Children of Rhanna

by Christine Marion Fraser

  ‘And if it didn’t work, he could go through hell and end up the same – or worse than he is now,’ Fergus stated flatly.

  Lachlan spread his long fingers and shrugged. ‘I can’t promise miracles at this stage, nor at any stage for that matter. It’s a chance I feel you ought to take, though – I cannot say more than that.’ He leaned forward and tapped out his pipe on the grate then he swivelled round and looked them both straight in the eye. ‘Don’t feel you have to rush into any decisions now – talk it over between you; really thrash it out.’ He put his hand over Kirsteen’s and said gently, ‘Believe me, I know how difficult this is. Take your time to discuss the matter thoroughly. However, I know you will both want to do the right thing for the wee lad’s future – and surgery might provide an answer to what sort of future he’ll have.’

  Grant came into the room on a quest for food. ‘Our visitors are starving,’ he grinned cheekily, ‘especially Phebie, who’s fading away. I thought I saw scones being baked earlier and they smelled delicious.’

  Phebie stood quietly in the background, knowing what the talk had been about. She caught Kirsteen’s eye and her sweet face was full of sympathy. Later, when everyone was leaving and the kitchen was filled with chatter, she took Kirsteen aside and put a comforting arm round her shoulders. ‘I know how you feel, Kirsteen,’ she said quietly. ‘Och, it’s hard, so it is, so very very hard to try and think what’s best for the bairnies we bring into the world. Sometimes it seems they bring us nothing but sorrow – but ach – what joy they give too – and they deserve to get the best deal possible.’

  Kirsteen hugged her. ‘Thank you, Phebie, you have been a wonderful friend and a comfort to me from the first day I set foot on Rhanna. Whoever gives you comfort, I wonder?’

  ‘Lachlan and God,’ said Phebie simply. ‘If one fails me the other is aye to hand.’

  Kirsteen gazed thoughtfully into Phebie’s bonny face and thought, ‘This woman is good, truly good. She has been through a lot herself, yet her belief in God has never wavered.’ Kirsteen held her breath. When had she last communed with God in earnest? Not the automatic ritual of Sunday worship, but really and truly talked, asked, confided? She couldn’t remember and as she bent to kiss Phebie’s warm soft cheek she felt ashamed.

  Everyone was moving out into a night of velvet sprinkled with stars. Fergus remained at the door, but Kirsteen went to the gate. The cool night air brushed her hot face, the dark moor stretched away, felt rather than seen; in the distance the sea was a subdued silver streak. Grant was walking the visitors up the road, but as the men moved away Shona paused at the gate and murmured into Kirsteen’s ear, ‘Next time I see the pair of you I hope you will have made it up.’

  Kirsteen let out an audible gasp. ‘How on earth –?’

  ‘Ach, I’m not the daft wee lassie I once was; I’ve been married long enough to know the signs. Babbie taught me a thing or two a whily back when I could never see the obvious for looking – forbye,’ she smiled in the darkness, ‘Father always gives himself away. When you’re not watching, he’s watching you under his eyebrows and he’s just a bit too nice to everyone, if you know what I mean.’

  ‘Oh, but, Shona,’ Kirsteen burst out, ‘it’s worse, much worse than just a silly row!’ She checked herself, wanting to pour her heart out, but knowing that to do so would be to betray others, to rake up things that were long buried. Also, she was hating herself for slapping Fergus, for hurling such cruel abuse at him. To have Shona hate her too was too terrible to contemplate. ‘Thanks for the advice,’ she said lightly then added, ‘How very strange life is – to think I once taught you when you were just an infant, now you’re teaching me.’

  ‘I know.’ Shona sounded rather sad. ‘Life passes so quickly. ‘When I was just a baby you were a young woman and there was no way we could bridge the gap – now we’re both women and can speak to one another on the same level.’

  ‘And you make me sound an absolute relic!’ Kirsteen laughed. ‘Get along now before I fold up and crumble away before your eyes.’

  Shona giggled and sped away up the glen to catch up with the menfolk. Kirsteen felt exhausted, so drained she felt she would drop off the minute her head touched the pillow, but once in bed she didn’t lie down. She hadn’t carried out her threat of moving Fergus’s things into Grant’s room and she sat up, hugging her knees, waiting for Fergus to come up. The sound of his step on the stairs set her heart racing madly, but he didn’t look at her when he came in. Instead, he went to the linen chest and took out a couple of blankets and a pillow.

