“Quite so, but I should mention ‘Bags, you may have got a snippet, anyway the nuclear boys up in Scotland, I think somewhere on their God forsaken north coast, have been caught pants down holding hundreds of tons of radio active waste, came from all over Europe. Damn’reptiles’ have splashed the story; ideal Green fodder and helps the wretched Scotch Nats’ anti-nuclear lobby no end. Don’t understand what actually happens, I think they stuff it into barrels, anyway to put a good head on it they’ve poured in a dollop which seemingly arrived from ‘Down Under’.”
“Really,” Sir Winthrop-Bagley looked mildly shocked, “Australia of all places, my son’s out there, just pulled orf a job in Canberra, Private Secretary to Her Majesty’s Governor, he’s young of course, something better’s bound to turn up. You know ‘Shivers’, the flight’s so awfully boring, still we may go out for the Christmas break, I have to say Anthea so feels the benefit of their wonderfully dry weather, her arthritis…..”
Norton-Winters interrupted, “Point is about this nuclear stuff, ‘Bags’, we agreed to return it to the countries of origin, but storage is such a nice little earner, keeps everybody happy and can’t think of a better dustbin than Scotland; and now that’s blown. There’s got be a way round this little problem. Talking of selling silver, never mind the Met Office, we must get ‘Goldilocks’ and his company to offer for the new range of nuclear facilities that’s on the drawing board. Naturally the French are keen, but Josh is such a bloodhound when there’s a whiff of lucre in the wind; either way offloading our nuclear worries should put a bob or two in your begging bowl.”
“Good thinking Jeff, totally with you.” Looking out from their secluded alcove, Winthrop-Bagley spotted the polished dome of their school chum. As a waiter helped Sir Joshua Goldberg off with his winter coat, ‘Bags’ whispered hoarsely, “Look here, ‘Shivers’, don’t mention this bally climate change issue to ‘Goldilocks’, he’s such a bore, caught me at the Club last week, seems to think it’s quite a serious matter. I suspect rather importantly from his point of view, it has the infinitely more serious prospect of being a cash dispenser. He went on and on, this nuclear thing, our only solution to keeping temperatures down, such a bore, I told him its varstly more pleasant in the garden these days, nectarines’ve never done better, even Anthea’s hip has improved, Finally fell asleep, wakened up, he was still bloody well talking.”
They both rose to greet Sir Joshua, “Josh, how awfully good to see you and so nice you can spend a little time on this side of the pond and looking so spruce. Capital, so glad you made it, do sit down.” The waiter tucked a chair beneath the Nuen’s chairman’s ample posterior spread a linen napkin across his knees and to a nod from Bagley vanished silently to reappear with a fresh bottle of Reserve.
“How jolly splendid to see you both,” Goldberg responded to their greeting just a shade less effusively never having quite forgotten his ‘three of the best’ administered in the Prefects’ Room by senior boy, Winthrop-Bagley. The flat of a cricket bat on bare buttocks amongst a group of smirking cronies left him smarting for days and inflected an indelible mark on his mind.
Pleasantries and platitudes and not a little gossip passed concerning the foibles and fornications amongst bureaucracies ruling orders, until ‘Shivers Norton’ found an opening to comment darkly, “You realise our dependency on this wretched Russian gas pipe could have a ghastly effect on UK energy prices. I know old ‘Barmy Blakensop’ at the Foreign Office is working hard with MI6 to find some way to blunt the Sickle before the Hammer crushes our goollies.”
Goldilocks rose to the fly, “Now, that’s exactly where I can help you chaps. This climate change lark, all the rage at the moment, international conferences! Enough hot air to put a degree on the graph,” he warmed to the theme, unaware behind his back ‘Windy Bags’ Winthrop’s eyes reached for the ceiling, “we at Nuen have the complete answer.” To gain effect, Goldberg allowed his eyelids to fall.
“Really, how interesting,” exclaimed the wide eyed Permanent Secretary to the Department of Energy playing innocent curiosity, privately delighted that Goldberg appeared hooked.
