Call the Nurse

by Mary J. Macleod

  ‘I think I can deal with this fairly easily,’ John said, after some thought. ‘I doubt if he has a licence for the gun, so I could insist on removing it. If he has a licence, it will be on record, and I’ll claim that all guns are being collected for inspection. And then perhaps I can . . . ahh . . . um . . . lose it. If you follow.’

  I nodded. ‘He is clearly unfit to own a gun. Who knows what he might do with it? That is probably what has happened to the dog and the cow. Obviously, Ally Beag must think so.’

  ‘I’m on my way now, Nurse. Wish me luck!’

  And off he went. I did not envy him, but I was so thankful that we had a resourceful policeman who was not bothered about ‘following procedures’, which might have involved all manner of forms and permissions and delays. Protection of the public ‘Papavray style’ suited me.

  Months later, I was present when we had to section Donny. As far as I know, that firearm is still in John’s gun cupboard.

  THIRTY

  Silent stones and a sad spirit

  All over the Highlands and Western Isles can be seen the remains of abandoned villages with their ruined cottages, roofless byres and broken walls. They stand as a monument to one of the most heartless and short-sighted acts of vandalism the British Isles has ever known.

  I had read about the ‘Clearances’, but now that I lived on one of the islands so badly affected I was hearing by word of mouth the stories passed down the generations and I felt the atavistic resentment that still lies smouldering in the hearts of so many. No longer were the people who were driven from their homes merely figures in the history books; suddenly, they became someone’s great-grandfather. Now I was meeting big American Scots who were roaming round Papavray looking for ‘the old homestead’.

  There were several abandoned and derelict villages within a few miles of Dhubaig and we passed one almost daily, but only in winter, when the heather and bracken die away, could one just make out the shapes of the houses and byres. The touring summer visitors never saw such villages: they were long back to their central heating before these old stones made their yearly appearance.

  From time to time, I visited another old village by dinghy. Peace now pervaded the remains of this once-thriving township that nestled in a wide, steep-sided valley, running down to the wild sea between heather-clad hills. It was typically placed on sheltered ground, where people could rear their animals, grow their meagre crops and land their fish on nearby beaches. The sea was their only roadway—no tracks ever linked these remote communities. This is Kilcraigie.

  One glorious summer day, I pulled my dinghy up the beach and secured it against the rising tide. I tramped over the pebbles and climbed up beside the waterfall. It was a soft, warm day, and I could hear the skylarks rejoicing overhead as I wandered among the old walls, some scarcely visible. The remains of a perimeter wall enclosed the entire village to keep the animals out in the summer, when there was plenty of grazing on the hills, so that the people could grow their precious crops inside. Much later, each croft was separately fenced, but by that time this village was already dying.

  I entered the doorway of one house and stood in the room that was now open to the sky. The fireplace, washed clean by years of rain, stared blindly across the tussocky grass, where children once played on the beaten-earth floor. Outside, the byre stood gaunt and useless. No steamy breath of cattle or munching of hay now disturbed this place. The screech of a startled blackbird broke the silence. He soared into the sky and disappeared among the cotton-wool clouds, and the silence surged softly back.

  Once this house rang with the shouts of children and the whirr of the spinning wheel. On such a day as this, the men would have been tending their potatoes or turnips. If the summer had been a dry one, they may have been gathering in the hay or the oats. On the beach, all would have been bustle as the one and only fishing boat, manned by the menfolk of several households, came in to land its catch. The burn would have been alive with activity as small children played or paddled, while their mothers washed clothes and blankets, banging the coarse material on the stones and draping them on the bushes to dry. I wonder where they all went? And who among their descendants comes to gaze at the reproachful stones and think of the suffering of those innocent people, on that fateful night, nearly two centuries ago?

  *

  It was not summer then, with the birdsong and the sun to soften the horror, but a cold, harsh winter’s night with snow on the ground and a bitter wind screaming in from the sea, bringing ever more snow. Most of the men were away, as the fishing boat had not made harbour that day; it was sheltering in a cove many miles distant.

