by Jess Smith
Sandy stopped Dr Cunningham because he could see Megan’s eyes narrowing. ‘She’ll thump him in a minute,’ he thought. ‘Excuse me interrupting, doctor, but Mrs Stewart hasn’t seen her husband yet.’
‘Have you not? I was under the impression you came yesterday.’
Sandy again interrupted, ‘She was unable to sign the documents.’
Just at that moment the nurse came in with two teas. Rather than speak to the doctor, Megan drank hers down, an easy task because the tea was half-cold. She thought, ‘If that’s included in the good food, then Bruar will kick the walls down if he’s a spark in him.’
It was obvious she was impatient, so the doctor rose to his feet and said, ‘Well, best go to see your man, then.’
She stared at Sandy, then back to the doctor. Was this is it, then? After all this time they were to come face to face! Her hand reached out for Sandy’s; quickly he grasped it, linking her arm through his. She seemed unsteady.
The walls of the narrow corridor streamed past. She stared up at the winding metal staircase, feeling her head swoon. Grasping Sandy even tighter, she counted the clanking of their steps on the metal stairs.
Her heart sank like a river stone when Sandy pointed to the door. She looked into his eyes pleadingly, yet not knowing why. Perhaps she wanted him to wave a magic wand and bring Bruar smiling into her arms. As the doctor turned the brass door-handle she stopped him.
‘It would take a week to tell you all I’ve suffered to reach this moment. Can you give us privacy?’
‘Of course,’ the doctor assured her, ‘but just a little word of warning, if I may. War can leave scars of dark and ugly scenes where once beauty and happiness reigned.’
‘I have recently witnessed dark and ugly scenes, doctor, but behind this door is all the beauty and happiness I need.’
She waited until her companions’ footsteps were reduced to a whisper on the stairs before turning the shiny brass handle. It was difficult; she didn’t imagine it would be, yet why was her arm feeling stiff? For all her love and devotion, would Bruar’s reaction be hostile? The experts made him sound like a lunatic. One final push of the door and it would be too late to turn away.
Quickly she stepped inside. The door was a welcome support for her back. She closed her eyes, then opened them. Sitting like a school child on a wooden chair, his hands on his knees, staring through the iron bars of the narrow window was her lost husband. At long last, here was her Bruar in all his wonderful glory. Mind sleeping or not, here he was—safe.
Apart from a haircut he’d not changed at all. She approached and turned him to her. Cupping his big chin with shaking hands she kissed him full and passionately. ‘Would you look at you, my bonny proud laddie, what are things coming to when Bruar Stewart sports a bowl haircut! Love, my love, I thank all that’s divine for bringing us together. Nothing will part us, do you hear me, nothing. Soon we’ll be chasing the grouse among the wild beauty of our glens, beneath Scotland’s blue-grey skies.’
He sat motionless, staring at the floor as though a chilly morning frost covered him. For an age she held him, kissed and stroked his hair. ‘My boy, oh my dear silent love, soon this will be a bad memory and you’ll smile again, tell tales of those Vikings. Wait and see, I’m going now to get that doctor. He can please himself, but you and me, we are getting off home.’
His dead face and listless body would have sent many in tears from the room, but they made her more determined. ‘Sandy told me what state you were in on that bloody beach. I know you can’t recognise me, but one day soon you will. We’ll walk upon the cliff tops at Durness with the wind blowing through this blonde hair of yours. These eyes will see again. I feel it, I promise it will happen.’
His hand fell limp from her grasp as his empty eyes continued staring into nothingness. Yet how warm his body felt as she pressed herself into his. How sweet was the aroma of his flesh; this was their heaven.
Sandy and the doctor were thoughtful enough to give her plenty of time, but she so wished it would stand still. Time, however, will not be halted, and soon the door was opening into her world, intruding on their privacy.
‘Mrs Stewart, as you can see this is only a shell of the man you once knew. When young wives come here and see their husbands’ condition it seems to paint a clearer picture of where their future lies. I feel now that you too will be of this mind.’
