Sun Dance

by Iain R. Thomson

  As the man we’d buried that afternoon believed, it’s a poor giver who measures the bottle, ‘You’ll just be having a wee, ‘oh be joyful’ he would say, pouring out one of his generous libations. I followed his style. Eilidh’s brother Iain had brought over his accordion, “just in case” he winked. Before long I heard someone call, “Come away, MacLeod give us, “The Dark Island,” That was all it needed, a neighbour with two kitchen knives drumming on an upturned biscuit tin set the timing. The crowd made room, Eilidh and I waltzed around the kitchen before she took up Eachan’s fiddle. In the house, out on the grass, the folk danced, music and the lively steps which lightened the heart. I poured, never a glass left empty.

  The songs flowed. Gaelic favourites that told of the natives’ love of their island homes. ‘The ‘band’ played a Highland Scottische and I danced with Ella. We did his memory proud and as I held her hand, she said simply, “Eachan would have been the keenest to join us here tonight,” and she smiled up at me through her first tears of the day.

  The helicopters had flown out late that afternoon, perhaps out of most minds by that evening. For me their intrusion above the funeral and the killing of a raven embodied the encroaching threat of some unknown conflict. The bundle of feathers flung skywards floated to the ground again and again. The raven’s tragic cawing wouldn’t leave my thoughts, I heard it behind the music and laughter, the cries were those of a raven whose lineage matched that of the man we’d buried, the wise eyed raven of the Viking rovers whose cawing brought them to Sandray. The morning before his death Eachan saw in his mind the raven of his forebears, of that I have no doubt; for him the weavings of fact and fantasy were as one. For him, as for his Viking ancestors, visions of the imagination were the harbingers of the hand of fate; the shadow which stretched before them all.

  At some point amidst the dancing, out of the darkness, Anderson appeared from his yacht, “Ah gee, you sure got some music going, I just couldn’t not come across.” A glass in hand, soon he made himself known to the gathering. Eventually the musicians drew breath and Ella had hot soup ready on our tiny two burner Calor gas stove. Tea, soup and sandwiches, the evening drew to a close in the friendship of an island community.

  Some of Eachan’s vintage joined me, struck up memories;friends and relations, they remembered his parents, how the island had once been, cultivated and fertile. Wistfully for their generation, behind our ‘wake over’ revels, the day had an underlying meaning, more than Eachan was being buried, their private lamentations were for a slowly dying culture.

  One old man, a cousin of Eachan’s, spoke gently to me, “When I was a boy I worked the sheep on this island with him that’s gone; out on the hill at the lambing and the island for a friend. What are the young folk at today? No interest in the land, always a screen in front of their faces or playing with some phone gadget, website friends, if that’s what they call them, lonely people talking on a dumb machine, making superficial friends in an artificial world.”

  The eyes of yesterday were sunken in regret. “Out on the hill that’s above this house, what a workbench, sun on your face and the world turning at your feet; nobody puts a value on it today, all busy running past themselves. Money hunger eats a man’s heart out; it’s a sad craving, but you’ll never buy all the peace that’s here, away from computers and the like. It’s a fine place for a home, a’ bhailich; if I were young again and had a woman like Eilidh….. I’ll tell you Hector boy, there was always a MacKenzie on Sanday,” One by one they shook hands, wished us luck.

  As the line of waving of torches and lanterns made down to the fishing boat, Anderson drew me aside, his voice low and guarded. Without any preamble he said abruptly, “I recognised one of the faces watching out of the helicopter.” Anderson’s sudden disclosure shattered that quality of which the old folk had spoken. “We’ll be across on Halasay for a little time but as soon as we’re back, if you’re still anchored here…” It was all I could offer in reply. My words trailed off; the spectre of a world I’d blotted out arose before me. The value of its peace was at stake.

  In the days that followed as Eachan had wished I signed the document which made me the official crofter of Ach na Mara. Ella, if she so desired, could stay, remain living in the house which had been home all their married days. Eilidh’s brother Iain happily agreed to run this croft along with his own. We would cross back and forth to help with the main jobs, tattie planting, peat cutting and the hay making. Our intentions remained keenly focused on making Sandray a crofting home, but for Ella’s sake we stayed on, hoping to ease a little of the sadness.

