Stranger on Rhanna

by Christine Marion Fraser

  ‘But, Mamma,’ Jon said with a smile, ‘you don’t have a cat, you don’t even like cats! How can Holy Smoke . . .’

  He saw the sparkle of humour in her eyes, he suddenly liked his mother very much and throwing his arm around her shoulder he gave her one of the most affectionate hugs he had ever given her.

  Before she left, Mamma paid her daughter-in-law a surprising, if offhand, compliment.

  ‘I have always liked one thing about you, Rachel,’ she said nonchalantly, making Rachel think: at least one thing is better than none. ‘You have the honesty, always you show to me the truth, you never hide your feelings from me like an actress. We have not always seen one another’s eyes but in many ways, I like you.’

  Rachel stared; she thought: if I was able to speak I would be so dumbfounded I wouldn’t be able to speak. She smiled and Mamma, imagining the smile was for her, beamed back and with abrupt suddenness she took the girl to her mighty bosom, almost crushing the life out of her.

  ‘You must not allow Jon to be too long on his own.’ Embarrassed by her own display of affection, Mamma quickly reverted to her old self. ‘It is not good for a husband and wife to be apart like this.’ She frowned. ‘For some time now I have not been able to speak to Jon, he has the anger in his chest that I do not understand but I will not interfere, you are his wife, you and he must arrange your lives between yourselves and sew up your disagreements.’

  This was almost too much for Rachel, she had grown accustomed to dealing with a bellicose, interfering mother-in-law, and this vastly changed woman, who was regarding her with an expression that bordered on benevolence, was an entirely new departure and would take some getting used to – if Mamma continued along her present path – which Rachel very much doubted.

  Even so, it made a pleasant change from the domineering matriarch, and Rachel, her senses lulled into peaceable lines, wondered if she and Jon were doing the right thing keeping quiet about the baby. They had discussed the matter, clinically and coldly, and had decided that it would be better if Mamma didn’t know, considering the present set of circumstances.

  ‘It will only make things more unpleasant,’ Jon had said, not looking at his wife. ‘She will start asking awkward questions and there’s enough bad feeling in the air without her adding her voluble contribution. She’ll find out soon enough when the baby comes and will have to learn the truth, till then it will be better for us all to keep everything on an even keel – the boat will inevitably rock and which of us goes down first remains to be seen.’

  An even keel! Rachel’s face reddened as she thought about that conversation, there had been something very final about it. She couldn’t believe, even now, that it had ever taken place, but she wouldn’t let him see, she wouldn’t let anyone see, how much it had hurt her, and unconsciously her head went up in a gesture of proud defiance of everything that ached and burned in her heart.

  For a moment she felt sorry for Jon’s mother. Poor Mamma! She who had so longed for a grandchild, who had fumed and fretted and fussed when none were forthcoming over the years. All for nothing, the weeping and the wailing were done with—Rachel started. Was this the last time she would ever see Jon’s mother? Was this the end of all the hints, the innuendoes, the arguments?

  Rachel shuddered, she felt oddly sad at the thought, yet not so long ago she would have given a great deal of what she owned to see the back of this loud, demanding monument of a woman.

  But Mamma had one or two trump cards up her sleeve and over the next few minutes she played them so cunningly that a flabbergasted Rachel was left wondering if her mother-in-law knew more than she was making out.

  Looking beyond the window to the glistening ribbon of the sea she delivered her bombshell. ‘I am glad I came here, Rachel, now I know why you and Jon like this island so much, the friendliness, it is all around, the freedom is like a good wine, it makes you want more of it. With Rab I have been to many places – much to my surprise, the car, it was not reliable, always it breaks down, everywhere, anywhere – and no one to come and help us to get started. The experiences, they were not good.’

  Her tone belied her words, Rachel looked at her, her handsome face was glowing, her eyes were sparkling, she looked positively radiant.

