by Peter May
As they reached the summit of Uabhal Beag, the landscape changed again. Granite rock broke up green-covered hills that swooped down in folds and gullies through a wash of pale spring sunlight to the fabulous golden sands and turquoise sea of Luskentyre. The storm-gripped, glowering mountain ranges of the north had receded out of sight and mind, and their spirits lifted.
The road circumnavigated the beach, curving around a length of causeway, towards the collection of houses and crofts that made up the tiny community of Seilebost. Fin turned right on to the narrow school road, past the decaying remains of a red truck that had once belonged to Wm Mackenzie (contrs) Ltd of Laxay. A flaking wooden sign propped between two decaying fenceposts warned that no dogs were allowed on the common grazing.
The pothole-pitted tarmac wound up over a grassy rise, to open out on a panorama across the machair towards the beach. Spring flowers bowed in the wind, and clouds hovered around the distant mountains that ringed the sands. No matter how often Fin had seen it, this was always a sight that took his breath away.
The school sat out on its own, a tiny collection of grey and yellow buildings and a football field a stone’s throw from the beach. It would be hard to imagine a more idyllic setting for a childhood education.
As Fin drew his car into the little car park in front of the main building, half a dozen kids in crash helmets were receiving road-safety lessons on their bikes, weaving in and out of red traffic cones laid along the road by their teacher.
Gunn called to her as he stepped from the car. ‘We’re looking for the headmaster.’
‘Headmistress,’ she called back. ‘The building to your right.’ The building to their right was yellow-painted roughcast, with a mural of an underwater seascape painted on the gable end. Inside it smelled of chalk dust and sour milk, and took Fin tumbling back through time to his own childhood.
The headmistress left her class trying to solve an arithmetic puzzle and took the two men into the staffroom. She was delighted to be able to tell them that her predecessors had taken great pride in preserving an archive of the school, a tradition that she herself was anxious to perpetuate, and that they had a record of school registers going back to before the Second World War.
An attractive woman in her middle thirties, she fussed over her appearance, constantly sweeping a stray strand of chestnut hair behind her ear where the rest of it was drawn back in a bun. She wore jeans and tennis shoes, and an open cardigan over a T-shirt. A marked contrast with the severe middle-aged ladies who had taught Fin at that age. It didn’t take her long, searching through boxes of old registers, to retrieve those spanning the time when Tormod would have been there.
She flipped back and forth across a period covering the mid forties to early fifties. ‘Yes,’ she said at last, stabbing a finger at the yellowed pages of the old school records. ‘Here he is. Tormod Macdonald. He was a pupil at Seilebost Primary from 1944 to 1951.’ She ran a pink-painted nail down the faded entries that recorded daily attendance. ‘A good attender, too.’
‘Might he have had any brothers or cousins at the school?’ Gunn asked, and she laughed.
‘He may well have done, Detective Sergeant, but there have been so many Macdonalds here over the years it would be almost impossible to tell.’
‘And what school would he have gone to from here?’ Fin wondered.
‘Most likely it would have been the secondary at Tarbert.’ She smiled and gave him strong eye contact, and he remembered Marsaili once telling him how all the girls had had a crush on him at school. He’d never even been aware of it.
‘Do you have an address for him?’
‘I can find out.’ She smiled again and disappeared into another room.
Gunn turned to Fin, a half-smile playing about his lips. Envy maybe, or regret. ‘Never works like that for me,’ he said.
The Macdonald croft sat about half a mile back from the shore, in an elevated position with views across the sands of Luskentyre and Scarista. A long, narrow strip of land ran all the way down from the crofthouse to the roadside, delineated now only by the stumped remains of decayed fenceposts, and the barely discernible texture of the land, altered by years of cultivation and grazing.
But there was no cultivation or grazing any more. The land had gone to seed, long abandoned and reclaimed by nature. The crofthouse itself was a shell. The roof had collapsed years before, the chimney at the north gable reduced to a pile of blackened rubble. Long grasses and thistles grew where once the floor had been. A floor of beaten earth, covered with sand that would have been changed daily by Tormod’s mother.
