Merry couldn’t help it: she laughed. ‘Well, since you asked me so nicely…’
The old woman had the grace to look a little embarrassed. ‘Ach, you’re right. Let me start over. Merry, it would be a great personal favour if you would consider keeping me company on my run today.’ She paused and wrinkled her nose in disgust. ‘Because I’m obviously so elderly and infirm.’
‘It was going so well until that last sentence,’ Merry said with an amused grin. She studied Sheila for a moment and her amusement faded. Underneath the prickly exterior, she thought she detected a quiet desperation and she cast her mind back to Monday, when her neighbour had talked about the way running helped her mental health. And then Merry thought about how she might feel, if something she loved doing was suddenly snatched away, and she gave an inward sigh. ‘Okay. Give me some time to get changed.’
It only took a few minutes of running before Merry realized she’d made a terrible mistake. Not only had Sheila set off at a blistering pace, she was also keeping up a stream of constant conversation and questions that required Merry to snatch an already elusive breath to answer. Even so, she did her best to keep up with both the running and the chat, until her thudding heart forced her to concede defeat. ‘Sheila, slow down!’
Her neighbour stopped and turned around, a look of crafty surprise on her face. ‘Oh, I thought a young thing like you would have no bother keeping up. Sorry.’
‘Just a bit slower,’ Merry puffed, bending over and placing her hands on her knees. ‘This is the first time I’ve run for years.’
To her credit, Sheila waited until Merry had caught her breath, even though she was clearly impatient to be off. And when they did start again, the pace was much gentler. It took a while, but eventually Merry found that her lungs had adjusted to the exertion and breathing became easier. It helped that Sheila now seemed content to run in silence and soon they were both lost in their thoughts.
Merry had no idea how much distance they’d covered when the idea came to her. She’d been thinking about her writing the night before – her description of how she’d felt able to sense the stories of the people who’d lived on Orkney thousands of years earlier – and the image of a woman had popped into her head. She was dressed in animal skins, with a fine beaded necklace around her neck and a circlet of metal on her golden hair, and she carried an axe high in one hand. Her face was bared into a snarl that was half fury and half fear. She was so real that Merry felt she was standing on the path in front of her, silhouetted against the sea. And she knew straight away that this woman lived in Skara Brae.
She held the image in her head, cradling it as her feet pounded along the path, terrified it would disintegrate before she could absorb it fully.
‘How much longer, Sheila?’ she puffed, and her neighbour glanced over one shoulder in surprise, as though she’d forgotten Merry was even there.
‘You can go back now, if you like,’ she called. ‘I know my way home.’
‘But what about your daughter?’ Merry replied. ‘I don’t want to leave you on your own – what if you fall?’
Sheila threw her a withering look. ‘Do I look unsteady to you? Besides, what Grace doesn’t know won’t hurt her – I’m sure you’re not going to tell anyone you couldn’t keep up with me.’
She really is incorrigible, Merry thought, with a burst of indignant laughter. Torn between the desire to do the right thing and a sudden burning need to explore the character floating in her mind, she ran for a few more paces before reaching a decision. ‘Will you knock as you go by, to let me know you’re okay?’
‘Of course,’ Sheila said. ‘See you later. And mind you don’t fall, now. I don’t need that on my conscience!’
Back at the croft, Merry didn’t even stop for a shower. Panting, she kicked off her trainers at the door and threw her lightweight jacket into a heap on the floor before making for the kitchen to grab a pint of water. Then she made a beeline for the sofa, gulping down water as she walked. And as the sweat cooled on her skin, before her brain could register a complaint, she wrenched open the laptop and started to type.
* * *
Merry didn’t think she’d ever felt more nervous than she did while driving to the library in Kirkwall on Friday evening. She’d spent the rest of Thursday in a writing frenzy, pausing only when her ravenous stomach forced her to swallow down a few slices of Sheila’s bannock cake. When her eyes grew too gritty to see, she gave in and went to bed, only to wake up at five o’clock to continue writing. She had no idea whether what she was creating was any good, she only knew that it was a compulsion, something she had to draw out of herself before it withered away to nothing. By Friday lunchtime, the first draft was done and Merry finally took herself off for a much-needed shower, grateful that there was no one else in the croft to comment on how she smelled. And by the time she had to leave to reach the library for her event, she had something that she hoped might not cause Niall to rescind her residency on the spot.
