Sun Dance

by Iain R. Thomson

  “Gentlemen, there is a motion of no confidence in this Chair on the table before you. May I have the motion seconded? Eyes reverted to the table. Eventually a palm lifted. Nuen’s banker, blushing deeply and barely audible, “I second the motion.” A sharp indrawing of breath circled the room. Well used to sizing up their clients, be they failing businessman, or a congressman trading on his influence, a table of shrewd operators attempted to gauge the banker’s motives.

  “Thank you, sir,” Anderson showed no emotion. “Now gentlemen, may I have a show of hands. Those in favour of the motion?” Fellows lifted a shaky hand, followed by the banker. Eleven hands, one after another, rose shoulder level. Only Sir Joshua remained head down, hands on the table. Anderson visibly shook and hesitating slightly, “If you please, those against the motion of no confidence in my Chairmanship?” Hands slipped out of sight except for that of a smiling Sir Joshua. Carefully avoiding eye contact with the Chairman, the Scientific Advisor lifted his hand and looked round the table from face to face.

  “Gentlemen the motion is carried,” Anderson bowed his head, inwardly aghast; his lone supporter, Sir Josuha Goldberg. Hardly credible, the move so well co-ordinated. Had there been a plot to oust him? Who would do it? The question now immaterial, he needed to find out urgently. His personal position would require considerable help, perhaps his friend Goldberg might know?

  Anderson stood silently, letting his eye fall on each member in turn, haughtily, disdainfully; they would not forget. He saw them clearly, despicable, cringing objects, slyness dressed in a city suits. “In relinquishing the chair of a company which my grandfather father founded, I thank you for the support given to me and our organisation over many years and I wish success to an incoming Chairman. The meeting is the hands of your Vice Chairman. Good afternoon gentlemen.”

  The ex-Chairman, ignoring his papers, walked quietly to his private office without a sideways look and closed the door. Elbows on the arms of his swivel, he pursed his fingers before his mouth and thought.

  A stunned Vice Chairman stood behind the newly vacated seat, “Board members, I, er, I feel, I believe, indeed I’m sure, we must act promptly. Any delay, any, er any hint of, I shall be blunt, the news of this change at the top of Nuen and headline news it will be, must be of a smooth transition of leadership, progressive bolstering of the company’s position, otherwise gentlemen, well, today’s share price affects us all, a further panic dumping of our shares on Wall Street, I mean…” his voice trailed off.

  Pulling himself together he conferred in whispers with the company secretary. Member leaned towards member. Much subdued murmuring, some already standing aside, speaking urgently into mobile phones. Were they buying or selling? A rap on the table and the Vice Chairman brought members to their seats. “It falls to me to call for nominations to the Chairmanship of Nuen.” A stir of anticipation…

  Nick Fellows, adjusting his half spectacles, read from a note, “It gives me the greatest honour to put forward the name of Sir Joshua Goldberg. New to us though he is, his scientific background is of paramount importance in our present difficulties, his connections, rather I should say, his understanding of the financial world, make him our obvious choice.”

  Many, “Here, here’s” and no further nominations sealed the take over. Sir Joshua padded round to the top seat, squeezing his friend Nicky fondly on the shoulder as he walked past.

  The faint glow from a safety light illuminated the ex-Chairman’s face, family portraits and historic shots of the Carnegie smelter hung side by side with those of Nuen’s nuclear plants. Rags to riches, at least an Anderson had made it to the fourth generation. Rags again? Only one person came in to see him after their meeting ended, his personal banker. “You know Andrew your drawings in the past two years have been exceptional and if you don’t mind my saying so, especially those of Mrs. Anderson. I have to be plain, Andrew, unless you provide more security against these borrowings, well, shall I say the bank will be forced to take a final view. I’m sure you understand what I mean.” Anderson dismissed the banker with a nod and sat on in the gathering gloom.

  A photo of his wife smiled up at him from the desk top. For a long time he looked at her. Intimate memories crowded in. Twenty-two years, but no children; she didn’t want a family but the home building, the holidays, just together, and then increasingly, the social whirl. His thoughts of her gradually soured, emotions dug into feelings which hurt. Slowly, he turned the photo face down. Without switching on the light he crossed to the door. It shut behind him with a click.

