Chapter 3: The Road to the Isles

On the Saturday morning, we caught an early train to Inverness. Aine had slept well and was full of life, but I had stayed awake too long brooding and I dozed off after the excitement of crossing the Forth Railway Bridge. The train was fairly crowded, but the scenery helps to distract from the tedium of travel on this line. It was enough, at any rate to keep my daughter diverted while I napped. We had time for a snack in the station buffet before we left for Kyle of Lochalsh.

We were at ease with each other and our conversations up until then had been in our usual teasing vein. Aine joked about my need for extra sleep now I was getting so old, and we had discussed my birthday later this month; ‘the big four-o’, as Aine called it. The mood changed, however, as we pulled out of Inverness on our cross-country journey.

“What are you going to do, Dad?”

Her voice was serious, and I noted that I was no longer ‘daddy’.

“We have to stop your mother. Her father’s the spider at the centre of this web, Princess.”

“No more platitudes please Dad. We’ll be on Skye in a few hours, and you can’t stand on Broadford pier and shake your fist at the island. And I’m not a princess and it’s patronising to call me that!”

I looked at her in astonishment. We are here because her mother had given her pills to delay the onset of puberty; she is still a little girl long after her classmates have started the transition to womanhood. Now I was faced with the fact that it was only her physical development that had been distorted; it is very clear that her mind has been growing up at least as fast as normal. I need to make a few rapid adjustments.

I have been patronising. I sat in the railway compartment acknowledging to myself that there was a real sense in which I wanted her mother to succeed; I don’t want my little girl, my princess, to grow up into a teenager in case she grows away from me. I looked at her determined face across from me and I had a sudden insight: if I don’t let her grow a little bit away from me, she’ll leave me altogether. I also realised that I must change the way I deal with adversity – hiding behind my defences is no longer an option if I’m to keep the respect of my daughter.

My mother had withdrawn altogether because she couldn’t trust herself to guide me without dominating me. I had suffered because she could only manage all or nothing and had chosen the latter alternative. I had to offer Aine more. From somewhere I had to find the strength to let her grow up with no more than a loving nudge to help her pick her path. Above all else, I had to share my plans and dreams with her.

“When did you become so smart,” I replied, eventually. “This is your expedition – you’re the one who has suffered. I’m the adult who’s supposed to have more experience, but my job is to provide support and guidance; so no more ‘Princess’, daughter.”

She came over and snuggled on my lap. I don’t think she’d have done it if there had been anyone else in the carriage but I’m glad she did.

“I’m not that grown up Daddy,” she said, kissing my cheek. “And I’m not the only victim. Whatever else we do we must save mummy.”

She jumped off my knee and sat back in her seat.

“By the way, you can call me princess sometimes if you’ll accept that the father of a princess is a king.”

“I’ve not shown much sign of kingliness,” I laughed.

She was suddenly very serious: “Not yet, Dad, but I think your moment has arrived.”

We talked of practical matters for the remainder of the journey. I telephoned the Youth Hostel at Broadford; they were fully booked on this bank holiday weekend, but they would be happy for us to put up our tents in the grounds and use their facilities. We decided to walk the dozen or so miles since we had been shut up in trains and a hotel room for so long. We debated taking the longer route to cross the Skye Bridge and enjoy the spectacular views, but we settled in the end for the passenger ferry over the Minch to Kyleakin.

I had tramped this road before but it was a first for Aine, so I turned off where the Glenelg road comes snaking out of the hills down the burn to walk the rest of the way along the foreshore. It turned out to be an exciting trip, since the terns were nesting, and they let us know that our presence was not wanted. The lay their eggs amongst the pebbles, taking to the air and bombing anyone that threatens to disturb the nests.

