Lightly Poached (16 page)

‘Well, an' here's me thinkin' only this mornin' you were makin' yourself a stranger,' Janet greeted me as I apologised for not having looked in on her for nearly two weeks. ‘Come away in, mo ghaoil.' Janet's kitchen was a shade or two darker than my own but like me she had resisted lighting a lamp although on the dresser behind her brother's chair a swaling candle lit a smoked patch on the painted wall and gave him light enough to peer at the previous day's paper. Already in addition to Janet, her brother and myself there were seven other people in the room. Morag was one of them. I had apparently interrupted some story she was telling and punctuating it with a nod to me she continued: ‘An' I mind old Ina keepin' them in a drawer till Fergus came home. She showed them to me once. “Fergus keeps on sendin' me these bills or recipits,” she grumbled. “An' why should he do that when he's never done it before?” “Ina,” says I, “these are neither bills nor recipits. These are five-pound notes.” She had more than twenty of them there, just pushed into the drawer of the dresser along with old envelopes an' paper an' bits of string an' postcards. “Five-pound notes?” says she. “I cannot believe those things are worth five pence. Why, there's not a bit of colour on them at all to give them a nice look,” she says, starin' at them as if they was no more use than election forms she'd throw at the back of the fire. “That's what they are, Ina,” I tell her, but ach, she would not believe me till Fergus came home an' took her up to the Post Office to get a book sayin' it was money he was payin' into it.'

‘Ina never did take to readin',' commented old Murdoch. ‘I was at school with her an' she was always the dunce, was Ina.'

The door opened and Angy came in, his homespun jacket misted with rain.

‘I was just tellin' them about your old aunt Ina,' said Morag, drawing him into the conversation. ‘The way she didn't know the recipits Fergus was sendin' were five-pound notes.'

‘Aye, I mind hearin' about that,' said Angy, fishing out a damp cigarette. ‘I'm thinkin' it's a good thing she never went to Glasgow. The poor old cailleach would have been robbed of everythin' she had.' He went over to the fire and lit his cigarette with a flaming peat. ‘Well, Hector an' Erchy are well pleased with the pocketful of five-pound notes they got for doin' their little job,' he announced.

‘Are they back?' I asked, and added, ‘I didn't see their boat at the mooring.'

‘How would you be seein' it in this mist, woman?' Murdoch derided.

‘They got back this mornin',' Angy reported. ‘An' they would have been back yesterday but for havin' to wait for their money, so they tell me.'

‘Did they know who was the corpse?' asked the shepherd.

‘Surely they did,' replied Morag and went on to detail the dead man's family tree.

‘Aye, aye, I knew the father,' said Murdoch. ‘Four sons he had, was it not?'

‘Four,' affirmed Morag.

‘An' bad luck with all of them, I'm thinkin',' said Murdoch.

‘How would that be?' demanded the shepherd.

‘Well wasn't the first born deaf an' dumb an' the second died of his lungs an' didn't the third one turn into one of these psychiatrisses?' supplied Murdoch.

‘An' now the fourth one has been drowned,' said Morag.

‘Drowned, was he?' asked the shepherd and added, ‘He'd be drunk likely?'

‘No, he was not drunk,' replied Morag. ‘They inquested him an' they found no alkali in his body.'

Murdoch rasped disbelief. ‘Comin' from that family he was bound to be drunk,' he insisted. ‘Why, I never saw the like of it. There was as many bottles of whisky went into that house in a week as come into Bruach in a year.' The old man paused as there came hoots of laughter and muttered accusations of exaggeration. ‘Indeed but it's as true as I'm here,' he averred. ‘I was workin' on a boat that used to deliver the stuff to them an' I saw it with my own eyes. When the old father of them died I was stuck on the island with the weather while they had his funeral an' I was told by one of the man's own relations that it took thirty-four bottles of whisky to bury him.'

‘Thirty-four?' gasped Janet.

‘Aye, thirty-four,' repeated Murdoch. ‘An' that's a terrible lot of whisky just to put one man m his grave. Mind you,' he added, ‘I believe some of the mourners went two or three times to the house to give their condolences as they say, hopin' everybody would be too upset or too drunk to notice them. I heard the widow herself complainin' of that.'

