Miss Pink at the Edge of the World Page 7

  “They’re watching Stark and Pincher,” Marcus said. “Are you sure they don’t attack people?” Miss Pink asked the naturalist.

  “They eat people,” Sadie told her.

  Ian shrugged. “I’ll tell you when I’ve done my research,” he said, answering Miss Pink.

  “Providing you’re still with us,” Marcus grinned.

  “What’s he mean?” Sadie asked Ian.

  “He means if the whale I’m making friends with doesn’t eat me. Would you mind?”

  “Yes. I wouldn’t want you to be eaten.”

  Marcus caught Miss Pink’s eye and she looked away, touched by this exchange and embarrassed to see, not passion in Ian’s gaze, but a craving for the girl to become aware of him as a lover.

  “If they don’t cross the channel,” she observed, looking down at the shore, “they have to come all the way back — which they have to do sometime in any case. Do they do it by prusiking? I’ve never seen that.”

  “What’s prusiking?” Ian asked.

  Marcus said: “You use a couple of clamps called ‘jumars’. They lock on the fixed rope you have to climb and they’ve got handles. There are slings attached to each jumar and you use those as foot loops. The clamp locks when your weight is on it, releases when weight’s taken off and then you slide the free clamp up the rope. What it means is that the fixed rope becomes a kind of ladder frame and the clamps and foot loops provide the movable rungs. It’s the ultimate vindication of the layman who always thought we climbed the rope. With prusiking you do just that.”

  “Sounds strenuous.”

  “They say it’s not.”

  The climbers were scrambling over the weed-covered rocks to the channel. They stood looking at the water, and then at the whales. After a while they moved back and out of sight.

  “They’ll be prospecting for another way up,” Marcus said, “but for my money, they’ll return up the fixed ropes. The rock over there isn’t firm, and three hundred feet’s a long way. If they were trapped they couldn’t descend because the tide’s coming in. They know where they are with the ropes.”

  They relaxed. All except Sadie had brought food and this they shared with her. Miss Pink had a flask of coffee and Marcus had brought a half-bottle of Riesling which went very well with lobster and chicken sandwiches. They drank it from the thermos cup. It was warm in the sun, the breeze remained quiet and during the meal long skeins of geese crossed the coast heading for the Arctic and talking softly as they went.

  *

  Stark and Pincher were powerful men. After lunch the watchers on the cliff sat in silence as the ropes were climbed and Miss Pink for one wondered at the ease with which they worked their way astonishingly quickly towards the top of the cliffs. The fixed ropes were, of course, left in position, but she noticed that Stark spent some time at the top of each, evidently checking the pitons which secured them to the cliff. This man left nothing to chance.

  “All that faith in one point of security,” she murmured.

  “Well, in climbing you’ve always got to trust something, or someone,” Marcus remarked.

  “Yes, but in conventional climbing, you’re on the rock, aren’t you? I mean, it’s a matter of trusting yourself; the second man and the rope enter the picture only if you fall. In this fixed rope business, you’re trusting the rope all the time: from when you start up it until you reach the top. Your weight is on it completely, for as long as it takes you to prusik up a hundred feet or so.”

  “Stark knows what he’s doing, and I’ll wager he placed all the ropes. He wouldn’t leave it to Pincher — and even then he double-checked as he came up.”

  She remembered Rita: ‘Pinch would be all right if Stark was dead’ and shivered.

  “They’re doing it all the time,” Marcus reminded her. “And the ropes look new.”

  The climbers gained the top of the cliff and came round to the others.

  “That’s splendid,” Marcus greeted them. “You’ve got the cliff roped in one day.”

  Stark sat down carelessly on the edge. Sadie’s eyes widened and she glanced at Ian.

  “That’s a chossy heap,” Stark said in disgust, jerking his head at the cliff. “I hope the stack’s more sound.”

  “You can see the line.” Pincher was studying the Old Man.

  “Can I borrow your glasses?” Stark asked of Miss Pink.