The noise of their wings and cries of anguish are unnerving and I knew not to move any closer. One more step and they would have used claws and sharp beaks to cause serious damage. As it was, we had to make a wide detour through the bog myrtle to appease them. There’s an old movie called ‘The Birds’ where folk in a little town are attacked by assorted birds; if you ever stray into an area where tern are nesting you will appreciate that the story is not all fiction. We left the beach at Ashaig and re-joined the main road through Broadford and down to the hostel close to the pier. We went into the building and Aine chatted to some kids while I sought out the warden and fixed on a place to raise our tents.

I put up the two tents and blew up the air-mattresses – a double for me, although it was years since Emer had joined us on a camping trip. Inside the hostel I cleaned up, calling on Aine to wash her hands so we could walk into town and find food. I was sure that she’d be starving since we had eaten nothing since we wolfed down stale sausage rolls from a shop on Kyle pier, but she seemed reluctant to leave the twins she had been chatting to. ‘Let’s go’, she sighed, setting off a couple of paces ahead of me.

We ate in the Broadford Hotel which was packed with tourists making the most of the good weather on a bank holiday. We were found a table after a ten-minute wait and endured a meal that was prolonged by the lack of waiting staff. The room was crowded and noisy, so I wasn’t bothered when we were more or less silent throughout the meal. Aine looked unhappy but that was understandable in the circumstances.

“Phew,” I proclaimed as we came out, making a pantomime of my relief at finally escaping from the confines of the dining room.

Aine didn’t reply but set off at once towards the hostel leaving me to catch up. By this time, even I had to acknowledge that something was troubling her. I followed her down the road, wondering what was wrong but eventually deciding she would tell me if she wanted me to know. When I was troubled, I wanted space to think rather than a raft of questions that I wasn’t ready to answer.

She went straight to her tent, appearing seconds later with her towel and wash bag. I watched her glum little face in the lamplight above the door. I followed her into the house to brush my teeth in the men’s bathroom and she was in her tent with the flap fastened when I returned to our camp site. I called out goodnight and she replied; I stood for several minutes debating on whether I should force her to talk to me. In the end, I shrugged and went to my own tent, getting into my sleeping bag but leaving the flap open to clear the stuffiness – we hadn’t been camping since the previous autumn and the interior of the tent smelled a bit stale.

Sleeping in the train to Inverness had taken the edge off my tiredness although I’m sure my wakefulness had more to do with worry; my wife and her father were about two kilometres from where I lay, and I had no idea how I was going to deal with them. I have made a point of being honest with Aine and any promise I’ve made her has been a solemn obligation. On the train she had said that we must rescue Emer, and I hadn’t refused. I was wondering whether that constituted a promise, when my daughter burst into the tent dragging her sleeping bag behind her.

“Can I sleep in here, Daddy?”

I helped to get her settled and we lay on the double airbed in our separate bags for several minutes. Aine was on her back staring at the canvas roof inches above her head. She gave a great sigh and turned to look me straight in the face.

“I’ve something to tell you Daddy. It’s a kind of confession. Don’t be mad at me. I’m just so worried.”

She spoke abruptly with each phrase followed by a brief pause. I told her that there was nothing in the world she could do that would make me mad at her and that it was my job to take away her worries. It was too dark to make out the details of her face, but I think she was smiling when I paused for breath.

“I think this might be too much even for you. When you were dozing on the train, I phoned mummy.”

I had spent too much time in tents to sit upright but I got up on one elbow and brought my face close enough to Aine’s to see her expression clearly. I felt as if I’d been kicked in the stomach; Emer had given her pills that were poisoning her so how could she want anything to do with the woman? I was very hurt that I wasn’t enough for her, and she had turned to evil personified for comfort. I had an almost uncontrollable urge to wound Aine in return as black anger surged through me.

“What did she say?”

I find it hard to explain what it cost me to make that anodyne response in a calm, unruffled voice.

“She’s glad we destroyed the pills. Her father promised her that they were harmless, but she was becoming suspicious. She didn’t like keeping it a secret from you, but she was afraid of what you’d find out. She wanted you to know that you’re a good man.”

