Storm Over Rhanna

by Christine Marion Fraser

  He stood up. ‘Come on, lad, let’s go home, it’s dinner time and there’s a nice big juicy bone waiting for you.’

  The dog stayed close to his master’s heels, for once not running on ahead to check that the cats hadn’t somehow found his bone.

  The summer visitors were going, gradually thinning out, leaving on every steamer till only a handful remained. Mrs Dolly Hosheit was one of the last to go, having enjoyed her stay on Rhanna so much she had abandoned former plans to tour other islands.

  Kate, in a burst of conscience, had invited the pleasant little lady to stay with her when Tigh na Cladach closed its doors. Dolly had accepted with alacrity, proving herself to be such an agreeable companion that even Tam looked sorry when she at last decided to leave.

  ‘I must go, Tam, I really must. Emmit and I have some very dear friends living in Edinburgh and they have been pressing me to stay with them over the autumn. After that I simply must go back to England and visit all my old haunts. Who knows, I may decide to stay there, and if I do I will most certainly come back to Rhanna and see all my wonderful friends.’

  She left soon after, loaded down with ‘wee gifts’ of all descriptions, one bag given over completely to the mounds of mealy puddings, bannocks, rock cakes and tattle scones made specially for her by Kate, not to mention a bottle of best malt whisky Tam hastened to acquire for her at the last minute. The majority of the islanders were like that, taking with one hand, giving back double with the other, and Kate was no exception, her generosity proving so overwhelming in these final moments that Dolly rushed away, tears in her eyes and fond memories in her heart that would remain with her wherever she travelled.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The dentist mannie had arrived on Rhanna, a brisk, bald, bespectacled little man with shiny pink skin and a huge smile which Kate likened to ‘a row o’ grinning piano keys’.

  ‘Ach, maybe he got them made special to advertise his profession,’ suggested Molly. ‘It’s a good way o’ savin’ money for these newspaper adverts can be gey dear.’

  And she might have been right at that, for wherever Mr Niven McQuarry went, folk said his grin arrived first and incited so much comment the subject of teeth was never far from the limelight.

  ‘Of course, mine are my own and will only need a bittie polish on them,’ claimed Elspeth, puffing out her bony ribcage with pride.

  ‘A likely story,’ snorted Kate to her daughter-in-law, Mairi, ‘she lost the whole jing bang o’ them way back at the Battle o’ Culloden.’

  ‘But Kate,’ protested Mairi with utmost seriousness, ‘it was only men fought in battles like these.’

  ‘Ay, then Elspeth was there right enough,’ Kate said in exasperation.

  ‘But her teeths are her own,’ insisted Mairi, in her gently infuriating way.

  ‘Ach, Mairi!’ scolded Kate. ‘Will you never see a joke when it’s staring you in the face? Of course the cailleach’s teeths are her own, no one else in their right mind would covet such great, brown molars. I’ve seen better wallies in a horse and ’tis little wonder Hector used to call her a nag!’

  Elspeth wasn’t the only one to cling on to her ‘natural’ teeth, no matter how ancient they might be. Several of the older Gaels attached disgrace to anything inside or outside of their bodies that ‘wasny God’s creation’.

  But they were in the minority. No one else in the least minded anything that aided and abetted nature, and there was much jubilation when it became known that the long-awaited dentist mannie had arrived. The older members of the population hastened to locate dentures that were so painful to wear, they only saw the light of day for funerals, weddings, and the Sabbath. Those elderly souls who never deemed to wear them at all, gazed furtively at mouldering ‘teeths’ lying half forgotten in some little-used drawer, and wondered daringly if perhaps the dentist mannie might this time be able to perform some miracle and make them dentures that actually fitted.

  ‘Of course, it’s the way these old people wriggle and grimace when one is trying to get an impression,’ Niven McQuarry confided to Lachlan in his ‘very propa’ Edinburgh drawl. ‘I do my best but the best is never good enough for some people.’

  ‘Ach, you have to make allowances for the old folk,’ Babbie said as she bustled about, setting out the dentist’s tools of trade in the room Lachlan had hastily set up as a surgery until Megan either came back or a locum took over.

