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Redemption of the Damned -  a tale of madness and salvation
First released in 2013
Re-released in 2022

Switzerland

The Redemption of the Damned

Nigel Siddall

                CHAPTER ONE


 

It wasn’t a very big envelope. Really not much more than the sort of envelope that you buy with those ghastly thank you cards and send in obliged gratitude for a pair of knitted socks at Christmas or for a tedious cocktail party that you would rather not have attended. 

 

You know the kind. All flowers and saccharine sweetness with hopefully the minimum of space for any sort of personal message. 

 

An innocuous envelope, perhaps on the same scale as an envelope from Christian Aid or some other such charity, which might provoke a twinge of passing conscience but ultimately can be consigned to the bin or the fire without that much regard. 


 

So why did it create such a note of anxiety now ?


 

Maybe it was the handwriting. Small, exact, clipped around the edges, a bit like a well-trained hedge. 

 

Maybe that was what it was. 


 

But it was too neat, too precise, the hand of a solicitor’s clerk or an undertaker, or..........

 

No, it was the hand of somebody accustomed to obedience and discipline, perhaps, perhaps an ex-army officer. The letters certainly stood to attention, their lines stiff with a guardsman’s ramrod back, and seemed to puff out their chests to a button-bursting roundness in ranks which stared from the paper in deadly earnest, moustaches bristling in the wind, a curt command to the wandering eye. 

 

Yes, maybe that was what it was, maybe that was why there was now this odd feeling of challenge, a feeling of being inspected and, as in the days gone by, inevitably found wanting. 

 

It was, however, not now an accustomed feeling. It had in fact been a long time since that particular kind of uncertainty had drifted into the room and muttered its unwelcome message. But there it was, lurking in those five lines of black ink, etched in parade-ground formality on the once-white envelope. 

 

It was sufficient to stir all the old resentments and hostility that authority had once inspired. 

 

What right did this sorry apology for a letter have to arrive, uninvited and unexplained, in someone else’s house and then start barking out its orders like this? 

 

No, it wouldn’t be opened. It damn well wasn’t going to get its way. 


 

For a while the letter lay where it had been thrown, there in the furthest corner of the room, over by the pile of unused shoes and half-forgotten canvases. 

 

It was where it belonged. 

 

Indeed it was lucky not to have been immediately consigned to the fire, where the arrogance of its hand and the challenge of its neatly layered lines would have received all the answer they deserved. 


 

But, for some reason, it wasn’t in the fire and so was able to lie there, slowly inveigling its way back into the  mind, slowly, craftily gnawing away at the corner of the eye, until the embers grew into a flickering curiosity and the feet began to find themselves drawn in its direction. 

 

No, it wasn’t worth it. It was just a bloody envelope with who knows what inside. Probably just a pleading letter from some charity or other, asking for a contribution to the seal sanctuary or some such thing. Or a warning from the local tax office about a discrepancy in their records. 

 

Either way it wouldn’t be worth reading. 

 

No, best to leave it there, at least for the time being.


 

But there again, a letter from a charity wouldn’t look like that, the handwriting was just too precise, too ordered. 

 

And surely the tax people would never have used an envelope of that very particular size. 

 

So who on earth could it be? 


 

The curiosity had by now grown into a grumbling stomach of a concern and demanded its gratification. It quickly began to dominate each thought and make the affected disdain almost impossible to maintain. 


 

O.K then, one look at the postmark. 

 

That won’t hurt. 

 

One look and then it’s the fire.


 

The envelope lay half in and half out of the pile of discards, an accusing frown slung over the turn of its shoulder from its stamp-like eye. 

 

Well, what do you expect, sneaking into the house like that, with all your pompous parade and your empty commands? 

 

Did you really think you were going to be welcome, would be the source of delight and merriment? 

 

No chance. Creatures like you, with your jackboots and superficial expressions of gratitude, should consider themselves very fortunate ever to be opened, ever to be read.


 

 Sadly, the postmark was impossible to decipher. There had only been a half impression, and that had been eroded and concealed by the various outrages to which the letter had at one time or another been subjected by the weather. The further indignity to which it had been treated since arriving had also left its muddy scars and so now its origin was, to all extents and purposes, beyond recognition. For a moment, the letter hovered on the edge of another, even more drastic dismissal, but then the stamp winked its eye and saved it.

 

It wasn’t a particularly noteworthy stamp, that was why it had gone unnoticed up until now. It was really nothing more than a faded smudge of brown, a little crinkled around the edges, courtesy of the sun, but, from underneath the residue of the postmark, gleamed a distantly familiar face. 

 

The Queen’s. 

 

The Queen of England.


 

It took a moment or two before the full significance of the face and the stamp sank in, but eventually it did and, like a bubble of stale, old gas rising from the depths of a marsh, the realization burst upon the mind.


 

England. The letter was from England.


 

Jeesus………………….Christ.

 

England.

 

Suddenly the letter assumed a completely different perspective. Its almost comic appearance, with the limitations of its envelope and the excesses of its hand written address, were forgotten beneath the cloud of impressions that now wafted forth, like a genie from an Aladdin’s lamp. 

 

It no longer seemed absurd, something to be easily dismissed. It contained a new threat, not a fanciful threat though, but a very real threat, hidden within a miasma of vague and ill-defined feelings. 

 

It was sufficient for the envelope - and its uncertain contents - to be placed carefully, even delicately, on the mantelpiece over the blazing fire. 

 

Yes, it could sit there for the time being, where it could be considered. 

 

At a safe distance. 

 

Unable to affect or influence the thoughts it had stirred within.


 

England. 

 

Why England ? 

 

Why now ?


 

It was a curious feeling. As though an old acquaintance from the playground days of youth, an acquaintance one hardly remembered and was never that sure of in the first place, had suddenly appeared in the seclusion of a wooded glade. 

 

Or perhaps it was more as if a now unidentifiable figure from one of the dusty photographs that huddled together on the walls had suddenly reached out and said ‘hello’. 


 

Either way it was perplexing.


 

There was no doubt now that the envelope would have to be opened. It had already provoked too many unanswered questions, too great a feeling of unrest to be ignored. 

 

But not just yet. 

 

Not until it had been properly contemplated and at least some of the consequences of what it might reveal had been addressed.


 

So what might it contain ?

 

A message from some member of the family perhaps, a family that had long since faded into the obscurity of the hill and vale from whence they came ?

 

No, if it was that, the handwriting would have been recognizable, even after all the time that had passed. That was something which, however much you tried, you simply weren’t allowed to forget. 

 

Maybe an old friend then ? 

 

But they were all dead now - or, if they weren’t, they might as well have been, having long ago disappeared into the vagaries of their own imagination. Anyway, there never had been a friend who would have written in this very particular style, or would have disrupted the peace in quite this way. 


 

So what was it ?


 

The envelope had no intention of helping with the dilemma. It sat in its new exile on the mantel-piece, its face turned towards the wall as though sulking at the way it had been insulted and abused. 

 

So what, if it had ruffled the surface of this smug, self satisfied retreat. 

 

What did it care ? 

 

Anybody who treated a letter written in such a noble hand like that, who tossed aside a letter that had fought so heroically across all those empty miles of air and sea, as it had, deserved all the anxiety and turmoil that came their way!

 

It was, after all, only the bloody messenger!


 

Maybe it was a new commission. Maybe somebody had seen one of his pictures or had heard tell about the sort of things he painted and liked the idea. 

 

It was a little far fetched, bearing in mind the distance, both literal and otherwise, but you never know. 

 

He found himself warming to the notion and beginning to offer the intruder a long overdue welcome. 


 

Yes, that would be very good. 

 

Yes, he could just about tolerate the invasion of his privacy, if that was what this visitor betokened. 


 

He sat down on the floor, his back against the furthest wall so as to get the best possible view, and studied the source of the conundrum with renewed intensity. 


 

It wasn’t that small an envelope really, quite an acceptable size when one looked at it properly, and that handwriting did have its own particular style. Not his style perhaps, but, nonetheless, one that showed a certain amount of care and individuality. 

 

All of a sudden, he felt a little ashamed of his presumptuous attitude and found himself warming to the stranger. 


 

If only you had said ...................


 

The letter, of course, didn’t reply, but simply continued to wait in its elevated stronghold, content in the growing knowledge that this poor man was at last beginning to see some sense. It knew now that it was only a matter of time before curiosity had its way and its untold mystery would eventually see it fulfil its task. The fish was well and truly hooked and, writhe and twist as it might, it would, sooner or later, be safely landed.

