Whatever it was that disintegrated in Eric then, it was a weakness, a fundamental flaw that a real man should not have had. Women, I know from watching hundreds — maybe thousands — of films and television programmes, cannot withstand really major things happening to them; they get raped, or their loved one dies, and they go to pieces, go crazy and commit suicide, or just pine away until they die. Of course, I realise that not all of them will react that way, but obviously it's the rule, and the ones who don't obey it are in the minority.
There must be a few strong women, women with more man in their character than most, and I suspect that Eric was the victim of a self with just a little too much of the woman in it. That sensitivity, that desire not to hurt people, that delicate, mindful brilliance — these things were his partly because he thought too much like a woman. Up until his nasty experience it never really bothered him, but just at that moment, in that extremity of circumstance, it was enough to break him.
I blame my father, not to mention whatever stupid bitch it was threw him over for another man. My father must take the blame in part at least because of that nonsense in Eric's early years, letting him dress as he wanted and giving him the choice of dresses and trousers; Harmsworth and Morag Stove were quite right to be worried about the way their nephew was being brought up, and did the proper thing in offering to look after him. Everything might have been different if my father hadn't had those daft ideas, if my mother hadn't resented Eric, if the Stoves had taken him away earlier; but it happened the way it did, and as such I hope my father blames himself as much as I blame him. I want him to feel the weight of that guilt upon him all the time, and have sleepless nights because of it, and bad dreams that wake him up in a sweat on cool nights once he does get to sleep. He deserves it.
Eric didn't ring that night after my walk in the hills. I went to bed fairly early, but I know I'd have heard the phone if it had gone, and I slept without a break, tired after my long trek. The next day I was up at the normal time, went out for a walk along the sands in the coolness of the morning, and came back in time for a good big cooked breakfast.
I felt restless, my father was quieter than usual, and the heat built quickly, making the house very stuffy even with the windows open. I wandered about the rooms, looking out through those opened spaces, leaning on ledges, scouring the land with closed-up eyes. Eventually, with my father dozing in a deckchair, I went to my own room, changed to a T-shirt and my light waistcoat with the pockets, filled them up with useful things, slung my day-pack over one shoulder and set off to have a good look round the approaches to the island, and maybe take in the dump, too, if there weren't too many flies.
I put my sunglasses on, and the brown Polaroids made the colours more vivid. I started to sweat as soon as I stepped out of the door. A warm breeze, hardly cooling at all, swirled uncertainly from a few directions, brought smells of grass and flowers. I walked steadily, up the path, over the bridge, down the mainland line of the creek and the stream, following the course of the burn and jumping its small offshoots and tributaries down to the dam-building area. I turned north then, going up the line of the sea-facing dunes, taking them by their sandy summits despite the heat and the exertion of climbing their southern faces, so that I could gain the benefit of the views they offered.
Everything shimmered in that heat, became uncertain and shifting. The sand was hot when I touched it, and insects of all sorts and sizes buzzed and whirred about me. I waved them away.
Now and again I used the binoculars, wiping the sweat from my brows and lifting the glasses to my eyes, inspecting the distance through the heat-thick quivering air. My scalp crawled with perspiration, and my crotch itched. I checked the things I had brought with me more often than I usually did, absently weighing the small cloth bag of steelies, touching the Bowie knife and catapult on my belt, making sure I still had my lighter, wallet, comb, mirror, pen and paper. I drank from the small flask of water that I had, though it was warm and tasted stale already.
I could see some interesting-looking pieces of flotsam and jetsam when I looked over the sands and the lapping sea, but I stayed on the dunes, taking the higher ones when I had to, going far north, over streams and through small marshes, past the Bomb Circle and the place I had never really named, where Esmerelda took off.
I only thought of them after I had passed them.
After an hour or so I turned inland, then south, along the last of the mainland dunes, looking out over the scrubby pasture where the sheep moved slow, like maggots, over the land, eating. Once I stood a while and watched a great bird, high up against the unbroken blue, wheeling and spiralling on the thermals, turning this way and that. Below it a few gulls shifted, their wings outstretched and their white necks pointing about as they searched for something. I found a dead frog high on a dune, dried and bloody on its back and stuck with sand, and wondered how it had got up there. Probably dropped by a bird.
I put on my little green cap eventually, shielding my eyes from the glare. I swung down over the path, level with the island and the house. I kept going, still stopping now and again to use the binoculars. Cars and trucks glinted through the trees, a mile or so away on the road. A helicopter flew over once, most likely heading for one of the rig yards or a pipeline.
I reached the dump just after noon, coming through some small trees to it. I sat down in the shade of one tree and inspected the place with the glasses. Some gulls were there, but no people. A little smoke drifted up from a fire near its centre, and spread around it was all the debris from the town and its area: cardboard and black plastic bags and the gleaming, battered whiteness of old washing machines, cookers and fridges. Papers picked themselves up and went round in a circle for a minute or so as a tiny whirlwind started, then dropped again.
I picked my way through the dump, savouring its rotten, slightly sweet smell. I kicked at some of the rubbish, turned a few interesting things over with one booted foot, but could see nothing worthwhile. One of the things I had come to like about the dump over the years was the way that it never stayed the same; it moved like something huge and alive, spreading like an immense amoeba as it absorbed the healthy land and the collective waste. But this day it looked tired and boring. I felt impatient with it, almost angry. I threw a couple of aerosol cans into the weak fire bumming in the middle, but even they provided little diversion, popping effetely inside the pale flames. I left the dump and headed south again.
Near a small stream about a kilometre from the dump there was a large bungalow, a holiday home looking out over the sea. It was closed up and deserted, and there were no fresh tracks on the bumpy trail leading down to it and past it to the beach. It was down that track that Willie, one of Jamie's other friends, had driven us in his old Mini van to race along the sands and skid about.
I looked through the windows at the empty rooms, the old unmatching furniture sitting in the shadows looking dusty and neglected. An old magazine lay on a table, one corner yellowed with sunlight. In the shade of the gable end of the house I sat down and finished my water, took off my cap and wiped my forehead with my handkerchief. In the distance I could hear muffled explosions from the range farther down the coast, and once a jet came tearing in over the calm sea, heading due west.
Away from the house a ridge of low hills started, topped with whin and stunted trees shaped by the wind. I trained the binoculars on them, waving flies away, my head starting to ache just a little and my tongue dry despite the warm water I had just drunk. When I lowered the glasses and put the Polaroids back down I heard it.