Orkney Twilight (32 page)

As Jim had wished, there was only a small congregation – Liz, Ruth, Sam and her sisters, and a smattering of their close friends. What’s more, Sam noted as Becky and Paul stepped up to the graveside to release their handfuls of dust, his ban on coppers had left him with a motley crew of left field mourners – pinko academics, bikers, night-clubbing outlaws, pot-smoking suburban rebels. The enemy within, she said to Jim in her head. Somewhere in the distance she heard somebody scoff – your lot, call yourselves subversives? What a bloody shambles. Bunch of buffoons. She instinctively glanced over her shoulder, checking to see whether Jim was lurking behind a gravestone, taking notes. But he wasn’t there.

There was a slight pause in the proceedings, a respectful gap between friends and family. In the ensuing heavy silence, the soft brushing of beating wings made Sam look up to see the dark streak of two advancing heavy-billed ravens. As they passed overhead, the pair flipped in unison, flew upside-down momentarily before rolling and righting themselves again.

‘The birds,’ she whispered to Helen, ‘they’ve come to pay their last respects to Jim.’

‘Or crap on his coffin,’ Helen muttered.

Jess moved closer to the grave, holding her crash helmet in one hand, wiping her eye with the other, head bowed in silent contemplation for a moment before she scattered her dust on the coffin and moved back to join the congregation. Helen’s turn next, her spiked heels sinking down in the loose graveside earth as she briskly chucked a fistful of dirt at Jim.

‘What a bastard,’ Helen muttered as she returned.

Liz threw her eldest daughter a reproachful look.

‘But we loved him,’ Helen added quickly.

Uncouth. That’s what you lot are, said Jim’s voice in Sam’s head. Bloody uncouth. Sam sniggered nervously. Helen jabbed her in the ribs with a sharp elbow. Sam stepped back and trod on Jess’s boot.

‘Ow,’ said Jess, caught unawares because she had her eyes down to glance at her watch, checking whether there was time for a swift round before lunchtime last orders. Liz frowned.

‘It’s what Jim would have wanted,’ Jess said. ‘A quick drink.’

Liz almost smiled.

Sam offered her godmother an arm and helped her shuffle over the uneven earth. The vicar held out his Tupperware pot nervously, and rapidly removed himself when they had both dipped in. They stood silently on the lip of the pit together. The skittish breeze rippled the gold embroidered edging of Ruth’s sari, flicked Sam’s hair around her face.

‘One, two, three, four, five, six, seven,’ Ruth said softly. ‘All good children go to heaven.’

‘Eenie, meenie, miny, moe,’ Sam said, completing the familiar verse. ‘I wonder where the others go.’

Ruth jabbed her curved thumb decisively heavenwards. ‘He was never passive in the face of evil. He’s going up,’ she said.

‘Maybe. But I’m not convinced they’ll let him in when he gets there.’

‘Well, he’s bound to have arranged for someone to leave the back window open a crack,’ Ruth retorted. She peered cautiously down into the chasm. ‘I find the idea of burial quite disturbing.’

Sam looked over the edge of the pit now too, shuddered at the sight of the varnished lid of the coffin and imagined Jim lying just below.

‘I know what you mean. It does seem quite callous leaving him down there alone, while he’s still…’ she couldn’t think of a fitting word, ‘whole.’

Ruth nodded. ‘Cremation would have been better; it shortens the period of limbo. The danger,’ she added.

‘What do you mean?’

‘When a person dies, their flesh becomes contaminated with the evil of death. And that means the corpse is polluted. It is wise to keep it away from the sacred natural elements – earth, fire, water – in case the evil spreads. That is why it is Zoroastrian custom to leave corpses in the open for the carrion birds, the vultures, the crows, to take away the flesh. They are the birds that have been created by God for this purpose, to deal with the evil of death.’

Sam stuck a hand in her coat pocket and felt the barbs of the raven’s feather she had carried with her from Orkney. Raven. Carrion bird. Dealer with death. Odin’s companion.

‘But where open burial is not permitted,’ Ruth continued, ‘then cremation is better than burial, because the fire consumes the flesh quickly and reduces the dangerous time of contamination. Still, I suppose it can’t be helped. But you will have to be careful.’

She dug her flat, black lace-up into the graveside earth, drew a circle with its tip. ‘In the end we all return to dust, one way or another. We come from the elements and we return to the elements. We may have a second of consciousness, but even that vanishes in the gentlest gust of wind.’

