Authors: Bob Atkinson
“Hand,” he told her.
Ishbel nodded. “
Lamh
.”
“Hand.”
“
Lamh
,” she insisted, with a mischievous
grin.
Andy laughed at the spirit of the girl. “
Lamh
,”
he conceded.
She smiled at the way he’d allowed her to win
the game, and began to chatter softly at him, filling the silence with her
gentle maunderings. She made little popping noises with her mouth, and let go
of his hand to point an imaginary weapon at the doorway:
“Pchoow… Pchoow… Pchoow.”
He realised she was reliving the events of the
night they’d met. In her eyes Andy could see something of the terror she had
felt. He took her hand in his once more, and as he did, Ishbel moved closer and
nestled herself under his left arm, her head resting on his chest. Andy
wondered if she could hear the frantic racing of his heart, or smell his
primitive male fear.
For a long time she seemed content to remain in
this half-embrace, her face hidden from view. Next door her people were singing
another slow, mournful song, the melody faintly familiar to Andy. Before it was
over, Ishbel was humming along, dreamily swinging one tartan-clad leg after the
other.
With his free hand Andy gently traced her thick,
dark hair. His touch was so light he barely made contact with her. He could
detect a faint odour from Ishbel’s hair, and indeed from Ishbel herself. The
odour was far from unpleasant and was like something natural and unsullied,
like the raw scent of a dog or cat. The unfamiliar form that had found its way
into Andy’s personal space was becoming less unfamiliar by the minute, and he
wondered if he should dare to hope that she felt the same sense of intimacy he
felt.
Her fingers discovered the edges of a scar that
extended from one side of Andy’s palm to the other. She pulled away so she
could swing around and face him again.
“
Cleadh mhor
?” she asked.
Andy nodded stoically. He’d actually cut himself
with a kitchen knife during a drunken escapade. But he’d bled like a stuck pig,
and it couldn’t have hurt any more if he
had
been slashed by a claymore.
She lifted the scarred flesh to her lips and
applied the balm of a maiden’s kiss.
“
Poch
,” she told him.
Andy felt her breath on his skin, as if a
butterfly had risen into the air.
“Kiss.”
“Kiss,” she echoed, her eyes now fixed
expectantly on his. After a few moments she tutted impatiently and leaned
forward to kiss her dilatory suitor. Her lips barely made contact with his. He
decided that convention demanded he make the all-important move. Only then did
he finally allow himself to taste the sweet, natural flavour of her. And as his
heart began to race once more, and his sense of self became strangely blurred,
he wondered how he could feel so much a part of someone he knew almost nothing
about.
Andy had no idea how long he held her like this,
drawing the warmth of her being into his soul, aware of the familiar and oddly
intrusive stirring in his loins, before he became aware of a coughing sound
coming from the far corner. For a moment he thought they were being watched by
a Peeping Tom, but when he saw Ishbel’s annoyance he realised they were being
attended by a chaperone. The fit of bronchitis ended as soon as the couple
broke off their embrace.
Outside, Andy could hear the wake following its
traditional pattern. Having begun as a memorial to the dead, it had then moved
on to being a celebration of their lives. Now it had entered its final stages
where it was simply an obscene celebration. He could hear the wild screech of
the Highland fiddle as it led the festivities.
Ishbel suddenly grabbed him by the hand and
rushed him out of the doorway and towards Alistair’s cottage. The building was
heaving with bodies, most of them caught up in a strange, primitive dance. Andy
began to make for the sanctuary of Alistair’s corner, and almost had his
shoulder dislocated as Ishbel dragged him into the swirling mob. This was like
no Highland dance that Andy knew. Their steps were wild and extravagant, their
arms held rigidly by their sides.
Ishbel was like a wild, untamed creature
celebrating the culture that had produced her, drawing as much from the dance
as from Andy’s efforts to imitate her. Amid the tumult he recognised faces that
had been raw and tear-stained the last time he’d seen them, and for the first
time he began to see beyond the apparent obscenity of the Gaelic wake.
