Mrs Gilmarton hesitated, frowned, then turned and walked out of the door behind her towards where the kitchen presumably was. She returned a minute later.
"Sorry. We just lost the last one. It wasn’t quite as dead as we expected, and it just flew out of the window. How about a hamburger and chips?"
Turning from the bar, leaving a wounded Mrs Gilmarton behind, she glanced round the pub, wondering if Young Angus were to be seen.
Sure enough, sitting in the far corner in the exact place he was last time she’d visited, Young Angus was reading a paper, nursing a pint and a wee dram.
His eyes twinkled with either mischief or excitement when he looked up and saw her sitting down at the table opposite him.
“Aha… Alice. So, what did you learn? And how is life in the Loch Ness Hilton?”
Alessandra was momentarily taken aback, wondering how on earth he could know about where she was now living. Then she remembered the connection.
“So, you’ve been speaking to Gavin then?” she enquired.
“Or maybe, he’s been speaking to me. Asking a few questions about you.” he smiled. Definitely mischievously.
“What sort of questions?”
“The sort of questions you wonder when you take an interest in someone else.”
He chuckled to himself a couple of times, then raised his beer and took a sip.
“Don’t worry. I won’t be saying anymore. Except that Gavin is a fine young man, and from what I can see, you’re both sharing a common journey.”
Alessandra nodded.
“So,” Young Angus asked, stroking his long, grey and red beard. It occurred to Alessandra then that Angus would have made a fearsome pirate. “Did you find any answers?”
Alessandra tapped her small glass of Drum Dreg against the fresh glass she’d just put in front of him.
“Basically, no. In fact, it’s the opposite. I’ve got more questions than ever.”
“Which is very healthy. And normal. Before you can find the answers you really want, you have to find the questions, the real questions that need to be answered. Don’t worry,” he started to cough, quite violently, but after briefly turning red with the effort, a large sip of the Drum Dregg seemed to put out the fire... “Don’t worry… You’ll discover a lot of the questions won’t need answering. So long as you answer the most important ones first.”
He started to cough again.
He winced in pain, and for a moment, he gripped the edge of the table with one of his hands.
Alessandra saw the knuckles turn white.
Once again, as before, she felt a strong affinity towards the man and she remembered his previous admission that he was dying of cancer.
A vision of Robert and Lisa passed through her mind’s eye. She recalled again the strange events that had taken place on the side of Loch Ness. And she wondered if it was perhaps not just by chance that she had bumped into Young Angus again tonight.
Could she repeat for Angus what she had done for Lisa and Robert?
A strange excitement filled her.
“Angus ... actually. Yes. Something did happen to me at Loch Ness. Something strange. And it’s confusing me much more that the sighting of the Lady, if that was at all possible.”
She looked around her, acutely aware of the proximity of the others in the small, packed, ‘cosy’ pub.
“Angus, after I’ve had the meal I ordered, is there somewhere else we can go to talk? Somewhere more private? I don’t mind pushing you in your wheelchair anywhere we need to go…”
Young Angus chuckled again, his eyes twinkling.
“That’s the best offer I’ve had in years. Or at the very least, the best this century. We can go back to my place…”
The food arrived shortly afterwards and Alessandra demolished it quickly. She’d had an idea and she was eager to get Angus home to his place, and alone, as soon as possible.
As before, Mrs Gilmarton helped Angus into his wheelchair and gave them both a curious look as Alessandra wheeled him out of the door. Young Angus gave her a wink and Alessandra laughed when she saw it. Mrs Gilmarton didn’t know what to make of it.
His house was a small cottage at the far end of the High Street - actually the only street in town, a small cove directly opposite his front door, with a sandy beach and several boats pulled up onto a lawn along its edge.
“The brown wooden one is mine.” Angus pointed out, seeing her gaze wander down to the boats, as she stood beside him and he fished in his pockets for his house keys. “She’s a good girl. Although I haven’t been out in her for years. She’s probably falling apart now.”
“I didn’t know you sailed? Sailing is my life. That’s why I’m here…”
“I know. But that’s not the real reason you’re here. That much I can tell, lassie. It’s just your excuse.”
He passed her his keys and she let them into his home.
As soon as they stepped inside, two cats came running towards them and immediately started sniffing her legs and rubbing themselves against her feet.
“I’m sorry about the smell. I’m used to it, but Shona is always complaining about it. It certainly looks like you’ve made two new friends there, by the way. I’m impressed. Cats are good judges of character and people’s souls… and they both really like you. Normally they’d run a mile and hide upstairs.”
“I probably just smell of fish from the boat I was out in this afternoon.”
“We’ll go in here.” Angus said, leading the way and wheeling himself into the room at the front of his house. “But can you go ben the house and get two glasses from the sink, and pick up the bottle of Drum Dregg from the table?”
By the time Alessandra returned, Angus had lifted himself from the wheelchair onto a couch.
The room was small and overcrowded. There was a separate chair beside the couch and along the wall was a bed. In the corner there was a plasma TV, looking rather out of place, and there was an open fire in the opposite wall.
