Storm Over Rhanna

by Christine Marion Fraser

  Megan stood up. ‘I’ll go over to Mo Dhachaidh right away, I have to collect Muff anyway – and I simply must find out where Mark is.’

  She rushed out of the room leaving Lachlan and Phebie to look at one another.

  ‘She’s found out at last where her heart lies,’ said Lachlan pensively.

  ‘Ay, too late I’m thinking,’ nodded Phebie and sighed.

  A scant welcome awaited Megan at Mo Dhachaidh. Niall was out, Ellie, Muff and Sporran away with him, the babies were asleep in their big pram in the garden, one at the top, the other at the bottom, nine-month-old bundles of mischief who looked as if they had fallen asleep in mid-play, Joy with her frilly bottom upturned to the sky, Joseph on his knees, sucking his thumb and smiling.

  No such pleasant expression was on his mother’s face at sight of the visitor.

  ‘It’s yourself!’ was her curt greeting. ‘What happened? Did you get tired playing yourself? Or did you and your playboy friend have another row?’

  ‘As a matter of fact I spent my entire holiday with my parents and brother in Wales,’ returned Megan quietly, appalled at the coldness of her reception. ‘When I left here, Steve and I parted company and I haven’t seen him since.’

  Shona tossed her fiery head. ‘Och well, I wouldny worry too much. He might just pop up again in the next storm. The first should be approaching any day now and I’m sure the Rhanna lifeboat team are standing by ready. We might be lucky this time and not lose a single man which is just as well as good men are gey thin on the ground. Ministers are maybe different, they’re perhaps more expendable, I’m sure we’ll find another to take Mark’s place . . .’

  ‘Shona, stop that!’ cried Megan, almost in tears. ‘Just who do you think you are to talk to me that way?’

  Shona seated herself in her favourite chair and took her time answering, nonchalantly rocking herself back and forth, deliberately dispensing with courtesy and omitting to invite the visitor to take a seat also. With a studied air of indifference, she put her hand up to her mouth and yawned before saying with maddening calm, ‘I’m the woman who thought you were worth having for a friend but I’m sorry to say my judgement on that score was sadly wanting.’

  Megan threw herself down on a chair opposite Shona’s simply because her legs were shaking so much beneath her that she couldn’t trust her weight on them a minute longer.

  ‘Listen, Shona,’ she said softly, pleadingly, ‘I have to know where Mark is, I must see him – oh, dear God,’ she bit her lip, ‘I can hardly bear to think of the fire – of the torture he must have suffered losing his dog, I feel it’s all my fault, that I’m to blame for everything. At least if I could speak to him I could tell him how sorry I am, how much I hate myself for everything that ever happened this summer. I know you can tell me where he is, if not I’ll go to Tina and get it from her.’

  ‘Tina won’t tell you anything,’ Shona spoke quietly but with absolute conviction. ‘She’s devoted to Mark and would die for him. Neither she nor I will breathe a word to anyone . . .’ Her brilliant blue eyes regarded the other woman consideringly. ‘If I thought it would help him I believe I might break the promise I made no’ to let anyone find him – far less you. But telling you won’t help, you’ve hurt him enough already and just now he canny take any more heartache.’

  ‘Shona, you must believe me when I tell you I love Mark, I really love him. These weeks away from him made me see how much.’

  ‘It’s too late for that,’ Shona cried passionately. ‘You think you can come creeping back here when it suits you, to find him waiting with open arms, ready to forgive and forget all, but life isn’t that simple, Megan. Mark is very much a flesh and blood man and he had to stand by, watching you and Steve playing around all summer long . . .’

  Megan stood up, agitated and near to tears. ‘Playing around, was that how it looked? I spent the whole summer fending Steve off once I realized the kind of man he really was. At first I was still living in a fool’s paradise but that didn’t last. He was so shallow and vain, so much in love with himself he could never love any woman. He was jealous of Mark, I saw his jealousy and his selfishness that day we went to see old Dodie. Mark was so kind and gentle while all Steve could do was behave like a spoilt child. He took to drinking and nagging on about Mark till I thought I would go mad. That day in Glen Fallan, the day of the fight, I had told Steve it was over between him and me, later he followed me, saw me with Mark and goaded Mark into hitting him. I knew then I had to get him away from Rhanna before he could cause more trouble.’

