The Lewis Man

Marsaili was pink-faced with indignation. She raised a solitary finger in her mother’s face. ‘Don’t you dare throw that stuff out! Do you hear? These are my dad’s things. If you don’t want them in the house, I’ll take them.’

‘Take them then!’ Guilt fuelled anger now. ‘Take the damned stuff. I don’t want it! You can burn it for all I care!’ And, close to breaking, she pushed past Fin, hurrying away down the hall.

Marsaili stood breathing hard, staring at Fin with fire still in her eyes. And he thought that at least she had rediscovered her feeling for her father. He said, ‘I’ll put the back seat down and we’ll load up the car.’

Condensation steamed up the kitchen windows in Marsaili’s bungalow. The cardboard boxes had got wet in the transfer from the house to the car and then the car to the bungalow. But their contents had been protected by the bin bags that Fin had taped over the top of them. There had been nothing to save Fin and Marsaili from a soaking, though. Fin had stripped off his wet jacket immediately, and Marsaili was still rubbing her hair vigorously with a large towel.

Fionnlagh stood watching as Fin opened up the boxes one by one. Some contained photograph albums, others old accounts. There were boxes of junk, tools and tins of nails, a magnifying glass, boxes of unused pens whose ink had all dried up, a broken stapler, cartons of paperclips.

Fionnlagh said, ‘I’ve sort of made my peace with the Reverend Murray.’

Fin looked up. ‘He said you’d been to see him.’

‘Several times.’

Fin and Marsaili exchanged glances. ‘And?’

‘You know he’s agreed to let Donna and Eilidh stay here.’

Fin nodded. ‘Yes.’

‘Well, I told him I was going to quit school and try to get a job at Arnish. To make sure I could feed and clothe us all.’

Marsaili was surprised. ‘What did he say?’

‘He just about took my head off.’ Fionnlagh smiled wryly. ‘Told me if I didn’t finish my studies and get a place at university he would personally beat the crap out of me.’

Fin raised an eyebrow. ‘In those words?’

Fionnlagh grinned. ‘Pretty much. I thought ministers weren’t supposed to use language like that.’

Fin laughed. ‘Ministers have a special dispensation from God to swear their fucking heads off if they like. As long as it’s in a good cause.’ He paused. ‘So you’re going to go to university, then?’

‘If I can get in.’

Donna appeared at the door with the baby propped over her shoulder and supported on one arm. ‘Are you going to feed her or am I?’

Fionnlagh grinned at his daughter and brushed her cheek with the backs of his fingers. ‘I’ll do it. Bottle in the warmer?’

‘It is.’ Donna handed the baby over to him.

He turned in the doorway before he followed her out. ‘By the way, you were right, Fin. About Donna’s dad. He’s not so bad.’

A moment passed between father and son, then Fin grinned. ‘Aye, there’s hope for him yet.’

When Fionnlagh had gone he turned to the next box and tore it open to reveal that it was full of books and jotters. He lifted out the top book, a green hardback. An anthology of twentieth-century poetry. ‘I didn’t know your dad liked poetry.’

‘Neither did I.’ Marsaili crossed the kitchen to take a look.

Fin opened the book, and on the inside cover, written in an elegant hand, were the words, Tormod Uilleam Macdonald. A happy birthday. Mum. August 12th 1976. Fin frowned. ‘Mum?’

He heard the tremor in her voice as she said, ‘They always referred to one another as Mum and Dad.’

As he flipped through the pages a folded sheet of lined paper fell out. He picked it up. It was covered in shaky handwriting, and titled, Solas.

‘That’s the daycare centre we took him to that day next to the care home,’ Marsaili said. ‘It’s his handwriting. What does it say?’ She took the sheet from Fin and he stood up to look at it with her. Every third or fourth word was scored out, sometimes several times, as he had tried to correct his misspellings. Her hand flew to her mouth to try to contain her distress. ‘He always prided himself on his spelling.’ Then she read, ‘There were about anything up to twenty people while I was there. Most of them are very old.’ There were three attempts to write ‘old’. ‘Some are very weak and seem unable to speak. Others are unable to walk, but try to put their feet down on about one inch at a time. But there were a few who could step to a reasonable distance.’ Her voice choked off her words and she could read no further.

Fin took it from her and read aloud. ‘When I am writing letters I cannot avoid making feeble mistakes in my words. My loss, of course, didn’t come suddenly. It began about the end of the eleventh year, but it was hardly noticed at all at first. However, as time went on, and on, and on, I began to realize that I was more and more losing my ability to remember things. It is a dreadful thing, and I am very near the moment when I realise I am helpless.’

Fin laid the sheet of paper on the table. Outside, the wind still howled around the door, rain pounding against the window. He ran his finger along the ragged edge, where the sheet had been torn from some jotter. Almost worse than the disease itself, he thought, must be the knowledge that it was taking you. That inch by inch you were losing your reason and your mind, your memories, everything that makes you who you are.

He glanced at Marsaili, who was breathing deeply, drying her cheeks with her palms. There was only so much crying you could do. She said, ‘I’ll make us a cup of tea.’

As she busied herself with the kettle and the mugs and teabags, Fin crouched down again to open more boxes. The next was full of ledgers, incomings and outgoings at the farm over all the years he had worked it. He lifted them out one by one, until at the bottom he found a large, soft-covered cuttings album bulging with articles taken from newspapers and magazines over many years. Fin placed it on top of the box next to him and opened it. At first the cuttings had been neatly stuck to the early pages, then later simply shoved, loose-leaf, between them. There were so many.

He heard the kettle coming to the boil, the weather at the door, music vibrating distantly through the floor from the kids’ room, and Marsaili’s voice. ‘What is it, Fin? What are all these cuttings?’

But at Fin’s very centre all was still. His own voice came to him from a long way away. ‘I think we should take your dad back to Eriskay, Marsaili. That’s the only place we’re going to find the truth.’

THIRTY-FIVE

Marsaili’s here! I knew she’d come for me some day. And the young chap. I’m not sure who he is, but he is kind enough to help me pack some of my things into a bag. Socks and underpants. A couple of shirts. A pair of trousers. They are leaving a lot of stuff in the wardrobe and the drawers. But I suppose they’ll come back for it later. It doesn’t matter. I feel like singing! Good old Marsaili. I can’t wait to get home, although I’m not quite sure now that I remember where exactly that is. But they’ll know.

Everyone’s sitting smiling at me as I leave, and I wave happily at them. The lady who is always trying to make me undress and get into that damned bath doesn’t look too pleased. Like she squatted down on the moor for a pee and sat on a thistle. Ha! I want to say. Serves you right. But I’m not sure what came out in the end. Sounded like Donald Duck. Who said that?

It’s cold outside, and that rain takes me back. All those solitary days out on the land with the beasts. I used to love that. The freedom of it. No more pretending. Just me and the rain in my face. The young man tells me to be sure and say if I need a pee. He’ll stop anywhere, any time, he says. Well, of course, I say. I’m not likely to pee my pants, am I?

We seem to have been driving for a very long time now. I’m not sure if I maybe slept for a bit. I look at the land passing by the window. It hardly seems familiar at all. Not sure if it’s the grass bursting through the rock, or the rock bursting through the grass. But that’s all there is. Grass and rock over all the hillsides.