‘All right. Aye. I know winters are tough. I know it won’t be easy. But I don’t care.’
Josh laughed. ‘Sure. I get it. I think.’
Angus pressed on: ‘So, you mentioned, on the phone, the tides. This afternoon?’
Josh glanced at the receding sea, then back at Angus. ‘I emailed you a link earlier: official Mallaig tide tables, with all the details.’
‘Haven’t had a chance to check: on the go since breakfast.’
Josh nodded. He was training his gaze, thoughtfully, on the mudflats and the seaweed, drying in the feeble sun. ‘OK. Well, low-tide today is four p.m. You’ve got an hour either side of that, max. So we have half an hour to kill; till about three.’
Another silence descended between them, momentarily. Angus knew what came next. Gently, his friend enquired: ‘… how’s Kirstie?’
Of course. This is what you have to ask. How’s Kirstie? How is Kirstie?
What should he say?
He wanted to tell the truth. Maybe six months ago Kirstie had begun behaving very peculiarly. Something truly strange and disturbing had happened to his surviving daughter: to her persona. Things got so bad Angus nearly went to a doctor: and then, at the last moment, Angus had found a remedy. Of sorts.
But Angus was unable to tell anyone, not even Josh. Especially not Josh, because Josh would tell Molly, his wife, and Molly and Sarah were fairly intimate. And Sarah could not be allowed to know about this; she must not be told, ever. He simply didn’t trust her with this. He hadn’t trusted her, for so many months, in so many ways.
So it had to be lies. Even with Josh.
‘Kirstie’s good. Given the situation.’
‘OK. And Sarah? Is she doing, y’know, all right now? Doing better?’
Another inevitable question.
‘Yes. She’s fine. We’re all fine. Really looking forward to moving.’ Angus spoke as calmly as he could. ‘Kirstie wants to see a mermaid. Or a seal. A seal would probably do.’
‘Hah.’
‘Anyway. We’ve got time to kill? Shall we have a coffee?’
‘Uh-huh. You’ll notice a few changes in here,’ Josh said, as he pushed the creaking door of the pub.
He wasn’t wrong. As they stepped inside the Selkie, Angus gazed around: surprised.
The old, stained, cosy, herring-fisherman’s pub was transformed. The piped pop music was replaced with piped modern folk – bodhrans and fiddles. The muddy carpeted floor had evolved into expensive grey slates.
At the other end of the bar a chalked sign advertised ‘squab lobster’; and in between the boxes of leaflets from local theatres, and stacks of pamphlets on sea-eagle spotting, a chubby teenage girl stood behind the beer-pumps, toying sullenly with her nose-ring – and obviously resenting the fact she had to take Josh’s order for coffees.
The metamorphosis was impressive, but not exceptional. This was yet another boutique hotel and gastropub, aiming itself at rich tourists seeking the Highlands and Islands experience. It was no longer the scruffy, vinegar-scented local boozer of two decades back.
Though, as it was mid-November, and a weekday afternoon, locals were the only clients to service, right now.
‘Yes, both with milk, thanks, Jenny.’
Angus glanced across to the corner. Five men, of varying ages and virtually identical crew-neck jumpers, sat at a large round wooden table. The pub was otherwise deserted. The men were silent as they squinted back at Angus over their pints.
Then they turned to each other, like conspirators, and started talking again. In a very foreign language.
Angus tried not to gawp. Instead he asked Josh, ‘Gaelic?’
‘Yep. You hear it a lot in Sleat these days, there’s a new Gaelic college down the road. And the schools teach it, of course.’ Josh grinned, discreetly. ‘But I bet they were speaking English before we walked in. They do it as a joke, to wind up the incomers.’
Josh lifted a hand and waved at one of the men, a stubbled, stout, handsome guy, in his mid-forties.
‘Gordon. All right?’
Gordon turned, and offered his own, very taciturn smile.
‘Afternoon, Joshua. Afternoon. Ciamar a tha thu fhein?’
‘Absolutely. My aunt was struck by lightning.’ Josh tutted, good-naturedly. ‘Gordon, you know I’ll never learn it.’
‘Aye, but maybe one day ye can give it a try now, Josh.’
‘OK, I will, I promise. Let’s catch up soon!’
The coffees had arrived: proffered by the bored bar-girl. Angus stared at the twee little cups in Josh’s rough, red, stonemason’s hands.
Angus yearned for a Scotch. You were meant to drink Scotch, in Scotland, it was expected. Yet he felt awkward downing booze, in the afternoon, with sober Josh.
It was a slightly paradoxical feeling: because Josh Freedland hadn’t always been sober. There was a time when Josh had been the very opposite of sober. Whereas the rest of the gang from Uni – including Angus – had mildly dabbled in drugs, then got bored and returned to booze, Josh had spiralled from popping pills at parties, into serious heroin addiction: and into darkness and dereliction. For years it seemed that Josh was slated for total failure, or worse – and no could save him, much as they tried, especially Angus.
But then, abruptly, at the age of 30, Josh had saved himself. With Narcotics Anonymous.
And Josh had gone for sobriety the same way he’d gone for drugs: with total commitment. He did his sixty meetings in sixty days. He completed the twelve-step programme, and entrusted himself to a higher power. Then he’d met a nice, affluent young woman in an NA meeting, in Notting Hill – Molly Margettson. She was a cocaine addict, but she was cleaning her scene, like Josh.
They’d promptly fallen in love, and soon after that Josh and Molly had married, in a small poignant ceremony, and then they’d exited London, stage north. They’d used the money from selling her flat in Holland Park to buy a very nice house, here in Sleat, right on the water’s edge, half a mile from the Selkie, in the middle of the place they had all loved: near to Angus’s grandmother’s island.
The beautiful Sound of Sleat, the most beautiful place on earth.
Now Josh was a stonemason and Molly, remarkably, was a housewife and businesswoman: she made a decent living selling fruits and jams, honeys and chutneys. She also did the occasional painting.
Angus stared across the pub. Pensive. After years of feeling sorry for Josh, the truth was, he now envied him. Even as he was happy for Josh and Molly, he was jealous of the purity of their lives. Nothing but air, stone, sky, glass, salt, rock and sea. And Hebridean heather honey. Angus too wanted this purity, he wanted to rinse away the complexities of the city and dive into cleanness and simplicity. Fresh air, real bread, raw wind on your face.
The two friends walked to a lonely table: far away from Gordon and his Gaelic-speaking mates. Josh sat and sipped coffee, and spoke with his own conspirator’s smile.
‘That was Gordon Fraser. He does everything, fixes shit from Kylerhea to Ardvasar. Toasters, boats, and lonely wives. If you need a boat, he could probably help.’
‘Yes, I remember him. I think.’ Angus shrugged. Did he really remember? How much could he recall, from so long ago? In truth, he was still shocked by his own miscalculation of Torran Island’s nearness to the mainland. What else had he remembered wrongly? What else had he forgotten?
More importantly, if his long-term memory was