Stranger on Rhanna

by Christine Marion Fraser

  And at that inopportune moment the door opened to admit Nellie who stared at the tender scene before her with tightly folded lips.

  ‘I knew it! I knew it!’ she snorted with thinly disguised disapproval. ‘I heard that the pair o’ you were up to no good but I didny realize that things had gone this far.’

  ‘Nell.’ Mac let go of Elspeth and steered his sister into the parlour. ‘You have no right to speak like that in front o’ Elspeth,’ he continued as soon as he had closed the door. ‘She is a respectful and decent woman and deserves some o’ your respect in turn.’

  ‘Oh ay, it’s clear to see she has you well and truly fooled but it beats me how a sensible man like you can have allowed himself to be taken in by the likes o’ that sour prune out there.’

  ‘But, Nell,’ protested Mac, ‘I enjoy biding here wi’ her, she’s no’ the targe everyone thinks, she and me get on fine, she’s a kindly body and has never nagged me once.’

  ‘No’ yet, but wait you, she will. She’ll dig her clooks in deeper and never let go – and of course – anything is better than livin’ wi’ that dirty old bodach of a cousin wi’ his cracked cups and his soup stains. You had best come back to Hanaay wi’ me, you know you aye have a clean bed and a full belly at my house.’

  Mac’s jolly countenance took on an unusually stubborn expression. ‘It’s no’ the same, Nell, you’ve looked after me well, I’ll grant you that, but you’re my sister; Elspeth – well – she’s . . .’

  He faltered and came to an abrupt halt, leaving the way clear for Nellie to take up the cudgels. ‘Ay, you’ve said enough, Isaac, we all know what Elspeth is and I’ll no bide another minute under the roof of a pair o’ – o’ shameless sinners who are old enough to know better!’

  With that she marched ben the kitchen where Elspeth was making tea, her shaky hands belying her calm demeanour. She had heard most of what had transpired in the parlour, simply because she had kept her ear glued to the door for most of the conversation, the result being that her first instinct was to make some cutting remarks to Nellie. But with an effort she stayed her tongue – she wasn’t going to spoil things now – not when she had Mac just where she wanted him.

  So she was polite to the visitor, she was the epitome of good manners and consideration. Graciously she invited Nellie to stay, with admirable efficiency she set about preparing a meal which later proved to be so palatable that even Nellie was moved to giving it some grudging praise.

  ‘Of course, the pork could have been doing wi’ a bit more crackling,’ she added, ‘and the carageen pudding needed a wee bit nutmeg to give it flavour but otherwise it wasny bad – no’ too bad at all.’

  Over her head Mac winked at Elspeth and it took him all his time to keep a sober face when she promptly and boldly winked back.

  That night Mac sat happily back in his favourite chair, wiggling his stockinged feet on the hearth while he waited for the poker to grow sufficiently hot that he might plunge it into the tot of rum at his side. He thought about his life here with Elspeth and how easy she had been to live with, and even though she made him bathe twice a week and change his drawers every other day it had been a small price to pay for everything she had given him in return.

  Picking up his glass, he watched the reflected light of the fire dancing like ruby-tinted nymphs in the liquid, and then he peeped at Elspeth over the rim. She had declined to join him in a drink, even though it had become an enjoyable habit of theirs to sit by the fire of an evening, savouring their drinks, the smell of burnt rum pleasurably invading their nostrils. He suspected that she was doing all in her power to impress Nellie with her restraint and he smiled to himself at the sight of the two women, sitting side by side on the couch sedately sipping cocoa.

  With slow deliberation Mac pushed tobacco into the bowl of his pipe with a horny, tar-stained thumb, lit it and sat back, puffing the smoke into the air, watching it drifting and curling up to the ceiling.

  ‘Oh, by the way,’ removing the pipe from his mouth he spoke very casually, ‘I meant to tell you, Nell, but wi’ all the talk and pleasure o’ seeing you again it just slipped my mind. Elspeth and me are to be wed in the spring, just a quiet affair wi’ maybe one or two o’ the family present. Oban, ay, it will likely be Oban, a registry office, seeing as how both Elspeth and me have been married before.’

