Highland Fling

by Anna Larner

  Just stopped by. Thought you might want this—it didn’t seem right for me to keep it. It seemed to mean a lot to you. Let me know if you want anything else. I’m putting the rest in the loft. Alice. X

  No note, then. Eve had left without even a hurt goodbye. But what did she expect? What on earth did she expect? Eve had given her a second chance, many chances in fact, and she had blown them one by one.

  Moira scraped a chair out from the table and sat heavily down. She placed the note aside and looked at the cake, missing a large slice, crumbs scattered on the table, and over the purple cloth cover of the painfully familiar notebook.

  She rested her palm flat against the embroidered cover. The book, its spine, its bindings, felt cold and hard, lifeless like a carcass bereft of a soul. The text inside, the fading ink, in every way the fossil imprints of words imagined and spoken long ago.

  For too long Moira had lived in the cold shadow of the past, in the futile search for comfort amongst the emotional ruins and relics of love. She realized that now, now when it was too late.

  Moira shivered.

  She wanted warmth, laughter, hands in her hair, kisses on her lips, blushing cheeks, a sweet smile, her name spoken in passion, the beating heart of love. She wanted Eve.

  But with Eve gone, she had no clue in that moment where she could find her or whether she would want to be found.

  *

  “You don’t have to store them away,” Moira said, standing at the sitting room door of the main house.

  “I wasn’t expecting to see you tonight,” Alice said. “You look tired, Moira.”

  “It’s been a long day.”

  Alice nodded and turned away, her gaze falling on the box of her mother’s belongings resting on the sofa. “You don’t think I should put them away?”

  “Not unless you want to. She’s your mum, Alice. She’d have wanted you to have her things around you. You should keep this too.”

  Moira dropped the notebook gently into the box. At the same time, she tucked her Bells T-shirt underneath Iris’s T-shirt, to rest, as it should, with all the other memories of the past.

  “And…” Moira hesitated.

  Alice looked up.

  “I have something which I would like you to have—which I think you should have. If you’d like to.”

  Moira unfurled her fist to reveal a delicate band of gold. “Your mum gave it me many years ago. It was your great-grandmother’s.”

  Alice stared at the ring, her face lit by the beauty of it.

  Wide-eyed, Alice whispered, “It’s beautiful.”

  “Yes.”

  “To give you this—she loved you so much, didn’t she?” Alice’s voice crumbled with distress.

  “Yes, but—”

  Alice spluttered, “I ruined your life, her life. Didn’t I?”

  Moira gasped. “No, that’s not right—”

  “You would have been with her until the end though. She wouldn’t have stayed with my dad, would she, if she hadn’t fallen pregnant? I’m not stupid, Moira.”

  “Please, Alice. Here, sit with me a moment.” Moira gestured to the sofa.

  Alice sat next to her, tears glistening in the lamplight.

  “It’s not as simple as that. Nothing ever is, Alice.” Moira took Alice’s hands in hers. “I once asked your mum what she was most happy doing—caring for the environment, like you and me, or singing. She said singing. She chose to be a singer. She lived the life she wanted. And it wasn’t the life I wanted. After all these years, it’s only in the last few months or so—”

  “Since Eve?”

  Moira nodded. “Spending time with Eve, talking with her, just being with her has forced me to face things I find hard. So much of my life I’ve felt burdened with the belief that I somehow failed your mum. That I couldn’t be braver about my sexuality—that I wasn’t prepared to give up my teaching, what I cared about. And now”—Moira swallowed deeply—“I’m beginning to wonder that even though your mum and I loved each other very much, I think we had different destinies.”

  “But you always told me we make our own fate. That you don’t believe in destiny, Moira.”

  “I don’t, at least I didn’t. But it’s somehow”—Moira shook her head—“the only thing that seems to make sense these days. Because I want you to know this, Alice, understand this: your mum, your dad, and I were destined to parent you, to love you, and we have, and we do, with all our hearts. My only regret is that I haven’t told you that more.”

  Alice nodded, retightening her ponytail and wiping her eyes with her sleeve.

  Moira wasn’t sure whether her words had made any sense, or any difference. “I’ll leave the ring here.” Moira placed the ring gently on the sofa. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Alice.”

  As Moira stood, Alice reached out for Moira’s hand. She squeezed it and said softly, earnestly, “Thank you…for everything.”

  Emotion muffled Moira’s words as she said, “You’re welcome, Alice. Goodnight, then.”

  Just as Moira reached the door, Alice sniffed hard. “I can’t believe she waited for you.”

  “Sorry?” Moira’s chest tightened.

