“Now they decide that all we need are systems of power production which don’t emit CO2. They can’t grasp the fact it’s our escalating energy usage which provides us with a playtime planet to wreck. Even tampering with the earth’s crust, never mind the shift of weight distribution due to melting poles and rising sea levels, breaking through the rock strata to bury carbon dioxide or other forms of waste is liable to release more problems than it can ever solve, as for meeting CO2 emission targets, not a hope. The relative stability of our planetary climate during the past twenty thousand years is passing a tipping point of no return; we are heading into multiple uncharted effects, each one re-enforcing the next in a domino collapse.” I nodded, not wanting to her to stop, being so much in agreement with views which had the flavour of one of my rants.
“I feel so helpless, Hector. I’ve seen the starving pot bellied kids, vultures picking over the carcases of their parents’ cattle. The impact on the world’s poor will be catastrophic. Affluent Westerners will only abandon their consumer conspicuous lifestyles when the waters lap round their ankles, the wealthy will pull up their drawbridges thinking they’re safe. It’s the blind, unstoppable greed of financial institutions and the myopia of multinational economics versus an environment which in the end holds the cards, the planet will remain in one piece until it’s fried by the sun.”
Poor Eilidh, her concerns tumbled out. She rounded off, “I’ve had enough of a world where millions waste their day texting and twittering, we’re top heavy with talkers. Politics is a media performance with no more substance than a celebrity act, we’re being led by ill- informed fools who wouldn’t know what a spade looks like and certainly wouldn’t want to know. I was booked to address the Climate Change Conference next month, but honestly, Hector, I couldn’t stand more hypocrisy.” Shaking a little after her outburst, she snuggled into me again, “anyway, I wanted to be here,” and at last she laughed, “to see what you are up to, my boy.” In spite of being shocked by her distress and deeply sorry, I laughed with her. “Eilidh,” I put a finger on her lips and took her to me.
Although Eilidh had told Ella she would be back by that afternoon, strange to relate we missed the midday tide. Both boats were to go across, Eilidh’s which I’d been using and the Hilda. The moon had yet to rise. No light took away the stars, their radiance peopled the treacle blackness of the Sound. Like old Eachan, Eilidh handled the Hilda boat with a confidence in her every action. Ropes came to hand with sureness, the sail’s least need trimmed to the faintest of breeze. She sat at the tiller with the lift of a head that welcomed a friend. Legacy of the northlands, the sea was hers.
We turned the Sandray headland, Halasay stood clear against the stars. The tail of The Plough pointed our course. Along the swathing path of the Milky Way we sailed a sleeping Atlantic. Eilidh’s form moved with the boat, they waltzed to the motion of the sea, natural as the faraway islands on the edge of a journey. I watched the woman and knew the aching of an immense happiness.
I glanced astern. Sandray had vanished. The breeze died, we drifted into a cotton wool fog. It rolled over the Sound, thick and clinging. A tide on the turn curled under the boat. It would sweep us into the Atlantic, perhaps onto the rocks of Sandray head. Neither of us spoke, I slung the outboard on the stern. Eilidh dropped and stowed the sail. In case the engine refused to start she laid out the oars. A couple of pulls and the engine broke a clammy silence. I knew the bearing which should get us across and could just make out the compass needle. Eilidh perched at the bow, a black form in a white blanket, seemed happy to depend on my navigation.
How far had we sailed, more than half way? I allowed a degree for the set of the current and we motored ahead. My eye didn’t leave the compass. A single gull banked over the mast; head to one side, it looked down at me. Had the bird had risen from the beach? Eilidh signalled slow, we crept ahead. Fog, once the sailor’s dread, now I knew why. To combined surprise and relief, the dark mass of the jetty appeared just yards off the bow. Born sailor, Eilidh was ashore with a rope, laughing down to me, “Well done, skipper!”
The skylight of the byre at Tigh na Mara, beamed up into the murkiness. We walked towards it and pushing open the byre door there was Ella, back to us, sitting in at the milking of their house cow. It looked round, lifted its head and sniffed. The single bulb from amongst a network of cobwebs shone on big round inquisitive eyes. Animal warmth and the rich milky smell of cattle met us. Eachan emerged from the barn under a pitch fork full of the hay and more, he carried the scent of summer days. Before pitching it into the hay rack above the cow’s head, quite matter of fact without mention of fog or danger, he winked at me, “Well now you’ve made it. I didn’t look for you until tomorrow,” always a laugh lay behind his words and look, far from unkind; it was his way of comment, polite but with a hint of mischief. I knew it well and blushed.
