An Island Apart

by Lillian Beckwith

  ‘Do you yourself go to the cinema?’

  She gave a negative shake of her head. ‘When I first came to the city I longed to go and see a picture. The cinemas looked so inviting with their bright lights and music whenever I went past them but the old aunt I was living with at the time said they were “Devil’s Palaces” and I mustn’t think of going inside one of them. The Reverend MacDonald and his wife regarded them in much the same way and told me I should be ashamed of myself for mentioning the word “cinema” in such a place as the Manse. It wasn’t until after I came here to work for Mrs Ross that I got the chance to go. Indeed she herself took me to an afternoon matinee but I found it a sore disappointment. Ach, it was a cosy enough place but I caught fleas and I wasn’t of a mind to pay sixpence to watch pictures and feed fleas so I didn’t go again,’ she said dryly.

  ‘You wouldn’t miss such things, then?’

  Her heart gave a little leap. He was on the edge of approaching the purpose of their meeting. ‘I would not,’ she assured him. ‘Indeed there is very little the city offers that I should miss.’ He noticed a small furrow of concentration appear between her eyes as if she was trying to recall some diversion she might miss. ‘Maybe the swimming baths,’ she admitted. ‘I enjoy swimming but the baths are fast becoming so crowded and noisy I’m not much tempted these days.’ She hesitated a moment. ‘But I’m forgetting the public library. Now that is a place I should miss sadly. Ever since I learned to read I’ve loved books. My greatest pleasure is a good book.’ She injected a note of seriousness into her voice so as not to lead him into thinking that she might be persuaded to contemplate relinquishing such amenities.

  ‘There is a good postal library in the Islands these days,’ he was quick to tell her. ‘It will send books regularly and you can keep them for a few weeks before you need to send them back. And,’ he emphasized, ‘it’s all paid for by the Education Authority.’

  She was sceptical. There’d been nothing like that when she was young. ‘What kind of books? Lesson books?’ she queried.

  ‘No indeed. My brother gets every kind of book for the asking. He’s a rare man for reading once the outside work is finished and on the Sabbath whenever he can be alone.’

  ‘Your brother lives on the Island?’ His mention of a brother took her by surprise.

  ‘My brother also lives in the house. It is the two of us just since the old folk passed on.’

  She caught her breath. Sharing a house with two men was something she had not envisaged. She was immediately suspicious. ‘Your brother,’ she began haltingly. ‘Is he in good health?’ She could well understand Ruari MacDonald seeking a wife if there was an invalid brother dependent upon him.

  ‘My brother is in the best of health,’ he replied. ‘He is a big man and he is altogether stronger and cleverer than myself. He has never seen a doctor and his teacher said he was such a good scholar he could have gone to University. He won bursaries but ach, he was never keen to go away from the Island,’

  ‘Is he older or younger than yourself?’

  ‘He is older by a year or two.’

  ‘And he’s never married?’ The Islands were noted for their bachelors. ‘Would there be a reason for that?’

  ‘He’s too content with his fishing and his sheep and his handiwork and his reading to have time for a woman, though there’s many a good lassie would have been pleased to have the chance to marry him.’

  This time it was she who noticed the slight crease furrowing his brow. She guessed that he was becoming sensitive to her questioning. But, she excused herself, she had to continue. There was so much she must know before she could consider giving him her decision. ‘Are there no other crofters on your Island?’ she pursued.

  ‘Not a one. Not since many years back about the time of the evictions, my father used to say.’

  ‘They were forced to go?’

  ‘No, but the Laird at the time was so hard on them that they chose to go.’

  ‘Those were cruel days,’ she mused. ‘I mind the old folk telling such sad stories at the ceilidhs ever since I was a wee bairn. They must have suffered terribly.’

  ‘It was nigh on a hundred years ago,’ he reminded her.

  ‘My Granny used to tell me that her own Granny used to croon such a sad song saying they were left with nothing but the burial ground,’ she continued.

  ‘But it was sorted after a while,’ he soothed.

  ‘It was a long enough while before it was sorted,’ she contested. ‘Folks still had bitter memories that had been told to them.’

