Beyond the Sea (2 page)

THE FERRY PLOUGHED
across the Firth of Lorn, churning the still, grey waters beneath it. Waves crashed against the broad hull of the boat before sliding down, mingling with the foam and once more disappearing into the depths. Freya, standing upon the deck, head bent in concentration, had been watching this violent collision, this unceasing ebb and flow, for some time. The movement of the water was compelling, the hard smack then the retreat was like a lithe, endless dance. And the sound of the waves, harsh yet hypnotic, was so familiar to her despite her absence. She breathed in deeply and, sensing a shift in the air, looked up.

A storm was on its way. The signs of its approach were in the increasingly darkening sky, a flinty hardness massing around its edges and the hint of electricity in the air. But it was still some way off. Freya looked at her watch. It was only three o'clock but it looked much later. It also felt much more like winter than spring. But that was just it. The weather could change in these parts in an instant. Rain could be followed immediately by sunshine, sunshine by snow. You never knew what was coming.

Freya blinked hard and, to distract herself, surveyed the land. To her left, she could make out Duart Point, and before long she would be able to see the castle. Perched on a rocky outcrop, it guarded the entrance to the Sound of Mull. Behind it the hills rose steeply. Now they were green and brown, the result of a long, cold winter, but by the autumn they would be burnished rust, red and rose with the setting sun upon them. Dazzling in their beauty. She remembered the last time she had visited there. It had been with her son, Sam, just over a year and a half ago. She couldn't take her eyes off the colours of the hills, but she knew without turning that he was staring out over the Firth, a dreamy look in his eye, far more interested in the sea and the wreck off the coast.

‘What was the name of that ship?' she asked.

‘The
Swan
, Mum,' he said, the slightest hint of impatience in his tone.

She smiled. ‘And when did it sink?'

‘During a storm. On the thirteenth of September, 1653.' He was now, she knew, doing calculations in his head. Her heart constricted slightly. ‘Three hundred and sixty years ago.'

‘Hmm,' she said. ‘Almost to the day. And when was it built?'

‘In 1641. It was a small warship, remember?'

She nodded, still looking northwards. ‘And who had sent it?'

‘Oliver Cromwell. To crush Royalist sympathies in the Highlands.'

Now she laughed. He sounded as if he were reciting from a history textbook. Who knew whether he really understood what it meant.

‘What's funny, Freya?' He only ever called her Freya when he thought he was being patronised, mocked or derided in some slight, sly way he couldn't quite understand.

‘Nothing, darling. That's very good.' But still she hadn't turned to face him. Why hadn't she? ‘And what did they find when they excavated the wreck?'

‘Silver coins, an anchor, flagons, seven iron cannons, a pocket watch, clay pipes, a sword hilt, leather shoes and human remains.'

She smiled at the way he pronounced ‘human remains'. With the unique combination of diffidence and fear that perhaps only a nine-year-old could muster.

‘They only found the bones of one man, though.'

‘And what did they name him?'

‘Seaman Swan. He was only five feet tall but he had a really big chest like King Kong. His legs were bendy. From rickets.'

‘That's right,' said Freya, nodding. She had heard all of this before. But Sam found it endlessly fascinating.

‘I wonder what happened to all the other men,' he said pensively. ‘And the cannons. Granddad said that the
Swan
had twelve to start off with.' Her father-in-law, another shipwreck enthusiast, had taken Sam to the National Museum in Edinburgh to see the excavation finds.

‘Well, perhaps it did.'

‘But if it did, then what happened to the others?'

‘Maybe people took them.'

Sam contemplated this for a moment, as he always did, before dismissing it.

‘Or they disintegrated in the water.'

This met with a more favourable response, she could tell. Even though it still wasn't quite right.

‘What do you think happened?'

‘The sea took them.'

Freya nodded. It was the most likely. That the sea had claimed them, as it seemed to claim most things in its path; taken them away to the Land under Waves.

