The Loud Halo

by Lillian Beckwith

  ‘Tell me all the news,’ I begged, when I had expressed my pleasure over the gifts. He rubbed his hand over his chin and frowned with concentration. After a few moments the frown lifted.

  ‘Tsere’s a lot of people told me to tell you tsey was askin’ after you,’ he said and reeled off a list of names. ‘An’ Morag said to tell you your cow and hens is doin’ fine,’ he finished up.

  I nodded gratefully. ‘And how is everyone in Bruach and what have they been doing?’ I asked him.

  ‘Ach, tsey’re fine,’ he said. ‘An’ tsey’re just where tse tide left tsem when last you saw tsem. I don’t know tsat tsey’ve been doin’ anytsing at all.’

  I had been in hospital for some weeks and even in Bruach I was sure something would have happened in that time. Surely someone had bought a new cow, or lost an old one. Or someone’s hay had blown away or someone’s horse had fallen over a cliff?

  ‘Have the storms been very bad?’ I prompted.

  ‘Och, aye. Some of tsem. Daft Donald lost his dinghy in tse last one. Smashed up properly she was. Mind you, she was as rotten as shit.’

  ‘Poor Donald,’ I commiserated. ‘He’ll miss not having the Swallow to fuss over, even though he never went out in her.’

  ‘Aye, but he has anotser one already,’ Hector said. ‘He got it from a man on tse mainland a few days ago just, an’ he was round tse otser day askin’ my aunt what name would he put on it.’

  ‘And did she suggest one?’

  ‘Aye, well all she said was, “What’s wrong wiss callin’ her Swallow again, Donald?” So tsats what he did. I was down on tse shore yesterday and tsere across tse transom of his boat he’s painted Swallow Again in big letters.’ He smiled a swift, urchin smile. ‘It kind of gives you a funny feelin’ in your tsroat just to see it,’ he said, and we exchanged a grin of understanding.

  ‘No cows died? No calves born?’ I asked.

  ‘No, but tse stallion was out tse otser day for Tearlaich’s mare—tse one tsat didn’t die. Tse mannie tsat brought him was sayin’ he was pretty fed up, too.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘He was girnin’ because he’d had to walk all tse way from tse pier wiss tse beast an’ he’d be after havin’ to walk all tse way back again tsat night for tsere was no place to keep him.’

  ‘I should think he would be fed up,’ I murmured.

  ‘Aye, well tse minute tse stallion had served tse mare tse mannie grabbed a great bunch of nettles an’ rammed tsem under tse mare’s tail. My God! he was quick about it too. An’ he needed to be, for she kicked up her heels to witsin inch of his head. “Tsere now,” he says to Tearlaich an’ givin’ him a wink, “tsat’ll make sure she holds an’ I don’t have to come back here again.” Tearlaich turns on him. “Man,” he says, “you’re lucky to be alive not to have to come back again.” ’ Hector’s eyes were wide. ‘An’ I can tell you he was, too.’

  Hector had not taken off his cap when he came into the ward and now, becoming conscious of the questioning looks of the night nurses just coming on duty, he pulled it down over his eyes so that he should not see them.

  ‘Has no one died or been ill?’ I asked him.

  He shook his head and sucked in his breath, trying to remember something that might interest me.

  ‘Hamish’s sister is back,’ he suddenly recalled.

  ‘Is she really? Is she any better?’

  Hamish’s sister had developed, in addition to other peculiar habits, one of hiding behind any convenient shed or house whenever she saw anyone approaching and giving a very lifelike imitation of a duck quacking. A few months ago she had been taken to a home to be treated.

  Hector pondered my question. ‘Well I don’t know tsat she’s better,’ he said doubtfully. ‘She’s different tsough.’

  ‘How different?’

  ‘Well, she doesn’t quack any more, but now whenever she sees you comin’ she gets behind sometsing and crows away like a cockerel. She’s damty good at it, too,’ he said with an appreciative smile.

  The nurse came to the foot of the bed and though Hector gave her his most enraptured smile she was not to be beguiled. He shrugged and cast a furtive glance along the rows of interested faces. I thought he was going to kiss me goodbye but his courage failed him. Instead he patted my hand.

  ‘Never mind,’ he said, ‘you’ll be better off for tsis operation, you’ll see. Our own Hamish had an operation on his stomach at one time an’ he never had any more trouble wiss it till he died.’

