Highland Interlude

by Lucilla Andrews

  Slowly, I calmed down. I realized that since Maury had resented me on sight, I could write off a certain amount of what she said as sheer bitchiness. But only a certain amount.

  I remembered Archie’s reticence about his job and how very little he had actually told me of Calum MacDonald. I remembered how puzzled I had been by Dougal’s reaction to Archie’s pride in his grandfather. Presumably Dougal assumed Archie had bragged to me of his grandfather’s millions. I smiled humourlessly. Had Dougal known the truth he’d have approved vastly of Archie MacDonald’s canny streak.

  Somewhere I heard a stone chinking as it rolled downwards. I didn’t move my arm. I was as soundly asleep as any ward patient at the sight of an unwelcome visitor waiting behind the screen across the open door just before visiting time.

  I had liked Archie. I had believed all he said about flying down on business and returning today. But as he hadn’t trusted me enough for the truth, earlier, how could I now believe a word he said? And Dougal? My charmingly courteous host who had made such a song and dance about being eternally indebted to me for my kindness to Judy and later Johnnie! Did he imagine I’d infected Judy with scarlet and then stabbed Johnnie to prove my sterling value as a guest ‒ and hook Archie? Or was most of that just Maury’s pathological jealousy? Having run into a quota of people with that same affliction, I did know that the fact that she had no cause to be jealous of me was neither here nor there. And though she was much better-looking than myself, I was younger. But she had not been in Dougal’s car on the drive up. I remembered the edge in his voice when he agreed with Judy that I was clever.

  God, I thought wearily, how do I get through the rest of today, tomorrow, and that long drive on Monday? I didn’t know, and as I noticed absently that the sun and the wind seemed warmer, I let it ride, temporarily. A brief snooze wouldn’t improve my situation, but it should make me feel better able to deal with it. Inside of a few minutes I was asleep.

  I woke shortly to find myself shivering and still alone. I sat up, blinking, to clear my eyes before looking at my watch. Only ten to two ‒ and the mist was not in my eyes. A faint haze hung between the sun and the plateau. The sun looked very distant and much smaller.

  It was a very faint haze, and being so ignorant of hill weather and having so much to preoccupy me, I did my hair and face. I hadn’t forgotten Dougal’s parting advice to Maury, but as her handbag was still on the rug she had shed, plus all the remains of our picnic, I guessed she was with Robin. Probably it was warmer on the shelf. The air on the plateau was getting increasingly cold, and though the wind had slackened, it was present. Presumably Maury realized this haze was very temporary, or she would have whisked us down to the road. She might hate my guts, but Dougal’s word was her law ‒ if only until she was sure she had him.

  I waited some minutes; then got up to investigate. Once away from the sheltering boulders I discovered why the breeze was puzzling me. The wind had changed and was coming in from the west, bringing with it heavy white low clouds that seemed only to skin over the neighbouring hills.

  I looked up, thoughtfully. Surely Maury could see the sky as well as myself?

  In those few seconds I spent looking up the sun vanished and the clouds turned the plateau into an island. Despite Dougal’s frequent remarks on the subject, the swiftness of the change astonished me. Yet, as the clouds had moved so fast, wouldn’t they move on as fast? Unless the wind dropped.

  It seemed a time for a little strong-minded efficiency. I crossed back to the southern edge, knelt, and peered over. I could not even see the width of the little shelf through the rising whiteness below. There was no sign of Maury, but I could just glimpse Robin’s hunched shoulders in his dark-blue donkey-jacket. God alone knew where Maury was, but the boy had obviously dropped off, as I had. Only he was sleeping on a ledge jutting out from the side of a high hill.

  I called his name quietly not to shock him into sudden movement. He didn’t hear me. I shouted, without effect. I stood up and yelled for Maury, and my yells fell flatly on the thickening air. Robin slept on.

  The drop to the ledge seemed to me sheer as a precipice. I got down by slithering most of the way, and only because I had to. Getting back up was going to be another problem, but at least I would then have Robin to help me. I could have wept with relief when my feet touched the ledge, and I groped my way towards Robin. The cloud was so thick that it was only when in reaching distance that I realized what I had taken for his hunched shoulders was a rounded boulder over which he had draped his donkey-jacket. His open sketching pad and pencil lay beside it.

