'Yes, Dawn,' I said, still desperate to prove I knew them and I wasn't some homicidal sex maniac come to rape and murder them both. The old lady didn't seem bothered in the least.
'Aye, that's her name. They've a house at Back of Keppoch.'
'Is that far?'
'Och, no; just over the headland. A mile, perhaps.' The old lady looked at the clock above the counter. 'Of course, she'll be at work right now.'
'Oh.' What had I been thinking of? It hadn't occurred to me she'd be working. Idiot.
'Aye, Mrs Keiller works in the office at the fish farm, at Lochailort. Do you know where that is? You'll have passed it on your way.'
'Um, yes...
'Here, I'll show you on the map.'
I bought the map in the end. Mrs Gray— Elsie — said if I wanted I could phone the fish farm from there, if it was urgent. I declined the offer. I'd go to Jean's when she got back from work.
I sat in the bar, gazing out to the rocky confines of the sea loch beyond the roofs of Arisaig, sipping export shandies, because the last thing I wanted to be, when I saw Jean, was drunk.
I am a sentimental man, a weak man, a pliable man, and nobody is better at twisting me round their little finger than I am.
I am totally selfish, even when I'm being selfless. I give everything away, I come up here on a hopeful, hopeless mission of the heart, seeming to give all for love, but I'm not really. I've come here for, at the very least, absolution. I want Jean to confess me, to say that it's all all right, that I'm not really a bad man, that the last twelve, thirteen years haven't been wasted; oh God, she's not going to say, Stay with me and be my love, but she might put her hands on my poor fevered brow, she might let me kiss the ring. Absolution; forgiveness, hail Jean, full of grace...
We are all selfish. Sell up and go to the slums of Calcutta, work with lepers in the jungle... at my most cynical I ask whether even such things are not selfish, because it is easier for you to live with yourself having done that, knowing you have done all you could, rather than suffer the cramps of conscience. Throw yourself on the grenade; you do so knowing you are the hero, and there will be no more times when the terror of death might make you turn and flee.
But maybe I'm just a bad, cynical man.
So, Weird goes looking for his old love. Surrender. It looks like adventure but really it's hiding. Ah, Jayzuz, the ways we invent to get away from our responsibilities.
The only thinking animal on the goddamn planet, and what do we spend most of our time trying not to do?
Correct.
We join armies, we enter monasteries or nunneries, we adopt the party line, we believe what we read in ancient books or shit newspapers or what we're told by plastic politicians, and all we're ever trying to do is give somebody else the responsibility for thinking. Let us enter this order, obey that one; never mind we end up being told to massacre or torture or simply believe the most absurd thing we've ever heard; at least it's not all our fault.
Nothing to do with us, John; we just did what we was told...
And Love; isn't that just another route to the same thing?
I did it for the wife and kids. That's what it's all about isn't it, I mean? Sacrifice; work hard...
Ah, God, it's better than outright selfishness, spending all the money, beating the wife and terrorising the weans, but amn't I just using something similar to get away from my own responsibilities? Simulating my own financial death through a legal trick, going off on this ridiculous adventure... playing, just playing. Looking for a way out, a way back to the cradle and the milk-wet breast.
Who am I trying to kid?
(Answers on a postcard, please, to...)
The winter afternoon darkened.
I ate in the hotel, studying my newly bought map, humming my new tune and playing around with it. The map showed there was a walk round the coast from Arisaig to Back of Keppoch. I thought about taking that route to the address Mrs Gray had given me, but it was getting dark and I'd probably break my neck falling over some cliff. That would be ironic; putting my Will into effect while still alive and then dying the next day.
I'd take the main road and risk getting run over by a car instead.
I got to Jean's house just after four. It was new, a bungalow, one of about half a dozen under a group of pines, looking out over a curved beach and a rocky bay to the Sound of Sleat and the distant mountains of Skye.
The house was dark. I sat down on a wall, to wait. I hoped there was nobody else in any of the other houses, a couple of which had lights on, who'd look out and see me sitting there... then felt annoyed with myself, for being so easily embarrassed, so prone to guilt. I put my chin in my hand and tried to ponder the links between guilt and embarrassment.
I decided I wasn't smart enough to figure it out, not right now, anyway. But is there a song in it? That was the question. Never mind was there any truth in it; was there a song?
No idea. I sat on the wall and I sang silent songs to myself.
A car came along the road, lights bright in the gloaming. It stopped outside the house. Faces looked towards me. Somebody got out on the far side. I heard people talking, in the car. The person on the far side was talking to the driver and somebody else inside. I heard a young, female voice say, 'Wait a minute, then.'
A young girl walked round the car. Slim, dark, short haired; schoolbag, uniform. She walked right up to me, lifted her face to mine (I'd slid off the wall). 'Excuse me, are you Mr Weir?'
'Ah... I... yes.' Surprise. How did she know? It took a second or two for me to realise this must be Dawn. 'Are you...'
'Dawn. Pleased to meet you.' She put out her hand. I shook it; it felt tiny and fragile and warm. Dawn; her grandmother had described her as 'bright'. I smiled, remembering. She turned back to the car. 'It is; it's a friend of my mum's.'
'Right you are, Dawn. See you tomorrow.'
'Aye. Thank you; good night,' the girl said.
The car drove off. Dawn turned back to me. 'Would you like a cup of tea, Mr Weir?'
'Call me Daniel, please,' I said, inside the house. Dawn had made tea. She poked at the banked-up coal fire.
'All right. Would you excuse me a minute?' She went back through the kitchen. I sat, holding my cup of tea. The living room was a little bare, but warm. The house still smelled new; paint, new carpets. TV and video and hi-fi; a home computer on a shelf beside the TV. I saw these things with a sense of relief; they didn't seem too badly off, even though the room did have that vague air of containing only half the contents of another room, in another house, somewhere else.
Dawn came back struggling with a huge wicker basket full of chopped logs. I managed to put my teacup down without spilling any and jumped up to help her, far too late, as usual. 'Oh, thanks,' she said, as I helped her lower the basket to the hearthside. She chucked a couple of logs on to the fire. 'Mum should be back in a wee while. How's your tea?'
'It's fine,' I said, sitting down again. Dawn sat down too, straight-backed, in a seat. She was thinner than I'd expected, especially about the face. I tried to remember what her father had looked like but had only the vaguest impression, and even that somehow included a pair of overalls, whereas the one time I'd met him he'd been wearing a suit.
Dawn was looking at me. There was an uncanny sense of calm, almost serenity about her. It made me uncomfortable.
'How did you know it was me?' I asked her, breaking a silence only I seemed to find awkward.
'Mum described you,' she said. 'She's got all your records,' she added. 'You haven't made any recently, have you?'
'No, not for a while.'
'Why's that?'
I opened my mouth to speak, then couldn't. I closed it again. I put my cup down, suddenly consumed by a ridiculous urge to cry. I coughed and cleared my throat. 'That's a very good question,' I said. 'I think it was because I was... fed up. Fed up with ... recording, with music.' The urge to cry vanished as quickly as it had appeared. I sat there, looking at this calm, self-possessed kid, and felt about three years old. I shrugged. 'I don't know,' I admitted.