Still, it was only three months. Not the end of the world.
Three months for Lily, the mathematical part of him pointed out, was a fifth of her life. A fifth of Joe’s life would be eight years.
Hail blasted the window.
The storm came in fast after that. The sea smashed right in against the cliffs and the walls. There was a deep hissing behind the boarding house: water receding in the caves and the broken doorways of the fortifications. He was sleepless as always, but he didn’t mind this time. The longer the wind raved around the towers, the more he felt like he was on his way home.
9
In the morning, there was an unearthly quiet. It was the sound of ordinary quiet after the choirs of winds in the night and the smashing of the water on the walls. The sea was calm. Although his watch said nine o’clock, the dawn had only just come, and even then, it hadn’t come all the way. The sky was doomsday mauve.
When Joe ventured downstairs, half the pub floor was covered with trout. That side of the room was too cold for anything to smell much. Two women had set up barrels, two each, one for fish and one for the parts of fish nobody wanted. He hesitated, but then decided there was nothing anyone could say that would persuade him to offer to help.
He edged around the fish towards the bar and the fire to see about coffee. The four giant tortoises were still there, asleep now. While he waited – the barman was grinding beans – he studied the sea from the window. It looked strangely thick; it was congealing. Plates of ice bobbed in the weak surf. No wonder nobody wanted to go out to the lighthouse. He’d have to persuade someone. After coffee, though.
Behind the bar, beyond a glass door that led out into what looked like a back yard, some men in dark blue uniforms slipped by, carrying sacks. The barman fixed Joe with a defensive look.
‘You didn’t see that.’
Smugglers, they must have been. ‘See what?’ Joe agreed.
A girl pattered down the stairs. She was in a wedding dress.
‘Mam,’ she said, and seemed as unworried by the fish as everyone else. Joe started to believe he might be the only one who could see them. She did stop, though, shy of the floor.
‘Before you ask me, I don’t have a telegraph line to God,’ one of the fishwives said.
‘Can you see out the window?’ the girl asked Joe. ‘Do you think the winter might come today?’
‘I have … no idea,’ he said. It seemed like an odd thing to say, the winter coming today, as though it arrived all at once, but it must have just been a local turn of phrase. ‘The sea’s starting to freeze.’
She blinked. ‘Where are you from then?’
‘Londres. I’m here to fix the generator at the lighthouse. If I can make anyone take me over. Congratulations,’ he added.
The girl’s whole expression sharpened. ‘Fix the generator,’ she said. ‘Are you good with technical bits and pieces then?’
‘Pretty good.’
‘How about a picture box?’
Her mother looked over at him too.
‘A picture … like a camera?’
‘Right. The one at the church is broken. And if the winter does come in today, it would be such a shame not to …’
Joe paused. ‘Your father wouldn’t be a sailor, would he?’
‘And if he were?’
‘I’ll look at the camera if he takes me out to the lighthouse after.’
‘That is not a gentlemanly thing to ask,’ her mother said. ‘It’s the girl’s wedding day, for—’
‘Dad!’ she shouted out the stairs. A faint voice said aye. ‘If you take the French man to the lighthouse he’ll fix the camera, say you will or I’ll move to Skye and you’ll never see me again!’
There was a quiet in which the girl winked at Joe and opened her hands in the way priests did when they were hoping for a well-timed sunbeam.
‘Oh … fine, all right then,’ the voice from upstairs said.
‘Ta dah,’ the girl said. ‘Sorted. Now you’ll be going to the church, I want my bloody picture.’
‘Don’t swear at the man, Fiona,’ her mother said absently.
‘The church is on the left, you can’t miss it,’ the girl said to him. ‘It’s the only other building with glass windows.’
‘Right,’ Joe said tentatively, and leaned out the door to see if it was near. The cold tried to take his head off, but the steeple was just along from them. There was candlelight inside.
A steep, icy stairway led to the church, and he had to go up by inches. When he reached the doors, he had come up the wrong way somehow and arrived at the vestry rather than the nave, and he had to tap on the window. The priest was huddled by the fire. He bustled to the door tucking a scarf into the top of his surplice.
‘Who will you be, then?’
‘Fiona sent me,’ Joe said, with a glance back towards the boarding house. On the little beach, just around the cove and only visible because the church was so high up, there was a small group of people in dark blue uniforms pushing a longboat into the sea. He shuddered, feeling sorry for them, even if they did look like they might be in the Saints. It was bone-eating cold. ‘I might be able to fix your camera.’
‘Oh!’ The priest looked delighted. ‘Well, you couldn’t have better timing. They’re saying on the wireless that the winter might come in this morning.’
Joe stepped gratefully into the warm. ‘People keep saying that the winter will come in today, but seasons don’t – generally arrive all at once. What does that mean?’
The priest sparkled. ‘You don’t know about the Harris winter?’
‘No?’
‘Well! You’re in for a treat. Here’s the camera.’
It was taking up most of the table. It was an ancient one, a box with a cloth across the back of it. Joe took it apart, careful of the plates. The spring had come off the shutter. There was nothing else the matter with it. He connected it up again. He was about to tell the priest that it was ready, but he didn’t get the chance.
A siren rose up from the sea. It howled around the cliffs and echoed inside the church. Joe was flooded with the feeling that he had heard it before and that he would remember what it meant if he could just catch it right.
‘It’s coming!’ the priest beamed. ‘Quick, you take that outside. I’ll fetch Fiona.’
‘What’s coming? Outside where?’
‘The churchyard, it’s round the other side!’ the priest called back, already on his surprisingly fast way down the steps.
Joe took the camera and its wooden stand around to the churchyard, which was a natural pool of grass among all the stone. He was just fixing the tripod upright when the priest came back with Fiona’s mother and some other women, all carrying bouquets of heather, all of them pink from the run up.
‘Face it south, then you’ll be able to get it coming in – that way,’ someone called at Joe.
‘What coming in?’ Joe said helplessly.
‘The winter, look! Is that thing ready?’
‘Yes,’ Joe said. ‘But …’ He trailed off, because he had finally seen what they were all talking about.
The winter was coming in at running pace over the sea. It swept in from the west, and in its wake, the water froze in a clear grey line. Joe went to the edge of the graveyard to see it hit the beach. It made a sound, a splintering that must have been forming frost. Fiona rushed up the steps and at last he understood what they were doing when her mother put her ten feet to the left of the camera. They were waiting so that she could run with the frost line, the summer ahead and the winter behind. Behind her, the trawlermen and their wives were running up too, laughing.