by Alan Warner
Compare with this the wardrobe of her seducer which would contain brightly painted ties (all bought in a shop), trousers of an alien style, shirts of a sordid cut, and shoes of a hitherto unseen mode. The man’s name was Horace.
Thus it was that playing his melodeon and providing her with deceitful music he led her like the Pied Piper to Glass-green.
Imagine, however, the consternation of the blacksmith and his spouse. Day after day he would lift his hammer and not even hit the anvil with it. Sunk into depression, his stalwart arms rapidly losing their strength, he sank into an early grave and his wife did not outlive him long. O Murdina, how hapless your expedition to the metropolis! Hapless indeed our lives unless we obey our parents. Where she expected a mansion she was led at last into a small room which contained one bed, a gas cooker, a cupboard and not much more. But the tears she shed that evening were more than compensated for by the dallyings of her lover, whose moustache brushed her mouth as he yawned copiously through the long night.
So she began to visit dens of iniquity. Psychedelic were her days and drugged her evenings. The water of the earth did not suffice her but she must be stayed by beverages unknown to her parents. Ravaged by music which stole her soul away she would sing in these same dens of iniquity intertwined with her lover. But sorrowful too were her thoughts for her lover had not as much money as would sustain her wicked delights, such as splendid clothes and furniture of a rare ilk. Thus one night when he was sleeping the sleep of the sinful, she stole from his small den taking with her his pocket book, a number of his ties (which she hoped to sell) and a diamond necklace which he said he had got from his mother, long under the sod in his native Donegal.
With these, she found herself another protector who was in the habit of giving room to a number of girls who had nowhere else to go. Laudable and charitable as this was, we must however acknowledge that his mode of living was not what one would require from a godly man, for he was not above sending these girls out into the cold to hold converse with strangers such as seamen, foreigners, and persons of diverse vices.
Thus passed her nights and her days, yearning as she said for the innocent pleasures of Raws, with its limpid streams, and its snow-covered bens.
One night the island came to her as in a vision. She saw it, as it were, clearly delineated on the walls of her luxurious room, and she heard in her ears the sound of its innumerable waves. In the morning she arose, put on her new-bought furs, and set off to find the mode of transport which would take her to her home. In the carriage were many young men who (on hearing of her adventures) were desirous to approach with many friendly overtures and those she was not loathe to deny, only saying that she would bring them to her house. She handed out to them with much magniloquence cards which showed both her own and the name of her house.
Arrived in Raws, she was welcomed with open arms by those who saw in her the penitent returned with her spiritual gains. This gave no small encouragement to the indigenous folk for it showed them that they themselves might do what she had done. She set up house in Raws and many were the guests who came to her house. Indeed it can safely be said that hers was the most popular house in the island, and not until the early hours of the morning did her visitors depart, fortified by her conversation and her kindly dalliance.
Often with tears she would lay a wreath of orchids on the graves of her parents and caused a marble monument to be built to them on which she had carved these words: ‘Gone Before, But not much Before.’
So she lived to a good old age, providing pleasure and benefit to all and had no cause to regret the day she had left Glass-green for as she herself once remarked in one of her more serious moments, ‘The competition here is not so fierce as in the wicked world of the south.’
Thus, therefore, is told the legend of Murdina who from being an apple-cheeked girl became a dowager of the neighbourhood, contributing much tablet to the local sale of work as well as many cast-off dresses some of which are to be seen to this day in colours like purple and pink.
It is easy to see therefore that those who leave these beautiful islands with their lovely airs and golden sands always have the urge to return as she did, happy in that they have abandoned the snares and competition of the metropolis.
The Wedding
It was a fine, blowy, sunshiny day as I stood outside the church on the fringe of the small groups who were waiting for the bride to arrive. I didn’t know anybody there, I was just a very distant relative, and I didn’t feel very comfortable in my dark suit, the trousers of which were rather short. There were a lot of young girls from the Highlands (though the wedding was taking place in the city) all dressed in bright summery clothes and many of them wearing corsages of red flowers. Some wore white hats which cast intricate shadows on their faces. They all looked very much at ease in the city and perhaps most of them were working there, in hotels and offices. I heard one of them saying something about a Cortina and another one saying it had been a Ford. They all seemed to know each other and one of them said in her slow soft Highland voice, ‘Do you think Murdina will be wearing her beads today?’ They all laughed. I wondered if some of them were university students.
The minister who was wearing dark clothes but no gown stood in the doorway chatting to the photographer who was carrying an old-fashioned black camera. They seemed to be savouring the sun as if neither of them was used to it. The doors had been open for some time as I well knew since I had turned up rather early. A number of sightseers were standing outside the railings taking photographs and admiring the young girls who looked fresh and gay in their creamy dresses.
I looked at the big clock which I could see beyond the church. The bride was late though the groom had already arrived and was talking to his brother. He didn’t look at all nervous. I had an idea that he was an electrician somewhere and his suit didn’t seem to fit him very well. He was a small person with a happy, rather uninteresting face, his black hair combed back sleekly and plastered with what was, I imagined, fairly cheap oil.