  The steam which lies on a November river, hung in a gritty rime about the front portico of the Nuen Building. Normally his limousine and chauffeur waited, no matter the hour. The door porter stepped forward with a smart salute but said nothing. “Where’s my car, tonight, Jones?” “It went away about three hours ago, Sir.” “Went away?” The man coughed awkwardly. “Yes, sir.” “Well?” “Yes, sir, Sir Joshua Goldberg got in and I think, Mr. Fellows.” Now he knew.

  The gravelled carriageway to their mansion wound between oak and beech. A blaze of house lights flickered through bare branches. Anderson stepped out of a taxi. Another taxi sat ticking over. Spotlights on the lawn played over the white façade of their spacious mock colonial home. Through the open door he could see his wife, even from a distance, in a blaze of jewels. He leant a shoulder against a marble pillar and waited. Violent shouting reached him from the top step, “I’ve been ready for twenty minutes.” She looked down, eyes aflame, her voice snarling, “You’re so Goddamn selfish, Andrew. This is another of your mean, pinch penny tricks and look at you, scruffy, filthy. It’ll be another twenty minutes before you’re changed. You horrid, uncaring wretch; you knew, you knew it. I’ve looked forward to this party for weeks.”

  Moving closer to her, out of earshot of the taxi driver, he cut her short, “Honey, I ain’t going to no party tonight. And two things for your information, sweetheart, I’ve just been voted out of the Nuen Chair and the bank are threatening to pull the plug. Bankruptcy, yeah, bankrupt. That might change your little story. So see me baby, I ain’t in no party mood right now.”

  She took a step back. Red dots of fury appeared on white cheeks, “Not in party mood! Not going,” she dropped her voice to a sneer. “Don’t come crying to me with your miserable problems. You’re pathetic, I don’t need this shit,” and bursting into a crescendo of sobbing and screaming, “You can’t do this to me. Beast, you beast! I hate you, hate you! I’m going, you hear me, I’m going now and you can please your lousy self.”

  Taxi lights flickered along the lines of black sentinel trunks, lit their gaunt leafless arms. For a moment its back window framed her head. He stood listening. The engine roared out onto the freeway and he went inside, to the phone,

  “You’ve reached Pan Am, Sir. How can I help you?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Waves of Thought

  We are but what the heavens made us,

  And in the arc of curving space,

  Every particle therein,

  Is our kith and kin.

  No more now than a piece of flesh, awaiting decay, tossing wave to wave on the Sound. A would be murderer’s body, a corpse slowly bloating by the salt water of its drowning, caught and twirled by the current; gulp after gulp, I’d watched his repeated sputtering and vomiting until the sea filled his lungs. I’d heard the screaming, the pleading of a man with faith in nothing. I’d seen the bulging eyes, the abject terror of a man afraid to die.

  Waves sluiced over the ledge of his drowning, the worn rock shelf now almost out of sight. Wind over the rising tide sent white tops scurrying across the narrow waters. A nor-east wind, whetted to sharpness by the grey November sea. I looked down on the shelf. Two lives had found it their deathbed, known the enormity of approaching death, a sudden death and yet still there would be space in those seconds of falling to compress life into final thoughts. The shelf of death, young adventurous Hilda and a man with a revolver. Would it claim a third?<
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  Twenty feet, above me, I glimpsed the turf edge of the cliff. The ledge which had saved me appeared to widen as it turned out of my view. There were no hand holds. A rock fall would have sheered them off. I began to quiver, jaw trembling. Fright and cold. I clenched my teeth. Get out of this cutting wind. Torn fingers, still bleeding slightly, were numbing. Soon they would be useless, render any climbing impossible. I looked down, nearly two hundred feet. Dive out? Hope to miss the shelf. Hit it. Death! Miss it, and drown?

  Slippery, oozing bird droppings but no option, I had to move. Move and fall? I spoke inwardly, trying to gain control. Don’t hug the rock, your feet will shoot out. I balanced backwards, a little off the face. One foot, steady, next foot, hold, examine every tiny scratch, it might give a finger hold. The ledge kept turning, widening; I worked round, just inches at a move. Wind not so harsh now, instead the acrid stench of bird droppings. More shelter, my knees were juddering. I rested.

