Island Life Read online

  ISLAND LIFE

  By William Meikle

  www.ghostwriterpublications.com

  Copyright © William Meikle 2010

  This digital edition published 2010 by

  Ghostwriter Publications

  Weymouth, Dorset, Great Britain

  Haunted Computer Books, U.S. imprint

  ISBN 978-1-907190-01-8

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination, or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or events is entirely coincidental.

  FOREWORD

  One of the questions writers are often asked is “Where do you get your ideas?”

  Quite often it’s hard to remember, but with Island Life it is easy. It started in October 1988, on Lundy Island in the Bristol Channel. We were there for Tim Stevenson’s birthday, and we rented a lighthouse that was now a self-catering establishment.

  We drank a lot of beer and sat up in the old light room well into the night. On the way down we scared ourselves stupid when we encountered the screaming banshee that inhabited the building. In the morning I discovered a burial mound outside, and a local legend of a nine-foot skeleton found there.

  And that was that, for several years. I only started writing seriously three years later. I was struggling for an idea one day and looked through some photographs. There it was - a burial mound, with a lighthouse in the background. I had a “What if?” moment, and the novel was born.

  It was initially picked up in 2001, and got good reviews, started to sell, and got on store shelves in Waterstones. Just as I had big hopes for it, the publisher went bust.

  So I’m very grateful to Ghostwriter Publications for giving it another chance in this shiny new edition. If you enjoy reading it half as much as I enjoyed writing it, you’ll have a lot of fun.

  Willie

  Feb 2010

  ISLAND LIFE

  By William Meikle

  PROLOGUE

  The sun had just come up as he crawled out of the tent, wincing at the chill in the air outside. He went back in to pick up a sweater.

  ‘Welcome to Scotland - the Riviera of the West,’ he muttered. ‘And to think I could have been in the South of France, sipping Pina Coladas and watching the nubiles bouncing on the beach.’

  But then he wouldn’t have met Janice.

  He looked back at the figure wrapped up in his sleeping bag and a small smile crossed his face as he remembered the frolics of the night before. He thought about crawling back in and wakening her - getting it all going again - but the pressure of last night’s beer weighed heavily on his bladder.

  He knew that if he didn’t do something soon he would have what his mother used to call a little accident. It wouldn’t do to blow his cool by stepping out with a damp crotch.

  There was no movement from the other tents and, looking at his watch, he saw that it was only six-thirty…plenty of time to snuggle back inside for a couple of hours.

  Whistling softly he made his way to the cliff edge, passing the site of the dig. Someone had placed a tarpaulin over the entrance and he felt a thrill just looking at it. They would finally go inside today, and all their work would be shown to be worthwhile. He hoped old misery guts would chose him to be in the first team, but didn’t think he had a chance - one of the girls would get it.

  He wondered if one of them was sharing the old man’s tent, and giggled to himself at the thought of the old man on the job. He probably lectured them on post-glacial settlements during his passion.

  He thought about sneaking a look behind the tarpaulin, but he didn’t have time to take a closer look at their find; the pressure in his bladder had become heavy and painful.

  This had almost become a ritual. Every morning he rose early and urinated over the cliff edge, watching as it fell in a myriad of droplets, following it down till it was out of sight.

  He felt the sun on his back, just starting to warm up as he strode over the damp grass. Ahead of him, in the distance, a bank of mist crept slowly southwards and down below him the sea was lightly ruffled by a soft wind.

  He unzipped himself and, still whistling, looked down to find his direction.

  He saw the hand first.

  Grey and scaly, it came at his feet from beyond the cliff edge. He tried to jump back but it was too fast, catching him round the left ankle and bringing a shooting pain as thin talons entered his flesh. He didn’t have time to dwell on it as his feet were pulled out from under him.

  He tried to grab a hold as he was dragged toward the cliff edge but he came away with only a few stalks of grass. Looking down towards his feet he saw more of whatever it was that had him; a long arm, thick muscled, looking like a piece of iron.

  The pull on his leg got stronger and his feet, then his ankles, then his thighs were pulled over the edge.

  Then gravity took over.

  DUNCAN - 1

  This is how it began.

  Duncan McKenzie was trying to fight off the remnants of a nightmare as he stood on the viewing platform around the top of the lighthouse. He didn’t remember a great deal of it - only that it involved the bedroom in his flat back in Glasgow and a monster creeping up the stairs towards him while condensation dripped off the walls and his radio blared in a loud bass thump.

  The chill of a sea breeze and the taste of his first cigarette of the day eventually drove it from his thoughts.

  From his vantage point high on the south end of the island he saw the sun beginning to haul itself up over the horizon, washing the lower clouds in fluffy pink and banishing the darkness for another day.

