The Inn at the Edge of the World (6 page)

In fact, Jessica was very tired and growing very cold. She wanted only to get somewhere warm with a stiff drink to hand and she no longer cared where it was. ‘He’s
late
,’ she said.

Finlay was late because Mabel had made him come back and get her. Her voice had reached him over the ether and he had turned round and come back for her. She had thrown the things she needed – the most remarkable of which were a PVC bustier and knickers – into a hold-all and had fled the hotel.

‘Listen,’ said Harry. ‘He’s coming now.’

The wind was rising and it was beginning to grow dark when the reassuring figure of Finlay came moving towards them out of the sea spray. The practical and nautical impression he gave was marred by the woman who followed him, staggering on high heels and swearing. As she came level she addressed them. ‘You’re effing mad,’ she said. ‘You know that? You’re all effing mad,’ and she staggered swiftly on, dragging her hold-all, clad only in a miniskirt and a short black jacket with very wide shoulders.

‘Ye should have brought your coat,’ called Finlay after her, and ‘How will ye get to Glasgae?’

No answer came. Mabel was going to hitch-hike to Glasgow. She wasn’t afraid of being murdered because a stranger could never summon up enough feeling to murder a person in her overwhelmingly passionate frame of mind: she was in no mood to be victimized.

Finlay turned to those who were about to sail with him. ‘There’re only four of ye,’ he said, as though it was their fault.

‘Oh God,’ said Jessica wearily. ‘You mean . . .?’

‘We’ll bide a wee,’ said Finlay.

Jessica peered at him suspiciously, wondering if the hotel had hired a professional Caledonian rustic without any knowledge of navigation or the way of the tides. He reminded her of a lay-figure outside a fishmonger’s in his sou’wester, oilskins and boots, or a bit-part actor likely to ruin a production by trying to upstage the principals.

Jon came running lightly across the quay. ‘Am I late?’ he asked. ‘I flew.’ He bent and kissed Jessica on the cheek, surprising her slightly, for still, as far as she knew, she’d never seen him before in her life. However, she was getting used to being greeted by strangers so she made no remark.

‘When you say you flew,’ said Ronald, who until now had been more or less silent, ‘do you mean that you hurried or that you came in an aeroplane?’

Jon stared at him. ‘I took the plane,’ he said. ‘It saves hours.’

‘You were still late,’ said Ronald, picking up his case and looking expectantly at Finlay.

‘Aye,’ said Finlay, leading the way to the boat.

Jessica caught a last sight of the woman in high heels teetering towards civilization. ‘Who do you suppose that was?’ she said to Harry. ‘Was she a local, do you imagine? Are they all like that?’

‘No,’ said Harry, ‘they won’t all be like that.’

‘I do hope so,’ said Jessica, ‘because really I came to get away from it all.’

She regretted saying this since it sounded not inappropriate to Helen Huntingdon of Wildfell Hall, but there was no time to expatiate as Finlay was taking their luggage from their hands and stowing it in the hold. At least that’s where she assumed he was putting it, calling on memories of nightmare childish experiences, sailing with her family when not only their personalities but their vocabulary underwent a bewildering transformation. She supposed it was what was meant by a sea-change. She chose precisely the right moment to step aboard Finlay’s boat: that is, when it had bobbed close to the pier. She had seen too many people dithering about the decision, leaving their leap until the boat had bobbed away again and thus losing their footing, their shoe and, sometimes, doubtless, their lives down in the narrow deeps between ship and sea wall.

Anita dithered, but Finlay held her fast in a strong, slightly fishy, oilskin-clad arm. They went into the cabin and Jessica’s spirits fell with the descent. The high-heeled woman in the bad temper had reminded her of some of her friends who seemed to believe that unless they were feeling something very deeply they were not alive. Until perhaps this moment she had been inclined to believe it herself, but weariness and the constraint of the cabin full of people made her yearn for peace and space – for what she had thought she was coming to. A mirage, a dream, thought Jessica disenchantedly, realizing as she reflected that the cabin actually held only three people, since Harry and Jon were out on deck. As there were only three of them, in a short time they would have to start talking to each other. Five people can sit in silence, smiling occasionally as they meet each other’s eyes, but three must converse or an awkward and anti-social atmosphere results. Jessica said something about fresh air and also went up on deck. Jon was standing with one foot on the rail, the wind in his golden hair. Get a load of Fletcher Christian, thought Jessica. His nose would soon turn bright red for it was too cold out there to be playing a part.

