With the bothy quiet again, I took the chance to carry on with my notes, although the awareness that Archie was out on the cliffs felt like a dim figure of foreboding standing behind me. Eventually, I could ignore it no longer, gave up on work and glanced at my watch. Almost noon. I noticed Chrissie and Mrs MacKinnon heading up the hill with the boys’ strupac and ran out to join them, a kind wind at our backs as we rose up the flank of Conachair.
I wondered how these women coped with their men down on the cliffs so often. My nerves were in shreds after a morning of vivid imaginings. I knew Archie would have to try something risky. Combine that with my memory of looking over the long giddy drop to the water, and I felt an increasing unease even as we climbed. But then didn’t these men go out on the cliffs all the time? I told myself. Didn’t they come home perfectly safe?
Almost always came home safe.
Arm in arm, talking together, the women had summited the hill, a view across the slopes to where the boys were working at the cliff edge. I saw Chrissie raise an arm to wave to Archie and Callum. Then she stopped, began to run. I narrowed my eyes. Something wrong in the way Archie was sitting so near the cliff, his head bowed, Callum pacing up and down the edge. Something very wrong.
Both Chrissie and Mrs MacKinnon were running now. I broke into a run too, the sweet air and the bird cries filled with dread. Archie raised his head as we approached, Callum running to meet us, his eyes wide and brow wrinkled.
There was no sign of the rope on the grass. And Lachie? Where was Lachie?
A terrible keening sound as Mrs MacKinnon threw herself down on the turf and crawled to the very edge. Chrissie was shaking Callum, asking him what had happened. I too lay down, peered as far as I could over the edge, searching with Mrs MacKinnon for any sign of Lachie. Calling out his name into the din of alarmed birds. No sign of someone waiting on the ledges for a new rope to be passed down.
I heard another terrible wail, Chrissie pulling the woman back from the edge. Then I saw what Lachie’s mother had seen.
A thousand feet below us, a small dark form was being sucked up and down the side of a pinkish rock, the dark seaweed plastered like hair each time the rock rose from the swell. A seal? No. Too long to be a seal. Arms flailing lifelessly.
Lachie.
The birds screaming and clattering, I searched and hoped for any sign of wilful movement, but the body rose and turned at the will of the waves. No sign of any life.
I hurried to help Chrissie as she held on to Mrs MacKinnon who seemed ready to launch herself over the cliff, crying out in Gaelic, cursing the sea.
Archie’s face too was streaming with tears.
‘For God’s sake, what happened?’ Chrissie shouted. ‘How could he fall? There’s no one better on the rocks than Lachie. How?’
Archie sobbed. ‘I tried—’
‘It was me,’ Callum said, babbling fast. ‘It was me. I hadn’t pegged the rope. We were watching Lachie going down, and then the ledge must have given way. The pull was so sudden, the rope whipped out of my hands. We heard him shout but he was gone. And it was so quiet after, as if the wind and the birds stopped dead. And then we saw him below and we shouted and we shouted but there was no reply.’
Archie was standing wordlessly, face white, his weeping stopped. Mrs MacKinnon had crumpled down on the grass. She was so heavy when we tried to lift her back up, as though she would stay there for all her days. We led her away from the edge, away from the rising and the falling of the fulmars that watched us with their unchanging black eyes.
‘Come away home now, Mrs MacKinnon,’ said Chrissie. ‘We’ll fetch Lachie.’ Then she said to me in a low voice, ‘And we must tell the men we need to get the boat to go round for him.’
Mrs MacKinnon nodded. ‘Yes. We’ll get him from the water. For, yes, he may still be alive.’
What could we reply? Hope will carry on long after reason.
Mrs MacKinnon turned to face Callum. ‘I don’t blame you, boy, for what you have done. But you must always live with your deeds now. That is the curse you will live under.’
Callum stepped back, looked as if he had been struck by her.
‘Archie,’ I called. ‘Help take Mrs MacKinnon down. I’ll run and tell the village what’s happened.’
