Chapter 7 #3
Cal moved towards the last pew, but as he bent to sit, the tightness of his trousers forced the Walkman out of his pocket.
It hit the floor with an almighty clatter.
It splintered into a blueprint of different components; the cover broke and the backing skittered down the aisle.
It took only seconds but the explosion seemed to echo on for ever as the cassette spun across the floor and the batteries rolled towards the subsidence near the pulpit.
All the singing stopped.
Reverend Rose peered down the aisle as the faithful turned as one.
“I’m sorry.” Cal was obliged to scuttle up and down the aisle to recover his shrapnel. He tucked the cassette into his pocket. “I was listening to a sermon.”
There was a smattering of uncomfortable laughter.
Reverend Rose smiled. It travelled across the stone as cold as winter daylight.
“A resurrection! And it’s not even Easter.
” His long pale face could be as tranquil as the lochan, yet this stillness only covered a shallow depth that was rocky and unforgiving.
He had been an unremarkable young man who had not shown promise in anything: no special skill with the land or sea, no ability to read books or women.
But he was well-respected amongst the congregation for growing up amongst their own, for adhering to rigid Calvinist principle both in the church and inside his own home.
If he seemed more relaxed than their previous ministers it was simply because he understood that the congregation was captive, not just geographically, but by the expectations of their neighbours.
They policed themselves through shame and slights and petty judgements much better than he could in his sermons.
Cal cradled the broken machine in his hands and tried to slide into an empty pew. His eyes met Doll’s but Doll smirked and looked away in scorn. He turned to Isla but she was staring resolutely ahead.
“I’m so sorry,” he said. “It won’t happen again.
” His headphone wire was tangled. It snagged his hand to his suit button and it was this and not earnestness that pinned his hand to his heart.
In his periphery he could take in the few faces, could feel that some were smirking, taking the opportunity to suck on a mint, pleased for the distraction he had brought.
He tried to skim his gaze above their eyeline and not let their louring shame him.
His father had turned away from him. His head was bowed in humility but Cal could see the fuchsia fury spread up his neck.
“Here. Here.” Reverend Rose pointed to his rightful place amongst the Unsaved, sitting right next to his grandmother.
There was some good-hearted laughter at his awkwardness and he heard several people comment on his extraordinary hair. He stood beside Ella and didn’t cry out as she mangled his hand in hers.
His father cleared his throat, which brought the congregation to the front again. He led the next psalm but didn’t once meet Cal’s eye. His grandmother tilted her head up, and sang the shapes, if not the actual words.
She had learnt to mimic some biblical Gaelic from the psalms, trilling along without knowing any of the meaning. Cal would find her singing at the kitchen sink, her intonation nearly perfect with a scant understanding of anything but a few common words.
“What were you singing?” he would ask. “Do you even know?”
Ella would stop and think. “Is it the one about God being as meek as a lamb?”
“That’s right,” he smiled. “You know. I could teach you the Gàidhlig.”
“Och, why bother?” she always said. “I don’t plan on staying.”
As the minister said farewell to the congregation, he shook each hand with the lightest of touches.
John stood at his side, a forced serenity to his face.
He was annoyed by the way his neighbours smiled as they filed past. The women patted his arm and made condescending little faces that mixed pity and glee.
They would be talking about his son over lunch.
He could hear them now: how disrespectful Cal had been to arrive to worship late, to stroll into church with a woman’s haircut and pop music blaring where only the Word of God should be.
It would morph into speculation over what John had done wrong in raising his boy, and those who remembered John’s father, and his father’s father, would dig up their bones and salt their names.
The men lined up on the steps. They were arranged in a hierarchy that was understood but never discussed.
They were large, quiet men in dark suits, and to those that didn’t know their gentle natures, they exuded a thuggish authority that made the scene appear less like a Sabbath gathering and more like chucking-out time at a nightclub.
