Cala

by Laura Legge

  As scores of guests came pouring in – they must have driven in from other towns, as Aram only recognized about half of them – he went to the well-stocked whisky cabinet, a source of pride in a town of frequent dearth. He downed a few drams of Balblair whisky, of Ben Nevis, of Tobermory, then brought as many bottles as he could carry into the drawing room, in which guests were by now packed like saw-beens. They had started to spill into the hallway, the kitchen, to spread their rowdily chatting selves all over the main floor. Euna pressed her way to Aram’s side and said, You started without me? before pinching the bottle of Balblair and catching up to him shot for shot. Soon she was kissing him on the scruff of his cheek, then nuzzling into his neck, in full view of the Macbays, who had just arrived with her beloved guitar. They did not seem upset, but why would they? They did not know about Aram and Aileen, nor did they ever have to. Sometimes secrecy was a poison, of course, but sometimes – today – it was a simple boundary.

  Euna, tipsy, a Caledonian queen in blue jeans, grabbed her guitar from Minister Macbay. She thanked him with an eagerness that betrayed her slight intoxication and he laughed. Even he, even devout he, accepted a swig of whisky when Aram offered him the bottle. His wife seemed to approve and off the minister was, a bit ruddy, greeting all the good souls who had travelled to Pullhair. Euna thrust her way into the corner of the room and made a makeshift stage by pushing tables and benches together. She tuned her instrument, which had, in the Macbays’ icy outdoor journey, gone a little flat. A couple of the other townsfolk had brought fiddles, one a bodhrán, one a hammered dulcimer, and they rallied around her as a slapdash quintet. Euna said something inaudible to them and then, all of a sudden, they were elevated by the tables and benches, playing ‘Highland Welcome’ in an impeccably tight arrangement.

  Within a few bars many of the guests had launched into a formal country dance, a round-the-room number in which sets of couples stepped, turned, made arches with their arms, under which other couples eagerly swanned. Aram did not know the dance, and he did not especially want to fall over his own feet in front of this many people, so he inclined against the wall where a few hours prior his son had been casting salmon. And though Aram was not dancing, he did not feel excluded, simply standing there, watching. He was still a heartened part of the sweat and energy.

  Mid-song, Aileen hurried into the drawing room. She seemed to have made a full recovery, or perhaps to have taken some strong painkillers. Her cheekbones were streaked with pale gold sparkles, slicked then with oil. Her whole being gleamed. Aram felt a pang. He figured it was just the liquor talking. Aileen greeted Good Muireall, who by then had Lachlan Iain in a piggyback and was somehow, at the same time, stomping to the melody. Though the wind was shaking the guest house’s thin panes of glass, the room was warm, the storm-sounds drowned by the joyful swell of fiddle, guitar, bodhrán, feet on floor, and then, gorgeously, miraculously, Euna singing.

  Aram downed more Balblair, now near to the clear glass bottom, if only to elevate himself closer to that sublime sound. How had he gone so long without hearing Euna’s voice? Nothing mattered before or beyond it. Aram imagined this was what God’s had sounded like when he said, on the first day, Let there be light. And there was light. And Aram saw the light, and it was good.

  He had the wildest ideas in his head, hearing her sing. Now she was leading the band in ‘St Bernard’s Waltz’ – one he knew from his tender, early years, before his father died – and she was crooning, Come let’s dance tonight… Just as they did in the old days… and Lord above, was he overcome. Drunk and unchecked after years of holding himself so tightly, obediently together, tanked up and wanting, at long last, to breathe. And there was Euna’s falsetto. And his heart red and rug-soft beneath all these couples’ stomping feet.

  Grace came in on the harmonies and the meld was deeply, immortally beautiful, especially with her clipped cords. Who knew an imperfection could make her tone so resonant? The timbre turned her to a natural baritone. Euna seemed inspired by the sound and smiled with all her teeth, somehow not neglecting a beat in the waltz. Aram moved through the dancing couples toward the band. He asked for permission then lifted the bodhrán into his arms, hoping to see if his heritage, his inborn cadence, was enough to keep him in stride with the next song. Euna winked to show that she saw him. She started in on the next tune, a version of ‘I’ll Lay Ye Doon Love’. It quickly became clear to Aram that there was nothing innate about drumming skills. He hammered away at the bodhrán for a full verse before realizing the others were playing in spite of, not in response to, him. So he eased off the percussion. And when he did, Euna raised a hand to ask the others to do the same, to give her space to sing this ballad a cappella.

