Bruach Blend (18 page)

Erchy shrugged. ‘Why not? They were kind of brothers, weren't they?'

Morag evaded disclosing how Angus Ruag and Shamus Mor came to be ‘kind of brothers'. ‘There were never two men more apart,' she explained. ‘Angus Ruag was a man, a fine man; Shamus Mor was never more than a wee tick. Was it not Angus Ruag himself that carried all the turf from the moor to cover the bare rock of his croft until he could cut hay from it? My, but Angus was a warrior.'

‘Aye, indeed,' Murdoch assented.

Angus Mor had been alive when I first came to live in Bruach and I recalled him well. He was ‘eighty past' at that time but all the same one could detect the fine man Morag had described despite the toll of old age. I could remember him telling me with quiet dignity how, when he had first inherited his croft, it had been one of the poorest in Bruach, much of it being nothing but barren rock; he told me of how he had vowed he would set about improving it ready for his own son to inherit and how with this purpose in mind he had made the journey to the moors at least once every day no matter what other work he had to do and wherever he could find green grass from there he had cut turves which he had carried back and laid over the rock of his croft. Day after day, year after year during his long lifetime he had done this until his croft was as green as the best of the crofts in the village. Standing there looking over the land he had so laboriously imposed upon the rock he had pointed out to me the very last area to be covered, telling me of the deep satisfaction it had given him when only the previous year he had been able to cut from it the first swathes of hay. The pride in his unhurried voice was expressive of his love for and dedication to his land, for Angus Ruag had continued his self-imposed task long after the son whom he had hoped would inherit had been killed in the war.

‘Well, I hope the pair will rest quiet,' said Sheena.

‘Well, if they don't we'll take Miss Peckwitt's electric fence an' put it round the grave,' said Tearlaich. ‘That will keep them where they belong.'

The following Monday morning Erchy, who was on his way down to his boat, popped in at the cottage to ask, ‘Is your electric fence workin' all right?'

‘So far as I know,' I replied. ‘It was working earlier on this morning because I heard it ticking away as usual.'

‘Well, Old Donald's not tickin' away as usual,' said Erchy with a mysterious smile.

The connexion between my fence and Donald leaped quite naturally to my mind. ‘Has he been trying to interfere with it?' I demanded suspiciously.

‘Aye, well,' Erchy began, ‘you know the way he feels about your fence workin' on the Sabbath? Well, me an' some of the boys was at his house ceilidhin' the other night an' teasin' him about it until Donald says he wished he knew of a way of stoppin' the fence workin' just for the Sabbath like, not spoilin' it altogether, mind. So Tearlaich winks at me an' says he knows a way. “What way is that?” says Donald, so Tearlaich tells him. “Are you sure it will work?” says he. “Sure as I'm here,“ Tearlaich tells him, so on Saturday night me an' the boys follow Donald to your croft an' wait to see him set about putting your fence out of action.'

‘What did he do?' I snapped.

‘He did what Tearlaich told him to do, just,' said Erchy. ‘He peed on it.'

I stared at him aghast. ‘He did what?'

Erchy's expression was one of sheer joy. ‘He did what I said he did.'

‘Good gracious!' I ejaculated. ‘Tearlaich's a fiend. What happened?'

Erchy blushed. ‘You'll have to be findin' that out for yourself,' he told me, beginning to move away, and to save him further embarrassment I restrained myself from pointing out the patent impossibility of my ever being able to find out for myself. ‘I'll tell you one thing, though,' he flung over his shoulder as he went, ‘for the first time anyone can remember Old Donald wasn't in church yesterday.'

‘I hope he's all right,' I called after him.

‘Ach, he's all right. He just got a wee bitty shock, that's all,' he called back.

Remembering Donald's tackety boots, I suspected he might have got more than ‘a wee bitty shock'.

I mentioned the incident to Morag later in the week when I met her on my way up to the Post Office.

‘The crazy bodach!' she said with a delighted chuckle.

‘If you ever find out what happened to him do tell me, won't you?' I coaxed. But she only laughed again and I guessed she and probably the rest of the village were by now well aware of what had happened to Donald. It was only I who was destined to remain in ignorance. I still feel a little excluded that I do not know what happens to an old man when he pees on a live electric wire but unless someone enlightens me I suppose I shall have to go on feeling that way.