Ruth uncurled her arthritic hand as she spoke and let the breeze whip the particles away. Sam followed suit and broadcast the grains she was holding. Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust. Death and the regeneration of life.

She watched the last specks fall back to earth, and was about to retreat from the graveside when Ruth seemed to stumble. Sam reached out an arm to steady her. Ruth clutched at Sam’s coat, pulled at her for support. Sam leaned in to prop up her godmother.

With an unexpected swiftness of movement, Ruth stretched up and whispered in Sam’s ear. ‘By the way, that day the other week when you came round with Jim, I had a quick word with him while you were sorting through my things. I said I was worried about you, thought you might be in some kind of trouble, putting yourself at more risk than you realized with all your protesting. He said that he thought you were smart enough to keep yourself out of difficulties, but he promised he would make sure you had a number to call anyway. Just in case you needed help.’

Sam nearly choked. ‘What? What was he talking about? What number?’

‘It’s no good spluttering at me,’ Ruth hissed crossly. ‘I’m only repeating what Jim said. I’ve no idea what number he was talking about. I’m just passing on the message.’

Liz interrupted impatiently from behind. ‘Have you two finished yet?’

Sam tried to catch Ruth’s eye, but Liz tugged her back, away from the grave. Ruth kept sight fixed firmly on the green sward of the distant golf course.

Liz was the last to step up. She heaved a final sigh in the presence of her husband before brushing her hands together over the coffin, wiping away the lingering motes. ‘All over.’ She turned to leave the graveside.

The vicar picked up her cue and scuttled off like a cockroach back to the sanctuary of his church.

‘To the pub,’ said Jess.

‘I’ll catch you up in a minute,’ Sam said.

Liz led the strange procession of mourners away, winding between the angels with their prayer books and the greening jam jars of wilting flowers. Out through the lychgate. Roger was the last in the line, his bouffant quiff lifting in the wind like a billowing sail propelling his large frame forwards. What was he doing here anyway, Sam thought to herself crossly. He wasn’t a friend of Jim’s. Jim thought he was a tosser. Full of bullshit. Telling people he had been in the SAS. He wished. She glared at his back as he strode breezily down the path, passed under the shade of a wilting rowan, turned and pulled what she presumed was supposed to be a sympathetic face, a drooping lettuce leaf of a smile. Prat. He could piss off. She gave him the evil eye. He recoiled from her stare, disappeared down the lane.

Alone now in the lengthening shadows of the advancing afternoon, she felt uneasy. A black moth flitted past her face, brushing her skin, making her shudder. The back of her neck bristled. She checked the corners of the graveyard through the swaying branches of the yew trees. Searching for Watchers. Spooks. Crackpots. Psychos bearing grudges or firearms. Nobody visible. She gazed down at the coffin in its muddy hole, straining her eyes, as if she might still be able to see through the solid lid of the wooden box and commune with Jim, ask for his forgiveness for pilfering his information, solicit his guidance about passing on the poisoned chalice now she had it in her possession, find out the meaning of his peculiar parting message to Ruth. But Jim was silent. And the sight of the freshly dug gash in the wet soil made her think of rotting corpses, slow putrefaction, worm-eaten flesh. Ruth was right, Jim’s death was incomplete, unfinished. Dangerous. She had an urge to pull out the nails, wrench the lid free, open the coffin so the crows and the rooks could clean his bones and hasten the process of decay. She leaned over the edge of the pit. A rustle in the undergrowth behind, the snap of branches, made her panic. She twisted. Heard the soft tread of shoe on earth. Turned again too quickly. Head spinning. Eyes darkening. Nothing but blackness and warm breath behind. She jabbed her elbow blindly in an effort to fend off her attacker. Too late. Her foot moved the wrong way. She was slipping over the edge. A split-second plunge into paralytic fear. The dank pit reaching up to engulf her, to bury her in its earthy embrace.

‘Gotcha.’

She yelped with pain as her arm was grabbed and yanked backwards.

‘Saved you,’ said her captor.

She recognized the voice. ‘Becky,’ she said, attempting to control the quaver in her throat. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Coming to check up on you. Make sure you’re okay. You looked as if you were preparing to throw yourself on top of your father’s coffin.’

‘I wouldn’t do that.’

‘I should bloody well hope not.’

‘I am feeling a bit wobbly though. I could do with a spliff before I go to the pub.’

They wandered down the path to the south side of the graveyard, through a wooden gate into a meadow beyond; heifers idly loafing in a far corner, the air humming with bees and the cat-pee whiff of Queen Anne’s Lace. They perched on the rotting planks of a moss-covered bench, hidden from the churchyard by a hedgerow of hawthorns.

