Stickle Island

by Tim Orchard

  The vicar coughed too and then said, “You know it’s not there, we know it’s not there. Why bother to lie?”

  There are moments when the same old nonsense won’t wash anymore, and Simp was at the finish line. It was over. Although he didn’t know what he wanted, he wanted something else. It was done. Sometimes it’s like that. Flatly, he said, “I ain’t doing it.”

  Carter couldn’t believe it. All the years and all the money. What the fuck was happening? Loyalty? Obviously didn’t mean shit. Didn’t him and Simp go beyond loyalty? Back to the day before the day. And Amber? She was his daughter. He’d given her everything he’d never had and she was standing there with the fucking enemy. He could feel something coming on and it wasn’t nice.

  Out of the game, Simp put his fists in his pockets the way another may holster a gun or sheath a knife and eyed the folks opposite. They were just a bunch of ordinary people and he didn’t have the heart for it. On the front line there was a man, a big fella like himself, but older. They looked each other up and down. Simp nodded and the other man lifted his chin in acknowledgment. There wasn’t anything to say to someone like Carter, because he would never understand, so Simp didn’t say good-bye; instead he slowly crossed the no-man’s-land and stood uncertainly in front of Henry Stick. He said, “Hit me, I need some pain.”

  Not at all sure, Henry made a fist and weighed it in the air. Both men looked at it. Henry said, “Look, I’m trying to change my ways.”

  Simp grinned. “Me too.” He held out a hand, and tentatively the two men shook. Simp said, “All right? My name’s Simon.”

  Carter couldn’t believe his eyes. He blinked. Sure, they’d had rows before, but they had always sorted them out. Simp? What was this?

  Then D.C. laughed out loud. “You can drive through us, but how are you going to get back?” The ferry guys were laughing behind their hands.

  A cheeky teen yelled, “Didn’t anyone tell you there isn’t a return ferry on a Sunday?”

  The rest of the islanders began to titter, giggle, chortle, and smirk. Simp kept a straight face.

  The four thugs hefted their baseball bats but looked perplexed, and Carter looked like a volcano on the verge of eruption. His face was purple. His hands carved and slashed at the air. He’d heard about people crossing the Rubicon and had never understood what it meant; now he knew. Even though he still didn’t know what a Rubicon was, Simp had definitely crossed it.

  Watching her father made Amber cringe. She wanted to run over to him, stop him from humiliating himself. Again she tried to reason with him. “Look, Dad, I know you don’t like to compromise, but really, crumbs, Dad, you told me. The South Americans have already written off their loss.”

  No, no, no, Carter wasn’t going to have that, wasn’t going to have his business talked about in front of anybody, let alone a bunch of fucking carrot crunchers. His own daughter and Simp. What were they doing?! Simp. It was all wrong. What had he ever done to either of them that they could treat him this way? Leave him when he needed them most. Enough already.

  In the slim sheath strapped to his calf, Carter had the Stanley knife, taped up so only half an inch of blade showed. His favorite weapon. It left a smile or opened an artery, depending. He swung it backward and forward in an arc in front of him. “Come on, come on, step up. I’ll take any of you on. Let’s settle this man-to-man.”

  Postmistress P didn’t wait but, like a dervish, spun out from the crowd, and with one deft kick she sent the Stanley knife somersaulting off across the road. Before Carter could react, she landed a short hook to the kidneys and, as he folded, a punch to the side of his head that sent him down.

  There were gasps and a closing of gaps in the line, and Julian Crabbe grinned, wide-eyed. Some woman. She always had something else. He loved it that she never explained what she’d got up to before she came back to the island. It was a bit like playing love poker. For some reason, as the islanders shuffled together, they linked arms, tic-tak-tok, like chorus girls, and straggled forward, and Julian went with them, smiling, happy to be part of everything. The thugs looked at one another. They moved away, back toward the van, even though there was no place to go when they got there. They didn’t look at Carter.

