If Necessary Alone

by V M Knox

  Ten minutes later, Clement buttoned his jacket and, holding his greatcoat, scanned the room. Nothing of his remained. In. Out. That was what Johnny had said. Closing the door, Clement descended to the kitchen and found St Clair sitting at the table, a pot of tea already made.

  ‘I trust you slept well, Reverend Wisdom.’

  ‘I did, thank you.’

  St Clair poured the tea. ‘I hope you like porridge.’

  Clement had never liked porridge but he could see the heat rising off the mixture as St Clair ladled the hot cereal into two bowls. Thanking the Lord for the meagre meal, Clement swallowed a spoonful and felt the warmth radiate, no longer wondering why the Scots reputedly ate so much of it.

  Just before seven o’clock, they left the manse and walked to the bus stop at the end of street. ‘Thank you again for your hospitality, Reverend St Clair.’

  ‘I’ll leave you here. I have correspondence to attend to. There’s a waiting room there.’ St Clair pointed at a closed door. ‘The bus for the north will be along directly. God speed to you.’

  The old cleric extended his hand in farewell and again Clement felt the icy touch. Cold hands, warm heart. The old saying came to him in the loving tones of his late mother’s voice. He felt the instant glow in his heart that always came when he thought of her. Logic told him the saying was nonsense, but he did acknowledge that it was true of St Clair.

  Clement huddled into his greatcoat as the first faint light of day struggled to permeate the dour morning. He checked his watch; the bus was due in five minutes. Perhaps it was the hour or the still, colourless morning, but the closed doors and ubiquitous grey stone made the place seem unwelcoming. The distinctive odour of burning coal drifted on the chill air. Inverness was stirring. Grasping his pack, he strode towards the waiting room and hoped for warmth.

  Given the earliness of the hour, it surprised him to see two ladies of mature years sitting by the fireside. They looked up at him, their eyes on his clerical collar, their conversation pausing. They smiled at him but immediately recommenced their chatter. By the way they huddled together, he could see that whatever they shared, it was not intended for his ears. A squeal of brakes outside relieved any perceived embarrassment. The ladies stood and wrapped themselves in coats and scarves. Holding the door open, Clement followed them towards the waiting bus.

  ‘Good morning to you, Sean. Cold day we’re in for,’ one said boarding the bus.

  ‘You got that right, sure enough, Mrs Brewster.’

  The bus driver’s thick Irish accent surprised Clement, but, he now knew the man’s name. Clement guessed the driver to be in his late forties, but he wondered if the man’s hardened visage had more to do with weather than actual age. Clement glanced at his watch; he had plenty of time to learn about Sean.

  ‘Good morning.’ Clement placed the fare in the driver’s cupped hand. Looking along the rows of seats, Clement saw that he and the two ladies were the only passengers. He decided on the first seat on the left-hand side. Rumour had it that Ireland was providing the Nazi U-Boats with safe harbour from storms in the Atlantic. He stowed his pack and taking his seat, glanced again at the Irishman, wondering if the man played with radio transmitters in his spare time. One thing Clement was sure about; few know other people’s lives better than the postman and the bus driver.

  Wick was bleak in the drizzling rain and it surprised Clement to see that several buildings appeared to have suffered bomb damage. Shop windows had been blown out and were now boarded up. Further along the row of shops, one building had been almost completely destroyed. No doubt the large air field a mile or two distant from the town had been the reason for the raid, but it was a salient reminder that it wasn’t just the large cities that were being targeted.

  Crossing a low stone bridge over the icy river, the bus headed up the hill and stopped outside a barn-like structure. Clement’s eyes scanned the streets in the hope of seeing the familiar face of his old friend. Of the few people in uniform who braved the inclement conditions, most were Royal Air Force. None wore the uniform of the Pioneer Corps. For one moment, Clement wondered why Reg’s corps was even in Wick. But he wasn’t concerned for Reg. Despite the man being in his late forties, Reg was about the most practical and resourceful man Clement had ever met. In fact, of all the men with whom he had served in the Auxiliary Units, he believed Reg was the most likely to come through the war. The bus door opened and a freezing wind rushed in as the two women who had boarded the bus with him in Inverness alighted. Clement watched them walk away, disappearing between the buildings.