‘That was some funeral,' said Angy admiringly.

‘What some folks will do for a dram,' said Janet with a sorrowful shake of her head.

‘Folks say this one that's been drowned was a queer one when he was home,' said the shepherd. ‘I never knew him myself but that's what I've heard folks say.'

‘Aye, right enough he was queer,' agreed Morag, who when it came to the inhabitants of the Hebrides was a
Who's Who
. ‘I didn't know him either but I knew a woman who lived on the same island. She told me he used to make people get angry he was that queer in his ways.'

‘What sort of things did he do?' I asked.

‘Ach well, mo ghaoil, daft things like payin' the income tax when they asked him an' puttin' his clocks backwards and forwards just whenever the government told him to,' she explained.

‘That would upset folks right enough,' murmured the shepherd understandingly.

‘People reckoned it was him that took the tax mannie to the island,' disclosed Murdoch. ‘Seein' one was payin' tax they thought the rest must be cheatin'.'

I was intrigued. ‘What happened?' I asked.

I was there at the time,' he replied. ‘An' I saw it for myself.' His eyes glinted. ‘Ach, he was only a wee mannie this fellow an' he was that sick on the boat comin' over an' that pale he looked as if he'd been left out in the rain for a long time. He was waitin' on the pier to see the men when they came in from the fishin' an' as soon as the men got word of it they started shoutin' at one another. “There's some tax bugger over there waitin' for us,” says one. “Ach, throw him down the fish hold,” says another, makin' out they was feelin' right savage, d'you see? Then one of the boats that was unloadin' swung its derrick over an' tipped the whole basketful of fish on top of the poor mannie.' Murdoch wheezed at the memory. ‘While he was cleanin' himself up from that they started peltin' him with fish guts. He didn't stay after that but went back to the boat that brought him over. “Take me back to the mainland,” he tells the boatman. “There's wild men in this place an' I've suffered enough for the government. If they want taxes from this island they'll need to send the army.” ‘Murdoch probed at the bowl of his pipe with a sharp splinter of wood. ‘Right enough, the boatman told us the poor mannie did suffer for he was sick all the way back as well.'

‘And did the tax people send anyone else?' I enquired.

‘I don't believe they ever did another thing about it except maybe send letters that would go at the back of the fire,' responded Murdoch. ‘Ach,' he added, ‘the government's plenty of money, why should they give it to the likes of us else?'

‘I'm thinkin' the rest of the folks on that island must have been glad when this one that was drowned took himself off to foreign parts to work,' said the shepherd.

‘Aye.' Murdoch smiled roguishly. ‘I'm thinkin' maybe he would have been drowned a lot sooner in his life if he'd stayed.' He turned to Trina, one of the village girls who had recently completed a teacher-training course. ‘You watch the Education don't send you to that island,' he warned her.

‘Why, what's wrong with it?' Trina challenged him with a smile.

‘You'd have to teach Papists an' Presbyterians together, that's what's wrong with it,' Murdoch told her. ‘There's two religions there but only one school.'

‘I've never heard that they quarrel about it,' said Trina. ‘There was a girl from there at college the same time as myself and she said they were as friendly as folks on any other island.'

‘They're friendly enough,' conceded Murdoch, ‘except when it comes to the schoolin'. That's when they start their girnin'.'

‘Why?'asked Trina.

‘D'you not see, lassie,' explained Murdoch patiently, ‘they have only one teacher an' the way they've agreed is that if there's more Papist scholars than Presbyterian then the teacher has to be a Papist. If it's the other way round then the teacher has to be a Presbyterian.'

‘That sounds fair enough,' said Trina. ‘What happens if it's equal numbers?'

‘They keep the teacher they have. But if there's one more Papist scholar than Presbyterian then the Papists are pesterin' the education for their own teacher an' the Presbyterians are just as bad if it's the other way round.'

‘I'm not surprised the women on that island spend most of their time havin' babies,' observed Angy.

‘I believe once there was a teacher there that didn't want to leave the place an' she took a hand in it herself,' Murdoch said.

‘It must be a sort of competition,' submitted the shepherd.

