‘I’d be glad to set it to rights,’ Tam interposed eagerly. ‘I wouldny like auld Biddy to think we have been neglecting her house.’ He reddened and left the house abruptly.
Shona took off her apron and went to retrieve her coat from the stand. A shiver went through her. Could she go back there? Back to the house where Ellie had died – back to an empty shell that held no really good memories for her? What was the point? She wasn’t going to live there again . . . Even as she argued with herself she was writing her father a note, telling him where she was going. Her hands were icy as she let herself out of the house. It had been so long since she had encountered wide open spaces that panic invaded her. The wind lifted her hair, tossed it about her face. Impatiently she pushed it from her eyes and stared about her. It was a boisterous day with the clouds scudding across the sky and the tang of wind-tossed heather and peat smoke strong in her nostrils. She had once loved days like these, the excitement, the exuberance of them. It seemed so long since she had really looked at the world – breathed its life into her lungs.
She wandered along the road, her eyes roving everywhere at once. Mo Dhachaidh appeared, a lone white speck, something welcoming about the sight of it in such a secluded spot. But at closer quarters it had an air of neglect about it. A twinge of guilt wormed into her at the sight of the bedraggled feathers on the hens and involuntarily she returned a speckled round pebble to the windowsill from which it had been pushed by the hens. Ellie had collected a lot of stones like it from the seashore and Shona had jokingly told her she would grow to be an eccentric like Dodie. The interior of the house was cold; a musty odour pervaded the rooms. She compared it with the warmth, the atmosphere of Laigmhor, but knew she wasn’t being fair – all it needed was people – life about it – but Ellie had been its life – the heart that kept it ticking over . . . Her glance fell on Memory Corner. Biddy’s picture was as she’d left it, face down on the ledge and the remaining photos seemed to look at her mockingly, reproachfully. Her arm shot out and in one swift movement she swept the pictures and the vase with its withered flowers to the floor. The vase smashed into pieces, the photos lay scattered everywhere.
She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror that hung on the window wall; a strange-eyed, gaunt-faced woman with lank, untidy hair looked back at her, the fire of the hair was dulled, there was a wisp of grey in the tendrils round the ears. With a little cry she snatched a pair of scissors from the drawer and hacked and hacked till her thumb and forefinger were ringed with red weals and coils of hair lay on the dirty red tiles.
‘That’s it,’ she panted, her nostrils flaring. ‘New beginnings, get rid of everything that’s old, make a fresh start. Mirabelle said it was good luck to do that, good luck, good luck, good luck . . .’ The words rang in her ears and she laughed derisively. ‘Ellie said we would be lucky here and look how lucky she was . . .’ She tossed away the scissors and threw herself onto Biddy’s chair to rock herself back and forth, gazing with wide dry eyes into nothingness. Was this what it would always be like? The emptiness? The bitterness that made her snap at people like Tam McKinnon whose only crime was a happy disposition? . . . A shadow fell over her and she looked up startled to see Mark James standing beside her.
‘I knocked but there was no answer.’ His smile was warm but she didn’t respond, her hand going up self-consciously to her head. He had visited Laigmhor several times but always there had been Kirsteen, her father, Bob . . . She wondered what had prompted him to come here, and as if in answer to her thoughts he explained that he had arrived at Laigmhor only to find it empty and her note on the table.
‘It was private,’ she said ungraciously, adding pointedly, ‘And I came here to be alone, I don’t need any sermons.’
She continued to rock, the chair creaking rhythmically on its springs. His glance fell on the strands of hair littering the floor and he grinned in his engaging way. ‘I see you’ve been treating yourself to a hairdo. They say it always boosts a woman’s morale.’
‘Do they?’ she said flatly. ‘Are you one of them?’
‘I suppose I am,’ he answered evenly, choosing to ignore the heavy sarcasm in her tones.
She eyed him, struck afresh by the aura of power which emanated from him. He was wearing his dog collar but otherwise there was nothing to mark him down as a man of God. His dark hair was windblown, a wet autumn leaf was sticking to his shoe, raindrops spattered the shoulders of his heavy coat.
