The Lewis Man (17 page)

‘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?’

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 was 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.

I have no idea where they took us. Somewhere on the south side of the city, I think. We arrived at a large house set back behind naked trees, and a lawn where leaves lay in drifts among the snow. Inside it was warmer, more welcoming than The Dean. I had never been in a house like this in my life. Polished wood panelling and chandeliers, flock wallpaper and shiny tiled floors. We were led up carpeted stairs to where Peter and I were put in one room, and Catherine in another. Silk sheets and the scent of rosewater.

‘Where are we going, Johnny?’ Peter had asked me several times, but I had no answer for him. We had, it seemed, no rights, human or otherwise. We were goods and chattels. Just kids with no parents, and no place to call home. You’d think we would have been used to it by now. But you never are. You only have to look around you, and life will always remind you that you are not like others. I’d have given anything right then for the touch of my mother’s fingers on my face, her warm gentle lips on my forehead, her voice breathing softly in my ear to tell me that everything was going to be all right. But she was long gone, and in my heart of hearts I knew that everything would not be all right. Not that I was going to tell Peter that.

‘We’ll see,’ I said to him on the umpteenth time of asking. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll look after us.’

We were kept in those rooms for the rest of the day and only allowed out to go to the toilet. That night we were led downstairs to a large dining room where the walls were lined with many coloured books, and a long, shiny dining table ran from a bay window at one end to double doors at the other.

There were three places set at one end, and the nun who had brought us down said, ‘Keep your fingers off the table. If I find a single mark on it you will all be beaten.’

I was almost frightened to eat my soup in case it spilled or splashed on the table top. We had one slice of buttered bread each with our soup, and afterwards a slice of ham with cold boiled potatoes. Water was provided in heavy-bottomed glasses, and when we were finished we were marched back upstairs.

It was a long, restless night, Peter and I curled up together in one bed. He slept within minutes of us slipping beneath the covers. But I lay awake for a long, long time. There was a light beneath our door, and occasionally I heard the sound of distant voices, low and conspiratorial, talking somewhere deep in the house, before finally I drifted off into a shallow slumber.

The next morning we were up at first light, and bundled back into the big black car. No breakfast, no time to wash. This time we took a different route through town, and I had no idea where we were until I saw the castle away to our right, and the houses that piled up high above The Mound. We drove down a steep ramp on to a large concourse lit by a glass roof supported on an elaborate framework of metal struts. Steam trains stood chuffing impatiently at platforms along the far side of the concourse, and the nuns led us hurriedly through the crowds, almost running, to show our tickets to the guard at the gate before climbing aboard to find our seats in a six-person compartment off a long corridor. We were joined by a man in a dark suit and bowler hat, who seemed ill at ease in the presence of the nuns, and sat uncomfortably with his hat on his knees.

It was the first time I had been on a train, and in spite of everything, I felt quite excited. I could see that Peter was, too. We were glued to the window for the whole journey, watching the city give way to rolling green countryside, stopping at smaller stations with exotic names like Linlithgow and Falkirk, before another city grew up out of the earth. An altogether different city. Black with industrial pollution. Factory chimneys belching bile into a sulphurous sky. A long, dark tunnel, then the roar of the steam engine in the confined space of the station as we pulled into the platform at Queen Street in Glasgow, the screech of metal on metal ringing in our ears.

Several times I had glanced at Catherine, trying to catch her eye, but she had steadfastly refused to meet mine, staring at her hands in her lap in front of her, never once glancing from the window. I had no way to read what was going on in her head, but sensed her fear. Even at that age I knew that girls had much more to be afraid of in this world than boys.

We sat waiting for nearly two hours at Queen Street before boarding another train. A train that took us north this time and further west, through the most spectacular countryside I had ever seen. Snow-capped mountains, and bridges spanning crystal-clear tumbling waters, vast forests and viaducts over gorges and lochs. I can remember seeing one tiny whitewashed cottage in the middle of nowhere, mountain peaks rising up all around it. And I wondered who on earth lived in a place like that. It might as well have been on the moon.

It was getting dark by the time we arrived in the west coast port of Oban. It was a pretty town, with the houses painted in different colours, and a huge fishing fleet berthed at the quayside. The first time I’d seen the sea. The bay was ringed by hills, and a vast stone cathedral stood on the shore looking out over waters turned blood-red by the setting sun.

We spent the night in a house not far from the cathedral. There was another priest there. But he didn’t speak to us. A housekeeper led us to two rooms up in the attic. Tiny rooms with dormer windows in the slope of the roof. All we’d had to eat all day were sandwiches on the train, and a bowl of soup when we arrived. I could hear my stomach growling as I lay in bed, keeping me awake. If Peter heard me, it didn’t affect him. He slept like a baby, as he always did. But I couldn’t get Catherine out of my mind.

I waited until after midnight, when all the lights went off in the house, before getting quietly out of bed. For a long time I stood at the door, straining to hear the slightest sound, before opening it and slipping out into the hall. Catherine’s room was just a few paces away. I hesitated outside her door, listening to what sounded awfully like stifled sobs coming from the other side of it, and I had a feeling of sick anticipation rising from my stomach. She was a real hard case, was wee Catherine. If something had reduced her to tears then it had to be bad. I had never seen her cry once in the year I’d known her, except for that time in the moonlight on the roof of The Dean. But I’m sure she didn’t know I’d noticed that.