This Northern Sky

by Julia Green

  ‘Where’s your school?’

  ‘London.’

  ‘That’s a very long way away!’

  He takes a coloured spinner from the open box by his side and fixes it to the line.

  ‘I go to an ordinary comprehensive school,’ I tell him, even though he hasn’t asked. ‘What’s it like, boarding?’

  ‘Rubbish. A total nightmare, if you really want to know.’

  I stop asking questions for a while.

  I study his face in profile: serious, thin, fine-boned. His eyes are grey-blue and his hair dark, curling at the back along his neck. Pale skin. He seems perfectly at home, perched on the rocks, almost camouflaged in his big baggy jumper: hand-knitted flecked blue wool. He casts the line, and skilfully makes the spinner dance and zigzag like a tiny fish darting through the water.

  ‘We should have come down earlier,’ he says. ‘It’s best at high tide, catching mackerel off the rocks. This state of an ebb tide you need a boat really. We could go and get the boat I suppose . . .’

  I remember what Mum said about the house parties and boats. It looked fun, she said.

  ‘I’ll take you out in it sometime, if you like,’ he says. ‘It’s just a wooden rowing boat, nothing grand.’

  ‘Is it dangerous,’ I say, ‘with all the rocks and the currents and tides and all that?’

  ‘Not if you know what you are doing,’ Finn says. ‘I’ve been coming here since I was a small child. We could go to one of the uninhabited islands, to get cockles. We do that every summer.’

  I’m not exactly sure what cockles are. Shellfish, I guess, like in that old song: ‘cockles and mussels, alive, alive-o’. But I’m not going to show myself up by asking.

  Finn suddenly springs into action – leaping up, winding in the line on the rod, flicking a thrashing, shiny fish on the stone. He unhooks it and hits it on the rock to kill it. It lies there, silver with beautiful markings along its back. He does this six times, until he has six gleaming mackerel of the right size to barbecue. Each time, it makes my eyes smart to watch the fish die. ‘The fish hardly suffer,’ Finn says when he sees me flinch. ‘They have a good life. It’s better than factory farming.’

  I hear voices. Piers and Thea are making their way down towards us with baskets and bags of stuff. Thea waves. ‘Caught anything?’ she calls.

  ‘Six fish!’ I call back.

  ‘Excellent.’ Thea clambers down over the rocks and puts everything down while she takes off her shoes. She walks along the damp sand, her bare feet sinking in and leaving perfect footprints. I notice how pale and narrow her feet are: fine, thin toes with pale pink nails. ‘Come and help make the fire,’ she says to me. ‘We need driftwood; want to go and see if you can find some dry stuff?’

  I take my own shoes off and walk along the top of the beach, picking up bits of wood. There isn’t much that’s dry. The wind’s blowing in off the sea. Small brown and white birds scurry along at the edge of the water, so fast they look funny: as if they are scooting along on roller skates. The waves roll in, lines of white breakers curling over and spreading on to the pale sand in loops of lace.

  By the time I’ve walked along the whole length of sand and back, Piers and Thea have made a fireplace out of stones and have started the fire.

  ‘Thanks, Kate,’ Thea says as I dump my armful of wood. She feeds small sticks into the flames, adds bigger bits. I pull my collar up higher and hug my knees for warmth.

  Piers and Finn thread chunks of onion and red pepper and mushrooms on to sticks. ‘It will be ages before the fire’s hot enough for cooking,’ Finn tells me. ‘Hope you’re not in a rush.’

  ‘No,’ I say. ‘I’ve got all day. And all evening. All week, in fact!’

  He laughs. ‘Good.’

  Piers hums a tune as he gets everything ready. I’m a bit in awe of him. He seems grown-up, older than Bonnie or Holly but he can’t be really. He reminds me of someone – that Hugh person on telly, I decide, who cooks outside like this, on a beach, with freshly caught fish and seaweed or whatever. He starts talking to Thea about friends, and films, and some book they’ve been reading about science and religion.

  ‘Are you too cold?’ Finn asks me after a while.

  I am, but I don’t want to say I am. None of them seems the least bit bothered by the cold. I suppose they are used to it.

  ‘Want to run along the beach and back with me?’

  ‘OK.’

