‘I’m fine,’ he said.
There was silence for a few moments as everyone looked at Connor, then at each other, then eventually shifted their gazes back out to sea.
‘Well, the show’s over anyway, by the looks of things,’ said Lynne.
She turned and walked back towards the hotel, the shafts of light from the shuttered windows splayed out across the grassy track like grasping fingers. They followed, the silence after the noise of the bombardment unsettling and ominous in their battered ears.
10
Ullapool
‘If I had a boat, I’d scuttle it for you
If I had your love, I’d try to sink that too’
The Ossians, ‘Shifting Sands’
Connor hadn’t slept at all. His face throbbed, a slicing pain cut across his brain, and now his stomach was aching – acidic, bitter cramps. His ribcage felt tight beneath the skin of his chest. Whether it was the retching from last night, the raw spirit he was pouring down his neck or the indiscriminate pill-popping – fuck it, it could even be stress, he thought – his guts were telling him they weren’t happy. His mind streamed with thoughts like an old stock exchange ticker-tape display, constantly analysing and re-analysing things, worrying what might happen before they got back to Edinburgh where he could crawl into a bed that would maybe help him sleep properly for once. He knew all this was a trick of the speed, in that way you know the drugs are working but you kid yourself you’re on top of things and you can stop your teeth grinding and your brain flitting from one idea to the next before the first one’s even taken hold. He was so tired his bones felt made of lead. Exhaustion was turning him to stone and metal like a statue, hardening from the inside out, and he thought with an air of resignation that he might never fall asleep again.
It was painfully bright outside when they left. Thick, heavy snowflakes fell on to the onlooking sheep, The Ossians and their van, covering the world in an uncomfortable calm. They drove past the village hall and spotted the memorial to John Lennon, a stone pillar standing snow-capped among diggers, traffic cones and dirty, frozen patches of earth. They stopped at Smoo Cave and trudged down the steps like convicts chained together into the unsettling, mossy, stagnant green-black space. The brightness outside was all the more blinding from inside the cave, and the gush of a waterfall somewhere in the darkness was white noise in their ears. They drove past a closed hotel, a petrol station out of petrol and a smattering of guesthouses with no vacancies. They passed a sign for Balnakeil Craft Village that pointed to a strange gathering of boxy, white buildings with large, fat chimneys. They realised they must have taken a wrong turn when they came round a corner to a dead end next to a ruined church, graveyard and a beautiful curve of sandy beach. The snow was falling thickly now, and it struck Connor that he’d never seen snow on a beach before, which was odd considering he’d grown up in a seaside town. Tiny, individual flakes of snow mingling with the equally minuscule particles of sand – two disparate forces, made up of unimaginably small constituents, battling it out at a microscopic level. Then again, maybe it was just snow on a fucking beach.
Paul rustled the map laid out across the steering wheel. ‘Took a right instead of a left somewhere. Wanna take a look, or should we just fire on?’
Nobody said anything so Paul turned the van round, making circular tracks in the snow, and headed back the way they came.
They pulled into the craft village in search of coffee and directions. The Loch Affin Bookshop and Restaurant – ‘food for mind and body’ – was surprisingly busy. As they entered, shaking snow off their shoulders and stamping their feet, a thin middle-aged man with thick glasses, low-slung cords and a plaid shirt was talking loudly on the phone in an Oxbridge accent about types of balsamic vinegar, and whether the person on the other end of the line’s kaffir lime leaves were fresh or dried. A second man, shorter, thicker round the middle and with grey hair flapping out of control, scuttled about behind a counter, fixing coffees and teas and putting buns and cakes on plates.
