Children of Rhanna

by Christine Marion Fraser

  Ranald had suggested to Dodie that he open up his wee hoosie and charge folk to have a look inside, for here the old eccentric had brought bits and pieces from the bomber and had arranged them till the inside of the dark little hut resembled the cockpit of a plane.

  ‘It would be to their advantage,’ Ranald earnestly told Dodie. ‘These folks is sometimes burstin’ for a pee, and them bein’ townpeople they’re no’ likely to go behind a bush like us. Charge them for the use o’ your wee hoosie, and while they’re in there havin’ a pee they could put a collection into a tin for bein’ allowed the privilege o’ playin’ wi’ that control column thing and lookin’ at all these instruments on the back o’ the door – I tell you if it was me I wouldny hesitate,’ Ranald finished rather enviously.

  But Dodie drew the line at this. For one thing he couldn’t imagine the sophisticated tourists clapping their hands with glee at the idea of using his large chamber pot, the only ‘convenience’ he had in the wee hoosie. For another thing, he was a creature who liked his privacy and wasn’t entirely happy at the invasion of that peaceful spot drowsing amidst the heather. The task of clearing up picnic litter fell to him, and though not fussy about personal hygiene, he couldn’t bear to see his environment violated.

  All over the island a variety of home-made jams and heather honey was temptingly displayed to catch the visitors’ eyes, and always there was the battered old money tin which so endearingly betrayed the trusting Hebridean nature that only the guilt-ridden few did not leave their coppers.

  Because it was the Easter holidays the children, barefoot and free from the rigours of the classroom, went about their various tasks and pleasures without hurry yet with an intentness that ensured they made the most of every precious minute. In the yard at Laigmhor Lewis took his brother’s hand and they ran to the big barn, which was cool and dim, full of slanting sunbeams and ancient cobwebs. Here were the growing posts, two massive uprights, fashioned from tree trunks. A jumble of dates and niches had been etched into them, an untidy scrawl of red paint on each spelling out the names Lorn and Lewis. The growing posts had been Lewis’s idea, conceived at the tender age of five when he had just learned to write. ‘One day you’ll be as big as me,’ he had earnestly told his brother. ‘Every month we’ll measure ourselves just to see how fast we’re growing.’

  Lorn had eagerly accepted the idea. His greatest ambition in life was to be as tall as his brother because the first five years of his existence had thwarted all attempts of his to be ‘normal’. Childhood ailments that only temporarily affected Lewis had left his brother ill for weeks. One crisis had followed another, and Lorn’s infant years had been severely restricted. Wullie the Carpenter had fashioned a little cart for him and he rode about in this, pulled by a tiny Shetland pony, all over the island roads. Wherever Lewis went, his brother went alongside in his miniature trap. When Lewis followed his father out to the fields, Lorn went too, sitting astride Fergus’s strong shoulders, loving the feel of the wind in his face, the smells of the earth, the reassuring hardness of his father’s body. Grant, too, carried him about in this fashion, striding with him down to the harbour to watch the boats, holding him in the water to teach him to swim. Fergus didn’t know about that, or he would most certainly have forbidden his eldest son ever to take Lorn out again. Lewis and Grant between them let their brother do a lot of things that might otherwise have been forbidden because they sensed that their father was afraid for his youngest son and this had perhaps made him over-protective, a point brought home to him one day by Lachlan.

  ‘You must let him do more, Fergus,’ the doctor had advised quietly. ‘If you don’t, he’ll be an invalid for the rest of his days.’

  ‘I think I know what’s best for my son!’ Fergus had snapped defensively.

  ‘And I think I know better,’ Lachlan had said gravely. ‘Be careful with him, yes, but for God’s sake, man, don’t pamper him; he won’t thank you in later years.’

  Fergus had said nothing more, but, as always, he took Lachlan’s advice, with the result that Lorn now ran free beside his brother, and though his heart was still weak and he wasn’t physically robust, his fierce fighting spirit continually urged him on.

  Lewis, tall and straight for nine years, grabbed his brother and pushed him against a growing post where after a few seconds of silent concentration he made a new notch on the hard wood. ‘Half an inch taller than three months ago,’ he reported earnestly.

  The look on Lorn’s face was worth the lie. ‘I knew I was growing, I could feel myself getting bigger – now, it’s your turn.’

