These Demented Lands

by Alan Warner

  ‘I’ll change your room the night after tomorrow, we have a couple leaving.’

  ‘Oh, it’s okay,’ she looked at me, ‘I’ll be toddling on by then.’

  I smiled directly at her but couldn’t stop myself wondering if she would give me her address. No. It’s out the question; it’s dangerous here.

  ‘Oh, such a shame, when you’ve made interesting friends.’

  Correctly, she just smiled back at him and he put down the tray of tea things for her.

  ‘Where on earth did you come from?’ Brotherhood unashamedly asked. He doesn’t care. Years have passed and he no longer remembers how to compromise. Like me he’s long wearied with that petty triumph as a girl’s body resignedly slumps against you.

  ‘Just the Mainland and that.’

  ‘Just the Mainland! You should be careful coming over the hills without proper walking gear. We’ve already had two deaths in this place and my Daddy, whose telly you wanted to steal, is about to croak upstairs; last thing we want is our mountain rescue cursing you and picking up your limp corpse from the hillsides – there’s no telling what our helicopter pilot Nam would do to your corpse if he had it alone for a while. So! You’re a local . . . you sound like a native. That cursed Port itself?’

  ‘No tiene nada que ver contigo, abuelo,’ she muttered.

  ‘Woh! Gloria Estefan. So you’re not quite the local and that would explain the suntan. You’ve been away?’

  ‘But now – I’m back.’

  ‘Yes, back, seeing the lovely sights that others pay so much to see, especially in my hotel, but we, on the other hand, can see for nothing, mmm?’

  ‘Whatever you say,’ she said. I almost jumped up and clapped. Brotherhood nodded, angry now, but a loving smile still on his face.

  ‘Now, let’s see,’ Brotherhood gazed over at the black glass of the panorama window, ‘What do we know about you? We know your name, though it’s so ridiculous I must presume it’s a lie, you must have a passport but you’ve never volunteered it. Tut tut. You’re from the Mainland – tell that by accent – but you’ve been away a long time: by the sounds of it licking dago. We know you’re back and we know you’re here, but where are you going?’

  ‘I’m going to my bedroom for a cup of tea,’ she smiled and stood, carefully lifting the tea-tray up from the table.

  ‘I mean, you’re only staying with us three nights and you haven’t stepped out to see our lovely pine plantation and heather beds, and you missed breakfast this morning and that’s included in the price!’

  ‘I don’t eat breakfast,’ she said flatly.

  I was sitting, smiling softly at the spectacle. I could see Brotherhood was desperate for a weakness in her.

  ‘You don’t eat breakfast!’ he was spluttering.

  ‘Careful on the stairs,’ I said. The girl turned and smiled at me.

  ‘I will be. If you really want to know, Brotherhood,’ she announced, ‘My foster-mum is buried along the shore there, right.’

  So that’s why she took so long to cross the machair, she must have visited right then.

  ‘Goodnight,’ she called.

  ‘Goodnight,’ I replied, leaning round Brotherhood. Holding the tray before her she gently descended the stairs, her hair smoothly sinking down into the orange carpet and she was gone.

  Brotherhood glared at me.

  I shrugged, ‘She popped in to say hello last night. I told her to clear off out of here.’

  ‘You boned her?’

  ‘No. She’s not interested in the likes of me or you, she’s bigger time than us,’ I said.

  Brotherhood walked back to the bar shaking his head. He poured himself a whisky, thumped down in the seat she’d been sitting in then took a long stare at me. ‘You sad, sad man,’ he stated.

  I shrugged my shoulders then suddenly, amazed I hadn’t realised before, I saw he was onto me.

  ‘How long have you known?’ I said.

  ‘Since the first few days.’

  ‘That long?’

  ‘You interest me; you amuse me; and I can call Sgt McGilp whenever I want. What I’ll have to do tomorrow, though, is give a wee seminar on you to your girlfriend there.’

  ‘Don’t be a bastard, she wouldn’t heed my warning.’

  ‘Oh, listen to you squeal,’ he smiled.

  It was stupid but time was running out for me and I so much wanted to wipe the smile from his face. ‘Where do you keep it Brotherhood?’

  His whole posture changed and his eyes widened out, ‘My God, you’re really amazing.’

  I said, barely a whisper. ‘I always wanted to know about that crash, about Carlton, I always had an interest. It was that led me here; you’re just a fringe benefit.’

  Brotherhood contemplated his tumbler, ‘You haven’t even the excuse of being drunk. Behave, Aircrash Investigator.’

