Call of the Undertow

by Linda Cracknell

  ‘We’ve been coming here fifteen years and we’ve never seen this going on before.’

  She heard Graham’s voice quiet and slow; pacifying.

  The other voice came back again: ‘But surely it’s protected? Surely they can’t remove sand from the dunes just like that? Surely someone must be able to stop them.’

  ‘Of course we might like to...’ She heard the irritation beginning to prickle in Graham’s voice as he explained that it wasn’t his responsibility.

  She was reminded of what she’d learnt about Lagos, the Lekki district. Sand was being dredged from the seabed to shore up the vulnerable margins of some of the marshy islands. Lavish apartments for the rich were springing up there, built on shifting foundations of corruption. Presumably the sea would demolish them within years. It was obvious. But still the rich were entrusting themselves to a mirage. In turn the moved sand had blocked drainage canals, so that when the rains came, the vegetable market flooded, and small businesses owned by much poorer people had to be abandoned. Her incomplete dealings with Lagos niggled at her now, and she wanted to shake them off. Richard had told her again, quite firmly this time, that such detail was irrelevant. But she couldn’t quite let it go.

  Maggie turned to see the man with binoculars round his neck stomp away without a satisfactory answer. Graham watched him go with arms stiff at his sides, heaved a sigh and then joined her at the window.

  He was as mystified as her about the sealskin. ‘Can’t help there, I’m afraid. Unless it was someone’s trophy.’

  She was disappointed not to have found an explanation; still unsure what to do with the thing. ‘Perhaps I’ll just shove it back in the loft,’ she said.

  They looked out on the beach again.

  ‘You should get yourself out to Dunnet Head,’ he said. ‘The guillemots’ve got their young now. Precious single bairns.’

  She thought of Trothan and felt another little twist of anxiety at his absence. She’d half-hoped she might hear something of him when she was out. But he barely seemed to touch anyone else’s lives.

  ‘You’re alright now, are you – after the tern attack and that?’ Graham asked.

  ‘Oh that,’ she said, an involuntary lock in her breath.

  ‘And the whisky,’ he teased.

  ‘It was you made me drink it,’ she said.

  ‘Only because I thought you were about to cry.’

  ‘What?’ She half-protested, turned away to the window.

  ‘Right, let’s see what else is out there to attack you,’ he said, standing by her side and picking up the binoculars.

  By the time she got back to the village it was hot, the humidity reaching a peak now, and moisture clouds were pressing low on the horizon. People were out in shorts and singlets, sunburned, eating ice creams. Boys rode past on their ridiculous low-saddled bikes. In the playpark, a cluster of small girls sported pinkened skin. She was surprised when two of them turned on the climbing frame and waved at her as she passed, smiling. She half-looked over her shoulder to see who they’d seen behind her. ‘Hello Maggie,’ one of them called out. She waved back, realising she must have met them on her visits to the school.

  A police car slunk down the main street and induced in Maggie a guilty flinch. She went into the shop for a couple of things and then on an impulse, instead of turning for home, she turned into the grid of streets, touring them systematically until she found the one with the right name.

  It was a street of single-storey quarriers’ cottages. Each short, front garden had a narrow gravel path leading to the front door across a lawn. She walked until she found their house number. A builder’s van was parked outside the gate. It wasn’t Rab McNicholl’s but a blue one from Thurso. The house was prickling with scaffolding and two men straddled the roof, hammering new sarking boards across the bare frame. A radio was bellowing summer pop songs into the sky and a voice accompanied it in yelps and high notes that were abbreviated by the regular beating of two hammers.

  She stopped, stared. The front door stood wide open and builders’ tools and stacks of slates were dumped right in front of it. The house betrayed no occupants.

  She pushed the gate open and stood in the centre of the path.

  ‘I need you more than want you,’ wailed the younger man along with Glen Campbell.

  ‘Excuse me,’ she shouted up, repeating it when the song continued.

  Eventually the banging paused on both ends of the roof and the two men peered down at her, legs braced in front of them.

