by Peter May
“Mum, you’ve been married forty-eight years.” Marsaili’s voice again.
And Mary says, “He’s not the man I married, Marsaili. I’m living with a stranger. Everything’s an argument. He just won’t accept that he’s got dementia, that he doesn’t remember things any more. It’s always my fault. He does things then denies it. He broke the kitchen window the other day. I don’t know why. Took a hammer to it. Said he needed to let the dog in. Marsaili, we haven’t had a dog since we left the farm. Then five minutes later he asks who broke the window, and when I tell him he did he says no he didn’t, I must have done it. Me! Marsaili, I’m sick of it.”
“What about daycare? He goes three days a week, doesn’t he? Maybe we could get them to take him for five, or even six.”
“No!” Mary’s shouting now. “Sending him off to daycare just makes it worse. A few hours of sanity each day, the house to myself, and all I can think of is that he’ll be back again in the evening to make my life hell again.”
I can hear her sobbing. Terrible racking sobs. I’m not sure now if that’s the bad Mary or not. I don’t like to hear her cry. It’s upsetting. I lean to see through into the hall, but they are out of my line of sight. I suppose I should go and see if I can help. But bad Mary told me to stay here. I suppose Marsaili will be comforting her. I wonder what’s upset her like this. I remember the day we got married. Just twenty-five I was. And her a slip of a lass at twenty-two. She cried then as well. A lovely girl, she was. English. But she couldn’t help that.
Finally the crying has stopped. And I have to strain to hear Mary’s voice. “I want him out of here, Marsaili.”
“Mum, that’s not practical. Where would he go? I’m not equipped to deal with him, and we can’t afford a private nursing home.”
“I don’t care.” I can hear how hard her voice is now. Selfish. Full of self-pity. “You’ll have to sort something out. I just want him out of here. Now.”
“Mum . . .”
“He’s dressed and ready to go, and his bag’s packed. My mind’s made up, Marsaili. I won’t have him in the house a moment longer.”
There is a long silence now. Who on earth were they talking about?
And suddenly, as I look up, I see Marsaili standing in the doorway looking at me. Didn’t hear her come in. My wee girl. I love her more than almost anything in the world. Someday I must tell her that. But she looks tired and pale, the lassie. And her face is wet with tears.
“Don’t cry,” I tell her. “I’m going on holiday. I won’t be away for long.”
Eight
Fin stood surveying his handiwork. He had decided to start by stripping out all the rotten wood, which lay now in a huge pile in the yard between the house and the old stone shed with the rusted tin roof. If the rain stayed off long enough, the wind would dry it, and he would cover it and keep it for the bonfire in November.
The walls and founds were sound enough, but he would have to take off and renew the roof to make the building watertight and allow the interior to dry out. The first job would be to remove and stack the slates. But he would need a ladder for that.
The wind whipped and pulled at his blue overalls, tugging at his checked shirt, and drying the sweat on his face. He had almost forgotten how relentless it could be. When you lived here, you only noticed it when it stopped. He glanced down the hill towards Marsaili’s bungalow, but there was no car, so she wasn’t back yet. Fionnlagh would be at school in Stornoway. He would go down later and ask if he could borrow a ladder.
The air was still mild, blowing out of the south-west, but he could smell rain on its leading edge, and in the distance saw the blue-black clouds gathering on the far horizon. In the foreground, sunlight flashed across the land in constantly evolving shapes, vivid and sharp against the brooding darkness to come. The sound of a car’s engine made him turn, and he saw Marsaili in Artair’s old Vauxhall Astra. She had pulled in to the side of the road, and was looking down the hill towards him. There was someone else in the car with her.
He seemed to stand for a very long time, looking at her from a distance, before she got out of the car and started down the track towards him. Her long fair hair blew in ropes around her face. She seemed thinner, and as she approached he saw that her face was devoid of make-up, drawn and unnaturally pale in the unforgiving daylight.
She stopped about a yard from him, and they stood looking at each other for a moment. Then she said, “I didn’t know you were coming.”
“I didn’t decide until a couple of days ago. After the divorce came through.”
She pulled her waterproof jacket around her as if cold, folding her arms across the front of it to keep it closed. “Are you staying?”
