‘Aye, he was – but these are not by his hand. He was a tight, hard bugger if ever I knew one –duine mosach!There was not an ounce of softness in his soul and it showed in his weaving, you could feel it in the cloth he produced. These pieces of yours, laddie? They are fine, indeed, but they werenotwoven by Ruairidh MacLeòid!’
Taylor sat in the car and wondered which direction to take. Much as he longed to see the castle again, he wasn’t ready to turn back. The temperature had risen a few degrees. He started the car and continued along the road. The tweeds were laid across the passenger seat and they resembled an aerial view of the island; the weather, the water, rock and heather, even the sheep and the deer, the peat and the sand and thesound. Of course his grandfather had woven them – why else would his mother have kept them along with the crotal spoon and the two photosand that old book? But why would his mother have kept them if her father was as horrible as Duncan had said? It troubled Taylor, how emphatic Duncan had been. On he drove, no longer noticing the landscape, how the lambs’ snow had melted and that sunshine had painted the clear sky a swimming pool blue.
It was the cattle which brought him back to the day in hand and to a sudden halt. Despite horns the span of a man’s arms, their shaggy coats and heavily curtained faces the colour of flax and peat and bracken and whisky, gave them a benign look. They appeared to be in no rush to go anywhere and a cautious beep from the car’s horn had no effect.
‘Dude!’ Taylor called out the window. ‘Yo!’ He wondered what the Gàidhlig was for this.
He pipped the horn again and gave out a couple of whoops and howls, whistled sharply through finger and thumb, all to no avail. So he sat back and just watched them.Why the rush?Duncan has said.Why race from here to there?Taylor wasn’t sure where ‘there’ was, he was just driving the road to its end. The cows chewed their cuds and Taylor sat and watched them. Cautiously, he left the car.
Shoo! he said. Moo! he said.Moove! he said and he laughed heartily which seemed to get the attention of a couple in the herd. He looked back at the road, the hillsides were tumbled through with pads and jags of that rock. Far below, the sea or the loch or the sound – he had yet to tell the difference – was rippled through with silver, with long-tailed skuas patrolling just above the surface. Beyond, the run of coastline all the way to the south, hills interlocking in the softest hues. He thought that might be Taransay in the distance. It was breathtaking.
He turned back to the car. Without a human in it, the cows were inspecting it.
‘Sir,’ he said. ‘Ma’am? If it’s not too much trouble, would you mind stepping aside so I can pass?’ Paused. ‘Please?’
They ambled around the car and created a corridor just wide enough for Taylor to drive through. Perhaps that’s all it had required, a little politeness and respect. After all, this was their land, not his. He saluted them and thanked them and told them they were pretty cool and that their home was amazing and that he liked their hairdos. So long now, he called and he wondered if he’d see them on his return, he hoped he would. He waved goodbye and laughed at himself. Did you just wave at a cow? Yes, yes I did.
A little way ahead, Taylor caught his first glimpse of the beach at Hushinish. It was the most perfect bay of the palest sand, positioned in a cradle of rolling land and quenched by pure turquoise waters. He slowed to a snail’s pace and drove to the road’s end.
The sky was cloudless now, warm enough to tie his jacket around his waist. He flopped down on to the sand. Nearby, a ewe with twin lambs shuffled away. There he sat, wondering what the hell had happened over the last twenty four hours and having no clue as to what tomorrow would bring. The light was unexpectedly bright but he didn’t have sunglasses with him, so he closed his eyes and turned his face to the sun.
The drive back took longer on account of multiple stops to take photographs, to stand awhile and soak up the views, to fill his lungs with the sweet air. It was hard to believe there’d been snow that morning.
When Taylor finally arrived back at Flora’s House he sat in the car and just looked at the little building. What had gone on inside that cottage while he’d been gone? Was their trip wrecked? Had JB perhaps already left and gone to Edinburgh, tracked down those girls they’d larked about with on the long train ride from London? Was Drew okay? You never really knewwith Drew – but his indignation had caught Taylor off guard this morning.
He sighed, his fingertips galloping against the steering wheel. Perhaps he’d simply drive off again. Next to him, those four pieces of tweed, the family heirloom that wasn’t, pieces of personal history which certainly weren’t theirs. Taylor didn’t care about them anymore. What a total waste of thought and time. Whatever. Whatever. At least they’d brought him here to this small-huge island on the edge of the Atlantic ocean. So what if his mother had been born here? It didn’t matter if she didn’t like it – he did.
Okay, he thought, okay. He told himself, enough with the thinking! He was just about to open the car door when he chanced upon the milometer. He’d set it before he’d left because the instructions to Duncan’s weren’t an address but a note of how many miles along the road he could be found. Taylor stared and he stared at the number.
Fifty two and a half miles.
There and back.
Just over twenty-six miles each way, from Flora’s House to Hushinish or from Hushinish to Flora’s House.
The length of a marathon.
In the house, JB was snoozing on the sofa, a scatter of candy wrappers around him, the TV on. Taylor did not have to go and check the bedroom to know Drew was not there. His presence might be unassuming but it could always be felt and Taylor knew he was not in the house.
‘JB?’
But though JB stirred, gave a childlike gruffle, still he slept.
Taylor took his haphazard route through the dunes, feeling he had not yet had enough of the sea. Clambering down to the beach he spied Drew some way ahead at the shoreline. The tide was out. Three collies belted along this way and that while the humans who belonged to them walked hand in hand. Cartoon clouds, white and curly, were painted on to the sky. Taylor did not need to call over or announce himself. Soon enough he was standing shoulder to shoulder with Drew and there they stood awhile.
‘You know, I really think I could swim over there.’ Drew nodded at the distant beach on Taransay.
‘If anyone could, you could, bro,’ Taylor said. ‘Though that water looks crazy cold.’
‘This place though?—’
‘—I know, right?’
‘It is so beautiful. So did you find the weaver guy?’
‘Yep – and the tweeds aren’t ours. They’re nothing to do with my grandfather – who it seems was one mean asshole.’
Drew turned to him, shocked. Taylor relayed all that Duncan had said.
