Stranger on Rhanna Read online

  He smiled at the look on her face. ‘Your mouth needed that kiss as much as mine did. Don’t worry, it will not happen too often, only when you tempt me beyond endurance. I am aware of your married status, Frau Rachel, and I am not the sort to come between a man and his wife.’

  For the first time in his presence she smiled, the radiance of it lighting her face.

  He nodded. ‘I will tell you what you must have heard a hundred, no – a thousand times, your smile, it is enchanting, a delight to behold, your face in repose haunts the heart, and as I have no desire to be haunted by you or anyone else, I wish for you to keep on your face, the smile. Ah, little Rachel, if only you could speak to me, this conversation is very one-sided. Show me something, some gesture, some word, that will let me know what you are feeling, thinking.’

  She reddened, communication with those who didn’t understand the signals of her hands always seemed so hopeless and she stood there, nonplussed, feeling more helpless than she had ever done in her life before. She shivered. It was cold in the room, the smoke that she had noticed coming from the chimney had promised warmth, but was in fact only arising from a large lump of damp driftwood that smouldered unproductively in the dismal grate

  ‘The house, it is cold.’ He spread his hands and shook his head. ‘I am a poor housekeeper, I play the piano yes, but the fire to light, no. Tina does it for me when she comes to make lunch but today I thought to surprise her by doing it myself. Since the arrival of Eve’s baby, Tina has much to do and I have no wish to become a nuisance to her.’

  It was Rachel’s turn to take over. Throwing him a mischievous glance, she took his hand, led him to a chair and made him sit in it before she went out of the room. In the back porch she found kindling, coal, a shovel and a zinc bucket. On a shelf in the kitchen cupboard she discovered a hoard of old newspapers and one of Tina’s aprons hanging behind the door. Piling everything into the bucket, she returned to the sitting room where he still remained seated, an expression of amusement on his face.

  Removing her jacket, she donned the apron, signalled for him to observe what she was doing, then knelt before the grate to gingerly lift out the smouldering log, which she placed on the hearth. Next she riddled out choked cinders and ash which she shovelled into the bucket. Very carefully she piled paper, sticks and small pieces of coal on top of one another, applied a match and in minutes a cheerful blaze was leaping up the lum.

  ‘Voilà!’ he cried in delight, his strong face sparkling. ‘You have many talents, mein Frau. Would your admiring fans ever guess, seeing you in your jewels and your finery, that the dazzling young violinist can change herself back into a Cinderella with just the flick of a match?’

  She threw him a glance of reproach and he had the grace to look ashamed. ‘But of course, I forgot, you are an island girl, you knew these things from the cradle. How fortunate, to be great and yet to be humble, you would survive where I would perish. Now look at us, Vienna sits by the flames warming her pretty little toes, I, too, sit but I have learned how to light fires, and you, you have black hands and soot on your nose.’

  He stood up and took one of her dirty hands. ‘Come, you will wash, I will make us a hot drink – no, not the famous Oxo of Herr Tam’s stories, I make better cocoa. When we have cleaned and warmed ourselves and drunk my lovely cocoa I shall play for you, anything you want to hear, and I promise you won’t have to stand outside of my window like the little match girl: you will be inside, warm, and dry and fed – just like my Vienna.’

  They laughed, they had a wonderful time. When Tina came puffing in to attend to her belated duties she found the pair of them ensconced together on the couch, heads bent over pages of music scores, which also littered the table and spilled on to the floor and on top of the cat, who, blissfully asleep by the fire, was oblivious to everything.

  Tina stared at the cosy hearth. ‘Och, Mr Klebb, you’ve lit the fire!’ Her pink pleasant face was dismayed. ‘Surely to goodness that is no job for a gentleman!’

  ‘Frau Tina, don’t fash yourself,’ he grinned, delighted at having the opportunity to air one of Tina’s own expressions, ‘a gentleman didn’t light it, a lady did, this young lady. She got down on her hands and knees and in minutes the blaze was leaping. I observe, I know now how to do it, the burdens of looking after me will be one less.’

