I was passing the last house in the village and with the prospect of the lonely dark road confronting me had more or less decided to overcome my reservations and ask for shelter when I glimpsed an unfamiliar light on my left. With a surge of relief I suddenly remembered there had been talk at one of the ceilidhs about Hamish having recently opened a shop in the shed he had built at the end of his house. ‘Someone else that’s after thinkin’ he’ll make money out of us,’ Erchy had said gloomily. I stared at the light only half believing my good luck and then I hurried towards it fearful lest it should disappear leaving me to face once more the decision as to whether I should go on or go back.
I turned the handle of the shop door and went inside. Hamish was leaning on the counter reading a magazine and when he looked up and saw me his surprise was so great his spectacles fell on to the counter.
‘He Fluke!’ I greeted him.
‘He Fluke!’ he replied with a worried frown that was intended as a disguise for his diffidence.
Hamish was known as the ‘Shenagelly’ which Morag translated for me as being a ‘man that doesn’t take lightly to women’, and I knew him, as he knew me, by sight and reputation only. He was a gangling man, clumsy with shyness and seeing that I intended he and his shop should endure my presence for the next couple of hours I set about putting him at his ease.
‘My, but you have a splendid little store here,’ I complimented him as I surveyed his crammed and varied stock of tinned fruit, biscuits, sweeties, butter, flour, crockery, paint, nails, brushes, soap and cigarettes along with what seemed to me a disproportionate quantity of aspirin tablets.
‘Ach!’ He waved his hand in a deprecating gesture. ‘I’ve more than this coming.’ He nodded towards the road. ‘Johnny’s bringing me a box of gumboots when he comes.’ He looked down at my sodden shoes. ‘Ladies’ boots, too,’ he added.
I too looked down at my shoes. ‘My gumboots are on the bus,’ I explained. ‘I’ve been over to the mainland and when I’d finished there I decided to walk back to Bruach. It was a nice enough day when I started out.’
Hamish was aghast. ‘You’ve walked all that way?’ he asked. ‘Did you no stop any place?’ I told him of my plan; to drop in and see Marie and of finding the old man there: alone and aloof. ‘My, my,’ he commiserated. ‘You’ll not have had a strupak since you left the mainland, then?’
‘I’m not so much missing a strupak as wanting to sit down,’ I told him. ‘I wonder would you mind if I sat down on the end of this box while I give you my order?’ I indicated a large wooden crate labelled ‘CANDLES’.
‘Ach, this one’s best,’ said Hamish. ‘That one’s wet with the dogs.’ He bumbled forward and gathered up some tins so that I could sit down on a box that was clearly marked ‘DO NOT CRUSH’.
‘Lovely,’ I said, easing myself down. It was only fractionally warmer inside the shop than outside but at least it was dry and I was comfortable enough as I made my choice of the items he had to offer. When I had paid for my purchases and had stowed them away in my bag I began to cast around for an interesting topic of conversation but Hamish began to clear his throat nervously, and then burst out, ‘Will you take a strupak supposing I make one?’ I told him of course that it would be putting him to too much trouble but he must have read the longing in my expression.
‘It is not very nice for you to be sitting in the cold here,’ he told me and indicated the door that led through to his house. ‘If you will come with me just through here I will show you my private parts.’ Unhesitatingly I followed him. I had heard that Hamish had made himself a ‘swanky’ home and I was struck by the difference between it and the usual crofter’s house. Here were comfortable armchairs; a writing desk; a polished table, even a square of carpet on the floor. The house smelled of furniture polish instead of the usual mixture of hens’ mash, sour milk and peat smoke and when he turned up the jet of the gaslight the sheen on the woodwork showed how much attention was lavished on it. I enthused on its appearance while Hamish filled a kettle from the pail of water, for despite his modern furniture and the convenience of bottled gas he still had to carry all his water from the well. He set the kettle on a small gas ring.
