Highland Interlude

by Lucilla Andrews

  ‘I’ll tell her. Thanks for letting me stay around. I just wish I could’ve done more to help.’

  ‘You’ve done all you could, and a lot more than you should.’

  I looked all round the empty Casualty. It still smelt of wetness and ether and sweat. ‘If you hadn’t let me, by now I’d be up the wall.’

  ‘Aye,’ said Dr MacAlistair, ‘some such idea did cross my mind. Just the once or twice, you’ll understand.’

  Chapter Fourteen

  DOUGAL STAYS FOR BREAKFAST

  ‘A cup of tea, Elizabeth?’

  I opened one eye. Mrs MacAlistair wore a blue tweed dress and was holding a small tea-tray. Isobel MacAlistair’s bedroom was flooded with light. ‘Good morning.’ I sat up. ‘Any more news?’

  ‘All safely down, and though the boy with the fractured skull’s not too well, Hamish said on the ’phone just now that he could be a lot worse. His parents are on their way up, along with about fourteen others and Mr Morgan’s young wife. As for reporters! You can’t move in Gairlie without knocking one down this morning, and if they don’t stop pestering my long-suffering husband, that may yet happen! Did you sleep well? I wished you looked it, dearie. Stay where you are, and I’ll bring up your breakfast.’

  ‘Thanks, but I’d rather get up.’ I looked at the window. ‘The storm’s gone.’

  ‘It went out with the tide at dawn.’ She walked over to the window. The room was on the first floor and at the front of the house. ‘There’s Sister Kilsyth returning after a couple of hours off and looking as if she could use a month’s sleep. Ah! There’s Charlie’s car leaving.’ She leant out to wave, then closed the window. ‘Do you really want to get up? Or are you merely being polite?’

  I hesitated, recollecting my first morning in Achnagairl. Possibly the MacAlistairs preferred breakfast to themselves. ‘I wasn’t, but I haven’t really any strong feelings. Which’ll be easier?’

  ‘To have you down. We both enjoy company at breakfast.’ She smiled at me. ‘Maybe I’m being unfair, but I’ve generally found it a more English characteristic to be a bear with a sore head in the early morning. Take your tea quietly, and then come down ‒ and don’t be surprised if Hamish sends you back to bed for the morning. Oh, I’d forgotten, I’ve a message for you from him.’ She stopped in the doorway. ‘He’s seen Dougal Grant around the hospital, but he’s had no opportunity to tell him you’re here with us. You’d best ring Achnagairl and explain directly you’re up.’

  Suddenly, I remembered everything. I lost my nerve. ‘Won’t he have gone to bed? I don’t want to disturb him. Perhaps later?’

  ‘I doubt he’ll catch up on lost sleep until tonight. As it’s fortunately the Sabbath, most of the searchers’ll be able to take today easily, but were it a working day they’d be straight off to their jobs after a hot bath and change.’

  ‘They don’t get given extra time off?’

  ‘My dear, it’s only very recently they stopped losing their pay on searches, They get given no time off for recovery, but at least now, where necessary, they do get their pay made up to them.’

  ‘I’d no idea!’

  ‘How could you? But you should ring Dougal as soon as possible. You were previously his guest, and it would be most impolite to let him hear from others that you’re here with us ‒ and there’s no doubt he will, very shortly. Gairlie’s a small place, and we’re all interested in the affairs of our neighbours, but not only because we’re busy-bodies. Being so isolated we’re all greatly dependent on each other, so the concern of one concerns all.’

  I knew she was right. I just wished I hadn’t made such a fuss about getting up. ‘I’ll ring as soon as I’m dressed.’

  I started rehearsing over my tea.

  ‘Dougal, this is Elizabeth. I’m still here because ‒’ and there I dried up.

  I leapt out of bed and dressed at the double. That occupied my hands, but was no help to inspiration.

  The weather had not stopped Davie MacDonald from getting to Glasgow. During one of the lulls last night Sister Casualty had remarked on hearing he was back at his hotel. But Dougal’s being in medicine stopped my spinning a splendid tale about Gairlie Hospital grinding to a halt without my help last night. I could have fooled Archie, but no doctor, that it took an S.R.N. to make tea, write notes, and handle the odd feeding-cup.

