Last of the Line

by John MacKay

  Mairi’s expression confirmed the answer.

  ‘You’re joking!’

  ‘Don’t.’

  ‘You’re not seriously thinking…’

  ‘No I’m not, and that’s the problem. It’s just awkward. But he’s not a bad man and I don’t like the way you’re talking about him.’

  ‘Well I didn’t like the way he talked to me. Maybe he plays the sympathy card with you, but not with me. He thought he was the big shot. He’s not the innocent he makes out to be.’

  ‘Will you sell to him?’

  ‘I don’t know, I honestly don’t. I can’t say I’m well disposed to him, but I suppose it’d be quick. Would you want me to?’

  ‘Now’s not the time to be thinking of it.’

  Mairi took the mugs over to the sink. As she did so she glanced at his shoes, which were muddied and wet from his walk.

  ‘Look at your shoes!’ she said with mild rebuke. ‘Where have you been?’

  ‘On the moor.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have thought that was you at all,’ laughed Mairi, the sound mingling with the tinkle of water from the running tap. ‘What took you out there?’

  ‘I found something.’

  ‘On the moor?’

  ‘No, in the house. I needed to think.’

  Mairi turned to look at him. Cal spoke quickly to stop her interrupting him.

  ‘I found baby stuff. I’ll show you. A clump of child’s hair, a new baby’s identity tag. As well as the letters. I know you don’t believe it, but I’m sure something about Mary’s life was hidden and I think I know what it was.’

  ‘Oh Cal, you and your great mystery. You’re just looking for things to back it up.’

  ‘I’m not, that’s the thing. The stuff is there. I’m not looking for anything. I listened to what you said and it made sense. And then I come across these things and it makes me wonder again.’

  ‘So what did you come across exactly?’

  ‘Like I told you. A child’s hair tied in a bow.’

  ‘Yours, probably.’

  ‘A baby identity tag with ‘Baby MacCarl’ on it.’

  Mairi didn’t answer quite so sharply. ‘Probably yours as well.’

  ‘And the letters. When you read them, there’s no suggestion she’s coming home. She’s getting a new place to stay, she’s meeting people, she’s even got a boyfriend and then suddenly she’s back here. Her mother obviously had no idea she was coming home. Her last letter was returned because Mary wasn’t in Canada any more. And the date of that letter was significant.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It wasn’t long before I was born,’ he answered quietly.

  Mairi came back over to the table and sat down again, looking at him intently.

  ‘Are you saying that you think Mary was your mother?’ she asked slowly.

  Cal looked down at his hands and then met her stare again. ‘It’s possible. Yes.’

  Mairi shook her head. ‘Oh Cal,’ she said sympathetically. ‘You’re upset and you’re compensating with things that aren’t true.’

  ‘Where’s the compensation in thinking that my mother wasn’t my mother? That’s tougher to take, believe me. I don’t want it to be true, I really don’t, but I’m beginning to wonder. Seriously wonder.’

  ‘Look at it rationally. Why wouldn’t an aunt have some keepsakes of her nephew, especially if he was her only one?’

  ‘Yes, if that’s all there was. But there’s the other things around it, the letters especially.’

  ‘What about the letters? What do they actually prove?’

  ‘Maybe there’s nothing explicit, but something doesn’t ring true. Everything my gran wrote pointed to Mary staying in Canada. She’d no idea that she was coming home.’

  ‘So things change. Maybe she just wanted to come home to see her new nephew.’

  ‘I’ve thought that one through. Definitely not.’

  ‘How can you say? You don’t know.’

  ‘What’s one of the obvious things my gran would have written about?’

  Mairi shrugged.

  ‘If my mum had been pregnant, don’t you think my gran would have said? She’d have been full of it. All the details would have been there, every twinge, any sickness, what the doctor was saying. But there’s none of that.’

  ‘Maybe with your mother in the city she wasn’t hearing all that.’ But Mairi seemed less dismissive.

