Orkney Twilight Page 4

  ‘So, are you asking me to spy on him?’

  ‘I didn’t say spy. I said keep an eye on him.’

  ‘What’s the difference?’

  Liz didn’t answer.

  ‘Why does he need watching if he’s just taking a break? What can possibly happen to him if he’s doing nothing?’

  ‘Oh, you know what your father is like. He’ll probably drink too much and fall over the edge of a cliff.’

  ‘I’m hardly going to be able to stop him from drinking too much. You never have. And anyway, he’s not going to want me hanging around any more than I want to be around him.’

  ‘I’m sure he wouldn’t mind so long as you don’t get in his way.’

  She couldn’t quite be bothered to point out the flaw in her mother’s argument, the inherent contradiction between not getting in Jim’s way and keeping an eye on him.

  ‘You haven’t got anything else to do for the summer,’ Liz said.

  Sam folded her arms.

  ‘You could always take a friend.’ Liz was heading towards the door, ferreting in her handbag for the car keys, conversation over as far as she was concerned. Deal agreed.

  ‘I’d be surprised if I have any friends left after Jim’s performance last night,’ Sam yelled at Liz’s rapidly disappearing back. There was no reply. She stared out of the kitchen window again, mulling over her conversation with Liz. The dog was out in the garden now, scrabbling away at one of the flowerbeds, digging for buried bones. Or buried bombs. Perhaps it would be a chance to find out more about Jim, a last few days together before she went to college. And, loath as she was to admit it, Liz was right; she had loved their holidays in Orkney, crawling into passage graves, tramping across fields in horizontal rain to investigate the tumbledown walls of ancient brochs, searching stray megaliths for the stick-figure runes of the Vikings. Orkney, islands of the Norsemen, she mused to herself and a wire fizzled in her brain like one of Jim’s gaffer-taped electrical repair jobs. Operation Asgard. Asgard, Norse myth. Norsemen, Orkney. Was that it? Was that the rationale for the name – some dodgy connection with Orkney? She slumped on the kitchen floor, rested her head against the kitchen cabinet and gave the dog a dirty look as it moseyed its way disconsolately back into the kitchen.

  Sydenham Hill, West Dulwich, Herne Hill – the litany of stops on the commuter line. Sam whispered the names into the still evening air as she left the station, conjuring up the fields and woods beneath the tracks. A foaming-mouthed Alsatian tied to a rubbish bin snarled at her. She eyeballed the dog, straining on its frayed rope lead, tried to resist breaking into a run, swerved down the sandy path to the builder’s yard, negotiated her way around the piles of wooden pallets and headed to the warehouse. She put her hand on the door, hesitated, pausing to collect herself, calm her nerves.

  This was their regular meeting spot; an empty storeroom in the prefab building that Lee’s dad used as a base for his burgeoning construction business. This was the place where she hooked up with Becky, and a handful of others in their tightly-knit cabal, to plan their activities: the CND meetings, the leaflet stall outside the library on Saturday afternoons, the showings of ‘The War Game’, the marches. And, more frequently now, the trips to the peace camps that were sprouting up all over the countryside outside the British military bases housing American nuclear missiles. Protesting, political activism; it was becoming more like a way of life than an occasional activity, especially since they had all finished their exams. But despite the closeness of her clique, she still had to steel herself to climb the stairs. Just as she had always done. They might be her friends, but they all came from families with a radical pedigree: Aldermaston marchers, trade unionists, card-carrying members of the Labour Party. Hers was a slightly less salubrious heritage. Although, there was a pleasing irony about the fact that she had honed her political views courtesy of the Force and the trail of radical pamphlets left lying around the house by Jim: the Little Red Book, the Communist Manifesto, the Anarchist Cook Book and other guides to the philosophy of revolution and guerrilla warfare. Not that she ever shared that joke with her friends. God, no way. She didn’t think anybody else would see the funny side.

