An Island Apart (20 page)

He was still staring at her, and impulsively she extended an arm towards him, thinking he needed help. ‘Please,' she began, and pushed a chair close to him, fearing he was about to collapse. At last he spoke. ‘You will not find Ruari Beag,' he said stoically.

‘I cannot leave you while I go to find him,' she said. ‘Not while you are in such pain.'

‘Be quiet woman. You will not find him,' he repeated.

‘But he'll surely be back from the peat Island by now,' she insisted. ‘Why wouldn't I find him?'

‘The sea has claimed him,' he said flatly.

Her head shot up in alarm.

‘The sea?' She thought he was confused. ‘What are you saying, Ruari Mhor?' Her hand went to her throat as she stared at the hard set of his jaw. ‘Oh, dear God!' she whispered, as what he was telling her pierced her consciousness. She could not stop herself swaying: the kitchen furniture seemed to move as if it was being shaken by an earthquake. When she came to she was lying on her bed and thinking she was just awakening from a bad dream. She sat up and saw her brother-in-law holding a mug of tea towards her but, wordlessly, she shook her head. ‘Is it true what you are telling me?' she said faintly.

‘It is true,' he said.

‘But they only went across to the peat Island and it is a calm evening,' she tried to argue. ‘What happened?'

‘Jamie tells me he and my brother had a good load of peats on the small boat and were on their way back when Ruari saw a good piece of driftwood a distance away. My brother thought it would be good to carve and wanted to tow it behind the boat, so Jamie jumped in the water and started to swim for it. He didn't see Ruari was having trouble with the outboard motor, but thinking he heard a shout he looked round and was in time to see the wee boat turn over, and though he swam back as fast as he could hoping Ruari would be holding on to the boat there was no Ruari, no boat and no engine. He shouted and dived and swam around searching for long enough before he gave up and swam ashore here on the Island to tell me. I went with him in the fishing boat but we knew my brother was gone. We went over to the mainland to let them know and more boats have gone to search. They are still searching.'

‘Then I must away and join them. I'm a good swimmer,' she shrilled, getting up from the bed.

‘There will be good swimmers there. If he is to be found they will find him. Otherwise we must wait until the sea chooses to give up its dead.'

Distraught, she hurried into the kitchen and began to shift pots and pans about on the range not really knowing why she was doing so.

‘Where is Jamie now?' she thought to ask.

‘Jamie is down on the shore,' he told her. She looked at him questioningly. ‘He is suffering because he was unable to save his father.' He paused for a moment before adding, ‘He thinks you might blame him.'

‘His father?'

‘Jamie is Ruari Beag's son,' he said.

Her voice dried up in her throat as she stared up at him. ‘His son?' she repeated incredulously.

‘He never told you?' Slowly she shook her head in denial. ‘He did a foolish thing,' he said. ‘It was a long time ago. Try not to blame him.'

She remembered suddenly that Ruari Beag had drowned without knowing about the bairn she was carrying in her belly and the knowledge drove like a blade into her heart. ‘I had something to tell him,' she confessed. ‘I was going to tell him tonight I am near five months pregnant with his bairn and now he has died without knowing it.' Her voice broke on a sob and she shook her head bemusedly. She had a yearning to feel someone's arms around her, someone, her mind prayed, someone who would offer her comfort. He stood there watching her as she sank into the chair. ‘I cannot blame Jamie and I do not blame Ruari Beag,' she said quietly. ‘He has always been kind enough to me. It is I who failed to make him happy.'

‘You made him very happy,' he contradicted. ‘Particularly when you accepted Jamie into this household. Not only just accepted him but were keen to have him. I tell you no woman could have made him happier.'

She cupped her hands to her face to hide her tear-filled eyes.

‘Will I go now and bring Jamie?' he asked her.

‘Please,' she assented, and when Jamie came into the kitchen she held out her arms and hugged him to her, feeling his need for comfort. It was not until she was in bed that night that she called to mind that she had not offered Ruari Mhon a trace of commiseration over the loss of his brother.

