‘Oh, my darling,’ he murmured huskily, ‘you understand it all so well. In a way I wish you didn’t because it makes the next part so difficult to tell.’
He turned his head suddenly and the rays of the searching sun vividly betrayed the deep purple scar beneath the golden fuzz of hair on his neck. A sob caught in her throat and she had to press her fists to her mouth to stop from crying out that she loved him no matter what he had done. But first she had to know! To hear it from his own lips.
Niall went on talking, his voice barely audible. ‘On that date, Babbie and I got a bit drunk. We went back to her flat . . . and went to bed. I wanted to make love to her, I tried to make love to her . . . but I couldn’t – my body wouldn’t let me betray you. I kept seeing your face and hearing your voice . . . and – anyway – we both sobered up and felt horribly ashamed but glad that neither of us had betrayed the people we really loved – Oh God,’ he lowered his head and hid his face in his hand, his voice breaking on a sob. ‘That sounds such a poor way of wriggling out of the fact that we tried to make love!’
Shona didn’t look at him or speak and eventually he burst out, ‘Aren’t you going to slap me . . . or – or shout or say something!’
‘No.’ Her voice was taut with unshed tears. ‘I’m going to cry. I try never to cry! It’s so silly to cry! Girls cry far too much and I always vowed that I would never be silly – and – and – cry . . . but now I can’t help myself.’
And cry she did, the tears pouring down her face, the sobs breaking in all their harsh misery. She cried and sobbed and trembled and he rushed to hold her to him and cradle her head under his neck. ‘Weep, my babby, let it all go. Remember what Mirabelle said. Cry, my lovely darling for – I am crying with you,’ he soothed brokenly while his own tears washed down unchecked over his face.
Shona gave a watery sniff. ‘Don’t, please don’t love me too much at this moment because I have something to tell you too. When I was in Aberdeen I went out with a couple of boys – one of them I liked very much – so much in fact I began to doubt my love for you. I thought perhaps that we had made a mistake, that when we thought we were in love it was only really a physical thing we had discovered when we grew up. We were so young then, without any experience of any kind. After our little baby died I really began to feel that I would never want you to make love to me again so I started to wonder if I really did love you. I enjoyed the company of this other boy and we went out a good deal. Then one night he tried to make love to me and I was so shocked and horrified that I had let it get to that stage that I bawled at him like a fiend and went into one of my worst tempers. He got such a fright I never saw him again, but I knew after that it was you I loved and always would . . . but I did kiss him and let him pet me a bit – and that’s all.’
‘So, the odds are even, then.’
Niall’s tone was so strange that she looked up at him and giggled.
‘So, it’s all right for you but not for me. You can be jealous of me but I can’t be jealous of you!’
He chuckled. ‘Ach, you win, mainly because what you say is true. Will – will any of this make any difference between you and Babbie? She thinks the world of you and was so upset by meeting me on Rhanna that she was all for leaving that night at the ceilidh though I persuaded her against it.’
‘If it hadn’t been Babbie it would have been someone else,’ she said wisely. ‘You were ready for the comfort of someone else’s arms – we all were. Naturally I will look at her and think of the pair of you together but I’ll get over that. In a way I love her more than ever after what you’ve told me. Of course I won’t let on I know about her husband, but at least I can understand better when she goes into one of these queer green-eyed moods of hers.’
‘Ay, I’ve noticed them, too, and the habit she has of going off to Aosdana Bay. It’s one of her favourite places.’
‘The Bay of the Poet,’ Shona said slowly. ‘Yes, one or two people have seen her walking there – alone – always alone. Some of the old folks say she is drawn there by the spirit of the young man who died there long ago.’
‘She goes there to have a good think more like. You see, I have an idea she is falling in love with Anton. She doesn’t really know it herself yet or is only half-conscious of it and is having to fight with herself to stop it happening. I watched her with him yesterday, all very cool and nurse-like, but when she thinks he isn’t watching she watches him with the eyes of a girl who is in love.’
