Through Every Human Heart Read online

  Death is not an accident, but God’s doing. He could hear Father Konstantin’s voice. We know that we will die, though we pretend that we will not.

  The last time he’d tried to die he’d been drunk.

  Now here he was, not drunk but not quite sober either.

  He looked back at the small house. No lights. He hoped she was sleeping peacefully. He himself was entirely unconvinced that the Arbanisi woman had managed to free herself from the suited man. It was far too neat.

  There wasn’t much of a moon. It curved like a backward c, which meant a waxing moon. The clouds had cleared, whirled away by the night wind and the sky was cluttered with a billion useless stars. What reason was there to feel angry if Lazslo was dead, to feel ashamed of his own incompetence, or guilty over his attack on Frank? If men were all mere collections of atoms, it was completely irrational. Anger, shame, hope – they were all without meaning.

  The waves were loud. The weight of water sucked back, poured forward, sucked and fell, over and over. The salt air filled his lungs. He’d never been this close to the sea, to any sea. The rivers they’d fished in at home were cold in winter, but not bottomless like this. In hot weather, even the smallest boys would swing over the pools and jump in for fun. This water would never be warm.

  Not that he’d ever jumped in much. Boris had tried every method known to man to make him into a swimmer, and every emotion, from reassurance to red-faced rage, but Feliks had never trusted water, not shallow, clear, flowing rivers, not even the most tranquil of ponds, because he’d already learned from his illustrated Creatures of the World about flesh-eating fish, and guessed there were things other than tench, zander and carp dwelling deep in the water, alien creatures biding their time, hiding in the mud and mayfly larvae, looking, he imagined, a bit like lampreys but with tiny vicious teeth ready to fasten onto any pale intruding foot. In other words, he’d been a coward.

  Three-legged chicken dog.

  A house with a banana tree.

  Death is God’s doing.

  He walked forward, over a final thin strip of sand. The water began to seep into his shoes. The beach sloped a little more steeply. Another couple of steps and he was in. He zipped up his jacket, reflecting as he did so how ridiculous, how pointless this was. And now he was in up to his knees. The water was in fact far colder than he’d anticipated. His trousers clung most unpleasantly to his legs, but after a few moments he could barely feel them. The outgoing rush sucked him almost off his feet. He managed to right himself. The next incoming wave hit him across the waist. His legs were now completely without sensation . . .

  Someone screamed. He tried to turn, struggled to stay upright. There was a commotion in the water behind him. On heavy feet, legs that refused to move, he lurched towards the screaming, splashing shape, caught at it with freezing hands, lost her, caught her, pulled her close. Braced together against the sea, they’d stood upright, then swaying, staggering, they’d stumbled towards the shore.

  He didn’t smell good. Even out here on the hillside with the morning breeze blowing over him, he was pretty rank, especially around the folds. Salt water and stale sweat. A bad combination. There hadn’t been enough hot water the night before for two baths, and he’d insisted on her having one. As soon as there was any hot water this morning, he would need to bathe. Fortunately there was no one here to sniff at him. Not a soul in sight. He wanted to stop time. He wanted to stay here forever.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Dina pulled herself up in the bed, until she was half sitting. Her grandparents’ bed, albeit with a new mattress and new white linen. The room was exactly as she’d abandoned it months before. The wallpaper was partly stripped off – pale yellow roses and curling leaves in a green that no natural plant could ever achieve. The old Axminster was gone, leaving bare the floorboards which she fully intended to strip and reseal. On the left of the door frame, several patches of paint showed where she’d tried possible colours. She’d decided on warm shades, since the room faced north. Fowler Pink, and Book Room Red. Then she’d turned against these, worrying that they’d make the room smaller. Pinks became more intense. So on the other side she’d tried Babouche and Citron. Irene was fond of Babouche. But making decisions was hard, and in any case, to know what was right she’d have to strip the floorboards first, so the tester pots still sat there, beside strips of old wallpaper in large white bin bags, a mood board with hardly anything on it, and a little row of Diet Coke cans that had never made it to the bin. Dust sheets covered the old-fashioned bureau and chair. They weren’t valuable. Should they be stripped or painted or thrown out?

