by Gemma Amor
I passed a collection of farm outbuildings, and a Bed & Breakfast that looked long-closed, despite the sign that said ‘VACANCIES’ hanging out front. I passed a solitary phone box, so overgrown that it was essentially a glass and metal box full to bursting with nettles and brambles, the phone all but smothered within. I passed a derelict caravan, and began to get an appreciation for just how remote and sparsely populated this stretch of coastline was in comparison to my home in the south. It must have been a lonely childhood, what little of it I had spent here. More memories came back to me in fits and starts: cycling down a road like this on a yellow bike with streamers attached to the handles. Snow on the hills. Sun on blue water. Sky, so much sky. Boiled sweets, with a curious, bitter flavour.
And against the sky, a wooden frame.
This was both memory and present, for just beyond the caravan, set into a patch of heath not far from the phone box, I came across an odd thing.
A tall, upside-down, u-shaped frame, made of wood, stopping short of ten feet high.
There was no platform beneath, but well-trodden, worn soil all around it. There were markings on the wood of the frame, letters carved in a language I didn’t understand. Gaelic, I supposed.
I paused, trying to figure out if the wooden structure was old, or new. The wood had aged, greened a little, but the frame was solid, well-constructed, treated against the weather. There was no rot, no flaking of the wood. The structure looked functional. Whatever that function was.
As I stood staring at it, I realised something else. I realised that if I stood on this side of it, with the road behind and the bay before me, it framed the Island beyond perfectly.
I pursed my lips. Of course it did.
Memories flared and died like sparks above a bonfire as I stood and stared at the thing. Whatever it was, I’d seen it before, I knew that now. I struggled with my memory, and then gave up, too tired to try and recall how, or when. There was no use dithering here with wet, sore feet while I tried to recover buried memories from decades ago. It was like digging for treasure buried ten feet deep with a rusty teaspoon: a thankless, pointless task. So, I’d seen the structure before. So what? What did it matter, really? I had bigger problems.
I moved on, and finally passed the sign for Laide, turning off the main road to a smaller byroad inland on which the Post Office sat at the junction of a hairpin bend. I breathed a huge sigh of relief as it came into view. It was a small, squat and ugly building that crouched in the middle of a tiny tarmac forecourt. It was also a general store and a petrol station. The original Post Office building, a tiny stone cottage with an old slot set in the garden wall for mail, nestled into the verge opposite. Old and new, unsympathetically juxtaposed.
There was a cashpoint set into the side of the modern building. Next to it, a plastic advertising board with a faded, rippled poster of The Last of the Mohicans clinging on for dear life inside. I could not remember the last time I’d taken a trip to the cinema. Did they even have one around here?
I used the cashpoint to withdraw a wad of money, then went inside.
Laide Post Office was run by a mousy-haired woman who sat behind a high counter at the back of the building. She looked me up and down as I pushed my way in, a small bell hung over the door tinkling and giving away my presence as I did so.
‘Hi,’ I mumbled. The woman pulled up a smile that I could tell was reserved only for tourists and strangers. Warm, but false.
‘Welcome,’ the woman replied, as friendly as you like, but the word sounded strangely formal, ceremonial almost, like an incantation.
‘How can I help you?’
I stumbled and fumbled my way through my predicament, pulling out my wad of ten pound notes and proffering them hopefully at the end of my messy tirade. My hand trembled, and the woman looked at it. It was my right hand, the one with the missing little finger. I usually wore a leather strap to cover the stump, held in place by a bespoke halter that came down over the back of my hand and fastened around my wrist, but I had taken it off during the long drive to Scotland, and forgotten to put it back on before leaving the house. I blushed. I didn’t like people looking at what I considered my deformity. It made me memorable, made me stand out, and I hated that.
