‘I have one of these! I brought it with!’
‘It was used to scrape crotal off the rocks,’ Drew read.
‘Scrotal whatnow?’ JB limped over.
‘A type of lichen used as a traditional dye – for a deep red-brown.’
‘So now you know.’
‘Yes,’ said Taylor, ‘I guess I do.’
They left for the shop. It was the sister branch to the one in Tarbert and the welcome was just as warm.
‘Well, if it isn’t the Speedy McSpeedies,’ the manager laughed. She regarded JB, gave him a kind wink. ‘And Hop-a-long Hank.’
‘JB,’ he corrected. Privately, he cursed his stubbornness for leaving the crutch in the car. His ankle was starting to throb. ‘Is thereanyonewho doesn’t know about the marathon?’
She gave the matter great thought. ‘Not a soul,’ she declared. ‘Now – are you shopping? Browsing? How can I help?’
‘So I have these tweeds,’ Taylor said. ‘My grandfather knitted them.’ He closed his eyes and winced at himself. Did he just sayknit? ‘Wove.’
‘May I take a wee look?’
‘They’re back at the cottage,’ he mumbled. ‘I have his crotal spoon too. Like yours. But – also back at the cottage.’
She smiled. ‘Is this a Hearach I see before me?’
‘Colorado Springs,’ Taylor said. ‘Or Missouri, I guess.’ And it struck him how he was no longer sure where was home. ‘I met Becca in Northton and she took my tweed to Donald John inLuskentyre and next I’m going to go meet Mr MacDonald in, er, Hooshynooshy.’
‘Hushinish.’
‘Hushinish. Thank you. But maybe I could bring mine in for you to see? After the marathon? We have a whole day afterwards, before we leave.’
‘What’s this music?’ Drew asked.
‘It’s traditional waulking songs – we sell the CDs. It’s what the womenfolk would sing as they waulked the tweed.’
The boys all imagined processions of women carrying long swathes of tweed as they walked around the island whilst singing their lovely songs.
‘Òrain luadh– waulking songs.’
‘My mother used to have the best walking rhymes when she was dragging me on a hike,’ Taylor said.
‘Waulking,’ said Drew looking at the CD, thinking he might buy it, despite having nothing to play it on. It was far cheaper than the waistcoat still on hold for him at the main shop. ‘W.A.U.L.K.’
‘Aye,’ the manager said. ‘In the olden days the woven cloth would have been hard and greasy so it would be soaked in stale urine to fix the dye. Then the women would gather around a long grooved board and together they’d pass the cloth amongst them, beating it in a rhythm to soften it, to thicken it, to set the final dimensions. After waulking and washing and drying, the tweed would be up to two inches narrower. All the while they’d sing – such beautiful songs. And they’d chat, so they would, and have a good old gossip too.’
JB was still processing the fact that tweed had a good soaking in piss while Drew was checking if waulking songs were on Spotify. Taylor, though, just gazed around at all these everythings made from tweed. He wondered how his grandfather’s pieces had been soaked and set. And he hoped, hetruly did, that they too had been passed around and sung to, that the cloth had been infused with so much more from the island than lichen from rocks, wool from the sheep, the hand of the weaver. Perhaps it takes a village to make a tweed.
Back in the car, JB was quiet, pensive rather than moody. He was looking out of the window as Taylor drove. He spotted a small gathering of rowan trees and felt soothed by the sight of them. They were tough, wiry little trees. He thought of them standing their ground defying the weather barrelling in from three thousand miles of Atlantic ocean.
‘My father – my family – we’re renowned for making money from money,’ JB said quietly. ‘We don’t make anything, just money. I guess our business is glorified gambling. If you think about it, that’s a pretty crap way to make a living. It isn’t real – it’s just numbers. And greed.’
‘My dad doesn’t design what he wants – just what he’s told to do. Mostly, these days, the computer does it for him.’ Taylor thought of his father’s drawing board. When was the last time he used that? No doubt it was headed for the dump too. ‘It doesn’t make his life easier, it makes him depressed. He thinks AI will take over completely and no one will need him.’ Taylor wondered if his dad thought he didn’t need him either. Just then, Taylor wasn’t sure whether he did or didn’t.
‘My mom has worked three jobs my whole life,’ Drew was saying. ‘Money is just this stuff that sheneeds. I guess it’s her waking thought. She saved and saved for my college fund since the day I was born – then I go and get a full scholarship.’
There was pain in Drew’s voice. Taylor glanced at Drew from the rear view mirror. JB turned right around to look at him.
