The Chessmen

CHAPTER FIVE
I

As he drove home the night after that first encounter with Whistler, Fin’s thoughts had been dominated by him. The way he lived, the imminent eviction from his home.

The sun cast lengthening shadows among the dried grasses on the rise as he passed the turn-off to the Crobost Free Church. He cast a glance towards the manse standing on the hill above it, and the Reverend Murray’s car parked at the foot of the steps. Although they had never seen eye to eye on God and faith, Fin felt enormous empathy for his childhood friend, and each time he passed the church shared something of Donald’s hurt. Along with anger that people could so lack understanding.

The collection of houses and crofts that made up the village of Crobost, treeless and exposed to the wind, was strung along half a mile of clifftop above the beach at Port of Ness, the most northerly port on the island. But the harbour was storm-damaged and these days used only by the odd crabber. From here Fin could see a few small boats dragged up on to the sand, or bobbing in the shelter of the harbour wall, tugging gently on creaking ropes.

A good hundred yards or so closer to Port of Ness than Fin’s parents’ croft stood Marsaili’s bungalow, just below the road. It had belonged to Artair’s parents. But both they and Artair were gone now, and Marsaili lived there with her son. Who was Fin’s son, too.

The old crofthouse up the road where he had lived until the death of his parents was only partially restored. Fin had stripped it back to its stone walls. He had put a new roof on it. But it wasn’t yet habitable, and he had moved in with Marsaili. A temporary arrangement, they had both agreed. He was to have had Artair’s mother’s old room. But in no time he had found himself in Marsaili’s bed. As if all the years which had passed since the summer of love they had shared before leaving for university had never been. The people they had become in between, the separate lives they had led, seemed unreal now. Like phantoms in a bad dream. And yet, Fin knew, there was something missing. Whether it was something in him, or in Marsaili, or something in the way they had never quite been able to recreate the magic of that lost summer, he could not have said. But whatever it was, it troubled him.

Marsaili’s car stood on the gravel at the top of the path down to the bungalow, its tailgate raised. Fin drew in behind it. He crossed the grass to the path and felt it almost brittle underfoot, the peaty soil beneath it hard after so long without rain. The kitchen door stood open and he could hear Marsaili’s voice calling from somewhere deeper in the house. ‘And don’t forget that knitted jumper. It’s warm now, but it’ll be cold in no time, and you’ll need it.’

As he stepped into the kitchen he heard Fionnlagh’s shouted response from the bedroom upstairs. ‘There’s not enough room in the case.’ Fin smiled. Knitted jumpers were not exactly fashionable, and Fionnlagh was nothing if not a young man of his times.

‘I’ll come up if you want!’

‘No, no, it’s all right. I’ll get it in somehow.’

Fin was quite sure that Marsaili would find that knitted jumper at the bottom of a drawer in days to come. She came into the kitchen sighing her exasperation. ‘Boys!’ The word exploded from her, and she threw a dangerous look in the direction of Fin’s laughter. It was a look he loved. Full of the spirit of the Marsaili of old, auburn hair swept back from a fine face with smiling lips, and cornflower-blue eyes filled with the fire of ice. ‘What’s so funny?’

‘You.’

‘Thank you.’ She gave him an ironic little smile without humour and returned to a worktop where she was in the process of preparing sandwiches for the ferry trip. ‘So how does it feel to have a real job again?’

Fin leaned against the fridge. ‘Doesn’t feel like a real job. No office, no telephones, no one counting my hours.’

‘When they’re not counting them it usually means you’re working far more than you should.’

Fin smiled and nodded. ‘I probably will be.’ Then he said, ‘I met an old schoolfriend today.’

‘Yes?’ Marsaili was still focused on her sandwiches, and he sensed that she wasn’t really interested.

‘John Angus Macaskill. Everyone knew him as Whistler.’

‘Oh, yes. Played the flute with — what were they called then — Solas?’

‘That’s him.’

‘Good-looking big lad. But not right in the head, I think.’

Fin grinned at her description of him. ‘Too clever for his own good, he was. Still is.’

‘I never really knew him. We didn’t mix in the same circles at school.’ She began wrapping the sandwiches in tinfoil.

‘No, you were too busy with Artair in those days.’

There was an almost imperceptible pause in the wrapping of the sandwiches, but she didn’t turn. ‘What’s he doing now?’

‘Living like a tramp in a tip of a croft down in Uig.’

She turned, holding the wrapped sandwiches in her hands, a glint of curiosity in her eyes. ‘Like a tramp?’

Fionnlagh dragged an enormous brown suitcase into the kitchen. He was as tall as Fin. Perhaps taller. With his tight blonde curls gelled into points, and his mother’s blue eyes. He nodded acknowledgement to his father as Fin expanded on his description of Whistler for Marsaili. ‘He’s sort of dropped out. Self-sufficient. Poaching, of course. And locked in some kind of custody battle for his daughter.’

‘With his wife?’

‘No, she’s dead. Kenny John Maclean’s her legal guardian.’

Fionnlagh broke in. ‘Are we talking about Anna Bheag?’

Fin looked at him, surprised. ‘You know her?’

‘Anna Macaskill, from Uig?’

‘That would be her.’

Fionnlagh nodded. ‘She’s trouble that one. In third year at the Nicolson. Never seen so many tattoos to the square inch on a lassie in my life. A good-looking girl, too, but wears her hair cropped, like a boy’s, and got a face-full of metal.’

Fin was taken aback. It wasn’t the image conjured up by Whistler’s ‘wee Anna’. ‘What age is she?’

Fionnlagh shrugged. ‘About fifteen, maybe. But no virgin, that’s for sure. Hangs about with a druggie crowd. So God knows what she’s on. Shame. Smart kid. But brains are wasted on her.’ He glanced at his mother. ‘Will I just take this out to the car?’

