Chapter 33
Robyn opened the van door. David wasn’t sitting in the passenger seat. ‘What are you doing? I thought I was driving?’
‘Robyn, you haven’t driven this thing before and you don’t know how temperamental it can be.’
‘Oh, you think I’m going to drive us both off a cliff?’
David eyed her without answering.
Robyn looked away, embarrassed. She had meant it as a joke, but she realised as soon as it was out of her mouth that, considering the car accident, it was in very poor taste.
‘And you’ve been drinking,’ David added.
Robyn looked at him, wondering how he knew that. She’d left the two bottles of beer behind, but had only drunk one of them anyway.
He guessed what she was thinking. ‘I can smell it on your breath.’
‘Well, I needed a drink this evening after I met—’ she caught herself from saying something rude about his father.
David held the handkerchief to his forehead.
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, you can’t drive like that!’
David moved along the seat to the passenger side as Robyn climbed in. She caught him giving her a sideways glance, his expression giving away what he was still thinking – that she shouldn’t drive.
‘I’m fine, honestly. I only had a beer.’
‘Beer?’
She shouldn’t have told him that. She felt her face flush. ‘It was only a small bottle.’
Robyn turned the key in the ignition. The engine shuddered into life, but to Robyn’s annoyance David was acting like a back-seat driver as she manoeuvred the van out of the car park.
‘Mind that car!’
‘I’m not going to hit that car!’ Robyn said, then nearly did.
‘The gear shift is a bit tricky,’ David commented.
‘I do know how to operate a gear shift, you know.’
‘Not this gear shift.’
Unfortunately, Robyn crunched the gears as she changed up.
‘There – see, I told you!’
Robyn sighed; it was going to be a long drive home.
When David had finally been persuaded that she could drive the hunk of metal, he calmed down.
Robyn concentrated on the road ahead. Everything was silent and eery, like something out of a scary movie. She expected some dark ominous figure to jump out from the shadows in front of her. Large pine trees lined the straight road ahead, bending inwards to create a tunnel effect. It was spooky.
Robyn discovered that she enjoyed driving in the dark; the roads were quiet. She imagined that everyone was either at home, to see in the New Year, or at one of the Hogmanay parties, waiting to toast the New Year and then carry on the celebrating into the early hours.
She’d driven as a passenger with Gayle that way several times before, but never in the dark. She felt as though she had entered another world, another dimension. There had been snowfall earlier in the evening, which only added to the atmosphere; the tall pine trees were dusted with snow, their white branches illuminated in the headlights as they drove through the night.
Robyn took her eyes off the road for a second, glancing upwards to the night sky. It was a clear night, with so many twinkly stars that she couldn’t imagine she’d seen anything quite like it before in her life.
David broke the silence. ‘Scotland and the Cairngorms National Park are world-renowned for their dark skies.’
Robyn glanced at David. ‘Dark skies?’
‘Yes, like that.’ He pointed up. ‘Scotland is, like, the best place for stargazing.’
‘It is?’
‘Oh, yes. There’s even a place called the Cairngorms Dark Sky Park.’
‘For stargazing?’
‘Yes. In a village called Tomintoul on The Glenlivet Estate. The village has had the title bestowed on it, The Highest Village in the Highlands .’
‘I would like to see that village,’ commented Robyn.
‘But it’s the Snow Roads on the way there – that’s where the spectacular scenery is.’
‘Snow Roads?’
‘Oh, you haven’t heard of them?’
‘I don’t think so.’ She might have, but it had already been quite an eventful evening, for all the wrong reasons – she glanced at the bloody handkerchief in his hands – so she didn’t want to get into her own problems. Just then, she was just enjoying the drive, and seeing the spectacular dark skies, as David called them.
‘Tourists come here to do the Snow Roads Scenic Route.
‘But why are they called Snow Roads?’
‘They are the highest roads in the UK, where you can travel among snow-covered plains high in the Cairngorms. Of course you can travel them in the summer when there is no snow, but you have to travel a Snow Road at least once in your lifetime in the winter. The scenery really is … well I can’t put into words how amazing the scenery is, driving along those roads.’
‘Where does it start – the Snow Road?’
‘Actually you can take one of the roads from the village we’ve just come from – Grantown-on-Spey.’
Robyn took her foot off the accelerator and crunched the gears, slowing the big van down. She pulled over on the verge.
‘What are you doing?’
