Stormy Petrel (20 page)

‘You're not. I like him myself. Go on,' said Neil.

‘In the first place – I know nothing about Scots law, but it's possible that this option bussiness is not binding on you, in which case you have no problem, except what to do with the place in the long run. But it does occur to me that if you show Mr Bagshaw everything – I mean the beauties of the place just as it is, with the birds and seals and the machair flowers – and try to show him how the holiday crowds would destroy the very things that they thought they were paying for . . . Isn't it just possible that he might decide to go somewhere a little more suitable?'

‘It's possible, but I wouldn't bet on it,' said Neil. ‘I have a feeling that the whole set-up is too tempting. We'll just have to trust that the option won't hold water, and let me worry about the future once Bagshaw has given up and gone home. I won't pretend it isn't a worry. That house won't be easy to get rid of reasonably, even letting it as you suggested. Of course, the setting's lovely. That's what will do it, if anything does . . . You sound as if you know it. Have you been here before?'

‘No. Rose has told me about it. She was, well, poetic on the subject. I can hardly wait to see the petrels. I suppose that must wait till tomorrow night, and then, if their fate is sealed, it will be a sad sort of pilgrimage.'

‘It needn't wait,' said Neil. ‘We could go now, if you're not tired? You spent last night on the train, after all. And don't worry about the leg. We'll take the boat; the tide's wrong for the crossing, and in any case I'm sure you couldn't manage the causeway. You'd really like to go? What about you, Rose?'

‘I've rested today. I'm fine. I'd love to go.'

‘Then let's do it at once,' said Neil, rising. ‘And I doubt if there's a word in Gaelic for that, either.'

They were there. There was no sound from the seals' rocks, and from the seabirds only the occasional muted cry, sounding distant and sleepy. But the petrels were there, waiting for night. Dusk fell slowly, the veils of evening. For some time, as we sat in silence outside Neil's tent, we heard nothing but the slow hush of the sea below us, and the faint stirring of the long grasses in the dying breeze. Then at last the song began.

In that long, quiet twilight the sound was still as weird, as romantic, as spirit-stirring as anything I had ever known. We sat quite still. Nobody spoke. And then the flight began. The motes of shadow whirled and dipped, and now and again a bird went by so closely, and in such a silence of small velvet wings, that it was as if a flake of the very darkness had broken away to be blown, weightless, out to sea.

All at once, the spell was broken. Neil got to his feet suddenly, as if impelled by springs, said ‘Hell!' and started rubbing a hand violently over his face and hair. Then he turned and dived back into the tent, and we could hear him rummaging there.

I came back from Cloud Nine to feel my face and hands stinging and my hair itching as if I had been beaten with nettles. As the breeze had died, the midges had come out, and in force. The bracken near us would be full of them, and possibly, even, the petrels as they crept from their burrows had disturbed them and sent them to fill the air like stinging dust.

My brother, moving more clumsily and rather more slowly, was on his feet propped by the elbow crutch, and he, too, was rubbing and slapping furiously. Neil crawled out of the tent with a small plastic bottle clutched in his hand.

‘Here.
Shoo
them,' he said.

‘I'm trying, but they don't take a damned bit of notice,' said Crispin testily.

I laughed. ‘It's the name of the midge-repellent, you nit. Quick. Put it on.'

‘After you. Look, Rose, Neil – this has been very wonderful, and I wouldn't have missed it for worlds, but do you mind very much if we go away now, this moment, and come back another day when there's a Force Five gale?'

I handed him the bottle. ‘Suits me. I should have warned you. This time of year, whenever the breeze drops, the Defenders of the Highlands are out in force. Neil? You ready to go?'

‘Not quite,' said Neil. He finished shutting the tent, and turned to take three long paces over to where I stood waiting to help my brother down the slope.

‘Excuse me,' he said, and pulled me into his arms and planted a kiss on each cheek. ‘There. That's by way of a “thank you”. You've just shown me what to do tomorrow. And now let's just get the hell out of this infested isle, and leave the petrels in peace.'

