A Rope--In Case Read online

  Down at the shore dinghies were already being launched amid a clatter of Gaelic and a scuffle of shingle; torches flashed over wet stones and dark seaweed; the rhythmic sound of oars in rowlocks receded as the boats drew away from the shore. There was no pier at Bruach where the steamer might come alongside and so she lay about a quarter of a mile offshore, her position marked by her lights and their spilled reflections. The waiting people ashore heard shouted instructions and exhortations from the steamer’s crew coming with ringing clarity across the water. Lowering heavy goods like drums of tar, bolls of meal and weighty tea-chests over the side of the ship and down into the dinghies that clung alongside was hazardous enough in daylight. Darkness increased the risk of accident.

  I leaned in the shelter of a boulder and relished the excitement which the arrival of the steamer always injected into the village, though rarely was anything but the most mundane of cargoes discharged. Townspeople might find it difficult to believe that such things as a tea-chest full of basic foodstuffs or a roll of wire-netting could cause any stirring of excitement but in Bruach life was stark and pared to necessities; luxuries were neither envisaged nor demanded. It was the arrival of necessities that gave us our thrills. We could be as excited over the delivery of our winter stores as a town housewife might be at the arrival of a longed-for suite of new furniture. Similarly the appearance of a new roll of wire-netting or a bundle of gleaming corrugated iron sheets in a village where sheds and fences were mostly contrived of driftwood and rusted wire was likely to cause as much interest and admiration as the appearance of the neighbour’s sleek new car in a suburban street. Such admissions might suggest that life in Bruach was bleak and monotonous; it was not, but I found it unvarying to the extent that the most prosaic event could provide me with a disproportionate amount of pleasure. I have exalted over the delivery of a ton of shiny new coal, and experienced a flutter of exhilaration when the chemist substituted an unfamiliar brand of toothpaste in my quarterly parcel.

  The steamer’s engine spread the bay with noise; we heard the anchor go aboard to shouts of farewell. Her lights were lost again amongst the stars as she steamed out to sea. There was the sound of oars again and soon burdened boats were scraping on the shingle. By this time Janet and Morag had joined me and together we helped by holding the dinghies to save them bumping about too much while the men unloaded. The tide was coming in quickly and the sea surged and swirled round our feet in noisy white rushes that filled our boots before we could dodge away. The breeze was light but full of shivers and I kept one gloved hand on the gunwale of the boat while I tucked the other under an armpit. My shoulders were hunched with cold.

  ‘There’s two tea-chests an’ a roll of wire nettin’ for you,’ Erchy told me.

  ‘Aye,’ I managed to acknowledge through chattering teeth.

  ‘Are you cold?’ he demanded, astonished.

  I nodded.

  ‘I’m sweatin’ like I don’t know what,’ he confessed, and added, ‘Ach, you’ll be warm enough yourself by the time you’ve got this lot up to your house.’ He lifted two tea chests out of the dinghy and dumped them on the shingle above the tide. ‘I’ll give you a lift with them on to your back when I’ve finished,’ he promised and went back to continue unloading.

  There was I knew in each tea-chest about a hundredweight of groceries and despite all the experience of burden bearing I had endured since I had come to Bruach I knew that for me the feat of carrying such a load on my back was impossible.

  Erchy had finished. ‘All right, then,’ he said. ‘Have you got your rope?’

  I showed him the screwdriver and hammer I had brought with me. ‘I’m not proposing to carry the chests,’ I said. ‘I’m going to open them down here and carry it all up in easy loads.’

  He was aghast ‘That’s just makin’ work for yourself, woman,’ he chided. ‘Take them up one at a time an’ you’ll not find it too heavy.’

  ‘No dainty fear,’ I retorted.

  ‘Ach, you English folk aren’t brought up right,’ he taunted and nodded to where his own mother was at that moment tying a boll of oatmeal (one hundred and forty pounds) on to her back with a thick rope. The boll was resting on a rock of convenient height and when she had adjusted the rope for her comfort she leaned forward, taking the full weight of the sack. Steadily she picked her way over the shingle and giving us a brief greeting as she passed went on up the road. Her home was half a mile from the shore.

