by Millie Gray
“We needed to have a family powwow,” responded Sam.
“About what?”
“Dad’s funeral, of course.”
“Just arrange it all and remember to keep Auntie Ella informed…”
“That’s the problem,” butted in Paul. “When Sam and I went out to claim the body, Auntie Ella had already done that and insisted she was his next of kin.”
“Here we go again,” replied Carrie as she sat down on the settee next to Sam.
“And that’s not the worst of it,” Paul went on. “The hospital priest had a word with us and he’s of the opinion that we should allow him to be buried as he’s lived all these last twenty-five years. You know – as a bachelor and a pillar of the church!”
Sam took Carrie’s hand in his, “His blooming church thinks we shouldn’t even attend his funeral as we would be an embarrassment. Evidently the Abbot of Nunraw is sending a representative to honour our saintly and philanthropic Dad! And… och well!”
Carrie was bewildered. “You mean that we, his children, are to be denied the right to say goodbye?”
“Not exactly,” Paul explained, with bitterness in his voice. “They say they’ll keep a side door of the church open tomorrow night for us to sneak in to say our goodbyes after his remains are received into the chapel and everybody else has left.”
“Say our farewells then,” Sam stressed.
“But I’m for telling them to get stuffed and that we all turn up.”
“No, Paul. Just let it be. We can do what we did when Granny died and go out to Mount Vernon when it’s all over,” continued Sam.
“He’s being buried with Granny?”
Both Paul and Sam nodded.
15
AN ISLAND INTERLUDE
Carrie had jumped at the chance of a short visit to Hannah. Will and the children had gone north to visit his relatives in Smithton, near Culloden. Both Sophie and Donald were so excited. It didn’t matter how often they visited Uncle Jack: they always wanted another trip to see the battlefield where, on the sixteenth of April in 1746, over the desolate moorland of Culloden, the last battle on British soil was fought out between the English and the faithful Jacobites. All too clearly, Carrie remembered the first time they had toured the site of the massacre and Donald being particularly anxious to know if one grave, marked “mixed clans” meant that was because they had all been cut up into pieces! By contrast, Sophie just relished the fact that her own ancestors – Frasers, Mackintoshes and Mackenzies – had been fighting on the Jacobite side. She was also pleased that Stewart Cottage, where they stayed and where Uncle Jack and her paternal grandmother had been born, was the first human habitation you came to when you left the battlefield.
Stewart Cottage, built just a few years after the battle, was full of relics from as far back as the 1700s and Uncle Jack had gifted some of them to Historic Scotland. To the children’s delight, these were now lodged in Culloden Moor Croft House, which recently had been converted into a museum. Not only did the children have an in-depth knowledge of the relics there, but surprisingly they also knew more about the battle than any history book could have told them. That was because, when Uncle Jack had been a young lad, an ancient woman known as “Belle of the Battlefield” had occupied the house on the battlefield. So old was she that (so she told Uncle Jack) she alone knew the true story of the battle having had it from the lips of her grandfather who, as a raw youngster, had actually been present at the battle. Uncle Jack in turn had related all those fascinating battle legends to Sophie who thought it only right and proper that she should inform her teacher how wrong all the history books were!
Knowing that her children would be well received and entertained for a week, Carrie had thrown caution to the winds and bought herself a return ticket for the flight from Glasgow to Benbecula. She felt absolutely thrilled at the prospect of her first aeroplane flight – at least until she reached the airport and was faced with an aeroplane so small that it looked as though it certainly ought to be accompanied by its mother! Carrie’s first thought was to turn back on the spot, but then she reasoned to herself: “Now, Carrie, my girl, you’ve paid two months’ wages from your job at the school for this flight. That amount would have gone a long way to paying for a voyage all the way to America or Australia if you’d wanted to go there. No, my girl, you simply can’t afford to waste all that money.”
Having argued herself into accepting there was no alternative, Carrie boarded the plane and, as soon as the flight took off, began her personal relaxation routine in the hope of calming her nerves. Well before she had finished, the pilot announced they were about to land.
