The Hills is Lonely (17 page)

‘But you still have your drake?' I said.

‘Yes, yes.' He started off towards the house, obviously expecting me to follow, but I was slightly surprised when, beckoning to me eagerly, he disappeared into its dark depths. I wondered if, in Padruig's absence, the drake had ousted one of the ferrets, and after taking some deep breaths of fresh air and doing some rapid eye-blinking I warily poked my head and shoulders round the door into the kitchen. Immediately a frenzied quacking and hissing broke out in the gloom of the far corner and even before I could make out the wildly swinging cage and the outline of its occupant's head darting and feinting in all directions, I guessed that Padruig's cherished toy had become the new refuge for Euan's equally cherished drake. Recalling Morag's prophecy I hoped for the sake of both Euan and his bird that Padruig would not return without due warning.

I had taken my leave of Euan before remembering that I had omitted to ask after the health of his recently married sister. I turned to him with the enquiry.

‘Her buggered, Missed.' The profane affability of the reply made me wince.

‘Whatever is the matter?' I asked.

Euan lifted his shoulders in a prolonged fatalistic shrug. ‘He-bugger, she-bugger, quick come little-bugger,' he informed me with remarkable frankness.

I walked for some distance before I permitted myself to consider his extraordinary statement, which persisted in running through my head like an oft-repeated formula. I was shocked to find myself walking in time to the words just as one unwittingly walks in time to a band playing in a city street. I shook myself and changed step resolutely.

I had to change step three or four times before I finally reached home.

Seagull
which was the name of the boat shared by Lachy and Ruari, was used for inshore fishing, lobster creeling and for the occasional tourist trade. She was slow and heavy and, like a Cheshire beauty, broad in the beam. Her insides were spangled with fish scales which, though decorative, were inclined to be somewhat odorous; her engine was capricious but only slightly more so than her crew; her name was inapt, for she looked as much out of her element on the water as would a bedroom slipper floating on a bathtub.

The frequent invitations I received from Ruari and Lachy to accompany them on their trips were flattering in the extreme, though I must frankly admit that, once aboard, neither of the men seemed to be aware of my presence. They addressed me seldom and left me more or less to my own devices, and I was perfectly content that it should be so. Seasickness never troubled me in
Seagull
, nor did I ever reach the stage which Morag described as being ‘sick of the sea but not sick in it'. Sometimes I would take a darra and lower it hopefully into the cool, green water, and was thrilled when it came in again, as it sometimes did, with half a dozen or so rainbow-hued mackerel writhing on its hooks. Sometimes I would help haul in the creels but was always careful to retire to a safe distance while Lachy tied the vicious claws of their occupants. Invariably I dragged a spinner after the boat and, to the amazement of the crew, who thought they knew everything there was to be known about fishing, hooked all kinds of fish ranging from dogfish to salmon. The latter of course we always threw back into the sea as the law demands. By what method we managed to obey the law and still have the salmon for supper is nobody's business.

Though Ruari and Lachy could reasonably be described as intrepid sailors there was an underlying nervousness about them which revealed itself in the altercation between them which continued incessantly. If Ruari saw a cormorant, Lachy swore it was a porpoise. If Lachy saw a rock, Ruari contended that it was a seal and on more than one occasion
Seagull
's keel was scraping against the back of a ‘shark' before one or the other would give way and admit that that particular shark had been marked on the Admiralty chart for the past twenty-five years.

It was one bright morning in early spring that Morag limped into my room having, as she said, ‘gone off her anchor' the night before when looking for the cow.

‘Ruari's after takin' a great lump of them jolly gees to the hills and then he'll be after collectin' some cattle from Rhuna and he's sayin' you'll get with them if you've a mind,' she informed me. (Morag always expressed quantity in ‘lumps', whether she was speaking of manure, cheese or humanity.) Messages from Ruari reached me via his sister, for, though my company was not despised, it was beneath the male dignity to issue invitations to non-Gaelic-speaking females. I accepted with alacrity even though, as I told Morag, I had no idea what ‘jolly gees' might be.

‘Jolly gees? Why, they're yon fellows who hammer little bits off the hills and then fancy they can tell the Lord Himself how the earth was made,' Morag replied.

‘Geologists!' I exclaimed. She nodded.

‘It's awfully good of Ruari to take me,' I remarked as my landlady was about to signal my acceptance.

