Rhanna

by Christine Marion Fraser

  Dodie rubbed his grizzled chin thoughtfully but his eyes were far away. ‘Aye, there is that! I’ll be goin’ now, I’m needin’ my dinner. Shelagh gave me a nice bit salt pork she couldny eat herself. Roarin’ like a bull so bad in pain she is . . . terrible just so it is. He breeah!’

  He galloped away over the hill track. The years had made little changes in him except that the stubble on his chin had changed from a dirty brown to a dirty grey.

  Shona stopped at her gate and Niall squeezed her shoulder.

  ‘The cave after dinner,’ he whispered. ‘I have something for you.’

  The colour tinged her face. ‘It’s not my birthday.’

  ‘It’s a special thing, something I hope . . . och well you’ll see for yourself. I’ll be a bitty late for I have something to tell my folks.’

  He strode off and she fancied his jauntiness was somewhat forced but she dismissed the idea as a mere whim of her imagination and flew up the path to burst into the kitchen.

  Fergus turned from the sink where he was washing. ‘Niall’s home then?’

  ‘Yes, did you see him?’

  ‘No, but you’re all pink and there’s a sprite in your eye.’

  ‘Father.’ She smiled and reached up to kiss his sideburns. They were almost white, though the rest of his hair was still jet black. The touches of white only served to enhance his strong handsome features but it was one of Shona’s favourite jokes to tease him about it. It was one of their ‘alone together’ intimacies, and he would laugh and retaliate by calling her his ‘Sibhreach’. She had been thin and elfin-looking for years and the endearment had infuriated her at times. Now her mirror told her she was no longer an awkward bundle of arms and legs and she could laugh at the idea of being likened to a fairy spectre.

  ‘I’ll get dinner, Father,’ she told him, putting an apron over her dress, and bustling about with a gay tune on her lips.

  Fergus sat at the table and watched her. ‘You’re so happy when Niall’s home,’ he observed.

  She set soup on the table and pulled in her chair. ‘I’m happy all the time, Father – with you here – we’re so warm and peaceful together. But – with Niall I feel a big bubble – just here,’ she placed her hand over her heart, ‘and I feel it growing to a million bubbles all bursting in funny little excited pops! Does that sound daft, Father, or have you ever felt like that?’

  He stopped with his spoon in mid-air. ‘Aye, I’ve felt like that, Shona, but it all seems so long ago I’ve almost forgotten what it feels like.’

  She studied him and wanted to reach out and transfer some of her happiness to him.

  ‘It’ll happen again, Father, you’ll meet her again. I know you loved her so much.’

  For a moment he was startled and angry. He had guessed that his daughter knew far more about his thoughts than she ever revealed. She was quick and sensitive and a strange telepathy ran between them. He appreciated her deep intelligent mind, she knew how to be diplomatic, but at times she was too aware of his innermost mind and he resented it. A quick retort rose to his lips but her incredible deep blue gaze held his with unwavering love. ‘I hope you’ll never be hurt too much,’ he found himself saying. ‘A little hurt must be expected, we all know we can’t go through life with our head in the clouds, but too much hurt can tear a heart to pieces and somehow the bits never fit into the right places again.’

  It was the most he had ever divulged about himself. She felt honoured but tried not to show that the moment was so laden with intimacy.

  ‘Och Father, be quiet and sup your soup,’ she scolded. ‘I’ve all those greedy hens to feed yet and I want to collect some eggs to take later to Shelagh. Poor old Cailleach, an egg is about the only thing she enjoys now.’

  Soon she would be alone with Niall in the cave. The cave! Her eyes gleamed. It was their haven and as soon as she was free she ran over the heather with winged feet. The sun was shining in a blue sky and the world was a wonderful place.

