The curator handles the paintings with near-reverence as he slides each one from the envelope and onto his desk. He peers at the rolling watercolour hills and tempestuous sea through spectacles perched on the end of his nose. I am light-headed; my heart hammers still. Boo sleeps soundly outside, wrapped up against the wind.
‘These are really something,’ he says at length, glancing up at me over the rim of his glasses. ‘You say your friend painted them?’
I nod, encouraged by his praise.
‘Yes. Malik. You might have seen him around the village. Black hair. Um. Eyes are different colours.’ I twist my fingers together awkwardly.
The curator pushes his glasses back into place and smiles at me warmly.
‘Well, Martha, you can tell Malik that I would very much like to exhibit his work here – it’s all for the community, after all. I dare say we’ll manage to sell a few.’
I leave the pram outside the front door as I arrive home, Boo still sleeping soundly. It is later than I thought, and Jeanie is preparing lunch. Alastair and Malik sit together at the kitchen table before a selection of pieces of leather, needles, thread and leather thongs. Alastair’s brows are drawn together in concentration as he inspects what appears to be a boot, sewn from some sort of skin or hide and decorated with strips of coloured leather; he runs his fingers over the sole where, at the ball of the foot, the hide has been worn through entirely, leaving a smooth-edged hole. Neil lounges on a chair at the end of the table, his nose in a book, though he peers over the top of his spectacles at the array of tools and materials on the table.
Malik looks up as I linger in the doorway. He smiles warmly; his eyes are bright. I can only give a brief, awkward smile in return, conscious of the paintings that I clutch under my arm, hidden inside their brown paper envelope. My throat is tight. Immediately I jog upstairs and into the bedroom that Neil and Malik share; slide the paintings back into their rightful place in the drawer in the desk where Malik sometimes works; stumble into my own bedroom and sit heavily on the end of the bed, trying to regulate my ragged breathing.
Later in the evening I sit beside the fire, watching Malik from the corner of my eye as he works: he runs the thick needle deftly through the hide of his boot, entwining the cord around the curves of the heel and toe. It is not long before he has finished: the sole is replaced, the boot mended; joy brims from his eyes as he inspects his work.
‘Look, Martha.’ The weight of his body sinks into the sofa beside me. The furniture is old and worn; I am almost pushed on top of him as the cushions shift. I tense, hold my own body in its place, though I do not want to.
Without speaking he proudly shows me the new stitching on the sole, and the pieces of dyed sealskin that decorate the top of the boot. I watch the way in which his hands move over the softened leather, cradling its weight, smoothing supple creases. I nod my head in appreciation of his work, unsure of what to say. Then the words rise, almost unbidden: a confession.
‘Malik, I, err… your paintings…’
He looks at me expectantly, waiting for the remainder of the sentence to struggle out past my lips.
‘The curator at the community gallery – the one in the village – he, err, wants to exhibit them. He really likes them. Thinks you might be able to sell some.’ I look away, conscious of the awkwardness in my voice. ‘I just thought as well, you know… it might help you. If you’re needing money to get back home, I mean.’
I attempt a smile, to show that I mean well. And as I meet his eyes I find that they are looking so directly into mine that all further words of explanation escape me. I cannot look away.
‘Thank you,’ he says quietly.
The sound of Boo’s waking cries reaches my ears. I jump to my feet, tear myself away from the heat of the fire, the heat of him.
I take the stairs two at a time, shivering in the dark and the cold. February is almost at an end. Then, spring will come. And I know that now he will not, cannot stay.
◆◆◆
Malik’s paintings look wonderful, mounted on the walls of the gallery. Some of the views are ones that I recognise: snapshots taken from the door of the cottage during a storm, or from the path along the cliff where we sometimes walked together, in comfortable silence on a still day. In more than one of his paintings I can see a watercolour figure in a sheep-filled field in the distance – it must be Alastair going about the day’s work. In the bottom corner of one of the sweeping landscapes I see Neil’s campervan: an orange smudge blotted onto the winding road. On another I can just make out the figure of a woman standing on the hillside and looking out to the wide sea, her long skirt billowing in the wind and her hair blowing about her face. It could be me, I think, and my stomach lurches.
