The Visitors (23 page)

‘You’re too young. You don’t know what I’m talking about.’

‘I’m an adult,’ I replied, calmer than I felt.

‘Then understand this. It doesn’t heal,’ said John, his voice a wound. ‘It never gets better. It is always broken.’

Our eyes met fully, and I saw that he was hollow.

‘You can’t look for her for ever.’

‘It might be for the best,’ he said, ‘if you didn’t see Ailsa quite so often.’

My face grew hot.

‘We’re not kids. And I don’t take easy options. I’ll do the right thing by my friend, whether you like it or not.’

John considered this. On the far side of the harbour, a car beeped, and a man shouted. Everywhere else, people went about their business. Implacable, he nodded, as though making up his mind.

‘Ailsa said you liked selkie stories,’ he said, abruptly.

‘Excuse me?’

‘She said you were collecting them.’

‘Oh. Aye. I am.’

‘She said you had some where the selkies were wicked.’

‘Most of them so far, aye.’

‘That’s not what I know,’ he said. ‘So this is a different sort of story.’

John began to talk, and then everything changed.

Selkies danced naked in the surf. Seven of them turned a racing circle, hands linked and heads thrown back, frantic in the salt spray. Their sealskins lay jumbled on the beach as they waltzed and whirled. From the shore, a young crofter watched them dance. He resolved to take a selkie for his wife. He scuttled on his belly like any common crab, sneaking up on the seal girls. He reached out and, with trembling hands, took hold of a precious skin. He retreated, and waited in the rocks.

The selkies danced until they’d tired of dancing. One by one, they retrieved their sealskins from the beach – leaving one poor lass without. Reluctant to leave her but compelled into the sea, her sisters stepped into their skins. Transformed into seals, they vanished beneath the waves. Frantic and weeping, the remaining selkie scrabbled in the sand, but she couldn’t find her own coat. Only now did the crofter emerge from his hiding place and approach the selkie. She fell to her knees, pleading for the return of her skin. He refused to give it back, and he took her for his wife. With her sealskin captive, the selkie had no choice but to follow.

For many years, the selkie and the crofter lived together. Entranced by his beautiful bride, the man fell a little more in love each day. He gave his heart and soul to her entirely. For
her part, the selkie did her wifely duties without complaint, preparing food and keeping house, though her heart ached always for the sea. Every day, she combed the beach for firewood, so near and so far from her true home. Every day, she lit a fire in the house. In time, she came to welcome the young man’s affection, and she became fond of him. The pair muddled on together for seven long years. But throughout that time, she searched low and high for her coat. It simply wasn’t there for finding.

There came a day when the crofter went to town. In his absence, the selkie swept the hearth in readiness to build a fire. But as she cleaned, her elbow caught the kettle. The fire crane tumbled over, and split the hearthstone clean in two. The space beneath the hearth rang hollow. At first uncertain, the selkie hauled the stone to one side. Around her, ashes fell like snow. There, beneath the hearth, she discovered an old trunk. With trembling hands, she removed the box, and broke the lock. Inside, she found her skin – her own true skin. Clutching to it like life itself, she turned at once and headed for the sea. She neither faltered nor looked back as she walked down to the ocean.

The young man returned to find the hearthstone split asunder. His trunk lay open and as empty as the sky, and his beautiful bride was nowhere to be found. He bolted for the beach, but he was too late. The selkie stepped into her skin, and was transformed once more into a seal. She dived into the sea and returned to her true home. Her sisters rejoiced to have her back beneath the waves, and she never again returned to land. She never again danced in the surf. Though she was sad to leave the crofter, she remained a seal for the rest of her days.

Back on the beach, the young man lamented, weeping until his eyes turned raw. Love had turned him inside out.
He returned to his croft after hours spent waiting in the rain, and he lived on in aching sadness. He grieved for the rest of his days, lost and alone, always in mourning for his missing bride. He lived a long and fruitless life, and only the rain on the flat grey sea knew the measure of his heart.

I stood with my mouth open.

John looked at his watch.

‘I’ll be on, then,’ he said, and took a step back.

‘Wait. Wait a second.’

He paused while I gathered my thoughts.

‘What does it mean?’

‘What any story means, Flora. Whatever you choose to take from it.’

