Chapter 22 #2
It was sensible to be wary of the minister.
Outwardly he had an affable manner that belied an unbending hardness, an approachability that drew the faithful near, which only suited his taste for discreet cruelty.
He liked to see the whites of the eye when he administered his discipline.
When he led a service, he sermonised in a gentle tone that had no real kindness underneath it.
Following generations of choleric orators, angry, fire-and-brimstone men who thundered above the congregation and seemed somehow elevated above their daily lives, he presented himself with false humility like he was merely one of them, a good neighbour, one more lost sheep.
Ella liked his sermons because he had a soothing speaking voice and she could daydream through the Gaelic.
But Reverend Rose understood a fear of God was more terrifying when the panic was lost amongst the flock, not bleating in fury from a distant hillside.
In passing conversation, the parishioners often missed his true judgement because he delivered it with a lukewarm smile, a swallowed giggle, a gentle hand on the arm.
It was only later, while lying awake in the small hours, that they considered his words again and realised how clearly he had seen them, how gently he had cut them.
The men were getting restless, hemmed in by the low room.
They sat with their legs spread and the weight of their ageing balls pulled at the crotch of their trousers.
The minister rearranged himself and a few of the other men took this as permission and did the same.
He looked at the clock. Then he looked at the men.
“These poor beasts will be wanting their watering.” His eyes flicked to Doll and then back to Cal.
“Now I’m not here on official church business, but rather as a father, or as a concerned friend.
Do you understand? Allow me to be a man amongst you, tonight.
Then tomorrow . . .” He smiled as he drove his fist into his palm.
Cal couldn’t help it, he glanced at Innes again.
“It seems to me we’ve come to the right door. This business with your mother. You don’t like to see people suffer. See, we have a problem, young John. There’s been far too much ‘he said, she said’ of late. Idle talk. Insidious gossip.”
Old MacInnes muttered in agreement. He was the only man who no longer filled his suit. The hopsack hung off of him like a coat slung over a wooden chairback.
“When I ask the hillside who can help me with this problem, the sea at my back carries your name,” there was the thin smile again, “. . . or maybe it’s just the gulls.”
The minister was interrupted when Ella entered with a fresh pot of tea.
The room was littered with half-drunk cups and even the most pious amongst them looked soaked with the boredom of it.
When Ella left, the minister nodded at Donnie, indicating that he should take up the conversation.
Doll’s father overspilled the spindly kitchen chair.
He braced his large hands on his large knees. He spoke to the rug at Cal’s feet.
“Tha i trom,” he said. She is heavy.
Cal frowned and looked to his father for clarification.
“Tha Isla air . . . tuiteam,” added John quietly. Isla has fallen.
“No!” He sounded more excited than he should have liked. “I’m sorry. I mean . . . did she meet someone at university?” He turned from Donnie to his father and from the hard look on his father’s face he knew before Donnie answered that this was not the case.
“No. She has not met someone at university.”
“Is the father someone from school, then?”
“From what she will tell us. No. It is not a boy from school.”
“Then I don’t understand.” He glanced at his father again but John was looking at him in a fierce, unblinking way that could tell him nothing. The room felt so small.
The minister set his cup on his saucer. “Isla – for reasons she will not explain – will not tell us who the father is. We were wondering if you could help us.”
“Me? But I haven’t seen Isla in ages. Not since last September. What? That’s six . . . seven months, at least.”
“We know,” he said. “She is seven months along.”
“But how can that be?” Cal rounded on his father. “Did you know about this?”
“I found out about an hour ago.”
Donnie leant forwards. He hung his head a little, the bulk of his shoulders rising behind him like a hill coming into view.
“Isla was keeping the news from her mother and me. When she didn’t come home for the Christmas or Communion breaks, she told us she was busy with university work. We tried our best to understand.”
“When will she be back?”
“She is back. She’s been home for three weeks now.”
“But I haven’t seen her on the road.”
“No,” he said flatly. “And you won’t.”
Cal cast around at the other members but the men were staring at their laps.
“We think she has been trying to fix this on her own,” said the minister.
“OK. And now? Why won’t she say who the father is now?”
