North Star (32 page)

I hesitated, torn between a desire to talk to the man who had come to install the equipment and the urge to get ashore. ‘All right,’ I said and got my anorak from the wheelhouse. But when I joined him in the boat he knew nothing about the telephone conversation. He had only just got back from Haroldswick.

We landed on the little beach at Fiska Wick and walked to the hotel. The old man was waiting for me in the room where we had talked before. There was a peat fire still glowing in the grate and the single window looked out on to the green slopes of the hill behind. He fixed Ian with his eyes, a hard, flat stare, waiting until he had left and the door closed behind him. Then he turned to me and said, ‘It’s some months now since we had our first talk. Now it’s time for you to reach a decision.’

He was silent a moment, trying no doubt to think how best to put it to me, but I didn’t give him the opportunity. ‘Was that Dillon on the phone a while back?’

He looked surprised, and when I explained that I had picked up the conversation on the boat’s radio, he said:

‘Then you know.’

‘What?’

‘That
North Star
has struck oil.’

The news came as a shock. We had had our first flurry of snow the previous evening and there had been a drift of white on Hermaness Hill as we had come into Burra Firth. Winter here, and
North Star
striking oil, everything suddenly come at once and my father demanding I make a decision. What decision? But I knew. I could see it in his cold blue Nordic eyes. ‘Who is this man Dillon?’ I asked him. And I think I knew that, too.

‘You’ll be meeting him in a few hours.’

‘A property man, Ian said, with an interest in fishing. But it’s not fishing, is it? The equipment in those cases –’

‘You broke into them – why?’ I don’t think he expected an answer, and after a moment he said, ‘Sit down.’ He waved me to a seat on the far side of the fire, then slumped into the wing chair. ‘There’s no more time.’ His voice was so quiet it was almost a whisper and there was a look of weariness on his face. ‘I wish now you hadn’t come.’ He gave a little shrug. ‘I suppose it was inevitable, but …’ He took out a packet of cigarettes and lit one, twisting his mouth around it. ‘I could have wished it had been some other time.’

‘It’s
North Star
. Is that what you’re trying to tell me?’

He didn’t answer, sitting there watching me. ‘You have to make up your mind now.’

‘What are you planning to do?’

But he ignored that. ‘I’ve given you a job, kept you clear of the police –’

‘What are you planning to do?’ I repeated.

‘That’s not for me to say. It’s not my plan. Once, yes – but I only came into this because of Ian and the hotel here.’ That twisted smile again. ‘I hardly expected the two of you.’ And then he said, ‘I’m getting old, you see. And it’s been a hard life.’
He seemed to brace himself. ‘But I’m still alive. Very much alive. And he’s right. We can do a lot with this rig. It’s a very good situation, if it’s handled right. And it will be.’ His eyes were closed, his voice very quiet, and I had the feeling he was talking to himself.

‘Is Ian in on this?’

His eyes flicked open. ‘Good God, no. Of course not.’ He made a dismissive movement of the hand. ‘Money. That’s all he’s interested in. It’s the be-all and end-all of his existence.’ The weariness was back in his voice. ‘Anna was like that, under the skin, under the lovely bloom of youth – He shook his head. ‘Perhaps that’s why I didn’t marry her. So pretty, so sweet, but under the skin – nothing, no love of poetry, no inkling of the ideological turmoil, the reaching out to the stars …’ His voice faded.

‘Yet you wrote to her – from Spain.’

‘Oh, yes.’ He smiled. ‘She showed it to you, did she?’

I nodded.

‘And asked you for money?’

‘I hadn’t any.’

He smiled at me, and the twisted mouth made a mockery of it. ‘You’re different, aren’t you? Different stock. And you had it as a child. Money, I mean. You could afford to turn your back on it. Nobody can buy you.’

‘Did you buy Ian?’

‘Ye-es. I suppose you could call it that.’

‘To what end?’ And when he didn’t say anything, I told him how we had sighted
Island Girl
that night the rig had had her windward anchor cables cut. ‘There was no other vessel there, so Ian must have been responsible –’

But he shook his head. ‘Ian wasn’t on board.’

‘Dillon?’

He nodded.

‘It’s not fishing he’s interested in then – it’s sabotage.’

