Chapter Five (Untitled)

[Note: Earlier posts contain previous chapters. If this is your first visit, I highly recommend that you read the chapters in order. Also, be warned that as this is a work in progress, consistency is not guaranteed. For instance, names of characters — and och aye, that does include ghosts — are not written in stone. Example: the protagonist, who began as Debra, is now Gloria.]

By the end of Gran’s wake — which had involved entirely too much gin, but you’ll have that sometimes — we’d agreed that I needed to get myself to the Orkneys to make arrangements for her funeral and the disposition of her property.

Ignoring my nagging hangover, the first thing I did was attempt to call Captain Will Mackay. But the long distance operator assured me she had no listing for anyone by that name.

“That’s odd,” I said, after hanging up.

Harry shrugged. 

“He probably doesn’t have a phone. When I offered to call him back because of the bad connection, he said that wasn’t possible.”

I had an image of a hunched old man shivering in a drafty phone booth in howling wind and driving rain, which — according to my mother, God rest her soul — was entirely the norm for Scottish weather for roughly three hundred and sixty days of the year.

“The rest of the time,” she used to say, “it is positively gorgeous.”

There was nothing for it but to carry on, and make contact with Captain Mackay once I arrived in Scotland.

Settling at the breakfast bar with my laptop, I reserved the last available seat on a flight out of O’Hare that afternoon, and another from Glasgow to Kirkwall in the Orkneys. Next, I located the only funeral home listed for Kirkwall, and sent them an e-mail informing them of my arrival on Tuesday morning.

Then, blessing the Internet and the ease it brought to the complications of modern life, I reserved a hotel room. Trusting to the renowned hospitality of Scots in general and small hotel owners in particular, I further informed them that I was arriving for my grandmother’s funeral and gave them her name, mentioning that this would be my first trip to Scotland, in the unstated hope that they would take pity and be prepared do a bit of leg-work on my behalf. To further encourage such pity, I laid out my brutal travel schedule, explaining that I’d be spending an entire day and night and then some in transit. Shameless.

By eight a.m., I’d finished my second cup of coffee and the arrangements were all made. Now I just had to pack.

The night before, Harry and I had worked out that a week should be sufficient to arrange and see through the funeral and dispose of Gran’s belongings, the latter of which I was certain would fit into three suitcases, maybe four. In fact, the more I’d thought about it, the more I’d wondered if perhaps a week wasn’t too long.

Dashing off to Scotland for an entire week at this time of year was problematical, what with the engineering society’s annual meeting kicking off in Spokane in just five weeks. But, as Harry had repeatedly observed, she was my Gran, and I was the only surviving relative other than our daughter, Heather, who’d never even met the crazy old bat. I had to allow time to deal with any complications that might arise. Besides, a lot of my magazine work could be done remotely. With a good four or five uninterrupted hours in my hotel room each night, along with support from Ginny and Dierdre, I should be able to keep up with the absolutely necessary tasks. And if, by chance, I found myself with extra time on my hands after disposing of the old bat and her three suitcases, I could always do a bit of sightseeing — just think of all the barren hills and sheep that were waiting be to gazed upon.

In the end he’d convinced me. In the light of morning, the magazine’s demands were weaving a web of second guesses across the fog of my hangover. But I was committed now. Nothing for it but to forge ahead.

The first things I packed were my laptop, legal pads and pens, the society’s membership roster, and my satellite telephone. The phone was an extravagance purchased the previous year when Harry wanted to celebrate our twenty-fifth anniversary on safari in Tanzania and I was slated to conduct half a dozen telephone interviews of our most accomplished members for a special issue of the magazine. The phone had enabled me to do both. God bless technology.

Next, I turned my attention to clothes. A black suit and pumps for the funeral, of course. That was easy. But then I hesitated. What the heck was the weather like in the Orkneys in May? Howling wind and driving rain, certainly. But what of the temperature? Back to the computer I went.

Where I was reminded that my destination was only a few degrees south of the Arctic Circle.

“Dear Lord,” I whispered.

“What’s that?” Harry asked.

He was peeling potatoes while ham sizzled on the griddle.

“Break out the long johns,” I muttered.

Back in the bedroom, I did just that. Along with wool sweaters, thick socks, and flannel pajamas. I do hate being cold.

By now, the aromas drifting up the stairs were maddening. I descended to breakfast as only Harry can make it: potatoes with onions and green peppers fried in oil and butter with lots of black pepper, slabs of ham, grits with cheese melted into them, and eggs over easy. A shameless display of cholesterol, but a breakfast that would see me through the long road to Scotland. A breakfast, furthermore, that made me not want to leave my man for an entire week.

As if to make it even harder for me to leave him, Harry had popped open the bottle of champagne we’d failed to open on New Year’s Eve, and made mimosas.

“A little hair of the hound will do you good,” he assured me, blue eyes crinkling above his flute when I reminded him that I didn’t like to drink while flying.

“Well, okay then. If I have to.”

“To a safe trip.”

“Hear, hear.”

Clink.

My, but how I wished he was coming with me — even then, before I knew what was in store. Even then, before I’d begun to question my own sanity. Even then, before —

But I’m getting ahead of myself again.

I’ll just say that if I’d known then what I knew two days later, I’d have insisted that Harry come along.

Or I’d have stayed at home.