by Louise Welsh
The deputy was right. The innovations of the last century had been lost and strong bodies were essential to the community’s survival, but Stevie felt apprehensive. She pushed his hand away. ‘There’s something about them …’ She let the sentence tail away. ‘They look hunted.’
‘We’re all haunted.’
Stevie did not bother to correct Bold. She called Pistol to heel, pushed open the hotel door and stepped outside, hoping that whatever was hunting, or haunting the newcomers, would not follow them to Orkney.
The trio heard the door open and turned towards the sound. Stevie stopped six yards from them, resisting the reflex to hold out a hand in greeting. Pistol stood still by her right side, Alan Bold on her left, an irritating step beyond her eye-line. Stevie said, ‘I’m sorry we couldn’t give you a warmer welcome.’
Rob, the tall man, had olive skin and eyes almost as dark as his hair. The complexion of his companion, Ed, was pale with the faint blush that would have been described as English Rose, had he been a girl. Rob said, ‘These are difficult times. You’re right to be cautious.’
The door behind her opened, Stevie heard ragged footsteps on the cobbles and turned to see Magnus coming out of the hotel. Pistol got to his feet, wagging his tail.
‘Don’t worry,’ Magnus said. He had sobered a little, but his walk still had a stagger to it. ‘I’ll keep my distance.’
Belle gave him a tired smile. Her good eye was cornflower blue, the damaged one a blue shade of white. She looked at Stevie, ‘Do I address you as Madam President?’
‘If you like, but most people call me Stevie. How long do you plan on staying?’
‘We don’t plan things.’ Ed’s voice was soft, with a faint burr which made Stevie think of warmer coastlines. ‘We see where the wind blows us.’
She said, ‘And it blew you here?’
‘Not quite.’ Belle gave a ghost of a smile. ‘The last time I saw Mags he was headed this way.’ She looked at Magnus. ‘Did your family …?’
Magnus glanced away. ‘They were gone before I arrived.’
That was how they spoke of people the Sweats had taken, as if they had set off on a long voyage.
Stevie said, ‘We’re sending you to Wyre for two weeks. There’s a farmhouse about a mile from where you’ll dock. It should be stocked with enough preserved food to keep you going for a few days and the foraging isn’t bad at this time of year. I’m guessing you already have fishing rods and we’ll drop fresh provisions on shore for you as and when we can. It’s a short sail from here. Are you up to it?’
‘We’re up to it.’ Rob wet a finger and held it in the air. ‘But I’m not sure the wind is. We made the last stretch of the journey on the tide. The best we can do right now is row back to the boat and wait until it lifts.’
Stevie looked out to where their yacht sat; calm against the glassy sea. The vessel’s mastheads rose like bare bones into the sky. She wanted the strangers gone.
Magnus said, ‘The wind will lift soon enough.’
It was true. The wind swept across the islands, so fierce that few trees survived. Stevie loved the long vistas of uninterrupted green, the way the sky and the sea were hinged to the land.
She nodded. ‘Do you need any supplies to take on board? Fresh water?’
Ed said, ‘We filled our containers earlier.’
‘Good.’ Alan Bold was all business now. Stevie stood by while he instructed the trio on the coordinates of Wyre, directions to the farmhouse and the arrangements of how to get in touch should they need help. Magnus made an attempt to join in, but his contributions were drink-fuddled and after a while he raised a hand in farewell and lurched back towards the warmth of the hotel.
Stevie wondered where the newcomers had refilled their water containers and how long they had been on the islands. The coastline was full of sheltered bays where vessels could quietly dock. There were rarely glimpsed hermits on some of the islands, but it bothered her to think that there might be strangers hiding out, unknown to the community.
Alan had finished his spiel and was looking at her expectantly. ‘Anything you want to add?’
‘Just a question you’ve already been asked.’ Stevie forced a smile. ‘Do you have news from outside?’
Rob looked like he was about to say something, but it was Belle who spoke.
