Love and Music Will Endure (25 page)

How strange that it had come to this, her world shrunk to one small, bare room where she lay stranded on the bed. The floor had become a treacherous sea; she could barely cross to the door, a harbour out of reach. There was a great beast astride her chest, pinning her down, as heavy and pitiless as the Black Dog in the old tales. But where was brave Bran? He had killed the black beast and she could push off this panting, breathless weight if she used all her strength.

It had been only a few weeks past that she had been able to walk, slowly but steadily, a basket of bannocks on her arm for when she went visiting. Well, if she couldn’t walk she could still sing. Those miseries downstairs with their curdled faces couldn’t shut her up; always muttering about praying for her immortal soul. Had they forgotten the old saying that when the world ends only love and music will endure? She would use her last breath to sing. It was for her music that people had flocked to see her. So she would sing a rousing song, the one about Ben Lee. She had been so overjoyed when the Land Court had, at last, ruled that the grazings there should go back to the crofters. It was a sign that the wheel would turn,

That was all she could manage for the time being. She would have a wee rest and then sing the rest of the verses. She had taken care to praise everyone who fought on their side; the newspapers who supported them, all the leaders of the League in Skye, Norman ‘Parnell’ Stewart who had won £25 from Ivory for libel. That was a sweet victory. They would all be remembered in history and so would she, as the bard who wrote about them. No one would silence her. It took a mortal shock for her to find her voice in the first place and she had never fallen silent since. It had been hard to always stand tall and steady when so many
thought her too strong a brew for a mere woman. She knew that envious people mocked her behind her back. She had suffered too in moving away from her children and losing the solace of their company. It was a lonely life being a female bard. If only Mairead had not returned to Australia. She was the only person she could truly allow to tease or cajole her, to wrangle and wrestle her with words – the sister she would have wanted. The only soul still alive who had known her back in the days when they had the dew of spring on them and their lives stretched out like shadows at dawn. Why did she have to go? She had never been the same since her husband’s death. Màiri knew herself, too well, how hearing your footsteps echo through an empty house made you long to flee it. But to go
so
far away.

‘You can’t understand, Màiri because you see only the sadness of exile. But I’ve seen the scattered seed take root and flourish in Australia. I want to see that hope for the future once more before I die.’

Now if she could have a wee dram, not for nothing was it called the water of life, she could haul up her unresponsive body into a sitting position and look out of the window at the shreds and scraps of sunlight she was sure would be in the sky above Portree Bay even on this murky November day. If you were here, Mairead, we could laugh together about how my world has changed. There were times when having taken refreshment after singing at a cèilidh I found it hard to reach my bed, but never before have I found it so difficult to rise from it. Do you remember that time at the inn at Isle Oronsay when it took two or three brawny fellows to help me up the stairs? Now I’m so weak I need a dram to get me to my feet. No chance of a pain quenching draught in this benighted place. What was it Michael said about how he survived the grim prison years? “Give your spirit wings to soar over the walls.”

She dozed again to be woken by the sound of footsteps on the stairs and a murmur of voices which she strained to hear.

‘She’s not an easy patient Sir, always restive. She’s forever singing and calling out.’

There was a bark of male laughter, ‘Well, I shall take that as a good omen. I would be more worried if she had become quiet.’

‘It’s yourself!’ Màiri exclaimed in delight as Lachlan MacDonald ducked to enter the door, ‘Mind you, I can’t believe that you condemned me to a cell in a Temperance Hotel of all places. Have you got a bottle hidden about your person?’

‘It’s not an ideal refuge, I admit, but I was assured me that they would provide excellent nursing care.’

A contemptuous snort came from the bed.

‘Not nursing of the standard you practised I’m sure but then I doubt if you’re the best of patients.’

His angular face split into a grin as he excavated a bottle from the inside pocket of his overcoat. He sat on the hard chair beside the bed and was relieved to see some colour flow into her sagging, dingy face as she sucked at her drink. He could understand her stubborn wish to go her own way rather than follow the expected path. He too was considered perverse and a traitor to his class for supporting the rights of the crofters and for refusing to allow his sons to be toughened up at public school. Well, he had always followed his own judgement. Even as a young officer in the Behar Light Horse when he had insisted on learning enough of the men’s tongue so that he could understand what they were saying among themselves. The other colonials were mystified by his efforts. Now he wondered if the Indian troops had resented his ability to eavesdrop, just as some of his tenants perhaps saw him as a spy even while they complimented him for his command of the Gaelic.

‘Will you not have a drink yourself?’ she asked.

‘The doctor tells me I must ration myself severely if I am to keep the demon gout at bay, but I shall join you in spirit.’

‘If not spirits,’ she laughed, her chuckle turning into a gasp, ‘A dram moistens the singing voice.’

‘I shouldn’t encourage you for they disapprove of your singing.’

‘I need to cheer myself up. I do miss my cottage. Have you given it to anyone else yet?’

‘No, I’m keeping it ready for your return.’

She looked at him quizzically, ‘You can let someone else have it as long as it’s someone I would approve of. I’m hanging on a shaky peg now.’ She raised a hand to stop him protesting, ‘The fox escaped a long time ago. He was a wild thing but he kept me company. So the house is empty now, as my body will soon be. I know my time is near as I’ve been having some strange dreams. I dreamt I was down yonder on the Scorrybreac shore, cutting seaweed with a sickle. As I touched some of the slithery stuff it turned into the red tresses of a poor drowned girl. I looked up and who did I see but the fairy washerwoman beating clothes with a rock in the Chracaig stream. The clothes couldn’t belong to the young woman for she was already dead. So I knew she was washing my linen to warn me that my time was coming.’