  ‘The Gilbertsons?’ she asked.

  ‘We’ve put them out, darling.’ The older man smiled down at her.

  ‘Put them out?’ She had a picture of eviction, of rent arrears. ‘Where have they gone?’

  The men looked at each other. ‘To her sister’s, I think.’

  ‘Where’s that?’

  The younger man named a place she’d never heard of and the older one added, ‘Far side of Thurso.’

  Maggie put her hand to her head. Trothan in a new house, a new school, totally removed from the area.

  ‘Put a note in the house if you like, they’ll get it when they’re back.’

  Relief flooded her. ‘They’ve not moved out then?’

  ‘We’ve only put them out while we do this. They don’t think much about his singing, eh?’ The older man laughed.

  The younger one resumed his hammering, and, more quietly, his singing.

  ‘When are they back?’ she called, but was not heard.

  It was dark in the house by contrast to the brilliance of the day and her eyes took a moment to adjust. She walked straight into a small sitting room with a sofa and two matching armchairs in a traditional floral print. The room seemed crowded with furniture; gingham, the smell of artificial air-freshener. There was a well-trodden sense of people going in and out, wearing the dark carpet thin towards the door where traces of sand scattered from the threshold. A fake wood-burning stove stood in a fireplace. A shelf behind it was decorated with a few ornaments, some books and a TV.

  On the wall there were photos. She moved closer. A small baby wrapped in a white blanket with a solemn, elfin face and huge brown eyes. Trothan holding his mother’s hand on the front path, a small red rucksack on his back – the first day at school, she imagined. Another outside Edinburgh Castle. Always Trothan with his mother or father, never anyone else, never any friends or wider family, the photo always taken by one of them.

  It seemed a normal, traditional house; just small. There would be nowhere to lay out a map to work on it; there was no computer or laptop visible. She found the bathroom off the living room. It was decorated with seahorse tiles, bright soaps that gushed strawberry scent, a fluffy bath mat. Everything was in its place, as if the house had been prepared for an absence. A house that felt private and contained, holding the lives of three people in a contented balance with each other.

  She registered a sense of disappointment. She’d expected to find some evidence of discord or negligence but wasn’t sure how that would have looked anyway. Discarded chip wrappers on the floor or dangerous things left lying about? But then she thought, perhaps a child left excessively to himself would make a home within a home in his bedroom.

  The hammering was still coming regularly from above. She glanced down the path through the open door, then moved quickly. She soon found it – a small room with a single bed and a jungle-themed duvet cover. Fishes dangled from a mobile, spinning in sunlight. There was a shelf of books – dinosaurs featured, just like in her nephew Jamie’s room. There were childish, but accomplished drawings of boats and animals on the wall. Apart from that, there was none of the usual children’s paraphernalia of TV, computer, boy band posters. There was no sign either of the roll of maps or Rotring pens. He must have taken them. He must still be working on the map.

  The bed sank beneath her and she felt herself sucked down by tiredness. She would rest, just for a minute or two, somewhere she felt safe and secure. Unable to battle it any longer,
she leant her head down onto the pillow. The salty scent of Trothan. Faint but distinct. She closed her eyes despite the open door, her trespass, the persistent hammering and singing descending the pitch of the roof above her. It would beat out time until the two men descended and might discover that she was still here, sleeping with her feet on the floor.

  FOURTEEN

  The Wednesday of the school showcase was another blue-skied scorcher. Late in the afternoon, Maggie went for a walk on the beach, lay down for a moment in the sun and woke to find that a bank of greasy cloud was spilling over Dunnet Head, oozing down towards the beach; a blanket of the infamous haar wrought by cool sea air colliding with the hot land. It moved stealthily, covering the village of Dunnet except for the white tower of the church which pierced through it. Feeling its chill effect in anticipation, she stood up and brushed the sand from her hair.