  The man himself was crouched down, squealing and banging his head on the ground. No one moved now. Nothing happened. Motion snapped into tableau. Most eyes watched. A soft wind blew. The sun shortened the shadows. Birds twittered in trees. A dog barked. The sukebind rustled. Postmistress P was still poised, ready to strike again. It lasted and lasted, and each moment was pure pain to both Simp and Amber. She didn’t know what to do; she had never seen her father like this before and she didn’t know who she should be more scared for, the islanders or her dad. She’d seen him angry, raging, but this was something else. She wanted to rush over but was rooted, wide-eyed with shock, to the spot. Simp looked along the line of islanders at Amber. He may have left Carter, but it was more than he could bear to have Amber watch her father implode. They almost moved together, daughter, friend. Carter was lucky to have them.

  Only Simp really knew about Carter and why he always carried the pills with him. Carter’s trouble was he wanted to kill everybody and he knew he couldn’t. That was what the hurt and rage were. Simp took the bottle of pills out, shook a couple into his hand, and went over to the man. What else could he do? They both knelt beside Carter, because there was no one else to hug the man and to stop him smashing his head onto the road. Both Amber and Simp patted him and crooned to him, cooed him gently into quiet. Simp fed him his pills for the last time and slipped the bottle into Carter’s jacket pocket. It was over.

  When Simp got fed up with the crying on his shoulder, Amber took over, and in the end all three squatted down and held one another, sobbing…

  31

  Henry wasn’t much for intuition. He’d never had a presentiment, but something sent him to the dock Monday morning. Liz had been so sad the other night, Henry didn’t think a half quart of cider was going to cure it. It was a gray day, still and cool. Sheets of thin dull clouds covered the sky. Tiny wavelets slapped the dockside. The ferry rode easy at its mooring. School was out for the summer holidays, and without the chattering flock of children, the dockside was quiet.

  There waiting, kids strapped into a stroller, was Liz. He walked beside her onto the ferry and said, “Are you going to the police?”

  Head down, Liz nodded. A moment later, she said, “Why don’t you leave me alone?”

  With a nod toward the stroller, he said, “I see you’ve left the car at home—no tax and no insurance don’t go down well on the mainland.”

  That little threat may have worked the previous night, but now she just looked at him and pursed her lips.

  When the ferry cast off, they stood looking back at the island. Finally Henry said, “I know you have your reasons, and at other times, I would probably agree with you, but—”

  Liz cut him off. “Why not this time? You’ve always been against the way the island is changing.”

  He didn’t have the words to explain, so instead he pulled a couple of faces that told her nothing and said, “I don’t know, but this feels different. It’s not just about you and me—the whole island is under threat. Selling that man Carter back his drugs won’t hurt your children. Come on, Liz, they are too young to notice, and by the time they are old enough to understand, it will have become folklore, like the wrecking and the smuggling.”

  They stood resting against the safety rail at the back of the ferry. The sea was flat and green, the wake white. Seagulls flew high and suddenly dipped low and skimmed the trail of foam before wheeling back up into the sky.

  Henry said, “You know, when my ancestors came here nine hundred years ago, we owned everything: land, surf, cows, sheep, rabbits. We owned the herrings in the sea.” He laughed. “We took bounty from everything, living and dead. If you pulled a fish from the sea, we took a fillet.” Liz cracked a half smile. Henry said, “Look at me now. Times change.”<
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  With a jab of cruelty, she replied, “You’re strange, Henry, what do you want me to say? Poor you, how the mighty have fallen.”

  “That’s not what I’m on about. I was thinking of you and your lads. This is your and their home. Who knows what the future will bring? You left everything—university, the chance of a proper job—you walked out on your own parents and ended up here. You don’t really want to leave, do you?” They watched the island shrink slowly, green, lush, beautiful. Henry said, “Do you remember when your Ben was born? Your parents came over for the christening. It was the first time you’d seen them in years. They didn’t take to Terry, but you can’t blame them for that. They didn’t agree with the way you lived and they didn’t like the island. As I recall, they tried to force you to go back with them to the family home. You wouldn’t go and they didn’t come back for the second christening.”

