She was there, of course. She looked older but more beautiful; under her eyes there were little pucker-marks he'd never noticed before; tiny fleshy folds which made her look as though she'd been brought up for ever squinting into some desert storm. She took his hand, kissed him, held him for a second then let go; he wanted to say she looked beautiful, that she looked beautiful in black; but even while he was telling himself what a cretin he was, his mouth was mumbling something equally but more acceptably inane. He could see no tears in her perfectly made-up eyes.
The service was brief, surprisingly tasteful. The minister had been a personal friend of the advocate, and listening to his short but obviously sincere eulogy, he felt his eyes tingle. I must be getting old, he thought; either that or drinking too much of the hard stuff and getting soft. The man I was ten years ago would have sneered at me for being moved almost to tears by words spoken by a minister in praise of an upper-middle class barrister.
Nevertheless. He talked to Mrs Cramond after the service. If he hadn't known her better he'd have thought she was on drugs; she seemed to glow, her eyes wide, her skin shining with an energy born of death; a tearless astonishment, a state of shock produced by the taking away of the man who for more than half her life had been half her life; something beyond the immediacies of grief. He thought of the instant after some injury, when the eye saw the hammer crush the finger, or a slipping blade cut flesh, but before the blood flowed or the pain signal reached the brain. She was in that penumbra now, he thought, surfaced in the oily calm seas of the storm's eye. She was leaving the following day, for a holiday with a sister in Washington DC.
The last thing she said to him was, 'Will you look after Andrea? They were so close; she won't come with me. Will you look after her?' He said, 'If she'll be looked after ... There's somebody in Paris, anyway, she might-' 'No,' said Mrs Cramond, and shook her head once, quite definite (a gesture the daughter had inherited; he suddenly saw one in the other). 'No, it's you. You,' she said, and squeezed his hand before getting into her son's Bentley. She whispered, 'You'll be the closest now.'
He stood, puzzled, for a while, then went to look for her. She was outside, in the car park, slouched against an undertaker's black Daimler limousine. She was lighting up a menthol More as he walked up, frowning. 'You shouldn't do that,' he told her; 'think of your lungs.' She regarded him with crushed-looking eyes. 'Solidarity,' she said bitterly. 'My old man's smoking at the moment too.' A small muscle in her jaw trembled. 'Oh, Andrea,' he said, suddenly filled with pity for her. He put his hand out towards her but she flinched away, turning from him and pulling her black coat tighter about her. He stood still for a moment, knowing that a few years ago he would have been hurt at this instant of rejection, and probably turned on his heel. He waited, and she came back to him, throwing the More down into the gravel and stepping on it with one black, swivelling shoe. 'Get me out of here, kid,' she said. 'Beam me up Scotty. Where's the Porsche? I was looking for it.'
They took the Saab to Gullane; she wanted to see the place where he'd died, so they stopped at the still ripped-up trench of verge and the not-yet repaired wall. He watched her in the rear-view mirror, standing looking down at the torn piece of turf as though expecting to see the grass grow back before her eyes. She touched the gashed ground and the stones of the farm wall, then came back to the car, rubbing stone-dust and earth from her pale, manicured fingers. She told him that her brother thought she was morbid for wanting to come here. 'You don't think I am, do you?' He said no, no, she wasn't. They drove on to the cold, empty house on the dunes overlooking the firth.
She turned and hugged him as soon as they were through the door; when he tried to kiss her, gently and softly, she rammed her mouth against his, her nails dug into his scalp, into his back through his jacket, into his buttocks through the black suit's trousers; she made a whimpering noise he'd never heard her make before and pushed his jacket offhis shoulders. He had just decided to go along with this desperate, anguished, erotic reaction, but to try to manoeuvre her into somewhere a little more comfortable than the draughty front hall with its cold tiles and bristly doormat, when such a decision became unnecessary. It was as if his body woke up to what was actually happening, as though some instantly transmissible fever spread from her to him. He was suddenly as consumed, as wildly, absurdly abandoned as she was, wanting her more than he could ever remember having wanted her before. They collapsed onto the doormat, she pulled him to her, without taking off coat or underclothes. It was over for them both in seconds, and only then did she cry.
The advocate had left him his golfclubs. He had to smile; it was a nice gesture. He left his wife - who had her own money - the house in Moray Place. The son got all his law books and the two most valuable paintings; Andrea was to have the rest, save for a few thousand to go to the son's own children and some nieces and nephews, and a couple of charitable bequests.
The son was busy with the estate, so he and Andrea drove Mrs Cramond to Prestwick for her night flight to the USA. He held onto Andrea's slim shoulders and watched the aircraft climb, curving over the dark Clyde, heading for America. He insisted on waiting until they could no longer see it, so they stood and watched its winking lights grow smaller and smaller against the last glow of the day. Somewhere over the Mull of Kintyre, when he'd almost lost sight of it, the jet climbed out of the shadow of the earth and into the retreating sunlight; its vapour trail blazed suddenly, glorious pink against the deep, dark blue. Andrea caught her breath, then gave a small laugh, the first since she'd heard the news about her father.
In the car, driving north by the side of the deep, dark river, he confessed he hadn't known the trail would suddenly appear like that, and after a moment's hesitation, he told her about trying to follow the Paris-bound jet a year earlier. Sentimental fool, she told him, and kissed him.
They went to see his father, then took a few days off; she had two weeks before she had to go back to Paris, and he had no urgent work so they just drove wherever they wanted for the next few days, staying in small hotels and bed-and-breakfasts and not knowing where they'd be heading when they got up each morning. They went to Mull, Sky, Cape Wrath, Inverness, Aberdeen, Dunfermline - where they stayed with Stewart and Shona - then by-passed the Bridges and the city to head via Culross and Stirling, Blyth Bridge and Peebles to the borders. It was her birthday while they were away; he bought her a bracelet in white gold. They were heading back to Edinburgh from Jedburgh, on the last day, when she saw the distant tower. 'Let's go there,' she said.
They could only get within half a mile with the Saab; they parked oil a narrow, deserted road, she put on her Kickers, he lifted his camera and they tramped across a field then up through a wood and thick bracken, uphill towards the tower which stood on a broad summit of rock and grass. He hadn't realised it was so huge, from the road. It was massive; a local laird's solution to local unemployment at the start of the previous century, as well as a monument to a man and a great battle.
Its dark stones seemed to rise for ever into the wind; a heavy grey superstructure of wood protruding at the top held what looked like an open viewing platform beneath a conical wooden spire. He'd have imagined there would be a road up to such a place, a car park, a souvenir shop, turnstiles; officials and tickets and commerce. There didn't even seem to be a path. They stood, craning their necks looking up at it. The view just from the hillside was impressive enough. He took some photographs.