Morag had a dead cockerel swinging from either hand and we were soon joined by Anna Vic who was also carrying a couple of cockerels, for it was only ten days before New Year and the killing and the posting-off of cockerels to relatives and friends in the city was the most easily detectable sign of its approach. Ten days to New Year meant only three days to Christmas and since I now had too many commitments to think of leaving the croft and going down to England for the holiday I knew that I should be spending Christmas alone – alone that is except for Rowan, who by this time was well grown and sturdy enough to accompany me wherever my wanderings took me. This he did happily, instinctively staying at my side unless I bade him do otherwise. There were other things he did instinctively and one of them was herding my chickens. Whenever I was working in or around the cottage and therefore he could be satisfied I was not in need of protection, Rowan, while never going out of sight, liked to take himself off to the shed where I had a brood of chickens not long deserted by the mother hen. There he would begin quietly and gently rounding up the chickens as if they were sheep before herding them into the shed. Once he had them penned in the shed he would go inside and send them all out again ready to resume herding them once more. It is said that poultry are difficult to herd, since unlike sheep they do not flock naturally and also they have wings as well as legs to enable them to elude the herder and it was fascinating to watch the way Rowan worked them. His approach was stealthy, never panicking the chickens and one could almost detect his brain working out the strategy he would have to use to bring a straying chick or two back to the flock without scattering the rest. Round and round the shed, he prowled and stalked and shuffled, infinitely patient, until he had worn a track in the grass which I would have sworn was a perfect circle, and every taut muscle, every hair of his coat as well as the gleam in his eye proclaimed his rapturous absorption in his play. Round and round and in and out of the shed the chickens ran, or flew or hopped, evidencing no enjoyment whatsoever of their enforced activity but only a dazed compliance with Rowan's relentless shepherding. I sometimes wondered whether it was good for chickens to be so frequently harassed but I need not have worried. By the time they had reached maturity they may have been the longest-legged chickens which had ever been seen in Bruach but they were by far the best layers I had ever had in my flock.

‘My, but those are good birds you have there, Morag,' Anna Vic complimented, gesturing towards Morag's cockerels.

‘They're good birds you have yourself,' Morag returned. ‘They will be for your daughter, likely?'

‘They are so,' admitted Anna Vic. ‘She was sayin' to send them a day or two earlier this year because last year they didn't get them till New Year's Eve an' there was barely time to pluck an' clean the beasts before they was wantin' to be eatin' them. But will they keep, only the Dear knows.'

‘They'll keep surely,' Morag said. ‘Seein' you didn't pluck them.'

In Bruach it was reckoned that a plucked and drawn fowl would not keep fresh nearly so long as one which had not been opened up in any way. They were ‘airtight' they believed and it was the custom to send cockerels through the post with their necks wrung but unplucked, undrawn and even unwrapped, with just a label tied to their legs to indicate their destination.

Morag swung one of the birds out of the way of Rowan, who, being puzzled by the inactivity of the dead birds, was following with his nose close to their beaks as if he expected them to need rounding up at any moment. ‘This one is for my cousin that's the detecertive in Glasgow,' she told us, ‘him that was here with his wife in the summer, you mind?'

‘Indeed I mind,' said Anna Vic. ‘It was good ceilidhin' we had then with all the tales he had to tell of the pollis an' the rogues they're after catchin'.' She glanced at Morag. ‘Maybe we'll be seein' them back this comin' summer yet.'

‘I doubt we will,' said Morag. ‘His letter was sayin' his wife's no better.'

‘Is she ill?' It was I who asked the question and with some surprise since the wife had appeared to be such a healthy little woman; effervescing with fun and delightful company.

‘Surely, mo ghaoil, did I no' tell you she had gone malignant?' Morag replied. ‘The doctor's after givin' her injections but I doubt she'll be well enough in time to come this next year.'

‘I'm truly sorry to hear it,' I said. ‘Please remember me to them both when next you write.'

Anna Vic said, ‘That puts me in mind of your own friend that was in hospital. Is she better now?'

‘Mary's coming out of hospital today,' I told her. ‘She'll be going home for Christmas. That's why I'm going to the Post Office now. I'm going to send her some flowers to cheer her up.'

Morag turned to me with a puzzled look. ‘But, mo ghaoil,' she reasoned, ‘where now would you be gettin' flowers at this time of year? An' if you could get a hold of them where would you find anyone that would take them to her?'

