Highland Fling

by Anna Larner

  Moira got into bed, turning away, her back towards Eve.

  “Moira?” There was no reply. “I’m sorry.”

  Moira whispered, “Let’s not talk about it.”

  “Right, okay.”

  Eve lay still, fearing that even the motion of her breathing would be too much for Moira. It made no sense that Eve could feel so alone when the person she cared for most in the world lay next to her.

  *

  Eve hadn’t intended to oversleep, and when she woke midmorning Moira had already left. She lifted Moira’s pillow. The Bells T-shirt was no longer there. The note Eve found on the kitchen table read, Gone in to work. Back at five. Can you feed the hens? And dig up some potatoes for dinner. To the point. Eve flicked the paper over in case Moira had left a cross for a kiss. Nothing.

  Dig up some potatoes? Eve looked outside at the confusing patch of green shoots, stakes, and netting that made up the vegetable garden. The truth was the only digging Eve had ever done before was for gossip. Hens. I’ll do the hens first.

  As Eve opened the henhouse, the hens flapped, squawked, and pecked around her. She flicked their food at them more to keep them away from her as to feed them.

  “Oh God. Just fuck off, will you, just…” Eve stood amongst the hens and could not help but cry.

  “Why don’t you just fuck off.” Alice appeared in the garden, looming over Eve, and growled, “Leave them, for Christ’s sake. I’ll see to them.”

  The hens scuttled away.

  Eve wiped her eyes with her sleeve. “I’m not here to cause trouble—”

  “Why are you here then? You’ve got some nerve turning up. You’ve ruined everything. You know my dad’s left because of you? It’s only a matter of time before Moira realizes you’re not right for her. I mean, how could you be?”

  “I’m just visiting for a few days, so there’s no need—”

  “Good, so you’re not staying then. I’m glad.”

  “Staying?”

  The thought of staying, of leaving her home, her family, Roxanne, of leaving for good, had simply not occurred to Eve. She hadn’t anticipated the panic the notion now filled her with.

  Eve said hesitantly, “Well, we haven’t talked about it.”

  Alice walked away without waiting for Eve’s full reply. “You’re pathetic.”

  The ferocity of Alice’s words left Eve stunned. Dazed, she turned her attention to the vegetable patch. She had no idea where to begin. What am I doing here?

  *

  It had taken Eve a couple of hours to build up the courage to dig up her first potato. The run in with Alice had done nothing to boost her confidence. She stood, frowning at the ground, trying to identify leaf shapes with the help of a book entitled Eat Your Garden that she found underneath a plant pot in the sunroom. She suspected that the title was more apt than it should be as the chances of Eve digging up an ornamental hardy perennial instead of something for dinner was alarmingly high. But if Moira came home to Eve admitting she couldn’t even dig up potatoes, then what would that mean?

  It was nearing five when an exhausted Eve walked inside the empty croft, the harvested potatoes in her arms. Dumping the vegetables on the trestle table, she looked at her soil-covered clothes. She was a mess. Everything felt like a mess. She looked into the sitting room, at her mobile phone amongst Moira’s papers on the dining table.

  She reached for the phone, reassuringly familiar in her hand. She opened an unread text. You okay? Call me. R X

  “Hi, Rox, it’s me. I guess you’re at work or something. Can you give me a ring back?” Eve felt emotion choking at her throat. She gripped her mobile phone tightly. “I’m okay and everything, it’s just, well, it would be nice to talk to you.” Eve didn’t mean to burst into tears—to sob down the phone like a fool. She rallied to say. “Speak soon. Bye.”

  Eve jumped, spinning around, as Moira tipped the potatoes into the sink.

  “I didn’t hear you come in. You frightened the life out of me.” Eve held her palm against her chest, trying to calm her racing heart. She quickly wiped at her tear-stained cheeks with her cuff.

  Without looking away from the sink, Moira said, hesitantly, “Sorry about last night. I didn’t mean to…it’s all a bit overwhelming.”

  Eve sniffed. “You and me both. I had a run in with Alice in the garden.”