  They looked up in unison as she entered and she caught a guilty flicker lingering on Becky’s features. They had been talking about her. Or Jim. Sam pulled a wonky smile, glanced down at the floor to avoid their gaze and surveyed the coffin at their feet. A replacement for the one that had gone missing after they had parked it outside a pub and had come out an hour or so later to find someone else had walked off with it. It was their prop for the CND march this coming Sunday. Along with the funereal black jackets and top hats purchased cheaply from the local Oxfam shop. Pall-bearers. Coffin carriers for humanity in the event of mass death by superpower exchange of nuclear weapons. Armageddon. They had constructed the coffin mark two out of odd bits of four-by-four that Lee had cadged from his dad. All it needed now was a couple of daubs of black paint to cover the remaining stubborn patches of bare pine. And then it would look almost convincing. She joined in wordlessly with their efforts.

  Job done, Paul and Lee sauntered to the offie to buy a packet of Rizlas. Sam slumped on the floorboards next to Becky. ‘Do you fancy a free holiday? Do you want to stay in Orkney for a week?’

  Becky’s pupils expanded, registered interest. ‘What, with you?’

  ‘Yes. And Jim.’

  Becky pulled a face. ‘Not Liz?’

  ‘No. She’s busy. She has to write a paper. She’s asked me to go with him instead. Come with me – we could have a laugh.’

  ‘Not with Jim there I couldn’t. Anyway, I’m going to Greenham.’

  Becky went to Greenham regularly to visit the peace camp outside the RAF airbase that was being prepared for the arrival of American’s Ground Launched Cruise Missiles. Sam had been with Becky a few times. Sometimes they camped all weekend. Other times they borrowed her mum’s car, went up early, stayed for the day, and came home late. In a funny sort of way, it was a lovely place to stay. Greenham was as near to being in the middle of nowhere as it was possible to get in the southern well-heeled Home Counties of England. If you turned your back on the barbed wire, the military paraphernalia, the armed guards and the sinister observation tower, and just gazed out over the ancient common land, it was rather beautiful. Peaceful.

  The first time Sam had trekked to Greenham with Becky was December 1982. They had embraced the base. Held hands and joined the chain of women protestors encircling the sprawling perimeter fence. The second time they had sat down in the mud outside the main gate, refused to move when asked to do so by the police, and had been arrested along with twenty or so other women. Charged with obstruction. Brief appearance at Newbury Magistrates’ Court. Their appeal to the Geneva Conventions had been dismissed as irrelevant and they had been handed a thirty-pound fine. After that, Sam had lost her enthusiasm for the camp a bit. Becky hadn’t. Sam still went with Becky though, every now and then.

  Green Gate, the part of the peace camp where they usually stayed, was overlooked by the watchtower and was situated right next to the cruise missile hangars – grass-smothered silos rising ominously from the flat earth. Burial mounds for giants. The camp was a ramshackle collection of flapping tents and smoky fires, watery vegetable soup and meetings where nobody could speak unless they were holding the bloody conch shell. What bugged Sam about Greenham were the women with posh voices who wailed ‘take the toys from the boys’ and lectured the squaddies about their career choice through the perimeter fence. As if they had a choice. As if they weren’t sixteen-year-olds desperate for a job, scrabbling for an escape route. Like Jim must have been. Actually, what really bugged Sam about Greenham was the memory of her most recent trip there with Becky. They had cut the fence and trespassed on the base. Searching for the supposed weak link of the bunker’s communication system, the old telephone cable cabinet. They had narrowly missed being caught by the Ministry of Defence police.

  Becky was sitting up now, star
ing down at Sam almost accusingly as she lounged on the floor. ‘Why don’t you come to Greenham with me?’

  ‘I ought to go with Jim.’

  Becky’s eyebrows fused above the bridge of her nose. ‘You haven’t told Jim about cutting the wire, have you?’

  ‘No. Course not. He’s not interested in that sort of stuff anyway. He’s just a normal plainclothes cop.’ Sam smiled briefly, and then glanced away. Paul and Lee returned from the offie. They demolished a spliff. Necked the contents of a cheap white wine box. She was ready to call it a night. Becky had other plans. She wanted to spray-paint the fence around Crystal Palace Park, the starting point of the march. Sam said she felt too stoned and woozy, needed to go home to bed. Becky gave her that slightly suspicious, accusing look again. Sam felt aggrieved. She didn’t have anything to prove. But she dragged herself out into the night all the same.

