Children of Rhanna Read online

  Table of Contents

  Also by Christine Marion Fraser

  About the Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Part I: Winter 1941

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Part II: Spring 1950

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Part III: Summer 1956

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Part IV: Christmas 1959

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Part V: 1960

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Part VI: Autumn 1960

  Chapter 19

  Also by Christine Marion Fraser

  Rhanna

  Rhanna At War

  Return to Rhanna

  Song of Rhanna

  Storm Over Rhanna

  Stranger on Rhanna

  A Rhanna Mystery

  King’s Croft

  King’s Acre

  Kinvara

  Kinvara Wives

  Kinvara Summer

  Kinvara Affairs

  About the Author

  Christine Marion Fraser was one of Scotland’s best-selling authors, outselling even Catherine Cookson, with world-wide readership and translations into many foreign languages. She was the author of the much-loved Rhanna series. Second youngest of a large family, she soon learned independence during childhood years spent in the post-war Govan district of Glasgow. Chris lived in Argyll with her husband. She died on 22nd November 2002.

  CHILDREN OF RHANNA

  Christine Marion Fraser

  www.hodder.co.uk

  First published in Great Britain by Fontana Paperbacks 1983

  This edition published in 2012 by Hodder & Stoughton

  An Hachette UK company

  Copyright © 1983 by Christine Marion Fraser

  The right of Christine Marion Fraser to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

  eBook ISBN 978 1 444 768213

  Hodder & Stoughton Ltd

  338 Euston Road

  London NW1 3BH

  www.hodder.co.uk

  To Tracy, for her timely reminder

  about the S.S. Politician

  PART I

  WINTER 1941

  CHAPTER 1

  Fergus paced the kitchen at Laigmhor, his footsteps eerily enhanced by the silence that enshrouded him. The black cavern of the window with its drab covering of blackout blinds, gaped at him like the blank eye of a dead fish and added to his sense of desolation. Going over, he pulled the blind back a fraction. The mist lay over the moors and he could see nothing but dismal swirling wraiths floating and billowing over the landscape. The night sounds of Portcull came to him as in a dream; the echoes of a dog’s bark from Murdy’s house by the bridge that spanned the Fallan; faint sounds of merriment from one of the village cottages; the hoot of the steamer’s horn from Portcull harbour; a wail from the siren. Captain Mac was certainly making the most of his enforced stay at safe anchorage. He had told Fergus he would ceilidh the night away with the help of Tam McKinnon’s home-brewed malt whisky. From the sound of it one half of the ceilidh was on board ship, the other half no doubt in Tam McKinnon’s cottage. A light flashed out at sea, filtering uncertainly through the hazy curtains of haar that warped everything that was normal and real. It all added to Fergus’s own sense of unreality and he hunched his broad shoulders wearily and dug his hand into his jacket pocket, reassured for a moment as his fingers curled round the familiar stem of his pipe.

  His thoughts were sluggish, mixed, taking him back over the strange events of that long exhausting day. It seemed years since they had boarded the steamer at Portcull harbour: At 6 a.m. the village was hushed and peaceful, the sea dark and calm, the ship’s crew subdued and heavy-eyed after a night of ceilidhing with relatives on the island. Kirsteen was pale and drawn, heavy and awkward in the advanced stages of her pregnancy. Lachlan McLachlan, the doctor who tended the population of Rhanna, had advised Fergus to take Kirsteep to a mainland hospital because she was expecting twins and it was safer for her to be under constant medical supervision. She hadn’t wanted to go. ‘I want to have my babies at Laigmhor,’ she had told Fergus somewhat defiantly. ‘It seems right that they should be born here. I’ll hate it in hospital.’

  But something deep inside Fergus had rebelled at the idea. A flash of cowardice perhaps, a knowledge that in a hospital he would be divorced somewhat from the stark drama of birth. He hadn’t wanted to go through that again. Far better a hospital, away from Laigmhor, away from Rhanna.

