Flood (14 page)

The sun was shining again, and there was even sceptical talk in the town of a drought. Sandy looked across the road to where the fruit shop sat. He had no money today for fruit.

A small foreign car slowed as it near him. It stopped. The window was rolled down slowly and a voice called him over to the car. A bearded but young man craned his head out of the window as far as his seat-belt would allow. His blue eyes glistened.

Sandy could not meet their intensity. He looked casually off into the distance as he crouched beside the yellow car. He saw an old man's figure hunched outside the betting shop. He knew who that man was. His eyes found their only shelter on the mottled tarmac of the pavement.

'Sorry,' the man was saying, 'but I'm trying to find St Cuthbert's Parish Church. I think these instructions must be wrong.' He rustled a piece of paper on which were drawn several black lines. His voice was Scottish, but never Fife.

He was certainly educated. He sounded like a television presenter. 'I've been there before, but I'm afraid my sense of direction must be hopeless.' Sandy nodded and creased his brow.

'Well,' he said slowly, 'you've got to go back the way you just came, but then turn left over the bridge.' The man nodded. He had come from the right, from central Fife, from further afield, from Edinburgh perhaps.

'Thank you very much,' the man said. 'I'm to be the new minister here, God and the people willing. Can I expect to see you and your parents at church some day?'

Sandy stared at him. The cheek of the man! He was grinning through his beard, and Sandy creased his own mouth wryly.

'Some day,' he said. 'Some day.' The minister laughed. It was a great big open natural sound. Sandy liked the new minister so far. The window was rolled up. The car drew away, did a quick three-point turn, and, with a toot of its horn, a toot Sandy acknowledged with a casual wave, made off. Sandy had decided to ignore the old man. Let him stare.

He had as much right to be here as anyone.

Matt Duncan spat again. He had been in this town for sixty years. Was he not the man to ask directions off? But no, someone had stopped and asked the dirty black little upstart. Well let them, and let everyone forget about his son Matty. Let the town forget that tragedy; the wickedness of the witch. He would never forget. He forged horseshoes made of fire in his heart. There could be no forgetting. His son had died by fire. Now fire burned within the father. Let them all forget. But before he, Matt Duncan, died, there would be a reckoning. He screwed up his eyes until only a thin sliver of vision remained. In this sliver, the boy, seated again on his wall, became a blurred thing, a crouched goblin, the spawn of a witch, something insignificant which Matt Duncan would have squashed with a hardened and unfeeling palm as if eradicating a sin.

There were some little notebooks in a cupboard, and inside these discoloured relics, in the tiniest, neatest script, her grandmother had written down recipes for certain herbal curatives. This, to Mary's knowledge, was as close as her grandmother had ever come to witchcraft.

She took the biscuit tin full of notebooks to her bedroom, closed the door properly, and sank on to the bed. She had let herself down. If she was frightened by Andy, gentle Andy, then she was ruined and would be better off dead. She did not seek a poison yet, but was looking for some recipe for the relaxing of women under stress. She knew, in her heart of hearts, that the problem was deeper than could be cured by any drug, yet she had to try, had to do something. Else she would go off her head. For Sandy's sake, she could not do that yet. Sandy. Sandy. He was her life's work, her everything. If only he was a little older. He seemed in a limbo: still tied to school, and yet not doing anything with his remaining time there. He was at an age that was no age.

She wished she could help him, but then who was she to help anybody? She leafed through the fragile books, but found the writing difficult. Photographs showed that her grandmother had been a tiny creature with a pointed, puckered face and childish hands. White strands of hair flaked loose from her bun. She looked comical, ancient and wise. Sandy used to marvel that, to an extent, he was her kin. He would study her photographs for hours when a child, asking his mother and grandmother impossible questions as to identities of people and places. The album of loose photographs was now left untouched, and only seldom added to, such as in the period immediately after she had given Sandy a camera for his eleventh birthday. Photographs were memories of happy times. Perhaps that was why the album had become so little used. Ever since . . . Oh, she could burst that knowledge from her mouth! It was intolerable. Sandy, Sandy, Sandy, why have you never asked who your father was? Why? And why had she kept it bottled up all those years to have doubt and rumour still cast upon her?