  Lewis stood to attention beside his post, his broad shoulders straight, and Lorn stood on tip-toe to make a mark above his brother’s curly head. ‘Half an inch – we’ve both grown the same amount – you’re still three inches taller than me, but I’ll catch up with you all right.’

  ‘’Course you will,’ Lewis said off-handedly. ‘Now stop blethering and let’s go. Old Conker will be fed up waiting for us but I’m going to get us a scone in jam first – I’m starving.’

  He dashed over the yard to the kitchen, leaving Lorn standing stroking the silken nose of Conker, a magnificent Clydesdale with not a grain of temperament in his sweet and placid nature.

  Children adored Conker, whose time was divided between working in the fields beside Maple, his stablemate, and acting as companion to all the children who came and went from Laigmhor. Fergus now had a tractor and several other pieces of farm equipment, which made the hard business of farming a whole lot easier, but many of the older farmhands scorned the new-fangled stuff and adhered to the old ways, particularly Jock and Murdy who claimed that nothing but a Clydesdale could plough a true furrow. Likewise, the twins cared nothing for machinery. They were as much at home on the backs of horses as they were on the ground. Under Jock’s guidance, Lewis was able already to handle a plough. Lorn could only stand by and watch, but Lewis swore to him that as soon as he was old enough to handle a plough on his own he would teach Lorn everything he knew. With the clearsightedness of youth, Lewis knew of the unspoken dreams in his brother’s heart, and though Fergus trusted him to look after Lorn, Lewis did so up to a point but was determined that he wouldn’t turn him into a cissy. With this in mind, he let his brother fight his own battles at school, and even though Lorn invariably emerged from them pale, shaken, and breathless, he was able to hold up his head with pride and in time he had shaken off the nickname, Tumshy, that had been bestowed on him when he had started school as a skinny little six-year-old.

  Biddy was coming along the glen road, riding a bicycle she had acquired from the S.S. Politician back in the fateful year of 1941. Her green cape flapped behind her in the wind; her skinny black-clad legs ground the pedals round with jubilant energy; the hair that escaped her felt hat was now snowy white; her lined old face was serene even though she had left her ‘teeths’ steeping in a glass by her bedside. She was still the same teasing, grumbling, fun-loving Biddy, but age had cloaked her with a look of venerable dignity and everyone honoured her convictions. The medical authorities had officially retired her but she would have none of that. ‘Damt officials!’ she had snorted indignantly. ‘They think they can just sign a bitty paper and put folks out to grass – well they can just bugger themselves! No one but God will ever stop me workin’ and only then when He has a mind to take me.’ So she still carried on with the work that was her life and no one dared to sway her from her path. Indeed, they were delighted at her decision: to them she was ‘auld Biddy’, a part of Rhanna, as much a feature of any sickroom as the very walls themselves.

  ‘Hello, Biddy,’ Lorn called, knowing that her almost-blind old eyes would never see him. She raised a hand to wave and had such a frantic struggle to regain her balance she wobbled the rest of the way down the glen.

  Fergus came striding down from the fields and Lorn ran to him. ‘We’re going to meet the boat, Father, we’re going on Conker.’

  Fergus smiled at his son. ‘Ay, there will be quite
a crowd coming off. We’ll be having a few visitors ourselves over the next week or so, plenty of folks to keep us busy. It’s well seeing Easter is here.’ He took Lorn in his strong right arm and swung him onto Conker’s broad bare back. Lorn wriggled and protested, ‘I can manage up myself, Father, I’m not a baby.’

  Fergus laughed, his black eyes crinkling in his weatherbeaten face, ‘Ay, and you’re not a man either.’

  ‘But you never help Lewis the way you help me,’ the little boy persisted, his blue eyes darkening with chagrin even while he remembered those early days sitting on his father’s shoulders, the good solid feel of power beneath him making him feel safe, safe and wanted. These were times to be cherished in his heart forever, but now he was feeling more and more that he had to make a stand for himself, to prove to his father that one day he would be strong enough to make a farmer.

  Fergus ruffled his son’s earth-brown curls and without answering went over to meet Lewis, who was emerging from the kitchen.

  ‘See and be back in time for dinner,’ Kirsteen’s voice floated from within.

  ‘Ay, Mother, don’t worry.’

