Sun Dance (66 page)

That morning I walked about the croft talking to the cows, “Well girls, you'll be glad the weather has taken a turn for the better.” Day after day of unseasonable weather had forced our cattle to stand heads down and backs to driving rain and gale. The calmness which followed possessed an unusual quality. Maybe the passing of the storm heightened the sombre nature of its tranquility. The atmosphere struck me as odd. The sun had long risen to a sky without mist or cloud and yet the land and sea were imbued with a sickly paleness that lacked the animated colours which peopled my memories.

The sun appeared extraordinarily white, its serenity the evanescent calm which precedes the unforeseen. Perhaps it created my mood. No measure of time will erase the silent weeping for a loved one, deep emotion is an ebb and flow, sometimes a recall unbidden, and so the hurt of losing Sandray. I gazed into past happiness. Only the piping of the shore birds to waken us, their rippling calls at the edge of dawn. My arms around Eilidh at the door of the old house, we listened, and I would kiss her neck. Island mornings, I longed for their loveliness and the innocence of not knowing.

But who would unpick the threads of destruction? Knowledge without understanding is dangerous, the fate that had befallen our island, a web spun without wisdom.

Before going in for breakfast I studied the Atlantic. Shoals of herring might be running the coast, I needed action to lift my humour. “Isn't it time I was out casting a net over the side, get the salt barrels filled again?” Eilidh didn't reply immediately. “Maybe it is,” she agreed, pausing some moments to look out of the kitchen window. “The barrels are empty right enough, and I think Iain's free tomorrow.” Her brother often went fishing with me, but I knew, whatever the reason, she didn't want me to go to sea. Not that she put doubts into words, they showed in her eyes. There appeared no obvious reason not to set out and though it wasn't my nature to go against her feelings, almost doggedly I gathered up the gear needed.

Eachan was at school. I didn't wait his homecoming. Eilidh made up a thermos and mutton sandwiches. She insisted on coming to the jetty with me and I began to regret my decision. We walked quietly, their seemed little to say. A peculiar lull rested upon the sea. Along the beach huge semi-circles of white froth lay in the sand ripples. Somehow the unbelievable quiet of the day lacked peace. No sound carried from the ocean, its oppressive silence broken only by the cry of a solitary redshank. The beach was empty, deserted, as if all life had fled.

Due to the restrictions surrounding Sandray the Hilda hadn't been used for some weeks. Today I would flaunt the blockade. Windless conditions meant a trip using the outboard. I tried to reassure Eildh, “They'll never spot me without a sail up.” In spite of looking miserable, she laughed, “A cormorant out fishing would come up on their screens.” Together we loaded the nets, floats, outboard engine and fuel.

I stowed the gear. Should I go? My misgivings over putting to sea were more to do with concerns for Eilidh. I jumped back onto the jetty, “Don't worry Eilidh, I'll be home before dark, herring or no herring.” I'd done it a thousand times. I wrapped her in my arms. “Eilidh I, I…” the words wouldn't come. I could only tell her with my eyes and crush her to me.

“Hector,” so faint my name, I bent my head to hers, “I love you, Hector.” Her eyes were pools of blue light, her voice hushed as a whisper that will pass in the larches, “from ice capped hills the milk blue melt of spring put longboats back to sea.” I was unable to speak. Nor did I understand.

Eilidh cast off the ropes. I looked up. Her liquid eyes held me. Southwards reared the headland of Sandray, so often our chosen bearing, and I turned the Hilda northwards. Just before the land was to part us from sight, I saw Eilidh still on the jetty, waving. I stood in the stern of the boat and returned her wave.

The walk back to the house went unnoticed. The emptiness of the bay meant nothing, if her tears could only fill it again. Eilidh stared at the spot where the Viking stone had been placed the night Hector and her brother took it from Sandray. In her wretchedness she wished above all the stone back beside the gable of Tigh na Mara, looking over the Atlantic. It had gone with Hector. The stone was back aboard the Hilda. They'd said she'd sailed so effortlessly. Her last words between them returned, spoken, not knowing why. She repeated them again and again. ‘Put longboats back to sea'. A breath stirred in the larches, and she understood.

From the window of the kitchen Eilidh watched the sky. An unnerving stillness grew on the day, no wind, and the sun, cloud free, became a strange nebulous of intense white. Alone in the house, Hector gone, the fear which she had carried privately to the boat that morning, that had burst free into tears as she waved, now held her in a desolate mourning, the anguish of knowing. Unable to stand the silent house, she rushed outside and stood against the gable.

Green light filled the sky, reflected on the Atlantic. Flashes of red and white seared the heavens. The sea lay as she never before had seen it, a mirror of unnatural calm shining with a deepest violet intensity.

