We both forced a laugh and he settled back in the boat, preparing to go.
‘That’s the first time I’ve laughed,’ I said, thinking don’t cry again, he’ll know you’re mad.
‘Will you come again soon?’
‘Oh, I ’spect so.’
‘Are they going to keep me here for the winter? How will you get to me? What’s going to happen?’
‘Don’t worry,’ he said, as he backed one oar, turning the nose away, ‘we’ll keep coming.’
‘Stephen,’ I said, suddenly, ‘if it gets bad and you need something, money – I know where...’ and now I hissed it, ‘I know where there’s gold! From the war!’
We held a gaze until he reached the boat. As the boat nudged it, just before he turned away, I saw him nod. He knew I saw.
So much to think about! When I had hauled everything up to the house I made a meal of chops. After, the light lasting, I went for a walk to discuss things with the birds. I dreaded the birds a bit, at the beginning. There were so many and they didn’t like me, until we got used to each other.
I greeted the Black Snappers: huge gulls which looked at you like breakfast. I thought of Uzma as I watched the Snake-Necks at their fishy business, and the Keep-Awakes all screeched like babies. The Bull Gliders recalled Ludo, and the Sea Parrots his people in their thousands. I met one of the three families of Chat Crows on my round. They know all about boom and bust, for all that their currency is ants. Out to sea there were Plungers, stuffing themselves on the big fish; they never went short. I bid them all goodnight and barred the door. I checked my pistol for the hundred thousandth, time.
When the dark came it brought Boblins, crazed creatures. If you could whirl a drunk ghost around your head you might hear the noise of the Boblin. A pair nested under the house and she laid one egg, which turned into a smudge with eyes called Ludo-the-Littler.
I put the pistol away, guilty that I should ever have played with it as I did sometimes. As well as the birds there were seals, my mermen and maids. No one would find a mess of me, shrunk black beyond decay: come the day when I could no longer face another I vowed to go swimming with them.
Several times that winter I took up the gun to scratch no itch at my temple, to suck the muzzle, to taste its metal tongue. Again I put it by. I grew a love of storms. I summoned them, taunted them on. Once or twice the house seemed about to go. Elated, terrified, I prepared to go with it in the only way you can – yelling mad. The quiet days, icy still, when to look at the sea was to freeze, I spent in reverie. The house was well insulated but I could run the diesel less than half an hour a day. Cooking gas I husbanded as if it were the last on earth.
The lights of the refinery at Milford mocked my amass of darkness, until one heavy dusk. It was around the end of February, I guessed – I had lost count. I glanced that way and saw that the lights were doused. How long? Less than twenty-four hours, I was sure. Was it a power cut? War? I rushed out to the cliff and peered the other way, towards St David’s and Solva. No lights there either! Only ships at anchor showed, their superstructures twinkling. Not war, then. In two hours of watching I made out the flash of a single car on the hill above Newgale.
It took me a long time to sleep and then it was only to wake again, to wake the way we used to in the war – suddenly up and pounding, as if you’d heard death step on a twig. The wind was coming from the land and I strained for what I thought it had told my sleep. Yes! And again! Small arms: two or three volleys and now nothing. War, then? Nothing persisted. Eventually I went back to my pile of coverings and burrowed in.
In the morning what could be seen of the world resembled itself. The crab potter waved, though he ignored my hails and attempts to gesture him closer. I pounded around in a wild frustration until I saw the lights of the refinery were back on, and one or two of the chimneys smoking.
The day after that there was a first warmth on the breeze and new birds around the island, little things blown in like confetti. I was up with the first of the sun, casting spinners. On my way home with two mackerel (neither much of a meal in itself) and coming down the High Road, a turfy track from the haunted ruin in the middle of the island, I caught it, chipper-chappering. It was too quick, scarlet, coming straight. I ran. As I made the house the monster was hovering a couple of feet above the parrot holes. The noise alone made me want to shoot it. I slammed in, dropped the fish and went for the pistol. The monster was closer. They meant to take the roof off, by the racket.
