Lightly Poached (17 page)

‘A piano?' I asked.

‘Aye, two of them at least. Why, were you wanting a piano?'

I was about to tell him that I very much wanted a piano when the door was slammed back against the wall and Hector and Erchy came in.

‘Well, here's the undertakers,' announced Tearlaich.

Erchy ignored him. ‘We're wantin' somebody to give us a hand with the dinghy up the shore,' he announced. ‘The wireless says it's goin' to blow a gale by mornin'.'

‘What wireless?' asked Murdoch indignantly. ‘That's not what the wireless at the Post Office said. Force four to five, they said, an' makin' southerly.'

‘It doesn't agree with what we've just heard, then,' Erchy told him. ‘Force six to gale eight an' veerin' westerly.' He turned to Hector. ‘Is that not right, Hector?'

‘Aye,' Hector agreed.

‘Ach, you cannot expect wirelesses to agree all the time any more than people,' observed Morag soothingly.

Janet's brother got up and going over to the barometer rapped it imperiously. ‘The glass is droppin',' he reported.

‘Well you don't need to pull your dinghy just yet,' Janet told Erchy. ‘Sit you down an' tell us how your trip went.'

‘Oh God!' said Erchy and sat down on the floor as if the request had sapped what strength he had left. Hector smiled at the young schoolteacher and she made room for him beside her.

‘Knowin' that family I daresay you got a good dram out of it,' said Murdoch.

‘Not a dram did we get,' said Erchy. ‘Not so much as a look at a bottle of whisky except for what we had with us in the boat.'

‘Oh my!' Murdoch was staggered.

‘An' the state of that corpse,' grumbled Erchy. ‘We needed a barrel of whisky never mind a bottle.' He sighed. ‘I'm damty sick of funerals,' he said.

‘What happened?' asked Janet curiously.

‘Well, we got to the pier,' began Erchy, ‘an' there was the coffin ready for loadin' but when we went to get it aboard we was near sick with the smell of him. He'd been coffined in one of these foreign places an' they hadn't done it properly so he'd gone rotten. The men on the pier agreed with us that nobody was goin' to carry it aboard like a coffin should be by rights. “Get the derrick,” they told us. So we went to see the man with the crane an' asked him would he bad it on board for us. “I'm not supposed to lift coffins with the crane,” he says. “Coffins are supposed to be treated with respect.” “Well, we're no' carryin' him,” says I. “He's too rotten.” Anyway, the crane fastens on to him an' hoists up the coffin an' one of the pier men shouts to the crane driver, “Hey, Ronny, don't tilt him now or he'll spill out.” '

‘Oh here!' murmured Janet with a shudder.

‘That's what they said. An' we had to put the bloody coffin on the stem so that the smell would blow away from us. Ach, it was terrible!' He gave a snort of disgust.

‘An' did none of the man's friends come along with the coffin?' asked Morag.

‘Aye, three of them,' replied Erchy. ‘But they had a good drink on them before they came aboard an' they just lay down an' slept all the way.'

‘An' what happened when you got to the island?' pursued Janet. ‘Did you have to carry the coffin then?'

‘We did not,' said Erchy. ‘Ach, there was seven or eight folks waitin' there an' with the three we had there was plenty.'

‘Was there no priest?'

‘Aye, he was own too, fussin' around like a hen on a hot girdle, an' before they'd lift the coffin off the boat he took them all up to the chapel with him. They was there about half an hour an' they all came back wipin' their mouths an' smellin' of whisky.'

‘An' you didn't get a dram yourselves?' interrupted Murdoch.

‘None but the smell of theirs,' reiterated Erchy. ‘Maybe if we'd followed them up to their chapel we would have got one but there's some things you can't do even for whisky.' He looked around the company, confident of their approbation.

‘ “Men meet but the hills do not”,' quoted Murdoch.

‘So they unloaded the coffin themselves,' prompted Janet ‘They did so. An' there was the priest wavin' his hands an' tellin' them, “Be careful boys, now,” and “Gently, boys,” an' them afraid would they jolt it an' have the priest swearin' at them for bein' careless.' He looked across at Hector. ‘Was that not the way of it?' he asked.

