Children of Rhanna

by Christine Marion Fraser

  ‘Ruthie, can I speak to you?’ His voice was soft, breathless with hope and longing, his hands outstretched in appeal. ‘We’ve both been very silly but – well – will you let me explain?’

  ‘No, Lorn, go away, I don’t want to see you.’ It was her voice, but it seemed to come from another self, a being filled with self-loathing. Anger was the only way she could bear to turn her back on him, and her voice was harsh with it.

  Disbelief filled his eyes, that and a hurt so deep she knew if she went on looking at him she would cry aloud in her anguish. ‘I’m sorry, Ruthie.’ His voice was flat, dead. ‘I was foolish enough to think you might feel a little of what I feel for you – I can see now I was wrong.’ He stumbled up the beach, hardly able to see where he was going for the mist of tears that blinded him.

  Dugald turned a troubled face to his daughter. ‘What was that all about, Ruthie?’ he asked with a frown. ‘I thought you were more than fond of young Lorn. If I’m no’ mistaking he was the reason we left Coll to come back here.’

  She watched the tall, beloved figure of Lorn McKenzie walking away from her, out of her life – perhaps forever. He would never lower himself to speak to her again. The McKenzie pride was in him. She could never face him and feel clean in his presence again – not now. The beautiful thing that had been between them was over almost before the buds of their love had ripened. They would remain like that, eternally unfurled, never to blossom forth into glorious flower.

  She closed her eyes and swayed. Her father’s voice came again from a very long distance: ‘Ruthie! Are you all right?’ She forced herself to answer normally. ‘Ay, Father, I’m right enough. Come you home now, Mam will be waiting with the supper and if we’re late she’ll punish us by saying Grace after Grace before we can get a bite to eat.’

  It was strange, on a small island like Rhanna, where gossip and talk abounded, that more than three weeks were to elapse before Lorn found out the reasons for Ruth’s rejection of him. Lewis had taken to meeting her in the evenings, and Lorn assumed that his brother had got over Rachel and was starting to lead again a normal life. Lorn himself had rarely gone out since that fateful meeting with Ruth, but after tea one evening Fergus asked him to go over to Rumhor with a message. He was driving the trap back over the cliff road, and paused for a moment to look down on the wide sweeping curve of Aosdana Bay. Two people were walking hand in hand over the sands, a boy and a girl. Every so often they stopped and the boy bent his dark head to kiss the girl, whose hair shone golden in the light. Lorn’s heart pounded and he felt light-headed. Lewis and Ruth! He didn’t want to believe the evidence of his eyes, and for quite some minutes he stared in disbelief at the couple far below. Hurt filled his heart till it felt like bursting. So, that was why Ruth hadn’t wanted to talk to him or have anything more to do with him! Lewis had found someone else all right! In his restless seeking after pleasure Lewis had turned to the very girl whom Lorn felt was his alone, who in time, Lorn knew, would come to him, and with whom the lovely thing that had been growing would blossom anew. With a strangled little sob he urged the pony forward and drove it back to Laigmhor at a reckless pace. Anger had replaced hurt, a fury so intense it blinded him. He would have it out with Lewis! By God! He would kill him for this! How could he? How could he do this to his own twin brother?

  He made some excuse to remain out of doors and waited in the shadow of the barn for his brother’s return. He had to wait for a long time, long enough for his anger to simmer steadily till it was at boiling point by the time he saw Lewis turn in at the field gate and come slowly along.

  Lewis was looking neither to the right nor left of him. His eyes were on the rutted road, his steps were slow and seemed to drag. When Lorn jumped out into his path he started, but his eyes were strange, out of focus, as if he wasn’t seeing properly.

  Lorn’s fists bunched. ‘So! The wanderer has returned!’ he ground out menacingly. ‘You and Ruth must have had a lot to talk about – or did you have other things on your mind! The kind of things that have filled it since you had your first lusty roll in the grass with Mary Anderson!’

