The Lewis Man

SIX

At first Fin was completely disorientated. There was an intermittent beating in his ears above the sound of wind and water. He was hot, sweating profusely beneath the covers, but his face and hands were cold. A strange blue light permeated the brightness that dazzled him when he opened his eyes. It took a full thirty seconds before he remembered where he was, and saw the white lining of his tent breathing erratically in and out like a runner gasping for air at the end of a race. All around him was a shambles of clothes, a half-unpacked canvas satchel, his laptop, and a scattering of papers.

In the failing light he had chosen a patch of ground which had seemed relatively flat for the pitching of his two-man tent. But now he realized that it sloped with the land down towards the cliffs and the sea beyond. He sat upright, listening for a moment to the guy ropes creaking and straining at their pegs, then slipped out of his sleeping bag and into some fresh clothes.

Daylight blinded him as he unzipped the outer shell and crawled on to the hill. There had been rain during the night, but already the wind had dried the grass. He sat in it, barefoot, pulling on his socks, and screwing up his eyes against the glare of sunlight on the ocean, a burned-out ring of luminescence that flared briefly before the gap in the clouds above it closed, like turning off a light switch. He sat, knees pulled up to his chest, forearms resting on top of them, and breathed the salt air, and smelled peat smoke and damp earth. The wind tugging at his short, fair curls stung his face and sent a wonderful sense surging through him of simply being alive.

He looked back over his left shoulder and saw the ruins of his parents’ crofthouse, an old whitehouse, and beyond it the remains of the blackhouse where his forebears had lived for centuries, and where he had played as a child, happy and secure, never once imagining what life might hold in store for him.

Above that the road wound down the hill through the strung-out collection of disparate dwellings that made up the village of Crobost. Red tin roofs on old loom sheds, houses whitewashed or pink-harled, irregular fenceposts, tufts of wool snagged on barbed wire fluttering in the wind. The narrow strips of land known as crofts ran down the slope towards the cliffs, some cultivated to raise basic crops, grains and root vegetables, others supporting nothing but sheep. The discarded technology of distant decades, rusted tractors and broken harvesters, littered overgrown plots, the rotting symbols of a once hoped-for prosperity.

Beyond the curve of the hill, Fin could see the dark roof of Crobost Church dominating both the skyline and the people over whose lives its shadow fell. Someone had hung out washing at the manse, and white sheets flapped furiously in the wind like demented semaphore flags urging praise and fear of God in equal measures.

Fin loathed the church and all it stood for. But there was comfort in its familiarity. This, after all, was home. And he felt his spirits lifted.

He heard his name carried on the wind as he pulled on his boots, and he turned, scrambling to his feet, to see a young man standing by his car where he had abandoned it at the gate of the crofthouse the night before. He set off, wading through the grass, and as he got closer, saw the ambivalence in his visitor’s smile.

The young man was about eighteen, a little less than half Fin’s age, with fair hair gelled into spikes, and cornflower-blue eyes so piercingly like his mother’s that they raised goosebumps on Fin’s arms. For a moment they stood in awkward silence sizing each other up, before Fin reached out a hand and the boy gave it a brief, firm shake.

‘Hello, Fionnlagh.’

The boy thrust his jaw in the direction of the pale-blue tent. ‘Just passing through?’

‘Temporary accommodation.’

‘It’s been a while.’

‘It has.’

Fionnlagh paused for a moment, to give his words emphasis. ‘Nine months.’ And there was a definite accusation in them.

‘I had a whole life to pack up behind me.’

Fionnlagh canted his head a little. ‘Does that mean you’re back to stay?’

‘Maybe.’ Fin turned his gaze over the croft. ‘This is home. It’s where you come when you’ve nowhere else to go. Whether or not I stay … well, that remains to be seen.’ He turned green eyes back on the boy. ‘Do folk know?’

Their eyes locked for several seconds in a silence laden with history. ‘All that anyone knows is that my father died out on An Sgeir last August during the guga hunt.’

Fin nodded. ‘Fair enough.’ He turned to open the gate and walked down the overgrown path to what had once been the front door of the old whitehouse. The door itself was long gone, a few remaining pieces of rotten architrave still clinging to the brick. The purple paint with which his father had once lavished every wooden surface, including the floors, was still discernible in odd, flaking patches. The roof was largely intact, but the timbers were decayed and rainwater had streaked every wall. The floorboards were gone, leaving only a few stubborn joists. It was a shell of a place, no trace remaining of the love that had once warmed it. He heard Fionnlagh at his shoulder and turned. ‘I’m going to gut this place. Rebuild it from the inside out. Maybe you’d like to give me a hand during the summer holidays.’

Fionnlagh shrugged noncommittally. ‘Maybe.’

‘Will you be going to university in the autumn?’

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘I need to find a job. I’m a father now. I have responsibilities to my child.’

FIn nodded. ‘How is she?’

‘She’s fine. Thanks for asking.’

Fin ignored the sarcasm. ‘And Donna?’

‘Living at home with her parents, and the baby.’

Fin frowned. ‘What about you?’

‘Mum and I are still at the bungalow down the hill.’ He nodded his head vaguely in the direction of the house that Marsaili had inherited from Artair. ‘The Reverend Murray won’t let me go up to see them at the manse.’

Fin was incredulous. ‘Why not? You’re the baby’s father, for God’s sake.’

‘With no means of supporting either his daughter or her mother. Occasionally Donna can sneak her up to see me at the bungalow, but usually we have to meet in town.’

Fin swallowed his anger. No point in directing it at Fionnlagh. Time enough for that. Another place, another person. ‘Is your mother at home?’ It was an innocent enough question, and yet they both knew how charged it was.

‘She’s been away in Glasgow, sitting exams for university entrance.’ Fionnlagh registered Fin’s surprise. ‘She didn’t tell you?’

‘We haven’t been in touch.’

‘Oh.’ His eyes wandered back down the hill towards the Macinnes bungalow. ‘I always thought that you and Mum might get back together again.’

Fin’s smile was touched by sadness, and perhaps regret. ‘Marsaili and I couldn’t make it work all those years ago, Fionnlagh. Why should it be any different now?’ He hesitated. ‘Is she still in Glasgow?’

‘No. She came back early. Flew in this morning. A family emergency.’