  ‘Well, Donaldina, what next?’ she said aloud.

  The evening before, they’d completely ignored the possibility that there would be a ‘next’. Her head hurt a little now. Not surprising, considering they’d finished the bottle between them. He’d explained that he wasn’t actually a priest, but that priests weren’t forbidden alcohol anyway. They’d eaten lasagne and garlic bread, which he’d said he liked. They’d talked about many things; her attempts to find a career, their very different childhoods, and the house, which she’d inherited from her grandfather. He’d been taken aback by the fact that there was a house key in a tin beneath the log pile.

  ‘If it is so safe here, why do you live in the city?’

  ‘There’s no jobs.’

  ‘You could make money from this, I think. People would pay to come here.’

  ‘I can’t,’ she told him. ‘It’s in the terms of the will. I can’t sell the house or let it out until I’m thirty-five. The land’s different. That’s let to a crofter for grazing, so I get some money from that, which helps.’

  ‘Why did your grandfather do this?’

  ‘He wanted to keep it in the family. My Dad was the younger son, his brother died when he was just a baby, and though there’s cousins, they’re in England. I was the only grandchild. I think Grampa imagined I’d have children by the time I was thirty-five, and I’d want them to have the house.’

  He’d nodded, as if he agreed with the old man.

  She wondered what they would have made of each other. She was awfully glad he wasn’t a priest. He was a good listener, so he probably would have done that well as a priest, but she was awfully glad he wasn’t.

  ‘My mother’s still alive, but they never warmed to her. She lives in Spain,’ she added. As if he’d want to know. She and Dad had never divorced, so she’d expected to inherit something from Grampa too. How furious she’d been. The sale of the family home after Dad’s death hadn’t been enough for them.

  She herself had been annoyed at first at the terms of Grampa’s will, because holiday lets were so lucrative. Even with the price of fuel rising there were plenty of people keen to travel from the south to get fresh air and unspoiled countryside. But she’d forgiven the old man once she worked it out. She’d loved him so much, and Gran even more, what she could remember of her: pure white hair, and painting together on the kitchen table, with never ever a word about the mess, and perfectly shaped pancakes with raspberry jam from the garden. She’d been a greedy little child, she thought, always impatient for more.

  She’d not spoken about her father, that was too deep, but told him how she’d tried nursing and waitressing and how she’d finally got the job with Arbanisi Design. He hadn’t said anything about Irene, and she hadn’t either. They talked about his country, about the forests and beavers, bank voles, and bears, about how you could forage for food when it was rationed or hard to get from the city. He’d been very hungry as a student, and very proud, he said, refusing help from his father because by then he’d decided he hated his politics.

  ‘Were you an anarchist?’ she had asked, feeling rather knowledgeable.

  ‘That would depend on your definition.’

  ‘My friend Ronni used to be one. She said it was because her father worked for the CIA.’

  ‘Impressive. Did she tell you what she did?’

  ‘Not in any detail. B
ut she never goes home.’

  ‘We never thought of ourselves as anarchists,’ he said. ‘We thought we were pursuing democracy. I’ve always thought that anarchists had some good ideas, like respecting the individual, and wanting each man to find his own cultural identity. But most people like being governed. There are too many vested interests. People who have the tiniest amount of power,’ he squeezed his thumb and forefinger together, ‘naturally they want things to stay as they are.’

  She thought of ward sisters and consultants she’d encountered.

  ‘I think I’d be good with some power. I just don’t know how to go about getting it,’ she said.

  He’d smiled at that. She wasn’t sure if he was laughing at her or agreeing.

  ‘Does she paint, your friend Ronni?’

  ‘No, she takes photographs. Why?’

  ‘I wondered if these were her work.’

  ‘These were Granny’s.’

