I shook my head. ‘It’s unbelievable. But what will happen to Mrs Johansson and the children?’
‘They are going back to her family in Sweden, I’m told. The house has been searched and emptied, but I don’t know any more than that. The police have asked us all sorts of questions, but, apart from Rob’s experience that night, we couldn’t tell them anything.’
We looked at the view for a while in silence, then she said, ‘Rob doesn’t want to stay here, and I’m not sure that it is the best thing for Fiona, especially as the girls have gone. So we too will be leaving Struakin.’
So suddenly Struakin would be empty of people and the little hamlet left to the sea and the birds. I hoped that someone would come to live there. A deserted village is a sad sight, and we had too many of them on Papavray.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Peat, trees, and trouble
The weather this year had been erratic and the seasons mixed up. On 2 February, George and I had walked to a little coral beach near Coiravaig. We wore thick pullovers and took a picnic, for it was one of those days sent straight from heaven— clear blue sky and silvery winter sunshine. We settled ourselves on the dry white sand and leaned our backs against the rocks, facing the sun and the sea. In no time at all, George was asleep. Oystercatchers romped past, skimming the sea, their redbeaked, black-and-white bodies glinting in the sunlight and their trilling, haunting cry carrying across the water.
June the second saw a snowstorm! The white mantle clothed the far summits for a day or two until a vicious storm and galeforce winds washed it away and we returned to an uneasy spring.
Spring meant skylarks. They were so high up in the dome of the sky that they were scarcely visible and as numerous as ‘currants in a dumpling’, to quote Murdo, a seven-year-old friend of Andy’s.
In April, we watched the skeins of geese flying north to spend their summer in Iceland or Scandinavia, and we listened to the honking and swishing of wings as they constantly changed the leader in their V-shaped formation. In autumn, back they came to share our moors and lochs with the few native geese that stayed all the year.
Another noisy springtime arrival was the cuckoo. No Hebridean cuckoos are ever immortalised in The Times by over-eager listeners claiming to be the first to hear that distinctive call. Our cuckoos did not arrive until May, and then Dhubaig alone was alive with at least six mating pairs!
The grass remained stubbornly dormant until about May, when the lengthening days and warmer temperatures stirred it into sudden, burgeoning life. Sheep were let out onto the hillsides, lambs appeared, and people began to look thinner as they shed a layer or two of winter clothing.
As the days lengthened and hopefully the weather warmed, the B&Bs and hotels began to prepare for their brief summer season. The opportunity to make a little money was shortlived as our summers lasted for only three months, so the tourists had to be ‘caught’. The hotels advertised in magazines in the south—today, they have websites—and put up newly painted signs, while the B&Bs often had ingenious ways of attracting the unwary visitor.
Old Kathy, who lived by the pier, took advantage of this position to stand on the quayside when the steamer was due and approach the disembarking passengers with exaggerated claims about the position and facilities of her small croft house. Sometimes she succeeded in actually escorting them to her rather dingy abode and the more polite among them agreed to stay. But I have not heard of anyone spending more than one night there: they usually found an excuse to move on.
Other potential landladies positioned themselves at the end of their track where it met the road and waved and smiled until someone stopped. Even if the tourists had only been about to ask directions, they often found themselves politely invited to have a ‘wee cup of tea’ and then they would quite possibly stay for several days. The average crofters were innately hospitable; they enjoyed the company and hearing about the big wide world, and were only too happy to regale the southerners with tales, often true, sometimes not, of local lore. Many folk thus caught in the crofters’ trap would be so comfortable that they might return year after year.
Some visitors, however, found it impossible to understand some aspects of local customs.
By June of each year, great mounds of dried peat appeared beside the road on the high, boggy plateau in the centre of the island where the peat hags are located. The cutting takes place in May, weather permitting, when the crofter wields the peat iron—a specially shaped spade—and cuts the neat shapes, while his wife, or other helper, throws the brown rectangles onto the dry grass, where they look like tidy rows of chocolate brownies. There they stay for weeks, or even months, depending on the rainfall, and when dry are gathered into heaps near the road or track to await collection.
Strangely, many visitors appeared to think that the stacks of dried peat beside the roads got there by magic, and that trees somehow managed to cut themselves into logs, ready for collection. None of these discoveries was deemed to belong to anyone and so were there for the taking. As the district nurse and therefore in uniform, I was in a slightly protected position and was able to right a few of these wrongs. I have to confess that I took a fiendish delight in doing so!
On one occasion, while returning from duty, I saw a smart new car draw up beside a peat stack. Few island people own new cars, so I knew before I drew near that this car would belong to a visitor. Two occupants alighted and examined the peats. So far, so good—they were interested in something new to them. But then they picked up two peats each, found a plastic bag and, wrapping up their ill-gotten gains, popped them into the boot. I pulled up in front of the car, got out, and wished them good afternoon.
I said, ‘Forgive me, but have you had the owner’s permission to take some of his peats?’
They could not have looked more surprised had I asked if they had the Queen’s permission to wear the crown jewels!
After a moment the woman said, ‘Owner? Is there one? They were just lying here.’
