Stranger on Rhanna

by Christine Marion Fraser

  ‘How appropriate,’ he murmured softly. ‘How very appropriate, almost as if . . .’

  He looked into Dodie’s dreamy grey-green eyes. ‘You’re a genius, Dodie, in your own way, you’re a genius, and this calls for a celebration.’

  Throwing his arm around the old man’s stooped shoulders he led him away to the beer tent and thereafter to the food table where he personally saw to it that Dodie’s plate was well filled with the choicest and tastiest of fare.

  It was a wonderful day for everyone: the sun continued to shine warmly, Otto had paid Erchy to run a special shuttle service and many of the old ones, who hadn’t been outside their own little corners for years, were able to meet up with one another and catch up on all the little snippets of news.

  Otto hadn’t forgotten the children, in fact he was like the pied piper that day with the youngsters following him around and hanging on his every word. He had arranged games and amusements to keep them happy and half the time he joined in their fun, making them shriek with laughter at some of his antics.

  ‘Ach, would you look at him,’ said Tina, gazing fondly at the big man. ‘He’s so good wi’ the bairns, it’s just a pity he never—’ She came to an abrupt stop, reddened and turned away, leaving some of the womenfolk to wonder to each other what it was she had been about to reveal.

  When it came time for the children to go home, Otto personally presented each of them with a wooden plaque bearing the McKinnon coat of arms and the inscription: McKinnon Clan Gathering, Island of Rhanna, 1967, and even though one lad told his friends, ‘The last McKinnon in our family was buried fifty years ago,’ he went rushing off, carrying his trophy with pride, impatient to show it to his mother who had conjured a very dusty McKinnon out of an equally dusty diary she had just recently found in an old trunk in the loft.

  The food and drink had rapidly disappeared during the course of the afternoon, and by five o’clock everyone was beginning to disperse back to their homes to get themselves ready for the concert that was being held that night in the Portcull village hall.

  Magnus and Otto repaired to Tigh na Cladach to rest and partake of a meal cooked by Tina.

  Otto was very glad to go up to his bedroom and close his eyes; Magnus contented himself with the comfortable armchair in the sitting room; Tina busied herself laying out the clothes both men would wear that night. She beamed with pride as she gazed at the colourful array. ‘You’ll make a right bonny pair,’ she said softly and went to get a clothes brush just in case she had missed anything when she had taken the garments out of their wrappings to air them.

  Behag emerged from the beer tent, supported by Elspeth and Captain Mac. Her eyes were glazed, her spindly legs unsteady and she was thankful to have Captain Mac’s strong hand under her elbow. Elspeth had mixed her a Mickey Finn and Behag, her palate receptive after three glasses of sherry, had drunk it down without so much as a grimace.

  ‘You’ll no’ let anybody see me,’ she pleaded with Elspeth. ‘I canny think what’s happened to me, I was fine for a whilie then something just seemed to hit me. My head feels gey queer and my legs are like jelly, but I’ll be fine once I’m home wi’ a good strong cuppy inside me.’

  ‘I’ll no’ let anybody see you,’ promised Elspeth and promptly steered the inebriated old woman into a hotbed of gossiping crones who stared at Behag with disbelieving eyes.

  ‘She’s drunk, the old hypocrite!’

  ‘Ay, and after all her talk about the weaknesses o’ the flesh!’

  ‘Years o’ it, aye looking down her nose at anybody who takes an innocent wee dram! She’s a disgrace to the island.’

  So the comments followed in the wake of Behag’s erratic course. Because Elspeth made sure they bumped into everyone in their path, her mouth quivering all the while as never had she enjoyed herself more. She had waited for a moment like this for years and now that she had Behag quite literally in the palm of her hand she was going to make the most of every second.

  Holy Smoke was bearing down on them. At sight of Behag he stopped dead in his tracks, eyed her with self-righteous disapproval and exclaimed, ‘Miss Beag! Is it really you? I never thought to see such a thing in all my born days! May the good Lord have mercy on your soul.’

