It’s June now. You’re away staying with Shona and Niall and I miss you, little brother, always I miss you when we’re apart. I walked over to Burg and met Ruth. She thought I was you at first. I saw the hope in those lovely eyes of hers then it faded when she realized it was me. She came back from Coll because she couldn’t stand to be away from you only to find you had gone. You’re a daft pair of buggers! All this beating about the bush because of a stupid misunderstanding. I told her the reason you got drunk at the Burnbreddie dance and she got quite angry about it. She says all you had to do was tell her you couldn’t dance. She doesn’t much like dancing either, and would have been quite happy just talking to you all night.
I’ve been meeting Ruth a lot over at Aosdana Bay. Today we got out one of Hector’s boats and I poured out my soul to her. She cried for me and I kissed her. Ruth is like sunshine. Her hair smells of it. When she talks about you her eyes grow dreamy and go really purple, the colour of the heather hills in autumn. Her voice is like music. I could listen to her all day. The sound of her voice is like a burn tinkling over the stones on the moor. She called me Lorn when I kissed her the second time. Fancy the blow to my ego! Girls have always fallen at my feet now this wee lassie with the big dreamy eyes feels me kissing her and imagines I’m you!
Weeks have passed. I know now why you love Ruth. She’s truly good. I’ve grown to love the innocence of this sweet shy girl with her lovely face. I love all her moods, her sadness, her joys. I feel a strange sort of rapture just being in her company. She’s so different from Rachel. Rachel always gave out a sense of great power; Ruth is fragile and vulnerable. I feel I want to protect her, to keep her safe, yet she has an inner strength that is like yours. She’s stronger than me. She’s been my crutch these last weeks. When she knows I’m in pain she takes my head in her hands and soothes me. I knew Rachel wouldn’t feel pity, that’s why I never told her about myself, and to have her feel sorry for me would have been more than I could stand. Yet, even if she had known she would still have turned from me. She started off life with a show of toughness, time and events hardened her till her toughness became genuine. Ruth has no shell, she is laid bare to all the hurt the world can give her. Her only defence is shyness – yet, when she has to defend people she loves she’s like a tigress. Mind what she did to Canty Tam when he sneered at Rachel? Well she did the same thing to me one day when I said you were soft. I was being jealous of all the talking she did about you and she turned on me like a wild cat and sent me off licking my wounds.
It’s midsummer now and Hector has gone off for his annual holiday to Mull. Today I made love to Ruth. I know you will curl up inside reading this but don’t hate me or feel anger against Ruth. She thought I was you, she called me Lorn and she cried and hated herself. I thought she wasn’t going to see me again. She’s all I’ve got now, the only person in the whole world who can help me in my last days here on earth. Whatever you do, don’t blame Ruth for what happened. She’s torn between her love for you and her sorrow for me – because that’s all she really feels for me. I love her in a way I’ve never loved any girl before. I’ve never felt tenderness for any other girl, but that is what I feel for Ruth, tenderness. It’s a good job I’m not going to be around for very much longer because I would have fought you tooth and nail for Ruth even though it would have been useless. She loves you and no one else. I only have her for a little while; you will have her for the rest of your life. Ruth has made me live even while I’m dying, so don’t waste time holding grudges, just remember that in my last days Ruth comforted me, gave me light when there was darkness. Little brother of mine, I love you. You may ask yourself how can I say such a thing when guilt is tearing me in two and I know I can’t go on seeing Ruth much longer for fear you will find out. But I can’t say I don’t love you just because we both love the same girl. That would be daft. You’re my brother, my twin, you’re me really and I’m you and all this is getting so complicated I’m laying down my pen. You’re coming home tomorrow and I don’t know how I’m going to face you, so I’m taking the coward’s way out. I’ll start seeing Ruth in the evenings so as not to arouse too many suspicions. I can’t let go of Ruth – not yet.
12th August 1960
I’m feeling really bad today. I get dizzy a lot. When I’m supposed to be working I just sit up in the fields, seeing two of everything. I can’t enjoy any of the things I love. I can’t see to read now and it’s getting more difficult to keep on writing in this diary. When I’m out riding I feel like falling off, everything just goes round in circles. I think that’s how I’ll go out. I’ll take one of the horses and just pitch over the cliffs. I tell you this, I’m not waiting for this thing to kill me, I’m going to kill it first! After all, I’m a McKenzie and we’re a family who don’t like anything to get the better of us!
24th August 1960
How beautiful is this small island world of ours. I am aware of every blade of grass, every whisper of life in the forests and moors. The sky is so wide, I feel a great sense of freedom and space – as if I could spread my wings and fly like the birds. Just lately I have felt a strange peace coming over me, an acceptance of that which is to come. It might sound daft coming from me, but I’m not afraid of death any more. The folk of our island are beautiful, especially the old ones. They have got wisdom and contentment in their eyes. With a few exceptions the people of Rhanna are a serene lot.
