Chapter 11 #2
Growing up, he had never given social class much consideration because there was no real difference between them and their neighbours.
Other than the landowners, those who had more had only a fraction more and there was a solidarity and a sameness in this.
But in those first few days of freshers’ week, it had been jarring to find himself interrogated, categorised, and then lumped into the working class – all without his consent or knowledge.
It was weird what a shorthand this became for mainlanders, how they used it to read him, to sort him, and ultimately limit him.
And how wrong it was: seeing as the Macleods had never served another, other than God.
“Those idiots could never catch their own dinners,” he said. “Just turn it off.”
John pressed the remote and the screen went blank. “About time,” he said. “Welcome home.”
John got back to work while Cal watched him tie in a broken warp thread. The puce colour was the exact shade of his father’s irritated nail bed. “I was thinking of going north one of these days. Running up to the mill. I want to see how many yards the other weavers are putting up.”
Cal knew how his father distrusted the main mill.
Of all the home weavers scattered along the archipelago, the Macleod croft was one of the furthest flung.
With no way to disprove it, it left John with the nagging suspicion that the others got more work than he did.
If the orders slowed, he acted like a man not invited to a party, suspicious that the others were all getting together and having a rare time without him.
“I’d like that,” Cal said. “I haven’t seen the old mill in years.”
“Then let’s wait for the cold to draw in.”
Cal tidied the tea things and turned to leave.
John called after him, “Oh, one last thing. Ella told me how you were talking to Isla.” He smiled at his son for what felt like the first time.
“That’s good. She’s a nice girl. I hear she leaves soon but I’m assuming she’ll be home for the Christmas break.
If you had any interest that might be the moment to mention it, before her head is turned by some city boy. ”
Cal nodded to let his father know he had heard him. He carried the tray back to the kitchen where there was a sweating yoghurt sitting in the middle of a now empty table.
Ella was humming, smug in the belief that she had outwitted him.
“How did you know I’d spoken to Isla?”
“Ishbel telt me.”
“Oh fuck off!”
“She did!” Ella pulled on a fluorescent orange beanie.
She tucked her hair inside until only her gypsy hoops were visible.
They hung out the bottom like the emergency tabs on a life jacket that was ready to be tugged and inflated.
“I saw her. I gave her a little money for university. She was only interested in hearing how your face was mending. If you wait much longer she’ll be lost to you for ever. You mark my words.”
Cal touched his brow. He was staring at Ella in a way that made her look behind herself. “What did the ewe say about Doll?”
He had been inside too long. He felt mad for asking.
A few mornings later, he came down to breakfast to find Ella standing at the long table, holding an envelope up to the light. “Mr J-C Macleod,” she said. “How about that.”
As soon as he saw it, he knew that this was a reply from William.
The envelope was made of hammered paper.
It was powder blue and expensive looking.
It made him ashamed of the page he had ripped from an old jotter, his own envelope the return slip for a phone bill, which he had whited out and written over the top of.
His father took the envelope. He ran his finger along the row of stamps. The sender had applied one too many and John noted the waste.
Cal sat down at the table. He concentrated all his attention on his porridge, submerging his spoon, slurping the warm salty milk. “Must be somebody from college.”
“Nobody writes you from college.”
His father handed him the envelope. Cal checked the sender’s name.
W. Tudhope. He lied as quickly as he could – which was always easier in English.
“It’s from Wendy. She was on the printed textiles course.
She’ll be moaning about not finding work.
” He put the letter to the side as though it meant nothing to him.
“It’s from a girl?” said Ella. “Is she rich?”
He got up and scraped the last of his oats into the dog bowl. He was glad to have his back to his father. “Compared to us, they were all rich. But she’s talented. She draws amazing florals. She’s Chinese.” He didn’t know why he said this last part.
“Chinese?” said John. “With a name like Tudhope?”
“Yeah, maybe it’s just her mother, but she looks full-Chinese. She’s beautiful. Her father was a Catholic missionary or something.” He shrugged. “Can I invite her to visit?”
John stirred salt onto his porridge. “Chinese, yes. Catholic . . . no.”
