Stranger on Rhanna

by Christine Marion Fraser

  Up until that point Erchy had had every intention of turning the bus and heading back the way he had come but the chance of a tea and pancake strupak at Nancy’s homely table was too good an opportunity to miss – and if it was accompanied by some juicy piece of news so much the better. The Portvoynachan lot would have grown tired of waiting anyway and would have managed to make their way home without him.

  With a fresh surge of vigour he blithely drove on to Croft na Beinn where Wullie and his mother quickly disembarked.

  ‘You’ll be in a hurry to get back to the harbour, Erchy,’ Kate imparted with a sprite in her eye, ‘so we’ll no’ keep you a minute longer. You’ve done your good deed for the day but then, I aye knew your heart was bigger than your head – though only just.’

  Erchy’s face fell, but he had his pride and would never for one moment push himself in where he wasn’t wanted. Nevertheless, he was determined to salvage something from the wreckage of his day, but when he broached the subject of fares to Kate, adding something about the cost of fuel, she merely grinned broadly and told him smartly he could deduct it from the interest due on Tam’s loan.

  Erchy’s face grew red, he gaped, Kate’s eyes danced. ‘Ay, my bonny man, there’s no’ much that goes past me – as you yourself have said often enough. I’m much the same as you in that respect – surely we’ve known one another long enough for you to realize that. But dinna fash yourself, Erchy, what I have to tell my Nancy will be common knowledge this time tomorrow. All you’ll need is a wee bit patience and a good big pair o’ willing lugs, and, as everybody knows, neither your nose nor your lugs have ever let you down yet, and for that, may the good Lord be thank-et.’

  So saying, she took Wullie’s arm and, chuckling, the pair of them went off to regale Nancy with the latest exciting news concerning the Clan McKinnon, leaving Erchy to make his dejected way back to Portcull and the empty harbour.

  Croft Beag was Paddy’s first port of call and Dodie gave a sigh of relief at being home. He had almost forgotten Wullie in the trauma of being stuck beside big, overpowering Mamma Jodl, who had made her disapproval of him quite plain by her scowls and her hanky held frequently to her nose. In his innocence Dodie had imagined that it was Curly’s smells she objected to and as he saw his little croft coming into view he decided that Wullie was definitely the lesser of two evils. He climbed down gladly from the cart, away from Mamma, away from the rough Irishman with his leering smiles and sly eyes, and led away his precious lamb who had left his mark all over the cart, on the seat, on the floor, even on Mamma’s shoes – though she had been so taken up with keeping her distance from the old eccentric she hadn’t yet noticed the state of her footwear.

  As Dodie reached his gate Paddy half rose up in his seat to flap his arms like wings and make hideous cackling noises, both of which actions were meant to represent Dodie’s infamous cockerels.

  Safely inside his gate, Dodie waited till the cart was moving away, then, with a great show of bravado, he yelled Paddy’s name and when the Irishman twisted round to look, he held his fingers to his nose and waved them about, before fleeing as fast as his great, clumsy feet would allow up the path to his house, Curly gambolling and skipping behind him.

  It was Mamma’s turn next and she never imagined she could be so glad to see An Cala sitting so quiet and peaceful in its field overlooking the sea. Paddy brought the cart to a halt, Shamrock snickered and when Mamma got down he looked as if he was smiling as he felt the weight on his shafts lightening.

  ‘I’ll bid you good day, then, Missus.’ Paddy nodded pleasantly. ‘Unless of course you would care to invite me in for a cup.’

  Mamma had to force herself to appear grateful for the lift but she couldn’t bring herself to extend her gratitude any further than a rather gruff ‘danke’, after which she made to take herself off.

  ‘Wait, Missus!’ Paddy’s command was imperative; unwillingly she turned round to meet his hostile eyes. ‘Tis manners in these parts to be pleasant to your neighbours, ay, neighbours! We’re as good as your like any day and if it hadny been for us saving your bacon you would still be wandering about like a tink on these damt moors!’ He made a great attempt to control his temper and went on in quieter tones, ‘It’s no’ much to ask, a cup o’ tea in return for a favour granted. I’m your friend, Missus, and I’d never see you stuck. Rachel likes us tinks, she wouldny turn any one o’ us away from her door, so what do you say, mavourneen? Just a minute to slake my thirst and then I’ll be off.’