  In the cabin she snuggled into him, fragile despite the swollen bulk of her belly, resentment and rebellion making her silent and uncharacteristically sullen. Her hands were cold but her face was warm against his and she smelt of fresh air and freshly laundered underwear. The faint fragrance of lavender clung to her and the smell reminded him vividly of Mirabelle, so much a part of Laigmhor for so many years, so much a part of everyone she had tended in her selfless years as housekeeper. Though she was gone now, she still lived in his memory and he had found himself wishing at that moment that she was still there with them all, fussing, comforting, scolding, safe, so safe.

  He nuzzled Kirsteen’s wheat-coloured curls and in a rush of protectiveness crushed her to him in a fierce embrace.

  ‘I love your strength, you great brute of a man.’ She laughed and he thought, ‘I’m not strong, not now, not strong enough – for this.’

  She lay in his arms, quietly, no resistance left in her, hardly even a smile for Kate McKinnon who came breezing into the cabin, her strong homely face full of sympathy as she surveyed first Kirsteen’s stomach then her face. ‘Ach, my poor lassie, just about well done they are from the look of the oven – ready to pop out any time, I’d say from the look of you – are you feeling all right, mo ghaoil? You look a wee bit tired.’

  ‘I’m fine, Kate, I never was a good sailor, that’s all.’

  ‘Well at the rate we’re going, we might as well get out and walk,’ Kate said vigorously. ‘Would you listen to that damnty siren! It’s worse than Tam’s snoring when he’s had a bellyful of whisky.’

  It wasn’t till then that Fergus became fully aware that the ship’s siren was blaring out at regular intervals and he stared at Kate. ‘What’s wrong?’ he demanded. ‘Don’t tell me the mist has come down?’

  ‘Ay, as thick as my head feels this morning,’ Kate imparted cheerily. ‘It will be tonight before I get to Barra at the rate we’re going now.’

  ‘You’re going over to Barra then?’ Kirsteen smiled, already feeling better in Kate’s boisterous company.

  ‘I am right enough, I thought I might go and visit some of my relatives there – and o’ course to see how is the Politician doing. These damt salvors have made a fine mess o’ things.’ Kate’s cheery face b
ecame sad. ‘Fancy the likes – blowin’ up a boat and all that good whisky still in her hold – but ach we might get a bit o’ peace then and have no more o’ thon officials sniffin’ about the islands to see if we have been hidin’ whisky and foreign money.’

  Kate had every reason to sound huffed. Up until recently she and her husband, Tam, had been making a tidy little profit from the produce of his illicit whisky still, which was safely tucked away in a ‘secret room’ in old Annack Gow’s blackhouse. The whisky had been bottled in small brown medicine containers and, in the guise of cough mixture, had found its way all over the island and spilt over into neighbouring islands. Tam and Kate had kith and kin living the length and breadth of the Hebrides and his superb-tasting malt whisky had found a ready market. Annack and a few of Tam’s contemporaries had shared some of the ‘takings’, but it was to the crafty Tam that most of the profit had gone.

  In February of that year the S.S. Politician, en route from Mersey to Jamaica and the United States of America, had run aground on the rocks in Eriskay Sound. A large part of her cargo had consisted of twenty thousand cases of Scotch whisky, which the salvors had been unable to reach. The Hebrideans had heard the news with delight and from all over the islands, boat parties set forth, braving the dangerous waters of the Sound of Eriskay and the Minch. Bottles had bobbed in on the tide, crates full of whisky had been thrown onto sandy beaches, the whim of the wind deciding which island would be next to benefit from the water of life. Money had come in too, Jamaican ten-shilling notes, floating tantalizingly on the silken waves before being tossed ashore. It had been as if an Aladdin’s cave had erupted under the sea to spew out its treasures. No one had known what to expect next; the chief occupation of the day was beach-combing. Bicycles and thousands of shirts had come from the Politician’s generous holds. It had been carnival time in the Hebrides, a spree of endless ceilidhs and uninhibited revelry. Jamaican money had circulated throughout the islands, as far north as Benbecula, and the Customs and the police, in a furore over the whole affair, had begun searching, finding a lot of the whisky but missing the bulk, recovering and destroying large amounts of Jamaican notes, though vast amounts had been left unaccounted for. A sweating Tam had closed down business for an indefinite period, being careful however to hide away a few casks of his malt ‘for emergencies’.