Cal chewed his smile as he slid the letter into his pocket.
He pulled on his jacket and left the house.
He walked around the first hill and as soon as the house fell out of view, he ran until he came to a hiding place he knew, a divot where the rock ended and the peat collapsed like the earth had cracked in two.
He tried to open the envelope without dirtying the paper.
There were two sheets and one photograph stamped with the date in the bottom corner.
Dear Cal,
Sorry it took me a while to write back. I started half a dozen times and each time it felt like someone other than me was writing.
I’d tell you that I’ve been inundated with offers, but you’re the only one (under thirty-five) who wrote back.
I feel like I’ve spoken out against Madonna and now I’m blacklisted or something.
I keep expecting a knock at the door, a coachload of cunts in conical bras.
I’d never heard of Falabay before. I tried to find it on the road atlas but it wasn’t marked (do you even have roads?
he-he!). Do you live near all those Calvinist fundamentalists that are always on the evening news?
You know the dour cunts that protest Sunday sailings and women’s health and that?
I suppose I hoped for someone closer, someone to have a pint with and wondered if I should bother getting into a friendship with someone so far away.
I thought I’d take the easy route out and just send a photograph.
I’m the one standing on the left. Sorry that it has my mother and brother in it.
Turns out nobody gets the camera out in my family unless it’s Christmas.
I debated cutting the photo down the middle.
It’s pure lesbian behaviour – sending someone a picture of you and your aul’ mother together.
Anyway I still live at home, my mother takes care of my big brother, who served in Desert Storm, and is now in a wheelchair.
He didn’t get hurt in Kuwait. He came out of the army just fine, and then crashed his Yamaha on the B464 and is now in a wheelchair with no pension for it.
Everyone says he’s lucky to be alive but I don’t think he agrees.
Anyway, my mother looks after my brother and since my dad died, I look after my mother.
My uncle runs a garage and I do the books, customer care, that sort of thing. I was never that good at maths in school but I’ve learnt how to do the job and he doesn’t bother me if I’m slow as long as I’m right.
Not much to do around here. I used to love riding an old dirt bike around the loch but I don’t get to do that any more on account of my brother.
I used to play rugby a few nights a month, it was good craic, but everyone I know is getting married and having bairns so there’s not much heart in rugby at the moment.
There’s a couple of good pubs in Inverness, but nothing of what you would call a gay scene, I suppose.
There’s an indie record store and they keep an eye out for the good stuff and I get it a few weeks after it comes out.
Anyway, better go. Sorry again for being slow. Write back and if you want. Send me a photo so I can get a better idea of what you look like.
Aye,
Will (Billy to my pals).
P.S. I’m 27.
P.P.S. If it’s not too rude to ask, what is your dick like?
Cal read the letter four times. The paper smelt of nothing.
He studied the photograph. There were three figures standing in front of a large rhododendron, its broad leaves like outstretched hands.
In the centre was a woman, same age as Ella but thin and prim-looking.
Under her left hand was Billy’s brother, sitting in his wheelchair.
There were drag marks on the grass, where the bulk of him had been wheeled into the frame.
He must have been a brute when he could stand.
Cal imagined helping him in and out of the bath, he thought about soaping his body.
Billy stood on the other side of Mrs Tudhope.
There was a gleam in his eye that said he was certain he was his mother’s favourite, there was a curl on his lip that hinted at mischief.
He had a flat nose with large fleshy ears that confirmed he had been a rugby player once.
But it was his large hands that held Cal’s attention.
He liked the way the thick thumbs hooked on his belt loops.
After evening prayer, John gathered the dogs and went for a walk.
With his father gone, Cal slouched at the table, staring into space, forming and rubbing-out unspoken sentences, ready to share secrets with the man in the photo, a sudden kinship with a stranger that felt more honest than the feelings he shared with his kin.
Ella appeared at his side. She slid his tattered 501s across the table. The tear that his father had made was mended with careful stitches, the holes in the buttocks and knees reinforced with a darker indigo cloth. “You’ve ruined them,” he said with a defeated laugh.
“You dirty ingrate.”