Miss Pink at the Edge of the World Read online

  “There’s a big mountain at the back,” she told Miss Pink. “They’ve climbed it — well, one of them has, because he was telling me.” She straightened the counterpane unnecessarily and when she stood up she was blushing. “They’re not here for that place this time though; they’re just passing through.”

  “Where are they going?”

  “He didn’t say.”

  She left Miss Pink to speculate on the glamour attached to ‘foreigners’ particularly when they were associated with this new spectator sport which so many had seen demonstrated on towering sea stacks and alpine faces by way of the television screen. Danger had always been implicit in mountaineering, but it had taken the mass media to present climbing in a light where the public would stop disapproving of something that was generally incomprehensible and to switch with startling fickleness to a kind of idolatry. Television climbing epics were a growth industry.

  She dined on venison and half a bottle of Haut Brion. Given the choice of dining room or lounge in which to take her coffee, she chose the latter, only to find that it was the cocktail lounge and occupied already. Her coffee tray stood on a table and, making the best of a poor job, she sat down and regarded the company with a polite but deceptively abstracted air.

  The six people in the room seemed easy to place. The girl whom she’d met already was serving behind a small bar, and another girl and a man, both dressed casually in jeans and sweaters and whom she took to be the climbers, were talking at a table. One of the men standing would be the keeper: a burly middle-aged fellow in plus fours, while his companion, of similar physical type, with a face roughened by much exposure to the weather, might be a farmer. But her attention focused on the remaining customer for, from the attitude of the barmaid, this was the one who had climbed ‘the big mountain at the back’, one which she recollected now on which a fine cliff had been recently discovered steep and serious enough that people who ventured on it were worthy of attention.

  The girl was fascinated by her customer, but shy; not surprisingly, for he was talking to her with an assumption of intimacy unusual in one who was just passing through and evidently a stranger. He was dark and had a vaguely South American air enhanced by a dashing Zapata moustache and shortish hair which had been styled by a clever barber. His profile was predatory and arresting, striking if not handsome. He was lean and well-proportioned and, like the seated pair, he wore jeans and a sweater, and on his feet the scuffed suede boots favoured by climbers when they were off the rock. His voice was low and Miss Pink couldn’t distinguish words. The girl’s face was pink and she was becoming flustered.

  The keeper took his companion’s empty glass and, with his own, placed it on the counter with unnecessary emphasis. The barmaid glanced at him abstractedly, lifted an unlabelled bottle from a top shelf and, in filling the glasses, spilled the liquor. The climber said something. The keeper turned and stared at him. Miss Pink couldn’t see the local’s expression because his back was towards her but she watched the dark man’s face. The lips stretched, not in a smile but the start of one, the eyes were narrowed and dangerous. She had never seen a brawl start but had often observed male animals squaring up for a fight, and she was disturbed. She was aware that the farmer was watching the other two, and that the barmaid was suddenly expressionless as she wiped the counter.

  “You want to watch your tongue,” the keeper said clearly.

  “How’s that?” The tone was amused.

  “I heard what you said.”

  “I said she needed a few lessons — in pouring whisky.”

  “Now you listen to me. I’ve been hearing what you were saying, and this girl’s my cousin. We don’t like the ways of some of you Southerners and we’d be glad to see the back of you double-quick.”

  The climber’s eyes slid over the other. “A keeper, aren’t you? You should remember your manners, my man. You probably depend on the visitors for your wage packet, such as it is — or are you on Social Security?”

  The farmer was quick as a cat. As the arm started to swing he blocked it, reaching for his drink and interposing his bulk. The climber made no move but the keeper took a step sideways. The farmer faced him, his eyes anxious.

  “Drink up,” he urged, “and we’ll get to the bar; it’s more comfortable.”

  The seated couple had stopped talking and were watching the group at the bar. After a tense silence the keeper turned.

  “I’ll no’ drink in this company,” he said loudly and walked out, followed closely by his companion.

