Stranger on Rhanna

by Christine Marion Fraser

  ‘Just one moment.’ Erchy was up again, tying the door with a piece of dirty string. ‘Canny be too careful.’ He smirked and settled himself once more behind the wheel. The vehicle emitted a series of groans, wheezes and two alarming bangs before it condescended to heave itself out of a pothole, whereafter it proceeded sedately along the front, leaving in its wake a hideous-smelling cloud of diesel fumes.

  Erchy was a somewhat erratic driver. On perfectly good stretches of road he would bowl along at a gentle pace suited to his vehicle’s temperamental mechanism, but once out on the open road, which for most of his route consisted of narrow little winding ribbons, a change would come over him, and today was no exception.

  Through the village of Portcull, past the Schoolhouse, the Manse and the Kirkyard, he was the Erchy that everyone knew – placid, smiling, easy-going to a fault – but as soon as he hit the narrow cliff road to Nigg a grimness settled over his countenance, his mouth became a tight line and his eyes calculating slits in his screwed-up face.

  It was as if he saw the road as a challenge to his driving abilities, for no sooner had he come to the first warning sign than he was hanging over the wheel, his foot rammed hard on the accelerator. Round hairpin bends he screeched, scattering the sheep, turf and loose stones flying from under the wheels to go bouncing and whizzing down to the rocky shores far below.

  The garrulous visitor was exclaiming in the loudest of voices about the scenery. She had introduced herself to the bus as, ‘Viv, botany, geology, history, Creag an Ban cottage, second on the right, B&B, Nigg,’ and thenceforth had appointed herself unofficial tour guide. She obviously knew the island well; every passing-place, every patch of heather, every boulder had a story to tell. Ring marks, cup marks, glacial features, duns, forts, ruins of every sort, alpine plants, rare flowers – she rhymed them all off with expertise, her voice wobbling in her throat with every bump. She gave not a blink, nary a pause as Erchy not so much guided the bus along the road as pointed it and hoped for the best.

  The islanders were used to such roads: they had lived with them all of their lives. The days of horse-drawn traffic had been far more alarming than the deceptive safety of Erchy’s bus, so they listened with half an ear to ‘Viv, Creag an Ban, B&B, Nigg,’ as they dozed, sucked mints or sent odoriferous clouds of pipe smoke into the already choked atmosphere.

  But Mamma was new to it all and Mamma was scared. Viv was in raptures over the scenery. ‘Oh, look, just look down there!’ she cried, pointing to the sea foaming into rocky coves far below. ‘The water! Have you ever seen such colour? So vivid! So ultramarine!’

  Mamma was beyond making any sort of response; her heart had long ago leapt into her throat and there it stayed as they plummeted down the braes, spun round tortuous twists and curves and climbed up impossibly steep hills, with sometimes a hairpin bend at the top to complicate matters further.

  It seemed a miracle that the vehicle ever made it to the top of those daunting slopes but somehow it sobbed and panted its way to victory.

  At one point they met Rab McKinnon ambling along in his tractor. Erchy emitted an explosive curse and just about rammed his brakes through the floor in his efforts to slow down. The vehicle shuddered, every joint took the strain, but miraculously it lumbered to a halt in time to allow Rab to potter unhurriedly into the nearest passing-place.

  Erchy drew alongside and for fully five minutes he and Rab blethered about subjects ranging from farming and fishing to the weather, and more football.

  Mamma could barely contain herself; wildly she glanced round at her fellow passengers. The only muscles that moved were those necessary to the masticating of mints, the sucking in and blowing out of pipe smoke; there were no signs of agitation on any of the faces with the exception of Aggie’s as she wondered if she was going to make Morning Story or not.

  Aggie caught sight of Mamma’s bewildered countenance and moved uncomfortably. She was sorry now for her outburst in the shop – after all, the woman was new to the island, her English wasn’t very good and everything must be very strange to her. No one had really given her a chance to explain herself, though it was just a pity she had got off to such a bad start. She wondered why Jon’s mother had come on the bus: she had said something to Erchy about Croy but why on earth would she want to go to such an isolated spot? There was nothing at Croy except a few houses and the ruins of the old Abbey, but perhaps she was like the Viv creature – interested in historic buildings – though she didn’t give the impression of being anything else but a rather impatient visitor who didn’t like to be kept waiting for anything.

