Island of Wings

by Karin Altenberg

  ‘No, I just want to sleep, leave me alone,’ came his answer cold and hard.

  She turned to the wall and curled up to cradle the empty pain in her chest. She held it there along with her pride until she could hear that he had fallen asleep. Then she let her limbs fall apart and stretched her soul thinly across the bed until, at last, she could let her misery and loneliness dissolve into the coarse sheets.

  Once her crying had subsided Lizzie lay for a long time watching the moon which glided slowly across the bay outside the window. Throughout the night she could hear scattered notes from the fiddle in the still, frosty darkness. The sound seemed to travel far on the thin air. At times the music was tender and intent, caressing the rafters and spilling into the flesh of the night, only to be suddenly let loose in quick leaps and turns, skipping across the fields and chasing up the hillsides. Lizzie wished that she could dance with the wedding guests. Oh how she wanted to feel the music through her limbs and lose herself in the rhythm of the dancing feet. Eventually she fell into the slack sleep that follows dark passion, dreaming that the warm tunes carried her back to the party and into the strong arms of a dancing young man.

  Christmas came quickly as the days shrank into what seemed like a long, single midwinter night. One of Calum’s cousins, a thin girl of about thirteen called Anna, came to help in the manse. She could say yes and no in English and seemed to understand a bit more. Her clothes were hand-me-downs and too big for her, which made her look odd and younger than her age, but she was used to caring for small children and liked playing with Eliza and James Bannatyne while Lizzie was working on the preparations for Christmas. Anna, who was still a child herself, had an easy way with the little ones. After a while, she communicated in simple English, and Lizzie was almost jealous of the girl’s straightforward connection with them. ‘Put your boots on,’ she would say to Eliza before they went out, and the child would sit on the floor and pull on her boots. ‘Don’t pee outside the potty,’ she would say to James Bannatyne, and help him to hold his tiny penis so that the pee trickled into the enamel container while he stood obligingly on chubby legs.

  Anna was a serious girl, though something of a dreamer, and beauty mattered more than anything to her. Her soul was so disturbed by the coarseness and ugliness of the domestic world around her that it would turn to beauty like a sunflower turns to the sun. Sometimes she was surprised when others did not see the thin disc of silver resting on the tarns at night, or when no one else seemed to know that water from melted snow tastes deliciously of air. In a different world she might have been called an aesthete, but in her own there were no means for her to improve her condition. Working in the manse was more important to her than anyone could imagine. Whenever she was alone she would sneak into the master bedroom or the minister’s study and look in astonishment at some of the things her master and mistress had brought from the mainland: books bound in fragrant leather lettered in gold, a silver ink bottle, a seascape painted in oil and hung in a gilded frame (actually a cheap present from Lizzie’s sister after a day out at the seaside in East Kilbride) and – further into the private quarters of her employers – a bundle of silk ribbons in a drawer where white linen underwear, fringed by the most delicate lace, lay folded neatly, and a little crystal box with jewellery – a brooch of silver and amethyst, a thin gold chain with a pearl pendant and a finger ring with a red stone. To Anna these were treasures of unimaginable beauty.

  But amongst all the riches of the manse there was one thing Anna lusted after more than anything else. The minister had ordered a hearthrug from the mainland the previous year. It was quite thin but with a pronounced paisley pattern and bright colours. Anna found it the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. In a world where no colour was ever brighter than the sorrel in the fields, the grey in the rocks and the yellow of a gannet’s neck, the hearthrug reminded Anna of all the colours of the Bible – it was the mantle of Mary, the robes of the magi and the gowns of Rahab, the whore of Jericho, all in one. She would often sneak away from her chores to look at the rug and touch it with gentle hands.

