On the Edge of Darkness. Barbara Erskine

died.’

      He didn’t know what to say. Smiling at her silently he squeezed her hand and buried his face in his cup.

      She was blowing her nose on a lace-trimmed handkerchief. After a moment she looked up at him and smiled. The tears had gone. ‘So. Are you going to be a good doctor?’

      He grimaced. ‘I hope so.’ He withdrew his hand to stir some sugar into his cup. ‘If I am, it’s because I learned it from you. Visiting all those poor people in the parish. Hating to see them suffer. Wanting to help them.’

      He looked down into his tea, distracted suddenly by a memory of a young man lying beneath a tree. Gartnait, with Brid’s small hands busy tending his wound. How strange. He had not given her a thought since he had been in Edinburgh.

      He looked back at his mother. Her face was sober. ‘I hated all that. The visiting. I had no idea, when I married, what it entailed – being a minister’s wife.’ She paused, not noticing the crestfallen disillusion in her son’s eyes. ‘I’ve met someone, Adam. A good, kind, gentle, understanding man.’

      Adam tensed. He didn’t want to hear this.

      ‘I hoped your father would divorce me. I was the guilty party.’ She glanced at Adam and looked away again. ‘That way I could marry again.’ She refused to meet his eye. ‘But of course he can’t do that, being in the church, so, I – well, I’ve had to pretend.’ She was staring down at her hands. Almost unwillingly Adam looked down too and saw that the narrow gold wedding band had gone. Instead she wore a ring of carved twisted silver.

      ‘I am sorry, Adam. I will understand if you hate me for it.’ She was pleading, still not looking at him.

      He bit his lip. He wasn’t sure how he felt. Anger. Hurt. Rejection and yes, hatred, but not for her, for the unknown man who had stolen her from them.

      He cleared his throat nervously. ‘Are you happy now?’

      She nodded.

      Again he looked away. She was happy! Had she ever really wondered how he was, imagined his loneliness, his desolation when she left? He found himself suddenly near to tears, remembering Wee Mikey’s teasing. The boys in the village had been right all along. She had gone off with another man. She was, as his father said, a whore.

      He stood up abruptly. ‘I have to go, I’m afraid.’ He schooled his voice with care.

      ‘Adam!’ She looked up at him at last, devastated.

      ‘I’m sorry, Mother.’ He didn’t even know what to call her, he realised suddenly. Not Mummy. Never Mummy. Not any more.

      ‘We will meet again, Adam? Soon?’ There were tears in her eyes again.

      He shrugged. ‘Perhaps.’ Suddenly he couldn’t bear it a moment longer. Turning, he blundered out between the tables and almost ran into the street.

      Jeannie Barron baked less often now. She had agreed to stay on after Adam left; the minister’s needs were very meagre and the house very quiet. Her work did not take her so long, and it was cheerless without Adam there. So it was with some pleasure that she looked up at the knock on the kitchen door and saw the pretty face with its frame of long dark hair peering round at her.

      ‘Brid, my lass. How nice to see you.’ She smiled and beckoned the child in. But she wasn’t a child any longer. As Brid sat down at the kitchen table and fixed Jeannie with a cold stare the woman felt a shiver of apprehension whisper over her skin. ‘So, how are you? You’ll be missing Adam, as we all are,’ she said slowly. She turned the dough and thumped it with her fist.

      ‘You will tell me where he is.’ Brid’s eyes, fixed on hers, were very hard.

      Jeannie glanced up. ‘Did he not tell you where he was going?’ Alarm bells rang in her head.

      ‘He tells me he is going to Edinburgh to study healing.’

      ‘Aye, that’s right.’ Jeannie smiled, relaxing again. ‘He’s very bright is our Adam.’

      ‘I will go too.’ Brid folded her arms. Her expression had not changed. ‘You will tell me how.’

      ‘How to go to Edinburgh? That’s difficult.’ Jeannie was playing for time. If Adam hadn’t given the girl an address to write to then he had a reason. ‘It costs money, lass. You’d need to go on the bus or on the train.’

      Brid looked blank.

      ‘Why not wait until he comes home in the vacation? It’s not so long. He’ll be back before you know it. Besides, he hasn’t written to tell us yet where he’s staying.’ She hoped she would be forgiven the lie. ‘Edinburgh is very big, lass. Bigger than you can ever imagine. You would never find him.’

      ‘I will ask. The people will know where the healers’ school is. You will give me money.’

      Jeannie shook her head. ‘No, Brid. I’m sorry. I can’t afford to hand out money, lass. You must find your own.’

      ‘I will have yours.’ Brid had spotted Jeannie’s handbag on the dresser. Pushing back her chair she moved towards it, putting out her hand.

      ‘No!’ Jeannie had seen what was coming. Stepping away from the table she grabbed it, covering it in flour. ‘No, miss! I had a feeling you were no better than you ought to be. You get out of here now. This minute, or I’ll call the minister! If you want to go to Edinburgh you go your own way, but I warn you, you’ll not find Adam. If he wanted you to know where he was he would have told you. So, that’s an end of it, do you hear me?’

      For a moment there was total silence in the room. Brid stared at her with eyes of flint and Jeannie felt a jolt of real fear. She swallowed hard. The minister was actually not in his study. She wasn’t sure where he was. Visiting someone in the parish, perhaps, or in the kirk. She straightened her shoulders. Brid was only a slim wee thing. Why should she feel so afraid?

      She read the fatal message in Brid’s eyes for just one second before Brid put her hand to her leather belt and calmly drew her knife. She tried to run, but it was too late. The beaten and polished iron weapon caught her between the shoulderblades before she had taken more than one step and she fell awkwardly, clutching the bag to her chest as the blood slowly welled out over her pale blue cardigan. The only sound she made was a small gasp.

      Brid stood still, amazed at the incredible surge of energy and excitement which had shot through her. Then, expressionless, she wrestled the bag from Jeannie’s clutch and opened it, tipping the contents on the floor. She surveyed the items with interest. There was a little round mother-of-pearl powder compact, given to Jeannie by Adam’s mother when she realised that the minister would not allow her to keep such a frivolity. A comb. A handkerchief. A small diary. A purse and a wallet. She ignored the wallet, which contained a large white five-pound note, not recognising it as money. The compact she took and examined. She pushed the small catch on the side and gasped as it opened to reveal a mirror. For a moment she stared at herself, rapt in wonder, then, hastily, she tucked it inside her dress. Then she reached for the purse. Inside were nine shillings, three sixpences, four pennies and a ha’penny. She hoped it was enough to go to Edinburgh.

      Adam met Liza when she was drawing his corpse. Dissection fascinated him. It was meticulous, delicate and the structures of skin and muscle and organ that he uncovered were beautiful beyond anything he had ever imagined. The young men who shared his class joked and complained about the smell of formalin and messed about to cover their unease at what they were doing, but Adam was completely enchanted. They thought he was mad; a bit of a swot. Only Liza understood. She arrived one morning, a large portfolio under her arm, her bright clothes and long, flame-coloured scarf a shocking contrast to the dark walls and the sober overalls of the young men.

      She smiled at them from huge, amber-coloured eyes and tossed her long auburn hair back over her shoulders. ‘Do you mind if I draw your body?’ She was already setting up her easel just behind Adam’s elbow. Their supervisor was ostentatiously looking in the other direction. ‘I won’t get in your way, I promise.’