rubbed his shoulders, that he apply for a prominent post on the mainland. She never added, before it’s too late, but he knew that was what she meant: too long in the backwaters, and you would not be taken seriously by the mainstreamers. He knew this should be his next move, yet he could not act on it. Something stopped him, something tightened in him, preventing him from reaching out to open the envelopes containing monthly academic journals that arrived in batches by ship three or four times a year, with adverts for positions displayed in the back. He had lost his nerve, that thread that strings body and will together, and instead he was filled with a fear that he would be found out. Found out? What would be found out? That he was a fraud, if truth be told. That the error of his wife’s demise was not just a momentary slip, but a sign of something that underpinned his whole career; that he was not good enough for anything but a backwater where people did not know better, where his mistakes could be buried without an inquest.
Nevertheless, he was pleased that Veronica thought him good enough for the mainland, thought they were both too good for the island. He also liked the way her hands slid under his shirt, and the smell of her, a good, well-scrubbed smell. Before long he lay himself down on the comfort and support of her; he allowed himself to be consoled in the rocking cradle of her, her hands on his back absolving him in long strokes, telling him he was lovable, that he was not floundering, shipwrecked on some godforsaken shore, but up and sailing on the good seas; that satisfaction and prosperity and, yes, even ecstasy, were still visible on the horizon, still within his reach.
Chapter Seven
Some say it was the fact that Frank Bardelli saw Astrid down at the boat sheds that night that started the avalanche of events. Some say it was not a fact at all, and to call that a fact left out others, like the fact that the fishermen hated Astrid, and the fact that Astrid was not the only person with red hair on the island. Some say it could have been prevented, but then there are those who say it was meant to be; who are we to argue with fate?
It was true that Astrid liked to wander at night, and that she liked to light and stoke the fire in Sophia’s grate. Frieda knew that from the times she’d visited late, when people were in bed except for the drinkers at the tavern. It was true, too, that Astrid still had an edge about her: strange turns of bodily expression and phrase, and behaviour that made you feel as though you had lost the path and wandered into an unrecognisable landscape. But she was no longer excitable and violent, and she no longer took her clothes off in public places. She had calmed herself in the year she had been living with Sophia. Some said the doctor’s medicine had reset her connections, some that Sophia’s remedies had cured her. Whatever the case, Frieda did not think Astrid’s behaviour so strange that she would commit arson again. Yet the alarm was raised one blustering night; the villagers rushed out, pulling on their jackets, to see great orange tongues of flame roaring out of the windows of one of the boat sheds, licking at the cold night air, and to hear the exploding of petrol cans, and the sigh of the roof as it collapsed. People ran with hosepipes, buckets, sand, anything, for this was their livelihood: the fish and the crayfish, best in the world, frozen and exported four times a year to the fancy restaurants in Japan, England and America. Without their boats, they might as well pack up and go . . . where? There was nowhere to go, this was their home, this was their foothold upon the planet, the reason for their existence, the place their ancestors had built from nothing.
Jojo Schoones’s boat was destroyed, Frank Bardelli’s badly damaged. One boat shed was a smouldering shell with the remnants of hoists sticking through like charred bones. Light was cracking the eastern horizon open when the men marched through the village and along the track to the fields, turning up the path to Sophia’s cottage and demanding that Astrid come out.
Sophia emerged, said Astrid was in bed; what did they want?
You know, they shouted. Come out.
There is no reason, no charge, no cause, said Sophia. Leave my property. Now.
Why weren’t you there, fighting the fire!
What fire? asked Sophia, concerned.
Ask the ancestors! someone shouted. Didn’t they warn you?
Ask Astrid! yelled another. Astrid knows!
The mayor arrived, and Officer Bardelli.
Arrest Astrid, the men said. Enough is enough! She will burn all our boats, she will kill us all! She is crazy, a man-hater.
She is not crazy, she has been hurt, said Sophia.
Hurt! raged the men. Hurt! Look how she hurts us! We’ll show her hurt!
It’s unnatural what the two of you do! blurted one.
Tell these men to get off my property, said Sophia quietly to Officer Dorado Bardelli. Officer Bardelli looked at the mayor.
We will have to take Astrid to the office for questioning, said the mayor. Just a few questions from the council. And an examination. By the doctor.
Jojo Schoones was the one who saw her run out of the back door and away up the mountain, and they were off, thirty-four men after one woman, mad they all were, mad with rage and history and blame and revenge.
Astrid knew the mountain well after years of trying to escape, she knew her way even in the dark; but the sun was already prising open the lid of cloud, the sun was shining on her red crown of hair, red like fire against the black laval rock, as she ran for what felt like her life.
They could have waited for her; they could have gone home to drink coffee and clean up, they could have waited until Astrid came down the mountain of her own accord, cold and tired and hungry. By then the tempest of tempers would have died down, by then they might have discovered that Danny Schoones had drunkenly fallen asleep in the boat shed with a burning cigarette falling from his fingers. The detail of that evening was gone – it was one of many nights in his life that he would never recall; but he was told, on finding himself in hospital being treated by Sister Veronica for burns to his face and hands, that he was a hero for being injured while fighting the fire. He was pleased to have been of service, sorry he hadn’t been in time to save the boats.
They didn’t wait, they were after her like hounds baying for blood. They say Astrid slipped and fell at Ike’s Gully, that Jojo Schoones and Nelson Peters tried to save her, poor mad girl, that the two men tried to prevent her from jumping, but they were too late.
Chapter Eight
“This is monstrous!” paced the mayor. “Right before the elections!”
Nelson stared at his boots, which were peeling a rim of drying mud onto the mayoral office carpet. Dorado closed the blinds and wished that Clarence would keep his voice down. She had never seen Clarence’s younger son like this – struck weak by a vision, run through with shock.
“I’ll get Mannie to come with me, and the doctor,” she said, feeling ill at the thought of collecting blood and bone, at the thought of the spirit of mad, wild Astrid forever gone. “You go home and get some rest, Nelson.”
“Stupid, stupid girl!” Clarence pulled hard at his lower lip, reining himself in. “Look, my boy, you did the right thing, coming to me before the rumours get going. What’s happened has happened. The autopsy will set things straight. I’ll have a word with Orion.”
Clarence tugged open the blinds with such force they jumped and jangled. “Only one grave left,” he worried, glaring at Elijah Mobara trundling past with his barrow.
“We’ll look into opening up ground for the new cemetery,” consoled Dorado.
