On the Edge of Darkness

‘I see. And you’ve no tongue in your head?’ Once more the quick shrewd glance. Jeannie Barron had summed Brid up at once. A pretty tinker child, or perhaps foreign. More likely the latter in view of her silence. And besotted with young Adam, if she were any judge.

Adam had emerged from the pantry with the plate.

‘Greaseproof is over there.’ The floury hand waved towards the dresser. ‘Then get you both from under my feet, if you please. I’m here today so I can have Friday off and stay with my sister the whole weekend, and I’ve a lot to do before I’m away.’

Outside Brid rounded on him. ‘I thought you said it would be safe. That is not your mother?’

‘No. I told you. My mother’s gone away.’ Adam was fairly sure Jeannie would not mention the visit to his father.

‘So, it is the woman who looks after the priest?’

He frowned. ‘I wish you wouldn’t call him a priest. It sounds so papist. I told you. He’s a minister.’

‘Sorry, A-dam.’ She looked contrite. ‘She makes nice cake.’ Then, as she did so often she changed the subject, abruptly and without a second thought, dismissing Jeannie as no longer worthy of interest. ‘Come. We go find Gartnait.’

They did, but not before she had pounced on Adam in the shelter of the lonely screed valley on the north side of the waterfall and laughingly begun to pull off all his clothes.

‘A-dam! You are tall and big!’ Her glance was deliberately provocative. She stood in front of him and slipped her tunic up over her naked breasts. ‘Me too. I am big now.’

‘Indeed you are.’ He smiled. In the twelve months since he had last seen her, her breasts and hips had rounded and her slim child’s legs had become more shapely.

They made love again and again and then after a respectful handful of cake had been given to the Lady in the waterfall they swam under the icy cascade. Afterwards they found a sheltered patch of sunlight where the wind couldn’t chill them, and lay on the flat rocks to dry.

‘I have studied the omens.’ Brid was staring up at the sky. ‘You and I will be together forever. I read the entrails of a doe before I ate her flesh as a cat. She told me so.’

‘Brid!’ Adam sat up. ‘You are joking? That’s disgusting!’

‘No.’ She smiled at him and pushed him back, her fingers playfully clawed as she raked them gently over his chest. ‘I not joke.’

He stared up into her eyes and for an instant he was appalled by what he saw there. ‘Brid –’

‘Quiet, A-dam.’ Her lips came down on his, and for a while he was silent, distracted from his thoughts by her hands.

When she at last lay back next to him, sated, he turned a sleepy head towards her. ‘I thought you said you weren’t allowed to talk about your studies?’

‘I’m not.’ She looked defiant.

‘So you made all that stuff up? About the entrails?’

‘I didn’t make it up.’ She sat up, her legs crossed, and looked down at him. ‘Do you want me to show you?’

He looked at her and suddenly he was afraid again. The hardness he sometimes saw in her eyes was at such variance with her passion. He was confused. ‘No!’ He spoke sharply. ‘It didn’t really say you and I will be together forever?’

‘It did.’ She smiled, and he saw the small pink tip of her tongue flick across her lips. ‘You and I make love together forever.’

He frowned. He had not thought about Brid and the future. The future contained university and medicine and a shining array of new opportunities. He wasn’t at all certain yet how Brid fitted in, if at all. He shifted uncomfortably, watching her through narrowed eyes as she sat beside him, silhouetted against the brightness of the sky.

I told you to beware my sister, A-dam. She is a daughter of the fire andher power will kill. Forget her, A-dam. She is not part of your destiny.

Gartnait’s words echoed in his head suddenly, and he shivered. ‘You haven’t told me yet why your uncle let you come back.’

‘He has come to visit my brother and to see the stone. It is nearly finished.’

Adam sat up. ‘You mean he’s here too?’

‘No. Today he rides to visit my other uncle, my father’s brother …’ She worked out the relationship on her fingers. ‘Then he comes back from Abernethy in two, three days. And then I am staying here with Gemma until the snow comes. We can see each other all the time!’

She leaned over him and kissed him on the lips again.

Adam frowned. A shadow had drifted across the sun. ‘Not all the time, Brid.’ He raised himself onto one elbow. ‘You remember I am going to be a doctor? I am going away to university in October.’

‘To university? What is university?’ She sat up and scowled.

‘It’s a place you go to study. Like school, but more difficult.’ His voice rose with enthusiasm. ‘Like you do with your uncle.’

‘But I see you after you finish study. In the evening.’ Her eyes were very intense, holding his.

He felt uncomfortable. ‘No, Brid. We can’t do that,’ he said gently. ‘I’m going to Edinburgh. It’s a long way from here. I shall be staying there.’

‘But you will come back? To see your father? Like I come back to see my mother and Gartnait.’

He looked away. The sun reflecting on the water made him screw up his eyes against the glare. ‘Yes. I’ll come back.’

He wondered if that was a lie. He never wanted to come back to the manse. Not if he could help it. But what if that meant he would never see Brid again? He looked back at her and gave her a reassuring smile. ‘We’ve plenty of time, Brid. I don’t go for weeks and weeks and weeks.’ It still seemed like forever. Taking her hand he pulled her sharply so she tumbled forward into his arms. ‘Let’s make the most of now, shall we?’ The future could take care of itself.

They never got as far as the stone, that day or the next. Adam went back to the manse and collected his camping things. He knew Jeannie probably suspected that he would not be sleeping in his small tent alone, but she said nothing, giving him a huge bag of food to keep him going while he watched the birds. Loaded with tent and sleeping bag and groundsheet, a Primus stove, saucepan, food, bird book and binoculars, he could hardly walk as he set off once more towards the hill. The weight did not matter. Brid was waiting for him, and anyway they were not going far.

They camped only a hundred yards from the falls. There, to his intense embarrassment, she gave him an intricately worked silver pendant on a chain, hanging it herself around his neck. ‘For you, A-dam. Forever.’

‘Brid! Men don’t wear things like this!’ He flinched uncomfortably as it nestled against his chest.

She laughed. ‘Men in my world wear this with pride, A-dam. It is a love token.’ She pulled the edges of his collar across to hide it and kissed him firmly on the lips. Before very long he had forgotten it was there.

Two evenings later, with the dark blue velvet of the sky sprinkled with pale stars, Gartnait found them.

‘How long have you been here?’ He looked furious.

‘Not long.’ Brid glared at him.

‘I look for you everywhere. Everywhere!’ he repeated. ‘Broichan is at our mother’s house. He is angry!’ The emphasis he placed on the last word spoke volumes.

‘I have a holiday.’ Brid looked mutinous.

‘Holiday?’ Gartnait repeated the word puzzled. Then without waiting for elucidation he grabbed her wrist and pulled her to her feet. ‘You have been here with A-dam?’ His face betrayed a succession of emotions: anger; fear; suspicion. ‘Brid, you have stayed here? Here? On the other side?’

Brid’s chin rose, if anything, a little higher. But there was a touch of colour in her cheeks. ‘I like it here. I saw A-dam’s village; I saw his house,’ she said defiantly.

‘And what will you say to our uncle?’