The Invisible Hand

by James Hartley

  “Name?”

  “Cauldhame,” replied Sam automatically. He didn’t know where the word had come from. The same place as his voice, he imagined.

  “Ach! No, you’re joking?” The bearded man held the torch so close to Sam’s face Sam was sure he could smell his own eyebrows burning. “Rab Cauldhame?”

  “The very same.”

  “With Ross on the battlefield, were ye?”

  “Right enough I was,” answered Sam. He wasn’t sure what he was saying but the words seemed to form without him thinking too much about them. His voice was his own, but deeper. As before, Sam was strangely calm about all this.

  “Well, he’s gone aheed,” the soldier informed Sam, sniffing. “As should ye, like.” The stocky soldier rubbed his broken nose as he pondered what to say. “But first I need hands, that’s true enough. There’s work tae be done here, still.” He turned and gestured towards a lonely looking path which disappeared into the smoggy darkness. “Here’s what ye’ll do, Rab. Ye’ll go doon the sooth shore and scoot for bodies. Bring up any ye find. After that ye can make yer ain way hame.”

  “Aye,” nodded Sam. He’d understood that he had to go to the coast but little else.

  “Here.” The barrel-chested soldier took a bound stick from one of his men, lit it with his own torch and passed it to Sam. “Watch yourself for stragglers, eh?”

  Sam took the flaming torch and nodded. “Right, y’are.”

  “God save the King, Rab.”

  “Aye. God save the King.”

  The soldier turned back to the hospital cart and Sam heard him begin shouting at his next victim to wake up and get out. A shadow rose behind the dirty canvas and a groggy voice began remonstrating.

  Sam walked off down the narrow path as he’d been told to, his torch raised high above his right shoulder to light the way. The ground was firm and flat and sometimes bright eyes shone at him from the darkness before disappearing in a blink and a rustle. After ten minutes’ steady walking he found himself at a cliff edge.

  He was above a wide open bay, the sea twinkling out to where a strip of land on the other side lay smudged and obscured by cloud, rain or the night. The sky was coming grey and Sam guessed it was early morning or twilight. Either way he was glad of his torch as he began to scuttle down the steep scree slope, avoiding rocks and crevasses, side footing his way through the dirt and pebbles until he reached the mushroom-like, sea-smoothed rocks which formed a barrier at the top of the beach.

  Before he’d had the chance to think about which direction to start off in, Sam heard a woman’s voice cry out from somewhere near the low waves dead ahead. Walking out onto the wet, dark sand, Sam saw there was a body on its back in the wrinkling wash. A figure, a woman, rose from beside the body and cried out for help in the same voice he’d heard. Together she and Sam got the dead man up onto the drier sand but it was obvious the wretch was dead. The corpse’s face was pale grey and there was seaweed hanging out of the buttonholes of his jacket.

  “Are ye with the Thane’s men, sir?” asked the woman. She was wrinkled and sad.

  “Aye.”

  “Oh, God be with ye, sir. Help us afore the wreckers come, wiw ya? Be a good soul.”

  The woman began slipping the rings off the man’s fingers and searching the pockets of his coat. Sam was startled by her violent attempts to tear out one of the dead man’s earrings. As soon as she had her booty, the woman’s face changed. Her black teeth flashed and before Sam could say anything she was off across the sand, leaving small indents which filled with water before they dried.

  Sam looked down at the body and out to the sea. Down here the water looked anything but inviting: toffee brown where it rolled in as waves, oily and sharkish where it jagged and chopped against itself out in the bay. The wind was coming up. The taste of rain was in the air. The sky grumbled and the slate-grey clouds passing fast overhead tore apart and reformed in a dance of confusion and Sam thought: What grim place is this? Why am I dreaming I’m here?

  Looking back towards the cliffs he could see torchlights moving along the rocky summits and remembered his own torch, now only a stick again, extinguished and useless on the sand where he’d dropped it when he’d run to help the old woman.

