Peter May - The Chessmen

The old man’s daughter came in with a tray of tea, and her face creased with concern when she saw her father’s tears. ‘Oh, boys, what have you done to upset him?’ She laid the tray on the table and hurried to wipe away his tears with a hanky. ‘It’s okay, Dad. You calm yourself now.’

He almost pushed her away. ‘Nothing to be calm about. It’s how it was.’ He looked at Kenny, then. ‘I know you,’ he said. ‘Or your father.’

Kenny looked startled. ‘My father, I think. Kenny Dubh Maclean.’

Old Mr Smith nodded. ‘Oh, aye. Knew his grandfather, too: Big Kenny, we called him.’

‘Really?’ Kenny was taken aback to learn that his great-grandfather had been known by the same moniker.

‘He was at the back of the boat with me when it struck.’ He shook his head. ‘Never made it. I don’t know why, but your family never brought him home. He’s buried with a lot of others at the cemetery at Sanndabhaig.’

We both looked at Kenny and saw his shock, as if he were hearing of the death of a close relative for the first time.

The old man swivelled his watery gaze towards Whistler. ‘Your father’s that drunk over at Ardroil.’

Whistler’s mouth tightened into a grim line, but he neither acknowledged nor denied it.

‘Not half the man his grandfather was. Calum John. Risked his life, he did, taking another man with him when it would have been easier to grab the line and pull himself ashore on his own.’

And then I felt his gaze fall on me.

‘I don’t know you, I think.’

My mouth was dry, as if I were sitting in the presence of God Himself and He was pointing a finger at me. ‘I’m Finlay Macleod from Crobost in Ness,’ I said. ‘My father was Angus.’

‘Ahhh.’ It was as if cataracts had been peeled away from the old man’s eyes and he could see clearly for the first time. ‘And his father was Donnie. That’s why you boys are here.’

I glanced at Whistler, but he just shrugged. ‘What do you mean?’ I said.

‘It was Donnie Macleod that Calum John Macaskill risked his life to pull from the wreck of the Iolaire that night. For sure, you wouldn’t have been here today, son, if this lad’s great-granddad hadn’t brought your grandfather ashore.’

Outside we stood by our bikes for a long time without speaking. In the distance you could see the waves breaking all along the shore and the wind was the only voice among us. It was Kenny who broke the silence. He swung a leg over his bike. ‘I’m going back to Stornoway,’ he said. ‘To take a look at the grave.’ We nodded, and watched as he kicked his bike into life and puttered away up the hill. I looked at Whistler and said, ‘I think there’s something we need to do.’

Charles Morrison Ltd, the ship’s chandlers, was in Bank Street in Stornoway, a wonderfully old-fashioned hardware shop with all manner of tackle behind its big dark counter. We came out, blinking in the sunlight, Whistler and me, clutching a bottle of white spirit, and walked down to the inner harbour where we had parked our bikes.

The ride out to Holm Point took less than fifteen minutes, but we stopped on the way, at Sanndabhaig Cemetery, to pick up Big Kenny. We had seen him from a long way off standing at what must have been his great-grandfather’s grave. And the three of us abandoned our bikes at the road end and walked out to the monument.

I had an old rugby shirt in my saddlebag, and we spent the next hour working patiently and carefully at the stone, to clean away the decades of dirt and neglect which had almost obliterated the words of this memorial to the men who had died that dreadful night.

When we had finished we sat with our backs to the railing, and gazed out over the Beasts of Holm below. Slow-heaving slabs of green water, moving in cautious swells around the shiny black gneiss, broke white around its jagged edges, slurping and sighing almost as if it were alive.

So many had perished there on the dawn of that New Year’s day so long ago. Kenny’s great-grandfather among them. And all I could see as I looked out over the rocks was the image of the photograph I had seen that morning in the Stornoway Gazette . The mast of the Iolaire , poking up out of the water. The only part of the boat still visible. At first light rescuers had seen one man clinging to it for dear life. There had been others, but they had been taken by the cold during the night, and one by one dropped off to be claimed by the sea.

Kenny stood up. His scar was oddly inflamed. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow,’ he said, and left without another word.

It wasn’t until the rasp of his moped motor was finally lost in the distance that Whistler lit another cigarette and said to me, ‘I suppose this means I’m going to have to look out for you now.’

I frowned, not understanding. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Saving a life makes you responsible for it. I see no reason why that responsibility shouldn’t pass on across the generations.’

Later, when I reflected on Whistler’s words, I thought that if that were the case then John Finlay Macleod must have felt responsible for an awful lot of lives. And when my mind drifts back to the first day we learned about the Iolaire , I often wonder who that old man was, and how he’d known exactly who we were.

The sound of the wind outside barely disturbed the silence in Whistler’s crofthouse.

Fin said, ‘Your dad’s great-grandfather saved my grandfather’s life in the Iolaire disaster.’

Anna frowned.

‘It was a ship bringing island men home at the end of the First World War. It sank on a stormy night just outside Stornoway harbour and two hundred and five men lost their lives.’

‘Jesus.’ Her voice was reduced to a whisper.

‘Your dad figured that saving a life makes you responsible for it, and that the responsibility passes down the generations.’

Her smile verged on the incredulous. ‘So he took on responsibility for you and your life?’

‘He did. And saved it, too, not that long after.’

‘Tell me.’

‘Another time.’

‘Who says there’ll be another time?’

‘Maybe there won’t.’ Fin paused. ‘What are you doing here, Anna?’

And now it was her turn to avoid his eye. She looked away towards the remains of the long-spent peat fire.

‘Did you come to see your dad?’

‘No!’ Her denial was fierce and immediate. ‘I only come when I know he’s out.’

‘Why?’

She turned eyes like hot coals back on him. And he could see the conflict in her face. Why should she tell him? She had her own reasons. Personal ones. It was none of his damned business. And yet he had answered her questions, and told her personal things that had caused him pain. ‘I spent the first half of my life in this house. With my mum and my dad. I have. . I have happy memories. Sometimes, if I just sit here and close my eyes, I’m back there again. Just for a moment. But that can be enough, you know. When life’s shit.’ She sucked on the rings in her lower lip. ‘I loved my mum. I miss her.’

‘And your dad?’

‘What about him?’

‘Do you love him, too?’

‘You must be joking. He’s a pure fucking embarrassment. I hate him!’

‘Which is just another way of saying you love him.’

Her face screwed up in disbelief. ‘Crap!’

‘Is it? If you feel so strongly about him that you claim to hate him, it’s almost certainly only because you love him and hate to admit it.’

Scorn was etched into every crease in her face. ‘Bull. Shit.’ When he said nothing he saw her certainty wavering, and she fought to recover her resolution. ‘Like you’d have told your parents at my age that you loved them.’