There was a long silence, and he sat there, drawing on his cigarette and staring at me. ‘It’s a rough world,’ he said very
quietly, the peculiar lisp coming through strongly. ‘Some day man will learn to organize it so that he can live in peace. But not yet. You have to accept that. You have to accept the reality of the world in which you live.’ He leaned forward, his voice urgent. ‘Life is a battlefield, a political struggle, you see. And we’re all a part of that struggle. We take sides, get involved –’ His cigarette stabbed the air. ‘You. Me. All of us. You made your decision. You involved yourself – just as I did. And now – you can’t escape that involvement now.’

He paused, breathless, and I said, ‘What are you trying to tell me? That I should be a party to locating a wellhead and then destroying it?’ His eyes widened slightly and I thought I had guessed the purpose of that equipment. ‘A man calling himself Stevens followed me into Foula, when I was skipper of the
Duchess
and we had the
North Star
contract. He said what you’ve just been saying. He said Villiers was vulnerable, capitalism at its worst, and that there was political advantage to be had out of it. And with Ian on the Zetland Council –’ My God! He had manipulated it all so cleverly. ‘And you a Shetlander,’ I cried. ‘You were born on the west coast. Are you prepared to see the whole of that coastline scummed with oil, a massive pollution that will destroy the livelihood –’

‘I tell you, it’s a rough world,’ he said sharply. ‘And there are always sacrifices. Think of the loss of life in the war, twenty million in Russia alone, the destruction, the appalling conditions.’

‘And this is war.’

He nodded slowly. ‘As good a name for it as any.’

‘And I’m to be in the front line, with you. Bringing unnecessary pollution –’

‘Michael, you can’t help yourself.’

‘I bloody well can.’ I had got to my feet and I stood over him, hating him for what he was, for what life had done to him. ‘You’re so twisted in your mind it’s a pity that shell didn’t kill you.’

He sat very still, looking up at me, and there was something
almost pitiable in his expression. ‘You didn’t mean that.’ And when I remained silent, the two of us staring at each other, his face gradually hardened. ‘That’s your answer, is it?’ He got slowly to his feet, reaching for his stick. ‘I had hoped …’

‘That I’d co-operate?’ The anger and disgust in my voice seemed to touch him on the raw.

‘That you’d have more sense,’ he snapped at me. And then that strange, disfigured face softened again. ‘Would you like some lunch? It’s almost time.’

‘No thanks,’ I said. ‘I’ll go for a walk.’

He nodded. ‘Good idea. Give you a chance to think it over.’

‘There’s nothing to think over.’

‘No?’ He smiled. ‘Well, maybe not. But just remember what I’ve said. There’s no escape, the police against you and your ship the only one they know was there when the cables of that rig were cut. Go for your walk and think it out. Your liberty, your future …’ He left it at that, still smiling and a devil lurking in his eyes, as though in me he saw a reflection of himself. ‘Come back not later than five. Dillon will be here then and we’ll be running tests in the firth before dark.’ And he added, ‘The
North Star
strike is only a rumour based on core samples flown to Aberdeen. There’s still some time yet.’

Still time. I went out on to the track and walked slowly back to Fiska Wick. The little beach was empty, the inflatable gone, and the water was like lead under a leaden sky. I went out on to The Ness where I could see the
Mary Jane
lying like a black rock against the pale glint of the water. She was swinging to the tide, the inflatable snugged against her side, and the cases were all on deck, the engineer and another man opening them up and getting the equipment into the wheelhouse.

I watched for a while, but it was cold and no way of getting out to her, so I turned to the slopes behind and began climbing Mouslee Hill, regretting now that I had refused the offer of lunch. Still time, he had said, and I could claim that he misled me. But it wouldn’t be true. Where a decision is required the fault lies always in ourselves. From my experience of the sea
I should have known that mistakes compound to produce disasters. The mistake I made that afternoon was to do nothing.

There were things I could have done. I could have gone into Haroldswick and phoned the police, or made an anonymous call like the bombers do. I could have gone aboard the ferry and radioed to
North Star
direct. Or I could have simply gone to Bruce’s cottage and lain low there, watching to see what happened. But instead, I did nothing. I couldn’t make up my mind.

I walked west across the backs of the hills to the high bold cliffs of Tonga, not a soul to be seen, not even Bruce, and conscious all the time of the solitude, the remoteness of this wild northern land, and of my own isolation. I stood for a while on the peat moss slopes above Tonga Stack, which is joined to the land, and north and south of me there were other, isolated stacks with the seas breaking against them. Birds everywhere, the air flecked white and shrill with their cries. And below me the water seethed, a chill north-westerly wind churning the flood tide into a welter of overfalls. The wildness and the solitude were overwhelming.

