The bomber jacket, p.11
The Bomber Jacket, page 11
Beth poured more of the steeping-hot tea into her white china cup. She loved the way tea was served in Scottish restaurants—a small, individual china teapot, a cup and saucer, a tiny pitcher of milk, and a miniature bowl with several cubes of raw sugar, all presented on an oval china serving platter. She couldn’t get in the habit of putting milk in her tea, though.
“You like builder’s tea,” Robbie had said the first time he noticed at Haddington after they had left Drem. When she asked what that was, he’d said, “Good, strong, black tea with no distractions.” She did like her tea sweetened, though, and as she dropped two cubes of sugar in her cup, she continued to think about Robbie’s lack of sweetness this morning. He was being polite and friendly, but more like a tour guide than a knight getting ready to do battle for her, which he had hinted at last night.
Maybe he figures I’m only interested in him as a guide. Maybe his history spiel was his way of saying, “Let’s keep this impersonal.” But why would he have kissed me?
To stop the endless round of thoughts, she asked him why the English drank tea rather than coffee, and he perked up, giving her an amusing history of the English tea trade. Back in the car, Beth said, “I saw that movie, the one about William Wallace. With Mel Gibson.”
Robbie snorted. “Yes, there was quite a bit of press about it when they filmed near Glen Nevis, up by Fort William, though most of it was filmed in Ireland. Imagine a movie about Scotland being filmed in Ireland! They premiered it in Stirling. I have several friends who do reenactments, and they were extras on the set…everyone was trying to be an extra. Everyone wanted to be on the big screen.”
“Not you?” Beth asked.
“Nah.”
Beth thought Robbie sounded thoroughly American at times. “So you’d rather read about history than experience it?” She felt rather than saw his frowning glance
“I’m not into reenactment. Are you?”
“I have a couple of classmates who get into the July Fourth Gettysburg battle thing. Might be fun to experience history more physically.”
“But you’re always in that bomber jacket. Isn’t that what you’re doing in a way?”
Beth thought there was an edge of sarcasm in his voice and said gruffly, “No, I mean, well, what if you could… in your imagination… experience what people felt in a different time.”
“Like a time traveler,” he replied.
“Well, an emotional time traveler.” Beth’s statement was greeted by silence that grew a little strained. Finally, she said, “Is that so weird?”
“Well, a wee bit weird.”
She shrugged, but didn’t reply. She pondered their conversation as they returned to the car and continued toward Stirling.
Now would be a perfect time to tell Robbie about her more recent dreams, how real they seemed, how often she woke with the smell of engine oil in her nostrils and the taste of fear in her mouth. Though the dreams in the last two weeks had been fewer, they had lingered longer after she woke, along with the emotions Colin was experiencing in them.
But telling Robbie wouldn’t be a good idea, she was sure, remembering how he had reacted at Holyrood—with skepticism, even alarm, accusing her of taking drugs or being carried away with romantic notions. No, she concluded. I didn’t tell him about sensing Colin’s presence at Traprain Law and Drem, and I lied when he asked me if I was still having the dreams. If I told Robbie that sometimes I feel like I am Colin in the dreams… no, no… I can’t risk it. Robbie would think I am a mental case. Or infatuated with someone who’s been dead…
Her brain suddenly froze. Who said he was dead? Her grandfather had lived through the war. Surely Colin had. Yet all her recent research on the bombing campaigns over Germany was full of staggering casualty rates among the pilots and crew. The thought of him dead suddenly filled her with heart-wrenching grief.
Beth stared out the window trying to rein in the urge to weep. Robbie didn’t say anything for awhile, and Beth was glad. He probably thought she was angry; she hadn’t replied to his last question. She could feel the tears in her throat and didn’t dare comment. To her relief, after some time of silence, he went back to talking about the way Hollywood distorted history. It distracted her and gradually calmed her enough so she could start conversing again.