Gunn thrust his hands deep in his pockets, gazing out across the expanse of golden sand below, to the streaks of turquoise and emerald that marked out the distant shallows. ‘It’s a dead end.’
But Fin was looking across the hillside towards the figure of a man stacking peats beside a freshly whitewashed cottage. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Let’s see what the neighbour knows.’ And he set off, striding through the long grasses, fresh green pushing up through winter dead, flowers of purple and yellow reaching for the sky to herald the start of the spring season. The grass moved like water in the wind, ebbing and flowing in waves and eddies, and Gunn waded through it almost at a run in an effort to keep up with the younger man.
Everything about the neighbouring croft seemed to have been renewed. The paint, the roof, the fencing. Doors and windows were double-glazed. A shiny red SUV sat parked in the drive, and a man with a thatch of thick greying hair turned from his task at the peats as they arrived. He had the weathered face of someone who spent time out of doors, but his wasn’t an island accent. He replied to Fin’s Gaelic greeting in English. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t speak the Gaelic myself.’
Fin reached out to shake his hand. ‘No problem. Fin Macleod,’ he said, turning as the breathless Gunn finally caught up. ‘And Detective Sergeant George Gunn.’
The man seemed a little more wary now as he shook their hands in turn. ‘What does the polis want up here?’
‘We’re looking for information about the family who used to live next door.’
‘Oh.’ The man relaxed a little. ‘The Macdonalds.’
‘Yes. Did you know them?’
He laughed. ‘I’m afraid not. I’m Glasgow born and bred. This is my folks’ place. They moved to the mainland in the late fifties and had me just after they got there. I might even have been conceived in this house, though I couldn’t swear to it.’
‘They would have known the neighbours, though,’ Fin said.
‘Oh, aye, of course. They knew everyone around here. I heard a lot of stories when I was a boy, and we used to come up for the summer holidays. But we stopped in the late sixties after my dad died. My mum passed away five years ago, and I only decided to come back and restore the place last year after I got made redundant. To see if I could make a go of it as a crofter.’
Fin looked around and nodded approvingly. ‘You’re doing a good job so far.’
The man laughed again. ‘A little redundancy money goes a long way.’
Gunn asked, ‘Do you know anything at all about the Macdonalds?’
The man sucked in a long breath through clenched teeth. ‘Not first-hand, no. Though they were still here the first year or two we came on holiday. There was a family tragedy of some sort, I don’t know what. One year we came back and they’d upped sticks and gone.’
Gunn scratched his chin thoughtfully. ‘You don’t know where?’
‘Who knows? A lot of folk followed their ancestors from the days of the Clearances, over to Canada.’
Fin felt a chill now on the edge of the wind, and zipped up his jacket. ‘They wouldn’t have been Catholics, would they? The Macdonalds.’
This time the man roared his mirth above the howl of the wind. ‘Catholics? Here? You must be kidding, man. This is Presbyterian country.’
Fin nodded. It had seemed an unlikely scenario. ‘Where’s the nearest church?’
‘That would be the Church
of Scotland at Scarista.’ He turned and pointed south. ‘Just five minutes away.’
‘What are we doing here, Mr Macleod?’ Gunn stood disconsolately in the metalled parking area at the top of the hill, huddled in his quilted jacket, nose red from the cold. Although the sun rode in patches like untamed horses across the hill and the beach below, there was little warmth in it. The wind had turned around to the north, breathing unpitying arctic air into their frozen faces.
The church at Scarista stood proud on the hill above a strip of mown grass peppered with headstones marking the final resting place of generations of worshippers. A hell of a view, Fin thought, to take with you to eternity: the smudged and shadowed blue of distant mountains beyond the yellow of the Scarista sands; the ever-changing light from a neverresting sky; the constant refrain of the wind, like the voices of the faithful raised in praise of the Lord.
Fin looked up at the church building. As plain and unadorned as the church at Crobost. ‘I want to see if there’s a boat inside,’ he said.
Gunn scowled. ‘A boat? In the church?’