After a while the minister told us we could go in if we wanted to, and we entered. There were two young men, one in a lightish suit and another in a dark suit, waiting to direct us to our seats. We were asked which of the two we were related to, the bride or the groom, and seated accordingly, either on the left or the right of the aisle facing the minister. There seemed to be more of the groom’s relatives than there were of the bride’s and I wondered idly whether the whole thing was an exercise in psychological warfare, a primitive pre-marital battle. I sat in my seat and picked up a copy of a church magazine which I leafed through while I waited: it included an attack on Prince Philip for encouraging Sunday sport. In front of me a young girl who appeared to be a foreigner was talking to an older companion in broken English.
The groom and the best man stood beside each other at the front facing the minister. After a while the bride came in with her bridesmaids, all dressed in blue, and they took their positions to the left of the groom. The bride was wearing a long white dress and looked pale and nervous and almost somnambulant under the white headdress. We all stood up and sang a psalm. Then the minister said that if there was anyone in the church who knew of any impediment to the marriage they should speak out now or forever hold their peace. No one said anything (one wondered if anyone ever stood up and accused either the bride or groom of some terrible crime): and he then spoke the marriage vows, asking the usual questions which were answered inaudibly. He told them to clasp each other by the right hand and murmured something about one flesh. The groom slipped the ring onto the bride’s finger and there was silence in the church for a long time because the event seemed to last interminably. At last the ring was safely fixed and we sang another hymn and the minister read passages appropriate to the occasion, mostly from St Paul. When it was all over we went outside and watched the photographs being taken.
Now and again the bride’s dress would sway in the breeze and a woman dressed in red would run forward to arrange it properl
y, or at least to her own satisfaction. The bride stood gazing at the camera with a fixed smile. A little boy in a grey suit was pushed forward to hand the bride a horseshoe after which he ran back to his mother, looking as if he was about to cry. The bride and groom stood beside each other facing into the sun. One couldn’t tell what they were thinking of or if they were thinking of anything. I suddenly thought that this must be the greatest day in the bride’s life and that never again would a thing so public, so marvellous, so hallowed, happen to her. She smiled all the time but didn’t speak. Perhaps she was lost in a pure joy of her own. Her mother took her side, and her father. Her mother was a calm, stout, smiling woman who looked at the ground most of the time. Her father twisted his neck about as if he were being chafed by his collar and shifted his feet now and again. His strawy dry hair receded from his lined forehead and his large reddish hands stuck out of his white cuffs.
Eventually the whole affair was over and people piled into the taxis which would take them to the reception. I didn’t know what to make of it all. It had not quite had that solemnity which I had expected and I felt that I was missing or had missed something important considering that a woman to the right of me in church had been dabbing her eyes with a small flowered handkerchief all through the ceremony. Both bride and groom seemed very ordinary and had not been transfigured in any way. It was like any other wedding one might see in the city, there didn’t seem to be anything Highland about it at all. And the bits of conversation that I had overheard might have been spoken by city people. I heard no Gaelic.
For some reason I kept thinking of the father, perhaps because he had seemed to be the most uncomfortable of the lot. Everyone else looked so assured as if they had always been doing this or something like this and none of it came as a surprise to them. I got into a taxi with some people and without being spoken to arrived at the hotel which was a very good one, large and roomy, and charging, as I could see from a ticket at the desk, very high prices.
We picked up either a sherry or whisky as we went in the door and I stood about again. A girl in a white blouse was saying to her friend dressed in creamy jacket and suit, ‘It was in Luigi’s you see and this chap said to me out of the blue, “I like you but I don’t know if I could afford you”.’ She giggled and repeated the story a few times. Her friend said: ‘You meet queer people in Italian restaurants. I was in an Indian restaurant last week with Colin. It doesn’t shut till midnight you know . . . ’ I moved away to where another group of girls was talking and one of them saying: ‘Did you hear the story about the aspirin?’ They gathered closely together and when the story was finished there was much laughter.
After a while we sat down at the table and watched the wedding party coming in and sitting down. We ate our food and the girl on my left spoke to another girl on her left and to a boy sitting opposite her. She said: ‘This chap came into the hotel one night very angry. He had been walking down the street and there was this girl in a blue cap dishing out Barclay cards or something. Well, she never approached him at all though she picked out other people younger than him. He was furious about it, absolutely furious. Couldn’t she see that he was a business man, he kept saying. He was actually working in insurance and when we offered him a room with a shower he wouldn’t take it because it was too expensive.’
The other girl, younger and round-faced, said: ‘There was an old woman caught in the lift the other day. You should have heard the screaming . . . ’ I turned away and watched the bride who was sitting at the table with a fixed smile on her face. Her father, twisting his neck about, was drinking whisky rapidly as if he was running out of time. Her mother smiled complacently but wasn’t speaking to anyone. The minister sat at the head of the table eating his chicken with grave deliberation.
