‘Her father was English, her mother Irish.’
‘Really?’ The thought of Maury bothered me though I couldn’t think why. I let it go. ‘Dougal, when did you get into your climbing clobber?’
‘When I took the twins back to Achnagairl after noticing the wind had changed. I then drove up, but was less than a third of the way when the wind dropped and driving was impossible. I kept on the road until I met the other two, which, being longer, wasted a lot of time. After leaving them I came on across the hills. Though much shorter, that still took time. It was dark when I searched the plateau the first time. Then I went over the side we came up this morning. Then back all round the plateau. I never expected to find you down here, but, having exhausted the probables, I was working through the improbables. That’s why I was so long in finding you. Did you hear none of my earlier shouts?’
‘No, but I wasn’t listening, as I didn’t think anyone could be looking for me in a night mist. Didn’t it hold up that last search on Ben Gairlie?’
‘Yes. But this isn’t the Ben.’
‘Could be, as far as I’m concerned!’
‘Why didn’t you tell me you’re scared of heights?’
‘Too much of a moral coward.’
‘So!’ He was silent for several seconds. ‘Bad, coming up this morning?’
‘In parts. Worth it for the view, though I wish it hadn’t resulted in our being stuck out here.’
‘Had you not come down we’d still have had to sit this out up top. In point of fact, this shelf, being more sheltered, is more suitable in many ways.’
I said, ‘It’s nice of you to say so, but ‒’
‘Not nice. True.’
‘But why couldn’t we have walked back? You walked up.’
‘Aye, but mostly in daylight and over hills with which I’m well acquainted. Consequently, I’ve a healthy respect for them in a night mist. I’ll take an occasional calculated risk, but to take an unnecessary one on a night like this is asking for trouble. In the hills as on a mountain, there’s a time for action and a time for waiting. This is the latter. Does that bother you?’
‘Not now. I didn’t fancy the prospect alone.’ I could now smile at myself in a pleasantly detached manner. ‘I’ve never known real fear before. Literally, it was throttling.’
‘I know exactly what you mean,’ he said, as if he did.
I brooded on that for a few minutes. Then I asked why he climbed. ‘Is “because it’s there” the real reason?’
‘That’s why some climbers climb, though in my experience not many. It’s certainly not my reason.’ He hesitated, and when he continued his voice was so soft he might have been singing. ‘The hills are my great pleasure ‒ or maybe the better word is love. In the quiet of the hills one can think. Climbers seldom talk much, and some don’t care to talk at all. I suppose I climb because I love the quiet and every other aspect of the hills ‒ the sky, the birds, the changing weather, the constant beauty. I won’t say I look for danger, but I’d be a liar if I pretended the constant awareness of danger didn’t add to one’s appreciation of the whole.’ He was quiet for some moments. ‘I started as a rock-climber.’
‘Aren’t you still?’
‘Aye. But I’m no longer a rock purist.’
‘What’s that?’
‘A rock-climber who wants only to climb bigger and better rocks. If the going’s too easy a true rock purist becomes impatient. I’ve outgrown that stage, but that’s nothing to do with age. Some do, some don’t.’
‘Were you very young when you started?’
‘Younger than Johnnie. I was Robin’s age when my father took Charlie Urquhart and myself on our first real climb. I’ve never forgotten the excitement and satisfaction it gave me. I had to go on and tackle bigger and bigger climbs until fit for the north face of the Ben herself.’
I heard the affection in his voice. ‘You love that mountain?’
‘Maybe ‒ no ‒ yes, I do. The Ben was my first mountain, and one feels about one’s first mountain much as one does about one’s first girl-friend. Others may be as good or even better, but the memory of the very first lingers and grows more faultless with every passing year.’
‘Then you don’t climb a mountain out of your system?’
‘Not personally, though I’ve met climbers with that attitude. In my view that’s very dangerous. I think one should only climb for pleasure ‒ and by that I don’t mean for kicks. Once one stops feeling happy one should come down and stay down; once a mountain becomes an enemy to be defeated, trouble starts. Trouble a few thousand or even hundred feet up is very easily fatal. Charlie Urquhart feels so strongly about this,’ he added, ‘that if he even suspects any of his novice climbers of trying to climb something out of their systems he refuses to take them up and advises them to chuck the whole idea if they want to stay alive. He knows what he’s about, does Charlie. I rate him as currently the best rock-climber in Scotland, and up in the first three in the world. I’m sorry you’ve had no opportunity to meet him. He’s a good man.’ He noticed I was stifling a yawn. ‘I shouldn’t be keeping you awake with all this talk. You should’ve stopped me. There’s nothing so boring as being forced to listen to an enthusiast in a hobby one doesn’t share.’
