Love and Music Will Endure (4 page)

Màiri became the village bard. She wrote funny, mocking verse but only about outsiders. Her lines on Donald MacKinnon were allowed because he was too unsociable ever to appear at cèilidhs and get to hear them. She was often asked to sing about the bride and groom at weddings, taking care to praise them and all their forbears of course. She was skilful at knitting the words into patterns with tunes she knew. It was the words that were more important and a good number of verses were expected.

Sometimes she composed more personal poetry that she kept to herself, verses about the world around her and about their animals. She created verses about
Blarach
the milk cow, but especially about
Dileas
. The hardworking grey horse had been there for the whole of her life. When she was very young she would play underneath his belly, pretending his legs were the corners of a house. He moved his big feathered feet as daintily as a dancer around her. He never kicked, unlike the cattle. She used to puzzle in her mind why it was that the cut peats were called ‘little feet’ when they were stacked up to dry. Three would be put on end together in a tent shape and a fourth one laid flat on top. They looked more like a crooked house than a foot, she thought. Then one day she watched him lifting his hooves gently around her and she saw that the triangular shape of the peat stacks was like a hoof. Both she and Murdo had learned to ride bareback on his warm, rolling back, clinging onto his rough mane.

Dileas
was getting older and slower now but was as willing as ever. He swished his tail and nuzzled her ear when she recited
her verses to him. One day a few months after her triumph at the cèilidh house her father left home early.

‘He’s business to do in Portree,’ her mother said before sending Màiri off to collect plants for the dye pot. When she came in for her dinner she noticed what a wonderful smell was coming from the cooking pot.

‘I’ve made a sausage from lights and liver,’ her mother said, ladling out slices. It was delicious. Meat was a rare treat. They only tasted it if a beast had died suddenly or they were given a piece of venison from a neighbour. No questions would be asked about how they had come by it. She looked up from her plate to see her mother watching her intently while her father concentrated on cutting up his slice.

She leapt to her feet, sending her stool flying and ran out, haring up to the pasture. No sign of him. She trudged back inside again.

‘I hope you’re not turning your nose up at that good meat,’ her mother said.

Her father looked up, his eyes moist. ‘He was getting past working and still eating his head off.’

She picked up her knife, thinking it would be wrong to reject her old friend’s last gift but the sausage had turned into slime in her mouth. She pushed it down her reluctant throat, willing herself not to gag. Later she honoured his life in verses in the style of the old praise songs for the Fiann or for a renowned clan chief. It began ‘Valiant big hearted beast with strong limbs that never tired.’ She kept the words tucked up safe inside her head and only sang them when she was alone in one of the horse’s favourite grazing places.

Màiri grew taller and her brother left home to try his luck in Glasgow. Her mother kept saying how much she missed him, but Màiri was delighted to be the only child left at home. Flòraidh’s
low spirits meant that she slackened the reins on her daughter and Màiri could now spend more time outside climbing the hills or rowing on the lochan.

Suddenly the light broke through again in her mother’s face. She started to sing once more as she worked. And all because of the letter.

‘Seonag’s coming home to be married to Kenneth. Isn’t that wonderful? My first-born’s getting married. The minister repeated the letter for me three times so I would be sure to remember it all.’

She smoothed out the paper, her reverent fingers tracing the words that held the magic news. Anyone would think it was Moses’ tablets, sent down from Heaven, Màiri thought to herself.

‘We must clean everything in the house and there’s so much cooking to do. You’ll have to help me Màiri.’

So it’s the king and queen coming now, with all their nobles, she sneered inwardly.

‘Oh, and you can make a special song for them. Kenneth is a MacRae from Kintail – so you’ll have to include his family.’

I knew that making that wretched shawl wouldn’t be the end of it, she thought. Still she did what was asked of her, although finding warm words was like dragging a plough through rocks.

The wedding day dawned bright and all went as planned. Kenneth was a modest, easy going young man, just as well, married to Seonag, she thought. The weather held, there was a fine spread of food and enough whisky for the toasts. Pappa spoke about how happy he was with his new son-in-law, even though he wasn’t a Skyeman. He turned to his younger daughter and smiled. She sang her new song with gusto. She was pleased with its rousing end: 

There was plenty of applause at the end although Màiri wondered about why the laughter suddenly surged when she spoke of his fine blade, not that men had swords these days but she thought it sounded heroic. Everyone started to clear things away ready for the dancing. She seized the chance to slip away and find somewhere quiet to relieve herself. Dancing along and humming, she had just turned around the corner of the byre when she felt something thud into her back, winding her. Before she could recover her balance she was spun round so that her shoulders scraped against the jagged surface of the wall.

‘You, I might have known you would spoil things’.

Her sister’s thin face was so close that Màiri could see the flecks of spittle bubbling on her lips.