  Rachel drew in her breath, Mamma and Rab, it was impossible, it couldn’t be – yet – those stories that had been flying around, Rachel had thought it was just gossip, built on flimsy ground, but occasionally these fables were woven from the fabric of fact.

  Mamma’s next words confirmed that there was more than a hint of truth in the tales. ‘The ocean I will cross again,’ she said almost dreamily. A promise or a threat? Rachel thought grimly. ‘I come back to Rhanna when the snow is on the hills – at Christmas time. Rab will need someone to cook him a good dinner and Eilidh Monroe knows only the rabbit stew and the stodge. I make the German meal, the hams and the cooked meats, the spicy sausage, the apfelstrudel, the chocolate gateau, the baked apple stuffed with cinnamon and raisins . . .’

  She went into raptures over the virtues of the food she would make, the festivities she would arrange, while Rachel thought: Christmas! When a child is born! Her child. Hers and Jon’s, Mamma’s grandchild – and she would be here after all, though by that time whether she acknowledged it as hers would be another story.

  ‘Perhaps Karl Gustav Langer will still be here.’ Mamma was enthusing, bringing Rachel back to earth with racing heart. ‘He could give a concert, a Christmas concert. Oh, wunderbar! Never did I think I would meet such a great musician when I came to Rhanna.’

  Then Mamma did a strange thing, for the first time ever she was making a sign in the dumb language. She could have said aloud what she had to say, but in her uplifted mood she was letting Rachel know that she could converse with her perfectly well when she had a mind to do so.

  Rachel stared fascinated as the be-ringed, somewhat stubby fingers, moved clumsily. The message read: ‘I will take good care of Jon till you come back to him. He will put up with me because he is my son, but always it will be you on his mind. We cannot get rid of you so easily – we have to learn to put up with you – the Jodls are a very brave family.’

  Despite herself Rachel smiled, Mamma was herself again, and oddly, Rachel was glad: the other Mamma was a stranger, she could cope better with the old one – for as long as she had to.

  Part Four

  AUTUMN/WINTER 1967/68

  Chapter Twenty-two

  It had been a golden summer, one that was unwilling to relinquish its hold on the land. The dawns, the days, the suns, the moons, rose and set as vigorously as ever but each of them wove their changes into the seasonal arrangement of things so that gradually there was a sharpness on the breath of morning. The berries ripened on the rowans; the grass on the hill became shaggy and coarse; the bracken was gold in the sun while the pearly mists of autumn lingered in the corries and banners of peat smoke hung suspended in the mellow air.

  On the Muir of Rhanna the purple of the heather covered the land in a springy, thick mattress, interspersed by mounds of peat that had dried to brick-like hardness in the summer winds and would soon be ready to fuel winter fires throughout the island.

  Gradually the visitors were leaving and in their camp over by Dunuaigh the travellers were thinking about leaving also, though for them it was an unhurried process. The autumn tourists had still to be met coming off the boat and persuaded to buy bunches of ‘lucky heather’ and never mind that there were acres of the stuff growing wild all over the place, the travellers picked it while it was still in bud and able to be passed off as the white heather so coveted by superstitious romantics of any age.

  As the days shortened and the pace of life slowed for both man and beast, so too did a quieter tempo beat for Otto and Rachel, ruled not by the seasons but by the changing ebb and flow taking place within their own separate spheres.

  Rachel knew the quickening of eager new life inside her own body, while for Otto the stream of his life was draining slowly bu
t surely away. The time was coming for him to go back to Austria and it seemed to Rachel that everything that had been precious and good in her world was drifting off like smoke in the wind. He was dying, yet he was her strength; every day she saw some slight change on his wonderful face, but even as he grew thinner and weaker his spirit seemed to grow and expand till it filled her whole world with its light.

  Hurt and alone after Jon’s departure, she had turned more and more to Otto, and the solace they found in one another’s company was a shining thing. He had been delighted when he found out she was expecting a baby.

