A mist over the island

Chapter four ii/ii

Christ, Oisin! Now there was guilt as well as anger. Hardly left room to feel any fear!

Because Oisin was dead; he had let Oisin die, and now Claire didn't have a father. She had watched the two of them get into the car and go off together; she would have expected Sheff to look out for him, stop him coming to any harm, but Sheff had failed, spectacularly so. He wrenched himself away from the window, and immediately, his place was taken by Tom, wanting to assess the situation for himself.

There was blood flowing down his arm still. Some of it was drying and clotting, but the razor wire had gone deep, and with every beat of his heart, fresh, bright red rivulets were streaming down the pink of his skin,all the way to his fingertips and dripping onto the floor. He moved his fingers experimentally, and a bolt of pain shot up his arm. 

Oisin had had a first-aid kit with him. Fat lot of good that was now though.

"What are they?"said Suzy. "I'm serious. What are they? Where the hell did they come from?"

No one replied. Tom was still watching out of the window. The rest of them – Suzy, Caillin, Fiona – were just standing around uselessly. Caillin, that old fucker with the gun who had frozen up and let two people get killed, he was standing just at the top of the steps, looking gormless, as if lost in a reverie. Maybe he was hypnotised by the noise from outside. Sheff noticed he had taken the gun back, from where he, Sheff, had put it propped against the wall. As if he had a right to it, as if he was any bloody good with it at all. Sheff had a strong urge to hit him, send him flying backwards down the steps to the earth floor below. He didn't. Instead, he said: "So why didn't you shoot it? What's the point in having a gun if you don't use it?"

Caillin looked startled, and couldn't find an answer.

"Oisin's dead. They're eating him," Sheff said. "I wish you could have pulled that trigger."

Caillin muttered something and looked away.

"What?" said Sheff.

"Ah don't think ah could have saved him," said Caillin.

"What about Ted?" said Sheff. "Do you think you could have saved him?" It wasn't serving any purpose at all, Sheff knew, but he couldn't stop himself. The maddening sound from outside seemed to be driving him on. "He saved your life. That thing was charging at you and he shot it. It would have killed you. So why couldn't you do the same for him? All you had to do was point it and pull the trigger. Why couldn't you do that?"

"Okay, go easy on him, man," said Tom.

Sheff ignored him. "Then Ted'd still be alive, and there'd have been two of you, with guns. Do you think you could have saved Oisin then? Instead of dropping your gun, running away?"

Although he hadn't made any move towards Caillin, he felt Tom's hand, very gentle, on his shoulder, restraining him. "Come on man, go easy," said Tom. "None of us were prepared for those things. None of us were ready for that."

Sheff looked at Tom and turned away in disgust. Last night, less than twenty-four hours ago,this nasty, rat-faced thug had tried to start a fight with him, just because he was English. He had punched Claire's brother in the face, just for sticking up for him. Now here he was playing the peacemaker!

"Caillin, man, there was nothing anyone could have done," said Tom. "There was no way anyone could have been ready for that."

Pheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! The noise was still coming from both windows, but it had lessened now. Apparently some of the animals outside had tired of making it.

"But Caillin," Tom went on, "Hope you're ready to redeem yourself." He motioned Caillin to join him by the window. Caillin did so, though he looked nervous about being so close to Sheff.