Torquil Andrew, a tall strapping man with Norse colouring and looks that set female hearts fluttering, came up to Annie. ‘I’ll be keeping you company tonight, Annie,’ he stated softly.
Her dark eyes glittered. ‘Ay,’ was all she said, and her thoughts turned away from the cold dark wastes of the sea and back to the pleasant realities contained within the big, softly lit barn.
Lewis saw Torquil’s hand briefly touching Annie’s and he thought about the time he had chanced upon them standing very close together in an abandoned fuel shed – too close – the kind of nearness that made grown men tremble and caused women to make funny little sighing noises. The ruffled Annie had jumped away from Torquil like a scalded cat and had hissed at Lewis, ‘Never you be tellin’ a soul about this, Lewis McKenzie! Do you hear?’ Until the tirade, Lewis in his youth and innocence had not realized there was anything for him to tell, but at Annie’s words he had sensed there was an opportunity going to make a little money. ‘Not if you give me sixpence every week till the day you die,’ he had told Annie with a smile, and though she had raged at him, she had from that day paid him silence money.
Lewis smiled to himself and drew his bow over his fiddle with a gay little flip. He loved crowds. He enjoyed gaining their attention, and he liked to be liked; but if the occasion demanded otherwise, that was the way of life and he accepted the good with the bad, without fuss.
Lorn was nervous and sat quietly beside old Bob, who was helping him to tune his fiddle. His heart was beating rapidly and he tried to will himself into a state of tranquillity. From the side of his eye he saw Ruth sitting in a corner in the darkest recess on the other side of the platform. Although her mother had made her a new dress it had certainly been created by the hands of an inexpert seamstress. It was shapeless and ill-fitting and made Ruth look more ungainly than ever. She was sitting very still, her hands folded serenely in her lap, but her violet eyes were huge with unease, and Lorn knew she was, like him, uncertain of herself, terrified of crowds. The sight of her made him feel more uncomfortable than ever, and he turned his head and looked up, catching his mother’s eye. He smiled, a radiant smile that belied his racing pulse, and Kirsteen smiled back though she sensed his fears, and her heart twisted with the knowing that soon he could be facing hazards and pain that might prove too much for his sensitive spirit to bear. But the love of life was in his eyes: it leapt out like a living thing and she knew deep inside herself that he would bravely face anything the future might hold for him.
Old Mo was being lifted in his pram up onto the platform while his fellow tinkers were making good use of the opportunity to sell sprigs of dried white heather to the assembly. A smiling damsel, looking extremely pretty despite the fact that she was wearing dirty white sandshoes beneath a tartan dress, followed old Mo onto the platform and accosted Bob.
‘Ach, get away wi’ you, lass!’ he told her irritably. ‘We can get any amount o’ that ourselves on the moors. It’s the towrists you should be takin’ in wi’ your fancy talk, no’ the folks who live wi’ the damty stuff!’
‘Ah, but you weren’t thinkin’ to be bringin’ any with you,’ returned the girl quick as a flash. ‘Is it too mean you are to be buyin’ a bit o’ good luck for the old lass who has served you well all these long years?’
‘You make her sound like a bloody cow,’ grumbled Bob, but nevertheless he dug in his pocket for his coppers. Those standing nearby followed suit because the tinker girl was renowned for putting vicious curses on those unwise enough to reject her wares.
Up until then the majority of the gathering had consisted mainly of womenfolk but now the men, having fortified themselves in the Portcull Hotel, breezed in, merry and windblown, bringing with them the usual whisky fumes, though on this occasion the strong palpable smell of mothballs overpowered all else. Everyone wrinkled their noses though it was naturally assumed that the odour was just a stronger version of that which was experienced every Sabbath in kirk when Sunday best was brought out from wardrobes perpetually tainted by naphthalene. But there was another reason for the smell and it arrived when Dodie catapulted into the room, his aversion to social gatherings having been overcome by his desire to witness Merry Mary’s official retirement. His entry caused all heads to turn and all murmurings to cease because, except for one other memorable ceilidh at Laigmhor, no one had ever seen the old eccentric so well turned out.
