Read Online Time and Tide by Shirley McKay - Free Book Online Page A

clatter in the yard outside, a long, seamless pissing, streaming in the pail. He watched the ginger tomcat, arching from the window ledge, insinuate itself around the corners of the room, and settle on a patch of sunlight, filtered through the slats. The cat had greenish-yellow eyes, like the liquid centre of a wound. Although the room was stifling hot, he knewthat he was lucid still. He listened to Maude talking to the man outside, and understood their purpose, though he did not know the words. He was aware they were not speaking Dutch. Yet all of these sensations were recovered thick and curved, as though he saw and heard them in a glass. They did not dull the pricking in his skin, the creeping of his flesh that began to spread, insidious, throughout. A dry fire had consumed him. His belly could not calm the swell of sops and ale, and Jacob vomited. Joachim and Tobias swam like fishes through his dreams, reflected in the water pot; Jacob heard a howling, and the tomcat’s hackles rose.
    Jacob knew that he would have to die. He had not known that it would hurt so much.
    The baxters stood outside the door. They had gathered at the first unearthly note, but none of them had wanted to go in. The cry had pierced the stillness in the bar, and Christie Boyd had spilled his drink over the minute book, blotting out the record of the previous day. It was not a human sound. Now they stood and listened to the keening, perspiring in the close heat of the kitchen fire. It was Maude, in the end, who pushed open the door, James Edie the first man behind her.
    â€˜Oh!’ called out Maude, ‘it is only Gib Hunter, the cat!’
    Gib Hunter backed against the kitchen wall, each white-lipped orange hair shaft startled to its tip, like a ginger porcupine. Lilias gave a giggle, ‘Scaredy! Scaredy cat!’
    â€˜Aye, it was the cat. And yet we must be wary of the devils he has seen. What is he afeared of?’ James Edie answered quietly. There was a low hush to his voice, as though he came across shy creatures in the fields, and did not want to startle them to flight. It made Maude think of night owls, fixed on little mice, their heartbeats in the darkness tiny pricks of fear. What fright had moved Gib Hunter, to his wild and frantic howls? James was staring straight at Jacob, holding up the candle he had taken from the wall, so that Jacob’s eyes were captured in the flame. Jacob was sitting bolt upright, aterror tale of torment frozen on his face. His black lips blabbered wordlessly, his black hands clutched and fumbled, helpless at the air.
    â€˜Whisht, what is it?’ Maude came soft and soothing, holding off the ghosts. Though doubtless, there were devils in the room, she felt only pity, and was not afraid. Jacob pointed wildly and began to sob.
    â€˜Hush, now, hush, for there is nothing there.’ She took him in her arms and rocked him like a bairn. She felt his fear aflutter, through his solid chest, like the little mouse, or like the tiny fish heart, beating in her palm, from the writhing haddock she had cooked for Hew. ‘Hush, you are safe now,’ she whispered.
    â€˜De duivel,’ Jacob moaned.
    â€˜There are no devils here.’
    â€˜
Ahhh
.’ The wind had found its way at last, both through and out of him, as Jacob sighed. Maude felt him tense and slacken in her arms. She touched her fingers, briefly, to his lips.
    â€˜Tis well that you have calmed him,’ Honeyman came blustering, as if the air from Jacob’s lungs had blasted into him. ‘I cannot thole they frenzied fits, that foreign folks are prone to. What do you think it was wrang wi him?’
    Maude stared at him, aghast. ‘Do you not see, you futless slump? You useless, feckless, hopeless, lourden of a limmar of a man, that he is dead?’
    The bailie buckled at the torrent of her words. ‘
Deid
?’ he replied at last. ‘In which case, since you are distressed, we are prepared to overlook . .