  They traipsed to the top of Crystal Palace Park. The sky was inky and star-spangled here, away from the lights of the high street. At the park entrance they decided to split; Becky and Lee trekked off, leaving Sam alone with Paul. Sam tossed a coin, Paul called it and decided to take the easy option – lookout. She left him standing at the corner of the main road as she strolled casually back down the hill, the spray can in her pocket cold against her thigh.

  It was quiet along the park boundary, her only company the strange Victorian clay monsters skulking in the shrubbery on the other side of the fence and the deep gurgle of the Effra spring waters bubbling somewhere way below. She reached a section of the fence where the overhanging horse chestnuts camouflaged the pavement, checked over her shoulder, shook the can quickly and started to spray. The whiff of peardrops tickled the back of her throat and the nozzle kept jamming, but she was enjoying herself now, fuelled by the addictive crack of rule-breaking. As she prepared to join the final line, the beam of a headlight swept across her and illuminated her outstretched arm. Startled, she hastily stuffed the spray can in her pocket and backed away. The car’s elongated bonnet appeared over the hump, beams arcing across the sky, slowing to a crawl as it passed. She shuddered, sensing eyes peering through the window, locked on her face, checking her features. Rover. Black. She squinted as the dark vehicle accelerated up the hill, trying to read the number plate before it was swallowed up by the shadows. MVF something or other. Enough to tell her it was a south London registration anyway. Jim had taught her how to decode number plates on their occasional strolls through the outer reaches of the suburbs, searching for blackberries, walking the wretched dog. The dubious perks of being the daughter of an undercover cop.

  She rubbed her neck, stared up the hill into the darkness. A wave of paranoia threatened to swamp her; fears about her own illegal activities mingling with anxieties about Jim’s covert work. Was somebody following her? She was being stupid, surely. Over-reacting. It was just a stuffy stockbroker in a Rover. She retrained her sight on the spot where Paul should have been standing and watching her back: he had disappeared. Thanks a bunch.

  She hesitated, dug her hand into her overcoat pocket, fingered the metal canister, drummed her fingers on its side, turned back edgily towards her unfinished handiwork and, in the tail of her eye, spotted a panda car cruising down the hill. Shit. He had probably been hanging out on the forecourt of the all-night garage; the coppers often waited there – easy access to the coffee machine and Mars bars. The driver of the Rover must have pulled in and reported her. She considered the possibility of legging it, hesitated, indecisive, left it too late to scarper, gave herself no choice but to stay put and bluff. The panda car pulled up beside her, hazard lights flashing. A hefty copper struggled with the door, levered himself on to the kerb and surveyed her nearly finished peace symbol.

  ‘You’ve missed one of the arms,’ he said.

  She shrugged.

  ‘Ban the bomb. I’ve had my weekend leave cancelled because of you lot.’ She had an urge to tell him to think about the overtime he would be paid.

  He pre-empted her train of thought. ‘We’ve been so stretched these last few weeks, what with the miners’ strike and half of us having to provide support in the north and everybody else having to play musical chairs to cover the gaps. I’ve had enough overtime to pay for my summer holiday twice over already. And now we’ve been landed with you and your bloody march. You ban the bombers.’

  He shook his head sadly. ‘You know what, I’ve been on the beat for thirty years and if I’ve learned one thing, it’s this.’

  He paused. She smiled expectantly. He pushed the peak of his cap up with one hand and put the other behind his back. ‘There are three types of people in this world. You’ve got your law-abiding citizens, your criminals and your stirrers.’

  She contained the urge to smirk.

  He raised an eyebrow. ‘Harder to tell, of course, with teenagers. So you’re going to have to enlighten me. Law-abiding citizen, criminal or stirrer: which, young lady, do you intend to be when you finally get round to growing up?’

  She smiled sweetly again, maintained her silence.

  ‘Well, I can see that you’re a nice girl really.’ He pulled out his notebook. ‘Boyfriend get you into this lot, did he?’ She nodded. He flicked the pages until he found a clean sheet. ‘Now. What’s your name?’

  ‘Sam.’

  ‘Sam, short for Samantha.’