20

‘I'll be frank with you,' said Mr Bagshaw, sounding very frank indeed, ‘there'll be a lot of work involved, and you say it's difficult to get construction work done here?'

‘Almost impossible,' said Neil.

‘But given the time and the capital, it can be done? A good team in from Glasgow, get a supply chain going, they live in the house while they get set up, then the Portakabins on that flat field by the beach . . . It could be done.'

‘The weather can be a problem,' said Neil.

We were standing in the belvedere, which commanded a view to northward of the machair, and straight across the channel to the island where, in the sunlight, the outlines of the broch showed sharply. Down to our left Neil's boat lay by the jetty, with Crispin sitting in the stern, fishing.

It had been a long day. Neil had brought
Sea Otter
round soon after breakfast, and taken Crispin and me to the house. Not long after that Archie's Land Rover brought Mr Bagshaw down, and the tour of inspection began. At Neil's request I had stayed with the two men while they looked over the house, and then had – this at my own suggestion – given them lunch of a kind in the kitchen. I had made sandwiches earlier with the rest of the cold chicken and some ham, and brought some cheese and fruit to finish with. Crispin had taken his share earlier, and had gone off on his own to look at the machair; he had insisted that he could manage perfectly well with the elbow crutch, and since he could obviously look after himself we had let him go, and turned our attention to a hopeful discouragement of Mr Bagshaw.

It did not appear to be working. On that lovely sunny day the house failed to look depressing, or even very neglected, though I drew Neil's attention twice to damp-marks on the ceilings, and Neil responded with a rueful remark about the state of the roof, then checked himself with a quick, worried look at Mr Bagshaw. The rather awful back premises of the house drew nothing more from the latter than pursed lips and a reference to the excellent architect who was, apparently, living only to make Mr Bagshaw's dreams come true. And the weedy garden was no problem at all: with those bushes, whatever they were called, said Mr Bagshaw, eyeing the rhododendrons with enthusiasm, all you needed do was keep the grass cut, and who needed a garden when you had a view like this?

And of course the machair decided it. It looked, to Neil's and my fury, exactly like the most idyllic picture postcard of an island view. There was the long, gentle curve of milk-white sand, backed by a sea of turquoise and pale jade and indigo. There were the far cliffs, violet-shadowed as any classical landscape. And for the four miles of the flat coastline, between the white beach and the green slope of the moor, stretched the wild-flower meadow that in Gaelic is the machair. The turf is barely visible, starred with the tiny yellow and white flowers of tormentil and daisy and silver-weed. Then comes the next layer, at a few inches high, eyebright and bugle and yellow rattle, and over these, in soft motion always in the breezes, the dog-daisies and ragwort and knapweed and brilliant hawkears and the lace of pignut and wild chervil, and the sweet delicate harebells that are the bluebells of Scotland.

They may not all have been flowering at once, but that is the impression the machair gives you, and the scent, mingled somehow with the smell of the sea and the tangle at the tide's edge, is the unforgettable, un-forgotten smell of the summer isles.

Mr Bagshaw, predictably, was in ecstasies. The bathing, the sun-beaches, the pictures in the brochures, the water-sports, and yes, he supposed there were wet days, but he had been assured in the village that the television reception was OK, and in fact had watched it last night, and of course there would be the night-life, the leisure centre, discos . . .

So at length we came back to the garden and the belvedere. Mr Bagshaw did not notice Echo and Narcissus watching us sadly from their weedy beds, or I am sure they would have inspired him to new plans, but he kept his eyes fixed on the bright prospect framed by the trees at the end of the belvedere.

‘That's the remains of a broch you can see,' said Neil. He sounded tired and dispirited. ‘An Iron Age stronghold. You wouldn't be allowed to touch that, of course.'

‘Of course not. But it would make another attraction. Culture,' said Mr Bagshaw. ‘And that's another good beach on the other side. There's something romantic about an island, I always think. Don't you?'

‘Oh, yes. But the tides are difficult, and the channel can be very dangerous.'

Mr Bagshaw was silent for a minute, then turned those bright, shrewd little eyes on him. ‘I get the impression that you're not all that willing to sell. Am I right?'

