Lightly Poached Read online

  ‘Not that one grows tired of it,’ confided one of ‘the Dummy’s’ neighbours. ‘But you sometimes wish somebody more interesting than a doctor would visit the island to give the poor man something else to imitate.’

  ‘What about the filmies?’ I asked.

  ‘Ah, he was only a poor thing then,’ she explained. ‘He hadn’t discovered his gift.’

  When ‘the Dummy’s’ performance was over Erchy spoke up. ‘Marie’s goin’ to give us the sword dance,’ he announced, and treated the company to a heavy wink. He put his arm around Marie’s waist and tickled her vigorously. She pushed him away.

  ‘Indeed I will do nothing of the kind,’ she declined but the pleading that she should dance for us became so clamorous—‘maybe for the last time, seein’ you’re to get yourself married’—that she was finally persuaded. We squeezed ourselves even more tightly back against the wall so as to make sufficient space in the centre of the room. The shuffling revealed the presence of a child of about four years who had previously been hidden by his mother’s skirts but who now peeped out timidly from among them like a chick peeping from among the feathers of the mother hen. It also revealed that behind the legs of the people seated on the bench lay a sheepdog watching the proceedings with eyes that in the lamplight glowed large and round as gold medals. There was some discussion as to what could be used for swords but Erchy was soon flourishing four brass rods taken from the linoleum stair runner and handing them to Marie to arrange into a cross on the floor. The postman retrieved his mouth-organ from the lad who had been blowing into it unskilfully and began to play. Marie kicked off her gumboots and barefooted commenced the intricate dance in and out of the ‘swords’, slowly at first but as the postman increased the tempo of the music so did her pace quicken until her feet appeared to be fluttering above the floor rather than touching it. It was an impressive performance and young and old shrieked and stamped their admiration until Marie, declaring herself to be utterly out of breath, abruptly ceased dancing to a chorus of disappointed ‘Ahs’.

  ‘I could do with watchin’ that all over again,’ said Erchy.

  ‘Oh, help!’ gasped Marie and snatching off her snood shook her head so that her hair cascaded soft and springy as a child’s around her shoulders. I noticed Tearlaich staring at her with wide-eyed adulation.

  ‘That’s made me as dry as a stick!’ she exclaimed and picking up the teapot she poured herself a cup of tea.

  ‘I’ll be takin’ anotser myself,’ said Hector, and by handing her his empty cup started a chain reaction so that there was suddenly a flurry of cups all being passed for refilling. It appeared that the dancing had induced a great thirst among the onlookers also. The room quietened as they sipped.

  Calum spoke. ‘I was after tellin’ Miss Peckwitt I’d seen the fairies gatherin’ the biolaire by the Red Burn the other evenin’,’ he informed the company in general. ‘I doubt she wasn’t believin’ me,’ he added dispassionately.

  Calum’s uncle, a seared old man with a raised furrow of white hair that ran like a partition across his otherwise close-cropped head, was slumped in a wooden chair beside the fire. At Calum’s remark he sat up and shot me a glance from sharp black eyes that were set deep in a face as brown and rutted as a peach stone. He drew his pipe from his mouth and fondled it in a calloused hand. ‘Ach, but she’s from the town, is she not?’ he excused me gently. ‘There’s no use speakin’ to some about the wee folk. No use at all.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘But there’s plenty round these parts that’s seen them an’ there’s some that’s been the better of it an’ some that has not.’

  I looked at him steadily but his eyes were fixed on the bowl of his pipe.

  ‘Like the men who played with the fairies,’ interposed Calum’s mother in a low voice.

  ‘Just that,’ agreed the old man with a nod.

  ‘I’ve heard of them before but just who were they?’ I interposed.

  ‘Wasn’t one of them my own father’s cousin’s child,’ he replied.

  ‘You should have taken Miss Peckwitt to see the men who played with the fairies,’ Calum’s mother turned to Hector. ‘It’s not so long since they passed on. No more than three years I doubt.’

  ‘Five,’ corrected Calum.