Shona leaned back against a heather-mound in despair. ‘That makes everything a hundred times worse. Her loyalties are with her husband who might be dead and her heart is with Anton who is alive but who will eventually have to leave Rhanna and go off to a prison camp somewhere. Oh, sometimes I wish I was a wee lassie again because being grown up is so complicated and makes everyone else around you complicated too!’
‘I know, and we still have one very complicated matter to sort out. Right now I want you to come somewhere with me.’
‘Och, Niall,’ she scolded happily. ‘You know I’d go anywhere with you.’
‘Even to the – cave at Dunuaigh?’
Shona immediately recoiled from him. ‘No, no, Niall! Don’t ask that of me!’
‘Please, Shona,’ he begged earnestly. ‘I have my reasons.’
‘Very well,’ she faltered unhappily. ‘But there are nicer places on a beautiful day like this.’
In days gone by they had sped to the cave on swift, carefree feet but now she was pale and apprehensive as Niall put his arm round her firmly and led her towards the long heat-hazed stretches of the Muir of Rhanna. The sun beat down warmly, the dry heather rasped under their feet. Niall was very quiet. Shona looked at his boyish profile and wondered why he was taking her to a place that had no meaning for her now. They were skirting the edge of Burnbreddie Estate. Very soon they topped a rise and stood looking down at Dunuaigh with the Abbey ruins nestling in a hollow. It was very peaceful. The shaggy sheep of the hill cropped the new, sweet grasses; contented cud-chewing cows sat in the cool shadows of rock outcrops; and in the distance the deep blue of the Atlantic sparkled to the boundless horizon. Shona drank in the scene avidly.
‘It’s so beautiful here,’ she said wonderingly. ‘I’d almost forgotten the enchantment of it.’
‘Come on,’ he said softly and they ran then to the sun-drenched hollow where the silence of forgotten places descended on them in a thistle-down blanket of peace.
‘Oh!’ Shona was staring at the little birch tree that Niall had planted to mark the entrance to the cave. It was less than a year since her last tortured flight to this place of memories. How eagerly she had looked then for the little birch tree and how near to panic when her desperate gaze had nearly missed the twisted little sapling that had weathered the terrible winds that howled over the moors. She couldn’t miss the tree now. Though warped cruelly by the weather it had grown bigger and sturdier, its silver bark shining in the sun, its slender bare branches throwing shadows among the gorse.
Niall glanced at her. ‘It’s weathered the storms all right. Can we say the same, mo ghaoil?’
But Shona didn’t answer. She was running to the cave, pulling back bramble and bracken, snagging her clothes, pricking her fingers, pulling and tearing while the tears choked up into her throat. ‘Hey, steady on!’ Niall said as he rushed up to her, but she wasn’t aware of him. She sat on her heels gazing into the cool, dry cave, going over every little detail that was etched in her memory. Mirabelle’s dolls flopped on the shelves, jostling with cups. The cruisie, containing the remains of the candle that had given her light during the agonizing hours of her labour, still hung from its chain; the wickerwork chairs, carried over the moors on a far-off morning of childhood, still sat, one on either side of the rough stone fireplace. And in the corner, the roughly-hewn bed of stone, piled with cushions and a sheepskin rug now grey with dirt. Everything was covered in cobwebs. It was neglected and forgotten, but she looked and remembered: the happy echo of childis
h laughter; the whispered hopes and dreams; the discovery of carefree young love. She tried to push her mind on further but couldn’t. The agony of her lonely childbirth was a blank in her mind and the lifeless body of her tiny son a dim blur almost beyond recall.
Niall slid his arm round her waist. ‘Well, my darling little girl, what now are your strongest memories of this place? Sadness or happiness?’
‘Happiness . . . oh, so much happiness I can hear the laughter now!’ She buried her face into his neck. ‘I can look down the years and it’s all so real – you and me and dear old Tot . . .’ She pulled away to look at him and continued slowly, ‘The only thing that isn’t real to me is – the – the last time! Oh God! I feel so guilty! It’s my last experience of this place, yet it’s the dimmest. In my mind I can see Tot with her golden ears covering her white muzzle – yet – I can’t see the face of our little baby! Why, oh why can’t I?’