She put a notebook to her nose and, sniffing its powerful smell, closed her eyes to let the weeping begin. She sat there, convulsed, and allowed her tears to drop noisily into the biscuit tin, splashing the ancient mementoes within.

The Reverend Iain J. M. Darroch, MA, BD, looked around his new church. It was a dull, dreary old building, smelling of polished pews and damp rafters. The only ornamentation came from the brass rails, the stained-glass depiction of Christ, and the empty vases on the window sills. He paced the floor between the aisles. He had been driven here for a preliminary look at the place a few days before, but had not really been looking at all. He looked now, though. A regular congregation of one hundred and thirty. One hundred communicants. It was dreary, but then he liked the prospect of a challenge, after the stuffiness of the degree itself and the nightmare time he had spent in the Oxgangs district of Edinburgh as an assistant. That had been a terrible year, a year which had cast doubt on his abilities. But here he was: his first full parish, if he were accepted. Things could only get better.

Mr Ancram, the elder he had met on his first visit, came into the church through the small door beside the pulpit. He greeted the young minister cordially, apologising for not having been present on his arrival. Did he wish to go across to the manse? Did he have his things with him? Iain Darroch replied that the car was pretty full, and that a furniture van would be bringing the bulk of his possessions in a few hours' time. Mr Ancram nodded. Mr Ancram and two other members of the Vacancy Committee had been to see the Reverend Darroch preaching at Oxgangs on the previous Sunday. All three thought that there would be no problem regarding his acceptance by their congregation. The minister looked around his new church one last time. He knew that his first sermon would have to be stimulating, or else he would soon lose his parishioners and his congregation.

They feared young ministers around here, the minister of nearby Cardell Parish Church had written to inform him.

He hoped to meet with that minister, the Reverend Walker, soon. But first he would have to get settled in and finish the inaugural sermon, which he had been preparing for the past three days. He would lose no kirkgoer without a fight. And he would succeed, with God's grace.

Iain Darroch had been born in the East Neuk of Fife, the nose of the Scottie dog when Fife is examined on a map.

Crail had been a quiet fishing port, more a tourist spot than an actual working harbour, though once it had been industrious and important. As a child, he had been uninterested in the quayside, in the lobster creels and their dark snapping catches. He had been a bookworm; not enough in the sun, his parents contended. They might well have been right. He was now pallid and skinny. The beard had been grown to hide his sallow face, but still it could be seen in his watery eyes. His mother had been proud of his intention to become a minister. His father had been surprised, but had said little. So, without much of the congratulation which the boy had assumed would be his, he had entered the local university of St Andrews, going on to do his Divinity degree at Edinburgh. This was his end. A town in Fife, more dead than alive.

Not one of the East Neuk's prosperous and civilised villages, but a redundant mining town, a town where God was needed, but was perhaps so seemingly absent as to have been rejected altogether by the majority of the inhabitants. Yet the town boasted two kirks - his own (his own]) and Reverend Walker's. He hoped that there would be no poaching, then rebuked himself to the cloudless sky.

'Couldn't have asked for a nicer day,' said Mr Ancram.

'Very true,' said Iain Darroch. He crossed the busy road.

'Where does this road go?' he asked.

'Kirkcaldy that way,' said the elder, 'and Lochgelly the other. Which way did you come in?'

'I think I misread my directions. I came in through Lochgelly, but then ended up coming through Dundell.'

Tes, that's a long road round all right. Still, it's the only way to find your way around, isn't it?'

'True, very true.' Iain Darroch was aware that, in his attempt to impress Mr Ancram, he was sounding boringly ministerial, very self-righteous. He sounded like his minister at Oxgangs. He rebuked himself again for that cruel thought. The Devil was afoot today.

The manse was a small detached house. 'Used to belong to one of the pits,' explained Mr Ancram. 'One of the foremen or something used to stay in it. Belonged to St Cuthbert's since about 1965,I suppose. A nice little place. Maybe a bit roomy for a bachelor. The Reverend Davidson and his poor wife liked it well enough.'

