Scrap Metal (4 page)

The ladder was resting on the edge of the hayloft again. That was good too. I’d meant to tell Cameron to go there to sleep, where it was dry and he’d at least get the benefit of body warmth from the livestock below, a time-honoured central heating system of ancient Gaelic farms. He’d had the sense to climb up there, and had climbed down too, and heaven only knew where he was now. I wondered if he’d taken the blanket. Not much room in that useless little man bag of his, and he’d be a bit conspicuous hitching a ride with it wrapped round his shoulders. I’d better go up and find it.

I climbed the ladder, looking only at the rungs and my hands. The hayloft was a bonny place on a spring morning, with light shafting in through the rafters, and I didn’t want to remember how Al and I had spent more nights up there than in our beds during the summer. Not until I’d reached the very top did I raise my head. And there, stretched out on a bale, lay my night visitor, the blanket tucked round him, still blissfully asleep.

A cat was curled up on his stomach. We had half a dozen black farm cats and finding one here was no miracle—they were parasites for warmth, and would sleep on the backs of the sheep or stabled ponies if they could. Animals seemed to like Cameron, to judge from Floss’s interest and the dubious attentions bestowed on him by the lamb. Carefully I negotiated the ladder’s top rung and stood looking down on the sleeping man and the cat. The bale was bathed in light. The repairs on the window below had held up well, but the roof needed attention. Slates were off it, and pale gold sunshine blazed through the gap they’d left.

The cat stirred and yawned, exposing needle teeth and a rose-pink gullet. There was a tiny splash of white fur—I’d called it her milk spot—on her upper lip, just to the side of her nose.

“Clover,” I whispered, and she got up, stretched every limb and jumped gracefully down from the bale. I had to be wrong, of course. There had to be more than one little black queen on the island with that mark. She yawned again, fixed me with her look of golden-eyed, loving insanity, and ran casually up my body as if she’d seen me yesterday, piercing my thigh and one nipple en route. “Ouch! You little bastard!”

Cameron shot upright on the bale. “Shit!” he gasped, grabbing at the blanket. “I’m sorry.”

“Not you.” I could hardly speak. “This… This cat. Where did it…?”

“I don’t know. I woke up in the night and it was there. Jesus, what time is it?” He scrambled off the bale. “I went back to sleep.”

“It’s about eight o’clock. Look…” I could have tried for a reproachful demeanour but doubted I could carry it off with the cat on my shoulder, plucking at the hair over my ear in one of her painful demonstrations of love. “Calm down. The old man’s gone out in the fields.”

“The old man?” His frightened pallor became tinged with grey, as if the words hurt him. “What old man?”

“My grandfather. It’s his farm.”

“What about your brothers?”

“There aren’t any. I told you that last night in case…” I took gentle hold of Clover’s scruff, suddenly ashamed. “In case I hadn’t already scared you enough with the gun.”

“Okay. I’ll go. I’m going.” He folded up the blanket and shouldered his rucksack. He looked good in the clothes I’d given him. His frame was lithe and strong. It must have taken a lot of running and privation to strip so much weight from him. “Was your cat missing?”

“For a year. I can’t believe she’s come back. Cameron…”

He halted in front of me. His eyes were such a potent shade of indigo I thought he was wearing tinted contacts. Anxiety was coming off him in waves.

“I have to go,” he whispered. “You’re right. I will bring trouble on you.”

“What are you hiding from?”

He ducked his head. “Don’t make me tell you.”

“I won’t. Not if you don’t want. But I might be able to help you.”

“You can’t. It’s debts, okay? I got in too deep with a loan shark in Glasgow and he’s after me. It’s not drug money.” Before I could protest, he had rolled up the sleeves of the jumper. The insides of his arms were pale, the skin fine and unmarked. “I saw the way you were looking at me last night.”

I remembered. If I wasn’t careful, I was going to end up like Harry, inveighing against
oigear an-diugh
—young people today—and the decline of society. If it was money trouble, I had no right to pass judgement there. I couldn’t see the Brodick sheep-feed dealer coming after me for my unpaid dues, but… “Put your sleeves down. I’m sorry. When did you last eat?”

He had to think about it. “On the ferry yesterday morning. The most expensive sandwich in the world, and then it got rough, and…” He made a face. “Well, I’m not much of a sailor.”

