by Louise Welsh
‘Strange, on an island where the past meant so much.’
Mrs Dunn nodded.
‘Maybe, but my John didn’t like gossip, and as for the other islanders …’ She paused as if grasping for the right phrase. ‘I think there was a bit of shame attached to Archie’s mother – or maybe not his mother so much as the way she was treated. You see, in a place like this we all have to support each other, whether we get on or not, even more so in those days. But from what I could gather, Archie’s mother hadn’t really wanted anything much to do with anyone. She’d left as a lass and came back with Archie when he was about three. No one knew who his father was, and she didn’t enlighten them, though she styled herself Mrs Lunan. She lived with her father, and when he died she stayed on in the croft for a while. But she was strange and growing stranger. She must have known it, because when Archie was ten or so she left to live with relatives in Glasgow, taking the boy with her. I got the impression that some islanders thought more should have been done for the two of them. They were slow to talk of Archie and his mother in a way they weren’t about others who had gone. The croft went to an old uncle of hers. It was a while after he died that Archie came back.’
‘Did you meet him?’
‘Archie Lunan?’
Murray nodded and Mrs Dunn looked away from him, towards the fireplace where all three bars glowed amber.
‘Not straight away. It’s easy to stay hidden, even in a small place like this, if you’ve a mind to.’
‘And Archie had a mind to?’
‘He must have. I heard reports, of course – they’d gone to the shop and bought provisions, he and Christie had been seen walking along the beach, the odd one with the scar had been spotted driving the old van they shared down to the pier – but I never saw them myself. So I decided to visit.’
Mrs Dunn got up and went to the sideboard. ‘I don’t normally take a drink, it’s not wise if you live on your own, but it can be a help sometimes.’
‘Medicinal.’
‘That’s the word. Will you join me?’
‘It would be my pleasure.’
She took out a bottle of malt and two glasses. The cat got to its feet and stalked from the room, tail held high, as if in disapproval at the early-evening drinking. Mrs Dunn followed it through to the kitchen and returned with a small blue water jug. She poured a measure of whisky into her own glass and a larger one into Murray’s, then topped her drink up with a little water. She pushed the jug towards him and he did the same. He thought she looked tired. He wondered about the children in the photographs that decorated this room as they had the hallway. Did they visit often? And what would they think if they could see him drinking whisky with their mother in the late afternoon, asking questions that made her go pale beneath her carefully applied make-up?
‘Are you sure you want to talk about this right now? We could do it tomorrow if you prefer.’
‘Some things are better spoken of after dark. I learnt that watching the old people at their ceilidhs. Daylight chases some memories away and the night can bring them on.’ Mrs Dunn cleared her throat and began her story. ‘I was probably fairly naïve when I married John, but I’d worked in an office and came from Glasgow, so I thought of myself as “with it” – “streetwise”, as Kirsty would say. I imagine there’s a point early in most marriages when you wonder if you’ve done the right thing. I think I’d reached that when I went looking for Christie.’
‘You wanted to meet Christie rather than Archie?’
‘I was desperate for the company of a woman my age, someone to talk to about music and the latest fashions.
Even if there was no one to see me wearing them, I was still interested. I wasn’t bothered about Archie Lunan. I was wondering if I’d done the right thing settling in the middle of nowhere, but I loved my husband.’
Murray raised his glass of malt and took the smallest of sips. The iodine scent of it stung his eyes and burnt against his chapped lips, but it was smooth and warm on the way down. He set the glass on the table, though he wanted to knock the lot back and then pour himself another. He asked, ‘So what did you do?’
Mrs Dunn’s voice took on a thoughtful, faraway tone.
‘I turned into Little Red Riding Hood. I made a cake, packed it up and went through the forest until I met the wolves. That’s something the story got wrong, wolves don’t travel solo, they hunt in packs.’ She caught his eye and smiled as if laughing at her own fancy. ‘Archie’s croft wasn’t one of the better ones, and his uncle had been gone a while before he claimed it. Have you ever been in one of these old cottages?’
‘I’m camping in Pete Preston’s bothy.’