  I go slowly to begin with, but it’s fun; a bit like being a child again. The wind whips my hair and the waves make such a racket as they crash on to the sand I can hardly hear what Finn’s saying.

  I’m out of breath way before he is. ‘You go on,’ I say, and he does, in that loping stride he was doing the first time I saw him, pebbles spilling out of his pockets.

  But he doesn’t just run on; he loops back to rejoin me, and we go on side by side together. ‘Seen the ringing stone yet?’ he asks me.

  ‘No. What is it?’

  ‘A lump of granite, from the Ice Age probably, brought here from a different island. Millions of years old. It’s covered in cup marks made by Bronze Age people. Some sort of pre-Druid religious rite, people think. To do with fertility, or blood sacrifice, or star charts or stone worship. No one has a clue really.’

  ‘I think there was something about it in that tiny museum,’ I say. ‘Where is it, exactly?’

  ‘Over on the east coast. You go along the machair for another two miles or so and then cross over to the other side of the island. There’s something extraordinary about it: one of those special places, you know? Where time seems to collapse: the past and the present come together.’

  I look sceptically back at him. ‘Yes?’

  He laughs. ‘Honestly! The look on your face! Anyway, it’s too far to go there now. We’ll go another time. Run back? I’ll race you.’

  ‘Absolutely not,’ I say. But I start running, to get a few seconds’ head start.

  ‘Hey!’ he shouts, and catches up. ‘That’s cheating!’

  ‘It was my only chance.’ I laugh. ‘And I’m not sorry!’

  He matches his pace to mine and we run along the firm sand nearer the water.

  I’m puffed out and hot by the time we’re only halfway back. We walk the rest of the way. He keeps stopping to look at things: a shell, an interesting pebble, a piece of unusual seaweed, a crab shell, the V-shaped marks made by a bird’s feet. I think, briefly, of Dad. Finn, like a younger version of Dad, or what Dad might have been like when he was sixteen, seventeen.

  ‘Stop there!’ Finn says. ‘Shut your eyes and hold out your hand.’

  I do as he says. I feel something cool, damp in my palm. For a brief second, Finn’s warm hand closes around my cold one.

  ‘Now look.’

  It’s just a pebble. A pretty pebble, still wet and shiny from the sea.

  ‘Thank you,’ I say. I slip it into my pocket for safe keeping.

  Joy and Alex come down to the beach just as the fire is at the white-hot charcoal stage and the sausages are almost cooked: Finn’s laying the gutted fish side by side on the grill over the fire. The meat and fish spit hot fat into the fire and it smells amazing. Alex is carrying two camping chairs and a bottle of whisky; Joy’s brought rugs and glasses and plates. They’ve obviously done this a hundred times before; it’s nothing special to them, but for me it’s all new.

  Joy wraps me in a big tartan rug. Alex offers me a glass of whisky. ‘For medicinal purposes. Your lips are blue with the cold.’

  I take one sip to try it. It’s totally disgusting. I hand the glass back, spluttering. ‘No thanks! Too strong.’

  ‘Food always tastes better outside,’ Joy says, laughing and settling back into her chair with her plate on her lap.

  ‘You always say that!’ Piers opens another bottle of beer and passes one to Thea.

  ‘And it’s always true.’ Joy smiles. ‘Tuck in, everyone.’

  Alex surveys the beach with binoculars. ‘Sanderlings,’ he says, ‘
and a curlew sandpiper.’ He passes the binoculars to Finn.

  I eat my food. Joy’s right: everything does taste delicious. I’m the happiest I have been for ages, wrapped in a tartan rug on a rock at the top of a huge sandy beach, watching the waves roll in. I join in the conversation when I can think of something sensible to say, but mostly I’m just quiet, taking it all in. No one bothers me, or pesters me with stupid questions, or makes a fuss.

  ‘We’ll give you a lift back, Kate,’ Piers says, when we’re packing everything up to take back to the house. ‘Just say when you want to go.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I say. ‘Do you know what time it is?’

  Alex pulls an old-fashioned watch out of his jacket pocket. ‘Ten minutes to seven.’

  I’ve been here for hours. I’d no idea. ‘I’d better go back straight away,’ I say. ‘But I don’t mind walking, honestly.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Piers says. ‘Of course I’ll drive you back. We’ll dump the stuff at home and then I’m all yours.’

