“Thus sayeth a Fraser,” I remarked. “The Carmichaels must be something special in that line.”
Jenny snorted but didn’t reply for a moment or two.
“So,” she said at last, turning to look at me, “I said to Maggie that I’d prayed about it, and it seemed to me that if she could bear it for the sake of her man and her bairns, she should say nothing. Try to forgive Geordie if she could, and if she couldn’t, keep away from him—but say nothing. And that’s what she did.”
“What—did Geordie do?” I asked curiously. “Did he—does he know that Wally is his son?”
She shook her head.
“I dinna ken. He left, a month after the bairn was born—emigrated to Canada. No one was surprised at that; everyone kent he was mad in love wi’ Maggie and beside himself when she chose Paul. I expect that made it easier.”
“Out of sight, out of mind? Yes, I’d suppose so,” I said dryly. I thought I shouldn’t ask but couldn’t help myself. “Did Maggie ever tell Paul—after Geordie left, I mean?”
She shook her head and stood up, a little stiffly, shaking down her skirts.
“I dinna ken for sure, but I dinna think so. For her to tell him, after so long of keeping silent . . . how would he take that? And he’d still hate his brother, even if he couldna kill him right away.” Her blue eyes, so like Jamie’s, looked at me with rueful amusement. “Ye canna have been marrit to a Hieland man all these years and not ken how deep they can hate. Come on—we’d best gather these creatures before they burst.” And she waded off into the grass, shoes in her hand, calling out a Gàidhlig charm for gathering livestock:
“The Three who are above in the City of glory,
Be shepherding my flock and my kine,
Tending them duly in heat, in storm, and in cold,
With the blessing of power driving them down
From yonder height to the sheiling fold.”
I THOUGHT about it, after everyone had rolled up in their blankets and begun snoring that night. Well . . . I hadn’t stopped thinking about it since I’d seen the man. But in light of the story that Jenny had told me, my thoughts began to clarify, much as throwing an egg into a pot of coffee will settle the grounds.
The notion of saying nothing was of course the first one to come to my mind and was still my intent. The only difficulty—well, there were two, to be honest. But the first one was that, irritating as it was to be told so repeatedly, I couldn’t deny the fact that I had a glass face. If anything was seriously troubling me, the people I lived with immediately began glancing at me sideways, tiptoeing exaggeratedly around me—or, in Jamie’s case, demanding bluntly to know what the matter was.
Jenny had done much the same thing, though she hadn’t pressed me for details of my experience. Quite plainly, she’d guessed the outlines of it, though, or she wouldn’t have chosen to tell me Maggie’s story. It occurred to me belatedly to wonder whether Jamie had told her anything about Hodgepile’s attack and its aftermath.
The underlying difficulty, though, was my own response to meeting the dirty fat lumpkin. I snorted every time I repeated the description to myself, but it actually helped. He was a man, and not a very prepossessing one. Not a monster. Not . . . not bloody worth making a fuss about. God knew how he’d come to join Hodgepile’s band—I supposed that most criminal gangs were largely composed of feckless idiots, come to that.
And . . . little as I wanted to relive that experience . . . I did. He hadn’t come to me with any intent of hurting me, in fact hadn’t hurt me (which was not to say that he hadn’t crushed me with his weight, forced my thighs apart, and stuck his c**k into me . . .).
I unclenched my teeth, drew a deep breath, and started over.
He’d come to me out of opportunity—and need.
“Martha,” he’d said, sobbing, his tears and snot warm on my neck. “Martha, I loved you so.”
Could I forgive him on those grounds? Put aside the unpleasantness of what he’d done to me and see him only as the pathetic creature that he was?
If I could—would that stop him living in my mind, a constant burr under the blanket of my thoughts?
I put back my head, looking up at the deep black sky swimming with hot stars. If you knew they were really balls of flaming gas, you could imagine them as van Gogh saw them, without difficulty . . . and looking into that illuminated void, you understood why people have always looked up into the sky when talking to God. You need to feel the immensity of something very much bigger than yourself, and there it is—immeasurably vast, and always near at hand. Covering you.
Help me, I said silently.
I never talked to Jamie about Jack Randall. But I knew from the few things he told me—and the disjointed things he said in the worst of his dreams—that this was how he had chosen to survive. He’d forgiven Jack Randall. Over and over. But he was a stubborn man; he could do it. A thousand times, and still one more.
Help me, I said, and felt tears trickle down my temples, into my hair. Please. Help me.
THINGS COMING INTO VIEW
IT WORKED. NOT EASILY, and often not for more than a few minutes at a time—but the shock faded and, back at home, with the peace of the mountain and the love of family and friends surrounding me, I felt a welcome sense of balance return. I prayed, and I forgave, and I coped.
This was greatly helped by distraction. Summer is the busiest time in an agricultural community. And when men are working with scythes and hoes and wagons and livestock and guns and knives—they hurt themselves. As for the women and children—burns and household accidents and constipation and diarrhea and teething and . . . pinworms.