‘Look Da!’ George had said, stepping up to his father, reverently lifting the cross and offering it up for inspection.
Thomas Hart wasn’t a tall man but he was long faced and lean, giving him an impression of height. He’d hovered over his son, the boy standing in his shadow. ‘Where d’ye get dat from lad?’ Thomas had asked, his voice low, even.
‘Ah got it from Donald Dunbar,’ George replied, the cross flat on his extended palm, as big as his small hand.
Hart gazed down at his son, comprehending his words. ‘Donald Dunbar?’ Thomas questioned, a deep subconscious dread flickering across his face. ‘Wit d’you know aboot Donald Dunbar?’
‘I’ve found ‘im, an I wis t’take da cross.’
McLennan saw the fright stand out plainly on Thomas Hart’s face. He’d recognised the fright for he’d felt that same emotion, had felt a turn in his belly.
Thomas held his hand out. ‘Hand it o’er t’me lad,’ he said.
McLennan had watched the boy and the man stare at each other for a long drawn out moment, a silent struggle of wills, and he saw the young Thomas in George, the same eyes, the dark heavy brows. Thomas Hart wasn’t a cruel man, but he wielded a strict hand. The boy relented and took the cross from around his neck, handed it to his father.
‘Yer Ma is never t’know o’dis.’ George looked down on the sodden turf, nodded. ‘Get yerself cleaned up afore yer Ma sees ye,’ Thomas finished, watching as his son walked away, up and over the steady rise of land, out of sight.
The cross still in his hand, Thomas had glanced at McLennan. Stepping closer, McLennan scrutinised the object in the other man’s hand. This was the first time he’d seen it up close, this thing that had been spoken of around this isle for centuries. There was nothing intricate or ornamental about the polished black stone, a suspension hole bored through the top allowing a thin leather cord through. Austere, it bore no markings or etchings other than the scratches and pockmarks of ages, a large chunk chipped from the bottom its only disfigurement.
The foreboding that had been tiptoeing through the back of McLennan’s mind had come stomping right into the forefront, recalling the last time he’d seen this cross, a long time ago, hanging around Donald Dunbar’s neck.
McLennan looked at Thomas and he knew he was thinking the same thing. He saw the revulsion curl at the corners of his old friend’s mouth, his fingers splayed out, moving as if trying to disengage themselves from the hand that held this unholy, tainted object; this cursed thing that had brought misery down on the folk of this valley for generations. Thomas had curled his fingers around it suddenly, gripped it hard before he lifted his arm and threw it wide across the field, a movement out of the corner of his eye catching McLennan’s attention. He glanced towards the crest of the hill to see George, watching.
Before that day, McLennan’s recollection of George had always been that of a friendly, polite and well-mannered boy. George got up to mischief like all lads his age; escaping from the valley when he could, walking the Coffin Road to Haardale to hang about with Johnny Thompson and Joe Cooper. McLennan saw them all the time, skimming stones across the bay or using bits of driftwood as makeshift toy boats. But after that day, he no longer saw George in Haardale. He’d stopped hanging around with the lads, his gregarious nature becoming withdrawn, disappearing by himself for hours on end, his behaviour becoming peculiar, destructive, digging holes in the peat field. He was digging up good turf, upsetting a lot of folk; drawing a lot of attention and a lot of talk. John Frederickson was telling everyone how he’d caught George digging under Neeps Boulder, how he had to walk over and physically pull the lad away before the massive rock rolled right over him.
George had become the cause of whispers and backward glances every time Thomas and Moira showed their faces in public; at church, in the hall, conversations about the weather starting up every time Moira entered the door of Mr Walters’ shop. George’s antics had been causing a great deal of talk in many fireside discussions; the old stories dragged out, retold, the list of names of those who’d been cursed before him ticked off; Donald Dunbar, James McLennan, Meggie Anderson, back through times and names forgotten. They had all found the cross they said, and worn it, the curse of Erdin Valley taking possession of them, sending them mad. They became uncontrollable, disregarding their families and loved ones, their behaviour careless, trampling around the hills and valleys behind Ayres Kame in all kinds of weather digging holes, clambering dangerously down treacherous cliff faces and into crevices in the rock, inexplicably dislodging, moving and digging under boulders. The old stories said they were on a quest searching for lost treasure but in all the centuries, for as long as the curse had been spoken of, no one had ever found any treasure; only that plain black cross.
