Island of Wings

by Karin Altenberg

  Somebody had lit a fire in the grate for their arrival, and Mrs MacKenzie returned to the first room to heat some water for tea. Through the window she could see the islanders still lingering outside. She turned her back to them and busied herself with the kettle. Its cool metal surface seemed reassuring and she gripped it hard with both her hands for a moment. She wanted to speak, to say something normal and appropriate for an occasion such as this, a young woman moving into her new home, but her throat was thick and she feared her voice would not carry.

  Neil MacKenzie opened a heavy door at the end of the hall, which led through the short passage, past a storeroom and a dairy, into the kirk. He entered in the east end by the raised platform where the pulpit stood. It was a simple room with plastered walls and a high ceiling, the rafters still bare. The last of the evening light was falling through four lancet windows on to a double row of rough pews. The earth had been packed into a slightly slanting floor. Although the kirk had been built by hands far from home and not skilled in ecclesiastical architecture, the minister was pleased with the austerity of the room, which reflected well the prevailing fashion of Highland churches. He stood at the pulpit and looked out of a window at the mackerel sky above the bay. Suddenly overcome by pious emotion he sank to his knees, his dark hair falling over his eyes as he bowed his head and thanked the Lord for the opportunity which had been presented to him: ‘Gratitude be to the Lord who affords us constant reason for gratefully recognising His protecting care and unmerited kindness.’

  The glorious morning sun was painting Lizzie’s face as she rested on the porch. She felt her cheeks glow pleasantly as she drank in the scent of honeysuckle and deep sea carried on the summer breeze. She found it difficult to comprehend that this island had been her home for barely two weeks now – already it felt like an eternity. The days were growing heavy with her pregnancy, but at this moment her world was close and comfortable around her. The new life she carried stirred occasionally under her heart and she wished that it could see through her eyes the emerald hills sparkling with dew and the still sea of the most beautiful velvety blue. A couple of seals were asleep in the bay, their bodies drifting like drogues in the water while their heads bobbed on the surface like shining black buoys.

  Her husband had been busy with his ministerial duties. He had visited all the houses in the village and he had preached two sermons which had been attended by all, though the level of ­concentration amongst the congregation had been somewhat low, Lizzie reflected. She herself had not visited the village yet. She had been exploring the glebe and the outhouses, but she had not yet ventured far from the manse. The only reason for this omission, she convinced herself, was that she had been so busy with unpacking their crates and boxes, brought ashore from the cutter before Captain MacLeod and Mr Bethune set sail for Pabbay again.

  A steady stream of natives had been visiting them in the manse, bringing gifts of gugas – young gannets, dressed and prepared for eating – along with eggs and milk. She had stood by her husband’s side while he greeted the guests and thanked them for their gifts in that soft language that separated her from him. Her face had strained with the expressions of hospitality and gratitude she had worn for the natives as they smiled kindly and curiously at her. One of the families had brought a puppy, a small dog of no particular breed. It was playing now at her feet, and she smiled as its clumsy paws prodded suspiciously at a shell recently dropped ashore by a gull. It was not a pretty animal, with its short legs and long black body. It had a brown face with pointed black ears. She could think of no name for it at present, but she liked it enough to realise it deserved one. Annie would have known what to call it, she thought, and reminded herself to ask her sister in the letter she had started the other night. Mr Bethune, who had not been satisfied with the rents supplied by the natives for their laird, had said that they could expect another boat from the taxman before the end of the summer. Supplies ordered to last the natives through the winter would be delivered on this occasion and Lizzie hoped that the taxman could bring her letters to Annie and her parents back with him to Harris.

  The puppy was licking her hands now, its eyes revealing a pathetic yearning for something which she failed to interpret. Instead she blushed as she remembered the hot eagerness of her husband, who had lain with her last night. His kisses were still burning on her skin like a fever. He was very careful these days out of respect for the baby inside her, but he was as ardent as always and she was pleased that their bed was so warm and close, although it sometimes worried her that the tenderness kindled there was often lost in daylight.

