Storm Over Rhanna

by Christine Marion Fraser

  It was of Eve that Tina spoke on the way up the Manse drive. ‘I’m worried about her, Shona,’ she confided. ‘She’s no’ the lass she was and is so pale and off her food I’m thinkin’ she might just pine away altogether for that lad.’

  ‘Give her time, Tina,’ Shona advised, trying to sound convincing though she too had noticed the drastic changes in Eve. ‘It’s a terrible thing to try and forget someone you have loved and I don’t suppose she wants to yet . . .’ She gave a little groan, ‘Och, there I go again, putting my foot in it, as if you didn’t know what it’s like to have loved and lost.’

  ‘Ach, it’s alright, lass, I know what you mean, and Eve’s is a different kind of loss from mine altogether. I wish Doctor Megan would come back, Eve would have something to keep her mind occupied every day, she enjoyed working at Tigh na Cladach and got on fine wi’ the doctor.’

  ‘I had a letter from Megan, only this morning.’

  ‘Oh, and how is she?’

  ‘Well, she didn’t say too much about herself but was asking for everybody and missing us – she was also concerned about Mark, I think she’s missing him too, more than she’s letting on.’

  They paused at the steps. ‘Are you coming in?’ asked Tina. ‘Mr James will likely be in his study so I’ll just creep in the kitchen, get my things, and then creep back out again. He’ll never hear me.’

  Shona smiled affectionately at Tina’s earnest words, for when she attempted stealth of any sort she usually only succeeded in bumping into everything, both in and out of sight.

  ‘Ach no, you go ahead, Tina, I’ll wait out here. Mark might be busy with his sermons and won’t want to be disturbed.’

  But the minister wasn’t in his study. Tina was greatly surprised to find him in the kitchen, slumped into his chair, black stubble darkening a face that was a sickly grey colour, a half-empty bottle of whisky sitting on a small table at his side. Mutt was lying at his feet and whimpered dejectedly at Tina’s entry.

  ‘Mercy on us.’ Tina took one startled glance at the scene before going out to the porch to call down to Shona, ‘Come away in at once.’

  ‘Oh no!’ Shona couldn’t stop the horrified exclamation at sight of Mark. He was comatose and completely without muscle control, failing even to stir in protest when she spoke his name in his ear and shook him. He fell to the side of his chair, head lolling, mouth falling slackly agape. He smelled and looked terrible, and Shona’s heart went strange and heavy within her while a tearful Tina came to take his head to her soft, motherly bosom where she held him as if he was a small boy.

  ‘I had a mind I was smelling the drink off him this whilie back but thought it couldny be,’ she shook her head sadly. ‘Never a drop has passed his lips in all the time I’ve worked to him. Many’s the time I’ve had a wee drop myself, at Ne’erday and the like, but he was aye content wi’ his tea or a glass o’ fruit wine – it was as if he despised the very sight o’ spirits though never in a nasty way, just that nice crooked wee smile he has and a mannerly refusal.’

  ‘Now we know why, Tina,’ Shona said huskily. Her mind was whirling, taking her back to the occasions she had been in Mark’s company. Tina was right, somehow he had always managed to evade touching strong liquor by making excuses that had sounded so right at the time – now this, this earth-shattering discovery – it explained everything, his strangeness of late, the look he had on him of a man who didn’t know which direction to take in life. Sadness overwhelmed her, no wonder he had been keeping to himself lately, how lonely he must have felt, how alone he had been. She bit her lip and gripped Tina’s arm with some urgency, ‘You must never breathe a word o’ this to another living soul – not until we have had time to decide what is the best thing to do for him.’

  ‘As if I would,’ tears filled Tina’s eyes, ‘I love the man as I would love a brother. He’s been a dear, good friend to me and mine and I’ll do anything I can to help him.’

  ‘Ay, he’s going to need all the support we can give him but first things first. We’ll never manage to get him into bed in his state so we’ll leave him here. Do you know where he keeps blankets and the like?’

  ‘That I do, ’tis myself who washes his laundry and puts it away in the cupboard.’

