Song of Rhanna (The Rhanna series)

by Christine Marion Fraser

  ‘Well, seein’ it’s you I don’t see the harm in it,’ said Mollie hastily, having no wish to let another steal her thunder. ‘It is about the doctor. He has decided to take an early retirement and it seems as if we will be havin’ a new mannie whenever one can be found.’

  ‘Lachlan, retiring!’ Kate’s pleasant face was dismayed. ‘I thought we would be havin’ him for a couple o’ years yet. Ach my, it will no’ be the same wi’ another doctor, Lachlan is just one o’ us and though he is a man I have never felt shy about showin’ him my personal parts. I mind I had an awful itch once – down below,’ she had lowered her voice to a loud whisper. ‘Lachlan told me to take off my breeks and the damty things got caught on my toenail. I weeched my leg high in the air and off came my breeks wi’ a flourish – right into Lachlan’s face. They were clean mind for I had just put them on before seeing him but just the same a woman’s knickers is no’ the sort o’ thing a man gets thrown in his face every day o’ the week. Well, I was so flabbergasted that for a minute I couldny speak then Lachlan began laughing and couldny stop and there the pair o’ us were, me wi’ my bare bum and Lachlan wi’ my breeks decorating his shoulders, shriekin’ the place down wi’ such force Phebie came runnin’ to see if he was maybe murderin’ one o’ his patients. Phebie sat down on a chair and began laughing too, fanning herself wi’ my breeks of all things, and just about peein’ her own. The three o’ us near died wi’ exhaustion it was that funny.’ Kate paused for breath and shook her head. ‘I canny see the same sort o’ thing happening wi’ a new doctor, it will be terrible just,’ she ended somewhat dismally.

  ‘Ach, it might no’ be all that bad,’ consoled Mollie. ‘He might turn out to be like auld McLure and he was never a mannie to turn up his nose at a pair o’ breeks if I’m mindin’ right.’

  ‘Auld McLure! He was a dirty old bugger, that he was, he couldny wait to get the breeks off his women patients – forbye that he was so busy drinkin’ and gossiping he had no time to spare to see to the ails o’ the island. We don’t want his likes here again.’

  ‘It will be a young mannie maybe,’ said Mollie soothingly. ‘But whatever he is we will just have to put up wi’ it or do without. Now, we had better get this table set, the boat will be coming in soon.’

  Ruth waited rather nervously on the pier watching the crowd streaming down the gangplank. She scanned the faces anxiously, wishing for the umpteenth time that day that she was possessed of more confidence to handle situations like this. She had so looked forward to Rachel coming but now that the moment was actually here she found a slight panic rising within her.

  ‘Ach, stop it!’ she scolded herself impatiently. ‘It’s Rachel you’ve come to meet, someone you’ve known and loved all your life . . .’

  Rachel’s tall figure was making its way down the gangplank. She was more beautiful than Ruth had ever remembered, a figure of elegance in a stunning red suit that enhanced every curve of her shapely body and was a perfect foil for the masses of shining black hair that tumbled about her shoulders. She was poised and confident, so perfectly groomed she seemed to Ruth during those first swift impressions to be entirely out of keeping with her surroundings. Then she looked up, spotted Ruth among the crowd and a warm smile of pleasure lit her face. All her sophistication left her as she rushed forward and threw her arms round her friend.

  They stood back to survey one another. Ruth’s fair skin was glowing, her hair against the sun was dazzling, the soft folds of her simple print dress sat well on her dainty figure, so that altogether she was a picture of natural prettiness. ‘It’s lovely to see you again, Rachel,’ she said softly, rather shyly. Rachel smiled and nodded. She gazed around at the hills and breathed a deep sigh of appreciation then she and Ruth gathered up the cases and walked together along the harbour to Kate’s cottage.

  Old Joe was so wrapped up in his thoughts he didn’t see the figures of the two girls approaching the cottage till their shadows blotted out the sun and Ruth’s light musical voice came to him as softly as the whisper of the breeze over the waves.

  ‘Dreaming of the mermaids again I see. You were that still we thought for a minute you were one of these wee gnomes folks put in their gardens till we saw the smoke from your pipe floating upwards.’

  ‘Ach, havers, lass,’ Joe’s sea-green eyes twinkled. ‘Can you imagine Tam wi’ a fairy in his garden? Thon great feet o’ his would have stamped it to powder long ago.’

  Rising stiffly he paused to take stock of the raven-haired girl standing beside Ruth. Joe had to remind himself that this sophisticated-looking creature was still, after all, a relative of his, a distant one to be sure but one nevertheless in whose veins the McKinnon blood flowed. She was looking at him, an anxious little frown marring her brow. She couldn’t bear to come back to her birthplace and not be treated as the child he had once rocked on his knee while he whispered his wondrous tales of the sea into her delighted ears.

