Ahead of Surtsey the small gang of protestors were chilling too, as if they only put on a show for the camera. The homemade banner was dropped, scuffing the sand, and a young woman with dreadlocks and a long flowing skirt was congratulating Bastian, her body language deferent and submissive.
‘Hey,’ Surtsey said, loud enough for Bastian and the others to turn around.
Bastian smiled at her like a benevolent teacher, a smile that made Surtsey angry.
She reached them and stopped.
‘I saw you on the news,’ she said.
Bastian nodded. The calmness of his movements infuriated Surtsey.
‘Indeed,’ he said.
‘How dare you,’ Surtsey said.
‘I beg your pardon?’
Surtsey waved an arm around, taking in the sea, the beach and the Inch.
‘Capitalising on a man’s death,’ she said.
‘I see,’ Bastian said, angling his head.
‘You should be ashamed.’
‘Thule has spoken.’ This was the young woman, making that dumb fanny shape with her hands, like a Hindu blessing or something.
Surtsey shook her head. ‘A good man has died, and all you can do is spout your spiritual shite. What about his wife and children? His friends?’
Bastian put on a concerned face. ‘I take it you were one such friend?’
Surtsey didn’t know what to say. Halima and Brendan had caught up with her, she felt a hand on her back, but they didn’t speak.
Surtsey thought about Tom’s phone, the message.
‘Do you recognise me?’ she said.
Bastian examined her closely, then shook his head. ‘Should I?’
‘Did you text me last night?’
Halima touched Surtsey’s arm. ‘Sur, come on.’
Bastian frowned. ‘How could I text you, I don’t know you.’
‘Thule has spoken,’ the hippie woman said again.
‘Shut the fuck up,’ Halima said. ‘What a moron.’
‘How do we know you’re not involved in this?’ Surtsey said to Bastian.
He looked thoughtful. ‘We are involved. We are the keepers of New Thule, its protectors. Anything happens on the island, we are involved.’
‘I mean, maybe you killed Tom.’
Bastian laughed. ‘You clearly don’t understand. We are peaceful people.’
‘Tom’s death seems pretty handy for you,’ Surtsey said.
Bastian raised his hands upwards. ‘It is divine intervention.’
‘You cunt,’ Surtsey said. She stepped forward and slapped him in the face, and he made no move to evade her hand, almost leaning in to it.
‘Sur, come on,’ Brenda said. ‘This isn’t achieving anything.’
She went to hit him again but Brendan held her arm and pulled her away.
Surtsey stared at Bastian. ‘I’m going to get the police on to you.’ She looked round the small group, bunch of sheep. ‘All of you.’
Bastian smiled.
‘Sorry for your loss,’ he said.
13
Surtsey tried to compose herself as she stood outside her mum’s bedroom at St Columba’s, but the wine and adrenaline were making her twitchy. Memories of being drunk and stoned as a teenager came to her, that dreaded moment before going back into the house, having to act sober for a few minutes before you could escape to your bedroom.
She knocked and waited. Important to be respectful, treat Mum like a normal person.
A few seconds of silence.
‘Come in.’ Wheezy and breathless.
Louise was lying on the bed, a thin crocheted blanket covered in sunflowers spread over her legs. It was a blanket Surtsey’s gran had made long ago, a skill that had failed to be passed down the generations. Surtsey wondered if all that vanishing know-how would eventually make them revert back to apes, banging on rocks and scared of fire.
‘Hey, Mum, how are you?’
‘I’m dying.’
‘Mum.’
The lack of energy in Surtsey’s voice made Louise frown. ‘That’s not the punch line.’
Surtsey sighed. ‘There isn’t a punch line.’
She nodded at the television in the corner of the room, switched off. Might as well get on with it.
‘Have you seen the news today, Mum? We found a dead body on the Inch.’
‘What?’
Surtsey felt the room wobble. She presumed it was the alcohol, but the look on Louise’s face told her it was really happening. Just a small tremor, the kind that happened all the time now in Edinburgh, but still disconcerting. Surtsey spread her feet and tried to balance. She stared at Louise, suspended in the moment, waiting to see if it would escalate into a proper quake or shrug away to nothing. Louise held the sides of her bed. You were supposed to get under furniture or into doorways but usually there was no time for that. A small jolt like this didn’t bring down masonry, it only reminded you the world wasn’t as stable as you hoped.
‘She’s restless.’ Louise had a habit of talking about the earth as a woman. Being raised in the 70s by hippy parents had planted the Gaia earth mother idea in her head, fuelling her love of geophysics. What was Surtsey’s reason? The passing on of the torch, carrying on her mother’s life work, investigating the volcanoes and earthquakes that demonstrated the world was alive.
The tremble under their feet stopped, leaving an unsettling calm. Surtsey had been standing with her arms out, palms down, and she moved her hands back to her side.
‘It’s Tom,’ she said.
‘What about him?’ Louise said.
‘The dead person on the Inch. It’s Tom Lawrie.’
‘My God. What happened?’
Surtsey shook her head. Louise patted the blanket by her legs suggesting Surtsey come closer but she stayed where she was, scared her mum would see the truth. ‘They don’t know, maybe a rockfall during yesterday’s quake. Maybe something worse.’
Louise took a suck on the oxygen mask by her bed, her thin arm barely managing to lift it. She dropped the mask, picked up a tissue and coughed into it. She leaned back on her pillows and stared at the ceiling. She struggled to get breath, the rattle in her chest impossible to shake. She held up a hand like she was trying to stop time. ‘Was it you who found him?’
Surtsey closed her eyes for a second and prayed for another earthquake.
‘One of the other students. Tom was in the cove on the northwest, round from the jetty. We were taking samples on the eastern cliffs.’
‘Oh, Sur.’ Louise’s hand wavered above the blanket, threadbare sunflowers
