More Tales From the Island Nurse

by Mary J. Macleod

  I was thinking how such an incident would have been dealt with in the towns and cities of the South. The papers would have had a field day with scientists, meteorologists, statisticians, storm-chasers and fanatics all clamouring for print space. Roderick would have been subjected to medical tests and long term monitoring, his coats examined and calculations made about the amount of heat, while erudite professors reported their conclusions in the Lancet. And so on.

  What was it on Papavray? Just a story for the ceilidhs!

  4

  A Cow in the Kitchen

  BUMP! BANG! Shake! Bang! The house was shaking: the dogs exploded into hysterical barking.

  It was early in the morning. I had been asleep.

  I jumped up, totally disorientated. Something was shaking the house.

  Dragging on a dressing gown, I rushed onto the landing. Nick was there before me and was just about to run down the stairs, when there was a terrific crash and broken glass cascaded into the kitchen.

  ‘Wow!’ Nick stood stock still.

  ‘Shoes!’ I shouted.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Get some shoes on!’

  Flinging on whatever came to hand and telling a sleepy Andy to stay back, Nick and I started down the stairs just as there were more thumps and bumps.

  Then, to our utter amazement, a large, brown, bovine head appeared through the broken door and two black eyes gazed at us. Dollach! Mary’s spoilt and pampered house cow, who must have, somehow, broken into the utility room through the back door and now wanted to complete her journey into the kitchen.

  ‘Oh boy,’ gasped Nick. ‘What now, Mum? She’ll cut herself to ribbons if she tries to come on through that hole.’

  Between the kitchen and the utility room, we had a completely glazed door in order to let in more light. Dollach had barged into the glass, making a large hole, but there were many lethal shards of glass sticking out round the edge. She was now standing in the utility room, eyeing the kitchen as though about to continue her adventure.

  ‘We’ll have to try to push her backwards. Mind the glass, Nick.’

  Together we approached the cow, who gazed at us as though to say, ‘Okay, So this is what your byre looks like.’

  With one each side and pushing her head and slapping and pushing her shoulders, we shoved her until we were breathless.

  She would not move. She just stood there staring ahead, not to be thwarted.

  ‘You stupid, stubborn old cow…’

  I knew that the dogs would move her, but they would rip their feet on the glass so I had kept them back.

  ‘We’ll just have to persevere, I think.’

  We did. Push, push, slap, slap.

  Finally, she began to move, but once going, she did not stop and crashed bottom first into the washing machine. But the back door was at the side so we had to try to turn her round.

  ‘Not enough room,’ said Nick. ‘She will have to go out bum first.’

  So now we had to steer the back end of her towards the back door, through which we hoped to push her, while preventing the front end from demolishing the broom cupboard. I reflected that cows were very big creatures.

  ‘How did she manage to get in? Her bottom doesn’t look as though it will go through that doorway.’

  Although we had her straight onto the door, it did not seem that we were going to be able to push her enormous rear through it.

  ‘But she got in…’ Nick frowned.

  I had a sudden, hysterical urge to laugh.

  ‘Well, it’s like babies. You can get them out but you’d not get them in again.’

  Nick looked at me in a slightly worried way.

  ‘It’s okay, Nick. I haven’t lost it altogether.’

  ‘If the door frame wasn’t there, we might…’ he muttered.

  ‘I suppose we’ll have to get the entire frame out,’ I said with a resigned sigh. ‘Archie… or Roddy?’

  Nick thought for a moment. ‘I can do it with a sledge hammer.’

  Thinking of my poor house and Nick’s inexperience with sledge hammers, I hesitated.

  ‘Mum?’

  ‘Alright, but don’t knock the entire house down.’

  I received a pained look from Nick, but then we both realised that one of us would have to keep the cow where she was while the other went for the hammer.

  ‘Wheisht you!’ came a well-known voice.

  I was never so glad to hear Archie’s Celtic tones as he appeared on the other side of the shattered back door.

