Heather Song

by Michael Phillips

  A few shocked expressions went around the room.

  “I have Marie to thank,” Alicia went on, “and someone else—they literally saved my life. Literally…I mean it. Since that day Marie has helped me begin to put all that behind me, to break free of the fear of the past. It feels like the sun is coming out in my life for the first time. And though I don’t want to speak ill of anyone, much of it has been because I have at last come to see Olivia as she truly is—as a controller and manipulator of us all, as one who is completely self-motivated. She never really cared about us at all. She had to have power over people, and we helped give it to her. We were not true friends to her or even to one another. We were enablers. We were weak and powerless, and she held us in her grip with all her threats. Even her hexes toward everyone else—people who had never spoken a cross word to her in her life—were directed as much at us as at them, to keep us so afraid of her we would do her bidding and would never question her. She was mean and cruel. We all knew it. But none of us spoke up. We went along because we were afraid not to. Maybe I was afraid of the rest of you, too, I don’t know. But now as I look back, I am ashamed that I had so little backbone. I can’t help thinking about Winny, too, and…if I’d had more courage, she might—”

  Alicia choked momentarily and was blinking hard. She sniffed and wiped at her eyes, struggling to continue.

  “I don’t know about any of the rest of you,” she said. “Maybe you all broke free from it years ago, but I am only now realizing for the first time the bondage I have been under to Olivia’s control. And now I am breaking free from it, and I have to tell you that it feels good. I am so sorry for my own part in it all that may have made it harder for the rest of you.”

  She stopped and took a deep breath. The stunned silence that filled the room was almost deafening.

  I hoped Alasdair didn’t cough or rustle on the other side of the divider!

  It was quiet a good long while. At last Alicia gave way to her tears. She cried without shame and blew her nose several times. Cora was the first to speak.

  “I haena told a soul aboot it,” she said timidly, “but I had what may hae been a similar kin’ o’ experience mony a year syne. I went oot walkin’ an’ then I fell into a trance like, almost like I was sleepwalkin’, though I dinna ken aboot that. An’ when I came tae mysel’, I was at the veery edge o’ the cliff o’ Findlater wi’ Olivia’s words ringin’ in my lug, div ye mind hoo she said, ‘Welcome, O deith, thy warm embrace, on the cliff at Findlater’s face.’ ”

  At the words, this time it was Alicia who gasped. I glanced over. Her face was white as a sheet.

  “I had forgotten those words!” she said. “But they were in my mind that day, too—urging and goading me on, almost as if Olivia herself was beside me whispering them into my ear, telling me the only way I would know peace was to go to Findlater’s cliffs.”

  That was all it took. Within minutes the four women were talking and sharing furiously, as if the floodgates of twenty years had been opened. Doubts and fears they had each kept to themselves and borne in silence were suddenly exposed to the light of day. All except for Adela. She contributed nothing to the discussion. Tavia, Fia, and Cora, it turned out, all had had remarkably parallel experiences and were no less eager than Alicia to be free of the bondages from the past. No one brought up the fact that none of them had ever married, nor questioned whether Olivia’s influence and tendencies of feminist power and control—to use Ranald’s description—might be at the root of their own distant and confusing relationships with men.

  The instant rapport of free, tearful, heart-gushing and liberating sharing was wonderful to behold. I knew old wounds and scars and doubts and guilts were being healed before my very eyes. Before they left, the five agreed to meet the following day at the Puddleduck in Crannoch for lunch. They were kind to invite me, but I declined. It was best they help one another sort out their feelings without me.

  When the ladies were gone, I crept around the tapestry divider into the other side of the sitting area. The room was empty.

  I went in search of Alasdair. I found him in his study. He was sitting at his desk staring out the window, obviously lost in thought. I walked in and sat down. He turned to me, and the expression on his face told me that he had been there at least part of the time.

  “How much did you hear?” I asked.

  “The music.” He smiled. “It was positively lovely. You’ve done a masterful job with them in such a short time. You really are a gifted teacher. Listening to the way you talk to them, encourage them, and are able to draw their gifts out of them—listening to you teach is as wonderful as the music itself. It was truly amazing. It really is a gift, isn’t it?”

