It was of no matter, anyway. He could live with the whining and the tears of his women, of course. No, the real reason for his mute acceptance of the match was that the whole island saw it as inevitable and desirable. An end to the feuding. A joining of the families. To stand against the marriage would be to turn his face not only against his daughter and therefore his wife, but also the people of Hinba. They would still come to drink his whisky of course, but there would be whispers and gossip, false smiles at the bar and cruel words behind his back. He had no choice but to make the best of it: the Buchanans would get their hands on the Bell, but only at the expense of the MacLeods getting a share of the Post Office. It would not be long before a MacLeod, albeit one called Buchanan, would be Post Master of Hinba.
‘What time do you think they’ll be back?’
Chrissie MacLeod had walked into the empty bar unnoticed, her hair and face set for the evening. More make up than usual, and a new dress from the catalogue, her second of the week: she would be ready to greet the good news when it came.
‘I don’t know, love. I don’t know why he had to take her all that way to ask her anyhow. And he might have asked my permission first. I suppose some young people these days don’t hold with manners in the same way.’ To sweeten his bitterness, Cameron leant across the polished sheen of the bar to kiss his wife on the cheek. Pulling away he admired her momentarily. Plumper yes, and there were lines around her eyes, in the corners of her mouth, but she was still the sweetheart of his own youth. He remembered the day they themselves had become engaged and it helped to steady himself for the loss of his daughter.
Chrissie MacLeod smoothed down her skirt and, hips swinging ever so slightly on her low heels, she walked to the door to unbolt it for the evening’s customers. At the stroke of five thirty, she pulled open the door, glanced up and down the empty street, then withdrew into the warmth of the bar, dragging the heavy curtain around its hooped rail to mark the boundary between worldly cares and convivial comfort. She turned and caught the last of her husband’s smile.
She loved this time of day above all others. The bar was open but empty; there was just her and her man, with an evening of unknown possibility stretched before them. There was no work to do, no serving, nor cooking, nor cleaning, only the boldness of dominion, the fruit of their labours to be savoured in restful peace. Today, of course, today would bring much more excitement than any other evening and she was torn between wishing the quiet time away and luxuriating in the anticipation it allowed.
She strode across the room to where Cameron stood and threw her arms around him. He seemed a little shocked – this did not often happen these days, it was true – but he was soon squeezing her into him as fervently as she was squeezing him into herself. She did not know if his eyes were also shut, if he was also smiling, but she chose to believe it, completely.
The sound of the side door brought them both back to the world and they broke their embrace seamlessly. Chrissie smoothed her skirt again and pushed her hair gently upwards, encouraging it once more to defy gravity; looking in the mirrored panel behind the optics, she rolled her lips inwards to perfect her lipstick. By the time Shona and Fergus appeared in the bar she was ready and beaming, while Cameron was perched on a stool at the far end of the bar, pretending to read the newspaper.
‘Mam, we’ve got some news…’
Shona was clutching her fiancés hand, as if she were afraid that if she let it go, he would float away on the wind. For his own part, Fergus was staring down at the floor, suppressing an excited, idiotic grin. Both parents held their places, to give the youngsters space to make the moment their own, but looked on with encouragement.
‘… Fergus has asked me to be his wife and I have said yes. We’re to be married!’
A little squeal punctuated this last, and Shona began to quiver excitedly. Chrissie threw wide her arms and pulled her only daughter into a huge embrace, as Cameron strode across the room, his hand extended towards Fergus. Fergus took it gratefully, no longer afraid of the father’s reaction, certain now that his failure to ask MacLeod’s permission had be forgiven or simply overlooked.
The men shook hands for longer than either was comfortable, waiting for the mother and daughter to break their embrace. Eventually, they did and Cameron had a chance to hug his daughter and congratulate her while Fergus was pulled into the softness of his future mother-in-law. But the boy pulled away a little sooner that Chrissie had expected; she studied his discomfited face for moment.
