Return To Rhanna

by Christine Marion Fraser

  A movement on the stairs made his heart leap, and as he cocked his good ear to the source of the sound the past tragic days were wiped out and he imagined it was Ellie on the stairs – coming down – in a minute to stand in the doorway, smiling, mischief in her golden eyes as she teased him for being lazy.

  ‘Ellie,’ her name on his lips was so familiar, so dear, came out so readily. He went into the hall in a daze to see Woody bounding downwards, bushy tail waving from side to side as she scampered as fast as her legs would take her away from the boisterous attentions of Tubby who had made a good recovery and who was soon to go and live with Jack the Light, the old man who had thought the world of Ellie and who had readily offered to look after the little creature who had meant so much to her. Meanwhile Tubby was delighting in taking the rise out of the hitherto bossy and over-confident cat. Both animals shot out of the front door and the house was empty again.

  ‘Ellie,’ he whispered but it was a ghost name now, an echo which had already receded into the past. Ellie would never run, never laugh, never sleep in this house again. He had to get away, get outside, had to go and look for Shona. He was halfway down the glen when he saw the minister coming towards him. His hand was raised in greeting while he was still some distance away and when he drew closer he looked so strong, so caring that Niall wanted to reach out, to be held up by the power which emanated from him – yet he was just a man after all, as vulnerable as the next though in his calling he had to hide it. He was there to be leaned upon, not to lean.

  ‘I was just on my way up to see you,’ he greeted, ‘find out if there was anything I could do.’ Subtly he assessed this young McLachlan, noting the lethargy, the dull eyes heavy with suffering and he prayed that he would be able to offer some help.

  Niall forced a smile. ‘Maybe you can, I was wondering where Shona is. I’m just on my way down to Laigmhor to see if she’s there.’

  ‘I don’t think so, I was coming out of the village earlier arid saw her going off over the moors, walking very fast with a bundle in her arms.’

  ‘A bundle?’ Niall looked puzzled. ‘Are you sure it wasn’t a bag? She was carrying one when she left the house, said something about taking some of Ellie’s things to give to Sorcha’s grandchildren. There’s six of them and she thought the things might fit one of them – she says it’s best not to hold onto anything – that’s no use to us anymore.’

  ‘It might have been a bag – but she didn’t go near the village, of that I’m certain.’

  Ruth appeared on the road, frantic looking, her limp very pronounced as she came hurrying towards them. ‘I’ve lost Lorna!’ she cried before she reached them. ‘She was outside in her pram – now she’s gone.’

  Mark James smiled at the small fair girl who had so recently lost her mother. She was too solemn for her age, she took life too seriously, and no wonder. It seemed she had had little to laugh about for most of her years. ‘Has she walked away or have the fairies taken her?’ he said teasingly.

  Ruth was in no mood for jokes and wrung her hands together as she burst out, ‘I left her with Shona out in the garden and when I went back half an hour later they had both gone – the pram was empty!’

  The two men looked at each other and Niall said in disbelief, ‘It canny be – she wouldn’t—’ He paused, it all added up, the vagueness, the remote facade of a woman who hadn’t accepted that her darling child was dead. She had deluded herself into believing that it hadn’t happened – in her tortured mind Ellie was still alive – she had gone back in time – back to when Ellie was a baby.

  Without a word he led the way to Laigmhor. Kirsteen had just returned from the village and quickly he told her what he thought had happened.

  ‘Go and get Fergus,’ she said imperatively. ‘He’ll be up on the south pasture.’

  Fergus came quickly, followed by Lorn who went immediately to comfort Ruth.

  Everyone was looking at each other, trying not to let their panic show. Fergus sat down heavily by the table, his jaw so tight the skin was shiny. ‘It’s happened again,’ he said heavily. ‘Twice before, Shona shut her mind to reality – when Mirabelle died and when Niall was reported dead at Dunkirk. When their son was stillborn she switched her mind off and refused to believe any of it – it’s almost as if it’s some sort of safety valve when reality becomes so terrible she canny face it – Oh God! My poor lassie! And to think we were believing she had taken Ellie’s death so lightly! It was killing her! Christ Almighty! It was killing her.’

  He was up, striding to the door, asking the minister what time it was he had seen Shona heading over the moors.

  ‘It must have been an hour ago now – do you have any idea where she was heading?’

  Fergus nodded grimly. ‘Ay, indeed I do, indeed I do, Mr James.’

  ‘I’d like to come with you,’ said Mark James. ‘I may be of some help.’