  That was when I had my first wave of panic. I remembered hearing that stone falling. It could have been dislodged by Maury returning with Robin to take a walk, but it could have been Robin, falling.

  The ledge there was about six feet wide. I lay on my face to look over, but could see only a few feet. For those feet the hill dropped like a wall into a white, wet, silent world. Silent and still. The wind had dropped. I shouted myself hoarse. There was no answer, no movement.

  The sensible thing to do was to get back up to the plateau. It would be safer up there, and if, as I prayed, Robin was with Maury, up there I would have a better chance of meeting up with them. If I got back up.

  I was very cold and very frightened, being much too conscious of the narrowness of that shelf and the drop beyond. For every upward step I slipped back two, and twice nearly lost my balance when I hit the shelf. After one of the worst half-hours of my life common sense, and I had not much of it left, forced me to accept defeat. I must sit this out on the ledge with my back to the hill. There were hours of daylight ahead. The wind would return and shift the clouds and give one and all a good giggle when they found me.

  I buttoned on the donkey-jacket over my coat and turned up both collars. The air was so thick I had to hold my watch to my face to see the time. Twenty to three. Robin must be with Maury. For Dougal’s sake, surely she must have kept an eye on Robin when she saw the weather was changing? I was perfectly safe. All I needed was patience. Hours of daylight ahead, I reminded myself repeatedly as the hours dragged by and took me that much closer to the thought I was trying to avoid. The night ahead.

  At first, imperceptibly, the cotton-wool air darkened. Then it was all black. A soaking, ice blackness that seeped through my clothes, drenched my face and hair, stung my eyes, and made breathing such an effort that my lungs ached.

  I grew cramped with sitting, but dared not do more than stand on one spot holding on to the hill face while I stamped my feet and swung my arms. Though it was my first hill mist, having been in countless London smogs, I knew how easy it was to lose all sense of direction. If I lost physical contact with the hill against which I had been leaning I might never find it again. A few steps in the wrong direction, and I’d fall off the shelf.

  Between the darkness and the knowledge of that drop I was often very close to blind panic. I recited aloud to stave it off. I went through all the muscles and the bones, and then all the poems I could remember. Once at school, for a bet, I had memorized all The Ancient Mariner. I chanted all I could recall until I had hardly any voice left.

  The hill face became my friend. I kept reaching back as I sat, touching it for comfort. My fingers felt a jutting fragment of rock and clung to it as if it were a human hand.

  Time ceased to matter. Unless the mist cleared no one could find me until daylight. I knew that from my conversation with that seaman at Glasgow Central. He had said the mist had delayed the search on the Ben. What was his name? Cameron. Had Mrs Pringle been a Cameron? No ‒ her sister was his sister-in-law ‒ or was it the other way round? I couldn’t remember. I couldn’t remember any other existence. I had sat on that ledge for a lifetime.

  Then I heard a sound. I sat forward, holding my breath to listen. The silence was absolute. I tried shouting, ‘Anyone there?’ My shout came out as a croak, and the mist echoed it back as a cracked whisper.

  Immediately, ‘Elizabeth!’ whispered a voice. �
��Elizabeth, where are you?’

  I neither recognized the whisper nor was able to tell if it came from above or below. I had to resist an overwhelming urge to leap up, in case, after sitting so long, I properly lost balance. ‘I’m on the ledge. Who is it?’

  ‘Dougal.’ The whisper was louder and now recognizable. ‘I’m on the plateau above. Now, listen well and do exactly what I say. I want you to stay very still where you are. Understand?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Are you hurt? Did you fall?’

  ‘No.’ Relief was making my head curiously light. ‘I’ve lost Robin!’

  ‘He’s safe with Maury. I’m coming down, so keep calling, and I’ll make for your voice. You’ll not see my headlamp until I’m very close, but just keep calling ‒ my name ‒ anything ‒ and don’t move! Right?’