  It was for this reason she could not understand how her mistress could let that halfwit of a dog sleep on the rug. Her face would twitch as she watched the dog shuffle around the precious thing before snorting contentedly and lying down to rest, his slack jaws half open, drooling on to the crimson and the cobalt and the emerald of the cloth. Anna really had no time for the beast – it was stupid and lazy, for a start, but above all it was ugly. How could it be that it was allowed to befoul the treasure that she yearned for yet could only touch in secret? It was not fair. It really was not fair at all. Why could she not have something beautiful? Some of the older girls had got scarlet headscarves from some townspeople who came on a ship once. But she was too young then so she did not get one. All her own clothes were plain and too big; she loathed them, and hated the way they made her look like a wren chick. How embarrassing! No, really she could not think of any good reason why she should not be allowed to use the hearthrug as a shawl. After all, it was far too nice a thing to waste on a floor and a daft dog.

  On Christmas Eve, when the MacKenzies settled in the parlour after supper and the midwinter dark cloaked the manse, Mr MacKenzie asked his wife what she had done with the hearthrug. Lizzie looked at the empty space by the fireplace in surprise. Dog was not lying in his usual place but had retreated under the table with a distinctly grumpy look on his face. ‘I can­not think where it might have gone,’ said Lizzie, perplexed. ‘Perhaps Anna has removed it to mend a tear.’

  The following morning at the Christmas sermon the minister looked rather baffled as he raised his gaze from the pulpit and spotted the new maid on the bench next to his own children, neatly wrapped in his hearthrug. Indeed all eyes were turned on Anna that Christmas morning. The younger women glared at the bright colours in wide-eyed admiration and envy, whereas one or two of the older women looked around the room and met the eyes of other women, distracted, frowning. As the atmosphere in the candlelit church thickened you could almost hear them think, Who does she think she is? Anna seemed oblivious to these glances of admiration, contempt and protest. She looked contentedly at the minister as he delivered the sermon. There was no triumph or vanity in her smile. She looked neither proud nor modest, but somebody who knew her intimately might have detected a certain change in her: an elevation and an ennoblement of her station. Somebody who had never met her before might have said that, at that moment, she did not belong in this world. But to those who still did, this was altogether not acceptable.

  On the first day after Christmas the minister called Anna to his study. It was a bright day. Some snow had fallen during the night and the weak sun was resting in the bay. He could see the golden down on Anna’s upper lip as she entered the room and stood quietly by the door.

  ‘Is there anything you would like to tell me, child?’ he asked, and put down his book.

  She looked up at him quickly with a puzzled look and shook her head. ‘No, sir,’ she whispered.

  ‘Would you not like to say sorry for taking something from me?’

  Anna bit her lip and shook her head again. One of her thin plaits fell across her shoulder and settled on her budding breast.

  The minister watched her opaque face with an irritated expression. ‘Taking somebody else’s possession on purpose is stealing,’ he said patiently. ‘Did you steal the hearthrug?’

  ‘No,’ she said earnestly, for she had no experience of theft and the sun was in her eyes.

  ‘Come now, child, small lies are the most difficult to confess, but if we let them remain they may fester and infect an innocent mind.’ Some moth holes showed in his dark coat, Anna noticed, but she remained silent.

  ‘Oh, Anna, Anna,’ sighed the minister, shaking his head, ‘why can you not just admit your crime and ask my forgiveness? Tell me honestly that you are sorry and I will let you off this time.’

 
‘But, sir, I am not sorry.’ She looked at him frankly. ‘It is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen, and you let your dog sleep on it.’ She blurted it out.

  The minister rose from his chair and slammed his fist on the desk.

  ‘Please, sir, let me keep it,’ she continued to plead through her fear in a thick, desperate voice. ‘You let your dog sleep on it, but it makes me look prettier than I have ever been before. It gives me colour,’ she tried to explain.

  ‘That is it! I will have no more of it – the rug must be back in its place by nightfall!’ cried the minister, and he pulled a wooden ruler from the drawer of his desk. ‘Our Lord Jesus sees you as you sin but forgives you if you repent,’ he stammered, as he hit her once and then again over the fingers with the ruler until her knuckles bled.

  Anna’s eyes filled with tears but she said nothing. What was there to say? She had tried to tell the truth as prompted and she did not understand the reason for the blood on her hands. She was at the age of becoming: about to learn that life explains itself most clearly in challenge and failure.

