Storm Over Rhanna

by Christine Marion Fraser

  Now her pinched nostrils dilated, she threw him a look that would have shrivelled a worm and in a high-pitched, defiant voice she intoned, ‘I’ll be having a dram wi’ the rest o’ you, if you would be so good, Mary. After all, it’s no’ every day twins are born on the island.’

  The sniggers and elbow nudging died away, Merry Mary scratched her ginger head in bemusement. ‘Will it be sherry, Behag?’

  ‘No, it will be whisky, Mary.’ Behag’s head fairly shook with the occasion of the moment. ‘A good stiff one at that. ’Tis a cold day and I will no’ be going back outside wi’ frozen blood.’

  ‘Miss Beag,’ Holy Smoke spoke reprovingly, ‘I canny rightly believe this. Are you feeling unwell? You’re no’ being like yourself and that’s a fact.’

  ‘I am well enough,’ Behag’s voice shook. Grabbing the glass from Merry Mary she raised it high and cried, ‘Health to the new McLachlan bairns,’ and downed the contents in one gulp.

  There was a short stunned silence during which Holy Smoke seemed about to have apoplexy, the rest stared in wonder at Behag, particularly Robbie whose round, blue, unblinking gaze seemed stamped upon his countenance forever. During his bachelor years his sister’s narrow outlook and strict adherence to all things she considered proper had caused him to suffer a life of unrelieved hell. ‘She’s human,’ he breathed in Barra’s ear, ‘after all, she’s human.’

  ‘Behag,’ with reverence Tam removed his cap, ‘you are a man among women and I take my hat off to you.’

  ‘Ay, you have a seasoned throat on you, Behag, and no mistake,’ Barra looked askance at her sister-in-law. ‘In all my days in the city I only ever saw one woman do that and it was in one o’ the roughest houses I’ve ever been in.’

  Behag inclined her head, an action which lent her the appearance of a lop-sided bloodhound with her eye bags tilted floppily and the lobe of one big rubbery ear escaping her headscarf to brush against her narrow shoulders. ‘Maybe you were lookin’ in a mirror at the time, Barra,’ she suggested acidly, grinning quite good-humouredly when Barra went off into one of her infectious laughing fits, plonking herself down on a sack of tattles to throw up her hands, open her mouth and give her lungs full throttle.

  Everyone, bar Holy Smoke, joined in her mirth and it was with tears streaming down her face that Barra raised her glass to toast the new McLachan bairns.

  ‘The McLachlan bairns.’ The toast was echoed all around. ‘And God bless our very own Mr James for getting Shona safely home,’ added Kate. ‘If it hadny been for him she might have had her babies in the village hall or at best in my house.’

  The doorbell jangled to admit Dodie, more unkempt-looking than ever, a week’s stubble darkening his spotty chin, ungloved hands blue with the cold, pale sad eyes watery and sunken, the biggest drip anyone had ever seen dangling from a nose nipped raw by the keen air. All his life Dodie’s big feet had carried him swiftly and effortlessly over all sorts of terrain, now his worn Wellingtons scliffed the floorboards as he dragged himself over to the counter and requested in a courteous whisper, ‘Half an ounce o’ baccy, Mary, and it’s sorry I am just the money is all in halfpennies.’

  The first instinct of everyone there was to move away from the old eccentric’s vicinity. He had never been particular about personal hygiene, considering it only necessary to bathe for such grand occasions as weddings or funerals, and to resort to the less drastic measures of feet steeping for other island events. Everyone, while accepting him as he was, could never quite reconcile themselves to his smell, though only by innuendo had anyone ever indicated that he fell short of the norm, for he was as easily hurt as a child and it was a pitiful sight indeed to see the tears pouring down his guileless weather-beaten face and one which was to be avoided if at all possible.

  ‘One good thing about Dodie,’ Grandma Ann had often said, ‘he couldny smell any worse if he tried and a cut onion is as good as any antiseptic I know to dispel thon awful guff you get from his feets, especially when he is moving afore the wind. ’Tis a habit o’ mine to carry a wee bittie onion in my pouch just in case Dodie stops me for a blether at any time. Granda John says I’m the only woman he knows who smells perpetually o’ onion scent but far better that than be gassed to death.’

