An Island Apart

by Lillian Beckwith

  Isabel looked around the kitchen. ‘Where’s that little bitch?’ she snapped.

  ‘I can’t say,’ Kirsty told her coolly.

  ‘Has she been in at all this morning?’

  ‘I haven’t seen her.’

  ‘Well if you haven’t seen her she hasn’t been in, has she?’ Isabel snarled. ‘Mac warned me I was a fool to pay her wages last night and he was right. He’s always telling me I’m too soft with people. I should have made her wait till next week and then paid her off for good.’

  She slumped down on a chair. ‘Any tea in that pot?’ she asked grouchily. Kirsty brewed a pot of tea and handed her a cup. ‘Not going to church?’ Isabel remarked incuriously.

  ‘Not today,’ Kirsty said.

  ‘In that case there’s no need for me and Mac to stay in and mind the place,’ Isabel said, stifling a yawn. ‘There’ll be little enough for you to do so you’ll manage without Meggy.’ There was only the barest trace of interrogation in her tone. Kirsty wanted to turn and point out that she had managed countless times before but she knew it would be a waste of breath and might result in Isabel prolonging her visit to the kitchen which was something she was keen enough to avoid. Once Isabel and Mac had gone out for the rest of the afternoon she planned to ask Ruari to come and share a final strupak when they could tidy their minds of any lurking uncertainties and also check that their arrangements for the morning were fully understood.

  She said as Isabel was leaving, ‘Since Meggy is not here I shall take the late night tea and biscuits to the guests, but after that I shall go to my bed. It is unusual for any of the guests to stay out late on a Sunday night, but in case that should happen I take it you will be back to attend to them?’

  ‘What’s likely to keep anyone out late on a Sunday night?’ scoffed Isabel.

  After Kirsty had heard the couple leave she brewed another pot of tea, put out a plate of fresh-baked scones and went to the Smoking Room expecting to find Ruari. Much to her surprise he was not there. Since he’d mentioned earlier that morning that he was not intending to go to church she thought he might have gone up to his room for a quiet hour away from the other guests. She went upstairs and tapped lightly on his door and when there was no response she cautiously opened the door and peeped in. There was no one there. For a few moments she stood eyeing the room critically. Where was he? Even if he’d changed his mind and gone to church he should have been back by now. There would be no shops open to tempt him to linger; no other attractions to delay him, so where on earth would a God-fearing Islesman have got to on a gloomy Sunday afternoon, she asked herself, experiencing a flutter of trepidation as a succession of possibilities raced through her mind. What would happen if …? With a determining shrug she closed the bedroom door and went back to the kitchen to carry on with her baking.

  He came into the hall as she was setting out the Sunday evening meal in the dining room.

  ‘I was looking out for you,’ she whispered. ‘I was wanting to speak to you for a wee whiley of somethings. Maybe over a strupak.’

  He smiled regretfully. ‘Can we not meet in the kitchen after the meal?’ he suggested.

  ‘No,’ she told him. ‘Isabel and her husband will be back soon and they will be in and out of the kitchen until they themselves go to bed. Sundays are always the same.’

  ‘If I had known,’ he began, but she cut him short. ‘I myself did not know they were going out until it was too late to tell you,’ she pointed out. ‘I thought you would be spending the afternoon reading the Sunday papers but when I looked for you I couldn’t find you.’ He was looking disconsolate so she lightened her tone. ‘Where on earth were you all this time anyway?’ she teased him.

  ‘Ach, it was like this,’ he began. ‘You see my brother told me to get him a supply of tobacco for his pipe while I was in the city, and it was not until this morning that it came to my mind. When I spoke of it to one of the guests here he told me where was a tobacconist’s shop that was open on Sundays so I hurried off there after dinner, not wanting to let my brother know I had forgotten to do what he had asked me.’

  ‘It must have been a good distance away to keep you out so long,’ she commented.

