It had been many years since Fingal Buchanan had actually performed any of the duties associated with the role of post master of Hinba. He had never actually forsaken the title, but simply allowed his son, Davey Buchanan, to carry the burden, hoping that Fergus would come of age in time to inherit the sinecure directly. In the meanwhile, Fingal chose to spend his time explaining his son’s many inadequacies from his high-backed chair at the kitchen table. The old man held court there for most of the day, except to take long walks along the beach as far as the headland or, on the frequent inclement days, until The Harbour Bell opened.
In many places, post master might be an insignificant title, but on Hinba it was the birth right of the most respected family on the island. The Buchanans had been post masters since the Royal Mail had come to Hinba, some two hundred years before. It had been the most natural thing in the world for Fingal Buchanan to be given the seals of office by the gentleman from the mainland, since the Buchanan’s had long been the leading family. Only the MacLeods could rival their claim to dominance and, while they had the Bell, it was the Buchanans who maintained an iron grip on the island’s only shop and the duty to uphold the security of the post.
So Fergus’s father did not begrudge the indignity of his treatment by his own father, since he was the de facto headman of the island. Hinba itself was small, the western-most of the Small Isles, if you discounted the fragments of guano-streaked rock that littered the sea before the Western Isles marked the edge of the ocean. It was a small and distant kingdom and he was only regent, but Davey had only ever known Hinba and to him it was as much as the entire world.
He had visited other places of course. He had been to Eigg, for example, where his wife, Morag, had been raised. He had met her at the funeral of Cal Coltrane, the skipper of the Small Isles ferry for 30 years. And he had been to the mainland too, numerous times, to the Highlands for a holiday and even to Glasgow to escort his daughter to the university. But like his father, and like his son, Davey Buchanan had never really seen the point of leaving Hinba for very long.
Fergus heard the water draining from the bath, listened to its throaty gurgling, waited for the key to turn in the lock and his father’s feet to pad across the hall carpet and back into his bedroom. He took one last quizzical, uncertain look at the suit of clothes he had hung from a coat hanger on the wardrobe door, then he made his way into the bathroom. His mother would postpone her own bath until the men were at work; she was already down stairs, making arrangements for breakfast, exchanging pleasantries with her father-in-law. Since coming to Hinba some 22 years before, she had had to share her breakfast times with the cantankerous old man. Even then, when he still actually did something useful with his days, he was bitter and proud and unforgiving. Every day of her married life had required enormous effort to maintain her courteousness, to ask after the quality of his sleep, the pains in his legs, or the likelihood of rain.
That she had managed it, had never once exchanged truly angry words with him, astounded her. She had, early on, shaped as if to defend her new husband from one of the old man’s tirades, but Davey had caught her eye with a look of warning and reproach, and she had known that she should not intervene. She had said nothing even on the day when Fingal had raised his hand, left it hanging for a moment above Davey’s head, weighted with violence, when her husband had simply flinched with practiced acquiescence. Despite herself, she had never broken into the strange dance of contempt and surrender that played out each day between father and son; she had never questioned Davey about it, even in the privacy of their room or when Fingal was out on one of his walks, nor when Fergus and Mary were too small to understand, or away in Mallaig at the school, or in any of the many other quiet shared times they had had during their long marriage.
She had however insisted that he did not treat his own son in that way. Fergus was to be treated fairly, with respect. And Davey had been true to his word, even if the task had been made easier by the high regard Fingal himself had for Fergus. The old man adored his first and only grandson, and often compared Davey unfavourably to him. In the eyes of the patriarch, it was Fergus that kept the shop running efficiently, aided by his tidy mother; Davey was simply an encumbrance, and Fingal knew that he could not contemplate dying yet, not until Fergus had reached his majority and could himself take on the duties officially. Morag toyed with this idea with ever greater frequency the nearer came her son’s twenty-first birthday: it was now the spring of that year and Morag found it easier to smile at the old man as he complained about his hip and the pains in his chest that had kept him awake all night.
