The Inn at the Edge of the World (8 page)

‘Horace,’ said Harry.

‘Oh yes,’ said Jon.

‘Are you a teacher?’ asked Anita.

‘No,’ said Harry. ‘I’m retired. I was in the army.’

That should have been obvious to anyone, thought Jessica. He had the unmistakable cleanliness of the professional soldier, the military bearing.

‘What are you in now?’ asked Anita, addressing Jessica because she couldn’t think of anything intelligent to say to an old soldier. She had been born after the war.

‘I’m not doing anything at the moment . . .’ said Jessica, who hated talking about work. She considered it unlucky.

‘Resting,’ said Jon.

Oh God, thought Jessica, scraping round her grapefruit skin and drifting into a reverie about the scrubbed cleanliness of officers. It was, perhaps, a reaction against the mud and blood of the battlefield, the dismembered limbs, the loosed entrails . . . With her steak before her she wished she’d ordered fish. She sawed at it half-heartedly and beef blood seeped into her broccoli.

Ronald was savouring a slice of suet crust soaked in the sauce, rich with kidney, and thinking that if his wife had been here she’d have made him inquire whether the vegetables were frozen or fresh. He himself cared not a jot one way or the other. He ate half a baked potato and a carrot.

‘Did you ever kill anyone?’ asked Jon suddenly.

Eric, coming in to remove the plates, was startled by this remarkable query, but the others, aware that it could only be aimed at the soldier in their midst, placidly sat back adjusting their napkins, although they all felt the question was rather uncalled for.

‘Oh, hundreds,’ said Harry. ‘Hundreds and hundreds.’ If he had said, no, Jon would have wanted to know why not. It was improbable that, with his apple pie before him, he would go on to probe for details of this mayhem. Jon did open his mouth but Jessica forestalled him, so he put some apple pie in it.

Jessica was not going to sit by and watch her friend being insolently interrogated by the squirt with the curls. ‘I’m starting in a play in the West End in the New Year,’ she said. She knew this self-sacrificial revelation would hold their interest and only hoped that Harry wouldn’t think she was showing off.

‘Don’t you get nervous?’ asked Anita.

‘Yes . . .’ said Jessica.

‘Nobody without nerves can give a performance,’ explained Jon.

‘There was an actor once,’ said Jessica, ‘who was always sick when the curtain went up, and one day he said to himself, “Sod this for a game of cards,” and he went in for market gardening.’

‘Why do you do it?’ asked Ronald, wiping a drop of raspberry jam from his whiskers.

‘Do what?’ asked Jessica, who had been about to go into a dream about cabbages and chrysanthemums and rows of beans.

‘Act,’ said Ronald. ‘Why do you go on the stage if you don’t like it?’

‘But I do like it,’ protested Jessica. ‘I feel most myself when I’m being someone else.’ She began to wish she hadn’t had wine with her dinner, for this was surely a most unwise statement to make to a man who made a living by diving around in the depths of other people’s motives and unrealized wishes. He had probably now diagnosed her as an inadequate personality. Ronald too was regretting his question since he didn’t really want to know why Jessica went on the stage, and feared, as always, that she would go on to talk at length about herself and her problems, or conversely, avoid him like the plague. Out of his habitat he was beginning to realize that other people’s problems bored him stupid. He had allowed himself to become conditioned into asking pertinent questions and it was high time he got over it. It was high time he had a holiday.

‘Coffee is served in the lounge,’ said Eric.

He went to bed at two o’clock, having rendered the inn shipshape, and half woke in the night, rolling over in bed searching for the warmth of his wife; but she was in Glasgow. Her side of the bed smelled faintly of seaweed.

He was up at six, lighting the fire in the dining room. Finlay’s sister-in-law had already let herself in through the yard door and was smoothing rashers of bacon on the chopping board. Eric looked in the freezer to make certain he’d remembered to get kippers and finnan haddie from the fishmonger on the mainland, and went to lay the breakfast table, thus freeing Finlay’s sister-in-law to get on with her preparations. He wondered uneasily what he’d do if she contracted a virus or was called away to tend to the dying.