  He stood up and walked over to the log fire, pokered it down and rolled the wood to burn safely in the middle. ‘Put out the lights,’ he smiled and then added, ‘You know, you think you’ve stepped over too many shocking sights, with honour grinning up at you, dismemberment, mutilation, fatalities: all part of your daily vocabulary. You’ve already walked through the apocalypse . . . but don’t forget, that’s all in your dreams – that’s what you want. What kind of person are you? Men. All devils. What do you think chased Carlton up that dark hillside?’ He walked down the staircase, sinking into the floor in the half-light; I turned and saw the lone beacon of the Oyster Skerries blink hopelessly.

  I turned out the lights, made my way downstairs. I sashayed medium-joyously up the corridor, the night closing behind me.

  Monday the Sixteenth

  ANOTHER MORNING WAS spilling all over the island. I watched the summer footage, walked up the corridors to have a good breakfast, keep watch over the girl through the day then send her on her way the following morning.

  Only two couples were in the Observation Lounge, both dressed for departure on an incoming aircraft. I glanced at the cloud base which was high enough above the drizzle through the panorama windows.

  I imagined the breakfast Macbeth would place before me. The golden, burned fringes of the fried egg-white: bubbled like treacle toffee; the watery tea I would oversweeten.

  Macbeth crossed towards me. I presumed he was about to say ‘tea or coffee?’ and I had aleady inhaled to make my reply (he in chef whites and checks, the bottom of his clean trousers flapping as he crossed the orange carpet). ‘Heard the news? Drop-dead-gorgeous-bint’s staying another week.’

  I stood, the man in chef’s clothes and the four youngsters in overcoats and wedding rings on the four fingers all looking at me.

  ‘Where is she?’ I said, not whispering.

  ‘Went out. Twenty minutes ago, wouldn’t have a coffee even. I asked!’

  I zipped up my jacket as I walked away from him: outside, the drizzle seemed to stand in columns. I walked quickly past the garages and staff caravans. Up at the top of the pot-holed drive I turned left and walked along the Big Road verge; beyond the bridge I looked over to the melancholy blue plastic ribbons I had cordoned off the crash site of Hotel Charlie with: twisted and thrumming in the stiff breeze. I turned along the pathway, approaching the enclosures of the graveyard and the gable end of the ruined, pre-Reformation chapel. I spotted her at the far end of the machair across the graveyard. I was more than familiar with every gait: Brotherhood’s, Macbeth’s slouch, Mrs Heapie’s ponderous progress down the drive on a Sunday or the distant and conjoined conferring of a circling honeymoon couple. Her walk was still young, energetic and heart-breakingly confident – boyish too. Her figure vanished behind the graveyard walls and I tried to cut her off at the gate by plunging into the boggy moor grass, puddles like chunks of dark glass among the reeds; I missed one, my foot sunk, I sighed and stepped backwards, wiping the sides of my boots on a grass tuft.

  I walked down the Sound side of the graveyard, past the Celtic crosses that abutted above the wall and the hideous headstones suppla
nted with grievous angels that turned their lichen-covered shoulders to the waters of the so-called bay.

  Stood up on the wall with one outstretched arm rested upon the head of an angel was the girl. She raised the other arm, gave a wave, jumped and vanished behind the stones.

  I ran back to the gate and strode up the central path of the small graveyard. She was standing beyond Carlton’s plot, in front of a headstone. Her hair wasn’t covered in any way, it was so wet it had coagulated into thick dark cables and she’d pushed it away from her forehead.

  ‘I thought there was a roof on it,’ she smiled and nodded to the chapel ruin. The little digger machine used by the council for making new graves (and delivered there, as surreptitiously as possible, from the graveyard on the other side of the island, when Brotherhood’s father worsened) was parked in the lee of the chapel, covered in tarpaulin. Before I could speak she veered over to the digger. She tugged at the plastic and said, ‘We can use this,’ kneeled and started undoing a toggle on the plastic. A flap came away, but by holding it over her head with both hands she could shelter under.

  I said, ‘Why are you staying on here, in this forsaken place, this bloody brothel and that ridiculous man; can you not use your perception to see the man’s the Devil. All you need to do is take a bus or taxi out of here, cut your holiday short for God’s sake?’

  There was a low groaning sound, a splatter of movement up in the cloud and the red wings of a Piper Cherokee sliced out, over the bay towards us; as it passed, she pulled away the tarpaulin and, squinting into the rain, turned her face up to follow the aircraft that went straight in, clouding out a sheath of spray when it came over the threshold and touched down on the grass.

  ‘You’d better get out of here. Take yourself over to The Outer Rim Hotel. They’ve got people your age there. And a disco.’

  She smiled, ‘But you can get a bus on the Saturday nights from the end of the drive, The Disco Bus; Chef Macbeth told me.’

  ‘Don’t listen to Chef Macbeth, don’t listen to any of the people here!’