  She had gone back to helping with the cattle and had decided to handle the lambing. Without meals to make for a hungry man, her being busy helped fill the empty days. In quiet moments I would notice her looking from the kitchen window out to the fields. Was it all a dream? Eachan would come back, his easy stride and the sun on his back and she would waken. Each night we sat through in the room. Ella spoke of him as though he were present, had just gone to the byre and the stamping of feet in the porch would herald his return.

  Days passed until one evening as we sat quietly before the room fire she said calmly to us, “You know, the third night after Eachan died, he spoke to me; it had to be a dream, but it was as real as I’m seeing you now. We were down together at the Hilda boat on a bright summer’s evening and he climbed aboard and smiled to me, ‘I’m away fishing Ella, but I’ll be back, keep the place going Ella,’ I watched his sail vanishing into a sunset just like the one on the day of his funeral” There were no tears to her telling, the manifestation was her strength, for she went on to say, “I know Eachan wants you to have the Hilda boat,” and laughingly nodding towards Eilidh’s expanding tummy, “for your island adventure.”

  At Ella’s mention of the Hilda I sat again on the pier at Castleton, a physical and mental wreck, staring at a graceful boat as she lay in the harbour, a silhouette in the gloaming. A stranger put his hand on my shoulder. Now, as of that moment, the sudden awareness startled me. Eachan was at my side, with us in the room, I felt his grip. Slowly I turned, he stood looking down at me as he’d been that evening, tall and angular, his sea blue eyes alight with recognition. Maybe it was minutes, gradually he became fainter and fainter, drifting into the darkness of the farthest corner. Dropping my gaze, I hesitated before summoning courage to speak to Ella, only to realise she’d been watching. “Thank you both,” I said. Looking past me, she smiled.

  Eilidh was adamant, our child would be born on Sandray and Ella would come and stay as its time approached. The prospect of the birth involved the two women in endless conversation and much knitting. Not to be left out of preparations for our momentous event, I found suitable wood in the tool shed and set about making a crib. Iain, finding me at the finishing touches, managed a straight face, “You can’t beat a wooden fish box for that job; if that’s a baby’s crib you’re knocking together I’d drill a few holes in the bottom.” Father of four, he knew about these things.

  Early one morning with a spring tide setting us across the Sound, we sailed the Hilda back to Sandray. A boat to be proud of sharing, no finer gift could come our way. She would not lack care, I talked excitedly to Eilidh of my idea to build a rail track with a cradle and winch to haul her clear of the water for regular attention. Surprisingly, the Valkyrie still lay at anchor. Apprehension returned. I fought it off, the old house had the welcome of home. Bouncing with enthusiasm I offered to carry Eilidh across the threshold. She squeaked, I just hugged her instead.

  Alone together, back in our own home, and a growing collie pup dancing at our heels waiting to be trained. Today I’d plant Eachan’s seed tatties. Mild open weather, sunshine and showers, grass which needed sheep. We planned to ferry some of Eachan’s ewes across once they had lambed. Wanting the place to ourselves, I resented the yacht. Tomorrow I would row out for a meeting with the chap.

  “Valkyrie ahoy!” I hailed the yacht several times before Anderson appeared in the cockpit. “Come abo
ard!” he shouted. I shipped oars and tied alongside. The hand grip, though firm had a tremour. I looked into bloodshot eyes, red rimmed and dull. The smell of drink wafted to me as he spoke, “Glad to see you, Hector, come on below.” Even from the companionway the sight was not reassuring. I clambered down.

  The beautifully teak lined cabin, leather couches to either side of a mahogany table, lay in a shambles. Crumpled heaps of clothes were mixed up with oilskins, a variety of half used tins of food sat abandoned in the lockers, empty bottles rolled about on the cabin sole to the slight motion of the yacht. Central in the cabin’s disorder, a case of whisky occupied the table. Sadly the man’s appearance said it all, a beard bedraggled and speckled with food, his shirt equally so, the self neglect of a man fighting off black thoughts by uncorking a demon. I felt truly sorry for him.