  Lizzie stepped away silently from behind the door where she had witnessed the scene. She felt upset and confused. This was a side of her husband she had not seen before. She could not comprehend his lack of compassion and compromise. Why was his world so black and white? He was being unreasonable – could he not see that Anna was only trying to tell the truth? The girl had not thieved; there was no malice or greed in her young heart – she was just a child, in love with beautiful things.

  Overcome by a need to be alone with her thoughts for a moment, Lizzie slipped into the scullery and stood motionless in the cool, narrow passage. She held her breath for a moment or two and listened. The gloom hid her well and she relaxed a little, resting her back against the shelves. What was his mission? What did it signify? She thought of the pains he was taking to improve the life of the St Kildans. He studied their world with what sometimes seemed like detached scientific interest, but she knew that their welfare meant everything to him and he felt their tribulations as a personal agony. Surely only a good man would take such heed of those less fortunate? And yet there was a strange lack of imagination and empathy that kept him apart from the islanders. For the first time she felt a rush of pity for her husband – she sensed that his coldness and alienation were born out of a deep-rooted and lonely insecurity.

  I am his wife and I admire him for his strength and conviction. I must not lose faith in him. I chose him, I am his wife and I need his warmth. Why is it not enough?

  The year ended as it had begun, swathed in Atlantic mist. On the last day of the old year a certain tension rested over the clachan as the inhabitants prepared to celebrate A’Callainn, the old festival of Hogmanay. It was an unruly time, when worlds met and spirits travelled freely across liminal boundaries – the night when creatures emerged from the wrong side of the deep and the skies opened into space. The famous St Kildan hospitality was suddenly suspended and doors were locked against the gloomy day.

  Betty Scott was grinding rye in a hand quern. The rhythmic sound as her strong arms turned stone against stone was calming to Calum, who snoozed in a recess in the wall of the hut that had been allocated to them until their own house was constructed in the new village. The sound brought back darker memories to Betty: the grinding of iron-shod hoofs as the laird’s factor and his men rode into the glen, and the wheels of hand-drawn carts rasping against the loose gravel of the path as her kin left the mountains of Sutherland behind and travelled down to the sea.

  She paused in her grinding and pushed a strand of hair behind her ear with the back of her hand. The fire in the hearth would flare up every now and again as an undetected draught found its way into the smoke hole. Calum stirred and studied his young wife as she started to bake the freshly ground meal into a bannock. From where he was, beyond the circle of light, it looked as if she was on fire. Her hair was in flames and the outline of her body glowed. ‘You are so pretty, my lass, the queen of the village,’ he whispered, surprising himself with such soft words. Betty, whose mind had been further afield than his eyes could see, twitched at the sound of his voice. ‘And you are a very lazy man, Calum MacDonald.’ She laughed and glowed brighter. ‘Have you checked that there is enough whisky in the keg for the visitors tonight?’ ‘If we get any visitors,’ he added quickly as one could not know what to expect from the Gillean Calluinne, the Hogmanay celebrants. He rose reluctantly and kissed the crown of her head where she bent over the baking. Then he went outside, closing the door carefully behind him, to check on the stores in the cleit where they kept their food and drink. He felt uneasy in the grey daylight and wished that he had stayed in bed. He knew the stories. Oh yes, he had heard them told by the hearth of old Miss Ferguson, the seanchaidh, who remembered all the tales of old and fed them into the individual memories of the St Kildans. He had heard of the dark forces at large on the night of A’Callainn. Once, not long ago, a father and his daughter had walked out on to the rocks to fetch some wood to keep their fire going into the New Year. It had been a misty day, like this one, and an old man who had met them on the path at the edge of the clachan had warned them not to go any further as the mist was thick and the rocks were slippery. The father and daughter were never seen again. Not so much as a piece of clothing ever floated ashore to remind the people that they had once lived on the island. The man’s wife, the mother of the child, had gone mad from waiting for the two of them to return. For years she would set out into the mist as it rolled in from the sea. The villagers could hear the eerie sound of her voice as she called for her only child at the edge of the sea. But the man who had met the father and daughter on the path told his kin that there had been something strange about them, something that he could not quite explain. He swore that their gaze was distant and they had not looked at him as he spoke to them but walked passed him with their eyes far into the mist. Calum felt a shiver run down his spine and he quickened his step so that he was almost running when he reached the cleit where Betty had stacked their winter stores. Suddenly he wanted to be near her again. She always made him feel safe and strong – it was a strange thing to think about a lass who had been on the island for only a few years. He could not think of a single girl that he would rather have married, and he knew that many of his friends envied him and admired the beauty of his bride. He pulled out the keg of whisky and some dried meat and hurried back into the clachan. Dusk was falling, and in the long shadows he could make out some of the boys and youths who had begun to gather in the yards. He was no longer one of them, he had a wife to protect, and he hurried into his house and closed the door on all evil.

