Summer of the Red Wolf Read online

  I should have ended it there and then, because he had given me all the truth he knew about himself and I could not and would not tell him mine. He was waiting for it, I knew. He was waiting for the one good word that would crack the ice round his heart and let the spring flow and the tears run. I had all the words in the dictionary, but not that one. The best I could find to say was a banality. ‘I can’t argue it with you, Ruarri. I haven’t lived in your skin. I agree I have no right to judge you. I’m sorry for the hard words. Thanks for the drink. I’ll be running along.’

  ‘I invited you to dinner, seannachie. I’m a good cook, though you mightn’t believe it.’

  ‘I’ll keep you honest then. Can I lend a hand?’

  ‘Sure. You can peel vegetables and lay the table. The cookery needs a lighter touch than you’ve got. Pour us another drink while I get started.’

  By the time the meal was ready, we were moving in a nice rosy glow, like the sunset after a big storm. We were eloquent, inconsequential, comical, anecdotic, bawdy and wiser than Socrates in all our conclusions. We were brothers-in-arms, gory and quarrelsome maybe, but, by God, brothers always. The meal was a masterpiece: trout and Black Angus steak and strawberries from the garden and a Burgundy of good vintage with not a penny of excise paid on it – which made it twice as good. Then, lest the glow should fade and we find ourselves back in the troubled outer darkness, there was a goblet of brandy and a coffee made from bean to cup, so that no whit of essence or aroma should be lost. All this time there was no word of Morrison or indeed of anything that touched the core of the matters between us.

  We cleared off the table and stacked the dishes in the washer, because we were both tidy fellows who could not be comfortable in a messy ship. We built up the fire and the brandy, stacked records on the player – En Saga and the Sibelius Fourth, which almost surprised me into sobriety – and settled down to be quiet.

  This part of the evening was like our day on shipboard: free and easy, with the wind and the sea singing through the music, the talk spontaneous and the silence grateful. Ruarri was a great gabman when he wanted to be, but he had a gift of silence, too, when there was no one around whom he had to impress. Observing him now, drowsy in the fire glow, I saw that there was a rhythm in the silence and in the speaking. He would sink back, far into himself, in an almost animal passivity. Then something would stir in him, a half thought, a memory, and you could almost see it unfolding, growing, filling him up until it had to break out in a swift, tumbling torrent of words. When the words were spent, he was spent, too, and the cyclic renewal would begin again. But, even in the passive times, at the moment of deepest withdrawal, he was alert to every external stimulus, to every sound, every change of light, every tone of voice and attitude. He was never absent from things. Things were always close to him, always threatening, as though the energy locked inside them might explode at any moment if he were unprepared.

  It was this sense of constant danger that made him dangerous to himself and to others. He felt himself so constantly besieged he could not afford the slightest risk. He had to compute every possible treachery, pre-empt every strike. If he were wrong, it was a pity, but at least he was still alive. Even the risks he took – and they were many and large – were pre-emptions against risks still greater which he either saw or imagined. I would not have you believe that I saw all this through the rosy glow of whisky and wine and brandy and Sibelius. I saw the phenomenon; I was blind to its meaning. When my eyes were opened at last, it was already too late for all of us.

  It was late and I was thinking reluctantly of the drive home when Ruarri came out of one of his silences and said abruptly:

  ‘We have to settle something, seannachie.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Morrison. You’ll be visiting him, of course. What are you going to tell him?’

  ‘Well, I can tell it three ways. I left the letter with you and I haven’t heard from you yet. That’s a lie, but I’m prepared to tell it for you. I gave you the letter, you were shaken and confused and you wanted time to sort yourself out. That’s near enough to the truth to let us both off the hook. Or I can tell him that you understand why he sent it, that you respect his intentions but you’d rather not have any part of the relationship because it’s too late in the day and too hard for both sides. Which is about the size of what was said before dinner. The last way’s clean – if you’re sure it’s what you want. The others leave loose ends. They have to be tied off sooner or later. That’s the best rendering I can give you, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Would Morrison leave it clean?’

  ‘I know he would. I’d stake my life on it.’

  ‘Which is more than you would with me, eh?’

  ‘I didn’t say that. And don’t spoil a good dinner.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. Would Morrison leave it clean another way?’

  ‘You’ve lost me now.’

  ‘You’re drunk, seannachie. So I’ll spell it for you. Morrison’s old and he’s sick and he’s tried to do a decent thing. It’s too late, but he’s tried. I’ve got enough blood on my hands. I don’t want any more. Are you hearing me?’

  ‘I’m hearing you.’

  ‘So I give you another message for Morrison. I have his letter. I thank him for it. One day, when he’s well and I’m less confused than I am now, I’ll come and talk to him. I’ll say hail and farewell just the same. But I’ll say it like a gentleman because he’s one and then we call it quits. Would he leave that one clean – no clinging, no tricks, no claim or judgment on what I do afterwards?’

  ‘No claim, certainly. Judgment’s a private matter always.’

  ‘You’re a bloody Jesuit!’

  ‘Just getting the message straight – in case you want to send it.’

  ‘Shut up then and let me think about it!’

