Cold Fusion (24 page)

“Did you follow us?”

“How could I? You were long gone. But I knew my young laird wouldn’ae know how to hide himself, so it had to be down to you. I remember Lilian Mallory, and all the scandal she made when she ran away, and the bigger fuss there was when you ran after her. The old laird would have aided you if he could, but your father is a brick wall.”

“That’s one name for him.” I wished the old laird were still alive. He and Macready must have watched over Kerra like a pair of benign dragons for years. “You knew about Lilian’s cottage?”

“Aye, and I thought it at least worth a try to run out here before the weather closed in. You’ll be pleased to hear, no doubt, that I stopped off in the village to tell your mother you might not be as dead as she feared.”

“Er…yeah. Thank you.” I hadn’t honestly thought about her. All my life she’d been a cipher, a kind of washed-out watercolour beside my rampaging father. She’d never once intervened for me. I looked around Alfred’s lair. The edges of my vision were fuzzy. The morning light now pouring into the valley seemed full of flashing motes. “I don’t know how you’ve been surviving out here. Why didn’t you come to the house?”

“I could keep better watch from a distance. As for survival, I spent five years in the Royal Scots before my father died and I became the Calder steward. My truck is parked out of sight in the ravine. I weathered out the storm there, and took my catnaps, which are all an old man needs.” He folded his arms and looked me over critically. “I’d say I’ve come better through the whole affair than you have, laddie. Whatever your faults, you were always hale and strong. What ails you now?”

I laid the rifle down. I got to my feet and made an unsteady track to the window. The cottage occupied its place in the sunlight serenely, no marks in the snow around it other than the ones we’d made ourselves. My whole life lay within its four walls. “It’s Viv,” I said miserably. “He’s sick. Did you know?”

“Of course I know. Did I not watch him grow up with it, and see his poor father through the same thing?” He tramped over to stand beside me. He didn’t touch me, and just as well, because I was ready to drop wailing to the turf at his feet. “I cannae believe he’s told you, is all. It’s been a deadly secret with him all his life. A raw nerve.”

“Well, he did. We’re… We’ve become friends.”

“He never had a friend so close he’d tell that to.”

I couldn’t bear to hide. The words broke from me. “More than friends.”

I awaited a burst of Victorian disgust. I was past caring. Alfred turned away from me and marched to a knoll a little way up the hill. It was a natural lookout post, the place where I’d first spotted him from across the valley. He shielded his eyes and made a scan, as if the movement and the survey had become a routine with him over the last few days. Then he marched back. I couldn’t read his expression. His jaw was just as set, his brows just as louring as before, but somehow he was giving off an aura of intense satisfaction.

“
More
than friends, eh?” he echoed, coming to a halt in front of me.

“That’s right. Do you have something to say about it?”

“Ach, no. From the look of you, you might decide you don’t hate your shotgun after all.” He rubbed his hands together and actually broke into a wintry smile. “If anyone had told me my young laird would ever be capable…”

My temper stirred in spite of the increasing fog and sparkles. “Well, he is. Very.”

“For the love of God, I didn’t mean…” He shook his head. “You didn’t need to make my ears bleed. I meant capable of loving someone, boy or girl or any variation.”

“Oh. Well, he’s capable of that too.”

“I’m glad of it, provided the boy is good of his kind. And you’d bloody better be.”

“I’ll try. I’ll do anything for him. But…” My voice wobbled perilously. “What’s the point, when he’s…”

“What kind of talk is that? His grandfather had this same illness and lived a long life. His father—my good Hugo Calder—survived into his fifties. Vivian could have years.”

Oh, Christ. I couldn’t tell him. I covered my face with my hands. The chilly dawn wind ruffled my hair, and the old man suddenly grabbed my shoulder. “Mallory,” he barked. “What’s the matter with you?”

“He’s ill now.”

“Showing symptoms?”

I couldn’t do more than nod.

His grip disappeared, leaving me in freefall. I watched through my fingers as he retreated. His head was low, his broad shoulders bowed. He picked up a camping stool from against the ruined wall, brought it back and snapped it open. He sat down heavily in front of me. “Ah, no. Not so soon as this.”

