Beneath the plough, the hooves,

the combine harvester,

the uncaring plodding feet,

there is a place where our ancestors

six thousand years ago

buried their dead

within a circle

sained by their priests

for all eternity.

There is no sign now of what went on.

Of the ceremonies or the prayers,

except

for a slight catch in the air,

a silence,

a space around which pipits circle.

High above, the jet plane does not know it is

dissecting sacred space.

Thousands of feet up, the prayers have dissipated

whisked onwards to the stars;

or whipped to nothing in the wind.

The gods have been down graded.

They have decamped to the edge of the field,

to a tiny copse which overhangs a stream.

Drowned by the gurgle of water

and the rustle of leaves

they are unheard by all

but those who look for them.

And listen.

Damsel in Distress

For the first ten miles she had still been crying, angrily scrubbing the tears from her cheeks with her sleeve as she swung the heavy old car around the narrow bends of the country lanes, thoughts of Murray and what he had done reverberating round and round in her brain.

It had not occurred to her to wonder, when she reached the lochside cottage in the early hours of the morning, just whose was the MGF tucked so tidily into the layby behind Murray’s Saab. She had cursed that her customary spot was taken and driven a few hundred yards on down the lane to the next field gate and left her own car there. That was why, when she arrived, hefting her overnight bag over her shoulder, they hadn’t heard her. Why, when she pushed open the gate, turned up the path, let herself in, and run up the narrow wooden stairs no one had realised that she was coming.

She dropped her bag in the doorway and headed in the dark for the bed. ‘Murray! Surprise! I managed to get away!’

It was only as she held out her arms and threw herself towards him that Murray had woken and gasped and reached for the light switch. The woman in bed with him was blonde, at least ten years younger than Ruth and even in that state of surprise, dishevelment and fear, a stunner.

For what seemed like a whole minute the three of them stared at each other in silence, then all three moved at once, the unknown lady to pull the sheets over her head, Murray to reach for his dressing gown and Ruth to turn and run back down the stairs.

Outside a huge full moon had risen over the hill behind the cottage. The silver light flooded the garden and the lane and down across the loch as she ran back towards her car.

‘Ruth!’ Murray’s voice was close behind her. ‘Ruth, darling, wait. I can explain!’ – the words used so often over countless generations by husbands who thought they would never have to say them.

She ignored him, blundering between hedges full of honeysuckle, alive with pale moths, and grabbed at the handle of the car door. For a moment she struggled with it, forgetting she had locked it, then she fumbled in her pocket with shaking hands for her keys, realising as she did so that she had left her bag where she had dropped it on the bedroom carpet.

With a sob she dragged open the door and letting herself in she stabbed the key into the ignition. Behind her Murray had found some shoes for his bare feet and was running up the lane towards her. She slammed down the door locks as the engine caught and throwing the car into gear pulled away, leaving him clawing at the empty air behind her.

The highland cottage, with its whitewashed walls and low slate roof had been her dream. Away from the hurly-burly of their busy lives in Edinburgh, packed diaries, continually ringing phones, e-mails, deadlines, stress and exhaustion, it was a place of sanctuary, a place of peace, a place which, even if they found time to go there together only twice a year, remained vivid and special in the imagination – there always as a dream. Ruth had photos of the cottage pinned up around her desk. There was a beautiful sparkling stone from the shore of the loch on the table as a paperweight, there was a jar of dried heather from the brae behind the honeysuckle hedge on the filing cabinet.

It had been a year earlier that Ruth, suddenly having to cancel a trip to the cottage because of an unexpected conference in Amsterdam, had suggested Murray go on his own. He had demurred, said he wouldn’t enjoy it without her; said they could postpone the visit. But in the end he had gone and enjoyed it and finding that he with his job as a fund manager had far more free weekends than she, with hers as a conference organiser, began to go more and more often without her. ‘I find myself liking the solitude,’ he said. ‘I prefer it when you’re there, sweetheart, of course I do, but on my own it allows me to recharge my batteries in a way I can’t do in the flat…’

‘I’ll bet!’ She slammed her hands on the steering wheel as the car thundered through the darkness. ‘Bastard! How could you! How could you!’

Automatically she was heading back across country towards the flat; her only refuge. Home. On the dashboard a red light was winking. She glanced at it and drove on. Hurling the car into a bend too fast she only just managed to haul it round with difficulty and she slowed at last as adrenaline kicked through her system. She had almost come off the road there. She must drive more slowly. The red light stayed on this time and she squinted down at it. Shit. It was the fuel gauge. Her car ran on diesel. She mustn’t run dry or she’d never get it going again. Normally she filled up in the village before the return trip. Where was she? She had no idea. Her internal drama had been preoccupying her so much she had been paying no attention to the road as it flashed by in the darkness. Even if she had passed a garage it would have been closed. She hadn’t passed another car in what seemed like hours. Was there a spare can in the boot? Murray had warned her to carry one on these long cross country trips but she didn’t even know if the can was there, never mind if it was full. She sniffed hard, trying to fight off another flood of tears, looking for somewhere to stop. The road was narrow, bendy and steep. It would be dangerous to run out here. Even as the thought crossed her mind the car began to jolt over a rough surface and she realised that in her panic she had missed the bend in the road altogether and was hurtling down a rutted track. She braked sharply and the car skidded to a halt. The engine stalled and she saw to her horror that the fuel gauge needle hovered a whisper from empty.