Raven Black (2 page)

Then Catherine was there, saying she'd wangled them a lift home, as far as the Ravenswick turning, at least. Sally was all for staying, but Catherine must have persuaded her because she found herself in the back of a car. It was like her dream too, because suddenly Robert was there too, sitting next to her, so close that she could feel the denim of his jeans against her leg and his bare forearm on the back of her neck. She could smell the beer on his breath. It made her feel sick, but she knew she couldn't allow herself to throw up. Not in front of Robert Isbister.

Another couple was crushed into the back of the car with them. She thought she recognized them both. The lad was from South Mainland somewhere and was away in college in Aberdeen. The girl? She stayed in Lerwick and was a nurse in the Gilbert Bain. They were devouring each other.

The girl was underneath, the lad lying on top of her, nibbling at her lips and her neck and her earlobes, then opening his mouth wide as if he intended to swallow her piece by piece. When Sally turned back to Robert, he kissed her, but slowly and gently, not like the wolf from Red Riding Hood. Sally didn't feel that she was being eaten up at all.

Sally couldn't see much of the lad who was driving. She was directly behind the driver's seat and all she could make out was a head and a pair of shoulders clad in a parka. He didn't talk, either to her or to Catherine who was sitting beside him.

Perhaps he was pissed off about giving them a lift. Sally was going to chat to him, just to be friendly, but then Robert kissed her again and that took up all her attention. There was no music playing in the car, no noise at all except for the engine which sounded really rough and the slobbering of the couple squashed beside her.

'Stop!' That was Catherine. It wasn't loud, but coming out of the silence it shocked them all. Her English voice jarred on Sally's ears. 'Stop here. This is where Sally and me get out. Unless you want to give us a lift down to the school!

'No way, man! The student broke away from the nurse just long enough to comment. 'We're missing the party as it is!

'Come with us: Robert said. 'Come on to the party!

His invitation was seductive and meant for Sally, but Catherine answered. 'No, we can't. Sally's supposed to have been at our house. She wasn't allowed into town. If we're not back soon, her parents will come looking!

Sally resented Catherine speaking for her, but knew she was right. She mustn't blow it now. If her mother found out where she'd been, she'd go ape. Her father was reasonable left to himself, but her mother was crazy. The spell was broken and it was back to the real world. She untangled herself from Robert, climbed over him and out of the car.

The cold took her breath away, made her feel light-headed and euphoric as if she'd had another drink. She and Catherine stood side by side and watched the taillights of the car disappear.

'Bastards,' Catherine said, with so much venom that Sally wondered if something had gone on between her and the driver. 'They could have given us a lift! She felt in her pocket, brought out a thin torch and shone it on the path ahead of them. That was Catherine for you. Always prepared.

'Still,' Sally felt a soppy smile spread over her face, 'it was a good night. A fucking good night! As she slung her bag over her shoulder something heavy banged against her hip. She brought out a bottle of wine, opened, with a cork stuck in the top. Where had that come from? She didn't even have a fuzzy memory. She showed it to Catherine in an attempt to lift her gloom. 'Look. Something to keep us going on the way home!

They giggled and stumbled down the icy road.

The square of light seemed to come from nowhere and surprised them. 'Where the shit are we? We can't be back yet! For the first time Catherine seemed anxious, less sure of herself, disorientated.

'It's Hillhead. The house at the top of the bank! 'Does anyone live there? I thought it was empty!

'It belongs to an old man,' Sally said. 'Magnus Tait.

He's daft in the head, so they say. A recluse. We were always taught to stay away from him!

Catherine wasn't frightened now. Or perhaps it was just bravado. 'But he's there, all alone. We should go in and wish him happy new year!

'I've told you. He's soft in the head!

'You're scared,' Catherine said, almost a whisper.
I am, shit-scared, and I don't know why.
'Don't be dumb!

'I dare you! Catherine reached into Sally's bag for the bottle. She took a swig, replaced the cork and handed it back.