  She went off to return in minutes, arms piled high with blankets and pillows. Between them they made Mark as comfortable as possible, watched anxiously by Mutt and the cats who were padding back and forth, mewing and rubbing themselves against the women’s legs, till an exasperated Tina went to pour milk into saucers which they lapped hungrily, while Mutt received an appetizing bone straight out of the stock pot Tina had prepared that morning. But he refused to eat, turning back instead to the chair to coorie himself against the inert figure in it and tentatively kiss his nose.

  ‘Ach, is he no’ a wise doggie?’ Tina patted the noble head affectionately. ‘He loves Mr James and will no’ let him out o’ his sight if he can help it.’

  Shona straightened and tucked an errant strand of hair behind her ear. ‘He minds me o’ my dear wee Tot – much bigger of course but the same faithful eyes and curly golden fur.’ She glanced around. ‘We had better go and leave them in peace – I’ll just light the lamp and put it on the table in case Mark wakes in the night and wonders where he is.’

  ‘Will we leave the window open?’ wondered Tina.

  ‘Ay, just enough for the cats to come and go. It’s a mild enough evening and if we put some more peats on the fire it should last a good whilie yet.’

  Tina dumped the remaining pillows and blankets on the refectory table, turned round and nearly tripped over Tub sniffing around Mutt’s bone. ‘Damt cats!’ Picking up the plate containing the bone, and the milk saucers, she clattered them onto the table. ‘One o’ these days I’ll land on the floor wi’ everything broken – that’s if I don’t thraw every one o’ their damt necks first!’ she ended darkly.

  They checked everything thoroughly before going quietly away, leaving Mark in a snug cocoon of pillows and blankets with Mutt up on the armchair beside him, watchful, alert, and worried.

  Tina and Shona spent a cosy, friendly evening together, stirring rum fudge in a big pan while they talked and laughed and tried not to mention Mark James, because if they did they were apt to grow quiet and awkward and forget to stir the fudge or just simply forget everything but that pale face of a man so dear to them both. In the end they gave up all pretence of enjoying themselves. When the fudge was put to cool in trays in the larder they sat at the fire, drinking tea and discussing how they could go about doing something to help the minister.

  During a lull in the conversation, Tina glanced at the window. It was growing dark outside. Grey clouds were rolling up over the sea, piling one on top of the other, changing to a purplish-black colour as gloaming deepened into night.

  ‘Donald will no’ be in for hours yet,’ Tina said casually, ‘I have a fancy he’s seeing a lass over at Portvoynachan and Eve is staying wi’ her Granny Ann the night. She often does that now. I think she finds the old folks easier to thole than she can me. I ask too many questions though I should know better for she just doesny speak when she’s in one o’ they secretive moods o’ hers—’ she glanced at Shona and added softly, ‘we’ll wait just a whilie – then we’ll go along to the Manse and see if he’s alright.’

  Shona nodded. ‘I was hoping you would say that.’

  Tina smiled gently and got up to refill the cups from the ever brewing pot at the edge of the fire.

  ‘I see I’m just in time for a strupak.’ Mairi put her head round the door, and came in to draw a chair in to the fire and plunge straight into an account of some of her family’s latest exploits. Over her head Shona and Tina looked at one another. It would be a whilie before the visitor took her leave, and with good grace Tina went to get another cup from the dresser.

  Mutt stirred a little to ease his cramped limbs. He gazed towards the window, his nose twitching longingly. The air was tangy with delicious smells, that of damp earth
being the most prevalent, and the temptation to be out and about was sore on a young dog such as he. His inner clock told him that the time was nigh for that special hour he always shared with his master. Except for the cats ganging up on him to steal his food and commandeer his cushion, he revelled in his life in the big, old house and knew that the cats could never usurp him when it came to certain privileges he and he alone shared with the man of the house. The first of these was the bedtime joy of stretching himself at his master’s feet or lying cosily on the bedside rug, knowing that odd, sweet joy of regular deep breathing that wasn’t his own but might have been, so familiar was the rhythm of it.

