Runaway Actress (37 page)

If only things could have been different, she thought. If only …

‘Why’s everything always so complicated?’ she asked.

‘It’s not so bad,’ the taxi driver replied. ‘I’m dropping you right outside departures and you’ll find your way no bother.’

Maggie leant forward from the back seat where she was sandwiched in between Hamish and Mikey. Mikey had hold of her hand and kept squeezing it, which Maggie was finding more unsettling than comforting.

‘Listen,’ she told Alastair and Euan in the front, ‘we’ve got to have a plan. We can’t just turn up and expect her to want to come back.’

‘Well, what are we going to say?’ Euan asked, turning to look at Maggie.

‘What do you
want
to say?’ Maggie asked.

‘We might not get to say anything if we don’t make it,’ Hamish said.

Maggie elbowed him. ‘We’ll make it.’

Euan cleared his throat. ‘I’ve said all I can to the lass,’ he said.

‘Then that’s not enough,’ Maggie said.

They were silent as they drove through the hills. It was getting dark and the landscape took on a menacing quality that quite spooked Maggie.

‘Aye, Maggie, I reckon you’re right,’ Euan said. ‘I’ve told her nothing but the facts.’

Maggie nodded. ‘So, you’ve something else you’d like to tell her, then?’

Euan nodded. ‘Aye, and I’ve been wanting to tell her for years.’

‘Good,’ Maggie said. ‘Alastair? What are you going to say?’

‘I don’t know,’ he said in a strange half-whisper.

‘Well, you’d better think. This is one time you shouldn’t leave it to improvisation.’

Hamish laughed at his sister.

‘What?’ she snapped.

‘You’d make a good director, Mags.’

Maggie sat back in her seat and frowned. ‘This has got to work,’ she said quietly. ‘We’ve got to tell her how we all feel about her.’

Everyone fell silent for a few moments.

‘So, Alastair?’ Maggie said a few minutes later. ‘You’re going to tell her you love her, aren’t you?’

Alastair shifted uneasily in the driver’s seat.

‘Euan?’

Euan wiped a large hand over his face.

‘
Guys?
’ Maggie pushed. ‘She needs to know. We’ve all got to tell her because we
all
love her, don’t we? It doesn’t matter about gender or age or if we only like westerns:
everyone
loves Connie and love’s the one thing that will keep her here.’

Alastair shook his head. ‘Not in my experience. Love’s the thing that makes you leave.’

‘You’re talking rubbish, Alastair!’ Maggie said. ‘Tell him, Mikey.’

‘Aye, Alastair. You’re talking out of your backside, mate. Love’s the thing that brought me back,’ he said, giving Maggie’s hand another squeeze. She squeezed his right back.

‘You’ve got to put your past behind you, Alastair,’ Maggie said.

‘What do you know about my past?’ he asked, turning around from the front seat for a brief moment.

‘Oh, everyone knows about your past!’ Maggie said. ‘You can’t move to a place like Lochnabrae from London and not expect people to find out.’

Alastair’s forehead furrowed in consternation. ‘Do you know about it?’ he asked Euan.

‘About Sara Constantine? Aye.’ Euan nodded.

‘Hamish?’

‘Aye,’ Hamish said. ‘Everybody knows.’

‘And we’re really sorry,’ Maggie said. ‘It was a terrible thing to happen but you can’t let it follow you around forever.’

Maggie watched as Alastair stared straight ahead at the road. He had a strange expression on his face that seemed to blend anger, insecurity and tenderness all at once. What was he thinking of ? Maggie so desperately wanted to know and be able to reach out to him and assure him that everything would be all right. The only problem was, she wasn’t at all sure that it would be.

After Alastair had left Connie at the B&B, he’d returned to his cottage and told Sara what had happened. He told her about the night by the loch and how he’d fallen in love with Connie and had been unutterably grateful that Sara hadn’t made a scene.

‘Do you want me to talk to her?’ she’d asked, her eyes full of compassion.

He’d shaken his head. ‘I don’t think she’d listen to anyone.’

‘Well, I think it best if I go – right now,’ she’d said. ‘I don’t want to be the cause of any more trouble.’

She’d called for a taxi and they’d said their goodbyes and Alastair had spent the rest of the day in a stupor, wondering what on earth he could do to make Connie believe him.

Now, sitting in the car surrounded by his friends, he prayed he wasn’t too late to make things work with Connie. He cringed to his very soul when he thought of the way he’d treated her – treated
all
the LADS during rehearsals. He’d just been so afraid of working with a professional actress again. After his experience with Sara, he was terrified of the past repeating itself.

