Orkney Twilight

by Clare Carson

  ‘You know I’ve always felt I’ve been lucky,’ he said, ‘privileged to see so many sights and places that other people never have the chance to see. The desert. I remember the silence of the desert, and I remember the earthy smell of the first rains in the savannah, the vastness of the night skies, the Milky Way overhead and the Southern Cross just visible above the horizon. And I can still hear the whisper of the hippos grazing in the night.’

  He stalled. Jim and his other worlds, faraway places.

  ‘Where did you hear the hippos?’ she asked.

  ‘The Pungwe, far end of Honde Valley – the borderland between Rhodesia and Mozambique. Out in the bush, black mamba country. We came in through the back door, up from Beira, through the forests of Mozambique. Crossed the Pungwe in canoes hollowed out from tree trunks, and trekked northwest. Overland all the way.’

  ‘What were you doing?’

  ‘Gun-running.’ He pointed under the table to his foot; the withered stumps of his half toes, the sign of the devil blasted into his digits.

  ‘Explosion,’ she asserted. ‘Landmine.’

  He pulled a wry sort of smile. ‘I was a rookie then,’ he said. ‘Out for the crack. Chance was in control.’

  She thought for a moment he was saying his life was in the hands of fate, a soldier of fortune, live or die, in the end it is all down to chance. Then she realized he was talking about a person.

  ‘Chance?’

  ‘Yes, Don Chance. He had all the contacts, he always did. Still does. He was the fixer. Chance. American. In fact, he ended up marrying an English woman. But she left him, couldn’t put up with his ways, never spoke to him again after she walked out the door. They had a daughter though,’ he added. ‘And he kept in touch with her.’ Yes of course, she thought as she glanced down at her watch, she had read the signs correctly: Avis Chance was the daughter of a military man.

  ‘Fathers and their daughters…’ he said, as if she had spoken out loud. He rested his head against the fuzzy fabric of the seat, icy blue glinting through the creases of his face. She waited.

  ‘Funnily enough I bumped into him not so long ago,’ he continued eventually. ‘Not an entirely coincidental meeting. The Commander suggested I contact him, in fact.’

  ‘The Commander knows Don Chance as well?’ Her brain couldn’t quite comprehend the spider’s web.

  ‘Military connections. It was Chance who introduced me to the Commander in the first place. Long time ago. Once upon a time.’ He paused, took a deep breath. ‘Anyway, the Commander thought I might need a bit of assistance with the job I’m doing at the moment. He suggested Chance might be able to help. So we met up in a bar for a chat. Of course, he’s running a private security company these days; managed to turn the mercenary adventures into a successful business.’

  Ventura Enterprises, she thought. It had to be.

  ‘What do private security companies actually do anyway?’

  ‘Bit of this. Bit of that. Bit of the other. In Chance’s case, not much in the way of keeping things secure. More like oiling wheels, greasing palms. Digging around for information.’ Jim rubbed his silver-stubbled chin. ‘Delivering documents. Taking things to other people for you when it might prove tricky to take them there yourself.’

  ‘Courier services.’

  ‘Exactly. That sort of thing. That’s why the Commander suggested Chance might be able to help me. Wanted me to use a safe pair of hands for a delivery.’

  Her guess had been correct. So much for freelance journalism: Avis Chance was working for her father’s private security company. She had been employed as a courier to pick up the manila envelope from the Ring of Brodgar and take it back to the Commander. But her services hadn’t been used. Jim had failed to make the drop at the assigned location because he guessed that Sam had sussed it. Or was there another reason for his reluctance to leave the envelope? Had something happened to make him suspect Avis? She opened her mouth to ask about the drop, but she couldn’t formulate her questions correctly in time.

  ‘Interesting talking to Chance about his business,’ Jim said. ‘Chance always did have grand ambitions. He told me he was expanding his portfolio, concentrating on the international side of things. That’s where it’s at these days apparently: international enterprise.’

  ‘What does international enterprise have to do with security?’

