Lightly Poached Read online

  ‘She was jealous all right,’ confirmed Calum. ‘But all the same it was her that made him take Dolina.’

  ‘Why did she insist on his marrying?’ I asked.

  ‘Because she’d never in her life laid in a bed by herself till her mother died. She had another sister an’ they slept together until that sister died. Then she moved into her mother’s bed an’ when she died there was no one to share her bed so she girned at Mata to find another woman to lie beside her.’

  ‘But shouldn’t she have got married herself or at least found someone to share her bed?’ I asked. I could not seriously believe that a man would get married simply to provide a sleeping partner for his sister.

  ‘Aye, but you see she claimed it was her home as much as Mata’s, which is right enough seein’ she was born there. Mata got the croft but the house belongs to those born in it, so she said. Anyway Mata’s such a poor thing he just took a quick look around an’ there was Dolina who’d have thrown herself into a bog for any man. It was easy as that an’ it kept his sister quiet.’

  ‘An’ has Dolina never shared her man’s bed?’ expostulated Morag.

  ‘Never,’ averred Calum. ‘Mata told me so himself.’

  ‘He must have an orra chomais on him,’ quipped Tearlaich, and we all laughed.

  ‘He’s a detestable fellow,’ I commented.

  ‘But Dolina loves him like the sun,’ Morag reminded me simply.

  ‘Aye an’ that’s why she’s glad to do the heavy carryin’ to save Mata doin’ it,’ said Calum. ‘Seein’ she’s not allowed to do the little things for him that a wife likes to do for her man. The sister does the cookin’ and washin’ his clothes an’ puttin’ out his slippers in an evenin’. Dolina just washes the dishes an’ does most of the work of the croft.’

  ‘An’ never a word of complaint on her lips, I doubt,’ added Morag.

  ‘St Dolina of Rhuna,’ I murmured.

  ‘Aye, if you believe in saints she must be one,’ agreed Calum.

  ‘Now we’re here why have you brought us here?’ Morag stood looking about her curiously.

  ‘I have a thing to show you that I found down on the shore,’ replied Calum. ‘Wait you now till I get it.’

  He made towards a pile of boulders and crouching he appeared to be extricating something from a deep crevice. Having retrieved it he came back to us. ‘See this!’ he said, holding up a small canister with a screw top.

  We had all been expecting Calum to produce some really unusual or valuable find and our disappointment at seeing such an apparently uninteresting object was plain.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Tearlaich.

  ‘It’s a body!’ announced Calum dramatically.

  ‘A body?’ Behag’s question came out in an incredulous squeak.

  ‘Aye, see this now. Can you read it?’ Calum held the anister nearer towards me as I backed away. ‘That says somethin’ about a crematorium, does it not? That’s where they cremate bodies.’

  Tearlaich took the canister and examined it. ‘Aye, you’re right,’ he said. ‘Did you open it yet?’

  ‘I did,’ Calum admitted. ‘But open it yourself an’ take a look at it.’

  Tearlaich did as Calum suggested and tilted the canister so as to see inside it. ‘It’s full of stuff like that guano we had one year for the potatoes.’ He handed the canister back to Calum who emptied out a little of its contents on to the palm of his hand.

  ‘Are you sure it’s a body?’ asked Behag doubtfully.

  ‘Sure it is,’ declared Calum. He licked his forefinger and dipped it into the powder. ‘Here,’ he held his finger towards her. ‘Taste it if you like,’ he invited without the ghost of a smile.

  Behag turned away and I was not sure whether she was giggling or vomiting.

  ‘What are you goin’ to do with it?’ asked Morag.

  ‘Damned if I know,’ said Calum.

  ‘Ach, give it to Miss Peckwitt for her garden,’ Tearlaich proposed. ‘It’ll make good fertiliser.’

  Calum screwed back the top and was about to hand me the canister but I recoiled away from it. ‘D’you not want it?’ he asked in surprise.

  ‘I do not,’ I said firmly. ‘I’d never sleep at night if I thought someone’s body was spread out among the flowers in my garden. I think you should throw it back in the sea,’ I advised.

  ‘It’ll only get washed ashore again,’ said Calum, shaking the canister with absent-minded vigour. ‘Maybe you’re right, though,’ he continued after a few moments. ‘I might just as well throw it back seein’ the tide’s goin’ cut anyway. It’ll maybe take it to someone else’s beach.’ He went down to the tide’s edge and hurled the canister away into the sea.

