Chapter 8 #2
He had almost slipped away when Flash called out, “Hey! Rocky Balboa!” He considered turning and taking the path around the hillside, but Flash shouted again, “You! Yes, you! The great half-shut Macleod. Come on!”
Of all their Godly men, Cal liked Aonghas ‘Flashdance’ Calder the best. When Cal was younger, Flash was known to carry a small minnow in his pocket and when he shook hands after the service, he delighted the children by tickling them with the bait.
Cal sidled closer until Flash grabbed him by the shoulder and geed him on the last few feet, dragging him roughly into the circle. The Glaswegians turned to look at him and several of them winced at his face. Flash laid his arm across his shoulder and Cal worried he might cry.
Flash’s breath was a distillery fire as he whispered in low Gaelic.
“This here is a right shower of scummy bastards. Their boat’s fucked.
But they’ve been talking to us like we’re simple-headed maws, a bunch of inbred sheep shaggers.
” Flash smiled at the stranded fishermen.
“So we’ve been pretending we don’t speak English just to fuck with them. ”
A couple of the fishermen wore Celtic tops. Their arms were tapestries of bleeding ink: Young Team names, naked women splayed like dead spiders, threats to the Queen.
Flash nodded to the captain and said, in beautiful, lilting Gaelic, “Does your father like to watch when you finger your mother?”
The incomers squinted. One of the men said, “How comes yeese cannae talk English lit a normal person. I wis in Magaluf and they Spanish cunts could speak better English than youse.” He jabbed the palm of one hand with the forefinger of another. “How. Dae. We. Get. Tae. Stornoway?”
Cal could tell Flash was trying not to laugh. “Steòrnabhagh?”
Cal turned his back on the incomers. “Why did the coastguard tow them here? How not Leverburgh or Tarbert?”
Flash shrugged. “Suppose we were closest.” He nodded towards the bald-headed captain who was roaring at Beady’s husband.
“See that cheeky fucker? He’s lucky the coastguard didn’t tow him into a whirlpool.
Docky MacNeil’s a better man than me. I would tow this lot to Sùla Sgeir and leave them to rot.
” He picked his nose, flicked it, and used the same finger to point at the boat.
“Docky said there’s not a single fish on that boat.
Not one. These bastards are coming all this way to sell drugs. ”
“They have drugs!”
“Calm down, Ozzy. Yes. They have drugs. Last summer two Vatersay lads were that off their face they thought they could swim the channel and drowned. You been to the Narrows recently? It’s like a zombie picture.” He put his hand on Cal’s back. “Send them away.”
Flash took Beady’s husband aside to have a private word.
Shockie had thinning white hair that he swept to the side, and it flicked up in the back like a little duck tail.
He had thought himself a looker in his day, but whatever charm there had been, time had now erased.
He was the chief elder of their church and yet he had the strange quality of being almost entirely forgettable.
Cal wondered if that was all Beady’s doing, if she had worn him down so completely that now nothing about him particularly stood out.
As the men stepped away, the Glaswegians huddled around Cal, looking at him expectantly.
Only the blonde, bearded man stood back, watching from afar.
Cal explained, in English, that in the morning the bus could take them up to the town and then the ferry could take them over to the mainland.
Nothing, absolutely nothing, could be done on the Sabbath.
The men roared at him.
The captain was in disbelief that islanders could not repair a boat by themselves.
Flash and Shockie rejoined the circle. Cal helped the men divide the fishermen between the Glennie house and the inn.
Flash had ample room for all six but even under the watchful eye of the Lord there was only so much he would do for free.
Cal chose the two men who he liked the look of and sent them to Beady’s house for hot lamb pie.
Only the blonde fisherman seemed amused by the wait.
He listened to them complain with a sneer on his face.
Cal did not care for his sneering and so he sent him to the inn, knowing Jeanie Calder would defrost something beige and tasteless for his dinner.
His face hurt. He grew tired of their complaining.
“Flash, can I use your toilet?”
“Sure. Just don’t piss all over the place.” Flash took hold of his arm and led him away from the crowd. They stood side by side and watched the Glaswegians argue. “Did you hear Margaret Beattie sold her house?”
“I think Ella mentioned something.”
“Well, if you want her old shifts wiping the toilets and collecting the glasses, I can give you some hours on Friday.” He was scowling at the incomers. “But listen, if there’s not enough customers you have to go home. You’re not bonny enough to just stand around looking pretty.”
Cal had not expected the offer. Since his father had lifted his fists, he had been thinking of the ferry, of how he would hitch to Tarbert, sleep in the waiting room and somehow beg or sneak his way onto the boat in the morning.
Flash sighed. “You are going to make me ask about your face, aren’t you?” He swung his blue eyes towards him. “How old are you now?”
“. . . Twenty-two.”
“Then you’re old enough. Next time John lifts his fist, you lift a knife. If he lifts a knife, you lift a chair. Do you hear me? He’s daring you to do it.”
The inn was locked down for the Sabbath. The toilet was a single stall, carpeted in a swirling paisley and painted in a deep burgundy gloss. Cal managed to lock the door before the tears stung his eyes. He let them fall as he stripped naked to the waist.
He opened the dye and used the brush to coat his hair. As he waited for the dye to take, he opened the crisps and ate them quickly. He watched himself in the mirror as he chewed.
The mess his father had made of his face would take weeks to heal.
The split in his eyebrow had been mended by Beady’s careful stitches.
He tugged the knot of navy thread and his eyebrow raised comically.
He did it again and with a mouthful of half-eaten crisps, he lost himself between crying and laughing.