‘Of course! You must go and fetch your parents, so we can toast this engagement properly!’
Chrissie shooed him away, towards the curtain at the front door, through which he slid into the gathering dusk, past familiar faces made unfamiliar by the knowing smiles, the unexpected slaps on the back and pecks on the cheek.
His mother, father and grandfather were seated around the kitchen table when he clattered in through the back door. Mugs of tea sat undisturbed, no longer steaming, in front of them, as if the three of them had been in a trance until enlivened by his entrance. They knew of course, but they waited, smiles suppressed, until he had been able to deliver his news. He apologised for having gone to the Bell first, explaining that Shona had been insistent, had claimed precedence. Only Fingal accepted this with less than grace, but even the old man nodded, muttered ‘Of course’ through his beard.
Fergus shook both the men’s hands before his mother hugged him tightly. While his father clasped him more formally, uttering congratulations and unneeded advice, Morag dialled the Glasgow number in search of Mary. His sister answered almost immediately, did not need to be told the reason for the call, and Fergus imagined that, even in the city, his news was already known. She wished him well, offered her congratulations, and said that she hoped to see him soon. As he put down the now-disconnected phone, his grandfather thrust a glass of whisky into his hand and raised a toast in Gaelic to the happiness of Fergus and Shona, and to the continuation of the Buchanan line.
By the time the Buchanans reached the Bell, there were already some half dozen customers, alongside the MacLeods. As they entered a toast went up, and then a cheer when Fergus obliged the party by kissing the blushing Shona in full view for the first time. Others followed into the pub until the whole of the island was present to witness the engagement. Even Duncannon was there, unobtrusive by the door. Only the school master, Mr Galbraith, was missing.
8
The staccato wheeze of old McCredie’s boat had long ceased to bother him. That he had been unable to take the larger and more comfortable car ferry was something of an inconvenience, but his appointment with the dentist, much overdue, did not fit with the Caledonian MacBrayne schedule. Galbraith cast back to the wheel house, where the little boat’s pilot hid behind his pipe smoke.
McCredie lived in Mallaig, but spent most of his time afloat. When the weather was good enough he would spend days at a time away from home, moving people, livestock and goods between the islands and Mallaig for whatever recompense he could extract from his clients. His boat had seen better days, but in good weather provided a reliable and reasonably direct means of transportation to and from the mainland. Yet there was precious little covered accommodation on board, aside from the smoke-filled wheel house, and on rainy days this made the three hour crossing from Mallaig somewhat claustrophobic. But there was plenty of space on deck and when the sun was out, as it was on this occasion, it was easy to find a little space for your thoughts.
Galbraith stood on the deck, half-way to the prow, his eyes fixed on the point where he would first see the jetty that stood near the mouth of the bay that formed Hinba’s harbour. Landfall was still some two miles distant, and only a handful of the buildings in the village were yet discernible. He could make out – or believed he could make out – his own school house, the bleak grey rectangle punctuating the green of the island. The blue above Hinba was streaked with a rack of exuberant cloud, stacked at a precarious angle.
The gentle breeze
left him unmolested, but his knees braced against each tiny dip of the boat on the torpid sea. As far as he could, he stood steady with his jaws locked together while his tongue darted about the exaggerated alterations of his newly cleaned and repaired teeth. In his bag, he had sausages, as well as some library books and a bottle of wine from the Co-op. And he had the page torn from the waiting room magazine. The thought of the news he bore for Hinba, for old man Fingal and for the Reverend Drummond in particular, caused him to tense yet further. They would not like his tidings, but hear them they must.
From behind came a shout. McCredie’s head hung out of the wheel house window, his mouth moving in an exaggerated fashion. Then it disappeared inside, immediately to be replaced by an outstretched arm, the index finger unfurled towards a point off the starboard bow. Galbraith followed the line of the old man’s arm and peered into the glistening blue. Seals; nothing but seals. The same seals that Galbraith saw from his kitchen each morning. The school teacher felt a wave of irritation at the intrusion, yet he watched the beasts for a while, speculating on their own disinterest in him and their irritation at his intrusion, his disruption of their fishing trip.