He felt his heart race, uncertain how to keep pace with her flickering changes of mood, ‘Surely it’s a consolation for you that your words will live on?’

‘Aye. I used to believe that the wheel would turn back to the old days and the glens fill up with folk again. Then when I came back to Skye I was overcome with grief at the shepherd’s dogs barking at me when I walked to my old home. I don’t know what will happen. When you try to move a wheel across rough ground you cannot predict where it will turn.’

‘That’s true but I believe there have been changes that can’t be overturned. The crofters are no longer in mortal fear of being evicted.’

‘And we’ve had some cèilidhs and sport along the way,’ she chuckled, stifling a coughing fit, ‘Fine speeches too, from Gaels and handsome young Irishmen.’ She sighed, ‘There have been plenty rogues and tricksters too, especially that scunner Ivory. What about that Mrs Gordon Baillie? She enchanted all the men with her wide shining eyes and flowing locks. Did she fool you too? I was always suspicious of her, of course.’

‘She was convicted of fraud, I believe, a few years after disappearing from the island,’ Lachlan said, ‘But she left a fine sword with John MacPherson. She was no lady at all, only the daughter of a washerwoman from Dundee, I believe.’

‘There’s nothing wrong with that honest calling. I was a washerwoman myself. So was Michael Davitt. Imagine it! A one armed man beating clothes.’

He smiled, ‘Then she became some kind of evangelist I believe and travelled abroad. And that man who was supposed to be her secretary was the father of one of her children and …’

‘They weren’t even married!’ she interrupted in a scandalised squawk, ‘How are the mighty fallen. She richly deserved five years’ hard labour, unlike poor Michael.’

‘She certainly displayed plenty of dirty linen.’

Màiri laughed but the effort made her sink back, wheezing, on the pillow. He waited while she closed her eyes and, looking around the bleak room, he noticed one of her shoes pushed under the bed. It was a man’s shoe, a solid brown brogue, the punched design still showing through the scarred leather. It listed over like a rotting boat abandoned on the shore. Tears began to moisten his eyes.

Suddenly her eyes snapped open again. He blinked and smiled at her. Her hands scrambled over the bedclothes, ‘Where has my
plaid gone? It’s my best one, the one I designed for Professor Blackie.’

Lachlan rescued it from where it had slipped onto the floor.

‘Do you remember the battle I had over the design of that plaid a few years ago? A fellow from Kingussie calling himself a tweed manufacturer proposed naming a new tartan of his own in honour of the Professor. I had to write a letter in The Clach’s paper to put him straight on the matter. I told him how I had presented my tartan to the Professor some years ago and another one to you. I hope you’ve still got it?’ She glowered at him.

‘Yes, indeed. I well remember the occasion when you presented me with it. I arrived at that meeting in Glasgow absolutely frozen on a bitterly cold night. I feared that wearing the kilt and exposing my legs to the chill would invite the gout to attack me. I unwrapped your gift in front of the huge assembly of people who were there that night and very welcome it was too, spread on my frozen limbs.’

Màiri sighed, ‘Do you know that the Professor wore that plaid every single day of his life until he died? Even then it decorated his coffin when he was carried to his last resting place. Anyway, I told yon manufacturer that he could buy the pattern from me. Not that he ever did.’

‘Blackie was a good friend of the Gael but a very … um … theatrical gentleman.’

‘“Blethering Blackie” he was called. Everyone knew him. He even appeared on slogans for the “Royal Drooko” brolly. “I walk the world a rain-tight fella …”’

‘“Beneath the Joseph Wright umbrella,”’ Lachlan completed, laughing, ‘That’s something the two of you have in common, a liking for umbrellas.’

She joined in until her laughter turning to coughing and spluttering. When she had recovered, her expression became
serious, ‘Since he died all his books seem to have been forgotten and people just remember the jokes about him. It’s true he was a vain man but you have to put on a performance. People expect it.’

She whispered lines from one of her verses,

‘Maighstir Ruaridh always said we shouldn’t waste our time with vain frivolities of poetry and music as we pass through this vale of tears. What could I do though when I had so many verses spilling from my head?’

He heard the distress in her voice and took his time before replying, ‘I can’t believe that it is wrong to use a God-given talent. Your poems will live on because they inspire people. Professor Blackie on the other hand was a clever man but not a wise one. His poems were written to show off his cleverness, and they were written in English, an inferior language.’

‘Are you saying he wasn’t much of a bard?’ Her tone was horrified.

‘Yes, I am,’ he chuckled.

She lay back and sighed. A peaceful silence settled between them. She seemed to have drifted into sleep but then she rallied again, ‘Do you remember that time when your wee son came to visit me? He was fond of sitting at my feet and hearing my stories. One day, when he was with me, another lad came in to say that he’d seen a big important man coming up to the house in a horse and carriage, with a coachman carrying a big whip. Well of course I knew it was yourself come to find the wandering lamb. “Where’s that wee imp?” you shouted, or maybe a worse
word. I told him to hide under my skirts. “I haven’t seen a sign of him,” said I. But he spoilt my story by having to come out for air. He claimed he was half suffocated.’

‘That wasn’t me. It was another MacDonald I think’ he said. Then he saw that her eyes had closed and that she really had fallen asleep this time. ‘But it’s a good tale nonetheless,’ he whispered. His lips brushed her dried out cheek and he smoothed the coverlet over her work-worn hands. He tiptoed out of the room, squeezing the door shut behind him.