The Loud Halo Read Online Free PDF Page A

look out into the night. ‘Did Hector tell you he has a buyer for his boat?’ he asked over his shoulder.
    â€˜No,’ I replied with some surprise. ‘Has he really? Who?’
    â€˜Ach, some fellow down Oban way, I believe,’ answered Erchy, turning round again and leaning against the edge of the door. ‘He’s asked me will I sail down there with him on Friday if the weather stays this way.’
    â€˜And are you going?’
    â€˜Aye. I might just as well. Seein’ we’re goin’ we’re takin’ Johnny Comic to the dentist. The poor man’s near crazy with the toothache.’
    â€˜That’s rather a job to tackle, isn’t it?’ I asked. ‘Johnny’s never been away from here before, has he?’
    â€˜No, an’ he’s that scared of comin’ with us I belive we’ll have to put a rope on him first.’
    â€˜You’ll never get him into the dentist’s chair,’ I warned, suspecting that Johnny’s one idea would be to play hide-and-seek with his companions until they could delay their return no longer.
    â€˜Ach, Tom-Tom’s comin’ to hold him,’ said Erchy. ‘An’ there’ll be the two of us if we’re needed.’ I stared at him in surprise. ‘Aye, you can look like that,’ he told me, ‘but gentle as Johnny is he’s a strong man when it comes to strugglin’ an’ he’ll struggle well enough if he thinks he’s goin’ to have somethin’ done to him.’ He edged half of himself outside the door and started to pull it to behind him. ‘Is there anythin’ you’ll be wantin’ us to bring back for you? We’ll likely be doin’ some shoppin’.’
    There was always at the back of my mind a list of things which I intended to ask people to get for me should there be some prospect of their visiting the mainland. Now, confronted with Erchy’s sudden question, I could recall only the relatively unimportant fact that when the previous autumn I had wanted to make use of some small green tomatoes—the grudging produce of a dozen troublesomely acquired and carefully nurtured plants—I had no vinegar to make them into chutney. It was no use even asking the grocer if he stocked it, for the crofters though lavish in their use of salt were as yet not conditioned to, or perhaps aware of, the other condiments. One never saw a bottle of sauce on a Bruach table.
    â€˜Would you bring me a bottle of vinegar?’ I asked, still vainly struggling to recall some more needful item on my mental list.
    â€˜Vinegar?’ repeated Erchy in a puzzled voice, and then, as enlightenment slowly dawned, he went on: ‘Aye, I mind now what you mean. Vinegar’s the stuff they put on chips in Glasgow, isn’t it?’
    He was outside the door by now and letting in a gently chill breeze that was bringing up the gooseflesh on my sun-tanned arms.
    â€˜Hector’s supposed to be bringin’ back a few chickens for Morag,’ he informed me. ‘You’ll not be wantin’ any yourself, will you?’
    â€˜That is a good idea,’ I responded with enthusiasm. The only chickens one could get in Bruach were the hard progeny of the inveterate fowls that scratched around every house and corn-stack, flaunting their mongrel feathers with the aplomb of peasants attired in their national costume. I had once tried to get pure-bred chickens sent up to me simply to find out if they laid better, but the length of the train journey coupled with the capriciousness of the local carrier had ensured that none of the chickens had survived. I asked Erchy to bring me a dozen day-old chicks—Black Leghorns if they were available.
    â€˜I’ll do that,’ he promised, and then perhaps because he remembered he was going in a leaky old boat on an unpredictable sea, or perhaps because he called a previous experience of high life in Oban,