A few weeks had passed since Euna’s homecoming, since the scene on the heath and its attendant emotional hangover. After that morning, Aileen had grown gradually withdrawn, while Euna, who had made a full recovery from her bone-chill, tried in brave and unobtrusive ways to integrate herself into the community. She, Muireall, and Lachlan Iain had come for meals at the Macbays’ on several occasions, and they had helped to bake oatcakes for fellowship. Muireall had even taken little Lachlan Iain to the home full of uncaged rabbits, where he had brushed their long ears and washed their dusted tails back to their original white.
Then, just like that, it was Christmas. For Aram, the holiday had always seemed narrow. When he was a boy on the boat, his mother would pick a day at random and say, Wake up, son, it’s Christmas! They would pray together for a life of lovelier things, plush red seats at the cinema, abundant pot roasts, recordings of the most sublime operas. Then they would embrace, eat some scallops, and return to the repetitive, if peculiar, reality of their era at sea. And that would be that, until the next year.
Only at the castle had Aram realized that Christmas, like many other spiritual holidays, was not narrow at all. It was wide, alive; it was a day, for some people, that made further days possible. But he had never been around enough people, let alone enough people of one shared faith, to understand what it meant for a room – or a detention centre, or a village – full of them to observe a holy day together. The sense it fostered was close to sàimh, though of course mightier, more formidable, held as it was not by one person but by many.
Today, everyone in Pullhair had been invited to a Christmas potluck. Aram had been asked to bring salmon in whatever form he pleased. He chose to bring jerky, as then he could do all the preparation beforehand, reducing the margin of error. He had vowed to never make a mistake again, no matter how minor. This was one of many ways he was pressing himself to repent.
Mrs Macbay had invited the women from Gainntir to the potluck, and according to her, they were planning to come. She had extended the invite through Lili, who had come to visit her at the glasshouse the week before. Aram’s strategy for the potluck was fairly simple. He would stay invisible as much as he could, unless a situation arose in which he needed to intervene to protect someone he loved.
Aram tidied himself in his bedroom mirror, shaved with a straight edge, and tied his bow tight as a noose. His mother, rest her soul, would have told him he looked handsome.
He was still living in the blackhouse, and quite comfortably. A tart smell was now rising from its kitchen. Even nearly destitute residents gave generously to the church collection every week, and a significant portion of that pool, Aram had been told, went to importing food for this annual Christmas feast – saffron from Iran, lavender from France, cocoa from the Ivory Coast. At first, Aram had been sceptical of the collection, until he moved in with the Macbays and saw that they were, as promised, holding the money for this sole purpose. They lived within their humble means and would never have dreamed of skimming from the top.
Dressed, Aram went into the kitchen. Mrs Macbay was curved over the stove, stirring. She turned briefly to him. Don’t you look handsome, she said.
He smiled. Mrs Macbay was wearing a garland of hazel and dried bluebells over a festive wave in her hair. She looked superb, in a sort of modest, homespun way, and he basked for a moment in that floral visual, in the kitchen’s rising, ripened scent. Thank you, he said. Merry Christmas.
To you, too, she said. Try this.
She fed him from her long wooden spoon. He was not sure he liked the texture, buttons of fruit in such a dense seep, but the slightly burned sugar touched a tender place inside. His mother’s seaberry preserves, cooked in a skillet on the heat of the boat deck, had that same fluorescent taste. He felt so close to Mrs Macbay then, a spoon’s length away. It’s delicious, he said.
Glad you like it, she said. Have you had cranberry sauce before?
Never, he said. Though it tastes very familiar.
She looked faintly confused, but she kept her Merry Christmas smile constant. The sureness of her reactions always made Aram feel safe, the way he had once felt safe, as a fish farmer, with the succession of seasons. Aram kissed her gently on the cheek, an act he had learned over time to separate from any sexual subtext, and she patted him on his lapel. He went into the adjoined living room and found Minister Macbay there, crammed into his wing chair, drawing on a sketchpad.
Merry Christmas, Aram said.
Minister Macbay did not glance up from his sketch. His expression was distant. Aram walked near to him and peered over his shoulder. Usually, drawing was the minister’s private enterprise, and he got short and even petulant when someone asked him to let them look. Today, maybe cheered by the smell of cream buns rising, or by the sun-sliver over Pullhair after weeks of fair hoar, he showed Aram the page without hesitation. For some reason, Aram had expected crude, rudimentary work, but here was an intricate metropolis, crammed with chrome and fibreglass. In this imagined city, everyone wore tartans, sporrans, garters, clan badges, but with unusual adornments: crescent moon-shaped masks, velvet chokers, elbow-length gabardine gloves. The linework was so fine, so lovingly done, it made Aram somehow homesick. I wish we lived there, he said to Minister Macbay.
The minister smiled. I call this one Eden.
Where is it supposed to be? Aram asked.
If I knew, Minister Macbay said, I would move there tomorrow.
