The Cursing Stone: a gripping mystery and family saga

by Adrian Harvey

  The picnic was over. His mother’s best blanket, which he had taken to use as a rug, was strewn with the debris. The remains of the loaf Morag had made that morning; one and a half tomatoes; the nub of cheddar that was yellowing and hardening in the dying sun light; the shattered shells of boiled eggs and the dusting of the salt that had accompanied them; the crumbs and wrapper of a packet of chocolate biscuits. Only the meat pie had entirely disappeared, without trace or residue: Morag was a renowned baker of pies. The bottle of sparkling wine had been drained an hour before and now lay empty in the sand, beside the paper cups that had played the part of crystal. His mother had frowned at first, unsure that alcohol was appropriate, until Fergus had pointed out that Shona was now 18 years of age. He had told Shona this as he had poured out the first beaker, and she had laughed as he had laughed at the thought of all the times that the two of them had stayed behind in the bar after her parents had shut up the pub, talking, drinking whisky, wine, anything that might not be noticed in the morning. They had been 14 years old when they had first been left downstairs, and Fergus had suggested trying the sweet pink wine that was dispensed from the glass cabinet behind the bar.

  Fergus touched the silver pendant that hung around Shona’s neck and she allowed it, even though it meant he was also touching her breast with his fingertips. He had bought it for her from a catalogue, in case his handiwork had let him down. McCredie had brought it over with the mail weeks before. It was shaped as a love heart, across which Shona’s name was engraved as a ribbon; in the top right ventricle, a diamond had been embedded. It had been wrapped in a neat package onto which his mother had glued a little bow; Shona’s eyes had gleamed as she tore of the paper and opened the little hinged box, and they had continued to shimmer as she let out a little squeal and threw her arms about him. For a long time after he had fastened the clasp under her hair, all the while watching the fall of her neck and the wisps of downy hair, she had felt for it as a talisman and looked down at it, smiling, inhaling sharply.

  Even after she had opened the larger gift, the carving of her, she kept returning to the pendant. It was not that she had not liked the bust, but there had been something that looked like disappointment as she tore off the paper only recently arranged over its awkward shape. As Fergus had washed and changed, hiding his grandmother’s engagement ring in his room, Morag had taken paper and tape from the shop to wrap the carving. His father, nervous under Fingal’s gaze, had pretended to begrudge this infringement, unable to read whether the old man would view it as fecklessness or as a laudable indulgence of his favourite grandchild.

  They, at least, had all admired the craftsmanship and the refinement of the wooden bust. The old man had held it close to his failing eyes to inspect its lines, while Davey looked on in deep and silent pride at his son; his mother had put her hand to her chest and sighed through half-formed tears, saying it was without doubt a thing of beauty. Yet there had been no squeal of delight from Shona herself, when presented with her own likeness. She had smiled, of course, thanked him, marvelled at the time it must have taken him, the skill employed. But she had been able to contain herself. Maybe she was embarrassed, but the doubt he had feared had crept into him and he was pleased that he had thought to buy the pendant as well.

  He touched its cold gloss again, this time moving his hand a little too far across the wool of her sweater. To his surprise she did not try to fend him off. Instead she pulled closer to him, locking her lips onto his, wriggling into an embrace, pulling her body against his. They kissed for several delicious minutes; only when his hand slid too far down her back, beyond the sweater, beyond even the pocket on the back of her jeans, did she stiffen and wrestle away from him.

  ‘No Fergus! I’ve told you a million times!’ She was smiling, a little flushed. Her lips were pinker than usual, more indistinct, and her eyes twinkled with mischief and feigned indignation. Fergus raised his palms in surrender.

  ‘What time is it, anyway? It must be getting on, the sun’s almost behind that hill.’ Shona nodded towards the squat drum of Carn A’Ghail, a grey-black hat box atop the shelves stacked above the shore. Squinting in the golden light, Fergus checked his watch.

