I Said I'd Never Steal Again...But!

Jimmy (Snowy) McCleod, so nick-named because his hair turned white at age fourteen, was more than half way through his life when he purchased a 1955 clinker built yacht, twin mast, and half sunk. He paid five hundred pounds for her and became the laughing stock on the island.

After four years, Snowy, in his seventieth year, had restored her to be the finest vessel in Tobermory’s harbour. Heartbreakingly, however, Seaspray II, as he named her, was pushed aground in a storm that had grown bigger and more bullish than the morning’s mischief implied she’d be. The grinding undertow sucked her onto the submerged granite at the base of the mountain, a hundred yards offshore. Penniless and heartbroken, Snowy left the island.

"Sometimes a man has to be alone. Grief can cut sharp as a razor and healing is better done on one’s own terms," Dad said.

A year later, Snowy came home. Never another word about it.

......

Twelve years on, I got word that Snowy was sick, dying in fact. I was serving with the RAF, based in the Falklands. I was given bereavement leave. Five days had elapsed. I came home for his burial, not expecting him to last another day, let alone five. But there he was, almost dead, gasping for breath beneath an oxygen tent. It was hard to hear him; so soft, so lifeless was his voice. Three life-long pals were at his bedside; Sid, Fletch, and dad, Frank. The talk was mostly about old times, giving the old lad some joy.

Looking into Snowy’s eyes, I felt him building the strength to speak. Then, curling a cobwebbed spiny finger, he beckoned us closer. I felt uneasy, afraid of his weakness.

"Ave yer the love to take care o‘me, boys?" he spluttered, chest hardly drawing breath, as though it might rise but one more time. His hands, veins prominent, loose skin billowing, lay at his side. Dad responded we indeed have that love for him.

"Put me right…that’s all I ask…" he finished in a whisper, "…put me right…" and again he coughed, choking up bile. It clung to his lip.

The nurse, Mrs. Stokes, wondered what the whispering was about and used Snowy’s coughing bout as reason to come and stand close.

"I should be taking that vest off you, Snowy…" she said. Snowy never had much mind for Mrs. Stokes, believing her the island’s gossip. She was a naturally goodhearted woman, squat and fat, but could be suspicious and inquisitive. Snowy managed to muster half a lung of breath, and with it, spoke two last words before his image, his breathing, his eyes, and the light of his day faded to darkness.

The expression on Mrs. Stokes' face never left me. Snowy had managed to couch his distrust of her with merciless efficiency. Flushed of face, she turned away, muttering under her breath. It was 11.20 P.M.

Still flushed and bothered Mrs. Stokes allowed us to stay and bathe Snowy. "There’s no more we can do for him," she said. "I’ve called the mortuary, they’ll come for him first thing in the morning."

Dad looked at me and winked. Whenever Dad winked, something was afoot. I left the hospice, making sure to bid a goodnight to Mrs. Stokes. Fifteen minutes later, I drove the old Dormobile van around the back of the hospice, signaled the all clear with a flash of headlights, leapt out and opened the rear doors. Two minutes later, a window grudgingly falters open. Sid leans out. I give the all clear. Dad, Fletch, and Sid had knotted a bed sheet around Snowy's wasted body, secreting blood from his lungs, and blossoming on the sheet like a rose in the moonlight. I pulled him through the window and lay him on the grass, waiting to be joined. Mrs. Stokes was in the staffroom. The guys left the hospice through the front door, making sure Mrs. Stokes saw them leave, Dad informing her that Snowy was ready for the mortuary to collect him, come the morning.

We carried Snowy to the van, sliding him irreverently into the back and closed the doors and drove directly to Tobermory Harbour. Sid and Fletch remained with me in the van. Dad climbed out and went aboard Nightshadow, the fishing trawler. Two minutes later the diesel engines smoked into life. Jumping out of the van, I pulled open the rear doors, immediately hit by the smell of Snowy’s old clay pipe, and something else, excrement and piss. Together, we pulled him out.

"We’ll burn these later," Sid said, piling the belongings onto Snowy’s chest. I grabbed Snowy under the armpits, while Fletch and Sid each held a leg. I must have moved too quickly. Snowy’s body bent at the middle, like a diver’s pike! One enormous fart left his body. Sid, never the brightest flame, spoke to Snowy. "Snowy, if you’re still with us, I’ll bloody drown you myself." It was simply a rush of air leaving Snowy's body, but Sid thought Snowy was trying to pull one over on him, kind of having the last laugh.

Silhouetted against a wolf moon, we lugged Snowy up the slipway and lay him on the aft deck. I went back down the gangway to await Dad’s order to cast off. The Perkins diesel droned the vessel out between the harbour walls, calm waters slapping against the bow. Four miles out, over the trench, Snowy's body sank to the bottom in a metal framed fish crate. We all understood what Snowy meant when he asked us to look after him.

Snowy didn't have relatives. Dad was the man Snowy called as close as a brother. When I was a kid, Dad introduced him to me as 'uncle' Snowy. Dad land Snowy worked together since they were teenagers. We were his family.

Early the next morning, I was raised from my bed by the sound of the front door beaten upon. It was Jack Rafferty, the island policeman. Jack had the knack of allowing the rest of the world to see him as a ‘half-wit’. Which he certainly wasn't.

