A Rope--In Case

by Lillian Beckwith

  ‘Is Miss Parry coming to sit outside?’ I enquired timidly, thinking of her determination to avoid sunshine on her person or in her house.

  ‘I’ve told her she must. It will do her good,’ said her sister-in-law and raised her voice in summons.

  Miss Parry came outside, trying unsuccessfully to conceal her glowering looks beneath twitching, tight-lipped smiles. She sat rigidly in her chair, refusing to eat even her meagre half slice of toast. As soon as her brother and his wife had departed she took to her bed. The sun had made her ill, she maintained.

  For some time after their visit Miss Parry received parcels of books from her brother who, it seemed, had been dismayed by the drabness of his sister’s life. She read them and then passed them on to me to keep. She did not like having books about the house, they looked untidy. Sometimes she commented on them and once when I found a copy of a somewhat suggestive book among the bundle she had brought me I asked her if she had read it.

  ‘Yes, I did,’ she said.

  ‘Did you enjoy it?’

  ‘I enjoyed some of it,’ she admitted. ‘Did you?’

  ‘I did,’ I acknowledged, ‘but I’m a little surprised at you. Some of the passages I should have expected you to condemn.’

  ‘Oh, those,’ she retorted, ‘I just took my glasses off when I came to them.’

  She continued her lonely and industrious life in Bruach for close on two years before we noticed disturbing signs of odd behaviour. She imagined she was receiving poison-pen letters though she refused to quote the contents and could never show any evidence of such missives. Her suspicions centred on Do-do, her nearest neighbour on whose croft her cottage was situated. Originally Do-do’s offence had been that when Miss Parry had bestowed upon him one of her notorious pullovers Do-do had tried it on in front of her and had openly mocked and derided its shape. Thereafter she had refused to speak to him and whenever his name was mentioned her eyes had grown dark and brooding. She accused him of tormenting her by hanging round her cottage after dark and making strange noises. The Bruachites refused to believe for one instant that there was any substance in her complaints though it was not long before one or two of the more heartless ones had seen to it that there were strange noises near her cottage at night. The next thing we heard was that she was complaining of Do-do’s lack of hygiene. He was making appalling smells, she claimed, and pointed out that though he was old and rheumaticky and could not get out to the moors to relieve his bowels there was no ‘wee hoosie’ on his croft. How then did he manage? Miss Parry had soon convinced herself that he was using the vicinity of her house, hence the smells. At last Erchy resolved to put the question to Do-do and let the old man defend himself. He reported at the next ceilidh.

  ‘ “Do-do,” I says to him. “How do you manage about gettin’ to the moors now your rheumatisn is so bad?”

  ‘ “I don’t manage,” says he.

  ‘ “Well you have no wee hoosie,” says I, “so what do you do about it?”

  ‘ “Well, Erchy,” he says: “You know me well enough, an’ you know I’m never without a good fire. When I feel the need I spread a piece of paper on the hearth an’ when I’m finished it’s straight into the fire with it. What can be more hygienic than that?” he asked me.’

  I was in hospital when Miss Parry became ill though before she

  was herself taken away she had time to send me a voluminous

  garment which she described as her own design of dressing gown.

  It was merely a length of very wide material folded in half and a

  hole cut in the top. The side seams had been left open to make

  armholes somewhere in the region of my waist. I tried it on for

  the entertainment of my fellow patients and wondered how Miss

  Parry’s eyes would have reacted to their laughter.

  A few days after I had returned home from hospital I received

  a letter from Miss Parry’s brother telling me that his wife was

  coming to the cottage to dispose of his sister’s furniture as she

  would not be returning. The sister-in-law called to see me.

  ‘She says that you must have the chest she’s marked and its

  contents,’ she told me. ‘And if there’s anything else you’ve a fancy

  for, for Goodness’s sake take that and save me the bother of having

  to get rid of it,’ she added.

