Chapter 15 #2
They went through the same old routine: the tour of the flock, the coffee, the talk, before Anndra would suggest they go upstairs and see the lighthouse.
John supposed it was for the best. This way, when his wife returned with a car full of frozen foods, Anndra could look her in the eye when one of their neighbours reported the strange car that had been parked outside their house.
He could say with some honesty that John had come to see the crossbreeds and had bored the arse off of him with his talk of Falabay.
His wife would laugh and think of dull old John Macleod and feel some relief that she had been spared the burden of entertaining him.
The routine was almost a ritual and perhaps as God-fearing men that is what they needed.
Or perhaps they were mindless beasts, sheep that needed a narrowing corridor, a nudging towards the gate.
Or perhaps they were only shepherds, and it was better if they came at their desire on the slant, cornered it when they were sure it could not escape or back away.
“I feel too young to be a grandfather. The wife is on at me to lose some weight.”
Anndra had a cheerful disposition, bright eyes and a thick beard framing well-fed cheeks. John liked his optimism. He never looked at John in that disappointed way that Innes had. He never expected more.
John set his mug on the table. “A fine house you have here.”
“We built it facing the sea. You can see Tiumpan Head from the upstairs.”
“You can?”
“Yes,” said Anndra. “Come. I’ll show you.”
He returned to Stornoway with a deflated feeling. It felt like there was a slow puncture in his chest but as he rubbed his breastbone, he couldn’t find the leak in order to put his hand over it.
He pulled into a side street and turned off the engine.
He laid his head on his forearms and prayed.
He was never insincere in his prayers, yet he had been here ten thousand times before, prostrate before God, apologising to his Maker for how he had been made.
The guilt was so ingrained in him that the words had become banal, his recitation almost unthinking.
He prayed for forgiveness, yes, for release from his wickedness, yes, for salvation, yes.
But as he listed his transgressions and wished Anndra away from him, he arrived, as he always did, at Innes, and the words, as they always did, failed him.
After several minutes he realised that his prayers had trailed off, and that he was doing nothing more than leaning over the steering wheel, staring at the busy town, missing Innes.
How many nights had he prayed for an end to his torment, and yet, when the dawn came, how many hours had he spent thanking God for this man.
He sat back in the seat and wiped his eyes.
Then he locked the car and set out for the waterfront.
The building he was looking for faced the harbour.
It hid in a row of identical stone houses and it would have been a well-to-do home in another time, but the ground floor had been gutted and converted into small offices; cold, charmless rooms, that were joined by a transient waiting room cluttered with mismatched chairs.
The paint on the woodwork was thick as butter and spoke to all the families and businesses that had rented the space and then failed.
John was the only person there. On the walls were notices for self-help groups, supportive posters for all manner of wickedness: alcoholics, junkies, single mothers.
He set his stack of Bibles on the side table.
He flicked through the leaflets for abortion, colourful pamphlets of cheerful-looking women gossiping over a pot of tea, underneath the title: Options.
For a thing that should be dripping in blood, they were misleadingly innocuous.
You would have to read the whole thing to find out what they were offering was murder.
“Fàilte.” John hadn’t heard the man enter the waiting room. He was carrying a stack of manila folders and eating a bright green apple. Little bits of it were sticking to his beard. “Ah, you’re from the church that gives us Bibles. They’re greatly appreciated, thank you.”
“You’re very welcome.”
“Can I help you with anything?”
Something in him wavered and he hesitated a moment too long.
The man bit into his apple. He sucked the juice from his lip. “Seeing as you’re here, perhaps you could help me a minute?” He pointed into one of the offices. “Won’t take long.”
John frowned but he stepped into the office and the man closed the door behind them.
The office faced the street. A net curtain obscured the window.
Now and again the shadows of people passing along the waterfront dimmed the soft light.
There was a messy desk in the corner and as soon as the man dropped the folders he had been carrying, John could not pick them out from the ones that already littered it.
The man sank into his chair. “Sit a minute, won’t you? ”
John remained standing. “What is it you need my help with?”
The man searched his desk. He picked up a crude pen pot then put it down again.
He picked up his glasses. “The leg on my glasses needs tightening. Would you know how to do that?” But before John could answer, the man reached out with his other hand.