  ‘Mmm,’ she nodded. She removed something from her leathery jacket, handed it to me.

  DEAR MR BROTHERHOOD,

  FURTHER TO YOUR FAX THIS MORNING AND OUR TELEPHONE CONVERSATION. I CAN FIND NO TRACE THAT HE WAS EVER AN EMPLOYEE OF THE AIR ACCIDENT INVESTIGATION BRANCH AND THE BRANCH WILL COVER NO EXPENSES WITH REGARD TO HIS ACCOMMODATION.

  NO OFFICIAL INVESTIGATION INTO THE ACCIDENT WHICH HE CLAIMS TO BE SUPERVISING HAS EVER BEEN AUTHORISED, NOR SEEMS LIKELY TO BE. THE FINDINGS OF THE FATAL ACCIDENT ENQUIRY HAVE FULLY SATISFIED US THAT, FOR REASONS UNKNOWN, THE PILOTS OF ALPHA WHISKY AND HOTEL CHARLIE TOOK OFF IN THE HOURS OF DARKNESS FROM THE DROME HOTEL AIRSTRIP AND NEVER RETURNED. THE WRECKAGE OF HOTEL CHARLIE WAS DISCOVERED CLOSE TO THE HOTEL IN THE MORNING. BOTH PILOT AND WRECKAGE OF ALPHA WHISKY COULD NOT BE FOUND BUT FOUR MONTHS LATER THE REMAINS OF THE PILOT WERE FOUND INDICATING HE DIED WITHIN SEVERAL HOURS OF TAKE OFF (POSSIBLY AFTER MIDNIGHT AND DURING THE EARLY HOURS) BUT THE CAUSE OF DEATH WAS EXPOSURE AND NOT IMPACT, AND THAT HIS BODY WAS FOUND ON 96-METRE HILL LESS THAN A MILE FROM THE AIRFIELD IN A STATE OF DECOMPOSITION COMMENSURATE WITH HIS HAVING LAIN, UNDISCOVERED THERE, APART FROM SCAVENGING ANIMALS, FOR THAT PERIOD OF TIME.

  THE RECENT DISCOVERY OF AIRCRAFT WRECKAGE IN 90 FEET OF WATER 500 YARDS FROM THE SHORE DOES NOT NECESSITATE INVOLVEMENT OF THE A.A.I.B. OF THE BOARD OF TRADE. AFTER THIS GREAT PASSING OF TIME THE REMAINING WRECKAGE WOULD BE UNLIKELY TO YIELD ANY ANSWERS: THE NIGHT CIRCUIT THESE PILOTS MADE WAS BOTH ILLEGAL AND HIGHLY DANGEROUS. IT IS PATENTLY OBVIOUS THE AIRCRAFT TOUCHED OR COLLIDED ON APPROACH.

  AS PUBLIC FUNDS ARE INVOLVED, THE LIFTING OF THIS WRECKAGE (OR ANY TYPE OF INVESTIGATION, WHEN, TO PROFESSIONALS THERE ARE ONLY FOREGONE CONCLUSIONS TO BE MADE) COULD NOT BE JUSTIFIED BY THE BRANCH.

  I FEEL THE . . .

  The paper was growing shiny in the metallic light; I lowered it to my thigh. The girl was smiling at me. ‘Brotherhood tells me you have no money, not a penny, he realised early on. He also . . .’

  She burst out laughing, turned aside and laughed into the tarpaulin. Colour had come into her cheeks and I noticed her laughs drew vapour in the cold, damp air. ‘He also says you are completely . . . completely mad!’ she opened her eyes wide. ‘He says he thinks you’ve escaped from an institution, that you’re some kind of schizothingmy and you’re not who you think you are, and . . .’ she let out big hiccups of laughs, then she screamed and hit her foot down in a stamp to stop herself sucking back the laughs . . . ‘Says you think Brotherhood has . . . something, says you think Brotherhood has, broken pieces off . . . off a fucking spaceship!’ she flung a hand up to her mouth and put a finger in between the teeth. She glared at me. ‘And you say I should listen to you!’

  ‘Brotherhood lets me stay because I amuse him . . .’

  ‘Who are you, Mister?’

  ‘I’m an outlier who’s come into the circle.’

  ‘You’re a liar . . .’

  ‘Oh piss off.’

  ‘No you piss off with your advice. Yous are all neurotic, I’m staying.’

  ‘You listen here and listen good, you go put a flower on your mummy’s grave. Get out on the first bus in the morning.’

  She slapped down the tarpaulin and screamed at me, ‘Don’t you get it? Stop telling me what to do!’

  I started walking away, ‘And I only like Beethoven,’ I lied wildly. I turned back and pointed at Carlton’s small headstone. ‘While you’re at it, stick a daisy on that one.’