The woman hung on to Archie as if her legs were gone, her wails filled with grief, one arm stretched back towards the sea as Chrissie and he guided her gently away.
Tears in my own eyes as I scrambled down the slopes. Trying to understand that we would never see Lachie again, so full of life, barely on the edge of manhood, the tousle of light brown hair never combed down, that ready grin, and always a dog winding round his ankles, a hand on its head.
And no place on earth that could spare a man less.
It took the rest of the day for the men to row out round the back of Conachair and rescue Lachie’s body from the currents that had taken him right out towards Boreray. He lay in his bothy that night, his mother silent beside him. The villagers sat with her through the twilight and the hours of dark, the windows left open in the old way to let Lachie’s soul take flight. But when the minister’s wife came, she said they must be closed, for Lachie’s soul had gone to the Lord, and was not floating outside homeless. She wanted his mother to have that comfort. As soon as the light from Mrs Munro’s lamp was seen diminishing along the path to the manse, then his mother opened the windows again.
Lachie’s mourning and burial took three days. At night, an owl was heard hooting over the slopes of Ruival, and old Rachel Òg said it was Lachie’s blood calling out because he had died too young. The wretched owl was back the next night too. It sat on our roof, an eerie human timbre to its calls. I found Archie up, sitting at the table in the kitchen with the lamp lit. He looked like he had not slept, or woken from a bad dream.
‘Bloody bird,’ he said. ‘I tell you I’ve had enough of this place, Fred. What I’d give to be away from here tonight.’ I saw the hip flask was on the table, the monogram of Dunvegan Castle etched on the silver.
Over the next few days Archie appeared strangely manic in his efforts to do good in the village, or he would slump in a bleak depression, barely moving from the chair by the fire, staring into the glowing peats. The people in the village assumed it was the same grief that had swept over us all. But there was something else there, something that could not be assuaged.
As we were sitting by the fire with a dram one evening he said, ‘I’ve noticed the way you look at Chrissie. You should be careful of that little moon calf. Don’t get snared by a native girl while I’m gone.’
I ignored his more spiteful comment. ‘You’re leaving? When? But what shall I do with your things? Shall I get them sent on?’
‘No, I will return and get the damned paper done, when I’ve had a break from here. I always finish what I started,’ he said bitterly. ‘That’s the Macleod way. Family motto and all that.’
‘But when are you going?’
‘I don’t know. I’ll see. There’ll be a couple more tourist boats out from Oban before the season ends. And fishing trawlers until the weather gets too bad.’
‘There’s not so much time left to get your work here done.’
‘You know, it’s yourself you want to watch out for, Fred. You shouldn’t let yourself get too attached. Just make sure you leave this place before it’s too late.’
‘Too late?’
‘Before the winter sets in. You don’t want to be on this godforsaken rock all winter.’
CHAPTER 23
Chrissie
ST KILDA, 1927
If anyone in the village felt blame towards my brother Callum over the death of Lachie, then no one showed it.
‘It was the will of God,’ Mary said to me as we milked the cows at the back of the bothies, ‘that Lachie should go to him now that his time on earth was done.’
After the three days of mourning, we went back to the fulmar cliffs. Almost a thousand birds were now lying in feathered piles of death o
n the rocks by the water or had been salted away in barrels. The weather was heartlessly beautiful, a blue sky, summer heat. The two whales moored in the bay had quietly swollen and split open to release their poisonous gases, polluting the cool breeze that came in from the sea.
The whaler came back that night, another dead beast in tow. They fastened the two swollen carcasses to the back of the boat and by the morning had left for the Bunavoneader whaling station on Harris.
Archie left with them to find a boat that would take him on to Skye or the mainland. With all that had happened in the village, I could understand his wish to leave quietly and respectfully. But I still could not quell a feeling that there was something amiss in Archie Macleod’s soul, for he fled us like a fugitive, and it was only I and the slipping of the grey dawn into day that saw him rowed out to the stinking whaler. Going back on that stench-filled boat and with a rising swell to turn any sailor’s stomach, I could not think that it would be a very grand voyage for our laird’s son.