  ‘Fergus – we – we must talk – about Lorn.’ Her voice sounded feeble, strange even to her own ears.

  ‘Ay – we must,’ he said shortly, the deep voice cold and distant. They might have been standing at either end of a long bridge – so far apart they seemed in those moments, as if all the years of their intimate loving had been wiped out like chalk marks on a blackboard. He said nothing more and walked with measured step out of the room and along the passage to the tiny box room at the end. It was a jumble of odds and ends, bits of unused furniture, discarded toys, the two wooden cradles that had rocked his baby daughter and his infant sons. The sight of them caught him unawares and he was whisked back to a long ago night of love, of laughter, of dancing with a baby in the crook of his arm, of Kirsteen standing with bowed head gazing tenderly at their smallest son. Now that infant was a boy – a boy whose future rested on an operating table under bright lights, surgeons’ knives cutting . . . Fergus gave a little cry and threw an old rug over the cradles but he couldn’t shut out the thoughts, the fears, the misery that engulfed him as he lay on the uncomfortable old horsehair sofa that had stood in the parlour in his father’s day. His head ached slightly, but overriding all was the ache in his heart. Kirsteen had been cruel, so cruel – vicious almost. Why? Why? Why? The question banged around in his head. They had had rows before, some more heated than that of the morning, but never before had she said such venomous things – things he had thought buried. He had goaded her, of course, but hardly enough to make her rake up that thing about Alick, an incident that had cost him his arm, cost Hamish his life, caused him to lose Kirsteen for six long, heartbreaking years.

  He tossed and turned. The sofa was full of lumps, draughts seeped in through the sparse coverings – he should have brought a quilt . . . Lorn, what about Lorn? The decision was too great, a burden of responsibility that crushed into him like a ton weight. Perhaps Kirsteen was right: maybe he had tried to shield the boy too much. He should have been harder with him, made him tougher – prepared him better for the harsher things in life and in that way he himself might have been better prepared for the enormity of what lay ahead. Help me, God, he prayed in despair. Help me – us – to do the right thing for our son.

  Kirsteen remained sitting up long after Fergus had left the room. Her limbs felt so rigid they might have been locked. She heard Grant letting himself in and coming upstairs. There was a bump followed by a muffled curse. She smiled mechanically. Fiona infuriated him by putting all sorts of silly comparisons against his adolescent clumsiness: one day he was the boy with frog’s feet, another his hands were likened to bunches of bananas.

  A tremor passed through Kirsteen, and she shivered. Slowly she unwound from her cramped position and, throwing back the covers, she got up and padded to the wardrobe. Inside, hanging under layers of tissue paper, was the silver fox fur Fergus had given her after the twins were born. The joy and love of that night came back to her. She thought of how he had gathered clothing coupons together and had gone off to Oban on his Christmas shopping spree. He had brought back something for everyone, his eyes shining with the pleasure of giving – giving her red roses . . . She lifted the paper away from the jacket and buried her face in the soft fur. She hadn’t worn it very often, at christenings, weddings – on a wonderful holiday with Shona and Niall on the Mull of Kintyre when they had all dined out and gone to several dances.

  ‘Oh, my darling.’ She bit he
r lip and threw back her head but she couldn’t stop the tears spilling. It would be no use going to him in his present state of mind. It would only serve to make things worse. She went back to bed and in her despair she cried silently to God for help and drifted into a fitful sleep, waking before dawn to hear Fergus come quietly along the passage and downstairs. He had risen earlier than need be, so that none of the family would know that he and Kirsteen had quarrelled, that he had slept in a separate room.

  Alick and Mary arrived a few days later, minus their fourteen-year-old twin sons who were now spreading their wings and had gone off with the Scouts to Easter camp. Mary immediately changed from her elegant town clothes into garments more suited for a farming holiday, while Alick and Fergus caught up with all the news. Alick was slim and distinguished-looking with his grey hair fashionably styled, his moustache and small beard neatly clipped: except for the dark eyes there was nothing in his appearance to connect him with tall, dark, hard-muscled Fergus.

  The following day all the menfolk from Slochmhor and Laigmhor went off on a day’s fishing expedition. The women had gathered at Slochmhor and Shona stood at the window, watching the men trudging away, wishing that she was going with them. Although Alick was wearing an old jersey and tweed trousers tucked into wellingtons he still managed to look sophisticated, but the illusion was shattered as, with his arms slung round the twins’ shoulders, he let out a wild whoop of delight. It was a mild day with the hilltops shrouded in mist. It had rained in the morning but now a stiff breeze was breaking the clouds apart to reveal patches of blue.