  Fergus nodded and went outside with the men, leaving Kirsteen looking at Ruth and saying, ‘I’d like to go too, Ruth. Shona might be – difficult and might feel easier with another female.’

  ‘Away you go,’ said Ruth distractedly, ‘I’ll go and tell Father – I want to be with him – I don’t think I could bear seeing Shona – the way she is – with my baby. It seems everyone wants her – first Mam in kirk, now . . .’

  ‘It might be a good idea to give Lachlan a ring,’ Kirsteen suggested. ‘Shona will need a doctor, I don’t have a doubt about that.’

  Ruth was already at the phone and Kirsteen went outside to catch up with the men, telling Fergus that Ruth was ringing the doctor.

  Fergus nodded and jumped into the tractor beside Lorn. ‘We’d best go over by Croynachan, it’s longer but the road’s better. If Lachlan got the message he will no doubt take the rest of you in his car.’

  They rumbled away, leaving the others to make their way to Slochmhor where Lachlan was just reversing his car onto the road.

  It was a silent journey. Lachlan’s mind was racing, thinking ahead to the confrontation with Shona. His heart swelled with pity for her. Poor, lonely, lost lassie, how she must be suffering – and the baby – she wouldn’t give it up so easily – she would fight to keep it . . .

  To stop himself from dwelling further on conjecture he forced himself to concentrate on the road ahead. The track through the moor was becoming bumpy and soon petered out to a mere thin strip of boggy peat trampled by the sheep. Eventually he could take the car no further and they all got out to continue on foot, catching up with Fergus and Lorn who had decided that the noise of the tractor might frighten Shona away. They were all running, sharing not a word, not a thought, all too intent on reaching the spot at Dunuaigh. It was Kirsteen who spotted Shona, fleeing away from Dunuaigh towards the abbey ruins. They were all exhausted and had to stop to regain wind. Lachlan’s face was perspiring, his body flung forward, hands planted against his knees, his mouth open wide as he drew in air. ‘We’ll have to take a rest,’ he rasped. ‘She hasn’t seen us yet and we can’t all get too close.’

  Fergus too was drawing air in painfully, his dark face drawn, his breathing laboured, silently cursing the weak lung that curtailed him when the rest of his body wasn’t tired. Only the pumping anxiety in Niall’s heart had kept him going, spurred him to make a supreme effort when he had least felt like it. Like his father he was bent forward, his fair hair falling over his hollow face, his mouth agape. The trauma of the last days had taken their toll of him and the dull throbbing of blood pulsing inside his head made him lightheaded and temporarily confused. The two younger men were still quite fresh, Lorn only breathing heavily, the minister showing no sign of distress. He had thrown off his jacket, torn off his dog collar, his broad chest strained against the thin material of his shirt. There was nothing in the steel-like tension of his hard body which set him apart from other men. He was the first to move again, his long legs sprinting away before anyone was aware that he was gone. The flash of Shona’s fiery hair against the sky was like a spur, beckoning him, forcing
him to run faster till the distance between them had shrunk considerably. There was something about this beautiful woman that had captured him from the start. The minister in him rebelled against the notion, the man in him wouldn’t allow him to ignore it. He admired her spirit, her endearing lack of sophistication; her grace; her childlike candour; her perfectly natural mannerisms – but more than any of these he was captivated by the glint of laughter in her wondrous eyes, her undoubted loveliness. How his heart had ached for her at the funeral of her daughter. She had stood as one apart, unspeaking, unmoving, like one lost, too bewildered to know what was happening, a soul adrift in an unspeakable chasm of locked-in grief . . . And now she was in desperate trouble, a runaway creature who had been driven to the despairing act of taking someone else’s baby. The crying of the little one came to him, a thin frightened wail, as if it had sensed the terror, the anger, of the woman in whose arms it lay.

  Shona had heard him, she half-turned and he caught a glimpse of the enraged fear in her eyes, like an animal at bay. her curtain of hair in disarray over her shoulders, her face a white blur against the yellow stones of the abbey walls.

  Her name was torn from high up in his throat. ‘Shona! Wait! I only want to talk to you!’

  But she turned and ran, plunging into the ruins of the chapel, the infant held close to her breast. He stumbled in after her and she was trapped, unable to go any further, ensnared by the looming east wall of the ancient ruin in which she had sought to hide. Frantically she moved her head from side to side, cursing herself for having slept longer than she meant in the cave. The faraway sound of a tractor had awakened her and she had known it was her father come to look for her, the way he had looked another time many years ago. She had welcomed his intrusion then but this time she knew it would be different, he was only here for one reason – to take her baby away. The last time it hadn’t mattered, that baby had been dead – not like this child with the roses of life implanted into her plump little cheeks . . .

