39.
It is nearly 2 a.m. by the time I reach Inverness station hotel, alone, and ring for the night porter. The cheery sign saysUnder new management, which can only be read as a promise that things have improved since the last time I was here.
The night porter opens the door. He’s short – maybe five foot two – with a goatee. I can smell him as soon as the door is ajar.
‘Ms Finch?’ he asks. I nod wearily.
‘Come, come. You’re a little later than we were expecting. No mind. No mind. I’ll show ye to ye room.’
He pulls the door open and motions me through.
‘Up those stairs ahead – can I take your bags?’
‘I only have this one. I can take it.’
He opens the door to a little single room at the end of the second-floor hall and bids me goodnight. Exhausted, I perch on the end of the bed. The floral curtains are open enough to see the glassy shimmer of the Ness River.
I check my phone for the hundredth time. No notifications. Nothing from Heather. My last message,Can you ever forgive me?, sits unread.
I left Heather there with Irene. She told me to get my taxi and leave her be, and I finally gave up trying to stop the inevitable. Who was I, anyway, to interfere any more in Heather’s life? When I tried to speak to James, he stormed through into the kitchen, and so I left.
I wonder what happened? Did Irene really have an affair with her sister’s husband? I can’t believe it, but I also can’t think of another explanation. Poor, poor Heather. I hope that the truth of their family will bond them, rather than tear them apart – certainly Irene could do nothing but love an unexpected niece. I imagine the pain she willfeel, knowing the years that have been missed. And I feel sick that I can’t be there to help Heather when she finds out.
The train back to London the next day still brings nothing from Heather, although the distance does something to ease my ache. I check into a grotty hostel in King’s Cross and lie in bed, listening to the sound of sirens and drunken arguments outside my window.
I text Heather again.
Are you still there?
Still nothing.
As I wander around the streets the next morning, with the late-summer heat wafting its putrid city-smells, I realize I will probably have to go back to Plymouth. The envelope of cash that Irene gave me will run out soon, and isn’t enough for the deposit on a room anyway. I’ll have to call my mum. It seems like apt punishment.
I feel so dreadfully empty, it is overwhelming. I want to go back to Loch Dorn. I felt something was beginning, like a little seed of who I am was finally starting to germinate. Who am I, now I’m not there?
I have come to appreciate wine, though I’ll never be anything like a real sommelier. I have loved learning about food. I love what James does at the restaurant, and I love the care that goes into Irene’s home cooking. But I could never cook for a living. Once again I’m Birdy: good at nothing, not even bullshitting, it turns out.
That night, at the hostel, there is an almighty fight between two Australian backpackers, which ends with a hair extension landing on my face.
40.
The next morning I find myself wandering around North London again, with nothing to do and nowhere to go. I know I’m putting off the inevitable, but I can’t bear to make the call.
I spend thirty minutes in some awful coffee shop, drinking a latte that tastes of frothy nothing. Then I really need the loo, but the one there is dirtier than the stables at Loch Dorn, so I use the ones at the nearby Caffè Nero instead. The lady behind the counter scowls at me as I slip past the queue. By twelve I’ve been into Oasis, Waterstones and a retro sweet shop, where I treated myself to a bag of liquorice and then promptly ate all of it. Feeling deeply sorry for myself, I sit on a bench by a bus stop for a while, relentlessly checking my phone.
I notice a small shop, tucked in between a mobile-phone store and a betting shop, its inviting little window set out like a picnic, with a selection of rosé wines and glass tumblers laid out on a tartan blanket. The name is sweet – ‘The Wine Library’ – and it stirs a memory of Heather. I think this was somewhere she used to go.
I decide to have a perusal, and maybe a free tasting if they offer it. I push open the door and hear a littleTring!The sound immediately sends me back to Portree for a moment, and I close my eyes to enjoy the picture of the boats bobbing in the bay. James smiling freely at me, his hair blowing around his face in the sea breeze. The smile of beginnings.
‘Morning,’ says a voice, and a woman (I think French) comes up from a basement. ‘Oh, or afternoon, I suppose. Can I’elp you?’
There’s all these bottles crammed onto every shelf, and a long fridge running the length of the back wall. ‘I’m not sure. It’s a hot morning,’ I say, spotting a big sign that says,British, organic & actually quite good. I can’t help but smile. ‘That oneisactually quite good,’ Isay, picking up the bottle and examining the label, though I know it by heart.
‘Yes, it is made in almost identical conditions to champagne,’ she says.
‘Yeah. I know,’ I say, smiling warmly at her.
‘Ah, you know your English wines!’ She claps her hands together, delighted. She must be in her fifties, I guess, with a full bohemian skirt that swishes along on the floor as she moves.