  “What a splendid exit line,” the climber remarked to their backs. The keeper paused but his friend crowded him into the passage. Raised voices could be heard receding. The barmaid went quickly through a door at the back of the counter and the climber turned round, leaning his elbows on the bar and exhibiting an almost indecent expectancy of approval. But the atmosphere had deflated as if pricked. Miss Pink, determined not to show her feelings, was studying the couple and wondering how they came to be associated with such a curious person. They looked ordinary enough: the young man with long, straggling hair, and the girl — well, not ordinary with that mouth which drooped too easily and bored eyes, but certainly not a type one would think congenial to the man who took such an unhealthy delight in goading strangers. She showed a certain animation in response to her companion, but she was dull. Dulled, perhaps, was the term.

  “Who’s for a game of darts in the bar?” the dark man asked. “Come on, Pinch; let’s challenge our friends.”

  “Don’t push it, man,” the other said, not looking at him.

  The one with the Zapata moustache hesitated, glanced at Miss Pink, rejected her, then lifted the flap of the counter, took down the unlabelled bottle and poured himself a drink.

  The girl said something inaudible and slouched out of the room.

  “Can’t take it?” the dark man called after her. There was no reply. A door slammed. “Can I get you a drink, madam?” he asked Miss Pink.

  “I’m not certain that you have the right to serve me,” she observed reasonably.

  The man called Pinch turned in his seat and stared at her.

  “The right, madam?” Zapata commented in surprise.

  “I would imagine that it extends only to the licensee and his employees.”

  “Ah,” he bowed to her ironically: “A lady who knows her law.”

  “Come off it, Stark,” Pinch said. “You’ll get us thrown out. I’m going anyway.” He got up and moved towards the door.

  “I’ve got the keys,” Stark said. “Thrown out? What have I done? Have I offended someone?” He looked towards Miss Pink who remained silent. “It’s no good you following Rita,” he continued to his companion: “She’s gone for a smoke and she won’t thank you for stopping her. And we’re staying here tonight — at least, I am.” He leered and jerked his head at the door by which the barmaid had left. “She’ll come back for more.”

  He filled a second glass, left the bottle on the counter and came round to join the other. His tone changed, became serious and confidential.

  “We can still be there by midday if we leave after breakfast. There’s no point in rushing; we’ve got to get down first —”

  The other interrupted in a low voice and Stark flicked a glance at Miss Pink.

  “. . . no interest,” she heard, “. . . teacher . . . school for birds.”

  “I hope this weather doesn’t clamp down,” Pinch said. “I told you all along it were too early in the year.”

  “You can get bad weather in the summer and anyway, if we waited, someone else might get in first. I know Jackson’s interested and he’s not far away: on Cam Mor. He could be moving north; he’s not working.”

  “What’s he got in mind on Cam Mor then?”

  They started to talk climbing shop but Miss Pink was less absorbed in the details than she would have been in different circumstances. She was intrigued by Stark’s dual personality. Now he was natural, enthusiastic, eager: apparently a perfectly norma
l young man discussing his overwhelming interest. She didn’t like it. Juxtaposed with his earlier behaviour it hinted at a kind of perversion. He could switch on and off like a mechanical object. Then some newcomers arrived, the man a factor perhaps in his good tweed suit and deerstalker, the girl willowy with long pale hair. Stark stopped talking and his eyes moved over her slowly, like a farmer valuing a cow. Miss Pink rose and went to the door of the inn.

  It had stopped raining and the outside lights shone on still puddles. She walked across the forecourt, sniffing appreciatively. There was a smell of wet earth with a tang of woodsmoke — and something else. She stopped and stared at the loch which had caught a patch of light in its upper reaches. A few yards away from her stood a white Mini and she was aware of a movement inside it, of the glow of a cigarette. Someone was watching her from the passenger seat. Miss Pink said pleasantly:

  “You’ll be hoping for the weather to improve.”

  There was silence from the car.

  “For climbing, I mean,” she went on.

