Fortunes of the Heart (36 page)

“You’ll never believe it: We’ve got a piper. Is that not the
grand start to the new century?”

Scarcely were the words out of her mouth than Auld
Shuggie
came marching in, kilt swaying and pipes blaring.
The volume of sound in the confines of the small, stuffy kitchen had to be
heard to be believed and not a few of the guests winced in real pain as the
noise physically assaulted their ear-drums.
Shuggie
chose to ignore this minor embarrassment and, with measured tread, dictated by
his liberal intake of whisky, he paced to and fro in the tiny room, slapping
down first one silver-buckled shoe, then the other, with all the while his
bagpipes screaming at full pitch. At long, weary last, his ragged and
ear-splitting rendition over,
Shuggie
lowered his
bagpipes and gazed expectantly at his captive and by now nearly-deaf audience.
But instead of the riotous applause which he so obviously expected, there was
instead silence, a strained silence which could be felt. Whether people were
too overcome by the emotion of the event, or were just plain stunned by the
noise of it all, would have been hard to define.

There was a smattering of somewhat belated applause for the
piper, who acknowledged their appreciation by hiking the front of his kilt
waist high. This brought a roar of approval from the revellers, amid such
ribald shouts as,

“Aye. No mystery noo”

“Good on you,
Shuggie
, lad. Mind
you, there’s
no
much there to do a song and dance
about, is there?”

Shuggie
took it all in good part,
grinning from ear to ear.

“Well, sunshine, big or wee, there’s one thing sure, at
least it’s livened up the party a bit. I was beginning to think I’d often been
at a cheerier wake.”

Strangely enough, the one member of his audience who
appeared most of all to have enjoyed the medley of tunes was Hannah. Throughout
Shuggie’s
recital, she had kept up a spirited
rendition of her own by banging on the sides of her go-chair with a spoon,
which had been thoughtfully provided by Granny for this express purpose.
Hannah’s face was still aglow with delight when the red-faced and perspiring
piper staggered over to her. Between the exertion of his piping, the furnace
heat of the small, crowded room and the streaming cold which he was
hellbent
on sharing with everyone else in sight, it was
clear that he was in urgent need of a handkerchief, and not just for his
fevered brow. After a fruitless search through every pocket, in the course of
which his half-bottle of cheap whisky was in danger of crashing to the floor,
he finally gave up the unequal struggle. Tucking his bagpipes more firmly under
his left armpit, he drew the arm of his sleeve across his dripping nose. That
did it. One of the ornate silver buttons on the cuff somehow got jammed in his
right nostril. In his befuddled, drunken state, and with a look of utter
amazement on his vapid face, he chugged and chugged at the offending obstacle.
If anything, this served only to lodge it more firmly. It was left to Kate,
well-versed in such matters over many years of dealing with Hannah and her
equally dramatic crises, to help get the luckless
Shuggie
out of his predicament. With one last tug from his rescuer and a screech of
pain from the gallant piper, he was freed. The offending button dislodged
itself not only from
Shuggie’s
, by now, red-raw
nostril, but also from his jumble-sale
kiltie’s
jacket. As if released from a cannon, the button shot across the room, just
missing Pearce’s left eye by an inch. It was at this point that Hannah happened
to look up and, finding herself eyeball to eyeball with the beady eyes of the
indeterminate and flea-bitten animal whose life had been sacrificed to make a
sporran for the Piper’s full-dress regalia, she let out a scream of terror.

“Mammy, Mammy. Big
monstra
.”

It took all of Kate’s persuasion and Granny’s offer of a
sweet bite to reassure poor Hannah that it was not in fact a monster after her.
Shuggie
was having problems of his own, since he was
being actively dissuaded from scrabbling about on the floor to hunt for his
lost and suddenly precious ‘silver’ button. At last, Kate, with her most
ingratiating hostess smile pinned to her face, managed to convince him that the
sweeper-up would get it in the morning and later return his property to him.
Thus reassured,
Shuggie
, as was his due, seeing as he
was the only one wearing a kilt, again adopted the mantle of Master of
Ceremonies. He cast a bleary eye over the assemblage.