  At home, she considered what to wear. She could feel sunburn pulsing down one side of her face; the effect of her brief sleep on the beach. Despite the cool fog now enveloping the village, she chose a summer dress. But when she put it on the neckline exposed a white scallop of chest. She considered changing but instead she retrieved the cornflower blue scarf that had hung over the hall mirror since she’d arrived. She draped it around her neck and shoulders to mediate her skin colours and then peered at herself in the mirror. She found an ancient tube of blocking foundation which she rubbed onto the red flash on her left cheek and the flaming bulb of one nostril, put on sandals, and found a handbag into which she put a notebook and pen. Snatching a final glance in the mirror she rescued lipstick from the depths of her bag, dabbed some on and then plunged out of the door.

  She hadn’t expected the school hall to be quite so packed. Two swathes of seats had been set out with an aisle down the centre. The parents seemed to be treating it almost as a prize-giving ceremony; there were frocks and even the occasional hat.

  Audrey button-holed her as soon as she came in, handing her a piece of paper. ‘Here’s the questions I’d suggest.’

  ‘For Trothan?’ Maggie asked. ‘You know we’ve not had a chance to plan this? He’s been away.’

  ‘I know. He’s not been at school for a few days either.’ Audrey was twitchy, looking around, perhaps ticking off a mental list of people she had to speak to. ‘It’ll be fine, just show the map and get him to answer the questions. Haven’t had a chance to look at it myself. He finished it while he’s been away apparently, but Mrs Burt’s uploaded a scan onto the laptop so he can project it.’

  ‘The whole map?’

  ‘Yes, and he’s chosen some close-ups himself, I believe. Remember there’s a time limit, though!’ Audrey mimed a head being cut off.

  ‘Where is he?’ Maggie asked. But Audrey was already moving away.

  Maggie looked around. At some invisible signal the congregation were starting to break from small chattering groups and settling into their seats. She sat down at the end of a row next to the aisle, clutching her list of questions. A hush gathered as most of the assembly looked reverentially forwards. Audrey settled the Minister in a prime position and then sat down next to him in the front row.

  Maggie continued to search the hall, surprised by how many people she recognised. Debbie was on the other side of the aisle, gaudy and orange-tanned but carefully groomed; her husband next to her, swarthy and surly-looking. Sally, Maggie’s landlady, was there with her two boys. There were a couple of people she recognised from the shop tills, and a short, stocky blonde woman she couldn’t quite place in red trousers and a floral blouse.

  She waved across at Graham, who was slumped with arms folded next to some of his ranger colleagues a few rows back, already looking bored. She supposed their work with the school must oblige them to be present. Finally, further back than Graham, she saw Trothan, his face mostly obscured by hair, sitting next to Nora who had her hands in her lap, smiling straight ahead. It was a relief to find they were here. Maggie knew they were back at home because she’d caught sight of Nora lumbering away from the shop towards her house earlier that day. The glimpse had also been welcome. Maggie wished she had the guts to sit down next to Trothan, to show herself connected to him.

  Audrey stood up at the front on a level with her congregation, strolling from one side of the front row to the other as she spoke some words of welcome. She said tonight was their chance to celebrate some of the achievements of the school year, both personal and shared. She explained it was about diversity, not competition; that a few children’s names had been pulled from a hat to present their favourite piece of work for the year.

  ‘Pulled from a hat’ was emphasised. Maggie guessed this was an attempt to quell the rage of parents whose children hadn’t been picked, and to emphasise the fairness of the process.

  Proceedings began. Children came up to the front to read from prepared scripts, their words a breathless torrent. A group of Primary Ones sang a song; a Primary Two girl talked about the hamster they had jointly looked after while Mrs Burt projected photos onto a big screen of the creature being carried to various homes for weekends and holidays by proud children. People clapped mechanically, glassy-eyed, but each performance was also greeted with smiles, camera flashes, even whoops of applause from one fragment of the audience.

