Yes, Elena. Why do you need to remember this pain? How far must she run to forget Mikhail’s voice?
Retreating from the window, she saw herself reflected. She saw a Spanish woman in a black suit, standing in a room of pink roses.
The black suit did not please her. She unbuttoned the jacket and threw it on the bed. She unzipped the skirt and stepped from it. She discarded shoes and stockings. She went to stand before the mirror.
In white shirt and slip, with bare feet, the woman seemed younger, though still Spanish.
Vale. It was fine to be Spanish. She was Spanish.
The black suit was all she had. But no, in the bathroom, she remembered, there was a pink robe. She fetched it, slid her arms into the sleeves and consulted the mirror again.
She looked more soft. More pretty.
The tears stung in her eyes. She wished Mikhail was not gone away. But it was too late for such a wish.
Yes.
She picked up the key to the room of roses and stepped with bare feet into the empty hotel corridor. Turning the key in the lock, dropping it into the pocket of the bathrobe, feeling shy but also clear and calm, slowly she made her way along to the stairs and down, towards the smell of shuttered Spain, towards the voices in the hall below.
Chapter Thirty-eight
Peter
Teresa! Venus! Helen of Troy!
Oh, thou art fairer than the evening air
Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars.
Through the blessed hotel warmth, a woman was gliding towards him out of heaven, swathed in pink towelling and with an angel’s feet. His teeth were clattering like castanets, his flesh was chilled beyond reach of arousal, but his imagination was in full flight.
She was smiling at Henry, smiling at Fiona. She was stepping from the last stair to take Calum’s hand. ‘Angus. It is good you are safe.’
At last her smile came round to him, soft with the remembered taste of rain.
Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss!
Her lips suck forth my soul: see, where it flies!
Then back to Calum. ‘But you are like ice.’
Calum’s frost-white hands in hers. ‘Nae, lass. Thou’rt warming me.’
Fiona speaking. ‘Henry is colder. Henry saved my father’s life.’
‘No. Please.’ Faint protest through blue lips. Brother Henry, wracked with shivers, hobbling towards the carved oak chair.
Fiona tugging at him. ‘No, not there. Let’s get you to the fire. Someone fetch Owen, quickly, please.’
‘I’ll do it.’ Calum striding off, unquenchable old man, with Gavin and Hannah at his side.
Fiona, arm round Henry, steering him through arch of stone into solicitous Yankee chorus.
Leaving only glorious woman, radiating warmth. ‘I cannot follow. I am not dressed.’
Too right. Glowing inside her pink towelling robe. ‘I’m freezing too, Elena. Feel how cold.’ Take her hand, her warm, pink, willing hand. ‘And wet. My jeans are wet.’ Step close. Breathe in her smile. Yes, something was stirring down below. ‘Let’s try the back room.’ Lead woman fast through passage and door, into the deserted bliss of many sofas.
Woman running forward. Kneeling. ‘There is wood here, and hot ash. Will I start the fire?’
‘There’s no time. I’m dying. I need mouth-to-mouth.’
Woman laughing, turning from fireplace.
Sink to his knees, and steal the greater poet’s words of love. ‘Come, Helen, come, give me my soul again. Here will I dwell, for heaven be in these lips.’
Henry
Fiona was chafing one of his hands. Gordon the waiter had put a balloon of brandy in the other. The Americans were hauling the sofa nearer to the fire. Hannah charged joyfully around.
But Elena had disappeared.
‘I’m all right. I’m okay. Really I am.’
Big Owen was here. ‘No you’re not, you’re hypothermic. Don’t drink that brandy. Take it away, Gordon, please. Bring sweet tea instead. Three sugars, milky, double quick. And one for Father too.’
How lovely she had looked, how warm and kind. Yet she had barely glanced at him. Her smile had blessed him briefly, then moved on. He had done everything, risked everything; but it was nothing, nothing at all. Elena did not love him.
Wrapped in a tartan blanket on the vast sofa, Urquhart looked small and meek. Fiona was in tears. She hugged her father, who lowered his white head. ‘Thank heavens you’re safe,’ she scolded him. ‘And Henry. They were both in the river, Owen, out in the middle in the thunderstorm, right on the edge of the falls. Henry was so brave. He saved Father’s life.’
