All that remains

by Angela Robb

An iScot Short Story

A LEC had been unsure how the container would fare, resting on the front passenger seat on such a winding road as this. He had thought it might be safest on the floor, but dismissed this idea at once, appalled at his own lack of decorum. Anne was his wife and she would ride by his side as she always had. He had carefully fastened the seatbelt around the container (the word ‘urn’ had a morbid ring that he despised), and so far, so good.

‘Nearly there now,’ he said.

The words were lightweight, matterof- fact; they tripped casually off the tongue but settled like a shroud over his heart. His destination, he reminded himself, was an illusory journey’s end, and it would bring him no comfort. But Toby was glad of the news, stretching his front paws across the back seat and yawning deeply.

A grey loch lay to the left as the road straightened at last. Tiny wavelets harried one another across its surface, only to perish on the sandy shore. Alec wondered at the power of nature to drive all things to their inevitable end. The waves, like the motorists coursing through the landscape, seemed in an unnatural hurry to get there.

He lowered his window to let in the clean Highland air. If only Anne could have come up here just once in those final six months, perhaps it could have saved her; but she was too ill to travel, and they had both known that she would never see her favourite place again. She had taken solace in expressing her wish that her ashes should be scattered there. As the first anniversary approached, several friends had offered to accompany him, to help him carry out that wish. He’d felt pressured to get on with it.

With this thought, the gleaming Range Rover grille that had occupied his rear-view mirror for the last five miles suddenly became a problem. Alec was not a quick-tempered man – nor would any amount of tailgating persuade him to hasten his and Anne’s parting – but this was anti-social behaviour, and he glared at the bespectacled figure too clearly visible in the mirror with a malice he had seldom felt for anyone.