by Lynne Chitty
“Took a trip to Dunvegan Castle on the other side of the island last time I was here and there was a stuffed puffin in one of the display cases. Apparently the folk of St Hilda used to catch puffins, ship them across to the castle, where they were put in huge vats of porridge to give it extra flavour.” He laughed and wandered away with his juice.
If she had little appetite before, the thought of puffin porridge completely finished her suffering stomach off and she just about made it to a table before putting her head in her hands. If only she could press a button and delete herself, like she could when she made a mistake on the computer. It had been a massive mistake to come here and an even greater mistake to think she could ever get away from the memories that irrevocably defined her.
The waitress who looked about twelve hovered nervously and when Eliza lifted her head she realised the poor girl must have been waiting for a while wondering what to do.
“Tea or coffee?” she asked in her melodic Scottish voice.
“Coffee please”
“Anything cooked?” the waitress continued as eager as she was youthful.
“No thanks”
“Well if you change your mind just let me know.” she said smiling.
Thankfully she didn’t add ‘Have a nice day’ or Eliza might have screamed.
The girl slipped away coming back a few minutes later with a coffee pot and a tiny jug of milk.
Eliza took a few sips and realised that in spite of everything she was actually hungry. She turned around and seeing that no one else was at the buffet table, crossed the room and chose some cereal and a croissant.
Pete must have been watching her because within seconds he was at her side again.
“Sorry about the puffin story” he said. “Sadly it is true but it was a bit insensitive and I can see you maybe aren’t at your best just now, I just wanted to try to make you feel you belonged here and well made a hash of it. You looked a bit lost and my paternal instincts kicked in but totally out of order I really am very sorry. I could kick myself. ”
Eliza looked up and could see the poor man was genuinely upset.
“It’s fine” she said. “It’s me who should apologise. I’m just not feeling very sociable at the moment.” Yet as she said the words a longing for company, safe company overwhelmed her. “You all set for your race?” she asked trying to prolong the encounter.
Pete smiled realising it was her way of saying apology accepted and that he hadn’t done any real damage.
“Maybe you would like to come? If you are still here and haven’t got anything else planned. It’s due to be nice on Saturday and there’s a great atmosphere. We’ve got a mini bus going from here. No pressure but let me know if you’d like to.”
She smiled and took her breakfast back to her now cold coffee. She wouldn’t go but it was nice, really nice to be asked.
MARCUS
Marcus had hoped he would sleep better once he was home. But so far the nights had been as unending as the nights in his cell, where he had lain awake planning all the things he would do when he got out. He worked hard at keeping the past at bay. What had happened had happened. No use going there. The landscape never changed and although as his counsellor had said, lessons could be learned. He preferred to endure the present and live for the future. The future was his favourite place on earth, full of possibilities. Dreams, plans, hopes, cascaded like a wonderful waterfall. They had made the long tedious hours of prison life bearable.
Thank God his cell mate Stuart didn’t snore. He kept himself to himself and asked no questions which suited Marcus down to the ground. Poor old sod had been in nine years and at seventy one was well past his sell by date. Fair play to him though, seemed content enough and in no hurry to go back to life in the outside world. Not like Marcus, who had debts to collect and blokes to catch up with. Stu had been a good listener too. Sometimes Marcus had not been able to contain himself and had offloaded some stuff. Stu never batted an eyelid. Good sort of bloke. He really was.
Marcus looked in the mirror. A bit rough but nothing a good shave wouldn’t cure. He’d always fancied himself as a bit of an Al Pacino, priding himself on his thick jet black hair. Something else he had his father to thank for. Mmm you’ll do he said to himself and smiled.
