‘Are you sorry?’ she asked.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. I thought she meant for going off and leaving her behind.
‘For running away with me?’
‘I never meant to get you into so much trouble,’ I said.
‘I’m not sorry I met you. I’m selfish enough not to be sorry for that.’
‘I wouldn’t change anything.’ The clumsy words were all I could find.
‘My life had stopped,’ she said, ‘and now it’s begun again. Whatever happens.’
We sat for a long time. We didn’t talk again. We were shy with one another. The light from the lamp on the table grew dim; perhaps the wick needed to be trimmed or the oil was low. The plates and glasses sat in pools of shadow. Once I heard her sigh and I tightened my hand on hers. I’d rowed at the seaside, but I’d never experienced what I’d seen once in a film: a man and woman carried in a boat on a calm river, his oars hardly feathering the water. Among the shadows, we were drifting and I had no thoughts I could put into words. At last, something, perhaps a night bird crying or the easing of peats in the grate, brought me back to my senses. I thought of Bernard and wondered if the two of us should simply set out across the fields before he came back, run off into the darkness and hope it would hide us. At that moment I heard the murmur of voices outside.
I had the momentary impulse to take my hand from Eileen’s, even to retreat to the other side of the table. When she made no movement, I found the courage to sit still.
It was Beate, however, who appeared in the doorway. She stood looking at us for a moment in silence, then she turned away and we heard her feet on the bare treads as she went upstairs.
‘I thought she’d gone to bed,’ Eileen said softly.
I shook my head, not wanting to speak in case my voice trembled.
‘How much longer?’ she asked.
Like me, she was thinking of Bernard, his malice and what it might make him do.
The agony was prolonged. It was August who finally arrived. Like his sister, he stood watching us from the doorway.
‘You waited up,’ he said. ‘That was thoughtful of you.’
When I heard the note of mockery in his voice, I knew that something had happened.
‘Is my husband with you?’ Eileen asked.
He shook his head. ‘I walked back,’ he said. I realised there had been no sound of a car. ‘That’s what took the time.’
‘Back from the pond?’ I asked.
He ignored me. His eyes never left Eileen; I might not have spoken.
‘They put the case in the car and off they went,’ he told her.
No sound of a car. Could I have missed it going past on the road outside?
‘All the way back, I thought they’d be here before me. But it looks,’ he said to her, ‘as if your husband got what he came for and left.’
‘Yes,’ she said. Her voice wasn’t much more than a whisper. Next day, I would try to understand how much damage these last years must have done to her self-esteem. At that moment, though, I waited in panic for her to protest that she didn’t believe him. Instead she looked at me and half whispered in the same gentle, withdrawn voice, ‘I think I’ll go to bed now, if you don’t mind.’
He hardly stood aside for her, so that she had to push past him.
When she had gone, he said, ‘Why don’t you go upstairs and join her?’
His words startled me like a threat. He smiled as if I amused him. ‘Why shouldn’t you sleep with her?’ he asked. ‘She isn’t your mother.’
The brutality of it stunned me. If he didn’t respect Eileen, what chance did we have?
Alone, I listened for a third time to steps mounting the bare stairway and the gentle percussion of a closing door.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
When Beate came down in the morning, I had lain awake all night and was tired to the bone. I listened to her making the usual morning sounds and lay without stirring. I had a child’s impulse to pull the covers over my head and shut out the world.
After a time, I was surprised to feel a hand on my shoulder.
When I sat up, she was holding out a bowl of porridge with the spoon sitting in it.
‘No.’ She pressed me back when I went to get up. ‘Sup it where you are. And the tea’s made, and there’s an egg, if you want one.’
I muttered some sort of thanks. To add to my discomfort she sat at the end of the couch and there was nothing for it but to stir the spoon in the bowl and begin.
‘I took a tray up to Eileen,’ she said.
‘I’ll finish this and get up.’
‘When I was a child, I loved my breakfast in bed.’
I couldn’t think of anything to say to that.
‘What about you?’ she asked.
I was ashamed to tell her I couldn’t remember ever being given breakfast in bed.
