All six crofts were granted the right to use the natural resources of the islet of the Wee Kingdom and the surrounding waters up to a good stone’s throw off the coast, including the same area around the three stacks and the lighthouse. And well stocked it all was. In days gone by the crofters had taken the eggs and birds from the cliff-faces, just as their distant neighbours the St Kildans had done for centuries. Like them, they cut and burned peat, farmed Soay sheep and kept a few cattle, goats, ducks and geese. They grew crops of potatoes, cabbages, turnips and beetroots on the traditional feannagan, or ‘lazy beds’ that had been artificially built up in long swathes and fertilized with innumerable barrowloads of seaweed over two and a half centuries. They each operated a treadle loom, using their own wool and traditional methods to produce the famous West Uist Tweed that was bought and sold down the west coast of Scotland. And in the shallow southern waters between the causeway and the edge of an underwater shelf they collected edible seaweeds for cattle fodder and fertilizer, and farmed the rich oyster bed, using their own boats and ten-foot long oyster tongs to rake up the valuable delicacies that were in much demand on West Uist and the other Western Isles. All in all the Wee Kingdom Community was a throw-back to the old days. Although each croft was worked as a separate enterprise, they still co-operated, shared and bartered; and they produced West Uist Tweed, pâté and oysters which were marketed under the label of the Wee Kingdom Community. All profits were poured back into the community and used or shared in equal measures. It was a system that had worked successfully for two and a half centuries.
An unmetalled road that was in a continual state of disrepair had been constructed across the causeway, wide enough for a single vehicle. It was just after noon when the Padre zipped across on his Ariel Red Hunter, the classic motor cycle that was his trademark, as he followed the wake party led by Rhona McIvor’s erratically swerving minibus and a motley assortment of cars, vans and wagons. The state of Rhona’s battered minibus was testimony to her propensity to bump car fenders, roadside rocks, gates and harbour walls. Her corner-taking was renowned and most people were aware that her vision had been progressively deteriorating to the point where she should not be driving, yet no one had so far had the temerity to suggest it to her.
The cortège followed the minibus up the rough pockmarked road to Wind’s Eye, the late Gordon MacDonald’s croft, then parked up amid the pens and outhouses and disembarked. Inside the austere thatched cottage with its mixed smells of seaweed, brewing yeast, turnips and stale tobacco, Rhona had already set out a spread of sandwiches, beer and whisky.
There were about a dozen mourners standing awkwardly in the low-ceilinged main room that had served the old crofter as a sitting-room, kitchen and workroom. The old thatched cottage, which had been built on the site of one of the old medieval ‘black houses’ reflected the late crofter’s personality and had never been renovated or added to, as had most of the other Wee Kingdom dwellings. Fishing nets and rods were stacked in a corner; a large brewing bin took up space beside the plain porcelain sink and on a shelf lay a well-thumbed King James Bible, the only book in the cottage.
‘He was a religious man in his own way, Padre, Rhona said, as she lifted a tray of glasses, a whisky bottle, a jug of beer and a jug of water. As she did so, Lachlan noticed how pale she suddenly looked. He also noticed the slight intake of breath, as if she had experienced a spasm of pain.
‘I’ll take that, Rhona,’ he said, reaching for the tray, his manner brooking no argument. ‘Is it the angina again?’
A thin smile came to Rhona McIvor’s face. She nodded and pushed her thick-lensed wire-framed spectacles back on the bridge of her nose. She was a slim woman of about his own age he guessed, since it was not a statistic the remarkable Rhona ever cared to divulge. Lachlan remembered when she had taken her croft some twenty odd years before. Back then she had been a glamorous redheaded woman of the world. A freelance investigative journalist and a prize-winning cookery-book writer, she had come to the Wee Kingdom upon inheriting her holding, having made the decision to retire from the rat race forever. And that she had done, immersing herself in the crofting traditions and lifestyle of her forebears. ‘It’s a paradise, Padre,’ she had told him one Saturday morning many years ago when he called in on one of his pastoral visits to the residents of the Wee Kingdom. ‘No telephones, no deadlines, no editors breathing down your neck. You just have to put bread on the table and wool on the backs of the rich folk of Inverness.’ He remembered her peal of laughter, as she then set about shearing a sheep, a cigarette in an ebony holder clasped between her small pearly teeth. In her dungarees and Wellingtons she made an impressive, if incongruous, sight.
The Padre had looked at her concernedly, but was relieved to see the pained expression quickly disappear. She was dressed in a smart trouser suit, her once tumbling Titian locks now iron grey, pulled back in a pony-tail that exposed her intellectual brow and the long neck that had attracted so many would-be suitors over the years. It was widely believed that she had had several lovers since she came to live on West Uist, yet neither she nor they ever broadcast the fact. Discretion seemed to be a guiding principle in Rhona’s life.
‘Aye, this angina is a bugger, Padre,’ she said with a twinkle in her eye as she produced her trade-mark ebony cigarette holder from her shoulder bag and slipped a fresh cigarette into it. Lighting it with a small silver petrol lighter she blew out a stream of blue smoke. ‘These things will be the death of me, I suppose.’ Then she sighed. ‘But we all have to go some day. Gordon was only a couple of years older than me, you know?’
‘You’ll go on forever, Rhona,’ said the Padre.
‘God, I hope not,’ she returned, picking up a couple of plates of sandwiches. ‘Look, you do the drinks and I’ll feed the hoards.’ Saying which she was off, a trail of smoke following in her wake.
Lachlan turned and went over to the two McKinleys standing by the merrily burning peat fire. Father and son, they worked Sea’s Edge the most westerly croft on the Wee Kingdom. As he held the tray and muttered a few words about the funeral he let them help themselves. Unconsciously, he found himself appraising them.
Alistair McKinley was a smallish wiry man in his middle fifties with the gnarled and wrinkled skin of a man used to the elements. He was bearded with short cropped hair and an almost perpetual scowl on his face. He helped himself to a whisky from the tray while his son Kenneth McKinley took a glass of beer. In contrast to his father he was tall and broad-shouldered, his eyes blue like his dead mother’s. His expression not as severe as his father’s scowl, yet there was about him a suggestion of unease, as if he was anxious to be off somewhere. Lachlan had seen that look so often among the young islanders as they began to hanker after some of the comforts, luxuries and attractions of civilized life. He wondered if the younger McKinley would soon announce to his father that he was going to cut loose.
‘Is the croft going well?’ the Padre asked Alistair.
‘Passable, Padre. Passable.’ The older crofter flashed a look at his son. ‘It would be better if we were more focused.’
Kenneth McKinley shook his head slightly. He was twenty-two, but looked five years older. ‘Och, we’re doing fine, Father. We just need to ask—’