These Demented Lands

by Alan Warner

  I goes, ‘Brotherhood?’

  ‘The Erin sisters it was, from over at The Summer Colony between the Bird Sanctuary and The New Projects. It was after Brotherhood came back in that old plane. He made them both fall in love with him. Made them. With his handsomeness and money. His father was working like a slave at The Drome Hotel while Brotherhood gallivanted around these hills with Lynne and Rosa in his jeep. He took them in the flying boat, flew them up the coast, low over the Summer Colony chapel, over the beaches at The Inaccessible Point, the birds from the Sanctuary peeling off the cliffs below the tilted wings: puffins and shags dropping straight to the sea. I can just imagine the Erin sisters, who we all felt protective about, noses pressed to the windows.

  ‘I was just out school then and would slouch at one end of the public bar at The Drome, ‘fore Brotherhood the younger shut it down, making the bar resident only; there he would be, proudly laying off about it in a loud whisper, the stories that he still repeats, word for word to the young wives beside the evening log-fires in the Observation Lounge.’

  ‘What stories would he tell?’ I mumbled, sleepy sort of.

  ‘All of his going with the sisters.’

  ‘Let me guess: he went with them both thegether, he climbed into the same bed with them or they came into the same bed with him for some triple action? Big deal. I’ve done worse.’

  He spoke out, ‘Well yes. Of course.’

  ‘That’s no so naughty; just being first to do it in Toytown.’

  ‘Aye, but its not like you think. Brotherhood, up in the bar would tell, his face back in the shadows: “I can remember it was Lynne I kissed first. The three of us sitting up on the banks of Sorrowless Rigs Burn. An August afternoon. As Lynne’s mouth and mine came together she lay back under me. My hand went to her right leg and I still recall its teenage-smoothness. Rosa, who had put her head back at the same instant on the heather let out a gasp.” Same words as he’ll use on the young wives up at the Observation Lounge who’ll be sitting, legs crossed, as Brotherhood looks into their eyes, watching as the women think . . . he’s completely insane. We’ve put ourselves into the hands of a psychopath for a fortnight . . . Brotherhood scans, looking for any sign of arousal in the women; he goes on . . . “Lynne and I moaned, but so did Rosa. As I kissed Lynne her sister was moaning! As I rubbed higher on the leg,” (And here Brotherhood might lean closer in the semi-dark lounge.) “. . . I found Lynne was letting me move up under the dress; my fingers brushed over the belly-button and up to a tit. Lynne was gurgling in her throat as my fingers found, on the tip of the left nipple, a single hair.” (Now, Brotherhood is getting into his stride.) “Between thumb and forefinger, I pinched the single hair and ran my fingers down it to judge its length and – amazing – that incredible hair stretched on and on from the nipple, one foot, two feet, three feet long, it led my hand across to where it ended: the silver ring of the pierced nipple on Rosa’s equally smooth breast. Now Rosa was breathing so hysterically; there was the delight and fascination of discovering where Lynne’s sensations ended and Rosa’s began and I never really defined it that day. Looking into the twins’ faces, their thin noses and black eyes, telepathic lovers co-operating for the pleasure of us all, as I slid a hand to the side of the third leg and judged that ultimate point; felt for the wonder of that same wet confirmation a man to the east of Europe had felt for, as he lay a-top the bag of blood that was a slim young woman minutes before – what his hand found was what mine did, that common bit, that secret where the twins truly shared everything and I entered their single vagina, I loved them. Other men were too afraid; though I wasn’t the first. Look at the wives of The Bunker Twins. The Bunkers were not critically joined like Lynne and Rosa, who shared a bladder, a digestive system, reproductive organs. The Bunker Twins were brought together by a fatty phalanx of skin along their sides. Two sisters married them and between them, in nights of mutual passion, they fathered twenty children, all healthy. They lived to the ripe old age of seventy-three, each dying on the same night.”’

  I whispered, ‘Siamese twins, the Erin sisters were Siamese twins.’

  ‘That’s right. Brotherhood installed them in the hotel until he’d driven both women mad with jealousy for each other. Rosa tried to hack Lynne apart from her with a carving knife; they bled to death during the airlift.’

  ‘He would go to bed with them and they were joined up?’

  ‘They only had one . . .

  I goes, ‘Jesus.’ I’d taken my head off his shoulder.

