by Bee Lewis
2
SUNDAY
The moon glowered in the velvet sky, peeping from behind steel-smoke clouds, inspecting the new arrivals and sending shadows to play on the mountainside. Phosphorescent stars bobbed and curtsied in a celestial chorus line, in a bid to outshine the moon.
Down below in the glen, fern fronds curled tight against the cold and the bracken branches spread, protecting the ground from the seeping damp. Snowdrops thrusting from the iron earth, folded in on themselves, impervious to the freezing air; the compulsion to survive hidden underneath each delicate petal shroud. Heralding the first glimmerings of a spring that threatened never to come.
As time and tide ebbed and flowed, so the moon gained in size and stature. Just a few more nights and the earth would once again feel the full force of her ambition; feel the silver light energising the darkness. The moon observed the scene below, satisfied with the unfolding events.
During the night, a limpid fog settled over the halt, haunting and smothering until the air was lifeless, dank and mute. Wheels of mist snared the station, suspending time and reaching far down the glen. Crystal cobwebs, dew-heavy, collapsed under the weight of the atmosphere and the black grouse halted the morning mating call. Red squirrel mothers, heavy with kittens, lazed in dreys built in the crooks of trees, waiting for the return of better weather. Squirrel fathers kept watch over their precious stockpiles of nuts, occasionally stripping bark to relieve the boredom. Nothing moved. Nothing sounded.
*
The old station creaked and groaned, maybe no more than usual, but enough to stop Esther from sleeping deeply. When she did succumb, her dreams were haunted by a savage green forest, closing in all around her, the air fetid with rotting vegetation. Aware of her surroundings, in the hours between night and day, it seemed to her that the building was protesting at their presence and she was glad to see the watery first light through the gaps in the shutters.
She rolled over and studied Dan’s face. By now, she knew every fine line: his sandy lashes and heavy eyelids, shutters over the flint-grey eyes she knew so well; the thousands of tiny bristles, some red, some blonde, some almost black, that punctured his skin during the night. Added together, they became all the recognisable signs of him, but gave nothing away about the man himself. Her living puzzle of flesh and bone and logic.
She blamed Eric for Dan’s coldness, not allowing herself to admit that it might just be his nature. It was easier to blame Eric. If he was the cause, then she reasoned she could reverse the damage he’d done; that it was possible. By loving Dan, she could chisel away at his facade, sculpting, moulding and polishing him, until he understood how to love her back. He just needed someone to understand him, to show him. In return, Dan let her in – just a little – behind the portcullis.
She thought about the sampler Dan’s mother had stitched, which still hung in the porch of the vicarage.
My father’s house has many rooms. John 14:2.
Esther knew it was a reference to the afterlife and wondered if Olivia had known she was dying as she sat and sewed. But it could equally apply to Dan. As she looked at her sleeping husband, she asked herself how many of his rooms were still locked to her.
She considered reaching out to him, to feel the ripples of his wiry body under her hand, but stopped herself. The schism in their marriage, so wide and so deep, yawned between them and she had to struggle to remember how it felt to be his wife, how to be herself again. Every look, every word, every action seemed so loaded with meaning. If he responded to her touch, would he think she’d forgiven him and that they could just go back to being normal again? If he didn’t respond, would she simply chalk up this rejection and add it to the others? It was time they stopped for breath, to be themselves again and to hope that the events of the last year hadn’t irrevocably changed them. The voice deep inside her head persisted. She had to let go of it or they’d never be able to put the past behind them and she felt the weight of her own expectations, pressing into the fabric of their marriage.
If she could just unravel her thoughts, like pulling a loose stitch on a jumper, perhaps she’d be able to unpick everything that had happened over the last year, starting with losing the baby, and she’d wake up to find herself in Bristol still. Then none of this, moving to Scotland and giving everything that was familiar up, would have to happen. Sophie would be looking forward to being an honorary aunt to Esther’s child and wouldn’t be dead. She looked at her watch – just coming up to half-past nine – and felt her stomach tighten at the thought of going to Invergill to ring Eric. He’d no doubt be worrying about them and wouldn’t hesitate in letting them know how selfish they’d been not to call him when they’d arrived.
Edging herself out of bed, she ran her hands over her stump, checking to make sure her skin hadn’t become irritated after the car journey. She’d only had to deal with a wound ulcer once and the thought of being bedridden for weeks while it healed made her pay careful attention to limb care. Satisfied, she pulled a sock over her stump. There was a slight puckering where the silvery scar welded her skin together, but for the most part, her residual limb was smooth and hairless. Fitting her leg was as natural now as cleaning her teeth. It hadn’t always been like that though, and she thought about the weeks and months following the accident. All those physiotherapy sessions. Learning to sit, stand, walk. It was all so long ago but she couldn’t easily forget the fire that raged through every nerve; the white-hot pain that had her begging the doctors to cut her whole leg off, just so she could be at peace. Teaching herself to get back into a car again though had taken much more than physiotherapy, and if she was honest with herself, it was the real reason she hadn’t come up here with Dan before now. Sometimes the accident came back to her in her dreams and she’d waken, drenched in sweat, clawing at the sheets. In recent months though, there had been a subtle shift and her dreams were haunted by the shadowy figure of her father. Since she’d found out she was pregnant again, he’d been on her mind more and more.