  ‘You can see why I’ve got questions. Maybe I’m wrong, but it all ties together. Mary being in Canada was never mentioned, and why not? In case something slipped out?’

  ‘Your parents would have told you.’

  ‘I’m not so sure. It’s not as if I was the child of an untraceable mother who could be forgotten about.’

  ‘Why would they have taken you if they didn’t want anyone to know, why wouldn’t you have been put up for adoption?’

  ‘I haven’t worked it all out yet. My folks were older when I was born. Maybe they couldn’t have any children themselves and when they found out Mary was going to have a baby, they thought that it was the best thing to do. I know there are gaps, but it’s not as daft as it sounds.’

  ‘I still can’t believe it. Anyway,’ Mairi said, as if realisation had dawned, ‘Your birth certificate will say.’

  Cal shook his head. ‘It doesn’t. It’s one of those abbreviated ones. My dad said something about being short of cash at the time, but I wasn’t really interested to be honest.’

  ‘Get a full certificate then. That’ll tell you you’re wrong. Look Cal, I spent many’s an hour with Mary and she never so much as hinted you were her son.’

  ‘She never told you about being in Canada either, did she?’ challenged Cal.

  Mairi glanced away just long enough to betray herself.

  ‘She did!’ exclaimed Cal. ‘She told you.’

  ‘She mentioned it and she got very upset. I didn’t say anything to you because of that. I was hoping you’d forget about it.’

  Cal sat shaking his head. ‘What did she say?’

  ‘Just that. She’d lived in Canada. She mentioned it after Colin died. I was miserable and said I felt trapped here and she said that going somewhere else was no guarantee of happiness. She said it had been a sad time.’

  ‘Did she say why?’

  ‘No. She got very agitated.’

  ‘All that stuff you said about secrets. It seems it’s okay for other people to know them, but not me. And I’m the one who should know.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because it concerns me, that’s why,’ Cal said forcefully.

  Mairi’s feistiness returned. ‘If she’d have wanted you to know she’d have told you.’

  ‘So why didn’t she?’

  ‘What are you asking me for? Did you ever give her the chance?’

  ‘What else do you know? What else did she tell you?’

  ‘It was something to do with her boyfriend. They were supposed to get married, but he called it off. That’s why she came home.’

  Cal drummed his fingers on the table and then stood up.

  ‘I’m going to go.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Mairi said sincerely.

  ‘I’m blundering about trying to make sense of things that everyone else knows. You and that other woman, what was her name? Kate-Anna. It would be good if someone was straight with me. I’ve got a right to know what everyone else does.’ He turned again as he reached the door. ‘Answer me this. Did Mary ever tell you that she was my mother?’

  Mairi sighed and answered quietly.

  ‘No.’

  13

  CAL WALKED UP the brae towards the old house. Sinister rain clouds now filtered the light down to cast a gloom over a melancholy landscape. Beyond, the playful white horses were lost to the brooding swell of the sea. The rain was in the air now, occasional beads patting coolly onto his face.

  He felt keenly he was the outsider again, kept at a distance. He thought a bond had developed with Mairi, but he’d been wrong
. It hurt that she had not confided in him and even more so that Mary, his own blood as she’d said so often, had disclosed nothing to him. The secrecy was acutely wounding.

  His walk on the moor had helped clarify his thoughts, but Mairi’s confession had wrought further confusion. The rain came, heavy and relentless. Cal dashed for his car, batons of water beating him until he slammed the door closed. He leaned his head against his arms on the steering wheel. Everything outside was distorted in the blur of the downpour on the windscreen.

  The ring of his phone made him start. He fumbled in his pocket, anxious to answer it before it went onto voice mail.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘It’s me.’ Lisa’s voice was a whisper.

  He threw his head back against the back rest of the seat and silently mouthed a curse. This was the last thing he needed, although the life he’d left with Lisa only two days before was at least simpler. He had known then where he was and where he was going.

  ‘Hello? Can you speak?’

  ‘Yes. Why are you whispering?’

  ‘It’s still on.’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘The house. For some reason they didn’t go with the agency. Maybe we could still get it.’