He ran his tongue over the new addition to his mouth, surprised again by its smoothness. He was pleased that he had opted for gold in the end. What other material was fit for a crown, after all? The sudden collapse of his molar, its majority swallowed along with the Mint Imperial into which it had become embedded, had forced the impromptu visit to Mallaig. It was fortunate that it had occurred during the spring holidays, although he would ideally not have missed Shona MacLeod’s birthday celebration. On an island as insular as Hinba, it was wise to stay on the right side of families, especially ones as important as the MacLeods.
Still, he was pleased to get back to the mainland. Much as he did not regret his decision to relocate, he did miss the possibility and freedom afforded by uninterrupted dry land. If he were a seal, no doubt he would feel differently, but the ability to head off and keep walking for as far as your feet would carry you, without the ever-presence of this great briny barrier, had much to commend it. Where he grew up, not only had there been effectively limitless land in all directions, there had also been the mountains: land you could not only walk across, but also up.
But the Highlands had not been where St Columba had decided to begin his mission, so Hinba was where Galbraith lived. And the teaching was easier here: only a handful of children, all of them well-behaved, terrified of incurring their parents’ displeasure. Of course, teaching a class of such mixed ages brought its challenges, but none were insurmountable: the older children could effectively be drafted in as unpaid teaching assistants. On some days, he had barely had to do any actual teaching, leaving him free to continue his reading.
During the drier months, Galbraith would often take the whole class on the long walk out to the western end of the island where the old Dun sulked amidst the sedge. The prehistoric fort dominated the skyline above the stone ruins of the monastery, which St Columba had established in the sixth century, making his uncle, St Ernan, its first Abbot. The monastery was the site of the island’s second, more elaborate, cross from the era and, much like the broken stone above the village, it had at its base a worn bowl. Such bullauns were fairly common in Ireland; each had held a turning stone, to be used both in prayer and in older rites. They had been brought to the islands by the Saint, forming a bridge between Columba’s origins and his destiny, between the old lore and that of the Cross. Galbraith had known that St Ernan’s precious bullaun stone must have been lost somewhere on the island; it could not have swum away.
On the pretext of teaching the children about the history of the island, Galbraith would use the excursions and field trips to conduct his research. Sometimes he would encourage his pupils to dig gently in the soil around the ruins, in the hope of uncovering the stone or at least some passion for the past. Yet in all the years that he had led these excursions, had enthused about the history to his charges, only one, Mary Buchanan, had ever become seriously interested. That she was now at University, studying the sagas and the histories, was his proudest professional achievement thus far. She would write sometimes, asking after his research, enquiring about some forgotten detail of the history, of the topography of the island, and Galbraith would feel the warmth of vindication for days to come. Mary in particular would be saddened and enraged by the news he had to carry to the people of Hinba.
Galbraith looked up from his thoughts, out towards the island. He had to shield his eyes from the sun which was now low in the sky behind Hinba. It would soon be dusk, and he hoped McCredie would bring him to land before nightfall, wondered how the old man would himself find his way back to Mallaig through the darkness. When the sun sank beneath the horizon, the vastness of the ocean became yet more immense and unfathomable, a dark enclosing curtain, an impassable boundary between life on the island and that which lay beyond.
The Reverend Drummond was congratulating the happy couple when Mr MacLeod broke from his close conversation with Davey Buchanan to announce that a formal engagement party was to be held in three days’ time, on the Saturday night, there in the Harbour Bell. Everyone was of course invited, including friends and family from the other islands and even from the mainland. The older Mr Buchanan responded with thanks and offered, on behalf of his daughter-in-law, to provide the buffet for the event, since MacLeod was so generously opening his bar once more. In conclusion, he raised another toast to young Fergus and his lovely bride-to-be and drained the whisky from his glass.