“Right then, you lot, this is supposed to be a party. And at
a Scottish Ceilidh, everybody’s supposed for to do their party-piece.”

This announcement was met with a stunned silence. Then
Stoorie
Sanny
, from the next
close, recovered sufficiently to say: “Awa and bile yer heid,
Shuggie
. If you think I’m going to get up and dae a
clog-dance or give a wee recitation, you’re away with the fairies.”

There was a murmur of assent from the other guests and
reluctant performers. When it was clear that not one party-goer was willing to
act the goat for the enjoyment of his fellows, Auld
Shuggie
frowned in perplexity. Then as his face brightened, he rubbed his hands before
announcing his latest brain-wave.

“Right. If you’re all going to be stick-in-the-muds, there’s
only one thing for it.” Here he cast his eyes around the room, as though
seeking something other than his precious silver button. At length, his eyes
lit on an empty whisky bottle where it still rested by the side of the fireside
kerb where an inebriated guest had laid it.

Shuggie
crossed the room and,
bending down, retrieved the bottle. Then holding it aloft, as if some hard-won
trophy, he again addressed his captive audience.

“Now we’re really in business, folks. So, here’s what we do.
It’s quite easy and nobody needs to get themselves in a
fankle
about it: We spin the bottle on the floor and when it stops, if it’s pointing
to you, that means you’ve to do a turn. Fair, isn’t it?”

Then without waiting for either agreement or denial,
Shuggie
bent down and gave the bottle a hefty spin. When it
fina
ly
came to rest, it
was pointing at Jenny. She blushed scarlet then, egged on by the prompting of
the other guests who were only too relieved that it wasn’t their turn, she
mumbled her way through a half-forgotten poem, a relic from the dim and distant
days of the Kinnon ceilidhs of blessed memory. This rendition was greeted with
loud cheers and much back-slapping, so much so that the poor girl regained her
seat in some confusion. Next to be chosen by the spin of the bottle was Donny
McGinty
. For some reason best known to himself and despite
being in a fine state of intoxication, he chose of all things, A Ballad of the
Drunkard’s Poor Wee Bairn. This ran to several verses and was accompanied by
much posturing, beating of breast and flinging wide of arms.

Over-acted it may well have been, yet this recital also
received thunderous applause, in stark contrast to poor
Shuggie’s
piper-playing efforts. Perhaps the guests were just so relieved that on this
occasion, and for the moment at least, Auld
Shuggie
had not been chosen to perform. For the time being, their ear-drums were safe
from further assault, and thankful they were for that no small mercy. So the
bottle-spinning ceilidh went on far into the night and early morning. But the
grande
finale, and also the high spot of the recitations,
surely had to be the monologue delivered by Mick
McGarrigle
.
He took centre stage and, having adopted a grand theatrical pose, at once
launched into his tale, one which, if the experience of previous years was
anything to go by, would be a real tear-jerker. Throwing his arms wide to a
scenario which only he could as yet see, he declaimed:

“The night was wild,

His heart was sore,

He was leaving the Homeland,

Would see his old Granny no more.

’Twas
a cruel blow,

Fate dealt him thus,

But, to the far-flung

Wilds of Canada

Go, he must.”

The harrowing tale of a poor young Irish lad, driven far
from his Emerald Isle by poverty, the Potato Famine and the land-grabbing greed
of the Irish landed gentry, went on for about twenty verses. By the time he had
reached the thirteenth verse or so, the party was already awash in a flood of
tears, whisky, and maudlin sentiment. The brave welcome for the new Century had
by now lost all pretence at jolly Ceilidh and now resembled nothing so much as
an Irish Wake in full-flight. Somewhere on or about the twenty-third verse, the
orator reached a ringing climax, which drew tears from the hardest and most
callous of hearts. From every corner of the room, low moans and keening sounds
could be heard and in every hand, be it young or old, was clutched a twisted,
damp handkerchief rag. The only thing now dry were the tumblers, drained of
every drop of the comforting, golden water of life.

