Rhanna

by Christine Marion Fraser

It was the cue everyone needed to release their laughter. Phebie lifted her little daughter high and kissed her. ‘On up to bed, ye wee wittrock. Remember to say your prayers.’

  Shona helped Phebie to hand round the Strupak but when she made to put milk in Dodie’s tea he stayed her with a big hand. ‘Not in my tea, lass, over my bread in a saucer.’

  ‘But Dodie, there’s jam on the bread.’

  ‘Aye, lovely just. I like a bit jammy bread with milk over it. Merry Mary makes me jam from my own rhubarb and quite often she gives me bits of her new baked bread. I spread on the jam and pour over Ealasaid’s best cream and have it for my dinner. It’s a fine meal, you all should try it.’

  He scooped the soggy bread from the saucer and smacked his lips to catch the dribbles on his chin. ‘Lovely,’ he approved. ‘You make fine bread, Mistress McLachlan. I’m thinkin’ now you’ll be tryin’ my recipe on the family.’

  ‘Aye maybe,’ said Phebie while Shona smiled as mention of Dodie’s rhubarb brought a memory of two suntanned children listening round-eyed while the secret of the thick, juicy sticks was divulged.

  Dodie was sublimely happy eating his Strupak and chatting in his native Gaelic. Most of the islanders, except the very old, had a good English vocabulary and the youngsters could speak both languages equally well but Dodie, with his speech difficulties, was sadly lost trying to pronounce the ‘foreign’ words. Rumour had it that an English visitor, lost in the hills, had come upon Dodie and had asked the way back to Portcull. Dodie, arms waving and carbuncle wobbling, had tried to give directions but the Englishman was unable to understand. Eventually Dodie had summoned Ealasaid and tied a rope round her hairy neck. The stunned visitor was bidden to climb aboard and, with a proud Dodie coaxing and pulling, Ealasaid lumbered into Portcull to safely deliver her ashen-faced passenger.

  He dusted the crumbs from his knees and got up reluctantly.

  ‘I’ll have to be going now.’ He patted one of his voluminous pockets. ‘I have a neep here for Mum and I’d like fine to see he gets it for supper.’

  Phebie sighed. ‘Och Dodie, no wonder there’s a smell,’ she scolded. ‘The neep’s near roasted with the heat from the fire! I’ve been trying to fathom the reek.’

  ‘Ach well, that’s what it was,’ said Dodie who was sublimely unaware of his own strange scent no matter how many innuendoes were cast at him.

  ‘I’m going over to Nigg in the morning,’ said Lachlan kindly. ‘If you want to see Jock about the ram I’ll pick you up around ten. I’d like fine to see you get a fair price for Jock’s gey canny with the shillings.’

  ‘Och, it’s kind you are.’ Dodie’s broken teeth showed for a moment. ‘I’ll be off now, bidding you thanks for the Strupak. He breeah.’

  He backed to the door and Phebie held her breath as his ungainly figure narrowly missed tables and other obstacles. Lachlan went to the door and watched till the untidy flapping figure was lost in the dark though the moaning cry of ‘Murn! Murn!’ could be heard for a long time in the calm frosty air.

  When Lachlan got back to the parlour he chuckled to see everyone fanning the air with newspapers.

  ‘I’m sorry about bringing him,’ grinned Shona, ‘but he was so forlorn out there I couldn’t leave him. Poor Dodie, he must get lonely sometimes.’

  She was on the sofa beside Niall and he squeezed her hand. ‘Will you think of me, a poor lonely soul, out there in muddy, smelly trenches with bullets whingin’ round me?’

  It was meant to be a light-hearted comment but everyone in the room tensed.

  ‘We’ll think of you, lad,’ said Lachlan quietly. ‘Every day we’ll spare our thoughts for you.’

  Shona’s eyes glinted in the firelight. ‘Will it really – be like that?’

  Niall made his answer sound uncaring. ‘I canny really imagine what it will be like. It might be a bit like going into a dark room and not knowing if there’s ghosties there or not.’

  Shona shivered despite the warm room. ‘I can’t imagine you in a strange country,’ she whispered.

  ‘Ach, I’m used to being away from home.’

  Phebie was clearing the tea things but she stopped to look at her son and when she spoke her voice was sharp. ‘Are you used to fighting? And what about killing. You that never hurt a living cratur no matter how wee. What about a man, Niall? How will it be killing a man?’