  ‘What doesn’t it have to do with security, more like. Or at least, in Chance’s case. When he talks about international enterprise, he means commercial operations in difficult environments. Hot spots. War zones. He’s attracted to them. Fly to shit. He likes the thrill of doing slightly dodgy business in sticky situations. Exploiting the chink between the legal and not yet legislated for, poking a jemmy in the crack and levering it open. Expanding his portfolio, as he puts it, into unchartered territories. That’s his natural habitat: places where angels fear to tread. He told me his latest business had taken him back to some of the spots we had worked in together when we were young. 1960, that was the last time I worked with Chance. And now he’s come full circle.’

  His eyes lost focus momentarily and then he collected himself. ‘Things fall apart,’ he said. ‘If you want to know where the centre is heading, watch the edges, the shifting borderlines. Look straight ahead but keep track of the shadows moving in the corner of your eye.’

  ‘The twilight,’ she said.

  ‘The twilight?’ he laughed. ‘Yes. That’s where you’re most likely to find Chance. In the twilight. Of course, when he began telling me about his latest business ventures, I buttered him up, played to his ego. Not that he needed much buttering. Chance has a weak point: showing off. Storytelling. Maybe that’s the Achilles’ heel of all of us old soldiers. We love an audience – especially if it’s made up of our mates. So I asked him about the places and people he had revisited – the shebeens, the witch doctors, the dodgy priests. He told me his stories. None of them were particularly surprising; some of them may even have been true. And then, when we could see the world through the bottom of our glasses, I asked him whether he had been back to the place where he and I had parted company all those years ago, the place where I teetered on the edge of the abyss and knew I had to walk away. While I still could.’

  He stared out of the window, assessing the shadows of the night through the rain-splattered glass. She listened to the chunkety-chunk of the train on the track, always so comforting. Why was he telling her all this anyway? What sort of manoeuvre was he pulling now? She waited to see if there was more to come, but he didn’t speak.

  ‘Shinkolobwe,’ she said, filling the silence. The word had slipped out, appearing from nowhere, bubbling under, waiting for the right moment to drop into place. ‘Had Chance been back to Shinkolobwe?’

  He nodded slowly. ‘Shinkolobwe. That’s right.’

  So Tom had guessed correctly on that one, come up with the right answer; Shinkolobwe was connected to Jim’s time in the army. Shinkolobwe; a place not marked in the atlas.

  ‘What happens in Shinkolobwe then?’ she asked.

  ‘Mining,’ he said.

  ‘Mining what?’

  He tipped forwards. Opened his mouth to speak. She could see his un-cavitied molars. He was near enough thirty years older than her and yet he had fewer fillings. How strange, she thought, that on the small things – the daily routines like cleaning your teeth – his habits were beyond question. Discipline. Control. Military precision. No stepping over the lines when it comes to the quotidian she noted, as she waited for him to enlighten her, reveal more about Shinkolobwe. He pressed himself back into the carriage seat again.

  ‘The locals told a story,’ he said. ‘They said that Shinkolobwe was haunted by a malevolent spirit, the ghost of a woman who had lived there long ago and had many children before she died. She was buried there in the land of her ancestors, and had slept peacefully underground for centuries. When the Europeans came and dug the mine, they disturbed her. Made her restless. At first she was sad and lonely with
out her children. Then she became bitter. And she found the only way she could satisfy the gnawing hunger for the comfort of her children was to eat the souls of men. So she stalked the mineshafts seeking out her victims.’

  He sighed.

  ‘The mine owners encouraged the ghost story. It suited their purposes because there were so many deaths at Shinkolobwe. Some of them quick, some of them long and lingering. But none of them required a supernatural explanation; it was fairly obvious just from looking at the creaking timbers supporting the underground galleries that there was very little attention to the basics.’

  He picked his tumbler up again, tilted it, double-checking it was completely drained before replacing it on the table heavily.

  ‘The mine foreman was a conniving shit of a man. A trigger-happy drunkard. I managed to get in a fight with him in the bar about something or other unimportant.’ He glanced under the table at his right foot. ‘I lost three toes that night. I was lucky he didn’t aim higher. And that was when I decided I had to leave Shinkolobwe. Didn’t want any more to do with it. Leave the mining business to Chance.’

