Bruach Blend (16 page)

‘ “Alistair!” shrieks Peggy Beag, and is like to faint only for my mother keepin' a hold of her.

‘ “Aye right enough it's Alistair,” Johnny tells her. “I swear to it; an' my God!, but he's lookin' terrible thin an' wasted with the time he's been in the grave.”

‘Some of the women I believe was so feared when they heard what Johnny had to say they couldn't speak just. But my own mother was not so feared. “Away with you, Alistair!” that is what she told me she said to him. “Away with you! Upsettin' your mother with your fancies. You're after bein' mistaken surely.”

‘ “Indeed I swear to God I am no',” says Johnny. “It is true enough. True as I'm here myself at this minute. Come an' see for yourself. I seen him standing there an' he was lookin' straight at me.”

‘Peggy had come to herself a wee bitty by now. “My son!” she shouts and rushes out of the house followed by Johnny an' the rest of the women. When they got to the Breeshtie they found the men gathered having a last word about the days dippin' before they would be goin' back to their homes. When Johnny told them what he had seen and his voice so strong with the certainty of it they all followed Peggy to her house. When they got there they held back, an' even Peggy herself looked too feared to go in an' face whatever it was Johnny had seen. Then after a while Peggy steps out. “Am I to be feared of my own son then?” says she. “Come, Johnny!” an' pullin' Johnny after her she flings open the door. There in the light from the door she sees herself in the mirror of the wardrobe that was put in only that day for her. There's not a sign of Alistair nor even of the ghost of Alistair. She pushes Johnny in front of her. “Where did you see my son?” she says to him an' poor Johnny, still quakin' like a bog, stares at the mirror an' points to his own likeness standin' there behind her. “There,” says he. As soon as Peggy Beag realized what it was she was that mad with him she nearly threw him from her. “How can you mistake your poor wee self for my own fine son?” she says to Johnny an' begins to keen for Alistair as if he'd passed on that day just.' Ruari shook his head sadly. ‘Aye, you couldn't blame her for that either, but it took Johnny long enough to get over the fright he'd had an' longer even than that to get used to the mirror at all. See, it was the first mirror he'd seen an' I don't believe he ever took to it. Indeed I mind when his mother died the first thing Johnny did once she was safe in her grave was to throw stones at the mirror until it was smashed in so many pieces it lay like frost on the ground. Then he swept it up an' buried it out on the moor some place an' I believe if you dug at the hole you would be findin' some of it there to this day,' concluded Ruari. He knocked out his pipe, ran his thumb round the empty bowl and put it into his pocket, after which he sat gazing into the fire as if recalling the events with the clarity of personal involvement, though as Morag had already pointed out Ruari could not have been more than a child at the time, so it was his mother's vivid recounting of the events that he was recollecting in such detail. Thus the memories were handed down. The young people present tonight would after hearing the story no doubt add it to their own repertoire for narration when they had achieved the venerability of age.

All this time the puppy had been asleep in my lap, twitching every now and then into semi-wakefulness but always nestling back again. Erchy, who along with several others had slid unobtrusively into the ceilidh during the evening, gestured towards it. ‘Aye, they like somewhere warm,' he observed.

‘Show me the animal that doesn't,' Tearlaich said. ‘I mind now when I was with Duncan one day when we caught a stoat. I thought the thing would tear the finger off him just but Duncan just opened his shirt and popped the beast under his vest quick as I don't know what.'

‘A stoat!' I repeated incredulously. ‘A wild one?'

‘Aye,' insisted Tearlaich. ‘Where would you find the stoat that isn't wild?'

‘But didn't it bite him?' I had once seen a dog whose nose had been bitten by a stoat and the bite had been viciously deep.

‘That's what I was after askin' myself,' replied Tearlaich. ‘But Duncan was sayin' he'd done the same thing plenty times before and not been bitten yet. He says as soon as a stoat feels the warmth of a man's flesh it stops bein' vicious an' settles down gentle as a dove. Duncan reckons he can do the same with any beast he catches,' he added.

‘He'd best not try it wiss tse bull,' quipped Hector.

‘Ach, but that Duncan has so much hair on his chest the stoat would be after thinkin' it was his own nest surely,' said Morag.

Sheila gave an exaggerated shudder. ‘I shouldn't like to try putting a stoat inside my vest,' she said. ‘I'd be sure he'd try to bite.'