Apart from the fact that they noticed Jamie's stammer seemed to have been cured, at least temporarily, by the tragedy they carried on stoically for the next few days, doing what needed to be done and doing nothing that was not necessary. Jamie accompanied Kirsty to the cattle. Ruari Mhor wandered the shore. None of them seeming to know what they were expecting to happen until a few days later, Ruari Mhor came into the house and demanded Ruari Beag's seaboots.

Kirsty looked up at him, perplexed by the demand.

‘They have found his body,' Ruari Mhor confirmed. His voice was harsh but she knew it was an attempt to disguise his grief.

‘Why would you want his boots?' Kirsty asked nervously.

‘He is to be buried tomorrow,' he replied. And when Kirsty still looked puzzled he went on, ‘Do you not know the custom here?' She shook her head. ‘When a man dies by accident in these parts his boots must always be buried beneath him.'

‘What reason would there be for that?'

He looked at her gravely. ‘It is so his ghost cannot walk,' he said.

She shuddered. ‘I never heard of that,' she confessed and went to get her drowned husband's boots.

The sealed coffin was brought to the Island and placed on a bench outside the house. There was mist rolling in from the sea and the land was eerily quiet. The male mourners, mostly recognisable as fisherman, grouped themselves loosely beside the bier as the missionary read the service. Mairi Jane stood closed to Kirsty, offering support while the rest of the women stood around the doorway of the house.

When the service was over, the coffin was carried back to the boat and left, while the men there returned to sustain their genuine grief from a bottle while the women took sustenance from the teapot. After a while there came an urgent call for the mourners to get aboard the boat which had brought them and was not returning to the mainland, but since the bier was to be taken to a port nearer the burial ground
The Two Ruaris
was to wait until the missionary was ready to go.

The missionary's wife waited with him. She was a thin stringy woman with a ‘face like yesterday' as Mairi Jane described her, and a skin like faded calico. Even her smile was supercilious. Mairi Jane, who had volunteered to stay the night with Kirsty, made a grimace of disdain and disappeared but having cornered Kirsty, the couple sat in the kitchen taking more tea. Kirsty wished they would go but she supposed they thought they must stay to offer more comfort and condolence, and at the same time wring her soul with more prayers. But that was not why they had stayed, as she was soon to find out.

‘What are you thinking of doing now?' the missionary's wife asked.

‘Do? I've had little time for thinking,' Kirsty countered.

‘Well, we think it best to tell you it wouldn't be right for you to stay on here, don't we, Lachlan?'

Kirsty fixed them with a puzzled glance.

‘Stay in the same house with your husband's brother and no other women to chaperone you! That will not fit in with church teaching,' she added relentlessly.

‘Jamie Eilidh will be staying here for a time at least,' Kirsty told them.

‘Your husband's sinfully begotten son,' the missionary's wife scorned. ‘Surely that would not be condoned by the church, would it, Lachlan?' she appealed to her husband.

His mouth was full of scone and he answered with a barely perceptible nod.

‘What do you suggest I do?' Kirsty demanded.

‘Of course you must leave Westisle. The two of you would be disgraced by such a scandal,' she asserted, ‘And your brother-in-law would not be welcome at Communion which he has always tried to attend when the weather allowed.'

Ruari Mhor came into the kitchen. ‘The men are wanting away,' he announced. ‘The tide is on the turn.'

The missionary and his wife shook hands with her, murmured an unintelligible blessing and followed him down to the boat.

Kirsty was resting her head on the table when Mairi Jane came into the kitchen. ‘Indeed, what use are they to anyone?' she asked. ‘He puts his stomach before his soul and she puts her fancies before facts.' She looked keenly at Kirsty. ‘They've not been unkind to you,
mho ghaoil?
'

‘No, no,' Kirsty denied. ‘She just seems to think I'm much in need of her prayers – and not just because I've lost my man.'

‘Ach, her!' Mairi Jane chortled her contempt.

When Ruari Mhor took Mairi Jane home next morning Kirsty went down to watch the boat crossing the Sound. The mist of the previous evening had cleared and, sitting on a knoll hugging her knees, she watched the boat receding. After it was out of sight she lifted her eyes to stare at the barren hills, their peaks black against the clear sky, putting her in mind of figures which had been suddenly petrified while leaping during an ecstatic dance.

