The Star Witness

by Andy Hamilton

  I let the rhythm of the waves take me over. There is a kind of slow melody to them. But, every now and then, an incoming wave meets the gentle ripples of a receding one and creates a lateral explosive charge, accelerating across the shallows. I become hypnotised by this effect. One dying wave meets another fading one and produces this electrifying slash. How is that happening? And why not every time the waves meet? What energises it?

  Mac is now a distant speck, so I set off to catch him up, jogging towards the looming form of Toe Head.

  The walk was extremely enjoyable and perfectly timed. We spent a couple of hours walking through the machair, then round the back of Toe Head, past many small sandy coves to a ruined chapel, where we sat for a while as Mac pointed out curlews, redshanks and, at a very high altitude, a huge white-tailed sea eagle, sailing with barely a flap of its wings.

  Then a few grey clouds began to sneak over the hills, so we headed back and by the time we reached the bungalow, the sky was a low ceiling of leaden cloud and the first fat raindrops were spotting the paving stones. As Mac shoved open the front door, the clouds burst and the bungalow was suddenly turned into a percussion instrument. We laughed at how lucky we had been and settled down, snug in our little bolt-hole as the storm raged around us. There was something very comforting about sitting quietly reading while rain and hail were thrown against the windows. This was something mankind had been doing since we were monkeys, waiting in a cave for Nature’s rage to pass. The various pitches of whistle we could hear, as the wind forced its way through cracks in the building’s fabric, somehow made the experience even cosier.

  As evening arrived we started playing chess. The set was missing a few pieces, so Mac had a small pepper pot for a king and I had a matchbox for a rook and two pawns that were dice. The games tended to be short because Mac’s game was based on all-out attack with never a thought for any consequences.

  “Are you sure you want to do that?” I ask him.

  “Don’t patronise me.”

  “Very well then.” I move my bishop. “Checkmate.”

  “Oh f—! Why didn’t I see that?”

  “Because you don’t stop and think.”

  “I like to play off the cuff. You play the boring way.”

  “The successful way.”

  He starts laying out the pieces again.

  “Come on then, one more, I’m getting the hang of this now.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Soon, Mac is sending his first pawn on another suicide mission.

  “So when did you go to New Zealand?” I ask.

  “About eight years back. Touring a show about the Suffragettes.”

  “Was it any good?”

  “The material was good. The execution was abysmal.”

  I feel a little embarrassed that there are big chunks of Mac’s professional life that I know nothing about. Obviously the periods where we had drifted out of touch were longer than I had realised.

  Already, two of his pawns are back in the box. “What’s up next for you?” I ask.

  “Well, there was supposed to be a gig doing Victorian factory work songs, but the money buggered off, so…”

  “How can you stand it?”

  “Eh?”

  “Well…y’know, all the setbacks…the shows that collapse or–”

  “I can’t give in to the disappointment. That’d be a victory for the Man.”

  “Yeh, I know, but the – you can’t go there you’re moving into check – the vast majority of what you do is…well, no offence, but it’s crap, isn’t it, be honest.”

  “When was the last time you saw a show I was in?”

  “I saw the one about the sugar trade, at that place in Aldershot.”

  “That was badly directed. He was a choreographer, had no stagecraft.”

  “The piece was shit.”

  Mac moves his rook the length of the board and I take it immediately.

  “Well,” he mutters, “it may have been shit…but at least it was original shit. Everything I do is original.”

  “And short-lived.”

  “It’s better than just doing the same old shit over and over again, year after year.”

  Mac gives me a smile, waiting to see if I’ll pick up the grenade he has lobbed. I smile back.

  “Millions of people watch that shit.”

  “Yeah, like you care about them.”

  He taps away, looking for a nerve. “When was the last time you took a risk, professionally, well no, a risk of any kind?”

  “When I sat in your passenger seat yesterday”, I reply, calmly.

  “Seriously, you used to write stuff and be all experimental and you’d commit, you’d really commit and…”

  “Jesus, Mac, that’s over twenty years ago. We grow up.”

  Suddenly he lets rip with a maniacal laugh.