‘On you go,’ Marsaili said. ‘I’ll put the sandwiches in your rucksack.’

Fionnlagh started heaving his case out of the door. ‘I don’t need sandwiches. I can buy something on the boat.’

Marsaili headed for the living room and threw her riposte over her shoulder. ‘Money doesn’t grow on trees, Fionnlagh. You’ll find that out soon enough when you’re trying to live on a budget down in Glasgow.’

Fifteen minutes later they all walked up to the road with the last of Fionnlagh’s stuff as Donald’s car pulled in ahead of them and he helped Donna out with her case. Every time Fin saw Donald these days it appeared he had lost more weight. Gone were his boyish good looks, and more of his fine sandy hair. And Fin was struck, as he always was, by how young Donna looked. Hardly old enough to be the mother of Fin’s granddaughter. Seventeen going on twelve. In spite of the long, hot summer, she had a winter pallor about her, as if she had never been over the door. And he wondered how much of himself there was in Fionnlagh, and whether his relationship with Donna would survive the years at university. At least, he thought, they had the glue of a child to hold them together. Unlike Fin and Marsaili. Maybe things would have been different had Fin known back then that Marsaili was carrying his child.

They transferred Donna’s case to Marsaili’s car. She was driving them to the ferry in Stornoway. Then they all stood around for an awkward moment, none of them wanting to initiate the goodbyes, and yet they would have to be said. Eventually, they went through the ritual hugs and kisses, and before she slipped behind the wheel Marsaili said to Donald, ‘Tell Catriona I’ll pick up Eilidh in the morning.’ It was the last night the baby would spend at the Murrays’. Marsaili had agreed to look after her granddaughter during Fionnlagh and Donna’s university years. An unwanted second motherhood, crushing the desire she had expressed only a few months before to resume her own studies, and go in search of the young woman whose potential she had wasted. She was sacrificing her second chance at life in order to give them their first.

Fin and Donald stood watching the car as it rounded the bend where the single-track road dipped down towards the Crobost Stores and the main road that would take them to Stornoway. This time tomorrow night their children would be in Glasgow, embarking on new lives, leaving their parents behind to come to terms with the mess they’d made of theirs.

Fin glanced up at the sun sinking now towards the west. The days were long still, and there were perhaps another several hours of daylight remaining. But soon those days would start shrinking fast, and the islanders would take badly to the onset of another long, bleak winter in the aftermath of the best summer in living memory.

The striking of a match turned Fin’s head and he saw with something like shock that Donald was lighting a cigarette, hands cupped around a flickering flame. It seemed discordant, out of keeping with the black cotton and the dog collar, which themselves struck an odd note with his jeans and trainers. His face became thinner as he sucked on his cigarette. The last time Fin had seen Donald smoking would have been nearly eighteen years before, at which time it would almost certainly have been a joint.

‘When did you start smoking again?’

Donald drew more smoke into his lungs. ‘When I stopped caring.’

‘About what?’

‘Myself.’ He blew smoke into the wind. ‘Oh, don’t worry, Fin. I’m not wallowing in self-pity just yet.’ He glanced at him. ‘Let’s walk on the beach. I need to ask you a favour.’

The tide was on its way in again. Creamy foam rushing over compacted virgin sand broken only by the tracks of seagulls where they had foraged for creatures just below the surface. Fin and Donald left their own trail of erratic footprints in their wake, breaking frequently up the slope to avoid the incoming wash. Gulls wheeled and cawed overhead, enjoying the last of the sunshine that caught the gable ends of houses all along the road above the harbour. The wind was stronger now, but still soft in their faces.

They had walked some way in silence before Donald said, ‘I heard the other day that they might ask me to quit the manse.’

Fin was astonished. ‘What happened to innocent until proven guilty? You’re only suspended, for God’s sake!’

‘It’s for the Church’s sake, Fin, not God’s.’ Donald kept his eyes focused on some distant point far ahead of them. ‘Apparently some of the elders feel that the minister they have sent to preach in my stead should also have my house.’

‘The same elders who’ve brought the charges against you, no doubt.’

The merest smile played about Donald’s lips for a second. ‘Of course.’ Then it vanished almost as quickly. ‘I think Catriona might be going to leave me.’

Fin stopped dead in the sand, and Donald had taken several more steps before he realized it and stopped too. He turned. Fin said, ‘Why?’

Donald shrugged. ‘Because I’m not the man she married, she says.’

‘You’re the man who saved her daughter’s life.’

‘By killing another man.’

‘The fiscal himself said there wasn’t a jury of your peers who would have convicted you for killing to save innocent lives. You did nothing wrong.’

‘In the eyes of the law perhaps.’

‘You had no choice.’

‘There’s always a choice.’

‘And you chose the lesser of two evils.’

‘God is clear, Fin. Thou shalt not kill. It wasn’t a request, it was a command.’ He drew a deep breath. ‘At any rate, that’s what my accusers will argue. And that’s what I wanted to ask you about.’

‘The sixth commandment?’

Which drew a chuckle. ‘No, Fin. I think I am familiar enough with your views on the subject of anything to do with God and the Church.’

‘What, then?’

Donald’s smile evaporated. ‘The Presbytery has decided to take the matter to a disciplinary court. Effectively a trial. Under Church law. If I want to keep my job I will have to defend myself. And they want to call witnesses. They want to call you, Fin.’ Now, for the first time, he appeared to be uncertain of himself. ‘Will you testify?’

And Fin remembered all those moments from childhood when Donald had stood up for him, even when it had meant putting himself at risk. He felt emotion rising in him like a river in flood. For a moment he could barely trust himself to speak. Then at last he found his voice. ‘Donald, how could you ever imagine I wouldn’t?’