‘Do you know more about women than you let on?’ she asked dryly.
He pulled out a chair and seated himself a little way from her, his manner neither confidential nor deferential. ‘Perhaps I know more than you think, Shona.’
‘Really!’ She laughed mirthlessly, annoyed to find that his proximity discomfited her. ‘And I suppose you’re going to try and impress me with how much you think you know – to comfort me in my hour of need?’
He spread his hands, fine strong hands with the nails clean but not too clean, as if he had spent a morning in the garden and couldn’t quite scrub the earth from them.
‘If you want me to,’ he said quietly.
She threw back her head and stared at him mockingly. ‘Well, go on then, I’m waiting. I’ve lost a child who was my world and if you can help me to forget that then you’re quite a man, Mark James.’
Slowly he raised his head, his smoky eyes met and held hers, and there was such a depth of emotion in them she found herself holding her breath. Moments stretched, laden with a strange palpable intimacy that seemed to lock them into a physical embrace. Her heart began to pound; against her will her gaze travelled to the wide, sensual line of his mouth. She struggled to compose her feelings but she was mesmerized, in her mind imagining his lips on hers, kissing her till she was beyond all resistance. It had been so long since she and Niall had held each other, so very long. For a time she wouldn’t have cared if he had never made love to her again but more and more of late she hadn’t been able to stop herself from thinking about him, wanting him back – but she had sent him away – rejected him – in the past week not even Phebie had heard from him and it looked as if he was staying on Hanaay over Christmas . . .
‘I’m sorry – oh – I’m so very very sorry!’ she burst out passionately, uncertain if she was apologizing to Niall or the man who sat so close to her. With a sudden, decisive movement he got to his feet and in two strides covered the distance to her chair. Pulling her up to him he wound his arms round her and held her close, his face against hers, the warmth of him flooding her being. She didn’t struggle away, instead she laid her head on his shoulder, a beautiful kind of peace diffusing her limbs. His strength, his goodness seemed to flow into her, his silence so laden with meaning it was as if he had chosen all the right things to say. She was unprepared for the swift turn of his head. His mouth, warm and passionate came over hers in a kiss so deep, so penetrating, she was robbed of all resistance. She raised up her arms to entwine her fingers into the crisp hair at his nape, all the while exerting pressure on his head, urging him to fire, to kiss and kiss her till the raw ache of desire burned deep in her belly while her tongue met and played with his in ever deepening circles of unconcealed rapture. She drowned in ecstasy for a few brief unforgettable minutes, then he tore his lips away to lay his abrasive cheek against the smoothness of hers once more, his breath harsh and quick in his throat. Longing, strong, dangerous surged through her, her heart pulsed, her weak limbs grew weaker still. The virile heart of his body burned into her, the smell of his damp hair, his clean, rain-washed skin, was a heady concoction which she breathed and breathed into her so that she would never forget it for as long as she lived. She knew these moments in his arms were the only ones she would ever have and she savoured them while she could.
‘Just once – I had to kiss you – just once!’ The depth of his feelings edged his voice to roughness.
‘I have lain in your arms before now,’ she whispered, ‘in my mind.’
‘I too,’ his voice was husk
y now, as if he spoke through tears. She became aware that he was trembling, as if some force had seized him and was without his power to control. His mouth touched her ear and she shivered, her heart twisting with so much emotion she felt like fainting. ‘This is the first and last time I will ever hold you in my arms.’ His words were raw, broken. He moved away and immediately she felt bereft, experiencing an echo of the bitter-sweet sadness she would know in days and years to come whenever she thought about this time – this now – with him. The fleeting interlude of intimacy was a culmination of something they had both known would happen. His lean face was etched into lines of pain, the same sort of useless longing that was in her shone naked in the blue-grey fathoms of his eyes. Her arms ached to hold his hard exciting body once more but she knew that she never would – it was over before it had begun.
