Angelica, who was feeling peckish and somewhat fed up, decided she would buy some sweets and not bother with the rest. Besides, the girl behind the counter, rolling a wad of gum on her tongue, did not look like a promising interview candidate.
Angelica’s fingers roamed the small display of chocolate, deftly selecting a variety to last the afternoon. Nikhil pulled a plastic bottle of Coke from a shelf near the door.
‘You friends of that other couple, then?’ asked the girl, cud-chewing between words.
‘Which other couple?’
‘The long-haired bloke, the one that looks like Jesus. And the Indian lass.’
‘You know them?’
‘Nobody else has bought so many sweets in one go, but you and them. Sugar mad. And like—’ she nodded at Nikhil, ‘You being a compatriot and all.’
‘Do they come often?’ asked Nikhil, brightening for the first time.
‘Depends what you mean by often.’
‘How often?’
‘They haven’t been for at least a couple of weeks, if that’s what you mean.’
Nikhil’s features settled back into a frown.
‘You don’t know where they live, by any chance?’
‘Can’t say I do. But I’d say they aren’t coming in because they aren’t there any more, are they?’
‘How do you know?’
‘Well, the boat, eh? I guess they finished working on her, and went.’
‘What boat?’
‘Are you certain you know them? Because I don’t see as you could know them even a wee bit and not know of the boat. I mean, I only know them a tiny wee bit, and I—’
‘What about the boat?’ Angelica insisted.
‘Well they live on it, don’t they? And they were going to see the birds when it was ready. Birds and other things. I’m not a bird-watcher, am I?’ And with that her talkative bout was at an end. ‘Is that all? That’s one pound eighty-nine,’ she said, and turned back to the comic she had been reading when they came in.
‘Lovely pullovers,’ ventured Angelica, in a sweeter tone, hoping to lure the unprepossessing oracle back into speech. They were hanging on hangers on a wire across the window, and there was a plum-coloured mohair jacket that she genuinely did like. ‘Did you make them?’
The girl looked up and then back down. ‘My mum does. If you want one you’ll have to come by tomorrow, because she won’t be back this afternoon.’
‘Can you tell us which way they used to live? Which direction from here?’ Nikhil wore that expression again, the almost-exploding one, but Angelica thought the outcome might well be tears.
The girl looked up, only halfway this time. ‘By the water,’ she said. ‘It’s obvious, isn’t it?’
Back in the car, they spread the map across their laps and shared some chocolate. There were only three needle-fine roads leading off the one they were on towards the water, two of them further north and one they had already passed.
‘Do we go back or forward?’ Angelica wondered. ‘It would be a shame to go back and be wrong. We should’ve asked if there are any more shops north of here, to know whether they would have bothered … she wasn’t very helpful, though. None of them are, are they? But she knew them—that’s something.’
‘In a place like this, it’s more something when they don’t, don’t you think?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Possibly they all know something, something more than they say. Only she’s the first one to let it slip.’
‘Like some sort of conspiracy? Don’t be absurd. Why?’
‘Because I am black. I don’t know. Because she is. Because I’m not a Christian. Because I don’t belong. What do I know about why? I just feel it.’
‘You’re letting the devil get to you. We’ll find them. You can’t blame a few simple country people for not going out of their way for us. How would they know anything? Why would they bother to conspire?’
Nikhil shrugged. ‘You know their minds,’ he said. ‘You know the “Christian” mind of this man who looks like Jesus. You tell me.’
Angelica was silent for a moment, crunching on the last of her chocolate. ‘I’ll make you a deal,’ she said. ‘Or at least a proposition. I would say that we will only find your sister with God’s help. That’s what I think.’
‘Your God, or my gods?’
‘I’m pretty sure of my God, Nikhil. As you know. So my question, or my deal, or whatever you want to call it, is this: if we find them, will you become a Christian?’
Nikhil’s hairline did a little jog as his brow rose and fell. ‘This is the divine you are discussing,’ he said, ‘not some football team.’
