‘Pardon?’
She still has her back to me. ‘On this island. It’s so . . . It frightens me. All the stories. But you live here. How?’
‘Oh . . . they’re just stories and –’ I almost give her a sarcastic answer, the sort of thing Con might say in response to this question. Easy enough to live on a cursed island when you’re cursed yourself.
But Bess turns to me, and her face is so young, so guileless. And she is still holding my soup bowl. And her hands were gentle before, when she changed the men’s bandages. She deserves honesty.
‘We were frightened,’ I say, ‘at first. But the island isn’t a bad place. And Kirkwall . . .’ I spread my hands, then smooth the bandage I’ve just rolled, add it to the pile. ‘After everything that happened and –’
‘I understand why you wanted to leave, after everything . . .’ she says. ‘I never believed him, you know. Some people did, but I never trusted him.’
My breath feels tight in my chest. I want her to stop talking, in case Con is listening. I want her to stop talking, so that I can push away the sudden memory of the dark bruises on Con’s neck. The sand scrapes on her back. The way that, for weeks afterwards, whenever she’d reached for anything – a glass of water, a blanket or my hand – her fingers had trembled.
But Bess isn’t looking at my face. She’s staring at her soup bowl as she continues: ‘So I understand why you wanted to leave, especially after . . . your parents.’
Stop it! I think. Stop it, stop it! My mind fills with the sound of the scouring wind, with the empty sea which echoed our cries back to us.
‘But why come here?’ Bess asks.
I swallow, collect my thoughts. I make my voice steady. ‘Would you leave Orkney?’ I ask quietly.
She shakes her head. ‘Never.’
‘Even if your family had disappeared? All of them?’
Her eyes are round, and I see how this could sound like a threat or a curse, even though I meant nothing of the sort.
‘Especially not then,’ she whispers.
I set down the bandages and smooth an imaginary crumb from my skirt, then look down at the floor, counting my breaths until I can trust my voice.
‘Well, there, you see. We couldn’t leave. I thought about going south after the war started. And again, after our parents . . . went. I wanted to join the Wrens. But . . . Con wanted to stay. She blamed herself. Because . . .’ I close my eyes, remembering our parents pushing their boat out, away from Con on the shore, remembering her pacing, waiting for them to come back; remembering the dark weeks that followed, when I hardly saw Con because she felt too guilty to look at me; remembering the night when she stayed out so late that I fell asleep waiting for her; remembering the bruises on her neck, remembering the way she’d seemed terrified of every man; remembering how everyone had stared at her, the whispers, that she’d wanted to hide herself from everyone – she’d begged me to live somewhere alone, just the two of us. And I’d known she’d meant away from men and, particularly, away from him.
When I open my eyes, Bess is blurred. She passes me a handkerchief and I wipe my cheeks. I watch the movement in her throat as she swallows.
‘And now it’s all followed us. All the trouble has followed us here, and more besides. Perhaps we are cursed after all.’ I give a quick laugh. ‘Or this place is.’ It doesn’t sound as light as I’d intended it to. I give a tight smile, which she returns. And I notice her looking at my hands. I clench them into fists to hide the tremor.
‘Are you frightened?’ I ask.
‘Yes,’ she whispers.
‘Me too,’ I say.
And behind us, behind the curtain, Con sleeps, her breath bubbling on each exhalation.
Bess nods towards the sound. ‘You can go and sit with her, if you want. You look tired. When did you last sleep properly?’
‘I honestly can’t remember.’
‘I’ll finish rolling those bandages.’
I pause, blinking back the sudden heat behind my eyes at this kindness.
‘Thank you,’ I say.
In my dream I’m swimming with Con and our parents – even though my father could never swim very well. My arms cut through the water; my body is borne upwards as I float and call to our mother.
‘There’s something I want to tell you,’ I shout.
She turns and smiles at me – her face an older version of mine, of Con’s. She is warmth and safety and I know I must reach her, must catch her before she swims away. But she turns and, like a seal diving, she disappears into the dark undertow. When I reach out, my fingers grasp her hair. I pull, although I know I must be hurting her. I tug her hair free of the water, filled with a fierce longing to touch her face, to tell her everything that has happened.
I lift my hands into the light and see only a mass of seaweed, which dissolves. A wordless cry echoes in my ears and I know that the voice is my mother’s and that somewhere she is in pain. Somewhere she is screaming.
I wake with a sob and it takes me a moment to locate myself. I’m not in the bothy – the room is too warm, the bed too small. Then I remember: The infirmary.
I’ve fallen asleep curled up next to Con, both of us crammed into her single bed. And the noise that has dragged me from my dream is Angus MacLeod’s shouting. I’d know his voice anywhere.
‘Where are they? Are they here?’
I’m instantly wide awake, my muscles tensed. The curtain is pulled around the bed, so he won’t be able to see us from the door, but he could easily pull it back.
I hear Bess’s voice. ‘I don’t know who you mean.’
‘Those girls, the twins. Have they been here?’
A