  I roamed my borrowed room. Tell him the truth? Oh, sure! ‘Dougal, this is Elizabeth. I couldn’t leave until I knew you were safe, because I suddenly discovered that if anything happened to you I’d want to die.’ Why not go over and ring from the hospital? Then Gordon as well as Dougal would need acute shock therapy.

  The front-door bell rang. I looked out, but the porch roof was in the way. Mrs MacAlistair called, ‘Can you get that? It’ll be Hamish without his key, and if I leave my bacon it’ll burn to a frizzle!’

  ‘Sure!’ I ran down and unlocked the front door. ‘Good morning, Doc ‒’ I swallowed fast. ‘Hallo, Dougal!’

  He was still in climbing clothes and as transfixed on that doorstep as on his own at our first meeting. His orange anorak with the huge black L.G.M.C. across the chest was as wet and crumpled as on that former occasion; his boots were as scuffed; his ice-axe was fixed through the same leather belt; the white Eiger climbing helmet in his hand still had its attached headlamp; he was still wearing the medical kit on his back, and the haversack had a large red cross on a white ground. The white was as grey as his unshaven face. Everything was the same, apart from his immediate expression. For one unguarded moment when I opened the door he had looked at me as he had looked at the sun that morning we saw it rise over the hills.

  Then he was smiling politely. ‘Good morning, Elizabeth. This is a nice surprise. Hamish didn’t tell me you were a guest in his house. I should’ve guessed he’d persuade you to change your mind what with yesterday’s weather.’

  ‘Wasn’t it shocking?’ Mrs MacAlistair had joined us. ‘Dougal, how good to see you safely back! Come in, come in! What’s that? Your boots? My dear man, with three growing laddies and Hamish to tramp all over them, my floors have learnt to thrive on heavy boots! You’ll join us for breakfast, of course.’

  Dougal stepped just over the threshold. ‘It’s very kind of you, Margaret, but I’m not fit for human society in these clothes or with this beard. I called as Hamish put his head out of a window just now and said if I was passing would I tell you he hopes to be over in about twenty minutes.’ He glanced at me, then back at her. ‘May I return when I’m more presentable?’

  Mrs MacAlistair said that with due respect she had never heard such nonsense! ‘How else would you be dressed after twenty-odd hours on the Ben? You’ll be weary and hungry, and I refuse to consider your leaving my house without a hot meal. I can imagine what Hamish would say if I did! Have you dry sweaters under that anorak? Then take it off, man! What’s that I smell? Oh my precious porridge! Hamish’s day’ll be ruined ‒’ She backed kitchenwards. ‘Elizabeth, look after him for me! There’s a fire in the front room ‒ close the windows ‒ forgive me ‒’ and she vanished.

  Dougal and I looked at each other. We could have been total strangers suddenly left to entertain each other in a strange house. Dead polite strangers. I offered to help him with his haversack. He said, thank you, he could manage. He deposited his helmet on the hall table, unhitched the haversack, unzipped his anorak, folded it carefully outside in so as not to dampen the table polish, and smoothed his hair with both hands. ‘Fortunately, I’d a wash at the police station, but’ ‒ he fingered his chin ‒ ‘sorry about this. One night and I look as if I’ve been on the meths.’

  ‘It’s being so dark,’ I told him brightly and tritely.

  The log fire in the sitting-room was going well. I took rather a long time to close the windows. The early-morning air was tangy and unused, the sky pale blue, and the loch smooth as blue silk. The few lights still on in the hospital looked old and pale.

  Dougal was behind me. ‘Grand morning.’

  I tu
rned, and he backed. ‘Lovely. Incredible after yesterday.’

  ‘Often the way of it.’

  That took care of the weather.

  ‘Dougal, do sit down. You must be exhausted.’

  ‘Just weary. I’d rather stand.’ He surveyed the comfortable and slightly battered room as if playing Pelmanism. ‘I’m glad you let yourself be persuaded to stay on. Has any time-limit been settled?’

  ‘Not yet.’ I sat on the arm of a chair.

  ‘No doubt Hamish was too busy to get round to it yesterday. Did Davie MacDonald cancel your reservation?’

  ‘I imagine so. He told Dr MacAlistair he would.’

  I then thanked him for that arrangement and asked why he had not told me he was taking me to London. ‘I thought you were staying in Glasgow.’

