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The last time she'd been up here, it had been with Carlos and the boys. Seemed like years ago. Charlie held their hands tight, swinging between them, his little fat legs dangling. He pretended to be brave but she could see he was unsure of the vastness of the place, the brownness. He kicked a bird’s skull into the ditch, then cried when Joe told him what it had once been. His older brother laughed, ran off hurdling tall grass to chase McTavish who had gone off scavenging, and Margaret cuddled Charlie and wiped away his tears. To her right, a brace of pheasant shot up twenty feet in the air as if someone had up-and-undered them. They struggled for aerial stability then flustered off, fat and ungainly. McTavish up to his tricks again. Mad spaniel. He came slobbering out of the grass, tongue lolling impossibly long, eyes wild. He looked at her just once, then loped off along the track, looking for something more exciting. Sheep. Perhaps a deer, if he was lucky. She wondered if the boys missed this. Maybe not: they were young, and a beach of hot sand and pedalos and traders who bartered and fussed over children would seem like heaven. And naughty little Joe was just at the age when he might appreciate the topless girls. Damn it, she missed them: and what did she have to offer? Shingle, rotting seaweed, cold breakers, the odd inscrutable grey blob three hundred yards out which peered at freezing humans in Day-glo jackets. "Look, there’s a seal!" she would say and they would go "where?" and lob pebbles when they got bored. Joe’s first postcard said that his father had taken them to Aqua World. He had thrown a fish to a dolphin. It had waved a flipper at him. The front of the card showed a livid orange sunset, a couple walking hand in hand: "Espana - Where Dreams Come True," it said. She’d kept it under her pillow, hoping it would stop her crying herself awake, but it hadn’t worked. They’d sounded so excited to begin with, tiny voices tinny on the end of the telephone line, how they’d met their daddy’s family who spoiled them with sweets and toys and days filled with the exotic. Joe had even been taken to a bull fight, slippery blood gushing hot: she’d screamed down the ‘phone, saying no, no, my boy shouldn’t see this, this is wrong, and had slammed the telephone receiver against the wall when Carlos simply laughed. Then Walker the lawyer told her to stop being hysterical, she would upset "delicate negotiations involving diplomatic channels." Male diplomats, no doubt. She was sweltering and needed a drink, so she left the path, skipping over the ditch and cutting east towards the shepherd’s house. McTavish came bolting behind her, careering past through her legs, almost toppling her. A grouse flushed, squawking at them, and the dog skelped off in its direction, making the tall grass thunder as he went. Their father had bought them a new dog. Of course. She could picture him, handsome, sexy in his T-shirt and jeans, arms filled with gangly puppy and largess. Jacqueline, her best friend, bridesmaid, couldn’t understand why she had thrown him out, had called her a fool because she made do with Alasdair, red-haired, freckled, unashamedly missionary. "What’s he got that Carlos hasn’t?" she asked. It wasn’t what he had, it was what he didn’t have. A fist. Stuck in her face. Threatening. Never more, but more than enough. It was a straightforward twenty minute hike to the cottage, the ground dry but giving. She’d said hello to the shepherd at the last-but-one barn dance, when she jigged half the men in the town off their feet while Carlos fumed in the corner. She hung back from returning to their table as long as she could, then she finally summoned up the courage and he grabbed her wrist, hissed "bitch, slut," in her ear until the taxi came. He’d leaned close, and the smell of him, the aftershave and sweat and lager, made her head swim. No-one said good night to her, though some waved to Carlos. A good man, was Carlos, accepted as far as an outsider could be. She’d never gone anywhere in public with him again. The cottage was deserted: it was the lambing, so the shepherd would be busy on the hills or down at the farm. He wasn’t really a shepherd, not the romantic type anyway, more a seasonal odd-job man. Work was scarce, not much on the island. That’s what Carlos had said, over the telephone from the airport four hours after he’d been due to bring them back from their weekend visit and she’d climbed the walls because his phone rang out and his flat was locked up when she’d gone to find out what the hell was going on. I’m going back for work, been offered a job, am taking the boys, well-spoken announcer