  ‘How? Where are you?’

  ‘In the office, that’s why I’m speaking so quietly. They’ve just left. I’ve got their number. If you get here quick…’

  ‘I can’t. Not until after tomorrow.’

  ‘Cal,’ she hissed, ‘you’ve been up there how long already? You need to get the finger out.’

  The opportunity was slipping away. Cal knew it, and he was prepared to let it. His priorities had changed since that early morning phone call only two days ago. The man who’d fallen into bed that night with the girl now on the phone was only ever interested in easy conquests and grabbing the main chance. That man would never be vexed by questions of identity and belonging.

  Cal recognised he was different now. He doubted everything he had ever understood to be true about himself. And it troubled him.

  ‘The funeral is tomorrow. There is no way.’

  ‘You bastard!’

  ‘You might be right.’

  ‘What?’ She wasn’t whispering now.

  ‘Nothing. Listen up, have you got a key for my flat?’

  ‘Why? D’you want it back?’ Lisa’s voice suddenly sounded uncertain.

  ‘Can you do me a favour?’

  There was a pause and her confidence returned.

  ‘Another one?’

  ‘This is important.’

  ‘That’s what you said the last time.’

  ‘This is personal.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Can you go back to the flat and phone me when you get there? I need you to find something.’

  ‘Did I miss the bit when I agreed?’

  ‘I’m asking you, not telling you.’

  ‘Okay. Is it urgent, I mean do you want me to go straight from here?’

  ‘If you can.’

  ‘Are you okay? You sound strange.’

  ‘Yeah. I’m fine. Phone me when you get there.’

  All he could do now was wait. Cal fired the engine and began to drive, for the sake of something to do. He felt guilty about Lisa. Perhaps there was more to her than he had given her credit for. All his relationships with women had been based on what he could get out of them, usually the cachet of an attractive woman by his side. And he assumed that it worked both ways: they enjoyed being in the company of a man who exuded prosperity and drove a prestige car. They would move on when they chanced upon someone more attractive, more wealthy, more powerful. It was a simple game with a straightforward strategy.

  But Lisa was gaining nothing by doing what he was asking of her now. And she probably knew that the prospect of financial reward from her involvement with him was slim, yet she was still willing.

  Mairi was an entirely different creature. He had been drawn to her from the moment they met. They had given emotional support to each other. Yet despite that, she had lied about things that she knew mattered to him. It was patronising and it offended him. It hurt, because he cared what she thought.

  As he reached the bend where he’d skidded, Cal had to slow right down. Coming round the corner, a dozen sheep filled the road, marshalled by two eager collie dogs. Finlay came into view behind them, whistling instructions, impervious to the rain. Cal had to sit as the sheep filed by, aware of every bump against the car. Finlay stared right at him and raised his walking stick in a gesture of acknowledgement and Cal could hear the stomp of his wellington boots as he passed by.

  Moving off again, Cal was soon at the junction where the single track joined the main road. A grocery van was moving south towards the village and he would need to wait for it to pass, so instead he turned north and built up speed on the open road. Ahead, he saw another collie dog lying at a gate by the roadside. As he approached, its ears pricked up and he could see its head fix the car with nervous intensity. He drew nearer and instantly it was crouching on all fours, creeping forward like a hunting cat. When the car came abreast, it pounced, barking angrily at the wheels and disappearing from sight below Cal’s door. It was a disconcerting moment, over almost as soon as it began. He could see the dog in his rear view mirror, turning to trot back to its post, content at seeing off another intruder.

  The houses petered out and the road curved away into featureless moorland. As he clattered over a cattle grid, Cal saw another single track road leading off through a valley towards the coast. He remembered that this led to the beach he had sat above on the cliffs earlier in the day. It was also the road the funeral hearse would have to take tomorrow.

  It ran like a causeway across the moor. Below to his left a small burn tumbled down towards the sea. The ground had been pared away by numerous peat banks, most of them now overgrown and abandoned. It was a constant theme across the island, evidence of the abandonment, but not the burial of the old ways.

