Behag sniffed disdainfully. ‘I was just sayin’, your mither has a funny wee way o’ sayin’ things – sarcastic if you know what I mean – and the wee lass has the same quirk, only she’s not so open natured – oh no, makes faces at folk only she’s to hide behind her brither’s back to do so.’
Niall’s jaw tightened as he paid for the messages. When he was lifting his change he looked steadily at Behag and said, ‘My mother was never one to make sarcastic remarks but it might be there’s a wee quirk in your own nature that brings out the worst in people. Good day to you, Mistress Behag.’
He left the postmistress with her mouth agape and pulled Fiona outside. Without a word he lifted her frilled petticoats and smacked her hard on the bottom. For a moment nothing happened, then she dropped the bag of sugar she had been carrying and simply bawled with hurt pride.
The sugar had burst all over the road and Niall’s face was red with temper and embarrassment.
Shona had come out of Merry Mary’s at that moment and she ran over to survey the scene with amazement. Suddenly she burst out laughing and had to steady herself against the wall of Morag Ruadh’s cottage. Her peals of mirth made several people turn and smile but Niall’s face was a study of indignation. He glowered at her. With the sun in her hair, laughter creasing her face, and a pale green dress setting off her glowing tan, she was the picture of summer freshness but he was angry that she was enjoying his obvious plight.
‘Girls!’ he snapped. ‘Nothing but pests!’
‘Niall,’ she gasped, ‘it’s just so funny – you slapping poor wee Fiona – funny strange I mean – history repeating itself in a way! Don’t you remember? That time we met in the post office? You called me a baby and I said you were glaikit and we bawled at each other till your mother pulled you away and Mirabelle took me outside and skelped me on my bare bottom! I was so mortified I couldn’t even cry!’
Fiona wiped her tears and giggled at the idea of lovely, graceful Shona being spanked for being naughty. Niall relaxed and chuckled, his eyes dreamy as he travelled back over the years. ‘Yes, I do remember that day now,’ he said, ‘but I never knew Mirabelle gave it to you.’
‘Right here – outside the post office – she was so ashamed because I’d thrown a tantrum in front of your mother and nosy old Behag in there.’
Niall handed Shona the basket and put his arm round her, then he put out his other hand and grasped that of his small sister. ‘Do you know what, bairns?’ he grinned. ‘I’m going to treat you to a bar of chocolate and we’ll get down to the harbour to eat it. The old bitch Elspeth can wait for her messages! It was through her Fiona and I were grumpin’ at each other in the first place.’
After that, the morning trip to Portcull became a treat instead of the drudge Niall thought it would be. With Shona everything was different. Whenever she could she went to Slochmhor and helped Elspeth with the chores, and prepared pretty trays for Phebie. As a result Elspeth was less put upon and her tongue lost its edge.
In the little spare time left, Shona and Niall took Fiona for picnics and in the process taught her to swim. They also spent lazy hours fishing offshore in one of Ranald’s boats. Fiona was a lively interested child, always engrossed in whatever she was doing. Niall and Shona could steal the odd kiss and hold hands occasionally.
‘Go ahead,’ Fiona told them once. ‘I know big boys and girls enjoy these things. Kiss all you want – I’d rather kiss a cat myself.’
Shona had smiled. ‘I used to feel like that too, Fiona.’
The little girl screwed up her face. ‘I’ll never change. I don’t like boys at all. They’re dirty and cheeky and try to lift your dress so they can see your knickers, and they do awful things like picking their noses behind their reading books!’
The day before Niall’s departure Shona went over to Slochmhor to prepare lunch for Phebie who was up but still feeling shaky. She was a young thirty-nine, plump and pink-skinned.
‘My doctor is allowing me to Ceilidh tonight,’ she smiled as she sprinkled salt over cold lamb, ‘so I was wondering if you and your father would come over. We could have a nice crack.’ She placed her hand over Shona’s. ‘It’s sore your heart is that Niall’s going.’
It was more a statement than a question. Shona nodded. Her heart was brimful of suppressed emotions. It had been a week of restraint both for her and for Niall. There had been so much they had wanted to say but no opportunity except for brief assurances of their love for each other. She couldn’t trust herself to say too much to Phebie because she knew she might break down so she merely nodded at Phebie’s words.