“Yes. He says he has
weeks
, not fucking years.”

“Mind your tongue, you North Kerra guttersnipe. Here. Drink up.”

He shoved a silver flask into my hand. It was very beautiful. From a million miles out, I noticed the engraving—
To Alfred Macready, in recognition of his services to the Calder Estate. HC, Laird of Calder
. I’d more or less decided on a teetotal future, but that idea could go screw itself now. I uncorked the flask, took a deep gulp of single-malt glory, and handed it back to Alfred. We sat in the sunshine together for a long minute.

“All right,” he said heavily at last. “I’m to lose him too, then. How bad is it?”

“He’s been fine, and then he just crumples. And he couldn’t get his breath the other night. His lungs were filling up with fluid.”

“You shouldn’t have left him.”

“He’s sound asleep, or I wouldn’t have. I’m going back in a minute. The stupid, cruel thing is that I think there’s some kind of cure for this now. But they need stem cells from a relative, and he doesn’t have any.”

Alfred sat up. He stared at me. “What? Stem cells?”

For God’s sake.
“No. Relatives.”

“Who the devil told you that?”

“He did. He said he was the last of the Calders.”

He seemed to recollect himself. “Aye, he would have, of course.” He tugged at the button of his waistcoat, and I suddenly saw a whole vault of family secrets locked up behind it in his loyal breast. “It would make a very great difference, I suppose, if he wasn’ae the last. If there did happen to be others.”

“I think it would. They’d have to be a tissue match for him, and lots of other medical stuff I don’t understand. I was trying to look it up on the Internet, but I lost the signal. I don’t suppose you have a mobile, do you?”

“Why would I not have, you cheeky whelp? I’m a land steward, not a dinosaur.” He took out a phone several generations ahead of mine—I guessed the old laird hadn’t kept him short on anything—and shook it in my face. “I have to lead hunting parties up on the Calder moors. I dinnae use a carrier pigeon. But I have no more signal than you in this godforsaken valley.”

“I don’t even know why we’re talking about it. He is the last, isn’t he?”

Maybe I was good enough material for Alfred’s cherished boy to try out his wings as a friend. Even as a lover, and I was grateful that the old man took such a broad view. He was definitely unsure about opening up that family vault to me, though. I didn’t blame him. From what he knew of the Mallory clan, we were hardly fit repositories.

“Look,” I said, “if you don’t want to tell me, that’s fine. But if there
is
anybody—any chance at all…”

“His mother. And he has a sister too.”

Christ, the family jewels. He might as well have dropped them in my lap—a diamond and a sapphire, I saw them as, huge and beyond price. I tried not to grab at them. “He told me his mother was dead.”

“He thinks so. If you’d known him as a boy…just a little lad, I mean, no more than five—no child could be more devoted to his mother. He was strange even back then.
Touched,
my grandparents would have said, and their grandparents before them would have called him a changeling. He didn’t seem to care for anyone, but that woman—you couldn’t drag him from her side.”

“What happened to her?”

“Nothing, more’s the pity. She was a fine Italian lady, and I suppose she became bored with her castle and her laird’s quiet pursuits. She didn’t want an invalid on her hands, either. As soon as my Hugo’s symptoms began, she packed her bags and left him. Left the boy behind her too.”

“So you told him she was
dead
?”

“Ah, what else could we say? She was his angel, his goddess. She was gone overnight, not so much as a note left behind for him. The child would have lost his mind to know he’d been abandoned. He nearly died of grief anyway.”

I shook my head. “I’m not surprised.”

“Don’t judge what you weren’t in place to see. Hugo knew the boy well—what he could stand, and what would drive him so far away inside himself he might never return.” Alfred took another draught from his flask. “Having delivered the blow once, though, he wasn’t about to let it fall again. He told Constanza—that was what they called his wife, a fine name for a faithless woman—to stay away from Vivian. To be dead to him in very truth. In return, he’d make her a generous allowance for life, and if the boy had the family illness and didn’t look set to outlive him, he’d leave the whole estate to his daughter, held in trust until she came of age.”

