What Scotland Taught Me

by Molly Ringle

  It was torture. He had plenty of cards against me. When was he going to play them?

  When he got up to do the dishes, I volunteered to help, and installed myself next to him at the sink.

  “All right,” I hissed. “If you have some snide comment to make, as I’m sure you do, please get it off your chest now.”

  “Yeah? I would think you’d have something to say to me.” He chucked a fork into the pile in the sink. “Something starting with ‘Thank’ and ending with ‘you.’”

  “I said thank you earlier. But I can tell you’re going to make this as painful for me as possible, so get on it already. I don’t appreciate the suspense.” I seized the fork and scoured it with a dishtowel.

  “Damn, Eva, you are a piece of work. I keep my mouth shut exactly like you ask, and this is your method of appreciation?” He shoved a soapy plate into my hand. “It’s not my fault you can’t figure out what the hell you want.”

  “That’s rich, coming from someone who can’t decide whether or not to screw Amber.” I whipped the plate back and forth in the running water, and smacked it down beside the silverware.

  “Way to change the subject. I’m not even going there. I’ll just say this: I’ve already told you I won’t tell Tony. But keep the bitching up and I might change my mind.”

  “That’s not how a friend behaves.”

  “Yeah? Neither is your behavior lately. To any of us.” His circular scrub of a plate sent suds splashing across my shirt.

  Fuming, I tilted my plate under the tap so the water jetted off and cascaded down his elbow, soaking his sleeve.

  He hissed a breath inward. Our eyes finally met. We held the glare for a good five seconds before I broke the silence.

  “If you tell him, I’d never speak to you again.”

  “Great. I’d never see you again. I’m moving to Massachusetts.”

  “Lovely.” I flung the dishtowel down on top of his pile of silverware. “Handle the rest of the dishes yourself?”

  “Sure. Be a dear and serve your boyfriend some chocolate trifle, won’t you?”

  What could I do but obey, and pin a smile on my face before turning back to our table and rejoining the all-unawares Tony?

  After dessert, I invited Shannon, Amber, and Tony back to Room 17, ditching Laurence, who was in conversation with another hostel employee.

  We sat in our room chatting, and by degrees I relaxed and enjoyed the fresh dose of Wild Rose that Tony brought us. It made my affair with Gil seem dreamlike and far away--nothing that mattered in my real life.

  Then Laurence strolled in and unraveled my composure, his presence reminding me that my infidelity was very real, and could yet crush Tony’s little world, as Laurence himself once put it. But he kept his word and didn’t mention my nefarious behavior with Gil, even after our spat over the dishes.

  Guilt got the better of me. He was right, of course; it wasn’t his fault I was in this mess. If anything, Laurence was helping me keep the potential explosion contained.

  Grudgingly, I allowed Laurence to move up a notch in my estimation that night--not that I would have told him so, not for all the shortbread in Scotland.

  Eventually he departed to take up the night shift at the front desk, and the rest of us yawned and agreed it was bedtime. When the last person turned out the lights, I lay alone in my bed, and Tony lay sleeping, twenty feet away, in his. He had kissed me goodnight, that was all.

  A grin sprawled across my face at the absurdity of it. Here was my legitimate boyfriend, and he was too chaste even to suggest sharing a bed, though no one in the hostel would have minded. This could have seemed sad, but after today’s surreal and ultimately harmless events, it struck me as funny. Laurence would appreciate it when I told him.

  I opened my eyes and frowned at the shadowed ceiling. Now why think that? Why tell Laurence, the last person who’d want to hear? More to the point, why did I enjoy the idea of telling Laurence? Why did I enjoy it more than the idea of telling Amber, Shannon, or anyone else?

  I flopped onto my side and snuggled deeper into the blankets. Maybe I wanted to share the thought as a humility offering, a way of saying, “You’re right, Laurence, this is messed up. Check this out.” Or maybe I had a freakish exhibitionistic streak, and wanted to know what a science-minded boy would say about my psychological condition. Maybe I even hoped sharing my private thoughts would irritate or hurt him.

