Bruach Blend (15 page)

I think I managed to continue smiling, though I suspect without a trace of affability. Dugald met my smile with a glowering silence. The seconds went by.

The carrier said, ‘Will you be wantin' to keep the box or will I put it back on the lorry an' send it off to the mannie in the mornin'?'

‘I shan't want it,' I told him. The puppy was not going to spend one more minute of his life in that nasty little box.

‘The label says he answers to the name of Glen,' the carrier added as he threw the empty box on to the lorry and climbed into his seat.

Dugald was still regarding me from under his eyebrows. I suspected he was by no means averse to my keeping the puppy if only for the reason that to return him would mean Dugald having to pay the carrier for his trouble but to be openly defied by a woman was for him too much of an affront to be tolerated without resistance. He shuffled his feet and then spoke. ‘The mannie is wantin' three pounds for him,' he yielded at last. ‘Now you will see and be sure to give Johnny the money in the morning,' he stipulated, saving his face by pretending that the reason for his attitude was that he doubted my intention to pay for the puppy.

‘Miss Peckwitt will do that right enough,' Morag was quick to assure him. There was a glint of triumph in her eyes and more than a trace of disapproval in her voice.

There followed an exchange in Gaelic between the carrier and Dugald; negotiations, exhortations and instructions about many things which could be so much better expressed in their own language and which in any case were no concern of mine. I let the conversation pass over my head and the puppy slept fitfully in my lap. At length the lorry driver let in the clutch and as the lorry started to move away instead of the scowling farewell I expected from Dugald I was offered a most cordial handshake. I got the impression he was mightily pleased with the result of at least one of his negotiations that day.

My decision to take the puppy, prompted as it had been by the plight of the poor little thing, was not so impulsive as it appears. As I wandered alone on the Bruach moors I often thought how rewarding the companionship of a faithful dog could be. I went alone not because I did not enjoy human company but because except when there was work to do the Bruachites themselves liked solitude for their moorland rambling and much as I looked forward to the visits of my town friends I confess that, except for a stroll on a fine evening, I was reluctant to invite them to share my ‘wild wanders'. They were too insensitive, as undoubtedly I had been when I first came to Bruach, to have an eye for more than scenery; too lacking in comprehension of the ways of wild creatures. With me it had now become instinct to freeze the instant a flicker of unusual movement caught my eye but when I hissed at my town friends to keep completely still they invariably questioned why and twisted and turned their bodies in an effort to catch a glimpse of whatever I was seeing. ‘Keep still!' I would command tersely. ‘Move only your eyes and try to look where I am looking.' But more often than not, no matter how co-operative they intended to be, they would edge clumsily nearer and drive away anything that might have been of interest.

But a dog, trained to obey a command, would be different, I thought, though I had baulked at coming to a decision. I had once owned a wonderful dog; a devoted companion who seemed to sense and adapt himself to my every mood and the hurt when he died was so intense I resolved that never again would I ‘give my heart to a dog to tear'. But today the decision seemed to have been thrust upon me and I recalled with a sense of satisfaction how the previous evening when I had been walking home from milking Bonny there had been a new moon, thin as a nail paring hanging in its own aura of silver above the dark blue of the sea and how, stopping in my tracks, I had ceremoniously bowed to the moon three times and wished for something nice to happen. I chose to think the acquiring of the puppy was the granting of my wish.

I rejected the name ‘Glen' since it seemed to me almost every other dog in the Highlands answered to that name; also I wanted something more exclusive; something that would completely dissociate him from that smelly little box and the callousness of the debate as to his fate. I pondered as I bathed him, rubbed him dry and fed him and I was still pondering as I crossed to the barn to get some dry hay with which to stuff a cushion for his bed. As always on calm evenings at this time of year my glance lifted to the splendour of the rowan tree beside the cottage. Against the subdued colours of the autumn croft it stood like a beacon, its scarlet berries lit and its tawny foliage enflamed by the evening sunlight. I stood for a moment enjoying its brief glory, for the starlings would soon descend and strip it of its berries and my thoughts sped to the stalwart little rowan on the moors which in a different way also gave me pleasure. The right name for the puppy slid into my mind like a ticket into a slot. I called him ‘Rowan'.