  ‘True,’ he agreed. ‘And I’m thinking life wasn’t all that easy after the settlement. My own grandparents were poor enough. My father had to go and work as a herd boy for the Laird when he was very young and I mind him saying to us that the Laird was a mean and unjust man that would grudge him the wee bowl of oatmeal he’d get for his wages.’ He frowned. ‘But the time came when the Laird took to the gay life in the South and squandered all his money till he had to dispose of the whole estate including the Island.’

  ‘I’d say it served him right,’ Kirsty murmured.

  ‘Aye, but the crofters were gey worried when they heard the new Laird was to be an Englishman I can tell you. But they need not have worried. He turned out to be a good and fair man and treated his employees and his tenants well enough. My father worked as a shepherd for him and was often enough on the Island to see to the sheep. He got to know it well and thought a lot of it. He had the Laird’s son over on the Island with him one day and my father mentioned to him that it had been worked by the crofters until they abandoned it. When the Laird himself heard of it he immediately offered the Island to any crofters who were keen to go back there.’

  ‘And did they?’ she asked.

  ‘Ach, they wouldn’t listen to him. Folks were petitioning to be taken off the Islands at that time, not wanting to go and live on them.’ After a short pause he went on, ‘It was said it was mostly the womenfolk fearing they’d be too isolated that stopped the men from going.’ He gave her a wavering smile before shaking his head. ‘It was a pity right enough, seeing they would have had near three hundred acres of fairly good land they could have portioned among themselves. But no, they’d have none of it. They were all wanting easier crofts on the mainland.’

  ‘I suppose one couldn’t blame them for that,’ Kirsty commented. ‘And yet your parents went there?’

  ‘Well, how that came about was when the Laird’s own son came of age he asked his father to give him the Island so he could try farming it himself. His father not only agreed but he built him a fine house with the stone from some of the old ruined cottages that had been abandoned. It was a good strong house, too, with three rooms and a kitchen, and a tiled roof rather than just the thatch that was used at the time. It was newly finished just when the war broke out and the son went off to be an officer. The poor laddie never came back. My own father was in the war, too, but he wasn’t even wounded and when he came back he had it in his mind that he wanted to marry my mother who was cook at the Laird’s house on the mainland. When he spoke of this wish the Laird offered my father the Island and the house there as a wedding gift in recognition of his and my mother’s loyal service.’

  ‘He must have thought a lot of your parents,’ Kirsty said.

  ‘Aye, indeed he did. And the Laird’s wife was almost like a sister to my mother, she used to say.’

  ‘So they married and moved to the Island and lived happily ever after,’ Kirsty concluded.

  ‘Aye, but my father took a whiley to think about it before he accepted the Laird’s offer,’ he told her. ‘See, he doubted my mother wouldn’t marry him because she might want for company after being used to having the other workers around at the big house, but when he did put it to her she said she was prepared to go if that was what he wanted. Once they married they ferried some cows and sheep and hens across to the Island and a few days later they had a good ceilidh for the wedding guests in their fine new house. I beli
eve it was a great day indeed.’

  ‘And were they happy there?’ Kirsty enquired.

  ‘I doubt if they ever regretted what they’d done,’ he assured her. ‘And that’s where myself and my brother were born,’ he added.

  ‘Your schooling?’ she probed.

  ‘My father used to take us across the sound every Monday morning so long as it was good enough weather.’

  ‘To the mainland?’

  ‘No, no, to another Island where there was a school and several scholars. Then he’d come for us on Friday evenings. If the weather was bad we’d stay with one of the crofters for the week-end. My mother often used to get across with him too so she ‘d be able to call and see her folks for a strupak.’

  ‘And you say you have good water on your Island? Good wells and good peat hags and shelter for the animals?’ Kirsty tried to make her tone sound congratulatory rather than inquisitive so he should not read too much interest into her questioning.