“I don’t know yet. I’m going to do some work on the house, and then we’ll see.”
“What about your work?”
“I quit the force.”
She seemed surprised. “What will you do?”
“I don’t know.”
She smiled, that old sardonic smile that he had known so well. “Here lies Fin Macleod,” she said. “He didn’t know.”
He returned her smile. “I have my degree in computer studies.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Oh? That’ll get you far in Crobost.”
This time he laughed. “Yes.” She had always been able to make him laugh. “Well, we’ll see. Maybe I’ll end up working at Arnish, like my dad, or Artair.”
At the mention of Artair her face clouded. “You’ll never do that, Fin.” Somehow it had always been the last resort of island men who couldn’t get a job on a fishing boat, or escape to university on the mainland. Even although it paid well.
“No.”
“So don’t talk shit. You did enough of that to last a lifetime when we were young.”
He grinned. “I guess I did.” He nodded towards the Vauxhall. “Who’s in the car?”
“My dad.” Her voice sounded brittle.
“Oh. How is he?” It was an innocent enough question, but when he looked back at her he saw that it had provoked a disturbing response. Her eyes had filled. He was shocked. “What’s wrong?”
But she kept her lips pressed firmly together, as if not trusting herself to speak. Before finally she said, “My mum’s kicked him out. Says she can’t take it any more. That he’s my responsibility now.”
Fin frowned his confusion. “Why?”
“It’s his dementia, Fin. He wasn’t so bad last time you saw him. But he’s gone downhill rapidly. There’s almost a daily deterioration.” She glanced back towards the car, and her tears flowed freely now. “But I can’t look after him. I can’t! I just got my life back after twenty years of Artair. And his mother. I have more exams coming up, Fionnlagh’s future to think about . . .” She turned desperate eyes back on Fin. “That sounds terrible, doesn’t it? Selfish.”
He wanted to take her in his arms and hold her, but it had been too long. “Of course not,” was all he could say.
“He’s my dad!” Her pain and her guilt were all too clear.
“I’m sure the social services will be able to find something for him, at least temporarily. What about a nursing home?”
“We can’t afford that. The farm wasn’t ours. Just rented.” She wiped her cheeks with the flats of her hands and made a determined effort to take back control. “I phoned the social from my mum’s. I explained it all, but they said I had to come in and talk to them. I’m just going to drop him off at daycare to give myself time to think.” She shook her head, on the verge of losing it again. “I just don’t know what to do.”
Fin said, “I’ll get changed and come into town with you. We’ll take your dad for a pub lunch then drop him at daycare while we go and talk to the social work.”
She looked at him with searching, watery blue eyes. “Why would you do that, Fin?”
Fin grinned. “Cos I need a break, and I could do with a pint.”
The Crown Hotel sat up on the spit of land called South Beach that separated the inne
r and outer harbours of Stornoway. The lounge bar was on the first floor, and from up here there were views of both. The fishing fleet was in, at anchor in the inner harbour, rising and falling gently on the incoming tide, rusting trawlers and raddled crabbers, painted over in primary colours like elderly ladies vainly trying to hide the ravages of time.
Tormod was confused. At first he didn’t appear to know Fin at all. Until Fin spoke to him about his childhood, when he had visited Marsaili at the farm, already smitten, as if future pain had been predestined. Tormod’s face had lit up with recognition then. He had a clear recollection, it seemed, of the young Fin.
“You’ve grown fast, boy,” he said, and ruffled his hair as if he were still a five-year-old. “How are your folks?”
Marsaili glanced, embarrassed, at Fin, and said in a low voice, “Dad, Fin’s folks were killed in a car crash more than thirty years ago.”
Tormod’s face was washed by sadness. From behind round, silver-framed spectacles, he turned moist blue eyes on Fin, and for a moment Fin saw his daughter in them, and her son. Three generations lost in his confusion. “I’m sorry to hear that, son.”
Fin sat them at a table by the window and went to the bar to get menus and order them drinks. When he got back to the table Tormod was struggling to take something out from his trouser pocket. He twisted and wriggled in his chair. “Damn, dammit,” he said.
Fin glanced at Marsaili. “What’s he doing?”