‘You should see the size of the stones he'll need to put into the stern for ballast if he doesna' take you,' she replied with devastating candour.

I felt momentarily deflated, but even deputising for a few stones acted as no damper to my enthusiasm for the trip. Rhuna, shaped like a crumbly brown bread sandwich with a bite taken out of it, had always fascinated me, and though I had hinted many times to Ruari that I should like to visit it he had so far fobbed me off with one excuse or another. I was swallowing breakfast as quickly as I could when Morag came back into my room.

‘There they go,' she muttered resentfully, pointing through the window at the straggling party of men, each armed with a capacious rucksack, who were picking their way down to the shore.

‘Don't you like them?' I asked carelessly.

‘Like them? Indeed I do not!' she replied with unaccustomed vehemence. ‘Climbin' like spiders all over the hills and tap, tap, tappin' with they little hammers. One of these days we'll wake up in the mornin' and find no hills left.' She snapped her fingers expressively and went out of the room, leaving me to wrestle with the remains of a tough kipper and an imagination that tried to picture an army of ‘jolly gees' engaged on their gargantuan task. I finally abandoned the kipper and, pulling on a warm coat, started off for the shore. Before I was halfway I was arrested by an affronted bellow from Ruari.

‘Six legs I had last night! Six legs I had and none but two have I got this mornin'. Who's taken my legs? How am I goin' to manage without my other four legs now?' he declaimed.

Ruari was as yet invisible to me and so also was the recipient of the tirade.

‘Taken and chopped them up for firewood I'll be bound!' His bludgeoning voice apprised the world in general of the probable fate of his four spare legs.

Arriving, a little breathless, at the shore, I found an enraged Ruari holding aloft two ‘legs'—small logs of wood used for hauling the dinghy over the rough shingle —for the bewildered survey of the party of geologists who, I felt certain, were less impressed by the substance of the complaint than by the volume of it. Actually, when the time came, Ruari and Lachy managed very well without the four missing legs and soon they and myself and the geologists had been rowed out to where
Seagull
lay wallowing gently at her moorings. We stowed our selves aboard and the engine, after resisting the power of Lachy's muscles for a time, yielded suddenly to the power of Ruari's vocabulary and, overcoming a slight preliminary fretfulness, settled down to the task of propelling us to our destination.

The hills for which we were bound looked cold and remote, their wintry peaks appearing to jostle one another for a glimpse of the morning sun, which transformed the sky into a rippling canopy of blue and gold. The geologists stared towards them speculatively, their minds no doubt occupied with formations and faults, bridging the gap of millions of years. I stared reflectively, dwelling only on the past hundred years of their history. Ruari and Lachy stared at them indifferently, merely as an object in the course they were setting; and bickered eternally.

We passed a dilapidated old boat, swinging sluggishly at her mooring; a seagull poised, aloof and graceful, on her masthead.

‘She'd be the better of a coat of paint,' I observed, using the Bruach idiom.

‘If he leaves her there much longer the seagulls will soon paint her white for him,' retorted Lachy meaningly.

Except for the fact that the weather was rather cold it was a perfect day for our sail. I enjoyed the feel of the engine labouring beneath my feet; the sight of the bow cleaving its way through the water which curled and splashed on either side. I liked to try to identify the different sea-birds as they bobbed and ducked in the ripples, and to watch the seals or porpoises or even a venturesome otter.

All too soon we reached the tiny jetty where the geologists were to be put ashore and, after arranging to pick them up at six o'clock in the evening, Ruari headed the boat seaward and set course for the island of Rhuna.

‘It's deep watter all the way,' Ruari told me. ‘Would you like to try your hand at steerin'?'

‘Certainly I should,' I replied and grasped the tiller confidently.

‘Just fix your eye on that end of the island and steer straight for it,' he instructed. It looked child's play, and I sat with one arm thrown negligently over the tiller, adopting Ruari's own habitual attitude when steering. The two men, thus released from duty, went to the fore-peak of the boat and were soon occupied in inspecting tackle. I fixed my eyes on the point indicated by Ruari and concentrated on steering a straight course, which is infinitely more difficult than it looks. The boat chugged steadily, but only the water falling away on either side of the bow showed that we were not at anchor, for Rhuna seemed to be coming no nearer. The scenery was breathtakingly beautiful even for the eyes that had feasted long on such glory. The Bruach hills and moors, hardly yet aware of the tentative prodding of spring's green fingers, offered an intricate patchwork of browns and greys. Rhuna and her companion isles, which a loitering winter had left sprinkled with snow, reposed lightly on the strangely still water, looking as fragile as meringues on a baking board, needing only a palette knife slipping under them to lift them cleanly from their calm, blue base.