  He went to the bar and poured himself another brandy; then he went back into silence, long and deep this time, while I closed my eyes and let the music roll over me like clean, deep water, free from all the offal of the world. The next thing I knew, Ruarri was shaking me awake. He was standing over me with a slip of note-paper in his hand and a rather tired grin on his face. ‘On your feet, seannachie! Time to go home.’

  ‘What’s the message?’

  ‘The way I gave it to you. I’ll see Morrison when he’s well. That’s all. Except you can give him this to read. He might get a smile out of it.’

  He shoved the paper under my nose, and for a moment I thought I was still drunk because the words were unintelligible: ‘... ma’s olc dhomh cha n-fhearr dhaibh.’

  ‘What the hell’s that?’

  ‘That, seannachie, is my summary of this whole goddam silly mess. When the great Conan went down to hell and his backside was frying on the hot plate, he looked around at all the rest of the damned and said those noble words: “If it’s bad for me, it’s no better for them.” Now get the hell out of here, because there’s a girl on her way over and I need no advice about what to do with her.’

  Chapter 8

  I DROVE home, singing, under a sky full of misty stars. The songs were tuneless on my lips, but in my head, melodious and clear: ‘Ena Dilino’, the song of the warring brothers, killing each other for an idea, dead and disproved already; ‘O Ilios’, the sun that sees the stinking midden of man’s earth and turns to ice; ‘Kaymos’, the grief of every man feeling his sap dry out, his belly shrink, and half the wine of life still untasted.

  The songs were sad. And yet I was not sad; at least I did not think I was. I had kept a friendship. I had restored – or half restored – a bond between a man and his son. Today, this very new today, was the Sabbath, when no one under the dispensation of the Free Kirk could possibly fall sick and I could have the whole calm, beautiful, private day with Kathleen McNeil. Doxa to Theo …bless the Lord in all His works and days!

  The Lord, for all the black marks against me, must have had a kindly eye on me that night, because I came safe to the lodge, with no b
ones broken and no scratch on the car. In my room I found a bottle of beer and a cheese sandwich and a scrawled note from Hannah: ‘The Morrison’s better. The lady phoned. She’ll be here after breakfast. If you’re up by nine I’ll feed you. If not there’ll be coffee on the stove and you can fix for yourself.’ I drank the beer and wolfed the sandwich and blessed them one and all and went to bed.

  The waking was sweeter than the sleeping: a kiss on the lips and Kathleen sitting on the bed and the house empty, because Hannah and her girls were off about their Sunday duties. It was a braw bright morning, but we drew the blinds to make a night for ourselves; and, when the night was over, I told the story of my meeting with Ruarri, and I was, all over again, the tenderest and wisest man in the world. Then we bathed together and dressed together and made ourselves a late breakfast and a picnic lunch and set off to tell the good news to Alastair Morrison.

  He knew it already. In fact he had more news than I had. With his breakfast tray that morning he had received a note and a package from Ruarri. The package contained the snake locket which I had seen in his house. The note was dashed off in that bold scribe’s hand, without erasure or alteration:

  Dear Morrison,

  Your courier arrived last night. We exchanged a lot of hard words; then we got drunk together. After that I went to bed with a girl, which made me feel better able to cope with a rather confused situation. I gave the courier a message to deliver to you. It included Conan’s word on his sojourn in hell. It seemed rather apt last night, because hell’s a place I’m very familiar with.

  When I woke this morning, however, I felt that a Matheson should not be behindhand in courtesy to a Morrison. Hence this note. I find I’m glad I know who I am and who you are. I don’t think we need to do anything about it at this moment. I’m not sure I want to do anything about it at all. You have to get well and I have work to do and neither of us needs a big drama.

  Rights and wrongs I think we should forget. I’ve a list of wrongs as long as your arm and quite a lot are wrongs I’ve done myself. Forgiving? That’s a Christian word I don’t know much about. I’m not a Christian and the world I live in isn’t either. There it’s eye for eye and blood for blood. But I don’t want your blood, since I share it with you.

  For the rest, if and when we meet, we can meet with respect. If you want to sell me the lodge at some time, I’ll buy if I can afford it, at a fair price; but I don’t want wills and bequests or anything like that. What I own, I’ve earned; I am not beholden to any man. You gave me life. It’s a gift with a sting in it, but I have it.

  My gift is a Viking piece. It’s supposed to protect the wearer against death or disaster to his sexual parts. You may find it appropriate on both counts. No more now. I want you to have this before your courier gets back to you. I like him very well, but I want to see him taken down a peg. He’s a bastard, too, and you can tell him so from me.

  Let things lie now. Get yourself well.

  Ruarri Matheson

  I folded the letter and handed it back to Morrison. His hand was steady, and whether it was the drugs they had given him or his true feeling, he seemed tranquil and satisfied.

  ‘It’s better than I dared to hope. Much better.’

  ‘And the locket says even more than the letter. It’s precious to him. I’d do as he asks now. Let things lie a while.’

  ‘I will. I will. You must have had a bad time last night.’