  Euna looked at Aram when she sang, and the sensation was so strong he had to clutch the drum to his chest as a kind of breastplate. I hae travelled far frae Stornoway/Aye, and doon as far as Glasgow toon/And I maun gae, love, and travel further/But when I come back, I will lay ye doon. The room had gone from riotous, rollicking, to nearly silent. He could not break his eye-line to Euna, but he thought he saw in his periphery someone wiping away tears. A lady had to be pretty confident to interrupt a drunken, dancing crowd, and yet, here she was, bringing the room in tune with their rawest emotions.

  When she was finished, she set her guitar on the ground. She grabbed the bottle of whisky from Aram and drained its last dregs, to a chorus of cheers from the audience. Then she took the bodhrán from Aram and said, impishly, Never try that again, okay? before reuniting the drum with its proper owner.

  I promise, Aram said.

  She held on to him while the band started up again, this time led by the fiddlers. Outside or upstairs? she asked.

  He pocketed her hand, taking her through the guest house and up the creaking staircase, in time with the rowdy downbeat. The heat from the visitors in the drawing room was rising, blanketing Aram and Euna, warming them beyond what the whisky and tenderness had already managed to do. The month had been so terribly cold, it was life-affirming to have that temperature saturating them, as if they were tropical plants in a glasshouse. Aram led Euna into a guest room, where he had overnighted on occasion when delivering salmon in the midst of a particularly harsh storm. The bed had been made too tightly, and he tore away the quilt and top sheets. Euna latched the door behind them, then flipped on the beaded lamp by the bedside. He hauled Euna on top of him, slipping her chipped earring between his lips. The jewel sweat.

  As she ran her hands across his beard, her guitar-player calluses caught on its greying spines. For once their bodies were both hard-worn, carved through acts of living. Neither was to be exalted. Neither to be blamed. The pearl only granted him a taste, of melancholy, sea salt. Then she tilted her chin toward him, an offering. He leaned in. And held there. And looked at the loudest story of his last ten years. And looked at God’s creation, delicate and hardy as the twinflower that had, against all natural reason, appeared behind the church in mid-winter.

  And when they did what he had thought so long of doing, when she pulled him by the skull and the collar of his cable-knit sweater, it was not with callow wanting. When they loved one another on that stranger’s bed, the mattress trembling with the insistent, rising sound of folk fiddle, it was sàimh. Richer than their afternoon in the hut, less carnal, more celestial. A hash of pleasure and peace.

  Last time, as soon as they were finished, he had noticed a shift in Euna. She had turned her back to him and tugged her pants up to cover dribs of blood. The Aram on this bed would have asked, Awright? well before that red cue. Euna curled into the crook of his arm, not to make herself smaller but to bond more of her skin to his. This was the best part, he thought now. Not the soaring itself, but the soft landing after. The way she burrowed her face into his underarm, an animal in search of a familiar odour, a home. He stayed at anchor for a long time, letting her use his body as a haven. Then eventually, the first strains of ‘Auld Lang Syne’ rose through the floorboards.

  Euna sho
ok off her trance and looked suddenly at Aram. We can’t miss the New Year, she said, jumping up and pegging into her jeans. He wanted nothing more than to stay in this blessed bed, if not forever, then for the night, but he had vowed to never disappoint her again. So he dressed, too, and hurried down the stairs behind her, bustling into a sea of sunny Scots and uncorked champagne bottles. Minister Macbay wowed the crowd by hauling a set of bagpipes from a closet and filling the lodge with their pining notes. At midnight, everyone in the crowd kissed one another, toasted with thunderous pleasure. The wild merriment, what in Gaelic he might have called meadhail, was so boisterous it was surely carrying across the heath – to the church basement, perhaps all the way to empty, echoic Gainntir.