  ‘I don’t know why you didn’t take it for your garden,’ Tearlaich rebuked me. ‘Bone meal’s one of the best manures you can get.’ I tried to quell him with a look.

  Calum rejoined us. ‘I know a woman once whose husband was very fond of growin’ roses,’ he told us. ‘When he died she had him cremated an’ his ashes put on his favourite rose bushes.’

  ‘Never!’ Morag’s voice was a disapproving groan.

  ‘It’s true,’ he asseverated. ‘She used to go out an’ talk to them every night. Said it was like havin’ her husband there out in the garden, an’ when she used to prune them she used to pretend she was cuttin’ his toenails for him like she always used to when he was alive.’

  ‘She was mad, surely,’ said Morag.

  Calum raised his eyebrows in perfunctory agreement.

  ‘Talking of such things brings to mind a story my commanding officer used to tell,’ recalled Tearlaich, ‘Seemingly at one time in India it used to be against the law for the natives to make their own salt. They were supposed to buy it from the government but some of the natives used to know where they could get earth that was full of salt and they’d wash it and then dry it in the sun till there was only-salt left. If they were caught doing it they were up before the judge and one day the pollis got one old woman actually with a bag of this illegal salt in her possession, or so they claimed. Anyway, up she came before the court and the judge asked her what was in her bag but the old woman wouldn’t say a word or plead one way or the other. The judge was just teilin’ her he was goin’ to fine her one rupee for disobeying the law when he suddenly thinks he’d best make sure it really was salt in the bag so he calls for a spoon and dips it in the bag and just as he’s puttin’ it into his mouth the old woman speaks for the first time. “This is a wicked court,” she shouts, “not only do they fine me one rupee but they also eat the ashes of my dead husband.” ’

  ‘Oh God,’ murmured Behag with a feeble attempt at a giggle. Tearlaich gave her an arch look. ‘It’s true,’ he insisted.

  ‘True or not,’ interrupted Morag firmly, ‘that’s enough of your stories for tonight. We’d best get back to the cailleach or she’ll be thinkin’ we’re in a bog.’

  Although it was after midnight there was only a little fuzzing of the light while among the dark hill peaks the afterglow still threaded itself like a bright scarf. It was impossible to know if the rosy rock pools were reflecting the sunset or the dawn. I recalled Masefield’s lines :

  ‘By an intense glow the evening falls,

  Bringing not darkness but a deeper light.’

  and thought how perfectly they described the evening. Over the moors snipe drummed and closer at hand there were still sporadic trickles of birdsong.

  ‘I wonder if Erchy and Hector are back with their hazels yet,’ I mused.

  ‘Their hazels?’ echoed Tearlaich with some bewilderment.

  ‘Yes. That’s what they went for, isn’t it?’

  ‘Surely,’ agreed Tearlaich, a little too eagerly. He and Calum exchanged cryptic glances. Morag avoided looking at me. I pinned my enquiring glance on Behag.

  ‘You surely didn’t think they came here just for the hazels?’ she asked gently.

  ‘But that’s what they told me they were coming for,’ I argued. ‘That and to
have a ceilidh at the same time.’

  There was compassion and amusement in the four pairs of eyes that regarded me.

  ‘Likely they will get their hazels seein’ they’ll soon be needin’ them for the creels,’ Behag admitted.

  ‘Aye, an’ everyone likes a wee bit of a ceilidh,’ interposed Morag.

  ‘But that’s not what they came for?’ I challenged, beginning to smile.

  ‘Did you no’ see the net under the seats of the boat?’ asked Behag with an answering smile.

  ‘How could she not see it when her own two feets was planted on it?’ declared Morag.

  I had indeed observed a net under the seats but I knew. little about the type of net needed for the catching of different fish and in my ignorance I had thought it was an old herring net my feet rested on.

  ‘It’s a bit risky over there, isn’t it?’ I said. ‘Didn’t Erchy say the police are pretty keen to catch the poachers in that river?’

  ‘Aye, they’re keen,’ agreed Tearlaich fervently. “They’ll even go there on their nights off and hide themselves in the hope of catching a poacher’s boat. Folks say that the sergeant gets a good salmon from the laird every time he catches a poacher.’

  ‘And yet Erchy and Hector aren’t afraid of getting caught?’

