Death on a Longship

by Marsali Taylor

  ‘You don’t sound as if you’re smitten by the glamour of the movies.’

  ‘It all started out good fun,’ I conceded, ‘with us remembering to present our best profiles to the camera, but it soon got tiring. We’d just get the sail up and Stormfugl going nicely when we had to stop again, and hand the sail. By the end of the first day my arms felt like spaghetti from hauling the yard up and down.’ I leaned forward, getting interested now. ‘It was like on the Sea Stallion, where they made us hang around and hang around, and then we got caught in a gale and damn near foundered. Real Vikings would have taken the weather window and been safe up a creek burning and pillaging.’

  ‘Maree was in these scenes?’

  I nodded, and had to be fair. ‘She was good on board ship, in spite of the long dress. Game for any shots.’

  He turned Sergeant Peterson’s top paper over, tilting it just enough so that I couldn’t read it. ‘Why wasn’t she staying at Busta House Hotel with all the other film people?’

  Answer 1 : because she wanted to avoid her current lover and screw my father in peace. I wasn’t going to walk into that one.

  Answer 2 : because part of her job was to avoid being friendly with anyone who was going to stay on and be part of the main unit, Ted’s unit, once the Second Unit left. I’d leave Ted himself to explain that one, if it became necessary.

  I shrugged. ‘Maybe she wanted peace and quiet in the evenings.’ Then I did my best trying-not-to-yawn face. ‘Sorry, I’ve been up half the night –’

  The brown fingers added another loop. ‘Not much longer now, Ms Lynch.’

  I kept quiet. Two could play at the waiting game.

  His mobile rang then. Sergeant Peterson stood to attention, head up. He laid the hook down and fumbled in his pocket, rising at the same time. ‘DI Macrae. … Yes, ma’am.’

  He turned his back, went into the kitchen, and I could breathe again.

  It was Inga who’d mentioned Maree first, on a sunny late afternoon, several days after the film crowd had arrived. My Viking crew had gone off up to the bar after a hard day’s rope hauling, and Anders and I were relaxing on board Stormfugl before getting on with clearing up. Peerie Charlie was scrambling happily over the rowers’ benches playing his newest game, which consisted of shoving his panda off the bench, picking it up again, sitting it down on the bench and saying, ‘Much better’ to himself, in tones of immense satisfaction. Rat watched him warily from the edge of the half-deck, whiskers twitching; the toy and he were a similar size and colour.

  ‘So,’ Inga said, ‘do you have any idea of who this mystery woman is?’

  ‘Mystery woman?’ I said, blankly.

  ‘Jessie’s lodger.’

  I remembered Jessie’s unusual reticence on her next lodger: This Baker lass – but you’ll likely ken all about that. Maree, of course. ‘Why’s she a mystery?’ I asked curiously.

  ‘That’s the village speak.’ Inga stretched her brown legs out to the sun. ‘This weather’s amazing. Look, I’ve got a tan already. Yeah, Jessie’s not saying a word about her. I mean, really not a word. When she comes over to clean and mind Charlie, normally I head off as quick as I can, so I don’t get a half-hour monologue on what her lodgers are like. This time, I deliberately lingered. Zilch. Not a cheep.’

  ‘Maybe she keeps herself to herself.’ Jessie’s fluster and disapproval was explained now too. Dad had talked her into housing his girlfriend.

  ‘Nobody,’ said Inga with conviction, ‘can keep themselves to themselves with Jessie about. Not that she’s malicious, mind, she’s just really interested in people, and the woman’s been there nearly a week now. Easily enough time for Jessie to get her whole life history. Also, she’s hired the whole house. All three B&B bedrooms.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said. That did seem odd. ‘Are you sure? Maybe it’s just happened that Jessie doesn’t have any other bookings.’

  ‘Ah, well,’ Inga said. Her cheeks flushed pink. ‘I was curious, you see, hearing the other women at the playgroup speaking about it. So I said I’d got a friend coming up, and might she have room, and Jessie said no, she was booked up full right until mid-June.’ She drew her legs up, settled into gossip pose. ‘Then there’s what she looks like. We had a confab about it at the playgroup. Lilian saw her coming out for a walk one day, as she was driving past, and slowed down to look. Marie met her coming out of the Co-op, and Julie negotiated round a passing place along the Muckle Roe road with her, and I’d seen her pulling out in front of me. We’re all agreed on tall – not giant, just tall, five-nine or five-ten.