To my delight, when I unpacked the well-padded parcel the carrier had delivered my mirror was revealed splendidly intact save for a slight chip on the wooden frame which, since it would be futile to complain to the senders, would have to be disguised with a touch of varnish. It was no problem to hang a mirror on the stout wood-lined walls of a croft cottage so finding a nail of suitable robustness and size I hammered it in firmly and hung the mirror opposite the window where it would reflect the changing light from the wide sky and the sea. The following evening, as I half expected, there was a steady trickle of callers to inspect my new purchase but though they all exclaimed over it with well-practised enthusiasm I was nevertheless aware of some disapprobation of the mirror being positioned where it made it difficult to avoid catching a glimpse of oneself when one came into the kitchen or even when one only peered in through the window. It was not that anyone was particularly dismayed by his or her reflection; indeed the irrepressible Janet stood for a full minute roaring with laughter at her own image, but to some of the older people the possession of a mirror of such size indicated narcissism while to the excessively devout it was a vanity and as such condemned by their religion and so for their sakes, they hinted obliquely, even a doomed heretic like myself should have the consideration to keep the mirror discreetly in my bedroom.

‘I think it's lovely. It really cheers up the room,' proclaimed Sheila, the young girl from Glasgow whom Tearlaich had earlier described as being ‘a fine lassie right enough'. She smiled and her smile took on an extra glow as she caught Lachy looking at her in the mirror. She and Lachy had arrived together, no doubt having decided that to join what had by now become a snug ceilidh was preferable to a privacy which could be achieved only by ignoring and not escaping the inhospitably wet and blustery weather outside. Looking at their flushed cheeks and shining eyes, I found myself thinking what a pity it was that the custom of ‘bundling' which used to be practised in the Hebrides as in other remote parts of the country had now died out, for quaint as it sounds, it was certainly an effective if not wholly satisfying method of ensuring for young lovers all the privacy they so much desired. In those more rigorous and perhaps more enlightened days the young couple were put to bed together on winter evenings where they might safely do their courting since the girl was first ‘bundled', that is wrapped from waist to feet in strong linen cloth which was then sewn with equally strong linen thread presumably in an identifiable pattern of stitching. Nowadays, though it was easy enough in summer to find seclusion among the corries and caves on the moors, in winter Bruach lovers found any sort of privacy virtually unattainable. Croft houses which often comprised no more than a kitchen with a recessed bed and one bedroom were hardly big enough to accommodate the family let alone provide secluded corners: barns were packed roof high and tight to bursting with hay: cow byres were occupied by cows and, even ignoring the smell, were no expedient as trysting places since they were likely to be so cramped not only was one likely to step straight into animal dung immediately one opened the door but additionally there was rarely a space where one could insert oneself to avoid being copiously splashed with excrement and urine. Excellent though these are reckoned to be as a fertilizer for potatoes, it is doubtful if they could be expected similarly to nurture romance.

Clearly love could and did find a way, as was manifested by the number of children born out of wedlock in Bruach, but one felt that many of such couplings must have been urgent and uncomfortable affairs. Morag once confided to me that when one of her young men came courting they used to creep into the shed where her uncle stabled his horse. The shed was perilously near the house but the uncle and his wife were both old and ‘deaf as the rocks' according to Morag, so she and her lover used to coax the horse out of the stable and tie it outside to a post. With a good feed of corn to keep it happy the horse did not object too noisily to being ousted from its warm bed which the lovers then temporarily appropriated. When the time came for the young man to return home they put the horse back into the shed, but since her uncle was only deaf and not blind, Morag and her lover had then to shovel up every vestige of manure the horse had dropped outside and place it in an acceptable position behind the horse, a task which since they dared not use a light must have been slightly more difficult than it sounds.