  Summer in the Outer Hebridean Islands of Scotland could be notoriously fickle, with rain and cloud scudding across the face of the sea with little warning, as often as not coming out of a bright blue sky. This morning he was due out in his dinghy to take water samples so he was pleased to note that most of the sky to the east had cleared, the pink clouds breaking ahead of the advancing sun.

  He circumnavigated the top of the lighthouse, smoking his cigarette and trying to remember exactly what it was he had to do that day. As he walked round to the other side of the platform he saw that the situation was not as promising as he first thought.

  Far to the north, the island beyond was just visible over the top of the second lighthouse, and the other islands in the chain were covered in a bank of dense fog, a bank which crept ever closer. He would just have to take his chances with the weather, as usual.

  He stubbed out his cigarette against the railing and flicked the butt away, watching it falling out over the edge. As his gaze followed it down he caught sight of a movement in the grass at the foot of the lighthouse. He whistled loudly and was answered by the happy barking at Sam.

  Sam was the only sheep-dog on the island, and he was getting too old for the job. Duncan guessed that at one time the dog had shown a clean pair of heels to anything else in his territory, but nowadays the best he could manage was to keep up with the farmer on his rounds, wheezing heavily as a result of a chronic chest complaint.

  Duncan smiled as he went down the stairs. A slobbery wet tongue on his face was just what he needed to get the day started.

  By the time he reached the do
or. Sam was scraping frantically to get in. When he’d first arrived Duncan had wondered where the marks on the paint had come from, but it hadn’t taken Sam long to get acquainted - Duncan was a soft touch.

  Once the door was open the dog leapt at him, almost knocking him over, its tail wagging strongly enough to set up a small breeze.

  Duncan had made great friends with the dog the summer before - much to the disgust of its owner. John Jeffries, the local farmer.

  John was not a believer in pets - to him Sam was a working animal who had to earn his keep, Duncan had heard him going on about it in the bar - how the dog was getting too old for the job and that he would take his shotgun to it one day soon.

  How anyone could be so callous about such a friendly animal was beyond his comprehension. But then again, John Jeffries was well known on the island for his truculent attitude. If it wasn’t about farming, John wanted nothing to do with it.

  Sam started his usual attack on Duncan’s groin region.

  What was it with dogs and groins? Some hormonal thing probably.

  Then again it had been a long time since Duncan’s hormones had done anything.

  It didn’t seem to worry the dog though. The nuzzling got more frenzied and he half expected the dog to start mounting his leg.

  Laughing he pushed the animal away and went back to the kitchen to fetch a biscuit.

  ‘Just a second boy,’ he shouted back over his shoulder, but when he turned towards the door, the dog had gone.

  Looking over the field he saw it walking sedately towards a figure in the distance. Duncan could just make out that it was John Jeffries. He raised his hand to wave but the farmer turned his back and walked on, heading towards the cliffs on the western side of the island.

  It was just possible to make out that he carried a shotgun. This was not unusual. The farmer often carried the gun around, although there were no large - or even small - predators on the island. Not even rabbits.

  Occasionally Duncan would come across a dead crow, and once he found a kestrel, blown into three distinct parts by the farmer’s gun. He’d confronted Jeffries about it in the pub, but had got exactly the answer he had expected.

  ‘Vermin. That’s all they are - only fit for shooting.’

  Since then there had been little love lost between the men and they could barely bring themselves to say hello when they met. Not that it bothered Duncan - he pitied any man who couldn’t see any wonder in the natural world.

  He stood at the door and watched the farmer and the dog until they disappeared over the horizon. He smoked a second cigarette down to the filter before looking around.

  The weather was closer in on the north side of the island, a fine mist beginning to descend over the craggy cliffs.

  If he was to have a comfortable time doing his sampling he would have to leave pretty soon - he knew how quickly a fair day could turn foul in this part of the world. He had been caught out before and he didn’t intend subjecting himself to a drenching.

  Turning, he headed indoors to finish his morning ablutions.

  One look at his tongue confirmed what his stomach and head had already told him. Too much beer, too many cigarettes and not enough sleep.

  Just the right preparation to face the rigours of a day at sea in the Scottish summer.

  Turning away from the mirror he bent to pick up his rucksack. He’d packed it up last night. Now all that was needed was to pick up something for a snack to keep him going during the day. He smiled to himself. He now had an excuse to visit the shop.

  As he walked along the gravel path away from the lighthouse he could already feel a light mist in the air, leaving tiny droplets clinging to his beard.

  He always enjoyed this walk - especially the stunning cliff views to the north and east as he headed up the small slope towards the shop. The sea birds squawked noisily overhead and he caught the sudden flash of black and orange as a puffin darted along the cliff-top ahead of him. As always, he kept well away from the cliff edge.

  Heights made him dizzy.

  If you stood him on a cliff edge and made him look down, his knees would threaten to give way and he would see the bottom of the cliff wavering from side to side, slipping in and out of focus.

