Free The Eidolon by Libby McGugan Page B

birthday tomorrow. Did you remember to get her something?” I rub my forehead. Every year. Why is it so difficult?
    “Well, maybe you should take a trip to the pottery tomorrow to get her a wee present – I’m sure Cora would be good enough to sell you something. Unless you want to get her one of those plastic sunflowers that Flora’s selling in the post office.” I grin, but my heart clenches at the thought of meeting Cora, even though she’s the reason I came here.
    Casimir reaches into his pocket. “Give this to your mother for me tomorrow, will you?” He hands me a wooden letter opener. Its smooth handle and sharp teeth are carefully carved, but with minor inconsistencies that wouldn’t be made by a machine, and I know without asking that Casimir made it himself.
    “Why don’t you give her it yourself? We’ll drop by and see you.”
    “Aye, and you’d be very welcome,” says Casimir. “But you hold onto it, just in case.” He sits back and appraises me, as he does from time to time whenever we meet, his fingers slowly twirling the glass on the table. “You’ve done well for yourself, Robert.”
    I snort. “What do you mean? Unemployment?”
    “No,” says Casimir. “What you’ve done with your life. Physics, computer science, your research posts – that’s quite an achievement.”
    “Still hasn’t got me a job, though,” I reply. “If it hadn’t been for all your years of brainwashing about life, the universe and all that, I’d have a real job by now.”
    Casimir chuckles and finishes his drink. “Maybe you’d do me a wee favour and see me home? I find it a bit tricky when the light fades.”
    “A pleasure.” I swallow the remainder of my pint and stand up to help Casimir, waving to Tam as we leave, who nods almost imperceptibly in response.
     
     
    A LTHOUGH C ASIMIR HOLDS onto my arm, he strides ahead with little hesitation, oblivious to the cutting wind. The elements have never phased him. The weather was just something else to add background interest to whatever he was doing. He’s just as stubborn now, even if he has aged. “How are your bees doing?” I ask.
    “They died in the summer, the whole bloody lot of them.”
    “All of them? What happened?”
    “No warning at all,” says Casimir. “They just up and died one day, and that was that. It’s happening all over the place. If Einstein’s right, we’ve got about four years left.” He glances at me, a faint smile in his expression. “That’ll about do me, anyway.”
    “Och, don’t talk rubbish.” But I feel a stab in my chest at the thought. I don’t like talking about mortality with an old person. It makes me uncomfortable. They’re in a place I don’t understand, edging closer, every single day. We all do, I suppose, but when we’re young, we have the luxury of choosing ignorance. I’m in no rush to spoil the illusion, and Casimir knows it. He doesn’t elaborate. His was a statement of fact, nothing more. It’s one of the gulfs of age that will always be there.
    We reach the edge of the village and make our way up the gentle incline to Casimir’s cottage. It’s a simple single-storey white dwelling, ablaze with climbing flowers in the summer, but unassuming and somewhat bare now, apart from a few white daffodils peeping out from pots beside the front door. The late afternoon light is fading in the eastern sky, and as we arrive at Casimir’s gate, I turn to take in the sunset, breathing deeply.
    You can taste the air here – it’s clean and fresh, like a spring from a mountainside. The mouth of the glen reaches out towards the sea, and the village, with its spire and its hunched terraced houses, lies nestled in the basin of the ancient land. Behind us, stretching to the east, the snow-capped mountains rise like they’re guarding the glen’s secrets, but the younger southern sentries are smaller, rolling down to the low ground. You can see the skies to the south through the gap between the mountains