in the background. Back? He left twenty years ago and their children couldn’t speak the language, even though he insisted on Jose and Carlos, and they had no idea of their relations there other than a one month visit from an aunt with olive skin and red lips and preposterous nails who had a husband called Manuel for Christ’s sake. They had fallen in amor with the island, so green they said, the colours of the heather, and they made a mean sangria. Not so bad. Carlos had come home from the pub one evening, thrown his dinner against the wall, what’s this muck he’d said, and his sister had shouted at him, smacked him across the ear for abusing his wife. He shut himself away in the sitting room all night, watching football on the telly with his brother-in-law. Men, she’d said, what bastardos . Bring them back, she’d begged, let’s discuss this, and no, he said, he didn’t have time, the flight was being called and she’d shouted you can’t do this as the tannoy pinged and the line went dead. The rear of the cottage was shaded and chilly. In contrast to the well kept frontage, the back garden was spattered with junk: a scooter with no engine, a tractor’s steering wheel, a blanket spread on what was probably the lawn, one corner turned underneath. A line of shirts and vests and underpants, all the same dirty cream colour, hung out to dry. McTavish snuffled around, scenting collies, always good for a laugh, a rough and tumble. She wondered at the psychology of a man with no family, no connections, no responsibilities, no neighbours, who kept the front of his house tidy and left the back to moulder. Strange folk. Backed up against the wall was a huge sink, three inch thick, brown, stone. It had been propped up on bricks, but these had collapsed, dropping one end: a dripping stand pipe formed a wedge of water. Margaret slipped off her jacket and slung it over the dry lip of the sink. She twisted the green, furry tap and water ran, sputtering. It was ice cold, straight from the hills. She sluiced it over her head, gasping, and gulped some from her cupped hands. It tasted sweet. She peered over the edge into the water at the other end of the sink. She saw her own reflection for a second, and then the dark, dark liquid threaded green with silken algae. It floated delicately, moving in the current of things, things breast- stroking the depths, dark things in the dark, solid depth. What things? Frogs. Fat with spawn. She jumped back. Silly, but she’d never liked frogs. Their coldness, their fragility, the thinness of their skins frightened her. Carlos made Joe laugh, telling boyhood stories of how he exploded frogs with a straw up their bottoms. The thought of it had made her feel sick. She had once scandalised Joe by swerving to avoid a frog slap-slapping its way across the road. Why’d you do that, Mum, you don’t like frogs, he’d said, and she told him that didn’t mean she wanted to squash them. Boys. Always wanting to hurt. She wondered if they ever grew up. The path from the cottage was worn away to rust red soil by feet and sheep and the occasional Land Rover. It was time to be getting back: the children usually telephoned around tea time, and she wanted to hear them, confirm her suspicions. Half a year they’d been away. When are you coming over? they asked. I miss you Mummy, big Joe, cool at seven but admitting that. And Charlie. He said little now, merely listened to her voice in awed silence and then cried softly about accidents during the night. She wondered what they made of it all. They weren’t old enough to understand the finality of "it’s finished", and to want to come home would betray their father. The solution was easy. Come over. Be together. We want you and daddy... a new life here, daddy promised. A new start. Try again, what do you say? The path curved around a clump of trees, and a small figure approached her, a reprobate of a collie at its heels. The shepherd. He was stooped, making him seem even smaller than his wiry five-foot three. She imagined his beard was greasy and smelled of pipe tobacco, but he was one of the island’s quiet gentlemen, prone only to sporadic outbursts of violence, usually over drink. He waved jerkily. "Mrs Criado. How are you today?" he said, as if it hadn’t been months since they’d last met. "I’m fine, Sandy, thanks." "Are you up here on your own?" "No. McTavish is with me." She looked around. "Come to think of it, he’s disappeared. I’m surprised he’s not attacking your dog." "Och, Jake’s not up to playing any more. Are you, boy?" He reached down and stuck a finger into the dog’s ear: it pushed its head against his hand and groaned with pleasure. "Besides, we’ve got work to do, haven’t we, boy?" "How’s the lambing