Last of the Line

by John MacKay

  JOHN MACKAY returns to his Hebridean roots for his third novel, which, like The Road Dance and Heartland, is set in Lewis. John is the anchorman on Scottish tv’s evening news programme Scotland Today and has reported on many of the major news stories in Scotland in recent times. He is married with two sons and lives in Renfrewshire.

  John MacKay on Twitter: @RealMacKaySTV

  By the same author:

  The Road Dance, Luath Press, 2002

  Heartland, Luath Press, 2004

  Last of the Line

  JOHN MacKAY

  Luath Press Limited

  EDINBURGH

  www.luath.co.uk

  First published 2006

  Paperback published 2007

  eBook Edition 2012

  ISBN (Print): 978-1-905222-90-2

  ISBN (eBook): 978-1-909912-14-4

  The author’s right to be identified as author of this book under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 has been asserted.

  © John MacKay, 2006

  Table of Contents

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  Acknowledgements

  Runrig for giving us a voice.

  Mairi Maciver and my brother Donald for their knowledge.

  Joan MacKinnon of South Uist.

  Margaret Ann Laing and Rosemary MacLennan for their support.

  Donald Slessor.

  Magda, Sheila and the Edinburgh MacKays.

  Welcome to Emma Harvie.

  And J, S and R always.

  For Ally

  ‘…the blood is strong…’

  1

  THE CALL CAME from a place far away where the dark was deep and the only sound was the fading breath of a woman on the edge of eternity.

  ‘Mr MacCarl. It’s time.’

  Outside, the lights of the night spread and faded through the room, the party people laughed and squealed on the streets and an isolated horn blared.

  ‘She asked for you.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘Mary. She asked to see you.’

  ‘She wants to see me? Now? Who is this? Can I speak to her?’

  The woman’s voice on the other end lost none of its soft lilt, but it delivered a harsh message.

  ‘If she makes this night of it she won’t see the next.’

  ‘What? What happened? Has she been in an accident?’

  ‘No. She has been ill, seriously ill. The end is near.’

  ‘Oh Christ! I had no idea.’

  There was no response.

  ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

  ‘She really wants to see you.’

  ‘Yeah, okay.’ He sighed, muttering thanks as an afterthought.

  Cal MacCarl swung his legs out of the bed, the stripped wood of the floor was cold under his feet. It took a moment for the time on the bedside alarm to register.

  ‘Who was that?’ the girl beside him asked, her long blonde hair covering her face, her voice muffled by the pillow.

  ‘My aunt. She’s dying.’

  ‘She phoned to tell you? Can’t be that serious,’ mumbled Lisa dismissively.

  ‘It wasn’t her who phoned,’ Cal snapped, defensive yet at the same time uncomfortable about the sharpness of his reaction.

  ‘Mmmm. Come back to bed,’ she murmured, already falling back to sleep.

  Cal sat with his head in his hands and inhaled deeply. This had come without warning. How could he not have known? He realised guiltily he couldn’t even remember when they had last spoken. Mary would have known. She’d have remembered.

  A decision had to be made. The temptation was there to slip back under the duvet and fold himself around Lisa’s warm curves. She would welcome him warmly in the morning and then he could get a plane. But he wouldn’t sleep now, he knew he wouldn’t. His mind was so alert, he could actually feel the blood coursing through his system and his nerves prickling. If he drove through the night, he might catch the early ferry. Besides, it would be good to have the car with him on the island.

  He would be cutting it fine, but the roads would be clear this early and he should make it. He padded through to the bathroom and stepped under the power shower. The blast of cold water instantly invigorated him. Goose bumps pimpled across his body.

  He dried himself with a towel grabbed from the floor. The bathroom was a mess. Party clothes lay strewn where they had been thrown, tired soap suds floated flatly in the sunken bath and there were steam stains on the wall mirrors. The two empty champagne glasses made him think, but it hadn’t been that much. He would risk it.

  Within five minutes he was dressed in clothes grabbed from the walk-in wardrobe. A Ted Baker shirt, Armani jeans and Hogan shoes. He put a change of clothes and a pair of Rockport boots into a holdall, crushing his Berghaus jacket in beside them. Cal’s toiletries bag was always packed and ready in the bathroom. He gave himself a cursory glance in the mirror and was unhappy with his hair, but time was against him and he assured himself that where he was going, no one would care.

  The girl in his bed slept throughout all this activity. Was it wrong to leave her without so much as a goodbye? Would she even care? Did he?

  Cal turned his back on her and left the flat. The lift slid smoothly open almost immediately. Probably no one had used it since he and Lisa had returned whenever it was before. A button from his shirt lay on the floor. The passion had kicked in quickly. He picked it up and put it in his pocket.

  The man looking back from the lift mirror made an effort to look younger than his mid thirties. He was of average height and build, his body trim from the gym and his dark hair still thick enough to be styled. His flat, even tan suggested sun beds rather than sunshine. His clothes were never more than six months old.