There was an unusually bright glint in Tearlaich's eye as he threw a lazy glance at Sheila's ample bosom which, constrained as it was beneath a snowy white sweater, looked like a miniature ski slope. ‘I doubt you'd find room for a caterpillar inside your vest, let alone a stoat,' he told her pointedly. Sheila tittered and blushed and in trying to look demurely up at Lachy caught him staring so fixedly at her bosom that it seemed as if he at any rate was preparing to take a bite out of it. She pushed him away with a gently reproving hand.

Rowan roused himself at last and tried to jump down from my lap. I knew what he wanted, and picking him up carried him outside. The blustery wind had now given way to a breeze which was sending gusty whispers round the end of the house and as I stood in the shelter of the doorway the full moon broke cover from behind the hill and ridding itself of its cloudy beard, stayed poised, silver and serene in the dark sky.

‘He'll be growin' up soft will that dog,' warned Ruari when I returned to my chair. He gave a disparaging look at the puppy which with tiny tail-wagging curiosity was now investigating the boots of the assembled company and, finding the collar of dung which trimmed Ruari's boots much to his liking, he began to lick eagerly.

‘Not too soft,' I assured Ruari as I restored the puppy to my lap. I fully intended that Rowan should be well behaved and obedient, since a dog which is neither is not only a liability but it can never attain to being the trusted companion which is what I wanted Rowan to become. I realized that training would sometimes entail firmness on my part but collies are such intelligent dogs that I hoped his response would come through quick perception and understanding of my requirements rather than be merely an insensitive compliance with commands. To him I wanted to try to measure up to ‘a dog's ideal of what God should be', and meanwhile I was quite unashamed of the fuss I was making of him.

In Bruach the dogs were all working dogs; either collies for sheep and cattle or cairns for rabbiting or ratting and, though there were one or two of the crofters who, deplorably, regarded their dogs as being expendable, to be worked to death and then easily disposed of with a bullet, on the whole the Bruachites treated their dogs kindly. Many were undoubtedly fond of their animals but, because it was considered the height of eccentricity to show affection for a dog, the owners, when they knew they were being observed, felt they had to speak brusquely and sometimes appear to behave almost callously towards them. Very rarely a crofter would defy the gibes and sarcasm and openly display affection for his dog. One such was an old bachelor who, when he could no longer look after himself, came from a neighbouring village with his much-loved dog to spend his last days in Bruach with a married sister. The old man had cancer and as his illness progressed and he became too weak to exercise his dog he had to rely on a nephew to do this for him. Now the old man's dog, though it could not be described as an aggressive animal, had a strange habit whenever it saw another dog of rushing towards it and leaping clean over it, after which display of exhuberance it would continue indifferently on its way. The village dogs being on the whole tolerant and sensible animals quickly learned, or were commanded to lie down when they became aware of the approach of the old man's dog and so life for the canine population continued placidly. However, one day the nephew had the dog down by the cliffs when it espied another dog and oblivious of the fact that the other dog was crouching by the edge of the cliff it made its customary rush forward and a moment later leaped to its death a hundred feet below on the rocky shore. When the nephew returned home the old man naturally wanted to know why the dog was not with him and the nephew, reluctant to give him the bad news, pretended at first that the dog had gone after a bitch and would soon be home. But the old man had become increasingly perturbed by its absence and eventually he had to be told the truth. He died that night.

‘Right enough we knew he'd got to die but the doctor reckoned he had a whiley yet,' the nephew declared. ‘But ach, when I told him about the dog I seen the life go out of his eyes even supposin' it didn't leave the rest of his body. Then next mornin' we found him gone an' his hand hangin' down beside the bed like as if he was reachin' to pat his dog that had always slept on the mat beside him.'

Erchy turned to Tearlaich. ‘I didn't see your own dog for a whiley,' he said. ‘Have you got him tied up for something?'

‘Ach, he's got himself a bad leg,' Tearlaich replied. ‘I reckon he's put it out of joint tryin' to lift it higher than all the other dogs in Bruach.'

‘Indeed I don't wonder your dog has a bad leg,' said Erchy. ‘The way he runs when you send him after the sheep, you'd think he had nothing but the wind inside him. I'm thinkin' if you took him anywhere near a town they would be finin' him for exceeding the speed limit.'

