Ken MacLeod - Intrusion

And so on. Typical teenage verse: moralistic, observant of the obvious. But all the things he’d mentioned were – to be fair to his earlier stuck-up self – still very much in evidence, apart from the ‘too much drink’, alcohol consumption having been driven out of sight and out of mind here as everywhere else. Fighter jets and choppers still came and went from RAF Stornoway, the gulls were noisy and arrogant as ever, the vehicles to this day were more polluting than those you’d find on the mainland, and on top of all that, yet more contrasting features had been stacked: the windmills, the tower-block developments like fence-posts around the older part of town, the USS Donald Rumsfeld bristling in the bay, the shrimp boats and inshore trawlers slipping past it like canoes under the bowsprit of Cook’s Endeavour . The stiff breeze still came off the Atlantic, strong and fresh.

As for Free Church elders, well… the closest to that in the vicinity, by appearance at least, was Hugh’s father, in his usual get-up for a visit to the big city: Homburg hat over the bald pate that lay in Hugh’s probable future, close-cropped salt-and-pepper hair underneath the black brim at the sides and back, black natural-wool coat over a serge suit and blue cotton shirt and silk navy tie, polished brown brogues spattered with droplets of mud from the puddles of a recent shower. Hugh glanced away to hide his half-smile, his almost smirk. His father tried to dress the part, but he’d never quite get it right.

Fourteen years ago, half Hugh’s life ago, Nigel had without warning gone native in a big way: learning Gaelic, keeping the Sabbath, minding his speech, and regularly attending the local Free Church. He never publicly or privately professed its doctrines, but he never contradicted them either, and in Hugh’s university days had sometimes enjoyed baiting him with arguments against the mainstream understanding of biology and geology, with which sciences he shared with his son a purely pop-scientific acquaintance, and a certain disdain arising from their common study of electrical engineering. In all of these – the Gaelic, the Wee Free adherence, the Young Earth Creationism – Nigel was placing himself in an eccentric minority even for Lewis. Within that minority he was himself a minority of one, as a non-native Gaelic speaker, a non-native churchgoer, and a man whose first name was so unusual for Lewis that he didn’t need a nickname. (With only one Nigel in the parish, if not on the island, there was no need for a disambiguating ‘Nigel Turbine’ or ‘Nigel Sassenach’.) His surname was Leosach all right, traceable to an ancestor who’d been cleared off the land near Mangersta some time in the nineteenth century, and who, after many wanderings, had settled in Hendon. Hugh had never understood why his father had adopted his ancestral religion and way of life, like some black-faced sheep let loose upon the heather, but he occasionally surmised that it was some perverse revenge on the forces and interests that had driven that earlier Morrison from his croft and his wife from her spinning wheel and creel. Certainly Nigel had made no attempt to convince or convert Hugh, Hugh’s sister Shonagh, or Mairi, who, as a hereditary and incorrigible but entirely nominal adherent of the Church of Scotland, had taken it all with a detached, tolerant bemusement.

Hugh, of course, had reacted with all the self-righteous moral indignation and disappointment appropriate for a fourteen-year-old. Even today, he couldn’t recall the scene he’d made without an inward groan and an outward blush.

‘It’s those damned books you’ve been reading! You’ve been filling your mind with rubbish!’

‘I think you’ll find,’ his father said mildly, ‘if you care to look into them yourself, that they were written by men of some intellect, of parts and learning, to say nothing of shrewd psychological insight and worldly wisdom.’

‘There are better books in the house, and all the great literature of the world out there on the net, right at your fingertips. Wouldn’t it be a better use of your time to read them?’

‘Novels?’ said Nigel. ‘At my age you lose the taste for fiction. Read novels and plays and the classics yourself, while you can still enjoy them and you’re young enough to learn something from them about human nature.’

‘You could still read science, history, philosophy…’

‘Well I do,’ said his father. ‘As avidly as ever. Just not on a – not on the Lord’s Day.’

‘A day you waste completely!’

‘Waste it? I take a well-earned rest, one whole day in seven. One day when I not only don’t work, I don’t even think about work, or watch or listen to the news. And your mother appreciates not having to cook or clean that day. It stands us both in good stead for the other six, I can tell you that!’

‘Sitting about reading old books, and three hours listening to sermons and singing psalms? Call that a rest? Wouldn’t a walk do you more good?’

‘I can take a stroll up the glen, if it’s a fine afternoon, for a bit of quiet meditation. Not even the minister has a word to say against that. It’s not like the old days, though you might find the old folk raising their eyebrows.’ A sly smile lit his sombre face for a moment.

‘But – it’s the hypocrisy of it all! How can you pretend to believe… all that… and put up with and conform to a load of stupid rules that don’t have any justification but—’

‘You will not tell me, boy ,’ said Nigel, shaking his forefinger at Hugh with an odd flash in his eye, a mixture of anger and irony, ‘what I do or do not believe . And I do not pretend to believe anything.’

‘That must make it difficult, when you hang out with Wee Frees!’

‘Look, Hugh, I already know the men of the congregation, from the sites and the locality. Most of them make no more claim to be godly than I do. The few that do, the communicant members, the elect, are not a problem. They don’t exactly proselytise, you know! When spiritual matters come up in conversation, I keep my own counsel.’

‘Silence is consent!’

‘Not around here, it isn’t. As for the rules – well!’ Nigel spread his hands. ‘What am I losing? Sunday television? Give me a break! To put it exactly! And the rest? Swearing is vulgar, and offensive in mixed company. Theft and murder are wicked by the light of nature, likewise dishonouring your parents. Drinking and dancing? There are no pubs except in town, and the Stornoway pubs are not my scene at all, at all. I was never much of a one for the shebeen, the bothan or the ceilidh, and all your Hielan’ fiddle-de-dee music can set my foot tapping but it doesn’t move me more than that, never has. I’m free to drink in moderation and within my means, which I do, to smoke if I want to, which I don’t aside from the occasional pipe, and the thought of adultery has never crossed my mind.’

‘You’re still upholding a morality that’s oppressive to women and gay people and young people.’

‘ Young people!’ Nigel laughed. ‘When have they ever given a thought to morality in these matters? Women? Ask your mother or your sister, or the lassies on the site. That’s the women I have to do with – and you too, come to think of it. If you’re concerned about the oppression of women, you might consider getting off your lazy arse around the house when you’re at home, and being a bit less of a lout and a boor when you’re away, at school and in town.’

‘Hey, come on,’ said Hugh. ‘That’s a bit—’