An Ocean Apart

by Robin Pilcher

  Rachel’s face broke into a wide smile. “I always loved that story.”

  “You knew it all along, didn’t you?”

  She turned towards him. “Yeah, but I still love hearing it.” She moved awkwardly on the bench and let out a deep sigh. “It all seems so long ago.”

  “Twenty-one years, to be exact.”

  “I know. I’ll never forget it.”

  For a moment, they sat together in silence, looking out onto the partly frozen loch, the opaque rays of the weak February sun glinting off the surface of the icy water. It was so quiet that even with the doors of the summer-house closed and the background hiss of the stove, somewhere, out on the lower reaches of the snowcapped hills, the distinctive and haunting sound of a single grouse could be heard, calling out its panicked chuckle. Rachel pulled the rug closer about her and let out a shiver, despite the heavy pine-tanged heat that filled the now fuggy interior of the summer-house.

  “Do you remember how warm it was that morning after the Commem Ball?”

  “That whole summer was boiling.”

  “That’s right. It was, wasn’t it? We had the roof of the car down—and then we tried to have breakfast with the Duke of Marlborough at Blenheim Palace.”

  David laughed. “Well, sort of. It was a pretty halfhearted attempt. I don’t think he would have been too happy to be woken at five o’clock in the morning.”

  “No, maybe not. But then if we had seen him, we would never have ended up in that hayfield near Woodstock, would we?” She pushed herself in beside him to get the warmth from his body. “I can remember so vividly the smell of the hay—and the quiet. It was just like this. And then that fox appeared right beside the car—and he just stood looking at us.” She let out a shuddering sigh. “My God, that was a magical morning.”

  David kissed her lightly on the side of her woollen hat. “Yeah, but there was something else, wasn’t there?”

  Rachel turned her head to look at him. “You mean Smokey Robinson?”

  “Yup.”

  She grinned and nodded lightly. “Can you remember how many times you recorded that same track for me?”

  “Not offhand, no.”

  “Twenty times. Ten each side. We must have played it about three times right through that morning—and we just danced—you in your kilt, me in my ball gown.”

  She swallowed hard, and David felt her body grow taut with effort.

  “And still Smokey sang.” She let out a short laugh. “You know, that was the one year of my life I kept a diary, and that was the sole entry for that whole week—‘And still Smokey sang.’ I wrote it diagonally across the page in big black letters. It said it all, really.”

  David could now feel the vibrations of her shivering against his body. “Come on, I think it’s time that we got you inside.” He put his arms around her to lever her gently to her feet.

  She pushed his hands away. “No, not yet,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m loving this—being outside again. It’s just—so beautiful.”

  David held up his hands resignedly and sat down again, pulling her close in beside him once more. At that moment, they both became aware of a new sound, the faintest fluttering reverberation against the windowpane. A butterfly, having lain dormant in some dusty crevice of the summer-house, had been tricked by the heat of the stove into waking, and was now vainly attempting to make its way though the invisible screen into the open air. Rachel took a hand out of the rug and, leaning across, closed her fingers gently around it. For a moment, David heard the soft whirring of its wings against her palm before it stopped, content to rest itself in the moderate darkness of its shelter.

  “Poor thing,” she said, squinting through her fingers at the rich orange and brown of its colouring. “Doesn’t stand much of a chance, does it? Either it stays in here and dies of starvation, or we let it out and it freezes.”

  David pulled her hand towards him and looked in on her little captive. “Yeah, the odds are pretty much stacked against it, aren’t they?”

  Rachel got to her feet and shuffled over to the door and opened it. She slowly uncurled her hand, but the butterfly seemed reluctant to move. She lifted it to her mouth and gently blew on its wings, encouraging it to fly. After a moment, it took off and was borne away on the frigid air. Rachel closed the door and stood watching until it disappeared.

  “At least it will get the smell and taste of the world,” she said, almost inaudibly, “even if it is only for a short time.” She turned and shuffled back to the bench. “Better than being cooped up inside for the rest of its days.”

  David stared straight ahead, not wanting to catch her eye, understanding the simile that she was making and frightened by its direction. He felt her hand on his knee.

  “We don’t talk about it, do we?”

  “What’s that?” he said unconvincingly.

  “Come on, my darling, you know—the inevitable.”

  David took in a faltering breath. “Darling, we don’t…”

  Rachel turned to him. “Yes, we do, David, we do. Because I really want to tell you that I’ll be all right. I want to tell you that so that you can tell Sophie and Charlie and Harriet that I’ll be all right—that I’ll be safe—and that I’ll be with you all wherever you go.” She reached up and stroked the side of his face. “You know, you were without doubt the most handsome boy in Oxford.” She let out a weak laugh. “I just could never quite believe that you would turn out as nice—and that it was me that caught you.”

  David leaned his face against her woolly hat, secretly using it to brush away the tears from his eyes.

  “I’d really like to go back to Oxford, darling.”

  He cleared his throat before replying. “Would you?”

  “Yeah. Very soon. Very, very soon.” She pushed herself away from him. “But right now, I’m absolutely bloody freezing. Let’s go back to the house.”

