‘And when will we get to see Annabel?’ Susan said.
‘In good time,’ she reassured. ‘First you must acquaint yourself with Connalough Point. It is an important part of your stay with us. You need to feel you belong to the island, accept it as a friend.’
Paul smiled. ‘A friend.’
‘Absolutely.’ She went to a drawer in one of the old wooden units and took out a piece of A4 paper. She handed it to Susan. ‘This is a map of the island. Crude, yes, because I don’t profess to be in any way artistically gifted, but it shows you the salient points, the places of interest. I’d like you both to feel free to walk around, take in the sights and pleasures the island has to offer you. Free up your mind. Let the wind wash away your city lives.’ She smiled at Paul’s straight face. ‘But be careful; there are dangerous cliffs and boggy areas you must not get too close to. They’re marked on the map.’
‘What’s this?’ Paul said, pointing out a couple of dotted circles.
‘Connalough Point is rich in ancient remains, Paul; they go back thousands of years. Those are stone circles erected by our ancestors. Some of the earliest in the Hebrides. Some say they are the source of the island’s unique power.’
Paul smiled. ‘Sure they are,’ he said wryly. ‘Druids and the like, huh?’
‘Druids are a later invention,’ said Helen patiently. ‘There have never been druids here on Connalough Point. But as I say, they are well worth a visit for the pure spectacle they provide. Some areas, however, are so archaeologically sensitive that admittance is not allowed in order to protect the sites. Please respect this. You will clearly see where they are as the area is fenced off. Other than that, feel free to go where you will. As for your sessions with Annabel, please bear with me and I will let you know presently when and where they will take place. This is not something you can do at the drop of a hat. I hope you appreciate that.’
‘Do we need to prepare in any way?’ Susan asked.
‘You need only wander the island. Make this place your home. That is all the preparation necessary.’
‘Simple enough,’ remarked Paul, spearing his bacon, his concentration very much on his food now.
‘Is it true there’s a lighthouse on the island?’ said Susan.
Helen’s eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly. ‘Where did you hear that?’
‘I think it was the young man, Hector MacLeod who told us, on the way over,’ she lied. She looked at the map. ‘It’s not marked on here.’
‘It’s not accurate by a long chalk,’ she explained. ‘But yes, there is a lighthouse. It is no longer in use and has been replaced by another unmanned light far out to sea. I wouldn’t recommend going there as it’s unsafe. Time and the sea have not been kind to it. Why do you ask?’
‘Curious, that’s all,’ she said, smiling and folding the map up. ‘We’ll take a stroll this afternoon, shan’t we, Paul?’
‘What?’ he said absently, chewing. ‘Sure, whatever you say.’
‘Wrap up warm,’ said Helen, ‘and take waterproofs. The weather is not very nice and it’s going to get worse.’
‘We might even bump into Mr and Mrs Donovan, too,’ she said. ‘We can say goodbye.’
‘Yes,’ said Helen. ‘You might at that.’ She fell silent for a while. ‘How did Anthony Collier sound when you spoke to him?’ she asked out of the blue.
‘The man who recommended you?’ said Susan. She blinked, the two women staring at each other. ‘He sounded fine,’ she said.
‘In good health?’
‘As far as I could tell,’ Susan lied yet again. She didn’t feel comfortable with it.
‘I’m glad to hear it,’ said Helen, turning her attention to her food.
* * * *
11
Empty Chambers
‘I’ve got to admit, it’s not making me feel at one with nature,’ he said, pulling at the toggles on his hood. He narrowed his eyes against the blustery wind. ‘It’s making me feel at one with my hot water bottle.’
‘Don’t moan,’ she said. ‘It was you who insisted on seeing the cliffs.’
The wind was strong here, though, up high and unprotected on the headland. They could see the bay laid out far below them, the jetty looking matchstick-tiny and fragile. The sea had grown darker, white spume being flicked off the tops of angry green waves. They heard it throwing its weight against the pebbled shore, the soft booms of large waves pounding the distant rocks carried over to them like muffled gunfire. Far out to sea, sitting alone in the sea’s furious froth was the rock named Gannets’ Plunge, pale and ghostly against the bruised firmament.
