Storm Over Rhanna

by Christine Marion Fraser

  ‘See you and keep a civil tongue in your head,’ Behag warned shakily when she could at last get a word in, conscious as she spoke that several heads were nodding in sympathetic agreement with her words. It wasn’t often that anything she said or did earned even the faintest approval and she took full advantage of it, puffing out her scrawny chest as she defended herself with the not inconsiderable might of her own tongue.

  ‘But you never sent my tellygram!’ wailed Holy Smoke. ‘After me paying dear for it too and ending up wi’ all this useless meat which will cost me a pretty penny also – and here’s me thinkin’ that at last I was going to make a little profit out o’ my shop. As for killing myself, I would never dream o’ doing such a sinful thing, and if you wereny such a silly woman you would have kent fine I wasny that sort o’ man.’ He paused to draw breath into his heated lungs, in his agitation also drawing from his pocket a battered packet of cigarettes, one of which he placed between his thin lips and lit with a shaking hand, much to the amusement of the throng who nudged one another and grinned their wicked grins.

  ‘I never meant I was killing myself,’ he repeated after a few inhalations of smoke, ‘I meant I was killing my own beasts. I received a licence to do so and I’ve been preparing myself for doing it for a long whilie now. I had the electricians over from the mainland wiring up my hut to make it into a proper freezer room, and for nights and nights I was in there myself, lining the walls and putting in fixtures till I near dropped wi’ fatigue.’ His mournful eyes beseeched the crowd, he spread his hands in appeal. ‘I have worked hard to give this island a decent, hygienic butcher’s shop, one where the womenfolk can come and know they are buying good, homegrown, fresh meat – and I come home to find this.’

  He looked so forlorn standing there, his cigarette dangling dejectedly from his mouth, his thin shoulders drooped, that the sympathies of the villagers were immediately transferred to him.

  ‘Ay, you are a hard working cratur’ and no mistake,’ nodded Tam thoughtfully, ‘but you really canny blame Behag here for thinkin’ the way she did.’ His magnanimity made the old lady sigh with relief. ‘If it had been me I’m thinkin’ I would have thought the same as herself, especially when you disappeared and nary a word about when you were coming back.’

  ‘But I told Murdy to put a notice in the Post Office window saying I would be back the day!’ Holy Smoke’s voice was rising to a thin wail again. ‘Is there no one on this island can take a simple message correctly?’

  ‘I never thought to write it down,’ Murdy spoke from the back of the gathering, ‘I was busy at the time and just trusted to memory.’ The admittance brought a look of shame to his nut-brown face, but when he spoke again his tones were defensive. ‘It would have made no difference anyway, you just disappeared wi’out trace for you didny catch the steamer that morning and nobody saw you flying away,’ he ended with an attempt at humour.

  ‘Ach well, there is no mystery about how I got off the island on Saturday,’ snorted the butcher derisively. ‘I went away on a fishing boat after I had been to see Miss Beag. The fisherlads took me over to Oban far cheaper than that damt steamer has ever taken me. I had to get some spare parts for my generator for I canny have it breakin’ down wi’ me killing myself now. I just gave the lads the same as I gave the electricians to keep quiet about my wee secret, a few pounds o’ my homemade links and black puddings and they were all well enough pleased at that.’

  ‘Ay well, you’ll maybe no’ be in such a hurry to save sillar in future,’ Tam warned as he began to walk away. ‘My mither aye said, “Pay cheap, pay dear”, and she was right too.’

  Two policemen were coming along, the road, heading straight for Holy Smoke’s shop.

  The crowd dispersed as if by magic to get on with their own belated work, leaving the butcher to explain himself and Behag to vacate the scene with alacrity since she had no wish to get herself ‘mixed up wi’ the law’.

  But the incident never faded from anybody’s mind, rather it grew in importance with the telling and became such a favourite tale at winter ceilidhs that those who had actually taken part in it were regarded with respect and not a little envy.