  Lewis had gone very pale. He backed away from the dark-faced tower of revengeful wrath who blocked his way. He looked confused and passed a hand over his eyes as he muttered, ‘Lorn, calm down, for God’s sake, calm down. I’m sorry you had to find out this way about Ruth and me. Keep her out of it though. It wasn’t her doing, it was mine. Just something that happened . . .’

  ‘Too bloody true!’ Lorn exploded. ‘The way things always just happen for you. The minute I turn my back you’re off with the one girl who means anything to me! You could have had your pick, but that isn’t good enough for hot pants McKenzie! Oh no! The grass on the other side – eh, Lewis? Is that it! Finish with one and go after even tastier fruits! Oh, you had to have the first sampling, didn’t you? Quite a challenge! To be the first! The first with everything!’ he laughed bitterly. ‘Well, there’s a first time for everything; even I can see that though I was too blind and stupid to see what was going on under my very nose! We’ve never fought before, but the time has come for that too. I’m going to beat the living bloody daylights out of you. Get them up!’ His fists were up in front of his face, his blue eyes were wild, his nostrils aflare in his chalky white face.

  ‘Och, c’mon, little brother,’ Lewis’s voice was uneasy. ‘Try to see reason. All you ever did was gawp at Ruth – at least I make her feel like the lovely girl she is . . .’

  Lorn went berserk then. With a roar he rushed at his brother and punched him to the ground. Lorn hopped around him as he staggered to his feet then landed him another blow that sent him flying onto the grass verge.

  The cows chomped peacefully nearby; the grinding of their teeth and Lorn’s rasping breaths the only sounds in the world. Lewis lay in the grass, stunned and bruised, shaking his head, drawing a hand across the blood welling from a split lip. Grabbing at tufts of grass he got up once more but staggered and fell, sprawling his full length on the rut of grass growing in the middle of the track. Lorn fumed. He clenched and unclenched his fists.

  ‘Playing possum!’ he sneered. ‘Get up! Get up, you coward, and fight back!’

  Lewis did get up, so quickly that Lorn was taken aback as he watched his brother half-running, half-falling towards the stables. Lorn began to run to the stables also, but was almost sent flying as his brother raced past on his horse, riding it without saddle or bridle, urging it on over the fields in the direction of Portvoynachan. Lorn raced into the stables and, leaping onto Dusk’s broad back, he kicked in his heels and the horse took off at a gallop. Away in front was Lewis, a fleeing dot on the horizon. Lorn goaded his horse faster and faster till he was within shouting distance of his brother. ‘Come back! Come back, you coward!’ he roared. Lewis was making for the cliff road to Portvoynachan. The ground flew by beneath his horse’s thudding hooves, the drumming of them mingling with those of Dusk, the air reeling with the abuse Lorn was hurling. The air rang with his accusations, the ringing of hooves. Lumps of turf flew; the fields and moors became a brown and green blur. Lewis’s horse bucked as he was guided towards the crumbling cliff paths, its eyes rolled in bloodshot fear as sods of grass and sand disintegrated under his hooves. But now they were on the beach. All was smooth and wide and clear. The sea frothed over the shell sands, rattling the tiny pebbles. Both horses thundered over the bay – Aosdana Bay – where the sea was pink and turquoise and great rocks rose like sentinels out of the water. Lewis’s horse was running smoothly and faltered only slightly as his rider suddenly pitched from his back onto the rocks fringing the bay. There was a sickening thud as the dark head struck a spear of basalt.

  Fifty yards away, Lorn couldn’t believe the sight that he had just witnessed. He pulled on his horse’s mane and, jumping down, ran as he had never run in his life before to drop on his knees by his brother’s side. The rock had torn a gaping gash in Lewis’s head; the blood was flowing swiftly, matting Lewis’s hair into red-brown tufts; his ey
es were brilliant in his white face.