  “Eve. I overheard you rowing. You think she’d take the hint, wouldn’t you?”

  You overheard? “No, you’re mistaken, Alice. Eve has gone.” The words caught in Moira’s throat. “She wasn’t there when I got home.”

  “Yes, but she was definitely there when I called by a couple of hours ago.”

  “But…she was still there? What did she say? Was she all right?”

  “I tried to make her leave. I thought that’s what you wanted.”

  Moira felt sick, terribly, terribly sick. She asked quietly, hesitantly, “And what if I don’t want her to leave?” Moira held Alice’s questioning stare.

  Alice shrugged, standing to close the lid on the cardboard box. She looked at the ring on the sofa. “I guess that’s up to you.”

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Returning to her croft, Moira’s heart ached with all that she had said, all that she had felt, all that she was feeling now. You waited for me? You didn’t leave? It was too much to hope that Eve was still there and too much to quite believe.

  Moira quickly glanced around the sitting room. Urgency rose in her as she hurriedly checked each and every room in her croft. She pushed open the sunroom doors and rushed into the garden. She stood still, listening, her heart beating like a drum sending a message into the evening air.

  She desperately cast her gaze into the distance, towards the blowing grasses disappearing on the horizon, where garden met meadow met glade. The glade.

  “Eve.”

  Eve looked around to find Moira standing over her.

  Moira had found Eve nestled amongst the grasses in the glade. She was sitting with her knees tucked under her chin and her arms wrapped around her shins, looking out at the loch. Her rucksack lay on the ground at her feet.

  Moira sat down next to her.

  The air was cool and fragrant, and the evening sky was lit with glinting stars and the glimpse through drifting clouds of a crescent moon.

  “I haven’t left yet,” Eve said matter-of-factly.

  “No. I can see that.”

  “I know you want me to leave.”

  Moira said quickly, “I don’t. I don’t want you to leave. I can’t begin to tell you how I felt when I saw that you were still here.”

  Eve looked intently at Moira. “Try, try and tell me. Please. I need to hear it.”

  “I thought…I thought I’d lost you, driven you away. I’ve been so stupid, I lost sight of us, of you. I love you, Eve, so very much.”

  Eve asked, “Why couldn’t you say that before? You let me think you didn’t love me. You hurt me, Moira. You really hurt me.”

  “I know I have. And that it’s unforgivable. The truth is I’ve always loved you, from the moment I first saw you. But I didn’t feel it was right to tell you because in the end we’re so different, Eve. I was worried it co
uldn’t work.”

  Eve frowned. “But is being different a bad thing? Doesn’t that just make us interesting to each other? And at the end of the day doesn’t everyone just hope that they’ll be happy, healthy, and have someone to share life with?”

  “But that’s the point, Eve. I’m a lot older than you. You’ve got your whole life ahead of you.”

  Eve replied, “Yes, and I’d like to spend it with you.”

  “But I won’t be here to share your whole life with.”

  “Why, where are you going?”

  Moira said with a heavy sigh, “You know what I mean.”

  Eve shook her head to say, “No, I don’t. I don’t know why you think life offers anyone any certainties. We could be the same age and I could die before you. All we have in fact is right now. And I want to spend every one of my right nows with you.”

  Moira didn’t know what to say. There seemed to be no defence against such sense. Instead, she watched Eve tip her chin to look at the sky.

  “When I was a little girl,” Eve said, her voice distant, wistful, “I used to wonder where the stars went during the day or on those nights they didn’t seem to shine.”

  Moira looked up, her eyes tracing the pinpricks of light suspended in the sky.

  “When I was young,” Moira said, “I thought the brightest star was my mother looking down on me.” Moira glanced at Eve, who in turn held her gaze. “If I’m honest, I still do.”

  “So she’d be that one.” Eve pointed to a star glistening brightly above their heads.

  Moira nodded. “I guess.”

  “And Iris? Which one is she?”

  Moira felt her chest tighten. If this was a test to see whether she would talk about Iris, then she would not fail again. She would talk about her, she would talk about everything.

  Moira lay down on the ground, the earth holding her close. “That one.”

  Eve lay down next to Moira. “It’s beautiful.”

  “Eve, I know that the stars we see at night are dead or dying. They offer us no warmth and only the memory of life.”

  Eve turned on her side to face Moira, her elbow propped, her hand supporting her tilted head. “But it will always be in our sky, won’t it? Her star?”

  “Yes,” Moira confessed, with the saddest of tones. “I’ll always love her. I can’t pretend to you that I won’t.”

  This was it, the impasse that would mean the end for them. Moira was certain.