“If you’re cold, you could strike a match and set fire to the kindling in the grate. The fire’s already prepared for the evening. It just needs lighting.”
In spite of it being summer, it was a really cold day, and when the sun had gone down, the temperature had dipped dramatically.
Alessandra knelt down and got the fire started, before she joined Angus who had already poured them both a glass of whisky.
“Slangevar!” Angus raised his glass, and she replied, doing her best to pronounce the word as he had.
“So,… is this where you seduce me, and have your wicked way with me?” he laughed, then started to cough vigorously.
“Perhaps another day. I do want to touch you but not at all in that way. I want to try something… It may sound weird, but everything that I’m going to tell you now is true. It did happen…”
Alessandra started to explain all about her visit to the monk, then what happened to Robert and Lisa. And how she’d effectively run away to save her sanity.
“I just drove… I had to escape… and then I found myself heading back to Plockton. And probably, to you. I think that subconsciously I was coming back to see you. Maybe I can do the same for you that I did for Lisa and Robert?”
“You think you can heal me?” Young Angus’s jaw dropped, his expression one of complete disbelief.
“I don’t know. But I’d like to try. If it worked for them, I want it to work for you too. And I want a friendly witness to help me understand whether or not I’m going mad.”
“And what do you expect to happen? That you’ll cure me of cancer?”
“I hope so.”
“Dinna be daft, lassie. I’m dying. And there’s nothing that you, or anyone else can do about it. I’ve had my time and the grim reaper’s knocking on my door, and there’s nothing that anyone can do to keep him out.”
Alessandra detected an edge of anger in his voice.
“Will you let me try?”
Young Angus stared at her.
He said nothing for a moment, then poured himself another glass of whisky and downed it in one.
“Is it important to you that you do?” he replied, surprising her with the question.
Now it was Alessandra’s turn to be quiet.
“I need to know if I can do this again. I don’t understand what happened before. Was it just a one-off… twice… something weird that just happened in Loch Ness, or is there something more to it?”
“So you’re doing it more for you, than me?”
“For both of us. Didn’t I just say that the reason I came back here was because of you?”
“You did, lassie. But I’m just trying to figure out who will be doing the healing if it happens again. Will I be healing you, or you healing me?”
“Are we doing this or not?”
“I’m game for a laugh if you are. But I’m having another dram beforehand. And if I fall asleep whilst you’re in the middle of doing whatever you want to do, then you can let me be and just let yourself out. There’ll be no need to make any excuses. What you’re suggesting is impossible, and I don’t believe in the impossible. At most, perhaps the implausible, but only at a push.”
Alessandra nodded. She looked around the room, then her eyes settled on the bed.
“How about you get onto the bed and lie down?”
“Now this is getting interesting,” Angus replied, swallowing another mouthful of Drum Dregg. “But I have to warn you, I think I’ve probably drunk too much of the good stuff to perform as my reputation would normally demand…”
Alessandra slapped him playfully across the shoulder.
“Behave. Can you get there yourself, or do you need a hand up?”
“A wee bit o' help would be appreciated, lassie.”
A few minutes later, Angus was lying on his back on his bed, looking up expectantly at Alessandra.
“What happens next? I must admit it’s been a while and I can’t remember what…”
Alessandra scowled at him.
“Maybe this is a bad idea. If you’re just going to laugh at me, I won’t be able to do it. And I don’t even really know what it is I’m meant to do.”
“We sound like a couple of virgins…”
“Last chance, then I leave, and you never find out if I’m just a mad woman or a witch with magic powers.”
“Which would you prefer? To be a mad woman, or a witch with powers?”
“Right now I wish I was a witch so I could cast a spell of silence on you!” she paused, breathing deeply. “Actually… I think I’ll leave… This was a crazy idea.”
Alessandra was turning to go when she felt Angus’s hand on her wrist.
“Sorry. Don’t. Please stay. I’ll be quiet. I’m just a little scared.”
“Not half as much as me, you’re not.” Alessandra replied quickly.
“Not true. It was me that suggested that you go to Loch Ness in the first place. To find out the true reason behind whatever it was that you were experiencing. Maybe it could turn out that seeing the Lady of the Loch was just the calm before the storm… the carrot that attracted you to the monastery, and the monk…. and a gift of healing… and with that gift you will heal me and save my life… I’ve got used to the idea of death, or at least I thought I had, until you suddenly told me all this rubbish. And now I’m petrified that you could really have something, after all!”
“So you want me to try?”
“I don’t want to die.”
She could see the fear in his eyes then. She’d never noticed it before. But it was there now.
And she could see the hope. The anticipation. The promise of redemption.
She nodded.
“Lie back.” She instructed, reaching out and switching the electric light off at the door. The room was now lit only by the soft orange glow of the fire. “Try to relax. And please be quiet. I need to take a moment to focus. And to figure out what happens next…”
“I’ll go to sleep then. And you can get on with whatever you want. If I wake up with a smile on my face, and a cigarette in my mouth, I’ll know it was as good for you as it was for me…”
“ENOUGH!” she smiled at him and punched him playfully on the arm. “Please be quiet!”