The woman narrowed her eyes when she saw my hand, as if recognising me. She cast her eyes over me again with renewed interest, taking in my wild hair, my exhausted face, my rumpled clothes and the bottoms of my jeans, which were still damp. I could smell the dog’s urine now I was inside, potent and unpleasant as it dried into the fabric of my shoes. I was mortified. I thought about explaining, then gave up on the idea. What was the use? What was the use in going over something that had already happened? That’s what Tim would have said, and I was in agreement. I no longer had the energy for anything other than the task at hand.
The woman stared pointedly at my wet boots once more, then sighed, her smile slipping.
‘Black and white collie dog, big black patch over its left eye?’
‘What?’ For a moment I couldn’t make sense of what she was asking me.
The woman nodded at my feet. ‘Your shoes are wet. Was it the dog?’ Her eyes glinted with something steely, but only for a second. A flash, but I could tell she was angry, beneath the pleasantries.
Startled, I nodded, and my indignation bubbled out of me, despite my earlier resolve.
‘Yes! It...It attacked me, on the road, in broad daylight! And its owner...well, he just sort of stood there, and did nothing!’ I still couldn’t believe it had happened, and saying it out loud made it sound even more absurd.
The woman examined me again, mulling something over in her mind. Then, she seemed to flip a switch internally, and the smile came back, brighter and more forceful than before. She flapped a hand airily, shaking her head.
‘Oh, that’s Murdo, and his boy Patch. If it makes you feel better, you’re not the only one that dog has gone after. A few of us around here have gotten scars from Patch. And damp socks.’ She sighed ruefully.
I was taken aback. ‘Really?’ I cleared my throat. ‘Shouldn’t...ah, shouldn’t the Police know about him, or...or animal control?’ I was amazed and more than a little peeved to learn that I was not the first victim of the dog’s attention.
The woman levelled me with a steady gaze. ‘Oh, no need for anything like that,’ she said, and I suddenly felt like a child about to be dismissed. ‘I’ll have a word with Murdo for you, if you like,’ she continued. ‘It’s about time something was done about that dog, but there’s no need to make it official. We like to sort our own business out around here. Keep it local, you know.’
She winked at me, then deftly changed the subject.
‘Walk across from Second Coast, then, did you?’
I nodded, feeling uneasy. How had she known that? I could have come from anywhere. ‘Just beyond, actually,’ is what I said out loud.
‘Are you over at Taigh-Faire, then?’ She gave me another comprehensive once-over from behind her spectacles. She pronounced the words differently to how I had imagined them in my head, the ‘r’ of ‘faire’ coming out almost like a ‘th’ sound, or a toothy ‘d’. The Highlands accent in these parts was lighter and more sing-song than I thought it would be, a lilting speech, and I found I had to concentrate sometimes to make sure I heard things properly. I hated myself for this, it reminded me of how much of a stranger I was despite having been born not far from here, but I tried to remain polite. All I had to do was get through this encounter, then I could go back to the house, stick some coins in the infernal meter, close all the curtains, and lose myself in the words.
‘Yes. How did you know?’
The woman said nothing, finally taking my money and opening a cash drawer under her counter. I caught sight of something as she pulled her hand back: a small blue tattoo on the inside of her right-hand wrist.
A triangle. Four dots.
One in the middle, one at each point.
She began counting
out pound coins, slowly and deliberately, eyeing me over the rims of her thick glasses as she did so.
‘Staying for long? I thought the guest-house was closed.’
I cleared my throat. ‘I, um...I live there now, actually. The house was my Granny’s. She left it to me in her will.’
The woman stopped counting, but only for a moment.
‘Patricia’s granddaughter?’ She asked, and I nodded.
‘Yes. My name is Megan. People call me Megs.’ I stuck out my hand, my left hand this time, and the older woman shook it.
‘Fiona,’ she said, and went back to counting, stacking the coins into little columns on the counter top. ‘I thought you looked familiar. I have a good memory for faces. And names.’
I tried not to let that unsettle me. ‘Yes, I lived not far from here when I was a little girl. We moved south when I was eight years old. I imagine I look very different now.’
