Niall went immediately home to tell his parents that he was going away again and wouldn’t be back for Christmas. Phebie looked pleadingly at her son, but the hurt, lost look on his face stilled her tongue.
‘It might be better, Niall,’ she said quietly, ‘though I thought you would – at least come home for Christmas.’
Lachlan put a firm arm round his son’s shoulders. ‘Do as you think best, son,’ he said gently. ‘But remember, if you feel like coming back for the festive season we’ll be waiting, you know that.’
‘Ay, I know.’ Niall brushed a hand over his eyes. ‘I’ll write and let you know how I’m getting along – but right now, I’m going to pack.’
He went out of the room leaving his parents to look at one another in bewilderment, a dull sadness in each of their hearts as they wondered what the future held for the son who was everything to them.
It was homely and cosy in Nellie MacIntosh’s croft which was situated close enough to the rolling Atlantic ocean for the salt sprays of winter tides to splash into the garden where kale and cabbage somehow managed to survive and even flourish in the seaweed tossed so carelessly over the stony earth. Nellie’s Croft, as it was known to all, was a favourite place of Niall’s, the house in which he stayed most frequently on his sojourns to Hanaay which, with its population of a hundred and fifty, was even more insular than Rhanna. The way of life had changed little over the last hundred years, the predominant language being Gaelic and though the children learned English at school and could converse in the two languages equally well, the ‘foreign’ tongue was left behind when they departed back to their Gaelic-speaking homes. The ceilidhs, the Seanachaidhs, the cracks, the strupaks, were the main source of winter entertainment, enjoyed more often than not in a blackhouse where the thatch was blackened by the ever-burning peats and the raw cold of the Atlantic was kept at bay by walls several feet deep, through which no draughts, could penetrate. The Hanaay people were soft spoken and friendly, and when visitors came they left with an impression of goodwill and kindness, and almost all vowed to come back one day to an island where ‘time had stood still’.
It was here, on Hanaay, that Ellie had run and played and it was on the boulder-strewn beach behind Nellie’s Croft that she had found the baby otter. Now Niall walked those same lonely shores, with only the surging of the wild ocean and the cries of seabirds to keep him company, remembering Ellie, seeing her dancing in the summer spray, hearing her laughter, thinking about how the tears had sprung to her gentle eyes the day they found a dead seal, rolling and swaying in the swirling tide race. Now he had his daughter no more, she was lost, lost to him forever, never again would he know the mortal joy of her, feel touched by the happiness which had surrounded her wherever she went. And not only had he lost Ellie, it seemed he had lost his wife as well, lost her as surely as if she too had died. The cold, empty woman he had left behind on Rhanna wasn’t the spirited one he had known. The light of her life had been quenched by grief and so too had the love which she had always given him so freely. He felt drained, sucked dry of all emotion, and as he walked, hour after hour, day after day, feeling neither cold nor hunger, he felt as if he too might be dead so little was there in life to look forward to.
As the days melted into weeks, with Christmas looming on the horizon, Nellie became so worried she spoke to Mac about it. She stood in the cosy kitchen, her hands folded over her rounded stomach, a frown on her plump face with its jutting jaw which made her look perpetually grim, belying her caring, kindly nature. Her salt and pepper hair was rolled into a tight sausage round her head, emphasizing the layer of fat on her neck; her skirts, worn just above the calf, revealed dimpled knees on legs which looked impossibly inadequate to support her rotund figure; her feet were splayed, stuck into big checked woolly bootees with the zips undone and the sole of one unstuck so that it slip-slapped whenever she moved. The lack of time she spent on her appearance was obvious, but Nellie had better things to do with her time and was not ashamed of the interest she took in other people’s affairs nor of her eagerness to try and right the wrongs she encountered.
‘The lad is growing thinner by the hour,’ she told her brother grimly, ‘I canny bide to watch such a decent cratur’ going down like this. We will have to do something about it and no mistake.’