  ‘They are very good, I think.’

  She thought so too. Whatever else she changed in the house, the paintings would stay.

  She’d gone to bed, leaving him downstairs, but she hadn’t been able to get to sleep, thinking thoughts that were not exactly the kind of thoughts one ought to think in a Free Presbyterian bed. She remembered his scars and the strong muscles of his shoulders. The kiss was kind of impossible to forget. Why had he kissed her? That was the important thing. Had he been kissing her, or would anyone have done? Some women would have asked right out, ‘what was that for?’

  She’d heard the sound of music on the radio. It played for some time, then went off. After a long time, she heard the front door being opened, so she got up to see where he was going.

  The water had been far colder, the pull of the current more vicious, the shelving of the beach more immediate than she ever remembered them being in childhood, She’d panicked, realising too late that instead of rescuing him she was in trouble herself. But afterwards, so little had been said. A few words each. As if nothing momentous had happened. As if he hadn’t been trying to drown himself at all . . .

  ‘What happens to me?’ she had wanted to scream at him. ‘If you die, what happens to me?’

  She had been furious. She was still furious. And now here it was, absurdly, the morning after the night before. There would have to be breakfast, she supposed. She hadn’t shopped for breakfast, hadn’t thought as far ahead as breakfast. There would be porridge, if the dried milk was all right, or tinned custard, and baked beans. Or desiccated coconut. With tomato sauce if she ran hot water over the disgusting glued-on bits and got the top off.

  She lifted a corner of the curtain and looked out. The water was shimmering in the dawn light, serene and innocent. Damn him. Damn him and his stupid walk into the loch. Her sheepskin slippers were at the bottom of it, or possibly floating towards Greenland. If they had a boat they could sail away. A modern day Flora and Charlie. She tried to visualise herself rowing vigorously in a tartan shawl. She pictured herself pushing him overboard.

  From his perch on the hill Feliks saw lights go on in the house. If she looked out of the small kitchen window she would see him. He wanted her to see him and wave, lift the teapot, call him down to breakfast. They could grow raspberries as her grandmother had. Not plums. She had said it was too cold for plums. A bread roll with jam. Or a banana. One could buy bananas very easily. There was no need to have an actual tree.

  Are you insane? Nothing has been solved. Nothing has changed. Who do you think you are?

  Just myself. Just who I have always been. More wrong than right. More sinning than sinned against. A three-legged chicken dog.

  He took one final look at the long curve of the bay, the low hills, and out to the faint horizon, then stood, brushing damp grass from his trousers. Several metres to his left, there was an elderly man watching him from the road. Feliks raised a hand. The man lifted his stick to acknowledge him and walked on in the direction of the house. There was a dog too, black with white. It barked, and was reprimanded.

  Dina was in the kitchen. He didn’t think she’d showered. Her hair was unbrushed, and there were faint lines on her face where she’d been lying on creases in the bedding, but she looked as if she’d slept well.

  ‘I’m just boiling the kettle. I thought you were still asleep,’ she said. She sounded as if she was annoyed at something

  ‘The sun called to me. The room has no curtains. But it is all right . . .’

  The doorbell interrupted him.

  ‘I think it is a man with a stick,’ he said. He followed her to the hall but stayed out of sight. He understood nothing of the conversation, except that it seemed amicable. The man spoke more slowly than Dina, in the way of the old. There were, he thought, questions and answers, and possibly she was talking to the dog as well, because her voice became the kind of voice people use when talking to animals. The whole thing seemed to him to go on for a very long time.

  At last the door was closed.

  ‘My neighbour,’ she explained. ‘He saw our lights last night, but he didn’t recognise the car. So he came to see who it was, and he brought bread, milk and eggs,’ she held up a bag, ‘in case it really was me and I didn’t have breakfast.’

  ‘You have good neighbours.’

  ‘Nosey neighbours, you mean. No, that’s not fair. He’s a good soul. He knew Grampa. I’m not sure he approves of me altogether.’