  ‘But surely you didn’t have to leave aboard the yacht! Everyone thought you were going away with him, Mark more than anyone.’

  ‘Steve had to save his face. He told me if I didn’t leave with him he would see to it that Mark never preached again. Believe me, he was quite capable of carrying out his threats. He wanted to punish me as well as Mark – and he succeeded so well this is the result – besides . . .’ she sounded exhausted suddenly, ‘I needed to get away and would have gone anyway. I felt as if I was being torn in two, Mark pulling one way, Steve the other, everyone talking behind my back and pointing – for God’s sake, Shona,’ she beseeched wearily, ‘haven’t you ever made mistakes in your own life? Love is such a betraying emotion it can blind you and paralyse you with its power so that often you don’t know what’s real and what isn’t – that’s how it was with me and Steve. I thought I loved him till Mark came into my life and opened my eyes to what real love is all about.’

  In the face of such heart-rending sincerity, Shona couldn’t maintain her cool front any longer. ‘Oh, Megan,’ she sighed, ‘you’re a devious besom and know just how to get round people. Of course I’ve made mistakes, I think nearly everyone has when it comes to human relationships. You’ve managed to sneak round me but that doesny mean I’m going to tell you where Mark is – no’ just yet. The Church has been very good to him. John Grey naturally had to report what was going on and came to me to find out how he could get in touch with Mark. With the exception of Tina, he is the only other person on the island who knows what’s happened. He, and all of Mark’s clergy friends from Glasgow and elsewhere have been to see Mark and have given him all the support they can. The Church has been very understanding and certainly is not prepared to let him go because he has proved that he’s as human as the next man, so Steven Saunders could have cliped all he liked and it wouldn’t have made any difference.

  ‘But these are the only people Mark wants to see just now. The fire at the Manse and the loss o’ his darling dog were the last straws for him. I go to see him whenever I can, and when I think he’s ready for you I’ll talk about you – but no’ before.’

  Megan gave a watery smile. ‘I suppose that’s better than nothing.’

  ‘Indeed it is, where there’s life there’s hope and now sit yourself down and I’ll get us a cuppy, all this talk has made me drouthy and besides –’ the dimples returned to her cheeks – ‘you and I have a lot o’ catching up to do. People may fade and falter a little but gossip never dies. Wait till you hear about the dentist mannie and Miss Bird – no’ to mention the teeth sorting station – oh, and something else you’ll never guess . . .’

  She skipped over to the sink to fill the kettle. Megan sat back, a small hope burning in her breast, feeble as a candle flame to be sure but there just the same – and far, far better than the icy lump that had lain in her heart since learning that Mark James was no longer of the island.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Old Joe was dying, a beautiful old man, his hair a silvery halo round his head and his long, flowing beard brushed and smoothed over the counterpane. He was very frail in his hundred-and-sixth year, but there was a wonderful strength of character in his face and a light in his sea-green eyes that made him seem eternally young.

  ‘The time has come, lass,’ he told Grace, taking her dainty hand in his square palm and giving it a tender squeeze.

  ‘That it has, Joe my man.’ She tried to sound st
rong, but now that his hour was at hand she couldn’t keep a tremor from her voice.

  ‘I want the man o’ God, Grace,’ Old Joe spoke urgently, ‘there is no one else I would trust to see me safely over to the other side. You see, Grace,’ he held her hand tighter, ‘now that my hour is nigh I have to confess to feelin’ a wee bittie feart and Mr James is such a good, strong lad I just know I will be safe wi’ him in my last breath.’

  Grace said nothing. She couldn’t tell her darling old man that it might not be possible to get the minister to come back to Rhanna, if indeed she had even known where he was, but keeping her doubts to herself she went from the room to seek out Captain Mac and speak to him of her husband’s last wishes.

  ‘I’ll get a hold o’ Shona McLachlan,’ Captain Mac said at once, ‘she knows where Mr James is.’

