North Star (29 page)

‘So I was a hero to you, eh?’

‘At first.’

‘And you left your mother, turned your back on the capitalist wealth of her new husband and set out on your wanderings.’

‘I wanted to live my own life.’

‘We all want that – when we’re young. Later it becomes more difficult.’ I thought he sighed. ‘And for you more than most. You were pulled two ways. That’s your nature, Michael. You don’t mind me calling you Michael?’

‘Most people call me Mike.’

‘Your friends and those you work with perhaps. Have you any friends?’

I stared at him angrily, thinking he probably had a liking for getting under people’s skin, the bitterness of a man forced into loneliness.

‘You’re a solitary, is that it?’ He nodded, and again that crooked smile. ‘I think I know you now. A wanderer. A boy who has never grown up to be a man. Isn’t that right? Every time you come up against the rawness of the world we have to live in you run away from it, seeking escape in drugs or …’

‘That was only a phase,’ I said quickly, annoyed that I felt the need to justify myself.

‘… or some eastern religion.’ I had never told anybody about that, only Fiona. ‘Buddhism, wasn’t it? Then playing with Communism, and running away to sea.’

‘You went to sea yourself.’ I was angry now, and that annoyed me even more, for I knew he was goading me. And the knowledge that Fiona must have been here, before she had gone to see Gertrude presumably … ‘What are you after?’ I demanded. ‘Prying into my private life, asking questions of my wife.’

‘Just trying to understand you. When you’ve never met your son before –’

‘You’ve a reason,’ I cut in hotly.

‘Perhaps. But it’s natural, isn’t it?’

And so it went on, a verbal duel between us, each trying to learn something about the other. But he was more adept at it, side-stepping direct questions and shrewdly needling me until there wasn’t much he didn’t know. Only once was I able to probe a little beyond the ruined mask of his features. He had introduced Gertrude into the conversation, not very nicely since he had implied that the only thing I had ever done that showed any promise of success was going into partnership with a woman. ‘Maybe that’s the only way you can demonstrate your manhood.’

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘You wouldn’t have gone into partnership with Ian, for instance, would you?’

‘No.’

‘Or any other man.’

‘I never had the opportunity.’

‘Feel safer with a woman, eh? Think a woman’s easier to handle. Or are you in love with her?’

‘What would you know about love?’

He was silent then and I remembered the strange letter he had written Anna Sandford. ‘Like you, I never had the opportunity – not after this.’ It was just a flat statement, no bitterness, his hand touching the scars. But he kept clear of Gertrude after that, switching to the
North Star
contract, and to Villiers. ‘You’re a loner, that’s your trouble. Now Ian’s got the contract, and deserves it. He gets around, that boy, lots of friends, and he’s a Shetlander. Oil companies, men like Villiers, they don’t think about the islanders or their livelihood, just as they never thought about the Arabs until it was too late. You’ve met Villiers, haven’t you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Admire him?’

‘Somebody else asked me that – a man called Stevens.’

‘Well, I’m asking you now.’ The name didn’t seem to have registered. ‘When a man changes his mind about the social structure he wants, he often leans so far over in the opposite direction –’

‘I haven’t changed my mind,’ I told him. ‘If anything has changed, it’s the society in which we live. Militants are less concerned with justice. They want anarchy now.’

‘Do they?’

‘You know they do.’

‘I know nothing of the sort. I think it’s you who have changed.’

‘I’m not an anarchist,’ I said. ‘I never have been.’

‘So now you’re against all progress towards a fairer, more equitable world.’

I laughed. ‘You don’t believe that any more than I do. The world’s never been fair, never will be. Men are not born equal. And if you don’t recognize that, then all I can say is that it’s you that has never grown up. You’re still a Communist, I take it?’

He hesitated. ‘Yes.’

‘A Russian-style Communist?’

‘If you like.’

‘You came here from Russia during the war.’

‘From Norway.’

‘In 1942. On board the
Duchess
.’ And I added, hoping to get something positive out of him. ‘You were an agent up in the north of Norway. A foreign agent?’ I saw his eyes narrow. ‘Whose side were you on – Russia’s or ours?’

‘Britain and Russia were allies.’

‘And that salves your conscience. But now? What side are you on now?’

He sighed. ‘Does there have to be sides? Nobody is at war. Not here.’

