Peter May: The Blackhouse

‘Hurry up, I’ve been waiting for you.’ Artair was impatient to get home. He wanted us to go searching for crabs in the rock pools below his house.

‘I’m going back by Mealanais Farm,’ I told him. ‘It’s a shortcut.’

‘What?’ He looked at me as if I were mad. ‘That’ll take hours!’

‘No, it won’t. I can cut back by the Cross-Skigersta road.’ I had no idea where that was, but Marsaili had told me that was the quick way from Mealanais to Crobost.

I didn’t even wait for him to object, but took off at a sprint up the road after Marsaili. By the time I caught up with her I was out of puff. She gave me a knowing smile. ‘I thought you would be walking home with Artair.’

‘I thought I’d walk with you up by Mealanais.’ I was dead casual. ‘It’s a shortcut.’

She looked less than convinced. ‘It’s a long way for a shortcut.’ And she gave a little shrug. ‘But I can’t stop you walking with me, if that’s what you want.’

I smiled to myself, and restrained an urge to punch the air. I looked back and saw Artair glaring after us.

The road to the farm branched off the other side of the main road before the turnoff to Crobost. Punctuated by the occasional passing place, it wound its way south-east across acres of peatbog that stretched off to the far horizon. But the land was more elevated here, and if you looked back you could see the line of the road as far as Swainbost and Cross. Beyond that, the sea broke white along the west coast below a forest of gravestones standing bleak against the sky at Crobost cemetery. The northern part of Lewis was flat and unbroken by hills or mountains and the weather swept across it from the Atlantic to the Minch, always in a hurry. And so it was always changing. Light and dark in ever-shifting patterns, one set against the other, rain, sunshine, black sky, blue sky. And rainbows. My childhood seemed filled by them. Usually doublers. We watched one that day, forming fast over the peatbog, vivid against the blackest of blue-black skies. It took away the need for words.

The road tipped down a gentle slope then, to a cluster of farm buildings in a slight hollow. The fences were in better repair here, and there were cattle and sheep grazing in pasture. There was a tall, red-roofed barn, and a big white farmhouse surrounded by a clutch of stone outbuildings. We stopped at a white-painted gate at the opening to a dirt track that ran down to the house.

‘Do you want to come in for some lemonade?’ Marsaili asked.

But I was sick with worry by this time. I had no real idea where I was or how to get home. And I knew I was going to be very late. I could feel my mother’s anger already. ‘Better not.’ I looked at my watch trying not to seem concerned. ‘I’m going to be a bit late.’

Marsaili nodded. ‘That’s what happens with shortcuts. They always make you late.’ She smiled brightly. ‘You can come and play on Saturday morning if you want.’

I pushed at a clump of turf with the toe of my welly and shrugged, playing it cool. ‘I’ll think about it.’

‘Please yourself, then.’ And she turned and skipped off down the track towards the big white farmhouse.

I’ve never really been sure how I managed to find my way home that first day, because after Mealanais the road petered out to a stony track. I had been walking along it for some time with a growing sense of despair when I saw the top of a car flashing past along the near horizon. I ran up the slope and found myself on what must have been the Cross-Skigersta road that Marsaili had talked about. Looking both ways along it, the road seemed to disappear into the peatbog. I didn’t know which way to turn. I was scared and close to tears. Some guiding hand must have prompted me to go left, because if I had turned right I would never have got home.

Even so, it was more than twenty minutes before I came to a turnoff where a crooked black and white signpost pointed uncertainly towards Crobost. I was running now, the tears burning my cheeks, the rims of my wellies rubbing my calves raw. I smelled the sea, and heard it before I saw it. And then as I came over the rise, there was the familiar silhouette of the Crobost Free Church looming over the disparate collection of houses and crofts that huddled around it on the cliff road.

As I reached our house my mother was pulling up outside it in the Ford Anglia. Artair was in the back seat. She jumped out of the car and grabbed me as if I might blow away in the wind. But her relief turned quickly to anger.

‘For God’s sake, Fionnlagh, where have you been? I’ve been up and down that road to the school twice looking for you. I’m just about demented.’ She brushed away tears from my face as I tried to stop more of them leaking from my eyes. Artair had got out of the car and was standing watching with interest. My mother glanced at him. ‘Artair came looking for you after school and didn’t know where you were.’

I gave him a look, and made a mental note that where girls were concerned he was not to be trusted.

I said, ‘I walked the girl from Mealanais Farm home. I didn’t know it would take so long.’

My mother was aghast. ‘Mealanais? Fionnlagh, what were you thinking? Don’t you ever do that again!’

‘But Marsaili wants me to go and play there on Saturday morning.’

‘Well, I forbid it!’ My mother had turned steely. ‘It’s far too far, and neither your father or me have the time to run you there and back. Do you understand?’

I nodded, trying not to cry, and she suddenly took pity on me, giving me the warmest of hugs, soft lips brushing my burning cheeks. That was when I remembered the note that Mrs Mackay had given me. I fumbled for it in my pocket and held it out.

‘What’s this?’

‘A note from the teacher.’

My mother frowned and took it and ripped it open. I watched her face flush, and she folded it quickly and stuffed it in the pocket of her overalls. I never knew what the note said, but from that day on we only ever spoke English in the house.

Artair and I walked to school the next morning. Artair’s dad had to go to Stornoway for some education meeting, and my mother was having a problem with one of her ewes. We walked most of the way in silence, battered by the wind, and in turn warmed by brief scraps of sunshine. The sea was throwing white-tops over the sand on the beach below. We were nearly at the bottom of the hill when I said, ‘Why did you pretend to my mother you didn’t know I’d gone to Mealanais?’

Artair puffed his indignation. ‘I’m older than you. I’d have got the blame for letting you go.’

‘Older? Four weeks!’

Artair cocked his head and shook it with great solemnity, like the old men who stood around the Crobost Stores on a Saturday morning. ‘That’s a lot.’

I was less than convinced. ‘Well, I told my mother I was going to your house to play after school. So you’d better back me up.’

He looked at me, surprised. ‘You mean, you’re not?’ I shook my head. ‘Where are you going, then?’

‘I’m going to walk Marsaili home.’ And I gave him a look that defied him to object.

We walked in more silence until we reached the main road. ‘I don’t know what you want to go walking girls home for.’ Artair was not pleased. ‘It’s sissy.’ I said nothing, and we crossed the main road and on to the single track that ran down to the school. There were other kids now, converging from all directions, and walking in groups of two and three towards the little clutch of school buildings in the distance. And suddenly Artair said, ‘Okay, then.’

‘Okay what?’

‘If she asks, I’ll tell your mum you were playing at ours.’

I stole a glance at him, but he was avoiding my eye. ‘Thanks.’