Chapter 16 #2
Doll both loved and hated the Lord’s Supper. He didn’t care for the extended prayer meetings, but after spending all day on the boat with his father, the Communion season felt like his only chance to be around other young folk – folk other than Cal Macleod.
They spent several weeks visiting the other parishes, then as their turn to host approached, the women cleaned every inch of their houses in preparation for the gatherings.
They took the rugs outside and beat them, unhooked the curtains, and left them to soak overnight.
For weeks leading up to the Communion the washing lines were in competition with pretty dresses ordered from the catalogue and the ribbon road seemed to shine in the anticipation of seeing old friends.
It brightened an otherwise dreary March.
There was a subdued sense of joy at the church. People who had not seen each other since the last gathering shared their news in hushed tones. The women studied each other intensely, while at the same time giving the impression that everything was casual, light, glancing.
The church was divided for the service. There was a white cloth folded over the back of a pew.
Beyond this, at the front, was the Lord’s table and seating only for those who had gone forward in their faith and would be saved.
They would be joined by those who had recently professed their faith in God and it was of great interest to see who would step beyond the cloth, who was ready to give themselves to Jesus.
There were no new adherents from Falabay, but a young widow from Huisinish left her small children in the care of a neighbour when she went to join the saved.
Then both of the Doig twins – who had been the year between Doll and Isla at school – left their father’s side and went forward to sit by their mother.
Behind the cloth sat all the other parishioners, those fenced off from God’s salvation.
Doll turned to look at the unfortunates and found Cal Macleod staring right back at him.
He turned around again. He squeezed his mother’s hand and they made a game of it, sending messages back and forth.
He let his eye roam as he considered the young women who had come for the Communion.
He liked both Kirsty and Fiona Johnson, but they were the prettiest of all the girls and they knew it, and they knew him.
Claire Moss had a sweet, serene face, with sad brown eyes, but her parents were elderly and her future lay in caring for them.
If he could have anything in the world, then he would have a girlfriend by the summer, someone to sit in the inn with, someone to build bonfires on the beach for.
He scanned the rest of the faithful and settled on Margaret Ann MacIver.
There was a shyness to her that he felt protective of.
He didn’t really know her, or what she liked, but he spent the next five minutes imagining himself her hero.
He was watching her when a shadow fell upon him.
Reverend Rose placed his hand on the pew. “A Dhòmhnaill. A word, please.”
As Doll rose to his feet, all the visiting elders rose to theirs. It was this sudden uprising of men that stopped all chatter. Some people looked to the ceiling as if it might fall in, as if the chosen had stood in unison to catch it.
“Did you have to be so cruel?” said Cal to the dark.
“There was no cruelty in it.”
“Doll was mortified.”
“Mortification was the intent.”
John was lying in Cal’s narrow bed, staring up at the shitty Day-Glo stars.
He had given up his own bed for old man Beattie and his wife, who had travelled to Falabay for the Communion.
Cal had given up his bed to his father and was lying on the floor, on a length of couch cushions that had separated like ice floes pulling apart.
Cal had watched as Doll had swanned into church with his shoulders rolled back and an alarming stink of Kouros about him.
But as the visiting faithful settled into their pews, Doll had been taken aside by Reverend Rose.
Every set of eyes were upon them as the elders made their way into the far corner.
The minister spoke to Doll in hushed tones, and even though the church had fallen into a breathless silence, no one could hear what was being said.
But it was not what was being said that was important – they could imagine that – it was how they formed a semi-circle around him that told them everything they needed to know.
Every now and then, Cal would catch a brief glimpse of Doll as the men shifted their weight.
Cal watched as he fought to maintain his dignity and his expression became one not of repentance or shame, but a smug sort of defiance, an immature smirk that exposed how hurt he was.
“We have spoken to him in private, in public, in front of his mother, and in front of the minister. He refuses to stop that infernal drinking. What else were we to do?”
“I don’t know, Dad. But not that.”
There were always tales of some crofter or his wife who were bad with the drink but had gone on to be born again in the faith and become one of the cùramach: the careful, a model of clean living.
The scripture was order and discipline. It was deliverance from the chaos and confusion of drinking, a last chance for the lowest to become the highest. But Doll seemed to be betraying his own conversion.
“Well, you’ve fucked it.” Cal was emboldened by the darkness. “You embarrassed him in front of every girl he ever fancied. He’ll have a terrible thirst on him now.”
“Keep your voice down,” John hissed. “Flash found him in the gutter last week. Lying in an actual ditch. The gutter! He was driving home and saw this mound in the gulley. He thought it was some beast that had died. It was blocking the channel so that the rain was flooding the road and he thought he should get out of the car and try to shift it.” John expelled a ragged breath.
“No one told me this.”
“You’re not in the church. If you were in the church then maybe you would know.”
“Nice try.”
John rolled onto his side. “There is talk of moving Doll into the byre.”
“They’re putting him in with the sheep?”
“They have young girls at home. This is the time to be firm with the boy. What else is Donnie to do?”
“Anything but that!” Cal raised himself onto his elbow. “Does Doll know?”
“No, and you’re not to tell him,” he said. “Donnie said he’s sick of his temper, of his spewing every morning. He’s rotten with the drink, a liability on the boat. And the girls can see it. They see it all. What sort of example is he setting?”
“Please, Dad,” he tried it in English. “You can’t let them put Doll in the fucking byre.”
“Shhh. Old man Beattie will hear you!” John pawed at the dark but he couldn’t find his son to clout him. “I have a hard enough time keeping you on the path.”
Doll Macdonald was the least of his worries.
His thoughts wandered to Innes. Innes standing in the church, a good man holding his father’s hand as though his father were a child.
He thought of the look they had shared as John waited by the secondary pulpit.
In the celebration of the saved, the minister had chosen to read from Corinthians as a rousing to the righteous.
“Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminates, nor abusers of themselves with mankind . . .” It had been little more than a fleeting glance, but John had seen the hurt upon Innes’s face, and Innes must have seen the shame upon his.
Cal threw himself down again. The back of his head hit the floor with a thud. “If Doll is put in the shed, then I’ll move right in beside him.”
John let out a low laugh. “Only you could see a punishment and think it looked fun.”
“He’ll grow out of the drinking. Were you never twenty?”
“The boy just turned twenty-one. And no,” he said. “Not in this life.” John rolled onto his back. “So, shall I have your grandmother run you up some curtains? The golden bachelors of moon island in a byre! The ladies will be lining up.”
“Don’t let them move Doll into the byre. Please.”
But John said nothing more. He lay in the dark, irritated by his son’s irritation.
He could have bought an inflatable mattress and hosted the Beatties on that, but he had always enjoyed the week they spent bunking together.
There had been a time when Cal had demanded that John hold his hand as he fell asleep.
That small perfect hand. John had resisted, told him to be a big boy and to go to sleep, but he had been secretly pleased when Cal insisted, when the little hand had crawled up onto the bed like a spider.
He had loved finding it tucked inside his own when they woke in the morning.