Ella met us at the door, “You haven’t lost the knack of milking a cow, Eilidh,” and taking the pail from me, “Go you through, Eachan, you’re needing a wee toot, he’s through there. You’ll get supper in a little.” It was the first time she’d used the Gaelic of my name and warmth was in its saying. Dazed by the succession of events, I moved to the door, not wanting to leave Eilidh’s presence. She began helping Ella by sieving the milk into a bowl on the draining board beside the sink. “Away you go, you’re the best excuse he’s got tonight,” and her smiling eyes followed me.
“Come in boy.” Glasses were already on the dresser. Eachan poured with the hand of man not inclined to hain the bottle. Quite often in speaking to me they both mixed in words which they expected me to understand. I’d picked out the word ‘hain’. “It’s not Gaelic,” Ella had told me, “it means, to spare, to save something. I’m sure it came to us from the Norse folk. All about here have a touch of the Viking in their blood.”
“Here’s to a remarkable day, Eachan,” Raising the much needed dram and laughing quietly, “It wouldn’t surprise me if you told me Eilidh arrived by longboat this afternoon.”
“Look here a’bhalaich you’re not too far out, her father’s folk are related to Ella, she’s a far out cousin of Ella’s. Anyway, if my memory’s correct, quite a few grandfathers back, Eilidh’s forebear, a Harris man, a Norman MacLeod to name, escaped the slaughter after the Battle of Culloden and got a lift over the Minch on a Wester Ross fishing boat. A risky one for them both, the MacLeod fellow and the fisherman.”
The old man had the gift of bringing alive the atmosphere of bygone times. I listened engrossed, for as his story unfolded, voices from childhood echoed down a long corridor. “You see, an English Naval vessel was scouring the waters of the Hebrides putting the Redcoats, mostly English soldiers, ashore on each island. Many they suspected of being out for the Jacobite Cause, rightly or wrongly, they were shot without a trial. Others were transported on a one way ticket to a prison hulk anchored in the Thames. No way was it safe for him to return to Harris, so he, aye the MacLeod man, came ashore on Halasay and as luck would have it, the Navy ship had sailed north. Well, he wasn’t long ashore when he got his eye on a local girl and you know the way it is, so it’s on Halasay he settled. For sure, the MacLeods knew how to handle a longboat and that’s why Eilidh’s got the sea in her blood,” he winked at me. “So there you are, that’s Eilidh’s pedigree, but you’re safe enough boy, she only came round from Castleton with her dingy.”
I shook my head in wonderment. Memories, I sat on a stool beside an old woman, rocking back and forth as she spoke. My grandmother, my mother’s mother had told me Eachan’s story. Was this MacLeod the same ancestor she’d spoken about? The man who’d escaped from Culloden and the slaughtering by Butcher Cumberland? Were Eilidh and I forty-second cousins, twice removed as they say?
“Supper’s on the table,” Eilidh put her head round the door. Plain, unadorned mutton and potatoes on a scrubtopped wooden table, rich gravy, carrots from the garden, no outlandish fare. Simple, wholesome, home produce, it’d helped my strength return these past weeks. It had kept the old couple healthy for a lifetime. Red wine appeared, I guessed from London.
We ate quietly. Conversation flowed between the two women. Eilidh’s London/Glasgow flight the day previous, who she’d met on the ferry, they spoke away. The old boy teased her, “You’re a long time bringing your man to see us.” “Be patient Eachan, I don’t want to frighten him off by meeting you.” Her lighthearted rejoinder caught me off guard. Aware of a profuse blush I remained silent. Arching her eyebrows and glancing sideways Eilidh smiled.
Eventually I joined the conversation, strictly without mention of London or tube trains. Neither Eilidh nor I gave any hint of our momentary encounter. Certainly on my part and I dared to hope, for her also, it formed a secret communication, an experience too private, too special for sharing, a moment that existed only in two minds; as a current will flash across a divide in the fusion of mutual attraction, so that second’s contact had lived with me, an image of desire, feeding my imagination, sustaining a belief in the impossible, somehow, somewhere.
