why I need help with my—”
“With your fucking wiring. Right. I tell you what, your lordship—if you don’t get your head out of your arse and start dealing with some real problems, there won’t be anywhere left for nutjobs like you to come and waste their time anymore.”
I stared out over the water. The sun was high now, striking blue-black notes from the horizon. The wind had changed direction to an onshore blast that would steal the very life from your marrow if you stood still in it long enough. I walked away into its jaws. Already it had torn up the surface to bright rags, a random glitter-dance all the way out to the Arctic. The world was vast and meaningless. How had I managed to believe I could make any kind of a difference to it?
Not quite random, no. My eyes had filled with tears. Through their sharpness I picked out movement in the water, a sudden focus. Six dark shapes—no, seven. Raked-back dorsals and gleaming bulbous brows—friendly, almost comical, rising and falling through the waves. They were close, barely fifty yards out. Revelation shook me. I hadn’t run off to join the Sea Hawk because I hated my dad, or because I was so filled with rage at the rape of the planet. It had been because of this—life in the water, the spirit of the ocean and Scotland herself made flesh for me to see. I’d wanted them to live.
I turned round, waving. “Vivian, look!” I yelled. “Pilot whales!”
But the stone where he had been sitting was vacant. A line of footprints led away from it, crisp at first and then vanishing in the soft sand. I was quite alone.
Chapter Four
Some sounds only emphasise silence. Wave wash, wind in the seagrass. Here at Spindrift, it was the song of the silver flowers, whose remaining two blossoms masked an emptiness more colossal than if there’d been none left at all. I stumbled back up the path. The main block looked utterly abandoned. I couldn’t imagine life inside at all. Maybe I’d extinguished the last flicker.
I couldn’t bear the thought. I broke into a run. Peripherally I noticed that the mosaic around the entrance was still intact, a whole wall of thick glass tiles and clay squares fired to glimmering rainbow bronze in the morning sun. I pushed open the door. “Vivian?”
Nothing but wind-song silence. What made me think I had the power to drive away a dedicated nutcase from his work, I didn’t know, but I’d been fairly toxic to my fellow man of late. I thought about what I’d called him, and I felt sick. I’d had no right. Now he was gone, another soul passed beyond my ability to beg forgiveness, and…
No. He was still here. He was sitting cross-legged on the floor of the café, so motionless that I’d taken him for part of its patterns of sharply cut-out shade. In front of him was an array of short wires and bolts, neatly divided into two piles.
“Vivian,” I repeated uncertainly. “Listen, I—I’ve got a big mouth. I didn’t mean to call you names back there. I’m sorry.”
He regarded me quietly. Slowly I worked out that he didn’t care one way or the other for my apology. One heap of bolts and wires was for him, one for me. I was willing to bet there’d be an exactly equal amount in each.
“I wasn’t sure you’d come back. I thought I’d set some things out just in case.” He looked skinny and lonely there in the cafeteria’s stripped-out space. He was still wearing his woollen hat, dark curls escaping.
“Yes, I came back.” I hoped I didn’t sound as if I were talking to a three-year-old. I wanted to be gentle to him, and I didn’t quite know how. It was like trying to reassure an icicle. “Didn’t I say I’d help you with your wiring?”
“Yes, you did.”
“So what do you want me to do?”
“I think the connections are blowing out because the cold fusion surge is too much for the couplings I’ve got set up at the moment. I want to try replacing them with these. There’s rather a lot, I’m afraid.”
I rubbed
“With your fucking wiring. Right. I tell you what, your lordship—if you don’t get your head out of your arse and start dealing with some real problems, there won’t be anywhere left for nutjobs like you to come and waste their time anymore.”
I stared out over the water. The sun was high now, striking blue-black notes from the horizon. The wind had changed direction to an onshore blast that would steal the very life from your marrow if you stood still in it long enough. I walked away into its jaws. Already it had torn up the surface to bright rags, a random glitter-dance all the way out to the Arctic. The world was vast and meaningless. How had I managed to believe I could make any kind of a difference to it?
Not quite random, no. My eyes had filled with tears. Through their sharpness I picked out movement in the water, a sudden focus. Six dark shapes—no, seven. Raked-back dorsals and gleaming bulbous brows—friendly, almost comical, rising and falling through the waves. They were close, barely fifty yards out. Revelation shook me. I hadn’t run off to join the Sea Hawk because I hated my dad, or because I was so filled with rage at the rape of the planet. It had been because of this—life in the water, the spirit of the ocean and Scotland herself made flesh for me to see. I’d wanted them to live.
I turned round, waving. “Vivian, look!” I yelled. “Pilot whales!”
But the stone where he had been sitting was vacant. A line of footprints led away from it, crisp at first and then vanishing in the soft sand. I was quite alone.
Chapter Four
Some sounds only emphasise silence. Wave wash, wind in the seagrass. Here at Spindrift, it was the song of the silver flowers, whose remaining two blossoms masked an emptiness more colossal than if there’d been none left at all. I stumbled back up the path. The main block looked utterly abandoned. I couldn’t imagine life inside at all. Maybe I’d extinguished the last flicker.
I couldn’t bear the thought. I broke into a run. Peripherally I noticed that the mosaic around the entrance was still intact, a whole wall of thick glass tiles and clay squares fired to glimmering rainbow bronze in the morning sun. I pushed open the door. “Vivian?”
Nothing but wind-song silence. What made me think I had the power to drive away a dedicated nutcase from his work, I didn’t know, but I’d been fairly toxic to my fellow man of late. I thought about what I’d called him, and I felt sick. I’d had no right. Now he was gone, another soul passed beyond my ability to beg forgiveness, and…
No. He was still here. He was sitting cross-legged on the floor of the café, so motionless that I’d taken him for part of its patterns of sharply cut-out shade. In front of him was an array of short wires and bolts, neatly divided into two piles.
“Vivian,” I repeated uncertainly. “Listen, I—I’ve got a big mouth. I didn’t mean to call you names back there. I’m sorry.”
He regarded me quietly. Slowly I worked out that he didn’t care one way or the other for my apology. One heap of bolts and wires was for him, one for me. I was willing to bet there’d be an exactly equal amount in each.
“I wasn’t sure you’d come back. I thought I’d set some things out just in case.” He looked skinny and lonely there in the cafeteria’s stripped-out space. He was still wearing his woollen hat, dark curls escaping.
“Yes, I came back.” I hoped I didn’t sound as if I were talking to a three-year-old. I wanted to be gentle to him, and I didn’t quite know how. It was like trying to reassure an icicle. “Didn’t I say I’d help you with your wiring?”
“Yes, you did.”
“So what do you want me to do?”
“I think the connections are blowing out because the cold fusion surge is too much for the couplings I’ve got set up at the moment. I want to try replacing them with these. There’s rather a lot, I’m afraid.”
I rubbed
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