Scrap Metal (3 page)

He was still poised on the ladder, his peculiar blue-violet gaze now calm. It was disconcerting to be at its focus. I said, stupidly, “What?”

“That bloody great Uzi you’ve got trained on me.”

I wanted to tell him it wasn’t mine. Nothing to do with me—that beyond the necessities of pest control, I’d never hurt a living thing in my life. I was starting to feel sick in the wake of my adrenaline surge, and very cold. “I don’t know.”

“I didn’t come here to rob you. Just to take shelter.”

“You expect me to believe that? Half a dozen farms round here have been ripped off lately.”

“What for?”

“Equipment mostly. Tools, chain saws, quad bikes if they can get ’em. Or just scrap metal. The deeper the recession bites, the more that’s worth, and…” I shivered, looking off into the dark where the broken hulks of our tractors, ploughs and harvesters lay rusting. “And that’s all I’ve got. Sheep and scrap metal. You broke into the wrong barn.”

He shifted uncomfortably. “Ah, come off it. You lot are always pleading poverty, aren’t you?”

“Us lot?”

“Farmers. Then the government gives you a great big handout and you’re tanking around in your Range Rovers again.”

“Right. You think it’s okay to rob a farmer because we’re all rich.”

“I didn’t say that. I—”

“Come down off that bloody ladder. I’ll show you how rich this one is.”

I marched him out of the barn and back across the yard. When he hesitated in the howling, wet darkness, I gave him a prod in the back with the gun and almost threw up at the savagery of my action. When he moved on, he did so with raised hands. He was thin and defenceless. If he’d knocked on my door for shelter that night, I’d have taken him in. I wouldn’t have turned away a dog. But something inside me was breaking, some rope trying to snap. I was seriously afraid I would shoot him. He found the back porch by bumping into it.

“It’s not locked,” I growled at him. “Open the door.”

It was colder inside than out. In summer that had always been such a blessing, I remembered. We’d work all day in a harvest blaze, me and Alistair, come home and step into mushroom-cool shadows, tender on sunburnt skin. It was how the old Arran farms had been built, to keep men, milk and cheese fresh and sweet in summer, and in the winter…

In the winter, if you didn’t tend their fires, they died.

“Go straight down the passage. Into the kitchen.”

The room stood stark and empty. I flicked a switch, and dusty yellow lights came on, the low-wattage bulbs Harry thought would save him money and wouldn’t let me replace.

I stood behind Cameron. I was shivering properly now. “This is where I live.”

He looked around. I followed his gaze, seeing the place myself as if I’d been a stranger. Big slate flagstones, old as the foundations. A massive oak table, supported at one end by crates. We’d called the room a kitchen but everything had happened here—meals, disciplinary actions, years of homework. My ma, a farmer’s wife at heart, although she’d only had the briefest benefit of a husband, had liked to keep her two front parlours spotless, smelling of polish and disuse. She, Harry, the farmhands, Alistair and me, we’d all piled in and out of here for everything. In the midst of all that chaos, I’d never seen how barren the place was. There was a threadbare rug, a huge cupboard Harry called a
preas
filled with cracked and broken china. The sink—more of a trough, ancient white ceramic—had been installed in the 1880s and not touched since. We still drew water into it from the old lead pump. Cobwebs drifted from the ceiling pan rack, stirring in the draught.

“Why is it so cold?”

“Oil went up fifty percent last year. Coal’s the same.”

“Are you all on your own here?”

“No. I’ve got…family upstairs. Brothers. If they’d found you out there, they’d have shot you where you stood.”

Cameron took a few steps farther into the room. I didn’t try to stop him. He pushed his hands into his pockets and lowered his head. Then he turned round to face me. “But you won’t.”

Something about the colour of his eyes, the tired patience in them, made it hard for me to think. “I won’t what?”

“You won’t shoot me. What’s your name?”

“Nichol. Nichol Seacliff.”

“Nichol…as in Nickelback? Er, like the group, you know—a dollar and your nickel back?”

“No.” My aim on him was trembling. The bloody rifle seemed to weigh a ton. My vision kept blurring then returning to painful, bitter clarity. “Nichol with a soft C-H, like
loch
, as in…” I cast around for a strong enough analogy. “As in I’ll take you out to ours and drown you if you ever mention that band in this house again.”

