IX

It had entertained Jacob mightily to go among the stoic fisherman of Oban as though the harbor were the shores of Galilee, and he looking for disciples. He found one after a little search; a man in his late sixties by the name of Hugh who had been pleased to take a passenger over to Tiree for a modest sum. The fee was quickly agreed upon and they left a little after eight-fifteen, following the route of the Claymore up the sound. The ship was of course a great deal more powerful than Hugh’s little boat, but unlike the Claymore they did not have any ports of call to delay them along the way, so that they came into the little harbor at Scarinish no more than two hours after the ferry.

The voyage had refreshed and replenished Jacob. He had not slept, but he had fallen into a meditative mood as he watched the sea. He had never understood why it was so often thought to be a feminine element. Yes, there were tides in a woman’s body that were not to be found in a man, and yes, it was the place of genesis. But it was also ambitious and dispassionate, slow in its workings against the land, but inevitable. Surely then it was the earth that was woman’s lot, the nurturing place, warm and fertile. The deeps belonged to men.

So he mused as they sailed. And by the time he stepped off the boat onto the pier his mind was pleasantly lulled, as though he had just finished writing in his journal and was ready to turn a fresh page.

He decided against stealing a vehicle to finish his journey.

The island was small and, though he doubted it was well policed, this was not the time to risk being delayed by an officer of the law. He went into the post office and asked the affable girl behind the counter if maybe she knew of a taxi service. The girl said that indeed she did; the island’s only taxi was owned and driven by her brother-in-law Angus, and she would be happy to phone him. She did so and told Jacob the car would be outside within a quarter of an hour. It took rather longer than that, but finally the aforementioned Angus drove up in his twenty-year-old Volkswagen, and asked Steep where he wanted to go.

“Kenavara,” Jacob told him.

“Now d’you mean Barrapol?”

“No. I mean the cliffs,” Jacob said.

“Well. I can’t drop you there,” Angus replied. “There’s no road.”

“Just get me as close as you can.”

“That’ll be Barrapol,” Angus said.

“That’s fine. Barrapol’s fine.”

What would have happened to him, he wondered as they drove, if he’d never left the islands? Never taken a human name, never pretended to be something other than he was and in that process mislaid the truth of his nature; if he’d gone to live instead far from inquiring eyes on Uist or Harris or a piece of sea-girdled rock that was, like him, nameless? Would he have found the silence he needed, and found God in it? He doubted it.

Even here, in this spartan place, there was too much life, too much distraction. Sooner or later, the passion for absence that had driven him would have risen into his thoughts.

His driver was, of course, chatty. Where had Jacob come from, he wanted to know, and where was he staying? Did he know Archie Anderson, of Barrapol? Jacob answered the questions as best he could, all the while thinking about God and namelessness, as though he were two people. One, the human being he’d been playing for so long, the man making small-talk with the driver; the other the being who moved behind that pretense, the being who had left this island with murder on his mind, the being who was going home. It was in sight now, that home. The long headland of Ceann a’ Bharra, where Rukenau had laid the foundations of his empire. Despite the conversation they’d had as they left Scarinish, Angus wanted to know if he couldn’t drop his passenger off at some particular house. He knew everyone in Barrapol, he said (it wasn’t difficult, there were less than a dozen houses), Iain Findlay and his wife, Jean, the McKinnons, Hector Cameron.

“Just take me to the end of the road,” Jacob said, “and I’ll make my own way from there.”

“Are you sure now?”

“I’m sure.”

“Well, you’re the man who’s payin’.”

Where the road withered to a track, Jacob got out and paid Angus twice what he’d charged. Very happy with this minor windfall, Angus thanked him and offered a card with his number in case Jacob needed a taxi for the return journey. He was so plainly proud to have a card with his name printed on it (he’d had them made up in Oban, he said) that Jacob accepted it graciously and, thanking him, began the trek through the machair to Kenavara. The look of unalloyed pleasure on the man’s face when he’d produced the card remained in Steep’s mind long after the car had disappeared and left him among the leaping hares.

Oh, to have once known a simple pride like that, he thought, just once.

He pocketed the card, but of course he would never have need of it. There would be no return journey, not from the House of the World.