‘No, not in the old sense of the word,’ I said. ‘But a new style of warfare – economic war.’

‘Ah, yes, the London School of Economics. Just because your head has been stuffed with economic fallacies, you don’t have to turn your coat at the first whiff of the real thing. And even if the world is temporarily short of energy, it doesn’t mean that men like Villiers should gamble lives and risk the future of the Shetland fishery to keep themselves and their City friends afloat. Villiers, in particular. He’s stripped others’ assets so often, it would only be poetic justice if his own assets were stripped for a change. You surely don’t support men like that?’

‘Of course I don’t.’

‘Then what are you doing, coming up here, trying to resolve your doubts by digging up your father’s past, and then salvaging a trawler and pretending you’re a capitalist?’

‘Only this,’ I said. ‘I think it’s time we started picking up the pieces, instead of trying to destroy everything – before it’s too late.’ And I added. ‘You ask my reasons, but what the hell are you doing here?’

‘You forget, I’m a Shetlander. I belong here.’

But that was not the answer. ‘Stevens,’ I said. ‘A man calling himself Stevens.’ Not a muscle of his face moved, no sign of recognition, not even when I described the man to him, the hard mouth, the slight squint. But when I repeated what he had said about rehabilitation and not many surviving, I thought he winced, a muscle on the right of his jaw tightening. ‘Were you returned to Russia, after the war?’

He laughed, a conscious effort. ‘What are you, a Nationalist now? An Empire Loyalist? Patriotism in place of Communism that you speak of Russia as though it were a hostile power?’

‘I was never a Communist,’ I said. ‘In theory, yes. But not a Party member.’

‘And now? What are you now?’ He was suddenly leaning forward, his eyes fixed on my face. And when I said that perhaps that was what I had come to Shetland to find out, he smiled. ‘Seeking the answer in me, eh? In my life.’ He let his body fall back, the wings of the high chair framing his face.
‘Well, now you’ve found me and I have no answer for you.’ He sounded tired then, as though talking to me had proved too exhausting. Or was it the memory of the long years that were a locked secret in his mind? ‘You mentioned a need for picking up the pieces. I could help you there.’

‘How?’

‘I have some influence with Ian. Otherwise I wouldn’t be living here in his hotel. You and he have this in common, you both want to be owners. You know he’s got three of the larger fishing boats working for him now. Two will share the stand-by job on
North Star
, the other, which he has just arranged to charter, will ferry stores out to one of the rigs on the Dunlin field.’

‘And that doesn’t worry you, that he’s working for Villiers and the oil companies?’

A slight movement of the shoulders, almost a shrug. ‘He wants to make money. Why not? He’s only doing what everybody else is doing.’

It was on the tip of my tongue to ask if he knew
North Star
had had two of its anchor cables cut by an explosive device, but I checked myself. ‘Where’s he find the capital?’

‘Borrows it.’

‘From you? Are you providing him with funds?’

‘I never had any capital. I don’t believe in it.’

‘How long have you been here?’ His mouth was a tight line and he didn’t reply. ‘Was it a fishing vessel put you ashore, about two months ago?’

‘You ask too many questions,’ he said, and I knew by the set look on his face that he would never disclose where he had come from or what he had been doing all these years. ‘It’s your own position you have to consider, not mine. I’m told you’re out of a job. And on the run. Is that right?’ Suddenly his manner, the atmosphere between us, had subtly changed. ‘Ian had a call yesterday to say the police were making enquiries about you in Lerwick.’

‘Why should anybody telephone to tell him that?’ My throat
felt dry, the net closing again and my liberty threatened.

‘The boy’s in local politics and his friends keep him informed.’ He paused, and then he offered me the way out: ‘He needs a skipper for his new boat. He’d give you the job if I told him to. And on a supply run to the Dunlin field you’d be clear of the police.’ He left it hanging in the air and reached for his stick. ‘No need to make up your mind immediately. Sleep on it.’ He got to his feet. ‘I’m going to bed.’ He smiled, and now that I could see the other side of his face more clearly the smile sent cold shivers down my spine. ‘Be nice for an old man to have both his sons with him for a while.’

‘And if I don’t take the job?’

