Ludo and Duco did their best to hide it, but when I finally returned to the house, I could tell they were disappointed I hadn’t spent my last morning with them, hugging my knees by the Aga, leafing through old photo albums. ‘I wanted to say goodbye to some of my favourite haunts,’ I explained. It was the truth, but it did come out sounding as if the island were more important to me than the two of them, and I was ashamed of how tactless that sounded.
‘Oh, there are things one would rather do by oneself, naturally,’ said Ludo, immediately mollified. He had a fond look on his face, as if he longed to pinch my cheek as though I were still a little girl.
We didn’t even have time to sit down together for a sandwich because the taxi was already at the door. My suitcase and rucksack were waiting in the hall.
‘Don’t you need to pee?’ asked Duco.
‘Wait,’ said Ludo. ‘Do you have everything? Your toiletries, too?’
‘You do have your passport on you, don’t you? And the tickets? For the ferry? The bus? Airplane? Remember, keep them with you at all times, in your carry-on.’
‘And don’t forget to check if you’re getting on the right bus. It happened to me once, I …’
‘Remember to choose a front-facing seat. It makes a huge difference.’
‘Oh, true. You see so much better that way.’
‘That, too, but if she’s facing front, she won’t get carsick either. By the way, Lucy, do you have enough cash on you? For emergencies?’
‘Emergencies! What could possibly go wrong?’
I said, ‘Pumpkins, I’m going to miss the boat if we don’t leave now.’
‘Pumpkins!’ said Ludo. He loved pet names.
With a face all flushed with agitation, Duco picked up my suitcase. ‘But have you had a pee yet?’
‘Where’s that bag I prepared?’ asked Ludo, looking around. ‘With your sandwiches, for the trip? And an apple.’
‘You didn’t give her one of those hard green ones, did you?’ Duco asked. Outside, the taxi honked.
‘Naturally,’ said Ludo, ‘a green one, hard as a rock.’
‘So, shall we get going, then?’ I suggested.
Duco put the bag down again. ‘We’re not going to let ourselves be rushed. We don’t want to have to come back because we’ve forgotten something, do we.’
‘We’ve had three dress rehearsals!’ I said. The peaty smell of the house, acrid and musty at once, assaulted my nose for the final time. I took one last look at the Swiss-cheese skirting boards and the shabby curtains we never bothered to replace.
‘But that was different,’ said Ludo. ‘Really, pumpkin.’
‘Yes, he’s right,’ said Duco. ‘This time it’s for real, love. That’s the difference.’
On our way to Stornoway Harbour, I did my best to think appropriate, nostalgic thoughts. But my excitement got the upper hand every time. I was going on a voyage. I was going on a voyage all by myself; I was on my way to my own destiny. I was going to begin studying for my Early Childhood Care diploma, and once I had it in the bag, I’d be qualified for any child-care job you might think of. I could work in a day-care centre, or a nursery, or even a school for children with special needs. There weren’t all that many subjects I was good at—I always seemed to bungle and fumble my way through—but this was the one area where I excelled. With little kids, it was your hands and your heart that counted; your head didn’t come into it that much. I thought about the babies being born in Amsterdam this very day. They didn’t even know I existed yet, but I was going to be the one taking care of them. I might even be looking after those very babies a few weeks from now, if they happened to be in the nursery where I was to do my internship. I would spoon-feed them fruit yoghurt and wipe their little noses and teach them how to make squishy monsters with playdough. And if I had to read to them—well then I’d just practise it beforehand. Or I’d read them Clara 13; I knew that one by heart.
‘We did pack Clara 13, didn’t we?’ I cried.
To my left, Duco, who’d been staring morosely out the window, whipped his head round. ‘See, there you go! I told you …’
‘We packed it in her suitcase ourselves, Duke,’ said Ludo, on my right. ‘Man, that book! Your mother definitely hit it on the nose with that one.’
‘You can say that again,’ said Duco.
They both had this casual way of bringing my mother into the conversation every so often. Not too often, but enough to make it clear they didn’t harbour any ill will toward her.
I had been the one to find the note. I didn’t have to open it to know what it said. A note you found at seven a.m. on the mantel of a silent, dark room—it was only too obvious what it would say. I’d slipped out of the house, and hadn’t returned until I was sure Ludo and Duco had had a chance to read it.