It may have been a naïve assumption, but he had always believed the minister loved Pullhair, worshipped its knolls and dells and even its quirky, somewhat diminished community. That thought had been a comfort, a root system in otherwise unsettled soil, and to have it negated now made him feel troubled, almost abandoned. Can I ask, then, he said to Minister Macbay, what keeps you here?
The minister tapped the pen against his chest for a moment, considering the question. I’ve always dreamed of living in a larger city, he said. London, Glasgow. I have a very solid life here. But I guess I never burned through that desire.
He went back to drawing, as if he had not just revealed a profound chasm to Aram. He shaded the windows on the far side of a high-rise, where the sun could not reach. It’s funny, Aram said to him. I always envied people who had the choice to stay in one place.
The minister set his pen down, holding the sketchpad even so it would not roll onto the carpet. You know, he said, that’s not lost on me. I think about the Highland Clearances, how badly some of those tenants must have wanted to stay.
Aram perched on the wing of Minister Macbay’s chair, knowing it was a precarious position to be in, and looked more closely at the drawing. He saw, in the lower left-hand corner, perfectly calligraphed Gaelic: O mo dhùthaich ’s tu th’air m’aire, or, Oh, my country is on my mind. Below such a modern, itinerant image, the words were heavy with history, as if stones in a boneyard. They bore down on Aram’s heart.
Aram did what he always did when unsure of his own language, and he quoted the Gospel, this time according to Luke. He said to them, ‘Wherever the body is, there will be eagles gathered together.’
Yes, Minister Macbay said. Though in this corner of the world, it’s more like seagulls.
Aram laughed, not because it was that funny, but because it felt good to release such a carefree sound. Mrs Macbay came into the living room holding two unnaturally coloured jellied salads, one orange, one deep pink. She asked for their help carrying them to the church basement. Minister Macbay seemed deflated, desperate as he was to keep drawing. He would clearly have chosen his illustrated world over his inherited one, today, given the opportunity. But he did not protest, nor did he make his wife feel sheepish about asking this reasonable favour. He took both salads from her, and they waited for Aram to collect his container of salmon jerky from the kitchen.
Thank you, Mrs Macbay said, and rested her head on her husband’s shoulder for a spell. He kissed the wave in her hair. Then she went into the living room and returned the sketchbook to its distinct place in their heirloom cabinet.
For you, mo mhilseag, anything, he said. And the glimmer in his blue eyes told Aram he was being sincere.
Jerky in hand, Aram followed Minister Macbay to the church. Both men walked with faintly heavy heels. In the basement, they pushed together a dozen card tables and placed on each a bramble-and-blackcurrant centrepiece, tatted lace napkins, tall rush candles. At Minister Macbay’s request, Aram set each place with cutlery and a Christmas cracker. Hidden in each cracker, he explained, was a paper crown, a toy, a shiny trinket, and a riddle on a strip of paper. Coming to this ritual from the outside, Aram found it endearing, if altogether strange.
Aram did not see any nametags, and he wondered about the Macbays’ decision to not assign seats, considering how many wires could be crossed at this feast, and explosively. He wondered if a whit of control might be effective here, to sidestep any blow-ups. Still, he said nothing to undercut the Macbays’ authority – they had been hosting this feast for decades, so surely by now they had streamlined their method. They had done so much for Aram, and he refused to show his gratitude by questioning their common sense.
Soon the other congregants began to trickle down the stairs, armed with sides, devilled eggs, cock-a-leekie soup, bannock, cullen skink. Peppered among those familiar dishes were imported foods Aram had never seen, and though they intrigued him, he had no desire to try such alien things.
The air in the room thickened as the Gainntir women skulked down the stairs. They carried with them a chill from the fells, a hard nip of winter. As far as Aram knew, he was the only person in the congregation to have met Bad Muireall, and still the others grew palpably tense the moment she entered the space. Lili and Grace were several steps behind her, holding hands in a way that seemed less about showing affection and more about forming a physical boundary. Lili looked sweet in a pale yellow snowsuit, while Grace was covered head to toe in cotton-lined Highland lace. Whoever made the garment had cut out a small face-hole, presumably to allow Grace to breathe. Aram wondered how she manoeuvred in and out of the costume – for instance, if and when she had to use the bathroom – but then, the Gainntir women worked in shadowy ways.
Aram, Bad Muireall said, greeting him with an uncomfortably warm embrace. He wilted into her hold.
Muireall, he said. Merry Christmas.
She pulled away and stared at him. He felt confined by her glare, as if he were suddenly wearing Grace’s lace getup. Thank you, she spat out.
Aram saw his error. He knew these women disdained holidays such as this one. Instead of addressing the misstep, he hurried ahead. How have you been? he asked.
Lili was invited, Bad Muireall said, by the minister’s wife. She should have known we do everything together.
Aram was surprised by her response, as it answered a question he had not asked. He nodded, afraid if he spoke again he might elicit another strange, instinctive reply. At the sound of her name, Lili let go of Grace’s hand and came to Aram, throwing her arms around his neck. Hi hi, she said. Everything looks so nice in here. I love the tinsel.
Thank you, he said to Lili. We have lots of good food for you, too.
Good, she said, I’m starving.