The walls were lined with bookshelves. They plonked themselves down at a lurid Formica table and Connor noticed they were sitting next to the Scottish fiction section. He scanned the rows of books and they were surprisingly well stocked considering, as the sign declared on the door, they were ‘the most northwesterly bookshop and restaurant on the British mainland’. On the back of the same door, Connor now noticed, was an A4 sheet of blue paper with a cartoon drawing of two men in a boat unloading boxes. The accompanying blurb warned people to keep a vigilant lookout for smugglers in light aircraft or small boats acting suspiciously, and there was a number to call if you saw anything. Fat chance, thought Connor, they’re probably all cut in on the deal up this way. Maybe that’s how the books got here, or maybe that’s how the guy on the phone was having his balsamic vinegar and kaffir lime leaves delivered. Then again, the smugglers’ booty was more likely smack, coke and hash, or booze and fags. Fuck it, he was part of that game now. The drugs he was picking up must be smuggled ashore up here. He didn’t know that for sure, of course. He could’ve been picking up consignments of locally grown grass – you heard plenty rumours about quality cannabis operations up here in the middle of nowhere. Maybe that’s all it was. If he was carrying around a supplier-sized stash of class As, he was well and truly in the shit if he got caught. At least if it was doob he might be in for less of a sentence. He would still get sent down, the amount that was surely in those packages. He tried not to think about it – the next deal wasn’t until Kyle, so he had a day off from all that shit. Thank fuck.
The wild-haired man came to take their order, flirting with Paul, and flounced away to sort out coffees. A couple of young families were in, trying to keep toddlers and babies happy. At the table next to them sat three young new-agers making roll-ups from a tin. They were talking in West Country accents about a solstice festival they were trying to organise and wondering where they could get their hands on stilt-walkers and fire-eaters round these parts. Connor examined the bookshelf next to him. They really did have a decent selection. All the newly published stuff was here, but there were also plenty of classics – Hogg, Stevenson, Scott and Burns. He got up and perused the nearest shelves, which contained a bunch of anthologies and collections. He picked out something called Scottish Ghost Stories. He vaguely remembered a book like this being around the house when he was little, and felt uneasy, as if he’d been spooked by it at an impressionable age. Flicking through it now, it seemed a little pathetic. A bunch of typical spectre sightings, given a tartan twist, and written up in hammy style for tourist eejits. Without thinking, he stuck the book in his pocket. Immediately he regretted it and wanted to bring it back out, but he worried that someone might see him. He wanted to bolt out the door, but they’d just ordered coffees. He felt the book smouldering in his pocket, warm against his thigh. He looked round and a toddler with tight blonde curls was looking straight at him over a plate of biscuits. He wondered if she’d been watching the whole time, and if she could talk yet. He felt sweat on his forehead. He sat back down at their table.
Paul was chatting to the wild-haired guy, getting the gen on the road south. Apparently it was rough track for only a few miles, then it widened to a decent road, and it shouldn’t take them more than a couple of hours normally, but in this weather, with the snow and everything, they’d better watch.
‘I suppose we should fire on,’ Paul said. ‘Let’s get these down our necks, eh?’
The blonde girl was playing with a doll but still looking at Connor, and the book was getting warmer in his pocket. He stuck his hand in to feel the texture of the pages and whirred them between his fingers. Outside the snow was getting thicker, heavier and slower, like it was settling in for the long haul of winter. They drank their coffees quickly – Connor burning his lips – then paid up at the counter, the blonde toddler keeping her eye on Connor but never saying a word. He was sure she’d seen him stick the book in his pocket. Maybe she didn’t understand it was steali
ng, she was only two or three years old, after all. Nevertheless he felt her eyes burning into his back. A bell tinkled as the door opened and two oversized policemen came in. There was an awkward moment as The Ossians had to move aside to let them in. The police kept their eyes on the band as they squeezed past on the way to the till. Connor looked at them as he went through the doorway. One of them produced a piece of paper with a photograph on it, and showed it to the camp guy behind the counter. He wondered if it was a picture of his stalker. He rubbed the stolen book in his pocket, closing the door behind him with a tinkle.
They were outside in the white silence of the snow. Connor waited to hear the bell sound again, expecting one of the owners to rush out accusing him of stealing, or one of the policemen to grab him for shoplifting, or possession or drug-dealing. But it didn’t happen. Everything remained still. So he was guilty of shoplifting. And he didn’t even want the fucking thing. He scrunched through the snow towards the van, thinking to himself, what the fuck next?