  She handed them to him and he lay down with his elbows on the turf.

  “What about that slab?” Pincher pressed: “A bit more than halfway up.”

  Marcus remained obstinately silent; he’d be hurt that he wasn’t being consulted.

  “It’s all right.” Stark was laconic. He studied the rock for a long time and then handed the glasses to Pincher who turned immediately to the whales which were now farther out from the land. The tide had covered the plinth and the Old Man was even more impressive, rising straight from the sea.

  “You’ll get across at low water but how are you going to get back?” Marcus asked.

  “How long is the channel passable?” Stark countered.

  Ian said: “You can get across two hours either side of low water.”

  “Four hours clear,” Stark muttered. “It was low this morning, wasn’t it?”

  “About ten. Roughly eleven tomorrow.”

  “And again at eleven at night?”

  “Approximately.”

  “So we couldn’t get back till nine in the evening?”

  “That’s about it — unless you swim, but you could do that any time.”

  “Not me,” Pincher said.

  Stark stared at the Old Man. “If we went across as late as possible — say one o’clock — we could get back in eight hours’ time. We might need all of that to get up it. How long did you take?”

  Marcus looked at him without expression. “Can’t remember, dear chap; we were having fun. Doubt if anyone looked at his watch.”

  Stark’s eyes narrowed but if he was thinking of baiting the older man, Marcus got in first.

  “You do swim?” he asked innocently.

  Stark looked at the whales without replying. A muscle was twitching at the corner of one eye.

  “Are they there at night?” Pincher asked. “Don’t they go away: hunt or something?”

  “They’ve got to feed sometime,” Ian agreed, “but they don’t seem to follow a system — or if they do, I haven’t discovered it. In fact, I don’t know what they feed on when the seals aren’t here.”

  Pincher stared at the naturalist. Miss Pink saw that he was desperately frightened and was sorry for him, particularly after seeing him work so competently on the steep cliff.

  “If all goes well,” she put in comfortably, “you’ll cross the channel and get back in the dry.”

  “Coming to watch tomorrow?” Stark asked Sadie in a high, harsh voice.

  “No, it’s not worth it.”

  He was taken aback but recovered quickly.

  “Perhaps you’d like to come with us,” he said, with a return to suavity: “or instead of Pinch.”

  “With them ropes!” She was laughing at him. “Never! They’re not safe.”

  Chapter Five

  The six people on Farrid Head separated. Ian drew Sadie aside and after a brief exchange which seemed to become an altercation, he left the coast and set off inland alone. Marcus announced his intention of climbing the little hill to the south, while Miss Pink, in no mind for the smart pace at which he travelled, started to make her way back to Scamadale. Sadie stayed with Stark and Pincher.

  As she approached the cliffs again after descending the rock band, Miss Pink heard the urgent whine of an outboard motor and saw a small boat heading for the Old Man. She recognised Hector through the glasses and, on an impulse, waved. He waved back — which was curious, for it meant he’d been watching her — and he had no binoculars. Good eyesight there — and interest in people’s movements.

  A deeper engine note came from the south. A larger boat, half-decked, was roun
ding the Head and making for Calava Bay. The man in it was a stranger to her and she guessed that this was Roddie MacKenzie; Leila had mentioned that he hoped to go round to Kinloch today if he could get a lift with the mail van: to bring back his boat which he laid up there during the winter. In its own small way Scamadale was a bustle of activity. She wondered what Bridget and Clive were doing, and then she thought of Leila.