‘The place looks deserted Granda,’ Mavis said, breaking into McLennan’s thoughts as the small troupe neared Hart Croft. ‘D’ye tink George is in der?’
‘Aye, lassie,’ he replied absently, regarding the cottage, his white bushy brows drawing together. No smoke wafted from either chimney and it was a bitter morning, the wind easing as they descended the slope. He hadn’t seen George since last Saturday when he saw him marching across the valley towards Muddow’s Table.
Dot stopped still on the track pulling on the old man’s hand. ‘Ah don’t want t’go doon der Granda,’ she said, shaking her head, her eyes wide and rimmed with dread. ‘Dis is da cursed valley.’
‘You knew dat, Dot!’ Mavis exclaimed behind them suddenly, her expression ferocious. ‘Whit did ye come fur den?’
‘Come on, lassies, ah don’t want t’be hearing yer bickerin’,’ McLennan interrupted. ‘If you don’t want t’come, Dot, ye can wait here till we’ve dropped aff da pail,’ he said.
‘Wait ‘ere?! By m’self? On da Coffin Road?!’ Dot exclaimed. ‘Whit if somebody comes dragging a coffin up ‘ere?’
‘Don’t be daft Dot! Go hame den! We didnae want ye t’come in da first place!’ Mavis said stepping forward, pushing between her grandfather and her sister, breaking their handheld link, her shoulder breaking through hard towards Dot as she shoved passed her twin. ‘Ah knew ye’d be a wee besom,’ Mavis threw over her shoulder as she continued down the track towards George Hart’s croft.
McLennan looked from one twin to the other, Dot staring after her sister, furious as Mavis walked on.
McLennan took hold of Dot’s hand again and they followed Mavis towards the croft, Mavis halting by the stone wall at the back of the abandoned vegetable enclosure.
‘Da two of you wait here,’ McLennan ordered the girls, busily exchanging dagger filled looks at each other. ‘An’ no arguments,’ he warned them with a pointed finger and a stern look before making his way around the kailyard and past the peat stack at the side of the croft, pail of milk in hand.
He picked up a fallen tushkar, resting it against the wall of dried turf as he passed by. ‘George are ye aboot?’ he called, following an expanse of exposed bedrock that served as a pathway to Hart’s front door. ‘George!’ he called again, knocking on the door, resting the pail of milk at his feet.
No answer, no response. He was probably out wandering again, McLennan assumed, knowing George’s propensity to disappear for days, people catching sight of him on far off headlands or digging stupendously large holes in ridiculous places big enough for a sheep to fall into. He could, and did, make people very angry.
Just last year he’d stolen John McKenzie’s boat. The note he left under a rock in the boat’s noost, written in small neat script, appeared quite sane and apologetic but failed to state his reason for the theft. Word had gotten out that George had been seen rowing out to The Peg, a squat pillar of rock standing out from Muddow’s Table like an unwanted little brother. The sea heaved between the two points with treacherous swells big enough to launch a boat twice the size of McKenzie’s against either cliff face and pulverise it against the rocks. Folk came from all over to watch, standing on cliff tops and headlands. ‘Dat’s da madness fu
r ye,’ they said, bent into the wind, riveted by this latest unfolding spectacle. The guess was that George was trying to get into the cave halfway down the granite face of The Peg.
An approaching squall churned up the sea, the swell becoming choppy, and George gave up, having the sense to come back to shore at least. McLennan didn’t know if George ever made it into the cave or not.
McLennan knocked on the door again, turned and looked around Hart’s yard littered with pots, broken baskets, a quern that probably hadn’t been used since Thomas Hart’s death. His stomach rolled, noticing the pail of milk and the package of dried haddock he’d left here three days ago still sitting untouched on the bench under the window. There were deposits from other folk, eggs, a block of cheese and bread. He looked out, his eyes scanning the valley, the length of the burn coursing its way towards the stony beach curving between the two headlands. No one, no movement, just the wind sweeping across the tall grasses stiff with frost.