  Five new passengers now boarded the bus; three men and two women, all of whom greeted the driver by name. Clement watched each of them pay their fare and smiled as they filed past him, moving to the rear of the bus, no doubt to speculate about the stranger in their midst.

  The bus door closed. As the motor roared and the odd syncopated hum of the gears resumed, Clement contemplated his new fellow travellers. The two youngest were evidently a couple. Twisting around, he could see that they had taken a seat towards the rear of the bus. The woman looked delicate, but the husband was a healthy, robust man of approximately thirty years of age. They sat together, their bodies touching, their conversation quiet. The man was not in uniform. Neither did he have the hands of a man who routinely did manual work. Conclusion: the man was in a restricted, perhaps administrative occupation. An older couple sat in the middle of the bus. Although they were not conversing, there was the easy rapport between them formed from many years of marriage and he decided the man was a professional of some kind. The fifth passenger was a very elderly man who sat some rows behind Clement on the left side of the bus. He had seen the man’s hands when he’d paid his fare, and Clement had no doubt whatsoever that the man was a farmer.

  ‘What takes you to Huna, Father?’ Sean shouted, not taking his eyes from the narrow roadway.

  ‘I’m taking up a parish on South Ronaldsay.’

  ‘Is that right, Father?’

  ‘I prefer, Vicar, actually.’

  ‘Crossing at Gills Bay?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You staying with Reverend Heath, then? In Canisbay?’

  ‘Just a few days. Until I can arrange the crossing.’

  What conversation there was at the rear of the bus had ceased. Clement knew they had heard. He surmised that within an hour of them alighting at their destinations most of the neighbourhood would know of his presence and his destination.

  ‘You know the minister there?’ Clement asked.

  Sean nodded. ‘A good man. Loves his fishing and going out on the boats.’

  ‘Has he been the pastor there for a long time?’

  ‘A good few years. Comes from Ayrshire.’

  ‘Really?’ he said, but he didn’t really know where Ayrshire was. ‘Does he have family?’

  Sean shook his head. ‘Now there is something I never really thought about. All the holy fathers I’m used to certainly didn’t have a wife tucked away. The One True Faith, me. Or so the nuns would have had us believe. Not too many of us in these parts.’

  Clement smiled.

  ‘I suppose the reverend never got around to it,’ Sean continued. ‘And he won’t find a bride in Canisbay.’

  ‘Have all the young women left?’

  Clement saw Sean’s eyes in the rear-view mirror, their gaze meeting. ‘There are no unattached young women in Huna or Canisbay, Vicar.’

  ‘It must be very isolated and I suppose, like most small villages, they all know each other.’

  Sean’s gaze remained on him. ‘And each other’s business.’

  ‘You don’t live in either place then?’

  ‘Not me.’

  Clement sat back on the seat. Without turning around he knew what the expressions of his fellow passengers would be like. Sean had, Clement believed, touched a raw nerve. He stared through the window at the snow-covered landscape as the bus’s strangely syncopated gears droned on
. He knew that Sean’s remark reflected the man’s lack of acceptance in the community. Small places. Was Sean an outsider simply because he was Irish or Roman Catholic or both? Perhaps the locals held something else against him? Clement hadn’t witnessed any unfriendliness from the passengers towards the bus driver, but then Sean drove the bus which took them home. Clement remained gazing at the passing scenery and the grey swell of the North Sea.

