Lightly Poached (21 page)

‘She's easy upset then,' Tearlaich returned impenitently, but he subsided temporarily and we drove for perhaps two miles before he spoke again. ‘I'll have a bit of money to give back to you for the lorry,' he said in an attempt at appeasement. ‘Seein' we shared the load with a corpse it's goin' to work out a good bit cheaper for us.'

‘Oh, shut up about corpses!' I snapped at him.

I heard the sound of a cork being pulled from a bottle. ‘I thought you'd be pleased to hear it,' he defended himself.

The carrier delivered my piano and chairs in the late afternoon of the following day, the unpredecentedly quick delivery, so the carrier informed me, being due to the complaints of prospective passengers that they could not get into the ferry waiting room.

‘I'll have to go and ask for some help to unload it,' I observed.

‘Ach, there's plenty on the way,' he replied. ‘They're ex-pectin' you to have a good ceilidh tonight so they'll get finished before they come down.'

‘What about you?' I asked.

‘Me? I'm waitin' on the ceilidh too.' He took a quick strupach before going to ‘look up the lads,' leaving the piano on the lorry parked in front of the cottage. It was about nine and quite dark before anyone arrived to unload and when I went outside with a lantern it seemed to me as if every able-bodied man, woman and child in the village had come to help, impede, encourage or advise. However, the piano defied all attempts to manœuvre it into my cottage.

‘You'll need to higher this door or move one of the stairs,' Erchy reported.

‘Then it will just have to go into the barn,' I said sadly, thinking how cold I and my piano were going to be together.

My decision was greeted by something like a cheer. ‘All the better,' they assured me. ‘We can have a better ceilidh in there than in the cottage.'

‘I'm afraid the mice will be making their own ceilidh house in it,' I told them.

‘An' there's plenty of room for them too inside it, I'm thinkin',' replied Erchy insensitively.

Once it was in position in the barn about six pairs of hands were punching at the keys and an equal number of feet trying to thump the pedals.

‘Give us a tune,' they demanded and to save my piano from complete destruction I agreed immediately. Erchy brought a chair over from the house. ‘Seein' you'll be here for the rest of the night you may as well be comfortable,' he told me. I realised the ceilidh had begun. The roadman brought along his melodeon; the postman brought his mouth-organ. The young people danced and the elderly watched and gossiped. The barn grew warm and the piano seemed to respond to the exuberance of the dancers, for after an hour's playing I detected no dumb notes and the keys were yielding to the touch of my fingers.

‘It's a lovely noise your piano's makin',' someone complimented me enthusiastically at one juncture and when I left the barn to go and supervise the making of tea Hector came in to tell me he thought he'd as soon listen to the piano as to the bagpipes which was praise indeed. By half past four many of the older folk had left save for a few who were still bunched together savouring their tea and gossiping; the young were still cavorting around the barn. I finished playing and slewed round in my chair. Behag was coming towards me with yet another cup of tea. She looked at me quizzically. ‘You're tired,' she accused as if she had detected a secret.

The Bruachites considered it discourteous to admit to feeling tired whilst they were in company and managed to give the impression of being fresh and alert until they quite literally keeled over with exhaustion. I was well aware of my own infringement of protocol when I agreed ruefully that I was very tired indeed. It had been a long and heavy day following directly upon the excitement of the journey and I was aching for my bed.

Behag turned to Janet. ‘I'm thinkin' it's time we was away to our beds. Miss Peckwitt says she's tired.'

‘Oh yes, indeed,' agreed Janet with instant sympathy. She raised her voice. ‘Come away home now, everybody. We're keepin' Miss Peckwitt from her bed.'

The dancers turned to me with looks of consternation. ‘She cannot be tired,' Tearlaich denied. ‘She's done nothing but sit and play all evening.'

‘I am,' I insisted.

‘Go to your bed then!' commanded Erchy with a cheeky glint in his eye. ‘We'll carry on by ourselves. We still have the melodeon.'

‘Here, no indeed.' said Janet, shocked by his rudeness.

‘One more dance, then!' shouted the postman, tucking his mouth-organ into his pocket and pulling me into me centre of the dance floor.

‘Last dance!' called Erchy authoritatively. ‘Eightsome reel, an' keep it goin' till you drop!' he instructed the roadman. The melodeon played on until at last the roadman sat back, his arms dropping at his sides, his head shaking a tired refusal to commands to ‘carry on'.

There was a procession to the cottage to retrieve coats and gumboots and then everyone returned to join hands for ‘Auld Lang Syne'. I never knew until then that ‘Auld Lang Syne' had so many verses but at last it was over and, unhooking the lantern from the rafter, I followed my friends outside.

