Dominic let his raised hand drop, reluctantly. Kevin smirked at us both and slid out the door, laughing under his breath. I had the feeling he didn’t really want to fight.
Dominic shut the door and said, ‘I’m sorry, Carrie,’ as I stalked angrily up the stairs. When I had settled Caitlin again, hoping that she would sleep until her suppertime, I went down again into the front room.
Dominic was sitting at the table, studying the pencil sketch propped against the jug of flowers. I started to walk past him into the kitchen, but he stopped me, saying, ‘Carrie, did Seumas do this?’
‘Yes,’ I said shortly.
He studied it again for a long time and said, ‘He’s a real artist, isn’t he?’
‘I thought you didn’t like him,’ I said, sharper than I had to.
‘Oh, Carrie,’ he said so softly I could barely hear him. ‘It hasn’t anything to do with liking or disliking.’
‘Then what has it got to do with?’ I demanded impatiently. He wouldn’t look at me, even when I came and stood angrily in front of him. I turned back to the kitchen, giving up.
He said, ‘Did Seumas give you this?’
‘He left it there.’
‘Can I have it?’ he asked softly.
I turned back to him for a moment and shook back my hair, tired and confused, trying to make sense of his ever changing moods.
‘Of course,’ I said. ‘Of course you can.’
Chapter Eleven
It was stormy again, a cold windy day with sheets of water on the road and grey lines of rain streaking across the windshield, blurring the shape of the hills. I hadn’t enjoyed the drive to Ullapool. The light minivan bounced in the wind and slid and scuttled up that awful muddy bend on the Sron Ban road. I drove intently, not looking over the side of the ravine, not even thinking about the ravine.
Once on the broad moor, I breathed the customary sigh of relief, but even here, driving was work today. I peered out through the fogging windshield, wondering why it always seemed to rain when I had to go to Ullapool. I went nearly every week, for the shopping. It seemed to have been wet every time. Even that day with Dominic. I grimaced, not liking to remember that.
I grimaced again as I passed the turn-off to the distillery. Dominic was down there. There was a truck in from France or something. He had mentioned that at breakfast. It was about all he had said, and I hadn’t really been listening. It wasn’t a very good morning. In fact, it was about our worst.
It had started last night, and it hadn’t finished yet, a vicious bitter argument that brought out the worst in both of us. In a way, I was responsible; I began it, and I was the one who wouldn’t let it drop.
It started over the six o’clock news. We had been working in the office all afternoon, and at ten to six Dominic, glancing at the clock on the mantel, jumped up and switched on the little battery-run television. I went on with my typing while he absently watched the first headlines. Then suddenly he waved me silent and turned his intent attention to the tiny screen.
I looked up; Ireland, of course. There had been a bombing, the sort of bombing that happened a lot there. Two British soldiers had entered a house in Londonderry, tripping off a waiting explosive device that brought the whole ageing stone structure down on their heads. They were killed, of course. So was an old man passing on the street, and a baby in a carriage across the road.
I put my hand to my mouth, biting the knuckles, shutting my eyes, shutting out the thought of it.
‘Well, that’s two more of the bastards,’ Dominic said under his breath.
I bit down even harder on my knuckles, shaking my head and whispering, ‘Oh, God, Dominic, how can you?’
‘How can I what?’ he said, slowly and dangerously.
‘Damn you!’ I shouted across the room. ‘Damn you, damn you!’ I was crying, too angry to be afraid of him.
I think I shocked him. He went very quiet, watched me for a moment uncertainly. I grabbed up that moment of silence, turned on him, and shouted, ‘Is that a victory, then? Two young boys trying to do their job, and an old man, and a baby. A baby. Like Caitlin. It could have been Caitlin, if she were there.’ The child had been near her age; growing up in that hopeless place, the same two years Caitlin had lived on the quiet green hillside above Loch Broom. I couldn’t stand even thinking about it. ‘Is that what your people call a victory?’ I demanded bitterly.
