Children of Rhanna

by Christine Marion Fraser

  He swung his legs over the bed and put his feet on the soft rag rug that had been made by Mirabelle. As he dressed he looked at Lewis’s side of the room: it was tidy now, but tomorrow it would resemble a midden because tonight Lewis would be home from school for the summer holidays. All the children of Lewis’s age had gone away to complete their education at mainland schools – all except Lorn who had spent much of his teenage years in hospital.

  Time had often hung heavy for him, especially during his earlier years when his stays in hospital stretched into months and his visits home were brief, worrying affairs for his parents. When he had become stronger Kirsteen had taught him at home. Often she had looked very tired, but determinedly she had set time aside each day to sit with him and a hard taskmaster she had been, too, never allowing him to fob her off with excuses. From Shona he had learned that his mother had been called a Tartar in the classroom.

  ‘I could never understand that,’ Shona had said, her blue eyes lit with amusement. ‘Oh, she was strict all right and made us all sit up like pokers, but the bairns respected her for it and half the older boys were in love with her and used to sneak flowers to her when they thought no one was looking.’

  Mr Murdoch, too, had given freely of his spare time, and Lorn had developed a real liking for the fussy little man with the worried frown and twinkling eyes. But best of all had been Ruth, though at first they had barely been able to communicate because of mutual shyness. His bed had been in the parlour then and Morag Ruadh had only allowed her daughter to visit him on the condition she read to him from the Bible. ‘Only the passages that will benefit his soul most, poor wee cratur’,’ Morag had stipulated. ‘Later, when he’s stronger, you may read Kings to him, Solomon has a lot to say that might make young folks sit up and take notice – you mustny go near his bed, mind, it’s no’ decent for a wee lass to be in a boy’s room, but seein’ he’s lyin’ in the parlour, it will no’ be so bad.’

  ‘Ay, Mam,’ Ruth had promised obediently, but on her first few visits to Laigmhor, struggling with her own self-consciousness, trying to break through Lorn’s, she had barely been able to see a word, let alone read passages from the Bible. Long silences had passed between them during which he had fidgeted and wished she would go; and she had sat very still in the chair by the window with her hands folded in her lap, her great violet eyes gazing longingly at the long ribbon of the Glen Fallan road winding to the harbour. The first time she hadn’t been able to bear it and she had risen and hobbled away, leaving behind her Bible, which had slid from her lap. But gradually each had glimpsed something of the other’s true nature, and Kings was abandoned for stories from Ruth’s jotters, for card games, Scrabble, mischievous chatter.

  Every time Ruth returned from a visit to Laigmhor her mother never failed to ask, ‘Well Ruth, have you and Lorn enjoyed reading the Lord’s word?’

  ‘Ay, that we have, Mam,’ Ruth always answered soberly. Her visits to Lorn had eased her first months at Portcull school. In the beginning the children had christened her ‘Saint Ruth’, and she had held her golden head high and borne the gibes; but one day, riled beyond bearing, she had flown at her tormentor like an enraged wildcat. Some of the children had witnessed her attack on Canty Tam the day Dokie Joe’s body had been washed up on the beach. Others had only heard about it, but now they were all made aware that gentle, shy Ruth was possessed of a courageous fighting spirit that had to be reckoned with. Rachel had watched till Ruth had reduced her tormentor to a snivelling bundle, and then she had pulled her friend away and with shining eyes had spelled out a message in the sign language: ‘Good for you, Ruth, I knew one day you would fight back. They’ll never call you names again.’