  ‘They won’t get caught,’ asserted Morag confidently.

  I gave her a sidelong glance but she only smiled.

  ‘Erchy has a sign,’ explained Tearlaich. ‘He’s arranged with Jimmy’s wife that lives in one of the houses near the shore that if there’s a pair of long underpants on the clothes line then the pollis are hidin’ somewhere about an’ he mustn’t go near. If the clothes line is empty he’s safe.’

  ‘An’ Erchy will not get caught so long as Jimmy has a spare pair of underpants his wife can hang on the line,’ observed Morag.

  ‘Ach, if she’s no spare underpants she’ll just hang Jimmy on the clothes line,’ said Tearlaich, and added after a moment’s thought: ‘Right enough, I believe she’d do that for Erchy.’

  The Men who Played with the Fairies

  The window of Calum’s mother’s cottage was a token of light in the after-midnight dusk, and through the open door, interwoven with the murmur of voices, swooned the vague strains of the postie’s mouth-organ. Calum left us abruptly and disappeared round the back of the house and Morag arid Behag, panting for tea, hurried inside. As they entered, Erchy emerged carrying a cup of tea in one hand and the remains of a thick wad of dumpling in the other. He sat himself down on an upturned tub beneath the window.

  ‘Any luck?’ enquired Tearlaich.

  One side of Erchy’s face bulged as he cached a large bite of dumpling in order to reply.

  ‘Plenty of luck,’ he said thickly. His eyes glistened with excitement. ‘You should have been there I’m tellin’ you.’

  ‘How could I be when I was keepin’ the women out of the way?’ returned Tearlaich reasonably.

  ‘Aye, but you’d best have come with us,’ reiterated Erchy.

  ‘Aye?’ Tearlaich’s voice was sharp with interest.

  Erchy nodded emphatically. ‘There was one of the monsters went clean through the net. The biggest salmon I’ve seen yet,’ he added impressively. He took a gulp of tea. ‘We got a good laugh out of it all, I can tell you.’

  ‘You got a good laugh out of losin’ a big salmon an’ gettin’ a hole in your net? It’s a queer comic you are, then,’ Tearlaich commented.

  ‘Not out of that just but out of Hector,’ Erchy elucidated. ‘He was that mad when we lost the big fellow he jumped into the river himself an’ tried to stop the rest gettin’ through. There was about a dozen fish in the net then an’ Hector was so feared they’d get away he threw his arms round the biggest one an’ held on to it. He’d barely caught hold of it when he got his foot caught in the net an’ he sat down on his bottom in the river still clutchin’ this huge fish an’ it jumpin’ an’ twistin’ like a serpent.’ Erchy slopped tea as he used his arms to illustrate Hector’s predicament. Hit it! Hit it! Erchy!” he shouts at me. Well I was seein’ if I could close the net first but I managed to grab hold of a stick at the same time. “Hit it, you fool!” yells Hector, gettin’ awful wild with me because he thought I wasn’t helpin’ him. “How can I hit it when it’s first your head an’ then the salmon’s where the stick would land?” says I. It was one of them big male salmon with the huge jaw an’ that great hook they have on it.’ Erchy put down both cup and dumpling on the window-sill and spread his arms to indicate the size of the salmon. ‘My God! there was some power in it too. The beast kept leapin’ up an’ Hector kept pullin’ it down hand over hand like a man climbin’ a rope. “Get your jersey over it!’ I shouted to him, so he pulls up his jersey an’ wraps the salmon in it while I see to the net. I went to help him then but God! If only you’d seen him gettin’ to the shore with the fish still jumpin’ up an’ down inside his jersey an’ him fightin’ it an’ swearin’ an’ stumblin’ over the rocks you would have laughed fit to cry.’ Erchy shook his head slowly. ‘You should have been there.’

  ‘Did he manage to get his salmon ashore?’ I asked.

  ‘Aye, he did. An’ most of the rest. We were lucky. We got eight altogether,’ he replied with deep satisfaction. ‘That’s a good night’s work for any two men.’

  ‘And you holed your net,’ Tearlaich reminded him. ‘Was it in much of a state?’

  ‘Not as much of a state as was Hector’s jersey,’ responded Erchy. ‘That’s why I came out here. I’m best out of the way for when Behag catches sight of it. She only finished knittin’ it for him last week just.’