Sally stamped her feet to show how ridiculous this was, standing out in the cold. 'We should get back. Like you said, my folks will be waiting!

'We can just say we've been first-footing the neighbours. Go on. I dare you!

'Not on my own!

'All right. We'll both go: Sally couldn't tell if this was what Catherine had intended from the beginning, or if she'd boxed herself into a position she couldn't escape from with her pride intact.

The house was set back from the road. There was no real path. As they approached Catherine shone her torch towards it and the beam hit the grey slate roof, then the pile of peats to one side of the porch. They could smell the smoke coming out of the chimney. The green paint on the porch door rose in scabs over bare wood.

'Go on then,' Catherine said. 'Knock!

Sally knocked tentatively. 'Perhaps he's in bed, just left the light on!

'He's not. I can see him in there! Catherine went into the porch and thumped with her fist on the inner door. She's wild, Sally thought. She doesn't know what she's messing with. This whole thing's crazy. She wanted to run away, back to her boring and sensible parents, but before she could move there was a sound from inside and Catherine had the door open and they stumbled together into the room, blinking and blind in the sudden light.

The old man was coming towards them and Sally stared at him. She knew she was doing it but couldn't stop herself.

She'd only seen him before at a distance. Her mother, usually so charitable in her dealings with the elderly neighbours, usually so Christian in her offers to go shopping, to provide broth and baking, had avoided any contact with Magnus Tait.

Sally had been hurried past the house when he was outside. 'You must never go there,' her mother had said when she was a child. 'He's a nasty man. It's not a safe place for little girls! So the croft had held a fascination for her. She had looked across at it on her way to and from the town. She had glimpsed his back bent over the sheep he was clipping, seen his silhouette against the sun as he stood outside the house looking down to the road. Now, this close, it was like coming face to face with a character from a fairy tale.

He stared back at her and she thought he really was like something from a picture book. A troll, she thought suddenly. That's what he looked like, with his stumpy legs and his short, thick body, slightly hunchbacked, his slot-shaped mouth with the teeth jumbled and yellow inside. She'd never liked the story of the Billy Goats Gruff.

When she was very small she'd been terrified to cross the bridge across the burn to get to her house. She'd imagined the troll living underneath, his eyes fiery red, his back bent as he prepared to charge her.

Now she wondered if Catherine still had her camera with her. The old man would make some picture.

Magnus looked at the girls with rheumy eyes which seemed not quite to
focus.
'Come in,' he said. 'Come in! And he pulled his lips away from his teeth to smile. ,.

Sally found herself chattering. That was what happened when she was nervous. The words spilled out of her mouth and she didn't have an idea what she was saying. Magnus shut the door behind them, then stood in front of it, blocking the only way out. He offered them whisky but she knew better than to accept that. What might he have put into it? She pulled the bottle of wine from her bag, smiled to appease him and carried on talking.

She made a move to stand up, but the man had a knife, long and pointed with a black handle. He was using it to cut a cake which had been standing on the table.

'We should go,' she said. 'Really, my parents will be wondering!

But they seemed not to hear her and she watched in horror as Catherine reached out and took a piece of cake and slipped it into her mouth. Sally could see the crumbs on her friend's lips and between her teeth. The old man stood above them with the knife in his hand.

Sally saw the bird in the cage when she was looking round for a way out.

'What’s that?' she asked abruptly. The words came out of her mouth before she could stop them.

'It's a raven! He stood quite still, watching her, then he set the knife carefully on the table.

'Isn't it cruel, keeping it locked up like that?'

'It had a broken wing. It wouldn't fly even if I let it go!

But Sally didn't listen to the old man's explanations. She thought he meant to keep them in the house; to lock them in like the black bird with its cruel beak and its injured wing.

