Питер Мэй - I'll Keep You Safe

Seonag smiled. ‘It’s okay. I told Martin I might not be back tonight anyway.’

She remained sitting at the table as Niamh made her way towards the hall and her bedroom door, calling back over her shoulder as she went, ‘Don’t worry about the dishes. I’ll do all that in the morning.’

‘ Oidhche mhath ,’ she heard Seonag whisper as she shut the door.

For the second night she felt lost in this big, sprawling bed that she had once shared with Ruairidh. It seemed so empty without him. She remembered how he had insisted that they buy the biggest and the best, and she still cringed when she thought about the cost of it. But he had said, ‘We spend a third of our lives in bed, why would we skimp on it?’ And she couldn’t argue with that.

She turned over on to her side, facing away from where he had once lain, turning out the light and curling up in the foetal position, the duvet pulled tightly around her. Fatigue overwhelmed her after days of sleep deprivation. And she drifted off into the deepest of sleeps from almost the moment she closed her eyes.

She had no idea how long she slept before a strange awareness brought her drifting slowly back to the surface. Of warmth and human comfort, a body spooned into hers, just like Ruairidh after they had made love. For the longest time, floating still in that netherworld between sleep and consciousness, she believed that he was there in bed with her. Although some part of her knew that it was impossible, she didn’t want to let go of the illusion. That somehow he was still alive, his body moulded into all her curves and hollows. The comfort and happiness that accompanied it was almost too much to bear. If waking up would dispel the fantasy, then she never wanted to wake up again. Ever.

But, still, consciousness forced itself upon her, and as she rose up from the euphoric mists of delusion, she turned over to realize, with a sudden, waking clarity, that there really was someone there in the bed beside her.

She sat upright, heart hammering, reaching for the bedside light. And was shocked to see Seonag lying naked where Ruairidh had once slept. ‘For God’s sake, what are you doing?’ Her voice sounded shrill, even to herself, and resounded around the room.

Seonag didn’t move. She reached for Niamh’s hand. ‘Don’t be angry with me.’ But Niamh pulled her hand away.

‘Seonag...’ Niamh was at a loss.

Seonag said, ‘I only wanted to comfort you. I know what you’re going through. How lonely and lost you must be.’

‘You have no idea how I’m feeling.’ Anger replaced alarm.

Seonag sat up now, drawing the quilt self-consciously around. She reached for Niamh’s hand again, found it and held it tightly. ‘Niamh, there’s never been anyone else. You know that.’

‘Jesus, Seonag, I thought you’d got over all this.’ She shook her head. ‘That it was just some kind of teenage crush.’ She forced her hand free of Seonag’s. ‘For heaven’s sake, you’re happily married. You’ve got two kids!’

Seonag sucked in her top lip, as if trying to hold back tears. ‘Marriage has never made me happy. It was only ever what was expected. I love my kids. But God forbid that I should also be in love with another woman.’

All the tension drained out of Niamh now, and she let her head drop. She felt Seonag’s pain, but knew there was nothing she could do to end it. And when next she looked at her saw the tears that Seonag had been unable to contain, running in big slow drops down her cheeks. She said, ‘I can’t help you, Seonag. I’m not ever going to be the person you want me to be. Not in that way.’ She reached out to brush away the tears from her friend’s face. ‘You should go. You really should.’ And when she didn’t move, ‘Please.’

The first sobs tore themselves from Seonag’s chest, and she slipped from the bed and ran naked from the room. The door slammed shut behind her, and Niamh closed her eyes in despair.

It was with dread that I returned to Galashiels in the September following my summer at Linshader Lodge. A long demoralizing journey. Three-and-a-half hours across the Minch on the Suilven , from Stornoway to Ullapool. Then bus to Inverness, and on to Edinburgh. I recall what seemed like hours of waiting, stamping my feet in the cold of the old bus station at the St James Centre, waiting for the bus to the Borders.

My first year at the Scottish College of Textiles had been profoundly lonely. My room in the halls of residence, at Netherdale on the outskirts of the town, was little better than a cell: painted brick walls, a single bed, a wardrobe, a desk, and a view on to the back of the halls. The merest glimpse of grass and the road beyond, where the bus would drop me on my return from trips home. I felt like I had stepped on to the set of Prisoner: Cell Block H .

Some of the girls had arrived with duvet covers and towels, stereo systems and posters, transforming their rooms into little dens. I came down from the islands with nothing more than a suitcase. My room was as cold and impersonal when I left it as when I arrived.

I had cianalas , what we Gaels call homesickness, within the first five minutes, and it never left me the whole year. I remember queuing up on bitter cold nights for my turn on the shared payphone to call my folks, with the hope of catching maybe a breath of the sea somewhere in the background. It all seems extraordinary to me now. In these days of iPhones and every other kind of smartphone, keeping in touch with friends and family could hardly be easier. Back then, I might as well have been on the moon.

The girls on my floor shared a toilet and shower at the end of the hall, as well as a communal sitting room with a single TV set and fights every night over which channel we would watch.

The halls of residence were catered, which meant that we had to queue (again) with a tray in the canteen, and carry our food to shared melamine tables. Cell Block H (again). I was utterly miserable.

Gala, as everyone called it, was a friendly enough place, but on the downward slide after years of decline in the textile industry. It had once been a prosperous little mill town. But most of the mills were gone, and it felt seedy now, grey and depressed.

The college itself had retained its reputation, and most of the designers, salespeople and mill managers in the Scottish textile industry went there. It was the career I wanted, but as I returned for that second year, I was not at all sure that I could stay the course.

It was doubly depressing going back to Gala after events at Linshader. I was still hurting, and haunted by the memories of the halcyon summer I had passed in the weeks before the poaching incident on Loch Four.

I had, however, brought numerous personal items to dress up my cell for this second year, and was in the process of pinning posters of Runrig and Deacon Blue to the wall when there was a knock on the open door. I turned to see Seonag standing grinning in the doorway. I’ve often heard the phrase You could knock me down with a feather . But if anyone had so much as breathed on me in that moment I’d have fallen over.

‘Surprise,’ she said. And if she saw my dismay she gave no outward sign of it.

‘What are you doing here?’

‘Switched courses. Joined the second year at Gala. The Dough School in Glasgow was a drag. And, anyway, I didn’t really make any friends there.’ She jerked her thumb over her shoulder. ‘I’ve got the room right opposite.’

In other circumstances I might have been glad of the company, but right now Seonag was just about the last person in the world I wanted to see.

‘Oh,’ I said, without the least enthusiasm.

She retained her cheerful façade. ‘So we’ll have lots of time to spend together. I know how fed up you were here last year.’ She sauntered into the room, folding her arms and casting eyes over Donnie Munro and Ricky Ross. ‘Cool posters.’ And without taking her eyes off them, ‘I don’t suppose you’ve heard anything from Ruairidh.’