  But primary school days were in the past now for Ruth, Rachel and Lewis, and Lorn no longer had their company except in the holidays. He wasn’t strong enough for a secondary education that involved fatiguing trips from home. And there were also the spells in hospital to contend with, so he had to make do with tuition at home. But he was strong enough to be able to get up and about more. No longer were his days spent in the parlour waving to people passing up and down Glen Fallan. He was able to ride, fish and swim in moderation, and, best of all, he was able to help his father around the farm, though these were light tasks to begin with. Oh, what joy to work beside that tall giant of a man in the morning fields! In the gloaming at harvest time, when all the world smelled of earth and rain and warm ripe hay, his heart glowed with quiet appreciation as he worked with the other men. He would never forget the day he climbed to the top of Ben Machrie with his father, or the heady euphoria of sitting in the heather on that high, windblown place, drinking the sweet water of the hill. It was as if he had climbed to the roof of the world to look at a panorama of patchwork fields and amber moors, and all around the blue, blue sea stretched to infinite horizons, studded with the green and purple jewels that were the islands – Barra, Eriskay, the Uists – and far in the misted distance the craggy ethereal peaks of the inner Hebrides – Skye and Mull, Rum, Jura, Eigg. His father was a man of few words, especially when he was outdoors working, but Lorn was glad of that as he himself hated superfluity of speech. As the years passed he chattered less and less, expanded mentally, physically and emotionally, and in so doing grew to understand his father. Mentally they had become very close: they worked in harmony, attuned to each other, communicating by instinct rather than utterance.

  But everything changed when Lewis came home. He brought excitement, laughter, nonsense – and had so much to catch up on he was never still for a moment and talked from morning to night. He had hated having to go away to school without Lorn, but had felt better when the Travers, retired now and living close to Oban harbour, had insisted that he stay with them rather than in a hostel. Lewis had suffered a good deal during the years of his brother’s fight for survival. He had experienced phantom chest pains and knew exactly when Lorn was on the operating table. When the surgeons’ knives had been at work, Lewis had felt genuinely ill and often had had to be excused from school. But now all that was over. Lorn had undergone his last operation some months ago, and in his uphill climb to good health, his brother climbed with him.

  Lorn met him at the pier that evening. He was tall and broad-shouldered in his fifteenth year. With his white teeth flashing, his suntanned face and his blue eyes sparkling, he was dashingly handsome. His manner was confident and assured, his charm of manner and speech very arresting. When he spoke to females of any age, his lilting voice became soft and silken and was so obviously irresistible to the fair sex that one or two young tourists with whom he had become acquainted on the boat stood gazing at him with fluttering lashes before walking reluctantly away. Lorn felt dwarfed by him and was overwhelmingly conscious of his own pale face and skinny arms.

  ‘Hey, hello there, little brother!’ Lewis cried in delighted greeting.

  Lorn flinched. ‘Ach, I’m not so little,’ he growled. ‘It’s just that you’re so big –’ He broke off as he saw over his brother’s head Ruth and Rachel coming down the gangplank with Jon at their heels. Rachel had changed, that much was obvious from her newly sophisticated dress. She was tall, slender and windblown, her face was vibrant with life. Beside her Ruth looked small, dainty, and rather delicate. But there was a change in her too, Lorn noticed instantly: she was less ungainly, her once plain little face was sweeter, almost pretty in its youthful serenity. Her hair, which had grown even lighter, was a startling halo of pale gold next to Rachel’s raven curls. Both of them had blossomed from flat-chested little girls into shapely young maidens, though there was still an uneasiness about the way Ruth carried herself, as if to stand too straight and show off too much was something to be ashamed of. Rachel, on the other hand, walked tall and straight, so that her firm young breasts were thrust out. There was also a sensuality in the way she moved: it was graceful yet provocative, and the directness of her gaze obviously tantalized men. One of the young deckhands was being very attentive to her.

  Lewis grinn
ed at the look on his brother’s face. ‘Ay, they’ve changed. Imagine, even you noticing that! I always had the feeling you saw girls as boys with frocks on . . .’ He threw his arm round Lorn’s shoulders and they walked along the harbour towards Glen Fallan. ‘I’ll tell you a secret, Lorn my boy, girls are made different from us . . .’ His voice was bubbling with mischief and Lorn shook his head and laughed. ‘Ach, wait you till you hear the rest,’ Lewis instructed. ‘And don’t interrupt. Before I left Rhanna, while I was still with old Murdoch and feeling a bit wild about having to go to Oban, I chased Mary Anderson through the fields and rolled her around in the grass for a wee bit of fun – but something happened – she had bosoms – she was more than two years older than me – and I touched them. She let me do it and after a while she let me make love to her.’

  ‘You – you mean you kissed her.’

  ‘Ay, that too and all the rest.’

  ‘But – hell, Lewis! You must only have been twelve!’ Lorn exploded in disbelief.

