Boxing Day dawned clear and bright. Breakfast was tasty and done quickly; there would be no further meal services that day. Konstantin looked nervous, Isla realized. He had stayed up late, speaking Norwegian to everyone, and she had taken her mother home, the pair of them getting in and opening their presents. One of Isla’s was a new, cool Cath Kidston teapot.
“I thought you might like it,” said her mother shyly. “For the new place.”
“I do,” said Isla. “Very much. But not as much as yours.”
THEY STILL HAD the emergency council meeting at ten A.M.
“What’s the worst they can do?” she said.
“Just the idea that people hate it makes me sad. They could tear it down,” said Konstantin, frowning.
“I know.”
“I just wanted to do something nice. I thought it would be nice.”
“You don’t know who hates it.”
“All the powerful people who run everything,” said Konstantin, gloomily munching a sausage.
Isla plucked up the courage to ask, “And then . . . are you going back? With your dad?”
“Yes,” said Konstantin, and Isla’s heart dropped. “For a visit. Can you come? There’s no more meals till Hogmanae.”
“What?”
“I mean, we could go for a few days? I could show you around.”
“And then come back?”
“Well, for now, yes. I’ve got a job. I like it. I’m trying to get a girlfriend, although I will tell you up until now it is going very, very slowly.”
Isla smiled in delight. “And then what?”
Konstantin screwed up his face. “Come on. I’ve barely got my first job started, don’t ask me my five-year plan. Also, I’m in some danger of getting banished from here too. Two countries in one year would be quite good going, I think.”
“Even for a playboy.”
“Even for a playboy.”
Although in fact the papers, desperate for copy, were already running Candace’s glowing review of the beautiful Christmas lunch. Candace herself was staying on a couple of extra days; Fionn had promised to take her out on his boat and catch her a lobster, and she was absolutely feeling rather up for it.
At 9:45, they looked round the empty kitchen, then, nervously, headed toward the town hall. The angel towered above them, glinting in the sun. It was as beautiful as ever. But today the glow gave it a sinister cast, as if it knew it might have to come down.
Hand in hand, they walked to the doorway, where they saw the most amazing thing. They’d noticed a lot of people around the village but assumed everyone was heading for the Loony Dook at eleven. Many were carrying blankets and flasks, and Mrs. Brodie was rattling the tin for the school fund as usual.
But as they reached the door, they heard a great swell of people and a noise. “Now!” came a voice, and everyone took hands.
“What’s going on?” said Konstantin.
Malcy, arriving at the same time, looked around crossly. “What the hell is this?”
Right up the street from the town hall, leading to the statue, was a human chain: Billy from the airport, all the children more or less from the school, Lorna, and Giorgio, the pilot who had flown in to speak for all the pilots who loved it for navigation, with a message from the ship captains likewise.
The councilman harrumphed, following the other members in, including poor, slightly terrorized Marsali.
Then everyone from the chain came behind Konstantin and Isla and took up every single space in the hall.
“We are here to vote upon the removal of a nonplanning permission object on the island,” said Malcy. But every time he tried to get people to be quiet, they started up again, chanting, “Keep the angel! Keep the angel!”
Malcy spoke at some length about how it was an eyesore and completely illegal, and there was some harrumphing. Then Konstantin looked at Isla and winked. He stood up.
“May I speak? I wish to name the angel the Malcom Marsali Aoghas Fraser Bert William Effie Angel,” he announced grandly. “And I personally will pay for a plaque to commemorate the full name, to be placed at the base,” he added.
There was some silence over this. People started cheering and shouting, “Vote, vote, vote!”
Obviously Malcy did not want a vote he did not know he could win. There was some private conferring.
Eventually he returned.
“The provision is this: the statue will stay as long as Konstantin undertakes to keep it in good order and to return and tend to it. And make the plaque with all our names on it.”
Everybody cheered.
“Thank you,” said Konstantin gravely. “I realize you are an important man in this town.”
He turned to Isla delightedly.
“I’m not sure you can get rid of me that easily. It’s the law now.”
The visiting Norwegians were well used to getting in extremely cold water and only had to be reminded, yet again, that here it was done with swimming trunks on, so they were all up for the Loony Dook.
The children were doing it because it was fun and naughty, and it meant their parents had to do it too so as not to look like wusses.
Candace decided to do it because she had a fabulous figure in a bikini, so any excuse. Also the light and the color of the water and the pale, pale white sand on the Endless Beach made it look like she was actually in the Bahamas, if the temperature hadn’t been 3 degrees Celsius, so she could take lots of excellent pictures for her Instagram. She was getting quite the following. She noticed Iona taking selfies in a particularly fetching spot and copied them exactly, to Iona’s stone-cold fury.
By eleven there was a piper burling up and down the beach and much laughing and bantering and remarks and swearing about how cold it was just to take your jumper off, but there was nobody there—apart from the older members of the community, who stood with warm towels and blankets and coats, and flasks full of hot coffee laced with whisky, and bacon sandwiches wrapped in silver foil—who wasn’t ready to get in.
At eleven sharp, the entire island lined up along the sand. There was a great horn blown—by Agot, naturally—and hand in hand, the entire long line ran down the Endless Beach screaming their heads off and into the freezing, churning water.
Several words were heard that would not have truly passed muster in front of the children, but it was only once a year. There was much shrieking, and most of the children ran in only up to their waists, figured that was enough, and immediately turned and charged back the other way, to be scooped up by adoring grannies and rubbed fresh pink.
The others, bolder, swam.
Konstantin loved the cold water and took Isla with him, deeper and deeper, and when he thought no one was looking, finally kissed her flushed face full-on, and laughed at her shock and joy as she wrapped herself around him.
Flora and Joel held hands, and Flora jumped up and down screaming while he endured the freezing water with complete and utter calmness, and she burst out laughing and said, “I am sure this is a metaphor for something about the two of us,” and he laughed too and grabbed her close, and they ran back out together, heading for Douglas, who was laughing and giggling in the blanketed lap of his doting grandfather, to swing him up between them.
Saif and Lorna swam out farther and farther and moved just close enough so their toes could entwine in the water, for it was not deep, and the sand that joins the world flowed over their numb toes. They couldn’t feel each other but they were still together: because sometimes even when we cannot feel each other we are still together.
And the town laughed as one and ran back in, glowing and jolly, feeling refreshed and cleansed and alive, under the watchful eye of the great Mure Angel, bright in the winter sun, lighting the way, keeping them safe.
لذلك سوف أميل دائما قلبي
أقرب إلى روحك
كما استطيع.
So I will always lean my heart
As close to your soul
As I can.
Eg stansa vel uviss, utan svar,
Som framfor eit ukjend land,
Om ikkje min kjærleik til deg var
For meg som ei lykt i mi hand.
I paused uncertainly without answer,
Finding myself set against an unknown land,
To see whether or not my love for you,
Was a lantern in my hand.
Tha caoin-shlios mo leannain mar eal’ air a’ chuan,
Nas gile nan fhaoileann air aodann nan stuadh,
Mar shneachd air na beannaibh, mar chanach nam bruach,
‘S i furasta, suairc na giùlan.
My love is a swan on the ocean,
Brighter than gulls on the waves,
Like snow on the mountains, like wild cotton,
It is easy, and I shout aloud with joy.