  She didn’t wait for an answer but rushed from the room, her face crimson.

  Lachlan sighed and studied his slippered feet intently. ‘Take no heed of your mother, Niall,’ he said gently. ‘She’s having a hard time trying to cope with her feelings. She canny believe you’re going off to war. We’re all feeling a bit strained at the moment.’

  Shona got up silently and went to the kitchen to help Phebie.

  Lachlan tapped his pipe on the grate. ‘How’s she taking it?’

  Niall played with his thumbs. ‘Bad at first. She ran from me yesterday when we spoke of it.’

  ‘I thought you were out of temper last night but you’re sweethearts again I see.’

  Niall flushed and his bowed head glinted in the firelight.

  Lachlan looked at his son and felt such a rush of love that he wanted to cradle the young head in his lap. Ah, it seemed but yesterday that a merry little boy laughed and played at his feet. Was it not a short time ago that the harvest carts trundled homewards in the gloaming and his sleeping son lay heavy in his arms? How could he ever forget the family outings with Niall, the only child in their lives then, leaving a trail of tiny footprints on silver sand? Those had been the days of picnics in sheltered coves, the thundering foam of the Atlantic spuming high in the air while Niall, a suntanned sprite, embraced the world with his outstretched arms, screaming with joy as the frothing spray bathed his sunkissed body.

  How golden had been those far-off days and how easy it had been to laugh. Lachlan didn’t feel like laughing now, knowing that each interlude with his son would become a precious memory later – later when all he might have would be memories.

  Niall stirred restlessly and Lachlan sensed his impatience.

  ‘I’ll see Dodie gets a good price for his ram tomorrow,’ said Lachlan trying to take the strain from his son by keeping matters on an everyday level.

  Niall looked into his father’s brown eyes and felt the love and understanding reaching out to him.

  ‘I’d like fine to come over to Nigg with you. I want to see Tammy and one or two others. Could Shona come too, do you think?’

  ‘Well, it’s only a wee trap but Shona’s just a wee lass so I think we’ll manage, but don’t blame me if you’re all squeezed up against Dodie.’

  Niall put his hand on his father’s shoulder and his usually laughing eyes were serious. ‘I know there’s a lot you’d like to say, Father, but thanks for not saying it. I always knew I chose a sensible father.’

  Lachlan’s fixed smile did not betray his inner emotions. ‘And I always knew I picked a lad with a lot of gumption. Now see me over those tuffers before the fire goes down and I get a warmed lug from your mother.’

  It was a mild misty day when Niall left Rhanna. He felt himself doing things as in a dream yet he was so aware of individual sensations he felt he could reach out and put each one in his pocket. Shona’s head nestled on his shoulder as they walked away from Slochmhor. The smell of her was of roses and shining hair, mingling with all the scents of Rhanna the breeze brought to him. The healthy smell of dung and hay came from Laigmhor. A herd of cows, scratching hairy necks on the fence, blew clouds of steam and chlorophyll into the air. Smoke, fragrant with peat, floated lazily from chimneys and over-riding all was the faint, ever-present tang of salt sea.

  The memory of saying goodbye to his father was keen on his mind. It hadn’t been a spectacular farewell, just a few murmured words, and a pair of strong hands gripping him on the shoulder. He was glad his father had turned away quickly because he felt the hot tears blurring his eyes, his throat constricting as he watched the tall, familiar figu
re striding away, clutching the black bag that marked him as a healer of men. How often he had watched that beloved man going off on his rounds. When he was a little boy he’d sometimes gone with his father, thinking it a treat to visit croft and farm, biggin and cottage, where constant Strupaks were offered and dogs and cats would submit to being his very own ‘pretend’ patients, obediently sitting with patient resignation while he prodded the old stethoscope his father had given him into furry bellies and examined tongues. In the dogs’ cases that had never been difficult as a pink tongue was usually lolling anyway, but cats were never quite so forthcoming and he often ended with a scratch or two which the real doctor had to see to.

  He had waited that morning for the final wave from the striding figure and when it didn’t come he had felt like the little boy of long ago, cheated out of something he felt was his right. Then he saw his father’s hand go up to his eyes and he knew, with a poignant tearing of his senses, that his father wept too.