By God, I thought, there’s nine cartridges. Just a little closer, I prayed, peering over the sill in the living room. I’ll give the pilot two and the doorman two and save the rest for contingencies. I hope it doesn’t misfire. I hope it’s not Reda too, but whoever it is has made their choice.
‘Clip!’ boomed the voice through speakers, even louder than the hellish engine. ‘It’s me! Clip?’
I’ll kill you, I whispered. (I had not noticed when I had started talking to myself but it was a long old conversation now.)
‘Alright? Don’t shoot the chopper, we’ll need it!’
I’ll kill you Ludo, I giggled, ecstatic, ducking down. Just you bloody wait.
More noise, a crescendo to drown my curses, before it pulled away. Now nothing, in its diminution, save every bird on the island screaming. That made me even madder. I stood behind the door, listening. Surely he would not be so stupid... Five minutes I waited, then ten and there was nothing but the birds.
Some I-don’t-know-what, a beat in the air, decided me it was time, and I threw the door, took a step out, gun up, and he hit me, seemed to fall across me like a red bear. The gun was gone and I was tossed across the grass like a ball.
‘And a happy St David’s Day to you too!’
He had changed, I saw with shock, aged ten years in one. He’d got fat – all puffy, pallid. Soft. I up and threw myself at him.
‘Bastard, bastard!’
He didn’t move until the moment when he seemed to disappear. There was a blow to my kidneys as I fell past him, about a third of what it could have been, but it hurt.
‘Clip! Stop it now.’
‘You docky bloody thug, you murdering piranha, you shit you...’
‘What do you want me to say? It was this or the firing squad – you know it.’
‘You killed me anyway! You’ve killed me! I’m dead.’
‘You don’t look dead to me,’ he said, and smiled down at me with an affection that made me want to cry. I turned my back on him, kneeling there, and cried all the more because it was stupid to be so mortally embarrassed by my filthy clothes and my hair, which in the absence of mirrors was the only part of my head I could see, and which had grown very long, and not neat.
‘You look wonderful,’ he said. ‘You look great! What an advert for sea air. I’ve never seen you better.’
‘You look bloody terrible. Call your dog back and go away. You wouldn’t even let me have a bloody radio! You hateful, spiteful, lying – traitor.’
‘Enough!’ he shouted, and I heard him stamp up behind me. ‘This is a disgraceful way to treat a guest and friend. Particularly one with so much news! Get up now Clip and let’s have a cup, for goodness’ sake.’
‘You’re no friend,’ I said. But he had me – news! God, news... I’ll make him tea and get the story and when he’s comfortable I’ll put the flensing knife between his shoulders. The Black Snappers can have him.
Ludo looked at me strangely. ‘Right you are,’ he said. ‘If that’s the way you feel when you’ve heard me out I might even let you do it.’
‘Well – Hell!’ I shouted.
I ground my teeth while I made the tea, to make sure nothing else escaped. I banged it down in front of him.
‘Thank you. You’ve made it lovely in here, Clip! I like the sculptures.’
‘Found objects. Not sculptures.’
‘But doesn’t it take a sculptor to find them?’
‘Don’t soft-soap. I’ve had no soap for – eleven months.’
‘Well. You smell clean. Like the sea.’
‘You smell of lies and oil.’
He smiled quizzically. ‘Perhaps it’s a fair point.’
‘Don’t start telling me how lucky I am or I will kill you. What do you want?’
‘Do you mind if we walk, Clip? I’d love to see around.’
‘If you wanted bloody milk you should have brought some.’
He smiled.
‘People have changed, Clip,’ he said. ‘They walk with their heads down, counting. Not the blessings either, not the world. You could bring them here and they would see it, I suppose, but – they don’t seem to go about anymore. Can’t afford to, at lot, of course. They don’t look but in calculation. Their eyes are all turned in. It’s all gone to getting and spending. Getting, the millions who can’t, much. And spending millions, the few who can.’
‘Boo-hoo. Has Uzma…?’