  ‘No, indeed. It was not so far at all, but on the way back there was a band playing so I had a listen to it. They were good, too. I enjoyed it so much I didn’t feel the time passing. I’ve a mind someone told me it was a kind of Salvation Band and when they came to me shaking their collection bags I put in a whole pound and I was pleased to do it.’ Noticing her widening eyes he added, ‘But I’m not so pleased that I missed our strupak.’

  The mention of the band playing reminded her to speak to him about her wireless set. He frowned. ‘I doubt there would be any use for it on Westisle,’ he said. ‘But perhaps you should bring it and very likely my brother is good enough with his fingers to get it sorted for you. Wireless is not such a great mystery to him as it is to me.’ After a moment’s thought he said, ‘My brother has a gramophone and plenty of records which he will no doubt be willing to play for you.’

  At the mention of his brother she experienced a slight sense of shock and realised that she had been so preoccupied with her own problems, her own doubts and questions, that the knowledge that she would be sharing a house not only with her new husband but with her husband’s brother, had impinged only fleetingly on her thoughts. She had not entirely forgotten he would be one of the household but she had somehow disconnected him from her mental pictures of what life would be like in her new home.

  Ruari had portrayed his brother – the other Ruari – as being bigger and stronger than himself, and a fine fisherman, a hardworking shepherd, a scholar and a competent handyman, and until he’d spoken of him as being the owner of a gramophone and many records and as perhaps having the skill to ‘sort’ a modern thing like a wireless set she’d seen him as very much an outdoors man, probably coming into the house only to eat and sleep. In fact as a hazy, undemanding figure moving in the background. But a gramophone was hardly an outdoor amusement, she reminded herself, and being good with his fingers did not fit the description of a hard-working crofter fisherman. It seemed she would have to reassess Ruari Mhor when she met him.

  ‘Will I pack your wireless in my portmanteau?’ Ruari asked.

  ‘If you think it will be safe in there,’ she agreed. ‘I’m afraid there is not room enough in mine.’ She glanced at the clock. ‘I must brew the tea and put the food on the tables,’ she told him. ‘It is only kippers and bread and butter tonight,’ she added with a hint of apology.

  ‘Is it Oidhche Mtath, till the morning then?’ he queried a little wistfully.

  ‘It must be so.’ He stood by the table, looking as if he wanted to say something more but she pressed her hand on his shoulder. ‘Sit you down now, ready to enjoy your kippers,’ she bade him with a smile. ‘The rest will be here in a minute and will not be pleased if I am late with their food.’

  Before she got into bed that night she took her wedding ring from the matchbox in which she had secreted it on her wedding day, and put in on her finger. Already she felt a different woman.

  Kirsty set her alarm clock to go off an hour earlier the next morning, and when it woke her she was surprised but relieved to find that instead of the restless night she had expected, she had enjoyed a good six hours’ sleep. Slipping into her morning dress she crept down to the kitchen and started preparing breakfast for the guests.

  While the porridge was simmering she quietly laid the tables in the dining room and then, returning to the kitchen, buttered what she considered to be an ample supply of scones and wrapped them in greaseproof paper. She then hard-boiled half a dozen eggs and finally, filled her thermos flask with freshly brewed tea. They would not go hungry on their journey, she resolved and since she could not imagine Isabel would offer to pay her due wage for the past month she felt no compunction about helping herself to a reasonable quantity of food.

  After the guests had left the dining room she swiftl
y cleared the tables, washed the dishes and stoked the range, then, satisfied that she had left everything as it should be she went back to her room and packed her nightclothes and her morning dress before changing into the clothes she was to wear for travelling. At the door of her room she paused for a minute or so as if to imprint it on her memory. It was a dingy little room but for so long she had been content to nestle in its dinginess that the moment of leaving it, knowing she would never again seek its sanctuary, caused an unlooked-for throb of emotion.

  Leaving the door wide open for Ruari to collect her portmanteau and take it down to the vestibule ready for the taxi, she started down the stairs. When she was halfway down Isabel came out of the Smoking Room flourishing a duster. She stood looking at Kirsty with cold questioning eyes. Kirsty braced herself for the encounter as she descended the last few steps.

  ‘Where’d you think you’re off to, all dressed up at this time in the morning?’ Isabel accosted her.