I looked up smiling into the mirror, unintentionally intercepting the sidelong look of love between Sheila and Lachy. Ruari, noticing the direction of my glance, was ready with his thrust. ‘Aye, I doubt you will be after wantin' to make yourself look like one of those fillum stars we see in the paper now that you have your mirror,' he said.

I grinned complacently. The mirror had been bought to improve the appearance of my room but all the same I hoped it would have the effect of prodding me into giving more attention to my own appearance, which, regrettably, residence in Bruach with its devastating storms, its lack of running water, its unpredictability of supplies and consequently the plethora of excuses it offered, had encouraged me to neglect most shamefully. When I paid one of my infrequent visits to the town I was conscious that I looked more like a tinker than a crofter, for a crofter, though he cares little what he wears when he is within the bounds of his own village, ensures that he is at his smartest and well-polished best when he favours the town with a visit.

‘We'll be seeing the difference on you, surely,' Janet twitted with a saucy glint in her eye. Janet was in the enviable position of never having had to take pains over her appearance. Even at the age of sixty her eyes were wide and clear and alert; her hair had no trace of grey and the fine bone structure of her face was still cleanly outlined by a perfect skin. Indeed most of the Bruach women, hard-working and burden-bearing as they had always been, were nevertheless well endowed with beauty. Of the young and the more mature almost all were possessed of flawless complexions, clear eyes and luxuriantly glossy hair, while even the very old, though their bodies may have been bent and their hands coarsened by toil and though their features may have shed the last traces of earlier beauty, had yet such a radiant serenity that, to me at any rate, it appeared a desirable supplantation.

‘I certainly hope you will be seeing a difference in me,' I promised Janet. ‘I got such a shock when I saw myself full-length for the first time in years I resolved to do something about it.'

Ruari handed me his empty cup and reached in his pocket for his pipe. ‘I mind the first mirror ever to come to Bruach,' he announced.

‘Aye, I mind about that too,' supported Morag. ‘I was no more than a wee one at the time an' so you must have been yourself,' she accused Ruari.

Ruari acknowledged her accusation with a spectral nod. ‘I mind just the same,' he insisted. ‘It was old Peggy Beag that used to live over in Dhrinen that got it.' He waved away my offer of a refilled cup and cleared his throat.

The light from the pressure lamp was fading, indicating that the lamp needed re-pumping to bring it up to full brilliance, but I did not get up to attend to it. There was clearly a tale in the offing and tales are better told in shadow than in light. I settled more comfortably on my chair with Rowan in my lap.

‘As I was after sayin', it was Peggy Beag that got the mirror from the laird that was here at the time,' Ruari began. ‘Her that was the daughter of Alistair Johnny an' she married yon fellow from Glasgow. She lived in Glasgow with him for only a wee while till the fellow gave her two sons an' no more than a twelve-month between them. But before the young one was more than a few months old the fellow she was married to went an' died on her. She came back to her father's croft then till he died an' the croft was her own. Ach, but livin' only a wee whiley in Glasgow had spoiled her for these parts. She'd brought some of her fancy furniture with her an' she was for puttin' up curtains at the window.' Here Ruari flicked a contemptuous glance at the curtains which framed the window of my kitchen. ‘An' she was after puttin' cushions on the bench to soften it against folks' backs, so she said,' he resumed with increasing sarcasm. I could never be sure whether Ruari disapproved of curtains because he regarded them as fripperies and as such a waste of good money or because he considered them an insult to the Lord who gave light, but I could understand his contempt for cushioned comfort since it was obvious he expected the Heaven he would go to when he died would be such a bleak and comfortless place he believed in preparing for it by inuring himself to discomfort on earth.

