Rise Read Free Page A

make a fuss. Can you just get me my bag, please?’
    ‘Here, it’s fine. I’ve got it.’
    Somehow, the tramp has joined them. ‘But you need to get that seen to. I think it’s going to need stitches. And you need to get your first-aid kit replenished—’ Umbrella jiggling on his arm, he’s waving a white tin box at the driver; an exaggerated warding-off of his smoke.
    ‘Here! Did you go in my cabin? That’s a total liberty; that’s authorised personnel only—’
    ‘Excuse me!’ yells someone on the bus. ‘Can you all stop chuntering and get back on, please? I’m gonny miss my ferry.’
    ‘I’m fine,’ says Justine. Behind the two men, the strings of stone glitter. Behind the stones lies a bleached field of tree-bones. Acres of logging, then more stones and cairns. The skies closing.
    ‘Trust me.’ Deftly, the tramp applies a pad of lint to her forehead. ‘I’m a doctor.’
    ‘Aye,’ says the driver. ‘And I’m the Queen of Sheba.’
    ‘No gauze, I’m afraid.’
    ‘What is this place?’
    ‘Kilmacarra Glen,’ says the driver, breathing in his Silk Cut. He pats his sternum with his fist. Coughing it all up.
    ‘Kil-ma-carra.’ She tries the sound out.
    ‘’Scuse me . . . there.’ The tramp stands back. ‘All done.’
    ‘Thank you.’ She touches her hand to the pad. Soft and thick, like the inside of her head. ‘Is there a tourist information place?’
    ‘No really,’ says the driver. ‘There’s a hotel, but I think it’s closed down. Or, you could try over by the church – there’s a wee tearoom there. You could ask them.’
    This will do. This place will do you.
    Justine puts her bag on her shoulder, begins to follow the road.
    ‘That you away then?’ shouts the driver. ‘D’you no want me to drop you off up the hill?’
    ‘No. No thanks.’
    ‘Here, wait. Take this.’ The tramp comes after, is holding out his brolly.
    ‘Och, no. It’s yours.’
    ‘Please. It looks like rain.’
    The oiled silk glides like metal in her hand, the hooked handle warmer. It’s a lovely thing.
    ‘At least let me give you something for it.’ Though how she’s going to reach her stash of notes could be a problem.
    ‘Absolutely not. Now, listen,’ says the orange-doctor-tramp. ‘If you feel at all sleepy, you must call a GP, right? Or NHS 24.’
    ‘Yeah. Thanks. I’ll be fine.’ People on the bus are staring. She has to keep moving. ‘You take care . . . ?’
    ‘Frank. My name is Frank. You take care too, yes?’
    ‘Cheers, Frank.’
    ‘You sure you’ll be all right?’ says the driver. ‘No that I’m accepting any liability or anything I mean, there’s a’ seatbelts fitted; it’s up to—’
    ‘I’m fine, I promise. I’m good.’
    Which is a lie, of course. The money down her pants is testament to that.

Chapter Two
    First thing you see of Kilmacarra is its dead. As you approach, there’s a sweep in the road, then a clean rise beyond you, like half an egg. Squat on top, a small dour church, watching over the graveyard terraces that slope in tiers downhill. Sun-traps of a sort, these little flatnesses, facing east across the glen, positioned to see every arrival and departure. When the living go to worship in Kilmacarra, they can’t ignore the dead. Even if they avert their eyes from the blunt gravestones and look upwards instead, there’s the name of every dead soldier of the Great War, carved above the arched kirk gateway. That worries Michael. Such awareness of your own mortality. He’d much rather have grown flowers in his garden. Serves him right for living in a manse. He’s thick with mortality – and morality. Thick and sick and tired. He thinks he might refuse to open his eyes.
    Yesterday, Michael saw a ghost.
    He has a pile of paperwork to read. A constituents’ surgery to prepare for. A persuasive, upbeat speech to craft, and a sermon to inspire. And all he can think about is the Ghost. He’d seen it the day before too, in the bitter glint of a