McLennan turned back to the door, knocked again, waited and knocked harder. He stepped over a broken crate to get to the small window, wiped the grim of sea salt and dirt from the glass and peered in. It was dark inside, the fireplace a cold black hole in the wall. McLennan moved back to the door and pushed on the handle.
‘George.’
It was cold inside, weak morning light filtering in through the small windows, the air damp and smelling of stale peat smoke. A small wooden table sat pressed up against the wall, its surface crowded with books and sketches, canisters of tealeaves and sugar, empty cans of Carnation milk, an oil lamp and a tin plate covered with fish bones, chairs at either side piled with stiff clothes. Moira’s old spinning wheel, thick with cobwebs and dust, sat in a corner beside a wooden chest, coils of rope, kishies and wooden buckets.
McLennan stepped over to the fireplace. A chair sat up close to the cold hearth, a half mended kishie sitting on the floor at its side, a bellows and a fire shovel leaning against the wall. A blackened teapot suspended from an iron link hung over cold ashes. There was no evidence of any recent fires and the growing sense of apprehension mushroomed in McLennan’s stomach.
George had gotten himself into trouble out there many times over the years, missing for days on end. Early, when he’d still been a boy, before his disappearances became routine, folk would leave their work in search of him. There were times he would have, could have died if help hadn’t come. He’d spent two days jammed down a narrow fissure just below Muddow’s Glup before they found him, unconscious, half dead, as if the ground had tried to swallow him whole. They had to pour buckets of fish oil over him before they could hoist him back out with ropes.
Thomas and Moira did their best to contain him, keep him close, hard when trying to work a farm, more difficult still with Thomas gone for days fishing in the wild northern oceans for extra earnings; and in this wide-open, empty landscape, George did as he pleased.
Narratives of the Hart boy’s misadventures travelled from one hearth to the next across the isle, over Yell and onto the mainland, all the way down to Lerwick. The Sheriffs started taking note. It was one thing for a boy to get into mischief, another for a lad to be stuck on the ledge of a cliff face for days, exposed to the elements, surviving on any unfortunate bird that happened to get caught in his grasp.
Fishermen heading out to sea had spotted something unusual on the cliff face near Muddow’s Table. They’d heard the Hart boy had gone missing again, and sure that what they could see moving up there was much bigger than a bird, they came in for a closer look. A person, stuck on a narrow sloping ledge surrounded by gannets. A day’s fishing wasted, the fishermen turned back to shore to advise what they had seen.
Word of a dramatic rescue caught the wind and the crowds had gathered, people leaving their farms to stand on the headlands, suffering the battering wind to watch the unfolding drama, to be entertained, gathering fuel for fireside talk.
They painted the soles of Thomas Hart’s boots with tar before he’d gone over the cliff edge to retrieve his son, lowered down by a rope tied around his waist. It had been an exhausting, labour intensive exercise, until finally, they’d pulled George back up, almost senseless, his hands and face black with congealed bird blood, but alive.
It was this episode that first alerted the Sheriffs. They came, travelling all the way to Haardale before making the three hour walk to the Burland Knowe and onto the Coffin Road to Erdin Valley to talk to Thomas and Moira, to ask them questions of how their son almost died on a cliff face with no explanation as to how he got there or why. They spoke of Lunacy Boards and Inspectors. They had asked if he was mentally defective. A danger to others? George was just a lad with a wild imagination, Thomas explained, a bit more adventurous than he should be, especially around these parts where it was too easy for a body to get themselves into trouble. He promised to keep a strict eye on his son, apologising for the time everyone had taken over this matter. The Sheriffs had questioned others, and McLennan himself had vouched for the lad, as did Father Craig and Mr Walters, a highly regarded citizen of the Haardale district. George was no bother, they said, he was just a lad that liked a bit of mischief. George Hart was one of their boys, and they’d be damned if these know-it-all’s from Lerwick thought they could just waltz up here and start laying down the law.
The Sheriffs left, assuaged for the time being.
