The Blackhouse Read Online Free PDF

as I came over the rise, there was the familiar silhouette of the Crobost Free Church looming over the disparate collection of houses and crofts that huddled around it on the cliff road.
    As I reached our house my mother was pulling up outside it in the Ford Anglia. Artair was in the back seat. She jumped out of the car and grabbed me as if I might blow away in the wind. But her relief turned quickly to anger.
    ‘For God’s sake, Fionnlagh, where have you been? I’ve been up and down that road to the school twice looking for you. I’m just about demented.’ She brushed away tears from my face as I tried to stop more of them leaking from my eyes. Artair had got out of the car and was standing watching with interest. My mother glanced at him. ‘Artair came looking for you after school and didn’t know where you were.’
    I gave him a look, and made a mental note that where girls were concerned he was not to be trusted.
    I said, ‘I walked the girl from Mealanais Farm home. I didn’t know it would take so long.’
    My mother was aghast. ‘Mealanais? Fionnlagh, what were you thinking? Don’t you ever do that again!’
    ‘But Marsaili wants me to go and play there on Saturday morning.’
    ‘Well, I forbid it!’ My mother had turned steely. ‘It’s far too far, and neither your father or me have the time to run you there and back. Do you understand?’
    I nodded, trying not to cry, and she suddenly took pity on me, giving me the warmest of hugs, soft lips brushing my burning cheeks. That was when I remembered the note that Mrs Mackay had given me. I fumbled for it in my pocket and held it out.
    ‘What’s this?’
    ‘A note from the teacher.’
    My mother frowned and took it and ripped it open. I watched her face flush, and she folded it quickly and stuffed it in the pocket of her overalls. I never knew what the note said, but from that day on we only ever spoke English in the house.
    Artair and I walked to school the next morning. Artair’s dad had to go to Stornoway for some education meeting, and my mother was having a problem with one of her ewes. We walked most of the way in silence, battered by the wind, and in turn warmed by brief scraps of sunshine. The sea was throwing white-tops over the sand on the beach below. We were nearly at the bottom of the hill when I said, ‘Why did you pretend to my mother you didn’t know I’d gone to Mealanais?’
    Artair puffed his indignation. ‘I’m older than you. I’d have got the blame for letting you go.’
    ‘Older? Four weeks!’
    Artair cocked his head and shook it with great solemnity, like the old men who stood around the Crobost Stores on a Saturday morning. ‘That’s a lot.’
    I was less than convinced. ‘Well, I told my mother I was going to your house to play after school. So you’d better back me up.’
    He looked at me, surprised. ‘You mean, you’re not?’ I shook my head. ‘Where are you going, then?’
    ‘I’m going to walk Marsaili home.’ And I gave him a look that defied him to object.
    We walked in more silence until we reached the main road. ‘I don’t know what you want to go walking girls home for.’ Artair was not pleased. ‘It’s sissy.’ I said nothing, and we crossed the main road and on to the single track that ran down to the school. There were other kids now, converging from all directions, and walking in groups of two and three towards the little clutch of school buildings in the distance. And suddenly Artair said, ‘Okay, then.’
    ‘Okay what?’
    ‘If she asks, I’ll tell your mum you were playing at ours.’
    I stole a glance at him, but he was avoiding my eye. ‘Thanks.’
    ‘On one condition.’
    ‘What’s that?’
    ‘That I get to walk Marsaili home with you.’
    I frowned my consternation, and gave him a long, hard look. But he was still avoiding my eye. Why, I wondered, would he want to walk Marsaili home if it was so sissy ?
    Of course, all these years later I know why. But I had no idea then that