Through Every Human Heart (17 page)

‘Oh,' Dina exclaimed, as they came in sight of the town.

‘What?' Frank said.

He was driving, Feliks next to him. They both started, looking from side to side of the road.

‘Nothing.'

It was a new house. She hadn't noticed it the night before. It would be quite grand when it was finished. Scaffolding stood round it, and the barrel of a concrete mixer, though unattended, was circling around. So many changes, in so few years. Well, why not? Just because a place was important to you, and you wanted to keep it safe, other people couldn't be stopped from changing it. If she cared that much she should be living here, getting involved, trying to preserve what mattered, like Irene trying to save her endangered sandcats. She could have finished her nursing course, or be doing B&B, or just living on less.

‘Would there be landslides up there?' Frank asked. ‘The hills are very severe.' He was right. But it wasn't so much their height as their bulk, and the unrelenting bare solidity of them. On both sides of the road, tufts of reeds grew in dense clumps, like bleached shaving brushes. Frank had let his window down a little. The smell of wood burning came in on the air as they approached the first row of houses.

He pulled out to give plenty of room to two women on large horses, one bay, one roan. Dina recognised one of riders. Annie Masson. She'd stayed on the island, going straight from school to work at the trekking centre. Annie had had her own pony, and two dogs. Mother had claimed to be allergic to animal hair. So, no dog, no cat, no rabbit in her childhood.

Feliks was watching her in the mirror.

‘Nothing,' she said again, though no question had been asked.

He was angry because Frank had wanted her to come. Frank had washed and shaved and changed into clean clothes from a bag in the boot of his car. He'd rested upstairs in the room where Feliks had slept. She'd stayed in hers, apart from a long soak in the bathroom, so she had no idea what Feliks might or might not have done.

She didn't like Feliks so much anymore. Mostly because when he was around Frank he changed into someone else. The look on his face whenever Frank told them what they were to do was scary, the hostility in the air was so tangible you could have hung your coat on it. Right now Frank was driving rather slowly. He didn't believe Irene had got away from her kidnapper. We're taking no chances, he said. The police would be close at hand from now on, he said, but he didn't want any more surprises.

She didn't like Frank at all. Her stomach had gone tight when he'd turned on her, telling all the things she'd be arrested for. She'd been trying her best to be nice and all of a sudden there was real cruelty in his voice. She was back in Irene's narrow hallway, pressed against the wall, with a hand squeezing her waist, and a voice in her ear. Frank would never be cuddly again. She wouldn't be fooled. If there was any fooling to be done, Frank would be the one fooled.

They'd agreed to stop at the baker's shop in the main square where she and her school pals had often bought bacon rolls for lunch. On one side stood the Bank with its wrought iron railings, on the other the Dental Surgery. Of course Frank limped along beside her, leaning on Grampa MacLeod's walking stick. To pay, he said. But really it was to make sure she didn't fling herself on the floor or have a screaming fit or talk out of turn. As it turned out, she didn't even know any of the people serving or in the queue, which felt quite strange.

As they were walking back to the car, a voice hailed her from behind, ‘Donaldina, is that you?'

Alan McNaught. Unchanged. The fair curly hair, the rosy cheeks, the big grin. Aged ten, she'd pulled back a chair he was about to sit on, in revenge for something, she couldn't recall what. She'd been sent to the headmistress, while her own father in his surgery inserted two stitches in Alan's wounded head. They'd been friends ever since. He was out of his police uniform, a sports bag slung over his shoulder.

She began in English, ‘Alan, it's good to see you,' then changed to the Gaelic. ‘Alan, keep smiling as I talk, can you?'

‘Of course,' he smiled broadly. ‘Is this fellow why we're not talking in English?' He gave Frank a nod.

‘Yes, he is. I'm saying this as if Grampa MacLeod was beside me listening. So you understand I'm not joking. This man holding me by the arm is forcing me and my friend to do something. He says he's a policeman, but I don't think he is.'

‘So, you are in some kind of bad trouble, and you want me to help. What do you want me to do? Does he have a weapon?'

‘No. Laugh as if I've said something funny.'