  “I know you will,” Eve said stoically. “But, for me, somehow what matters is not whether or not you love Iris, but whether you love me. And you’ve told me you do.” Eve smiled and shrugged, nestling her head into Moira. “And I love you, Moira.”

  Moira kissed Eve’s forehead, her lips lingering against her skin, Eve’s wise words soothing Moira’s bruised heart. Moira struggled to ask, “What now?”

  “We go forward loving each other.”

  “Okay.” Moira laughed. Only Eve could make things seem so uncomplicated. “We could, I don’t know, divide our time—”

  “A long-distance relationship?” Eve rested up on her elbow to look at Moira. “Yep, that would go well, what with your love of chatting on the phone and my easy-cheesy attitude to leaving you.”

  Moira couldn’t help but laugh again. “Yes, you may have a point.”

  Eve kissed Moira, a quick, soft kiss. “I know it seems soon for us to live together. That everyone will wonder what the rush is,” Eve said with a shrug. “But I want to be with you, so much. Really I do.”

  Moira stroked Eve’s flushed cheek. “I know, Eve. I know.”

  “So I’ve been thinking. Funnily enough, I’ve had a lot of time to myself to do that. You see I visited Inverness with my family, and they have these new apartments that look out over the river. I thought I might take a look. I could try to get work in a library or at the university, and I’m used to renting on my own. If I remember correctly, around the corner’s the cinema and restaurants. As it’s a city I can’t imagine there’s nothing gay going on. You never know, they might even have a Pride festival.”

  “That’s a big step, Eve. It’s a long way for your family to visit.”

  “Yep.” Eve gave a mischievous grin. “My plan has many plus points.”

  Moira laughed and shook her head.

  Eve continued in earnest. “It gives us a chance to get to know each other, doesn’t it? To take our time. To just enjoy each other, without the pressure to immediately know what we are, or what we might become. What do you think?”

  “I think as plans go it’s a pretty good one. If that’s what you feel you’re able to do. You’ll be leaving a lot behind.”

  Eve said simply, “I know.”

  Moira cleared her throat, her words faltering as she spoke. “In the future, if things go okay, if you wanted, then we could, perhaps, live together in the city. I could continue to work in Newland and commute. I don’t know what Alice’s plans are yet for after college but I want her to always have a home in Newland. I could ask her if she’d like to have the croft. I could rent out the main house. That would go towards our rent—”

  “What, you’d give up your home for me?”

  Moira could hear the surprise and emotion in Eve’s voice. “Yes.”

  “What about your hens?” Eve asked, straight-faced.

  “I don’t know, Alice, maybe?”

  “Wouldn’t they miss you? I feel certain they’d miss me,” Eve said, smiling.

  Moira laughed again.

  Eve cuddled close to Moira. “We wouldn’t be able to watch the sun set over the loch. We’d lose this place.”

  Moira held Eve tight against her. “I guess.”

  “It would be harder just to drop in for tea with Elizabeth and Angus.”

  Moira could feel Eve’s breath against her neck. She half whispered, “What are you saying?”

  “If you can commute for work between Inverness and Newland, then couldn’t I?”

  “So, what, you would consider living in Newland?”

  “I want to be with you, Moira. And I know enough to understand that Newland is your home.”

  Moira struggled to digest what Eve was saying. “But do you not want to get away from…memories?”

  “Only if you do. I don’t mind that you have a past. I only mind if it hurts you, if it hurts us.”

  Moira shook her head. “I won’t let it any more, Eve, I promise.”

  “How about you just promise to talk to me if it ever does?” Eve stood, brushing at her clothes. “Will you come with me tomorrow to look at flats before I go back?”

  “Yes, of course, you need to go home.”

  “I am home.”

  Moira felt her eyes sting and mist with tears.

  “You know what we could do now.” Eve gave a slow, suggestive nod.

  Moira stood to face Eve, smiling in recognition. “I don’t think I can—”

  “Put the bloody heating on. Oh, and we can finish that cake I started, it’s delicious.”

  Moira shook her head and laughed as she watched Eve weave her way through the grasses back to the croft.

  Moira heard a hen squawk and Eve swear in surprise. Never had Moira Burns known such peace.

  About the Author

  Anna has a degree in English Literature and master’s degrees in museum studies and the word and visual imagination. She has written and curated a permanent exhibition of LGBT voices and memorabilia, based at Leicester’s LGBT Centre, one of the first permanent exhibitions in the UK. As a former member of the Steering Committee for the Leicester, Leicestershire, and Rutland LGBT History Project, Anna is passionate about preserving LGBT history and ensuring that LGBT voices are heard.

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