‘If you would care to blow up the fire,’ he told me, indicating an extremely functional pair of bellows, ‘I will get some biscuits from out the shop.’ Contentedly I went down on my knees and worked the bellows until the flames burst and spread themselves over the dry peats. When Hamish returned he threw on some chunks of driftwood and some pieces of coal.
‘I have closed the shop,’ he told me, setting down the hurricane lantern which had provided light for the shop. ‘There will be no one coming now and we can see the headlights of the bus from the window in plenty of time.’
It was so long since I had been entertained in such a charming room and as I sat toasting my feet and drinking hot tea I reflected on my good fortune. Over his strupak Hamish became almost loquacious, telling me of his early life on the mainland. He was, as I suspected, no Highlander: to me he did not even look like one, but his maternal grandmother had been a Highlander and through her he had inherited the croft; his passionate love of the island, and presumably his Highland way of speech. Our talk turned to writing and he confessed that sometimes he wrote poetry; he suggested that I might like him to read some of his poems to me and I, feeling so smug and warm that I could have listened to a party political broadcast without flinching, expressed keen interest. He took a sheaf of papers from the writing desk and started to read in a flat voice that would have ruined a Shakespearean sonnet while all the time he fidgeted so extravagantly – crossing and uncrossing legs and drawing first one knee up to his chin and then the other – that it was evident what the reading of them was costing him. It occurred to me that he must be a very lonely man, being as he was a non-Highlander among Highlanders; a non-crofter among crofters, for though Hamish had inherited the croft it was only the house which interested him. He kept no animals and grew no crops. He did not even cut peats for himself but resorted to buying a few sacks from his neighbours when he wanted to eke out his coal. I knew what it was like to be an Englishwoman among Highlanders (though once when I had mentioned this to Morag she had dismissed the idea of my place of birth being of any moment – ‘If you had been born in a stable it wouldn’t have made you a horse’, she had quoted). But at least I was a crofter so that I shared and could discuss the demands and frustrations, the rewards and compensations, of the crofting life with my neighbours. I began to suspect that perhaps Hamish had opened his shop not so much with the idea of making a profit from the village as of making contact with the people and I felt a wave of pity for him.
When he had finished reading his poems he relapsed into a thoughtful silence. I looked at my watch. There was still half an hour to go at least before I could expect to see the headlights of the bus and since we had finished our strupaks I suggested I should wash the dishes. I expected him to refuse politely but Hamish seemed delighted by my offer and poured the remainder of the water from the kettle into a bowl. While I washed he wiped the dishes and put them away.
‘It is the first time in many years since a woman has washed dishes for me,’ he confided and there was a tinge of sadness in his voice.
We sat down again to wait and again I remarked on the attractiveness of his home. ‘You know, Hamish,’ I told him, ‘You really should get married. It seems such a pity that such a lovely place as you have should be wasted on a bachelor.’
Hamish’s eyes lit up and he looked at me shyly. ‘It’s funny you should say that,’ he began. I saw that he was blushing fiercely and once again he began contorting himself on his chair. ‘You see, I’ve been suffering from terrible headaches for a good while now.’ He cleared his throat several times. ‘I’ve been taking these aspirins night after night to try will it cure them; sometimes during the day too but then my head was getting so bad I couldn’t sleep at all so I went with it to the doctor a week or two back.’ Hamish looked straight at me. �
��He told me just the same you are telling me. “You should get married, Hamish,” says he. “It’s only marriage will cure your headaches.”
‘Really!’ I murmured.
‘Yes,’ he admitted. ‘He said that was my only cure.’ The rising wind flung a scatter of hail against the window and the suddenness of it made us glance at one another. I hoped the smile I gave Hamish was as reassuring and guileless as the smile he gave me. ‘Then we can expect to hear of wedding bells in the not too distant future,’ I said. I saw his eyes flick to the window and turning glimpsed the headlights of the bus glaring through the darkness.