He looked at me, the smile gone and the blue eyes hard. ‘You will.’ He said it emphatically. ‘You’ve no alternative. And nor have I in view of some of the questions you’ve been asking. You can’t keep your mouth shut and if the police got hold of you … I can’t risk that.’ He was frowning, the scars showing in the glow of the peat fire. ‘And then there’s that girl of yours,’ he added. ‘I don’t know what you’ve told her about me, but if she were to learn that you had found me, still alive and here at Burra Firth …’ He moved slowly to the door. ‘Think about it, my boy. You’re committed now. You’re one of us.’ He was at the door then and he smiled at me. ‘Just remember that.’ And he nodded. ‘Goodnight.’

I couldn’t help it. I suddenly blurted out, ‘So you’re the organizer, are you? They sent you here to organize the –’

‘Organizer of what?’

‘The oil –’ My voice faltered before his steady gaze. ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I just thought –’

‘You should have learned by now to keep your thoughts to yourself.’ And he turned and went out, leaving the door open behind him. I don’t know whether he meant it as a warning or whether he was simply giving me the benefit of his own experience. I heard the sound of his voice, then the tap of his stick, the slow tread of his feet on the stairs, and I went out into the other room to find Ian Sandford waiting for me. The
others had gone and he was alone. ‘Well, now you’ve talked to him, do you want the job?’ He was smiling, a gleam of humour. ‘He says you can have it if you like.’

‘You do what he tells you, do you?’

He laughed. ‘Sometimes.’

‘Why didn’t you offer me a job that day you took me down to see the
Duchess
?’

‘Didn’t know anything about you, did I? Besides, I’m just the old man’s bastard. Makes a difference, doesn’t it?’

‘I didn’t know,’ I said.

‘Well, now you do.’ He turned and reached for the bottle on the table. ‘Like another drink before you go?’

‘No thanks.’

But he poured it all the same, handing me the glass and topping up his own. ‘Here’s to our better acquaintance.’ He was grinning.

I raised my glass perfunctorily, the whisky raw in my throat and my mind on the future. ‘He said you needed a skipper to run supplies to a rig on the Dunlin.’

He nodded.
‘Deepwater IV
. That’s right. You’d be skippering the
Mary Jane
. That’s the boat I’ve taken on charter. The usual diesel job, about 65 feet long, registered tonnage 45.’ He finished his drink. ‘The old man said you’d like to sleep on it.’

‘Why offer the job to me?’ I asked.

He shrugged. ‘Why not? You’re my half-brother.’ He was grinning again. ‘There’s always fiddles running supplies for big contractors whose only concern is speed, so keep it in the family, that’s what I say. Makes sense, doesn’t it?’

‘Maybe,’ I muttered, and I put my glass down. ‘I’ll be going now.’

He nodded, seeing me to the door, the lamp in his hand, and the likeness to his mother very pronounced. ‘I’ll see you in the morning,’ he said. The door closed and I was alone in that strange twilit world that was neither day nor night with the glimmer of water lapping the rocks below me. The moon was
just rising, ragged patches of cloud drifting across it and a glimpse of stars.

I walked slowly back up the track, going over in my mind that strange meeting and feeling trapped – trapped by the sort of person I was, and by the system which didn’t allow me to escape from my own past, the things I had done before I turned to the sea. If only they would leave me alone. But I knew they wouldn’t. And now my own father, the man whose past I had come north to seek – for support, for strength – and he was there in that straggle of buildings, a part of the net that had closed around me. What had he been doing all those years?

He hadn’t said, of course. He had evaded all my questions. But instinctively I knew, some deep communication between us – that plaque, that quote from Browning, it still applied – a man deeply unhappy, alone and embattled within himself. It wasn’t just the face, the terrible twisted features. I had seen it in his eyes. He, too, was unable to escape the things he had thought and done as a young man. I felt weighed down, utterly crushed by this glimpse of an older, distorted reflection of myself. My God! Was this the road he had trod, drifting along the line of least resistance? And myself doing the same, knowing what my answer would be.

I had known it ever since he had offered me the job. I couldn’t face another court, the police, prison, and my own world against me – anything was better than that. Even working with that little bastard Sandford. I laughed at that, laughed so loud I frightened a seabird from the verges of Loch of Cliff, the shadow of it taking wing against the clouds. If only I were a bird and could take wing! But I was grounded and the earth hard and hostile, his face grinning in the lamplight.