  ‘It’s just Sam.’ Liz had named her after an unfulfilled wish for a boy and a beloved dead grandfather.

  ‘Sam what?’

  ‘Sam Coyle.’

  The copper gave her a look of paternal sternness.

  ‘What are your parents going to think about this then?’

  She shrugged.

  He narrowed his eyes. Brows drawn. Perturbed. ‘Your dad’s not a copper is he?’

  The alarm must have shown on her face. How had he worked that one out? Had the man in the Rover identified her? Were the Ministry of Defence police on her trail? The blood drained from her head. Her hands were clammy. Legs heavy.

  The copper grinned. ‘I can always tell,’ he said. ‘Don’t quite know what it is. Perhaps it’s the attitude. Quietly cocky. I tell you what though, I wish I had a fiver for every copper’s kid I’ve had to caution. And it’s usually the daughters, would you believe.’ He shook his head. ‘So where’s your dad stationed then?’

  ‘He works undercover,’ she said. Words tumbling out in her relief that he had just guessed; he hadn’t been told that her dad was a cop. ‘The Diggers,’ she added.

  He inhaled sharply. ‘The Diggers,’ he repeated. ‘Oh, I’ve heard talk about them. Never sure whether they really existed or not.’

  He paused. He pointed the butt end of his pen at her. And then he used its tip to scratch the back of his head. His actions were making her feel uneasy again. She tried to inveigle his mind, identify what was disturbing him.

  He caught her staring at him. He dropped his jovial copper face back into place. ‘Well, I can see I’m going to have to revise my theory now,’ he said. ‘Let’s see: you’ve got your law-abiding citizens, your criminals, your stirrers. And, in a class all of their own, your policemen’s daughters.’

  He replaced his notebook in his pocket. ‘I’m going to have to sort this out with the Governor. You’d better run along now before you land yourself in any more trouble.’

  She knew better than to ignore her exit cue, turned silently and strode rapidly up the hill.

  Slouching against the bus stop, attempting to hold the fears at bay, she wondered whether she should say anything to Jim about being caught. He would find out soon enough anyway, the cop would make sure of that. She glanced back down the road and thought she spotted a dark figure outlined against the park fence, a broad-shouldered man standing, waiting among the shifting shadows of the horse chestnuts. But when she peered into the dimness again, there was nothing. She looked up, searching for the comfort of the moon’s face, and was greeted instead by the red winking eye of the radio mast peering down. She twiddled her lip between her finger and th
umb and hoped the night bus would hurry up.

  Jim had been absent and she didn’t come face to face with him until the morning after the march. Monday. The pungent tang of his breakfast engulfed her as she ran down the stairs, making her want to retch. Offal. Jim was at the table, wiping up kidney juice on a slice of bread with one hand, holding the Guardian up like a shield with the other. She sat down opposite, read the headlines while she waited for the inevitable confrontation. The front page was full of the miners’ strike. The creases of Jim’s forehead floated above a black-and-white photograph of the picket line, policemen being pelted with fruit and bricks. And she wondered then whether there was a connection between Jim’s strange behaviour – mutterings about Operation Asgard – and the strike. Every force in the country was affected by it one way or another, according to the copper who caught her spray-painting.

  ‘Do you think the miners will win?’ she asked.

  Jim’s newspaper stayed firmly in place, his voice floating upward from behind his cover.

  ‘Not a chance.’

  ‘Because the coal stockpiles mean the strike won’t have any effect?’

  ‘No. Because the government is determined to crush the unions to buggery.’

  ‘Oh? Is that you as well? Are you involved in crushing the unions to buggery?’

  He didn’t reply. The furrows on his forehead deepened; an answer of sorts, she decided, as she waited for him to pronounce on her run-in with the local constabulary. She sensed him strategizing behind his screen, trying to unnerve her, picking his moment, taking his time. Cold War tactics.

  Eventually he lowered the paper, skewered her with his steely gaze. ‘Do me a favour,’ he said slowly. ‘Next time you have the urge to decorate public property with spray-paint… make sure you don’t get caught.’

  The biggest crime you could commit in Jim’s book, she reckoned, was the inexcusable offense of being stupid enough to get caught.