Waterfall Glen

by Davie Henderson

  Kate and Hamish turned back at the foot of the steps cut into Jamie’s Crag. Cameron climbed them and got things ready for the workmen, or just sat outside the cottage and looked out over the lochan and the dramatic sweep of the hills on either side. His favourite mornings were the ones when there was a mist over the water and the hillsides were hidden, with only the rocky summits visible. At such times he could imagine he was looking at little islands in the sky and he’d feel a swelling in his chest at the beauty of it, a peace in the present that was so different from what he saw when he looked into the past.

  By the time the workmen arrived at the cottage Kate was back in the study at Greystane, scribbling down a list of things to do for the day and then working her way through it. Before long she’d head down to the kitchen to seek the advice of Miss Weir about something or other. As often as not she’d stay there for the rest of the morning, discussing solutions to little difficulties, embellishing ideas—and sharing a pot of tea and plate of scones. She found an empty cardboard folder in Colin Chisholm’s old bureau and neatly printed WEDDING PLANS on the front, but before long it was bulging at the seams and she had to appropriate one of his black family tree ringbinders to accommodate her wedding planner’s file.

  Just before noon Finlay would appear by magic at the kitchen door, as often as not with a fish for the pan or a rabbit for the pot. He’d announce his presence with a not too subtle cough, or a peeved, “I’ll just see to my own lunch,” and Kate and Miss Weir would look up from a table covered in files and folders, empty mugs, and crumb-filled plates.

  After hastily clearing the table they’d prepare a sandwich for Finlay and lunch hamper for Cameron and the builders.

  Hamish would be waiting for Kate outside the kitchen or at the door in Greystane’s walls and they’d take the path to the right, down through the forested hillside to Waterfall Bridge. Kate would set the wicker basket down at the foot of Jamie’s Crag and lift Hamish up on top. Then, with the hamper cradled in both arms, and Hamish perched on top of it, she’d climb the rough-hewn stairs.

  If Cameron was outside the cottage Kate would just stand there for a little while watching him work with pick or shovel, mason’s hammer or bricklayer’s trowel—enjoying the sight of him stripped to the waist, loving the play of the lean muscles in his arms and across his back—and usually it was a bark from Hamish that alerted him to her presence.

  If Cameron was working inside, he’d hear Kate calling “Lunchtime!” through the doorway. She’d hand a flask of tea and bag of sandwiches to the workmen, and keep another flask and some sandwiches for herself and Cameron. Then, with Hamish in her arms, she’d lead the way down Jamie’s Crag while Cameron followed with the hamper.

  Sitting on the parapet of Waterfall Bridge, with the crags on either side and the lochan shimmering below in the mid-day sun, they’d recount the morning’s little problems and how they’d been resolved, and discuss the challenges that lay ahead and how they might be overcome. Sometimes they’d talk about the beautiful things around them; sometimes they’d just look at those things and listen to the water running beneath their feet and cascading into the glen below, not feeling the need to speak because the timeless sound of river and waterfall said it all.

  Then, with the food eaten and the tea drunk and no more excuses for not doing the things that still had to be done, Kate and Hamish would head back up Castle Crag to Greystane, while Cameron climbed the steps backup to Jamie’s Cottage.

  The next time they saw each other was in the hour before sunset, just after the builders left. Cameron was usually tidying up for the day when he heard Hamish’s welcoming bark. Looking out of window or doorway he’d see the little white terrier scampering towards the cottage.

  Then he’d look beyond Hamish, to the edge of Jamie’s Crag, and his chest would tighten while he waited for Kate Brodie to appear. In those moments he’d wonder what she’d be wearing—the blue-and-white striped T-shirt, maybe; the cream roll-neck sweater, or the pale blue cardigan with the sleeves pulled a little way up her slender forearms; the faded jeans that showed off the length of her legs, or the peasant skirt that gave even more grace to her movements—and his breath would catch in his throat at the first flash of her hair, not white gold as it was in the morning but a darker gold in the light of the setting sun.

  She’d tell him how her day had gone, sometimes in a slightly subdued voice if there was a problem yet to be resolved; more often with the words tumbling out the way they do when you can’t wait to say them to someone, and the someone you most want to say them to is standing right there in front of you.

  Cameron would tell her about his own day by showing her around the cottage. At first—when the work was all about weatherproofing—it was the outside they walked around, and he’d proudly point to new roof slates or windows or repairs to the gables. But, as the days passed and the work progressed, he was able to show her things they were doing inside to turn the house into a home: one day pointing out the new partition walls of a bathroom, the next day a kitchen sink, and the day after that laughing along with her when he realized how proudly he’d been showing off the soil pipe for a toilet.

  When Hamish started barking to let them know he was feeling left out or just plain hungry they’d head back to Greystane. The first few days they walked back hand-in-hand a little self-consciously. But, as the days passed, they began walking with arms linked, and one afternoon Cameron found Kate’s arm around his waist, and she found his arm around her shoulders. Neither of them could say who’d reached out first, or when; each had acted without conscious thought, just feeling.