He smiled. It transformed him. He took two fearless steps forward, laid his hand on the snout of the rifle and gently bore it down. “Aye,” he said. “They are pretty shite. You’re not going to use this gun on me, Nichol Seacliff.”

“No.” I stepped back from him until I encountered the edge of the table, then I blindly swung the rifle aside and set it down. I pulled out a chair and sank into it. “I hate the fucking thing.” I buried my face in my hands.

I’d been running on three hours’ sleep a night since the lambing began. Before that I’d worked through a stinking bout of flu. And before that… I couldn’t even remember
before that
, the year that had whirled and crawled and racketed by since I’d got the message from the dean of my college to come and speak to him in his office, and I’d gone down whistling and pulled up short at the sight of the policeman standing by the dean’s desk. My brain was ready to shut down at the least excuse. The temporary darkness behind my hands would do. I closed my eyes and drifted.

A familiar scent reached me. There had been familiar noises too so ordinary that I’d failed to take them in. A rattle of crockery, the kettle’s rumble and click. Slowly I lifted my head and straightened. Cameron was standing in front of me, at cautious distance, holding out a steaming mug. “Nichol. Here.”

My burglar had made me a cup of tea. I accepted it on reflex. The mug was so warm, and my hands so cold, that it didn’t feel as if we belonged in the same universe. “Thanks,” I said weakly. “Er… Are you having one yourself?”

“No. I just wanted to give that to you. You looked like you were going to faint or something.”

“I’m fine. Just tired.”

“I’m sorry I broke into your barn, okay? And sorry for what I said about rich farmers. Look—if you’re okay, and you’re really not gonna shoot me or turn me in, I’ll be on my way.”

I tried a mouthful of the tea. I was surprised to find I did take sugar, at one o’clock on a freezing morning anyway. The jolt of it restarted my thinking processes. “Hang on,” I said, pushing the rifle a bit farther away from me so he’d know that wasn’t part of our dealings anymore. “If you didn’t break in to steal anything…”

“I told you. I needed shelter.”

“This farm’s three miles away from—well, anything at all, in all directions. You could’ve sheltered in the bus station at Brodick.”

He let go a soft breath. His rucksack was over his shoulder once more, one hand clenching anxiously at the strap. They were nice hands, I thought, watching him over the rim of the mug. Finely made but strong. I could see my rescued lamb’s attraction to his fingers.

“I lied to you,” he said. “I needed somewhere to hide.”

Oh, shit. I looked him over again. There was a lively trade in crack along that western route from Glasgow. Occasionally it spilled over onto the island in the form of a runaway junkie with a pissed-off pusher on his tail. My visitor was painfully thin. There were shadows under his eyes.

“Sorry,” I said. “You chose the wrong farm for that too. A stranger stands out like a purple cow around here. You wouldn’t last five minutes.”

“Yeah. It was stupid. I’ll let myself out.”

“Hang on a second.” I pushed stiffly onto my feet. “I’m just going upstairs. Stay here.”

He was more or less my size, minus a couple of stone. In my room, I crouched by my linen chest and moved things around until I found a T-shirt and thick woollen jersey, both clean and warm but generic enough not to attract notice. A pair of grey sweatpants as well, and a blanket. That would do.

In the kitchen, he was waiting in the exact spot where I’d left him. He watched me, his face a blank of confusion, while I walked up to him and put the clothes and the blanket into his arms.

“What are you doing?”

“Go back to the barn. You’ll probably be warmer there than in this bloody freezer anyway. Get changed before you catch your death. You can keep the clothes.”

“But…”

“Leave the blanket somewhere my brothers won’t see it if they’re up first,” I said. “Make sure you’re gone long before then.” He was still staring at me in astonishment. I turned him round by the shoulders. He didn’t resist as I steered him down the corridor towards the door. “And don’t come back. There’s enough trouble here without you bringing any more down on us.”

I unlocked the door and pulled it wide. The expected blast of cold wind didn’t happen. When I looked past Cameron’s shoulder, I saw that the rain had stopped. It was the first time it had let up in three days. If I wasn’t mistaken, patchy starlight was appearing between the rags of clouds. I drew a breath to point this out, though why I thought a fugitive junkie would have been interested, I had no idea.

It didn’t matter. He was gone. I hadn’t seen him slip away, and the barnyard, as far as I could see in its shadows, was empty.

