Authors: Catherine Czerkawska
‘Are you staying?’ he asked, hopefully.
‘I might as well. There’s nobody down at Ealachan. No need for me to go back there till later. I might see if Finn fancies a walk. Then come back and cook something for us all. Would you like that?’
‘I’d like it fine. I’d like it just fine. It would be like old times.’
She made sure that he was comfortable, drew the curtains, switched off the lamp and left him in peace. He was snoring, almost before she was out of the room.
In the kitchen, Finn was waiting for her, leafing impatiently through the day-old newspaper.
‘Are you going?’ he asked.
‘No. I thought I might stay for a bit, if you don’t mind.’
‘Mind?’ he echoed.
‘Well then, do you fancy a walk?’
‘Where?’
‘Hill Top Town.’
‘Will he be alright?’ He gestured upwards.
‘He’ll be fine. He’s fast asleep already. You could ask Dave to look in on him in an hour or so. Take him some tea.’
‘I could do that. Yes.’
CHAPTER THIRTY THREE
They clambered up the rocks behind the farmhouse. Above them, skylarks soared and sang. It was the best time of the year for walking, before waist-high bracken obliterated pathways and provided a breeding ground for flies. A handful of lambs in the field near the farm were playing King of the Castle on a heap of rocks and turf.
Finn soon pulled ahead of her.
‘Wait for me!’ she called.
He paused in his stride, waited for her to catch up. ‘You’re not as fit as you once were!’
‘You’re right.’ She was breathless with the effort of the climb, her chest heaving.
‘You used to be able to outrun me on this hill any day of the week, Kirsty Galbreath.’ He would never call her by her married name.
‘I know I did.’ Her mouth was open, snatching at air. ‘I know. I should take more exercise. I sit or stand and paint. But I don’t walk enough these days.’
‘You should come up here more often. Work up here if you like.’
‘Don’t think Nicolas would like that.’
‘Fuck Nicolas!’ he said, with sudden vitriol. ‘Oh. I forgot. You already do.’
She stood still, looking up at him. There was a pain in her chest that wasn’t entirely due to over-exertion. ‘That was uncalled-for.’
‘I’m sorry. But you’re so fucking complacent about it all sometimes.’
‘Complacent?’
‘Yes.’ He reached down, grasped her by the forearm and hauled her up to stand beside him. She rubbed at her arm where his fingers had left red streaks, like the Chinese burns they used to give each other when they were young, gratuitously cruel, seeing who would snatch his or her arm away first. The farm was behind and below them. To their left was the high summit, with the round eminence of Hill Top Town. In front of them the land was folded into ridges, scattered with big grey boulders, sloping away to end abruptly in a vertical drop to the sea. To their right, the rest of the island was spread out like a green and brown quilt, embroidered with sulphurous patches of whin.
‘Don’t think’ he said with sudden vehemence, ‘Don’t think that I’ll put up with it forever. I know you take me for a fucking fool, Kirsty. Doling out your crumbs of kindness now and then and congratulating yourself on how well you’re managing things. How well you’re managing
me!
’
For a moment, she couldn’t think of a thing to say in response, but then resentment came to her aid.
‘You’re not telling me you’ve been celibate all this time! Because I won’t believe you.’
‘I didn’t get
married
, did I?’
‘You went away and left me with never a word.’
‘I’ve tried to explain why I did that.’
‘But not even a postcard to tell me you were alive. So what in God’s name did you expect, Finn? Did you expect my life to grind to a halt, because you weren’t there? Did you really go for my sake, or just to fuck me up so that I’d be as hopeless as yourself? What the hell did you expect?’
His eyes were dark at the best of times, but now they were opaque and cold.
‘I expect nothing,’ he said. ‘Isn’t that what I’ve got from you, Kirsty? Fuck all. Or should that be less than fuck all?’
They were facing each other on the open hillside. He couldn’t look at her any more. He turned and strode off in the direction of the summit, leaving her to follow or go back as she chose. She followed him, stumbling into patches of bog where the moss lay livid green on the surface and the mud beneath tugged at her shoes. She almost lost one; the peat only relinquished it with a protesting squelch. She stopped to retie her lace more tightly, and when she stood up again she couldn’t see him. ‘Finn!’ she shouted, but there was no reply. The sun was sliding down the western sky and dazzling her eyes. She climbed again, hauling on the stringy stems of last year’s heather to pull herself higher. And then she was over the edge of the hill fort, with the astringent scent of the sea in her nostrils. She was as familiar with this place as with her own room at Dunshee, but Finn was nowhere to be seen.
She came running down what might once have been a narrow causeway, carried by her own momentum, tripping over heather roots, falling. She put her hands out to save herself and jarred her whole body on a flat stone, like a flagstone, half submerged beneath the moss, grazing her hands and bruising her knees.
‘Oh Finn!’ she said and the sound of her own voice, half sob, half groan at the pain in her hands and knees, stirred some memory in her of another time, years before. She had been ahead of him that time, because he was right, she could always outrun him. His legs were longer but she was more agile. She had been running and laughing and turning back to make fun of him and she had fallen flat on her face, perhaps on this same spot. She remembered biting her lip until it bled, because she didn’t want him to think her a cry baby, but he had come up behind her and picked her up and rocked her in his arms.
‘You’re alright. You’re alright,’ he had said, and set her down and patted her back until her breathing steadied and the pain left her.
Now she began to cry at the memory and at the sadness of time that ruined all things, biting her lip again to try to stop the tears. But they came streaming down her face anyway, and she rubbed them away, making bloody, grimy streaks on her cheeks, because her hands were dirty and grazed. She was choking, sobbing helplessly, and her nose was running and she was trying to wipe it with the back of her hand, trying to stem the salt water. She curled up into a ball, sitting on the cold stone, drawing up her knees and folding her arms around herself, rocking backwards and forwards, chanting ‘Oh Finn, Oh Finn !’ on each sobbing exhalation.