‘No. Really. Please stop saying that. Your father made his own decision what to do.’
‘Nae, lad, it’s true. Thy words recovered me.’
Henry’s feet were tingling with pins and needles. The American voices were receding. ‘Hey, let’s give these folks some privacy. It’s time we turned in.’
Gordon slipped a mug of tea into his hands. The first sip scalded, the first swallow burned his throat. His blood surged as the sugar hit. Elena did not love him, but he was alive, which was something.
The second mug was on the hearth. Fiona’s arms were wrapped too tightly around Urquhart for him to pick it up. ‘You really scared me, Father. Today was my fault. I could never have forgiven myself.’ She began to cry. ‘Tell me you won’t try this again tomorrow, or next week.’
‘Nay, lass. I willnae.’
She wasn’t satisfied. She gripped his shoulders. ‘Promise me, not ever, ever.’
The old man lifted his face. He spoke softly. ‘Ma poor wee bairn. Thou’st had misfortune enough.’ His voice deepened and softened and lost its Scots. ‘I promise thee, Fiona. Thou must not fear it. I’ll think of it no more.’
Elena
She was on a sofa beneath Peter Urquhart, laughing and kissing him, hardly thinking. But then his knee, cold in the wet jeans, pushed between hers, and suddenly she was shivering. The pink bathrobe was loose. He was unbuttoning her shirt and burrowing his refrigerated nose between her breasts.
Her mind had been clear when she came downstairs, but now it was not. She could not organise her thoughts. ‘Wait, Peter. One moment, please.’
He did not wait. He did not answer her. He lifted his face and kissed her again.
Her body desired this . . .
Yes, it desired embraces . . .
Yes, though shivering, also it was arching with desire . . .
Yes, and she was free . . .
Mikhail was gone away. She was free to do this. Yes . . .
Yes . . .
But these kisses, these hands, they were making her less free . . .
Yes, but this Peter had so much fire in him . . .
His mouth, his body . . .
Yes, but she did not know him . . .
He was a stranger . . .
So much was changed in her . . .
So much was changing still . . .
What did it mean to kiss this man? She could not remember what had seemed so clear . . .
His hand was lifting her slip. His breath rasped in her ear, her head. He was stopping. No, he was not stopping; he was unzipping his wet jeans.
‘Peter! Please! Wait!’
He took no notice, pulled her hand to touch him. ‘Hold me. I’m cold. Warm me, Elena.’ Swelling and lifting in her fingers.
Yes, she wanted this, yes, her body told her, yes, but, ‘No!’ She struggled to escape his weight. She fell from the sofa to the floor. She stood up, tying the bathrobe tightly, retreating, smiling. Still wanting him.
His mirror eyes were full of laughter. ‘Come back. I should’ve said. I’m fully equipped.’ He fished in the pocket of his jeans, extracted a soggy condom packet. ‘Though not often this fucking lucky.’
No, she decided. ‘No,’ she said. She shook her head. She could not explain. She could not understand the reason.
He did not believe her. She tried to stop smiling at him.
<
br /> He frowned. ‘You know you want to. Don’t pretend you don’t.’
He reached for her hand again. She took another step away.
‘Don’t tell me you buy into all that holy bollocks: thoushalt-not? Come on, Elena, I know you better than that.’
How could he know her? She did not know herself.
‘Come on,’ he repeated. ‘Where’s the problem? At least we’re not fucking related.’ He laughed. ‘Or have I missed something?’
Henry.
Henry was the reason.
‘Peter, of course. I cannot pretend . . . of course I want. But I must not. I cannot explain. Not today. Not tomorrow. I mean this. I am sorry. I am sorry I . . . that I . . .’
He stood to re-zip his jeans. He returned the condom to his pocket. ‘That you teased me?’
He frowned. He would be angry. He bit his lip and looked at her. She held herself ready for his curses.
‘No,’ he said at last. ‘You’ve had a lousy day. But more to the point, Henry would be pissed off, wouldn’t he? I didn’t think of that.’
