The Travellers - 15. 15. Parting and Fare-ye-wells

In which a terrible dilemma becomes clear: love or dreams!

Slowly, spring turned into summer.

It was not that Jamie and Kyle had forgotten the terrible thing that had happened recently and that all sorrow was a thing of the past, but the first sharp pain subsided and they were gradually able to get their normal lives on track again.

Jamie swooped down on the pulpit with an almost fanatical attitude. He insisted on finishing the project, because he felt obliged to Father Lighthouse to do so. But he considered it to be a monument for his teacher as well. The first day was very difficult for him. He missed the silent encouragement and inspiration that Collin had given him. But he overcame this feeling and was able to fully concentrate himself on the task at hand. It distracted him to other thoughts than only the grieve and generally made him feel better.

Kyle had harder times. Although he gave a hand with the work when required, he was on his own at the wagon during the largest part of the days. He was withdrawing more and more into himself and hardly spoke. Even Father Lighthouse had noticed how the boy’s always bright grey-green eyes seemed to be shrouded by some kind of deep sadness. Yes, he had long talks with Rover. Nobody knew what he whispered in the horse’s ear. But for the rest he was mostly very tight-lipped and sparse with his words.

On a beautiful summer afternoon Jamie decided to leave the pulpit for what it was for the rest of this day. The work was almost done anyway. It was only a matter of finishing touch before it was ready to unveil it to Father Lighthouse in all its splendor.

Kyle looked up in surprise when he sauntered to the wagon shortly after noon.

“It is such beautiful weather today, that I don’t feel like working”, Jamie explained with a grin, “Maybe we can do something pleasant”.

“Can’t”, Kyle snarled gruff, “Have to do the shopping”.

Without saying another word he grabbed a bag and disappeared in the direction of the village. Jamie watched him leaving with an increasingly sad feeling. He was unable to understand what went on in his friend’s head.

“Do you know something, Rover?” he asked the horse without expecting an answer.

With a deep sigh he sat down in the grass. He was very well aware that Kyle was changing. He had even asked advice from the Father but was only told, that he should give Kyle a little more time to come over Collin’s death.

“Not everybody reacts the same way, lad!” he had said.

The thought crossed his mind that he might as well have continued working. But now he was here anyway he might as well enjoy the weather. The sun shone hot, a warm breeze was in the air and birds were singing everywhere.

While enjoying the atmosphere he reminded himself, that Kyle’s birthday was coming up soon. Maybe it was a good idea to try to cheer him up with a nice present! But what present would that be? He smiled: an idea came up.

He looked at Rover. The animal nibbled satisfied at the grass in the rectory garden: the perfect model! He took a sheet of paper and his pencil and started drawing. In no time Rover was immortalized on the paper. With an eraser he highlighted some spots in a lighter shade to emphasize the effects of the sunlight on the black flank. When the drawing was completely finished, he stowed it away carefully. It was his little secret and it had to stay that way until Kyle’s birthday came.

The unavoidable moment came, that the job in Kilmacolm was finished. Jamie transferred the completed pulpit to his client, who looked at it from all sides full of admiration and who didn’t stop exclaiming cries of praise.

They stayed a few days extra in the rectory’s garden, in which they visited Collin’s grave for the last time. Because both knew, that the chances to revisit this village was almost nil, they both knew it would really be the last occasion on which they could stand in front of the small tombstone.

Then the inescapable morning came when they had to part with Father Lighthouse. Hands were shaken and “thank you’s” were said for all the hospitality and help during the recent very difficult times. The father did something he hadn’t held for possible in past times.

First, he embraced Jamie and kissed him on the forehead. Then he spoke:

“May God protect you, Jamie”.

“Thank you, Father”, Jamie answered a bit shy.

Next the father embraced Kyle, pressed an even longer kiss on his stern and spoke the same blessing for another time:

“May God protect you, Kyle”.

Kyle looked at him defiantly and with a contemptuous grin on his face he replied:

“I think I can do without his protection, Father! I might live longer that way”.