Three months later I received an invitation to Hamish’s wedding.
‘Him that’s been so feared of women all these years an’ now he’s in that much of a hurry to get married you’d think someone was after beatin’ him into it!’ exclaimed Morag disapprovingly. ‘What will he be doin’ with a wife anyway when he has no cattle nor even a hen to see to.’
I smiled as I put the invitation back on the shelf. ‘I’m only wondering what he’s going to do with all that aspirin,’ I told her.
The New Boots
It was seven o’ clock and the December morning was a welter of wind and rain and flung spray. Katac crouched in the forepeak of Angus Mhor’s boat as it punched its way across the tossing black water of the sound towards the tiny creek where she could land and so begin the second stage of her journey to the mainland.
‘You’ll need to be jumpin’ for it, I’m thinkin’,’ Angus Mhor’s voice reached her from the stem. ‘The swell is breakin’ too close to the shore for me to go right in.’
There was no real landing place at the creek they were making for, only a cleared shingle-floored gully between piled boulders and except in the calmest weather it was possible only to nose the bow of a boat as far as the most seaward boulders when the passengers would jump from the forepeak and hope to land, if not on the shingle, then in water shallow enough not to fill their boots. Katac was in no way alarmed at the prefect of having to jump even on to a shore unlit by anything more effective than the wavering beam of Angus’s torch but she was worried in case the sea came over the top of her gumboots and wet her stockings. Today it was important that she should not get her stockings wet.
‘Get yourself ready, Katac!’ Angus warned. Katac tightened the tapes of her souwester, checked the knot of the rope which was tied round her waist over her father’s old oilskin, picked up her bag and climbed up on to the forepeak, holding on to the mast while her eyes probed the darkness trying to discern the line of the shore. Angus slowed the engine and she saw the white line of surf and the wet shingle reflecting the beam of his torch. She waited while the sea surged past the bow of the boat, flung itself at the rocks and sucked back with a clatter of stones.
‘Now!’ yelled Angus and immediately Katac leapt, landed on shingle, picked herself up and scrambled quickly out of the way of the next surge. At the top of the tide she stood gasping.
‘All right?’ she heard Angus’s voice faintly.
‘All right, Angus,’ she called and pulling the torch out of her bag she flashed it twice – the pre-arranged signal to indicate that she had landed without mishap. The acknowledging two flashes came from the boat and were followed by the noise of the propellor thrashing the water as Angus turned and headed back for the island.
Katac sought the shelter of a pillar of rock while she stood for a few moments watching the mast light bobbing and swaying into the dark. She wriggled her toes inside her boots. Sometimes her gumboots were so damp she wouldn’t notice an extra splash or two of water in them but, she smiled to herself, today she was confident she had managed to keep her feet dry.
In the light of her torch she picked her way over the shingle towards the steep path which led to the road and the scattering of croft houses which comprised the village. The wind was strengthening, tearing at her oilskin while the rain rattled deafeningly against her souwester. She began to worry that it might grow too stormy for the ferry to cross to the mainland.
Outside the cottage which was also the village post office she sheltered in the lee of a convenient peat stack beside the road from where through the rain she glimpsed the fitful glare of headlights as the bus wound its way round the loch. It was not long before it came labouring up the hill to stop outside the post office. Although it was always referred to as the bus it was in reality no more than a covered lorry whose primary function was the collection of mails from the outlying villages and houses for delivery to the sorting office some twenty miles away. Passengers were a secondary consideration, the only concession to their comfort being the provision of two long wooden benches, one on either side of the lorry, but since these benches were not secured in any way and the rough road was full of twists and turns, Hamish, the driver, thoughtfully saw that the sacks of mails were dumped on the floor between the two benches so when the lorry lurched or swooped to left or right the full sacks acted as a buffer between the two rows of dislodged passengers.
Katac stepped out from behind the peat stack into the beam of the headlights. Hamish got down from his cab. ‘Ach, it is yourself, Katac,’ he greeted her. ‘Are you for comin’ on the bus, then?’