  Maggie’s skin felt sticky in the heat of the hall, her nose and arm flaming with one-sided sunburn. She should have brought a bottle of water. She looked around, caught sight of another familiar figure: a man, tall and dark, with a boy of about twelve next to him who had a similarly long head and body. She suddenly realised it was PC Small, and then the short blonde woman who should have been beside him fell into place. Anderson in her red trousers. Of course, Maggie realised, each of them belonged to the community, each had their own family lives. She supposed herself an oddity being here without a child at the school. If she’d been a man, this would have provoked discomfort, perhaps even direct hostility.

  Maggie noticed the damp dripping down the outside of the windows, a reminder of the grey wall of fog surrounding them; haar mingling with laundry steam. Midsummer fever lived on within the room in sunburnt faces, bared skin; the pre-holiday simmer of the whole community. She saw a gull swoop past the window. It made her feel as though the school was adrift, soaring and wheeling above its earthly footprint like the birds.

  Then Trothan was on his feet in the aisle, swinging his wellies towards the front. The long map tube swung by his side almost weightily. The sight of his grin and a dark round eye peeking at her as he passed raised her from her seat to stride after him.

  They both took a place beside Audrey at the front.

  ‘Now,’ Audrey said. ‘The children from Primary Five have been doing their local studies projects and making maps. Trothan Gilbertson has also been developing his skills in his own time.’

  A muffled cough came from the direction of Debbie’s husband.

  ‘He’s going to put his map of the bay on the wall so you can go and have a close look afterwards.’

  Trothan nodded away his fringe and smiled.

  ‘But first. Maggie Thame, our local cartographer who’s been helping him, will interview Trothan. We’re in your hands then,’ she said, turning and taking her seat next to the Minister.

  The audience was silent.

  Trothan was slowly unstoppering the cardboard tube. After pulling out a long roll of paper, he peered back inside and then closed it again, leaning it against the laptop console. Then he raised his arms, stretching the map between them in front of his face.

  ‘Good evening everybody,’ Maggie said to the mass of faces. She imagined how Carol would react if she could see her sister standing confidently in front of a crowd, nerves evaporated by pride. As if with a drum-roll she announced: ‘So this is Trothan’s map.’

  She looked sideways, seeing the final map for the first time. Although the paper was intricately marked, the bold curve of the bay remained clearly defined. Trothan continued to hold it up, almost hiding, as the audience began to titter
at the oddness of the spectacle. Maggie turned to Mrs Burt, and at a nod she projected the first slide behind their heads.

  ‘You can put it down now,’ Maggie whispered to Trothan. ‘It’s on the screen.’

  Trothan dropped the paper map theatrically to his waist, revealing his grinning face. He rolled it up slowly. Maggie saw that the audience were all now looking behind them at the screen and glanced back herself, struck again by how the drawing and writing formed an intricate lace across it, even across the water of the bay itself.

  She smiled some reassurance at Trothan and then asked the first question, partly in Trothan’s direction and partly to the back row of seats, projecting her voice as she’d once been taught on a presentation skills course. ‘Trothan, how long has this marvellous map taken you?’

  He shrugged. ‘Since you visited us, I suppose.’

  ‘April. That’s very quick. Can you tell us about your methods. What were your main tools?’

  In the front row Audrey smiled and nodded encouragement. Getting to the script at last.

  But Trothan became theatrical again. He pointed down at his legs, pulled a pencil out of his pocket, gestured at his eyes. ‘And paper,’ he said.

  A titter scuttled about the audience.

  ‘Did you draw the map straight off?’

  ‘I did lots of sketches from different places.’

  She drew from him where the places were and how he got to them. She expected him to explain how he’d built the drawings up in layers and finally made this composite. But when she glanced behind at the screen, she began to think he’d abandoned the composite approach, and simply started again, jamming together all his observations of whatever type into one enormous sketch-map. She could see the front elevations of buildings like the church, and how the shapes of copses, hills, cliffs were suggested pictorially.

  She’d already spotted the submerged Spitfire in the bay, and St Coombs church under the sand dunes, and asked, as an aside to the scripted questions: ‘So was it just what you could see that interested you?’