  Certainly Behag was never allowed to forget her hand in the affair. Ever afterwards she had to endure the teasings of her cronies – and worse, when Holy Smoke had recovered from the financial blow to his pocket and had time to appreciate Behag’s concern for his welfare, his ingratiating manner towards her grew till it got to the stage where whenever she saw him coming she would leave whatever she was doing and scuttle away to hide, be it to her own house or to that of a neighbour – for the doors on Rhanna were ever open to visitors, be it for a crack or a strupak, or simply to provide a refuge for beings like Behag when the world outside became too much of a burden.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Megan opened the door of Tigh na Cladach to find Mark standing there, not facing her but turned away looking towards the blue, heat-hazed peaks of Sgurr nan Ruadh. After a spell of cold, wet weather, the sun was out again, sparkling on the sea, shimmering on the sands. All over Rhanna the buttercups were out in their millions, turning the machair to plains of gold while in the meadows thousands of pure white daisies looked like snow from afar. In the less well-drained fields, marsh marigolds opened great yellow cups to the sun; bluebells purpled the woods; lapwing chicks ran with their mothers; seals basked on the rocks; calfs and lambs gambolled and played; larks trilled in the sky; the cuckoo called from wooded glens and high, hidden places.

  Mark was wearing only a pair of light, fawn slacks and a pale blue shirt. Megan could see plainly where the white skin of his shoulders merged into the ruddy brown column of his neck and noted also how sweetly the thick dark hairs at his nape curled just a tiny bit outwards.

  It seemed so long since he had stood near her like this that she wanted to reach out and touch him, as if to reassure herself that he was real and not just a tall, somehow unapproachable figure to be seen walking in the distance . . .

  He spun round to face her just then and her hand, which had in fact been reaching out towards him, fluttered back swiftly to her side.

  ‘Can you come quickly?’ he asked before she could speak. ‘It’s Dodie, the old man who lives on the hill track. I was cycling back from Nigg and found him lying unconscious at the edge of the moors about a quarter of a mile from his house, and carried him home.’

  His voice was clipped and hard, so unlike the warm, deep, resonant one she remembered and something in her curled up and died for the want of that lovely voice she had known and loved, and for the ready, wide smile that had been so much a part of him.

  He wasn’t smiling now, his face was closed, tense-looking, his eyes dull and terribly void of that essential quality that had always been there, the love of life and all the riches it had to offer a man like him.

  She looked at him more intently and her heart smote her to the quick. He was thin and ill-looking, with hollows in his cheeks and dark smudges under his eyes – and worse than these, a dreadful shadow seemed to enshroud him, wrapping him round in an invisible mantle of hopelessness . . .

  ‘You – carried him?’ She concentrated her mind on the reason he had come here.

  ‘Ay, he isn’t heavy, in fact there’s nothing of him and I think that’s where the trouble might lie. He’s been starving himself. I put him to bed and cycled down here as quickly as I could.’

  ‘I’ll get my bag.’ She disappeared inside but was soon back, Steven at her side, a handsome Steven, fully recovered, all the bruises healed, his hair shining like gold in the sun, his white teeth flashing in his suntanned face.

  ‘So, you’re the minister,’ he greeted Mark. ‘I’ve only ever seen you from a distance, I’m afraid I’m not much of a churchgoer. I hope you don’t mind if I come along for the ride, it’s a good opportunity to see a bit of the island – and besides, I mustn’t let Megs out of my sight in case she disappears again. Oh, I’m Steven Saunders by the way though I expect you know that a
lready. I seem to have earned a bit of notoriety since I came to the island.’

  He stuck out his hand but Mark didn’t take it, instead he began to walk away down the path, throwing over his shoulder, ‘I’ll leave my bike here and collect it later. If the two of you wouldn’t mind, I think we had better hurry.’

  They got into Megan’s car, Steven settling himself beside her at the front, leaving Mark to climb into the back and somehow arrange his long limbs into the cramped space behind the front seats. On the drive through the village many hands were raised in friendly acknowledgement, but it was to Mark they waved; more and more lately Megan had found both herself and her house shunned, and while she told herself that she was enjoying the freedom, she knew it was just a pretence, that she longed for a return to the rapport she had only just been starting to enjoy with the islanders – before . . .

  Her heart hardened. Let them run to old Annack Gow and her herbal cures, they would soon come back to her when they needed a real doctor. She kept her eyes on the road. Silence enshrouded the car’s occupants, Mark sat hunched in the back, not saying a word, even Steven seemed lost in thought and only grunted when she spoke to him.

