When the World Was Steady (25 page)

‘This is not at all what I intended,’ said Melody Simpson. She sighed, jagged with the pain. ‘I don’t know what we do now. I just don’t know. I wish I could explain—I had a feeling—it’s not what I intended, but I suppose I’ll have to stay here. Outside the house. Just here.’ Maybe that was the ugly, undignified truth of how it would have to be. ‘You go on, Virginia. It’s cold. You’d better go. But remember that I’ve always loved you dearly. And that Bella needs to be picked up when you get home.’

‘Stop this. I won’t have it. There isn’t time.’

Virginia took off her coat and put it round her mother’s shoulders. ‘I’ll hurry. I promise. I think it’s best,’ she added, trying to cover her panic with authority, ‘if you don’t go to sleep. Because of the cold. Stay awake. And move your good foot around, for circulation. Will you be all right?’

Mrs Simpson nodded vaguely. ‘It’s how it has to be,’ she said. ‘I just misunderstood.’

Without pausing to reply, Virginia set off at as close to a run as she could manage.

Angelica could tell that Nikhil was discouraged by the vagueness of the shop assistants. ‘It’ll be all right, love, we’ll find her,’ she said in her breathiest, most maternal voice, putting an arm across his shoulders.

He shrugged; whether in pure disbelief or with the added motive of avoiding her touch, she was unsure. She kept her hands to herself after that. They were standing by the car in the main square of Portree, the wet misery thick and palpable around them.

‘What do you want to do now?’ she asked, jangling the car keys. ‘We can head up this coast, like the woman suggested. Ask
around, you know?’

Nikhil turned to look at her and she could see it was a struggle for him to remain civil. It occurred to her that if they had slept together, it would have hastened intimacy and honesty, and he would at this moment have exploded, which would have been fine. As it was, he twisted his mouth into the icy sliver of a smile and said, ‘I don’t know what is best. There is no need for you to be part of this wild goose chase. Perhaps I could borrow the car?’

‘Don’t be silly. It’s an adventure. I
want
to help. Now hop in.’

They drove out of town to the northern turnoff, and turned. After a while Angelica put on a tape of Graham Kendrick’s evangelical rock songs. Kendrick was only halfway into his first tune when Nikhil asked if they might shut him off. Angelica felt a little annoyed. She was cheered by Graham Kendrick and she had wanted Nikhil to be cheered too.

After passing the Old Man of Storr, the first human site they came across, a couple of miles on, was an isolated croft above the road, looking out towards the sea. Angelica stopped the car.

‘Do you want to go alone, or shall we both go?’

‘Sorry?’ Nikhil was scowling.

‘Well, we’ve got to find out if they’ve seen them. Maybe they even live here. You never know.’

‘Are we going to do this at every house we see? All day? And all tomorrow? And all for nothing?’

‘There aren’t that many houses, Nikhil. Have you got a better idea?’

He shrugged again.

‘Do you want to give up, then?’

‘Of course not.’ He was fidgeting with the glove compartment. ‘I just don’t think we’ll find them. They may be dead.’

‘How likely is that?’ Angelica felt much older than this squirming boy.

In the end they went together up the hill, but it was Angelica
who knocked and spoke to the woman who came to the door. No, the woman had never seen any black girls around here. Maybe she’d heard about them—were they hippies, aye?—in which case it would be north of here. She didn’t know how far. She didn’t know for certain whether she knew anything about them.

The morning stretched into afternoon, and everywhere they found the same thing: uncertainty at best, ranging to complete ignorance. One woman peered from behind her curtain and then refused to open the door. Their progress was slow. It was three before they came across a small shop that sold stamps, milk, bread and chocolate, and locally-knit pullovers for the few passing tourists.

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
wished
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?’