A gull squawked as it swooped low. She felt acutely alone.

That night Kirsty found herself worrying about the missionary's wife's sharp assessment of her position. It seemed to her she was once again facing a vague and improbably future. The house, the whole of Westisle, undoubtedly belonged to Ruari Mhon. Her own Ruari had said that he and his brother had inherited it jointly from their parents, so what now? But it was not the legal aspect that troubled her, it was the moral aspect as preached by the missionary's wife. Ought she to live in the same house as her brother-in-law? Would Jamie be considered a suitable chaperone? Would Ruari Mhor blame her if he was excluded from communion? But where could she go? She was certain, since he knew she would soon be giving birth to his brother's child, that he would not send her away but she must not come between him and his church. She decided to put the position to him as soon as he came back from the burial ground, but when he did appear he looked so anguished, so beaten, she could only follow his movements with aching, compassionate eyes.

When she did speak to him about the missionary's wife's criticism of their living in the same house he said, ‘You wish to go away?'

‘No. I have nowhere to go.'

‘Are you happy here?'

‘I am. But just as I did not wish to come between you and your brother, neither do I wish to come between you and your church.'

‘My faith is between myself and the Lord God. The missionary and his wife are outside it. But if you wish it I will offer to wed you.' She was so astounded she could only stare at him speechlessly.

‘It would be a ceremony here at the house only. I would ask for nothing from you.'

Utterly flabbergasted she collapsed on a chair. ‘I hadn't thought of that as a possible solution,' she murmured.

‘Very well, I will speak to the minister,' he said as he went out of the kitchen.

It was some minutes before she could get up from the chair.

‘I had a feeling that this would happen,' said Jamie, when she told him.

‘You had a feeling? How could you have a feeling about it? He has never welcomed me to this place. When I first came here he wouldn't speak to me for quite a while. Even now he prefers not to speak to me unless it's necessary. Certainly I have never had any feeling about him marrying me. I must tell you Jamie, I consented to this wedding only because I wanted a home.'

‘But this is your home, surely?'

She told him of the missionary's wife's warnings, and that this was the way he had dealt with the problem.

‘She told you that you couldn't continue to live here unless you married your husband's brother?' he asked incredulously.

‘No, no. She certainly didn't suggest anything like that. She simply said I must leave Westisle. I daresay the idea of me marrying Ruari Mhor hadn't occurred to her any more than it had to me. It came like a bolt from the blue when he offered to marry me.'

‘And this is my uncle's religion?' he queried scathingly. ‘I will tell you now, I have no respect for a religion like that.'

She said, ‘There are many different religions, Jamie, and we have to be tolerant when we speak of them. You yourself are of a religion that many folk despise.'

‘I have no religion,' he said firmly.

‘You were born of a strong Catholic family,' she pointed out.

‘I am no longer a Catholic,' he said. ‘I discovered a relationship with my Maker which no man shall despoil. No. priest, no nuns, no minister, no bishop nor archbishop.'

‘Jamie!' She was shocked. ‘You are young yet. You should not be so downright.'

‘Ach, bugger the lot of them,' he almost spat.

‘You haven't learned to use language like that in this house,' she reprimanded him.

He shrugged his shoulders. ‘One learns to swear when one is at sea,' he said.

Her eyes followed him as he went across to the barn. He was no longer the lonely boy he had been before he came to Westisle. His stammer was hardly noticeable now. Fishing and landwork seemed to have broadened his shoulders, Westisle was helping him grow into a fine sturdy lad, she thought.

‘The minister will be across in a day or two,' Ruari Mhor told her one evening, and accepting that weather and tide would have to be taken into consideration she did not press for more precise information.

It was nearly a month later while she was busy about the house that Ruari Mhor and Jamie escorted the minister into the kitchen. Quickly she washed her hands and taking off her overall stood for the ceremony. Ruari Beag's ring was used for a second time. Afterwards the minister took a cup of tea and some buttered scones with them all, drank a glass or two of whisky and then with warm wishes he shook hands and announced he was ready to depart.