  ‘You watch your brother now,’ Fergus warned. ‘Don’t let him do anything daft, and see and help him on and off Conker.’

  Lewis smiled up at the big man looming above him. ‘Ach, Father, of course I will.’ He grasped the hard brown hand briefly then raced over the yard and took a flying leap onto Conker’s back. The horse was used to such wild behaviour, and with a flick of his ears he began to amble out of the yard.

  Lewis had a love of life that bubbled out of eyes vibrantly alive with excitement and laughter – except when he went into one of his rare tempers. Then they grew black and crackled like a thunderstorm in full fury over lowering hills. He sat on Conker and ran an impatient hand through his tangle of curls, which, like Lorn’s, gleamed chestnut in the sun. ‘Ach, c’mon with you, Conker, get along now,’ he urged the horse. ‘Auld Todd’s new limousine is coming on the boat and everybody’s going to see it. Move your backside or I’ll give you a good hiding!’

  It was an idle threat. Both boys adored the animals of the farm as much as the soil itself.

  ‘Born farmers,’ Kirsteen told them with pride, though her heart cried out for her youngest son with the love of the land ingrained in him and the wistful, stubborn tilt of his chin trying so hard to show everyone he didn’t care that he couldn’t do the things he longed to do. And all the time she knew how much his bruised young heart hurt him. He held onto his brother’s waist, delighting in the feel of Conker’s strength under him. He was a slightly built child, full of a temperament that could raise him to the heights or plunge him to the very depths of despair. Dour and sullen with all but those he loved, he was not as popular as Lewis whose buoyant charm won many hearts. Physically, Lewis was his father’s image, but it was a skin-deep resemblance. Lorn was the one who had inherited Fergus’s mental and emotional make-up, and because of it his path through life was as rough as his brother’s was smooth.

  ‘Fancy auld Todd winning a limousine,’ Lorn said, his voice full of awe for the news that had taken everyone’s breath away. Todd openly scorned the ‘rubbishy wimmen’s papers’ that his wife avidly devoured, but in the blissful privacy of his wee hoosie he secretly enjoyed many of the juicier items and he had tried a very tempting competition, never dreaming that he of all people would win the first prize of a silver limousine. Of course, the news had had to come out along with the fact that he was, in the words of the villagers, ‘an auld pretender and a hypocrite just’. But in the excitement of the moment all the talk had gone over Todd’s head as he and Mollie impatiently awaited their big moment. Now it was here. An important personage escorted by reporters from various newspapers was arriving with the car to ceremoniously hand over the keys. The whole of Portcull, together with spectators from other villages, would be at the harbour, trying to appear very nonchalant and not in the least interested in one of the greatest events to come to the island for many a long day.

  ‘What will he do with it?’ Lorn wondered. ‘He canny drive a car, only horses.’

  Lewis brushed the flies off Conker’s mane and laughed. ‘Him and Mollie will treat it like a baby. They’ll clean it and pamper it and likely sit outside the Smiddy all day just admiring it.’

  In the distance the Sound of Rhanna shimmered like a blue satin ribbon. As they reached the bridge by Murdy’s house they could see a black knot of people gathered at the harbour. The boat would take some time to unload passengers and small pieces of cargo before dealing with the more ungainly items, but even so Lewis wriggled with impatience and tapped his heels on Conker’s sides.

  In the grassy yard of Annie McKinnon’s house, two little girls sat on the old swing, locked into a small world of their own. ‘I have some grand news for you, Rachel,’ Ruth Donaldson said rapturously. ‘You know Merry Mary’s retiring soon – well my father is going to take over the shop so we’re moving here – to Portcull, to a house near my grandparents . . .’ Ruth paused for a moment, remembering the look on the faces of Jim Jim and Isabel McDonald on hearing the news. They had been astonished and apprehensive, certainly anything but pleased when their daughter, Morag Ruadh, told them, ‘You are both getting a mite too auld to be managin’ on your own, so I will be on hand to look to you. The Lord knows it will no’ be easy but I was never a one to shirk my duties and the more sacrifices we make in this life, the more we will be rewarded in the next.’