‘Maybe you were never ill,’ she said, as if she had read my thoughts. ‘I got it in my bed when I had a cold. A bit ill, but not too much, was best.’
She was using again that oddly colourless accent both of them had used in the beginning – so that it had been possible to believe they were from South Africa, since their voices carried no claim to belonging anywhere.
‘I sometimes thought it would be nice to get it for no reason – I mean, not have to be ill at all. But even if such a thought had occurred to my mother, my father would never have allowed it. Would your father?’
I was cramming the porridge in, but the bowl was full to overflowing and it took time. Swallowing in a gulp, I mumbled, ‘He wouldn’t have minded.’
She put her head to one side regarding me thoughtfully. When she walked, she stooped a little, trying perhaps to make herself smaller, and that went with a certain clumsiness in the way she walked. Sitting there, however, busy with her own thoughts, she was unselfconsciously erect and graceful. Sitting in half-profile, too, her round features, which could look placid, even stupid at times, sharpened and took on character so that she seemed almost handsome. Normally pale, she had a spot of red on each cheek.
‘He sounds nice, your father. Is he?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘You don’t sound very sure.’
I didn’t feel like explaining that he was dead.
‘He’s all right,’ I said.
‘So he’s still alive?’
‘Yes!’ The single word came out more abruptly than I’d intended. I was afraid and tired, and there was a repressed excitement about her which disturbed me.
If I had spoken sharply, she seemed to pay no attention. ‘What about your mother?’ she asked. When I hesitated, she went on, ‘Your real one, I mean.’
Of course, that deception was over.
‘She’s alive,’ I said.
I had to pull up my feet to avoid brushing against her as I swung my legs out from under the blanket. As I put the empty bowl on the table, Beate lifted the pillow and began to fold the blanket, patting the heavy folds. I put on my trousers, not turning away from her, since I didn’t feel like a boy any more, modest or not.
‘Give me a minute,’ she said, ‘and I’ll get your egg.’
‘No, don’t bother.’
‘It isn’t any bother.’
‘But I’m not fussed. If it’s all right, I could cut myself some bread and cheese. I’d prefer that, honestly.’
‘Oh, well, if you won’t let me spoil you. That’s what my father called it, “spoiling”. Sometimes August spoils me. But don’t say I told you. He wouldn’t be pleased.’
Eileen came down, dressed and carrying her tray, as I was eating at the table.
‘How are you feeling?’ Beate asked.
‘I’m all right. I’m not ill any more. You really shouldn’t have bothered.’
‘It isn’t any bother,’ she said again. ‘I wish I could make the two of you believe that. I’m happy to do things for you.’ The spots of red glowed on her cheeks. ‘After the excitement, a little spoiling does no harm. I gave this one his porrid
ge in bed, but he wouldn’t stay for the rest. You know what men are like.’ She sounded almost skittish, not heavy or grave as she had before. She was turning into someone different, but then what did I know about who she really was?
Eileen avoided my eye as she put the tray on the table, and went out without another word.
‘Oh, dear,’ Beate said, looking after her. ‘That’s the first morning she hasn’t offered to help with the washing up. Perhaps she isn’t as well as she thinks.’
‘I’ll do it.’
I began to lift the cup, plate and cutlery from the tray.
‘No.’ She stopped me. ‘Go and talk to her. I’m sure you must want to.’
I found Eileen just inside the gate to the road, looking with folded arms in the direction the brothers would have taken to begin their homeward journey the previous evening. Though the gate was open, I had the odd impression of her being held behind an obstruction that barred her way. She gave no sign as I came to her side.
‘Are you all right?’ I asked.
‘After the excitement, you mean?’ She stared out at the road. ‘Isn’t that what that awful woman called it?’
Inanely I said, ‘I thought you liked her.’
‘Can’t you see she’s laughing at us?’
I started to answer but stopped, unsure of the truth.
‘I opened my eyes and she was looking down at me. I’m sure she hadn’t knocked, just walked in. All I wanted was a chance to be quiet and think. The last thing I wanted was breakfast.’