Although he still wore his greasy cloth cap, he was otherwise attired in a thin but well cut sports jacket with vented sides; his grey flannel trousers were immaculate, his white shirt spotless. He was obviously stunned with embarrassment at the sensation he was causing, and he stood red-faced, enveloped in mothball fumes, his lips stretched nervously in an attempted smile. The Laird, though startled, turned discreetly away, having noticed that Dodie’s stout brogues were the very pair he had thrown into the dustbin some time ago and Rena whispered to him, ‘Poor dear old Dodie, he wouldn’t have taken them if I had offered them to him.’
‘Mercy on us,’ muttered a round-eyed Isabel. ‘Would you look at that, Jim Jim. I’m thinkin’ old Dodie has maybe come into some money.’
‘Ay, ay, it’s only towrists and gentry wear clothes like these,’ said Jim Jim thoughtfully. ‘But I’m thinkin’ there’s something gey queer goin’ on, for he’s reekin’ o’ mothballs like these other chiels that have just come in.’
Morag Ruadh tossed her red head and her lips tightened. Memories were stirring fires in her she had thought buried, invoked by the sound of Erchy and Todd tuning the pipes, a procedure that entailed much puffing and blowing in order to produce squeaks and groans and several other sounds that bordered on the unseemly. Morag felt a pang of excitement, which in turn made her feel uneasy. She had not had such feelings since that other night of the Manse ceilidh – a night she didn’t want to remember. She had only put in an appearance tonight because Dugald was having the shop handed over and he had insisted that Morag be there. ‘We are members of this community now, Morag,’ he had told her quietly enough, though determination had edged his tones to sharpness. ‘As my wife you will accompany me to this function and you will bring Ruthie. See she has a new dress, by the way. I will not have my daughter looking like a sack of potatoes in front of everyone, particularly the bairnies who will be her schoolmates after Easter is over.’
The fiddlers were practising now and the strains of a Strathspey filled the air. Morag’s blood pulsed and she tried not to think of the minister’s words to her recently. ‘You must stop using the Lord as a vessel for guilt, Morag,’ he had told her sternly. ‘You can only be absolved if you treat God as a friend, not some sort of enemy who spits fire and vengeance. If you think like that, you are worshipping the Devil, and the Lord himself will have difficulty finding a door in your heart.’ Morag glanced balefully at the Rev. John Gray standing at the foot of the platform talking animatedly to Jon Jodl; his hair was now silvery-white, his face full of a serenity that the last few years had brought him; contentment cloaked him like a mantle.
Anger swamped Morag. What gave him the right to be so smug and self-righteous? It had taken him long enough to come to terms with the islanders and in so doing coming to terms with God. His contentment had sprung from the night of the Manse ceilidh, while hers had been robbed from her – it was all Mr Gray’s fault, really. She wasn’t to blame, yet every waking day was a punishment for her.
‘Here now, man, where are you gettin’ things like these?’ asked round-faced Robbie of the abashed Dodie. ‘These is towrists’ clothes.’
‘Ay, and that shirt?’ put in Tam, gazing round at a display of shirts the same as Dodie’s, both in quality and naphthalene saturation.
‘Did you get them from that mannie who’s been goin’ round the island sellin’ things out o’ suitcases?’ enquired Torquil Andrew, whose deep chest strained against the fine material of his own shirt.
Dodie nodded eagerly and his carbuncle wobbled. ‘Ay, that’s right enough. He came by my door a day or two back.’
Ranald eyed Dodie’s jacket and trousers. ‘But these things cost a lot of money. Have you won the pools, Dodie?’
Dodie glowered at the money-conscious Ranald. ‘Indeed no. I am not a one to gallop my money away on such things,’ he said primly.
‘But what you get in your towrist tin wouldny even pay for that bonny tie you’re wearin’,’ Ranald persisted.