A lacerating ‘aside' from Ruari brought me back to reality with a bump.

‘She steers a course as crooked as a dog pissin' in the snow,' he confided to Lachy.

Stunned by the criticism, I stared at the two men. Lachy's face crimsoned with embarrassment and from the awkward position of his elbow I judged that he had just dealt Ruari a vigorous dig in the ribs. The latter, looking slightly sheepish, became absorbed in the complications of rope splicing. I turned round to see for myself the narrow lane of bubbles which marked
Seagull
's wake and though I had to accept the veracity of Ruari's statement it was not until the following winter that I was able to appreciate the aptness of his simile.

Somewhere about one o'clock in the afternoon we crept into the sequestered bay of Rhuna. The island was dotted here and there with ruined habitations, outside which lounged their equally ruined inhabitants. On the shore awaiting us were Murdoch and Angus, who had rowed over in a big, flat-bottomed barge of a boat early that morning and who now stood guard over half a dozen or so uneasy-looking cattle. Murdoch regarded himself as the ‘big' cattle man and, as none of the official buyers ever crossed to Rhuna, he looked upon it as his own private gold mine, buying cattle there cheaply, ferrying them over to Bruach and thence to the mainland sale yard, where he usually reckoned to make a hundred per cent profit.

A young boy appeared from one of the cottages and whispered a few words to Murdoch who translated them into an invitation to come ashore and take a ‘wee strupak'. There were a few feet of water between
Seagull
and the shore and Angus, wading out in thigh-boots, offered me a piggy-back. I refused, for the water looked shallow enough and Angus's propensity for practical joking was too well known for me to be taking risks. I slipped off my boots and stockings and climbed over the side. The water was shockingly cold and of course much deeper than it had appeared; the shingle was slippery and the gunwale of the boat was a long way off, but willing hands grasped my shoulders and I was soon hauled ashore, my legs pink and tingling and my dress sodden only as far as the waist. I smothered the impulse to race to the cottage and toast myself in front of the fire, remembering that the Bruachites always spoke of the inhabitants of Rhuna as being ‘mad as I don't know what', a description which was in no way reassuring to one cognisant of the very moderate degree of sanity in Bruach itself. I therefore matched my pace to that of the men, which for me necessitated a rigorous exercise of muscle control, their walk being as deliberate and meticulous as a slow-motion film. One foot was put forward and then, after separately relaxing each muscle of the calf, it was slowly lowered to the ground heel first. When it was certain that the ground was flat enough and safe enough for the whole foot, it was trusted with the man's weight and the process repeated with the other foot. In heavy thigh-boots or hill-boots the ritual might have been both prudent and necessary; with bare wet limbs and an empty stomach it was excruciating.

After what seemed an interminable time we reached the house to which we bad been invited and were greeted with the utmost cordiality by a grey-haired crone of incredible age, who then presented her mother, another grey-haired crone of even more incredible age. Suspecting that the introductions might continue
ad infinitum
I glanced covertly into the shadowy recesses of the room, wondering what vision of decrepitude I might be confronted with next. Fortunately the introductions ended there and ‘mother', with many smiles, suggested I should come away in and dry myself through. Taking the chair she drew forward I proceeded to carry out her suggestion. The younger crone, with pursed lips, and eyes darting here and there, busied herself brewing tea while the elder jabbed a knife viciously into a jar of jam, spread the confection lavishly on thick slices of bread and butter and ship biscuits; then seized the delicacies with sticky, dirt-ingrained fingers and urged them upon us. The young boy who had brought us the invitation was, in an agony of shyness, trying to insert his stocky little body into the crevice between the dresser and the wall, his limpid brown eyes watching my every movement as though I were a creature from another world, as perhaps I was. I wondered if he could possibly be the son of the less incredible of the crones, for my stay in the Hebrides had already taught me that it was not impossible for the recipient of the old age pension to use it for the purchasing of a layette!