And then Catherine was on her feet, dusting the cake crumbs from her hands. Sally followed her. Catherine walked up to the old man so she was close enough to touch him. She was taller than him and looked down on him. For an awful moment Sally was afraid that she intended to kiss his cheek. If Catherine did that she would be obliged to do it
too.
Because this was all part of the same dare, wasn't it? At least that was how it seemed to Sally. Since they had come to the house, everything had been a challenge. Magnus hadn't shaved properly. Hard, grey spines grew in the creases in his cheeks. His teeth were yellow and covered in saliva. Sally thought she would rather die than touch him.

But the moment passed and they were outside, laughing so loud that Sally thought she would piss herself, or that they would collapse together into a heap of
snow.
When their eyes got used to the dark again they didn't need the torch to show them down the road. There was a near-full
moon
now and they knew the way home.

Catherine's house was quiet. Her father didn't believe in new year celebrations and had gone to bed early.

'Will you come in?' Catherine asked.

'Best not! Sally knew that was the answer she was supposed to give. Sometimes she could never tell what Catherine was thinking. Sometimes she knew exactly. Now she knew Catherine didn't want her going in.

'I'd better take that bottle from you. Hide the evidence!

'Aye!

'I'll stand here, watch you to your house,' Catherine said.

'No
need!

But she stood, leaning against the garden wall and watched. When Sally turned back she was still there.

If he'd had the chance, Magnus would have liked to explain to the girls about ravens. There were ravens on his land, always had been, since he was a peerie boy, and he'd watched them. Sometimes it was as if they were playing. You could see them in the sky wheeling and turning, like children chasing each other in a game, then they'd fold up their wings and fall out of the sky.

Magnus could feel how exciting that must be, the wind rushing past, the speed of the dive. Then they'd fly out of the fall and their calls sounded like laughter. Once he'd seen the ravens in the snow sliding down the bank to the road on their backs, one after another, just as the boys from the post office did on their toboggans until their mother shouted them away from his house.

But other times ravens were the cruellest birds. He'd seen them peck the eyes from a new sickly lamb. The ewe, shrieking with pain and anger, hadn't scared them away. Magnus hadn't scared the birds off either. He'd made no attempt. He hadn't been able to take his eyes off them, as they prodded and ripped, paddling their talons in the blood.

In the week after new year he thought about Sally and Catherine all the time. He saw them in his head when he woke up in the morning, and dozing in his chair by the fire late at night he dreamed of them. He wondered when they would come back. He couldn't believe that they would ever return but he couldn't bear the idea that he would never talk to them again. And all that week the islands remained frozen and covered in snow. There were blizzards so fierce that he couldn't see the track from his window. The snowflakes were very fine and when the wind caught them they twisted and spiralled like smoke. Then the wind would drop to nothing and the sun would come out and the reflected light burnt his eyes, so he had to squint to see the world outside his house. He saw the blue ice on the voe, the snowplough cutting a way down from the main road, the post van, but he didn't see the beautiful young women.

Once he did catch a glimpse of Mrs Henry, Sally's mother, the schoolteacher. He saw her come out of the schoolhouse door. She had fat fur-lined boots on her feet. A pink jacket on, with the hood pulled up. She was a lot younger than Magnus, but she dressed like an old woman, he thought.

Like a woman who didn't care what she looked like, at least. She was very small and moved in a busy way, scuttling as if time was important to her. Watching her, he was suddenly scared that she intended to come to him. He thought she had found out that Sally had been in the house at new year. He imagined her making a scene, shouting, her face thrust so close to his that he'd smell her breath, feel the spit as she screamed at him.
Don't you dare go near my
daughter.
For a moment he was confused. Was that scene imagination or memory? But she didn't come up the hill towards his house. She walked away.

On the third day he had run out of bread and milk, oatcakes and the chocolate biscuits he liked with his tea. He took the bus into Lerwick. He didn't like leaving the house. The girls might come when he was out. He imagined them climbing the bank, laughing and slipping, knocking at the door and finding no one at home. The worst thing was that he would never know that they had been. The snow was packed so hard there that they would leave no footprints.