of it almost instantly, peace descending on him like a shroud out of the darkness. Marsaili passed it to me, its end wet with her saliva. I smoked the occasional cigarette, and so didn’t think I would disgrace myself by choking on the inhalation. But I wasn’t expecting the smoke to be so hot, and a fit of coughing exploded from my lungs into my throat. When I regained control, I found Donald and Marsaili looking at me with knowing little smiles. ‘Caught the back of my throat,’ I said.
‘You’d better take another drag, then,’ Donald told me, and I had no option but to try again. This time I managed to keep the smoke in my lungs for about ten seconds, passing the joint back to Donald, before exhaling slowly.
Of course, I should have known that I would give myself away as a first-timer by giggling. I spent the next fifteen minutes laughing at anything and everything. It’s amazing how funny things were. A comment, a look, a shriek of laughter from the neighbouring bonfire. Any one of these would set me off. Donald and Marsaili watched me with the laid-back detachment of experienced smokers, until finally my giggles subsided. By the time we had smoked a second joint I was feeling supremely mellow, staring into the flames and seeing all sorts of answers there to those questions about life that the young always like to ask. Answers that were as elusive as the flames themselves, and never there the next morning when you woke up.
I was only vaguely aware of someone calling from the beach and Donald getting to his feet and padding away across the sand. When I looked around, I saw that most of the other kids around our fire had drifted away too, and only Marsaili and I were left sitting there. We were not within touching distance, but she was looking at me with a very odd expression.
‘Come here.’ She patted the sand beside her.
Like an obedient little dog, I shuffled around until my backside filled the dent she had made in the beach with her hand. I felt my thigh touching hers, and the heat of her body next to mine.
‘You’re a complete bastard, you know that?’ But her voice was soft, and without rancour. Of course, I knew that I was, so I didn’t dare contradict her. ‘You stole my heart when I was too young to know any better, and then you dumped and humiliated me.’ I tried a smile, but I’m sure it must have come out like some ghastly grimace. She looked at me earnestly and shook her head. ‘I don’t know why I still have these feelings for you.’
‘What feelings?’
She leaned over, and with the same hand she had used to slap me, turned my face towards her and kissed me. A long, soft, open-mouthed kiss that sent tremors running through me, and blood rushing to my loins.
When finally she had finished with me, she said, ‘Those feelings.’ She sat for a minute looking at me, then stood up and reached for my hand. ‘Come on.’
We walked hand-in-hand among the fires, faces passing in a blur, music mixing one song into another, voices murmuring softly in the night, the occasional peal of laughter. I had a sense of heightened awareness of everything around me; the sound of the sea, the density of the night, the closeness of the stars, like the tips of white-hot needles that you could reach up and touch and prick your fingers. I was aware, too, of the warm touch of Marsaili’s hand in mine, the softness of her skin as we stopped repeatedly to kiss, her breasts pushing gently into my chest, my penis swelling now and straining at my jeans, pressing into her abdomen. I felt her hand slipping down to close itself around my hardness.
The main room in the shieling was empty when we got there, its earthen floor strewn with empty beer cans and stacked with boxes of booze and binbags filled with the detritus of the barbecue. Marsaili seemed to know where she was going, and led me to a door at the back of the room. As we reached it, the door opened and a couple, not much older than we were, came out giggling, brushing past us, oblivious to our presence. The back room was much smaller, lit by candles placed around the wall. The air was heavy with the scent of dope and burning wax and the smell of human bodies. A tarpaulin had been thrown across the floor and was covered with travelling rugs and cushions, and sleeping bags which had been unzipped and opened out like quilts.
Marsaili squatted down on one of the rugs, still holding my hand, and pulling on it so that I would sit beside her. Almost before my backside hit the floor, she had pushed me over, rolling on top of me, kissing me with a ferocity I had never experienced. Then she sat astride me, straightening up to pull off her top, and those fine, pink- nippled breasts I had seen on the beach swung free. I cupped their gentle firmness in my hands, and felt the nipples harden against my skin. She reached down and unzipped my jeans, releasing me from their constraint, and a tiny spike of fear shot through my dope-induced torpor.
‘Marsaili, you were right,’ I whispered.
She looked at me. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I’ve never done this before.’ It was not a confession I would ever have made in the cold light of day.
She laughed. ‘Don’t worry. I have.’
Unaccountably, I was filled with indignation and sat upright. ‘Who with?’
‘It’s none of your business.’
‘Was it Artair?’ Somehow it seemed very important to me that it shouldn’t have been Artair.
She sighed. ‘No, it wasn’t Artair. If you must know, it was Donald.’
Somehow I was both startled and relieved. Also confused. I suppose the beer and the dope, and everything else that was happening to me that night, had combined to rob me of my reason. Even my jealousy. And I submitted to Marsaili’s greater experience. I don’t really remember very much about that first time. Only that it seemed to be over very quickly. But, as it turned out, there were many more opportunities for us that summer to practise and perfect our technique.
As we struggled back into our clothes afterwards, the door suddenly burst open, and Donald was standing there grinning, a girl on each arm. ‘For Christ’s sake, have you two not finished yet? There’s a bloody queue out here.’
TEN
The clacking of the keyboard filled the silence in the darkened bedroom. The screen reflected its light on Fin’s pale face, concentration gathered in the frown around his eyes and across the bridge of his nose. These exams were so important. Everything depended on them. The rest of his life. Focus, focus. Concentrate. A movement in his peripheral vision made him turn, and he felt goosebumps raising themselves across his arms and shoulders. He was there again. That impossibly tall man in the hooded anorak, greasy hair dragged down over his ears. Just standing in the doorway, like before, head bowed against the ceiling, big hands hanging loosely at his sides. This time his lips were moving, as if he were trying to say something. Fin strained to hear, but there were no words coming from his mouth, just the rank, bitter smell of stale tobacco on a breath whose foulness seemed to fill the room.
Fin woke, startled, with the stink of stale alcohol breath in his face. Daylight was streaming through thin curtains, seeping in around all their edges. Artair’s weary, bloated face hovered over him, a hand shaking his shoulder. ‘Fin, for fuck’s sake, wake up, Fin.’
Fin sat bolt upright, breathing hard, disorientated, still afraid. Where the hell was he? Then his eye fell on the card table folded against the wall and the Cyprus coffee stain. He raised his eyes to the ceiling and saw the gannet in flight. ‘Jesus.’ He was still gasping for breath.
Artair stood back, looking at him curiously. ‘Are you alright?’
‘Yeh. Fine. I’m fine. Just a nightmare.’ Fin drew in a deep lungful of warm, sour air. ‘What time is it?’
‘Six.’
He had barely slept, turning frequently to look at the digital display on the bedside table. Two. Two forty-five. Three fifteen. Three fifty. The last time he had looked it was almost five o’clock. He could only have been dozing for an hour or so.
‘We have to go right now,’ Artair said.
Fin was confused. ‘At this time?’
‘Fionnlagh and me have to get down to Port of Ness before I leave for work. We’re helping the boys load the lorry with supplies for An Sgeir.’
Fin pushed the quilt aside and swung his legs out of the bed. He rubbed tired eyes. ‘Give me a minute to get dressed.’
But Artair made no move to go. Fin glanced up to find his old schoolfriend watching him intently, an odd