  ‘Christ! It’s five thirty. We should be heading back. You’ll want to be getting dolled up before the party.’

  Shona giggled then sprang to her feet, brushing crumbs and sand from her clothes. Fergus was on his knees, packing the debris into the hamper, watching her run her palms over her body. While she arranged her hair more firmly into the comb and checked her face in her compact mirror, Fergus stood downwind to shake what was left from his mother’s blanket. He returned, blanket folded neatly, to find that instead of her mirror she was holding the carving tenderly before her, contemplating deeply its shapes. A little smile played around his lips.

  ‘Fergus, this is really beautiful, you know? I am amazed. And flattered, really flattered.’ She paused, then looked up. ‘You really love me, don’t you?’

  They embraced briefly on the sand, Shona pulling him to her with a sudden sob. Then they were trudging up the beach to the track that let back to the village. In the Bell, Mrs MacLeod would already be setting out the buffet and hanging the decorations. Her husband would be bringing up the case of Spanish ‘champagne’ from the cellar. Later, with the whole island gathered, they would toast their only daughter’s majority, and lavish on her clothes and jewellery and electronic devices they did not understand, all in plain sight of their neighbours. Then they would open the bar and, for this night only, no money would change hands, all would be in their munificence.

  5

  Wednesday morning came slowly to him, carried on the insistent whine of his alarm clock. He fumbled with the large, round button that silenced the thing, prodding it with uncommon malice, before sinking back into his pillow. His eyes, his throat, were sticky and a little raw. Like treacle, the night before came back to him. Eventually, when it had all arrived, had reconvened in his mind, he was able to place himself in space and time. Davey could hear his wife breathing next to him: shallow, hurried breaths. She needed no alarm clock, simply rising when he made his way to the bathroom, as she had every day, barring Sundays, for the past two decades. She had learned quickly the rhythms of the island and had accommodated herself to them and to the ways of the Buchanan men. He was immensely grateful to her for that.

  He turned softly towards her and watched her pale profile, mouth slightly open, chin rising and falling with her chest. She was still a good looking woman, even now, in her early forties. Back when he had first seen her at the sea captain’s wake, she had been startlingly beautiful: tall and slender in her black dress, her fresh face framed by strawberry blond hair. She had been seventeen years old, just a touch younger than him, and he had known in an instant that he would woo her. Morag’s father, a farmer on Eigg, had been wary of the match at first, since he did not want his daughter to leave the island. But he had recognised that Davey Buchanan’s prospects were good, as heir to the Post Office on Hinba.

  At that time, farming was a precarious professional. Furthermore, Eigg was still subject to an absent landlord, while Hinba had been its own island for centuries, since the Clanranalds had granted a thousand year lease to the inhabitants. The reasons for this generosity were lost in time, but it was widely believed among the remaining sixteen families that the Buchanans and the MacLeods – rivals even then – had joined forces to convince, bribe or blackmail the old laird somehow. Some believed that there had been a curse involved, some old magic, a rare weapon that the Buchanans and MacLeods had buried out on the moor to preserve a precarious truce once the island was free. But whatever the truth, these legends alone made the two families’ continued dominance over island affairs inevitable. The prospect of a union with such a prominent family stilled the sentiment of Morag’s father, and ultimately he had acquiesced with grace. Morag and Davey had been married and their life together on Hinba had begun.

  Davey began breathing in time with his wife,
a secret ritual he had maintained since the first morning he had woken beside her, synchronising his body with hers at the start of each day so that they might remain in step throughout the waking hours, even when apart.

  Too soon, it was time to rise. His father would be sitting at the kitchen table, smoking his pipe and drinking from a mug of tea. Davey dared not appear, washed and dressed, later than seven thirty each morning, for fear of the old man’s scorn. Even when there was nothing to do in the shop or the office, when the storms meant there’d be no boat and no mail, he would go down, exchange a few words with him over the breakfast Morag would prepare, still dressed in her housecoat. On those empty, pointless mornings, he would simply disappear into the office and work through his book of crosswords, listening to the wind howl.

