This Northern Sky (16 page)

He laughs. ‘You learn fast,’ he says.

I pass the binoculars back, sit quietly next to him while he watches the water.

‘It’s very comforting being with you,’ I tell Finn. ‘You make me feel calm, and steadier, somehow.’

As soon as I’ve said that out loud, I’m remembering Finn in the exhibition hall at Martinstown. Finn upset and angry, not calm at all. And then I realise that I’m getting to know him, that’s all. I’m seeing him as a whole person, beginning to understand him, see his strengths and his weaknesses and accept it all. That’s what you have to do to get closer to someone. Not imagine it all, make it up in your head: a fantasy person.

Is that the mistake I made with Sam? Did I make up a person in my head, and it wasn’t who he really was at all? Or was it simply that I could see something in him that no one else saw: the real Sam underneath all the other stuff?

‘There’s this boy,’ I start. ‘Sam.’ I pause. I watch a tiny blue butterfly flit across the rocks. It settles, spreads out its wings in the sun.

Finn looks at me. ‘Yes?’

‘Can I tell you about him?’

Finn nods. ‘If you want to.’

‘Sam – I met him at the bus stop – quite random really. He went to the boys’ school, not my one. He was older than me. Good-looking. Funny and original and surprising. He was doing A Level sciences: he was really clever. At least, clever about things like physics and geography; mad about the stars and planets and the origins of the universe and all that sort of thing. He could have done anything he wanted. Could have gone out with anyone he wanted, but he chose me.’

Finn frowns slightly. ‘Why wouldn’t he? You’re clever and pretty and interesting too. I don’t know why you are so surprised when people like you.’

I let that sink in.

‘So? What happened?’

‘There was a much darker side to him I didn’t see at first. I gradually realised I couldn’t tell what he really thought about me. He’d be friendly and lovely one day, and then he wouldn’t phone me for ages – I didn’t know what was going on. His family was messed up – I mean, I know mine is too, but not like that. His was in a whole different league. There wasn’t enough food for the kids to eat even – he ended up living with his nan half the time. I worked it all out gradually. He wouldn’t tell me anything. I suppose he wanted to keep it all hidden. Like he was ashamed of it.’

‘You’re talking about him in the past tense.’

‘Am I? Well, it’s all over, that’s why. The night after he passed his driving test – he borrowed his gran’s old car, as a kind of celebration. She didn’t even know, I realised afterwards.
Freedom
, he said.
At last we can get out of this dump!

‘To begin with it was fine, until we got out of town. He said he was fed up with going along at thirty. He wanted to see how fast he could go.

‘I was terrified. He wouldn’t listen to me. I didn’t know what to do. It was late by then. There wasn’t much traffic luckily. But then this car came out of a side road, and we had to slow right down again and it made him mad. He started swearing and revving the engine, and then he swerved out to overtake, but there was a bend in the road . . . and another car coming – I thought we were going to die.’

‘But you didn’t. Obviously.’

‘No, we didn’t die.

‘We got past the car in front, just – and the car coming the other way – it had to swerve and we didn’t crash head on like I thought we were going to – but that car lost control, and it went off the road – there was a huge crash – breaking glass, the most horrible sound –’

‘Hey,’ Finn says, ‘Kate – you don’t have to tell me –’

‘But I do, I really want to.’ I pull myself together, take a deep breath. ‘I screamed at him to stop. I don’t think he would have done, if I hadn’t screamed so much. He’d have kept on driving. He was silent, and shaking and scared. I said we had to go back and help. I dialled 999 and I think the person in the car behind us must have done that already, because the ambulances came so quickly and the police and everything.’

‘Did he die? The bloke in the car that crashed?’

‘It was a woman. No, she didn’t die. She broke her leg, and hurt her back, and she’ll be in hospital for ages.’

‘And Sam?’

‘They arrested him for dangerous driving. I had to be a witness. It was awful. But I couldn’t lie.’