Neil hesitated. ‘I suppose so. I realise that I may have to, but it's – well, it's not easy to envisage such, er, changes to a place one has known and loved. And what you propose, Mr Bagshaw, would change the whole island. I wouldn't want to feel responsible – I mean, I did try to explain—'

‘Yes, you did. But the whole world changes, every day,' said Mr Bagshaw, with truth, ‘and this sort of place has to change with the times. People have leisure, and they want clean air and the sea, and to have fun, and if we can provide it here in this country, it keeps their cash here, doesn't it?'

‘So you really want to take up the option?'

‘I can see nothing against it.'

‘Well, that's it, then,' Neil got up from where he had been sitting on the wall. ‘But would you like to see the little island, too? I'll take you right round it, to the bird cliffs, and then if you like we can land you to look at that beach, and the broch.'

Mr Bagshaw would be delighted. And presently he was in
Sea Otter
with the three of us and we were cruising round the outside of Eilean na Roin. The birds rose in screaming clouds, to the pleasure, different in either case, of Crispin and Mr Bagshaw, as Neil took the boat gently on and along the machair as far as the peregrine cliffs. Then, slowly, back again. It was difficult to talk above the noise of the engine, and Mr Bagshaw seemed deep in his own thoughts. I handed round plastic mugs of thermos tea, and then sat enjoying the colours of the advancing twilight, and the pleasure in my brother's face.

Some time around half past six the wind died, and with it the last brightness fell from the day. The evening was still far from dark, but all through the afternoon the slow clouds had been building up in the west, and as the sun sank lower behind them, twilight dimmed the outlines of the land and greyed the sea.

I saw Neil looking around him with satisfaction, and then the engine's noise sank to a mutter, and he brought the boat softly in to the inner shore of Eilean na Roin, and let her drift alongside the causeway. He jumped out and handed Mr Bagshaw ashore.

I made ready to get out, but he shook his head at me. ‘Wait a bit, do you mind?' Then, to Mr Bagshaw: ‘Why don't you go ahead and take a look around before it gets too dark? Take your time. I'm going over to the boathouse for a few minutes to fix something. OK?'

Mr Bagshaw was understood to say OK, and
Sea Otter
drifted back into mid-channel. We saw Mr Bagshaw making his way rapidly uphill towards the broch, then Neil turned the boat and headed, not for the boathouse, but for the headland beyond which lay the cove called Halfway House.

It was a narrow cove, with a wedge of stony beach, and to either side sheer-sided rocks where a boat could lie as if at a jetty. Landing was simple. We tied up to a ring that he himself, said Neil, had driven into a crevice in the rock many years ago, and silence came back as the engine died.

‘Am I to understand,' said Crispin, ‘that you are leaving the Defenders of the Highlands to do the job for you?'

‘To make a suggestion merely,' said Neil.

‘They're making it here,' I said, slapping. ‘Where's the stuff?'

‘Some in the cabin. I never move without it.'

‘One sees why.' Crispin was slapping, too. ‘But this surely won't be enough? I don't mean the
Shoo
, I mean the suggestion.'

‘I thought it might give him time to think. And give me time to think as well. It'll probably just make him mad at me, but even that might be helpful.'

‘If he did withdraw?' I asked, smearing midge-repellent.

‘I simply don't know. All we can do is wait and see.'

We waited.

When at length we went back to Eilean na Roin we got a bit of a fright, which, I suppose, served us right. As the dusk had deepened, a merciful little wind had got up and begun to stir the bracken, but we fully expected to find a furious and agitated Mr Bagshaw waiting at the causeway rubbing at his midge-bites and ready to agree to anything as long as he need never see the island again. But there was no sign of him, and when we called, there was no reply.

‘They've driven him over the cliff and into the sea,' said Crispin, but nobody laughed. To someone like Mr Bagshaw, not used to the Highlands, and moreover, only just freed from a rather restricted form of life, the rocky island could hold, in the half-light, some very real dangers.

‘I've been a double-dyed fool,' said Neil, explosively. ‘Come on, let's find him. Crispin, you'd better stay put. Tie the boat up will you, please? Come on, Rose.'