East Fortune (33 page)

He and Maggie had taken it in turns to get up and walk the floor with them. Sometimes he would hold the two of them together, one in each arm against his chest. He had woken between two and four in the morning ever since.

Perhaps it could happen again, he thought. Perhaps he could restart his life, no longer worrying about the expectation of his parents, the rivalry with his brothers, the distance and inevitable separation from his daughters. He could leave his former life behind.

He tried to think what the future might mean.

Adam.

He thought how the recent past had changed him: the suicide of Sandy, the death of his father, the meeting with Krystyna, the birth of her child. If so much could happen in a year, how much more could happen in a life?

He looked up into the wooden rafters above him. He could not imagine sleeping. He did not know how long it would be until it was light.

He spoke again to Krystyna.

‘Are you still awake?' he asked.

‘What are you thinking?'

‘I was wondering what it would be like to stay here.'

There was silence.

First Jack waited; then he thought that Krystyna had fallen asleep.

He was about to turn away and try to sleep once more when he heard her reply.

‘You are already here.'

‘I meant for longer than a night.'

‘Stay as long as you like,' she said. ‘It is your turn.'

‘I suppose it is.'

‘And then, perhaps, when we are ready, we can return together. Or go somewhere new, somewhere neither of us have ever been; as if we have no past.'

Before he had met Krystyna Jack had thought that his life was going to be little more than a slow decline towards oblivion; but he knew now that to be calm was to be removed, alone, and he wanted its opposite: to be involved, to be with another, to sell his life upon adventure.

At first he had mistaken the signs, thinking of Krystyna's absence and departure as a betrayal, but now he recognised it for what it was: an opportunity to come to terms with the possible, a chance, perhaps, to gather energy for a renewed assault on love and on death and on fear. It was the beginning of hope.

‘What is stopping you?' Krystyna asked.

Jack looked out of the dark window.

‘Nothing is stopping me,' he said.

Still the snow fell.

East Fortune is a real place, twenty miles east of Edinburgh, but the Henderson family home, the kirk and the river are all fictional.

I am grateful to the Meiklejohn, Stuart-Smith, Raven, and Balfour families for their inspiration.

I would like to thank early readers, friends, and colleagues: Georgina Brown, Magdalena Buchan, Douglas Cairns, Peter Chalmers, Pip Clothier, David Godwin, Erica Jarnes, Neville Kidd, Anna Ledgard, Rona Lewis, Allan Little, Joanna MacGregor, Juliette Mead, Henry and Merrie McKenzie-Johnston, Mary Morris, Alex Nicholson, Kathryn Patrick, Sarah Peat, Luisa Pretolani, Alexandra Pringle, Marie Lou Shoenmakers, Gillian Stern, Mary Tomlinson, Pip Torrens, Jo Willett.

I have relied on the Loeb Classical Library version of the
De Rerum Natura
by Lucretius (
On the Nature of Things,
Harvard, 1975) and the translation by the American poet Rolfe Humphries (
The Way Things Are,
Indiana University Press, 1968).

James Runcie is the author of three novels,
The Discovery
of Chocolate, The Colour of Heaven
and
Canvey Island. He
is
also an award-winning film-maker. Recently he directed
a documentary following a year in the life of J.K. Rowling.
James Runcie lives in Edinburgh with his wife and two daughters.

The Discovery of Chocolate

The Colour of Heaven

Canvey Island

First published in Great Britain 2009

Copyright © 2009 by James Runcie

This edition published 2012 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

The moral right of the author has been asserted

Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
50 Bedford Square
London WC1B 3DP

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 9781408833667

All rights reserved. You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages

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