  Dinner was eaten in the banquet hall. Although Miss Weir was now happy to serve breakfast for four in the kitchen, she made it clear she expected them to be seated in a more appropriate setting for the evening meals she took such a pride in preparing. The meal usually lasted the best part of an hour—not just because of all the food, but because of the conversation that followed it.

  After thanking Finlay and Miss Weir and offering to do the washing up—an offer that was never accepted but always appreciated—Kate and Cameron would grab a couple of beers from the fridge and head up to the “lounge” to talk some more about the day just past or the one to come.

  They never stayed up too late because the days were so demanding. Arranging the forthcoming wedding and putting together packages to offer in future left Kate exhausted mentally. Cameron was worn out physically from the effort of turning Jamie’s Cottage into a home; stiff and aching from head to foot, he’d be ready to crash out by ten o’clock. For all the demands of the days, though, they never complained at night. Kate never said she had headaches, just welcomed the fact that she was no longer completely powerless to prevent the loss of Greystane and the spoiling of the glen. Cameron never mentioned his aches and pains, because they were a small price to pay for having the chance to rebuild his life, and live it next to Kate. Much as they enjoyed the challenge of the days, it was those nights they looked forward to most—the sharing of a sense of satisfaction, the easy conversation and comfortable silences, the simple pleasures of a cold beer and a warm fire.

  At around ten o’clock they’d put the guard over the fire and climb the stairs to the next floor, then say goodnight with a kiss in the landing.

  At first Cameron welcomed the moment when he turned out his bedside lamp and his head touched the pillow, so exhausted that he’d be deep in a dreamless sleep within minutes.

  By the end of the first week, however, the heaviest work was done and his body was more accustomed to manual labor. That made the days easier but the nights hard, because sleep was more elusive. He still had thoughts he didn’t want to be having, and that was the time it was hardest not to think about them: in the early hours of the morning when there was no sight or sound or distraction, no one to talk to about other things. Even when sleep finally came it was far from restful because it was filled by a harrowing mix of guilty conscience and nightmarish memories.

  Kate no
ticed little differences in him as the days went by: his smile wasn’t so carefree or frequent; his laughter wasn’t so loud or long-lasting; and, when he stared into the fire, his silences were more brooding than companionable. She wanted to ask what was wrong, what he was seeing when he looked into the flames, but realized he would only tell her when the time was right.

  Although the time wasn’t right for that, Kate soon felt it was right for something else. One night just before the wedding, when they got up from the fireside in the big room at the usual time, she lit a candle and said, “Cameron, there’s something I want to show you.” She led him up the flight of stairs to the bedrooms, and then up the next flight of stairs, too. It was different from all the others as it formed a tight spiral rather than a series of straight switchbacks, and opened in the center of a landing. The landing had four doors, one in the middle of each wall. Kate opened the one straight ahead, revealing a small room with an attic roof.

  Cameron couldn’t work out what it was she wanted to show him: there was a dark wooden chest of drawers and matching wardrobe on the left; and an ancient bed on the right, with what looked like a cupboard angled into the corner at its foot. He turned to look at Kate for an explanation after he’d looked around the room.

  In a quiet voice, because she didn’t want to wake Finlay in the room on one side or Miss Weir in the room on the other side, Kate gestured to the cupboard and said, “Open the door, Cameron.”

  When he did, he was surprised to see the stone steps of an even narrower, more steeply-pitched spiral staircase.

  “Take this,” Kate said, handing him the saucer with the candle in it.

  The flame flickered in a cold draught as Cameron climbed the stairs. After a few steps the draught became a breeze. Four steps later he saw why: he was looking at the inside of a stone cylinder with a narrow slit in the curving wall—the interior of one of the little turrets that jutted from each corner of the square tower.

  As he climbed the last two steps, Cameron heard the quiet roar of falling water from far below. A gust of wind blew out the candle when he stepped into the turret, but he barely noticed because by then he was looking through the slit in the thick stone wall. Then glen was sketched in quicksilver below and the sky high above was brightened by stars without number.

  A suggestion of perfume on the crisp, clean air told him Kate was at his side. “I couldn’t sleep last night,” she told him. “It must have been the excitement of the wedding, the worry that maybe I’ve forgotten something. Anyway, I realized I’d never been up here, and got curious. I came up at midnight, and was blown away by what I saw.”

  Cameron could understand why. Looking up at the stars he was lost in the wonder at the dizzying thought that there were as many below the slowly spinning world he stood on as above, as many behind as ahead. Kate put her arm around his waist and he felt her hip brush his thigh as she moved closer to him, and in that moment he forgot all about the stars; all he could think of was Kate Brodie. She took the candle from him with her free hand and set it down on the floor. When she straightened up she put that hand around his waist along with the other one, moving them up his back until they were clasped behind his neck, drawing his lips down towards her own.

  And then they were kissing, touching at hip and thigh as well as mouth.

  They moved apart only to draw breath, and when they moved back together they were somehow even closer than before. Kate broke off to whisper in his ear, “Sleep with me tonight and every night, Cameron.” Moving away, she said, “Five minutes, just give me five minutes. I’ll leave my door open, and you don’t have to knock.”