He turned away to stare unseeingly from the window. ‘I have committed adultery with you, as surely as if I had lain in your bed beside you.’ His voice was hushed, laced with shock, and she put her fist to her mouth, exerting every shred of willpower to stop herself from running to him.
‘No, no,’ she breathed in protest, ‘we have done nothing wrong!’
He half turned, the burning meaning in his glance quieting her. Of course she knew what he meant, why pretend it had never happened – why deny to him of all people the thing that she had sustained in her mind from the day they met? She shut her eyes . . .
‘Will you always love me?’ Like a bolt from the blue the words came to her, words that Niall had spoken, laden with a strange urgency – as if he had momentarily glimpsed something of what was to happen. She pressed her fist hard against her mouth but not before Mark James heard her whimpered cry of distress.
He passed a hand over his eyes. ‘I didn’t mean any of this to happen – I only came here to talk to you – perhaps comfort you – and somehow I’ve only succeeded in confusing us both.’
‘No, don’t say that, please don’t! You came when I was in a very dangerous mood. I was hating, hating everything and everybody, the same sort of bitter resentment I’ve had for so long now! You came in for a bit of it when you walked through my door. I saw life and happiness in you and I wanted to rob you of it – instead you have given some of it to me. You’ve brought me alive again, I feel as if I can see, hear – feel for the first time since Ellie died.’ She looked straight into his eyes. ‘You touched me with an enchantment today that will always remain with me. I’ll never get over it as long as I live. You have power, Mark James, power over women – yet – you walk alone – it’s such a waste of such a bonny man!’
‘Not alone, Shona, with God – and before Him with a wonderful girl who later became my wife.’ He looked away and spoke almost to himself. ‘Before I met her I was a wreck of a human being – I had all the vices but Margaret changed me – made me into a man. With her encouragement I followed a boyhood dream and went to college to study for the ministry and it was through her help and guidance that I succeeded in what I set out to do. I felt I had everything I ever wanted in my life – then – just over a year ago – Margaret died in a car accident – she and my daughter who was just nine years old. She was fair, gentle, full of laughter – your Ellie reminded me so much of Sharon – the same mischief, the same regard for old people and the wild creatures of the earth . . .’
He couldn’t go on. Shona stared at him, reeling against the pain his confessions had brought him – it was there, in his eyes, an inward-reaching agony which he must have nursed alone for so long. She remembered the air of vulnerability that had surrounded him when first he came to the island – no wonder – oh dear God, no wonder! She bit her lip. Oh to go to him, not as a woman to a man but as one compassionate human being to another, to comfort him in his agony – but she knew she couldn’t, the thing that would always be with them wouldn’t allow her ever to touch him – especially when they were alone together as now.
‘I – want to touch you!’ she cried across the distance that separated them like a deep wide chasm.
‘I know.’ He smiled at her, a warm smile which spread through her like a gentle flame. ‘Me too – but we have to go our separate ways now.’
‘How can you bear it – to be so – alone?’ she whispered.
The smile widened. ‘I told you – I have my God beside me. I deserted Him when my family died and I had a complete nervous breakdown – but He didn’t desert me, He was waiting for me to help me pick up the pieces of my life. Oh, there were times when I was sorely tempted to blame it all on Him but somehow I didn’t think there was much sense in such useless accusations.’
‘But surely – God must take some of the blame?’ she faltered, trying to remember when last she had prayed.
‘It’s easy to blame God when we’re in the black depths of mourning, a human frailty that besets us all when we are least strong.’
‘But – God didn’t help me!’ she cried passionately.