  The second highlight came with his dinner bone, a daily ritual which preceded that glorious after-dinner walk along the cliffs, where all the world smelt of rabbits and earth and great tree trunks that had been specially created for him to sniff and water at will.

  But the best time of all was the hour of the cocoa dregs, of clocks quietly ticking and peat turfs sparking in the hearth, of himself and his master stretching and pretending a weariness that fled like magic the minute they were out the door and sniffing together blood-tingling scents that were magnified a thousandfold with the coming of gloaming over the land.

  Now that hour was to hand, but tonight there were no cocoa dregs or crumbs of biscuit, just a strange, sickly raw odour that he was well enough used to by now, though he didn’t like it any more than he liked the changes that were taking place in his once happy routine.

  His flanks heaved in a long, drawn-out sigh which came out through his nose and stirred a wisp of his master’s hair. But there was no response, even though he whimpered pitifully at the back of his throat and pawed the pillow beneath that dark, silent, unresponsive head that was just inches from his own.

  All evening long the cats had come and gone from the window; now two of them arrived back from some nocturnal prowl, Tib carrying a mouse in her jaws which Tub, the boss cat, plainly coveted if her flashing paws and threatening growls were anything to go by.

  But for once Tib was having none of it. Fighting for her rights in no mean manner she spat vitriol at the other cat, her flattened ears plainly displaying her displeasure.

  In the end Tub retreated, green eyes flashing, tail swishing angrily. For a few minutes she roamed aimlessly about the room, before coming back to stand beside the table and raise her twitching pink nostrils upwards to savour fully the smell of Mutt’s bone lying on its plate on the table.

  After a few more minutes of padding round the chairs she leapt up on one, from there to the table. Mutt was instantly alert. Sitting up straight, he watched the cat stalking over the table top towards his bone. Reaching it she sniffed, licked, her purrs reverberating in the silence.

  A warning growl rose in Mutt’s throat. The cat glanced up, showed her fangs in a fierce hiss, one paw uplifted, spread claws ready to flash out if the dog’s nose so much as came near the table. But before Mutt could make a move, Tab arrived on the scene, knocking over a vase on the sill on her upward leap. It clattered and rolled, startling Tub who sprang back, straight into the oil lamp sitting on the table. Over it went, spilling paraffin onto the pillows which quickly absorbed it. There was a loud whoosh as the bedding ignited. Within minutes clouds of dense, foul-smelling smoke filled the kitchen. The cats scattered, Mutt leapt to the window and with his nose to the opening began to bark frantically, his paws scrabbling against the paintwork as if he was trying to escape. But he could have done that easily enough if he had wanted to. It was a loose sash. He just had to wriggle his head through the gap and push upwards with his shoulders as he had done several times that summer in the pursuit of certain secret missions that not even his master knew about. But that was in happier days. Now he didn’t want to escape, he had to stay, stay close to that inert figure who was groaning a little in his sleep as if sensing danger.

  For fully two minutes Mutt barked, before withdrawing his head from the sash and padding back to the armchair at the fire where he grabbed the blankets in his teeth and began pulling. But it was no use. The smoke was filling his lungs, making him dizzy. Creeping back up on the chair he pressed his body close to his master’s, placed his paws round the beloved neck and cooried in close, all the while whimpering and whining.

  Mark stirred, came awake for a few, short, terrifying seconds. He opened his mouth to cry out. The black smoke billowed, seared his throat, flooded his lungs – he cried out once more – and then there was silence.

  Dodie hurried along the cliff road from Nigg, anxious to be home in order to give his adored cow her potach of oats. He had been visiting Jack the Light, and the old man had kept him later than usual showing him some pieces of natural sculpture that he had picked up on the beach. In the old days Dodie would have lingered to the last, unwilling to abandon warmth and comforts that were so sorely lacking in his own cottage. But things were different now. With the exception of Ealasaid, he had never been so proud of anything as he was of his new house. He had even grown quite domesticated, instructing visitors to wipe their feet on the mat at the door and, ‘no’ to be laying anything on the furniture that might mark it’.