  Evening.

  I moved through the lighting-up sections of corridor, towards Brotherhood’s victory and my own ration of defeat that was nothing new.

  In the Observation Lounge she was already there, perched on a stool, wearing the short skirt Brotherhood had bought for her that morning and she had shortened around the hem, sitting by the log fire all afternoon watching the herons stalk and cross the white horizon beyond the runway. Her legs were like long splashes from a bucket and two husbands were actually leaning against the bar talking to her. I laughed in her face: the last refuge of desperate men. I marched to my table.

  Who knows or cares what I ordered and transported to my mouth. My mouth: one day a glut of dark blood will jerk up into my throat and finish my latest babbling, mid-sentence. I will rake and spit out a clot only to have another one rise up within me, like a birth.

  Brotherhood crossed to my table. He laughed, placed my favourite whisky with crushed ice on the table, ‘She’s had a fine idea already: a party to liven this old hotel up – a DJ, but a party with a difference. We’ll open up the dining room, eh? All guests will attend, so don’t go hanging yourself before.’

  By the time the Observation Lounge smelled of coffee, the young woman had finished eating and returned to the bar where she told stories to two couples, drank a chain of lemonades with fresh orange and was the life of the party; cardigan wrapped round her, leaning back on her stool she shook some hair away from a bare shoulder, the curve of which then reflected the log-fire flames. Brotherhood leaned on the bar encouraging the conversation, prodding it in various directions. Then the couples sheepishly and unwillingly made themselves leave the fun in the name of this new concept called: their marriage. The men had been trying to look at their wives as much as the girl but they hadn’t succeeded. I left before the girl and Brotherhood crossed to the flames of the log fire. I sighed, infinitely weary. When I stood up the girl gave me a challenging look. I couldn’t bear to hear his patter begin; his tired old routines: revolution, irony, Africa, duality and the uses of black magic rituals at the moment of death; atrocities in the Middle Ages: how they would build little wooden boxes round victims’ heads then throw them down the cliffs of the castle; the social position of skull stackers in the Khmer Rouge.

  ‘Goodnight!’

  ‘Nighty night,’ they called wickedly, I saw her flat canvas shoes that made her look so young, that summer.

  In full view of them I picked up one of the ashtrays. In the
reception I didn’t push open the fire doors and move up the flickering corridor but I swung out the front door then walked over the gravel of the turning place, round the corner and moved into the pine plantation where, in the dry night, over to the left, I saw honeymoon couples embrace. I stepped into the suddenly-lush beds of chicken weed, over to the patio of 15 and cast the heavy ashtray through the door. Shattering near the bottom, the upper section hesitated then, in a collapse, the glass fell downwards. I laughed out loud, turning to make sure the couple (from 7) saw me. They scuttled off to tell Brotherhood who would nod solemnly but laugh out loud as soon as they’d turned their backs on him.

  Morning:

  Glaziers from the island’s other side.

  A mildness in the sudden air that brought a daddy-long-legs as frail as the filaments in a bulb.

  Her perfume bottle banging down on the dresser through the wall from my headboard.

  The poster in the foyer.

  Editor’s note: poster inserted in manuscript:

  Editor’s note: Argyll Archipelago Records press release glued into manuscript:

  FIRST TEXT

  Part Two

  ‘SOME OF THEM are condoms!’ a honeymooner-couple-man called and right enough, some of the balloons on the ceiling of the never-used dining room – stuck up round the fakey chandeliers with pale surgical tape from Brotherhood’s father’s skinny wrists where his glucose drips fitted into him – some of those fixed-up balloons were Durexes.

  It was DJ Cormorant who DJ’d the drag party and then grew in him desires to organise millennial rave after that Christmas: to celebrate advents of new centuries.

  He was out the portico bawling, ‘May all your landings be gentle,’ as the tippy-up back of Joe the Coal’s lorry dumped the metal-cornered bass bins.

  Still dressed as man, Brotherhood appeared at dusk with a box of records, but it was all Bob Dylan. I went for a walk down past the airfield gate, grass soaking the canvas shoes, across open spaces that would fill with marquees, DJs and tribesters at Hogmanay. Then I saw the familiar figure haunting per usual hinterlands of Drome Hotel: The One Who Walked the Skylines of Dusk with Debris Held Aloft Above His Head. His long black raincoat, like an office worker’s in a city, foreshadowed the lyrics of Dylan’s Man in the Long Black Coat – a song I would circle to in his arms that night (my fingers on the bare flesh of the man’s neck, above his dress’s low-cut back) – one of the many scratched, mysterious waltzes Brotherhood had indicated as the only permissible music.