Mac didn’t answer immediately. Seated by the glowing peat fire, his bulbous nose a bright red, his stockinged feet wiggling contentedly on the hearth, a glass of rum in his big purpled fist, he contemplated her words for quite some time. Holding the glass of spirits near the fire he enjoyed the patterns made by the changing light, his brown eyes gently panning the glass from top to bottom. With slow deliberation he removed the poker from the fire where it had been heating for the last five minutes and plunged the glowing tip into the liquid, satisfaction curling his grizzled mouth as the sizzling assaulted his willing ears and the fragrance of burnt rum filled his nostrils. With a calculated show of tentativeness he took a sip, swallowed it, his Adam’s apple working in noisy appreciation.
‘I quite agree wi’ you there, Nell,’ he nodded eventually, wiping his nose with a hairy-backed hand. ‘I don’t like the look o’ the lad myself and that’s a fact, ay, indeed I do not.’
‘Well, and what are we going to do about it?’ Nellie’s slipper slapped the floor in agitation. ‘He canny go on like this, the Lord knows. I would have him here forever if I thought it would help him but it’s no’, indeed it’s no’, and I’m blessed if I know what to do for the best.’
Mac considered his answer for a few more lip-smacking moments before saying ponderously but decisively, ‘We’d best send him home where he belongs, Nell.’
Nellie sat down on a long-suffering rocking chair with labouring springs, its round wooden seat unable to contain her rolling hips which overlapped the edges in burgeoning folds.
‘Send him home?’ Her voice was squeaky with surprise. ‘What on earth good would that do I’d like to know? Surely he came here to get away from all his bothers. The drink is going to your head, my lad, I aye said it would in the end.’
Mac ignored this. ‘But he’s no’ escapin’ all the bothers, is he? Oh no! He’s brought them here wi’ him and here they are just festerin’ away in his mind like sores. That kind o’ thing is no use to anybody. No, he’d be better goin’ back and facin’ his problems at their source. At least on Rhanna he has his faither and mither and if you are mindin’ the way things were wi’ us when we were young there is no one like a mither to ease the ails o’ a sore heart.’
Nellie wiped her nose with her grubby apron. ‘Ay, you’re maybe right there, Mac. There’s sense buried somewhere in that snowy thatch o’ yours. Besides, it will be Christmas soon and everyone should be wi’ their own at Christmas.’ She paused and her eyes filled with tears. ‘It will be sore on him, mind, Christmas trees and parties, they are all the sort o’ things to mind him o’ our wee Ellie. My, you know, Mac, I canny right believe myself that she’s gone. I can see her now, her wee bum on this very chair I am murderin’ now, thon baby otter on her knee, her bonny hair about her face whiles she laughed and talked to it.’
Mac sighed heavily, ‘Ay, it’s a sore life, Nell, a sore life. I loved the bairnie like one o’ my own. My, we had a grand time with her over at Breac Beag – “I could fine live here, Mac,” she said to me once. “I’d never have to go to school again and could just pass my time lookin’ after injured seabirds and other cratur’s.” “And what about all those human cratur’s you are wantin’ to cure when you are a doctor?” I asked her. “You’ll no’ find many o’ these hereabouts.” She went all serious on me and then she threw her wee arms about me, kissed me on the tip o’ my nose and called me a cunning old sea dog! Ay, she was a bairn anybody could love and that’s a fact.’ He sniffed and got to his feet, surreptitiously wiping his hand over his eyes, his voice less steady when he said decisively, ‘We’ll tell the lad tonight, Nell, it is for the best, just you wait and see.’
But that evening
, seated round warmly by the fire, hearing the sea lashing and the wind moaning round the house, Niall’s reaction to Mac’s suggestion was half-incredulous, half-indignant. His thin face, flushed from a mixture of the fire’s heat and rising agitation, looked pathetically haunted as he cried, ‘For God’s sake, Mac, I’m just finding my feet here, giving myself time to think! What on earth’s gotten into the pair of you?’
‘You are no’ finding anything here, far less your feets,’ Mac said firmly, though his heart was already melting at the hurt expression on Niall’s face. ‘As for thinkin’ – you’re doin’ too damty much o’ it and no’ enough doing. You are just goin’ round in circles, lad, and the longer you stay here the more fankled your mind will become.’
