water. He needed a walk, a good, long stretch along the beach and then up over the headland, the point that gave Ardnashiel its prefix. There had been a hut there once, evidently, a shiel, which long ago had given way to the original castle, and he climbed the hill towards the ruins, needing the peace, the solitude that he would find there.
It was his retreat, the place he went to soothe his soul, the harsh wind and savage sea the only things wild enough to match the turmoil in his heart, but today they could do nothing to wipe out the memories of his love, here in this place, where he’d brought her so many times. And now, for the first time, she was coming back, not to him, but to the castle.
It was a step he hadn’t been sure she’d ever take, but now she was, and in two days she’d be here.
His beloved, beautiful Maisie was coming home …
The train was on the platform as she collected her ticket, and she only just made it before the doors closed.
The wedding had gone on longer than she’d expected, and it had been harder than she’d imagined. She didn’t know why—maybe because now she had become the mother of a bride, and could put herself in Annette’s shoes, with the agony of her uncertain future. She’d had a health scare, and was facing a gruelling treatment regime over the next months and maybe years, but today had not been a day for dwelling on that. Today was her daughter’s day, and Annette had been radiant.
‘I’m so proud of her. Doesn’t she look beautiful?’ she’d said to Maisie in a quiet, private moment, a little oasis in the midst of the revelry, and Maisie’s eyes had filled.
‘Yes—yes, she does, she looks absolutely gorgeous, and so do you.’
Annette had met her eyes, her own distressed. ‘Take plenty of photos,’ she begged, and then added softly, ‘Just in case.’
Maisie had swallowed. ‘I will. I have. I’ve got some wonderful ones of you together, and I’ll get them to you very soon.’
‘Thank you,’ Annette had said almost silently, and Maisie had held her gently and shared that quiet moment of knowledge that there might not be very much time left to her, and every second mattered.
So now, on the train to London, she was downloading the photos from her camera onto her laptop, then burning them onto several disks and labelling them. Thank God for mobile technology, she thought as she put the disks in the post on her way from King’s Cross to Euston.
She was pleased with the photos. She’d go through them, of course, editing out the dross and cropping and tidying up the images so they could look at them on her website, and she’d produce an album with the family once they’d chosen the ones they wanted, but for now, at least, they’d get them in the raw form almost immediately to look through with Annette.
And hopefully, in the years to come, she’d be showing them to her grandchildren, but if not, at least they’d have a wonderful record of that beautiful day.
She blinked away the tears and stared out of the window of the sleeper at the passing lights. The cabin was claustrophobic—first class, the best it could be, but she was too full of emotion, from the wedding and from the task facing her, to sit still.
She locked up her cabin securely and went to the lounge to order food. She hadn’t eaten at the wedding, and she’d had her hands full on the platform at Euston, and her blood sugar was through the floor.
Even so, she didn’t touch her supper. Her stomach felt as if someone had tied a knot in it and she gave up and went back to her cabin, lying down on the narrow berth and staring at the window, watching the lights flash past as they moved through stations, but mostly it was dark, the velvety blackness of the countryside all- engulfing as the train carried her north towards Rob.
And Jenni. It was about Jenni, she reminded herself—Jenni and Alec. She had to keep focus, remind herself what she was doing this for, or she’d go crazy.
Actually, what she needed was sleep, not the constant rumble of the rails, the clatter of the points, the slowing and shunting and pausing while goods trains went past, until she thought she’d scream. It wasn’t the train’s fault. It was comfortable, private—as good as it could be. It was just that she didn’t want to be on it, didn’t want to be doing this, and the memories were crashing over her like a tidal wave.
She’d done it for the first time when she was pregnant, when she’d just finished her first year’s exams at Cambridge and was heading up to Scotland to wait for the birth. She’d wanted to stay in Cambridge, in their little house, but Rob had insisted she should move up to the castle. ‘You can be looked after there, and my parents will want to spend time with the baby,’ he’d said and so, because he wasn’t there to drive her this time, as he had every other time they’d been, because he was already away at sea, she’d got on the train, exhausted, aching, and by the time she’d reached Glasgow, she’d realised she was in labour.
She’d been taken straight to the hospital in Fort William, and the next few hours were still a blur in her mind, but as the train rolled on, she kept reliving it, snatches of the pain and fear, knowing Rob was at sea and wanting him, needing him with her. And when he’d come at last, weeks later, he’d been different—distant, almost as if he couldn’t bring himself to touch her. She’d known then that there was something wrong, but they hadn’t talked about it, just tiptoed carefully around the cracks in their relationship as if they weren’t there. And then he’d gone away again, back to sea, and left her behind to face the cold, dark winter there without him.
She hadn’t been able to do it. Leaving the castle, going back south to Cambridge—it had seemed such a sensible move, the only thing she could do to stay sane. It had never occurred to her that Rob wouldn’t follow.
She turned over, thumped the pillow, squeezed her eyes shut and pulled the quilt over her head, but the images were still there, crowding into her head, keeping her awake.
She gave up in the end, sitting perched on the lid of the washbasin in the corner and staring out of the window as the dawn broke. The countryside was getting wilder, the hills higher, the gentle ripples in the landscape giving way to crumples and then sharp, jagged pleats as they went further north. It was stark, bleak, with a wild majesty that made something in her ache at the beauty of it, but it terrified her, too, because of all the memories it held for her.
She was washed and dressed before the attendant knocked on the door with her breakfast—a hot bacon roll, tea and some fruit salad—and she sat on the bunk staring out over the wild, untamed landscape as the train slowly wended its way around the hills to Fort William, stopping at every station on the way, tiny outposts of civilisation in the midst of barren wilderness.
Not long now, she thought, and her stomach rejected all thought of the bacon roll after the first bite. She was fraught with nerves, too tense to eat, so she sipped her tea as they climbed up onto the flat and desolate plateau of Rannoch Moor, picked at the fruit because it was ridiculous to have nothing, and then gathered her things together as they pulled into the station in Fort William.
And then, when it was too late to do anything about it, she glanced at the mirror and winced. She looked awful. Dark circles under her tired, strained eyes, her hair in wild red corkscrews, needing attention—she hated travelling, hated the rush and pressure and hanging about. And Ardnashiel was waiting.
I’m not ready for it! she wanted to wail, but she didn’t, she just picked up her camera bag, slung it over her shoulder, picked up her laptop and her suitcase and got off the train.
It should be like Brief Encounter, she thought, all swirling steam and whistles, but it wasn’t, it was loud and noisy, unintelligible and horribly familiar. She took a deep breath and looked up, and he was there, walking slowly towards her in jeans and a sweater, with his rangy, muscular limbs and broad, solid shoulders. His hair was touched with grey now, she noticed in surprise, crow’s feet at the corners of his wary, slate-blue eyes, and when he smiled, the crow’s feet crinkled and turned her legs to mush.
‘Maisie,’ he said, and his voice curled round her again,