‘Now, Bheinn Ruari, we will take a lamp to the bedroom up the stairs and then you will see if it pleases you,’ Mairi Jane said. Lighting another lamp she led the way up a short flight of narrow stairs and, opening the door of a bedroom placed the lamp on a table beside the already made-up bed. ‘There now!’ she said, stepping aside to await Kirsty’s comments.
To Kirsty the room seemed to have a ‘ready and waiting’ air about it. The bed appeared invitingly cosy; the sheepskin on the floor looked freshly washed and combed; the chest of drawers and the mirrored dressing table were surprisingly modern for a crofthouse and the lamplight reflected the care which had been patently lavished on it.
‘My, but it surely invites one to sleep in it,’ Kirsty exclaimed heartily. ‘I believe I could throw myself into the bed and not wake until the day after tomorrow’
‘Then if you are satisfied I will take this hot water bottle out of the bed,’ Mairi Jane reached under the bedcoverings and drew out a hot water bottle, ‘and I will hot it up ready for when you wish to go to bed. It will keep you warm maybe until your man gets back to warm you.’
She slanted a waggish glance at Kirsty before going on. ‘See I reckon to have the room ready for any passing visitor who’s in need of a bed and a bite to eat, so I put in a hot water bottle every day to keep the bed sweet and dry. It is a good step either way to a hotel,’ she explained. Closing the bedroom door, she said, ‘Come now and you will surely be glad of a warm drink and a bite to eat. Ruari will no doubt be taking a strupak with Padruig.’
While she enjoyed the hot tea and scones and slices of dumpling that were offered, Kirsty tried to probe Mairi Jane’s opinions of the two Ruaris and about the style of life she must expect on Westisle.
‘It is a bonny Island right enough,’ Mairi Jane said, ‘but an Island life is not what I would wish for myself. Even with three or four families as there once were on Westisle the women had found it lonely. They had no school for the bairns and only a wee shed for them to gather on the Sabbath.’ Mairi Jane shook her head sadly. ‘Not one of the women cared to go back, not even for a gift of three cows and twenty sheep would they consider it.’
‘From what I’ve learned the two brothers are happy enough there.’
‘Happy enough certainly, I’d say. They’re good fishermen and good workers both and neither of them wanting in sense. Whether Ruari Mhor will be the happier for having a woman in the house I wouldn’t know. He’s a dour man and will not be easily parted from his work or from his books. But folks speak well of him as they do Ruari Beag. You couldn’t wish for a better husband and you will be sure of having a good home.’
‘Well, hopefully this storm will be quieter by morning and I shall be able to cross and see my new home for myself.’
‘Surely the storm will have quietened,’ Mairi Jane comforted her. ‘And surely that cattle man will be here ready for the sale.’ Her voice was tinged with disdain. Kirsty looked at her with raised eyebrows.
‘Is he not one for giving fair prices for your cattle?’ she asked.
‘There’s some say he does and some say fee doesn’t,’ Mairi Jane told her. ‘I myself cannot say since I no longer have cattle.’
‘He has favourites?’ Kirsty thought it might prove useful to gather the information.
‘He has plenty of money for favourites,’ said Mairi Jane. ‘And he doesn’t come over here – a big man and all acock – with a voice that near deafens the head off one and he has his wee clerk beside him carrying a poc stuffed tight with notes. And I’m after hearing that any woman who has a beast or two for sale, poor as they may look, she’ll likely get a good price for them from him. Maybe not at the sale but afterwards, when there’s no menfolk around. And it’s not unknown for him to give her a calf to rear for him, promising he’ll pay her a good price for it at the next sale.’ Mairi Jane sniffed. ‘More fools them,’ she disparaged, ‘seeing the calves he leaves may not have the right number of legs.’
Kirsty stifled a yawn. ‘I think I’ll not wait up for Ruari,’ she said. ‘If you don’t mind I’ll take my hot water bottle and go to my bed.’
‘Indeed,’ Mairi Jane agreed. ‘It’s likely to be an early start for you in the morning if the sea settles itself for a whiley.’