‘She did that to me, too,’ I said. ‘But I was awake. I couldn’t sleep all night.’
We stood together, penned behind the invisible barrier.
‘What was in the case?’ she asked.
I told her.
‘A lot of money?’
‘A fortune.’
‘So that’s what it was about.’ She was quiet for a moment, lost in thought, and then she astonished me. ‘Mr Gas: isn’t that what Bernard called you? That’s what he’s like. Once I told him our neighbour was going to be sixty, and next day I heard him say, “I hear you’re having a birthday? Fifty, is it?” And he smiled when the man didn’t deny it. He probes for weakness. Even with me. Right from the beginning. Even when he loved me.’
As she said that, it was suddenly clear to me how little I believed the money was what Bernard cared about.
‘Perhaps he still does,’ I said on an impulse I regretted at once.
She looked at me with a kind of dismay that turned to anger.
‘There comes a time when that doesn’t matter,’ she said. ‘Even a woman can learn that love doesn’t excuse everything.’ And then, while I hesitated, she asked, ‘And if he does, why didn’t he come back?’
I took her by the arm. ‘We could go right now. Just go out on to the road and start walking.’
She shook her head. ‘I feel drained of energy. But if you want to walk, why don’t you go by yourself?’
‘I don’t mean for a walk. I mean, leave – get away from here.’
‘Could we?’ She spoke as if the breath had been driven from her body. ‘We’re miles from anywhere.’
Before I could put into words what I had lived with, shapeless and horrible, like an unfocused shadow on the edge of thought, August called my name. From no direction, it seemed to come from the air. For the first time in my life, I felt my heart beat so strangely it felt it might shake itself from my chest.
He was in shadow between the open doors of the barn. ‘It’s a job that takes two,’ he said. He wanted me to help him cut out and replace rotted beams. ‘The new wood came when you were away. It’s needed fixing for a long time.’
We worked together all morning, as we had done several times before. It was heavy work and my shoulders ached after an hour of it, but he seemed tireless and pride or fear kept me going, matching him hour after hour. Several times it struck me how carefully, even regretfully, he lifted aside the birds’ nests that were tucked into the angles of the old beams. Towards the end, with the pace he set and my tiredness, I had to keep wiping sweat from my eyes. When at last he stopped and went out, I sat with my back against one of the stalls, drawing in breaths thick enough to chew of the still, heavy air.
All too soon he was back, carrying a jug of tea and sandwiches. ‘No point in stopping too long. It’ll take us the rest of the day, maybe tomorrow as well.’ Most of the morning he’d said nothing, now he offered occasional sentences, thrown out like scraps of the food he was masticating. ‘If I was ever able to travel, this place would need to be in shape for selling.’
He shook the last of the tea on to the ground and went out again. I stood in the doorway and watched him cross the yard. As soon as I saw him go into the outside toilet on the end wall of the house, I realised that was where I needed to go, too. After ten minutes, the need was so urgent that I went over and waited for him to be finished.
When August opened the door at last, though, he didn’t come out but stood blocking the entrance.
He smiled at me and said, ‘I was thinking while I was sitting in there about the priest on Barra. It must have been the smell of shit that put him in my head. This child I was fond of – she was like a sister to me – wasn’t well. It was his belief that he had the power to cast out evil spirits. According to him, there was nothing for it but an exorcism. Her parents had too much of the peasant in them to argue with a priest. But I hid myself and watched, wanting to take care of her. Do you know anything about such things? Not many people do. I read up on it, but that was when I had the chance and it was years later. As far as I remember, he went through the whole rigmarole, but there were no turds, not even a wet fart, in fact. And she didn’t speak in tongues, not a word. It is possible, of course, that the Devil wasn’t in her, after all. Would you think that might be it? Oh, I have to tell you it was a disappointment. Between you and me, I’d put great hopes in it. And will I tell you what was the worst thing? The wee man had a pimple on the side of his nose, and looking in the window it surprised me to see the pimple still there. I wondered afterwards if it was me seeing the pimple meant the girl was left in the power of the Devil.’