It was not the place to consider the merits of political activities and the role of economic warfare in an industrial society. Here only the elements counted. Nothing else. I walked south across Libbers Hill and Sneuga, as far as the brough on Flubersgerdie, and all the time I was walking I had the feeling that nothing beyond the peat moss hills and the distant glimpses of granite cliffs had any reality under that vast expanse of grey sky. Here was nothing made by man, nothing controlled by man. All was free and uncontaminated, and power lay in the wind, in the drive of the great depressions endlessly marching up to the white fish grounds from their birthplace far out in the Atlantic.

I was tired and hungry, and no nearer a decision, when I came down the slopes above Fiska Wick, the
Mary Jane
looking like a toy ship in the pale slash of the firth. The inflatable was back on the beach, the Land-Rover backed up
and two men loading cardboard boxes. They were the same two I had seen when I had first come to Root Stacks and they were waiting for me as I came down the beach.

‘Will you be going on board now?’ the Irishman asked. They were standing in the water in their sea boats, ready to push off. ‘The old man said to take you out if you wanted.’

‘Has Dillon arrived?’

But he only motioned me to get in, the two of them holding the tubed sides to steady the boat. It was only when we were under way that I realized they had their own gear with them. ‘You’re going out tonight then?’ I had to shout to make myself heard above the noise of the outboard.

The quiet bearded man nodded. He was lying sprawled across the stores, spray whipping over him as the laden boat slapped into the wavelets. ‘If everything works all right.’

I asked him what his name was, but he just stared at me. He had a soft, gentle face, very full in the cheeks. He didn’t look like a seaman, more like an intellectual – a teacher, possibly a writer or a lecturer. And there was a tenseness about him, his brown eyes staring.

The engineer was waiting for us as the outboard died and we came alongside. There was a big fair man with him. They called him Swede and the way he grabbed the painter and made us fast I knew he was used to boats.

I gave them a hand with the cases, and when it was all on deck, the outboard started up again, the Swede casting off and the inflatable swinging away from the side and heading back for the Wick. I went straight to the wheelhouse, but the door was locked. The engineer stood watching me. ‘Where’s the key?’ I asked him.

‘In my pocket.’

‘Give it to me,’ I said. ‘You don’t keep me out of my own wheelhouse.’

He backed away at the tone of my voice. ‘You don’t give orders. You’re not the skipper now.’ He said it with the truculence of a young man who resented all authority.

I held out my hand. ‘Give me that key.’ But the Swede moved between us, and his hand closed on my arm, holding me gripped. ‘Nobody goes into that wheelhouse now, only Mr Dillon.’

I stepped back and the grip on my arm relaxed. ‘When will Dillon be here?’ I asked.

The man with the beard glanced at his watch and said in a voice that was as gentle as his manner, ‘Any minute now.’ The engineer brushed past me. ‘I got to get the engine warmed up.’ And he disappeared down the after-hatch. The other two began humping the stores below and I went with them to the little galley. The diesel started into life as I was cutting myself a hunk of bread and some ham.

I was still eating when I heard the outboard alongside and the clatter of feet on deck. I poked my head up out of the after-hatch to see the Swede making fast. The outboard stopped abruptly and a dark face with lank black hair appeared above the bulwarks. He might have been a South American Indian, or perhaps he was Arab – it was difficult to tell against the leaden glimmer of the water as he vaulted on board. And then he leaned over to help my father up.

The old man steadied himself against the wheelhouse, looking at me and breathing a little fast. ‘I was told you were here.’ The grimace of a smile came and went. ‘I’m glad.’ And for the first time I saw a glimmer of warmth in his eyes. He turned at the sound of a voice and his hand reached out to my arm, a restraining gesture. I could see Paddy’s face as he stood holding the boat alongside and another man just swinging his leg over the bulwarks, his back towards me. He was wearing a dark blue anorak with a Shetland wool cap on his head. ‘Dillon,’ the old man murmured in my ear, and there was a note of warning. The man turned and I was looking at the hard set face, the cold elusive eyes I had last seen at Foula. ‘You know each other I think,’ my father said.