I can see the sun going down

(This is the third last piece in this Port Brokeferry project... and a mystery visitor right at the close...)

ATHOL STUART SEES THAT EVERTHING IS JUST AS IT SHOULD BE

Athol Stuart saw to it that Berlie’s closed on time and that the people cleared from the green without incident. He kept an eye on Martin, too, and the lady he was talking with. Athol thought that maybe he recognised her, though he also knew she was a visitor to Port Brokeferry. Sometimes the young leave and later, when years are passed, they come back again to see if it is still here and still as they remember it. Maybe she was once young in Port Brokeferry, Athol Stuart thought.

The light was on in the police station. He figured that Grace was busy putting in an hour’s cleaning up after him. He never checked. He never needed to check. Some people you could count on and Grace was one of those people.

Athol Stuart walked the length of the street. Not in any hurry. There were people he knew and people he didn’t. More visitors had come in today. No trains on a Sunday, but some had come on the only bus and some had come by car. There were more parked cars on the street than usual. One had edged up onto the pavement, a red Ford Fiesta, and he thought about leaving a note to draw attention to the small infringement of the rules.

He noted the time on the Victoria Hotel clock. It was later than he’d thought. Already the street lights were blinking on, blinking yellow and orange. A man stood back from the lights. He was smoking. Athol did not know who he was or why he was not going somewhere. Athol said good evening to him, not to be welcoming but just to let him know he had been seen.

Athol Stuart saw Guthrie closing up and he asked how business had been. Guthrie said it had been a good day, but from the way that he said it Athol Stuart did not think that he meant what he said.

He stopped outside Mhairi’s Port Brokeferry Giftshop. He stopped to see Martin on the beach again, the picture of him. The window was altered, the things displayed in it different. Three smaller paintings hung where the other had been. ‘Sold already, sold over cheaply,’ Athol Stuart said, and he wondered what Martin would make of the picture being gone so soon.

He popped into ‘The Ship’. He did not intend to stay. He could see that his being there, in uniform, made a difference to some. They sat straighter in their chairs, lowered their voices so as not to draw attention, and looked over their drinks in his direction, to see what he was about, when all he was about was making sure that everything was as it should be.

He noted that Dodie Bredwell was not in his usual place again. Instead, Dodie sitting with Alice in a corner. Magnus was playing chess with Eileen, but they were moving the pieces according to their own rules and laughing and she was calling him cheat. And Lachlan Davie, already drunk, was with Christine again. He had his arm around her, supporting her, and she was nuzzling his neck, and Athol Stuart knew it was Sunday in ‘The Ship’.

Then back on the street again. And in the short time he’d been inside it had become dark outside. He walked back to the green. He tested the door of the police station and it was locked, as it should be. He checked that there were no lights on in old Tom’s and he saw Lillian busy in her kitchen, her curtains open so that she could make sure that Tom was alright – force of habit. Martin was petting the dogs outside the green trailer and making noises like a dove to them. Athol Stuart got him to his feet and they walked together to Martin’s door, and Martin told all about his day.

They were observed and did not know that they were. The same man that Athol had seen smoking earlier. He was more in the darkness than before, not seen this time but seeing. He watched Athol Stuart take Martin home. Watched the policeman wait for the light to go on in Martin’s house and for the door to shut. Then he waited until Athol had gone into his own house before he walked to his car parked on the street, a little up on the kerb.

He sat for a while without putting the key in the ignition. He sat just looking ahead of him. In the back of his car, under a grey cloth, was Mhairi's picture of Martin on the beach.