  Together we examined the chest, which had a little label stuck

  on to it with the words ‘For Miss Beckwith’. We lifted the lid. It

  contained:

  One roll of cotton-wool,

  One roll cellulose wadding,

  Dozens of bandages of various widths,

  A stomach pump,

  An enema,

  A bed pan,

  Three feeding bottles,

  Two vomit bowls,

  Six draw sheets,

  Two invalid cups.

  Rooting right at the bottom we also found a stirrup-pump. We stood gazing at each other in mute bewilderment.

  ‘Whatever did she use that for?’ asked the sister-in-law. My own thoughts were, ‘What did she expect me to use it for?’

  We tackled the other chest, reeling from the smell of camphor, and when we had excavated all the oddments of material and bundles of wool we found a boldly labelled dress-box. The label said, ‘My laying out clothes for when I die’. Once again we exchanged glances. The sister-in-law carefully lifted the lid. The garments inside were made in fine white cotton and neatly folded; tucked inside them was another parcel. Cautiously the sister-in-law extracted it. It was something wrapped in many layers of tissue paper.

  ‘Whatever’s this?’ Her tones were awestruck. She finished unwrapping it and displayed a strange-looking garment knitted in white wool. A label sewn to its hem proclaimed it to be ‘A vest for St. Peter’.

  ‘St. Peter!’ gasped the sister-in-law. ‘And her a good presbyterian all her life.’

  I asked that my regards should be conveyed to Miss Parry along with the hope that she would soon be better.

  ‘She’s not likely to get better,’ the sister-in-law confided. ‘The doctor’s told us that.’

  ‘Poor soul,’ I said.

  ‘If only she would settle in hospital she’d stand more chance of lasting a bit longer,’ she said, ‘but she hates it there. Of course,’ she added, ‘when you’ve been strong and healthy all your life it must be dreadful to have to face a long spell in hospital.’

  ‘But I thought she’d spent a lot of time in hospital,’ I exclaimed.

  ‘Not her,’ said her sister-in-law. ‘Never a day’s illness in her life until now, the lucky woman.’

  See ‘The Sea for Breakfast’.

  Back to Text

  ‘No Ortinary . . .’

  On winter evenings in Bruach there was always a ceilidh taking place in someone’s house. A ‘ceilidh’ could be only two people—one neighbour dropping in on another for a ‘wee crack’ as it was called, but a real ceilidh needed at least a dozen people so that there was more likelihood of a too serious conversation being interrupted with song or a too vehement argument being quelled by laughter. Every village had its favourite ceilidh house: places of which it could be said ‘There’s aye good ceilidhin’ there’. Usually the houses had achieved this distinction by having had at some time among it’s occupants a good ‘seanachaidh’ or story-teller who could draw the people to hear his tales. In Bruach Janet’s house was easily the favourite venue. There was no ‘seanachaidh’ residing there now but in the days when Janet’s home had been one of the old ‘black houses’ as they are known in the Hebrides, where the fire sat on a stone hearth in the centre of the earth floor and a barrel hung below a hole in the thatched roof to help coax out the lazy smoke, there had lived an uncle of hers who had been considered a great storyteller. The crofters had come regularly to ceilidh and to listen to the old man and though he had been dead for forty years and Janet now lived in a much mor
e sophisticated house with a corrugated iron roof, linoleum covered floors and a polished range that hurried its smoke into a conventional chimney, the aura of the old ceilidh house and its ‘seanachaidh’ still clung. There were men in the village who would not have thought an evening complete without at least twenty minutes of it being spent at Janet’s fireside. There they would sit, borrowing her brother’s spectacles to read his newspaper, and afterwards criticising his croft and his cattle; mocking at his lack of skill with a gun and arguing his right to some coveted piece of driftwood, while all the time helping themselves from his jar of baking soda to relieve their indigestion.

  Wherever they could be sure of two or three people being gathered together there would the rest of the Bruachites feel impelled to congregate and so one would expect to find the largest, most animated ceilidhs taking place in Janet’s lampiit, wood walled kitchen.