  ‘Is that the same language?’ He pointed to a framed text beside the window. ‘What does it say?’

  She read out the lines.

  ‘Bheir am peacadh sinn sios do uisgeachan dobhain.

  Ach bheir gras sinn sabhailte gur tir.’

  He wanted to know what the words meant, but she didn’t translate it. ‘Let’s eat,’ she said, going towards the kitchen. ‘It looks like it’s going to be a fine day. That’s Scotland for you.’

  He followed. She looked very sweet in her denim trousers and long bedraggled sweater. Her ankles were endearing. So small. His hand would go completely around them.

  ‘They say we can get all four seasons in one day, that’s why climbers get into trouble so often, the ones that don’t know the country. Boiled or fried?’

  She meant the eggs. He said he would be happy with either.

  ‘They go up into the mountains dressed for summer, just shorts and t-shirts, and the weather changes . . .’

  In his imagination he went forward, turned her round and kissed her. The good neighbour’s bag seemed to read his mind and disapprove. It fell off the edge of the table, landing with a dull thud on the stone floor.

  Chapter Forty

  Frank dismounted from the bike, stretched his arms and his back, and tried a few tentative steps. Not great. Ignoring previous advice he swallowed a couple of the smaller pills. Doctors were always over-cautious. From up here he could see his own car, parked in front of the small cottage, but he resisted temptation. There weren’t any lights on in the house yet. Some of the curtains were closed. He was pretty sure Berisovic and the girl were inside. Where else could they reasonably be? Not that reasonableness had played much of a part in what had been going on so far. This reunion was going to be tricky, especially in the opening minutes.

  How would they feel about seeing him again? Hostile? Repentant? The problem was still the same. He didn’t know exactly what had prompted Berisovic to shoot him in the first place, so he had no sure way of knowing what approach to take now. He was hungry. He’d been foolish not to have eaten.

  Movement on the slope behind the house caught his eye. Berisovic? The shape and height were right. What was he doing out in plain sight? Inviting disaster. Had something major happened, something that had changed the whole game? Was the Countess with them? And the man de Bono or Bedlay, had something bad happened to him? He did hope so.

  He watched Berisovic do nothing for a long time. A man in a cloth cap with a black and white collie dog exited one of the nearer houses, and walked slowly down his gravel track. Berisovic stood up, as if he’d s
een the old man too. At any rate he began to make his way back to the garden and into the house.

  Frank waited until the elderly gent came back along the road and began climbing his own track, then he free-wheeled slowly down. He wasn’t, he realised, feeling his usual chirpy self. Shock, pain and blood loss and the side effects of good painkillers – it was always the same. Well, too bad, he told himself. If you want it over and done with, you have to do it. If you want extra money, you have to take risks. If you want to be back in your own armchair with the door locked and Brenda and the kids upstairs asleep, curtains drawn against the big bad world, you have to fight for it. At least this time he would be prepared to dodge the bullet.

  Chapter Forty-One

  Dina salvaged enough eggs to scramble, and had just put a plate of toast on the table when the front door bell rang again. She sighed.

  ‘That might be Mrs McKinnon, she’s the next up the hill.’

  This time Feliks went into the sitting room and drew two inches of the curtain aside. His heart sank. He considered the man standing on the path. He went through to the tiny hallway, unbolted the door, and opened it a fraction.

  ‘Where’s Miss MacLeod? Is she here?’ the man said.

  ‘How did you find us?’

  ‘I’ll tell you, but not on the doorstep.’

  Feliks began to shut the door, but Frank lodged his foot in the space. ‘Please. I need your help.’

  ‘It is her house. She will decide.’

  ‘All right.’

  At once Frank withdrew his foot, to Feliks’s surprise. He’d only said that about the house because he didn’t know what else to say.

  ‘Let him in.’ Dina was right there in the hall behind him. ‘Let him come in. We may as well hear what he has to say. We don’t need to believe it.’