A Debt of Honour – Episode 23
A Debt Of Honour
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- 1. A Debt of Honour – Episode 23
It had been a lovely morning and afternoon.
Shauna and Neil had drifted around art galleries and coffee shops and talked – an easy, endless flow of reconnecting.
It was a strange experience to discover anew the man she had left behind.
So many of his mannerisms were the same. Yet instead of the quiet, risk-averse bank clerk, she found a completely new person.
Someone with an open mind, whose interests covered just about anything from art to books to music.
When she had asked what he meant by climate change affecting the polar ice-cap, he’d talked about how warmer oceans were damaging fish stocks and starving the species relying on them.
He stressed it wasn’t just penguin colonies being wiped out, but birds, whales and all forms of other life under threat.
Mankind, too, because warmer polar seas meant changing weather patterns and more extremes of flood and drought.
For the first time ever, Shauna really understood the issue – and felt fear.
She found herself talking freely about her plans and her worries for Charlie and Ellie.
She talked of the shop she had left behind and her worries of coping with the online shopping revolution.
You can’t fight change; you must adapt to it. It was her responsibility to find a way of keeping the old shop which had been passed on to her afloat.
But time passed and soon they were standing on the station platform as she headed back to Linlithgow to collect her car.
“I’ve been able to cancel everything until now,” Neil said apologetically. “It was mostly meetings.
“Tomorrow is different. We’ll be deciding which degrees are to be awarded, affecting people’s future careers.
“I need what’s left of today and tonight to catch up and prepare.”
“Is your secretary still talking to you?” Shauna teased.
“She’s very tight-lipped on the phone.” Neil smiled. “She has reacted badly to being routed.”
He looked down at her.
“But my offer holds. Why don’t you cancel your hotel and stay in my spare room until graduation?
“It would save you a lot of money. And it would be nice to keep on talking.”
The thought was tempting, but Shauna had been swept off her feet once, and that was enough for a single lifetime.
“We can talk anywhere,” Shauna reasoned. “I want you to meet Ellie.”
“Indeed I shall,” Neil replied. “I’ll drive through at the weekend.
“Now, can you find your way to Linlithgow? Do you remember where you parked your car?”
Shauna laughed.
“ScotRail should get the first bit right. It’s the second bit that’s worrying me.
“It was a couple of streets away from the railway car park, but in which direction?”
She looked up before she stepped through the ticket barrier.
“Neil,” she began, “it’s been great. Seeing you again. Thanks.”
Having come from the other side of the world for these few hours, she was fighting to keep this low key.
He seemed to sense this and nodded.
“It has been a pleasure,” he replied. “Unexpected, but fantastic. I’ll see you on Saturday.”
Shauna pushed through the ticket gate and turned back to wave brightly – although she was feeling anything but bright inside.
How could she have got it so wrong? She’d been so focused on the search and repayment of the debt that she had forgotten the human side.
Namely the fact that people who had once been very close might not settle for being comfortable strangers when they met again after 25 years.
If the original spark was still there, the same chemistry might set it smouldering into flames.
She knew, deep inside, that Neil felt this, too.
It hurt to walk away from him. It was too similar to what she had done before, at an airport’s departures gate.
She’d been half-running to escape her guilt, every bit as much as to hurry towards the man she had chosen instead.
She’d learned the hard way that turning dreams into reality was seldom as easy as you expected.
Shauna blinked back tears. Had that been a bad mistake?
Was it a bigger one to try to turn back time?
To be continued…