  The trouble was that Dollach heard it too and, associating it with milking time, started to thresh about, knocking two coat hangers and an anorak off the wall.

  ‘Whoa! Whoa! Aye. We have a wee problem here, I’m thinking.’

  Archie scratched his head: he was pondering. I became aware that I was in a fluffy dressing gown, but decided that this was no time for modesty. Nick looked expectantly at Archie, who seemed still to be pondering. Then he eased past Dollach, stepped over the glass and stood looking at the broken glass door. Then he calmly walked across the living room to the porch door and stood looking at it.

  ‘Ha,’ said he. ‘It won’t work.’

  Suddenly realising what he had been contemplating, I was horrified and more than glad that ‘it’ wouldn’t work. He had been thinking of taking that wretched cow through the kitchen, through the living room and into the porch, if only those doorways had been wider!

  I was speechless. I think he guessed my thoughts.

  ‘I’ll be having to take the back door frame out then, just now.’

  Nick looked at me.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘We thought of that.’

  ‘Or I can get Fergie and we’ll see if we can squeeze her together a wee bit. She came in so she should be able to go out.’

  Nick looked at me again. He was afraid I was going to start on about ‘not getting babies in again’ and rightly guessed that Archie would not understand the doubtful humour.

  A small voice from the stairs suggested, ‘Pull her tail.’

  ‘Aye, indeed, and we could do that too. I’ll be away for Fergie, I’m thinking.’

  Archie could feel the tension in the atmosphere. He was always so helpful that I was usually prepared to forgive any mischief that his animals got up to but to think of taking a cow through a living room… well.

  But our troubles were not over. Just then the call of nature overcame her and Nick had to jump back as a stream of dung was aimed at the deep freeze (blessedly, tightly shut).

  Nick appeared to know a few words that were decidedly suspect but in the circumstances, I let it pass. One of them however was most apt!

  So we stood one at the head and one again at the tail of a cow in a utility room with one broken back door on one side, a shattered glass door on the other, a dented washing machine, a broken wall mirror, coat hooks on the floor and a huge, smelly puddle of cow manure with Andy’s anorak floating in it!

  Could things get any worse? Yes, they could!

  Dollach suddenly became bored and threw her head up with force, burying one horn so deeply into the plaster on the wall that, as she panicked and tried to free herself, a section of plasterboard about three feet in diameter came away, pinioned on the horn. This frightened her so much that she started to fling her head around in a panic.

  ‘Leave her, Nick. Get back. You are going to get hurt.’

  Nick leaped into the doorway of the little shower room, while I retreated behind the remains of the glass door.

  ‘She’s going to completely wreck the place, Mum.’

  ‘I know,’ I said glumly, almost past caring by this time.

  She threshed about, knocking down everything on window sills and shelves until she had almost rid herself of the plasterboard. Just a few ragged bits were left hanging from her horns, but she was still flinging her head around and drumming the floor with her front feet, while swaying her rear end back and forth with some force. Suddenly, she managed to turn right round in the small
space and, spying the outside world through the open doorway, she lowered her head and charged for it.

  There was no need ‘to squeeze her in a bit’ or ‘take the door frame out’. With a triumphant bellow, she threw herself at the opening, was through and, almost without a pause, on her way to freedom, taking with her most of the door surround, two hinges, a small piece of door and several bits of plasterboard.

  We just gaped! What utter havoc!

  ‘What’s happened? I can’t see.’ Andy was still on the stairs.

  I went to him and picked him up as he had no shoes on, and carried him into the utility room. He gazed around. ‘That’s two doors, a washing machine, part of the wall, all the coat hangers, the mirror and my best anorak. Will we be able to use the freezer again?’

  He had put it well, I thought.

  I could hear shouting and Archie rushed past the back door (or where it had been) yelling at Dollach, who was making for the hills.

  Fergie panted in and then stopped, aghast.

  ‘Wheisht you! What a beast is that one!’

  He looked at the dung now spattered everywhere.

