She was with a young man. He must have been about the same age as me – except that, unlike me, he looked his age. He had long ginger hair tied back in a ponytail and piercing blue eyes in a pale freckled face. He was scowling; the scowl looked permanent. He looked like a fresher, younger, male version of the faded person standing next to him. He was obviously her son. He had sullen insolence written in every line of his face. It was a peculiarly discontented face, and I began to understand why the woman looked the way she did: with a son like that it was hardly surprising. When I learned later that she had three other sons exactly the same, the eldest of whom was serving a life sentence for murder, then it all made sense.
‘Good morning, Mrs Mackay,’ said Judith cheerfully and I thought with a touch of pity.
‘Is it?’ said Mrs Mackay. ‘Aye, it may well be.’
The young man reached out and pulled at the scarf Judith had carefully wound around my neck. The Fabian mark was not easy to hide; it sat high on my neck. It was quickly exposed.
‘Euan!’ cried Mrs Mackay.
Euan suddenly grinned – a very unpleasant grin. ‘Watch it!’ he said to me. ‘Your days are numbered!’ and he stalked off.
‘I’m so sorry!’ wailed Mrs Mackay, and went chasing after her son.
‘Poor woman,’ said Judith. ‘Her husband up and left her with four laddies to raise. It’s not been easy for her, what with the farm and everything – and then Hamish went and did that foolish thing!’ She shook her head sadly.
Call me old-fashioned but I don’t call murder a foolish thing, and I felt distinctly uncomfortable coming to the notice, so soon, of a gang of misfits. I shuddered; something told me that I was going to get to know the Mackay brothers rather well.
Chapter 9
Judith informed me that, although the Mackay brothers were a family of criminals and thugs, they were also exceptional musicians. She was keen to prove her point and, so, one night a few weeks later we found ourselves at the local pub, the Tavern, which boasted a large hall and a bar that sold only beer or whisky.
I sat down at our table with a glass of whisky and watched everyone dance – and believe me, everybody in that hall except me was on their feet and dancing. The music compelled it. Judith was right; they were exceptional musicians. They played the drums, bagpipes and various percussion instruments – and they sang. They sang with passion and aggression. It was angry music, brutal even. They seemed almost to hate what they did; they treated their skills and abilities with seeming contempt and, yet, at the same time, they were completely obsessed with it. It was part of them: three violent young men dressed in kilts, channelling their emotions into a performance that tore at your heart. How I wished I had two good legs that night. I longed to dance and stamp the floor and give expression to my own anger and spite. Instead, I sat with my buggered leg strapped up in front of me and watched the whole village dance to their heathen music.
Andrew danced with Judith; they were very good. They clearly had a lifetime of dancing together. I wondered idly why they had never married and then realised how much I disliked the idea of Andrew touching her.
My thoughts were interrupted at that point by the arrival of a young man – Sonia’s boyfriend, Duncan. Judith had said he was coming tonight and, now, he was walking into the dance hall – actually he strutted in; his walk was arrogant and full of confidence and bravado. He was short and solid, built of muscle, brawn and little else. I disliked him at first sight. He was everything I was not. Sonia was busy working; she worked for the Tavern serving at table, behind the bar and cooking in the kitchen. He found her, though. He relieved her of her tray of drinks and swept her up in his strong arms and rammed his mouth to hers. I expect he thought he was being powerful and romantic. I smiled to myself; yes, they seemed the perfect couple. I was very happy for her. Her sharpness had found a pretty blunt instrument to knock against.
Actually, Sonia had an interesting history. She was a young woman of twenty-four when I arrived. She had been engaged to be married to Judith’s son David. They had, according to Judith, been very much in love. Then David had been killed in a pointless accident, leaving Sonia alone and heartbroken. She had turned to David’s best friend Duncan for consolation. Duncan, like David, was also a child of the village; he and David had joined the army together. It was their way of escaping a dying village – an escape denied others: the Mackay brothers found themselves trapped by a rundown farm and mother – only the eldest had escaped to another prison – and Sonia, too, had been trapped. She had even been denied her education; she had to leave school early to look after her infirm father. She earned her living working at the Tavern and cleaning. All she had to consol her was her God and Duncan. No wonder she looked so sharp and pinched. She seemed happy at the arrival of Duncan, though, and they were soon dancing together and locked in each other’s arms.
She was also pretty quick to tell him all about me, and soon I became a very obvious target for a natural bully.
Judith took me down to the shops a couple of days after the dance. We stopped off at the Tavern for lunch. As we walked in, Duncan was sitting at one of the tables lounging and reading soft porn. He glanced up and gave a huge smile. ‘Well, well,’ he said. ‘If it isn’t Judith ... with her lady friend.’
Judith frowned but said nothing. She could never find fault with her son’s best friend. She went to the bar to order our lunch, which gave Duncan the ideal opportunity to practise his blunt wit on me. ‘So what have you got to say for yourself?’ he teased. He knew I was mute. ‘Didn’t see you dancing much the other night.’
I sat and rolled a cigarette. I ignored him. There really wasn’t much else I could do.
