Return To Rhanna

by Christine Marion Fraser

  In minutes the shop was empty except for Robbie and Barra who stood looking at one another for a few shy moments before Robbie crooked his arm with a flourish and invited his new wife to walk with him to the pier.

  The McKenzies and the McLachlans were standing at the front of the crowd on the pier, together with Ruth and Lorn who was holding onto little Lorna, now a fair-haired toddler with rosy cheeks and huge violet eyes like her mother’s. She was clapping her hands as if sensing the excitement engendered by the arrival of this particular boat. To those who most eagerly awaited it the procedure of getting the steamer alongside the pier seemed to take even more time than usual and they scanned the deck with anxious eyes, childishly vying with one another to see who would be the first to spot the long awaited arrivals.

  The harbour was a bustle that day with the fishermen waiting beside their lobster boxes ready for shipment to Oban, and various parked vehicles standing by ready to collect mail and provisions.

  Fergus, trying to be calm, lit his pipe with slow deliberation. Lorna standing by watching the matches blowing out one by one in the breeze.

  ‘Light,’ she nodded in a delightfully quaint fashion and importantly she teetered over to Captain Mac and pulled his sleeve. ‘Light – Gwanpa.’ She pointed back then took Mac by the sleeve and guided him over to where Fergus stood. ‘Get light,’ she said again. Mac beamed and taking out his lighter held it to Fergus’s pipe which was puffing away in no time. Mac shook his head. ‘The wee one is lookin’ after you, McKenzie. She will never see you stuck, you can be sure o’ that.’

  Fergus crouched down to his granddaughter and looked into her small face. Her gaze followed the blue wisp of smoke from his pipe, her pearly teeth showed in wonder. He touched the top of her silky head. It was warm with sunshine, fragile, yet able to withstand the numerous bumps of childhood; she was barely eighteen months old, small-boned, dainty, fair skin browned by the summer sun; she was still a baby, unsteady on her legs, near enough to the breast to still need a comforting bottle to send her to sleep – yet she was so wise, this dear, tiny infant. Already she was aware that there were certain things he couldn’t manage to do with just one arm and she had taken it upon her infant shoulders to protect his interests – like Ellie. The notion came unbidden to his mind and his heart twisted with renewed grief for the child who had so enriched his life. How he missed her still. Sometimes he fancied he heard her quick steps on the cobbled yard and expected her to come into the kitchen at any moment, her light child’s voice greeting him or perhaps scolding him because his shoelaces were undone. She had filled all their lives with a rare and precious light and now that she was gone the world was a blacker place – yet – he looked again at Lorna and in some strange way he felt that Ellie’s light would never be extinguished – not when babies like Lorna still surrounded him, in their innocent way filling voids he had thought could never be filled. She was playing with his hair, twisting the black curls round her dimpled fingers and he crushed her tiny body to his hard chest, pressing his lips to her hair, overwhelmed suddenly by the knowledge that this was Lewis’s child. Everyone accepted her as Lorn’s, an easy thing to do when the brothers had been so alike, but the fact remained, she was, and always would be the daughter that Lewis had never lived to see . . . he glanced up and caught Lorn watching him, Lorn of the sensitive soul and the brave heart who had taken his brother’s child and called her his own.

  ‘She’s a fine babby,’ Fergus said softly. ‘You must be proud to be her father.’

  Lorn frowned slightly. ‘Ay, I am, at the beginning I used to think of her as Lewis’s but now she’s more mine than my own –’ he relaxed and smiled, ‘or rather the ones I have yet to have. She will never take second place to any that are still to be—’ He drew Ruth to him and lovingly patted the swelling mound of her belly while she quickly looked round to make sure no one had seen the action. He hugged her and grinned, ‘Why shouldn’t I pat the bum of our baby? It makes no difference, inside or out, and come next week we ought to be having a look at the real thing.’

  Fergus smiled. ‘It’s the baby season right enough. What do you think of your sister, eh?’

  ‘I think she’s done damned well and deserves the miracle that’s happened to her.’

  ‘Ay, it is a miracle,’ Fergus conceded. ‘There has been some force at work beyond our ken and, by God, it will help to make up for so much that’s been taken away from us.’

  The gangplank was being lowered, the passengers starting to stream down – and in their midst was the couple that everyone was waiting to see, Niall and Shona, their faces alight, Niall treading carefully, mindful of the tiny white bundle he carried. As soon as he set foot on the pier he was surrounded, cries of congratulation ringing in his ears.

  Ruth rushed forward to hug Shona who was thin after the birth of her daughter, but well looking, her radiant eyes shining in her flushed face.