  ‘Ach, you have never been any bother to me, Mr Klebb, but wi’ Eve just having the baby I canny have her doing too much in the house, so you’ll have to excuse me if I am sometimes a wee bittie late in coming over here.’

  She couldn’t keep the the pride from her voice. Little Matthew John’s arrival into the world had caused a great stir of excitement. Tina had never been so rushed as she attended to her daughter, saw to the baby and ‘did’ for Otto. But she didn’t mind. Her life had meaning again, the house was no longer the quiet place it had been since the death of her husband Matthew, and she hummed a lilting, tuneless little tune as she went through to the kitchen to see to Otto’s lunch.

  ‘Stay and have some with me,’ Otto said to Rachel. ‘Tina always makes too much for me and Vienna is growing fat with all the scraps I give her.’

  Rachel barely hesitated before she accepted. She forgot all about her promise to have lunch with Ruth and Lorn at Fàilte, not till the afternoon was halfway through did she remember and by then it was too late.

  When Rachel finally appeared after tea, full of apologies and of her time spent with Otto, Ruth looked at Lorn but held her tongue. She had seen that look on Rachel’s face before and remembered it only too well. Lorn remembered, too, and turned his head away in shame, not wishing to be reminded of that turbulent affair he had had with Rachel behind Ruth’s back.

  But Ruth wasn’t going to let go so easily. That night, when the children were in bed and it was just herself and Lorn in the house, there was a strange expression in her violet eyes when she faced him. ‘It’s happening again, Lorn,’ she said slowly. ‘Rachel has that special glow about her when she’s getting up to something she shouldn’t – usually wi’ a man,’ she ended bitterly.

  Lorn wriggled uncomfortably. ‘Och, come on, Ruthie, how can you say that? She and Otto have a lot in common, that’s all, she’s missing Jon and has grown tired o’ her own company.’

  ‘Ay,’ Ruth spoke slowly, thoughtfully, ‘just like you and she had a lot in common when I was away and poor Jon had to leave her to her own devices for a while. She tires o’ her own company quickly, does Rachel. I wonder if she and Jon had a row and she’s not saying anything. Look at the strange way she behaved when she came home, no’ saying a word to anyone, just creeping on to the island like a thief in the night.’

  ‘That’s it, isn’t it, Ruthie?’ Lorn’s face was flushed, he hadn’t liked being reminded of his affair with Rachel and privately he thought that whenever she appeared she always seemed to cause trouble of one sort or another. ‘You’re still mad at her for no’ telling you that she was coming. And another thing,’ he hid his discomfort in anger, ‘you’re beginning to sound like old Behag! Surmising things that might never have happened or are ever likely to happen. Just because Rachel is attractive to men doesny mean that she wants to pounce on everything in trousers, she has too much sense in her head for that.’

  He had said all the wrong things. Ruth’s face was like thunder. Shaking back her fair hair from her face she said through tight lips, ‘Ay, Lorn, you of all people should know how attractive she is to men, and the pair o’ you had no sense at all in your heads when you tumbled in the heather for all the world to see! As for trousers! Rachel prefers men in the kilt, they’re more available – in every way.’ Her face red with temper, she went on, ‘When we used to play together as children it was a favourite game o’ Rachel’s to try and look up men’s kilts to see what was going on up there. Not even the old men were safe from Rachel’s prying eyes and to this day, whenever she’s around, old Colin of Rumhor gives her a wide berth. Maybe he’s feart she’ll try to find out how he managed to father six
children wearing his threadbare kilt when Jon in his perfectly presentable trousers can give her none!’

  Normally Lorn would have thrown back his head and laughed uproariously at that, but tonight neither he nor she were in a laughing mood and the pair of them retired to bed in the highest dudgeon to lie back to back, as far from one another as possible.

  After that day Rachel was a regular visitor at Tigh na Cladach. In order to get there she had to go through the village of Portcull, on foot or on Ranald’s bicycle, or she walked there via the beach. Either way she soon had the curtains twitching and the tongues wagging, but, being Rachel, she held her head high and went on her way regardless.