Later that day, we had taken the car to Stornoway. Feeling rather numb, we’d had an ice cream and then hung out on the boardwalk, watching the CalMac boat steaming into the harbour, empty. That evening, we took the trusty can opener out of the drawer again. We were all very quiet. In my room, before going to bed, I took down the drawing my mother had made for me almost a year before, when we had just arrived in Lewis, of a girl with a kite on a beach covered in pink and blue shells. I wasn’t really sure what I was feeling, besides an immense sense of relief—at least I’d never have to hear her say she had sacrificed herself for me again.
The Luducos didn’t seem to be mourning her departure too deeply, either. My mother had had this constant need to talk. Maybe it was because she’d had to keep her mouth zipped for so long in the klink, but still, she should have been the first to realize that in every family there were things that were better left unsaid. She’d been starting to make more and more open insinuations. She’d grown meaner and meaner when she’d seen there was no response forthcoming. When it had been she, herself, who’d once given her word that we would never, ever, mention it again! That promise no longer counted, apparently. ‘The silence is suffocating me,’ she’d snapped one evening. I’d found the note a few days later.
‘Nearly there,’ said Duco, next to me in the back seat. ‘Right on time.’
‘Unless all the lights are red,’ said Lude. ‘We can still get stuck in traffic.’
I kicked him. ‘That almost sounds as if you’re hoping for it to happen.’
‘Of course not, Lucy. You just be on your way.’
The taxi rounded the last corner. We drove up to the waterfront.
It was the height of the tourist season; the ferry wharf was swarming with people. Campers, trailers, bicycles everywhere. A long line of cars was inching its way onto the red CalMac ferry. And Gavin, Iola, and the rest of the gang were standing by the ramp, waving a huge red-white-and-blue flag.
‘They’re all here!’ I yelled, chuffed. I jumped out even before the taxi had come to a complete stop.
Iola was the first to see me. She yanked herself free of Gavin’s hand and raced up to me. I crouched down with outstretched arms, caught her, and whirled her into the air, which smelled of tar and salt. When Iola thought about me, later, she’d have only good memories of me. Not too many people in the world could say the same. I lowered her reverentially onto the quay’s cobblestones and then walked over to the others, beaming from ear to ear.
‘You’re late,’ said Gavin. ‘We’ve been standing here like eejits for a good half-hour.’
‘I was gettin’ worried that ye might not be goin’ after all and be crampin’ my style here foraye,’ said Verity.
Fiona, whose blue Mohawk had turned her into the most dangerous-looking girl on Lewis and Harris combined, gave her a perfunctory kick in the shins. Then, minding her manners, she politely greeted the Luducos with, ‘Hiya, guvs.’
‘Well, now,’ said Ludo, crestfallen, ‘How very nice of you lot, to come and say goodbye again.’
‘Boat’s leaving shortly,’ said Struan, generously waving a half-empty whisky bottle under his nose.
Ludo shook his head. ‘I still have a hangover from the rotgut you brought us a few days ago.’
‘When Lucy and me danced!’ Iola crowed.
‘Och well, still and always with the Noddy gang, are you no’?’ Verity said to me. She pushed a rolled-up magazine into my hands. ‘Here’s the latest Playboy, loser, to read on your voyage. Maybe you’ll learn something.’
‘Verity,’ Fiona explained to the Luducos, ‘is a fuckin’ cunt. And she kin stick that up her ugly bony bum.’
The ship’s foghorn gave a loud, plaintive toot. The smokestack started spewing black smoke too. Men in hard hats appeared on deck. They were getting ready to cast off.
‘Your ticket!’ said Duco. He was almost in tears. ‘You do have your ticket, don’t you?’
I zipped open my rucksack’s side pocket. ‘Here.’
‘No, that’s not it, that isn’t your ferry ticket. Ludo, which is it?’
Ludo fumbled for his glasses.
‘Give it,’ said Gavin. ‘Well, guvs, that’s indeed a one-way CalMac ticket.’ He thrust the ticket into my hand and pulled me close. ‘Bye, lassie,’ he said in my ear.
Gavin. Thanks to him I was still a virgin. He had instilled in me a sense of decency that could have taught my own mother a thing or two. ‘Hey, you soppy old thing,’ I said, ‘we’ll see each other again next summer, you know.’ Next summer he would be married—to Verity. The wedding was to be held just as soon as the peat was in.
He hitched Iola up on his arm. ‘Come on, silly crybabby, give Lucy a big kiss!’