  He passed a primitive quarry cut into a hill. No rock had been cut here in living memory, instead it was a dumping ground. The corroded chassis of a van sat alongside the rusted remains of a tractor. A burnt-out car lay further off to one side.

  The burr of his tyres on another cattle grid pulled his eyes forward again and he saw a handful of houses strung along the road as it fell out of the moor towards the sea.

  Even in the rain, the view was spectacular. The land parted into the cliffs and the Atlantic rolled in between them, powerful waves pounding the shelving shore.

  It was a wonder to behold.

  The road dropped until it opened up into an unmarked, tarmac car park. Only a track meandered on through a gate and round behind a hillock. A small fence bordered one edge of the car park. On the other side of it was the cemetery.

  The burn he had seen further inland was now a small river that spilled off the moor, cutting a gully through the sand of the beach and directly into the sea. The graveyard sloped gently downhill, with the more recent headstones gathered at the lower end.

  The heavy rain had passed. Cal switched off the engine and got out. The wind off the sea pulled at him inquisitively, pinching at his cheeks, dishevelling his hair. He was as submissive to the will of the wind as the grass and the water around him. He could hear the rush of the sea, although it was out of sight momentarily.

  A small gate through the fence provided entry into the cemetery. There was no pathway and he had to pick his way carefully between the stones. Not every lair was marked by a headstone. Some were identifiable only by a small, weather-beaten, cement post with a number cut into it. There was no indication of who lay there and probably no one alive would know without referring to the records.

  As Cal reached the crest of the graveyard, the sea swelled before him again, stretching seemingly to infinity. At some point in history, someone must have believed that there was something beyond the visible, and with such belief came the discovery of new lands. With few exceptions, those who lay under the earth he
re had a faith in something beyond knowledge.

  As he moved through the headstones, Cal read the inscriptions, casually at first, then found himself being drawn into the stories they told. There were several military headstones carved with the names and ages of men too young to die. The same information was repeated on many of them. The date ‘1st January 1919’, the dreadful Iolaire tragedy.

  Here was a man killed in an accident, there a mother in childbirth, this one an infant. The words on some stones hinted at unspeakable tragedies. Others detailed the lives of people who had lived to significant old age, whose passing had been peaceful and whose memory was treasured.

  It intrigued him to see how many had died in different parts of the globe, but who had been returned to the land of their birth for their final rest. Canada, the USA, Africa, Australia, India. What efforts must have been made to bring the remains home and what longing to wish for it to be so.

  The same names were repeated time and again: MacLeod, Morrison, MacKay, MacDonald, MacAulay, Nicolson, Mac Lennan. This was a community from which the blood flowed away. New names, new settlers were rare indeed.

  Then he saw the preparations for the imminent burial. Wooden boards lay on the ground around green tarpaulins, which covered what could only be an open grave. Close by, beneath another sheet, was a pile of sandy soil.

  Cal walked down towards it and for the first time came upon a stone with his own family name. He was surprised seeing it before him, written in stone, and realised how rare it was. The name MacCarl was unique insofar as he knew, certainly on the island. He’d Googled it once. The MacCarls seemed to be predominantly Canadian. How they had come to Lewis was lost to history. Indeed, his father had told him that it was not their family name at all: a sheep rustling forebear had been forced to change his name to escape the tentacles of the law, which reached even as far as the western extremes of the land.

  ‘The district of Carloway takes its name from the Vikings,’ his father had explained. ‘Carl’s Bay. The sheep stealer thought it as good a name as any and took to calling himself MacCarl. That’s what they say anyway. Mind you, the family has been MacCarl as far back as anyone knows.’

  Cal had been only mildly interested at the time and had forgotten the story almost as soon as he had been told it, but his subconscious had filed it away and it came to him now, surrounded as he was by those whose genes lived through him. Even the man’s name on the stone was identical to his. It was a Calum MacCarl who had died in 1930 and also his wife who had passed away some years later.