 

It didn’t happen for a while, though. The fish was old and crafty and swam this way and that, putting off the moment of truth for as long as it could. More logs were added to the fire, plates were cleared from amongst the debris that permanently covered the large trestle table, even one or two of the abandoned canvases were picked up, dusted down and reconsidered. 

 

However, every now and again, the envelope would be taken down from the fireplace, held to the light and then returned with a smile, a frown and a mutter. The letter knew that this was simply a way of stalling the inevitable and felt a glow of self-righteous satisfaction spread through its folds. 

 

These humans, it seemed to sigh, these humans, with all their arrogance and conceit, they act as though they are the masters of all they see and yet, at the end of the day, are they not merely the pawns, the creatures of their own emotions, doomed to dance to the tune of a............... simple letter ?

 

The charade could not last, and did not. A decision was made and the envelope removed from its lofty vantage point one last time. 

 

Now it was simply a matter of preparing himself for whatever the letter might contain and then taking the plunge into the depths of its unknown.


 

What could it be, though ?


 

And, even more to the point, who?


 

He could think of no-one who would have both the necessary knowledge and the likely inclination. England lay two (or was it three?) thousand miles across the Atlantic, separated not just by the curve of the earth, but by years of deliberate rejection and avoidance. It was now as the Romans had once thought of it: a land beyond the North Wind, remote, mysterious, hidden by the shadows of memories that its name evoked, a land of ghosts. 

 

The thought, though, conjured up a flurry of half-formed pictures, images of faces and scenes that tumbled into each other like clothes in a washing machine. He tried to work out just how long it was since he had had any contact with the phantasm that his homeland had become, but could not. His life lacked the necessary structures for such a calculation, and his mind was unwilling to consider the implications of such an idea. 

 

He knew that it was a long time, though, and that thought, like the distance of both body and soul, increased the mystery of this small rectangular messenger. 


 

Well, whoever it is, he eventually concluded, it must be important. 


 

After all this time, it must at least be that. 


 

Someone has obviously gone to a great deal of trouble to find me here, so, whatever it is, it must, if nothing else, be worth reading. 

 

And with that, determination finally congealed into action and the envelope was torn open...............

 

Not in the precise manner that its unknown originator would perhaps have chosen, but with a grimace and then a flourish that bordered on brutality. 

 

It was the simple and the inevitable reaction to the anxieties and emotions that the letter had unwittingly provoked, but, somewhere at its heart, was also an old flamboyance, a flamboyance that had been left behind, along with all the other memories and habits that now were beginning to creak and groan down in the bowels of his mind.


 

The envelope grinned, its mouth jagged and ugly in its moment of revelation. It had performed its function and now could watch idly as its contents were considered, with a look of incredulity and disbelief etched on the face above it. 

 

It vaguely recalled that long distant day when another had sat and carefully prepared it for its journey. There had been uncertainty and a thoughtful expression then as well, but nothing like this. 

 

Just as it was savouring the moment, though, it was suddenly clutched again, and this time disembowelled, with all the casual intensity of a Medieval execution, before its bleached and empty body was tossed away, discarded like the husk it now was.


 

As it flew towards the fire, it found itself wondering why these humans looked for so much more than there ever was. 

 

You have a job, you do it, and then you die, surely that’s all anything, anyone can expect. 

 

Isn’t it? 


 

The flames caught hold quickly and, as the much maligned envelope mused on this its final thought, its writing faded into ashes. 

 

Only the stamp remained, watching, listening, until it too was gone, in one last flicker of light, and the room settled back down to the sight of a man reading quietly and, every now and again, sighing or cursing at the words now unfolding before him. 

 CHAPTER SIX

 

By the time they reached the other side of the lake (which, it turned out, was where the reservation was to be found), the already sparse conversation had withered into silence. Not a hostile silence, but a silence born of a necessary concentration on the jagged rocks, seaweed and concealed pools that fragmented more or less each footstep of the journey. It was also, he reasoned, the product of the curious situation that now existed between them. They had drunk and been drunk together, but were in most ways strangers. They had shared a part of the other, but in reality were separated by the many things that made them different. Joe, it seemed, did not know how to trust someone like Alex; and Alex did not know how to trust anyone. 


 

Yet here they were, bound by circumstance and proximity, heading into what must be this strange man’s home, his sanctuary from all that Alex represented. He could have found the prospect daunting, and in a way he did, but he was also curious. It was partly the myths that he half remembered from his childhood, about buffalo skinned warriors and smoky tepees, but it had far more to do with the enigma that walked a couple of paces ahead of him, his burly frame cutting a reassuring path through the dusk that was now beginning to descend. 


 

Who was he? 

 

What made him as he was? 

 

Or was the image he presented as flawed as anything else, as flawed, indeed ……... as Alex himself?



 

When the village finally appeared in a fold beneath a rise of rocks, it was something of an anti climax. He had spent much of the last half an hour following the curve of Joe’s shoulders, wondering about the origins and circumstances of this curious man. Gradually a picture had slipped into his mind, based again on the myths and yarns of derring-do that he had read as a boy, curled in the sanctuary of bed in the twilight hours before sleep. He imagined once again wigwams with smoke idling its way past the angled poles and horses corralled behind. He visualised a busy, bustling group of people, laughing and chatting as they went about their lives. He saw Joe at the heart of all this, a warrior chieftain in all but the feathers and war paint. It was only a daydream born from the silence, and he knew that the reality would be different, but he was still a little unprepared for what greeted him.


 

The shacks, for that, sadly, was all they were, sheltered in the lee of the hill like barnacles on the side of a rotting hulk. They had clearly been assembled from whatever material had come to hand at the time, so were mostly a composite of logs, planks and corrugated iron. Windows were little more than openings, sometimes covered by a piece of engrimed glass, more often by a length of unidentifiable cloth that twitched nervously in the wind. Smoke did waft here and there above the roofs, but it was hardly the stuff of dreams, merely the cough and the splutter of a rather apologetic fire somewhere in the murky depths below. 


 

What and who lived here, though, was hard to define. 


 

A mangy dog lay half in and half out of the lengthening shadows in front of one of the shacks, but it simply gazed for a moment at them out of one weary eye, before offering a token growl and returning to its uneasy slumber. Little else moved. It was a scene of casual dereliction, of ingrained despair, and any remaining illusions of romance and adventure that he might have had were abruptly dispelled. 

 

This wasn’t even the stuff of nightmare, he found himself thinking, it was the ghostly image that lies in the twilight time, forever suspended between sleep and waking. Even the birds that had previously orchestrated each footstep through the forest were now quiet, their cries of fear and excitement made mute by the weight of resignation that seemed to be daubed across each doorway.

 

Joe turned. It was as if he had sensed, or even expected, the thoughts now tiptoeing around his companion’s mind.


 

‘Y’see,’ he said, peremptorily, as though completing some imaginary argument.


 

They carried on walking down the rise, each deep in his own thoughts. Alex cast an eye across at the figure beside or, more exactly, just in front of him, because he had never in fact allowed himself to be headed. Alex had very quickly appreciated that it was something to do with status and honour and had again readily accepted his subservient role. Joe’s face was still carved in its best granite immobility, but, in the split second that he dared maintain his gaze, he saw a look dart across the eyes like a fawn shooting from one side of a clearing to the other. It was a look of sadness as deep as the lake that they had now left behind them. It was a look of pain and anger welling from far below the surface, it was a look that, for reasons he could not understand, filled him with a sense of kindred and warmth. In that briefest of moments, he saw his companion in yet another light.


 

‘Y’see,’ Joe repeated, as though the first had gone unheard, or even been unspoken. 


 

He paused, as if savouring the bile that slowly began to surface from deep inside him.


 

‘ This what you……what the white bastards do to us, this what they leave us now.  We Tsimshian once strong, once masters of our world, we once walk our paths in freedom, we live lives with…………… pride.’

He paused again, before sticking a fist into the sky racing high overhead.


 

‘Yeah, eagle flew over mountain top here long time back and bear roar loud in forest. But what is there now? What we bloody ‘Injuns’ have now? Just …………….this!’ 


 

And  as he spat out the final words, he moved his arm in a sweep across the scene before them. He stared ahead with a ferocity that made Alex involuntarily step away. He could only guess at the shame that this proud man must feel at the sight of what his people had become. He, the lord of the forest, the guardian of the trees, living in a corrugated iron shack, dependent on his most bitter enemy for his very subsistence. All of a sudden, the whiskey smuggling made sense. It was a last act of rebellion, a last attempt to show that the warrior survived beneath the humiliation and could still fend for himself, could still challenge the laws that had enslaved his people.