  Oh well, it takes all types, thought Aggie before opening her mouth to give her lungs full throttle, ‘Are you two plannin’ on exercising your jaws all day? Some o’ us would like to get home, Erchy McKay, and if you don’t get goin’ this minute I’ll report you to the authorities!’

  Aggie had no earthly idea what sort of senior body was involved with the running of Erchy’s bus but it sounded good and had the effect of making him withdraw his head immediately and slam the vehicle into gear.

  Rab took his pipe from his mouth to give everyone a languorous wave and seemed completely unconcerned when he was enveloped in a cloud of exhaust fumes.

  A few minutes later Aggie alighted from the bus and off she went towards a little white crofthouse sitting atop a grassy knoll, her fat, rolling gait carrying her to her door in an apparently effortless fashion. She was no more than thirty, fighting fit despite her girth, and ever since her marriage to Colin Mor it had been a joke among the menfolk that he had been the only man brave enough ever to have taken her on and survived.

  Several more passengers were decanted at various spots along the way, together with a few parcels. The creel of fish was deposited at Annack Gow’s cottage; one sack of rabbits went to an old crofter who would later skin them and sell them to his neighbours, much to the annoyance of Holy Smoke who felt that he and he alone should be the sole purveyor of fresh meat in the district.

  Old Johnny Sron Mor, named so because of his enormous nose, met the bus at the turn-off to Croy and into his hands Erchy delivered the second sack of rabbits destined for the population of hungry cats that Johnny had gathered around him over the years. Money changed hands, another exchange of news took place, Johnny ‘aying’ and ‘oching’ while Erchy delivered some titbits of gossip.

  Mamma boiled over. She was the only one left on the bus now and as she sat there listening to the two men gabbling away in the Gaelic, she was more than ever convinced that she had not only landed on foreign shores, she had also unwittingly involved herself in a situation that was like nothing she had ever experienced in her life before, and was never going to experience again if she could help it.

  ‘I wait to go to Croy!’ she boomed. ‘I wish to get to this place before one of the clock and I command that you take me – NOW!’

  Up until then there were few people in Mamma’s life who had ever failed to obey her demands. But then she had never had to reckon with Hebridean islanders whose idea of speed was to think about it first before deciding if it was worth all the effort.

  Most of all, she had never had to reckon with Erchy, who, renowned for taking life easy, had been known to read the papers and have a nap in his post van, and all in the busy round of his working day. Erchy enjoyed guessing the contents of folk’s mail and he thrived on gossip. He was thriving now on Johnny Sron Mor’s account of a fight between two neighbours, and the face he turned back into the bus to look at Mamma was pained in the extreme. It was with the greatest reluctance that he bade Johnny good day and set his bus rather grudgingly on the bumpy road to Croy.

  Chapter Twelve

  Kate was in her garden, half-heartedly tackling a flourishing patch of dandelions which Tam had promised to annihilate two weeks ago. Kate wasn’t in the least bit interested in weeding but had chosen this spot near her gate so that she could watch for the return of Erchy’s bus. Ever since she had sent Mamma on her wild-goose chase, her consc
ience had been bothering her, and on returning home from Merry Mary’s she had partaken of a hasty lunch before going out to the garden armed with her hoe. It was a rusty apology for a garden implement – Tam had said he would make her a fine new one ‘whenever he had a spare moment’ but, as yet, the spare moment had not presented itself – so in between bobbing up to look over the wall, she was kept busy battering the head of the hoe back on to its pole, with the result that the dandelions were given a further reprieve while she alternately cursed Tam, the weeds, the midgies, and the advent of Mamma Jodl on to the island.

  But Kate never stayed in a bad mood for long. Despite the midgies it was a fine day, calm and warm; the Sound of Rhanna was blue and serene; the slopes of Sgurr nan Ruadh wore a furring of fresh new green; little trails of mist floated in and out of the corries; Sgurr na Gill was blue in the distance and wore a fluffy cloud cap on its highest peak. The skylarks were trilling in the fields behind her house; a curlew bubbled out its haunting song from the shore; the sparrows were perched on her washing line, looking for all the world like a row of fancy little pegs as they preened themselves and twittered to one another.