‘But if my God can prove to you that He exists—if He works miracles for you—shouldn’t you reward Him with your faith? Only He can save your immortal soul. And He’s the only one who can restore your sister to you. Come on—’
‘You promised me there wouldn’t be any of this. I won’t go on if there is.’
‘I didn’t mean for there to be.’
As they sat and looked at the map on their knees, Nikhil said, ‘I think we go forward. And we will discuss your God if and when we find them.’
It wasn’t easy. They went forward to the farthest road—hardly a road, really, and the rain had started again, so it was muddy into the bargain—and they followed it to its natural end, just past a trio of abandoned crofts, where it became a path that crept off among the rocks. No place for a boat, they concurred. No signs of life apart from a screaming sea bird or two. They retreated.
The second route, only slightly to the south, appeared more promising at first: a few low white houses dotted the road on either side, and the tarmac ended in a small bay where it seemed conceivable that a vessel might anchor securely, or even be lifted out of the water for repairs. But no: inquiries yielded nothing, not even a sighting.
The last road was the best maintained of the three, although it appeared no more densely populated than the second. It was also the shortest, which was just as well, because it was coming up to six o’clock and both Angelica and Nikhil were weary. When they came to the end of the way, there on the slate-coloured water before them rolled a newly painted, lived-in-looking boat. A fishing boat, perhaps, originally. There was a light on in the cabin. And parked up against a hillock, at the turning-point where the road stopped, was a slightly rusted, open-backed lorry, a tarpaulin carelessly strung over its back to keep off the worst of the rain. A lorry just like the one Mrs MacKinnon had spoken about.
‘They’ve come back,’ breathed Nikhil. ‘I don’t believe it. It’s incredible. You may be right about your God, or else it’s fate—this is fantastic—they’ve come back!’
‘I knew it,’ said Angelica, softly, through her teeth. She leaned over and kissed Nikhil full on the mouth (banging her elbow on the steering wheel as she did so, but not minding). He didn’t seem alarmed; he kissed her back. It was a triumphant kiss: a kiss, thought Angelica, endorsed by God.
When they paused in their embrace, Nikhil took her hand. ‘Would you like to meet my sister?’ he said, gravely and sweetly, as if asking her to marry him. The day’s petulance was completely erased. She forgot it.
‘I would like nothing more.’
He kissed the smooth back of her hand.
The man who came to answer their call did not remotely resemble Jesus. That was the first thing that crossed Angelica’s mind but then, she thought, Jesus is all things to all people; why should he not bear different guises in different people’s hearts? It did not occur to her that this man might be anyone other than Rupica’s husband. And for Nikhil, instructed through his attendance at prayer group meetings and through Angelica’s Sistine Chapel book in the appearance of many of the saints, but only, really, in the sight of Jesus as an infant on Mary’s blue-cloth knee, Kenneth Campbell looked the image of Angelica’s Saviour—a Saviour he would, for that one brief instant before he discovered that Kenneth Campbell fished for scallops for a living and only wis
hed for female company (‘Don’t I just? Eh? Eh?’), have claimed as his own.
But it only took a brief exchange for him to realize that Kenneth Campbell was who he was—not Godly, not married, and only barely sober.
‘Come in, come in,’ he welcomed them. ‘Come and have a drink. It’s the season of the English, up here. I’ve been meeting a lot of you, the past few days, come up to join me. Some friendlier than others, mind.’
He would not take no for an answer: they were inside, each with a whisky in hand (‘But I don’t drink,’ said Nikhil. ‘Crap,’ said Campbell), before they knew it. The cabin was small, low-ceilinged, but clean.
‘What can I do for you then? Or is this simply a touristic visit?’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Nikhil. ‘We were mistaken. We thought this boat belonged—well, we thought—’
‘She’s your sister, is she? Did she go without telling you then?’
‘You know them?’
‘You look alike, you and she. Sure, I know them well. My neighbours in the cold, wet months. Not that it’s warm and dry now, mind, but colder and wetter then. Not that it stopped them working.’
‘No, of course not,’ said Angelica for no reason.
‘They were fixing a boat, yes?’ Nikhil actually put his whisky to his lips and almost drank, but clearly the smell put him off.
