Raven Black (3 page)

He recognized many of the other passengers on the bus. Some of them he had been to school with. There was Florence who had cooked in the Skillig Hotel before she retired. They had been pals of a kind when they were young. She had been a pretty girl and a fine dancer. There'd been one dance in the hall at Sandwick. The Eunson boys had been playing and there'd been a reel when the music had gone faster and faster and Florence had stumbled.

Magnus had caught her in his arms, held on to her for a moment until she'd run off laughing to the other girls.

Further down the bus was Georgie Sanderson, who'd hurt his leg in an accident and had had to give up the fishing.

But Magnus chose a seat on his own and none of them spoke to him or even acknowledged his presence. That was how it always was. Habit. They probably didn't even see him. The driver had turned the heat full on. Hot air blew from under the seats and melted the snow on everyone's boots until water trickled down the central aisle, backwards and forwards depending on whether the bus was going up or downhill. The windows were covered in condensation, so he only knew it was time to get out because everyone else did.

Lerwick was a noisy place now. When he was growing up he'd known everyone he met in the street. Recently even in the winter it was full of strangers and cars. In the summer it was worse. Then there were tourists. They came off the overnight ferry from Aberdeen, blinking and staring, as if they'd arrived at a zoo or a different planet, maybe, turning their heads from one direction to another looking all around them.

Sometimes huge cruise ships slid into the harbour and sat there, towering over the buildings. For an hour their passengers would take over the town. It was an invasion. They had eager faces and braying voices, but Magnus sensed they were disappointed by what they found there, as if the place had failed to live up to their expectations.

They had paid a lot of money for their cruise and felt cheated. Perhaps Lerwick wasn't so different after all from the places they had come from.

This morning he avoided the centre and got off the bus at the supermarket on the edge of the town. Clickimin Loch was frozen and two whooper swans circled it searching for a patch of open water to land. A jogger ran along the path towards the sports centre. Usually Magnus enjoyed the supermarket. He liked the bright lights and the coloured notices. He marvelled at the wide aisles and the full shelves. Nobody bothered him there, nobody knew him.

Occasionally the woman on the checkout was friendly, commenting on his purchases. And he'd smile back and remember what it was like when everyone greeted him in a friendly way. After completing his shopping he would go to the cafe and treat himself to a mug of milky coffee and something sweet - a pastry with apricots and vanilla or a slice of chocolate cake, so sticky that he had to eat it with a spoon.

Today he was in a hurry. There was no time for coffee. He wanted to get the first bus home. He stood at the stop with two carrier bags at his feet. Although the sun was shining there was a flurry of snow, fine like icing sugar. It settled on his jacket and on his hair. This time he had the bus to himself. He took a seat near the back.

Catherine got on twenty minutes later when they were halfway to his home. At first he didn't see her. He'd rubbed a clear circle in the mist on the window and was looking out. He was aware of the bus stopping but was lost in his dreams. Then something made him turn round. Perhaps it was her voice when she asked for her ticket, though he hadn't consciously heard it. He thought it was her perfume, the smell she'd brought with her into his house on New Year's Day, but it couldn't be, could it? He wouldn't smell her from the front of the bus. He lifted his nose into the air but all that reached him then was diesel and wet wool.

He didn't expect her to acknowledge him. There was enough excitement in seeing her. He had liked both the girls, but Catherine had been the one who fascinated him more. She had the same blue streaks in her hair, but was wearing a long coat, a big grey coat which reached almost to her ankles and which was wet and slightly muddy at the hem.

Her scarf was hand knitted, bright red, red as new blood. She looked tired and he wondered who she could have been visiting. She slumped on the front seat without noticing him, too exhausted, it seemed, to walk further up the bus.

He couldn't quite see from where he was sitting, but he thought she had her eyes closed.