Phebie sighed. ‘Och my lass, I wish he wasn’t going. I know the war’s not right begun yet and if we’re lucky it might not get off the ground at all but I can’t help fretting for my laddie.’
Shona bit her lip. ‘Please don’t talk about it,’ she whispered.
Phebie saw the blue eyes brimming and she put out her arms and Shona went into them and cried quietly.
‘There, there,’ soothed Phebie, ‘have a good greet. Niall’s going from us and we would all like to grab him and hold on but Lachlan and I have talked it over. It won’t be easy for any of us but he has to do this thing, Shona. He’d grow discontent and sour if we held him back. But yet our hearts will be heavy. It’s the ones who are left behind who should be given the medals right enough.’ She held Shona at arm’s length and chuckled suddenly. ‘Why do women always cry for men? Do they cry for us I wonder?’
Shona gave a watery sniff. ‘In a different way I suppose.’ She put her hands over her breasts. ‘They cry more in here – in their hearts. Father’s been doing it for years and it hurts him so. First it was for my mother, now it’s for Kirsteen. I watch him and I want to take away the ache but there’s nothing I can do.’
Phebie looked into the girl’s incredible eyes. ‘You’ve been doing something all your life,’ she said softly. ‘You’ve loved him and without you he’d be a sorry man today.’
‘Do you really think so, Phebie?’
‘I know so, mo ghaoil, and Fergus knows it too. If Kirsteen Fraser came back tomorrow she could turn round and thank you for holding together the body and soul of her man.’
‘I wish she would come back to Rhanna. I’d love to see Father really happy. D’you know, Phebie, I don’t believe I ever really have – not really.
Phebie looked thoughtful. ‘No, I don’t suppose you have. It must be terrible – to be so deeply unhappy. Thank God he and Lachy made up their differences or he could have been even worse.’
Shona nodded. ‘I know, thank God for that at least.’
Phebie’s little crack snowballed into a gay Ceilidh that went on till the small hours of morning.
‘Och, Mother, you shouldn’t have bothered,’ said Niall, looking at the laden table in the kitchen.
Phebie placed her hand briefly on his fair head and said softly, ‘It’s not every day my son gets himself engaged, so be quiet and put those pancakes down. Engaged or no’ I’ll skelp your lugs for stealing. Your eyes were ay bigger than your belly!’
The house was filling. Todd the Shod came in bearing his bagpipes and old Bob was settling down to play the fiddle. Todd’s daughter, Main, now Mrs William McKinnon, came into the kitchen to see if her help was needed.
‘Ach, it’s all ready you are, Mrs McLachlan,’ she said with her simple but radiant smile. ‘I’ve brought some wee buns so I’ll just leave them on the range. They’re nice warmed a bitty. If you’ll be excusin’ me I’ll just go and see will William dance with me. My mither’s mindin’ wee Andrew so I can have a good time.’
Faithful, doting Mairi spent a restless night looking for Wullie while the pipes skirled and the fiddles haunted the soul. Toasts were drunk to the newly engaged couple till everyone was crapulous and merry. Doors and windows were flung wide to let smoke and whisky fumes escape.
Niall and Shona held hands and tapped their feet to the pipes and each wished they were alone with the other.
; Lachlan danced with Phebie and kissed her warm brow gently. ‘Are you happy, my bonnie, plump peach?’ he whispered.
She looked at her son with his bright hair and eager young face. ‘Yes, happy that our son is going to marry Helen’s bairn. It’s strange the way of things, eh Lachy?’
He knew what she meant and his brown eyes were thoughtful. ‘Aye, strange, if I’d saved Helen and lost the bairn or lost them both . . .’
She put her fingers over his mouth. ‘Hush, no more of that, things are as they were meant. I wish Kirsteen had never left Fergus though – look at him – Shona’s right – I doubt if we’ve ever seen him really happy for years.’
Fergus was sitting in a corner getting quietly drunk. His thoughts were crowding him that night and he couldn’t sort one from another. He wanted his daughter’s happiness yet he knew that her marriage to Niall would mean more emptiness for him. It would be a while yet but it was there, looming on his bleak horizon.