‘We’ll text each other, won’t we, Iola!’ I said. Gavin had promised that, once a week, he’d hide one of the pile of silly notes I’d written to her in the stone at Callanish.
‘Maybe Fiona needs a hug too,’ Struan jeered. ‘The only way she’ll ever get lucky, the ugly bag!’ He pushed her into my arms.
‘Bye, Fi,’ I said. ‘I’m coming back every summer, and I’ll bring you the latest hair colour, all right?’
‘Sure, then,’ she said gruffly.
The ship’s horn gave another blast.
‘Okay, kiddos, so long!’ I cried. I grabbed my bags and dragged them up the gangway. A man in a fluorescent jacket walked up to me and asked for my ticket. ‘Just in the nick o’ time,’ he said. ‘We’re about to cast off.’ He wasn’t from the island; he came from the mainland, I could tell from his accent. And suddenly I realized I was leaving home, and for an instant everything went eerily quiet inside my head. Right as I was about to disappear into the belly of the ship, I turned round.
There they stood, squabbling over who would hold the flag. Lachlan was just giving Stru a shove. It was always a good crack, if you managed to push someone over the side.
Had I said goodbye to everyone? I had the feeling I’d forgotten someone. But perhaps that was because Iain, the hero who’d saved two drowning children, was missing from the group that had come to wave me off so enthusiastically. He was probably at work, the endless work of the croft: shearing a sheep, repairing a fence, hoeing his rows of cabbages, feeding the chickens, building a brick wall. He had never made a secret of the fact that I’d been the one who’d raised the alarm that Sunday morning in Uig. If it hadn’t been for me, he had told every islander willing to listen, there would no’ have been a happy ending, there’d have been two drownings on the flats that day. He never seemed to get enough of describing in his sing-song voice how I’d suddenly popped up out of nowhere in front of his bike on the machair, sopping wet and all, ‘because she’d tried diving into the waves after ’em herself, the puur wee lass.’
My standing had shot up into the stratosphere, because on Lewis, nothing was more valued than a gallant trial of strength against the elements. The fact that I was only twelve had enhanced the heroic nature of the exploit. Only twelve, and already as plucky as they come! Everyone ought to follow her example! I even received a card from the Tourist Information Office in Stornoway, with a real postage stamp, and the date stamped on it as well. Duco, bursting with pride, had bought a frame for it, to display it on my night stand.
Verity and Struan had tried to get me in trouble by accusing me of trying to burn down the fort. But Gavin had snatched the empty tin out of their hands. He’d sped with it over to Timsgarry, and returned with a full jerrycan. ‘Here,’ he’d said, handing it over to me as the others stood by. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do with it. Shyly I just carried it over to its usual place in our fort and left it there. Apparently that was the right thing to do, because they all started cheering. As a sign of affection, little Fi murdered at least six jellyfish for me that afternoon.
Verity and Stru didn’t have a leg to stand on anymore. As quickly and casually as it had been done to me, the others turned their backs on them.
Being shunned didn’t seem to bother them that much. And why should it? A few weeks later the loyalties had shifted again, and it was Lachlan who had to run for his life—I don’t even remember why, anymore. Lach didn’t fret over it long, either; every morning we’d find a fresh skull and crossbones carved into the wet sand with his father’s knife in front of our fort, signed with his name. Everyone agreed that was pretty wicked.
If you fell from grace, it wasn’t the end of the world. Even if you were the underdog for a while, sooner or later you’d find yourself on top of the heap again. Alliances were forged and shattered, more often for practical than for personal reasons; usually it was the luck of the draw. They’d have it in for you from time to time, sure, but it was never because you had ‘evil’ stamped on your forehead.
It was a discovery that turned my world around and made the sun come out. A sun that kept shining, no matter what. Over the next six years there must have been plenty of drama in my life besides my mother’s departure, of course, but those other events didn’t really stand out, on the whole, in the warm, comforting light in which I now basked. At my new school, I must have done poorly on any number of tests, and then lain awake at night, hoping and praying I’d pull through by the skin of my teeth. I must have given my all to win, and more frequently lose, innumerable games. I must have got all hot under the collar about this or that. I must have ridden on the back of Gavin’s moped, and later hitched rides with boys in my class. I must have had occasion to stand in despair in front of the mirror, before a party. I must have had good reason to be either seriously fed up or ecstatically happy. I must have taken great care over picking out one tie after another for the Luducos. I must have done all that, and much, much more … but in reality, my life was as calm and unruffled as Loch Roag on an unusually windless night. I finally felt I was standing on firm ground. Even the taboos and penances that had held me so long in their iron grip seemed to have lost the incentive to stretch their tentacles out at me. Ever since that Sunday morning on the beach at Uig, they’d simply vanished, never to reappear; time was no longer broken up into phases during which I wasn’t permitted to do such or such, on pain of death. I didn’t quite get it. Was I really free, then, from here on? I fervently wanted to believe it—and I did just that. It was as if I’d closed my eyes to breathe a deep sigh of relief, and when I opened them again, six years had flown by.