Later, when I stood up to go to the toilet, he shouted out for everyone to hear, ‘Watch your arses, gentleman, fag on the loose!’
This was his favourite line, and although a few people laughed the first time, the joke quickly wore thin – especially as it was obvious that Judith didn’t approve. It never stopped him, though. He never called me David. He said that name belonged to someone far better than me; instead, he called me yellow eyes – well, it made a change from Matrix.
His contempt for me was no greater than mine for him. He had the advantage over me, though, in every respect, the greatest being I could never answer him back; my tongue was locked, his was not – and although it was a blunt instrument, he was still able to use it.
It was, however, nothing compared to what the Mackay brothers had in store for me.
Chapter 10
Let me tell you something about the village in which I found myself. I was, of course, not there by accident. I was actually only thirty miles from the place where I had been born; that was where I was heading when I stopped to relieve Judith of her purse. My journey to my place of birth was not entirely sentimental; it was home to a cottage hospital, and where there is a hospital there are drugs. I needed the money to buy drugs. I needed to shoot some stuff and I needed it fast. I was ready to steal or buy; I didn’t really care. I knew enough about the legal stuff to know that some of it could give me a high and I knew enough about the set up of a hospital to know where I could steal some of the restricted stuff.
Lochcarrie was a small, pretty village sited at the edge of two large, deep lochs. It was all very beautiful in a wild, bleak sort of way, but there were many places more beautiful and with friendlier people. Lochcarrie had been passed by. Tourists hardly ever went there – unless it was because they had lost their way – and the people there were trapped and poor.
The village boasted a couple of shops, the Tavern, a small hotel, school, park area and playground, a kirk, several houses and a dwindling population, which was growing older and angrier. Judith was a star amongst them. I totally understood the doctor’s passion for her; there was little else in that corner of the world and the people had only their God to console them. It was also understandable why my arrival caused such a stir; nothing ever happened in Lochcarrie and, when it did, it was discuss
ed and mulled over for as long as they could make it last; entertainment was in short supply and, yet, despite this, these people seemed strangely unconcerned and indifferent to the world outside. I would have thought they would be hungry for news of life in the cities but they were not. I sat at the table with Duncan and Sonia enough times to realise that, despite his travels and experience, no one cared a jot for them. He talked, but no one, except Sonia, ever listened.
Judith’s little house was set apart from the rest of the village. It was set high up and overlooked the lochs. It was completely enclosed by a low stone wall, designed to protect her flowers and vegetables. It had two double bedrooms upstairs, with a bathroom and a bedroom downstairs, set up, I guessed, to cater for an ailing husband. It was not in use now. There was a small functional kitchen, a utility room and the glory of the house: the living area. It was large and full of books, locally produced works of art and the debris from the lives of two people who held a natural curiosity for the world around them – in a word junk, glorious junk. It had long windows stretching across the front, giving views of the lochs’ full majesty. The views were so demanding they swept into the room and gave it a sense of shape and drama.
When I first looked out of that window, I did so in all innocence. How was I to know that the two lochs would come to dominate my life and my thoughts? How could I have realised then how these two dark mysterious worlds of beauty and obscurity would haunt me forever? Sometimes, when I think back, I wish I had never seen them; to want and never to have is a terrible thing.
The room itself was fascinating. It held so much, so many secrets of the past and of a marriage now gone but never forgotten. It made me think of my father and his loss. It was the saddest and sweetest room you could imagine.
Judith allowed me free access throughout the entire house, all except the kitchen that is. I was allowed everywhere but there. That was where the knives were kept. The order was strict and never to be broken. To break this rule meant I would be told to leave. She made that very clear on my first day downstairs and I believed her. There came a time when I did break her rule, when I had no choice – but that is another story.
Otherwise, I would sit at the doorway between the living area and the kitchen with my leg stretched out before me and I would watch her prepare and cook her meals. I would sit there for hours silently watching her. Sometimes she would chat to me, sometimes she would sing softly to herself – she had a wonderful singing voice – and sometimes she would simply ignore me. She couldn’t ignore my leg though. That stretched out into her kitchen, the one bit of me allowed in – well, it was useless so I suppose it didn’t count. It used to amuse me to watch her trying to negotiate her way around it. It definitely got in the way. She would struggle to open doors around it and reach out for things. I sat with my arms crossed and an amused smile on my face as she struggled and huffed and puffed, but I never moved it.
Hades, however, was allowed into her kitchen. He would lie in the way, just like my leg, waiting for the inevitable scraps. I was very fond of Hades and he, to Judith’s dismay, was very fond of me. She had hoped for more loyalty from him, but he switched his affection pretty rapidly once I turned up. Actually, we had a lot in common. He looked fierce, but an illness and infection when he was a puppy had resulted in him having to have all his teeth removed. He sucked his food – just as I did – and he never barked, only growled. We were both silent and toothless. I like to think it bonded us.
She was careless, though. She left her things lying around, particularly that purse of hers. She kept it on the table by the front door. I would walk past it and see it sitting there; sometimes I would pick it up and then put it down again; once, I did that, and when I looked up she was standing there watching me. She said nothing and she didn’t move the purse; it was her test for me – one, I must admit, I failed. One day I picked up the purse and removed some money. I took the money upstairs and I hid it; it was my ‘just in case’ money. I think she knew I had done it, she was too canny with money not to know, but she never said anything.