Now, the closeness of her, the incredible blueness of her eyes came again, shining out through the last evening light. The compelling attraction I’d striven to hide overcame me. An inner churning, I couldn’t avoid its turmoil, its intense elation amidst the pain, nor did I try. We said little of consequence, the language of the eyes glowed between us, its unspoken vocabulary of emotion unheeding of any other presence. We were two people sharing the elation of an unfathomable attraction; a headlong desire, care free and unstoppable, lightsome as a feather on the river of fate.
Time never served to interrupt conviviality in an island household and the evening was well advanced when Eilidh went over to the window. “The tide will be slack in the Sound. I’ll just head away over, it’s a clear night and there’ll be a moon in a little.” “Surely you’re not needing to go out to Sandray tonight,” Ella stood up, protesting. “Now woman,” Eachan spoke a little sharply, “She’ll be fine, the sea’s down.” He went to the door and stood listening. “Yes, the sea’s good, and the moon’s nearly full, you’ll have all the light you need, better than any damn torch. The wind’s away to nothing and I filled the outboard this morning, so take the Hilda boat.”
Eilidh gathered up a rucksack and thanking the old couple, “Don’t worry, Ella, I’ll be back across when I’ve sorted out the old house.” Completely taken by surprise, I stammered, “Please, allow me, I’ll carry that.” Totally unsure of what was expected of me, I followed her out of the front door.
Late summer, its midnight air cool and exhilarating, hinting that a dew would sparkle the dawn. Cleansed by the ocean, the air that night breathed with ethereal purity. We walked in its stillness, together, in silence. Close beside me, her presence felt touchable, breathable. My senses filled the void. Voices whispered of another existence. At the crunch of our steps on starlit sand, oystercatchers flew, crying to a waiting tide. The land seemed transformed, spirited beyond fields and sounds.
Against the radiant dim of a crimson sunset, the dunes were shadows of a remoteness that turned the outline of an island into mystery, an enigma which set wandering the phantoms that haunt an empty shoreline; the ghost of freedom beckoned from beyond the rim of tomorrow’s ocean. Never had the incessant voice of escape called so strongly. Cast out yesterday, grasp a life of vision, live today with the sureness of an eternity in the unending beauty of space.
The watching shore, the patient sea, an island empty of people, a waiting boat, I wanted Eilidh in an existence isolated from the grasping, polluted life, the profit motive and shallow happiness in a crumbling world. Take her away to the completeness of the simple and primitive, know her womanliness, find riches on the beaches of entwining thoughts and be together.
Beyond anything, in the fullness of that tremulous night, I wanted Eilidh- mine, completely. How could it be? Her breath, the closeness of her form? We walked quietly. Gently and unsure, dreading, yet willed by unbearable yearning, I took her hand. All the hours and nights she had been with me, eyes alone, we were touching. Our fingers twined, tips touching, stroking, I felt her quivering. The pulse of longing, beating as surely as the heart of all being, joined two people.
We stood on the old stone jetty, hands clasped, looking down at the ‘Hilda’. Her dark timbers moved, ever so slightly her mast circled an arc on a moonstone sky. How long had we stood? I would stand to the world’s end, stand until the dark island before us would crumble into a waiting sea.
Surely as Eachan told us, the great the mistress of the tide lay golden at our feet.
Ever so softly, it rose, shone lustrous in her hair. Our eyes entwined. For as long as it takes galaxies to turn and stars to burn, all the blueness of an ocean was mine.
She lifted her head, came into the circle of my arms, willingly, passionately. Trembling we clung together, the glory of moonlight o
n her face.Together in the aura of its blessing, we kissed. In a passion which hungers creation we kissed. Beneath the light of universe upon universe, we kissed.
Slowly our lips relaxed, brushing softly, blissful in the contentment of touching.
There could be no parting. I steered for the ancient headland, stark of rock, mortal in tragedy. The Sound made coils of tide, here in tiny black holes, there in whirls of moon tipped silver. It carried us on a journey, across a divide, to an island and into the pain of love.
In the home of my ancestors, I slept beside her bed and in the balm of a summer’s night, I held her hand.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Games of High Finance
“The cow, the fucking cow!” The Agent flung down the letter and throwing his head back on the cushions of his sunlounger, he cursed the sky, the heavens, and his wife in particular. “How the bloody hell did she find out, the bitch, the bitch, she‘ll ruin me. Divorce! She’s taking a chance- by God she’ll get as little out of me as, as….”