  He went, ‘You can imagine what gossip has been echoing round the island. There’s always a physically dominant twin; when they were children it was always Lynne who limped forward, dragging that third leg behind them. There’s tragedy written into those dynamics and Brotherhood just had to exploit it to set them against each other.’

  ‘What’s all this about young wives in the hotel he speaks all these stories out to?’

  The guy lit another cigarette, offered, and I shook head. ‘Guests. He runs The Drome Hotel as a honeymoon place. It’s all done through travel agents in the Central Belt: couples get flown in on these light aircraft; Brotherhood picks them up in this crazy white limo with pink interior, they stay a fortnight and get the wee plane out again. Crazy scene.’

  I’d put the head back down on his shoulder and I know he was talking, warning me, but I nodded off.

  I came awake. I thought he’d gone then saw the glow of a cigarette over by a tree. My cheek was resting on his rolled-up jacket, the cold zip dugged into my cheek.

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘Hiya.’

  ‘You were talking in your sleep.’

  I smiled, breathed out warm air from my nose.

  ‘You says, “Brotherhood,” and another name too, and he says the name I didn’t recognise until later, and that was impossible for me to know then, but truly that is what he said as if all that happens has already. Light was jumping up behind the looming mountains further into the Interior and I was bye-bidding the night-talker and lashing on past the portakabins and into more mysteriousnesses of mist banks, darkness, the lantern sky behind and gold embers of islets strewn along the river with burn-out smoke rising in the cold dawning air, making the waterway look on fire.

  Sun was up and I was near one of the Backroads when I heard the explosions up the glen, then it was feet onto the slap of tar road and on down until the purr of Knifegrinder’s motorcycle coming up from the rear.

  ‘Man, you are zilch, you are zilch in weirdyness to things I did and saw way Down There,’ I shouted at him as he approached, the stag’s horns on his motorcycle helmet (that he was later arrested for as an accident hazard) moving slow from side to side as he braked to a stop; the old motorbike phutting away.

  ‘Want any knives sharpened?’ he goes, produced a crab apple from his biker jacket and stuck it up onto an end spike of the antler horns. He growled, shook his head till the apple flew off and rolled a bit down the road. He took out the bird-noise whistle he used outside the kitchens, sculleries and shops to tell of his arrival; he blew its weird whirling sound.

  ‘I don’t have a knife.’ Then my mind jumped and my fingers found the forester’s knife in the yachting jacket’s pocket. ‘Well I’ve this . . .’

  ‘Nice piece . . .’

  ‘It’s not even mine. Got any food?’ I walked to the apple, picked it on up and without rubbing it on the Levi’s, I bit into it. I goes, ‘Look,’ hoiked the knapsack off and took out the other yacht jacket from the Chandlers, offering it. ‘Give us a backie over to The Drome Hotel.’

  ‘Aye. Lost your husband?’

  ‘I just want to stay there a bit.’ I looked up at the awful hugeness of mountain tops round us. ‘Then everything will be alright again. For a while.’

  He took the jacket in his hands then handed it back, ‘Not my style, honey.’

  ‘You could sell it on.’

  ‘Tell you what, I’ll sharpen your knife for nothing!’ He wheeched his leg sudden over the bike
so’s you had to take a step back to mind the antlers. With a squat he was down lifting the bike onto its fold-out stand, then he took a belt, like a Hoover belt, attached it to a grooved disc by the centre of the back wheel; from a worn leather pannier he took a black grinding stone with its glistening wee bits, and affixed it near the pedal, pulled on the belt taut, and when he turned the throttle on the handlebar the stone went whizzing round.

  ‘It’s okay. Really,’ I says.

  ‘Give it here; I’ll give it a dicht.’ He took the knife and began the folding out of some blades from the handle. There was a wee set of scissors that he squinted at then began snipping away at the bushy nostril hairs peeking out of his nose. ‘I’ll give you a hurl for this.’

  ‘It’s no mine. It’s a friend’s and I’ll need to give it back.’

  With both hands he pushed the little blade onto the spinning stone, a screeling noise hurled sparks down onto the wet macadam. Very handily he flipped the knife over and leaned in the blade again. ‘Do you know Chef Macbeth at The Drome? I do all his knives for him.’

  ‘I don’t know anyone there.’

  ‘Why are you going?’