‘What was all that chucking dust about anyway?’ Becky asked. ‘Why do you think he insisted on that? It felt like a scene from a film about the Mafia.’

Sam attempted a smile. ‘I will show you fear, perhaps,’ she said.

‘What?’

‘I will show you fear in a handful of dust.’

‘Oh, that bloody misogynist Eliot.
The Waste Land
.’

Sam shrugged. ‘Look,’ she said. ‘Jess taught me a great new way to roll a reefer.’

She removed two Rizla papers from the red packet, delicately licked their gummy edges with the tip of her tongue, stuck them together carefully at an angle, struck a match and held it to the side of the surplus seam. Just as Jess had done. The thin paper instantly burst into flames, whipped into the air, narrowly missing her hair, transformed into a puffball of grey ash and floated away. Becky snorted, laughing. Sam laughed too. Manically.

‘You idiot,’ Becky said.

She snatched the Rizla packet and nimbly rolled a joint. They puffed contentedly in the late afternoon sun. Sam found herself mesmerized by the gleam of a dazzling emerald jewel in a fresh cow pat; a green dung beetle frantically waving its clubbed antennae. Swimming through the shit. Or perhaps it was drowning.

Ambling back through the graveyard, weaving around the grassy mounds covering long-forgotten bones, she automatically glanced across at Jim’s plot. A small black plaque marked the head of the pit. Strange. She couldn’t remember anybody leaving a plaque. Somebody must have returned to the grave while they were having a spliff. She darted off the path, picked up the etched marble stone. In one corner, there was a pair of ghostly hands pressed together in prayer. In the opposite, Sam identified the familiar crowned badge of the Force. Becky stepped over to join her as she read out the words carved diagonally across the plaque’s face.

‘
Ars longa, vita brevis
.’

Latin.

‘Art is long, life is short,’ said Becky. ‘Hippocrates. He was talking about medicine, his professional skills. There’s a lot to learn and not much time to do it.’ She hesitated. ‘Odd thing to put on a memorial.’

Becky was right; it was a peculiar sentiment.

‘Who do you think left that then?’ Becky asked.

‘I don’t know.’

Sam stood up and returned Becky’s hard brown gaze unblinkingly.

‘You’re not very good at lying,’ Becky said.

‘I’m not lying. I don’t know.’

But she could guess. Only one of Jim’s companions was big on Latin. She screwed up her eyes, squinted along the path leading under the lychgate, searching for movement, a figure, a stranger. The Commander must have found out where the funeral was being held and left the plaque on Jim’s grave.
Ars longa, vita brevis
.

‘Don’t,’ Becky said.

‘Don’t what?’

‘Leave it alone. Stop digging. Jim’s dead and buried.’

Sam lifted a small pebble distractedly with her foot and sent it arcing over the edge of the grave in a neat parabola. It curved down and bounced on the coffin’s lid, making a hollow drum-like plop as it landed.

Becky folded her arms, shook her head. ‘If you don’t go chasing him,’ she said, ‘he’s not going to come after you.’

‘I wouldn’t bet on it.’ Sam smiled wanly. ‘Let’s go and join the wake.’

Along the sunken lane, dappled light playing around the twisting trunks and gnarly roots, the leaves rustling in the breeze.
Ars longa, vita brevis
, the oak trees whispered. Taunting her with the hidden meaning of the Commander’s message. There is a lot to learn and life is short. Was it a warning? Don’t be a smart-arse if you don’t have the tradecraft. Or else you’ll cop it. She instinctively reached for the feather in her pocket, hoping to gain comfort from its touch. But, instead, it made her think of Odin and his ravens. The wild hunt. Searching out the traitors. Hunting them down. She silently cursed her mother’s insistence on banning the Commander from attending Jim’s funeral, rueing again her lost opportunity to get rid of the envelope.

They reached the turning point for the double-deckers at the end of their route out of London; a triangular patch of tarmac covering what had once been the village duck pond. She scanned the parked cars and driveways, hoping for some evidence of the Commander’s presence, but the village was deserted. All was silent, apart from a pub sign clanking in the wind. The Green Man. The yellow eyes of the strange foliage-entwined creature followed her as the sign swung to and fro, pushed by the strengthening gusts. Odin, master of the winds, she thought. King of the underworld. Lord of the dead. Sam shivered in the rapidly cooling air of the late afternoon, plagued by the nagging sense that now Jim was gone, she had become the hunt’s main quarry. The object of the chase.