‘Am I in the road, is that it?’ Niall couldn’t contain his anger. ‘Or is it because I’m not paying my way well enough – if that’s what’s bothering you I’ll give you more – everything I have if necessary.’ He halted at sight of Nellie’s face. She had half turned away but the crimson staining her neck gave away her embarrassment and he was immediately repentant, voicing his apologies in some confusion.
‘You should know better, laddie,’ she rebuked him with a nod, ‘I would spend my days scrabblin’ in the ground for tatties and be happy to live on tattie broth for the rest o’ my days if it was going to be of any help to you but that’s no’ what we’re meaning and fine you know it too.’
‘Ach, look you, let us no’ get upset now,’ Mac said placatingly. ‘We will have a wee tot o’ rum or maybe two and talk this over like sensible chiels.’
Niall stared down at his restless hands and said in a low voice, ‘It’s all right, I’m a hot-headed fool, I never used to be so . . . well, you know what it is. But you’re both right, it’s time I was going. God knows I’ve done enough walking and thinking to last me a lifetime. What I need to do now is stop for a while and try to get it all into perspective – ay – that’s what I must do. The sea is calm enough at the moment so I’ll be off at first light.’
Mac stared. ‘But – surely you’re no’ goin’ alone, lad? I’m all set to come wi’ you. I didny become the skipper o’ The Sea Urchin for nothing and I will no’ be paid good sillar just for sittin’ on my backside doin’ nothing.’
But Niall seemed to have reached a decision and there was a faint sparkle in his eyes when he put his arm round Mac’s shoulders. ‘You stay and enjoy Christmas with Nellie and the folks here. I’m not a fool, I’ve learned most of what there is to know about boats and the sea – thanks to my skipper.’
‘Ach, it takes a lifetime to learn even a quarter o’ the ways o’ the green monster.’ Mac’s frown pulled his bushy eyebrows into an unbroken line. He argued the point for a few minutes but Niall was adamant now, a firmness in his manner that brooked no further objections. He went to his room in order to pack a few things and go early to bed leaving Nellie and Mac wondering if they had done the right thing.
By first light next morning Captain Mac was down at the sheltered inlet of Hook Bay where The Sea Urchin had been anchored since their arrival. Silvery light played on the calm water which was empty but for a lone lobster boat and the skeleton of a wreck partially submerged by high tide. Mac dug his hands into his pockets and walked back to the croft where Nellie was cooking bacon and eggs on the hot plate of the range which was kept burning day and night. At Mac’s entry she turned, tucking away a loose strand of hair.
‘He’s away then?’ she nodded.
Mac sat down, rubbing his cold, mottled hands together, his big nose sniffing the air in appreciation. ‘Ay, he went wi’ the tide. He wasny long in hoppin’ away, as if he was glad to see the back o’ us, yet look at the way he was when we first suggested it.’
‘He’ll be better at home.’ Her fire-flushed face was full of conviction. ‘Sometimes a wee push is all that’s needed to get a body goin’ in the right direction.’ She glanced at Niall’s vacant chair and sighed, ‘It will be funny without him for he is a darlin’ boy and no mistake – and he has manners – no’ like you wi’ your great galumpin’ starved lookin’ face and your hairy hands never washed. Get into that scullery this meenit and get the dirt off yourself. You’ll get no breakfast till you do!’
Mac sighed and rose grudgingly. Much as he enjoyed his visits to his sister there were times when the urge to be on the water once more was unbearable. There was a strange wild solitude to the roar of the waves and an exhilaration such as he never found on dry land. As he went to the sink to scrub his hands, his thoughts were with Niall out there on the ocean – and somehow the idea of him being alone made him – uneasy.
