—
I walked slowly along the A82, stepping aside to wait as an impossibly long line of moss-colored military vehicles rolled past. They were lumbering and square-faced, the first dozen or so with tarps tied over their loads, and the rest transporting soldiers. Men from every vehicle leaned out the open backs, hanging by one arm, to whistle and make catcalls. More than a few made vulgar comments, but there was no way I could escape their attentions. I was trapped at the side of the road.
I turned to face the oncoming vehicles, because then I didn’t have to see the men’s leering expressions. The drivers also looked at me, but they were behind glass, so I couldn’t hear what they said. Finally, I saw the end of the line.
In all, twenty-eight vehicles had driven past. I wondered how many of the young men would come back alive from wherever it was they were being sent.
I kept walking.
The clouds were an intense gray, surging and changing, and appearing in some places to roll out of crevices in the hills themselves. It was astonishing how little it took for the same landscape to take on a completely different cast. The hills, with their fields and forests, were alternately bleak, looming, rugged, or majestic, depending on what the sky above them was doing. At that moment, they looked aptly funereal.
It must have seemed strange to Anna that I did not cry. Perhaps she thought I was having a delayed reaction. I considered the possibility, but dismissed it almost immediately.
I wondered if he’d been eating in his study when the meat lodged in his windpipe, or if he’d gone back to taking his meals in the dining room. Had he made any noise, or was he completely silent? Perhaps he’d turned purple and staggered around, trying to summon help. Perhaps he’d simply fallen facedown into a spinach soufflé. I pictured these scenarios with morbid curiosity, but not sorrow, and definitely not grief.
Although his letter to me had removed all doubt, I think I’d always known that he didn’t love me, and apparently his lack of affection had engendered the same in me. There’d been a dearth of affection all around.
My mother certainly hadn’t loved me, despite her extravagant claims. Her affections, such as they were, vaporized entirely during the seven weeks she was on the run with Arthur and returned, redoubled, only when she was forced to go back to my father.
Ellis had also never loved me. At least, not as a husband should love his wife, and recently, not at all.
I reached the castle. Although I hadn’t consciously chosen it as a destination, I climbed up and through the dry moat and across the interior grounds without hesitation. I found myself standing at the opening to the Water Gate.
I picked my way down the hill, which was steep enough that toward the bottom I ended up in a graceless gallop to keep from losing my balance.
In the scrub to the side of the landing, there were dozens upon dozens of cigarette butts. I was heartsick at the thought of Hank and Ellis setting up on the very spot from which Màiri had stepped to her death—drinking, smoking, and swearing, oblivious to everyone but themselves and their future fame.
I stepped forward, as Màiri once had, until my feet were at the water’s edge. I took another step, just a little one, so that the soles of my shoes were submerged. I watched the water swirl around them, then looked up at the loch itself, black and rolling, endlessly deep.
What had Màiri’s thoughts been as she walked in? When it was too late to turn back, when the water closed over her, had she regretted it or felt relief, believing that she was about to be reunited with her husband and child? I opened my mind, trying to channel her. I wanted to know what it was like to experience a love so deep you couldn’t bear to exist without it.
I felt her then—I felt Màiri and the cavernous depths of her grief, and had an overwhelming urge to keep going, to walk into the loch. Her anguish was boundless, her sorrow without end. I was drowning in it. We were drowning in it.
I closed my eyes, lifted my arms, and let myself fall.
A deep rumbling started in the water, like something was rising, followed by a great whoosh as it broke the surface. I opened my eyes, still falling—no way to stop then—and saw two blades of water curling from the edges of a channel that was being cut, but by what? Something was obviously racing across the surface of the water, but it looked like nothing was there. Before I could make any sense of it, the thing struck me in the abdomen, folding me around it and knocking me backward.
I landed away from the water’s edge, banging my head so hard my peripheral vision filled with tiny, sparkling stars. Although the wind had been knocked out of me, I staggered to my feet.
The surface of the loch was smooth, the stones on the landing dry. There was no sign even of a dissipating wake.
I scrambled up the hill, grabbing tufts of grass to speed my ascent. Only when I reached the top did I pause to catch my breath. I leaned against the inside of the ancient arch, periodically looking back at the loch, and trying unsuccessfully to calm myself.