I explained that they were most certainly not ‘just lying here’ but were the result of a great deal of hard work and were destined to keep a family warm in the coming winter. Blank faces gradually gave way to a certain sheepishness, but even after my little homily they were not entirely repentant.
‘Oh, but we only had a few. That won’t make much difference.’
‘And when the next car takes three or four and the next and the next?’ In spite of its bad roads and its distance from the mainland, Papavray attracted several hundred visitors every summer. Peat stacks would soon be decimated if every passerby took a few peats and this could cause real hardship for some families during the winter. Finally, my victims for the afternoon took the peats from their car and returned them to the stack, but with a very poor grace. I’m sure they thought I was fussing over nothing.
On another occasion, I was driving through our only wood when I saw another smart little car with the boot open and a middle-aged lady leaning over a wall to receive, from someone on the pebbles below, a huge round log. She staggered to the car and dumped it in the boot then returned, in answer to a shout, as another log was pushed onto the wall by the hidden accomplice. I drew up just as she picked it up. She hesitated as I got out, again in uniform. As with the peat-stealers, I asked if they had obtained the owner’s permission to take the logs.
She stood clasping the log, stuttering, ‘Why no. I didn’t know there was one.’
I peered over the wall. There on the pebbles were several neat towers of cut circular logs looking, with their green lichen, like sliced cucumbers standing vertically on the kitchen table of some precise cook. The crofters often buy a felled or fallen tree, or part of a tree, from the estate, cut it up when they can find the time, or borrow a chainsaw, and gradually take the logs home. This can take months.
In a serious tone, I asked, ‘Ah. So the tree felled itself and then cut itself into handy-sized logs just the right size for you to get into the boot of your car?’
Husband had poked h
is head over the wall by then. ‘Oh. I didn’t think. They were just lying there.’
Once more, I explained the hard work involved and the system of buying the tree. They were amazed that people could leave logs for months, sometimes years, to await collection.
Then, before he thought, he said, ‘But aren’t they afraid that they will be stolen?’
I stared at his discomfited face and then at the boot of the car. ‘You mean by people like yourselves? But I’m sure these particular thieves are going to put them back.’
They didn’t reply. Too shocked at being called ‘thieves’, perhaps? But they began the laborious task of carrying the logs back over the wall and stacking them with the rest. I didn’t entirely trust these two to return all of them, so I unashamedly sat in my car and watched before continuing my rounds.
Are people really so stupid? Probably not. Just entrenched in conditioned thinking: so totally unused to the honesty of island culture that they assume no one would dare to leave anything lying about and that such objects are bound to have been abandoned and so are there for the taking.
I am not pretending that there is no crime among the indigenous population. There certainly is! A very young person may take a jug of milk from a doorstep. There are fights among crofters as a result of too much drink, and we had a persistent arsonist for about two years.
There is also poaching, of course. This is almost a game. Rather like Cornwall’s historic attitude towards smuggling, the Hebrides has trouble viewing poaching as a crime. I don’t think there was a soul on Papavray who did not have a feast of venison at some time. Even the laird, whose deer they were, knew exactly what was going on within the crofting population. He had a fair idea of which crofters indulged in their ‘hobby’ but also knew that only a handful of deer would be taken in a year. However, if it seemed that an outside gang of poachers was operating on his land, he would be angry, inform the police and do his best to have the poachers caught and punished. He was not often successful, as it was all too easy to land in the bays, plunder the hillsides, and be off under cover of darkness before anyone was aware of the presence of poachers at all.
We were too small an island to have gamekeepers as such. The factor and the estate farm manager were as vigilant as possible but the coastline and terrain were rugged and hiding places abundant: even the wind tended to muffle the sound of a rifle shot. Our own island poachers were also vigilant and raised the alarm on at least one occasion. They would not tangle with poaching gangs, however: these people were known to be dangerous and were obviously in possession of guns. But our ‘bad boys’ did not want ‘their’ deer taken by outsiders.
I think Duncan was very shrewd. So long as he turned the blind eye, he was in a good position to ask for crofters’ help with repairing a boat, catching a horse, doing odd jobs around the castle, dragging a piece of farming equipment out of a burn, and so on. It seemed to be an unspoken gentleman’s agreement.
So we island dwellers were no saints. But somehow the assumption on the part of some tourists that they can help themselves to whatever takes their eye implies an arrogance that is harder to bear than the ‘in-house’ peccadilloes.
However, the tourists brought with them a breath of the outside world: new fashions (we only had catalogues), current affairs gossip, and much-needed cash. Many were charming and complimentary, and we tried to make them welcome.
TWENTY-NINE
Just another day
One blustery Friday, the two dogs were outside as usual when I heard a frightening amount of barking and snarling, interspersed with yelps of pain. Rushing out of the door, I almost fell over Squeak, who was rushing in with his tail between his legs, while old Bob, Roddy’s dog, stood nearby with bloodshot eyes and teeth bared. There was blood dripping from his mouth.
Back inside, it became obvious that this blood belonged to Squeak. He was lying on the kitchen floor with blood pouring from an L-shaped gash on his shoulder. He also had cuts about his face and neck. I was just trying to staunch the flow with a towel when Dr Mac popped his head round the door.