These long years later, I finally understand the Dostoevskian character Jack was, at the same time hiding a bit of a saint in him. Jack was called upon to control pigeon fanciers, a poacher here or there, and kids, of whom I was one, who stole apples from Docherty’s orchard. Jack relied more on instinct than proper police work.

"Hello Jack," mum said, "this’ll be an early hour to come knocking."

"Aye, there’s been a bit of goings on, Peggy. I went by the harbour hoping to talk to Frank, but the Nightshadow wasn’t there, presumably he’s at sea with his crew," he said. Mum looked confused. I came into the kitchen to save her.

"That's right, Mum. Dad asked me to let you know, but it was late and you were in bed," I said, coming to the door and resting my hands on her shoulders.

Beckoned through the door, Jack removed his helmet, ducked down, and followed Mum through to the kitchen. "Would you like a cup of tea, Jack? I you're not the bearer of bad news," she said.

"Aye, lass, that’d be grand. It's just a bit of a mysterious goings on, Peggy." He turned his attention toward me. "Welcome home, Harry, I'd heard you were coming home for the funeral."

Mum was running the kettle under the tap. I tried to look as if coming from a deep sleep, not someone who had trekked a couple of miles after being put ashore at the top of the island.

"Morning Jack," I said, yawning. "This is a fine time to visit."

"Aye, ’tis that, lad. There’s been a bit of a business."

"Business? Jack." I said, desperately disguising a need to smirk.

"Snowy McCleod has disappeared," Jack said.

"Disappeared…?" Mum gasped, setting Jack’s tea on the table. "How can that be? He was close to death in the hospice last night," she said.

"Aye, ’tis what we thought, Peggy, but when Cyril Puddifoot came to remove him to the morgue, around midnight, he reported to Mrs. Stokes that his body wasn't in the bed. It appears he left out the window, can you believe?"

"Out of the window, Jack. A miracle!" Mum declared, crossing her heart.

"Not gone, as in he woke up and climbed out, Peggy. But his dead body had been slipped out the window."

"Mercy, Mother of Jesus. God works in strange ways, Jack," Mum said.

I took her by the elbow and led her to a chair. "I don’t think Jack is here to report a miracle, Mum."

"What else do you know, Jack?" I asked.

Jack took a wafer biscuit from a rose-pattern china plate before sipping at his hot tea. "Ah, that's a grand cuppa, Peggy and no mistake," he said, and continued. "Mrs. Stokes swears that Snowy had died and that his friends, Frank, Sid Cullen, Fletcher Spokes, and yourself, Harry, were at his bedside when he passed."

"That’s right, Jack. Mrs. Stokes had been shocked by a sudden, and last outburst of Snowy's. She needed to sit down. She was flustered. As far as we know she went to the nursing staffroom. There was nothing more she could do."

Jack Rafferty was no fool, though sometimes he liked to use that image of himself. There had been times down the years when he appeared to be in favour of some criminal act, weeding an admission from an unsuspecting culprit, and then, bang, the cuffs were on. Another case closed.

"Och, I’ll no be accusin’ anyone, lad. I’m just trying to fathom Snowy’s whereabouts. Truth is, when I heard Agnes Mortimer, from the mortuary, explaining how Social Services had decided on a funeral for him, and how they were going to move him to the mainland to bury him on the yonder side of Oban. When I heard that," Jack said, "then whoever moved Snowy was probably doing him a justice."

"You think?" I said. I wasn’t going to fall for that old charm.

"I know your father and him were real close, Harry. Sid went to school with him, and Fletcher Spokes was his drinking partner for forty years. Even so, I’m sure they wouldn’t do anything so reckless as to remove a deceased person, though I’d understand it. You see what I’m saying?"

Oh yes, I knew exactly what Jack up to.

"I think that’s absurd, Jack. The truth is, between them, there were years of bickering and argument, even the occasional fisty-cuffs. I think the only thing they had in common was worshipping the same God. We were there paying our respects, Jack. That's it. We covered him over after bathing him and left. We said goodnight to Mrs. Stokes. She was in the staffroom," I said.

"Aye, all thee same, lad, if he was helped out of that place, I’ll be thinking it right."

"Sure you would, Jack. You were a good friend to Snowy, save the time he hit Alec McKay over the head with a mooring buoy, and you put him in the cell overnight."

Jack took another wafer biscuit. "Alec had it comin’, sure enough," he replied, "but Snowy cannot be taking the law into his own hands, that’s for me to do."

"Right enough, Jack. It’s all to do with the law."

Jack supped uo the last dreg of tea, patted his stomach. "Well, I’ll be getting along. Thanks for the tea, Peggy. Maybe Sid or Fletch saw something when they left. You say they left via the back door?" Jack said.

"The front, Jack."

"Aye, right enough. That is what ye said, lad. Well, I’ll be saying good morning to you."

Jack left, not putting his helmet on till he reached the garden gate.

"What do ye make of that, son?" Mum asked.

I put my arms around her and kissed her head.

I grew up among sea folk where rules are made according to wants, and social workers don’t always know what’s best. The pubs, to this day, still ring with rumour about Snowy's disappearance. Fletch, Sid, and sadly, Dad, have all been given back to the waters off Malin Head, taking their truth with them. Jack, no longer the only policeman on the island, still offered me the odd wink, and a smile, his rheumy old eyes seeing everything. But he, too, went to his grave with one unsolved mystery.

-----

Thank you for coming by, I appreciate it. Harry