It was barely daylight when Kirsty heard Ruari calling her to make herself ready for the boat. She rose and dressed quickly and found him waiting impatiently in the kitchen. ‘My brother is here with the boat,’ he told her, ‘and he is anxious to go back and collect the cattle and ferry them across here for the sale while the tide is right and the sea is calm. It’s more than likely it will blow up again by the evening.’
Mairi Jane appeared, hastily pushing her hair beneath an old black beret. ‘My! Are you for away?’ she exclaimed.
‘We are so, and no time to spare,’ Ruari responded.
‘Ach, and here’s my thinking I would have a good breakfast ready for you before you left,’ she lamented. ‘Can you not wait to take a wee cup in you hand just,’ she pressed.
‘No, no,’ Ruari refused, brusquely picking up the two portmanteaux and striding in the direction of a rough slipway where a small boat was moored.
Kirsty had time only to say a hasty farewell to Mairi Jane before hurrying after her husband. She could see there were two men standing on the slip beside the boat and she wondered which of them was her brother-in-law. She peered at them, trying to detect some likeness but the damp wind filmed her eyes and made her peering useless.
As Ruari approached the boat one of the men leapt down ready to take the cases. The second man remained where he was and watched. He paid no attention to Kirsty and for a moment or two she was uncertain of what to do. In the city she’d grown used to ignoring strangers but now she was back in the Islands she must shed city ways. She managed an irresolute smile as she called out ‘Tha e Breagha!’
In acknowledgement the man grunted a barely audible ‘He Breeah!’ at the same time indicating that she should get aboard and seat herself on the middle thwart. He offered no help as she gingerly lowered herself over the gunwale and sat on the middle-thwart facing the bow.
As soon as the cases were satisfactorily stowed Ruari started to root in the cubbyhole and produced an old oilskin which he tied over them. His companion stepped quickly over the thwarts to reach the stern and after a shouted leave-taking the man on the slip untied the mooring rope and threw it to Ruari: the next moment the boat was chugging towards a lone wedge-shaped Island which, with a gesture, Ruari pointed out as Westisle. She tried to hold Ruari’s eye but he turned again to the bow. She guessed he would prefer to occupy himself there, no matter how unimportant the task, rather than come and sit beside her and since she wanted him to confirm only that it was his brother Ruari Mhor in the stern she chose not to embarrass him. It hadn’t surprised Kirsty that he had not attempted to introduce her. She was well accustomed to being disregarded and in any case, a small boat riding a choppy sea was hardly the place to exchange handshakes, she told herself.
She settled herself to renew her acquaintance with the sea, contentedly listening to the breaking of the bow-wave and the slap of the sea against the boat’s sides and it came to her gradually that through all the years she had spent in the city, the image of the sea and all its moods had remained ineradicably in her mind; just as the sound of it had been a subdued melody in her ears.
On an impulse she tilted her chin to catch a splash of the flying spray on her face and the next moment her tammy was blown from her head. ‘Oh!’ she cried despairingly, twisting herself round on the thwart to see if there was any chance of retrieving it but her hair, blowing across her face, obscured her vision.
There was a sharp shout from the stern and, clawing her hair away from her face, she was able to glimpse clearly the man she assumed must be her brother-in-law. He was holding the tammy out to her but as she was about to try and crawl towards him her husband pushed her aside and snatched the tammy from his brother’s grasp. She looked up at her broth
er-in-law and smiled gratefully, but her smile died as she saw his hard set jaw and his impassive eyes instantly dismissing her from his line of vision. Stung, she again turned to face the bow and, replacing her tammy, tied it on with her scarf.
As they neared the Island she could make out the pattern of boulders that marked a cleared channel where a small boat might nose in. The engine slowed; Ruari took the mooring rope and leaped ashore. His brother darted forward, swiftly lifted the cases onto a boulder that was still being splashed by the sea, and as swiftly darted back again to the stern. Kirsty rose from her seat.
