It takes us just a few minutes to scramble down into the hollow, and we wander among the hives like warriors walking among the dead of some battle fought long before our arrival.
‘I don’t understand,’ Sally says. ‘Who put them here? Was it you?’
I feel a strange calm descend on me, and I stop by one of the hives. ‘They call this a National,’ I say. ‘Well, a Modified National, because it was modified from the original Langstroth hive, combs set on hanging frames. Pretty much universal in Britain.’ And with an expertise that seems to come from race memory rather than conscious recollection, I lift the stones from its roof and untie the hive, taking away the roof itself to reveal what I know to be called the crown board. But it is no normal crown board. Clear plastic allows us to peer into the hive.
I am aware of Sally at my side as we look in on a burst-open pack of white sugar sitting on top of the eleven honeycomb frames that hang from rebates along either side. Bees are gathered together here on the right, between two or three of the frames, crawling over each other. Small, brownish, faintly striped. ‘What are they doing?’ she asks.
‘Clustering for warmth. Apis mellifera. Honey bees. This is their brood chamber. There will be anything up to sixty thousand bees in here.’ I have no idea where any of this is coming from. ‘To collect honey, you would have another chamber on top, a super, with a queen excluder, to prevent her from laying eggs in it. But it’s the end of the season. The honey will have been harvested.’
‘What’s the sugar for?’
‘To feed the bees across the winter, since we’ve stolen most of the honey they would normally feed on.’ I replace the roof, carefully tying it down, then adding the weight of the stones. ‘There’s still pollen around in the heather, but they’ll not venture out on a day like this. The only real forage up here is the heather itself. But in the spring the machair will be covered with wild flowers. Not too far for the bees to fly, and a veritable feast of pollen and nectar.’
I stand back to find her staring at me. Curiosity and confusion, and more than a hint of distrust in her eyes. ‘You remember all this stuff,’ she says. ‘And yet you don’t remember who you are. Or me.’
I shrug. I can’t explain it.
‘These are yours, aren’t they? These hives.’
‘I’m guessing they must be.’
‘But you never told me about them. In all the time we’ve spent together, all those intimate moments, and you never once thought to say that you kept bees. You didn’t want me to know, did you?’ There is more than a hint of accusation in this.
I allow my eyes to wander over the hives, and then lift them to the boulders that stand around this tiny clearing, like so many silent witnesses. ‘It seems to me I didn’t want anyone to know. They are completely hidden here. God knows how many walkers trek across the coffin road during the summer months, but not one of them would have had the least idea that there were hives beyond these rocks.’
‘But why?’ I see doubt in her eyes. Suspicion. Though there is nothing I can say to allay that.
I very nearly shout at her, ‘I don’t know!’ And she takes a half-step back. Bran barks, wondering why I have raised my voice.
The rain has stopped as we walk back down the hill, but the wind has stiffened and blows directly in our faces. I suppose I must have seen it many times, but the view from here is quite magnificent. It feels like we are up among the clouds, looking down on the world. The cloud formations coming in off the Atlantic are torn and shredded by the wind, sunlight breaking through them in beams of pure gold against black, criss-crossing the incoming wash and the silver of the sand like spotlights on a stage. Nature’s own theatrical production, dazzling and majestic.
Sally and I have not spoken for nearly fifteen minutes. Whatever is going through her mind, she is keeping her own counsel, while I am nursing an unreasonable guilt. In the end I cannot bear it any longer. ‘I’m sorry,’ I say, without looking at her.
‘What for?’ Her voice is cold.
‘Everything. Shouting at you. Not telling you about the bees.’ And my frustration fizzes once more to the surface. ‘Jesus! Why the hell would I be so secretive about keeping bees?’
‘You tell me.’
‘I wish I could.’
It is easier going down than it was coming up, but the silence between us is still difficult.
I glance at her. ‘You said I went out to the Flannan Isles on a regular basis.’
She flicks me a look. ‘Yes.’
‘Did someone take me, or do I have a boat?’
‘You have a boat.’
‘Where?’
‘You berth it in the harbour at Rodel.’
‘And where’s that?’
She looks at me again to see if I am serious, then she very nearly laughs. But the laughter dies quickly, and the smile with it. ‘It’s right at the southern tip of Harris. Beyond Leverburgh. It looks out across the Sound to North Uist.’
‘Would you take me there?’
‘When?’
‘Now.’
It is a long time before she responds. ‘To be honest, Neal, I’m not sure why I should trust you any more. You’ve lied to me, concealed things from me.’
None of which I can deny. ‘But I must have had my reasons.’
‘Clearly.’
I suck in a deep breath. ‘In all those hours we spent together, you must have got some sense of the man I am. Trusted me, had feelings for me.’
‘Yes, I did. And still do.’ She stops, forcing me to stop too, and I turn to face her. ‘But I never really knew you, Neal. Like I told you last night. I just didn’t ask. And you weren’t telling.’
‘Then give me the benefit of the doubt, Sally. Please. I’m not sure I can deal with this on my own.’
She looks at me for a long time, before sighing in deep resignation. ‘Come here.’ And she opens her arms to wrap them around my waist and pull me to her. Holding me tightly, her head turned and pressed into my shoulder. I close my eyes and feel the wind whistling around us, yanking at our clothes and our hair. ‘Of course I’ll take you to Rodel.’
I’m not sure how long we have been standing like this, just holding each other, when I hear Bran barking somewhere on the track below us. We break apart and I see him a hundred or more yards away, barking at a man leaning against the gate at the foot of the hill. He has binoculars raised to his eyes, watching us. And, when he lowers them, I see, even from this distance, that it is the man who was watching me from the far shore yesterday. Buford, Jon had said his name was. A solitary traveller, with his caravan pegged down on the machair.
‘What the hell does he want?’ Sally says. ‘Do you think he was following us?’
‘I don’t know. Not up to the hives, anyway. Why don’t we ask him?’
But even as we look, he pushes his binoculars into the deep pockets of his waterproofs and turns to hurry away towards the road, long ropes of hair blowing out in the wind behind him.
‘Come on.’ I take Sally’s hand, and we increase the speed of our descent. But the surface is difficult, slippery with mud and awash with rainwater running off the hills, and by the time we get to the gate, Buford has reached the semicircle of tarmac, where his Land Rover is parked next to Sally’s Volvo. He backs up his vehicle and accelerates away down the track. When finally we get to the car, Buford has turned north on to the A859, and is picking up speed around the curve of the causeway.