He looked round at their imposing home. Mature beech trees in full leaf hid the neighbouring property, giving the house an exclusive privacy hard to find in the Thames valley. Virginia creeper covered mellow red brick walls, French windows lay open wide, bunches of grapes hung in a spacious conservatory, the lines of a carefully mowed lawn reached to the bank of the river. The achievement of twenty five gut- slogging, years.
Words twisted out of his mouth, “Operations for those stuffed shirts in the Foreign Office, undercover jobs, eliminating dangerous men, blackmail and corruption, sure a bit could be made, fuck me, I could’ve been looking up at the grass and they didn’t give a wank.” He fumed on aloud,
“I’ve worked my arse off to get this lot. See those greedy, dishonest, shit faced politicians, I’ve watched them at the dispatch box and I’ve kept my mouth shut when I could have trailed a leak that reached the top.”
Impervious to his own origins, he directed the rant towards his wife, “East End back street; I made that woman, out of the slums, couldn’t keep her bloody knickers on.” Heaving his bulk off the sunlounger, he glared round an immaculate garden, “Solicitors, I’ve shit them.”
He hadn’t seen his wife for at least ten days, not that it worried him, she had a habit of taking off and staying out of contact for weeks at a time. They lived their separate lives. Given the covert nature of The Agent’s work and the type of characters involved, ‘readies’ were never a problem. Number one, he was not in the business of bringing himself to the attention of any policeman. She could go to hell. It crossed his mind, not unpleasantly, maybe that could be arranged.
He strode into the house, poured a triple whisky and returning, lowered his form onto the sunlounger. Contemplation set in. The afternoon’s heat drew a tiny breeze from the coolness of the river, the letter, fluttering across the lawn, impaled on the trellis of a climbing rose.
Only a mouthful remained in the decanter. Trees spread dappled evening shadows across rich green lawns. Half shut eyes watched a mistlethrush struggle to pull a worm from the turf. The Agent sneered. This reverence for bird life annoyed him, in particular their green wellied friends. Birds, especially their bloody racket at five in the morning, “I’ll bet that’s the bastard that wakens me.” He tottered through to the study and returned with a cocked twelve bore.
Both barrels rent the tranquillity, turf flew, blue smoke filled his nostrils. Feathers drifted down. He felt better. Leaning the shotgun against the Welsh dresser, The Agent moved the lounger into the last of the sunlight, and stretched out again. Putting hands behind his head and smirking away, he spoke to himself, “That’ll teach you, birdie, no more dawn chorus for you. My Christ, I’m still a fucking smart shot. The good God above knows it, guns are a great religion. I love ‘em.”
Pinpoints of sunset shone through the heavy foliage, creating rainbows in the spray which fell, night and day upon a nude who knelt beside the pond. Her pert breasts reminded him for a moment of the woman he’d once loved. Now he cursed her, repeatedly, obsessively, with a deepening hatred.
Staggering morosely to his feet he put the crystal decanter to his mouth and poured its last drops down his throat. Steadying himself at the French window, he shouted a stream of hysterical obscenities. One mighty hurl. Cut glass smashed against the statue in glittering pieces.
The Agent sank to the floor, sprawling and sobbing, “She won’t enjoy the pay off for this,” he muttered through a deranged stupor.
Drawing deeply on another cigarette, The Agent screwed his eyes in thought, allowing the smoke to curl from his nostrils. It drifted towards the ceiling. He stubbed out another butt viciously. The ashtray filled with twisted cigarette ends. Thick black coffee stained the lip of a cup. He poured another. It struck him he should open the office window. The Super might just come in unannounced. Of course, he realised the window didn’t open. Instead, he vacantly switched on the air conditioning and remained standing.
Pulsing temples and vague thoughts lacking any coherence, he scowled down at the river. Sea mist clawed in from the Isle of Dogs. The Thames, grey and turgid, flowed towards some imperceptible horizon.
Divorce, O.K. big deal, yeah so what the hell? But lose the house over it? Thoughts rolled about his splitting head. Two months had passed since the Geneva trip with that secretary bitch. It still rankled. She’s off sick, maybe chucked her job. So what, she only did the bookings, didn’t know anything about the operational work. I’ll let that one lie. It doesn’t take much to figure out who’d put the boot in, set up the wife to call time on this marriage cock up. Secretary, honey you need the special treatment.