  A figure was coming along the road from the direction of Port Rum Point, an unfamiliar figure to Kate, and she watched its approach with interest while pretending to examine an exuberant waterfall of purple aubretia growing on her wall. The figure came nearer and soon proved to be none other than Herr Otto Klebb whom Kate, much to her chagrin, had never had any opportunity to speak to as he was apt to keep strictly within the boundaries of Tigh na Cladach and Burg Bay.

  ‘Tis yourself, Mr Klegg,’ she greeted cheerily. ‘A fine day, is it not?’

  To that he made no reply, instead he said rather sourly, ‘Mein Frau, the name is Klebb, K–L–E–B–B, Klebb. A cleg, I believe, is the Scottish name for a large biting insect, known elsewhere as a horsefly.’

  ‘Och well,’ Kate replied without hesitation, ‘if the cap fits – wear it.’

  Otto wasn’t used to Kate’s ready tongue and he was not amused. ‘I assure you, good lady, I neither bite nor suck blood, so the cap, it will not fit.’

  Looking at his large, strong teeth, Kate wasn’t too sure. She wasn’t taken with his surly manner either and, stepping back a pace, she surveyed him for a few moments before throwing down her hoe and stomping away up her path, tossing back, ‘If you’ll be excusin’ me, Mr – er – Otto, I have left Tam’s dinner on the stove.’

  ‘Stop, Frau McKinnon!’ he roared. Kate stopped dead in her tracks.

  ‘It is Frau McKinnon, is it not? Frau Kate McKinnon?’

  Kate retraced her hasty steps, more out of curiosity than of a desire to commune further with this big bear of a man with his dour face and bad manners.

  ‘Ay,’ she nodded warily, ‘it is Kate McKinnon, no other, and if you don’t mind me saying so, I am used to gentlemen treating me with respect. No’ even my Tam, in all the years we’ve been wed, has ever shouted at me the way you shouted, and if you wereny a stranger on Rhanna, and if my very own mother hadny taught me the manners I have on me now, I wouldny have thought twice about just walkin’ away and leavin’ you in the lurch. You furriners are all the same when it comes to bad manners: we had one in the shop earlier, a German like yourself, a battering ram she was, just charged in and . . .’

  ‘Frau McKinnon,’ Otto’s voice was clipped, ‘I tell this to Frau Tina, I tell it to you: I am an Austrian, not a German, I . . .’

  ‘Same difference,’ Kate returned smartly, ‘at least, where rudeness is concerned.’

  Otto had the grace to look ashamed. ‘The apology I give; I am not myself since my head swells to twice its size in the night and greets me with much pain when I wake.’

  Kate nodded knowingly. ‘Oh ay, Tam has that same problem after a night on the tiles. We were all after hearing the ceilidh at the shorehouse last night. Todd said he couldny sleep for it and my Angus thought he heard McKenzie o’ the Glen bawling and singing outside your house at some God-forsaken hour. Of course,’ her eyes twinkled, ‘I told Angus it couldny be, Fergus McKenzie only ever sings when he thinks he’s alone on the hill, nothing on earth could make him raise his voice in the company o’ other human beings.’

  An appreciative grin banished Otto’s dourness. ‘The schnapps, Frau Kate, yes, the schnapps could do it . . .’ he hesitated and looked towards the house, ‘I wonder, if perhaps you are not too busy . . .’

  Kate frowned then her face cleared. ‘Ach, of course, Mr Otto, you would like a good strong cuppy to clear your head.’ She knew there was more to it than that but being Kate she was wily enough not to enlarge on the subject there at the gate, ‘in full view o’ the world,’ as her daughter Nancy would have said.

  She made to go indoors with her unexpected visitor then remembered Mamma Jodl. ‘Away you go ben the room,’ she said to Otto. ‘Up the lobby and second on your left – I’ll no’ be a minute.’

  Going back to the gate, she made a hasty assessment of the scene. There was no sign of the bus but her son, Wullie, was coming along, a gloomy expression on his face. Like his mother he was always a mite too ready with his tongue; also, like her, he had a conscience and he was now regretting his indelicate handling of Dodie over the affair of the cockerels.

  ‘Have you seen Dodie?’ was his greeting as he came up to the gate. ‘I told him I would shoot his bloody cockerels and I’ve no’ seen him since. He’ll likely be hidin’ somewhere, greetin’ his eyes out. I was comin’ to look for him anyway but Main says I’ll no’ get any tea the night if I don’t find the old bugger and bring him back.’

