The Malice of Waves by Mark Douglas-Home

Author:Mark Douglas-Home
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Contemporary, Mystery
ISBN: 0718182758
Publisher: Michael Joseph
Published: 2014-10-28T05:00:00+00:00

17

Whenever a storm blew in, Bella would lie awake listening to its delinquent rampaging and she would congratulate herself on her foresight. Thank goodness she had built her house and the chalet side by side in the shelter behind the Deep Blue. Old friends from Glasgow would come to stay in summer and express tactless disappointment at her sitting room’s restricted sea view but Bella would reply, ‘You wouldn’t say that if you were here in autumn or winter.’ She might also attempt a description of the weather’s capacity for violence once September turned to October. Usually, her guests would counter with their own experiences of ruined family holidays on Bute or Arran, as though they too had suffered the elements at their fiercest. Bella would bite her tongue before attempting to explain the difference between islands lying 200 kilometres to the south in the relative shelter of the Firth of Clyde compared to her northern exposure. Then she might recall her first December at the Deep Blue, how shocked she’d been by the weather. When she lived in the city, she regarded gangs in the same way as she now did storms: both capable of mindless acts of vandalism and of terrorizing entire neighbourhoods.

Once light began to infiltrate her bedroom her thoughts would turn to the prospect of a busy day ahead. In wild weather, the Deep Blue was where the township gravitated. Crofts went untended, boats stayed at their moorings and washing lines flapped bare as the tea room filled and became fuggy. Before getting up, Bella would conduct a mental stock-take. Was there enough coffee? Would she run short of cake and biscuits? Should she leave a message for Jimmy the postman to pick up milk from the store by the ferry pier, in case sailings – and supplies – were disrupted for more than a day? With her ‘to do’ list already written in her head, Bella would put on her dressing gown and head downstairs to her own kitchen rather than brave the weather and cross to the tea room’s. She would make bread rolls and brownies. While they cooled, she would drink tea and listen to the radio, the presenters’ voices contributing to a restoration of calm after Bella’s burst of industry, as well as providing a contrast to the turbulence outside. Having washed, dried and tidied away the pans and trays, she would go back upstairs for her shower, leaving Catriona to sleep on – after all, why provoke another storm?

This morning, however, Bella paused by Catriona’s room and decided to go in. It had an unhindered view of the sound, the only one in the house. She was agitated about Ewan, feeling she should have heard from him by now. He had promised to drop by or to ring once he’d brought Pinkie back from Priest’s Island. Parting the curtains, Bella watched Wheeler’s boat straining at its mooring by the harbour wall and, beyond, a hazy tumult of waves and spray. The sight made Bella feel sick.

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