If she had drawn level in the battle with her father-in-law, by bringing her universally-cherished son into the world, she had lately scored a significant victory in her own right. When Mary, just a year or so before, had declared a desire to go to university, Davey had looked to his father. Naturally, Fingal objected. It was not the business of a Buchanan to be leaving Hinba to go to the university; her husband had naturally agreed. But Morag had given neither man a choice: if Mary, her youngest, wanted to study, then Mary would study. If that took her from these windswept islands, so much the better.
That both men, father and son, had backed down so easily provoked mixed emotions in Morag. She felt a renewed confidence in her own strength of character and, after so many years feeling impotent under Fingal’s tyranny, this pleased her enormously. Suddenly, she no longer felt the silent subject in her own house. But the reaction also prompted questions about what might have been, had she taken a stand sooner. If she had not been cowed to silence by her husband’s look all those years ago, what might her life, the life of her husband, have been? Would Davey have been his own man, unlimited by his brow-beating father? And would Fingal have retired graciously at the allotted time, foregoing the years of carping obstinacy? And would she have felt the mistress of her home, able to speak her mind when she had things to say, rather than pushing down her discontents, drowning them in soapy dishwater?
She would never know of course, so she simply revelled in the sudden light and space that her daughter’s determination had allowed her. Fingal and Davey still danced their dance, but they treated her with greater respect than she had ever thought possible; on occasions, Fingal even held his tongue when Morag was present, saving his indictments against his son for those times when his daughter-in-law visited one of the wives of the island or popped out into the kitchen garden to poke around between the lettuces. From out in the garden, she could still hear the rhythm of Fingal’s bitterness, if not the specific complaints, but she would smile and think about how soon it was until her son’s twenty first birthday.
Fergus slid into the kitchen that morning just as his mother returned from the garden. It was a quarter to seven and the spring sun was now clear of the mainland. It was the vernal equinox, the day the sun came back to Hinba. From now on, the days would only get longer, the nights shorter. That in itself was reason to celebrate, but it was a day of much greater significance: the eighteenth birthday of his Shona. The birthday itself was of course important, and Fergus had spent most of his savings on a pendant sent over from the mainland, and most of his spare time working on a more personal gift. It was this that he was most excited about: the pendant was merely insurance in case Shona did not appreciate his handiwork as much as she might. But the day also meant that she was a woman. There was nothing now to stop Fergus from making official his long betrothal to Shona MacLeod.
As he poured tea into his cup, Fergus thought about the his three gifts for Shona: the shop-bought pendant; the hand-carved wooden likeness; and his grandmother’s engagement ring, which Mr McCredie had taken over to Mallaig to have stretched so that it might fit more comfortably on Shona’s hand. He had already made his plans for when and how he would present these gifts, having decided that if he left his proposal until tomorrow, Shona’s joy, and his own anticipation, would be extended.
‘Did you sleep well, boy?’
Fingal smiled at his g
randson, tall and lean. He offered no commentary on his own uncomfortable night, instead waiting for Fergus to reply.
‘Aye, not so bad. More dreams, of course, but they didn’t interrupt my sleeping. You?’
Fergus pulled out a chair and sat opposite his grandfather, taking a swallow of tea and reaching across the table for a piece of the bread freshly cut by his mother.
‘The same. Too little of course, but can a man ever sleep too much?’
The old man stared off out through the kitchen window, across the bay and over the sea towards Rum. Fergus was already lost in his guide to UK postcodes, feeling that he had already done his duty by way of passing the time with his grandfather. He chewed on the bread and jam and studied the maps marked with letters and numbers. Fergus had taken as a duty the learning of the UK’s postcode system, its principles and its geography. Especially its geography. While he would explain his interest in postcodes as the necessary training of a future post master, he also took pleasure in the fact that the country beyond Hinba was codified, contained and made intelligible through a rational system of classifications, just as his notebooks made sense of his fathomless nights. Every town and village and house was located in a unique but comprehensible series of six – or seven – digits. Wherever he might roam, he would be able to find himself precisely.