‘I’ve enjoyed listening.’ I was honest. ‘Only now I’m so warm and comfortable ‒’ I yawned again. ‘Dougal, I am sorry.’
‘Don’t talk so daft, lassie, and go to sleep.’
I wanted him to go on talking, but was too sleepy to say so. I was asleep before I got around to it.
It was light when I woke. The mist was pearly-grey and clung to Dougal’s hair, eyelashes, and rough chin. He was still holding me and smiling. ‘You’ve had a fine sleep.’
I blinked. ‘Have you had any?’
‘Enough, thanks.’ He propped me against the hill face and stood up, stretching as he peered through the mist. ‘The sun’s going to lift this. We’ll have some tea and chocolate and then think about moving. How do you feel this morning?’
‘Great, thanks!’
That was a hideous lie, but I hoped the tea and chocolate would do the trick. My chest was too tight, and an ugly little pain was stabbing at my right side. Had I not been ill two years ago I might have blamed the altitude, cramp, or both. Had my memory been less refreshed by sleep I would have told Dougal. But though last night I had slept in his arms, this morning I remembered yesterday. Even if I reached London with double pneumonia I was leaving Gairlie on schedule tomorrow.
Within minutes the sun rose over the still invisible blue mountains in the east. As the rays broke through, the mist was instantly transformed into a series of translucent rainbows, and then, as instantly, the colours vanished from the sky, but not from the suddenly exposed hills. The heather was a brilliant purple, the bracken pure gold, and the dew glittered like topaz.
Dougal heard my sudden gasp, and as that one was in wonder I didn’t try to conceal it. ‘A sight worth remembering, Elizabeth.’
‘Unbelievable!’
‘Aye.’ He smiled down at me, flexing his shoulders and then extending his arms above his head as if greeting the sun. It was an instinctively primitive and rather splendid gesture, and though his hair was untidy, his chin blue, his clothes crumpled, in that moment there was a touch of splendour about him. I thought of last night and then of his alter ego as my host. Certainly unbelievable, but worth remembering? I took a long breath to think that over, and that was such a mistake that I stopped thinking about anything but the pain in my side.
Dougal was packing up. ‘We must start off now, as I asked Rose to let Sergeant Cameron at the police station know if we weren’t back last night, and told Maury to ring him directly she and Robin reached her house. If we’re not down shortly Alec Cameron’ll have Charlie out of his bed to pick up the pieces.’ He glanced at me as he collected the empty vacuum mug, then did a double-take. ‘Are you having difficulty breathing?’
As a direct lie wouldn’t fool him, I used a half-tru
th. ‘God, yes! Fear has me by the throat, so be a chum and look the other way.’ I jerked my thumb upwards. ‘Fear of that cliff you call a wee stretch.’
‘Is that it?’ He knelt by me. ‘Wrist, please.’
‘If the rate’s not up, it should be. My adrenalin’s pumping overtime.’
‘So?’ His expression was professionally blank. He touched my forehead with the back of his hand, then told me to stay where I was while he went up and fixed up a rope. ‘Keep in your wrappings, pro tem. It’s chilly this early.’
He went up so quickly and smoothly it looked ‒ almost ‒ easy. He threw down both ends of the fixed rope and returned without using either. ‘You’ll be stiff after sitting,’ he said, and helped me stand. My legs felt stuffed with cotton-wool, and my head was at the same time too light and too heavy. I was as glad of his steadying hands as for his ready-made excuse. I said I’d be fine once my circulation got the message.
‘No doubt.’ He tied the end of one rope round my waist and gave the rope a tug. ‘See? Fixed above round solid granite. It’s nylon, new, can stand a strain of treble your weight without breaking, and you can’t drop further than this length. Clear?’
‘Yes. Thanks.’
‘And this one round your waist is just a safety rope. Ignore it. This is the operative one.’ He tied the second above the first and tested both knots. ‘All you’ve to do is hang on to this and walk up as I pull you up from above. Don’t look down or bother if your feet slip, as I’ll be manipulating both ropes and won’t let you fall.’ He put both hands on my shoulders in what could have been merely a reassuring gesture. Or he could have been testing the rise and fall of my respirations. ‘All set?’