It was at this moment that Galbraith emerged through the curtain that masked the darkened street. He clutched his little leather suitcase and a carrier bag bearing the name and logo of the supermarket in Mallaig. He looked anxiously around the room, at first unnoticed, until Morag Buchanan gathered him up and led him to the bar, exchanging his suitcase for a glass of whisky.
‘So you’re back from your excursions, young Galbraith? There’s been some developments here in your absence. A birthday, of course, but you’ll have known about that. And now a proposal.’
Fingal had spotted the teacher across the room and, bored by the company of Mr McCulloch, had decided that tormenting Galbraith would be more entertaining. While he held out his empty glass to Chrissie MacLeod behind the bar, he kept his gaze fixed on Galbraith, who accepted the scrutiny dispassionately. He knew he was still seen as a new-comer, an outsider, despite his fifteen years in the community, and knew to take the old man’s snide condescension as the price of not being born to the islands.
‘Congratulations to you Mr Buchanan, and to you Morag. That is the most welcome news. I am truly sorry to have missed it, and can only curse the inconvenience of dentistry. But there have been developments on the mainland too, and not such ones as to warm the heart, I’m afraid. We must talk. Later, naturally, once the celebrations are complete. Now, I must congratulate the happy couple, and offer my belated birthday wishes to young Shona.’
Not until later, when all but the two families and the Reverend had left the Bell, did Fingal call out to Galbraith, asking that he put him out of his misery. Morag went to stand close by her husband as Galbraith opened his little leather case with a click, his eyes clouded with weary determination. Looking up from its contents, holding a torn page from a magazine, Galbraith addressed the room, although his eyes were on the Reverend Drummond.
Drummond was a well-fed priest who had started to lose his hair as a young man. Now that he had reached his fifty eighth year, only the merest wisps of white down clung to his temples. His crown was polished pink, its sheen glinting in sunlight and lamplight alike. But he was fleshy enough to have avoided deep wrinkles and sags and, despite his disappointments, his eyes still twinkled with something like mischief. As Galbraith spoke, however, his sparkle dimmed.
‘This is a page from the catalogue of a Glasgow auction house. The catalogue was one of the few diverting items in the waiting room at Dr Laughlin’s surgery, and I found myself flicki
ng through it as I waited for the anaesthetic to take effect. Dr Laughlin really ought to provide more interesting reading matter for his patients, but on this occasion I am glad that he did not.’
Galbraith sniffed, with a wriggle of his nose. He had to push his glasses back into place before he continued.
‘I reached this page, page one hundred and twenty four, and there it was. Bold as you like.’
He smoothed out the page onto the table and indicated the top left hand corner. All eyes fell on a small photograph of a lump of worked stone, marked into four segments and looking like a hot-crossed bun. It was hard to see how big the real stone was, as there was nothing in the image against which to judge, but despite the blurring of time, the carved cross was clearly discernible. The eight of them took it in turns to inspect the page while Galbraith polished his glasses in his handkerchief. When it was his turn, Cameron MacLeod then read out the picture’s caption: Lot 326: St Columba-era cursing stone; c. CE 574; St Ernan’s Monastery, Hinba. Res. £3000.
‘They’ve been found in Ireland, of course. But this is the first to have been found on Scottish soil. And on Hinba!’
Galbraith’s voice rose to a broken squeak, which hung in the air for a moment while the others picked through their bemusement. The Reverend Drummond was the first to realise the significance of the matter. Much as he loved Hinba, he knew that his parish was something of a backwater; the stone would put the island on the map and transform its status within the Church immeasurably. Standing slowly, his chair legs scraping the flagstones, he walked to the bar and stood leaning there, his back turned to the others.
His shoulders crumpled with a small sigh. A moment later, his back straightened and his voice boomed out as if he were giving a sermon.
The Cursing Stone: a gripping mystery and family saga Page 6
