Beautiful Just! (2 page)

‘Sweetheart or no, I'm after hearin' you took Flora to the Games yesterday, Padruig,' Morag challenged him.

‘I did not then,' Padruig repudiated.

‘You were sittin' right beside her on the bus,' accused Tearlaich.

‘I sat where there was a sit for me,' retorted Padruig, becoming indignant. ‘But she paid her own fare. Johnny here will tell you that.' He turned to the bus driver who was sitting on the floor, his back against the wall. ‘Is that not the truth of it, Johnny?'

‘Aye,' agreed Johnny, ‘but not till she'd given up waitin' on you to pay it for her. Ach,' he shook his head, ‘You should have seen the look she gave him.'

‘I was no seein' it then,' said Padruig loftily.

‘Well if she wasn't at the Games with you why is it you were standin' so close together when you were waitin' on the bus to bring you home? I could hardly see you, you were cuddlin' her that close,' Erchy pursued mercilessly.

‘Oh, whist, whist!' Padruig replied hastily. ‘I got her to stand close to me so the missionary wouldn't get a sight of me. He was passin' at the time an' I didn't want him to know I was at the Games.' There were exclamations of disbelief from the young people.

‘Hear tsat now!' scoffed Hector who was lazily netting a coloured glass net float for a pretty young tourist he hoped to seduce the following day. ‘Tse man's feared tse missionary will condemn him to hell and burnin' fire because he's been to see a bit of caber tossin' an' listen to a few bagpipes at tse Highland Games.'

The old people, themselves in the thrall of the missionary, were embarrassed by Hector's remark. The young ones risked half suppressed giggles.

‘An' what caber tossin'. Why that wee stick they was usin' for a caber would not have made a decent fence stob,' sneered Tearlaich who, like the rest of the Bruachites, practised caber tossing with freshly washed-up pit props from the shore having a diameter of about nine inches and weighty with sea water. A man had to be strong indeed to ‘toss' such a caber.

‘An' the playin' for the bagpipes competition was awful poor, I'm thinkin',' submitted Morag. ‘Indeed there was times when I was after puttin' my thumbs into my ears with the noise of them.' She looked about her expecting confirmation. ‘It was no so bad for the judge,' she added, ‘seein' he was stone deaf anyway.'

Janet handed round mugs of freshly made tea to those who wanted it and before resuming her seat she glanced through the window. ‘Here now!' she exclaimed. ‘If it isn't Flora herself comin' to ceilidh.'

Flora was small and slight with a long face strained into an expression of unassailable virtue and a mouth that had to be constantly restrained from stretching itself into a smile.

‘So here you all are,' she greeted us briskly and while everyone murmured salutations in return we moved along the bench to make room for her to sit down. ‘I thought I'd most likely find you here,' she told us.

‘Were you wantin' us, then?' asked Murdoch.

‘Maybe some of you I want,' replied Flora, taking the cup of tea Janet proffered. ‘That's to say those of you that's young enough to be interested in dancin' still.'

‘Dancin'?' echoed Tearlaich, who at fifty was reckoned to be among the youngsters of the village.

‘Aye.' Flora surveyed their reactions between sips of tea.

‘What for would we be goin' dancin'?' asked Padruig, his voice betraying his disappointment. He too was young by Bruach standards but his religion made him almost senile.

‘More than that,' continued Flora. ‘It's no just a dance but a fancy dress dance I'm speakin' of.'

The old people looked down into their laps but the faces of the young ones brightened with interest.

‘What, here in Bruach?' asked the schoolteacher.

‘No, indeed,' replied Flora. ‘It's over on the mainland in a place where I used to work at the Manse. There's a fancy dress dance goin' to be put on in the hall there an' those of you would like to come then I'm thinkin' of hirin' a bus to take us an' it'll cost you nothin' but the drinkin' money.'

‘There's never been that sort of a dance hereabouts, that I've heard of,' mused Erchy. Flora chuckled, a funny, throbbing chuckle that made one think it had been too often repressed. ‘No, nor will be in my time nor yours, I'm thinkin',' she told him.

‘Ach, you'll not get anyone to go from this place,' Tearlaich told her. ‘You'll never get folks to dress themselves the way we did at Halloween an' then go off on a bus to some place on the mainland.'