  ‘Queet, queet,’ Niven McQuarry swallowed his annoyance and flashed his big grin at Babbie, ‘and with you to help me, my deah, I’m sure we’ll manage just grand, ay, just grand.’

  Phebie and Babbie between them had tried to organize some appointment system that would spread the dentist’s work over a five-day period, but it was a useless task. So many people, it seemed, found the dentist’s attentions imperative that double the amount of patients arrived on the first morning, filling Slochmhor’s hall where a variety of seating had been quickly assembled.

  Babbie, Lachlan, and Niven McQuarry spent an exhausting and busy day of it. Extractions, fillings, and polishings came and went in brisk succession. Those who had to have gas had perforce to recover in Phebie’s parlour, from there to the kitchen to partake of luke-warm tea and much patient sympathy before reeling outside, to expose pocked gums proudly to those souls who were still trying to pluck up the courage to remain firmly in their seats till their turn came.

  One or two of the old folks had arrived in huge wickerwork wheelchairs that looked as if they might have been tacked together by inexpert hands, but come they did, oozing a confidence they didn’t possess, barking their nervousness at anyone who got in their way and, in a few cases, wangling their way to the front of the queue by quite simply battering their way forward, no matter the cost to human flesh.

  The young folk hung back, giggling and gulping and voicing their fears, but remaining stolidly put while they bolstered one another up with visions of gleaming white teeth that were sure to be appreciated by the opposite sex.

  For five solid days the road to Slochmhor had never been busier while in the surgery, teeth, blood, and hair flew, the last literally for old Sorcha screeched so much during the extraction of one ancient wisdom tooth, she quite unnerved Mr McQuarry who staggered and fell against her, his clutching hands grabbing her hair. When it came away in his hands his fright was such that he sent the hair piece whizzing across the room to land amongst the debris of teeth, cotton wool, gauze, and similar discarded accoutrements.

  ‘My wig,’ whispered Sorcha, forgetting her pain in the enormity of the moment, ‘my bonny wig. It’s covered in dirt and all manner o’ dreadful things.’

  Despite her girth she flew out of the high chair with alacrity, knocking Mr McQuarry aside in her hurry to get at her wig which, when retrieved and held up, looked like some abandoned ginger moggy, matted as it was with cotton wool and a fair number of bloody teeth clinging to the hairs.

  ‘Look! Would you look!’ Sorcha shrieked with pure rage. ‘’T’will never be the same again! ’Tis ruined, ruined, I tell you! I will be putting in a claim for compensation, that I will. I’m goin’ to sue you, Mr McQuarry!’

  In those traumatic moments, no one thought to remind her that the wig had been acquired through the National Health and she was in no position to sue anyone. The dentist’s own teeth had almost fallen out his head at this unexpected intrusion into his working day, so thoroughly agape was his heavy jaw.

  Both Lachlan and Babbie could only stare at the enraged old lady, then with one accord they clutched each other and collapsed together onto a nearby chair, there to roar with uninhibited mirth.

  Those waiting outside the surgery heard first of all Sorcha’s terrible yelps and screams and they eyed one another in utter terror, Tam even going so far as to rise to his feet and seek out the door, while wondering how fast he could get to it for all the jumble of feet, legs, walking sticks, and shepherd’s crooks propped about everywhere.

  While his thoughts were thus engaged, Sorcha’s enraged
yells, her threats, filtered quite plainly through the surgery door. The waiting throng was aghast.

  ‘Here, what do you think they have removed?’ Todd the Shod breathed in round-eyed horror. ‘It sounds serious.’

  ‘Ay, as if they’ve maybe taken away something they shouldny have. She’s sayin’ something will never be the same again.’ Fingal’s face was deathly pale.

  ‘Maybe it’s her tonsils,’ pondered Isabel hopefully. ‘The old besom talks far too much and at her age is in no need o’ her tonsils for she’s aye sniffin’ and snufflin’ wi’ the cold. A good sore throat will maybe keep her quiet for a week or two.’

  ‘Ay, but Isabel,’ Jim Jim wriggled uncomfortably, his weak bladder growing weaker suddenly with fright, ‘they just canny go about takin’ things out o’ folk that is no’ rightly theirs. I have had enough wee bitties taken out o’ me to last a lifetime and I have no wish to lose my tonsils as well, they’ve been wi’ me too long now.’