  ‘Yes. Be careful ‒’

  ‘I will. Keep calling.’

  I was still calling when a beam of light blinded me and Dougal grasped my shoulders. ‘What possessed you to come down here, lassie? If you didn’t fall, why the devil didn’t you get straight back up while it was still light? How long have you been ‒’ His voice stopped abruptly. His hand had reached my left radial pulse under the two coat-sleeves.

  Chapter Six

  THE MIST LASTS ALL NIGHT

  The mist was in my brain and bones. I was limp as a rag doll and frantically chatty. I told him about Robin’s jacket and losing my nerve. Some of my words were slurred. I said, ‘I’m not tight, Dougal.’

  ‘I know.’ Something touched my lips. ‘Have a nice wee drink of condensed milk.’

  ‘Ugh ‒ sickly! Must I?’

  ‘Aye come on, Elizabeth.’ He poured it down me. ‘That’s a good girl.’

  I giggled foolishly. ‘Thank you, Doctor.’

  ‘You’re welcome.’ His headlamp illuminated the lower half of his face, and his lips were smiling. His shoulders were pale orange. ‘I’m now going to lay you down for a few moments while I get off this haversack. Then I’ll have you warmer.’

  ‘How? Going to light a fire?’

  ‘Not just now. I’ve a rug or two with me.’

  He wrapped me in two rugs and a polythene ground sheet that zipped up. He gave me chocolate and then more milk. I was only mildly interested in events, as most of the time I still seemed to be floating over our heads. It was an extraordinary but not unpleasant sensation. I could talk and even co-operate, so long as the minimum physical effort was required of me. I had no memory and no judgment. Had Dougal suggested pushing me off the hill it wouldn’t have worried me. I could float.

  He was moving around, and his headlamp alternated between a faint amber glow and a pin-point. Then it blinded me again. ‘I’m going to move you closer to the hill face, Elizabeth.’

  ‘Why?’ (It didn’t matter, but seemed polite to ask.)

  ‘You’ll be warmer parallel with it. No, don’t try and help yourself. I’ll lift you as you are in your wee plastic bag.’

  ‘Not so wee as I’m ‒ how tall am I?’

  ‘Between five seven and five eight.’ He carried me a few steps, then put me down gently. ‘Don’t throw your head back, as there’s a largish boulder just behind it. I’ll have you more comfortable directly.’ He cradled my head with his right arm and lay on his side, jamming me between his body and the hill. I had begun to warm up before the move. I was now in a cocoon of warmth.

  He laid a hand on my forehead. ‘That’s more like it. Time for a nice mug of lukewarm tea.’

  ‘Lukewarm? I don’t wish to be rude, but what a nauseating suggestion!’

  ‘Aye, isn’t it?’ he retorted cheerfully. ‘No, stay still. I can manage, as I’ve the vacuum flask ready beside me.’ He raised my head and held the mug as I drank, and some tea went down my neck. ‘Och, sorry. Let me just get inside my anorak for something to mop you up. Dry?’

  ‘Yes, thanks. Dougal ‒’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘You’d make a good nurse.’

  ‘Drenching my patients with tea?’

  ‘What’s a few drops? I once dropped a full basin of washing water over a gynae lady.’

  ‘Unfortunate,’ he agreed mildly. ‘She get pneumonia?’

  ‘No ill effects at all, and it made her my mate for life. She still sends me Christmas cards. Sister Gynae never forgave me. Whenever she saw me she said, “Don’t drop that Nurse Wade!” So I just did. She thought I was being bloody-minded. I wasn’t. It had become a reflex action. Like your good manners.’

  ‘They’re a reflex action?’

  ‘Aren’t they such a fundamental part of your make-up as to be that? I mean, if I upped and clouted you now, wouldn’t you say, “I do beg your pardon, Elizabeth,” before clouting me back?’

  ‘You’re convinced I’d clout you back?’

  ‘Not in your house. Here,’ I mused, ‘yes, probably. Here, you’re different.’

  ‘Is that so?’