In the silence which followed the end of the epic, the only
sounds to be heard were the ticking of the clock. and the snores of both Hannah
and Pearce. But from the tense expression on every other face, it was obvious
that, to a guest, they had tramped every weary mile of that Pioneer Trail right
beside that poor heart-broken emigrant lad. With him, they had braved trial by
Brown Bear and Red Indian; had endured not only pangs of hunger, but long, dark
nights of longing for the Homeland; had triumphed over fiendish snow storms in
the untamed Rocky Mountains. And for what? Had it all been in vain?

All that suffering, misery and endurance only to know at the
end of it all that never again, in this world at least, would-he ever see his
dear old Granny again, savour her potato-cakes or share with her the setting of
the sun on dear old Galway Bay. It was enough to break the stoutest of hearts.

The first person to recover from the shared ordeal was none
other than the intrepid piper himself, Auld
Shuggie
.
Of course, it must have been many a long day since he had clapped eyes on his
Granny, so perhaps it had not been such a harrowing experience for him.
Whatever, it was still obvious to the rest of the revellers that he had to
clear his throat a couple of times before he could trust himself to speak. At
last, and making an almighty effort, he creaked his arthritic frame to its full
height.

“Well, folks, now that we are all safely back from our trek
to the Wild West of that heathen country of Canada, if I could just get a wee
word in edge-ways.

Here he paused, and seeing that there were many in the group
who were still mopping away at their red-rimmed eyes or even still letting the
tear doon fall, he smiled round his bonhomie and encouragement.

“I’d just like to say a wee word of thanks for this
wonderful experience and bountiful hospitality we’ve enjoyed here tonight.”

There were murmurs of agreement and much nodding of heads.
This was sufficient encouragement for the would be Toastmaster to expound, at
length, the attributes of their gracious hostess Mistress Kate Kinnon, and
finish his oration by giving a check-list of every delicious morsel which
they’d had to eat and drink.

At last, this diatribe over, the party started breaking up
and, amidst a welter of hand-shaking, back-slapping and cries of mutual
goodwill, they gravitated to the hall.

Kate and Jenny, both of them by now almost asleep on their
feet, ushered their staggering guests to the outer door, as all the while
inebriated ones declared not only their undying friendship but also their
sincere good wishes for the New Year.

The new century and the year of our Lord nineteen hundred had
been well and truly christened and launched.

For the moment, Kate’s most immediate future was to get
Hannah and Pearce settled comfortably for the night and then tackle the
clearing-up of the chaos left by her departing guests. As she surveyed the
dishevelled state of her previously spotless and tidy kitchen, she sighed.

“Some things never change.”

Chapter 30

The old Queen died on January 22nd 1901, and perhaps it was
fitting that her loyal subject Pearce Claude Kinnon departed this life just a
few days after his Monarch.

When it was obvious that Pearce lay dying, Kate, as had been
her custom throughout his life, went out of her way to provide him with such
material comforts as were to hand. On the third day of his crisis, when it was
clear he was sinking fast, she bent over him.

“Listen, Pearce my
darlin
’. Is
there anything at all you fancy to eat; a wee potato cake? A plate of Irish
stovies? Anything at all, my dear, just you say it and I’ll move heaven and
earth to get it for you. That I will.”

The only response to this was a slight shaking of his
wizened head on the pillow, and even this weak action seemed to drain his
strength. Seeing this, Kate leant over and stroked his damp, fevered brow.

“Well, if nothing special to eat, then is there anyone you
would wish to see, Pearce?”

This remark caused a tremulous smile to flit over his
death-mask face.

“The condemned man, eh, Kate?”

She gave a tut-tut of mock annoyance.

“Now then, Pearce, we’re not having any defeatist talk like
that. I simply thought, a visitor to your taste might perhaps cheer you up,
give you a lift. Isn’t there anyone you would like to see?’

From the conflicting emotions racing across his face it was
clear Pearce was having an inner battle. Finally, after a bit more prompting: