Island of Wings (2 page)

But he had felt strange that morning last April at Lamlash quay, hiding from his own kin. As the
Caledonia
was towed out of harbour he had said a prayer in the old language. He had prayed for the land of his ancestors, for his family, for Will who had been young and fair when he died with all his life ahead of him, and at last he had prayed for his own redemption, but by then the words stalled in his swollen throat.

It was shortly after that day that he decided to marry Miss Elizabeth Crawford. He was pleased with his choice of wife. She had grown up in a town and understood the mechanisms of society, and he was sure she would understand his mission. She had enough schooling for people to believe she was intelligent, this he was sure of, and she had a strong and healthy figure – he liked the way her dresses fitted her well. Her older sister Annie was probably prettier, he thought, but the giggle which often rippled over Annie's face was unsettling, and Lizzie had seemed to be the more serious of the two. There was something quite remarkable about her eyes, although he could not yet put it into words. She was not above his status, nor would she pull him down. Once her folks would have been above his; as tradesmen they had made some money while he had grown up a miller's boy. But he had his wits and his determination, and these faculties had brought him to education and into the society of a different class of men. His family was gone, he had no past, and while her kin remained tradespeople he had risen as a respected minister of the Church of Scotland.

He had explained his mission and the nature of his new parish to her and to her father, a decent man – not an intellectual of course, but hard-working and moral. Mr Crawford, who was a builder in Paisley, was proud and delighted that his daughter would be marrying such a prominent man, he had said, and although he could not offer much in terms of a dowry, he was sure that his daughter would be a good wife in whatever climate and on any barren island – Mr Crawford had winked at this point – and she seemed to like the minister well enough so who was he to oppose the match?

After Will's accident, Neil MacKenzie, who was still a young man, knew he needed to engage in something that was bigger than himself. The years at university had changed him; he was different, and better, and he had found a mission at last. He was a confident student, fired on by his many, often private, aspirations and after his ordination he had told the Presbytery that he would like to preach the Gospels in the most godforsaken place they could offer – he had suggested Newfoundland, where he was sure he could do a world of good. In the end, the Society in Scotland for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge had asked him to go to St Kilda – the furthest inhabited islands in Britannia.

His mentor, the Rev. Dr John MacDonald, who had visited the islands on previous occasions, had been so horrified by the low level of religiosity amongst the St Kildans that he had travelled, preaching, all around the Highlands and Islands in order to raise money for building the new church and manse. The starving Highlanders, generous as ever to their own kin, had been more than willing to offer what support they could for the spiritual salvation of their cousins on St Kilda.

The islands had become a near obsession to Neil MacKenzie over the last year.
St Kilda
! – he had repeated the name like a charm to himself over and over again. This is where I will be tested, he thought. His mind often travelled ahead of him to the islands and endowed them with the sublime grace of a Utopia. He had been chosen to relieve the islanders of their backward ways and show them the rightful path as drawn out by God and paved by the Church of Scotland. On other days, when his modesty was greater and he could not keep the fallible man in him at bay, he merely thought that these were the islands where he would find goodness, peace and redemption.

As the sea and the wind and the air were holding their breath around the ship, the Reverend returned from his thoughts, only to find he was looking at a mirage floating on the horizon. His eyes were fixed on a dark shape that balanced in and out of focus. At that moment he heard the lad ring the bell and the Captain's cheerful call of ‘Land ahoy!'

The Reverend turned to see his wife beside him. She looked a bit pale, he thought. Her eyelids were thin and dark, the lashes thick as she looked down into the water. He had been conscious of her rather serious discomfort that morning but had been discreet enough not to mention it in front of the crew. He believed that had been the right thing to do, and she was strong enough to take care of herself. He suddenly felt a rush of unreasonable happiness when he thought about the baby inside her and about the island in the distance. There was a son waiting to be born to herald his quest. ‘Are you quite comfortable, my dear?' he asked, his voice warm now, and put a protective arm around her. ‘Oh yes, I'm fine now that we can see land again,' she answered as she leaned into him, grateful for his sudden affection. The couple continued to stand like that for some time as the ship was slowly approaching the islands. If she wasn't exactly aware of the nature of her husband's thoughts and affections at that moment, Lizzie reflected, at least their souls were resting comfortably against each other.

