The Summer of the Bear

by Bella Pollen

  ‘There was plenty of opposition to the military base on St Kilda and to that missile range above Our Lady of the Isles, but they went ahead and built those ones anyways.’ He’d stared into the fire. ‘Maybe it’s no’ so bad with the closure of the seaweed factory.’ He raised his eyes pleadingly to hers. ‘Murdo says the islanders would be involved in short-term building. He says the MoD might employ civilians there as drivers or security.’

  ‘And you believe that?’ But Letty knew he needed little convincing about the fickleness of his own government. At the beginning of the First World War, the MoD had made lavish promises to all Hebrideans prepared to fight for their country, first and foremost being the ownership of their crofts should any of them return alive. They had reneged on the deal and most of the survivors who managed to make their way back to the island, already profoundly demoralized by the horrors of war, had resignedly accepted the betrayal. But not Euan. He’d been swindled by the Canadian Pacific Railway, exploited by the Hudson Bay Company, and had no intention of being cheated by his own government as well. Incensed at how little control crofters had over their own land, he led a series of protests to establish their rights once and for all and found himself sentenced to prison for his trouble. It had only been on his release that the government caved in and he’d got his land but that had been the first and last time the islanders got the better of the MoD.

  ‘Ach, the MoD has lied on more than one occasion,’ Euan conceded unhappily.

  Letty stopped pacing, struck by the miserable irony. What if there should be a job for Alick on Clannach and what if her meddling threatened it? She rubbed furiously at her eyes. She was damned if she did and damned if she didn’t. What was it those MI6 pricks Porter and Norrell had said? People betrayed their country out of greed, revenge. She didn’t believe the MoD promises, not for a second. She realized with a clarity that shocked her how much she loathed her own government for conspiring against her husband and everything else she held dear. If, right now, someone were to demand of her a quid pro quo for preventing this newest monstrosity from being built, there was nothing she wouldn’t agree to. ‘There must be someone on the island who can help.’ She knelt by his chair. ‘Someone with influence.’

  The old man gripped her hand. ‘There isn’t a soul on the island with any influence with the Ministry, Letitia . . . except for you, mo gràdh.’

  62

  No one in the Fleming family was under any illusion they took baths to get clean, only to keep warm. Hot water was limited and the family took their turn in an unvarying but strict pecking order, youngest being last. Occasionally, Jamie talked his way up the list into his mother’s slot, but there were disadvantages. The tub was not long enough for both of them, and although the water was hot, there was never enough of it to cover his body and the air that circulated around the inches of exposed flesh felt that much chillier by comparison. At least in the tepid soup of the family’s collective dirt he could submerge himself completely and maintain the illusion of warmth, if only for a minute.

  Under the water, Jamie’s mind relaxed and his thoughts turned to the conversation with Roddy. Premonitions, ghosts, animals, insects. It seemed that people were able to return as just about anything. After some reflection, however, he decided he wasn’t particularly keen on ghosts and didn’t like the idea of his father returning as one. Apart from all the wailing and moaning, the practicalities of ghost life worried him.

  Ghosts, for example, could not drive cars or buy ferry tickets and finally he understood the simple beauty of sailors returning as seagulls. What need would they have to maintain boats or untangle nets? To come back as a bird or animal made so much more sense and he could imagine his father appreciating the freedom of it, loving the sheer fun of it. Jamie stretched his foot towards the tap. Bath water, piped from the burn, was the colour of molasses. A thin trickle of hot ran over his toes. Yes, of all people, his father would have put considerable thought into the logistics of his return. There was no question of him coming back as a cockroach or a mosquito. His father was an important man, a good man. If he chose, he could be a unicorn or a golden eagle. Jamie closed his eyes and imagined his father swooping down and taking him on his back. He would hook his fingers through the soft vanes of the feathers, watch the wing tips twist in the wind, wait as they generated lift until together they would soar! His eyes snapped open underwater – but surely his father, of all people, would realize that there was more than one eagle on the island. If he fancied returning as a gannet, well, there were eighty thousand gannets on St Kilda alone, so it would be the same problem, only worse. His father was fond of great northern divers, describing them as magisterial with their swan-like necks and feathers so smooth and shiny it was as though they’d been combed through with hair oil, but they were strictly water birds and might lack the initiative to venture up to the house. He would never choose a snipe or goose for fear of getting shot and he would hate to be a black-backed gull or hooded crow because he had no respect for hoodies and referred to them as bloody vermin.