  He held out his big, strong old arms and she threw her own around him with such enthusiasm he wheezed and chuckled and held her back to beam at her. ‘My, you’re a bonny, bonny lassie, and we are all so proud o’ you we could burst. I see though you have come back to us in the nick o’ time. You’re too skinny, mo ghaoil, we’ll have to feed you up.’

  Over her head he winked at Ruth standing a little way back. Ruth had wanted to take Rachel straight back to Fàilte, but Kate had been most adamant that they stop off at her cottage first so that they could all get a chance to see Rachel as soon as she came off the boat. And now Ruth was glad that they had, for her first sight of her friend had woken a shyness in her that had been totally unexpected. She was so poised, so different from the Rachel she knew and after the first greetings a mild panic had sprung into Ruth’s breast as she wondered if she had done the right thing asking Rachel to stay at her humble little house. She was glad of people like Joe who she felt wouldn’t have batted one eyelid if the Queen herself had come to visit and she nodded in agreement as he went on, ‘We will take her inside and feed her some o’ her grannie’s rock cakes. By God!’ He shook his head emphatically. ‘A few o’ them will put you on your feets all right for they will sink there like stones and make you feel you are on a pedestal – and don’t be surprised if you never get off the damty island again for wi’ Kate’s bakin’ inside you the boat would just sink to the bottom wi’ you and everybody else in it.’

  ‘Joe McKinnon!’ Kate’s lusty voice lashed out. ‘What are you haverin’ about out there?’

  The door was thrown open and Kate appeared, her face wreathed in smiles at sight of her granddaughter. ‘Rachel, it is yourself! And the bodach never bringing you inside. The kettle has been on the boil ever since I saw the boat comin’ in. Ruth, away you go ben the larder and bring out the sandwiches. Where are the bairns, by the way? I made them some special wee cakes wi’ coloured icing on top.’

  ‘I left them with Kirsteen,’ explained Ruth, ignoring Joe’s nudges and winks and his whispered, ‘It’s as well you didny bring them. They would never have survived Kate’s baking.’

  Tam arrived on the scene, puffing and out of breath, for he had been well warned by Kate to be home in time to welcome Rachel or suffer the consequences.

  In the noisy happy hour that followed Rachel threw off her cloak of convention and became once again the Rachel that everyone remembered. Some of her happiest memories were of Kate’s cluttered, homely cottage with its stunning views over the white sands of the bay and the great bulk of Sgurr nan Ruadh prodding its sullen peak into the clouds. She sat by the window, drinking tea, listening in delight to the lilting voices around her, glad, oh so glad to be home again, feeling as if she had never been away from an island where time drifted so pleasantly and people lived such natural lives. The noise, the stress of city life seemed very very far away. Here she wasn’t Rachel Jodl, a rising star to be worshipped and applauded. Here she was plain Rachel McKinnon, an island girl – one of them. She gazed with sparkling eyes round the little room, at the people
with their laughing faces and musical voices, she looked from the window with its pattern of cobwebs in the corners to the great peaceful tracts of moor, sea, and sky, and her heart sang. Her eloquent hands spoke all the volumes her lips would never speak and though Tam and Kate only understood some of the things she tried to convey it was enough that they smiled and nodded and occasionally looked awed as she rhymed off all the places in the world she had visited.

  During a lull she sat back and gave her attention to Ruth. They smiled at one another, smiles that brought the past into the present. Each recalled their own particular memories of one another and it was all there in their eyes as gradually the last three years of separation slipped away along with all the little politenesses they had displayed towards each other since meeting at the harbour.

  The clocks ticked, the fire crackled, Old Joe slept, Tam poked the depths of his pipe with a piece of bent wire, Mollie and Kate muttered sympathetically over their respective bunions, and all the while Rachel and Ruth longed to be alone so that they could catch up on three missed years. Ruth was bonny and glowing that day, her hair was a sheaf of pure flax in the sunlight, her cheeks were sun-flushed roses, her eyes the purple of pansies, dark and velvety. Rachel felt an affinity with her as she felt with no other. As a child she had been shy, plain and skinny, as a young girl Ruth had blossomed painfully into a being of grace and loveliness. Now she had grown into a more assured young woman, quiet and restful looking on the surface but exuding an oddly sensual quality which contrasted strangely with her look of shyness and air of vulnerability. Yet, despite it she had found her love, found it so completely – with Lorn, that dour, handsome young McKenzie who seemed to grow more and more like Lewis every time she saw him . . .