“Viv’s sister.”

“That’s right. Constanza was pregnant when she left. It broke Hugo’s heart to lose the baby, but Vivian was his whole world. And Constanza kept her part of the bargain.”

I didn’t really care. I was just seeing her and her daughter as convenient storage units for bone marrow, DNA, stem cells, whatever the hell Viv needed. “Where are they now?”

“Still in Rome, for all I know. She went back to her family there.”

“And the girl doesn’t have this illness, this Drescher’s syndrome?”

“I know nothing of the child, and very little about the disease. It seems only to affect the male line.”

I got up. I put my hands in my pockets, a diamond in one and a sapphire in the other. The sister was the sapphire in my imagination, a pure blue light beside Constanza’s frosty glitter. “Viv won’t go into hospital. He doesn’t want treatment. But I bet he would if there was any kind of hope.”

Hope had never crossed Alfred’s mind. I saw it dawning there now. “You could persuade him? He and his father vowed not to endure it.”

“Aye, when they thought they were going to die! I don’t think he’d need much persuading. He wants to live if he can.”

“On account of you, Kier Mallory?”

It wasn’t time for modesty. “On account of everything—the world, and his work, and all the things he wants to see and do. But yes, on account of me. He said he loves me.”

“And you? Do you love him?”

More than my life was worth not to. I was glad I could give a straight and heart’s-truth reply. “I do.”

“Well, these things happen faster than in my day, but so be it.” He got to his feet, brushing grief off himself in favour of business and a fresh chance. He held out his hand. “You and I shall get our laddie off this mountain and into hospital the moment this snow clears, as it’s set to do in a couple of days’ time. And we shall find these Calder women and bring them home.”

I wondered if he meant us to check our shotguns onto the plane and do the job by force. However he wanted to play it was fine by me. I couldn’t imagine a better ally. We shook hands on the deal.

“Yes,” I said. “We only need their bone marrow after all.”

“That’s right. I’ll bring a straw.”

The grim set of his face never altered. I broke into laughter for both of us, the sound scaring up a pair of immaculate white grouse from the heather. They were a lurching, ungainly symbol for new hope, but their wings struck fire from the sunlight, and my heart leapt up with them. “How do I tell Viv there’s a chance, though? Will I have to tell him about his mum?”

“I don’t see how to avoid it.”

“Come down to the house with me. It’s the sort of thing he should hear from you, and…” I hesitated. The last thing I wanted was a yes to this one, but I had to ask. “Two days is a long time to sit under a sheet of corrugated iron up here. You should stay with us.”

“Och, as if I’d want to share a den with a pair of rutting badgers! No, I can keep my watch better up here. When the snow melts, I’ll come down for you, and as for you—you’ll have to find a way to talk to him. If his heart’s in your keeping now, God willing it’s past breaking by his mother.”

“I will.” The words came out rough as gravel. “I’ll find a way.”

“Get back to him, then. Go along with you.”

Viv’s heart was in my keeping. I set off blindly down the hill, the old man forgotten as soon as he was out of my sight. I’d reached the dry-stone wall again before he called me back.

“Mallory! Did ye say he’d finished his work?”

I turned around. I had to pitch my voice against the wind. “He has. He can light up a whole village with two jam jars and a wee bit of metal.”

“I knew he would. Such a man wasn’t meant to die young.”

Chapter Fifteen

Aunt Lilian’s cottage was warm when I got back. The scent of toasting bread greeted me, and the kettle was whistling on the stove. There was no sign of Viv, though. I listened for a moment, shaking snow off my boots. Bathwater was splashing. If he hadn’t heard me return, so much the better. I could grab ten minutes to gather my thoughts.