Sir Joshua looked carefully behind him “Give us the green light, ha, ha, perhaps I should say the go-ahead, a dash of fiscal simulation on your part, we’ll build your next generation of power plants, pollution free, give you all the energy the country can utilise. We’ll halt the spread of these revolving blots on the landscape; bally windmills, disastrous for the grouse and tidal turbines are sure to mangle the salmon, either way they’re a complete waste of resources.”
Winthrop-Bagley’s eyes were drooping. He sat up with a start at a carefully aimed under the table kick, “Did I catch you saying fiscal support? Dangerous words these days.” Winters-Norton, not wishing Sir Winthrop to dilute the wine with a splash of Treasury cold water, tightened the line, ready to land Goldilocks, “I dare say some accommodation could be made, I can’t speak for ‘Bags’ but we at Energy have a useful budget.” ‘Windy-Bags’ frowned but remained silent.
“Look here chaps, I can’t be more honest,” Goldberg unaware of the hook he’d swallowed attacked full frontal, “Off the top of my head, for a round figure,” as he rolled his eyes in a rapid calculations they both glanced from Sir Joshua’s bald plate to the straining buttons of his striped shirt, “could be the order of six billion per facility. Give us the three new plants, by tender of course and any current decommissioning work at costs plus. You come up front with six, we’ll capitalise the remaining twelve billion, thirty years against you at say,” he tapped his forehead, “say, nine percent quarterly over Bank of England base and any extraneous problems by negotiation.”
The pair sat back aware of the potential for a deal. By tender of course, highest standards of verisimilitude must be observed at all times. The waiter, long experienced in being privy to Governmental affairs, recognised a critical juncture. He approached with a ready uncorked bottle of the Special Reserve.
Driving home his point, Goldberg breathed in sonorously, “And if it’s any interest to you both, I’m being flown quietly up to Scotland by the Minis---,” he checked himself deliberately, “when the weather improves that is. I’ll do a survey, couple of sites in mind for handing this small matter of waste disposal. I know I can count on your help in that area particularly. We want to construct storage that’s adequate for dealing with material from nuclear facilities far beyond the UK,” in fact he said airily, “for example there’s no reason why we couldn’t oblige Japan.”
Count on our help, the suggestion of a wider international trade in nuclear material came as music to the overly large ears of ‘Shivers Norton’. He’d suffered ridicule since childhood, indeed night and day for years his mother insisted he wear a hat with flaps tied below his chin in a futile attempt to curb their protuberant nature. When finally exposed to the general amusement of his school chums they steeled a young mind with the determination to outwit his fellow beings. It could be said his ears had been the making of the man. Now glowing bright red, they gave away the combination of Special Reserve and a degree of attention which he strove to hide from his fellow diners.
“How very interesting Josh, why don’t we get together, talk things through. Care to come down to Windy Nook for a weekend? Pre-Christmas shoot, always a jolly affair, plenty of room at the manor you know, say a week Thursday? Gladys and I are having an informal party, few friends, think the Chancellor will look in, one or two more. Pheasant are breaking cover high this year. I’ll lend you a 12 bore if yours happens to be in Yankie Doodle land. By the way who did you say was providing your transport up to Scotland? May we help?
Sir Joshua an accomplished hand at playing one Government Department against another left Winters-Norton wondering might it just be the MOD providing his transport and if so why? Noting the bushy eyebrows of the Treasury Secretary were drawn together with more than a hint of displeasure, he realised care would be needed, “Wouldn’t dream of troubling you Jeff old chap, nothing arranged yet, bu
t I’d be delighted to come over to the Nookie, got to nip back to the Big Apple for a couple of days beforehand, that’s nothing, yes I’ll be down, mind if I bring a friend?”
“Please do,” gushed ‘Shivers’, privately thrilled he’d outflanked ‘Windy Bags’ whom he’d taken care not to include on the guest list, just in case the P.M. might turn up. Nor had he forgotten Bagley nobbled a knighthood, as his dear wife frequently reminded him. The trio turned to debating the luncheon menu. The best part of some time elapsed before they parted, ostensibly genial friends.