  ‘Not a hiding supermodel, then.’

  ‘Hair colour unknown – she wears one of those headscarfs, tied behind her neck so her whole hair’s in a bag.’

  ‘Recovering from chemotherapy,’ I suggested. What was Maree up to?

  ‘No, there’s hair in there, probably shoulder-length. Lilian looked specially. We’d thought of the chemo theory as well. She goes running every night too, and you don’t do that if you’ve just had chemo. Clothes, big and baggy, but she’s probably slim underneath them.’

  ‘Face?’

  ‘She wears dark glasses, the large sort that cover half her cheeks as well. Oval chin. Nicole Kidman style pale skin, suggesting she’s either blonde or a red-head. I’d go for red. Eye colour unknown, obviously.’

  ‘In short,’ I said, ‘someone from the city who doesn’t realise how much she’s doing to attract attention out here in the country.’

  ‘That’s about the size of it. And Jessica said hello to her, and she said hello back, in an American accent.’

  ‘Aha,’ I said. ‘Do you think she’s something to do with the film?’

  ‘Well, actually,’ Inga said, ‘she seems to be a friend of your dad’s. She’s visited him. That was where I saw her – coming out of your driveway.’

  Rumbled. ‘His girlfriend,’ I said resignedly. ‘Maree.’

  Over the weeks we’d been fitting out the longship I’d got into the habit of dropping in on Dad from time to time. I won’t say they were cosy father-and-daughter chats exactly, but he had the tact not to mention how he’d got me the job aboard Stormfugl and I avoided awkward stuff like my future career. Instead I filled him in on some of the fun I’d had to date in various exotic places, and invariably he’d know them too, so we’d exchange impressions. The third time he’d asked if I still played Scrabble. The game had started off a bit stiff, with him still pointing out good word-spaces as he had when I was ten, so I stuck ‘azure’ with the z on a triple letter score and the whole on a double word score.

  ‘Oh,’ he said, then set out to play in earnest. He won, but only by three points.

  I enjoyed going back like that, to the days after Maman had left, when we’d drawn the curtains against the winter dark, eaten Jessie’s casserole at the kitchen table, then spread out the board and focused on it. I’d considered staying in Shetland for the summer. Perhaps Mr Berg would let me lease Stormfugl to run as a tourist attraction. Trips around scenic St Magnus Bay in a genuine Viking longship! I’d even contemplated moving into the house for the winter – thoughts of a waxing moon, as the night sky filled with light once more.

  So it had been a shock to come in two days after the film crew had arrived, when the moon had almost dwindled into darkness again, and find Maree in the kitchen, stirring onions in a frying pan. A chopping block lay on the table, white-wood new with a lethal-looking knife beside it, a fan of carrots and peppers, and a plastic bag of mince, along with a packet of tortillas, a block of cheese, and a lettuce in cling-film.

  ‘Oh –’ I said, startled.

  Maree gave me a malicious three-cornered smile. ‘Hiya, Cass. Your dad just went down to the store for a bottle of wine.’ She gave the onions another stir, came to the table to cut open the mince. ‘He won’t be long.’

  ‘Oh, okay,’ I said. I looked at her making our kitchen hers, and felt rage swell within me. I’d been thinking about coming back – what right had this unknown woman to take o
ver? But I’d learned to keep rage in. I spoke as coolly as she had. ‘It wasn’t anything important. Say hi for me.’

  ‘You’re welcome to stay,’ she said. ‘There’ll be plenty.’

  The condescension did it. ‘My room’s here,’ I said. ‘I know I’m welcome.’

  The stirring hand paused. Her head turned and our eyes met. She gave me a long, cool stare. I tilted my chin up, stared back. She smiled, sweetly.

  ‘We might need to redecorate that room.’

  I stiffened. How dare she? Then she delivered the knock-out blow.

  ‘For a nursery.’

  My eyes went to her stomach, back to her face. She smiled again, sweet and patronising.

  ‘Your father’s always pleased to have you visit, you know that.’

  I wasn’t going to visit with her in charge. ‘Say hi for me,’ I repeated, and I would have left her to it, except that Dad came in then.

  ‘Well, well, Cassie, girl. You know Maree, of course.’

