“Quickly! Get some bandages and alcohol!” I heard one of them call out. “Brendan’s had an accident!”
“Accident, my a---!” another man grumbled angrily.
I saw a young bearded man with a rough, red face in the middle of the panicking crowd. He was holding up his left hand which was bleeding profusely. His shirt and the upper part of his trousers were stained with blood and there was a track of dark red dots, from the door to the bar, where the blood had dripped on to the floorboards.
“What’s he done now?” asked the barmaid – a large bossy woman with a dirty apron and a kerchief on her head – as she looked disapprovingly at the injured man.
“He’s hammered a nail into his hand! Look!” One of the men grabbed the bearded man’s hand and held it up for the bar maid to see. She shrieked in horror at the sight of it and nearly fell over backwards. All the punters got up and gathered around the bar to watch the spectacle and I had to crane my neck in order to get a good view. It was just as the man had described. A six-inch nail had been driven right through the palm, the sharp end could clearly be seen protruding from the other side.
While everyone around him fussed and panicked, the young wounded man, whose name apparently was Brendan, remained strangely quiet and unfazed. There was a certain serenity to his face amidst all this chaos which intrigued me. Who was Brendan and why did he drive a nail into his hand? It would take another two days before the ship’s captain felt safe enough to set sail and during that time, bit by bit, as I conversed with the locals, I learned the curious story and fascinating history of this remarkable man.
Five years ago a fisherman by the name of Paul Lochrane found a currach upturned on the beach of a small bird island known locally as St Ninian’s Rock. Currachs are small, leather boats which are still commonly used in the West of Ireland, but which have mostly been replaced by the modern wooden variety in Scotland, so seeing one stranded so awkwardly against the rocks was unusual. But an even greater surprise lay waiting for Paul Lochrane as he approached the boat: a man lay underneath it, cut and bleeding and half-submerged in the water.
Paul lifted the man into his boat, rowed him ashore and took him to his house, where he left him in the charge of his sister while he rushed off to fetch a doctor. It was during the doctor’s examination that they were met with yet another surprise. The man had no tongue. It had been completely sliced off, leaving only the frenum lingering lost and useless in his mouth.
Word spreads quickly in a place like this and soon the whole village had gathered outside Paul’s house to wonder and speculate about the mysterious shipwrecked stranger and his unusual leather boat. Who was he and what was he doing in these waters? Could it be an Irish fisherman swept to the Scottish shores by the wind and the current? Or was it a convict, escaped from one of the prison hulks anchored off the coast of Belfast? Or perhaps a former Fenian terrorist, fleeing the anger of the comrades he’d exposed, the removal of his tongue being the price he’d had to pay for his betrayal. The villagers have had to wait a long time for their questions to be answered, and they are waiting still, for to this day, five years since his extraordinary rescue, the man has refused to divulge any information about himself other than his name: Brendan.
Two of the three theories, however, have already been discounted. He is not an escaped convict. The local police carried out extensive checks both in Britain and in Ireland and there had been no reports of any fugitives from any of Her Majesty’s prisons. Nor could he have been a fisherman swept away from the Irish coast. The West coast fishing community still hold their Irish cousins in great esteem and they were adamant that the clumsily constructed currach in which Brendan had been found was the work of an amateur. It had been shoddily patched together and the leather had not been tanned and treated properly, which is why it had already started to disintegrate in the salt water.
So that left only the third option: Brendan must have been a fleeing member of a criminal organisation, and perhaps his fear of his band mates’ reprisal was the real reason for his continued silence.
Whatever the reason for Brendan’s arrival, the locals welcomed him into their community and took him under their wings. The Isle of Whithorn became Brendan’s new home and he even married Paul’s sister, Lorna, who had nursed him back to health. But he remained an outsider and repeatedly tested the patience of his adopted community with his peculiar behaviour.
“He’s a queer, odd bird,” said one of the locals who sat at my table in the inn. “This business with the nail’s not the first daft thing he’s done. He went missing one night, remember?”
The group around me nodded over their drinks as they recollected.
“We searched all over the place until we found him sitting on top of St Ninian’s Rock the next morning. Stark naked, he was. Just sitting there, grabbing his knees to his chest, shivering and clattering his teeth. He’d left his clothes on the beach by the harbour and had swam to the rock in the middle of the night. Why? No one knows.”
“And then there was the time he’d locked himself up inside Lorna’s coal cellar, remember?” another man chipped in. “He’d buried the key and told Lorna to slide food and water under the door once a day. He’d been there for three days before Lorna finally knocked the door down. There’s something definitely not right in his brain. ”
“It’s coz he can’t talk,” one of the women said suddenly with a touch of sympathy in her voice. “That’s his way of attracting attention.” The men around me instantly burst out laughing, but the woman persisted. “It’s true. He’s a wean without his tongue. That’s how weans behave. He were trying to show us something.”
“But he has his wee board and chalk,” one of the men argued. “Why does he not write on that?”
“Coz he can’t write,” another man said.
“Aye, he can. I’ve seen him do it.”
