Chapter 9 #2
Her long hair fell in tendrils that framed her face, the rest she gathered into two soft buns which sat either side of her head like fluffy bear ears.
She wore her father’s moth-eaten Fairisle, the sleeves pulled down over her knuckles.
Her skirt was too short for the parish and was almost swallowed by the hem of the pullover.
She must have rolled the waistband after she left the house and he wondered if she had shortened it for him.
He was staring at the skirt, thinking how the dun brown colour was familiar when he realised the skirt was made from an old pair of Doll’s work trousers, a thin, fine-waled corduroy.
He had laid his head upon that lap. His fingers had reached for that fly.
“I’m serious,” she said. “You have to apologise to my mam. And you have to do it in front of Doll.”
She was almost as tall as he was, with the straight, bony lank of a teenage boy.
He thought about the breasts that Ella had promised and saw now that Isla was as flat-chested as she always had been.
She wore Doll’s old work boots, her long legs planted like two pale seedlings that never saw the sun.
She caught him looking at her legs. She licked her thumb and rubbed some dirt from her knee. “I get in that bath after our Doll, and I swear I come out filthier.”
“It’s more surprising there’s a bath big enough to fit him.”
“Don’t try to be funny. I’m not done being angry with you.”
They fell into silence. Now that the bickering had ended, he wasn’t sure how he should act. Whatever had existed between them was so immature, so out-of-date, that neither of them knew how to approach it now.
The summer he was preparing for college she had been almost fifteen and heading up island to the big school.
There had been a tacit expectation, a faint, cheering hope amongst the faithful that when they were older, they might reunite, court properly, marry quickly.
The sweetness of their relationship had brought him uncomplicated happiness and at the same time, a sense of protection.
Whenever the men looked at him with that faint unease, whenever he laughed too loudly, or stood with all his weight on one hip, she came to mind and soothed whatever doubt they had.
She had been like an overcoat that let him blend in, a skinned fleece he could tie around himself that let him wander amongst the flock without fear of rejection.
He was a man and she was a child. Her purity meant there was never any expectation to go further, which suited Cal perfectly.
They were rarely unsupervised or without a band of bored sisters dragging behind, yet, at the same time, he was allowed to spend whole nights alone with Doll, to hike the postman’s path to Rhenigidale and camp overnight on Linginis beach.
Isla reached into her pocket. She took out a few shards of amberina and a fragment of pottery painted with a dainty red shoe. “I found these on the beach. I’ve been saving them.” She dumped them into his hand. “You’re probably too sophisticated for them now.”
He inspected the new colours. He could tell just by looking at them exactly where he would place them in the spectrum. He patted the step again and this time she came and sat beside him, tucking her long jumper between her thighs.
“Surprised you’re still here. Thought you’d be away.”
“End of September,” she said. “I’m going to Glasgow Uni. First choice and I nailed it.”
“That’s great.” He felt a pang of envy that registered on his face. He looked away in an effort to digest it.
“I’ve been working to save money, helping my mamaidh clean houses.
All those holiday homes are sitting empty and they want us to go in and air the place out.
It’s easy money. And it’s nice to spend time with my mam away from my sisters.
I’ve never really had that before.” The midges were biting now.
She pulled her jumper down over her knees.
“I have this massive set of keys. If ever you wanted to get away, to disappear for an afternoon, maybe watch some telly.”
“Ooh,” he cooed. “Are you trying to get me alone?”
“T’chut! Well, there is this one house that might have a problem with carbon monoxide.”
If he took her up on her invitation how long would it be until she offered to watch telly with him, until she was planning the rendezvous, and they were hiding away together, spending the afternoon in some empty cottage.
Isla was the eldest of Doll’s five younger sisters.
Each of the Macdonald girls were fairer, bonnier than the last, like a family recipe that kept on improving.
Isla’s face was heart-shaped and she was pretty, but because there was no spare fat around her temple, or her cheeks or lips, she always seemed slightly older than her years.
She had what the women referred to with a wistful sigh as an ‘old face’, a face of the islands.
Anyone who recalled it was reminded of her great-aunt Biddy, who never seemed to have recovered from the lean years.
He knew Isla disliked her appearance – he had spent hours listening to her complain, wishing for fuller lips, or for a smaller nose.
“Did you hear that I ranked eighth in all of Scotland for my Highers? I was in the paper and everything. The minister for education sent me a letter of congratulations.”
“Wow. That’s boring.”
She laughed. “But I am bored. The wait is killing me.” She sucked a tendril of hair. “Do you have any good music? Any Cocteau Twins?”
“I don’t. But I’ve other tapes I could loan you.”
She laughed again.
“What? Tapes are the best way to listen to an album. That or vinyl. Forget those CD things. That’s more about you than the artist. Besides, a tape is the Christian way. Delayed gratification. No skipping to the good parts.”
“Sometimes I can’t believe I ever fancied you.”
She had a quick mind which came from bullying an older brother and keeping four sisters in line.
Cal had forgotten how easy it could be to talk to her.
She was the first person under forty-five he had spoken to in weeks and he was sorry that he had stayed away.
He leant back on the stairs and rested on his elbows.
“You know when you leave, you can never come back, right?”
“Don’t be dramatic,” she said. “Of course you can. I’m looking forward to my first time back because I’ve been saving up for new clothes. I’m going to buy a whole new wardrobe.”
“Don’t,” he said, “or don’t do it right away. Give it time. Settle in at uni. You don’t know anyone yet.”
“What do you mean?”
“You don’t know what the other girls think are cool. Or what the boys want.”
Her long jumper sleeves were bothering him, they kept falling and cloaking her hands into uselessness. He pulled her wrist towards him and started folding the cuff back.
