Rhanna

by Christine Marion Fraser

  Something flapped on the road far below and she looked down to see Niall’s mother hurrying along in the direction of the woods near the Hillock. Shona wondered where she was going and wished she had been near the woods to talk to Phebie whom she liked very much. Next to Mirabelle, Phebie was her favourite woman person. Next to her father and Hamish, she loved Lachlan. He was like a big boy, he was so eager about everything. Once he had given Shona and Mirabelle a lift to Burnbreddie in his trap. Mirabelle had been going to see the laird’s wife about cushion covers she had been asked to do for the sitting-room. Mirabelle hadn’t been keen on the task because she had so little time, but she was an expert needle-woman and Madam Balfour insisted she was the only person fit for the job. There was going to be another house party soon with London people coming and new chair covers were a must.

  Dr McLachlan had joked all the way to Burnbreddie and it had been a lovely ride over the high cliff road. When they arrived at the house he had gone to seek out the laird who was having trouble with something Mirabelle called ‘piles’.

  Going home Shona had sat silent thinking about the laird’s piles till she could contain herself no longer and had asked the doctor to explain. Mirabelle’s face had reddened but Lachlan roared with laughter and for the rest of the journey explained with great delicacy about haemorrhoids. Shona was delighted that another discovery was adding to her growing list and announced her intention of telling her father but Lachlan’s face had clouded.

  ‘Better not mention it, lass. In fact don’t mention me at all.’

  He had gone off quickly and Shona turned to Mirabelle. ‘Why can’t I talk to Father about the doctor? He’s so kind and nice. I’m scunnered with all these secrets you big folk have!’

  ‘Ach, don’t worry your wee head,’ Mirabelle counselled. ‘You know your father’s a bit ramstam and he and the doctor don’t see eye to eye. Anyway – what a nice secret we have! We’ve had a ride in the doctor’s trap and not a soul knows but us.’

  Shona felt like a conspirator and her eyes gleamed. ‘Ach, you’re right, Mirabelle, we won’t tell a soul. The doctor’s our cronie even if he and Father don’t get along. But Father will find out anyway because that Madam Balfour will tell him. I don’t like her, do you, Mirabelle? She’s got wee beady eyes that take off your skin and tries to look into your mind and her mouth goes all tight and thin like a wee red dash made by a crayon. I don’t know why she bothers with lipstick because she has no mouth to put it on!’

  ‘Weesht wi’ you!’ said Mirabelle sternly but hid a smile because she shared the child’s sentiments. Sitting in the big formal parlour at Burnbreddie it had taken all her willpower to hold her tongue when told: ‘Make a good job of the covers, Mirabelle. My friends from England must see that we’re not all uncivilized on the Islands. I’ll pay you well for your trouble, of course. If you were my housekeeper you would get a handsome salary. At Laigmhor you are . . . let me see . . . cook, housekeeper and nurse and no doubt only get paid for housekeeping. Yes, my dear, you’re wasted and no mistake.’

  Mirabelle straightened, stuck out her bosom majestically and said in her dourest tones, ‘Money is not everything, my leddy, for there are those who are none too happy with the aid of it. I’ll bid you good day and see you get your covers in good time for your English friends to rest their backsides on. We must let the gentry see that we aren’t all peasants . . . eh, my leddy? There’s some can put to use the hands that God gave them.’

  Out she had flounced pulling Shona with her and an indignant ‘Well!’ had floated into the empty room.

  In due course Fergus heard about his housekeeper’s ‘impertinence’ and he had looked at the laird’s wife with contempt when she also mentioned that the doctor had brought Shona and Mirabelle in his trap. He had put his face very close to hers, and his black eyes were like steel.

  ‘And what is wrong with that? It’s a fair trek from Laigmhor. The doctor must have saved my housekeeper a hard walk over the hill for no doubt you would not have thought to send your groom to collect her.’ He had turned to go and, white-faced, she had scurried off to her husband to inform him that ‘something must be done about Fergus McKenzie’. But the laird had looked at her with bleary eyes and told her, ‘McKenzie’s a damned good farmer and you talk too much.’

  Shona knew about this because she’d heard Annie McKinnon who ‘worked to Bumbreddie’, telling Mirabelle and she hugged herself with glee at the thought of her father scaring the wits out of Madam Balfour.