‘Look,’ said Susan, pointing. ‘Is that the Maid of the Storm?’
A small white speck, intermittently veiled by sea spray, was bobbing on the swells far out to sea.
Paul squinted. ‘Yeah, looks like it. That’s going to be one hell of a rough crossing for the Donovans. I don’t envy them.’
‘Guess Douglas MacLeod knows what he’s doing.’
‘Aye, the man with the personality of a dead fish,’ he said in a mock Scottish accent. ‘Both brothers need to lighten up.’
Susan wasn’t listening. Her attention had drifted from the boat and back to the map. It was getting a tad soggy. ‘The stone circles are this way,’ she said, nodding the direction.
Paul’s attention, on the other hand, was on the edge of the cliff. ‘Helen wasn’t joking when she said these things were dangerous. How high do you reckon they are?’ He stepped closer to the edge, bracing himself against the tearing of the wind, and made out a couple of small, isolated coves far below. ‘I reckon most of this island ends in cliffs,’ he said, looking along the coast. ‘You wouldn’t want to lose your footing here.’
‘Then come away from the edge,’ she said. Rain beat at them and she stowed the map away. ‘It can’t be far, come on.’
‘What’s so interesting about a pile of old rocks?’ he said, following her as she traced the line of the cliffs, keeping a respectful distance from where the grass ended in open space and a sheer drop.
‘They’re not just any old rocks,’ she said, rolling her eyes. ‘Where’s your sense of wonder?’
‘I wonder where my sense is, more like. I could be warm and toasty before a log fire…’
‘I take it you’re not friends with the island yet?’ She smiled at him.
‘I’m getting the impression the island is set against it.’
They broached the edge of a grassed plateau and the standing stones slowly crept into view, as if they slowly emerged from the very earth itself. Susan’s pace picked up on seeing them and Paul reluctantly tried to keep up, but in the end gave up and left her to it.
‘Just look at these!’ she enthused, shouting back to him as he sauntered towards her, hands thrust deep into his pockets. Her voice was shredded by the wind and came to him like a series of faint car tyre squeals.
She counted twelve slender rocks, sharp, jagged and flat, most of them twice as high as she was, some towering even higher, arranged in an almost perfect circle that she estimated was about twenty-five feet in radius. One or two of the grey, almost black-looking rocky shards had slipped over time and were leaning quite dangerously and ready to topple over, or at least appeared that way; they could have been standing like this for hundreds of years and hardly moved, she thought. They stood on a blanket of low-lying, wind-shivered grass, a few boulders marking the outer edge of the circle but little else to interrupt the plateau. In the circle’s centre was another dagger-like rock, smoother than the rest, the tallest by far, spearing up to the tumbling clouds as if trying to puncture them. Beyond the circle, in the distance, the mountains, high and black, provided a dramatic and fearsome backdrop.
She went to the centre stone, reached out and placed her hand on it. It felt curiously warm, but that was perhaps her imagination.
‘Well, Big Earth Mother, are you able to commune with the rocks yet?’ said Paul, standing at the edge of the circle.
‘Aren�
�t they magnificent?’ she said, her voice hushed, as if she were in a cathedral.
‘I guess so,’ he said.
‘I wonder how many thousands of years they’ve been here. Who could have built them?’
‘Judging by the dodgy way some of them are leaning, I’d say the same cowboys who built our house extension.’
She ignored him, traced her way round the stone. ‘The effort it must have taken,’ she said. ‘Can you imagine? Using primitive tools and methods, and to do it here, in the middle of nowhere. They must have been driven by urges we can hardly dream of. Urges we’ve lost.’ She turned to him. He had his fly down and was peeing against one of the rocks. ‘Paul, what are you doing?’ she said, horrified.
‘I’m taking a pee,’ he said casually. ‘I’m desperate.’
‘Not on that!’
‘It’s not such a big deal,’ he said. ‘Who’s going to complain?’