And there was something else I had seen as I passed him on the path before he left. His narrow face, furtive and pinched. I’d never seen him so clearly and so bereft of all the glamour I had covered him in, a tired and ordinary man who needed a shave and a good night’s sleep. An unhappy man, it seemed to me, always seeking for a centre to himself. My poor Archie.
I stood in front of our sleep-sunk house looking out across the sea, the whaler rapidly fading away into a plume of smoke. The morning was fresh as fresh, curlews or oystercatchers piping clear and lamentingly hopeful on the shore. I drew the shawl tighter round my shoulders with a shiver and I told myself what my heart already knew. A pair of smiling brown eyes set deep under a steady brow, a smile teasing and honest, and a man who was little taller than me but with a strength and a grace that I found so pleasing. Come what may, whether he knew it or not, I was in love with Fred Lawson.
Love may be an imagined thing, looked for, hoped for. So I had fastened my hopes on to the form of Archie Macleod. But I understood now that I had never known anything about love, for as true and as real as the rock of our island that I stood on, I loved Fred down to his every imperfection. It was a surprise to me, to recognize the truth of it, and not altogether good news. For truly, why should he love me in return, a girl from such a backward place in the eyes of the world, a girl with little education?
When we spoke it ended in arguing together for he wanted me to think like him. ‘How can you talk of the love of God when you are barely clinging on to life here on your rock? When the winter storms your God sends are so damaging and vengeful. Is this the same pally sort of God you catch sight of as you roam across the hills in summer? Which one is he? Now come on, Chrissie. Where’s the logic?’
Then my heart broke for him, since I understood well that he was talking about himself and the storms that left him alone in the world. All I could do then was quietly take his hand in mine, if we were alone together, to let him know all I wanted to say. That he might know the comfort of His nearness as it breaks through into the day, borne on the sun and the wind. You are loved and you are not alone, I wanted to say, through storms and through hard times, you are very greatly loved.
CHAPTER 24
Fred
FRANCE, 1940
Just seventeen, handsome and smooth-cheeked, our guide Richard had the unshakeable confidence of youth. And with it, perhaps, a readiness to take needless risks. Madame Curtil listened to my concerns, tamped the tobacco down in her pipe, lit it and drew the air through the tobacco until it began to glow red, her white hair and beret shrouded in smoke. ‘We have found that the younger a guide looks, the less suspicion from the Germans. And Richard is wiser than he seems. He cared for his brothers and sisters after his mother was mown down while the family were fleeing the invasion. He’s determined to make it to England and join the Free French but for now he’s part of the network returning soldiers and downed airmen home to fight once again. And, of course, I will come with you to the station to make sure that you get on the train to Paris, just in case there are any little problems.’
‘Paris? But surely that’s walking straight into the worst possible place for two servicemen on the run,’ I protested.
Madame Curtil shrugged amiably. ‘In Paris you can be anonymous. You will be hidden in plain sight. For the journey, I will do the talking, occupy myself with the tickets. Your only task is to not be noticed.’
Madame Curtil sat up front with the truck driver and Richard, Angus and I in the back, the boxes of wine bottles jangling along with my nerves. At the station, Richard went in to buy the tickets. He came back with bad news. ‘The place is crawling with German guards checking everyone’s papers at the barrier.’
Madame Curtil took a wine bottle from the back, smeared her cheek with some dirt from the side of the truck and dishevelled her hair. We were to follow a few steps behind, Richard walking apart from us. She managed to make enough of a tipsy scene at the ticket gate to prevent the guards studying our passes too fully.
Once on the train, Richard gave us each a newspaper to hide behind, told us not to speak to anyone, blend in. I only hoped Angus’s typical Scots freckles and pale auburn hair, now half-hidden under his beret, would pass for some type of Breton genes. I feigned sleep, alert to every sound and smell.