  ‘I’ll be clearin’ this,’ he said, and added with meaning, ‘and so will Archie.’ He shook his head. ‘That is a gey weird beast, just.’

  He cleared the dung and general mess while we collected the broken glass from the floor and removed the sharp pieces of the smashed pane.

  He said, ‘I’ll do the plaster and the hooks and things, but we’ll have to be tryin’ to get a cupla new doors. ’Twill not be easy, foreby.’

  No, I knew that it would take weeks ordering from the mainland, then many weeks more to persuade the timber yard to deliver them.

  ‘George and I will take the measurements in the Land Rover when he gets back,’ I said. ‘Then we’ll fetch the new doors when they are ready. That way, it will be a bit faster than waiting for collection and delivery.’

  Two round trips of two hundred and fifty to three hundred road miles and eight sea crossings! And I still didn’t know if the washing machine would work.

  Archie finally returned with Dollach, holding her tail.

  ‘Mary J… I’m so sorry… I’ll… um…’

  ‘Archie. No – not now! Take her away! And find me a door or wood or something to fill that hole!’

  ‘Yes, Nurse, yes… yes… ah. Yes, I will indeed, just. Yes, I’ll do that.’

  He was more subdued than I had ever seen him – I had been very firm.

  So for three months, we lived with a boarded hole instead of a back door, no door at all between the kitchen and the utility room, a wall that looked like a jigsaw puzzle, a washing machine that leaked – and we had to buy Andy a new anorak. All because a stupid cow had fancied a look at our kitchen!

  5

  A Quiet Bay?

  NEAR OUR LITTLE harbour town of Dalhavaig, a tiny lane led off the road down between rocky outcrops towards the sea, where it ended at a pebbly shore with the neighbouring island of Eilean Mor visible in the distance. At one end of this small beach was a smart modern bungalow and at the other a traditional croft house, much extended and altered. Both were in idyllic positions: facing south to the sea and protected from the north by low cliffs and trees. The sea lapped at the steep beach just a few yards away while the blue hills of Eilean Mor, across four or five miles of water, formed a perfect backdrop to the huffing waves and murmuring sea. It could be wild here in bad weather but there was still a sense of grandeur and timelessness to this little place – tucked away in its own quiet world.

  The croft house was owned by a lady from Edinburgh, who brought her disabled young son here for long holidays. He was a bright thirteen- year-old who had his sights already set on university, but was so disabled physically that he needed complete care. Whenever they were on Papavray, I visited twice daily to help Audrey to wash and dress Harry in the morning and put him to bed at night. Various medication and treatments were administered by this dedicated mother, but I sometimes felt that she must lead a very isolated life devoted entirely to her son.

  I spent many hours with them over the years, but I still have no idea what happened to the husband and father. Had he died, I felt that he would have been mentioned so I concluded that either Audrey had not been married or that the husband had left her to cope on her own. Sadly, I have come across this scenario all too often – a husband and father who cannot cope emotionally and physically with a badly disabled child and abandons the mother, sometimes providing for them in absentia but often not even that.

  Harry’s health was precarious and so Audrey had home-schooled him from infancy and the lessons went on while on Papavray too. He was a studious boy with heavy, horn-rimmed spectacles, a quiet voice and a sense of humour which, in the circumstances, I found humbling. The croft house had been altered and adapted to accommodate all the paraphernalia necessary for his care and comfort, with a special shower, hospital-type bed and a wheelchair which Audrey would push to the front of the house in good weather so that Harry could watch the birds and the sea.

  While visiting them, I became aware for the first time of the owner of the smart bungalow at the other end of the beach. We had heard that Sandra Wainscott and her husband had had it built fairly recently for holidays. They had lived in London and scarcely used the house, but now they were divorced and Sandra had decided to live on Papavray permanently. She seemed a strangely reclusive person for one who had lived in the hustle and bustle of London. She shopped on the mainland, not locally; she was never seen walking and did not attend any island function. She drove to and from the mainland with never a wave to anyone. Of course, this behaviour was quickly noted by the crofters.

