The Fanatic Read online

  John Welsh preached with the forests and hills at his back, and sentries posted to warn of approaching soldiers. His text was from Revelation, chapter 6: And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains; And said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb: For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?

  He spoke for two hours, discoursing on the wrath of temporal kings and the wrath of God, on those who hid among the rocks as they did now and those mighty men who would hide when it was their turn to be hunted; and how in that day there would be no hiding-place and no deliverance for them, and only those who had kept their tryst with God in the present times would be upheld in his terrible judgment. ‘Remember,’ said John Welsh, ‘the dying words of Samuel Rutherford, who was summoned at the Restoration to compear before Parliament on a charge of treason: I have got summons already before a superior Judge, saith his servant Samuel, and I must answer my first summons, and ere your day is at hand, I will be where few kings and great folks come.’

  There were prayers and psalms, and the grey looming sky that had seemed so heavy with rain cleared, and the sun broke on the hills and made the boggy ground gleam with many colours. Lizzie Sommervile found herself stirred with feelings that she neither recognised nor understood. She looked at James Mitchel beside her, and felt his hand clutching hers. She believed she loved him, but she did not know why. She believed he loved her but in a different way, a way through God that would always be closed to her. But she would never say this. If it was necessary to him, then she would pretend that this also was the way she loved. On a day such as this she could almost believe it.

  The weather was so fine by the time the meeting broke up that, as people were leaving on the long walks back to their homes, James turned to Lizzie and said, ‘Let’s awa intae the hills, tae see the place frae on high.’ And although she was nervous to be going in the opposite direction from everybody else, and was surprised that he should suggest a Sabbath journey that was not to worship, it was maybe like going a dauner in the company of God, so she consented. They climbed rapidly, and looked back on the brown land shining with water, and the tiny figures of the people departing, and they came to a cleft in some rocks which was thick with pine needles, and almost dry, and they spread her shawl out there and lay and watched the last worshippers disperse, and the country below become empty again.

  James Mitchel undid the ties of Lizzie’s dress, and put his hand to her breasts, and his lips to them. She felt the weakening warmth of the sun on her shoulders. ‘I am the rose of Sharon, and the lily of the valleys,’ said James. He pulled up her skirts and pushed down his own clothes and entered her, and she felt him going deep into her. He put down his head and began to thrust. Past his shoulders she saw the thick ranks of trees and the looming hills, and a tremor of fear went through her as he came. What were they doing in this desolate place, on the Sabbath, after having heard the dire warnings of the minister? This was not a walk with God but a nakedness in his garden that they should hide. But in her fear was something else, deeper, an utter lack of shame. And James did not feel her fear or her shamelessness; she wondered if he felt anything of her at all. He lay on top of her, breathing heavily, his face in at her shoulder.

  She fell into a dwam. She came half out of it, aware that the sun was getting low. A cold wind was rising. She was about to shake him awake, when something moved up yonder, in the trees. A deer? A wolf, maybe? Could there be wolves here? And then the movement came again, and a figure stepped from the forest.

  It was a boy. He might have been twelve, or fifteen, or maybe even older. It was hard to tell because she had never seen anyone like him. No, that was not quite true. She had seen them on the streets of Edinburgh, Highlanders, great beasts of men, cattle drovers, and others of their race who came to barter and sell and, according to most folk, to steal whatever they could. They spoke a quick, liquid language and stared at you with great curiosity and insolence. That was how the boy looked at her. He was thin and lithe, wearing a ragged peat-coloured plaid, loosely held around him by a belt and a clasp of some kind. His legs and feet were bare, which she could hardly believe out here on the hillside in this wintry season. His skin was brown as a nut, and his shaggy hair black like night. His face and arms and legs were streaked with mud and grainy with dirt. He held a long stick in one hand. There was a knife stuck in his belt.

  He took a step towards her. She was about to scream, but he held a finger to his mouth and smiled. The smile stopped her. It filled his face from eyes to mouth and it was beautiful. It made her certain that he did not intend to hurt her. She almost forgot that she was lying with her skirts around her waist and a buttock-naked man on top of her. The boy took another step. He was maybe twenty feet away.

  She saw his eyes flicker and she followed that brief signal and suddenly realised what it was he was after. James’s sword lay a few feet away. She came to herself at once, fully awake, pushing James off her and diving to grab the sword. James jumped up, his breeks halfway down his legs, a ridiculous dishevelled sight. She had the sword by the hilt. ‘Whit? Whit is it?’ he was shouting. She looked around. The boy was gone.

  She could say nothing. She ran a few steps towards the trees, pulling her clothes together. There was nobody there. She came back to James, who was finishing dressing himself. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I dreamt … I thocht I saw somebody there.’

  ‘Where?’ he said anxiously. She pointed. He took the sword from her. They peered into the trees together.

  ‘It’s late,’ he said. ‘You should hae waked me. We must get aff the hill.’

  They hurried down the slope together. ‘Whit’s wrang?’ she said. ‘Whit is wrang?’ But he did not speak until they had regained the flat land and were striding east, back to Cardross, in the last of the light.