  The lift dropped quickly through the five floors to the garage. Cal’s Audi sports car was his joy. He had paid way too much for it, but he needed the image. The big deal would come soon and he would be free from the barely sustainable debt that funded his lifestyle. He was never less than sure of that. There was nothing like getting out on the road with the roof down, bass beat thumping, leaving others in his slipstream. And when did you ever see guys in these cars alone?

  It was too cold to have the roof down yet. As soon as the electronic security door rolled open to expose the street, he was away. A taxi blasted its horn at him as he screeched out in front of it. He roared on scornfully. Taxi drivers had no room to complain about anyone else’s driving.

  The traffic lights frustrated him as he raced from one red to the next, but soon he was on the main highway, relishing the surge of the turbo power. It took twenty minutes to leave the sodium lights of the city behind.

  As he drove along the side of Loch Lomond, the moonlight playing on its waters, his thoughts returned to Aunt Mary, always the same, so warm, seemingly ageless. But death had summoned her now. Too early, and he knew that she would accept the call.

  Mary MacCarl was part of a different life, a separate world almost. She came from a time when his parents were alive and the family ties remained strong. She still knew him as Calum.

  He had left all that behind, but, gentle though she was, his aunt had a resilient streak. The monthly calls always came, even if he didn’t always respond to the stilted messages she sometimes left on his answer machine. Always a card for his birthday and a gift at Christmas. Guilt caught h
im occasionally when he realised he’d neglected to return one of her calls. It was just that he had so much going on and the old connections slowed things down. If she resented it, she never gave any sign.

  Cal was all she had. He was the son of her older brother and she was his only blood. ‘We’re all that’s left,’ she had said, lightly enough, ‘and when I’m gone, you’ll be the last of the line.’

  Was it her subtle way of pressuring him into settling down? Cal was sensitive to the slightest suggestion of disapproval. He’d tried to make a success of his life and no one had the right to pass judgement on the way he lived it, yet he was always touchy that they might. He had his father to curse for that.

  ‘If you’re trying to marry me off, forget it,’ he cautioned her once, disguising it as a tease. ‘It wasn’t good enough for you. Why should it be for me?’

  He couldn’t remember what she had said, but he did recall a flicker of hurt. He had never broached the subject again.

  The southern section of the road was wide and sweeping and Cal relished the freedom of it, pushing the speedometer beyond a hundred miles an hour. He zipped past the few vehicles that appeared in front of him, roaring beyond them almost before they knew he was there. He was very familiar with this stretch. Barely any distance from the city, some of the best golfing, water sports and luxury living were to be found on the banks of the famous loch and Cal indulged himself regularly. It wasn’t all pleasure though, it was also a good way of playing at friends with people who could be useful.

  He slowed down towards the northern tip of the loch where the road narrowed, twisting round ragged rock faces, picking up speed again to surge through the great gorge of Glencoe. The craggy majesty of the mountains was lost in the darkness. Across the Ballachulish Bridge, past the beautiful setting of Onich and he was soon in the 1960s-style concrete centre of Fort William. Ben Nevis, the country’s highest mountain, loomed out of the first morning light. Then, once more away, into the freedom of the country. This was driving!

  North-east along the banks of the amusingly named Loch Lochy, north-west again towards Wester Ross, past the stunning Queen’s View on the way to Kyle of Lochalsh and the bridge span over the sea to Skye.

  The glens and mountains were never more glorious than in the birth of a new morning, though Cal saw nothing but the hypnotic road markings stretching ahead, judging the corners he could cut and the straights when the accelerator could hit the floor.

  The romantic Isle of Skye was carved through in less than an hour, the grandeur of the Cuillins quickly left as shadows in his rear view mirror. He crested the final hill above Uig with ten minutes to spare. The Caledonian MacBrayne ferry, with its familiar black, white and red livery, was waiting at the pier below.

  He pulled in behind the other cars lined up for boarding, got out for the first time since he’d left Glasgow and felt the stiffness in his legs as he walked over to the ticket office.

  ‘And when will you be returning, sir?’ asked the man behind the desk.

  The straightforward question threw Cal. He had set out without seriously considering when he might return, just a vague idea that it would be quickly. But he didn’t know what awaited him on the other side of the sea-crossing.

  What would be expected of him? It was hard to think of Mary lying ill and impossible to imagine what he might be able to do for her. She couldn’t be left on her own, not if her condition was as grave as he’d been told by the woman on the phone. And who had she been? A nurse, maybe. So would she leave when he arrived? And there would be a funeral. As Mary’s closest kin, would he be expected to organise it? Questions flooded through his head.

  ‘I’ll just leave the return open, shall I?’ suggested the clerk helpfully.

  Leaving the office, Cal began to question why he was here. Was it reluctant duty? If so, then he could deny her and no one would know, no one who mattered anyway. Who could blame him? He could do nothing for her and his time would be best used dealing with the business pressures at home.

  There was another motivation that made him uncomfortable, but which he couldn’t deny. Aunt Mary was a woman with a low maintenance life. Cal was all she had and Cal needed money. He wanted to be sure that what was hers came to him.