“I’m D.I., by the way. Donald-Iain when my mother’s annoyed at me. I didn’t catch your name.”
John felt his attention hooked by the glasses. How could a man not mend his own frames? But then the man tossed the glasses onto the desk.
“Gregor,” said John. “My name is Gregor.”
“Well, have a seat, Gregor. I’ve not run into you before. Have I? Terrible memory for faces. I blame the whisky.” He rubbed his hands over his jowled face and John was relieved when the little piece of apple fell to the floor. “Where did you say you were from?”
“I didn’t.” John remained standing. “Na Hearadh.”
“My wife is always threatening to run away with a fella from Harris, says he has the nicest manners.”
He seemed kind enough, although he had a forward way of saying whatever was on his mind, a feminine flaw.
“What is it you do on Harris?”
“I keep sheep, do some rewiring and building work. But mostly I work the clò.”
“Tweed? That’s been up and down these last few years. Gregor, please. You look like you’re going to rob us.” D.I. motioned to the chair opposite.
John sat on the edge of the chair.
“I like your suit. Are you very involved with the church?”
“Yes. I help with outreach where I can. But I lead the singing, mostly.”
“They’re closing churches left and right.”
“Yes. Our parish will be on a list somewhere. Not enough children being born.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. What are the faithful to do?”
“We will travel to another church, I suppose. It’ll be hardest on the old ones.”
“And your wife. What does she do?”
John’s gaze settled on the man’s half-chewed apple. The pulp was already turning brown. “I’m not married.”
“Lucky you—”
“I was married . . .”
“I see.”
“I have a boy. Twenty-two.”
“Good man. Is he away?”
“No, he’s back.”
“Lucky you. There’s many of us would do anything to have our children making lives here. I have two girls myself. Everyone says they’ll be back when they grow tired of the city. The wife is all for following them to London, but, well . . . that’s not for men like us. Is it?”
“No.”
“And, you watch the football?”
“When I can.”
“Do you have any other hobbies?”
“I used to like motors, rally racing and that. I don’t have time for hobbies now.”
D.I. gestured at a water jug, the surface of the water was dusty from standing too long. John shook his head. “Psalm 46. ‘Though the seas will shake and foam.’ I think that one is my favourite. Reminds me of my auld lade. She’d sing it when my father was away with the navy.”
John nodded. “I like that one. It’s hopeful.”
“It must be great to have the church. A real comfort. Lucky you.”
“You keep saying that I’m lucky. But I don’t feel lucky.”
D.I. picked lint from his trouser leg, as patient as any fisherman. “Is it the drink?”
John huffed woodenly.
“Well, what is it you wanted to talk about?”
He watched the people pass by outside. “Do you see many men in here?”
“Yes. In fact, more men than women these days.”
“How many exactly?”
“Does it matter?” D.I. said. “I don’t know . . . hundreds.”
“Hundreds!” John exhaled in disbelief. “And these men. They tell you their problems?”
“Problems. Needs. Legal worries. Jokes . . . I like jokes best of all.”
“And what do you do with that?”
“Nothing. I connect them with people who can help. But mostly, I do nothing. I just listen.” He leant back in his seat.
His jumper rode up and exposed a flash of flabby belly.
“What I don’t do is repeat the things they tell me.
I am legally bound not to divulge anything I hear. I’d be out of a job if I did.”
John did not believe the man. In his world there was nothing, not a single thing, that he did that did not provoke an outcome. Every word was a seed, and every seed could grow terrible fruits. How could anyone make talk and have it go nowhere? How could this be a job?
“I don’t know how much longer I can keep going. My boy’s not interested. He doesn’t want it. Doesn’t want any of it.”
“It’s natural when you’re his age. They want the lights and we can’t hold them.” He poured a glass of the dusty water and handed it to John. “Are you worried about who will look after you when you are old?”
John shook his head. Then he corrected himself and he nodded. “What’s it all for?”
D.I. nodded, and John was glad he didn’t feel the need to say anything.
“Do you believe in hell?”
“No,” said the man. “I’m afraid I don’t.”
“What do you think of John 21:17? I’ve been thinking about the neglected soul lately, and man’s blindness when it comes to the body: how people act as if it was this life, this body that mattered, when it is the soul that was never-ending.”
“No.”
John looked up.