The Missing Years

by Lexie Elliott

  Fuck it. I can buy a microwave meal at the village shop.

  I decide to walk, even though it briefly crosses my mind that I might be exposing myself to more target practice from the mysterious stone thrower. It’s still light, though, so it seems unlikely. Regardless, I find I’m constantly looking around to check behind me, even as I berate myself for allowing the stone thrower this victory over me. There’s a brisk breeze that chills my cheeks and tangles my hair, but I’m warm enough inside my coat and I feel more awake than I have all day. Mostly I have to stick to the road, which has lumpy grass verges instead of pavements, but the road is so seldom used that I don’t worry about traffic mowing me down. Closer to the village, a narrow pavement replaces the verge and the odd car passes me. Several hundred meters farther, the houses begin. At first they are boxy new-build houses laid out around curving crescents, but along Front Street, where the village shop is to be found, the buildings are much older, low squat structures with narrow windows and thick walls in local stone with slate roofs. It’s not a busy street—I’m the only person on it—but there are a few cars parked in front of the shop and the post office.

  I’m only thirty meters or so from the shop when Carrie exits it.

  I nearly call out, then I stop—it can’t be her. She’s in Edinburgh. But nobody else has biker boots and a gray coat that flaps out around the legs; it’s unmistakably her. She has a bottle of wine held by the neck in one hand and a plastic bag in the other, and she doesn’t look up the street toward me. Instead she strides purposefully to one of the parked vehicles and climbs in. The car pulls away and is no longer shielded from my view by other parked vehicles. I can see it properly as it drives away from me down the long, straight road that is Front Street. It’s Jamie’s jeep.

  It takes me a moment to realize I’ve stopped dead on the pavement. She lied to me. I resume walking and try to sort out what I’ve just seen. Why would she feel the need to lie? Does she think I would be jealous about Jamie asking her out? What on earth would give her that impression? I have Jonathan, after all—well, I have as much of him as is available, and I’m not even sure I want that, but I’m hardly on the prowl. The shopkeeper—a busty woman with impressive biceps who may or may not be the bitch that Carrie referred to—throws out a cheery hiya, and I find a vague smile for her in response. I don’t understand what’s happening. It almost hurts to breathe.

  Perhaps she didn’t lie. Perhaps she was planning to stay in Edinburgh, but her plans changed. I glance at my watch. No, she must have been on the train already when she rang me. She lied, and that one thing, that single small thing, has in a stroke replaced the solid ground beneath me with quicksand.

  “That looks healthy.”

  Ben. Nobody else has an accent that covers three continents in three words. I look up and find him smiling at me down the shop aisle, dressed in jeans and a casual hoodie and his fingers looped loosely through the handle of a carton of milk. The sleeves are pushed back on his hoodie. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen him with those tanned forearms covered. I look back at what I’m holding. Microwaveable chicken tikka masala. “It has no added sugars,” I rally.

  “And no nutrients either, I bet. Is this how the Calder sisters live?”

  “Carrie’s not a Calder.” I take a breath before that can truly bite and rush on. “And actually, it’s just me tonight, and I couldn’t face cooking, so . . .” I raise the microwave dinner with a rueful smile.

  “We can’t have that. Come have dinner with me.”

  My eyes leap to his. His sky blue eyes are smiling at me as if what he has suggested is perfectly innocuous. Which it ought to be, but it’s not. I’m sure we both know it’s not. I’m almost sure we both know. “What, now?”

  “Why not? It doesn’t sound like you have other plans.”

  “No, but—”

  “Are you scared I might seduce you?” He waggles his eyebrows so ludicrously that I can’t help but laugh, and once I’m laughing, I can hardly say, Yes, that’s exactly what I’m scared of. Though the thought of a few more hours away from the Manse and some company to take my mind off Carrie’s duplicitous behavior certainly holds an appeal . . . “So?” he prompts, sensing weakness.

  “Where would we go?” It’s not a yes, I tell myself. I’m still fact-finding.

  “There’s a good Thai place in the next village. Do you like Thai food?”