  Remembering to breathe, Jamie came up for air. He tried to visualize other birds he had noted down in his book, wagtails, swallows, starlings, curlews, but all struck him as too insignificant. It was possible, he supposed, that he might choose a deer. Once, when they’d stopped the car to look at the Northern Lights, there had been a stag on the road in front of them. The stag had stared at them arrogantly, as if waiting for some explanation of their intrusion, before making off through the heather in languid bounds.

  ‘Extraordinary,’ his father had sighed and now Jamie’s heart quickened as he scrambled out of the bath and grabbed a damp towel off the back of the chair. No longer constrained by mortal rules, his father might appear to him at any moment, in any form. And whatever he decided to return as, whatever sign he chose to give, Jamie now made his father a promise of his own.

  He would be ready.

  Part Three

  63

  Alba squinted out into the darkness. A bluebottle was hurtling around the room. The buzzing was intolerable – like rounds of fire from an automatic rifle. She fumbled for the switch on her bedside light. The noise stopped. The fly was squatting on the inside wall of the lampshade. She examined it sourly. What disgusting vampiric creatures flies were. The swollen undercarriage of its belly glowed a fluorescent blue and it was rubbing its forearms together as though anticipating the joys of money to count or blood to suck. Slowly, deliberately, she reached for her paperback but the fly evacuated with a furious buzz and began a retaliatory dive-bombing of each wall from the safety of the ceiling. After several abortive attempts to kill it, Alba decided the more intelligent tactic would be to entice it from the room with a fresh electrical glow. She switched off her lamp and marched into the corridor. A cold draught was twisting up through the staircase. Christ, they might as well live in Siberia or the Ukraine. Through the window the sky had taken on a yellowish hue. She frowned, disorientated, almost giddy for a moment while she checked for the reassuring silhouette of Donald John’s barn. Was it possible she was still asleep? Dreaming? What was she even doing out here? Her mind stalled then jolted. Yes, the bluebottle, the bathroom light. She crept on, then stopped abruptly outside her mother’s room. A wedge of light was spilling onto the carpet. After a second’s hesitation, Alba peered through the crack in the door.

  Her mother was sitting up in bed, a letter in her hands. She appeared to be reading it fitfully, as though the contents were too painful to be absorbed more than a sentence at a time. As she put it down and picked it up again, her mouth and face contorted into expressions of sorrow and Alba found the effect disturbing, surreal. Suddenly, as though the letter had spontaneously caught fire and was burning her fingers, her mother threw it away, then, balling up her fists, she began to pummel her face. After that, the tears came in a seemingly unstoppable flow, bringing with them small dulled-down animal noises. Out in the corridor, Alba shivered in the cold air, intrigued, deeply suspicious, blinking
like an owl into the failing darkness of the night.

  64

  The sheep trembled as he crossed the machair. ‘Watch out,’ he wanted to growl, Ursus borribilis coming through. The sheep’s terror made him reckless, angry even. Maybe he should take a bite out of their necks, give the absurd creatures something real to bleat about but as he drew nearer, instead of huddling in groups or fleeing in their usual manner, they stayed still, transfixed, staring upwards, and suddenly he noticed the strange, almost luminescent colour of their wool. Above him the night sky was tinged an eerie swamp-green, but he found nothing surprising any more. He had grown used to the mind tricks that hunger played and his whole world had turned upside down. Even his flesh felt scratchy and painful as though fur was growing on the wrong side of his skin. How had it got this far? What had possessed him? But enough now. It was over. It had to be. He needed to eat, he needed to live. He began to run, but before long he realized that it wasn’t only the sky and the sheep, it was the whole island. The fence post, the cow parsley, the machair – all were glowing a sickly green as though bathed in the landing lights of a UFO. Again he looked up, this time in fear. The sky was now a blaze of colour. Bands of electromagnetic light traversed the clouds. Stars dotted the atmosphere like particles of shattered quartz. Shapes and colours began merging with bewildering speed, one minute the smoky plumes of violet and red, the next, blues and greens were chasing each other in playful spirographic curves. Oh, it was beautiful, it was terrifying, it was awe-inspiring and he found himself trembling uncontrollably. He bounded on, up into the hills, up as high as he could climb, then he threw himself down behind a rock and lay there staring upwards as heaven slowly drifted closer to earth.

