Beautiful Just! (11 page)

‘Well,' I murmured, ‘you certainly can't accuse this place of giving us a Highland welcome.'

Morag was ashamed. ‘Indeed it's that crabbit you would think it must be English folks that's runnin' it,' she said. There were times when Morag completely forgot I was English.

‘Ach, what else do you expect from a place that leaves the cook to go off,' said Erchy.

When we came out of the hotel there was a thick mist like grey fleece crouching behind the hills ready to bear down on us and before we had got very far along the road I had to use the windscreen wipers. With the change in the weather and with my stomach complaining of neglect it seemed that my earlier misgivings were already beginning to be justified.

‘I hope this boat of yours isn't far away now,' I said to Hector.

‘About half a mile just,' he informed me blithely. But being familiar with Hector's estimation of distance I wisely interpreted his ‘half a mile just' as probably being nearer three miles. Once again our road skirted the shores of a loch around which were scattered the homes of landless cottars built so close to the water's edge that their washing lines were stretched above the shingle between the margin of the tides so that it must have been possible to peg out or take in washing only when the tide was sufficiently low. As we turned away from the loch the cottars' houses and the crofts gave way to efficient looking farms and everywhere we looked we saw that the crops were far more advanced than those in Bruach. Already their potatoes grew in stately rows whereas in Bruach they were still only squat posies above the earth; the fields of corn were bristly green whereas in Bruach the green was barely more than a portent; the fields set aside for hay were lush with silky grass while our grass had not yet grown high enough to camouflage the hoofprints of the cattle which had fought and grazed over the crofts all winter.

‘They're well on with the crops,' observed Erchy, voicing all our thoughts.

‘They're always well on in these sort of places,' asserted Morag knowledgeably. ‘They get their spring work done early an' then at the back end when we're still gatherin' in the corn these folks is away on their holidays an' all their harvest finished.'

‘They probably have plenty of help,' I pointed out.

‘Is it help?' exclaimed Morag. ‘Indeed when I was away on my tour we was one day at a farm where they had what they said was a concubine harvester an' the farmer was after tellin' me it did everythin' for him just not just cuttin' the corn but threshin' it an balin' the straw.'

‘We could do with one of those in Bruach,' said Erchy.

‘An' what would we do in Bruach with a concubine harvester?' demanded Morag. ‘The men wouldn't know how to behave with it just.'

‘They'd soon find out,' I assured her.

We were approaching a crossroads and Hector asked me to turn right and then drive in through a gap in a stone wall which bounded a field adjoining a prosperous looking croft house.

‘Is this it?'

‘Aye,' he said, getting out of the car. ‘Are you comin'? he asked Erchy. Erchy followed him and they disappeared from sight behind some buildings,

‘It doesn't look a very boaty sort of place,' I said to Morag. We both got out of the car and had embarked on an inspection of the land when a middle-aged woman appeared and with real Highland cordiality invited us to take a ‘strupak'. In her aseptically clean kitchen we drank mugs of strong tea and ate wads of soggy Glasgow bread spread with home-made butter and thin factory-made jam that dribbled anaemically between our fingers while we ate. With my hunger appeased we went outside again but just as I was beginning to think the day had improved I caught sight of Erchy and Hector struggling to load a large barrel on to the back seat of the car.

‘What's this?' I demanded in outrage.

‘Aye, well, d' you see,' began Hector nimbly. ‘'Tis my creels. I have no bait for tsem.'

‘You're not telling me that barrel is full of bad fish?' I expostulated.

‘No full,' he disclaimed. ‘No more than half, just.'

I opened the door of the car and the smell made me reel back. ‘I'm not driving all the way back to Bruach with that appalling stink in the car,' I told him emphatically.

‘It is too big to go into tse boot,' Hector explained. ‘Anyway, it will no be so bad once we get goin',' he hastened to assure me. ‘Wis tse windows open we'll likely not notice tse smell, I doubt.'

‘I am not taking that barrel back to Bruach,' I said firmly. ‘You'll have to take it out.'

He turned and scratched away under his cap. ‘Indeed I don't know how will we get it out wisout spillin' it,' he mumbled. ‘It was bad enough gettin' it in just but if we have to take it out again I believe it will spill for sure.' I believed that too and my moment of hesitation gave him his chance to plead further. ‘An' see I cannot get bait anywhere at all and tsere's creels lyin' on tse shore for want of it an' tse lobsters waitin' tsere in tse sea to be caught.'

