The Dog Who Came In From The Cold

Chapter 65: Under the Waterfall

They followed the path along the side of the burn, stepping cautiously over exposed rocks and the tangled roots of gorse. The tumbling water was the colour of whisky – from peat, explained Hugh. “We could drink it if we wanted to,” he said. “I always used to, when I was a boy. I lay down and drank it when I’d been walking across the hills. Lay down and drank like a …”

“Like a snake,” suggested Barbara.

He was surprised. “Why? Why like a snake?”

“Because that’s the image that springs to mind. From Lawrence’s poem. You know the one: where a snake comes to his water trough and sips at the water. You lying on the ground makes me think of his snake.”

He recalled the poem, but only vaguely. “I like Lawrence,” he said. “I like the novels, although I must say that his characters seem to speak so formally.”

He smiled. “Do you think that in real life people have the sort of conversation we’re having? Or do they only talk like this in books?”

She thought for a moment. “No, this is real. This is really how people speak.” She looked at him and returned his smile. “We’re talking like this, aren’t we?”

“We are.”

“Then there you are.”

The path now diverted from the course of the burn, climbing away to the west, crossing a steep stretch of hillside. The way was rougher there, not much more than a track scoured out by the hoofs of animals. “Sheep use this?” asked Barbara.

“No. Deer. We don’t have sheep any more. Just a few cattle. The deer are more important.”

She asked why, and Hugh explained that the ground was too rough to run even the hardy Scotch Blackface. “They survive all right, but there’s not much grazing, and you can’t make much from sheep these days. People come to do deer-stalking in the autumn – that’s much more valuable. It’s the only money we make, I think.”

That was another thing they had never discussed – money. The house was well furnished enough, she had noticed, but everything was old and could have been bought a long time ago; perhaps there had been money once.

“Can’t your father grow anything?” she asked.

Hugh pointed to the ground beneath their feet. “The soil is very thin,” he said. “Rock and peat. Sphagnum moss. Bog. No, you can’t grow anything.” He looked at her with a playful expression. “We’re very poor,” he said.

Barbara was uncertain what to say. He had travelled; there had been that school in Norfolk, which must have cost somebody something; there had been his year in South America. Poverty was relative.

He sensed her disbelief. “No, it’s true. It really is. There used to be a bit of money, but now it’s all gone. We don’t have anything.”

“Except this.” Barbara pointed to the hills around them.

Hugh laughed. “Of course. But we can’t sell this. We can’t.”

She was not so urban as to be incapable of understanding what land meant to those who lived on it. “No, of course not. I understand that.”

They walked on, making for a point where the path surmounted a spur. From there a view of the sea suddenly opened up, and Barbara stopped in her tracks, struck by what she saw. Hugh stopped too, watching her reaction. “Yes,” he said simply. “Yes.”

There was another hill between them and the sea, but it was lower than the one they had just climbed, and they could easily see over it. There was an expanse of blue, silver at some points, almost white at others, and that was the sea; there was an island beyond, and yet others further out, strips of land laid down upon the horizon of water. “Coll,” said Hugh, pointing. “And that’s Tiree.”

Coll and Tiree. She had heard the names in the shipping forecast; amid all the gales and the squalls and the zones of low pressure that the radio warned about there had been Coll and Tiree, reassuring guardians against the Atlantic.

Hugh said to her that they should continue. If they followed the path a bit further, he explained, she would see how it swung back to where the waterfall was. And then they could swim – if she wanted to. “It’s cold for the first few minutes,” he said. “And then you don’t notice it.”

She heard the waterfall before she saw it: a soft, thudding sound, not unlike that of some distant engine. And when they came to the point on the path where it revealed itself to them, again she stopped, and stood quite still in wonderment, her gaze travelling up the wispy column of water that fell, so effortlessly, like the tail of some supernatural white mare. At the foot of the waterfall, a pool had been hollowed out in rock from which all superficial accretion had been washed away; the pristine water was clear enough to show that the pool was deep in parts, deep enough to swim in, as Hugh had promised.

She looked at him as they stood at the edge of the pool. The sun felt warm, even this late, even at this height, and his brow was damp from the exertion of the climb, as was hers too. She half turned to find out whether they had lost sight of the sea, which must be behind them now. They had not; the field of blue was still there, and she saw a boat ploughing a tiny white furrow through it, halfway to the island of Mull.

She glanced over at Hugh, who took off his shirt and tossed it down upon a rock. She turned away, involuntarily, and looked again at the sea in the distance.

“I know that boat,” he said from behind her. “It belongs to some divers from Tobermory. They dive for scallops.”

The remark – made as a casual aside – made it easier for her to turn round. She saw him standing on the edge of the water, his clothes abandoned on the rock. He said, “Am I brave enough?”

She wanted to freeze the moment. “Yes, of course you are.” She paused, her hand upon the buttons of her blouse. “And I’ll try to be brave too.”

It was cold, cold to the bone, as he had said it would be, but they became accustomed to the temperature within minutes, again as he had said they would. She swam beside him, letting her hair float about her on the surface; he held her hand lightly, under the water. The spray from the waterfall was delicate upon her face; touched it, and disappeared.

He said, “I love this place so much.”

“I know. And I can see why.”

He swept his hair back, a wet slick across his forehead. “I want to live here, you know. I have to.”

She spoke without hesitation. “I know that too.”

“My father’s got only one chance of staying here – staying on the farm – and that’s if I help him with the hydro scheme. He can’t do it himself.”

“Then you must do it.”

“And you?”

“I want to be where you are. That’s all.”

How easy, she thought; how easy it was to change a life, to give up everything. A few words could do it.

He pressed her hand. She felt his leg touch hers. He was holding her, cradling her, so that she need not swim. “There’s an old place, a cottage that was used by the shepherd. It’s been empty for years. We could do it up – we could take our time, and do a little bit each year, as we can afford it.”

She looked up at the sky. Under which I shall live, she thought; and her decision was made. “We can do it right away. I can sell my flat in London and we can use the money to do up the cottage and live on the rest for … well, for ages, I expect.”

“If you find a buyer. It can take some time, can’t it?”

“I have a buyer.” She would sell it to Rupert. He had always wanted it, and now she would give it to him. She did not want to leave London to begin her new life in anything but a state of grace, which was what this place, this holy place, now asked of her, and would be given.