Star Gazing Read online

‘Why d’you ask?’

  ‘Well, you’ve given me a tour of your home without telling me anything about it. Nothing about the pictures, the books, the mementos. You’ve shown me the skeleton. I wondered what the flesh and blood man was like.’

  ‘What d’you want to know?’

  ‘Tell me about your books. What’s the oldest one you own?’

  Without hesitating, Keir replies, ‘The Observer Book of Birds. Given me by my granny for my seventh birthday ’

  ‘Your newest book?’ ‘Well, now.’ He exhales. ‘The newest would be… aye, The Revenge of Gaia. James Lovelock.’

  ‘Science fiction?’

  ‘Sadly, no. It’s about global warming. A horror story. Now are you having another whisky or no? I’m quite happy to drink alone.’

  ‘What’s your favourite book? If you were about to be thrown into a prison cell – solitary confinement, say – what would you grab?’

  ‘Och, this is fun… Walden. Henry David Thoreau. Or – no, perhaps a volume of poetry.’

  ‘By?’

  ‘Norman MacCaig.’

  ‘Which one?’

  He exhales. ‘Can I phone a friend?’

  ‘Which one, Keir?’

  ‘The Collected Poems. That would get me through a long stretch.’

  ‘Thank you! Now I know something about you.’

  ‘That you didn’t before?’

  ‘Before, I only knew what you chose to tell me. My picture of you is more complete now. What was the picture you took down, by the way?’

  ‘My family. An old photo of us visiting this house. In the 70s.’

  ‘So you’re how old?’

  ‘Eleven or twelve, I suppose.’

  ‘Who else is in the photo?’

  ‘My granny. My parents. My brother and sister. And my dog.’

  ‘Your parents who came here from Harris and died happy in their beds?’

  ‘Aye. You’ve a good memory.’

  ‘You made quite an impression.’

  ‘Did I?’

  Ignoring the query, she says, ‘But this wasn’t your home, surely? It’s too small.’

  ‘It was my grandparents’. We often came to visit. My mother was from Skye originally. She married a Harris man – a schoolteacher – but she always wanted to come back.’

  ‘So you’ve been very happy here, I should imagine. For a long time, man and boy?’

  ‘Aye. My grandparents gave the house to my mother who wanted to sell it as a building plot. But I wanted to keep the house as it was, so I bought it from my parents.’

  ‘Is it the house or the land that means so much to you?’

  ‘The land.’

  ‘What are you doing with it?’

  ‘I’ll tell you tomorrow when I show you round. Let’s go and eat. D’you fancy an omelette?’

  ‘Fine. But there’s no hurry. I’m not starving.’

  ‘Are you coming down for that whisky?’

  ‘In a minute. I just want to unpack a few things. Take my glass and go on down and I’ll see if I can find my way around on my own.’

  ‘Supper in half an hour, then?’

  ‘Sounds good to me.’

  Marianne hears his feet descending the wooden stairs; an aimless, cheerful whistle; the chink of bottleneck on glass. She unpacks her underwear into the empty drawer, hangs her dressing gown on the cup-hook and stows her wet shoes neatly under the bed. Having deposited her toiletries bag on the end of the bed, she paces the room a couple of times, counting, and decides the safest way to locate the stairs is to count from the window, walking in a straight line to the top of the staircase.

  She extracts a heavy object from her case: a bottle swathed in tissue. Cradling it in one arm she reaches out, searching for the window. She turns about-face and counts five paces to the head of the stairs and feels for the rail. Descending carefully, counting all the while, she finds herself on level ground and breathes more easily.

  ‘Keir? Are you in the kitchen?’

  ‘Sitting room. I’m behind the stair. Wait! Stay there till I’ve moved my boots. I left them lying in the middle of the floor.’

  She extends her arm in the direction of his voice. ‘A contribution to the store cupboard.’

  He takes the bottle from her hand and unwraps it. ‘Champagne?’

  ‘Yes. Wildly inappropriate, I know, but I’m rather limited in what I can choose as gifts for people. I thought you might find something to celebrate. The arrival of some migrating bird, perhaps?’

  ‘Or the departure of the midges. Och no, we must drink this before you go.’

  ‘Well, that was the general idea. You never know – cocoa might begin to pall after a while. I’m off in search of the kitchen. I’ll leave you to get on.’