Her mind was clear again, and grateful. ‘Thank you. You understand exactly.’
He grinned. ‘Great tits, though. Pity.’ He took her hand.
And she took one more kiss.
Chapter Thirty-nine
Elena
The time had come to sleep. She parted from Peter with more kisses and laughter. She climbed the stairs and returned alone to the room of roses. She washed her face and teeth, dropped her clothes to the floor and lay on the bed with a sigh of peace. Her guilt and confusion were gone.
‘You’ve had a lousy day,’ Peter had said.
‘What will you do?’ She could hear Henry’s kind voice, feel his shoulder touching hers.
She was not mad. She was not alone. The shame was behind her. Ahead was any life she chose.
What did she choose? To go to Barcelona? Yes, but not to run away.
She yawned and rolled onto her side. On the table by the telephone lay the photograph of Angus Urquhart. So well she knew this face. Eighty years old, upright and proud, a man whose eyes mixed bad and good together. Pride with fear, wisdom with foolishness.
She no longer hated this man. She did not venerate him as Peter did, and yet . . .
And yet he had shown her . . .
What had he shown her?
She yawned again and closed her eyes, letting herself remember. She saw him stride from the dark mountain with his arms and kilt swinging. And below, in the hall that smelled of Spain, she felt the fire from his blue eyes and the chill in his old hands.
How to face pain with courage: this he had shown her. How to refuse despair and leave the past behind.
Was this romance?
No. It was not. It was the way to live.
The day was finished. Slowly her mind was relaxing, her eyelids falling. How tired she was, and heavy with approaching sleep. As she reached to turn off the light, Angus Urquhart’s picture slid past her hand onto the carpet of roses. She lay in the darkness, thinking of Urquhart, Henry, Mikhail, Peter.
She would refuse despair and leave the past behind.
She would begin to live.
Henry
He was warm again, but sad. He had undressed and cleaned his teeth, but he wasn’t yet calm enough to sleep. Instead, he sat straight-backed on the edge of the bed in his small, bare room, staring out at the black mountainside, forcing himself to think things through without the help of ghosts.
Was it only yesterday he set off from Guildford, with his mother at his side and Marjorie Macpherson’s invitation folded warm against his heart? It seemed an age ago, but more, it was a different man who’d followed the call to Inverness, a man he no longer wished to be.
Which left the question, who was he now? How would he go on from here?
He was alone, that was the main thing. His mother was gone: dead, cold, cremated, scattered, no ghost left, nothing. This afternoon, right here, he had scolded and cursed her. He yearned to say, I’m sorry, I understand, I know you never meant to break my heart, I hope you had some happiness.
How useless even to think these words. She was not here, he could not have her back, he must content himself with memories.
He smiled, remembering again those last three years when she had grown so close and shared so much. Marjorie’s books, for example.
Try this, Henry dear. It’s so sad and Scottish.
How she had loved those books. And now he understood completely why. Maggie McConn and her Fergus, Maggie Jennings and her Angus – how closely they echoed the romance in her own life. And she had chosen to share them with him. Yes, after all, it was he, not Peter, who came closest to knowing her heart.
‘Thank you, Mother,’ he whispered, not expecting a reply. ‘And thank you, Marjorie.’
Marjorie. How odd it felt to speak the name. Her ghost had vanished too, erased by Michael McCoy’s smile. He no longer needed her voice. Her books no longer tempted him. They had the aura of stories consumed in childhood. He might still revere their magic, but it was inaccessible to him; he would never again experience it with a naïve mind.
He gazed forlornly into the unromantic Scottish darkness. A form took shape there. A new image shimmered faintly against the mountain. He blinked, but it persisted. Elena.
He blinked back tears.
Elena’s ghost stepped in through the window. Her dark-golden voice soothed him. ‘Don’t be unhappy, Henry. I shall be with you always. You need never be alone.’
Her smile, warm and welcoming, hung in the air before him, swelling the tears in his eyes. He felt so very, very sad.
‘It’s no use, Elena,’ he whispered. ‘I’d love to. And it’s horribly, excruciatingly tempting. But it’s bad for me. Fatal in fact.’