  Her thoughts were interrupted by a scrunch of heather and Dodie loomed big and dark on the skyline. He was well over six feet, though a pronounced stoop belied the fact. Everyone said the stoop had something to do with the years he had walked Rhanna with his quick loping gait, his eyes glued to the ground and his neck thrust forward as if he expected to encounter some rare find at any moment. His skin was nut-brown, weatherbeaten by years of wind and sun. His grey-green eyes had an odd dreaming expression and his large mournful mouth rarely smiled. Brown broken teeth were stained forever by the juice of the tobacco he chewed continually. His most startling feature was his nose or rather the huge carbuncle that sprouted from its side. It was almost like a second nose, but nobbly, and shook with the movements of his head. Long arms hung down at his sides, useless-looking with short stubby fingers calloused from years of hard work, for he excelled in manual tasks and had worked on every croft and farm on Rhanna. Nobody knew if he had hair because his head was perpetually covered by a green frayed cap and his long lean body was draped in a threadbare raincoat that looked an impossibly inadequate garment to combat rain and wind, yet he refused kind offers of warmer outerwear. Enormous feet were encased in stout wellingtons worn winter and summer and the smell that emanated from them had incurred many a comment.

  ‘He breeah!’ Dodie greeted Shona mournfully but his eyes were alight with pleasure at seeing her. No matter the weather his greeting was always the same and even if it was pouring from the heavens people returned the greeting in kind because he was hurt as easily as a small boy and so inoffensive, but for his peculiar smell, that everyone liked him.

  ‘He breeah!’ said Shona. ‘Look at my new puppy, Dodie. Do you like her?’

  ‘Ach, but she is lovely just!’ He gathered the puppy tenderly in his big awkward hands and it sniffed eagerly, obviously enjoying the smells so offensive to humans. His love for animals had endeared him to Shona and when he worked at Laigmhor she followed him about asking questions that he answered with unending patience. The pup nibbled at one of his long ears and his eyes gleamed delightedly when a wet nose was poked into his neck. Shona smiled when she saw that the portion of skin that had been licked was decidedly paler than before.

  ‘I’m going home now, Dodie,’ she said, taking Tot before she disappeared inside the greasy raincoat.

  ‘I’ll just walk with you. I was coming over to ask your father if he was needin’ odd jobs done for I’m wantin’ to bring Ealasaid when she comes to season.’

  His candid way of speaking was no surprise to Shona. No matter the age of his listener he spoke freely about the facts of life with beguiling innocence. But Shona knew all about animals and their ‘seasons’. Most of the children on Rhanna did – one could not live on croft or farm without witnessing animals mating and giving birth.

  ‘Who’s Ealasaid?’ giggled Shona. ‘Are you courting then, Dodie?’

  Dodie’s face reddened, for while he could talk freely about the habits of animals with complete candour, he grew embarrassed if anyone hinted that he had an interest in the human female. As a result he was always being teased.

  ‘Ach Shona, my lassie,’ he chided gently. ‘Ealasaid is my cow. Did you not know I had a cow? A right bonny beast too.’

  ‘Yes, Dodie, I heard you had a cow and what a fine name I’m thinking. The fanciest I’ve heard for a cow.’

  ‘Well she’s a real fancy cow but a bugger for all that. I’ve to trek miles with her hay and there I sits in the middle of the damt moor mi
lkin’ her and sometimes she kicks the pail away till there’s nothing in it and her udder dried out. So I’ve to bring her home and wait till she’s full again before I can get anything, but my . . . it’s worth it! Damt fine milk it is, the cream to it inches thick and lovely spread over my tatties for dinner.’

  ‘Och Dodie! You don’t spread cream over tatties, it’s for porridge.’

  ‘Well mine’s for tatties! Nothing finer wi’ plenty salt and bread.’

  ‘Och well, we’d best hurry now. Mirabelle might give you a Strupak. She was baking cake and scones this afternoon because it’s my birthday.’

  Mirabelle greeted Dodie with some reserve. She’d had a busy day and wasn’t in the mood for a crack but, with her usual hospitality, she ushered him to a seat near the door in the hope that the draughts might carry some of his odours away. He munched scones and drank tea with relish, while Tot and Ben watched with dribbling muzzles. Fergus came in and was treated to a long list of reasons why Dodie wanted his Ealasaid to be mated with Fergus’s bull, the main one being that it was a prize bull and in return for its services Dodie would do all the spare jobs till his debt was paid.