McLennan crouched down in front of the fireplace and stuck his fingers into the cold ashes until he felt the stone slab beneath. Cold. The fire hadn’t been lit in some time. He stood up, exhaling deeply, a row of hand-drawn pencil sketches lining the mantelpiece catching his attention; Erdiness featuring a heavily shadowed Brud Stone, various coves, inlets, valleys and hillsides, Neeps Boulder in its original position. In the sketch, the colossal rock sat atop one of Ayres Kame’s lower combs above the peatfield, carried in glacial pre-dawn times and deposited there at the end of the ice age. For reasons only George Hart knew, he had decided to dig under Neeps Boulder disturbing the ground enough to shift the rock just slightly, trapping his arm in a hollow depression in the process. Lachy Aitken had been cutting peat that day, and being one of those rare windless days, had heard him calling. Another spectacle ensued as they laboriously and dangerously freed George from the grip of Neeps Boulder, now settled into a slightly newer position for another millennia. George had been extremely lucky, escaping with little more than a few bruises.
The Sheriffs from Lerwick were involved again, their investigations forcing them to advise the Lunacy Board. This time, the Inspectors came to Haardale all the way from Aberdeen to the Hart’s front door. They studied George, spoke to him and asked him questions which he refused to answer, choosing to sit silent, eyes down, staring at the floor.
They deemed him mentally defective. He was a danger not only to himself, but to those around him. At nineteen, they committed George Hart to Inverhall Lunatic Asylum in Aberdeen for six years, administering the appropriate care. Moira Hart never saw her son again, her heart failing her one cold winter day nine months before George’s release.
McLennan ran his eyes along the mantelpiece, noticing two photographs nestled in-between the line of sketches. He reached out, taking one of a toddler and a young boy.
‘George and Alistair,’ he muttered to himself, studying it. The boys were dressed in their Sunday best, unsmiling. George was maybe five years old, his dark hair short, his face oval and unremarkable, his small eyes dark and round, looking away from the camera. He’d moved at a crucial moment, his face slightly blurred. Alistair stood at his side, holding his hand. The forgotten brother, McLennan thought, lost in the shadow of his sibling, his name seldom spoken, always referred to as George Hart’s younger brother, any thought that was ever given to him coloured with mixed feelings of pity, wariness and expectation. Even in later years, Alistair seldom spoke, his insular personality sullen and unapproachable. He would stand in the dark corners of the room watching his brother, a look on his face as if he had something in his mouth he wanted t
o spit out. McLennan could only guess what Alistair Hart’s life would have been like, growing up surrounded by the stigma of madness, tainted by association, wondering if he’d be next, wondering if he’d be cursed like his brother.
As he grew older, Alistair made it clear to anyone who would listen that he wanted no truck with the crofter’s life. He had no intentions of being marooned on this tiny island trapped in a life of serfdom, bogged down in debt to the landlord for the use of his barren, infertile ground and paid pittance for the product of their gruelling, thankless toil. But McLennan always sensed that Alistair’s desperation to escape went deeper than that. He was scared of finding himself trapped here with George, weighed down with the responsibility of his brother, of becoming mad like his brother. Alistair had watched George carted off to Inverhall Lunatic Asylum after the Neeps Boulder debacle. He might be next.
On his eighteenth birthday, Alistair Hart escaped to the merchant navy. He served his time and more, and seldom set foot on the isle again. He started his own business, a bakery in Glasgow, married a lass and was doing quite well for himself McLennan had been told. After Thomas Hart’s death, he’d sent George a five-pound note and a letter of regret at having missed his father’s funeral.
McLennan replaced the photograph, stepping to the end of the mantelpiece to inspect the second photograph, partially obscured by a sketch of a detailed rock formation. He slipped it out from behind the drawing to study the photo of George and Thomas taken perhaps three or four years ago, not long after George’s emancipation from Inverhall.
George’s release had been a local good news item and they’d sent a photographer from Lerwick to take a picture, this picture of Thomas and George standing outside Hart Croft. If McLennan didn’t know them it would have been hard for him to tell any age difference between the two, both looking so alike, wiry and impoverished, their small black eyes hidden under heavy black brows. Thomas stood stooped over from years of back-breaking toil, George, in his mid-twenties, had the look of an old man, his thin shoulders slumped, head sunk into his chest, bent over, weighed down with his madness.
The Stone Dweller's Curse: A Story of Curses, Madness, Obsession and Love Page 2