After another half hour, they pulled into the parking lot of the National Wallace Monument, which was situated on a volcanic outcrop known as Abbey Craig, where once stood a Pictish hill fort, Robbie said. Through the leafless trees, she could glimpse a tall, square stone tower topped by what looked like a crown. Though it looked very old, Beth had learned that it was completed in 1869, after eight years of construction. It had a Victorian flair with its fancy stonework, elaborate stone spirals on the crown, and gemlike stained-glass windows.
She got out of the car, glad to be in the brisk air. The day was bright, with wisps of clouds stretched like gauze across the sky. Though it was late February, there was a hint of spring in the air. They took the path from the parking lot, a combination of steps and a curving pathway, which led them to a concrete patio at the foot of the towering monument.
“We have to walk around to the entrance at the front,” Robbie said, and he started in that direction, but Beth was too absorbed in the sensation of staring up, trying to glimpse the crown another 220 feet over her head. It was a dizzying effort, causing her to blink and step back, right into Robbie’s arms, which closed in a protective embrace. One that was too comfortable.
“I wondered where you were and found you back here gaping like a tourist.”
“I am a tourist,” Beth retorted, stepping out of his arms quickly. He gave her a questioning look but then said. “Here, this way. The entrance is right next to the two-story Keeper’s Lodge, which is actually built into the side of the monument.”
Beth followed Robbie to a heavy glass door set into a stone archway topped with a carved stone coat of arms. Beth could see a sword-wielding statue of the hero of Scotland further up. Upon entering, they were greeted by a young female attendant standing behind a large wooden reception desk, who said a cheery, “Good day to ye,” in a lilting accent more pronounced than Edinburgh speakers. “Care to climb and take in the view?”
“Oh, yes,” Beth said, smiling at the girl’s enthusiasm.
“That’ll be four pounds fifty for ye each.”
Robbie pulled out his Historic Scotland membership card, telling Beth, “Remember, I said it was on me.”
“Ye may want to look round here or haid right up. There’s three layvels with displays on th’ way and then the crown wi’ the view. Ye may have a booklet if ye wish.”
Beth looked inquiringly at Robbie, who suggested, “I can explain the exhibits and the view. Let’s head to the top then stop at the exhibits on the way down… unless 246 steps are too much at once.” He said it jokingly, but there was a challenge in his voice.
“Well, I did okay climbing up from the car park,” she said mildly, “But you go first. I’ll follow at my own pace.”
She expected him to say, “No, I’ll walk up with you,” but he replied, “Sure, I can get in a stepping jog. Over here is the entrance to the stairway. It’s a spiral, tucked into the corner of the monument and opens up onto each floor. Take your time, the stairway is a bit steep.”
“Okay,” she said, as they reached the first of the stone steps.
“Meet you at the top.” He briskly vanished up around the first curve.
Beth followed more slowly. The outer wall of the staircase was punctuated by narrow slits that let in chill February air and filtered sunlight. The stone handrail carved into the stairwell ran along the inner spiral where the triangular-shaped stairs came to a narrow edge. She felt more secure hugging the outer wall. As she carefully mounted the steps, she felt the dampness of the stone and the winter cold seep into her body. Almost as chill as Robbie’s mood today.
The narrow stairway gave her a sense of claustrophobia, so she began to mentally count the stairs to distract herself. After some time, the spiraling ascent began to make her lightheaded. At step seventy-one she reached the first level and walked out into an open room filled with display cases and hanging tapestries.
Robbie was nowhere in sight. She wandered to the huge sword in the tall, narrow glass case and stood there, pondering what it would mean to charge into battle wielding such a weapon. Was that courage? Or madness? What would it take for her to be so committed to a cause that she’d take up a sword and go to war?
It was then that she began to sense a presence and glanced around, thinking it was Robbie looking for her. The area was empty. Shivering even in her warm coat, she returned to the staircase and hurried up the next sixty-four steps, continuing her mental count: eighty-seven, eighty-eight, eighty-nine…
She didn’t bother to look at any of the displays on level two but climbed the next set of stairs more quickly with a driving sense of urgency. The echo of a masculine voice with a Scottish accent seemed to float down the stairs from above.