 

Knowing the feeling and knowing how to react to it were, however, two entirely different things. He wanted to say how much he understood, sympathised; he wanted to point to better aspects of the situation, whether real or imagined. He even found himself on the point of suggesting ways of improving things. But they all stuck in his throat at the thought of the reaction they in turn would engender. Joe was definitely not a man who would want or appreciate any kind of sympathy and would regard advice about something he had lived with, endured for so long as positively insulting. So what could he say?


 

‘I think it looks lovely.’


 

It was a quintessential English way of dealing with a tricky situation and Alex felt ashamed of it as soon as it had furtively slipped from between his lips. Joe stopped and swivelled round, his face a mask of bemusement.


 

‘What the fuck you talking about? How the hell that lovely?’


 

What had been a difficult position was now virtually untenable. Alex felt his face begin to flush in the embarrassment of being caught in a lie and his throat tighten further beneath the withering glare with which his companion was now fixing him. 


 

‘I didn’t mean………….it is so different to anything I’ve seen…………’


 

But still the eyes bored into him with a definite sense of menace. He realised that honesty was his only conceivable escape.


 

‘Look, what on earth did you expect me to say? What a ……………bloody mess? How can anybody live in such squalor? You may not mind hurting other people’s feelings…………. but I do!’


 

Joe continued to stare at him, but the eyes gradually began to mellow. Slowly a smile started to cut its way across the stone features.


 

‘You right. If wolf not get you, fox will.’


 

‘Yeah, something like that,’ Alex muttered, still feeling very defensive.


 

‘You not worry. Joe not offended. Just it all get to me sometime, most time when I see it through newcomer eye. But it alway been same thing, ever since I just young cub. Every bloody thing rotten, falling apart. It all load of shite. Make no diff’rence what we fucking do, it’s what we stuck with……. now.’


 

Alex murmured his agreement with the general sentiment. He had fought against similar situations himself, had tried to roll the boulder up Sisyphus’ slope and been beaten back each time by the grey anonymity and labyrinthine regulations with which those in power protect themselves. Yes, he knew well the feelings of helpless frustration and blunted rage and still nursed the same kind of resentment he could see burning in Joe’s eyes. But none of that was of any help here. He had long ago realised the futility of such ranting and could see the situation descending into the same sort of morass now.


 

‘Show me around.’


 

Joe fixed him this time with a more quizzical look.


 

‘No, I really would like to see. I’ve never been to an Indian……..native American reservation before. I’ve heard all manner of story, but never seen it for myself. And, in any case, I’ve walked all this way, so I think I ……………deserve it!’


 

Joe grunted and Alex breathed a sigh of relief. At least he’s back to his incommunicative best now, he thought to himself.


 

Joe then grinned, perhaps reading the thought, and muttered,


 

‘Well, don’t s’pose it hurt any. And, as you say, you come long ways, so……….’



 

The village, if that is what you could call it, for it was hardly anything like the villages that Alex had been brought up in all those years ago in rural England, the village consisted of maybe twenty houses, though that too was a dubious term in the context. Each of the what in fact were little more than shacks was a one storey building with some sort of chimney poking through the rusting iron of its roof. Each had a veranda, in the style of the American South, a veranda that, in each case, sagged and curved in the decaying of its mottled wood. 

 

Some of the buildings displayed signs of time and effort spent in trying to improve their appearance, but the ravages of the weather had corrupted the paint work and torn away all but the most resolute of delicate touches with the result that they now looked more tattered and worn than they probably did in the first place. Here and there curtains, some garishly bright coloured, some drab and dull, moved anxiously in the breeze that continued to nip at the edges of Alex’s face. Every now and again, he caught sight of a dark blur behind the movement and realised that he was as much on show as the village. He couldn’t help wondering what these people would make of the strange specimen that Joe had brought into their encampment.

 

There wasn’t really a road, just a dirt track littered with the detritus of a twentieth century society in which everything has its price and equally everything is ultimately doomed to being thrown away as soon as it has lost its immediate interest or value. Old cadillacs and pick up trucks, their innards torn from their bodies, lay at the side like the corpses of some ancient Aztec ceremony. The odd television and washing machine also could be seen sinking slowly into this swamp of metallic compost, their glassy faces seeming to glare back at their erstwhile owners with a look of empty resentment. It was a scene of casual abandonment which in a way mirrored the treatment that these people themselves had, it appeared, received from the world outside. 


 

Then, as he gazed with increasingly numbed eyes at the sight unravelling before him, he realised that, behind one of these piles of dereliction, stood a child.


 

Watching him.


 

It was hard to determine whether the child was boy or girl. The hair hung long and unkempt and the body was clothed in a formless brown cloth that effectively disguised any genderic features. But whether it was boy or girl was, in any case, pretty irrelevant. It was the eyes that mattered, and the expression that filled the two night-dark pools. Alex sensed his feet stop and then take a half pace backwards. The look lanced through him, filling him with  a mixture of sorrow and wonderment as keenly as if he had dived into their ice cold waters and, in that moment, any last vestige of judgement disappeared into the depths, to be replaced by the same sense of sorrow and simple curiosity.





 

                                                   * * * * *





 

The door slammed shut.

 

The walls echoed, as the sound, no longer cushioned by the soft furnishings and carpets, reverberated off their stark exterior.

 

He stood, watching the door, half expecting it to open again and be filled with all that had now gone. 


 

But he knew it wouldn’t. He had seen to that. 


 

He tried to adjust to the thought, but, as hard as he thought the words, he simply couldn’t. He tried then to consider the loss, To weigh it up, make it quantifiable, definite so that he could put it neatly away on some neat shelf of his mind. 


 

But he couldn’t do that either.


 

So he stayed where he was, gazing at the door.




 

Eventually, a new sound broke the spell, the sound of a car starting and then accelerating away, its engine climbing through the gears. He listened to its whine fade into the distance and then looked around him at the blankness of the apartment that had been their home.


 

What caught his eye first were the lighter patches that punctuated the sweep of the walls. This was where the pictures had been, his pictures, or the pictures of him and what had been his family. A picture of him holding his young child, just out of the hospital where she had been born, his eyes aglow with pride and contentment. A picture of a young woman and a young man, arms casually wrapped around each other. A picture of a large group of disparate people, all dressed in carnations and their Sunday best. 

 

The pictures told a story, but so too did the emptiness. This had been the story within the story, a tale of misunderstanding and mistrust, of argument and anger. This had been the reality, the shadows that marked out the lightness of where the pictures had been. He shook his head wearily, as sadness took over from the shock. A sadness, both at where the story had led and at the journey it had taken to get there.


 

It was his fault. He knew that. 

 

Not just his fault, but pretty substantially so. His moods, his contrariness, his neuroses and darkness, yes it was basically down to him. 

 

And it had cost him dear. 


 

His wife. His child. 

 

The pictures on the walls.

 

He felt the familiar taste of guilt spreading up his gullet and swallowed hard. No point in that now, he told himself, that won’t get me anywhere. 

 

And it was true. He had reasoned it all through on many occasions, or as much as he was ever capable of reason, given the impulsive nature of his character, and he had talked it through until he was sick of the words, but none of it had made any difference. He was as he was, and so too were the elements around him that had also played their part in this sad little melodrama.


 

He walked through the other rooms in the apartment, remembering the other sounds that had once filled the rooms. The baby’s screams of hunger and excitement, the moments of gentle affection and bitter rage, the voices of friends they had once had, of a life they had once shared. They were as ghosts now, though. Just there to haunt him. 



 

Suddenly the doorbell rang.

 

It was his taxi come to collect him and all that remained of what was now his past.


 

He sighed, pressing back the grief and the guilt into the special little compartments prepared for them, and, without a look backwards, strode towards the door.





 

                                                * * * * *





 

The child suddenly started to move and, in an instant, the spell was broken. Alex shook his head and felt his face begin to suffuse in embarrassment. He wondered how long the moment had lasted,  and whether Joe had noticed. However, he clearly hadn’t because he was already striding forward in the direction of the child, who was now racing full tilt towards him.


 

‘Unka…….unka,’ the boy, as the voice finally proved him to be, called in obvious delight.


 

Joe took two more giant paces then swept the boy into his arms,


 

‘And why you not in bed yet, you racoon tail,’ he roared with equal glee, and embraced him in a bear’s hug that had Alex’s ribs twitching in acute anxiety.


 

The boy responded to this by thumping his tiny fists against any part of Joe’s body that he could reach, his face screwed up in the determination of the effort. Joe ducked and weaved, his roaring laughter resonating down the track, only pausing here and there for a mock cry of pain as the blows continued to rain in. It was a scene as old as time and enshrouded them in its folds so completely that Alex was able to slide into the shadows and take slightly more careful stock of his surroundings.  