  Shona listened to what he had to say, a soft little smile curving her mouth. Promising to do what she could, she waited till Mac was safely outside before going to pick up the phone and dial a number. A voice spoke at the other end, a deep, calm untroubled voice belonging to a man who loved a certain old sailor and who had vowed a long time ago to have the honour of seeing that same old man safely across the great divide to his eternal rest.

  Old Joe was very weak. He wanted nothing more than to close his eyes and allow himself the wonderful luxury of just slipping away, without fuss or bother. But he and Grace had made too many plans for him to disappoint her by simply passing away without a word – and besides, he hadn’t lived this long through faintness of heart, he was made of the stuff that had always ridden out the roughest of life’s storms and he was buggered if he would allow himself just to slip quietly beneath the waves without first making a final bloody great splash of it, so when Tam came in to see him, cap in hand and a ‘carpet slipper’ expression on his face as the old man put it to himself, he seized a hold of Tam’s cuff and asked if the whisky had been brought into the parlour for the funeral repast.

  ‘That it has, Joe,’ Tam said in a breathy whisper.

  ‘And a damty lot o’ good it will do me! Lyin’ here dead and never a drop to wet my thrapple. Bring it in here – I want to share in my own funeral feast while all my faculties are in good workin’ order.’

  The word went round the island like wildfire, and that same evening the steamer slipped into harbour with hardly a soul to witness her arrival except for Niall and Shona, who were there to shake warmly the hand of a tall, dark man and take him back to Laigmhor where he was to stay for as long as he wanted.

  The funeral repast was in full swing. All through that long, strange night the islanders came to drink a toast to Joe and to wish him God speed on his last journey. It was the most unusual event the island had ever seen and it was also the most memorable. Old Joe had even insisted that Bob play his fiddle and Torquill his pipes and he lay in bed, surrounded by his friends, his rheumy fingers tapping out the well-loved tunes, his whisky glass held on his chest, his eyes as brilliantly alive as they had been in his younger days when he had held his fireside audiences enthralled with his wonderous tales.

  ‘Do my teeths look alright, Grace?’ he asked at one point.

  ‘Ay, they look just grand, Joe,’ she assured huskily. ‘’Tis just a pity the dentist mannie is no’ here to see them, though on the other hand ’tis maybe just as well for he would be mad wi’ envy to see that your smile is much, much brighter than his own.’

  At various intervals, when Torquill or Todd ran out of breath and Bob out of steam, the womenfolk gathered to sing sea shanties in Gaelic and as the pure sound of their united voices rose up, the ocean seemed to beat upon the shore as if calling, calling, to an old sailor who had once ridden free on its breast.

  Into this almost festive atmosphere came Mark James, thinner than anyone remembered, a sprinkling of white in his blue-black hair, his cheekbones honed to distinguished prominence, his jacket sitting too loose about his shoulders – but the warm smile of him was still the same as were the depths of eager, laughing life in those wonderful eyes when he looked around at all the familiar faces he had yearned to see again yet had rebelled against – in case they wouldn’t smile the smiles of welcome he so badly needed to make him feel he had at last come home.

  A short, stunned silence accompanied his entry, then, ‘’Tis the man o’ God!’ Old Joe whispered from his bed, his voice husky with all the emotions he had been bottling up all night long.

  ‘Mr James! Och, ’tis a bonny sight you are just.’ Kate stepped forward, and without reserve of any sort she drew him to her and hugged him soundly.

  After that he was surrounded by such genuine warmth that there were tears in his eyes when he finally went over to the bed to wrap Old Joe to his breast and murmur a few quiet words into his ear.

  Night passed away but it didn’t take the old man with it. When the pearly ghost of dawn spread above the horizon he was sitting up in bed drinking tea, rosy of cheek and sparkling of eye and never a hint to show that his heartbeat faltered within him and would have stopped long ago had it not been for the iron will that kept him nodding and smiling to all who came and went.

  The procession seemed endless, children came to throw their arms about him and kiss him, along with all the ‘bairnies’ of yesterday into whose ears the grand old man had poured his timeless fables.

  ‘This is what Grace meant,’ Kate sniffed tearfully to Molly, ‘she said her man would be the first on the island to smile a farewell to his friends and she was right – just look at the bodach, lookin’ as if he was goin’ away on a world cruise instead o’ his grave. Betimes I could have wrung his thrawn auld neck but now – och, I’ll miss him sore.’