From nowhere, he was kneeling in front of her. ‘Ah Kirsty!’ he said. ‘What are you doing to yourself?’ He put his arms around her and pulled her forwards so that she rolled onto her knees again and said ‘Ouch, ouch!’ and he said ‘Sorry, sorry!’
He held her away from him for a moment and looked into her eyes, shaking his head sadly. ‘What are you doing to yourself?’ he repeated.
‘I can’t beat you,’ she said. ‘I can’t beat you any more.’
‘At what for God’s sake? Beat me at what?’
‘At anything. I’d follow you to the ends of the earth and beyond. I’d go to hell in a handcart for you, you know I would.’
He licked his forefinger and wiped at the grimy, bloody tears and the touch of his damp finger on her cheek gave her a small shock of desire. ‘Oh Kirsty I do love you so much!’ he said. He took her head in both his hands and pulled her towards him, threading his fingers in her hair, kissing her, only just in control of himself.
‘Is this what you want?’ he asked her. ‘Is this what you need?’
She nodded. ‘Yes it is.’
He kissed her again, biting at her lips. They were mouth to mouth, each breathing the other’s air.
‘More,’ she told him, knowing that it was not enough, that it would never be enough. ‘Please!’
They toppled sideways onto the stone, their lips still searching for each other. She was fumbling with his jeans, tugging clumsily at them, and he was helping her. She cried out to him to hurry, hurry. I can’t bear it, she thought. I can’t wait. I can’t wait any longer. Only when he was inside her could she let go once and for all, cry out, tell him she loved him, had always loved him, would always love him, pushing herself towards him, closer and closer, trembling and crying out with the exquisite pleasure and pain of not knowing nor caring where Finn ended and Kirsty began, forever.
In the late afternoon, chilled, bruised and battered by too much lovemaking on cold stone, they stumbled down the hill together and into the house, hoping that her grandfather was not up and about to see them. He was no fool and nothing could disguise what they had been doing. Their bodies inclined irresistibly towards one another, two halves of one whole.
Fortunately, Alasdair was still in bed. Dave had gone home, but he had topped up the range fire before he left, and the kitchen was warm, with a full kettle just beginning to sing on the hob. She crept upstairs to find her grandfather sleeping peacefully, with the cat curled up in the curve of his body, and the mug of tea which Dave brought him, only half drunk and cold beside the bed. She went back downstairs. They spoke in low voices to avoid rousing him.
‘You’re not going yet, are you?’ Finn asked her.
‘No. No, I’ll stay. I’ll stay the night if you’ll let me.’
‘If I’ll let you?’ he echoed, and his smile was almost a grimace.
‘I’ll phone Heather and tell her that my grandad needs me here.’
‘Nicolas will find out.’ He said this with a certain grim satisfaction.
‘It doesn’t matter if he does. As far as he’s concerned, I’m staying the night to look after my grandfather.’
‘Well I certainly hope he believes you,’ said Finn.
He made a pot of tea and they sat on the rag rug in front of the range. He set his back against a heavy oak chair, and she leant against him, his long legs angled on either side of hers, her body enclosed by his. She could feel the rise and fall of his chest, could feel him breathing. In between drinking his tea, he folded his arms around her, or leant down to kiss her ear, or rub his lips gently against her hair.
‘Grow your hair again.’
‘I’m too old for long hair.’
‘I loved your hair, Kirsty. Every last thread of it.’
She sighed, leant her head back, pushing it into his chest. ‘I wish we could stay like this forever.’
‘I wish we could.’
She closed her eyes and listened to the familiar sounds of Dunshee, the quiet rustle of coal and wood settling in the grate, the slow tick tock of the kitchen clock, the moan of wind investigating the gables, the distant cries of lambs and seagulls, curiously alike when heard from within these stone walls. Nicolas and Ealachan receded into the very back of her mind. It was as if they had never existed at all. Even her children, her beloved India and Flora, were not the imperative she always found them. She could hardly visualise them just now. A faint twinge of maternal guilt stirred, then that too faded. They were safe and sound, so why worry? Her thoughts drifted into sleep. She woke to find his left hand on her breast, exploring the heavy shape of it, tugging gently at the nipple while he nuzzled his lips into her neck.
‘Kirsty?’ he said, and tried to turn her to face him.
‘What about my grandfather?’
‘He won’t hear anything.’
So she turned in his arms and they made love again, on the warm rag rug in front of the fire, more slowly this time, and with less desperation. But she was afraid that their cries would wake and alarm the old man who lay sleeping upstairs.
Later, she took a tray up to her grandfather. He seemed to be feeling much better after his long sleep. She sat with him while he ate his omelette, helped him up to the bathroom, fetched him the radio from the kitchen, and settled him in bed again.
‘I’ll be right as rain tomorrow, after all this pampering. Are you going to have something to eat before you go, Kirsty lass?’
She said that she was planning to stay the night. She would make supper for herself and Finn, and then she might as well stay. The night had turned wet and windy, and there seemed no point in going home to an empty house.
‘Where will you sleep?’ he asked, anxiously. ‘You know Finn has your room now?’
‘That’s alright’ she told him, lying effortlessly. ‘I’ll take mum’s old room.’
‘But the bed will be damp.’ He seemed querulous and upset. ‘It hasn’t been slept in for years, Kirsty. You know that’s what your mother would say.’
‘It’ll be just fine. Don’t you worry. I’ll put fresh sheets on it. And Finn will find me a hot water bottle.’
‘Well if you’re sure… It’ll be good to know that you’re under this roof again.’
‘I feel like that as well.’
She kissed him and went downstairs.