The Comforts of Home

by Susan Hill

  ‘Breakfast. You should eat,’ Kieron said. The strain of the previous day shadowed her face.

  ‘Can we go straight to the hospital?’

  He made her have coffee but she stood up to drink it. A quarter of an hour later, they were in Simon’s room.

  He was sitting up, drips and lines everywhere, the machines beeping steadily. He was pale, seemed thinner in the face, but he was drinking from a plastic beaker through a straw.

  ‘One-armed bandit,’ he said. It didn’t sound like a joke.

  ‘I’ll leave you two for a bit, get a coffee.’

  But Serrailler held up his hand.

  ‘I know what you’ve come to say. Let me hear it.’ He sounded weary.

  ‘What am I going to say? You tell me.’

  Cat looked from one to the other, as if they were two small boys and she had somehow caught them quarrelling when they should be supporting one another.

  ‘Si …’

  ‘It’s OK. I just need him to spit it out, then he can go.’

  It was partly the drugs, partly pain talking, but she knew him, she knew his pride and his fury and knew that, as ever, he would rather have the worst hit him full on and at once.

  Kieron sighed, and went to stand close to the bed. He put out his hand and touched Simon’s shoulder with one finger, lightly.

  ‘Listen,’ he said. ‘You’ve a lot ahead of you. I don’t know the half of it and I don’t suppose you do either, not yet. But however long it takes, you’re coming back. DCS, full-time, as soon as they sign you off. No question, because you’re too valuable and there won’t be any restrictions on what you do. Do you understand me?’

  Simon looked at him for a long moment, then nodded.

  ‘Nothing else to say then. Focus on getting well.’

  ‘Chief.’ There was the slightest twitch at the corner of his mouth.

  Kieron nodded and went to find the canteen.

  Cat smiled. Kieron had got the full measure of her brother. It mattered, and from more than one perspective.

  She sat down beside the bed. ‘That was a real bugger,’ she said, ‘the worst luck. They can do the best but infection’s always a risk.’

  ‘It’s done.’

  ‘Do you want me to go through it with you or would you rather leave it to them? You probably should. They’re the experts.’

  ‘You’re not my doctor, you’re my sister. Let’s stick to that.’

  ‘Fine. End of. But you do know –’

  ‘– that you’re here for me if I change my mind? Yes, I do know. Thanks. There is one thing though – will I stay here or will they ship me home … or what?’

  ‘I don’t know, but the chances are they’ll discharge you from here once they’re sure the infection is under control. The antibiotics they’re giving you are pretty powerful and you’ll be taking them for a couple of weeks, but as tablets, so if the surgeon’s happy otherwise you won’t need to be filling up a bed. But you can’t be sent home.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘You’re resourceful, Si, but you’ve been through the mill. Being by yourself in the flat straight away won’t be an option. The best thing will be for you to come to us. I won’t make you stay an hour longer than necessary but I want to be sure you’re well before you go home.’

  ‘Yes, Doctor.’

  Cat felt a mixture of relief and worry. Immediate agreement to whatever she proposed about anything to do with him was not what she would ever expect.

  ‘Tell me honestly … how do you feel? I don’t mean pain, discomfort … all that, I mean … Si, you’ve lost your arm. Don’t dismiss the effect of that on you … your mood, your temper, the way you’re normally so at ease in your own body. Don’t bottle it.’

  He stared ahead of him and she could read nothing from his expression. Beyond the room, the usual hospital noises. She had loved her training years working in them but she had never wanted to have a hospital career and felt even more now that she had made the right decision. Patients came and went within days, sometimes hours, there was little chance to get to know them and none to follow them up. She was a people doctor. Neither surgery nor anaesthetics had held any charms for her, partly because of the lack of an ongoing relationship with the patients.

  ‘I won’t know how I’m going to deal with this until I find out what I’ll end up with,’ Simon said. ‘And what I’ll be able to do. Thank God it’s my left arm is all I can say now. Will you pour me some water?’

  As she put the glass into his hand, he looked her in the eyes.

