The Hills is Lonely Page 9

‘The undertaker took off his hat, I noticed,’ put in someone.

  ‘Aye,’ answered another, ‘tryin’ to shame us folk into followin’ suit so that we’d catch our death of cold and make plenty of work for him I doubt. Ach, but we’re too wise here for that sort of caper.’

  They were indeed too wise altogether.

  5 The Cattle Sale

  ‘If I’m spared,’ remarked Morag one hazy morning in early spring, ‘I’ll be after puttin’ the stirk to the sale on Friday. Will you be comin’ with me?’

  ‘I will,’ I replied promptly as I spooned thick yellow cream on to my steaming porridge. ‘But where is the sale and how do we get there?’

  Morag poured out two cups of tea from the pot and taking one for herself sat down on the edge of the sofa.

  ‘The cattle float will be takin’ him on Thursday evenin’,’ she explained, ‘and we’ll folly by bus on Friday mornin’.’

  I was infinitely relieved that the few shreds of dignity I had managed to retain were sufficient to prevent there being any suggestion that I might occupy a spare stall in the cattle float.

  ‘But I thought you had only one stirk and surely you said that was a female?’ I said.

  ‘So I did,’ elucidated Morag, ‘and so he will be when she’s older you understand?’

  I nodded wisely, accepting the fact that it was not nature but the Gaelic language which was responsible for the beast’s being temporarily an hermaphrodite.

  ‘You’ll need good boots to your feets and a good stick to your hand,’ warned my landlady seriously. ‘Why, there’s some of them beasts that wild, they’d be ridin’ you round the ring on their horns for nothin’ at all.’

  I put down my cup and stared at Morag. The sight of the most placidly grazing cow had always been sufficient to fill me with trepidation; the prospect of horn riding I viewed with complete terror.

  ‘Then count me out,’ I said decisively. ‘I’ve neither the figure nor the inclination to become a toreador.’

  ‘Ach, you can always stay out of the field if you’ve a mind,’ cajoled Morag, who loathed going anywhere at all without a companion.

  I relented, though not without misgivings, but stressed most emphatically that I had a mind.

  ‘In that case,’ went on my landlady nimbly, ‘will you ’phone for me from the new kosk to tell the cattle float to come.’

  Morag claimed to be ‘feart to death’ of the ’phone, so, after giving a hand with the breakfast dishes, I went up the road towards the post office beside which stood the new telephone kiosk. This was a very recent arrival in Bruach and its installation had naturally excited a good deal of interest. Almost immediately it had become a popular evening rendezvous for the youth of the neighbourhood and, within a few days, or even hours, countless people were to be observed busily popping in and out, lifting the receiver, dialling numbers and indulging in prolonged and apparently cordial conversations with unseen friends; all regardless of the fact that the ’phone was as yet connected to nothing more responsive than the outside of the post office wall.

  Though on arrival the kiosk had been an unimpressive pink, Lachy, who was by way of being the village odd job man, had soon transformed its pallidness into a vivid and arresting red. It was perhaps regrettable that for such odd jobs as Lachy deigned to undertake he would accept no payment but whisky; and as he always insisted on drinking the wages before commencing the work the results of his labours were frequently somewhat startling. On this occasion Lachy excelled himself, and even Bruach had been astonished when, next morning, unsuspecting crofters opened pillar-box red doors to discover striped sheep, cows with fiery horns and hens that looked as though they had been crossed with flamingoes. Lachy had succeeded in ‘painting the town red’ with a vengeance. But though Bruach was surprised, it was in no way dismayed. The escapade was dismissed with a philosophical shrug of the shoulders, sometimes with a smile, and in nearly every case it was left to the weather to remove, or at least modify, the damage. Only two of the villagers showed distinct signs of wrath. One was Kirsty, the gaunt and prim-mouthed spinster of ‘Beach Terrace’, who had had the misfortune to leave a pair of combinations and a chaste white nightgown hanging on the clothes line overnight, with disastrous results.

  ‘When I came to gather them in, Miss Peckwitt,’ she told me, with tears of indignation in her eyes, ‘I fell down on my knees on the grass, for I thought the Lord Himself had struck at me for wearin’ such fancy underwear.’