‘Of course… you know. Stephen, was it? Yes, she has! A girl.’
‘A girl! A...! I send – my love. Tell her – it’s wonderful. Tell her I... Just – tell her.’
‘You could tell her yourself.’
‘You won’t get me like that again. Never.’
‘You know how it went after the war,’ he said, as if I had not spoken, ‘and how bright everything seemed.’ (Had it hell.) ‘And then when they took to competing faiths, some absolute for nothing, and the rest for nothing but the absolute, we settled that...’
‘By killing me.’
‘And Uzma, yes, and it hurt me, but you understood.’
‘Not really.’
‘Yes you did. And allowed it.’
‘Given no option.’
‘Indeed. And that should have been all. But then there was this crisis... did Stephen tell you?’
‘No, and I don’t care!’
‘A bank went bust, one rotten bank, we thought. You know how careful we were in the war. Where it came from, who was keeping track, how much we were spending, on what, how we could get it cheaper – I mean – we’ve been good at it since the beginning! Had to be. And everything was set so fair, after, with the trade, with the ports, with London especially, we were making bullocking billions. Everyone was riching it.’
‘You were.’
‘I was! So then this bank goes. Monday it’s shining, Tuesday dust – and a mob outside. They break in, find nothing worth taking, no one there. It didn’t even have a vault. That was scary – a bank without a vault! Anyroad, it was all gone. The ones with their names on the papers are off east and all the rest are still living it up in London. Another bank goes the same way, and another, until people start to say – well. They start to say it’s orchestrated. To kick out the ladder between top and bottom, to bust the rungs. To absolve the poor rich of the burden of the poor poor – that’s what they started saying.’
‘Atlas shrugged,’ I muttered.
‘Atlas gave the country a good bloody shake until anyone without a few million in Switzerland and a few million more in dry property fell clean off it, more like!’
‘Could it have been orchestrated?’
‘Officially,’ – he looked angry – ‘it was just a crash in the markets, a crisis of confidence in the currency. Everyone wanted ICU and the old pound was paper.’
‘What’s the rate?’
‘Five to one. On the black market, twenty-five.’
‘How’s the Treasury?’
‘Well, that’s it. It was piled with gold and ICU.’
‘And now?’
‘Gone.’
‘Gone where?’
‘Nobody knows.’
‘Someone does. What does Levello say?’
‘He says it’s been spent. Atlas – right! The bankers, the traders, the speculators, the bonus boys and getaway girls, the water barons and the big merchants have had it, he says. He says if we want to get it back we’ll have to wrestle a giant.’
‘What’s the giant?’
‘That’s the question.’
‘Why didn’t you let me have a radio?’ I asked, as we walked back.
‘It would have driven you crackers!’ (He caught himself, then hurried on, colouring.) ‘If you hadn’t been so good at pumping young Stephen you would have been happier – admit it. I would have had your stuff dropped off by chopper except we thought you might shoot it down.’
‘Where is my gun?’
‘Here.’
‘What’s for tea?’
‘Mackerel and bloody rice.’
‘Oh – my favourite!’
‘Get the rod then. I’ve only got two little spratty ones.’
‘Fishing! Fan-bloody-tastic! I haven’t been fishing for...’
‘Do shut up, Ludo.’
‘Decades and decades!’
‘What’s the blackout?’
‘Power-sharing. Because of the electricity prices? First off we published the schedules so people could prepare for it, but then the flimmin’ bandits – it all got out of hand... They did a right job on some of those towns. Nottingham, Cheltenham... it was like the good old days, Clip! Only I’m the bugger pulling down the curfews, now.’
‘What flimmin’ bandits?’
‘Oh, well. You know. All sorts. Villains and thugs and people who’ve lost their homes and such, and a lot of kids since the school thing, and the universities... I hate to bang them up but you can’t shoot them, can you? Of course when they fire at the police it’s... well, you can see why people are buying Guardbots. And we had to bring back hanging. For piracy. There’s no way round that. If the water can’t go out and the oil can’t come in – curtains.’