‘Of course you are. So you know well enough what they’re like – barely more than a small barn, no insulation beyond what’s offered by the stone walls. But back then people improvised with straw and wood, whatever they could lay their hands on, I suppose.’
‘Pete’s place is small. It’s hard to think of a family living there.’
‘Open-plan is nothing new. Everything happened in the one room. By the time I arrived that way of life was more or less gone and there were only a couple of blackhouses left. Like I said, they were basic, but they could be warm and cosy too. When I reached the croft where Christie was staying, I realised they could also be squalid.’
Archie the cat came back into the room, licking his lips as if he had just eaten something particularly choice. He pushed his front paws out in a long stretch that emphasised the length of his spine, then leapt onto Murray’s lap.
Mrs Dunn shook her head.
‘You’re not allergic, are you?’
He stroked a hand across the creature’s fur. Archie unsheathed his claws, hooked them through the fabric of Murray’s jeans and into his flesh. The cat purred and Murray tried to keep the pain from his face.
‘I don’t think so.’ He wasn’t sure.
‘I can’t remember anyone being allergic when we were young.’
He ran his hand over the animal’s fur again, fascinated by the way each hair sprang perfectly back into position, the tom’s tortoiseshell markings breaking up then reassembling themselves, an ordered universe.
‘We’ve grown softer.’
‘I wouldn’t say that. But sometimes when you think back it’s hard to remember how things were, how you were. It’s like looking at someone else. The girl who walked down to that blackhouse was nothing like the old lady sitting in front of you today, and yet they both are – were – me.’
Murray nodded. The man he had felt himself to be had changed since he started his quest for Archie.
Mrs Dunn went on, ‘I’m not sure what I expected. Someone a bit like myself, I suppose. A young woman missing the city, but enough in love with her man to shift to an island that didn’t even have a café, let alone a cinema or a dance hall.’
The cat had fallen asleep. Murray traced a finger down a black stripe dappled between its ears.
‘You were looking for a friend.’
‘I think I might have been.’ The landlady took a sip of her drink, and when she spoke again her voice was stronger. ‘I wasn’t certain where the croft was, and back then I didn’t drive. But like I said, in those days I could trek with the best of them, five miles was just a warm-up. Anyway, I had nothing better to do. John had gone to the rigs, to try and get a bit of money to help get us started. He’d wanted me to go to my mother’s in Glasgow while he was away, but that would have been like going back to being a daughter. I was determined to stay in our wee cottage.’
‘But you were lonely?’
‘Very. Still, I made my mind up to stick it out and make the best of things. Deciding to visit Christie was part of that.’
‘How did you know she would be there?’
‘I didn’t. Nowadays people don’t go anywhere without phoning first, but there were fewer phones around and time wasn’t so precious. You called round, and if the person was out, you went away. I simply stuck my cake in my bag and set off.�
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‘So was she in?’
‘No.’ Mrs Dunn paused and took another sip of her drink. ‘I stopped a short way off from the cottage to tidy myself up. It was a warm day and I regretted not bringing a flask of water with me, but I’d brought what I considered the essentials: a hairbrush, powder and lipstick.’ She shook her head, but there was no mirth in her expression. ‘What was I thinking? I knew they were hippies, they were hardly going to be impressed by good grooming. Anyway, I was all straightened up and as ready to get acquainted as I ever would be when a man shot out of the cottage like a bullet from a shotgun.’ She shook her head again at her young self’s folly. ‘If he was the bullet, I was the rabbit. I froze and my eyes must have been wide as flying saucers. He tripped over a tussock of grass and landed almost at my feet. If we’d been in a romantic novel, it would have been the start of a great love affair. I certainly behaved like one of those stupid girls in the stories. I gave a silly scream and dropped my bag. The man on the ground started to laugh, and I did too, though whether it was because I thought it was funny or because I’d got a shock, I’m not sure. He got to his feet, graciously returned my bag and asked if I’d like to come in for a cup of tea.’
Murray leaned forward and the cat stiffened in protest, flexing its claws against his leg.
