Kitabı oku: «On the Edge of Darkness», sayfa 3

2

For Adam the days that followed were different. His father spoke to him seldom, and when he did he was distant, as though they were polite strangers. The boy had his breakfast and midday meal in the kitchen with Mrs Barron. Supper was always cold. Sometimes he and his father would sit opposite one another in silence in the dining room; sometimes, when Thomas was out, Adam would put his supper in a bag, stow it in his knapsack and escape onto the hill.

The holidays were drawing to an end. In a few days school would start again. He was glad. Something had happened between him and his friends which he didn’t understand. There was a new restraint between them – a slight embarrassment, almost an aloofness. He did not know that the news had sped round the district that Mrs Craig, the minister’s wife, had run away to Edinburgh with – the selection was varied – a travelling salesman, a university lecturer (he had been staying at the Bridge Hotel for two weeks over the summer), or the French wine importer who had been visiting the Forest Road Hotel along the river and who had left two days before Mrs Craig had disappeared. Nothing was said, but when he caught sight of Euan and Wee Mikey whispering behind the shop and heard their sniggers, hastily cut off as he approached, he felt himself colour sharply and he turned away. They had betrayed him. His best friend Robbie would have understood, perhaps (Robbie being one of the few friends to whose house he was allowed to go) but Robbie had not been at home all summer and a year ago, after his mother had died, had gone away to boarding school. So, instead of seeing his friends for the last precious days of the holidays, Adam amused himself and concentrated hard on the thought of school.

He had always enjoyed school and he enjoyed his work. He hadn’t told his father, yet, of his ambition to be a doctor, although he had no reason to believe the minister would object. In fact he would probably be pleased. Medicine was a respectable profession. Of one thing Adam was absolutely certain. He did not wish to go into the church. He hated the kirk. He hated the Sabbath. He hated the Bible and he hated the terrible guilt he felt about hating them all so much. Only one part of his duties as the minister’s child had ever appealed to him and that was visiting the poor and sick of the parish with his mother. It was something she had done extremely well and in spite of her English background they liked her. She did not condescend or patronise. She was cheerful, helpful and not afraid to roll up her sleeves. The people respected her and Adam had swiftly absorbed the fact that half an hour in her company clearly did more for an ailing woman or an injured man than hours of preaching from his father. Sometimes they met Dr Grogan on their rounds and Adam would, when permitted, or simply not noticed in the corner of the room, watch. He had been only ten when his medical ambition first began to take shape.

A week after his world had changed so abruptly Adam, a packed lunch in his bag as well as his supper because Mrs Barron had gone on the bus to Perth to see her sister as she did every week, set off up the hillside towards the carved stone.

He had thought often about Brid and her brother and her mother and their kindness, but he had told no one about them. His natural openness, his enthusiasm, his love of life had all gone. The beating and the loss of his mother had changed him. Jeannie Barron could see it and her heart bled for the boy. She mothered him as much as she could, but he shrank a little from her when she hugged him. He tolerated her affection courteously but no more. It was as though he had closed down some part of himself and surrounded it in a protective shell. And the new Adam was secretive. He could have told his mother about his new friends. Without her there, he would tell no one.

It was a blustery day with an exhilarating autumnal bite in the wind. Besides his food and his field glasses, which were hanging round his neck on a strap, he had his specimen boxes with him – to collect interesting things for his museum – his bird book and a notebook and pencil, and he had stolen four slices of chocolate cake from the pantry. The three extra pieces were for Brid and her family. He knew Mrs Barron would see but he knew she wouldn’t tell. His father didn’t know the cake was there. Almost certainly he would have disapproved of it.

He reached the stone, panting, and swung his bag off his shoulders. He already had three birds to put in his notebook. Grouse, of course, skylark and siskin. He pulled the battered volume out, his thin brown fingers fumbling with the buckle on the outside pocket of the green canvas knapsack and, sucking the pencil lead for a moment to make it write better, he began to make his notes.

He had planned to eat lunch, to watch birds, and then in the afternoon to make his way down the far side of the hill to Brid’s cottage.