“Oh, dear. Listen—my granddad won’t be back for a good bit yet. Do you want to come down and have some breakfast?”

“You’re kidding. I couldn’t possibly.”

“Come on. Toast, coffee. I’ll fry you an egg.” I watched in alarm while a faint sheen of sweat appeared on his brow. He swayed, and I reached out to grab him. “Jesus. You’re half starved, aren’t you? Come on with me. It won’t take long.”

I followed him down the ladder. My cat allowed herself to be borne in state as far as the barn door then gave me a parting nip and leapt down. I wanted to seize her by the tail, push her inside my jacket next to my heart and never let her out of my sight again, but she had always been wildly intolerant of all restraint. I watched while she vanished into the shadows of the barn.

The kitchen looked better by daylight. You could see its dereliction more clearly but, like most island living quarters, it faced south to welcome the sun. It seemed that the half-hearted fire I’d started in the Aga last night had taken as well, enough to throw a faint, welcome heat into the room.

I directed Cameron to a chair in the sunlight and went about fixing an emergency breakfast. I’d become quite good at those, shovelling food down Harry and the farmhands before we piled out into the fields. Bread, bacon. The frying pan was soon sizzling nicely on the elderly hob. A couple of eggs—there were more in the basket than I expected, which meant our poor hens, discouraged by the long winter, must have started laying again—and instant coffee spooned into mugs. Neither of us spoke while I worked. He shot me one grateful look as I handed him his plate, then our silence continued until he’d demolished its contents.

I went through mine a little more slowly, watching him in amusement. “A bit hungry, were we?”

“Aye. Sorry.” He sat back. “That was bloody gorgeous.”

“Can fetch you some more if you like.”

“No. You’ve been too good to me already. I’ll help you clear up then I’ll…” He stopped. We sat looking at one another. Shadows chased across the room as clouds flickered over the sun. “What?”

“Nothing. So…you came over yesterday. How did you end up out here?” I told myself it wasn’t a ploy to delay him. How long was it since I’d spoken to anyone but Kenzie and the old man? All my friends were long gone from Arran, pursuing less-heartbreaking careers. “We’re twelve miles from the harbour.”

“I know. I tried to find somewhere to crash in Brodick, but I thought I saw one of the guys I knew in Glasgow. So I hitched a ride with a driver taking a night delivery of market veg to Kilpatrick. I paid him in advance for his petrol, but once we’re in the middle of nowhere he decides he wants a blow job too.” He delivered this casually enough, but he was watching me cautiously, gauging my response. “I’d have given him one—he wasn’t bad looking—but he got a bit rough with me. And, you know, I’d already paid.”

“Well, fair enough.”

“So I ducked out while his back was turned and jumped over the nearest wall. Which happened to be yours. I didn’t really think about how badly I was stranding myself.”

“No.” There were things I was trying not to think about too. How long since I’d heard the words
blow job
, frank and straightforward, from a pair of male lips. How long since I’d had sex. Well, it had to be more than a year, hadn’t it? I shivered. I hadn’t missed it.

Now was no time to start. In a minute my visitor would be gone. I had no reason to assume he was gay anyway, though the bag and the sharp little jacket hardly screamed straight. Sex could simply be a currency to him. He was beautiful enough to sell his wares…

“Nichol?”

I jolted back to surface. I’d been staring. “What?”

“Are you okay?”

“Yes. Yeah, fine.” I made an effort to sound ordinary. “Bit spaced out. We don’t get much sleep during lambing.”

“Is it just you and your grandfather? What happened to the rest of your family?”

Well, the first part of that story was easy enough. “There never was a dad. Not that I knew, anyway. He stuck around until my brother was two, but my granddad made his life such a misery he shipped out before I was born.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. I never knew him, and I don’t think my ma missed him all that much.”

“You do have one brother, then?”

“I did.” God, was I going to tell him? I began almost without realising I’d started, the words tasting of rust in my mouth. “Alistair. He was off with my mother on holiday in Spain last year. He loved a bargain, did Al, and he always got them the cheapest package deal he could score. That time, though… Well, he got a drunken coach driver to go with the day trips and the all-you-can-eat buffet. They were killed in a crash outside the Benidorm funfair.”