Mrs Dunn went on. ‘I think I knew then that the best thing to do would be to go straight home, but I’d spent three long weeks with only elderly visitors for company. I was desperate to meet young folk – young, city folk. Plus I could give myself a genuine excuse. I’d had a long walk without any refreshment and was beginning to feel a little light-headed.’
Murray could see it, the hot day, the girl in her summer frock, the young man looking up at her from his seat on the grass. He asked, ‘Was he Archie?’
‘I assumed he was, though his accent was posher, a bit more English than I’d expected. I told him I’d dropped round to pay my respects to Christie and was she in? He laughed – he had a nice laugh – and said no, but she would be back soon. I thought, oh well, what’s the harm, and went on in, merry as a wee mouse spotting a rind of cheddar in a trap.’ Mrs Dunn stopped. Her eyes rested on the tape recorder and she might have been checking to see that its spools were still rolling, or reminding herself why she was telling her story. ‘I’d never seen a house like it. It wasn’t just the mess. My mother was a hard worker, but there were six of us living in a single end. It was clean, most of the time, but it was no home beautiful. No, it was the strangeness of it all that overwhelmed me.
‘The table looked as if no one had washed a dish for days. There was some chemistry equipment in amongst the crockery, a Pyrex flask suspended on a metal stand above a Bunsen burner, with an orange tube dangling from it. The funny thing was it didn’t look out of place, even though it was obviously a room where people ate and slept. I could see the bed recess, the bedclothes half-slung on the floor. A woman’s dress was hanging all bunched up from a nail on the wall beside it. I remember that distinctly, because I knew it would leave a mark on the fabric. I wanted to go and straighten it, but there was a man’s shirt draped on top with its arms tied tight around the dress’s waist so it looked like a couple in a clinch. The place stank – a sweet smell, rotting vegetables, unwashed bedclothes and sweat. I could see flies circling in that horrible way that they have, as if they own the place and we’re some bit of territory where they might land if they get the notion.
‘There were books everywhere, or so it seemed. Piled on the table, the chairs, the floor. When I say piled, I don’t mean in neat columns. It was as if there’d been an explosion of books. They were tumbled all over the place, some of them lying open as if they’d been flung away halfway through the reading of them.
‘The man who had invited me in said, “We’ve got a visitor”, and the strangest thing happened. A head raised itself from in amongst the mess on the table and looked at me. There was so much chaos I hadn’t noticed a man asleep in the middle of it. Like I told you, I’d lived in Glasgow all my life up until then. I’d seen plenty of men with scars on their faces, but this one was a humdinger.’
‘A Colgate smile.’
It was as if Mrs Dunn had forgotten he was a doctor of literature. Her voice held a warning note.
‘I wouldn’t joke about it, son.’
Murray said, ‘I went to his funeral the other week,’ like it was some kind of reparation for his lapse in taste. ‘I’m afraid it wasn’t very well-attended.’
Mrs Dunn nodded, taking the empty pews in her stride, and went on with her story.
‘I was standing in a block of sunshine by the open door. I could still feel the warmth on my back and hear the birds singing outside, but beyond that small shaft of light, it was a different world. Some of those stories and songs I’d heard at the ceilidhs must have stuck, because I remembered tales of people getting lost in the faery hills. The faeries lay on a fabulous evening of feasting, drinking and dancing, and next morning set their guest on the right path for home. But when they arrive back in the village, the poor soul discovers a hundred years have passed and all their kin are long dead.’
Murray said, ‘When seven lang years had come and fled, when grief was calm, and hope was dead; when scarce was remembered Kilmeny’s name, / late in a gloamin’ Kilmeny came hame.’
‘You would have fitted in well at the ceilidhs, Dr Watson. I felt like Kilmeny herself, too fascinated to turn for home.
The one I’d met first said, “Let’s have some of your famous tea, Bobby.” And the other one jumped to his feet, though he’d looked half-dead the moment before. Suddenly I realised they were not much more than boys and felt annoyed at myself for being such a teuchter. I think that was one of my great fears, you see, that I would lose my so-called sophistication and end up a wee island wifie.’