She shook her head despondently. “He’s started smoking again. After giving up more than twenty years ago! He’s got a pack of cigarettes in his pocket, but he can’t seem to get them out.”
“Mr. Macdonald, you can’t smoke in here,” Fin told him. “You have to go outside if you want to smoke.”
“It’s raining,” the old man said.
“No,” Fin corrected him gently. “It’s still dry. If you want a cigarette I’ll stand outside with you.”
“Can’t get the damn things out of my pocket!” Tormod’s voice was raised now. Almost shouting. The bar was filling up with townsfolk and tourists in for lunch, and heads turned in their direction.
Marsaili’s voice was a stage whisper. “Dad, there’s no need to shout. Here, let me get them for you.”
“I’m perfectly capable of doing it myself!” More heads turned.
The barman arrived with their drinks. A young man in his early twenties with a Polish accent.
Tormod looked up at him and said, “Get a life!”
“I think he means a light,” Marsaili said by way of apology. She turned to Fin. “He’ll want matches. My mother’s been hiding them from him.”
The barman just smiled and left their drinks on the table.
Tormod was still struggling with his hand in his pocket. “It’s there. I can feel it. But it won’t come out.”
There was some muted laughter from nearby tables. Fin said, “Let me give you a hand, Mr. Macdonald.” And while he wouldn’t accept Marsaili’s offer of help, Tormod was quite happy to let Fin try. Fin flicked her a glance of apology. He knelt down beside her father, aware of heads in the bar turned in their direction, and slipped his hand into Tormod’s pocket. He could feel the packet of cigarettes there right enough, but like Tormod he couldn’t seem to take it out. It was as if the cigarettes were beneath the pocket rather than in it. But Fin couldn’t figure out how that was possible. He lifted the old man’s pullover to check the waistband for some hidden pocket, and what he saw made him smile, in spite of himself. He looked up. “Mr. Macdonald, you’re wearing two pairs of trousers.” Which elicited a ripple of laughter from those at the closest tables who could hear.
Tormod frowned. “Am I?”
Fin looked up at Marsaili. “The cigarettes are in the pocket of the pair underneath. I’d better take him to the loo and get one of them off him.”
In the toilet Fin steered Tormod into a cubicle. He managed with difficulty to remove the top pair of trousers after persuading him to take off his shoes. Then once he had the shoes back on, Fin made him sit on the pedestal while he kneeled to retie the laces. He folded the trousers and got Tormod to his feet again.
Tormod let him do everything without resistance, like a well-trained child. Except that he insisted on expressing excessive amounts of gratitude. “You’re a good lad, Fin. I always liked you, son. You’re just like your old man.” And stroking Fin’s hair. Then he said, “I need to pee now.”
“On you go, Mr. Macdonald, I’ll wait for you.” Fin turned to run the water in the sink until it was warm for the old man to wash his hands.
“Ahh, shit!”
He turned at the sound of Tormod’s cursing as the old boy’s glasses slipped off the end of his nose and fell into the urinal. The mishap did nothing, however, to lessen or divert the stream of yellow urine issuing from Tormod’s bladder into the trough. If anything he seemed to be aiming for his glasses. Fin sighed. It was clear to him who was going to have to retrieve them. And when finally Tormod finished peeing, Fin leaned past him to reach down delicately and pick the urine-drenched glasses out of the runnel.
Tormod watched in silence as the younger man rinsed them thoroughly under running water from the tap before lathering his hands with soap and rinsing them, too. “Wash your hands now, Mr. Macdonald,” he said, and he leaned into the cubicle to retrieve some soft toilet paper to dry off the glasses. When Tormod had finished drying his hands Fin replaced his glasses, planting them firmly above the bridge of his nose and behind his ears. “You’d better not let that happen again, Mr. Macdonald. We don’t want you peeing down your legs now, do we?”
For some reason Tormod found the notion of peeing down his legs quite hilarious. And he laughed heartily as Fin led him back out into the bar.
Marsaili looked up expectantly, a half-smile rising on her face at the sight of her father laughing. “What happened?”
Fin sat the old man down. “Nothing,” he said, and handed her the spare pair of trousers neatly folded. “You’re dad’s still got a great sense of humour, that’s all.”