  His droning, mournful tones penetrated the fog that was choking Behag’s senses, and even in her stupefied state she tried to make the effort of escaping the one person she never had any desire to meet, be she drunk or sober. Wriggling out of Mac’s supportive grasp she took two steps forward, her knees buckled, and she would have fallen had not Holy Smoke himself darted forward to catch her.

  ‘No,’ she moaned, ‘Leave me be, Sandy McKnight, I want to go home, I can manage fine if I just take it slowly. It’s the heat, too much . . . I canny stand noise and heat . . .’

  ‘Ach, the sowel,’ Elspeth intoned, sadly shaking her head. ‘She’ll no’ face the fact that she’s had one too many – it would be too much to expect her to admit to being human like the rest o’ us.’ She turned an innocent face on Holy Smoke. ‘Isaac and myself have things to do, Sandy, would you make sure she gets home safe and sound? I know I can trust you no’ to breathe a word o’ this to another living soul, for Behag has aye been a body who prided herself on abstinence.’

  Holy Smoke, brimming over with Christian duty, nodded his agreement and firmly led the protesting Behag away. Elspeth clapped her hand to her mouth, it was the final triumphant feather in her cap and she almost smothered in her efforts to keep back her laughter.

  ‘We’ll no’ see her at the concert the night,’ said Mac with a grin as he gazed after the unlikely pair. ‘Mind you, I feel a wee bittie sorry for her, it’s no’ like Behag to let herself go like that, and it just shows how unused to alcohol she is when three wee sherries knocked her for six.’

  ‘That’s what she gets for meddling, Isaac.’ Elspeth’s chin tilted and she sniffed. ‘She has spent the summer watching us through her peepscope and I for one am no’ sorry to see her getting her comeuppance.’

  She took his arm. ‘We have better things to do wi’ our time than stand here discussing Behag. I have my frock to press for tonight, I have a meal to serve, and you know how long it takes you to get yourself into your kilt and gear.’

  He allowed himself to be led away, quite happy to be seen with her arm linked through his, for truth to tell he had spent a very contented summer with Elspeth: she was surprisingly good company, she kept a tight ship, her cooking was excellent, above all she hadn’t nagged him once, and anything was better than smelly old Gus with his wind and his wireless, and his disgusting cronies with their wind and their other bad habits, not to mention their fondness for that awful brew that tasted like cat’s piss and which they had the gall to call rum.

  The village was quiet again, except for the notes of ‘Onward Christian Soldiers’ drifting faintly on the breezes. Behag was keeping her end up, it was the only thing her fuddled mind could think of that might convince the world she most certainly wasn’t drunk but just as happy as anyone else that day and was singing to the Lord to prove it.

  Chapter Twenty

  Jon had never seen his mother so excited about anything as she was about Otto’s concert. At last, she had declared, she was going to see some culture on an island where social activities confined themselves to ceilidhs, where everyone seemed to speak in that strange Gaelic language and entertained themselves with singing and music that had no place in modern-day life.

  Patiently Jon had tried to explain that the music and language of the highlands and islands was a matter of tradition and that the culture of these lands was uniquely different and special, but she hadn’t listened and in the end Jon gave up, hoping that, in time, she would come to realize it was a privilege to live among a people who were as natural as the hills and as unfettered as the very air they breathed.

  Mamma hadn’t attended the afternoon festivities, pleading a headache but in reality getting herself thoroughly glamorized for the evening concert.

 
; She had gone to Mairi’s the day before to have her hair and nails done, expecting to find a proper hairdressing premises, but instead she found a notice pinned to the crofthouse door which read: MAIRI’S SALOON, PROFESSIONAL HAIRSTYLING AND BEAUTY TREATMENTS-INCLUDING FACE MASKS, PEDICURES, OLD AGE PENSIONERS. (AND NAILS) HALF PRICE, EVERY WEDNESDAY.

  There followed a list of prices and opening times with an extra proclamation added at the bottom: Never on the Sabbath – under any circumstances – except for funerals and christenings if completely necessary.

  When a puzzled Wullie had asked why she had made a concession for these two events she had said in her kindly way, ‘Ach well, some o’ they young mothers would forget their heads if they wereny screwed on and might be wantin’ a hairdo at the last minute, and if someone goes and dies on you at the weekend, Sunday would be the only day they might have time to spare.’