‘We were coming to see you. I heard the noise. What have we here?’
He stood looking down at the pathetic dog. There was a sturdy young man by the door whom I knew to be the new locum. Dr Mac was going on one of his rare holidays.
He introduced him as ‘Dr Spencer’.
‘How do you do’s were exchanged, and the young man said, ‘Call me “Chas”.’
There was no time for pleasantries, however. Squeak needed attention. Both doctors took a look at the gash in his shoulder and decided that it needed stitching immediately.
‘Vet won’t be here until midnight at least,’ prophesied Dr Mac. ‘He’s working on the mainland.’
A look passed between them, and Chas went back to the car and reappeared with a bag.
Dr Mac administered a local anaesthetic, and I sat on the floor holding Squeak very tightly to prevent escape, while Chas did some neat sewing. Dr Mac sat nearby and watched.
‘Well,’ said Chas, as he finished, ‘I knew that it would be very different from my Birmingham job, but I didn’t realise that the first of my duties would be stitching a dog!’
Squeak healed very quickly and within a month there was no sign of the day’s drama, but he gave Bob a very wide berth from then on.
I made the two doctors some tea, cleaned up the kitchen floor and prepared to talk about the patients and their needs. Chas seemed to be more interested in the climbing opportunities than in healing the sick; I think he wanted to climb a hill or two before dark. But he later proved to be most efficient in spite of his easy-going manner.
After they left, I took a cup of tea into the little porch at the front of the house. We had added this when the house was renovated, to take advantage of the view of the mountains. There was only room for two small armchairs, and I sat in one of these sipping my tea and watching the glow of the sinking sun on the craggy rocks, while the restless waves in the bay tossed the borrowed light back to the sky. Gradually, the colours changed as the sun dipped into the sea, leaving a halo of orange clouds and turquoise sky. The hard-edged shadows softened as the twilight—the long twilight of the north—settled on the glen and the darkened mountains composed themselves for sleep. All was still and peaceful.
But not for long! As I rose to start preparing a meal for my returning and doubtless hungry fisher boys and tired husband, a knock came on the back door.
A neighbour, Ally Beag, stood there, looking uncomfortable. He was not a man that I knew very well, so I was surprised to see him on my doorstep. I asked him in, and he perched on the edge of a kitchen chair. There was a pause, and I sensed that he had something of importance to say, but, of course, we had to go through the usual discussion about the weather, the price of sheep at the last sale, and the fishing before he would broach the reason for his visit. Eventually, he offhandedly brought ‘Donny the Hill’ into the conversation. Donny was an old retired seaman who lived just outside Dhubaig, not far from our home.
‘Yon mannie is gettin’ gie weird, do you not think, Nurse?’
I knew that Donny was becoming senile and had developed an uncertain temper.
‘He’s no in his right mind, y’know, Nurse. He was on his chimney with the heather in the dark by himself last week, I’m hearin’.’
‘On the chimney with the heather’ meant that he was sweeping his chimney. Usually, with an accomplice below at the hearth, a crofter would ascend the roof, clutching a bundle of heather tied into the middle of a 30-foot length of rope. Holding one end, he would throw the other down the chimney to the person below, who would tug at it, while the crofter on the roof eased the bundle of heather into the flue. Successive energetic tugs would bring the bundle down to the hearth together with vast quantities of brown, sticky soot that would cover the unfortunate helper and everything nearby in a choking cloud of evil-smelling dust. The process of pulling the heather up and tugging it down again would be repeated until one or
other was satisfied that the chimney was clean or announced that they would ‘surely die of the soot’ if they did not stop. The result would be a very clean chimney and two excessively dirty people.
As I listened to Ally Beag, I realised that old Donny was a danger to himself, as this was hardly a job for an arthritic old man at any time of the day, and certainly not alone and in the darkness.
Reading my thoughts, Ally Beag said, ‘He ran up and down yon ladder, pullin up and down by himself. He must be 80 if he’s a day.’ There was a worried frown on his face, and I was beginning to think that the old man might be hurt. I asked Ally.
‘Ach. No yet he isna! But that’s not all. His dog’s no there the now. Nor his cow. I’m thinkin’ he’s made away with them. And . . . ay . . . um . . .’
‘Yes?’
‘Well, Nurse, it’s like this. He’s been followin Ida Mackay.’
Ida was a nervous little woman, recently widowed, living in Coiravaig. If Donny were to make a nuisance of himself, she would be terrified. But there was worse to come.
‘He has a gun, y’know.’
So here it was, at last! The reason for the visit.
‘Aye, well. I must be on ma way.’
And having finally delivered his message, he was off! Half an hour of chit-chat and the real reason left until a second before departing.
I rang John, but I did not want to discuss this on the phone, as the island telephone exchange was a great clearing house for all manner of gossip and this was a decidedly delicate matter.
‘I have a little information that I think you should hear,’ said I, feeling like a character from a James Bond film. ‘It could be urgent. Can you pop over?’
John arrived as soon as the local version of ‘popping over’ could be accomplished in the deepening darkness, and I repeated Ally’s surprising revelation.
Call the Nurse Page 18