‘There now,’ he soothed. ‘I had an idea this place would get things into perspective, that’s why I brought you. You can see the old spaniel because she lived before she died . . . our little boy didn’t,’ he finished gently.
They were quiet for a long moment, and then he asked, ‘Well, am I going to be a bitter bachelor all my days or an old married man?’
Shona reached out and touched the scar on his neck. ‘An old married man, so long as you’re married to me. You didn’t have to bring me here to make up my mind. We’ve already wasted too much time looking back to things that can’t be undone, and we’re not going to waste any more. I did a lot of practical thinking while I was waiting for you to come out of the raids and praying you would be safe. Rhanna will give me back my health . . . When I’m ready to go back to nursing – I want to take my full training – and what better place than Glasgow? Being married means terrible things like bills. We’ll need money for all that – so don’t tell me I can’t do it.’
Niall smiled wryly. ‘Who ever tried to stop a McKenzie? But I won’t have a wife of mine being the sole breadwinner. Glaikit wee Niall will find himself a weekend job . . .’
‘And we have Mirabelle’s legacy to tide us over at the beginning . . .’ Shona caught her breath. ‘I wish she was here now, I owe her so much. Oh God! It’s wonderful not to feel guilty about the baby any more!’
‘He’ll come back to us.’ Niall took her hands and looked at her with quiet joy. ‘We’ll have other sons – and daughters – lots of them – we’ll fill the world with our children!’
As their shouts of laughter echoed through the cave, he embraced her and they sank to the heather as one, their mouths meeting over and over. His tongue touched hers and she responded wildly.
‘My dearest, dearest love,’ he murmured unsteadily. ‘I feel so lucky to have you back again.’ He caught her again and she tilted her head for his kiss, delighting in the firm strength of his young body. Her face was cupped in his hand and she could feel a small pulse beating in his thumb, the rhythm of his life throbbing steadily. She heard a sob catching in his throat and saw that his eyes were clouded with tears, those beautiful brown eyes of his that mirrored so many of his emotions. Now the look was one of tenderest love, his love for her, and she felt herself drowning in his tears, in his love. She had thought she would be afraid to give her body to him again, but love, tears, joy, washed away fear and carried her swiftly on a tide of pure ecstasy. The days of the fumbling, inexpert Niall were far in the past. His body was hard and demanding against hers and his lips moved over her face to her neck and then to the soft flesh above the swell of her breasts. He was no longer an unsure boy. His touch was masterful and certain. He was warm, flushed and powerful in the silence of his searching passion.
His plastered right arm made him momentarily clumsy as he unbuttoned her dress, and they both laughed, but softly, burning with the fires that consumed them. She helped him to undress her and for a moment he drank in the loveliness of her creamy-white body, marred only by the little stretch marks of pregnancy on the soft curve of her belly. With reverence he kissed them, and the feel of his lips on those parts of her made her cry out and close her eyes in an anguish of longing. She wanted to reach out to heaven and take all the pleasures of the universe swiftly and without measure of time. But he had yet to rouse her to a pitch that would make his own the doubly satisfying. The first time he had entered her body roughly, with thoughts only of himself and his needs. But now, though parts of him were hard, his limbs were tensile and he made her relax too and wait for the exquisite moments to come.
The sun wandered in through the opening of the cave, warm and fragrant with the scents of the moor captured in its rays; an early bee buzzed restlessly in a search for nectar. Far out on the open moor, a curlew bubbled out a song of pure joy, which reached deep into their souls where it was magnified a thousand times till it became a rhapsody to love. And then he went into her, pushing and seeking, while his mouth played with the delicate shells of her ears and he pledged his love for her over and over. They moved together, in the sweet delirium of their joining, washing away all the doubts and hurt of the last few months in soundless tears, and little cries of untamed excitement. The song of the curlew grew in intensity till it reached notes of highest perfection which carried them with it, up, up, to the top of the world, till together they touched the stars, and their cries ringing out, the echoes mingling, and in her greatest moment of agony he kissed the little dew of sweat on her brow and stroked the silken strands of her burnished hair. When it was over they lay together, trembling with reaction till they grew calm and slept, still as one flesh, to one another as a foetus is in its mother’s womb.