  ‘She’s beautiful, Shona,’ said Ruth, taking a peep at the little face inside the shawl, ‘I think I’ll have to steal her away from you . . .’ She stopped short, horrified at herself but Shona just laughed and said quietly, ‘Och, Ruth, you mustny feel you always have to watch what you say. That daft part of me is dead now – and I might just take you up on your offer. Beautiful she may be but she can bawl with the best of them—’ Laughingly she eyed Ruth’s belly. ‘Wait till you get rid of that and we can have quite a time looking after one another’s bairns.’

  The respective families were having trouble getting to their offspring, but finally managed to push their way through, Fergus to fold his daughter to his chest where she lay briefly, adoring the big man who was her father as she had adored him all through her life. There was so much to say, too much noise to say it in. Lachlan, tanned and healthy looking after a recent holiday, was standing behind Fergus, Kirsteen and Phebie crowding round at his back, as if they were waiting in a queue outside Merry Mary’s. Shona giggled at sight of their eager faces and let out an exaggerated shriek as they descended on her. Lorn embraced her solemnly and briefly, she touched his thick, waving hair, expecting him to protest and move away but he surprised her by remaining where he was, his voice warm with sincerity when he told her, ‘I’m glad for you, Shona, I feel now that you’ll truly settle down to your life here on Rhanna.’ The maturity of his words came as rather a shock to her and she realized that this young brother of hers was no longer the boy she took him for. Soon he would be twenty-one, yet manhood had come to him earlier, the responsibilities of marriage had seen to that. She felt a little sad at the knowledge and wondered afresh if it had been good for him to have grown up so quickly till she remembered she herself had married at eighteen and had never regretted a moment of it.

  ‘Ay, Lorn, I will that,’ she answered steadily, ‘I’ll be much too busy to play at houses – this wee rascal will see to that.’

  Babbie’s red head burst into view, her hat knocked awry. She descended breathlessly on her friend and Shona giggled as she eyed her hat. ‘Babbie Büttger, you grow more like Biddy every day – even your hat is squinty the way hers used to be.’

  Babbie patted her head absently, her green eyes dancing. ‘Is it? Ach well, it never did fit right – it’s time I had a new one.’ She pulled it off and tossed it high in the air.

  A gust of wind caught it and blew it into the sea and Shona choked with glee. ‘What on earth did you do that for?’ she asked.

  ‘Ach, I felt like it – everyone’s so happy today, the excitement of it all has gone to my head.’

  ‘You’re as daft as ever you were, too bad I won’t be able to take you up on that offer you made a whily back. It would have been fun coming with you as your assistant.’

  ‘Fibber! You wouldn’t change what you have for the world and fine you know it.’

  ‘Ach, I know, I just wondered, wouldn’t you have liked—?’

  ‘No,’ Babbie was adamant. ‘It’s a bitty late now, but Anton and me are happy as we are. I’m kept too busy attending the squal
ling infants and often their squalling mothers without wanting the doubtful joys of having them bawling in my lugs when all I want is a good night’s sleep – anyway, it’s nature’s way of balancing the odds. Without folk like me there would be nobody to see the generations into the world . . .’

  ‘Babbie! Babbie!’ One of the village youngsters was tugging anxiously at her sleeve. ‘Mammy has pains in her belly, she sent me to fetch you!’

  Babbie threw Shona a laughing glance and followed the youngster along the harbour to a cottage which sparkled white against the tawny slopes of Sgurr Nan Ruadh. Shona gazed upwards, a quiet appreciation flooding her soul. The hills were slumbering peacefully against a blue sky daubed with lumps of cotton wool clouds; there was still a trace of summer green on the moors but the bracken was a blaze of yellow and orange amidst the purple of the heather; the tang of autumn was sharp in the air blending with the peat smoke which drifted lazily above the chimneys, billowing out to form a blue haze against the bronze of the hills. Niall handed her the baby and the incredulous wonder that had swamped her being from the moment she discovered she was pregnant, surged anew inside her breast. It was a child born of pure love, a miracle which she could hardly believe during all the long months of waiting. Now the reality of the tiny girl, with her perfect features and downy hair glinting fair in the sun’s rays, was the answer to all her prayers and she felt that as long as she lived she could never ask for more out of life.

  Lachlan was taking her arm, a deep joy in his brown eyes as he gazed upon the small new face of his granddaughter. ‘C’mon, Shona, mo ghaoil,’ he said softly. ‘You’ve had enough excitement for one day, it’s time you and the wee one came home.’

  Early that evening she met Mark James down by the shore near the Manse. The sea was calm with the dying sun dappling the Sound of Rhanna to gold.

  ‘I heard that you had come home today,’ he greeted her as she came over the shingle towards him, ‘but I didn’t expect to see you out and about so soon.’

  ‘I was hoping to see you,’ she said frankly, ‘to thank you.’

  ‘To thank me?’

