Despite Kate McKinnon the winter had been quiet. Niall’s going caused a huge gap in Shona’s life. She had plenty of friends. She played with them and Ceilidhed in their houses but there was no real intimacy, none of the real talks or lovely easy silences she had known with Niall. Always there was the feeling she was suspended in a world of expectancy, waiting for the holidays that brought Niall. When he was home she dropped into place again, and Rhanna, the lovely green island of wheeling gulls, windblown heather, ice-cold burns, and fragrant peat fires, was the same dear place of her yesteryears.
Christmas had been the loveliest she remembered at Laigmhor. For a week the weather was like spring with warm winds blowing in from the sea. It had been a Christmas of Ceilidhs, each one going into the small hours of morning. Tables groaned with turkey and mince pies, mealy black puddings, and potted herring. The fiddlers played and the Seanachaidhs told their well-worn tales. It was Shona’s first experience of such traditional revelry, for her father had lately become less reserved than she ever remembered. Whether it was due to the influence of the McLachlans she never knew but he had changed.
While Ceilidhing, he sat quietly in a corner, but his feet tapped to the gay tunes of the fiddle. Sometimes he caught her eye and winked and a happy glow warmed her heart yet, though he appeared happier, sometimes there was such a look of sadness in his eyes that her breath caught and she wished there was some way she could dispel the look.
But that week of Christmas was no time to be sad. It was enough that for the first time in many years her father was mixing more with the folk of Rhanna and they admiring and respecting him for it. Many had thought that after his accident he would become even more of a recluse but he had gritted his teeth and faced the world, doing things with his one arm that astounded the observer.
Shona had completely accepted his disablement. It was no surprise to her that he could hoist her up in his one arm and carry her home from Ceilidhs. In the safe circle of that strong right arm she felt herself being jogged home through a world of night breezes and twinkling stars then being helped into pyjamas and tucked into bed, the last thing remembered the warm, fleeting touch of his lips on her cheek.
The Hogmanay Ceilidh at Laigmhor was the loveliest of all. The whole of Rhanna seemed to be packed into a parlour that normally knew only the ticking of clocks; now it rocked with merriment. Biddy, praying that no Hogmanay babies would decide to arrive, got slowly and deliciously inebriated on the rather uncomfortable perch of the coal box.
‘The wee buggers will keep till the morn,’ she told a large glass of whisky and lapsed into a garbled Gaelic lullaby.
Elspeth had swallowed her indignation at the way Fergus had treated her in the past and condescended to help in the kitchen. She had smuggled a bottle under her apron and took frequent sips in the privacy of the pantry. Within half an hour she was humming untunefully while she buttered hot scones. Each utensil she used brought quick tears to her eyes.
‘Ach, they were used by you once, Belle,’ she sighed, gazing dazedly at a bread knife. ‘It’s honoured I am to be in your kitchen.’
Lachlan and Phebie came crowding in. Niall immediately armed himself with a handful of scones and deftly escaped Elspeth’s scathing tongue. That night he tasted his first glass of wine and got up quite unbidden to sing one of the loveliest Hebridean boat songs. The lilting tune filled the air and everyone hummed quietly, swaying dreamily on the crest of each note.
Shona watched Niall. The room was lit only by one lamp and his tall kilted figure was outlined in firelight that made his fair hair gleam. It was then she noticed the change in him. His face was still soft but hovered on the brink of young manhood. His skin was smoothly tanned as always but on his upper lip was the faintest shadow, a mere breath of downy hair. His voice was different too, still sweetly falsetto, but occasionally an unaccustomed gruffness crept into the child’s tones. She clasped her knees and swayed with the others but she thought about the changes in Niall. Barely five months had elapsed since he had left Rhanna but already she was seeing things in him she might never have noticed if he hadn’t gone away. She wondered if she had changed and looked furtively down at her long legs and skinny arms. No, she decided quickly, she was still the same, perhaps a bit taller, thinner too. How awful! She was so shapeless and lanky. She wondered if she would ever get fatter. Mirabelle would have fussed and given her cod liver oil. Mirabelle! How she would have loved this night; a banquet would have groaned on the kitchen table. She would have grumbled a bit and been very hot with her mutch slightly askew and her long white apron floury from a day spent baking.