‘Not so different,’ Fiona said. ‘We remember you. You were the one that got away.’
We? I thought she might wink again, having made a joke, but her eyes remained downcast, focussed on counting out coins. I began to feel as if I were losing grip on the conversation, and decided to wait, rather than venture any more information.
‘That old house has been empty for so long, we were sure it had been sold off for development,’ Fiona remarked eventually, a little too casual, her eyes still on the money. I wondered for the second time who ‘we’ was, but let it pass.
I shrugged. ‘I was thinking about it. But…’ I stopped short, feeling a sudden, intense prickle on the back of my neck, and a headache that had been building since I left the house peaked sharply, making me wince. I clapped a hand to my forehead, and whatever I had been about to say flew out of my mind. It took me a second or two to recover, to remember what I had been talking about. I blushed as I tried to regain equilibrium.
None of this seemed to phase Fiona, who kept her eyes on the stack of coins.
‘It’s been in the family so long I couldn't quite bring myself to sell it,’ I managed after a few moments more, massaging my tender temples. It was half-way to the truth.
Fiona chuckled. ‘And now you have to put up with electricity from a coin operated meter. Must be quite a shock for you.’
I ignored this, and waited for my change. ‘I’m sure I’ll get used to it,’ I said, noncommittally. The triangle taunted me from the woman’s wrist.
‘Aye, I’m sure you will.’
‘Can I ask you something?’ I decided to bite the bullet, as the opportunity was too good to pass up. Fiona waited, tight-lipped, so I continued, pointing at the woman’s tattoo.
‘What does that symbol mean? I keep seeing it everywhere around my house.’
Fiona didn’t answer. She held my gaze with her own, and her eyes were different colours, I realised, behind the lenses of her spectacles. One brown, one blue. The blue eye reminded me of the collie dog’s eyes. It was pale, and cold.
I shuffled uncomfortably, and she eventually went back to the money, lowering her head. I realised I had been holding my breath, although I couldn't say why.
‘So,’ she said, after a beat or two. ‘You’ve been down in the cellar, then.’
Clearly, everyone knew everything about everything around here.
‘Oh yes. Quite a space.’
‘And you’ve seen the capstone.’ It wasn’t a question.
I nodded. ‘Oh yes. Do you know anything about it? What’s underneath?
Fiona’s smile turned a little brittle.
‘You look like Patricia, by the way,’ she said, avoiding the question.
I frowned, confused, then realised Fiona was once again changing the subject. I stifled an internal scream. My headache beat at my temples, and I fought off another wave of complete and utter exhaustion.
‘You might not have grown up around here, but you've got Highlands in you, I can tell,’ the woman continued.
Fine. If she didn’t want to answer my question, then maybe I didn’t want to know, anyway.
Except I did.
‘I just wish I knew more about her,’ is what I said out loud.
‘Oh, it won't be long before you hear the stories,’ Fiona went on. ‘Patricia was a character. Eccentric, you could say. She used to swim in the bay every morning, come rain or shine, no matter what the season. I've seen her out there in midwinter, wee bathing costume on and nothing else. Never seemed to do her any harm, though. She lived to a grand old age, didn’t she?'
Something dawned on me then, and I felt ashamed that I hadn’t thought of it before.
‘I don’t suppose…’ I cleared my throat. ‘I don’t suppose you know where she is buried?’ I asked. ‘It’s just...well, I never went to the funeral, and I ought to pay my respects, now that I’m here.’
Fiona bagged the coins for me in little plastic envelopes, and handed them over, her eyes full of something like thinly veiled amusement. Whatever it was that she found funny, however, she kept a secret.
‘Of course, dear. She’s over at the beach cemetery. Laide Burial Ground. Take the road that runs behind this building, follow it around, there’s a small access gate on your right hand side. You can’t miss it, it’s right next to the caravan park on the beach.’
‘Thank you,’ I said, realising with a sinking feeling that I had just given myself one more task to complete before I could get back to my word processor. I turned to go, cursing the sudden onset of familial duty that had added to my already hefty mental load.