There were only two men who had not gone forward in the church so could not rightly stand amongst them.
The first was Sorley MacInnes. The other was Cal Macleod.
The women were chattering away in good spirits.
The rain had stopped, the minister was here, and they were delighted by how Cal had embarrassed himself.
Beady-Màiri tucked her ears into her beret and came over to him.
She put her hand on John’s arm and said she would pray for his boy.
John wanted to tell her to get fucked. Instead, he touched her hand in the same condescending way she had patted his and returned her wan smile.
Beady took her free hand and placed it on top of his, quietly triumphant.
Behind him, the men were laughing at something the minister said, but John had missed it and he felt on the outside of the joke and worried that it had been about him.
The laughter felt insincere, sycophantic.
He thought about laughing but he had no idea what they were laughing about and then it was too late.
He crossed to where the men were gathering, but as he approached the group, they dissolved.
At least Cal had the decency not to linger. John hadn’t spoken to him but he’d seen Ella bully him out the door and away to safety. He could see him sitting in the passenger seat, his curtain of hoorish hair falling over his eyes as he fiddled with the broken Walkman.
“You sang well, today.” The minister latched the door. “I look forward to coming down here just to hear you lead us.”
John bowed his head, more embarrassed than pleased. Reverend Rose rotated through several remote parishes and they looked forward to having him once every three weeks or so. It made for a livelier service than listening to one of the elders.
John watched as some of the congregation made their way towards Innes’s van.
Innes would never dream of putting his hand out for money, nor would they ever put money into his hand, but over the years the left pocket of his blazer had begun to sag and the women would discreetly drop the coin in as they stepped up and into the van that would take them home.
John watched as they removed their hats before Innes helped them into the back.
He spent half of every Saturday scrubbing the van free of sheep shit and reattaching the benches to the floor.
Then he spent most of Sunday ferrying the elderly to and from church.
John wished he could have a few moments to talk with Innes alone. He wished Innes would put a calming hand on either side of his face and tell him everything would be all right.
Ella was left standing with John as the last car pulled away.
John was watching the minister’s car but he could feel her study his face and he decided he would give her no satisfaction.
She had once told him that it was this calmness that unsettled her.
She could handle Glaswegians, men who roiled and churned, it was the quiet, loch-deep rage of the islanders she found terrifying.
She made a show of patting her pockets. “I’ve left my Pan Drops on the pew. Fetch them for us, will you?”
He wanted to tell her to fetch them her fat fucking self, but he caught a glimpse of her swollen ankles and remembering he was in the house of the Lord, he unlatched the door again.
He had taken a few steps inside when he heard her huff and struggle down the steps.
He stood in the shadows and watched her lollop across the shingle.
She clambered into the back seat and hissed some warning at Cal.
John hated how Ella thought she was smarter than the rest of them.
She thought her manipulations were executed with a deft hand, when in fact she operated with all the grace of an over-tired toddler.
It was only the good manners, the discretion of their neighbours – who had seen everything she had done, but who refused to embarrass themselves by embarrassing her – that allowed her to think she was slick.
He didn’t bother to look for the mints. He waited just long enough for them to play their little game, to devise their strategy for how best to placate him, and then he moved towards the car.
He got into the driver seat and tossed his Bible into Cal’s lap as though he wasn’t there.
Then he extended his left hand. “Give me that music machine.”
There was a pause as Cal struggled to find the least confrontational way to say “no”.
“I . . . I bought it with my own money.”
John’s hand closed into a fist. He watched the black-green sea. “I ask you for so little.”
“Well, that’s not true.”
“You think only of yourself.”
There were seals frolicking in the bay. They were as dark as the water but when they broke the surface their blubber created a little island of calm against the choppy tide.
“I asked you to ‘go forward’. I asked you to confirm. Do you know how mortifying it is for you to be the only man who cannot congregate after the service?”
“But Sorley Mac—”
“Damn Sorley to hell!”