  The cave was cool and dark and she pulled bracken and heather back from the entrance so that sunlight found its way inside and dappled on the floor of mossy earth. She had come the day before to add new touches. The bed of stone was soft with sheepskins and cushions; the stone ledges were full of knick-knacks and some of Mirabelle’s rag dolls sat next to cups and plates. Two old wickerwork chairs were positioned on either side of the fireplace on which stood a spirit stove and a paraffin lamp. It was like a real little home, each item lovingly gathered bearing a memory. She thought back to the day when the chairs had been smuggled from a shed at Laigmhor. She was twelve, Niall fourteen. They hadn’t wanted the risk of anyone seeing them so had arranged to meet at dawn on a June morning. Five o’clock saw them struggling over the moors, each with a chair humped over their head. They had arrived exhausted at the cave and after fortifying themselves with liquorice sticks and chocolate fell asleep together on the sheepskins.

  Shona fell on to the bed in a fit of laughter at the memory. A shadow darkened the doorway and Niall stood looking at her. He had changed into a kilt and old sweater, his favourite Rhanna clothes.

  ‘Niall!’ she said, the breathless laughter still in her voice.

  ‘I thought I was hearing a demented spook of the Abbey laughing his lunatic dying laugh!’ he chuckled, sitting down beside her. He looked round appreciatively. ‘It’s nice, mo ghaoil,’ he said quietly. ‘A real wee hoosie, is it not?’

  ‘And would his lordship like a Strupak?’ She giggled, placing an old kettle on the stove.

  ‘And tea too? It’s setting up house we should be.’

  Her eyes were suddenly serious. ‘And what could be nicer in the whole world than that? You and me in this cave and no one knowing where we were.’

  ‘Ach, you’d tire of me and start throwing cups,’ he laughed, but his tone was strange. She was kneeling, lighting the stove, and suddenly he bent and taking her face in his hands looked directly into her eyes. ‘You’re beautiful,’ he said simply.

  She felt hotly embarrassed and so acutely aware of his manly nearness that she rose quickly. ‘I suppose you say that to all the girls.’

  ‘Only the ones I like,’ he teased.

  She took down the cups and, keeping her face deliberately turned from him, asked, ‘Niall, be serious and tell me – have you made love to a girl – really I mean?’

  He clasped his hands round his knees and studied a patch of sun on the floor. ‘We’ve known each other a long time, Shona, and we’ve always been honest. I’m a man now and I’m as human as the next lad. Yes, I did make love to a girl once but . . .’

  She turned to face him and her eyes sparkled with unshed tears. ‘Niall!’ she cried.

  ‘Let me finish, you wee spitfire. I did make love but I couldn’t see it through because – because I kept thinking of you – dammit, I just couldn’t do it!’

  She turned once more into the shadows to hide her look of relief.

  ‘Are you such a saint yourself?’ he questioned roughly. ‘I’ve been away a lot and – and I know for a fact there’s a lot of lads daft on you! What about that then? Are you so prim as you make out?’

  She met his blustering questions with a steady gaze. ‘No, Niall, I’m not prim, I never was and you know it. I have been out with a few of the lads – I admit to it for you’ll hear it anyway. Ti Johnston kissed me once and do you know what? I nearly spewed so I did. His mouth was wet and he smelled of potted herring!’

  They looked at each other and laughed till the cave echoed.

  ‘Och, Shona!’ Niall wiped his eyes. ‘You’re a terrible girl but I’m glad Ti wasn’t nice to kiss for you might have enjoyed it.’ He grew suddenly serious. ‘I’ve something to tell you, something you might not like, so promise you’ll hear me out and not go running off in a temper.’

  She glanced at him quickly, knowing now she hadn’t been mistaken when she sensed the restraint in him. ‘I half promise,’ she said, forcing a smile. ‘I can’t help myself sometimes so it’s no use making a
real promise.’

  He watched a spider making a web between some ornaments. ‘I’m only going to be on Rhanna for a week then I’m going off to training camp. I volunteered for the Army and passed my medical and everything. There’s a war coming, Shona and I don’t feel right just sitting back and doing nothing. I want to fight for my country. I’m a man – and – and anyway, I’m going.’

  There was a stunned silence. Shona couldn’t believe her ears. The war and all it meant seemed very unreal to her. Rhanna was like another world. The islanders listened avidly to the progress and destruction of war but it was like an adventure story. Most of the men on the island couldn’t possibly be spared because their existence, and that of their families, depended too much on the harvests of land and sea. A few of the young boys had spoken tentatively about joining up but families too often depended on young hands for the heavier crofting tasks and, as yet, it was all just a topic of conversation to most people.