  The sea beneath, boiling off the shelf, poured in a black curve hitting jagged fangs of rock, bursting into white salvos, falling back to seething froth. I edged another few yards. The rock face began to lean out towards me, an overhang. I stopped. Ahead I could hear the wind gusting, sometimes a whistle, eerie, calling a human tone, whining above the boom of each surge below.

  A last yard- the ledge ended. I looked into a great crevice, splitting the cliff top to bottom. A rock chimney, an organ pipe to wind and sea, a great mound of boulders at its base, daylight at its top. The overhang, too great, it leant out above my ledge. No way to pass round it and try to climb the chimney. Shaking with despair after the risk of moving along the ledge was I beaten?

  Legs getting weak, I had to try and sit. I moved back a few yards until at least out of the wind. Gingerly, slithering my hands down the rock, I sat. Feet over the edge, truly dangerous. I knew that much. Now I faced the sea. Faint pale light crossed rolling wave backs. The November sun deep in a hollow of hodden clouds sank green and sickly. A trail of gulls, flying close to the surface, followed deepening wave troughs. Their wailing carried to me, not the raucous screams of anger but in long single notes of desolation, the cries of worsening weather.

  The wind in the chimney rose and fell with an incessant chant. Without option, I listened. Its moaning dirge would swell to a rush of exhaling breath, and fade again to a soughing whisper. Dire thoughts forced themselves upon me. I fought to banish them with thoughts of Eilidh, a longing for what might have been. Alone on the island, she had become an inseparable part of my life. Now hanging on to that very life, my passion for her became unbearable. I saw her eyes, spoke her name aloud, over and over again, choking with ineffable sadness in its saying, “Oh, Eilidh,”

  Even with my back against a cliff, out of anguish a poem wrote itself in my mind. I encompassed the universe in a poem. The fear of death faded, there is no death, only loss of a loved one and a reunion in the strength of shared hope. I spoke to Eilidh, “We shall meet again.”

  The cold, the wind, the isolation. I looked fixedly down at the sea. Swaying far below, its hypnotic motion was becoming compelling, begging a choice.

  By my own hand, or move and just one slip?

  I was being drawn inexorably to a final decision.

  “Is that you, Eilidh? Hang on a moment,” Ella brushed flour off her hands and picked up the phone again, “Yes, Eilidh I’m hearing you. Are you alright?” Without answering the question, “Ella, is Eachan there?” and before Ella could reply, “Ella, something has happened to Hector, something terrible, I don’t know what it is. He needs help, help at once. Is he still on Sandray?”

  A shocked Ella, “Yes he’s on the island. Eachan’s in the village,” Eilidh broke in, “Ella, Ella, I know it’s bad. Can you get Eachan?” “Yes, Eilidh, I can phone down and get him home.” “Oh thanks, thanks Ella, I’m in London, I’ll phone you back in five minutes.”

  The tractor rattled into the yard. Eachan strode in without smile. “Is there a problem?” Somehow he knew before Ella replied, “Eilidh’s been on the phone, really, really upset. She’s certain something has happened to Hector but she’s in London.” Eachan, saying nothing, went to the porch door and walked a few steps down the croft. Out on Sandray, the dense white sheets of cloud were trailed by the wind across The Hill of the Shroud. He listened for the sea. Its faint rumble told him the set of waves. A rising tide would mean wind over current, it could be rough.

  “Tide’s on the turn, I’ll head across before it gets dark. Look for a torch at five’o’clock.” Ella knew by the brusqueness of his tone to say nothing. Instead she filled a thermos of coffee, packed bread, a bottle of whisky and watched him, waterproof jacket and leggings, head down to the jetty.

  That Eilidh’s concern would prove correct was without doubt. Too often he’d known the passing of emotions between people far apart, their warnings, the prior knowledge of happenings, no matter the distance. He was too much a Highlander to scoff at Eilidh’s premonition.

  The Hilda boat lay ready. Eachan slipped her ropes, jumped aboard and about to cast off, he stopped. Was it memories? An inner prompting came to him too strong to be ignored.

  Back to his shed, a little searching and he found the safety harness a yachtsman had left on the jetty many years back. Adding a couple of pulleys and a heavy coil of rope, the old man lugged it aboard. Loosing all but one of the sail ties, he made the sheets ready for a quick hoist and started the outboard engine.

  Pausing only to glance at a cloud tearing cloudscape, Eachan swung the stern of his boat before a rising sea.

