Last of the Line

by John MacKay

  He carried the case across to the window to get the light and sat beneath it, his back against the wall. Outside, the wind worried the window. The first box contained cards of all sizes and for all occasions. There was a batch of twenty-first birthday cards tied together, every one with a gold embossed ‘key to the door’ on the front. The rhymes gloried in themes of the future, of freedom, of independence. As he browsed through them, Cal pondered on whether the final reflections of the fading woman had matched the hopes of the flowering one. Did they ever? It was so easy to forget that Mary had been young, with unbounded dreams and powerful passions.

  The second box was more intriguing. It contained letters and cuttings. While the cards marked the events that others chose to celebrate or commiserate, this second box was what Mary herself had considered important. And immediately catching Cal’s eye was the pale blue of airmail envelopes. Even before he looked at them, Cal knew their destination had been Canada.

  9

  THERE WAS NO secret any more. The letters told the story. Mary had indeed gone to Canada. The correspondence from her mother followed her adventure, from the first anxious days of her arrival in a foreign land, to starting a new job and finding an apartment.

  ‘Dearest Daughter’ was always the opening phrase. ‘We miss you so and the house is so quiet with you gone.’

  Another early letter asked, ‘Are you eating well? Your father worries always that you are cold.’

  A friend, Jean, emerged as the driving force for the two girls leaving their homeland. She had relatives in Toronto who had put them up for the first few weeks. The girls had worked in bank jobs that it seemed they had secured before crossing the Atlantic.

  The anxiety of the early letters gradually gave way to a more relaxed acceptance of Mary’s decision, but the pain of parting was never far away, although Mary’s own enthusiasm shone through the caution of her mother’s words. ‘I wonder about you living in a place away from Jean’s family. You are young and your father worries about you and Jean being on your own but if you think that would be best.’

  Canada emerged as a nation of aspiration, but in many respects not so far removed from her home country. It seemed that Mary made island connections in all areas of her new life: in work, at dances and the church. The fact that she was attending church brought particular comfort to her folks at home. Inevitably, she met someone her mother knew from the district: ‘I remember her so well and the times we shared together as children. She will have enjoyed your stories from home.’

  A boyfriend was mentioned. She had met him through the church and he had Scottish roots. Her mother wrote, ‘I am glad it is one of our own that is making you happy.’

  There were twenty letters in all, the postmarks showing that they had been sent faithfully every month. All were necessarily brief, because they could only fill one side of the paper. As well as questioning Mary about her new life, they supplied news of the village – the work of the seasons, who had been at the dances in the drill hall, people returning for the summer holidays. They told of a community losing its young. ‘That is Kenny John away to the police in Glasgow.’ Others joined the merchant navy, went to the city, moved to England, others yet, like Mary, embarked on new lives in far-flung lands. No one came back to stay. The ways of their forebears held scant appeal in the modern world. The community’s lifeblood was seeping away, drawn by new opportunities, and the land that earlier generations had had fought so hard to secure fell fallow and overgrown. The old folk could only watch.

  From the last letter, it was apparent that Mary meant to remain in Canada permanently. ‘It pains me that we may never see you again. Your father has gone silent this past while just like he was when you first said you were going. I know the life of the croft is not for you but when you left I always hoped you would return to us but why should you? Many before have gone and never seen the home hearth again.’ The letter ended with the usual entreaty to look after herself. There was no mention of Mary’s imminent return, no indication of the pleasure of anticipation. In satisfying his curiosity about one enigma, Cal had stumbled across another.

  All the letters to Canada were in this one bundle, with the sole exception of the one he had first come across, the one marked ‘Return to Sender’.

  He heard movement downstairs.

  ‘Calum?’ Mairi’s voice called.

  Cal dropped the letters to the floor and jumped to his feet with an instinctive enthusiasm that left his brain behind. He descended the stairs two at a time and had to slow himself down so that he didn’t burst into the living room.

  ‘Hi! I was upstairs.’

  ‘I heard,’ smiled Mairi.