  “Yes—”

  “Excellent.” He’s thoroughly pleased with how this is turning out and not in the least bit ashamed of showing it. “Shall we drop your car back at yours and go together in mine?”

  “You’re railroading me,” I say plaintively.

  “I am. I totally am.” He holds his hand up as if admitting guilt, then grins and reaches for the meal I’m still holding. “Just go with it.”

  It turns out it’s remarkably easy to do exactly what he suggests. I relinquish the meal, and he replaces it in the freezer. “Okay, but I’m paying. After all, you paid for both Carrie and me on your birthday.”

  “Fine by me.”

  “And actually, I’m not in the car. I walked here.”

  “Great, we can go straight there and have a drink beforehand if you’re not hungry yet.” He pauses. “You stuck to the roads, right? Good. The path by the river is really slippy at this time of year. Normally you can walk up as far as the waterfalls—not beyond; there were landslips there years ago, so it’s not passable—but right now you can’t even get to the falls.” He’s moving down the aisle toward the cashier, who, from her evident interest, has been listening to our entire conversation. I’m fairly certain she’s the woman Carrie so charmingly described. “So do you need anything from home?” I shake my head. “Okay, great, we’ll go straight there.”

  “Just the milk, Ben?” asks the cashier.

  “Aye, just the milk, Jean,” he says pleasantly. “Oh, have you met Ailsa? She’s staying up at the Manse with her sister.”

  “Nice to meet you, Jean.”

  “Nice to meet you, hen.” She has exactly as strong a handshake as her biceps suggest. “You just missed Carrie.”

  “Oh, did I?” I attempt to sound vague.

  “How are you both settling in at the Manse? Must be a big change from your city lifestyle.” There’s no sour note in the way she says city lifestyle, but somehow I can hear it all the same.

  “We’re fine. It’s so beautiful up here.”

  “Aye, you wait till you’ve lived through a winter and then see how you feel.” She pauses. “Sorry to hear about your mother. I knew both your parents, you ken. Your mother, she was life and soul of the party.” She shakes her head. It’s not clear whether she approved of Karen’s party animal tendencies. “Aye, life and soul.”

  Ben glances at me then rushes in. “Aye, well, you have a good night now, Jean.” He starts to usher me out.

  “You too,” calls Jean from behind me. “Enjoy your dinner.”

  He herds me toward his car, a very smart BMW convertible. I wonder how many times he gets to put the top down living here. “Is it going to be all over the village by tomorrow that we’re having dinner together?” Not that I care, really. There’s no point in caring, especially when I’m being talked about anyway, it seems.

  “Of course not.” He unlocks the car and opens the passenger door for me. It’s an oddly old-fashioned gesture. I wonder if they teach the staff to do that at the hotel. “It’ll be all round the village by midnight latest. By tomorrow the story will have expanded; we’ll have been having rampant sex in the kiddie playground. Probably on the seesaw. Or maybe the slide.”

  “Not the swings?”

  “Too conventional. We like our gossip a little more avant-garde here.”

  He pulls away from the curb and performs a neat U-turn, heading back toward the Manse and the hotel, but takes a right turn just outside the village. I dislike being driven as a rule—
I’ve been in too many cars in too many countries where the drivers appear to operate as if there are only two options, flat out and full brake—but Ben is a smooth driver, and I’m able to relax. I find I’m wondering what Jamie and Carrie are up to tonight. I wouldn’t think he would want to conduct a romance under the unflinching eye of his father. Perhaps he’ll take her out for a drink or a meal. Oh God, what if they’re at the same restaurant? How on earth would I deal with that? How would Carrie deal with that, and Jamie? I would think he would be embarrassed not to at least have given me an inkling that he wanted to ask my sister out, in all our “wee blethers.” Or perhaps not. We’ve never discussed that sort of thing . . .

  “Bloody hell!” exclaims Ben, as he turns a bend to find a vehicle careening erratically past us. “Someone’s on track for an early death.”

  “I’ve seen that Land Rover before,” I say, craning my neck to look back, but it has already disappeared round a corner. “Do you know the driver?”

