Dominic stopped and joked with two of his men who were filling the big storage casks. They scooped out a cup of that liquid and shared it between them, laughing. Then they turned to me, insisting that I must try it, too. One sip was like tasting pure flame; I felt it down to my toes.
‘Awful,’ I said, gasping. The body of whisky might come from that still, but the soul must come from those long dark years in the sherry casks. The men returned, gayer than before, to their work, and we went out into the wet wind in the courtyard.
Dominic pointed out the bottling plant where, after its long rest, the whisky was poured into labelled bottles and crated for its journey to France.
There remained one building, set back from the others, with a small stand of larch trees before it.
‘What’s that?’ I said.
‘That,’ Dominic replied, ‘is the bonded warehouse. That’s where the whisky is stored to age.’
‘Are we going in?’
‘Not likely,’ he said, smiling. ‘That’s locked up tighter than Fort Knox.’
‘Don’t you have a key?’ I said.
He smiled again. ‘It isn’t exactly a matter of keys, Caroline. The place is under customs seal. I’m not allowed in there myself without the customs officer’s very official approval.’
‘Are they that strict?’ I asked, amazed.
‘Stricter,’ he said, taking my arm, laughing. ‘Come on, let’s go to lunch.’
I climbed back into the Range Rover, hoping that taste of potent newborn whisky wasn’t going to make his driving any worse than it already was. To be fair, I must admit it didn’t; to be fair again, I never saw him drunk, not then or any other time.
From the distillery to Braemore, the road was very obviously much more frequently used. It was even paved with tarmacadam, like a black strip of ribbon laid down on top of the heather.
We spun through Braemore, and onto the A835, the main Ullapool road. Braemore was near the head of the loch, but slightly inland, not in sight of the shore. Soon we were back beside the water, but now on the other side.
When I had driven this way before in the minivan on my own, I had felt obliged to keep my eyes firmly on the road. It was narrow, traffic passed close by, and the hill fell sharply away to the loch on the left. Now, as a passenger, I was free to look around, though the fact that Dominic was taking the same liberty didn’t add much to my enjoyment of the scenery.
But, oh, it was a beautiful place, with the steep green hills, fading yellow clumps of broom still splashed about, edging the fields, and the blue loch opening wider and wider to its meeting with the sea.
As we drew abreast of Sron Ban, on the far shore, I saw gradually the form and shape of that old oil painting come to an enormous actuality. There was such a sweep of hill, and the little house where I spent my days looked so utterly lost in it. Only the roof of Grisel’s home was visible, and that I would have not seen had I not known it was there.
I saw a small fleck of white in the midst of the gorse-grown hill that I knew to be one wall of the Innes croft-house at Achbuie. Below, the sheep were salted out across the green fields. Lower Achbuie was not visible at all, hidden deep in the shadows of the shoreline.
Ullapool is a fishing village, and though the big hotels and the craft shops in the centre of it reflected a successful tourist industry, the flavour of the place came from the harbour.
A few fishing trawlers, neat and trimmed with bright paint, were anchored in the sheltered waters. There was a big concrete quay running out seaward from the village, and the little harbourside houses and shops all faced the water in an expectant circle, waiting for the fleet to come in.
The mountains rose abruptly behind the village, barely making room for it between their feet and the sea.
Dominic parked the car in a back street, and we climbed out, turning up raincoat collars against the wind blowing in wet and salty from the sea.
‘It’s warm, it’s almost like summer,’ I said, surprised, because, though rainy and windy, it was far warmer than Sron Ban, which was sheltered.
‘It’s always warm,’ he said. ‘Well, warmer, anyhow. It’s practically tropical. Would you like to see the palm trees?’
‘Sure,’ I said, ‘and then maybe the cotton fields and the banana farm.’
‘Ah, ye of little faith,’ he said sadly and then dragged me off through the wet streets and up a hill until he could finally place me squarely in front of a fat stubby palm tree waving bewildered fronds in front of the Caledonian Hotel.
‘How’d that get here?’ I asked, prodding it to make sure it wasn’t plastic.