  Needing no further encouragement, David jumped to his feet and turned off the stove, then, helping her to her feet, he opened the door and put a supporting arm around her waist. As they walked close together across the frost-hardened lawn towards the house, David’s leg bumped against a hard object in her coat pocket, making her wince with pain. He stopped.

  “Are you all right?”

  Rachel smiled bravely at him. “Yup.”

  “What have you got in there?” he said, feeling the side of her coat.

  Rachel pushed her hand deep into her pocket and brought out a Walkman.

  “It’s my music.”

  “What is it?”

  She stopped. “Here.” She reached up and pushed one of the ear-plugs into his ear, then, standing close to him, she placed the other in her own, and pressed the “play” button. “It’s the tape.”

  The song cut in immediately, filling his head with the words. “So take a good look at my face, you’ll see the smi-ile, it’s out of place.”

  He looked at her and smiled, shaking his head, incredulous. “You still have it?”

  “Of course. All twenty recordings of it.”

  David linked his arm around her shoulder, and as they walked across the lawn, around the side of the house and up the steps to the front door, still Smokey sang.

  Yet they never made it to Oxford.

  * * *

  The photograph fell onto the floor with a clatter, and even though he had been fast asleep, David sat bolt-upright, swung his feet over the side of the bed and stooped down to pick it up. He checked the glass. Nothing broken. He laid it on the bed beside him and bent forward, leaning his elbows on his knees, and rubbing his eyes with his knuckles. He glanced over at the clock. It was twenty to two in the morning.

  He turned round, picked up the photograph and sat looking at it.

  It had never been any different—from the moment they met to the moment they were married to the moment that she died. They had loved and laughed through life and through the procreation of life, and their children had loved and laughed with them. He was she, and she was
he, their true bonding not having been made during the pageantry of the wedding, but three years before in that vast open Oxfordshire hayfield under the burning blue sky, witnessed only by the birds, the fox, the Triumph Vitesse—and Smokey Robinson and the Miracles.

  He pushed himself off the bed, walked over to the dressing-table, and carefully stood the photograph up beside the one of his children. Then stripping off his shirt, he unbuckled his belt and kicked off his jeans, and fell into bed to sleep more soundly than at any time since the night that Rachel died.

  Chapter SEVEN

  The next morning David woke early and immediately became aware of an ache of anxiety gnawing deep in his stomach, a different and more frightening sensation than the cold realization of solitude which normally settled like a leaden weight around his heart. He pushed himself up quickly from the bed, as if fast action would help to shed this unwelcome feeling, and hurried out across the landing and into the bathroom. Turning the shower tap full on, he entered the cubicle before the water had a chance to heat up, and tilted back his head so that his face took the full force of the invigorating flow.

  Yet the thought was still with him. Today he would not be going back out into the garden to work alongside Jock. Today, without option, he was having to return to a way of life for which he knew he was still both physically and mentally unprepared.

  He bent down to retrieve the bar of soap which spun haphazardly above the outflow of the shower, and started to scrub hard at every part of his body, trying to scourge the cowardice from his being and revitalize the drive which he knew was locked away deep within him. In his mind, he went back over the conversation he had had with his parents the night before, remembering that for the first time he had suddenly understood their own feelings of anguish and vulnerability, feelings which lay just beneath an outward show of strength and support.

  He shut off the water and stepped out of the shower, his skin tingling and his mind clearer. Still with the same sense of urgency, he shaved quickly and returned to his room. He put on a clean pair of boxer shorts and slipped into them, then, without thinking, pulled on his work jeans and started to do up the buttons. He stopped in mid-action.

  “Oh, come on, get your bloody act together!” He pushed his jeans hard to the ground and, with a swing of his foot, kicked them back onto the chair, then, walking over to the wardrobe, he slipped his dark blue suit off its hanger and laid it on his bed. He stood back and stared at it blankly.

  Somehow, he hadn’t been able to bring himself to wear a kilt at the funeral. It was just too tangible a link with Rachel, and in some irrational way he had wanted to distance himself as far as possible from her on that day, hoping that it would make it easier for him to cope with the whole thing. So he had worn the suit—and he hadn’t worn it since. He shook his head, his mind suddenly thrown into turmoil by an overpowering sense of rejection both to wearing it again and to his new routine. In one quick movement, he picked it up and threw it onto the chair next to his jeans. He pushed his fingers through his hair and glanced over to where it now lay, its pressed perfection standing out in powerful and self-assured contrast to the honest simplicity of his earth-streaked denims.

  “Jesus, I’m not ready for this,” he said quietly to himself.

  He turned back to the wardrobe and took out a pair of fawn chinos and a navy-blue double-breasted blazer as a compromise both to conformity and to his feelings. He put on the trousers, along with a blue open-necked shirt and cashmere jersey, and pulled on a pair of socks before slipping his feet into a pair of dark brown boating shoes. Then, with one last huge intake of air, he strode over to the door, threw it open and walked out onto the landing.

