“So, tell me what’s great about Mure then,” said Konstantin, sipping the coffee, which was in fact excellent, surprisingly enough.
“You really want to know?”
“No, but I’ve got to wait twenty minutes and I don’t have any credit on my phone.”
Isla sniffed. “Well, you obviously just haven’t been paying attention.”
“I have,” said Konstantin. “But the wind keeps blowing my hat over my eyes.”
Isla almost smiled. “Well. It’s got the most beautiful views everywhere you go. It’s just a wee island, but when you stand on the ben, it feels huge. You feel like you’re nowhere near anybody, but if you want company, then everyone is pleased to see you, or at least will be happy to have a chat. You’re safe wherever you go. Nothing bad is going to happen to you as long as you don’t fall in the harbor.”
“Does that happen often?”
“When I was wee,” said Isla, smiling despite herself, “I heard that someone had fallen off the gangway to the ferry and the selkies took them, and I was so terrified.”
“Did you know them?”
She shook her head. “It was always someone’s friend’s cousin who was visiting from the mainland. Then my mum said she’d been told that when she was small, and her mother too back when it was the old boats. I think it’s just something they tell children to keep them away from the water.”
Konstantin smiled. “What’s a selkie? A drowned person?”
“Not quite. A seal person would take you to play with you. And sometimes they send a seal back in your place who would be good-looking but weird.”
“We have something like that too! The King of Ekeberg. He hated his own children, so he would swap his for yours. So if you woke up and your child was different . . .”
“That’s strange,” said Isla. “That there’s different stories about changeling children.”
Konstantin shook his head. “I don’t think so. Most cultures have them. I think it’s how they explained autistic children before science.”
Isla hadn’t thought of that before. “Goodness,” she said, thinking of the legends of the children, so beautiful but so strange behind their seal eyes. “That’s so sad.”
“Well, it comes on at about that age . . .” He stopped himself. “It’s not always sad, though, is it? Just different.”
Isla thought of Flora’s train-obsessed big brother Hamish, who had never been able to leave home or really be trusted walking down to the shops by himself, but was adored by everyone.
“I suppose you’re right,” said Isla. “They must have been so frightened, though.”
“Oh, I think people are very frightened now,” said Konstantin. “They think it’s an evil doctor with an injection.”
“They do,” said Isla, pondering. “Gosh.”
The ding on the timer slightly startled them both, speaking about changeling children under a dark and freezing moon.
Together they jumped up and rebuttered and folded their dough companionably, chopped it up into twelve crescents each, then popped the trays in the hot oven and refilled the coffee machine.
“This can’t be good for you,” complained Konstantin. “This is a heart attack amount of butter. Why aren’t the French all dead?”
“Because it’s good butter,” said Isla soothingly. “That’s the other great thing about Mure. Everything we make here is pure and local. There’s a cow, there’s some rain—”
“Quite a lot of rain,” added Konstantin.
“And some grass, and salt from the salt pans, and there you are.”
“Okay,” said Konstantin, breathing in the warming scented air. “If that tastes as good as it smells, you’ll absolutely have convinced me.”
This time he brought Isla a coffee, and they sat together, and he let her tell him all about the myths of the land—the princess who stepped onto the iceberg to escape the Vikings, the witches who ran ships aground—and he told her about the trolls of the great dark forests and the elves who came to give strange gifts in his northern homeland. And then finally the croissants rose up, warm and steaming and light as a feather and absolute miracles, and they added, to their giggling shame, even more butter, and ate one, which was too hot, and then another, frankly, because they couldn’t help themselves, they were so airy, crunchy on the outside and yielding and miraculously light underneath, the most ambrosial things Isla thought she’d ever tasted, and the smell even drew Gaspard down from upstairs, who entered the kitchen with his eyes closed, saying, “Vraiment? It cannot be true. I am in Lyon, no?” which was as high a compliment as he could possibly give, and then they had to hide them to keep them for the artist, and Gaspard suggested they both get up and make croissants at four A.M. every day, and of course they chorused, “Noooooo,” but they were both a little disappointed nonetheless that he didn’t insist.
IT WAS FAIRLY obvious who the artist was as he stepped off the tiny plane into a howling snowstorm. He was wearing pink-and-purple trousers, for starters, and very in-your-face glasses. He scowled, even as they led him to a cozy corner of the lounge and plied him with coffee and croissants, which he declined.
“I need to see,” he said, just as they were hoping the warm setting and lovely food would be enough to convince him. “Show me! Let me walk.”
Konstantin put the croissants back in the kitchen with stern instructions to people not to eat them, whereupon Gaspard picked up one in each hand and defiantly took a bite out of both. Konstantin rolled his eyes and walked out with the artist, who spoke little English.
They stomped off down the road together. Gunnar didn’t ask Konstantin anything about himself, which was something of a relief, but instead pointed out various things Konstantin hadn’t noticed at all before: the contrasting colors of the little buildings along the harbor, the way the sun moved across the water, the speed of the shadows. He obviously saw the world in a different way from most; he took his time, ambled, glanced around at everything. Finally they made it to the little hill outside the school and he stood and hummed.