  Then she was gone and Cameron was alone in the tiny turret at the top of the tower, listening to the falling water and measuring time not by the sweeping hand of the watch on his wrist but by counting stars in the sky above, one for each second.

  When he’d counted 300 stars he went down the stairs. Kate’s door was ajar. He paused in front of it, feeling things he hadn’t felt for longer than he could remember and had thought he might never feel again, and things he’d never felt before. Then he gently pushed the door.

  For a moment he just stood there, his heart not able to beat.

  Kate, too shy to have undressed in front of him, had switched off the light and was standing barefoot on a sheepskin rug in front of the fire. Her back was to him and she was wearing only a white cotton shirt that reached half-way down her thighs. The tails of the shirt hung out at each side, so that even though she was facing away from him he knew that the shirt must be unbuttoned. The thin, pale material was translucent in the flickering glow of the fire, and her body was a silhouette half-seen in front of him, half-imagined in his mind.

  “Kate,” he said, not managing to say more than her name, and even that as little more than a whisper.

  She turned and smiled shyly, hands clasped in front of her and hiding what the open shirt would have revealed. It must have been as long a time for her as it has for me, Cameron thought. He took a step towards her …

  And as he did so Kate forgot her inhibitions and opened her arms to him, the shirt spreading like gossamer wings, the flames of the fire backlighting her so that as much was left to Cameron’s imagination as was revealed.

  Kate put her hands up to his face and did something she’d longed to do since the first time she saw him—traced the hard line of his cheekbones with her fingertips. She let her fingers slide down his neck and inside his collar, undoing the buttons of his plaid shirt one by one before running her hands up over his lean stomach and well-muscled chest and then out over his shoulders, peeling his shirt away as they went.

  Then her hands were moving down his back and around his waist until her fingers were at his belt buckle. While she undid that, Cameron worked one boot off with the edge of the other and kicked off his socks.

  Kate wrapped her arms and the folds of her shirt around him, hands clasped in the small of his back, drawing his hips into hers so that when they kissed all of their bodies were touching, not just the parts they kissed with.

  The four-poster bed was only a couple of steps away but it might as well have been on the other side of an ocean; Kate didn’t feel able to take one step, let alone two. Barely able to stand, she sank to her knees, drawing Cameron down with her. She said his name once in a voice she barely recognized as her own, and then couldn’t say it any more because they were kissing. It was a kiss like no other she’d ever known, but instead of satisfying her it made her hungry for more.

  Now she couldn’t even kneel, let alone stand, had to take one of the hands that had been cupped behind his neck and place it palm down on the rug at her side for support…

  And soon one hand was running through the sheepskin and the other was running through Cameron’s hair because she was rolling over onto her hip and then on her back, and he was moving with her.

  One moment the flickering amber glow from the fire was on her back, the next on his as they rolled and touched and moved until they were moved without moving, couldn’t move any more, could barely even breathe.

  And in those entwined moments there was no yesterday or tomorrow. There were no words except his name and hers, and all the other ones were forgotten in the learning of a new, unspoken, unforgettable language of feeling rather than thought, a language that had a thousand words for joy and laughter and none at all for what comes after, none at all for anything beyond the sheepskin rug and the dancing shadows of the fire.

  In those entwined moments there were only two people in the world, and they moved and breathed and lived as one.

  WHAT HAPPENED IN THE WEEK THAT FOLLOWED LEFT Kate hurt and confused. Although she shared a bed with Cameron each night, there were moments when she knew he was having thoughts he couldn’t talk about—and every passing day seemed to bring more of them.

  At first she asked Cameron what it was he couldn’t put behind him, what stopped him from opening up and moving on. She asked what he was looking at when she woke beside him early one
morning and he was staring into the darkness with his eyes focused on something she couldn’t see.

  She asked what he was listening to when she came across him sitting on the cottage doorstep one afternoon and spoke his name and he didn’t seem to hear.

  She asked what he was thinking about one night when the gentle touch of her hand on his shoulder as they sat in the lounge startled him so much that it startled her.

  And she asked why he’d been so unsettled by the purple napkin on the night of their first meal together; and why one evening in the cottage, when they were about to clear up after the builders, all the color left his face when she took out a purple scarf to wrap over her head and keep the dust out of her hair.

  But each time she asked he just said, “I’m sorry, Kate,” and finally she stopped asking what he was seeing or hearing or thinking about at times like that. Just as the good moments of love and laughter drew them together, so those other moments kept them further apart than they should have been.

  Cameron understood Kate’s hurt but was powerless to do anything about it. He couldn’t tell her that the more he came to love her, the less he could contemplate sharing the future with her: she deserved a man who didn’t carry around memories he was too ashamed to reveal to the woman he loved, a man who didn’t have to avoid looking into his own eyes in the mirror when he shaved each morning, a man who wasn’t un-nerved by the color purple.

  He knew that Kate must wonder if his worries about their relationship had something to do with her, and being unable to tell her that the person he doubted was himself broke his heart. He couldn’t tell her because his doubts weren’t the kind you could share with another person—not if you wanted that person to respect you and feel safe with you, let alone live with you and love you.

  Cameron was sure the things he’d have to tell Kate in order to close the distance between them were things that would drive them apart.