“Go!”
She looked at him one last time. Then she jumped, and landed safely by the side of the track, and watched the huge long rolling stock push its way through the valley and slowly slide on, until it was out of sight.
Standing by the railway line, she tried Marek’s number with a pounding heart, but there was no answer. She hammered out a text message to him, but again no reply. She called Surinder.
“I knew this was stupid,” she sobbed on the phone, and Surinder, to her eternal credit, didn’t say “I told you so” when she’d have been well within her rights to do so. “I thought it was . . . well, it was romantic. It was sweet. It was kind of a game.”
“He lost,” said Surinder simply, and Nina burst into sobs again.
She ran all the way back to the farmyard, where Lennox, hearing her footsteps, threw open the door. His tall frame was silhouetted in the doorway, the light glowing behind him in the farmhouse, Parsley at his heels.
“What’s happened? What the hell is it?” he said, fear striking his face at her tears, his arms opening instinctively. “Are you all right? Did something happen?”
He grabbed something from behind the door.
“What’s that?” she said, stopping short and staring at it.
Lennox looked at her levelly as she took a step back. “It’s a shotgun. What’s the matter with you? Did someone do something to you?”
Nina furiously wiped her tears away and resisted her principal urge, which was to run weeping into his arms, bury her head in his strong shoulder, get him to make everything all right the same way he looked after those damn sheep of his. Instead she tried to pull herself together.
“No,” she said. “No. Nothing like that.”
She followed his arm as he put the gun down, still slightly shocked that he had had it there.
“It’s . . . it’s Marek . . . ,” she stuttered, dissolving into tears again.
Lennox’s face changed utterly: it closed up, like a door slamming shut. His arms slowly lowered to his sides.
“Oh,” he said. “Girl stuff.”
He turned to go, and Nina wanted to throw something at his head.
“No!” she said. “You don’t understand. He’s in trouble.”
“For stopping his train where he shouldn’t have,” said Lennox. “Good.”
“But he’s lost his job. He’s being deported! They’re sending him home!”
Lennox turned back and looked at her calmly.
“Maybe sometimes it is time to go home,” he said.
Nina could only stare at him; she couldn’t think of anything else to do.
“Oh,” she said.
Lennox gazed at his feet. “I didn’t mean that,” he said finally and with effort. “I’m sorry to hear about your boyfriend.”
“He’s not . . . he’s not my boyfriend!” said Nina. “He’s just a man, okay? In trouble. For being friends with me. He made a mistake and so did I and we didn’t even do anything, not that it’s any of your business, and now he’s being sent out of the country. Forgive me for thinking you’d give a shit about anything that isn’t a fricking sheep.”
She turned away to go toward the barn.
“Wait,” said Lennox, still sounding annoyed. “What did you think I could do?”
“I thought you might know a lawyer,” said Nina sullenly. “But forget it. It doesn’t matter. You don’t care.”
He moved forward. “I only know a Scottish divorce lawyer,” he said. “I’m not sure how much use he’d be.”
“Don’t worry about it,” said Nina bitterly. “Sorry to trouble you.”
It took days, but an e-mail finally came from Jim. Marek had gone, flown out on a deportees’ flight, with goodness knows how many other unlucky refugees and travelers. Nina sat up long into the night when she got the message, cursing the name she had given her bookshop, wondering whether, in real life, anyone actually got a happy-ever-after.
Chapter Thirty
The clouds were scudding against a bright sun; now that they were past the very peak of midsummer, there was pink once more in the sky, the promise of a proper, protracted sunset rather than a simple fade. Nina was waiting for the ax to fall, for Lennox to lose his farm, the mean old fool, and for her to be evicted. It was just a matter of time.
And the stupid thing was, even with everything that had happened, up here in the peace and the wilds of the great valleys and deep lochs of Scotland she had found something that suited her, that soothed her soul: a peace and quiet, a feel for the landscape that she’d never known before, for gentle husbanding and wild creatures, and a sense that things didn’t have to change; that skyscrapers didn’t have to be thrown up in minutes for foreign investors; that seasons would come and go with the clouds passing across the sky, but also that everything would come around again and find itself much as it had been generations ago, in the farms and the rivers and the towering cliffs and the gentle running valleys, where life did not move so fast that there wasn’t time to settle down with a cup of tea and a piece of shortbread and a book.
It was horribly difficult, she reflected, to have finally found the place you thought of as home, only to realize you were going to have to move on again. Maybe she’d be just as happy in Orkney. She’d heard it was incredibly beautiful there, fish leaping from the sea straight to your plate, skies as big as the world, and people thirsty for books . . . But every day she followed the familiar road winding down into the valley of Kirrinfief, and found her heart was missing it before she’d even left.
The sun was lying heavy and full, casting rays down the little valley; the cobbles looked warm, the town square was filled with tourists and people flocking around; Edwin and Hugh were outside the pub as usual, no doubt commenting on the world and everything in it.
Lesley was putting fruit out outside the shop, and waved a cheerful hand to see the book bus back again, as did other locals as they saw her drive past, used to her in their midst. Carmen the headmistress honked the horn of her Mini. Nina felt almost tearful at their welcome. A group of boys was playing shinty in the near field; she was surprised beyond belief to notice that Ben was among them.
She carried on past the dangling purple bells of the foxgloves that lined the roadway at this time of year and on upward to the farm.