  “I hope so,” I said, returning his smile. “Thank you, Alasdair. That’s one of the nicest things anyone has ever said to me.”

  “It’s true—I mean every word. And the music, too, was beautiful. Not quite so lovely as that I heard the first time a harp was played in this room, back in my ‘Eleanor Rigby’ days. But you are right—more than one harp together, even in the hands of relative beginners, is magical.”

  “It is wonderful to see the music of the harp expanding,” I said. “That is my dream—for more and more people to learn to play. That is what I hope will be my contribution to the harp world—expanding awareness and teaching as many as possible to take the music out with them into their worlds, where it will continue expanding and influencing lives, like a pebble thrown into a pond rippling outward in its ever-widening effect…touching the lives and working to heal the hearts of people I will never know. Did you hear anything else?” I asked.

  “A little,” replied Alasdair. “After how Alicia shared—after that, I can no longer think of her as Miss Forbes—and then the others began…I realized I should not be there. They were speaking from such depths that I had no right to listen in. So I crept out.”

  “I didn’t hear you leave.”

  “I was very careful. Picture an elephant on tiptoes! But even the little I heard was healing for me, too—to realize that I wasn’t alone. Those poor ladies, I feel bad for them. And by the way, I am sorry, my dear, for overreacting the other day when they were here. I was wrong to jump to the conclusion I did. I completely misread the situation. Please, forgive me.”

  “Oh, Alasdair—of course!” I said. I walked to him and put my arms around him where he still sat and leaned my head on his shoulder. “I understood…At least, the more I am learning about what you all went through, I am beginning to understand. Hopefully all that will now be behind them, and you.”

  The ladies got together almost every day for the next week, though Adela was not always with them, rekindling on a new footing their long-dormant friendships. Whether Adela did in fact take the bus into Aberdeen, neither Alicia nor I ever knew.

  Our ensemble “lessons” for several weeks hardly produced a note of music. There was so much the ladies had to talk about and learn and see in a new light, the sessions turned out to be more of therapy than music.

  “Marie, you should hang up a sign in your studio,” said Tavia one day after several tearful confessions and hugs and tissues scattered all over the floor, “‘Harp Lessons, Counseling Services, and Inner Healing Sessions.’”

  Everyone laughed.

  But she wasn’t far wrong.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The Bin…Again

  Away in the Hielands

  There stands a wee hoose

  And it stands on the breast of the brae.

  Where we played as laddies

  Sae long long ago,

  And it seems it was just yesterday.

  —M. MacFarlane, “Granny’s Hielan’ Hame”

  I knew Alicia would not be completely over what had happened when she and I went out the day before the storm, and with what had transpired on the cliffs of Findlater, until she was able to meet Ranald Bain face-to-face and could be comfortable in his cottage. To truly be broken, Olivia’s phantom curse ha
d to be broken within her.

  After several weeks, after two more summer storms had blown through and another dry spell had set in and the ground had mostly dried out, I suggested another walk up the Bin.

  She nodded. “Do you think I am ready?” she said.

  “I do. But it’s your call.”

  She drew in a deep breath of resolve. “I would like to,” she said. “I need to find out if I am at last master of my own fate. If I am still afraid, then Olivia has still got her hooks in me. I have to find out, so let’s go.”

  It was mostly quiet as we retraced our steps from the earlier walk. It was truly a pilgrimage of sorts for Alicia, maybe a little like coming to Scotland the first time had been for me. When we came out of the woods, rather than taking the same route to the summit that we had before, Alicia headed straight into the meadow where I had first encountered Ranald. A few sheep were grazing, and the barking of dogs as we climbed over the dyke told us that Ranald himself was not far away. In another minute we saw him walking toward us, sheep and dogs surrounding him, the dogs bounding about playfully.

  “Guid day tae ye, lassies!” he shouted while still some distance away.

  I waved and we continued toward him. He approached and we slowed.