‘Are you ready?’ Ruari called and when she nodded to him he offered a helping hand. The boulders where slimy and fearing she might lose her foothold, she gripped his arm tightly. His own grasp of her hand did not tighten and again she attributed it to embarrassment because of his brother’s presence. As soon as they’d reached the short dry sward Ruari went back for the cases which he carried up and set beside her. There was a shout from the boat.
‘I must away,’ Ruari said. ‘We have to get the cattle float from the far side of the Island before the tide goes back any further.’
Kirsty listened to him open-mouthed. ‘But where’s the house?’ she demanded. ‘You’re surely not expecting me to wait here until you get back?’
‘No, no indeed. You’ll find the house at the back of that wee brae there just. My brother says he has left a good fire and there are plenty of peats handy. You will make yourself comfortable until we get back from the sale.’ She stared at him with a kind of amused disbelief. There was another shout from the boat. ‘I’m away,’ he insisted, hurrying down to the boat. ‘You will find everything you want. Oidhche Mhath till this evening,’ he called.
She stood there watching the boat being manoeuvred away from the boulder-strewn shore. Ruari waved an arm as they speared off out of sight beyond a sgurr of rock that stretched out from the land like a withered arm. Now what do I do? She asked herself. Leaving the cases to look after themselves she braced herself to go in search of the house. ‘At the back of the wee brae’ Ruari had instructed her and true enough when she had negotiated a short steep path she saw the house nestling in the glen below.
Her heart bound at the sight of it. It was a grand-looking house to be a crofthouse. Even grander than she had envisaged from Ruari’s description. And this was to be her home! An incredulous smile spread slowly over her face and, leaning against a convenient boulder beside the path, she paused and allowed herself to appraise the house more fully. As her hurrying heart steadied she became aware with breath-catching satisfaction that the smell of peat smoke drifting in the wind seemed to be offering its own welcome.
More eagerly now she carried on until she had reached the end of the path, crossed an area of grass which evidently had been kept well-scythed and then on to a cobbled path alongside the house. Although she felt sure there would be no one there she approached the house timidly, uncertain as to whether she should simply lift the latch and enter or whether she should call out first. She compromised by giving a series of loud coughs before she pushed open the door. Once inside she again reassured herself by shouting, ‘There is no one here, is there?’ The lack of response was heartening and she ventured as far as the threshold of what she perceived through the half-open door to be a well-used living room. She sniffed. What degree of cleanliness could one expect two bachelor brothers to have maintained, she wondered, but she could smell nothing but the familiar peat reek. Nervously she entered the room. It was drab but it looked austerely clean. The wood-lined walls were stained dark with peat smoke; the linoleum that covered the floor was dun-coloured with wear but it was well swept. The sturdy furniture, the waxcloth covered table, the long bow bench beneath the window, and the two armchairs either side of the range all proclaimed they had been fashioned from driftwood. The range itself, though not burnished as a woman might have kept it was not, in Kirsty’s opinion, discreditably lustreless. The grate was piled with damp peat from which a tiny tendril of blue smoke curled fitfully while a couple of black iron kettles stood on the hob and a smoke-smudged metal teapot waited on a trivet beside the hearth. There was such an air of familiarity about it that she knew she had only to reach up to the mantelpiece to find the tea caddy.
Taking off her outdoor clothes she hung them on a hook which, as she expected, was on the door and then sitting down in one of the armchairs she considered her circumstances. She did not resent being left alone. Tides and storms she well knew governed Island life and cattle sales were too infrequent to be dismissed lightly. A beast ready for sale might show no profit if kept back until the next sale. She’d grown up with that knowledge, and despite her years in the city the knowledge had remained rooted in her memory. But coping alone in a strange and empty house on a strange Island she found intimidating.
She shivered. The room was not very warm, and rising she took a layer of the damp peats from the top of the fire and poked in some dry ones just as she had seen her Granny do and after a few puffs from a pair of bellows that hung beside the range the peats were soon glowing red. She smiled reminiscently as memories which had grown frail reasserted themselves. It took only a few minutes for the kettle to boil and only moments before she had a pot of tea brewing.