  In his heart Sam felt strangely safe. His spirit, too, was enveloped in a feeling of invincibility and he thought: I don’t know why I’m here but if I keep coming back there must be some reason, some reason I don’t know about. I’m only dreaming. I’m only dreaming. And so he decided to press on, crouching to haul up the body of the drowned man and trudging back up to the dry sand with it draped around his neck like a macabre scarf.

  Night was falling now, Sam was sure of that, and cold, changeable winds were beginning to rake the beach. Their snouts and tails cuffed up the loosest sand and whipped it fiercely about. Not being able to see the cliffs anymore, let alone a way up them, Sam thought he saw twinkling lights further down the coast and pressed on despite the conditions. A few minutes later he saw the golden glow of a house which seemed to be cut into the rock and forced himself up the slimy stairs to kick at the wooden door.

  Nobody answered.

  The wind was almost as loud as the sea now, a raging sea which Sam could hear at his back. Before him, the yellow windows of the house peered out from the steep, dark cliff-face. In desperation he kicked out at the wooden front door again, as hard as his numb feet would allow.

  Turning, exasperated, ready to throw the body off his shoulders and into the sea, Sam saw the most beautiful face he’d ever seen in his life staring back at him from behind a thick glass pane at one of the golden windows. It was a girl, about his age, modestly dressed in a shawl which she lifted to cover her nose and mouth as he watched. Her hair, where he could see it, was a rich, chocolate brown. Her eyes were amber. Her skin was pale and somehow infinite.

  “Help me,” Sam shouted. He turned on the step so the girl might see the face of the man he was carrying.

  When he looked back the girl dropped the shawl and mouthed, “Leave him there and go. I beg ye, leave him there and go.”

  Sam looked into the girl’s eyes and could see everything. She was afraid. Someone was in the house with her and she couldn’t open the door. They thought he was a wrecker. They were scared of enemy soldiers. They knew the dead man but they wanted nothing to do with Sam. Something in the girl’s eyes, something about her, a strong feeling he couldn’t well describe, but which was stronger than the wind and the waves and danger, made him to do as she said. He left the body on the upper step and, after one final backwards glance, stepped down to the beach and turned into the wind.

  Sam didn’t look back.

  He would walk as far as he could. Perhaps he would try to climb the cliff.

  But the black tide was coming in and soon he was ankle-deep in the freezing waves. They sucked at his ankles and drowned his boots. From time to time he slipped and bruised his wrists and knees. His hands and feet might not have been attached to his body for all he could feel of them. Walking beside the sea that night was like walking next to a vicious creature, something from the underworld, which was snapping and snarling and threatening to devour him, and it took Sam a great mental effort to ignore it and keep moving forwards.

  When he could go no further and was tired of wading and swimming, tired of being buffeted against the rocks and swallowing seawater, Sam tried to climb as far as he could up the cliffside. He found a small ledge and curled up in a ball as the icy spray lashed his wet back.

  He thought of the girl’s face. The vision he conjured up warmed his soul.

  5

  Game Afoot

  “And we’ll finish the second half on Thursday,” Mr Firmin was saying, rubbing his gnarly hands in a knot.

  Sam opened his eyes and quickly, self-consciously, wiped up the drool which had escaped and stained the arm of the old sofa. Beside him Walt Schulberg was stretching and blinking in the light as the wooden shutters were folded over and bright, sunny daylight stre
amed into the common room.

  “Sir, can we stay here now instead of going back to class?” one of the girl boarders asked.

  “If you’ve brought your books and all your kit with you, I don’t see why not.”

  “Lunch,” Walt sniffed. “Perfect. I’m starving.”

  “I just had the weirdest dream,” Sam murmured, but no one was listening. He wasn’t sure if he was happy to be back at school or sad because the girl he’d dreamed of was just that: a figment of his imagination.

  “Sir, next week can we see Macbeth II?”

  “I didn’t even see this one.”

  “Go on!” Mr Firmin cried, pretending to try to kick one of the boys on the behind. “Move it, you horrible lot.”

  Out in the creaking corridor the boys tried to catch a glimpse into the girl’s boarding house but the only thing they saw was the housemistress scowling back at them from behind the wire of the fire door. Miss Bainbridge had an unlit cigarette hanging from her mouth. “Scoot!” she mouthed as the boys watched.