‘How have you been?’ he asked when she arrived at the front desk, struggling to keep a lid on her anxiety. ‘Had any adventures over the last few days?’
Merry thought about Magnús, her visit to the Italian chapel, and her kamikaze run along the cliffs with Sheila, and some of her anxiety lessened. ‘You could say that.’
He grinned. ‘I can’t wait to hear about it. The kettle’s on, unless you fancy something stronger?’
The temptation to ask for a dram of whisky to steady her nerves was strong, but Merry reluctantly shook her head. The reading was going to be difficult enough, without the added stress of slurring her words. ‘Tea would be perfect, thanks.’
‘Come this way,’ he said. ‘The audience has started to arrive already so you can hide away in my office, just in case they decide to stampede.’
She laughed. ‘How many tickets did you sell in the end?’
‘Two hundred and forty-three,’ he said, sounding pleased. ‘That’s the best turnout we’ve ever had.’
Merry blinked; events in London were never that well attended, not even with massive-name authors. If Niall ever tired of being a librarian, she thought faintly, he could probably get a marketing job at a publishing house. And then the reality of such a decent crowd set in, and Merry hoped even more fervently that the story she’d written was going to hit the mark. Two hundred and forty-three people who knew the story of Skara Brae well… ‘That’s brilliant,’ she managed, after a second or two. ‘Great.’
Something of her anxiety must have carried in her voice because Niall slowed and looked at her. ‘Is everything okay? You sound a bit… I don’t know…’
She forced herself to smile. ‘Just a bit of pre-event nerves. Don’t worry, I’ll be fine.’
Niall shook his head. ‘I’d have thought you’ve done so many of these things that they’re second nature to you now.’ He threw her a sympathetic look. ‘It’s quite reassuring that you’re nervous – reminds me that you’re a human being rather than a superstar author and all-round goddess.’
Merry wanted to say that she’d never felt less like either, but they arrived at his office and the moment passed. He ushered her inside and busied himself making tea.
‘I have to go back downstairs to make sure everything is running smoothly, but no one will bother you up here,’ he said, once the tea was brewed. He checked the clock on the wall. ‘I’ll be back to collect you at six-twenty and we’ll get you miked up so you’re good to go. Then you and I will have a lovely chat, following the questions I sent over yesterday, and we’ll finish up with your reading. Sound okay?’
It did, apart from the fact that she’d been so engrossed in her writing that she hadn’t checked her emails and had no idea what questions he’d sent her. ‘Fine,’ she said, crossing her fingers that he hadn’t asked anything too out there. ‘Sounds perfect.’
‘And afterwards all hell will break loose, but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.’ He paused to flash his Superman smile and Merry felt her
nerves settle a little more. ‘Don’t worry, they already love you.’
She managed to maintain her smile until after he’d closed the door, at which point she sagged into her chair. They might love her now, Merry thought unhappily, but would they still feel that way after she’d trampled all over their history?
* * *
‘And what was it that first drew you to writing?’
Summoning up a practised smile, Merry launched into the answer she’d given so many times that she didn’t even have to think about the words. So far, the event was going well; the hall looked great, with two squashy armchairs on a raised stage and well-placed spotlights to light them. Niall was an easy and professional host, allowing her the time and freedom to answer, and following up any interesting points she made with intelligent questions she knew wouldn’t be on the list he’d compiled. The audience was attentive, listening in rapt silence and laughing at exactly the right moments. All in all, it was that rarest of things – a dream author event – and Merry was able to almost forget what was coming at the end.
‘You’re often quoted as saying love stories are what make us human,’ Niall went on. ‘Is that why we’re so obsessed with finding our happy ever after, Merry? Even when our hearts get broken and we have to pick ourselves up and start all over again?’