Her breath was growing shallower.
As she climbed, she felt a sensation of increasing height, accompanied by an impression of being lifted by each step, almost as if each were floating, disconnected from the one below and above it. It was exhilarating and frightening at the same time. By the third level, another sixty-two steps, she was almost running, driven by a need to get to the top, pulled by the echo of a masculine voice just around the next curve of the stairs.
Beth scrambled up the last of the stone steps and walked out into a narrow outer corridor open to the sky, a sudden, brilliant blinding surprise after the dimness of the winding stairway. Four more steps and she was on the walled walkway that ran around the outside of the square tower, just below the crown, passing through arched passageways at each of the four corners.
The walls rose several feet above her and were pierced by small openings on each of the four sides through which she could see the surrounding countryside and, if she wished, could look down the dizzying drop to the bottom of the tower.
She circumnavigated the tower, taking the last few steps that led to the top of the monument. A flat, open area spread out before her with eight narrow, soaring stone arches sweeping up to the crown. A low wall ran between the arches. A wood-plank bench lining the wall gave seating space to contemplate the stunning vista. Light and wind poured in on all sides.
There he stood, facing her, a dark silhouette against a light-filled archway. He was in dress uniform; the one he’d been wearing in that crowded room filled with Tommy Dorsey music. His face was lost in the shadow beneath his officer’s cap. Was he looking at her, or was she looking at herself, or was there someone else there, looking at both of them?
Her head spun as if she were on a very slow merry-go-round. She felt weightless, disconnected from the earth, soaring in a space of intensely white light. There was no tower of stone, securely anchored in the earth. There was no car park, many feet below. There was no display of ancient weapons or long-forgotten history. There was only this moment.
She leaned over, her breath constricted, pressing her palms against her thighs just above her knees to fight the oddly delicious sensations, yet wanting desperately to give into them and let them take her where they would.
“Here, come sit down on the bench. You took the steps too quickly,” she heard him say in his warm, soft Scots burr, yet from a distance, as if across miles, or years.
He noticed that she was perspiring, hot from the rush up the stairs. With his arm around her, he led her to one of the slatted wooden benches that anchored each of the eight arched openings of the domed space. The moisture on her face gave a lovely sheen to her glowing skin.
He helped her sit down, and she leaned sideways against the cold stone tower arch, closing her eyes, but placed her hand over his, which rested on the bench between them. Her touch was reassuring and electric at the same time. To cover his reaction, he said calmly, “Tis the vertigo, merely. You took the steps too fast. That American blood of yours is a wee bit too thin for these altitudes.”
But the continued touch of her soft hand, her nearness, the light, flowery scent of her perfume penetrated his mind and made him dizzy.
The stone solidness of the tower slowly seeped into Beth’s awareness making her feel cooler, calmer, grounded. She could feel him perched on the bench, to her left. In a moment she sensed him turning toward her and she sat up, opening her eyes. In the sparkling light of midmorning, she barely made out his brown eyes, dark as a Scottish loch. A gust of wind blew a stand of hair across her face and she closed her eyes, startled. When she opened them, there was no one there. She was suddenly chilled to the bone.
Just then Robbie appeared in front of her. “Oh, there you are,” he said. “How odd, I didn’t even hear you come up the steps. I was over there looking at the view to the south and…” He stopped in mid-sentence, and squatted in front of her, putting his hands on her knees which trembled slightly with the chills that shook her.
“Have you gone lightheaded from the climb? You’re as white as a sheet. I’m sorry, it was stupid of me not to stay with you.” His voice was apologetic, his eyes filled with worry. When she didn’t reply, he added, with what seemed to be an apparent attempt at levity, “You look like you’ve seen a ghost. Was Wallace haunting you?”
Beth let out a deep breath in a shaky rattle. “It wasn’t Wallace that I saw.”
Robbie frowned, looking even more concerned. “That you saw? I was only joking, Beth.”