  Moira turned to look at Eve. “What did she say?”

  Eve took a deep breath. “That I’d ruined everything. That you’d soon regret being with me. She wanted to know whether I was staying. God, she was really angry.” Eve watched Moira’s face drain of colour.

  “I’m sorry.” Moira gave a heavy, tired sigh, leaning for a moment against the sink. She asked quietly, “What did you tell her…about staying?”

  Eve lifted peeled potatoes from the sink for chopping, trying to remember what, in the heat of the moment, she had said and, moreover, what she now wanted to say. Her hands ached in the cold water. She leant across to turn on the hot water tap. There on the window sill, in a small china dish, cherished in the shade of rosemary and sage, sat a gold ring.

  Eve swallowed hard. She could feel her chest squeeze as if caught in a vice. She stammered, “Do you still wear it—his ring?” She nodded towards the dish.

  Moira’s cheeks flushed. She shook her head.

  “Right.” Why haven’t you put it away then, Moira, got rid of it or something? Eve cleared her throat. “You’re going to put it away now though. Now that it’s over officially.”

  “No, Eve, I’m not.”

  “No?” They stared at each other, Eve’s pain reflected in Moira’s eyes. “Why would you keep his ring? I don’t understand.”

  Moira said firmly, “Exactly, you don’t understand.”

  “I’ve tried to. I’m trying to now, Moira.”

  “Because it’s not his ring.”

  Eve blinked. “What?”

  Moira dried her hands against her trousers, and without saying anything left the room.

  Eve stared at the plain thin band of precious metal, glinting like a beacon of truth in the early evening light.

  “Moira. Wait.” Eve’s chest tightened at the sound of the front door closing and the crunch against gravel of Land Rover tyres.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Without thinking, Moira drove to the education centre. She turned the engine off and sat gripping the wheel—her head resting against her seat, her eyes firmly closed. The confrontation with Eve kept playing over and over in her head.

  With a burst of urgency she jumped out the Land Rover and clambered, almost desperately, into the hills. Reaching the pinnacle, by the tor, Moira stood tall.

  The hills in the foreground and mountains in the distance seemed to be wrapping Moira up, enclosing her, protecting her. It felt like they were listening, like a wise and patient counsellor, poised to hear her woes.

  The wind whistled through the stones of the tor, playing an ancient, timeless melody, the high notes floating in the ether between the present and the past. Moira sat amongst the stones with her eyes closed. She could swear she could hear drums beating out a furious rhythm, and an audience clapping, shouting for more.

  Moira opened her eyes. The wind had dried her tears to salt, just as time had crystallized her past into jewels of memory, glinting clear and bright. She closed her eyes again. Iris’s face shone back at her, thrilled with life, thrilled with love. Moira’s lips moved in time to their conversation which came rushing back at her, word for word.

  “Will you marry me, Moira Burns?”

  “Don’t be silly. We can’t be married.”

  “We can in our hearts, Moira. So will you?”

  “But people will ask who gave it me. What would I say?”

  “Then just keep it, Moira. Keep it knowing that I gave it you. That it tells you that you are mine.”

  Moira opened her eyes, the word mine lingering on her lips. She’d kept the ring Iris Campbell gave her. She kept it in spite of everything, because to g
ive it back or to throw it away would have implied she no longer loved Iris and that simply wasn’t true. Their love, like the band of metal that symbolized it, would not be smelted in the heat of their arguments, or turned to ash by the cruel whims of fate.

  She rarely felt the need to wear it, but somehow always felt the need to have it near.

  And here was Eve, asking her about it, demanding to know what the ring was, and why it meant so much. And to have to explain, what would Moira say, what could she say?

  Moira stood and looked out across Newland. It had grown dark, and time had passed unnoticed. She knew she should return home, but she simply couldn’t, at least not that night. She would go to the main house, slip into the sitting room to rest and maybe sleep, and in the morning she would face Eve.

  “Moira? Is that you?” Alice stood on the landing, blinking with sleepy eyes at Moira.

  “Yes, it’s me, Alice. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

  “What are you doing here? It’s late. Is everything okay?” Alice looked at the pillow and blanket underneath Moira’s arm.