  ‘Well, five,’ his mother allowed. ‘But Miss Peckwitt’s been in Bruach for more years than that, surely?’

  ‘I have indeed,’ I replied. ‘But whenever I’ve heard them spoken of I always assumed they’d been dead for some time. Was it really only five years ago that they died?’

  ‘No more than that,’ confirmed Calum’s uncle, shifting his gaze to the coloured plates on the dresser.

  I was intrigued. The ‘men who played with the fairies’ had been mentioned more than once at the Bruach ceilidhs but I had always assumed them to be as remote as legend.

  ‘These two men,’ I pressed. ‘I understood they were twins?’

  ‘No, they were not then. Didn’t I say one of them was my own father’s cousin’s child.’

  ‘And who was the other one, then?’

  ‘Yes, who was he?’ The question came from the postie.

  It became obvious that some of the younger Bruachites were not completely familiar with the story of the two men and their adventures and after one or two questions Calum’s mother said: ‘You’d best tell them the way of it as you know it yourself, for it’s right that the truth should be known about these things.’

  Obediently, putting his pipe on the hob, Calum’s uncle settled himself for the story. ‘I mind seein’ the boys just before it happened,’ he told us. ‘My father took me with him over to the island where they lived to try would he find a good spot for gatherin’ the whelks. Seem’ his cousin was there we left the boat an’ went up to have a wee crack with him. The both boys was there then: a few years younger than myself they were but I mind they were fine healthy-lookin’ lads though wee rascals I believe, the pair of them, and always playin’ tricks on folks as though it was Hallowe’en all the year round. Robbie, that was my father’s cousin’s child, an’ Euan, that was the son of Hamish the Seanachaidh, was about the same age within a month or two an’ when they weren’t needed to help on their parents’ crofts they’d go off fishin’ together or seekin’ gulls’ eggs or maybe settin’ a snare or two for the rabbits.’ The old man paused and standing up helped himself to a spoonful of baking soda from the tin on the mantleshelf. ‘The next time I went with my father to the island,’ he resumed as he sat down again, ‘I was maybe in my fifteenth year an’ like we did before we went to have a crack with my father’s cousin. We didn’t see either of the boys an’ so my father asked after them, sayin’ he hoped they were well. That’s how we came to know the story.

  His body tautened; he gave a loud belch and relaxed again. I slid a surreptitious glance around the room and saw that except for Marie, who appeared to be asleep with her head resting against the wall, and her mother, who was gazing into her lap, everyone’s attention was concentrated on the old man willing him, it seemed, to go on with his tale.

  ‘Aye,’ he said unhurriedly, leaning back and tucking his thumbs into the armholes of his waistcoat. ‘We had the story of it there on the spot where it all came to pass.’

  ‘What was it that happened?’ I could not be sure who had spoken but the voice sounded young and impatient.

  ‘What happened,’ went on Calum’s uncle, ‘was that they went together off fishin’ one day just the same as they’d gone before, but when the evenin’ was darkenin’ there came no word of either of them. They were about nine years old at the time an’ good at playin’ tricks as I’ve said before, an’ nobody worried a great deal at first, thinkin’ the boys was well able to look after themselves, but when it came to midnight an’ past an’ there was still no word of them the men set out to look for them. They went to all the places they knew the boys liked to go an’ they shouted but never a whisper came back to them. The next day every able-bodied man an’ woman an’ child in the place went loo
kin’ for them over the moors, up an’ down the cliffs an’ along the shore thinkin’ they might have fallen into the sea. But no. They looked till there was no place they could look and still there was no trace of Robbie an’ Euan. On the fourth day they gave them up for lost when suddenly that same evenin’ they see the two boys comin’ down the hill towards the houses. At first folks thought it was ghosts they were seein’, for the boys were walkin’ that steady an’ close to each other like they’d never done before; holdin’ hands like little girls. “It’s never them!” people said to one another but it was them right enough though there was such a change in them people looked at them like strangers. Their faces were white as if they’d been shut in the dark for a while an’ the merry eyes of them had got grey an’ dull like empty pails. They didn’t look at their parents when they rushed to meet them but only stared in front of them without speakin’ a word. It was just like they were blind an’ yet they knew where they were goin’, for they both made for Euan’s house an’ there they got into bed together as if they’d been sharia’ a bed since they were wee. They slept without food or wakin’ for near three more days an’ their parents, thinkin’ the boys would come to their senses after a good sleep, left them alone. But they never did. When they woke they still stared at their folks as if they were strangers an’ they never spoke save in whispers to each other. They never smiled either an’ when they moved they stayed that close to each other Robbie’s father said it was like as if you were seein’ one man with three legs walkin’ about. He took it badly did Robbie’s father but try as he would there was no doin’ any good with either of the boys any more. He told us it was like lookin’ at one man carryin’ a mirror they copied each other so much.’