  *

  The next morning, Aram woke in ear-splitting, eye-pinking pain on the floor of the church, near the Sunday School entrance. Euna was not with him. His post-midnight memories only came in flickers, here and there, none too cogent or complete. He needed to stand in spite of the pain. Bad Muireall was waiting in the basement for him to feed her, empty her chamber pots. He knew what it was like to be left too long without attention – the monologue, the stench. He grimaced as he dressed and then, face rinsed of residual whisky and potential hints of vomit, he headed toward the basement door. Coming from behind it was an unexpected sound, a lowing, as if from a cow. He unlocked the door and climbed down to see Bad Muireall in an arch-backed bridge, her inverted face unnervingly calm. She slowly moved into a normal seated position and patted the ground in front of her, inviting him to sit.

  Hello, Aram, she said.

  Muireall, he said. What’s going on?

  Just keeping limber, she said. How long do you plan to keep me here?

  Aram moved toward her and, against his best instincts, sat on the stretch of carpet she had been patting. Now that he was so near, he could feel a warm force of hers circling him. She seemed to be radiating something brighter than body heat. Her posture was that of a holy woman, one who had spent significant time in quiet contemplation. From her palms came a tremolo. Aram felt pulled to truth-tell.

  I don’t know, he said. I have no plan.

  No surprise there, mè bheag, she said. How can I convince you to let me go?

  He was thrown by the question, as by the tacit command she was somehow exerting over him, now their bodies were so close. It’s my choice, he said, and he felt pathetic the moment he heard his words out loud.

  She nodded thoughtfully. Was the light in the basement muted, or did she somehow look kinder today, her haircut less severe? She put a hand on his knee and gently stroked the bone, a soothing motion. You’re in pain this morning, aren’t you, she said. She slid so she was sitting directly behind him, then began to massage his temples, his pounding forehead. In his current state, he welcomed her warm hands.

  While she continued to knead his head and shoulders, softening his tightest knots and twinges, she spoke to him. Let me tell you, she said, about my ancestor, Cairstìne. Perhaps your father told you about her before he died at sea?

  How did Bad Muireall know about Aram’s father? He barely recalled anything about the man, save for his faint, fading infant memories.

  I was an uncommon child, Bad Muireall said, and sometimes incompatible with others. Or at least, they thought so, though I tried desperately to be like them. You might understand what I’m talking about, Aram. He tensed at this implication, but then, massaging just the right muscle, she tempered his response. Cairstìne hosted me every summer at her farm, the place you refer to as Gainntir, and those were the only days I truly felt I belonged on this earth.

  When she said Gainntir, revealing she knew the way others privately referred to her cherished home, he felt briefly ashamed. He wanted nothing more than to deny he had ever used the term.

  When she was murdered, I took my inheritance seriously, she told him. I promised myself I would make Cairstìne’s home into a sanctuary, by following all her customs, rituals, eating what she ate and using only the resources she had. There was just one difference. I knew from her private diaries how lonely Cairstìne was at the farm, so I decided to start a coven, to make sure I always had others around me.

  Nothing wrong with that, Aram said, as long as they wanted to be there. But when they wanted to leave—

  What this building means to you, Bad Muireall said, indicating the church sanctuary above, Cala means to me. And I had to protect its boundaries.

  A new rivulet moved through Aram. She moved her hands away from his head and turned him by the shoulders to face her. His hangover was gone entirely. He felt truly, preternaturally light. Not just because the pain was gone, but also because someone had noticed it. He said to Bad Muireall, I hear what you’re saying. But do you see at what cost it’s come?

  She turned her attention to the carpet, pulling at its loops until one end came free. I was setting down our roots, she said. History does not come at a shallow cost.

  A sadness clutched Aram, from nowhere, by the throat. He missed his mother. He missed something arcane and afflictive – a faraway country, a folk song, a broken horse, a woman skipping through grass of Parnassus – the thoughts were as indistinct and fickle as his memories of the drunken night before. What am I feeling? he asked Bad Muireall.

  I’m sorry, she said, but I’m not sure how you expect me to know that.