  At sight of Kate’s soulful expression, Kirsteen burst out laughing. ‘You’re the limit, Kate. See how the Politician is doing indeed! Away to see what you can find more like! And I know fine that Tam’s whisky is still popular despite the glut and folks are still willing to buy it.’

  Kate looked suitably downcast. ‘Ach well, times are hard so they are and Tam hasny the brains to be doin’ much else but the odd job and brew a drop or two o’ whisky on the side.’ She sniffed dismally. ‘Things was goin’ fine for us till that damt boat hit those rocks and now my poor Tam has had to suspend his business for a whily. We might as well make the most o’ things till the Customs have satisfied themselves that we are no’ doin’ them out o’ anything . . .’ A wide grin split her face. ‘Fly they may be but no’ as fly as us when it comes to hidin’ things. Now – I’m away to see Mollie. She is needin’ a shirt or two for Todd and is goin’ to see will her sister in Uist slip her a few.’

  She breezed away and the cabin was quiet again. Kirsteen smiled at Fergus and they settled down to read the magazines they had bought.

  They were barely twelve miles out to sea when the first pain seized Kirsteen, so violently it took her breath away and made her tremble. By then the mist had crept thickly and insidiously over the water and the ship’s engines had slowed till it seemed they had all but stopped.

  Kirsteen lay back on the narrow bunk bed and tried not to let Fergus see that she was in pain but there was no fooling him and he stared at her, his eyes black with apprehension.

  She forced a smile. ‘Fergus, I’ll be all right. These aren’t proper pains, false I think they call them. It’s too early for the babies to be born yet.’

  ‘Lachlan says twins can be premature,’ Fergus said tersely. ‘What if they are coming? We’re stuck out here and the mist is getting thicker. Dammit! It will take years to get to Oban at this rate.’

  ‘We have to make a stop at Barra and then the Uists – if the worst happens we’ll get a doctor there.’

  ‘It’s hours to Uist, we’re only a few miles out from Rhanna. I can’t let anything happen to you. I’m going to ask the Captain to turn back!’

  ‘No, Fergus!’ she cried, her face so white he felt his heart racing with dread. ‘Stop it! I know what’s on your mind! I’m not Helen! I’m not going to die! For heaven’s sake, it’s only a few wee twinges. Oh please don’t be so afraid for me, darling, I’m perfectly healthy, I’ve had Grant; now I’m having twins, it’s natural for me to have some pains now and then. Don’t worry so.’

  ‘I’m not worried!’ he shouted at her.

  ‘Oh yes you are! I’ve felt your worry for more than eight months now! You’re terrified of birth, Fergus. I don’t blame you, it’s only natural after what happened to Helen – what Shona went through.’

  ‘I am not terrified.’ he gritted. ‘What do you take me for? Some kind of damned cissy?’ His jaw was tense with rage because he knew that she was right. He was terrified; memories were starting to engulf him, forcing him back over the years to Helen, his first wife, upstairs in the bedroom at Laigmhor in the throes of childbirth; the cold sharp light of a January dawn; a child’s thin wailing cry – and Helen, dying, her fiery hair framing the delicate cameo of her face. Later came his torture of mind and soul, a heartrending grief that had made him turn away from his infant daughter Shona, rejecting everything that reminded him of Helen’s death. He had thought it all forgotten, buried in the ashes of his past, but now it was all coming back. A cold prickle of foreboding touched his spine and made him shiver.

  ‘I’ll get you a cup of tea.’ Anxiety clipped his tones. She lay back with a sigh and he went to fetch the tea which she drank gratefully.

  ‘There, I’m fine now.’ She smiled, her eyes a startling blue in her pale face. Briefly he clasped her hand then he got up. ‘I’m going on deck for a smoke. Try and rest.’