  As she turns away, Keir shouts, ‘Mind the stair!’, grabs her arm and pulls her to one side. Marianne loses her footing but he keeps her upright with an arm round her waist and a firm grip under her forearm. ‘You were going to walk head-on into the staircase. You’re underneath it and you’d have cracked your head. Sorry if I startled you.’

  ‘No… I’m all right. Thanks.’ Righting herself, she lays a hand against his chest and, with a small shock, encounters crisp, curling hair, then bare skin. Pulling away quickly, she stutters, ‘Sorry – were you…? Oh, God, Keir – you aren’t naked, are you?’

  Laughing, he replies, ‘No, but I was getting changed.’

  ‘Oh. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to barge in. I should have knocked.’

  ‘There’s no door.’

  Still flustered, she says, ‘We’re going to need some sort of system, aren’t we? There’s no door upstairs either.’

  ‘I’ve already thought of that. Come to the foot of the stair.’ He takes her elbow and leads her a few paces. ‘Have you got your bearings?’

  ‘I think so.’ She points. ‘Front door… Kitchen… Sitting room?’

  ‘Aye, that’s right. Over here, just before you go into the kitchen, I’ve hung a wind chime.’ A random but not unpleasant series of notes sounds above Marianne’s head. As they die away Keir resumes, ‘We’ll use it like a doorbell. I’ll jangle it if I’m coming up and you can do the same if you want to let me know you’re around. But obviously privacy is less of an issue for me.’

  ‘Because you’re a man, you mean?’

  ‘No, because you’re blind. I can see where you are. What you’re doing.’

  ‘Oh. Yes, of course… You should go and get dressed. It’s chilly away from the stove. Thanks for the wind chime. A brilliant idea. I shall enjoy using it.’

  ‘It will also let you know when I’m coming in and out of the house. As soon as the front door opens it will ring and let you know.’

  ‘But in a much gentler way than a doorbell.’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘Really, there is no end to your thoughtfulness. Thank you.’

  ‘It’s not just for your benefit. Sudden loud noises seem intrusive here. I don’t like them. And they startle the birds. I try to keep things natural – or at least musical.’

  ‘No opera, then?’

  ‘Only on the iPod and in the car. No electricity here. I’ve got a battery-operated radio if you crave music or news.’

  ‘No, I’m very happy lost in the Brigadoon time-warp, thanks. The kitchen’s just here, isn’t it?’

  ‘Aye, straight ahead. Marianne…’ He touches her elbow.

  ‘I’m sorry if I alarmed you. When I caught hold of you. But it would have been an almighty crack on the head.’

  ‘Oh, take no notice of me – I was just a bit thrown, that’s all. And feeling vulnerable, I suppose. Men try some funny things on once they know you’re blind.’

  ‘You’re kidding me?’

  ‘No, unfortunately.’

  ‘Bastards!’

  ‘Oh, I’ve had some unpleasant experiences in my time. But, don’t worry – that wasn’t one of them.’

  * * * * *

  Marianne

  On the contrary. But I with
drew in confusion, like something out of Jane Austen.

  I suppose I might have handled it better if it hadn’t been so long since I’d handled a man. It’s at times like these that I miss having working eyes, eyes which I gather can signal your feelings, eyes that can invite, repel, permit, forbid, regardless of the words one is obliged to utter for form’s sake. How, without expressive eyes, could I have kept a door open, signalled to Keir that he could perhaps enter if he wished?

  By touching him again. Which is what I wanted to do, but didn’t. When the wind chime jangled I wanted to fling my arms round his neck. If he’d been fully clothed, perhaps I would have. But instead I said ‘Thanks’ and kept my hands to myself, because I didn’t know what holding him would have meant – to him or me – other than that I just wanted to hold him. And life isn’t that simple. Not mine, anyway.

  (So much for treating people as if we all have a year to live. What a load of sentimental codswallop I talk.)

  I felt my way back upstairs, counting, and sat on the bed. Below me I could hear Keir moving around, unzipping pockets in his rucksack (or, imagination working overtime now, was it his jeans?) and putting things away in drawers and cupboards. The clank of the stove door, followed by a dull thud and a whiff of wood smoke told me he’d thrown another log on the fire.