Young Angus coughed a few times, then sat up and winced, as a spasm of pain coursed through his body.
“How bad is it?” Alessandra asked.
“Getting worse.”
“Do you have any family?”
“No. None to speak of. A son. But we don’t talk. Haven’t spoken in years.”
Angus reached for the bottle of whisky and the glass again. He poured himself another glass and drank it down quickly.
“You’ve drunk a lot…” Alessandra cautioned him, but then immediately felt rather silly when she heard the reply.
“I’m self-medicating. Morphine and I don’t agree with each other. It’s either the whisky or a bullet in the head. And no one round here seems to want to do that for me, or has a gun. But if you know anyone who’s good at mercy killings, please direct them my way. And soon.”
Alessandra bit her tongue.
Perhaps, if she couldn’t help him in one way, then later on, when the time came, she could help him in another.
“Why don’t you lie down now, and we’ll give this a go.”
She put a hand gently on his shoulder and coaxed him backwards onto the bed. She helped remove his shoes and lifted his feet up onto the mattress, and then positioned a pillow comfortably under his head.
He looked at her. His eyes searching hers. She felt weak. Hollow. Sad. Full of compassion for the old man. An old man so full of life, but whose life was ebbing slowly away. Day by day. Spasm by painful spasm.
The corners of his mouth curled up into a representation of a smile, then he closed his eyes.
Alessandra stood by his side.
The room was now silent.
Slowly she began to notice a clock ticking on the mantelpiece, and she could hear the wood crackling in the flames and the fire rushing up the chimney.
She closed her eyes.
She wanted to help this man. To cure him. To make him well.
Did she have to the power to do so?
Rubbing her hands together she warmed them up, then placed them gently on Young Angus’s chest.
She tried to remember the words of the monk, the affirmation of the fact that she was now blessed. She tried to recall his words, his voice.
Beneath her fingers she could feel Angus’s body. The faint pulse of his heart.
She wondered if she should open up his shirt and place her hands directly onto his skin, but perhaps that would be too intimate.
After all, she hardly knew the man.
Focussing, she screwed her eyes tightly shut. She imagined that Young Angus would be well. She tried to visualise the cancer within him and tried to imagine it shrinking and disappearing. She conjured up pictures in her mind of him being well again. Of being pain free. Smiling. Walking. Laughing.
A frustration began to build within her.
She thought of the moments she had done this with Robert and Lisa and recalled the strange sensations that she had felt: the tingling of her fingers, the heat, the transfer of ‘something’ from her to them.
She tried to remember what she had done before in an effort to make it happen again now.
She tried. She tried hard.
But nothing happened.
“Have you started yet?” Young Angus asked, quietly, a few moments later.
Alessandra, exhaled loudly, realising for the first time just how stressed and tense she was.
She really wanted this. Both for him and for her.
To prove that she was not going mad. That whatever had happened at Loch Ness was real. That no matter how crazy it was, how impossible it was, that it had happened.
That she could do it again.
Without answering, she pushed slightly onto his chest with both hands. She moved them around on his body, trying to find another pos
ition where a ‘connection’ could maybe be made. Where she could possibly sense something, anything, within Angus’s body.
She pushed a little harder.
“It’s hurting,” Angus exclaimed, quietly, reluctant to interrupt whatever Alessandra was doing, but at the same time, beginning to feel very uncomfortable.
Alessandra willed it to happen even more.
It had to happen.
She had to heal him.
“Stop!” Angus cried out, pushing her hands away. “Enough. It’s too painful.”
Alessandra blinked, opened her eyes, and stepped backwards from the bed, both her hands still held out in front of her in mid-air.
Angus reached for the bottle of whisky and the glass, and Alessandra quickly fetched it for him, pouring a glass and handing it to him.
A tear emerged at the corner of her eye, and as she wiped it away, another appeared immediately after it, followed quickly by several more.
Alessandra swallowed hard, took a deep breath and drew herself up as tall as she could.
“I’m so sorry, Angus. I’m so sorry…”
“Dinna fash yerself, lassie. I didn’t expect anything to happen. And nothing did. So we’re no worse off now than before. Don’t worry about me… But how are you?”
Angus sat up in the bed, sipped his wee dram, although it was more large than wee, and studied Alessandra.
The soft orange light cast by the fire danced across her face, but Angus could see the confusion there. The frustration. He reached out a hand to her.
“Nothing happened. There was nothing… I don’t understand. I tried my best. I wanted to heal you, I really did. I willed it with every ounce of my being, but nothing… NOTHING happened.”
“Perhaps it’s not something that you can turn on and off like a light.”
“I don’t know what it is. I don’t know how it works, or why it worked in Loch Ness. But if it worked for Lisa and Robert, why not for you too? You need it more than them. You’re dying. They’re not.”
The Assassin's Gift Page 18
