Kingdom

by Andy Tilley

  For a moment there is silence. The first thing to make a noise is the rain, drumming on the roof. John checks his rear view and not quite believing what he thinks he’s seen there, checks his wing mirrors too. No doubt about it, he’s definitely hit a horse. Consequently, the next thing to make a noise is John’s wicked sense of humour.

  ‘Hungry? I’d say the poor bugger’s dead!’

  John’s joke has served its purpose well and all but stopped his trembling but once his nervous giggling has subsided there’s a bit of a nasty taste left behind. A country man at heart, he likes horses and doesn’t relish one being hurt like this.

  ‘Ah well, let’s see if there’s anything we can do for you then fella.’

  The rain has backed off a little. Even so, as John crouches down to take a closer look, a steady stream of water runs from his thinning hair, onto his nose and drops in to the animal’s huge open eye. Nothing, not a flicker and this is all the confirmation that John needs of the horse’s demise. He sighs and closes the horses eye. Deciding that it would be best to phone the police from the guest house John slowly stands to return to his car but doesn’t get far before remembering that the way to his bed is impassable. Turning back around he applies a speculative and gentle push to the gate, but it doesn’t budge. Grabbing it with both hands next, blood pressure rising, he shoves again but like some huge furry doorstop the heavy horse won’t permit the gate to close.

  ‘Damn it you stubborn sod! Move your bloody head will you!’

  As John’s frustration unceremoniously rattles the gate onto the back of the horse’s neck he happens to notice that the real Hungry Horse is in fact tantalisingly close, clearly visible from the scene of the accident. On a summer evening this would be a beautiful stroll but on such a freezing wet night John simply doesn’t have the legs for it. He thinks he can see a junction however, halfway between the horse and the hotel, that looks like it could bypasses his problem completely. Back at the car this is soon confirmed by inspection of his satnav. The car is already facing the right way too and the engine starts with the first twist of his key.

  ‘Finally!’

  Happier that things are going his way for a change and with the smell of warm toast in his mind, John sets off in search of his left turn. It isn’t until he reaches it (and has to slow right down to determine where the junction actually starts) that he realises there is something wrong with his wipers. Oh they’re moving well enough but instead of making a squeegee clean sweep the one on the driver’s side isn’t dealing with the rain at all well. If anything the broad streaks it leaves with each pass make it more difficult to see ahead, especially through a pair of continuously steamed up glasses like he now has following his unshielded sortie into the rain. Suddenly impatient once more, John convinces himself that the problem will fix itself (probably as the ice that must have gathered there melts away) and drives on.

  Truth be told the road isn’t the only thing that John Saunders can’t see too well. For instance, he missed completely the flight of the two songbirds, fluttering from his windscreen (where they had been busy damaging his wiper blade) as he returned to the car. Also, had he seen the horse stand and return to its paddock he set off then John might have understood that something wasn’t quite right with this scene. Even without the crappy wiper and steamed up glasses though, John couldn’t be expected to see around the next bend where cats are standing and strolling to take their positions on the tarmac; black to the left, white to the right.

  Ah, those good ol’ dependable cat’s eyes. There isn’t a motorist in the land who at some time hasn’t followed these tiny reflecting miracles down mist shrouded lanes and asked himself two questions. Why didn’t I think of that and what would we do without them? John is no different. Visibility slashed in half by an unfortunate collaboration of rain, bad wipers and steamed up glasses he drives on through the night, placing all his blind faith in the tiny lumps of glass that are guiding him. The satnav is telling him something different however, that the road will bend to the left thirty yards ahead, but he ignores that new fangled space man technology. No, the light bouncing back from the cat’s eyes has his vote of confidence; it’s telling him to veer right and that has to be correct because there’s nothing about a cat’s eye that can go wrong is there? But it turns out that not all cat’s eyes are to be trusted, a lesson hard learnt by John Saunders as he bumps a low tarmac ridge.

  ‘What the….’

  Far too late he sees his headlights devoured by the void as the ground falls away before him. The car is already committed to plummet but incredibly it hesitates, hangs on to the steep river bank, held there by a slim branch that strains but doesn’t yield. John releases his seat belt, flings open the door and launches himself from the car. Now he has a branch too, but as he pulls himself towards it and out of the vehicle his left foot refuses to follow. It won’t take long to twist it free from the control pedals but it is time that John simply doesn’t have. Crack, and the car is released. John looks up to the road, pleading for salvation, the slim limb he clutches ripping flesh and blood out of his grasp. Then, through his pain, comes understanding. It only takes a second for him to fall from view but it’s enough for him to see the cats scatter; black unveiling the true course of the road that they had obscured , white erasing the false bend that their devilish stares had created to lead John over the edge.

