn’t the grief of someone who had lost their best friend. It was clearly the grief of someone who had lost a love.”

  Elizabeth stroked Moira’s tear-stained face. “You’ve lived with that grief every day, Moira. And no one, it seemed, not John, nor Alice, nor us, could help you.”

  Angus took a deep breath of tobacco, breathing it out, the smoke escaping from his lips like the truth, as he said, “That is, until Eve.”

  Moira looked at Angus. “I don’t want to talk about her, please.” Moira stood up.

  “Please, sit down, Moira. I wasn’t going to tell you what to do.” Angus’s words were firm but kind, and not for debate.

  “Do you know what struck me when I first met Eve? It wasn’t, as it happens, that she wasn’t wearing any trousers.” Angus shook his head. “No, it was the way she looked at you, the incredibly tender way you looked at each other. I’d never seen you look at anyone that way, Moira. And how much she admired you, it made me feel proud to know you, so I can only imagine how she made you feel. I don’t have to tell you, Moira, that love is a precious thing and all too easily lost.”

  Moira gasped, “You honestly think I want to lose Eve, her love?”

  “Well, in that case, I’m not sure we understand,” Elizabeth said, confused.

  “It’s just, what can I offer her? How can I be her future? She’s so much younger, so much more life—”

  “Nonsense,” Elizabeth intervened with a shake of the head. “You’re talking as if you think you’ve had your life—as if it’s over.” Elizabeth watched Moira take a deep breath in. “Is that it? Is that what this is about? I think Eve would disagree. It’s blatantly obvious how fond she is of you. The poor thing, she came all this way, which I think was very brave indeed, to be with you, leaving her friends and family behind. All she seems to want is you, Moira, a life with you. Why on earth don’t you simply let her?”

  “Because we’re so different, there’s no way she can cope here.”

  “Have you told her that?” Elizabeth asked, with a questioning frown.

  “Yes.”

  “And what did she say?”

  “That she wanted to try, but it’s clear she has no idea what this life would mean for her.”

  “Are you sure she has no idea? And for that matter”—Elizabeth took a deep breath—“are you sure she couldn’t love you as much if not more than Iris?”

  Elizabeth stood and rested her hand on Angus’s shoulder, steadying herself, as she concluded her thoughts. “When someone we love dies, we don’t remember them as flawed and real, we remember them as we need to remember them, in ways which comfort us. They become not as they were but how we need them to be. Eve cannot compete with an idealized memory, Moira. No one can. And no one should have to.”

  Moira sat, staring at the ground, lost in the words she had waited too long to hear.

  “Well, Betty,” Angus said, “I think we’ve said all we can for now. It is up to our girl to find her way.”

  *

  Startled by the front door opening, Eve stood from the sofa, her packed rucksack resting against her legs. “Moira?”

  “No.” Alice stood scowling at Eve.

  “Is Moira with you?” Eve asked, looking past Alice, hoping that Moira was just behind her. She wasn’t. Eve folded her arms. “What do you want?”

  “I just wanted to drop off these things for M
oira. I didn’t realize you’d still be here.” Alice rested a notebook, accompanied by a chocolate cake wrapped in cling film, on the table. She placed a note on top of the book.

  “Why did you think I wouldn’t be here?” Eve asked, fearful of the answer.

  “Well, Moira couldn’t have made it clearer that she doesn’t want you. I heard you rowing in the garden—it was impossible not to hear you.” Alice shrugged. She then narrowed her eyes and asked with a suspicious tone, “Why haven’t you left?”

  “Sorry to disappoint you, Alice.” Eve looked at the cake. “I can see you’ve come ready to celebrate.”

  “If you must know, I came to see how Moira was, she wasn’t in work. God only knows what state she’s in. I hope you realize how much you’ve hurt her.”

  “What? How much I’ve hurt her? Take a look around you, Alice, I’m not the one who’s stormed off because she wouldn’t talk.”

  “That’s because she doesn’t, she doesn’t talk. Certainly not about anything that matters. Take it from me, if you’re expecting her to pour out her feelings, then you’ll be waiting a very long time. So why don’t you go home. Go on, just go!”

  “Fuck off, Alice! You don’t get to tell me what to do.”

  “Go home, please just go home.” Alice’s voice wavered.

  “No, Alice.”

  “Why not?”

  Alice’s pleading tone prompted Eve to sit down. She replied, exhausted, “Because I love her.”

  “I know. I heard you tell her,” Alice admitted, the merest hint of pity in her voice. “And I didn’t hear her tell you she loved you back. That’s why you might as well just leave. There’s no point.” Alice quickly turned to leave.

  “But there’s no point to anything without her,” Eve said, trying desperately not to cry again in front of Alice.

  Alice glanced back at Eve, and then left without another word.

  *

  When Moira finally summoned the courage to return home as dusk fell over Newland, her heart sank into her stomach when she saw the note on her table. The croft was empty. The note would be from Eve. It would contain her parting words, wounded and cold.