She stood and tested her weight, stretching out her leg just as the physiotherapist advocated, all these years later reluctant to vary her routine, and went downstairs to the kitchen. She pulled her left trainer on, before the coldness from the stone flags seeped into her bones. As she opened the front door, the wall of white fog took her by surprise, adding to her disorientation. Esther paused and breathed in the icy air. Unable to see more than a few feet in front of her, she skirted along the platform, wary of tripping or stumbling, trying to get her bearings.
The platform canopy continued its creaking; its cawing the only sound she could hear. No cars, no road noise, no birds even. The noise overhead taunted her, and she looked up at the fretwork of faded white dagger boards, tiny upside-down tombstones, fringing the canopy roof. The fog bleached the remaining colour out of the building. To her right, she could just make out the shape of the old wooden bench she had sat on last night. The fog reduced the sage green paint to monochrome grey, along with the rest of the woodwork. The bench seemed to her to be rooted in the past, its cast iron supports anchored into the platform surface and the seat itself like the planking on a gangway, the bridge between land and the place people were travelling to. She wondered how it had had survived all these years, exposed to the weather and souvenir hunters.
She pulled her sleeve down over her hand and wiped part of the seat dry, before sitting down. Looking out across the platform and the abandoned track-bed, she tried to make out the shapes on the other side and thought she saw a movement, but the fog blanketed everything. She gave a wry smile, thinking how isolated they were. After all, she’d wanted it to be just her and Dan, somewhere remote. She could hear her mother admonishing her, “Be careful what you wish for.”
It was so unnaturally quiet. The fog blanketed the landscape, clinging to its curves and hollows, hiding sound underneath its folds. Esther felt edgy after her poor sleep, no less unsettled by her surroundings now that it
was daylight. Something nudged against her leg and she jumped, her expelled breath mingling with the mist. She looked down, but there was nothing there. A movement in her peripheral vision caught her attention and she turned her head sharply to see what it was. A dark shape leapt out of the blankness, jumping onto the bench beside her.
‘Shit!’
She laughed with relief as a black cat nuzzled into the crook of her arm. ‘You scared me, you daft thing. Where did you come from, eh?’ She fussed the cat as her pulse returned to normal. The cat rasped back at her, nudging her hand when she stopped.
‘Esther? Esther, are you out here?’
Even though he was only at the kitchen door, the fog bent the sound waves, making his voice seem further away.
‘Yep.’ Esther picked up the cat and took it back inside with her. ‘And I’ve found a friend.’
‘Who’s this, then?’ Dan ruffled the fur on the cat’s head.
‘Dunno, no collar or tag. She nearly frightened me to death jumping up at me out of the fog.’ She looked up at Dan from under her fringe. ‘I’m going to call her Misty.’
‘Misty?’
‘You know, because of the fog.’ She searched Dan’s face for any hint that he found her joke funny, but as usual, he stonewalled her.
‘Typical of you to find something in need of rescuing. And in any case, she’s a he.’
She bit her tongue. It was hardly worth picking him up on. Perhaps he was right when he said she tried too hard to please people, to keep everything on an even keel. But did it matter? Wasn’t it that very quality in her that had appealed to him at the start? Besides, it stopped her thinking about her own fears.
Even so, his teasing of her compulsion to solve other people’s problems had started to grate. For her, it was an important part of who she was, and if she could prevent suffering or make someone else’s life a little easier, wasn’t that a good thing? If only he’d allow her a small win every now and then without commenting. After all, he’d got his way by moving them up here, taking her away from her work at the refuge. He’d been scathing in the past about her attempts to help the women who, in his view, were doomed to repeat the same mistakes over and over. Futile, he’d called it. She’d tried reasoning with him, tried to point out that her own mother had been one of those women. He had pulled her tight to him and stroked her hair. “But you have me to look after you,” he’d said. And it was true. He made her feel safe – and still did.
‘Then I’ll call him Major Tom.’
Dan shrugged. ‘Don’t encourage it. It clearly belongs to someone. Make sure you wash your hands properly after handling him, we don’t want you contracting anything nasty.’ He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small bottle of anti-bacterial hand gel. He poured a little onto his left palm, then rubbed the liquid over both hands, taking great care to ensure that he didn’t miss any of the creases in his knuckles and massaging the liquid all around his nails. He offered the bottle to her.
Esther said nothing, but filled the kettle, and switched it on. She stared at the stainless-steel body, spattered with dried-out circles where water had splashed and dulled the shine, and weighed up her words.
‘Dan, you know nothing is going to go wrong this time, don’t you?’
‘You can’t say that, Es. We just don’t know.’
‘I’m trying to apply logic, like you’re always asking me to. Think about it. Statistically, we have a good chance, I’m nearly twelve weeks gone now, out of the worst danger of miscarrying. I’m thirty-four and my health is good – apart from this stupid leg – and even then, I get around better than many people.’ She reached out for his hands and held them in hers. ‘Most importantly, I feel really well. I can’t allow myself to think about last time. Okay?’