  If she had climbed before, what conceivable purpose could she have for hiding the fact? Climbers are great people for exchanging accounts of past exploits, yet without actually telling lies, Leila had suggested that she was a novice under Clive’s tuition. Miss Pink wondered if her friend’s reticence might have something to do with a serious accident: hardly an injury to herself for, by all accounts, she had plenty of nerve left, so could she have lost a partner on a climb, and held herself to blame? Had there been some mountain fatality (and possibly a subtle form of condemnation from a coroner) which Leila felt she must live down? Could that account for her burying herself in a remote corner of Scotland, where no one knew — say — that she had failed to hold a falling leader, or had been too weak or tired to return with the rescue party, to lead them straight to a man who might have lived had he been found in time? Miss Pink was inclined to reject both hypotheses; they implied a dishonesty and irresponsibility which clashed with her own assessment of Leila’s character. The woman was too honest not to accept such mistakes had they been made; moreover, as an old climber, she would know that they were by no means rare occurrences. Most people die in mountains through errors of judgement; a second can’t hold a fast-running and loaded rope without gloves, and a survivor is often too shocked to reflect that rescuers aren’t infallible, that they stand a better chance of finding the casualty if they know exactly where he was last seen. But if it wasn’t a climbing accident — then what? Was she hiding: from a crazy husband perhaps or even from the law? Had she absconded with an employer’s money “Ridiculous,” Miss Pink said aloud: “She’s no criminal.”

  Besides, she reminded herself, it was none of her business, nor were the other problems which beset Scamadale and its visitors: Marcus and his moon-calf infatuation for Bridget, not to speak of the girl’s unhappy love affair. And Bridget and Leila had Clive to turn to for help; he would be a bulwark in times of stress — although what had Leila said? If he knew that a climber had done something: had she said ‘illegal’? — something contrary to his code, he would turn against them. Illegal. Leila. She was back where she’d started. She frowned in frustration and sat down, aware of moving shapes but not of gannets diving. After a while the small depth-charge explosions penetrated her consciousness and her face cleared. She smiled at the birds and then at her own involvement in other people’s lives. She would go on as she’d intended originally, she assured herself; she would enjoy her holiday and ignore problems which were not her business, and after all, they were problems of mature people who should be capable of solving them themselves.

  MacKenzie was mooring his boat as she came down to the settlement. The broch appeared untenanted and the MacKays’ back door was closed. Since no one had passed her, she assumed that the climbers and Sadie were still on Farrid Head. She realised with some amusement that after little over twenty-four hours she was so assimilated into Scamadale life that she was wondering what people were doing. It didn’t occur to her that such a state of mind was at variance with her decision not to get involved.

  Smoke was rising from the MacKenzie and MacLeod chimneys where Elspeth and Jessie would be preparing the evening meal. Of Murdo MacLeod there was no sign.

  Leila’s door was open to the westering sun and as she came along the terrace she heard voices. Bridget and Leila stared at her as she appeared in the doorway of the sitting room. Bridget had lost her poise and looked harassed. Both were obviously confused by Miss Pink’s appearance.

  She apologised for intruding and said very firmly that she was longing for a bath. Her hostess was full of contrition; she’d only just remembered to switch the immersion heater on and the water wouldn’t be hot.

  She was determined not to embarrass them further. They were trying to communicate by desperate glances. She went out to the terrace to remove her boots and would have gone straight upstairs then but Leila called her into the room where she was pouring drinks. She had a hold of herself now.

  “Come in, Melinda,” she said quietly. “We think you ought to hear what Bridget has to say.”

  Miss Pink hesitated for a moment, not debating a refusal, but metaphorically girding her loins. She knew that tone. She joined them and accepted a sherry. What she really craved was a cup of tea as all mountaineers do, particularly after the first walk of a holiday. The fact that Leila had forgotten this was a measure of the seriousness of the situation. No one asked if she’d had a good day: another cardinal omission in the ritual.

  Bridget broke the silence. “I can’t tell it all again,” she said forlornly.

  “Well —” Leila began, and threw a helpless glance towards Miss Pink.

  “Facts,” that lady said cheerfully. “What’s happened?”

  “Stark’s happened.” Bridget’s voice had a mock grimness which augured not too badly, even if she was a promising actress.

  “It was obvious you didn’t like him.”

  “That’s over-simplification,” Bridget said. “I’m in a mess where Stark’s concerned.”

  Miss Pink started to see daylight and she glanced at Leila inquiringly.