  The class clumped down the old wooden staircase and fell into a reverent silence as they came to the first landing. At the other end of the well-trodden lime-green carpet they were walking across lay the Headmistress’s office. Two glum boys stood with their hands in their pockets outside the closed door and both turned and pretended to look at the aerial photographs of the school on the walls as the class filed by.

  “Straight in to lunch?” asked Walt as they came down into the fire-lit main hall.

  Sam nodded. “Definitely.” But his eyes were drawn up to the list of names of Head Boys and Head Girls running around the boards under the high ceiling. One stood out, immediately catching his eye: WATERS, ENID, 1941–42.

  Before Sam could read any more, or stop to think about what he’d seen, Firmin was at their backs hurrying them along. The class broke out through the back doors and merged into the queuing throngs impatiently waiting to be admitted to the dining room.

  Lunch was dull but Mr Grey’s geography class, which followed, was even worse.

  It was a blustery October day and Sam’s world was a miserable place. One of the heaters in the classroom wasn’t working and a kind of creeping cold sneaked its way into Sam’s bones as he sat trying to concentrate on coastal erosion in Lanark. Every time he closed his eyes he saw the girl’s face imprinted on the darkness in his mind and he couldn’t help thinking: Will I ever see her again? She had seemed so very real.

  The last class of the day was a grim, gruelling double dose of physics. Although he’d managed to somehow wangle his way into the top group in maths and English, in each of the sciences Sam was in the lower group, which meant two hours of staring out at the drizzle whilst listening to the teacher becoming increasingly frazzled by the refusal of half the class to be quiet and listen.

  In the top groups most of the students were like Sam. They were fairly well behaved, ultimately afraid of their parents and interested enough to try to do well in the subjects they studied. Here in the lower groups there were a few lost souls like Sam trying to make the best of things but there was also a hardcore group of boys and girls for whom everything was a joke. Some of them, as the teachers never tired of telling them, were clever enough to get away with this kind of behaviour and still pass their exams, but the majority, they never tired of warning them, would suffer as a result of such behaviour and spoil their chances of success in life.

  These laughing, unafraid, rebellious students had fascinated Sam from the first day he’d arrived at the school. The boys had a strange hairstyle all of their own, a kind of crash helmet design, long at the sides and short at the back. It was ugly and dumb-looking but they wore it with a defiance that made it threatening and cool. The girls wore their hair however they wanted but signalled membership of the tribe through their make-up. Mascara patterns swirled off the corners of their eyes and swooped and looped in paisley patterns across the bare skin towards their hair. The most intricate designs stretched right up to their ear lobes.

  To these people, Sam was invisible. He watched them and was impressed by them but they were like ants going about their business while he stood staring. Like ants, they had no idea he was even there. Sam, ultimately, was what they might call a “square”. He was quiet while they were loud. He was shy while they were proud. Sometimes he felt like he was watching life slip by while those people, dumb as they were, seemed to be actually living it.

  That night in Prep he tried to draw pictures of the girl he’d dreamed about because he was starting to worry that he was forgetting what she looked like. When he closed his eyes he could see something, someone, but he wasn’t sure if it was her anymore or just an idea he had of her; the her he thought he could remember. A bald, dome-headed teacher in a scarf and hat knocked on the window and Sam looked up. Mr Larkin pointed at Sam’s drawing and shook his head, wagging a finger. Sam nodded. Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.

  Everyone in the room turned to look at him. It was dark outside and the window reflected the buzzing classroom strip lights. The wind, when it came, rattled the old wooden panes. The sixth former sitting at the front desk was glad to not have been caught playing with her phone. “Back to work everyone.” She yawned.

  Sam waited a few minutes before stretching up to peep out through the window again. On the other side of the foggy Quad he could see Mr Larkin peering into a different glowing window. Sam opened his notebook and began sketching again.

  What if I dream of her tonight? It’s been two nights now.

  Yes. That’s what’ll happen. I’ll dream of her again tonight! I’m going to see her again!