  ‘These Highland hills,’ he told her. ‘It’s ma ain fault, Lizzie, I shouldna hae taen ye up there. They are cauld and evil, and the Erse folk watch frae them. They are pagans when they arena papists, and they would murder ye for a plack. Tell me whit ye saw.’

  But she could not get the boy’s smile out of her mind. Surely he had meant her no harm. She only said, ‘I saw naethin. I thocht, for an instant, a man, but it was mair likely a beast, a deer mebbe. I was dreamin.’

  He softened a little. ‘Ah, Lizzie, I was dreamin also. Ma heid was brimfou wi the beauty of this day. Truly God hath brought me to the banqueting-house, and his banner over me is love.’

  She recognised that. It was from the Song of Solomon. And then she understood why he had taken her up there – to make real some kind of dream that he had, to live in the Song himself. They hurried along in the dark, disorientated on the unfamiliar paths. And she felt miserable within, and jealous of the words that he worshipped.

  James Mitchel clung to her on the narrow bed of the cell. She felt the wooden planks beneath her, unyielding and hard. James grunted and came into her.

  Had she come to the Bass for this? she asked herself. No, she had come in the secret, vain hope that this might be her time, that by some strange deliverance God might bless them.

  ‘When will ye come again?’ he asked later, as Elizabeth was getting ready to go.

  ‘I dinna ken,’ she told him. ‘It isna easy, James. Ma brither Nicol’s wife has taen ower the stall these last days, but she canna afford the time and I canna afford tae pey her for it. Forby, Nicol has troubles o his ain tae thole. First he was pit oot o the clerkship o the guild o hammermen and noo he’s been chairged wi disruptin their elections. He could loss the richt tae practise his craft, or be sent tae the Tolbooth himsel. But I will come again if I can.’

  She knew though that she would not return, that these were just excuses. The real reason was what was between her and James: something
that was nothing to do with love and everything to do with it. She could not bear the thought of repeating their act in this awful place. She could not bear seeing and smelling and touching her poor ruined husband in this dreadful pit. She was bound to him by law and by love, and yet she lived as freely as a widow, but without a widow’s penury. The stall would never make her rich, but it gave her an income. And although, through James, she was firmly attached to and associated with the Presbyterian party, his past actions meant she was also set apart from many within that broad swathe of opinion; and so long as he was in prison, she need not be dragged into more trouble and danger on account of religion. The truth was – and she did not wish the Bass upon him or any man – she was better off without him.

  She picked up her basket. There was one thing she had not yet given him. She had brought a book, worn, spine-cracked, its pages wavy from damp journeys. It would give him comfort, but she had swithered about bringing it at all. She had thought of it as a rival. But maybe it was more herself that was the rival.

  ‘I had near forgot,’ she said. She lifted a layer of folded linen from the bottom of the basket, and took the book out. ‘Ye’ll no can read muckle in this licht, but mebbe ye ken it weill enough onywey.’

  She held it out and he reached for it. Joshua Redivivus. Mr Rutherford’s damned and burnable letters.

  He looked at it in amazement, pulled it into his chest. ‘Ah, Lizzie,’ he said. ‘Lizzie, my dear love, ye could hae done nae better thing than this.’

  He began to greet. She saw him there, head bowed, alone, clutching the book, and all she could think of was what she might be carrying away in secret from him, and all she felt was a terrible lack of love. She thought her heart would break. She went to him and held him again until Tammas’s chap came at the door.

  ‘Mind,’ was her parting whisper. ‘Gie siller tae him. The pockmarked sodger.’

  As she left the cell, Lizzie almost broke into a run. She needed to get out into the open air. But in the narrow passage she felt Tammas’s hand come up under her oxter and stop her. ‘Wait,’ he said. ‘No yet.’

  He was right behind her in the shadows. She could feel his breathing hard in at her back, his arm across her breast like a sack full of sand.

  ‘How did ye pey the boatman?’ Tammas said.

  ‘Wi siller,’ she whispered, ‘whit else?’ She tried to turn her head but his arm came up and held her more tightly. She was aware of her heart pounding against it. She thought of the siller she had given to James, who lay just a few feet away. ‘My husband,’ she began to say, but he clapped his other hand over her mouth. At that moment a soldier passed by the end of the passage.

  ‘Wheesht, wheesht noo,’ said Tammas. ‘We maunna be seen. The boat’s no in yet.’

  They stood pressed together in the gloom. His hand was like leather. She could feel the coarse ridges of its skin when she moved her lips. His thigh shifted, pushing between her legs.

  Edinburgh, April 1997

  Jackie arrived late at Dawson’s on the Monday evening. It was after eight. She’d finally got around to calling Hugh back that morning and they’d arranged to meet for another drink. ‘Definitely just a couple,’ she’d said. ‘Monday night drinking is not a habit I want to get into.’ ‘Oh come on,’ he’d said. ‘Don’t give me that Protestant work ethic thing.’

  Hugh was halfway through a pint. The bar was busy and he had to wave to attract her attention. ‘Sit down and guard this,’ he said, ‘and I’ll get you a drink. What do you want?’