The last screech was dragged from the fiddle and
the spell that had driven the people into such frenzy was broken. Ishbel hugged
her partner excitedly before pulling him through the crowd towards a little
knot of people at the far end of the room. Andy recognised Achnacon’s wife,
Mhairi, and their other daughter, Shona. Achnacon was there too, a glass of
amber fluid in his hand. Ishbel chattered breathlessly at them, her hand
clasped in his. Andy watched their eyes flick from their daughter to him and
then back again. Where the hell was Macsorley when he needed him?
Achnacon handed his whisky glass to his wife
with such care that it might as well have contained nitroglycerine. Then he
grasped the soldier with both arms and lifted him off his feet in a bear hug.
“ ’Twas a grand day for Achnacon when yourself
entered our lifes, even if yourself did see fit to enter by the byre.”
A glass of the dreaded
uisge beatha
was
thrust into Andy’s hand. He looked to Ishbel for help, but she seemed delighted
by her father’s reaction, and waited for him to accept the offering. He emptied
the glass in one suicidal swallow and felt the nitroglycerine detonate in his
stomach.
“Aw Gawd…” He gasped for air, trying to extinguish
the flames. “Aw Gawd Almighty…”
Achnacon clapped the soldier’s back. “Enjoy the
pain, my friend, manys a one in the cold earth would be grateful for such
pain.”
Andy waited until the fires began to subside.
Already he could feel the raw alcohol surging into his brain.
“ ’Tis the brew of Larachmor. Himself alone
dares distil the
uisge beatha
four times.”
Andy laughed as if he’d been the victim of a
practical joke. “Ah should’ve known. Larachmor said he was gonnae nail me,
right enough.”
Achnacon seemed to understand the irony. “You
will have another, of course.”
Andy shook his head. Already he could feel that
first numbing of his tongue, and knew what would follow: The slurred speech;
the need to be everybody’s pal; crashing into tables; unconsciousness. Oh God,
no, not tonight of all nights.
The Highlander was insulted. “Yourself would not
be one of those queer creatures who turn their noses up at the
uisge beatha
?”
Achnacon’s wife interceded then, and the
Highlander nodded and drew back. For the first time Andy saw a look of approval
on her face. He wondered if the chaperone had still to submit a report.
The wild squeal of the fiddle reanimated the
crowd. They formed themselves into parallel lines, ready to launch into the
next dance. Ishbel tugged at Andy’s hand, but as he prepared to be led off
Achnacon took him by the arm. Andy thought he was about to have a shot fired
across his bow, but the expression on the old man’s face was one of concern
rather than menace.
“You will allow some advice from an old head, my
friend; ’tis unwise to be giving a lassie free rein. My Ishbel is a grand lass,
but herself is like her mother, she is wilful and headstrong. Women is like
horses, young Andy; a man must show who is master from the very first day.”
Perhaps to emphasise the point, his daughter
hauled the soldier away from her father and into the sea of bodies. Andy
laughed at the spirit of Achnacon’s unbroken filly. He decided he’d leave the
horse breaking to others. Besides, he might have been more impressed if her
father hadn’t lowered his voice to prevent his wife from overhearing.
The dance was a predecessor of the notorious
‘strip the willow’. The Highlanders’ version, however, was a more graceful
affair than the coarse mêlée Andy knew. He was only dimly aware of the museum
of long-ago faces and ancient costumes that swirled before him, like images
from a Burns poem. His eyes never left the wild and untamed daughter of
Achnacon as she whirled and pirouetted around him, her face alight with the
simple joy of living.
It was only when the music finished that Andy
realised Shawnee and Sam had been drawn into the dance beside them. Shawnee was
jumping up and down with unexpended energy. Excitedly she threw her arms around
the soldier.
“Isn’t it just fantastic? I had no idea it could
be as exhilarating as this.”
Shawnee looked beyond Andy to the dishevelled
beauty standing behind him, her breasts still heaving from the dance.