  Both women choked into their cocoa, coughing and spluttering so badly that Mac had to rush over and thump each one on the back in turn. Elspeth glanced up with streaming eyes, her expression was a study of bemusement and disbelief – and it was more than just the cocoa that had induced her wet eyes – for the second time that day she wept the tears of pure happiness – and this time she made no attempt to wipe them away.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Otto was never short of visitors, every day there was always someone popping in for a ‘crack and a cuppy’ and very often an impromptu ceilidh would get going, with fiddles and ‘squeezeboxes’ providing the music; poetry from the island bards; Magnus or old Andrew drawing on their store of magical tales, traditional myths and folklore which had improved with age and which had never been written down but had been passed on orally from one generation to the next.

  As more and more modern influences intruded into island life the days of the Seanachaidh were fast disappearing, therefore it was a precious thing indeed to listen to these old men with their seamed, wise faces and their air of authority. The hushed respectful voices of them stirred the imagination and mesmerized the mind till it really seemed that the witches and hobgoblins of yore came leaping, prancing, and skirling into the present day, thrilling and terrifying the listeners till, with expert ease, the senses were soothed by gentler stories of water kelpies that haunted the lochs and snow bochdans that roamed the hills in search of the spirits of children who had departed earthly life but still liked to come back now and then to play in the ice caves high on the corries.

  Children who were very much alive and kicking loved these old men and their shivery tales and Otto encouraged them to come and visit and join in the ceilidhs, though they didn’t need much encouragement, having grown to love the big Austrian as much as the grown-ups did.

  Machair Cottage had a perfect atmosphere for such simple pastimes, its thatched roof and deep windows, its warm hearth and its booklined walls, even the very cobwebs in the corners, all combined to give the impression of a past era that had somehow survived into modern times.

  And with Tina in charge there was no danger of the spiders or their webs being disturbed, since she was kept too busy cooking and cleaning for ‘her menfolk’ to bother her head with such harmless creatures as spiders who, in her opinion, had been put on the earth for a good reason and earned their place by catching flies and midgies and other pests.

  ‘Though, mind,’ she said once, ‘if one o’ they big hairy tarantulas came creeping in I would be the first to drop my duster and go screaming outside with everyone else!’

  Her refreshing presence in Machair Cottage was a continual source of comfort and joy for both Otto and Magnus. Without her they could never have managed to cope, even though Otto’s bed was in a recess in the kitchen so that he could be right there in the heart of things instead of being tucked away in a part of the house where he could see or hear very little.

  Megan and Babbie were regular visitors, the one administering the drugs and the painkillers that kept Otto going, the other attending to his personal comforts, which also kept him going but which involved procedures that had embarrassed him so much in the beginning Babbie had been moved to cry out in exasperation, ‘Och, for heaven’s sake, you’re no’ the first man in the world I’ve had to bathe and you’ll certainly no’ be the last! I’ve seen hairy bums, pink bums, fat and thin bums, and bums with rashes and pimples that were often bigger than the bums they were on! So just you lie back and let me wash your bum and if you’re very good I might even use hot water to do it with!’

  At that Magnus had collapsed in his chair to chortle
and wheeze in a gluttony of mirth that was so infectious both Babbie and Otto joined in, the former ending up so winded it was all she could do to wash her patient, who by that time was so exhausted himself he succumbed meekly to her tender mercies.

  From that day forth he was never too ashamed to ‘bare his bum’ to her and indeed even began to look forward to her visits for, with her wonderful green eyes, red hair, and wide smile, she seemed to bring sunshine into the room and was never too rushed to spare the time for a cup of tea and a good chin-wag.

  Ruth, as good as her word, brought Rachel to visit as often as she could and in so doing, the young writer with the poet’s heart and romantic soul, found a treasure trove in Magnus’s house that totally enthralled her from the moment she stepped over the threshold. The place was a paradise for musicians, artists and writers. Books on every subject under the sun were there for the taking; Magnus’s own personal jotters, filled from cover to cover with the writings of a lifetime, were a particular joy for Ruth and she never wearied during her visits, rather she looked forward to them with a zest that almost matched that of Rachel and could never get over fast enough to Magnus and his ‘magical house’.