  I don’t believe you, he said. You’re the one doing this.

  She glanced up from the rug, confused or performing confusion. It’s lovely you think I have such power, she said. But I’m a normal woman. And a hungry one at that. Will you take me to have a proper breakfast with your family?

  Aram knew the Macbays would be glad to feed Bad Muireall, and more so, they would be thrilled to know she had been released from his crude custody. But Mrs Macbay had promised they would celebrate Hogmanay with saining, a blessing of the household. They would sprinkle water from a nearby river ford in each room, then fill the sealed home with the smoulder of flaming juniper branches. When they could hardly breathe any longer, they would fling the doors and windows open, to let in the cold, vitalizing island air. And Aram did not want to share that ceremony with Bad Muireall. He supposed he understood what she meant about protecting the boundaries of the home.

  Maybe we can do that another day, he said. He went to the kitchenette and sliced the lid from a can of tuna using his favourite penknife. Though he had initially agreed to give Bad Muireall free rein on the tinned goods in the cupboards, he had decided at the last minute on Christmas to take all the openers and sharp utensils with him to the blackhouse. She looked disconsolate as he handed her the opened tin, which he agreed, as a fisherman, did seem wretched. For a moment Aram felt remorseful. But then he busied himself by carrying the chamber pots to the toilet upstairs and back, while Bad Muireall sucked down the wet flakes. Once he had attended to her needs, his guilt was at least in part gone. He returned the emptied chamber pots to their corner and then, by her side again, placed a hand delicately on the back of her neck. Muireall, he said, I don’t know if I can let you out today. I’m just not sure I trust you yet.

  She placed the tin, slurped to the last drop, on the carpet. When she turned toward him, his hand moved naturally to the front of her throat – had his grip been tighter, he would have been choking her. I would have the same concerns if I were you, she said. Seems like we are two of a kind.

  How he hated to hear that two of a kind bit. Her words were breakers and he was sick at sea. He sucked his teeth. We’re nothing alike, he said, if mostly for his own benefit.

  Be that as it may, she said. Thank you for coming to take care of me.

  This irked him even more, watching Bad Muireall as she tried to take the high road. Aram was the good one, she the deeply bad, and if she could not see that, she was not fit to step outside this basement. Where before he had been considering freeing her, if not today then some time soon, now he wanted to add irons and chains. Rach thusa, he said, standing.

  Mè bheag, she said agai
n, only this time the endearment did not have the intended effect. He instinctively spat on the ground by her feet. If you ever want to talk, she told him, you know where to find me.

  He headed to the stairs, choosing not even to glance back at her. He did not want to be like Lot’s wife after peering at Sodom, turned to a pillar of salt – Do not look behind you, nor stop anywhere in the Plain. Instead he took the stairs two at a time, then double-bolted the basement door behind him. He dragged a spare pulpit from a few feet away to rest against the wood. He inhaled. He felt a brief amnesty from the damp, musty discomfort of the basement, until he heard a familiar voice gliding to him down the church aisle.

  *

  Aram wished, when he saw Euna rushing down the aisle, that it was under other conditions. He wished she had juniper braided through her long red hair, and not carried in her hands, burning, a bough for a more mundane ritual. He wished she were in white lace, or black velvet, or whatever she wanted, really, as long as she felt comfortable enough in the dress to say she would have and hold him.

  Good morning, she said, when she was close enough for Aram to choke on the juniper smoke. I’m surprised you’re not hungover.

  Tough constitution, he said.

  She beamed at him. I guess so, she said. Come on. She nudged his shoulder with her nose, summoning him to follow her through the church as she scattered the smoke. He did not need to be convinced; he would shadow her to the bottom of the loch. As he watched, she filled every crook and corner of the sealed space. She climbed onto and under the pews; stood on the bench of the organ; crawled around the cloakroom. Though Aram was entranced by her, an oasis in that Hebridean burn, some part of him wished she would stop. He loved the ceremony in theory, but he and Euna had different mindsets at the moment – she had just come in, elatedly, from the cold, while he had been trapped inside this building for an hour that had felt interminable.