  ‘Did they never say what happened to them during those four days?’ asked the young Bruach schoolteacher.

  ‘Never a word. No, they were useless. They wouldn’t work on the crofts any more an’ no one dared to try to force them. They knew then, d’ you see, that the boys had played with the fairies an’ until the wee folk lifted the spell they’d put on them they’d have to allow the boys to do as they pleased.’

  ‘What did they do with themselves, then?’ Behag enquired softly.

  ‘Ach they just roamed the moors, gatherin’ all sorts of plants an’ flowers or they wandered along the shore collecting coloured pebbles an’ pieces of wood an’ things they showed no interest in before.’ The old man belched again and picked up his pipe. ‘An’ that’s the way they were for many a long year,’ he told us.

  ‘Did you ever see them again?’ I asked.

  ‘I saw them once more,’ replied the old man. ‘An’ I’m tellin’ you I was that taken back I didn’t know what to say. They was middle-aged by then an’ they’d grown so alike you’d have sworn it was a pair of twins they were.’ He looked at me. ‘That’s how you would be hearin’ they were twins,’ he explained. ‘I didn’t remember there bein’ any likeness between them when they were younger but now I couldn’t tell one from the other. Where one had red hair the other was black but now they were both white as old fleece.’

  ‘Did they still hold hands and move together?’ asked the schoolteacher.

  ‘Indeed they did,’ replied the old man. ‘Still fittin’ their steps to each other’s like soldiers on parade an’ with such a strange look on them I didn’t feel I wanted to stay near them.’

  ‘I suppose they didn’t recognise you,’ someone said.

  ‘It seemed like they didn’t know anyone or want to know anyone. Euan’s parents had died but he didn’t seem to notice. His sister stayed lookin’ after them though even she saw little enough of them.’

  ‘Did Robbie never return to his own home?’ Again it was I who put the question.

  ‘Never. Not from the day the two boys came back an’ got into bed together. It was as if Robbie had forgotten he’d ever had a home.’

  ‘An’ did they never go off again?’ I could not tell whether Morag was making a statement or asking a question.

  ‘No, they never did. But as soon as they were old enough they built themselves a shed at the back of the house an’ that’s where they spent most of their time.’

  ‘What did they do in there?’

  ‘Indeed for a long time no one knew what they did but seemingly the sister found out they’d taken to carving wood. Wee boats like toys with oars an’ sails an’ wee chairs an’ tables no bigger than if they were for a doll’s house. Not that they let people see them if they could help it. They worked on their own an’ they kept the shed locked but the sister managed to get a peep in every now an’ then an’ tell of what she saw. An’ that went on for years.’

  They must have made a good few things in that time, then,’ someone observed. ‘What did they do with them all?’

  ‘What indeed?’ replied Calum’s uncle. ‘No one knows except that once Robbie’s sister was seekin’ driftwood on the shore an’ she came across one of their wee boats wedged among some rocks. It was smashed to pieces but all the same she took it home an’ put it beside their shed. She said when they found it they were so upset she wished she’d left it where it was.’

  ‘What happened eventually,’ I prompted.