  ‘Ay, for everything you did for me that day you came to me at Mo Dhachaidh – it was you who brought me to my senses and made me realize how much I had left to me that was good and precious.’

  ‘And now?’

  ‘Now I feel that I’ve been given another chance – that in some wonderful way Ellie has been given back to me.’

  His eyes were more blue than grey just then, reflecting the pure dark blue of the October sky over the eastern hills. ‘She’s the miracle you needed?’ His voice was low.

  ‘Ay, you said they happened and you were right – oh how right you were – my dear, dear Mark.’

  He looked long at her, saying nothing, his expression so deep she felt as if she was drowning.

  ‘Are you – happy – happier than you were?’ she asked rather fearfully, knowing that if he was to indicate a negative reply it would be more than she could bear – yet – she had to know, to hear the answer from his own lips.

  His expression was suddenly withdrawn, his eyes hooded, the dark curling lashes that had so fascinated her, drawn down like blinds shutting out the light.

  ‘I am happy,’ he said eventually, ‘I’ve been accepted here – I love the place – the people. I think I can safely say I have found a quiet little niche into which I fit nicely.’ He looked directly at her again, the full battery of his keen smoky gaze pouring into her heart. ‘And I have found true friends, the McLachlans, the McKenzies, Babbie, Anton, John and Hannah Grey – and best of all I have you, my dear, dear Shona. To my dying day I will look upon you as the woman who showed me light when there was darkness, who in coming out of your own sorrow helped me to emerge from mine.’

  ‘Oh, but—’ she cried out but he had turned away, his back straight, his shoulders set resolutely.

  ‘I’ll be in kirk – this Sabbath!’ she called after him. He nodded but didn’t look back and she watched as he walked away, a tall dark figure with a strength in his bearing that came not from his heart but his soul.

  ‘God bless you, Mark James,’ she murmured huskily and wasn’t surprised to feel a trickle of tears lying upon her cheeks. She too turned away and didn’t look back as she walked home to Mo Dhachaidh – and Niall.

  Very early the next morning she and Niall rose to keep a tryst with dawn, wrapping the baby up warmly and walking with her to the slopes of Ben Machrie where cool shadows lay over the sleeping corries. It was a pilgrimage that they had planned before their child’s birth, instigated by Shona remembering something Mirabelle had told her a long time ago. She had been too young then to take in the full import of the old housekeeper’s convictions but she recalled her fascination as she had listened to Mirabelle telling her, ‘If ever you have a wee lassie o’ your own take her up to the hills and hold her face towards the new day and then baptize her wi’ the morning dew. She will live to see many a dawn breaking over the morning o’ her life and you can be assured she will grow to have a nature as bright as the sunshine itself.’

  Shona had forgotten these words when Ellie was born but they had come back to her suddenly and insistently during her pregnancy and she had told Niall about them. He hadn’t laughed but instead had said seriously, ‘If Mirabelle said it, it canny be wrong. When the bairn comes we’ll do just as she told you all these years ago.’

  Now they walked hand in hand to the highest spot of the windblown hill where a blinding silvery light streaked the sky behind and the air was sharp and clear as crystal. Looking down they could see for miles, the quiet smoky grey of the morning sea; the huddle of tiny white houses of Portcull; the moors stretching to the edge of the ocean. They looked at each other and smiled and as the quivering edge of the sun rose up on the distant horizon they lifted up the baby so that her face was to the morning and then they knelt on the ground and touched her smooth brow with the pearly dew from the purple heather.

  ‘I baptize you Ellie Dawn McLachlan,’ Niall’s voice rang out clearly.

  ‘And may God grant you a long and happy life,’ Shona added, holding the baby’s face close to her own, kissing the satin-smooth cheeks. Ellie Dawn McLachlan yawned widely then pursed her lips into a rosebud ball. Shona’s laughter rang out and as it bounced against the hilltops, echoing and re-echoing, she had the strangest notion that it was Ellie’s laugh which came back again and again, the joy of it ringing round all the hills and mountains that the world contained.

  She glanced upwards, her heart bursting with so much happiness she knew that all things were possible, that all the life contained in heaven and earth was theirs in those moments of wondrous joy – and she didn’t think it odd to see a tiny spectre moving over the face of the hills, coming towards them, arms outstretched as if to embrace the clean dawn washing over the sky, laughter pealing like a crystal bell, ringing, ringing in the crisp air, hiding in the corries, emerging again like a child playing hide and seek with parents who were getting a wee bit past it.

  Niall took Shona’s hand and they began to move away, feeling they were taking, not leaving, the sprite who had given them so much.

  As they walked with their baby over the hillside to home, they smiled at each other again, a secretive smile, while far in the valleys behind them a wisp of cloud floated, and the singing wind, which might have belonged to the voice of a child, danced and played over the wide, wild spaces of the hills and glens of Rhanna.