  Liz couldn’t help it, tears started in the corners of her eyes. She squatted down, her face hidden, and fussed at the boys and the blanket on the double buggy. One, untroubled, sucked his thumb; the other slept, head on one side. Eyes still misty, Liz stood up slowly. “Like I said, it’s not just the drugs, it’s me. I want something to happen, something to change the direction of my life. If I go to the police, everybody on Stickle will hate me and I’ll have to do something about myself. Leave, something.”

  At a loss for an answer, Henry said, “Not everybody will hate you.”

  Liz began to sob again.

  As though comforting crying women had become an everyday thing, he put his arm across her shoulders. “And like I said, if we don’t do this the island is finished. Now tell me truthfully, do you really want to do this, turn your back on ten years of your life? Isn’t there something, some way—”

  She interrupted him by blowing her nose. “I know Terry was useless, but it’s hard on my own. I’m worn out, Henry. I’m sick of struggling on the dole. I love my boys, but bringing up young kids is basically boring, it’s tedious, I go for days without talking to another adult. The cottage is damp and hard to heat and impossible to keep clean.”

  Henry pulled her a bit closer and patted her back. He understood what she meant about the kids—he’d done it with Dick, but at least he’d had the distraction of the farm, he’d been able to take the boy about the place with him and afford a babysitter when he needed to get away. He also understood about life closing in, the frustration, the sense of being trapped, and he remembered the years of pointless anger, the strife and arguments he’d caused, the stupid things he’d done. Now he tried to fathom a way out for Liz and the island.

  They stood in silence side by side. Liz had one hand on the buggy handle and the other held the ferry handrail. Henry’s arm hung loosely over her shoulders, the other beside hers on the rail. They were coming into Dymchurch, when Henry had the idea. He turned to her, face suddenly flushed with excitement. “Why don’t you come and live at the house?”

  Liz looked askance at the farmer, shook his arm off her shoulders, and said, sharply, “What?”

  Holding his hands up like a mime, Henry protested and spoke quickly. “No, no. I-I didn’t mean—not like that, no. Look, Dick is moving to London soon and this bloke, Simon, is going to move in, help with the farm. Two men on their own, you know, we could do with a housekeeper.” He was gabbling and he knew it but couldn’t stop. “I could pay you a proper wage, and you could have Dick’s flat at the back of the house. It would be good for the kids and good for me to have some young life about the place. It’ll change us all. Come on, what do you think?”

  Liz didn’t answer. She took deep breaths and held them. Henry was being kind. That hurt a little. She didn’t cry but slowly released the air from her lungs. The guys were tying up at the dock. She waited, trying to see the future. Henry took hold of the stroller and began to wheel it off the boat. “Come on, Liz, I know a really good café in the town. I’ll buy you breakfast.”

  32

  Humiliated by a woman with plaits, Carter had just wanted to get away. He hated the island and all the trouble it had cost him, not to mention the money. Nothing had gone right since the first time he’d set foot on the place. He capitulated because there was nothing else he could do if he still wanted a daughter, and then, with the help of Amber and Simp, a deal was struck. It took a couple of weeks for the exchange to go through.

  Before Carter finally left the island with his product, D.C. had cornered him. “I’ve got something here you may be interested in.” He took a small, flat tin box from his shirt pocket. Inside was a slew of powdery crystals. D.C. said, “You should have a look at this. Got this from a mate, just come back from California. Calls it MDMA.”

  Carter eyed D.C. suspiciously. “Why would I be interested?” Carter had been taken by a bunch of yokels, and he didn’t like it; he’d accepted it, but that didn’t mean he wanted to be taken again.

  D.C. smiled. “Because it’s new. Well, it ain’t that new, actually.” He turned his head slightly away from Carter and looked about as though someone could overhear. “You know the Sharon Tate murders, by the Manson gang? Well, during the police investigation, the house was searched, and among the list of drugs found was grass and coke, speed and this stuff. So I don’t know how new it is, but things take time to trickle down to ordinary people, like acid did, do you get me?”