  “Hello, Marie,” said Ranald, “an’ greetings tae ye, Alicia, lass. I’m aye glad tae see ye again. ’Tis been mony a lang year.”

  “Hello, Mr. Bain,” replied Alicia, then held out her hand. “Thank you for saving my life.”

  I could tell it was a hard thing for her to do, far more than a mere gesture. She did not want to shy away from what she knew she must do. Ranald took her hand, clasped it a moment, then shook it twice softly and gently.

  Alicia looked up into Ranald’s face and sheepishly smiled.

  “I am sorry about before, Mr. Bain,” she said. “I was confused and afraid. I said terrible things. I am truly sorry.”

  “Think nae mair aboot it, lass,” Ranald replied. “’Tis o’er an’ past, jist like the sin o’ the worl’ will vanish in the licht o’ God’s eternal Sun. We’re a’ pilgrims on the road, an’ we a’ stumble fae time tae time. But gien God doesna luik back, nae mair should we. I’m haupin’ ye ladies hae time tae bide a wee an’ come ben the hoosie for a drap o’ tea wi’ an auld shepherd.”

  “We would be delighted,” I said.

  Ranald turned and led us toward his cottage, chatting with me as we went so that Alicia could watch and listen and grow comfortable in his presence.

  “An’ hoo’s the duke, Marie, lass?” asked Ranald.

  “Just fine, thank you,” I replied. “Busier than ever and to all appearances loving every minute of it. He visits with most of the farmers in the community regularly and even lends them a hand whenever they let him. He has never enjoyed hard honest work so much.”

  “An’ yer harpie ladies?”

  “They are doing well. I am anxious for you to hear them.”

  “A’ in guid time, lass.”

  As we walked into the cottage, I saw Alicia hesitate momentarily, glancing above her at the roof and ceiling, almost as if she were entering a den of danger. I knew Olivia’s words were going through her head. She kept on bravely, resisting them, and, in the very act of walking through the door, sending away their power to hurt her again. The moment we were inside, she brightened. A fire burned on Ranald’s cookstove almost as if he had been expecting us, a thin wisp of steam rising from the spout of the kettle sitting on top of it.

  “A drap o’ tea an’ then hoo de ye fancy a wee bit o’ music? ’Tis been awhile since the auld wife an’ the harpie made melody thegither.”

  “What’s an auld wife?” asked Alicia.

  “That’s what Ranald calls his violin.” I laughed.

  “I didn’t think you could be talking about your wife, Mr. Bain.”

  “Nae, nae…she’ll always be my Maggie.”

  Alicia glanced down and a serious expression came over her face. “I am sorry about your wife, Mr. Bain,” she said after a moment. “And Winny, of course. I don’t think I ever told you what a good friend she was. I still miss her, but I’m sure not nearly as much as you. It must be very hard.”

  “There be times, I winna deny’t, fan the tears come upo’ me unbidden. But I ken they’re thegither an’ happy, an’ I’ll join them soon by-an’-by. Sae I dinna greet lang. God is guid, an’ that’s aye the end o’ a’ things. His guidness swallows my sorrows, an’ I rest content. After a’, this wee cottage, nor this whole worl’, isna my hame…I’m jist bidin’ here a wee while.”

  We visited with Ranald for two hours, had tea and oatcakes and made music, and Alicia thoroughly enjoyed herself. By the end of that time she was clapping along to our music and laughing and even singing now and then to a familiar tune. She had the most lovely deep, throaty alto voice I had ever heard.

  Suddenly Ranald set down his violin and ran into the adjacent room. He returned a moment later with two swords. He laid them on the floor perpendicularly across each other. The next instant the violin was back on his neck and a rousing jig exploded from it. He looked at Alicia with a grin.

  “Oh, Mr. Bain, it’s been years!”

  “As I recall, ye won mair nor one ribbon at mair nor one Hieland games wi’ yer twa wee feet atween the swords.”

  “That was thirty years ago, even more!”

  “Nae Scots lassie forgits the fling. Yer feet’ll de the rememberin’. Show oor Canadian frien’ the duchess hoo Scots lassies learn tae skip lightly through the heather.”