  But today was another fine March morning, and there were things to do. Only his head and his stomach did not want to do them. He was 44 years old, and while he could still drink whisky as he had the night before, he found it ever more difficult to live with the consequences on the following day. The bathroom mirror showed him another man to the one he had expected to greet him: a pale and sagging face with insipid eyes that fluttered against the sudden light. He looked shocking, and he felt as bad.

  The party had been loud and long. The free bar had brought the whole island to the Bell to celebrate. Everyone bar Duncannon of course, who would sooner die than spend an evening of gaiety with his neighbours. And Mr Galbraith, the master at the island’s little school. He was away on the mainland, apparently, and Davey had wondered what nature of business would have kept him from such a grand event. Unlike the retiring Duncannon, Galbraith was always immersed in the life of Hinba. He was originally from the mainland, somewhere near Loch Laggan, and yet he was as committed to the island as any native; maybe more so.

  He had arrived 15 years before, full of talk about St Columba, earnest and enthusiastic. Undoubtedly he had felt himself to be underused professionally in his tutoring of the handful of docile children that the island produced, but the lack of demands made upon him meant that he had been able to throw himself into his research, traipsing over the fields and moors between the two old ruined churches, and up to the old Dun at the western end of the island. Always his nose in a book, looking for the traces of the saint’s time on Hinba, relics of the man or the monastery he founded there, destroyed by Pictish raiders even before the Norsemen arrived.

  Galbraith had taught Shona from her first day at the school until her last, when, with all the others, she had set off to Mallaig and the high school. That he should miss her day, when he had attended every other eighteenth birthday since he arrived, was inexplicable. His absence had been noted, frequently, before the whisky and beer took hold of the conversation in the bar. When Mr McCulloch had unlatched his squeeze-box and the dancing and singing and carousing had begun in earnest, Galbraith’s absence melted into nothingness and the people of Hinba simply celebrated the coming of age of one of their own, their own sweet Shona.

  Just eighteen, she had looked every inch the woman. It would soon be time, he was sure. Now that the girl had reached adulthood, and with Fergus on the cusp of attaining his majority, he felt sure that it would not be long before they would be making wedding preparations. There had been talk of that late on, with the older ones cooing over the couple as they danced together, smiling knowing smiles, as if recalling fondly their own youth and fecundity. Old Mrs Robertson had shed several tears as she gazed on Fergus and Shona, his arm around her bare shoulders, his fingers pressing slightly into the plump firmness of her skin, his eyes searching for hers as they stood beside the improvised dance floor in the centre of the bar. While Fingal Buchanan had whirled Mrs Robertson to the floor and danced her round the room as if it were still 1958 and her marriage and his had never happened, Davey’s eye had settled once more upon his son and his girl, as they stood in a slow, liquid embrace, oblivious to the clatter that surrounded them.

  He had had doubts about Fergus marrying a MacLeod and yet it had been inevitable: the two had been practically betrothed since primary school. Inseparable, already reconciled to an eternity together by the age of eight. That she had turned out so bonny and caring made the pill easier to swallow and Davey, encouraged by his wife, had long since warmed to the match. He suspected that his father still rankled at the idea, but even Fingal did not voice any objections.

  At the thought of his father, Davey looked at the clock above the bath and reluctantly pulled up the plug. He came to his feet, still dizzy with the residue of whisky, and fumbled for his towel. The wash had helped and he no longer felt sick, although the heat of the water had done nothing to make his head more stable. He stood there, naked and dripping, too busy steadying himself against the wall to dry himself with the towel. He did not feel sufficiently confident of his footing to move just yet and it was only once the wetness of his skin and hair began to chill him that he cautiously clambered from the bath tub. He looked again at the heavy hanging folds beneath his eyes, pulling them taught either in hope or remembrance. He had not always been in such a state of disrepair: while he had never been as handsomely made as his son, he had been lean and evenly formed. His time was almost past, he knew: his son would take up the reins of the house and the business directly from his grandfather and he, Davey Buchanan, would inherit neither the title nor the acclaim.

