by Jess Smith
He knelt, kissed her and ran a cool hand over her warm brow.
‘I’m doing away nae bother, my love,’ she said. ‘Now, you get on with rebuilding that house of ours, little Bruar will keep me company.’
She worked through her pain without obvious complications, yet deep inside the situation was far from normal. As each hour passed, she grew more stressed than the last. As an added anxiety, the baby was showing no signs of response, and now each pain riveted through her back with dire severity. As her womb grew stiff she began to claw at the stretched skin.
‘Oh my God, the baby has breeched!’
Terror rose, gripped itself onto her thumping heart as she felt the concealed infant lodge itself tightly in the birth canal. It needed help—it had to be assisted, if not it would die.
Rory, thinking all was in hand, popped his head in the tent door.
‘Go get your sister, fetch Helen!’ Her hot, clammy hand found his arm, fingernails sank deep into flesh.
Like a hissing poker, fear burnt through him. His wife’s exposed breast heaved in deep waves. ‘For the love of God, what’s wrong?’
With arched spine she raised herself onto two reddened elbows and gasped, ‘It’s closed, the way out; my bairn panics. Oh God, Rory, run like the deer, fetch help—Helen—run, man!’
‘I won’t leave you, not like this.’ He knelt, cradled her through each excruciating push, feeling as useless as a hermit crab without its shell.
‘I’ll not see this baby alive if I don’t get help! Go now!’ Again her attempts to move the infant failed, as she arched her spine and screamed: ‘Please, please, man, it’s not coming. I feel sick and faint, I need help, get Helen.’ She clenched her teeth and her breath hissed through each nerve-ripping surge of agony, beads of sweat bursting from every inch of stretched skin.
Little Bruar crept, like a terror-struck rabbit, under a corner of blanket and tunnelled deep. His mother never normally shouted or screamed, so he’d be best to stay hidden until she stopped making frightening sounds.
Rory in his panic pulled on broken leather boots. It would take him half an hour to reach his sister’s house, but there was a closer neighbour. Not far away, just along the beach, in a cave, lived an old man. A strange creature, and it was said he could see future events. People living in that area relied on ‘the Gifted One’ for that. But not Rory: even as a child he did not like the man and would avoid the dreadful dingy cave in which he dwelt. Only people seeking word of their future went near him.
But now Rory was desperate. Stumbling over grass clumps, sinking into mounds of wind-blown sand, splashing through the incoming tide he called out, ‘Balnakiel, old man, my lassie needs help!’ He kicked off his seaweed-tangled boots; broken shells and sharp stones cut into his bare feet, blood oozed. Bounding over rocky, rye-grassed banks, he found the cloaked seer hunched over a low-burning fire, his hooded head adding to the mystery of the man.
‘Did you hear me? I need help; my wife is in her child hour; can you go fetch my sister, or stay with my family in the tent, while I fetch her?’
Silence followed. The man showed little sign of concern at his young wife’s threatened predicament; he just muttered, eyeballs rolling in an oval-shaped head. Then, as if possessed, he rose up onto unsteady legs, thrust an arm skyward and prophesied: ‘No use! No use!’
Rory dropped on his knees and begged. ‘For God’s sake, old man, my lassie will die!’
But to his horror, Balnakiel fell back in his chair of knotted driftwood, the hood draped over his lowered head, and with a shaking arm he pointed to a circle of pebbles at his feet.
‘See, Stewart; see how the stones never lie! She will meet a cold dawn!’
Rory grabbed the old skeletal creature, kicked the seer stones sending them in every direction, and shook him violently; but over and over Balnakiel repeated, ‘Cold dawn, no use, I see the Ban Nigh, the washer of the ford—she covers your woman in her shroud. The baby lives, it lives...’
Rory didn’t feel his fist thud into the old man’s lantern jaw, nor hear his wispy red-haired skull crack against rock, or see blood spurt from his eye; he was already running and stumbling back to help his lassie.
Crawling under the closed tent door he called out, ‘He wouldn’t help me—God curse that evil old bastard, he wouldn’t...’