‘Sounds like it’s got past curtains. Sounds like an absolute disgrace.’
‘I’ve got a bite Clip! I’ve got a bite!’
‘Sorry, fishy.’
He battered its head on the rock, frowning. When it had stilled he smiled and held it up.
‘But they’re the most beautiful things, though! Look at that. Sea silver. Gorgeous!’ Then, with an anxious look: ‘Have you any butter?’
‘Do you see a cow?’
‘Only you!’
‘Yeah? Know what I see, do you? A king reduced to a bloody boy. I look for Ludo – I see the mockery of the man. I listen to you, I hear a shrugging, simpering, kid-killing incompetent. A poltroon. A roll-mop. That fucking mackerel would have done a better job. Don’t think of what we did. My bloody life... Don’t mind a few thousand bodies, a stinking sea of bodies from here to Ireland. All in all – what’s to mind? We did what we did. And for what? For shit in a fine shirt. For a stuffed-up dissipation. For the Peace Father! The Prince of the West – another good one. Another twat in a tall house with turrets, and a chopper. Lovely job, Ludo. A proper bank job. Make sure you never mind it. Take your fish and fuck away off.’
‘You’re right to be angry,’ said the top of his head.
He was looking down at a sea-parrot hole. There were silver threads in his red. ‘But I think I’ve had enough of the cold bath, now. Can you stop the histrionics, or have I come to the wrong island?’
‘Got someone on Skokholm too?’
‘Maybe!’ he grinned. ‘Maybe I have. Now, are you up for it? Or couldn’t you handle your year in heaven? Lost your famous grip? I didn’t think to find you so fragile. And skim off the curds, will you. It was kind, giving you all this, and clever too. So. Are you too far gone, or what?’
‘You’re madder than I am.’
‘Show me one ruler who wasn’t!’
‘Oh, Lord. Whatever. Is there... some sort of a plan?’
‘You know my brother. There’s always a plan.’
‘Go on then.’
‘How about you cook while I talk? We need our strength. And if that sun’s not just going down for a drink it must be time to pray. Join me?’
‘No, thank you.’
‘Right you are.’
‘Fantastic.’ He pushed his plate away. ‘I wouldn’t have sold that for gold.’ He looked at me. I looked away. ‘Not for a cac
he of gold from the war!’
‘He didn’t leave anything out, I take it.’
‘Not much! He’s my nephew. Caswallawn’s boy.’
‘Ah. I liked him.’
‘And he you. So. How’s your relationship with God these days?’
I thought about it, washing up. ‘I don’t – do it – formally, but I pray a lot, sometimes. Now and then.’
‘Living here... Must be like living with God, isn’t it?’
‘Very like. Wild as wind, busy as death, calm as the sound, and all at once.’
‘And the other world, between us and Him?’
‘The fairies and so on?’
‘Ireland’s not far, is it?’
‘We could tune into the Dublin news – if only we had a radio.’
‘So they are about then?’
‘The spirits? I should say. The island’s heaving with them.’
‘Do you think they like you?’
‘Tolerate. Sometimes I think they laugh.’
‘Any bad ones?’
‘I don’t know if they go like that. I try not to disturb them.’
There was a loud tin clatter – just plates settling by the sink, but Ludo kept steady eyes on mine and smiled faintly.
‘Have you heard the legend?’
‘What legend?’
‘About the island.’
‘How I am supposed...?’
‘Ah well, no. So. They say that there was an island, far to the west of the world, where no man would land. Nothing lived there but the souls of drowned sailors – God in Heaven! What was that?’
‘A Night Boblin! They’re back! Oh – maybe it’s... He’s back. How wonderful.’
‘Back from where? Hell?’
‘They go off when the winter comes. There was a nest under the house.’
‘I see. Well anyway, nothing lived on this island but the souls of sailors and a giant, a mad giant, because he lived there with all these soul-ghosts. If any boats came near he’d throw rocks at them. There’s one sticking out of the sea...’
‘I know it.’
‘Yes, so, the thing about this giant was, he knew the secret of souls.’
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