‘We need your help. That’s why you’re here.’
‘We…?’ I didn’t understand. He held up his hand
‘Unspeakable things are happening on Black Rock. If the experiments succeed, who knows where it will end.’
‘What?’
‘Didn’t Scud contact you? About the dilution?’
‘Who are you? How do you know this?’ But I already knew. Find Him. It seems I had found him.
‘I’m Kenneth and I am your kin, Somhairle.’
‘Kin? In what way are you my kin?’
‘There is no time to explain the whole story now. You must trust me. We need your help – there is no one else. You must go back.’
‘Why should I trust you? If you are my kin you can help me escape.’ I pointed to the cave opening. ‘The boat. Did you see the boat? Is that your boat?’ I began to stand. At last I could get away. ‘I’m not going back. You can’t make me.’
‘Escape. Why do you need to escape? You’re with Davie, your grandfather. He’ll not harm you.’
He was too familiar with my life. My hand moved to where my passport was hidden. ‘Davie’s going to kill me.’
I saw his eyes follow my hand, then recognition passed over his face.
‘What do you have there?’
‘Nothing.’ I folded my arms round my waist.
‘Oh, you know, don’t you?’
‘Know what?’ I could hear my voice rising. And where the snaf was Ridgeway?
‘About your beginnings.’
I got up to leave, this caveman was freaking me. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Vanora.’
How did he know? No one should ever know. ‘It’s not true,’ I said. ‘Vanora is an impostor.’
He put his hands on my shoulders to stop me. ‘Listen, Somhairle. You have no trace of a native about your appearance and neither did your mother.’
‘My mother? How do you know my mother?’
‘You are so like her. How do you think your mother managed to serve in the Military? How have you survived all this time as a Privileged? Your grandfather has manipulated both official passports with the authorities; he has managed somehow to bribe your heritage away from the records. Your grandfather cares for you.’
‘Oh yeah? Well how come I have to hide the passport from him?’
‘You have two passports. An original true passport was retained by Vanora and passed on to your mother. She would want you to know the truth. Even so your grandfather would never harm you.’
His eyes held the truth, but my heart told me he was misguided and wrong.
‘How can you say that? You don’t know how he looks at me. Sometimes he looks at me as if he hates me. He’s going to kill me.’
‘That won’t happen. He knows the consequences and Ishbel would have reminded him.’
A shiver that was chillier than the cave ran through me. I remembered Ishbel’s words.
‘How do you know Ishbel? Where is she? When is she coming back for me?’
He pressed two fingers to his lips as if holding his next words in his mouth for inspection before spilling them. ‘Yes I know Ishbel, but she is not coming back. Not yet. You must return to the prison, Somhairle. We need you to help us free the prisoners from the experiments, from their hell. It’s almost time.’
‘Time for what?’
His nose darkened in a blush.
‘I don’t know, but it will be soon, I know it will. And we will know when it happens.’
‘This is mental, I’m not going back. Why should I do what a crazy caveman tells me when you don’t even know what’s going on?’
‘You must.’ He looked panicked now as if it was his life that depended on it. ‘Try to access his computer, find the process for the dilution. There is no surveillance in his study. He won’t suspect; to him you are only the grandchild he wants to educate. You know you can access that ancient machine. Scud will help you.’
‘Scud again. I’m not going anywhere until you tell me how you know all this. How do you know Scud and Ishbel and my mother? Who are you?’
He sighed in reluctance, saying, ‘I am your uncle, your mother’s brother.’
‘No!’
‘Yes, I’m Vanora’s son – cast out for resembling a native too much.’ He touched my head with his hand like he had turned into some ancient prophet with this staggering admission. ‘Go now quickly.’
‘No!’ I screamed. ‘Tell me!’
‘Shush.’ He put a hand on my shoulder and looked me in the eye. ‘Soon, I promise, but not now. You must go back until it is time.’ He turned me to face the entrance. ‘Now go.’
‘No!’ I was whispering though I don’t know why. ‘You can’t just throw me out after telling me you’re my uncle. I want to know what’s going on. My mother, she was your sister, Davie, your father. Does he know you’re here?’