We’d made a hell of a mess of our badger’s lair. Viv wouldn’t like the look of that when he emerged from his bath. Instead of sitting down and planning my approach, I started picking up our scattered garments from the floor. I folded the sleeping bags and put them away in Lil’s room. Our exertions had pushed the sofa slightly out of alignment with the hearth. I pushed it back. I looked with his eyes, and anything that struck me as disorderly, I corrected. Tins in a nice row on the shelf, pans hung in order of size. I took off my boots and lined them up with his, ninety degrees to the wall.

The bathroom door opened and Viv came into the kitchen, towelling off his wet hair. He was dressed in his thermals and one of my jumpers, which was too short in the arms for him and loose around the waist. He noticed me and came to a halt, smiling. “Either we’ve had a poltergeist, or…”

“No. I just tidied up.” I had to keep my voice calm and level. He looked well this morning, tall and strong-boned, but I knew his colour was only a temporary flush from the bath. That if I went to hug him, I’d feel his ribs starkly under the wool of my jumper. His illness was there in the corner like a hungry wolf, waiting to leap and bite at any time. “Er…wouldn’t a poltergeist make
more
mess?”

“Yes, but do you remember in the film, where the mother goes into the kitchen and all the chairs have jumped up neatly onto the table? Seeing a room like this after you’ve been in it has that kind of shock effect on me.”

“Oh, thanks. Do you like it, though? Did I get it right?”

“Exactly right.”

“Then we’ll always have it like this.”

He shot me an odd glance. As far as he knew we had no
always
, but I saw him decide to play along. “No. Sometimes we’ll have a glorious Mallory mess. Socks on the table and that kind of thing.”

“Wouldn’t you hate it?”

“Not with you.”

I went to him. I laid my head on his shoulder, and he closed his arms around my waist, gently as if I’d been made of glass. This was no good. I had good news, tidings of a chance, and it was only now dawning on me what a crazy long shot it was, or I wouldn’t be crying.

“Listen,” I said, struggling for control. “There’s something I want to talk to you about.”

“Me too. Can I go first? It’s short, and I don’t want to lose my nerve.”

“Oh, God. What? Have you been ill again?”

“No, nothing bad. I was just wondering…would you let me read the poetry you wrote?”

“My poetry?” I could scarcely remember writing any, let alone where I’d put it. “Yes, of course you can. Why now?” He gave me a glance which suggested I couldn’t seriously be asking. Everything had to be now.
Maybe not, maybe not…
I broke free and went to fetch the pile of papers he’d stacked up for me on that night when I’d have been happy to consign them to the fire. “Here. They’re an unedited mess, but…”

“Thank you.” He took them from me and sat on the sofa, tucking his feet up comfortably under him. “I made some tea. The toast should be about ready now too.”

My plans crashed and shattered. “Viv, I met Alfred out there. He’s been watching over the house.”

He had started to read. His attention came back to me from a great distance. “Alfred?”

“Yes. Alfred Macready. He told me your mother’s still alive, and you have a sister too. So there might be someone who can donate the cells or the marrow you need after all, and when the snow clears I want to take you to hospital and get you some treatment. Because there might be a chance.” I was breathless, all my words and hopes bunched up under my throat. “Will you come with me?”

“Mallory, I…”

“Yes? Please, Viv.”

“I like to be quiet while I’m reading. Is that okay?”

I released a long exhalation. He’d begun the task of reading my poem, and perhaps his order-loving brain wouldn’t allow for interruption. What would bring him back to me? Briefly I considered setting the house on fire. Or perhaps he was falling apart with shock behind his serene mask. His head was down, damp curls hiding his face. I crouched to check on him. He didn’t move or respond. He reached the end of the first of my wildly scrawled sheets and calmly tucked it underneath the others.

Perhaps I was still dreaming. I’d had a pretty damn unlikely morning of it so far. Stiffly I got up and surveyed the sunny, tidy room. It looked like someone’s dream of an ordinary shared home. It had a weekend aspect to it somehow, although I’d lost track of what day it was. The kind of place you’d leave on a Sunday morning to go and watch the match, have lunch in the pub, and come back for a sleepy afternoon shag amongst the newspapers. There was nothing life-or-death about it at all.