Shona dashed away a tear. This was no night to be sad, not with Todd holding the floor with his melodian and Shelagh ‘hooching’ loudly, her skirts held aloft to allow her black-clad legs better freedom. Her ‘winds’ forgotten for the moment, she gave a delightfully wrong interpretation of an eightsome reel, till finally she collapsed on top of an unwary Bob who was unfortunate enough to be lighting his pipe at the moment of impact. The pipe broke, Bob cursed, and Shelagh staggered to a seat leaving behind a loud ‘Trumpet Voluntary’ as an encore.
‘Dirty auld bugger!’ fumed Bob but Shelagh, sweetly oblivious, was sipping rum by the fire.
It was some time before Dodie was discovered waiting at the gate. Fergus had gone outside for a breath of air and saw the familiar, stooping figure, embarrassed, wiping his nose on his sleeve, and muttering profuse apologies because he hadn’t known ‘Laigmhor was Ceilidhing’.
Fergus had to hide a smile. The Laigmhor Ceilidh had been the talk of Portcull for days, everyone knew about it. ‘Go away in, man,’ he invited gruffly. ‘It’s daft you are hanging about here! They’re having a good time in there.’
Dodie protested feebly. He had never been known to Ceilidh, a Strupak yes, a Ceilidh never.
‘Come on, I’ll go in with you,’ offered Fergus. Dodie showed his teeth in a nervous grimace but allowed Fergus to push him gently in the direction of the door. Fergus got the impression that Dodie looked different somehow but for a moment he couldn’t think why. Then he realized. Dodie had left off his greasy cap to reveal a head covered with fine dark hair. It had been combed into a middle parting, but though tamed by water, still sprouted upwards in jagged clumps. It was like a field of new grass and Fergus could not help staring; everybody stared when Dodie tripped on the rug and catapulted into the room. There was a sudden silence and Dodie patted his head self-consciously while his face grew bright red. Instinct had made the folk near the door move away, thus leaving Dodie all alone in a little clearing. But there was no need. Dodie had made history appearing at a Ceilidh hatless; he had broken all records by also having a bath. Carbolic fumes wafted from him and were even more powerful than his usual peculiar odour.
A loud bellow from the window broke the silence. Lachlan pulled back the curtains to reveal Ealasaid blowing steam against the glass.
Bob roared with laughter. ‘The damty cow has followed you, Dodie! She wants to Ceilidh too!’
Everyone joined in the laughter and Tam McKinnon slapped Dodie’s back. ‘You’ll be havin’ a dram, Dodie! A large one. This is an occasion we must celebrate!’
Dodie grinned with relief and raised the glass. ‘He breeah!’ he said dismally and downed the drink in one gulp.
Shona smiled whenever she thought of that night. Dodie had become completely intoxicated and had been carried home by four equally merry crofters. Ealasaid had trotted behind the unsteady revellers, her bellows breaking uncaringly into the velvet blackness of the wee sma’ hours.
The rest of the winter passed uneventfully except for the weather. Gales churned the Sound of Rhanna into fury and strong gusts forced the lobster boats to stay in harbour. Trees were uplifted by the roots and one had fallen over the schoolhouse, badly damaging the roof. The children were given an unexpected holiday while Mr Murdoch, the balding new teacher, tried to hustle the placid Rhanna builders into unaccustomed speed.
The winds screamed round La
igmhor making the inside feel all the cosier. Shona liked the evenings when it was just herself and her father. She read or knitted while Tot snored and Fergus smoked his pipe, his slippered feet up on the range. The clocks ticked and the firelight flickered and at bedtime she made hot milky cocoa. Sometimes the McLachlans left ten-month-old Fiona with Elspeth, and came over to spend an evening with Fergus. They brought a warm, happy feeling with them and when Shona went up to bed Phebie tucked her in and read to her. Afterwards she liked to listen to the murmur of voices from downstairs and it was so good to hear her father’s deep laugh ring out.