  I consulted Mary – the fount of all local gossip.

  ‘I’m not knowing at all,’ she said in a disgruntled fashion – she liked to know these things.

  ‘She doesna speak to folk, she doesna shop on the island, nor, use the garage. But I’m hearin’ that there is a daughter that might be comin here…’

  ‘How do you know that, Mary?’

  Mary moved her milk pail from one hand to the other. ‘Well… ah. It’s like this y’see: the woman doesna get much mail, so when a card came for her, Postie couldna help but see…’

  I smiled. Postie would have devoured every word on that card and faithfully broadcast the content to all and sundry.

  Mary prepared to move on. ‘This Sandra is a posh sort of person I’m told but her daughter canna write her letters well or spell right.’ And with this severe comment, she disappeared into the byre.

  ‘Odd,’ I thought, but without much interest. However, within a week, Sandra and her problems were very much of interest.

  It all began when Sandra rang me from the Dalhavaig post office to ask me to visit her daughter the following day. She (the daughter) had moved into one of the small row of cottages by the harbour.

  ‘I’ll have to be there too,’ Sandra added, giving no explanation.

  But it did not work out like that at all.

  It was a bright, crisp morning with white, fluffy clouds playing hide and seek with the sun. I had just finished helping Audrey with Harry and we had tucked him up in his wheelchair, which Audrey pushed to the front of the house.

  Suddenly, a woman’s piercing scream shattered the peace and a man began to shout hysterically.

  I turned, startled, and there was a young woman striding into the sea, fully dressed. Sandra was screaming at her to come back as she rushed after her while a young man stood ineffectually nearby, shouting and crying.

  As I looked again at the young woman, I was horrified to see that she carried a bundle of shawls. It was a baby! And it was in great danger!

  I was rushing along the beach, tumbling over the pebbles and Sandra was now following her into the sea.

  ‘Valerie… stop… come back… the baby…’ She was gasping as she struggled through the cold water.

  The girl turned. ‘Don’t care… don’t care. Don’t want her or him.’ She look
ed venomously towards the young man, who still had not moved.

  ‘No, no. Come back. We will sort everything…’ Sandra had now reached her daughter and tried to grab her arm. The girl struggled and pulled away, then she hit her mother on the side of the head. I heard the thud as I, too, rushed into the water. I needed to get the baby before the girl should drop it, or even try to drown it.

  Sandra had fallen into the water head-first, while the girl waded on deeper and deeper.

  I had a split second to decide. Do I rescue Sandra, who might be unconscious and in danger of drowning, or pursue the girl to try to rescue the baby from a similar fate?

  I waded on towards the girl – was this the right decision? Was it a decision at all? It was probably instinctive. A helpless baby, a deranged mother… I did not have time to think logically.

  ‘I’ll get Sandra,’ shouted a voice behind me as Audrey waded past towards the now spluttering woman.

  ‘Valerie, come back! I am here to help you,’ I called.

  She stopped and turned so quickly that I thought for a moment that I was about to get the same treatment as Sandra. But she just stared blankly at me.

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘I am the district nurse and I am here to help you and the baby.’

  ‘Wha’ for?’

  ‘It’s what I do. We help young mothers to cope with new babies. Looking after a baby isn’t easy, is it?’

  ‘No… I… I don’t know what to do. And she cries all the time.’ She paused and glowered across to the young man. ‘And he’s no help.’ (I can well imagine, I thought.)

  ‘If you give me the baby, I will look after her so that you can get some rest, Valerie… and I am sure your mother will help you to cope. Come now, give me the baby, Valerie, then you don’t need to worry about her.’

  I was speaking through chattering teeth and my legs were beginning to go numb. Valerie looked undecided, but I could see that, in spite of her stated indifference to the child, she was holding her clear of the water. She stopped for a moment and I thought I had got through to her, but then she started off again into deeper and deeper water. No matter how she held her, the baby would soon be submerged.