Reef 3 - The Boat

The days were getting longer as Summer came along.  All Reef wanted to do was run around outdoors and play.  The grass was long and tickled her nose.  The scents were warm and she could smell the sap in the trees, the pollen from the flowers, the seaweed on the shore and the bread as it baked in the shop.  She missed the smell of smoke from the Winter fires but supposed that warming oneself in a pool of Sunshine was a decent alternative to a Winter stove and besides, the tourists were coming.

It wasn’t quite ‘Season’ yet, as Mhairi called it, but the travellers had started trickling into town in cars and coaches, and occasionally bicycles laden down with bags till they resembled black sheep with the curved handlebars their horns.

The ferry had put on more crossings to the islands as part of their Summer timetable and Reef loved to dart about at the shore, barking the occasional ‘yip’ of welcome or farewell to the travellers across the water.  Reef had never been outside of Ullapool, well no further than MacMichael’s Farm or the Loch a’ Choire Dhuibh, people just came in by road and left by ferry, or the other way round, and the village remained the same.  Obviously for Mhairi and Big Bob and all the rest it was good that people did pass through but Reef, having never been anywhere else, had never considered why they did.  She was just glad to welcome new friends.

Mid-morning on a Friday, Reef was by the kiosk near the pier.  A family with two children and a greyhound came out of the mini market opposite, the boys with ice creams, their dad clutching the day’s news and their mum with the greyhound on a leash.  All four humans were carrying a backpack each, suitable for their respective sizes and all trussed up neat as a package.  The greyhound was smart and sleek and graceful.  Though not, thought Reef, quite as graceful as her.  She wagged her tail hopefully but the other dog kept her eyes facing forwards and trotted with her family towards the gangplank.  That was the problem with elsewhere dogs, they had elsewhere manners, ‘airs and graces’, Big Bob would call it.  Reef had never had a lead and Reef would say hello to anyone at all, from children to barmen and right the way up to the minister himself.

The ferry bobbed gently against the pier, waiting for its passengers.  Reef looked at the family headed on board and realised, suddenly, that she didn’t know where the ferry went.  Oh, she knew it went to ‘the islands’, everyone knew that.  And she knew that its destination was ‘Stornoway’, the largest town there.  She’d always imagined that Stornoway was an echo of Ullapool, with a narrow sea loch and a bookshop and a pottery and a Ceilidh Place all of its very own.  But she didn’t know what the sea loch would look like, or whether the lady in the Stornoway bookshop would lay out a bowl of water for visiting dogs, or what the family who ran the island’s Ceilidh place were like.  With a startled whimper, she realised there might be another Reef over there, across the water.

All this thinking, though it takes a wee moment to talk through, went flashing through Reef’s quick brain in an instant.  With an impulse in her legs that didn’t seem to come from anywhere but instinct, Reef bounded after the family and trotted up the gangplank at their heels.  The dog was too aloof to notice her, away at the front of the line.  And the mother and father were occupied in wiping ice cream off the younger child’s face and jumper, while laughing and wiping their own sticky hands too.  But the older boy, who was bringing up the rear, saw her and offered her his fingers to smell, in a friendly way.  ‘Hello, I’m Dexter,’ he said, and they walked up the gangplank together.

Inside, the mother led the greyhound over to a luggage area and clipped his lead to one of the posts holding up a rack of shelves.  Stroking his head she slipped him a biscuit and then, telling him to be good and kissing him on the ear, she dumped her rucksack with all the others and led her men off to the canteen.

Reef, unobserved, slipped over to the luggage area and said hellos to all three dogs there.  As well as the greyhound, who continued to ignore her and everyone else, there was a huge shaggy mop of a dog who grinned and said ‘woof’ in the deepest voice you’ve ever heard, the large pink tongue lolling from beneath the fur the only indication he was actually a dog and not a sofa or something.  The third dog was a tiny poodle, who yapped and shook and shivered and sniffed Reef as Reef sniffed her in greeting, and sneezed and wagged and shivered some more.  Reef lay down amongst them.  She didn’t have a ticket but she supposed that could be sorted out when they came round to check.  The ferry seemed far less exciting on board than off, just a holding room with luggage and a fruit machine.  She could smell the cafeteria through the doors on the right but Reef knew she wasn’t allowed in dining rooms and contented herself with the smells of people’s bags.

She had just drifted off to sleep when the engines roared into life, a deep thrumming and rumble, the whole floor began to shake.  Reef sat up and whined, she’d seen the boat a thousand times over from the outside but inside was a different kettle of dogs.  They’d be away from the pier now and off on an awfully big adventure.  Reef, a brave soul, settled back down.  ‘No going back yet,’ she thought, and sleep was hers.

She woke sometime later not feeling very well at all, the floor was swaying beneath her and her stomach felt all giddy.  ‘Let’s hope this storm doesn’t get any worse,’ she overheard a passing sailor say.  The sailor was dressed head to toe in fluorescent wet weather clothing and her hair was plastered to her forehead with rain or salt sea spray.  Reef could hear the wind howling around the ferry and the ‘plash’ as the bow bit down into the stormy seas again and again.  The poodle was yapping and whining, her high voice full of distress.  Reef licked her gently on the ear and the smaller dog looked gratefully at her for the attention.  The greyhound lay on the floor with his head alert, just looking intently at the doors to the cafeteria where he had last seen his family go.  The big mop dog however snored deeply and contentedly in the corner, the fur over his belly region gently rising and falling with the rocking of the boat.  Reef lay on her side and let the little poodle clamber in amongst her legs.  Heads tucked together they waited and hoped.