  Rachel turned her thoughts away and wondered if Jon was missing her. But of course he was! He always missed her when they had to be apart – too much sometimes. Often she felt she wasn’t strong enough or good enough to deserve such an unselfish devoted love as Jon’s. She could never give him such an unstinting love in return. Oh, he had her undying affection, her caring, but never never could she give to him that wild, abandoned, carefree love she had given for the first and last time to Lewis McKenzie – and Jon deserved so much more than Lewis had ever done – yet, much as she worshipped the dear steadfast man who had given her so much, she couldn’t give him her heart and sometimes she hated herself for it . . .

  A movement outside the window caught her eye. The next minute the door opened to admit her Aunt Nancy and Annie, her mother; rosy, windblown, slightly embarrassed looking as she stood hesitating on the threshold.

  ‘Come you in and have a cuppy,’ Kate invited her daughters, eyeing Annie with some annoyance. Exuberant and outgoing herself, with a heart amply brimming with affection for her offspring, she couldn’t understand a child of hers who couldn’t exhibit similar feelings towards her own daughter. Somewhere in Kate’s happy-go-lucky nature she knew it was because Annie was bemused by her beautiful daughter’s successes and wasn’t possessed of the sophistication to know how best to conduct herself in the girl’s company.

  Rachel had half risen, unfolding her long legs slowly, till she stood, a striking figure in the homely kitchen, a defensive look about her which clashed with the glint of expectancy in her dark eyes. Annie patted her dark hair nervously and cleared her throat. ‘You’re lookin’ well, Rachel, a mite thin but I suppose it is to be expected in the kind o’ life you lead.’

  The fire in Rachel’s eyes died quickly away and she turned her head to hide her disappointment. Her mother always welcomed her in this formal, rather critical way but Rachel hoped, always she hoped, that one day things might be different.

  Tam looked at his daughter, his homely face creased into a frown. ‘Annie, Annie, is that any way to welcome back a lassie you have no’ set eyes on for years? Look you, I am only her grandfather but by God! I’m proud o’ her, that I am! I have just come from the hotel and Rachel’s song was playin’ there on the wireless. Some o’ the lads picked it up on their fiddles and I was that happy I nearly choked in my beer!’ He turned to Rachel, his eyes shining. ‘I tell you, mo ghaoil, you have brought honour to the good family name, ay, you have that. Wait you till Jon comes back, we’ll have a real grand ceilidh to celebrate all your successes.’

  Nancy nodded eagerly at this. ‘Ay, and I will put on my best pair o’ bosoms and get Mairi to do my hair.’ She hoisted up the left side of her chest with a giggle. ‘These buggers are aye slipping, it wouldny do to wear them to a ceilidh in honour o’ a famous violinist.’

  Everyone laughed. It was impossible not to laugh in Nancy’s company. She was so amusingly frank about her mastectomy operation that nobody ever felt embarrassed when she spoke about it and indeed, she did a great deal to allay the fears a lot of the womenfolk felt about the dread disease that had cost Nancy both her breasts. She made no secret of the fact that she had different artificial breasts for different occasions and it was commonplace to hear her discussing which set to wear the way other women might ponder over what dress they ought to wear for this or that outing. At home she had a set hanging above the dressing table in her bedroom, ‘to keep them in shape and to mind Archie of the joys of a woman’s body’. She was not at all dismayed should anyone happen to see them there, explaining the reasons with perfect frankness. She lay back in her chair and began to hum the Song of Rhanna and old Joe, wakened from his sleep, tapped his feet on the hearth. The tune really getting into his blood he took up his fiddle and began to play. Tam slipped over to the sideboard to pour drinks for everyone and in minutes a good-going impromptu ceilidh was in full swing. Rachel didn’t take up her own violin, content just then to leave the musical side to the others, but she clapped her hands and laughed as Mollie and Kate held the floor in a jig and Tam grabbed Ruth to whirl her round till the cups on the table rattled and the floorboards creaked under the dusty carpet.

  Annie tossed back her whisky and slipped over to sit beside her daughter. Rachel stopped clapping and looked at her mother, wondering if she was going to say something critical again. But Annie’s hand came out to clasp Rachel’s tightly and she said in a husky voice, ‘I am proud o’ you, my lassie, I – I just don’t know how best to tell you these things. It was nice o’ you to write at Christmas – and to send me – what you did. You’re a good, good daughter and I’m glad to see you back on the island.’

  It was a gruff welcome home but it was more than enough for Rachel. Visibly she relaxed and returned her mother’s clasp, her long fingers trembling very slightly. Ruth threw herself down beside them, her hair mussed attractively about her sparkling face, her breath coming quickly.