  ‘Ach, it was only your appendix you lost,’ his wife told him unsympathetically, ‘and they only fiddled around wi’ your prostrate thon time you was in hospital wi’ your bladder.’

  ‘It would be his prostate,’ Molly put in knowledgeably, ‘it happens to a lot o’ men at a certain age though I’m glad to say my Todd has never been bothered that way.’

  ‘Well, whatever it was I’m no’ for losin’ anything else.’ Jim Jim rose to his feet to trip and stumble his way to the kitchen, there to ask Phebie if he might have the use ‘o’ the wee water hole’. Behind him he left a trail of crushed bunions and toes, whose owners were not shy about voicing opinions regarding his ‘clumsy great feets’.

  ‘Listen!’ Imperatively, Tam held up his hand. Gales of merriment now issued from behind the closed surgery door. ‘They’re laughin’, they’re peein’ themselves laughin’. It canny be all that bad . . .’

  The door was suddenly wrenched open and Sorcha rushed out, whirling her soiled wig around her shorn head as if it was some battle-torn banner. With a warlike screech she went charging her way outside, leaving a trail of scattered chairs and shepherd’s crooks in her wake.

  ‘Here, it was her wig,’ grinned Todd. ‘I’ve never seen Sorcha without her wig before. She looks like one o’ they scalped cratur’s I saw in a cowboy picture thon time I was over visiting my cousin on the mainland.’

  ‘Ay, that was the time I went with you,’ Ranald enthused. ‘It was a fair treat to watch they Red Injuns whoopin’ about sawin’ folks heads off—’

  ‘Ach no, you’re thinkin’ o’ head hunters,’ corrected Todd firmly, ‘Red Injuns only take the scalps to hang on these totem poles they have round their tents.’

  ‘Have you no decency?’ berated Molly, glowering at Ranald as if she would like to deprive him of his head. ‘That poor sowel was in a terrible state just now and if you were men at all you would have gone after her to see her safely home . . .’

  ‘Next please,’ Babbie put a glowing face round the surgery door. ‘And please leave wigs and other sundries on the hall table. The medical profession can’t accept responsibility otherwise.’

  ‘Babbie, you’re a rogue,’ Lachlan laughed at her back, while Niven McQuarry strove to compose his face into the welcoming smile he always endeavoured to display to his patients, no matter how flustered he might be feeling.

  Niven McQuarry knocked rather tentatively on the open door of Croft Beag, arranging his features into a pleasant smile on hearing footsteps in the hall. Dodie appeared, stuffing something into his pocket as he approached the door. Mr McQuarry introduced himself, but before he could explain the reason for his visit a beaming Dodie pulled him inside, insisting as he did so that the visitor must ‘hae a wee look round Croft Beag’. The old eccentric was so pleased with himself these days that no caller was allowed to rest without first seeing round the place, and so Niven McQuarry was given a grand tour of the house, the garden, and the outbuildings.

  Outside the byre Dodie stopped, his big hands folded across his chest, his gaze resting lovingly on the Swastika sign adorning the roof.

  ‘Is she no’ beautiful just?’ Dodie asked proudly. ‘I have looked after her for years for the weather has a habit o’ peeling the paint away.’

  ‘Ay, yes, queet, queet, very unusual,’ Mr McQuarry said in some bemusement.

  He was about to turn back to the house, but Dodie was having none of that. Cupping his hands to his mouth he emitted an oddly sweet calling note, and over the clover-strewn field trotted Ealasaid with her calf.

  ‘My bonny Ealasaid,’ Dodie introduced his cow as another might introduce a very grand personage. ‘Every day at this time I come out to give her her potach, but seeing you’re here I ken fine you would like to do it.’

  From his pocket he withdrew a paper bag containing some pieces of oatcake. These he emptied into Mr McQuarry’s unwillingly extended palm. He had had very few dealings with bovines of any description and expected to lose his hand at any moment, but the cow drooled gently over it, relishing every tasty scrap, and when every crumb was finished she slobbered her big green tongue around his fingers just in case she might have missed anything.

  ‘She likes you, Mr Dentist,’ Dodie said with conviction. ‘It’s no’ everybody she’ll take to.’