  ‘But, if they’re dead, they would have no time for anything and couldny very well get up out their coffins to get their hair done.’

  Mairi shook her head at her husband’s lack of understanding. ‘Och, Wullie,’ she chided gently, ‘I mean the relatives, of course: a dead body wouldny be caring if they went to their grave lookin’ like a scarecrow, would they now?’

  When Mamma, whose grasp of written English was as halting as her speech in that language, had finally absorbed the contents of the notice, she gave a snort of derision and, without so much as a warning knock, pushed open the crofthouse door and marched in . . . only to see a baldly naked Wullie in the lobby as he emerged from the kitchen tub to make his way up to the bedroom to dress.

  He let out a nasal shriek of surprise; Mamma also let out a shriek, only hers was a mixture of shock as well as surprise, to see a man as thin as Wullie so well equipped in the luggage department.

  With bulging eyes she stared – and stared – while Wullie strove to shield his private parts with the inadequate coverage of his hands before darting like a bullet upstairs.

  Mairi appeared in the hall to welcome Mamma with a fondly shy smile then led her into the room that had been converted some years ago for the purpose of beautifying the island’s population.

  Frau Helga Jodl was less than pleased by what she saw: a tiny, cramped space containing a few kitchen chairs; a pulley strung from the ceiling hung with an array of towels; two hairdryers that looked as if they might have been rescued from the Ark; one badly marked mirror; a small table that groaned under a pile of magazines, together with copies of the Oban Times dating back twenty years; and a trolley spilling over with rollers, curlers, tongs, hairgrips and nail polish.

  In the midst of this motley assortment was the washbasin, standing over by the window, the only modern piece of equipment in the room. Powder blue, pristine clean, presided over by two gleaming chrome taps with a little plaque above them which read: This saloon was officially opened in 1964 by Scott Balfour, the Laird of Burnbreddie. Opposite the hairdryers was a handwritten notice which joyfully instructed: Rest, linger, enjoy being pampered. Free tea to all friends and visitors, home-baked scones twopence each, except when the coal lorry is late.

  Mamma did not appreciate the promise of free tea. Tea! Pah! She had drunk tea till it was coming out her ears! No one here seemed to have heard of coffee – as for resting and lingering, she wouldn’t stay one moment longer than necessary in this disgraceful travesty of a hairdressing salon.

  Turning to the beaming Mairi, who was watching her with expectant interest, she said with cutting sarcasm, ‘My eyes, they are deceiving me; I look but I do not believe. I think it is the comedy! Money you cannot expect from people coming here! You should pay them for having the courage to set a foot inside your house!’

  Mairi looked as if she had been struck, her guileless brown eyes filled with tears and she turned away on the pretence of folding a clean pair of towels that were already neatly folded and laid ready beside the washbasin.

  But that had only been the beginning of Mamma’s reign of domination over the little sanctum that was Mairi’s pride and joy. She had gone on to ever greater heights of wounding criticism, she had been bossy, imperious, loud and demanding, completely unnerving poor Mairi, draining away her confidence so badly that very soon she had none left. She had become flustered and unsure; gradually but surely her reflexes grew slower, like a clock slowly unwinding till it was only just ticking and no more.

  In the end she had dithered about so much she had spilled hairgrips all over the floor and when she bent to pick them up she had bumped her head on the washbasin which made her brain whirl and slowed her down more than ever. A mass of fingers and thumbs, her eyes watering, her head spinning, she had had quite enough of Frau Helga Jodl and told her so in no mean terms.

  For placid, kindly Mairi to get angry was, in itself, an almost unheard-of happening; for her to lose her head altogether went against everything that made up her simple, tolerant nature – and the result was disquieting.

  With terrible, frightening calm, she bent down, glared into Mamma’s startled face and gritted, ‘Just you be listening to me, you ugly, bossy, big bitch! I’ll tell you what I’m going to do to you so that you will never again speak to me as if I was a bit cow dung brought in from the midden. First I’m going to tear every last hair from your fat, swollen head, then I’m going to hold it under the taps and laugh while I watch you drowning!

