The feel of him next to me, the sheer reassurance of his surrounding arm and the very real sensation of the lumpy wool of his sweater, made me feel better. The pressure of his arm around me anchored me and stopped me feeling as though I’dlost all sense of reality. He was right. Sometimes it was nice to feel that someone else was in charge, that I didn’t have to be stoic and grown up all the time.
‘Better now?’ He moved slightly and dropped the arm that he’d put around me.
His matter-of-factness made me less self-conscious. ‘Yes. Thank you. Sorry about that, I?—’
‘You don’t need to explain or apologise.’ This was said softly, not with the whisper we’d been using so as not to wake the sleepers, but in a heartfelt tone. ‘And thank you for listening to me dumping my woes on you. You’re a good listener, Pax.’ His tone changed, became less conspiratorial. ‘Maybe we should wake someone else to take next watch now. It’s time we had a bit of sleep ourselves.’
‘I’m awake.’ Mal’s voice came out of the darkness and I wondered how long he’d been listening. ‘I’ll do it.’
As I rolled myself in a blanket and tried to find somewhere to lie that didn’t dig into my spine, I thought over our conversation. Much of the memory of Lachlan’s words was surrounded by the feel of his comforting hug. I found I was smiling to myself and that felt good.
11
We muddled along for another week or more.
Kaylinn and I stuck together. We went to the kitchens – one of the rough, thatched buildings on the headland – and watched the big ovens fired up for baking, with wood fed in to pre-heat them and then the dough put in to cook when the fire was removed. We saw whole carcasses roasted over open fires, the fat spitting and splashing and making the flames rear up to encompass the meat. We watched the women wash and comb wool, then spin it into thread on drop spindles, which they carried around as they chatted or fed the animals. We watched the men too, but their daily routine seemed mostly to consist of cleaning their weapons and watching the women, so we mostly left them to it.
‘It’s like a living museum,’ Kaylinn observed as we watched Fergus chop more wood for the ever-hungry ovens. Jeannie was shovelling grain around on a floor in another of the buildings, spreading it out and then dampening it, which confused me until Kaylinn explained that she was malting barley to make ale.
‘Good research,’ I said, stepping back unnecessarily to allow one of the women past, bringing water from the well.
‘Yeah.’ Kaylinn sounded tired. ‘But I still want to go home.’ She leaned against the wall, keeping her eyes on Jeannie, who clearly had several vats of ale in various stages of preparation, because she was boiling water for another load at the same time as drying grain. I had the feeling that Kaylinn wasn’t really seeing what was happening in front of her, she had a distant expression on her face.
‘We’ll get back,’ I said, with a firmness that I dragged up from somewhere. ‘We will.’
‘But what if wedon’t?’ It was nearly a plea and it gave me even more sympathy for Lachlan, trying to pretend a confidence that none of us felt, because without hope we were all going to fall apart.
‘We will.’ It was all I could say.
‘My sister is getting married next fall.’ Kaylinn was still focused on Jeannie, now chatting to the older woman who’d brought the water but with an eye on Fergus chopping outside. ‘I was gonna be back for that.’ Her face crumpled. ‘They’ll be missing me so much.’ Her words broke over a sob. ‘I can’t bear it.’
‘Kay…’ I put an arm around her. ‘Please…’ I didn’t know what I was asking. Did I want her to stop talking about her family, or stop crying over their pain? Neither seemed appropriate.
‘Aren’t you worried about your family?’ She wiped away tears with the back of her hand. ‘I keep imagining Mom, sitting with my picture…’ This time the rest of the sentence was lost as she gulped at the steamy, yeasty-smelling air in the brewhouse.
I thought of Mum and Dad. Would losing me have brought them together? Would they be standing on this same headland in the future, staring out over the waves, joined in misery? Or arguing over whether I should ever have gone with Lenny that day? Would Lenny and Dad be discussing the future of the site– rebuilding the lost glory of the McKells in their heads as the weather and sea ate away at its edges?
‘I try not to.’ I squeezed Kaylinn’s shoulders. ‘It doesn’t help.’
‘No.’ Now I got a watery little smile that was almost as heartbreaking as the tears. ‘I know.’ With a heroic effort that made my heart squeeze with sympathy, she straightened her shoulders and wiped her nose on her sleeve. ‘But you’re right, great research.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Do you reckon that’s honey in that jar there? Jeannie’s putting herbs in the ale, maybe she puts honey in also?’
All she could do, all any of us could do, was try not to think about what was going on here.
That evening, Lachlan and I found ourselves alone together in the cellar. I was washing out some clothes in a bucket of water that we’d purloined from upstairs while two men, who’d fetched it from the water cistern, argued over a plate of meat. It wasn’t easy to steal big items as obviously we didn’t want anyone to notice floating buckets, so we had to wait for major distractions to occur, which meant things like water were hard to come by. We could drink by helping ourselves out of vessels, so we weren’t all desiccating like Gollum, but washing could be a tricky task and I was making the most of our bounty by rinsing out underwear and T-shirts for all of us. I’d even given myself a quick and furtive scrub first, crouched behind the upturned crates that now formed our major living area.
‘Will you do mine?’ he asked.
‘Of course. As long as this is not being stereotyped as women’s work and it is clear that I am only doing this because I’m the one who decided that we all smelled horrible. Mal said that David’s underpants needed to be peeled off him. I do not know how he knew this so don’t ask me.’
I was talking to cover my slight embarrassment at being alone with Lachlan. I still felt bad about crying all over him andhad worked hard to cultivate my air of taking everything in my stride. He clearly also felt awkward about opening up to me and we’d avoided one another with almost studied nonchalance ever since.
‘Great.’ Lachlan pulled his sweater off over his head and his inner T-shirt came with it so I tried not to stare at his torso. Lachlan was slender but well muscled and he had a small tattoo on one shoulder of writing in Gaelic. It would have been very bad form to go over and start reading it, so I bent to my wringing action again. The water was starting to look a bit scummy, but even so it could only improve our clothing.
‘I was thinking,’ Lachlan said, holding out the T-shirt, which was almost capable of climbing into the bucket by itself, ‘about what we were saying before about communicating with the earl by writing?’
‘Oh, yes?’ I didn’t want to look at him again until he had his jumper back on, but he seemed to be in no hurry.
‘Writing a note would involve us stealing some ink and finding a quill and managing to write in a style that he could read.’