 

This was clearly a place where strong emotions flowed beneath the tawdry surface, that much was evident not only in the reaction playing out beside him, but also in the mood that seemed to drift like smoke upon the air. It had been such a long time since he had had to deal with anything but his own feelings that he was now uncertain how to respond to such things. He felt awkward, clumsy, like a man who has been in space for too long trying to walk again on land. For a moment, old residual uncertainties began to rise from deep inside.

 

But this was not his world, he decided, and Joe was only somebody he had encountered a few hours ago. No, he was an intruder and the best thing he could do would be to go through the pleasantries as quickly as he could, and then beat a retreat back to his cabin and the considerations of that letter still waiting expectantly on his mantelpiece. 


 

As he stepped back, mentally at least, he caught the first faint whiff of cooking and heard the sound of voices chatting away in one of the shacks nearby. Suddenly, the scene began to take on, if not a different perspective, at least the trappings of one. This was, when all was said and done, a community, in all probability a very old community that had fished these waters and hunted these forests since man had first reached these continents. They had obviously fallen on hard times now and had almost certainly been abused in a whole variety of ways by their fellow man………………

 

But so have we all, he told himself, so have we all. And, anyway, if they produce a man as resolute and strong as Joe, there must be quite a spirit left yet. His curiosity began to grow again, and was quickly strengthened by the hunger that had suddenly reintroduced itself to his stomach.


 

Joe, by now, had managed to calm the boy down and was gently stroking his back with hands somehow transformed from rock into the softness of a cushion. The boy, meanwhile, rested his head on Joe’s shoulder, his eyes starting to fade in the first steps of sleep, his thumb firmly inserted in his mouth. Joe turned back towards Alex, a curious expression of pride and shy defence flicking across his chiselled features.


 

‘This my nephew, ‘He who treads like deer’……………or Tommy, for short. He my sister’s child. I keep eye on him sometime.’


 

‘He’s very sweet,’ Alex replied, ‘How old is he?’


 

‘Sweet? Ummm… not sure what you say. Like candy? Yes, he like candy, but candy not always like him,’ and he chuckled to himself, like an engine idling slowly in the drive.


 

‘He nine now,’ he suddenly added, obviously remembering the question in the midst of his mirth. 

 

The boy, Tommy, opened his eyes wide again and for a moment renewed his beating of his uncle’s shoulder.


 

‘Nearly ten,’ he muttered accusingly, before returning to his contemplation of thumb and the advancing world of dream.


 

Alex decided that it was not a good idea to carry on talking about the boy, it had already started to reactivate too many old memories, memories that threatened to unsettle and cloud the moment still further. Besides, Joe would only tell him what he wanted to tell him when he wanted to tell him it. That much at least he had already worked out.

 

Joe had also reached the same conclusion, if not for the same reasons. He started to stroll down the track again, and when Alex paused, uncertain as to whether he should follow, cast a dark eye over his free shoulder and, with his characteristic grunt, indicated that he should.


 

They moved silently down the slight gradient that took them into the heart of the little cluster of buildings, with Joe striding purposefully onwards, one giant hand carefully cradling the dark mop of hair nestled in the crook of his neck and shoulder. Alex kept pace as best he could, though never allowing himself to quite catch up. It was not a conscious decision, just an instinctive reflection on the situation and the relative merits of his companion and himself. It did, however, give him the opportunity to study the village albeit with the feeling that he was some sort of rare specimen that Joe had brought back from his travels. Indeed, although Joe’s passing brought the inhabitants to the door of each of the shacks and produced a greeting here, the odd exchange there, it was Alex’s presence that inevitably attracted the attention. It produced nothing more than the odd tittering or just audible intake of breath, but created again the definite sense of being watched and evaluated, and was enough to make his skin prickle in an awkward embarrassment. 

 

There again, Alex reasoned, it certainly was nowhere near as intrusive as it would have been had the roles somehow been reversed. He wasn’t quite sure whether to feel relieved …………..…..or disappointed.



 

Finally, they reached the end of the track and, with it, the final shack. It was much the same as all the other shacks they had passed, the same mixture of homely decay and weather-beaten domesticity, the same faint feeling of abandonment, but stood in the door was the difference.


 

‘This my sister,’ Joe mumbled and, when the sister smiled her greeting, Alex nearly drowned in the sunlit pools that were her eyes.


 

 ‘Hel….. hello,’ he stammered, trying desperately to cover his confusion.


 

The woman, the sister, considered him for a moment, then, as though he had been duly inspected and found wanting, looked up at her brother. She gave a playful laugh, then, when Joe shrugged his shoulders in apparent indifference, poured out a torrent of sound that rose and fell like a silvery stream speeding its way down the sides of a mountain glen. It was a language that Alex had never before heard, but its very musicality conveyed the emotions and even the odd little nuance well. She was clearly both pleased to see Joe, but also chiding him, almost as a mother will scold her child. 


 

Her eyes flashed with affection, then mock anger and finally dulled with the odd cloud of sober intent. Joe said little in reply, merely the occasional word or phrase, or, in his own inimitable style, the odd grunt, but there was one moment when he burst forth in a flurry of animation, only to recede into his apparent shell when his sister’s eyes began to smoulder. The interchange, however, gave Alex time to regain his composure, and time to focus on this new facet to a situation that was gradually becoming more and more complicated.


 

She was, when you disregarded the aura that seemed somehow to elevate her, very small, so much so that her head only reached chest high on Joe, who for all his stature in other ways was not particularly tall either. Her features were as delicate and as finely drawn as her brother’s were flat and unimpassioned, her cheeks a subtle blend of chestnuts and apricot. The hair which was tied in a carefully coiled bun - apart from two long tresses, one on each side, that draped casually along the flowing line of her neck - was a lustrous black, save for the odd flash of auburn that seemed to dance in the golden light of the now setting sun. However, it was the eyes that continued to draw the attention. They were like the night-time sky, a velveteen black, lit by a distant constellation in their twinkling translucency and, in their depth, in their softness, in their mirth and timeless sadness, were clearly capable of luring the unsuspecting traveller onto the rocks every bit as effectively as the sirens of ancient time.

 

Alex tore his gaze away from her face and looked instead at the clothes she was wearing. If the truth be told, he was half expecting deerskin and moccasin in the traditional style, or at least the traditional image that had been long ago instilled in his mind, and was a little disappointed to see jeans and trainers instead. However, the shirt she was wearing, also denim, did betray at least a trace of ancestral influence, its blue uniformity punctuated here and there by colourful braids of twisted material. There was, as he watched her talking to her brother, a tightness about her, that spoke both of an inner strength and confidence, and of something held in check behind the smoothened walls of the dam. There was also a grace and a sexuality that, for a moment, invoked other forces locked deep inside him, before he remembered where he was, and whose sister it was that he was thinking of.


 

‘Hello.’


 

It was a second or two before he realised that the conversation, or whatever it was that had passed between brother and sister, had come to a pause and that the eyes were once again fixed on him. This time they were thoughtful, reflective, and, if not exactly welcoming, at least not mocking. 

 

He wasn’t sure what to do, though. He had already said hello and there was no way he was going to shake hands. For God’s sake, he had long since left all that behind! Fortunately it was Joe who, surprisingly, broke the momentary impasse.


 

‘This Natcha. She my sister and Tommy’s mother.’ He hesitated, before adding, ‘ Other name is ‘She who guides the winds’.’

 

‘Hello….again. I’m Alex……… Alex Carhill,’ and, before he could stop himself, he strode across the intervening gap with his hand dutifully proffered for the shaking.


 

She smiled again, as if realising his inner confusion, then took his hand in hers and gently shook it. As her slender fingers slipped from the grasp, he had in his mind a picture of a brightly coloured fish flicking in and out of the fish tickler’s hand. He quickly backed away, before he could make himself appear yet more foolish.


 

‘What bring you here, Mr Carhill?’ 


 

The question was, in the same breath, both polite enquiry and gently probing suspicion.


 

‘Please call me Alex, I haven’t been called ……. that ……. for a long time. As to what I’m doing here, do you mean here in Canada, or here in your reservation?’          


 

‘Both I reckon. I sorry if I ask anything wrong and please don’t tell me, if you not want to. It just we not see any strangers for long time, ‘sides the tourists of course, and I know he,’ said with a look of benign ridicule thrown over her shoulder at the brother now stood behind her, ‘not ask any question or anything. It always same thing, always left to us women find out things that really matter!’


 

‘No, I don’t mind you asking,’ Alex replied, the lie sitting ill on his tongue. ‘ It’s difficult to answer, though. I haven’t really thought about the one for years now and the other I don’t quite understand myself. It was something of a chain of circumstance!’ 