  He began the music again. Reluctant but beaming, Alicia took her place at one of the four sword-corners and then, on cue from Ranald, began to leap on her toes in the familiar dance of the Highland fling. Whatever she might have lost from the years certainly escaped me. I was speechless to see how high she jumped, how effortless the movements…the pointed toes perfectly skimming her calves in rhythm…like a ballerina at a barn dance! I began to clap in time and Ranald whooped and hollered, and by the time Alicia made her way around all four squares of the swords, she was panting and laughing like I had never seen her.

  She crumpled into a heap on the couch, laughing with delight and exhaustion, while Ranald and I applauded and praised her blue-​ribbon effort.

  “Wud ye ladies like a ride doon the hill?” asked Ranald as we prepared to leave some time later.

  “I think I would like to walk,” I said. “What about you, Alicia?”

  “I’m fine with that.”

  “Then I’ll gie ye what’s better,” said Ranald, “a Scots conveyance.”

  Alicia burst out laughing. “I haven’t heard that expression in years!”

  “What’s that,” I asked, “a special kind of ride?”

  “’Tis a walk hame in the company o’ yer host,” replied Ranald, walking across the room and taking his cap from a peg on the wall. “Or at least—halfway hame.”

  When we said our good-byes to him awhile later on the lower slopes of his own meadows and then continued our way back toward the castle, it was obvious that a friendship had begun and that one more root of Olivia’s influence was broken.

  Alicia told the other ladies about our afternoon at the “house of Bain.” I suggested that one or another of them might like to accompany us sometime. The idea met with mixed reviews. I did not push the matter. I did, however, continue to drop periodic hints that I intended to invite Ranald to join us one day with his harp. I wanted them slowly to become accustomed to the idea without pressing it before they were ready.

  Meanwhile, summer at last gave way to autumn. Leaves fell, the wind grew chillier. A faint hint of coming snow in the air could occasionally be detected. The songs of the birds subtly changed. The translucent Mediterranean blue of the coastline gave way more frequently to menacing grays and deep cold, sinister greens. The sudden dousings of rain for which Scotland is infamous were occasionally laced with a few peltings of hail.

  The advent of the cold weather turned my thoughts toward an advent of another k
ind—the Christmas season. The ladies were doing well enough on the harps by now that I pulled out my holiday music and began teaching them four or five Christmas pieces. Alicia and I had driven to visit a harpmaker near Glencoe, another in Aberdeen, and a third in Edinburgh. As a result of our investigations and my trying out a number of different instruments, I ordered two more floor-size lever harps, which I hoped would arrive sometime in the middle of November. My plan was to organize a community Christmas concert, with all four of the ladies and myself on large harps, but also to invite other local musicians and groups, such as the renowned Duncan Wood Quartet from Milton, to join us. I had privately already given Ranald the same Christmas music we were working on so that he could participate with us.

  At last, in early November, I made plans to drive up the hill—in my own new car this time—to pick up Ranald and his harp and bring him to the castle to join us for the Thursday ensemble as we prepared for the Christmas program. His appearance was met a little skeptically at first. But the warmth with which Alicia embraced him in front of the others went a long way toward breaking the ice.

  As well as did the Christmas music itself. Who can listen to Christmas music and not be happy?!

  As we worked our way through “The First Noel,” with Ranald fingering the high notes of the counter melody I had taught him, most lingering reservations about him vanished. Music is healing by its very nature. What could be more healing than music about the Lord’s coming to earth to heal humanity from its sin?

  I asked Ranald if he would like to host the rest of us at his cottage the following Thursday. He consented eagerly. And so it was that our two cars made their way up the winding road, loaded down with our harps—alas, the Queen had to stay behind!—and music stands and benches. It took a little longer in Fia’s case to break free of her reservations. She wasn’t at all certain she liked the idea of going to Ranald’s house. But as Alicia had discovered, Ranald was a delightful and entertaining host whose engaging warmth no one, not even Olivia’s former friends, could resist.