1
MIA
Look, usually, I love snow. What’s not to like? It’s beautiful. Stars falling from the sky, covering the ground like a soft blank sheet of paper. New. Untouched. Perfect.
But I’m making an exception.
Because this snow might stop me from getting to James McQuoid.
My knuckles are white on the steering wheel. The windscreen wipers are swooshing back and forth like an over-enthusiastic dog’s tail, and the heaters are blasting. The car slides all over the place and I really hope I get to my dad’s best friend’s remote Scottish castle soon. Preferably before I lose control and end up in a ditch.
It began snowing about half an hour ago, almost the same time I turned off the main road, and now the road is only distinguishable from the fields by the little spikes of green sticking out, or the smoothness of the underlying tarmac.
All the way from London I’ve been rolling around in my head ideas of alternatives, and coming up with nothing.
My choices are these: accept the arranged marriage to a man who looked at me like I was a slab of juicy meat, or find my way to the only person who might help me, and plead.
I thought about other options. Running away maybe. But my sheltered life means I haven’t a hope of outrunning my uncle’s mafia for more than a couple of days. I don’t even have a passport.
I have no money, no friends, no family. My entire world is this beaten-up old land rover and a square of white linen. I clutch the napkin between my palm and the steering wheel like it’s a comfort blanket. I know every word on it by heart, but brought it all the same. And I can’t stop touching it, like if I let it go it might disappear, or he won’t be there when I arrive.
I can’t let myself think about that. He’ll be there. He has to be, because if I get to the end of this… well I’m calling it a road but who knows really… If I get to the end of this journey and he’s not there, I suspect that will break me in a way my uncle hasn’t managed in three, long, solitary years.
I still remember when James gave me the napkin. My treasure map. We were in the Indian restaurant we went to every month, the three of us. My dad, James, and me.
In my memory those evenings are a kaleidoscope of colour and taste, almost too much for my senses to take in. The smell of incense and cumin, the yellow light refracted through brass fittings with blurred geometric patterns. The crack of poppadoms and the sour tang of lime pickle with a kick of chilli. My fingers covered with buttery ghee and the sweet scent of garlic on pillowy naan bread.
I loved every moment of those dinners with them. Both of them.
We had rambling conversations. Sometimes James and my dad would talk shop, occasionally getting heated about some moral or financial controversy as they drank pints of bubbly lager that coated their stubbly top lips in white foam. But usually it was all fun and banter. My dad teased James about being a ladies’ man, and James always denied it with a grumpy growl.
It wasn’t until I was in my teens that I began to be weirdly jealous of James’ hypothetical women. The ones he maintained didn’t even exist. My heart started to flutter when he pulled me in for a hug when we arrived. A silly crush.
When I think about it now, it was weird to go for a curry every month with two dangerous, powerful mafia bosses. Dad told me once that I was the perfect excuse. He took his daughter for dinner, and no one suspected he was catching up with his old friend. Because kingpins ought not to be friends. Not part of the code of toxic masculinity, or something. All I know is that all my life there was me and my dad and James. I didn’t see Dad that much day to day, he was always busy. But once a month, like clockwork, we would go out.
One night, there was news about a nuclear threat. James’ green eyes—more compelling and inspiring than any nature program about the jungle—went serious. Grabbing up the fourth napkin on the table, he unfolded it and dug a pen from the pocket of the suit jacket he’d discarded hours earlier.
“You drive to Inverness, then you take the road north. After an hour, you turn off to the right towards the mountain that looks like this.” He drew an outline on the fabric. Then like an illustrated map at the front of a fantasy novel, he talked me through the route to his remote Scottish castle.
He gave me the napkin with a smile, and said, “There are three people in the world who know where my home is.”
And now, I guess there are two.
It was thick cotton, none of that flimsy disposable stuff. Heavy like a promise.
I protested this was stealing, and James smirked and said that it was high time I began my life of crime, given my family. My dad rolled his eyes, and I saw him leave a hefty tip to make up for James’ and my theft.
I hid the map in my underwear drawer and took it out from time to time. I imagined myself finding a way to go north and find him.
But I didn’t, because he hadn’t come for me after Dad died. Not even a condolence card with a picture of a lily and some trite phrase.
After my father’s death, I was unfulfilled and unloved. Lonely. But no one bothered with me much, and I managed.
But being trapped for the rest of my life, in marriage?
No. No way.
I round a corner and the castle looms suddenly out of the flickering white. Shit. This is it.