Hector looked up and smiled wide-eyed confirmation. ‘Indeed it was so,' he said. ‘Tsey took tsat much care carryin' it ashore you'd think it was a case of whisky tsey was handlin', not a coffin.'

‘Angy was sayin' you had to stay the night before you could get your money,' Morag said.

‘Aye.'

‘That was no' right,' said Morag. ‘When a job has been done a man shouldn't have to wait to be paid for it.'

‘Why was that?' asked Tearlaich. ‘They'd agreed to pay what you'd asked, hadn't they?'

‘They had, but when it came to actually handin' over the money they started sayin' it was too much.'

‘Ach!' sneered Murdoch. ‘Gettin' money out of them Papists is like gettin' butter out of a dog's throat.'

‘But you got it in the end?' enquired Angy.

‘We got it. An' we told them they was lucky we didn't charge them extra for the smell.'

There came a sudden puff of smoke down the chimney. Erchy stood up. ‘We'd best away an' pull that dinghy,' he said. ‘That's the wind on its way already.' He went out, followed by all the younger men.

‘I must go too,' I told Janet. Behag followed me to the door and we stepped out into a moonlit night with no trace of mist.

‘I would like fine to go to the roup,' she confided wistfully.

‘Why not go then?' I asked, avoiding her glance.

‘Would you be thinkin' of goin' yourself?' she enquired diffidently. ‘I hate travellin' on my own.'

When Tearlaich had mentioned the pianos at the sale the idea of going to the auction had indeed crossed my mind but it was immediately followed by the thought of haymaking, the arrangements I should have to make before I could leave my cow and poultry and by a mental review of the difficulty of getting a piano over to Bruach and eventually into my cottage. Much as I yearned for a piano I had let the idea slip away into the limbo of all the other ideas I had at times become enraptured with, but Behag's remark made me think again. Perhaps I could arrange to get to the roup and perhaps I could even bring a piano back with me. ‘I'll let you know tomorrow,' I told her as we said good night.

The sky was clear, wiped clean by wind, and I walked thoughtfully homewards, almost hearing the notes of a Chopin nocturne and aware that my fingers ached to run over the keys of a piano. On reaching my cottage I stood looking up at the full moon tossed in the branches of the rowan tree and the evening star blinking over the hills, and worked out how long I could spare away from the croft and who would look after Bonny and the hens whilst I was away. Morag would, I was certain, but with Behag away also would it be too much for her to cope with? I went to bed and slept on my project. No doubt it would sort itself out by the morning.

By morning the forecast gale was strafing the village, flattening the uncut grass, tearing at the windows and bombarding the hay already cocked and rough-tied with grass ropes. As soon as I woke I rushed outside to inspect the damage to my own cocks and was agreeably surprised to find that only three out of the nine I had so industriously stooked and tied two days earlier had been ravaged by the wind. I blessed the mist and rain of the previous day which had dampened down the outside of the cocks so that they had settled into snug igloo shapes, trimmed to resist the assault of the gale. As I gathered up the hay which the wind had peeled off and slid into the lee of the damaged cocks I had cause to be grateful once again to Morag for her instructions on how to weave the traditional hay ropes which undoubtedly had been responsible for saving much of my hay. The hay rope was a simple but effective device for securing cocks and it was achieved by gathering strands of grass from the top on the windward side of the cock, twisting them and at the same time drawing in more hay as you worked downwards until with a final twist you tucked the rope in firmly under the base of the cock, being careful that you did not let the wind in so that the whole thing blew away. Then you did the same on the lee side. I repaired the three cocks, tucked in the ropes on the other six more firmly and started back towards the cottage. The sea was swirling white, the horizon a jumble of watery peaks, but although the crofts were being lashed by sea spray there was no rain. I recited to myself the weather lore I had learned in rhyme:

‘If the wind before the rain,
Hoist your topsails up again',

which, so the old sailors explained, meant that it would probably be a short blow with the rain coming in later to quell the wind. On the other hand:

