The Visitors (12 page)

One, selkie dances on beach.

Two, man steals selkie skin.

Three, selkie lives with man.

Four, selkie steals skin back.

Five, selkie escapes.

Six, man goes wild with grief.

There was a variation on the theme, where the selkie saves the man from drowning, and the two live together happily. But after seven years, the selkie returns to the sea and her own kind. At this point, the story goes back to normal, and the man goes wild with grief. The grief thing was a constant. Whether in blithe myth or Izzy’s nasties, the stories always finished with us islanders admonished and humbled, made to pay for chasing fantasies when we should be hard at work.

All selkies have a coat, a sealskin, that allows them to take the form of a seal. Selkies are beautiful and magical creatures, but caught always in the threshold places – between human and seal, between island and ocean.

Selkies were born of the souls of drowned sailors.

That thought made me feel so sad. I imagined sailors looking up, even as they drifted down, limbs loose and suspended in the sea.

After class, I packed my bag and headed down the corridor. I nearly missed the voices talking in the stairwell.

‘So who the fuck are you, then?’

The dulcet tones of Tina Robson. I looked around, but she wasn’t talking to me. In the darkness beneath the stairs, Tina
and her entourage had backed another girl against the wall. They were packed so close I couldn’t see who it was. Only her legs showed through the wall of bodies. And if I hadn’t recognised the Doc Martens, I might have walked on and left them to it.

‘My name’s Ailsa Dobie,’ she said, quietly.

‘What kind of name is that?’ laughed Tina.

‘My name.’

‘Beats the hell out of Robson,’ I said, and Tina and her cronies turned to look at me. Ailsa was standing backed against the wall, fists bunched, frame tense.

‘You coming?’ I said, nodding at the door, trying to be as casual as possible.

Ailsa brushed past Tina and then me, heading for the schoolyard.

‘Not making things much better for yourself, Flo,’ said Tina, ‘are you?’

‘After what you told me, I’m done for anyway. With the Tanno gangster queen on my case, I might as well go for broke.’

‘Keep it coming, then. You’ll get yours.’

‘What is it about me that winds you up so much?’ I said, suddenly and genuinely curious. ‘What do you want from me?’

‘I want nothing of yours!’ she shrilled. ‘Jesus. You think you’re so much better than everyone else.’

‘No, I don’t. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to fall in line like your little club of arse-kissers, either.’ I waved my arm at her gang. They bristled.

‘You might be wanting some friends by the time we’re done with you,’ said Tina, and her girls pressed closer around her. ‘Time goes pretty slowly when everybody hates you.’

She jabbed a finger at me. Her shirt was a size too small and she wore the top two buttons undone, showing glimpses
of her chest. She was so transparent, I couldn’t help but laugh. This was a mistake. White with rage, Tina reached out and grabbed my arm.

‘Shut up!’ she hissed. ‘Don’t laugh at me!’

I jerked my arm away. Tina held fast, even as I pulled, and my jumper bunched and ripped right around the shoulder. Momentum carried Tina backwards. She dropped the torn sleeve. We were both astonished, but I recovered first.

‘That was my favourite jumper,’ I said, picking up the ripped fabric.

‘I warned you,’ she replied, uncertain now. ‘You’d better show me some respect.’

I gathered my bag.

‘Listen to me, Tina. I don’t care what you do in the rest of this year, or the rest of your life. It doesn’t matter, because you’ll still be stuck in this godawful backwater town when I’m long gone. I’m never ever coming back, Tina. Tanno is all yours. And you can fill your boots with it.’

I walked away. Tina’s posse chorused nervous giggles, but her fury drilled hot holes into my back.

When I caught her up on the far side of the schoolyard, Ailsa was shaking. At first I thought she was scared, but then I saw her fists balled tight, knuckles glowing white, the bones of her hand straining bright against her skin. I stood beside her, waiting for her to speak.

‘One week,’ she said, talking to the sky. ‘That’s all it’s taken. First week and already someone’s on my case. What is it about me?’

‘This has happened before?’

She nodded. She was standing side on to me, but I could see a film of tears in her eyes.

‘That’s just Tina. She wants to be top dog. She doesn’t want anyone new stealing her thunder. That’s just the way she is—’

‘No,’ said Ailsa. ‘It’s not just her. This always happens. Everywhere I go there are Tinas. In Stornoway, on Lewis, on Harris. Kintyre, Arran, Islay. It doesn’t matter where I go. I just want to fit in, but people think I’m different. They always know.’