 

Also said with a knowing look cast in the general direction of her brother.


 

‘I was kind of heading in this direction,’ he continued, ‘ but I’m not sure why. I suppose it was something I had always intended to do, but never quite got round to doing. And then today, I just started walking and the route just carried me here.’


 

It sounded feeble, but, although it omitted one or two key details, was to some extent true.


 

‘And what you think of us now you come find us?’


 

‘I ………. I …….’ 


 

The question was, at least in part, designed to put him on a spot, and, by its very directness, force him to reveal more than he would otherwise choose to. It certainly succeeded in throwing him into a morass of confusion, albeit momentarily.

 

‘I don’t really know,’ he eventually replied, trying hard to ignore the suffusion of colour that had swept across his cheeks. 


 

‘It’s not exactly what I expected, but I learnt a long time ago that things rarely are. I’m certainly grateful to your brother for……er….. rescuing me from the forest. I suppose I was a bit lost really. It was good of him to let me see your… village……. too.’


 

‘You not answer my question!’ 


 

Natcha was clearly not going to be diverted by his show of very English politeness and evasion. Her eyes, though framed in a fairly genial smile, were focussed with a chisel edged intensity and bored through his prevarications as easily as the sun through faint wisps of cloud.

 

Alex hesitated. He wasn’t sure where exactly this exchange was headed, and wasn’t sure that he wanted to go there either. He felt his heckles beginning to rise. It was a long time since he had been challenged in this way and, as with the other intruder into the not so comfortable insularity of his existence, he found himself resenting it. However, there was something about Natcha that made it difficult to feel either angry or hostile, something that made it very difficult to do anything but comply. It was an air that seemed to sit around her and fill her words with an authority that belied her stature. There was also something else that once again growled softly in the undergrowth.


 

‘Well, it’s a terrific backcloth, what with the mountains and the lake and everything else….. I don’t really know what else I can say. I’ve only just got here after all and only seen the place for a few minutes. The houses are a little run down, I suppose……. but I’m sure they are very …… cosy………inside. I certainly don’t think they are as bad as Joe made them out to be!’


 

Natcha’s eyes narrowed for an instant, as though shielding her from a blow or readying herself for an onslaught of her own, but then she suddenly gave a peal of laughter and thumped her brother in the stomach.


 

‘Yep, Joe always the same. He never see the up side of things He just a big elk, says first thing in head.’


 

She gave him another punch in the midriff, her tiny fist burying itself in the folds of red and black cloth. Joe, to his credit, had the good grace to double up slightly and wince at the pain, whether real or, as was more likely, imagined. The focus had shifted and Alex, it seemed, had survived the introductory ceremonies. He allowed himself a short breath of relief.


 

 ‘I sure you gotta be thirsty, after all your ……….. getting lost. You like a beer? I think we got cold one in the refrigerator.’


 

‘Yes. That would be very nice!’


 

With that, she turned to her brother, carefully plucked her son, now fully asleep, from the protective arc of his shoulder and, with her precious burden secured, went inside.


 

They both watched the darkness that consumed her slender form for a moment or two before Joe whistled softly beneath his breath.


 

‘That my sister!’ He muttered, half in apology, half in pride.


 

‘Yeah. Some lady!’ Alex couldn’t help but add.


 

‘Sure is. She been on her own now  for …… long time. Since before Tommy arrive. But she never complain, just get on with life.’


 

Alex could feel a dozen questions burbling below the surface, but knew better than to ask them, at least for the time being. His curiosity, though, was now in full flow, both about this his companion of the track and the whiskey bottle, and his sister. He realised that his concerns about the letter, about his being here, about himself had gradually receded into the shadows – and he felt much better for it!

 

He grinned at Joe. 

 

Joe, for his part, considered him again, his face screwed up in the thought, as well as the slanting daggers of sunshine that the sunset was now throwing through the surrounding canopy. After a while, he smiled to himself and nodded at some silent conclusion.

 

At that moment, Natcha returned, two bottles of beer in hand.


 

‘Here you are.’


 

The two men took the beer, like school children receiving their break time bottles of milk, and slowly drained the contents. Alex was surprised at how thirsty he was, but then he recalled the whiskey and the sleep and realised why. He groaned inwardly. This really was turning into some sort of day!

 

Natcha, in the meantime, clearly had other priorities. She spoke softly to Joe for a moment or two, then glanced at Alex.


 

‘ I must go look after Tommy. It way past his bedtime, but he wait up so he see his uncle.’ 


 

Another reproving look shot its way towards Joe. Then she turned back to Alex. 

 

‘I hope you come see us again. Maybe we speak little more then.’


 

‘Yes, I would like that,’ Alex replied, surprised and slightly embarrassed at his own eagerness. 


 

‘It has been………’


 

‘I sure Joe see you back to where you came from!’ 


 

And, with a last, but meaningful eye at her brother, she went back inside the shack, leaving a slight question mark and a curious sense of emptiness drifting in the air behind her.



 

They stood there for a while, each locked into his own thoughts. The sun meantime continued to perform its pyrotechnic wonders on the horizon, the crimson reds and golden orange covering the lower part of the sky with the broad brush strokes of the most extravagant artist and gilding the tops of the trees with an almost spectral aura. Even the shacks, for all their corrugated iron and rotting wood, seemed somehow benighted, as they bathed in the soft glow of the fading day. The glade was at peace, and so, at least for a moment, was Alex.

              CHAPTER SIXTEEN    

 

The first appearance of William T. Melville was really something of a fisherman’s tale. Great eyebrows cresting what seemed to be two blue moons swimming frantically at the bottom of their respective beer glasses. An equally enormous moustache that cascaded in waterfalls of white-brown bristle around where one had to imagine his mouth lay hidden. All framed by the rivers of luxuriant hair that flowed in a suffusion of greyness on all four sides of his head. It was a head of legendary proportion, something somehow spirited from a child’s book of fable. 

 

He was sat in a chair in front of them, or, to be more precise, was enveloping it like a bow wave breaking over the prow of a ship. He eased his considerable frame this way and that in pursuit of some degree of comfort, but it was clear that this was a process that had been ongoing for years and had little likelihood of ever achieving its goal. As they waited, just out of the line of eyesight, his grave-digger hands leafed through a sheaf of papers as though they were cards ready to be shuffled and dealt to invisible players grouped at intervals around his old mahogany desk. He was evidently not at all pleased with what he saw.


 

‘Simon…………SIMON……….. where in the living name of living God is that bloody affidavit from the Spencers? 

 

Weren’t they supposed to have sent it in by yesterday? …………. 

 

What did you say……….. they phoned up  ……….. and asked for a what?  ……..a bloody extension?  

 

What the hell do they think we are? Some feeble-minded bunch of god-forsaken librarians? 

 

What did you tell them? ……..YOU WHAT? ……… 

 

Has your bloody brain turned to mush or something? What on earth were you thinking of? We have to go to court with that one next week and we don’t even know what they’ve got to say for themselves. 

 

JESUS CHRIST! Do I have to do everything for myself ?’


 

Yes. William T. Melville was, in every way, larger than life.

 

 Eventually, he thrust the offending papers on the desk, took a large slurp from the equally sizeable mug in front of him and turned towards them.

 

To begin with, he seemed not to have seen them. His eyes moved backwards and forwards like searchlights playing on a prison wall, pausing momentarily here and then there, before deciding that all was well and renewing the search elsewhere. 

 

It was a somewhat unnerving experience and, as the intense gaze flicked across them, Alex found himself repeatedly leaning forward in his chair, clearing his throat and starting to proffer his hand. Each time this happened, he would realise that the moment had not yet arrived after all and, with his cheeks flushed in embarrassment, would endeavour to convert hand-shake into a scratch of the head, throat-clearing into as natural a cough as he could fabricate and readiness into a contrived disdain. 

 

He wondered what the man was looking for, but, before that became clear, he would swivel back towards the unseen colleagues further in the shadowy bowels of the office and shout some new invective or instruction. 

 

Gradually, Alex lost interest and slipped once again into the murk of his own thoughts.





 

                                                   * * * * *





 

You don’t understand.’


 

‘Yes, I do. You are about to throw away all that we have worked for all these years. And for what? Just some daydream that has no chance of amounting to anything!’


 

‘Thanks a bunch. That’s a real vote of confidence!’


 

‘Well, what do you expect?’


 

‘I expect your support! Especially now, when I most need it.’


 

‘You have had my support. I’ve always been there, doing all I can to help. Usually without the slightest bit of appreciation.’


 

‘That’s rubbish and you know it. I’ve always appreciated what you have done – and I have told you so as well!’