  ‘Arrogant, aye was, as brazen as her mother and a bit more besides,’ sniffed Behag, who, fully recovered from her accident, was very definitely making up for lost time. She might have chosen to prolong her convalescence had it been to her advantage, but on the day that Holy Smoke brought an enormous bunch of daffodils instead of the usual parcel of meat she knew it was time to let go of a good thing.

  ‘As long as he gets them for nothing he’ll bring you flowers till the house looks and smells like a funeral parlour,’ Kate had said with a smirk.

  ‘It was kind of Mr McKnight to pick the flowers from his own garden,’ Behag had said huffily, more in defence of herself than the butcher. ‘At least he paid me some attention while I was laid up wi’ my ankle – more than I can say for some.’

  ‘Attention!’ Kate had hooted derisively. ‘The daft bugger was feart you would sue him for your ankle and fine you know it. Don’t forget, I was in his shop the day you hobbled in wi’ your arms that tight round his neck I thought you would choke the life out o’ him. At first I thought maybe you were lettin’ your passions run away wi’ you and had given in to him at last, but no, we’ll have to wait a whilie yet for that to happen. In the meantime you got your money’s worth from the poor bodach, and now instead o’ steak it’s flowers, which I saw him takin’ out the kirk, wi’ my very own eyes. He’ll be robbin’ the kirkyard next, just to keep you going, for nothing but weeds grow in that neglected garden o’ his.’

  Seeing Behag’s downcast face, she relented. ‘Ach, you were quite right to get as much as you could out the mean sod but don’t be too clever if you know what’s good for you. Give him an inch and he’ll take a mile and if he goes on bringin’ you bunches o’ second-hand daffodils there might just be a marriage proposal at the end o’ it. Holy Smoke aye has his eye on chance and this is a nice wee house you have here, Behag. If he thought he could save a bob or two he would marry you, just to move in here and let his own crofthouse out to the towrists.’

  Behag was aghast; in next to no time she was scuttling about as if nothing had ever happened to her ankle. When Holy Smoke appeared next day behind an even larger bunch of flowers, she snatched them from him, and told him that her ankle had ‘knitted nicely’ and that she would be putting the flowers in kirk in time for the Sabbath as someone had been stealing the floral arrangements from the altar – ‘and may the Lord have mercy on his soul,’ she had added as a wicked afterthought.

  His face on hearing that was a picture and she had wallowed in the satisfaction of seeing him sprachle away down the brae as fast as his legs would carry him.

  Breathing a sigh of relief and feeling that she had escaped his clutches in the nick of time, she returned to the firing line of everyday affairs, and only just in time too. Things were happening on the island, so much so that the activities of Elspeth and Captain Mac, which so far had been disappointingly sluggish, could keep for a while. The ‘stranger mannie’ and ‘that Rachel Jodl’ were a much more intriguing pair and so Behag returned to the fray, fully restored to health and her tongue in ‘fine fettle’ as old Sorcha so aptly put it.

  In the midst of all the talk, Otto and Rachel, locked in their own little world of music and magic, were hardly aware of the stir their relationship had engendered, until Tina, who loved them both, decided that it was high time they did.

  So one day, ‘Mr Otto’ as he had become to those who felt that to address him solely by his Christian name was taking too much of a liberty, found himself confronted by a very embarrassed Tina, pink in the face but nevertheless determined to have her say.

  ‘Mr Otto,’ she began, keeping her lovely languid eyes firmly fixed on the view of Sgurr nan Ruadh outside the front window, ‘I know it is really none o’ my business, and if it was just me I wouldny say anything that might hurt you, but I think it is only right you should know that folks are talking about you and Rachel behind your backs.’

  ‘Talking about us, Tina?’ he repeated, his brow furrowed in puzzlement.