  I felt for the toilet bag I’d left on the bed and took out my hairbrush. I brushed my hair vigorously, showing no mercy to tangles, until my hair crackled with static. I vented my irritation with myself and my blindness, with the game I wanted to play but couldn’t, because I hadn’t been dealt a full hand.

  When my hair was smooth and hung straight and heavy to my shoulders, I pushed it behind my ears and gathered it up into a ponytail, reaching into the bag for a band to secure it. No-nonsense hair for my no-nonsense life.

  Penance observed, I sat composed on the edge of the bed, hands folded demurely in my lap, mentally undressing Keir. I comforted myself with the thought that, although difficulties and confusion might arise with the two of us confined in such a small space, my thoughts at least were my own.

  Which, given the direction they were running in, was just as well.

  Chapter Seven

  After supper Keir writes a letter of condolence to Mac’s mother while Marianne – at her insistence – makes up her bed above the sitting room. She retires early, exhausted with the effort of negotiating and memorising new territory. Lying in bed she hears Keir wash up and get ready for bed; the stove door opening and shutting; the slither of a sleeping bag as he shakes it out; the creak of the sofa as it takes his weight.

  Marianne lies on her back trying to catch sounds from beyond the interior of the house. The wind has dropped now and at first she thinks there is silence outdoors, a silence so absolute as to be almost palpable. Then beyond the hiss of the stove and the grumble of falling logs she hears a chuckling noise, a musical gurgle which she realises is the burn running along beside the house, tumbling over rocks and stones as it hurtles down to the sea. The sound is both constant and constantly changing. Marianne lies in bed, enthralled. She longs to share her excitement with the man who had the vision to bring her here, but suspects he’s already asleep.

  Re-tuning her ears to the room below, she identifies the rustle of pages turning. Too noisy for a book. A magazine, presumably. She wonders what sort of magazine. A professional journal? The latest developments in exploration geophysics? Or a wildlife magazine? That seemed more likely. Keir appeared to compartmentalise his highly organised life and Marianne thought his life as an oil man would not be allowed to impinge on his alternative life here on Skye. Domestic schizophrenia was something her marriage had had to accommodate and she understood the necessity of inhabiting only one world at a time.

  Keir clears his throat softly and turns a page.

  ‘Keir? Are you awake?’

  ‘Aye. What’s the matter?’

  ‘Nothing. I just wondered what you were reading?’

  ‘The RSPB magazine.’

  ‘Thought so.’

  ‘Let me guess now – that would be the way I whistle as I turn the pages?’

  ‘If it had been Playboy, you’d have been turning them more quickly. Less text. What are we doing tomorrow?’

  ‘That depends how wet you’re prepared to get.’

  ‘I like rain. If I’m out, I prefer rain to sunshine.’

  ‘Well, you’ve come to the right place. I’ll give you the tour in the morning, then I thought we’d take a picnic and maybe have lunch in the tree-house.’

  ‘Tree-house?’ She sits up.

  As he hears the rustle of the duvet, Keir calls out, ‘Mind your head!’

  ‘Is there really a tree-house?’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘Did you build it?’

  ‘My grandfather built the original. I’ve modified it.’

  ‘A tree-house!’ She laughs.

  ‘Don’t mock.’

  ‘I’m not mocking, I’m delighted! Delighted at the thought of my tree-man living in a tree-house.’

  ‘Have you ever been in one?’

  ‘Now, I ask you – is it likely? Of course I haven’t! How do you get up there?’

  ‘A rope ladder.’

  ‘Oh…’ He hears a small sound, an exclamation halfswallowed, something that could be delight or disappointment, he’s not sure.

  ‘Marianne? You OK?’

  ‘Perfectly. Just having trouble containing my excitement. A tree-house… I’m going to be up in the treetops! Will I be able to get up there, do you think? A rope ladder will be tricky.’

  ‘Not if I hold it steady at the bottom.’

  ‘That means I’d have to go up first.’

  ‘We’ll get you up there if I have to give you a fireman’s lift.’

  ‘Permission granted to employ whatever undignified mode of transport deemed necessary. This is so exciting! You know, you shouldn’t have told me. You can’t possibly expect me to go to sleep now.’

