The Inn at the Edge of the World Read online

  A traveller at an adjacent table was puzzled by this exchange. She had watched Harry and Jessica get on the train separately, and they hadn’t said a word to each other until now. Yet they obviously knew each other well. She had been wondering why Jessica looked so familiar, but gave up racking her memory in order to speculate on their relationship. Father and daughter? Husband and second wife? No, she didn’t think they were married. They were smiling at each other too openly. She concluded, not being a person of great imagination or depth of perception, that Harry was the managing director of an international company, and Jessica was his personal assistant. They were probably travelling to a conference to be held at Gleneagles over the Christmas period.

  ‘Aah,’ said Jessica. ‘Tears are rising unbidden to her eyes and she’s burying her head in the sofa cushions that they might flow unseen. What a creep.’

  ‘Would you like to read the Spectator?’ offered Harry.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Jessica. ‘Would you like a Polo mint?’

  At this evidence of a new friendship being formed the fellow traveller grew confused again. She made up her mind that the managing director had only just engaged his personal assistant and they were feeling their way as they got to know each other even better.

  After a while they went together to the bar and when they returned the fellow traveller was completely thrown, for they had discovered that they were both going to the island and their relationship had changed. Jessica was always excited and animated by coincidence and Harry was surprised and quietly gratified to have found an undemanding and congenial companion. He had intended to spend his island time alone as far as that was possible, lost in thought in streaming coves and rocky embrasures, and if there were other guests he had expected that he would find himself under the necessity of avoiding them. He had not thought that he might make a friend.

  *

  Anita had sworn not to give a single thought to work for a whole week. She stared out of the window at the unprepossessing scenery and wondered what her fellow guests would be like. It had not occurred to her, as it had to Harry, that there might not be any. A passing conifer plantation reminded her again of her department. She hoped the under-section manager was coping well, but not too well; she didn’t like to feel she wouldn’t be missed. She was picturing the shelves of executive toys and wondering how they were selling when she remembered she wasn’t going to think about work, and stared resolutely at a field and some sheep. She worried a little that they might be feeling cold and hoped she had brought enough woollies to keep herself warm. It was probably always warm in Taiwan where the buyer had spent a week earlier in the year, purchasing a large consignment of Christmas tree fairies with slanting eyes. The buyer had justified her choice with rather too much conviction and Anita was certain that she had bought them after lunch when her judgement was impaired. Anita couldn’t really see why she should have fairies in her department anyway: paper plates, cups and serviettes perhaps, even jigsaw puzzles didn’t seem too out of place, but baubles and fairies could surely have been displayed elsewhere, and she couldn’t see any justification at all for having a rack of Santa Claus suits situated to the left of the Advent calendars. It was hard being titular head of a department and yet at the mercy of another’s whims.

  Rain began falling on the already damp countryside, and she asked herself why she hadn’t taken a package trip to Florida. The reason was that she had thought it more chic to go to a small hotel at the edge of the world. Exotic foreign travel was becoming curiously vulgar: everyone was doing it either for pleasure or business. It was more elegant to be travelling to a small island; the cold and the wet an added distinction, for it must be evident to everybody that if people were prepared to put up with these conditions the experience must be richly, if subtly, rewarding. It was far more tasteful, thought Anita with uncharacteristic defiance. So there.

  ‘They’ll drown,’ said Mabel happily. ‘They’ll all be sick as dogs and perishing cold and then that rotten old boat will sink and they’ll all drown. Still, you’ll have their deposits.’

  Eric took no notice of her, not mentioning that he had not demanded deposits since that would draw upon him her awful scorn. He had decided one evening that it would make an interesting start to the holidays for his guests to sail over, not on the MacBrayne ferry, but in Finlay’s boat. Finlay, not surprisingly, since Eric paid him well for these services, had agreed with him.

  ‘It’s a rusty old tub and they’ll get their clothes filthy,’ Mabel went on, ‘and it doesn’t half rock – even when the sea’s as flat as a mill pond.’

  ‘You’ve been across in it when you couldn’t get on the ferry,’ said Eric.

  ‘That’s how I know what it’s like,’ said Mabel, ‘only I’m not fussy.’

  Eric didn’t say anything to this because he couldn’t think of anything.

  ‘It’s not seaworthy,’ said Mabel. ‘Not really.’

  ‘Yes, it is,’ said Eric.

  ‘’Tisn’t,’ said Mabel.

  Finlay seemed unconcerned by this clash of opinion: he was dressed in sou’wester and sea-boots, and Eric was almost certain he had dressed the part deliberately. He was glad someone was entering into the spirit of the thing. ‘Radio working now?’ he asked. There had been some flaw in this useful piece of equipment.

  ‘Aye,’ said Finlay.

  ‘That’s lucky,’ said Mabel.

  ‘Have you got the flares?’ asked Eric.

  ‘Aye,’ said Finlay.