  By the time he finally got back to St Nick’s Sam was ready to get into his pyjamas and turn the lights out right then and there. He hadn’t been as excited about going to bed since Christmas Eve as a kid. He queued for toast and watched television with one eye on the clock. Finally, when the duty HP came into the common room to give them their five-minute warning, Sam could hardly contain his impatience and excitement.

  See you soon. See you soon.

  In bed he lay listening to the seemingly interminable racket of creaking springs and chattering voices until, finally, painfully late on, the quiet of night descended.

  The tawny owl in the oak whose branches spread high over the House roof hooted from its secret perch. From time to time rogue gusts of wind made the great trunk creak and buffeted the prefabricated walls.

  It took Sam a long time to fall asleep. He heard coughing. He heard snoring and muttering and teeth grinding. One boy in Dorm Three sat up and began screaming in Hindi. Sam’s arms hurt from lying on them. He needed to go to the toilet but knew he couldn’t. Finally he went, hating the walk there and back. He lay on his back. He thought of nothing. He thought of home. He thought of schoolwork.

  But the magic happened, as it always did, when he wasn’t expecting it.

  6

  What We Think, We Become

  Canvas cracked back and forth in the wind like a sail. Sam felt cool air on his face and perceived light on the other side of his eyelids. “Top o’ the morning t’ ye, Rab,” declared a silhouette which appeared in front of him as his eyes flickered open.

  Sam pulled himself up onto his elbow and put his hand to his brow. “To ye the same.”

  “Ye took some blows back there, all right, Robbie, my man. We weren’t sure you’d make it there for a wee moment o’tae.” Sam looked into the face of a blond, smiling man. Emerald eyes twinkled from the scarred but handsome face. As he stared at Sam a hurt look crossed his face. “You dinnae remember me, do ye?”

  “I’m not even sure who I am,” Sam answered honestly, and this seemed to satisfy his companion, who laughed loudly.

  “Well ye’ve tae thank yer sister here for nursing ye back tae health,” the soldier declared, nodding over Sam’s shoulder.

  Sam turned and saw the girl. She shone brighter than the daylight. “Aye. Right y’are.”

  “I did nae ken ye had a sister, Rab.” The soldier laug
hed. “Ya kept that tae yerself, eh?”

  The girl of Sam’s dreams, truer than life, now smiled at him, bowing her veiled head modestly. “Oh, Rab.”

  “Well I’m sure we’ll be seeing ye both somewhere further doon the line,” the blond soldier concluded. “A good morning to ye.” He bowed, the weapons hanging from his belt jangling, and left the tent.

  Sam smiled, turning to lie on his stomach. “Hello again.”

  “Hello.”

  “You know I have to tell you something. I wasn’t lying. I really don’t know who I am. Or where I am.”

  “Here.” The girl offered him her bent elbow and helped him up off the hard bed. Sam was sore and weak. “Can you stand?” she asked. She spoke with a different accent from the men. Softer. “Your knee was very damaged. Step slowly, now. Try to charge it with your weight.”

  As they moved with very small steps towards the sunlight, Sam asked, “Where did you find me?”

  “On a ledge on the rocks by my master’s house.”

  “And who brought me here? You?”

  “Yes. My master wouldn’t have you in the house.” The girl pulled back the flapping canvas and Sam took in an impressive scene: ranks of soldiers carrying flapping standards and colours, some in armour, some mounted, some pushing war-machines, all lining up in formation under a high, clear, cloudless sky. Around the army was a colourful circus of women, children and animals. The smell of cooking wafted in from the campfires. “I was only there for the night, anyway. I was happy to have an excuse to leave.”

  “In that case, I’m happy to have been your excuse.”

  The girl smiled and it was beautiful. “We were put up by the local people after the battle. But it’s good to be back here, with everyone.”

  “What is this place?” asked Sam, in awe.

  “The King’s camp. We’ll ride on to Inverness when you think you’re able. Everyone is leaving this morning.”

  Sam looked at the girl, at the reflection in her eyes, and wanted to close the gap between them. It was difficult to know what to say. “What’s your name?”