  Kirsty managed to swallow the dry lump that had formed in her throat. ‘I am going to the railway station,’ she said with dignity.

  Isabel’s mouth dropped open. ‘You’re what?’

  ‘I am going to the railway station,’ Kirsty repeated. ‘I am leaving ISLAY and I am leaving my job here,’ she elucidated.

  Isabel appeared momentarily dumb-struck. Her mouth opened and closed but no sound came; her body seemed first to crumple and then to stiffen as, arms akimbo, she glared at Kirsty with eyes that looked in danger of popping out of their sockets. ‘You can’t do that,’ she managed to screech. ‘You can’t just leave without giving me due notice. It’s the law. You can just go and take off your coat and get back into that kitchen!’ she commanded, her voice seeming to reverberate around the hall.

  Nonchalantly Kirsty changed her handbag from one arm to the other while she regarded Isabel with an inscrutable smile. She waited, sensing Isabel would have a lot more to say as soon as she could regain control of her breathing. She did. ‘If Mac was here he’d soon tell you what he thinks of you,’ she stormed. ‘He’s always said you’re a deceitful wretch of a woman and now I know he was right.’

  Kirsty’s smile widened. ‘Mac’s opinion of me would not make the slightest difference to my intentions,’ she said. ‘I won’t waste my breath telling you my opinion of him.’

  ‘Well I’m telling you, me and Mac have provided a good job and a good home for you here. You’ve had an easy enough life and anyone would think you’d show a bit of gratitude instead of leaving me without warning to cope on my own.’ Her mouth twisted scornfully. ‘You may as well know I’ve already got someone who will be willing to replace you,’ she taunted.

  ‘I guessed so,’ Kirsty observed quietly.

  Through the glass panel of the vestibule door she saw Ruari busying himself in the porch and realised the taxi had arrived. Not wanting Isabel to see that she was to share the taxi she moved so as to screen the panel from Isabel’s view and at the same time to deter an anxious Ruari from entering too suddenly.

  She held out her hand. ‘Goodbye then, Isabel. Let there be no more recriminations.’

  Isabel looked disdainfully at Kirsty’s proffered hand. ‘If you are holding out that hand for wages,’ she said, her eyes narrowing spitefully, ‘you’re not getting any.’ Kirsty winced as she swiftly withdrew her hand. With a haughty rasp of dismissal Isabel rushed into the kitchen and slammed the door.

  At that moment Ruari came to bring down her portmanteau and take it into the vestibule. Kirsty watched him silently and then, with a sigh of relief that the confrontation with Isabel had been less wounding than she had prepared herself for, she gave one fleeting glance around ISLAY’s so familiar hallway before going confidently to the waiting taxi to join her husband for the first stage of their journey to Westisle.

  Chapter Seven

  Their train was not scheduled to leave for another hour, but they were told that it was already waiting at the station. The ticket collector advised them to take their seats as soon as possible, to make sure they would be comfortable so, finding a compartment in which two window seats were unoccupied they settled themselves for the journey. Ruari had bought a newspaper and Kirsty had bought a woman’s magazine, more because she thought it looked the right thing to do rather than expecting it to provide a source of interest for the journey. While the train remained stationary she perused the magazine abstractly, but with the first puff of the engine as it steamed out of the station excitement began to throb through her. She put the magazine in her handbag.

  Nearly thirty years had passed since she had made that first train journey from her Granny’s home to the city, and then she’d been too stunned by the eventualities that had brought such an abrupt change in her young life, and too overawed at finding herself actually travelling in anything so spellbindingly improbable as a train that she had retained only the sketchiest memories of the journey.

  Now, since Ruari had discarded his paper and seemed inclined to sleep while the rest of the passengers were happy to ignore her she willingly allowed herself to be captivated, during the remaining hours of daylight, by the ever-changing scenery through which the train raced, and when night fell there was hardly less enjoyment in glimpsing the lights of distant towns and cities which emerged from the darkness only to be speedily enfolded by it. She was so absorbed by all there was to see that she hardly noticed the discomfort of sitting upright all night but she became aware of her cramped limbs when, shortly after a laggard dawn, they had to scurry through heavy rain to change to another train.