The question made her hesitate. Was this really a question she could answer when she wasn’t sure she still believed in happy ever after? Niall waited patiently as the seconds ticked by, but she could see his concern growing when she didn’t answer. And then the clouds in her mind cleared, and she knew what to say. She took a deep breath.
‘I suppose, in a way, that is what makes us human. Our response to heartbreak, I mean. Because on one hand, we’re conditioned to evolve and learn when we encounter physical pain, so that we don’t get hurt that way again. But that doesn’t seem to apply where love is concerned.’ She paused and gazed out at the audience. ‘When someone we’re in love with breaks our heart, it feels like the end of the world – we feel as though we’ll never love anyone that way again. But eventually, if we’re lucky, we’ll meet someone new and fall for them. Our hearts don’t remember how much it hurt before – they only know what they want. And that’s why we’ll always chase our happy ever afters, because it’s who we are. What else can we do?’
A smattering of applause broke out around the hall, followed by self-conscious laughter when not everyone followed suit. Merry smiled. ‘I see we have some hopeless romantics in the house. You guys are my tribe.’
Niall’s gaze met hers and a flash of something passed between them. ‘Mine too. Now, what can you tell us about the book you’re writing now?’
And there it was, the question she’d been dreading. She stared at him, like a deer in the full beams of an oncoming lorry, and blinked hard. ‘Actually, I’m not going to tell you anything at all.’
She watched his smile slip a little and hurried to reassure him. ‘From the moment I arrived on Orkney, I’ve been seeing stories. That’s not so unusual – I’m a writer, after all – it’s my job to find them. But there’s something magical about this place.’ She stopped to gather her thoughts and fired a fleeting glance Niall’s way. ‘You described these islands as extraordinary and it’s a word that has come into my head over and over as I’ve been exploring. There’s nothing ordinary about Orkney – it’s a place that has stories woven into its very fabric – and that’s what I want to talk about. Not the novel I started to write long before I came here.’
He nodded in understanding. ‘So, would now be a good time to ask you to read something you have written since you arrived on Orkney?’
A surge of adrenaline burst through Merry, almost paralysing her with its intensity. No, she wanted to say, there’ll never be a good time to read this story. But the moment for backing out was long gone. Besides, she had nothing else to read, other than the godawful travelogue she’d scribbled in her notebook, and she was determined that was never going to see the light of day again.
She squared her shoulders and lifted up the pages she’d printed on the surprisingly modern printer at the croft, hoping the audience couldn’t see the paper shaking in her hands. ‘This is something I wrote after visiting Skara Brae.’ She stopped and fired a nervous look Niall’s way. He held her gaze firmly and gave her a barely perceptible nod of encouragement. ‘It’s called The Woman with Eyes of Gold.’
The audience settled in expectation. Merry shifted slightly in her seat so that she was facing them and took a moment to cast her eyes across the sea of faces. She spotted Magnús near the back, head and shoulders above the rest of the crowd, and her spirits lifted again at the sight of him; she hoped he wouldn’t be too offended that she’d used his heritage as inspiration. Taking another deep breath, she began to read.
‘They came before dawn – men with burning swords and murder in their hearts. She saw them long before they saw her, and smelled them even before that. Even so, there was barely enough time to send a warning around the village, and no time at all to gather more than a handful of precious belongings. If the invaders found them when they stormed the houses – if Fen could not get her people away fast enough – then she knew unimaginable slaughter would follow…’
It felt as though Merry read for an age, although she knew it wasn’t more than ten minutes. Total silence reigned as her voice died away and she glanced nervously across at Niall, who was looking at her with such rapt admiration that she almost blushed. He lifted his hands and began to clap, which seemed to startle the audience into remembering its responsibilities; applause broke out and Merry even picked out a few cheers. Then she heard the scraping of chair feet and saw, to her utter astonishment, that some people were on their feet. The applause went on and on, so much so that it took Niall several seconds of standing and appealing for quiet before the crowd gave in and settled down again.