  The sounds of Lewis’s world came to him clearly. The bleating of the sheep rose up from the machair that lay between the north slopes and the shoreless sea to the north, ascending as the smoke of peat fires to the rosy vault of the heavens. It was a fluffy cloud evening, soft cirrus clouds floated over the emerald-green of the clifftops far above. Over the wide white sands the sea glistened, capturing in its vast reaches the blues, greens, and purples of an opal. The great mountains beyond the bay cast their purple-blue shadows on the still waters of inlets and bays that stretched as far as the eye could see. The fishing boats were coming home, their sails red in the fiery eye of the sinking sun. The tangible sense of life was all around, exquisite, timeless as time itself yet so swift in its passing it was almost a mockery. Lewis saw it all, a beauty that was partly physical, partly spiritual. Here he had walked, here he had talked – here he had loved – with Ruth. His lips were very white and trembled slightly. A little smile hovered and he whispered, ‘Look, Lorn, a fluffy cloud night . . .’ His hand came up and his finger pointed. ‘See – up yonder – a face – with a little beard . . . I think – it must be the face – of God.’

  Lorn’s senses reeled; he felt as if he was gazing down a long long tunnel and at the end of it was the face of the brother he loved with his very soul. It was the face of Lewis – yet it was his face. He felt the tunnel whirling, spinning, round and round till Lewis’s face was his and his face was Lewis’s. Was this what it was like being born? A long tunnel, a vortex; pain; choking. Birth, death, birth, death. Lewis had come first into the world and he would be the first to go out of it – or would he? Lorn felt himself spinning through endless space, of time and tears yet to come, of grief blacker than space, of – emptiness . . . Lewis couldn’t go – they were part of each other.

  ‘Why did you fall? Why did you fall!’ he heard himself crying. ‘There was no reason, no reason . . .’ His voice reverberated against the cliffs and then there was silence.

  ‘Lorn,’ Lewis’s ghost of a whisper came from a long way off. Lorn spun back through the vortex, back to his own life, back to the white face of his dying brother whose head was cradled on his knee. The blood was seeping through his trousers – Lewis’s blood? Or his? It was warm – warm and red . . . He whimpered and bit his lip. Strong, he had to be strong.

  ‘Ay, what is it, Lewis?’ His voice spoke the words automatically.

  ‘I’m frightened, take me and hold me – the way I used to hold you in the sea.’

  Lorn lay down on the sands and entwined his brother in his arms. Lewis smiled. ‘Babies – we’re both just big babies . . . Lorn, listen. Ruth – she loves you – I meant nothing to her – it was always you . . .’

  ‘Shut up! Don’t talk,’ Lorn said fiercely.

  ‘Why not – not much time left – for blethering –’ His eyes grew big and wide. For eternal moments everything that was life was there in the blue brilliance of Lewis’s eyes before they grew dull and heavy, like blinds shutting out the light of day. ‘Is – is it dark?’ he whispered in panic.

  Lorn gazed at the vast red ball in the heavens shedding blinding sheets of flame over the sea. ‘Ay, Lewis, it’s dark,’ he murmured.

  ‘Then – I’m still – alive . . .’ The words came out in a sigh, his eyes closed, and he grew still and heavy in his brother’s arms.

  Lorn never knew how long he sat there with his dead brother cradled to his breast, but the sun had long gone and the sea was dark when he finally came out of the deep trance into which he had sunk. The horses had wandered to the patches of machair among the dunes and were contentedly nibbling the sweet clovers. Lewis’s arms were still where he had placed them in his dying moments, round Lorn’s waist. Lorn never wanted to tear himself away from that last brotherly embrace, but the loneliness and grief were engulfing him; gently he eased himself away and stood for a few seconds gazing down at Lewis’s body lying beside a rock pool in which was reflected the last remnants of gold from the evening sky; then he turned and ran. He had no memory of jumping onto his horse and riding over the cliffs to Laigmhor, of bursting into the kitchen to cry out in deepest anguish, ‘I’ve killed Lewis, I’ve killed him, I’ve killed him!’ The world went black then and spun mercifully away from him and he didn’t hear his mother’s agonized cries of protest, nor was he aware of Niall and his father carrying him upstairs between them.