  ‘Tam McKinnon, you don’t dance, you clod-hop,’ she panted and Annie laughed.

  ‘Father aye had two left feet! That’s why Mother has such bonny bunions on her today. He nearly kicked her to death when they were courtin’.’

  Rachel’s hands moved, asking her mother if she minded her staying with Ruth. To Annie’s credit she had taken the trouble to learn a certain amount of her daughter’s sign language and was able to interpret the message. She shook her head, too readily, ‘Indeed no, mo ghaoil, you go and enjoy yourself wi’ Ruth. I haveny the room for grand young ladies such as you, even if you are my own daughter.’

  Rachel nodded slowly. She had no desire to be thought of as a grand young lady and never had, despite the glamour of her busy life. Now that she was home her only desire was to be treated like everyone else and not to be looked upon as different in any way.

  The ceilidh was really warming up when she and Ruth took their leave. Several neighbours, having heard the wild skirls and hoochs, arrived to join in the fun and the house was so full Rachel gave up trying to reach Kate to thank her for the strupak and turned instead to the door to see that Dugald had just arrived with his van, an arrangement made previously by Ruth. Into the battered old van he piled Rachel’s cases, smiling warmly at her as he commented, ‘You must be planning to stay for a whily, lass. Yo
u have enough here to last a year.’

  Rachel smiled back, glad to see that he had regained a lot of his sparkle. The last time she had seen him had been at Morag’s deathbed and then he had looked gaunt and ill and near to death himself.

  On the short drive to Laigmhor, where they were to look in to say hello, Ruth spoke about her father’s forthcoming marriage to Totie. ‘You’ve come at a good time, Rachel. Maybe Jon will be back in time for the wedding and we can let him see what a real island wedding is like. It was a pity you never had your own here, I was sorry to have missed it.’

  She wondered if she had said the wrong thing because Rachel made little response, seemingly too engrossed in the scenery to be bothered with much else. Her wedding to Jon had taken place in Germany, far away from island tradition, far too from painful memories which she often wondered if she would ever be allowed to forget. She saw that it was going to be difficult to even try, folks on the island had long memories and enjoyed dwelling on the more momentous happenings of the past, raking them up with nostalgia and a certain amount of malice if they had been events that had shocked at the time. But Rachel knew nothing like that existed in Ruth’s mind and that her mention of weddings was only an attempt to make pleasant conversation. Squeezing her friend’s hand to show she understood she turned once more to the window and Ruth said nothing more till they reached Laigmhor. Kirsteen insisted that they all come in ‘for a whily’ and it was almost an hour later and well after teatime when they finally took their leave. The children had exhausted themselves playing with all the animals in and around the farm and they sat quietly with their mother in the makeshift seat Dugald had installed in the back of the vehicle.

  Rachel sat in the front, watching the glen road unwind as the rickety old van bounced and rattled its way along. The hills reared up on either side, serene and blue except where the sinking sun splashed on the bracken, turning it a fiery red. The peace of the island lay all around, Rachel could feel it seeping into her very marrow and a little shiver went through her. This was her home, where she belonged, she felt steeped in the very rocks of the hills. The strange, sweet, poignant mystery of the Hebridean evening brought a thousand memories flooding back. The scent of peat smoke was so evocative she felt the tears springing to her eyes. The whiteness of the little cottage slumbering in the gloaming near Downie’s Pass, leapt out at her like a ghost in the night. But it was a friendly ghost, invoking memories of auld Biddy; standing by the gate waving her hanky to passers-by; dozing in her rocking chair by the fire. Rachel knew that Shona and Niall lived there now, but to her, in that moment it was Biddy’s house. The gurgling of the River Fallan caressed her ears like notes of music; the fluted piping of the curlew’s call mingled with the heron’s sharp cry as it glided on silent wings along the river’s course. These were the sounds she had remembered on her journeyings to foreign lands. They had filled her head, constantly tormenting her till order emerged from tumult and each one took its place as a note of music. The final composition had been written frantically as the sounds of the island poured into her head, pounding seas beating the shores, echoing into vast caverns, crashing over rocks; the wind moaning low over the heather; the purling of the burns; birdsong over the summer moors; soft breezes stirring the fields of golden corn. Might and majesty, peace and serenity, all had come together to produce the piece of music which had haunted her for so long. Now her song was echoing over all the land, the Song of Rhanna which the private part of her had wanted to keep to herself but which the extrovert in her had not allowed . . . Dugald was turning the van into the track which led to Fàilte. Rachel’s fingers tightened in her lap.