  ‘Why should I want to do that?’

  I said carefully, ‘It seemed a reasonable idea. Clearly, it wasn’t. Why didn’t you tell me?’ I repeated.

  ‘I intended doing so on our drive. I said nothing earlier as I thought it might worry you health-wise, or make you feel forced to remain up here until there could be no question of your being fit enough to travel alone.’

  ‘You were just going to do another round trip?’

  ‘Aye.’

  I smiled slightly. ‘Keep this up, and you’ll be British Railways’ pin-up.’

  ‘Maybe they’ll name a train after me.’ He had been holding his hands behind his back. He let them now hang at his sides. ‘Of course, you’ve let Martha’s know?’

  ‘Sorrow and grief! I forgot!’ I looked at the clock on the mantelpiece. ‘Matron’ll be expecting me any minute now.’

  ‘No. Not for at least another hour. When I saw her I told her we’d have breakfast somewhere first.’

  ‘That’s a break ‒ though God knows what she’ll say this time.’

  ‘Since you’ve been detained under your doctor’s orders, there’s not very much she can say.’

  It was not moral cowardice alone that made me let that one ride. I had noticed the condition of the inside of his left hand. ‘How did you get all those cuts and grazes on your left palm?’

  He gave it a cursory glance. ‘Just carelessness. I lost a glove.’

  ‘It was your glove!’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  I explained, then added, ‘Even if it was someone else’s wasn’t it fantastically lucky it dropped where it did?’

  He didn’t answer at once. He just looked at me in silence for some seconds. Then he asked very quietly, ‘Elizabeth, were you working in the hospital last night?’

  ‘Pottering would be the better word.’

  ‘So? And until what time did you potter?’

  His ‘r’s now would have done credit to Dr MacAlistair. Recollecting Joe’s letter, I hedged. ‘I’m not sure, exactly. Not very late.’

  He frowned, and his eyes suddenly looked much darker and his chin more blue. ‘Didn’t the leader’s son go down in that batch of six?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘As I recall, it was eleven before they were away from base, according to Charlie’s records. Obviously you were still working when they arrived ‒’

  ‘Dougal, not working!’

  He ignored my interruption. ‘Were you there when the final call was put through from the rest-hut?’

  ‘Only just. They slung me out directly after.’

  ‘Good God Almighty! So I should bloody well hope! Small wonder you’re so white and exhausted this morning! And here I’ve been mentally congratulating Hamish MacAlistair on his professional wisdom in keeping you here under his eye even though he’s temporarily no hospital bed for you! Wisdom! The kindest thing I can now say is that the man must’ve taken leave of his senses.’

  Despite Joe’s letter, Mrs MacAlistair last evening, and the obvious fact that there was nothing like physical fatigue for taking the temper to flash-point, I was dumbfounded. His self-control had always seemed to me so absolute; even that moment on the doorstep had been only one moment; until now nothing would have persuaded me he would ever really let rip.

  ‘Dougal,’ I said, ‘you don’t understand ‒’

  ‘Och, too bloody right I don’t!’ His voice shook with rage. ‘How do you expect me to understand how an experienced physician came to allow a girl straight out of a hospital bed after a serious illness to have any part in the kind of work such an avalanche of emergency admissions must’ve occasioned over the road last night? There’s but one element in this I do understand ‒ and it’s one I find singularly unpleasant! But I well understand that had you had any family, or even friends, with you yesterday to protect you from the consequences of your own generous nature, there’s not one person in Gairlie Hospital who’d have dared suggest you lend a hand ‒’

  ‘No one suggested. I offered.’

  ‘That I can believe!’ He all but spat the words. ‘Being well acquainted with your sweet, daft way of plunging in to help others regardless of the cost to yourself! But that’s immaterial. What’s not is the plain fact that you weren’t strong enough to be allowed to work last night ‒ as your appearance this morning provides incontrovertible proof. To have taken such an advantage of you was bloody monstrous ‒ as I shall certainly tell Hamish and Matron at the earliest opportunity!’