The sound of metal grinding against metal then, as the anchor dropped, a whirring free fall before a hard smack against the surface of the water. Freya sat inside her car, waiting to leave, the clangour of iron ringing in her ears, imagining the anchor sinking into the silent, cold darkness. She had put on a hat and dark glasses, as she did not want to be recognised. She did not want to see it just yet, in the eyes of anyone she knew, how much she had changed, how very different she now looked. She did not want the sympathy or the attention of people just yet, did not want to hear their condolences for the loss of her husband and child. The horn sounded and the large iron doors began to slide apart. She turned on the ignition and waited, impatient, to exit.

FREYA HAD ALREADY
passed the low hills to the north of Loch Spelve when the thunder sounded. Like a whip crack, sharp and swift. Before too long the lightning would break. If the storm was still in full spate when she reached the western side of Mull it would be reckless to take the boat. Her father had warned her to leave in good time, to use the daylight to make the journey and not to finish it if the weather was bad. She had given the impression of listening but, in truth, like so often now, the words fell around her unheeded. She didn't really care. Besides, with any luck, the storm would have passed by the time she got to Fionnphort.

It was at the left bend in the road, following the sharp turn of the Lussa River, that the rain began. Fat drops fell heavily from the blackening sky, spattering onto the windscreen. She slowed down and looked out over Glen More. With the downpour, its desolation was complete. She looked across the barren landscape, the undulating scrub that even the sheep now seemed to have abandoned. She knew her father hoped that encountering such isolation once again would push her to turn around. He had said as much. That this place would make her long for home. But as Freya looked at the dark clouds scudding low over the Glen, glancing over the surface of the three lochs, obscuring the mountains beyond, she felt something else entirely. Comfort in the solitude; solace in the emptiness and singular beauty around her. There was much more of home about this place. And she had missed it. As she followed the turns and bends in the road, she thought that perhaps this might have been the right decision after all.

The road appeared on her right, illuminated in the first crack of lightning. For a moment, Freya considered taking the turning and visiting Torin, her old friend, waiting out the storm with him and only then setting off. As she deliberated, the turning came and went, the rain-spattered tarmac disappearing untaken. No. She wasn't ready to see him yet. She needed a little time to settle herself and then she would make the journey.

Freya tried to focus on the road, clinging to the southern shore of Loch Scridain, partly veiled by the deluge of rain and low cloud. On a clear day, she knew that the loch was a brilliant blue. But today its waters were dull, slate grey. Another lightning bolt fractured the sullen sky. It's Thor and he's angry, Jack would always say if they were caught driving in a thunderstorm. He's wielding his hammer, isn't he, Sam? But Sam, staring out of the window into the raging darkness would never answer. He was always deep in thought, his lips partly open, his mind thinking perhaps about gods and strength and power.

As the road began to forge inland, the strength suddenly went out of the rain. The pinnacle of the storm was past, she knew, and it was waning. Thor's anger was abating.

Freya sat silently for a moment, behind the wheel of the car, looking down towards the harbour. The sky was brightening and the sea looked still, waves lapping softly against the sides of the moored vessels. Her eyes moved over them one by one and she doubted for a second if she would recognise her own boat. But it didn't take her long to pick it out – old, blue and white, battered by wind, rain and saltwater. The
Valkyrie
. It sat perky and oblivious, bobbing upon the water, its paintwork flaking a little, lifebuoys roped onto its sides. Freya stared at the wooden boat, at its mast with the incurable bend three-quarters of the way up and then shook her head, incredulously. It looked flimsy, like a toy. Not a craft sturdy enough to navigate these sometimes-treacherous waters. Beside it was a space normally occupied by her husband's boat,
Noor
. But it was, of course, absent. It was a small gap, no doubt about it, between her boat and the next one along, but it seemed to her in that moment incomprehensibly large. She closed her eyes, suddenly dizzy, and a strange sound burst from her throat, unbidden. The grief erupted unexpectedly, swiftly, stripping her of breath. As if she too were drowning. She felt lightheaded, about to pass out, and then moments later the opposite – weighty, sinking, her stomach sick and churning. It was often this way. But she had grown used to the feelings now and she knew what to do. She opened her eyes, breathed deeply, and waited for them to pass.