The first part of the plan went well. He sat down on a slab of exposed rock, his back to the stone, facing the view down the heather-covered hill. It was growing brown in places now, the vibrant purple of the weeks before fading. He heard the lonely cry of an eagle, and putting down his wedge of pork pie he picked up his field glasses and squinted with them towards the distant cloud-hung peaks of the mountains behind the hill.

It wasn’t until he had finished the last of his food, drunk half his ginger beer and folded the remains of the greaseproof paper neatly into his knapsack beside the carefully preserved slices of cake that he stood up and decided to go and look for Brid.

The sun was out now. It blazed down on the heather from a strangely cloudless sky. He sniffed. He had lived in this part of the world all his life and he could read the weather signs clearly. The wind had dropped. He would have an hour, maybe two, then he would see the mist beginning to collect in the folds of the hills and drift over the distant peaks, which would grow hazy and then disappear.

He stood for a moment, staring round, and then he lifted the glasses and began a systematic search beyond the stand of old Scots pine for the track which had led to the burn next to which Brid’s cottage stood.

Spotting the track at last he set off, trotting confidently down the north-facing slope of the ridge, leaving the carved cross-slab behind him. He reached the trees and paused. The shadow he had thought was the track was just that, a shadow thrown by a slight change in the contour of the hill. He frowned, wishing he had taken more notice of where he was going when he had followed her before.

‘Brid!’ He cupped his hands around his mouth and called. The shout sounded almost indecent in the quiet of the afternoon. Somewhere nearby a grouse flew up squawking the traditional warning ‘go-back’. He stood still. On the horizon the landmarks were disappearing one by one as the mist closed in.

‘Brid!’ He tried again, his voice echoing slightly across the valley. Disappointment hovered at the back of his mind. He hadn’t realised how much he had been looking forward to seeing her and her brother again.

Pushing through the bracken, he headed away from the Scots pine downhill. The fold in the rock there looked familiar. If he remembered correctly he would find the burn there, running between steep banks. He was wading through the undergrowth now, feeling the tough stems of heather and bracken tearing at his legs, and he was out of breath when at last he burst through it onto the flat outcrop of rocks where, sure enough, the burn hurtled down over a series of steep falls to the pool beneath, the pool where Gartnait had caught the trout. He frowned. It was the right place, he was sure of it, but it couldn’t be. There was no sign of the little rough cottage where they lived; where he had spent that fateful night. He scrambled down the slippery rocks: here. He was sure it had been here. He gazed round, confused. The grass was long and lush, watered by the spray from the falls. There was no sign of the fire.

It was obviously the wrong place. If he followed the burn down he would find the right one. He searched until it began to grow dark, becoming more and more annoyed with himself as his systematic crossing and recrossing of the ridge brought him back again to the same spot.

In the end he had to give up. He sat down and ate the pieces of cake himself, then admitting that there was nothing else he could do, he made his way back to the manse, tired and disappointed and depressed.

In the garden he hesitated. His father’s study was lit; the shutters were fastened so he could not see in. Tiptoeing round to the kitchen door he cautiously turned the handle. To his relief the door opened and he crept inside.

He did not pause in the hallway. Running up the stairs as fast as he could on silent feet, he dived on up, past his official bedroom, unslept in now since the day his mother had left, and up again to the attic. There he had made himself a mattress with a line of old cushions and covered it with some bedclothes. Still fully dressed and wearing his shoes, he flung himself down on his improvised bed and pulling a blanket over his head he cried himself to sleep.

It was two hours later that he heard the footsteps below him on the landing. He had awoken with a start and he lay for a moment, wondering what had happened. He was still fully clothed. Then he remembered.

He tensed. There it was again. The sound of heavy footsteps. His father. Quietly he crawled out of the bed and, standing up, moved silently towards the door. His heart was pounding. The sounds grew louder and for a moment he thought his father was on his way up to the attic, then they drew away again and it began to dawn on Adam that his father was pacing the floor of the bedroom beneath him. He listened for a long time, then at last, careful not to make a sound himself, he climbed back under the blankets and humped his pillow over his head.

He did not sleep for long. At first light, he was awakened by the sound of a blackbird. He crawled out of bed and went to look out of the window. The churchyard beyond the hedge was grey. There were no streaks of sunlight yet above the eastern hills. He padded across the floor to the window on the opposite side of the attic. From where he stood he could almost see up the high hillside to where the cross-slab stood.