  I left the two men talking and went into the cottage where already round about twenty people were compressed into the small room. It was obvious that some more sophisticated hand had been at work on the old croft kitchen; the floor was covered with tile-patterned linoleum; the wooden walls and the dresser were a glossy apple green; the dignified wall clock looked a little surprised to find its frame painted in bright yellow and indeed the whole room though it looked fresh and cheerful struck me as having the faintly startled air of a tramp who has been compelled to wear a smart new suit.

  Calum’s mother greeted me with a lengthy handshake and the rest, all of whom I knew by sight, acknowledged me with grins or nods or murmurs of welcome according to their degree of shyness. Morag tried to make room for me to sit beside her on the crowded bench but I selected a more comfortable seat on the floor where, within minutes, I was joined by Behag who brought me a cup of tea.

  ‘I don’t see anyone here who could be Calum’s sister Marie,’ I whispered. Behag looked blank. ‘You know, the one who’s going to marry a doctor.’

  ‘Oh!’ Behag glanced round. ‘I believe she’s just away for a pail of water,’ she told me. ‘They’re needin’ more, likely, seein’ there’s been a few fillin’s of the kettle already an’ I daresay there’ll be more before the night’s over.’

  There came from outside the dink of pails followed by some male chaffing to which everyone strained to listen, then a laughing retort in a female voice that sounded as melodious as a harp. A tall, strongly built woman, gumbooted and wearing a sad old skirt and an overtight jersey, entered the room followed by Erchy gallantly carrying two slopping pails of water. The woman cleared a small table beside the door for Erchy to put down the pails and turned to smile a confident greeting. Although Calum’s mother was in her eighties and Calura himself was nudging fifty I had foolishly been expecting the prospective bride to be a younger woman, forgetting that in Broach a spinster is referred to as a girl be she seventeen or seventy. Marie, I estimated after a brief appraisal, was probably in her forties but she was still a strikingly handsome woman. Her skin was smooth and white as a dawn-picked mushroom; her bee-tawny eyes were wide and lively; her abundant russet-coloured hair swathed her head in soft waves until it was caught by a crocheted wool snood. She came forward and shaking my hand made me welcome in so attractive a voice it would have made scurrility
sound like a serenade.

  ‘We’re awful quiet, are we not?’ she observed after a few moments. ‘Hector, now! What about you givin’ us a song?’

  Hector looked pleased but shook his head. “I’ve swallowed tsat much of tse river tonight I’d only gargle,’ he replied. ‘What about a song from you yourself, Marie?’

  ‘Oh, I can’t sing,’ denied Marie firmly, and to my surprise there was not even a polite contradiction. She turned to Morag. ‘Morag here’s good at the singin’. What about you? Give us a song now an’ the rest will join in.’

  Whether or not Morag would have complied I do not know for just at that moment a tall, fair-haired man pushed his way through the men clustered around the doorway. He was wearing a cap and what was undoubtedly his best raincoat. In his hand was a folded sack tied with string which he carried like a shopping bag. Immediately he appeared there were screams of expectant laughter and everyone settled down to enjoy themselves. Putting his sack on the table the man extracted from it a crescent of wire attached to a length of thin rope. He beckoned one of the young girls to sit down beside him and since everyone knew what was about to happen the girl quickly complied. Pretending the wire and the piece of rope were his stethoscope he set about examining the girl’s chest, back and head and while the girl giggled the man listened and groaned, hunted in his bag for more instruments, mimed swabbing and surgery, stitching and bandaging and with silent gesticulation kept his hilarious audience informed of what the various ailments were and how he proposed to treat them. Though, like the rest, this was by no means the first time I had witnessed his act, I laughed and applauded along with them. But my enjoyment was feigned. Undoubtedly the mime was good and the performer delighted by our appreciation but I would have enjoyed it more had I not known that the actor was not only deaf and dumb but also mentally retarded; that mime was indeed his sole means of communication. Known as ‘the Dummy’, he was a gentle soul, glum when he observed others to be glum; happy when he saw them happy; and having once discovered that some of his attempts to communicate brought smiles to people’s faces he had exaggerated his mime until their smiles had erupted into laughter. It was all he asked. He had made people happy and consequently he insisted on performing at every ceilidh on the island. Since the doctor-and-patient mime made people laugh he saw no reason to change it though it had continued for the ten years since the doctor had last visited the island.