I called, ‘Come in.’ And into the kitchen marched Postie.
‘You’ll be wantin’ to see this, Nurse – Doctor too, I wouldn’t wonder.’
He slapped the paper down on the table and stood back with the air of a magician who has successfully pulled off a difficult trick.
The headline read, ‘Island Nurse Charged with Murder.’ Doctor and I read on with mounting horror and disbelief.
‘Angela Robertson, who has served as a district nurse on several of the Western Isles was today (that was two days ago, of course) charged with the murder of her estranged husband who was found in his car outside her house with a fatal stab wound to his chest. The nurse…’ and so the article went on.
Briefly, it seemed that the husband had returned to what had been the family home that Angela now owned and lived in. It appeared that he had not attacked her in any way, but his blood was discovered on her coat and a blood-stained knife was found in the kitchen. She denied the charges.
Doctor Mac and I had been involved with Angela when she did duty as my relief nurse on Papavray the year before. Her husband had discovered her whereabouts, came demanding money and abused her badly. It then transpired that she also had epilepsy and Doctor Mac had recommended that she be allocated a nursing post where her health could be monitored regularly. We had heard nothing further. Life and duties had taken over and we had all but forgotten the incident. Now this!
‘I don’t understand this at all,’ muttered the doctor. ‘She was more like a frightened mouse than a vengeful wife when we knew her. And now they are saying that it was an unprovoked attack! Surely, we know better. I remember him as having a dangerous temper. But, if they are estranged, what was he doing at her house, anyway? I am not inclined to believe a word of this.’
Postie spoke up. ‘She looked after the caillach when she had pumony and she was a gey shy, quiet sort of person then. No like you, Nurse.’
I was not sure how to take this.
‘Aye, well. We’ll doubtless hear some more rubbish soon. I’m no’ sure they know what they are talkin’ about, at all.’ And with this didactic pronouncement, Postie departed in some triumph.
I was worried. Angela had seemed very vulnerable. ‘I wish there were something that we could do.’
‘No,’ said Doctor Mac. ‘We will have to wait and see what happens, I suppose.’ He finished his tea and left for his home at Dalhavaig.
I sat thinking about Angela and how unsuited she was to the life of a district nurse in the harsh and often difficult environs of the Western Isles. Epileptic, shy, nervous? No. We needed to be tough and resilient in bad weather, on bad roads and sometimes with little or no back-up in emergencies. But I knew that it was not easy to find nurses willing to come to these islands and the Nursing Services were none too fussy about their recruitment methods. I remembered with amusement my own appointment.
* * *
It was only three weeks after we had arrived on the island and we were still living in a large, residential caravan while we waited for a builder to renovate the croft house.
One day, I was in the old house clearing out some of the filthy, mouldy rubbish that had been left there, when I heard a voice.
‘Hallo-ow! Anyone there?’
I was wearing the oldest trousers that I possessed and had donned several old pullovers as the house was cold and damp. Cobwebs adhered to my hair and my hands were black. I did not relish visitors!
However, ‘I’m here,’ I shouted to the invisible owner of the voice.
Some puffing and wheezing came nearer and through the door came a very round, very breathless and very smart lady. The badge on her ample bosom identified her as some sort of health official. I wondered why she was here. Something to do with the insanitary state of the old croft, maybe? Did they think we were going to live in it in this state, perhaps?
‘Ahh,’ she said uncertainly as she extended her hand. I looked pointedly at my filthy one. She changed her mind and put her hand in her pocket. She looked me up and down and hesitated.
‘Might we have a chat?’ She peered about the dirty, empty room.
‘We’ll go down to the caravan,’ I said.
I led the way, pausing to swill my hands in the stream and remove the topmost and dirtiest pullover. The caravan was bright, warm and clean and while I scrubbed the filth from my hands I could see relief on her face as she realised that I was possibly civilised after all. Over a cup of coffee, Miss MacFarlane, as she was called, relaxed a little. It transpired that she was from the south and had never been to any of the islands before, so she was well out of her comfort zone.
