Chapter Twenty-Seven
JAYNE
16 April 1931
Lochaline
Like a cat on a sun-warmed wall, the evenings were beginning to stretch. Every afternoon now, as the women swarmed into the factory yard, shadows fell upon the cobbles beneath a gladdening sky. The hills were resplendent, clad in their magnificent yellow gorse blossoms, and the trees were filling with returning birds: Effie had so far spotted willow warblers, tree pipits, yellow wagtails and wheatears.
Jayne quietly waited her turn in the queue at the butcher’s, eyeing the cuts laid out behind the glass and wondering which her husband would want for his dinner tonight. Ahead of her, Mhairi, Effie and Ishbel were laughing about Mrs Buchanan’s skirt being caught tucked in her undergarments all afternoon and how no one had cared to mention it to her. It was a petty victory that put a smile back on Effie’s face. She had been listless ever since returning from the day trip with her new gentleman friend last month, and his blue sports car had been conspicuous by its absence ever since too. But, although the girls laughed here and there, they rarely smiled. Effie, Mhairi and Jayne herself – none could really claim to be happy.
Mhairi stepped backwards, standing on Jayne’s foot. She was beginning to show now and her balance was a little off.
‘Och, Jayne, I’m sorry!’ she apologized. ‘I didn’t see you there!’
‘Not to worry,’ Jayne smiled.
‘Hai, Jayne,’ Effie said in surprise, turning too.
‘Have you heard anything more on the visit back, Eff?’ she asked, moving the conversation away from her invisibility.
The news that the Earl of Dumfries had bought their island home was all the former villagers had been able to talk about for weeks. Jealousy was rife that Effie would be going back with the lairds to St Kilda for a formal handover ceremony.
‘Not yet.’
‘I heard people are asking the size of the boat,’ Mhairi said as they shuffled forward in the queue.
‘What boat?’
‘The earl’s, of course. How many passengers can he take?’
‘How should I know?’
‘Did you never go on it?’ Ishbel asked.
Effie shook her head.
‘But you saw it,’ Mhairi pushed. ‘When it was anchored in the bay last summer.’ Mhairi had been sequestered in Glen Bay, on the other side of the ridge, by then, but Flora had kept her up to date with all the news from her fleeting visits back to the village.
‘That wasn’t the earl’s boat, it was MacLeod’s,’ Effie corrected. ‘And I saw no more of it than anyone else.’
‘Oh,’ Ishbel said disappointedly. ‘What a pity.’
‘Why do they want to know, anyway?’
‘Others want to go back with you,’ Jayne said simply. It was all Old Fin could talk about when she went to sit with him at her lunchtimes. ‘They don’t think it’s fair you should get to go and not them, just because you...well, because of your relationship with Sholto.’
Effie stiffened. ‘But I don’t have a relationship with Sholto.’
Jayne felt a swell of sadness as she took in the young woman’s doleful expression.
‘So then why have you been invited?’ Ishbel asked. It didn’t make sense.
Effie blushed, and Jayne had a feeling she was holding something back. She quickly changed the subject. ‘Anyway, no matter – but I think they’re going to write to the earl and ask to go along too, just so you know.’
‘Aye...thanks, Jay—’
‘Fight!’
The word cracked like a gunshot and a sudden contraction rippled through the crowd of women in the butcher’s shop. It was as if an energy bomb had been dropped. The hairs on the back of Jayne’s neck stood up and she felt a tingle of dread. Her stomach lurched. Fights always made her sick.
‘They’re fighting!’ someone cried again.
‘Who is?’ someone from the back asked.
‘Brodie MacDougall and Norman Ferguson.’
Jayne felt the blood still in her veins as everyone disgorged onto the pavement to watch the drama unfold. She felt as if she was moving through treacle, the shouts and roars distant to her ear as she stepped outside to witness the flailing of fists.
She knew exactly why they were fighting. She had heard the rumours about Fiona MacDougall and her husband, even though everyone thought she was unaware. They thought her too foolish to know where her husband slept on those nights he didn’t come home, or why he smelled of perfume when she owned none. But she knew everything. She knew so much more than he knew.
She blinked at the frenzied spectacle. Her husband was a tall man and powerfully built, with strong shoulders and muscled arms. His opponent had none of his physical prowess – but he had fury on his side. Being cuckolded could make a lion of a lamb, and she watched as MacDougall landed several direct hits on her husband’s planed cheeks. Norman’s piercing blue eyes were bloodshot, and there was a deep cut above his brow already bleeding that she would need to tend to later.
