More Tales From the Island Nurse

by Mary J. Macleod

  After a while, a dilapidated Ford drew up on the narrow, undulating road and Fergie H emerged. He strode purposefully towards the next peat hag to ours.

  ‘Ah. It’s you, Nurse. ’Tis a good day for the peats, indeed.’

  We worked in companionable silence for some time and then Fergie produced a bottle from his pocket.

  ‘A dram, nurse?’

  ‘Fergie. You know me better than that. But I have a thermos and you could have some of your whisky in a cup of tea.’

  ‘That would be grand, just.’

  We sat on a small tump and drank tea (heavily adulterated in his case) and munched clootie dumpling.

  Fergie pointed a peaty finger, ‘That worn-out hag was ours when I was a young boy.’

  ‘It’s a long way from Craig Mor where you were raised.’ I observed.

  ‘Aye, and we had to walk it wi’ the peats in a basket on our backs from the age of about seven or eight, I recall.’

  ‘It must have been tough back then.’ I was purposely encouraging him to talk about his boyhood, as I loved to hear the crofters’ tales of their young lives when, for most of them, times had been tough.

  Although I loved the simplicity and traditional ways of the island people, I was sometimes amazed at the stoicism with which they accepted the difficulties, hardships and lack of much real comfort in the crofting way of life. But the older folk remembered the days when life was really bad, with cold and hunger and general poverty and deemed themselves lucky indeed to have the small comforts of today.

  ‘Aye, it was different then, foreby.’ Fergie had risen to the bait and was soon deep into the past as he recalled his childhood.

  His father had been shepherd to Stephanie Smythe’s grandfather and father when the Craig Mor estate had been busy and profitable. Fergie was the youngest of six children born to Alec and Flora. They lived in a tiny estate cottage which was dark and damp, the Smythe’s factor refusing to carry out essential maintenance on any of the workers’ homes. If they complained, they were evicted, losing their jobs as well as their homes. These were not crofts houses with the few acres on which to keep animals or grow potatoes, they were built as housing only for the workers on the estate, so all but the most foolish accepted the poor conditions in order to keep their jobs and feed their families. The men would try to maintain their own cottages with bits of wood from the shore, tin drums straightened out to patch leaking thatch and any other useful bounty from the sea.

  ‘Aye. But we children knew nothing else and we had each other and the other estate children to play with and we were a happy bunch. I suppose we lived on porridge and potatoes mostly, but so long as our stomachs were full, we didn’t care.’ Fergie paused, gazing unseeingly at the distant mountains where fluffy white clouds were playing hide and seek between the peaks.

  ‘But we children grew and there was no room in the wee house for all of us to sleep. Ma and Dad slept in the box bed in the kitchen and the rest of us were all in the only other room. Gordon and I were the only boys and as he was much older than me, it became awkward for the girls. We were lucky in that we had a cow and father had a horse for his job, shepherding in the hills. These animals were housed in the byre which was attached to one end of the house. Father decided to partition off a small area with some planks he had found on the shore. He made two little beds out of the same rough wood and that became a bedroom for Gordon and me. The warmth from the animals, coming through the thin panel of wood kept the place reasonably warm in winter but boy, the smell! It must have been bad for me to remember it, I mean, because we were used to smells back then. So long as we didna mind cold water, we washed in the burn but, with no proper sanitation, houses were often smelly and fly-ridden.’ He paused. ‘The worst thing about that so-called bedroom was the floor. It sloped towards that end of the byre, so when the animals wet or sh… or so on, it all trickled past our wee beds. We had to go in to the ‘room’ in our boots and prop them on the end of the bunks. Woe betide us if we kicked them off in our sleep!’

  Fergie laughed heartily at this point, as I listened in mounting horror. To him, it was his past – just the way it had been – nothing more. To me: well! I was talking to someone who had lived like this and thought little of it.

  Eventually, Gordon went to the senior school which was far away, with no designated transport as the scholars had now. He came home only at holiday times so Fergie slept alone in the byre during term time. He did not care for this.