‘Good night!' I called again and again in response to their receding farewells and, thankful to see the very last guest depart, I secured the gate against trespassing cattle. My mind was already so obsessed with the desire for sleep that there was difficulty in convincing myself of the chores I must attend to before I could give in. I banked up the fire; filled the kettle; wound the alarm clock; put out the kitchen lamp. It was only eight steps now to my bedroom where I could drop my clothes, turn out the lamp and tumble into the blessed sanctuary of my bed.

As I opened the bedroom door I discovered that the last of my guests had not gone. Indeed the last of my guests was wrapped in my eiderdown fast asleep on my bed. I was so cross at being thwarted that the tears came into my eyes.

‘Get out of my bed!' I snapped.

The muffled voice of Tearlaich came from the bundle. ‘Ach, I was tired.'

‘I'm tired too,' I replied, ‘and I want to go to bed.'

‘So do I, my darlin'.' The response was cheerful. ‘I've been wantin' to all evening. Come and cuddle beside me.'

He lifted the eiderdown invitingly and revealed lying beside him a bottle of whisky pushed into one of his boots. The other boot was stili on his foot. I had heard of champagne being drank out of a lady's slipper but whisky out of a boot seemed too preposterous even for Tearlaich. He started muttering in Gaelic and though I could not decide what he was saying his tone sounded distinctly seductive. I gave him a push.

‘Everyone else is away home to their beds and you must go too,' I shouted into his ear. ‘Your mother will wonder what on earth's happened to you.' It wasn't true, of course. Hospitality in Bruach was such that mothers did not have to wonder where their sons spent the night.

‘I'm hellish drunk,' admitted Tearlaich, rolling over.

‘I know you are and you'll be downright ashamed of yourself tomorrow. You won't dare to look me in the face for a week.' That would certainly be true. I put down the alarm clock and went downstairs to make him a cup of black coffee and while I was about it I opened the door to listen for signs that some of his friends might still be within hailing distance. There was only a soft sweep of wind and a scattering of stars throwing a faint shimmer over the sea. I cupped my hands to my mouth and yelled as loudly as I could hoping that somewhere some of my erstwhile guests would hear me and come to my aid. No response broke the silence of the night.

I took the coffee upstairs and persuaded Tearlaich to sit up. Shaking his head and squinting through his tousled hair like a bemused calf he took up the cup and after drinking about half of it started to ramble jerkily about love and how good it would be for me but as his eyes were screwed tight shut the whole time it was plain he had no idea whom he was addressing. The cup was tilting dangerously and to save my eiderdown I took it from him whereupon he grabbed the whisky bottle, drained it and settled down to sleep again.

I gave up, resolving to leave him there and make up the bed in the spare room for myself but as I was taking the blankets from the chest I heard voices outside and the kitchen door was flung open. Someone was bumping about in the dark. I was halfway down the stairs when Erchy's voice called:

‘Have you seen that bugger Tearlaich? We've lost him.'

‘He's upstairs in my bed,' I called testily. ‘And I hope you'll be able to drag him out of it. He's a damn nuisance.'

I lit the way upstairs and Erchy, assisted by the roadman, pulled the protesting Tearlaich off the bed and put on his boot. Leaving me with the empty whisky bottle as a memento they hauled him down the stairs and outside.

‘That's no' a nice thing to do at all, man,' Erchy chided as they struggled to get him through the gate.

The reproof sobered Tearlaich momentarily. ‘What wasn't?' he asked stupidly.

‘To take a woman's bed an' not let her into it,' retorted Erchy.

‘I would have let her into it,' objected Tearlaich defensively. ‘I'd have made it cosy for her.'

‘Ach, if folks behave like that Miss Peckwitt will be packing her bags an' goin' back to where she came from,' Erchy told him.

Tearlaich's dragging feet dug into the ground, halting his supporters. He struggled round to face me.

‘You'll not go back to that backwards place, Miss Peckwitt?' he pleaded apologetically.

‘To what backwards place?' I asked, smiling despite myself.

‘England,' replied Tearlaich.

I laughed outright then. ‘Oh, no,' I assured him. ‘I'm not thinking of doing that for a long time.'

‘I wouldn't …' began Tearlaich but Erchy cut in with ‘Ach, come on, man! I'm wantin' my bed.' He and the roadman shouldered Tearlaich between them and as their footsteps merged into a rhythm Tearlaich broke into a song. I went back indoors, intent again on the prospect of bed and the few hours' sleep I hoped would chase some of the weariness from my limbs. As my hand was on the bedroom door my new alarm clock, set for half past seven, made me jump with its raucous ringing.

It was time to start another day.

First published in 1973 by Hutchinson & Co.

This edition published 2012 by Bello an imprint of Pan Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited Pan Macmillan, 20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR Basingstoke and Oxford Associated companies throughout the world

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Copyright © Lillian Beckwith, 1973

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