  He shakes his head. “I didn’t see, it came on us so fast. And every third car is a Land Rover round here.”

  “Do I need to buy one to fit in?”

  He grins. “I’ll not deny it, it really might help.”

  We talk about his travels, where I’ve been for work. I’m too on edge from having seen Carrie to try to be funny or smart or deep; we just talk. He’s easy to talk to. Though in only minutes we’re entering the next village and he’s drawing up to park on the street just along from the improbably named Ballashiels Thai. As I climb out, I surreptitiously scan the other cars. There’s a Mini and a Volvo and a couple of Land Rovers—of course—but I can’t see a shiny new jeep.

  “Is this okay?” asks Ben, opening the door to reveal a warmly lit space with ten or so wooden tables and brightly colored cushions scattered on the bench-style seating. About half of the tables are filled, even though it’s reasonably early.

  “Looks lovely,” I say genuinely.

  A middle-aged Thai lady bustles up to us. “Ben! Welcome back. How’ve you been?” Her accent is an unexpected surprise—broad Scots, but from farther north than here, I’d guess. There’s almost a Scandinavian lilt to it. “Table for two?” They swap news as we’re led to a table near the back, then she bustles off to get us some drinks.

  “Is there anybody in this area you don’t know?” I tease.

  He smiles. “Well, it’s a pretty small world here. Which has its pluses and minuses.”

  “At the moment I think I’m only seeing the minuses.”

  His eyebrows quirk upward. “Sounds like you’re thinking of something specific.”

  I shrug awkwardly. “I guess I’m just not used to people knowing about my father. And it sounds horribly selfish, but I hadn’t really considered that it would have had an impact on other people. Other than me and my mother, I mean.” He’s still looking at me quizzically. “Well, Ali seemed to dislike me from the off—”

  “Ach, he doesn’t mean to be rude—”

  “Yes, he does,” I say mildly.

  “Okay, yes, sometimes he does, but he’s a good guy underneath it all. He’s just . . . complicated.” He cocks his head. “Why, are you thinking it’s related to your father?”

  “My lawyer told me Jamieson & Sons went under when the insurance wouldn’t pay after the diamonds went missing.”

  Ben snorts. “They went under because Ali’s dad started drinking like there was no tomorrow and finally left his mother. Which was something of a problem for the operation of a family-run business. Granted that all happened about the same time, but I think they would probably have weathered the insurance storm if Ali’s dad had had his eye on the ball.”

  “Oh.” I digest that for a moment. It shouldn’t make me feel lighter—I shouldn’t feel in any way responsible for my father—but it does. “Does Ali see his dad now?”

  “Sometimes. He’s dried himself out and is living on the Continent. Sometimes Ali goes across to see him. The whole thing was pretty brutal on him at the time.”

  “Yours seems an odd friendship.”

  “I know.” He cocks his head, thinking about it. “We’ve been friends since school. Pretty much day one. Ali was this weird, surly, geeky kid, all elbows and knees. One of the older lads tried to steal this toy Ali loved—really loved, I mean, like he couldn’t stand to be without it—just for a laugh, and I punched him. The other kid, I mean, not Ali.” I can imagine him as a boy—more than that, I can almost remember him—with his straightforward view of the world. The other kid deserved a thump and he got a thump, and then it was done, with no hard feelings. For Ben, at least. “Didn’t exactly go down too well with the teacher, mind, but Ali became an instant fan.” The warm light reflects in his blue eyes as he smiles ruefully. “He was too bright for primary school; it wasn’t the most fun for him. He’s actually the smartest person I know, and really funny. And one hundred percent loyal.” I can see how that particular trait would chime with Ben, with what he values, with how he sees himself: he’s a knight of Camelot, riding in, sword aloft, to do the right thing no matter what the consequences. “But Ali . . . well, he’s also a very complicated guy. And like his dad before him, he likes his drink . . .”

  “You sound like he’s your responsibility.”