The men, on their way to the pub after their own long shifts at the Forestry, were gathered around in a loose huddle, as if keeping the warriors penned in like fighting cockerels while they cheered on the action. As if this was exciting. Fun. Funny.
Was Fiona MacDougall here? Was she watching as the two men fought over her? Jayne lifted her head, casting a hollow-eyed gaze around the faces that had not once considered her in the fracas. This was a three-way drama. She wasn’t even in the equation.
But someone was staring at her. His stillness matched hers, conspicuous amid the twitching, baiting mêlée: hazel-green eyes, as sorrowful as her own, watching her from across the street.
She saw his sympathy for her predicament – his pity – and it was even worse than being overlooked.
Jayne wrenched her gaze away with a gasp. She saw Effie’s bicycle propped against the butcher’s wall and she grabbed it, throwing her leg over and beginning to pedal. It was an uphill climb, but fury propelled her. Being humiliated could make a betrayed wife fly.
‘Jayne?’ she heard Effie call, turning a moment too late to stop her. But Jayne didn’t stop. As she glanced back, she saw David following her, chasing in silence.
Her breathing became ragged quickly; she could scarcely see through her tears, but she wouldn’t stop or slow down, her muscles burning, her lungs squeezing as she left the scene – left him – far behind her and took the path for home.
On the lane, she passed Mad Annie in her front garden, staking runner beans in the beds she had dug out that week. ‘Jayne?’ the old woman asked, a frown creasing her wizened brow, as Jayne whizzed by in silence.
She passed the Wee Gillies’ place too, further along, finally reaching her own threshold twelve minutes after she had left the fight in the street. She threw the bicycle down on the ground and ran through to the kitchen, running the tap and splashing the water on her face as she gasped to catch her breath.
She let the water run, her hands splayed wide on the counter and her head hanging as she gulped for oxygen. Minutes passed. The physical exertion of getting back here had extinguished her tears – she couldn’t cry and pedal uphill at the same time – and all she felt now was bitter, stinging humiliation at her husband’s indiscretions having been so publicly aired. She knew Fiona MacDougall was not his only lover, and she also knew she wouldn’t be his last. Norman hadn’t touched Jayne once since they had arrived in Lochaline. It was both a mercy and a blessing, for back home his nightly attentions had been difficult to bear. And yet...it had also shown her how very unwanted, undesired and unseen she was to her husband. Now that Norman had choices, she was nothing more than his housekeeper and cook. She had been able to bear the shame of her inadequacy when it was private, but there was no hiding from it now. Everyone knew. David had seen with his own eyes that she was an unsatisfactory wife.
The sound of the gate creaking on its hinges made her straighten up just as the door was thrown back and David himself filled the doorway. He was breathing heavily. Had he really sprinted the whole way here? She had expected him to fall back, to give up. ‘Jayne—’
‘Don’t!’ she cried, as he came into the kitchen he knew so well. He sat at that table every evening, more often even than Norman, so that now she had come to regard the chair as his and not her husband’s. ‘I don’t want to hear it! I don’t want your pity!’
Anyone but his.
She turned away, but she felt him watching her. She always could. His gaze had become her silent companion over these past few months, always there.
‘Well, too bad,’ he said in a hard tone she didn’t recognize as his. ‘You’ve got it. Everyone pities you now! Is this what you wanted?’
She turned back in shock that he was being so cruel. Norman, yes, she expected nothing else. But David...? ‘How can you ask me that?’ she gasped.
‘What else am I to think? Why else would you stay when you know what he’s been doing? Everyone knows, even the kiddies in the playground!’
‘Stop it! I want you to go.’
‘No!’ he said curtly, stepping further into the house instead. ‘What will it take, Jayne?’ he demanded. ‘When will you admit what he is and leave him?’
‘Never! I can’t!’
‘Yes, you can! He uses you! He abuses you! And now this? He’s humiliating you!’ His eyes were flaming. She had never seen him so enraged. ‘God almighty, Jayne, where’s your self-respect?’
‘Stop it!’ she cried, putting her hands to her ears; but he crossed the space between them and took hold of her wrists, lifting them away again in the next moment.
‘No, it’s time you listened to me! I’m done with playing things your way,’ he said, holding her still as he stood before her, toe to toe, staring down with an anger she had never seen before. His eyes travelled over her and she saw the pity rise again in his eyes. ‘Jayne...’