  So his missing toes weren’t the result of a landmine explosion after all. Jesus, why couldn’t he just tell the truth? Why did he have to turn everything into a half-baked story?

  ‘So what were they mining at Shinkolobwe then?’ she demanded.

  He smiled. She thought he was about to give her a straightforward answer.

  ‘Look it up when you get home.’

  God, he was so irritating.

  He put his hands behind his head. ‘Shinkolobwe. When Chance let slip he had been back there, all these years later, I noted it down. Interesting but probably not significant. Filed it away for future reference. And then oddly enough,’ Jim continued, ‘this week, something turned up in Orkney that made me think about Shinkolobwe again. Funny connection.’

  He folded his arms. She waited. But he didn’t speak, lapsed into silence. Was that it? Was he just going to leave the conversation hanging? Incomplete? Egg her on with a few cryptic clues about Shinkolobwe, indicate that there was some deep dark mystery, some strange connection with Orkney, and then shut up. That was the story of her life, the script for the undercover cop’s daughter. A knowing silence. A warning eye not to dig too deep or say too much. Sod that. She’d had enough of his pointless secrets.

  She put her forearm on the table and rested her cheek on her palm. His eye latched on to the patch of bubbly, shiny pink skin on her forearm, the scar from the Watcher’s cigarette.

  ‘What’s that mark?’ he asked sharply.

  ‘It’s a burn. An accident. I did it when I was striking a match.’

  ‘It’s on your right arm. You are right-handed. Must have been a bit difficult.’

  She hesitated, wondering whether she should tell him about her meeting with the Watcher. It seemed like a good moment. She glanced out of the window; the blurred outline of a waxing moon was just visible behind the thinning clouds.

  ‘I ought to go and see if I can get some sleep in a minute,’ she said.

  ‘Hang on,’ he replied. ‘I need to use the karzi. Wait here until I’m back and keep an eye on my stuff.’

  He shuffled laboriously along the bench, levered himself up, teetered momentarily before he lumbered away along the carriage. Left her alone with his haversack. Almost inviting her to investigate. She checked behind; saw the illuminated toilet-engaged sign. She stretched out her arm, grabbed the bag, opened its buckles, loosened its drawstring mouth, stuck her hand inside and rummaged, flinched when her fingertips touched the cold metal of the Walther sitting at the bottom of the bag in its casual rag wrapping, hastily moved her hand and located the object she was after. The corner of a book. She pulled it out. The Orkneyinga Saga. She held it upside-down, flapped it. The manila envelope dislodged, fell on to the table. She gasped, puzzled. Somebody had doodled a picture on the front of the envelope. A black-barred feather. It reminded her of something, but she couldn’t quite fathom what. She had only been intending to take a quick flick through the envelope’s contents, see if she could find anything about Shinkolobwe, but the sight of the doodled feather confused her, triggered a strange surge of adrenalin, almost a compulsion to swipe it. She hesitated, glanced over her shoulder, saw the toilet light extinguish, scooped up the envelope, stuffed it quickly in her overcoat pocket, replaced the book in the haversack, pulled tight the gape, refastened the buckles, shoved it back in its original place on the far side of the table, leaned her head against the shiny surface of the carriage wall and traced the curves of the moon in her mind.

  She looked up as Jim returned, wondered whether guilt was written all over her features. He sat down opposite again, made himself comfortable in the seat, leaned forwards, took a deep breath, eyes locked on her face. He must have guessed she had taken the envelope. She felt sick as she counted to five in her head, waiting for the explosion.

  ‘I know I’ve never been a very good dad,’ he said.

  She was taken by surprise, unsure how to react. She wondered what he was driving at, assumed he was trying to work an angle, unnerve her, trip her up. But when she met his eyes she saw an unfamiliar frankness in his gaze and was startled to find herself considering the possibility that he was making an honest statement, giving her an open invitation to respond. She tried to conjure up a reply. She thought about contradicting him; no, she could say, he hadn’t been all that bad, he certainly wasn’t the worst father in the world. But she couldn’t bring herself to mouth the words. He wasn’t the worst father in the world, but he was nowhere near the best. What was the point of starting off an honest conversation with a fatuous politeness? Anyway, she didn’t want a conversation with Jim about their relationship. She didn’t want to talk about their feelings, her feelings. God, no. She didn’t even really know what her feelings about him were; it depended on the day of the week, who she was talking to, what angle she had chosen to look at him from, how much he had drunk, how much she had smoked. She twisted around, searching for the right thing to say.