  “Have a tot with me,” he rummaged in the galley, produced a glass and had two large measures poured before I got round to saying it was a bit early for me. Taking his own glass in both hands, with a “Cheers, good to see you again,” he swallowed a large mouthful and fell coughing onto his bunk. This was dangerous, a yacht and a man alone heading towards the D.T’s

  Eyes closed, he remained motionless. Had the man choked? Suddenly sitting upright, he buried his face in his hands. Finally looking up through sentences poured out in a disjointed manner, “Ah gee, that bloody fat faced spy.. spying crook, out of the helicopter, nobody knows, how in hell’s name. Nobody knows where I am,” he gulped more drink, muttering incoherently, “A criminal, criminal, sure as I’m Andrew, Androo, An.” He began to shout, “They shafted me, stole off a multi-million dollar company. Banks, banks, thieving criminals!” Raising his glass, “To my bitch of a wife, good bye my darling bitch.” By now his glass was empty. A shaking hand refilled it. He drank more and rambled on without apparently noticing me. I sat on the edge of a littered bunk.

  “Yeah, I have a job to do, he’ll find out,” more mumbling threats continued. I got up to leave. At that point, he seemed to notice my presence, squaring up I was fixed by his watery eyes. His mind cleared a little, “That man, that treacherous underhand spy, he sure swindled me, yeah, defrauded me, now though, the company he controls, he’s selling nuclear weapons grade uranium, illegally, it’s top secret, but I know, I know, who better than me knows, my friend. His buddies in the middle-east, the ones with the nuclear arsenal that don’t admit they have it; yeah, primed to hit Iran, a pre-emptive strike, just wait my friend. Washington turns a blind eye, it’s top secret, sure thing, don’t think I don’t know, I know, I.. I.. have a mission, dangerous, a very, very…” his mind shut down and as he slouched back on his couch, I thought him about to pass out.

  If his assertions were fact, not idle guesswork, then he indeed possessed alarmingly lethal information. Before it would drop and smash, I tried to ease the empty glass from his hand. At this he roused. Bloodshot eyes glared wildly about the cabin. He began tugging his beard quite frantically, the agitations grew almost convulsive. Drink and the tendentious statements allied to menacing threats could be unhinging his sanity.

  A murderous hate obviously directed at some apparently unsavoury person was consuming the man. Curling lips formed a snarl, “Gold, gold, you love your gold don’t you, but I’ll turn it to dross. You ain’t gonna like it, no sir, not one dime. I have a job to do, nice little job, just wait, be patient.” Sneering words gurgled in his throat, I strained to hear him. “Wait, Sir Joshua, my gold loving, uranium dealing, Mr. Goldberg.” A groaning Andrew Anderson attempted to rise but staggering, he fell senseless on the couch. The agitated spasm had passed. Lifting his oilskin legs and using cushions, I propped him on his side, nothing else I could do for a paralytic drunk.

  A quick glance round the cabin, the name Sir Joshua Goldberg had immediately prompted memories of the U.K.’s Chief Scientist, his slippery eyes and evasive manner. My imagination played with sickening possibilities, I needed air.

  Many months had passed without it entering my thoughts, now from the far corner of our bedroom in the evening light, the briefcase stared at me. Not since the day of my meeting with Goldberg and the ex-Prime Minister had it been opened. I’d always realised my research on nuclear waste disposal could make the expansion of the nuclear industry highly contentious. Events crowded about me, the supposed archaeologist who’d attempted to kill me. His contorted grimace reappeared. He pointed a pistol at my head. I succumbed to uncontrollable shuddering.

  Entering the bedroom I awakened Eilidh, “You’re shaking Hector,” she looked startled. I took her hand and without speaking, bent over and kissed her lightly, “Something to do with Anderson and those helicopters has alarmed you.” Walking to the window, I nodded. As myths will surface from deep within the sub-conscious, the dying rays on darkened waters picked out the white form of the Valkyrie. She floated as an apparition might appear in the fevered wanderings of a delirium.