  ‘A grand day for a spot of fishing,’ Alick observed. ‘Even if we don’t catch any it will be nice to sit at the lochside and eat all that lovely food we have in the baskets – and, just picture it – a whole day without a single woman’s tongue flapping away in our eardrums.’

  Lewis looked up at the sky. ‘Look, it’s a fluffy cloud day!’ he yelled, pointing at the big clouds racing along. ‘I can see a dragon’s face in that one with a big pink tongue spitting out fire.’

  Alick laughed. ‘Shh! Maybe it’s Elspeth sitting on a cloud watching us.’

  Lorn held onto his father’s hand and couldn’t help giving a little skip of joy. He was with his father, he was one of the men, and it was a ‘fluffy cloud day’. He loved his brother’s fantasies about such days, often they spent ages watching the wind sculpting the clouds into fantastic shapes and human faces.

  Shona, still watching from the window as the men receded into the distance, said, sighing, ‘Sometimes I wish I was a wee lassie again, running around doing things like guddling and fishing. It seems unfair, so it does. Men grow up, yet they never look out of place doing the things they did as boys. I feel like an old grannie left behind with my knitting.’

  ‘Well, I’m glad Lachy’s getting a break,’ Phebie said. ‘And that I’m getting one with him and Niall out from under my feet – besides,’ she said, her eyes twinkling, ‘they don’t know it yet but they’re taking us all for a picnic on Monday and we’re all going to roll our Easter eggs.’ She went into the pantry and came back with a basket piled high with big brown eggs. ‘I boiled these last night – more than two dozen of them – enough for two each, and we are going to take chairs and sit outside to paint faces on them. I found a box of Fiona’s paints at the back of a cupboard, and since tomorrow is Sunday they will all have to be painted today – so get your peenies on everybody.’

  Shona chuckled with delight and immediately began carrying kitchen chairs outside to set them on the grass. Mary rushed to gather all the aprons she could find. ‘What a marvellous idea, Phebie,’ she approved as she went to the door with an armful of Elspeth’s spotless linen aprons. ‘I haven’t rolled an Easter egg in years.’ She was a well groomed and elegantly coiffed woman, but after half an hour her hair had fallen down and streaks of paint covered her face and hands.

  The sun was breaking through the clouds and Shona glanced appreciatively round, feeling it very good to sit there with the windbreak of green pines releasing a rain-fresh fragrance, the nearby sheep chopping away at the rich, sappy green turf, the hens strutting and clucking; shrieks of merriment from Fiona, who was having a wonderful time trying to make Grant’s eggs’ faces as disagreeable looking as possible. On one she had painted deep black frowns between eyes screwing up into a squiggle of black curls, on the other he was grinning foolishly above a ridiculously exaggerated dimple. On the back of each egg she had dared to write ‘Dimples’ in bold red letters.

  ‘He’ll throw them to the gulls,’ Kirsteen predicted.

  ‘Or he’ll skite you round the lugs with them,’ Shona said, giggling, deftly removing Helen’s chubby fingers from the gooey paint box. ‘Look,’ she said, holding up an egg painted with big brown eyes and golden-red hair. ‘Ellie’s egg.’

  ‘Ellie’s eggle.’ The little girl clapped with glee, lost her balance and landed on the grass with a soft thump.

  On the face of it they were a jolly company, but Shona glanced at Kirsteen’s face and knew that she hadn’t yet made up with Fergus. She was laughing and talking as happily as the rest, but her blue eyes were weary and Shona guessed that she had been losing sleep over the matter.

  A little black car came meandering along the glen road from Downie’s Pass. It groaned to a halt at the gate and Babbie got out, her expression one of amusement as she observed the gathering outside Slochmhor. ‘What on earth are you lot up to?’ she asked, eyeing the heap of gaily painted eggs. ‘Would I be right in thinking you are quite literally having a hen’s party?’

  ‘Ay, indeed you would,’ Shona said, laughing. ‘We’re just getting a picnic prepared for Monday – why don’t you and Anton come? You never seem to have time off these days – I’ve hardly seen you since I arrived. A break would do you both the world of good.’

  ‘Sorry, I can’t,’ Babbie said and sighed ruefully, pushing a hand through her red curls. ‘I have too much on my plate at the moment. Biddy helps all she can but even at that . . .’ she smiled rather wearily, ‘it’s a bit like working on the Forth Bridge – when you get to the end you have to start all over again, and with me being off part of Saturday and all day Sunday, Monday is my busiest day really.’