  Everyone walks back together to the Manse. Joy chats to me as we climb up over the grassy bank to the house. ‘You must come round whenever you want to,’ she says. ‘We keep an open house. The more the merrier, as far as I’m concerned.’

  ‘Absolutely,’ Piers says.

  ‘It must be a bit lonely by yourself, with both your sisters away,’ Joy says. She thinks she possibly remembers them, but it was a long time ago, and there have been so many friends, over the years: people on their holidays, children on the beach . . .

  I don’t want to leave without thanking Finn, but the kitchen’s full of people and Piers is grabbing the keys for the jeep and when I look round to say goodbye, he’s disappeared.

  Thea grabs her coat. ‘I’ll come for the ride too.’ She goes to the kitchen door and calls up the stairs. ‘Finn? You coming to take Kate home?’ But he doesn’t answer, and Piers is already walking out of the back door.

  I scurry after him.

  Piers drives fast. But you can see for miles that there’s nothing coming: just a few cows and sheep grazing on the grass either side of the single-track road, and he knows every pothole and bump by heart. We rattle over the cattle grid at the beginning of the village. Piers pulls over at a passing place to let a van go by, and then we’re passing the shop and the museum and we’re back at the house. He stops on the grass by the gate. ‘There you go. See you soon.’

  Thea leans over and kisses my cheek. ‘Yes, come again soon, Kate. It’s much more fun with lots of people.’

  ‘Thanks for everything,’ I say. ‘Say thanks to Finn for me too.’

  ‘I will.’ She smiles. ‘I don’t know why he didn’t say goodbye.’

  ‘Because he’s Finn,’ Piers says.

  I watch them drive off. Piers toots the horn and a flock of little brown speckled birds take off from the grass all together, twittering madly.

  I take a deep breath and go inside.

  Seven

  ‘Where have you been all this time?’ Mum says, the moment I set foot in the door. ‘We’ve been worried sick.’

  ‘I left you a note.’

  ‘This morning, yes! It is now nearly half past seven in the evening, Kate!’

  ‘Sorry,’ I say. Though I don’t see why I should be. ‘I didn’t think you’d mind me having a nice time.’

  ‘What does that mean?’ Mum looks furious.

  ‘Nothing,’ I say innocently. ‘But you and Dad are doing your own thing . . . I thought you’d be pleased I was too.’

  She calms down a bit, recovers herself. ‘Yes, well, of course I’m pleased you’re meeting people and having fun. I was worried, that’s all.’

  ‘Well, don’t be. There’s no need to worry. Not about me, anyway.’ I go upstairs before she can say anything back, and get my things ready for a shower. Only there’s no hot water.

  I lie on my bed instead, and listen to the sound of the sea through the open skylight. I let my mind go over the day; gather all the fragments together and relive each moment. The messy, comfortable kitchen. Fishing with Finn. Making the fire. Running along the beach with Finn. Finn cooking the silver mackerel. The sweet smell of woodsmoke and charred fish. Everyone talking and laughing and drinking and eating together. The rhythmic sound of waves rolling on to the shore.

  I put my hand in my jeans’ pocket and look more closely at the pebble that Finn gave me. It was wet and shiny before; now it has dried and faded, but it’s still pretty: charcoal grey speckled with silvery sparkly bits. He made me close my eyes, and open my hand. He closed my fingers over the damp pebble, and for a second he held his hand over mine. It felt warm, and comforting.

  Sam’s face swims into my mind . . . I open my eyes abruptly.

  Dad’s calling up the stairs. ‘Kate? We thought we’d go out to the hotel for dinner tonight. Can you be ready in half an hour or so?’

  I go to the top of the stairs. ‘I’ve already eaten,’ I tell him. ‘I’m not hungry.’

  Dad frowns. ‘You sure? What did you have?’

  ‘Barbecue food,’ I say. ‘Fish and sausages and vegetable kebabs. Masses of it. I’m totally full up.’

  ‘OK,’ he says slowly. ‘Well, do you mind if we go out without you, then?’