‘Indeed no,' responded Flora. ‘You'll not be dressin' yourselves up like you did at Halloween. No,' she repeated when Tearlaich looked at her in surprise. ‘You'll need to come in somethin' better than old clothes you've taken from out of your lofts.' She turned to me. ‘You'll know about fancy dress, Miss Peckwitt,' she said and looked at me questioningly.

‘It's a long time since I was at a fancy dress dance,' I told her.

‘No matter,' she replied. ‘You can tell them some ideas about what to wear.' She looked at the young school-teacher. ‘What about you, Elspeth? You must have seen fancy dress dances when you were at college, did you not?'

‘Aye,' admitted Elspeth. ‘I went to one once as Mary, Queen of Scots,' she confessed.

‘Right enough then,' said Flora. ‘An' what about Jeannac here goin' as Meg Merrilees?'

‘Is that the idea of it?' said Tearlaich as enlightenment dawned. ‘You dress up as somebody you learned about at school?'

‘You can go as anything,' the schoolteacher started to explain. ‘You can put on a pair of horns an' go as a stag.'

‘One of you could dress up as a policeman, or even as a minister,' I suggested daringly but except for Flora who flashed me a conspiratorial smile the rest ignored my suggestions and the conversation continued as various proposals as to suitable attire were put forward.

‘Erchy should go dressed up as a bottle of whisky,' suggested Johnny.

‘Here no! They'd have me buried alive the minute they saw me,' said Erchy, referring to the Bruach custom of burying their whisky bottles outside the dance hall.

‘What I'm wantin' to know is why you yourself is so keen to go to the dance that you'll be wantin' to hire a bus?' Old Murdoch said.

Flora put down her cup. ‘Well now, I'll tell you for why,' she began and while we all listened avidly she told us the story of how she had come by her ‘legacy' and why she particularly wanted to go to the fancy dress dance.

‘As you know,' she began, ‘I've been workin' the past three years for a Free Presbyterian Minister an' then one day after a telegram comes for him he calls me into his study. The man was in a terrible state! I knew that when the first thing he did was ask me to sit down. Then he says, “How long have you been with us now, Flora?” “Three years, near enough,” says I. “An' have you been content with us?” says he. Well, I told him I'd been content enough though the Bear knows workin' for that old fright of a wife he has I used to think sometimes I would be better off workin' in a salt mine. Anyway the next thing is he's tellin' me I'll have to leave. It fairly took my breath away at first an' I was just goin' to tell him I was thinkin' of doin' that anyway when he shows me this telegram.' Flora paused to ensure she had our complete attention. ‘I don't like telegrams but I knew I had no relations that could have passed on to give me a shock so I just stares at him. Then he tells me of how he was travellin' on the train one day an' not havin' his bible with him at the time, so he says,' she grimaced knowingly, ‘he picks up this paper that someone's left behind an' when he'd read all that was fit to read he started to do the competition an' when he'd done it he was feelin' that pleased with himself he decided to send it off. It wasn't until he came to address the envelope that he noticed he'd been readin' a Sunday newspaper!'

The Bruachites were aghast. A ‘Wee Free' minister reading a Sunday paper was such an unthinkably wicked thing to do they were as agog to hear the rest of Flora's tale as they would have been to hear the final denouement in a detective story.

‘ “Well, Flora,” says he, an' this is his story. “It somehow got posted along with some other letters I was postin' at the same time an' now has come this telegram today to say I've won first prize.” ' No one spoke and Flora continued, ‘I could see he was in a right mess with the Church Assembly no doubt wantin' him thrown out of the Church an' his wife no doubt wantin' him thrown into the sea but what I couldn't see was how it had to do with me. Then he points out that not only have we the same surname, himself an' me, but we have the same initial too. “You're Flora an' I'm Farquhar,” says he. “So Flora,” he begs me, “if you will say it was yourself won the competition an' have your name go in the papers then you're welcome to every penny the devil has tried to tempt me with.” '

‘An' you took it?' asked Morag with faint disapproval.

‘I did indeed,' replied Flora. ‘It was worth gettin' acquainted with the devil for it to my way of thinkin'.'

‘But you had to leave your place through it?' asked Murdoch.