  ‘Ay, ay, a fine beast,’ Mr McQuarry was edging away as he spoke, but Dodie spent a few more minutes talking in the Gaelic to both Ealasaid and her calf before he would deign to make a move.

  When finally they were back in the house, Mr McQuarry requested that he be allowed to wash his hands and was amazed at the alacrity with which the old eccentric responded. Gleefully he led the visitor to the sink, there to splash water into it with such enthusiasm that the dentist became alarmed lest he should flood the place.

  ‘It’s just like my own wee burn brought into the house,’ Dodie explained with enthusiasm, ‘I run it a lot so that betimes I can just close my eyes and think it’s birlin’ and splashin’ over the stones on its way to the sea.’

  By this time Niven McQuarry’s head was in quite a spin but Dodie wasn’t finished with him yet. The cuckoo clock was next on the agenda, and not until it had whirled out from its little door cheerily to proclaim the hour was the visitor allowed to seat himself and explain the content of his mission.

  ‘Now then, Mr Dodie, if you will just listen to me for a moment.’ Mr McQuarry cleared his throat, and was about to launch forth when he was stopped in mid-breath by a wheezing screech issuing from Dodie’s widely stretched mouth.

  The dentist, thinking that the old man was in some sudden and dreadful pain, jumped to his feet and taking hold of Dodie made him sit down, saying as he did so, ‘Just you relax, Mr Dodie, and let me look at your teeth. I have my bag here and can rid you of that pain in no time at all.’

  Dodie paused for breath, looked at the dentist with huge enjoyment, and muttered, ‘Mr Dodie,’ then he was off again, wheezing, screeching, clutching his stomach. He had never had dealings with the dentist mannie and was therefore not familiar with his precise and proper ways. He had been called many things in his time but ‘Mr Dodie’ was not one of them, and the novelty of it made him just about split his sides laughing.

  When the dentist realized that Dodie was producing sounds of mirth and not of pain he settled himself rather dourly into another chair, took a deep breath and said carefully, ‘Mr – er – perhaps it might be better not to be too formal so I shall just call you Dodie. Some of the villagers were saying that you had been having a very miserable time of it with your teeth so I thought I had better come along and take a look at them.’

  ‘It wasny me, it was my cow.’

  ‘Your cow was suffering from bad teeth?’

  ‘Ach no, Mr Dentist,’ Dodie spoke with gentle admonishment, ‘my Ealasaid fell over the cliff last summer and died on me. I was that sore wi’ grief I near died myself and would have done if it hadny been for the minister and the laird.’

  Niven McQuarry was breathing somewhat heavily, so that his glasses wer
e fogging up and had to be removed and rubbed briskly.

  Very neatly he placed them back on his nose, took another deep breath and said very patiently, ‘Dodie, unless my eyes are deceiving me I saw your Ealasaid a short time back and fed her oatcake out of my very own hand. She appeared very hale and hearty and not in the least bit dead.’

  Dodie was unable to understand this lack of comprehension on the visitor’s part. Pityingly he shook his head and said very slowly and with great emphasis, ‘Ach no, no, Mr Dentist, you are makin’ a big mistake.’

  ‘You mean,’ the dentist mannie made a supreme effort to treat the matter lightheartedly, ‘that was Ealasaid’s ghost we saw out there? With clover sticking out her mouth and chlorophyll coating her tongue?’

  The two men looked at each other in complete bafflement. Privately, Dodie decided that the dentist mannie wasn’t quite all there and with great dignity he arose to put on the kettle to make a strupak.

  When tea and buttered oatcakes had been drunk and eaten in almost total silence, Mr McQuarry arose carefully from his seat and tried very hard not to look as if he was hurrying to get outside.

  At the door he paused. ‘May I – if you don’t mind that is – just have a quick peep at your teeth?’

  Willingly Dodie exposed his ancient, tobacco-stained molars, thinking that he had better humour the most unusual visitor he had ever had. ‘They are perfect teeths, Mr Dentist,’ he said gently. ‘They have never given me any bother in the whole o’ me life even though I have never used that awful paste on them.’

  ‘Queet, queet,’ Niven McQuarry signalled his defeat succinctly, and was about to make good his escape when Dodie bade him stay where he was and went galloping away outside.