‘Look, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I guess moving around isn’t always easy, but you seem pretty normal to me.’

‘Aye?’ she said, fiercely, and looked at me. The unshed tears turned her eyes to shifting liquid. ‘And remind me what they think of you?’

She summoned a weak smile, and I realised she was making a joke.

‘Good point. I’m hardly the most popular girl in school. They think I’m …’ I searched for the word, ‘distant.’

Ailsa rubbed the heel of her hand in her eye, then noticed my ripped sweater. Her face fell.

‘Did she do that just now?’

‘It’s all right.’

‘Oh, no,’ she said, mortified. ‘This is my fault.’

‘Don’t worry about it. Hopefully Tina will feel that’s enough for now and leave me be.’

‘But your jumper …’

‘A small price to pay for a little peace.’

‘No. I owe you. It’s my fault she ripped it. I’ve got a couple you could choose from.’

‘Honestly, don’t worry about it. Every time I run across Tina and her girls, it reminds me that they’ll never leave this town. They’re lifers.’

‘But not you?’

‘Christ no. I’m gone as soon as this year’s done with.’

‘Lucky you.’

‘You don’t want to leave?’

‘I’ve only just got here. I’m in no hurry to go. We move around a lot. I’d like to stay somewhere longer than six months.’

This needled my curiosity.

‘So what’s it like on Dog Rock?’

She raised her eyebrows a little, looking down. ‘It’s an island,’ she said, ‘and it’s ours. I like it.’ She turned to look at me again. ‘Do you want to come and see it?’

‘Wow. Aye, that would be cool.’

‘I’ll take you after school. You can pinch a jumper.’

‘OK, OK,’ I laughed. ‘I give in.’

‘And,’ she said, ‘you can meet my dad.’

We stepped off the bus and waved goodbye to Bev. Ailsa wound a path through the waist-high dune grass. I followed, feeling the stems and blades brushing at my thighs and hips. I really wanted to see Dog Rock. Part of this was outright island nosiness. Another, smaller part of me was happy, and even a little shy, to speak to someone who seemed a bit like me. This was an experience the Tanno kids had all the time. They knew each other so well. When they were younger, they played together after school, and then the older kids had parties and fell out and made friends and drank cider and felt each other up and bragged about it in the playground. That wasn’t something I’d been able to share. Richard and I had done the drinking, and more, but on the island we’d always been alone, together.

The inflatable lay metres above the high-tide mark. Ailsa fitted the engine while I took off my shoes and socks and started rolling up my jeans. Together, we carried the rib down towards a toothless surf. Pushing the boat in nose-first, Ailsa hopped over one side and tinkered with the engine. Standing shin-deep in the icy shallows, I held the boat by a handle at the stern, waves lapping to my knees.

‘Jeez, it’s Baltic. How can you swim in this?’

‘We’ll be over soon enough,’ she said, and yanked on the starter cord.

The engine caught after half a dozen attempts, and she dipped the whirring blades into the water. I hopped in, losing my balance, but Ailsa caught my shoulder and I scrambled to the single plank that made a seat in the bows. The bay was fairly calm, despite the bluster, and we scooted over the waves at a decent pace. I reached out and trailed my fingers over the side, gazing into the water. It was a deep, deep blue, and I couldn’t see the bottom. Dog Rock grew closer. From nowhere, sunlight bloomed through the clouds.

As we approached the pontoon, Ailsa slowed the engine. Taking the mooring rope in one hand, I hopped up onto the rickety platform and tied the boat to a hitching post. You couldn’t hear it from Bancree, but out here the line of floats knocked together constantly, creaking and groaning and clicking where the sea pushed wood against wood. Where her dad had made repairs, new planks glared white against the weathered grey.

‘That’ll do,’ she said, checking my knot.

She skipped onto the floats ahead of me, swaying with the heft of waves. I followed, stumbling to keep my balance.

Dog Rock was bigger than it looked from Bancree. Where the pontoon met the islet, waves frothed gently against the rocky shore. Rimed with weed and muck, a thick cable emerged from the water and into a concrete box marked with a lightning bolt. Electricity. A thought occurred to me as we walked towards the house.

‘What would your dad do if the boat was gone, and he needed to get across?’

‘He’d swim, if he had to. He’s like me. He loves the sea.’

I thought again of that dark shape swimming in the water off Dog Rock, the night they’d first moved in. Could it have been him? Or Ailsa? It felt so long ago.