But Dodie wouldn’t be drawn. He was not going to give away the secret he had kept since the Politician had been doomed on the rocks in Eriskay Sound. On one of his frequent beachcombing sojourns he had chanced upon a treasure trove of shirts floating in with the tide like disembodied ghosts. He had collected more than five dozen of them, and, stuffing them into his peat creel, he had hastened home to wash them in the purling burn near his cottage. With the sea water out of them, and the sun and wind endowing them with a dazzling whiteness, Dodie had felt rich indeed and had visualized the look on the faces of those who would receive the gifts. But news of the police and Customs searching the islands for contraband had reached his ears and in a panic he had stowed the garments away in an ancient bride’s kist, together with a generous amount of mothballs. He had almost forgotten his treasure chest till the persistent rapping on his door had heralded a visit from a travelling salesman burdened down with cases which, despite Dodie’s protests, he had opened to reveal garments the likes of which the old eccentric had only seen on the backs of the gentry. The salesman hadn’t appeared to hear Dodie’s refusals to buy nor had he seemed to believe that he was poorer than a kirk mouse just. Perhaps tales of country folk owning treasures they believed to be worthless had reached the salesman’s ears, for he had craned his neck and gazed past Dodie to the dim interior of the house. ‘Surely we can do a deal,’ he had purred coaxingly. ‘You look as though you could be doing with some new clothes. You must have some sort of valuables lying about gathering dust.’
‘I tell you, I haveny anything, only my shells and stones from the seashore,’ Dodie had wailed and was about to shut the door when he remembered the shirts. ‘Wait you here,’ he had instructed, and closing the door in the man’s face, he had plodded up the passage to the kist in the bedroom. The shirts were as perfect as the day he had packed them away and he had presented the naphthalene-smelling bundles to the salesman, who, holding his breath, had flipped through them quickly, almost immediately recognizing their quality, though he had said off-handedly, ‘From the guff off them they must have been lying about for years. I’ll give you three pounds for the lot.’
‘Indeed you will no’. These is good shirts, and if you can’t be doin’ better than that I’ll just be havin’ them back.’ But the man had quickly evaded Dodie’s outstretched hands and for the next half hour the pair had bartered till in the end the exasperated salesman, realizing that the old eccentric wasn’t as simple as he had first imagined, had handed over a complete rig-out in exchange for the shirts. ‘And I’ll be keepin’ one o’ these to wear wi’ my jacket,’ Dodie had smirked, snatching a shirt back from the pile.
‘No flies on you, old boy,’ the man had said, grinning, and went off jauntily to make a good profit selling the shirts at croft and cottage, his smooth tongue gliding out explanations for the naphthalene odour.
Thus it was that the men, each believing they had secured a bargain, turned up at the ceilidh wearing identical shirts, and for once in his life Dodie felt like laughing himself into a fit as fishermen and farmers, crofters and shepherds, eyed one another in some discomfort.
Dodie galloped away from the scene to seek out Merry Mary to whom he presented a bottle of spray perfume. ‘It’s just a wee thing,’ he told her with a gloomy smile. ‘I know leddies need scent to make them smell nice.’ From anyone else this would have been the ultimate insult, but from guileless Dodie it was a compliment, and Merry Mary accepted the gift with due appreciation, time dulling her memory to the fact that the spray bottle was identical to those given up by the Politician years before. Dodie had a tidy supply of the bottles which he kept for ‘special leddies’.
Despite the fiercely competing aromas of whisky, naphthalene, and perfume, the evening was proving to be an unprecedented success. Outside the wind howled and the hail rattled against the windows but everyone inside gave themselves up to the gay tunes of pipes, accordions, and fiddles. Jon was in his element. He itched to play old Mo’s violin, a beautiful creation of gold with deeper undertones of rich dark red. The old man obviously cherished the instrument, because it was in perfect condition. He looked rather worried by Jon’s request to play a solo on it, but with a nod of consent he allowed the young German to pick it up. Jon was enthralled. He knew at once that this was no ordinary violin and as he guided the bow and touched the strings with his long intelligent fingers, evoking sounds hauntingly human yet that might have been the language of spirits, Jon knew that he held in his arms an instrument that could easily be 250 years old, probably a Cremonese, created by a great craftsman of northern Italy. Jon had seen a similar one owned by a well-known musician, but no two violins were alike; each had its own distinctive appearance and unique tone of voice. Jon closed his eyes and gave himself up to the ecstasy of being privileged enough to actually handle such a violin.