  ‘Wee holiday,’ I shrugged shoulders.

  ‘Huh! That’ll be right.’

  I says, ‘Mmm, is it all guests are husband and wife – new, like?’

  ‘Nah – nah, they’ve that Man From The Department of Transport. You’ll see him. You’ll see that one thieving all the bits of sheds and outhouses back; it’s legal landfall, legitimate salvage, I was talking about this with the Argonaut. It’s legitimate salvage, girl!’

  Just to be on the safe side I took the knife off him. Sudden-like he had the buttons on his shirt undone and was tugging it open so’s you could see the greying hairy chest. I took a few steps away.

  ‘I’ve a hole in the heart. Listen! Boom-boom BOOM, boom-boom BOOM! Listen, girl.’

  ‘Don’t really want to.’

  ‘Listen for luck.’

  I huffed out a puff and swept my hair, that was heavy and greasy, away from my ear, leaned down and ever so cautious-like put my side of face against the hard chest. It was right enough, the heart beat weirdly with a third beat added on strangelike. ‘You’re right enough, your heart beats differently,’ I took my head up and shook my hair.

  Knifegrinder leered, ‘Some of us beat to a different drum.’

  ‘Aye. That much is true,’ I says.

  He buttoned up his shirt and started to sing or shout:

  ‘Mama she was the work of the Devil

  And the fire escapes are burned to Hell . . .’

  He walked in a circle pretending to play guitar then he rapidly scuffled over and up to my face hissing, ‘You know fine why you’re here and so do I, Jessie, youre a hunter and scavenger like the rest that come here from all ends of the galaxy. A hunter with a wee goal in mind, eh, EH! Well I’ll tell you something, I’ll tell you something, Calamity Jane,’ he swung his head in all directions scanning the hillsides that were leaping up all round us with white gashes of new-filled streams striping the glen among the wet, green knobbles and bracken spreads of tan, ‘I’ve seen it girl, I’ve seen it . . . SEEN! I’ve . . . I have touched it,’ he whispered. ‘Wreckage part of alien spaceship.’

  ‘Right.’ I goes.

  ‘Brotherhood let me.’

  ‘Aye?’

  ‘Aye. AYE, of course aye. I saw what it did. Oh man, Oh MAN, you can not understand, you cannot comprehend it, everything you believed turning to powder in your hands, in these hands. IT.’

  I nodded and made to be walking on up the glen. He walked after me.

  ‘Brotherhood let me. Brotherhood likes me. Mr Brotherhood to you. It was him gave me my horns here. I was with him in the Land Rover. We’d dugged a big pit and that stag just fell in the hole. Couldnt get the big devil out so Brotherhood flung a noose round his neck, tied it onto the Land Rover and, well, y’know, just drove off. Man, you shoulda seen that porker’s eyes bulge, his neck snapped and he bounced up. Hardy thing was still alive, so Mr Brotherhood ties a rope up to a tree then stretches that stag out with the Land Rover in second gear; puts on the gas and rrrrrip, spine and a balloon of intestines, the head tears off. I was happy with that but Brotherhood kept tethering up bits of the beast, gralloching a leg out the socket then leaping out the Land Rover, striding back and hooking up to the ribcage or whatever, tearing the thing to pieces, blood up his arms, fat bluebottles oozing over everything. I tell you there’s no rules binds that man to the earth.’

  I’d been looking at the ground.

  ‘Sure there’s nothing else you want sharpened? I’ve done lady nail-files before; yon wee metal ones yous carry as weapons.’

  ‘Don’t have one.’

  ‘Hell, there was a boy came stumbling out the bushes back there with bow and arrows, wanted them sharpened when he saw what I was; man, I’m such a dab hand with that wheel I could sharpen your pencil if you had one.’ He walked back to his bike and started dismantling the gear, kicked it off its stand and accelerated up behind so’s I stepped aside into the grass.

  He braked beside me and pointed straight up the mountain to the behind of me. ‘You’d be the quickest trotting over yon and falling down onto the foothills behind; keep a mile this side of the river and move west, it’ll take you right into The Drome.’

  As I climbed I kept the turning to watch the little bike move down the glen, Knifegrinder not tilting into the corners but taking them weirdly upright, so slow he seemed as to have stopped on the corners but no, he was moving on forwarders then suddenly really sped up on a fast bit of straight.