‘You’ll be knowing that Nurse Andrews is retiring,’ she began.
‘No. Neither do I know Nurse Andrews,’ I replied.
Surprised, she said, ‘But Nurse Andrews has been here for twenty-five years.’
Maybe, but I had been here for about twenty-five days. But light was dawning as she rambled on about the great job that the redoubtable Nurse Andrews had done during these twenty-five years.
Finally, she said, ‘I hear you are a qualified nurse.’ I nodded.
‘Health visitor?’
More nods.
‘Would you consider taking the post? We can’t find anyone willing to come to the islands.’
Not very flattering, I thought. A last resort! ‘Would I fit in? Would the islanders accept an English woman after having a native of Papavray for so many years?’
‘Well, it might take a while, I suppose…’ She trailed off. ‘But you see, we are rather desperate.’
‘Would I be working with the GP?’ I had already met Doctor Mac.
‘Oh yes! And once a week, a relief nurse would cover your day off.’
‘And she lives here, I suppose?’
‘Oh no! She would come over from the mainland.’
‘Hmm.’ I was doubtful about this. Even in the short time that I had been here, I had begun to realise that ‘coming over from the mainland’ on a regular basis was not a certainty. Storms, fog, sailing schedules and frequent engine failures were the reality.
‘Well, we are rather desperate, you see.’
A thought occurred to me. ‘How did you know, away down in Head Office, that I was a qualified nurse? Or that I was here at all?’
‘Ah, well, you see, I have an aunt who lives in Kirkanbearah, just over on the mainland, and her nephew’s friend’s daughter lives in Coiravaig and she knows…’
‘Archie and Mary,’ I finished for her. It had to be! I already knew that Archie and Mary had their fingers very much on the pulse of everything that happened on the island.
‘Yes.’
‘And what now?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, if you are offering me the job here and now – and I gather you are, because you are desperate – don’t you want some proof that I am a qualified nurse? You see, all my papers are in storage until we get the house restored.’
‘Oh, well, maybe. But you would be able to supply all those details for your first month’s salary, I expect.’
‘But I would already have been let loose on the patients by then!’
‘Ah, yes. But… umm.’ Yes, I knew – she was desperate!
I began to doubt the woman’s sanity. Here was I, cobwebbed and filthy, only just arrived on Papavray and English to boot. She had heard third- or fourth-hand that I was a trained nurse and she wanted me to replace one who was a native of the island and had nursed here for twenty-five years! She was desperate indeed!
I told Miss Macfarlane that I would think about it and let her know. She looked quite affronted. Perhaps she felt that I should show more gratitude, and indeed, I was not ungrateful but everything was moving so fast. This was supposed to be a ‘get away from it all’ venture but, suddenly, it all seemed to be coming with me. I had been a health visitor in England before the move.
A rather put-out lady departed, teetered across Roddy’s croft in smart shoes and drove off in an equally sma
rt car.
Later the same day, Andy and I took Duchess for a walk on the shore. On the way back, Morag Macdonald hailed me from her doorway.
‘I’m hearin’ that you are to be our new nurse, then, Mrs Macleod.’
I suppose I should have realised that the arrival of a smart stranger in a smart car would not have gone unnoticed and the aunt’s nephew’s sister or whoever it was, had supplied the details which would have been faithfully broadcast by Mary. I didn’t have the heart to tell Morag that I was only thinking about it.
But within a week I was kitted out in a uniform, allocated a ‘Crown’ car and was, once more, a working woman.
* * *
In the case of Angela Robertson, we had to be content with snippets of news in the local paper for, although grisly, the murder was not high profile enough to warrant dynamic reporting. On one occasion, however, we read that she had changed her plea to Guilty.
‘Ridiculous!’ Doctor Mac was incensed. ‘She can’t be guilty. She is just not the type to take a knife to anyone. She must be protecting someone.’