  “You have walked into my little trap, Mr Bond.”

  I move my Queen one square.

  “Checkmate.”

  “What? Oh for— you jammy fucker. This is a stupid game, anyway. The one with the most power and freedom is the woman! How’s that an accurate picture of society, eh? Politically, it’s a nonsense.”

  Mac starts to yawn, long and slow, like a lion, so I start to pack the chess pieces away.

  “Yup, bedtime for me. Could be a big day tomorrow”, he says, through the yawn.

  “Big day?”

  “Yup, depending on the weather.”

  “Why, what are we doing?”

  “That, Kevvy-boy” he proclaims with a wolfish grin, “will be a lovely surprise.”

  Then he heads off to make alarming noises in the toilet. A squall batters on the windowpanes. We are safe in our cave. And London seems a million miles away.

  The following morning I woke up feeling genuinely rested, a feeling I had almost forgotten. I lay curled in my bed for ten minutes or so, listening to the calls of the gulls. Why did I find them comforting? Perhaps they were a reminder of early holidays in B&Bs in Lowestoft and Yarmouth, back when the furniture looked huge, before I realised that Mum and Dad were unhappy. Eventually, I dragged myself out of my own thoughts and headed for the kitchen.

  There is a note on the kitchen table from Mac – “Back in a Minute”. A wave of panic ripples through me. Nobody knows where I am. I ought to let someone know. It is Monday, the working week, I need to let them know.

  The front door flies open and Mac blows in like a gale.

  “Man, it is one beautiful day out there.”

  “I need to let my solicitor know where I am. In case something comes up.”

  Mac looks exasperated. “If you go to the end of the point there –” he gestures out of the window “– up there by that cairn, I found a signal up there.”

  So I get dressed and haul myself up the steep rise, where rabbit holes lay hidden in the grass like traps, until, eventually, after much moving around, there are enough bars on my phone to contact the outside world.

  I ring Graham, but he does not pick up. So I ring Nina Patel. I make a conscious attempt to sound casual.

  “Hey, it’s Kevin, how’s things?”

  “Graham just rang, he said your place is all locked up, where are you? We’ve been trying to contact you.”

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to frighten anyone. I’m with a friend. We’re on the island of Harris.”

  Nina laughs. “Harris? Je-sus, Kevin. Oh well, ‘least you’re still on UK soil, Graham was worried you’d fled the country, joined the Foreign Legion or something.”

  “I’ll be back in a few days, that’s OK, isn’t it?”

  There is a slight delay and I hear my last few words being repeated back to me. She goes quiet for a few moments.

  “Are you sure you’re all right, Kevin? You’re having a rough time, you need to take care of yourself.”

  The kindness in her voice – even down a crackling line – makes me suddenly feel weepy. Where did that come from? Am I so fragile now that it only takes a few kind wor
ds to make my chin start to tremble? For Christ’s sake, Kev, get a grip.

  “I’m fine,” I tell her, nice and loud.

  “Who’s with you?”

  “My friend Mac.”

  “All right…well, take it easy.”

  I could end the conversation right there, but the anxiety inside me jabs out a question.

  “Any developments?”

  Why is she hesitating? She doesn’t usually hesitate.

  “Well, you’ll probably get to hear about it, so I might as well tell you.” My mind starts to race. New witnesses? More accusations?

  “Don’t worry, Kevin”, she soothes, “we’ll get on top of it, but…um…some idiot has put up something on YouTube. It’s infantile nonsense, we’re getting them to take it down.”

  Carefully and calmly, she describes the piece to me.

  It seems some cybernerd-type has cut together lots of clips of me in character as Lenny. He has grabbed individual words from dozens of different episodes to create a monologue.

  “What sort of monologue?” I ask.

  “I think it’s supposed to be comic, but it isn’t.”

  “And what do I – what does Lenny – say in this monologue?”

  Another hesitation. I feel my stomach lighten in the few seconds it takes for her to answer.

  “…he confesses to hitting women.”

  “What?!”

  “It’s a stupid piece, and we’re getting it taken down.”

  “How many people have seen it?”

  “Not that many. ’Least by YouTube standards.”

