Laurie shouted over the din, ‘He means his art.’
Nina frowned. ‘The Sanctuary isn’t a religious group? A commune?’
‘Commune, yes,’ Clay said. ‘But religious, no. Not in the way you mean.’
‘But you’re artists? That’s what brought you together?’
Clay pointed again. ‘Mikhail and Elliot, who did the purchasing of this place, they brought us together. But your answer is yes. We create. We make art. The Sanctuary has a history that is long. You have heard of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts? The New York School of Art?’
Nina shrugged agreement, struggling to hear him against the background noise.
‘They all came here, once upon a time.’ He counted on his fingers. ‘Edward Hopper, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Thomas Cole…’
‘Rockwell Kent,’ Tammy added.
Behind them, a screech signalled that Mikhail had resumed working with the blowtorch.
‘There were artists’ colonies on other islands in the gulf too,’ Tammy shouted. ‘The outer islands.’
Clay nodded. ‘Many transformed? No, converted – into military forts. A sad thing. Guns instead of paint, you know? But Hope Island resisted and keeped its art and artists. In Uusikaupunki we had a history of great art. Robert Wilhelm Ekman was born there! But nothing like Hope Island. Less artists now than before, but still very great.’
‘And you, Clay,’ Nina said. ‘What do you do?’
‘Most days, I do building. Mikhail and me, we are fixing up the old house. It will take no more than one more year, maybe two. We are working hard and one day it will be a colony all over again. Like bees working together, yes? But that is not your answer. I work hard with art too. I am lucky that Mikhail likes working on metal, so he is helping me with my installation.’ He pronounced the four syllables of the final word carefully and deliberately. ‘And I think we are ready to add to it now. If you would like to see?’
Without waiting for an answer, he leapt to his feet. ‘Mikhail? Is it done?’
Mikhail reappeared, brandishing the metal bracket. Now it had another strut fixed onto it to make a rough tripod. Clay received it, daintily holding the part that had been recently welded.
‘Come,’ he said. ‘To the church.’
* * *
Clay put his weight against the door of the church to heave it open. Light spilled from an oblong hole in the angled roof. Dust motes were sent whirling by the inrush of air.
The church must have fallen into disuse long ago. Only the four rearmost pews remained. The space before them was empty of furniture and the floor was covered in a thick layer of sawdust tracked with footprints. There was no altar. The wall at the far end of the room was filled from floor to ceiling with a stack of black boxes.
Something moved to Nina’s left. From the darkness emerged a man and a woman. They were young, perhaps in their early twenties. The man’s black skin and shaven head contrasted with the woman’s pale complexion and her dirty-blond dreadlocks. As she passed into the light Nina saw that the woman’s pupils were dilated, and she fiddled with her belt around a sack-like dress as she scurried towards the door, giggling. The man slung a threadbare blanket over his shoulder and shot Clay a grin as he departed.
‘They are Zain and Mischa,’ Clay said, gesturing at the door. ‘Do not mind about them. They will fuck just about anywhere.’
Nina glanced sideways at Tammy, who appeared nonchalant. Perhaps she hadn’t heard what Clay said.
‘They’re members of the commune?’
Clay shrugged. ‘We have no membership, no ID papers. They came here and they are welcome. Maybe they will find art in them, who knows. Come this way.’
As they passed the pews Nina had to squint against the light. The stack of black boxes at the far end of the room was actually an untidy pile of speakers, their black grilles rimmed with dust. There must have been at least forty. The largest looked like guitar amplifiers; the smallest were portable radios. The speakers at the foot of the pile had been arranged neatly, but those at the upper reaches had tipped precariously. The topmost ones were restrained with striped, elasticated cables more commonly used to fix items to the roofs of cars.
‘Please, sit,’ Clay said.
He gripped Nina’s bare shoulders and guided her to sit on the frontmost pew. Flustered, Nina smiled up at him, admiring his dark eyes, the gleam of his sunburned skin. Tammy and Laurie sat too, Laurie positioning herself on the other side of her grandmother. Nina noticed her daughter staring wide-eyed at her, then glancing up at Clay, and she felt a rush of shame at ogling him. As far as Laurie was concerned, Rob was still very much part of Nina’s life.
‘Mikhail?’ Clay called. The two of them moved to the left side of the room, where another speaker, larger than the others, stood. Clay placed the metal bracket on top of it, then they both bent to shuffle the speaker across the floorboards, which groaned under the weight. Clay indicated its destination with a nod and a grunt, and they were both breathing heavily by the time they set it down. Mikhail tipped the speaker backwards a little and Clay inserted the tripod bracket beneath its front, angling it by fifteen or twenty degrees.
He stood. A little breathlessly, he said, ‘This speaker is from public address system for Hope Island summer fair. I fixed it but I borrowed it for a while too, a fair deal.’ He wiped his forehead. ‘I wanted to put it up high, but Mikhail made a good point. Angle does the same job better.’
‘What’s it all for?’ Nina asked.
‘You would like a demonstration?’
‘Okay. Sure.’
Mikhail was bending over something on the floor beside the foot of the tower. Nina heard a loud click. Pinpoints of red light appeared across the array of speakers, indicating that they were all now receiving power. Then Mikhail returned to Clay, carrying a small device in his cupped hands. A thin black wire trailed behind him. Nina found herself fascinated by the whole setup, whatever it was. All this technology reminded her of her own safe place, the production gallery in her Salford newsroom.
‘Thank you very much, Mikhail,’ Clay said with a bow. He held up the device: a MiniDisc player, very like one Nina had owned at the start of the century. ‘Tammy, you will do us the honours.’
Tammy gave a girlish giggle as she pressed a button on the device, then rejoined Nina and Laurie on the pew and gazed up at the speakers.
Nina heard nothing. Or close to nothing. A low hiss, perhaps, along with something less like sound and more like a change in the atmosphere, as if the air had become charged. Or it might only have been a physical rumble, a vibration travelling from the speakers, through the floorboards, and up through her feet and into her body.
Tammy appeared rapt. Her eyelids fluttered closed. Clay and Mikhail each had their arms folded, looking at the speaker stack with the formal, critical manner of engineers.
To Nina’s relief, Laurie appeared nonplussed. When she noticed Nina watching her, she made a face.
‘I don’t hear anything,’ Nina whispered.
Tammy’s eyes opened. Were there tears forming in her eyes?
For a moment Clay’s mouth twitched in an expression of annoyance, but then he gave a wan smile. ‘It is not as wonderful as once it seemed. Tammy?’
Tammy wiped her eyes and shook her head, though whether it was sadness or something else was impossible to tell.