(Port Brokeferry - another piece.)
ANOTHER CROSS ON THE CALENDAR
Athol Stuart scored a cross through another day on his office calendar. Another week behind him and another one beginning. He was not wishing the time away, or looking forward to a different time. Just a cross put through the day so he knew where he was. He noted the day, the month and the number. It meant something. He tried not to think about it.
Athol Stuart made his own tea today. Helen did not work on a Sunday and Grace only put in an hour at the end of the day. If he was being honest, he didn’t need Grace on a Sunday either, but she had the baby to think on and it was a small thing that he did in giving her the extra hour. Ordinarily it was a quieter day for him, too. But the two weeks of the fair being in Port Brokeferry meant that he had to be seen. Here and about, just keeping an eye on things and making sure people knew he was there.
It was busier than last year, he thought. Quickly busy, the season just starting. More visitors than in other years was what was being reported. That was good news for the town. The hotel would do well out of it and the small businesses, and all the cottages at the front had bookings for the summer. But strangers did not always understand about Martin and his search for Col. They pulled their children near, thinking he might mean them harm with his questions and questions. They sometimes told him to go away and later reported Martin to Athol. They said they did not want any trouble, and maybe he meant well, only there was no one with him.
They were a little better after Athol had explained and after he had reassured them that he was no threat. ‘It’s just his way,’ he said. ‘Gentle as a child really. Gentler.’
Then they were all relieved smiles and ‘sorry to have troubled you’.
‘Only he keeps asking if we’ve seen Col? Over and over. Asking each one of us, and he won’t take no for an answer. Asks us again when he next sees us. Who is this Col?’
It was better if Athol was on the street, and Martin not too far from where he was. And there’d been some disturbance last night with Lachlan Davie. At the fair and he was bending the ear of the blond woman there, Lynn or Lynnie. Not that he was meaning any harm either. Just a bit full of the drink is what Lachlan was. And there’s something between him and Christine from the salon. And he was trying to tell the Lynn woman, asking for her advice. That’s how drunk he was, asking for advice from one such as her. Like anything she said would make sense. Athol would have to look out for Lachlan, too. And Susan’s Kyle, looking out for him as well; he was with the same woman the other day, that Lynn, his trousers undone and lipstick on his shirt.
Athol redrew the cross through the day that was yesterday and shook his head, like he could shake away all the nonsense of Kyle and Lachlan and the visitors not knowing how to be with Martin. And all the nonsense that was in the Port Brokeferry streets at this time of the year, a sort of madness. It was the same every year, as far back as memory. When it was not the fair, there were dances to see out the winter and bring in the summer, and the music of pipes and drums raising the blood, and the young men were daft with drink and the girls not so careful as they should be. And today, this new day, was the anniversary of something, yet another madness, one that Athol tried not to think on.
He drained his tea. He buttoned his jacket and spit-patted his hair flat. Then he went out to watch over another summer Sunday in Port Brokeferry
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