  ‘I could have done it at eleven.’ Lewis sounded very confident. ‘Don’t you tell me you never had funny things happening to you when you were eleven.’

  ‘I was too busy being ill,’ Lorn answered faintly.

  Lewis laughed, a hearty booming laugh. He hugged his brother closer as they trudged up Glen Fallan. ‘Well, you’re not eleven or ill now and I’m telling you this, it was grand with Mary, but too quick and silly – it’s much much better the more you practise, so start practising – it’s what girls are here for.’

  Laigmhor seemed to come alive that evening. Lewis’s delight at being home was infectious and he carried everyone along on an exuberant tide so that his buoyancy filled every room in the house. Kirsteen skelped him on the ear for swearing, and in retaliation he got up and waltzed her round the kitchen. Fergus leaned back in his chair and roared with delight at the look of exaggerated outrage on her face, and Lorn watched his father and wondered why it was he never laughed like that with him – but Lorn knew – he was too reserved, too like his father, and opposites made the best companions – his father and Lewis were opposites. Kirsteen pushed Lewis away. Her curls were ruffled, her face flushed. ‘Bed, young man,’ she said firmly. ‘You too, Lorn, you must be tired, you’ve been up since dawn.’

  Lewis turned at the door. ‘When will Grant be home?’

  ‘Next week sometime.’

  ‘Good, I’m dying to hear all his adventures. Sometimes I think I might join the Merchant Navy. He promised to bring me back a native girl – I hope he doesn’t forget.’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘Ach, dinna fash, as Dodie would say – a carved one, for my bookcase – though a real one would be better,’ he ended with a chuckle and dodged quickly upstairs.

  Fergus looked at Kirsteen. ‘Lorn is still a boy but Lewis is already a man of the world.’

  A shadow passed over her blue eyes and she went to stand behind her husband to gently massage his shoulders. ‘I know – were you at his age?’ He pulled her hand towards his lips and kissed it. ‘In some ways, ay, I would be lying if I said otherwise . . . In other ways I was still a lad till the day I wed.’

  She bent and kissed the top of his silvered dark head. ‘You always said he would sow some wild oats before he settled down – we can only hope he’ll have the sense not to scatter them too liberally.’

  ‘Ay,’ Fergus said off-handedly, and she couldn’t see the frown that darkened his brows.

  Lewis was up first next morning, punching his brother into wakefulness with a pillow.

  ‘Hey, get off!’ Lorn emerged tousleheaded. ‘What time is it?’

  ‘Six-thirty. C’mon, get up, it’s a grand morning, just right for a paddle in Brodie’s Burn.’

  In minutes they were dressed and running down to the kitchen where the rays of the sun patterned the brick-red floors. Lewis gulped creamy milk from the big jug on the table and stuffed his pockets with scones from the larder. He was like a small boy, eager to explore old familiar haunts. The gentle heat of the sun probed into field hollows, coaxing the steam to rise and billow out over the landscape. Wreaths of mist encircled the blue hill peaks; down by the harbour, peat smoke curled lazily from the chimneys. The warm smell of heather was sweet in the air; the pure haunting call of the curlew rose out of the moors where greens and ambers blended harmoniously together; the path to Brodie’s Burn was a blue and lavender carpet of harebells and wild thyme. Long before they reached the burn the boys removed socks and shoes to walk barefoot through the scented wildflowers. Lewis threw out his arms. ‘What a morning to welcome me back.’ He grinned wickedly. ‘Of course, the sun always shines on the good and pure – hey, little brother,’ he said, and threw his arm round Lorn’s shoulders, ‘this is how it should have been from the start, you and me together doing all the things we’re doing now. But we’ll make up for it – only good times from now on. Promise me – only good times. I don’t know what it is about twins, but it’s true they share everything. It must be something to do with coming from the same egg, but I was pretty damned sick every time you went into hospital. I hated it.’

  ‘I didn’t like it too well myself.’ Lorn’s young face was dark. ‘And I didn’t exactly have hysterics laughing when the doctors were cutting me up.’

  Lewis was serious for a minute. He looked into his brother’s deep, steadfast eyes and said slowly, ‘I know I’m the selfish half of the egg. When it split up it didn’t make an even job of it – all the goodness went to you.’