  ‘And you’d better take a couple of duffel coats from here in case anyone’s cold,’ said Eric, who was beginning to wonder whether there might not be something in what his wife was saying. It was a grey day with a hint of mist.

  ‘Aye,’ said Finlay.

  ‘And you’d better get going,’ said Eric, adding hastily in order to prevent Finlay from saying ‘Aye’ again, for it was getting on his nerves, ‘You don’t want to keep them waiting on the quay.’

  When Finlay had gone Eric went to take a final look at the rooms which he and Finlay’s sister-in-law had prepared. The previous owner had had a regrettable passion for stripes. The wallpaper, curtains and counterpanes had all been resolutely striped and several chairs had had tartan-covered cushions on them. Eric had removed all these in his first enthusiasm and replaced them with a pale and restrained chintz he had got cheap when a shop in Glasgow, which had been too pale and restrained for its own good, went out of business. On the floors were Indian rag rugs which he had bought from a market-stall, and, as a little joke, he had hung some pictures of Highland Kim and the Stag at Bay on the walls. He’d got them from another market-stall late in the afternoon when the stallholder was thinking only of getting home, out of the puddles. They had been a bargain even though no one else had wanted them. Mabel hadn’t seen the joke. She’d said ‘Honestly’ and laughed for the wrong reason. Now she was walking behind him, getting in the way whenever he turned and irritating him by humming a song about a small hotel and a wishing-well.

  ‘Can’t you find something to do?’

  ‘What?’ inquired Mabel. ‘What is there to do here?’ She was developing one of her worst moods, and Eric wondered fretfully how she was going to behave when the guests arrived. She could be indescribably offensive when she put her mind to it.

  ‘If you’re going to be like that,’ he said, ‘I don’t know why you don’t go and stay with your mates in Glasgow.’

  She had met her mates from Glasgow when they were taking their summer break on the island and driven Eric nearly out of his mind by giving them free drinks when he wasn’t looking, and often when he was. He had heard that they lived in some style on the dole, pursuing an idle and carefree way of life and playing borrowed musical instruments for their own satisfaction.

  ‘I might,’ she said. ‘I might just do that.’

  Eric was painfully torn. He could hardly bear to imagine what she got up to when she was away from him, but he dreaded the prospect of what she might do if she st
ayed. Perhaps, he thought, if she did something really outrageous and really ruined his business, he could finally stop loving her. In the end that would be best.

  ‘You’ve left it a bit late,’ he said. ‘There’ll be no more ferries running after today. How’ll you get there?’

  ‘Oh,’ said Mabel. ‘Oho, I’ll get there. You just watch me.’

  ‘Walk, will you?’ said Eric. ‘Swim?’

  She was moving away from him towards the stairs, and as he spoke she stopped, turned and slapped him on the ear. She’d never done that before. Eric was stunned and then angry. He slapped her back. He’d never done that before.

  ‘Right,’ said Mabel before she grew incoherent. ‘That does it. That’s the third time. I told you before, you touch me once more . . .’ Then she grew incoherent.

  Finlay’s sister-in-law, down in the kitchen, heard the screaming and shook her head over the loin chops she was defrosting under the tap.

  Eric wanted to say ‘. . . you started it . . .’ but he didn’t get the chance. His wife was beside herself.

  The four who had been on the train stood on the quayside amid the wasteland while a few gulls swooped, grieving, over their heads.

  ‘Oh crikey,’ said Jessica. They had been carried here from Glasgow Central on another, smaller train and thus been spared the peculiarly unpleasant aspects of the town which lay behind the docks, to all appearances deserted and as derelict as a collection of concrete bunkers can be. It was similar to the less salubrious parts of Calais although not as large, and the dock area itself offered nothing to ease the eye. There wasn’t a ship in sight.

  ‘No rigging,’ said Jessica, disconsolately.

  Since the four of them had gathered on the spot where Eric’s letter had directed them, to the right of the place assigned to the roll-on-roll-off ferry, she spoke again. ‘Are we all going to the edge of the world?’ she asked.

  ‘Well yes,’ and ‘Yes,’ said Ronald and Anita.

  ‘I think we got there,’ said Jessica since she couldn’t see the horizon which had disappeared under the mist. ‘Where, I ask myself, is the much-vaunted local boatman?’

  ‘He’ll be along,’ said Harry, who had never panicked.

  ‘What if he doesn’t?’ said Jessica. ‘What if he doesn’t come at all? What if the craft has foundered and he’s gone down to Davy Jones’s locker? Oh crikey.’

  ‘Then we’ll take a cab back to Glasgow and put up there for the night,’ said Harry. ‘But he’ll be here. Wait and see.’

  Anita was grateful for Jessica’s show of nerves. The circumstances called for something like that, and Jessica had saved her the necessity of doing it herself and going too far. Jessica, she considered, had done it well: she had voiced the misgivings of all of them and expressed their doubts succinctly and clearly. Now it was out in the open.

  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.