Believing her, he doubted the congregation’s decision to have a huge annual feast, instead of feeding Pullhair modestly and regularly, throughout the calendar year. Would Christ himself not have done the latter? But there Aram was again, an ingrate, questioning the Macbays’ expertise. Grace moved beside them then, though she still stood hushed and rigid. Through her face-hole, Aram could see lips pressed into a line, a gentle sheen in the corner of each eye. He wanted to tear the material from her face; he was suffocating just to look at her.
Is there any wine? Bad Muireall asked.
We’re in a church, Aram said, then winked. Of course there is.
The Macbays kept a store of communion wine in the cellar next door. Aram knew it would be rash, even sacrilegious, to retrieve one of these bottles for Bad Muireall’s consumption, especially since he knew her to be unstable, capable of any number of outbursts. He could not have explained why, but a significant part of him wanted to please her – he supposed she had that effect on many people.
Lili clicked her tongue. I don’t think that’s a good idea, she said.
Bad Muireall took her by the wrist and twisted it slightly to the left. Darling, she said. This is not your concern.
I apologize, Lili said. She waited limply for Bad Muireall to release her. When she finally did, Lili rolled a cramp out of her wrist and then stretched her hand toward the ceiling, toward some of the tinsel she so loved. She clawed at its furrow, the only section she was tall enough to reach, so its silver glitter came loose and rained down on her hair, her arched eyebrows. She was mesmerized, as if, having shaken free of the wrist-hold, she had willed her thoughts to a far corner of the world.
Only when Mrs Macbay went over to greet Lili did she stop playing with the tinsel. Cupping Lili’s face in her hands, Mrs Macbay said, Sùileag buntàta, which Aram knew to mean little potato. Her adoration for the young woman was clear, and witnessing it again, he wondered why she had never run from Gainntir into Mrs Macbay’s doting arms. This detail gave him a new appreciation for Euna, the dogged spirit that had driven her from the gaol she was raised in to Glasgow, then to Scandinavia, to Lebanon. Not that Aram knew where to put this new appreciation – he was brimming with it already.
Will you introduce me to your friends? Mrs Macbay asked Lili.
Lili inhaled. They’re hardly my friends.
Mrs Macbay looked concerned. Lili must have noticed the change in her expression, as straight away she introduced her to Bad Muireall and Grace. When shaking Grace’s hand, her eyes lingered on the lace covering her fingertips. Grace, mionag, she said. Is everything all right?
Aram expected Grace to hold her silence, but instead she said, Just don’t like strangers to see me. Her voice was clipped and low-pitched. Maybe her cords had been damaged when she tried to hang herself. Aram was intrigued that all it had taken to make her speak was an invitation.
I understand, Mrs Macbay said. To be perfectly honest, I sometimes wish I had an invisibility cloak.
Bad Muireall let out a whinnying laugh Aram had never heard. To him, it sounded affected. Don’t we all, she said.
Muireall, Mrs Macbay said, I think we should have a word.
Bad Muireall’s affected smile morphed into a look of astonishment. She was clearly not used to others speaking to her in this manner. Aram excused himself from the conversation. Anything Mrs Macbay said, Bad Muireall would attach to Aram, and he was afraid both of receiving her wrath and of forfeiting the cool fondness she seemed to have for him. He excused himself under the guise of preparing a blessing with the minister, though in truth he was headed to the cellar to retrieve a bottle of wine for Bad Muireall.
He could not have been gone for more than five minutes. But when he returned, red in hand, it was to an almost entirely new climate. A storm, it seemed, was hovering inside the church basement. The walls were damp, as if perspiring, and the overhead lights had dimmed. Half the candles Aram and the minister had lit had since been smothered, and the soundscape of the room – before, the whirr of trivial conversation, the gentle clinking of dishes being added to the spread – had taken on a faintly higher pitch, a pale kind of noise Aram associated with the radio. But then, he could have been imagining this interior shift, as the transformation was so hard to see empirically, and he was for some reason, today, especially unable to trust his instincts.
Aram noticed that Euna, Good Muireall, Aileen, and Lachlan Iain had arrived and were loitering at the foot of the stairs, perhaps unsure where in the room they would feel most welcome. He flashed to himself in the mess hall at the castle, hovering, waiting for a wave from some gracious stranger. Then Aileen made Euna giggle, girlishly, and Aram’s throat tightened. He could not stand to see them redressing their old bond, afraid Aileen would manage to turn his love against him. He needed to wrench the two of them apart, and he swore at this feast he would do just that.
Aram returned to where Bad Muireall and the others were standing beneath the now drooping tinsel. He did not offer the bottle of wine to Bad Muireall yet, since Mrs Macbay still had her confronted, and he was confident Mrs Macbay would not approve of their drinking the blood of Christ for fun. Bad Muireall’s back was to Euna, and Aram wondered if Bad Muireall had seen her enter. Then Aileen made Euna belly-laugh, and at the sound, Bad Muireall whipped around. Seeing Euna, she started instantly to cry.
Eudail, she called, doubled over, my love.
