The Barra Boy by Iain Kelly

Author:Iain Kelly [Kelly, Iain]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Saga
Publisher: Troubador Publishing
Published: 2022-06-28T00:00:00+00:00

14

That was the last we saw of Billy for a few days. Maybe Mhairi decided to keep him away from us for a while, or maybe he decided to stop following us. Had it been a chance meeting on the beach, or had Billy told his mum about Laura and me and made her follow us and introduce him to us and spend the afternoon together? As much as Mhairi had said she enjoyed that afternoon, as much as she wanted Billy to have friends to play with, had she decided she didn’t want Laura and me to get into trouble? Whatever the reason, we didn’t see either of them again until a Sunday evening in the middle of July, the day of the football World Cup final.

The ongoing football tournament had not got in the way of my friendship with Laura. She liked to sit and watch the games as much as Tom and I did. Her parents were not as enthusiastic, so when there was a game on that we wanted to see, Laura would come round to Tom and Cathy’s house and sit in the living room with us. Laura and I sat together on the sofa, and Tom had his usual armchair in the corner and we would join in with his enthusiastic shouting at the television. Tom even started to look a little disappointed anytime we decided to go out rather than watch a match with him. He never said it, but I think he enjoyed having someone to listen to his opinions.

After four weeks of games it came down to West Germany against Italy in the final. The Scotland team had already returned home after being knocked out in the group stage. The final was in the evening. The cafés, shops and pubs were closed on a Sunday, but for the occasion of the World Cup final the hotel at Northbay threw a party and got hold of a big screen projector to show the game on. A lot of the islanders were going along to watch it. Some people still had no television set and some struggled to get a good reception, but most were going to be part of the social occasion.

The hotel was an imposing building made with huge grey bricks. It had once been a small castle, built five hundred years ago. Almost all of it had been replaced and rebuilt since then, but some of the original features remained. On each corner at the front there was a turret with a pointed conical roof and along the top of the front wall there was a parapet with lookout gaps along it. The MacNeil Clan had used it as a home before it fell into disrepair. Eventually it had been bought by an American, who converted it into a hotel. Cathy had told me all this while we had walked along the road to get there.

Large concrete stairs led up to the front door and into the lobby and at the back a grand staircase led up to the guest rooms on the floors above.

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