Kyle realized himself immediately that he had gone too far. He had no intention to hurt this gentle and sweet man so deeply. His head turned red with shame and rapidly he added:

“This remark was not aimed at ye, Father. I really think ye are a sweet, adorable and great man. But I also have the feeling, that me relation with yer Big Boss has come to a permanent end”

The father nodded pensively. It appeared to him that the boy had turned his back to God. And could he blame him, after all the boy had endured? Even worse: the boy’s defiant remark fed his own doubts. They were the doubts about the righteousness of the catholic teaching, long sold as the universal beatific and only true Principles. The seeds of these confusion had been sown in his mind during the years in the trenches but had withdrawn to the background when he got his first quiet parish. But then three travellers came and lived in his garden. Two of them had brought the doubt back in the foreground and had made him painfully aware of it. One of them did it in a quiet, thoughtful way, the other in the form of impulsive outbursts.

Or was his inward conflict more basic: had this impulsive, exceedingly beautiful boy aroused emotions in him, which as a priest were declared an absolute no-go area for the rest of his life?

A last goodbye, a last well-meant but very unlikely “Do come back!” and Kyle put Rover back at work again. Slowly they left the rectory garden, waved at by Father Lighthouse, his housekeeper, and the old verger and left Kilmacolm in an eastern direction.

Brian Lighthouse saw them leaving, filled with love, hope, sadness and a multitude of questions, one of them being the question, if Kyle might be God-sent as the agent, that ignited the unquenchable love for men in him! The boy’s physical nearness had broken the dams of his subconsciousness and a veritable flood of unknown feelings had gushed out into his thoughts and emotions, that by now were boiling around freely with the same force like the surge on the cliffs during a severe winter storm.

Because that was his present struggle. During his talk with Kyle he had noticed, that the boy attracted him, that he loved him, not as a priest, even no longer platonic, but for real: romantically, erotically and evoking sexual desires.

But seeing the wagon slowly disappear he knew it would never be Kyle but someone else, no matter how much he longed for exactly that beautiful boy. However, it would not be like in the gossip, that went around about another priest up north, the gossip that he forced boys to do “it”. Violence had no place in his heart! He had seen enough violence to last even longer than a lifetime. No matter which boy or man he would have his first experiences with, he had to do it voluntarily and out of his own free will, consent to it wholeheartedly or there would be no attraction at all.

With sad eyes he stared at the last vague forms of the wagon, that was moving east, and made up his mind.

In the next Sunday’s sermon, he would tell the parish, that he was leaving, because it was time for another life, the beginning of which was already long overdue!

He was no longer satisfied with a platonic love for some Almighty Creature of unknown gender, nor with the pastoral love for his parishioners. He wanted only one person to love, for real and in all the meanings of that word.

On top of that, he was fed up with following the rigid orders and directives given him by his bishop and thereby indirectly by Rome. It appeared to him that the moral dictators in the Vatican had very long arms, that were even capable to reach a tiny parish on the Scottish west coast. Maybe that was the only advantage of the four years at the front: he was his own man, no rules to follow except his own conscience. And it was time to do exactly that: living by his own rules!

His arm swept through the air in a last wave. While wiping away a tear he murmured:

“Thank you, Kyle! I will miss you sorely, but I will always remember you”.

Then he turned around and walked into the rectory, where he went to his private room and wept!

They were on their way for three days now to…yeah, where to actually? Jamie had not yet developed Collin’s nearly infallible intuition to pick up rumors of prospect wood carving jobs, validate their credibility and then act upon them. Actually, they were just traveling to the east without purpose or real direction. There was no reason yet to worry: they had enough money from their last job and even if this ran out, they could always revert to the old pattern of day labor work.

On the evening of the third day the weather was rainy. They had set up camp at a small river and sat inside the wagon. Not a word was spoken and the general atmosphere between the two of them was very tense.

Kyle stared gloomy at the wood of the table and Jamie just started to wonder if it would be possible at all to cheer his friend up a little.

It was only late in the evening that Kyle looked up. He looked straight into Jamie’s eyes and said in an almost business-like tone:

“Darling, we need to talk!”

Jamie wholeheartedly agreed with that. Maybe by then it would become clear what bothered his friend so intensely. But he wasn’t prepared for what came, not by a long way of it!