  The other was the over-sized, over-aged schoolmistress who was seen the next morning in full pursuit of the miscreant, furiously pelting him with threats, with insults, and with cauliflowers from her carefully tended garden—cauliflowers which had overnight exchanged their blonde heads for red ones.

  As to the success of the actual ‘odd job’, one could perhaps best judge from the following notice which appeared a day or two later in the window of the post office:

  WANTED: Boy under sixteen to scrape paint off glass in kiosk

  It was some weeks now since everything had been made ship-shape and Bruach had been connected with the outside world. To all but the excessively righteous it was a welcome link, and though the latter professed to regard it as an implement of the Devil their condemnation did not extend to their being rung up by friends.

  As I came in sight of the kiosk, an old man, leaning heavily on two sticks, shuffled with laborious haste from one of the low-roofed cottages and along the road in front of me. Reaching the flamboyant red door, he managed with some difficulty to pull it open, and with even more difficulty to insert himself inside. I sighed. Old men of the Bruach variety were not as a rule adept in the use of modem inventions like the telephone and I realised that it might be some time before I could contact the owner of the cattle float. I had by now acquired the Hebridean brand of patience so, lighting a cigarette, I settled myself contemplatively on the lichen-blotched stump of an old gate-post to watch the mist, like a grey vagabond, ragging itself across the hills and sending groping fingers down into the hidden corries. Every few minutes I glanced behind to watch progress in the kiosk. The old man appeared to be an extraordinarily restless conversationalist. My first glimpse showed him to be writhing convulsively from side to side in a manner suggestive of a hula-hula dancer. Another time he seemed to be embracing the telephone so closely that it looked as though he must be attempting either to swing from it or to wrest it from the wall. I was of course perfectly well aware that men are much inclined to strike attitudes when using the ’phone, but this old man had hardly progressed far enough to achieve such poise. On the other hand, even the most agonising rheumatic pains could surely not account for his contortions? I waited and waited; my watch ticked on; I threw away the butt of my third cigarette; the wraith-like mist crept inexorably nearer, yet still the performance in the kiosk continued.

  Feeling rather puzzled, I got up and moved closer. The old man, catching sight of me, waved a bland greeting and I saw that he had not yet lifted the receiver. I answered his wave with a friendly smile, hoping that he might thus be encouraged to enlist my help in his difficulty, which was probably nothing more serious than the inability to find the correct number in the directory. The smile had its effect and, grunting and sighing noisily, he pushed open the door, collected his sticks, manœuvred himself carefully through and hobbled a few steps towards me.

  ‘Excuse me, Miss Peckwitt,’ he began with bashful humility, ‘but can you tell me if it’s true that I haff a spot of green paint on the side of my face and under my chin?’ He turned the left side of his face towards me, tilted his chin, and awaited my comments. I examined his face critically, and was able to assure him that so far as I could see there was not the slightest trace of greeness about him.

  ‘Ach, they was just haffin’ me on then up at the house,’ he said ruefully. ‘Just after haffin’ me on they was, the rascals; and me haffin’ to come all this way for to see,’ He grunted again gustily. ‘And what a job I’m after haffin’ with my rheumatics to
try would I get to see under my chin.’

  ‘Aren’t you going to use the ’ phone then?’ I asked him.

  ‘Me?’ he asked with pained surprise. ‘Me? Why indeed, I couldna’ use that thing to save my life.’

  After again bemoaning the cruelty of his family in forcing him to such exertions, just because he ‘was after makin’ a bitty mess paintin’ the house door green again’, he lumbered off home, and I was able to take his place in the kiosk. I did not realise until I was inside that in addition to the telephone it was fitted with a small mirror—a luxury which so many crofter homes lacked. At last I understood the reason for all those one-sided telephone conversations.

  For several hours on the Thursday evening preceding the sale, the rain came down in torrents, but by Friday morning there seemed to be a faint prospect of the day developing into a reasonably fine one. The ditches on either side of the road still gushed exhilaratedly as Morag and I, clad in waterproofs and armed with stout sticks, hastened towards the bus-driver’s house. The hills loomed darkly through a billowing mantle of cloud; behind us the tawny washed moors stretched interminably, and a chill eddying breeze whispered terse messages to the trembling bog cotton.