  With poor grace Mamma acceded to his request, and while she was making the tea Paddy roamed restlessly around the kitchen, finally taking himself off to the parlour the minute her back was turned. It was in this room that he found what he was looking for and his eyes fairly gleamed at the sight. Rachel had three violins to her name, but it was her cherished Cremonese that she had brought with her to Rhanna. It reposed inside a very old but extremely beautiful leather case, given to her years ago by a man who had restored her violin to its former glory and who had been horrified to see such a precious instrument housed inside a cheap and ordinary case. It was at the beginning of Rachel’s career and she hadn’t been able to afford anything better. She had been overwhelmed by the gift and had treasured it ever since. Paddy ran his rough hands over the soft leather grain. He couldn’t open it, and he hadn’t the time to try and discover the whereabouts of the key, but it didn’t matter, the time wasn’t yet ripe – and old Mo’s violin wasn’t going anywhere – yet . . .

  An odd little smile quirked the corners of Paddy’s cruel mouth. ‘I’ll be back for ye,’ he muttered, patting the case with calculated tenderness. ‘By rights ye belong to me: the old man wasny in his right mind when he gave ye away to that conniving little gypsy, but we’ll soon fix that. Ay, indeed we will.’

  Mamma appeared in the doorway, suspicion on her face, but Paddy was immediately all smiles and charm and grateful for the tea which he drank down in one gulp before taking himself off with all haste.

  As soon as he was out of sight Mamma sank down into a chair, kicked off her shoes and gave vent to an enormous yawn. Never, never, in the whole of her life, had she walked so far or been so humiliated; never had she met such strange people, eaten such peasant food, ridden home in such primitive style.

  She ached, she burned, she stank – almost as badly as that dreadful old man who had accompanied her in the cart. She needed to wash herself, to change her clothes, to eliminate all signs of the most terrible hours she had ever spent – but first she had to have rest. It had all been too much for her, especially in the delicate state of health she was in.

  With a weary sigh she rose out of her chair and dragged herself upstairs to creep between the sheets and give herself up to bliss, too exhausted to care that Jon wasn’t there to worry and fuss over her and listen with all of his ears to her tales of woe and deprivation.

  Rachel and Jon had had a very enjoyable time at Croft na Ard; Anton had been delighted to see his old friend again. The three of them had gone off to work in the fields till Babbie came home at dinnertime when they had laughed and talked and reminisced over a good Scottish meal of mince and tatties followed by apple pie and cream.

  Jon broached the subject of the lack of a bathroom at An Cala, following it up rather tentatively with a request for his mother to use the facilities at Croft na Ard. Babbie and Anton had willingly agreed to the proposal though Babbie had laughingly added, ‘Don’t forget, I’m out all day and Anton is usually in the fields: sometimes the kitchen fire isn’t lit till evening to heat the water, especially in the summer when quite often we just boil kettles on the stove and bathe in the zinc tub here in the kitchen.’

  ‘Ah no,’ smiled Jon, ‘Mamma will never use the tub, that is the main reason we make our request to you to use your bathroom. My mother . . .’ he searched for the right words, ‘she is a woman of generous build. She would, perhaps, have difficulty climbing in and out of something she calls a big basin.’

  Rachel grinned at this
and she and Jon went home in the best of moods only to be greeted by an empty house and the sight of Mamma’s equally empty shopping bag lying on a chair.

  ‘She didn’t get her apfelstrudel,’ Rachel observed with a few quick gestures. ‘In fact, she didn’t get anything, her bag is completely empty – except’ – she stared – ‘for a few little hard balls of sheep’s sharn.’

  ‘Where has she been and what has she been up to?’ Jon said with a frown. ‘She isn’t here, yet she must be, unless her bags and her coat and hat came home under their own steam.’

  A quick search upstairs provided the answers. Jon came downstairs smiling. ‘She is fast asleep like a baby. I think today my mother has had some adventures,’ he sighed, ‘and no doubt we’ll hear all about it till we are deaf with her tales of woe.’