‘A fine little boat. Well, no, she wasn’t fine. But they made her fine. He’s a nice enough fellow, but peculiar—she, though, she’s a dream. Beautiful lass.’
‘Are they happy?’ asked Angelica. She was curious. Nikhil looked annoyed.
Campbell made a funny, flighty gesture with his fingers. ‘There are things,’ he said, ‘between men and women, that cannot be known. And that’s what I believe. That’s what I believe in.’
‘Mr Campbell—’ Nikhil was struggling to keep the conversation away from belief and, more specifically, on his sister—‘When did they go? And where? And when will they come back?’
‘Back? Now there’s a good question. They’ve been gone a few weeks now, I’d say, although I’m not much for dates. I don’t know as they’re coming back.’
‘My sister hasn’t gone to sail off the edge of the earth, has she? They’ve got to come back. Surely? What do you mean?’
‘There’s no call to get upset. It’s not your sister’s doing, is it? It’s her man. It’s the birds, isn’t it?’
‘Please explain,’ said Angelica. She had been shredding a tissue during this conversation that went nowhere.
‘Are you deaf, damn it? They’ve gone for the birds—out to Kilda for the birds. They’ll be there till September at least, that’s when their permission lasts until. Or his, rather. But he wants to stay the winter and prove that they can do it. They’ve got their own boat, after all, and there won’t be anybody going to check.’
‘What’s Kilda? I don’t understand. Can we hire a boat and go? Will you take us?’
St Kilda, Kenneth Campbell explained, pointing a fisherman’s finger at the grey horizon, was as far out as the Outer Hebrides went. ‘Last stop before Newfoundland,’ he said, and winked at Angelica. ‘You’re British, at the least. You know about St Kilda?’
It was a nature reserve, full of birds, said Campbell. Hence the voyage: puffins, fulmars, egrets, migrating, nesting, milling about in their thousands. It had been, until 1930, inhabited by an extraordinary, backward people who had never seen a tree, who had hardly invented the wheel, a tiny group of people inbred for generations; but now, there was only a small army base there. Nothing else. In the winter, no boats could land, not for months. Back in the twenties, all but starving in the winter, the people had begged to join the mainland. No protection, no security: this was why there was no permission for the winter even now, or possibly now more than ever. It simply wasn’t safe.
‘But why—what about Rupica? Why would they want to stay the winter? It’s the decision of a madman!’
‘To you or me, aye, that’s the only word for it. But he’s got the fire of faith, doesn’t he? He’s a bloody Christian, isn’t he?’
Angelica made a little coughing sound. ‘I am a Christian,’ she said. Kenneth Campbell ignored her.
‘And I’ll tell you something, man, there’s something of arrogance there, for all the humility he pretends. Sometimes I think he thinks he is God, you know. It’s the certainty I can’t abide.’
‘What about my sister? Is she a Christian?’
‘Damned if I know. Above all, the lass is in love with the fella. That was plain a mile off. So you could say she has faith of a kind.’
Angelica and Nikhil didn’t stay long after that: there didn’t seem much point. And besides, Campbell, drunk as he was getting, wanted to drive into Portree (in the lorry, a gift from the departed pair: ‘Would they have given it to me for good if they were planning to come back? No they would not.’). But no, he could not take them to St Kilda, it was far—hours and hours, day and night—and would be dangerous. And even then there was no guarantee of landing. Besides which there was no permission for landing. Permission came from London, from some ministry in Whitehall, and didn’t it take months—he’d heard all about it, from start to finish. To try to get there, even to try, he said, they would need to bribe a crooked fisherman with a big boat, with a great deal of money. And they would need time. And still, no guarantees. ‘So you see,’ he finished with a smile, ‘so you see, it is more or less as if they’d sailed off the edge of this flat earth. Or as if they’d died and gone to heaven. There isn’t any way to get to them. None at all.’