‘Oh do you now? Well, I have news for you, Doctor, sir, but my man walks and hears and sees. He eats and no doubt can piss. As far as I’m concerned that’ll do for starters. Can his belongings be brought together? I’m taking him home.’
Sandy closed his hands over hers and shook his head. The doctor said that under no circumstances could Bruar leave the premises, he was unable to function in the wider world.
She pulled her hands free and wrapped them round Bruar’s neck. ‘Look, I will not leave my man here, not after all this time, all the searching, you ask the impossible.’
Sandy closed the door. He was all too aware that Doctor Cunningham had positioned two male nurses outside and was about to call them in. He’d spent enough time with Bruar to know the mind of this couple; he’d try and make the doctor see sense. ‘Would it make a difference if I told you that he was a tinker, and, in the eyes of society, worthless? I feel the board would take a dim view of this model asylum housing vermin.’
Megan could see what Sandy was trying to do, so gave him a hand. ‘Aye doctor, wait until he starts shitting in that nice disinfected corner. And tearing the feathers out of those fine pillows on that bed and stuffing them through the window bars. Imagine what passers-by will say. My God, man, this place might get shut down if it’s discovered such a filthy person is taking a room, paid for no doubt by the King’s good purse, or is it those kind officers’ wives?’
‘Listen, both of you, this man has been under my care for some time, and has never shown anything other than impeccable behaviour.’
‘Just wait, though, he’ll change, us dirty tinkers always do. Like old dogs we don’t bother licking ourselves; the smell will be awful.’ Megan was clutching at every excuse to allow her man to be freed.
‘But maybe I could get him transferred to Scotland, would you accept that?’ Doctor Cunningham was beginning to see sense.
Megan shook her head. ‘Give him back his freedom, sir,’ she begged. ‘Let us go home to the hillside, and I promise nothing will be heard or seen of us again.’
The doctor sat on Bruar’s bed and thought long and hard before saying, ‘Well, I certainly could do with the room. The Army Wives Committee is always looking for spaces, there are plenty more unfortunates needing a bed.’
Megan felt her knees weaken; she sat close to Bruar clasping her hands together and gave thanks. Sandy retrieved a small suitcase from under the bed and began packing what few possessions Bruar had. They were going home. It had taken so much time, yet at long last Scotland was only a few hours away.
At the station on the platform Bruar stood between his wife and Sandy, each linking an arm. ‘I have been so swept up with things I forgot to ask, but where you are from?’ said Megan.
‘I’m a Highlander, that’s why that big softy and me had so much in common.’
‘Why are you not going home then, Sandy?’ She was wiping Bruar’s nose, every bit the carer, and although she’d been told he would never be any different, she’d enough of her lad to love.
‘I expect it’s because of two things. One being I promised always to take care of Bruar, and secondly, as I said, lack of funds.’
‘Sandy,’ she said excitedly, ‘There’s enough money for the three of us to go home. Come with us and be there when he opens his eyes, for mark my words he will speak again. If you knew about the Seer and how circumstances have swept me here, then I know you’d have faith.’
‘He always said you were a dream of a wife but not a dreamer. The doctor made sense when he told you this man of yours was severely brain-damaged. Better get used to it. I’ve been with h
im a long time now, and there’s not been so much as a blink of an eyelash.’
‘You don’t know which parts to touch or words to whisper. I’ll take over now, and if this is all I get then so be it. He’s mine, and if we can’t join in life then we’ll do it in dreams. Please understand, Sandy, there’s no way I’d let him rot like mould on cheese in that barred prison. He can live with the wind in his hair and the heather beneath his feet. Now come on, here’s the train. Be there when I open his eyes.’
Sandy shuffled his feet and pushed his hands deep inside his pockets. For a moment he looked around and then shook his head.
She could see all he needed was a wee push. ‘I can’t take this big lump on and off trains, come on, man, give me a hand.’
It worked! With a grin spreading from ear to ear Sandy helped her escort Bruar on the final journey home.