Searching for something to eat she lifted the lid of a large wooden barrel which stood by the wooden bench and was rewarded by the sight of a good poc of oatmeal on top of which lay two cloth-wrapped bundles, one enclosing girdle scones, the other oatcakes. Again she smiled. Her Granny had used an oatmeal barrel for such a purpose.
Putting two scones on the table she replaced the rest in the barrel and then hunted around for a likely food store. A door, lower than the one through which she had entered, looked promising. In every other crofthouse she had seen, such a door would have opened on to nothing more than a recess bed but recalling that this house had been built by the Laird for his son it seemed likely that such a utility would be neither required nor planned. Opening the door she found herself in what she would have called a scullery. There was a sink graced by a single brass tap, a large cupboard with perforated zinc doors and a dresser, the shelves of which were not filled with crockery but with coloured glass netfloats and a miscellany of driftwood shapes and varied stones.
It was in a cupboard at the bottom of the dresser that she found the food she was looking for; butter, sugar, jam, flour, crowdie and a jug of milk. Two full bottles of whisky stood on one corner flanked by half a dozen mugs, a selection of whisky glasses, several bowls and a random assortment of cooking utensils. Taking what she needed back to the kitchen she drew a chair up to the table and buttered one of the scones. She bit into it warily and judged it was not as good as one of her own but quite palatable. If this was a sample of her brother-in-law’s cooking, she reckoned he would not prove to be much of a rival.
As she ate and drank she surveyed the room and planned how little she would have to do to make it more cheerful. Some bright curtains for the bare windows, the dresser brought out from the scullery and, after being given a coat of paint, enlivened by some colourful crockery. She would have to tread carefully; she must not be impatient nor must she demand change. But surely they would not be adverse to a few small improvements, not even her dour brother-in-law. She rested her arms on the table and her head on her arms. Pictures formed in her mind of the kitchen as she would like it to be but the pictures were dispersed by the desire for sleep. Her head lay more heavily …
The room looked even more drab when she awoke and horror-stricken, realised, the light was beginning to fade. She glanced about her for a clock but no clock was visible. Somewhere at the back of the house she could hear the querulous cries of neglected hens. That was something she must do, she decided, and throwing her mac over her shoulders she raced outside towards a building which she’d identified as a barn. There as she expected she found an opened boll of corn with a tin measure resting on it. Filling the measure twice she threw the corn to the poultry and then investigat
ed the other buildings to make sure they contained no other livestock which needed attention. They were all empty.
As she walked back to the house she could feel the strengthening wind tearing at her and, wondering if the brothers could have landed on the Island while she had been sleeping, she pulled her mac tightly around her and retraced her path to the clearing where she had come ashore that morning. The cases were still where Ruari had left them. She scanned the stretch of sea that separated Westisle from the mainland, hoping to glimpse the boat approaching but the increasing wind and the fading light made it impossible for her to discern anything smaller than a battleship, she reckoned.
She went back to the house pondering what she should do. Would they have had a meal after the cattle sale, she asked herself. Should she prepare a pan of soup? Resolving to see what food might be there she went into the scullery again and looked in the zinc-doored cupboard, where she found a skinned rabbit and a bowl of salt herring. There’d been a good store of potatoes in the barn, she recalled, so the best thing for her to do was to cook a pan of salt herring and potatoes and then if, when they returned the brothers had no appetite for such food, it would make good feed for the poultry.
She prepared the meal in the same way as she had seen her Granny prepare it – first stirring the unpeeled potatoes in a pail of water to clean the skins, then putting them in a large pan of water and topping them with a layer of salt herring. By then setting the pan on the hob to steam, her granny maintained, in the time it took the potatoes to cook, just the right amount of salt would have seeped from the fish to flavour the potatoes, also ‘mildening’ the herring, and her Granny’s herring had always been good.
Replenishing the peat fire she set the pan on the hob, and after a glance through the salt-filmed window, went to the outer door and standing in its shelter, imbibed the distant roar of the sea and the noise of clean, wind-driven rain rustling in the bare branches of the rowan trees as it raced through the glen.
An Island Apart Page 9