‘It walked,’ he said, and added defensively, ‘There’s lots of them. It really is warm, the Gulf Stream comes right up to the coast here, the sea’s warmer than off Long Island.’
‘We don’t need it there,’ I said. ‘We have this bright shiny thing in the sky called the sun.’
‘Infidel,’ he shouted, swinging at me in mock attack. We tussled on the street, laughing and silly, until, holding him by the shoulders, I begged him to stop.
‘We’ll shock people,’ I said.
‘Nonsense,’ he said. ‘All Americans are crazy, they know that.’
Then he put an arm around my shoulders and led me down the street and up another and, I’m sure, past every palm tree in Ullapool on our way to the restaurant.
The big hotels all had dining rooms, but we went instead to a tiny cafe on the very edge of the harbour. There were small tables, covered with the traditional red- and-white-checked cloths. There were some vases of flowers and practically no other decoration.
But these people had their priorities right; decoration wasn’t their business, cooking was their business. And they knew it.
We had fish, fresh from the Minch the afternoon before, and cooked as only a fisherman’s wife can cook fish. After, there was homemade bread and fresh oatcakes and a fine Scottish cheese, white and smooth and rich as cream, rolled in toasted oatmeal. Then we sat at the window, drinking tea and looking out at the wet busy street and the boats in the harbour beyond.
After lunch, we went out and walked around the town, like tourists, peering into windows and investigating all the little craft shops. I bought a handmade doll for Caitlin. Dominic draped a blue-and-green tartan scarf over my head and then insisted on buying it for me because he liked the way it went with my hair.
We wandered down to the harbour and out onto the quay, where the wind was blowing half a gale, flicking the tops of waves onto the concrete. We had to lean against it, and he kept his arm tight around my shoulders, and we leaned against each other as well, walking like lovers.
He wasn’t very much taller than I, and my head rested easy and natural against the wet shoulder of his raincoat. I liked the feel of it there, and the firm strength of his arm around me. I looked up, studying his face, as he walked head down to the wind, grey-black hair wet and tangled against grey-black clouds.
For the first time, for a few moments, I stopped being Danny’s widow and became again a woman with a man. And even though he made me angry and he scared me, I wanted to be free to love him.
A grey-backed seagull, huge and sudden, swept in front of us. I looked up, watching it soar up and arc around to come cutting down the sky to us again. Dominic’s arm tightened and he caught me with the other.
‘Hey, where are you going?’ he said.
I looked down and laughed nervously; the quay ended abruptly in front of me and the sea rolled black and grey before my feet.
‘Let’s find a pub and have a drink,’ he said, looking back toward the village. ‘I’m freezing.’
‘But it’s tropical,’ I protested. ‘The place is full of palm trees.’
‘Well, we’ll buy them a drink, too,’ he said, leading me firmly up the quay and into the first pub we could find.
We sat with our feet up on a stone hearth in front of a hot peat fire, drinking whisky macs and drying ourselves out, oblivious of the strangers around us, as only
lovers can be.
I was sitting with my back to the window, and when I happened to glance around, I saw that the small curtained panes showed a charcoal-coloured sky.
‘Hey, what time is it?’ I asked.
‘It’s not late,’ Dominic said, unconcerned. ‘The storm’s making it dark early.’ He leaned back in his chair, half-asleep and lazy. I peered at my watch in the dim firelight.
‘It’s eight o’clock,’ I practically shouted, jumping up and drawing the amused attention of some fishermen at the bar.
‘So, it’s eight o’clock,’ said Dominic.
‘What about Caitlin?’
‘She’ll be in bed by now, Grisel will see to that.’ He hadn’t moved. I was angry, with myself for forgetting the time, and with him for not caring. It wasn’t fair to take advantage of Grisel’s kindness.
‘Come on, Dominic,’ I said in a low voice, conscious that the fishermen were watching us with interest now. They were a bit drunk, and enjoying the show. He looked up at me without raising his head, eyes glinting blue under dark lashes, like new flame on coal.
‘Sit down, woman,’ he said. He was angry.
I stood tensely waiting, scared of what he might do, wondering if he would actually turn on me here, humiliate me in public.