‘No. You couldn’t. You did the right thing. None of it was your fault, Kate.’

I’m shaking all over again. I stare at the sea, at the waves rolling in, one after another after another.

‘And last night, on the beach – that’s what was wrong with you? You were remembering all this?’

I nod.

‘So, is he in prison?
Sam
.’

‘No. He got bail – and he’ll probably get a community order in the end – on account of his promising A levels and school reports and messed-up family and things. He’s lucky, I suppose.’

Finn doesn’t say anything for a while.

‘My parents made me promise not to see him again,’ I say.

‘And you’re surprised? Honestly, Kate! They love you and want to look after you, of course!’ He looks at me. ‘Did you want to see him, after all that?’

‘I don’t know – yes, sometimes I did. Still do. It’s confusing. I didn’t stop liking him, even though what he did was awful.’

‘More fool you,’ Finn says.

‘That’s a bit harsh,’ I say.

‘The truth is sometimes.’

I bite my lip, trying to stop myself crying.

Finn shuffles closer; he puts his arm round me for a quick hug. It’s all I can do to stop myself leaning on him, putting my head on his shoulder and sobbing my heart out. If he’d given the slightest sign, I would have done. I’m longing for someone to hold me close, to make me feel safe and wanted.

But he doesn’t. He takes his arm away; it’s the briefest of hugs.

The blue butterfly’s still sunning itself on the rock. Its wings are such frail things, like pale blue tissue with veins of brown and flecks of gold along the edge.

‘Common Blue, female,’ Finn says. ‘Variation found on Western Isles.’

‘Sam won’t be able to go to university,’ I say. ‘It’s such a waste. He’s clever enough to study astronomy or astrophysics or whatever he wanted to do; he could have a brilliant career. But his family won’t support him. His nan doesn’t have any money. He’ll have to get work of some kind. And now he’ll have a criminal record.’

The butterfly folds it wings: the undersides are pale fawn and brown, not blue at all. It spreads them again, takes off. For a second it alights on Finn’s hand: we watch the way it trembles. It flies off again: tiny and perfect and resilient. The pale blue wings merge into blue sky so I can’t see it any longer.

‘He’ll be all right,’ Finn says. ‘He’ll find a way, if he wants it enough. You should forget about him now.’

‘It isn’t that easy,’ I say.

‘No. But you have to
decide
to do it.’

I lie back against the sun-warmed rock and close my eyes. It’s all very well for him to say that . . .

We stay there a long time without speaking. Finn has his back to me. He’s still staring out to sea.

‘What about you?’ I ask him. ‘Have you got a story about some girl?’ I hesitate, then come straight out and ask. ‘You really like Isla, don’t you?’

‘Yes,’ he says. ‘But she has a thing for Tim, as you can see.’ There’s an edge to his voice. He clearly doesn’t want to talk about this with me.

I don’t push it.

At the other end of the beach, smoke from the fire spirals up into the clean air. They’re probably all up and cooking breakfast by now. I’m suddenly ravenously hungry.

‘Shall we go back?’ I say.

‘You go. I’m going to stay here a bit longer. Might walk over to the next bay. I’ll see you later.’

I glance at his face. That closed look: I recognise it because I get like that too, sometimes. I hesitate for a second: I could offer to go with him. But I don’t: he so obviously wants to be by himself.

‘Fine,’ I say. ‘Thanks for listening to me.’

He doesn’t reply.

I jog slowly back along the sand. I’ve got better at it, what with all the cycling and walking I’ve done these last couple of weeks. It’s a beautiful morning.

My feet sink slightly into the soft sand; the wind’s at my back; the sun is dazzling on the sea.

I’m full of sadness, about Sam, and about my family, but right now, I realise, I wouldn’t want to be anywhere but here.

It’s a new, surprising thought.

Twenty-one

Isla and Tim are out of the sea and dressed. They’re sitting around with everyone else, eating sausage sandwiches. They aren’t holding hands or anything obvious, but you can tell there’s something going on between them. I can, anyway.
Poor Finn,
I think briefly.