Aine was crying now, silently allowing the tears to run down onto the collar of her pyjamas. I put my arms round her and cuddled her, sleeping bag and all.

“Did you tell her where we were?”

“She knows we’re camping – Aunt Jenny called her last night to ask her what was going on. Mum wished she was with us. I think she wants to come home.”

“But did you tell her where we are?”

“She thinks we’re in Wales walking in Snowdonia. Bert told her that when she phoned him after she had spoken to Aunt Jenny.”

I kissed her on the forehead and settled her on the mattress; she fell asleep almost immediately now that her confession was complete. I lay back with my eyes closed and pondered. Since she told me on Thursday evening about the pills that were preventing her starting puberty, I’ve been forced to reconsider my life. I haven’t had to make an adjustment of this magnitude since the period from the time mother became ill until Emer and I married.

Since then, I’ve settled into a rut with Aine at the centre of my world and all the rest out of focus on the periphery. I’m a director of Forgall Products and I know that I do a good job, but I could leave tomorrow with few regrets. Until shortly after our daughter was born Emer was the other part of the double star about which I orbited. I can tell you the exact time when her light went out for me and my only sun was Aine. I’ve built a wall round her and me excluding everyone else.

The change happened on my birthday eleven years ago right here in Broadford. Aine was fourteen months old, and we brought her to Skye to meet her grandfather for the first time. We had missed out on a honeymoon, so we decided to combine the visit with a couple of weeks camping in the hills. We both loved the great outdoors, but the whirlwind nature of our romance made it impossible to share the experience until our daughter was old enough to be slung on our chests to join us.

Immediately after our wedding, Emer visited her father on his island while I sold mother’s house and moved into my wife’s mansion. She had lost her mother when she was about ten so it wasn’t surprising that she and her dad would be close to each other. It wasn’t until she was back with me that I discovered that their relationship was not the normal one: he tried to control her every thought and deed.

She fought a rear-guard action against his dominance all through her childhood, winning one major victory when she became CEO of Forgall. She didn’t like to talk about that period of her life and I, true to form, didn’t press her. I thought that I understood everything because my mother had dominated me until I found a way to combat her. Just like mum, Emer’s father really worried about her welfare.

He spoke to her on the telephone every day of her pregnancy. Emer continued to work until her sixth month, but I had taken to preparing our evening meal while she rested on the chaise; that became the time when father and daughter had their nightly chat. I began to notice that she was less settled and looked more tired after the calls, but I didn’t associate the two observations until her blood pressure shot up. While I don’t in any way wish to diminish the task of childbearing, Emer had a relatively easy and totally straightforward pregnancy, and it was a shock when a routine examination showed raised blood pressure.

The doctor made it absolutely clear that the reading was within normal limits and his only prescription was less stress. I looked up the internet and frightened myself with all the possible repercussions. Emer, trying to stop my panic, told me that she was under a little extra stress; her father was demanding that she move to the island and remain there until the birth. He lives there with a number of his followers, but they are a mile across open water from the closest doctor; there is a hospital in Broadford but birth complications have to be dealt with in Inverness eighty miles away on the other side of the country.

Emer trusted her local doctor and the staff she had met on her visits to the maternity unit, but it was difficult for her to oppose the implacable will of her father. I dialled his number and spoke to him for only the second time; I told him of all the complications possible arising from high blood pressure in pregnancy and he finished up ordering me to keep his daughter where she was – I had his authority to insist.

The pressure was back to normal at a check-up with the nurse three days later and remained normal for the rest of the pregnancy. That caused a new source of stress: if we told the old man that all was well, he might renew his demands for her to go to Skye. I managed to convince my wife that she could use the phrase ‘nothing’s changed’ to avoid telling a lie. She would be referring to the fact that the pressure hadn’t changed from normal, but I would tell him that it referred to the single high reading, implying that there was a continuing need for precautions. I had become adept at this kind of sophistry in my youth – for much less worthy causes, I may say.