  She talks me through the legal steps they’ve set in motion, but my mind is seething with half-completed thoughts, so I struggle to take any of it in. I’m spinning around, mentally and physically, trying not to be overwhelmed by a growing sense of impotent rage.

  “That’s got to be defamatory, surely.”

  “Yes, of course it is,” replies Nina Patel, “it’s outrageous.”

  “So we can sue the bastard.”

  “Well, if we can identify him, or her.”

  “So, we identify…and then we sue.”

  Yet another hesitation. “I’m not sure that would be my advice, Kevin. If we take legal action we just turn it into a much bigger story that will play out for a lot longer. Let us deal with it and we’ll make it go away quickly.”

  For a few minutes, she allows me to let off steam. I rail and rant and swear about the sheer injustice of it all. She listens, patient and sympathetic, before convincing me that they have the situation under control.

  “Do I need to come back?” I ask.

  “No, no point,” she says. “We just need YouTube to accept it needs to be taken down. We’ll win that argument, trust me.”

  Do I trust her? Do I trust anyone now? In the end, a kind of exhaustion sets in and I agree that she should handle it however she sees fit. I think I trust her.

  I have to trust someone.

  On returning to the cottage, I replay the whole conversation for Mac. He agrees with Nina Patel’s strategy. If you get too worked up, you start to look more guilty.

  “Besides,” he says, “it’s YouTube, nobody takes anything they see on YouTube seriously.”

  “You think so?”

  “Definitely. Don’t waste any more brain-space worrying about something dreamt up by some sad wanker in his bedroom. You cannot let these people drag you down.”

  I appreciate his efforts to buoy up my morale, but I can’t help feeling that the YouTube piece is just one more insidious accusation. The world seems to have made up its mind about me already, so what will happen if and when I get to court? Mac urges me to tackle things one step at a time.

  “And the next-most-immediate step is…the surprise I promised.”

  He starts breaking eggs into the frying pan.

  “Make yourself useful, Kev, we’ll need to make ourselves some sandwiches for later. Come on, chop, chop. Stop moping.”

  “I’m not moping,” I protest.

  “Good, then get a move on. I promised the boatman we’d be there for ten-thirty.”

  “Boatman?”

  “Yeh, Calum he’s called. He said they’re expecting a bit of a swell, but we’re OK for the trip, so get some breakfast down you and we’ll head off.”

  “Where’s this boat trip to? And if you say ‘it’s a surprise’ you’re getting this fork up your arse.”

  Mac pauses for dramatic effect. “It’s to St. Kilda.”

  “…St Kilda…the island?”

  “Aye, how cool is that?”

  “The abandoned island?”

  “Yeh. Well, I think the RAF might be there and possibly some scientists but—”

  “How long is this boat-trip?”

  “Just three hours or so.”

  “Three hours!”

  “Three and a bit.”

  “What, three hours out, three hours back?”

  “Well, obviously, but—”

  “Going west?”

  “Yeh, but—”

  “Three hours off the west coast off the Outer Hebrides? That’s the middle of the fucking Atlantic Ocean, Mac.”

  “Well it’s hardly the middle, it—”

  “What sort of boat is it?”

  “A sturdy one. Calum does the trip all the time. He takes tourists to—”

  “Tourists? I’m not spending hours being gawped at by tourists, that’s not—”

  “Will you calm down, man.” He flaps his arms in exasperation. “There’ll be no-one else. I got chatting to Calum yesterday when I was getting the provisions. He’s running some supplies to the RAF boys, ’cos the helicopter’s kaput, and he wants to give the boat a wee run before the tourist season starts so…you won’t get recognised, I promise. You’ll not be bothered. And it’s a great chance to see something extraordinary.”

  He steps towards me. “Come on, Kevin…you always used to be up for extraordinary. You’ve been holed up for ages, let’s get some air in your lungs.”

  I glance out of the window. The sea does not look too rough, although there are the occasional flecks of white horses.

  “Come on, man, there’s no need to be so anxious, it’s—”

  “I’m not anxious.”