Arriving at the Gare du Nord in Paris, we left the train and followed Richard towards the barrier. He spoke with the guard who let us through with no problems.
‘How did you convince him to let us pass so easily?’ I asked, impressed.
‘Cent francs.’ He shrugged, scanning the crowds. He moved towards a girl in a school uniform and a red beret, and began to walk behind her. We too followed at a distance. She looked even younger than Richard. Children with nothing but their courage fighting Germans with tanks and guns; Angus only a year or two older and already seen too much. At the station entrance, the girl paused. Richard disappeared into the crowd. She glanced behind at us for a brief moment, then carried on walking.
I had no idea what part of Paris we were headed to, or who she was as we trailed her through the streets. In a quieter part of town, she stopped in front of tall double doors, pushed them open onto a quiet hallway leading to a stone staircase with a curving iron bannister. At the top, on the third floor, she looked behind, smiled for the first time and turned her key in the door.
Inside was a gracious flat with windows overlooking the trees of the avenue, gilt chairs and a grand piano. A woman in an expensive wool suit, her hair swept up in well-tamed curls, came forward to greet us as if we had responded to her invitation to cocktails. Her daughter kissed her on the cheek to her mother’s ‘Bien fait, chérie.’ Madame Mercier introduced us to the other guests in her flat, two airmen, a Canadian and an RAF pilot, who had had to bail out over Picardy.
‘And now, if you would like to have a bath or a nap, please, Honorine will show you to your room.’
I understood from that as we followed the maid in her cap and white apron that we were in need of a good sprucing up. It hadn’t been the first thing on our minds of late.
We took it in turns to wash and have a hot shave. Rubbing my skin and feeling no stubble, hair slicked back and a clean shirt brought through by Honorine, I realized I hadn’t felt so human for a long time. She’d taken away our trousers and jackets and returned them brushed and pressed. Cleaned our shoes.
We ate in the dining room, Mr Mercier pouring small drinks of vermouth before we sat down. He was a thin man, with a high forehead and tortoiseshell spectacles and the same careful cultured French as his wife. No, I hadn’t been to Paris before, I answered him, to my regret.
‘Ah, but she’s so sad now. C’est triste. Red banners everywhere and German soldiers on every corner. Impossible to go to a restaurant or a cafe now without seeing them. Better to stay at home, don’t you think?’
The Merciers’ flat overlooked a courtyard garden at the back and in the quiet days that followed I spent a lot of time looking out of those long
windows while the frost turned the bushes and the espalier trees shades of blue in the early shadows of afternoon. The two pilots had stories to tell of dogfights over the Channel, and news of terrible damage from the Blitz. ‘But we’ve shown them we’re no pushover,’ Tony said, a big man who must have had some difficulty fitting inside a small Spitfire cockpit. ‘Wiped the smile off Goering’s face if he thinks his Luftwaffe are going to beat us.’
Christmas came and went. Madame Tissier made a special effort with the menu, a meat stew – horsemeat, she admitted ruefully, but what can one do? New Year had Angus demonstrating the Highland Fling and Monsieur bringing out his precious Scotch whisky.
In the dog days of winter when everything seemed so dead, I spent endless days looking out over the frozen garden, all my thoughts of the island, of you. And bitter thoughts too, for Archie and his betrayal.
In that last year at Cambridge, after our summer on St Kilda, I hardly saw Archie again. I moved out of college and got rooms in a student boarding house at the back of town. I was careful to avoid the corridors and quads around where he lived. I avoided the library and pubs and streets where he might walk. I never wanted to see his face again.
I didn’t attend my graduation ceremony, sick at the thought of meeting him there, took the first job I was offered on the basis that it was overseas, and so began my itinerant life as a geological consultant to various oil firms trying to expand into new territories, South America, the Middle East, then Malaysia for several years where I never managed to rise up and break away from the heat and torpor of warm rain and thick jungle. Until the sounds of war reached even there.
The Lost Lights of st Kilda Page 14