‘No, Davie is not my father, your mother was my half-sister. Vanora gave birth to me when she was very young. Too young to look after me.’
‘Who’s your father then?’ I asked, even though this crazy man was making this up.
‘I don’t know. She would never tell me. His DNA is missing from my passport, but as you can see from my appearance, I have a fair bit of native in me.
‘Vanora met your grandfather while he was at University, but you probably know that. Unfortunately Vanora kept my existence secret from him until after they were married. I can understand why she did that. Davie always had ideas of grandeur and the classes in the old country were well divided. At that time the United Kingdom was going through continued periods of weak government. Davie was a member of the newly formed Nationalist Pure Blood League that would eventually become the Purists.’ Kenneth shook his head again. ‘Their extremist policies painted a clear line to the way things would turn out.’
‘When Davie found out about me he almost murdered my mother. I must have been only about ten, but I remember when she came home to my grandparents’ house, beaten and bruised. She was expecting Kathleen.’
I felt my heart leap at the mention of my mother’s given name.
‘They wanted her to go to the police, but she refused. It probably wouldn’t have done any good. In this country the discrimination against folk like my mother was already pretty institutionalised. She stayed with her parents for a while and then went back to him. The gods only know why.
‘I was lucky, I suppose. I was a top grade student and because of my mother’s senior position in broadcasting I could afford to go to university when I was only sixteen. Wealth then could get past the discrimination.’
‘And Ishbel…?’
His smiled through his thatch. ‘Ah, so you know about Ishbel – good.’ Then his eyes filmed over and there was something like anger in them. ‘Look, there is no time for this. You must trust me – I am your kin. I’m one of only a handful of people who care for your well-being.’ He pushed me from the cave and screamed a call, almost like that of a corncrake. It would be sure to bring Ridgeway to the cliff edge so I had no option but to leave or reveal his hiding place.
I blinked in surprise at the daylight after the dimness of the cave and as I looked back I saw only a gash in the rock, indiscernible from the unwelcoming cliff face. It was as if I had imagined the whole episode. But of course I hadn’t. So much had happened in the last few minutes and out here everything was as it should be. The sea still sifted the shingle, the clouds scuffed the grey sky. It should have been different, felt different, after what I had just learned, but the world was the same. And after a brief sniff at freedom I remained a prisoner on an island full of prisoners. Freedom, that place Pa first told me of, was not for me. I had found an uncle which meant nothing when you were still alone. What would Pa have wanted me to do? He was an honourable man and he too would have wanted the prisoners saved.
Kenneth looked much older than Ma, but the resemblance could not be denied. Had he cared for her when they were small? Did she look up to him as I knew younger siblings did? She would have wanted me to help him. And his words – almost the same as Ishbel’s. How could I turn my back on one of the handful of folk who cared for my well-being?
My head hung heavy, dragged down by grief. The memory of my parents still as raw as the salt air that nipped and reminded me I was a sixteen-year-old orphan with a newfound dysfunctional family. What could I do that Kenneth couldn’t? He was kin and yet no matter how that truth made me feel, he was not my mother or father. Nothing on this earth could replace them.
I started up the steep path conscious of my long absence and yet that call of Kenneth’s had not brought the guard crashing down the slope. I feared he had lumbered back to the prison and reported my disappearance. When I found no sign of him at the junction cairn I began to run, to reach him before he got back.
The sea darkened in the afternoon dim. I ran as far as the second cove, then stopped to check the map and determined that at the next bend in the path I should almost be able to see the prison. He might be waiting for me at the ruins, maybe stopped to catch his breath or gobble a grain bar.
