slow-heartburn ache.
On the bus home, she stared out the window into a day half lost in mistâmist from the river, mist from tears. Going over and over the encounter, it was the tone of Aliceâs voice that hurt. Iâve nothing to say to you. There had been a hint of pity, of disdain. Or was it indifference?
Walking the last stretch from the bus stop to home, Joanne again considered her part in the betrayal of Alice Ramsay.
She owned up to being foolish, naive even, admitted sheâd been flattered by Dougald Forsythe, seduced by him calling her a fellow artist. When sheâd protested, heâd said, âYou are a writer, therefore an artist.â Fatal word, that, artist .
Her loneliness she considered. Then dismissed. I have a husband who is not only the man I love but a friend. I have Chiara Kowalski. Her friendship with the Italian refugee and incomer to this insular town was warm and true. But since Chiaraâs marriage and the birth of her son, they met less frequently. Joanne had a sister she saw less than she should. She had a mother she barely communicated with. The violence in her first marriage had isolated her. The common knowledge of her divorce made her reluctant to seek new friends.
Meeting Alice Ramsay was like having a character in a story come to life. Her independence, her home, her books, her work, her way of talking, and her dedication to her art were familiar to Joanne only from novels or articles in one of McAllisterâs literary magazines. An artist was not someone she expected to meet in the wilds of Scotland. Paris or London, yes. Edinburgh even. But to know one herself had always seemed like too great a dream for Joanne to harbor.
I was wrong. I made a mistake. And it has cost me a possible friendship.
She couldnât yet recognize it, but in accepting the loss and acknowledging her part in the debacle, Joanne had changed. Healed. She was leaving behind, slowly but surely, her former self, a woman with no identity except that of daughter to a tyrant father, wife to an equally cruel husband, and mother to two young girls. To see herself as a writer, an artist even, was her dream. Meeting Alice Ramsay, seeing how she lived and worked, had made that fantasy seem possible.
Write, Joanne told herself. Escape into the romancing of a bonnie lassie by her Highland hero. Write anything and everything to block out the glums.
So she did.
Joanne knew that her husband would have good suggestions, good insights into her struggles to find a plot for a novel. But she knew she wouldnât ask. To show him a finished manuscript, for him to be overwhelmed with admiration, that was her fantasy. After three days of thinking and two more days of anxiety, she decided she had to talk to someone who knew about writing.
â Highland Gazette . How may I help you?â It was a new girl on reception, and Joanne couldnât remember her name. That made her sad. The Gazette had saved her, made her who she now was.
Having started as a part-time typist and evolved into a part-time then full-time journalist, her work had given her an income and an escape from her former husband. Initially, she had been intimidated by the new editor, John McAllister. Marrying him had been beyond her imagination . A man like him marry a woman like me ? she would have asked. For a man to take on a divorcée and two children was rare, especially in a society decimated by war, where women outnumbered men. For a man as respected and accomplished and prosperous as McAllister to do so was practically unheard of.
She missed working, missed the day-to-day chats, the laughter, the controlled chaos of deadline day. Don McLeod, the deputy editor, and Rob McLean, friend and fellow reporter, even Hector Bain, the all-round nuisance but brilliant photographerâshe missed them.
What she didnât regret was not working with McAllister now that their relationship had changed. He made her nervous; nothing
On the bus home, she stared out the window into a day half lost in mistâmist from the river, mist from tears. Going over and over the encounter, it was the tone of Aliceâs voice that hurt. Iâve nothing to say to you. There had been a hint of pity, of disdain. Or was it indifference?
Walking the last stretch from the bus stop to home, Joanne again considered her part in the betrayal of Alice Ramsay.
She owned up to being foolish, naive even, admitted sheâd been flattered by Dougald Forsythe, seduced by him calling her a fellow artist. When sheâd protested, heâd said, âYou are a writer, therefore an artist.â Fatal word, that, artist .
Her loneliness she considered. Then dismissed. I have a husband who is not only the man I love but a friend. I have Chiara Kowalski. Her friendship with the Italian refugee and incomer to this insular town was warm and true. But since Chiaraâs marriage and the birth of her son, they met less frequently. Joanne had a sister she saw less than she should. She had a mother she barely communicated with. The violence in her first marriage had isolated her. The common knowledge of her divorce made her reluctant to seek new friends.
Meeting Alice Ramsay was like having a character in a story come to life. Her independence, her home, her books, her work, her way of talking, and her dedication to her art were familiar to Joanne only from novels or articles in one of McAllisterâs literary magazines. An artist was not someone she expected to meet in the wilds of Scotland. Paris or London, yes. Edinburgh even. But to know one herself had always seemed like too great a dream for Joanne to harbor.
I was wrong. I made a mistake. And it has cost me a possible friendship.
She couldnât yet recognize it, but in accepting the loss and acknowledging her part in the debacle, Joanne had changed. Healed. She was leaving behind, slowly but surely, her former self, a woman with no identity except that of daughter to a tyrant father, wife to an equally cruel husband, and mother to two young girls. To see herself as a writer, an artist even, was her dream. Meeting Alice Ramsay, seeing how she lived and worked, had made that fantasy seem possible.
Write, Joanne told herself. Escape into the romancing of a bonnie lassie by her Highland hero. Write anything and everything to block out the glums.
So she did.
Joanne knew that her husband would have good suggestions, good insights into her struggles to find a plot for a novel. But she knew she wouldnât ask. To show him a finished manuscript, for him to be overwhelmed with admiration, that was her fantasy. After three days of thinking and two more days of anxiety, she decided she had to talk to someone who knew about writing.
â Highland Gazette . How may I help you?â It was a new girl on reception, and Joanne couldnât remember her name. That made her sad. The Gazette had saved her, made her who she now was.
Having started as a part-time typist and evolved into a part-time then full-time journalist, her work had given her an income and an escape from her former husband. Initially, she had been intimidated by the new editor, John McAllister. Marrying him had been beyond her imagination . A man like him marry a woman like me ? she would have asked. For a man to take on a divorcée and two children was rare, especially in a society decimated by war, where women outnumbered men. For a man as respected and accomplished and prosperous as McAllister to do so was practically unheard of.
She missed working, missed the day-to-day chats, the laughter, the controlled chaos of deadline day. Don McLeod, the deputy editor, and Rob McLean, friend and fellow reporter, even Hector Bain, the all-round nuisance but brilliant photographerâshe missed them.
What she didnât regret was not working with McAllister now that their relationship had changed. He made her nervous; nothing
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