  Suddenly, the hills were alive with soldiers armed with guns and clubs. They rushed down into the sleeping village, wrenched open doors and hauled the terrified inhabitants out into the snow. Babies were torn from their mother’s arms, old women dragged from their beds and dumped outside, while children ran, shrieking into the night. With no hint of mercy, the soldiers threw the meagre possessions outside and set fire to the houses. In spite of the snow, the brittle old thatch soon caught light and within minutes the people were homeless.

  The soldiers had long gone when dawn broke and the fishing boat slid into the bay. Huddled on the beach were the fishermen’s families, while in the background smoke rose from the blackened ruins of their homes. The men knew why this had happened. They had heard from other boats about townships demolished and families left destitute up and down the coast. They knew that their landlords, Scottish and English alike, had discovered that sheep were more profitable than tenants. With the huge mills of the south demanding more and more wool to feed the hungry looms, and prices rising steadily, the landlords had decided to buy in thousands of sheep. They would roam the hills in the summer, but when winter closed in they would need the shelter of the glens. But the people, paying only a tiny rent, were in the way. So they had to go! Thousands were driven out over the hills or away by sea to who knows where. Some went to the cities, some to far countries, many dying on the way. No one cared what became of them so long as the millions of sheep had room to grow their valuable wool to line the pockets of the wealthy lairds.

  What had they thought as they looked back from that tiny fishing boat on all that remained of their lives? I know that life was hard, often lived at subsistence level, but they had a spirit, a determination that took no account of the bare feet and the ragged clothes.

  In this denuded glen, there is nothing but silence now, as the sheep, too, have gone.

  *

  I was brought back from these sad thoughts by a sudden bite on my face. The wind had dropped, so I knew that the ravenous hordes of midges would shortly descend on me in the still air. The midges are the only things about the Hebrides that I detested and resented. We were stoic in rain, resigned in gales, excited in snow and ecstatic in sunshine. But midges . . .

  After rising from my seat on the ruined croft wall, I took one last look around, and while glancing towards the tiny graveyard I was amazed to see that I was not alone! A man in a fawn raincoat was standing beside one of the graves. I started to walk towards him to speak, and, in my hurry, stumbled and fell on the uneven ground. I scrambled up, smiling in embarrassment, as I looked once more towards the man.

  There was no one there! The graveyard, the village, the entire glen was empty! With shaking knees, I sat down again. Had he been a figment of my imagination? Or a trick of the light? Or . . .? He had been wearing modern clothes (albeit a mackintosh on a hot day). I could describe his dark hair, his moustache, his down-at-heel appearance and sloping shoulders. I even knew that, in the manner of many raincoats, a fold of material hid the buttons.

  After a while, I walked over to the grave at which he had been standing. I looked at the faded and lichened inscription on the rough-hewn granite stone. The sentiment was in Gaelic, which meant nothing to me, but the name gave me quite a jolt.

  ‘Mary Flora Cameron.1804–1840.’

  George’s mother’s family name! I
found it all very strange, worrying—frightening even. Was he a lost soul, caught between heaven and earth?

  I was suddenly very anxious to leave! My little craft seemed inviting, wholesome, and I chugged gratefully across the sea loch to tie up at Alistair’s jetty.

  ‘And where have you been?’ The voice was followed by a grubby-looking Alistair, who emerged from a small stone shed.

  ‘Are you all right?’ he asked through clenched teeth that were clamped around his ever-present unlit pipe full of dead matches. He peered into my face. He was not a particularly sympathetic person, but now he looked concerned.

  ‘You look as if you have seen a ghost!’ he said, with unintentional but staggering accuracy.

  At last, I managed to speak. ‘Yes, I think you may be right.’

  He looked at me with penetrating intensity for a moment and then gazed out to sea.

  Finally, he said, ‘You have been to Kilcraigie, I gather.’

  I stared at him.

  ‘Come on up and have some tea. Alice is in the garden.’