  ‘Setantii!!!!! We had a….’

  John wants to protest that they had a deal but the freezing black water slams his mouth closed as the car takes him under. He doesn’t have long to live, twenty panicked seconds at most before he will have no choice but to open his lungs to the river.

  ‘And I have delivered on my promise John.’

  The voice in his head demands so much of his attention that John literally forgets his desire for air. He allows his thoughts to answer.

  ‘But you promised Setantii, you promised, you gave your word that you would give what was left of her when this was over!’

  ‘And it is over for you John. You have kept your word and given me everything that I asked from you. Open your eyes John. See where you are going.’

  Immediately John does as he is asked and instantly a switch is thrown, changing his perspective from one of hopelessness to one filled with hope. May is with him, drifting serenely in the water by his side, smiling gently and waiting patiently for him to join her.

  ‘This is my word, her soul John. The very best of a wonderful woman and I return her to you. Join her, be happy again.’

  John Saunders doesn’t simply smile, he opens his mouth wide and grins.

  Chapter 25

  Approaching Stromness is like sailing into a postcard. Stepping from the gang plank to become a part of the harbour scene is invigorating. I’m utterly buzzed by it, soaking up the energy of the fishermen and the traders there. Soaking up or feeding on? This is the question I find myself pondering as I weave my way through piles of sodden nets, scowled at by sturdy men stinking of fish and whisky. I’m on my way to the first of three pubs that I can see have opened their doors (even at this early hour) to dole out booze and attentive barmaids for the fishermen to find solace in. Two days ago I would have said that the last thing I needed was to see Setantii amongst them but the disappointment I feel upon leaving the Flattie Bar is impossible to deny. The Ferry Inn is next, positioned central to the harbour wall and a lot busier than the previous pub had been; there are three people at the bar. Aunt May isn’t one of them. Well, if you can’t beat ‘em…

  ‘Hi, I’d like a single malt please. Smooth and peaty if you can recommend something local that’s fits the bill?’

  The woman behind the counter is fat and ginger and her smug smile at the other customers leaning on the bar annoys me intensely. She says nothing, turns to jab at an optic with a rather tatty glass and when it’s done, still without addressing her customer directly, places the tumbler in front of me whilst at the same time ringing the price into the till.

  ‘Lovely than
ks. And could I have a couple of lumps of ice in that please?’

  The three fishermen stop moaning at each other and turn to stare. From the deep set frowns on their faces you would have thought that I’d asked the barmaid to get on the bar, drop her knickers and piss in it for me.

  ‘I’m sorry sir, but we don’t serve cocktails.’

  The woman is deadly serious too, sharper than the scotch which I feel obliged to sip with a shrug to let everyone think that I wasn’t particularly bothered about the ice anyway. After a necessary, rather uncomfortable silent two minutes spent fidgeting at the bar I nod to no-one in particular and slip away to a quiet corner where I can justifiably turn my back on my new drinking buddies and watch the wharf. Almost immediately though my view is blocked by a thin faced young man, cupping his hands around ruddy cheeks to douse reflections so that he can better peer through the salty windows of the pub. He sees me, drops his arms and sets off again pushing a wheel chair into to the bar. I’m tempted to help him as he struggles to drag his charge backwards up the entrance steps but he eventually manages okay and makes a beeline for me with his bundle of blankets and shawls. I recognise the woman buried amongst them immediately. She looks dreadful; sallow and gaunt with no hint of the vivacious woman who had cared for me as a child in those lifeless, carbon streaked eyes.

  ‘Aunt May?’

  ‘No Cristian, she isn’t in here anymore. It’s just me now.’

  Setantii’s openness about her possession of this dying body leads me to believe that the man pushing her is probably silkie too. He is.

  ‘Allow me to introduce myself Cristian. My name is Keltz, or Donald Frasier should we be in the company of others. How was your journey so far?’

  The man shuffles the wheel chair closer to the table then offers me his hand as he sits down. I refuse it, not quite sure why he is here (other than to wheel Setantii around of course). No, there is something definitely not quite right about this one and I don’t fully trust his thin weak lips, still rather awkwardly pulled back into a semi sneer that I think is an attempt to reassure me that he’s okay.

  ‘Keltz will be with us tomorrow on Sule Skerry Cristian.’

  This isn’t information, this is an instruction; pulling rank over the doubt that she must be able to sense in me.

  ‘Keltz has spent the last five years helping me prepare for today and we could not be in better hands.’