  It was tacitly understood by everyone that ceilidhing did not begin until after the evening chores were over, so the earliest callers did not appear until round about seven o’ clock. From that hour on sporadic thumpings of gumbooted feet in the porch served not only to announce new arrivals but also to reduce the quantity of mud they might otherwise have carried into the kitchen on their boots. Except for tourists in the summer no-one ever thought of knocking on a Bruach door. If a knock had been heard on a winter evening it would certainly have been ignored since the assumption would have been that some of the lads of the village were playing a joke. Save at Halloween such behaviour was rare but the possibility that it might be a stranger’s knock would not immediately have occurred to anyone because strangers on a winter evening were even rarer.

  At Janet’s ceilidhing was so much a part of normal everyday life that no Bruachite was likely to be invited to ‘Come away in’ after the preliminary thuds. They just opened the door, gently if they were inclined to be shy, thrustingly if they were pretending they were not shy; glanced quickly around to see who had already arrived, and then slid into the nearest available space whether it was a seat on the wooden bench or a vacant patch on the floor. Only if you were an outsider like myself would it be likely for you to receive a nod of welcome or recognition but by their very indifference the crofters would become immediately integrated into the gathering, absorbed in its atmosphere of hospitality and friendliness.

  The true, spontaneous Highland ceilidhs are a wonderful institution; the complete antidote to loneliness. No-one is ever unwelcome and old or young you may come and go as you please. You may contribute to the discussion or you may sit quietly and listen; you may pose an inflammatory question and then sit back and let other more passionate contenders pursue it to an irate, or more often amusing, conclusion; you might hum a snatch of song and be leading a lusty chorus after only a bar or two; you could claim to have seen a ghost (a ‘wee mannie’ was the most generally acceptable) and at once have the ears and eyes of the company concentrated on you, avid not only to hear your story but to be awed by it.

  Ceilidhs varied according to the company or to the news or to the weather. If there was a preponderance of old men reminiscence would almost certainly dominate the evening’s conversation. When Hector or Erchy was present talk about the sea and boats was inevitable, and the militant Tearlaich—described by Morag as ‘Him that would make a quarrel in an empty house’—had only to have his broad, hunched shoulders half way through the door before he had provoked everyone to argument. Tearlaich’s capacity for dispute was impressive. The Bruachites related in shocked tones how once he and his mate had taken some tourists on a boat trip to one of the outlying Islands. When the time had come for their return and the boat had loaded her passengers a fierce argument had erupted between the two men. The boat lurched and wallowed as the argument grew more vehement and the passengers sat in a terrified silence, unable to understand a word of the crackle and hiss of vituperative Gaelic. Suddenly a man who had not been one of the original party appeared scrambling quickly over the rocks towards the boat. He shouted to the boat men to help him get aboard but, ignoring him they continued upbraiding each other and left him to struggle aboard alone. As soon as his foot touched the deck the man lay down. It was minutes later that one of the party of tourists managed to raise his voice sufficiently to quell the protagonists. ‘Are you aware that you have a corpse aboard this boat?’ he shouted at them and having thus commanded their attention he indicated the prostrate figure. Undoubtedly the man was dead.

  When I made up my mind to go to a ceilidh I always hoped that certain people would be there, my favourite being Fiona. Fiona was a dear kind old soul; lumpish in shape, tattily clad and always reeking of staleness. Though I recoiled from close proximity to her I enjoyed her company, cherishing her presence in much the same way I cherished the presence of the compost heap at the bottom of the garden—regretful of its appearance and odour but grateful for the bountiful goodness that was constantly working away inside. Given the chance Fiona would have taken upon herself the troubles and toils of the whole village. She was available if anyone needed a temporary nurse for an old relative or a sick cow; she was ready to lend a hand at the making of haggis and black pudding whenever a sheep was killed; she would lay out a corpse or pluck a hen and if someone ran short of bread she was so good-hearted she would give them her last half loaf. I have even seen her take the sweet from her mouth to give to a child. Although she had never been off the island Fiona was by no means lacking in shrewdness and guile. She was however at times confounded by modern acquisitions which most of the Bruachites had by now come to accept. She would not go near a telephone for instance and water running from a tap, when she had a chance of seeing such a thing, was still a source of great delight. A camera was an inexplicable machine and a photograph something to be exclaimed over as much for its existence as for its subject matter. She had been at my house one evening when I was giving a show of colour slides, most of which I had taken myself in and around the village. Fiona had sat very quietly indeed until I put a slide into the projector which showed the cottage where Angus, the fisherman, lived with his mother. It was an excellent photograph, so clear that it showed the dribble of tar over one window and the unlit lamp on the sill inside. Around the wide open door was grouped an expectant cluster of hens, obviously anticipating a feed, and the quality of the photograph was such that one found oneself awaiting the appearance of Angus’s mother at the door with a bowl of mash. Amid appreciative murmurs of identification and approval Fiona suddenly jumped up.

