Ways of the Doomed

by McPartlin, Moira;

  ‘No, no one blown up, just some shingle and shells and debris that winks and blinks.’

  He shifted in his seat.

  ‘Lots of debris, I mean. There must be quite a few boats pass by here.’

  ‘Ships you mean, young Sorlie.’ He perked up and looked directly at me with his back to the dot.

  ‘No, boats.’

  ‘Passing boats,’ Scud murmured into himself.

  Then he looked at me and smiled and I smiled back and thought that I liked this new kind of communication. It worked well between us. And it meant that he did not know I had done very little to save him.

  ‘Won’t come in too far though. Ah wisnae joking,’ he said with his peculiar laugh. ‘The coastline is mined and netted.’

  I tried to look calm. I scrolled to an image of a curlew, similar to one I had seen on the beach.

  ‘On the beach, I wonder why the birds don’t get blown up.’

  ‘You can be really stupid fur such a clever boy.’

  ‘Well, why is it necessary to have such protection? You are only prisoners.’ I could feel my face redden, too late to hide my embarrassment.

  ‘Aye as you say young Sorlie, only prisoners, low life some would say. Who cares what happens tae us, we could hardly paddle fur another shore here in the middle o’ the Atlantic, oops ah mean the Western Sea.’ His voice had changed, low, less nasal, refined or affected, almost Privileged. He laughed again. ‘Maybe they’re scared someone’ll try tae break in tae the prison. Pirates!’ he added with wide eyes and jazz hands.

  ‘Pirates, is that who attacked the other week?’

  ‘Probably.’ He tapped his nose so I could see he was stretching the truth, only a code for his half-truth. ‘There are many pirates out there, hijacking large cargo ships. Ah’m sure they would just be having a bit o’ fun wi us. We aren’t worth anything tae them.’ He paused. ‘Well, not that they know of anyway. But maybe one of their numbers is here and they were attempting a breakout the other night. Pretty amateurish attempt though, eh? It would take more than pirates tae take over this island even with its poor defences.’ He looked at me with bloodshot eyes. ‘Have ye not done yer prison histories?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘Many, many years ago there were islands where prisoners were held, but these prisons were close to shore. Sometimes prisoners tried to escape and swam to the mainland. So they added a new defence.’

  ‘What sort of defence? The mines you mean?’

  ‘No, anyone can get past mines. No, every prisoner on these islands has a part of their brain removed disabling their ability tae swim. They sink. Genius really, the best defence the regime has against…’ He stopped speaking his eyes rolled back into their sockets and he started to shudder then fell to the ground. As I stepped towards him a voice roared. ‘do not touch the prisoner, do not touch the prisoner.’

  • • •

  So the guards hadn’t gone for a game of cards after all. They probably hadn’t taken their attention from us for long. Scud had told me quite a lot in that time but I wished he hadn’t gone on. It was a barbaric punishment. Just like the last time, after a few minutes he began to come round, he rolled over on his stomach and moaned. He lay on his face gurning for maybe five minutes, then got to his knees and climbed back into the chair.

  ‘Ask your guard,’ he croaked, risking more pain. He was shrivelled, like a dried piece of fruit past its sell by date. Whatever this dilution was Scud couldn’t take much more if he persisted in taunting the surveillance and subjecting himself to the additional distress of being zapped.

  ‘Right let’s get back tae yer lesson.’ He coughed. ‘What are ye going out tae find this afternoon?’ he said with an even voice, but as he reached for some water his hands trembled. After ten or so minutes he slid from the seat to the floor and crawled to the corner of the room by the window. His back arched like a cat ready for a fight but his head hung low between his shoulders and painful sounding rasps of breath snuck out from under him. As I rose from my seat to help, he lifted an arm and held his dry flaking hand up to halt me. When the breaths eased he straightened his spine, rolled off his knees and leaned against the wall. The urgency in his wide-eyed stare was more potent than his paper scrawl.