‘Making a fool of us both. Wild MacRaes indeed, and then that stuff about my tongue.’

Màiri found her own tongue again, ‘But everyone seemed to enjoy it.’

‘You wee fool. Of course they like to get their own back and don’t you act the innocent. You did it deliberately to show me up. It’s a good job you weren’t the oldest of the seven sisters. Who
would want to be your suitor, you big, ugly beast? All of them would have been left as spinsters.’

‘Isn’t that what happened anyway? They asked to be turned into mountains when none of the brothers came back to marry them.’

‘Don’t you answer me back.’ Her hand lashed out, slapping Màiri’s cheek. Her own cheeks were a hectic red and she started to cough. With a final glare she turned away.

Màiri shrugged and pulled the collar of her new white blouse straight. Thank goodness Seonag would soon be going back to Glasgow.

After her sister left with her new husband life went back to the usual pattern for Màiri, but as the months passed Mamma became more fretful.

‘Why haven’t we had any news from Seonag? I’m sure she would get word to me if she was expecting.’

Murdo and Màiri made faces behind their mother’s back. Later when they were alone she said, ‘So our wonderful, blessed sister can’t get herself pregnant.’

Her brother laughed. ‘She and Kenneth need to go up to the Old Man of Storr and lie together there.’

Màiri looked puzzled.

‘Come on, surely you’ve worked out what happens between a man and a woman?’

She shook her head and her face reddened.

‘We take the cow to the bull and put the ram in among the ewes and make sure the male beast does his duty.’

She nodded, giggling.

‘It’s the same thing for people although we keep it secret. Now if poor Kenneth is a bit limp the Storr should give him the idea.’

She was so surprised that she was left speechless. Murdo laughed at her astonished face.

‘Don’t you believe me?’

Well she did. Although his information had startled her it felt as if he was telling her something that she had always known but never put into words. Mind you, she couldn’t imagine Seonag losing her dignity enough to do such a thing. When she sat in
church the next Sunday she found herself imagining the solemn people there coupling; sour old widow Beaton who always had her nose in the air and the pious elder who looked as if his face would split like a rock if he ever laughed.

During the short, wind-lashed days of winter another letter came. Màiri rushed inside when she heard the terrible keening sound in a voice she couldn’t recognise. She found her mother on her knees trying to rend her clothes while the Reverend MacLeod knelt beside her, begging her to pray. Pappa hurtled in when he heard her wailing and tried to hold her close. She pulled herself away and glared at Màiri, making her freeze.

‘My first born gone, dead before me,’ she kept howling.

The minister told them what the letter said. Seonag’s health had started to fail while she was expecting a child. She took a fever and couldn’t eat properly. The growing child seemed to sap her strength. When she began to cough up blood she had to take to her bed and she died before her child could be born.

For the first weeks Flòraidh’s grief was unabating. An unlatched gate in a storm, she swung madly, trying to tear herself free from her hinges. In the end her flayed throat could shriek no more and instead she moaned ceaselessly like the wind trapped in a chimney or a cow desperate to be milked. Eventually she quietened but that was almost worse. At least while she protested Màiri knew that she was still alive. The silence made her keep searching for her to make sure that her mother was still there. The unspoken grief became a laden creel on her mother’s back, bending her double, a weight that she could never put down.

Pappa tried to comfort her. ‘We’ve lost our eldest child but we still have other children.’

But that only seemed to inflame her. She would pull away from him and glower at Màiri in a way that made her shudder. She hadn’t wanted her sister to die, but she couldn’t pretend to
herself that she missed her. How could she miss a closeness she had never felt? They had been seeds that fell too close to the tree and as they grew into saplings they reached out to the light, scraping and scratching their branches together. But guilt, like the smell of tainted milk, hung around her.

She did what she could by taking on all the household tasks and helping her father with the outside work. He didn’t complain but like
Dileas
before him he was slowing down, his back stiff and his joints swollen. Màiri’s life beat to a fixed rhythm while other girls her age were going to weddings, dancing to new steps and being visited by suitors.

Life was becoming harder; the talk at the cattle markets was all about lower prices and rising rents. Mamma turned to religion for consolation. She had always been devout but now she was inspired by the fiery conviction of the missionaries. Pappa, as always, kept his distance, attending church just enough to avoid censure. However, he was impressed by the strength of the newer breed of minister. Some landowners, Lord MacDonald among them, refused the new sort of spirited ministers land to build a church and they held outdoor meetings instead. Even though their own minister, Maighstir MacLeod, had a spacious church to preach in he spent much of his time giving sermons in the open air, whatever the weather, drawing huge crowds to hear him.

‘Do you know that one time when he preached at Uig it started to snow so heavily that he told me that he could hardly tell the congregation apart from the ground where they were sitting. Only their faces showed where they were,’ Mamma said, her voice trembling with wonder at such a display of piety.