I nodded. It saved breath.
‘It won’t take long.’ He flung the rugs and ground-sheet over his shoulders and went back up.
It did not take long. It just seemed so to me. When I flopped on the grass above, he unwound the top rope round my waist, then sat back on his heels. ‘Stay where you are, Elizabeth, get your breath, then tell me the truth about that pain in your chest.’
‘Dougal, don’t fuss! It’s just the altitude.’
He said evenly, ‘You weren’t cyanosed at this altitude yesterday. Where’s that pain catching you? How long have you had it? Have you ever known anything like it before?’ Again he put both hands on my shoulders. ‘Breathe in. Can you hold it?’
‘Oh, God, do stop!’ I snapped peevishly. ‘So I’m a bit breathless. So who wouldn’t be after being hauled up on a bit of string. You know I’m not a bloody Highlander by birth or adoption. But you don’t have to keep knocking the fact down with my back teeth. And though I’m very grateful for all you’ve just done for me, I do wish you’d stop pushing me around. I know you mean well ‒ and I have tried to play along ‒ but I can’t keep it up any longer.’
He was watching me without a flicker of emotion. ‘I am very sorry you should feel ‒’
‘Do lay off! I’m feeling lousy enough without being made to feel worse by your apologizing for my bad manners.’
‘You don’t have to tell me you’re feeling lousy. I’d just like to know, specifically, why?’
I was too irritable for caution. ‘Probably only my old adhesions. They play up sometimes.’
He winced. ‘Adhesions? From ‒ what?’
I realized I had gone too far to go back, so I told him the truth.
‘Good God Almighty! Why the devil didn’t you tell me this earlier? You’re a nurse. Didn’t you realize ‒’ He cut himself short, took a grip, and smiled a reassuring professional smile. ‘Never mind, lassie. What’s done is done, and no doubt you didn’t tell me so as not to spoil the picnic. Don’t worry. A few days in bed and a course of antibiotics, and you’ll be fine.’
I had moved from irritability to belligerence. ‘I don’t want a few days in bed! I want to go back to Martha’s. I’ll be fine soon as we get back to ground-level, and then ‒’ I broke off as we heard a shout.
Four men were running towards us across the plateau. I did not recognize three of them, but the man out front was Archie. I leapt up, forgetting the still untied safety rope and the state of my legs. I pitched into Archie’s outstretched arms.
‘Archie, am I glad to see you!’
‘And am I glad to see you, honey! Baby, you have given me a real nasty night. Are you okay now?’
I opened my mouth to insist I was fine and instead began coughing, and for a couple of minutes could not stop. Archie patted my shoulder, told me to take it nice and easy while he unhitched me from the rope. But he couldn’t manage the knot.
Dougal stepped closer. ‘I’ll do that, Mr MacDonald.’ He did it quickly, then began methodically to wind the length of rope. He was looking rigid again and introduced himself very formally to Archie. He turned to me. ‘I’m sorry, Elizabeth, but I’m sure Mr MacDonald will agree that at present you’re only fit to go straight to bed. You’re obviously running a temperature.’ He glanced round as the other three joined us. ‘Good morning, Charlie, Andrew, Tam. You’re out early.’
Charlie Urquhart was a sturdy, shortish, fair man with a weather-beaten face and the shoulders of an ox. ‘Aye, Dougal. It’s a fine morning for a stroll in the hills.’
‘It is,’ agreed Dougal. ‘I see you’ve a stretcher. Many thanks.’
‘Man, you’re welcome.’ Charlie Urquhart considered me with experienced eyes. ‘We’ve the estate car below.’
The other two men opened out like a deck-chair the metal-and-canvas stretcher Charlie Urquhart had carried on his back. ‘You can sit down now, miss.’
‘Thanks, but I don’t need to be carried down. I can walk.’
‘No,’ said Dougal. ‘Get on it, Elizabeth.’
His fellow Scots studied their feet in silence.
Archie shrugged apologetically. ‘Professor Grant is a doc, honey. I guess he knows what’s best for you.’
I went down strapped on that canvas stretcher. An hour later I was in a single-bedded ward in Gairlie Hospital and back in an oxygen tent.