It almost felt as though the few seconds I’d been standing on the ferry ramp had lasted longer than my entire stay here on the island. I gazed for the last time at the familiar outline of the harbour, and at my friends waving on the dock. I was leaving everything and everyone behind, with Clara 13 in my suitcase and a photo of a strawberry field in the pocket of my windbreaker.
‘I’ll be back in just a sec,’ I breathed at the CalMac man who was securing my luggage in the rack. I darted down the ramp. The steel plates clanged under my feet, and under them the sea lapped its grimy spume against the dock.
‘Lucy! Lucy!’ Iola screamed.
But it wasn’t her I was looking for. I pushed aside a couple of tourists and raced as fast as I could over to the Luducos. They were standing by one of the giant bollards the ship was anchored to, looking a bit dazed. Ludo had the bag with the sandwiches clutched to his chest. Duco prodded him with his elbow and pointed at me. Relief spread over both their faces. They started toward me on their stiff legs.
‘Lucy, Lucy,’ said Ludo, ‘you nearly left without your lunch.’
‘What would you do without us,’ said Duco, shaking his head. ‘You’re going to miss us, do you know that?’
‘No, she won’t, she won’t have the time.’ Ludo held out the bag to me.
‘He’s put one of those delicious apples in there for you, too,’ said Duco.
Now I had to give them each a couple of punches to the shoulder by way of farewell, skipping round them, laughing. We’d practised it, at home, for three whole evenings.
‘Are you comin’ or are you no’, miss?’ cried the CalMac man from the top of the gangway.
When Lude and Duke returned to the empty house, they would open up a can of soup and set two dishes on the table. While sipping their soup, they’d listen to the radio. There wouldn’t be anyone around impatiently waiting for them to turn water into wine, or in some other way demonstrate their supernatural abilities. They might talk about me a bit, but they’d keep it rather light and tentative, so that the other one could change the subject if he wanted. And maybe they’d think about how it had all begun.
How had something that absurd, really, ever happened in the first place? At the time, they had already been together for so long that they’d thought they could read each other like an open book. Yet neither of them had had the guts to confess to the other that he might be falling in love with the dark-haired woman seated at her easel below the dike every morning, staring at the cows. There had been something so cheerful and engaging about the way she greeted every passer-by. About the way she always seemed to have time for a little chat. About the way she sounded so interested when she asked you a question. ‘Really? Are you serious? Do tell!’
Both of them, bewildered, had said nothing about how strange and astounding it all was, turning their whole world inside out and upside down, so to speak. It was a phase that would pass by itself, surely. You didn’t have to share every little thought with your partner. Especially not if it was likely to cause the other needless worry. Until, on the night that went down in history as the Night of the Spaghetti Sauce, they had caught each other out—arriving on her doorstep at the same time. My mother had been in the kitchen, cooking; she’d decided they should have supper early because she wanted to take advantage of the evening light, later.
Whenever they recounted this story the Luducos’ mild faces would light up. Now that it was all behind them, they could look back fondly on that chapter in their lives, which was all that my mother was to them now. And, thanks to that chapter, they had me, they’d sometimes shyly say, turning red.
On the gangway, the CalMac man cried again, ‘Miss! On board, now!’
Lude, Duke, and I stared at each other. It was as if a magic circle had been drawn around us. None of us was able to move.
But suddenly Duco was clutching me by the wrist. In a rush, he said, ‘You haven’t always seen us in the best light. We can only hope that …’
Ludo said, ‘As long as you know we always …’ He sent Duco a helpless glance.
‘Oh, of course I do!’ I exclaimed. There was no one in the whole wide world that I loved as much as I loved the two of them. I flung my arms so passionately about both their necks that their noses bumped. I pressed my wet face against theirs. ‘Bye, Dad,’ I said. ‘Bye, Daddy. Thanks for everything.’