One moment a fresh crescendo of screeching, next the moaning of a demented soul, the cravings of a gale are fed only by death. It tore at streaming hair, sucked air from the lungs of a crouching man and at his ear, beneath each lusting shriek boomed the mighty rollers pitching headlong into a pit of watery blackness. No blessings of the halcyon days but the embodiment of an evil that whispered through the lightness in his head, lone sailor, know the portals of your tomb are wide, you will be our sacrifice.
There is no fury on this earth beyond the wrath of an Atlantic gale, no sound the more terrifying than an ocean’s requiem for its countless solitary drownings, no greater release of the ascending human spirit than to be taken by the glory of wild abandoned beauty. So the sailor prepared to be a part of that which man strives to subdue. He watched in awe the beasts of untamed passion, felt his soul about to share the grandeur of their freedom. Elation conquered fear.
Across the wastelands of an ocean the great combers reared unbridled; rank upon rank, they fused the writhing strips of cloud and dashing tops; set golden light dancing tip to tip. Cloud, waves and sunset were one, there was no horizon, nothing save the flickering colours of violent motion to stay a fast falling night. Each succeeding onslaught ripped arching peaks and flung them, white sheets of unleashed spume into a purple sky. Darkest ultramarine surged to deepest green, huge collapsing crests turned the slanted sunlight into orange fragments of bursting spray and on the bellies of twisting clouds blazed the crimson fires of nightfall.
Andrew Anderson clung to the cockpit of his yacht, hands without feeling, one to the winch, one on the tiller, salt water lashing his neck, blinding his eyes, a strop of rope to a ring bolt held him; the faith of a man in his boat against a thousand miles of sea which held no mercy; human frailty, a plaything to be tossed before demonic whim.
Ten days sailing and eight hundred miles astern lay the Caribbean islands. Luxury living and the Nuen Company office were two thousand miles northwest, a lifetime away in his thoughts. The abandoning of all the froth of sophisticated living had fallen at one stroke, a single decision, final and total. That sun braced morning in Roadtown, at his bank, on the waterfront, amidst every form of seafaring vessel, in the marina he’d come upon a yacht. No second look or careful appraisal, he knew without recourse to thought or painstaking deliberation, she was the yacht; his sudden instinct told him, the awakening of some innate feeling for the true relationship between sail and sea was enough. She would take the place of all that had gone before, in challenge and affection.
There and then, standing at the yacht’s bow, Anderson shook the hand of an old seafaring man, looked into faded eyes, the washed out blue of day after day of glittering sun on the breadth of an ocean, “She will be as faithful to you as you will be to her.” Nothing more was said. The old sailor put his hand on the yacht and stroked her shapely hull. His eyes filled with the tears of memory, and he walked quietly away. A witness to that parting of man and boat, Andrew Anderson understood why at the very last a skipper goes down with his ship.
The ferocity which might yet claim him forged that bond. ‘Valkyrie’ would see him through, or carry him beyond; courage and faith alone his lifeline.
The stern of the ‘Valkyrie’ reared higher, higher, her bow plunged down and down. The crest of the wave which surged away ahead of them became taller than her masthead, an immense greyback streaked with veins of froth, powering into chaos. The yacht’s angle steepened, the tiller twisted in his hand. He fought to keep her square to the rising wave.
It came. Up, up, steeper, steeper, the yacht tipped nose down. Andrew Anderson looked into a hole in the sea, gaping open, devoid of light, a bottomless grave. Growling grew to roaring. He glanced astern. Water towered above him, a perpendicular face of black water. Its great white crest hung poised, curled, about to topple, a second, two, three….
The hollow cave of water began to fall, slow motion, falling, falling. The yacht plunged, deeper, steeper. If the bow buried, she would pitch pole, end for end.
The monstrous comber cut off the gale, for moments only a hiss of cascading water, down it came, a jeering face, a breaking seething torrent.
Rushing, crushing, it fell onto ‘Valkyrie’. A thunderous crash of solid water, a mass of swirling foam; tiller torn from his grasp, it washed a helpless Anderson to the end of the strop of rope which secured him to his yacht.
No hold of the boat, gasping, choking, all green and silent.
The rope tugged. Coughing water, his head cleared the surface.
What lies deep will out, “Valkyrie, Valkyrie, for Odin’s sake.”