When he stood aside, I went in at a rush and sat down and braced my foot against the door – there was no lock. But at once I stood again, as if pushed up by the stink from the bowl. Through a crack in the planks, I watched August cross the yard and go into the byre, and when he was out of sight I opened the door and simply walked out of the gate and kept going.
CHAPTER FORTY
I had acted by instinct and found myself on the road with no plan. I was walking in the direction I’d taken the day I met the crofter, and with that thought it occurred to me I could go to him for help. He had warned me against August and, though old, he had seemed fearless. If he would come back with me; if he would give us a run to the nearest town . . . It might be a lot to ask, but what else was there to do? I looked for him in the field where I’d first seen him, but the cows mooched across it undisturbed. Under the full weight of the sun, the air between the hedges clung to me like a burden. I could hear a bird’s double note, faint and persistent, and the buzz of insects in the grass. There was no song, however, no music blaring from a wireless, no sign of life from the house on top of the hill.
I told myself it was a warm day, but reasonably or not it bothered me that there was no smoke from the chimneys. As I got closer, I couldn’t hear any voices or stir of movement. Unlike where I’d come from, the area in front of the house was a kind of junkyard littered with old pieces of equipment. A dark stain of oil showed where a car had been parked, but the space was empty. With a sinking heart, I knocked, then banged, on the door. I turned the handle and it opened, but I knew that meant nothing. If they were away on an errand, it wouldn’t occur to them to lock up before they left. It was the same layout as August’s place. The kitchen was dark and crammed with ancient furniture. A faint smell of stale cooking hung on the air. I called up the stairs and, met by silence, tried again more loudl
y. I had no heart for a third time.
Between one moment and the next, the suppressed desire to shit reasserted itself. I searched for the toilet with the urgency of a fire engine in an emergency. By the time I found it, tucked away at the far end of the house, lights were spinning and the siren was wailing. It was only with the luxury of relief that it occurred to me how embarrassing it would have been if the old folk had, in fact, been around. To make sure, I walked out of the yard on the side opposite the road. Luckily there were no horned cattle in that field, and I walked down the slope to the edge of the water. It stretched out of sight to the left, but wasn’t all that wide ahead of me, not more than a mile across.
I watched the progress of a pair of swans across the middle of the little loch. On the near side, brown birds I took to be ducks took turns tipping upside down to stick their heads underwater. The bank dropped to a cuticle of sand on which a boat was drawn up out of the water. Two oars lay tidily in the bottom. On impulse, I stepped in and sat down. Just as I did, an engine sounded across the quiet water. Like a man on a desert island, I jumped up at once and waved my arms, but the car passed left to right along the far side and vanished.
I sat in the boat for a long time and left it reluctantly. It was strange. When I’d run off before, I’d had no hesitation in going to find the Morton brothers and returning with them. It had never occurred to me not to come back, and that was before I was in love with Eileen, or at least knew I was. Now, despite knowing, there was a terrible temptation to push the boat into the water and escape. The difference between then and now was a measure of the change I had come to feel in the presence of August. I had no protection now of doubt or scepticism. It would have been easy to give in to my desire for escape. What stopped me from pushing the boat into the water was not my love for Eileen but the extraordinary fact of her love for me.
I couldn’t face going back to the road. Instead, I turned my back on the loch and walked to where the field ended in bushes and a line of trees. I wound through them till I was stopped by a languid stream, too dark to be shallow and too wide to jump. There came a place, though, where after winding back and forward the water gathered pace to cut a narrower channel, and just after this rocks acted as stepping stones to the other side. The footing was wet, slimy in parts, and when the last rock wobbled under my weight it took an awkward lunge to make the bank. The tangle of bushes came close to the water’s edge, but there was the faint trace of an almost overgrown path and I made reasonable speed until a fallen tree blocked my way. If there had been any choice, I would have turned back but I put my arms across my face and scrambled through a mass of branches and then inched through, bent double, where the fallen trunk rested on the broken base. As soon as I was on the other side the path was wider, and another dozen steps took me to a place I recognised. It was the pool where Eileen and I had eaten Beate’s picnic; in another life, it seemed.
My Life as a Man Page 18