‘That’s hardly the point,’ she said, feeling her annoyance at his insensitivity rising. ‘This place was special to someone, once. It still is. You don’t go and pee all over it.’
‘Christ, Susan, it’s a rock, that’s all.’ He finished and zipped up his fly. ‘There, no harm done. Don’t be so dramatic all the time.’
‘It’s a monument…’ she said.
‘It’s dead,’ he returned. ‘It’s been dead a long, long time, and you being here doesn’t make it come back alive again. Like so many things…’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ She went over to him.
‘Nothing.’
‘You meant something by it. Come on, spit it out.’
‘Forget it, Susan,’ he said, his eyes turning from her and scanning the grassy horizon, the sea beyond, the gathering clouds.
‘I thought you wanted to come here,’ she said.
‘I only came because you wanted it. You know that. And I’ll try to go along with it, but I’m not the kind of man who falls for all this earth magic crap, or whatever you want to call it.’
‘I never said anything about earth magic, Paul. It’s history, that’s all. Ancient history.’
‘Yeah, and some things ought to be left well alone, Susan. Left as history.’
‘Like Becky? You mean I have to forget Becky, is that it?’
‘No, not forget her. I didn’t say that. We can never forget her. But she’s dead, Susan.’
‘My dreams…’
He shook his head solemnly. ‘Precisely. They’re dreams. They’re in your head.’
‘You haven’t given this place a chance yet,’ she said.
‘Well I’ll give it my best shot, but if you’re expecting me to dance with the fairies around some goddamn pile of rocks on some goddamn island in the middle of fucking nowhere then you’re grossly mistaken, Susan.’
Her face clouded with escalating rage. ‘I never once suggested anything so pathetic, Paul!’
‘We’re here, aren’t we? On Shutter Island surrounded by a bunch of grumpy old loonies.’ He sighed heavily. ‘Maybe if you’d had another kid straight after Becky, like I suggested, you wouldn’t be obsessing so much.’
She gasped. ‘You’re blaming me for not wanting another child? Are you really saying that? Are you really saying that if we had another child to care for then losing Becky wouldn’t be so bad?’
‘I’m saying you never gave us a chance…’
‘Me?’
He lowered his head. ‘We lost something long before Becky died, Susan. You know that.’
‘And that’s my fault?’
‘I sure as hell tried!’ he fired. ‘Now we’ve lost our fucking daughter and you’re losing your fucking mind! Sure it’s your fault!’
She struck out and hit him across the face. He staggered back, taken unawares by the action. His eyes were fierce, his breathing heavy and rapid. Then he spun away from her and headed back to the coast.
‘Where are you going?’ she called.
‘There’s nowhere to go,’ he said. ‘We’re on a fucking island. Go dance with your fairies.’
She wanted to call out to his retreating back, but the words dried up in her throat and anger crumbled them up into dust. She wiped tears from her cheek, her hand cold, corpse-like, she thought. Soon, Paul’s figure had dipped down below the plateau and she was alone. She stood behind one of the stones, sheltering from the furious gusts of wind, watching the clouds whipped across the leaden sky like a herd of stampeding buffalo. She didn’t know what to do. No, she did not feel any kind of earth magic coursing through her. She felt only cold, dead stone. She never pretended otherwise, openly or to her innermost self.
She would like to believe in something powerfully magnificent and magisterial, something mystical and meaningful that existed beyond the narrow, cruel, pathetic world they inhabited. Believe that her daughter had come to her in her dreams, proving there was more to life than the pain it had to offer. But even the existence of God had come under her fierce scrutiny, something she would never have remotely considered before Becky’s death.
And perhaps that’s what lay at the heart of this, she thought; maybe she was putting her entire world beliefs to the test. Like a doubting Thomas seeking the real wound, the rent between the living and the dead that would prove once and for all that what she’d subscribed to all these years wasn’t mere superstition, the evanescent smoke of human need.