‘But if she liked him, why didn’t she stay?’

He considered this.

‘Because she had a true nature, and she couldn’t deny it.’

‘No. She had a choice. If she liked him, she could choose to stay.’

John shook his head.

‘A comfortable prison is still a prison.’

He turned and walked away. I stood for moments, watching him go, then watching the harbour bustle long after he had gone.

The story was gold, but the telling of it had blown me away. His sullen manner had vanished, caught into the swirl of words. And then – like that – it was over, and he was gone.

He was lost so far inside himself. I decided that John was broken. No wonder he kept Ailsa so close. She was all he had left of his wife, his love. If Ailsa went, then Annie went too. All
of John was in his boxes of old newspapers. He was haunted by his map, haunted by his red and yellow pins.

I was haunted by his story. I was haunted by his eyes.

What was in that bag?

Distracted, I walked to school.

English was rubbish, as usual. We’d moved on from
The Silver Darlings
to
Middlemarch
. It always seemed to me that I learned more ancient history in English than in History. When I thought no one was looking, I scribbled out John’s story. Occasionally I leafed through the Mutch book, soaking up the pictures and slipping into daydreams of selkies. As insane as it was, Mutch felt real.
Middlemarch
felt like a distant joke. I’d ordered a collection of Finnish folk tales from the library, and I doubled up my books so Mr McLaggan couldn’t see. I read a story about a girl who turned into a goose. She flew into the night sky and discovered that the stars were made of frost. Every morning they were melted by the sun, and each night they froze again.

The school bell shook me back to wakefulness. I’d daydreamed through the brief on some new assignment. There were cryptic notes about
Middlemarch
scrawled on the whiteboard, but I had no idea what part of the book they referred to, or what I was supposed to do. I hesitated, almost stopping to ask what we needed to do for the homework, then stepped decisively out the classroom door and didn’t look back.

As I walked, I felt little tugs of guilt, telling me to go back, apologise to the teacher, find out what I’d missed. But another voice spoke louder, reasoning that I didn’t need or want Higher English.

I didn’t need or want any of it.

Someone banged into my shoulder, and I spun into the wall and fell half to the floor. Tina smirked down at me.

‘Well, if it isn’t the ice queen.’

The corridor was empty but for Tina. I struggled back to my feet, pressing against the wall.

‘Shouldn’t you be in class with all the other children?’ I said, heart racing.

‘Just a wee reminder, Flo. I’m still watching. I’m still here.’

‘You’ll be here for ever,’ I muttered.

Tina grinned wider. ‘You’re not the only one with plans,’ she said. ‘I’ve found a handsome prince to take me away from this dump.’

‘That’s sweet. Who’s the victim? Does the poor bastard know yet?’

Mr Baillie rounded the corner, and both of us started with guilt.

‘Robson. Cannan. What are you doing out of class?’

‘Study period, sir.’

‘You always study in school corridors?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Then be on with you. What about you, Robson?’

‘Running a message for Mr Creil, sir,’ she said, promptly.

‘Really. Why don’t we go and ask Mr Creil about that?’

Tina blanched. Baillie grabbed her elbow and steered her towards the stairs. I gave her a cheery wave as they vanished through the door. The corridor hummed with muted classroom noise, and my pulse felt suddenly, stupidly loud.

I steeled myself, steadied my breath.

Tina wasn’t going to let me go without a fight. She hadn’t yet taken whatever she wanted from me.

I walked out of school. Waiting for the ferry, I made a dutiful attempt to read
Middlemarch
, but Tina’s smirk swam through my mind, and I gave up. Fish darted around the harbour, dark slivers of life.

A few more months to go. Only a few more months. I spotted John Dobie’s dinghy moored to the opposite wall.
When I replayed our conversation, each time I found myself a little angrier at being told what to do. Once we were underway, Tanno sliding past the ferry, I found my phone and texted Ailsa:

Feeling a bit blue. Fancy another night on the cherry schnapps?

A few minutes later came the reply:

NO! … But we could try the pub again? Or that whisky Izzy keeps finding on the beach? Cheer up, kid
.

I grinned. Despite everything else, I had a friend.

Things could always be worse.