  ‘We have very good water indeed on Westisle. Folks sometimes say they haven’t tasted such good water and it makes a grand cup of tea,’ he said glowingly. ‘But the peat hags on the Island are shallow and the peat is poor under the kettle so we cut our peats on a small Island that’s not so far away where there is more than plenty and no one to bother with it. We ferry it across in a flat bottomed cattle boat we have that’s grand for the peats just, and we can take all we need for the winter in no more than two loads.’ ‘Your brother is fond of fishing? Has he a fishing boat?’

  ‘We have a fishing boat and mostly we fish together though I believe he is the better fisherman.’

  ‘What is your fishing boat called?’

  ‘It bears our joint names,’ he told her.

  ‘You haven’t mentioned your brother’s name,’ she pointed out, suddenly realising that though they had been conversing companionably for more than two hours neither of them had used each other’s Christian name.

  ‘My brother’s name is also Ruari,’ he admitted with a shy grin and in response to her quizzically raised eyebrows he explained, ‘see it was this way. My own father’s favourite brother was our Uncle Ruari and when he went off to Canada my father told my mother that he wanted his first born son to be named for him. That is why my brother is Ruari. My mother’s father, that is my grandfather on her side was also named Ruari and she wanted a second son to be named for him. So when I was born I was also Ruari. My brother is Ruari Mhor seeing he’s the eldest and I am Ruari Beag seeing I’m the youngest. Our fishing boat is named for the two of us: The Two Ruaris,’

  ‘Of course, I’d forgotten how the old folk clung to the family names,’ she observed with a wry smile.

  He too smiled. ‘The cattle ferry is also named The Two Ruaris,’ he confided, his smile widening, ‘but we have a small dinghy that has an outboard motor which is handy enough for just one of us to manage.’

  ‘Now you’re not going to tell me that the dinghy is also named for the two of you, surely?’ she teased him archly.

  ‘No, indeed. We named her Katy after our mother,’ he answered gravely.

  ‘How frequently do you get supplies and mail?’ she asked.

  ‘The boat calls twice a month with supplies and mails.’

  ‘Only twice a month?’ she echoed dubiously.

  ‘But we don’t depends on the boat just,’ he hastened to tell her. ‘When we take our fish to the mainland we can collect any mails and pick up anything we might be short of. We manage well enough.’

  She tried to recall shortages in her Granny’s time when snow blocked roads or ferries had been harbour-bound by the weather. ‘Bread?’ she asked. ‘My Granny used to think it a great treat to get city bread from time to time.’

  ‘Ach, we can get bread any time we’re across. Not that we eat so very much of it. My brother has no liking for city bread. Since my mother learned him how to make good girdle scones and bannocks, he spurns city bread even as a treat. No, we do not miss bread.’

  ‘Your brother sounds a right “lad o pairts”,’ Kirsty complimented him. ‘You tell me he is a good scholar and a good fisherman, a good shepherd and a good baker. Is there anything he is not good at?’

  He’d rested his chin on his hand and had appeared to be considering deeply. ‘He’s not so good with the cattle,’ he allowed. ‘He gets mighty cross with them when they’re being stupid and he miscalls them.’ He glanced at her with a grin that had verged on the impish. ‘Indeed the minister wouldn’t be best pleased to hear the way he miscalls them sometimes.’ His glance changed suddenly to one of anxiety as if he feared he might have shocked her. She treated him to a complaisant smile.

  ‘It’s the cattle just he miscalls,’ he resumed. ‘You’d never hear a bad word from him at any other time. Mostly it’s myself sees to the cattle except at sale time when it needs the two of us to round them up.’ She nodded. ‘And he doesn’t take much to do with the hens, so I see to those myself. But he is good with his brain and with his hands. It’s himself that made much of the furniture in the house from good pieces of driftwood we have found on the shore from time to time, and didn’t he repair the water tank, the one which the Laird had built beside the burn with the idea that his son would have water piped down to the house. The tank had leaked for a while and the piping was rusty and broken in places. My father had taken no heed of it, being always used to carrying water from the burn or the well but my brother wasn’t finished with school before he had it sorted. My mother was never tired of praising him for that, seeing she no longer had to carry pails of water.’

  ‘You’re saying you have water from a tap like there is in the city?’ There was scepticism in her tone.