  But why should I care? Ugh. Why did friendships have to be just as complicated as romances?

  Chapter Twenty-Six: The Underground Tour

  Gil called me the next day at work. On the subject of Tony he sounded more amused than jealous. “Enjoying our unexpected guest?”

  “I’m so sorry. I had no idea that would happen.”

  “Not a problem. Turned out a good day.”

  “Listen, I probably won’t be able to see you this week. Tony leaves Friday, so maybe I can get out that night.”

  “Aye, we’ll manage.” He immediately skipped off into a new subject. “I heard from Shelly Davis again this morning.”

  “Oh?”

  “She had it out with her father, and is to get me hired again at the studio. It’s all patched up. Brilliant.”

  “So you’re not even doing the interview with this sound effects guy?”

  “Nah. I’d much rather work with bands.”

  “Oh. I see.”

  “I might go down there afore work today and talk to them. Shelly says they’ve lots of business lately. They could use me.”

  My eyes followed the stripes of the hotel wallpaper up to the ceiling. Big deal. Who cared how their stupid business was doing. “Great. I’ll be sightseeing with my boyfriend. I guess I’ll talk to you later.”

  “Ah, do you have to get back to work?”

  “Yeah.” I had another fifteen minutes left of my lunch, but I wanted to be icy to him right now.

  He failed to notice, of course. “All right. Think I’ll nip off and head toward the studio, then. Nice sunny day.”

  I could have volunteered the information that it was below freezing, but talking about the weather was the last thing I felt like doing. “Okay,” I said. “Have a good one.”

  He chuckled and mimicked, “Have a nice day,” before hanging up. I rolled my eyes and stomped off to the hotel kitchen, where I devoured some lunchmeat and cheeses speared on toothpicks.

  He found it hilarious that Americans actually said “Have a nice day” or “Have a good weekend.” He had fought down giggles the first time I said it. He later explained that to him, and presumably to the rest of Scotland, it was something you only said in letters. Insincerely polite, affected, plastic, the kind of thing a tour guide would say. Apparently it was inconceivable that I could actually be wishing him a nice day.

  He could sod off. I had tolerated and learned and even picked up enough of his weird little idioms (for example, “sod off”), and I was polite enough not to mock him; and by the way, had he looked at a map lately? An entire continent of North Americans, pronouncing things more or less the same way and using the same pleasantries, and we were the funny ones? This little country the size of Iowa, with their fitful accents that couldn’t even stay the same for fifty miles in any direction, had decided they were the way of the world?

  I gnawed on a toothpick. Let’s be fair, now, Eva.

  I had wanted a boy who was pure, untainted, provincial UK, and I got one. And now I disliked him for being exactly that.

  Maybe I really wanted to catch such a boy and turn him into an adorer of America. After all, I fawned so slavishly over the British, why couldn’t I reap some devotion in return?

  Maybe Gil already had someone he liked, though. Maybe it just wasn’t me.

  I snapped the toothpick in half between my thumb and finger. Damn that Shelly Davis, living under Daddy’s wing, snapping the whip in a recording studio like she was some kind of goddess. If that was what turned Gil’s crank, fine. He could have her. She could have him.

 
; The fight drained out of me, swept away by humiliation. I turned to the sink and started washing teacups.

  The regret that pained me most at that hour was a strange one, but strong enough to squeeze the breath out of my throat. Namely, I wished Laurence hadn’t been there to witness every degrading detail that cropped up in my love life these days.

  What was that about?

  * * *

  Of course I had been overreacting. Gil texted me three times the next day, remarking happily about his visit to the studio, but with only a passing mention of Shelly. What’s more, he even wrote in the third text, Miss you. Hope you’ll want to see me again, though your bf’s here and he’s probably better than me and all.

  My tangled brain wasn’t up to figuring out which boy was better, but Tony was undoubtedly good. Despite being the one person whose presence should have frightened and shamed me, he actually soothed me. He made me laugh. His enthusiasm for Edinburgh’s tourist attractions charmed me.