But Connie isn’t Sara. Even Sara isn’t Sara any more, he told himself. The past was well and truly wrapped up and Sara was gone.

Aye,
he thought,
but that doesn’t mean Connie wants any part of the present with me.

His mind wandered for a moment.

Perhaps if I gave up directing,
he thought. If he was absolutely honest with himself, it was a feeling that he’d been slowly acknowledging for a long time now. He could still write for the LADS and the theatre although he realised that he’d been slowly moving away from that too. What was happening to him? Was this a new Alastair? Just like Connie had been trying to find a new person by coming to Lochnabrae, so too had he. Perhaps they could find themselves together, he thought wistfully.

‘Turn here, Alastair!’ Mikey suddenly bellowed from the back seat.

Alastair blinked in surprise. They’d arrived at the airport.

‘Here! Park here!’ Maggie shouted a moment later.

Euan fished in his pocket for some coins and the five of them were soon running towards departures.

‘How often do planes leave for LA?’ Hamish asked.

‘I have no idea,’ Maggie said. ‘Too often, in my opinion. Gosh, I hope she’s still here.’

They reached a huge board listing departures and five pairs of eyes urgently scanned it.

‘I don’t see anything,’ Maggie said. ‘There’s no LA here.’

‘Maybe she’s changing somewhere,’ Hamish suggested.

‘I’ll go and ask someone,’ Euan said.

‘I’ll go,’ Alastair said, and they all watched as he walked over to an information desk.

‘What’s taking so long?’ Maggie asked a moment later.

‘Calm down, Maggie,’ Mikey said. ‘Panicking won’t help.’

‘Everything’s taking so long.
Too
long!’

Mikey sighed. ‘I don’t like it any more than you but we’ve got to be patient,’ he said and then nodded and smiled. ‘There, you see.’

Maggie watched as Alastair walked back towards them.

‘Is she here?’ Maggie blurted.

‘Are we in time?’ Hamish added.

Alastair’s face was grim and he shook his head. ‘The last plane to LA left ten minutes ago. We’re too late.’

It took at least twenty minutes for the men to get Maggie to leave the airport. She just wouldn’t believe that they’d failed.

‘Ask again, Alastair!’ she kept saying. ‘You must’ve got it wrong.’

Finally, Mikey took her hand in his and pulled her into his body in a warm embrace and Maggie cried. It was what she needed to do and he knew that. Alastair felt terrible because he knew it was all his fault but what could he do now? He couldn’t stop a plane in mid-flight, and following Connie to LA wasn’t likely to work. He had to face facts: he’d let her go. More than that – he’d chased her away.

‘You can write to her, Mags,’ Hamish said, placing a hand on his sister’s shoulder. ‘We could
all
write to her.’

Maggie looked up, her head emerging from Mikey’s chest. ‘You could tell her how much you want to see her again,’ she told Euan. ‘And you could tell her how much you love her,’ she told Alastair.

Alastair nodded. Although his profession was writing, he was lousy when it came to letters but he thought it best not to tell Maggie that right now.

‘Do you think she’ll come back?’ Maggie asked.

‘She came once, didn’t she?’ Mikey said. ‘She could come again.’

Maggie mopped her eyes and gave an almighty sniff and the five of them left the airport.

They drove in silence all the way back, each lost in their own thoughts. Alastair tried to think of something cheerful to say, knowing how upset Maggie was and only guessing at the pain that Euan was in, but nothing came to mind and so they drove on, the Land Rover devouring the miles until they reached the familiar hills of home at last.

‘Alastair?’ Maggie asked from the back seat. ‘Can we go via Rossburn Castle?’

He glanced at Maggie quickly through the rear-view mirror. ‘What do you want to see that old place for, Maggie?’

‘Can we?’

‘She won’t be there,’ Euan said softly from the front of the car. It was the first time he’d spoken in hours.

‘I know,’ Maggie said. ‘I just want to see it.’

Alastair sighed. ‘Okay then,’ he said, and he made the turn that would lead to Lochnabrae via the old castle.

Alastair knew what was going through Maggie’s brain. She was hoping Connie would be there – that, somehow, she wasn’t crossing the Atlantic in a plane for America and that she’d chosen to stay in Lochnabrae. He sometimes envied her that optimism. When the whole world seemed bleak and black, Maggie would invariably spy a ray of light. But there was no ray of light for Alastair; he felt awful. He didn’t even dare think about tomorrow or the day after that. How was he going to be able to go on with the knowledge that he’d probably ruined his one good chance at happiness and broken the heart of someone who’d finally put their precious trust in him?