‘I think I speak for all of us when I say that was an incredible piece of writing,’ he said, glancing at Merry once more. ‘We’re going to take a short comfort break now and then Merina will be happy to sign your books. But before that, I’m sure you’re all going to want to put your hands together and thank her for a fascinating, very enjoyable chat.’
Once again, clapping and cheering filled the hall. Merry smiled and waved her own thanks, still overwhelmed with relief that no one had booed. After a few more seconds, Niall leaned towards her. ‘Let’s get out of here. It sounds like they’ll cheer all night if we let them.’
He led her off the back of the stage and she took refuge in the staff toilets, leaning her flushed face against the cold mirror and waiting for the post-event energy to die down a little. She always felt wired afterwards, and sometimes had trouble sleeping, but she knew she’d need this feeling to get through the next few hours of signing. As much as she loved meeting her readers, it often left her exhausted.
It was lovely to see some familiar faces in the queue. Elspeth beamed in delight as she watched Merry scrawl her signature, and clutched the book to her chest as though it was precious. Sheila and Bridget McGinty came together, and Merry saw the corner of a hot-pink book in Bridget’s bag as she tucked Merry’s on top. Sheila caught her eye and winked. ‘I do like to share a good read,’ she said. ‘And there’s quite a waiting list for that one.’
Magnús towered over the table as he held out three copies for her to sign. ‘One for my mother, one for my sister, and one for me.’
A flurry of loud sighs broke out among the women nearby and Merry had to hide a smile. ‘I would have given you a signed copy for free,’ she said. ‘To thank you for rescuing me from flat tyre hell.’
‘And that would have been very kind of you,’ Magnús said gravely. ‘But the ticket came with a book and so here we are.’
His eyes met hers and she suddenly wished there weren’t a hundred people in the queue after him, so that she could talk to him properly, the way they had on the journey to and from Kirkwall. And then she remembered that she’d told him
she was with Alex, and the thought withered away. ‘Well, thank you anyway. Happy reading.’
It took another seventy minutes for her to work her way through the queue. Niall brought her two cups of tea, both of which went undrunk, and hovered at her side, managing the queue and gently hurrying anyone who seemed inclined to monopolize her time. By the time the last book was signed, Merry was so tired she could hardly lift her pen.
‘Whisky?’ Niall offered, as the last audience member left the hall.
Merry leaned back in her chair and rubbed a hand over her eyes. ‘Fresh air,’ she said.
‘Follow me.’
It turned out that the courtyard in front of the library was still full of people, so Niall herded Merry back into the stacks of books before she was seen. ‘We’ll wait here. I’m sure they’ll drift off in a few minutes – it’s too cold to linger.’
The smell of old books and paper surrounded them. Merry took a deep breath, savouring one of her favourite scents, and wondered whether Niall would think she was weird if she took down a book and buried her nose in its pages.
‘You gave me a few scary moments in there,’ he whispered, smiling in the half-light. ‘Kept me on my toes, I can tell you.’
He meant the question about love, Merry supposed, and her refusal to talk about the book she was meant to be writing. ‘Sorry about that. I should probably admit that I hadn’t even looked at the list of questions you sent over.’ She gave him an apologetic look. ‘I was too busy writing about Skara Brae.’
Niall tipped his head. ‘I don’t blame you. And I’m sorry for asking you about the novel you’re working on. I should have realized you wouldn’t be allowed to talk about it in public.’
‘No, it wasn’t that…’ she trailed off as another wave of weariness washed over her.
Niall waited, his expression quizzical, and Merry was filled with a sudden urge to tell him the truth. It was a risk but at least now she’d proved to both herself and Niall that she hadn’t lost her touch entirely; it was early days but maybe – just maybe – she could find a way past the block that had plagued her for longer than she could remember. She gazed into his eyes, battling a rising tide of nausea at the thought of confessing the truth, but the calmness she found there helped. He’d understand. She knew he would.
Coming Home to Brightwater Bay Page 8