  ‘Ach, get away! I’m no simpering goody-goody!’ Lorn protested awkwardly. ‘I want things, the same kind of things you want – only I’m too damned afraid to go after them.’

  ‘Not afraid,’ Lewis said softly. ‘Canny’s the word for you, my lad. You’re like Father – canny, dour, and as stubborn as a mule’s arse. You can wait for the things you want from life – I can’t, that’s the difference; I want it all and I want it now.’

  Lorn glanced all around him. ‘You’ve got it all now, you daft ass. Stop gabbling and let’s get on.’

  Ruth was sitting on a low shelf of the Seanachaidh’s Stone, her feet in the bracing waters of Brodie’s Burn. She had divested herself of shoes and stockings, her calliper lay by her side. She was absorbed, her golden head bowed over the notepad in her lap, the tip of her tongue protruding from the side of her mouth as her pencil flew over the pages. This was one of her favourite haunts, a place of solitude seldom visited by anyone. She often came here before breakfast, before her mother arose to begin another day of religious ritual. The sound of feet swishing through grass made her start up in fright: her violet eyes darkened with the awareness that she wasn’t alone, and she had the look of a young deer ready to take fright. At sight of the twins her cheeks blazed and she hastily removed her feet from the water and tucked them under her dress.

  Lewis plunked himself down on the bank and plunged his feet straight into the water, teasing her with his roguish grin, enjoying the blushes spreading over her fair skin. ‘A fine mornin’, Ruth, mo ghaoil.’

  ‘Ay, it is that,’ Ruth stuttered. She felt naked, so conscious of the calliper lying on the light grey stone she tried to cover it with the hem of her dress.

  ‘Och, don’t be so worried about that silly old calliper,’ Lewis scolded, ducking his head to watch his toes wiggling in the peaty brown water. ‘No use trying to hide it – you’ve got a bad leg, and that’s that. Get your feet out from under your frock and put them back in the burn.’

  Ruth felt better. She relaxed slightly. Lewis had always been able to ease her self-consciousness, make light of her disability – but Lorn couldn’t – he was trying very very hard to simulate his brother’s indifference, not looking at her, letting his fingers dabble in the umber trout pool some distance away, but she could sense his awareness of her feelings, and she felt miserable with embarrassment. She glanced at the top of his head. His earth-brown curls were tinged with chestnut lights, his shoulder blades stuck out through his jersey, the arm that
hung downwards was thin and void of sunburn. She saw the reflection of his face in the pool, an ascetic sensitive face – like her father’s. The thought startled her. He said without looking up, ‘You suit that stone, Ruthie, it might have been made for you – after all, it’s the stone of the storyteller.’

  Ruthie! Only her father called her that. She felt the heat go out of her face. ‘I know the legend of this place,’ she volunteered shyly.

  ‘Tell it,’ Lewis said absently. He had little time for things of the past – the present was far more exciting to him – but he felt that as Ruth was here, she might as well entertain him.

  ‘It was told to old Andrew by Neil the Seanachaidh, and old Andrew told it to me before he died last year,’ Ruth began, hesitantly. ‘Brodie was a hill climber who got lost climbing the Rhanna hills one stormy night. He lay hurt and dying, crying for help, but no one came. He wept so many tears of anguish they flowed down the hillside, and a spring welled up at the spot where his body was found. There was a great landslide on the night of the storm: the boulders and rocks that rolled down crashed through heather and bracken and came to rest in the fields and moors far below – all but one – this one I’m sitting on now. It came to rest a few inches from Brodie’s body.’ Ruth’s purpled gaze was faraway and very bright. ‘Later, in the dark nights of winter, the seanachaidhs gathered round the peat fires to tell how Brodie’s Burn came to be, and in the quiet gloamings of summer nights, at the end of the day’s work, they came to sit on this stone to rest and to tell the tales of the old days to the young shepherd boys. That’s how this stone got its name, and how the story of Brodie got handed down – and that is why to this day the folk of Rhanna come up here and bathe their feet in Brodie’s Burn. The old folks say the water is his tears, and that it has healing properties – that is why I bathe my feet in it when no one in the world is looking.’