  This indignity did not ignite rancour either for the father or for the son, but rather for Cameron MacLeod. The two of them had known each other since they were children, had even once been friends; but their eventual feud had been written before they were born, forged in the heat of centuries of hatred between the two families. No-one knew of any incident that had ignited the slow tension that the island had contained for as long as anyone could remember. There were no stories, no legends, to explain the spark of the enmity: it was in fact simply that both families craved dominance. And while Cameron MacLeod had inherited the Bell from his own father in the natural order of things, Fingal clung stubbornly to the title of post master, undermining Davey’s rightful superiority.

  Davey shook the thoughts from his head, and padded softly back to the empty bedroom, where he dressed. No sound from Fergus’s room, only the murmur of voices from the kitchen, the clanking of plates, cups and saucers. Let the boy sleep, he thought.

  ‘Well, Davey my boy – how’s the head?’

  That Fingal was smiling as he entered the kitchen was surprise enough; that he had greeted him with an enquiry after his health astounded Davey. He felt unnerved, expected some imminent rebuke. Morag pulled out a chair for him, guiding him into it before placing a cup of tea beside him and stroking his still-damp hair. She too was smiling.

  ‘If I’m honest, I feel like shit. Pardon my French.’ He lowered his eyes apologetically in the direction of his wife, but she was already laughing a girlish laugh. She fetched over some aspirin before slipping out into the garden.

  ‘I think we all overdid the drink. I’ll say one thing for that MacLeod, he stocks a fine cellar. Nicer when it’s free, of course.’

  Davey could not remember a morning when his father had been as open and genial, nor as interested in the world beyond himself. He could not decide whether it was better to wait and watch or to mirror Fingal’s uncommon fluency.

  ‘I wish he’d had a pay bar after all, mind you. I might not have drunk so much of his whisky if he’d been charging. Fergus seemed to be OK, mind you. He spent most of the night gazing into Shona’s eyes rather than the bottom of glass. I should shout him, I suppose.’

  ‘Fergus? Oh, he left an hour ago, before I’d filled my first pipe. Got things to sort out, I shouldn’t wonder.’

  Fingal ended this with a smiling wink, something Davey had never seen. He wondered if he was still drunk. Drawing deeply on the cooling tea to wash down the aspirin, he leant over the table towards his father and placed his hand in the old man’s bare forearm, without thinking. But there was no flinch.

  ‘So is it to be today? So
soon?’

  Despite the dull pain that filled his head, Davey had finally worked out what was making both Fingal and Morag act so out of character: Fergus was to propose to Shona today. Clearly, Fingal had come to terms with the prospect of a MacLeod as a granddaughter.

  ‘Soon! We’ve been waiting 18 years, haven’t we? All I know is that he had my Maggie’s engagement ring sent over to Mallaig to be sized and that young McCredie brought it back yesterday. So, it looks like MacLeod will be having another free bar before too long.’

  Morag had been standing in the doorway for a few moments. She had been held at the threshold by the sight of her husband’s hand on his father’s arm. She had never seen Davey and Fingal so close and at ease, and had not wanted to break the spell. But now she could only laugh with joy at the prospect of her Fergus married. Davey withdrew his hand, but kept his smile. Sitting back in his chair, shaking his head in disbelieving pleasure, he marvelled at the three of them, all smiling together.

  6

  The sea barely murmured in the bay. By the harbour, its surface was as polished steel. No cloud, no wind, just the perfect stillness of the early morning. No-one out of doors yet: the little village belonged to Fergus and to the gulls that sat motionless on the wooden spars of the old jetty head, out in the bay: fulmars for the most part, in all their soft innocence. They too were simply enjoying the earth’s pause and the soul’s quiet it brought.