‘It’s war,’ Dominic returned. ‘People get killed in wars. Why blame the people who are trying to change things? What about the army? What about the British government? If they’d stayed out of there, none of this would have happened.’
‘Oh, really, Dominic,’ I said coldly. ‘That despicable shift of the blame. “Don’t blame me for killing, blame the system for making me kill.” I thought you were a cut above that.’
‘Did you, then? Well, maybe you were wrong.’ He didn’t even sound like the same person.
Sickened, I stood up and said, ‘It’s so easy for you, isn’t it? With your nice safe American citizenship, and your nice safe home in Scotland. How do you know what it’s like to live in Londonderry, with the bombing and the shooting every day? How do you know what the parents of that baby feel? You don’t have children. And you’re no more Irish than I am. You’ve never set foot in Ireland. You’re just a damned rich American rooting for the home team from a nice safe distance.’
I stalked out and slammed the door. In the front room I leaned against the mantel of the fireplace, with Caitlin pulling at my skirt, demanding attention. I picked her up and turned, hearing the door of the office open. I clutched the baby close to me, holding my breath. My anger had passed, and thinking how I’d spoken, I was scared. I had no idea what he’d do.
The front door slammed shut and I caught a glimpse of Dominic striding passed the window, his shepherd’s crook under his arm. He was going walking on the hill. I wouldn’t see him again for many hours, and I was very thankful of that.
I didn’t see him again until morning. This morning. I came down early. His door was closed, he’d come in sometime in the night; I hadn’t heard him. Downstairs, I found his raincoat, spread across the fire screen, still soaking, and the wooden crook leaning against the mantel. It was a stormy night and the hill must have been far from pleasant.
I felt a twinge of guilt, as if I had driven him out into the storm. I had to remind myself that he’d gone of his own free temperamental will.
I made tea, and when Dominic came downstairs, I poured him a cup. Neither of us spoke, and I went upstairs to dress Caitlin.
He played with her quietly while I went to make breakfast. Silence hung in the room like smoke from a bad fire. The child sensed it, went quiet, found her doll after breakfast, and retreated to a corner. I drank my coffee standing by the fireplace, with my back to the table where Dominic sat watching me.
Dominic never pursued a fight, his anger died as quickly as it was born. I was usually glad enough to end an argument when he did; I didn’t like fighting with anyone, least of all him, with his violent unruly temper.
But today was different. Something had changed in me; there was a new hardness that was knotting up in me and wouldn’t let me say the forgiving words we needed. It seemed to me that after what he had said, I had no right to forgive.
So we met in silence, ate together barely speaking, and parted in silence. He walked out into the rain, with his dark head down and the collar of his still-wet coat turned against the wind. He turned back to the house once, from the car, seeing me in the window. I turned my back and walked away.
The warm sea wind in the streets of Ullapool softened me a little. I did my shopping, stopped at a little bakery-cafe for coffee. Afterwards I went out in the streets and just walked around. I went down to the harbour and watched the seagulls circling hopefully around the anchored fishing boats.
I knew I wasn’t ever going to change him. What he believed in, he believed with such fanatical desperation that nothing would change him. Being angry with him for
it was a fruitless waste of the good things between us.
I walked down the street to where I had left the van, giving Dominic’s damned palm tree a friendly bash as I passed. I had decided to make the peace ‒ now, before I lost my nerve. I drove back to Braemore and turned up the paved hill road to the Sron Ban Distillery.
The place seemed empty, as I drove in past the main pagoda-roofed building and down the centre courtyard among the sheds and warehouses. Rain whipped across the cobblestones, drove against shut doors and windows. Everyone was apparently sensibly inside.
I supposed I would have to ask someone where to find Dominic, and I considered which of the tight shut doors to try, wishing there was someone more obviously in sight. Then I saw the nose end of a truck, just showing from behind the distant building that Dominic had called the bonded warehouse, where the whisky was stored to age. He had mentioned a truck arriving from France. If they were unloading empty crates, there would be someone with the truck. I drove nearer and parked the car on the edge of the cobbles, climbing out and walking through the warehouse.