  “Yes.” Her hostess sighed. “She knew Stark before last evening.”

  “Only too well.” Bridget was bitter.

  The silence stretched. If Miss Pink hadn’t met him before nor talked to Rita, she might have said: “You knew him, so what?” only more delicately. In the circumstances she was thinking rapidly. Bridget, then, could be the ‘girl with money’ who had thrown Stark over.

  “I think I’m afraid of him,” Bridget said carefully.

  “Oh, come now!” They were on firmer ground. “What’s wrong with him? Is he violent?”

  “Well — not really, not how you mean, but he’s vicious.”

  “You didn’t tell me that,” Leila said.

  “We didn’t get that far. In any case, you’re not used to vice; Miss Pink is. You can hurt people without being violent; you can damage them.”

  Leila’s shoulders drooped and she looked depressed.

  “How does he do it?” Miss Pink asked. “What form does his viciousness take?”

  Bridget sipped her sherry and passed a hand over her forehead. They let her take her time.

  “He — manipulates. He’s terribly devious. He makes a kind of campaign to find out your weak points, and then attacks them. Emotional weak points: like, if you’re loyal and value friendships, he’ll turn your friends against you by suggesting, oh, so insidiously, that you’re disloyal to them. He insinuates rather than lying but so cleverly that people don’t realise what he’s up to. If you tax him in private he jeers at you because you’re too well-mannered to bawl him out in company. He admits he’s a swine, even in public, but the effect it has on people is for them to think of him as a charming rogue and irresistible. People are always making allowances for him.”

  Miss Pink said: “I saw a much more aggressive side to him on Saturday night.”

  “Leila told me. That’s in character too. He changes colour to suit the setting. In London he’s more careful, but I’ve seen him back someone against a wall — metaphorically — even there. At the inn he was attacking a stranger and he could let rip with the keeper — and I guess that he enjoyed having you as a spectator too. He can be honest — with girls —” she hesitated, appearing embarrassed, wondering perhaps if she’d been the only recipient of that honesty, “— but he gets a reaction afterwards and then he’s more cruel than before.”

  “Why did you stay with him?” Leila asked.

  “The classic question. But I didn’t. I got away.”

  “And he followed you? For money or to r
enew the relationship?”

  “What’s this about money?” Miss Pink asked.

  “Oh, he’ll take everything you’ve got. No handbag’s safe when Stark’s around. He expected me to make the payments on his Mini.”

  “Did you?”

  “No.”

  “Does he have a job?”

  “Not while I’ve known him. He just sponges. I don’t know why he’s come to Scamadale, Leila. Maybe he came just for the climbing. But he won’t let the opportunity slip of causing trouble for me. You see, in his book, he drops the girls, but I left him.”

  “Good gracious,” Leila exclaimed. “He must be abnormal if he can’t accept it when a girl throws him over. In these days! I thought young people were so casual — I mean, emotionally — about relationships.”

  “I haven’t got it across.” Bridget sounded tired. “Stark’s casual all right; it was someone appearing to be casual about him that dented his pride.”

  “‘Appearing’?” Miss Pink queried.

  Bridget stared at her hands. “I loved him,” she said. “It was a kind of hell.”

  Leila nodded. Her face was sad. “I see. You were in love with a rotter.”

  The girl smiled wanly. “You’ve hit the nail on its head — and there’s still some weird attachment that I can’t break although I know how unhealthy it is. I’d sooner kill myself than go back to him. He’d destroy me.”

  “Does he know how you feel?” Miss Pink asked, trying to keep things on an even keel.

  “I hope not. I stand a chance if he doesn’t.”

  “Oh, for goodness sake!” Leila rose to fetch the sherry. “Pull yourself together; you’ve got free-will, haven’t you?”

  “A vestige comes back, talking to you two.”

  “Will you tell your uncle?” Miss Pink asked.

  They stared at her. “Is it necessary?” Leila asked. “If she keeps out of Stark’s way, he might be gone within a day or two.”

  Miss Pink said nothing.