The sight that met him as he rushed into the tent halted all words. A new baby, coiled around its birth-cord, mouthing silent cries like a fish lying on a stone, weakly punched the dank air from within its mother’s pale, twisted form. His precious wife had, with her last ounce of strength, delivered him another son.
Opening wide eyes too young to understand reality or feel death’s sting, Bruar had awakened from a sleep to the sounds of his father’s deep sobs. He sat staring at his mother’s twisted face and lifeless body. Was he dreaming? From his corner of woollen blankets and damp feather pillow he shivered, lost in the turmoil of frightening pictures and the weird sounds whistling outside around his tent. If older he might have dived for cover, fearing unearthly horrors, but he was only three years old. Nothing made sense to him, just a mother’s cuddle and a father’s smile.
Rory cupped his dead wife’s face in his big hands, apologising profusely for his failure, crying and sobbing; all the while rocking back and forth: ‘don’t leave me lassie, I can’t do it without you, oh please...’
He sat for ages, head sunk in shaking hands, mumbling incoherently. Then a faint cry came from the new-born, uncomfortable at the sensation of blood congealing and tightening on his gossamer skin.
Clumsily the new father, now half insane with grief, raked in his pockets. From one he took a small penknife and cut the cord, finding a piece of dirty string among rusty nails and a soiled flannel in his other pocket; he rolled the string around the end of birth cord nearest the tiny belly to which it was attached and tied it tight. The baby winced, wriggled and uncurled matchstick fingers of pink and mottled red, opened wide the small mouth and filled new lungs with virgin air.
Going through his actions automatically now, Rory dipped a cloth into the basin of cold water by his wife’s bed and wiped the child. It winced again as he laid the small bundle, wrapped in a torn sheet, next to Bruar. He said to the traumatised boy, uncaringly as if his children were nothing more than unwanted mongrel pups, ‘Here lad—a brother for you.’
All that mattered was dead: their mother, his partner for life, the woman who promised to love him forever, was gone. What could he do with the children? His job would have been to provide food for their bellies, not to offer the love for their souls that only a mother could give.
Little Bruar pushed away the small bundle of life and huddled into his father’s side. What was a brother anyway? He was more concerned by mother’s silence. With fear and curiosity he tugged at the damp sheet covering her porcelain face. Questions tripped off his tongue to fall like silent ash around his grieving father’s ears: why was she messy? Why cold and grey-coloured? She didn’t touch his face and run her fingers through his tousled hair—why? Daddy was crying, he’d never known his father to do this—why? One small candle flickered by the tent door, not the big oil lamp—why? And who left this baby? Innocent eyes stared at Rory, waiting on one touch, a simple nod just to reassure the little lost child, but there was nothing. Angry in his confusion, he shouted, ‘Daddy, you’re squeezing Mammy, you’ll hurt her. Can I have a cuddle, Daddy?’
There was no place for his son, only for loss and pain. The whistling ocean wind blew cold through the tent; Bruar felt its bite, he wiped away tears from his father’s face with his small hand and tried with his body to push a wedge between his shaking father and dead mother in a futile attempt to find warmth.
The baby opened his mouth with a sucking motion, searching for milk, and when none came started crying. No one had told him who this baby was, yet nature had linked them together, and Bruar felt the blood ties. Gently the youngster turned his father’s face in its direction. Rory uncurled his arms from
around the limp body of his wife and carefully laid her down. He felt for and touched the toddler’s head. ‘I know, I know, lad, I hear, he has good strong lungs. We’ll get down to Auntie Helen’s, she’ll find us milk.’
Scared and confused, little Bruar pulled at his mother’s arm. There was no response, so he turned once more to his grief-stricken father: ‘Make my Mammy get up on her legs and open her eyes, cause me scared. She’s lost her tongue, Daddy, has a cat got it?’ His tiny shoulders shook, bottom lip trembled.
In grief his father had no answers for one so small. How could this fledgling gain the slightest understanding of his mother’s still form? Rory made an attempt at explaining why Mammy was sleeping forever, but was interrupted by sounds from outside the canvas dwelling. A slender arm wrenched back the tent door; there stood Helen, head and shoulders covered by a green, woollen shawl. Her face was grave and furious.