Ella, lifting milk pail and stool, stood up stiffly, “Now you pair, was there no tide at middle day, unless you missed it?” I knew she laughed inwardly. Eilidh bent and untied the cow’s tail from its hind leg. Even by the one bulb I noticed she blushed, “Ach, since this boy’s taken to living over there he’s lost his sense of time, and don’t worry, I’m giving him a hair cut.” They laughed together and Eilidh carrying the enamel milk pail, the two of them headed for house and kitchen.
Taking up the spare hay fork I helped the old man fill the racks above his remaining six cows. I noticed the dung from yesterday lay in the ‘grip’ behind the cows. Straightaway I went for the shovel and wheel barrow. Perhaps it could be the light, I thought he’d failed a good deal in the few days since the stress of my rescue. He made to take the shovel from me, “That’s my job, Hector boy,” “No, no Eachan it’s not a problem to me.” He sat on the milking stool as I worked, the years showed their lines on a face suddenly old. After emptying the barrow on the midden I leant on the wall beside him. “What a fine lassie that is, boat or island,” he commented slowly looking out of the byre door. I guessed his line of thought but then in an abrupt change of thinking he sat up, “By the way, they got a body on the beach up from Castleton; it came ashore on the morning tide.”
The vivid incident of falling seared my mind. Its seconds had stretched horror into slow motion. I realised now that perceptions of time are succeeding frames of experience which can run at different speeds; now the whole sordid business of briefcase and attempted murder seemed surprisingly long ago. I was silent. The sound and smell of the cattle pulling hay from their racks brought back the scent of the hay fields; one arched her back and made water, I watched it trickle down the ‘grip’. The old fashioned style offered a security away from the rampant pace of change.
After a while Eachan said slowly, “That important fellow who races about in his speed boat, aye the one who ferried the man over to Sandray, well he was in at the police station stating his case, identifying the body and so forth. MacNeil the bobby in Castleton a Barraman and plenty Gaelic, he’s an OK bloke, if you don’t go too far over the score with the car. He looked in this afternoon, I told him not to be coming here inspecting the sheep dipping, that regulation finished here years ago, maybe not in Barra, it’s very backward you know. He laughed but wouldn’t take a dram, Ella gave him tea. Ach we get on fine, he doesn’t take things too seriously. ‘When your relation comes across from Sandray, ask him to give me a call,’ was all he said from the car window. Anyway the remains are off on the Glasgow plane.”
Peaks and troughs; my father used to say, ‘Happiness is an illusive commodity, you only know it through sorrow.’ A chasm opened, I remained silent. Eachan got up from the milking stool, an old man overnight, “Come on, a’ bhalaich, you’re needing your supper.”
A dram somewhat changed the picture and barely were the dishes being cleared to the sink after roast beef and tatties when the front door opened. “Hello, hello,” in walked Eilidh’s brother Iain, followed by a bonnie dark haired woman whom I took to be his wife. Eachan was on his feet at once, “How in the w
orld did you get here in this fog? We lost our way coming in from the byre.”
Iain put a bottle on the table and replied seriously, “We counted the fence posts, and look here, there’s two broken at the bottom of the road.” Eachan laughed and admiring the bottle, “We didn’t need this.” Iain made to put it back in his jacket pocket, “If you say so.” “You’d better leave it where it’s safe on the table, in case you might fall on it,” was the old man’s response. Their infectious banter lifted my thoughts. My musical friend of our last encounter pretended not to know me, “Is it yourself, Hector?” I brushed back a mop of hair, laughed for the first time that evening.
At once Eilidh turned from washing dishes and took my hand, “This is Hector,” she said to the dark haired woman, “wait you till I’ve given him a hair cut. Hector this is my sister in law, Katrina.” Shyly we shook hands. “No ceremonies here, away through.” Ella shooed us to the ‘room’ and the warmth of a peat fire. Getting into his stride, Eachan at the dresser poured three ‘bumpers.’