Making his mind up quickly he pulled a thick sweater over his sleep-crumpled clothes and let himself out of the room.

On the landing outside his parents’ room he stopped, holding his breath. From behind the door he could hear the sound of husky broken sobs. He listened for a moment, appalled, then he turned and ran.

In the kitchen he grabbed the rest of the cake and a box of shortbread and another bottle of ginger beer from the cold floor of the pantry. Cramming them into his knapsack he paused for a moment to snatch Mrs Barron’s shopping list pad and scribble, Have gone birdwatching. Don’t worry. He propped it up against the teapot, then he unlocked the door and let himself out into the garden.

It was very cold. In seconds his shoes were soaked with dew and his feet were frozen. He rammed his hands into his pockets and sped towards the street and he was already across the river and at the bottom of the hill when the first rim of sunlight slid between the distant mountain peaks and bathed the Tay in brilliant cold light.

He did not have to search for Brid’s house this time. She found him as he was sitting leaning against the stone, eating the last piece of cake for his breakfast.

‘A-dam?’ The voice behind him was soft but even so he leaped out of his skin.

‘Brid!’

They stared at each other helplessly, both wanting to say more, both knowing there was no point. Until they found a way of communicating they were impotent. At last, on inspiration, Adam dived into his bag and cursing the fact that he had eaten the cake himself he brought out the shortbread. Breaking off a piece he handed it to her shyly. She took it and sniffed it cautiously, then she bit it.

‘Shortbread.’ Adam repeated the word clearly.

She looked at him, head slightly to one side, eyes bright, and she nodded enthusiastically. ‘Shortbread,’ she said after him.

‘Good?’ he asked. He mimed good.

She giggled. ‘Good?’ she said.

‘Gartnait?’ he asked. He had a piece for her brother.

She pointed to the cross-slab. ‘Gartnait,’ she said. It sounded like a confirmation. Jumping up, she tugged at Adam’s hand.

He followed her, aware that with the sunrise had come the mist, wreathing through the trees and up the hillside. It had already reached the stone. He shivered, feeling it hit him like a physical blow as he walked after the girl. She glanced over her shoulder and he saw for a moment the look of doubt in her eyes, then it was gone, the mist was sucked up in the heat of the sun and Gartnait was there, sitting close to the cross. In his hand he had a hammer and in the other a punch.

‘Oh, I say, you can’t do that!’ Adam was shocked.

Gartnait looked up and grinned.

‘Tell him he can’t. That cross is special. It’s hundreds – thousands – of years old. He mustn’t touch it! It’s part of history,’ Adam appealed to her, but she ignored him. She was holding out a piece of shortbread to her brother.

‘Shortbread,’ she repeated fluently.

Adam was staring at the back of the cross. Instead of the sequence of weathered patterns he was used to seeing – the incised circles, the Z-shaped broken spear, the serpent, the mirror, the crescent moon – the face of the stone looked new. It was untouched, with only a small part of one of the designs begun in one corner, the punch-marks fresh and sharp.

Adam ran his fingers over the raw clean edges and he heard Brid draw in her breath sharply. She shook her head and pulled his hand away. Don’t touch. Her meaning was clear. She glanced over her shoulder as though she were afraid.

Adam was confused for a moment. The cross – the proper, old cross – must be there in the mist and Gartnait was copying it. He looked again at the young man’s handiwork and he was impressed.

They sat together and ate the shortbread, then Gartnait picked up his chisel again. It was as he was working away at the intricate shape of the crescent moon, with Brid watching, giggling as Adam taught her the names of the plants and trees around them, that Gartnait suddenly paused in his chipping and listened. Brid fell silent at once. She looked round, frightened.

‘What is it?’ Adam glanced from one to the other.

She put her finger to her lips, her eyes on her brother’s face.

Adam strained his ears. He could hear nothing but the faint whisper of the wind through the dry heather stems.

Abruptly Gartnait gave Brid an order which galvanised her into action. She leaped to her feet and grabbed Adam’s wrist. ‘Come. Quick.’ They were words he had taught her already.

‘Why? What’s wrong?’ He was bewildered.

‘Come.’ She was dragging him away from her brother towards the trees.