She remained deep in thought for perhaps the best part of half an hour and was on the verge of turning back when through the gap in the stones she saw a dark figure some way off, partially hidden by the undulation of the land. It looked like a man. Watching her.
She stiffened, took a step forward.
‘Hi there!’ she called.
The man turned and fled.
She didn’t know quite what propelled her after him. Instinct? Burning curiosity? Or at the back of her mind did she suspect this was the prowler from the previous night? Even as she picked up her pace, watching his form shrink into the distance, she was questioning her motives. That didn’t stop her from breaking into a run.
‘Wait!’ she cried.
But she was brought up short by a barbed-wire fence strung out across the land, reaching from the edge of the cliffs and striking out towards the black mountains. She made out the man’s form on the other side of the fence, dipping down into a hollow, headed towards the coast. She examined the wire; it was taught and the barbs were seriously long and vicious-looking. When she looked up from it the man had disappeared.
He must have gotten through somewhere, she thought, tracing the fence till she came to a hand-painted sign staked into he ground and vibrating under the insistent ministrations of the wind.
ARCHAEOLOGICALLY SENSITIVE AREA. KEEP OUT.
Just as Helen had told her, she thought. But that didn’t prevent her from examining the fence further, and just as she was deciding whether to climb over and risk being slashed on the wire, or turn back and call the whole thing off, she saw the hole that someone had made. Small but large enough for her to bend down and creep through, snagging the hood of her coat as she did so. With the ripping of cloth it came free and she stood on the other side of the fence. She looked back over her shoulder. She was never one to break rules, and signs as authoritative as this one would have ordinarily seen her back off. Hell, she couldn’t remember the last time she ever broke a rule, except to exit a petrol station against the flow of traffic once. For Susan this represented a serious misdemeanour.
She smiled at herself and set off in the direction where she last saw the man. Presently she came to a landscape marked by piles of rocks, most laid out in distinct circles, evenly spaced, and she realised this was an ancient settlement. It lay close to the cliff edge, one or two of the remains of primitive buildings sitting precariously on the cliff top and ready to fall over. She guessed the settlement had once been far inland but over thousands of years the storms had eroded the land and eventually the sea would claim every last one of the remains.
The land split into a na
rrow ravine that led straight down to the shore many feet below. She took a tentative step towards it. The height made her feel giddy. There was a path of sorts, created by the flow of rainwater over many years, and it had cut a rocky, snaking passage down to a wave-beaten cove. Far below she made out the white shape of a small boat, apparently tossed onto the rocks by the sea. But there was no sign of the man.
The wind was growing fiercer and the needle-like rain began to lash her face. Resignedly she twisted round and saw someone headed towards her.
‘Alex,’ she said, ‘what are you doing here?’
He had a shotgun over his shoulder. ‘More to the point, Mrs Carmichael, what are you doing here? You do know that’s unstable ground you’re standing on. It could give way any moment and take you with it.’
She came away from the edge, her arms folded around her. ‘Planning on shooting something, Alex?’ she said.
‘Rabbits,’ he replied shortly.
‘I thought for a moment that’s what you did to trespassers,’ she said lightly.
‘Rabbits,’ he returned shortly. ‘The signs are there for a reason, Mrs Carmichael. This area is historically valuable and while we don’t mind visitors going anywhere they please on Connalough Point, we’d like to keep this free from human footfall.’ He motioned with his head. ‘You ought to be getting back; your husband’s had a fall.’
‘What? Is it bad?’
‘He came staggering in using a log as a crutch. He said he’d fallen over rocks and sprained his ankle. He refused help but we gave him some bandages and he took himself off to your cottage to bandage it and rest it up. Looks like the injury’s bad enough to put him out of any walking action for a few days.’ He shook his head. ‘Outsiders never respect the land as they should. He said you were out this way and as I was coming over anyhow I thought I’d check up on you. The weather’s getting worse. Glad I caught you when I did. You know, we can’t be responsible for you doing stupid things like this.’
‘Stupid? I was perfectly alright.’ She wandered away from him.
THE SOUL FIXER (A psychological thriller) Page 9