Chapter 18 #4
“You know, they’re building a new fish farm over by you.
Salmon and the like. They’ve laid the road and my cousin knows the guy who runs it.
I could put your name in for a job if you like?
They’re siting the cages. Have you ever seen a salmon cage?
Fucking massive thing. The pay is good – I mean, the work fucking stinks – but the pay is good. ”
“Yeah? I don’t have a car.”
“Ah, it can’t be that far. Twenty miles or so. You could ride a bike.”
“A bike? I can tell you Leòdhasaich have never seen a hill.”
“Then you’ll keep fit.”
He had outgrown his own bike but he was certain Innes had a Falcon racer. He had a terrible vision of riding a borrowed bike through the hills in the rain. “Sure,” he said, mostly to bring the conversation to an end. “Go on then. Put my name in.”
“I will.” Cheeks smiled, pleased to have helped a friend.
They settled into an easy silence.
The red-headed singer took the mic again and the Gaelic singing started.
Cal was thinking about what he would wear to the festival in July when Cheeks tapped the side of his leg.
“One thing though . . . Don’t tell Doll about the festival.
” He nodded at the swaying giant. “I can’t put up with that all weekend. Your man’s an embarrassment.”
A blonde girl came tottering down the bus.
She held on to the ceiling straps and swung around the drinkers like a sailor on a high sea.
She dropped onto Cheeks’s lap and he winced before enfolding her in his arms. He pressed his lips against a mole that sat between her bare shoulder blades and closed his eyes like a lamb at the teat.
The woman studied Cal before deciding she would smile. “I’m Marianne.” She nodded back at Cheeks. “Not boring you, is he?”
“Not at all.”
She jerked away and rubbed her shoulder. “Don’t slobber all over me, James.”
Cal said goodbye to Cheeks and, gathering up his things, he went out into the night air.
There were circles of partygoers clustered around driftwood fires, older men who no longer cared to dance were drinking and chatting about the football.
He moved away from the bus, from the lights, and stumbled over to the dunes where everything felt calm and navy and endless.
Finding a cradle in the sand, he covered his face with his jumper and drew his knees to his chest.
The moon was far out over the Atlantic by the time Tormod turned off the music.
There was a collective groan from the crowd, then a chant for more, more, more.
Cal emerged from the darkness in time to see Tormod’s son help Shiv down from the coach.
The bonfires had died down and those already outside stood around sharing cigarettes, their voices too loud now that the music had died.
He looked for Cheeks, but Cheeks and his friends had already left.
Doll came crashing into the night. He fell from the bus. He seemed in the mood for a fight and told Tormod’s son to keep his hands to himself, which caused Shiv to protest, although Cal could see how it thrilled her. Cal threw his arm around Doll’s neck and led him away from the confrontation.
Shiv had lost track of Georgina so she came trotting up behind them.
The bed and breakfast was several miles away.
They smoked on the long walk home, passing two cigarettes between the three of them.
As they came down a hill, Shiv held each of their hands and they swung her between them as though she were a child, until Doll swung her too hard, and she lost her footing and landed, laughing, on scuffed knees.
It started to rain. Her lacquered hair sparkled in the moonlight. Doll lifted his T-shirt, scooped it over her head, and held her against his chest like she was a giggling tumour.
When they finally reached the front door, Shiv put her finger to her outlined lips. “Shhh, you’ll wake the landlady.” She fumbled with the lock.
Cal was at the back and he made to follow them inside, but Shiv looked at Doll, and then Doll turned to Cal and put his hand on Cal’s chest. “Can you give us half an hour, cove?”
“Shut up.” Cal waved him away. He pointed to the living room. “I’ll sleep on that settee. You can have the bedroom. I’m not bothered.”
Shiv crept back down the hallway. “I’m running a business here, boys. I can’t have strange fellas sleeping on the settee, so.”
Doll laid a hand on Cal’s shoulder. “Ten minutes, eh?” Then he closed the door slowly, edging Cal back out and onto the path.
Cal listened to them giggle as they crept up the stairs. He pushed at the door, but the lock had slid back into place.
There were a few houselights in the distance, old crofters up at the first of the lambing, otherwise the west coast was absolute darkness.
He sat on the stone wall, then, to be out of the wind, he slid down and sat against it as the light went off in the upstairs bedroom.