  ‘Yes. Thank you. But how . . .? Who was . . .?’

  ‘Not now. Tea first.’

  ‘Not now. Tea first.’

  Taking a firm hold on my arm, he propelled me up the 30-odd steps to where Alice was sitting in the garden, wearing her old straw hat and some bright gardening gloves.

  ‘Hello, Mary-J. My word! You look a bit white.’ She patted the seat beside her.

  Alistair went into the house to make some tea, and I tentatively began to tell Alice about ‘the man in the mac’, as I thought of him. Sitting in this cheerful, sunny garden beside a friend, I found myself wondering if it all sounded ridiculous. But Alice did not seem surprised or sceptical and nodded sympathetically.

  ‘We have heard about this man before, Mary-J, and many people believe that they know who he is—or was.’

  I looked at them. These were two sophisticated, educated people—not some elderly crofters, already steeped in folklore and tales of the supernatural. But they were accepting as fact the appearance of . . . what? A ghost, I suppose.

  Alistair was speaking. ‘About ten or fifteen years ago, a Frank Cameron came to the island from Glasgow, looking for evidence that his forebears originated on Papavray. I met him once or twice. Scruffy-looking fellow. Stooping. Some sort of university professor. He often stayed at the Ardmartin Hotel, and this particular day he tramped over here to borrow old Ben’s boat to go to Kilcraigie. He had some maps and had done some research that suggested that his people might have come from there. The weather was appalling, and Ben was not inclined to let him have the boat. But this Frank Cameron fellow was determined. Said he had to get back the next day to give a lecture and this was the only opportunity he would have. So, much against his better judgement, Ben let him have his boat. Good strong boat. Nothing wrong with the boat.’

  Alistair was very fond of the old sea dog who helped him so much with the cruiser. He continued, ‘Well, no sooner had this Frank fellow gone than the most atrocious storm broke. The visibility was so bad that we couldn’t see whether he reached the other side or not. Ben and I watched for a while, but then we called the coastguard. They couldn’t find him. It was three days later that bits of the boat started to come ashore and then they found him washed up on Gull Rock. He was very dead! Poor chap! Only fifty!’

  ‘What a dreadful tale,’ I said. ‘Do you know if Mary Flora was his ancestor? He was standing by her grave when I saw him.’ I realised that I was speaking of him as though he were just another person, not an . . . an . . . apparition or whatever. And, indeed, my impression of him had been so vivid, even to those buttons and his tatty old city shoes. Why, I even knew that he had his hands in his pockets! He had been so real.

  ‘You are sure of all this? You’re not kidding?’ I was suddenly suspicious.

  ‘No, my dear. We can’t explain it any more than you can, but quite a few people have seen him standing in Kilcraigie graveyard. The description is always the same, and that is how he looked when he left here that day.’

  Later, when I left for home, I felt depressed and sad, but my sensible side told me that the manifestation was just not possible. But it had happened, and my spiritual convictions were rocking. What could I think? Accept it, maybe, as one of many things that are unexplainable, and say, like Shakespeare’s Hamlet, ‘There are more things in Heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in our philosophy’? Perhaps our philosophy is too narrow. Maybe we will understand one day . . .

  George was away, so several days went by before I could tell him about this strange experience. At first, he was inclined to scoff. ‘You have been with these crofters too long,’ he said. But gradually he began to pay more attention to crofters’ tales of weird happenings in general and decided that there ‘might be something in this Frank Cameron’ after all.

  Many, many years later, when I mentioned the ‘man in the mac’ to him, he was convinced that he had actually seen him for himself. I am still not sure if he was teasing.

  Of course, the boys were all too happy to believe me and begged to be taken to Kilcraigie in the hope of seeing ‘the man’. I did take them there on several occasions, but Frank Cameron never appeared. I wondered if the boys, for all their bravado, might have been a little relieved.