  Mairi kept the place spick and span and he made sure it stayed that way, for the first time in his life actually going to the drastic lengths of exchanging his Wellingtons in the porch for a pair of cosy slippers that had ‘grown too wee for Wullie’ but fitted Dodie’s feet perfectly as, outside of his clumsy boots, they were smaller than anybody might have supposed and weren’t smelling nearly so bad these days either.

  Now Dodie was pleased to get home to his slippers and his fire and the tasty supper Mairi always had waiting for him on top of the range. With all these undoubted comforts in his life he had taken once again to painting his stones, with Barra popping in now and then to encourage him and, lately, to demonstrate patiently the use of watercolours. So keen was he to learn that he often sat for an hour or so before bed, painstakingly trying to copy all the things Barra had shown him, and tonight he was anxious to get out his paints as soon as he possibly could.

  Much like the Dodie he had been before sadness and illness had overtaken him, his loping stride carrying him swiftly along the treacherous cliff road, with never a glance to the right or the left of him since, at this time of night, with gloaming shrouding the landscape and the hill peaks glowering under the darkening sky, less fanciful minds than his were alert to the possibilities of spooks and bogles hiding among the heather knolls, not to mention water witches and warty green hags that might likely rise shrieking from the depths of the ocean to carry off unwary humans in their slimy clutches.

  A growl of thunder sounded amongst the hills, making Dodie jump and hurry along faster. He had travelled the island all his life, in all weathers and at all hours, yet never had he become immune to the fears wrought by darkness, and he always carried with him a tiny silver cross left to him by his mother. It was his good luck charm and he fingered it now in his big, roomy pocket, and bent his head against the first drops of rain falling from the leaden sky.

  Thunder clapped above him, lightning seared the heavens, in minutes the burns were foaming down through the heather to go gushing into the sea far below.

  The first of the village houses hove into view, the doctor’s house, dark, lifeless, sodden hydrangea bushes nodding big, pale heads in the gloom – automatically he turned his head, instinctively seeking out the warm, welcoming lights of the Manse up there on the Hillock – but it too was in darkness. He was terrified suddenly to hear the frantic barking of a dog drifting down, a ghost bark rising above the teeming rain, the thunder, the swollen burns.

  He hurried on faster, anxious to shake off the deep feeling of doom that seemed to linger in that quiet spot with the black-eyed houses on either side of him and the thundering wail of the Well o’ Weeping surging up from the hidden depths of lonely Burg Bay . . .

  The dog had stopped barking. Pausing abruptly, Dodie forced himself to glance up at the Manse. It was darker there than a
nywhere else, a strange grey moving darkness that billowed and drifted as if from the hellish wastes of some witch’s fire – fire and smoke – the two connected in the dim regions of his slow-thinking mind. He could smell the smoke now, awful, acrid fumes that rose in clouds to merge with the lowering sky.

  ‘Mr James,’ he whispered. He fingered his cross again. Just to know that it was there, in his pocket, gave him courage. His feet took flight, slithering, slipping on the wet ground but carrying him upwards just the same. He took the sheep track to the gate set in the walled garden and was at the house in minutes. Without hesitation he plunged inside and although there was no sound from the dog now, instinct led Dodie to the kitchen, the room in which he had often sat with the minister, enjoying a strupak and sharing a ‘fill o’ baccy’ from the roomy leather pouch that was always kept handy on the mantelpiece.

  He threw open the door to be met immediately by belching black smoke that rushed out to envelop him so that it both blinded and choked him.

  ‘Mr James!’ he cried out in terror. Falling onto his knees he crawled into the room, unwittingly following the most sensible course in a smoke-filled atmosphere. Gasping and retching, he reached the fireplace and began hauling at the senseless figure in the chair. With all the might of his wiry frame he dragged the minister to the door, crawling backwards all the time, slowly, painfully, his heart pounding in his chest.

  Shona and Tina arrived as he reached the kitchen door and between them they got both Dodie and Mark outside, away from the smoke now gushing through the front door. Dodie tottered and fell onto his knees on the sodden grass but he waved the women away from him and gasped, ‘The minister, see to him.’