  The road dipped into several small ravines where thick snow still clung to the roofs of dwellings and piles of the stuff remained heaped on the leeward side of the barns. Then up again to the ridge top where the bus swayed in the increasing wind and short, grey, rain squalls traversed the paddocks, hiding the dwellings then passing on. As the hours passed, the country became less and less mountainous and small, low roofed, stone dwellings half submerged into the winter landscape dotted the scene. To Clement’s eye it was profoundly unwelcoming for it was not just grey, it was bleak. He had never before seen pure cold, but he saw it now in all its colourless misery. No one was out-of-doors. He surmised that the wind and snow rendered outdoor activity, for everything but an emergency, impractical. In fact, if he had not glimpsed the yellowish smoke issuing from the cottages’ chimneys, he would have believed the place to be deserted. He thought of Fearnley Maughton - of the blue-bells in the forest and the sights and fragrances of the East Sussex village in early spring. They were two different worlds really. Yet, despite this, both places held secrets and both places, perhaps like all villages, had unseen eyes, forever watching.

  ‘Is the minister at Canisbay elderly, driver?’

  ‘Sean,’ the man said, pointing to himself.

  ‘Reverend Wisdom,’ Clement replied for all to hear.

  ‘Reverend Heath, do you mean?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’ve never really thought about the man’s age. He is a man of God, ageless really. He’s a good fisherman and he’s helpful on a boat. Or so Tom Harris says.’

  ‘Tom Harris?’

  ‘One of the local fishermen. Also a bachelor.’

  Clement wanted to ask about Sarah Crawford but with everyone in the bus listening he thought it wisest not to.

  ‘There’s only one beauty in Huna,’ Sean went on. ‘Sarah Crawford. Now she would once have been a real stunner. She is still a handsome woman, although, that husband of hers is a suspicious and sour old bugger who doesn’t know how fortunate he is.’

  The level of animosity in Sean’s remark surprised Clement, but he knew both the comment and the intonation had been intended for other ears.

  Clement’s gaze remained on the bus driver.

  ‘I’ve never once seen him lift a finger to help her,’ Sean continued, shaking his head the way people do when they cannot believe something to be true. ‘In fact, in the ten years the Crawfords have lived in Huna, I have only ever seen Donald Crawford collect the mail bag once. And that was when she was in Edinburgh caring for her sick mother.’

  Clement kept his eyes on the Irishman. He sensed Sean’s vitriol hadn’t finished.

  ‘She does almost all the work. And more else besides.’

  Chapter 4

  ‘This is your stop, Vicar,’ Sean called.

  Clement stood and reached for his pack, the bus slowing. Caught in the faint beam of the bus’s headlights, Clement saw a woman standing beside the road. She was alone and wearing a red plaid tam o’shanter, a long overcoat and knee-high boots. The bus door opened and he stepped into the icy chill of the late afternoon. ‘Thank you, Sean,’ he called back over his shoulder.

  The woman boarded the bus, but the door remained open. Clement waited, hoping the woman was his contact - the post mistress, Sarah Crawford. Placing his pack on the road, he buttoned his coat and tied his scarf around his neck as the wind tore at his body, the temperature not much more than freezing.

  ‘Just a small one today, Sarah,’ he heard Sean say.

  Clement waited, the woman’s identity confirmed.

  He looked up at the broad expanse of evening sky. Even in the dwindling light, there was little cloud visible. It promised a freezing night. Walking around the bus, his gaze fell on the two buildings in front of him. The one on the right had a wide glass window through which he could see the counters and shelves. Above was a sign, “Crawford’s Post Office and General Shop”. To the left of the shop was a large double door which he presumed led to a yard of some kind. He turned to the other dwelling. The sign there read “McAllister’s Garage and Farm Supplies”. It also had large double doors. Adjacent to them were two narrow windows where black-out curtains were drawn. There were no other buildings.

  On the opposite side of the road was a red telephone box. Clement glanced along the road in both directions. Village, he considered, was too elaborate a word for Huna.

  He heard the bus door close. Two seconds later, the engine roared and the bus drove away in the failing light of a Scottish afternoon, the syncopation disappearing on the wind.

  Sarah Crawford glanced at him, the Royal Mail bag in her grasp, an enquiring frown forming on her forehead. She was older than he had expected but she was still a very attractive woman, with auburn hair tied in a low roll at her neck. He stepped forward. ‘May I assist you with that?’

  ‘Thank you, but I can manage.’

  ‘I am your mother’s friend.’

  Sarah Crawford paused. ‘I was expecting a woman.’