Ancram looked at him. It was the first hint. They liked their ministers to be married, thought Darroch. He said,

"Yes, I saw it when I was here on Monday. Do you remember? Yes, it is a nice house.'

Mr Ancram opened the door with a small batch of keys, then handed the whole bunch to the minister. 'All yours, Mr Darroch. You'll find out what they're for.' He smiled. The minister smiled back. He felt thankful for his beard. It could be used as a defence against the outside world. He hid behind it now as one would have hidden behind a clump of gorse. He entered his home, his new home. It smelled of past occupants. He blessed it silently when he entered, hoping that the past occupants would take the hint and skedaddle with their aromas of old beds and polished dressers. He opened the doors and some of the windows that would actually open. He looked in drawers and cupboards and was pleased to find that, as promised, the house boasted sufficient linen, cutlery and crockery for his immediate needs. He brought in some of the boxes from his car, aided by Mr Ancram. From the first of these he took an electric kettle. He let the tap in the kitchen run for a full minute, then filled the kettle and plugged it in to a handy socket.

From the same box he took a jar of coffee and a plastic container of dried milk. Mr Ancram came in from the toilet, shaking his hands to show, perhaps, that he had washed them.

'A cup of coffee, Mr Ancram?' asked Darroch, proud of his efficiency in the matter. Mr Ancram shook his head, still wafting his hands.

'I don't drink the stuff,' he informed the minister. 'It is an irritant.' Darroch looked at the man, making a mental note that Mr Ancram had not yet invited the new minister to address him by his Christian name, whatever that might be.

Mr Ancram looked at his watch. 'Actually, I'd better be off,'

he said. 'I've to pick up my wife from the supermarket in Kirkcaldy. She's doing the month's shopping.' Darroch nodded, spooning one of milk and two of coffee (just to spite the man) into a cup. 'I'm sorry I won't be here to help you move in the rest of your belongings,' Mr Ancram apologised.

'I'll drop round later and see how you're managing. Bye now.'

'Goodbye, Mr Ancram,' said Darroch, 'and thanks for your help.' He ignored the man's exit and rummaged in another, smaller box until he found the packet of cream biscuits. He smiled to himself. Luxury. He went through to the living room and sat in the large fireside chair. A wind was blowing through the open window.

It was a good breeze. Darroch sat and drank his coffee. It was far too strong. He considered his new surroundings. It did not really matter where he was Crail, Oxgangs, Carsden - the situation and the realities were the same. The Church was in a state of acute decay, which seemed to run hand in hand with the decay of the communities. Which came first? Did either? It seemed to him that a larger, much more potent force was at work, and it was a force of evil. He could not feel God in this town. It would be his job to bring God back to these people, who were more walking shadows than real flesh and blood. The Church had become lazy. Aching gashes had opened up which now needed filling. God, let him do his job well enough. He sucked crumbs from his fingers and prayed.

Every summer, Andy Wallace began reading Cervantes' Don Quixote, and every summer he failed to finish it. He saw no reason why this summer should be any different. He had been reading the book for about three hours when he felt his eyes and his mind falling from the page. He read two pages more, but could not, having read them, remember the slightest detail of their content. He put the book down and sat staring into space. He was thinking about Mary. He was thinking about the problem he must help her surmount.

There were sex manuals in his house, little more than masturbation fodder, but he had reread them anyway. They threw little light on the dilemma. He sat in his study, which had now become almost his whole existence. He had work to do. Apart from the Cervantes book, there were exercises to be set, essays and exam papers to be marked, and the part completed novel which had been sitting untouched in a drawer for three months. It was a bad novel, amateurish, but just to finish it would be achievement enough, even if it was the worst novel in the world, read by no one save himself. He had given it none of his time since he had begun to see Mary. She was still on his mind. That Saturday afternoon on the hillside played again and again like a bad song on popular radio. He caught its melody again and again. There was no escape. What to do about Mary. Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow? He shook his head clear of the reverie and sat down at his desk. He removed the lid from the typewriter. He began to type his thoughts down on to the black rubber carriage. He could see the ink wet and bluey-black against the fainter black. He pressed his finger to a word and examined the imprint.