‘Brid!’ Gartnait called after her. He gabbled some quick instructions and she nodded, still clutching Adam’s hand. The mist had drifted back across the hill and they dived into it as Adam saw two figures approaching in the distance. Clearly Brid did not intend him to meet them. In seconds he and Brid were concealed in the mist and their visitors were out of sight.

She led the way, confidently recognising landmarks he couldn’t see and almost at once they were emerging near the spot where he had first seen her.

He looked round nervously. Surely Gartnait and the two strangers were only a few paces away behind the stone? He glanced back, seeing its shape looming out of the murk, touched now by the early morning sun. There was no sign of Gartnait or his unwelcome visitors.

‘Who are they?’ Adam mimed his question.

Brid shrugged. To explain was too complicated, clearly, and she was still afraid. She tugged his hand and, her finger to her lips, again headed down the hillside. Of Gartnait there was no sign.

The day was spoiled. She was clearly afraid and although she sat down near him when he beckoned her towards a sheltered rock from where they could survey the valley, which was still bathed in sunshine, in only a few minutes she had risen to her feet.

‘Goodbye, A-dam.’ She took his hand and gave it a little tug.

‘Can I come again tomorrow?’ He couldn’t keep the anxiety out of his voice.

She smiled and shrugged. ‘Tomorrow?’

How do you mime tomorrow? He shrugged too, defeated.

She shook her head and with a little wave of her hand turned and ran back up the hill on silent feet. He slumped back against the rock, disappointed.

She wasn’t there tomorrow or the next day. Twice he went up the hill again and twice he searched all day for their cottage and for Gartnait’s stone, but there was no sign of either. Both times he returned home feeling let down and puzzled.

‘Where have you been all day?’ His father was sitting opposite him in the cold dining room.

‘Walking, Father.’ The boy’s hands tightened nervously on his knife and fork and he put them down on his plate.

‘I saw Mistress Gillespie at the post office today. She said you hadn’t been down to play with the boys.’

‘No, Father.’

How could he explain the side-long looks, the sniggers?

He studied the pattern on his plate with furious concentration as if imprinting the delicate ivy-leaf design around the rim on his retinas.

‘Are you looking forward to starting school again?’ The minister was trying hard. His own eyes were red-rimmed and bloodshot, his hands shaking slightly. When his plate was only half empty he pushed the food aside and gave up. Adam couldn’t keep his eyes off the remains of his father’s supper. If he himself left anything he was normally the recipient of a lecture on waste and was told to sit there until he had eaten it. Seething with sudden resentment, he wished he dare say something, but he remained silent. The atmosphere in the room was tense. He hated it and, he realised it at last, he hated his father.

Miserably he shook his head as his father offered him a helping from the cold trifle left on the sideboard and he sat with bowed head whilst Thomas, clearly relieved that the meal was over, said a quick prayer of thanks and stood up. ‘I have a sermon to write.’ It was said almost apologetically.

Adam looked up. For a brief moment he felt an unexpected wave of compassion sweep over him as he met his father’s eyes. The next he had looked away coldly. Their unhappiness was, after all, his father’s fault.

‘A-dam!’ She had crept up beside him as he lay on the grass, his arm across his eyes to block off the glare from the sun.

He removed his arm and smiled without sitting up. ‘Where have you been?’

‘Hello, A-dam.’ She knelt beside him and dropped a handful of grass-seed heads on his face. ‘A-dam, shortbread?’ She pointed to the knapsack which lay beside him.

He laughed. ‘You’re a greedy miss, that’s what you are.’ He unfastened it and brought out the tin of shortbread. He was pleased she had remembered the word. He glanced round. ‘Gartnait?’

She shook her head.

As he peered round the cross-slab to see if her brother was there she wagged her finger. ‘No, A-dam. No go there.’

‘Why not? Where have you been? Why couldn’t I find you?’ He was growing increasingly frustrated at this inability to communicate with her properly.

