Иэн Рэнкин - The Flood

When they reached the Harbour Tavern, having noisily consumed their greasy lunch while taking a slight detour down to the esplanade, Colin was the brave one who went through the chipped wooden door first and into the smoke and beer and the noise of the television. Sandy held back. He had seen something. Near the Harbour Tavern, on the other side of the road, was a snooker hall above an amusement arcade. Robbie was speaking to Rian outside the entrance to the snooker hall. It was the first time, Sandy realised, that he had seen either of them outside of the grounds of the mansion. They looked strange, incongruous, as though something only dreamt had suddenly appeared in real life. Sandy watched as Robbie entered the hall, cue in a bashed case tucked beneath his arm. Rian looked at her feet, then sat on the front step of the hall. She rested her head on her hands and watched people walking past eating chips and other vinegary foods. Sandy realised that she was hungry. He felt guilty. His heart pounded. The money felt heavy in his pocket. Yet he did not want his friends to know about Rian. Hearing them call from inside, he pushed open the door. Rian looked across towards him, and he quickly closed the door behind him.

Four men played pool in the middle of the pub and swore at each other. They were vivacious, and they were practically the only people in the bar. A jukebox fought with the volume of the television, from where a racing commentator tipped his hat towards Sandy and murmured something about the afternoon’s racing. Sandy looked for a clock. It was one twenty. His friends were being served with beer at the bar. The barman was courteous, knowing that they were all underage. They walked timidly, but pleased, with their drinks over to a corner table. Colin picked up a newspaper lying there and began to read nonchalantly. Mark and Clark gulped their drinks greedily and looked about them, examining the bar’s interior like pioneers in a new continent. Sandy, last served, was wondering what to do. He had not seen Rian for some time. He wanted to see her, especially when Robbie was elsewhere, but how could he get away from his friends? He sat down at the table. It had not been wiped recently, if at all in living memory. Rings cut into more rings, the whole becoming a complex, interlinked artwork. Sandy made several more marks with the bottom of his own glass. His mother, when baking, cut out circles of pastry with the rim of a cup. He ran his finger around the rim of his cold, wet glass. Mark and Clark spoke in hushed, respectful tones. They watched the men playing pool, but not too closely.

‘The film starts in twenty minutes,’ said Sandy, having taken a long draw on his drink and consequently feeling gassy and sick. ‘There’s something I really have to do before then. I’ll leave you here and meet you at the ABC. Is that okay?’ They looked at him.

‘Scaredy-cat,’ said Clark.

Colin rubbed at his face, touching lightly the landscape of acne around his mouth.

‘Fine then,’ he said, reaching the same hand for his drink. ‘See you.’

‘Who wants this?’ said Sandy, pointing to his glass as he rose. There were three takers. He walked back into piercing daylight and fresh air. She had flown from her perch. Shit. He crossed the road quickly, hearing change jangling in his pocket. Perhaps she had gone off begging for money for food. He had money he could give her. He opened the door of the snooker hall, climbed the stairs, and stared through the glass into the hall itself. There was Robbie, playing by himself and cursing a bad shot, then looking slyly around at the other players. There was no sign of Rian. Sandy ran back down the stairs two at a time and opened the door. He looked left and right. There were so many people milling around, presenting him with a constantly slow-moving obstacle. He walked back along the High Street, looking in shops and crossing the road often to maximise his search. People were already queuing for the film. He did not have much time. Where was she? He remembered her kisses. He could hardly recall her face, but he knew her kisses as he had once known his mother’s nipple. Both were sustaining forces. He clung to images of Rian and felt his shirt sticking to his back as he ran.

At the other end of the High Street he cursed the emptiness of his search. He decided to cut down on to the esplanade. Yes, if she were waiting for Robbie that would be as nice a place to wait as any. He found a narrow close between two shops and began to hurry down it, realising almost immediately that, as if in a dream, Rian was walking towards him from a long way away, her eyes on the ground, her legs weary. A man was walking the other way, down towards the esplanade. Sandy stopped. Rian looked up. Her face was red, her mouth redder than the rest. She was flustered by his sudden appearance, as he was by hers. They stood some feet apart, Sandy dripping sweat and breathing heavily.

‘Rian?’ he said, taking a step closer. Then he looked past her to where the man had been. ‘What are you doing?’ She became a bad actress.

‘Oh, I’ve just been walking. Waiting for Robbie. He’s playing snooker. Losing money probably. I’m just...’ She smiled at him. Her eyes were slightly wet, shell-like, as if the tide had touched them some time before. ‘Let’s walk,’ she said, taking his arm. ‘What are you doing here? You’ve been running. Did I see you going into a pub near the snooker hall?’ She moved him away with her towards the High Street. Sandy panicked. He did not want to go back up there, back where all the people, all the potential enemies were, where his friends might see him with her. He tugged her arm.

‘No,’ he said, ‘this way,’ and she, compliant, let herself be taken down to the sea.

They sat on a hillside, sheltered by a boulder which made an excellent windbreak, and talked and laughed and ate and drank. Mary felt happier than she had done in some time. She looked at her “young man”, as she called him, and was happy. He was the perfect gentleman. He served the wine and told her funny stories about school. He acted one of them out for her. She choked on her drink and got hiccups which took some time to dispel. The wine was finished. He let her in on a little secret. He had another bottle in the car. He winked and trotted downhill to fetch it. Mary stifled her hiccups and tried to think straight. She was getting drunk. She focused on the landscape. From her position on the side of a sloping hill she could see Loch Leven in the distance. Tiny boats bobbed on the still surface of the loch, doubtless fishing. Kinross was even further away. They were going to Kinross for an evening meal, though she had said nothing to Sandy about being back late. Andy had told her that she needed to enjoy herself for a change. Rashly, she had agreed with him. She heard him singing as he clambered back towards her, his eyes alight and a bottle swinging from one hand.

They ate bananas and grapes while they sat on the seawall. The tide was out. An ominous trawler sat a good way out in the steel-coloured water. Sandy wanted to ask her about the man, but could not force himself to speak the words. They spoke instead of more banal matters. Her voice was a soft, living thing, something that might be found on a beach as the tide was turning. Something no one would take home with them because to do so would be to destroy it for ever. She spoke to him of her youth and her childhood and the few remembrances she had of when she had still been a baby. Sandy could remember nothing as far back as that. Ah, she told him, it was a special gift. She could remember her aunt lifting her to her breast and holding her face to that suffocating dull thing for a long time, longer than a feeding time. It might have been days. Sandy blushed at this image. He looked at her casually, but her face was innocence. She spoke on. The first time she had seen Robbie drunk. The first time she had been sent to beg for money. The time they had moved to the mansion. All the times. The sun was coming down low over them, curving down from its once great height until it swathed them in gold. Sandy thought that it must be getting late. Finally Rian coughed and said, ‘Sandy, I’ve got to tell you. Promise you won’t say anything. Promise.’ Her insistent eyes made him nod his head. She lowered her eyes then and spoke on, while gulls played on the seashore and a small boy poked with a stick at shadowy things by the waterline.