  ‘It’s to keep the cow in milk you see, Mr McKenzie,’ he explained earnestly. ‘She’s a fine cow and if she and your bull came together they would produce a fine calf. Ach! It would be a fine day for us both, would it not?’

  Fergus had to smile. He had seen Dodie earlier that day, milk pail in one hand and a bundle of hay in the other, standing on the moor talking lovingly into the ear of a rather dejected looking cow. The beast was past its best and Fergus felt sorry that guileless Dodie had been cheated by the laird. He knew he should have refused the services of his bull because the cow looked unfit to bear a calf but he couldn’t resist the appeal in Dodie’s eyes. He had a soft spot for the old eccentric and admired the way he worked so willingly to provide the bare necessities for his simple life. Dodie had received less rebukes than any man to cross Fergus’s path and the islanders told each other that McKenzie had a heart after all. Dodie was always quick to defend him.

  ‘Aye, and a big heart just! He is a fine man, the best there is. A lot better than some o’ you lazy lot!’

  ‘Ach, maybe it’s because you’re a cheap way o’ labour,’ they’d counter.

  ‘Mr McKenzie never gives me more than I’m paid for. It’s that sly Bodach at Burnbreddie who would work your fingers to the bone and hardly a reek o’ his dung in return.’

  Fergus considered Dodie’s proposal for a long moment. He opened his mouth to refuse but the pleading in Dodie’s eyes made him say instead, ‘Very well, Dodie, when your cow is ready, drive her over to Croynachan and put her in with the rest of the kie. My bull will be there for a while yet.’

  ‘Ach you’re a good man just! She should be comin’ on soon for she was jumpin’ on some o’ the beasts up on the hill.’

  The matter was settled and Dodie took himself off well pleased. Mirabelle quickly cut an onion and tied it to the chair on which he had been sitting.

  ‘That will clear the reek in no time,’ she told Nancy. ‘Now, mo ghaoil, I know you’re champin’ to be off. You’ve worked well today so away you go and have a nice time at the Ceilidh.’

  Nancy’s dark eyes lit up. ‘Ach, you’re good so you are, Belle. It will give me a chance to get home and put some scent on these stockings for they still reek a bit and I wouldny like Archie to think I had a natural smell o’ shit off me. It might put him off the weddin’.’

  Shona was out of earshot and Mirabelle chuckled. ‘Aye, but keep a finger on your halfpenny just the same. If you had a bairn out of wedlock he still might not wed you. Men can be gey queer that way!’

  ‘Och Belle! As if I would!’ Nancy’s smile was innocent but her memory delighted in recalling her last outing when Archie had walked her home to Portcull. He had pulled her into a boatshed and kisses had led to his hand creeping into her blouse while his whispers tickled her ear.

  ‘You have the finest breasts on Rhanna,’ he mumbled. ‘I like them big with fine nipples like cherries that a man can get his lips over. Let me play with them, Nan!’

  He had played and worked himself to a nice frenzy but even though her body wanted more, her quick mind warned her against it.

  ‘Och, please, Nan!’ he pleaded. ‘We’re as good as wed! I’ll be careful, I promise.’

  But Nancy had seen too many of her mother’s pregnancies and knew how easy it was to get that way and she wasn’t going to the altar looking like a Christmas pudding.

  ‘No, Archie,’ she told him firmly. ‘Bide your time, it will come soon enough and think how nice it will be to have your first night with a real virgin!’

  Further begging had got him nowhere and he had crossed his legs in agony and smoked two cigarettes while she tidied her clothes before going home. On the way they had passed her sister Annie who was also having a tussle with a young fisherman in old Shelagh’s peat shed.

  Nancy hurried off and Mirabelle went upstairs to tuck Shona into bed. The little girl lay with her rag doll in one arm and Tot in the other.

  ‘And what way is that pup doin’ here?’ asked Mirabelle sternly. ‘She’ll have pools all over the floor come mornin’ and I’m not going to clean them up.’