Later, when Shona opened her brilliant blue eyes, Niall was watching her, studying the composure of her relaxed little face.
‘Why are you staring at me?’
‘Not staring, admiring. And congratulating myself for having the good taste that I have. Beautiful children with bodies like goddesses are not thick on the ground, my darling . . . at least, I haven’t found it to be so. Now, tell me. You say – or rather you said – you thought you might be afraid to love me again. What are your feelings now on the matter?’
‘I think – that we’ve given in to ourselves again and it’s just as well we’re going to be married because this sort of thing can’t go on . . . but, it was wonderful . . . and . . .’ she laughed sleepily, ‘you’re a young stallion. I couldn’t wait – yet I wanted it to last forever.’
His eyes held hers intently. ‘It will, my darling, when we’re married I’ll show you that today was just the beginning – but – no more till then. It’s enough at the moment that your fears have been taken away. We’ll keep the rest of the treats till there’s a ring on your finger. But I warn you now, after our honeymoon you’ll be wishing you could have a holiday away from me!’
She shrieked with laughter and smothered his face with a cushion. Then they both got dressed and walked hand in hand into the sunshine.
‘Will folks know?’ she wondered aloud. ‘I mean, do we look different?’
‘Yes, daftie, we do,’ he said tenderly. ‘We look happy.’
Dodie was coming along the moor track from Croynachan, carrying a laden creel. He gave a start when he saw them and looked somewhat guilty. ‘It’s too early yet to be gathering in the peats,’ Niall joked.
‘Ach, I know that, laddie,’ the old eccentric rebuked gently, ‘it is hardly even time for cuttin’ them. Are you forgettin’ these things living in the big city? I am hearin’ the fumes o’ they motor cars can poison folk’s brains and make them forget easy.’
‘I was only pulling your leg,’ Niall grinned. He paused and looked at Dodie’s lumpy face with concern. ‘You’re looking a bit thin, Dodie. Are you all right?’
Dodie seemed embarrassed by the question and for a long moment looked with sorrowful reproach at the tawny slopes of Sgurr nan Gabhar before stuttering quickly. ‘Ay, ay, right enough.’
‘Father was saying he hadn’t seen you for a while,’ Shona said kindly. ‘T
he wee lambs are beginning to come and you always help him at lambing time.’
‘Ay well, I’ve been busy,’ he answered evasively, his dreamy eyes raking the far reaches of the moor with unusual impatience.
‘I’ll help you to carry your creel,’ Niall offered, reaching out a hand, but Dodie backed away.
‘Ach, no, it is kind you are but I’ll be managing fine by myself. I’m after lookin’ for Ealasaid too and she might no’ come to me if there’s a crowd to hand.’ Then he galloped away and was soon just a black shape flapping in the distance.
‘If it’s possible, I’d say old Dodie is acting queerer than usual,’ Niall commented thoughtfully, but Shona laughed and linked her arm through his once more.
‘He lives in his own wee world and has his secrets like the rest of us. We’d better hurry too for it must be near lunch time . . . and wipe that smile off your face before we get home or folks will know we’ve been up to something!’
Almost a week later Fergus leaned against the dyke and looked beyond the bridge to the hill-track leading to Dodie’s house. ‘I thought Dodie would have been down to help out,’ he said to Kirsteen, Shona and Niall rather irritably. ‘We’re getting busier here and could be doing with an extra pair of hands. Bob and myself have other things to see to forbye the ewes.’ Kirsteen stood beside him, nursing an orphan lamb, giggling as it slobbered greedily into a feeding bottle.
‘You’re holding it like a real baby,’ Shona said, smiling as she reached out to stroke the lamb’s curly fleece.
‘It is a real baby,’ Kirsteen laughed. ‘It’s how you must have sooked your bottle, and how Grant did too. He was so greedy he used to have most of the milk finished before I knew he had hardly started.’
‘Shona and myself might take a walk over to Dodie’s house,’ Niall volunteered. ‘I’m beginning to wonder about him myself and folks in the village are saying they haveny clapped eyes on him for some time.’
‘You usually sit with Anton about now,’ Shona pointed out.
Rhanna at War Page 21