home. Home, now!’ The blur of black in the water turned and Bill saw the reproach in the edges of the bitch’s eyes as she made for shore. When she got back up on the shingle the water poured off her, splashing the grey stones black. She whirled the drops off herself, seeming to keep her white pointed snout still, pointed out towards Bill in his boat as he made for the small island in the middle of the loch.
In the bottom of the boat a plastic bag containing a bottle and two tins rocked between the timbers. There was a clatter under the boat as the centreboard scraped on the rocks around the island. Here it was not shingle but leaning brown rocks. It was an island you could imagine sticking up out of the floor of the loch like a stalagmite, sheer and showing only its short green summit. Built among the dull ponticum and streaming mosses, though, was a house, fourteen feet wide, fourteen feet deep, twenty-eight feet high. In only one of its seven windows was the glass unbroken. The top window was an oval, under the slate gable; in it was set a lozenge of glass, painted with a standing bird, for which Bill had named the house the Heronry.
Bill pulled his boat close in and tied the painter to a standing rock, where an iron ring had been set. He looked back to the shingle beach and saw that Shona had gone. Up the hill he saw her tail whispering like smoke above the heather. She’d be home in twenty minutes.
When he looked at the Heronry he could not believe that this small house contained all it did, an unbroken confident peace that was like a delay before certain fulfilment of trust. He could not remember in how many places he had looked for what he found here. He took his papers out and the tobacco and made a cigarette without looking, just pinching, holding, folding, licking, rolling. When he put the thin thing in his lips, he looked down the once to strike his match.
The air was so empty the smell of the match filled his stomach like meat. The black loch water promised rain. Bill listened to see if it had reached the hills. He heard the faint interference of distant weather, a premonition between the notion and actual drops on the face. He saw the settling grey cloud with its violent edge of light lie up against the hill and breathe into it. The cigarette drew blue feathers on the air.
In the first house he’d imagined had held all this one did, he’d settled and lived for two years. It had been at the gates of a ruin, just outside the city. He’d lived invisibly, as he liked. The falling big house had been a safari park in its last throes. Bill’s gatehouse was in the shadow of a gigantic placard that read: ‘These may be the only lions between here and Crianlarich.’ It was the uncertainty that charmed the very few visitors to the place, who were diverted rather than disappointed to find the lion-headed red lemurs, often flu-ridden, in the rickety aviaries of the old house. In the hall of the house were two stuffed lions, precariously fighting, at the top of the trembling stone stairs that were covered most mornings with feathers from the pigeons that had got in overnight and battered themselves against the great bland oval skylight in the roof’s height.
By the end of his time in the gatehouse, Bill had developed a touch with the lemurs, golden lion tamarins. He could tell when they sneezed if it was cat flu or worse, and he was horribly pained when their long forearms and small hands had to be folded at the end. Their hair was the glowing golden red of lily pollen. When the last one died he could not stay. The owners of the big house had yet more good ideas as to how to keep the place afloat, on the road, whatever wrong words they used, and Bill could see how each one would end. There were the usual misty fantastic ideas. In the end it was down to a dope farm or an agricultural machinery museum. Bill could see it all, the rusting thresher and the untended hemp in unsuitable pots taking over the greenhouse
In the bottom of the boat a plastic bag containing a bottle and two tins rocked between the timbers. There was a clatter under the boat as the centreboard scraped on the rocks around the island. Here it was not shingle but leaning brown rocks. It was an island you could imagine sticking up out of the floor of the loch like a stalagmite, sheer and showing only its short green summit. Built among the dull ponticum and streaming mosses, though, was a house, fourteen feet wide, fourteen feet deep, twenty-eight feet high. In only one of its seven windows was the glass unbroken. The top window was an oval, under the slate gable; in it was set a lozenge of glass, painted with a standing bird, for which Bill had named the house the Heronry.
Bill pulled his boat close in and tied the painter to a standing rock, where an iron ring had been set. He looked back to the shingle beach and saw that Shona had gone. Up the hill he saw her tail whispering like smoke above the heather. She’d be home in twenty minutes.
When he looked at the Heronry he could not believe that this small house contained all it did, an unbroken confident peace that was like a delay before certain fulfilment of trust. He could not remember in how many places he had looked for what he found here. He took his papers out and the tobacco and made a cigarette without looking, just pinching, holding, folding, licking, rolling. When he put the thin thing in his lips, he looked down the once to strike his match.
The air was so empty the smell of the match filled his stomach like meat. The black loch water promised rain. Bill listened to see if it had reached the hills. He heard the faint interference of distant weather, a premonition between the notion and actual drops on the face. He saw the settling grey cloud with its violent edge of light lie up against the hill and breathe into it. The cigarette drew blue feathers on the air.
In the first house he’d imagined had held all this one did, he’d settled and lived for two years. It had been at the gates of a ruin, just outside the city. He’d lived invisibly, as he liked. The falling big house had been a safari park in its last throes. Bill’s gatehouse was in the shadow of a gigantic placard that read: ‘These may be the only lions between here and Crianlarich.’ It was the uncertainty that charmed the very few visitors to the place, who were diverted rather than disappointed to find the lion-headed red lemurs, often flu-ridden, in the rickety aviaries of the old house. In the hall of the house were two stuffed lions, precariously fighting, at the top of the trembling stone stairs that were covered most mornings with feathers from the pigeons that had got in overnight and battered themselves against the great bland oval skylight in the roof’s height.
By the end of his time in the gatehouse, Bill had developed a touch with the lemurs, golden lion tamarins. He could tell when they sneezed if it was cat flu or worse, and he was horribly pained when their long forearms and small hands had to be folded at the end. Their hair was the glowing golden red of lily pollen. When the last one died he could not stay. The owners of the big house had yet more good ideas as to how to keep the place afloat, on the road, whatever wrong words they used, and Bill could see how each one would end. There were the usual misty fantastic ideas. In the end it was down to a dope farm or an agricultural machinery museum. Bill could see it all, the rusting thresher and the untended hemp in unsuitable pots taking over the greenhouse
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