  ‘Oh, so you’ve done this before then?’

  It turns out that he has, but a long long time ago. That was back in the days when silkies were known to men and existed openly alongside them. What also transpired from Keltz’s tale (which I have to admit is a rather intriguing account of medieval granite towers and sacrificial highland princesses) is this: that if silkies were indeed to have some kind of family tree then I will soon be able to call this weasely little man Grandad. I get the feeling that he could talk until sundown but a weary and increasingly impatient Setantii seizes her opportunity to interrupt when Keltz pauses to slug my whisky that mysteriously seems to have slid across the table toward him. Fast hands these silkies have.

  ‘Now listen, we don’t have much time Cristian, but before we leave for Sule Skerry I need you to know something.’

  I wonder if it’s the royal ‘we’ that Setantii is worried about how much time there is? This husk of May certainly doesn’t look like it’s going to last the day, for even as she speaks I can see the folds of skin on her face, neck and hands yielding, sliding slowly from her increasingly zombified frame right before my eyes. Surely it can’t be much longer until this corpse (whose dry rattle of a voice I’m listening too) is literally a bag of bones?

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Today you will meet your father and your sister.’

  Now this I wasn’t expecting! Sure, I knew there was a deal between Setantii and my father but I had no idea that he still had a part to play in it. Jesus! My father will be there? A man who I haven’t heard from for over five years and before that maybe twice a year if I was lucky (at Christmas or on my birthday). And if I’m to be honest with myself, I’ve given up on him as much as he has on me. In fact the last occasion that I can remember being asked about my family had been at a business lunch almost two years back. Without hesitation then I continued to crack lobster claws and nonchalantly answer that I’d been orphaned by a car wreck at the age of fifteen, a lie that had sat so well on my conscience that I haven’t since felt compelled to change it. But today I’m going to see my father again? I’m going to meet the man I so recently and utterly denied? My feelings are so mixed up about this that it’s hard for me distil the truth from them, to understand exactly why I really don’t want to see him on Sule Skerry today. And then it hits me; I don’t want to give that damned persuasive father of mine the opportunity to talk me out of a decision that’s all but made.

  ‘And you’re going to allow this? I mean, how can this possibly help? You’ve said all along that this is my decision and mine alone. And now you’re going to give him one last chance at talking me out of it?’

  I’m amazed by how dismissive she appears to be of my concerns, especially as this is a concern that she must surely share? Apparently not though for she says nothing more about it until Keltz has her outside and rolling quickly toward a not too shabby cruiser that I presume is to be our ride to Sule Skerry.

  ‘Just listen to what he has to say and then make your decision Cristian. Now come on, get me on this bloody boat will you?’

  I can understand her frustration, her rising fear. The body she is using is failing rapidly and as Jack had said, the only thing that a silkie truly fears is the death of its host, shutting down the exits and trapping them inside to endure a slow, starving death in a rotting corpse. The closest analogy I can think of as I help Keltz carry her onboard would be driving a car blindfolded, knowing that there’s a wall ahead and just praying that you will reach your destination first. Finally we are ready and Keltz pilots the boat out of the harbour. I stand at the stern, where Setantii is slumped into a soft leather captain’s chair, and watch a small crowd that has gathered on the dockside, waving frantically after us to tell us that we’ve left the wheel chair behind. They aren’t to know that we won’t be needing it anymore.

  Chapter 26

  The man in the crumpled suit looks to be as hesitant as I do about our imminent reunion. Whilst I help Keltz wind the anchor and wrestle the gang plank into position, my father stands stock still ten yards back from the shore line. My sister (who I have never met) is tucked tightly beneath the protective wing of his tatty jacket. I don’t look at him directly but as I coil and heave ropes I do occasionally glance his way. It isn’t long enough before the work is done and the time arrives. I walk toward Setantii and bend down to slide my arms beneath her shoulders.

  ‘No Cristian. Leave me here for a moment. You go ahead and speak to your father.’

  There isn’t a ripple on the water and although the gang plank yields it’s solid enough. Still, crossing it is one of the most difficult things I have ever had to do. Two more strides are all that I need to take but midway the menacing sea fret (that crept in with our arrival and erased the beach) lurches at me, grabs my attention by the ankles and holds me there. Slowly this damp mist twists the nature of the small strip of aluminium that I’m stood on until it’s no longer a bridge tying land to sea but a portal connecting two worlds together; one silkie the other human. Little by little the uncertainty about which of these worlds I truly belong in rises from the mist and pins me between them. It takes my father’s intervention to move time on. As I hesitate he acts, strides forward and offers me a hand.