  ‘And it doesn’t look as if I’m going to get any either.’

  ‘Sorry – am I keeping you from “Playmate of the Month”?’

  ‘No. Booming bitterns. Get to sleep. You’ve got a strenuous day tomorrow. And it’s your turn to cook.’

  Marianne lies down again, curls up in her duvet and murmurs, ‘All this… and cocoa too.’ The last thing she remembers hearing is the sound of Keir chuckling. Or perhaps it was the burn.

  He is woken by a dream. Mac on the rig. The moment when Keir sees the accident waiting to happen. Mac laughing and shouting in a high wind, pointing, not seeing, not hearing the Samson post behind him, the badly welded steel upright as it comes adrift, sways a moment, then falls. Keir dives full length, aiming his body at Mac who flies across the platform. As the two men hit the ground, Keir wakes.

  The wood-burner has gone out but he lies in his sleeping bag sweating, his big limbs aching from the confinement of the train, the Land Rover, the sofa. He arches his back and stretches his legs. Putting a hand to his stitches, he remembers hitting the ground and splitting his forehead, lying face down, staring at a patch of blood-coloured rust on the deck, watching his blood pool beside it, then hearing Mac fall, but not being able to move, finally not being able to see…

  In the end it had been a glancing blow, but still fatal. Keir’s dive made sure Mac wasn’t killed outright, but that was all. His heroics simply prolonged the agony for the family. Annie had a week to sit by her unconscious husband, planning how to break it to the bairns; a week in which hope must have ebbed away like Mac’s life, leaving a vacuum that would never be filled except with grief and rage.

  Keir recalls Marianne sleeping above him. He listens for her breathing. Nothing. Then the sound of her turning over, the groan of a board above his head. He sits up and looks out the window at the night sky. No stars. A moon almost obscured by cloud. He shivers and rubs bare arms. It’s cold, very cold. Snow tomorrow, probably.

  Marianne stirs again and murmurs, a sound that catches Keir
by surprise, a sound that reminds him of women he’s slept beside; women awake who murmured as they lay beneath him. He smiles briefly in the dark, then shrugs back down into his sleeping bag.

  ‘Keir?’

  It’s only a whisper and he’s not convinced she’s really awake until she repeats his name, no louder. ‘Keir?’

  ‘Aye?’

  ‘You can put the light on if you want to read – it won’t bother me.’

  ‘No, I’ve been looking out the window. And now I’m just lying here, thinking.’

  ‘About Mac?’

  He hesitates, then says, ‘Aye.’

  ‘Do you want to talk about it?’

  He thinks perhaps he would like to talk about it, thinks what a relief it might be, just to stare into the darkness and unburden himself, vent his anger, say what he saw, what he sees, to a faceless, understanding female. Instead he says, ‘I’d rather talk about the stars.’

  ‘Oh, yes, please do! What time is it anyway?’

  He reaches for his watch. ‘About one.’

  ‘Oh dear. I didn’t realise it was the middle of the night. What can you see? Are the stars twinkling? You said there are no curtains. Is the room full of moonlight? What is moonlight like? People do go on about it.’

  ‘Moonlight? It’s eerie. Like cold, still water… You know when there’s a mist in Edinburgh and the air is full of vapour? You feel like you’re breathing water. The air’s clammy and it seeps into your clothes, into your bones. That’s a bit like moonlight. Cold. And mysterious… It can look very beautiful. Or sinister.’

  ‘Tell me about the stars.’

  ‘Are you cold up there? The stove’s out now. It’s always a bit temperamental on the first night. Wait and I’ll light it again.’ He unzips his sleeping bag and kneels in front of the wood-burner, feeling on the hearth for a box of matches and a candle. He lights it, opens the stove door, then rakes over the ashes and a few glowing embers. He pushes in screws of paper, some kindling, then as the wood catches light, a log.

  ‘Mmm, wonderful smells!’ Marianne calls down from upstairs. ‘A candle? I can smell beeswax. You haven’t lit the lamp?’

  ‘No. Too much bother. And too bright. You need darkness to see stars,’ he says, blowing out the candle. ‘I used to hate the summer when I was a kid. Being eaten alive by midges and it never getting dark… You don’t see stars unless it’s dark and I used to miss them. Can you hear me?’