A figure, barely visible through sheets of water, appeared beside the truck, stopped, facing toward me, then whirled and walked rapidly away, toward the building. I recognized the sheepskin coat, if not the face; it was Kevin McGuire.
Well, he’d know, if anyone. I walked closer, beside the truck and around toward the back of it and the open door of the warehouse. Dominic appeared in the dark doorway, with Kevin McGuire beside him. Kevin made a sweeping, angry gesture toward me, then turned on his heel and strode into the building, pausing just inside the shelter of the roof, watching.
Dominic came slowly out to meet me. He’d been working outside and his hair was plastered down with rainwater. He kept his head down to the wind, walking with his shoulders hunched, his hands in his pockets. He looked cold and wet and unhappy. I was glad I had come.
I started to speak the few words of peace he had waited for this morning. I never said them. He looked up suddenly with dark sullen eyes and whispered hoarsely, ‘Get out.’
I froze. This was not from last night. This was something new.
‘Why?’ I gasped stupidly.
‘Get out,’ he said again, louder, the words carefully spaced. I bridled, shook my hair back, and met his eyes defiantly. ‘I came to apologize,’ I began sarcastically.
‘Not here,’ he said, low and desperate, glancing slightly over his shoulder to where Kevin McGuire stood with folded arms watching us with sour amusement.
‘Why not?’ I demanded loudly, angrily. ‘What’s got into you?’
‘Damnit, woman,’ he whispered, lunging for me, ‘I said go.’ And suddenly his hands were free of his pockets and he brought the back of one of them down so hard across my face that I heard the crack of it as from a distance. Slipping in the mud, I fell sideways against the rough side of the truck and had to grab the metal frame hard to keep my feet. He made no effort to help me.
As soon as I could balance, I turned and ran blindly through rain and tears to the mud-splattered van. I jerked the door open and leaped into the car, started the engine before the door was closed, and tore away, barely missing Dominic, who still stood in the rain in the road. I wouldn’t have cared just then if I’d hit him.
I skidded onto the mud track that led to the Sron Ban road, driving like a fool. The van bounced and jolted over the moor, and I didn’t slow it much for the curve down the hill to Achbuie. The ravine flashed by on the left; I wasn’t caring. I was burning with anger and a humiliation that was worse than anger. I had never been struck by a man, never before in my life. I swore to myself that I never would be again.
The van screeched and clattered to a stop in the gravel in front of Sron Ban. Grisel would think it was Dominic coming home, I thought grimly.
I carried my shopping through the rain into the kitchen, slamming the boxes down on the countertop. Ruefully I remembered the gentle feelings I’d had for him in Ullapool a few hours earlier. No more. No more peace, no more forgiveness.
I didn’t know what was driving at Dominic, whether it was the same thing that made him steer clear of the law, whether it had something to do with Kevin McGuire, who had watched today with such insolence. I wondered, but suddenly I didn’t care any more. I just wanted out.
I leaned against the kitchen doorjamb, rubbing my face; it was sore and swelling. On the floor, Caitlin’s doll and books and crayons and paper were scattered where she had left them. I would have to go to Grisel’s and collect her.
I let my hand drop from my face. There was no getting out. Caitlin was my anchor. If I left here, I must leave her. And even Achbuie was no real escape. So instead I would stay and I would go to the farm, somehow answer Grisel’s questions about my face, collect my little girl, and come home and wait, as always, for Dominic.
I was not surprised that he didn’t return before I went to bed. That was common. But when I got up in the morning, he still wasn’t there. The house was silent and empty. I glanced out of my bedroom window. The Range Rover wasn’t back.
I realized numbly that whatever he did, I still cared enough to worry about him. Where was he? In Mary Fraser’s bed, more than likely, I reminded myself with jealous annoyance. Quite safe there, anyhow.
I got dressed and left my room, pleased that Caitlin was still sleeping. It was early. I was in a grim mood. My face ached and I wanted tea and silence.