‘Help yourself to food,’ Piers says with his mouth full. ‘Luckily we left you some.’

‘We assumed Finn was with you,’ Thea says.

‘He was.’ I pick up a bread roll and spread it thickly with butter. ‘But he wanted to walk on further. The next bay or something. And I was starving, so I came back.’

Everyone’s a bit tired after last night. No one says much. I finish my sandwich, help put things away. Finn still isn’t back. No one takes much notice.

Mid-morning, a Land Rover bumps slowly down the track: Rob’s friend the mechanic. He says hello to Isla. He knows her, of course. ‘Quite a night you had, I hear!’

Isla introduces him: his name is Mackie. She goes with him and Tim to inspect the jeep engine. The rest of us doze in the sun. The day heats up. Voices drift across the sand.

By lunchtime Mackie’s whistling and making jokes and Tim looks a whole lot happier. They come over for a cup of tea.

‘Mackie’s a total miracle worker,’ Tim says. ‘The jeep’s going to be all right.’

‘Happened to have all the spare parts, that’s all,’ Mackie says. ‘Just don’t mention it to anyone else, me working today.’

‘Sunday,’ Isla explains. ‘No one’s supposed to work on a Sunday. Not even cut peat or go shopping.’

I wrinkle my nose. ‘That must be really annoying.’

‘It’s actually a good idea,’ she says, ‘if you think about it. Spending a day with your family and friends instead of working. Those relationships are at the heart of an island community: the bonds that tie people and make them care about each other and help each other in difficult times. Without that, the island wouldn’t survive.’

It feels as if she’s telling me off.

Finn’s still not back. No one seems bothered. It’s not unusual, I guess. He often disappears off to do his own thing. I listen to Mackie talking: he seems to like having an audience. He’s not as old as he first seemed. He’s got the leathery face of someone who’s outside in all weathers, but it turns out he’s only a bit older than Tim. He’s a fisherman as well as a mechanic. Everyone on the island has at least two jobs.

‘Apart from the incomers with their holiday homes,’ he says. ‘They don’t do much useful; just bellyache about stuff. Like all the fuss about the fish and chip van. The generator keeping the holidaymakers awake at night or some such nonsense. So now we don’t have a fish ’n’ chip van at all and we’re all the losers.’ He grins at Isla.

He tells us he’s never lived anywhere but here. He went to the local school, he worked with his dad and his uncle at the garage, he learned to fish with his grandad.

‘What do you think about the wind farm project?’ I ask him.

Isla glances at me, but she doesn’t say anything.

‘Hah! Politicians!’ Mackie says scornfully. ‘They cook up these schemes and they’ve never even set foot in the place. They don’t have the foggiest about how their schemes will affect normal people, change a way of life that’s been handed down for generations. They muck about with it all from their smart city office on a bit of paper – or a computer screen these days, most likely. Plans and maps and graphs and statistics, and it all looks grand and ticks all the boxes about renewables and green this and energy that and European funding other. And all of it means nothing if you haven’t ever lived in a place like this, or been on a boat in a storm, or tried to walk along the road in wind when it’s hurricane force.’ He laughs. ‘Politician bloke came up from Edinburgh in his suit and spent the day on a ferry that couldn’t land because of the waves and the wind blowing a southeasterly. He spent eight hours at sea in a storm and he went all the way back again to Edinburgh the next day without ever setting foot on the island! You’d think that would teach him something.’

‘Why don’t more people speak out against the plans?’ Thea asks.

‘Island people have a long history of having to accept what’s done to them. They’ll complain about it enough afterwards, mind you. And some of the more mouthy incomers are against it for their own reasons, which puts normal folk off.’

‘You have to think about why people move over here,’ Isla says. ‘Quite often they’re people running away from something. People who aren’t so good at getting on with others, they don’t understand how a real community works.’ She laughs. ‘They forget that they bring themselves with them, wherever they run.’