  Shona could feel nothing but an incredulity.

  ‘Och, Niall, stop pretending! Your parents won’t let you go. They’ve given you all those chances of a better education. You can’t let them down.’

  He took her hand gently. ‘Shona, my parents know already. Och – of course they wereny pleased – not at first! I’ve just had an awful row with them! Father can understand but Mother is near demented.’ He smiled indulgently. ‘She has me dead already and me not even begun my training. She was begging Father to stop me but he’s a sensible man my father. He’s not pleased but he can see I must do what I feel is right. I’m young, Shona, I can go back to my studies later. Try to understand, mo ghaoil.’

  Shona was barely listening. She was thinking how senseless it all was. She had read about the bloody massacre of the First World War. Between the wars there had just been enough time for boy babies to grow up and go marching into another bloodbath. They could all go if they wanted; if they had to prove they were men. Let them fight for medals that were often granted to them after they were dead – but not Niall, she was already proud of him, she knew the stuff he was made of, he didn’t have to prove it.

  She tore her hand away and raced outside to lean against the sunbathed rocks. It was very hot but she felt cold and trembled. She could do nothing to stop the tears coursing down her cheeks. The sunshine was blotted out and Niall appeared through a watery veil. ‘Shona – my dear little Shona,’ he breathed, ‘do you cry with anger or with sorrow that I am going?’

  She turned her face away but he took her pointed chin and gently made her face him. His head was very near; she saw the golden threads caught by the sun; his eyes were close and held her own with such a powerful intensity she couldn’t turn away again. His skin was flushed and small beads of perspiration stood out on his forehead. He put out his hand and touched her hair and in a dream she felt his own hair running through her fingers. She hadn’t even been aware of reaching out to him. Somewhere close at hand a bee buzzed but it was a sound outside of the world into which she had stepped with Niall. She heard her heart beating very fast then, in a rush of beauty and wonder, she was in his arms and he was kissing her. They had kissed before; short little pecks of affection, but now she was drowning in a tide of excitement. His lips were warm and firm and for a brief moment she could feel his tongue touching hers. But it was all so quick and changing. Their mouths were mobile instruments of pleasure. She heard a little cry at the back of his throat and felt his breath quickening. She sensed rather than felt his hands on her breasts, his touch was like a feather, yet it sent electric impulses deep down inside and awakened chords of desire she hadn’t known existed. The feeling reached down even further till she was throbbing with a heat that had nothing to do with the sun. She too cried out and it was then he pushed her away almost roughly. She was still in the trance and he put her head on his shoulder and stroked her long burnished hair. ‘Shona – I love you,’ he said savagely. ‘I’ve known now for a long time and – and there have been times in the last year when I didn’t dare touch you or come too close in case – in case . . .’

  She traced the curve of his ear and whispered, ‘I’ve loved you since you were a wee boy and I was always so afraid you would meet someone each time you left Rhanna. I love you, my Niall, and now you are going away.’

  He didn’t answer for a few moments but kept stroking her hair. The nearness of her, her sweet female scent, made him burn with desire. She had grown so beautiful; each time he came back to the island he saw some change in her. She wasn’t very tall, her head came barely to his shoulder, she was fragile looking but so beautifully proportioned and so very feminine that, in the past, it had been difficult for him to be near her without wanting to take her in his arms. Now she was, and her lips, and that fleeting moment of touching the firm roundness of her breasts, had driven him so crazy with the need for her that he couldn’t trust himself to keep her in his embrace.

  He pushed her gently away and held her at arm’s length.

  ‘My little tomboy, when did you grow up to be so bonny? I’ve known you most of my life yet in a way I’m just getting to know you properly. You’re new somehow, not like the old Shona at all!’

  ‘That’s how I feel about you,’ she breathed. ‘I feel we’ve played and talked all these years but we were just marking time – waiting for the moment when we would throw our old selves away and – and put on our grown-up selves. Does that sound daft?’

  He smiled. ‘It sounds like the old Shona, but I’ll settle for a mixture of the old and the new. Now, would you close your eyes for a wee minute?’