She sat down beside him and began to pull the lid off the shortbread tin. She seemed uninterested in further conversation, leaning back on her elbows, sucking at the soft buttery biscuit, licking her lips. The sun came out from behind a cloud, throwing a bright beam across her face and she closed her eyes. He studied her for a moment. She had dark hair and strong regular features. When the bright, grey eyes, slightly slanted, were closed, as now, her face was tranquil yet still full of character, but when those eyes were open her whole expression came alive, vivacious and enquiring. Silver lights danced in her eyes and her firm, quirky mouth twitched with humour. She was peeping at him beneath her long dark lashes, conscious of his scrutiny, reacting with an instinctive coquetry that had not been there before. Abruptly she sat up.

‘A-dam.’ She was saying his name more fluently now, more softly, but with the same intonation which he found so beguiling.

He ceased his scrutiny abruptly, feeling himself blush. ‘It’s time we learned each other’s language,’ he said firmly. ‘Then we can all talk together.’

She moved, with a graceful wiggle of her hips, onto her knees and pointed down the valley the way he had come. ‘A-dam, big shortbread?’ she said coaxingly.

He burst out laughing. ‘All right. More shortbread. Next time I come.’

He hadn’t planned to follow her. He just couldn’t stop himself. He had spent the afternoon teaching her words, astonished by the phenomenal memory which retained faultlessly everything he told her. He taught her more trees and flowers and birds; he taught her the names of their clothes; he taught her arms and legs and heads and eyes and hair and all the items in his knapsack; he taught her walk and sit and run. He taught her the sky and the sun, the wind and the words for laugh and cry, and they had ‘talked’ and giggled and finished all the shortbread, and then at last she had glanced up at the sun. She frowned, obviously realising how late it was, and scrambled to her feet. ‘Bye bye, A-dam.’

He was taken by surprise. ‘But it’s hours until dark. Do you have to go?’

It was no use. She shrugged and turning, with a little wave, she dodged behind the stone slab and out of his sight.

He leaped to his feet. ‘Brid, wait. When shall I see you? When shall I come again?’

There was no answer. He ran a few steps after her and stopped in confusion. There was no sign of her. He retraced his steps to the spot where he had been standing and then turning, followed in her exact tracks. The afternoon seemed to have grown misty again. He stood, his hand on the stone, and peered ahead and suddenly there she was, running down the hillside in the thin sunshine. He set off after her, not shouting this time, deliberately following her at a distance and consciously noticing the way they were going.

She was following a clear track which he did not remember seeing before. He frowned, looking at the wood below him on his right. That was where the Scots pine should be. There were Scots pine, but too many – many many more than he remembered, unless they had already slipped unnoticed into a different valley. That was perfectly possible. One often did not see ridges and glens in the hills until one was upon them. He realised she was fast disappearing from sight and he plunged after her, aware of the strong smell of the heather and the baking earth and rock. Overhead a buzzard was calling, the wild yelping miaou growing fainter as it spiralled higher and higher until it was nothing but a speck in the blue.

The first he noticed of the village was the thin spiral of white smoke, almost invisible against the sky. He slowed down, trying to get his breath back, more cautious now. Brid was skipping unselfconsciously about a hundred yards ahead of him as he ducked behind some low whin bushes. She stopped and seemed to be gathering some flowers, then she moved on, holding them in her hand, more decorous now. He saw her surreptitiously rub some dust from her skirt and run her fingers through her hair.

He hesitated for a moment, then he ducked out of his hiding place and ran a few paces further on, to throw himself full length behind a small outcrop of rock. From there he peered at her again. Two figures had appeared on the dusty track and he could now see the village more clearly. It consisted of little more than a cluster of small round houses situated around a larger, central one. He squinted to see the figures better and recognised the taller of the two as Gartnait. The young man stopped when he saw Brid and waited for her. From the way he stood, the flailing of his arms and Brid’s sudden, obvious dejection, it was clear that Gartnait was angry.

Adam, who had been about to leap to his feet and admit to his presence, changed his mind abruptly. He lay where he was, his chin propped on his hands, watching. His vantage point allowed him to see the three figures – the third unknown to him – walk slowly back towards the village. Once there they stood and talked again animatedly for several minutes before at last ducking into a low doorway in one of the houses and disappearing from sight.

He stayed there for a long time, hoping someone would reappear. When it was clear they weren’t going to, he began to crawl slowly forward, taking advantage of the clumps of long dried grasses as the only reasonable cover to hide him. Once he heard a dog bark. He dropped flat, pressing his nose into the dry earth, smelling its hot peppery sweetness. After a few moments the barking stopped, abruptly silenced by a curt command, in what language he could not tell.