  He lingered a moment or two longer. ‘You’ll be home for New Year?’ he predicted questioningly, and when I shook my head he made a grimace of sympathy. I watched him with great affection as he skidded out of the ward and turned to wave to me before disappearing along the corridor. Then I lay back on the pillows, reflecting on his parting words.

  Would I be home for New Year? Not, I planned, if I could help it. Out of hospital, I hoped, but not in Bruach where New Year was just a drinking orgy in which, because I loathe undisciplined drinking, I had perforce to play the part of observer. The first New Year I had spent there in Morag’s house I had been so nauseated by the intemperance of the crofters that I had resolved when I got a house of my own I would withdraw completely from the celebration. Morag, who always had my interests at heart, had then made it her duty to come and explain to me how much New Year meant to them and how important it was that I should take a drink with my friends even if it was only a ‘wee tastie’. I was never able to understand the Scots’ preparatory bracing up for their complete abandonment to sottishness on this one night of the year but I was made to see how churlish and unsociable was my own attitude. So I had relented and bought a bottle of whisky and stayed up to entertain such revellers as were sober enough to stumble to my cottage. It was for me a long night of unmitigated boredom but since then I had become more acclimatised and had found that the best way of coping with the celebration was to set out myself just before midnight and go the rounds of my friends’ houses taking my own bottle and wishing everyone a ‘Happy New Year’ and accepting only a ‘wee tastie’ in return. It still meant a long and tedious night but I preferred it to sitting at home and perhaps being surrounded by limp carcasses singing, praying, crying or just being horribly sick.

  And yet, even at New Year, there were moments of fun. I remembered how it had been last year.

  It had begun when ‘postie’ had burst into the cottage, decanted some very muddy envelopes on to the table and pulled a bottle of whisky out of his mail-bag. His eyes were Hogmanay bright.

  ‘It’s a bugger of a night for a New Year,’ he began sociably. ‘The wind lifted the mails out of my bag just, an’ it took them half-way up the brae before I could catch them again.’ He paused for breath. ‘Indeed I doubt I wouldn’t have got them at all if they hadn’t been caught in those bushes at the back of Sandy’s house.’ He bade me get two glasses and when I put them on the table he poured a generous quantity into each. He tossed off his at one gulp. ‘I’ll be seein’ you again tonight yet,’ he threatened as he girded his bag to him in preparation for the resumption of his battle against the storm. ‘I’m goin’ up to Erchy’s when I’ve finished an’ then we’ll be startin’ on the rounds.’

  ‘Well don’t leave it too late,’ I warned him. ‘I’m going up to Morag’s before twelve.’

  ‘Ach, we’ll be there by then,’ he promised.

  I slammed the door after him and sagged into a chair. I had not been feeling too well for over a week and I really had no intention of going up to Morag’s. I hoped that round about midnight there would be a quiet spell when I could put out the light and creep off to bed and let everyone think I was following my usual plan of having my New Year ceilidh in other people’s houses. Throughout the evening there came a sporadic trickle of visitors coming and going in varying stages of inebriation. Whisky poured by crapulous hands was slopped on the table and on the floor and in the brief intervals between drinks the talk was senseless and repetitive.

  At half
past eleven the cottage was mercifully deserted and I was just about to put out the light and bolt the door when there was a peremptory knock on the window followed by a thump on the door and Morag came in.

  ‘What, is there nobody here?’ she asked, peering under the table and behind the chairs where she would expect to find New Year revellers. I told her who had come and gone. ‘An’ has our own Hector an’ Erchy not been yet?’ I shook my head. ‘Well, I may as well sit myself down and wait till they do,’ she announced, seating herself beside the fire, ‘for they’ll surely be here before the mornin’.’

  I got out the bottle again and a couple of tots but she insisted that it must be ‘only a wee tastie’, just so that it could never be said she had refused to drink with me. The women of Bruach rarely took more to drink than they needed just to make themselves merry. It was only the men who insisted on quantity. We sat and talked until two o’clock and still there was no sound of approaching ‘first footers’.

  ‘It’s a pity you don’t take to New Year like the rest of us,’ said Morag. ‘Did you never make anythin’ of it when you was in England?’