“No,” he said finally. “My work has drama. Scope. This is too limited. People will not like it. This place, you know. It is cozy.”
He said this as if it were the biggest insult he could think of.
“Well, it’s nice,” said Konstantin, feeling suddenly defensive about the island.
“Exactly. Nice,” Gunnar growled, pushing up his trendy spectacles.
Konstantin’s heart sank. He’d been sure if he could get him here the deal would be done. And he’d promised Joel, who rather impressed him—he thought Joel was quite a grown-up person. And the kitchen. And now he’d just look like a stupid idiot who couldn’t handle anything. He sighed. “Well, you could make it amazing.”
The artist shrugged. “Why?”
“Excuse me,” came a small voice on its way to school. Agot came deliberately early to find the best iced puddle, and these two were right in the way.
“This is my puddle.”
Konstantin eyed the child, who eyed him straight back. He had the uncomfortable feeling she had the measure of him.
“I think it’s everyone’s puddle,” he said.
“No,” said Agot. She took off her little fur-lined boots and proceeded to scoot across the thin ice in her socks.
“You can’t skate in your socks.”
“You can’t.”
She proceeded to hum Boléro very loudly to drown them out, doing her best to pirouette around the ice, with varied results.
“You have wet socks,” said the artist in thickly accented English.
“Your glasses are stupid,” said Agot without pausing.
“Sorry, she’s a very rude island girl,” said Konstantin in Norwegian. Agot fixed him with such a look then that he was almost sure she’d understood him.
Gunnar ignored him. “What would you build,” he asked Agot, “if you were making something for Christmas?”
Agot looked at him like he was an idiot. “An ice rink.”
“I do not do ice rinks.”
Agot sniffed as if to say, So much for you then.
The artist smiled. Then he stood back. He looked at the little girl, then up at the top of the hill and back down.
Agot’s friends (and/or terrified acolytes) had come running up behind her, and the artist walked left and right, looking at them and the hill and back again. Agot put her soggy feet back in her boots and marched off without giving either of them a backward glance.
“I suppose they’re pretty tough up here,” said the artist, almost to himself.
They watched the little crowd weave its way to school, kicking, shouting, laughing, throwing snowballs, tumbling down, scrambling back up again. Parents didn’t need to walk their children to school on Mure, although some did of course. It was safe and close by for almost everybody. They made a merry sight in their red sweatshirts and hats.
“Hmm,” said the artist. “Okay. Okay. I can do it.”
Konstantin felt himself break into a huge grin. “Really?”
“Yes. For the children. Yes.”
Gunnar took out his phone and started taking lots of pictures of the site from all different angles. Konstantin could have skipped.
“Would you like a croissant before you go catch your plane?”
So, just to get this straight,” said Joel, who felt a headache coming on. “You don’t actually know what’s turning up?”
They were down at the docks, two weeks later, to pick up the light installation. Gunnar had worked quickly but hadn’t answered any of Konstantin’s emails about what he was actually doing or how big it would be. They needed a power source on the hill, that’s all he knew. Joel was trying to pacify Mrs. McGlone, who was getting slightly worried about what Malcy would say.
“He’s an artist,” said Konstantin, in the hopes that this would prove enough. Innes was standing by with his truck, as was Ed the policeman, and they watched the ferry dock in some nervous anticipation.
It hadn’t occurred to any of them that he couldn’t possibly have such a group of people together loitering on the wharf on a workday without arousing frantic amounts of chitchat and suspicion, and indeed, a lot of people gathered in the Seaside Kitchen to keep an eye on them.
“Who is that new chap anyway?” said Mrs. Brodie suspiciously. “I’m just saying. He’s a bit of a ride and no mistake.”
“Elspeth!” said Flora reprovingly. She glanced out the window. Nobody, she thought, was ever handsomer than Joel, ever. His curly hair, his horn-rimmed spectacles, his long, muscular body . . . She sighed happily. But yes, sure, the blond stranger was cool too, if you liked that lanky Scandi look.
“He’s a ride,” said Mrs. Brodie again, and the Fair Isle knitting group looked up to see whom she was talking about, then vehemently nodded as one before going back to their intricately patterned wool.
“He hasn’t been in here?” said Flora, confused. Most people popped in sooner or later. It wasn’t as if Mure was falling over itself with different places to go.
“He’s a pot boy,” said Mrs. Brodie. “He must be skint.”
“Working his way round the world maybe? Student?”
“That’s an expensive coat he’s got on. And shoes.”
“Doesn’t stop people wanting to work.”
“Well, maybe scouring out all those pots will give him some proper muscles,” said Mrs. Brodie, all but licking her lips.
“Mrs. Brodie! That’s quite enough.”
Lorna came in for a coffee.
“We’re talking about who’s a ride,” said Mrs. Brodie, and Lorna looked at her without quite taking it in. Flora pulled her aside.
“Are you okay?”
“He’s been called in,” said Lorna in a low voice. They both knew what that meant. “Home Office.”