  65

  In Letty’s dream the day was charged with electricity. A fierce toxic sun roiled across the island, polishing the slate roofs of the township and reflecting on the slick-wet sand of the bay. It burned clean through the surface of the lochs, warming even the blood of trout and salmon as they meandered through their watery cities of reeds and stones. Letty saw herself from the air, a dark speck silhouetted against the dull khaki fern of south Clannach. The wind toyed with the hood of her jacket while Alick pulled her by the hand up the hill’s steep incline.

  ‘Ach, there it is, Letitia!’ he cried eagerly, as the twin funnels of a nuclear power station loomed into view. ‘You’ll not guess, but it was the fairies that built this!’

  And now she was being transported to the school house where a meeting of the Ballanish township was in progress. The islanders were sitting in rows of chairs flanked by the military standing to unctuous attention for the Ambassadress. Gillian, impeccably dressed in her family’s clan-appropriate tweed, stood on stage, one hand resting lightly on the burnished end of a warhead.

  ‘It has come to our attention that a bear has been seen on this island,’ she began. ‘The bear is the symbol of Russia. Who knows how much information this enemy spy has already gleaned? Who knows how badly our existing defence plans have been compromised? The Outer Hebrides are now at the geopolitical axis of the Cold War and the facility we intend to build here will provide the integrated command and control system of Great Britain with early warning of approaching enemy aircraft. This will allow the government time to galvanize its defences in the event of nuclear attack.’

  ‘How much time?’ One of the islanders raised a tentative hand.

  ‘Two minutes,’ the Ambassadress shot back her reply. ‘Now you must understand, the island is to be annexed for the greater good. There will be no back-door attacks by the Soviet Union. Ballanish might not be a natural capital of the British Isles but if the Germans can make it work in Bonn, we can make it work here, and for those of you who may harbour doubts as to the validity of this project, let me remind you that any community hosting a military facility will provide an essential service to the nation. This should be considered an honour for a people whose sole purpose up until now has been the cultivation of potatoes and the export of rotting sea matter.’

  Letty’s eyes snapped open. For a moment she lay still, dismayed to find that the horror of her nightmare had not been alleviated by waking. Then she glanced at the clock and threw back her covers. Tom’s plane would be landing in just over two hours.

  66

  Georgie dipped her foot into the cold green water of the swimming hole. A zigzag of baby eels panicked and changed direction. Beneath her toe, a bright red sea anemone was stuck to the rock like a wine gum.

  ‘I had no idea this place even existed.’ Aliz took a drag on his cigarette and passed it to her. ‘It’s grand.’

  ‘I’ve always come here,’ she said. ‘Ever since I could first swim.’

  Along the coast a rising gale was inciting the waves to riot, whipping the sea into a foam, but within the protective curve of the cliff the rock pool was as calm as a millpond, the water clear, twenty feet down to its white sandy bottom. A bonxie, curving swiftly along the serrated shoreline, suddenly altered its direction.

  ‘Look at the sky,’ Georgie said. ‘It’s such a weird colour.’

  ‘Looks polluted.’

  ‘No, it’s pretty. Like someone’s placed a piece of tracing paper over the sun.’

  ‘Ah, see the hand of God.’ Aliz kicked at a limpet with the heel of his boot.

  ‘What’s that mean?’