  The time for leaving came quickly. Shona came breathlessly from Laigmhor and his mother, wiping floury hands on her apron, kissed him briefly and promised she would come to the harbour to see him off. She was aloof and too bright and he was grateful to her for giving him the obvious opportunity to spend those precious last minutes with Shona.

  She was very quiet on the walk to Portcull and he wondered if she was in the same wakeful dream as himself. Tot trotted beside them and her squatting on every patch of grass that appealed to her brought a sense of normality to the morning.

  The gulls were whooping and screaming in the harbour. He could see them in the distance, looking like torn fragments of paper blowing in the sky.

  He kissed the delicate shell of Shona’s ear and felt that even if he were to die in the war his last days on Rhanna had brought a fulfilment to his short life that could never be surpassed. He had loved Shona with his body and his soul. She had given herself to him with such unquestioning love that he had cried in the act of joining with her and she too had wept so that their tears mingled as their bodies became one.

  Suddenly she twisted her head to look up at him, her incredible eyes dark with emotion.

  ‘Oh Niall’ she murmured, ‘I feel so unhappy – yet in the last week my life has been so full I think I could live for ever and never know such happiness again.’

  He put both arms round her and held her close. ‘You even steal my thoughts, Caillich Ruadh. Is it not enough you already have my heart? Five days ago I came home my heart afire with love for you, now I leave, knowing that what burned before was only a candle to what I feel now. Oh God, I love you, mo gaolach! These days together will be my crutch when I’m low in spirits and I ask you to spare your thoughts for me whenever you can.’

  ‘It’s going to be a long winter, Niall, there will be time to think and wonder – what you are doing, when you’ll be home.’

  ‘I might get a bit of leave if things are quiet.’

  ‘Not enough to allow you to travel to Rhanna. It would be fine if you could walk over the sea because those daft ferries of ours only come twice a week if the weather’s good.’ She fingered the gold locket at her neck. ‘I have something for you, Niall – nothing as grand as this locket but it’s a wee keepsake to remind you of home. I made it when I was nine and think well of it, Niall McLachlan, for each letter was sewn in tears and blood. I hate sewing but Mirabelle made me unpick it and do it over and over till it was as perfect as I could get it.’

  It was a sampler of rough linen, beautifully embroidered in different coloured silks. Tears shone in his brown eyes as he whispered the words of a Hebridean poem: ‘From the lone sheiling of the misty island, mountains divide us and the waste of seas; But our hearts are true and our hearts are Highland, and we in dreams – behold the Hebrides.’ He gathered her to him again. ‘I’ll treasure it, mo gaolach, but I won’t need reminding of home. I can assure you of that.’

  The harbour was strangely quiet. Usually, when the boat was due there was a subdued excitement in the knots of people waiting about. Today there was hardly a soul to be seen. A few cows, waiting to be shipped to the mainland, lowed dismally in a nearby pen, but otherwise Portcull was deserted.

  The boat appeared like a ghost ship on the horizon.

  ‘I thought Mother would have come,’ said Niall looking towards Glen Fallan. He felt strangely deflated. He was leaving the island of his birth to fight for its people and not one familiar figure was there to wish him luck. His thoughts were self-righteous and with them came an unaccustomed pang of self-pity.

  Shona squeezed his hand. ‘Your mother will come, Niall. She’ll leave it to the last because she won’t want time to cry.’

  The boat came closer and they watched in silence, suddenly finding nothing to say to each other while the boat loomed, filling the span of their vision. Ropes were thrown, men shouted and the ever-present gulls glided in the warm air from the ship’s funnels.

  The boat was unloaded. Chickens clucked in subdued tones from several crates and a young bull swung gently in the cradle of the sling attached to the derrick. Old Joe sauntered from nowhere and lit his pipe, keeping a nonchalant eye on the sling. His appearance was like some kind of trigger. All at once the harbour swarmed with all the warm-hearted, familiar faces that Niall had known all his life. They gathered round him showering him with gifts.

  Morag Ruadh pressed a small parcel into his hand. ‘A wee bit tablet, just the way you like it. Mither moaned at me for using up the sugar and Father just missed the pan I was making the tablet in with his spit.’