“I don’t know,” said Donnie. “You tell us.”
Cal raised his hands like a beggar looking for help. “Donnie, you can’t be serious. I would never treat your daughter like that. I would never put Isla in that position!”
The minister leant forwards. “I’m afraid you were seen with your arms around her. Kissing her. Being familiar behind the inn.”
Cal cut his eyes towards Flash. “No. We were . . . uh.” He fumbled for the words. “We were only saying goodbye. It meant nothing.”
“So my daughter means nothing to you! I’m surprised to hear you be so casual about it. If she means nothing then perhaps you wouldn’t think twice about ruining her?”
He looked to Doll but Doll looked only to his father. He looked to Innes, but Innes was picking the crusts from a sandwich. He then looked to his own father but John made a pressing motion that told him to calm himself. “But, Dad. I didn’t do it! I swear.”
John lowered his head. When he spoke, he spoke to Donnie’s feet. “See, I told you.”
“And you believe him? Well you would, wouldn’t you . . .”
The minister raised his hand. “That’s enough now.”
The men sat back but there was a radiating animosity between Cal and Donnie.
They tried to calm themselves but it did no good, their hurt festered and instead of being able to express it, they were forced to sit and chew it in silence.
The minister asked Shockie to lead them in prayer.
As the members gathered up their Bibles, Cal sank his face into his hands.
He was hurt that neither Innes nor Doll had defended his name.
He was angry that Isla had let it get this far.
He tried to think of who the father could be but in looking at the worshipful, there were only two men in Falabay who were not in some way related to the Macdonald clan.
One was his father. The other was him. He was thinking of Sorley MacInnes (the only man who was absent, but whose mother, Cal thought, was second cousins with Sarah’s mother) when his mind turned back to last autumn and his arrival home.
The answer came to him with a certainty that made him flinch.
He had a vision of the Glaswegian fisherman, the handsome lad with the blonde hair. He pictured him knocking at the manse and being admitted by someone he was certain was not the urologist or his wife. He thought of the ring of keys and all the houses Isla cleaned and cared for.
He knew then why Isla was keeping the identity to herself: it would damn her for eternity.
It was a mortal sin to think she had lain with a local lad who had tender feelings for her, but it was an unspeakable wickedness to let a stranger fuck her, an unchristian man who she could not have known for more than a few days.
The fact that they had lain together in the old manse would be a sacrilege the parish would never forgive.
It was so awful that as the men prayed, Cal began to hope that Isla had not consented, that this man had somehow lured her to the manse and forced himself upon her.
The prayer ended. The men raised their heads.
His attention had been so focused on Isla’s father that he had ignored Flash, but Flash had been studying him and when he said he was not the father it must have confirmed some suspicion.
“I don’t know how to say this,” Flash began, “and I cannot be certain, but in the weeks before Isla went away, you will remember there was that trawler stranded in the bay . . .”
Cal looked at him imploringly, but whatever Isla’s uncle thought of her reputation was trumped by his concern for her soul.
“There were seven or eight men, Glaswegians if you recall . . .” There was a horrible, suspended moment where Donnie looked like he might cry out if Flash suggested that Isla had known more than one of these fishermen, but Flash sensed what his brother-in-law was feeling and clarified, “No, Donnie, no. There was but one man in particular, a blonde fella, a little older than Cal there. I saw him one afternoon, talking to Isla down by the slipway. God knows what he was saying but they were laughing their heads off and so I went over to them and brought her away.” He put his large pink hand on Donnie’s wrist. “I thought that was an end to it.”
Donnie loured at Cal. “And what do you say to this?”
“I know nothing about it.”
Ella came into the room and Cal could have cheered for the interruption.
John waved her out but she carried a plate of cheese sandwiches.
“That boy’s not had his dinner.” She handed a plate to Cal and while the men were busy digesting the news, she put her finger under her chin and tilted her head up a little.
Cal sighed but he sat up a little straighter.
The men waited for Ella to leave. She left the door slightly ajar, but John noticed it and got up and closed it at her back.
“So what do we do now?” said John in his practical manner. “How can we help you?”