Archie was present. ‘Aye. I’m no sure the polis down in England know what they are about. As if she would use a knife from her ain kitchen to make away wi’ him!’
‘And she didna even wash it after,’ chimed Mary, who seemed more concerned with the apparent lack of hygiene than the incriminating evidence.
Doctor Mac sighed. ‘We will have to wait and see what happens. I just hope she has a good lawyer.’
‘Huh. Lawyers! They are no better than the polis!’ Archie delivered this opinion in heavy tones and departed to milk the cow.
Months went by and the papers forgot the case – for the time being, anyway…
12
Riding Sunshine
JOHN HAD JOINED us on this spring day to help George with a few odd jobs, but the weather had seduced us all into sitting at the front of the house on my newly finished terraced garden. The ground dropped fairly steeply here and I had levelled and planted so that we could put chairs and rugs out to take advantage of our few warm, sunny days.
So we lazed, John, George, Nick and I, while Andy chased about with the dogs some distance away.
The cerulean sky was alive with nature’s sounds. Gleaming white gulls leaned on the warm updraughts, brilliant against the clear heavens as they called to their mates nesting near the shore. A huge bumble-bee fanned the air with his wings as he searched for the sweet nectar among the burnished blossoms of early flowers.
The sea moved sluggishly, restlessly eddying into caves, shushing among the pebbles, the waves continuously folding and unfolding in their timeless dance.
A voice in the distance seemed out of place; an intrusion, an unnecessary sound, striking a discordant note, but it floated away – fragmented and fragile – to be blown to oblivion on a breeze so gentle that it felt like warm liquid on one’s face. We dozed on.
Our peace was shattered, momentarily, by the singing wings of a pair of swans flying in perfect harmony, their long necks ululating as they wheeled towards the small lochan where they had been repairing last year’s nest. Soon they would lay their clutch of perhaps two fat eggs and would noisily guard them against rats, otters, dogs and even golden eagles.
Andy approached, tired of his game, and the dogs departed to the burn for a long, cool drink.
John looked up. ‘What about a ride on Sunshine?’ he suggested, as Andy seemed at a loss to know what to do next. Nick and John were not keen on riding but knew that I was trying to teach Andy how to manage our rather naughty Highland pony. ‘It’s a perfect day, the ground is dry and as it’s warm she shouldn’t be too frisky.’
So off we went to Sunshine’s twenty-acre field. I caught her with no problem as she was greedy and readily came to me for the ‘nuts’ that I held. Saddled up, she stood quietly while we helped Andy onto her back. We all loved this chunky, good-tempered pony but she sometimes had a mind of her own and insisted that the rider went where she wanted to go. As she favoured uneven, rocky terrain taken at considerable speed, this habit spelt trouble for both horse and rider, so we were trying to teach her better manners.
Andy had been badly frightened some time ago by the small white pony that we had bought for him. When we had gone to see the animal on an adjacent island, he had seemed quiet, biddable and soft-eyed. Perhaps we should have been suspicious when we learnt his name – Pepper. We swiftly renamed him Snowy, but it made little difference.
Almost immediately, he became fidgety and unpredictable, and within two weeks he was virtually uncontrollable. I rode him a lot myself to try to discipline and calm him but I was no expert and had little success, earning for myself a very painful shoulder caused by sudden and firm contact with the ground.
I did manage to calm him enough to get Andy into the saddle one day but Snowy shied on a steep hill, almost unseating him. I hung on to the lead reins and Andy clutched the pommel but, although he came to no harm, he was badly scared and we decided that he should not try to ride that young pony again. When Snowy added biting to his bad manners, I called the vet.
Iain-Angus listened to our tale and examined him (with difficulty) and soon formed the opinion that he had always been bad-tempered and that the folk who sold him to us had probably drugged him on a regular basis, possibly keeping him slightly sedated all the time in order to sell him. Obviously the drugs wore off once we had him and he had reverted to his crotchety self.