  ‘Sorry to disappoint.’

  Sarah’s gaze fixed on his clerical collar. ‘You’re the visiting vicar staying at the manse. It makes sense now. Is it real?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘We need to talk. Come to the shop tomorrow at ten o’clock.’

  ‘How do I get to the manse?’

  ‘Walk! It’s only about a mile and a half down the road. Walk as far as the kirk, there,’ she said pointing to a large building some distance away, silhouetted against the western sky. ‘Then take the road directly opposite it to Canisbay village. The manse is a two-storey house on the left about three hundred yards from the intersection. If you keep to the roads you can’t get lost.’ She turned to face him. ‘Ten o’clock tomorrow. Don’t forget. And don’t be late.’

  Sarah Crawford tightened her grip on the canvas bag then marched towards the shop. Clement heard the door being bolted from the inside.

  He had expected a more cordial greeting. Sean’s words echoed into his mind, “She does almost all the work. And more else besides”. Why had Sean added the final words? The statement worried Clement. He stored it away. Retying his scarf around his neck, he tucked the ends into his greatcoat collar and turned a full three hundred and sixty degrees, his eyes scanning the darkening landscape.

  Several dwellings dotted the scene. Snow lay in the surrounding meadows and over the undulating hills. On the air he could smell burning coal. To the west, the dying shafts of light were tingeing the evening sky; flashes of pink and orange and gold framed the high, thin cloud and mingled into the translucent blue. He wriggled his toes as he felt the cold rising into his bones. Despite his numbing extremities, he stared at the sight. Although he could not see the cliffs, he knew from the maps he had studied before leaving London that Huna was on the edge of Great Britain. The open sea and Pentland Firth lay just below the adjacent cliffs to his right. Grasping his pack, he started to walk, the twilight diminishing with each step.

  Within minutes his body had lost the heat he had gained from the warmth of the bus. A freezing north-west head wind bit hard into his face and chilled his whole body, turning the simple act of breathing and walking into a struggle of endurance, if not survival. Wrapping his scarf over his mouth and nose, and pulling his hat down, he swung the bag onto his shoulders and broke into a run, his chest heaving and his feet breaking the thin layer of ice which had reformed on the roadway since the wheels of Sean’s bus had crushed the snow into slush.

  Clement knocked at the front door to the manse and a minute later it opened.

 
‘Reverend Heath?’

  ‘Reverend Wisdom, I’m guessing, under all that clothing. Come on in. It’s a cool night we’re in for.’

  Clement stepped inside and grasped the extended hand of his host. Heat radiated from Reverend Heath’s handshake and Clement couldn’t help but compare the man who stood before him now to the kindly but puritanic Reverend St Clair. Heath closed the door on the wintry evening. ‘Let me take your coat and hat?’

  Without waiting for a reply, Heath pulled the greatcoat from Clement’s shoulders and hung it along with his hat and scarf on a stand in the front hall. Placing his pack on the floor under his coat, Clement followed Heath into the sitting room where two armchairs sat in front of a roaring fire. It was the most welcoming sight he’d had seen since arriving in Scotland and the level of warmth in the house was unexpected. A mixture of masculine and domestic odours assaulted Clement’s nostrils; dust, tobacco, coal-fire smoke, a hint of whisky and drying socks.

  ‘Your boots will soon dry here,’ Heath was saying. ‘Take them off and warm your feet. They must be frozen.’

  Clement smiled at his brother cleric, wondering if affability was a pre-requisite for Scottish clergy, but there the similarities between Heath and the elderly St Clair ended. Clement guessed Heath to be in his mid-forties; robust, with a firm handshake, sandy hair, blue-green eyes and a square jaw. He wore an old hand-knitted cream jersey, well-worn brown-plaid slippers and no clerical collar.

  Heath caught Clement’s gaze. ‘I expect you’re wondering why I don’t wear the collar.’ Heath reached for a poker and prodded at the coal in the grate. ‘The simple truth is, I don’t need one. Everyone knows who I am.’

  ‘Of course. Do forgive me. I meant no disrespect.’