Chapter Fifteen
The days leading up to Christmas advanced with startling rapidity as they were wont to do when dozens of small tasks became magnified out of all proportion. The weather had been extremely mild for December but now a wild spell hit the Hebrides with vicious ferocity, bringing storms and gales which left havoc in their wake. The aftermath invariably saw folk scurrying to retrieve roof slates and bits of corrugated iron from fields and shore. Old Meggie of Nigg was unfortunate enough to waken one morning and find that half of her roof had been carried off in the night, bits of it blowing over the cliffs and landing on the shore far below. Undaunted, she immediately moved her necessities into the blackhouse which sat alongside the ‘modern hoosie’ and which was kept as a henhouse and storeshed combined; though, like quite a few of her generation, she always kept the living area reserved for emergencies, quite happy to remain in the cosier hoosie for as long as need be.
For Tam McKinnon the storms were a mixed blessing as he was never short of work though it was with frequent martyred sighs that he set off on his rounds of repairs, accompanied by his youngest son, Wullie, who was an excellent tradesman, despite his indolent appearance. It was Wullie who noticed that some of the slates had come off the roof of Mo Dhachaidh and Tam affected rather offended surprise as, it being dinner time, he had hoped that they could get along home without any further delay. He paused and took more thorough note of the old house, nostalgia sweeping over him at the remembrance of Biddy.
‘My, my, it’s lookin’ awful neglected, son,’ he observed, his gaze sweeping over the garden which had got off to such a triumphant start in the spring but which was now flattened by the wind and the sheep. The windows of the house were dirty and cobwebby in the limpid light of day, with the hens huddling miserably on the sills or clucking dismally among the ruins of the garden, reliant on passers-by to scatter an odd bowl of grain from the wooden barrel in the henhouse.
Tam dispatched Wullie to see to the hens and, feeling it his duty to auld Biddy, popped into Laigmhor to report on the state of the house. Laigmhor was empty but for Shona in the kitchen, half-heartedly peeling vegetables. Tam hesitated. Everyone had mourned sorely for the family who had suffered the loss of a beloved child and sympathies had been high for Shona during her illness. But as time wore on and she showed no sign of coming out of herself people were beginning to ask themselves if she ever would. Only those who had visited Laigmhor had seen her since her return from hospital and staunch as they were, they couldn’t help but be offended when their approaches were met with curt response. It was with some trepidation therefore that Tam faced her for, to put it in his own words, he would ‘sooner face a Uisga Caillich than a McKenzie in a black mood’.
Shona didn’t turn from her task and his voice dropped like pebbles into the silence of the kitchen. He stood, shuffling his feet, wishing he hadn’t been so smart, telling himself he should have sent Wullie instead. ‘I’ll be going then.’ He sidled to the door.
‘Ay, away you go, Tam.’ Shona’s glance fell on his muddy bootmarks on the clean floor. ‘Didn’t Kate ever train you to wipe your feet?’ she asked sharply.
‘Ay, ay, it’s just – I forgot,’ he said lamely, twisting his cap in his work-grimed hands, adding daringly, ‘How are you keeping these days, lass? We miss you about the place. Kate was just saying she would like fine to see you more in the vil
lage.’
Shona put down the vegetable knife, wiped her hands on her apron and looked at him resentfully. ‘It’s well seeing you have such a carefree life, Tam McKinnon, to be saying a thing like that. Does anything other than whisky and mischief touch your life, I wonder?’
Tam’s homely face crumpled with dismay. ‘We all have our ails, Shona,’ he chided respectfully, ‘and when a man has a family to look to he has the worry o’ them forbye. Now that you mention it, Kate and myself have been more than a mite worried about our Nancy. She has just come home after another operation to – well – to have another bosom taken away and the soul is a wee bitty depressed. Wullie and me have just been to see how is she. We went in wi’ our faces straight and came out wi’ them smilin’ for you know what a joker she is and can even laugh when she is no’ feelin’ well.’
Shona’s face had gone pale and remorse filled her heart. ‘Oh, Tam, I’m sorry, I didn’t know – I – I’ve been out of touch with things. When next you see her give her my love and tell her – I’ll – I’ll be along to see her soon – Nancy has always been special to me and I know how you must feel. I’m a bitch for biting your head off just now and will be grateful if you would spare the time to see to things – up yonder. Go you along and have your dinner and I’ll get along and see the damage at Mo Dhachaidh for myself.’
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