Chapter 13
‘Did we really run Harris yesterday?’ Drew woke from a thick and dreamless sleep, yawned and stretched, turned on his side and regarded Taylor.
‘I have two toe nails that sure say we did,’ Taylor said. Even the weight of the sheet had been too much and he’d slept with one foot above the covers. He had woken in the early hours, cold, but no way was a sock going on. ‘It’s our last day – can you believe that?’
Drew sat up and opened the curtains. ‘And it is beautiful out there.’
JB was whistling while clattering around in the kitchen but he heard the creak of the floorboards upstairs.
‘Breakfast in T-minus…however long it takes to cook this black sausage and eggs!’ he called up.
They ate outside, squashed together along the garden bench and the grass felt so good under their bare feet.
It was mild; half-hearted clouds grazed a blue sky, the breeze – and there was always a breeze – was gentle today.
April was passing the baton to May. In the flower pots which higgled about to either side of the front door, grape hyacinths, tulips and late daffodils were flowering.
Had they been in bloom earlier in the week?
If they had, the boys wouldn’t have noticed.
Those first days they’d been on Harris, not in Harris.
But something had happened yesterday and Harris was under their skin now, whether they were aware of it or not.
It can come out of nowhere, much like the sneachd nan uan, the lambs’ snow.
They sat and ate and felt happy; they felt grounded.
‘This is the life!’ JB declared, eyes closed and face lifted to the sun. ‘Let’s do a whole load of nothing all day. I mean – you guys go for a stretch-out walk – but leave me right here!’
‘How’s your ankle?’ said Drew.
‘Yeah – you know,’ JB said.
‘Did you phone your father back?’ Taylor asked him; JB had a missed call while they’d been in the bar last night.
‘Nope.’
‘I ought to call my mom later,’ said Drew.
And Taylor thought how he really should call home too. That meant two phone calls now. One to his dad, one to his mom.
‘Hey, if we want to buy anything then today’s the day because all the shops shut on Sundays here,’ Drew said.
‘You still thinking of that waistcoat you saw on our first day?’ Taylor asked.
Drew thought about it. ‘Maybe a couple of smaller things,’ he said. ‘JB – you up for a trip to the tweed place in Tarbert?’
‘Yep.’
‘You know what,’ said Taylor, ‘let’s go to the store in Leverburgh. There’s cool stuff in there too.’
‘Well, I suppose you could call it fashion – but not as we know it.’
Shona Morrison took her time assessing the three of them, looking the boys up and down while they stood obediently, as if on parade.
JB was wearing an inside-out college tee-shirt over a long-sleeve top and his baseball cap.
Drew looked like he might still be in pyjamas but actually they were what he liked to call his sitting-around-pants.
And Taylor, whom Shona studied the longest, wore shorts and the Arladuke top and just the one sock and his slides.
‘Your hair is pink,’ Taylor remarked.
‘Well done Gel Boy,’ she said. Then she touched her hair quickly, awkwardly. ‘That’s what Friday nights are for.’
‘I thought you might have come to the hotel,’ Taylor said.
She gave a little shrug and that shrug revealed that actually, she had thought about it.
‘How are you feeling, then?’ she asked.
‘Yeah – like I just ran over twenty six miles up hills that were trying to kill me.’
And Drew and JB exchanged a look which said, could someone please tell us when this Gel Boy—Island Girl thing kicked off?
Upstairs, JB, Taylor and Drew spent a happy half hour flipping through books, sniffing candles, inspecting the arts and crafts and trying things on.
There was a waistcoat that Drew liked better than the one he’d tried on at the shop in Tarbert but even though Taylor worked out what it cost in dollars and JB kept saying YOLO, baby, YOLO, he decided against it.
His money had to last. Instead, he chose a purse for his mom in the loveliest shades of the Hebridean sky and sea.
Taylor bought a hoodie which had a small map of the island embroidered over the heart and, across the back, the word HEARACH.
JB could have bought anything he wanted and he really liked the tweed blazer, he liked it very much, but in the end he chose a small ceramic model of a traditional Blackhouse which came with tiny pieces of peat to burn.
Yeah I don’t think the jacket suited me, he said to Drew.
Downstairs, Shona was at the till. She wrapped the purse for Drew’s mother and she told JB not to burn the house down as she handed him his purchase. Taylor had kept the hoodie on.
‘Are you going to pay for that?’ she asked and they both thought back to the day when he’d first visited, when she’d accused him of stealing.
‘Yes I am – do you need me to take it off?’
