by kc dyer
I grabbed the handrail behind him as we careened through a roundabout. I wasn’t about to pay extra for a ticket to somewhere I couldn’t afford to go.
“Can I get out here, then? I can walk back and get the right bus if you let me off at this corner.”
He didn’t even look up at me, just tapped a little notice he had tacked up beside the swing arm to open the door. NO UNSCHEDULED STOPS.
“Well, what’s the next stop, then?”
“Crianlarich. Ye can change there and go through Stirling to Edinburgh.”
“Seriously? That’s going to take…”
His glare stopped me in mid-sentence. “Yer lucky I’m not fer chargin’ yeh. Pay better mind the next time ye get on a bus, aye?”
Duly chastened, I struggled toward the back to find a seat as the bus rocketed along the motorway. At least it was not likely to be a long detour.
The bus was almost full, but I managed to jam my pack into an overhead bin and fall into a seat beside a lady whose knitting needles were busily clacking. I apologized when I realized I was sitting on her bag, but she waved it off.
“Ach, niver mind, Miss. I shoulda been quicker to move it away when I saw ye comin’.” She tucked the bag with the ball of wool inside between her feet and handed me a newspaper. “Here’s your paper, dear.”
“Oh, it’s not—” I began, when I caught sight of a teaser on the front page.
“Thank you,” I said, instead, and sat back to read an excerpt of my friend’s new bestseller.
My plan to keep my eyes to the windows and drink in the last of the Highland scenery had washed away in light of the found newspaper. I’d hardly noticed anything of the trip to Crianlarich as we sped along the road, the sound of the knitting needles beside me competing with the belches and gurgles of the bus.
The piece was in the Entertainment section of the Daily Scotsman. Apparently they had been running sneak peeks for a week or so. This issue held an excerpt, an interview with Jack and a rave review noting that the new book had bumped Ian Rankin’s latest thriller out of the number one spot on the bestseller list.
After the reception he’d received on that morning show, I didn’t doubt it. The three articles, along with an ad for Irn-Bru, took up most of the lower half of the page. The interview focused on the political implications of writing a book about a Scottish hero at a time when popular opinion in the country was surging toward independence from Westminster.
The excerpt, on the other hand, looked like Mrs. McCarthy from Edinburgh had picked it out. It was a love scene, depicting Wallace’s last night with his wife sometime before leaving to fight at Stirling Bridge. It was the steamiest thing I had ever read, apart from my favorite scene with Claire and Jamie in the hot springs. And I found it interesting that Wallace’s wife was no red-head, but had “wheaten” curls and hazel eyes. She had a decent grasp of the dire political position her husband was in, too. I’d never read a love scene with quite so much intellectual foreplay. It was—thought provoking. And hot.
Which made me smile.
“Lovely piece o’ writin’, aye?” said the lady with the knitting needles as I put the paper down. I nodded, still caught up in the scene Jack had woven.
“I pre-ordered the book at Waterstones,” she said from under a cloud of pale blue wool. “Been a fan o’ his work fer years, but the man has really stepped up his game wi’ this one.”
With the clicking needles, her warm smile and the tight brown curls around her head, I was reminded of a pre-alcohol Genesie.
The thought of Genesie actually made me laugh out loud.
“Oh—I was just remembering someone I met in New York,” I said in response to the woman’s questioning look. “Your knitting reminded me of her. She loves Braveheart.”
The knitting lady’s brows drew together, reminding me even more startlingly of Genesie. She folded her knitting into her lap.
“You Americans,” she said—quite scathingly, I thought—“Yeh allus get yer history wrong. Even the title o’ that fillum was wrong. The Braveheart was the Bruce, not Wallace. Robert the Bruce, tae be exact, another giant of a man who died years after William Wallace. He’d tasked his friend the Black Douglas to take his heart to the Holy Land, but they were set upon and the Douglas were kill-et. Before Douglas died, he threw the heart toward the east, calling upon it to carry on bravely. That American fillum got it entirely wrong.”
Having learned my lesson from Genesie and her knitting needles well, I sat quietly and nodded as the bus rocked side to side.
“And mind, I’m from Stirling, m’self, and I were there when that young movie star fella came to town to premiere the thing. You know he never stepped out of his big black car, not even the once? Kept them limousine windows dark as the devil’s arse, never mind all them folk around, waitin’ to see him, all who’d put their lives on hold while he filmed his movie.”
She made a noise in the back of her throat. “He tries to claim he’s Australian, yeh know, but the man is American through and through.”
She nodded her head at this pronouncement; as if this was the worst insult she could come up with. Rant over, she gathered up her needles and the wooly project she’d been working on. The bus wheezed and farted and as we slowed, she reached down for her knitting bag, her former placid expression completely restored.
“Where ever yer headed, ye’d do worse than to stop in Stirling for an hour and visit the shrine tae the Wallace,” she said, as I stood up. “It’ll gi’e yeh an education, if now’t else.”
So, that’s what I did.
A Fleeting Foray…
2:00 pm, Sept 1
Cathy’s Café, Stirling, Scotland
A brief pause in the journey——a final fleeting foray into the past, as prescribed by a wise woman I met earlier today.
