Питер Мэй - I'll Keep You Safe

It was another three years before I had the chance to pay him back for saving my life, even if it was in just a very small way.

He had paid me not the least attention in all that time, moving the following year into the class above mine, and the year after that to Shawbost. I caught the occasional glimpse of him getting on to the minibus that took the Balanish kids to secondary school, and from time to time at village functions, though I was still too young to go to the dances. When he had crawled out across those planks to rescue me from the bog up on the moor, he’d been quite a slight boy. Now he’d sprouted, and was taller than Anndra, who was a big lad himself.

He’d have been twelve years old by that time, and conscious then of how he looked. Clothes, it seemed, were important to him, and he always had a certain style about him. Narrow jeans, and designer T-shirts and short jackets that sat well on his square shoulders. His hair was cut short at the sides, but left long at the back in a mullet — as well as on top, where it piled up in waves and curls. I’m sure he was using some kind of gel to keep it all in place. I didn’t know a single girl at school who didn’t think he was gorgeous. Except, of course, for Seonag, who had retained her jealous contempt for him all this time.

As for me, I hated how I looked. I had freckles, and hair that I spent hours trying to straighten. It’s funny how people with straight hair always want curls, and those with curly hair want it straight. I was never satisfied. I hadn’t started my periods yet, and still had a boyish figure, and not even the beginnings of breasts. Unlike Seonag, who had already begun to develop hips and boobs, and looked years older than me. She had the most stunning red hair with a porcelain complexion, and was morphing into the kind of beauty that was starting to turn heads in the playground.

So if I was going to attract Ruairidh’s attention at all, I was going to have to find other ways of doing it.

It was approaching Halloween. Kids on the mainland, on October 31st, would dress up as pirates and fairies and Obi-Wan Kenobi and go out guising. But Lewis boys were up to something quite different. While the girls would gather in community and village halls, dancing and playing music and dooking for apples, the boys were out stealing gates.

I have no idea how it all started, but it was and is an island tradition. The boys would go out in gangs on Halloween to steal and hide as many croft gates as they could. The object of the exercise, it appeared, was to amuse the boys and annoy the owners. And if sheep got out, so much the better.

Of course, the boys got hell each year from their fathers. Fathers who had done the selfsame thing when they were young. And it would always be the same victims, too. Those crofters who reacted the most, shouting and chasing the boys. That, apparently, made it all much more fun.

There was one eccentric old bodach in Balanish who never failed to rise to the bait, and he had became the focus of attention every Halloween. His was the prize gate. His name was spelled E-a-c-h-a-n. But you have to know how that is pronounced in Gaelic to understand his nickname. The ea is pronounced ya , so the name is pronounced yachan . And everyone knew him as Yankee Eachan.

In the late Forties, after the war, Yankee Eachan had gone off to America in search of work. He left the island speaking only Gaelic, and when he returned a few years later, having picked up only a few words of English, he pronounced them with a broad American accent. Hence the nickname.

Now in his late sixties, he had a short temper and a foul mouth, despite being a respected elder of the church. Each year, as soon as he realized what was happening, he would be at his front door, spittle gathering about his lips as he shouted, ‘Gorram sumbitch!’ Followed by the Gaelic, ‘ Fhalbh a thigh an Diabhaill !’ Which translated literally as ‘Go to the Devil’s house!’ Or in the vernacular as ‘Go to hell!’ And it never failed to amuse the boys, invariably producing the biggest laugh of the night. All the more because Yankee Eachan never seemed to have any recollection of the exact same thing happening the year before. He always gave chase, and on those rare occasions when he actually caught one of the boys he would give him a good smack round the side of the head for his trouble.

Both Anndra and Uilleam were now old enough to join the other village boys on the annual gate-stealing escapade, and that year I begged them to take me along because I knew that Ruairidh would be among them.

But they were scornful. Girls didn’t go stealing gates. That was boys’ work. Why didn’t I go to the Halloween party in the community hall with the rest of the lassies? But I was determined not to. And if I couldn’t actually tag along with the boys, then I was going to find myself a good vantage point and watch it all from a discreet distance.

The land rose quite steeply behind the church, before levelling out across the moor, and so I climbed up on to the hill that Halloween in order to see what was going on, and maybe catch a glimpse of Ruairidh.

It was a fine dry night, with a stiff breeze blowing in off the loch, and I sat cross-legged up there on my own with the wind tugging at my hair and my anorak, and watched as the drama of the evening unfolded below.

The boys divided themselves into two groups. One was to provide a distraction, while the other moved in to steal the gates. The distraction usually comprised a banger stuffed into the lock of a croft-house door. Once lit, the distraction team retreated to watch from a position of safety as the banger exploded and the startled crofter appeared in his doorway. The boys would then run off, encouraging the crofter to give chase. Which is when the second team would move in to lift the croft gate from its hinges and smuggle it away to hide someplace where it wouldn’t immediately be found.

Stupid! But that’s how it was.

The boys would usually manage to steal anything up to a dozen gates before darkness brought an end to the game. That night, watching from the hill behind the church, I saw them take five gates before they reached Yankee Eachan’s place.

Ruairidh was with the gate stealers, about six or seven of them, and I saw them crouching behind the remains of an old blackhouse as the distraction team moved towards Yankee Eachan’s front door. Most of them huddled by the fence as one brave soul crept up on the house to plant and light a banger at the front door. It went off with a crack that resonated around the hills, even before the boy who had lit the fuse was able to rejoin the others.

The door flew open almost at once, and Yankee Eachan stood there, a thick leather belt with a heavy buckle dangling from his hand. This year he was ready for them.

‘Gorram sumbitch!’ he roared into the night. He was a big man. Built, as they say, like a brick shit house after years of manual labour. There was no doubting that if he caught you he would do you some damage. He dragged his old tweed bunnet over his bald head, and charged down the steps towards the boys by the fence. Their initial laughter dissolved quickly into alarm, and they hared off around the side of his house. The old man chased after them, swinging the belt around his head.

When they had disappeared from view, I saw the stealers slip out from the cover of the ruined blackhouse and run across the field to lift Yankee Eachan’s gate from its hinges. It was a galvanized tube gate, filled in with wire, so there wasn’t much weight in it. But no sooner had they removed it from its gate post, than Yankee Eachan reappeared from behind the house. He had only pretended to give chase to the distractors, waiting instead until the gate thieves showed themselves. Now he came charging towards them, cursing and swearing in Gaelic, still swinging his belt through the air.