He made himself comprehend the truth. However he’d dressed it up, his feeling for Elena was romance. Mistaking her for Marjorie, fancying himself her cavalier, he had painted a stranger in the colours of his dreams. What had he imagined? Elena pushing a hoover in Guildford? Himself peddling financial advice in Brussels?
Her image faded. The room was empty. The mountain-side was bare.
This was reality. The tears spilled down his cheeks.
He let them fall. There was no shame in them. There was no one here to see.
He was altogether alone. He had no choice but to be, and to make something of, this middle-aged financial adviser, somewhat overweight, wearing blue-striped pyjamas and weeping as he murdered one more ghost.
Peter
Coming awake on sofa, shivering with cold. Stiff neck, damp jeans. Limp libido.
Groan and stagger upright. Grope his way back to the hall.
Aquarium lights still on. The insufferable Gordon, plumping cushions, dishing out malevolent stare. ‘The family have retired for the night, sir.’
Mouth rusty with sleep. ‘Uh. Right. So, any chance of a bed, then? Or shall I kip here?’
Faintly perceptible smile. ‘Please be so good as to follow me.’
Trail after the bugger, scooping up rucksack from hall. Under stairs, along chilly passageway festooned with clanking plumbing and sacks of root veg. Delivered with supercilious bow into a musty cupboard. Peeling, brown wallpaper. Divan-bed with mud-coloured duvet. Moonlit view of dustbins. A cobwebbed, ensuite bog.
Unshoulder rucksack and mobilise tongue. ‘Well thanks a bundle, Gordjus. Jus’ what I need. Sorry though, never give tips. Against my religion. Night-night, sleep tight, you snot-ridden shite.’
Alone. Quick, strip, and dive beneath duvet. Shiver, fidget, rotate, pushing out heat into heavy, damp feathers. Nothing ’twixt him and sleep but haze of frustration –
Hand on prick, call up hot Señorita, great tits and giggles in pink towelling robe. Yes, nest getting warmer, mind losing grip, wank-fantasy morphing to Teresa in high Sierra, Calum at it like Ernest Heming –
Wham! Shock action replay of CALUM . . . HIS . . . FATHER.
Prick collapsing. Roll onto back,
and stare into darkness afloat with images of eyes like his own. Mind-blowing. Wonderful. Calum his father, plus a job-lot of brothers thrown in. Count the names off like sheep. James. Owen. William. Gavin.
And Fiona.
Least but not last. Fiona, his sister. And all because Calum . . . because Calum and Ma . . .
Sleep out of the question. Mind full of Calum and what it would mean – Angus and Peter, father and son, muse and disciple, bards of the past and the fu –
Oh no, start up in horror. Blood turning to ice in his veins. His poems no good. His poems no fucking good. Could it be, son of genius, he just didn’t have it? Panic like a shower of stones. Switch on the light.
Holy shite! Jump like a scalded cat! Woman in pink towelling robe! A ghost? Don’t be daft.
‘I am sorry. I startled you.’
‘Blimey, you didn’t half!’ Still spooked and shaking. Woman advancing, untying bathrobe. Smiling. ‘I asked Gordon. He said in here. I thought, shall I knock? But then I thought no, I’ll surprise you.’
‘You terrified me.’
Bathrobe on floor. Woman coy. Terror receding fast.
‘Shall I go then? Or would you like a cuddle. To keep the ghosts away?’
Tasty vision. Lady Godiva minus horse. Venus de Milo with arms.
‘Yes. Please.’
‘Which please?’
‘Cuddle, please.’
Woman sliding into hot, damp nest of feathers, switching off light.
Brain dizzy but, what d’you know, prick back in working order.
Fucking amazing day.
Chapter Forty
Henry
The next morning, Henry washed, shaved and dressed without benefit of ghosts, then stepped resolutely into the corridor. He must go home; he had Trevor’s leg to see to tomorrow. But first he would have some breakfast, be sociable to this new family his brother had acquired, and part finally from Elena. He followed the spiral of steps down and emerged through the fireplace door into the back parlour.
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