Now it was clear to Aram why Bad Muireall had come to this basement, despite hating the institution above, despite fearing the congregation. And he could not say that he blamed her.
For a moment, Euna looked doelike, panicky. Though she was wearing jeans and combat boots, her guitar strapped to her chest, she hardly looked the rock star, her inner child so obvious. Lili ran to her, clinging to her waist, weeping, squealing, while Euna kissed the girl over and over on the crown of her head, still festooned with little silver shavings. Grace waved with spider fingers though, maybe overwhelmed, she kept a slight distance.
Minister Macbay moved to the middle of the basement, where a single stone column seemed to save the roof from caving. Welcome to you all, he said. And especially to those who are joining us for the first time today. We’re honoured to have you here. Let’s take our places now, and we can say grace.
Everyone hurried to snag seats nearest to the foods they wanted to eat. Within two minutes, each guest was tucked in to the table, even the most elderly congregants, whose appetites had apparently given them sprightly energy. To Aram’s disappointment, Aileen claimed one side of Euna, Bad Muireall the other. So he assumed a place at the head of the table opposite to Minister Macbay, settling into his role as second-in-command.
He noticed that Bad Muireall was stroking the back of Euna’s hand. I missed you, Bad Muireall said. As she had when Aram said precisely the same words – why he had spoken to his cridhe teòma so insipidly, he did not know, forcing on their love a language that was not limited to them – Euna remained silent. She moved her hand away from Bad Muireall’s, not as an impulse, but as a slow and deliberate movement.
Would anyone like to say grace? Minister Macbay asked.
Euna stood partway, leaning by her hand-heels on the tablecloth. I would, Ministear, she said.
Brave soul, Minister Macbay said, eyes twinkling. Be our guest.
Euna thanked him. She twisted her neck toward Bad Muireall, addressing the woman with her sunken cheeks and her combed but abnormal bowl-cut with great serenity. Here’s to cleanliness and godliness, she said. To electricity and to freedom. Here’s to living life without fear of the strop.
Well, all right, Minister Macbay said, laughing. I was imagining something a bit more traditional.
Euna glanced briefly at the minister and said, I’m sorry. For a moment she seemed ready to sit down, avoid causing any more commotion. Then from between her teeth she said, To normal human haircuts and to not being an arsehole all the time.
Minister Macbay turned suddenly stern. His eyes, until now twinkling, were a blank and thankless blue. Enough, he said.
Head low, she cowered in her chair. Aileen kneaded her nearest shoulder. I’m very sorry, Ministear, Euna said. This is not an easy day for me.
Minister Macbay said, I understand, feudail. But in this church we all have to take responsibility for ourselves. Then he turned to Aram and said, Son, do you think you could say grace?
Aram did not want to seem as if he were undermining Euna, trying to save the room from some destruction she had caused. But the minister had asked a simple favour, and he had to comply. And so Aram – parroting a scene he had seen in films? Fenella’s novels? his subconscious? – asked that everyone around the table hold hands. Grace, on his left, offered her lace-covered one, but on the other side he could not convince his son Lachlan Iain to touch him. The boy stuck his tongue out and perched on both hands. Aram did not want to draw any attention to his son’s rejection, or to his son in general, so he hurried ahead. Everyone else was connected and quiet, even Bad Muireall, shaking slightly ever since Euna scolded her, so he began.
I am going to share with you, he said, some poetry I wrote when I was alone in my hut this autumn. I ask that you be kind.
O thou, in whom we live and move;
Who made the loch and moor;
Thy mercy day on day thee prove;
Our stains turn thee no less pure.
If it please you, O Good and Just;
To grant us grain and meat;
A town that we can trust;
We will sit now, and we will eat.
In the name of Dia. Amen.
Amen, the others said. Bad Muireall sucked on her teeth, while Aileen tapped her fork tines on the edge of her plate. Aram was mortified. It had been a mistake to share this poem with a room of strangers, several of whom were clearly indifferent or even hostile toward him. He had done so much in life to avoid holding himself this plain and public, had loved so many women to deaden the chance of being seen.
Well, he said, thinking of the fastest way to force the congregation’s focus from him, let’s eat.
As far as he could tell, this tactic worked. They started to pass the food clockwise. Bad Muireall piled her plate so mountainously she left almost no scalloped potatoes for anyone else; in a similar show of self-regard, she poured her tumbler full of club soda, chugged it down, and brimmed it again. As the dishes circulated, Grace and Lili both made sure to take precisely the same amounts of brandy butter and mince pies as did Mrs Macbay, for instance, or Good Muireall. Euna fixed a heaping plate for Lachlan Iain and a small, birdlike smattering for herself – noticing this, Aram sneaked some extra rumbledethumps and mealie pudding onto a side plate, should she still be hungry after that snack.
Conversation was token as they ate. Over the course of the meal, Lachlan Iain hid beneath the card tables. Occasionally he peeped out at Aram and showed his by then gravy-dyed tongue. Good Muireall at one point crawled under the table to retrieve him and instead stayed down there for a while, playing makeshift draughts with peas and soda bread the congregants had dropped from their plates. Aram barely knew her and he liked her already.