A great tide of weariness took me. I stepped back inside and closed the door. The lock was awkward—I gave the keys their usual turn and a half but wasn’t sure if it had worked. I couldn’t bring myself to worry about it. I’d been worn to the bone before, but this was different. It had a heavy peace in it like honey, and I couldn’t fight it back.

I dragged myself upstairs, hanging on tight to the banister at every step. I felt warm for the first time in weeks. Probably I was in end-stage hypothermia. That possibility couldn’t shake me either. I got to my room and closed the door behind me. Yes, the skies were clearing. A pale patch of February moonlight lay across my bed. At some point I’d remembered to take my muddy boots off. That was good. That would do.

Surrendering, I crawled beneath the quilt, rolled onto my stomach and slept.

Chapter Two

Three and a half hours later, still half comatose, I cannoned into Harry on the landing. To my surprise, instead of berating me for my clumsiness, he grabbed and held my shoulders, steadying me.

“What ails thee this morning?” he demanded.

“Morning, Granda. Nothing ails me.” With my defences down, I ended up talking like him in no time at all. “I’m just tired.”

“Aye. Well, if ye will go dancing to yon Wretches and their tractors till all hours, what can you expect?”

“To be tired, Granda.” There was no point in telling him I’d put in a night shift and dealt with a burglar since then. “I just need a cuppa.”

“You need more sleep. Go back to bed. I’ll take the early feeds today.”

I blinked, startled. He was sometimes gruffly contrite with me after he’d torn me off a strip, but he’d never actually relieved me of duty. Even the collies, who slept at the foot of his bed and normally greeted me with a snarl, seemed less hostile today. Floss, the pack leader, was sniffing at my hands with great interest. I hoped she wouldn’t go too nuts at the foreign scents downstairs, or follow a trail to the barn. I hoped to God Cameron had gone. “Can you manage it all on your own?”

That was a mistake. He let me go. If I’d been ten years younger, he’d have cuffed me round the ear. “Insolent wee
diobhal
! How do ye think I
managed
it while you and your brother were trailing round in your nappies? You think I couldn’t still run this whole show with one hand tied up my back?”

“I’m sure you could, Granda.” I wondered if he knew he’d mentioned Alistair for the first time in a year. I wondered if he remembered he was dead. Through the window at the end of the corridor, I could see that the sky remained pitch-black. My body, lulled by sleep, yearned to be back in its bed. “Are you serious about…?”

“Aye. Go on with you, while you can still carry those bags under your eyes.”

When I woke next it was daylight. Not quite eight o’clock, but a clear day on this sea-lit island brought the dawn in early even at this time of year.

It
was
clear too. I fixed myself a mug of black coffee and carried it out into the sun. There was a bench by the door where my ma had liked to bask in her rare idle moments. I’d been avoiding it, but this morning it felt like no big deal to sit there and lift my face to the warmth. She’d been a royal sun-worshipper, Ma. Not just the holidays to Costa del this and that but Celtic fire festivals out in the fields in the season. By this stage of spring she’d have pissed off the minister already with a dance round the Imbolc fires to celebrate the pregnant ewes and the return of the goddess and her consort king. Maybe that was why we’d had such a long foul winter—maybe Lugh and Brighid missed her as much as…

I grabbed the thought and crushed it. I’d woken up serene. It would be nice to stay that way, at least until the rain began again. I’d had a shower and put on clean clothes, just workaday ones but crisp and fresh from the skin out. I’d let such things slide a bit. She’d have hated that, one of her lads in yesterday’s undercrackers. I broke out laughing, scaring a crow off her bird table, also neglected. Maybe later I’d put out a handful of crumbs.

Maybe I’d walk over to the barn. It wasn’t often I had leisure for maybes at all, so I finished my coffee first then got up, stretched, and took it slowly. Harry would have seen to the foster ewes and lambs already, so I had no business there, but I wanted to look in on the lamb I’d rescued, which seemed to have inherited more than a normal sheep’s share of obtuseness and might well have forgotten again how to feed. I wanted to check the barn was empty.

No. What I really wanted to do was to snuff out the stupid, dull ache in my chest at the thought of that empty barn. What the hell was wrong with me? I eased open the door. Sunlight fell in, illuminating a domestic scene to warm any sheep-farmer’s heart—three ewes, each with its assigned orphan lamb curled up next to it. If they were going to reject the infants, they wouldn’t let them near. So that was good. I crept past the pen, being careful not to disturb them.