  “I don’t climb,” the sulky girl said.

  “No,” Miss Pink agreed. “Three isn’t the best number.”

  “Too right it isn’t.” After a while she added: “I used to climb.”

  Miss Pink asked, with emphasis on the Christian name: “Is the young man in the hotel Trevor Stark?”

  “Yeah, that’s Stark. He’s great, isn’t he?” The tone was cool, almost amused. “You’ll have seen him on the telly.”

  “That’s right. He’s a fine climber.”

  “He’s one of the hard men.” Again that curious tone. A fact was stated, but no opinion. Miss Pink turned towards the inn.

  “He’s after blood tonight,” came the voice from the car. It could have been a warning or some kind of explanation.

  “Is he always like that?”

  The pale face nodded. The cigarette end glowed and smoke drifted through the open window.

  “Usually,” the girl said. “Even on the rock.”

  “That must be unpleasant for his friends.”

  “He hasn’t got any.”

  “For his climbing partners, then.”

  “He doesn’t keep those — not long. They go with him at first because they want to do the hard routes, but they never stay. Pinch wouldn’t stay but — he won’t stay — I hope. I wouldn’t have come but I wanted to be with Pinch. He’s my — we’re engaged, sort of. Why am I talking to you like this?”

  “It’s a lovely night,” Miss Pink said, “now that the rain has stopped. People sometimes want to talk in this kind of setting.” She gestured at the hills.

  “You a social worker?” the girl asked.

  “In a way.”

  “Yeah, I recognised you. That was funny, wasn’t it: ‘recognised you’? I mean, your sort, and the way you watched in there. You know, don’t you?”

  “Yes,” Miss Pink said. “I know.”

  “What are you going to do about it?”

  “Do you want me to do something? You don’t mean the police, do you?”

  “You’re like all the others — no, that’s wrong: some of the others. They leave it to you, but you can’t stop on your own. Do you think it ought to be legal?”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “Why not?”

  “I happen to believe that it can lead to hard drugs.”

  “That’s what Pinch says. He got me off it a while back. Made me smoke them awful French fags in the blue packet.”

  “Gauloises.”

  “That’s right, I can’t say it. Used to go in the shop and ask for them things in the blue packet.” There was a sound like a chuckle followed by a caught breath. “We used to play a game called Scrabble. You ever played that?”

  Miss Pink admitted that she had.

  “He said he’d make me concentrate and then I’d forget about the grass. It worked too. He were teaching me English: ‘widening my vocabulary’ he called it. I’m a slum kid, see, then there was the estate and that were worse, and then approved school. I used to steal for kicks. You shocked?”

  “No,” Miss Pink said.

  “It’s the truth. I gave up trying to shock people. Used to do it for fun like: making up things, but I got bored with it. Couldn’t get a rise out of people. Why do you do it?”

  “Do what?”

  “The whole scene: listening and so on, trying to make people go straight?”

  “Love, perhaps. In part.”

  “Haven’t you had none then?”

  “Yes, indeed. I had a very happy family life. That could be why, you see: one would like to try to pass it on.”

  “Pass on happiness? You must be joking.”

  “Pinch makes you happy.”

  “His name’s Pincher. No, it’s all right; it’s just if you called him Pinch it would be a bit familiar, wouldn’t it? But, of course, you won’t be talking to him. He doesn’t want me now; he wants that bugger in there. I don’t mean he’s a queer; it’s just that he’s tied to Stark like a baby. He worships him. Stark treats me like dirt, so Pinch does.”

  “Surely not. You were both quite natural in the lounge.” It wasn’t quite true but it would suffice.

  “Only because Stark was after the kid behind the bar. He didn’t want Pinch, so Pinch came to me. If there’d been two kids, Stark would have got one for Pinch to spite me. He got me back on the grass; Pinch knows it too, but he don’t seem to care any more.”

  “Does Stark smoke?”

  “Not him. He just carries them for company.”