  The minister was sitting at the desk in his study. His gaze would occasionally rest on the beautiful view of the bay outside the window. He was thrilled with his new parish but concerned about the state of the congregation; he was particularly worried about the quality of their accommodation and the nature of their faith. He was writing in his notebook:

  Eight years ago my friend Dr MacDonald wrote in his report to the Society that the St Kildans had ‘some knowledge of the chief doctrines of the Bible, but that their knowledge was of a traditional and theoretical rather than of a scriptural and practical character’. This statement seems to be true still. In fact I myself have noted a serious lapse in their understanding of moral obligation. The St Kildans seem to have been very attentive to Dr MacDonald’s powerful sermons although I suspect that they were mainly charmed by his great eloquence and energy but had not enough knowledge or insight into the Scriptures to be able to follow the arguments. I have noted a similar distraction when I have preached. I fear that they are too ignorant of the leading truths of Christianity and the practical effects thereof to profit from my sermons. Something must be done, under the influence of the Spirit of God, naturally, to make the doctrines of Christianity enter into their hearts and minds. I am planning to hold meetings every Wednesday evening to teach them, clause by clause – indeed word by word, if necessary – the shorter catechism.

  He leaned back in his chair and flipped the pen between his long fingers. Perhaps they would also benefit from being able to read and write, he thought. Very few of them seemed to have mastered these skills. He would need to set up a school. The teaching would have to be conducted in Gaelic but perhaps his wife could help to try and teach them some English – that would perhaps bring her out of herself. He sighed as he pondered the monumental task that lay ahead of him.

  There was also the issue of the hygiene of the members of the congregation. It was difficult to accept that there were Christian souls in these modern times who lived in such filth. Their dwellings were not much better than the burrows of the puffins, and many of them only owned one set of clothes so that they had to borrow garments from their kin on the unusual occasion when they wished to wash their attire. He had even noticed that some did away with this altogether. He returned to the notebook with a disgusted look on his face:

  The St Kildans live in oval-shaped houses which are more like hovels than human dwellings. The houses are covered in grass and rubbish and can from afar be mistaken for burrows. They live close together in a clachan without any apparent structure to it. The walls of the buildings are as thick as they are high, about seven feet, and hence there are no windows to let the light in. The only source of light is a hole where the straw roof meets the wall, which also serves as a smoke outlet. Due to the thickness of the walls the wooden door opens on to a passage which leads into the byre end of the house. In order to reach the living area you have to make your way, in complete darkness, past the animals which dwell there in the winter, to the living area shared by men and dogs. There is no furniture as such, just a few utensils such as a couple of iron pots, a wooden chest or two, a few wooden plates and an iron lamp fuelled by fulmar oil. The beds are dug out of the thickness of the walls and the entrance to these grave-like beds is two by three feet. Ashes, dirty water and far worse are spread daily on the earth floor and covered every few days with more a
shes. This way, they tell me, the thickness of the floor accumulates over the year so that by the springtime, before this human manure is dug out and spread across the fields, the inhabitants have to crawl around their houses on their hands and knees. What is more, they literally dive down into their beds at night, as the level of the floor is higher than the entrance to the ‘grave’.

  They tell me also that it can at times be very difficult to enter the building in wintertime. This is due to the fact that in front of the doorway, and extending well into the tunnel, is a hollow into which are thrown all the portions of the birds not used for food, the entire carcasses of those not edible, and all and every abomination you can imagine. I do not wish to think about the horrors I will have to crawl through in order to visit my parishioners when winter comes. God almighty! How can people survive under such circumstances? They do not seem to be too bothered by the standard of their living and maintain, in the most laconic way, that their ancestors built these houses and lived in them for a thousand years which in itself proves that they are good houses. But they do wonder why it is that they are not as strong as their forefathers appear to have been! I thank the Lord that my olfactory senses are so poorly developed.