‘Git ye up, man, yer bairns are waitin’,’ one of the fishermen shouted with drunken cheerfulness. I gasped, my eyes on Dominic, sure there would be a fight.
But he jumped up then, laughing. The fisherman had amused him and somehow pleased him. He threw his arm around my shoulders and we left the little pub, with the fishermen still shouting behind us.
The door closed behind us, shutting us out in the rain.
‘They thought you were my wife,’ he smiled, pleased with himself. I was flattered that that should please him, but then I thought, yes, a nagging, shrewish wife, hauling her man out of the pub. That’s what the fishermen had thought. No wonder. He had treated me like a hard man treats a shrew.
We walked back to the car without talking. The village was nearly dark with low-hanging clouds and rain. I wanted that warmth to rise again like love, but his sudden fierce anger walked between us, like a stranger. I don’t think he realized it. For him, it was over and forgotten. I wished I could forget it as easily.
But the long drive home helped; the whisky macs had loosened my nerves and I didn’t think too much about the way he drove. I was sleepy and content to lean against the hard seat, with my eyes half-closed, listening to the slap and splash of rain on the wet road and not thinking too much. Dominic sang beautiful old Irish songs, about wars and guns and lost love. I wondered dimly if there were any happy songs in Ireland.
He stopped the Range Rover in front of Grisel MacLeod’s door, and we both climbed down in the mud and rain. She appeared on the porch and I said, not looking at Dominic, ‘I’m so sorry we’re late, the time went so quickly.’ I apologized lamely; it wasn’t much of an excuse.
‘Och, you needn’t have hurried back,’ she said easily. ‘Caitlin’s tucked up in the box room long since. I wasn’t expecting you back early,’ she added, looking at Dominic. ‘You should be knowing that, Mr. O’Brady.’
I avoided his eyes and thanked her again, hoping she was not simply too kind and polite to comment on our rudeness.
But then she said, ‘You two just run along home, and you can come for her in the morning, whenever you’re ready. She’ll have her breakfast with me and Angus.’ As she was closing the door, she added, ‘Oh, Mr. O’Brady, Mr. McGuire was up to the house. I suppose he was looking for you.’ Dominic nodded, thanking her for the message.
‘See,’ he said as we walked down the gravel path to the car. I didn’t answer. I still thought him irresponsible to presume so on Grisel, in spite of the kind way she took it. But I wasn’t in the mood for another argument so I held my tongue.
When we stepped through the split door into the dark, still house I was suddenly very conscious that for the first time ever, Dominic and I were totally alone together at Sron Ban.
I think he felt that, too, for he hurried into the front room, quickly involving himself in lighting the lamps.
‘I’ll make some coffee,’ I said, going to the kitchen. I lit the gas and filled the coffeepot and set it on the flames. Then I stood in the kitchen, under the dark-blue light of the late dusk on the hill, watching Dominic on his knees in front of the banked fire, stirring the coals back into flames. Eventually we ran out of chores to invent.
We sat on the floor on either side of the fire, drinking coffee and not looking at each other.
My hair had been gathered in a loose braid down my back, and hung damply against my neck. I loosened the band that held it now, and taking my hairbrush from the mantel, began to untangle it and brush it out, rippling from the braid, in a dark fall over my shoulder.
Dominic leaned against the tile surround of the fireplace, watching me through half-closed eyes. Then suddenly he reached forward, taking the hairbrush from me, and for an instant running his fingers through my hair, at the side of my face, just lightly touching my cheek.
‘ “My Dark Rosaleen, Do not sigh, do not weep,” ’ he whispered. I looked up with a quick smile, remembering.
‘ “The priests are on the ocean green, They march along the deep”.’
‘You know it,’ he said, smiling, pleased.
‘Yes. James Clarence Mangan. I love it. But I’ve never understood what it was about.’
Dominic leaned back against the tile again. ‘Ireland,’ he said. ‘Roisin Dubh, the little dark rose, “My Dark Rosaleen” … it’s a love song, from an Irish patriot to his country.’