Of course, he did not intend to roam, preferring instead to see the world from the safety and certainty of maps. He travelled vicariously, through the movements of packages and letters. This was his destiny, his birth right. While the other islanders were either here or away on the mainland, one or the other, he and the other Buchanan men were able to be both here and abroad simultaneously.
The bread and jam was done, the tea drained, and on the wind Fergus could hear the pulse of the mail-boat out in the bay. Moving to the window, he watched it make its steady way in towards the harbour. It was time to set off, to collect the post and to start his round of deliveries, a daily ritual he had begun as much from boredom as obligation. He shouted through to his father, who was at his books in the shop, then turned smiling to his grandfather, his tone breezy and familiar:
‘OK, that’s me. I’m off to work. It’s a big day today, granddad, a big day. Even the sun’s come out to see it.’
Fingal smiled broadly, his face creasing deeply beneath his long whiskers. They were now lank and thin, the colour of soured milk, where once they had been thick and tawny as marmalade, wilful and unkempt: his daughter-in-law had refused throughout her marriage to trim them for him and, on account of the weakness of his eyesight and the strength of his pride, he too had refused to tend to them. With neglect, they had grown wantonly; with Fergus’s exit, lemon green light rushed into the kitchen to burnish the memories of gold and copper that lurked within its cascade.
3
Mr Galbraith was already away. There was no answer when Fergus rang the doorbell, and through the open curtains he could see that the house was peculiarly lifeless, inert. The living room was quiet and somehow chill in its temporary abandonment. He would be away to the mainland no doubt, taking advantage of the empty week of half term to run some errands and stock up on whatever it was Mr Galbraith brought back from Mallaig on his excursions. Fergus dropped the letter and magazine through the door and turned back to the road, where he had propped his bicycle against the wall to Mrs Robertson’s tidy garden. Hers was his last call and once across the road, he crunched his way over the gravel towards the red door, flicking through the post destined for the widow.
The window was open a little, as always. Mrs Robertson was at the sink, filling the kettle, lost in her thoughts, humming an old tune. She was dressed in her habitual house coat, her grey hair curled tightly to her head. It was three years now since Mr Robertson had passed: yet the condition of the paintwork and of the flower beds by the path was testament to the continued health and vitality of his wife.
Fergus knocked sharply but respectfully on the window pane to attract her attention. She looked up without surprise and he smiled, held up the bundle of letters for Mrs Robertson to see; then he waited. He always liked to exchange a few words with the widow on his rounds, to make sure she was fit and well, keeping herself occupied. While he waited for her to shuffle to the door, Fergus looked along the path, which was fringed with delicate pink and blue flowers clinging low to the soil. He did not know their names, and wondered why they would choose to bloom here so early in the year, when the risk of late winter storms was not yet passed. But in the spring sunlight they were a welcome sight, breaking the monotony of green and grey that had been the island’s palette for so many months. Their cheeriness presaged the long days of sunshine that the summer would bring and Fergus flushed at the thought.
Behind him he heard the stiff door scrape open. As usual he would offer to take a look at it for her, maybe take a plane to it, even put a coat of paint on it, later in the summer. As usual Mrs. Robertson would mutter that it was no matter, that he shouldn’t trouble himself with it, that she wasn’t so old yet that she couldn’t manage a little gloss paint. Then he would ask after her health, her mood, her news, before introducing the post to her.
‘Just three letters for you this morning. One’s a bill I’m afraid, Scottish Power. But there’s also a handwritten one, from Glasgow no less, and there’s a little lilac note for you from your sister in Fort William, so that should take the edge off the electric shock.’