She turned to David. ‘I want to travel along the Snow Road to the highest village in the Cairngorms, Tomintoul, and see the dark skies.’
‘What – now?’
‘It’s a beautiful evening. The sky is clear. I can’t think of a better way to see in the New Year than in the highest village in the Cairngorms, looking up at those amazing dark skies, stargazing – can you?’
When she didn’t get an answer, she dropped her gaze from the night sky and looked at David.
He stared at her and said, ‘I don’t care where I see in the New Year, as long as it’s with you.’
Robyn had to stop herself bursting into tears at that comment. It was the most romantic thing anyone had ever said to her. She immediately wondered how she knew that.
They were travelling along the Snow Road, having doubled back to Grantown-on-Spey and taken a road that started to climb up and away from the village.
It soon flattened out, quicker than Robyn expected, with a further gentle climb and some twisty turns until eventually there was a flat straight road ahead of them for as far as the eye could see – which wasn’t that far in the pitch darkness. But Robyn didn’t care about that. She was on the mountain plains, and it was exhilarating.
Robyn could see, from the headlights lighting the road, and the verges either side, that there was snow on the plains, just as David had described. They were heading for the highest village in the Cairngorms, which was along this Snow Road, where – if David’s timing was correct – they might just make it to wish each other a Happy New Year.
Robyn was still driving. They were both silent, travelling along the not-so-deserted road in hushed silence. Cars passed from time to time, obviously heading down to the village from whence they’d come to see in the New Year. They lit up the road and the beautiful scenery surrounding them. But it was the sky that kept grabbing Robyn’s attention, drawing her from the road ahead. It was velvety black, and just so full of stars, like glitter lighting up the night sky.
‘David?’ She glanced at him. His elbow rested on the window ledge, holding the handkerchief to his forehead. His eyes were closed.
They opened.
‘Has the bleeding stopped?’
‘Yeah.’
She exhaled in relief. She’d been so intent on having this adventure that she hadn’t thought about what they would do if the bleeding didn’t stop and they need to go to A what she would find when – if – her memory returned.
Robyn felt David’s hand on her cheek, gently turning her head to look at him. He leaned in, and an inch from her lips, he paused to ask, ‘May I kiss you?’
Whatever lay ahead, good or bad, and whatever she was running from – because she had the strongest sensation that that was the reason she’d been on the road on Christmas Day – in that moment she didn’t care about the past or the future. All she wanted was for David to kiss her.
‘Oh, yes,’ she said.
As they kissed, a loud boom sounded, making Robyn jump out of her skin. ‘Oh, my god.’ She shivered in David’s arms, even though she wasn’t cold.
‘Hey, are you okay?’
‘What was that?’
‘It was just a firework – look up!’
Holding hands tightly, they both turned so that they stood shoulder-to-shoulder, looking up at the dark sky lit up by fireworks.
‘I didn’t know there would be a firework display here.’
David smiled. ‘This is Hogmanay. Wherever you are in Scotland right now, this is what you will be doing.’
Unless you’re Gayle, sitting at home with her mum, who has dementia. Robyn suddenly felt terribly guilty that she’d decided to go out. She could have been at Gayle’s, and they could have all celebrated the New Year together.
She had a sudden thought. It had only just turned midnight. It wasn’t too late to get back to Gayle’s and have a little glass of wine with her to celebrate the New Year.
‘What’s wrong?’ David asked.
‘Do you think we can leave now?’
‘Of course. Are you tired?’
‘Yeah, but it’s not that. I’d really like to go back to Gayle’s and wish her a Happy New Year.’
‘Let’s go. I’d like to wish Gayle a Happy New Year too.’
Robyn smiled to herself as he led the way back to the van. She cast a glance behind her at the large group of people wrapped up in coats, hats, scarfs and gloves, standing around to watch the fireworks and warming themselves with hot chocolate.
This place, the Cairngorms, was somewhere she knew in her heart she’d been yearning for. It was a place to put down roots, where she could stop moving around and settle down. No specific memory had come to mind; just a strong sensation that that had been her life, before – constantly on the move, but not out of choice, always yearning for a place to call home. It wasn’t just the place, though – it was the people.
She climbed into the van next to David. He caught her staring at him and asked, ‘What is it?’
She shook her head and forced a smile. ‘Oh, nothing.’
But it wasn’t nothing. It felt like her new life was just beginning. But there was the spectre of her past hanging over her, like a ghostly presence that wouldn’t go away. When would it come back to haunt her?