  ‘I told you it would happen for you, liebling,’ he had said, taking her hand to hold it to his mouth and kiss it. ‘But why has Jon deserted you at a time like this? He should be the happiest man in the world just now and certainly one of the luckiest.’

  She had told him that her husband was busy, that he had gone to London to seek a teaching post and that she had opted to remain on the island for as long as she could and even try to have her baby here if it was at all possible. But she didn’t fool Otto in the least. After that he was more attentive to her than ever and inevitably the tongues started wagging, especially with her in her ‘condition’ and no Jon there to keep an eye on her.

  But the crones and the coteries didn’t bargain on Tina, no one could have imagined that such a placid creature as she could be so tough and aggressive but, fiercely loyal to both Rachel and Otto, she protected them with such a might of verbal power she only had to be seen approaching a gossiping group to send them scuttling guiltily about their business.

  Tina knew about Otto, she had been with him at Tigh na Cladach from the start and he had come to cherish her tranquil presence in his home. His trust in her was infinite and one day he had made her sit down on the couch beside him, had taken her hand in his and in a quiet, gentle voice had told her he hadn’t very long to live.

  She had reacted in a typically Tina-like way, first of all burying her face in her hands to have a ‘good greet’ before straightening up to scrub her face with his proffered hanky while at the same time endeavouring to capture loops of flyaway hair and confine them into kirby grips.

  ‘Ach, Mr Otto,’ she sighed, shaking her head, her brown eyes glazed with sadness, ‘I knew fine something was ailing you. I’ve watched you growing thinner and more wabbit with each passing day but – I never thought – I canny believe . . .’

  She was off again, her plump shoulders trembling with heartrending grief that alarmed Otto so much he enfolded her into his arms and crooned words of solace into her ears.

  ‘Och, I’m such a fool,’ she chided herself, emitting several watery sniffs before blowing her nose hard and handing the soaking hanky back to him. They looked at one another and laughed. She snatched the hanky back with an apology and a promise of rinsing it under the tap later, before collecting the hairgrips that had descended on to the couch and viciously jabbing them back into her hair. ‘I’m the one who should be comforting you, Mr Otto, and I will, you can bet your boots on that. I did the same when I lost my Matthew, I just cried and cried for days then one morning I woke, collected myself up, and just got on wi’ my life. Ach, but it’s terrible just, a bonny big chiel like yourself, all that music and talent going to waste, but the angels will welcome you to heaven, I’m damty sure o’ that, and you’ll still get to play your music, and though they might no’ have a piano they’ll let you play their harps and anything else connected wi’ life beyond the grave.’

  Her simple philosophy cheered them both immensely, and after that day Tina ‘collected herself up’ and got on with life, devoting herself so wholeheartedly to ‘Mr Otto’ she was more often at Tigh na Cladach than in her own home, cleaning, cooking, tending fires, doing it all in her own unruffled fashion. But that was how Otto liked it: in Tina he found a sweet and undemanding companion, a comforting presence who could be as silent or as entertaining as the occasion warranted.

  Tina knew that something momentous had happened between Rachel and Jon but she never pressed the matter. It would all sort itself out in its own time, she told herself, meantime she saw to it that both Rachel and Otto received as much care and attention as she was capable of giving. She encouraged them to spend as much time together as possible because in her uncomplicated way she recognized their need for one another in their separate experiences of lonely waiting, one about to part with life, the other preparing to give it.

  October came with a mellow sweetness that filled the air with the tangy scents of ripe apples and bramble berries, heavy and black on the bough . . . and Otto could wait no longer, if he didn’t go back to Austria now he never would and he began to prepare for that departure with a torpid unwillingness, every fibre in him fighting against the decision he had made while he was comparatively strong and very much a stranger on Rhanna.