Money, I need some ‘readies’. An accident isn’t hard to arrange, might take a couple of months, a bit of surveillance. Stolen car, hit and run, there’s plenty of the right guys owe me a turn, they don’t come cheap, not the professionals. Money- cash, but no bank business. God save me, I’ve enough ‘heavy leans’ to pull in the ponies.
Bitterness filled The Agent’s sullen mind. “I should be bloody millionaire, I’ve enough inside info. to bring down the whole fucking government. That pre Iraq stuff I did, weapons of mass destruction, my arse, bloody risky though. Never mind, it helped towards the house. Mean sods, I only got half what the job deserved.”
His words rambled over the injustice he’d suffered. “As for what I did for them on special rendition. Me, out there in Morocco, the bloody heat in that ‘safe house’ and the flies, they didn’t like ‘em buzzing round their balls when their wrists were chained.”
He warmed to the memory, speaking absently to himself, “Can’t beat a bit of screaming for getting results, you don’t need to tell me. Jesus, that water boarding, great sport to watch, beats football any day and the sputtering bastards getting another sploosh and pissing themselves, no shit left in ‘em,” and laughing aloud, “That bloke hanging from his wrists, dancing on tip toes, blubbering and screaming for his mother, stupid bugger. Oh boy, if the punters only knew the half.”
His thoughts steadied, “Hypocritical bastards up at the top, pleading innocence, turning a blind eye and that dressing down for using the word ‘torture’. All I said, if you want results Sir, then all you need is a little gentle torture, oh God, didn’t he look frightened, rabbit in a snare. ‘Don’t ever use that word again, you understand?’ the prat, Christ Almighty, my cover work on that one would fuck ‘em all. See Prime Ministers, I could have them all on trial at The Hague, Court of Justice.” His flow of bile subsided, “No, no, that’s not the way, I’d be top on their expendable list.”
Fog, in great clotted rolls, blotted out the river, yellow and damp. High above the City, jet streams criss-crossed, rosy puffs in a morning sunrise. The Agent turned away and sat heavily. Half a dozen code numbered assignments awaited his attention. Delegating each case to the right man, given the arcane nature of the information and possible duplicity involved, called for much convoluted thinking on the part of The Agent.
Several presently ongoing i
nvolved checking on colleagues working in the arms trade. Posing as foreign buyers, they were expected to inform on illegal U.K. arms sales, but no way could you trust the buggers. The whole labyrinth of deceit required a ruthless disregard for trusting anyone and where necessary a complete disregard for any colleague caught making a mistake.
The Agent flicked through codes. Only his memorised key opened each file. Which case could yield a little profit? Most were too dangerous for a nice little pay off, too many other colleagues involved. The whole Geneva episode came into his mind as the initials M.H. came up.
A minor operation, he’d only taken it as an excuse to get that bloody woman away for a free trip and please a politician. M.H., umm, the name back to front. MacKenzie, Hector, nuclear research papers. Briefcase must be neutralised. Man incidental.
He considered the case more careful. A better prospect than it first appeared. Behind all the political dressing up, there’ll be big funds pushing this nuclear job, U.S. for sure. Waving his clenched fists in the air, that’s it, I’ve got it. Why hadn’t he bothered before? Too much attention paid to that damn woman. If this bloke’s research work hit the headlines, might stymie any quick progress on their nuclear energy game, certainly in the U.K. Let the anti-Trident submarine lobby get a whiff of it. The contents of this briefcase could be a real show stopper.
Brilliant thinking. He felt pleased with myself. Just what I need, a neat private exercise. His mind’s eye already saw himself flying into New York, a meeting in the Waldorf or somewhere like it with the nuke fanatics; plenty folk about the place, for safety. Name my price, I’ll do some work on that one, might be half a million!
Verify an electronic transfer to my Cayman account, before parting with the briefcase. Play it real safe, make sure they know I have a copy, ready to hand it over to their man as I step on the home flight. Simple to cover the job with the Chief back here at HQ. I’d just be across in the US checking our under cover in the Pentagon. Never liked that creep anyway, I’d love to nail him.
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