But I dare not ask Malik about the painting. I look over again to where he stands at the other side of the busy room, in conversation with yet another of the exhibition’s guests. He drums the fingers of his right hand against the top of his thigh – the only sign as to his nervousness – and I smile to myself each time I see him gesture with his hands as he speaks, knowing – although I cannot hear over the general chatter in the room – that he is trying to find the right words in English.
Unintentionally, I catch his eye as he looks across the room. He smiles, and I see him apparently excuse himself from his conversation with a woman who I recognise as a friend of Jeanie’s. He walks over to me, his footfall soft, clad now in his sealskin boots, pulled up over the hem of his jeans as usual. When he had finished mending his strange boots – kamiks, he called them – he gave his other boots to Neil, joking that he never wanted to see them again. I had wondered what it could mean, the relief that I had seen in his eyes as Neil took the boots from his hands.
He stands next to me, but we do not speak. I am conscious of my hands, my arms dangling with nothing to do or to hold, for Jeanie has taken Boo from me and is carrying her around the room, bouncing her on her hip. I can sense Malik’s eyes on me, but I cannot look at him. My heart is hammering. It seems to stop altogether as I feel his hand on my arm.
‘Come with me, Martha,’ he says, close to my ear so that I can hear him. I allow him to lead me through the gathering of people and through the door to the curator’s office. It is quieter in here, and empty save for the two of us – alone together. I stand awkwardly as he reaches for his backpack and lifts it up onto the desk in the middle of the room. He rifles through it and pulls out a paper folder. As his eyes meet mine I see within them a glimmer of nervousness.
‘I made some other paintings,’ he says quietly, as though he is admitting a secret to me alone.
He passes a small wad of papers into my hands. I take them carefully, hardly daring to breathe, for I can sense his eyes on me as I run my gaze over the uppermost picture. My self-consciousness, however, is quickly forgotten. The style of his painting is unmistakable, yet these watercolours depict somewhere different to the bleak hills and stormy waters of Shetland. A place where the hills have morphed into distant mountains, and the world is infused with the blended colours of sunlight upon ice and snow. Similar to his paintings in the gallery, some are simple, sweeping watercolours of light, colour and landscape; others also depict the people within these places, single moments captured in time. In one scene I see a black-haired woman breastfeeding an infant; in another a man is sprawled on his belly near the bottom of the frame – wearing kamiks, similar to Malik’s. He has raised his rifle up to his shoulder, ready to shoot a seal that lies some distance away on the ice, apparently oblivious to the hunter. I see colourful wooden houses pitched upon the black-white of rock and ice, sleds pulled by dogs that look like wolves, and I think how strange and how magical this world is, from which he has come. I can picture him within this landscape – his real home – and my heart swells with joy and aches with sadness, both at the same time.
‘Malik,’ I say in awe. But I get no further, for as I reach the last painting my heart skips a beat once more. The landscape is nothing but ice – skilfully
and simply painted – and in the distance stalks the single, solitary form of a great, white bear. I can sense the power of the creature from the watercolour brushstrokes.
I shake my head in disbelief.
‘I… I keep dreaming about a bear, just like this one.’ I stammer out an explanation to Malik, laughing a little to show that I am aware of how ridiculous this sounds. ‘I’ve never even seen a bear.’
I look at him, and he smiles warmly but does not laugh.
‘You don’t know the strength you have inside you, Martha.’
I keep looking at him, wordlessly, wondering what he could mean. Then there is the sound of footsteps. I glance over to the door, and there is Neil, leaning the top half of his body around the doorframe and into the small office.
‘Ah. There you are.’ He grins at Malik, throws him a wink.
‘Baby wants you, Martha,’ he adds.