“Oh shit. What now?” said Flora, genuinely worried. Not just for Lorna, her best friend, or Saif, whom she liked very much. But she was slightly scared that he would leave the island and they’d be without the best doctor they’d ever had. It was a helicopter ride to get to the hospital; she was much happier with a baby and her father getting ever older knowing she had Saif to call on.
Lorna shrugged. “They won’t ever tell you. He has to go in.”
“Are you talking?”
She nodded. “Yes. But he doesn’t know any more than me. But he’s terrified.”
Flora patted her shoulder. “Are you?”
“Yes.”
FLORA BUNDLED UP the largest piece of gingerbread she could find, added an extra shot to Lorna’s coffee, and sent her on her way. Meanwhile the rest of the Seaside Kitchen patrons were trying desperately to pretend they weren’t still spying on what the men were doing.
“Maybe they’re landing a new car!” said one. “Maybe it’s a Christmas present for someone!”
“Who for?”
“Maybe it’s you, Flora. That rich lawyer of yours.”
Flora snorted. They absolutely did not feel rich. Joel had given up all of his lucrative practice to work for Colton’s charities and was paid to reflect that, and there had been no money to spare for maternity leave.
“It’s the lights,” she said, and everyone nodded happily.
“Already?” said Mrs. Brodie. “That’s efficient.”
“The children are going to love it,” said Mrs. MacPherson.
“And I’m going to love watching the men put them up,” said the inexhaustible Mrs. Brodie. “Oh, and that reminds me! Pay up for the Loony Dook!”
There was a lot of good-natured grumbling at that. The Loony Dook happened every Boxing Day. Two pounds to charity, then you had to run in the sea in your swimming trunks. It had become bizarrely popular, even though everyone dreaded it and there were numerous rumors of pneumonia. The Loony Dook was a tradition, and that was that.
IT WAS BOX after box, all enormous. Everyone looked at each other anxiously. There was at least a collection of typed A4 instructions as to how to put it together. Unfortunately they were all in Norwegian.
“Uhm,” said Konstantin. “Okay.”
“Can you put this stuff together?” said Innes.
“I can read the instructions,” said Konstantin. He looked really worried. “Oh God. I’m sorry. I might have completely messed up.”
He stared at his shoes and looked very young all of a sudden.
Innes shrugged. “Ach, you read ’em out, we’ll build it,” said Innes. “I’ll text Hamish.”
Konstantin’s face snapped up, amazed. “Really?”
“Have you never built anything?” said Innes.
Konstantin had had more than enough of “have you never” questions, so he got stuck into helping the others lift the incredibly heavy cases into the truck—the last few all hung over the back—and they headed up to the Rock, waving merrily at the ladies of the Seaside Kitchen as they passed by.
The men all met again after work, at nine when much of Mure was already asleep. They had decided to keep it a surprise, because, indeed, what was in the boxes was a genuine surprise to them, and it was becoming quite a major operation.
Charlie was joining them too, and Hamish, who was getting very excited about the welding equipment.
They started setting up in one of the Rock’s old garages, which was fully equipped with brand-new tools that had mostly never been used. Konstantin read out instructions and watched in some awe as the practical men of Mure started welding and bolting everything together, except for Joel, who was practically useless—his eyesight was horrendous—but good at holding things still.
They had to throw open the big doors of the garage as the object started to take shape. It grew bigger and bigger, but everyone was getting so excited they barely cared, even as the cold wind blew straight in off the sea. Everyone had gloves and hats on and was toiling away with stiff old-fashioned metal bolts and tiny Allen keys. It was like a vast Lego kit, and they were secretly all having a brilliant time, even as they complained about the crappy freezing weather and the bloody buggering metal bolts.
Finally, just before midnight, the team stood back. It was done. The lights from the garage didn’t show much. It was completely blocked out by the towering edifice.
“Bloody hell,” said Innes, whistling through his teeth.
“Is this really going to work?” said practical Charlie.
“It certainly cost enough,” said Joel, studying the diagrams in the instructions with some care.
“C’est énorme!” said Gaspard, coming out to have a cigarette. It was indeed, and was going to have to be held in a dug-down hole and secured with concrete, yet another thing that was news to Konstantin.
But through all the hard work he had translated, explained, made tea, even learned how to use a spanner and a wrench. The others laughed at his uselessness, but to Konstantin, learning something else new—something useful and practical—was miraculous, even if Hamish had to do everything again after he’d finished, just in case something fell off and killed someone.
Gunnar’s work was four meters tall—about thirteen feet—and when they stood back, they gasped.
What they had was a huge, beautiful, smooth-faced contemporary angel, designed in a gorgeous shiny steel. When you turned the central crank, a vast pair of wings, too wide for the garage, came out and spread for what seemed like miles. They hadn’t even plugged it in yet. It was, Konstantin couldn’t help thinking with a smile, going to blow everyone’s tiny minds.
“I’m not sure these are the fairy lights people were expecting,” said Charlie.
“Good,” said Joel, who thought it was rather fine.
“Shall we give it a shot then?” said Konstantin, pink-faced with excitement.
Joel carefully moved toward the plug socket and put in the European pin adapter. “Okay!” he said, and pressed down.
Every light went out for four square miles.