The Hills is Lonely (31 page)

‘I've been savin' up all my eggshells for weeks. There's no better confetti than crushed eggshells,' he told me as he hurled a fistful at the newlyweds. The organist began pouring generous quantities from her bag into the eager palms of those not so fortunately equipped. I saw that it was not confetti but semolina, the fact that semolina could be used as a substitute for rice in puddings evidently being sufficient recommendation for its use as a substitute for rice at weddings. The bridal party ploughed their way to the waiting taxi through a mixture of pudding ingredients and good wishes, their footsteps crunching as though they were walking on fresh cinders. As the door of the taxi slammed upon them a shrill yell rent the clamour of greetings and we turned to see Lachy, already in a state of mild inebriation, lurch towards it. With a merry toot of the horn the taxi drew away from the kerb, the bride and bridegroom waving gaily from inside. On the edge of the kerb teetered Lachy, pointing jubilantly to the rear bumper of the taxi, from which dangled a pair of easily identifiable high-heeled shoes. The crowd roared in approval and like frolicking children the main body of it surged after the taxi and turned the corner to vanish in the direction of the hotel. From the scattering of people left behind the organist detached herself, and advancing vengefully upon Lachy she proceeded to bespatter him with a stream of formidable Gaelic which the uncontrite recipient acknowledged with fatuous grins. Somehow or other Lachy must have managed to placate her, for as I bent to crank ‘Joanna' I heard a series of whoops and yelps and beheld the lady herself undergoing a ‘piggy-back' from the shoe thief. With one hand pressing her hat securely on to her disarranged coiffure and with the other clutching resolutely at the ‘piggy's' goitre, she looked far from happy about the performance of her steed. She was touchingly grateful for the lift I offered and, during the short journey to the hotel, was loud in her condemnation of Lachy's trickery.

At the hotel, Morag, flushed with pleasure and the heat of the kitchen, but very much in her best attire, greeted me volubly.

‘Why, there's ninety people catered for and over a hundred and thirty turned up, so the housekeeper was sayin',' she told me. Fortunately it had been taken for granted that there would be gate-crashers and the easy-going hotel staff were more pleased than perturbed at having a couple of score extra mouths to feed. It is on occasions like this that one thanks God for the Gael.

‘It's them men that was loadin' sheeps,' continued Morag by way of explanation. ‘They said they wouldna' be able to get, but I doubt they meant to come all the time. Here they are anyway, and here they'll be stayin' till they think better of it.'

Here they were indeed, and certainly here they appeared to have every intention of staying; men who had been lifting sheep on to lorries all day; men whose clothes were covered with grease and sheep dung; men whose hands looked as though they had been playing with greasy coal. Here they were, their hobnailed boots planted firmly on the carpeted floor of the hotel lounge, their tired bodies leaning on rough crooks while their dogs, bewildered by the strangeness of the surroundings—they would have been quite at home in the bar—threaded their way warily among the legs of the assembled guests and paused every now and then to look at their masters with mute enquiry.

‘Of course,' Morag's voice began again in my ear, ‘with there bein' so many of us we'll need to take our meals in layers.'

‘Relays,' I corrected automatically, but her attention had already wandered elsewhere.

The guests had now begun to file past the newlyweds and, after a handshake, each man pressed a slim envelope into the groom's hand. (I heard later that Sandy made forty pounds profit on his reception—ten pounds more than he had reckoned on making.) Next, the wedding cake, under the careful supervision of the minister, was cut by the simpering bride and handed round along with glasses of port wine and sherry. The guests congregated into hilarious little groups, sipping their wine self-consciously and endeavouring to swallow their cake without chewing it—they are taught at school that this is the essence of refinement. The sheeploaders, mingling freely with those more suitably attired, clutched their glasses in strong calloused hands and tautened chapped dry lips to sip daintily at the wine. They shuffled constantly from one foot to the other, a habit which I have noticed to be prevalent among hill-reared people.