  But Grandma Ann was wrong about two things. Dodie could smell worse, a condition easily achieved by simply ignoring the existence of soap and water, and the pungent odour of onion juice did not cancel out every other smell, Merry Mary discovered that when she rushed to cut two onions and place them near a heap of papers on the counter. Dodie’s overpowering aroma gushed forth, triggering off a spate of coughings. Hastily the men lit pipes, billows of smoke clogged the atmosphere, making everyone cough afresh and Holy Smoke to glower and eye the door as if calculating how quickly he could get outside and have a fly smoke himself.

  Merry Mary scrunched her finger tips over the small pile of coppers on her counter, keeping her nose as close as possible to the cut onions. The money was a penny short. Glancing up she saw Dodie’s thin face, the cheeks hollowed to unhealthy dents beneath the lacklustre eyes. Concern flooded her kindly features. Removing her own lacy hanky from her sleeve she thrust it at him, bade him blow his nose, then going to the tobacco tin she axed off a good ounce which she wrapped quickly in newspaper.

  ‘Will you be having a dram wi’ us, Dodie?’ she enquired softly. ‘You will maybe have heard that Shona McLachlan had twin babies last night and we are all taking the chance to celebrate their arrival on the island.’

  ‘Shona wi’ twins?’ A flash of interest flitted over Dodie’s woebegone face.

  ‘Ay, that’s right. No doubt you’ll be going along to Laigmhor to see them for yourself – though mind you’ll have to be careful. From what I hear they’re just tiny wee cratur’s and canny be doing wi’ too much germs about them the now.’

  Dodie failed to take the hint. ‘Ay, Shona will have to keep them away from all thon sick animals Niall keeps in his wee hospital, these is no’ healthy and fine I know it myself too. I got belly ache once from clappin’ an ill doggie, though Lachlan blamed it on a lump o’ venison I had lyin’ in my larder for a whilie.’

  ‘You will have a dram, Dodie?’ Tam, swallowing hard, threw an encouraging arm round the old man’s bent shoulders. ‘It will help to keep the cold from your bones.’

  ‘Na, na,’ Dodie backed away, ‘I’d best get home for my dinner.’

  ‘Come and have it wi’ me and Wullie,’ invited soft-hearted Mairi, ‘there’s plenty in the pot for everybody and a nice wee treacle pudding for after.’

  But Dodie was not in a sociable mood. ‘’Tis kind you are, Mairi,’ he intoned mournfully, ‘but you see –’ his dreamy grey-green eyes filled with tears, his large adam’s apple bobbed frantically above a greasy scarf ‘– I haveny been able to eat much o’ anything since Ealasaid went and died on me.’ Into brimming eyes went horny knuckles to scrub desperately. ‘I miss my bonny cow, more than anything in this world I miss her! I canny sleep and I canny eat and – and these smelly onions o’ yours are makin’ my eyes cry, Merry Mary!’

  He was sobbing, great heartrending sobs that shook his gaunt frame and made everyone there eye one another in head-shaking sympathy.

  Shamefaced, Merry Mary scooped the offending onions from the counter and threw them into the bin. Without a word she went into the back shop to reappear with a hastily wrapped parcel which she pushed towards Dodie. ‘Take this home wi’ you, I have enough and plenty left for my own table and what is in there is just the thing for a body wi’ a delicate appetite.’

  ‘You are makin’ my teeths water, Mary,’ Kate peered curiously at the innocent-looking parcel. ‘Will you be letting us in on the secret with you?’

  ‘Ach, it’s just meat,’ Merry Mary said carelessly, not about to tell Kate of all people that Erchy the Post had been indulging in a spot of salmon poaching and had been good enough to share the spoils with her accompanied by strict warnings not to divulge their origins to another living so
ul.

  ‘’Tis good you are, Merry Mary.’ Dodie scooped up his packages and backed to the door.

  ‘Dodie, Dodie!’ Tam pulled a pair of thick woollen gloves from his pocket. ‘Be putting these in the nearest dustbin on your way home. I have a dozen pairs lying in a drawer and know fine Mairi has knitted me another dozen for Christmas. These have a hole in them and are no use to me now.’

  Dodie took the gloves, his horny fingers rasping over the warm wool with real affection. ‘The nearest dustbin, Tam,’ he nodded and went out, tripping over Merry Mary’s cat in his hurry to be away and try the gloves on for size.