  ‘I’ll tell you one thing though.’

  He held her with his look as he drank slowly. Cat waited, sensing that something important was coming, not wanting to push him, or embarrass him into staying silent. They talked often and sometimes he told her things, very occasionally gave out rare snippets and hints about himself, his feelings, but she was always conscious of the deeply private inner core of him which she would never be allowed to access. She had learned to respect it.

  He gave her the empty glass, but as he did so, took her hand for a moment.

  ‘You should marry the Chief,’ he said.

  One

  The last time Serrailler had come to the island, he had dropped down from the sky in a small plane. This time he approached by sea, on the regular ferry which brought him, a couple of other foot passengers and crates of supplies.

  Taransay was mole-brown streaked with gold in the sunlight. He had forgotten how small the only village was, a huddle of low-built grey-stone houses facing the water. Behind them, the road out was a pale line for a mile before becoming a track that wound up and around and away over the hill, where there were isolated cottages and a couple of farms. Otherwise, this was empty wild land. A few buildings sheltered in the sandy bays had been turned into holiday lets but once September had gone, they were empty and the islanders closed in for another winter.

  He sat on the deck. The sky was soft with cloud, but for once, there was only a breeze not a wind. If you wanted the exhilaration of gales, and to be brushed aside by their force, Taransay, with its neighbouring islands, was the place to come.

  As they rode the slight swell coming in to harbour, he had a strange sense of re-entering his old life, as if then he had been another man. It was nearly six years ago and might have been six hundred. He had been young. He had been fit, hale, whole, but he was not whole now, though the physical effects of having lost a flesh-and-bone arm and gained a prosthetic one had been far easier to cope with than the psychological ones. He was haunted by the loss of his limb. He dreamed almost every night that it was still firmly part of him. He felt diminished even while he was gaining in strength and dexterity and getting used to finding new ways to do old things.

  Seagulls formed a noisy, voracious pack following the boat as it turned in and began to nudge its way to safe berth alongside the quay. Simon stood up and stretched and then looked.

  One tall man. One only slightly less tall woman. And one small boy. They stood together. The men from the stores and the pub would be down to start unloading, once the Bright Lass had tied up and the gangplank had gone down, to let off the passengers. Simon wanted to leap onto the quay. He also wanted to turn his back and hide below deck until the ferry was ready for the return trip.

  Douglas had spotted him. Kirsty was waving. The small boy stood, hands in the pockets of his shorts. Looking.

  Douglas was first, reaching for Simon’s holdall and slapping him on the back. Whatever had happened between them in the past was indeed past, and when Kirsty took him in a close hug, it was natural, it was heartfelt, but most of all, it was friendly, and gave no hint of what had been between them several years earlier. And it did not appear to trouble Douglas a jot.

  ‘This is Robbie.’

  The small boy had mud-coloured hair, seal-grey eyes and a strong look of his father. He put out his hand and Simon shook it solemnly, aware of the boy’s close scrutiny.

  ‘Can I see your bionic arm?’ he said.<
br />
  ‘Robbie! What was the last thing I told you before we left the house?’

  ‘Not to ask him about his bionic arm, I know, but it’s too exciting.’

  ‘I’ll show you. Only not now.’

  ‘Why not now?’

  ‘Because my arm and I are exhausted after a very long journey by a car, two trains and a ferry.’

  ‘OK.’ Robbie climbed into the back seat of the Land Rover. ‘Only you will show me tomorrow, won’t you, when your bionic arm has had a wee rest? You promise?’

  ‘I do.’

  Robbie buckled his seat belt with a small smile.

  ‘If it suits you to come and have tea with us, I’ll take you to your place later,’ Douglas said, turning the old Landy onto the track that climbed steeply uphill. ‘Or would you rather drop your things there first?’

  ‘He wouldn’t rather do that, he would much rather come to our house now.’

  ‘Robbie, you mind yourself.’

  ‘He’s right though. I’d like that first.’