 

‘Well, if you appreciate what I have done so much, you won’t jack it all in now. It isn’t fair on me, not after all the hard work that I’ve put into this place.’

 

 

Before replying, he paused, and looked again at the woman sat on the chair in front of him. Her eyes burned with a fierce glow and her face was twisted in a grimace of disdain and anger. 


 

What had happened to her? he found himself asking . 

 

What indeed had happened to them? 


 

Once, she had been capable of lighting up a room with her laughter and her good looks, had written poetry and smoked the odd joint or two, had been prepared to push the boundaries back at least a little, but over the years she had faded into the mediocrity that their lives had become, her individuality slowly subsumed beneath the influence of the more dominant forces in the society of which they were inexplicably part. 

 

Her horizons had changed too, from the giddy-eyed illusions and aspirations of youth to the narrow materialism and conformity of middle-age. Where once she had listened to jazz and debated the nature of things into the early hours of the morning, now she would surrender her soul to the intrigues of a television soap or worry about who to invite with who at the next dinner party. 

 

And just as her spirit had been dulled, so too had her beauty. Her hair that had once hung long and luxuriant now glistened with lacquer, her face was pale and blotchy with the ravages of time, her eyes and her mouth constantly pursed in condemnation. 


 

Maybe it was all inevitable, he thought, but it is still one hell of a shame.


 

And so was what had happened to their relationship. 


 

It had never been good, not really, not below the surface. It had always had undercurrents of tension and uncertainty. But it had somehow worked, even after the first flush of romance had waned. True, not without some bad days, on occasion some very bad days indeed, but there had been plenty of good days too. They had managed somehow to negotiate the rocks and rapids of married life and to stick together and, bit by bit, had built up a life that, at the start, had at times seemed improbable. 

 

But the currents had continued to flow, continued to apply their subtle pressures and, without them ever being really aware of it, the fissures had slowly widened, and the poison lurking below had gradually seeped through and contaminated even the surface above. 

 

As he looked at her now, she could have been a total stranger, and he knew that, were it not for some sort of habitual attachment, he would not be stood here, in this room, arguing with her about what he wanted to do with the rest of his life.

 

For another interminable second or two, they stood looking at each other, like competing animals testing their strength, trying to evaluate the weaknesses, the chances of success before risking all in attack. 

 

For a moment, he saw himself through her eyes and realised that he too had changed. 

 

His hair was thinner, his beard gone, his waistline a little larger, but, as with her, it went further than that. He also was now middle-aged, middle of the weary road, almost devoid of the fire and flamboyance that had driven him to the flights of extravagance of his youth. The sapping tides of life had eroded away at the distinctions of his character too and had reduced him to this, a prep school teacher doling out anodyne lumps of artistic mediocrity to children who, for the most part, did not know one end of a brush from the other and did not, for that matter, care. 


 

How on earth had this happened, he asked himself, by no means for the first time. 

 

When did the dreams stop and this magnolia and beige reality step in? 


 

But that was the whole point, he reminded himself, dragging his mind back from the greasy slope of self-pity, that is exactly the point. He no longer could deceive himself, could no longer pretend that this was what he wanted. 

 

There had to be more. 

 

And even if it all turned out to be just another grand illusion, he owed it to his dreams of the past to at least try and search for it. 

 

He was damned if he was going to wear this corduroy suit of an existence any more, and damned if he was going to continue to make the compromises for which he had settled for so long or to deny any longer that the morons, who he worked with and who honestly believed that a game of hockey and singing in the Chapel choir and talking loftily about the ‘riffraff’ down the road was the summit of Western civilisation, were anything other than morons. 

 

It may not be much, but something did still burn inside him, a spark of something from the past maybe, or perhaps just a contrariness in his soul, but, whatever it was, it questioned his every answer and warned him that, if he did not do something now, he never would, and would then regret it until the day he died. 

 

He had hoped that she would understand. 

 

He knew that she was incapable of sharing the same feeling, she was simply too inured to her way of life for that, but yes he had held out a vague hope that she would remember what they had once been and tolerate his restlessness. But, as she sat there, her every pore radiating hostility, he realised that his hopes had never really stood much of a chance. 

 

She had become a creature of this system, content to play the little games and seek the minor triumphs that had perhaps taken the place of what had once been their relationship. This was not just her home and her livelihood, it was the haven and the sanctuary that protected her from all the dangers and uncertainties that the world outside had come to represent. 

 

No, there was no way that she would approve of his giving up all this. He had been foolish ever to believe that she would.   


 

‘But, at the end of the day, it’s only a job,’ he said lamely.


 

‘No, it’s not,’ she spat back. ‘We’ve lived here for a long time now. I’ve got my friends here, my tennis……..’


 

‘Your coffee mornings?’


 

‘Yes, my coffee mornings! We’ve built our lives around the school, you know that. And you are one of the more senior teachers now, so should be in line for one of the boarding Houses. Then we would have all our bills paid for, our electricity, gas, food, everything…………you know how it goes. We would be able to start saving and ………………do the things that we have had to sacrifice over the last few years. It’s what we’ve been planning for all this time……… as well you know!’


 

‘But I don’t think we will. Do the things we haven’t done, I mean. I’ve seen what happens, especially when you take over a boarding House. It’s not so much a matter of you taking it over, it’s more a question of it doing that to you! We are already institutionalised as it is ……. Oh, yes we are …….what you have just said kind of proves the point…..it is our lives, we have nothing outside it, and it is only a matter of time before we can’t even imagine a life outside it. And that is ………..sad. At the end of the day, it is only a pretty mediocre prep school. Is this really what you want to have done with your life?’


 

‘You liked it here once, you know you did!’


 

‘Yes, you’re right, I did once, when I first came here. But it was………… special then. How did they describe it? One of the ‘most comprehensive’ schools in the west of England? It was a place with real character and with………….. real characters too. A bastion of liberal values and intellectual expression. But that’s all gone now. This bloody headmaster, and, for that matter, the one before him, has seen to that. A pair of self-serving, arrogant bastards who have changed it into their own image: twisted, narrow, mediocre. It’s not what I want any more…………... hasn’t been for years.’


 

‘But you could change it, if you ….wanted to.’


 

‘You think I don’t want to? That I haven’t tried?................. Don’t be silly. I have fought as hard as I know how, but I am a………….a lone voice. In this place, I am the anachronism, I am the irritant. If they could get rid of me, they would! So I’m really just doing them a favour……… bowing to the logic of the piece!’



 

‘That is stupid! The kids really like you, and so do the parents. And you are good at what you do!’


 

‘Am I? I’m not so sure. I just feed them pap and try to kid myself that what they produce is of importance. Truth is, I’m meant to be a bloody……….. artist and yet I haven’t painted a worthwhile picture in years, nothing that I could be proud of, could hold up and say ‘this is what I was put here to achieve’. I’ve just been conning myself. Year after year. Well, I’ve finally had enough of it and I’m going to do something about it…………. while I still can.’


 

‘Well you do just that,’ she snarled, ‘but don’t count on me coming with you!’


 

‘I won’t,’ he muttered, ‘I won’t!’

​


 

                                                  * * * * *

​


 

Alex suddenly realised he was being watched. He glanced up and was immediately confronted by two large bespectacled eyes that seemed to be intent on drilling straight through him.

 

William T. Melville had, it seemed, finally decided to give them his attention.

 

Such was the intensity of the gaze that Alex couldn’t help but look away and then couldn’t help looking back to see whether he had passed whatever the test was that he had, for some inexplicable reason, stumbled into. The eyes still probed remorselessly on, though, their powdered blue creating a sense of distance, even detachment. 


 

‘Fuck this,’ Alex thought to himself, and stared back.


 

The eyes seemed to fade in the stare, like shells from the sea shore in the drying air. Then there was a little nod and the faintest of smiles somewhere beneath the walrus moustache below. 


 

‘You waiting for me?’ The voice boomed in what was more of a command than an enquiry.


 

‘Yes. Well, it’s not so much me as my friend here.’


 

He punched a thumb in Joe’s approximate direction and, when there was nothing but silence, turned to look at him. 

 

Joe was about a metre further along the same bench, but, to all other extents and purposes, he could have been in another country, indeed another universe. His eyes were glazed over, his head was rocking gently back and forth as his body pulsed against the hard wooden surface of his seat. A soft murmur, a chant of some sort, rose and fell beneath his breath. He was there, and yet not there. Although it was hard to deny his presence and the deep undercurrents that seemed to resonate from every part of his body, he had clearly closed himself off, and hidden himself in who knows what private images and thoughts. 


 

It was not really that surprising, Alex thought, bearing in mind all that such a place as this must signify to him. 