It was good to fall asleep listening to the wind and the sound of laughter.
Now it was spring, with daffodils poking green buds to the sky, and the lambs arriving in ever-increasing numbers. She watched Dodie and Mathew go off to the lambing fields, then she ran into the kitchen to put her snowdrops in water.
Lachlan was coming along the road on the bicycle he used for his local calls and Fergus went to the gate to have a chat. He took out his pipe.
‘Like to see my new trick?’ he said, with his rueful grin. He’d had trouble lighting the pipe with only one hand. Now he placed the pipe in his mouth, held the box of matches under the oxter of his stump, and, with his right hand struck the match against the firmly held box.
‘How’s that?’ he asked after the triumphant demonstration.
Lachlan smiled. ‘You’re nearly there, man, just as good as new.’
Fergus frowned suddenly. ‘Do you think I’m as good as any man?’
‘Better than some.’
‘Then why . . . dammit why did she leave me, Lachlan? I’ve overcome most things. Did she think I’d be less of a man than I was? Why did she go away?’
Lachlan sighed. Fergus had confided in him over Kirsteen and he had been asked the same question several times. There were times when the trust Fergus placed on him felt like too big a burden, yet he was honoured that Fergus had trusted him with his innermost thoughts. ‘You know why, man,’ he answered firmly. ‘She had some dignity left and she went before it was all taken from her.’
‘But we were to wed! I told her that before the accident!’
Lachlan nodded and asked gently, ‘Would you have wed her after the accident? Would that damt pride of yours let you?’
‘In time yes . . . oh God yes, Lachy! I’ve been lonely too long!’
‘But she didn’t know that, she was at the end of her patience. She knew you weren’t going to marry her and she had no guarantee you would do so.’
‘Dammit, man I was raving! She believed things I said when I wasny my own master! She could have waited!’
‘For what? You were rantin’, man – aye, I’ll grant you that! But these were the wanderings of what was in your mind. Admit it, Fergus! When you knew I’d amputated your arm you had already decided not to marry Kirsteen.’
Stark misery looked out of Fergus’s black eyes. ‘Aye – you’re right. But that was then. Now I’d marry her a thousand times over!’
‘Then go to her – tell her! Don’t let that proud heart of yours rule you any longer!’
‘But she left me! And I’ve written! A dozen times . . . aye, and more, yet never a word back.’
Lachlan placed his hand firmly on the other man’s shoulder. ‘Go to her Fergus. For once in your life think more of her happiness than your own. She left Rhanna with a broken heart. You could heal it – and your own.’
‘I’ll think about it,’ said Fergus gruffly, embarrassed that he had bared so much of his thoughts to another human. He returned to everyday talk with characteristic brusqueness. ‘Have you a busy morning ahead?’
‘No more than usual. I’ve to lance a boil, change a few dressings, Shelagh insists she needs an enema . . .’
He waved cheerily and pedalled away. Fergus walked slowly to the fields, his head bent, his thoughts going back to the time he realized that Kirsteen was no longer on Rhanna. He’d sunk into an abyss of lonely despair. Over and over he asked the same question. Why had she left him? They’d loved together – oh God, how they had loved. She’d given herself to him completely. He’d done things with her he hadn’t even done with Helen, things that only a man of experience and maturity could know of. The exquisite beauty he’d known in her love for him couldn’t be denied and he’d loved her with a depth he didn’t think possible after Helen.
He had admired her sweetness of character and her quietly happy personality; there was so much about her he had loved and he had thought that she returned that love, that life would be an impossibility for her without him just as it was such an impossibility for him to exist without her. The realization that she had shown she could live without him had hurt him deeply.
After the misery and aching longing, came anger. How dare she leave him? He could well live without her, there were other things in his life! She could go to hell for all he cared. He went through a spell of being angry at everything. The curious, guarded looks of his neighbours goaded him to fury. They were waiting – waiting to see what course his life would take, now that he had a disability to contend with, now that Kirsteen had fled from him, leaving him to look a fool in the eyes of everyone. His temper had acted as a good barb for his pride; it was temper that first took him among the people he had known all his life, inwardly he fumed but outwardly he showed the world he wasn’t a maimed object of pity.