‘We tried to skirt the bigger towns and cities, but once or twice we ventured in, to track down things we needed. It was like stepping into hell. Out here you can see what’s coming towards you, in amongst the buildings you never know when someone is going to take a potshot. I was lucky to meet these guys. Without them …’ She shrugged.
Stevie remembered her own flight from London in the stolen Jaguar, the stranger she had run over, the men she had shot.
Ed put a hand on Belle’s arm. ‘We’re knackered. It’s time to go.’
Belle let herself be led and the three of them made their way along the quayside to where they had moored the rowing boat. Alan Bold and Stevie stood outside the hotel, watching them go.
The deputy said, ‘They would be an asset.’
Belle and her companions took it in turns to descend the rungs of the ladder strapped to the quayside. They stepped into the boat easily, each of them adjusting their weight to the lurch of the sea with the sureness of old salts. Stevie watched as Ed dipped the oars into the water and sent the vessel gliding slowly towards the becalmed yacht. ‘I’m still not sure I trust them.’
‘Magnus vouched for her.’
Stevie shrugged. ‘He hasn’t seen her since the first outbreak of the Sweats. A lot can happen in seven years. None of us are the same people we were.’
‘No,’ Bold said and stuffed his hands into his pockets. ‘Some of us went from zero to hero.’
Stevie knew he meant her, but she did not bother to contradict him. He was right. The plague had been the making of her.
Four
Magnus’s head was ringed by a band of pain, his throat dry. He heard movement in the kitchen and thought about shouting for Shug to bring him a glass of water, but he did not want the boy to see him in this state, not when he had Bjarne’s warning to pass on.
Fuck.
Fuck.
Fuck.
Magnus rolled onto his front and pulled the pillow over his head, hoping to relieve the pressure on his skull. He could not remember how he had travelled the six miles from Stromness. His body ached, but it felt free of the bruises that usually followed a drunken cycle-ride home. Someone must have slung him into the back of their cart and dropped him off. The thought made him groan.
His memories of the evening were foggy, but he recalled Belle’s arrival clearly enough to know that she had grown up. The girl he had first met at Tanqueray House, the ill-starred community he had briefly been a part of after he had fled London in the first wave of the Sweats, had been young and scared. She had come from privilege and seemed ill-suited to the privations of the post-plague world. This new version of Belle had the soldierly assurance of someone who had done a deal with death. The welt on her face lent her a battle-scarred look, but it was more than that. She had the air of a woman who would do whatever she needed to survive.
Magnus had closed the door on most of his memories of the period that had followed his flight from the city. Now he forced himself to remember the way Belle had taken his hand outside Tanqueray House while a mob closed in on him, baying for his blood. He owed her for that, even if he could not be certain that the new Belle would do the same.
Magnus dragged himself from bed, pulled on his crumpled jeans and padded barefoot into the lobby. The polished floorboards were cool against his soles. It was meant to be spring, but the day was dull and rain spattered the windows. The wind would be strong enough to send the becalmed boat to Wyre. A clatter of crockery came from the kitchen. The door was open a sliver. Magnus peered through the gap, but all he could see was a slice of flagged floor, a corner of a work unit.
‘Morning.’ His voice sounded cracked a
nd old. The only response was the sound of dishes rattling into the sink. Magnus tried again. ‘Hello?’
He half-expected to hear Belle’s voice, but it was Shug who answered. ‘Aye.’ The word was all irritation and vowels.
Magnus stuck his head into the room. The kitchen was in its usual state of not quite chaos. A pile of his father’s farm journals sat on the table, where he had left them a couple of nights ago, when he had been trying to work out some kind of sowing strategy. He had washed their work clothes earlier in the week and their overalls drooped from the pulley like hanged men. Shug was at the sink, cleaning the oatmeal pan.
‘You have a good night?’
Shug dipped the pan into a bucket of rinse water on the draining board.