So I made us both some tea and toast and set Viv’s plate and mug by his feet. He grunted in acknowledgement and gave me a distracted smile. I sat down beside him and ate my breakfast. He was still reading when I’d finished. He was taking it very slowly. In other circumstances I’d have been on the edge of my seat, waiting for a verdict. As it was, I couldn’t keep my eyes open. My interrupted night, all the fucking and the sunshine suddenly caught up with me.

A drifting time later, I woke with my head comfortably pillowed in his lap. He’d bathed, but the thermal leggings needed a wash and our sex scents wrapped me round, making me think of Alfred’s rutting badgers. I’d have bottled our combined musk if I could. Viv had finished reading. The sheets were stacked on the arm of the sofa beside him. He was absently stroking my hair.

“You know,” he said, when he saw I was awake, “I believed I knew the world inside out. Not because I’ve travelled much, or met a lot of people or anything like that—just because of what I am. I’ve seen into the heart of nature, right down to the subatomic core.”

I rolled onto my back so that I could see him. “Do you believe something different now?”

“Yes. Because of what you’ve written. I want to go back through my whole life again and see it through your eyes, to live in the world you’ve created. I want to make our journey from Spindrift to this place again. I never learned to appreciate poetry, but I think if your writing gives me these desires, it must be very good.”

I’d have half died of pleasure at such a compliment in the days before our journey here. Now I needed more. “So…what are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking that if one man can create such a vision, there must be an infinite number of others out there for me to see. I don’t really know the world at all.”

“And would you like to?”

“Yes. If I can.”

I sat up, clumsy with sleep and relief. I scrambled backwards and somehow ended up in his lap. He gave a squashed grunt and spread his thighs to accommodate me, laughing against my ear. “I can’t believe old Macready’s out there.”

“Well, he is. He’s a grumpy old sod and he nearly shot me again, but he’s been keeping guard.”

“And he told you that my mother is alive.”

“Yes. Oh, God, I meant to break it to you so tactfully. Alfred and your dad knew how much you loved her, so when she shipped out, they thought it would hurt you less if you believed she’d died.”

Viv gave it thought. I could see him trying the new ideas on. “They were right,” he concluded. “If I’d known, I’d have tried to follow her.”

“I’m so sorry you lost her.”

“I don’t have any pain about it now. Perhaps that’s just because of how I am. But I remember that time clearly enough, and although I did adore her, I wasn’t able to show it. I don’t think she knew.”

“Your father knew.”

“He knew things without being shown. I would trail her around the house like a mute ghost. I think I annoyed her more than anything else.”

“Oh, Viv.”

“It goes towards explaining why she didn’t feel she was abandoning a child.”

“But you don’t have to explain her. You can still be pissed off and upset about it.”

“Why would I? It was twenty years ago. Maybe if I had a whole lifetime to worry about it, those feelings might rise up, but even if Macready hunts her down like a fox—which is what I assume he’s going to do—the odds are still stacked against me sky-high.” He shifted a bit so that I could huddle close against him, and he wrapped his arms around me. “So as far as I’m concerned, I’m still on emergency rations when it comes to time. And I’m not about to waste a second of it on anyone but you.”

* * * * *

“Alfred says the weather ought to clear in a couple of days’ time.”

“Does he?” Viv sat up, resting his hands on my thighs. For a proud man, he didn’t half look good on his knees. “Will he be all right out there until then?”

“I asked him to join us here, but he said something about rutting animals and being better off where he was.”

“You told him about us?”

“It just popped out. He seemed more pleased than anything else, although God help me if I ever harmed a hair on your lairdly Calder head—you know, the usual terms.”

“Well, at least now you know where you stand.”

I rested my head against the back of the sofa. I did know where I stood. I felt as if I’d reached some still-point centre. The tornado might begin again from here, but for now all was calm. Viv took hold of my cock, his grip confident, and I arched to meet him with a groan. I was taking a bit of coaxing. It was nice to be so worn out from screwing that things could happen slowly. I’d never got to this point with a boyfriend before, out of the frantic-bunny phase and into clear, loving waters. I’d thought it would take years. That if it ever happened I’d
have
years of it.