Alan laughed loudly. ‘Well, that's very good. However, I can perhaps detain him right now if you tell me a bit more. Would that be an idea?'

‘Sorry to interrupt, but we should be going, Dina,' Frank warned her, ‘These are getting cold.'

‘Alan, can you keep us in sight, or get someone else to? I'm scared something very bad is going to happen. Around twelve o'clock.'

‘Of course. Consider it done.'

Alan got hold of Frank's hand and shook it, then with a gesture midway between a salute and a wave turned away.

‘Who was that? What was all that about?'

‘Oh, I knew him at school,' she said. ‘He's on his way to the swimming pool. He was asking if I was married yet, and I said he had never asked me.'

‘You said quite a lot more than that.'

‘Oh, not really. A little bit about who was still here and who had moved on. It takes a lot longer to say things in the Gaelic. Sometimes you have to turn whole sentences around.'

‘He seems to have cheered you up. You look quite pleased with yourself.'

‘Do I? Oh, that's terrible. Well, he told me I was looking very pretty, if you must know. Every girl likes a compliment.'

The car was parked down by the sea. The place was cluttered, just as she remembered, with buses, cars and boats in a state of disrepair, smells of fried food and diesel and seaweed. There was a strong wind blowing inshore. She got into the back of the car again. Frank stood outside to eat his bacon rolls but his window was open. So there was no chance to share her cleverness.

‘Why are you smiling?' Feliks asked.

‘Am I?'

‘She met her old boyfriend,' Frank said loudly. ‘I think love is in the air.'

Dina led the way along an earth path, trodden to brick hardness between thin ridges of tree roots that had always reminded her of the dried-out sinews of dead sheep. When they emerged onto the field, the wind from the sea brought the taste of salt to her mouth. Crows were taking off against the wind, landing clumsily in the tall pines around the circle of rough grass. What was the point of crows? Their cawing was one of the ugliest sounds in all creation.

She pulled the sleeves of her sweater down over her hands. The past was all around her. Year after year they'd gathered here to watch the Games. Crowds of islanders and tourists. The drone of the pipes tuning up, the smell of sausages from the food vans, the cheese stall with samples on paper plates, and cubes of bread to dip in flavoured oils. And there she was herself, part of the junior school choir, facing disaster. Chrisanne their angel-voiced soloist was late. Mrs Taylor, immense and buoyant in her white shoes and white-collared navy dress, moved from foot to foot in anxiety . . .

The old Scots pine trees bent to the left away from the prevailing wind as they had always done. One had broken in a previous winter's gale, its trunk now safely levelled off near the ground. The rest stood proud and high, bushy only at the very top. Grey gulls floated overhead. Some pecked about with the crows and sparrows for anything worth eating in the grass.

Her earlier cheerful feeling of bravado had evaporated. What if she was wrong, and Frank was exactly what he said he was? She'd be in massive trouble. She'd be in for the biggest humiliation of her life. Her insides felt tight, exactly the way they did when waiting for the dentist, knowing that you'd not been nearly scrupulous enough, but hoping she wouldn't notice, when the reality was that she always noticed.

Frank told them to sit on one of the benches. He sat on one a little way off, with a magazine, wearing sunglasses though the sun wasn't shining. Two teenage boys were cycling round the grass. One tossed a can towards a big stone litter bin. It bounced off the rim. He stopped, went backwards, legs wide, picked it up and tried again, successfully. They cycled back into the trees.

‘I always had to wear a helmet.'

‘What?' Feliks said.

‘On a bike. I had to wear my helmet.'

If only there was a helmet that could keep out of her head the memories that were beginning to close in on every side. The old house, just the chimneys visible from here. Would the swing still be there? The greenhouse? She hadn't gone back since the new people moved in. It was almost six years now. Three since Grampa's death. Mrs Thomson who'd cleaned for them after Mother left was still alive. There was still a card at Christmas.

It was after twelve. Away to their left, there was a sign lying on its side.
Danger. No Access Beyond This Point
. She closed her eyes. The wind was rushing through the tree tops. She heard traffic sounds, the rattle of a boat engine starting up, a dog barking far away.