The two men talked cattle prices, trade had risen amazingly at the last Castleton sale. “The croft will pay yet boy. Is that all your calves away?” Only the women folk coming through changed the topic, “Now ladies, what will you be having, gin and tonics or something better?
“How’s life on Sandray?” Iain asked me, it was the closest our conversation came to an incident which was gladly drifting out of my thoughts. Eachan called over to the young crofter, “Surely you took the accordion, MacLeod, we’d do with a tune.” No second telling, out to the car, Iain was back in moment. Eachan lifted his fiddle off the top of the piano. A wee tuning session before they burst into ‘Father John MacMillan’s Welcome to Barra’ and nodding to me, “Come on pianist.” Straight away to the piano, my fingers soon loosened up, I beat out the base notes. Reels and jigs filled the room. Eilidh took a chair to the top end of the piano, could she play! I moved down an octave, the instrument bounced on its casters. “You two’ll have that old thing through the floor,” Ella shouted over the racket, clapping time to the beat and hoping it might.
Eilidh and I stopped to draw breath. Not Eachan, he slowed the tempo to a Gaelic waltz. The old man had become young again. He and Iain played softly, drawing out the notes. The richness of the melody came through after each minor note. For a moment I thought of my father’s words, happiness and sadness. Ella pushed back the ancient sofa, I took Eilidh in my arms and we danced and danced, there could be no hiding our feelings, our eyes must have shown it all, and I was proud to give away our secret.
Still holding Eilidh, “What was that tune, Eachan” I asked as they let the music slowly fade. He thought and putting it into English, ‘Mary of the Witching Eyes,’ he told me, winking at Iain’s wife. Seeing my arms were tightly around Eilidh’s waist, the pair took up another waltz. We danced together, close and loving; its beautiful melody flowed with us, ‘Lassie of the Golden Hair’, and our happiness filled the room.
I could see Eachan was much affected. Ella went over to him and put her hand on his arm He said something to her in Gaelic. “What did he say?” I whispered into Eilidh’s ear. She looked up at me, a shadow in her eyes, “Those tunes, Ella, will see me on tomorrow’s journey.” I knew what the old man meant and knew a moment’s true sadness amongst the night’s happiness.
More drams, the fire was dying, Iain put down the accordion and stood staring at the photo of Eachan’s grandfather which hung over the fireplace. “You three are as alike as peas in a pod,” shaking his head he dropped his gaze and looked from the photo to Eachan and myself.
The fog had lifted, “Don’t let that man drive,” Eachan at the front door spoke to Iain’s wife. “he’ll only go breaking more fence posts.” Away they went with Katrina waving an arm out of the car window and calling “Don’t worry, Eachan I’ll send him back to mend the last two he broke!”
Eilidh and I waited a little on the doorstep before going into the room. Eachan poured a nightcap, the two women went to the kitchen leaving us alone. I heard the rattle of cups and before they would join us, I lifted my glass, “Eachan, if you hadn’t lifted me off that ledge I wouldn’t be thanking you tonight for saving my life.” He looked hard into my eyes, “Not at all, Hector boy, I was only saving there being one hell of a heart- broken woman.”
Ella put tea down beside her man. Eilidh took me by the hand, there was no awkwardness; we said our thanks and goodnights and climbed the stairs to the bedroom which I now thought of as being mine. Even in the darkness Eiludh’s body seemed to glow as she slipped under the sheets.
I opened the skylight and listened. Up from the shore came the whistling of a redshank, perhaps heralding a change in the weather for beneath its notes the sea was booming.
Fair or storm, happiness or sorrow,
We were in each other’s arms.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Shafted by Sunshine
Sir Joshua Goldberg balanced his generous proportions, all be it a mite precariously, on a shooting stick at the edge of a dignified stand of ancient woodland. Ancient indeed, the antiquity of the forest being of some considerable pride to its owner, Jeffery Norton-Winters, Esq. He was wont to inform his shooting guests, “Doomsday Records prove it to have been personally planted by William the Conqueror.” Moreover when in a suitable frame of mind, as their luncheon hamper emptied he was given to declaring, “It pains me to tell you these glades provided a favourite haunt for Robin Hood and his band of Merry Layabouts.”… a troupe of ne’er-do-wells whose inclination towards the redistribution of wealth Norton-Winters regarded as the precursor of the wastefulness of today’s Welfare State.