With the vet’s backing, I contacted the sellers and asked them to fetch Snowy and return the purchase price. It was far too easy so Iain-Angus was of the opinion that we were probably the last in a long line of folk who had found the pony to be unsatisfactory and that the owners would now decide to put him down. I was very sorry about this but it was a better scenario than an injured child.
While they were together, however, the two horses had bonded well – too well. When I rode Sunshine, Snowy rushed about the paddock, whinnying loudly and as soon as I turned Sunshine for home, she broke into a wild gallop to rejoin him. I only just stopped her from jumping the five-barred gate.
Andy was gradually regaining his confidence on her back and I hoped that he would one day enjoy riding as much as I did. It was not to be.
We walked beside Andy as he rode to the shore. I thought a nice gentle trot across the soft sand would be fine as we – or perhaps John – could keep up with them on the level surface.
What I had not bargained for was the change that last night’s storm had wrought on the distribution of the sand and rocks on the beach. Where there had been stretches of clean, level sand yesterday, now there were deep holes and swathes of pebbles scattered across about half the area, while rocks had been exposed by the shifting sand and now stood proud of their surroundings, posing a considerable hazard to a horse. We all paused to rethink our possible destination.
Sunshine, however, had ideas of her own. She suddenly threw up her head, whipping the lead rein from my hand, and took off towards the sea at a fast trot. This was not too bad and I shouted to Andy to hang on tightly. John ran off and caught them up as the horse entered the gentle surf and trotted along at the tide’s edge. All was well and Andy enjoyed the sensation of prancing in the water, but then Sunshine decided to set off back to the field (perhaps forgetting that Snowy was no longer there). With Andy clutching the pommel for dear life and John racing alongside, trying to grasp the dangling lead rein, that stupid horse wound her erratic way through every exposed rock on the shore, it seemed, and over the slippery, dangerous pebbles, gaining speed all the time. The rest of us came in from the side, trying to cut her off. She evaded our questing hands, but as we ran in front of her, she had the sense to slow down; my shouts of ‘whoa’ gradually seemed to enter her consciousness and she drew to a trembling halt.
I rushed to take Andy from her back while John held her firmly and began to walk her away from the pebbles. Andy was chalk-white and close to tears, but unharmed, and had done well to hang on.
It was
not a good day, though, because it destroyed his new-found confidence and, although in the following years, even into his forties, he has tried and enjoyed most extreme sports, horse-riding has never figured among them.
A very subdued family returned to dozing in the sun, with birdsong and gentle breezes. It seemed a better option after all.
But a few days later, Sunshine redeemed herself as a sensible Highland pony rather than the wild, stupid animal, who was beginning to worry us. I had made arrangements with Dougall, the estate farm manager, for Sunshine to go over to the farm when the farrier was due to visit the island. There were very few working horses left so Elaine’s horse, Rhueben, and Sunshine always joined them at the old Smithy to have their feet pared and new shoes fitted.
The Smithy was a sad place in the seventies, only used twice yearly, whereas the old folk spoke of the roaring fire, the constant stream of horses going in for shoes, and the resident blacksmith who made and mended all manner of crofting equipment up to the fifties. They told us that it was a warm meeting place in the cold winter days where stories were swapped and information passed on. Now, there was no welcoming warmth and cheer, no black-faced, burly smithy. Most crofters had tractors now and had to mend their own tools or buy new from the crofters’ store, the old smithy was long dead and the place only came to life when the farrier came over from the mainland twice yearly.
Many of the islands have revived the old blacksmith shops to cope with the growing number of recreational horses and ponies that are now kept by incomers. They are also tourist attractions, making and selling fancy wrought iron work and garden ornaments – something the crofters would have scoffed at in our day.
It was a long walk, even taking a short cut across the open moors and hills, so I usually took Sunshine in the horsebox, but today George suddenly announced that he would ride her the seven or eight miles to the ‘other side’. I was surprised and rather worried as George, having been brought up in a city, had only ridden a few times in his life and this was quite an undertaking. But he was determined.
More Tales From the Island Nurse Page 9