‘Not as good as you from the sounds of it.’ His jeans were fresh, his hair damp and slicked back, but Shug’s eyes were dark from lack of sleep. Magnus wondered if he too was suffering from a hangover, or if something other than drinking had kept the boy up late. He was about to ask if he had mucked out the chickens and fed the pig, but it was the kind of question that led to an argument and his head was too sore for raised voices. He let the door swing to. Shug had been diligent at his tasks until a couple of months ago when he had become surly and prone to absences. It was part of growing up Magnus supposed, a means of disengaging from the mothership, except Shug had no mother.
Magnus took his waterproof from the peg in the hallway and slung it on, wincing at the feel of the cold, plasticky fabric against his naked torso. Then he shoved his bare feet into a pair of wellies standing by the door. He tried to conjure his own mother’s voice in his head, but her presence was fainter than it had been. It was his father’s voice that occurred to him more often these days, Big Magnus, the disciplinarian who had died in a combine accident caused by a moment’s lapse of attention. Magnus shuddered. It hurt him to think of the blades slicing into his father’s flesh, the instant of panic he must have felt as he pulled free the last of the blockage that had jammed the machine and realised, as it roared back into life, that he had not turned off the ignition.
He pulled open the heavy back door and went out into the yard. The rain had stopped, but the atmosphere was damp, the sky heavy, another shower building. A scatter of hens bustled towards him and he saw that they had not been locked up the night before. ‘Aye, aye,’ he said, in the soft voice he reserved for animals and seduction. ‘You’ll get fed soon enough.’ Magnus lifted the cover from the water butt by the door, washed his face and scooped a palm-full into his mouth. The water tasted clean and ice-cold. He drank again and then walked to the vegetable plot and peed into the rhubarb.
‘That’s disgusting.’
Magnus turned and saw Shug watching him. He tucked himself away. ‘It’s the best way to fertilise rhubarb.’
‘I hope Rab the pig enjoys it, because I’m not eating it.’
‘You never complained before.’
The boy turned away. ‘You fucking disgust me.’
His own father would have belted the boy, but Magnus looked down at his naked chest, goose-pimpled from the cold, his jeans stiff with stale beer and worse and thought that Shug had a point.
‘I give the stems a thorough wash before I cook them.’ He followed the boy across the yard, both of them ignoring the chickens fussing around their feet. Shug’s spine was straight with indignation, his new white denim-jacket spotless. Magnus said, ‘And cooking destroys any toxins.’
‘Tell that to the pig, he’ll be the one eating it.’
‘Ach, you love my rhubarb pies, it’s the urine that gives them that extra piquancy.’
Even a month ago Shug might have laughed, but now he ignored Magnus and took his bicycle from its place by the back door.
‘Bjarne is after you,’ Magnus said, as the boy he thought of as his son flung himself onto the saddle. ‘He’s got some bee in his bonnet about you and Willow.’
Shug was pedalling towards the gate, working hard against the gradient of the yard. He looked back over his shoulder and shouted, ‘He can fuck off too.’ Then he was through the open gate and down the road, a splash of white against the green fields beyond.
Magnus shouted, ‘You didn’t put the hens in last night.’ His words were lost in the rising wind. He muttered, ‘We’re lucky a dog didn’t massacre them,’ and watched Shug disappear in the direction of Willow’s house. He thought about Bjarne’s bunched fists and wondered if he should risk humiliating the boy by following him. A hen tap-tap-tapped at the toe of his wellie with its beak and Magnus looked down at it. ‘Hungry enough for rubber are you?’ Rain was spattering the yard. He zipped up his jacket and pulled the hood over his head. ‘Let’s leave silly buggers to themselves while I fix you some gourmet mash.’
The sky was darkening, the rain building to more than a shower. Shug’s fancy jacket would be no match for a storm. Magnus hoped the boy would shelter somewhere until it passed, but he knew that wild weather and hard fists were no match for young love.
Rab the pig bellowed in his pen.
Magnus muttered, ‘Aye, aye, you’ll get yours too.’
The thought of hard fists made him think of Bjarne again. Shug was at an age for beatings. He felt an urge to go after the boy. The pig shrieked. Magnus cursed and went to prepare its slops. He would see to the livestock first. Then he would ride over to Bjarne’s and make sure that Shug was okay.