The threatened heavy rain of earlier must have passed while I was in the cave, leaving the boulder path slick underfoot, slowing me down. I reached the high point by a standing stone. There was no sign of the bulking guard. The path snaked overland for about three kilometres to the coast before it swung back along the eastern cliffs, towards the penitentiary mound. Seabirds squawked above me – ‘Orphan, orphan,’ they taunted. I picked up a stone and hurled it at them but missed by a good length. As I scanned the landscape one more time, resigning myself to my loss, he appeared out of a dip in the path like a rabbit from a hole, the gaudy red jacket a paint splodge on an otherwise perfect landscape. I almost cried with relief at the sight of him. His speed had picked up as he headed away from me. How could the fat man have travelled the distance so fast? My call swept behind me in the wind. I roared but it was hopeless. It felt good to run, to have my lungs bursting and my leg muscles stretched. I hurtled over culverts that ran high with torrents from last night’s rain. Even though Ridgeway had speeded up I caught him easily – what a lumbering brute he was.
‘Ridgeway,’ I shouted only a few feet from him.
He jumped and almost fell over as he spun on the spot. I laughed when I saw his stupid face, purple with exertion. He grabbed my jacket in two fists and shook me.
‘Where have you been?’ The treatment, normally reserved for prisoners, was on me before he remembered who he was addressing.
He released and glowered at his boots, then turned and glanced over his shoulder. He looked close to tears.
‘No need to get rough,’ I said, trying to steady my voice.
Many struggles were taking place behind his mask of authority. I had put him in an impossible position. He was a man doing his job and I needed his help. I did not need an enemy.
‘I’m sorry,’ we both said at once and his tortured face relaxed of tension. He held his arms out in helplessness but said nothing.
‘I went to the shore,’ I said. ‘Down the cliff; there was a marker to show you where I left the path. Didn’t you see it?’ He wasn’t to know I hadn’t left it there.
Ridgeway squared his shoulders and blew snot from his nostrils one at a time onto the heather beside the path.
‘I thought I heard a sound,’ I continued. ‘The bird, you know? The corncrake. I should have left you a more obvious clue but I was too excited.’ The lies flew easily from my lips. It was difficult to judge his mood; he stood like a sulky native examining every crack in his boots.
‘I won’t tell if you won’t.’
He snapped his head up. ‘You won’t tell?’ His voice was rough. ‘You ran away from me. Your grandfather will forbid us to go out again.’
‘And is that what you want, you big lazy lump?’ I shouted. But the ‘us’ in his statement told me otherwise. ‘You lost me.’ I lowered my tone. I needed to get things sorted – play cute. ‘I won’t tell him you lost me. I won’t tell him you can’t keep up with me. If we always walked at your speed we’d never get to the other side of the island.’ I looked at him with exasperation. ‘I’ve a rare bird to find, you know.’
The relaxation had disappeared; his jaw was chewing suppressed anger. Maybe I’d gone too far, but he seemed to be weighing up his options.
‘Come on Ridgeway.’ I pointed towards the mound. ‘You want out of there as much as I do. We can talk without surveillance; we can breathe air that hasn’t been recycled through a thousand wasted lungs. Come on, there’s no harm done,’ I coaxed. ‘There’s nowhere for me to go. We may as well both enjoy the freedom while we have it.’ Was that a small light I saw switch on in his eyes at the mention of the word freedom? He was as much a prisoner here as I was and we both knew it.
I clapped him on the shoulder in a chummy, non-patronising way and tried to ignore his sudden tension.
‘I’ll tell you what Ridgeway, in future you go at your own pace,’ I reasoned with him, ‘and I’ll skip on ahead and every now and then I’ll wait till you catch me up, or you can wait for me on the path until I return.’
I looked at my communicator. ‘We still have plenty of time to get back before curfew. I promise this time I’ll wait for you on the way back and won’t disappear again.’ The grey crown was now coming into view. ‘Look, we’re almost back already.’ I smiled at him. ‘Tell you what, you were fairly cracking along that path. I didn’t know you had it in you.’
The weak sun was beginning to set and despite the greyness of the sky, it cast a burnished light on the prison, making it glow as if it were a real crown of gold. How could nature make something as grotesque as that prison look so appealing?
• • •
Ridgeway’s face had returned to a normal colour as we trudged along the path toward the crowning mound that was our prison. He looked almost content, but then I spoiled things by asking, ‘Where are you from, Ridgeway?’