  The boy had not taken his eyes off him. He gazed at Simon’s left arm and hand, resting on the seat between them.

  ‘Look any different to you?’ Douglas asked, gesturing to the landscape.

  ‘Has it looked any different for a thousand years?’

  ‘Oh aye – a thousand years ago there were more people than sheep and crofts to match.’

  ‘It’s exactly the same as when I was last here.’

  ‘You haven’t seen our house yet.’

  But the house, too, looked the same – from the front, a low, cream-washed bungalow with a field around it and the hills behind. Douglas had lived here alone then. But when they got out of the car and walked round, Simon saw an extension, with a dormer above, tucked into the back of the house overlooking the sea.

  ‘We finally finished it last month. You know how it goes up here.’

  ‘See that? Look, Mr Simon, up there – that’s MY window. To MY own room.’

  ‘Wow, Robbie, what a lookout! You could spot smugglers and spies as well as birds and seals.’

  Robbie’s grey eyes widened. ‘Smugglers?’

  ‘You’ll need a good pair of binoculars of course.’

  ‘Och, I’ve got those.’

  ‘And a telescope would be handy.’

  The boy frowned. ‘I’ll have to ask about that. Anyway, it’s a good plan. If you like, you could be my assistant.’

  ‘Ah, Robbie, if only – but you need someone regular and I have to go back in a couple of weeks. I wouldn’t be much use to you.’

  ‘Still, while you’re here. We could –’

  ‘You could go and change your shoes and wash your hands before tea, that’s what you could do, Robbie Boyd. Away … go.’ Douglas was shifting a bag of gravel which had been left outside the door.

  ‘You’ve a fine boy there, Kirsty.’

  She smiled. ‘Aye. And there’s another one coming in the spring, but we haven’t told him yet. He’ll have to be well prepared – he likes to rule the roost here, does our Robbie.’

  Simon walked behind her into the house. Kirsty. She hadn’t changed. She was still the tall, friendly, careless young woman he had first known six years earlier, had a brief fling with, and taken Douglas’s crack on the jaw for his pains. Yet she wasn’t. She was a wife, a mother, an energetic member of the small community, all of whom relied on one another, especially through the long hard winters. She was no longer so fancy-free and careless, though she was still friendly, still had wild hair.

  He did not wish that he had taken her from Douglas for good. Life on Taransay all year round was not for him and the smallness and inward-looking habits of the island would drive him crazy. He wished them well and was glad they were bringing up their family here, the place needed all the young blood it could get. But he envied them too. Home. Each other. Little Robbie. Another child soon. A steady, settled life.

  He pulled off his boots before going into Kirsty’s snug new kitchen, with the sea beyond the window and the range sending out a comforting warmth. Even when the sun shone on Taransay stoves and wood fires were needed.

  ‘I’m sitting next to you, Mr Simon.’

  ‘Yes, Master Robbie and you mind your table manners and no cheeky questions or you’ll be away to your bed.’

  ‘Can you hold the fork with your bionic hand?’

  ‘Robbie …’

  ‘No, it’s fine, Kirsty. Yes, I can – I can do a lot of amazing things with this one, but in a few months I’m getting an even more amazing one and then I’ll be able to sew on buttons and scratch behind my ears.’

  The prosthesis was as comfortable as it could be for now. He had had months of physiotherapy, and there would be more, plus lessons in how to use the state-of-the-art new one. In time, he would be fully accustomed to it, he had been told. It would be almost as familiar, and use of it as instinctive, as his right arm. Almost. He had been told something else. ‘It isn’t all about the mechanics of your limb,’ Alex, the physio, had said. ‘Or even about your brain training itself to cope with all the small differences between your own arm and this – which it will. It’s about mental attitude. Acceptance.’

  ‘Positive thinking?’

  ‘More a case of no negative thinking. It’ll come, Simon.’

  And he knew that the process had begun. Physically, it had begun well. The psychological challenge was harder, as Alex had known it would be. He had worked with enough returning military, armless, legless, and all combinations thereof.

