Total pages in book: 153
Estimated words: 146289 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 731(@200wpm)___ 585(@250wpm)___ 488(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 146289 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 731(@200wpm)___ 585(@250wpm)___ 488(@300wpm)
The runabout, for the record, is a fifteen-year-old beige Vauxhall, bought off a sheep farmer past Torridon. It rattles, it smells faintly of both dog and sheep, the heater has two settings—off, and surface of the sun—and I love it without reservation because it’s mine. The rental car went back to Inverness in November, taillight fixed, every trace of my old provisional life handed over the counter with the keys.
Constable MacRae himself waved me through the village last week, friendly as he ever is—which, I mean, isn’t saying much. Sinclair’s case went where cases go when the loch is involved—the file is open, the way Catriona Carmichael’s file is open, which is to say cold. The police came in late October, two of them, from the city, and sat at my kitchen table while I told them my one lie for the last time. They wrote it down and thanked me for the shortbread. Mhairi’s kept her side. I’ve kept mine. The loch keeps everything else.
I thought I’d carry it heavier than this, like I thought it would weigh me down with each minute, hour day. And maybe someday it’ll get heavy again. But the women are out past the headland where the sea takes what the loch can’t hold, and no one else will ever join them. And when I weigh the lie against that, the scale doesn’t even move. Not a wee bit.
Maddie calls on a Tuesday evening while I’m elbow-deep in mince pie filling, so Alasdair answers the phone.
The phone calls are a thing now—as is my baking as I find myself slipping dangerously close to trad wife territory. It started last month when Maddie rang while I was in the bath, and he made the unilateral decision that letting it ring would be rude—he’s been a regular phone-user for roughly eight weeks and treats the device with the formal courtesy of a man receiving guests, which is a source of contention for sure—and by the time I got out, wrapped in a towel and dripping with dread, they’d been talking for twenty minutes.
She grills him. Every call. She’d deny it’s grilling; she’d call it, “taking an interest” or some shit like that, but I’ve heard her side of these performances and I know an interrogation when I’m adjacent to one. What does he do for money? (Land, inheritance, “old family holdings,” which is all true, because he’s loaded.) What are his intentions? (Permanent resident of the Galloway cottage.) Why does a man his age live alone in a ruin? (Well, he doesn’t anymore.)
And he answers everything in that low, careful brogue, and the thing is, I’m not sure Maddie really cares about the questions or the answers. She just likes the accent. She makes him say words. Last week I listened to my sister-in-law, a grown woman, a mother, ask my boyfriend to pronounce, “purple burglar alarm,” and then scream with delight (okay, so I also laugh until I pee when he tries to say it).
Tonight I can only hear his half from the kitchen, which is its own entertainment.
“Aye, she’s here, she’s up to her elbows in—what is it, foxglove?—mincemeat, aye, for the mincemeat pie.” Pause. “No, there’s no actual meat in it. I had the same confusion.” Pause. “The weather’s been…aye, snow, a wee dusting she says…” and then he holds the phone slightly away from his ear, and even from the kitchen I hear the pitch of Maddie hitting the word SNOW like a gameshow contestant, because Chicago is getting murdered by lake-effect and she’s coming to Scotland in six days, and if there is not a white Christmas she will be filing complaints with the government.
Six days. They land in Inverness on the twenty-third—Maddie, Andrew, and Rosey, who is six and who has, per Maddie, asked the following questions about me and my life, verbatim: Does Aunt Iris live in the castle? Does the castle man have a horse? Does the horse live in the castle? Is the castle man a king? And who, apparently, now demands a turn on every call, because there’s a shuffle and Alasdair’s voice changes entirely, goes soft and serious, the voice of a man addressing a visiting dignitary.
“Good evening, Rosey.” Pause. “Aye, it’s me, the castle man.” Pause. “I do know a horse.” Pause. “She’s brown. She lives in the woods, she’s her own horse, she belongs to no one—” Pause. “…Aye. I’ll ask her. I make no promises on her behalf; she’s a lady of independent mind.” Pause, longer, and then, gravely: “That’s a fine question. The castle has forty-two rooms, and I have counted them myself.” Pause. “No, no dungeons.” A beat. His eyes come up and find mine across the kitchen, and something passes over his face, quick and rueful, gone before it lands. “Not anymore.”