‘Hearach,’ Taylor tried the word tentatively. He thought of his mother, she’d rarely invited him into her past but here he was now, trespassing all over it. Had she been on this very street at some point, looking at the same grinning harbour and the sea rolling beyond? The stores would have changed, obviously, but not that hill, nor that one either.
‘You good, bud?’ Drew sensed him go quiet. He knew how Taylor could disappear into himself. ‘Taylor – you okay?’
‘Yeah,’ Taylor shrugged. ‘Don’t you think it’s weird our parents did—I don’t know—stuff, that they wereyoung?’
Drew thought about that. ‘I guess.’ He should message his mom, send her some photos of the last few days. He imagined her showing them to her friends at the restaurant, to DeeDee and Mary and Lou – she’d scroll about on her phone in that annoying way, muttering to herself, but DeeDee, Mary and Lou wouldn’t get impatient with her like he did. It made him miss her just then. It had always been just the two of them and now he was out in the world and she was still in her tiny life in Beaverton. ‘Hey Taylor – remind me to message my mom, hey?’
They walked by terraced cottages opening right onto the street and small shops, a couple open, some closed for the season, one derelict and for sale. Neither of them remembered seeing any of it yesterday, the bee-line for the bar had tunnelled their vision.
‘We need to get food,’ Drew said. ‘Shall we get food now then pick up the car?’
But Taylor was crossing the road, heading away from the stores.
‘Bit soon for souvenirs,’ Drew laughed as he caught up with Taylor who was entering the Harris Tweed shop.
Hats and caps and neckties and scarves. Spectacle cases, pencil cases, washbags, handbags. Hip flasks, hunting flasks, dog collars and leashes. Hair scrunchies, place mats, pot stands and keyrings. Teddy bears, pin cushions, bedspreads and slippers. Suits, skirts, waistcoats and gilets. Overcoats and dog coats and everywhere knitwear. So many patterns in so many colours: check, plain, tartan, herringbone, houndstooth, windowpane, barleycorn. Straight away, Drew got busy with the men’s jackets and trying on caps at this angle and that, saying yo Taylor! what do you think? But Taylor was transfixed by the bolts of the cloth; giant rolls in double width and single; superfine, mediumweight, standard. The tickle and the soft. All the colours, every shade and tone and texture of this land, this sea and this sky, the lochans and lochs, the rock and the peat and the weather through each season. Every inch of island life captured in its cloth.
Taylor thought of his grandfather’s tweeds, wondered whether they’d been cut from bolts like these, fifty meters long. He could see similar designs and colours right here. None, however, were the same. He knew them off by heart, the four pieces currently tucked in a pocket of his backpack at Flora’s House.
‘What do you think?’ Drew was saying, admiring the cut of a waistcoat which fitted him perfectly. ‘Hey, how much is one-thirty-five in bucks?’
‘Cool,’ Taylor said without really listening, heading away from Drew to the till.
‘Ma’am - how do I find out about a particular tweed?’ Taylor asked. ‘Like—someone’stweed? I mean—is tweed like handwriting? Can it be read?’ He knew he was rambling but she was regarding him patiently. ‘It’s just I actually have some tweed, it’s pretty old, and I’m wondering if there’s someone who mightrecogniseit? Or, like, thepersonwho made it?’
Marion Stewart took a long quizzical look at him and came out from behind the counter to regard Drew still at the back of the shop.
‘Are you the lads running the marathon?!’
Taylor blinked. Yes he was in a tracksuit splattered with the ill-fated shortcut, but he didn’t think she’d been in the bar last night; she was cosy looking, like a grandma, like someone who spent evenings happily at home with a mug of tea and the TV. ‘You know about our marathon?’
‘Oh aye,’ she continued, deadpan. ‘The whole island’s talking of your marathon. We’ll have the finish line up for you in no time. A podium too, if you like.’
Taylor glanced around for Drew but he was still at the back, waistcoat hunting. ‘I—er. I mean, sure, we’re running the marathon – a marathon,ourmarathon, but?—’
‘My sister is Morag,’ she explained warmly.
Morag? Did he recall a Morag? Oh Christ, had JB made out with a Morag?
‘She was managing the bar yesterday?’ Marion said. ‘So aye, we know all about your wee marathon.’
‘Hi,’ said Drew, suddenly at the till, waistcoat off but clutched against his heart. ‘Do you know how much this might be in US dollars?’
‘Around 185,’ she said without pause, noting Drew’s face fall. ‘Give or take, according to the exchange rate,’ she added. ‘Will I hold it for you? You could do your run in aid of the Waistcoat Fund.’
‘You know about our marathon?’
She turned back to the blue-eyed boy with the man’s body. ‘Now what was it that you wanted to know about the tweed?’
And finally Taylor’s words tumbled and flowed like the falls along the Maraig river.
Chapter 6
It was no secret that Taylor’s mother was from Harris but Taylor having family heirlooms tucked away in his backpack was news to Drew.
‘They’re just scraps of fabric,’ Taylor said.
‘They’ve brought you here,’ said Drew.