  ‘You’ll be okay,’ he said.

  What was he talking about? She would be okay? He was staring at her. She thought for a moment there was a tear in his eye.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I’ll be okay.’

  She was aiming for bright cheeriness. Her voice cracked as she spoke. Oh God. She looked away, chin trembling. She turned back to him.

  ‘Dad.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Why did you want me to come to Orkney with you?’ She was surprised by her own question, had no idea where it sprang from.

  He seemed momentarily taken aback too. He blinked, forehead furrowed. ‘Because I thought it would be nice. I thought you would enjoy it. We always had a good time in Orkney when you were young. You and me.’

  As simple as that. And it was true – they did have a good time in Orkney when she was young. But that was ages ago. She wasn’t sure she could believe it was still that straightforward. Wasn’t sure it had ever been that straightforward. Perhaps he did mean it though. Why shouldn’t he mean it? She was his daughter. Perhaps he had simply asked her to come along because he thought they would enjoy the break together.

  ‘I did enjoy it,’ she said. ‘Thank you for inviting me.’

  He smiled, warmly almost. ‘I don’t think we’ll have another chance.’

  ‘You never know.’

  He shook his head.

  She was hit by a crashing wave of desperation, a sudden shifting of the ground beneath her feet, the need to make things right, say something, anything, before it was too late. ‘Dad.’

  He raised his eyebrow. She hesitated. Unsure what she was trying to say.

  ‘You might not always have been the best dad in the world,’ she said eventually. ‘But it doesn’t really matter.’

  ‘Thanks,’ he said. Was that a sarcastic thanks? She couldn’t be certain.

  ‘I mean…’ She stalled. ‘What I mean is; I wouldn’t be the way I am without you.’
<
br />   It had come out badly. She had mangled it. She hadn’t said what she meant to say, the way she meant to say it. It sounded almost like an accusation, an apportioning of blame.

  ‘That’s what I think as well,’ he replied slowly. ‘You wouldn’t be the way you are without me.’

  She bit her lip, wondered whether she should give it another go, try and express what she really meant, but Jim was elsewhere, travelling to distant lands, crossing empty savannah, following the star-lit path of the Southern Cross. She gave up.

  ‘I’m going back to the compartment now.’

  He shrugged. And then, as she squirmed her way between the seat and the table, he said, ‘You and me, we have our differences, but we are alike in many ways. We can both be a bit pig-headed. We’re both smart-arses. But you do things because you think they are the right things to do, not because somebody tells you to do it, or because you are too scared to say what you think. When there are difficult choices to be made, you don’t just opt for the easiest route. Whatever anybody else says about you, whatever you end up doing, I’m proud of that.’

  She nodded, turned away too quickly, stumbled down the carriage. She didn’t look back as she crossed from the dining car to the sleepers, pushed her way into the toilet at the end of the carriage, locked the door, dropped the lid on the seat, sat down on top of it, put her head in her hands and cried. Howled. Shoulders heaving. Crying for Jim. For herself. For their relationship. Ten minutes perhaps or more. Lost track of time. A sharp rap on the toilet door roused her from the morass.

  ‘Are you okay in there?’ It was the guard.

  ‘Yes. I’m fine. I’ll be out in a minute.’

  She heard him moving away. She wondered whether she should return to see if Jim was asleep so she could replace the manila envelope. She regretted taking it already. She should just slip it back into his haversack. She decided against: it was unlikely to work, he would wake up. She would hand it back in the morning, tell him she took it for safekeeping because he’d seemed a bit out of it. That was the best plan. She opened the toilet door, walked unsteadily along the corridor, back to her sleeper. And she noticed that the sky was darkening now, the further south they travelled.