Where’s your better half? Minister Macbay asked Aileen.
She shot her father an unimpressed look, as if she could not believe he was asking this in front of the entire table. Carson? He has a toothache.
Lili perked up. I’m a dentist, she proclaimed, showing several holes in her own smile. I’ve pulled so many teeth I could make a necklace!
Aileen smiled. I’ll tell Carson to give you a call, she said.
He can’t, Lili said. We don’t have a telephone.
This opened a new conversation, and Aileen seemed glad to have the limelight turned from her. Each person, now fuelled by their first round of feasting, was eager to enter the discussion, incidentally about how advanced their own lives were relative to their neighbours’. No telephone? We have a toaster that changes colours! No telephone? We have an automated garage door! All wanted to prove how inventive their homes were, what widgets they had in their kitchens, what tools for climate control. Grace, in her cropped voice, said, We don’t have running water.
Bad Muireall threw a pheasant bone across the table at her, then looked penitent, as if she had unveiled a private matter by reacting that way.
Lachlan Iain showed his eyes above the table. He was hyper now, having eaten so many small portions of energy. He started to sing an updated version of that same strange number he had revealed to Aram weeks before, in the sanctuary upstairs. A chrostag! Today I drew a lady with a double bum! A chrostag! Today I wanted to pee in everyone’s cups!
Bad Muireall stood at once. Though most others were looking at the child with adoring faces, she would not even glance cold at him. Where is your outhouse? she asked the minister.
The bathroom is just upstairs, by the Sunday School entrance. He laughed. An outhouse, really. You must think we’re barbaric!
Bad Muireall gritted her teeth at the barbaric bit. She thundered up the stairs. As soon as she was gone, Aram felt the dampness that had been gripping the walls dry, just slightly, almost imperceptibly. He looked around to see if the others had noticed the shift in humidity, but most of them had started into their seconds, and were so absorbed by neeps and partan bree they seemed not to care.
Lachlan Iain insisted that Euna open her Christmas cracker, and to appease her boy, she did. In it was a red crayon, and with it he began to doodle on the tablecloth. Where are the other kids? he asked. I want to show somebody.
Mrs Macbay’s face was always a clear barometer, and Aram could tell this question depressed her. Oh, darling, she said. We don’t have too many in Pullhair. The brothers in the boys’ choir went to Inverness to celebrate the holidays.
The boy sighed and rested his chin in his hands. I don’t want to draw any more, he said.
Lili excused herself from the table and found a private tract of carpet a few feet away. She pulled a torch from her snowsuit. Come here, Lachlan Iain, she said. As far as Aram knew, this was their first time meeting one another, but the sunny, natural way she spoke to him, the tender carpet-pat with which she invited him over, implied a high level of trust. He scurried over and sat on the carpet beside her. Let’s play sgàilich, she said. It’s my favourite.
Lili and Lachlan Iain started to cast shadow shapes against the wall, giggling each time a deer or hare or monster appeared in the ring of light. They gave each creature a distinct voice, though none used formal language, only an array of noises. While they played, Aram cleared the refuse of the meal, bones, pits, stems, ligaments. Conversation had started again, amiably, moving from news of deaths and marriages, to the congregants’ latest health concerns, to their increasingly marginal crop yields. Aram went to the alcove to settle the desserts onto a cart. It felt natural to listen to the conversation from this slight remove.
At last he wheeled the treat-cart to the table and arranged the dishes in the middle, a tad closer to Euna’s end. He passed the dishes one at a time, observing how lovely the border tarts were, the shortbread, the cranachan. He had always thought this the one defect of Scottish life, the paltriness of all desserts, the slight anticlimax they introduced to even the most delicious meals, but he knew how hard the womenfolk had worked on these treats, so he felt a duty to appreciate them out loud. Most of the guests ate generous helpings of the cranachan, by far the most tempting dessert, clots of cream adhering to beards and mouths. Euna refused a helping when the dish came to her.
After the meal, Minister Macbay read out loud from the Gospel according to Luke. They all listened to the story of Christ’s birth, for the fifth or hundredth time, though Aram noticed Lili covering Lachlan Iain’s ears. Bad Muireall had not yet returned from the bathroom, which Aram thought perhaps a mercy. When the minister was finished, the Christ child wrapped in cloths and snuggled in his manger, his folks having found no room at the guest house, the gathering began to dissolve. The goodbyes were many, the blessings sincere. This meal had heartened the congregation in a vital way, and as they prepared to leave, the room pulsed with eager dialogue, laughter. Mrs Macbay made a show of divvying up the leftovers evenly, wanting everyone to be well fed and fairly treated. Aram was happy to see her sneak extra soda bread into Lili’s container.