  ‘So you’re talking to me again?’

  ‘I never wasn’t. Anyway, forget that. I saw the minister was here.’

  ‘You weren’t kidding when you said everyone knows everything here.’

  ‘I saw his car from the kitchen. Anyway, I brought you some sandwiches. You haven’t made yourself anything have you?’

  ‘You know me too well already.’

  ‘It was an easy guess.’

  ‘Well, I’ve found something you’ll never guess.’

  ‘What this time?’

  ‘Canada. Mary in Canada, remember? She was there.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘More letters. She worked there for a couple of years.’

  ‘What letters?’

  ‘From her mother, my grandmother, to her. But here’s the thing. She came home suddenly and there’s no mention of that anywhere in them.’

  Mairi’s expression was confused.

  ‘The letters are all about Mary’s life there and then all of a sudden they stop and she’s back here.’

  ‘Oh Calum,’ she sighed, ‘you’re looking for mysteries again where there are none.’

  ‘Read them yourself. You’ll ask the same question.’

  ‘I’m not sure I want to read someone’s private letters.’

  ‘They’re not private. At least, there’s nothing very private in them.’

  ‘Still, they weren’t written by me or sent to me, so I’d feel uncomfortable looking at them.’

  ‘Oh, come on! Historians do it all the time, they even publish books with nothing but letters in them. There’s nothing wrong in it.’

  ‘They’re dealing with matters of historical importance. You’re talking about Mary’s private life.’

  ‘It’s just letters sent to her by her mother, my gran as it happens.’

  Mairi stood tight-lipped and shook her head ever so slightly.

  Cal’s enthusiasm faltered. ‘Well anyway, the point is, they make no mention of her coming home.’

  ‘So what?’

  ‘So what?’ repeated Cal incredulously, unable to a understand why Mairi couldn’t see the significance.

  ‘Maybe it was a sudden decision,’ Mairi said over her shoulder as she went back through to the kitchen. Cal followed her.

  ‘It didn’t seem like it. The last letter goes on about Mary not coming home and how her folks are going to miss her.’

  ‘Maybe she changed her mind when it came down to it. Maybe she couldn’t cope with the prospect of never seeing home again.’

  ‘There would have been something about that in the letters, surely?’

  Mairi filled an old-fashioned steel kettle, put a whistle on the spout and placed it on the stove. ‘And what makes you so sure you read all the letters?’ she challenged him, unwrapping the sandwiches and putting them on a plate.

  ‘They were all together, and I checked the box – there weren’t any others.’

  ‘You found one in the box down in the dresser didn’t you? That’s what set you off on this wild goose chase to begin with, wasn’t it? Who’s to say there isn’t another one lying somewhere? One that explains why she wanted to come home. Who’s to say all the letters were kept? Who’s to say it wasn’t all perfectly normal? The only one who isn’t saying that is you.’

  Cal bit into a sa
ndwich. ‘What you’re saying makes perfect sense, I know that,’ he said through a mouthful of chicken and salad. ‘And I suppose it must look like I see conspiracy theories everywhere. But I can’t ignore the fact that she never told me. She worked in Canada for two years and nobody knew, or nobody who did know mentioned it, not even in the passing. That’s more than just trying to forget something, that’s deliberately burying something, don’t you think?’

  ‘No, I don’t think and what’s more I don’t care,’ said Mairi sharply. ‘And nor should you. If Mary wanted it to be forgotten, that’s what we should do. She’d have had her reasons. But to be honest, I don’t think there is any big secret.’

  The kettle whistled. As Mairi made a pot of tea, Cal considered what she had said. Something had been hidden, of that he was convinced. Mairi was right, the secret was likely to be nothing more significant than a minor embarrassment, most probably Mary’s disappointment with herself for abandoning her new life. Many would have questioned a young girl emigrating on her own and she might have felt keenly what she considered to be her failure. Maybe that had made her over-sensitive to any mention of her stay in Canada.