  Miss Pink winced, and was observed.

  “Some people are like that,” the girl said.

  “Why does he try to drag you down? Does he dislike you so much?”

  “I don’t think he does. It’s just Pinch and me were together, see, and Stark likes breaking things.” She thought for a moment. “No, I don’t think he hates me,” she went on, stressing the pronouns. “I’m useful. He could get gorgeous birds to come on trips like this and cook — and the rest — but they wouldn’t stay. I’ll stay because of Pinch. A girl walked out on him not long since. He went mad; I’d never seen him like that before, just over a bird. He said he’d get her for it.”

  “What did he mean?”

  “I don’t know. Make her life hell somehow. Perhaps he’ll get her back and then drop her. But this one’s different; she’s not a slum kid, and she’s got money because he was always flush when she was around.”

  “Doesn’t anyone ever —?” Miss Pink hesitated.

  “Try to get him? They’d like to; he’s pushing it all the time. You saw him in the pub. I went to a circus once, with lions and tigers, you know, and there was this bloke with a whip and long shiny boots. I was only a kid but me, I liked them animals: cuddly they were, like toys, all furry and striped with big heads. You could make friends with them. And this bloke talked quiet at them, and he had a stick me auntie said give electric shocks, and I saw their eyes. God, I was frightened then. They were so full of hate, I thought they’d kill him and jump over the bars and get us. It wasn’t right to watch. I felt ashamed. Daft, wasn’t it?”

  “No, shame is a kind of suffering. It’s cruel to make an entertainment out of it.”

  “That’s right, you got it! And that’s what Stark does. I see people’s eyes when he’s really pushing. But something always happens, like that other chap just now; someone or something gets between Stark and the ones who want to come back at him. Bloody miracle, I call it. Some day though, his luck’ll run out. I hope I’m there to see it. Pinch would be all right if Stark was dead.”

  “No,” Miss Pink said firmly. “That’s a silly line of thought. You’ve got more sense.”

  “It’s true.”

  *

  As she undressed she reflected that cannabis had similar effects to alcohol: it was an intoxicant which prompted its dependents to unburden themselves. She wondered if the girl would regret her loquacity in the morning, but then there would be another cigarette to dull u
neasy memories — and, in any event, she might comfort herself with the thought that in all probability she and Miss Pink would never meet again; the conversation could be consigned to limbo. She didn’t think that it was a curious coincidence to find tragedy in a remote Highland inn; she was the kind of person people needed to talk to, and she knew only too well that horror was not a matter of places but of people.

  Chapter Two

  The country changed as she drove west the next morning. The big hills, with their long slopes and architecture like cathedrals, were left behind, and the road, single-track now, ran sometimes on the crest of a moor, often through shallow declivities where heather seemed to grow straight from the bedrock and the only soil was in pockets on craggy river banks, or in marshes. There were drifts of primroses in the pockets, and violets. Bird song was loud in every patch of scrub birch, and more than once as she crept round a curve and a watery bay, she sighted a heron, still as a post among thin reeds.

  She came to a sea loch which she knew was tidal only by the weed exposed on its shore. No open water was visible for the channel was lost seawards between low islets. She passed through a village called Kinloch that was merely one street with washing lines and salmon nets on the lochside, and a line of neat white cottages opposite.

  A mile beyond the village the road started to climb and the hill looked monstrously high and long. Far above, the pass showed between outcrops of rock. She wasn’t unprepared and she engaged second gear, but she had to change down to bottom before she reached the summit.

  For several miles on the other side of the pass the road dropped gently over moorland. There were power lines on the verge, the poles utilised economically by what must be a telephone cable. The sea was visible now but still some distance ahead. Isolated hills rose abruptly from the moor, riding the heather like boats at anchor. Below and on the right was an extensive stretch of water while all about this high tableland smaller lochans were gleaming in the sunshine. She passed open peat hags, the clean cuts a rich chocolate colour and the peats drying in the heather. The road dipped and she stopped.