‘Dot! You’re safe!’
‘God, Con, you terrified me! What were you thinking, running off like that?’
She rubs her eyes, which look swollen, as if she has been weeping. ‘I was looking for you. Where were you?’
‘I went to check on some of the patients in their huts.’
Con’s gaze hardens and, despite myself, I can feel my heart beating faster, can feel the anxiety, the shame. I had left the infirmary early that morning, while Con was still sleeping. The guards on duty were used to seeing me walk around the camp, so no one stopped me when I approached Cesare’s hut. I paused outside the door, hearing movement within. What if the men were getting dressed? And what would they think, finding me outside the hut before first light, asking for Cesare?
Just as I turned to go, the door to the hut opened and one of the men emerged. He saw me, jumped, exclaimed something in Italian, then said, ‘Scusi!’
I held up the bottle of sulfa tablets I had taken from the infirmary. ‘Is Cesare here?’ I felt ridiculous – what had I been thinking?
But then the man called behind him and, suddenly, Cesare was there, smiling.
‘Dorotea. You are well?’
‘Yes, I brought . . .’ I held up the sulfa tablets again.
‘Thank you, but I am not needing. I am better.’
‘Oh. Good.’
I could see the men behind him glancing at each other and grinning, and I felt my cheeks heating.
‘You are good nurse,’ said Cesare.
‘Thank you.’
One of the men muttered something in Italian. Cesare snapped a reply and glared at him.
Oh, Lord, what are they saying?
‘I must go,’ I said. ‘I’m glad you are better –’
‘The huts are here for building the chapel,’ he said, his face bright. ‘They are on the hill, I think. You will see them with me?’
‘Now? But –’
‘Major Bates is letting me see them. He tells the guards to let me see the huts, work on them. We can go now. No hurt, you will see.’
I tried to return his smile. I couldn’t say no – I didn’t want to – and yet I was aware of the whispering, grinning men behind Cesare, and what they would think. And I was aware of the guards, who would see me walk out of the camp with a prisoner. However much freedom Major Bates, in his guilt, was allowing them, it wouldn’t change what the guards would say to each other.
I thought of Con – all the rumours that had started about her. The lewd jokes that were shouted at her in the street before we left Kirkwall.
Cesare watched me, his expression more serious. ‘You do not want? You can tell me this.’ But something in his face was closing down, as if he’d had a new thought about me, as if I had disappointed him.
‘No!’ I said. ‘I can come with you.’
Now, as I watch the same expression of disappointment on Con’s face, I know I can’t tell her that I walked out of the camp gates, with Cesare at my side. I can’t tell her that I walked up the hill with a strange man, a foreigner, and that, as we walked, the mist began to close around us.
So I say, ‘I took medicine for Cesare. And when I got back to the infirmary you were gone. I’ve been looking for you ever since.’ All of this is true, in some way.
‘Oh,’ she says, and I can see she doesn’t believe me. Then she says, ‘I think we should come back and live here, in the bothy.’ She raises her chin, and there’s a defiant set to her mouth.
The lamp flickers; the shadows on the walls shift.
‘All right,’ I say. ‘You want to stay now? Won’t Bess wonder where we are?’
‘We can go back down to the camp tomorrow.’ Con is still watching me, and I know that if I object she’ll fire question after question that I cannot answer. I know she’ll demand to be told where I really was this morning.
I can’t tell her that, as I walked up the hill with Cesare, our footsteps were in time. I can’t tell her the joy I felt at seeing him happily tell me about the men’s excitement over the chapel. I can’t tell her that the mist grew dense around us and we never reached the huts. I can’t tell her that I was confused suddenly, that I didn’t know which way to turn.
‘I’m lost,’ I’d said, feeling fear well in me and clutch at my throat. I didn’t know if I was frightened of this man, this stranger, or if it was the simple terror of being disoriented. I didn’t know if I was scared because – because I wanted to be lost with him. I wanted . . . something I couldn’t name. And the wanting travelled through me like fire.
Then, with the fog blanketing our eyes and filling our lungs, Cesare had reached out and taken my hand.
‘Stop,’ he’d said. And he laced his fingers through mine.
I turned to face him. Tendrils of mist spiralled between us.
‘You are frightened?’ he asked softly.
I nodded, unable to speak past the fear.
‘I am frightened also,’ he whispered.
We stood like that for some time while the mist shifted around us, while the waves throbbed on the distant beach, while my own pulse vibrated in my ears. I was aware of the warmth of his hands, their size, their strength.
He squeezed my fingers gently and said, ‘We must go back to the camp.’
I nodded.
‘It is down the hill?’
I nodded again. We turned and began walking slowly back in the direction of where the camp must have been. Neither of us said anything. He kept hold of my hand and, very gently, he rubbed his thumb over my knuckles.
Finally, the shape of the wire fence and the shadow of the guard on the gate emerged from the mist.
‘There,’ I said.
Cesare still didn’t let go. Only at the very last minute, just before the guard saw us