  Many miles away Rachel sat staring before her as one witnessing a dark and terrible dream unfolding before her strangely faraway eyes. More than half an hour ago she had experienced a cold eerie sensation washing over her as a vision of Lewis erupted into her mind. It wasn’t the same Lewis who had loved her with such passion, but a hollow-eyed boy, pale as death, white lips moving, eyes dark with a terrible fear of being forced to travel to some unknown place far far away from the life he had so loved – it was the same feeling she had had when her father died, and Rachel shuddered and knew that Lewis McKenzie, the boy who was with her wherever she went, whatever she did, was no more of the earth.

  Ruth wandered alone in the gloaming, not aware of distance or of time, and as she walked through the cool green valleys of the hills her troubled soul became calm, and she knew what she had to do. Lewis’s funeral was now two days in the past. Only snatches of it remained fixed in Ruth’s mind: the pale stunned faces of Lewis’s family; Lorn, a shadow without control of himself, relying implicitly on others to guide his steps, his dry dull eyes telling of grief locked away, unable to relieve his agony in the healing balm of tears. Rachel had been there too. No one had told her of the tragedy, but she had been there just the same. She and Ruth had stood by one of the big elm trees at the top of the Hillock, watching the ceremony, neither of them speaking till it was all over. Then Ruth had turned to her friend and had said, ‘’Tis glad I am you came, Rachel, but you’re a bit late to give Lewis the help he needed. He turned to me for that and somehow everything went wrong. I’m sure you will be happy though – you will go far with Jon at your side.’ Her voice had been very quiet, and Rachel had flushed and turned her face away. For the first time there had been reproach in Ruth’s voice and Rachel could hardly bear that. How could she explain? How could she tell Ruth that she could never have forsaken her music for the love of a mercurial boy like Lewis? She turned her dark expressive gaze on Ruth, begging for understanding, asking for a return of the simple unquestioning faith they had shared for so long. She took Ruth’s hand and held it very tightly, and for a long, long time they gazed at one another, both of them knowing that the lovely innocent years of childhood were finally done with. They had been so close as children; theirs had been a rare friendship, one filled with simple trust. Now an even greater understanding had to grow between them, and it had its first stirrings then, with the holding of hands, the dark deep pleas for forgiveness that were there in Rachel’s eyes. Ruth felt self-reproach searing through her. It was wrong of her to blame Rachel; she hadn’t known that Lewis was dying. Even if she had stayed with him she couldn’t have saved him – nothing – no one could have done that. For a moment she was tempted to tell the other girl about Lewis, but the idea left her as quickly as it had come. She had sworn to Lewis that she would tell no one of his illness – that she wouldn’t utter a single word about it till all the pain and grief of his death had departed from the lives of those who had loved him most. His death had been put down to an accident, and Ruth believed this to be the case also. She wanted to believe it. He had told her that he wasn’t going to wait till his condition had deteriorated to the stage where he would be lying in bed with those he loved best watching him dying. He had meant to take his own life but Ruth knew he would never have deliberately done such a thing in front of his twin brother. She guessed he had taken one of his giddy spells and simply fallen off his horse. Some of his most profound words came back to her, so clearly she heard the lilt of his voice, the note of pleading. ‘After I’m dead, Ruth, I want you to wait a whily before you tell my family I had a brain
tumour. Mother would go mad thinking of all the things she should have done for me. Seven or eight months should see them over the shock of losing me. I want them to know why I was such a grumpy bugger all this time, but not right away. I am going to ask Lachlan to wait also, to hold his tongue till a few months after I am dead and gone – though of course I won’t tell him how I plan to go. It’s a lot to ask of you, Ruth, but do this for me – a dying wish if you like.’

  There in the graveyard, Ruth had had no inkling of the quarrel that had taken place between Lewis and his brother or she would most certainly have run to Lorn and spilled out her heart to him. Instead, she had put her arms round Rachel and held her close. Raven curls had touched those of palest gold, and each of them had felt a great sadness for days gone, never to return.

  Ruth’s heart had felt numb. One day Rachel would go away, far away to foreign places, while she – she hadn’t known then what she was going to do. She had stepped out of her friend’s arms. ‘I won’t see you for a whily, Rachel, I’m going away, I don’t know where yet – but I’m going away . . .’