Maintaining a deliberate calm he threw himself into the work of the farm. The men watched him, hearts in mouths, while he attempted impossibly difficult tasks, but he conquered each one and the men nodded their heads and told each other, ‘Nothing will beat McKenzie!’
It was defiance that took him to the first Ceilidh but a joy in renewed acquaintances that took him to the rest.
Anger wore off and gradually the old feeling of hurt took over. He thought about Kirsteen continually; sometimes he could spend a whole evening staring into the fire, reliving some experience they had shared in the past. He grieved for her and his grief was all the keener because it was for a beloved person who was still of the earth. Often he would stop and wonder, What is Kirsteen doing at this precise moment? Was she thinking of him? Did she think of him with the deep ache he felt for her? Was she well? Was she – happy? But how could she be? Was not every one of her waking and dreaming hours tortured by memories in the same way that his were?
He wrote letters and tore them up again. Why should he write? She left him! But there came a day when he could no longer bear the burden of his thoughts. He poured out his heart and sealed and posted the letter before he could change his mind.
For three weeks he waited and hoped. The sight of Erchy whistling cheerily along made his heart lurch. It became an obsession to look out for Erchy’s stubby; weatherbeaten figure. Mail came, but not a word from Kirsteen. In desperation he wrote one letter after the other but to no avail. There was nothing, not even a polite note to tell him not to hope any more. He’d written the first letter in January, now it was March and he felt empty. Was there really so much in his life? He had recaptured the love of his little daughter and in return he treasured her for the precious gift she was. There were Lachlan and Phebie, warm and trustworthy, so much more than mere friends. The rift between them was healed, and he valued them perhaps even more than if they had never known those years of misunderstanding.
Alick! Yes, there was Alick too, so close to him since his accident and turning into a real man at last. He and Mary had paid a short visit just recently and everyone was astonished at the change in Mary. She was helpful and kind and so amusing with her dry sense of humour that everyone held her with a new regard. She was even persuaded to don wellington boots and explore the farm. Murdy’s son, Hugh, was mucking the byre at the time, and the aroma of disturbed dung was somewhat overpowering, but she had held her breath and doggedly plodded into the milking shed.
She no longer spoke to Alick with contempt. Instead they wandered off for walks and laughed a lot. Inevitably they argued but Alick no longer g
ave her her own way and Mary looked at him with a new respect. He had left his office job and had found a less comfortable post in an Edinburgh store. He was assistant supervisor, his pay was less but the job was so much more rewarding.
Yes, Alick was a brother worth having, no other child was as endearing as Shona, no friends finer than the McLachlans; yet, despite them all, he was empty, feeling the hunger pains for a love which had no fulfilment.
He thought about Lachlan’s words. ‘Go to her, go to her, man!’
He’d reached the lambing field. Bob was whistling orders to Kerrie and the sounds of new life filled the air. New lambs wobbled on unsteady legs, tails bobbing frantically as they darted under their mother’s belly for sustenance.
Dodie was skinning a dead lamb and putting its fleece round an orphan in the hope that a bereaved ewe would accept it as her own. Tears were coursing down Dodie’s face because the task was distasteful to him but if such ruses helped orphans to a new mother then the job was worthwhile.
It was a mild, fresh day, and the scent of new heather blew down from the mountains. Fergus lifted his dark handsome face. He had always loved the rugged changing hills on Rhanna. They were like himself. Sometimes stormy and moody, at others peacefully calm. Today they were clear, slate blue scree showing through the bronze of last year’s heather on the deep corries of the higher masses, new grass and bracken furring the lower slopes.
Fergus took a deep breath and made up his mind. At Easter he would go to Oban. If Kirsteen was teaching again she would be on holiday then. Shona would have Niall for company. Mathew was a good efficient lad, well able to run the farm for a spell. There was nothing, nothing at all to stop him going to Oban, to see Kirsteen again, to talk to her, be near her. His breath caught and suddenly he was like a small boy, wishing the hours away till the Easter holidays.
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