She shook her head. It hurt to do so, so she pressed the tips of her fingers against her temples. For the length of another breath, she resented Robbie’s presence. Would Colin have lingered if Robbie hadn’t appeared? Would this American girl that confused and disoriented Colin have become visible too?
Then she remembered that just before Colin vanished, he had turned in her direction. She could still clearly see his brown eyes with flecks of green. As if he knew she was sitting next to him.
Beth gasped. “He saw me! He could see me!” She was lost in a memory of a minute ago, that was decades ago. How many decades? Four? Five? Was she there or was he here?
“Who saw you?” Robbie looked around at the deserted floor, his voice laced with concern. “There’s no one here. Did someone come up behind you?”
How could she explain? She was pulled between a desire to have Robbie understand and a need to hold this newest revelation close to her heart. When she said nothing, Robbie stood up, his mouth pursed in a frown.
“Come see the sights. I can explain the view,” he said in a voice one would use with a recalcitrant child or a fussy old woman. When she didn’t respond, he took Beth’s hand and pulled her to her feet.
She reluctantly let him turn her around to see the view behind her. He kept hold of her hand, and she found the sensation of flesh on flesh pulling her back to the present, away from the feeling of being a disembodied visitor. It was both comforting and unwelcome, yet without intending to, she interlaced her fingers in his, and he glanced at her with a speculative look.
Pointing with his free hand, he said, “Here… this is the north view. The Ochil Hills. That hill to the north is Dumyat.”
Beth thought the hill, rising above a valley that swooped down from the Wallace Monument, looked like a moonscape. It was barren of any vegetation. Snow clung to the crevices and rocky pockmarked surfaces. It was gray, with twinges of pink and purple veins, and dark spots where gorse, the native mountain shrub, clustered.
The mountain, the monument, the moment felt familiar, yet apart from her, as if she were there, yet not physically, as if she had been there before, and a part of her remained as a shadow. As if once she were at a place and noticed and remarked and commented on that place, she left a part of herself like invisible graffiti on a wall or an invisible thought on the air. Yet she had never been here. Had never seen this place.
Robbie didn’t seem to mind her silence as he led her around to face each direction, explaining the view: the Forth Valley to the east with the silver snake of the Forth River twisting away in the distance; the village of Stirling to the south, dominated by the Castle perched on a volcanic rocky promontory above the quaint town and the loop of the Stirling River in front of it; to the west, the Trossachs with their blue-green hillsides and the shimmering glimpse of Loch Lomond in the barely-perceptible distance.
Between Robbie’s words, Beth heard snatches of a deep voice with a Scots accent singing by the bonny, bonny banks of Loch Lomond, but she didn’t know if it was in her head or hanging in the air, lingering for years, or decades.
Colin’s voice.
Was she awake? Was it an illusion, a wish, an overwrought imagination? It was only the warmth of Robbie’s hand and his easy-to-listen-to timbre that kept her from following that other voice, falling into the shadow of the past, which was so alluring and ever more insistent.
“Perhaps I should do this on my own.” She said it softly to herself, but apparently loud enough for Robbie to hear. His sudden fury shocked her into attention and obliterated the music barely perceptible to her ear. “Well, bloody hell, that is fine with me.”
She watched him pace across the soaring chamber and disappear down the steps. The echo of his footsteps quickly grew faint and then vanished. As if he too, were a ghost.
After a headlong rush down the twisting stone stairway, past the astonished tour guide, and down the hill to the carpark, Robbie spent the next fifteen minutes pacing furiously back and forth by the passenger door of Andrew’s sleek sports car, his jaw clenched. Jingling his key ring off the end of one finger in a rapid, staccato rhythm, he berated himself for his loss of control and tried to resign himself to calling it quits with this girl.
He thought they were visiting Stirling and the Wallace Monument because it was on her grandfather’s list. He didn’t think it had anything to do with the bomber pilot, as the site was unrelated to World War II. Now, here of all places, she seemed caught up in some romantic or psychotic illusion about being able to see the guy, like he was a spirit.