‘Never,’ she promised herself, ‘will we be parted again, not as long as we both live!’
Sandy left them at Inverness, after solemnly promising he’d visit them when he’d said hello to relatives in the north. In Thurso, with the last of her money, she bought a small buggy and an old horse, sturdy enough to trot the moor road to Durness.
Finding Helen’s tiny cottage locked up, she went to call on Father Flynn.
‘Well now, would you believe in miracles?’ he said, seeing her clinging to Bruar.
‘He’ll come back to me. It might take ages, but I can see even now a sparkle in his eye. If you’d seen how blank and dead he was, sitting in a hard chair staring out at iron bars and smoke-filled skies in that bleak asylum! I kid you not, it was a pitiful sight. Here though, where he was brought up, this place will stir life into him. Now, where’s Helen?’
‘So many boys come back from the war like that, I knew of two lads in Sutherland, grand clever heads on their shoulders too. But now they can’t even tie a shoelace. Lassie, be prepared for little improvement. Helen, bless her, is no longer with us. She took a severe stroke. There was no pain, I can say, because she spent a week under my roof until the end. Come away in and have something to eat, can he manage to do that?’
‘Yes, he can function normally. But tell me if Helen left word of her house? I need a home for Bruar.’
‘I’m so sorry, dear, but she never thought a relative was alive, and so she left her small home to the church. Young men entering the priesthood visit periodically and live in it; it’s a kind of sanctuary, if you like.’
In that instant the feelings of homelessness and her new responsibility weighed heavy on her. Durness was a bleak, cold place and without a roof, no place to heal a broken mind.
‘Father, I’m desperate. Do you think as there’s no one living in the old place at the moment that we can stay, just until I can find some other suitable place?’
‘I’ll fetch the key, but meanwhile have some food.’ He ushered them in to sit, and marvelled at how Megan sat Bruar on a seat, placed cutlery in his hands and watched over him as he ate. He thought about how remarkable it was that a young woman should shoulder such a burden, but in the same thought put it down to God, as he did every miraculous event.
Every day Megan spent hours talking Bruar through past experiences. ‘Think on big Rory, and how he and O’Connor would stumble home drunk. And try to remember old Doctor Mackenzie with his crabbit horse. Do you remember Rachel, and Jimmy your brother? Their little boy Nicholas? Oh my love, try to think back.’ She pointed to his head, and over and over again repeated those tales of family and memories past. Day after day she’d come back, sink into a chair and cry with exasperation. Bruar was unresponsive. Whatever damage had been done, she was now totally convinced that if she wanted her man then she had to start to create a new one; the same person, but a new mind. In other words, his life’s learning had to begin at that moment. So, as if with a newborn infant, she began from scratch. To her it presented yet another challenge, but for her all life was a challenge.
Progress crept like a tortoise, and for every step forward, ten went back. Each and every waking minute was spent working meticulously on what was inside her husband’s head, but the work stopped at night. This was her time. Cuddling close into his back, she’d close her eyes and pray to whoever controlled dreams. Gently, as sleep swept over them, they’d be transported back to a secluded, peaceful, sun-kissed Highland hillside where the vibrant, healthy and passionate Bruar would take her in his strong arms and claim her inch by inch. Morning, with its reality, would rush into the tiny bedroom along with dancing sunrays. She’d turn him towards her and say, ‘Thank you, my love.’ And as usual the response was the same, a blank look.
‘Still,’ she’d say getting him dressed, ‘thanks be for dreams.’
Nothing much changed apart from an odd glance or half-smile. ‘If there was one single thread that I might cling to, my love,’ she whispered, walking him along familiar footpaths he would have played upon as a child. ‘I’d hang on and not let go. But it’s so deep inside, that river of horror that finds no sea, and only you can swim in it.’
It was a warm day, a brief spell of windless blue sky, when she decided to take him to Balnakiel graveyard and tell him of her visit from the Seer. She’d speak at length, hoping one word might release a spark. Everything was a long shot, but worth trying.