  I moved into the lashing of mist among the scattered rocks, level sections of tuft grass broadened out then hoiched up onto another flanker. Peewee nests were a-clutter; mummy birds swooped down yelling at me and another did the old hop-along pretending to have a broken wing to lure me away from the nest – tenderly I stepped over the near-invisible tawn circles with the tiny yellow and brown eggs.

  Higher near ridge-crest, the rondel trees of the valley floor clustered closer into mushy clumps of black with bumpy edges. The whole island seemed to slip down through me like a disc, spread out round, saw otherside from up there, distant mountains lifting up as if explosions of steam, cloud pillars like spring blossom, the mountain range I was named after on the opposite side of the Sound that lay with a wet sun along in dazzling shimmers, up to where the water turned angry black – wide wide ocean that goes forever ‘cept maybe for a Pincher Martin rock jutted out the teeth of ocean bed. I stood looking out into that sea that surrounded us.

  Weeks later up in the Observation Lounge it was the thought of our entrapment by water that got me talking about The Rudder Feeling. I was sat with the short skirt on, the tops of my thighs thinning as they dove into the hem I’d just cut, under the bewildered gaze of new-husbands and suspicious new-wives; I’d mesmerised them: the tale of my arrival at the London airport with my lipstick all snogged off as I walked along those millions miles of corridors and through customs in bare feet with just a plastic bag of dirty knickers; strapped on my back a huge teddy bear that’d been won me at the shows in, maybe Formentera maybe Fuerteventura, who knows? I was laughing, my black eyes averted, laughing for myself alone – at least one-time joys insured forever, even against that perilous stay in Brotherhood’s sphere. I says, ‘Rudder Feeling is very different from Toffee Feeling. The Rudder Feeling is when I was wee my foster-dad would hold my hand and take me to see the fishing boats. I’d no interest in boats, only in the textures and sizes of their rudders and propellers that I could see hung in the bluey-green world below the curves of the hulls. It gave me scaredness lying in my bed thinking about those rudders, held there forever, punished above the cold Atlantic seabeds that were always rolling out below them.’

  The Aircrash Investigator, The One Who Walked the Skylines of Dusk with Debris Held Aloft Above His Head, HE nodded quick, several times, the whisky jamp up the insides of his tumbler and he says, ‘You fear
underworlds where the seabed is the earth, the unsteady surface a new sky, you hate the Living Things: basking shark or angler fish that might brush against you bare leg and those rudders and propellers . . . their contant immersion, made them thresholds into that underworld.’

  He was right. I nodded watching as his faraway eyes turned to the gunmetal of the Soundwaters.

  That was all later though; before my Banishment, so I clambered on up the steepening braes till all the island was way below me and I was dropping through the grey seams of sideyways rock – some cliffs were too sheer so’s you had to make the big detours and wind down into the foothills below, using the sheep tracks.

  I saw the tent way back on the lee dip in 96-Metre Hill, the oily tong of smoke crawling up above the larch scatterings. Even a real ways off you could pick out his bulk afront the tent.

  ‘Ahoy there,’ I waved.

  ‘Well. Venus on the Half-Shell,’ the Devil’s Advocate shouted, his voice carrying a little away with the smoke from his campfire.

  ‘I’m so so sorry; the petrol, in that tank. You could easy of died.’ I walked up to quite near him.

  ‘Sit down, dear, sit down. I’ll tell you this, I was instrumental in the recent demotion of St Christopher from his position: patron saint of wayfarers.’

  ‘Aye. I know,’ I goes.

  ‘Well! He certainly wasn’t on board our vessel that night.’

  ‘Thats right enough. They were searching for you. In a helicopter.’

  ‘Worry not. I met two Mormons crossing these hills to The Far Places on their mission from Salt Lake City, Utah. The gentlemen informed me a search had been called off. A reward has been posted for an escaped bear and that helicopter’s esteemed crew are scouring the hills for the grizzly.’

  ‘From the zoo at the castle?’

  ‘The same.’

  ‘This island is crazy. Its all like a dream.’ I looked at the Devil’s Advocate’s face. It had the same similarities as all the other menfaces I’d been seeing.

  ‘Where is it you wayfare to?’

  ‘The Drome Hotel. That’s a great tent you’ve there,’ I says.