‘If the rain before the wind,
Your topsail halyards you must mind',

which again being interpreted meant the wind would be strong enough to drive away any threatened rain. In other words, it foretold a long, strong blow. I looked up at the thick grey clouds racing across the sky, unsure whether or not I hoped they would soon burst. If they did it would probably result in there being constant rain for the next few days which would not improve the hay but if they did not and the wind continued unabated I doubted if my cocks would withstand its onslaught. Haymaking was always a worry and because of the malicious weather and the dishevelled terrain it was a worry that lasted a long time. Though cutting might be commenced at the end of July even in a good season it was likely to be well into October before the hay was finally stacked for the winter. I debated whether to take proper ropes and stones to tie and weight down the cocks but if I did that and the rain came the weighted ropes would make neat channels in the hay which would direct the rain deep into the cock, sending it mouldy and rotten. Back at my cottage, I stood in front of my barometer. It had dropped but not dramatically and when I tapped it the needle stayed steady. I decided to do nothing more about my hay until I had talked to some of my neighbours and listened to their predictions.

The rain came when I was out on the moor looking for Bonny. While I milked her the rain dribbled from her flanks and from the sleeves of my oilskin into the pail so that the milk took on a muddy-greyish look. I smiled to myself, recalling how horrified I would have been in my pre-Bruach days had I been expected to drink milk produced under such conditions. Now I knew that dribble from cows' flanks, oilskins and even from less salutary sources made no noticeable difference to the flavour of the milk and so far as hygiene was concerned I preferred fresh Highland germs to those that could be expected in the vicinity of a town or factory dairy. I gave Bonny the remainder of her potach, thanked her and sent her away with a gesture—she was too wet to pat—and turned into the wind and rain, making for home. Even with the lid tightly clamped down the milk splashed out as the wind buffeted the pail, lifting it and at times almost wresting it from my grasp; the rain was drumming on my sou' wester, streaming down my oilskin and running into my boots. It was stinging my face and filling my eyes so that I was constantly blinking to see where I was going and when, after taking advantage of the shelter offered by a narrow strath between two outcrops of rock, I came out again into the teeth of the storm the wind spun me round, whisking away my breath and making me feel like a chattel of the storm, seeing nothing but rain; no sea, no sky, with only occasional glimpses of the moors to help me find my way home.

After lunch I started to make bread and teacakes and the kitchen was full of the yeasty, floury smell of bread baking when the door banged open to admit Morag. She pushed the door closed with a practised shoulder and let down the latch.

‘My, but it's a coarse wind you catch here,' she informed me as she slid out of the top layer of coats she was wearing. ‘I thought my own house was the bad one for the wind but I'm thinkin' your own is worse.'

‘It depends on the direction,' I reminded her. ‘Yours gets the north-easterly pretty badly but this one is the wind I'm most exposed to. It has one advantage, though.' I nodded at the wire tray where the bread was cooling. ‘My oven is always much hotter when the wind is from this direction.'

‘Aye, an' you make good use of it, mo ghaoil. Indeed, there's nobody like the English for bakin' in an oven,' she told me.

I split and buttered some teacakes and we ate them while they were warm and doughy and swimming in butter. Morag was just helping herself to her third piece when the door opened again but with more violence this time and Erchy came in.

‘I was just down seein' if there was anythin' worth while comin' ashore,' he announced in reply to our enquiring looks. ‘We got a letter a night or two ago from my cousin that's workin' on a timber boat. He reckoned they'd be passin' through the channel out there yesterday an' he always tries to throw some good planks over the side thinkin' they might wash ashore here.'

Bruach had its share of beachcombers, ranging from the regulars who went daily to search for anything that might conceivably be of use, to the dilettantes like myself who went only when the weather was fine enough, but during gales when the men of the village could find little else to do they rushed down to appropriate for themselves stretches of shore, just as fishermen select stretches of a river, and there they crouched in the indifferent protection of a boulder, straining to be the first to spot any loot the sea might bring in. The most dedicated—some said the greediest—stayed out all night, the rest stayed for perhaps four or five hours before they gave in and returned to their own or someone else's home where they could be sure of a hot drink and a bite to eat.