He thought of Connie’s beautiful pale face and those enormous bright eyes that were so full of life, and knew he was going to punish himself for the rest of his life for having lied to her. What had he been thinking of ? Did he really think he could have sorted things out quietly with Sara and that Connie would never find out about it?

As the road steepened, the car slowed, taking the bends in its stride. Alastair noticed that Maggie had moved forward and was staring out of the window so that, when they made it over the brow of the hill, she was the first to see it.

‘There’s a light on,’ Maggie said.

‘Don’t be daft,’ Alastair said.

‘There is – look!’

Everybody looked out into the night and, sure enough, a solitary arch-shaped window in Rossburn Castle was lit up.

‘Now, don’t go getting your hopes up, Maggie,’ Euan said. ‘There’s probably a perfectly good explanation for it.’

‘Like what?’ Maggie asked.

‘It could be Mr Forsyth keeping an eye on the place,’ Euan said.

‘It’s the middle of the night!’ Maggie said.

‘Or Isla – tidying it up a bit,’ Euan added.

‘Euan!’

‘I’m only saying – don’t get your hopes up.’

Maggie wasn’t the only one getting her hopes up. Alastair swallowed hard as they pulled into the driveway of the castle.

‘Hurry up!’ Maggie urged, clambering over Mikey to get out of the Land Rover before it had stopped.

Alastair killed the engine but left the lights on and everyone got out.

‘Maggie!’ Hamish hissed. ‘Be careful. It could be anyone in there.’

Mikey caught up with her just as she reached the heavy front door.

‘It’s open,’ Maggie whispered.

‘I’ll go first,’ Mikey said.

‘Okay but just hurry,’ Maggie said, following Mikey as he pushed the door open. Alastair followed with Hamish and Euan behind him.

‘Hello?’ Maggie called into the enormous entrance hall of the castle. It was pretty grim in there. The walls were flaking plaster and a damp smell filled the air.

‘There’s a light on in the next room,’ Mikey said, spying a sliver of light from under an enormous oak door.

The five of them edged towards it and Alastair was sure that everyone around him would be able to hear his heartbeat as Maggie pushed the door open into a large living room.

There, standing by a gigantic fireplace, surrounded by suitcases, was Connie, her red hair gleaming in the light from half a dozen candles.

‘Connie!’ Alastair said.

She turned, her eyes wide as she took in the five of them standing there.

‘CONNIE!’ Maggie yelled, running into the room and flinging herself at her. ‘We thought you’d gone!’

Alastair stood watching. She was still there. She was right in front of him.

Maggie turned and looked at him. ‘Tell her!’ she said. ‘Tell her what you were going to say.’

Silence filled the great room as Connie and Alastair looked at one another.

‘Alastair!’ Maggie urged. ‘You said you’d tell her.’

‘Connie,’ he said, stepping forward, feeling the intensity of Maggie’s gaze upon him.

‘We love you!’ Maggie suddenly blurted. ‘We all love you!’

A surprised laugh escaped Connie.

‘We drove all the way to the airport,’ Maggie told her.

‘So did I!’ Connie said.

‘So you
were
going to leave?’ Hamish asked.

‘Yes,’ Connie said. ‘But I couldn’t go.’ They all stared at her. ‘And then I got back to Isla’s and she handed me this envelope.’

‘The key to the castle!’ Hamish said.

‘It looks like the place is going to be mine,’ Connie said.

‘Didn’t I say?’ Maggie said. ‘I told Connie she should buy this place! And I just knew she’d be here tonight.’

‘Did you?’ Connie said.

‘Well, I wasn’t sure but I hoped for it – I hoped for it
so
much!’ Maggie said, a huge grin plastered on her face.

‘So, you’re staying?’ Mikey asked.

Alastair watched Connie closely for her response and saw her swallow.

‘I’m not sure yet,’ she said.

It was then that Euan stepped out from the shadows and the room was so quiet you could have heard the wings of a bat beating if one had decided to fly down from the battlements at that precise moment.

‘Connie, lass,’ he said, ‘I wish you’d stay.’

‘You do?’ Connie said.

‘Aye,’ Euan said. ‘I do. There’s so much I want to say to you. So much time we need to make up for.’