“Also, the girl you meet in your first week that you think is the coolest, she was only the coolest in her hometown, she’s in for the biggest rude awakening. So don’t buy new clothes to impress people you should ignore.”
She looked him up and down.
“You’ve not caught me at my best.”
“OK then. What other advice do you have?”
“Easy, keep your faith to yourself. They will think all sorts of nasty things about you. And the other girls will hate you on sight.” He finished the first sleeve and started folding the other.
“If you tell them you speak the Gàidhlig you’ll become a party trick.
They can barely speak English, but they’ll ask you if it’s Elvish. ”
“Got it. So whatever I do, don’t be myself.”
“Exactly. They’ll ask you what your horse was called and if you have an indoor toilet.”
“This is not very inspiring, Cal. Don’t you have any fun advice?”
“Oh, fun is it? Well . . .” He leant in and whispered the next part. “Kiss as many boys as you can. I mean it. And if you have sex, be safe, but, also . . . get shagged rotten.”
Isla shrieked so loudly it startled him. He turned, fearful that Jeanie would appear at the back door. When he turned back around the smile had already vanished from her lips. She looked sad all of a sudden.
“You are such a child,” she said, biting the side of her thumb. “That must be why you stopped writing. You were clearly exhausted from all that shagging.” She brushed some dirt off her boot. “So is it true? Did you meet someone?”
Beginning his second year at college, he had done the cowardly thing when he let it slip to his grandmother that he was seeing other girls.
Although it was a lie, he knew that Ella would let Sarah know in the gentle, indirect way the women handled all things, without the men having to face any discomfort.
“No, or no one special. But there were sixteen women to every single man. So . . .” He clucked as he winked, hoping she wouldn’t force him to elaborate on a lie.
If he had liked girls, then the rural art school would have been a wonderland of women who were all trapped and forced to lower their standards daily.
Of the thirty or so male students, there were only a handful of men who were not extremely weird-looking or flawed with a terrible personality.
Most of the women held on to childhood sweethearts that they had otherwise grown out of, or they took up with townie locals, men they used to fulfil a need but who they would never dream of setting up a life with.
It was like having a golden ticket if you had a sister or a cousin who went to the textile college, and on Thursday nights, minibuses full of randy young men would show up at the Union, having pooled for diesel money and driven all the way from Aberdeen, Manchester, Leeds.
“Imagine,” she said. “Women falling out of the sky and you still couldn’t find a girlfriend.”
He slipped the shards of amberina into his pocket. “I’m saving myself for marriage.”
“Cuh! Who’d marry you?”
“My granny . . . um . . . and, my mother. They said so themselves.”
She laughed. “Our Doll’s inside,” she said, jerking her thumb over her shoulder.
“Don’t flatter yourself, that’s the real reason I’m here.
He told my mam he was going to see what was happening with those Glaswegians.
But he just wanted a sneaky pint and so she sent me along to make sure he came home again. ”
“So you’re his minder now?”
She shrugged. “He lost three teeth last spring. It’s made his lisp worse.
He was on the big boat with Mister Rae. He misjudged a wave and the sea knocked him flat.
” She rubbed her own perfect teeth to show Cal the three on the left side that were missing.
“My mam had to sit on his chest while my dad pulled at the roots with pliers. There was no saving them and he didn’t want to go up to the dentist. She had to rearrange the furniture for all the blood.
” Isla stared at the back of the inn like she had said too much.
They could hear some chatter but it was hard to distinguish voices over the rumble of extractor fan.
“He’s been getting his dole money and drinking it.
Then the dole runs out and he’s miserable.
On and off and on and off, again. My dad threatened to throw him out, but he needs him on the boat.
So he got the minister to talk to him, to get him to ease off a little bit. ”
“It can’t be that bad.”
Isla began to undo all the rolling he had done to her sleeves. She stared at the kitchen door. “When I’m gone, will you keep an eye on him for me?”
“Sure, but you need both eyes for Doll.”
Her gaze fell on his novel. “What are you reading?”
He had grown tired of re-reading The Wasp Factory and had found one of his mother’s pulpy paperbacks on the shelf. It was so terrible he hadn’t even bothered to consider the title.
“Let me see,” she said.
“No. It’s full of impure thoughts.” He raised his hand to the heavens. “It’s a filthy, ungodly book. And you’re but an innocent child.”
“Shut up and let me see it.” Isla tried to grab the book but he hid it behind his back.
She chased him to his feet and tried to reach around him, her long limbs snatching at one side and then the other.
Her head was tilted upwards and her chin traced a sharp line across his breastbone.
He would feel the memory of it for hours to come. “Think I won’t hit a man in a hairnet?”
He tutted and held the book out to her. She flicked the pages looking for any particularly dirty bits.
Then, as though it was contraband, she lifted her jumper and tucked it into the waistband of her skirt.
Cal was touched by the innocence of the little pink flowers on her undervest. He was preparing to tease her about it, when there was a new sound from the kitchen, the thwup-thwup of the swinging louvre doors.
He gave her a hug goodbye and, because he knew it would annoy her, he peppered her cheek with dry kisses.
They came apart and they smiled and then they laughed and it felt easy, like it used to.
Isla was giggling and so he grabbed her and squeezed her in a great big bear hug until she groaned.
And then he gave her one last smack on the cheek.
“I’m glad you’re home,” she said, wiping her cheek with the back of her hand.
“And I’m glad you’re leaving. I can’t be seen with the Eighth Smartest Person in Scotland. I have standards.”
“Well, I have a few more weeks. You can’t just ignore me until then.”
“Oh, I could never ignore you.” He picked up his bowl. “Do you realise there are twenty-seven different colours in your jumper?”
“Are there?” she said, tugging the Fairisle.
“Yes,” he said. “There are.”