Peter May - The Lewis Man

This is smaller than my room at home. But it looks as if it’s been painted recently. There are no stains on the ceiling. Nice white walls. Double-glazing, too. Can’t hear the wind, or the rain battering against the window. Just watching it running down the glass. Like tears. Tears in rain. Who would know? But if you’re going to cry, do it on your own. It’s embarrassing sitting there with tears on your face and folk watching you.

No tears now, although I do feel sort of sad. I’m not sure why. I wonder when Marsaili will come and take me home. I hope it’ll be the good Mary when we get there. I like the good Mary. She looks at me and touches my face sometimes like she might once have liked me.

The door opens, and a kindly young lady looks in. She makes me think of someone, but I’m not sure who.

‘Oh,’ she says. ‘You’ve still got your coat and hat on, Mr Macdonald.’ She pauses. ‘Can I call you Tormod?’

‘No!’ I say. And I hear myself bark it, like a dog.

She seems startled. ‘Oh, now, Mr Macdonald. We’re all friends here together. Let me get that coat off you and we’ll hang it up in the wardrobe. And we should unpack your bag, put your things in the drawers. You can decide what goes where.’

She comes to the bed where I am sitting and tries to get me to stand. But I resist, shrugging her off. ‘My holiday’s over,’ I say. ‘Marsaili’s coming to take me home.’

‘No, Mr Macdonald, she’s not. Nobody’s coming. This is your home now.’

I sit there for a long time. What does she mean? What could she have meant?

And I do nothing to stop her now from taking off my cap, or lifting me to my feet to remove my coat. I can’t believe it. This is not my home. Marsaili will be here soon. She’d never leave me here. Would she? Not my own flesh and blood.

I sit down again. The bed feels quite hard. Still no sign of Marsaili. And I feel … how do I feel? Betrayed. Tricked. They said I was going on holiday, and they put me in this place. Just like the day they brought me to The Dean. Inmates. That’s what we called ourselves. Just like prisoners.

It was late October when we arrived at The Dean, me and Peter. You couldn’t believe they would build a place like that for kids like us. It sat up on the hill, a long stone building on two levels with wings at either end, and two four-cornered bell towers at each side of the central elevation. Except that there were no bells in them. Just stone urns. There was a portico at the main entrance, with a triangular roof above it supported on four giant columns. Above that, an enormous clock. A clock whose golden hands seemed to tick away our time there as if they were going backwards. Or maybe it was just our age. When you are young a year is a big part of your life and seems to last for ever. When you are old, there have been too many of them gone before and they pass all too fast. We move so slowly away from birth, and rush so quickly to death.

We arrived in a big black car that day. I’ve no idea whose it was. It was cold and the sky was spitting sleet. Looking back, from the top of the steps, I could see the millworkers’ tenements in the valley below, cold grey slate roofs and cobbled streets. And beyond that, the city skyline. We were surrounded by green here, trees, a huge kitchen garden, an orchard, and yet we were just a gob away from the centre of the city. In time I would learn that on a still night you could hear the traffic, and sometimes see red tail-lights distantly in the dark.

It was our last view of what I came to think of as the free world, because when we crossed that threshold we left all comfort and humanity behind, and entered a dismal place where the darkest side of human nature cast its shadow on us.

That dark side was made flesh by the governor. Mr Anderson he was called, and a more brutal and cruel man you would be hard pushed to find. I have often asked myself what kind of man is it that would find fulfilment in abusing helpless children. Punishment, as he saw it. I often wished I could have met that man on equal terms, then we’d have seen how brave he was.

He kept a leather tawse in a drawer in his room. It measured about eighteen inches in length, had two tails, and was a good half-inch thick. And when he belted you with it, he would march you along the bottom corridor to the foot of the stairs leading to the boys’ dorm and make you bend over. Your feet were on the first step, to elevate you a little, your hands supporting you on the third. And he would leather your arse till your legs buckled beneath you.

He was not a big man. Although he was to us. In fact, a giant in my memory. But actually he wasn’t much taller than Matron. His hair was thin, the colour of ash, and oiled back across his narrow skull for all the world as if it had been painted on. A close-cropped black and silver moustache prickled his upper lip. He wore dark-grey suits that concertinaed around thick black shoes which squeaked on the tiles so that you always knew when he was coming, like the tick-tock of the crocodile in Peter Pan . There was a sour smell of stale tobacco that hung about him from the pipe he smoked, and spittle used to gather in the corners of his mouth, transferring from lower to upper lip and back again as he spoke, becoming thicker and creamier with every word.

He never referred to any of us by name. You were ‘boy’, or ‘you, girl’, and he was always using words we didn’t understand. Like ‘comestibles’ when he meant ‘sweeties’.

I met him for the first time that day when the people who had brought us there took us into his office. He was all sweetness and light and full of assurances about how well we would be looked after here. Well, these people were barely out the door when we discovered what being well looked after actually meant. But first he delivered a short lecture.

We stood trembling on the linoleum in front of his big, polished desk, and he positioned himself, arms folded, on the other side of it, tall square windows rising to the ceiling behind him.

‘First things first. You will refer to me at all times as sir. Is that understood?’

‘Yes, sir,’ I said, and when Peter said nothing I dunted him with my elbow.

He glared at me. ‘What?’

I nodded towards Mr Anderson. ‘Yes, sir,’ I said.

It took him a moment or two to understand. Then he smiled. ‘Yes, sir.’

Mr Anderson gave him a long, cold look. ‘We have no time for Catholics here. The Church of Rome is not welcome. You will not be invited to join us in hymn singing or bible reading, and will stay in the dorm until morning prayers are over. Don’t bother settling yourselves in, because with luck you won’t be staying.’ He leaned forward, then, knuckles on the desk in front of him, glowing white in the gloom. ‘But for as long as you are here, be aware that there is only one rule.’ He paused for emphasis and enunciated each word. ‘Do. What. You. Are. Told.’ He stood up again. ‘If you break that rule you will suffer the consequences. Do you understand?’

Peter glanced at me for confirmation, and I gave him an almost imperceptible nod. ‘Yes, sir,’ we said in unison. We were nearly telepathic sometimes, Peter and me. As long as I did the thinking for both of us.

We were marched, then, along to Matron’s room. She was an unmarried woman I think, in her middle years. I always remember her downturned mouth, and those shadowed eyes that seemed opaque somehow. You never knew what she was thinking, and her mood was always characterized by that sullen mouth. Even when she smiled, which was hardly ever.

We had to stand for ages in front of her desk while she opened a file on each of us and then told us to undress. It didn’t seem to bother Peter. But I was embarrassed, and afraid I would get a hard-on. Not that there was anything remotely sexual about Matron. But you never knew when that damn thing would pop up on you.