I suppress the urge to stride over to the door and knock the glasses from his face. Could I not just have this one moment? I sigh inwardly. Of course not. The baby needs me; Malik is leaving, he has to return to his home that he clearly pines for – I feel the longing for this place seeping from the paintings that I still hold in my hand, angled away from Neil’s gaze as though to protect Malik’s secret. I am certain that he would not stay with me, even if he knew how my body aches in his presence. The baby needs me – yes, it’s probably for the best.
I slide the paintings back into his hands and smile apologetically. I can feel his eyes on me as I leave the room, reluctant to return to the busy gallery. My body is here, but my mind is somewhere else.
◆◆◆
Neil and I stand together in the busy harbour. My eyes sting from the smoke that billows out of the waiting ferry as it swallows up one queuing car at a time, and I cannot stop the tears that spill onto my cheeks. I am losing another friend. First Malik, now Neil.
‘I don’t want you to leave,’ I sob as I grasp Neil’s hand in mine. ‘But I want you to be happy.’ Neil embraces me again and I bury my head in his chest, thinking that I would have said the same words to Malik when he left the previous week, had I had the courage to do so. I had suspected then that Neil would be leaving soon, too, though he had not yet said as much. I try to apologise for bringing him to this place, but he only shakes his head.
‘Don’t be silly, Martha. We escaped – together – remember?’
When he releases me from our embrace, I see that his eyes are clouded behind his glasses.
‘You’ll come and visit, though, won’t you? A city break.’
I smile, nod my head. ‘Yeah, of course.’
I feel a rush of warmth through my body, for I know that there will be much more for him down in London. He can be free in the city; live the way he wants to.
‘Write to me when you get there,’ I add. ‘Don’t make me worry about you.’
‘Love you, Martha.’ He plants a soggy kiss on my forehead. Then he hops back into the campervan, slams the door shut and blows me another kiss through the open window.
I wave tearfully as the van rumbles away into the vehicle deck of the ferry. I walk back into the ferry terminal, where Jeanie is waiting with Boo in the pram – having already given Neil a fond farewell before allowing the two of us a proper goodbye. She slides her arm around my shoulder as I wipe away my tears with the end of my coat sleeve.
‘All right, hen?’
‘Maybe I should be going with him,’ I choke. ‘We’ve always been in this together, me and Neil.’
Neil and Malik – my two friends – both of them gone.
‘He’s not leaving you forever,’ Jeanie says comfortingly.
I know that she is talking about Neil, still my heart skips a beat as I think that she could mean Malik. Neil had told me more than once that I must move on from my thoughts of Malik, accept that he had travelled back home, yet I cannot shake off the feeling that he might come back. He could come back. ‘It’s not like he’s from outer space,’ I had said to Neil, half-jokingly. But he had only raised his eyebrows, and my insides had twisted with anger towards him for failing to give wings to my hopeless dreams and forced optimism.
And now, it is only me and my daughter.
‘Oh, Jeanie,’ I sob in a sudden tide of sadness and self-pity. ‘I don’t want to get in your way.’
‘Martha!’ Jeanie chides gently, rubbing her hand against my arm. ‘Leave the baby with us, then – she’s a joy.’
I catch her eye and smile back at her through my tears.
8
Rasmus
May 1973
He could tell by the succinct knock at the door that it was Birdie. The man did not come often, yet always uninvited; Rasmus felt the weight of his presence on his soul before he even arrived. He imagined that Birdie alighted on his front doorstep from nowhere, folding away his great, white wings and turning his beak towards the ground – to all appearances a friendly visitor.
Rasmus hesitated in the hallway. It occurred to him that he could pretend he was not at home. He imagined his unwanted visitor stalking around the outside of the house, sticking his beak through the cracks where the windows had been left slightly ajar, searching – and the thought made him shiver. No, he would answer the door and calmly tell the man that now was not a good time. And he need not feel guilty, for this was the truth, though he would certainly not mention the reason. His family life was no business of Birdie’s. He wished sometimes that it were no business of his, either.
