Peter May - The Blackhouse

‘What’s that?’ It sounded very exotic. I imagined tables laden with clocks.

‘Multiplication.’

I had no idea what that was either. But I didn’t want to appear stupid, so all I said was, ‘Oh.’

We were almost at the school before he told me. Very casually, as if it were nothing. ‘I’ve joined the country dancing group.’

‘The what?’

‘Country dancing. You know …’ And he raised his arms above his head and made a funny little shuffle with his feet. ‘The pas de bas.’

I was beginning to think he’d lost his marbles in my absence. ‘Paddy Bah?’

‘It’s a dance step, stupid.’

I gawped at him in amazement. ‘Dancing? You? Artair, dancing’s for girls!’ I couldn’t imagine what had come over him.

He shrugged, making lighter of it than I could have imagined possible. ‘Mrs Mackay picked me. I didn’t have any choice.’

And I thought for the first time that, perhaps, I had been lucky to be off with the flu. Otherwise she might have picked me. I felt truly sorry for Artair. Until, that is, I discovered the truth.

We were walking up the road at three that afternoon with Marsaili. I hadn’t been at all sure that she was pleased to see me back. She’d said a cool hello when I took my seat beside her in class, and then proceeded to ignore me for the rest of the day. At least, that’s how it appeared to me. Every time I looked at her, or tried to catch her eye, she seemed to be studiously avoiding mine. In the playground at break times she stuck close to the other girls, skipping and chanting rhymes and playing peever. Now, as we headed towards the main road, other groups of primary kids strung out before us and behind us, she said to Artair, ‘Did you get the date of the Stornoway trip from Mrs Mackay?’

He nodded. ‘I’ve got a note for my parents to sign.’

‘Me, too.’

‘What Stornoway trip?’ I was feeling distinctly left out. It’s amazing how much you can miss in two short weeks.

‘It’s a dancing competition,’ Marsaili said. ‘Schools from all over the island are competing at the town hall.’

‘Dancing?’ For a moment I was confused, and then like the haar lifting along the northern coast on a warm summer’s morning, all became clear. Marsaili was in the country dancing group. And that’s why Artair had joined, even at the risk of ridicule from his male peers. I gave him a look that would have turned milk. ‘Didn’t have any choice, eh?’

He just shrugged. I caught Marsaili looking at me, and I could tell she was pleased by my reaction. I was jealous, and she knew it. She rubbed salt in the wound. ‘You can sit beside me on the minibus if you like, Artair.’

Artair was a little self-conscious by now and so played it cool. ‘Maybe. We’ll see.’

We crossed the main road to the Mealanais road end, and I wondered if he had been walking her all the way home in my absence. But we stopped, and it was clear that she did not expect us to be going with her. ‘See you on Saturday, then,’ she told Artair.

‘Yeh, okay.’ He shoved his hands deep in his pockets as he and I turned away towards the Crobost road. As I glanced back, Marsaili was skipping off along the Mealanais road with a lightness in her step. Artair was walking much faster than usual, and I almost had to run to keep up with him.

‘Saturday? Is that when the dancing competition is?’

He shook his head. ‘No, that’s on a schoolday.’

‘So what’s happening on Saturday?’

Artair kept his eyes fixed on a point somewhere on the road up ahead. ‘I’m going to play at the farm.’

I couldn’t believe it. I wouldn’t have been able to identify them accurately then, but I was suffering from all the classic symptoms of jealousy. Anger, hurt, confusion, melancholy. ‘Your parents won’t let you!’ I was grasping at straws.

‘Yes, they will. My mum and dad and Marsaili’s mum and dad are friendly from the church. My mum even gave me a lift over to Mealanais last Saturday.’

I think my mouth must have been hanging open. Had it been June, I’d have caught flies. ‘You’ve been before?’ I was almost incredulous.

‘A couple of times.’ He flicked me a look, a smug little smile on his face. ‘We played cowboys and Indians in the barn.’

I had nightmarish images of Marsaili tying Artair up with the same length of rope, blindfolding him with the same red hanky. I asked, my mouth so dry I could hardly speak, ‘Did she kiss you?’

Artair’s head snapped around to look at me, an expression of pure disgust and incomprehension written across his face. ‘Kiss me?’ I could hear the horror in his voice. ‘Why on earth would she want to do that?’

Which was, if nothing else, a crumb of comfort in the depths of my misery.

The wind was blowing in from the north-east on Saturday. A bitter February gale with sleet on its leading edge. I stood by our gate in my yellow oilskins and sou’wester and my black wellies watching for the Avenger going past. My mother called to me several times, saying I’d catch my death out there and that I should come and play in the house. But I was determined to wait. I think, perhaps, there was a part of me hoping that Marsaili and Artair had just been playing some kind of cruel joke. And I’d have stood out there happily all morning if only that car had never passed. But it did, just after nine-thirty. Artair’s mum driving, and Artair’s face pressed against the window in the back, blurred by the condensation, but clearly grinning. His hand gave a little triumphal wave, like royalty in training. I glowered at him in the wet, the sleet stinging my face red and disguising my tears. But I could feel the hot tracks they made down my cheeks.

On Monday morning I surprised Mrs Mackay by suggesting to her that since I was now almost self-sufficient in English I no longer needed a translator, and that she could rearrange our seating alphabetically as she had originally intended. The idea must have appealed to Mrs Mackay’s sense of orderliness, because she readily agreed. I was shifted from the first row to the second and was now several desks removed from Marsaili. Her dismay was undisguised. She turned and lowered her head slightly, raising doe eyes to give me her injured animal look. I steadfastly ignored her. If her plan had been to make me jealous, then it had succeeded. But it had also backfired, because from now on I was going to have nothing to do with her. I caught Artair smirking his satisfaction from two desks away. From now on I wasn’t going to have anything to do with him either.

I gave them both a wide berth at playtime, and when the bell rang for the end of school I was the first out of the door, and halfway up the road before Marsaili and Artair had even left the playground. At the main road I looked back and saw Marsaili hurrying to try to catch me up, with Artair trailing a little breathlessly behind her. But I turned determinedly away, and headed off up the Crobost road as fast as I could without actually running.

The trouble with jealous revenge is that while you might inflict hurt on the other party, it does nothing to lessen the effect of the hurt you are feeling yourself. So everyone ends up unhappy. And, of course, once you have adopted a certain attitude, it is hard to change it without losing face. I had never been as unhappy as I was through the next two days, and never more determined to stay that way.

On the Thursday at midday the country dancing group left for Stornoway in the school minibus. I watched from a window in the dining hall, rubbing a little clear patch in the misted glass so that I could see them standing by the gate waiting for the minibus to come around from the garage. Four girls and two boys, Artair and Calum. Artair was talking animatedly to Marsaili, trying hard to hold her attention. But she was clearly distracted, peering towards the school, hoping to catch a glimpse of me watching. I felt a certain masochistic pleasure. I saw Artair fumble for his puffer and take two long pulls at it, a sure sign that he was under pressure. He was losing her focus.