  THIRTY-ONE

  Helping hands

  One day at the beginning of September, I decided to get the car ready for the winter. This involved packing a spade, a shovel, some sacks, an old piece of carpet, and a can of petrol into the boot, while two or three blankets were popped onto the back seat.

  September was the month when we began to say goodbye to the glowing green of the bright grass of summer, the joyful birdsong and the long hours of daylight, and anticipate the gale-swept hills and snowy peaks of winter, the big fires and the darker days.

  September held the glow of the purple heather clothing the hills and moors: the final swansong before animals and plants closed down for the long dark winter. But some winter days could be beautiful, with glittering silvery sunlight picking out every corrie in the mountains, every white-water stream, and inviting the weary humans to lift their faces to the blessed warmth. Then there was the snow that transformed the winterweary scene to a fairyland of sparkling majesty in sunshine or moonlight, and young folk screamed with delight as sledges slid and snowballs soared.

  Of course we grumbled in the winter (it was too dark and wet) and in the spring (it came too late and was too cold) and in the summer (when there were too many midges) and then again in the autumn (when the gales began once more). But grumbling is a national pastime, and behind this pretended disaffection with our lot was a deep abiding love for the island, its life, its people, and the all-embracing sea.

  But we prepared well for the winter. The last of the peats were brought down from the hills and coal was hoarded, as the notoriously unreliable old coal boat began to wallow alarmingly in the heavier seas of autumn. Byre roofs were inspected and made safe, wind-loosened door hinges were strengthened; ditches were dug deeper to take the run-off from the winter rains and chimney cowls were mended or renewed. Without these cowls the down draughts in the beleaguered chimneys would send the thick peat smoke into the room below to kipper the fire-hugging family.

  One Sunday morning, I was once again the only car on the road to ‘the other side’, in this case Cill Donnan. I had the usual daily insulin injection to give to old Christina, who was too arthritic to do it herself. I was sorry for her, but she was an unlikeable lady, being sharp-tongued and derisory, so she was avoided by most of the locals, who termed her ‘yon Christina woman’. A ferocious Amazon of a daughter called once weekly to ‘do for her’, as she put it.

  So every morning I chugged up and over Loch Annan to Cill Donnan; I usually had plenty more visits to make but on Sundays she was often the only patient. A round trip of about eighteen miles for one two-minute injection! Not very cost effective, but this sort of thing was repeated all over the Highlands and Isla
nds because our districts were geographically so large.

  Suddenly, on a very steep, narrow section of the hill with a drop of many feet to the rocky stream at the side, there was a bang and the little car slewed about, heading for the burn far below. Wrenching the steering wheel over with all my strength, I managed to make her turn within inches of the edge, and she juddered to a halt, broadside in the lane. I sank back in my seat with relief. And then jerked forward again. The steering wheel and the entire steering column had come off in my hands! I sat there for a moment with all this equipment on my lap, utterly astounded.

  It was fairly obvious that I had suffered a burst tyre, and I could only suppose that the strain I had imposed on the steering had broken something in the column. So I had a burst tyre and no steering.

  Time was passing and I had been late already so the injection was now urgent. This was Sunday, the day when everyone seemed to stay late in bed, so I could not expect help. I decided to leave the car and walk the remaining three or four miles, attend my patient and then look around for some assistance. Leaving a car with a burst tyre and no steering broadside-on in a narrow, steep lane might seem an odd thing to do, but I knew that someone would be along later and would change the tyre and perhaps do something about the steering (I didn’t know what was possible), and somehow move it to the side. Such was my faith in the crofters by then!

  When I emerged from Christina’s dark and depressing croft house in Cill Donnan, there was a dilapidated old car waiting at the gate. A red face beneath the inevitable flat cap grinned at me from the driver’s window.

  ‘My, my. You’ll be needin a lift then, Nurse.’

  ‘Yes, thank you. You see, I had to leave my car . . .’

  ‘Aye, I know. I saw Dougall, who’d been talkin’ with Donald, and he’d seen Fergie sortin’ it. So I came to see were you finished with yon Christina woman and were you wantin’ a ride.’