Almost everyone I had ever met in Bruach was present at the reception even to the most decrepit of the old folk. The Gaffer, looking strangely unfamiliar without the string which usually adorned the knees of his trousers, leaned an arm on the shoulder of old Farquhar who was clad in a greeny-black suit, the pockets of which bulged so suspiciously that I wondered if he had brought his rats with him. (‘No,' said Morag, ‘that'll just be a couple of bags so's he can take home what he canna' eat.') The uncles Hamish and Roderick were peering with thinly veiled contempt into the bottom of their empty glasses. Ruari and old Mac sat in a corner bellowing pleasantries at each other until the vacant chairs about them seemed to shudder with the impact. Adam the gamekeeper slumped in his chair, sniffing contentedly, while the old crones from Rhuna gabbled confidences across his broad, tweed-clad chest. The policeman, hardly recognisable in plain clothes, talked animatedly with Dugan and tried not to notice the intoxicated Lachy, who was crawling around the floor on his hands and knees searching for his lost spectacles. As Lachy had never in his life owned a pair of spectacles to lose, his search looked like being a prolonged one.

A maid appeared and, pointedly ignoring the bride and bridegroom, mumbled a few words in the minister's ear. He nodded understandingly.

‘Come and take your dinner!' he commanded forcefully, and as he took upon himself the task of escorting the bridal couple into the dining-room the guests obediently fell in behind.

The repast itself was by Island standards luxurious, and was partaken of with a vigour and relish which could undoubtedly have been heard a mile or two away. Plates clattered; knives and forks pinged against plates, glasses and false teeth; tongues wagged, chairs scraped, stomachs rumbled and feet shuffled, while throughout the several courses the dishes were passed and re-passed across and around the table in a manner more reminiscent of a rugby football field than a dining-room. At the end of the meal the minister proposed the health of the couple in a long speech which, if one could judge from the laughter it evoked, was also a vastly amusing one, but as it was in Gaelic there was little of it I could understand. The bridegroom refused point-blank to reply to the toast and so did the bride. The best man also begged to be excused and, as everyone was impatient for the reading of the telegrams, the minister, sensibly refusing to argue with his stubborn protégés, gathered up the sheaf of congratulatory messages and began to read them out in English.

Those telegrams! Never in my life had I heard such pointed ribaldry as I heard then. Never before could I have imagined that a minister of the Church would condone, still less participate in, such vulgarity. Yet there he stood in his clerical collar and black suit, trying vainly to conceal his own enjoyment as he read each message slowly and meaningly. At one time I was conscious of hearing my landlady's name being called as the sender of one of the telegrams, and chancing to catch her eye at that moment I saw her gleeful smile. The bride could hardly tear her shining eyes from the minister's face, except when she wished to prod her abashed husband into a better appreciation of the ‘humour'. In her white garb of chastity she displayed about as much inhibition as a tom-cat.

When the telegrams came to an end we returned to the lounge, where a white-haired fiddler, nearly as advanced in liquor as he was in years, played a ‘Strip the Willow' with exaggerated caution.

‘Quicken it up a bit, Peter,' urged the bride, who was partnered by the taxi-driver-cum-cowman-cum-best man, her husband having adjourned to the bar with a few friends. Offended at the criticism of his playing, the fiddler accelerated hard, and the bride, in order to keep the pace, had to leap and bound with a calfish recklessness that traced her movements with a clearly marked pattern of semolina. Her exertions were, however, not wholly successful in dislodging the stray pieces of eggshell which still adhered to the tendrils of her well-frizzed hair.

The dancing continued, with several breaks for refreshments, until about eleven-thirty, and at ten minutes to midnight the husband was rescued from the closed bar and despatched upstairs with his wife.

‘In the old days,' said the elder Rhuna crone beside whom I now found myself, ‘it used to be the custom hereabouts for the old folk to stay the night with the bride and bridegroom and then the bride would get up in the mornin' and give the old folks their breakfast.' She sighed regretfully.

‘How long ago was all that?' I asked.

‘Oh, not more than thirty, maybe forty years ago I can mind it happenin'.'

‘And did that happen at your wedding?'

‘Me, my dear? Why, bless you I've never been marrit in my life,' she replied innocently.

I laughed unrestrainedly. Several times during the evening I had caught glimpses of her and every time there had been a wine glass in her band. I put her answer down to too much whisky.

‘You're not very sober, are you?' I teased. ‘Fancy trying to tell me you've had thirteen children without ever being married.' I laughed again.

‘Indeed, Miss Peckwitt, but it's as true as I'm here,' she assured me earnestly. ‘I've never been marrit in my life, and surely it's glad I am that I havena' a man to be frettin' me in my old age.'