  They left the house at eight-thirty, David behind the wheel of the Audi Estate, with his father sitting hunched in his tweed overcoat next to him. Although it was David’s own company car, his father had been making use of it while David himself had been working at home, and being more used to driving the garden tractor and on occasion his mother’s small Renault, he found himself spinning the wheels on the gravel as he took off, being unused to the power of the big fuel-injected engine.

  George looked across at him. “How are you feeling this morning?”

  David nodded briefly. “Okay.”

  His father reached over and gave him a hard but reassuring smack on the leg. “You’ll be fine, my boy. Don’t worry.”

  The old man pressed the on/off switch of the radio, having become accustomed to listening to it on his way to work each morning, and thinking it better for David’s sake that there be some form of diversion from conversation during their journey. The news programme Good Morning, Scotland blared from the speakers, and he quickly adjusted the volume and settled back to listen to the twangy tones of a sports correspondent discussing strategy with the manager of Glasgow Rangers Football Club.

  As soon as David turned out through the gates of Inchelvie and onto the main road towards Dalnachoil, the clouds broke for the first time in about a month, allowing a fleeting splash of pale blue to push weakly through from above, followed almost immediately by a meagre ray of sunshine which glinted briefly on the windscreen of the car. By the time the Audi had reached the top of the main street of Dalnachoil, the streaks of blue had lengthened and the sun began to dart in and out through the clouds, bursting forth its unfettered light onto the houses of the village and casting swift-moving fluffy shadows onto the sides of the surrounding hills. As they drove along the main street, George raised his hand continuously to wave at acquaintances on the pavement, and David glanced in the rear-view mirror at the querying faces that followed the departure of the car, the villagers being unaccustomed of late to seeing both himself and his father driving off together.

  Once out of Dalnachoil’s speed limit, David felt a light unexpected surge of excitement slip its way through the barricades of dullness in his mind, almost as if he was at last managing to make a break from the confines of his small, sad world. He had never ventured farther than the village in the past month, and his visits there had been brief and only out of unavoidable necessity, always fearing that he might be caught up in understanding and comforting conversations with the locals. But now, driving out in his own car along the familiar road, he sensed almost a feeling of well-being as they wound their way southwards through the glen, flanked on either side by green sunlit fields which stretched away to clash against the brown blanket of heather moorland that rolled down from the hills above. He glanced over at his father, and for the first time in a long while was able to feel a sudden burst of intense love for the old man who sat with his eyes closed, his hand cupped around his ear to help him pick up the low tones of the radio. David reached forward to turn up the volume, and his father looked round and smiled.

  “Thanks—that’s a bit better,” he said, dropping his hand to his lap. “Forgot to put in my bloody hearing-aid this morning.”

  At the bottom of the glen, David edged out at the T-junction, then pulled away in the direction of Aberlour, pushing the car hard so that he could feel the power of the engine press his back into the seat. The narrow road followed the contours of the Spey River, running swollen and brown after the spring rains. David took it fast but warily, being forced to slow from time to time to avoid hitting a variety of obstacles that he met on his way: first an ageing Massey-Ferguson tractor, which came hammering up the road towards him, black smoke belching from its punctured exhaust-pipe, while a large round bale of hay, bouncing wildly on its front loader, successfully impeded its driver’s vision of the road ahead; next two blackface ewes that were lying in the middle of the road, soaking up the warmth from the tarmac, their heads thrown back as they cudded, like a couple of haughty old ladies complaining disdainfully to each other about this unscheduled disturbance to their peace; and finally a flashy new four-wheel-drive vehicle parked haphazardly at the side of the road, the empty fishing-rod holder on its roof indicating that its driver was somewhere down on the banks of the river, plying its pools and eddies fo
r salmon.

  Two miles before Aberlour, David turned right and crossed a high iron-latticed bridge that spanned the river, then immediately swung left past the large brown sign which bore the name GLENDURNICH DISTILLERIES LTD in gold lettering. The road had at one time twisted down the hill to the riverside in a series of hairpin bends, but had had to be re-routed to allow easier access for the long and unwieldly triple-axled lorries that delivered bulk malt from the maltings at Inverness and took off the casks of mature whisky to the bottling plant near Glasgow. Now it descended in one huge sweep, yet so designed to still leave the distillery completely hidden behind the screen of densely planted fir-trees, save for the two pagoda-style chimneys, the characteristic emblem of all Scotch malt distilleries, that sat over the old kiln-house and jutted their arrowhead-shaped tips above the cover.

  Rounding the bend, he left the shelter of the trees and at once the distillery came into view below him. Set in a fifteen-acre site, it stretched out on a plateau twenty feet above the river, bounded by a series of tarmacked roads which, in turn, were bordered by a wide expanse of newly mown banks and lawns interspersed with bright well-kept flower-beds. The road dropped down the incline, so that David began at the same level as the dark grey metal roofs of the four identical maturation warehouses before descending to the plateau and driving alongside the original stone-built still-house and mash-house with their small white irregular windows, and then on past the malt silos to the new office block at the far end of the complex.