  • • •

  As I prepared for the arrival of Ridgeway to take me on my afternoon trip I couldn’t help replaying Scud’s words about the prisoners having their swimming function disabled. That was the moment of the zap, but he risked more to tell me to ask the guard. But ask him what? About the operation or about the pirates?

  Ridgeway arrived at my door just as I was sliding the small utility tool in my trouser pocket. I’d found it in the bottom of the holdall Ishbel had packed for me. It was an incongruous looking thing, shaped like an old-style phone some oldies still preferred in place of communicators, but I knew this multi-tool had scissors and a small pen knife as well as screwdriver and toothpick. It had lain in a drawer in our kitchen for as long as Ishbel had been with us and she had used it for small household chores. The reminder of home tugged my senses but I couldn’t deny it was a real prize.

  Ridgeway looked different today, not physically changed like Scud but in presence. It was as if he decided that he was in charge and that his status on the island was greater than it had been. His shoulders looked broader, his stomach less podgy. He almost carried a military air. I couldn’t help smiling at his pomp; he’d been taking lessons from Davie. I studied his face for any give away that my passport had been discovered, but there was none. When we entered the ante-room I was stunned to see the coat hanging, untouched, despite the telltale sign of the pocket dragged down with the weight of the passport. Ridgeway must be blind.

  Before he opened the door to the platform he said, ‘Are you ready for this? No swooning now.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well you almost had us both over the edge yesterday.’

  ‘It was the shock of the exposure,’ I blundered on. ‘I’m psyched up for it this time.’ And I was. There was no way this guard would have the pleasure of seeing me freak out again. ‘I’ll be fine,’ I said as I took in a lungful to prepare.

  We followed the coast in the opposite direction, but soon joined a familiar path. Despite his change in posture, Ridgeway was even slower than before. He winced as he climbed over a huge boulder on the path and I suspected this was his muscles telling him that they had other uses than sitting in front of a monitor. I took the opportunity to race ahead. He called out for me to wait but I shouted back, ‘It’s OK. I’ll wait for you at the junction.’

  I knew he would probably be a good bit behind me so once I was out of his sights I started to sprint. Despite everything I’d learned in the past few days I wanted to bounce. I leaped over culverts with more spring than was needed. I squealed at the chill when I splashed through mud puddles. I held my face up to taste the moisture in the air even though this was probably not the best thing for my future health. By the time I reached the junction I was grinning like a chimpanzee. I calculated I had a stretch of at least one hour over Ridgeway. Hunkered down between two boulders, it afforded me a good view of the path. The weather was damp but the rain compared to yesterday was lighter and travelling west. Even through my waterproof trousers I could feel the cold damp of the stones. As I pulled the packet from my pocket my heart jumped with more than the exertion of the run. It refused to slow. My hands shook as I pulled on the brown leaf booklet which had been placed in this biobag by my dead mother’s hand all those years ago. The hand that in my imagination had blown from her body, her ring spotted with blood. No, I blinked back the tears that stood in my eyes; there was no time for tears. They could wait for later.

  My grandmother Vanora’s hologram was top priority. I ruffled through the pages until I found that awful native image again. Without dwelling on this unreliable technology I peeled off my glove and with my thumbn
ail booted the passport to life. A menu flashed a map of names starting with my own, fanning out in chronological order through the generations of my ancestors. Despite my resolve I selected my own first. A hologram appeared on the slab of stone before me. It was me as I was one year ago; until coming of age all passport holograms are taken annually. I was small and puny; my hair had a faint tinge of copper but was mostly mousy brown. I took a certain pleasure in seeing how chubby this boy was, but maybe it was an illusion. Natives also had their holograms captured. There were set periods in the year when the under-aged were rounded up and carted off for the day. Ishbel had gone too, until a couple of years ago, so she must have some sort of false ID. Why the pretence? Why did she come back to enter our home as a native and put Ma in danger? Anger flared in me. Life was one humongous lie.