  It was no wonder, the minister thought as he put down his pen, that the stench around the natives was so unbearable that it made his pregnant wife nauseous. He was suddenly ashamed of himself for thinking such negative thoughts of his own flock and added a paragraph to his notes:

  All praise be to the God of mercies, who has brought me hitherto, and permitted me to see the little group of mortal beings who inhabit this sequestered spot.

  Pleased by this magnanimous comment he decided that it was time for a break and went in search of Lizzie. He found her on the porch, her eyes closed against the sun and an untroubled smile on her face. He noticed that her cheeks were stroked in a pretty shade of pink. Her hands lay idle and cupped in her lap – they seemed to be gathering sunlight under her swelling stomach. He watched her quietly for a while and realised that he was at that moment raised to a level of happiness that could not possibly last. In her he celebrated the unearthly beauty of the morning. She reminded him of everything in life that he had denied himself since Will’s death all those years ago, and for the first time he allowed himself to recognise his dead friend’s likeness in her unruly hair and frail temples. Could he dare to own this new space that she had created for him? How skilled he had become at avoiding tender emotions! Could he love her? He shuddered at the thought. There were times when he had wanted to diminish his own humiliation by hurting those he loved.

  She looked up at him then, startled to find him so close. The light that entered her eyes seemed to flash an instant before it settled into dark pewter. ‘How is your work going?’ she asked, and stretched her back. ‘It is such a beautiful day. I think I will go for a walk.’

  ‘A walk?’ he echoed anxiously. ‘Is that really wise? You know these rocks can be quite treacherous, and you have not been anywhere on the island yet.’

  She laughed at his concern as he went on, ‘At least wait until I have finished my work so that I can walk with you.’

  ‘Don’t worry, my dear, I want to go on my own,’ she replied cheerfully. ‘I will walk up the spot you told me about the other day, the place where I will be able to see the other side of the island.’

  ‘Bearradh na h-Eige,’ he said. ‘It means the edge of the Gap. You must by no means walk all the way up there on your own.’

  The week before, the natives had showed him the spot where the hill ends and the sea cliffs take over. The cliffs were about six hundred feet high and, if nothing else, the view would surely give her vertigo, he thought.

  ‘Well, I will only walk as far as the ridge up there –’ she pointed towards a ledge above the hamlet – ‘as I would so like to see the view of the bay from above,’ she said reasonably as she heard the concern in his voice.

  ‘But you are really not in a fit state to walk up a hill,’ he insisted.

  Lizzie could feel a vague irritation rising within her. ‘The baby is not due for another few months, and if it makes you feel better I will bring him along.’ She pointed at the bewildered puppy at her feet.

  Now it was his turn to laugh. ‘All right, with such a champion at your side I cannot deny you the pleasure of the view from the hill; it is indeed stunning! But remember not to walk any higher than the small glen with the stone enclosures.’

  She rose and kissed him. He let it happen although it was full daylight and they were easily visible from the clachan.

  Soon the puppy was bouncing ahead of her on the gentle slope above the glebe. It seemed to be chasing a fly or perhaps a more obscure creation of its own mind. She smiled and waved at her husband as she started to climb the steeper ground, her petticoats stirring up the smell of fresh grass and white clover. The sound of the sea was everywhere, but as she ascended the hill the cries of the fulmar became even louder. High above the huge granite dome of the east fell starlings were playing their summer games. Lizzie thought herself lucky to be able to walk as freely as this. She thought of her home in Paisley, where the smoke from the coal fires hung thick in the air and the factories were growing fast. She wished Annie could have been here with her to see so much beauty. She had never thought it possible for grass to be this green and for the sky to be this blue. The ground seemed to be illuminated from below as if some ancient, golden treasure had been buried there.