He waited, holding his breath. There was no further sound and he raised his head again to find himself looking at a pair of soft leather sandals. Leaping to his feet in fright he found himself half suspended by the collar, face to face with a tall, white-haired man with fierce dark eyes, a fine aquiline face and a narrow mouth set in a tight-lipped scowl. The man barked a question at him and Adam wriggled desperately, half angry and half afraid.

‘Let me go! I’m not doing any harm! Let me go! I’m a friend of Brid’s.’ He flailed out uselessly with his fists and the man put him down, transferring his iron grip to Adam’s wrist. Turning he strode towards the village, pulling Adam with him. The boy wriggled harder, his initial alarm turning to real fear. The look in the man’s eyes had been uncompromising and Adam knew that look well.

As they walked down the dirt track which served for a village street Adam saw faces at the doors. One by one the inhabitants appeared. Dark, shaggy-haired, dressed in strange bright-coloured woollen or leather breeches, the men were staring at him aggressively. Behind them he could see the women, most of them swathed in shawls, half hidden in the dark depths of the cottages, and suddenly he knew who they were. This must be a camp of tinkers – or real Romanies perhaps – from far away. He had seen tinkers, of course, in the village at home. Two or three times a year some of them would come, camping on the riverbank; they would mend the pots and pans of the housewives, and sharpen their knives, and then when the factor decided too many salmon had disappeared from the river they would move on overnight with their colourful vans and their ponies. He had heard that they had settlements somewhere over the hills where they went in the wintertime and this must be one of them. The realisation comforted him. Somewhere at the back of his mind had lurked a niggling fear about where Brid came from – a shiver, no more – something he couldn’t put a name to. To find out that she was a gypsy was a reassurance. The tinkers were always friendly. They got on well with the village children at home and the folk all got on well with them. Except for the factor of course, and the ghillies.

He stared round, trying to see Brid and Gartnait, and finally spotted them at the back of the crowd. He felt a surge of relief. ‘Brid!’ he cried. ‘Make him let me go!’ He wriggled, tried to bite the hand holding him and received a cuff on the ear for his pains. The tall man had followed his gaze and was also staring at Brid. He pointed at her and shouted a command. The men and women around her fell back. Brid looked terrified. Slowly she moved forward through the silent, staring crowd and came to stand in front of them.

‘Brid, tell him! Tell him I’m your friend,’ Adam begged. The man’s grip on his arm had not slackened. His head, Adam had noticed for the first time, was half shaven and there were dark tattoos on his forehead beneath the wild white rim of hair.

Brid shook her head. Covering her face with her hands she fell on her knees. Adam could see tears trickling from between her fingers. ‘Brid?’ He had stopped struggling, shocked by her abject terror.

It was Gartnait who stepped up behind her. He rested his hands gently on his sister’s shoulders and spoke to the tall man, his voice calm and clear.

Adam glanced from one to the other. Both men, he noticed, were wearing silver bracelets on their arms. Gartnait had a sort of necklet around his throat and beneath his cloak the short sleeves of his tunic showed that he too had intricately coloured tattoos on his arms and an intricately wrought golden band above his elbow. It made him look exotic and foreign. Very glamorous. Adam found his eyes going from one man to the other. His father disapproved of jewellery. He thought it an abomination, as he thought so many things were which were clearly nice or fun or beautiful. His mother owned none save her wedding ring. He had never seen a man wear jewellery save for the tinkers in the village who sometimes wore earrings, and Lord Pittenross who owned the estate and wore a gold signet ring with a carved crest on the little finger of his left hand. Adam, in spite of his fear, was impressed.

The tall man’s grip had slackened slightly as he stood listening to Gartnait and Adam snatched his arm away. He rubbed it defiantly, squaring his shoulders, feeling braver now. He gave Brid a quick grin but she was still kneeling with her hands over her eyes.

It was the turn of the tall man to speak now. He gestured at Adam, sweeping the boy with a withering look which took in his open-necked shirt, his shorts, his bare brown legs and his dusty sandals. It was then that the man pulled out a knife.