‘You love Ireland, don’t you,’ I said slowly. ‘Do you spend much time there?’
I caught a warning look in his eyes, a quick flash, but for once he was in too gentle a mood for anger. He said very softly, ‘I’ve never been there.’
I looked up, amazed. ‘Why ever not?’
‘I can’t,’ he said. ‘I can’t ever go there. My father fought with the IRA during the Troubles. He left Ireland after the Easter Rising in 1916. He left with a price on his head and the British Army on his heels. He came to America and lived there, and died there, in exile.’
I absorbed that in silence, slowly, and then I said quietly, ‘That’s a very long time ago. And anyhow, just because your father was in the IRA, it doesn’t make you an exile. You’re free enough to go to Ireland, aren’t you?’
‘No,’ he said softly, ‘I am not free. My father taught me what Ireland meant to him, and what it should mean to me. He made me promise that I would never set foot on Irish soil until Ireland was free. I never will.’
I laughed nervously, puzzled. ‘Dominic, Ireland has been free for a very long time. Unless you mean Ulster …’
‘Yes,’ he said in a harsh whisper, ‘I mean Ulster. My father came from Derry. Ulster was his home. And it should have been mine. Not Glens Falls, New York,’ he added bitterly.
I studied his face, hard and desperate in the firelight, and then turned away sadly, looking into the darkness of the room. I didn’t understand the politics of Northern Ireland. I didn’t really know who I thought was right, or who I thought was wrong. To me, Ireland was a place where innocent people died for no reason, or for reasons so far removed from their own lives that they made no sense any longer. A place like Vietnam. I had had enough of such places.
‘I’m going to bed,’ I said to Dominic, as I stood up. ‘I’m tired.’
He jumped up quickly. I had surprised him, I think. It was usually he who did the walking out, on me.
‘Carrie?’ he said softly. I smiled, he was using my pet name, from my childhood. The name Caitlin used. He reached for me, took my arms, gripping my elbows, drawing me closer. Then his hands slipped behind my back, locking around my waist.
I was no child. I’d been a married woman for almost a year, and I knew what love was about. I wanted him, and I had to fight hard against myself to turn my face from him, rest my head ag
ainst his shoulder and say, ‘No, please.’
But I did not have to fight him. He gently kissed my hair and then he let me go, alone with my lighted candle, up the stairs.
As he shut the door of the front room behind me, the draft swept up the stairs and the candle flickered and died in the dark. I very much didn’t want to go back into the front room for a match to relight it. I smiled to myself in the shadows on the stairs. Dominic was a gentleman; it was myself I could not trust with any more temptation.
I reached for the smooth wooden railing and felt my way up to the landing. There was a dim light from the skylight over the stairwell. I could just make out the door of my room, and saw that the landing carpet was crumpled up in a heap by the door. Caitlin must have done that this morning, though I hadn’t noticed.
Well, I’d fix it in the morning. The door opened inward so it wouldn’t block my way.
I found the worn knob, and gave the door a hard shove, stepping with it over the rug and into the room. The air in the room was thick like fur, and hit me like a soft wall, heavy with the onion stench of gas. I gasped and flew instinctively to the window, finding it shut beneath my fingers. I wrenched it up, choking, and leaned out to breathe. Then I turned into the swirling air of the room and screamed for Dominic.
Chapter Eight
He was up the dark stairs so fast that I, groping desperately for the handle of the still hissing gas jet, had barely time to shout out, ‘No lights.’
He hadn’t fortunately bothered to reach for one. He bounded into the room, took hold of my arm and physically threw me out onto the landing. I crashed into the stair railing and hung onto it, coughing. In a few seconds he was beside me, the door shut firmly between us and the gas-filled room.
Clinging to each other, we stumbled down the stairs and flung open the front door, and stood there letting the beautiful cool clean air wash the sick dizziness out of our heads.
Dominic kept his arms around me for a long time, silently stroking my hair. Then he said, bewildered, ‘Carrie, your candle …’
I said trying not to let my voice shake, ‘It blew out on the stairs.’
Highland Fire: captivating romantic suspense full of twists Page 8