‘Rory, I’m right disappointed, surely the drink isn’t in you at a time like this, when another baby is due? Folks are looking for you, and man they are as angry as a sea-monster scouring the waves. You had no right hitting the Balnakiel! They say it was the fuel of wild drink that made you. God, man, he’s lost an eye!’
‘Shut up, woman, I have no stomach for your biting tongue, or anyone’s, leave me alone.’
‘Leave you alone!’ She hit him hard across the face with her shawl. ‘I’ll flog you for bringing shame on the family name. Will you never learn?’
Slowly he moved aside. His young wife was becoming rigid, her flesh marble-hued; the skin of her eyelids was tightening, exposing half-opened eyes. He turned to gaze upon her, then fell in a crumpled heap at his sister’s feet, unable to stand the sight.
Helen’s tongue tightened, a lump spread from her breast bone and froze in her throat when she saw her sister-in-law’s body covered by the sheet. ‘Oh, God help us, she’s not—I, brother, had no idea she was in labour—why did you not send for help? The bairn is...?’
‘Aye, bless her, she did it without help, brought that wee one into the world.’ He pointed at the infant lying behind Bruar. ‘But tell me, sister, who could I have sent for help? Little Bruar here? My lassie thought we’d manage, and I promise you we were fine until her back arched and the fear took hold. She asked for you! I only wanted Balnakiel to sit with her and the wee lad. I begged on my knees, pleaded with him in that stinking, slime-walled cave. He just stared with those bead eyes, head rolled on narrow shoulders, prophesying. The last thing I needed was that mad swaying and muttering, on and on about death coming for my lassie. God help me, sister, it was all that I could do not to hurl the beast head-first into the sea. He kept repeating those sick words: ‘she would die and meet a cold dawn’. I had to shut him up. Curse that pig who’s in league with the Devil, for she is stone dead! It wasn’t drink that made me hit—what would anyone do? I meant to shut his mouth; and if the chance comes again, I will, I’ll swing for him! He should be glad I didn’t kill him. Look at my lassie, an hour ago she was as healthy as any woman having a baby, still fresh, a mere girl. And what does this wee man know of death? How can I tell him that his mother is not coming back to cuddle and kiss him anymore?’
Helen put an arm around his shoulder and whispered in his ear, ‘It wasn’t the drink, you were sober; people will understand it was the grief that made you hit the Seer, and not the fuel of alcohol. Stop fretting about this little chap, sure infants heal fast.’ She was trying hard to help her brother, but the sound of angry voices grew nearer.
Several crofters had found the Seer limping and bleeding heavily from a gash on his head. Now they were seeking vengeance, heading toward the tent. She ran to meet them, shaking her head and warning them not to approach Rory in his present state. One old woman shouted that her brother should take what was coming to him for injuring their Voice of Prophecy.
Helen stopped them, pointing to the tent. ‘You could not make his pain any the worse. See.’ She opened the tent door for all eyes to see what lay inside. ‘My brother’s wife has died in childbirth. See if you don’t believe me.’ She gently lifted the cover, exposing the pathetic scene. ‘Now, surely, you can show a bit compassion for this young family.’
Two or three people stooped inside, and then quickly drew back with hands covering mouths. Yet even though the sight of death was shocking, some hard-hearted souls still found words of condemnation. ‘Rory Stewart, bury your woman and take yourself away from these parts, and heaven help you if we ever see you again.’
The fisherfolk and peat-cutters whom he had been part of before marrying the travelling lassie took leave and were soon gone, quickly distancing themselves from the visitation of death.
Over the sand dunes of Durness point where he had promised to build a picturesque croft, a grey cloud spread to meet a cold sea breeze. All Rory’s hopes of future and family lay on the bracken under that soiled sheet. His oath never to touch alcohol now meant as little to him as the vapour from the lid of a whiskey vat—the ‘angel’s share’.
‘Margaret Mackay has just this past hour delivered a blue bairn,’ Helen said. ‘Poor wee mite, her man is burying it as we speak. She has fullness of breast milk. Now come, brother, gather what you can, I’ll manage both bairns. There’s no time to spare, the fisherfolk might change their minds and come searching for your blood. Hitting the Seer was a terrible thing, no matter what the reasons. And if this infant’s not fed soon, he’ll be joining his mother.’