The archipelago grew out of the low clouds like bad teeth in a weak mouth, the rugged sea cliffs bleakly lit from behind by the sun, which was setting somewhere far out in the west. Gradually the islands took on individual shapes in prehistoric shades of grey. Captain MacLeod pointed out the different islands: Hirta, the largest and the only one that was permanently inhabited; Boreray about five miles to the north-east, with its threatening stacks – Stac Lee and Stac an Armin – the highest sea pinnacles in all of Britain, he said; Soay, about two hundred yards to the north-west of Hirta, was still out of sight. The Norse-sounding names rolled off the Captain's tongue as softly as a snowfall. The lofty peaks and sheer sea cliffs of Hirta were covered in cloud, but as the ship approached through the dull swell the wind grew stronger again and the mist started to clear.

A myriad of seabirds were circling the ship now, and the noise of their calls was deafening to the sailors who had heard nothing but the silence of the sea all day. There were gannets – whitewashed and graceful with heads that looked as if they had been dipped in custard – and fulmar, skilfully skimming the surface of the waves. The lonely albatross that had overtaken their cutter earlier in the day was nowhere to be seen. To their left they could see the ridges of Dùn. Captain MacLeod pointed out that the name indicated an ancient fort, and the crown of the ridge did indeed look like the terrible battlements of the castle of a dark lord. As the rock sloped steeply towards the sea it gave way to low grass, and the sailors could soon make out the shapes of innumerable nesting puffins. Their clown-like appearance was greatly enhanced by the tragicomic sound of their old man's laughter, which rode eerily on the waves: ho, ho, ho. In one place the sea had gnawed a narrow portal through the rock. It looked like the eye of a needle, and the wind which threaded through it whispered a tune which, when it joined the song of the birds, put a peculiar feeling in the hearts of the mariners.

Lizzie drew closer to her husband. She was speechless and did not know what to make of this island which was so unlike any other place she had ever seen or even imagined. How could anyone live in a world as strange as this? she wondered. It seemed utterly impossible to man and beast alike, and then it struck her – how would
she
be able to live here?

They drew up towards the wind and turned into a wide bay where the treacherous black rocks gave way to a shore fringed by a narrow shingle beach, sloping gently up towards a hamlet surrounded by green pastures. Behind the hamlet the ground rose gradually at first and then steeply to the slopes of Ruiaval, as the Captain called it, to the south and the rugged face of Conachair to the north. The many colours of warm earth, fresh sorrel and young heather were at once pleasing to the sailors' eyes, which had grown accustomed to a dreary palette of black, white and grey. In the lee of the wind the evening seemed suddenly warm and agreeable. They were beginning to hear new, more vibrant noises carried from the shore – dogs were barking through the cacophony of birds, and Lizzie thought she could hear the mounting voices of excited children.

As they looked closer the MacKenzies could see little stone structures spotted across the hillside above the village. They seemed almost organic, as if they were growing out of the rough ground like boils. These were
cleits
– Mr Bethune explained – where the natives would dry their turf and store their food and feathers. The absence of trees was striking. Lizzie had never seen such a barren place.

On the right side of the bay the sea cliffs, covered in short grass and crawling lichen and littered with more of the strange stone structures, rose steeply towards the high mountain, partly hidden by a great cloud of woolly mist. Small sheep with coats of a blackish brown were clinging to the sheer cliffs, their hooves aptly finding footholds in the most impossible places. Some of them looked up as the cutter drew nearer, chewing in stupid curiosity.

MacKenzie suddenly gasped as he laid eyes on his church and manse at the foot of the hill to the right. The whitewashed buildings shone brightly against all the brownish green and he was surprised that it had taken him so long to spot his new home.