As he sat down he saw the grateful look in Tormod’s eyes, as if the old man knew that for Fin to have recounted the truth would have been a humiliation. There was no knowing what he thought, or felt, or how aware he was of anything around him. He was lost in a fog somewhere in his own mind. Perhaps there were times when the fog cleared a little, but there would also be times, Fin knew, when it would come down like a summer haar and obscure all light and reason.
The Solas daycare centre was to be found on the north-eastern outskirts of Stornoway in Westview Terrace, a modern, single-storey building angled around car parks front and back. It stood next door to the council-run Dun Eisdean residential care home for the elderly, surrounded by trees and neatly manicured lawns. Beyond, lay white-speckled peat bog shimmering briefly in the last sun of the afternoon before the rains would come. In the slanting yellow light they looked like fields of gold, stretching away to Aird and Broadbay. From the south-west, dark clouds rolled in on the edge of a stiffening wind, bruised and ominous and pregnant with rain.
Marsaili parked around the back, opposite a row of residential caravans brought in to augment already overstretched facilities, and the first fat drops of rain began falling as she and Fin hurried towards the entrance with Tormod between them. As they reached it, the door swung out and a dark-haired man in a black quilted anorak held it open for them. It wasn’t until they were in out of the rain that Fin realized who it was.
“George Gunn!”
Gunn seemed just as surprised to see Fin. He took a moment to collect himself, then nodded politely. “Mr. Macleod.” They shook hands. “I didn’t realize you were on the island, sir.” He glanced acknowledgement in Marsaili’s direction. “Mrs. Macinnes.”
“It’s Macdonald now. I took back my maiden name.”
“And it’s not ‘sir’ any more either, George. Just plain Fin. I handed in my jotters.”
Gunn raised an eyebrow. “Oh. I’m sorry to hear that, Mr. Ma
cleod.”
An elderly lady with a faded blue rinse through silvered hair came to take Tormod by the arm and lead him gently away. “Hello, Tormod. Didn’t expect you today. Come away in and we’ll make you a cup of tea.”
Gunn watched them go then turned back to Marsaili. “Actually, Miss Macdonald, it was your father I wanted to talk to.”
Marsaili’s eyes opened in surprise. “What on earth would you want to talk to my dad for? Not that you’ll get any sense out of him.”
Gunn nodded solemnly. “So I understand. I’ve been up at Eòropaidh to see your mother. But since you’re here it would help if you could confirm a few things for me, too.”
Fin put a hand on Gunn’s forearm. “George, what’s all this about?”
Gunn carefully moved his arm away from Fin’s hand. “If I could just ask for your patience, sir . . .” And Fin knew that this was no routine inquiry.
“What kind of things?” Marsaili said.
“Family things.”
“Such as?”
“Do you have any uncles, Miss Macdonald? Or cousins? Any relatives, close or otherwise, outside of your immediate family?”
Marsaili frowned. “I think my mother has some distant relatives somewhere in the south of England.”
“On your father’s side.”
“Oh.” Marsaili’s confusion deepened. “Not that I know of. My dad was an only child. No brothers or sisters.”
“Cousins?”
“I don’t think so. He came from the village of Seilebost, on Harris. But as far as I know he’s the only surviving member of his family. He took us once to see the croft he was brought up on. Derelict now, of course. And Seilebost School where he went as a child. A wonderful little school sitting right out there on the machair with the most incredible views over the sands of Luskentyre. But there was never any talk of relatives.”
“Come on, George, what’s going on?” Fin was having trouble complying with Gunn’s request for patience.
Gunn flicked him a glance and seemed oddly embarrassed, running his hand back through the dark hair that formed the widow’s peak on his forehead. He hesitated a moment before reaching a decision. “A few days ago, Mr. Macleod, we recovered a body from the peat bog out at Siader on the west coast. It was the perfectly preserved corpse of a young man in his late teens. He’d died violently.” He paused. “At first it was assumed that the body could be hundreds of years old, perhaps from the time of the Norse occupation. Or even older, as far back as the Stone Age. But an Elvis Presley tattoo on his right forearm kind of blew a hole in that theory.”