‘Aye, a boat.’ Fin tried the door and it opened in. He passed through the vestibule into the body of the church, Gunn at his heels, and of course there was no boat. Just a plain beechwood altar draped in purple, a pulpit raised high above it from which the minister, in his exalted and privileged position closer to heaven than the masses to whom he preached, would deliver the word of God.
‘What in heaven’s name made you think there would be a boat in the church, Mr Macleod?’
‘Tormod Macdonald spoke of a boat in the church, George. A church built by fishermen.’
‘He must have made it up.’
But Fin shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. I think Marsaili’s dad is confused and frustrated; he has trouble with words, and memories, and how to communicate them. And maybe he’s even hiding something. Consciously or otherwise. But I don’t think he’s lying.’
Outside the wind had, if anything, grown stronger and less forgiving. They felt the blast of it as they stepped from the church.
‘The whole of Harris is pretty much a Protestant island, George, isn’t it?’
‘It certainly is, Mr Macleod. I suppose there might be one or two Catholics around, like sheep who’ve strayed from the fank, but for the most part they’re all in the southern isles.’ He grinned. ‘Better weather and more fun.’ He lowered his voice. ‘I hear the supermarkets even sell you booze on a Sunday.’
Fin smiled. ‘I think hell will freeze over before we ever see that on Lewis, George.’ He opened the car door. ‘Where to now?’
‘Back to Tarbert, I think. I’d like a copy of Tormod’s birth certificate from the registrar.’
The office of the registrar was to be found in council offices occupying the former school hostel in West Tarbert, a drab, flat-roofed building erected in the late 1940s to provide accommodation for pupils from far-flung corners of the island attending the town’s secondary school. The house opposite hid in seclusion behind a profusion of trees and shrubs, almost certainly cultivated to hide the ugliness of the building on the other side of the road.
An elderly lady looked up from her desk as Fin and Gunn brought the cold in with them.
‘Shut the door!’ she said. ‘It’s bad enough that the wind blows in through every ill-fitting window in the place, without folk leaving the doors wide open!’
A chastened George Gunn quickly closed the door behind them, then fought to retrieve his warrant card from the depths of his anorak. The old lady examined it through half-moon spectacles, then looked over the top of them to conduct a thorough examination of the two men on the other side of the counter. ‘And how can I help you gentlemen?’
‘I’d like an extract from the register of births,’ Gunn told her.
‘Well, you needn’t think you’ll get it for free just because you’re a police officer. It’ll cost £14.’
Gunn and Fin exchanged the hint of a smile.
Fin tilted his head to read the nameplate on her desk. ‘Have you been here a long time, Mrs Macaulay?’
‘Donkey’s years,’ she said. ‘But retired for the last five. I’m only standing in for a few days on holiday relief. Whose is the extract you would like?’
‘Tormod Macdonald,’ Gunn said. ‘From Seilebost. Born around 1939, I believe.’
‘Oh, aye …’ Old Mrs Macaulay nodded sagely and peered at her computer screen as she started rattling age-spattered fingers across her keyboard. ‘Here it is: 2 August 1939.’ She looked up. ‘Would you like a copy of the death certificate as well?’
In the silence that followed, the wind seemed to increase in strength and volume, moaning as it squeezed through every space left unsealed, like a dirge for the dead.
Mrs Macaulay was oblivious of the effect of her words. ‘A terrible thing it was, Mr Gunn. I remember it well. Just a teenager he was at the time. A real tragedy.’ Her fingers spidered across the keyboard again. ‘Here we are. Died 18 March 1958. Would you like a copy? It’ll be another £14.’
It took just fifteen minutes for Fin to drive them back down to the church at Scarista, and less than ten walking among the graves on the lower slopes to find Tormod’s headstone. Tormod Macdonald, born August 2nd 1939, beloved son of Donald and Margaret, accidentally drowned in the Bagh Steinigidh on March 18th, 1958.
Gunn sat down in the grass beside the lichen-covered slab of granite and leaned forward on his knees. Fin stood staring at the headstone, as if perhaps it might rewrite itself if he watched it long enough. Tormod Macdonald had been in the ground for fifty-four years, and just eighteen years old when he died.