  From his bed Otto could see the ocean from one window and the moors from the other, and he loved just to lie there, watching the calm or the rage of the sea, the cloud patterns moving over the shaggy wilderness of the great amber plains, in his mind smelling the perfumes of summer and the lark song high in the heavens.

  Tina sometimes sang to him in her sweet, clear voice, slightly off-key, but something so poignant in the tremble and tone of it, he would find a lump in his throat, and taking her hand he would squeeze it and urge her to carry on singing, making her cry inside of herself for her ‘dear Mr Otto’ who watched her with dark eyes that were weary yet hungry for everything that was still good and precious in his life.

  But the hands and the eyes that soothed him most were those of the girl who had come to him out of nowhere it seemed and who still came to him out of a deep wild sea of forbidden dreams. She haunted his sleep, she disturbed his awakenings, but only when she wasn’t there. The reality of Rachel was like balm on a deep, raw wound. She sat by his bed, so soothing in her silence, the voice that could never speak finding expression in her eyes and in her hands, healing hands that caressed his brow with a tenderness that brought him comfort beyond compare and a conviction that the heartbeat of his life would never fade or falter as long as she was there by his side.

  Whenever she came he often felt so good he would get up and get dressed and together they would slowly walk over the machair to the cliffs, each of them heavy and waiting, both of them content to sit there on the edge of the world and watch the ocean tossing in its restless bed far below.

  One day he took her hand and held it tightly. ‘How long now, liebling?’

  ‘Three weeks – round about Christmas.’

  He frowned. ‘Jon must come soon,’ he said sternly. ‘He should be here now, sharing this time with you, giving you his support.’

  The wind was springing up from the sea, cold and penetrating; she huddled herself further into her jacket and made no reply. Her anger, her bitterness was spent; she wanted Jon to come, she longed to see him again. Perhaps he would relent at the last minute, she thought forlornly, and knew a pang of fear at the thought of having her baby without him there at her side.

  Megan, on one of her routine visits to An Cala, was stressing to Rachel the importance of having her baby in a mainland hospital. Rachel had been burning incense, the house reeked of it and Megan thought the tea reeked of it too as she sat sipping the brew that Rachel had courteously made for her.

  Despite a flash of annoyance in the girl’s dark eyes, she managed to remain polite when Megan, continuing the conversation that the arrival of the tea had made her break off, said that she would make all the necessary arrangements with the hospital and it might be wise to go a week or so earlier just in case the weather turned nasty.

  But Rachel was having none of that: she wanted her baby to be born on Rhanna, she had set her mind on it and nothing was going to make her change it, and she conveyed this to the doctor by means of pen and paper and any other means that would stipulate she meant what she said.

  Reluctantly Megan agreed, but only on condition that the girl came to live at the Manse till after the birth. Again she came up against fierce opposition. Rachel’s chin jutted, her mouth set itself into determined lines and, grabbing pen and paper once more, she insisted that she wanted to stay on at An Cala till it was all over.

  ‘But you don’t even have a phone,’ Megan pointed out. ‘You are all alone in the house and might easily go into labour in the middle of the night with no one to turn to for help. Also’ – at this point she groped for the right words to say – ‘as this is your first child it’s only fair to give it a good start. You are young and strong and healthy but supposing something went wrong? Some babies suffer from birth defects that could easily have been prevented if the mothers had been in hospital at the time.’

  Rachel knew what Megan was trying to say and she flushed with anger but couldn’t express how she felt to someone with only scant understanding of her sign language. But Ruth was an expert on the subject, she had learned to read that particular language almost from the moment Jon had taught it to Rachel and, arriving in time to hear Megan’s arguments, she immediately took up the cudgels on her friend’s behalf.