I am going over to see Lachlan later this morning and I am taking this diary with me. I will ask him to give it to you eight months after I am gone and at the same time to explain to Mother and Father why I was such a dour, moody bugger to live with this year. I am going to see Ruth tonight and will make her promise not to say a word till the time is up. Why eight months? Well, I’m a bit in the dark when it comes to people’s feelings on grief. I never wanted to know any of those things and always used to turn away from them. When I was in hospital there was a chap there who had not long lost his wife. I asked him how long it took to get over it. He said he never had, that you never do get over losing someone you love and that eight months passed before he could think of her without crying. Around that time he also felt that he wanted to start living again, to go forward, not dwell in the past. I mind too when Rachel lost her father it was April and for months after I used to shiver when I looked at her. She wore the same clothes as usual, yet I felt as if a thick black blanket was covering her. Round about Christmas that year I felt as if the blanket was growing thinner, letting Rachel shine out again. I’m a daft bugger but these are the only incidents I have to go on, so eight months it is. It won’t be easy for Lachlan and Ruth but I have to make them see I’m doing it for my family – you will have gotten over losing me by then and better able to take all this. I know you’ll miss me, of all the charmers who ever lived I think I must be about the nicest! With one exception, my wee brother, Lorn Lachlan McKenzie – my better half! Thanks for being my brother, I couldn’t have had a better one. Don’t think you’re getting rid of me though. I’ll be keeping my beady eye on you – sort of watching over you like a guardian angel. (I like the idea of that! I’ll have wings like the birds and be able to fly.)
Have a grand life. On fluffy cloud days look up and remember me – who knows – you might see my face up there watching you, so be careful when you go rolling in the heather with Ruth. (On the other hand don’t be too fussy, I might pick up a few hints.) By the time you get this you and Ruth might be married. If so, be happy and good in a naughty kind of way. (I always found being too good the most boring thing on earth.) Mo Beannachd leat, daonnan.
Lorn closed the book with a soft little snap. Lewis had died on the evening of August 24th 1960. For a moment it all came back, the horror, the grief, the heartrending pain. These last words, from Lewis to him, were the final thoughts, the final goodbyes. Then the ending of the diary came to him: Mo Beannachd leat, daonnan, the Gaelic for ‘My blessings be with you always’.
The words rang in his head like a benediction, a prayer. L
ewis had spoken, not from the grave but from life, all the eager thrusting force that had been in him, even to the end of his short young life. The experiences of his last months had been crammed into a few pages, yet they were so beautiful; wistful, yet so filled with every kind of emotion he had been like an atom, spreading outwards in the universe to embrace it and hold it to himself as if to savour all the wonder of creation. Lorn shivered and felt a thread of some of that wonder weaving its way into him till he felt like laughing and crying at the same time. A tear rolled slowly down his face to be followed by another. Faster and faster they fell, the first tears he had cried since his brother’s going. His strong young body shook with a storm of weeping, and when it was finally over, when the great shuddering sobs had finally ceased, he felt as if a balm had been poured over his soul. Myrtle turned and nuzzled his neck with her velvety nose, and getting up he buried his face into her mane and said aloud, ‘Thank you, thank you, big brother, you have set me free, I’m free now because I know the truth – and I don’t hurt any more . . .’
His eyes fell on the letter lying on the bale of hay. The one word written on the envelope leapt out at him. That hand, he knew it, so well he knew it. ‘Lorn’ was all it said but it was enough for him to know who had written it, for had he not, over and over, looked at that very name inscribed into a birthday card given to him by Ruth to mark his eighteenth year? With trembling fingers he slit open the envelope and sank down against Myrtle to devour the letter with hungry eyes.
26th September
1960
Dearest Lorn,
I am sending this to Lachlan to ask him to give it to you along with Lewis’s diary. You shouldn’t have found out any of this for some months yet, but when I found out you blamed yourself for Lewis’s accident I couldn’t bear it and wrote to Lachlan. As it is, it has been a long and weary few weeks, and I’m glad the waiting is over and you at last know the truth. There is so much I want to say to you, so much you have to understand before you can even begin to forgive me. I don’t know if you ever can. I have done things, so many things that have been hurtful and wrong but that were the only things I could do to give Lewis comfort when he needed it most. Often I remember and I hate myself. Lying in bed at night I cry thinking of you, your pain and your hurt. I want you in my arms, to have and to hold, and my body aches with loneliness. I miss so many people, my darling father, my friends on Rhanna – but most of all I miss you, my darling Lorn, and long to see you again.