  She faced the minister, a bitter resentment burning in her, mingling with a deep apprehension that fanned her smouldering anger to flames of fury. Her father hadn’t come alone, he had brought a stranger with him, a man with compassion in his compelling eyes and treachery in his beseeching words. But – he wasn’t a stranger, she knew him, from somewhere she knew him – she had seen him before, standing at an altar – in a church – blessing a baby. Some strange twist of fate had brought them together in a similar setting – and the baby that he had blessed was in tier arms and she remembered now; he had blessed her baby, had held her in his arms – and now he had come to take her away. He had deceived her into believing he was a man of God – but he wasn’t. If he was a good man he wouldn’t be doing this to her, approaching her, his arms outstretched – reaching out to snatch her baby away.

  ‘Don’t touch me!’ The scream was torn from her, plucked from her throat by another being who was inside her, warning her, goading her into uncontrollable rage. The sound of her voice rang round the chapel, echoed in the cloisters, reverberated over and over, making her want to clap her hands against her ears to shut out the dreadful noise. Ellie too was frightened by it, her tiny face was puckered, her delicate skin suffused with blood.

  Over the stranger’s shoulder she saw more people coming – pounding in through the arch, their white faces staring – at her – at Ellie. Her father was among them – and Niall, the man who had caused the death of that little girl and whose guilt showed in the haunted eyes and stark gauntness of his face. He had taken one child and now he had come for hers – he was moving, coming closer, his feet whispering over the moss and grasses on the earth floor of the chapel. Like the stranger, his arms were outstretched, his tortured eyes searing into her soul – the eyes of a man who pretended concern when all the time he wanted Ellie . . .

  ‘No! Stay away! Stay away!’ The dry sobbing protest burst from deep inside her head – over and over, while Ellie screamed in her arms and the woman with the sweet face cried and tried to say something which she couldn’t hear for all the noise.

  They were all advancing towards her and the terror inside her swelled like a living thing till she couldn’t breathe and the sky and the roofless ruin were falling in on top of her.

  ‘No!’ she screamed again. ‘Don’t take my baby – oh please – don’t take Ellie away!’ The scream tailed off to a piteous plea and Kirsteen put her hands over her face, unable to bear the tragic sight of proud, fearless Shona McKenzie, beaten, defeated; her poor face twisted in mental torture.

  Shona felt her legs giving way and she sagged, spent, utterly done – but she couldn’t let them take Ellie, she couldn’t. In a final desperate effort she pulled her head upright, her chin tilted, her huge burning eyes showing a defiance, a last glimpse of unconquered pride. Her heart was pounding, there was a buzzing in her ears, but she wouldn’t give in to them – she wouldn’t.

  She made a violent move backwards and twisted her ankle on a slab of stone – she was falling, falling, the faces in front of her swimming, blurring, closing in on her . . . Fergus and Lorn plunged forward simultaneously. Lorn to grab the baby, Fergus to catch his daughter to his heaving chest.

  Her senses swam, she heard the dull thudding of his heart in her ears. Her legs finally gave way and she sagged against him, her mouth falling open, her muscles twitching so violently she found it impossible to control her own body. Fergus gathered her to him, his lips pressed to her hair, his tears falling on the bright crown of her head.

  ‘My lassie, my lassie,’ he sobbed harshly. ‘Oh God! I’m so sorry – so sorry it had to be this way.’

  Her arms were torn and bloodied, the flesh of her legs ripped by thorn bushes, her dress hanging in ragged strips, exposing the soft flesh of her shapely legs. Niall tore off his shirt and wrapped it round her shoulders, his heart so overburdened with grief he found it impossible to speak – say something comforting to this demented creature who was the wife he loved more than his own life.

  Part Four

  Winter 1961

  Chapter Fourteen

  Shona wakened slowly, disorientated as she glanced round the room with its ochre carpet and soft yellow curtains. Staring up at the arched ceiling of the little alcove where sat her bed, she frowned a little, fighting down a mild sense of panic. She didn’t belong here; her place was in a small white room with starched bedlinen under her and a monotonously patterned coverlet on top of her – not this fluffy patchwork quilt which caressed her body like a big soft cloud and which made a move from its delicious warmth seem like the worst possible torture.