  I checked the path: no sign of the guard. The urge to view my parents’ holos was strong but time ticked. My grandfather was listed with his wife Vanora. I selected her. When she appeared on the stone, the air was knocked from my lungs. There before me, in my passport, a copy of which could be held in the government’s Department of Ethnicity, was the clear image of a native, my grandfather’s wife. There was no mistaking it, no blaming old technology. Red hair, green eyes, freckles; her height, one hundred and forty seven centimetres – tiny. I believed such small peoples died out in the last great plague. She turned to face me and smiled as if she knew I would see this. Her teeth were good, small pearls with only a tinge of staining. Her high cheekbones, that telltale feature that dominated in both mother and daughters (plural), were pushed higher by her smile. Smiling was never encouraged during hologram capture. I remember well the technician roaring at me because I couldn’t help but smile at my mother as she stood side-stage waiting for my image to be stored. And yet here was my grandmother blatantly smiling and I had the impression that the person capturing her image was enjoying her smile. She may even have been flirting with them. Gallus, my mother would have tagged her. How could it happen? How could a native be permitted to reach such a high position in the now disgraced Capital Broadcasting Corporation? I searched her records but there was no note of her death, nothing to say what happened to her.

  She was beautiful – for a native – and even though she was small she stood with great stature as if she were a high-ranking Privileged. It made no sense. I rubbed the DNA code next to her name. It was not possible that I had any of her DNA. She must have been an impostor. It was not possible that my mother had any of her DNA and yet the similarities could not be denied. Her smile was the smile of my mother. My mother’s eyes shone through Vanora’s eyes; even though Ma’s were blue like my grandfather’s, there was the same lazy dip of the left eye, the same creases around the corners, the same warmth. How could Ma be half native? She had been permitted to serve in the Military. And yet it was true she never reached the higher ranks she deserved.

  I turned to Ma’s image despite the pain it caused. Her face and stature were so like Davie’s, only a diluted version. Saliva flooded my mouth. Was this the reason my mother was chosen for a Hero in Death status? The word dilution took on a new meaning. She must have been tempted to destroy this passport but instead she gave it to Ishbel to give to ‘the old bastard’. She wanted me to know the full picture of my heritage but she wanted Davie to tell me.

  Why?

  Chapter Eighteen

  Vanora looked so full of life. What happened to her – dilution? This was becoming an impossible situation. My grandfather knew the truth of my heritage; he would know what happened to my grandmother, but asking him was a no-no because he was mixed up in all this dilution shit. My head was washed out thinking about it. Ma must have had some reason to suspect I was in some sort of danger otherwise she would not have risked exposing Ishbel. The only thing I couldn’t work out was whether the danger came from Davie or some other source. One thing I knew for certs – I had to get off this island.

  I searched the skyline for Ridgeway and there he was cresting the rise, a good yomp away. His progress down the path was similar to a ground tank on afternoon manoeuvres, howking divots from the soft verge with heavy tread. In a way I was grateful he was so slow, but the military in me couldn’t repress the irritation I felt. He was an embarrassment as government servants go. If he had been on our Base he would have been enlisted in the Last Chance Fitness programme, would probably fail, then bye-bye Ridgeway – transferred to Bieberville Border. It’s a mystery why Davie permitted such a slovenly approach. Still, who was I to complain? The slack he awarded me was useful.

  I stuffed the passport in my pocket and launched the map to trace the route with my fingernail. The track was part of a circular path that hugged the jagged coastline. I tried to match the map to the topography. There, only a few hundred metres away, was the path I took to the shore. What was I waiting for? If the boat was still there I could swim out and they would pick me up – guaranteed. And then I noticed it: propped on the cairn was a small pile of rocks marked in the form of an arrow pointing to the shore. This was no force of nature but manmade and I was as positive as a plus sign that it hadn’t been there the first time I took this path. The arrow was like a starting gun. I catapulted from my hiding place and crashed through the dead bracken. Ridgeway might have seen me but I didn’t stop. But what about Scud? What would happen to Scud and the others? Well, so what? Every man for himself, my pistoning arms and legs were telling me. Anyway, once I got to the mainland I could find Ishbel and she would rescue Scud. I was just a boy, how could I be expected to rescue them all?