“He can write his own name, that’s all. Brendan’s an idiot.”
Suddenly the company gasped, as if a great blasphemy had just been uttered.
“Don’t misunderstand me. He’s a good lad and all that. At least when he’s not drinking or acting stupid. But he’s a simpleton. His mother must’ve dropped him on his head when he were a wean. There’s no other explanation.”
“I don’t agree,” the woman said, shaking her head resolutely. “There’s something wise about him.”
“Wise?”
“The way he sat on that rock. Quiet and still and giving himself over to the wind and the rain and the cold.”
“What’re ye talking about, ye mad bint!”
“Men don’t understand. For you the wind and the sea are there to be conquered, but there’s something saintly and humbling about giving in to the elements.”
“Saintly?”
“That were St Ninian’s Rock he sat on. That weren’t no ordinary rock. That were St Ninian’s Rock.”
I was desperate to meet this intriguing man myself, but despite all my efforts to track him down, Brendan proved to be as elusive as he was enigmatic. After two days the boat was ready to depart and much to my regret, I was forced to leave. I took a different route back home and bypassed the Isle all together. But one day I should like to return. One day I should like to go back to the Isle, make my acquaintance with this mysterious fellow and form my own opinions. Is he a saint or a sinner? A lunatic or an eccentric? A wise man or a fool? One day I should like to find out.
*
It was ten minutes past seven. Billings had been standing outside Lorna’s house at the end of Harbour Row for about fifteen minutes, waiting for her to come home. It was pitch black and bitterly cold. All he could hear were the waves lapping against the rocks on the pier and the wind – that cold, constant wind. He lifted up the collar of his greatcoat to shield himself from the cold, when suddenly he saw a woman approach him. She was carrying a basket of oysters in one hand and holding a door key in the other.
“Good evening,” he said, stepping out of the doorway and tipping his h
at at her.
The woman must have seen him long before he had seen her, because she seemed completely unfazed by his sudden appearance. She nodded back quietly, then walked straight past him to unlock her door.
“My name is Detective Sergeant John Billings,” he continued. “From the Metropolitan Police.”
“I know who you are,” the woman responded as she opened the door.
“I’d like to talk to you about Brendan Lochrane.”
“You’d better come in, then.” She picked up a lamp which was standing by the door, lit it, then proceeded towards the front room. Billings followed her into the house and found her kneeling on the floor in front of the hearth, lighting a fire. Billings looked around him. It was a small room. There was a bedstead on the far side. A table with two chairs stood in the middle of the room. A long fishing net had been spread over them. On the table under the net, there was a shuttle, a gauge and a ball of twine which had been used to repair the net. The basket of oysters had been placed on the floor next to a cupboard which had pans, mugs and other cooking utensils dangling from it on hooks.
“I have some news about Brendan Lochrane,” he said.
“Aye, I know. He’s in prison.” She got up from the floor and walked towards the cupboard, out of which she took a tin cup and a bottle of gin.
“He’s accused of killing Lord Palmer.”
“And you’re here to clear him?” she asked as she poured herself a drink.
“Well, I do have reason to believe he may be innocent. Which is why I wanted to speak to you.”
She downed her drink in one go. Then she walked back towards the hearth, pulled a chair from underneath the fishing net, set it before the fire and nestled herself in it, holding the bottle of gin between her legs.
“I’d like to find out more about him,” Billings continued. “Where he came from. What kind of man he was.”
“The Reverend told me you read the article,” she said, pouring herself another drink.
“I did.”
“Well, then you know as much as we know.”
“I’d like to ask you some questions about your own life with him.”
“Why?”
“I’m looking for clues. I’m trying to find out why he would confess to a crime which...”
“He confessed?” She suddenly turned towards Billings and, for the first time since meeting him, looked him in the eyes.
“Yes, he did.”
“Well, that’s it then, isn’t it? He’ll be hanged!”
“Not if we can persuade him to...”
“How am I going to pay the rent now? Those ten shillings he’d sent me every month was all he was ever good for! Well, that didn’t last very long, did it? Useless bloody bastard!” She downed her drink angrily, turned back towards the fire and poured herself a new cup.
Billings was a little shaken by her sudden vitriol. “He can still retract his confession,” he said. “There’s not enough evidence to convict him if he retracts his confession. We would have to reopen the case. But I need more information about him. I need to know just what kind of a man he was.”
“He were selfish, that’s what he were! Selfish, lazy and useless!”
“Was he violent towards you?”
“Ten years I looked after him.” She got up from her chair, grabbed the basket of oysters, took a pan from the cupboard and started cleaning the oysters into it. “Ten years of buying his food, of paying his rent. Never did he bring home so much as a penny. ‘You’ve got to get yourself a job’, I told him. ‘You can not keep relying on the charity of my brother and the kirk.’ We’re a proud people in these parts. We’re poor, but we’re proud.” She took out a carrot and some onions from the cupboard, and started chopping them up and adding them to the pan. “But what could he do?” she continued. “His hands were too thick and clumsy for the nets and he refused to get back into a boat. There’s nothing else in a place like this for a man who can’t talk. So he’d sulk. And he’d drink. And if he felt I nagged him too much, he’d throw a tantrum and lock himself up in the coal cellar, or swim out to the Rock or drive a bleeding nail through his bleeding palm! He were a wean. A spoiled little wean!”