  ‘Indeed we have so,’ he asserted and smiled at her expectantly.

  She again looked at the kitchen clock before rising from her chair. ‘I must take the guests their evening tea and biscuits,’ she said, knowing, and guessing that he also knew, that she was stalling for time before giving him her decision.

  While she was preparing the trays and taking them into the Smoking Room her mind occupied itself with assessing what Ruari MacDonald was offering her. A good house, he’d promised, and she was prepared to believe him; regular supply of milk and eggs, of fish, of fresh water and of peats. It sounded like all the necessities for a fairly comfortable life, but if he was to be her man what else would she want of him? Could she grow fond of him? Was she willing to try? While there was nothing about him that in any way repelled her, neither was there anything that kindled more than a feeling of leniency towards him. At their age and after so short an acquaintance affection was fanciful, she told herself, but what had drawn him to her? What would he be wanting of her? Loyalty in response to his offers she would be prepared to give but would she be willing to share his bed if that was what he wanted? A tiny quiver of excitement told her she would not be too averse to the idea; she dared to let herself think it might be endurable, possibly even pleasant. She smothered the thought hastily. It must be made quite clear to him that she was almost certainly too old to bear children. But not yet, she wavered.

  When she returned to the kitchen he was looking at the newspaper which Mac had left.

  ‘Will I make another pot of tea?’ she asked him.

  ‘Aye,’ he agreed, ‘that will be welcome.’ He put away the paper and watched her while she made the tea and poured out two cups. Then with only a slight preliminary clearing of his throat he asked, ‘Will I speak to the minister here tomorrow about us?’

  Kirsty knew there was one final question she must put to him before she could agree. Falteringly she asked, ‘Your brother, will he be sore at you for asking a woman to share your house?’

  ‘My brother will take no more to do with you than you’d wish,’ he assured her.

  She looked up at him critically while she again asked herself if she was being sensible; if leniency could be a substitute for affection?

  ‘Will I do just that?’ he pressed.

  Kirsty lowered her eyes. ‘
You will do that,’ she’d consented. He stretched out a hand but only far enough along the table to take her glass. ‘Oh, no more than a wee sippie,’ she bade him and since the bottle was almost empty he found it easy enough to comply.

  Standing up he raised his glass to his lips. ‘To Kirsty mho ghaoil!’ he proclaimed.

  She raised her glass similarly. ‘To Ruari Beag MacDonald!’ she returned but she was too shy to add any endearment.

  Thus with no more than a dram, a smile and a handshake the compact had been made.

  Chapter Five

  It had been after four o’clock in the afternoon of the following day before she’d encountered Ruari MacDonald again. The house had been quiet, with Mac at work, Isabel at one of her almost daily whist drives and Meggy out on an errand to the electric shop to get the wireless accumulators recharged. None of the guests were due back until shortly before the evening meal so she’d planned to wash out a few ‘smalls’, but before doing so she’d looked into the Smoking Room to check Meggy had banked up the fire ready for the evening. There she had found him sitting in an armchair near the window with the daily paper covering his lap, evidently having slipped from his hands, and his head lolling against the antimacassar which covered the chair back. She’d guessed he was snoozing and since the fire needed no attention was about to withdraw quietly when she heard him call abruptly, ‘Tha e Fuar!’

  ‘He Fooar!’ she responded immediately, before reverting to the English, ‘Indeed it is cold. I wonder you are not sitting nearer the fire.’

  ‘I am meaning it is cold outside this house,’ he explained. ‘It is not cold in here.’ He’d seemed unsure how to continue the conversation.

  ‘I was just after checking to see if there was a good fire going,’ she told him and after a second or two’s pause asked, ‘You will be feeling like a strupak?’ She hadn’t really wanted to go back into the kitchen to make a strupak at this moment, having only a few minutes previously finished her own leisurely cup of tea but she’d felt a need to say something inconsequential and the traditional enquiry had shaped itself effortlessly to her tongue. He gestured grateful acceptance but as she turned to go he rose from the chair and stepped hurriedly to waylay her.