  “Yes, of course, everything’s fine. I just needed to borrow these. Go back to bed. I’m sorry to have disturbed you.”

  “Are you sleeping here? Has something happened—with you and her? I knew it.”

  “Goodnight, Alice.”

  Alice said, smugly, “The bitch has told you she’s not staying, hasn’t she?”

  “Alice!”

  “Well, she is. Coming here, making you think she was interested. Playing with your life, our lives, like it’s some sort of game. Her and that Roxanne, I bet they’re laughing right now. Just laughing at us.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Please go to bed, Alice, I won’t ask you again. I am not in the mood.”

  Like a dog with a bone, it was as if Alice couldn’t stop gnawing at Moira. “I knew she was trouble. The way she kept chasing you, leaving messages, even after she left—”

  Barely containing her anger, Moira swallowed hard to say, “Never interfere like that again, Alice. I can’t believe you had the nerve to delete a message intended for me. You were wrong to do that.”

  “With everything you’ve done, how can you say I’m wrong.”

  Moira shouted, “That’s enough.”

  Alice stood in front of Moira like a child who had been scolded, her face creased with indignant hurt and fear.

  “I’m sorry, Alice—”

  “Go to hell!”

  Alice slammed her bedroom door and a heart-shaped woven wicker ornament once fixed to the outside of Alice’s door fell to the floor. Moira picked it up, rested it against the wall, and walked away.

  It was not the first night that Moira Burns had sat, nursing a whisky, in the armchair of the sitting room of the main house, watching the sunrise over the distant mountains. It was not the first time she could have begged the awakening birds not to sing. It was not the first time that she didn’t think she could find the strength to begin a new day.

  Moira stayed awake all night, thinking about Eve, worrying that she had left her alone. Yet she knew Eve would want—no, need—Moira to talk, to talk about Iris, to talk about them, and she couldn’t, she just couldn’t.

  Moira rested her head, heavy in her palms, unable to face the pain she felt and the pain she knew she was causing.

  “Did you stay up all night?” Alice leant against the door of the sitting room, dressed in her pyjamas.

  Startled, Moira struggled to gather her thoughts to speak. “Yes, I’m sorry for last night…for everything, Alice. Please believe me.”

  “How can I believe you? You’ve done this to us. You’ve chosen her, over Dad, over me. Don’t pretend you care.”

  “Of course I care, Alice, I care that you’re upset, hurting. But you have to try to understand.”

  “I have to understand. You’re joking, right? I don’t have to do anything you say—you’re not my mum!” Alice stopped herself short with her words. The shock of them silenced the room.

  Moira sat, numb, looking at her hands resting in her lap, tracing each fine vein, each freckle, each crease of skin from knuckle to fingertip.

  Alice said, her voice calmer now, “That’s all I’ve ever wanted to do is understand—understand about the past, about me, my mum, my life. You and Dad, you’ve kept the truth away from me for all these years. And now it’s too late.”

  Moira looked at Alice, confused. “Why is it too late?”

  “Because of her. Dad’s lost you, I’ll lose you, I’ll lose everything because of her.”

  “No. I’ll always be here for you. Whatever happens between Eve and me, you won’t lose me. I promise.”

  “But Dad’s lost you.”

  “It’s not like that. In the end…we needed to let each other go.”

  “Because you don’t love each other any more?” Alice asked, guarded curiosity replacing the accusation in her voice.

  “Because it was time.”

  Moira followed Alice’s gaze to a beaten-up cardboard box tucked at the side of the sofa.

  Alice said quietly, “It’s Mum’s stuff. Dad thought I might like to have it. Do you think he’s letting Mum go too?”

  Moira stood unsteadily to her feet to comfort Alice, standing at her side, her arm resting loosely around Alice’s waist. “All I know is that he wanted you to have her things, Alice. And I think he’s right.”

  Moira felt her chest tighten as Alice walked over to the box and lifted it onto the sofa.