  ‘Not really,’ I told her. ‘We had all our fun at Christmas.’ I smiled reminiscently. ‘The only difference New Year made at home was that my father used to stay up to let the New Year in and he used to have a bottle of wine and a cigar for company.’

  ‘A cigar! There now.’ Morag was visibly impressed.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘My mother used to buy him two three-and-sixpenny cigars for Christmas every year and he smoked, one on Christmas Day and one on New Year’s Eve.’

  ‘Three and sixpence for one cigar?’ expostulated Morag. ‘That seems a terrible waste of money.’

  ‘Oh, no,’ I replied. ‘It was only two in the whole year. The rest of the time he smoked a pipe.’

  ‘The dear Lord help us!’ responded Morag ferventiy. ‘If I paid three and sixpence for a cigar for a man I’d be after makin’ sure he ate the ash of it.’

  Even the small amount of whisky I had drunk was making me sleepy and I was unable to suppress my yawns. Morag too seemed to be a little tired. The clock struck three.

  ‘I was thinkin’ maybe Erchy wouldn’t have all that much money to spend on drink after him losin’ so much this week already.’ Morag said.

  ‘Erchy losing his money?’ I asked. ‘That’s the first I’ve heard of it. How did that happen?’ My sleepiness was temporarily abated.

  ‘Did you not hear? He went off on Monday to the mainland with some of his beasts he was takin’ to a sale there, an’ Hector was supposed to be goin’ with him. Erchy went on the cattle float, but our own Hector—ach! you know what like of man he is.’ She made a gesture of hopelessness with her hands. ‘Didn’t he tell Erchy he’d meet him at the ferry because he was gettin’ a lift in with the nurse in the mornin’ to go and see the blacksmith about a thing for his boat. Well, he goes to see the blacksmith an’ then he’s outside waitin’ on the bus to take him to the ferry when a car pulls up beside him. “You’re Hector, aren’t you, from Bruach?” says the driver. “I’ve met you before when I took a trip on your boat.” Hector just can’t remember his face but the man asks him would he like a lift. So Hector gets in, well pleased with himself.’ Morag gave a dry chuckle. ‘My, but he got a right drop when the car turns round an’ comes back here to Bruach.’

  ‘But didn’t Hector say anything when he saw which way it was going?’ I asked.

  ‘Indeed he did not. The fool said he didn’t like to when the mannie had been so kind to him.’

  Hector was so afraid of hurting anyone’s feelings that I sometimes used to amuse myself by imagining him driving a car on a busy road. I used to feel sure that if he received a polite ‘pass’ signal from the car in front he would, sooner than appear discourteous, obediently overtake even though doing so would mean that he would drive straight past the turning for his own destination.

  ‘Anyway,’ Morag resumed. ‘Hector didn’t get to the sale so Erchy was there by himself an’ be made two hundred pounds on his beasts. Of course, Erchy bein’ who he is, he had to go an’ get drunk an’ when he wakes up it’s mornin’ an’ he’s cold an’ shiverin’ in the waitin’ room of the station. He puts his hand in his pocket an’ there’s his wallet missin’. All his cattle money’s gone.’

  ‘Poor Erchy,’ I said. ‘Whatever did he do?’

  ‘That’s not the end of it,’ said Morag. ‘He has to go an’ borrow a pound or so from a man he knows to get him home.’ I watched her avidly, waiting for the climax which I knew by her manner I could expect.

  ‘Ach, the way poor Erchy was feelin’ an’ havin’ to face his mother an’ tellin’ her what he’d done! An’ the poor old soul bearin’ him!’

  ‘And is there no trace of the wallet?’ I asked.

  ‘Well, comes twelve o’ clock,’ went on Morag, nodding me into silence, ‘an’ what should draw up outside Erchy’s house but a taxi. An’ what does this taxi do next but to start unloadin’ parcels of groceries an’ cakes that the driver gives to Erchy.