Chapter Seven
LIFE IN AN OXYGEN TENT
I found life in that tent very peaceful. This was partly owing to my having been in one before, partly my job, and partly an advantage that arose from the disadvantage of having no close relatives.
In that small, cut-off, oxygenated world life could be very lonely for any patient suddenly removed from a family circle. The plastic walls, though transparent, were a tangible barrier. I was spared the mental hell of watching those I loved watching me with tense, anxious faces, unable to do more than put an occasional hand through one of the valve-sleeves. In my lucid moments, for the second time in my life, I was grateful my grandfather was dead. We had loved each other.
During those lucid moments, inevitably, I recognized I was very ill, but the prospect of dying never occurred to me. I had come out of a tent before. In time I’d come out again. I could tell those around me knew their stuff, so I relaxed and left it to them.
Another agony I was spared was the not uncommon lay fear that someone would accidentally turn off the oxygen, or a cylinder run out unnoticed, leaving me to gasp to death in sleep like a goldfish in a bowl without water. Though any accident could happen in any hospital, the chances of that one were roughly the same as the chances of an engine-driver’s having a coronary on any train journey.
Strange faces watched me constantly through the plastic walls. Strange voices asked me to swallow tablets, drink this, turn my head there, let my arm go limp, ‘for just another wee prick, dearie’. Strange faces and voices, yet vaguely familiar uniforms. The sisters’ white dog-collars were too narrow; the staff nurses’ dresses looked more blue than dark grey; the youngish woman in a Matron’s navy dress had starched instead of organdie cuffs; the huge middle-aged man with close-cropped grey hair wore a pundit’s dark suit, but under a long white coat. The discrepancies didn’t disturb me. I just observed them.
During those first few days there was one familiar face. It be
longed to Dougal, and he looked odd, as he too was in a dark suit. Sometimes I guessed he was visiting me in Gairlie Hospital; sometimes I was too muzzy to remember I was in any hospital; sometimes I thought myself back in Martha’s. Once I beckoned Dougal and asked if he had come to London to visit Joe. He pressed his face against the tent roof for me to hear his reply. ‘I’ve had a word with him, and he sends his good wishes. How goes it now?’
‘Bit dopey. Otherwise, fine.’ His appearance was puzzling me. He looked older and needed a shave. No mountains in London. I closed my eyes to brood on this and slid back under the surface. Later Nurse Craig told me I had asked that question on my second morning. I remembered asking, but not even if it had been day or night.
In those first days neither made any difference to me. Then, slowly, I began to sort things out, while still accepting, without question, every element of my strange existence, including Dougal’s apparent omnipresence. He was part of the scene along with the injections, the dozens of tablets, the regular arrival of the portable X-ray machine and fresh oxygen cylinders. All the trundling in and out was done by the same two porters. One was a small ginger-haired youth who always winked and jerked up a thumb when he caught my eye. His colleague could have been his grandfather. He was a tall, spare man with thick white hair, a grave, high-cheekboned face, and the haunted, mournful expression of a chronic gastric. When he caught my eye he favoured me with a deep bow and a tragic smile. As far as he was concerned we’d both be better off dead. His name, I later learnt, was Mr Cameron, and he was Head Porter. Ginger-hair was Wee Gordon.
Officially I was a patient in the only Women’s Medical Ward in Gairlie Hospital. But my room was one of the two single-bedded small wards that constituted the Isolation Unit and were divided from Women’s Medical and the other wards by a long corridor. This made life exceedingly inconvenient for the Women’s Med. staff and was why, directly I began to pick up, the person of whom I saw least was my ward sister. No conscientious ward sister will contemplate leaving her busy ward for more than the briefest period on a less than urgent occasion. Mrs Kilsyth, Sister Women’s Medical, was a very conscientious woman. She came from Yorkshire, had lived in Gairlie for some years, and was married to a local man. After raising three daughters she had returned to full-time nursing four years before. She was a stout, grey-haired woman with a severe expression, brisk manner, and sensible shoes. She had strong and rather heavy hands. When she wielded a hypodermic needle it felt like a harpoon, but one never had to worry about her giving one the wrong dose or drug. And when she washed one’s face and hands she got them clean even at the cost of the odd layer of skin. Her ward, since she took over, had an exceptionally good total recovery record. Having been her patient, I understood why. No patient of Sister Kilsyth would dare die.
Highland Interlude Page 8