‘Now these two bairns of Peggy's was named Alistair an' Johnny,' he went on. ‘An' Alistair grew up a fine strong lad as ever you'd see, with red hair and broad shoulders on him an' not wantin' in sense either. But Johnny now he was thin an' weakly an' no clever at all. What we would call hereabouts “a laugh of a lad”. The two brothers had the same red hair an' were like enough to look at in other ways but ach, there was a world of difference between them even to their mother. Peggy Beag spoke only of Alistair as “my son”. When she spoke of poor Johnny it was always “the laddie”. Well, when he was round about seventeen years of age didn't Alistair the strong one of the two go an' catch pneumony an' in no time at all it seemed he was dead of it. Ah, Dear God! It was a terrible blow to poor Peggy Beag to lose her best son like that an' indeed there was not a one in Bruach that didn't feel sore for her loss. If it had been Johnny now that could never have been much of a support to her she wouldn't have felt the need to grieve so much, but for Alistair to be taken …' Ruari shook his head and stared sadly at the fire for a few moments before continuing, ‘Now when the laird got to hear of Peggy's loss he goes to visit her and he says to her how sorry he is and while he's there he sees how fine she's after makin' her home. Thinkin' of some way to kind of ease her grief, he tells her that one of the bedrooms at the Big House is bein' redecorated and new furnishin's comin' and seein' he wouldn't be needin' a nice wardrobe that was there would Peggy like it for her bedroom. He would send it out on the estate cart and two of his men would come to lift it into the house for her so there would be no trouble to herself. Peggy was that pleased with him she didn't know what to say to thank him, though she did mind to ask him not to tell a soul, not even the two men that was to bring the wardrobe until it was in the cart. The laird agrees to say nothin' of it and asks her what day she wants it brought to her. Now Peggy was knowin' that the day after the next day was to be the sheep-dippin' and all the men would be away from the village and with the men all away the women would take the chance of a good ceilidh in one of the houses.' Ruari paused to slide a challenging glance at the women present. ‘Peggy says to the laird that that's the day she would like the wardrobe brought seein' she wanted to keep quiet about it until she felt the wish to say something herself. When the day came the men all went off to the dippin' includin' Johnny, “the laugh of a lad”, and soon enough the women were getting together at Anna Bheag's mother's house for their ceilidh so the village was as quiet as ever it could be for the cart to come with the wardrobe an' for the two men to lift it into Peggy's house. But the wardrobe when it came was very near as big as the house itself and the men were after greetin' and girnin' with the struggle they had to get it through the door. Then when Peggy said she was wantin' it in the room where she had her bed they told her there was no way else but to saw the wardrobe in half first. Peggy wasn't for havin' her fine wardrobe touched, so she told them to put it against the wall beside the dresser just, facin' the window and the door as you'd go into the house. Proud she was of it indeed and when the men had gone she set to work cleanin' and polishin'. It was a fine wardrobe right enough, carved fancy as lace on a bonnet and with a mirror on the door that was bigger even than Miss Peckwitt's just.' Ruari nodded in the direction of the mirror but avoided looking into it. ‘When Peggy was content with her cleanin' and polishin' off she went to Anna Bheag's mother's house where at that time she knew most of the women would be gathered together. Wasn't my own mother one that was there and wasn't it herself that was after tellin' me the story more times than one?' testified Ruari, as if he suspected we doubted his story. ‘Peggy was thinkin' to say nothin' about her wardrobe until she would be leavin' the ceilidh when she would let slip a wee mention of it and set the women to wishin' maybe they were like herself to have such a fine thing in their house. When the dusk began to show itself the women knowin' their men would soon be home from the hill were stirrin' themselves to get back and make up the fire and put on the potatoes ready, when suddenly the door of Anna Bheag's mother's house is flung open and there stands Johnny, white as the snow on the hills and shakin' with the fear that's on him. “Cailleach! Cailleach! Come quick! Gome quick!” he shouts. “Alistair himself is back from the grave.”