I steered my mind away from those rocks. Viv was starting to believe in his own gifts, and I didn’t want to set him back by going soft with fear in his grasp. I focussed on sunlit Rome, and the two beautiful women awaiting our summons there.

“I wonder what your sister looks like,” I said idly, taking hold of one dark strand and tugging it straight. “Aren’t you the least bit curious about her?”

“I’m not sure I’d like her very much.”

“Why not? She’s got lovely DNA.”

“True, but it looks as though she sold off Spindrift to the wicked oil barons.”

That hadn’t occurred, although I’d told Viv as much as Alfred had confided in me about the old laird’s final arrangements. “Maybe not her personally. The money was all held in trust.”

“My mother left when I was five. My sister would have come of age a couple of months ago—around the time when the Spindrift land was sold. I don’t think she’s Mother Theresa.” Viv leaned in and made a thoughtful exploration of the root of my cock with his tongue. “I hate to say it, but I don’t see either of these ladies rushing to our rescue.”

“But you’ll still try.” I sat up a little way and caught his chin, lifting it so I could look into his face. “You’ll still come into hospital and try. You said you would.”

“Hush. Calm down.” He turned his head and kissed my fingers. “I did say. I don’t break my promises, love. Now, can I ask you something?”

“Oh, God. What?” I was sure he never broke his word, but he was more than capable of adding codicils, impossible terms and conditions. He’d go to hospital, but not with me. He’d go, but only for a week, or a day, or whatever he thought would satisfy the letter of his agreement. I braced up. “Go on, then.”

“I know I’ve been a bit shy about giving you blow jobs. About the end part, anyway, and you’ve been nice about it and pulled out. It’s not that I haven’t wanted you—it’s just that it’s a thing I can’t control happening right in my face, and you know that sometimes freaks me out.”

I could barely speak. “Yeah. I know.”

“In fact, it’s what bothers me more about the prospect of hospital than anything else—lots of chaos and noise. Don’t want a repeat of the Loch Dubh car-park incident.”

“I won’t let it happen. I won’t let anything be chaotic around you.”

“This time when you come, I want you to do it right down my throat.”

“Viv…”

“What is it? What’s wrong?”

“You shouldn’t say things like that to me. You shouldn’t say…”

Thank God he could read me. His eyes shone with comprehension. He pushed me back on the sofa, dived down and engulfed my shaft in his mouth. I didn’t have a second left to argue with him—my hips were jerking and trembling, the wave of climax more than halfway broken. I threw my head back, put a hand across my eyes as if I could hide from the pure pang and rush of it, sobbed and yelled and did as he’d bidden—let go of everything, thrusting into his heat.

He sat up carefully when I was done, wiping his mouth. He was hard and ready and not at all certain of what to do next, so I aided his scramble up onto the sofa beside me. It was no time for sophisticated moves. I took hold of him, rubbing and caressing over the fabric of his thermals, then put my hand inside. A couple of strokes would do it for him.

He buried his face against my shoulder. “We can stay here for now?” he whispered, pushing against my grip.

“Until the snow melts a bit and we can move the car.”

“The snow hasn’t gone yet. Oh, Mallory, the snow hasn’t gone…!”

* * * * *

We didn’t get our two days. In the event we barely got one. A warm breeze stole over the crest of Braeriach, last breath of an unseen Indian summer taking place in the valleys and along the west coast where the Gulf Stream still ran strongly enough to make a difference, and by the evening that followed the snow was melting. The road began to appear in patches like a thin grey snakeskin, leading off to the horizon in fitful gleams of the sun. At the back of Lil’s house, the stream whose voice had been silenced by ice began its laughing roar. Viv and I allowed its music to accompany our lovemaking, but otherwise took no notice of events unfolding in the outside world.

I should have packed him into the car the second enough of the snakeskin road had appeared. Whenever I looked out of the window, though, he would come up behind me, put his hand in mine and gently tug me away. Alfred held back too, a stay of execution whose rough benevolence I could feel in the air.