  Carter didn’t get him. He looked at the stuff in the tin. He didn’t like things he didn’t understand. It looked unnatural, almost like tiny crumbs of marble or mica or something. Carter sold simple, straightforward drugs—speed, grass, hash—and knew already he didn’t want what was being offered but asked the question anyway: “Why would I be interested?”

  It was obvious to D.C. “I could introduce you. You’d be in like at the beginning.”

  Carter thought about his money and about how much people like D.C. had cost him already. He shook his head.

  D.C. frowned. “Look, in ten years everybody will be taking this.”

  Ten years was a lifetime away to Carter; it didn’t compute. “Why?” he asked.

  D.C. snapped the tin lid shut and put it back into his shirt pocket. “Because it’s fucking lovely, that’s why.”

  When all the business was done, the island folk went pretty much back to normal: fruit and veg got picked, cows got milked, eggs got collected. To some it seemed there was a new ambiance, a fresh sense of togetherness among the islanders, but maybe not. To some, the new, all-smiling Henry was a bit hard to adjust to. When he showed his face in the fields or polytunnels, most of the casuals still expected a mouthful, but no, and after a couple of weeks settling in, Simon more or less took over where Dick had left off. He was big but his personality was calm. The workers took easily to him.

  After the showdown with the islanders, Carter and his boys were taken back to Dymchurch. Amber went along, not exactly for the ride but to mollify her father and help him come to terms with the loss of his only real friend and a big wodge of money. Amber spent a couple of days with him.

  When she went back to Dick, she laughed. “I still don’t know what hurt him most, Simp leaving or the money.”

  Dick moved to London with Amber that weekend. Simon stayed and visited with Henry. They walked the land and talked, and later, over cider and sandwiches, they came to an arrangement. It was easy. Both wanted and needed something other: another way. A few weeks after Dick left, Liz took over his flat at the back of the house and began housekeeping duties for the two men.

  Julie and John Newman spent a lot of time together working to set up the co-op with Petal. They claimed it took weeks. Sometimes they worked late and some nights when Petal wasn’t even there and Julie didn’t go home. Petal nudged her. “Blimey, Mum, now Dad knows, why don’t you move in? It’s like you’re there all the time anyway, and it’s a bit weird when you’re there and I’m there with Si.” She wrinkled her nose.

  Julie laughed. “Do I sense an ulterior motive here? Is it possible you’re thinking if I moved there, you and Si could�
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  Petal clapped her hands and said, disingenuously, “Move into the cottage? You’re so clever! What a good idea, I never thought of that.”

  The vicar and Postmistress P posted their marriage bands. There was a party for that. There were a few parties. Parties because the ferry was saved, because the island folks had pulled off a scam, because new friendships had been made and people like to celebrate. The main one, held in the street outside the post office, had half the island turned up, with barbecue and salads, bread, and soup, and lights like Christmas strung across the street, cake and coffee and cider, and smoke for whoever wanted it and D.C. with his tin of MDMA giving dabs to whoever wanted to give it a go—the kind of party where the islanders, young or old, boogied down to disco music. There was literally dancing in the street.

  Later, when it was over, some people went down to the beach and built a fire. Nothing much happened. People lay about and watched the fire, drinking, smoking, chatting. John Newman and D.C. were propped up on their elbows, side by side in the sand, sharing a joint. Across the flames, Petal and Si were cuddled together. Newman nodded across at them. “Look at them, eh? It’s good to see them together at last.”

  D.C. nodded without looking up. His wife and his best mate were moving in together and there was nothing he could say. His daughter and his best mate’s son were moving in together and there was nothing he could say. The total inevitability of life did his head in sometimes. It just rolled on regardless.

  Newman said, “He’s right for her, don’t you think?”

  Unable to avoid it, D.C. glanced at them, all loved up and wrapped around each other in a big blanket. Petal looked so completely happy. What could he say? What could he do? And what more, as a father, could he ask for? “Your right, mate, and Si is a good man, like his father, but with luck and a fair wind, Petal will manage to keep him off the straight and narrow.”