EDITH
“Don’t you look nice.” The carer placed the hand held mirror in front of Ediths face. Edith winced. She didn’t look nice. She didn’t look nice at all. She looked old. Older than her dear old nan had ever looked and she had lived to be eighty three. Dutiful as ever though, she thanked the carer for helping her to wash her hair and she settled down to breakfast. She wondered how it was that her life had shrunk to the bedroom that she spent all her days in. It was her own fault really she decided. She could go downstairs. She could sit in the kitchen and watch the sparrows on the bird table like she had done before. Pottering about, baking, making trips into Taunton on the bus, going to church at Christmas with Eliza. A cloud passed over her thoughts and she was again engulfed by reality. Eliza was gone. Needed a break she had said. Would keep in touch. Touch. Beautiful word and yet how cruel touch could be, and how desperate when the only ones to touch you were strangers, just doing their jobs.
The door slammed. Marcus was going out early today.He didn’t even call out a goodbye as he went. Just as well. The sound of his voice hurt her whole body. She woke up in the night sometimes convinced he was in her room. He never was, at least not physically. In her imagination though, he was nearly always there. Like a ghost who could never die. She thought about her own death a lot, especially when she couldn’t sleep. She wasn’t afraid. Not really. It would be much the same as now she thought but maybe with less pain and maybe even a bit of music? Was there music in heaven. Would she qualify to enter? She shivered. If only Eiza were there to read the psalms to her and to calm her nerves.
FIVE
ELIZA
Eliza sat in her room with a blanket around her shoulders staring out of the window at the view. The landscape seemed to change every few seconds. Mist dropped down and rose again. Clouds obscured and revealed. While all the time the mountains stood dark and beautiful. At one level, she couldn’t help but feel better. They understood those mountains. They were calling to her soul as they had done all those years ago when she had seen that picture in the magazine. She had brought a camera but somehow she knew she could never capture them with it. They were living, breathing spiritual giants, friends even. She laughed. Yes, the mountains were her friends. She closed the curtain and grabbed her waterproof, suddenly energised. An hour later sitting on a rock in a little bay further along the coast she looked up again at the mountains as the water, happily settled in its daily rhythm of ebb and flow provided just enough sound to enrich the silence but was respectful enough to leave her space to think. If you could be depressed and content at the same time, then Eliza was just that. Nothing else existed except that moment. Past, future, they didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except the joy of breathing in the stillness and the solidity of now. She wanted it to last for ever. She never wanted to move. She wanted to gradually evaporate and be drawn into the mist and herself become part of the landscape. Words from a psalm came into her head ‘I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills. From whence cometh my help.’ She wasn’t sure if she still believed in God but as she spoke out the words she felt connected to someone or something. Though she wasn’t sure who or what.
A couple out walking their dog eventually broke the spell and as she got up ready to make her way back to the hotel, she whispered a thank you. The Mountains heard she was sure of that. As sure as she had ever been of anything.
MARCUS
Marcus closed the front door behind him. The street looked the same but the town had changed. Different shops, different faces. Even the The Golden Cockerel had changed hands and when he had walked in for a pie and a pint heads had turned towards him and then turned away. He had lived in Wellington all his life. On the Somerset, Devon border it did well fo
r itself. It was set in the wide valley between the Brendon and Blackdown Hills, and had given its name to the famous ‘Iron Duke’, victor of the Battle of Waterloo. The 175ft column built on the scarp edge of the Blackdowns was erected in his honour. At night it was an illuminated landmark that could be seen for miles around. Had he known where Eliza was he might have been surprised to discover that there was a place named Waterloo on Skye. Sixteen hundred crofters had fought in the highland regiments and helped defeat Napoleon.
Wellington’s growth and prosperity dated back to the 18th century when the Fox Family built their integrated woolen mill. Recent lottery grants had brought new facilities and added to the sense of community. It was a busy place and it was home or was supposed to be. One or two of the regular blokes had nodded, but he knew he wasn’t welcome in the pub anymore and anger like an erupting volcano had threatened to tear through him. He had sat in the corner and watched Sky news feeling like a loser. Nobody treated him like that. Nobody. They’d get a brick through the window before the week was out.