  I gripped the window ledge, listening over and over to the sinister ramblings of her skipper towards a scientist whom I’d met and instinctively distrusted; a top scientist whom I’d defied by the contents of that cursed briefcase; that this very man should have been here on Sandray; irreconcilable happenings reached beyond the sphere of coincidence. The cawing raven circled again, black feathers of a dismembered bird fell sinister upon a twilit bay.

  Turning sharply from the window I lay on the bad without taking my clothes off, not least in case that drunken creature might somehow find his way across. I loathed worrying Eilidh. We neither of us spoke and presently her steady breathing came as a relief. Sharing thoughts of the possibilities which might unfold left me inwardly wretched.

  I lay thinking. Starlight crept into the bedroom, reflected on the mirror. Sleepless eyes watched planets giving stars the illusion of immobility. Speed, acceleration, spin and density, equation built upon equation floated on a mirror of the heavens and my mind wrote again the equations which predicted the behaviour of sub-atomic particles, as had the calculations tucked away in my briefcase.

  Ten years ago we physicists decreed, no particle accelerator in the foreseeable future would have the power to create a black hole. Two years later we weren’t quite so definite. Equations showed that should extra dimensions of space-time exist then the Large Hadron Collider might produce mini black holes, three years later we agreed they would instantly evaporate. Much relief ensued until six years on came a safety warning based upon astrophysical arguments and the observations of the immensely hot and dense stars, the so- called White Dwarfs.

  Serious allegations were made- our experiments on the Hadron Collider, ‘particle race track’ could create a black hole sufficient to devour this planet and beyond. These valid concerns became the subject of a number of lawsuits from various countries hoping to achieve a court injunction which on safety grounds would order the closing down of the Collider.

  Just how many judges were capable of understanding the complex equations involved? None! Therefore the experts called in to explain and advise had to be the scientists themselves, who else? Given the shifting sands of scientific reasoning and the interests of public safety being intimately connected to that of the planet, might not a judge come down on the side of caution?

  Suddenly I sat up. The answers were in my briefcase. It contained sufficiently damning evidence on the dangers connected to the storage of enhanced radioactive waste. Any major breakdown entailing radio active emissions and ….not for days or weeks but for centuries, public health was in jeopardy. Much as the British and American Governments played down the risks and denied connections, the case against radiation exposure stood up. Thoughts raged on, I knew the strength of the nuclear lobby behind the scenes to be impressive with personal contacts to the very top.

  Eilidh’s pregnancy prompted me to think of the babies born in parts of Iraq with horrific birth defects. Following the invasion and the use of depleted uranium shells, the rise in the number of deformities had been so dramatic that women were advised against having childre
n. It brought back my meeting in Number 10. Utter revulsion towards the politicians I’d met was rekindled; the establishment’s ‘softly, softly, don’t tell the public more than you have to’ approach stank of corruption.

  The correct legal frame must be found for bringing forward an injunction to prevent any nuclear company proceeding with the unproven method of deep underground waste disposal. Purely on grounds of public safety, an injunction, a decree to stop any work going ahead.

  The harmful effects of radioactive emissions must be fully exposed in court, from the vomiting of radiation sickness to genetic damage resulting in birth defects, from leukaemia to the development of other forms of cancer; this criminal madness of putting the public at risk must be halted, the insanity of taking chances with radiation must be stopped.

  Challenge the nuclear industry? It could prove dangerous. Young men from this island ‘went over the top’ and faced the machine guns for a cause not of their making. They did not come back. I vowed it. No man who carried their name would be a coward. The island would live again.

  I’d disturbed Eilidh, she stirred and pulling back the blankets quietly took my hand and placed it on her tummy. I felt the hefty kicks from her inside, the big round dome bulged here and there, quite alarmingly. Eilidh whispered, “You’ve wakened him, now he’s playing a game of football with his father.” She didn’t doubt the baby was a boy.