The Dog Who Came In From The Cold

Chapter 53: Meeting Sorley

The sleeper train carrying Barbara Ragg and Hugh Macpherson drew into Fort William Station shortly before ten in the morning. The days of generous train breakfasts, served with copious quantities of – then – guiltless grease, eaten at table, and with cutlery too, had long gone, to be replaced by continental fare, conveniently healthier, served in sterilised plastic and cellophane, and eaten, of course, with one’s fingers. Perched on the edge of Barbara’s bunk, Hugh tackled just such a breakfast while both of them gazed out of the window of the train. They were making their way past the still waters of Loch Treig; like glass, Barbara thought; like glass reflecting the mountains and the sky in perfect inversion.

She had no appetite. To eat in the presence of such an inspiring landscape would be, she felt, like munching some pre-wrapped snack in front of a Botticelli in the Uffizi; the spiritual and the corporeal were not always appropriate bedfellows.

“You’re not hungry?” asked Hugh, brushing from his fingers the last crumbs of a desiccated croissant.

She shook her head. “Not here. Not in front of all this.” She gestured out of the window.

“It’s very beguiling, isn’t it?” he said. “I never tire of it. Never. It’s home, but it never seems to me to be anything but ... Well, just the way the world should be, if we hadn’t messed it up. The perfect landscape. What heaven will look like, if we ever get there.”

She looked at him. She had always hoped to meet a man who would react passionately to landscape; now she had. “You must miss it.”

For a few moments he was silent. He continued to stare out of the window. “I do. I miss Scotland every day. Every day.”

Barbara saw that the sky was reflected in his eyes – a tiny spot of light. Would she pine for England if she were ever to move away? Who spoke now of missing England, in the way in which Rupert Brooke had? To do so would be to invite a sneer from the sophisticates who thought it naive, even simple-minded, to love one’s country. Of course a country had to be lovable, and if people lived amid ugliness and squalor, or if their country became a stranger to them, then perhaps they might be forgiven for not holding it in affection. It was easy enough to imagine what one might distil from a landscape such as this – a feeling of emptiness and space and sheer physical splendour – but what could one take from the litter-strewn streets of a city, from a forest of tower blocks? What niche in the heart could such a place occupy?

Of course Barbara loved London, as so many Londoners did, in spite of their occasional complaints. She loved it because it was her place, and anybody with any soul to speak of would love his or her own place. But it was more than that; she loved its little corners, its poky little shops run by shabby eccentrics, its oddly named pubs, its gardens, its sudden turns of architectural splendour. She loved its extraordinary tolerance, which felt like an old slipper, she thought – as uncomplaining and as pliant as such footgear is in the face of all sorts of pressures and provocations. In fact London was exactly that – an old slipper that had been home to countless feet and still welcomed and warmed the feet that came to it fresh. It was not a bad thing for a city to be, when one came to think of it, an old slipper. You could not call Paris an old slipper, nor Berlin, nor New York. Only London.

What if she had to leave London? She had never even entertained the idea – after all, where was there to go, after London? – but now the possibility crossed her mind that Hugh did not feel the same way. And if Hugh wanted to leave then she would have to face the prospect of moving on herself. Could she do it? She would lose her stake in the firm – and how that would please Rupert – and she would also have to find something else to do. It was a depressing thought, not one to be considered even for a few minutes. New Yorkers, Parisians, Londoners: you could hardly expect any of them to move, could you? Unless, of course, New Yorkers went to Paris, Londoners to New York, and Parisians to London. That made sense enough.

They passed the rest of the journey in silence, not because of any awkwardness, but because neither wished conversation to break the spell that the unfolding Highland landscape was weaving about them. And what remarks were needed here? If one listens to the talk of people looking at scenes of great natural beauty, their words are often revealing. “Isn’t it beautiful?” is what is most frequently said; to which the reply, ‘Yes, beautiful,” adds little. What is happening, of course, is a sharing. We wish to share beauty as if it were a discovery; but one can share in silence, and perhaps the sharing is all the more powerful for it.

Hugh had said that his father would meet them and drive them to the farm on Ardnamurchan. Now, as she peered out of the window of the slowing train, Barbara had no difficulty working out which of the small number of people waiting on the platform he was. “That’s him?” she asked Hugh, pointing at the tall man in a Barbour jacket.

Hugh nodded. “His name is Sorley,” he said. “Sorley Macfeargus Macpherson. Sorley to everybody except my mother, who calls him Somerled.”

“Somerled?”

“It’s a complicated story,” said Hugh. “Later.”

They got down from the train and made for the barrier. The air, Barbara noticed, smelled different:; it was fresh and clear; air that had rain on its breath, and salt, and the sweetness of seaweed.

Sorley stepped forward and Hugh took the proffered hand. Then he leaned forward and the two men embraced, awkwardly, as men always embrace, but with clear affection – and perhaps even relief, thought Barbara. Had a stranger witnessed this scene, she told herself, he might have imagined that here was a son coming back from a long and dangerous trip and being greeted by a relieved parent. But Hugh had not really gone anywhere, other than London, which was only five hundred miles away and hardly dangerous. Yet perhaps that was the way it looked from this part of Scotland; in which case how would she appear to them? Would they think her some exotic metropolitan, some femme fatale who was planning to take their son away from his home and family? It was tempting to imagine that they might.

Sorley disengaged from the filial embrace and turned to Barbara. “So you are Barbara,” he said, leaning forward to embrace her too. “My dear, you are so very welcome to our family.”

She felt his lips upon her cheek; the lightest of kisses. And then, looking into his face, she noticed that he had the same eyes as his son, and the same fine features. For a few moments she stared at him.

“I hope that I meet with your approval,” he said gently.

She laughed. There had been no barb in his comment. She could not tell him, though, what she had been thinking, which was that here before her was her future husband as he would be in twenty-five years’ time. It was rather like looking at one of those pictures that forensic artists draw of the missing person as he would be now, after many years. With deft pencil strokes, the years are added, and there, before our eyes, the missing person, more weary, more worn, is suddenly revealed.

She looked at Sorley, and realised, more strongly and with greater conviction than ever before, that the planetary movements that had brought her and Hugh together in Rye could only be the result of divine blessing or sheer good fortune – on a cosmic scale.