 

Indeed it was, in its every splinter of wood, its every curl and stroke of engraved writing, an alien world. 

 

A world of white men, of the law, of long-winded words. 


 

It was also, Alex realised, not that far away from the site of some of his early torments. 

 

For all he knew, one or more of those tormentors may well be here in this office, smirking behind their eyes at their ancient victim. 

 

One of them could even have been William T. Melville.


 

‘You OK, Joe? ………………Joe?’


 

Slowly, ever so slowly, life began to return to the empty eyes. The humming stopped and, with it, the seesaw motion of his body. Joe shook his head, clearing away whatever it was that had so occupied him, and turned towards him.


 

‘Yeah. I fine. What the problem? We ready now?’


 

‘Yes. This man wants to know if we’re here to see him.’


 

‘Sure thing. I ready. We go talk. Yeah?’


 

‘Yes, you come and talk to me, my friend,’ the voice boomed again, ‘and I’ll see what I can do to help you.’



 

The conversation followed what, in hindsight, was a predictable pattern. Joe stumbled through what he saw to be the problem, a confused mish-mash of events and accusations and semi-justifications. Alex, growing exasperated with the rambling brambles of his account, then began to nudge and prompt, before taking charge and, teacher as he once was, explaining just how it all had happened, with a heavy emphasis on words like ‘misunderstood’ and ‘extenuating circumstances’. Joe then sank back into his silence, and glowered at everything that he heard, and saw.

 

Finally William T., having been largely silent throughout this strangely dysfunctional process, leant forward and intervened.


 

‘’Scuse me. Can I make one or two observations before we go any further?’

 

‘Firstly, you’re right, Joe, you are indeed in a whole barrel of shit. Having been away twice, you are bound to be looking at a pretty long stretch, if you’re convicted again. No doubt about that. The courts can be pretty ruthless, especially right now with all the ………..goddamned politicians sticking their ……………..goddamned oars in and trying to tell us how to do our business.’

 

‘Secondly, yes, it does look as though we might have some grounds for defence. The only problem is that it involves challenging that second bust and I’m not sure they will let us do that now. Should have appealed it at the time, or some time soon afterwards. No, we won’t be able to challenge it directly, we’ll have to ………….work it in in some other way. Question is how? It’s a bit dangerous to try and use the prejudice argument. Been done too often. It’s all a bit of a cliché now. Doesn’t mean we can’t use it, just got to be…………. very careful. But we do need something else as a lead.’


 

He stopped and thought for a while. 

 

The silence hung heavy in the air and Alex became increasingly mesmerised by the twitchings of his walrus moustache. 

 

Eventually, after a loud clearing of first his throat and then his nose, William T. continued.


 

‘I reckon the reformed character line is probably favourite. You know, Indian…..sorry, native American….. twisted round by the city and by booze, now trying to make good. Looking after his sister and her kid. Respected member of his community. And so on, and so on. If we lead with that and then slide in the question marks about that bust as we go…………….just as a kind of flavouring, if you know what I mean. That could work. What do you think?’


 

‘Sounds a bit thin to me,’ Alex replied, before checking and turning to Joe. ‘Sorry, Joe, it’s nothing to do with me. It’s what you think that’s important!’ 


 

‘Reckon it is. But you know these ways here better than Joe. You say what good. You say what I do. I go with that.’




 

‘I’m not sure you should. I really don’t know that much more than you. And it is your skin……. your head ….. on the block. I don’t think you should trust anybody too much in that situation, least of all someone like me!’


 

‘What wrong with you. You OK. I………. trust you.’


 

Alex was quite taken aback by that. Joe simply didn’t trust anyone, not even himself. And certainly not any white man, any vile ‘tourist’. 


 

No, he must just be saying that, to get me to do the talking for him, to cover over the limitations. 

 

Needs must, and all that.


 

‘That’s all well and dandy, but we haven’t got time for it,’ William T. interrupted again. ‘We haven’t got that kind of luxury. When did you say you were going to be arraigned ……. had to be in court? ………….The twenty-sixth? Jesus, that gives us less than a goddamned week. No, we the hell don’t have time for any …………nonsense like that. You’ve simply got to decide what you want to do and then let me get on with it.’


 

‘Yes, you’re right,’ Alex replied quietly, ‘but isn’t there any way of fleshing it out, of adding a bit of muscle. It just feels as though you’re throwing Joe to the mercy of the court and, as you say, they are not exactly renowned for the generosity of their spirit, especially to people ………..like Joe.’


 

‘Well. It is difficult. He was caught with the booze in the boat and has already admitted that he bought it in the States, so he would already appear to be guilty as charged. That means we can only target the sentence and build a case for leniency. What else, do you suggest?’


 

Again, the powder blue drilled holes through and into the back of his skull.


 

‘I know, it isn’t easy. I just feel that he’s been given such a raw deal. Ever since he was …….a kid. There must be something that can be done, some way of helping him. It must all balance up in the end. Surely?’


 

‘Why? I’m not sure what it’s like where you come from…… England, yeah? …….. well, justice wherever you are is pretty blind. Most of the time things are not right, the bastards get away with it and the good guys get shafted. You know that. All we can do is smooth over some of the edges, dodge around some of the crap. It isn’t right, it’s just the way it is.’


 

 ‘Yes, I know. You’re probably right. But even so…….’


 

‘Look, I’ll talk to people down in Victoria. See if they can dig up the file. Maybe we can find an angle. Push the self-defence thing. If he got the kicking you say he did, a court might just buy that. Especially up here, where they are a little more accustomed to men like Joe, a little less up themselves. It might also tie in with one or two other things. You know. Man of the family, protecting his kid sister. Yeah, that could work.’


 

He paused again.


 

‘We’ll need some corroboration for all that. Someone to swear that that’s the way he is. Can you do that? You sound as though you can. How long have you known him?’


 

‘Oh………. ages.’


 

And, in a way, this wasn’t the lie that squirmed inside his belly. In a way, it was in fact true. Even so, he found himself colouring up again and tried hard to appear as nonchalant and as unaffected as he could.


 

‘So that won’t be a problem then?’


 

‘No……. no, that’ll be fine.’


 

But, as the words left his lips, he wondered whether it would, wondered whether he should not have dragged them back and thrust them into the dustbin where all his other noble gestures now lay. As he looked at Joe, and felt the dependence, and the hatred of that dependence, radiating from the darkened pools of his eyes, he couldn’t help but feel that he had just made one very big mistake.


 

‘And how are you going to pay for all this?’


 

The question seemed to crash and echo round the room like a breaker on the rocks. 

 

Joe looked anxiously at Alex, and Alex at Joe. They had talked about this at some stage during the journey down to Bantry, but only in the most general terms and without even coming close to any specific conclusion.


 

How indeed were they going to pay? 

 

And why on earth had it become a ‘they’?


 

Alex looked again at Joe, praying that he was about to reveal some secret cache made from the illicit trade in which he had dabbled from time to time. But he knew, even before he looked, that this was about as likely as his companion suddenly bursting into poetry and that the question would roll on unchecked.


 

‘How much do you think it will all come to?’ he heard himself ask.


 

William T. didn’t answer, not at least to begin with. He studied them again for a moment or two, then focussed on his huge hands, which by now were clasped like a wigwam over his lap. His lips pursed as he considered the question and his thumbs rotated, slowly, methodically, as though they were somehow spinning an answer. 


 

‘You haven’t got much, have you, Joe?’


 

‘Some. I got some. Put away safe. For Tommy. Maybe three, four thousand dollars.’


 

‘Um……. and what about you,’ the magnified eyes peered towards Alex again, ‘are you prepared to help?’


 

‘I haven’t got that much, to be honest ………. and I might need quite a bit for …….. a trip back to England.’


 

What? What the hell had he just said? 


 

He blinked in the utter confusion of the moment. 


 

Where on earth had that come from? 


 

The letter. Ah, yes, that bloody letter.


 

But he hadn’t even thought about what it said yet. Not really. Not with any great purpose. And if and when he did allow himself to go down that path, it was hardly bloody likely that he would arrive at that particular destination. 


 

So what was going on? Who the hell was in charge of his bloody mind now? 


 

Alex cursed himself for not being in control, for being as he was. And not for the first time, he hated himself. 


 

Or was it just one of those things you say. To buy yourself time. 

 

Yes, that must be it. It was just a way out. A convenience. So nothing to worry about, after all. 


 

He breathed a sigh of relief, and forgave himself, a little.

 

The eyes, however, still gazed intently at him.


 

‘Well……. I might be. If I don’t, I suppose I can chip in a bit. Not a lot, though, because …..’