  They were fortunate enough to have a compartment to themselves on the second train and since they were able to make themselves more comfortable Kirsty was unduly dismayed that the rain obscured the scenery. She closed her eyes and it seemed no time at all before the train was slowing and with a long piercing whistle, announcing its impending arrival at their station. She roused Ruari and made herself ready to leave the train. ‘This will be our station, will it not?’ she enquired.

  He nodded affirmatively and lifted their luggage down from the rack. ‘I’m thinking the weather is looking kind of coarse,’ he said, wiping the window and peering through the rain.

  ‘The day doesn’t seem to have got any lighter,’ she commented.

  The train jolted to a stop at a windblown platform where a solitary porter stared at it sourly as if resenting its presence there. Ruari unloaded the cases and carried them to an ancient-looking conveyance which he referred to as ‘the bus’. Kirsty stepped down on to the platform to face a biting wind that brought the sharp fresh, instantly remembered smell of the sea. She wanted to inhale deeply but the wind was too chilly. She looked at Ruari. ‘What now?’ she enquired.

  ‘Ach, we have a wee way to go on the bus just,’ he explained.

  There were only two other passengers and they dismounted after a couple of miles. Buffeted by wind and lashed by the heavy rain the bus juddered its way along a deviating track across the rapidly darkening moors. It eventually pulled to a stop beside an entrance to a crofthouse which Ruari described as the Post Office. Here Ruari and the bus driver began a discussion in Gaelic from which Kirsty was able to gather that the weather was too wild for a boat to cross to Westisle that night. Her heart sank. She was cold and she was tired and she was hungry, despite the hard-boiled eggs and scones they had consumed on the journey. Forlornly she looked out but it was too dark now to see the sea, let alone the Island which was to be her home. Turning away from the driver Ruari spoke to her.

  ‘I will go now and have a word with Mairi Jane,’ he said. ‘She will know what to do.’

  Making for the door of the crofthouse he opened it, and after shouting an enquiry disappeared into the lamplit interior. A few minutes later he reappeared followed by a small woman who was carrying a hurricane lamp and talking animatedly. The woman whom Kirsty guessed was Mairi Jane climbed on the bus.

  ‘Well, mho ghaoil, Ciamera a Tha,’ she greeted Kirsty. ‘This is indeed a surprise for us, is it not?
But many a welcome you’ll have. It is good to hear that Ruari has taken a wife.’ Her welcome was warm yet not effusive; her broad smile was genuine and her handshake firm. Kirsty immediately took a liking to her,

  Mairi Jane turned to the bus driver. ‘And what have you to say to Ruari’s new wife?’ she asked him.

  The man who was in the act of taking a dram from the bottle of whisky Ruari had offered him, wiped the back of his hand across his mouth before shaking Kirsty’s hand. ‘It is good to welcome a new face,’ he said and added uncertainly, ‘Surely Westisle will be the better of a woman.’

  ‘And she has the Gaelic!’ Mairi Jane announced, much in the same way a chorus girl might announce she was to marry a millionaire. The bus driver smiled his approval.

  Ruari interposed, ‘Mairi Jane has kindly said she will give you a bed for the night until the storm quietens. I myself will go and have a word on Padruig and see what he thinks of the weather. He is a good judge and he is a good boat man.’

  ‘Is it kind?’ chuckled Mairi Jane. ‘Surely I will give you a bed for the night and be glad of your company. Indeed, it’s welcome you’ll be to my house.’ She turned to Ruari. ‘You will take your luggage into the house now and Kirsty your wife will come with me, seeing I have the lamp,’ she directed.

  Kirsty, feeling she had been temporarily assigned to Mairi Jane, murmured grateful acknowledgements and followed her into the house where there was an ample peat fire above which a large black kettle swung. Waiting snugly on the hob stood a shiny brown teapot. It all looked so familiar she could almost imagine her Granny occupying the empty chair beside the range.