He cried to the God of his Viking blood.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Tomorrow’s journey
I wakened in the stillness of the old house to the warmth of our bodies together. Eilidh lay with her back to me in the circle of my arms, just the way we had slept throughout the night. I felt her breathing against my chest, soft and easy, her beautiful body in the cup of my hands. Gently I buried my face in the spread of her golden hair. Its fragrance brought her closer. At the slight move of my arm Eilidh awoke. She turned with the sigh of contentment. Her eyes expressed the strength our feelings, all a woman may give, all that any man can return. Slowly we kissed. The long, long kiss that brings bodies and minds together.
The first hint of sunrise drew light to our tiny window. Soon it would lift the chill of a fresh November morning. We nestled, unspeaking, unwilling to return to man made time; sufficient the pace of a world which lived at our doorstep. We were in love, impossibly in love. All that mattered revolved around us, we existed in a capsule bound by the force which entangled our thoughts, united us in that beautiful melody which reaches to the heart of all being.
I lifted the tresses of hair which covered our pillow, caressed the softness of her skin; almost afraid of the question which arose in my thoughts. I whispered, “Eilidh, how did you know to come to me, what was it?”
Pulling my head to her breasts, she whimpered a little. I felt the beat of her heart quicken and after a long, long silence I caught her low murmuring, “It came over me, in middle of another useless meeting, without any warning a sudden pang of agony. It was dreadful, I felt sick and got up and walked out. They thought I was ill.”
I looked up, startled by what I was hearing. She smiled at me, stroked my face, “Hector, I’d been happy thinking about you through the day, missing you, dreadfully sometimes but talking to you as I went to sleep each night made me more content,” a catch came in her throat, “Hector, in that frightening moment of agony, I thought you’d been killed,” she seemed barely able to speak, “I though you were dead.”
A violent tremor seized her. At last, in what seemed as a child’s voice, she whispered, “and I wanted to die beside you.” My arms crushed her to me, “Eilidh, my only Eilidh, I will be with you, as we are now.”
It was a long time before I collected my thoughts sufficiently. With Eilidh beside me, the events of cliff top and rescue seemed far in the past. Breathing into her hair I told her gently as I could, “My end was as close as it will ever be,” her body went rigid, “our being apart was the only thing which filled my mind, talking to you the one thing that kept me from falling.” Bit by bit I unfolded the whole story. We lay comforting each other, no longer was I incredulous at her arrival, the peaks of great emotion have pathways beyond our understanding.
The Hilda boat would need to go back to Halasay, slack wa
ter was at mid-day but neither of us wanted to relinquish the delight of simply lying side by side. For once the tide could wait. Whatever the future might involve, I certainly had no intention of it involving our being apart, “Eilidh, I won’t be separated from you again, it may mean leaving Sandray, I’ve set my mind on this island but nothing, nothing is more important to me than being with you.” She nodded, and speaking almost shyly, “It’s what I want beyond anything.”
Eventually sounding more like herself, Eilidh announced, “I’m finished with London, packing in my job, I’ve had enough of trying to talk common sense into politicians. I’ve been heavily involved with research on climate change, especially its impact on the release of methane from the blanket tundras of Canada and Siberia. I can’t stand anymore of their petty back biting machinations. The poor natives of Sub-Sahara watch their livestock dying of drought knowing their children will be next. They face a four degree temperature rise and twentyfive percent less rain, fine proud people, and whilst they lead their camels to slaughter, I have to talk to the degenerate objects who struggle to get out of their fancy limousines. I tell you, Hector I’m so sick at heart. “
I took her hand realising that her pent up anger needed a listening ear, it certainly had my full sympathy. I wanted her to talk and ease the fretting which had taken hold. After a little she began again, “There’s no leadership from the front, nobody in a position to make decisions who’s prepared to set an example, no Prime Minister who’d swallow his pride and drive a little eco-friendly car. No, they’re busy building more roads, believing a bigger dose of economic development is what’s needed, happy letting bailed out banks loose to fund the pollution of oil extraction from the tar sands deposits of central Canada, I’ve seen the machine ripping gigantic holes in the ground.” The outburst astounded me. Her eyes were aflame with an unreserved passion.
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