  ‘I’ll dustbin you, my lad,’ Kate whirled round on her husband the minute the doorbell stopped jangling. ‘I made these for you wi’ my very own hands just last month and the only pairs o’ anything you have lyin’ in your drawers are dirty socks full o’ holes as big as your head.’

  ‘Ach, he wouldny take them any other way,’ Tam returned placidly. ‘The bodach looked that cold I would have taken the very suit off my back if I thought he would accept it from me. Yon cratur’ is dyin’ on his feets and will never be himself again till by some miracle he is able to afford another cow.’

  There were murmurs of sympathy. ‘Ay, he’s no’ been the same Dodie since Ealasaid went and fell over the cliff last summer,’ nodded Mairi. ‘In calf she was too and that heavy her feets just slipped on the grass.’

  ‘We’ll all have to pray for him,’ Holy Smoke suggested primly. ‘The Lord is our strength and salvation.’

  ‘We might ask the minister to say a wee word on Dodie’s behalf next Sabbath,’ Mairi took up the proposal eagerly. ‘I’m sure Mr James wouldny mind.’

  ‘Ay, he is a good man is Mr James,’ agreed Merry Mary, picking up the conversation where it had left off before Dodie’s arrival on the scene, ‘he’s aye there when he’s needed yet often he himself must feel the need o’ a sympathetic ear. ’Tis just a pity he and Doctor Megan never got themselves together as we all hoped. He’s such a bonny, fine man but too shy for his own good when it comes to affairs o’ the heart.’

  ‘No’ as shy as we all think!’ The door opened to admit a puffing Elspeth, boots caked with dirty snow which she stamped on Merry Mary’s hair rug before coming in to sit herself down on the sack of potatoes still warm from Barra’s recent possession.

  There had been no real need for Elspeth to come down to Portcull. Phebie’s larder was well enough stocked and would have lasted a few days yet, but Elspeth had voiced a desire to replenish the flour bin and off she had sprachled over the snowy glen road, rejecting an offer from Archie Taylor to squash in beside Nancy in their tractor.

  ‘We’ve been toastin’ the new babies.’ Merry Mary leaned her elbows on the counter and addressed the newcomer. ‘Will you take a dram yourself?’

  Elspeth opened her mouth to refuse. Her head was still thick from last night’s indulgences but surely ‘a hair o’ the dog’ would do no harm and would help to chase the cold from her bones. ‘Just a wee nip,’ she condescended primly, ‘to damp the heads o’ the wee mites and to tell the truth, I’m needing something to buck me up. I’m fair exhausted after being up all night and could fine have put my head down this morning till I saw the empty flour bin.’ She gave a martyred sigh. ‘Phebie has grown that used to me seeing to everything she just lets the wee things slip her mind till it’s near too late to do anything about them.’

  ‘And last night?’ Kate ignored the old housekeeper’s complaints. ‘When did the first bairn arrive and was it the girl or the boy?’

  All eyes latched on Elspeth with interest. Here was a first-hand account of the latest happenings and one and all stretched their ears in order not to miss a word that was said.

  ‘And the minister?’ Behag had not forgotten. As soon as Elspeth finished speaking, the ‘Portcull post mistress’ pounced. ‘You were saying something about him when you came through Mary’s door.’

  ‘Oh ay, the minister.’ Elspeth pursed her lips; and launched into a highly exaggerated account of the things she had witnessed ‘wi’ her very eyes’.

  ‘Here yes, I saw his face for myself when himself and the doctor passed by the Post Office a wee whilie back,’ Behag supplemented eagerly. ‘When I made some innocent remark about the scratches both o’ them went off down the road laughing as if it was some sort o’ marvellous joke.’

  ‘Well, it was no joke, I’ve never seen such marks on a man,’ Elspeth shuddered dramatically. ‘The skin was all bloody and torn where she had clawed him in some sort o’ fit o’ passion—’

  ‘No’ even on yourself when Hector had finished wi’ you?’ Kate couldn’t resist asking.