Tony struck us the same deal as before. Sit at the back, drink shandies and keep quiet. I wore a red halter top with a miniskirt and patterned tights. The top made me feel exotic, and I wore far more make-up than usual. Ailsa looked great in a long gypsy skirt, hooped with bands of colour, and a simple black vest. We sat and chatted nonsense about school, clothes and music. She told me more about the places she’d lived in. Beaches, mountains, rivers. She’d been to six schools in the last five years. The more she talked, the more I realised how lonely she’d become. It had only been her and her dad, as long as she’d ever known. No wonder that John needed her so badly. He’d spent half his life chasing ghosts, and now Ailsa was on the cusp of adulthood. Were she to go, ghosts would be all he had left. I imagined him alone on Dog Rock, digging his trench, digging in the dark. Somehow, he’d known we’d been out drinking.

‘What would your dad do,’ I said, abruptly, ‘if he knew we were out like this?’

‘He’d be really pissed off. With me, anyway. I don’t think he’d mind about you. He hates me being out alone.’

‘You’re seventeen. He can’t keep you locked up for ever.’

‘Yeah? Tell him that, would you?’

‘Not likely. Then he’d really hate me.’

She shook her head. ‘He thinks you’re all right.’

‘You’re kidding? He doesn’t even smile when I see him.’

‘That’s just Dad. He does like you.’

‘He told me a great selkie story.’

‘I asked him to, if he saw you. For balance.’

‘… then he walked off with barely a word.’

She winced. ‘Ouch. Sorry.’

‘Don’t worry about it.’

‘Look, he wouldn’t have told you the story if he didn’t think you were all right. You’re bringing me out of my shell, apparently.’

I started. ‘That’s exactly why Mum and Ronny are so keen that I see you. “It’s good for me to see girls my own age”, you know.’

‘What a pair,’ she snorted. ‘However did we manage beforehand?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said, throwing a dramatic hand to my forehead. ‘Save me! Save me from myself!’

Ailsa was giggling, but her face dropped.

‘Oh God, no.’

‘What is it?’

‘It’s that awful Lachlan again.’

I turned in my seat. Sure enough, Lachie was approaching us from the far corner of the bar, beaming broadly all the way. He was alone. I thought of Izzy’s ear, that beating. I thought of all the missing men.

‘My bonnie lassies,’ he leered. ‘How lovely to see you again in this wonderful—’ he looked around the bar, ‘—this establishment.’

He leaned low, slopping what looked like half a double whisky onto the table.

‘May I join you?’ he said, already lowering himself into the booth beside Ailsa.

‘No,’ I said, pointedly, ‘no, you can’t.’

His face fell in mock dismay. ‘Alas no, Flora. But why not? Surely a dashing young gent such as myself might venture to buy you two ladies a drink?’

‘I do not want,’ I said, ‘anything from you.’

He turned to Ailsa, shutting me out, and gestured at me with his thumb.

‘Barking up the wrong tree with this one. How about you, sweetheart? Care to join me for a tipple?’

‘To be honest,’ she said, wrinkling her nose, ‘I’m already pretty loaded off your aftershave.’

I snorted with laughter. He scowled at her and sat up a little straighter.

‘Seriously,’ she said, ‘have you not got another gear?’

‘Aye,’ I chimed in, ‘change the record, man. Why do you come in here? No one likes you.’

A thin, mean smile slid across his face.

‘I’ll tell you a secret. I come precisely because no one likes me.’

I glanced at Ailsa, puzzled. Warily, she studied Lachlan.

‘I don’t understand.’

‘No one does,’ he sniggered. ‘That’s the whole point. They hate me because they’re scared of me. They’re scared because one day soon, the old man will be pushing daisies, and I’ll be running Clachnabhan. Half the island will work for me, and the other half will owe me big. They’re right to be scared of me.’

‘That’s so messed up.’

He leaned back, arms behind his head. ‘Whatever. Doesn’t matter to me. I do what I want. You should be nicer to me, Flora.’

‘Or what?’

‘Or, when I’m in charge, your daddy loses his job.’

I froze, and he smiled wider. My usual response was to say, ‘Ronny’s not my dad.’ But this time, I didn’t. Lachlan wasn’t joking.

‘You’re such a prick.’

‘Ah,’ he said, holding up an admonishing finger, ‘I said play nice. That’s not being nice, is it? Is it, Ailsa?’