  I had noticed how crofters like company. Not for them the solitary moments that I cherished: they were happiest among their family or at a ceilidh. Perhaps, coming from the south with its teeming crowds and cheek-by-jowl houses, I needed the quietness of my moments alone, but these folk were surrounded by space, houses set in several acres, villages sparsely populated, towns almost unknown, ‘traffic’ mostly just a few cars and tractors so their need was to gather together for company – for human contact.

  Fergie’s sisters gradually left to go into service or perhaps to ‘better themselves’ in some way and finally Fergie followed Gordon to the mainland school. He liked school and was a very bright pupil enjoying the sciences particularly. When he passed his final examinations, he decided that he wanted to study medicine to become a doctor. There were no grants or bursaries for people like crofters in those days but his oldest sister, Gwenny, had a surprisingly well paid job in the early days of radio and undertook to pay for Fergie to go to medical school. In this way, he completed the first two years, working in the holidays at whatever job he could find to help with the expenses.

  Then disaster struck. Gwenny was diagnosed with tuberculosis and had to give up her job so there was no money for Fergie’s training. The family, most of whom had some sort of job by then, pooled as much as they could of their meagre earnings to send Gwenny to Switzerland. The clear, dry mountain air of that country was accepted as the best possible treatment (although cripplingly expensive) for a disease that, in less than twenty years, would be cured by the early form of antibiotics.

  So that was the end of Fergie’s ambition to be a doctor. Not only had the money stopped but he joined the rest of the family in contributing to Gwen’s treatment.

  ‘That was really tough, Fergie. You must have been devastated.’

  ‘Aye, indeed. It was a disappointment, foreby, but that was the way of it. I got a job in a pharmacy, having a bit of knowledge of drugs y’see, and got on well. Then the war came and I joined the navy. I got a commission and saw some action…’

  ‘Mary told me that you were decorated for bravery, Fergie.’ I did not have much hope that he would tell me about that, though. They never did, these brave men.

  ‘Aye, well,’ was all that Fergie was prepared to say.

  After the war, he became a successful salesman of medical paraphernalia, drugs and special foods, but he always wanted to get back to Papavray. His parents had died during the war and some of his siblings had emigrated. Gwenny had recovered well from the tuberculosis only to be killed in an air raid on London, so Mary, his cousin, was his only remaining relative on the island. The old house had fallen into ruin, the estate was run-down and Stephanie was just about keeping it ticking over.

  ‘Aye, there was nothing left of what we knew as children, but Miss Smythe is doing her best to keep the farm going. She is good to her staff. If only they knew…’ He even grinned as he remembered the bright apartments in the main house in which the three present staff were housed and the contrast with his childhood home.

  He sighed and smiled as a passing rabbit paused to inspect us. He looked up at the sky, at the mighty bulk of Ben Criel, at the mountains shimmering in the warm air and finally at me.

  ‘Well. There you are. I think you will understand why, all my life, I wanted to come back to Papavray.’

  Yes. In spite of the hardship of his childhood, the disappointment of his medical aspirations and later in his life, the loss of a daughter and of his wife, I thought that I understood the pull of the isla
nd for him. He was a part of the whole, someone whose roots were planted deep in the peaty soil of this harsh but beautiful, bare but bountiful isle. Yes, he belonged nowhere else.

  As though he read my thoughts, he murmured. ‘I’ll never leave. I’ll die here and be buried here so that I shall never leave.’

  He straightened up, embarrassed by his show of emotion. ‘Aye, well. We’d best be getting on with it, before the light goes.’

  Just as we rose, Doctor Mac’s gleaming Humber purred to a halt. He wound the window down and I walked over to the car. I would not have wished the immaculate doctor to tramp through the peat bogs.

  ‘Nurse, I think you should see Sarah in the morning: perhaps bring her to the surgery if she will come.’

  ‘Something wrong? I mean – more than normal?’

  ‘Mairie, (Sarah’s neighbour) popped in. Sarah did not feed her chickens this morning and when Mairie went to investigate, Sarah was just sitting staring into space. I don’t know that it is anything particular but I’d like you to visit.’