  Back at the car, he took in his surroundings for the first time. The stark simplicity of sea and land, mountain and moor. The wind-burnt, craggy face of a fisherman on the pier. A housewife walking on the road with a bag of messages. Aunt Mary was one of these people, undemanding, unobtrusive and honest. All his life she’d asked nothing of him. Only now, as she lay dying, she’d made a simple request. He convinced himself that it was more than greed and duty that had sent him on this journey. His conscience would not forgive him if he failed her. After this all the ties would be gone.

  2

  WAITING FOR THE ferry, Cal calculated on his palmtop computer what he might expect to inherit. Mary had never been one for spending money on herself, so there might be a couple of grand in her savings and she was canny enough to have taken out insurance to pay for the funeral.

  The house would be his. It might sell for about a third of what he would get for a city house of similar size. If he did it up he might get more, but he needed the money now. There would be no shortage of buyers seeking the island idyll. He could sell it off quickly.

  Cal’s entrepreneurial ambitions too often outstripped his means and much of his energy was taken up borrowing to pay debts. His income base was property, buying rundown flats, holding them for a couple of months and then returning them to the market. He was prepared to tart up the decor but he avoided anything structural. Usually he made a couple of thousand on each transaction.

  But Cal aspired to more. The high life attracted him, and he had a point to prove, even if only to himself. His car, his apartment, his clothes, all represented the success he wanted to be, but his income could not sustain his outlays. He lacked the inside knowledge that would give him that crucial advantage as a speculator. On the two occasions he had secured more upmarket properties, there had been a temporary slump in the market and his resources had been drained dry by the time he had sold them. One had even been sold at a loss.

  That was part of his dilemma over coming to see his aunt. Finally his networking had paid dividends. Lisa, who worked for an established estate agent, had given him a tip that the owner of a large Georgian townhouse had just died and her family were seeking a quick sale because they lived abroad. It would need work, but there was a fat profit to be made. Cal had been expecting to make his move over the next couple of days and he and Lisa had been celebrating their imminent pay off all last night. And now this. He didn’t want to lose out by not being on the spot. On the bright side, there was the prospect of his inheritance.

  The metal snake of cars started to move. He drove into the belly of the roll-on roll-off ferry and had to follow the casual directions of a shiphand waving him closer to other vehicles than he thought was really safe. There would be a chip in the black pearl paintwork, of that he was sure.

  A short time later the ferry eased away from the pier in a low growl of engines and splashing of ropes. Cal was seated in the cafeteria, the large, salt-stained windows giving a view of the land sliding away. Soon the swell of the sea gently lifted and rolled the boat.

  Cal walked out on deck. The fresh breeze tugged at his hair and seagulls provided a noisy accompaniment from the stern, their eyes ever alert to any edible scrap. A young girl, overseen by her father, was throwing crusts of bread overboard, laughing gleefully as two or three birds squabbled over them. One younger gull was sharp enough to catch a morsel before it hit the water. The girl pointed excitedly to her dad, who laughed indulgently.

  When he was a similar age, the voyage had been an adventure for Cal. The sight of the waves frothing against isolated beaches and rocks was magical and by the journey’s end it was if he’d been borne away to a different life. When had it all changed? And why? It was uncomfortable to think of it now. Rebellion mostly,
he supposed. A reaction to everything his father had wanted him to be.

  They oscillated at different frequencies, Cal and his father, causing constant collision and friction. At its core was Cal’s rejection of his roots. His heritage was of no interest to him and his father’s strong, slow accent was a source of constant embarrassment to the city boy. The annual holiday home to the islands lacked the variety of the holiday camps, coastal resorts and foreign trips his contemporaries enjoyed.

  Cal had also rebelled against the strictures of the church. His parents were devoted Sabbatarians, which caused him much humiliation. ‘How can ye no’ play fitba’ on a Sunday?’ That burned deep into a boy who just wanted to fit in. ‘Take pride in who you are and where you’re from,’ his father had admonished him. ‘I do. I’m from the city.’ It was a running feud.

  His father had given up the crofting, fishing life to which he was born to come to the mainland and join the police, persuaded by his wife that the city would give any children they might have a better start. That’s why Cal’s sloth and arrogance galled him so, particularly as the boy grew older and bolder and there were no siblings to make a comparison. ‘You’re no son of mine,’ his father had cursed more than once. His mother had kept her own counsel, trying to maintain harmony. Sometimes she would try to strengthen the bond when they were alone. ‘Your father is trying to do what he thinks best for you,’ she would say.

  Cal remembered these conversations with regret. His mother had died an early death, when he was only eighteen. It was a miserable time. Her body had withered before them. She had been so stoical, confined to a chair and then, finally, to her bed. Whatever she knew, she never acknowledged to him that she would not survive. And when the end came, suddenly, he missed the chance to tell her how much he loved her.

  His father became a brooding, impotent presence. They had rattled about the tenement flat, trying to keep out of each other’s way. Mary had come down to stay with them for a while, bringing a warmth and life that helped Cal through his grief.