Free The High Places by Fiona McFarlane

manliness: liquor and modes of transport and the distances between places. Among the sharp, pointed objects of the male world they sat quietly, and Murray asked again, ‘Scotch, Eric?’
    â€˜Oh, no,’ said Amy. ‘No, he’s just brushed his teeth. So have I. We’ll wait. Wouldn’t go, would it – toothpaste and whiskey?’
    â€˜If for no other reason,’ said Eric. Sombre. Janet looked, and he winked. Don’t wink, thought Janet. You’re not a boy. She was susceptible to winks. They prevented her from feeling overlooked, and notice of this kind caused her heart to flower with gratitude. Made nervous – more nervous – she reached for her empty wine glass, then drew back. A funnel of lamplight fell over Eric and Amy. Janet told Murray she would join him at the bar.
    â€˜What was all that about?’ said Murray. ‘The not drinking?’
    â€˜Yes, what?’
    It was about too much, or too little.
    â€˜Do you think he’s…?’
    â€˜Couldn’t be.’
    â€˜What’s he drunk other nights?’
    â€˜Not much. Never what you’d call too much.’
    â€˜The truth, then? Toothpaste?’
    â€˜Don’t they want us paying? Is that it?’
    They could only conclude: Don’t worry, not our business. People arrived at the bar later than they had and were served first. The Dwyers tested out their Greek on each other, then ordered haltingly in English. Behind them the music rose in volume and couples began unexpectedly to dance – unexpected to Janet, although she had imagined hotels of this kind and people dancing in them. The lights were lowered on the tables and the dance floor was illuminated. The Andersons were dancing. So the Dwyers hesitated in the semi-darkness. Diminished, utterly, by their fear of the Andersons, who had found Greece – Amy had found Greece – and now moved as if through grape vines and olive groves, over the hard ground toward the mountains. The sea would rise up to meet them; the original sea. The Dwyers waited beyond the lights with extravagant drinks in their hands. They stood foolishly, and they stood without speaking to one another. They were afraid, and they waited.
    *   *   *
    You might say Janet had brought the Andersons together, although this wasn’t quite true. They were engaged when the Dwyers first met them, but toward the end of Eric’s PhD Amy considered breaking it off. She’d fallen in love, she confessed to Janet, with someone else, someone whose greatness of character , whose kindness and deep commitment to love were qualities, lacking in Eric, she couldn’t afford to be without. Janet approved of these vague qualities – she recognised them so acutely in Murray that she worried, briefly, that Amy might have fallen in love with her own husband – and disapproving of Eric’s magnificence, she experimentally encouraged her friend to pursue this new man.
    â€˜First I have to leave Eric,’ said Amy. ‘There needs to be a definitive break.’
    It was decided they would go away together, Amy and Janet; Amy had finished her Fulbright year and Janet could be spared from work – her teaching credentials weren’t acceptable in England, so she filed records in a doctor’s surgery. Then it became clear that Murray would have to come too, because without Janet he floundered in their dim flat, which felt at this time of year exactly like a sad hotel. Janet had always wanted to go to Cornwall. When they began the drive, with Amy in the back seat, it felt to them all a little like a kidnapping.
    This was a bad time to be in Cornwall: early December, the cold days after a flood. Water remained in the low streets of the town in which they rented a small house. The town had gathered itself on the cliffs as if in preparation for a springtime suicide. The houses were narrow and grey, the hills were green, and continual sleet