  ‘Och Mirabelle, she’s such a wee thing and would cry all night and Ben might clout her ’cos he’s too old to bother with noise. Let me have her beside me, Mirabelle. I get lonely sometimes.’

  Mirabelle’s softening glance told her she had won and she reached up to pull the old lady close.

  ‘I love you, Mirabelle! You’ll never be a Cailleach with that nice face you have!’

  ‘Is it trying to get round me you are?’

  ‘Maybe just a wee bit. Has it not been a lovely day . . . except for that Niall McLachlan! It was grand on the moor all by myself. Father was nice today as well, he hugged me close and laughed. Do you think he loves me a wee bit?’

  ‘Of course he does, my wee lamb. It’s just he canny show his feelings easy.’

  Mirabelle’s voice was gruff because of the tears in her throat. She always felt unhappy when the child asked her such questions. Things would have been so different if Helen had lived. Oh, how happy a place Laigmhor then, and Fergus a completely contented being.

  While they talked he was at that moment out on the dark windy moors, his steps taking him on a pilgrimage he made often but especially on this day of all days. The bare trees crackled in the Kirkyard and he could barely make out the dim lines of Helen’s stone. Even dimmer was the mossy ground beneath but he knew without seeing them that the snowdrops would be there. He felt for them and picked them up, crushing the cool pale drops to his chest.

  ‘Helen, my dearest lamb,’ he murmured. ‘I loved you – I love you with all my heart but she – Phebie – loved you too and I’m too proud to tell her I’m sorry.’

  FOUR

  The shrill cries of newborn lambs echoed over the fields. March was moving into April but to the uninitiated there seemed no sign of spring in the bare trees. But the expert eye saw the tiny swollen buds on the stark branches and the sharp new green of tender heather shoots through the tangle of rusty bracken and bramble on the moor. The air was still raw but there was a softness hidden in the rough caress, a hint of the glorious summers that could bathe the Hebrides in long days of golden sunlight.

  Shona skipped through the lambing fields but stopped to watch twins running to their mother, tails wagging as they nudged her belly with no regard for her swollen milk glands.

  Bob and her father were moving amongst the flock with Kerrie dancing in their wake. A trio of carrion crows rose from a hedge, their shrieks telling of their rage at being disturbed from a feast of a dead lamb dropped from the talons of a golden eagle.

  ‘I’ll shoot that damt bird yet!’ said Bob, wiping his nose with the back of a brown hand on which a pattern of knotted veins told of a lifetime of hard work. ‘The brute has its eyrie on Ben Machrie for I’ve seen it fleein’ abouts
there.’

  A ewe, heavy and awkward, was in the last stages of labour and the men went to help her.

  ‘This one’s in trouble,’ said Bob, examining the swollen vagina with expert hands. Several moments later an unformed embryo was expelled on to the grass.

  Shona watched with quiet interest. She had seen it all before but each lambing season brought renewed excitement. It was so lovely to see the newborn lambs taking their first wobbling steps, the legs shaking but miraculously supporting a perfect little body. Each year brought its casualties like the lamb now feeding the carrion and there were always orphan lambs needing care. Shona delighted in feeding the motherless babies and now that she was five her father had allowed her to go to the fields with him though he had forbidden her to bring Tot and she sulked because the pup went everywhere with her. But she soon got over her mood and watched fascinated while Bob worked with the ewe who was lying on her side with her eyes closed.

  ‘There’s a live one in there yet,’ he said. ‘The contractions are weak but wi’ luck we’ll have a lamb, though there’s no’ much chance for the poor auld yowe.’

  The ewe was dying even as a tiny head appeared under her tail. For a minute the head hung helplessly for there was no more help to be had from its mother who had taken her last shuddering breath. Bob’s hand disappeared into the birth canal and grasping the lamb gently but firmly delivered it from its mother’s body. Shona’s eyes filled with tears for the dead sheep but she gazed at the new lamb with tenderness. Bob had removed the delicate skin bag which encased the lamb and skinny ribs heaved to draw in life-giving oxygen.

  Fergus turned to Shona urgently. ‘Can you be trusted to run to Mirabelle with this wee lamb? It’s a weak one and needs heat. I can’t come but she’ll know what to do, she’s done it often enough.’

  Shona gazed at her father in disbelief. The enormity of the trust he was placing on her took her breath away and her heart raced with pride.