Caitrin sat with a thump, all tensile strength gone. “I’m sorry, I was being thoughtless. Thank you for saving me.”
“Thank Fiona, not me.”
Caitrin put out her hand, and the dog wriggled under it for attention. An emotion shot through her. She had had a dog once, a Border Collie like this one. Roced, Rocket, named because he was fast and agile, and she loved him. She scratched Fiona’s ear. “I was escaping from some bad men when I fell into the water.”
Maggie said nothing as she prepared food, pushed the plate in front of her, and sat opposite. “Capercaillie and potatoes,” she said and explained, “it’s a Scottish grouse. We eat mostly the males because they’re twice the size of the females.”
“Teach them to show off.” Caitrin ate while Fiona’s nose nudged at her hand for attention. “You don’t ask questions, Maggie.”
“Asking questions has never been my favorite form of conversation, and besides, it encourages people to lie.”
“I was in a lorry and escaped. My friend is still with them, so I have to catch up, but with the morning gone—”
“Were they going north or south?”
“North. What is in the north, what cities?”
“Fort William, and, although it’s a long way around, Inverness. They’re heading into the Highlands, which is rather unpopulated country. And they will not have traveled far. The Ballachulish ferry takes pedestrians but only two vehicles at a time, or one lorry, with the army getting priority. If there is a convoy, which is likely, they will have to wait for hours, if they can get on at all. The only other choice is to drive a very long way around Loch Leven. And the bridge is being repaired at Kinlochmore. That will take even longer, but at least they will be moving.”
“Which means, if they took the road, I could catch up by taking the ferry?”
“Aye, and if they took the road, which is most surely what happened, you would probably be well ahead of them.”
“If I went now?”
“Yes.”
Caitrin rose and sat again. “I have no idea how to get there.”
“That’s simple. Take Wee Wendy. She knows the way, and of course Fiona will have a proprietary interest in coming with you too.”
“Thank you. How do I get them back to you?”
“You don’t need to because they know the way in both directions. I send them into the village once a week for my groceries.”
“It just dawned on me. Your accent. You’re English.”
“I am.”
“Living in a remote Scottish cottage alone.”
“I’m not alone. I’m with me,” Maggie said and smiled at the thought. “My husband was so proud of being a station manager for the London Necropolis Railway. Two separate stations at the cemetery: North for Catholics and Nonconformists, South for Anglicans. He loved his job, but all I could see was one day being just like another until my corpse was transported on one of his trains. One pound for first class, five shillings in second, and two shillings and sixpence in third.”
“Even in death, the different classes are maintained, and all one way, of course.”
“One day, a bit like that Émile Zola short story about a housewife, I could take no more of whatever my life was going to be. I put on my coat, walked out, left everything and him behind, and came to Glen Coe. When I die, it will be here, in a beautiful place, first class. But not alone.”
Fiona ran in happy circles as Caitrin mounted Wee Wendy bareback and Maggie put saddlebags across the pony’s neck. “Wee Wendy will go on to the shops after you’re gone.”
“There are no reins?” Caitrin said.
“We have no reins,” Maggie said. “Wee Wendy has never known them. But she does know the way there and back. The road wriggles all over the hills and takes forever, but Wendy goes in a straight line, right down the center of the glen. One moment.”
Maggie hurried inside the cottage and returned with a small homemade knapsack. She opened it and produced a book. “This is a guide book of Scotland and has some very good maps that fold out.” She took out a knife from its sheath and held it up. “It’s called a sgian dubh. It’s not much, but you don’t want to meet the bad men completely unarmed.”
“Thank you, Maggie. Good—”
“I never say good-bye,” Maggie said. “That’s for just once, at the very end. The one pound for first class one-way ticket good-bye.”
“I will see you again long before then,” Caitrin said.
“Let us hope so.” Maggie tapped Wee Wendy’s rump, and the pony ambled away, to Fiona’s demented joy.
Caitrin looked back, but the mist had settled, and Big Maggie and her cottage had disappeared.
20
Fiona sat quivering at the water’s edge, shifting the weight on her front paws, bright eyes fixed with devotion on Caitrin standing at the ferry rail as it moved away across the loch. Caitrin almost waved to the dog but did not, scared she might leap into the water and swim after her. “Fiona,” she murmured, and made herself a promise. Once this was all over, she would find a better place to live, a green and quiet place, and have her own Fiona.
Behind Fiona on Rannoch Street in Ballachulish, Wee Wendy was wandering home with her saddlebags full. True to Big Maggie’s word, the pony had made a straight line from the Glen Coe cottage to Ballachulish, aiming in particular at MacDuff’s Greengrocers. MacDuff hurried out with Maggie’s groceries, loaded up Wee Wendy, and sent her on her way with a carrot before she could show interest in the cabbages displayed in crates outside the shop.
Caitrin looked inland, down the water. The west coast of Scotland was grooved with narrow sea lochs, and Loch Leven was a long, jagged-edged stiletto thrust deep into the hills. This was not an easy country to traverse. She turned back to the south shore, and Fiona was gone, her adoration of Caitrin discarded and left in the grass as she ran to catch up with Wee Wendy and go home.
There were a few minutes for Caitrin to reflect before the ferry reached the north shore. She had made some elementary mistakes. The first and biggest one was deferring to Hector about communications and decisions. On their journey north, he was the one who called London every morning, and he alone knew about their rendezvous at Greenock Cemetery. It was a sobering thought to realize she had relinquished all control simply because Hector was a man. Bethany Goodman was right, gaining their equal place in the world would not be easy for women, and the biggest changes would need to be within themselves. She also wondered what had happened to Hector and guessed Captain Murray had stopped him from leaping out of the lorry after her. Murray still bothered her because his face was familiar, but still she could not remember where she had seen him before. There were other things—little prickles in the mind, her mother used to call them—elusive, half-formed clues that needed to be developed further.
It was cold out on the water. She shivered and was grateful for the protection of Hector’s jacket.
The ferry slowed, butting against the tidal race as it inched toward the shore. A row of army lorries was waiting at the ramp to board as Caitrin went ashore. Ferrying one lorry at a time across the loch would be a slow process. She found a spot at the end of a row of cottages where she could watch the Kinlochmore road without being seen and hoped it was not too late. The ferry came and went, back and forth. Across the road from her a Riley 16 Kestrel pulled up, and a young man bounded out. He wore plus fours, a Cairngorm tweed jacket, carried a Gladstone bag, and had a stethoscope draped around his neck. He was sharp-nosed and eager-eyed, with a long, darting stride. She leaned against the wall, feeling its rough texture against her back, and watched him disappear through a gate.