Shona and Niall have been so kind to me, I will never forget how they helped me when I needed help most. They are like a pair of excited bairns at the moment and talk constantly about going home. They can’t wait to get back to Rhanna.
I don’t have many plans for my future. I tried to start writing a book, but it was no use. I kept seeing your face on every blank page so I have put my pen aside for a while and have taken instead to daydreaming. I might go back to my aunt in Coll, but wherever I go, remember this – every minute, every hour, every day of my life, I think of you.
Ruthie.
Lorn crushed the letter to his breast and sank down against Myrtle’s soft flanks. The stable was peaceful and he had so very much to think about. He didn’t go back to the house that night.
Fergus and Kirsteen slept fitfully. Like Lorn they had a lot of new thoughts that jumbled around in their heads before they began to settle into some sort of order. But just before dawn Kirsteen finally fell into an exhausted sleep. Fergus looked at her, the hands thrown over the pillow, the lock of crisp hair falling over her brow. She looked like a child in her repose, and, leaning over, he kissed her silvered hair gently then got up out of bed to get quickly dressed. It was a glorious autumn morning; the peat smoke was rising from the chimneys of Portcull; the fishing boats were sailing out of the harbour; the subdued clatter of milk churns came from the dairy. By the side of the road some distance away Dodie was sitting on a tiny stool by Ealasaid’s flank, his big fingers gently extracting the milk for his breakfast. Fergus breathed deeply. It was the start of another day, a beautiful new day filled with all the promise of new life, new beginnings, new hope. He walked towards the fragrant fields; the rich smell of newly turned earth was strong in the air and he looked up. There on the golden horizon was silhouetted the figure of Lorn lifting the kale, in front of him plodded the noble sturdy form of Myrtle, the magnificent Clydesdale. Fergus swallowed the tears in his throat. ‘This is my son,’ he thought proudly. ‘Against all the odds he has become a farmer and a true son of the soil.’
He heard himself calling, ‘Lorn! Lorn!’
Lorn looked up, his blue eyes fixed on the beloved man who was his father. A great swelling joy exploded inside him. He began to run towards the lower fields, stumbling, falling in his haste, but someone seemed to be at his elbow, urging him on, helping him up. Lewis! Of course it was Lewis! Death could never rob him of the brother who had shared his life from the moment of conception. They were of the same flesh, the same heart beating – the same spirit. Lewis would go on living in him. As the years passed people would look at him and know what Lewis would have looked like that day – that tomorrow – that forever. They had both loved the same people – the same girl – perhaps one day Ruthie would come back to Rhanna – back to a love that could never forget her. If she didn’t he would go to her – by God he would!
‘I’m coming, Father!’ he cried, the tears pouring unheeded out of his eyes. His heart was beating, pulsing, bounding with a joy he felt could never be exceeded – but it could – it could! One day it would – with Ruthie!
Fergus watched his son running swift and sure over the dew-wet fields. He saw him trip and almost fall, but in seconds he was steady again, his feet flying swiftly.
‘Lorn,’ whispered Fergus, the lump in his throat fading as tears dissolved it away. The boy reached him and pulled up short, shy for a moment, then he was in his father’s strong embrace, the deep sure thudding of the beloved heart filled his ears. Fergus looked up and Lorn followed his gaze. Ruth was coming over the fields from Brodie’s Burn, her slim body dressed in palest green, which blended harmoniously with the grasses.
‘She must have come home on last night’s steamer,’ Fergus said softly.
Joy and hope accelerated Lorn’s heartbeats; his eyes were filled with so much love they were luminous in their expression. Ruth spotted him, and her steps faltered, slowed. Lorn left his father’s side and began to run, conscious of every ray of light, every sparkle in the diamond-like dew drops misting the fields. The dazzle in them found reflection on the teardrops poised on his lower lashes. Ruth had begun to run also, her hair a golden halo, now against the green of the grass, now against the deep blue sky. She was a vision of sweet and lovely girlhood with hardly a trace of a limp to hamper her graceful movements.
Kirsteen came out of the house and walked towards Fergus, hesitantly at first. Then she saw his powerful, dark face lifted up, transformed with the light of inner joy. She ran to him and he held out his strong right arm to take her in his embrace. Her gaze followed his and a little sob caught in her throat as she stood there with the man she loved, watching the two young people meeting and embracing on the brow of the silvered fields. The sun burst over the lower shoulder of Ben Machrie, morning broke in all its golden glory bathing the moors, brushing amber over the ethereal purpled peaks of the hills of Rhanna.
Children of Rhanna Page 36