  She passed a number of cleits, used to store turf or a catch of birds, and she thought they looked like a bad rash in the landscape. It was as if the natives had built themselves into the surface of the island and it was sometimes very difficult to distinguish between man-made structures and natural features. Nor was it possible to distinguish the ancient from the new. Time was no longer linear in this place where no one could remember who built the houses, cleits and dykes and where the seasons were marked by the comings and goings of the migrating birds. The ancestors were near the living, and the world of men was closely linked with the rock, the sea and the birds with which they shared these elements. Time and space seemed suspended, so that here and now was always and everywhere.

  When she reached the glen with the magnificent drystone enclosures Lizzie turned to look down at the bay and the village. Far below, the sea was so still and clear that she expected to be able to see the fish swimming in the shallows. A fine line of white foam where the surf hit the shingle beach adorned the water’s edge like a rope of pearls. There was no smoke coming from the huts in the clachan. Fuel was scarce on the island, which lacked both substantial trees and peat, and during the summer months it was used for cooking only once a day. She could see some fields of barley, lit now by the midday sun. The meadows, yards and stock-pounds were empty as the cattle and sheep were enjoying the summer pasture on the other side of the island. From the manse she had watched the women as they set off, twice a day, to milk the cows that grazed the fine grass of Gleann Mòr. It was probably a long walk, she thought, as the women would be gone for many hours at a time. They were often singing together as they walked, and their tunes, which sounded ancient and alien but pretty enough, were sometimes carried on the breeze across the bay where they would echo in the air above the glebe.

  The puppy had slowed down ahead of her and was fighting bravely against a passive cluster of speedwells which grew next to a drystone dyke. Its ears were pointed and it growled threateningly as it stared into the innocent blue eyes of its opponents. Lizzie suddenly laughed and stretched her arms as if to embrace all the beauty of the day. She felt like a girl again, her feet were so light that they did not seem to make a dent in the grass and gone were her anxieties and her feelings of inadequacy. The frightening magnitude of her decision to marry the minister and follow him to this place was replaced by a relieving insouciance. She was Lizzie, she was her own self, and Mrs MacKenzie was no concern of hers! She felt light-headed
and hot and pulled off her bonnet to let the sun and the wind dry the perspiration from around her face. How she wished she could walk with the girls of the village to Gleann Mòr; she would sing their songs and learn to milk the cows and live as close to the rocks and the sea as they did.

  She resumed her walk; youth was in her step and in the flush of her cheeks and she could see no harm in climbing a bit higher. The slope was steeper now and the grass gave way to rocks covered in lichen. A couple of willows were crouching beneath an outcrop – they had been forced by the wind and the weather into submission. Lizzie was delighted to see a young boy of eight or nine years old coming towards her from the higher ground ahead of her. He was fair and pretty and looked an image of health although his clothes were tattered and filthy. She thought how beautiful these children would be if only she could wash them and clothe them in proper, fashionable garments. She greeted the boy cheerfully in English, and he looked up in alarm as if he had only just laid eyes on her. ‘Cia mar tha thu,’ he answered shyly from under his fringe. His voice was branded by the characteristic lisp of the St Kildans. The mutual greetings were followed by an awkward silence as they both realised that the conversation could go no further. Lizzie smiled at the boy and indicated with her hand towards the ridge; then she waved and turned to go. The boy was suddenly alert, the shyness all gone. He gestured towards the high grounds, shaking his head as he spoke quickly and eagerly. His pale eyes were the colour of freshly caught herring and he looked quite worried. Lizzie, touched by what she interpreted as concern for her welfare, laughed and said teasingly, ‘You are as bad as my husband.’ Then she added coquettishly, ‘I wish you men would stop worrying about me. I won’t go near the edge of the precipice and I will be very, very careful.’ She ruffled the boy’s hair and turned to go, but he grabbed her sleeve and repeated some of the words she had heard him say before. Lizzie felt a spark of irritation and pulled her arm away rather too brusquely. The boy looked even more agitated and she thought she could detect tears of frustration welling in his eyes before he turned abruptly and ran down the hill towards the clachan.