The Intervention of a Good Man

8

The beauty of Glen Carron Park, still.

A surprise.

A longer conversation.

On the way back our hero and heroine walk side by side. They take it more slowly. The sheep are still there, peaceful and woolly. The tension has gone.

He is sure he will go now, completely. Because he is not going in order to leave her. Quite the opposite, he is going because this is where the risk of losing her is at its greatest. The sheep, the broom, the moor, the blue of the sky, everything feels like a personal enemy to him. Scotland in its entirety wants him to fail. Our heroine may be keeping him at a distance, but it is not because she no longer wants him, it is because she cannot do anything with him here. There is too much weight, too much guilt, too much lying. That is what he would like to think, but it is also what he senses. He is going, he knows he must, so that somewhere else, perhaps, later, it may be possible to be with her again.

So, in order to be sure, he subjects our heroine to the question again. She dithers, dangles, he does not insist on any tender gestures, only words. And she lets those anticipated words slip, they reiterate her rejection, but the color of them is smoother, she no longer denies her desire. He asks, Do you want me? You don’t ask the right questions, she replies. That is enough for him.

Our hero suddenly stops walking. He smiles as he points out a caterpillar crossing the path. It is brown with glints of gold, gleaming, covered in hairs, and crawling over the asphalt. It looks like a processionary caterpillar, minus the procession. They both stop to look at it. It is a quiet moment together, a necessary moment. He advises her not to touch it because its fine hairs could well be urticant. Now that’s a word he rather likes, urticant, it seems a while since he has used it. Then they set off again, abandoning it to its perilous fate as an urticant caterpillar.

Our hero now wants to reassure her, soothe her. He knows how to: he finds the right words, makes her laugh, thinks she seems more cheerful. They are walking through a strenuously landscaped wood, she is making fun of upwardly mobile Scots in the brand-new twenty-first century. She talks about her neighbors, of all the nouveaux riches created by the housing boom. He listens, is amused, makes occasional comments. The fact that the conversation is artificial does not bother him.

This newfound calm in her, this peacefulness, rekindles the desire and affection in him that he had almost driven out. She is walking within reach, so serene, and he wants to take her in his arms more than ever. Images of her fragile nudity come back to him, and echoes of the extreme words uttered in the half-light. A great wave of memories. He does not know how to fight this off. He never has.

So, when they finally reach the pub, when she suggests they have lunch (or was he the one who planted the idea?), he is surprised to find his hopes renewed. When she asks if he would like to sit next to her, he puts his hand on hers and she plays briefly with his fingers. He kisses her, tenderly, on the lips. She accepts the kiss, then pushes him away, gently. They order some mineral water, Sparkling, please (him), and a beer, A glass of stout (her), and One panini (just one for both of them). It comes served with thick greasy chips and a salad of raw onion rings that she devours eagerly. Her breath is like Claudette Colbert’s in Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife when she rejects Gregory Peck’s advances by gobbling white onions. Our hero cannot be sure of either the film or the male lead, but he would have no trouble triumphing over the smell of onions if our heroine decided to kiss him.

He may never have learned anything about women but he now knows that the panini is the Scottish national dish, way ahead of the haggis.

She finishes her beer, down in one.

Please take me back, she says.

He nods.