Once more the ending tripped me over into a painful bout of laughter. I got up and went to refill the kettle before he could react. Maybe I could persuade him to another cup of coffee.

“Nichol.”

I turned. Cameron was gazing at me, open-mouthed in shock. His eyes were full of tears. “That’s horrific.”

“Don’t. It was over a year ago.”

“But you must have been shattered. Didn’t you…? Weren’t you close?”

“Not so much to my brother. But my ma—yeah, we were close. And I loved them both a lot, you know?” I switched the kettle on and came to stand behind my chair, absently gripping at the back of it. “It’s just…stupid, isn’t it? How they died?”

“No. It’s sad and horrible.”

Was it? Cameron was holding out a hand to me. I took it as naturally as if we’d known each other for years, and I sat back down, my thoughts spiralling. Yes. When he said so, I could clearly see that Al and my mother had met a terrible end. That they were a dreadful loss to me. Deep in my chest, somewhere behind my sternum, something frozen solid tried to stir. Cameron’s grip was strong. I gave it strongly back to him. “I haven’t really had time to think about it. The farm’s a lot of work, and…”

I held still. A new sound had entered the kitchen’s morning peace. It was barely a murmur, but it mounted quickly to a thrum and then a roar.

Cameron’s hand clamped on mine. “Shit. What’s that?”

“My granddad coming back. That’s his quad bike. Quick, come over…”

Whatever I’d been about to tell him to do got lost in the squeal of brakes and the clatter of a trailer jouncing to a halt. He let go my hand and shrank back into the shadows just as the back door flew open.

“Nichol!”

Instinctively I ran towards the old man’s shout. He seldom hurried himself about his farm business. Something was seriously wrong, for him to have come tearing home like this. There he was in the yard, getting stiffly off the quad bike he normally rode with such debonair grace, looking sick and old.

“What’s the matter?”

“The Leodhas ewe’s dead. Both lambs too, just about. Get the oven doors open.”

I darted to obey him. Thank God I’d lit the Aga last night. Thank God for its inefficiencies too—it might be about the right temperature. Once both lower doors were open, I ran to the back door and took from his arms one of the two lambs he had hauled out of the trailer. I clamped my mouth shut on my instant conviction that we were too late. Years of handling life and death on this farm had taught me the difference. I knew it by touch.

Shit, and we couldn’t afford to lose these lambs. We’d shelled out money we didn’t have last year for the services of an off-island ram whose offspring yielded beautiful weaver’s wool. With our usual luck, only one of the spring births had been a ram—the little tup lying deadweight in my hands now. I knelt by the Aga, pulled out its ancient cast-iron cooking plate, laid the little body on it and carefully tucked it inside. Harry was doing the same thing on his side with the ewe. We sat back on our heels with the same movement.
You’re too alike
, my ma had said.
That’s why you clash.
That was nonsense of course. I’d been in joyous flight from him and everything he stood for when I’d been shot down.

I stole a glance at him. We did have one thing in common—we were both bloody bad businessmen when it came to losing sheep. Not Alistair. He’d been totally unsentimental, from birth to butcher. He’d shifted the farm from its traditional crofting wool-and-dairy output to meat production. In the past year Harry and I had wordlessly started shifting it back, each of us managing to blame the other for his pitiful softness of heart.

“What happened?”

“Damn ewe had a prolapse. These had already dropped from the cold when I found them.”

I stared at the heels of the little tup sticking out of the oven. A faint sound came from behind me, and my focus expanded to include other things that might have died of cold in the night. Oh, God. Cameron.

He hadn’t taken his chance to slip out while Harry was occupied. He was planted, in fact, exactly where he’d been standing when the old man arrived. At any other moment I’d have roared with laughter at the look on his face. It was plain as print—
Christ, do these Arran farmers cook their meat live?

“They were hypothermic,” I explained for him, briefly forgetful of Harry or anything else but that wide-eyed blue-violet gaze. “The oven’s a last chance. Not for these ones, though.”

Harry jerked his head up. For a painful moment I could see him turning over the possibility of ghosts, though Cameron bore no resemblance to Al. Then he hoisted himself stiffly off his knees and into his accustomed fireside armchair. “I suppose you’ll tell me in your own good time,” he growled, “who the devil this may be.”