Kyle hesitated visibly. He started to draw little circles with his finger on the table as if he was searching for words. Finally, he started to speak:

“I’m no wood carver, Jamie!”

Jamie just shrugged. That was something that couldn’t bother him.

“I’m a horse man”, Kyle continued, “I am happy in a stable full of horses. As a wood carver? Ye know I did me best, I really tried but I am a failure!”

“So?” Jamie tried, “You can’t be good in everything. There are a lot of things I can’t. But, you’ve got Rover, don’t you?”

Kyle laughed but it was not a happy laugh:

“Aye, that’s right! But that is one horse, not a stable full of them. To put it bluntly: I’m not happy! Not with wood carving, not with one horse and not with traveling”.

In shock Jamie stared at him. In his mind a kind of panicky feeling arose.

“And me? Aren’t you happy with me?”

Kyle nodded and answered:

“Aye, I am very happy with ye! That is exactly the reason why I kept it to meself for so long. I don’t want to lose ye. I thought about it so often to just throw it out, talk about it. But all these times I bit me tongue off because I didn’t want to lose ye”.

Jamie’s panic exploded, turning into despair and he cried out:

“But what do you want to do about it?”

Kyle looked at him. He was clearly in doubt if he should answer this question. But Jamie pressed the matter, giving him no chance what so ever to avoid just that. So, he had to answer:

“Go back to Inverness”, he said tersely.

Jamie looked at him questioningly. What was in Inverness? Kyle seemed to read the question in Jamie’s mind because he said:

“I can always go back to work for Mr. MacKintosh. He said that himself”.

“Oh aye,” Jamie countered, “And be a stable boy for the rest of your life”.

Now it was Kyle’s turn to shrug. He looked at Jamie with damp eyes and said:

“Aye, so what? It is not about what ye do. It is about being happy with what ye do! I’m happy as a stable boy. Does that make me a lesser person?”

Jamie looked out of the opposite window with a hopeless feeling. The vague outlines of something unthinkable and terrible began to appear.

“Am I a lesser person for that, Jamie?” Collin insisted.

Jamie shook his head and cried out:

“No, you’re not! But I don’t want to lose you, damned”.

Of course, a stable boy was no lesser person than anyone else. But he became terrified:

“How about us? How can we go on together?”

“I would love to keep ye with me. But not at every price. Not if I have to forget all about meself and have to give up all me dreams and expectations for the future”.

“And how about my dreams and expectations?” Jamie asked more acid that he intended to do.

“Ye can also come to Inverness. In that way we could stay together and realize what we want to do with our lives”.

The only reply was a sneering laughter:

“How much work you think there is for a wood carver in Inverness? The work is everywhere, in Scotland, in England, on the continent. The only thing I can do is travel behind the work as it comes. Otherwise, I might as well start begging again”.

It became painfully clear to the both of them, that a giant problem existed and that they were discussing it right now. It was the choice between the love for each other or their dreams for each of their futures.

After a long period of silence, Kyle continued to speak as first:

“I still love ye very, very much. Don’t ye ever doubt that, please? And I know ye love me very much as well. But it can’t be the right thing when we both sacrifice our dreams to this love. I really can’t see a workable solution. I’m looking for a stable full of horses, ye are right when ye say ye have to travel to get work. And I won’t be the one who makes that impossible. Because I know better as any other person in the world what yer aspirations and dreams are. There’s not that much choice, ye know. Either we stay together and one of us is unhappy. Or we go our own ways…and aye, that’ll hurt! But in the end, we can both be happy with our lives and the pain will diminish over time”.

“So?” Jamie asked in despair.

Kyle rose and stood behind him. He embraced him from the rear, put his head on Jamie’s shoulder and whispered sadly:

“It looks like we don’t want to live without each other, but it is virtually impossible we can keep living with each other”.