  I scrappled down the scree to the cove. The boat wasn’t there. Rocks rubbled under my feet and I skidded to a halt just before I hit the shingle and the possibility of a mine. I dropped to my hunkers and bowed my head. The salt blowing off the waves caused tears to prickle my eyes.

  ‘No,’ I whispered into the wind. ‘No.’ Feeling some release with my words even though I couldn’t believe my chance at escape had evaporated within a day. I thumped my fists off my thighs. Should have taken the chance yesterday – idiot.

  Despite my despondency, the sea air released some of the pain of my captivity. I felt free yet I wasn’t. No way was I going back to that prison. I fingered the utility tool in my pocket and wondered if I could kill Ridgeway with the knife. As my fingers grappled to release the inadequate hilt I imagined the blade sliding into the blubber and being consumed before it hit anything of consequence. The eight centimetre blade would hardly scratch the surface. It would be like trying to harpoon a whale with a knitting needle. By the time it made any impression on him he would have me felled with one blow from his primitive paws. I kicked some shingle towards the sea, taunting it to explode. I trailed my feet on the walk back to a rock by the path and sat down to wait for Ridgeway to come and get me – if he could. With any luck he would break his neck on the way down. I knew I didn’t have the heart nor the equipment to kill him, so there I sat, waiting for him or his replacement to drag me back to the prison. Let them come.

  The mournful call of a seabird that circled above matched the keening of my soul. A curlew tiptoed on the shingle calling out my pain. It was free. I was not.

  • • •

  The day had been unusually dry but now a thick rain-band ripped its way towards the island. As I rose to tackle the steep climb back to meet the hapless guard, a hand grasped my mouth and I felt myself bodily lifted off the ground. What was he up to? I kicked and gagged and tried to bite the hand that smelled of putrid fish and a sick feeling hit my stomach. This was not Ridgeway. As my assailant dragged me away from the shore, I bit hard and heard a soft curse. My heels scraped the shingle, carving two deep ruts in my wake. Each time I twisted, fingers dug deep into my cheek and the arm round my body tightened. Daylight was left behind as I was dragged deep into a cave. I felt my bowels churn. Soon I’d be dead meat but the nauseating smell of the hand made me gag and it was this I fought. I worked my jaw free and bit hard again.This time I was released
but with the deftness of a ninja I was dumped on the ground, hands and legs bound in twine before I had a chance to find my feet.

  The first I saw of him was two ragged skin boots I was sure were poised to kick me if I hollered. I looked up at their owner, a beast of a man. He wore a patchwork coat of small skins fashioned into shape with looping stitches of gut. He groaned on stiff knees as he hunkered down to meet my inspection. Specked black and grey hair covered most of his face and neck, a matted beard framed lips ragged with salt, and a broad broken nose protruded from the mass of hair. The eyes that stared at me below thick unruly brows crinkled around the edges from many days of weather and laughter; they were clear and green, and bright as a thick carpet of forest moss. As they smiled at me a lump formed in my throat, not with the realisation that I was going to live, but with the familiarity of that smile. My planned shout for Ridgeway stuck in my thrapple.

  ‘What…?’ I croaked and the apparition held up a grubby finger to his lips, fingernails crusted with muck. My nose ran with the snot of exertion. The bindings cut into my hands as I struggled to free myself. The beast sat back on his heels and grinned at me, shaking his head and chuckling as if he couldn’t quite believe what he’d caught.

  ‘Who are…?’ The finger came up again.

  ‘No time for questions Somhairle.’ The voice was harled but gentle. I sank back against the cave wall. Not only did he use my name but used the Gaelic version.

  ‘How…?’

  ‘Shoosh, we have no time for questions, we must hurry. Ridgeway will be searching for you. He’ll be here soon.’

  ‘You know Ridgeway?’

  He ignored this question as he leaned forward and gently took the bindings from my feet and hands.

  ‘You don’t need these now that you’ve seen my face and know I mean you no harm.’ He smiled then and I could see those laughter lines spread almost to his temples. What could have been dimples appeared in the cheeks concealed under his beard.