  “What? You’ve marinated yourself in anxiety. Come on, let’s go have a bit of an adventure, eh? A three-hour boat-trip, what can be more fun than a boat trip?”

  He’s right. I’m sick and tired of feeling anxious. Fuck it, why not? Three hours on a boat, that hardly turns us into buccaneers, what’s the matter with me? I refuse to be ruled by the knot in my stomach. A bit of an adventure, perhaps that’s just what I need.

  After wolfing down a hearty breakfast, we drove for about fifteen minutes through a scraped, rock-littered moonscape, past a succession of narrow bays until we reached Leverburgh, a small port protected by an archipelago of low islands.

  “How big is this boat?” I ask as Mac parks the car at a jaunty angle.

  “Reasonably big. It’s a tourist boat.”

  “How many people does it hold?”

  “I dunno, I think Calum said ten, twelve.”

  “That’s not a big boat, Mac.”

  “It’ll be powerful.”

  Then Mac opens the car door, which kicks a little in the wind.

  “We should probably put on a few layers,” he says. So we put on our jumpers and jackets and go looking for the jetty, past some stinking lobster pots, beyond some empty skips. The jetty has one boat bobbing alongside it, not that small, but not massive either. But it has an enclosed cabin and looks reasonably modern. A young lad is winding ropes at the stern. He is tall, slender and his face suggests that he hasn’t seen a vitamin in years.

  Mac walks towards the boat, giving the lad an over-cheery wave. For a moment, I’m standing alone at the edge of the jetty, staring down into the dark water. With a shudder, I catch myself thinking how easy it would be to take just one step forward and end all the chatter.

  I hear Mac call
“Calum!” and turn to see a leather-faced man emerging from inside the cabin. He is wearing waterproof over-trousers and a blue donkey jacket. He gestures for us to step aboard. Mac introduces us and Calum gives me the faintest of nods. He points at the pasty-faced lad.

  “Fergus,” he informs us.

  “Hi, Fergus” says Mac.

  Fergus gives a thumbs-up, then carries on rope-winding. They clearly have no idea who I am, so I relax a little.

  “Safety briefing,” announces Calum. “Life-jackets down there.” He points at a pile in the corner of the cabin. “Mind your head on this. You’re safer sitting down. Don’t wander around. Obey instructions. Don’t fall into the sea.”

  So we sit down, just inside the entrance to the cabin, while Calum fires up the engine. He glances over his shoulder and gives Fergus a tiny nod, which is apparently the signal to cast off.

  I lean closer to Mac. “A man of few words.”

  “He loosens up after a bit,” whispers Mac. “Just don’t mention Alex Salmond.”

  We start to chug out through the archipelago, where seals are reclining on rocks like sultans and cormorants sit drying their greeny-black wings. Then the boat starts to bounce a little as we head out into the open sea.

  The first thirty minutes or so are moderately enjoyable. We watch the coastline of Harris retreat, with sunshine and shadow chasing each other across the hills. But then the sea grows livelier beneath us. Soon we are plunging into troughs and rising on the swell. From time to time, we hit the top of a wave and become airborne, hanging for a moment above the water, before coming down with a jolt. A jarring jolt. We start anticipating it, the weightless sensation of being in mid-air, followed by the spine-rattling crunch. It is a relentless and bruising repetition and, after a while, I start wondering how thick the hull is. Mac – who had been so full of the joys of spring – now sits quietly, with his gaze focused firmly on the distant horizon. Is he feeling sea-sick? Oh I do hope so.

  To make matters even more uncomfortable, the sea has no real rhythm to it. It is a dirty mess of swells and cross-winds, a sprawl of lurches, pitches and rolls. Lurch, pitch, roll, pitch, lurch, lurch, roll, pitch, lurch. Am I going to be sick? I can feel a light-headedness creeping up on me. I slide from seat to seat towards the open back of the cabin where there is more fresh air. I really do not want to be sick. It’s a feeling I have dreaded ever since I was a child. I lean out into the elements and gulp down as much oxygen as I can. The sickly, sweet fumes from the diesel are not helping, but after a few minutes I feel my head clearing and my thoughts sharpen and I know that I’m going to be all right.