  Surely, if he found out about Gil, he would know I didn’t mean any harm? He’d remember his own remark about having fun while I was abroad, and tell me it was perfectly okay. Wouldn’t he? At the very least, he would forgive me. I clung to his arm and rested my head on his shoulder, admiring his lucid discussion of history with Laurence, Amber, Shannon, and Thomas.

  Gil knew little about local history. “When was the castle built?” I had asked him. “Don’t know,” he answered. What about the palace? And how far did the city wall extend? When was the Nor’ Loch drained, and Princes Street Gardens planted in its place? “Ah don’t know,” he said again. I shrugged it off as that special blindness people have for their own surroundings, and tried not to view it as ignorance. But Tony had apparently read up on the whole city’s history before coming, and was a minor expert now.

  Even Amber appreciated Tony these days. They spent hours chatting church history together. Amber luridly detailed the evils the Catholics had committed against the Protestants, and Tony cleverly countered with the evils the Protestants had committed against the Catholics. I lost count of the beheadings early on; both sides racked up quite a few. I hoped the discussions helped divert her from thoughts of her loser dad, her insane grandmother, and the time bomb that might be lurking in her own genes.

  As it turned out, her ghost-seeing powers, or possibly hallucinations, were about to pounce again with a vengeance.

  On Tony’s third evening in town, Amber procured reservations for a tour of the Old Town’s underground passages. Shannon had vanished with Thomas, and Laurence had to sit at the front desk until midnight, so only Tony and I accompanied Amber.

  The three of us climbed to the high street with our noses buried in our scarves against spatters of sleet. We joined a group of about thirty people huddling under a church doorway. Our guide shouted a greeting to us, apologized for the weather, and promised us shelter in (sinister voice now) the ghoulish and haunted vaults below the city streets.

  He proceeded to lead us into an alleyway so narrow I wouldn’t have even noticed it there, and down some steps to a locked wooden door. He shared with us the history of the wynds and closes, those passageways between the Royal Mile and parallel streets, which housed some shocking goings-on. He then related the account of the pestilence that had festered there, the same story Thomas Chester-Brighton told us about plague victims being abandoned to die.

  It was all appreciably morbid, but I remained fearless. For years now, I’d spent nights sitting with Amber in graveyards, burned-down houses, and pitch-dark forests. Though the dank tunnels and rooms under Edinburgh’s streets were spooky, I didn’t expect any genuine supernatural occurrences on such a contrived tour. Besides, when Amber did spy ghosts, she tended to view it as a treat, not something to be afraid of.

  Therefore, it scared the daylights out of me when I looked over my shoulder and saw her, white as a sheet of paper, stranded behind the tour group and staring into the middle of the room, her lips trembling.

  I looked where she was looking, I looked all around, but I saw nothing except stone walls lit by candles in nooks.

  I rushed over and took her arm. “Amber.” I shook her. “Amber!”

  She blinked and looked around. “They’re gone, but they’re still here.”

  “Come on. Can’t lag behind.” I led her forward, feeling compelled to dive back into the flock. Safety in numbers and all that. “What did you see?”

  “I felt them as soon as we got near the door.” Her eyes roved around the room. “But I couldn’t see them till just a minute ago.” Her voice fell to a whisper. “They’re still here. I just can’t see them. My head, I’m dizzy…oh, God.”

  “You like seeing them I thought.”

  “Not this many.” Her gaze shot like a panicked bat around the walls. “Never this many. Oh, this feels wrong.”

  “You’re putting me on. Right?”

  She shook her head. “Nuh-uh. No.”

  Tony returned to us from his wander across the corridor, and immediately noticed the alarm on our faces. “What?” he asked. “What did you see?”

  “First a little girl was standing right in front of me,” she said. “I thought I was going to trip over her. She reached for me. Then other people started...materializing, all around, even...even hanging from the ceiling. They were dressed like it was the 1600s, maybe 1700s. They were dying. They had sores, and one woman was cut open and bleeding to death...” Her breathing approached hyperventilation, but she kept quiet, restricting her listeners to Tony and me. “I’ve never seen so many at once. Never.”