Five
Stevie put her feet on the desk and leaned back in her chair, trying to suppress a yawn. The night had been a long one. She had slept badly and had spent most of the morning with the clean-up group, putting the hotel to rights. ‘I’ve got a bad feeling about them.’
‘I don’t see why you’re getting your panties in a twist. They’re young and able-bodied. They could be an asset.’ Alan Bold’s lips were red behind his beard. He had tried to kiss Stevie once. She had pushed him away and he had called her a frigid bitch. Now he rubbed his face as if he was trying to erase his hangover. ‘Magnus vouched for them.’
‘Magnus was seven sheets to the wind.’
Bold took a long drink of water and then raised the glass in the air, as if toasting something worth celebrating. ‘In vino veritas.’
The New Orcadian Council had rejected the existing civic buildings as being too big, too haunted by the past. Instead they had made their headquarters in Stromness, in what had been a gift shop and cafe. Stevie liked the shop’s large display windows which allowed anyone passing by to see inside. She suspected that Alan Bold was less keen on them. She glanced across the desk at her deputy and caught him scanning her legs, assessing them beneath her jeans.
‘You can only be veritas regarding things you know something about.’ She touched Bold’s water glass with the toe of her boot, threatening to tip it over.
He shifted his eyes from her thighs and moved his glass beyond her reach. ‘You want me to put a watch on them?’
‘We’re not the fucking Stasi.’ Stevie had found herself fantasising about sailing to Wyre and observing the newcomers from some hidden vantage. She slid her feet from the desk and walked to the window. ‘You can’t start spying on people,’ she said, half to herself.
When it became clear that their community had grown large enough to require some form of governance the freshly elected New Orcadian Council had toyed with the idea of perambulating across Orkney, holding meetings on each of the populated islands in turn, but the plan had proved impractical. It was not the weather that had stopped them. It was often wild in the dark months, but they could have planned their trips around the long bright summer nights that stretched into morning. It was the attitude of the outlying islanders that had hampered the council’s urge to bring them into the democratic fold. Some islands were home to only one or two people, others to mysterious communities who preferred to be left to their own devices. In the end it had been decided that they would hold their small parliaments in the densest area of population, the town that had once been the second largest on the island, Stromnes
s.
Stevie looked out at the cobbled street. The shop window was grimy and she could make out the faint outline of a long-gone window decal announcing TEA & COFFEE, FRESH SCONES, SOUVENIRS. The day was overcast, the street pitched in shadows that gave an impression of premature twilight. The wind was up, Belle’s yacht on its way to quarantine. Stevie sensed the ghost of despair, the enemy of survival, hovering on the edge of her consciousness.
She had first come to the islands on a boat, with other survivors. They had been trying to outrun death and although they had known there was no way to put an ocean between them and the Sweats, the sea, grey and choppy, had seemed to offer possibilities. She had stood on the deck, beyond sight of land, and felt the salt spray sting her face, but the moment of cleansing she had craved had not happened. Instead, she had realised that the consequences of the pandemic would be waiting, wherever she landed. The only way to survive was to face them.
There had been no sign of any survivors on the islands until they had found Willow, bloody and malnourished, beneath her parents’ bed. Stevie preferred to imagine that Orcadian survivors had fled, moved by the same urge that had brought her to their islands. It hurt too much to think that the entire population had either died of the Sweats, or taken the other way out: a gun to the head; looted packets of pills; a last look at the coastline from some high cliff; sailing rudderless into the storm.
Disposing of the bodies of people left behind had taken months. They had started by burying them in deep trenches, dug with the aid of a mechanical digger. Some people had joined in prayers and hymns over the mass graves in an attempt to give the occasion some dignity. Others had ignored all but the burials they had drawn in the lottery. They did their duty and then walked away, leaving the digger operator to cover the pit. Stevie was not religious, but she had volunteered for more burials than she was required to and had lingered on until the end of each one, mumbling her way through ‘Abide with Me’. If it was an attempt to placate the dead, she had failed. They came to her most nights in dreams.