Anita was first in the dining room, having already made herself a cup of instant coffee in her bedroom, utilizing the electric kettle and the little packets provided. Eric regretted the necessity for this discourteous arrangement, but he could not afford to waste time running up and down with trays of early-morning tea. The hot rolls would correct any impression of uncaring on his part. He had also put the butter into pats because he knew everyone hated those tiny foil packages, one of which did not contain enough butter for one slice of toast, while two supplied too much. It was these small touches which made such a difference.

‘Would you like your breakfast now?’ asked Eric.

‘No,’ said Anita, ‘I’ll wait till the others come down.’

‘Coffee?’ said Eric.

‘Well . . . yes, please,’ said Anita, standing by the fire and looking down at the newly established glow. She mustn’t let herself drink too much coffee since it acted as a diuretic and she wanted to go for a walk.

Harry had already been for a walk along the strand as dawn was breaking and came in with his muffler still round his neck. Ronald and Jessica came down shortly afterwards, but there was no sign of Jon. Eric wasn’t surprised: from what he had seen of Jon he would not have expected him to be either thoughtful or punctual. He determined that if Jon came down a minute after nine he could get stuffed. He was prepared to put himself out for those guests who would appreciate it, but if Jon wasn’t careful he’d find more in his soup than he’d bargained for. Eric caught himself up: the landlord should not get into the habit of cordially loathing customers or he could drive himself crazy. He must maintain a calm, detached attitude – rather like a psychiatrist – and not permit himself to get upset.

Jon didn’t wake until nearly midday, when Finlay’s sister-in-law came to make his bed. He crawled from under the sheets stark-naked before half-heartedly draping a towel about his loins. Finlay’s sister-in-law was unmoved. If Eric had witnessed this he would have appreciated even more deeply her sterling qualities: a lesser woman might have shrieked and rushed down to insist that the landlord do something about it.

‘I think we did the right thing,’ said Jessica, standing outside the inn and sniffing the air like a retriever. ‘I wondered for a while, but now I’m reassured. The mad lady in the high heels gave me a bit of a turn – I thought there might be more like her all over the island, and she wasn’t at all what I was expecting. I wonder who she was?’

‘I don’t suppose we’ll ever know,’ said Harry. ‘She probably came over in the summer and just stayed on. Hordes of people come over in the summer.’

‘Like birds . . .’ said Jessica, thinking how alarming it would be if you were a migrant bird and all your fellows suddenly flew off while you were trying to make a telephone call, or find your bra or something. ‘You know this island, don’t you?’ she said to Harry. ‘You’ve been here before.’

‘Yes,’ said Harry. ‘I’ve been here before.’

‘I thought so,’ said Jessica, ‘when the boatman recognized you.’ She had had a brief fantasy in which Finlay had been, not the boatman, but Harry’s batman in the war. Some sense which was partly natural to her and which had been partly acquired through the practice of her profession made her aware that she should not pursue the matter.

‘I’ll show you a bit of the island if you like,’ said Harry, grateful for her reserve, and he began to walk along the road he had thought never to walk again in this life. Jessica walked beside him with her collar turned up. There was a cold rain in the air which could at any moment turn to snow.

‘We’re coming to the Point,’ said Harry when they had walked for a while. ‘Beyond that head there’s nothing until Iceland.’ He stood looking out at the sea, and then turned slowly to look inland. A square-built house, half covered in leafless creeper, stood on the first slope of a low hill, gazing with blind windows out at the ocean.

‘My wife was born there,’ said Harry after what seemed to Jessica, who was beginning to freeze, a very long time. She felt herself grow colder.

‘What happened to her?’ she asked.

‘I took her away,’ said Harry. ‘I was stationed abroad after the war and I took her with me. She died on the boat home and we buried her at sea.’

‘It wasn’t your fault,’ said Jessica.

‘I know . . .’ said Harry. He turned towards the sea. ‘And some years later,’ he added in a conversational tone, ‘my son was drowned just beyond those rocks there. He was seventeen.’

Jessica had the sensation of one who has forgotten her lines. ‘Oh,’ she said.

‘. . . and on the face of it,’ said Harry, ‘that wasn’t anybody’s fault either. His dinghy capsized, but he could swim like a seal. He must have hit his head . . .’