  ‘They died,’ said the old man. ‘An’ they was as queer about their dyin’ as their livin’. It was like this, y’see. Euan’s sister was after havin’ these fly peeps from time to time into their shed an’ she saw they were buildin’ a far bigger boat than she’d seen before. It was small enough still but carved an’ decorated so much she wondered how hands could be gentle enough to do it. They were busy at it for a year or more an’ then one day they seemed to be so much happier, more like they should be, so while they were out she went for another peep an’ saw the boat was finished. She wondered what would happen an’ that night she heard them go off after dark as they sometimes did an’ it was near daylight when she heard the house door close. In the mornin’ she heard moans comin’ from the bedroom an’ when she went in she found Euan lying alone in the bed. He looked straight at her an’ spoke her name for the first time in years, an’ asked her for a drink of water. She took it to him an’ he drank it an’ seemed as though he would sleep again, but when she went back a whiley later he was dead, just.’

  Ever since he had taken his pipe from the hob the old man had been fondling it but now he filled it and picking a blazing peat from the fire puffed it alight. Having sharpened our eagerness by the deliberate pause he resumed: ‘An’ where was Robbie, you’ll be wantin’ to know. Robbie was back in his own home an’ his own bed as if he’d suddenly remembered it was his. His parents were old then an’ they didn’t know what to say but he was that hot an’ lay tossin’ an’ turnin’ an’ bletherin’ away like the wild geese passin’ over, though they couldn’t make out a word of what he was sayin’, they told the nurse to come. She said he had pneumonia an’ she tried to get hold of a doctor but before he could get over Robbie was dead too. They buried them together an’ I went with my father to the funeral.’

  ‘What happened about the boat they’d been buildin’?’ asked Behag.

  ‘Now that’s the strange way of it,’ replied Calum’s uncle. ‘When the sister got hold of the key of the shed an’ opened it after the funeral the boat had gone. All that was left of their toys at all was the little wrecked boat she’d found and brought back to give them. Just that in a corner of the shed an’ near covered with sawdust.’

  ‘Surely someone must have found the boat?’ I said.

  ‘No one ever did.’ The old man’s voice was firm. ‘An’ from what the sister was sayin’ it was a great shame indeed, because it was beautiful just an’ somethin’ a body would like to keep in memory.’

  ‘I wonder what happened to it,’ mused Behag. But no one suggested an answer.

  The postie blew suddenly on his mouth-organ a long chord that could almost have been a raspberry.

  Calum’s uncle got up stiffly, stretched himself and went to stand at the open door. ‘The light is awakenin’,’
he proclaimed, coming back to resume his seat.

  Erchy, who appeared to have been dozing through much of the old man’s tale, pulled himself up from the floor. ‘One more song an’ then we must be away,’ he declared. ‘Come on, everybody.’ The postman began to play ‘My ain Folk’ and we belted it out with sad enthusiasm before we trouped down to the shore in time to a lilting version of ‘Mairi’s Wedding’. We said our goodbyes and thank yous for a ‘grand ceilidh’ and were rowed out to the boat which was already loaded with its additional cargo of hazels and illicit salmon. The night was quiet except for a few muted gall cries and the water was still, though patterned as if it was covered with wire netting.

  ‘Where’s that bundle of cordite you found on the shore?’ Marie’s voice came clearly and we saw her run to the byre and return with a bundle which she hastily distributed among the crowd gathered to see us off. They lit the bundles and waved flaring farewells. To the strains of ‘Will ye no come back again’ echoing from the shore the boat chugged Bruachwards through a sea that was the colour of smoked glass. It was cold on the water and I was glad that Sack of space necessitated our huddling together. Tearlaich’s breadth was on one side of me and Behag’s comfortable rotundity on the other. Erchy, who was again at the tiller, crouched behind us.

  ‘I’m thinkin’ that Marie’s a big woman to be as light on her feet as she was,’ observed Behag thoughtfully.

  ‘Mmm,’ I agreed. ‘They often are, these big women. She’s good-looking though, isn’t she?’ I went on. ‘And her voice was beautiful and so was her hair …’