Jamie had to admit it hit him like a brick, but Kyle had a very strong, undeniable point there. Kyle took a deep sigh and continued:

“I want ye to know that I’m not leaving because I don’t love ye or because I am fed up with ye. The problem is…I’m so unhappy! And if we stay together in Inverness, no matter what, ye will be the one who is unhappy. What do we gain then? If we stay together in this way, the moment will come that one of us blames the other for his own unhappiness, does indeed stop loving him and leaves anyway…only delayed to some undetermined time in the future”.

Kyle scored another golden point with this. Jamie shook his head. No, that was absolutely not the intention.

The horrible truth doomed inevitable. The only thing, that was necessary to make it reality was one who had the courage to speak it out loud. Jamie swallowed his tears, looked Kyle right in the eyes and said:

“OK, then we split up!”

Kyle was no longer able to speak. He had brought up the problem himself in the first place, but now the unavoidable conclusion was spoken out aloud, his heart broke.

“Will ye bring me back to Inverness?” he asked softly.

Jamie just nodded.

“OK, I think I will go to bed now. I did me share in ruining this evening!” Kyle whispered.

He disappeared behind the partition to the bedroom. Jamie sat at the table, petrified and heartbroken, fighting his tears. Very soon he heard sounds from behind the partition that made it clear, that Kyle had already lost that battle.

But Jamie was fighting a losing battle with the same enemy as well. He had the feeling his life broke apart. First there was Collin’s death and now it was the nearing certainty, that they would split up. He felt like he had gained nothing since that day on that road between the moors in Northumbria: again, he would be alone and lonely. Oh yes, there were some differences: he had learned a craft, he had some kind of roof over his head and he still had the company of Rover and Rascal. But the thought, that he could lose Kyle, had never entered his mind. Until this moment. Now it had become reality!

He put his head on his arms on the table and surrendered to a torrent of tears.

Unconsciously they had travelled slower than normal, but finally the unavoidable point came, that they reached Inverness. The day of the final goodbye had come.

Kyle was slowly searching his things together and stuffed them in two duffel bags. As the last thing he took his father’s old bagpipe. He looked at Jamie with a real sad look on his face:

“Well,” he said, “I’ll better be off then”.

Jamie accompanied him to the outside. In front of the wagon, they looked at one another for a long time as if they both wanted to burn the looks of the other into their memories. Was there any other way out? Could a hasty solution be worked out, that would enable them to stay together?

Both of them were unable to find an acceptable answer, so they hitched up Rover.

When that was done, they embraced each other for a long time. Right at the moment when Kyle wanted to leave Jamie remembered something.

“Wait a minute. I’ve got something for you!”

He ran in, took the recently made drawing of Rover out of its secret hiding place and rushed out again, where he gave it to Kyle.

“I made it for you”, he said shyly.

Kyle admired it and asked:

“Is that…?

“Yes, it is Rover”

“It is beautiful. Ye know, love, I am sure ye are going to be a great artist in the future. But why did ye make it?”

Jamie smiled bravely and with a choked voice he answered:

“It was for your birthday. But since it is clear now, that we won’t be together at your birthday, I might as well give it now”.

Kyle nodded, tears in his eyes.

They embraced again. A last kiss, a last stroke….no, it was thé last kiss and thé last stroke.

“Fare ye well, Jamie. I will really miss ye”.

“Farewell, Kyle. Make your dreams come true. Because that is what it is all about”

Jamie climbed the wagon stand, clacked his tongue and said:

“Come on, Rover. Let’s travel a bit more, boy!”

The faithful horse went to work and started pulling right away and they left Kyle alone on the grassland.

Kyle stood at the city limits of Inverness and stared to the east. His eyes were fixated on a wagon that became smaller and smaller in the distance. He couldn’t resist the urge to keep on waving, while the tears ran over his cheeks.

It took a long time before the wagon had finally disappeared between the green hills. Still, he wasn’t able to tear his eyes from the spot where it had vanished. It took him a lot of effort to just turn around and to start concentrating on his future without Jamie, but finally he dried his tears and said:

“I’m already missing ye enormously. I truly hope and desire that ye are able to make yer dreams come true. Fare ye well, Jamie!”

He swept the final tears from his face, blew his nose and took the bags with his belongings. Then, with a heavy heart, he started walking towards the MacKintosh stables in downtown Inverness.