  ‘ “Here’s the messages you ordered,” the driver tells him. “Oh, God!” says Erchy, frettin’ about what other foolishness he might have been up to. “Did I order these?” For he has no mind of it at all. “You did indeed,” the driver says, quite sharp. “An’ you ordered my taxi to bring them out here to you at twelve o’ clock today.” “An’ how much did I pay you for doin’ it?” Erchy asks him. “You didn’t pay me,” says the driver. “You promised you’d pay me two pounds ten if I brought them all to you safely at twelve o’clock today, an’ there’s the sheet of paper where you wrote down your name an’ address.” Erchy looks at the paper an’ there’s no mistake about it at all. He’s just swearin’ off the drink for the rest of his life when the driver pulls out a wallet an’ hands it to him. “An’ there’s your wallet you asked me to keep for you,” he said. “You’d best check what’s in it. A hundred and ninety-five pounds you told me it was last night so it should be the same now.” Erchy could scarce believe his ears an’ he takes the wallet an’ looks in it, an’ there’s a hundred an’ ninety-five pounds.’ Morag finished with an exclamation of incredulity.

  ‘Oh good! So he didn’t lose his money after all,’ I said with as much relief as if it had been mine.

  ‘None but twenty pounds of it,’ said Morag. I raised my eyebrows enquiringly and she carried on with her story.

  ‘ “Now,” says the driver, “I’d be glad if you’ll pay me an’ I can get back.”

  ‘ “How much did you say I promised to pay you?” Erchy asked.

  ‘ “Two pounds ten,” said the driver, thinkin’ Erchy was goin’ to argue.

  ‘ “Man,” says Erchy, “I’m that damty glad to see you I’ll give you twenty-two pounds ten!” An’ he made the driver take it, too.’

  ‘My goodness! I’ll bet Erchy said his prayers after that little lot,’ I said.

  ‘Maybe he’s still celebratin’ his luck,’ she said, standing up. ‘I’m thinkin’ the best thing we can do is to go and find out where he and that Hector are, anyway,’ she suggested. ‘They’re sure to be somewhere if it’s only the ditch they’re in. But there’s one thing certain, mo ghaoil, if you don’t have a drink with them some place tonight then there’s no use in you goin’ to bed for they’ll be here yet an’ get you out of it, no matter what time it is.’

  So instead of seeking my warm bed I had put on oilskins and gumboots and blundered with Morag out into the rumbustious night. We had called and taken our ‘wee tastie’ in several houses before we finally caught up with Erchy and his crowd at Dugald’s cottage and there men were sprawled all over the kitchen, some with their heads on the shoulders of the long-suffering girls who, though it was past four o’clock in the morning and they had been celebrating since early evening, were as dewy-eyed and fresh-looking as if they had just come in from the hill. The Highland complexion has never, to me, ceased to be a source of envy and wonder. Dugald himself sat on the bench buttressed on
either side by his chief cronies while in the recess bed behind drawn curtains his stone deaf wife alternately snored and screeched objurgations at the assembled company. There was an ominous belch from the floor by the dresser and a frenzy of catarrhal sobs interspersed with protestations of remorse for his misdeeds came from Tearlaich, whose religion made him very conscious of the fact that he often sinned but never stopped him from doing so. Hector lurched over and waved a bottle of whisky over an empty glass which he pushed in my direction. With great solemnity we wished each other a happy New Year. Then it was Erchy’s turn and then Ruari’s and so on until they were all satisfied that they had poured me out a drink and had seen me raise the glass to my lips. Dugald attempted a song but before one line was completed his head had sunk on his chest and he was sagging with sleepiness.

  I was assessing my chances of making a stealthy retreat when I found Erchy teetering over me.

  ‘Your hair smells lovely of boiled onions,’ he remarked with an ardent sniff, and without giving me time to accept his compliment he went on, ‘Miss Peckwitt, I want you to help me.’

  I indicated that I was quite willing to help him if I could.

  ‘It’s this Dugald here. He’s that drunk an’ somebody’s got to get him home tonight,’ he’ explained. He swayed sideways and steadied himself against the back of my chair. ‘I’m thinkin’ you an’ me are the only two here that’s sober enough to be any good to him.’ I suppose I looked as mystified as I felt. ‘Come on, now,’ he invited. ‘I daresay we can manage him between us.’

  ‘But, Erchy,’ I remonstrated, ‘this is Dugald’s house. He’s in his own home.’

  Erchy recoiled from me with a startled look of anguished incredulity. ‘Woman!’ he upbraided me, ‘you must be bloody drunk if that’s what you’re thinkin’.’ He shook Morag’s shoulder. ‘You’d best get this woman to her bed,’ he adjured her, ‘for she’s that drunk she doesn’t know where she is.’