The Four Boys and The Invisible Friend by Alastair Macleod (great novels of all time TXT) 📕

     “I’ll bind you tight in the rope so you won’t fall now,” said the man. “Tis a baby at risk here,” he added.

      “Mick could go,” said Sean.

The man looked puzzled.

Sean’s mother spoke,

     “Mick’s the invisible friend,” she said to the man.

Then she said to Sean,

     “That’s a good idea Sean, but since he’s younger than you I think he’d be lonely on his own, sure you could go with him and the two of you’se could get the job done.”

     “The invisible friend says that he’ll do it if he can have a bag of sweets,” said Sean.

     “A bag of sweets is it?” said the father. “If you bring me bairn home you’ll get a bag every month!”

     “The invisible friend will do it,” said Sean.

     A great cheer went up from the crowd. Sean and the invisible friend had the rope put about them in a cunning way so they would not be squeezed by it, and attached to that was a canvas bag to put the bairn in. They wound sacking round his knees and legs to stop him barking his shins on the sharp rocks of the cliff face.

Patrick gave him a stick.

     “Use this to ward off the bird if he troubles you, then throw it away when you take the child, for you’ll need both hands then.  The invisible friend will protect you.”  

They lowered him over the cliff. Sean felt himself in free air, floating like a piece of  down.

     He could see way down to the sea crashing against the rocks and birds of all kinds sitting on ledges; at the top fulmars ,then next down guillemots, then razorbills and at the foot of the cliff, shags standing like undertakers.  Then a puffin wirred past his head, its wings beating fast as if it expected to fall out of the sky anytime. A heady smell of bird guano filled his nostrils, and the noise was like that at break in the playground at school. Birds were coming and going in great numbers to their nests.  As he was slowly lowered he passed a guillemot feeding fish goo to its young.

Then a gust of wind gripped him and swung him. For a while he swung back and forward like the pendulum on the clock at home. The men on the top had to wait until the swinging stopped. Then they lowered him again. He came down slowly to the eyrie, a great rough nest of twigs and seaweed. He could see the swaddled bairn and by it a thing like a scrawny chicken, the eagle’s chick, and on the edge of the nest the eagle herself.

      She opened her huge wings and launched herself into the air, first sweeping out over the sea, then back at him. At the last moment she turned, almost on her back and put her talons towards him. He raised the stick and struck with all his young strength. The watching men saw the bird falter and fall. At that very moment they lowered Sean to the nest. He threw the stick away and with two hands, took the swaddled baby and put it in the wide mouthed canvas bag.

     Near the bottom of the cliff the eagle recovered and soared out and up again but by now the watching men had seen Sean safely take the bairn and were quickly hauling him in.

The eagle swooped to attack but when it got near, the watching crowd threw stones down to beat it off.

     It seemed to Sean an age before he was hauled over the lip of the cliff. A great cheer went up as strong hands gripped him, and the bag, and pulled them onto the short turf.

The bairn was unharmed, the talons had only penetrated the first layer of swaddling. The mother put the child to her breast straight away.

Sean was untangled from the rope, his brothers and the men crowded round, clapping him on the back.

     “You’ve Mick to thank,” said Sean, “without him with me I’d never have done it.”

     “Well thanks be to Mick,” said the father “Surely we could see him down there wid ya, beatin off that Eagle. He’ll be needing some sweets too,…and your brothers.”

“Once there were four young brothers, Liam, Patrick, Ciaran and Sean all born a year apart and they were great ones for the imagination, always making up stories. Liam was nine and Sean who was six was the littlest.

Well they lived in county Clare by the sea, and rambled about the hills and the shore.

There were four of them but Sean had an invisible friend and the others teased him about it.

     The four boys were at the headland near the tidal island playing on the grassy bank, tumbling down the sides head over heels then running up again and doing it over. The boys were growing now, longer and stronger particularly Sean.

     A woman opened the boot of her car preparing for a walk with her dog and a black labradoodle bounced out. The dog ran in to join the fun.

     “He’s playing with the invisible friend, “said Sean. Sure enough the labradoodle seemed to be chasing and jumping at thin air. The boys stopped to watch.

     “You know he’s thinking of leaving,” said Sean. The boys turned to look at him.

     “Who is?”  Said Patrick.

     “The invisible friend, “ said Sean, “he said he has only one more thing to do.”

     “Let’s go across to the island “said Ciaran.