So desperately eager was Carrie to be safely back on terra firma that not only was she first off the plane, but had also gone straight through passenger control before the officers there had even taken up their posts!
As expected, Hannah was in the airport, eagerly awaiting her latest visitor. She always longed for folk from home to come and stay for a while with her. Every morsel of news they brought she would devour and savour as if she were at a feast. “What a surprise,” she crooned to Carrie, throwing her arms tightly around her sister.
“Well, you know me well enough, don’t you? I just had to come and sample those potatoes that Sam and I planted.”
“Too late,” said Hannah with a giggle. “We’ve eaten the lot. But don’t worry. While we’re here in Benbecula we’ll do some shopping at their Co-op store. Much bigger than our one wee shop on Herrig.” Carrie frowned, remembering that the Co-op here was really very small compared to what she was accustomed to in Leith. “Honestly,” Hannah went on babbling, “we might even be able to get a wee bit of ham for boiling!”
On their arrival at Hannah’s croft, Carrie was surprised to find a whole reception committee there, made up of Fergus, Katie and Myrtle. Before she could embrace any of the children, however, Fergus announced solemnly, “We are thinking you will be very eager to see the new facilities.”
Carrie had to think fast. What kind of facilities were those? Then she realised she hadn’t been to Herrig since the mains water was connected to the house and the bathroom installed. “Of course,” she assured her nephew, “I won’t even take my coat off until I’ve inspected them.”
The bathroom was housed in the recently built extension, just on the left as one came in by the front door. Carrie was truly impressed when she stepped inside and was faced with a pristine bath, a gleaming wash-hand basin and – most important of all – a lavatory! “Well, well, well!” she exclaimed to all the assembled children who had naturally followed her in, “Is this not just too wonderful a sight for words?”
All of them grinned and wriggled with pride and pleasure before Katie announced – after looking to Fergus for reassurance – “Seeing you’ve not had the pleasure of flushing our toilet yet, you may do it now!”
Without further persuasion, Carrie firmly pressed the lever hard and, as the water gushed from the cistern and swirled into the bowl, everyone clapped and cried out, “Hurrah for our new facilities!”
Next morning, the two sisters had just finished washing the breakfast dishes when Hannah brightly suggested, “How about us doing a bit of shopping?”
Carrie was slow to make any answer. Having just arrived on the island the day before, the thought of dicing with death again by leaping from the pier on to the small ferryboat that ploughed the angry seas between Herrig and Uist, and then clambering aboard the Benbecula bus where you had to do perpetual battle for a seat with hens, ducks, lambs and bucketfuls of lobster certainly didn’t fill her with any great enthusiasm. She stalled. “But wouldn’t we need to take all the children with us?”
Hannah laughed. “No, no! Not shopping on Uist. Here on Herrig is what I mean.”
Carrie relaxed and ran her fingers through her hair. “Well, with your shop here the size of a wee classroom, the shopping should take us all of all of five minutes – and that’s including the hike down the brae and back up.”
&nbs
p; On reaching the island shop, Hannah informed Katie-Anne, who had designated herself manager and was therefore in full control of everything, including the post office during its limited opening hours, that she’d bought a piece of ham when over in Benbecula the day before.
“Oh, then I’m thinking you’ll be going to make the soup, Hannah.”
“Yes. So I’ll have a pound of lentils, a large leek and three carrots, please.”
Katie-Anne pointed helpfully towards the vegetable tray, which held one very shrivelled leek and two gnarled carrots that were so old they’d started to grow beards. “I can give you the leek and two carrots all right…but as for your lentils…now, let me see …” and her eyes tracked methodically along the shelves ranged in front of her. “Well now, isn’t that just too bad. I seem to have none of these lentils in stock today, I’m afraid to say. Alas, it looks like we’re completely out of lentils today.”