  But for once Elspeth failed to rise to the bait, so enraptured was she with the richness of her story. ‘I tell you, the pair o’ them were outside for ages, no’ even the cold of last night raw enough to cool them down. Then he comes runnin’ in, all heated and wild-eyed, Doctor Megan in his arms, her hair hangin’ about her like a gypsy woman and her face afire wi’ something I will not demean myself to name—’

  ‘Even though you yourself seem to know all about it?’ It wasn’t Kate this time, it was Barra, her eyes glittering with anger. ‘I don’t suppose it might have occurred to you that the whole thing was entirely innocent and very easily explained.’

  ‘Ay, Barra’s right.’ Several voices spoke up. ‘You were only seeing one side o’ it, Elspeth.’

  Elspeth looked disdainfully down her nose. ‘None o’ you know what you are talking about but I do. I have certain facts in my possession about the new doctor, damning facts they are too but I will be fair and give her the benefit o’ the doubt and just wait and see how she turns out. And don’t bother to ask what these facts are. I will bide my time for I am no’ the sort o’ woman who likes to see another in trouble.’

  ‘Ach, havers!’ said Barra forcibly. ‘You’ve aye had it in for the minister and the doctor. Simply because neither conform to your old-fashioned ideas about how such people ought to behave.’

  ‘Anyways, it was what we all wanted – to see the two o’ them maybe getting together,’ Tam put in eagerly.

  Elspeth glowered at them all, but particularly at Robbie’s attractive little wife with her soft waving grey hair framing her smooth features. ‘Just because you knew the minister in Glasgow, Barra, doesny give you any right to judge. You only knew the man in the pulpit, no’ the flesh and blood cratur’ I saw last night. I am just like the rest o’ you,’ she went on solicitously, ‘I wanted to see the minister and the lady doctor getting themselves together – but no’ like that, flaunting their lusts about for all the world to see. She’s a harlot is Doctor Megan, and he is that besotted by her he would do anything to own her.’ She looked round at all the intent faces. ‘And anything is what he will do before he is very much older. You mark my words and see if I’m wrong – and if I am, I’ll crawl on my hands and knees to kirk and beg the Lord’s forgiveness.’

  Part Two

  Spring 1966

  Chapter Eight

  It had been a severe winter with hurricane force winds storming over the island and leaving a trail of havoc in their wake. The old elms surrounding the kirkyard and the Manse had withstood years of cruel battering but that winter proved too much for one. On a fierce night in January its gnarled trunk had come crashing down to plummet straight through the south gable of the Manse, shattering the roof and allowing rainwater to pour unchecked into the living and kitchen quarters.

  It had been quite a sight that, the upper trunk of the twisted elm lodged in the roof timbers, its black branches springing free to groan eerily in the torturous elements. People had come from all over the island to stand, stare, and sympathize while Tam and a dozen other men laboured to saw the trunk in half and remove it bit by bit from the roof.

  After that had come the repairs to the structure itself and for a time part of the house was out of bounds while the work went on.

  Tina had been in quite a state over the catastrophe, more
flustered than anyone had ever seen her.

  ‘That bugger,’ she moaned, referring to the tree as if it was imbued with human powers and had planned the whole episode, ‘it has ruined my kitchen and made a right mess o’ the minister’s study. I could kill it, that I could!’

  ‘Well, at least no one got hurt in the accident,’ Matthew pointed out, ‘no’ even the animals.’

  ‘But it’s the inconvenience to Mr James!’ wailed Tina who, easygoing and languid as she was, had taken the minister’s welfare very much to heart and disliked seeing him put about in any way. Gallantly she rose to the occasion, bringing hot meals from her own kitchen to set upon the refectory table which fortunately had suffered no damage, and had been moved with everything else to a little back room with a fine view of the hills and a good ‘drawing’ fire.

  It had been quite an upheaval, moving the goods and chattels of man and beast to the new quarters, and by the time everything was in place the small room was very cluttered.

  ‘You couldny swing a cat in here,’ Tina declared, eyeing the heaps of fur draped round the fire with unusual belligerence. ‘These cratur’s take up all the space, Mr James.’ She sighed heavily, for many’s the time she had tripped over one of those self-same cratur’s whilst ambling about the kitchen with her nose in a book. ‘You will either have to move them out or move yourself into that wee cubby hole across the hall. You just canny eat and work in here as well, and you canny move your desk into the parlour for you need that room for visitors.’