The heat of the ecstasy was leaving him.
He tilted his head back, mouth open, glad of the rain on his cracked lips.
It was cold against the wall. Whatever heat the wind didn’t steal the ground leached from underneath him.
There was no sound but the wind and the grating of the waves.
He closed his eyes and tried to lock his jaw from the chattering. He laid his face on his knees.
When he lifted his head again, the lights of the herring boats were making their way out to sea. Four a.m. He put his head down and tucked his hands between his thighs.
“Son?” She shook him awake. Her face looked so gaunt the blue eyeliner stood out like a raised vein. “You’ll be foundered. Oh. I fell asleep, so.”
The first light had come over from the mainland, a magenta horizon that promised rain later. It looked hot, like the bars on an electric fire. He wanted to run into it.
Shiv rubbed his hands between her own. She helped him to his feet.
The front of his jacket was a paler shade of blue. It was the only part of him that was dry.
She led him into the sleeping house and made him strip on the bottom stair. He tried to keep his boxers on, but she groped his buttocks and finding him damp, she tugged at his waistband and pulled them off. He stood naked before her, like a child waiting for a bath.
“Go upstairs,” she said. “Get right into bed.”
At the top of the stairs were three doors.
Each room was named after a different island: Jura, Tiree, Muck.
Cal didn’t know which bedroom was Doll’s.
He was too cold to cry, but his face kept knotting and unknotting with frustration.
He crept along the hallway with his shrivelled balls in his hands and listened at all the doors like a pervert.
Behind the very last door was the clotted snore of a drunk man. He turned the handle slowly.
There were two single beds in the room. In the corner was a small sink. Cal tried the hot tap, it ran cold, spurted and then gave out steaming jets. He soaked a face cloth and ran the scald of it over his face and chest. He heated it again and pressed it into his kidneys.
“Are you all right?” Doll was lying on his stomach, his face bloated, eyes small as spoot holes. “Why didn’t you ring the bell?”
Doll got out of bed. He came over to him and tried to wrap a towel around him but Cal shoved him away. He tore back the covers on the neat bed and climbed in, pulling his knees to his chest. The thin sheets held no promise of heat. He felt his limbs stiffen, ossified by the cold.
Doll lit a cigarette and took a long drag.
He paced the room and cracked his back with a satisfied groan.
“You can’t rely on me for everything. You should have found somebody to go home with.
” He came and stood over him, his cock slick with the stink of someone else.
It was the first time Cal had ever seen all of him – all of him naked. And he was beautiful.
Cal turned away and faced the wall. Doll climbed onto the bed behind him, the cigarette clamped between his lips.
He pressed himself against Cal’s back, and although Cal protested, he was careful not to protest too much.
Doll pulled him into his chest and pressed his thighs into Cal’s lean buttocks.
His skin smelt unfamiliar. It was as though he had pulled a thin blanket of perfume over them: bright gardenia, artificial rose.
He groaned as if his head hurt but he went on smoking the menthol cigarette, the tip of it crackling near Cal’s ear.
The contented warmth of him was deep and even, like a hot water radiator, beaming, long after the boiler had shut off.
It was the first time they had lain in bed together.
Cal pressed his face into the pillow and sobbed.
“What?” said Doll. His breath smelt oddly meaty. “What did you say?”
“I said, it must have a been a real treat.”
“What?” said Doll. “What was?”
“To sleep under a proper roof, like a decent human being.”
There were footsteps on the stairs and the sound of spoons rattling on plates.
Doll released him and quickly slid back into his own rumpled bed.
Cal had his back to Doll and his back to the door but he listened as Shiv crept into the room.
She set the tray down and he could smell the aroma of instant coffee and burnt toast, and above it all, a fresh cloud of artificial rose.
She tucked a hot water bottle against the small of Cal’s back and clucked for shame.
“Do you think he’ll tell anyone?” she whispered to Doll.
“Not him,” he said, as he nipped the cigarette. “He’s good at keeping secrets.”
There was the crackle of static as Doll drew back his sheets and patted his mattress.
Cal listened to the hesitation of the creaking floorboards as the woman wavered.
It seemed for a moment like she wouldn’t give in.
Then she did. And he could hear the smile on Doll’s sticky lips as Shiv Malone slid in beside him again.