Chapter 21 #2
Now Lachlan’s frown deepened. ‘What else could it be?’
‘I don’t know. But George is leaving today and yet here we still are.’
I let my gaze travel up and over the busy yard.
The young lad had gone to Jeannie and clearly received his instructions because he had looped a rope over the horns of the goat and was leading it out of the enclosure.
The goat was not altogether complying, and there was a degree of wrangling going on, some of which was occasioned by the fact that Mal was leaning against the wall of the paddock and the goat had to pass him to go through the entrance.
Mal did not help matters by giving the goat a little wave as it went.
‘You don’t think it’s us, do you?’ Lachlan spoke quietly, his lips hardly moving. ‘Keeping us here? I mean, you don’t seem overkeen to get back to the teaching, and I’ve got an uncertain future waiting for me there. Nothing to rush home for, if you get my drift.’
I stared at him with my mouth falling open. ‘Lachlan!’
He hung his head and the part of his face visible above the ginger beard went pink. ‘Just a thought,’ he mumbled.
‘Well, yes, but – I can see where you’re coming from but isn’t that just a touch hubristic?
’ I almost wanted to laugh, but things looked too black for humour to work.
‘You might have an unwanted career change,’ I said carefully, trying not to let the word ‘unemployment’ slip out.
‘And I’m not desperate to get back to teaching, but it’s our lives!
There’s nothing here for us.’ I waved an arm to indicate the muddy yard and the activity.
‘Plus, there’s three other people here and they all want to go back.
Kaylinn wants her mum, David needs to get back to see his sister is safe and Mal…
’ I remembered Mal and his confession of the loneliness in his life ‘…probably wants to go clubbing and buy ridiculously priced shoes.’
I went back to concentrating on the goat, which seemed the least objectionable thing around at the moment, even though it did seem to be attempting to butt the child into the mud in an attempt to get to Mal, presumably with murder in its little goaty heart.
‘Anyway, I thought you had your life sorted.’
‘Aye, well.’ Lachlan shrugged. ‘It’s not so bad.
Just a wee bit precarious, you know. Losing the lecturing job when I’d got my mortgage all sorted, and the cottage could do with a bit of tidying up – like a roof and some actual foundations, that sort of thing.
’ I flicked him a glance and it must have had a level of disbelief in it because he hastened on, ‘Oh, it’s liveable.
Needs a bit of work, that’s all. I thought I’d stay in Glasgow and do the place up a bit at a time, put on a nice extension, plant out a garden.
Looks like I’ll have to live there full-time though, and I’m not sure it’s fit for that yet. ’
A hand reached out and took mine. It startled me a little because I wasn’t sure we’d come to this level of casual acceptance of touch yet.
A few kisses, an admission that we liked one another; was that it?
Was that how one went about forming an attachment to someone?
Then I felt the mud underneath me, heard the gulls screeching lines across the sky and remembered that here you probably married someone you’d never even met and let my fingers close around Lachlan’s.
‘You’re trying to be in control again, aren’t you?’ This time I let the hint of a smile cross my face.
‘Maybe. Och, Pax, I don’t know. I just want a wee bit of order around here, do you know what I mean? It feels like there’s no ground under my feet and I’m not used to that.’
I tightened my grip on his hand. ‘Maybe we have to let go a bit,’ I said. ‘Maybe we’re trying too hard. If we let things happen and stop trying to second-guess, it might make things easier?’
‘Here and now, you mean, or is this a message for life?’ He was smiling too, I was happy to see.
‘Generally speaking. Maybe we’re both a bit too keen on predictability.’ I looked down at our clasped hands. ‘Maybe we need to learn to go with the flow.’
Over at the gatehouse, Jamie was standing alone.
George, surrounded by a retinue, was mounting up now at the castle entrance.
Horses shone in the trickle of sunlight, silver buckles gleamed and there was an overall air of relief as he addressed his band of kilted men in words I couldn’t quite make out from over here, but in a tone that seemed cheery and encouraging.
‘You’re within a whisker of singing “Let It Go”, aren’t you?’ Lachlan observed.
I was, in fact, watching George. ‘I am not,’ I said, indignantly. ‘I think we should just let ourselves be carried along in the slipstream of Time.’
Lachlan crouched down to look into my face. ‘Are you sure you’re not running a wee fever? Because that is an unnecessarily flowery thing to say when we’re looking at being trapped here forever.’
I shrugged. ‘I ought to go and say goodbye to George,’ I said. ‘I quite like George and he has been very reasonable, listening to what I’ve had to say.’
‘And you’ve given him the key to starting the Industrial Revolution. Besides, he thinks you’re a demon,’ Lachlan reminded me.
‘He doesn’t, not really.’ I unwound my hand from his and began to trudge across the mud.
Lachlan followed me. ‘How many people can say that they’ve given their multiple-great-grandfathers their blessing?
’ And, I thought, but didn’t add, maybe George leaving is the slipstream of Time pointing us in the direction we should be looking.
Maybe it was time to – well, trust in time.