  ‘Of course. Nice to see you off set, Maree.’ I gave a smile every bit as false as hers, then turned to Dad. ‘Can’t stay, Dad. See you later.’

  He followed me out to the car. ‘Cassie, I’ve been meaning to tell you –’

  ‘I worked it out for myself,’ I said coldly. He had that bounce people get when their sex life has suddenly improved.

  ‘Maree would really like to get to know you better.’ In a pig’s ear she would. ‘Come over for Sunday lunch after Mass.’

  Mass. ‘Aren’t you still married to Maman?’ I asked bluntly.

  He looked shifty. ‘Cassie, you’re not a little girl now. A man can’t be expected to live on his own – see, your mother’s away in France now, and we didn’t always hit it off, you know that. Maree and I are something special.’

  ‘So I see,’ I said. He took that at face value.

  ‘I knew you’d understand. I’m looking forward to the pair of you getting to know each other. Now, how are you placed for Sunday? Maree’s a fantastic cook.’

  ‘The film people don’t do Sundays off,’ I said. ‘I’ll come another time.’

  He tried to press me for a day, but I used the film company as an excuse. ‘How about I just phone when I get an evening free?’

  ‘That’d be grand. We’ll see you sometime this week, then.’

  I had a long, hard think about it during Mass, kneeling in the pew with Dad beside me, and ended up feeling ashamed of myself. I knew my dislike of Maree was jealousy. I’d never done elegant; I was practical Cass who sailed boats and mended engines. Give me a problem and I’d fix it.

  I thought of Maman’s curtains on the windows, and Jessie dusting her grand piano, and of Dad sitting in the house and looking round him, night after night. I remembered how rarely I’d phoned. Now he had the chance of a new life. What right had I to interfere?

  The angry voice inside me said, ‘You were thinking of coming home – he wouldn’t have been lonely any more.’ The more honest voice added, ‘You wouldn’t have been lonely any more.’

  I’d chosen the life I had. I knelt down and focused firmly on prayers for Dad and Maree to be happy, for things to work out for them, and at the end of Mass I asked Dad if I could change my mind and come to lunch after all. I was on my best behaviour, and so was she. We stuck to trivialities, the weather, the tulips, and how the film was going, and Dad grinned like a Cheshire cat to have his women one on each side.

  When I went back to Khalida that night, I plugged in my laptop and checked my e-mails, just to remind myself that I had a life too. Sheila and Max were in Sydney now, and Petra was working her way round the Cape. Alistair was becalmed off Labrador, and Graham and Stelle were sunbathing in Santa Lucia. Each e-mail was addressed to a dozen people, and the nearest it got to personal was Sheila’s final ‘How are all you guys? Let us know what you’re up to, love, Sheila and Max.’

  Friends. Thanks to the wonders of the Internet, I could touch a button and contact any of them, all of them. ‘I’m here in Shetland, skippering a Viking longboat for a film.’ The news would go all round the world, to people I’d worked with for two months, or berthed alongside, or met at a couple of parties. People who would say, ‘Oh, Cass, yeah, I remember her, Khalida. Nice little Van de Stadt, good sea boat.’ People who would say, ‘Cass? Doesn’t ring a bell – oh, hang on, she was on the Sorlandet, six years ago.’ People who wouldn’t remember me at all.

  When you’re single, when you’re always moving on, that’s the kind of friends you have. I snicked the computer off, lit my candle, and found my good book, but it was a long time before I slept.

  Three days after that Sunday lunch, Maree had come over to Stormfugl. It was my night on watch, and Anders had gone off to join the Busta House lot partying. I was lying on my sleeping-bag with the wooden half-deck warm under my crossed arms. It was a soft, soft night. The force 2 that had fretted the sea all day had fallen away, and I could hear the last peep, peep of the shalders settling themselves in the field. The hills on the west of the voe were already in shadow, but the eastern ridge was dusted golden by the last glimmer of sunlight.

  The Second Unit were all going tomorrow, by boat and plane, leaving the beds at Busta clear for Ted Tarrant and the crack troops. Everyone was relieved, because the Maree / Michael thing was creating strain on all of us. The second the cameras stopped rolling he’d be going over to her and repositioning her with maximum body contact. I felt my old distrust reviving; hadn’t she told him about her and Dad? Or was she running them both? But I had to admit I was doing her an injustice there, you could see she didn’t like it, and by the end of the second day the Viking oarsmen got a sweep going on how soon she’d smack him one. If there was a bust-up, though, it wasn’t done in front of us. Maree gritted her teeth and moved away from him, and smiled Favelle’s smile for the cameras.