  The issue was whether to leave it alone. If there was something she had wanted to keep hidden, then should it be buried with Mary? Mairi had made it clear that that was what she thought. But the Mary he had known was not someone who was especially vulnerable and she had been such an important figure to him, that was why getting to the root of this uncertainty mattered. A facet of somebody he knew, his closest kin, was unknown to him. Was it wrong to find out in a quest for a better understanding of a woman who had been so good to him? That, at least, was a justification he could openly articulate. Within, though, he was forced to concede that much of his curiosity was simple nosiness, nothing more.

  Mairi placed a cup of tea on the table beside him.

  ‘Does this mean you’re not talking to me again?’

  ‘That’s just another of your silly notions,’ she said, sitting opposite him. ‘So the minister told you what was expected?’

  ‘Yeah, I had to do much the same at my father’s funeral and at my mother’s before that.’

  Mairi’s hair fell to the nape of her neck in a gentle wave. It was the first time it hadn’t been tied back when Cal was with her. Her fringe fell forward across her forehead, framing her face and replacing the vital, fresh look that had first struck him with a more sophisticated aspect. There was a sadness there too. Faint, black shadows beneath the eyes, which suggested fitful sleeping. He wondered about her alone in her bed.

  ‘So now that we’re bickering like we were married, I suppose I should know a bit more about you.’

  When she smiled, the sadness was hidden again.

  ‘There’s nothing to know.’

  ‘C’mon, there must be. Anyway, I’ve got a sandwich to finish, so I can’t talk.’

  ‘I’m a mother of two teenagers. That’s it.’

  ‘No, that’s not it,’ Cal disputed in mid bite. ‘That’s not all you are. You’re not going to be a mother of two teenagers all your life. Seems like Mary told you all there was to know about me, so it’s only fair we balance it up.’

  ‘I was brought up on the island, married the first guy to ask me out and was the mother of two children before I knew anything. That’s all there is.’

  ‘That’s a pretty bleak assessment.’

  ‘No, it’s better now. The children are more independent, though Colin worries me. I shouldn’t be surprised…’ She stopped and sipped her tea.

  ‘How d’you mean?’

  ‘His father was the same.’ Mairi settled into reflective mode. ‘I get angry at the young girl I was. I never listened, always knew better. Colin, my husband was called Colin too – he was the same. Makes me sad when I think on it now.’

  ‘Every kid’s the same.’

  ‘I was bright, good at school and all that, and I was all set for college. But then Colin and I got together. He wasn’t interested in studying but he was good at sport. And he was the first to have a car. All the girls had a crush on him, but for some reason he liked me. Well that was it, my education fell by the wayside and that’s why I am where I am.’

  ‘Was Colin from here? I don’t remember him.’

  ‘No. The house came up at the right time and we got it cheap because it needed a lot doing to it. Colin didn’t want to stay near his mum and dad and mine weren’t happy about the marriage either. We had young Colin by that time. I liked the idea of the city, but it would have been difficult with the wee one and no money. And Colin didn’t want to go. He was happy here.’

  ‘Does that mean you weren’t?’

  ‘That’s what I mean about leaving things alone,’ sighed Mairi, dropping her head. ‘It just brings things up that are best forgotten.’

  She hid her face behind the rim of the cup as she sipped her tea, but there was no hiding the tears in her eyes.

  ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you. It was just, like I said, you know a lot about me from Mary and I thought I should know more about you.’

  ‘Well now you do, and does it make any difference? I get upset and you’ll have forgotten it by the time you leave here.’

  ‘Look, I’m sorry. I seem to have caused you nothing but upset since I came here.’

  Mairi snorted a laugh and stood up to take their cups to the sink.

  ‘Don’t be silly. You’ve done nothing. Well, apart from nearly killing my son.’ She shot Cal a glance. It was his turn to hang his head. ‘I’m upset about Mary that’s all,’ she continued. ‘She was like a mother to me with the children and everything. She must have had her reasons for leaving Canada and keeping it to herself. If she wanted to take that with her, then we should let her. She’s left you the truth as she wanted you to know it. Why not just leave it at that?’