The lunchtime crowd thinned out as the office nerds went back to their desks. He looked around again. George and H he knew but they were deliberately avoiding catching his eye. They’d pay for that. He suddenly felt old, weary even. It would be harder than he had thought to pick his life up again. His probation officer had warned him not to expect too much too soon. That he would have to work hard to gain peoples trust again. He’d thought she was talking a load of crap. He’d thought people would understand about what happened and just make way for him to ease himself back into his old routine. What if he couldn’t get any work? For a moment his self confidence threatened to walk out on him too. He’d manage. He’d got a stash tucked away. The old geezers in the bookies knew where their bread was buttered. He’d just have to make things happen. Shame Fred Rimmer wasn’t still alive. He could have gone down to the allotment and watched him tend to his veg. Always calmed him that did. Been dead fifteen years though or was it twenty?. Bloody time kept marching on slipping through his fingers however hard he tried to hold on to it. On impulse he put a pound in the fruit machine on his way out of the pub. He punched his fist in the air as he won a tenner, then doubled it up and up. He made an exaggerated show of collecting his winnings and walked out with his normal air of arrogance restored. He’d be alright, at least Lady Luck was still on speaking terms. The rest could go to hell. If the blokes he’d met in prison hadn’t taken all the seats that was. If overpopulation on earth was a problem it must be bedlam down there. He fingered the coins in his pocket and smirked. Friday night he would trash the place.
EDITH
For once Edith had slept. Or at least she thought she had. She woke with a sense of peace and vaguely remembered dreaming about the sea. She’d been paddling and a dog had been running round her excitedly splashing and shaking, sending droplets of water in every direction. The best thing she remembered though was that she had been happy. Laughing, jumping up and down in the water at the sheer joy of being alive. Danny. That was the name of her first dog. A black Labrador he was and as placid as the day was long. His only vice was greed! Dustbin was his nickname, his favourite food were squashed chips that he ate off the pavement in Canvey Island where they had gone on holiday. Her, her brother Nick and their parents. All long since gone. If only she’d known they were going to be the best days of her life she might have tried to make them last. Instead, she took them for granted. Until one by one Danny first, then Nick in a motor bike accident when he was only eighteen , then mum who had never got over the shock, and finally her dad had all left her to fend for herself. She might have been twenty-two but she hadn’t been ready to be an orphan. Stanley, Elizas father had come into her life not long after. He hadn’t exactly swept her off her feet but he had talked the talk and one evening in the back of his car, Eliza had been conceived. He’d done the right thing and married her but in his heart he had resented her and the child, blaming them for a life that had never lived up to his expectations. He had finally left when Eliza was eight and moved to Blackpool if the solitary postcard they had received was to be believed. Technically she was still Mrs Stanley Harris. If he was still alive that was. She stopped to think how old he would be. If she was sixty nine. God was that all she was? Shocked she sat up and saw herself for the first time as still being young enough to have a life. She fought to hold on to this clarity, but gradually the exhaustion and the despair forced her eyes to close. Stanleys face came into her mind. He had been five years older than her. He would be seventy four. The bathroom door slammed and she let go of everything and retreated further into the safety of the darkness of the nothingness that got her through each day. Marcus had never been a morning person. Not even as a boy. Getting him to school had been a nightmare. Nightmare. The word frightened her and she trembled, suddenly very cold.
SIX
ELIZA
Eliza had started writing again. She’d never been terribly good, so it had been no great loss to the world when she had stopped. However, she had missed it. She loved poetry best. Painting pictures with words. Mary Oliver was her favourite poet and she longed to write just one poem as good as the New Zealand writer who seemed incapable of penning anything other than verses of beauty and soul. Her own poetry though mediocre at best, had filled her journals. They were to her like a photo album. Each poem, telling a story. Capturing a moment. Bringing back sounds and smells. Voices, feelings. Even sometimes, the silence.