Giving a rudimentary sort of whistle to herself, Hannah stood there with a perplexed look. Since coming to live on Herrig she’d speedily discovered that, whenever cooking, it was vital to be expert at compromising and finding appropriate substitutes. She was just about to ask what she could have as an alternative to lentils when she was forestalled by Katie-Anne, who proudly announced, “But I did get some nice pasta shells in yesterday.”
Hannah looked questioningly at Carrie for her opinion – and registered an almost imperceptible shake of the head. “Ah well,” remarked Hannah, “pasta shells are all very fine in a cheese sauce but I don’t somehow think they’d make an ideal substitute for lentils.”
“Perhaps not,” replied Katie-Anne, giving Carrie a distinctly hostile glare, having deduced that she was the reason for docile Hannah having grown so bold as to reject the pasta shells as a suitable replacement for lentils, “but yellow split peas are!”
“So they are, indeed,” exclaimed Hannah with distinct relief. “So I’ll have a pound of those, please.”
“Well, you certainly could if we had any, but we’re just waiting on them coming by the boat too!”
Fortunately, Hannah had no need to continue the debate. The shop door was roughly thrust open and Euan MacNeil strode in. “Peggy Mack said I would find you here.”
Carrie, Hannah and Katie-Anne all looked from one to the other, wondering who he was addressing. “Now, don’t you remember last week, Hannah, when the nurse went over to Fort William, you came and changed my laddie’s bandages. And I was just hoping that you could come right now and change them again as I need him badly to be helping me with the sheep.”
Hannah raised both hands in front of her. “No, no, Euan. I simply can’t! Try and understand. It was all right for me to do some nursing duties when Nurse Flora was going away for a short visit to the mainland but she’s back now on the island and it would look as if I was trying to steal her job.”
“B-b-but,” spluttered Euan, “she was the one who sent me to Peggy Mack’s as she thought you would be there having your morning cup of tea and tittle-tattle.”
Hannah had to admit it was quite true she had tea and a blether with Peggy Mack every morning but she persisted: “Why would Flora want you to have me dress your laddie’s leg?”
“Because, when you’re finished with my dog…”
“Dog!” cried out Carrie. “The nurse tends to your dog?”
Doffing his cap in reverence to Carrie, who he thought was a good-living woman, Euan patiently explained, “Of course she does. There’s no vet here on Herrig. Besides, have you any idea what that robber of a vet on Uist charges?” Carrie shook her head. “Well, let me tell you that there’s no way he would be satisfied with a fry of fish even if it was a fry of line-caught haddock!”
“You were saying, Euan, that once I have dressed your dog’s cut paw I have to… ?”
“You’ve to go on to see the nurse as she needs your help too.”
“Why ever is that, Euan?” quizzed Katie-Anne, who felt left out of the discussion and believed she had every right to know all that was going on in Herrig.
“Doubled up in pain she is. And she’s too old to be having a bairn!”
Hannah looked imploringly at her sister, who knew without asking that Hannah was wondering if Carrie would look after the family while she went to the aid of the island’s sick humans and animals.
“Of course you must go, Hannah. There’s no one else who can help as well as you. Off you go with Euan.”
As soon as the pair had left the shop, Katie-Anne came round and picked up the leek and two carrots. “I suppose then that you’ll be wanting to do something with these.”
Shaking her head in disgust, Carrie plucked up the courage to ask, “Would you have such a thing as… three family-sized tins of Heinz tomato soup in stock?”
On reaching Nurse Flora’s house, Hannah was very concerned at discovering just how badly Flora was suffering. After a quick examination, she said, “Well I know you’re fairly …” she wondered how she could say obese in an acceptable way, “… quite well-upholstered and nearing pension age but, looking at your symptoms, I’d say we’ve to get you into hospital as soon as possible. I think you have either got a gall-bladder problem or more likely kidney stones!”
Flora gasped and took several short breaths. “You’re certainly good at this job, Hannah. Really good. You see, I do have a history of kidney stones but you didn’t know that.” Flora took a sheet of paper from the table and handed pointedly it to Hannah. “Now, see here. I’ve written down all you have to do today and who you have to see. And you won’t need to escort me over to Daliburgh as Father Donald’s going over.”