  Shona sprang to her feet and began to peel off her apron. ‘Are you forgetting I’m a nurse – I’ll come with you today and between us we’ll get through your patients like a dose of salts.’

  ‘Really – would you? But you’re here for a holiday . . .’

  ‘Am I? With Phebie making me work my fingers to the bone painting eggs and forcing me to get up out of my bed in the morning in order to drag Fiona and Niall from theirs?’

  ‘But . . .’

  ‘Away you go, lass,’ Phebie ordered kindly. ‘I’ll look to wee Helen though I can’t promise you’ll find me all in one piece when you get back. I thought Fiona was wild as an infant but this one beats all.’

  ‘You see, no “buts”,’ Shona said, linking her arm through Babbie’s and pulling her away. ‘I’m quite looking forward to coming with you, it will be like old times, we can have a rare old blether and I’ll get to see a lot of folk I haven’t seen in ages.’

  Mary had already endowed an egg with a squiggle of red loops and enormous green eyes and was starting to streak yellow locks over another. Babbie turned back. ‘I wonder – do you think you could do one with dark hair and specs and the name Jon, spelt J-O-N. I’ve a feeling Anton’s friend would love to come on an island picnic.’

  Fiona delved into the egg basket. ‘Say no more,’ she intoned authoritatively, and with fiendish delight swirled her brush into black paint and began drawing two black circles on Jon’s egg.

  Elspeth appeared with a brush in her hand. She had been upstairs tidying the bedrooms with such energy she had lost some pins from her severe grey bun, which Fiona had likened to a ‘mouldering cow pat’. ‘What’s this, madam?’ Elspeth asked tightly, eyeing Fiona’s apron, which was patterned with livid splashes of red and blue. ‘Is these my aprons
? My beautiful aprons, just fresh from the wash line and newly starched?’

  Phebie’s lips twitched. ‘We’ll wash them, Elspeth,’ she said soothingly. ‘It will come out easily – it’s only watercolour.’

  ‘Only! Only!’ Elspeth repeated menacingly.

  Fiona’s bright eyes glittered. ‘Ach, you shouldny bother, Mother,’ she advised mischievously. ‘I think they look better with a bit colour in them, it makes them look artistic – like Elspeth herself – and . . .’ she spluttered with mirth, ‘she’s got her brush all ready – only she looks more like a house painter than an artist.’

  Elspeth screeched and, raising her brush, waved it threateningly at Fiona, who vacated her chair with agility to prance away over the turf, Elspeth on her heels, scattering sheep and hens in all directions, her hair falling in lanky grey loops down her back. Behind her wobbled little Helen, falling into sheep’s sharn, picking herself up, waving her hands and screaming with joy, as she followed hot on Elspeth’s heels. Mary clutched her stomach and shrieked so heartily her chair flew out from under her, and while Phebie and Kirsteen rushed to help her up, Shona took Babbie’s hand and they flew to the car in fits of giggles.

  Monday dawned in a haze of ethereal light that bathed the hilltops in gold and brushed the sea with bronze. By eleven o’clock, the world was awash with sunlight and on the journey over to Croy, with the company divided into three traps, each keeping pace with the other, everyone began to sing – all except Kirsteen and Fergus, who, making the excuse of being polite to their guests, sat on opposite seats, Fergus with Mary, Alick with Kirsteen. ‘You can’t say I’m not giving you the opportunity to get close to my brother,’ Fergus had muttered to Kirsteen as they left Laigmhor. Kirsteen was still smarting with hurt at the remark, and now, to add insult to injury, Fergus was giving every appearance of enjoying himself, laughing readily at Mary’s witticisms – and he had thrown his arm lightly round Mary’s shoulders and was murmuring things the others couldn’t hear but that were making her laugh. Kirsteen’s cheeks burned and she felt panic rising in her. How long could this go on? The rift between her and Fergus was growing wider with each passing day. She had tried to talk to him, to tell him she was sorry, but always he had some excuse for walking away from her. Things weren’t made easier by having to carry on normally in front of the visitors, but each night Fergus was careful to ensure that he was last to go upstairs and first to rise in the morning so that no one was aware that he was sleeping in the box room. Kirsteen wanted to stop the trap and run away – anywhere to hide her humiliation. Grant was driving the horses at a spanking pace as he happily bawled out a tune.