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‘Sounds like a bit of a player.’ Rory frowned. ‘Cheating on your sick wife? Got to be a no-no.’
‘I don’t know if he was a player, really. Not yet, anyway. I think they – William and Maud – were both really lonely. But I don’t know. We weren’t there so we can’t judge.’
‘Fair enough.’
‘I wish…’ Carrie trailed off. She’d wanted to say that she wished Claire could have read the diaries, but she didn’t want that to lead in to having to explain what had happened.
‘What?’
‘Oh, nothing. I was just going to say I wish I’d known more about my great-aunt when she was alive. She was a warm, homely presence in my childhood. But when my mum died, our dad refused to take us to Scotland anymore. Then Maud died, and we never even knew.’
‘We?’
‘Me and my sister,’ Carrie answered, shortly.
‘Oh, that’s rough. I’m so sorry.’ Rory reached out and touched her arm.
‘It’s okay. It is what it is. But thanks,’ Carrie said. ‘Do you want to hear the next entry?’
‘Sure. If you don’t mind reading it.’
‘I don’t mind.’ Carrie finished the last spoon of her delicious dessert and put her spoon down, wiping her fingers on a napkin. She picked up the diary and started to read the next entry aloud.
10thFebruary 1958
Yesterday was our one-year anniversary.
Unlike other couples who can celebrate their special days openly, we can’t have house parties or dance around the stone circle up at Loch Cameron Castle. So, we had a secret evening away from Loch Cameron altogether.
William picked me up in his car and drove us to a little bed and breakfast in Loch Awe. On the way, he wordlessly handed me a wedding ring. I put it on my finger just as silently. I knew that it must be Clara’s, but I didn’t ask. I also knew that if I wasn’t wearing it when we got to the bed and breakfast, no doubt eyebrows would have been raised at the notion that we really were Mr and Mrs William Graves.
When we got there, we went straight up to our room and lay on the double bed. William took me in his arms but I was mindful of the silence in the building: married couples don’t roll around in the throes of passion as soon as entering a bed and breakfast. I knew that. It would be unseemly. So, I made us lie there, fully clothed, and talk and sound normal until it was a decent time to go to the local pub for dinner.
I don’t think William liked that too much, but he indulged me. He has a sweet nature.
Still, when we got home after a very nice dinner and some wine, William made it clear that he had waited long enough and he took me upstairs to our room and fulfilled his ‘husbandly’ duty very well indeed.
It wasn’t the first time, of course. The first time we made love was a couple of months after that first conversation in the post office. I still live with Mother and Father at the cottage, and one night when I was reading in my room, I heard the sound of something hitting my windowpane. I looked out, and there was William, standing to the side of the cottage, half-hidden in the hedge. He had thrown pebbles at my window to attract my attention.
I snuck out, of course. By this time, I was fully aware that he was a handsome man whose wife was not able to fulfil her marital duties. Combined with the fact that William was paying me a great deal of attention, and that we had talked a lot and got to know each other quite well, I had almost been expecting something like this to happen.
When I got outside, he pulled me into the hedge with him and kissed me. It was immediate; I don’t think he even said anything, and neither did I. Years of frustration had driven him to it, and I responded with the pent-up passion of a woman who had never so much as been kissed before.
After that, William came for me every week on the same night. After that first time, when we made love half bent over in the bushes, we found better places: in the forest on a blanket during the summer, and when it got colder William would pick me up at the end of the lane in his car and drive us somewhere remote. It wasn’t ideal, but it was all we had. His children were always at home, and Clara lying ever-present in her bed, slowly wasting away.
6thMarch 1958
I felt sick all day today. I wasn’t sick, though, and by the end of the day I felt a little better.
18thMarch 1958
I have not had my monthly visitor, and it was due two weeks ago. I still feel nauseous every day. I dread what this might mean.
23rdMarch 1958
I have booked an appointment with the doctor. William says it is probably nothing, but I know. I know I am pregnant with his child. And if I am, I don’t know what this will mean for me or for us. I am trying to stay calm, especially at work, but the knowledge weighs heavily on me. William says there is no point in worrying until we know for sure, but I can’t not think about it.
Carrie turned the page, but the diary had finished – there were only empty pages that followed.