  ‘My father says it whenever he thinks something is beautiful, or when he cooks something tasty, when our egg yolks look particularly orange or his books balance perfectly, “Ah, Aliz, my son,” he cries, “see the hand of God,” and then he rubs his chin in wonder.’

  ‘I love days like this,’ Georgie said, ‘when the weather is suspended and you know a storm is coming.’

  ‘Wouldn’t you prefer it sunny?’

  Georgie shrugged. She found it strange that of all planets, the sun was most revered. The sun was a heater, the moon a torch and the stars merely a confetti of superfluous decoration. She connected with the earth. Soil. Mud. Rock. Sand. Somewhere, way below them, a magnificent geological pulse was sending electrical charges to every human being, keeping their hearts beating, keeping them alive. She pushed herself into the dip of the rock until she felt her chest constrict as the voltage passed though her. Maybe these were what growing pains felt like.

  Aliz was leaning on his elbow, his bushy head propped up on one hand. She laid her arm alongside his. ‘Look at your skin against mine.’

  ‘Yours is so white.’

  ‘Yours is dirty brown.’

  ‘Mine is made of peat.’

  ‘Mine is made of papier mâché. Or maybe it’s been floating in the sea too long.’

  ‘Mine looks like it’s been stewing in the bog ever since the Vikings hacked it off and threw it there.’

  Georgie laughed. ‘Well, I still like yours better.’

  ‘Take it, then.’ He hooked it around hers.

  She touched his skin. ‘I don’t like the hairs.’

  ‘Pull them out.’

  ‘It’ll hurt.’

  ‘I want it to hurt.’

  ‘No.’ Georgie sprinkled some sand onto his arm then ground it in under the pad of her finger. ‘Besides, I have my own ways of making you talk.’

  They lapsed into silence. ‘Doesn’t it feel strange?’ she said after a while.

  ‘What?’

  ‘To be so different.’

  ‘Because of my dirty peaty skin?’ He looked at her and grinned.

  ‘Don’t laugh at me,’ she said, offended.

  ‘You don’t know, do you?’

  ‘Know what?’ She reddened.

  ‘It’s not me. My family aren’t the outsiders here. You’re the ones the islanders talk about all the time. You, your sister, your father, grandfather.’

  Georgie hugged her knees to her chest. ‘What do they say?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he backtracked hastily. ‘Lots of things.’

  ‘What do they say about my father?’

  Aliz hesitated.

  ‘I w
ant to know.’

  Aliz gouged a hole in the sand and dropped his cigarette inside. ‘Everyone has their own idea of what happened to him.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘My father heard Duncan saying he’d been assassinated. Chrissie thinks it was a plane crash. Peggy said he got the cancer.’ He looked at her for a reaction, but Georgie’s face was turned away. ‘You know what everyone’s like round here,’ he went on uncertainly. ‘Angus Post Office is convinced that Russians have hold of him and are keeping him prisoner.’

  ‘I wish that were true.’ There was a hard edge to her voice. ‘At least it would mean he was alive.’

  ‘I’m sorry. You must hate people asking about it.’

  ‘No one ever asks about it.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t know, at the beginning my mother didn’t want to upset my brother, but now it’s as if . . . well, it’s as if he’s become a taboo subject.’

  ‘I shouldn’t have brought it up.’

  ‘No, I want you to bring it up.’ Talking about her father felt as if someone had clamped an oxygen mask to her face. She was giddy for more. ‘Ask me anything,’ she blurted out. ‘Ask me how he died.’

  Aliz looked at her, shocked.

  ‘Go on. Ask me.’

  Aliz dropped his eyes, touched the veins in the rock with his finger. ‘All right then, how did he die?’

  ‘He fell. From the roof of the embassy.’

  ‘He fell. How?’

  It occurred to Georgie, in that moment, that ‘how’ was the one word which encompassed all her torment. People didn’t spontaneously fall from roofs. People fought and struggled and lost. People were pushed from behind or they leant against railings that gave way . . . she took a deep breath. ‘I think he jumped.’