The journey south wasn’t too treacherous, despite the snow. Slack, white flakes fell thick around them, but a gritter had been through and the road was OK. They snaked through barren, undulating countryside, always dominated by large, looming masses of hills that seemed to suck light out of the sky. Large boulders peppered the ground all around them, and scree slopes appeared out of the snow, their scattered hillside debris like huge natural landfill sites. Lochs too small for names or maps appeared everywhere, some frozen, some not, the solemn inkiness of the unfrozen water defiant against the snow that sizzled in it and disappeared.
Connor glanced out the back window. Halfway down a slope was a dark blue executive car, an Audi or a BMW, with heavily scored tracks behind it. It was the car he’d seen in the television report about the missing boy, his angel. They’d driven past the same car parked in a passing place on the way to Durness. But was it the same car? Had it crashed? It looked in one piece, but it was lodged at an angle deep into the scree, with no possible way of getting back on to the road without a tow truck, and even then it would be tricky. What if the boy was still inside? What if he’d crashed and needed help? But the car didn’t look damaged, so maybe the boy got out. Maybe it wasn’t the boy’s car at all – but how many posh bastard cars like that did you see driving round these roads? Fuck, fuck, fuck. He didn’t know what to do, so he continued to do nothing. As they drove on, he started to convince himself it had all been a hallucination. His mind was playing tricks, that was it. Still, he wondered what the stalker was doing now, if he was OK, if he would appear at the Ullapool gig. If Connor didn’t see him at the next show, then it was time to worry. But he hadn’t spotted him at the Thurso gig, or the few before that either. Where did that leave him?
He took a few deep breaths, pulled the book from his pocket and started flicking through it to distract himself.
‘Where did you get that?’ asked Kate.
‘Brought it with me,’ said Connor, feeling his ears burn.
‘I thought you had that book of Ossian’s poetry with you.’
Connor remembered that book of impenetrable guff at the bottom of his bag, beneath the envelopes of money and parcels of drugs.
‘I brought this as well. A little light relief.’
‘I haven’t seen it before.’
‘Like you pay attention to what I’m reading.’
Kate bent the book round to look at the cover.
‘Didn’t we have something like this growing up?’
‘That’s why I bought it. I remember being shit scared when we were little, but it reads like a pile of boring crap now. Just daft local superstitions collected into a tourist-fleecing money-spinner.’
‘So why read it?’
‘Dunno. Something to do. Nobody seems to have much chat today.’ Connor felt like the mountains were sucking the life from his body. ‘Got any other suggestions?’
‘OK, back to your ghost stories, smart arse. We’ll let you know when we hit civilisation.’
‘Civilisation? We’ll be lucky. Haven’t seen any signs of it yet on this jaunt.’
‘Who rattled your cage?’ said Hannah, drawing her gaze away from the moonscape outside.
‘Sorry,’ said Connor. ‘Just talking shite. Ignore me.’
‘If only,’ said Kate, flashing her brother a sarcastic smile.
‘What have you got there?’ said Hannah, looking at Connor’s book.
Kate rolled her eyes. ‘Don’t ask,’ she said. ‘That’s what set him off.’
‘Let me see,’ said Hannah, taking the book from him.
‘Do you mind? I was reading that.’
‘Doesn’t look like your kind of thing. Where’d you get it?’
‘I brought it with me.’ Connor wished everyone would stop talking about the fucking book.
‘Any good?’ asked Hannah.
‘No,’ said Connor. ‘Shite. Keep it. I’m going to sleep.’
He closed his eyes and felt his pulse beating strongly in his throat. He felt Hannah and Kate looking at him and imagined them exchanging looks. Fucking witches coven, that’s what they were. Trying to organise every little thing he said or did, watching his every move.
After a time he opened his eyes and they were heading downhill towards a cluster of small white buildings, threads of grey smoke rising up from chimneys into the snowy sky. The houses were nestled in the only flat part on the banks of Loch Broom. This was Ullapool. The town was arranged in a crescent shape around a rocky beach and a small harbour which seemed to contain a massive, semi-submerged ship, its snow-covered deck stark against the black water. Connor looked again and realised it was a submarine, and a huge one at that.