Her tone, which started off low and calm, changed pitch and her question was sharper than she intended. There weren’t more than a few minutes of each day where she didn’t fear losing this baby too, but she couldn’t tell him that. She woke up terrified every morning in case she’d got it wrong and she wasn’t pregnant at all, but she thought that voicing her fears would make the possibility real and he had no time for her superstitions.
He pulled his hands away from hers and recommenced the ritual cleansing with the hand gel. ‘You’ll be due a scan soon.’
She swallowed hard, the lump of anxiety back in her throat threatening to choke her. She couldn’t believe he could talk about the scan so casually. Just thinking about it brought back all the memories she’d tried so hard to suppress; how her world had turned upside-down when she went for her last scan – the pregnancy ending in miscarriage. Surely he felt the same? Even if she had managed to keep the bulk of her anxiety from him, he couldn’t be so insensitive as to think she wouldn’t be concerned this time round. Her grip tightened on the teaspoon.
He seemed not to notice her struggle. ‘How did you sleep?’
She paused before answering, deciding whether to accept his change of direction, or pursue the tails of yet another argument.
‘Not the best of sleeps. The house had a lot to say for itself last night.’
‘Yeah, it’ll be a while yet before we get used to the bumps and bangs. It doesn’t help that it’s been empty so long. It needs a thorough warming through. That bathroom was arctic this morning.’
She put the two mugs of steaming coffee on the worktop. ‘What’s the plan of action for the day, then? Are we going to Invergill to let everyone know we got here safely?’
‘I’d rather not chance the road in this fog, not until we are a bit more familiar with it.’
She smiled. She hadn’t been looking forward to going out in the fog either.
‘Eric will be worried.’
‘No. I rang him last night from Mike’s.’
‘Oh. Okay.’ She knew she should have been relieved not to have to speak to her father in law, yet at the same time couldn’t help feeling excluded. Why hadn’t Dan mentioned it last night?
‘I vote we unload what’s left in the car and get cracking on making this place home. We can sort through some of those boxes in the living room if you want?’
She nodded, circling the rim of her cup with her index finger. ‘Maybe.’
Unpacking the boxes seemed so final. It meant they really were staying here and her skin contracted at the thought. Even without the fog, her surroundings seemed so hostile and alien to her and instead of feeling excited, the now familiar sense of dread tugged at her.
‘I’d wanted to go up the glen and explore a bit before the builders arrive tomorrow, but I don’t think that will happen, unless the fog lifts.’ He took hold of her hand, his thumb rubbing the place where her wedding ring should be.
‘This is the right thing you know, Essie. I know you loved our life in Bristol, but that’s over now and we have to make the best of this.’
She pulled her hand away and picked up her coffee mug. ‘I know.’
Esther carried a bucket of hot, soapy water to the waiting room, using cleaning as an excuse to avoid unpacking. This room was to be their new kitchen, in the heart of the building, so that the cottage could be turned over to guest bedrooms. She looked around her. The windows either side of the door were quarter-paned, running from dado height to the ceiling. The lower half of each window was frosted and etched with the letters L, M & S. A wooden plank bench ran around the room, at roughly knee height, attached to the panelling and painted to match the rest of the wood. The walls were painted a creamy colour, from above the panelling to the picture rail, but the intervening years had caused flaking and discolouration. Still, she thought, at least there’s no damp to contend with.
She set to work on the wood panelling, the sponge exposing the untainted paint below, pushing particles of grime into loops and whorls, making colossal fingerprint patterns. She hoped it would be possible to strip the wood back and tried to chip off some paint w
ith her thumbnail, but it had hardened so much over time that she didn’t even dent it. She liked cleaning, liked the feeling that she was making something into a better version of itself. She had a memory of following her mother around as she wiped everything down with a weak solution of bleach. Whenever she smelled bleach, she’d be transported right back to those Saturday mornings at home.
Dan popped his head around the door. ‘How are you getting on? Do you need a break?’
She ignored his fussing. ‘Good, I think. This panelling is lovely. Do you think we’ll be able to keep some of it?’ She straightened up and surveyed her progress. ‘What do you think?’
‘Yeah, let’s save on materials wherever we can. The money isn’t going to last for ever and if there is stuff here we can use, then we should. I wonder if we can strip the floor back, too?’ He scuffed at the floor with his walking boot.
Esther bent down and dipped a scrubbing brush into the bucket and began to scrub in a small circular motion on the floor. She whistled, softly. ‘Well, will you look at that?’
Dan peered closer at the honey-coloured spot Esther had revealed. ‘Parquet?’
‘Looks like it. I thought it was just dark brown planking, but I think it’s years and years of grime.’ She stood upright again, a rueful smile playing on her lips. ‘So genius, I now have even more cleaning to do.’ She nodded at the windows. ‘What’s LM & S mean?’
‘London, Midland and Scottish Railways. That was the company that operated the line before British Rail. I think this station was originally built and operated by Highland Railways though, I’m sure I saw it on the deeds.’
Her eye was drawn to a square of panelling on the wall next to the cast-iron fireplace. It stood a few millimetres proud of the rest of the wood detail.