A few more hours and he would be gone. He would sleep at the dock and when the ferry came, he would leave for good. He dug crisps from his molars as he made a list of the things he would need to collect from home.
He waited until the dye began to sting then he rinsed the chemicals away. He combed his hair until it fell straight. Then he picked up the scissors and started hacking.
He skipped the late service. He wandered the hills and then he sat and watched the sea until it was too cold for him to stay out any longer.
It was a slow walk home in the dark. Clouds covered the slivered moon and all around him the sheep bleated their contented dreams as they sheltered in the divots that held the last of the day’s heat.
Whenever he stumbled too close, they would raise their heads and complain, and he would correct his course, a sinner guided by a dozen dull bells.
He waited outside the house for an hour or more until the last light went dark.
He took off his boots and crept inside and went up to his bedroom, closing the door at his back.
He angled the bedside lamp till it was cupped against the wall and gave off a soft, indirect light.
There was a piggy bank on the shelf, and he undid the cork and shook out the last few coins.
He changed out of his suit and left it where it fell.
The evening haar had soaked him, so he used the top sheet to dry his skin and then he dressed in an old Smiths T-shirt and pulled the cream Aran geansaidh over the top.
Ella hated that jumper especially. It upset her to imagine people would think she had knitted it.
It was too tight around his trunk and the too-long sleeves covered the knuckles on his simian arms. It had been a great find in the charity shop, two pounds for real lambswool.
There were faults throughout but he loved it all the more for that.
There was a scratching at his door, a faint clawing that could have been the field mice behind the plaster. But then the doorknob began to turn, so he crossed the room and put his hand against it, blocking it from opening. The knob went slack.
“He was waiting by the window all afternoon,” she whispered.
Ella ran her fingernail around the beading.
He could picture her wiping it free of dust, then wiping the dust onto her skirt.
The door handle twisted again, and he stopped it again.
They stood that way for a while, connected by the handle, before she relinquished it and let go.
He wanted to tell her he was leaving. He could not hurt his father but he could hurt her.
He put his mouth close to the door but before he could speak there was another sound, the soft murmur of wool against wood.
The noise descended like she was sliding down the door, then he heard her sit on the floor with a sigh. “He doesn’t know how to say sorry.”
Her fingertips appeared under the gap at the bottom, searching the air for a sign of him. Cal lifted his foot. He tested her fingers with his socked heel. How easy it would be to crush these brittle things.
“There ye are,” she said, as her fingers disappeared from view.
There were the sounds of her fiddling with something and then all of sudden a full moon slid under the door. The moon was pockmarked with craters. It was made of the palest gold.
The pancake had arrived on a piece of flat cardboard as though she had known he would lock himself in his room and had the foresight to bake something flat and find something thin enough to slide it in on.
He picked up the pancake and, as he chewed the edges, he thought of all the times they had been here before.
The morning sun filled the room with a golden light. It lasted a few moments before the sun climbed higher and the clouds dimmed it. The smell of a fried breakfast came up the stair and Cal felt his resolve shake. He had been about to leave. Now, in the weak morning light, he was no longer sure.
As he came down the stairs, he could hear them talk in low voices and halfway down he turned and went back up. He tested the ruin of his face. Then he descended again and this time he let his footfall be heavy enough to announce his arrival.
When he entered the long room, his father was dipping toast into a lurid egg yolk. Ella was holding the frying pan, scraping grit into the dog bowl. There was a place set for Cal with a heaped plate of fried bread and meat, enough food for several breakfasts.
Ella looked up at Cal. She stopped her scraping. “No!” she cried.
“What?” he asked. “Don’t you like it?”
Ella grabbed his sleeve. She tugged him like she wanted to usher him to safety, out the back door, up the hill and away.
But Cal twisted free. He didn’t know his own strength and he was too rough with her and so she stumbled a little.
He slung his backpack into the corner, which startled the dogs.
He dropped onto the bench and then shuffled along it until he was sitting close to his father.
He made sure his thigh was pressing against John’s.
John didn’t pull away. He didn’t look up.
Cal cut into a lorne sausage and forced it into his torn mouth.
His grandmother was passing the frying pan from one hand to the other like a weapon. “Why?” she cried. “Why would you do a thing like that?”
He sucked the grease from his fingers before running them through his hair.
He had tricked Beady. As she was filling out her ledger, he had swapped the brown dye for a packet of bleach. The peroxide made his hair shine brighter than ever. He had hacked it into a raggedy bob that fell to his jawline.
He spoke into the middle of the room, to the dogs lying by the fireplace, but when he spoke, he chose Gaelic so that John knew exactly who he was speaking to. “I never want you to feel embarrassed. Or to be disappointed in me.”
He watched as his father’s hands curled into fists.
He picked up his butter knife. “But if you ever raise your hand to me again, I’ll leave and I’ll never come back. You can both grow old and die alone. See if I care.”
The men sat shoulder to shoulder, staring into the distance.
The room was quiet. Bess licked herself clean.
John set his silverware to the side. He pinched the corners of his mouth. He wiped his fingers on his trousers. “What have I raised?” he said. “Shovelling that into your gullet like a goose before Christmas. You’ve not even the decency to bow your head.”
He stood up and left the room. The dogs slunk out behind him.
Cal sat in silence for a few moments. He watched the wind marble the sea.
Some time passed before he realised that Ella had sat down beside him. She had placed her hand on his hand, and her finger was caressing the vein on the inside of his wrist.
He looked down and saw that he was still gripping his butter knife, holding it up, like some childish pirate.