  Rachel went to put on her apron. ‘I’ll make her an apple tart,’ she decided in an odd burst of affection for her mother-in-law. ‘It won’t be the same as apfelstrudel but it’s the next best thing. Babbie’s apple pie has put me in the mood for baking, but don’t expect too much, it’s a long time since I guddled with pastry and I might have forgotten the art.’

  She spent a busy afternoon baking tarts and scones and cooking a delicious evening meal. Her apple tarts were perfection, light and tangy with just a hint of nutmeg and cinnamon to add to the flavour, but when Mamma came stomping downstairs early in the evening she was in no mood for anything except to talk about her day’s misfortunes.

  Jon listened, he sympathized, he soothed, but when Rachel served Mamma with a tempting savoury tea and it was rejected after only a few mouthfuls, he frowned. When she pushed away the apple tart without tasting it at all he burst out, ‘Mamma, Rachel has spent many hours making this meal for you, she made the apple tart specially, she . . .’

  ‘It is not the apfelstrudel,’ Mamma spoke heavily. ‘The pastry, it looks heavy and I will not ruin my stomach with the stodge.’

  She pushed back her chair, she got up and without another word she went to the stand in the hall to take down her coat and hat and don them before going back to the kitchen to announce, ‘I go to your friend’s house for the bath, I smell myself badly, the hot soak I need to have.’

  Jon’s face reddened. ‘Mamma,’ he said sternly, ‘you can’t go to Croft na Ard at this hour, Babbie and Anton will be at their evening meal, they work hard all day, they . . .’

  But she was off, the door closing behind her firmly and loudly. ‘I’m damned if I’ll see her up the road!’ Jon cried, for once in his life really angry at his mother’s inconsideration.

  Rachel set about clearing the table. Let the old witch stay away all night if she wanted! There was nothing at An Cala to occupy her anyway, she would only talk and talk, and rant and rave, and all about herself as usual. Rachel felt sorry for Anton and Babbie but glad that she and Jon would have the house to themselves, free to pursue their own pastimes and pleasures.

  Mamma was only gone a short time. The house of Croft na Ard had been empty and deserted, there was no one in: she wouldn’t get her bath after all, she would have to wash here in the kitchen, but not in the tub, never in the tub, she was a lady, she would not be humiliated, she would sponge herself down, she would be clean somehow!

  Rachel disappeared into the parlour, glad to get away from Mamma and her ceaseless chatter. Even though it was just Jon and his mother left in the kitchen it was soon a hive of activity, with son running to do mother’s bidding, stoking the fire, filling kettles, setting them to boil and laying out towels and soap and face flannels.

  ‘And now, go,’ Mamma ordered when everything was to her satisfaction and the curtains and blinds had been tightly drawn, the doors firmly locked.

  Jon escaped gladly. In the softly lit parlour Rachel was burning incense, the room reeked with the sweet, evocative odour of jasmine, and she was playing oriental music on her little battery operated tape recorder. When he came through the door she went straight into his arms and they both swayed round the room in a dreamy silence. That afternoon Babbie had given Rachel red roses from her garden and she had woven them into her hair; the perfume of them filled Jon’s nostrils. She was wearing a flimsy blouse with nothing underneath, her breasts were warm and soft against his chest. He forgot his mother, desire flooded his loins, he pressed himself hard against her and she responded by winding her arms round his neck and drawing his head down till his lips met with hers.

  ‘Rachel,’ he whispered against her hair, ‘you are a temptress. I want you very badly, tonight you are lovelier than ever.’

  Her kisses melted on his mouth. With a groan he buried his face in the creamy skin of her neck and took the ripe fullness of her breasts in his hands. She swayed and moved against him, his breath came quicker, they stopped dancing and gave themselves up to one another. His hand slid down to her thighs, he heard the soft intake of her breath, their limbs quickened and merged, their kisses became deeper, more demanding, more bruising than the one before, and then he opened her blouse and his lips found the hard, burning tips of her nipples.

  Lost in passion, helpless with desire, they sank down on to the rug in front of the fire, forgetting everything and everybody in their heart-racing excitement. Her long, lithe legs captured his hips. He pushed up her skirt, undid his trouser zip . . . and at that precise moment Mamma appeared in the doorway, her head swaddled in towels, her body wrapped in a voluminous purple silk dressing gown with dragons luxuriantly embroidered on the back.

