This Northern Sky Read online

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

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

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

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

  ‘And Sam?’

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

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

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

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

  I nod.

  ‘So, is he in prison? Sam.’

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

  Finn doesn’t say anything for a while.

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

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

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

  ‘More fool you,’ Finn says.

  ‘That’s a bit harsh,’ I say.

  ‘The truth is sometimes.’

  I bite my lip, trying to stop myself crying.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  ‘It isn’t that easy,’ I say.

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

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

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

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

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

  I don’t push it.

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

  ‘Shall we go back?’ I say.

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

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

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

  He doesn’t reply.

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

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

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

  It’s a new, surprising thought.

  Twenty-one

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  It feels as if she’s telling me off.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  I wonder what Finn would say to that.

  Mackie nods. ‘And the fact is, nothing stands still. Things do have to change; people have to adapt. But not all change is good. You have to think about each thing on its own merit. Not accept everything.’

  Isla looks as if she’s going to argue, but she doesn’t.

  Thea and Piers start packing up the sleeping bags and cooking things. The party’s properly over. Jamie and Clara decide to have one final swim before they make their way back to the Manse.

  ‘Anyone else coming in? Thea? Kate?’ Clara asks.

  Thea shakes her head.

  ‘Sea’s too cold for me,’ I say. ‘And I should be going home.’

  I get my stuff together, say goodbye.

  Tim gives me a big bear hug. ‘Thanks for the cake, clever Kate,’ he says. ‘Thanks for being here, celebrating my birthday.’

  ‘I’ll never forget it.’

  ‘Me neither!’ Tim laughs. ‘Nearly destroyed thousands of pounds worth of jeep.’

  ‘I meant the Northern Lights,’ I say. ‘And the beautiful beach, and being with everybody . . .’

  I wheel the bike the long way, up the track towards the road.

  Going home, I said. But it’s just a holiday house, Fiona’s house. I’m not sure I’ll ever really be going home again. I think about what Isla said about running away. The sort of people who want to move to an island to live, rather than the ones born and raised there. You have to ask what they’re running from, she said. What they are trying to leave behind. Because we take ourselves with us, wherever we go, however far and remote.

  One of those random thoughts pops up: Home is where the heart is. It’s a quotation from something: no idea what.

  Maybe some people get born in the wrong place, or at the wrong time, or to the wrong parents. Or they end up marrying the wrong person, or being in the wrong job, and they have to spend a lifetime finding their way back to where they ought to be.

  Where the heart is.

  I cycle slowly back. Away from the shelter of the dunes the wind is stronger, blowing against me. As I come down the last slope into the village and past the shop, I see Mum outside the house, pegging washing on the line, even though it is a Sunday. The clothes flap and dance: she’s finding it hard to keep the pegs on the line the wind’s so strong. Her skirt, hair – everything’s tugged sideways by the wind. It’s comforting and familiar, this little scene: a snapshot of ordinary life.

  I smile, she waves. I pedal across the bumpy ground to the gate and get off.

  ‘How was it?’ she calls. ‘Have a lovely time?’

  ‘Amazing,’ I say. I wheel the bike through the gate and lean it against the white wall of the house. ‘Guess what? We saw the Northern Lights!’

  ‘No! In summer? You lucky things! I’ve always wanted to see that. I can’t believe we missed it! Tell me about it.’ She picks up the empty washing basket and we go inside together.

  Mum clicks on the kettle for coffee and brings her two new cups from the draining board over to the table. It feels like a normal day; we could be living here like this together, and it wouldn’t be strange at all. A glimmer of all the possibilities ahead comes into my head: all the choices you can make about where to live, and how, and with whom.

  ‘Where’s Dad?’ I ask.

  ‘Birdwatching, walking,’ she says. ‘Having some thinking time.’

  We sip coffee. I hold the cup up in both hands so I can see the hares running round. I describe the Northern Lights to her, but it’s hard to explain exactly what it felt like, watching the sky from the beach in the middle of the night: the feeling of wonder, and the rightness of it all.

  Mum stands up and goes to the window. ‘We phoned Bonnie and Hannah last night,’ she says. She’s looking away, as if she can’t bear to see my face. ‘We felt we should. It didn’t seem fair, you being the only one knowing about Dad and me. You should be able to talk to each other about it if you want to.’