  But he was a stranger no more, he had become part of the very fabric of the island. He knew and loved every contour of the hills; each bend in the road was as familiar to him as the palm of his own hand; he had walked the shores of Burg and had listened to the might of the waves; from his window he had watched the summer sun bursting above the hills; from his bed he had witnessed the blazing hues of sundown setting fire to the ocean before the moon’s cold luminosity quenched the flames and replaced them with silvery spangles of light that spilled into the sea and flooded the world with mercurial beams.

  He had seen it all and he had treasured everything and had felt regenerated with the beauty of an island that was, and always would be, his spiritual home.

  ‘You don’t have to go, son,’ Magnus had said, his voice gruff with emotion. ‘Bide here wi’ me, it might no’ be very fancy or sophisticated but it’s homely and warm and it has everything in it to keep a body occupied. You’ll never grow weary wi’ books and music to hand and a fine view o’ the sea when you want only to sit back and do nothing for a whilie.

  ‘And just think o’ this, son.’ Magnus looked away so that his grandson wouldn’t see the mist that shrouded his blue eyes. ‘This is your home, if Sheena and me had wed, your mother would have been born here and you too when it came your turn, for that’s the way we do things in the Hebrides: families stick together, they look after one another, and they do it in humble surroundings like these. It might only be a bit thatch and four thick walls but I’ve managed to thole it for ninety-seven years so it canny be that bad – and besides, you’ll have me to keep you company till the end o’ your days. I would see to it that you were well looked after, you wouldny want for anything, by God, you wouldny.’

  ‘Magnus,’ Otto took his grandfather’s frail body into his arms and kissed the top of the snow white head, ‘I could never lay such a burden at your door, but it would be heaven, to be here with you, to talk ourselves back over the lost years, to have my last rest in a place that I feel I’ve known all of my life – and with you here at my side, my flesh, my blood – and in the end, my last memory of what it was I glimpsed so briefly but held with such joy.’

  ‘Then stay, Otto, stay,’ urged Magnus. ‘It would be an honour to have you here, folk that you love can never be a burden and I’ve had such a short time wi’ you after a lifetime o’ empty hopes and dreams. The twists o’ life are cruel, to take you away after just finding you . . . and if you leave Rhanna now I’ll never see you again – and I might as well be dead too.’

  The memory of that conversation with his grandfather both tantalized and tormented Otto. Even while he knew that he could never seriously consider the offer, it would be too much to ask of anyone, never mind someone of his grandfather’s great age; even so, Otto imagined what it would be like to spend his last days in the undemanding peace of Machair Cottage.

  In the end it was Tina who made up his mind for him. ‘You’ve already said your farewells to Vienna,’ she told him with quaint simplicity, ‘so what way would you be wanting to repeat yourself when all your friends are here on Rhanna? It might be a lot fancier to bide in a place full o’ luxuries but it would be an
awful lot lonelier – and just think, you wouldny have me to look after you. I’ll come over to Machair Cottage, Magnus has plenty o’ room and I’ll bide there for as long as I’m needed. Eve is able and willing to look after herself and Donald, so just you gather up your bits and bobs and your cat and we’ll get Bob the Shepherd to take them over to Croy in his van.’

  ‘Tina, what would I ever have done without you?’ he said huskily, hugging her with such affection she giggled girlishly and rescued a few errant hairgrips from the hairy tweed of his jacket collar.

  When Rachel heard the news she went rushing over to Tigh na Cladach to throw herself at Otto and Tina and kiss them both in a passion of delight. She had been growing more and more depressed lately: Jon had left her, Ruth had rejected her, the thought of losing Otto as well had been almost too much for her to bear and she had halfheartedly toyed with the notion of going away from Rhanna to nurse her lonely grief in some place that held no evocative memories.

  Now her beloved stranger was staying after all and she was so filled with relief that, after the first euphoric reaction, she ran home to sit down and simply burst into a flood of tears that unleashed every unhappy emotion from her heart and made her feel so much better she was able to burn her incense, switch on her music, and dance round the room in a swirl of gladness.