  Niall wasn’t sure if she meant the tablet had been made with a recipe using some of old McDonald’s spit but he took the package gratefully and kissed Morag Ruadh on the cheek. She looked astonished for a moment then she smiled slowly, a rueful gentle smile that softened her ruddy, weatherbeaten features.

  Ranald beamed into the scene, pushing a bundle of rather tattered magazines into Niall’s hands, and Todd the Shod gave him a tiny horseshoe. ‘Just for luck,’ he said in his apologetic fashion, though the keepsake had been cast with exquisite attention to detail.

  Canty Tam smiled in his vacant fashion, murmuring something about no horseshoe on earth being a match against the evils of ‘furrin parts’ but his mother, a widow woman of mighty girth, prodded him sharply in the stomach, leaving him without further breath for his prophecies of doom.

  Merry Mary, who had simply shut up shop for a few minutes, handed Niall a parcel, her usually radiant smile somewhat forced on this occasion. ‘Just a wee bit sweets,’ she whispered sadly. ‘Not so good for the teeth but fine for the nerves – the wee kind in your belly that can make you feel sick.’

  Righ nan Dul came limping along from his cottage perched close to the lighthouse at Port Rum Point. He had inherited the name from his father who had manned the lighthouse before him. It meant governor of the elements and Righ thoroughly deserved his title. His limp he owed to a fall on the twisting stairs inside the lighthouse but, despite it, he still kept his lonely night vigil, year after year. His weatherbeaten face creased into a grin at the sight of Niall and he shouted, ‘I’ll keep my torch burnin’ for you, laddie, and may the Lord guide you home safe.’

  ‘Thank you, Righ,’ said Niall, feeling a lump rising in his throat as Righ’s horny hand took his in a firm grasp.

  Old Bob had stolen away from the fields to see Niall off. He was extremely fond of the doctor’s son but his words were gruff as he hastily slipped a small heavy package into Niall’s pocket. ‘For fear you get drouthy, lad,’ he mumbled and seized Niall’s hand in his large calloused one. Niall couldn’t speak. He knew if he did he would make a fool of himself. His dream-world was growing in proportion yet still he felt and saw everything with an intense clarity.

  Dodie galloped into the crowd. ‘He breeah!’ he sighed dismally, ‘I thought I would miss the boat for I couldn’t find Mum and old Jock comin’ for him early. He’s away now so he is and I just hurried down to give you this wee present.’

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bsp; He was embarrassed and unsure of himself. Tears had sprung to his odd, pale eyes and Niall wasn’t sure if they were for him or the going of his beloved Mum, but when he looked down at the exquisitely polished conch shell, with a shaky ‘N’ laboriously scratched on its surface, he knew that eccentric old Dodie wept for him.

  ‘It’s a bonny present, Dodie,’ he said brightly.

  ‘Ach well, you were a fine brave laddie,’ came the reply and Niall knew that he was already as good as dead in Dodie’s simple mind.

  ‘Niall, Niall!’ Fiona’s small figure hurled itself at him. ‘Old Murdoch let me away to say goodbye!’

  He swung her into his arms. ‘We said it this morning, you wee wittrock.’

  She giggled, her dark eyes snapping with mischief. ‘Old Murdoch doesny know that for I said you were in bed when I left for school.’

  He nuzzled her warm neck and put out his free arm to his mother.

  ‘I’m late,’ she apologized, her concealed emotions putting a sharp edge to her voice. ‘Mathew tore his knee on barbed wire and I had to bind it for him.’

  Shona stood to the side. She felt shut off from Niall’s world but she knew she was being foolish. She wondered if love was always such a strong influence on a person’s normally sensible reasonings. Portcull was alive with people all claiming Niall’s attention. A short time ago it had just been the two of them and selfishly she wanted it to stay like that, to have all his thoughts directed at her. She wanted to be the last person in his vision of Rhanna, instead it seemed the whole of Portcull would predominate over his final impressions.

  She folded her arms behind her back and let the sounds wash over her. The cry of the gulls seared into her brain, the babble of voices made her want to scream.

  A terrified bellow came from above and she looked up to see a shaggy cream-coloured cow rigid with fright on the sling. It was perfectly safe in the strong canvas sling and the men winching her aboard were experts but the poor cow could know none of these things. Her eyes rolled and the rigid limbs thrashed the air. Shona felt sorry for the frightened animal. It was terrified of the unknown and, like herself, didn’t know what the future held.