  ‘Dougal, for God’s sake, cool off!’ I got off the chair-arm, and my legs felt as peculiar as on my first day out of bed. ‘Mrs MacAlistair’ll be in any minute ‒ you must let me explain. You’ve got this all wrong. No one took any advantage of me ‒ and if I look like the wrath of God this morning, that’s not because of any work I did ‒’

  ‘For God’s sake, girl! Do you take me for an inexperienced student laddie incapable of assessing the clinical evidence presented to me by my own eyes? Do you imagine the fact that I’ve been hamstrung by ethics has spared me from observing every single sign and symptom you’ve produced throughout the course of your illness? You’ve no more heed to explain your physical condition to me now than you’d to explain you were fighting for your life as well as your breath when I’d to sit there, helpless, watching you in that oxygen tent!’

  I had not wept in another person’s presence since my grandfather died. That particular wall had remained intact, even with Joe. It was the thought of my first two nights in that tent that knocked away the wall’s foundations. Without warning, tears poured down my face, and I could not stop them. I flopped on to the chair-arm and wept over the back of the chair.

  ‘No, Elizabeth, no! I shouldn’t have spoken like that ‒ but I never thought to hurt you.’ Dougal’s voice was urgent and wholly altered. ‘But you don’t have to turn away and hide your tears from me, lassie. Come.’ He half pulled, half lifted me into his arms and stroked my hair as I wept into the curve of his neck and shoulder. ‘It’s all right, lassie,’ he said over and over again. Then, ‘I’m sorry I lost my temper, but you know it was not with you, even though you bore the brunt, and for that alone I can’t forgive myself ‒ but to distress you like this doesn’t bear thinking! But it’ll be all right ‒ we’ll sort this out the way you wish ‒ it’ll be all right.’

  I knew it would. I just couldn’t stop crying to tell him. The comfort of his arms had unleashed years of unshed tears. I had had occasional crying jags before, but nothing like this, and so utterly beyond my immediate control.

  His hold tightened as I shook with great gasping sobs. ‘Calm down, lassie, calm down.’ His voice was very gentle, and he laid his face against my hair. ‘You must calm down for your own sake. Your reserves are much lower than you realize. Go on tearing yourself apart like this and you’ll put yourself back in a hospital bed. Do you hear me, lassie?’

  ‘Uh-huh. Sorry ‒’ I gasped, ‘so sorry.’

  He caught his breath, and as his lips were so close to my ear I caught his barely audible, ‘My dearest love, don’t say that to me after what I’ve just done to you.’

  I stopped weeping as abruptly as I had started. I was still gasping, but I no more bothered w
ith that than with the disastrous effect the deluge must have had on my face. I raised my head to look at him. ‘Am I that, Dougal?’

  Suddenly he looked much older and very tired, and his eyes were guarded. ‘That’s something else I shouldn’t have said. It’s of no consequence.’ He smiled with his lips. ‘Just add it, along with my earlier lamentable display, to the clinical picture you must now be forming of a post-climbing syndrome.’

  ‘Did you mean it?’

  He nodded briefly.

  Momentarily I was too happy for speech. I just relaxed against him, and if he hadn’t gripped me I would have hit the floor. I said, ‘Thanks,’ and smiled at him.

  ‘Elizabeth, why are you thanking me?’

  ‘Dougal,’ I said, ‘dear Dougal. I realize you’re nearly out on your two feet, and I’ve just given you hell throwing that attack of the vapours ‒’

  ‘You mustn’t say that ‒’

  ‘Dougal, listen!’ I managed to free a hand and put it lightly over his lips. ‘I know you weren’t here yesterday, so you can’t know the hell I went through for you ‒ and though you may have been suffering from the chronic and dead-wrong Gairlie fixation about Archie and me, I still can’t believe any post-climbing syndrome can make you that thick! Why do you think I’ve been drenching you? What do you think I’m doing in your arms?’ I moved my hand, and his expression now nearly made me weep again. ‘That’s right,’ I said as if he had spoken. ‘That’s why I had to stay yesterday. No one persuaded me. I just refused to go ‒ and that was just because I couldn’t leave you. That wasn’t because of all you’d done for me ‒ quite apart from saving my life. I didn’t even realize you’d done that, till late last night when Dr MacAlistair told me. Yes, it was late, but if I hadn’t badgered them into letting me hang around across the road I probably would’ve been back in some hospital bed somewhere by today.’

  He shook his head in astonished wonder, and he flushed, dully. ‘You were so anxious for me?’