  It’s another blow, soft and deadly. What had I expected? That they might have changed their minds? Decided that it wasn’t too late to reconsider?

  ‘What did they say?’

  ‘They were both upset, of course. Bonnie especially. She wants to come home. We tried to persuade her not to. She’s been having such a good time in Spain, it seems a shame to cut that short.’

  ‘She could come here,’ I say. ‘I’d like that.’

  ‘Me too.’ Mum sighs. She comes back to the table and sits down. ‘It’s such a mess,’ she says. ‘So not what I wanted for my daughters. I’m so sorry, Kate.’

  Too late, Mum. You should have thought about that before.

  My anger surprises me: the way it flares up, blindingly bright and jagged like the pain over my eyes when a migraine starts.

  She doesn’t notice. We stare out of the window at the white horses on the waves. ‘It’s blowing up for another storm,’ Mum says. ‘You were lucky, catching that window of fine weather for the party.’

  I yawn.

  ‘Go and get some sleep. I don’t suppose you got much last night.’

  Twenty-two

  I get up in the early evening. Dad comes back soon after, in time for supper. He’s caught the sun: red cheeks, red nose, red neck. He looks happy though. He lists the birds he’s seen. He had a chat in the café at Martinstown with a delightful young couple on their honeymoon . . .

  Mum carries on folding and smoothing the washing she’s brought in from the line, dried stiff by the salty wind.

  Dad keeps talking. ‘But all in all, I think it’s probably best if I go back home this week. Lots to sort out. Should make a start.’

  Mum’s hands stop moving. She doesn’t speak. The clock ticks round.

  ‘So soon?’ I blurt out. ‘Because I am not going home early.’

  Mum still doesn’t say a word.

  ‘Just me,’ Dad says lightly, as if it doesn’t matter one way or another, as if it’s of no great significance. ‘I wasn’t expecting you to come, Kate.’

  ‘Good. Because I’m not.’

  Mum looks up at last. ‘Kate?’ she says. ‘Could you let me and Dad have a few minutes on our own?’

  I snatch up
my jacket from the chair, slam the front door behind me.

  The wind’s blowing from the west. I walk into it, eyes stinging. I walk along the single track road and down on to the sandy beach with the fringe of marram grass along the top. I start looking for the rock shaped like a bowl that I lay in that first day on the island. Ages ago, it seems, though it’s only a couple of weeks. I can’t find it: the rocks all look the same from a distance.

  At last I stumble across it. I climb in, lie down. Only today it doesn’t feel warm, comforting, a resting place. The rock’s cold, hard. Even with my collar up and my hands pulled up inside my sleeves I’m shivering. I turn on to my side, curl up. The stone cuts into my hip.

  Dad’s face, set hard. How could he do that? Simply walk away from Mum, and me, and everything we’ve been together as a family? Talk about it so casually, as if he doesn’t care, doesn’t see what he’s doing to the rest of us?

  The rational voice in my own head tells me it’s the only way he could do it: a decision, and a turning away. That way he doesn’t have to see the fallout. He can pretend it isn’t happening, because it’s all taking place somewhere else, like a shower of rain falling way out at sea. That he still, somewhere, somehow, loves us.

  The one bright thought is Bonnie, on her way home.

  It’s too cold and blustery to stay still for long. I walk further along the beach, back up to the road and keep on walking westwards. The sun’s going down: banks of cloud in layers building up over the sea. That’s the direction the wind farm will be. I let myself imagine it: the hundreds of turbines lighting up as the sun sets: a huge forest of giant Christmas trees whirring and humming in the dark.

  Maybe it’s not so bad. Maybe it’s a change that has to happen, and there’s no point resisting.

  Finn.

  I imagine him and the others sitting round the table, chatting about the party, everyone helping get the dinner ready, switching on the lamps, drawing the curtains. Someone will be lighting the peat stove as the evening cools down. I think about what makes them so strong as a family. And, of course, it’s Alex and Joy, their steady, loving relationship which holds it all together, invisibly. Their love for each other makes a kind of force field around them all: family, friends. It makes everyone feel safe. It keeps back the dark.