Harry was standing by Finlay, who was gazing ahead as he guided his boat to the island. Jessica heard Finlay say, ‘So you’ve come back then.’ And she heard Harry say, ‘Aye, I’ve come back.’ That, she thought, could have been intriguing if she wasn’t so tired, for Harry had not told her that he’d been here before.

Eric’s hand trembled as he stirred the blue-sparking driftwood in the fireplace. He was no longer angry. He had only been angry for a second and his brief rage had not been enough to arm him against his wife’s torrential fury. He had faced an elemental, hostile force and now was feeling, not only inadequate but wounded: all his certainties displaced. Where am I? he wondered as he trembled. What’s going on? He had done nothing to deserve such an onslaught, he didn’t understand anything, and how was he to face his imminent guests, feeling as he did? He was half tempted to jump in the sea or, less drastically, jump in the hotel van and drive to the cliff top where he could cower alone under an old tarpaulin and not have to talk to anyone until the trembling stopped. It was surely unnatural to feel as shaken as he did. Unmanly, thought Eric as he poured himself a whisky, but it wasn’t his pride that was hurt. He’d been frightened. Now he was frightened that Mabel would never come back, and equally frightened that she would, and he wished he could put a name to the emotions he was experiencing: it would make them more tolerable.

It was nearly dark in the yard when he went out to collect more logs than he actually needed for the night. He looked seawards for the lights of Finlay’s returning boat and saw someone else looking seawards, standing on the edge of the shore; standing still in the wind and the cold.

‘What’s he waiting for?’ said Eric to himself, aloud. He was fairly sure it was the boy he’d seen the other night, but he didn’t hail him as he might have done if he had felt normal. Curiosity had gone temporarily to ground together with courage, and Eric was conserving whatever shreds of sociability he had left to gratify his guests.

Thank God for Finlay’s sister-in-law. The inn was clean and tidy, swept and garnished, the bar room fire high and bright. Eric began to feel better as he looked into the kitchen. Perhaps he should have married Finlay’s sister-in-law, except that, competent as she was, she was a bit odd. She never said anything. On the other hand, reflected Eric, Mabel, too, was more than a bit odd and she said too much: she wasn’t unlike Finlay’s sister-in-law to look at when you came to think of it, only she dressed differently. The woman wiping down the kitchen table was wearing a brown Crimplene dress under a flowered apron – yet they had the same grey eyes and smooth dark hair. Eric found himself close to Finlay’s sister-in-law before he remembered himself and went to wash his hands in the small basin that the council had made him install for hygienic reasons. The previous owner had never bothered with such refinements, which annoyed Eric when he hadn’t got too much on his mind to worry over trivia; it aggravated the mild paranoia habitual to newcomers to an island community.

The inn door creaked, signalling an arrival, and Eric went reluctantly to the hall, wondering which stereotype of mine host he could assume in time: he knew of several, ranging from the hearty to the sardonic, but he didn’t now feel sufficiently confident to carry off any of them. He didn’t need to, as it happened. Not immediately.

‘Oh, hallo, Professor,’ he said without enthusiasm. It was only one of those incomers who had bought a house on the island for the purposes of holidaying there: a mean man in Eric’s view, who drank alcohol-free lager with lime and not too much of that. There was a girl with him wearing the guarded, faintly sulky air of a girl who is not too stupid to know that she is the latest in a series of similar girls. Eric had noticed, over the months, that several incomers had bought houses on the island apparently for the sole purpose of conducting clandes tine affairs. The professor kept an old duffel coat which he made all his women wear, probably so that he would recognize them if his memory slipped.

‘Hallo, Isabel,’ said Eric.

The girl did not respond.

‘Sophie?’ he ventured.

Silence.

‘Agnes . . .?’ Oh
shit
, he might have learned to keep his mouth shut by now. He would have done if he hadn’t been so discomposed.

‘This is Jennifer,’ said the professor cheerfully.

‘What’ll you have?’ asked Eric, slipping behind the bar. ‘Down here for long?’

‘Two halves of lager, alcohol-free, with lime,’ said the professor. ‘Just till the New Year.’