  ‘Ach, Doctor Megan,’ she chided softly, ‘neither Rachel nor myself got our wee bit flaws at birth, they were caused by our mothers’ having had German measles when they were carrying us. They canny be passed on because they aren’t what you would call congenital. Lachlan explained everything to me before I had my two and no doubt he did the same to Rachel.’

  Megan flushed. ‘I see you’re well up on the subject, Ruth, and of course I know that what happened to you and Rachel can’t be passed on, the fact remains, however, that she is all alone in this house, unless . . .’ – she turned to Rachel – ‘your mother or grandmother could come and stay here with you.’

  Rachel looked horrified at the very idea of her untidy mother making An Cala into a replica of her own disgracefully muddled house, and though Grannie Kate was a cheerful and welcome presence in most circumstances, it was too much to visualize her loud and boisterous intrusion at the birth of any child, even that of her very own great grandchild.

  ‘I’ll come.’ Ruth made the decision quickly and was well rewarded by the expression of relieved gratitude on her friend’s face. ‘I would love to do it, I’ll ask Shona or Kirsteen to take the children’ – she giggled – ‘They can halve them between them if two is too much for one, if you see what I mean, and Lorn can stay at Laigmhor. I’ll go home right now and ask him.’

  Lorn wasn’t exactly over the moon about the arrangements. He hummed and hawed and permitted himself one or two grumbles but gave in eventually as he knew Ruth wouldn’t be happy until she did this for Rachel to further atone for her earlier misjudgements.

  ‘If only Jon would come back,’ she said unhappily. ‘It’s terrible to see Rachel alone at a time like this. I know fine she waits for Erchy to bring some word from Jon but he never writes and soon it may be too late for both o’ them to ever make up.’

  Tina was thinking the exact same thing and on one of Ruth’s visits to Machair Cottage she took her aside and asked her outright if she had any idea what had happened between Jon and Rachel to have caused such a rift in their marriage,

  Shamefaced, Ruth told her that Jon believed the baby to be Otto’s – as she had done – he hadn’t known then about Otto’s illness and by all accounts he didn’t know now. If he had, things might have been different but the damage had been done, and with Rachel stubbornly refusing to write and tell her husband the truth, the future looked bleak for them.

  In response, Tina clicked her tongue loudly and gave vent to such an uncharacteristic tirade of rebuke, Ruth felt her ears growing hot and her face turning crimson. />
  ‘How could you, Ruth? You’ve aye been a mite too ready to believe the worst o’ people!’ Tina scolded, in her agitation prodding loose hairgrips into her skull with such viciousness she hurt her own scalp and let out a yelp of pain.

  Ruth felt very glad it wasn’t her scalp that was on the receiving end of such treatment and she was only too willing to supply the older woman with Jon’s address when she demanded it.

  ‘Right,’ Tina glared at the scrap of paper in her hand, ‘just you leave this to me, my girl. But for now, away you go ben the kitchen, you’ll be safe there, for the way I’m feeling right now my hands are itching to skelp somebody’s erse and if you bide in here a minute longer it might easily be yours!’

  That night, when the house slept and she could at last be alone, Tina took a pen, a notepad and an oil lamp to the kitchen table and sat herself quietly down, her gaze roving every so often to the quiet bed in the corner where Otto breathed deeply in his drugged sleep.

  Ach, my poor, dear man, she thought, you are a gentleman just and I’d kill for you, that I would. If any other bugger tries to tarnish your good name they’ll have me to deal with – and may the Lord forgive me for such harsh thoughts – but I canny seem to help myself these days. I’m seeing a side o’ myself I don’t like very much but I’d do anything for you, Mr Otto, and right now I’m going to clear your name o’ blame – if it’s the last thing I do.

  But it wasn’t so easy to find the words she wanted to write and she sat there at the kitchen table, lost in thought, her hands folded tranquilly in her lap, her languorous brown eyes surveying the night shadows on the walls without really seeing them. The halo of light from the lamp blurred all the surrounding edges so that she felt as if she was in a small sphere of peace that was all her own. Just her and Mr Otto, alone together in the room but separate, he from her by sleep and dreams, she from him by wakeful ponderings that wouldn’t let her rest till she had done what she had to do.