He looked at the revellers and noticed that nearly everyone had a companion of some sort. Even empty-headed Mairi, dithering about in her search for Wullie, had someone to look forward to. When Shona went he would have no one, what then would he do with his life?
Fiona Taylor, flushed and breathless from a gay highland fling, threw herself down on the seat near him. She was the child Lachlan had saved on the night of the awful storm of Helen’s death. She was now in her early twenties, dark and vivacious with a firm bosom and a neat waist. Fergus looked at her and felt an open desire for her warm, young body. It had been so long since he’d held a woman close to his heart. He had lived with thoughts and hopes too long now and he was hungry for love. Kirsteen had taken all that was left in his heart; she had robbed him so that he knew he could never love another woman mentally. But the physical need in him for the contact of a female body couldn’t be denied. He worked hard on the farm so that most nights he fell into bed exhausted but there were those other nights when sleep wouldn’t come and he throbbed with heat.
These were the nights he conjured up the memories of Kirsteen till she beckoned in the dim mists of his mind. Sometimes it was difficult to get a clear image of her lovely face but he could imagine loving each part of her body that his memory could provoke till he could almost feel her beside him in the warm bed. His mind could make his body love, but when it was over there was no real, living body to snuggle into with contentment, only the big double bed with himself, humiliated and unhappy beyond measure.
He could smell Fiona’s perfume and the smile she threw him raised a response in him. He leaned forward to ask her to dance but she was already jumping to her feet. ‘Och, that Jimmy,’ she laughed, her eyes sending messages to the young man who was beckoning her from the other side of the room, ‘he won’t sit still for a minute – loves dancing he does and just because we are to be married at Christmas he thinks he owns me.’
She was off, her petticoats whirling and a wild skirl breaking from her. Fergus put his head in his hand, letting his veneer fall away for a moment of longing. A light touch on his shoulder made him look up. ‘Would you dance with an auld Wife like me?’ asked Phebie quietly.
‘I prefer to dance with the bonniest lass in the room,’ he answered lightly and whirled her away.
While the Ceilidh was still at its height Niall and Shona stole away unnoticed into the summer night. Biddy was ensconced in Fiona’s swing, her hip flask clasped to her bosom while she rocked herself gently back and forth to the lilt of a Gaelic boat song she was humming untunefully. She didn’t notice the two shadows stealing past. Shona stifled a giggle and Niall took her hand and they ran beyond the halo of light from the house.
It was a soft velvet night of country scents. The sea sighed in the distance and a dog barked from a distant croft. They walked to the small wood at the top of the field above Slochmhor, stopping to listen to the laughter that drifted from the open windows. Laigmhor was a dark shadow and Portcull a blur of whitewashed cottages against the subdued shimmer of the Sound of Rhanna.
Niall pulled Shona close. ‘It’s been a grand night, mo ghaoil. But it’s glad I am to have you to myself for a wee while.’
She turned to him with a sudden movement and buried her face into his neck. ‘Och Niall, I love you so much. I’ve got so much I want to say yet I don’t know where to start.’
‘That’s how I feel,’ he whispered into her hair. ‘I’ve wanted to be alone with you all week; now all the words have gone I wanted to say. Now, tomorrow, I must leave you and I am wishing tonight would last forever. Promise me you’ll write. I’ll be lost for a time and looking for your letters.’
‘Niall, of course I’ll write,’ she chided gently. ‘But will you answer I wonder? You never wrote much before.’
‘This is different,’ he assured her. ‘Before we were just bairns playing ourselves – now one day you’ll be my wife.’ His voice was full of awe at the overwhelming implications of his words. He held her hand tightly. ‘I’ll miss you,’ he said huskily. ‘Will you think at all of me?’
‘Maybe sometimes,’ she answered as lightly as her heavy heart would allow.
He smiled in the darkness. ‘It’s a skelped bum you’re needing, my girl.’ He reached for her but she eluded him and like children they played hide and seek in the rustling wood. When he caught her he kissed her over and over and whispered, ‘No more kissing Ti Johnston or flirting with Gordon McNab or I’ll spank you when I get home!’
‘And when will that be, my canty lad?’ She tried to keep her voice steady but in the darkness tears were on her cheeks.
‘I’ll not be knowing for a while but I’ll be home whenever I can.’
‘I’ll try and be here. Who knows where I might wander? I might even join the ATS and be away when you get back.’