The lights shone warmly in the sitting room and it was only when Mrs Dunn rose and drew the curtains that Murray realised the world outside the window had descended into darkness. Archie the cat stood up in Murray’s lap, raised his tail and presented an eye-line view of the tiny arsehole set in the centre of his lean rump. He jumped elegantly to the ground. Mrs Dunn opened the living-room door and he slid through, tail as straight as a warning flag.
‘As soon as he hears me closing the curtains, that’s him out for the night, hunting.’
‘I guess the pickings are better after dark.’
‘For some things.’
‘It was sunny the day you went to visit Christie.’
Mrs Dunn hesitated, as if reluctant to return to her tale.
‘Scorching. The man I had met outside introduced himself. It turned out he wasn’t Archie at all, but a friend of his …’
Murray knew the name was coming, but it was still a shock to hear it on her lips.
‘… Fergus. The other one, the one with the scar, was Bobby. He came back with the water and said, “It was time for a brew anyway.”’ Mrs Dunn lifted her glass of whisky, and rested it on the embroidered antimacassar on the arm of her chair, gazing at it as if she could see the scene in its tawny depths. ‘I was nervous, sitting there with two men I didn’t know, even though they weren’t much more than boys. But the door was still open, the daylight still shining in from outside, so I told myself to relax and stop being such a baby. Fergus did most of the talking. I wouldn’t have entertained him if I’d been on the mainland. He was the kind of lad me and my pals would have laughed at, a bit of a snob, I suppose. But it was nice to have company of my own age, even if he wasn’t talking about the kind of things people our age usually talked about.’
‘What did he talk about?’
‘Poetry, I think. Remember, I’d got used to being in company where I didn’t understand half of what was being said. The other one, Bobby, put the tea in front of me. It was like no tea I’d ever seen before.’ Mrs Dunn broke off and looked at Murray. ‘You’ll be less naïve than I was back then, Dr Watson.’ She gave a small laugh. ‘I’m less naïve than I was back then, but they were si
mpler times. I got the cake out of my bag. It seemed a shame not to share it with them. Anyway, I had a feeling I’d need something sweet to help me get that brew down. And I was determined to get it down. It’s amazing what folk will do for politeness’ sake.’ Mrs Dunn straightened herself in her chair and smoothed her skirt beneath her hands, though there was barely a crease in it. ‘The two boys held their noses and drank up. I thought, this is funny tea this, but Fergus said, “It’s a herbal infusion, extremely efficacious. Christie introduced us to it.”’ That was the way he talked. But I thought, oh well, if it’s good enough for Christie, it’s good enough for me, and swallowed the lot.’ She took a sip of spirit as if hoping to banish the memory of the awful drink. ‘At first it was wonderful. Three children and all these years later, I can still recall the sensation. I never experienced anything else like it. The pair of them ate the cake like they hadn’t had a decent meal in days.’ She looked him in the eye. ‘A bit like the way you ate the cakes I gave you this afternoon. But it seemed so funny the way they wolfed it down. I started to laugh, then found I couldn’t stop. It didn’t matter, because they were laughing too. I’m not sure how long we sat there, laughing over nothing.’ She took another sip of her drink. ‘What happened next happened gradually, the way the sea sometimes changes colour. It can be the brightest blue, and then, without you seeing where the change came from, the waters turn to grey. You look at the skies overhead and realise the whole scene has transformed and you could be in a different day from the one you were in, a different world.’
Murray kept his own voice calm, unsure of what he was about to hear.
‘That’s the way it is in Scotland.’
Mrs Dunn looked away from him, towards the curtained window.
‘It crept up on me like that. A feeling of dread. Then suddenly, I was terrified.’
‘Of the two men?’
‘Of the men, the room, my own hands, the grass outside, the sound of the birds. I’d been fascinated by the books, now I could see bright shadows of them, little diamonds floating in the air, as dazzling as the stained glass in St Mungo’s when the sun’s behind it. It should have been beautiful, but it was too strange. I’d thought I was going mad, alone without John in the cottage, now I knew that I was. Fergus and Bobby were still talking, but I had no idea of what they were saying. It was as if their sentences were overlapping and repeating. I would hear the same word recurring over and over again, but not the word that came before or the ones that came after.’ Her voice rose and fell as she repeated the words in a faraway chant,