  ‘The body is willing. It’s far easier to work on than the mind, which often isn’t. And that’s not my area of expertise.’

  He had been more than willing to work with Alex for as many hours as were needed. He had trained, pushed himself, been surprised by his own progress. But when it came to his mental attitude, he had resisted appointments with counsellors from within the police force, and from the rehabilitation team, though he knew he was wrong.

  They ate grilled fish from that day’s catch, chips, and beans from Kirsty’s thriving vegetable garden. Fresh produce was hard to come by on the islands unless you grew your own – and growing your own was not easy, with a short summer, a difficult soil, and a more or less permanent wind off the sea.

  Robbie grew very quiet, once the apple crumble had been eaten and the Orkney cheese and oatcakes attacked. He slid down a little in his chair and did not move.

  ‘Right, young man, I know your tricks. If you stay still you’ll become invisible. Ten minutes more. Simon, would you have a cup of coffee and a dram?’

  The ten minutes passed, and Kirsty pointed at her son. Without a word, he got down and came round for a last, fascinating look at Simon’s limb.

  ‘Tell you what, Robbie. After school’s out tomorrow, why don’t you come over to see me and then I’ll show it to you properly and how it works – the lot? It’s good you should understand.’

  The boy hesitated, then, instead of the handshake, gave Simon a hug, his touch as brief and light as a cat’s, and shot away to bed.

  Two

  Early the following morning, and still cramped and stale after the long journey, Simon set off across the island, climbing the single-track road that led to the hill more or less in the middle. From there, the road descended again, and, because few lived on this side of Taransay, it was stony and narrow, untended.

  After four miles of steady tramping, he began to climb again towards the cliffs above the wilder sea. Looking down, he could see a long sandy bay. Gannets and kittiwakes clung to the rock face, occasionally soaring up and plunging back to their ledges again. Ahead, there was only the sea, which, on this side, was never calm, never quiet. The great rollers piled in one after another, foaming in a long white line onto the shore. He could not have heard himself speak above the crashing of the sea and the racket of the birds. But there was no one to speak to.

  He sat on an outcrop and looked for a long time. The sky was milky, the air fresh but not cold. And there was a wind. Alwa
ys a wind here.

  He did not know if it was the most beautiful place he had ever visited – perhaps not. But it was closest to his heart now. He loved the solitude, the wildness, the constant shifting of clouds and sea and coarse grass, the rise and fall of the birds. The way it absorbed yet remained quite indifferent to his presence.

  The other side of the island was softer, more sheltered, lower to the water, though the gales could still howl and roar, and the sea be rough enough for the boats to be marooned in harbour for days and the ferry crossings be suspended.

  Could he live here? All the year round, when it was dark at three for months, in a place where dark meant black? All the year round, when one could be trapped in by the weather for a week or more? Electronic communication was good now, they could contact the outside world as easily as anyone living on the mainland, but that only meant words, written or spoken, flying to and fro across cyberspace, not close human contact.

  And yet, he thought, peering down as the sun came out and glanced and glinted on the surface of the sea and he saw the heads of three seals bobbing up close to the beach, and yet …

  The seals disappeared so suddenly that he looked to see what had startled them and made out a figure walking along the shore close to the water’s edge. It was a woman wearing waders and a full-length mud-coloured waterproof, the scarf tied round her neck concealing most of her hair. She walked steadily, taking long strides, looking down at the sand. After a moment, she bent down and picked up something, examined it, and then slipped it into her pocket. A little further on, she did the same again.

  A beachcomber, then, and perhaps there were good pickings where the sea left a line of stones and debris as it sucked back. The tide was going out fast, as it did here. The woman walked on. She had not seen Simon. He did not move. Before long, she was out of sight round an outcrop of rocks and the seals had surfaced again.

  Three

  ‘One minute.’

  ‘Ready.’

  Felix came thundering down the stairs. Grey shorts. Grey blazer with the sky-blue piping that denoted a cathedral choirboy. No cap. Caps had been dispensed with at the beginning of Sam’s time at the school.