“Cock over now sir, high to your left, sir,” the cartridge loader, smart in tweed jacket and moleskin breeches, stood respectfully behind his guest issuing directions for the gentleman’s first target of the day. Up into the blue rose a squawking pheasant, a whirring russet flash. Up went the barrels of Sir Joshua’s 12 bore, a swing to the right, he sighted a trifle high, BANG! Perhaps a shade out of practice the gun’s recoil took him by surprise. Up into air shot the portly legs of Nuen’s Knight of the Realm. With commendable presence of mind his gun loader skipped neatly aside, not a moment too soon. Such was the Company Chairman’s alarm at finding himself so abruptly brought down, he pulled the second trigger, BANG!
Beech leaves fluttered down to settle on the winded form of Sir Joshua in an auburn coverlet, to be followed seconds later by a splatter of descending lead shot. A crowing pheasant settled several fields away. The Chairman’s knickerbockered legs stopped beating the air, “I say, it’s confoundedly slippery here,” he panted as his loader set him back on his feet.
The unseasonably warm afternoon’s sunlight created a mosaic on the rustling carpet of autumn, and still the aging oak and beech had leaves to shed. Early December and yet still no frosts to have squirrels snoozing in their tails. Even the pheasant, though plumped for the shoot by the corn in their feed hoppers, were able to feast on a variety of insects as they awaited their turn for dietary shift to lead pellets. During their alfresco luncheon one shooter was moved to comment, “Global warming, bit of a lark I say, can’t wait to get the vines into the garden, far healthier.”
Quite annoyingly however for the thatched Ann Hathaway hamlet of which Norton-Winters regarded himself as its rightful squire, the trout stream’s normal leisurely saunter past the Morris Dancing green and ducking stool had taken on new dimensions; already the village had been swamped three times. The last occasion being so rapid it found their Vicar, after choir practice, stranded in his vestry with the lady organist. As one fireman reported after carrying the pair to safety, “They were both up to their knees in water. It was not a time for an organ recital.”
The cavalcade of Range Rovers and assorted three litre 4x4’s loaded with an exultant shooting party and heaps of pheasant strung together in pairs, toiled away from the woodland towards Norton-Winter’s manor house, in tracks of mud a foot deep. Touching his cap and looking ruef
ully at the quagmire, the gamekeeper observed, “Aarr, m’Lord, the weather it is a-changing.” Hoping his respectful address might be overheard, a beaming Winters nodded, “Oh if I were you Williams, I wouldn’t let that worry you, you’ve given us an excellent day’s sport.” The squire had yet to be ennobled but then for rather differing reasons the use of a title pleased both parties.
Oak panelling, family portraits and a raftered ceiling, the dining room spoke of an era of doublet and hose. Mellow lighting and a blazing log fire drew the shooting party to the cosiness of an inglenook. To warm the guests before they bathed and changed for dinner, and it has to be said to enhance the Elizabethan impression, a comely wench in no small danger of having her bottom pinched, poured copious draughts of rum punch into large silver goblets recently engraved with the Norton-Winters Coat of Arms. In keeping with the trend towards boasting one’s humble origins, Jeffery was wont to assert, “My thirty-fourth grandfather, paternal, was a swineherd in the New Forest on the day William Rufus was shot.” An honour reflected in the heraldic device, a boar sitting on an oak leaf. The researches of the genealogist had involved considerable ingenuity and amounted to rather more than he’d hoped to pay,
Faces shining from fresh air and bath salts sat before trenchers groaning under roasts of prime Aberdeen-Angus and wild boar, all the more satisfying when washed down with an exclusive red, the renowned Chateau Noir, 1939. As one devotee of the grape explained to the table whilst standing on his chair, “That was the larst decent summer we enjoyed down in Brighton before we tackled the Hun.” Gulping more vintage, “Chamberlain, bit of a wet I’d say, I remember perfectly those appalling sirens, dreadful air raid shelters; naturally Pater would have none of it, shouldered the elephant rifle which saw him through the Boer War and made straight for the Cliffs of Dover.” The evening’s historian later retired under the table to shelter from the effects of his memory.
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