  ‘?’Course not,’ I say. I don’t say I’m glad. In my heart I’m willing them to try harder, to be fun and nice to each other. Like they used to be.

  I imagine Finn’s family at the Manse, playing games and listening to Piers on the piano and talking intelligently about books and films and music.

  I listen to Mum getting herself ready to go out. That’s a good sign. She’s putting make-up on in the bathroom, chatting away. It will be so much better, just the two of them eating dinner together. Maybe Mum will have wine, and relax, get giggly, lighten up a bit.

  When they’ve gone, I switch the boost on the water heater, so I can have a long, hot bath. I leave a trail of fine silver sand behind me all the way down the stairs, and a bigger heap when I strip off my jeans in the bathroom.

  After my bath, I flick through the pile of leaflets about the island on the living room table. Finn would know all this sort of stuff. It says about Viking raids, and Norse settlers. Gaelic names, and Viking ones. There’s another leaflet about birds.

  I sit in the window seat, with its view of the sea, all the way out to the islands. They look further away this evening: grey, low on the horizon under a grey sky. The sea looks grey too, with white flecks on the waves. The tide’s coming back in; the waves break in long smooth lines along the beach, spreading out over the sand in shallow white froth. A break in the cloud lets a ray of sunlight through, catching the water and turning it silver.

  It’s late when I hear Mum and Dad come back in. They talk in soft voices; I can’t hear what they’re saying but Mum laughs. Good. Doors open and close. It goes quiet again. I relax back into sleep.

  Much later, I wake in the pitch dark to the sound of the wind battering the house so hard that everything’s shaking. The sea is roaring. Rain spatters against the skylights. The storm lasts all night: every time I wake, the wind seems louder, howling and crying as if it’s a wild animal that wants to be let in.

  Eight

  By morning the rain has stopped and the sky is clearing. I get out of bed and go downstairs: no one else is up. There’s no sound from Mum and Dad’s room. That’s hopeful, I guess. I make tea and toast, then put on my boots and step outside. I set off up the road away from the village, no real plan. The air smells clean, rain-washed.

  I’m zinging with energy. It’s as if the night storm has cleared something in me too. I’ve suddenly come to life again: my senses awake in a different way. I know this sounds weird, but it’s as if the colour has come back in: brighter, sharper. I’m seeing everything more vividly as I walk along, like a film, except that I am in the film and I can hear and smell as well as see it all. A dazzling patch of sunlight on sea; a flock of geese grazing along the grass next to a shining stretch of puddle on the field; small
brown birds flitting from one fence post to another. The geese start honking and all take off in flight, necks outstretched, wings slowly beating together.

  The island is almost flat just here, and there’s this huge overarching sky, clouds moving fast, light changing every second, bringing different things into focus, like a spotlight. A white house; the sweep of pale sand; the grassy dunes, a line of telegraph poles; the gleaming ribbon of wet road.

  A small red fishing boat is making its way out of the old harbour, pitching and dropping as it ploughs through the waves. I think about what Finn said, about going out in his boat to get cockles. Will he remember?

  I stop at a fork in the road. Which way?

  A brown hare races across the field to the left: I go that way. The road curves round, over a small hill and then back down the other side, to a part of the island I haven’t seen before. There are houses scattered along the road, none of them close together. Everywhere you look, in fact, there are small white houses, tucked in corners of fields, or against a bank. Crofters, I suppose. I try to remember what Alex was saying about them yesterday, on the beach. Something about the land being divided up into crofts and each one having a mixture of different kinds of ground: fertile bits and less fertile, and an area of peat bank, all shared out fairly. I should have listened more carefully.

  I try to imagine what it might be like, to love a particular place as much as Finn seems to. I’ve always lived in the suburbs, in a sort of non-place: mostly housing estates, long straight roads hemmed in by brick and concrete and glass buildings. Shops, garages, warehouses, takeaway places, cafés, pubs. Roads full of traffic – that roaring sound always in the background, of cars, and sirens; planes overhead – the sky scored by vapour trails. There’s the park near Sam’s nan’s house, where we used to go sometimes, our special tree . . .

  What will Sam be doing today? He hasn’t phoned or texted once. I don’t even know where he’s living, now his nan won’t let him stay at her place overnight . . .

  Is he angry?

  Is he missing me?