  She was relieved when she at last stopped the car outside Dodie’s cottage. It was very peaceful here, hens clucked amongst the heather, browsed lazily along the banks of the little burn chuckling over the stones. But inside Dodie’s cottage was another story: ragged curtains at the tiny windows effectively shut out the sunlight, ashes spilled from the grate, dust lay thickly over the sparse furnishings – yet, in amongst all the neglect a small heap of lovingly painted stones on the cobwebby window ledge shone like jewels, each one painstakingly capturing the wild flowers of the moor, the birds of the seashore, all done by Dodie when he had had the will to fill his lonely hours with his own particular visions of art.

  Since the death of his beloved Ealasaid, everyone who had ever had time to spare for him had tried to help him in all sorts of practical ways but he had rejected all advances, more and more hiding himself away so that the familiar, loping figure that had for so long been part of Rhanna’s landscape was rarely to be seen these days except on the quiet, solitary stretches of the Muir of Rhanna.

  ‘Through here,’ Mark led the way up a short passageway to a small, dim, airless room where thick curtains over the window closed out light and air. The room held only the barest necessities; a sagging iron bedstead; a dusty dresser in one dark corner; an antiquated bride’s kist under the window; shelves made from fish boxes that looked ready to collapse at any moment.

  On the bed lay Dodie, a rickle of bones and loose grey skin, huddled under a heap of assorted coverings, including a threadbare greatcoat and an ancient Macintosh. Megan took one appalled glance at the room and immediately rushed in to pull back the curtains, and called on the men to help her lift the lopsided sash. Fresh clean air swept in along with the sunlight upon whose beams clouds of dust swam and billowed.

  ‘Will one of you help me get his clothes off?’ She didn’t look up as she spoke but it was Mark who helped her peel off the old man’s garments, never once flinching as each successive greasy layer released a hotchpotch of repelling odours.

  ‘Excuse me, I think I’ll get a breath of air.’ Steven rushed outside to lean against a wall and gulp in great lungfuls of scented hill air, leaving Mark and Megan to their grim task.

  Dodie came round just as they reached his stale and repulsive undergarments, so worn they almost disintegrated in their hands. Dazed though he was, Dodie was quick to size up the situation. ‘Here, you canny do that,’ he babbled in utmost horror, a red stain diffusing the unhealthy pallor of his face. He shot upwards, stubby, calloused fingers grabbing blindly at the covers to pull them up and wind them round his skinny shoulders. He began to cry, great heartrending sobs that shook his entire body and made the rickety bed wheeze on its rusty springs.

  ‘Dodie, Dodie, it’s alright, it’s alright.’ Mark was beside him, enfolding the emaciated old man to his caring heart, watched by Megan who bit her lip to stop the tears springing to her eyes, so moved was she by the sight of that strong man holding Dodie to his breast as if he was a lost child, as lost indeed he was, so bewildered at finding himself naked in bed in the presence of a ‘leddy’ that he allowed Mark to hold him and comfort him in his terrible time of need.

  ‘Listen, Dodie,’ said Mark quietly, ‘I found you today by the roadside. You’re ill and need help and must let the doctor examine you.’

  ‘Na, na, I canny,’ wailed Dodie, burying his face further in Mark’s shoulder, ‘she’s a leddy and never in the whole o’ my life has a leddy been in my bedroom, never mind looked at my private body.’

  ‘Not even your mother?’ probed Mark gently.

  ‘Ay well, maybe her,’ Dodie conceded with a watery sniff. ‘Though I canny mind a thing about it for she went and died on me when I was just a bairn. It was bad enough in the hospital thon time I was in wi’ my nose. The nurses bathed me and I’ll never, never forget the shame o’ that. It wasny natural and I’ll no’ allow it to happen ever again.’

  Mark patted the old man’s bent shoulders. ‘Wheesht, wheesht, man,’ he soothed, ‘I’m your friend and would never do anything to deliberately hurt you.’

  An enormous sob shuddered out of Dodie’s gaunt frame. ‘Ach, I ken fine you wouldny.’ His voice was weak suddenly as all the tension went out of him leaving him spent. ‘’Tis just that you brought the leddy doctor into my house and ’tis shamed I am just. If I had kent she was coming I would have cleaned the place up a bittie. It was different wi’ Doctor Lachlan, he was here thon time I was smitted wi’ Shelagh but I didny mind him so much, leddies are different, they aye smell nice and think everyone else should be the same but I was never one for that kind o’ palaver myself.’

