The waters off Malin Head: My father. (standard:Creative non-fiction, 2223 words)
Author: Cyrano	Added: May 12 2009	Views/Reads: 3694/2425	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
Jack Rafferty knew I'd been stealing apples from the orchard. He gave me an ear wigging. told me about a place where they lock up thieves, even if they're only ten! I thought that would be the last time I'd steal anything....it wasn't.

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what the whispering was, used Jimmy's coughing bout as a reason to come 
and stand close. “I should be taking that vest off you, Jimmy,” she 
said. Jimmy spoke two last words before his image, his breathing, body, 
and the light of his day faded. The expression on the nurse's face will 
never leave me. Jimmy had managed to couch his anger with the merciless 
efficiency of a monofilament line in just two words. The nurse, flushed 
of face, turned away, muttering under her breath, unaware that was his 
last gasp. It was 11.20 P.M. 

It was just after 1 A.M. when I drove the Dormobile van, headlights out,
around the back of the hospice. I opened the rear doors. On the second 
floor of the hospice, a window grudgingly faltered open. Sid leaned 
out. I gave the all clear. My father, Harry and Sid lowered the netting 
with Jimmy's wasted body wrapped in bed sheets. Jimmy must have schoked 
blood and it blossomed on the sack like a rose in the moonlight. I lay 
him on the grass and waited for the others to join me. We all four 
carried him to the van, sliding him reverently into the back and closed 
the doors. I did as instructed and drove directly to Tobermoray harbor. 
Sid and Harry remained in the van; father climbed out and went aboard 
Nightshadow. The diesel engines smoked into life. I opened the doors 
and could immediately smell Jimmy's clothes, his old clay pipe, and 
something else, excrement and piss. ‘We'll burn these later,' Sid said. 
We carried Jimmy aboard. The wolf moon escorted us away from the berth, 
the Perkins diesel droned us slowly out between the harbor walls, calm 
waters slapping against the bow. 

Early the next morning we were raised from our beds by the sound of the
door being beaten upon. It was Jack Rafferty. Fatter, graying, with the 
policeman's knack of allowing the rest of the world to see him as a 
‘half-wit'. Near thirty years later I finally understood the 
Dostoevskian character he was, hiding a bit of a saint in him. Jack 
enjoyed being the only policeman on the island, called upon to control 
pigeon fanciers, a poacher here and there, and those kids scrumping 
from Docherty's orchard. Jack relied more on instinct than police work. 


‘Hello Jack,' mum said, ‘this is an early hour to come knocking.' 

'Aye, There's been a bit of a goings on, Peggy. I understand your lad is
visiting. I'd like a bit of a word.' He removed his helmet, being 
beckoned through the door, ducked and followed mother through to the 
kitchen. 

‘Would you like a cup of tea, Jack? I hope it's not trouble.' 

‘Aye, lass, that'd be grand. Just a couple of questions, Peggy. I
understand he's based over there in Oban. Nice having the lad close by, 
I'm sure.' 

‘Morning Jack, this is a fine time of the morning to visit!' I said,
still groggy from little sleep. 

‘Aye, ‘tis that, lad, business I'm afraid.' 

‘Really?' 

‘Jimmy McCloud has disappeared.' 

‘Disappeared...?' Mother gasped, setting his teacup down on the table. 

‘How can that be, Jack. He was close to death at the hospice last
night.' I said. 

‘Aye, ‘tis what we thought, but when the nurses went in to tend to him
this early morn' they reported him gone. I looked over the scene, seems 
he left via the window! This a grand cuppa, Peggy.' He said, sipping at 
the hot brew. 

‘A miracle!' Mother declared, crossing her heart. 

‘You've got to be kidding, Jack. Jimmy McCloud slipped his death bed?' 

‘Ethel Stewart swears that when she left for the night there were four
people at Jimmy's bedside. That would be around 11.30. Harry Spokes, 
Sid Cullen, you and your father. 

‘That's right, Jack. We left soon after.' 

‘The night shift nurse reported seeing you leave, Kelly, lad. No one
else.' 

‘Possibly, Jack. I'd parked in the front car park. Sid had left his car
out back, I'm pretty certain they left by the rear entrance.' 

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 favor of some criminal act, weeding an admission out of the 
unsuspecting culprit, and then, bang, the charges were made. Another 
case closed. How he thought that Ferguson's dogs were a menace and only 
a person serving the community would go out and shoot them, he told 
Findlay Robertson, who in his drunkenness confessed, asking Jack to 
keep his secret. Jack, of course, had him by the collar and in the 
town's only cell within ten minutes. 

‘Och, I'll no be accusin' anyone, lad. Just trying to fathom Jimmy's
whereabouts. Truth is, when I heard Agnes Mortimer explaining how 
Social Services had removed him from his house, damp they said, and how 
they were going to move him to the mainland, into one of those care 
facilities, with no view, then whomever moved Jimmy was doing him a 
favor.' 

‘You think Jimmy's here, Jack?' I said. 

‘I know your father and him were real close. Sid went to school with
him, and Harry Spokes married his daughter. I'm sure they wouldn't do 
anything so reckless as to move him, though I'd understand it, you see 
what I'm saying?' 

I knew exactly what Jack was implying, and what he'd do if I were to say
anything remotely close to agreeing. 

‘Now you know 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 all had in common was worshipping the same 
God. We were there paying our respects, Jack.' 

‘Aye. All thee same, lad, if he were helped out of that place, I'll be
thinking it right.' 

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

‘Alec had it comin' sure enough,' replied Jack, 'but Jimmy 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.' 

‘Well, I'll be getting along. Thanks for the tea, peggy. Maybe Sid or
Harry saw something when they left. You say they left via the back 
door?' 

‘I said I left via the front, and assumed they left by the back, Jack.' 

‘Aye, right enough, that is what you said, lad. Well, I'll be saying
good morning to you.' 

Jack left, putting his helmet on as he reached the gate. 

‘What do you make of that, son?' Mother asked. 

‘Not sure. Jimmy suddenly finding his feet. A miracle I'd say.' 

‘So you'll be thinking he'll show up?' Mother said, her lips smiling. 

‘Jimmy always shows up, mother. If he doesn't its because he found
somewhere better to live out his days. Right enough, don't you think.' 

‘You think Jack will go see Harry and Sid?' 

‘When they come back. I forgot to mention that father was short handed,
took them with him. They'll be gone a week or so, for sure.' 

‘Your father took Harry fishing? The man mends bicycles, son!' 

‘Sure, mother, when he's not fishing! You know that!' 

Jack trawled the town for informative gossip over the next several days.


The local rag reported a kidnapping from the hospice. Biggest news in
Tobermoray since Gwyneth Bryant, the vicars daughter, got pregnant by 
Dickie ‘the raven' Grubb! 

I grew up among sea folk, rules are made according to wants, and social
workers don't always know what's best. The pubs to this day still ring 
with rumor. Harry and Sid, and sadly my father have all since been laid 
to rest, their ashes spread on the waters of Malin Head, taking their 
truth with them. Jack, no longer the only policeman on the island, 
still gives me the odd wink, and a smile, his old rheumy eyes seeing 
everything, but going to his grave someday with yet one unsolved 
mystery. 

The day after my father's funeral mother and I set him adrift among his
friends, in the waters off Malin Head, drifting towards Rockall. The 
day following I resumed duties. You see, I'm first my father's son, 
second a body snatcher, third an officer and last, a pilot. 


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