The townsfolk left as they had come, in a gradual trickle, though noticeably merrier than when they had arrived. Minister Macbay asked Aram to wait with the remaining guests while he sent the others onto the moor with a beannachd. Aram agreed. With the Macbays and the majority of the invitees gone, only two clumps – Aram did not want to call them families – lingered. The Gainntir women, minus Bad Muireall, who was still in the bathroom; and Good Muireall, Euna, Aileen, and Lachlan Iain, who Aram had begun to name-bundle in his head as the Hammers. It struck him as selfish that he had never learned Euna’s family name, but then, he had never learned his own, either. His father had insisted it was Sealoch, his mother Sundew. Perhaps they wanted to attach to him their most darling things, his father water, his mother land. When at Dungavel he had been forced to use his surname, he had selected Sealoch.
Aram went to crouch beside Lachlan Iain. In Lili’s circle of light, Aram cast the form of a salmon. Want to know something? he asked the boy.
Lachlan Iain nodded. He was mesmerized by the fish, more than he had been by the deer or hare. Aram wondered if the boy had inherited this love from him, from the Sealoch-Sundews, or if that was a kind of covetous thinking.
You and I know each other, he said.
Lili, clearly intrigued by Aram’s proclamation, turned off the torch. She hooked a hand around Lachlan Iain’s waist, as if to brace him against the impact of the coming conversation.
Do you know what a father is? Aram asked.
The Gainntir and the Hammer women had, by now, all crowded around the child. Euna dropped to her knees beside Aram and he fretted, given how worn out the carpet was, this descent would cause her pain. But if it did, she showed no sign. Aileen sat down cross-legged, while Good Muireall, evidently not one to bear discomfort for no reason, pulled up a chair for herself and one for Grace.
Are you really going to do this? Aileen asked him.
Why not? Aram asked.
Go ahead, Euna said. Just don’t use him to work out your own cac.
As ever, he was moved by Euna’s unassuming wisdom. He took a moment to undress his reasons for announcing his paternity. He tunnelled down into his interior world, away from the faces, expectations, sentiments glutting the basement. And finally he saw nothing but virtue in his drive to reveal his identity. There was no guarantee he would be received well by Lachlan Iain, or by any of the watching women, but he of all people was sure a boy had a right to know his father.
So he looked into Lachlan Iain’s eyes, while Lili continued to hold the child, and explained he had fathered him. He wished Aileen would step in then and explain her role – Lachlan Iain did, after all, still believe Euna to be his biological mother – but then, Aram had learned long ago he could only speak for himself.
Lachlan Iain shrugged and said, All right. He did not seem especially shell-shocked, to Aram’s relief and disappointment. Having spent minimal time with children, he had lost track of how mutable they could be. Lachlan Iain nudged Lili to turn the torch on again.
Before she could do that, Bad Muireall, clearly having heard what Aram said to his son, came clomping down the stairs and jumped onto Aram’s back. She clawed at his eyes, monkeying over his left shoulder, and then they were rolling together in the tobacco-and-burned-coffee stench rising from the prehistoric carpet. He had never grappled like this, had only fought with honour or else been sucker-punched, only rolled when he had intended it to be sensual. This was anything but sensual. From outside came a babel of thunder and dense rain. The church basement was surprisingly well insulated, and free of windows, so only the most violent sounds ever permeated its walls. Lachlan Iain had started to cry, in his infantile way, where every ten seconds he would stop to make sure everyone was noticing how sad and scared he was, and then he would start to cry again. Meanwhile, Bad Muireall cupped her hands over Aram’s eyes, blinding now rather than clawing. Apparently she did not want him to see his son’s emotions, perhaps afraid this would bond the two of them.
You stupid toll na tòine, she said to Aram. Look what you’ve done.
The rain intensified. When the thundercloud boomed, the room trembled, as if the storm were directly overhead. Grace prised Bad Muireall’s hands from Aram’s face and in the process was steamrolled, her hand and shoulder forced brutally into the weight-bearing column. Rounds of blood appeared in the lace. Ach, she said. I was just trying to help.
Aram pinned Bad Muireall’s two wrists to the carpet. He climbed onto her low belly and straddled her, by then breathing heavily. Her haircut, severe before, had been ravaged by the rolling, her whole person slick with sweat. She looked weak like this. Assailable. And yet any desire Aram had to hurt her, primal or mindful, faded as quickly as it had come.
What hurts? he asked.
Her face changed. Where before her features had been distorted by fear, anger, now they were phenomenally still. The thunder blanched and gradually began to diminish. Bad Muireall looked silently at Aram. She looked at him until her looking made him sheepish and he had to speak. He said, leaning in so only she could hear, I don’t know what happened to you. But I believe it’s not your fault.
Now his temple was soaked with her sweat, or maybe tears – he was too close to have any perspective. He was still afraid of what she might do were she totally free, so he kept her pinned lightly in place, as a boy might a butterfly whose wings he did not want to tear. A strange endeavour, finding the midway between reasonable measures of safety and all-out domination.
Euna said to Bad Muireall, If I’d had you in this position a few years ago, I might have done something terrible.
Bad Muireall closed her eyes, as if, body trapped, her only retreat was toward sleep or some likeness of it. Aram had secretly wondered if Bad Muireall were somehow controlling the rain, but now the downpour had diminished, he felt ridiculous for even considering that a possibility. If she had that power in her arsenal, surely she would be mustering it right now, in this defenceless moment.