Her counsellor had encouraged her to write about the trauma. It might help you journey through the experience she had said somewhat too enthusiastically for Elizas comfort, making her retreat further inside. She knew what had happened was beyond words. All she had been able to do on the paper her counsellor had given her was to draw black lines. She had covered the paper. Dark, thick black zig-zags crossing from corner to corner, deeper and deeper until she had broken the lead and blunted the pencil. She knew that Margaret, the lady she had been sent to see had been disappointed and even a bit shocked that she hadn’t been able to put even a few words together. She was a lovely woman. Fiftyish with ginger curls and a vibrant face and Eliza had longed to please her. She felt guilty for failing. For not being able to offer her some encouragement that she was making progress. What happened she wondered when counsellors patients didn’t come through. When the pain overwhelmed them and they ended their lives. They would need counselling themselves she supposed. At the time she had felt angry for feeling a sense of responsibility towards the woman who was being paid to help her. It was one extra burden, as if she didn’t have enough,
In the end after twelve excruciating weeks. Eliza had stopped going. She sent Margaret a note explaining that it wasn’t her fault. She just couldn’t help her. She’d added that she shouldn’t feel bad and that she was deeply grateful for her efforts. Ultimately it was the disappointment that Eliza couldn’t cope with. Each Wednesday, between eleven thirty and twelve twenty, she had a chance to talk. To be listened to and in spite of everything, each Wednesday she got her hopes up. It gave her routine when everything else had fallen apart. It gave her something to aim for and she believed or tried to believe that Margaret could take away the pain and make everything alright. It had been a childish hope and each Wednesday she had left the clinic more depressed than ever. What was meant to be a lifeline had been dragging her deeper and deeper into the waters of misery. She just couldn’t go on any more.
It had been six years since she had written that letter to Margaret and now she had finally written a poem.
On Skye Beach
A blanket of stones, like
Bones, weathered and aged,
Covered and deserted by the ebb and flow
of the blood of the sea.
Smaller ones
Like speckled eggs
In a vast nest
Patrolled by pigeons and gulls
And trampled on by feet like mine
In shoes
So unsuitable.
And all th
e while the sea,
Gentle today
Caresses my thoughts
With its gush and trickle
And music
And I remember
You.
MARCUS
Marcus sat in the cafe reading the paper. The remains of his egg and bacon were sprawled across the plate as he took in the headlines. He loved this time of day. He felt unrushed and there was almost something sacred about the rhythm of walking to the cafe, ordering a full English and sitting by the window with his paper. The day, as yet unspoilt, lay ahead of him. He got out his pen and put a cross by the horses he would bet on later. A niggle of uncertainty fluttered in his guts but he swilled down the last of his tea and tried to make plans. He couldn’t live off his winnings. They weren’t machines those horses and sometimes for no reason at all they just didn’t perform. He’d need to get back to painting and decorating soon. The three thousand quid he’d stashed before he’d gone inside wouldn’t last for ever and he had no intention of going without. Life was too bloody short for that. He’d make a couple of calls and see if he could get Ant and Dec interested in teaming up with him again. Ant was into antiques and worked the auction houses. Dec, an estate agent, got him decorating jobs in houses where the elderly owners were looking to downsize. Marcus took along his camera and took photos of anything he though might sell and then in casual conversations with the householders, usually women, he encouraged them to send the paintings, or vases, or furniture or whatever it might be to auction. It made sense he’d tell them. You won’t have space for everything in your new place, so why not get a good price for them now? He’d hit the jackpot not long before he’d gone down. One silly cow had asked him if he would sell her jewellery too. Which he did. She had been thrilled with the four hundred quid he had given her. Not knowing that he, Ant and Dec had made a grand apiece. Did he feel bad? No why should he? It wasn’t stealing, not as such. He always backed off it the owners didn’t want to sell. He was offering a service and it was only right that he took a cut.