She sat him down near the simple stone with the words Rory Stewart on it and told him of her experience. He stared at the place of his childhood days with no sign of recognition. She left him sitting there as she wandered onto the white sandy beach.
For a moment her charge was forgotten as her own memories flooded back. Bruar would be safe sitting in the graveyard; the high cliffs with the views to the northern ocean called her.
The Indian summer may have been responsible for her giddy mood that morning, or perhaps it was her night of dreams, but she headed off, light-footed, to climb the cliff tops. ‘This is a magic season of the year,’ she told herself, reaching an alder tree growing bent beside a willow. The first frost had arrived the night before, and she saw how the flow of sap had been halted. She ran her hand over the barks of both trees, and already crimson and gold leaves lined the path. She wondered how bad the winters would be so far north, and wished at that moment Bruar was gushing about the weather in his land and the Vikings and boggy ground. She wanted many times to tell him of Bull Buckley and his fate. ‘Mother Earth, will I ever get him back? If only you could show me a sign.’
The day was easy as she stood overlooking the ocean. Puffins dived and soared skywards; she whispered to them, ‘I have brought him home.’ Throwing back her head she closed her eyes and called out, ‘Big Rory, Balnakiel, I did it!’ She sat down amid the late summer offering of warm air and full-grown grass. A sudden movement in the sparse undergrowth caught her attention; it was a tiny vole rushing back and forth, nibbling bits of foliage. ‘You wee thing,’ she said into herself, ‘I bet that’s a layer of fat you’re busy storing round those tiny flanks to see you through the winter ahead. Well, keep out of the owl’s sight when night comes.’
Suddenly it dawned on her that Bruar was still down at the graveyard. Running like a mother seeking a lost child, she rushed breathlessly in through the gates, but he’d gone from the grave seat; he’d wandered off. Panic-stricken, she dashed everywhere, but there was no sign of him. The only place he could be, as far as she could determine, was on the far-off cliffs. There was no safe footing there—she remembered Helen telling her that when the boys were small that cliff path was forbidden. ‘Bruar,’ she called, ‘wait for me.’ Finding the path treacherous and breaking away underfoot, she scrambled onwards. Reaching the top her heart stopped as she saw him teetering precariously on the edge.
‘Oh no, get back from there,’ she gently whispered, edging nearer. ‘Bruar, look at Megan, turn and see me. Come to me.’ His dead, blank stare gave her the answer she least wanted to get. ‘I have no choice but to inch my way over and drag him back,’ she thought nervously.
Then, at the moment her hand touched his jersey
, a voice shouted out, ‘What the hell are you doing up there with him in that condition?’ It was Father Flynn, but it would have been better if he’d stayed away, because his sudden appearance startled Bruar so much he jumped backward, knocking her over.
She tried to leap forward, but the crumbling rocks beneath her feet gave way, and over the edge she went. ‘I’m finished,’ she thought, as her fingers clung desperately to a cluster of ancient water-battered tree roots. Above her, Father Flynn lay flat on his stomach and called down to her. ‘I haven’t got the reach, can you hang on until I fetch help?’
‘No time! I’m gone—just take care of my man,’ she called, as her fingers began to slip. She thought of thudding onto the rocks below and tightened her eyelids shut.
Then, as the last finger lost its hold, she relaxed her body and gave in to gravity. Instantly two strong arms grabbed hers and pulled her up like a rag doll. Her eyes opened to find her husband; no one else. He had saved her from certain death. The blank eyes still staring from their sockets showed no emotion, and those lifesaving arms once again hung limp and dead.
She knew what had happened, she was breathing and living proof of it. The old priest had also witnessed the miracle. Yet how could it be explained, what would their words be? That a young man without a thought in his empty mind had reached down and pulled his wife to safety?
‘It’s a blessing from God above,’ came the explanation from the man of the cloth. ‘There are those that swear angels are sent with each priest. Oh, and for sure I felt so privileged to have taken in this sight. I tell you, Megan, an angel entered into Bruar and saved the very life of ye!’