Aram looked at Euna. What should we do with her now? he asked. He liked this arrangement: Euna felt she was in control of Bad Muireall’s fortune, while in truth Aram was the one with his knees tight around her ribcage.
Euna thought for a moment, using her clipped, guitar-shredding nails to force back her cuticles, one so far she drew blood. Aram’s mind went first to formal punishment. There was no gaol in Pullhair, no standard means of justice or restraint of dangerous persons – they could have ferried and charged her farther south, in a more populous area of Scotland. In theory, Aram no longer believed in holding folks in captivity – he knew how degrading that fate was – though he was not sure how he would behave in practice.
Lili covered Lachlan Iain’s ears again. She seemed eager to safeguard his innocence. Euna turned toward Good Muireall and asked, Would you help us figure this out, Muireall? Your word is basically gospel.
Bad Muireall flared her nostrils and opened her eyes at the sound of her own name. She seemed enraged to learn she shared Muireall with someone else, especially someone Euna genuinely loved. Aram felt the ribs between his knees inflate and then tighten, a fast and repeated pattern.
Absolutely, Good Muireall said. I mean, what the feck do I know, but it might be helpful that I have the least stake in this.
You’re a wise woman, Euna said.
The breath-pattern between Aram’s legs hastened. I think what’s important, Good Muireall said, is that everyone who’s been hurt gets some time to talk about it.
Aram groaned inwardly. This sounded like a nightmare. Luckily, he had never been hurt, so he did not have to say a word. He could sit there straddling Bad Muireall and pretend to listen while Good Muireall conducted her little bohemian, fringy, free-and-easy circle. He could wait for everyone to share their grievances, air the wounds well beneath their daily armour, and when that chatter, like the thunder, had subsided, they could return to the practical matter of what to do with the villain who had upended all their lives.
Good Muireall said, We might need to do a few circles like this one. There might be unresolved matter after today.
Shite, Aram thought. That’s okay, Euna said. We don’t expect miracles.
Grace nodded so the lace on her neck furrowed and flattened. She said, If you only knew how low our expectations are…
Nothing better than low expectations, Good Muireall said, laughing. So here’s how it works: participation in the circle is voluntary. I’ll be the keeper, and I’ll direct the movement of the conversation. She looked around and retrieved Euna’s guitar pick, a thin, hot-pink piece of plastic, from her fretboard. When you’re holding this pick, you’re allowed to speak.
At that point, Minister and Mrs Macbay came back down the stairs, presumably having blessed all the guests and waved them out onto the heath. The Macbays took one short look at the scene and a long one at each other. Well then, Minister Macbay boomed. We’ll let you get on with… this.
Aileen beamed, a sight Aram had rarely seen since she was eighteen, by the forcing house. She said, I’ll explain later, Boban.
I trust you, dearc-dhearg, he said. Redcurrant, Aram thought, was appropriate. Mrs Macbay motioned with her hands to say she would be waiting above, in the sanctuary. She seemed to direct this message toward Lili in particular. The Macbays left the basement with a few concerted glimpses over their shoulders, as if nervous parents leaving their children alone for the first time.
When they were gone, Good Muireall combed the room and found the communion wine Aram had fetched for Bad Muireall hours before, then squirrelled away in the Sunday School supply closet. She uncorked the bottle with a camping knife from her pocket and poured its contents into a casual assortment of teacups, steins, and Mason jars, one for each person, save Lachlan Iain. This isn’t exactly recommended before a circle, she said, but it’s more fun this way.
Aileen raised hers, a chipped, commemorative Stornoway United FC mug, to toast. Everyone followed suit, other than Bad Muireall, who was still trapped beneath Aram. Aileen said a benediction first in lilting, golden Gaelic, and then in blunted English: May the Lord keep you in His hand, and never close His fist too tightly on you. Aram found the words vaguely ominous, more of a warning than a blessing, but hey, any excuse to drink.
Within a few minutes, thanks both to the wine itself and to the act of imbibing together, the energy in the room was looser. Good Muireall must have sensed this, because then and only then did she explain the parameters of the circle. First, they would build a list of the crimes committed. Second, each person would explain how these offences impacted them physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Third, the offenders – she looked at Aram, what the hell?, as well as at Bad Muireall – would explain why they had committed those crimes.
Euna said, Damain, Muireall. I wish you had lived here all along.
Good Muireall beamed at Euna. No, she said, you don’t. Then you wouldn’t be a fucking rock star.
Euna made devil horns and deep-drank the wine, staining her gorgeous, carnivorous teeth a richer shade of red. Let’s do this, she said to Good Muireall.
She offered the guitar pick to Euna. Why don’t you get us started? Good Muireall asked gently.