  ‘I’ll be there first thing in the morning. Are you going to Dhubaig or Coiravaig?’ I couldn’t think of anyone who was ill in either village on our side of the Ben but the doctor was heading that way.

  ‘No, I’m off to have a dram with Alastair. He has some new fishing tackle to show me.’

  These two men were fanatical fishermen, always buying new and expensive equipment, but very rarely catching fish, whereas Nick and Andy had only the most basic of rods and lines and regularly caught quantities of mackerel!

  As I approached Sarah’s house the next morning, I could see that there was no smoke coming from the chimney. Not only would she be cold but, like so many of the older folk, Sarah cooked her sparse meals on the open fire. I could also tell by the noise that the chickens had not been fed.

  I knocked and pushed the door open. There was Sarah, in a voluminous nightgown, sitting on the cold floor surrounded by letters, newspaper cuttings and tiny faded photographs which were spilling out of an old cardboard box on the floor beside her. The grate was cold, there were dirty dishes on the table and, most surprising for the house-proud Sarah, there was dust everywhere.

  ‘Sarah. Are you alright? What are you doing?’

  ‘I’m sortin’ stuff, Nurse. ’Tis a long time since I looked at all yon.’

  ‘But you’ll be cold without a fire, Sarah.’

  ‘No matter. It will no be needed at all soon.’

  ‘What do you means?’

  ‘I’ll no be here much longer.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Aye. I wrote to Donald-Archie a whiley back to tell him the funeral will be next week.’

  ‘Sarah, I don’t know what you are talking about.’

  She seemed suddenly to realise that she was talking to me not just to herself.

  ‘I’m going to be dyin’ in the next few days, y’see, Nurse.’

  I was shocked. ‘You don’t know that, Sarah.’

  ‘Oh yes I do. I’ve aye known that I’d no live into my nineties, so I’ve written to that place in America – New York, it is. He’ll have the letter by now!’

  ‘Who will?’ I wasn’t very sure if Sarah was still capable of writing or indeed if she could write. Many of our old folk had left school at fourteen and had only had a very sketchy education until then, having had to take time off to help with lambing and harvest.

  ‘Why, Donald-Archie of course. My son.’

  Had the world suddenly spun the wrong way for a moment? Sarah? With a son? Or was her mind wandering again? Surely we would have had a record of the next of kin. So far as I knew, Sarah was the last of her family.

  ‘May I see his address, Sarah?’

  ‘Ha! You think I’m havering, mebbe.’

  She handed me an old, tattered notebook and on the first page was ‘D. A. Burnett’ – and an address in New York City.

  ‘And this D.A. Burnett is your son, Sarah? I didn’t know you were married, let alone had a son.’

  ‘Nae. That’s his father’s name, “Burnett”. I wasna wed to him. Ach, ’twas a long time ago and now I have to get on.’ She seemed to lose interest and returned to her version of sorting things out. I had a sudden thought.

  ‘Sarah, you don’t want to throw all these letters away, do you? They are all that you have of your son. Would you not be better keeping them and then when you do pass on – one day, not soon – he could have them back.’ What I was really thinking was that the letters might give Doctor Mac and me some idea about Sarah’s background. I was beginning to realise that we knew nothing about her early life. That all took place even before Doctor Mac came here.

  ‘Ach no. ’Tis not necessary.’ Sarah sounded irritated. ‘I have more than just the letters. I have the money, y’see.’

  I was even more puzzled, so decided to change the subject.

  ‘Doctor Mac would like to see you, Sarah. He is a little worried that you are… well… not looking after yourself very well.’

  ‘Yes, I am.’ Sarah was indignant.

  ‘Well you are very cold with no fire, to start with. The cold can make you ill. I’ll take you to the doctor in my car.’

  Sarah brightened. She thought cars were the height of luxury so she nodded and immediately got dressed. I noticed that she was still wearing the skirt that I had given her. What was all this about dying next week and a son and money?

  Doctor Mac saw her, I took her home and went back to talk with the doctor.