  Cal’s attention was distracted by a droplet of water swelling on the lip of the tap on the sink. The molecules gathered until it trembled under its own weight. It acted as a focal point for the daylight coming in through the window, until the diffracted light momentarily became a diamond of brilliant, searing white. Then the bonds broke and the drop fell away into nothing.

  10

  ‘ENOUGH OF THE past,’ said Mairi, returning to the table. ‘What are your plans for the future?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’d never thought about it before, y’know the prospect of this house being mine. I thought Mary would be around for years yet. You just do, don’t you? So it never occurred to me. In some ways I wish it wasn’t mine now. It’s a responsibility. My family’s been here all these years and I’ve got to decide what to do with it.’

  ‘There you go, thinking about the past again.’

  Cal laughed. ‘But you know what I mean?’

  ‘No, I don’t. None of these people are here anymore to pass judgement. You’re not going to give up your life to come here, are you?’

  ‘It’s true, I can’t see that happening. I’m not cut out for this life.’

  ‘It’s not much different from anywhere else now. We’ve even got the electricity,’ said Mairi wryly.

  ‘I know that, but I’m a city person.’

  Their attention was drawn by the thud of footsteps approaching the door. A large figure loomed through the glass.

  ‘Oh, it’s Finlay,’ said Mairi, her discomfort was unmistakeable. ‘What does he want?’

  The door was pushed open without a knock, and a ruddy, outdoor face appeared around it, a lock of burnt blonde hair falling over the brow.

  ‘Hello,’ boomed a powerful voice. Seeing Cal and Mairi inside, he removed his head and instructed ‘Sios!’

  Opening the door wide, he stepped boldly into the kitchen and Cal could see the instruction had been issued to two sheepdogs, distinctive black and white border collies. Both dogs instantly went down on their haunches.

  The man pushed the door shut behind him, evidently intent on staying. He was big, above six feet, with a barrel chest that was accentuate
d by the denim dungarees he wore. The trouser legs were tucked into old black wellingtons, with grey tweed socks visible over the top. Beneath the bib of the dungarees he wore a frayed, brown Arran sweater and the worn collar of a burgundy shirt could just be seen. His jacket was green Harris Tweed overlain with a wide brown check.

  ‘Mairi,’ he proclaimed, his tone demanding attention. ‘I didn’t expect to see you still here.’

  The accent was very strong, more suited to his native Gaelic.

  Mairi stood up and went to the sink and he sat uninvited where she had been, his legs splayed wide and his arm resting on the table. He was no stranger to this house.

  ‘Aren’t those children of yours getting hungry?’

  Cal resented his presence.

  ‘What about that?’ the man laughed, nodding to Cal, as if including him in the joke. ‘Sometimes you’d think this is where she stays, isn’t that right?’

  Mairi’s mouth stretched to a closed smile.

  ‘You’ll be wanting some tea, Finlay?’

  ‘Whatever’s in the pot.’ He fixed his rheumy blue eyes on Cal.

  ‘So sad about Mary. It was, it was.’

  Cal nodded and considered re-establishing control of the situation by asking the man who exactly he was.

  ‘So sudden, aye,’ Finlay continued. ‘The funeral’s the day after tomorrow.’

  ‘That’s right.’ It was Cal’s first utterance in his presence.

  ‘Then to the hotel.’ Finlay wasn’t seeking confirmation. Cal understood he was being told. ‘I know,’ he said.

  ‘You’ll be off after that, no doubt?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Well that’s why I’m here,’ he said, turning towards Cal and clasping his hands on the table. ‘Mairi, I’d like to talk to this man alone.’

  Cal’s ire was rising.

  ‘It’s okay, I’m quite happy for her to be here.’

  ‘Oh, it’s like that, is it?’ joked Finlay falsely. ‘I’d prefer to speak to you alone.’

  ‘I was just going anyway,’ said Mairi, flustered.