  She squeezed her eyes shut and felt him placing something round her neck. It was a gold locket, beautiful in its simplicity and when she opened it a tiny heart-shaped picture of Niall gazed out at her.

  ‘Put one of yourself, next to it,’ he said, ‘and we’ll be together even when I’m away.’

  Tears of sadness and happiness made her voice funny. ‘Niall – it’s beautiful – I think I’ll treasure it for the rest of my life.’

  A return of boyish embarrassment made him redden slightly but again he clasped her hand in his.

  ‘It’s – it’s a kind of engagement present really. I didn’t want to get a ring in case you wouldn’t accept it but – it’s as good as a ring . . . isn’t it, Shona?’

  He looked at her anxiously and she leaned forward and kissed him tenderly. ‘Better,’ she murmured, ‘much much better! You can’t put photos into a ring.’

  He pulled her close and whispered. ‘You know it means I want to marry you . . . after the war.’

  ‘I hate that man Hitler.’ Shona’s voice was vehement. ‘With his silly wee moustache and cow’s lick! Oh, I wish I wasn’t a girl! I’d go to the war myself, so I would!’

  ‘I’m glad you’re a girl,’ he cried with such passion that she held her breath. ‘So very very glad! Sometimes you were a wee pest but that was a long time ago. I’m glad you’re Shona McKenzie and I’m glad you belong to me.’

  For the rest of the afternoon they walked hand in hand in the sunshine, not speaking much because the wonder of their love was too overpowering to be expressed verbally. Their eyes spoke volumes, they laughed at little things and squeezed hands, hearts pounding with the awareness of each other’s nearness. Everything was doubly beautiful, a droning bee, the sea shimmering in the distance, the smell of earth from which sprouted the tough, swaying moorland grasses. Time flew on wings and Shona gasped when she looked at her watch. ‘It’s almost teatime, I’ll have to run! Father will be in and not even the table laid!’

  Niall clung to her hand at the gate. ‘After tea?’

  She nodded breathlessly. ‘Yes, I promised Shelagh some eggs but later we could go down to the harbour. It’s lovely there in the gloaming.’

  Kate McKinnon had left scones and bannocks to keep warm on the range. Fergus had washed and was laying the table.

  ‘Och, Father, I’m sorry!’ gasped Shona.

  He chucked her on the chin. ‘When are you ever late, lass? I
’m early. Mathew’s a good lad, we got those bottom fields cut today. If the summer’s a good one we’ll have two crops this year. It’s needing it we are. Last winter there was little feed for the beasts.’

  She was dreamy and withdrawn all through tea. He watched her and knew that something big had happened in her life. He was afraid of change yet knew he couldn’t hold it back. He had watched his daughter changing from a gawky child into a beautiful young woman. It was to him she had turned when, at the age of thirteen, her bodily changes had manifested themselves. Phebie had told her what to expect so she wasn’t afraid but nevertheless needed reassuring. He remembered her pale child’s face that day and thinking she was still too much of a little girl for such womanly things to be happening to her. She had looked too young with her long hair tumbling over her shoulders and her big blue eyes looking up at him as she sat in the inglenook hugging the hot bag he had given her to ease the cramp.

  She hadn’t been embarrassed, speaking to him with a natural ease about her changing body. Her simple trust in him had swept away any reserves he might have had and in the years that followed they discussed life and its facts with a freedom that made him proud of her faith in him. But he had known that one day she would have her secrets from him.

  In the years since Kirsteen’s going from his life he had desperately needed comfort and he had found it in the child he had once rejected. She, lonely without Mirabelle, and lost without Niall, sought to fill the needs of her warm and loving spirit and turned to the father she loved so unashamedly. All the love she had yearned for in her infancy was now hers a thousandfold; there was a kindred intimacy, so richly fulfilling, it was enough for her to be near him without the need for words. Her greatest wish was that one day he would find the happiness he had waited so many years to find. Even she had never been very successful at drawing him out but she loved him enough to let time work for them both. But that was when her own heart was happy and carefree. Now she struggled with a welter of powerful emotions, her mind whirled with thoughts of Niall and the implications of their love for each other.