  ‘I have no record of a son or of any remaining relatives, nor has she ever mentioned a child in all the years that I have known her. She was healthy until the dementia began about eight or nine years ago so I actually saw little of her.’ He was shuffling Sarah’s old notes.

  ‘What do you make of this “dying next week”?’

  ‘I don’t know but we will keep an eye on her. We must hope that this son will materialise – if he exists.’

  And so the matter was left and I dropped in on Sarah for several days, often lighting her fire and checking that she had food in the house. She was quiet and uncommunicative and there was no sign of ‘sorting out’. I wondered if it all been a figment of her imagination, although Postie remembered posting a letter for her some weeks ago. He said it was the first in years. (Postie often collected letters to post for the old people.)

  Then one morning, the phone rang. It was Mairie, Sarah’s nearest neighbour, ringing from Dalhavaig post office.

  ‘Nurse! ’Tis Sarah. She’ll no get up from her bed and she’ll no even take a cup o’ tea.’

  ‘Has she told you what’s wrong, Mairie?’

  ‘Naught that makes sense. She says she is due – that’s the word she used, “due” – to die today and she would prefer to be in bed. I canna make sense of it all and I have to get back for wee Hugo.’

  ‘I’ll go to see her right away, Mairie.’

  I opened Sarah’s door. She was curled up under the bed-clothes in the old box bed in the kitchen. I pulled the bedclothes back. She was very still and a shiver went down my spine. I felt for a pulse – nothing. I pulled my stethoscope from my bag and, ripping away the old nightie, I listened to her chest. Not a beat!

  I sat suddenly on the side of the bed. She was warm, her colour was still good and her eyes were closed as though in sleep. But she was undoubtedly dead. It could not have been half an hour since Mairie had rung – the road had been good and I had made good time. And yet she was dead! I was shocked. I was used to death, some expected, some sudden, some tragic and, worst of all the death of a child, but this was weird beyond anything that I had experienced.

  I jumped up and ran to Mairie’s house. Mairie was sitting cosily before the fire, breast-feeding young Hugo. The scene was one of normality and contentment and served to steady my jangled nerves.

  ‘Mairie, can you run to the post office and ring Doctor. I’m sorry, but I need to stay…’ I nodded towards Sarah’s house, ‘but I need Doctor.’

  Mairie was buttoning her dress.
‘Is she gey bad, then?’

  Do I tell her? ‘Well, Mairie, she seems to be dead.’

  Mairie stopped in the act of putting Hugo into his cot.

  ‘But… but…’

  ‘Yes, I know. That’s why I need doctor.’

  She picked him up again and, wrapping him in a shawl, tucked him into the crook of her arm and set off at a run. These days, I would have stayed with Sarah and rung the doctor on my mobile. Or even before mobiles, most homes in the south had landlines by the seventies. But this was Papavray.

  I returned to Sarah’s cottage and looked around to see if there were signs of tablets or anything that she could have taken. Without a real search, I could not be sure, but there seemed to be nothing. Doctor Mac appeared in less than fifteen minutes, his home being very near.

  ‘I don’t understand this at all,’ I said and told him of Mairie’s call and my arrival so soon afterwards.

  He examined Sarah and straightened up, shaking his head.

  ‘Well, she has only been dead… maybe half an hour?’

  ‘It can’t have been much more, even if she died the minute Mairie left to phone me.’

  ‘In all my days, I have not seen this… unless,’ and he began to look around, as I had done, for any sign of drugs. ‘It is not strictly necessary but I will ring John. Perhaps then we will search the place for letters or anything… I shall request a post-mortem.’

  I remembered the letters and postcards I had seen and I reminded the doctor about the ‘son’.

  ‘Yes, but I’ll get John. You had better stay, Nurse, as it does not look as if there is a lock on the door.’

  ‘Do I do Last Offices’? Or should I wait?’

  ‘I’ll get John,’ Doctor repeated. ‘Then we’ll see. I must start surgery but I will come straight afterwards.’

  John, the policeman, popped his head in a few minutes later to say that, as Sarah had been under the doctor’s care, I could go ahead and that he would come back with the doctor later and we’d go through any letters.