‘I am so,’ she told him.
‘Aye, then seein’ there’s no likely to be any other passengers you might just as well sit yourself in the seat beside me.’ He opened the door of the cab. ‘See an’ get in just an’ be out of the rain while I get the mails.’
He ran into the post office and Katac slipped off her oilskin before climbing into the cab. Once seated she took off her gumboots, replacing them with her best hill boots which she had been carrying in her bag. From her bag also she took her hat which she normally wore only on the Sabbath and after pulling it into shape she set it carefully on her head.
‘Ach, it is terrible weather,’ panted Hamish as he jumped into the driving seat after having stowed the mails in the back of the lorry. ‘I’m thinkin’ all the islands will be sailin’ away from the mainland with all the rain there’s been just.’
Katac smiled her reply. The bus started with a jolt that set her well back on her seat and knocked her hat askew. She adjusted it hastily and settled herself more firmly into her seat while her thoughts roamed over the day ahead.
Today was her twelfth birthday and this was her first journey alone to the mainland. Such trips were rare enough even with her mother, and it was eighteen months since she had seen a shop of any kind, their small island boasting only a post office which was really no more than a couple of littered shelves in Marie Bheag’s kitchen. Under the stolid calm she was affecting Katac was wildly excited not only by the prospect of a day’s shopping but because today she was to collect a pair of birthday present boots from Old Donald, the cobbler. It would be the first time she had ever had a birthday present from her parents and what was more important it would be the first time she had ever had a pair of light boots. For months now she had been looking forward to her new boots and when walking sedately to church between her mother and father she had sometimes found herself glancing surreptitiously down at her feet and seeing in imagination not the well polished but heavy hill boots which her father deemed the only suitable footwear for girls of her age, but the shiny black, light boots which today she was going to possess.
As the bus rounded the loch she could feel the strong wind buffeting the lorry and she began again to worry lest the ferry might not be able to cross. Hamish’s voice broke into her thoughts.
‘You will be doin’ some shopping?’ he asked.
‘Aye,’ she replied.
‘Are you goin’ across?’
‘I hope so,’ she said, struggling to keep the anxiety out of her voice.
‘Ach, you’ll get across all right,’ Hamish assured her. This sou-westerly isn’t bad over the other side.’
Katac relaxed. Hamish knew a lot about winds and tides and how they affected the ferry so he wasn’t likely to be wrong. The bus lumbered on while Hamish chatted spo
radically about the weather or the poaching or the fishing; stopping at the home-made red painted pillar boxes which stood at the entrance to each isolated croft where he collected mails and parcels and threw them into the back of the lorry. Once a dark shape loomed grotesquely in the headlights and when Hamish stopped Katac saw it was an oilskinned and oil-coated fisherman who handed Hamish two parcels of fish, telling him there was one for himself and requesting that the other be delivered to another cottage further inland.
‘I’m no askin’ what it is,’ jested Hamish.
The fisherman looked at Katac and winked before he merged again into the darkness.
Next it was an old woman they had to stop for, and Katac noticed that though she carried an oilskin it was draped over a bag of fleece while her own shoulders were protected by nothing more rain-proofed than an empty sack. Again it was an old man who signalled them to stop by brandishing a couple of rabbits in the headlights and once more it was with a ‘one for yourself, Hamish’, along with the instruction that the other should be delivered to some relative in the next village. Another time they had to stop for a cow which had chosen to bed itself down in the middle of the road and unaffected by the revving of the bus engine or by long blasts on the horn refused to move until Hamish at last got out and belaboured the beast with empty mail bags and a selection of epithets.
‘The rain seems to be easin’ off,’ he said, getting back into his seat. Katac was relieved. She was by no means daunted by rain but in the islands rain was such a constant accompaniment that it was pleasant to be without it on occasion.
Beautiful Just! Page 6