‘You're breaking my heart,' I snapped. It was by no means the first time Hector had played such a confidence trick on me. ‘What about the boat you came to see?' I taxed him.

He scuffed his boot on the ground. ‘Aye, well, tsey must have sold it a while back,' he disclosed in a chastened mutter.

‘Hector!' I upbraided him furiously. ‘You really are a bounder. You knew perfectly well there was no boat for you to see and you knew perfectly well if you'd mentioned one word to me about coming to buy lobster bait you would have been left behind in Bruach.'

His eyes widened guilelessly. ‘I didn't buy it,' he denied. ‘Tsey wouldn't take anytsing for it.' I blinked. If they wouldn't take anything for it then I reckoned the bait must be really putrid. Hector brightened, assuming the fact that he had got something for nothing would help me to accept the situation more easily. ‘Tsey had it since a whiley now y'see, an' tsey were sayin' it's after losin' some of it's liquor so tsey're wantin' rid of it.'

‘It smells to me as if they've kept it for years,' I remarked bitterly.

‘Three, anyway,' supplied Erchy.

I knew I was beaten since if I insisted on the bait being taken out of the car then Hector and possibly Erchy too would see to it that a good deal more of the liquor would be lost and most of it would be lost inside my car. The resulting graveolence would, I knew, linger for months afterwards. For me the day finally dissolved into wretchedness. I flopped angrily into my seat. There was no room now for Erchy in the back of the car and he had to sit at the front and nurse Morag on his knee which meant that I too was cramped. With Morag's elbow in my shoulder and without my cushion for support my driving position was exceedingly uncomfortable and as I drove through the mist and rain to the farm where I was to collect my chickens I cursed Hector and all his works. Fortunately there was no hitch with the chickens. I handed the box to Hector.

‘Look after those for me,' I commanded. ‘And don't you dare open the lid for fear they'll be overcome by fumes.'

Nauseated by the smell of the rotting bait and seething over Hector's duplicity I kept my jaws clenched and my foot as well down on the accelerator as I dared. Hector was not a nice man, I told myself firmly, and from henceforth I must cease to regard him as the rather lovable rogue whose faults I had always found so easy to condone. He was all rogue; a laggard; a Lothario and a liar and I must ensure that never again would he be given the chance to involve me in any of his schemes.

Back in Bruach Behag came to watch us unload.

‘So you got your bait,' she complimented her husband, thus dispelling any lingering doubt that the purpose of Hector's journey had been the collection of the bait. ‘But what have you there?' she went on, as she saw Hector swinging the speaking tube.

‘Ach, 'tis for Erchy to put in his dog's ear,' he told her. ‘He's always girnin' the beast's that deaf he doesn't know what he's sayin'.' He gave it to her to hold while he and Erchy struggled to get the barrel out of the car which mercifully they did without spilling it.

‘Ach, I don't know how to tell you how pleased I am to get it,' he said with fervent apology.

‘And I don't know how to tell you how pleased I am to get rid of it,' I mimicked acridly.

He raised his voice. ‘Miss Peckwitt's to get tse first lobster tsat gets into tse creel,' he promised but seeing no change in the frigidity of my expression he became even more generous. ‘Not tse first one but tse first tree she shall have,' he vowed, holding up three fingers by way of emphasis.

‘I'll bloody well deserve them!' I retorted savagely. None of them had heard me use such an epithet before and their startled expressions made me burst into laughter which Hector instantly interpreted as forgiveness. He stretched his lips into his version of a smile and his wide blue eyes glowed with touching affection.

I let in the clutch but just as the car began to move I remembered something and, braking, I called to Morag. ‘Morag, what did you say to that old man when you came out and caught me in the act of hurling the cushion at his hens?' I asked her.

She sucked in a smile. ‘Indeed, mo ghaoil, didn't I tell him you were after wantin' a sittin' hen an' you would be throwin' the cushion thinkin' maybe one of his hens would sit on it,' she told me.

I grinned. ‘I expect he thinks I'm completely mad,' I said.

‘Ach,' she demurred but without conviction.