She got out at his stop. He stood back to let her out first and still, it seemed, she wouldn't recognize him. How could he blame her? All old men would look alike to her, just as all tourists did to him. But she stood at the bottom of the steps and turned and saw him. She smiled slowly and held out her hand to help him down. She was wearing woollen gloves so he couldn't feel her skin against his but the contact gave him a thrill all the same. He was surprised by his body's response to her, hoped she didn't sense his excitement.

'Hello,' she said, in her black treacle voice. 'I'm sorry about the other night. I hope we didn't disturb you.'

'Not at all.' His voice was breathless with nervousness. 'I was glad that you came by.'

She grinned at him as if he'd said something to amuse her.

They walked on for a few steps in silence. He wished he knew what to say to her. He could hear the blood rushing in his ears as it did when he'd worked too long singling turnips, bent over the hoe in the field in the sun, when the breath came in pants.

'We're back at school tomorrow,' she said suddenly.

'It's the end of the holidays.'

'Do you like school?' he asked.

'Not really. It's a bore.'

He didn't know how to answer that. 'I didn't like school either: he said after a while, then he added for something to say, 'Where have you been this morning?'

'Not this morning. Last night. I stayed with a friend. There was a party. I got a lift to the bus stop!

'Sally didn't come with you?'

'No, she wasn't allowed. Her parents are very strict!

'Was it a good party?' he asked, genuinely interested. He'd never gone much to parties.

'Oh,' she said. 'You know. . !

He thought she might have had more to say. He even had the sense that she might tell him something secret. They had reached the place where he would have to turn to climb the bank to his house and they stopped walking. He waited for her to continue speaking, but she just stood.

There was no colour on her eyes this morning, though they were still lined with black, which looked smudged and dirty as if it had been there all night. At last he was forced to break the silence.

‘Won't you come in?' he asked. 'Take a dram with me to keep out the cold. Or some tea?'

He didn't for a minute think she would agree. She was a well brought-up child. That was obvious. She would have been taught not to go alone into the house of a stranger. She looked at him, weighing up the idea.

'It's a bit early for a dram,' she said.

'Tea then?' He felt his mouth spread into that daft grin which had always annoyed his mother. 'We'll have some tea and chocolate biscuits!

He started up the path to the house, quite confident, knowing she would follow.

He never locked his door, but he opened it for her and stood aside to let her in first. As he waited for her to stamp her boots on the mat he looked around him. Everything was quiet outside. No one was around to see. No one knew he had this beautiful creature to visit him. She was his treasure, the raven in his cage.

Fran Hunter had a car but she didn't like using it for short trips. She cared about global warming and wanted to do her bit. She had a bike with a seat on the back for Cassie, had brought it with her on the Northlink ferry when she moved. She prided herself on travelling light and it had been the only bulky item in her luggage. In this weather though a bike was no good.

Today she wrapped Cassie up in her dungarees and coat and the wellingtons with the green frogs on the front and pulled her to school on a sledge. It was January 5th, the first day of the new school term. When they set off it was hardly light. Fran knew Mrs Henry already disapproved of her and didn't want to be late. She didn't need more knowing looks and raised eyebrows, the other mothers talking about her behind her back. It was hard enough for Cassie to fit in.

Fran rented a small house just off the road into Lerwick. It stood next to a stern brick chapel, and was low and unassuming in comparison. There were three rooms, with a basic bathroom built more recently on the back. They lived in the kitchen, which was much as it had been since the house had been built. It had a range where they burned the coal brought every month in a lorry from the town. There was an electric cooker too, but Fran liked the idea of the range.

She was a romantic. The house had no land now, though once it must have been attached to a croft. In the season it became a holiday let and by Easter Fran would have to make a decision about her and Cassie's future. The landlord had hinted that he might be prepared to sell. She was already coming to think of it as home and a place to work. Her bedroom had two big skylights and a view to Raven Head. It would do as a studio.

In the grey dawn Cassie chattered and Fran responded automatically, but her thoughts were elsewhere. .