She turned her face away in shame, trying to hide her face. ‘Don’t look at me!’ she sobbed. ‘Please just go! Leave me alone!’
His grip tightened around her wrists. ‘You know I can’t do that!’
She whirled back to face him. ‘Why? Because you’re going to confront Norman? You’re going to save me?’ Her sarcasm was biting and cruel, she knew that, but she couldn’t help herself. Something inside her had snapped and she had lost control. She felt wild. Animalistic.
She yanked her arms out of his grip, surprised that he offered no resistance as she pulled away. Such a move with Norman would have resulted in a solid backhand to her cheek.
‘Aye. I am,’ he replied, growing ever more calm in the face of her hysteria. ‘I can’t stand aside and watch this any more. I won’t. I won’t let him hurt you.’
She stared back at him in bewilderment, tears streaming down her cheeks, her vision bleary, as he continued to stand here. ‘ Why? ’ she cried. ‘What do you care?’
‘You know I do!’ His voice cracked. ‘...I’ve loved you for months now.’
The world fell still. She’d never heard the word ‘loved’ directed at her before.
‘I’ve only stood by for as long as I have because I was trying to respect your wishes! I tried to believe that your marriage was sacred – even if it was flawed; that it was not my business to intervene, no matter how hard it was to have to stand on the sidelines and watch.’ His jaw balled, a flickering anger surfacing with the memories. ‘But he’s made it clear tonight there’s nothing sacred in this union. There’s no marriage left to save.’
She stared at him, hearing the simple truth she had tried so hard to deny. She had been an outsider her entire life, misunderstood and abandoned by her father, and she had fiercely cleaved a new identity to being Norman’s wife and Molly’s sister. But neither one of those was true any longer and, as she looked back at David, she understood to whom she really belonged. It had been obvious for weeks, but she had refused to see it.
She rushed forwards, pressing her mouth to his and tasting her own tears on his lips. His arms tightened around her immediately, holding her close, keeping her safe, as she felt an incredible power surge between them. It was so strong, even the force of her visions paled in comparison. The rest of the world ceased to exist. There was nothing but them and this moment.
Her hands were in his hair, his hands on her back, her waist, her hips...hitching up her skirt as they staggered backwards towards the table where he always sat, to the corner she thought of as his.
Where he would make her his.
She trembled, afterwards, in his arms, her legs still wrapped around him. He kissed her face as if she was something beautiful and rare. She had never known it could be like that, the act; that her own body was capable of such pleasure, or that she could make those sounds – and make those sounds come from him too.
She looked up at him, seeing the tenderness in his eyes as he cupped her face.
‘I’ve wanted that to happen between us for so long,’ he said in a low voice. ‘I thought it never would.’
‘Me too,’ she whispered; and it was true. It was David’s face she saw as she drifted off to sleep at night; his face that haunted the other dreams she kept private and which sometimes woke her, panting, in the middle of the night as Norman lay beside her (or didn’t). But in her waking hours, she had never allowed herself to think of him as anything other than a friend. As he sat at this table, chatting away and reading the paper while she cooked; as he walked her up the lane on the way back from work; all the time, she told herself that he was her friend, Molly’s fiancé, and nothing more. It was impossible to believe he would see her in any other light than as Norman’s little, mousey wife. She could scarcely believe he saw her as a woman at all.
But somewhere between here and St Kilda, as the months had passed and they forged a new, humdrum life on this small Scottish peninsula, things had gradually changed between them. She felt his eyes on her back as she moved around the kitchen, saw the way he bristled whenever Norman was near. He left notes in her prayer book at church, telling her to wait for him so they could walk back together when Norman went ‘fishing’ afterwards. Their friendship was played out in clear sight of everyone, but it had a downy underbelly now; something gentle and soft had been growing in the quiet moments.
‘I love you, Jayne.’
‘I love you too,’ she whispered as he kissed her tenderly again.
A sound outside made them both start, and they looked over to see the front door was still open. It was only a squirrel leaping from a branch, but if anyone should be passing...Only Old Fin lived further up the track, and he didn’t often make the walk down, but if anyone should be going to visit him...
Fear intruded on their privacy and instinctively they drew apart, correcting their clothing and smoothing away any dishevelment that betrayed the passion that had overcome them.
Still, as David buckled his belt, his eyes caught hers; he seemed so languid and happy. ‘So...’ he smiled. ‘What now?’
‘What now?’
‘Aye, how do we play this? When should we tell him?’
The room contracted.
