When They Lay Bare
Page 32
I know, I know, Jinny says. I feel it too.
They’re standing watching the birds fly through the ruined arch in the dusk, and there is peace at last. Somewhere a bell is ringing and under his hand her dress is blue crushed velvet. The oddest thing, Sim thinks, the very oddest thing is that a ruined arch is so much more bonnie than a whole church – the way it gives out, the way birds fly through the ruins of his chest, the bell ringing on and on, then her voice speaking clear among the relief of falling night.
*
On the tenement stair someone finally got fed up enough with the bell to go up and complain. Thumped on Robertson’s door but got no reply. Through the keyhole the light was shining, a small suitcase lay in the hall. And still the bell rang on till someone sent for the police and they came, opened up the door and in the back bedroom found the big crumpled man lying on a blue dress, his eyes wide open until the senior officer closed them gently with his thumb then wiped it on his trousers as if that could keep his own death at bay. Makes a change to see a peaceful death, he said, though it’s hard to tell, eh?
*
I saw her walk alane out of the misty wood, and thought to leave the house to meet her. But something in the glower of her and the bright haze that limned her head and shoulders kept me down on my arse. She glanced aince my way across the gulf atween us then went into the cottage.
She came out carrying nothing but her pack and the satchel, and with her back turned held her right arm straight above her head pointing at the top of the sky and the world stopped right there.
Even the corbies by the heuch held their wheesht. Then she dropped her arm, the satchel gave a wee dunt on her back, and she was sliding over the dyke. She strode long-legged down through windlestrae and loaning without hesitation on her way.
I sat on and on in my workroom, pulling sweet wersh smoke into my lungs, knowing it too late to change anything at all as I watched her pass down into the mirk. A mist was poosking from the river, I strained my eyes as the haar clasped about her, then she walked into it and was gone.
*
Long may the lady pine and long may Sim Elliot wait for his only son and heir to come riding home. In the howe the hassocks wet my ankles as I enter the fringes of the mist. Warm in my right hand the stone disc and the coin. In my belly the future grows already and will in turn act out its fate.
We are who we believe ourselves to be, and I have done what I was made to do. I regret only that the blood-red family ring must lie for ever about a white finger-bone in the depths of the Liddie Burn.
In time there will be made another song, another story. And in time that too will be half-forgotten, doubtful and misread. Then there will be only the old road, a rickle of stones where a cottage once was, and the wind keening over the dyke for evermore.
The mist clasps about me by the Border. I walk into it and am gane.
About the Author
Andrew Greig was born in Bannockburn near Stirling in 1951. He completed an MA in Philosophy at Edinburgh University and then worked in a variety of jobs, including salmon netting, hop picking and farm work. He ‘survived’ as a poet for nearly 20 years thanks to the Scottish Arts Council and various bursaries, as well as teaching creative writing in schools and giving readings. He was Writer-in-Residence at Glasgow University 1979–1981, and at Edinburgh University 1992–1994.
Andrew Greig now lives in Orkney and the Lothians. His first novel, Electric Brae, was shortlisted for the McVitie’s Prize and the Boardman-Tasker Award, and his second, The Return of John MacNab, was shortlisted for the Romantic Novelist’s Award and topped the Scottish bestseller lists in 1996. He is also the author of the acclaimed When They Lay Bare (1999) and That Summer (2000).
He is recognised as one of the leading Scottish poets of his generation, having written six volumes of poetry. He is also well known for his writing on mountaineering, based on his climbing experiences in Scotland and the Himalayas. His acknowledged classic in mountaineering literature, Kingdoms of Experience, has been reissued by Canongate.
By the Same Author
poetry
MEN ON ICE
SURVIVING PASSAGES
A FLAME IN YOUR HEART
THE ORDER OF THE DAY
WESTERN SWING
mountaineering
SUMMIT FEVER
KINGDOMS OF EXPERIENCE
fiction
ELECTRIC BRAE
THE RETURN OF JOHN MACNAB
Copyright
First published in 1999
by Faber and Faber Ltd
Bloomsbury House
74–77 Great Russell Street
London WC1B 3DA
This ebook edition first published in 2013
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© Andrew Greig, 1999
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ISBN 978–0–571–30795–1