Second Honeymoon

Second Honeymoon

By Ian Stuart (excerpt)

Onaig is on an island in the Scottish Highlands, a row of white-washed cottages nestling between a tiny harbour and the steep slope of Ben Onaig a hundred miles from nowhere. The hotel, small, stone-built, and Victorian, is perched a couple of hundred feet up the brae. It was hardly Helen’s scene. Perhaps she really did hope it would revive their marriage. Or maybe she hankered for the days when her life with Mike seemed to promise everything they wanted. Which was unlikely too; Helen wasn’t that sentimental. Remote villages were the nightlife, consisted of drinking to her about as much as children or a diet of cold porridge. They were a drag.

Mike wondered is she could know about Tracy and him. After all, they saw a good deal of each other. Tracy Collins was Helen’s cousin and her sole surviving relative apart from him.

Helen had introduced them. Mike wondered about that too. It was almost as if she had been deliberately bringing them together, inviting Tracy to that party three month ago, then going away for a fortnight, leaving him on his own with Tracy only a couple of streets away in her new flat. She must have seen they were attracted to each other that first evening; Helen wouldn’t have missed that.

Tracy was tall and slim, with the dark languorous beauty Mike always found irresistible. Beside her Helen looked pale, almost washed out. Maybe she thought Tracy would provide a distraction, keeping Mike’s off her while she was having fun with Clive Benson. Not that Mike cared any longer.

He had no illusions where his wife was concerned. They had been married only a few weeks when she made it clear that she had married him for his money. Not enirely, she quite liked him and he attracted her physically, but mainly. Love was something Helen didn’t understand.

Second Honeymoon. Photo by Elena

Mike being the man he was, at first the situation amused him. He was a wealthy young man. Lanyon’s had been a thriving business when he inhereted it, and it had grown considerably since then. Like Helen, he was an only child and his parents were both dead.

By the time Helen introduced him to Tracy the amusement had changed to bitterness. They quarreled more often and mor angrily. And it was always Helen who capitulated in the end; she had no intention of jeoparising her position.

“She keeps on about Onaig,” he told me once when we met at a business lunch. “Damned if I can see why.”

I coulnd’t either. Not then.

They decided to go for ten days the next month. As Helen said, feigning surprise at Mike’s suggestion, it would make a change, and they could always go to the Caribbean or Sardinia as usual in the autumn. She was clever enough not to appear too pleased, but Mike saw the glint of satisfaction in her eyes. If only she knew, he thought.

The tourist season was only just getting under way in the Highlands in early May, and Mike’s secretary was able to reserve the room they had occupied before at the Ben Onaig Hotel. Somehow Helen had come up with the number. She arranged to take her car up to Inverness on the overnight Motorail train on the Friday and drive to Oban from there. Her Rover 214 convertible was more convenient than Mike’s big Jag.

On the Thursday afternoon he left his office early and took a taxi to Tracy’s flat in Pimlico. She was even mor affectionate and exciting than usual and Mike was delighted. They spent a very enjoyable two hours, then he went home.

“If won’t be long now,” he told her as he was leaving.

Tracy kissed him as if she hadn’t seen him for months. “I can’t wait, darling,” she breathed.

(Ellery Queen, Mystery Magazine, September 1993)