‘Don’t dare!’ he said fiercely. ‘You’re mine and a man has a right to claim what’s his! When I come back to Rhanna I want my Shona here to welcome me . . . Now, turn round till I pee.’
She giggled loudly at the sudden change of mood. ‘Och, you’re rude, so you are, Niall McLachlan. It’s so unromantic to say such things.’
‘I can’t help it, I’m burstin’ with all that beer big Tam McKinnon kept giving me. I think he makes it himself for I’m sure I’ve smelt it coming from that wee wash-house near the cowshed. He must drink gallons of the stuff too for every time I’ve been with Tam he’s always burstin’ to pee and when he does it’s like the wee waterfall up by Brodie’s burn – never-ending. I remember one time –’ he chuckled at the recollection – ‘Tam was burstin’ and a crowd o’ lassies coming along. He couldn’t wait so he popped the milk can he was carrying inside his breeks, did up his buttons, and was peeing merrily into the can as the girls were passing. It made quite a noise and between that and the bluge in his trousers the lassies’ eyes were goggling. He looked like a prize bull with breeks on!’
Shona shrieked with mirth and she and Niall returned to the Ceilidh in a light-hearted mood.
Next morning she overslept and was kept so busy there was no time to see Niall off from the harbour. In a way she was glad because she knew she would have cried at the parting.
She was in one of the top fields, driving two straying cows, when she saw him on the road far below. He looked up and waved, shouting something she couldn’t hear, then he was off, his beloved, familiar figure a dark little blob on the road to Portcull. She stood silhouetted against the sky. She knew he turned again and again because she could see the tiny stick that was his arm raised in farewell. She sank into the lush grass, the cows forgotten. She watched the boat leaving the harbour and kept on watching till it was just a speck in the misty distance.
‘Ca’ canny, my Niall,’ she whispered and a cold little wind dried the tears on her cheeks.
That summer Alick and Mary came with their four-year-old twin sons. The farmhouse rang with wild yells and screams of joy. Shona was an adored cousin and she took the boys for picnics to the sheltered little bays at Nigg. She taught them to ride
Thistle, the tiny Shetland pony she had long outgrown, and they clattered along with her to feed the hens or help with the milking.
She was laughing and gay, yet Fergus looked at her and could feel her loneliness.
The twins departed and Laigmhor reverted to its drowsing norm. Erchy the postman paid more than his usual number of visits and he lumbered slowly through a Strupak while Shona fingered Niall’s letters nestling in her apron pockets and wished she was alone.
‘Love letters, is it?’ twinkled Erchy unfailingly. ‘That young buck must have it bad, I’m thinkin’. His poor mither only gets half of what you do.’
Niall’s letters were colourful and his descriptions of life in the training camp so full of wit that Shona often laughed aloud, but there was also a yearning for her in every line he wrote and she hugged each little intimacy to her heart.
The summer days grew shorter and autumn came with a sharp tang. The rowans winked fiery eyes and woodsmoke hung in the misty air. The bronze of beeches and the twinkling golds of silver birches turned Rhanna into a patchwork quilt of colour. Bracken rustled on the mountains and towards the end of September the deer rut came and the strange, plaintive roar of the stags echoed in the glens.
Biddy was seldom away from old Shelagh’s cottage and one morning the old lady said to her, ‘See that I have my teeths in when you lay me out, mo ghaoil. The damt things were never much good to me when I was alive but they’ll help me to look better when all my friends come to see me in my box. And . . .’ She laid a frail hand on Biddy’s arm. ‘Will you be saying a wee prayer for me in the Gaelic when they put me into the Kirkyard? I know God has all the tongues but thon minister is not even speaking English right and I’d like fine for God to know I’m coming so that all my friends up yonder will know to greet me.’
Biddy brushed away a tear and said gruffly, ‘Ach of course I will, you old blether, but it’s a bit early to be talking of such things.’
But Shelagh, a small wizened figure in a bed full of patchwork quilts, shook her head. ‘You should know better than to try and fool me. I’ve lived too long to be taken in by kind words. Just say that wee prayer for me, Biddy, and don’t worry. If I have any trouble getting into Heaven I’ll just blow my way through the gates, my winds will see to that.’
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