Free The Way to Babylon (Different Kingdoms) by Paul Kearney Page B

old tweed coat with more than its fair share of patches, and his cap, as always, perched on his head. There was a lean cast to his face; the grey eyes looked out from a network of wrinkles and laughter lines, and the mouth had a good-humoured quirk to the corner of it that was seldom absent. It was there now, as he considered giving his daughter away to this Irish soldier who had literally fallen into their lives one winter evening, and had been appearing regularly ever since.
    ‘Will you leave the army?’ he asked.
    ‘Yes, as soon as I can.’
    ‘In some parts they’d say it was old-fashioned, these days, to be asking a father for his daughter’s hand,’ Calum said, and the grey eyes twinkled.
    ‘Maybe, but you’re all the family Jenny has, and it’s important.’
    Calum nodded approvingly. His eyes shifted to take in the flight of a curlew across the bay, the long curved bill clear in the light of the evening, silhouetted against a darkening sky.
    ‘Her mother was a marvellous woman,’ he said at last, and the eyes lost their focus, seeking somewhere else. ‘Jenny is made from the same mould. Her like doesn’t come round too often.’
    ‘I know,’ Riven said softly.
    Calum puffed smoke again. ‘Aye, you do. I know that, Mike.’ And then a smile etched its way across his face. ‘What about a dowry?’
    ‘What?’
    ‘Since you’re being so old-fashioned about it, we may as well go the whole way.’
    ‘No, Calum. There’s no need—’
    ‘You love Camasunary, the bothy; the pair of you.’
    ‘Well, yes.’
    ‘It’s rough, and it would need some work, but it would keep you out of the clutches of the bank and such.’
    Riven smiled. For the first time, Calum looked him in the eye, and the quirk at the corner of his mouth twitched into a grin. ‘How about a wee dram to wet the head of the evening?’
    ‘Why not?’
    And they walked back up the glen, to where the light shone out of the open door, and Jenny had the supper waiting for them.
     
     
    C HILLED AND ACHING, he woke at dawn, eyes fully open in an instant. The cramp in his limbs filled his head with fire. He sat up and saw the wreck of the bed, mudstained and wet, sheets awry.
    ‘Oh, Christ.’
    He rubbed his face groggily, and when his hand dropped away his eyes were empty.
    So I’m here, after all.
    He stood up, swaying. Around him the familiar jetsam of two lives stared at him from the dressing table, the wardrobe, the shelves and the walls. His breath steamed. The bothy was as cold as stone.
    He stopped to touch a photograph of them both, face expressionless, then moved into the main room. His rucksack squatted forlornly in a puddle by the door, the staff lying beside it. He picked up the hazel and fingered its smoothness. It was comforting, somehow. To possess something which had nothing to do with this past.
    He looked about. A haven, this place had been. But not again.
    He felt like putting it to the torch. She’d like that. He settled for cleaning out the hearth. Gazing at the remnants of the last fire there, he was reluctant to sweep them away. They were a relic. But a reminder, also. He got rid of them, and in a little while had a defiant blaze going. His clothes curled with steam, but he hardly noticed. So much, in here, to remember. He shook his head as though a fly buzzed at it.
    He prepared coffee, heating water in the kettle and skirting the thought of the whisky-filled hip flask. Time enough for that, later. Outside, the morning was dull, windy still. A sun was fleeting through the clouds with a mizzle at its throat. He could hear the sea.
    The kettle whistled loudly, and he drank black coffee. All the perishables had perished long ago. Idly he scanned what he had been writing, flipped through a few pages which had pencilled criticism, suggestion and ribaldry scrawled in them from Jenny. She had often done that.
    He turned away hurriedly. Too close, too near. Not yet.
    He rescued his rucksack and spread out his belongings to