A few thoughts on the best way to spend the last days of a journey:
Let spontaneity rule the day, as you never know what’s behind the next corner.
Look past the standard tourist fare and seek out locations where real people live their lives. Common ground can be found in the craziest places!
Listen——to any local willing to share a bit of their story. You will learn more than you think——and you will thank me.
And now I go to learn more of the Wallace, and his role in the shaping of the country.
About time, wouldn’t you say?
- ES
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I’d told myself when I stepped off the bus that I’d just take a quick look at the Wallace monument, and then head south again. But the first thing I saw when alighting in Stirling was an Internet cafe. I reasoned a quick look at my email wouldn’t hurt. I had decided not to tell Sophia when I was returning just yet—prolonging the inevitable, I suppose.
I splurged and caught a cab from the bus station. Stirling was almost like a smaller version of Edinburgh; with a medieval center to its old town, topped by a castle at the end of a long, winding road. The castle looked interesting, perched above the city like a gray eagle. A single building stood out from the rest, shining like gold in the hot afternoon sun.
“It’s grand, innit?” said the cab driver, as he wound me through the city and away from the castle. “It’s called the King’s Gold, but is really just a limestone wash. The whole great hall has been reconstructed, though—ye really ought to take time to see it.”
“I have to get to Edinburgh today,” I said, staring back over my shoulder regretfully. “But maybe just a quick look.”
“Ach, weel, tha’s a shame, tha’ is,” said the cabbie. “Enjoy looking around the castle. And as for the rest, yeh can allus return next year, aye?”
“Aye,” I said, absently. “Aye.”
It was the off-season rates that pulled me in. And the stories of the Bruce and the Wallace and all the other heroes who had tread the soil of Stirling, in its place between the Highlands and the Lowlands of this great country. I found myself a student again. Just trying to learn something before h
eading back to America.
It’s amazing how quickly the days can pass, especially when one is already “an overstay”…
Ten days after I had first stepped off the bus in Stirling, I found myself among a crowd standing at the base of the Wallace Monument.
It was the last significant landmark remaining for me to visit in the area. I had spent several days exploring the castle and the town of Stirling, with its jails and its refurbished townhouses and interpretive centers. It seemed everywhere I wandered I could learn something new. But there, among a busload of late-season tourists listening to a man portraying one of Wallace’s soldiers explain his part of the uprising, I knew it had to be my last day. I’d used up the last of the ‘little bit extra’ I’d saved over what a plane ticket would cost, which was at a premium since I was buying so last-minute. I had enough to catch the bus to Edinburgh, and perhaps buy dinner, if I was lucky.
I looked up at the tower, feeling faintly disappointed. I hadn’t realized until I arrived that, by Scottish standards at least, it was practically new. Built in the nineteenth century by Scottish patriots who felt that Wallace had never been given his due, it towered above the surrounding countryside. But it was built closer to my time than his, and I felt a little sad that this comparatively new edifice would be my last experience in Scotland.
Still. The description noted that at least seven significant battlefields could be viewed from its turrets. It sounded impressive. It looked impressive. I climbed all the way up the crag to see these very views.
But I never saw a single one.
You’d think, being practically a modern building and all, the patriots would have thought to put a reasonable staircase into the thing. But no—Scots practicality won over all, and the only way to scale the two hundred forty six steps of the tower was by spiral staircase.
A tight, dark spiral staircase.
I would have been fine—or if not completely fine, at least able to make it to the top—if there had been a window half way. The stairway was clear when I started up, and I didn’t run into anyone as I climbed. But the first room into which the stairway emerged was packed. Inside, a weird William Wallace hologram spoke of the battle. Across the room, admirers encircled the man’s mighty broadsword in its illuminated glass case.
I could feel my heart begin to squeeze in my chest. I knew I was at least half way up the tower, and I knew the top would be open to the air. But in front of me, a large man clutching a melting ice cream cone lumbered toward the tight staircase. I couldn’t take my eyes off the sight of his substantial buttocks bulging below a straining leather belt. A climb to the top meant his ass would be my view all the way up that tight, dark, twisting stair.
Before I knew what was happening, my legs had propelled me forward. I elbowed past the man and his ice cream and flung myself down the stairs. I pushed past at least two families on the way down, and one woman had to clutch her child’s hand to prevent him falling down behind me. “I’m sorry,” I muttered each time, but by the time I got to the bottom, I was in full-out panic mode. I ran out through the door, past the performer still in full voice as a soldier and down the winding path through the trees.
I’d run almost all the way down the crag before lack of oxygen and muscular exhaustion slowed me to a walk. I was panting and trying not to cry, and collapsed onto a bench near the entrance to the gift shop to try and collect myself.
I dropped my head into my hands, and went straight for the heart of the matter. My claustrophobia was one thing, but this had been so much worse. The kindly Genesie-clone, the cab driver—even the cranky bus driver. Every step that had taken me away from Nairn, away from all I had grown to love, was making me sadder and more desperate. Knowing this was the last stop before the airport in Edinburgh had obviously flipped some kind of switch inside my head.