  As the darkness of the old year settled over the clachan the voices of the young men became increasingly excited. Betty listened from inside the small house. She liked the excitement of the rituals and she could feel her heart beating faster as she heard a sound as of a muffled drumming. She stood on her toes to look out of the smoke hole. There in the yard of the houses the boys had built a small fire on which they lit some torches. They gathered around and suddenly she saw a beastly being rise from their midst. A horned creature with a hide like a winter cow’s. The youths started to hit their sticks on the hide, which answered like a drum. The creature started running, leaping like a devil dancing in the flames of hell, and the youths followed, beating it hard with their sticks. ‘Come over by the fire, Betty!’ Calum called anxiously as the noise grew stronger. She went and sat by him with her hands pressed between her thighs as she continued to listen breathlessly. Suddenly they heard the din draw nearer. They began to shiver as they heard the horrible procession dance around their house; three times they went in the course of the sun, while drumming upon the hide of the screaming beast and on the walls of the house. The noise was terrifying, gruesome, as if all the evil spirits had been let loose. Calum moved closer to Betty as they heard the monster climb on to their roof and stamp his feet. Now they could hear the sticks
beating at the door and somebody chanting the runes:

  We come here to you at A’Callainn

  Renewing the rites of Hogmanay;

  The rules are still the same, of course –

  The same since our ancestors’ day.

  Betty stirred towards the door, but Calum held her back as another voice picked up the chant:

  We will go southward round the house

  And we will descend through the door;

  We’ll pass through the home as we always do,

  Round the man, as we’ve done before,

  Another voice, recently broken by puberty, continued:

  For the wife will get it, she that deserves it:

  The giving hand of the Hogmanay.

  Knowing the drought that is on the land

  We don’t expect any uisge beatha –

  The banging on the door was louder as somebody sang the last verse:

  Just a little drop of the summer produce

  That we hope you’ll put on some bread.

  We have many houses to visit tonight, so arise now

  And open the door – and please, let us be fed!

  When the chant ended, there was a pause and then a deep voice said, ‘Open up, let me enter,’ and Calum, still shaking a bit, stood to open the door. Soon the horned beast was standing by the tallan and Calum bade him to step up to the fire. Betty thought she recognised the torn shoes of her brother-in-law, Aonghas, as the beast pulled out a piece of sheepskin from under the hide. He leaned towards the fire and singed the sheepskin until a thick smoke rose from it. Then he walked around the interior of the house once and held the skin under the noses of Betty and Calum. Everybody was silent as this went on, but as the beast threw the skin back into the fire Betty handed over the bannock that she had baked earlier and opened the keg of whisky to pass it around the young men. Calum took one mouthful from the keg, and then another, before he passed it on to the youth beside him. Finally the spell was broken and he smiled, relieved and elated, as he saw the horned beast gather Betty in his arms and kiss her from under the hide. Everyone laughed and one boy, strengthened by the drink, cried at Calum that he was a lucky lad to have wed the prettiest queen on Hirta, and if he could bear to leave her side for a while he was welcome to join them as they went on their way.