His smile was rueful now. ‘You turned away from Him – from everything. I think God can only help us by surrounding us with people who care – through them He does His work. I came here to make a new life for myself and it’s working. Slowly I’m picking up the pieces but only because I’ve been helped in a practical way by the folk of this island. They aren’t demonstrative, theirs is a staunch support and I’ve appreciated their lack of emotion to help me over my crisis. Barra McLean was the only one who knew what had happened to me, she was one of my parishioners in Glasgow. She helped me by not saying anything because she knew it was what I wanted, yet in a way I’ve hampered my own progress by surrounding myself in mystery. I’m like you, Shona, I should have allowed myself the comfort that only other people can give, but I deluded myself into believing it would only prolong the agony. It doesn’t do to bury a loved one just because the light of life has gone from them. It’s up to us to carry their lamp and the time has come for us both to do that.’
‘I’ve been so selfish – and cruel to everyone.’ Her heart was full to brimming and she could barely get the words out. ‘I’ll never be able to make it up – especially to Niall. I made him suffer more than he could already bear – by turning away from him when he so badly needed me.’
‘He’s a fine man, you’re lucky to have him.’
‘But I haven’t got him,’ she said miserably. ‘I sent him away and because he couldn’t take any more – he went.’
‘He’ll come back, if he loves you enough he’ll be only too ready to meet you halfway.’ He looked down at the litter on the floor. ‘I think we should start off by clearing up this mess.’
She nodded. ‘My temper got the better of me and I took it out on the first things that came to hand.’ A smile lit her pale face. ‘I always did blame my temper for everything.’
He studied her face. ‘You’re smiling, the way you used to when first I met you.’
‘I’ll have to learn to do more of it—’ She paused. ‘How strange – to be having to learn to do the kind of things I always took for granted before – before Ellie died. She was always smiling – I can see her bonny young face now – smiling.’
‘You’re taking the first steps, Shona, you’re remembering the happy things about your daughter. As time goes by they will come to you more and more. When I think of Margaret and Sharon I think of the happy times we shared. My early pictures were all of death but now I see them healthy and rosy and full of life.’
A dry sob caught her unawares. ‘I hope I’ll see Ellie like that again. I try so hard to remember her skipping and laughing but it’s all blotted out by memories of how ill she looked before she died.’
She gazed shakily at the strands of hair on the floor. ‘Niall would be angry if he saw this. He always used to get so mad at me whenever I threatened to cut my hair.’
Mark James studied the hacked remains of her locks. ‘To tell the truth I liked it myself – it was such beautiful hair – but it will grow again.’ Stooping he picked up Mirabelle’s picture. ‘A bonny woman,’ he comm
ented softly. ‘Who was she?’
She gazed at the smiling portrait in his hand. ‘Who was she indeed? She was Mirabelle. She was all things to all people. She kept house for my father – she brought me up when my mother died . . .’ Slowly she retrieved another picture from the floor. ‘This was my mother – she’s beautiful, isn’t she? My father adored her. She died when I was born and he broke his heart. This handsome rogue was my brother Lewis – Lorn’s twin. He was just eighteen when he died.’
One by one she went over the photos, her eyes faraway as she talked about the people who had once enriched her life. ‘This handsome man was my uncle Alick, he died rescuing my father from the Sgor Creags. People thought he was a weak sort of man but he must have been brave to do what he did. This dear lady is auld Biddy, the nurse who brought most of us into the world. She lived in this house all of her life and eventually died peacefully in her own bed. She got the MBE for long service to the community.’ Shona’s eyes had grown shiny. ‘She used to call it a damty fine brooch and pinned it on all the bairnies who came to see her . . .’ Blindly she shook her head. ‘Talking about them makes me so ashamed of myself. I’m glad none of them lived to see how poorly I’ve behaved in time of trouble – I haven’t been very brave, have I?’
‘You’ve been human, Shona, just as they were, you mustn’t blame yourself for that. We all mourn in our different ways.’
He took the pictures and began placing them on the mantelpiece, but she shook her head and cried, ‘No, they belong in Memory Corner. It was Ellie’s idea. She gathered them all together and every other day brought fresh flowers from the moors and fields to put in a vase beside them. Biddy goes like this – turned slightly outwards so that she can look at the view she loved. Mirabelle is facing Biddy because in life they were such good friends—’ She paused and coloured, aware that he was watching her intently.
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