A knock on the driver's window startled her. She turned to see a man's face on the other side of the glass, staring at her. His eyes were soft, a pale grey, and he wore a striped black-and-white woollen hat pulled down low over his forehead. His face was lined from years of being exposed to the elements at sea – wind, rain, hail and sun, making him look older than his forty years. Yet it was still handsome: a Roman nose, defined cheekbones, a strong jawline, thick lips with laughter lines etched into their corners. But he wasn't smiling now. For a few moments Freya simply stared at him. Then slowly, she wound down the window.

‘Hello, Callum.'

The man nodded. ‘Freya.'

Then neither of them spoke; they simply looked at each other. Freya wasn't sure she trusted herself to say anything more. Her voice had sounded flat, empty. As if the life had been sucked out of it. But then she supposed that wasn't surprising. She tried to distract herself, to think of something to say to Callum, a man she had known for more than fifteen years, but couldn't. The mere act of thinking exhausted her.

Callum looked out to sea and studied it for a while before turning back to meet Freya's eye. ‘So you're going to take the boat out?'

She blinked. ‘Yes.'

‘There was a big sea running not long ago, but it's settling now. You should be fine.'

Freya nodded. Callum knew what he was talking about. For years he had been a fisherman before he began running boat trips to Staffa, the Treshnish Isles and beyond. He knew as much about the rocks that lay beneath the surface of the water in these parts as he did about the ones above it. She remembered that he had taken Sam fishing and lobster potting the last time they were here, and the thought made her smile.

‘You changed your hair colour.' Callum's words sounded bizarre, unconnected with any kind of reality. Slowly the smile vanished from her lips.

‘What?'

‘Your hair.' And he gestured somewhat awkwardly towards his woollen hat.

‘Oh, right,' said Freya, recollection dawning. She had forgotten that she had taken off her hat in the car and cursed herself now for not thinking about it. ‘I didn't exactly change it,' she muttered. ‘It changed itself. The shock, they say.' Her words petered out and she looked to the horizon to avoid looking at Callum. But she could still feel his eyes upon her. Was he taking in the white hair on her head, comparing it to the lustrous black it had been the last time he had seen her? She turned back to face him, suddenly filled with anger and defiance. But there was nothing but kindness in his eyes.

‘I was very sorry to hear the news. Very sorry indeed.'

The rage went out of her as quickly as it had come. She nodded, looking away, again not trusting herself to speak.

‘Will you be all right to take the boat?'

‘Yes, of course.'

‘Will you be all right to take it?' he said again.

‘What do you mean?' she said turning to face him. Freya was an accomplished sailor, so she didn't understand what he was driving at. But as her eyes met his again, she took a deep breath and paused. ‘Yes, I'll be all right.'

‘Are you sure?'

‘I'm sure.' Then, as if to reassure him, ‘I promise I won't do anything reckless.'

Finally, he nodded, as if satisfied with her answer. ‘Give it half an hour before you set off.' He looked at her one last time then raised his hand in parting and strode away.

Freya wound up the window and sat very still for a few moments. By the time she had unloaded the car, packed the boat, checked the engine and fuel and set off, thirty minutes would have passed. She thought of Callum, his unsmiling face, his dour concern. She would be careful for him. Luckily she too knew what lay beneath these waters. Almost as well as he did. She could sail to the island in the dark, in a storm – blindfolded, perhaps. It would pose only a slightly bigger threat to her safety. But she had promised him she would not be reckless. Her father too.

It wouldn't be long now before the sun disappeared below the horizon. Freya imagined journeying through the dark, the blackness of the sea closing in around her, until suddenly she would see it, the beacon flashing, drawing the boat homewards, guiding her. Finally, she was going home.