  She stood there dumbfounded for a few brief moments, but soon found her tongue. ‘Jon!’ she cried, her voice hard with shock, deliberately using the admonishing tone she had used to him when, as a small boy, she had caught him out in some naughty act. ‘I bathe, I turn my back only a short time but enough for my son to change himself into an animal of the field. Since your boytime I teach you the manners, the breeding, the respect, all these you have lost since your meeting up with this – this untamed, disrespectful child! I will not have it, Jon! She has turned you into a heathen!’

  While she was ranting, Jon and Rachel were fixing their clothing, scrambling to their feet. Jon was breathing heavily in a mixture of frustration, receding passion and rage.

  ‘Mamma!’ he said furiously. ‘Rachel and I are not committing a sin: we are married – remember? And it is our house; we love one another, I have been away from her for a long time and we haven’t had much chance to be alone since I came home. We – I – thought you would take a long time to wash. You told me at least an hour . . .’

  ‘So, I was too quick for you, eh, Jon?’ Mamma said heavily. ‘How could you do these things while I am in the next room! Was last night not enough for you? You have the noisy bed, all night long I hear the bedsprings creaking. I lie awake listening – creak! creak! creak! – and always there are the sighs and the moans and all the other sounds it is not nice for a woman of my age to hear!’

  Rachel was livid. Her eyes were black, burning coals in the pallor of her face. Her hands curling into fists, she stared at the older woman and she wondered, had all that loud and raucous snoring of last night been a front? Had the old bitch deliberately pretended to be asleep when all the while she had been listening through the wall as hard as she could . . .? Another thought struck Rachel: had this dreadful woman intentionally rushed through her toilet in order to creep and snoop through the house hoping to spring humiliation on Jon and herself?

  Rachel’s nostrils dilated, she could control herself no longer, her fingers were a blur of movement as she told Mamma just what she thought of her.

  But it was all lost on Mamma Jodl: she hardly understood one single symbol of her daughter-in-law’s sign language and merely snorted when at last Rachel’s nimble fingers grew still.

  ‘Pah!’ Mamma snorted. ‘All this flapping about with the hands, it is very undignified and also extremely tiring to watch. Why didn’t you marry a girl who could speak with her mouth, Jon? Life would have been much simpler for us all.’

  At that Rachel couldn�
�t contain herself, how dare the old battle-axe speak about her as if she wasn’t there? She looked as if she could easily kill her mother-in-law there and then. Every muscle in her body became tightly coiled, her black eyes were wild and dangerous, she looked like a leopard ready to spring and Jon, knowing that his wife was perfectly capable of striking out when thus enraged, made haste to intervene. But she shook him off, nothing or nobody was going to stop her now. The large, fat, ignorant old bugger she had inherited when she married Jon might not understand the deaf and dumb language but there was one sign that was universally recognized and, by God, she was going to let her have it! Rushing up to the other woman, she stuck her two fingers so forcibly into her face that Mamma had to move back a pace in order to avoid them being rammed up her nose.

  The old lady could pretend obtuseness when it suited her but on this occasion, with the V-sign almost touching her eyeballs, she could do nothing but recognize it for what it was. Her mouth dropped open in utter dismay while Rachel, breathless and beside herself with fury, just kept on poking her two fingers in the air while she glared threateningly into the older woman’s eyes.

  Jon’s rancour against his mother, for causing yet another scene, was in no way diminishing, but when he looked from Rachel’s ferocious young face to Mamma’s flabbergasted expression he suddenly saw the funny side of the situation and fell back in his seat in a fit of laughing, quite unable to stem the flow of mirth once it had started. It was more a nervous reaction than anything else. Jon wanted only harmony in his life, and he especially wanted to enjoy this precious holiday on Rhanna with his wife, but his mother’s disruptive presence was making the possibilty of any sort of pleasure more remote by the minute, and his laughter was tinged with an odd sort of hysterical desperation.

  For Rachel, the sound of her husband’s merriment was the last straw. She had to get away, get out from under the feet of both mother and son, anywhere, everywhere, just as long as she could flee this house that had, in the space of just a night and a day, become a hell instead of the haven she had always considered it to be.