  He stood on deck and looked down at the grey water below. It was glassy, deceptively calm, the same kind of sea that had robbed him of one of his finest friends, Hamish Cameron, the big laughing Highlander who had been grieve at Laigmhor when Fergus was still an infant. Hamish had died in the sea by the treacherous Sgor Creags, jagged masses of rock near Port Rum Point. Fergus, too, had nearly died but in the end he had been saved, though his left arm had been amputated by Lachlan because it had been so badly crushed by those pinnacles of rock it was beyond repair.

  Fergus looked again at the glossy swells rising and splashing against the hull and he shuddered. He feared and hated the water and here he was, with Kirsteen, gliding slowly along on the steamer, cradled by his enemy, yet relying on it to carry the boat safely to land. The mist enveloped him and he could almost hear Canty Tam’s voice saying, ‘The Uisga hags love the mist, they can make things happen to people that never happen on land. See, their auld hag faces are smilin’ for they like nothin’ better than the mist to cast their evil spells.’

  ‘Silly fool,’ Fergus thought, but nevertheless he moved away from the rails and went down below to the cabin. Kirsteen was moaning in pain and she gasped, ‘I – I think it’s the real thing, Fergus. It’s too soon – but you mustn’t go losing your head over it – I’ll keep till we get to Barra.’

  Without a word Fergus turned on his heel and went to seek out the Captain. ‘How long till Barra?’ he asked curtly.

  Captain Mac was a Lewis man with a shock of white hair, a bulbous red nose, and calm brown eyes. He blinked at Fergus sleepily and said with a wry grin, ‘About the time it might take us to get to the moon. We canny go like the clappers o’ hell in mist like this. What ails you, McKenzie?’

  ‘Not me, it’s Kirsteen. I think she’s sta
rted to go into labour.’

  Captain Mac’s eyes twinkled and he slapped his knee. ‘Bugger me, would that not be a fine thing for you? The first twins ever to be born on board the old girl and myself acting as chief midwife. I tell you it would give me something to tell my grandchildren and the lads would make a fine tale of it at the ceilidhs . . .’

  He was brought to an abrupt halt as Fergus gripped his arm painfully. ‘Bugger your grandchildren and your ceilidhs! My wife isn’t some sort of object in a circus. I want you to turn back – to Rhanna – now.’

  ‘Ach, get a hold of yourself, man,’ Captain Mac said somewhat peevishly. ‘If you must know I was just about to give the orders to turn back for I am no’ daft enough to think we’ll ever make anything o’ it in this kind o’ weather.’ He glanced at Fergus reproachfully. ‘By God, you’re a de’il o’ a man when you’re fighting for your own – but . . .’ he was remembering how Fergus had lost his first wife. ‘I admire you for saying outright just what’s in that stubborn buggering mind o’ yours.’

  He glanced at his abused and battered clock on the shelf. ‘I tell you what, son, that old witch Behag should just be opening the Post Office by now. How would it be if I get a message through to her on that wireless contraption thing o’ hers? The old bugger will spread the news about before you can undo your fly, but at least she can alert Lachlan that we are coming back and that bonny wee Kirsteen will get attention the minute we get to shore.’

  Fergus gripped his shoulder. ‘Thanks, Mac, that’s a grand idea, we’ll share a bottle next time you’re in port – celebrate in style.’

  Captain Mac chuckled heartily. ‘Ach, I won’t be waiting for the next time. I’m for a good celebration tonight. If the mist holds I’ll get along to Tam’s for a taste o’ his cough mixture. My first grandson was born last week and I have wet his head so much I doubt I’ve maybe drowned the poor wee mannie.’

  When Fergus arrived back at his cabin, it was to wonder what sort of telepathy existed among women for there was Kate and Mollie filling the air with sanguine utterances while they took turns at rubbing Kirsteen’s back. Kate’s big capable hands squeezed and pummelled till Kirsteen protested but Kate would have none of it. ‘Weesht you now,’ she ordered authoritatively. ‘I’m an expert on matters like these, for haven’t I went through it often enough, and the last time on my own wi’ never so much as a pat on my bum to help me on – ach, Nancy was there right enough but she was only a bairn herself and could do little more than gape at my sufferings – near died I did, but the Lord pulled me through – wi’ a good bit o’ co-operation from myself o’ course. Did I tell you how?’