  ‘Yes. Here you’re quite human.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So. Not that you’re not a model host, but you’re much nicer when you slop tea down my neck. Oh, God!’ Suddenly I realized what I was saying. ‘I shouldn’t be telling you all this. Have you taken great umbrage?’

  ‘Tremendous umbrage. Next time you want tea you’ll hold the mug yourself.’

  My brain was working again, but in very slow motion. ‘Dougal Grant, you are humouring me ‒ and I’ve rumbled why and why the lukewarm and not hot tea. No sudden heat or harsh words for an exposure case.’

  ‘Diagnosing yourself?’ He sounded amused. ‘A typical nurse’s reaction.’

  ‘And a doctor’s!’

  ‘That’s true.’

  ‘Aren’t I right? About me?’

  ‘Aye. You’ve a mild touch of exposure. Only mild as it’s not a cold night and you’ve your age and sex in your favour.’

  ‘The biological advantage of my subcutaneous fat?’

  ‘No small advantage that, when it comes to combating exposure. Even without that, as you’ll know as well as myself, though women may be weaker in muscle power, physically they’re by far the stronger sex, and better equipped mentally for survival.’

  I said, ‘Now you sound like our Prof. Medicine. His lectures are like a shot in the arm. But I never realized you thought like that. I’ve kept forgetting you’re in medicine. I suppose you lecture. Are you good at it?’

  ‘Unfortunately not.’ From his voice he was smiling. ‘Too often I’m nervous, and when nervous I turn pompous and boring. Then, if a subject really interests me, I can forget my nervousness, but I go too fast. Also, I’ve no patience with fools, which is a great disadvantage in the medical world.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have thought you at all impatient, but I can sympathize. Martha’s is a good hospital, but even Martha’s produces some right morons in white coats. God only knows how some of ’em managed to qualify. Was that why you opted out of the main stream?’

  ‘It was possibly a subconscious reason. Consciously, I chose to specialize in tropical bugs because they fascinate me. I like research, and I enjoy the field-work.’

  ‘And writing textbooks?’ I told him how I had checked up on the tsetse-fly. ‘Very impressive, Professor.’

  ‘I’m glad you found it so.’

  ‘But you should have a beard and a few eccentricities. Have you any?’

  ‘Several. Being a canny Scotsman, I keep ’em dark. Let’s have some more chocolate.’

  ‘You cold?’ I raised my head, and my hair brushed his chin. ‘Dougal, how awful of me! I’ve only just realized you’re using yourself as a human windbreak and haven’t a plastic bag. You must be frozen.’

  ‘I’m not. Feel my hand on your face.’ It was surprisingly warm. ‘These clothes are exposure-proof.’

  My memory of the distant past was still much clearer than that of the immediate few hours. After the chocolate he altered our positions slightly, and, using the haversack as a cushion for his head against the boulder, raised me enough to rest again
st his chest and folded both arms across mine. Having grown so accustomed to our present situation, it did not even strike me as faintly peculiar to be in his arms. It seemed as natural as it was sensible, not to waste our mutual warmth.

  My private mist of the last few hours began partially to lift. ‘You did say Robin and Maury were safe?’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘What happened to them?’

  ‘Maury ran out of cigarettes and thought she’d some in her car. Robin went with her to fetch them. Apparently they left you asleep, and as the weather seemed set assumed it safe.’

  ‘Yes. I think I did drop off. I think it got warmer about then.’

  ‘That was the wind changing. Unfortunately Maury didn’t notice it had until it was too late. Very unwisely, she and Robin had decided to stroll a little way down the road to meet my returning car. They were on the road when the wind dropped. Though not a Highlander, Maury knew enough about the hill to appreciate that to turn back and try and climb the plateau to find you with only an inexperienced boy to help her would almost certainly mean three, not just one, lost. She’s never had any sense of direction, but as anyone can follow a road running downhill in any mist she made the only sensible decision and kept on down. They were about half-way down when I met them. There was little mist in Gairlie when I left, and there’s unlikely to be more now. They should’ve reached Maury’s house some time back.’

  ‘I didn’t realize Maury’s not a Highlander.’