I smiled. ‘I'm going to send them by Interflora,' I explained. ‘It's an organization which enables you to order flowers, say, from a shop in Inverness and have them delivered by a shop close to where the recipient lives.'

‘Interflora?' mused Morag. ‘That's handy right enough.'

‘It is,' I agreed. ‘I use it quite a lot.'

By this time we had arrived at the Post Office and while I filled in a telegraph form Morag and Anna Vic added their cockerels to the pile which was already spilling over from the large mailbag in the corner. Before we had finished our business Tearlaich and Hector appeared in the doorway.

‘Ah, New Year's comin' closer,' gloated Tearlaich. ‘I always like to see the cockerels goin' off at this time of year because then I know I haven't long to wait to start gettin' drunk.' He and Hector grinned at each other, their eyes already lit with New Year anticipation.

‘You get drunk plenty times,' Anna Vic said.

‘Aye but not New Year drunk,' refuted Tearlaich. ‘Not bloody, blind mad drunk the way we can be then. Dear God! But I'm goin' to enjoy myself. I was sick last year an' couldn't take a drop but I'm goin' to have two New Years in one this time.' He turned to me. ‘Miss Peckwitt, I guarantee you won't see a man that's as drunk as me,' he boasted.

‘He's started already rehearsin' for it,' said Hector.

‘Of course I have,' Tearlaich admitted. ‘Me an' Erchy reckon to go into trainin' for New Year a couple of weeks before. We don't want to waste good whisky by gettin' drunk too quickly.'

‘All this talk of New Year but it's Christmas is Miss Peckwitt's time,' Morag reminded him.

‘More fool her,' responded Tearlaich. ‘I can never understand the fuss the English make of Christmas and yet when New Year comes they seem as if they'd sooner work than drink.' He gave me a commiserating glance. ‘All the same, it's a shame you haven't more of your own folk around to celebrate with.'

‘Even supposin' she could get away she couldn't stay with her friend seein' she's only newly out of hostapol,' Morag told him.

‘Is that true?' he asked. I nodded. ‘In that case she'll not be havin' much of a Christmas herself then,' he said with polite concern.

‘No indeed but hasn't Miss Peckwitt just been tellin' me she's after sendin' someone from Interpol to cheer her up with some flowers,' Morag was quick to inform him.

It was Christmas Eve – a Saturday when the evening of frosty calm allowed the purpled islands to peer down at their images in the turquoise water while distant lighthouses blinked with increasing brilliance as the last shreds of what had been a flamboyant sunset were sucked into the sea. The crofts being open to the cattle meant that we had not far to go to round up our cattle for the evening milking and the voices of women urging cows, scolding reckless dogs or children and screaming at other cows which had ventured too close rasped at the frosty silence. During the afternoon the men had been carrying home extra creels of peats and the children had been carrying extra pails of water which now stood already skimmed with ice outside the cottage but within handy reach of the door. Calves had been housed for the night; poultry had been fed and gone murmuringly to roost and except for the occasional moo of protest from a cow which had not yet been given its evening feed of hay there was virtually no other sound. It was Christmas Eve; tomorrow was Christmas Day but the preparations took no account of that. Tomorrow was the Sabbath and already by four o'clock on the Saturday afternoon, or evening as it was designated in Bruach, the Sabbath calm descended over the village like a sad grey mist.

As the sky shouldered its burden of deepening darkness, cottage windows began to glow, indicating that the womenfolk, having finished their milking and calf-feeding, had now returned to the house to resume preparations for the morrow. Batches of scones had to be baked; meat, whether it was butcher meat, a rabbit or a skart, would have to be boiled ready to be eaten cold; potatoes had to be brought in from the clamp in the barn, washed and, depending on the degree of piety of the family, either put into a pan and covered with cold water ready for cooking on the Sabbath or, as in the more inflexible households, boiled and drained ready to be eaten cold. Likewise there were eggs to be boiled and porridge or brose to be scalded and set ready by the hob. While the women worked, the children cleaned and polished the family's boots and pestered their mothers for lost socks and clean underwear. The men shaved and, if they thought they needed to, cut their toenails and fingernails and cut the children's toenails and fingernails, after which they smoked contemplatively or drank tea while they allowed the females of the family to wait on them until, work done, they could begin the evening prayers.