Young Eachan hurried home from school to find his mother standing at the end of the house. “All the power has gone, why is the sky so green? They sent us home, there's no phones working or anything else. Where's Dad?” Eilidh rested a hand on his tousled golden head, “He's away to the herring fishing. He'll be back before dark. In a little we'll go to the jetty and watch for him.”

The boy looked from the lurid sky to the purple sea, and gently into his mother's face.

Brave boy, he put his arm round her waist and fought back the tears of childhood.

The Hill of the Shroud and a tip of land out from the bay of Ach na Mara was my transit, my bearing for returning home. I wondered at the day's unusual calm, it reached across an ocean flat as the eye could see. The greatest area on earth devoid of any movement, it stirred a deepening apprehension. I viewed the sea with a tinge of fear.

The suggestion of a breeze lifted off Halasay, no more than a cat's paw on all the immensity of the Atlantic. To resist my unease, I cut the outboard and hoisted sail. Rarely had the Hilda headed northwards. Maybe it was in myself, maybe fancy, only a breath in her sail and she came alive. I felt it. Beyond any horizon I'd ever crossed, she sailed for a land of phantoms where men who'd bent larch into boats believed the spirit of the wind was in their ships. And on that faintest breath, driving Hilda onwards I heard Eilidh's ghostly voice, “put longboats back to sea.”

The longing for Eilidh became an exquisite pain, borne only for the joy of holding her again. ‘Believe in beauty,' my father spoke from his deathbed, ‘its melody is the key to eternity. If ever you find the key, guard it with your life.' Should I turn back?

I sailed on, stood at the mast, scanning the sea for the ripple which would tell me of a shoal. The hill of Sandray was just in sight. I'd sailed further than intended. I reached for the rope which would bring Hilda's sail across and set us running for home. I let the rope go. There, some distance ahead a jabble on the water broke the surface. Gannets speared their prey. Herring, swimming north, excitement carried me on, I must cross their heading. I tightened sail. The Hilda sprang to action, she heeled and bore away.

Make sure of my return bearing; I glanced aft, could still see land. For a moment I barely recognised the sun. A glaring silver blob daubed on a tight canvas now glowing with a greenish pallor. Hurry, the sky warned me. Gannets were still diving, someway astern. Bellies full, they headed west with Saint Kilda in their sights. We'd forged away beyond the shoal. I'd sailed such a distance, one cast and haul, then home.

Over the side went the large end float, now the net, small cork floats. I swung Hilda across what should be the fishes' track. A shoal of herring swims slowly. The net, shot and secured, I sat amidships on the Viking stone and waited.

The work of setting the net had taken my eye off the horizon. Not since that night of the great aurora on the Sandray headland had I witnessed such a spectacle. The northerly heavens were swathed in a green radiance; its shade flickered, light to dark. Dynamic barbs of white light of blinding intensity stabbed into the earth's magnetic field. A purple sea cowered in the reflected image of unleashed swords. The Gods of Valhalla surged towards us.

Planet earth was fighting a solar storm, the manifest power of the sun to destroy us. I was frightened. The fate of mankind danced with the Sun.

Haul the net, haul it fast. Feet braced on the gunnel I gripped the securing rope. Heavy, but it came aboard. Herring tumbled into the boat, flapping bellies silver as the sun. No warning, a sudden blast of air. Hilda's sail cracked over, hit me in the back. No hold, save the net. Water closed over me.

I surfaced. Hilda sailed on. I'd lashed her tiller. The net paid out, yard by yard. It jerked taut. Snap! It parted from the boat. A floating mass tangled my thrashing legs.

Head above water, I tried to swim. The net was dragging me. A streak of red shone on the water. The tip of the Hill of the Shroud blazed into the sky. I watched. Slowly it sank.

The moon was on the bay, and I stood beside the gables of memory.

Red into a green world, and slowly, so slowly, it became the blue of Eilidh's eyes

The Hilda sailed on, a lone empty boat crossing an ocean. She headed home.

And I sailed with her.

They stood together on the jetty of Ach na Mara waiting for a boat to come sailing in. The afternoon drew on, still he wasn't coming home. The greenness of the sky shone on the bay. Flashes of white light ripped across the heavens.

Eilidh trembled. Eachan clung to her, “Is it all right mum? When will Dad come home?” Eilidh stroked his head. “Soon,” she murmured, her eyes searching, willing him.

But she knew, she knew, “Oh, my Hector.”

The roar split the air, the blast threw them against the jetty wall. There they crouched. Flames poured into the sky. The Hill of the Shroud blazed. Another deafening explosion, its violence flung rock skyward. Glowing rock fell shattered into the Sound.

Hot ash filled the atmosphere, the miasma of mankind's making.

It floated down. Mother and son struggled to breathe, it filled their lungs.

Slowly, so slowly it settled.

Grey and choking, it covered land and sea.

Gently it fell upon two golden heads.