  She rushed away to weep in private and soon after that, just a few close friends and Mark James were left sitting at the parlour window watching the incredible peace of a Hebridean morning unfolding before their vision.

  For a short while Old Joe and Aunt Grace were alone in the bedroom, holding hands, crying a little. ‘These last months wi’ you were the best o’ my life, lass,’ he told her in a whisper.

  ‘As mine were wi’ you, my bonny dear Old Joe,’ she murmured tearfully.

  After that they didn’t speak. She held him to her bosom, happed him round with her love, stroked his silvery hair till he shuddered a bit and said weakly, ‘Send for the man o’ God, the time has come, Grace.’

  Grace signalled to Tam who was standing just outside the door. He scurried quickly ben the parlour and Mark rose from the window. It was light and bright outside, a perfect day for old men to sit on the harbour wall and watch the world gliding serenely by.

  A short while later Old Joe died in Mark’s arms, Grace’s head on his breast, her hand held tight over his as his life ebbed gently away. To the very last his hand remained strong in hers, then it slackened, slid away, and she knew her dear Old Joe was gone from her.

  ‘I’ll just see to him, Mr James, if you don’t mind,’ she said with great dignity.

  ‘Ay, Grace, I understand.’

  Left alone she arranged her man, combed his beard over the quilt top, crossed his hands, one over the other, put his pipe and his baccy neatly by the bedside as she had done every morning since he had taken to rising later and later in the day. He had died with a slight smile tilting the corners of his generous mouth, as it had done in life when all his awakenings had been blithe and busy. Bending down, she kissed that smile and just for a moment she seemed to hear the sea rushing and hurrying, then receding to a quieter tempo as if it was now lapping the distant shore of a far island unoccupied by mortal man – but perhaps, fancifully, inhabited by beautiful mermaids.

  A golden sun lit the eastern sky as Old Joe’s coffin was lowered into the earth. It flooded the kirkyard, bathed the old church in a mellow hue, shone on the countless mourners who filled the cemetery and spilled out onto the Hillock. The voice of Mark James rose up, resonant, sincere, the deep, dark timbre of it reaching every corner, filling every space in and around the time-worn stones, sending an old s
ailor sailing away and beyond life’s seas with words that plucked the heartstrings.

  ‘None of us will ever forget how he lived, his humour, his wit, his infectious joy which he spread around him with a generosity that was boundless,’ Mark paused and smiled at Aunt Grace who was standing nearby, ‘but more, will any of us here ever forget that joyous day of his wedding, to a lady whose heart was as big as his own, she gave him happiness beyond compare and a strength that made his last hours on earth ones that none of us will ever forget. We all shared in his happy life but thanks to both him and her we were also allowed the unique experience of sharing in his death. Will any of us here cease to remember his funeral repast? How he sat up in bed and joined in it with us? Can you ever begin to imagine the strength of will that kept him going through that long night and into the next day? A man half his age might never have made it but our Joe was inimitable among mortals and we who had the honour of sharing his life and his death with him couldn’t fail to be the richer for that experience.

  ‘He is gone, yet he is with us, he will live on in the hearts and minds of every man, woman, and child on this island. He was a story-teller, a seanachaidh, one of the best of a grand old order that knew its origins in the dim mists of a past he never allowed us to forget. He breathed life into his mermaids, his fairies and his witches, he made them live for us and enriched our lives by keeping them alive in our minds. We need fairy-tales in our lives, God knows,’ his keen gaze swept the throng, ‘for without them we smother and die in the dull fog of reality. God will bless him and keep him, nothing could be surer than that. Men like Joe earn their place in heaven by giving us a little bit of it while we are still here on this earth.’

  No one would ever forget that day or Mark James standing so tall and commanding against the gold-tinted sky, not clad in his robes but in a dark suit, yet every inch a minister for all that; no one would forget the October leaves skirling over the dark earth, the glow in the heavens, the strange sad feeling born of life and of death, the powerful sensation that an old man still moved among them, grinning his roguish grin and wondering aloud if that was a seal out there on the rocks or maybe, ‘a maid o’ the sea wi’ naught but her long, golden tresses to cover her birthday suit’.