Mrs Robertson laughed at this well-worn joke, as she did every quarter, even as she took her glasses from the pocket of her house coat to study the mysterious missive from the distant city. Fergus looked down at her, unsure whether it was he who grew taller, or she shorter. When he had first known her, she had been a tall, straight-backed woman in her fifties, the wife of his grandfather’s best friend. Fergus had trailed after the two men as they walked along the low cliffs above the rolling sea, smoking their pipes and exchanging memories. Always a few steps behind, on account of respect and the length of their stride, Fergus had felt himself privileged to be allowed into their world, to walk with them, to hear their stories, to be among grown-ups.
After each of these walks, Fergus would return to the cottage to be fed scones and fizzy pop by Mrs Robertson, whose own grandchildren lived far away on the mainland. For more reasons than he could begin to count, Fergus felt a debt to the old woman, a duty he performed each morning even when there was no post for her. That her cottage was the last door on his round was a deliberate choice: he wanted to be able to take the time to chat without worrying that others would be waiting on their letters and parcels. He would tell her about the comings and goings down at the harbour, about books he’d read, television programmes she might enjoy, even about Shona and his plans and hopes and anxieties. She in turn would tell him about her health, the different flowers and vegetables growing in the garden, on the moor, about the comings and goings on the road. And she would talk about the past, both that which they shared and that which was beyond his reach, about the island when she was a girl, about the stories her grandfather had told her about his own boyhood, about the storms and feuds, the island myths, the Buchanans and the MacLeods.
On other days, he would suck in these stories as if they were fizzy pop through a yellow straw. But today, he was eager to be about his business. It was already eleven, and he had things to do. Mrs Robertson was in any case distracted by the letter and didn’t notice the sly glance at his wrist watch; reassured, Fergus took the opportunity afforded by her quiet concentration on the unexpected envelope to take his leave.
Waving from the gate, the door scraping shut behind him, Fergus walked his bicycle further up the hill, then pushed off to ride the last half mile to Mr Duncannon’s yard, which lurked on the outskirts of the village. Duncannon was an odd man, one who kept himself to himself, despite the difficulties of doing so on an island with fewer than 50 inhabitants and only one pub. He lived alone. His spent his days taking in the base detritus of the islanders and of the oceans, somehow turning it in
to money. In all honesty, no one quite knew how Duncannon made a living from all the junk that he took into his barn and, aside from the repairs and odd-jobs he would do for the islanders, he had no obvious customers. But the junk disappeared into the barn never to be seen again, and Duncannon survived.
True, he had no wife, no children to care for, but even so the mystery of his business intrigued his neighbours; some suspected supernatural goings on, others simply criminal. None of them would ever dream of asking. It was not that Duncannon was unfriendly. If you made the first move and passed the time of day, he would smile and nod the greeting in return. He would even pass comment on the changing of the season, about the likelihood of a storm or of fair weather, but he offered nothing of himself. It was clear that his reticence was a curtain behind which he preferred to stay and this was something his neighbours were happy to accept.
Although Duncannon was a private man, he was not a selfish one. He often let Fergus use his shed and his tools for his wood-working. Not joinery: Fergus got no pleasure from making practicalities like cabinets or boxes, even though he was more than capable of doing so, of cutting dovetails so neatly that they required no glue to keep them tight. Since he had been in the school at Mallaig, where he had first learned to bend timber to his will, he had found comfort and solidity not in forcing wood into unnatural angles, but in collaborating with it to release the shapes that it held within itself, to uncover its true essence.
In the school workshop, he had become accomplished with saws and clamps and planes, but it was with the tools of carving – with chisels and gouges – that he had sharpened his skills to the point of artistry, and it was to these that he felt connected. In the years since, he had developed a close affinity with the warm fluidity of timber, and he had learned to coax from it the unique personality of each piece. For Fergus, the most important thing was first to select the right lump of drift wood or unwanted timber lying around Duncannon’s yard; after that, carving was easy, as the grain and density and spirit of the timber would tell him what to do with it. Perhaps it was this perceptiveness that warmed Duncannon to Fergus, a recognition of something shared, something held in common.
The Cursing Stone: a gripping mystery and family saga Page 2