     “ Ok”, said Patrick, “but we’ll have to be quick for the tide is on the turn.”

     The small green island was connected at low tide by a thin concrete causeway.

When the tide was right out it dried to a pale grey colour, here and there dotted with limpets and the brown roots of seaweed. When the tide turned , slowly at first, then with greater speed it began to run through between the island and the mainland like a river until it topped the causeway. For a while you could wade across, but the tide grew stronger by the minute and then it would sweep you off your feet.

The four boys dashed across. The labradoodle was whistled in by its mistress and she put on the lead for its walk.  Sean looked back to see it straining at the lead to follow them.

The boys scrabbled up the rocks onto the island. Past the old Norse ruins and the Celtic chapel they ran, across the short turf to the geo. They stood looking down at the sea sucking and rushing first out then in the narrow channel, gripping then dashing itself upon the rocks. Pairs of fulmars were dotted along the rocky ledges of the geo muttering and touching bills. At the mouth of the geo a dark shag sat, wings outstretched, drying itself in the wind after a morning’s diving for sillocks.

     The boys turned as a group and ran on to the lighthouse at the top of the slope. At home they could see it flashing at night and if they left the curtains open it flicked on and off on their bedroom wall.

They ran through sheep in muddy fleeces from the rain, their lambs spronking together on tiny mounds. In the short turf a dash of blue squill broke the close cropped green blanket.

Close up the lighthouse was big a white tower with a jam jar on top, facing out to sea. At its foot the lighthouse keepers’ houses, now empty of the families that once lived here.

The boys peered in windows and opened shed doors. A pigeon flew out cracking its wings, startling Liam.

     “Let’s play hide and seek,” said Patrick.

     The sun grew stronger and time rolled by. Hiding behind the old oil tank, Ciaran had a view down the length of the island to the headland beyond on the mainland.

     “The causeway!”  He shouted, “the tide’s nearly covered it. “

      The boys stood for a second then began to race over the grass down the slope. It was further than they imagined. By the time they reached the gap between the small island and the mainland the causeway was fully covered. Patrick Liam and Ciaran plunged forward and started wading.

In their eagerness they did not notice Sean hesitating on the shore behind them.

     On the mainland, by the notice board in the car park, some tourists anxiously watched the boys,

“But surely, locals” they thought, “they know what they are doing.”

The woman with the labradoodle appeared back from her walk. The dog strained at the lead.

     “Look there’s one left behind,” said a tourist, “the little one.”

     The woman slipped the labradoodle off the lead. He raced down and over the rocks, plashed into the sea and first, finding footing on the causeway, jumped through the sea above the concrete, past three of the fleeing boys, on and on, then swimming in the deepest part where the current was getting a grip, he finally emerged on the other side where Sean stood. The big black woolly dog gripped him by the jumper and pulled him into the water and began to swim back pushing him in front of itself. Sean felt himself propelled along by a powerful force as the dog pulled itself through the water.

     The tourists stood transfixed. By now the other three boys had reached the far shore, only then did they realise Sean was missing. They turned to see Sean surging through the water.

     “He’s swimming,” said Ciaran.

     “No it’s the dog,” said Liam.

      Patrick plunged back in but by then the dog had gained the shallows and was walking through the water still holding Sean firmly. It passed Patrick and did not let go until it placed the spluttering Sean well up on the shingle. It then began to lick Sean’s face, making him giggle. The boys crowded round.

     “Are ye alright then Sean?”

     “No thanks to youse,” said Sean. “If it hadn’t have been for the invisible friend crossing for the dog I would have been swept off.”

The dog owner stood quietly nearby listening to the conversation. Sean got up and went over to the labradoodle.

     “What’s his name,” he asked.

     “We called him Ghost,” said the woman, “because he is so black that at night you can’t see him, he’s invisible.”

     “Well Ghost,” said Sean, “he wants to be with you now.”

     “Who does?” Said the woman.

     “The invisible friend.”

Sean told her about his invisible friend and how it was the invisible friend who had called the dog.

 Patrick, Liam and Ciaran had moved up and were looking on.

     “Won’t you be needing him yourself? Said the woman, who knew about these things.

     “Na,” said Sean, “he’s been awful busy with me, he says ‘tis time for him to go, he needs a rest.”

     “We’ll take good care of him, won’t we Ghost?” Said the woman, patting the dog, “and you can meet him here from time to time when we are out for a walk.”

Ghost, who was nearly the same size as Sean, licked his face.