‘I won a gold medal here once, at the Games. Well, the choir did. Chrisanne was so good. It's strange how you lose things that sometimes you thought you would die before you lost them.'

She'd kept it in a pink musical box. You had to keep the boxes locked. Keep it all locked, all the sorrow, but the joy too, because that was the price one had to pay. All the good memories, the days that . . .

‘So, you can sing.'

‘Actually, yes. I'm quite good. Are you?'

‘I don't know.'

‘How can you not know? What are you good at?'

‘I told you before. Throwing stones.'

‘D'you think Irene's coming?' she said.

No answer.

‘Can I ask you something else? I was wondering, if she went back with you, would she be safe?'

She thought he wasn't going to answer this question either but he did.

‘I don't know. I think she will be all right.'

She hoped so, she really did, because she thought Irene would want to go. Irene loved being special, being the centre of attention and having nice things like the emerald ring. And who was she to be judging Irene? She was just as greedy for nice things. She'd been furious, angry and jealous when the old house was sold without a word of warning, and everything shipped to Spain. Mother had sold her small flat and bought a villa to house them in. She herself had glibly told everyone she wanted only memories, but really she'd been seething inside for ages. Grampa's quiet words, ‘the croft will be all yours, Donaldina' hadn't helped, because she didn't want him to die too.

Beside her, Feliks stiffened. She saw why. Irene in front, the blond man behind her. They were walking down the curved road that led to the park. They'd be hidden behind the first trees in a minute. She'd lied. Why had she lied to them? She hadn't lost him at all. Unless she had and he'd found her again.

‘Promise me one thing,' Feliks said. ‘No matter what happens, no matter what anyone says to you, even me, keep behind me.' He was kicking at the stones around the concrete base under the bench.

‘Behind you?'

‘I mean, let no one reach you, get hold of you. No one, not even Miss Arbanisi. Keep your eye on Frank especially. Stay behind me and out of everyone's way. Don't try to help. Promise me.' His hands were her shoulders, then lightly on the sides of her face, holding her so she couldn't look away.

She couldn't promise. If she did, she wouldn't be free to do something if there was something that needed doing. It would be like opening the biggest box in the universe. Anything might happen.

‘Promise me.'

‘All right,' she said.

Feliks let her go. Could he do this thing? As easily make a perfect bottle out of the fractured glass lying there beside the refuse bin. And what of his own future? If he succeeded now, there would be no going back.
I want your wings
, he told the white birds wheeling overhead.
Take me with you. Take me to the land where bananas grow.

He saw Frank fold his magazine and take out his mobile phone. De Bono and the woman were still out of sight but it wouldn't be long. He rehearsed once more how the thing might be done. Someone emerged out of the trees, but it was merely a workman, young but wearing a flat cap like an old man's. He was clad in overalls, pushing a blue bin on wheels, with a spiked metal pole attached to it. A bunch of black plastic bags hung on the bin handle. The young man walked across the grass to the concrete litter bin, and began pushing about in it with the pole. A small black dog came dancing across to him from the opposite direction, snuffling at his ankles, only to be called sharply back by its owner, a burly man in a red anorak.

Charles arrived first. He paused momentarily at the end of the path where it met the short grass, then began to come forward. Irene was a few paces behind. She seemed to be struggling with the tree roots, uncertain whether to step over or avoid them. Feliks glanced at the birds in the wind, and waited and waited. Charles half turned to see whether she was following, then turned to walk on, and at precisely the right moment Feliks let the stone fly. Charles crumpled, fell on his back, his arms high.

For a couple of seconds nothing happened, then shouts and screams merged. He turned his back on them all, kneeling down on the concrete to face Dina, pulling her to him. She wasn't screaming or yelling, for which he was thankful. She was rigid for a while, then she relaxed. Her head rested on his neck. He could feel her breath on his skin.

‘I'm not going to leave you,' he said, not sure if she heard him.

But there were hands on his upper arms, pulling him away. More than one person's hands. And everyone was shouting. At him, or at one another? He gave up. His head was held, forced down, and his body with it, and now someone heavy was sitting on his back. His arms were yanked round, his wrists cuffed. So be it, he thought. So be it.