  ‘I’ll have a pint too. Whatever you’re drinking.’

  She knew as soon as she saw him again that nothing was going to happen between them. Nothing that she would instigate anyway. She couldn’t have predicted this with any certainty when they talked on the phone, nor as she was getting ready to go out, nor even as she was getting off the bus and crossing the street to the pub. Only when she saw him. It just wasn’t right. She’d found his boyishness appealing: now she found it annoying, a sign of immaturity and maybe selfishness. She had thought him handsome: now she saw that he would run to fat in a few years, that the line of his jaw would slacken.

  He came back with her beer. There was something suspiciously like a twinkle in his eye. She hoped she wasn’t going to have to fight him off.

  ‘How’s publishing?’

  ‘All right. How’s tourism?’

  ‘Picking up, picking up. You know, people keep going on about the Braveheart factor, all these Yanks coming back to their homeland, but I never really believed it. But this year, I don’t know, it feels good. Already I sense an influx of dollars into my trouser pocket.’

  ‘That’s excellent. You’ll be able to pay decent wages.’

  ‘I already pay decent wages. Way above the likely minimum wage.’

  ‘Aye, you said that before. So that won’t affect you if it comes in?’

  Hugh smiled. ‘My wage bill is what you might call an unknown quantity. Depending on what the current and future state of employment legislation is, I may or may not have more or less staff on my books than I do at present.’

  ‘Flexible rostering taken to its logical conclusion, eh?’

  ‘It’s an up and down kind of enterprise, Jackie. Hard to predict. But basically I think I can live with a minimum wage. The thing that bothers me is this tartan tax everybody keeps banging on about. I mean, a tax on tartan would really hurt the tourist industry.’

  She looked hard but even still it took her a few seconds to realise he wasn’t serious.

  ‘I’ll take it you’ll live with a Scottish parliament too, then, if Labour win the election?’

  ‘Yes, if it happens. To be honest, my feeling is, why rock the boat? You know, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Things are ticking along pretty smoothly for me just now – apart from one persistent hiccup. But if it happens, it happens. Anyway, I wouldn’t bank on Labour delivering the full kit and caboodle even if they win.’

  ‘They’re going to win the election, Hugh. No question. It’s just a matter of how big a majority. If they don’t I’m emigrating. I don’t think I could stand another five years of the Tories.’

  ‘Well anyway,’ said Hugh, ‘you’d hardly know there was a general election going on in the real world. It’s all done in TV studios these days. Frankly politics leaves me cold. Let’s change the subject.’

  ‘Okay. What’s the persistent hiccup?’

  ‘Guess.’

  ‘Not Andrew Carlin. You said on the phone he was doing fine.’

  ‘That was then. This is now. A whole new ball-game.’

  ‘What’s gone wrong?’

  ‘Well, after I left that message, I spoke to my guide Gerry. I was a bit premature, it seems. He’d done all right the first night, but the next he didn’t rendezvous with the tour at the end. Of course it wasn’t a disaster, the people didn’t know he was going to be there, but Gerry’s patter leads up to it, and anyway the point is that’s what he’s paid to do. In fact, that must have been the night you went on the tour. What did you think?’

  ‘I enjoyed it. Your guide’s very good. And I thought Carlin was pretty effective too. I kind of missed him after his first appearance, but that was only because I was expecting him again, from what you’d said. The others in the group were perfectly happy.’

  ‘Yeah, but I want them to finish on a high note. I want them spreading the word that this is the tour to go on. Anyway, I saw him yesterday and sorted it out. Turns out he came over dizzy or something, so he says, and by the time he got himself together they were too far ahead. Well, maybe. I gave him the benefit of the doubt.’

  ‘So that’s okay.’

  ‘No, it’s not. Gerry phones me this morning. Carlin did his stuff all right last night, in fact he was outstanding – Gerry said even he was nearly peeing himself. But he diverted the tour. For no apparent reason. Grabbed Gerry by the arm and made him go a different route. Not a word of explanation. Gerry hung around afterwards to see what the problem was but the guy h
ad just vanished. And I still don’t know where he stays so I can’t contact him.’

  ‘That’s the trouble with flexible rostering. You’ll need to catch him and put a rocket up his close.’

  ‘Very funny. The trouble is, I don’t want to piss him off. He’s so weird. He’s such a good ghost, but it’s no use if he turns up some times and not others.’

  ‘That’s the trouble with ghosts. Not reliable. What are you going to do?’

  ‘Give him another chance. Tonight. I thought maybe we could go on the tour together – if you can face it again. And we can see how he performs.’

  ‘Tonight? Oh, I don’t know, Hugh, I’m pretty tired.’

  ‘I’d really appreciate it.’

  ‘But we’d have to go now.’

  ‘Fifteen minutes.’

  She thought about it. It was what she’d wanted, although she’d not figured on doing the tour with Hugh. But she hesitated. The whole Carlin thing suddenly seemed stupid.

  ‘Please,’ Hugh said.

  ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘But I’m knackered, I might not last the whole thing. If I slip off halfway along the route, don’t be offended.’