There was a seal just beyond the rocks. It went under water as Jessica watched. ‘Why did you come?’ she asked. The question was abrupt, but there are no lines to speak to those in grief.

‘I don’t know,’ said Harry. ‘I really don’t know.’

‘We’d better get back,’ said Jessica. ‘It’s beginning to snow.’

‘When we brought him out of the water he looked as though he was asleep. His grandfather buried him . . . did I tell you my wife’s father was the minister here?’

‘No,’ said Jessica, ‘you didn’t tell me that.’

‘Finlay dug the grave. One of his tasks is to dig the graves. Did you know?’

‘No,’ said Jessica, ‘I didn’t know.’

‘How could you,’ said Harry. ‘Forgive me. I was thinking aloud.’ He had never spoken before of those deaths, but had carried them around with him, secretly strapped to his heart. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said again. ‘I shouldn’t have burdened you with that.’

‘Don’t be silly,’ said Jessica absently, wondering why there was no antidote to grief. If a person had a headache, or broke his leg, or developed cancer there was always
something
other people could do – aspirin or whisky or morphia, or just kindness. ‘I’m going to buy you a brandy,’ she said, since there was nothing else.

She took off her coat in the hallway of the inn and hung it on a peg beside an old fur. She supposed someone had got drunk and forgotten to put it on when she left. There were several people in the bar eating ploughman’s lunches. If they eat the ploughman’s lunch, thought Jessica idiotically, what will the poor ploughman eat? Eric was offering only soup, sandwiches and the ploughman’s in the bar, refusing to burden Finlay’s sister-in-law with the necessity to provide chicken in a basket or battered prawns.

‘You’ll find your lunch laid out in the dining room,’ he said as he saw Jessica and Harry. ‘Just let me know when you want your soup.’

‘There’s no hurry,’ said Harry. ‘Do you know who lives in the Manse?’

‘You mean the Old Manse?’ asked Eric. ‘The minister’s been gone for years, I believe, and some chap from London’s got it. It’s called the Old Manse now. He doesn’t usually come down in the winter – comes down in the summer with a load of people for the sailing.’

Jessica wished that Harry hadn’t asked this question. The answer, whatever it was, had been bound to be painful. She was imagining a young Harry gathering mussels at low tide with his young love and going home to boil them in the kitchen of the Manse while the minister wrote sermons in his study . . .

‘Do you want a brandy?’ asked Harry.

Jessica pulled herself together. ‘This is on me,’ she said, ‘and I’m having a Bloody Mary.’ She began to imagine Harry and his wife, paddling with their little boy and laughing . . . Impatient with herself she asked, ‘Where are the others?’ although she wasn’t interested.

Eric shrugged. ‘Went walking, I suppose,’ he said. He didn’t care either as long as they weren’t late for lunch and he wouldn’t be left clearing the table as opening time approached. Despite the relaxed laws he closed the inn in the afternoon. It was quite busy today. The professor, the girl and Mrs H. were back, and several of the locals were downing pints and ham sandwiches. He thought perhaps his luck had changed until he noticed that everyone was looking at Jessica and realized the word had gone round that the island was entertaining a celebrity.

‘So what did you do today?’ asked the professor of Jessica.

‘I walked along the shore,’ said Jessica.

‘You must have passed my place,’ said the professor. ‘It’s down on the left. Next time you must call in.’ The girl in the duffel coat glowered. ‘This is Amelia,’ said the professor as an afterthought.

Jon shot in. ‘Where’ve you been?’ he said to Jessica. ‘I’ve been looking everywhere for you.’

‘Why?’ asked Jessica, startled by his accusing tone.

Jon stared at her suspiciously. Acting innocent, was she? Well, she’d learn he didn’t take that sort of thing from his women. ‘
You
know . . .’ he began and then became aware that people were looking at him oddly. ‘I’ve got an idea,’ he said, ‘for a script – this place gave me the idea . . .’

Oh,
hell
. Jessica had a method for dealing with this sort of thing, but it evaded her. ‘You must tell me about it,’ she said, and he began to do so. Well, I didn’t mean
now
, she thought, not this minute. I didn’t mean it at all, and I certainly didn’t mean
now
.