now almost empty entrance hall and down the steps of the castle and down the driveway and down to Gallanach, where I walked along the esplanade - occasionally having to wave or say ‘Happy New Year’ to various people I didn’t know - until I got to the old railway pier and then the harbour, where I sat on the quay-side, legs dangling, drinking my whisky and watching a couple of swans glide on black, still water, to the distant sound of highland jigs coming from the Steam Packet Hotel, and singing and happy-new-year shouts echoing in the streets of the town, and the occasional sniff as my nose watered in sympathy with my eyes.
CHAPTER 8
Rory stood on the dunes, facing the sea. Lewis stomped away along the tide-line, kicking at the odd piece of driftwood and the occasional plastic bottle. His hands were stuffed into the pockets of his camouflage jacket; his head - short-haired, these days - was down.
South Uist. Lewis seemed to be taking it as a personal insult that the family had come to the Hebrides for their summer holiday. People kept asking him what he was doing on Uist; Lewis was further north, ha ha.
‘He’s awful moody, isn’t he, Uncle Rory?’
Rory watched Lewis walk away along the beach. ‘Yeah.’ He shrugged.
‘Why do you think he doesn’t want to walk with us?’ Prentice’s thin face looked genuinely puzzled. Rory smiled, looked once more at Lewis’s retreating back, then started down the far side of the dune heading for the narrow road. Prentice followed. ‘I think,’ Rory said, ‘it’s called being at an awkward age.’
Kenneth, Mary and the boys had come holidaying to the Hebrides, as they did most years. Rory had been invited along too, as he usually was, and for a change had accepted. So far, they’d been lucky; the Atlantic weather systems had been kind, the days bright and warm, the nights calm and never completely dark. The big rollers boomed in, the wide beaches lay mostly empty, and the machair - between dunes and cultivation - was a waving ocean of bright flowers thrown across the rich green waves of grass. Rory loved it, somewhat to his surprise; a holiday from holidays. A place to stay where he didn’t have to take notes about flights and ferries and hotels and restaurants and sights. No travel book to think about, no articles, no pressure. He could laze.
He volunteered to take the boys on a walk after breakfast that Sunday. James had stayed behind and Lewis had been sullen for the half-hour or so they’d been walking before suddenly announcing he wanted to be alone.
Rory and Prentice walked on together, their short shadows preceding them. The road would be turning east soon, and taking them back to the main road so that they could turn south and walk back to the house. Lewis knew his way about the area, so Rory was happy to let him wander off alone.
A car passed them on the single track road, heading north; they stood aside to let it pass, waving at the single occupant when he waved at them. The surf was a distant wash of noise, rolling over the sparkling machair in invisible waves. Larks warbled, points of sound in the sweep of blue sky and small puffy clouds.
‘Is it all right to walk on a Sunday, Uncle Rory?’
‘All right?’ Rory said, glancing at the boy. In shorts and a short-sleeved shirt, he looked almost painfully thin. Rory wore an old cheesecloth shirt and cut-off jeans.
‘Aye; dad was saying you’re not even allowed to walk in some islands on a Sunday!’ Prentice rolled his eyes and puffed his cheeks out.
‘Well, yeah,’ Rory said. ‘I think they’re like that in Lewis and Harris. But that’s the hard-line prods up there. Down here they’re Catholics; bit more relaxed about that sort of thing.’
‘But not being able to walk!’ Prentice protested, shaking his head at his shadow on the grey-black tarmac.
‘I think you’re allowed to walk to church and back.’
‘Ho! Big deal!’ Prentice didn’t sound impressed. He was silent for a while. ‘Mind you,’ he said, sounding sly. ‘I suppose you could always take a very long way round.’
Rory laughed, just as his attention was caught by a little white blossom lying on the road surface in front of them. Prentice looked up, at first surprised, then smiling, when Rory laughed. Prentice stood on the flower, then jumped, shrieking with pain.
‘Ah; my foot! My foot! Oh! Oh!’
Rory stood, open mouthed