“Yet you looked after him for ten years.”
“Aye, I did. Well, a woman’s got to love someone.” She took out a plate with a small piece of salted beef on it and started dicing it up and adding it to the pan. “I never had a wean of my own. My first husband drowned and... well, let’s just say I have nae got much going for me looks-wise. No man wants a drunk, shrivelled-up old maid. But then my brother came home dragging a strange, wounded man over his shoulder. He were helpless and mysterious and... well, love comes easy to a woman when she’s needed. She don’t need nae other reason.” She picked up a jug and poured some water into the pan. Then she took a stoneware bottle of stout out of the cupboard, pulled out the cork and emptied the contents into the stew.
“Why do you think he stayed here with you for ten years?” Billings asked.
“Nowhere else to go to, I guess. I never knew what went on in Brendan’s head. He did nae share things with me.” She took the pan, dragged it towards the fire and hung it on a hook over the flames. She then sat back down on her chair and poured herself another cup of gin. “We had a little chalk and board for him which we borrowed from the school,” she continued, “but he refused to use it. After he recovered he’d mope about the house, drinking loads and looking miserable. There was clearly something ailing him and I wanted to relieve him of it. So I took the board and I’d write on it. I know, it were daft of me, but it were easy to forget in the beginning that he weren’t deaf, just dumb. ‘I love yer, Brendan,’ I wrote. ‘I wanna help yer. Tell me how to help yer?’ But he’d just laugh, take the board off me, correct my mistakes and walk away.”
“The crime he is accused of is a heinous and horrific one,” Billings said, wanting to bring things to a close. “He’s accused of killing his employer with an axe. Would you say Brendan had a violent streak about him? Was he ever violent towards you?”
“He were only ever violent towards himself.”
“Why do you think he did things like that? Lock himself up in the coal cellar or hammer a nail into his palm?”
“I do nae know, but it weren’t what some of them think. He did nae see himself as some sort of local Jesus and me as his Mary Magdalene. That’s what some of them think, but it is nae true. I think it were frustration. Frustration of not being able to talk, of being dependent on me. Will you be seeing him again?” She suddenly turned back to face the detective.
“I intend to when I return to London.”
“And will you make him retract his confession?”
“I will try.”
“If you succeed, Sergeant, will you ask him to come back to me? I want him back. Tell him to please come back.”
“I will pass the message on to him.”
10. 2nd extract from Sebastian Forrester's diary
Wednesday March 17th, 1880
It is the day after Janie’s funeral and in the courtyard of Wycliffe Hall, workmen are replacing the water pipes. I wish I could’ve attended the funeral. No one knows of my attachment to Janie. Although I think Crickshaw suspects something. He has commented repeatedly on my being glum and subdued of late and has given me a few sympathetic glances.
No mention was made of Janie’s death at this morning’s assembly, but there’s been a lot of fuss about the possibility of lead poisoning. All students who complain about tiredness and muscle ache have been advised to seek medical attention immediately, and we’ve been reminded not to drink from the taps in the courtyard. If only they knew about the rotten trick Father and Mrs Drew have played on them. I found out only yesterday that Mrs Drew accepted a generous offer of compensation from Wycliffe Hall for the death of her daughter.
Why am I the only one to be broken up about this? Father has not made any comments about this tragedy in his letters to me. He has ignored all my accusations, my leng
thy descriptions of Janie’s horrible illness, my remonstrations and regrets, and writes instead of his charities. What the devil do I care about his charities! He still prides himself for being a good Quaker and thinks we’ve done the decent thing by offering to marry Janie, when anyone else in my position would simply have thrown money at her and have left her to her own devices. But the truth is that what we have done is worse. We have committed the greatest sin of them all. We have committed murder! Am I to be the sole bearer of our preposterous crime? Am I to atone for all three of us? Has the burden of redemption been placed once again on the son?
*
Monday March 22nd, 1880
Crickshaw called me into his office again. He was not happy with my essay about the epistles. He told me I’d done nothing but rephrase what was already written in the New Testament. There was no deduction, no interpretation. “This is not an essay, Mr Forrester,” he told me. “This is an exercise in copying!”
Well, I don’t care about the epistles and I told him that. They mean nothing to me. There’s nothing in them but rules and regulations and statutes and doctrines. What happened to love? What happened to faith? Human hearts are not governed by rules.
Crickshaw told me that we needed rules to keep us from us straying. Without them how would we know that we had strayed?”
“We’d feel it!” I replied. (I think I may even have shouted.) I told him that when I had done something wrong, I could feel it burning inside me. I could feel it eating me up.
He just smiled back at me with sympathy (I really do believe he must know something of what I’m going through) and said that not everyone was like me. Some of us needed rules.
The Ornamental Hermit Page 12