‘Aye, indeed,' replied Flora. ‘A Godly man like him couldn't go on having a sinner like me that did competitions in Sunday newspapers livin' under the same roof as himself now, could he? Not once my name got into the paper?'

‘An' were you no sorry at all to leave?'

‘Not a bitty,' asserted Flora. ‘I was kind of fancyin' comin' back to the croft anyway. Ach, the minister himself wasn't so bad but his wife was such an old fright the poor man would hardly dare to look at a flower in his garden on the Sabbath. I'm tellin' you without a word of a lie she was that mad with religion she used to go sniffin' round the house in case I'd been wicked enough to bring in a bit of scented soap to wash myself with.'

I found myself wondering why Flora should have chosen to work at a ‘Wee Free' manse and had I not been aware of the old people's indoctrination of their children with the idea that if they went away to be servants they must go either to the manse or to the laird's house I would have suspected she had a masochistic streak in her.

‘In a way I'm after seein' now why you're so keen to get to this fancy dress dance,' said Tearlaich. ‘But neither the minister nor his wife is goin' to be seen anywhere near that, surely?'

Flora let out a ripple of laughter. ‘No, what I'm hopin' is there'll be a photographer there from the paper so that maybe I'll get my picture in it for the minister to see. I know the mannie that does the pictures,' she added, ‘an' I believe when I tell him what I want he'll be well pleased.to do it for me.'

‘Why, what will you be dressin' yourself up as, then?' asked Erchy.

Flora treated him to a brazen smile. ‘I'm goin' to dress myself up as one of these nuns,' she told him, ‘an' I'm goin' to be carryin' a big bundle of Sunday papers under my arm.' She stood up and while dusting some crumbs of scone from her skirt enjoyed the varying expressions of amusement, admiration and disapproval. ‘Think about what I've been sayin' now an' make up your minds in good time,' she instructed them. ‘You'lI have a good time, I promise you that.' She winked at them.

‘I can tell you right now,' said Erchy. ‘I'm damty sure I will come so long as somebody promises to see me safely home again afterwards.'

‘Didn't I tell you I'm hirin' a bus,' she reminded him.

‘Ach, no, but what I'm meanin' by safe is nothin' to do with the bus. See now,' he explained, ‘when I'm at a dance I'm likely to take a good drink an' it's then the women get at me.' The ‘women' hooted with laughter.

‘I'll promise to protect you from the women,' Flora assured him.

‘Hell!' parried Erchy ungratefully. ‘Who will be protectin' me from you then?'

‘Away with you, man,' Flora teased. ‘I've not worked for ministers all these years without learnin' to keep myself to myself.' She opened the door. ‘It's a grand night,' she called as she stepped out into the still golden twilight. ‘Oidche Mhath!'

‘Oidche Mhath!' we called after her.

I started to laugh. ‘Flora's certainly given you all plenty to think about, hasn't she?' I said. ‘And this fancy dress dance sounds as if it might be a lot of fun.'

‘I wouldn't mind goin' myself,' said Johnny. ‘That's if Miss Peckwitt here will fix up somethin' for me to wear.'

‘I'll do that,' I promised.

‘An' what about me?' joked Murdoch. ‘Will you no find somethin' for me to dress up as so that I can go?' He wheezed with laughter.

Erchy grunted. ‘You, you old bodach! Why if you're thinkin' of goin' Miss Peckwitt will no be needin' to find somethin' for you to dress yourself up in. All you will need to do is put in your new teeths an' go as a horse.'

‘Ach! I'm as tired as an old horse,' declared Morag as I drew near. She had been collecting driftwood along the shore and the roped bundle lay beside her while she rested before carrying it up the brae. Nearby Hector and Erchy were painting and patching their boats in preparation for the coming season and since it was the spring holiday a troop of barefoot children skipped nimbly from rock to rock, pelting one another with crabs and limpet shells and brandishing stems of ‘staff' from which every now and then they bit large chewy mouthfuls. Unlike town children who seem unable to enjoy themselves without the accompaniment of discordant yelling Bruach children were astonishingly quiet in their play. They teased as much, taunted, chaffed and goaded as much, as their town counterparts, yet their undulating Gaelic voices were no more intrusive than bird song. Even when missiles found their targets or when feet slipped on wet rocks their protests were muted; only small explosions of laughter occasionally broke the bounds of their restraint.