I took a deep, shuddering breath. Going back to Chicago—I could no longer think of it as home—wouldn’t be that bad. I would find a way to get back here.
I would.
And right then, the police arrived.
I’m not sure how it happened. One minute I was sitting on the bench, trying to get a grip on myself, and the next a police car had pulled up beside me.
Since the six-month tourist visa time limit had passed, I had been a little nervous when I caught sight of a policeman, but really? I wasn’t that worried. If someone did find out I’d overstayed my welcome, I could always play the ignorance card. Sitting there on the bench below the Wallace Monument, I was, if anything, less worried than I had been since I’d left Nairn. I was, after all, on my way to the Edinburgh airport.
I did feel a little guilty, remembering Matthew, the sweet airport employee who’d refunded me the ticket money in Inverness all those months ago. But I was on my way, and his airline was still the one who was going to take my money and fly me home.
Of course it was.
So when the police car slowed down beside me and the window scrolled down, I couldn’t have been less concerned.
“Are ye all right, Miss?” the policewoman asked me.
And I bolted like a rabbit.
I have no idea why. I’ve always wondered, when watching various cops and robbers shows, why the robbers would run for it, especially when there was never any question they’d be caught. On camera.
Didn’t stop me. I took a straight right turn and headed into the field, the ‘Bad Boys’ theme ringing in my head. “Dammit, Hamish,” I muttered, as I picked up speed. I hated to think the only thing I’d taken from our relationship was a pop-song fixation.
The field, I knew, backed into a wood. I’d seen it on my way up with the cab driver, and I’d run through part of it once already, on my way down from the monument. If I could make the wood, I could hide there until the police lost interest in me, and then hop a bus before they knew I was gone.
It was an excellent plan.
Behind me, I could hear a strangled cry, and someone yelling “Wait! Stop!”
I didn’t stop.
As I ran, I saw a goat standing behind the low rock wall separating my field from the next. He had four horns on his head, and looked like someone had splashed his white coat with black paint. He seemed entirely unperturbed at the sight of a stranger blundering past.
For the past six months, I had been riding a bike twice a day, not to mention the miles walked between tables at the cafe and up and down the fields with Morag. I not only had panic on my side, I had a bit of muscle.
And I would have made it—I really would have—but for the kissing gate in the field.
Obviously, I knew kissing gates. I’d learned how they worked the very first day I’d met Morag, and I’d even been quite memorably kissed up against one. The gate below the Wallace monument attached to a stile on either side; perfect for leaping over if one was a human, less so for cattle. Or goats.
Not at all worried, I took a flying leap over the stile, but somehow managed to clip the toe of my Converse between the two sides of the gate. Seconds later, I was being sat-upon by a large policewoman, who was possessed of a substantial body mass, but was very damned fast, for all that. She pulled my arms behind my back and cuffed me. Considering I had just been through a major bout of panic-driven claustrophobia, I didn’t take to the cuffs very well.
“I cannae uncuff ye, Miss, until ye give me yer name,” she said, when I paused for breath.
This left me so confused that I forgot to feel panicky. “Don’t you know my name?” I gasped. “Why would you arrest me if you don’t know my name?”
“You’re not under arrest, madam. That is—I would prefer if you’ just assist me by telling me your name.”
“It’s Emma Sheridan,” I said, hanging my head. “Can you please just take the cuffs off?”
“Look, luv,” she said, kindly. “I dinnae know who you are, but even in America, ye must know that if ye run from the police we will chase you. No why would ye think I’d want to arrest ye on this fine day?”
“I—I’ve over
stayed my visa. But I was heading to the airport today, I swear.”
The policewoman looked thoughtful. “Well, I have to say we’re not generally in the habit of arresting tourists, especially on their way home. But ye did run, so let’s just walk back to the car and get this sorted, a’right?”
In the end, I was ignominiously perp-walked back through the Wallace Monument field. The spotted goat viewed me balefully, chewing. The police officer, whose name was Doris, carried my backpack and helped me over the fence to the waiting police car.
And standing beside the car was Jack Findlay.
I had used up my full capacity of adrenaline for the day. “What are you doing here?” I asked, as coolly as I could, considering the handcuffs.
“I was just about to ask you the same question,” he said, raising his eyebrows at the sight of my shackled wrists. “I’m here to sign copies of my book at the gift shop.” He glanced up at the tower looming above us. “My Wallace book. And you …?”
I didn’t have time to answer, as something had come over my arresting officer.
“Hellow Mister Findlay,” said Doris, simpering.
I stared at her, but she only had eyes for Jack.
“Er … hello,” he said.
“I’ve read all yer books, Mister Findlay,” said Doris, breathily. “But this last one about Wallace? It were a masterpiece.”
“Well, thank you, PC—ah—Potts. Perhaps you can tell me why you have my friend here all trussed up?”
“I especially loved Missus Wallace, Jack. She was so—enamored with her husband, weren’t she?”
I noted with alarm how Doris had moved so quickly into a first-name basis with her favorite author.
“She was indeed, PC Potts. I—I had a wee bit of historical freedom to develop her character, as so little is actually known. But, regarding my friend Emma, here. Can you tell me why she’s being detained?”