Flora couldn’t go on until a sudden spasm of pain had subsided. “And okay,” she gasped, “the Father’s not got much of a bedside manner but he’s good at praying to sweet Jesus!”
It was well past lunchtime, and in fact nearly suppertime, before Hannah arrived back at the croft. “I’m so sorry, Carrie. Had to do all of Flora’s duties. But poor soul, she’s in a right bad way!”
“And what’s up with her?”
“Kidney stones!” Hannah exclaimed. “Wish I could be wrong but I’m almost sure of it,” she continued thoughtfully before adding, “but they’ll know for sure once they’ve x-rayed her. Now, have you had your lunch?”
“Aye. Katie-Anne grudgingly parted with three cans of tomato soup and, along with toasted cheese sandwiches, all the bairns have been well-fed.”
Hannah looked around her living room and glanced at the Aga stove. “And you don’t have to worry about supper either,” Carrie informed her. “I’ve got that all under control too. There’s macaroni already in the oven – and chips just waiting to be fried.”
“You’re just a marvel, so you are, Carrie.”
About to protest at this well-deserved compliment, Carrie was silenced by the arrival of Father Donald. “And how did you fare while doing Nurse Flora’s rounds, Hannah?”
Hannah smiled. “Absolutely fine. And thank you for accompanying the patient to Uist. You know, Father, Flora is so efficient that despite all her pain she had my instructions all clearly written down – you know, who I was to see and what treatment I was to give them.”
Pursing his lips in thought, Father Donald was silent for a few minutes before eventually saying, “You know, it’s always been a great worry to me that we have no one available – no locum nurse – for when Flora’s absent.”
“So?”
“What I mean is, I think I should be proposing to the powers that be in Stornoway that, as we actually do have a fully-qualified staff nurse on the island who could stand in at a moment’s notice, it would be wise to contract you to do just that!”
Hannah was dumbfounded. It was quite true that she was fully-trained and, having done her training much later than Flora, was probably more up-to-date in many respects than Flora. But, after all, she was a widow with nine dependent children, not to mention the croft and livestock that regularly needed her attention: so where on earth could she find the time to tak
e on such a job, even if only on an occasional basis?
Sensing Hannah’s reservations, Father Donald continued, “Mind you, there would have to be certain adjustments.”
“Like getting rid of the cow? That cow needs more attention from me than all the children put together,” Hannah complained loudly.
Father Donald gave a nod of understanding. Being rid of the cow was one of the things Hannah often dreamt about. There was all the feeding and housing of Jezebel, not to mention the hours spent tending to her every need – which included herding her up whenever she was chasing after the bull. That Jezebel had grown to be such a bind that life would be so much easier without her. And since almost all of the islanders now went to the shop for properly pasteurised milk, so also could she. Having a daily order for six pints of milk would moreover put her permanently in Katie-Anne’s good books! “Well,” she found herself saying, “I’d certainly enjoy putting my nurse training to such good use. But there’s still so much I have to do here. And I’d have to be absolutely sure the children were well looked after.”
“Oh, they would be that. I’ll speak to the Headmaster about taking Angus and Ishbel into the nursery early,” replied Father Donald enthusiastically, before rubbing his hands, slapping his thighs, chuckling and adding decisively, “Good! Then that’s it all settled. I’ll telephone Stornoway tomorrow and get their stamp of approval.”
“But what about Jezebel?” asked Hannah quietly but firmly. She was determined to make sure that the problem of getting the cow out of her life was not forgotten.
“Oh, Gregor McGregor on Uist is always looking for productive cows that he can milk dry. I know he’ll gladly take her.”
“Aye, Father, that might suit you and Hannah,” remarked Carrie, who felt the cow (of whom she’d grown particularly fond) was getting something of a raw deal, “but will Jezebel be happy with that arrangement?”