There was a weight like death in the car when they returned to it: the weight of their triumphant kiss, jubilantly weightless only an hour earlier. They sat there, staring out at the gloom, while Kenneth Campbell passed in front of them like an actor in a film, shrugging into his coat. He climbed into the lorry and tussled briefly with its engine before pulling away, amid a clatter unseemly in the mournful seaside silence.
Angelica looked at Nikhil, at his pinched mouth and fine profile. She was trying to pray for some understanding, but she found that her mind could not utter the simplest formulations of prayer.
‘It is late. We should get back,’ said Nikhil.
Angelica couldn’t tell what he was thinking and didn’t know him well enough to ask. In any event, he would probably have lied. She wanted, then, to say something about the kiss. But what was there to say?
‘If you like,’ she said instead, ‘we could ask Virginia and her mother to join us for supper. It might, you know, take our minds off things?’
Nikhil raised his shoulders almost imperceptibly to signal his indifference, and bit at his lower lip in an endeavour to communicate something Angelica didn’t understand; or perhaps in an effort not to communicate at all.
When Melody Simpson woke up and saw the white-white of the hospital room around her, she did not think for one second that she had died and gone to heaven. She knew full well where she was and what she was doing there and she felt like a damn fool.
After Virginia had left her bunched up against the cold paving of the house, Melody Simpson had done her best to wait with fortitude. But she had known absolutely that she was dying: even in the lee of the house the winds were bitter, and seemed to strip away not only her clothes but the layers of her flesh as well. Not that she had felt anything about it, other than faintly annoyed that death should take so long and be so uncomfortable. But obviously she had dwelt a great deal on the subject, because the next thing she knew she was dead, or believed herself to be, and although still chilled she was warmer, and she had climbed through the window and was in the house.
It wasn’t at all neglected. In fact, it was brightly lit and furnished with familiar objects, and its only drawback was that it seemed to be recently abandoned—not unlike the Tarbish Hotel, only the day before, Melody had thought to herself. There was music wafting in from somewhere (‘Roll, those, roll those pretty eyes …’), and Melody (remarkably spry and able, and, she notic
ed, in full possession of her own, original bosom) wandered through the house to find its source, calling out every so often, although nobody answered her. She was just coming to the realization that the origin of the music was God, and was feeling sheepish about not having believed in Heaven when here it was, and lovely too (if a bit empty), and was just thinking what a pleasure and a relief it was to be at last finished with the trials of life, when it started to rain, and she awoke to find herself still on the steps of the house, alone and cold and now wet into the bargain, and suffering the agonies of the damned in her horrible twisted foot. But it did make her think, and she did wonder, for the first time ever, whether on some level of her encrusted, atheistic old self, she didn’t want to believe. It must, she thought, make the most final things so cheerfully furnished and comfortable.
Virginia had returned, in time, with two thick, surly men from the village down the way. Neither seemed versed in the medical—even in her disoriented state Melody Simpson had called them brutish to their faces, an insult which they seemed not to register. They had hoisted her between them and lugged her up to the Ford Fiesta, where she had remembered at least that the passenger seat would be wet and had laid claim to the back, although she had a suspicion that she had actually just moaned. And then one of them, a burly, bearded fellow, had driven at breakneck speed to the hospital in Portree, an interminable time during which Mrs Simpson had given in to the pain and had dozed and awoken several times, generally to find Virginia clutching at her, teary-eyed, her face wobbly and too close to focus upon.
In that odd, fluid, woozy period, Mrs Simpson did realize, solidly, that she would never be able to explain any of this, the before or the during, to anyone. She felt hollowed by the tiresome old thought of how lonely life was. And death too—if her dream was any indication.
In the hospital room it didn’t all seem so bad. Melody Simpson felt a damn fool, but she didn’t think she was going to die any more, and with the help of the painkillers she’d been given, she almost believed she might never die at all. Only two thoughts irritated her: one was that her letter to Emmy remained in her handbag, unsent, and now, she knew, she would never send it; and the other was that, given that she had unexpectedly survived her trip to Alt-na-Ross, she was sorry to have spent twenty-one pounds on her lunch the day before. The food had not been that memorable, after all. But these were small, feathery things.
When the World Was Steady Page 20
