Peter May - The Chessmen

Curiosity drew him down the path and up the steps to the kitchen door. He heard women’s voices raised in laughter as he pushed the door open, then silence as he stepped out of the wind into the warmth. Marsaili was standing, leaning back against the far worktop, cradling a mug of tea in her hands. A woman with cropped dark hair and a long black coat sat at the kitchen table, a mug on the coaster in front of her. She looked expectantly towards Fin, with a hint of sad amusement in her eyes.

It was Mairead.

I suppose my obsession with Mairead began the first day I set eyes on her in the rehearsal room at the Nicolson Institute.

I had fallen out with Marsaili some time before and arrived in Stornoway aged fifteen, fancy free and awash with testosterone. Mairead came like a bright shining star out of Uig as this Crobost boy from Ness, fresh-faced and unsophisticated, began his first year at the Nicolson still dripping wet behind the ears. She was a goddess with a voice that sent chills down my back.

There were other good-looking girls at school, of course, but Mairead was a cut above. She held herself beautifully, with poise and confidence, and oozed the kind of latent sexuality that seemed solely designed to inflame a teenage boy’s passions.

She had beautiful hands, I remember, delicate, with long fingers and perfectly manicured nails. Her face was fine-featured, but still strong. She was tall, and walked with a certain swing of the hips, breasts always tantalizingly suggested by the way they strained at her school blouse. Her hair was a dark auburn and had a natural wave in it, and in those days she wore it long over her shoulders, or drawn back in a ponytail that was wrapped into a knot at the back of her head and held by clasps.

But her eyes were what bewitched me. A dark, dark blue they were, with a slightly darker circle around the iris, and there was always something like amusement in them, quizzical and superior. I can remember the first time she looked directly at me. My stomach flipped over, and I literally went weak at the knees.

Naturally, I wasn’t the only boy who was hopelessly in love with her. In fact, I doubt if there was a single boy at the school who wasn’t. Except for a rather soft boy from Carloway called Anndra, who turned out to be gay.

Of course, Mairead herself was only too aware of the effect that she had, and she wouldn’t have been human, I suppose, if it hadn’t turned her head. She teased and tormented and toyed with us as if we were children. And, in truth, mentally, she was probably several years our senior, in the way that there is always a gap between teenage boys and girls of the same age. She made me think of a Beatles song that my aunt used to play, called ‘Girl’. All about a girl who would put you down because it amused her, who would take your adulation for granted, and hurt you because it gave her pleasure. Such poignant observations from the pen of a still-young John Lennon, so clearly born of experience. Another Mairead, no doubt.

Singing and playing with Solas set Mairead apart from the rest, placed her on a kind of pedestal. And she was afflicted by the star syndrome, even in those days. But none of that affected my ardour. The fact that she was so impossibly unattainable somehow made her all the more desirable.

It wasn’t until the following year that I had my first close encounter with her.

It was early summer, before the holidays, and the bike group had already upped sticks and moved away from Holm Point after discovering the history of the Iolaire . We were all out at Garry Beach with the bikes. By that time I had been humphing gear for Solas for about eighteen months, and had long ago accepted that a relationship with Mairead was not in my stars. It didn’t stop me from admiring her from a distance, though, and I still blushed like an idiot when she spoke to me. But as far as the opposite sex was concerned I had started to focus my attentions on the attainable. Although not with any great success, it has to be said.

Mairead’s on-off relationship with Roddy was in one of its frequent off periods, and she had ridden pillion out to Tolastadh that day with Whistler, I think to make both Roddy and Strings jealous.

What had started with the promise of a lazy afternoon in the summer sunshine quickly faded. Dark clouds rolled over the moor from the west, bringing with them a chill edge to the wind and a hint of rain somewhere in the not too distant future. There were a dozen or so of us, just fooling around, smoking, dipping our feet in the icy waters of the Minch and running shrieking up the beach as the waves broke over our calves.

We hung on as long as possible, not really wanting it to end. Then, with the first drops of rain, made the belated decision to head back to Stornoway.

Try as he might, Whistler couldn’t get his moped started. Some of the others had already gone, and those of us who were left didn’t relish hanging about in the rain.

I called to Whistler, grinning, ‘Enjoy the walk back.’ I had no doubt he would get her going in the end, but it was fun to annoy him.

He came back at me with his usual wit. ‘Get stuffed, Macleod.’

I gunned my motor and was about to head off when a voice called, ‘Fin, wait!’

I looked around and saw Mairead running across the sand. She had a magazine opened over her head, but it wasn’t going to keep her very dry. Her face was flushed and her eyes shining.

‘I need a lift.’

My heart was thumping. ‘Aren’t you going to wait with Whistler?’

She pulled a face. ‘I would like to get home sometime this week.’

I laughed, a little nervously, and glanced around. There were several others that she could have asked for a lift, but she had chosen me. By now my mouth was dry. ‘Sure,’ I said. And I was about to tell her to hop on, but she had already swung a leg over the rear wheel to sit astride the luggage rack and slip her arms around my waist.

‘Come on then,’ she shouted above the racket of my little 50cc motor. ‘I’m getting wet.’

I revved and let out the clutch, and accelerated across the stony car park towards the road, back wheel spinning and skidding from side to side, trying to impress her. And I felt her arms tighten around me. A thrill went through my whole body, ending in a deep ache of desire in my loins. I glanced back and saw Whistler standing by his bike, glaring after us. The rain began in earnest then.

Usually it would take about twenty-five minutes to get back to Stornoway. It took me well over half an hour that day. You could say that I went more slowly because of the rain. But the truth was I didn’t ever want it to end. Even although we were both soaked to the skin within minutes. The feel of Mairead’s arms around me was intoxicating, her open palms spread across my chest, the softness of her body against mine, the hardness of her breasts pressed into my back. I could feel the warmth passing between our two bodies, and I was more aroused I think than I had ever been in my life.

At one point, I could feel her resting her head against my shoulder. I wanted so much to turn and look at her face, to find her eyes with mine, and her lips, and kiss her softly. But I daren’t take my eyes off the road.

My mind was seething with conflicting emotions. Desire, fear, and a thousand imagined possibilities. What was I going to say to her when we got back to town? How was I going to make the moment last? Was there even the slightest chance that she had asked me for a ride back because she had always secretly fancied me? I rehearsed a dozen lines in my head. ‘What are you doing tonight?’ ‘Fancy going for a coffee?’ Each of them utterly banal and lacking in wit or inspiration.

When we finally came over the top of Matheson Road and turned into Springfield Road, I pulled in at the pavement by the school gate. Most of the others had got there ahead of us. All soaked. But the rain had gone off by now, and they stood around in groups animated by conversation and laughter. Mairead swung her leg over my back wheel and smiled at me. Her hair was wet and smeared all over her face. She removed it from her eyes with elegant fingers, and I thought I had never seen her look more lovely.