The town was full of Russians. Very drunk Russians. The Ossians pitched up outside the Seaforth, a large two-storey, whitewashed pub sitting opposite the ferry terminal. As they got out they could see two dozen young men with severe haircuts in dark-blue uniforms scuffed around the cuffs, with their collars loosened, clearly steaming. Despite the falling snow and blustery wind, they sat at the pub’s outside tables puffing on roll-ups – some playing cards, two of them arm-wrestling and another pair swaying as they simply tried to stand up straight and have a conversation.
As The Ossians loaded in the gear they were greeted loudly in Russian, some of the men helping them with the heavier amps in a ramble of drunken enthusiasm. Inside there were another three dozen of them, many of whom were already in a shambolic state. It was four o’clock in the afternoon. Like a Pavlovian dog, Connor felt his mouth salivate as he watched them knocking back shot after shot of vodka.
‘Russians,’ said the promoter, shaking his head but grinning at the same time. He was a short, squat troll of a man in his forties, with greying curly hair down past his shoulders. He wore a faded old Clash T-shirt, black jogging bottoms covered in what looked like paint and a pair of slippers. His shoulders were covered in dandruff, and he reeked of cheap sausages. He immediately focused on Kate and Hannah, who hung back, trying to avoid his stare.
‘Their submarine broke down somewhere off the coast,’ he said, looking Hannah up and down. ‘So they docked here and are waiting to get it fixed or towed back to Russia. They’ve been here almost a week now. It’s a bit hectic. They know how to drink. The way they get through vodka is unbelievable, and a lot of them have developed a wee thing for whisky, which they can drink like water. But they’re running out of money so I don’t know how much longer they’ll be bringing in any business.’
‘Isn’t a gig in front of a bunch of fucked Russian sailors a bit risky?’ said Paul.
‘Whatever you do, don’t call them sailors,’ said the promoter. ‘They go mental if you call them that. They’re submariners. They’ve got a thing about sailors, absolutely hate them. The gig’ll be fine. They’ve hardly been any trouble the last few days. Perhaps there were some high spirits to begin with, but they’ve settled into a routine now, and could do with a bit of entertainment, take their mind off things.’
Two su
bmariners came in and approached the promoter. They seemed less drunk than the rest. They were both tall and fair-haired, their uniforms impeccably turned out, and they had serious expressions on their faces.
‘We have the things you asked for,’ said the taller of the two. ‘From the ship. The brass and copper.’
The promoter had a brief look of panic in his eyes. ‘Fine, Dimitri. Bring it round the back door in two minutes and we’ll sort something out.’
‘You’re stripping the fucking sub?’ said Connor as the submariners disappeared smartly out the door.
‘They have no money and they want to keep drinking,’ said the promoter, shrugging. ‘What am I supposed to do? I’m helping these gentlemen enjoy themselves, that’s all. They don’t owe the Russian navy any favours, some of them haven’t been paid for months. Besides, I can shift that stuff for a packet. Now, you lads and ladies –’ he said this slowly, looking again at Hannah and Kate before remembering he was mid-sentence – ‘you can set up over there on the stage in the corner. The sound guy should be here soon, he’ll sort you out. I’ve got some business to attend to, but I’ll speak to you later on.’
He looked over at the girls again. Connor was ready to lamp the slimy fucker in the face by this point but the promoter was already scuttling through the back of the bar with a strangely effeminate walk.
‘What an arsehole,’ said Kate, turning to lift her amp.
The rest of them followed her to the six-inch stage in the corner of the pub. The Seaforth had a generic boozer feel to it. Booths lined the walls next to large windows overlooking the harbour, while a massive fireplace with a ship’s wheel above it dominated the wall to their right. At the other end of the room was a short, dimly lit bar, row upon row of whisky bottles on the gantry. In front of them was a worn-out pool table and a table football game. The stage was tiny and there would be sod all space to move. They set up the gear, then pitched into one of the booths to keep an eye on the equipment while Paul went to sort out the place they were staying that night.
The Ossians Page 21