  ‘Ay, talking about you, Mr Otto.’ Nervously she caught a strand of flyaway hair and tucked it into the elastic band that was holding together an untidy ponytail. ‘Rhanna is just a tiny wee island and some o’ the nosier folk make it their business to take an interest in what other folks are doing. Rachel is a bonny lass and you, Mr Otto, if you don’t mind me saying so, are a very striking-looking man and wi’ her being married it just doesny seem right for the pair o’ you to be seen spending so much time together. I don’t know what your wife would have to say if she found out about it but I know what Jon would think if he saw you laughing and enjoying yourselves together the way you do.’

  ‘Tina,’ taking her hands he shook his head as he looked down at her from his considerable height, ‘my wife I don’t have anymore, and even if I did, myself and Frau Rachel have done nothing to be ashamed of. If Herr Jon came here tomorrow he would have no cause for jealousy, I assure you. I am aware of his wife’s beauty, what man wouldn’t be? But we have much in common, Frau Rachel and I, we laugh because we enjoy the same things, we make good music together but that doesn’t mean that we also make love behind the scenes. If people want to talk about the things they make up in their heads then so be it. I will not forbid my little Rachel to come here because to do so would make nasty feelings between us and I will not spoil a young woman’s happiness for the sake of the idle tongues. So you see, little Tina, you must not worry anymore about us, there is nothing to worry about.’

  Tina, red with shame and discomfiture, was saved further embarrassment by the arrival of both Rachel and Eve. Up the path they came together, fair-haired Eve fully recovered from the birth of her son, raven-haired Rachel, breathless and laughing, having run to catch up with Eve on the road.

  Otto was entranced by Eve’s baby and as soon as she came over the threshold he took the little boy from her and began to croon to him.

  ‘Look, he listens, he enjoys my terrible singing!’ laughed the big man in delight. ‘Everyone should have babies, I wanted dozens but, alas, it was not to be . . .’

  He caught the warning look on Eve’s face but it was too late. Quickly he glanced at Rachel and saw there the stark longings of a young woman who ached to have children but whose arms remained empty.

  Later, when it was just he and she alone in the house, he took her face in his gentle hands and gazed deep into her eyes. ‘My little one,’ he said, his soothing voice low and tender, ‘forgive me. I did not know of your yearnings to have children. But you are young, there is plenty of time, before you know it there will be one, two, even three babies in your life. Believe me, it will be so.’

  She looked at him for a long time; there was pain in her heart but there was hope as well. This dear wonderful man, with his fierce manner and generous heart, had become her mentor, her friend, and her trusted companion. If he said she would have babies then she believed him.

  His hands were warm against her face, she felt the power and the passion that was strong within him. ‘Her beloved stranger’: in her heart that was how she thought of him, how she would always think of him now. Something so poignant seized her she was shaken by the tug it had on her emotions and she turned her face away from him so that he wouldn’t see the sadness staring stark and painful from her eyes.

  Part Two

  EARLY SUMMER 1967

>   Chapter Nine

  It had been cold and wet during the early part of spring but now, as the days lengthened, they became warm and golden, filled with the promise of new life and hope. Slowly the fresh young grasses and heather shoots emerged from the tangle of winter browns and reds on the hills; roe deer and rabbits feasted on the tender new shoots; lambs gambolled and played in the fields; the skylarks spiralled upwards to hover in the blue yonder, spilling out their trembling notes of ecstatic song.

  Green mattresses of machair became covered in thousands of yellow buttercups that danced in the breezes and seemed to drape the earth in sunshine, while acres of tiny white daisies were like patches of snow spread over the landscape. The scent of flowering gorse hung sweetly in the air, drowning the senses like heady wine; the great blue ribbon that was the Sound of Rhanna sparkled and shimmered in the sun, and in the calm shallows, the children on their Easter holidays splashed and danced, grew brown and healthy, and wished that some disaster might overtake the school so that its portals would remain closed for many moons to come.

  Dodie’s cockerels crowed loudly from dawn till dusk, driving Wullie and Mairi McKinnon so crazy they spent the greater part of each day thinking out ways to rid themselves of the nuisance. Something would have to be done, they told one another, but for the moment they couldn’t think what form that something would take, short of braining Dodie and shooting his blasted birds into hell!