Plot Medics 

There was a rose at the foot of one of the standing stones.

Margaret looked down at it.  Deep red, the breeze ruffling the edges of its petals.

Gulls wheeled against the blue, shrieking like souls denied heaven; the sunlight flared stinging-bright from the water. 

The sun felt as incongruous as the rose.  This was the Highlands, it was supposed to rain.  Had she, subconsciously, come here for that very reason?  Expecting the climate without to match the one within?

After all, it was only another failed affair, only another loss, only another emptiness in a life that seemed to have more gaps than substance.

And now someone had left a rose. 

He never brought me roses, she thought.  She realised she was actually, stupidly, about to cry at the thought, and a sense of her own self-pity swelled up, choking. 

Oh, for crying out loud, Margaret.  Snap out of it.  Stop wailing.

But I’m lonely.

She was still staring at the rose when the tourist coaches pulled up.

Margaret, flinching, hoped they weren’t Americans, prone to acts of sudden random friendliness.  She withdrew behind one of the stones as the two groups walked up the track.

Each group was led by a grey-haired woman.  One’s hair was set in the kind of rigid waves Margaret hadn’t seen for years; drenched in setting lotion and netted nightly so that not one hair escaped its assigned place.
The other had a careless bun from which wisps of silver escaped to wave in the sun. 

Their rich Lewis accents reached her before they did.
“…were going to build a factory here.  Unforrtunately, permission wasn’t granted, and the work went to the mainland…” Set Hair told her group. 

“…and there’s the Old Woman,” said the other Old Woman.  “Can you see her?”  she pointed at the range of hills opposite.  “She’s lying on her back, about to give birth.”

There were some nervous giggles among the tourists.  Margaret, almost despite herself, squinted, trying to see, but apart from a slightly breastlike roundness to the hills couldn’t see anything that looked like a pregnant woman. 

“We used to come up here as girrls,” said the bun.  “Daring each other.  Oh, we got up to some mischief!”  She gave a throaty laugh.

Set Hair, meantime, was pointing out to her group the place where there had been a tragic accident of some sort.

Margaret kept out of the tourists’ way as they photographed the stones, each other, the Old Women (all three) and a scowling toad.  After a few snaps it trudged grumpily off through the grass, blades waving behind it like the wake of a miniature, and very slow, tiger. 

“Oh, a rose,” someone said, and Margaret winced, as though it was herself, not the flower, that had been spotted.

“Och, that’ll be one of those new age lot.  They leave offerings,” said the bun woman.  “Leave it where it is eh?  Don’t want to be offending any gods, now, do we?  Never know who’s given us such a sunny day!”

Set Hair’s mouth thinned.  “Terrible mess, they leave,” she said.

“We’ve time for a cup of tea before the coaches pick us up.  And they do lovely cakes,” said the bun.  The groups set off over the hill beyond the stones.

Margaret hadn’t realised there was a tea-shop.  At least they’d kept it out of sight.  And now she’d heard about it, she wanted tea.  Slowly, aware she’d have to slog back over the hill to pick up her car, she followed the tourists. 

Waiting in line she overheard Set Hair saying to one of the coach drivers, “I’ve got my son and his wife coming over, so as soon as I get back there’s the shopping to do.  Oh, I told George, but he’ll have forgotten, of course.  And everything to be aired.  They’re bringing the children with them.”

“That’s nice, then.”

“They’re all rushing off to the mainland every five minutes.  The boy wants to go to some college down south.  And the way they behave, well, we wouldn’t have had it in my day.”

Bun was talking to one of the tourists.  “Met my Duncan up by the stones, sneaking out of school – oh, we were terrors.  Well, we thought we were.”

“Have you ever left Lewis?”  one of the tourists asked. 
“Och, yes, do you see a chain on my ankle?”

More embarrassed laughter. “We’d planned to go on a cruise, but he passed away not long before we were going to be married.”

Margaret winced again, but Bun didn’t seem distressed; her questioner was far more so. 

“Oh, that’s kind, dear.  Well, yes, he was a lovely man.  I could never fancy anyone else, somehow.  And I did go on the cruise, in the end; after I retired from teaching.  Saw some marvellous things.”  Her accent, and her enthusiasm, make ‘marvellous’ sound full and rich as chocolate mousse.  “I felt as though I had to look at everything more, you see?  Because I was doing it for Duncan as well.  And it was wonderful.  But of course it’s always good to come home.” 

Margaret turned the tea in her hands, looking at Set Hair; her drawstring mouth widening to spill out more miseries.  Behind her, Bun laughed.

Margaret finished her tea, went to the counter, and got a slab of chocolate cake, and one of passionfruit.

She walked back over the hill, eating chocolate cake, licking icing off her fingers, rolling it around her mouth, under the brilliant sky, the birds white as angels.  The stones were silver, full of complex and subtle shadows. 

She put the slab of passionfruit cake next to the rose, saluted the Old Woman of the Moors, (she still couldn’t see her, but it didn’t matter) and walked back to her car, her lips tasting of chocolate and salt.