The crew were presently busy tying down the lowered canvas sails and preparing the rowing boat. The anchor was dropped into the startlingly clear water and struck sand.

The MacKenzies waited anxiously as the rowing boat was lowered. It tugged furiously at its ropes and ground against the side of the cutter as a couple of the crew jumped in and turned to receive MacKenzie and his wife. The crew were rather surprised to see that the minister, who had seemed such a land-born gentleman during the crossing, was as steady as any of them on entering the dinghy. Mrs MacKenzie, however, was another matter; she seemed to be in a sort of trance: pale, silent and stiff as Captain MacLeod helped her over the gunwale towards the outstretched arms of his crew below. The hem of her skirt caught on something, and for a terrible moment her petticoat was blown up against her thighs to show her stockinged legs. The skirt freed itself, but the keen arms that caught her as she landed in the rowing boat seemed to the Reverend to hold her tightly for a fraction longer than necessary.

MacKenzie, embarrassed by his wife's exposure, was further humiliated to notice that she did not appear perturbed by the incident; indeed she seemed strangely detached, he thought. How could she be so vulgar – and in full view of the sailors? What must they think? He did not have time to dwell on it for too long as the rowing boat set off towards some shelving rocks on the right, evidently used as a landing place. As he looked up towards the rocks which separated the village from the sea he saw a group of male natives running down to greet the boat. Further up the slope a group of women and children were shyly holding back.

The crew expertly rowed the boat alongside the landing place, and as the vessel reached the rock a group of four or five young native men quickly grabbed the prow and hauled it and its crew on to the shelf in one powerful motion. Strong arms supported the Reverend and his wife on to the slippery rocks and steadied them as their sea legs wobbled briefly on stepping on the unyielding, rough ground.

Lizzie felt her kid boots slip on the seaweed and was grateful for the support of the unknown man at her side. She felt quite numb, dazed by the terror of seeing her new home so barren and strange, but as she stepped on to dry land her senses started to return. She was aware of much noise and commotion and there was an overwhelming stench of something which reminded her of rotten shrimps. She sensed that there were people all around her but she kept her eyes turned down, hoping that her new neighbours would not notice her dishevelled looks and torn skirts. In fact, at this moment, she hoped that no one would notice her ever again. Displeased with herself, intimidated by the hustle and bustle and humiliated by her inappropriateness, she forced her feet to move on to the island, and in this manner, step by step, she arrived.

MacKenzie in the meantime was striding up a path towards a low stone wall. ‘At last the firm ground of Hirta, our lost Eden!' he exclaimed triumphantly, then remembered his wife and turned around to see her, head down, walking towards him. He turned back and caught her hand. ‘Are you all right, Lizzie? It must all be a little overwhelming for you, but you will get used to it, don't you worry.' He squeezed her hand and she looked up quickly. ‘I am sure you are right, my love,' she lied.

At this moment they were approached by a short man with a great beard partly covering a weathered but kindly face. He held his soiled flat cap in one hand and addressed the minister in the old language while extending his other hand in welcome. The rest of the natives were quiet during this address and there seemed to be a breathless pause before the minister summoned his authority and greeted the ruddy man in Gaelic. The greeting was extended to those standing around the MacKenzies and then, inspired by the enormity of the situation, the minister beckoned to his new congregation to kneel as he said a prayer in gratitude for the safe deliverance of himself and his wife to their new home: ‘Praise the Lord for His great goodness in preserving us on the mighty waters, and bringing us to this much wished-for destination.' The natives, still on their knees, seemed to be waiting for something more. The minister was not quite sure what he ought to do next, so in order to further establish his position amongst them he decided that it would be a good thing to bless them. After all, his mission was to enlighten their spiritual darkness, and as he raised his hand over their bowed heads he could indeed feel the light of reason radiating from him. As he asked his flock to stand up again he knew that he had done the right thing and he hoped that the people were cheered by his arrival.