‘Och no, but I’ll be wanting the wee label. Hang on.’
She came out from behind the counter, put her hands on his shoulders and turned him away from her.
Then she stood on her tiptoes and gently removed the label from inside the neck.
It took longer than it needed to because there was a moment when her fingertips touched Taylor’s skin and his curls brushed her hand and moments like that should not be rushed.
‘When do you lads leave,’ she asked casually.
‘Tomorrow,’ Drew told her.
‘Next stop: Edinboro,’ JB announced.
‘Edinburgh!’ Taylor and Shona said in unison.
Back in the car they discussed the merits of packing their things now so there wouldn’t be a rush in the morning; it was a good idea, sensible for them, but at Scarista they pulled in and parked.
It was a manageable meander for JB through the machair, the soft and fertile sea meadows, to the beautiful beach beyond.
The sky was now cloudless, the sun had warmed the breeze and lazy waves flopped at the shore.
Oystercatchers marched about in little mobs.
People, but not many, were strolling slowly. It was a day not to rush.
They lay in the sand, arms behind heads, eyes closed.
‘Oh man!’ JB said and it really was all that needed to be said.
After that, they daydreamed and soon enough they dozed. A day to do little. There was so much of the island left to explore but the trip hadn’t been about sightseeing, about ticking off a list of must-sees; it had been about so much more.
‘I’m going to call my mom,’ said Drew a while later.
It would be the crack of dawn now, in Oregon, but she’d be up.
He could see her so clearly, sipping her coffee, the cat curled in her lap, TV on but volume low; the precious and peaceful half hour to herself before she bustled off to her job.
But envisaging her wasn’t enough and suddenly Drew really wanted to see her; he missed her profoundly just then and experienced a pang of extreme homesickness the likes of which he had not felt since he’d been a little kid on a school trip.
So he FaceTimed her instead. Look where I am, mom!
I’m on an island at the edge of the Atlantic ocean. Can you see? Can you see this view?
JB and Taylor waved at Drew’s mom and said hi, before listening in to mother and son chatting with such ease, such affection, that the four and half thousand miles separating them evaporated.
‘Yeah,’ he was telling her. ‘It was amazing. I’d say it was my favourite marathon so far. Nope – not my fastest by any road. But you know something – turned out it wasn’t about that at all.’
They walked to the water’s edge and stood chatting nonsense while the waves ran over their feet.
JB took photos and selfies and filmed 360°, and Drew said he’d give him something to shoot and he stripped off his top and handed it to Taylor before diving into the sea in his rolled up sitting-around-pants.
‘Join him,’ Taylor said to JB. ‘It’ll be good for you – and your ankle.’
So JB stripped down to his boxers and, with a Tarzan holler, into the sea he charged. Taylor grinned at the pair of them – what prize dicks! – he did love them so. Making a bundle of their clothes, he sat a little way off and watched them larking, so happy. Then he took his phone and dialled.
‘Hey Dad.’
‘Taylor?!’
‘Yep – it’s me. Just thought I’d check in.’
‘Oh it’s great to hear from you! How’s it going? Did you run?’
‘Yesterday.’
‘And?’
‘Unbelievable. Dad – it was awesome.’
‘Ah that’s great – that’s just great.’
‘It was hard. So hard, Dad.’
‘But you did it son – you did it.’
‘Yep.’
‘I’m proud of you.’
‘Thanks but I just thought I’d, you know – call.’
‘Well I appreciate that – thank you very much.’
‘We’re going to Edinburgh tomorrow. It’s going to take quite a while.’
‘I like a long journey – you earn the destination.’
‘I get that now.’
‘Okay, well, it’s great to hear from you, Taylor – thank you for calling. Say – what time is it over there?’
‘It’s just gone three in the afternoon.’
‘Is that so?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Three in the afternoon.’
‘Three in the afternoon.’
‘Well you have a great time now. Say hi to JB and Drew.’
‘I will. Bye then.’
‘Bye son.’
‘Bye.’ Taylor paused. ‘Oh—and Dad?’
The line was dead. His dad had gone. But Taylor had wanted to say how are you Dad – are you okay?
He really had planned on saying I’ve been thinking of you and I really hope you are okay.
He looked hard at his phone. Should he call again?
But the moment had gone; if he called again now it would be awkward.
Perhaps he could say it in a text? No – not a text.
He groaned out loud and fell backwards into the sand, pushing handfuls of it through his hair.
He’d make that call, he would, but on another day.