‘He’s not really going anywhere at the moment, though.
He’s loads to do on the island. We always move to these ancient places that need loads of work. I think he’s sorting out a drain, or a generator or something. Come on, come and say hello.’

She set off to one side of the house. I followed, glimpses of his face flashing before me. As we rounded the corner, the rest of Dog Rock opened up. Blocked by the cottage, I’d never seen the inland portion of the islet, and I was amazed to find a perfectly respectable garden hidden behind the house. It was wildly overgrown, and studded with bindweed and thistles, but the old flowerbeds stood quite distinct against the grass and gorse. The sheltered spaces were thick with end-of-season wildflowers. Brambles had exploded along one edge of a fallen-down fence, and blackberries were sleek on the vine.

Passing the house, a red extension lead hung from a ground-floor window and snaked towards a large, dilapidated shed at the far end of the garden. As we approached it, birds erupted from the long grass, and for a moment, the sky danced with chaffinches and waxwings. The door hung from one hinge, and Ailsa pushed it open with a creak. Inside, beneath an electric lantern, her father leaned over a workbench. An engine lay around him, dismantled into component pieces. He looked up briefly at Ailsa, then spotted me, and held my eye as he straightened. Feeling stupid and frightened and shy, I drank him in.

Like his daughter, his hair was very dark and slightly wavy. This close, I could see strands of white and grey. His cheeks were hollow beneath sharp cheekbones, and he wore several days of stubble. He was impossibly striking, and I realised my mouth was open.

‘Hi, Dad,’ said Ailsa. ‘This is Flora, that I told you about. She lives across the way in Grogport.’

‘You never said you were bringing someone over.’

‘She goes to school with me, Dad.’

He studied me. His dark eyes met mine, and I was rooted to the ground. I’d seen them before. Dark eyes from the bathtub. Standing there, in the shed, I tried to imagine his hand sliding around my leg. Shivers danced across my skin.

‘Good to meet you,’ he grunted. ‘I’m John. Ailsa’s mentioned you.’

His name was John.

‘I said hello. In the road,’ I faltered, hardly trusting myself to speak. For a moment we simply looked at each other. He wasn’t so big, but he exuded whipcord strength and I felt absurdly exposed.

‘It’s a small island,’ he said, then turned to Ailsa. ‘I should get on.’

‘D’you want a cup of tea, Dad?’

‘Aye,’ he nodded, frowning, ‘in a bit.’

Ailsa tugged at my sleeve and drew me away from the shed.

‘Don’t worry about Dad,’ she said, rolling her eyes. ‘He’s always like that with new folk. He’s a pup at heart. Come on, I’ll show you the rest of the house.’

She talked as we wandered back towards the house, but I barely heard a word. Before I’d even met him, those dark eyes had been watching in my dream.

The further we moved from the shed, and from John, the more I recovered my senses. Dreams were just dreams, and I was a schoolgirl feeding a stupid crush. I was cross with myself, and drew in thick lungfuls of air, trying to flush out my stupidity. Another deep breath, and I made myself take stock.

By the front door, a tangle of rotten wood and filthy lino lay stacked where Ailsa and John had cleared the junk. They’d fixed the fallen washing pole with bright-blue nylon, and a few clothes fluttered on the line. Between the shirts and
trousers hung a few pairs of underpants – a girl’s plain black knickers, and a man’s boxer shorts. I blushed, then felt stupid about blushing, and was relieved that she hadn’t noticed. She’d moved ahead of me, further up the rough path, and put her shoulder to the front door. Cursing, she banged it open, then waved me inside.

I’d expected it to be dank and dark and miserable, but Dog Cottage was surprisingly cosy. It was small, but not cramped. The door opened straight into a living room, where the Dobies had stripped out the mouldering carpet and laid some rugs across the old stone flags. The bare stone robbed most of the daylight, but a rusty wood-burner stood in the middle of the room, radiating steady heat. A stack of chopped driftwood leaned against one wall. There were a couple of plain wooden chairs and a violently green beanbag. On the far side of the room lay another door. Beside us, steep, crooked stairs led to the top floor.

‘Cup of tea?’ asked Ailsa, closing the front door with a bang.

‘Aye, please,’ I said, and followed her across the living room and through the door on the far side. We walked into the kitchen. It was a little lean-to, cobbled onto the side of the house, but it was clean and dry. It was so sparse. A camping gas stove, and some tins and packets on the shelves. The kettle boiled as Ailsa busied herself with mugs and milk and teabags.