‘He's fast but he's no bad at the sheep,' conceded Tearlaich. ‘But he barks too much an' he likes fine if he gets the chance to take a wee nip at their heels every now and then, though I belt him for it if I can get near him.'

‘I don't think much of a dog that nips,' said Ruari, getting up to go. ‘Nor one that would be barkin' at them too much. A nice quiet dog is what you need for the hill.'

‘You want a dog like the one a famous writer is supposed to have said was his ideal,' I told them and quoted,' “Wanted a dog that neither barks nor bites but eats broken glass and shits diamonds.” '

Tearlaich flashed me a look from under raised brows. ‘My dog wouldn't be much good to that fellow,' he speculated. ‘He both barks and bites but he eats fishbones and shits glue.'

The pressure lamp began to ‘pop' repeatedly, indicating its urgent need of pumping, and since it would fill the kitchen with the smell of smoke and paraffin if I let it go out I got up to attend to it. In the resulting brightness I noticed that Sheila and Lachy had disappeared and that the chair they had been sharing was now occupied by Erchy. I had not noticed the couple leave but since the weather had so much improved I surmised they had slipped out discreetly and gone to some secluded spot where they might pursue their pleasure safe from the teasing comments of onlookers. I looked enquiringly at Morag and she nodded amused affirmation.

‘It's still quite chilly outside,' I murmured, shrugging my shoulders to chase out the nippy cold which had struck them while I was waiting for Rowan.

‘Aye, but I daresay they're warm enough where they are now,' said Erchy, and his remark was greeted with a chorus of giggles. He winked heavily at me.

Soon after Ruari had gone there was a shuffle of boots and calls of ‘Oidhche mhath!' as the rest of the company told one another they ought to be going home.

‘Well, mho ghaoil, I've fairly enjoyed my ceilidh,' said Morag when only the two of us were left. I too had enjoyed the ceilidh, for now that I had become more integrated into the crofting way of life I invariably enjoyed any ceilidh into which I was drawn and since there were only three sources of entertainment in Bruach – ceilidhing, copulating and church-going – perhaps it was well that I did.

The Bruachites used the word ‘ceilidh' to describe any sort of indoor meeting whether it was merely a tête-à-tête or whether it was in the nature of a social gathering, and their use of the term was understandable since the one frequently developed into the other. If I dropped in on Morag of an evening for a chat we had a ‘wee ceilidh' but it required only one or two people to be observed visiting a house for that house to become a magnet for more visitors and so to the satisfaction of everyone a true ceilidh resulted. Thus Bruach ceilidhs were always spontaneous, whereas in many other villages ceilidhs were held in halls instead of homes and not only were they prearranged and advertised but the audience were required to sit on neat rows of chairs. Such contrived gatherings would hardly have suited Bruach where the best ceilidhing was always to be found in the cosier houses, that is where the woman was not especially houseproud and had no fancy ideas about precious furniture that might be spoiled and where people were left to adjust themselves as they liked according to the space available. I well recall Morag's reaction when, as we were driving through a mainland village, she spotted a notice announcing a ceilidh. So disapproving was she that she asked me to stop the car so she could get out and read it. ‘And they have a fear an tighe too,' she said, her mouth bent with disapproval. She got back into the car. ‘Likely it's a bit of Glasgow swank they're puttin' on,' she excused them.

‘It seems odd having to announce a ceilidh even in such a small village,' I said.

‘Indeed, but there's some places would be needin' to put up a notice that there is water in the well,' Morag returned derisively.

She went out into the night and returning to the kitchen I gave Rowan his supper of bread and milk and, so I should not need to go outside again after taking my own nightcap of hot milk and biscuits, I ushered him towards the door. But instead of coming out into the porch he stopped at the kitchen door and looking up at me expectantly began wagging his tail excitedly. I tried to think of a cause for his excitement. Sometime during the ceilidh, presumably because the heat of the fire and the number of bodies present had caused the kitchen to become too hot, the door had been opened wide back against the wall where it had stayed for the rest of the evening and, remembering that I had earlier that day made a toy for the puppy from a duster tied with string, I assumed the toy had somehow lodged itself behind the door and the puppy was now intent on retrieving it. I pulled the door away from the wall.