going?" "Fine. Most of them are down the hill. Just a couple seem to have wandered off. I’m probably getting too old to keep a track of them all." "How on earth are you going to find them?" "Keep looking. I think they might be up towards the north end. That’s where I’ll head off to first." "That could take hours." "Maybe all night. I doubt it though. I’ve never known a sheep yet sensible enough to get itself lost when someone’s looking for it." He snapped his fingers, brought the dog to heel. "But if you’ll excuse me, Mrs Criado, I have to be getting on now." "Of course, Sandy. Perhaps see you up here again sometime." "Sure." He coughed. "I’m sorry for your trouble, Mrs Criado. I hope you can bring your boys next time. I’ll show you all the lambs." She shrugged. "That’ll depend on the Spanish Courts, Sandy. I’m not that hopeful" "That’s a pity," he said. "Folk always tend to stick with their own. No different from here, I suppose." He trudged off, the collie darting around him, fluid black like oil. She watched his back for a full minute. Unusual for a man, bringing things home for a living and knowing about birth. Still, men knew how to do that, how to throw you just when you thought you’d got them taped. God, she couldn’t understand the logic, help me understand the logic of him, please. There were times she really thought he’d kill her if she left, times she really thought he’d top himself if she turned him down, times she really thought he meant it when he breenged through the house in a flurry of her clothes, packing her bags and telling her to get out, get out, whore, times when... her head spun and spun. And then he took her boys anyway. Much the same as killing her. And they were unhappy. She knew they were unhappy. A stream cut across the path, and she stopped at the little bridge to wait for McTavish to appear. No sign. She wasn’t worried: he was an island dog, would fend for himself for a few days then come home. But he was company, and a link to the past, and the boys always asked how he was. She’d rather have him there. "McTavish! Here boy! Come on!" He came scuttering out of a clump of trees up to her left and her heart missed a beat. His head was soaked in blood, smeared from his nose, up over his eyes, plastering his ears: as he came closer, she could see the fur around his neck formed into little peaks. And yet he wasn’t whining, and he ran easily, so he hadn’t been shot by a farmer. Besides, she’d have heard the gun. He scampered up to her, head down, tail wagging furiously. He turned his back and whipped her legs. Thick sticky strands of white and red and black viscera glistened down his back. Then the smell hit her. Bloody dog. Disgusting habits. Nothing like a good roll in some beast’s discarded placenta. "Jesus, McTavish, you're revolting," she said. "You deserve to be shot." He simpered and sidled up, threatening to jump and lick her hand. She fended him off with her foot. "Bloody, bloody dog," she said, and gripped his collar with her fingertips, keeping her hands away from the gore as much as she could. He sat down, always a good way of avoiding going anywhere he didn’t want to go, but she slid her other hand under his back legs and hoisted him up. "Right, McTavish, bath time." The dog struggled and she almost lost him, but she tottered to the hand rail of the bridge and lifted him over. He looked at her for a second, pleading, stupid animal, and then gave up the fight and launched himself off her hands. His legs flurried on the way down, he hit the water with a splash and a yelp, and disappeared. She looked down, saw him touch bottom and push up. The water bubbled and frothed and boiled, turning a mucky red. Shreds of the afterbirth surfaced, a glutinous scum which swirled momentarily before speeding off downstream, and traces of the stuff clung to her hands, rich and gummy. Birthblood. Clean up the mess. Past being a good little woman. Just clean it up. McTavish came up for air, got his bearings and swam in a circle, a new game. "Come on, son, let's go home," she called. "We’ve got things to do." In a couple of strokes, he reached the bank and lurched out, ridiculously skinny, and shook himself, an explosion of mercury droplets in the afternoon sun.
© Raymond Soltysek 1995 |
he
clearness of the air was almost tangible, like newly cleaned
windows. Margaret could see all the way across the moor, to
the trig point, west to the line of Forestry Commission
land, east to the shepherd’s house, whitewashed, tiny
and snug like a scrap of polystyrene litter wedged in a
grass bank. She had to shield her eyes when she looked
upward, the first real sunshine of the year: occasionally, a
bird whirred overhead, bulleting past.