I stared at her stupidly. ‘But the children?' I blurted out unthinkingly.

The crone drew herself up and stared with magnificent virtuousness at the ceiling. ‘Indeed,' she said with elaborate piety, ‘'twas the Lord Himself put the breath in them.'

‘My God!' I breathed, thunderstruck, and turned to gape at the Madonna-like expression on her old face. She showed no trace of shame or embarrassment at my reaction but merely went on to tell me what a blessing her children had been to her. Providentially a waitress approached us at that moment bearing a tray of drinks for the road, carefully pointing out that there was whisky for the menfolk and sherry for the ladies. Ignoring her reproving glance I helped myself to one of the whiskies. I felt very badly in need of it.

In order to avoid further shattering revelations I went in search of my landlady and, having found her, we said our goodbyes and prepared to depart. On reaching the door of the hotel we found the way blocked by a jostling, rumbustious throng of wedding guests, servants and bar customers.

‘It's what we always do when there's a weddin',' Morag informed me. ‘Their bedroom is just above the porch here, and when the bride opens the window and throws out her stocking it'll be time for everybody to take themselves off home.'

As soon as she had finished speaking, there was a tumultuous roar from the crowd and the blind was lifted from a window above and the sash raised. A hand appeared and a moment later a white silk stocking came floating down into the midst of the spectators and landed on the policeman, who flourished it victoriously before rolling it up and thrusting it into his pocket. Immediately the swarm of people began to disperse in different directions, some arm-in-arm and singing happily, others barely capable of holding themselves upright.

The next morning Morag had woeful news to impart. Lachy and Johnny were in gaol! According to her they had started to fight soon after the wedding party had broken up and Lachy had crowned Johnny's head with a whisky bottle. It was terrible news, for the relationship normally existing between Lachy and Johnny was of a David and Jonathan-like quality. It sounded impossible for such a thing to have happened to such good friends, but that it was only too true the policeman himself confirmed when I met him later that day.

‘Poor Lachy,' I said. ‘I'm sure he didn't mean to hurt Johnny. They were always such good friends.'

‘No of course he didn't.' agreed the policeman, who was really very decent. ‘And that's just what Johnny himself says when he comes around. My, but Johnny was mad when he found out I'd locked up Lachy. He called me all the bad names in the language and more besides. “He's my best pal,” he says. “Your best pal,” says I, “and he's just split your head open with a bottle!” “He meant me no harm you b——” says Johnny. “Look here,” says I, “if you don't stop cursin' at me I'll lock you up along with him.” “I'll come right enough too,” says Johnny, and by God! Miss Peckwitt, he came so quick I had all I could do to keep in front of him,' finished the policeman.

I clucked sympathetically.

‘And when we got to the police station, did you hear what he did then?'

I shook my head.

‘Well, the fool grabbed the fire extinguisher off the wall and he turned it full on me and the sergeant. Of course we had to lock him up then. There was nothin' else to do.'

‘Ruined our clothes,' he went on in aggrieved tones, ‘and I had my best suit on too.'

I gathered from his further remarks that there was but one cell available on the Island for the lodging of offenders. The reunion, he told me, had been absolutely pathetic.

‘What will happen to them?' I asked.

The policeman pursed his lips. ‘Depends,' he said. ‘A fiver maybe.'

‘Lachy must have been terribly drunk to have started it,' I said.

‘My, if you'd seen him!' rejoined the policeman. ‘He was as wild as a bull.'

‘How did you manage to get him to the police station?' I asked, knowing just how unhelpful the villagers would have been in such a situation.

‘Well, he was a bit of a job, I can tell you,' he confided. ‘He needed handcuffs he was that strong, but I didn't have any on me. When you go to a weddin' you don't expect to have to take handcuffs with you.' He glanced at me as though expecting reassurance. ‘Well, I was havin' such a struggle and then I remembered somethin' I had in my pocket.' He smiled, a secret reminiscent smile. ‘So I twisted his two hands behind him and I slipped on this thing. “Now Lachy,” I says, “I have the handcuffs on you and you're under arrest!” ' Here the policeman laughed outright. ‘The trick worked all right and he came quiet as a lamb, his two hands clasped behind him as though he was savin' his prayers back to front, for he was so blind drunk he couldn't tell the difference between a pair of handcuffs and this.'