  ‘A shouting match, soon over. A slight hangover. But that’s gone too. Kathleen and I are going off to the beach. She’ll sleep at the lodge tonight.’

  ‘The place is yours. And I mean that. Enjoy it.’

  ‘We will.’

  He smiled and took my hand in his own. ‘Is that the way of it?’

  ‘That’s the way of it. Do you mind?’

  ‘Laddie, I’ve just been looking over the wall. I’m not scared of the crossing any more. I’ve learnt something. The only thing that makes life bearable on this side is the loving you find along the way. If you and Kathleen have found it, good luck to you. If you can leave a little in my house, I’ll be glad to have it.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Thanks to you.’

  ‘I won’t see you tomorrow. I’ll be out in the mountains with Ruarri.’

  ‘Good. I’m glad you’re still friends. Look after your girl.’

  ‘She’s waiting to see you now. Then we’ll be on our way.’

  ‘God bless you, laddie.’

  I brought Kathleen in to him and left them to be private together. Ten minutes later we were a public scandal, driving out to the eastern beaches while the good people of the Lews were tramping to kirk in their best clothes. The scandal was soon over, however, because the crofts thinned out the farther we went from town and the tourists were all in the south and west, mercifully ignorant of the small corner of paradise to which we were heading: a narrow, sheltered cove with grassland running down to a white beach, and a great buttress of rock to shield us from the wind and hold the warmth of the sun.

  The water was cold, but we plunged in, shouting, and swam a long way out, until the sandy bottom dropped away and we could feel the deep suck of the ocean current. Then we turned back to the beach and stripped off our wet clothes and towelled each other and stretched out naked on the warm, soft sand.

  I wish I could celebrate for you – but more for myself – the quiet glory of that afternoon. I find I cannot. The coinage of love words has been so much debased that what was a sweetness to me might make for another a sadness or a laughter. We are such ridiculous animals in sum, but not all or always. When the mood is right and the hands are tender and the lips are hungry, the body is a shining miracle, a leaping ecstasy, a slow, sweet decline, repeated over and over again and always new. If you want a list of pleasures, go to a pimp. If you want an anatomy, go to a surgeon. Do not come to me. But for loving – yes, I know about that: the folly and the delight and the sometime terror of it.

  That afternoon, when we were warm and placid and Kathleen was lying drowsy in the crook of my arm, I asked her:

  ‘Do you think you could be pregnant now?’

  ‘I know I’m not, darling. Why? Are you worried?’

  ‘No. I thought it might be rather nice. We’d have to get married then.’

  ‘What’s the hurry?’

  ‘I’m greedy. I want you all to myself.’

  ‘You couldn’t have any more of me, dear heart. There isn’t any.’

  I was wondering about that, although I didn’t dare to put it into words. The dictionary of love is very short. The words tend to repeat themselves. Once she had given herself to another man, as she was now given to me. I had given myself to another woman, no less generously in the beginning. For that first man she had done the ultimate: she had killed, she had violated her inmost self. I could never ask so brutal a proof, but I could and did ask myself the question: would her giving to me be as complete as her giving to him? My own surrender was absolute, unconditional. At least I believed it was. I did not see, being as blind as the little man in the fig tree, that the question itself implied a condition and a demand as brutal as dying.

  She sat up, naked, beside me, scooped up a handful of sand and poured it slowly on my chest. She said:

  ‘I don’t want to get married yet.’

  ‘Scared?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why, then?’

  ‘Because... because we’re here, and we’re happy…’

  ‘Wouldn’t we be just as happy afterwards?’

  ‘Probably. But don’t you see, we’d have to be happy then. We’d be forced into it, because a messy marriage is a hell and we both know it, and we’d have that over our heads all the time. As it is now, we’re free, so we’re giving freely. You could be off with another girl. I could be off with another man. But we’re here, together. I like the feeling. It’s a new experience. Do you understand?’

  ‘I do, Kathleen oge. I do….’

  I did and I didn’t. But I couldn’
t tell her that this wise man was a fool who couldn’t take a flower as a flower and be glad of it, but had to pull it to pieces, petal by petal, to make sure it wasn’t made of some clever synthetic. I couldn’t tell her that this tender fellow had discovered in himself a child, jealous and possessive and insecure as any five-year-old; that this crusader for the rights of man was balking at the most fundamental right of all: to be private at the core of oneself, beyond the violation of words or questions. I couldn’t tell her that her bold lover was so uncertain of himself that he needed a document to prove he had won a woman again; that he was so emptied of faith in his talent that he needed a hand to guide his reluctant pen back to work, and smooth his rumpled hair when he wrote balderdash.

  So I surrendered to her, and she was happy and praised my patient understanding. She settled down beside me again and we lay close and comforted each other on the sand. The Eden apple was ours. We needn’t rush the eating of it. I saw the tiny wormhole in the fruit, but I sealed it up and painted it over and told myself the worm would die very soon and the apple would still be sound for tomorrow.

  In the fall of the evening we drove back to the lodge and found Hannah singing in the kitchen:

  Hear this, all people and give ear,

  All in the world that dwell,

  Both high and low, both rich and poor,

  My mouth shall wisdom tell.