‘I am not permitted to answer questions.’
‘But we’ve been talking; you are permitted to talk to me, right?’
He nodded in agreement.
‘Well if we are to be companions on these paths we may as well get to know each other. I won’t tell.’ I handed him one of my grain bars to seal the pact. ‘Here, I’m not supposed to but who’s to know if we hide the evidence.’ It was like being back at the Montessori, bribing kids with my superior toys to make friends.
‘Are you a Bas? I can tell by your height and breadth. We had a Bas on our Base once. He was the Commandant’s man. He was from Central Esperaneo. Is that where you’re from?’ Somehow I needed to know.
‘South is where I’m from,’ he droned. ‘From the area where the great rivers snake through the land from sea to sea.’
‘How can a river stretch from sea to sea?’
‘A canal joins them in the Flatlands, everyone know that.’
I ignored his cheek. ‘The Flatlands? The Fertile Lands. I never met a Flatlander before.’
‘It’s not all flat. Mountains rise around the southern edges, but yes, the Fertile Lands is the correct name.’ He looked to the sea like one retracing time. ‘We worked hard to feed Esperaneo.’
‘Yes, I suppose so. Is your family still there?’
His jaw clenched as if he had swallowed something unpleasant.
‘I have no family any more. My parents, my sister, gone.’
‘What about your mate?’
‘Gone.’
‘Gone? Gone where?’ But as soon as the words left my mouth I knew it was a stupid question after all the bloodshed I’d learned of from our recent history. In the days of the great reform when the Purists were in power they seized the land of the Flatlanders to grow biofuel, to feed the f
actories and the air Transports. The fortunes they made were enormous because these fuels were scarce, but the money went to a few and the Flatlanders were denied their heritable land. Food was scarce and many starved and died. Ironically the period was called the Time of Plenty.
‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked.’ But the damage was done.
Chapter Nineteen
When we arrived back, the welcome-home routine was as before: warm clothes and available hot water, comfort food but no sign of Scud.
I bundled my outdoor clothes in a ball, remembering to extract the passport this time, secreting it into my work wear before chucking the ball in the corner of my room. So much had changed in the last few days. I looked at my reflection in the washroom mirror and searched for any resemblance to the native tribe. There was that hint of copper in my hair but that proved nothing. Kenneth said my grandfather lodged a fake passport with the authorities, but maybe the one I held was the actual forgery – could it have been tampered with again? If that were the case why would Ishbel be so careful about hiding it? My hands were in my hair, pulling and tugging, trying to make some sense to the riddles. Was Kenneth lying to get me to help him? Why would someone, presumably my mother, leave my obviously native grandmother in the book unless to preserve the truth? As I debated these thoughts with my reflection a cold finger of memory scraped its nail down my spine.
I must have been about five or six. It was one of my earliest strong memories because it was an event that showed a side to my mother I had never seen before and never seen since.
Ma was such a gentle person. Even though she worked hard during the day on the Base, and was often away on missions, she always made special time for me. When she was home she would dismiss Ishbel and prepare me for bed herself.
It must have been the main growing season and the camp had experienced the best sunshine days since before the great flood. In my mother’s absence Ishbel had allowed me to play in the vegetable garden with her while she weeded. Each military household was allocated a plot of land and required to use every inch for growing vegetables but were only permitted to keep one-tenth for their own use. The rest went to the communal food fund. Many households found the chore laborious even with a domestic native, but Ishbel loved growing food and managed to grow more than anyone else could in the space available. Our tenth was more than plenty for our household and, of course, all that was not used was pickled. This one day, my mother returned from a mission tired and tattered as usual. The Purists must have been in power at the time, before water restrictions, because I was in the bath. Ishbel had soaped and rinsed my hair. Ma lifted me in a towel and rubbed my hair then began to comb it dry. I loved when she did that because she sang to me and kissed my neck at the end of each line of the song. She began with strong brisk strokes but as it dried her strokes became slower and laboured. She groaned inwardly and bent as if something pained in her stomach. She dropped the comb.
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