‘Did you hear that Lindy has a girl?’ said the boy in front of me to the girls. ‘And she’s thinking of going back home.’
They all laughed. ‘I wouldn’t go back home now. They’ll be at the peats,’ said the girl on my left.
‘Well,’ said the boy, ‘I don’t know about that. There was a student from America up there and he wanted to work at the peats to see what it was like. He’s learned to speak Gaelic too.’
‘How did he like it?’ said the girl at my left.
‘He enjoyed it,’ said the boy. ‘He said he’d never enjoyed anything so much. He said they’d nothing like that in America.’
‘I’m sure,’ said the small girl and they laughed again.
‘Wouldn’t go back for anything anyway,’ said the girl to my left. ‘They’re all so square up there.’
When we had all finished eating, the Master of Ceremonies said that the groom would make a speech which he did very rapidly and incoherently. He was followed by the best man who also spoke very briefly and with incomprehensible references to one of the bridesmaids who blushed deeply as he spoke. There were cheers whenever an opportunity arose such as, for instance, when the groom referred for the first time to his wife and when there was a reference to someone called Tommy.
After that the telegrams were read out. Most of them were quite short and almost formal, ‘Congratulations and much happiness’ and so on. A number, however, were rather bawdy, such as, for instance, one which mentioned a chimney and a fire and another which suggested that both the bride and groom should watch the honey on their honeymoon. While the telegrams were being read some of the audience whispered to each other, ‘That will be Lachy’, and ‘That will be Mary Anne’. I thought of those telegrams coming from the Highlands to this hotel where waitresses went round the tables with drinks and there were modernistic pictures, swirls of blue and red paint, on the walls. One or two of the telegrams were in Gaelic and in some strange way they made the wedding both more authentic and false. I didn’t know what the bride thought as she sat there, as if entranced and distant. Everything seemed so formal, so fixed and monotonous, as if the participants were trying to avoid errors, which the sharp-witted city-bred waitresses might pick up.
Eventually the telegrams had all been read and the father got up to speak about the bride. I didn’t know what I expected but he certainly began with an air of businesslike trepidation. ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he said, ‘I am here today to make a speech which as you will know is not my speciality.’ He twisted his neck about inside the imprisoning collar and continued. ‘I can tell you that the crossing was good and the skipper told me that the Corona is a good boat though a bit topheavy.’ He beamed nervously and then said, ‘But to my daughter. I can tell you that she has been a good daughter to me. I am not going to say that she is good at the peats for she is never at home for the peats and she never went to the fishing as girls of her age used to do in the past.’ By this time people were beginning to look at each other or down at their plates and even the waitresses were smiling. ‘I’ll tell you something about the old days. We turned out good men and women in those days, good sailors who fought for their country. Nowadays I don’t know about that. I was never in the city myself and I never wore a collar except to the church. Anyway I was too busy. There were the calves to be looked after and the land as you all know. But I can tell you that my daughter here has never been a burden to us. She has always been working on the mainland. Ever since she was a child she has been a good girl with no nonsense and a help to her mother, and many’s the time I’ve seen her working at the hay and in the byre. But things is changed now. Nowadays, it’s the tractors and not the horses. In the old days too we had the gig but now it’s the train and the plane.’ The bride was turning a deadly white and staring down at the table. The girls on my left were transfixed. Someone dropped a fork or a spoon or a knife and the sound it made could be heard quite clearly. But the father continued remorselessly: ‘In my own place I would have spoken in the Gaelic but even the Gaelic is dying out now as anyone can read in the papers every week. In the old days too we would have a wedding which would last for three days. When Johnny Murdo married, I can remember it very well, the wedding went on for four
days. And he married when he was quite old. But as for my daughter here I am very happy that she is getting married though the city is not the place for me and I can tell you I’ll be very glad to get back to the dear old home again. And that is all I have to say. Good luck to them both.’
When he sat down there was a murmur of conversation which rose in volume as if to drown the memory of the speech. The girls beside me talked in a more hectic way than ever about their hotels and made disparaging remarks about the islands and how they would never go back. Everyone avoided the bride who sat fixed and miserable at the table as if her wedding dress had been turned into a shroud.
I don’t know exactly what I felt. It might have been shame that the waitresses had been laughing. Or it might have been gladness that someone had spoken naturally and authentically about his own life. I remember I picked up my whisky and laid it down again without drinking it and felt that this was in some way a meaningful action.
Shortly afterwards the dancing began in an adjoining room. During the course of it (at the beginning they played the latest pop tunes) I went over and stood beside the father who was standing by himself in a corner looking miserable as the couples expressed themselves (rather than danced) in tune to the music, twisting their bodies, thrusting out their bellies and swaying hypnotically with their eyes half shut.
‘It’s not like the eightsome reel,’ I said.
‘I don’t know what it is like,’ he said. ‘I have never seen anything like it.’
‘It is rather noisy,’ I agreed. ‘And how are the crops this year?’ I said to him in Gaelic.