  Paradoxically he was perfectly all right if faced with a man-made height. He could stand atop the lighthouse with none of the life threatening feelings he associated with cliffs, as long as he knew the railings were there to hold him in.

  One morning he forced himself to venture closer to the cliff edge and attempt to look over, but his knees betrayed him and he had been compelled to sit down and edge backwards until his eyes brought things back into focus.

  This morning he kept to the path, contenting himself with the views out to sea. Out over the water the wind was picking up, whipping the surface into white horses and sending them scudding off into the distance. Closer to shore, in the area where his sampling would be taking place, the water looked a lot calmer and he was hopeful of a quiet day ahead - he didn’t feel like spending all his time wrestling with the currents and getting soaked by flying spray. He prayed to Mother Nature for good weather as he tramped along the path towards the shop.

  The shop, post office and pub - it fulfilled all these functions - stood on the only crossroads on the island. The main path ran from the south lighthouse to the other lighthouse at the north end of the island. The segment that he walked was only five feet wide and had recently had gravel put down. From the shop the path ran both northwards to the far end of the island and eastwards down to the harbour.

  On both these stretches the path widened, making it large enough to carry the island’s only vehicle…a land-rover that was used by the lighthouse men to carry provisions and by the shop to bring the stock ashore from the supply boat.

  The shop itself was a squat, ugly, sandstone building on two floors. The upstairs provided the living quarters for the McTaggart family with the downstairs split into two main rooms - the shop and the post office to the front and the pub to the back.

  The McTaggarts had run the pub for more than twenty summers but it was their daughter Meg who Duncan most wanted to see.

  As he turned into the shops’ small yard, he saw her, standing with her back to him washing the small square windows.

  They were just too high for her and Duncan watched in admiration as she stood on tiptoe to reach the farthest corner, causing her T-shirt - skimpy at the best of times - to ride six inches up her back, exposing an area of well tanned skin.

  ‘Hello Meg. And how are you this fine morning?’

  She let out a small squeal before stumbling backwards and knocking over the metal pail of soapy water at her feet. Her eyes flashed angrily as she turned, then softened when she realized that it was Duncan.

  Her hair hung black and wavy over her face and Duncan longed to reach out for her, to move the hair aside and press a kiss on her lips.

  But he could never bring himself to take that step, to force the initiative. He watched her mouth move as she spoke and felt the heat spread in his stomach, the old adolescent lurching that you never really lost.

  ‘Oh. Now look what you’ve made me do, you big fool. Imagine creeping up on people like that,’ she said, her mouth angry but her eyes smiling. ‘You could have given me a heart attack.’

  She spoke in the lilting, sing-song accent of the Highlands, making Duncan think, once again, that he must sound like a guttural lowlands drone compared to her.

  ‘If you had a heart attack, would I get to loosen your clothing?’ Duncan said. He saw a wicked gleam in her dark green eyes as she considered her reply.

  ‘Only if you promise to take full advantage of the situation afterwards,’ she finally replied, staring up at him from under her fringe, her eyelashes fluttering. He was never sure if she did that deliberately or not, but whatever the cause it brought a new burst of heat in his chest and he felt it spreading to his face.

  The flirting had been going on for several days now, each time b
ecoming a little more risqué, each time causing Duncan’s heart to beat a little faster.

  He found that he spent more and more time thinking of her - how she would feel in her arms - and less and less time concentrating on his work. More than once he had wondered if she was the reason he had come back this year - the search for love taking over from the search for truth. He didn’t like to continue that train of thought - it brought into question his devotion to his work, and that was the only thing that kept him going.

  This time, as before, he pulled back from continuing with the flirtation - more in embarrassment then trepidation - he wasn’t used to being teased.

  ‘Is the shop open yet? I need to get some chocolate to keep me going today,’ he said, trying to get the conversation back to more mundane matters before he felt tempted to pounce on her.

  Meg responded quickly. She wasn’t yet ready to give up the chase. There was a gleam in her eyes, a teasing, dancing joy. Duncan realized that she was enjoying herself, and again he felt the heat rise inside him as she spoke.

  ‘Chocolate? Is that what you need to keep you going?’ Her tongue flicked out to lick the corners of her mouth. Duncan found that he couldn’t take his eyes off it.

  ‘I’m sure that I could keep you going better if you took me instead,’ she said, and her tongue did a quick tour of her mouth. Duncan had to fight off an urge to nibble it.

  He responded nervously, pulling at his beard. Although he didn’t know it, he always did that whenever she got too close.

  ‘Aye. I’m sure you could keep me going. But we’d probably ship so much water that we’d sink the dinghy. Can you imagine them calling out air-sea rescue, only to find us going at it like rabbits?’

  He noticed, too late, that he had embarrassed her. He knew that he had brought sex into the play too early. He was definitely out of practice at this sort of verbal fencing.

  He was about to speak, to try to repair the damage he had caused, when they were interrupted by a shotgun blast in the distance.