‘One more thing,’ Fiona said, and something in her tone made me pause.
‘Yes?’
‘If you find yourself tempted to go out to the Island, don’t. The Island deceives. Always remember that.’
There was a dead silence in the Post Office as I took this in.
‘What?’ was all I could say, after. That damned Island was following me everywhere, even into this woman’s mouth!
‘Good day to you,’ Fiona replied, and then she pulled a shutter down over the counter, effectively ending our conversation and concealing herself from view.
I blinked. Was she watching me through the gaps in the shutter?
I smoothed a hand over my hot, sore forehead once again.
Everyone in this town is mad, I thought to myself.
And there was nothing else to say after that, except:
‘Thanks for the advice.’
I delivered this parting shot with sarcasm to the metal shutter-screen. Was it my imagination, or did I hear a laugh from behind the shutter as I turned to go?
Mad, I thought again.
Something caught and held my attention as I went to leave. There was a series of photographs pinned to the far wall with thumbtacks, some black and white, some in faded colour, the edges of each picture curled from the heat of an ancient radiator mounted directly below.
They showed mundane scenes of local life, mostly. A harvest festival, a man dressed as Father Christmas handing out toys to wide-eyed children, an Easter egg hunt presided over by a person- perhaps the same unfortunate who had to be Santa each year- in a hideous, worn, saggy rabbit costume, and then a photo which made me pause.
It showed the strange wooden frame I’d passed on the way in. A congregation of white-clad people were gathered around it, but their faces were blurred, and the light was poor, the camera’s exposure settings not set correctly. This is not what bothered me. What bothered me was that the people gathered around the frame were facing out to sea, facing the Island, and they all had their right hands raised, to the level of their faces. Every single one of them, as if saluting, but not quite. Index fingers all extended, pointing skyward. It was odd, but the thing that caught my attention the most, beyond the strange mass gesturing of those assembled, was the woman I could see standing at the front of the crowd, off to the left hand side of the photo. She was wearing a long, striped, full skirt that came down to the ground, and above that I could see she was thin, stick-thin, and
although I could only see the back of her head, I knew who it was. I could tell by the hair-clasp fastening her white, stringy hair to the back of her head. I could tell, because this hair clasp was sitting in a shoe-box on the dressing table in the master bedroom at Taigh-Faire. I had a vivid memory, then, so vivid it took my breath away, of that clasp being jammed into place with deadly precision by a pair of gnarled, old hands, one of which was missing a little finger.
It was my Granny. Staring out to sea, at the Island, just like everyone else.
Waiting for something.
6. Chapel of Sand
All I had left to do after that was to go home, and I wanted to, so badly, but there were obstacles. Obstacles like the man Murdo, and his dog. Were they still there, standing by the side of the road, waiting for my return? The thought made me hot, and anxious. I couldn’t bear the idea of another confrontation. I thought about walking a different route back, but I was in no mood to get lost, and the coastal road was the quickest, easiest path to Taigh-Faire.
And, on thinking of Granny’s house, I became aware of a new obstacle, an obstacle that took the form of duty, and obligation. Because, as I’d said to Fiona, I had not yet paid my respects to my Granny, despite readily moving into her old house. It felt ungrateful and churlish not to do so now I was here, especially if the cemetery she was buried in was just down the road.
Or perhaps that was just another excuse, another reason to avoid Murdo. As if an angry, incontinent dog and a rifle weren’t enough of an excuse by itself. I shuddered, recalling the dog’s frosty blue eyes, and realised something about myself, then.
I was cowardly.
It was not a nice feeling.
I left the Post Office and dithered on the forecourt, trying to make a decision. From here, I could just see the edge of the bay, and the rolling hills beyond. The Island was mercifully hidden from view behind a crop of houses, out of sight for the first time since I’d left the house. And perhaps it was a coincidence, but my headache eased, just a little. The feeling of being watched lessened, ever so slightly.