The removal of the barrel of bait had not removed the smell from the car and deciding that a damp interior was preferable to a smelly one I left the doors and windows open while I milked Bonny, fed the hens and transferred my new chickens from their box to the hay lined brooder I had made for them. The chicks appeared healthy enough, I thought, so at least, despite tribulations, the day had not been a complete fiasco. It was not until I went out later to close up the car for the night that I noticed my unposted letters still in the pocket.

She stood alone on the highest of the hill paths, silhouetted against the bloated grey sky and with the brisk, ice-edged wind rippling through the shaggy hair of her coat. The rest of the herd moved on steadily grazing its way down towards the glen and paying no attention to the straggler who, minute by minute, was being left further and further behind. Her yearning eyes followed the progress of her former companions and she lifted her head with its wide sweep of horns to give a loud moo of protest at their desertion. Her fuzzy ears twitched uncomprehendingly as the herd ignored her and her black ringed muzzle – birthmark of the true bred Highland cow – sniffed anxiously. She knew a moment of panic as she perceived how great had become the distance between her and the other cattle and lumbered a few indecisive steps after them, torn between the desire to gallop down the hill to join them and the strange impulse which all morning had been urging her to detach herself from the herd. After one last glance at the receding cows she turned and with steady deliberation plodded back the way she had come.

She had covered about half a mile before she paused, but this time her glance was not in the direction the herd had taken but was one of appraisal of a sheltered hollow in the side of the hill hugged by a crooked outcrop of rocks and fringed by a few stunted and leafless hazels. Quickening her gait she made towards it, the wind frisking her long tail against her legs like a gentle goad. When she reached the hollow she inspected it with restless curiosity but though she found grass there that was as yet unravaged by the winter storms and though she had eaten little since the previous evening her tongue did not curl out to snatch it into her mouth. Instead after several minutes of contemplation she lay down with a small grunt of discomfort and tried unsuccessfully to bring up her cud. A vanguard of snowflakes swirled experimentally into the hollow, stippling the short moor grass around her; settling easily on her coat and melting as they slid over her wide eyes. Slowly the twisted shapes of the hazels became outlined in white and the wind resolved itself into a steady sibilance.

With the first stab of pain she heaved herself to her feet, her ears twitching; her tail held out stiffly and when the pain had eased she still stood tensely, lifting her hind leg every now and then in an attempt to kick away whatever it was that was biting at her belly. At the second stab she began to pant and her eyes grew wider, showing the whites around the pupils. She was afraid now and yet despite her fear there was an instinctive acceptance of the pain as being a function of her destiny; the culmination of a sequence of events which had begun with the increasing heaviness of her belly; her desire to seek for certain herbs among the grass; her unease of the morning and the compulsion to get away from the rest of the herd.

As the pain again left her she lay down giving a plaintive gasp as her swollen body touched the ground. Almost immediately the pain returned, convulsing her belly and, agitated by its intensity she half rose but the pain was swifter and shorter than the earlier ones and she sagged down before she was fully on her feet. The spasms now followed quickly, one after another, boring through her body and between each spasm she rested her head on the ground while her steamy breath escaped with heavy whimperings from her nostrils. She became aware that under her tail there was movement and she wanted to turn herself round to discover what it was but she was no longer in control of her own impulses; the pain was in complete possession of her body and she could only strain desperately trying to rid herself of its grip while snatching at moments of respite to gather strength for the next spasm. Suddenly she lifted her head and gave a sharp, short bellow that was compounded of pain and fear. She tried vainly to struggle to her feet; her body contracted violently once, twice, thrice and as the third contraction rid her of the pain she heard a stifled nicker. Turning her head to investigate she saw the tiny, wet, brown body of her calf struggling on the snowy ground. Her eyes dilated with wonder and alarm; her body throbbed with compassion and then, swamped by a flood of mother love she rose quickly to her feet and turning herself round began to croon and lick at him with gentle urgency. As the calf tried to rise she licked the slime from his tight-curled coat with her rough tongue and when he managed shakily to gain his feet she nuzzled him towards the warmth and shelter of her body quivering with joy when she felt the firm little head pushing against her belly and the wet explorative muzzle bunting excitedly at her distended udder. Her body relaxed as his mouth eventually closed on one of her teats and he began to suck, weakly at first and then with increasing purpose while his small tail swung ecstatically as the thick, warm colostrum trickled down his gullet. Carefully the cow shifted herself to a more comfortable position and as her long-lashed lids drooped over eyes that were opaque with the rapture of motherhood she brought up her cud and chewed contentedly.