He sat on a bar stool and began to ask questions to prove that he was conversant with island ways and the inhabitants. Eric polished a glass and wished he’d go. Those locals who did frequent the inn were wont to melt away when they saw the professor. The girl stood, restively twisting her glass. Poor cow, thought Eric, without compassion. The door opened and he looked up, hopeful now, but it was yet another incomer. ‘Evening, Mrs H.,’ he said. This was the female of the species. When her husband was away on business she brought men with her to her white house on the hill. ‘How’s Graham?’ he inquired nastily, for he happened to remember that her husband was called John.

‘He’s fine,’ she said without turning a hair.

No shame, thought Eric. None of them had any shame. They treated the island like a brothel. He looked back to the time when he had pictured his bar full of local characters gathered for the edification and amusement of the gently bred guests who had just unpacked their pigskin suitcases in the charming ambience of their bedrooms before coming down, talking animatedly among themselves, to drink a lot of expensive liquor before dining, while his wife chirruped and shone like a budgerigar in crisp cottons, scent and fresh lipstick. His ideas of marriage and the typical hostelry were hopelessly out of date. Mrs H. ordered a mineral water with ice and a slice of lemon.

Finlay tied up his boat and helped his passengers ashore by way of the amateurish pier which the locals begrudgingly held together, each hoping that somebody else would do something to make it more stable, and if not that the council might. There was enough light from the lamp hanging outside the inn to show them where they’d be when they got there, but not enough for them to see where they were going. Consequently they shuffled along the narrow shore road, carrying their luggage and wondering what they’d let themselves in for. It was beginning to rain.

Hearing the sound of a number of people putting down their bags, Eric went into the hall. Seeing through the open door that rain was sifting through the lamplight he felt guilty. They were here for Christmas after all. ‘That’ll turn to snow by the morning,’ he said. ‘Now I’ll show you to your rooms and then perhaps after you’ve signed in you’d like a drink before dinner . . . on the house,’ he added, as he noticed their downcast mien, and he wondered whether he should have met them at the pier with the van, even though it was only a hundred yards or so. He had a moment of terror as he realized that he was solely and personally responsible for keeping these people contented for the length of their stay. Maybe he should have listened to Mabel. Oh, Mabel . . .

One by one they gathered in the bar.

Anita and Jessica had both changed their clothes for the evening: Anita because she’d been well brought up, and Jessica because the bottoms of her trousers had got splashed walking from the boat. She had a lot of fashionable clothes that she had gathered, in one way or another, from kindly wardrobe mistresses who seemed to know what would suit her better than she knew herself. It saved a lot of trouble and thought, but she always felt guilty when she dirtied them.

Eric was delighted with these ladies: already they had added tone to his establishment. He felt quite recovered and able to handle the responsibilities of the landlord; and now he thanked God that Mabel had gone. No longer need he worry that she would shock, alienate or sleep with any of the guests. As he regarded Jon his thankfulness increased. Mabel would have had him for breakfast. It was also fortunate that the guests were all single, since he usually had trouble with married couples. Men, who would not if left to themselves complain, were often impelled by the presence of their wives to mention that the soup was a little cold, the cup cracked or the steak tough; while the women could be worse, tracking him through the hotel to tell him, tight-lipped, that the creaking of the inn sign had kept their husband awake all night and with the pressure of work he’d been under he needed all the sleep he could get and they’d come here to rest didn’t he realize. Sometimes they complained that the waitress had insulted their husband, and as, at one time, he had employed casual labour from the mainland, Eric had to admit that they were probably right. There had been an incident in the summer when Mabel’s Glaswegian mates were making merry and a wife had come down in her nightie, beckoned him from the bar and abused him in front of everyone. She hadn’t tackled the mates. Oh no. They were wearing black leather, and some of them, male and female, had their bald heads tattooed. What, Eric had wondered, did she expect him to do? He was running a business, wasn’t he, an inn? People came to inns to drink, didn’t they? It was bad luck if the interests of the residents and the passing trade proved to be incompatible, but what was he supposed to
do
about it? It was also exasperating to observe, when these married couples were together, that they didn’t seem unduly devoted to each other, eating in silence unless one of them found something untoward in the salad. Eric had not, himself, been married long enough to appreciate the nuances of the married state.