Truth be told, he did not miss his daughter, though she had not been gone long, and his veins still bubbled with anger and guilt. Had he driven her away? He was not sure. They had argued. But then, they had always argued. She was a defiant, headstrong girl, Marianne; they had always struggled to see eye to eye. And the boy… he was the complete opposite: such an apathetic adolescent, it made Rasmus despair. Drank too much, smoked too much, played his records too loudly, refused to get a decent haircut.
‘I’m sorry, but now is not a good time,’ Rasmus began to say as he opened the door. But he got no further than the first word before Birdie strode in, hunched his shoulders to shuffle off his coat and proceeded to peer with beady eyes into the hallway.
‘She’s not here,’ Rasmus said sharply, irritated with himself for failing to be more assertive, as always.
‘Oh, shame,’ shrugged Birdie.
Rasmus pursed his lips. He did not like the way that Birdie looked at Judith. He knew what that look meant, even if Judith insisted she did not see it herself.
Birdie showed no signs of leaving, despite Judith’s absence – an obvious disappointment to him. Rasmus found himself making a pot of tea in the kitchen while his visitor took a seat at the table, apparently making himself quite at home. For a while neither of them spoke. Rasmus could think of nothing to say; his body felt drained and his heart felt heavy, as it had now for longer than he cared to remember. He could not shake off the numbness that gripped his soul. There was an atmosphere of inevitability to Birdie’s visit, he thought: a strange sense of finality that accompanied his presence. Rasmus imagined that he were entertaining a visit from the Grim Reaper himself.
‘There’s plans for an ethnographic research expedition to Angmagssalik,’ said Birdie, as Rasmus took a seat at the kitchen table, placing the teapot between them. ‘There’s talk of having you on the board of trustees.’
‘An expedition?’ said Rasmus weakly, knowing already that he was too old for such things now.
Birdie looked up as he poured his tea, his sharp, watery eyes seemingly reading deep into Rasmus’s thoughts.
‘It’s too late now, Rasmus,’ he said darkly. He set the teapot back down on the table with a low thud and gurgle of water, then looked up, raised his eyebrows sardonically. ‘All these years, yet you’ve never been back.’
Rasmus faltered, unsure whether this was a question, a statement, or perhaps an accusation. Then all at once he understood the glint in Birdie’s eyes.
‘But you’ve been back,
haven’t you?’ he said, striving to make the question sound natural, to keep his voice from shaking with an emotion that he could not understand. ‘To Angmagssalik.’
Birdie took a sip of tea, leaned back in his chair.
‘I work in shipping, Rasmus, of course I’ve been back.’
Rasmus swallowed. ‘You haven’t mentioned it before.’
‘Didn’t think it was important.’ Birdie shrugged his shoulders in apparent dismissal, yet Rasmus could see that it was a performance: the man was enjoying this, putting on a show. He had the feeling that this was to be the final act.
His hands shook as he poured himself a cup of tea.
‘There’s nothing for you to go back for now, Rasmus.’ Birdie spoke again as the silence endured for longer than Rasmus had intended. ‘It’s changed: that way of life you were so obsessed with – that’s gone now. No one lives like that anymore; people don’t need to hunt or keep dogs. They need money instead, now – they need jobs, only there aren’t any. They drink. Everyone drinks.’
Rasmus felt dizzy with nausea; he did not want Birdie to continue. But he needed to hear what the man had to say, he needed to know…
‘And… and Ketty?’ Rasmus’s voice was hesitant. He knew now that he feared the answer.
‘Ketty’s dead, Rasmus,’ Birdie replied. ‘Too much of the old drink. Her brother, too. And his boy: he put a rope around his neck. Couldn’t see what his future could possibly bring. And who can blame him?’
Birdie had turned his eyes away, his former arrogance replaced with a sadness that could not be disguised.
Rasmus watched him. He felt only a sense of emptiness that grew steadily by the second as though it had always been there, as though he had never before felt anything in his soul, and never would. His whole life – an empty shell.
His voice spoke as if from a great distance.
The Seagulls Laughter Page 20