  Alice leafed through concert programmes, tickets, music sheets. She lifted a black T-shirt from the box and held it against her. A white letter B caught the light of the sunrise. Alice discarded it back into the box. “She’s got loads of these, notebooks. She was quite arty, wasn’t she?”

  Moira nodded, waiting for the pain to screw into her.

  Alice looked at Moira and took a deep breath to ask, “What was she like?”

  Moira swallowed, holding herself stiff. “Musical, a good singer.”

  “No. I know that. What was she like as a person—when she was younger, my age?”

  Moira sat on the arm of the sofa, looking at the pile of notebooks. A purple cloth covered book caught her eye. Distracted, she replied, “Passionate. She was always campaigning. She despaired at people’s apathy. She cared about her homeland, politics, nature.”

  “Wow, is that you?” Alice held up a photo of The Bells. The photo showed Moira standing next to Iris. Iris had her arm around Moira’s waist.

  Moira felt her heart pounding insistently in her chest. “Yes, they were just starting out. We’d all just finished college. The house in the background was where we lived in town.”

  “Wow.” Alice looked at Moira and smiled. “She was so pretty, wasn’t she? Dad’s hair is a shocker. Uncle Hamish looks so different now.”

  Moira nodded.

  “And then I came along.” Alice’s tone became flat. “I’m having a tea. Want one?”

  Moira nodded. “Thank you. I might stay here a little while longer, I’m not sure I can…I’ll get some sleep. Would that be okay?”

  Calling from the kitchen, Alice shouted, “Yeah, sure. I’m going into work first thing. I’ll come home at lunchtime. I’ve got that stupid assignment to finish. Maybe we can go through some more of Mum’s stuff together again at some point.”

  Moira could tell in the hint of relief that softened the air, that albeit a fragile beginning, it was nonetheless a start of finding a way through with Alice. And a start was all Moira would hope for.

  Moira’s tired eyes fell once more upon the box. “Yes, if that’s what you would like.” She gently lifted the purple notebook, brushing her thumb lightly over the raised surface of the hand-painted fabric. A sprig of heather, the brown spray of a fern, protruded from between the cloth and the hardback book, and crumbs of lavender filled the crevices of the binding at the turn of each page.

  A green leather bookmark with the gold embossed image of a grand bui
lding, with the letters SAC beneath it, half slipped from the book. Tucking the bookmark back opened the page it marked. Moira stared at Iris’s handwriting, at the inky soft curves and sharp edges forming the word Highlander. Moira swallowed.

  Alice reappeared in the sitting room with two mugs of tea and two large slices of cake. “Elizabeth’s started bringing me food over. Does she think Dad was the cook in our house? Before you say it, I know she’s just trying to help…Moira?”

  Moira stood at the doors to the garden, her arms folded in front of her. She was sobbing.

  “Moira, are you okay?”

  Moira’s tears were her only reply.

  *

  Eve had spent the long night alone curled up on the sofa, a blanket tucked around her, the terrible ache in her heart her only companion. If she had slept, it didn’t feel like it. Every time she heard a noise, her heart would pound, her eyes would dart to the door, and she would hold her breath, her ears straining to make out the sound—her mind spinning to find the first words to say. But it was just the breeze blowing against the door. It was always just the careless breeze.

  All morning through to lunchtime, Eve busied herself tidying up the vegetable patch after yesterday’s debacle with the potatoes. She knelt amongst the vegetables, diligently patting the ground.

  Her phone burred in her pocket. Eve’s heart surged. Moira? Eve brushed the soil from the screen. Rox.

  “Hi, Rox.”

  “You okay?” Roxanne asked. “I’ve been on night shift. I’ve only just got your message. Has something happened? Why were you so upset?—A pint please.”

  “Are you at The Brewer’s?”

  “What? Yes. Anyway, don’t change the subject. What’s happened?”

  “It’s nothing really, Rox. I didn’t mean to worry you.”

  “Nothing? Eve, you were sobbing down the phone.”

  “Well, it’s just…”

  “Just what? Eve, it was easier to get poor Mrs. Smith to pass her kidney stone this morning than it is to get information out of you.”