  He shrugs. “I think we all have people in our lives that we feel a responsibility to, whether related or not.” But of course Ben would feel that way. He takes care of people: Ali, Fiona, Callum, the hotel guests. I don’t do that. For a long time I didn’t have the luxury, and now that I’m trying, I don’t have the training. I bet Carrie wouldn’t be telling lies if he was her brother and she was his sister. “Loyalty is key, right? You stick together come what may.” There’s an unusual intensity in his eyes as he asks me, “Don’t you think?” I’m saved from having to respond by a waitress appearing to take our order.

  Later, when we’ve eaten a frankly delicious meal, and the lights have been turned low to favor tea lights on each table, we stay on. Ben has coffee, which I’ve declined in the hope I might sleep easily tonight. Instead I twist my glass by the stem, watching how the flickering light flows through the butter yellow wine, and find myself thinking of liquid autumn sunlight streaming through the leaf canopy in the wood behind the house, even though I haven’t seen that wood in autumn—at least not for twenty-seven years. Then I find myself saying what I was determined not to. “You know, there’s something odd about the Manse.”

  “Odd how?” I can see he’s acutely interested. “Fiona says it’s a special place.”

  “Why is she the oracle on it?” I can hear the peevishness of my tone. It makes me feel mean and small. And guilty—I promised to be civil. Even if Carrie is lying to me, it was still a promise.

  “Because she knows more about it than the rest of us, I guess.” It’s not an evasion but it’s not exactly the most forthcoming of answers.

  “And what does she say is special about it?” I’m overcompensating now, trying to make myself sound open, nonjudgmental.

  His lips curve upward in an echo of his shoulders. “Lots, but it’ll all be too woolly for you.” He’s definitely teasing me this time.

  “Try me anyway.”

  “Well. It’s about time . . . Time is different there, she says. It moves at a different pace. She thinks . . .”

  “What?”

  “She thinks . . .” He makes a small movement with his fingers, as if he’s reluctantly yielding. “She thinks it might be folded. Time, I mean. Like, I don’t know, a long sheet of paper. But she thinks it’s folded there. Multiple times. So that different times touch one another.”

  I stare at him. “You’re kidding.” But I think uneasily about how I’ve been thrown by the passage of time in the Manse, how my own sense of it passing and the movement of the hands of my watch can be so different.

  “I told you that you wouldn’t like it.” There are crinkles at the co
rners of his eyes. I can’t tell if it’s my consternation that amuses him, or that he had correctly predicted it.

  “The woman who can’t tell a minute from an hour has a theory that involves time? And you believe her?”

  “I believe that she believes it. She sees things differently to everyone else. And who knows . . . Anyway, you don’t have to believe everything your friends believe. You just have to believe in them.”

  “You know that’s kind of nuts, right?”

  “Believing in your friends?” He’s teasing me again. It creates intimacy—as if any more were needed given we’ve just finished a candlelit dinner à deux. I ignore him, and after a second he goes on. “Is it, though? It’s no more nuts than believing in God, or homeopathy, or that you’ll have seven years’ bad luck if you smash a mirror.”

  “But those aren’t measurable. Time at the Manse is. It’s not like I spend a day there and five minutes passes elsewhere.”

  “She says it sort of lurches to get back in sync. It’s like the other times that touch there drag on it a bit. Like there’s resistance.”

  I think of Callum and the injured bird. That was from before. Or later. She must have infected her son with her warped thinking. Only I’ve seen the bird, too. Or have I? Did I see it the first day and then reconstruct the image in my mind on subsequent occasions? It was always the end of twilight, almost into night proper. The brain can make extraordinary leaps when trying to make sense of limited information in crepuscular light. “Doesn’t sound ideal for a prospective hotel property.”

  He smiles a little at my caustic tone. “I’ll take my chances. How is all of that going?”

  “It’s fine.” I spread the fingers of the hand that holds the wineglass in a What can you do? gesture. “It’s a process, the Presumption of Death thing. We’re working through it step-by-step.”

  “I suppose it’s bringing up memories.”

  “Not of my father, or not anything new, at any rate. But I guess it’s helping make sense of some of the memories I had of the house itself, and the landscape.” And of the police visits, and my mother’s barely reined-in hysteria.