She never gave me any money; if I wanted anything, I needed only to point at it and she would usually give it to me. I didn’t want much, actually – only my tobacco and whisky, and she kept me supplied with both. She liked me not to have money; it gave her power over me. I didn’t begrudge it her. It gave her pleasure; it was the least I could do.
And I did have that money I had stolen from her tucked away, my ‘just in case’ money. For what, you might ask? For me, of course; I was a dope head, never forget that, I didn’t, I couldn’t. I wanted that fix; sometimes I wanted it more than anything else. I needed to know that, if I had to, I could leave and go to that hospital and buy some oblivion.
Chapter 11
May 2036
The new minister had arrived and everybody was talking about it. We were all invited for tea to meet him, and Judith was very excited. She dressed with particular care and fussed over me. We arrived on time and soon became part of the excited, curious crowd.
The Reverend Fraser Drummond was a young man, not much older than me, tall, broad and imposing. His skin and eyes were almost as pale as an albino, and he was striking to look at. The women certainly thought so; they hummed around him and he stood at their centre, completely at ease with the adulation and attention. When I hobbled in, I knew my card had already been marked. He had spent some time with Sonia; he knew I was trouble. His cold grey eyes looked across the room. It was detestation at first sight – for both of us.
Judith was delighted with him, but as soon as she had drifted out of earshot he moved in closer to me. ‘I heard the Devil’s Child was in our midst,’ he hissed. ‘You have been warned.’
Nothing more was said.
***********************
The new minister’s arrival was hot news, but it was soon superseded by other news: Duncan had asked Sonia to marry him. That was real news – but it was quickly followed by the astonishing fact that she had turned him down.
Andrew was over for tea and discussing it with Judith.
‘I can’t understand it,’ she said. ‘I’ve watched them together. He adores her.’
This was true. I may have disliked him intensely, yet even I could see the puppy dog adoration he gave to Sonia.
Andrew shook his head. ‘She won’t talk about it.’
‘Is it her father, do you think?’
‘No, he’s quite willing to take him on. That’s what’s so strange. She has a man here who loves her and is willing to take her father as well. He can take her out of her drudgery. It makes no sense!’
‘I thought she loved him.’
‘So did he.’
I wondered if the new minister had anything to do with it; Duncan was not the only one looking at Sonia.
I was soon to find out.
Judith had given me one of her impossible tasks – impossible for me anyway. Her house was full of wonderful clutter and she had given me the job of sorting through some of her boxes. It involved sitting on her floor, my strapped-up leg lying awkwardly to one side, checking and organising a whole range of different objects. My eyesight was simply not clear enough, even on a good day, so I was struggling to see what things were and where they belonged, despite Judith having explained in great detail and at great length exactly what I was supposed to do. I was getting in a complete muddle – when Sonia marched in.
She stood watching me with her hands on her hips – a characteristic pose – and a scowl on her face. For a while she said nothing; then she couldn’t help herself: she was down on the floor and sorting through the boxes, lecturing me as she did so. ‘You know, David, you must be the most useless man I have ever met. God only knows why I ...’ She gave a big sigh. ‘Surely this is a simple enough job – even for you ...’ Another sigh. She carried on sorting and I sat back to watch.
I slipped my hand inside my pocket, pulled out my hip flask and took a swig. The whisky burned my throat and I burped with satisfaction and smiled
. Sonia’s frown deepened and she gave a grunt. So I burped again; I really knew how to wind her up. I had few pleasures in life and this was one of them. I began to roll a cigarette.
‘You’re not to smoke that in the house!’ she cried. ‘You know Judith won’t allow it!’
I did, it was another one of her little rules and I dared not break it, but Sonia didn’t know that. So I smiled again, showing her my yellow teeth, gaps included, and then put the cigarette in my mouth.
Sonia sat back on her heels and scowled again; it made her look almost ugly. ‘If you weren’t drunk most of the time, I expect you’d be a lot more useful!’ she said.
If I wasn’t drunk most of the time I probably couldn’t make it down the stairs I thought.
I watched her; she wouldn’t meet my eyes. She found me a frightening figure at the best of times. She stared at the floor. ‘It’s all your fault,’ she said resentfully
I took the cigarette out of my mouth and looked quizzical.
She glanced up briefly. ‘I would’ve married Duncan if it weren’t for you.’
My perplexity turned to astonishment and then laughter. I think it must have been the first time I had laughed. I had forgotten what it felt like; it was a strange feeling. I threw my head back and laughed – it was silent, to be sure, but it could not be mistaken.
Sonia was furious. She leapt to her feet. ‘You! You! You!’ she repeated, and then she slapped my face – hard.
I stopped laughing and grabbed her wrist. I squeezed it so tight she cried out.
She looked into my yellow eyes. ‘You really are the Devil’s Child,’ she whispered, her voice tinged with fear.
The Dream Catcher Diaries Page 15