Jayne slid off the table, pushing back down her skirt and smoothing her hair carefully with her hands. She glanced back at him, feeling a heavy pulse beat through her veins. Her equilibrium was settling again, her cool steadiness returning as a physical distance opened up between them. ‘Tell him what?’
David’s smile faltered. ‘That you’re leaving him.’
There was a pause.
She turned away. ‘I...I’ll need to pick the moment carefully.’
He was watching her again, his eyes upon her back, reading her. ‘What about now? You could pack and be ready to leave by the time he comes back. We can tell him together and then go. I don’t want him laying a hand on you.’
She gave a shocked laugh. ‘ Now? ’
‘Aye.’
‘And where am I to go?’
‘To ours,’ he shrugged. ‘Where else?’
‘To yours? You honestly believe Archie and Christina would be fine with a married woman coming to live with them? With you?’
He hesitated. ‘Well, I’ll need to explain things to them, obviously...but everyone knows what Norman is. And after today, who would blame you for leaving him? I think they’d be more surprised if you stayed!’
She looked at him. It was all so straightforward for him. He wanted to launch straight into ‘happy ever after’ – but she was another man’s wife, no matter how bad a husband Norman might be.
‘I need to consider things, David. It’s not as simple as you’re making it seem.’
He caught his breath, picking up on her growing coolness. ‘No, it is simple, Jayne. It’s as simple as it could possibly be. He doesn’t love you. He doesn’t respect you. He doesn’t protect you. I’m sorry to be blunt, but y’ need to see things for what they are. You’re at a crossroads and y’ have a choice to make. We both know this day has been a long time coming.’
His words hurt her even though she knew they were true. ‘That’s as may be, but as I said, I’m not leaving right now. I have to think.’
‘But what is there to think about? Do y’ really want to continue living in fear? He’s got y’ so broken down, y’ think it’s normal to be hit and to be hurt! But it’s not. And you and I both know he’s far more dangerous than people realize.’
She looked away. How many times had he brought this up with her? ‘If you’re referring to Frank—’
‘Of course I am. Norman’s the only one who doesn’t have an alibi for his whereabouts that night. You lied to the police for him, and it’s an innocent man, Donald McKinnon, who’s taking the heat for it!’
‘David, I’ve told you before, whatever Norman’s faults, I know he didn’t kill Frank.’
He threw his arms up in exasperation. ‘You don’t know that!’
‘Yes, I do! I assure you, it will make no difference if I tell the police he didn’t come home that night.’
‘It would make all the difference in the world to Donald and Mhairi!’ he snapped.
Jayne swallowed. ‘Aye...Maybe,’ she conceded. ‘And I’m sorry they’ve been caught in this – but that isn’t on Norman. The police will only waste their time redirecting their energies to him. I know he isn’t the killer.’
He stared at her, that pitying look coming into his eyes again. ‘No, it’s not that. You don’t care whether the police waste their time. You know you could have Donald taken off the hook of suspicion like that ’ – he clicked his fingers – ‘but you don’t want Norman knowing you were with me that night, because you’re afraid he’ll see what’s really between us.’
She stared back at him, knowing he was right. She’d been too frightened to face her feelings for him before now, not only because she feared they were unreciprocated, but because they had existed far longer for her than they had for him. The terrible, shameful truth was that she had been drawn to him even when Molly was still alive. To have witnessed at such close quarters a love she had never known with her husband...it had made her want that love for herself. It had made her want him.
‘It’s a risk I can’t take,’ she whispered. Norman would kill her before he let her leave him for another man. For David, of all men.
David shook his head, a small, scoffing laugh falling from his lips as he saw her intransigence, her refusal to remove herself from this place of fear. ‘I don’t understand you, Jayne. Here, you are ignored and overlooked and downtrodden; you live in terror of his moods and his fists. You deserve a better life than this, and I want to be the man to give it to you! But you won’t come with me.’ His voice broke on the frustration of it all.
‘I’m just asking for some time, David. I know you love me and I love you back, but...’ Her voice trailed off. How could she explain that it was safer to stay here than walk out with him into the sunlight? She only knew how to live in the shadows.
A silence stretched as she stared at the floor.
‘Well...’ he muttered, looking disconsolate. ‘You’ll be sure to tell me when you’ve finally had enough, won’t you? Maybe after the next woman he fights over. Or the next broken bone.’
‘David...’
But he walked past her and out through the open door, where a squirrel scampered on the garden wall and the world continued to turn.