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‘Are you sure? I miss you, Liz. Don’t you miss me?’
Of course I miss you, she thought, a tear rolling down her cheek. She wiped it away, angrily. She wasn’t going to let him know how much his voice was affecting her.
‘No,’ she lied. ‘Paul, you can’t just call me up at work and do this.’
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t think… I didn’t know you’d be at work,’ he replied, lamely.
‘It’s the middle of the day. What else would I be doing?’ She glared at the phone as if it was Paul’s face.
‘Huh. Some things don’t change,’ he replied, mulishly.
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘It means, you never stop working. You’re obsessed with your job.’
‘Well, I don’t know if you realise, but you aresupposedto work when you’re at work. The clue’s in the word,’ she shot back. She exhaled and shook her head in irritation.
When Liz looked back at her past relationship with Paul, she could see now that she had always tried to ignore all his little comments about work. She’d always known that he resented her job, but she could also see now that she’d purposefully lied to herself about how passive-aggressive he was about it. Now that she was talking to him again after a break, though, she could see it so clearly. It was tedious, always feeling like she had to defend herself.
‘Liz. Let’s not get sucked back into old arguments.’ Paul sighed. ‘I just want to see you. I think we need to talk. Okay? If nothing else, please let me apologise to you properly. In person.’
Liz took in a deep breath and let it out slowly.
‘Let me think about it. Okay?’ she said, finally. She couldn’t deny that she had missed Paul. She didn’t know what to think, or feel. Only that something in her still wanted him, despite everything.
‘Okay.’ He sounded relieved. ‘I’m not trying to pressure you or anything, Liz. Really, I’m not. I just… there’s things that need to be said, still. That’s all.’
‘I know,’ Liz whispered. She felt another tear roll down her cheek. ‘Let me have some time to think. Okay?’
‘Of course. Well, I’ll wait to hear from you, then,’ he said; his voice was soft, and it made her heart ache again. ‘Bye, Liz.’
‘Bye.’
The phone screen went black and Liz stared at it for a long moment.
Then, she started to cry.
TWENTY-ONE
‘Wow. This is quite something.’ Liz leaned forward in the driver’s seat to take in the view of Loch Cameron Castle as they approached it.
After her trip to the chapel graveyard, Liz had been thinking about the “old maids” that were buried there. The women’s names had played on her mind: Muriel Peabody, Elspeth Anderson, Felicity Black and Evelyn McCallister.
She wanted to know more about them for her own curiosity, but, three nights before, she had also had the seed of an idea for something more. She’d been washing up in the little cottage kitchen when the idea struck her: what if she could somehow connect those four “old maids” with Loch Cameron Distillery? Ben had told her that women had once been the keepers of the knowledge around the distillery process. What if the distillery could honour the women of Loch Cameron in some way?
On impulse, after drying her hands on a dishtowel, Liz had called Gretchen and asked her where she could find out more about Loch Cameron’s past. Gretchen had suggested that they come to Loch Cameron Castle, as the Laird kept an archive of records going back hundreds of years.
‘Not a bad old pile, is it?’ Gretchen cast a critical eye over the castle’s grey stone frontage. ‘Still, the Laird needs to do some repairs. You can see the roof’s got a few loose tiles.’
‘Can you? Your eyesight’s better than mine, then.’ Liz chuckled as she parked up on the loose gravel outside the castle and got out to open Gretchen’s door for her.
‘Oh, yes. Well, I’m as blind as a bat without my glasses, of course.’ Gretchen pulled a cerise wool cape around her shoulders as she got out of the car.
‘Thanks for coming with me. I could have come on my own.’ Liz got out and hurried around to Gretchen’s side of the car, where she held out an arm for her elderly landlady. However, she was grateful for Gretchen’s company today.
Paul’s call out of the blue the day before had upset her, and it had been difficult to get through the rest of the day at work. Thankfully, it was a Friday, and everyone seemed to disappear after lunchtime. Liz had noticed Ben leave his office just before twelve, slamming the door so hard that her windowpane shook. She’d heard him stamp down the corridor outside and then heard his four-by-four growl to life in the car park outside before accelerating out of the gravel car park.
Not even midday,she’d thought. But she was happy that Ben wouldn’t see her tear-stained face.