  ‘I must away an’ shut that door!’ she explained in answer to our enquiries. ‘There’s Angus away to the sea this very mornin’ an’ his mother away in Glasgow an’ there’s the door wide open. Yon hens will take every bit of food in the house if I don’t close it.’

  The presence of Fiona at a ceilidh invariably evoked tales of the supernatural, for she was unashamedly greedy for old legends and stories of mystery. There needed only to be the tiniest whisper of a slightly out of the ordinary happening and instantly Fiona would attach to it magical associations and would launch into one of her numerous tales of strange predictions and stranger events. When her story ended someone else would be exhorted to contribute a tale and so it would continue for the rest of the evening. There is no doubt in my mind that tales of the supernatural were accepted by the Bruachites as being factual. And indeed I found it difficult to be sceptical when I was listening to such unequivocal narration in an ambience of lamplight and peatsmoke; listening to old men who could preface their stories with ‘I mind when I was a wee lad my grandfather tellin’ me’ …; listening to people who could tell of first-hand encounters with ghosts or wee folk which might be recollections of thirty years ago or might be an experience of the previous week. One had to be a cynic to discount stories told with such conviction. It was not so easy to be cynical when after a night of such cosy mystery you had to walk home across lonely moors where the wind hummed eerily in the corries; malign shadows dogged your path, and there were sudden and inexplicable cold breaths over
your shoulders. Even in daylight there were parts of the moor which were too oppressive for anyone to wish to be there alone. In the dark one hardly dared to look in their direction.

  One clear fine night in October I was sitting in my own kitchen with my ear pushed almost inside an ebbing radio set trying to pick up the essential clues in a tensely exciting murder mystery. Just when the final denouement was about to be made however the radio gave a final whimper and died completely. I swore at it; I twiddled knobs, and shook it without being rewarded with so much as a scratch of atmospherics. Disgusted, I turned away from it and at that moment there came a growl of wind in the chimney and the kitchen was filled with smoke. Every chimney in Bruach suffered at some time or another from wind blowing down it but fortunately it was not always the same wind direction that affected all the chimneys. I knew that Janet’s chimney never misbehaved itself at the same time as mine so I resolved to go and join the inevitable ceilidh around her fire. I slung a coat over my shoulders and held it together with my left hand, my right hand being bandaged and in a sling since I had fallen on it two weeks previously. I opened the door into Janet’s kitchen and she looked up in surprise. Her face broke into a welcoming smile as she urged someone to make room for me near the fire. This much of a stranger I knew I should always be in Bruach.

  ‘An’ how’s your poor, dear wrist, Miss Peckwitt?’ It was Fiona’s anxious voice and I turned happily to acknowledge her and her enquiry. Anything that was ailing was always poor and dear to Fiona. You might hear her say one time, ‘The poor, dear man has gone to his rest,’ and another time she might be bemoaning, ‘The poor, dear bus has a hole in its wheel.’

  I told her that my wrist didn’t seem to be getting much better. It was still very painful.

  ‘I’m sayin’ I wouldn’t be surprised if you’ve broken it,’ Erchy chipped in through the general commiseration.

  ‘I suspected that myself,’ I admitted, ‘but the doctor has X-rayed it and he’s quite confident there’s nothing broken.’