As they rounded the bank near Hillhead, the sun was rising, throwing long shadows across the snow, and Fran stopped to look at the view. She could see across the water to the headland beyond. It had been right to come back, she thought. This was the best place to bring up a child. Until that moment she hadn't realized how unsure she had been about the decision. She was so good at playing the part of aggressive single mother that she'd almost come to believe it.

Cassie was five and as assertive as her mother. Fran had taught her to read before she started school and Mrs Henry had disapproved of that too. The child could be loud and opinionated and there were times when even Fran wondered, despising herself for the dreadful suspicion, if she had created a precocious monster.

'It would be nice; Mrs Henry said frostily at the first parents' evening, 'if occasionally Cassie did as she was told first time. Without needing a detailed explanation of why I'd asked her to do it: Fran, expecting to be told that her daughter was a genius, a delight to teach, had been mortified. She had hidden her disappointment with a spirited defence of her philosophy of child rearing. Children should have the confidence to make their own choices, to challenge authority, she'd said. The last thing she wanted was a child who was a meek conformer.

Mrs Henry had listened.

'It must be hard: she had said when Fran ran out of steam, 'to bring up a child on your own!

Now Cassie, perched on the sledge like a Russian princess, was beginning to get restive.

'What is it?' she demanded. 'Why have you stopped?'

Fran's attention had been caught by contrasting colours, the possibility for a painting, but she pulled the rope and continued. She, like the teacher, was at the whim of Cassie's imperious demands. At the top of the bank she stopped and climbed on to the back of the sledge. She wrapped her legs around her daughter's body and held a loop of rope firmly in each hand. Then she dug her heels into the snow and launched the sledge down the hill.

Cassie shrieked with fear and excitement. They bounced over the icy ruts and picked up speed as they reached the bottom. The cold and the sunlight burned Fran's face. She tugged on the left-hand rope to guide them into a soft snowdrift piled against the playground wall. Nothing, she thought, will compare with this. This is about as good as it gets.

For once they were early. Fran had remembered Cassie's library book, her packed lunch and a change of shoes. Fran took Cassie into the cloakroom, sat her on the bench and pulled off the wellingtons. Mrs Henry was in the classroom, sticking a series of numbers on to the wall. She was perched on her desk but still found it hard to reach.

She was wearing trousers of some man-made fibre, slightly shiny, puckered at the knees, and a cardigan, machine knitted, with a vaguely Norwegian pattern. Fran noticed clothes. She had worked as assistant fashion editor on a woman's magazine after leaving university. Mrs Henry was ripe for a makeover.

'Could I help you?' She felt ridiculously afraid of being rejected. She'd managed photographers who could make grown men cry, but Mrs Henry made her feel like a nervy six-year-old. Usually she arrived at school just before the bell. Mrs Henry was already surrounded by parents and seemed to be on personal terms with them all.

Mrs Henry turned round, seemed surprised to see her. 'Would you? That would be kind. Cassie, come and sit on the mat, find a book to look at and wait for the others!

Cassie, inexplicably, did just as she was told.

On the way back up the hill dragging the sledge behind her, Fran told herself it was pathetic to be so pleased. Was it such a big deal? She didn't even believe in learning by rote, for Christ's sake. If they'd stayed south she'd have considered Cassie for a Steiner school. Yet here she was, thrilled to bits because she'd stuck the two-times table on the classroom wall. And Margaret Henry had smiled at her and called her by her first name.

There was no sign of the old man who lived in Hillhead. Sometimes when they were going past he came out to greet them. He didn't often speak. Usually it was just a wave and once he'd thrust a sweetie in Cassie's hand. Fran didn't like Cassie having sweets - sugar was nothing but wasted calories and think of the tooth decay - but he'd seemed so shy and eager that she'd thanked him. Then Cassie had thrust the slightly dusty striped humbug into her mouth, knowing Fran wouldn't stop her in front of the old man and Fran could hardly ask her to spit it out after he'd gone back inside.