It was now past midnight and the rain was still lashing down. In the square the three soldiers, glistening in the street lights, stared off into the darkness of the hills. Their image remained in my head when I got into bed and switched off the lamp. I tossed and turned for a while and tried to think about Miriam and our future happiness. But tiny waves of uncertainty and even dread occasionally swept over me and it was a long time before I fell asleep.
8
I slept late, dreaming as usual about the Tollgate, with my parents alive and well. I was grief-stricken on awakening into a reality without them till I remembered Miriam and felt good again. I’d barely got out of bed and into my clothes when there was a knock at the door.
“Who’s there?” I called, buttoning my shirt.
“It’s me. I hope I’m not bothering you.” The high, reedy voice was unmistakable. I opened the door to Sam Mackay, massive and a little out of breath from climbing the stairs. He didn’t waste words.
“I just got back to Duncairn yesterday,” he said. “I’d like to talk to you. Let’s go over to Mackenzie’s for coffee.”
WE WALKED ACROSS the square to Mackenzie’s Café. The three soldiers were dry, for now. But it was another gloomy day and the sky was laden with dark clouds getting ready to disgorge themselves. The wind was chilly for the time of year.
Mackenzie’s dozen tables were mostly unoccupied. I usually sat at a small table by the window where I could look out onto the square, but Sam’s bulk would never have fitted there, so we took a roomier table near the back.
He’d been strangely quiet on our walk over, so I was feeling nervous and talked too much. Between sips of coffee, I told him I couldn’t believe the months had passed so quickly. I assured him that I’d gone over the grammar and composition book a few times and knew its contents quite well now. I assumed this was the kind of thing he wanted to talk to me about.
Sam nodded his head, letting me talk, his coffee cup like a miniature in his huge hand.
“That’s good,” he said.
Since I’d no one else to tell, I also decided to confide in him that something wonderful had happened to me in Duncairn while he was off on his Board of Education business. I’d met a girl and fallen in love with her. In fact, I’d asked her to marry me. She hadn’t said yes, yet, but I knew she would.
Sam wasn’t reacting, so I just kept on talking. I told him her name was Miriam Galt and that he probably knew her. She lived up at Duncairn Manor with her father, a strange old man.
Something in the way Sam was looking at me with those big green eyes was already beginning to worry me. But I kept babbling on about love and how it had transformed me. Without saying it outright, I implied that the love between Miriam and me was the rarest of things and how awful it must be for others not to have such a love as ours — a special, magical kind of love that would last forever.
In the midst of this torrent, Sam placed his toy cup down carefully on its toy saucer.
“You can’t marry Miriam Galt,” he said. “You can’t marry her because she’s my fiancée. Yesterday when I came home, I went up to the manor to see her and we finalized the date of our wedding. That’s really why I’m here. She made me promise to come and tell you about it this morning.”
9
I left him in Mackenzie’s Café and headed straight for the manor. I needed to talk to Miriam, to hear her contradict this absurdity.
As I half-ran across the moors, rain began pouring down so that by the time I reached the manor, I was soaked through. I knocked at the door and waited. No answer. I knocked again, louder. No answer. I pounded on the door and shouted, “Miriam! Miriam!” over and over. No answer. I stood back and roared her name at the house itself.
The curtains of the window just above the door were slowly drawn apart by Miriam Galt. With her arms still extended she stared down at me for a time, her face expressionless. Then she drew the curtains together again, as though at the end of a performance.
I stood for a while in a state of shock. I felt like one of those ancient warriors I’d read about, pierced by a spear and knowing that if he pulls it out, he’ll die. Then I began to make my way back down through the lashing rain towards Duncairn, which now seemed to me the most inhospitable of places. A few hours ago, I’d almost convinced myself I was as happy as a man could ever be. Now I was sure I’d never be happy again.
AT DAWN THE next morning, after a dismal night, I furtively slipped down the stairs into the street. A thick fog that made the world insubstantial suited my mood. I hurried to Duncairn Station with my meagre possessions stuffed in a canvas bag. I bought a ticket for the first train to arrive and found an empty compartment aboard. As it steamed away from the station, headed south, I could see almost nothing of Duncairn through the window for the swirling fog.
Thus, broken-hearted, I left Miriam Galt and Scotland behind me forever.
PART TWO
Time is what prevents everything from happening at once.
A LETTER FROM THE CURATOR
So, all these years later, imagine my astonishment, in the seedy Bookstore de Mexico in La Verdad, at the sight of that name Duncairn on the title page of The Obsidian Cloud. How could I not acquire the book? A full month had passed since I’d sent it to the National Cultural Centre in Glasgow, and I’d heard nothing from the rare books curator. I was beginning to get impatient. Surely he’d have read it by now and either been impressed or not. Was the book of consuming interest only because of the spell that name had cast on me? Not that I really believed in magic, but if there were such things as a black magic and a white magic, the name of that little town represented both for me— there, I’d both fallen completely in love and been devastatingly rejected.
Then one morning before breakfast the mailman delivered a letter with the heading National Cultural Centre of Scotland embossed on the envelope. I quickly read the typed note inside.
Dear Mr. Steen:
Re. The Obsidian Cloud.
I’m afraid it has taken us even longer than I’d expected to deal with this item. You’ll be gratified to know, however, that we have made a number of most interesting discoveries about the book. When we have completed the remainder of our inquiries, I will, of course, send the results to you.
I can already say this: we at the Rare Books department already consider The Obsidian Cloud to be a Scottish literary curiosity of some distinction. I, personally, am delighted you entrusted the search for its provenance to us. I dare to hope you will ultimately consider donating this unique book to our collection.
As for your financial gift of some months ago to our centre: on behalf of our Board of Trustees, I should like to convey to you our deepest appreciation.
Yours, etc.
Doctor Neale Soulis, Ph.D. (Bibliophagy)
Curator of Rare Books
National Cultural Centre of Scotland
Of course, I was elated that my judgment of the book’s interest hadn’t been entirely subjective. But this Dr. Soulis, the curator, hadn’t given much away in his letter, so I couldn’t restrain myself and decided to phone him. In spite of the time difference, I managed to catch the man himself at his desk.