  My last thoughts were with Eilidh, somehow I knew they reached her, telling her all I felt. Music ran through my head, melodies of unsurpassed beauty. I listened entranced, as I had as a child, to the sublime Mozart, the swelling choruses of his great Mass, a legacy to mankind outshining all forms of human conception; its message beyond our arrogant invention of a divinity. Simple, an encapsulation of beauty, direct to our sense of the ultimate indestructible eternity.

  It prepared me. I was ready to jump. Leap out as far as possible. Take my chance with the sea. Pulling my legs under me, I got onto hands and knees. Stiffly, cautiously, I stood up. Unafraid now, breathing deeply, I started a count, ten, nine, eight, seven…… I stopped.

  Against the fading outline of Halasay, a shower of spray rose from the bow of a plunging boat. Instantly life returned, the beating of hope, care my only thought, no false moves now.

  The Hilda, I knew, it had to be. She was running a beam sea. I watched her helmsman bring her nose into the wave peaks, a burst of spray. Through them she rode, into the trough, running the trough, over the next peak. Oh boy, it had to be Eachan, handling his boat, fearless, dancing with the sea, a master. Would he see me, dark against the rock? He had to round the cliff to make it into the bay. Dare he chance coming in close?

  Hilda riding it, great little sea boat, yes, he was running the headland close, what a heave on the sea, what a risk, lose control, matchwood on the shelf? Man and boat close in. Eachan seemed to be looking at me. Had he spotted me? Would I jump? Would I jump? Eachan lifted his hand. He’d seen me, must have read my mind. He stood up, swaying with his boat’s rolls, waved both hands, sideways, negative. He veered off and making for the bay, out of my sight. I fought to stop the shuddering. On wings of happiness in an unbelievable uplift of euphoria, I shouted to Eilidh.

  Half an hour’s light left, maybe. Time stretched. Waiting, waiting. How long till he’d reach me? I was shaking quite violently, dangerously so, my back against the cliff, totally numb.

  Eachan’s voice came first, calling, trying to locate me. I shouted. Turning to look upwards could easily unbalance me. Head to the side, I squinted up, his face looked down, unperturbed and steady. Relief gushed through me. “Here’s a harness, put it over----,” the updraft of wind took his voice. Two minutes and the safety harness dangled beside me on the end of a rope. Putting it on, could be the most dangerous move. Holding the rope in one hand, I wriggled an arm through th
e straps. The other arm…. clips came together round my chest.

  A pulley block came down, clanking against the rock, “Hook it onto the har----”, words blown away. I was swaying now, managed to hook it on the ring, chanced to look up, he was watching. “Loose off the first rope.” It vanished up the cliff. Eachan was out of sight. He reappeared, “I’ll lower you down to that bottom shelf, the tide’s rising. When I have the strain let yourself…” I guessed the rest.

  The rope tightened, almost lifting me. I held it, stepped off the ledge, feet against the rock, out into space, waves pounding below. I pushed myself to an angle with the cliff face. Faith in Eachan and the rope harness chokingly tight.

  I descended, foot by foot, the sea closer, frothing over the shelf, my feet slithering off the rock. I hung, fighting for breath, harness cutting into my chest. Down again, able to contact rock, lean back, push with my feet. I glanced behind me. Black- backed waves licked across the shelf, booming into spray against the rock face. A moment’s ominous lull before they poured back down in white streaks, to wait the next onrush.

  Two more drops. I touched the shelf, water swirling to my waist. The rope went slack. A surge lifted me, sweeping me off the ledge into the sea. Frantically I clung onto the rope. It came. The wave sucked off the shelf, taking me with it. Gulping and spluttering, I fought drowning.

  The rope tightened, I dangled over the sheer under water face of the shelf. On three yards of slack rope, I hung in the sea, up to my chest. Was I to be pounded senseless against the rock? To a shivering body, the water seemed strangely warm. The next wave rose below me. It lifted, I clawed up the rope. Back on the shelf, holding loops of rope, I hung on.

  Buffeting seas dragged me off my feet, washing me to the end of the rope until the swamping passed and my feet found rock again. Cut hands burnt with salt, eyes stinging, side of my head painful. I fought each swirl. Twice, they completely submerged me. Green light closed above. I surfaced, choking and coughing water.