the sun blustered through the vapours, burning like a necklace of fire around my head on the raw aluminium where the white and blue paintwork was scratched away or had lifted off.
I moved up and down the slopes, wary of the grass, reduced to slime in the lee of some hills by the weeks of rain.
Under the brief sun I descended into the silver clouds of a shower below the camp of the Devilâs Advocate; I knew the shivers of sunlight still racing across the slope flanks would be falling on the bare aluminium of the door, crashing flashesover to the man at his camp as I tried to steady my way down the lands. I paused at one point both to lift my face to the larch where Carlton was found and to indicate a challenge to the Devilâs Advocate to come down to the hotel and battle on my terms.
I took the cockpit door of Hotel Charlie to the boathouse. Under the single bare bulb I walked over the rounded tiles of the floor, leaned the door against the bent fuselage of the aircraft; the shattered wings were supported on beer crates from the hotel, to bring them flush with the top of the cabin where the pilot was killed, his rib-cage flattened by massive deceleration injuries and the impact of the engine being driven through the instrument panel, severing both his feet. I had seen the photos of that corpse too, with the massive contusions to the facial area.
The fuselage was too distorted to be able to fit the door in roughly its original position. I stood awhile in the space Iâd kept clear for the wreckage of Alpha Whisky, the black tiles swept by myself after Brotherhood granted me the boathouse. Each round, black tile beneath my boots was an inverted champagne bottle, plunged into concrete by Brotherhood himself in the 1970s, before he wearied with boating.
I walked back to my room to wash and change. I could hear nothing from the bathroom of 15 as I lifted water to my own face and thought of Carlton hitting the Sound in darkness and the fear he must have felt.
I liked to arrive early for dinners to display my connectionswith our leading family. I spun up the spiral stairs two at a time: Brotherhood, Macbeth (in chef whites!) and Mrs Heapie were all there and turned to look at me. As I strolled towards them a lump rose in my throat, like when I watch the saddest movies; I looked at the spotlights shining down on the bar, the chairs and table stretching off into the darkness then coming against the burnished ambience of the brass frieze, the log fire fumbling a few shadows up the brass to the point it met the pine-panelled ceiling. The frieze was of a sinking Armada ship, its masts at a stricken angle.
Itâs the only home I have now
.
âItâs Mad Max,â called Brotherhood and the others smirked. Heapie was on her third courtesy coffee, I would have guessed, and her third cigarette; one dimpled elbow hung by her side.
âYon lassie in 15; ah couldât get in all day for her sleeping! Iâm no putting up with it; can make her own bed,â Heapie mumbled off into an inhalation, then perked up looking out into the near-dark, âOh look, here comes Shan. Whoâll be this coming over?â
âUsual?â said Brotherhood, not smiling.
I nodded and Brotherhood poured a small Linkwood then dropped a single, half-melted ice-cube in. He placed it in front of me and just for a second I thought he was going to ask me for the money.
âIâll charge that to 16,â he stated.
Mrs Heapie had crossed to the panorama window and watched the lights of
The Charon
coast into the jetty and secure. Two figures wearing anoraks scaled the ladder uponto the pier. I yawned. The young walkers didnât cross the airfield, distinguishing them as non-locals. I heard Mrs Heapie exhaling over by the broad glass.
âAye, thatâs Shan way back over again!â she announced. As if obeying her, the launch cast off and moved astern.
Unable to endure any more of Heapieâs Commentary On
I moved up and down the slopes, wary of the grass, reduced to slime in the lee of some hills by the weeks of rain.
Under the brief sun I descended into the silver clouds of a shower below the camp of the Devilâs Advocate; I knew the shivers of sunlight still racing across the slope flanks would be falling on the bare aluminium of the door, crashing flashesover to the man at his camp as I tried to steady my way down the lands. I paused at one point both to lift my face to the larch where Carlton was found and to indicate a challenge to the Devilâs Advocate to come down to the hotel and battle on my terms.
I took the cockpit door of Hotel Charlie to the boathouse. Under the single bare bulb I walked over the rounded tiles of the floor, leaned the door against the bent fuselage of the aircraft; the shattered wings were supported on beer crates from the hotel, to bring them flush with the top of the cabin where the pilot was killed, his rib-cage flattened by massive deceleration injuries and the impact of the engine being driven through the instrument panel, severing both his feet. I had seen the photos of that corpse too, with the massive contusions to the facial area.
The fuselage was too distorted to be able to fit the door in roughly its original position. I stood awhile in the space Iâd kept clear for the wreckage of Alpha Whisky, the black tiles swept by myself after Brotherhood granted me the boathouse. Each round, black tile beneath my boots was an inverted champagne bottle, plunged into concrete by Brotherhood himself in the 1970s, before he wearied with boating.
I walked back to my room to wash and change. I could hear nothing from the bathroom of 15 as I lifted water to my own face and thought of Carlton hitting the Sound in darkness and the fear he must have felt.
I liked to arrive early for dinners to display my connectionswith our leading family. I spun up the spiral stairs two at a time: Brotherhood, Macbeth (in chef whites!) and Mrs Heapie were all there and turned to look at me. As I strolled towards them a lump rose in my throat, like when I watch the saddest movies; I looked at the spotlights shining down on the bar, the chairs and table stretching off into the darkness then coming against the burnished ambience of the brass frieze, the log fire fumbling a few shadows up the brass to the point it met the pine-panelled ceiling. The frieze was of a sinking Armada ship, its masts at a stricken angle.
Itâs the only home I have now
.
âItâs Mad Max,â called Brotherhood and the others smirked. Heapie was on her third courtesy coffee, I would have guessed, and her third cigarette; one dimpled elbow hung by her side.
âYon lassie in 15; ah couldât get in all day for her sleeping! Iâm no putting up with it; can make her own bed,â Heapie mumbled off into an inhalation, then perked up looking out into the near-dark, âOh look, here comes Shan. Whoâll be this coming over?â
âUsual?â said Brotherhood, not smiling.
I nodded and Brotherhood poured a small Linkwood then dropped a single, half-melted ice-cube in. He placed it in front of me and just for a second I thought he was going to ask me for the money.
âIâll charge that to 16,â he stated.
Mrs Heapie had crossed to the panorama window and watched the lights of
The Charon
coast into the jetty and secure. Two figures wearing anoraks scaled the ladder uponto the pier. I yawned. The young walkers didnât cross the airfield, distinguishing them as non-locals. I heard Mrs Heapie exhaling over by the broad glass.
âAye, thatâs Shan way back over again!â she announced. As if obeying her, the launch cast off and moved astern.
Unable to endure any more of Heapieâs Commentary On
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