  ‘See that, now,’ said Erchy. ‘An’ she’s seventy past, so what she can do you can do. There’s more in a boll of meal than there is in these chests.’

  Erchy had once told me in the presence of his mother that she had, in her youth, carried up two bolls of oatmeal and a sack of flour—a total of three hundred and ninety two pounds—in one load on her back from the shore to her house. I had looked askance at the old lady, suspecting that Erchy was exaggerating the story and that she, honest soul as she was, would rush to disclaim it, but instead she smiled, flexed her shoulders and remembered proudly: ‘Aye, an’ I didn’t stop for a rest till I got to the cairn.’ The cairn was only about a hundred yards from her house.

  Morag went by, carrying a sack of flour on her back and was soon followed by Janet who besides the burden of a boll of meal also carried a five gallon drum of paraffin in each hand. One could not say that they carried their loads effortlessly but they were not visibly distressed and had breath to spare to call various pleasantries as they moved away into the darkness.

  ‘There you are,’ urged Erchy. ‘They don’t find their loads too heavy so you ought to manage these.’ But I wouldn’t try. I could see that he thought he ought to offer to carry them up for me but I evaded his offer by opening the chests as soon as his back was turned. He had a fifty gallon drum of paraffin in addition to other things to take up for himself and I felt I could not allow him to carry my burdens as well as his own. I loaded some of the contents of the first tea-chest into my sack, carried it up to the cottage and went back for another load. I was soon sweating enough to take off the woollen scarf from round my neck. When both tea-chests were empty I started to roll the wire-netting up the brae in the direction of my cottage, and before I had got many yards with that I had discarded my coat also and was taking advantage of every rut in the road which would hold the netting and prevent it from rolling back down the brae while I rested and panted. I had only a few more yards to push it when I heard voices behind me in the darkness. It was Janet and Morag who, having taken the first load home, had returned for another.

  ‘Put them down,’ I suggested, ‘and come in and have a strupak before you take them the rest of the way.’ But no, they declined, saying that the worst part of carrying was getting the loads on to their backs and off again. Once they were on their way they couldn’t feel the weight so much.

  ‘But you’ll come ah’ have a wee ceilidh with us tomorrow night,’ Janet invited.

  I said I would. For the next hour I was gloatingly inspecting and stowing away tins and packages in my larder, sniffing appreciatively at the new brand of coffee and sampling biscuits from the new tin. Then I caught sight of the clock which showed that it was past midnight. Immediately I felt so tired that I wished my kitchen had been like so many of the other kitchens in Bruach where there was what was known as a ‘recess bed’. There were times when it would have been wonderful just to flop on a bed and give way to sleep without even going into another room. The wish was dispelled by a preliminary thump on the door followed by a thud of boots and a hail from the porch. It was Erchy with a sack of flour on his back; had I been in my recess bed his entry would have been just as sudden and unannounced.

  ‘Here,’ he said, ‘will I get to leave this in your shed till the mornin’. They’re not needin’ it at the house just now an’ I’ve the paraffin to take home yet tonight.’

  ‘Surely,’ I replied and guided him round to the shed with my lamp.

  ‘I’ve got the kettle on,’ I told him. ‘I’ll make you a cup of
tea if you like.’

  ‘Aye, that would be fine,’ he agreed.

  ‘Will you take a wee dram while you’re waiting?’ I bent to open the door of the cupboard where I kept the whisky bottle.

  ‘A dram? No damty fear!’ Erchy sounded indignant.

  ‘Well, you needn’t sound so outraged,’ I told him. ‘It’s not very often I hear you refuse a dram when it’s offered.’

  ‘Aye, I know that fine, but not just now. I’m off it till the New Year.’

  ‘But New Year’s nearly eight weeks yet, and you’ve never been able to keep off the whisky for eight days.’ I stared at him quizzically. ‘What’s come over you?’