  ‘Ach, Mairi!’ snorted Kate, who often found it hard to be patient with her ineffectual daughter-in-law. ‘Surely you’ll no’ let a simple sowel like her boss you about. As for Dodie, he’ll come home when his belly starts rumbling and no’ before. Meanwhile, my lad, you can make yourself useful by biding here at my gate and keeping a look-out for the bus coming back: I am busy entertaining a special guest but want a word wi’ Erchy when he comes.’

  ‘But, Mother,’ Wullie protested, ‘I have more to do wi’ my time than stand here like a haddie watching for the damt bus.’

  His words were spoken into thin air: Kate had already disappeared into the house to ‘entertain her special guest’. Her son was left to fume and fret and furiously wipe away the drips from his nose, the idea never entering his head to disobey his mother, for even though he was a grown man, if she took it into her head to chase him with a broom or swipe him over the face with a dish cloth, she wouldn’t think twice about it – as he had learned to his cost over the years.

  And right well did Kate treat her visitor. Hospitality was only one of the many social graces she didn’t stint on, in fact, despite her blunt tongue and often intimidating ways, she was renowned for her kindness and was always one of the first to provide home baking for any local function, be it in aid of church funds, the lifeboat sale of work, or any other of the numerous events that took place on the island.

  She plied Herr Otto Klebb with tea till it was almost coming out his ears; she piled his plate high with tattie scones, buttered oatcakes, girdle scones and anything else she could lay her hands on. Altogether she lavished him with loving care and attention, not because she had wholly forgiven him for his earlier brusqueness – she would smart over that for a good while to come and might even cast it up to him if she felt it was warranted – but simply because to her keen gaze he looked pale and drawn and in need of her administrations.

  Also – and this was the big one – her instincts told her that he hadn’t just sought her out to sit in her kitchen drinking tea – oh no – he had come to tell her something or ask her something or even confide something to her, though she hoped fervently that the last was not the case. With her open, honest nature she found it very difficult to hold on to a confidence, as she herself would have been the first to admit.

  While he was enjoying his strupak, she filled a large mug with more scalding tea from the seemingly ever-
productive teapot, threw some scones on to a plate and rushed outside to thrust them into Wullie’s surprised hands. ‘Here, take this,’ she ordered, ‘and don’t let anyone see you supping tea outside my gate like a tink. Inside the wall wi’ you, my lad – and remember – wave Erchy down and don’t let him get away till I have had a word wi’ him.’

  ‘But, Mother . . .’ Wullie began, but she had disappeared once more and with a sigh of resignation, keeping one furtive eye open, Wullie ate his strupak to the echoing blasts of Dodie’s cockerels from further along the village.

  When Kate returned, her visitor was sitting back, wiping his mouth with a large, snowy white hanky, ‘Frau Kate, that was wunderbar. I congratulate you on your culinary prowess. May I now ask that you sit down and have with me the chat. It will not take long but the things I have to say are of great importance to me. You are the one I seek as I have heard of the greatness of your knowledge pertaining to the history of the people on this island.’

  Kate’s bosom swelled. Like her husband and his cronies before her she fell under the spell of Herr Otto Klebb; she forgot about his previous rudeness – the manners he presented to her now were impeccable, his magnetic eyes were upon her, mesmerising, captivating.

  She thought to herself, this is it. She sat down opposite him and waited.

  For quite a few moments there was silence. He had closed his eyes; he was so quiet and faraway she thought he had forgotten her and was therefore all the more startled when his eyes suddenly flew open and without hesitation he said, ‘Frau Kate, what would you say if I told you I am a McKinnon, the same as yourself?’

  Kate was stunned, so much so she couldn’t say anything at first, far less comment on the question he had just delivered with the force of a sledgehammer. She sat back in her chair and took several deep breaths, then, true to form, she nodded and said cheerily, ‘Ach well, Mr Otto, you wouldny be the first to come into my house and tell me that. Only last year I was able to give all sorts of information about the McKinnons to a fine wee English woman whose ancestors came from the island of Mull. She went away from Rhanna wi’ stars in her eyes and though I say it myself I made her time here so happy I wouldny be surprised if she comes back to visit me one o’ these days.’