Taking a firm hold of her slim shoulders, he rested his sad eyes on the children and pleaded, ‘Look after them for me. I’ll stay with their mother for a while, make my peace. I’m in no fit state to father a rat, never mind these two. I’ll come for them when I’m able to be a provider.’
She wanted to tell him the cottage could still be built, to be a home where he could rear his sons, but she’d enough knowledge of her brother to know her words would fall on deaf ears, his pain-etched face said it all
It was the little ones who needed attention now. She dashed home to her small croft not more than half a mile away, stopping at Margaret Mackay’s to ask her to spare some of her breast milk; it would be sufficient until she was able to milk her cow.
That night and the following day she busied herself with her new charges. She had no way of knowing whether her brother had buried their mother, or, more to the point, fallen foul of the angry coastal dwellers who looked to the Seer for guidance. In their ignorance, they would think a one-eyed seer could only part-see their future, and what good was that?
But the lack of news brought her little peace. Still worried, and feeling in his state of dire mourning that Rory might do himself an injury, or worse, she wrapped the baby in a shawl, tied him to her front, and with wee Bruar at her side went back to the place that not so long ago held nothing but the promise of new life and a future teeming with happy times.
Turning the bend in the road before walking through the sanddunes she saw a spiral of thick, black smoke. ‘Stay here, Bruar,’ she said, motioning the child to sit in a patch of long grass. Down she went, hoping the burning heap wasn’t what she thought. A distinctive smell intermingled with ash and flame and was gently carried skyward by a soft breeze. As the odour found her nostrils she covered her mouth with one hand, tripping fingers of her other hand through a string of rosary beads and muttering prayer after prayer.
A stick hung loosely from his hand as he pushed pieces of burning garments into the eager flame, tears flowing freely from swollen red eyes. As her shadow fell across the sun’s light, he looked up and croaked, ‘I know you think it bad what I’ve done, but sister, it was her way, that if ever she went before me I had to burn everything.’
‘It’s blasphemous, brother, to burn flesh. Jesus will come back at Judgement Day, and he won’t find her. Think of it when your time comes: she will not be waiting, but eternity waits for you beyond the furthest star.’
‘Oh, sister, can’t you see my life is here and now? She was my heavenly star, now gone forever. What care I of e
ternity, your Jesus or anything else? However, if you go back to the ruined cottage you’ll find I’ve buried her in the ground—this is our tent and belongings. What you smell is the blood-soaked bed covers.’
‘You have two fine boys who need a father. Now what kind of a man puts his own feelings before those of his children?’
‘I am no use to them. Please, Helen, can you see to them until...?’
He didn’t finish. Already fisherfolk, smelling the burning clothes, were coming over the dunes. He kissed the new infant’s spotlessly clean face, smelling his freshness. Wiping tears from Helen’s cheeks, he said, ‘Kiss my wee Bruar, and when you tell them of me, don’t mention the drink. And if you can, forgive me.’
He pulled a canvas haversack over his arms, positioned a cloth cap over a thick head of curly hair. A crooked stick lay half hidden in the sand, he lifted it and was soon striding along the beach.
‘Rory Stewart,’ a voice called, from over by the highest sand brae.
Fists curled into granite-hard knots at the sound of that voice. Slowly he turned to see Balnakiel, his tormentor, leaning on a crutch, face half-smothered by a dirty, blood-soaked bandage. ‘Come here, young man, I have to tell you something.’
‘I’ve no mind to apologise to the like of you,’ said Rory, walking off faster now than he’d intended.
‘If the boot was on my foot, lad, I’d have done the same thing.’
Rory stopped in his tracks. His wife’s dead body was still a vivid picture in his mind and he shouted, ‘Why?’
Old Balnakiel looked to the heavens and said, ‘what’s before you, boy, will not go by you. I saw your woman, surrounded she was, by the Ban Sidh,1 they were lowering her shroud and singing her death song.’ He hobbled closer to where Rory stood, and partly whispered with a soft growl, ‘Just as crystal clear as I see them lower yours!’