  ‘After that I’m going to sit back wi’ a good strong cuppy and wait very calmly for Clodhopper to come and take me away. I don’t care if I rot in jail for the rest o’ my life, it will have been worth it just for the pleasure o’ getting to kill you wi’ my own bare hands!’

  So saying, she set about tearing the curlers from Mamma’s head. Mamma shrieked in pain but the relentless attack went on – and on – and on – and the odd thing was, although Mamma was built like a battleship, she was no match for slim little Mairi whose fury lent her the strength of a bull.

  Tears of rage running down her face, her arms working like pistons, she went on wrenching, tugging, pulling, till the curlers lay in hairy heaps all over the floor, as quite a considerable amount of Mamma’s hairs had come out with them.

  If fate hadn’t intervened, in the shape of Kate McKinnon herself, Mairi might well have carried out her threats, for she had worked herself up into such a state she was quite simply beyond all control and was just itching to get Mamma’s wildly disarranged head into the washbasin.

  Kate, who had the next appointment, came in breezily, but stopped dead in her tracks to take in the scene of carnage with bulging eyes, before rushing forward to wrest her daughter-in-law away and fold her into her strong, capable arms, where, her anger suddenly spent, Mairi lay, sobbing helplessly.

  Mamma, her hair a knotted tangle, stared at the pair of them with horrified eyes. She had already met her match in the able Kate, now it seemed the daughter-in-law was tarred with the same bristly brush and Mamma was genuinely scared, upset, and only too eager to try and make amends.

  ‘I go, I make the cuppy,’ she blabbered, and rose to her feet, causing a stray curler to roll from her shoulder and bounce on to the floor. ‘Tea, it is the Scottish cure for everything . . . even attempted murder,’ she added with what might be described as a touch of humour.

  But Kate pushed her back into her seat with a heavy hand. ‘I’ll make it,’ she said disdainfully, ‘you wouldny know how to make a decent cuppy – and I’ll tell you this, Frau Helga Jodl, I’ve known Mairi all o’ my life and never, never have I seen the poor lass in such a state. You have a knack of instilling rage in the mildest o’ souls, but, as you’ve seen for yourself, even a body as gentle as our Mairi has its breaking point, and if she ever has reason to kill you again – I’ll no’ stop her – I’ll help her.’

  So saying she flounced away to get the tea, returning to the sight of Mamma meekly sitting beside Mairi, talking to her in soothing tones and actually patting her shoulders, albeit awkwardly.

  The three of them sat sipping their tea in silence until, revived
by the brew, they very gradually began to talk. Half an hour later a feeling of camaraderie existed between them, with Kate at her best describing some amusing incident concerning Holy Smoke before going on to congratulate Mamma for having outwitted him over the question of money.

  Mairi listened, clucking and clicking in her usual mild way, Mamma laughed as she hadn’t done since her meeting with Merry Mary and Aggie, and for the second time in her life knew the uplifting experience of participating in island gossip instead of being on the outside, just listening.

  Eventually, her good humour restored, all idea of revenge forgotten, Mairi rose and proceeded to tackle Mamma’s hair, earning an extra pound at the end of the day from one grateful and thoroughly chastened customer.

  Todd had insisted on collecting Otto and his grandfather from the shorehouse, even though they said they could easily walk the short distance to the hall.

  ‘Na, na,’ beamed Todd, ‘everything must be done in style tonight, it is a very special occasion and I didny spend all day polishing my motor just to pick Magnus up from Croy – though of course I was honoured to do that,’ he added hastily.

  He was looking very swish that night: Mollie had mended the moth holes in his kilt and had bought him a sparkling white evening shirt for the occasion. He had managed to remain reasonably sober despite the temptations of the beer tent that afternoon, and now he stood by his Rolls Royce, resplendent in his finery, opening the doors with a flourish when Otto and Magnus came down the path, Tina having gone home to get herself ready after she had seen to the menfolk.

  At sight of the two men, Todd beamed and rubbed his hands together. ‘My, my,’ he greeted them, ‘you are a sight for sore eyes and no mistake, and a credit to clansmen everywhere, no matter their tartan.’