Bruach Blend by Lillian Beckwith Page A

to guess at the subject of the writing and I wondered how much of the contents of the play Kirsty had felt inclined to divulge. I wondered too how explicitly descriptive the writing would have to be to so distress a minister-worshipping and rigidly pious spinster like Kirsty. ‘It’s upset her that much she’s not been able to bring herself to even look at his bed since, never mind make it for him, she’s after tellin’ me,’ Morag continued. ‘She has to get young Annac to see to it for her.…’
    â€˜She’s not likely to be wanting him to come back next year,’ I observed.
    â€˜No indeed,’ agreed Morag. ‘It’s a wonder to me the cushions officers haven’t been out after him.’ I waited for her to elucidate, knowing it would soon come. ‘If they’re against us makin’ ourselves a wee drop of whisky why wouldn’t they be against a man for writin’ the things he was after writin’? There’s more harm in that to my way of thinkin’.’
    We sat together staring contemplatively at the startled-looking sea wavelets racing before the fresh breeze; at the clean carved shapes of the islands; at the gently blue sky strewn with clouds that looked as soft and inviting as white fur rugs; at mists lit with rainbows and mountains silvered with sunlight. Morag turned to me. ‘You would wonder, mo ghaoil, would you not, what like of man would come to a place like Bruach to write a play about dirty people in London?’ she asked.

4. Fisherman Willy
    â€˜It’s back to the herrin’ for me next week, if I’m spared,’ said Willy with a yawn and as much of a stretch as he could manage in the confines of the wooden armchair.
    â€˜Is that so?’ asked Murdoch.
    â€˜Aye,’ Willy confirmed. ‘I’m away on the bus in the mornin’.’ He screwed himself round to face Johnny, the bus driver, who was sitting pincered between Erchy and Hector on a low wooden stool which might comfortably have accommodated two small children, ‘See now an’ don’t go without me,’ he warned.
    â€˜You will need to be there in plenty time, then,’ Johnny told him. ‘Ruari Hamish has lobsters an’ crabs to go away an’ there’s venison to be sent to the laird. They’ll keep me back loadin’ them so I’ll need to be away early to make up the time.’ He looked down at the floor as he was speaking so that Willy should not see the twinkle in his eyes. But Willy was not to be fooled. His own eyes, shiny and speckled as black opals, fixed Johnny briefly before he turned away. ‘Ach, to hell with you,’ he replied affably.
    Though he was a native of Bruach, the village saw little of Willy except between seasons when the fishing boat on which he crewed was laid up for overhaul and painting. To all intents and purposes Willy had forsaken Bruach; rejected the culture and traditions of the croft and had become a mainland-based fisherman, worldly and rough-edged. However, when he made his periodic visits home, to placate his elderly parents who still worked and cherished their small croft, he went through the motions of conforming to the faith and dogma imposed on him by his upbringing, but his attitude was too patently cynical, his observations too glibly satirical, to deceive any but those who wished to be deceived or, as in the Bruach idiom, ‘those who would not be seem”. Nevertheless Bruach still regarded Willy as a son of the croft and welcomed him accordingly, particularly at the ceilidhs during the long dark winter evenings when, for the crofters, gossip and story-telling and singing were the only means of passing the time. Willy brought not just news of fishing to kindle the memories of the old men who had been fishermen in their youth but mainland news and anecdotes; stories which never reached the newspapers even had the newspapers reached Bruach, and