The front room was cold, the fire dead and grey. I crossed to the fireplace to rake out the ashes, and stopped and turned. There was something on the table, which I had left bare and clean last night
It was a book, open. I leaned across and drew aside the curtains, letting in the cloudy grey light. A book of poetry, an old book, bound in tooled and gilded leather that crumbled with brown dust under my fingers. I had seen it on the shelf.
Laid across the soft beige pages, dampening them with morning dew, was a red rose, velvety and wet, fresh-cut from the garden.
I lifted it gently and read on the damp pages the lines lightly traced under with a thin line of ink,
My virgin flower, my flower of flowers, My Dark Rosaleen!
So he had been here after all. I held the rose against my face and the thorns scratched against the bruise there. Is this what it’s going to be like, then, I thought, life with Dominic? I had always disdained women who could forgive a man a beating. I wasn’t so proud any longer.
It was late in the day when he came home. I was in the kitchen, stirring a pot of barley broth. He must have seen the rose, in its glass on the mantel, tacit acceptance of his apology. Anyhow he came and stood behind me, put his arms around me, crossing them across my body so that he held my arms firmly against my sides. He bent his head over mine and said, ‘I’m sorry, Carrie.’
I tensed for a moment, then relaxed and rested my head against his shoulder.
‘It’s done with,’ I said without much feeling. He still held me close, and I knew he didn’t want me to turn. He didn’t want to see my face, where he’d hurt it. I wasn’t feeling that kind to him, so I twisted around and made him see me.
He winced and said, ‘Oh, Carrie,’ very softly. I wanted to shout, ‘Well if you care so much, why can’t you be any different?’ But I knew better by now. Silence was our safety, silence was the only country we could share.
I turned back to my cooking and he said, standing back from me now, in the dark kitchen, ‘Old whisky is very delicate, Carrie. We’re always on edge when we’re loading it. Yesterday was worse than most, with the rain and the wind …’
I nodded, not looking at him. I accepted his explanation. I didn’t believe it, but I accepted it, though I had plenty of grounds to challenge it.
To begin with, they weren’t supposed to be loading whisky, they were supposed to be unloading empty crates. He’d forgotten, perhaps, but he’d told me. And anyhow, since when does the owner of the place load the trucks? There were plenty of hired men to do that job.
I didn’t even believe him about
the whisky. I wasn’t certain; my knowledge of such things was slight. But I was almost sure that although wine and port needed gentle care; bottled whisky was as stable as water.
He was lying to me. I knew it, and it would not surprise me to find that he realized it. After all, it hardly mattered. Both of us knew that rather than challenge him, I would let his lie pass.
That was the way it had become between us. This was just one more thing we wouldn’t talk about again. Our silence was a dike against a rising river. Break it, and we would drown.
I turned the gas down under the soup pot, low down to a tiny blue ring. Then I went out of the kitchen, brushing by him as I passed. I didn’t even really want to challenge him.
I knew already that he was into something here too deep to get out. I didn’t know what, but I had guesses.
It hadn’t missed my notice that it was the bonded warehouse where they had worked yesterday, and where I had been so unwelcome.
Dominic himself had told me of the elaborate customs procedure surrounding the handling of the whisky in that store. But the place had been open and I had seen no sign of the customs official who was supposed to accompany him on such occasions. Whatever they were doing there was secret from the government as well as from me.
Whisky was big money, but it was bigger money still if the government’s heavy excise duties were by some means avoided. I had a growing conviction that Dominic had found the means to avoid them, and that some of the produce of the Sron Ban Distillery was finding its way to market without the blessing of the government.
No wonder Dominic didn’t want the police around here.
It would explain a lot: the odd hours he kept, his suspicions about people at the distillery, and at the house. It might even explain why someone had tried to kill me; people with secrets get edgy about strangers, particularly a stranger who might have been in the wrong place on the wrong night and seen someone passing on the Sron Ban road. I imagined quite a lot might go on at times around the dark roads leading to the Sron Ban Distillery.
Highland Fire: captivating romantic suspense full of twists Page 12