  ‘I have a bet on with Johnny that I’ll keep off it till the New Year, an’ I’m goin’ to win it.’

  ‘What’s the bet?’ I asked.

  ‘Ten pounds!’

  ‘Johnny’s pretty certain to keep his money then,’ I murmured banteringly.

  ‘He will not, then. Folks say I cannot win but I’m goin’ to show them just that when I’ve a mind to do a thing I can do it.’ His voice was stern.

  ‘Well, good luck,’ I said as he was about to depart.

  ‘I want no good luck,’ he retorted, standing in the half-open door. ‘I’m miserable enough without it.’

  The next day I woke up with a stiff neck, doubtless the result of discarding scarf and coat during my exertions the previous night. It was extremely painful and though I tried liniments and lotions, compresses and massage, they did little to alleviate the pain. Had I been able to sit beside the fire all day it would not have been so distressing but that was impossible. Besides hens to feed there was a recalcitrant cow to be put out and brought home each day, a task which frequently compelled me to leap suddenly forward and head, her off or race backwards to retrieve her after she had successfully eluded me. On the pocked and rutted moors the chase and consequent stumbles were agonizing. I stayed indoors as much as I could and saw no-one for three days until Morag came to seek me out I told her of my sufferings.

  ‘I was after thinkin’ there must be somethin’ the matter when you didn’t come to ceilidh at Janet’s the other night,’ she told me. ‘It was a good ceilidh an’ Janet was missin’ you seein’ you said you’d be there.’

  ‘Tell her I was too miserable for company,’ I said. ‘I’ll go along when this neck of mine is better.’

  ‘You have a bad neck?’ My expression must have been eloquent because she went on; ‘Will I take a look at it?’

  I took off my scarf and let her inspect my neck. ‘I see nothin’ wrong with it,’ she announced.

  ‘I didn’t expect you to,’ I retorted peevishly. She offered to massage it for me but her hands were like emery paper and I had soon had enough. She then suggested she should bring home my cow and I accepted gratefully. Eventually she got up to go but paused at the door and came back to resume her seat opposite me.

  ‘I’m thinkin’ you should go to old Lila with your neck,’ she advised.

  I was startled. ‘Old Lila? Why?’

  ‘She can cure a wryneck. That’s what we call your sort of neck hereabouts,’ she explained.

  I was still staring at her and she turned away, looking slightly embarrassed. I recalled that her mother was supposed to have been a village healer, able to concoct medicines of every sort and also to bestow various charms. I knew that Morag herself had a good knowledge of these things and wondered why she was now suggesting I should go to old Lila who, though considered by a few people in the village to be skilful in such matters, Morag had always, affected to despise.

  ‘If she can cure a wryneck, why can’t you, Morag?’ I asked.

  ‘I’m not sayin’ whether or no I could cure a wryneck if I was to ask for the power. I never did that. But I know old Lila has it.’

  ‘How does she do it?’

  ‘It’s just the power she has,’ Morag replied and there was a hint of reproof in her tone. She rose and again went to the door.

  ‘And do I have to cross her palm with silver?’ I asked lightly.

  She ignored the remark. ‘Will I say to Lila that you’ll go to her house, then?’

  Despite my scepticism I was impressed by her earnestness. I hesitated and tried to turn and see her face; die pain made up my mind.

  ‘Yes, please,’ I said.

  ‘An’ when will I tell her you’ll come?’

  ‘Tomorrow?’ I suggested. ‘The sooner the better for me.’

  ‘Tomorrow,’ repeated Morag seriously, ‘if the Lord spares you. But it had best be at the back of eleven to make sure she’s in from the cow.’

