In the shuddering moment of their ecstasy followed by the warm, flooding peace that enveloped them, neither Robert nor Rosemary was aware of any sound on the lonely Scottish road. It was only when he returned to the driver’s seat that Robert saw the twin yellow spots of light in the rearview mirror. Still, there was no sound, and it was another several minutes before the car, feeling its way through the fog, could be heard. In the frantic race to button her blouse and make herself “respectable,” Rosemary dropped her lipstick between the hand brake and the seat. As she and Robert reached for it, they crashed heads. “Och, we’re doomed!” said Robert, mimicking McRae of the bed-and-breakfast. Rosemary began to laugh, and the more she laughed, the more uncontrollable it became so that soon she was weeping, Robert pulling her toward him, she fending him off, slumped down out of sight beneath the window level. The lights from the car, now no more than fifty yards behind them, disappeared momentarily, and at first Robert thought the car had stopped, before he saw more thick sheets of fog sweeping in from the coast, obliterating the approaching car and roiling over the road. “Rosemary — get up.”
“I don’t want anyone to see me!”
The car was almost on them. Its horn sounded as it drew level with them, the driver a dim outline waving, Robert acknowledging it from one driver on a lonely road to another. Rosemary sighed with relief, watching the red taillights of the car and a lorry that was obviously using it as a trailblazer on the fogbound highway disappearing like two sore eyes into the mist.
“Funny,” commented Robert.
“What — me being ravaged out on the moor?”
“The car that passed us,” Robert said. “Looked like the pair we saw at McRae’s.”
“There, I found it,” Rosemary proclaimed victoriously, grimacing as she reached down behind the hand brake to retrieve her salmon-red lipstick. “Well, they did say they’d probably see us. They’re sightseeing, too, remember?”
“No—” Robert replied, “not the Prices — that other couple. The soldier and the girl. Confetti still on them. Remember?”
“Soldier?”
“Well, he was wearing civvies, but he looked to me like a junior officer — NCO maybe.”
“I don’t understand,” Rosemary said, winding her passenger window down a tad in an effort to thwart any more misting up on the inside of the windshield. “What’s so funny about them being on the same road? There’s no other highway to speak of. I should think it’s likely we’ll see them again.”
Robert shrugged. He tried to remember whether the yellow Honda Civic that had passed them had had “Just Married” sprayed on the side, but he hadn’t noticed. It was sprinkling rain again, and he turned on the wipers. “It’s just that they started out long before we did.”
“Maybe they stopped somewhere for the fog to clear, too.” He nodded in acquiescence. For several seconds they drove on in silence. Soon they saw the taillights again, at first thinking they were the lorry’s but then realizing the two red lights weren’t far enough apart for a truck, the lorry having apparently overtaken the car on one of the pass-bys. “Any other points of interest along this road — before Ayre?” he asked Rosemary casually. “Before we get to Burns’s cottage?”
“I don’t—” she began, stifling a yawn, “—know. Why?”
“Just wondered. Wouldn’t want to miss anything. McRae’d send a lynch party.”
“You want me to look up the map?” she offered unenthusiastically.
“Nope,” he said. “Doesn’t matter.”
“I do hope this fog clears,” said Rosemary, peering ahead at the dim gray strip of bitumen a few feet in front of them. “If not, we
“Aye, lass,” he said.
“You have a terrible Scottish accent. Did you know that?”
“I’m working on it. You want to eat in Glasgow then?”
“Do you?” For a moment Robert Brentwood was back in his family’s home in New York. It was his mother’s habit to ask his father five or six times whether he was sure he wanted to do something after he’d said that’s what he wanted to do. Drove him nuts. Her repetition, his father had written Robert, had been particularly bad after Ray had been wounded, her nerves shot to pieces — the trying repetition of every “goddamn question” clearly a symptom of her anxiety. Robert knew in Rosemary’s case the repetition was thoughtfulness on her part, not wanting him to feel obligated to do anything he didn’t really care to do, particularly given the short time he had ashore. But Rosemary, too, had changed between the engagement and the wedding, her nerves and her sense of self trembling like so many in Britain who’d experienced the sudden dangers of modern war. For the submariner, it might be the fear of ASROCs coming down at you out of nowhere — for civilians, like Rosemary and her family, it was the terrifying cacophony of massed Soviet rocket attacks.
“Fine,” he said. “We’ll eat in Glasgow.”
“You sure? It might clear up. You never know in the Highlands apparently. Daddy told me you can have rain, sun, and sleet all in one morning.”
“You’re as cheerful as old McRae.”
“I’m trying not to plan things too far in advance, that’s all. On your honeymoon you’re supposed to be carefree. Anyway, as your best man would say, I guess it’s ‘no use frettin’.’ “
They were getting closer to the car.
“You know your southern accent is terrible?” he said.
“Yes, I know. So?”
“We’ll stop for chow in Glasgow, and what happens, happens.”
“Yes.”
“They have any places to pull off up in the Highlands?”
“Oh, lots of them,” Rosemary said encouragingly. “Or so Father says. Road’s so narrow in places, you have to go off just to let another car pass.”
“So who has right of way?”
“No one,” she said. “First in, first served.”
“Sounds like a Texas whorehouse.”
“Nothing,” he said. “Absolutely nothing. Shipboard talk, that’s all. Tell me more about these Highlands.”
“They’re supposed to be wildly beautiful,” she said. “Forlorn but beautiful.”
“And there are
“My Lord, is that all you can think about? I would have thought you’d had enough for one day.” She adopted her stern, schoolmarmish pose. “Anyway, you’ll just have to wait till we get to Mallaig.”
“How far’s that?”
“About a hundred and sixty miles.”
“Don’t know if I’ll make it,” he said, reaching out for her.
She pushed his hand away. “You stay alert, Captain, otherwise neither of us’ll make it. You’ll have us in the bracken, and tha’s a fact.”
For a moment he glimpsed red taillights again, but then the rain came down in sheets and they had to slow to a crawl. “Damn,” he said, above the whine of the wipers, “this is tougher than driving a sub.”
In the heavy rain, they missed Burns’s cottage. Rosemary was disappointed but didn’t press to go back. They’d only a week left of his leave before he’d once again set out on war patrol.
“Sorry, sweetie,” he apologized. “I was so busy looking at the damn road—”
“Oh, never mind,” she said gaily. “We’ll see it another time.”
“Yes,” he said, “that’s a promise.” Both of them fell silent, the rain coming down so hard on the roof, it made a steady drumming sound and was splashing up from the narrow road, but they didn’t mind. It gave them a cozy feeling together inside the car, like being in a cave, safe from the raging forces outside their control.
“We’ll stop at Glasgow,” he said, “if we find it.”
