Lightly Poached (8 page)

‘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 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, gum-booted 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.

‘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'.