  The bus was due to leave at 7.30 a.m. and at 7.25 a.m. my companion and I were comfortably settled on one of the front seats, watching the grey blanket of sky being swept northwards to reveal elusive shafts of sunlight which patterned the dark water with pools of silver. At a quarter to eight we still sat, or rather I still sat, no longer enraptured by the swift changing panorama, but thinking yearningly of the extra cup of tea I should have had time for if only I could have known that the bus-driver was going to lie so long abed. Morag had gone on a reconnoitring tour but now she appeared at the door of the bus.

  ‘He’s no out of his bed yet, the scamp,’ she said. ‘I think we’d best give him a shout.’

  I alighted from the bus and stood with Morag in the road.

  ‘Johnny!’ Morag called as she would call a cow three miles distant.

  ‘JOHNNY! JOHNNY!’ We called in unison, but the house remained still and silent. We called repeatedly.

  ‘We could do with our own Ruari here now,’ sighed Morag.

  I felt a twinge of pity for Johnny and climbing aboard the bus I found the horn and pressed it several times. The strident hoot should have awakened the dead, but Johnny must have been more than dead. We were wondering how next to proceed when a loud hail from down the road made us turn in that direction and we saw Padruig, the old road-mender, labouring up the hill towards us on his way to an eight o’clock start.

  ‘Why, surely the man’s no sleepin’ through all that noise?’ he greeted us querulously. ‘I could hear you bletherin’ away down at my own house there.’

  ‘Call yourself then,’ commanded Morag as he paused beside us. Padruig, thus invited, threw back his head and gathered himself for the effort.

  ‘JOHNNY!’ His stentorian shout shamed us into silence, but was as little productive as our own efforts had been. He tried again, but with the same result.

  ‘Well now, what d’you think of that?’ he asked, turning to us in amazement. ‘Indeed I’ve a good mind to drive off the bus myself and give him a good fright,’ he added threateningly.

  ‘You canna’ drive,’ jeered Morag.

  ‘I can so,’ argued Padruig with some vehemence.

  ‘You can no,’ insisted Morag. ‘You canna’ drive a bus anyway.’

  ‘And why not?’ demanded Padruig.

  ‘Because,’ said Morag crushingly, ‘you havena’ got a public convenience licence and you canna’ drive a bus without one.’

  Padruig opened his mouth to repeat his shouts but as though struck by some sudden suspicion turned to gape foolishly at Morag for some seconds.

  ‘JOHNNY!’ This time Padruig’s voice was augmented by a handful of flints which he hurled vindictively against the bedroom window. The combination had the desired effect, and instantly the window was thrown open and a stream of Gaelic issued forth. I gathered, from Morag’s anxious glance towards me, that it was mainly maledictory.

  ‘Get you out of that, man,’ Padruig cut short Johnny’s diatribe. ‘It’s gone eight o’clock.’

  ‘Eight!’ Johnny’s voice was incredulous. ‘Whose time is that? God’s time, Government time or daft time?’

  ‘Daft time,’ answered Padruig evenly, ‘and isn’t it daft time the mails are goin’ by anyway.’

  ‘Oh my God!’ gasped Johnny. (I should perhaps explain that locally ‘God’s time’ was Greenwich time; ‘Government time’ was British Summer time, and ‘Daft time’ was the scornful designation for British Double Summer time.)

  ‘You’d best bring your bed with you, you’re that fond of it,’ chided Padruig mercilessly as he stumped off along the road to his work.

  Johnny, ignoring the insult, addressed Morag, ‘Go you into the kitchen and get the kettle on, Morag,’ he said peremptorily; and as his dark head disappeared through the window Morag and I hurried to the back door of the house, which opened unresistingly. Together we set about lighting the Primus stove.

  Johnny, in shirt sleeves, his braces hanging down the back of his trousers and his shoes unlaced, came clattering down the stairs, seeming in no way ashamed of his déshabillé or disturbed by the fact that two of his intending passengers were busily preparing his breakfast half an hour after the bus should have left. Hastily he poured some of the hot water from the already steaming kettle into a cup and commenced shaving at reckless speed. Morag brewed tea with the remainder of the water while I searched in a cupboard for something to eat. I found a couple of oatcakes and fed them to Johnny as he fastened his braces with one hand and dabbed a towel over his face with the other.