“Oh my God, Andy, she is so pretty.” She
stretched out her hand as though trying to touch some timid creature. Ishbel’s
eyes flashed menacingly. She stepped towards Andy and linked her arms in his.
“Oh, honey, I’m no threat to you,” said Shawnee.
She put her arms around Sam and kissed him on the mouth. “See? This is Sam;
y’understand? Sam? He’s a little sweaty and he’s not too bright at times, but
he’s mine, same as Andy is yours.” She looked at Macmillan. “Oh, Andy, she’s
absolutely gorgeous.”
Here was a word Ishbel understood. She touched
her heart and traced a circle around her partner’s face. “Gorcheous,” she said
firmly.
“Ah taught her that,” said Andy.
Ishbel then performed a little curtsy before
Shawnee, walked over to Sam and threw her arms around him.
The American was taken by surprise, but he
quickly recovered his wits. “Sorry about this, big guy. Either y’got it, or
y’don’t.”
Ishbel returned to Andy’s side with a
retaliatory sniff.
Shawnee laughed delightedly. “I guess that puts
me in my place.” She returned Ishbel’s curtsy. “I hope we’re gonna be friends,
honey; apart from anything else, I’m gonna be needing a coupla bridesmaids
soon.”
Andy resisted the temptation to give Shawnee a
congratulatory hug.
Andy woke to the whispers of the women
preparing breakfast, and the ever-present tang of peat smoke. He knew at once
where he was. Such impressions were imprinted so powerfully upon his mind he
had difficulty remembering any other reality.
His head hurt like hell. He should never have
accepted all those drams after Ishbel had left with her family; but he’d had to
help Sam and Shawnee celebrate their engagement.
He opened one bleary eye, and decided his
enflamed optic nerves weren’t ready for daylight yet. He wondered if the
Highlanders had a cure for a hangover, some herbs or plants perhaps. Maybe they
reverted to the dark alchemy of their pagan ancestors:
’Tis like this,
first you kiss the head of a life toad, then you bury the creature in the
centre of a dung heap.
Perhaps their insides were so well preserved by
the raw spirit they poured down their throats they were immune to hangovers.
God, his head hurt.
He’d dreamed of Ishbel during the night.
Ishbel
.
Ishbel Cameron
of
Glen Laragain.
Ishbel Macmillan of Glen Laragain?
In his dream Ishbel spoke English, but with an
American accent. He’d taken her home to Stirling to meet his mother. He hadn’t
seen his mother for years, and she was sitting outside the family home, wearing
a bright red coat.
Sort that one out, Sigmund Freud.
Ishbel
. He tried
to remember at what point he’d stopped being Andy Macmillan, and had become
part of this new individual called Andy and Ishbel. When they’d kissed? When
he’d first held her? Could it even have been the first moment he’d set eyes on
her? She’d been so taciturn then, keeping herself secret and hidden; but
beneath Ishbel’s attractive exterior had lain a complex character; elegant and
fiery, assured and childlike. She could be overbearing,
and
she had the
irritating habit of insisting he learn the Gaelic equivalent of every word he
taught her. But, oh God, how he’d come to love her little secret smile, and the
way she held his gaze at every opportunity.
Long before the end of the wake Ishbel’s mother
insisted the family leave while the master of the house remained on his feet.
Andy had helped load Achnacon onto one of the makeshift hearses, and had stood
listening to the clip clop of the little garron’s hooves until they’d
disappeared into the night. Then he’d gone back into the cottage and joined the
two Americans.
Rhona had returned to the cottage as most of the
mourners were making their way home. She made it clear she had no interest in
merrymaking. She’d spoken at length to Colin before approaching Shawnee, Sam
and Andy.
“You sure you’re doing the right thing, honey?”
Shawnee had asked her.
“There is nothing here for myself now,” Rhona
replied bleakly. “All that remains of my family is at Drummossie preparing for
a battle Muirshearlach says will destroy the clans. Perhaps if ourselfs are
fortunate we may forestall this disaster.”