  “It’s going to be okay,” I said, though I had no collateral to offer on that claim.

  “What if this is it?” she whimpered. “What if this is me going crazy?”

  “I doubt it.” Tony cast an unsettled glance around us. He was sensitive as a filament to any breath of spirituality, even if he personally didn’t see ghosts. “Place just might be haunted. I’d sure believe it.”

  “And if I’m cursed to see them and feel them more strongly than ever?” Her voice was hardly a whisper now. “Is that any better?”

  I truly hated my position at the back edge of the tour group, with the candlelight dissipating into blackness a few yards away. Running and screaming was looking like a good plan.

  But of course we were stuck behind a herd of tourists. The guide, ironically, was trying to scare us by telling us the sinister story of Burke and Hare, which was not scary at all compared to Amber’s horrified dark eyes.

  Tony and I converged behind her, keeping our backs together so between us we could watch every angle. “Did you bring a crucifix?” I asked him.

  “Yes, but I don’t think that guarantees anything,” he muttered back.

  “I thought you Catholics could exorcise.”

  “You have to be a priest. I’m not even a religious studies major yet.”

  Every little sound or movement for the rest of the tour startled me. Amber stayed quiet and breathed unsteadily, and whispered a few times that she still felt them, even though she couldn’t see them. How comforting.

  Only when we climbed out of the vaults, back into the fresh, icy air, did I feel a measure of safety again.

  “Thank you, goodnight, and sleep well,” shouted our sinister guide. “If! You! Can!”

  The group laughed and applauded, and dispersed in knots, chitchatting about how marvelously ghoulish it had been.

  We three did not laugh, nor applaud, nor chitchat. We walked shoulder-to-shoulder down the sidewalk, close to streetlights, all the way to bustling Waverley Bridge and down to Princes Street. We could have taken shortcuts through the dark wynds and closes, but that really did not appeal to us.

  “I think,” I said, once we were safe under the bright Christmas garlands, “I might never want to go down in those vaults again.”

  “Hear, hear,” Tony put in.

  “I never thought I’d say this,” Amber said, “but I am so glad there are eleven other people sleeping in my room tonight.�
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  Chapter Twenty-Seven: Dawn of Jealousy

  When we returned to the hostel Amber darted around the front counter and threw herself onto Laurence’s lap. He caught her with a cough and an “Ow.”

  She pressed her face to his neck. “That was awful.”

  What a drama queen. Her fishing for sympathy had gotten old, if you asked me. And like Laurence was her grand protector, anyway. He didn’t believe in ghosts, and was likelier to tell her--in the nicest possible words--that she was crazy. What kind of comfort could she hope for there?

  “Spot some nasty spooks, did we?” he asked.

  I noticed he touched her gingerly, just resting his hands on the outside of her coat.

  She nodded and told him about it, using the small, frightened voice she had used in the vaults, even though she had recovered her composure on the street several minutes ago.

  I didn’t want to watch anymore. “Will you be okay, Amber?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” she said from under Laurence’s chin.

  “We’ll be upstairs,” I said.

  Laurence cast me a wry look that could have meant, Sure, leave me with the basket case, or, Aww, isn’t this cute? One couldn’t always tell with Laurence.

  Still, the glance was a signal of renewed camaraderie between us, and I smiled, in a bloom of warmth, before I turned away.

  Would’ve been best if I could talk to him alone, I thought as Tony and I climbed the stairs. I wanted to tell him exactly what had happened through my own eyes, bounce theories off him, and hear what he had to contribute from the scientific angle.

  And I wanted to discuss Gil and Tony a bit more, while we were at it.

  I wanted to be alone with Laurence? Good Lord. What was wrong with me?

  With some chagrin, it occurred to me that Laurence was the only person in my life who knew all the important things about me and could discuss them rationally. Gil, Shannon, and Amber, of course, knew quite a bit, but each had too much baggage of their own, or a schedule too busy to spare me any help.