  Above the old man’s head of soft grey hair, Mark’s lips twitched while Megan’s hand went quickly to her mouth. ‘I know that, Dodie,’ Mark sympathized as solemnly as he could, ‘but you liked it well enough when Mairi took you down to her house that time you were ill with your stomach. I heard all about how she gave you a nice bath and looked after you so well.’

  ‘Ach, it wasny the bath I liked,’ Dodie lay back on his slipless pillows, keeping his face well averted from Megan. ‘’Twas the nice dinners she gave me that I enjoyed – I like Mairi fine,’ he enthused, forgetting his shyness at the thought of kindly hearted Mairi, whose simple outlook on life singled her out as being the one female on the island he could really feel at ease with. Raising a shaky hand to scratch his head, he let out a horrified cry on discovering that his greasy cap was missing. In the diversion that followed Mark nodded at Megan who ran from the house into the brilliant June sunshine, where she found Steven and asked him if he would take the car down to the village and bring back Mairi McKinnon.

  ‘Never mind Mairi-whoever-she-is.’ Steven was not in the best of moods as Megan soon found out when he grabbed her arm and forced her in close to him. ‘He doesn’t seem to like me very much, does he?’ he asked, jerking his head towards the cottage. ‘And I think I know the reason why. It was him, wasn’t it? The man you thought you were in love with before I came back on the scene?’

  ‘Och, for heaven’s sake, Steve!’ she cried. ‘This is hardly the time or place for a postmortem. The old man in there is very ill and Mairi is the only person he wants just now. You’ll find her house easily enough, it’s the white cottage with the red windows next to Merry Mary’s shop.’

  ‘Alright, I’ll go,’ he growled sullenly, ‘but later on I want some answers and I don’t care how many sick old men have to wait while you and I have a little talk.’

  The car whirled away in a cloud of dust, leaving Megan to sink back against the cottage wall and lean her head on the flaking plaster. She had to have a short breathing space, time to recover some of her senses before she went back inside that poor old man’s room. She thought of how badly Steven had behaved during the entire episode, all he had been able to think about was hims
elf, and she wondered how much more she could take of his petty jealousies.

  Mark meanwhile had recovered Dodie’s greasy cap from behind the bedstead where it had fallen, and once it was jammed firmly on his head Dodie seemed to regain some of his old equilibrium. ‘I’m drouthy, Mr James,’ he said, licking his dry lips, ‘I wonder if you would get me a wee drink o’ water from the pail in the porch.’ Reaching under his pillows he withdrew a small engraved silver goblet.

  ‘Be using this to fetch it in,’ he instructed rather grandly. ‘Liquid o’ any sort has never tasted better than when supped from this bonny cup, it’s that cool on my lips it is just like sooking a bittie ice from my own byre roof in winter.’

  In some astonishment Mark took the goblet, and was about to ask where on earth Dodie had acquired such a fine piece when the old man held up his hand somewhat imperiously. ‘Before you ask I’ll be telling you, seeing you will no’ be likely to tell anyone else. A tink gave it to me once in return for a few bit eggs and vegetables from my very own garden. I kent fine it was likely stolen and put it away thinkin’ never to use it. I came across it just the other day and thought maybe it would help me to buy another cow like my bonny Ealasaid. It was that fine and cool lyin’ there in my hands I decided to have a wee bit use o’ it before asking would somebody maybe take it over to the mainland and sell it for me – the police will no’ be lookin’ for it now for it is nigh on twenty years since the tink gave it to me.’

  His look of guilt smote Mark’s soft heart to the quick. Taking the old man’s horny hand, he squeezed it. ‘Maybe you won’t have to sell your cup, Dodie, just bide your time a bittie longer and who knows what might turn up.’

  Steven had driven the car at such a pace that it wasn’t long before Mairi appeared on the scene, complete with flasks of hot soup and tea which she made Dodie drink before successfully persuading him to allow her to wash him with the hot water she had somehow managed to heat over a few hastily stoked coals.