  Jim Jim’s pink pleasant face had taken on an agitated frown at her words, and in the trauma of the moment he had made a faultlessly aimed spit into the peats burning in the grate, much to Morag’s disapproval. Isabel had said not a word. For almost ten years now, since Morag’s marriage to Dugald, she and her husband had led a life of unparalleled peace; but now the bliss was about to be shattered, things would be worse than they had ever been because of their daughter’s fanatical devotion to the church.

  ‘I’ll get back my old job as church organist,’ Morag had told them with prim happiness, ‘Totie was never much good at it and was more than pleased when I told her I was coming back. We are all going to be very happy together, wait you and see. Oh ay, family worship will just be like it was in the old days when I was here to keep an eye on you.’

  Rachel absorbed her friend’s news thoughtfully and showed her approval by making the swing go higher. The breeze ruffled her dark curls and she reached out a rapturous hand as if to touch the blue sky. The clip clop of hooves on the stony road made them both look up.

  ‘Look, Rachel, there’s Lorn and Lewis,’ Ruth said, pointing excitedly, the violet of her eyes darkening and her solemn little face lighting up. ‘They’re going to Portcull. I’ll have to go too. Mam will be out looking for me if I’m not down the road for dinner time.’

  Rachel pushed her silken black hair back from her face and her brown eyes flashed. She was a stunningly beautiful child, tall and slim, brown as a gypsy, wild as the wind that blew down from the mountains, as mercurial as the sea that lapped the Rhanna shores. Strangers couldn’t help staring at her nor could they resist speaking to her, but when she stared back wordlessly they took her silence for insolence, and told each other she was nothing but an impudent urchin.

  Some of the older islanders said she was possessed of ‘the power’ and could take things away from folk just by willing it. She had taken Squint away from Lorn and Lewis. Some years ago he had simply deserted them in favour of her. All attempts to win him back had failed. He adored the little girl. Without uttering a single word she could make him do her will by a few simple gestures. He flopped beside her now with lolling tongue, his alert brown eyes gazing up at her, ready to obey the commands of her expressive hands.

  Rachel knew that the only reason Ruth was allowed to play with her was because she could not communicate orally, and though she might hear evil she certainly could not speak it. Her assumption was unerringly correct. In committing herself to a sinless life, Morag Ruadh had sentenced her d
aughter to a rigorous existence bound by endless religious rules that, if broken, not only brought hell down on the head of the sinner, but misery to the entire household. ‘You mustny mix with blasphemers,’ she warned Ruth repeatedly. ‘Folks these days is corrupt and take a delight in corrupting others. Oh ay, I know fine they talk about me behind my back, but I am strong in the Lord, therefore I shall not falter.’ Thus it was that when she came to visit her aged parents in Portcull she allowed Ruth to go and play with Rachel. ‘But mind her now,’ she never failed to warn. ‘Thon wee lassie might be dumb but I am hearin’ she has other powers that are no’ natural. That can happen to folks wi’ a faculty missing; another can take over and it might no’ always be to the good.’

  Rachel held Morag in contempt but suffered her because she loved little Ruth with her big languorous violet eyes and golden hair, glorious features in a child otherwise rather plain. Her callipered leg made her walk in an ungainly fashion and her mother dressed her in rough drab homespuns because vanity was sinful – all of which effectively hid the otherwise lithesome grace of the child’s small-boned figure.

  Ruth saw the expression in Rachel’s eyes and she took her hand. ‘Och, Rachel, c’mon now, you mustny be angry. Is it no’ good news I am after tellin’ you? When I come to live in Portcull we’ll play together all the time and go to school together. But look you, come with me to the village now. The twins will give us a ride on Conker. We’ll go and ask your mother. Quick now, I hear tell Todd the Shod is getting his new motor car today and if I give Mam the slip for a wee while I might see it arriving on the harbour.’

  Annie nodded her acquiescence at the request. She was bathing the youngest of her three sons in the kitchen sink and was much too harassed to bother where Rachel went or what she did. She and Dokie Joe loved the little girl after a fashion, but had long ago given up trying to understand her, for she was clever to a degree that left them feeling bewildered and inadequate. Her gift for music made them proud, and they were able to boast that she had inherited it from her great-grandfather, whose violin, in its red velvet case, had been merely a toy for countless other McKinnon children. But to Rachel, finding it one day at the back of a cupboard, it was a dream come true. She had plucked fiddle strings since the age of four.