The minister was enthralled. Leaning his silvery thatch against the wall he closed his eyes, hugged one knee and breathed deeply. ‘The boy is brilliant,’ he murmured to his wife, Hannah. ‘Ah, he makes me feel I am soaring on the wings of angels. What control, what sensitivity – and the tone of that violin – perfection.’
Rachel, too, was lost in enchanted admiration for the young man who had been so patient with her and taught her so much during the short time he had been on the island. Her eyes were dark with rapture as she watched his masterful fingers, listened to the notes spilling powerfully and evocatively, touching chords in her soul that pushed tears of pure joy from her eyes.
The last notes died away and the applause shook the rafters. Jon handed the violin back to old Mo. ‘Thank you for letting me play it. It was a wonderful experience.’
The old man nodded and tucked his precious violin in at his side as if it were a baby. Jon realized he probably knew nothing of its value. An instrument like that could fetch a vast sum of money, but Jon wasn’t going to tell old Mo that because he knew by doing so he would take away the only thing left to the old man, the deep contentment and joy he experienced every time he picked up his violin. He cherished it for that and to violate anyone’s contentment would have been to Jon a sin. If the other tinkers found out its worth they would sell it, the money would be frittered away on useless modern trivia, and old Mo, already saturated in liquor, would just drink himself to death very speedily, his life joyless without his fiddle. At the moment he was quite happy; the violin brought him happiness as well as a fairly good profit and that, to Jon, was that, though as he parted with the instrument he felt that he was parting with a tiny part of his soul, for what musician would not yearn to own such a treasure as that owned by the old tinker.
The hall was now very warm and Phebie flopped beside Kirsteen on a bench to fan her face, laughing at the sight of Niall and Shona dancing a jig while everyone else did an eightsome reel. Fiona was a sparkling-eyed nymph in a pretty red dress, her long legs carrying her with ease over the floor. Captain Mac and his crew were present that night, having arrived into port before the full fury of the storm got under way, and Fiona wasn’t short of partners.
‘Thank the Lord she discarded her trousers in favour of a dress,’ said Phebie. ‘The besom wasn’t going to, you know. She was all for coming in the trowser just to see the effect it would have on the cailleachs, but for once Lachy put his foot down and told her she could stay at home if she insisted on looking like a laddie.’
Biddy, who was comfortably ensconced nearby, sipping at a glass of rum, smiled sourly, showing her ‘teeths’, which she had remembered to wear for the occasion. ‘Ach, you should leave the lass alone,’ she scolded mildly. ‘The bairnie has the right idea I’m
tellin’ you. Skirts are just a temptation to a man, but the trowser makes it easier for a lass to keep a finger on her halfpenny – and they must be cosy too. If I wasny such a cailleach, I’d wear them myself. They’d be fine for keeping out the wind when I’m on my bike.’
Phebie’s eyes twinkled. ‘Surely you aren’t needing protection from men at your age, Biddy.’
‘Ach, you daft lassie,’ Biddy said, her old eyes crinkling. ‘It’s more like them needin’ protection from the sight o’ my auld legs. That bugger Todd told me the other day I looked like a bowly-legged hen wi’ the gout – an’ him wi’ the most godforsaken knees I’ve ever clapped eyes on! Would you look at him up on that stage, wearin’ the kilt and smilin’ like he was proud o’ knees like cow’s knuckles.’
Todd was beyond caring about his knees or any other part of his anatomy. He and his cronies had made frequent trips outside where several bottles of whisky had been buried earlier. Bedraggled by rain and wind the men were now in stages ranging from merry to hilarious and turned deaf ears on nagging spouses. Old Mo, too, had quite a few bottles hidden in his pram and he, together with old Bob and Andrew, was decidedly under the influence. Even Jon was looking slightly flushed, and Anton murmured in Babbie’s ear, ‘I suspect our friend has had a drop of Tinker’s Brew. His fingers are moving so fast, it’s taking me all my time to keep up. I think we will go and sit by Frau Kirsteen – McKenzie is taking his time in turning up.’
Kirsteen was glad of their company. She had taken part in one dance after another but still she felt lonely, waiting for the one person without whom her life seemed empty. The door opened and she couldn’t keep the expectancy out of her eyes, but it wasn’t Fergus and her face flamed.
Children of Rhanna Page 16