‘No doubt their faces glowed like beacons of righteousness,’ Pappa muttered.

A large meeting was planned to take place at the Fairy Bridge, a remote spot where three streams met. It had a fearsome
reputation. Evil spirits were said to gather there and no-one wanted to cross the bridge after nightfall. Horses would shy as they approached it, lathering and quivering, their eyes rolling in terror.

‘The Reverend MacLeod is a godly man and he will banish the evil from there if any living soul can,’ her mother declared. It was intended that all of them would walk there, including Murdo, who was back home on a visit. However, when the day came, Mamma had one of her turns. She was pale and shaky, saying that she was too ill to go. Pappa was determined to stay with her. Màiri suspected that he was relieved to have a respectable reason not to go. So she and Murdo were to uphold the family honour by attending. She rose early for the long walk but found that her brother had already left with his friends.

‘He said that they could go faster without you’, Mamma said.

She grunted, wondering what Murdo was up to. ‘I can make my own way there easily enough.’

‘Take care. Look out for other folk you can walk with.’

Màiri sighed. Mamma was usually so cold towards her and at other times she would fuss over her, like a broody foster hen clucking in alarm as the ducklings she’s raised take to the water. So she set off alone, happy to stride freely. She met scores of people, all surging towards the bridge; men, women, skipping children, babies carried in shawls, as unstoppable as the three streams themselves. She had never seen so many folk all together. She could hear the voices of yet more, singing psalms as they came over the hills. They sounded like Fairy voices coming from deep within the earth. As the groups mingled together they flooded over the hill. That is how it must have been when Our Lord was preaching, she thought.

Although most of the worshippers came on foot, some arrived on horseback. They tethered their beasts at a group of trees.
Màiri’s eye was caught by a dappled horse. Her heart lurched. He looked so much like
Dileas
that she had to go over for a closer look. It was a different animal of course, smaller and a mare. As she turned away to join the people who were settling themselves for the service she felt Murdo’s hand on her arm.

‘Ah, there you are. What are you doing?’

His hazel eyes, so like their mother’s, narrowed and gleamed.

‘We thought we’d wait here and have some fun while the minister’s talking,’ he replied, his eyes challenging her, but she only shrugged. He was his own man now. She wasn’t going to interfere. She went to join some families from the village. They smiled and made space for her beside them. As there were so many people in the congregation Reverend Macleod couldn’t stand in front of them all at once and hope to be heard. Instead he toured the crowd on horseback, repeating his words to each group. He was a fine upright man with a wide brow and glowing eyes that seemed to probe into the very depths of your soul. His voice would change in an instant from a clarion call down to the soft whisper of a mother to her baby.

His text was from the Book of Isaiah, “Wash you, make you clean, put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes: cease to do evil, learn to do well.” He proclaimed that even if your sins were scarlet red they would become white as the driven snow if you obeyed God’s commands. Màiri clenched her eyes shut, feeling again the clammy guilt that smothered her whenever she remembered her sister. She could hear sobs and groans all around her. She opened her eyes to see people swaying and shaking, clapping their hands and reaching out their arms. Some fell insensible to the ground as if in a faint while others spoke in tongues, uttering words that made no sense to her.

‘No matter how mired you are in sin, reach out your foul, black leprous hand and God will receive you.’

Now more folk were groaning, swooning and writhing on the ground. I’m a true believer, she thought, so why is the Holy Spirit not entering me? She stood, a lonely observer, excluded from the ecstasy of those whom the Lord had chosen, those who could see beyond the vale of tears towards the joys of Heaven.

The minister had finished circling the crowds. He sat on horseback still, his hands raised as the congregation bowed their heads in prayer. Did that mean that the service would soon be over? What about Murdo among the horses? Did he realise?

She slipped away, creeping around the back of the crowd and then running hard as she neared the trees. As she suspected Murdo was there with several other young men riding bareback on the galloping horses, crouched low over their necks. She smiled when she saw that her brother had chosen the dappled mare.

‘Hurry and tie them up again. The service is finishing’.

They slowed down and jumped off, laughing. Men and horses tossed their heads. She knew most of the young men but one of the riders was a stranger. He didn’t rush like the others but sat proudly, sinewy thighs pressed against the horse’s flanks, fingers plaited through its mane. So entwined were horse and rider that they seemed like one creature. He whispered to the animal, stroking its ears. Then he turned and smiled at her. It was as if a rainbow had suddenly appeared, a dazzling arc across the sky. He slithered off his mount in a swoop of limbs and rubbed his face against the horse’s cheek. How she envied that dumb beast. For once, she who was never lost for words found her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. All was confusion as they rushed to calm the animals and tie them up again.

‘Their owners will wonder why they’re so tired and sweaty,’ the fair young man said grinning.

Before she could answer they were all waving and running off and she was left as breathless as the horses.