  For eternity – or for what seemed eternity – she had known only a place where the strangely oppressive silence was occasionally shattered by screams, by hopeless pleadings, sometimes from her own lips, at others from the lips of others with empty eyes and sad faces. White clinical figures had moved among those pathetic spectres, soothing, calming, often speaking in the sort of tone that might be used to still the fears of a restless child – a child . . . Her head moved on the pillow and she forced herself to concentrate on the room. It was a room filled with peace, with an almost tangible sense of happiness. Happy things must have happened here, people must have laughed a lot. The yellow curtains at the window were like sunshine – she put up her hand to trace the outline of a damp little patch on the ceiling. It was shaped like a head – the head of Jesus – how often it had comforted her to sleep as a child . . .

  She sat up quickly, letting the quilt slip from her shoulders. The sharp air of late autumn swept over her making her shiver. This was her room – the sunshine room – which meant that she was safely home at Laigmhor in her own bed. The journey of the day before came back to her, her father and Niall looking after her, concern, kindness on their faces. Last night she had been so tired, too tired to really take any of it in, to believe that it was really happening. A great wave of relief washed over her and putting her fingers to her mouth she gazed round the room with renewed interest; the dresser wi
th the china jug and the bowl she had washed in as a child. She could almost hear Mirabelle climbing the stairs, coming in, the pan of hot water in her hands, pouring it into the basin, cooling it with the cold water from the big flowery jug. She let her eyes rest on the fireplace with its red tiles and brass paraphernalia winking in the morning light. The fire had only been lit when she had been ill in bed and sometimes Mirabelle had sat beside it to knit or sew, rocking herself contentedly while her fingers worked busily. She wasn’t ill now, but last night the fire had been lit, her father taking a shovelful of glowing embers from the kitchen fire to put into the grate of the sunshine room, quelling her protests with a few gentle words.

  ‘Mirabelle,’ she whispered, ‘I’ve been ill – but I’m all right now – except – sometimes I’m so – lonely.’

  Swinging her legs to the edge of the bed she pushed her feet into her slippers and walked slowly over to look from the window. It was a still, mellow October day, the slopes of Ben Machrie were bronzed with the dying bracken, interspersed with patches of yellow and the purple-tipped bare branches of the birch trees; the smoke from Portcull lay in a soft blue haze among the woods by Loch Tenee; a few peat gatherers were trundling towards the moors, slowly, lazily, the ponies that pulled the carts as placid as their owners. Kate McKinnon and Barra McLean were on the road below, walking close together, heads wagging busily. Kate glanced up and saw her and her arm went up, her big, radiant smile plainly discernible. Shona waved back, a trifle subdued as she wondered . . . there must have been talk – so much talk about – how she had stolen Ruth’s baby.

  At thought of Ruth she cringed back from the window – Ruth could be down there too – worse still – she could be in the house and she couldn’t face her – not yet. She didn’t feel strong enough to face anyone though it was inevitable. She wondered where Niall was, Niall who had been such a regular visitor at the hospital, sitting with her, hour after hour, holding her hand, speaking to her when he might as well have talked to the wall. She had been too confused to respond to anything – anybody, she hadn’t known anyone. They had all just been anonymous ghost figures moving in front of her vision, meaningless shapes who meant nothing. Later, when she knew who they were she had wanted to creep back into her lonely world again, to escape the painful memories they brought with them. And several times she had gone back, relapsed into blankness where no one could reach her. In a way she had wanted to stay in her empty drifting world forever, where there was no pain, no sorrow, just herself locked away in the private prison her mind had created. The trouble was no one would allow her to stay locked up, they were all so eager to bring her back, glimpse a flicker of the person she had been – before losing Ellie. And the torture of coming out, bit by painful bit, was the worst kind of hell of all. She had fought to get back inside herself but it had been no use. The doctors were too clever for her, they made her face reality, face the stark dreadful truth about Ellie – and when she finally came to accept that cruel bitter blow she had wanted to curl up in a ball and die too – only no one would leave her in peace to do it, they were all pulling, dragging at her senses in their efforts to win her back to health. Against her will, her body had responded, her weak flesh had cried out for sustenance, making her eat and drink, taking the vitamins the doctors told her she needed. And yet there was still so much of her locked away that couldn’t be reached. Not even the look of despair in her father’s dark eyes, nor the patient hope in Niall’s could force her to do any more. The doctors said it would take time and patience.