 

‘No, you don’t have to go into that. It wasn’t meant to put you on the spot. You will need at least six grand, though, and that’s with me only charging half of what I normally charge. Can’t think why……. must be getting soft in my old age!’


 

‘That’s really good of you. I’m sure Joe appreciates it.’


 

Joe, however, showed no sign of any such thing. Indeed, he showed no sign of anything at all. He was clearly beginning to slide back into the morass. 

 

Alex felt somehow alone again and a little irritated, too. 

 

It wasn’t his problem. It wasn’t his fight. So what was he doing, taking over, making himself responsible. 

 

Yet again. 

 

He looked at William T. Melville, hoping for some way out. 

 

But there was none there. William T. simply expanded his hands out into a broad arc of question.


 

‘Well. Is there anywhere else you can raise the money?’


 

‘Um………. not that I know of. No. What about you, Joe?’



 

At that moment, that precise moment, in walked Natcha.


 

She eyed the scene warily, clearly uncertain both of her surroundings and the circumstance into which she had arrived. Her face was shielded in shadow as the sun broke over and around her slender figure and a curiously spectral light seemed to radiate from her long and now untied hair. It all added to the mystery of her arrival and, for a while, nobody really knew what to say. 


 

As the seconds passed, the uncertainty increased and the language of her body began to whisper its anxiety. Alex inevitably started to feel responsible for the situation again, although he knew that it was in fact none of his making, and felt equally obliged to somehow resolve it. He fought for the words, the nice, easy remark that would remove the tension, but nothing came, and the silence grew yet heavier.


 

‘Er…..er……hello. What are you doing here?’ was, in the end, all he could manage.


 

‘Hello………Alex. Hi there, Joe.’


 

It was a start. 


 

‘But how on earth did you find us here?’


 

‘I come into the town today, see lady in the picture shop. You know, where I see you before. I ask about those pictures. Ones you look at the other day. I see if they sold or mebbe she take more, try sell those too.’


 

‘Yes, I remember the pictures………..I remember them well.’


 

‘Anyhow, I walk back down the road and see you through the window. So I come in. What you do here?’


 

‘Um…….. well, you know the little problem Joe’s got himself into……..’ 


 

He paused, momentarily unsure whether or not Joe actually said he had told her about what had happened.


 

 ‘………. I think Joe told you about it……..’ 


 

A lowering of the eyelashes, a shallow nod of the head.


 

‘Well, he came to see me, to ask if I could help out in any way…..’ 


 

A crease of concern flickered across the delicate features.

 

‘……..and….um…..I agreed to see what I could do……. not that I thought there’d be that much ……….. just help explain some of the language, lend a bit of moral support, that……sort of thing.’ 


 

The beginnings of a smile fluttered on the lips. 


 

‘Anyway, we walked down to Bantry and someone told us that this place, this firm……….Barker and Melville…….  was the best place to go to if you wanted legal advice. So…….um…….here we are.’


 

 The eyelashes flicked full open again. The pools of molten amber seemed to flood the face. And a quizzical look studied him with a friendly detachment.


 

‘And how it go here? What this Barker and Melville say we do?’


 

‘Well, Mr Melville here has come up with one or two ideas, and some sort of……… strategy, which I think might just work. Yes, I think it’s been pretty constructive really.’


 

‘What about Joe? What he say?’


 

Alex was puzzled at the indirectness of the question. This was, after all, her brother she was referring to, and he was sat just there, as close to her as he himself was. 

 

So why wasn’t she directing her questions to him? 

 

It was also, let’s face it, a problem of his making and, in all probability, his suffering, so why was he so removed from it all, and why were they allowing him to be that.


 

‘Joe…. what do you reckon?’


 

There was a pause, a tightening of the eyes and a clenching of a gnarled fist, then a slow, sad, lugubrious shrug of the shoulder.


 

‘You say…… I not understand. You people decide.’


 

Natcha looked at Joe through veiled eyes, then shrugged, almost imperceptibly, but just enough for Alex to notice, and turned again to him.


 

‘He probably can understand. He just like this. In this kind of thing. He run away, hide when he in trouble. Always the same.’


 

Alex tried to read the tone, but with no real success. It could have been weariness, it could have been an old resignation, or even a note of disdain. 

 

In all probability, he thought to himself, it was a combination of all three. 

 

He wondered, just for a moment, about their relationship. 

 

This sister and this brother. 

 

He hadn’t thought about it before, such had been the flurry of new things that had suddenly plummeted into his life, and a voice somewhere inside him muttered that it was none of his bloody business, such being his natural sense of detachment, but it was slowly becoming something that required a thought or two. 

 

A bit like a strange light in the sky. Dawn or storm.


 

Not that there was time now, though. 

 

No, that would have to wait. There was, as the blue-powdered eyes continued to remind him, a situation here that needed resolving first.


 

‘You may be right, you’re his sister, after all. But, when we were talking about it before you……. came in, he seemed to be happy, well ……that’s probably going too far….. in agreement……… yes, in agreement with what Mr Melville was explaining. There is a problem, though. And, pretty inevitably, it’s…….money. There are various costs and we’re not quite sure how to raise the money to pay them.’


 

‘How much they ……..the costs?’


 

‘Not as much as they might have been. Mr Melville has very kindly given us a deal. He can’t do anything about the costs of the court itself, nobody can, but he is only going to charge half of what he normally charges for his bit.’


 

‘Yes, that good. But tell me how much it is.’


 

‘About six grand.’


 

The eyes faded a little, their translucent light dimming in some unrecognisable emotion. All of a sudden, she seemed frail, vulnerable. Alex felt an inexplicable urge to reach out and comfort her. His cheeks reddened at the thought which he instinctively rejected out of hand.


 

‘It’s not that bad, though. Joe says he’s got about three grand put away somewhere and I………. can maybe put up a grand of my own, so we’ve only got to find a couple more and ……’


 

‘I do that.’


 

‘What do you mean?’


 

‘I give the other two…….. grand.’


 

‘You sure?  It’s a lot of money……. especially if you’ve got a young kid to look after.’


 

‘No, I do it.’ 


 

She was clearly irritated by his attempt to protect her and he winced as he realised just how patronising it must have sounded.


 

‘OK. If that’s what you want.’


 

‘Yes. I have it. I have it now.’ 


 

She reached into the bag she wore tied to her waist and produced a cheque which she flourished before them. 


 

‘See. Lady at the picture store say two of my pictures been sold. Man from Vancouver, out here on holiday with his wife. They get good money, both of them. So I got money. I do it.’


 

‘That’s terrific. Looks as though we are in business after all, Mr Melville!’


 

William T. smiled, a wry smile.


 

‘Excellent. It’s really heart-warming to see family and friends rallying to the cause like this. Well done!’


 

Alex and Natcha listened to the warm words with their own sense of wryness and then, as the lawyer explained what would and should now happen, retired into the privacy of their own thoughts.



 

                                                     * * * * *





 

The mud at the bottom of the lake shifted. Slowly sliding over the mosaic of rock on which it lay. 

 

It had been here for so long now. Layers upon layers, congealing, rotting into a thick treacle, devoid of shape, pattern, dimension. It no longer had any aspiration, that had gone with the passing of the light above. It was content simply to ooze this way and that, to absorb the death that slid down through the water, to relish its slow, delicious decay. 

 

Nothing much affected it any more. 

 

It had been here since the mountains were in their very infancy, since before the trees appeared as tender shoots clinging desperately to the granite cracks, then as saplings punching the air in their joy of life, their determination to survive, and finally as the verdant green giants that now crested every rise and fall. 

 

It was oblivious to all. 

 

It was content to creep and seep in its eternal darkness, to receive each part of each abandoned, lifeless corpse, to drain it of every atom of its colour, its form, its essence, to grind it into its own foul-smelling uniformity, and to meander on, its slow, remorseless appetite ever seeking more. 

 

It neither saw, nor heard, nor knew anything. Of all the senses, it had none, save the one, and that was touch. And that it used well, so well that it had no need of anything else. While it was able to caress so completely each thing that fell into its brown slimy mass, to stroke and kiss with its thousand hideous mouths, to finger and invade each pore, each particle, it was satiate, it was complete. 

 

But now it moved, its brown corruption like a giant slug spreading the trail of its contamination across the ancient rocks, and then it opened. 

 

And from the void of that bilious orifice rose a bubble of air. Old, stale, stinking of the endless decay from which it had emerged in a vile parody of birth. It had been formed deep within the very bowels of this putrefying mass, from substance that had long lost its name, and in a time before time had any meaning. 

 

It was of age itself. 

 

Slowly, it drifted to the surface of the sparkling, wind-ruffled surface, and belched its meaning at the sky above. 


 

And its meaning was death.

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