is classic Miranda. Anyone else would be content simply to lounge in the Lodge until dinner, but she’s always looking for adventure. When she first came into my life, some twenty years ago, everything instantly became more exciting.
‘I have to put Priya to bed,’ Samira says, glancing over to where the baby has fallen asleep in her carrier. ‘It’s late for her already.’
‘Fine,’ Miranda says, offhandedly, with barely a glance in Samira’s direction.
I don’t know if she sees Samira’s wounded look. For most of today Miranda has acted as though Priya is a piece of excess baggage. I remember, a couple of years ago, her talk of ‘when Julien and I have kids’. I haven’t seen her enough lately, so I’m not sure whether her indifference is genuine or masking some real personal suffering. Miranda has always been a champion bluffer.
The rest of us – including Giles – traipse outside into the dark. Samira gives him a look as she stalks off towards their cabin – presumably he, too, was meant to go and help with Priya’s bedtime. It’s probably the closest I’ve ever seen them come to a disagreement. They’re such a perfect couple, those two – so respectful, so in sync, so loving – it’s almost sickening.
We walk, stumbling over the uneven ground, down the path towards the water, Bo, Julien and Emma using the torches provided in the Lodge to light the way. In the warmth indoors I’d forgotten how brutal it is outside. It’s so cold it feels as though the skin on my face is shrinking against my skull, in protest against the raw air. Someone grabs my arm and I jump, then realise it’s Miranda.
‘Hello, stranger,’ she says. ‘It’s so good to see you. God I’ve missed you.’ It’s so unusual for her to make that sort of admission – and there is something in the way she says it, too. I glance at her, but it’s too dark to make out her expression.
‘You too,’ I say.
‘And you’ve had your hair cut differently, haven’t you?’ I feel her hand come up to play with the strands framing my face. It is all I can do not to prickle away from her. Miranda has always been touchy-feely – I have always been whatever the opposite of that is.
‘Yes,’ I say, ‘I went to Daniel Galvin, like you told me to.’
‘Without me?’
‘Oh – I didn’t think. I suddenly had a spare couple of hours … we’d closed on something earlier than expected.’
‘Well,’ she says, ‘next time you go, let me know, OK? We’ll make a date of it. It’s like you’ve fallen off the planet lately.’ She lowers her voice. ‘I’ve had to resort to Emma … God, Katie, she’s so nice it does my nut in.’
‘Sorry,’ I say, ‘it’s just that I’ve been so busy at work. You know, trying for partnership.’
‘But it won’t always be like that, will it?’
‘No,’ I say, ‘I don’t think so.’
‘Because I’ve been thinking, recently … remember how it used to be? In our twenties? We’d see each other every week, you and I, without fail. Even if it was just to go out and get drunk on Friday night.’
I nod. I’m not sure she can see though. ‘Yes,’ I say – my voice comes out a little hoarse.
‘Oh God, and the night bus? Both of us falling asleep and going to the end of the line … Kingston, wasn’t it? And that time we went to that twenty-four-hour Tesco and you suddenly decided you had to make an omelette when you got home and you dropped that carton of eggs and it went everywhere – I mean everywhere – and we just decided to run off, in our big stupid heels …’ She laughs, and then she stops. ‘I miss all of that … that messiness.’ There’s so much wistfulness in her tone. I’m glad I can’t see her expression now.
‘So do I,’ I say.
‘Look at you two,’ Julien turns back to us. ‘Thick as thieves. What are you gossiping about?’
‘Come on,’ Giles says, ‘share with the rest of us!’
‘Well,’ Miranda says quickly, leaning into me, ‘I’m glad we have this – to catch up. I’ve really missed you, K.’ She gives my arm a little squeeze and, again, I think I hear the tiniest catch in her voice. A pins-and-needles prickling of guilt; I’ve been a bad friend.
And then she transforms, producing a new bottle of champagne from under her arm and yelling to the others, ‘Look what I’ve got!’
There are whoops and cheers. Giles does a silly dance of delight; he’s like a little boy, letting off pent-up energy. And it seems to be infectious … suddenly everyone is making a lot of noise, talking excitedly, voices echoing in the empty landscape.
Then Emma stops short in front of us, with a quiet exclamation. ‘Oh!’
I see what’s halted her. There’s a figure standing on the jetty that we’re heading for, silhouetted by moonlight. He is quite tall, and standing surprisingly, almost inhumanly, still. The gamekeeper, I think. He’s about the right height. Or maybe one of the other guests we’ve just heard about?
Bo casts his torch up at the figure, and we wait for the man to turn, or at least move. And then Bo begins to laugh. Now we see what he has. It isn’t a man at all. It’s a statue of a man, staring out contemplatively, Antony Gormley-esque.
We all sit down on the jetty and look out across the loch. Every so often there’s a tiny disturbance in the surface, despite there being very little wind. The ripples must be caused by something underneath, the glassy surface withholding these secrets.
Despite the champagne, everyone suddenly seems a bit subdued. Perhaps it’s just the enormity of our surroundings – the vast black peaks rising in the distance, the huge stretch of night sky above, the pervasive quiet – that has awed us into silence.
The quiet isn’t quite all-pervasive, though. Sitting here for long enough you begin to hear other sounds: rustles and scufflings in the undergrowth, mysterious liquid echoes from the loch. Heather told us about the giant pike that live in it – their existence confirmed by the monstrous one mounted on the wall of the Lodge. Huge jaws, sharp teeth, like leftover Jurassic monsters.
I hear the shush-shush of the tall Scots pines above us, swaying in the breeze, and every so often a soft thud: a gust strong enough to disturb a cargo of old snow. Somewhere, quite near, there is the mournful call of an owl. It’s such a recognisable yet strange sound that it’s hard to believe it’s real, not some sort of special effect.
Giles tries to echo the sound: ‘Ter-wit, ter-woo!’
We all laugh, dutifully, but it strikes me that there’s something uneasy in the sound. The call of the owl, such an unusual noise for city dwellers like us, has just emphasised quite how unfamiliar this place is.
‘I didn’t even know there were places like this in the UK,’ Bo says, as if he can read my thoughts.
‘Ah Bo,’ Miranda says, ‘you’re such a Yank. It’s not all London and little chocolate box villages here.’
‘I didn’t realise you got outside the M25 much yourself, Miranda,’ Nick says.
