'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; gone to live instead far from enquiring 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 pretence. 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); lain 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 amongst 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.
CHAPTER X
The polished grass had gone from beneath Will's feet. The clouded sky had vanished overhead. He had entered a large room, the walls of which looked to be made of caked earth, which glistened faintly as though still damp. Apparently his theorizing with Frannie about the abstract or metaphysical nature of the Domus Mundi had been wide of the mark. It was a tangible reality, at least as far as his now-calmed senses could telclass="underline" the walls, the darkness, the warm stagnant air, which filled his head with a stew of foetid scents. Things were rotting here, some of them going to a sickening sweetness, some of them to a bitter smell that stung his sinuses. He didn't have to look far for the source of at least some portion of this stench. All manner of detritus had been dumped around the chamber, some of it in a drift against the wall to his left that was fully seven or eight feet tall. He wandered over to inspect the rubbish a little more closely, wondering as he did so where the light in the room was coming from. There were no windows; but there were, he saw, hairline cracks in the walls from which the luminescence was seeping. It was not, he thought, daylight. It was warmer, yet not quite so warm as fire or candlelight.
Examining the contents of the rubbish heaped against the wall, another mystery. Though most of the drift was simply a clotted mass of incoherent forms, like the scourings of an enormous drain, there were several tree branches amongst the garbled mass. Was this stuff that had been washed up against the cliff, he wondered, which Rukenau had for some reason hauled up into the house? They certainly weren't native species; the island had no trees. Nor were these small branches. The largest of the boughs was as thick as Will's thigh.
Turning his back on the filth he made his way across the room to an archway that led on to an adjacent chamber. The scene here was just as dispiriting. The same earth walls and floor; a ceiling too high to be properly made out, but surely raised of the same channless stuff. If indeed this house was built to hold up a mirror to the world's condition, Will thought, then the planet was in a foul state indeed.
That idea ignited a suspicion in him. Suppose the substance of his conversation with Frannie had after all been correct, and this stinking place was a mirror the Domus Mundi was holding up to his own psyche?
If he'd learned anything in the weeks since emerging from his coma it was that his mind and the reality it perceived were not in a fixed relationship. They were like volatile lovers in the midst of a heated affair, each constantly reassessing the state of their passion in the light of what they believed the other was feeling. So here he was in a place so canny it could render itself invisible to the casual eye. It took no great leap of faith to believe that such a place could have even more sophisticated ways to defend itself; and what more certain way to traumatize trespassers than to confront them with the murk of their own minds?
He pondered how best to put this thesis to the test; how to pierce the buttery rot that surrounded him and find the force that lay beyond it, if indeed there was a force to be found. While he plotted, he surveyed more closely the contents of the room in which he was standing. There were, he saw, a few pieces of domestic junk amongst the incoherent filth. Over in one corner were the remnants of a chair; and closest to them an overturned table, in the centre of which a fire had been made. He wandered over to it, curious as to what clues it might offer up. A meal had been had here. There was a partially eaten fish lying in the ashes; and beside it a scattering of fruit; a couple of apples, an orange and a still succulent mango, which had been roughly torn apart and partially devoured. Assuming this was all his mind's invention, were these perverse mementoes of Drew's love-feast?
He went down on his haunches to examine the evidence, picking up the largest portion of the mango and sniffing it. The juice was sticky, the smell sweetly fragrant. If it was an illusion, then it was a damn good one. He tossed the fruit back amongst the ashes and stood up, surveying the room for other objects to scrutinize. He was overlooking the obvious he realized: the walls themselves. He strode across the room and examined the earth. It was, as he'd suspected, moist in places, almost as though it were suppurating. He touched one of the wetter places and his fingers came away dirty. He touched it again, pressing his fingers into the muck. They slid in maybe half an inch, and might have gone in deeper, but his hand was suddenly arrested by a tingling sensation that passed up through his wrist and into his forearm. He withdrew his hand, aware on the instant where he'd felt this before. It was the same order of sensation as had cursed through his sinews when he'd been with Rosa in Donnelly's house, and later, when he'd confronted Steep. This bright matter was the essential stuff of all three: Rosa, Jacob and Domus Mundi.