  ‘You’ve cut yourself,’ I told him as he wiped a smear of blood across his cheek.

  ‘Damn!’ he muttered and held a handkerchief to the cut.

  ‘Sticking plaster?’ I suggested helpfully.

  ‘Ach, there’d be none,’ said Johnny with disgust. ‘There never is in this place.’

  ‘A stamp?’ put in Morag. Johnny indicated the wallet in his jacket pocket, from which Morag extracted a twopenny stamp and, after licking it, carefully stuck it over the cut.

  ‘You’ll do fine,’ she told him.

  I thought it an appropriate treatment for a mail carrier and extremely effective in both senses of the word.

  We waited only while Johnny swallowed two or three mouthfuls of scalding tea, then hurrying outside we clambered again on to the bus. Almost immediately it leaped forward as Johnny, not giving the engine a moment to warm up, let in the clutch. At last we were off, forty minutes late it is true but Johnny was, through experience, an expert at catching up on lost time.

  There were several halts along the road, where we loaded up with parcels, mail bags and impatient passengers, and with such careless abandon were all these stowed aboard that Morag complained a little fretfully that. ‘You didna’ know if it was a pillar-box or somebody’s grandfather would be landin’ in your lap next.’

  Some of the passengers were at first inclined to testy remonstrance regarding the lateness of the bus, but Johnny, with his foot hard down on the accelerator, soon put them in their places both literally and figuratively speaking, and before we had covered more than a few yards even the most wrathful of them seemed to have lost either the desire or the ability to argue. Like some mad demon the bus pounded, rocked, bumped and thundered along the road. My insides felt as though they were being pulverised and for the first time that morning I ceased to yearn for that missed cup of tea.

  We reached the post office with only two minutes to spare, and here the passengers, their peevishness forgotten, entered gleefully into the spirit of the affair. Tumbling out of the bus they rushed the sacks of mail into the sorting office, where, anxious to ensure the utmost celerity, they stood menacingly over the harassed sorters. Astonishingly the task was completed just as the clock finished striking the hour and, though the postmaster�
��s baleful glare should have annihilated Johnny, the latter remained sublimely indifferent He stood, hands in pockets, whistling tunelessly, his stamped face looking remarkably at home in such a setting.

  ‘You’d best lace up your shoes,’ said Morag in an undertone as we passed near him on our way out.

  Johnny treated us to a benevolent smile.

  Still slightly breathless, Morag and I made in the direction of the sale yard, which was situated, as were most things of importance in the island, in close proximity to a public bar; a fact which no doubt accounted for there being no sign of the presence of humans, though many sheep and cattle were tied to stakes around the low wall of the field.

  Together my landlady and I leaned on the wall, each examining with an anxious eye the qualities of the various beasts. Morag’s interest was for the comparative condition and therefore likely price of her own stirk; mine arose purely from cowardice.

  An old car rattled to a stop in front of the entrance to the field, and a couple of men with the brisk air of those who are intent only on making money stepped from it. Simultaneously groups of flushed crofters began to emerge from the adjacent bar, and without preliminaries, as far as I could see, prices were being called and business had begun.

  I left them to their bargaining, and wishing to look for specimens of wild flowers I wandered along the road towards a promising-looking clump of trees. They proved on investigation to be mostly hazel, though here and there a rowan waved its exquisite fronds in the capricious breeze. Beneath them the celandines grew in profusion and a gleam of sunlight catching the wet grass transformed it into a shimmering carpet of diamonds. Leaving the trees I ambled slowly across the road to sit on a large stone which, in Morag’s youth, had been used for weight-lifting contests by the Bruach males on their way homeward after a sale. It was a pleasant spot for meditation and I lingered some time watching the burn below tearing its swift, loquacious way towards the sea. Above me a pair of buzzards circled with superb grace, their plaintive mews mingling with the liquid notes of the curlews which echoed eerily among the desolate hills.