  The following morning just after eleven I found myself walking towards Lila’s cottage. It was well out of the village of Bruach and situated in the middle of the moors with only a vague track leading to it. As I approached the squat little house with its grey mottled walls and its black tarred iron roof I began to wonder if I had come too early. There was a thin fuzz of peat smoke coming from the potless chimney but there was no sound save the hissing of the wind through the heather and no perceptible movement until I came within a few yards of the house and noticed the half dozen or so poultry which were pecking desultorily around the door. Suddenly I began to feel apprehensive. They were all cockerels— white cockerels! My mind ranged over the appurtenances of witchcraft and I think in that moment I might have turned for home had not my foot skidded on the slimy ground and as I tried to avoid a stumble the pain stabbed into my neck. Boldly I went up to the door. It opened before I put a hand to the latch and Lila stood there with a wide and toothless smile of welcome that instantly banished all my misgivings. She looked reassuringly like any other old crofter body except for her clothes which were dusty and threadbare, giving me the impression that she had just stood there and let the spiders weave them on to her. Her voice was a little harsh but her eyes were kind and her manner gentle as she told me of Morag’s visit on my behalf. She asked me how my neck was now.

  ‘It’s no better,’ I admitted, trying to move it and wincing.

  ‘Tell me, mo ghaoil.’ Her eyes were on me steadily. ‘Do you think I can cure you?’

  Right up to that moment I had been sceptical but now I returned her look with equal steadiness. ‘Yes,’ I said firmly.

  She asked me to stand in the middle of the room and bare my neck and when I had done this she took a pair of old-fashioned fire-tongs which had been standing beside the hearth. They were obviously quite cold. She stood facing me and opening the tongs wide lowered them over my head and held them round my neck but not touching me in any way.

  ‘Now dose your eyes,’ she said. I closed my eyes and she began to speak. It was in Gaelic and I do not know if it was a prayer or an incantation but I noticed that the harshness had gone from her voice. It was only a few seconds, or seemed to me only a few seconds, before she asked, ‘All right, mo ghaoil?’ I opened my eyes and twisted my neck experimentally. All the pain had gone completely, and not one trace of stiffness was left.

  ‘That’s wonderful!’ I exclaimed.

  Lila replaced the tongs beside the fire. ‘Yes, indeed,’ she agreed. ‘An’ now you’ll stop an’ take a wee strupak.’

  I cabled at Morag’s on my way home and put on a display of neck wiggling to show her how successful Lila’s treatment had been.

  ‘Aye, right enough she has the power,’ said Morag reverently.

  ‘I was a bit bothered about all those white cockerels she had,’ I said. ‘In England white cockerels are supposed to have something to do with witchcraft.’

  ‘Witchcraft?’ expostulated Morag. ‘An’ what would poor Lila be doin’ with witchcraft? Is it not her cousin John that’s a butcher that sends the cockerels to her to fatten up. He buys them for nothing as chickens an’ the two of them make a deal of money out of them as grown birds when it comes to Christmas time.’

  That night, still baffled and somewhat amused by my own participation, I nevertheless sat comfortably beside the fire and drank a toast to Lila while I re
flected on the various faith cures I had heard of and remembered that some of the so-called cures lasted only a few days. I hoped that Lila’s was more permanent. I am glad to say it was.

  I spent Christmas in England, returning two days before New Year’s day. That evening the Bruachites came in force so that by eleven o’clock there was a good ceilidh going. Johnny came in, brandishing a bottle of whisky.

  ‘Where’s Erchy?’ he asked. But Erchy had not then arrived.

  ‘I’m goin’ to try an’ make that bugger drink a dram an’ lose his bet from me,’ he shouted. ‘I’ll have to pay him ten pounds if he keeps this up.’ He plunged out into the night to search for Erchy. Apparently he was unlucky in his search because a few minutes later Erchy arrived at the cottage professing not to have seen sight or sound of Johnny. He was cold sober—and that two days before New Year was for Erchy unprecedented.

  ‘I’m goin’ to win that ten pounds,’ he insisted when people teased him.

  ‘How long do you have to keep it up?’ asked Hamish.

  ‘Till six o’clock on New Year’s Eve,’ retorted Erchy. ‘An’ not before six o’clock am I goin’ to let a single dram pass my lips.’

  As New Year drew closer Johnny became more desperate. ‘Ten damty pounds!’ he would mutter when he looked at Erchy.