  Of the Second Unit, only Michael was staying. I’d expected Maree to be cooking Dad a last five-star meal, so I was surprised when I saw her coming down the grass from Efstigarth, dressed in lycra shorts and a vest top. I remembered what Inga had said about her going for an evening run. She looked across at Stormfugl, called ‘Hey?’ I half-raised myself on my elbows and waved.

  She came down the pier, across the gangplank. ‘Hi, there, Cass.’ She took off the large sunglasses and folded herself down on the rough deck.

  ‘Hiya,’ I said. ‘Come in.’ I leaned behind me, into the cabin, for my thermos. ‘Cup of tea?’

  She shook her head. ‘You don’t have any orange juice?’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘I was just setting off for my run when I saw you aboard, and thought I’d come and say hey.’ Her long legs were uncomfortably tucked under her, and she sat bolt upright, not staring around but keeping those wide, green eyes on me. Her dark hair was hidden under a head-square, palm-tree green scarf with a rust print.

  ‘It’s nice to see you,’ I managed.

  She took the will for the deed and flashed a Favelle smile at me. ‘I hope Sunday’s chilli wasn’t too hot for you.’

  ‘It was great,’ I said, truthfully. ‘I thought I’d a cold coming on, after all that hanging around, but there’s nothing like a good chilli to sort out a cold.’

  Now the smile changed to her own. ‘My golly, it sure was freezing, wasn’t it? I had thermal underwear on under my costume and my teeth were still chattering in the close-ups.’

  ‘How long have you done doubling work?’

  ‘Since we were little kids.’ She raised one slim hand at my look of surprise. ‘Honey, did your dad not tell you? We’re twins – she’s my little sister.’

  I felt my mouth fall open. ‘You’re Favelle’s sister?’

  Maree was laughing now. ‘Identical twins, Cass. You didn’t wonder how we came to look so alike?’

  If anything, I’d vaguely wondered why the double hadn’t tried to look more like the star, grown her hair long, and bleached it to Favelle’s red-gold, instead of having to wear a wig.

  She followed my look.
‘Dyed. I was so sick of the whole world doing a double-take every time I walked in. I wanted a life of my own, you know?’

  For the first time, I felt a flash of sympathy. To live always in your double’s shadow, never to be recognised as you … ‘How did you get into acting?’ I asked.

  Maree wrinkled her perfectly straight nose and pulled the head-square off, ran a hand through her hair. The slanting sun caught the purple sheen of dye. ‘Mom. It was Mom who was keen. The movies, you know, it was her dream.’ That figured. Child success meant a driving parent – in my case literally, with Dad driving me to regattas, Osprey trundling and creaking behind.

  ‘We got started right off, with commercials and then straight acting – it has to be twins, you know? Anything with kids. You can only work a kid so long, but the camera needs to keep rolling.’ The mascara-dark lashes fell to veil the green eyes. ‘We spent the whole day in the same place, doing the same thing, but we only saw each other at bed-time. Once they saw she was better than me at expressing herself, they did the emotional bits with her, and the boring stuff with me. That twin movie we did, when we were eight – you know? The Disney one, Double Trouble.’

  I shook my head.

  ‘She was the fun twin and I was the good girl.’ I could hear the hurt in her voice, like the drag of a fouled rudder. ‘When Favelle landed Pollyanna, Mom was so pleased. All her work – she used to recite it off at us. Getting us up and dressing us nice and feeding us good so our hair would be shiny and our complexions clear. Making sure we got our beauty sleep. Organising all the auditions – we didn’t have an agent then, Mom did it all.’

  ‘What about your dad?’

  ‘My golly –’ Her face softened again. ‘Pop was great. It didn’t matter to him the way it did to Mom. He didn’t care about me not being as good as Favelle. ‘More time to spend with me,’ he’d say, and take me off to the movies, or the drugstore for an ice-cream soda.’ She gave me a sideways look, curious, almost shy. ‘Like your pop would have been with you, after your mother left.’