‘It sounds more like a production drive to me,' said Angy.

Throughout the evening the door had been opening and closing as more people entered the room and insinuated themselves into the company. Now Tearlaich burst in, full of confidence and wearing a town raincoat and a trilby hat.

‘Were you away!' exclaimed Janet, eyeing his clothes.

‘Aye.' Tearlaich returned her glance with mock surprise. ‘Did you not know I got a lift from the carrier when he was over with Donny Beag's fencing? I've been to the mainland,' he added.

Except for me probably everyone in the village knew of Tearlaich's journey. What they didn't know was how he had spent his time between then and now.

‘Where did you go?' asked Morag, who reasoned that if people did not wish to be asked questions as to their whereabouts or their activities they would take care that nothing they said or did invited them. Tearlaich's attire alone positively cried out for comment.

‘I went over to the mainland,' he repeated. ‘The carrier was telling me there was to be a big roup on next week so seeing the train was there I got on it an' went to have a look.'

‘A roup?' asked Behag with sudden interest.

‘Aye, all the furniture and stuff from some old castle,' replied Tearlaich. ‘I believe they're going to auction the whole lot of it and the carrier reckons some will go pretty cheap if it's true what he's hearing.'

‘Did you get to see any of it?' asked Murdoch.

‘Aye, that's why I went.'

‘What would you be after wantin' with furniture from a castle?' demanded Morag.

‘I'm wantin' a new bed,' returned Tearlaich and smiled at the evident surprise his statement caused.

‘The bed you have was good enough for your father,' Murdoch declared. ‘Why would it not be good enough for you?'

‘It's no' me I'm thinking about,' said Tearlaich. ‘But what if I was to take home a wife some day?' He spoke of the possibility of taking home a wife someday as if he might bid for her too at the auction sale. ‘I wouldn't want her to sleep in the bed I have,' he resumed. ‘She'd be as well sleeping on a dyke.'

‘If you took home a wife she wouldn't get much chance to sleep anyway,' Murdoch told him and Tearlaich looked boldly across at Trina who blushed and shook her long hair over her face.

‘An' did you see any beds?' enquired Morag.

‘Hundreds of them,' answered Tearlaich. ‘Honest! You could have slept an army in that castle with the number of beds they had.'

‘They possibly did,' I murmured.

There was one bed though that I couldn't make out at all.' He turned to me. ‘Maybe Miss Peckwitt knows more about funny beds than us and she can tell us.'

‘Why should I know about funny beds?' I parried.

Tearlaich went on. ‘This bed was about seven feet long and about eight feet wide and it had two mattresses on it. One was about five feet wide and the other near enough to three feet. Now why would they have two mattresses on the same bed like that?'

I tried to think of a suitable reason. ‘It could be because a single mattress eight foot by seven foot would be difficult to turn regularly,' I hazarded.

‘But wouldn't they have the two mattresses the same size then?' suggested Tearlaich.

That's what I should have thought,' I agreed. ‘No, I can't think of a good reason for their being two like that,' I added.

For the first time that evening Janet's brother spoke. ‘I've seen one of those beds an' I can tell you the reason for it,' he offered. We looked at him expectantly. ‘You mind Dolina across on Rhuna there?' He jerked a thumb towards the seaward wall of the kitchen. ‘Now if Mata had a bed like that the three of them would be able to sleep together, the sister in her part of the bed an' Mata an' Dolina in their part. Well, that was the way of it in some of these big castles, only it wasn't the sister that slept with the couple, it was the old mother just so she wouldn't be lonely.'

‘Is that true?' asked Janet.

‘It's what I was told long ago, that's what they did. You see, they had their separate bedclothes so it wasn't as if they were really sharin' a bed.'

‘That was a funny way of doing things,' said Tearlaich.

Old Murdoch took out his pipe. ‘Indeed they do funnier things than that in some of diese old castles,' he stated profoundly and returned his pipe to his mouth.

‘Was there anything interesting at the auction?' I asked, turning to Tearlaich.

‘Hundreds of things,' he enthused. ‘Furniture and rugs and musical instruments and pails and dishes and bowls, indeed every sort of thing you could mention.'