Not a word had passed between the two men on the drive from the registry office. But Gunn looked up now and gave voice to the thought which had occupied them both since Mrs Macaulay had asked if they would like a copy of the death certificate. ‘If Marsaili’s dad is not Tormod Macdonald, Mr Macleod, then who the hell is he?’
TWENTY
I’ll just sit here for a while. The ladies are all in the activity room knitting. No kind of job for a man, that. The old boy in the chair opposite looks like a bit of an old woman to me. He should be in there knitting, too!
There’s a square of garden out there through the glass doors that would be nice to sit in. I see a bench. Better than having to put up with that old bastard staring at me all the time. I’ll just go out.
Oh! It’s colder than it looks. And the bench is wet. Dammit! Too late. But everything will dry in time. I see a square of sky up there. Clouds blowing across it at a fair old lick. But it’s sort of sheltered here, even if it is cold.
‘Hello, Dad.’
Her voice startles me. I didn’t hear her coming. Was I sleeping? It’s so cold.
‘What are you doing sitting out here in the rain?’
‘It’s not raining,’ I tell her. ‘It’s just seaspray.’
‘Come on, we’d better go inside and get you dried off.’
She wants me to go in off the deck. But I don’t want to go back to the Smoke Room. It’s even worse than steerage. All these men smoking, and the stink of stale beer. I’ll throw up again if I have to sit in there on those worn old leather benches with no air to breathe.
Oh, there’s a bed here. I didn’t realize they had cabins on board. She wants to take off my wet trousers, but I’m not having any of it. I push her away. ‘Stop that!’ It’s not the done thing. A man has a right to his dignity.
‘Oh, Dad, you can’t sit here in wet clothes. You’ll catch your death.’
I shake my head and feel the rolling of the boat beneath me. ‘How long have we been at sea now, Catherine?’
She looks at me so strangely.
‘What boat is it we’re on, Dad?’
‘The RMS Claymore. Not a name I’m ever likely to forget. First boat I ever was on.’
‘And where are we sailing to?’
Who knows? It’s almost dark now, and we left the mainland behind us so long ago. I never knew Scotland w
as so big. We’ve been travelling for days. ‘I heard someone in the Saloon talking about Big Kenneth.’
‘Is that someone you know?’
‘No. Never heard of him.’
She sits down beside me now and takes my hand. I don’t know why she’s crying. I’ll look after her. I’ll look after both of them. I’m the eldest, so it’s my responsibility.
‘Oh, Dad …’ she says.
It was on the second day after Patrick’s fall that the priest came. Matron told us to pack up our things, not that we had much. We were waiting for him at the top of the steps when the big black car drew up. Me, Peter and Catherine. The place was deserted, because all the other kids were back at school again. There was no sign of Mr Anderson, and we never did see him again. Which didn’t break my heart.
The priest was a small man, an inch or so shorter than me, and almost completely bald on the top of his head. But he had grown his remaining hair long at one side and combed it over to the other, plastering it down with oil or Brylcreem or something of that sort. I suppose he imagined it hid the fact that he was bald, but really it just looked silly. I have since learned never to trust men with combovers. They have absolutely no judgement.
He wasn’t very impressive, and seemed a little nervous. Much more daunting were the two nuns who accompanied him. Both were taller than him, eagle-eyed, unsmiling, middle-aged ladies in black skirts and severe white coifs. One sat in the front with the priest, who was driving, and the other was squeezed into the back with us, right next to me. So intimidated by her was I, and so anxious not to press against her bony body, that I barely noticed The Dean disappearing behind us. It was only at the last that I turned, and saw its empty bell towers for the last time before it vanished behind the trees.
The priest’s car bumped and rattled its way over the cobbles, around tree-filled circuses, and broad avenues lined by smoke-stained tenements. Snow still lay in patches, blackened by the traffic where it had piled up at the sides of the road. None of us dared speak, sitting silently among God’s representatives on earth, watching an alien world pass by us in a wintry blur.