CHAPTER TWENTY - ONE

'Dreams,' Uncle Mo repeated sadly, obviously getting into his stride with this theme. 'Dreams can destroy you, you see, Isis.'

'Really?'

'Oh, yes,' he said, and sounded bitter. 'I had my dreams, Isis.  I dreamed of fame and success and being an admirable person, a person people would recognise without ever having met me.  Do you see, Isis?' He reached across the table and grasped my arm. 'I wanted all this for myself you see.  I was young and foolish and I had this idea that it would be wonderful to be loved without reason, just because people knew oneself from stage or film or the dreaded goggle-box; the television.  But I was too young to see that it is not really you that they love; it is your part, your role, your persona, and in that much you are at the mercy of writers,' he grimaced, as though he had just bitten into something sour, 'producers, directors, editors and the like.  Liars, egotists; all of them!  They control the character you play, and they can destroy you with a few sentences typed on the typewriter, a few lines scribbled on a memo, a few words over a coffee break.'

He sat back, shaking his head. 'But I was young and foolish, then.  I thought everyone would love me; I could not understand that there is so much cynicism and selfishness in the world, especially in certain professions of a so-called artistic bending.  The world is a wicked place, Isis,' he said sombrely, fixing his watery gaze on me and lifting his plastic tumbler. 'A wicked, wicked place.' He drank deeply.

'I am starting to find that out, Uncle,' I said. 'I am finding wickedness and selfishness even in the heart of our-'

'It was ever thus, niece,' Uncle Mo said with a wave of his hand, that sour expression on his face again. 'You are the innocent now; you have your dreams and I hope they are not the source of bitterness that mine were for me, but now is your time and you are finding what we all find, no matter where we go.  There-is much that is good in our Faith - well, your Faith - but it is still part of the world, the wicked, wicked world.  I know more than you know; I have been around longer, I have kept in touch even though I was not there, you see?'

'Ah.'

'So I have heard much; perhaps more than if I had stayed in the Community.' He leaned forward, chin almost on the table again, and tapped his nose.  I leaned forward too, but this time I led with my other arm; the one he'd been grabbing until now felt bruised and sore. 'I know things, Isis,' he told me.

'You do?' I said, in my most breathless-ingénue manner, and widened my eyes.

'Oh yes,' Uncle Mo said, and sat back again, nodding his head.  He straightened his jacket, patting the bulge over where his wallet was. 'Oh yes.  Mysteries.  Rumours.' He appeared to think for a moment. '… Things.'

'Golly.'

'Not all sweetness and light, Isis,' he said, finger wagging. 'Not all sweetness and light.  There have been… darknesses along the way.'

I nodded, looking thoughtful as the train swung briefly away from the coast to enter the town of Berwick-upon-Tweed.  It slowed but did not stop as it passed through the station; we both watched the view unfold as the train curved out along a long arched stone viaduct across the river, revealing the jumbled old town on the steep north bank, the later, more uniform houses on the flatter south side, and the sloping road bridges between the two, outlined against the distant sea and clouds.

'Our Faith has had,' I said eventually, 'our share of sadness, I suppose.'

Uncle Mo watched the view, nodding.  I refilled his glass with the last of the four miniatures.

'The loss of Luskentyre,' I said, 'my parents' death and Grandmother's death, and one might even say the loss of your mother, my Great-aunt Zhobelia, who is supposed still to be alive, but is lost to us all the same.  All these thi-'

'Ah, you see!' Uncle Mo sat forward, taking my arm in his hand again. 'I know things there; things I am sworn to secrecy on.'

'You are?'

'Indeed.  For the good of all…' He sneered. 'So I am told.  Then I hear what is supposed to have happened…' He looked as though he had thought the better of saying any more, and took a long swallow from his tumbler instead.  He finished his drink and looked around the bottle-strewn table.

'Shall I get us some more refreshments, Uncle?' I asked, quickly draining my beer.

'Well,' he said. 'I suppose… but I am drinking rather quickly today.  I don't know.  Perhaps I should have a sandwich or something.  Maybe…'

'Well,' I said, holding up my empty plastic tumbler. 'I think I'll go and get another beer anyway, so if you…'

'Oh, very well.  But I must slow down and have a sandwich or something.  Here,' he said, digging inside his jacket for his wallet.  He felt around inside, then had to open out his jacket with his other hand and look within to guide his seeking fingers, before finally taking out the wallet and carefully extracting a twenty-pound note from it. 'Here.'

'Thank you, Uncle.  How many would you like- ?'

'Oh, well, I shall slow down, but best to stock up in case they run out.  Say…' He waved his hand weakly and shook his head. 'Whatever that will buy.  And whatever you wish, of course.'

'Right you are!' I said perkily.  I tidied the table, shoving some of our debris into the little brown paper bag.  I included my beer can, which was still half-full.  I lifted out the can when I deposited the rest in a litter bin on my way to the buffet car.

I had kept a little of the change from the last order.  I kept all the change from this one, wolfed down a sandwich at the bar, and came back swigging beer from the same can I'd taken away.

'Here we are!' I said, plonking down another rattling brown paper bag onto the table.

'Ah!  There, now.  I see.  Well, there we are.  Ah, you fine child,' Uncle Mo said, his hands waving like tendrils towards the bag's little folded paper handles.

'Allow me,' I said.

Outside, Lindisfarne, the Holy Isle, slid past beyond undulating meadows and long shallow dunes of golden sand and gently waving grass.  Between the land and the island were empty acres of sandy tidal flats which in places were already inundated by the rising tide.  A car was risking the crossing on the causeway across the sands, waves lapping at the roadway.  A small castle rose dramatically in the distance on the island's only piece of high ground, a smooth, linear swell of rounded rock towards the isle's southern limit.  Beyond, on the land facing the island, two huge obelisks rose before the miles of low dunes, and visible on the seaward horizon bulked a hazy prominence that - if I remembered my maps correctly - ought to be Bamburgh Castle.

'Did you get any sandwiches?' Uncle Mo asked plaintively, as I emptied the bag and poured him a drink.

'Oh, did you actually want a sandwich?  I'm sorry, Uncle Mo; shall I-' I started to rise from my seat again.

'No, no,' he said, motioning me to sit down. 'Never mind.  It's not necessary,' he slurred.

'Look; I got some ice in a separate glass,' I said, putting a couple of lumps into his drink.

'You are a good child,' he said, raising his tumbler and slurping at his drink.  Dribbles ran down his chin. 'Oh, my goodness.' I passed him a napkin and he dabbed at his chin.  He put down the glass, spilling a little, but did not seem to notice.  He fixed me with his bleary, diluted, dilated gaze. 'You are a very good child, Isis.  Very good.'

Not that good, I thought to myself, and had what I hope was the decency to feel guilty for my mendacity, and for my cynical use of Uncle Mo's weakness for the drink.

I sighed. 'I often think of Great-aunt Zhobelia,' I said, innocently. 'I hardly ever think of my mother and father, because I was so young when they died, I suppose, but I often think of Zhobelia, even though I can't remember her very clearly.  Isn't that strange?'