Euna, who had fled Pullhair on foot to find Aram at the castle, Euna, who had seen rare niches of the world, of course dived in with complete abandon. The pick held naturally between her pointer finger and thumb, she laid out the crimes she believed she had been victim to, though she used the word ainneartachadh, more oppression than crime. She spoke of strops and horsewhips and hairbrushes and switches, then of the silent treatment, of emotional manipulation. Then, turning her attention to Aram, she accused him of pilfering her virtue; of humiliating her, leaving her young and forlorn on the moors; of tearing her pearrsag, causing it to burn through urination; of thoughtlessly, narcissistically, ruining Aileen’s life.
As she waded through this tender, decades-long catalogue of wrongdoings, Aram knew he would not be able to sit there in silence, inwardly rolling his eyes. He either had to run, to avoid being dragged into the circle, or he had to commit himself to his family and homeland, despite the discomfort, to anchor himself in place as any good seasonal fisherman knew how to do.
Grace spoke. Lili spoke. Grace’s list was short, and pivoted on the shame Bad Muireall had implanted in her about her attractiveness, especially her weight, culminating in Grace’s attempt to stop living. Lili’s list was long and rambling, but full of lighter items, like the sheep trampling a little patch of clover she kept in the garden, or Muireall never wanting to play with her, or Euna making her feel lonely by leaving. Aileen spoke. She, of anyone, was the most furious, though she had never lived a day at Gainntir.
He tried to stay peaceful and focused while Aileen vented for half an hour. He had to admit, though, it was a struggle, and ultimately he had to separate from her unbridled anger and arrive in his own private landscape, where he was alone with Euna on a trawler, watching fireflies flicker in the sky.
Thank you, he heard Good Muireall say. I believe we’ve started to do this already, but if anyone wants to add to the ways in which these crimes have impacted them, now is the time.
After Aileen’s long diatribe, Aram’s knees, still straddling Bad Muireall, were beginning to get sore. He could feel the acid building up in his thighs. He raised his hand and waited for Good Muireall to pass him the guitar pick. I don’t want to seem impatient, he said, but my legs are starting to ache.
All right, Good Muireall said. Maybe we have had enough for one day. She looked around the circle, and everyone who could nod, did. Lachlan Iain was asleep on the carpet, curled into a tight shape.
I just want to say, he added, in case this helps anyone sleep tonight: I will answer to all my offences.
Euna smiled at him, minimally, from across the circle. Good Muireall said a secular benediction to close the day’s events, and then she stood up. Lili turned Lachlan Iain awake with great care, as if flipping an over-easy egg. All quietly collected their belongings and prepared to leave the basement. Aram assured them he and Bad Muireall would catch up soon. They agreed, and once they were upstairs, even through the closed basement door, Aram could hear Mrs Macbay exclaiming how lovely it was to see them.
Aram went to the buffet and retrieved two large urns. Even when he was no longer straddling Bad Muireall, she remained in her prone position. Though she made no noise, he could see when he faced her that she was crying. He placed both urns in the corner of the basement and said, These are for waste, number one and two, if you need them. There’s running water in the kitchenette, and plenty of tinned food in the cupboards. I will come to visit you tomorrow.
She stared at Aram. He wondered if she were going to buck, to turn feral, but she stayed where she was, tamed, tearing up in silence. He waited for ten or twenty minutes like that, to make sure she had genuinely submitted. Then at last he walked backwards up the stairs, training his eyes on Bad Muireall the whole time, and stepped into the sanctuary. By then the sun had set, the others gone home. He locked the basement door behind him.
*
Walking back toward the house, ashamed by the others’ accusations, Aram accidentally stomped on a twinflower. He had not seen one in years, not since leaving Pullhair for the first time. The two tiny heads, bent by his boot toward the ground, saddened then stunned him. Their gradient. From such a deep pink at the sepal to pale, almost white, at the end of the bud. How had they survived the loss of land, the desiccation? Seeing this delicate, nostalgic show of beauty, he was nearly inspired to return to the basement and free Bad Muireall. He resisted the urge.
A world of weather overcame him, panes of snow, a sub-arctic bite, winds so severe they could have blown him all the way to the salmon hut. He was not wearing a coat, and in the two minutes it took him to move from the church to the blackhouse, he picked up a pale burn on his wrists. He had not intended, of course, to be out so late, so he had not brought with him any extra layers.
He could hardly digest everything that had been said in the circle. What stunned him was how persistently the Gainntir women, between full-frontal sweeps of anger and grief, had defended Bad Muireall. She’s been through a lot. Or, We were disobedient. She had no choice but to punish us. Or, If I’d stayed in the house I was born in, I might have been killed. She saved me and I should be grateful.
Neither Euna nor Aileen had defended Aram, given similar opportunities to do so. They reprimanded him without the slightest trace of compassion. They both seemed to feel comfortable, completely guilt-free, chastising him. He was missing the manipulation skills Bad Muireall had so clearly mastered.
Though his self-esteem had taken a hit, Aram was at least consoled to know his failings were now laid bare. No more secrets. No more sour feelings lurking beneath the surface, escalating into violent fictions, bitterness, estrangement. After rotting teeth were extracted, even sweet Lili knew, a person could expect to be in pain – but they could tolerate that pain, knowing they were heading down the line of healing, knowing the poisoned roots were gone.