She would whisper me to sleep in my bed.
I was closest to Irene. She was nearest to me in age. Irene was a serene girl. It quickly became apparent to me that Morag regarded her as special. I’m certain she loved us all in her own gruff way, but it was as if Irene were her own daughter. It was touching to watch the solemn child interacting with this childless woman. It was new territory for them both. Irene and I would remain close until our teens, when she was abruptly removed from Quarriers after reporting that she had been physically beaten. Having to deal with our shared abuse and facing up to our abusers brought us close together, but for the moment we were safe from the future, distanced by geography and time from the bad days that lay ahead.
James, or Jimmy, was the joker, an incorrigible youth who enticed me into the barn one day to exhibit a country skill that I would have no problem in leaving behind me when I eventually left Uist.
‘Look!’ he said, holding out a pillowcase that was squirming alarmingly. ‘I have something to show you.’ He opened the bag to reveal a chicken. ‘Watch,’ he said, pulling the head off the chicken and throwing the quivering carcass at my feet.
I ran for my life, mouthing silent screams, to the echo of Jimmy’s laughter. I believe Jimmy quite liked wringing chickens’ necks, an everyday pursuit in the country, but a definite character flaw where we had come from.
Johnny was the oldest, older than me by six years. Poor Johnny had suffered, and it showed, God love him. He apparently took the worst of the beatings from our father and his sleep would be for ever broken by nightmares that caused him to wet the bed. He would be mortified and the usually sanguine Morag would be furious. Johnny would have to wash himself and his sheets in cold water from the pump at the side of the house. My brother never talked about it, but we could sense his pain, which resulted from the torment inflicted on him by my wicked father. He was, however, a good person. During the eerie night hours, when the world was filled by strange noises and animal songs, he would be the first to comfort me.
Life was good, but there were legacies from our old existence. My brothers and sisters were all afraid of the dark, thanks to our less than loving father. When we lived in Kennedy Street, he invariably chose to arrive late at night, when he was in a drunk and violent mood. He would rouse the boys from their sleep and challenge them to fight. Morag understood our distress and provided us with paraffin Tilley lamps. That light saved us from the darkness.
Morag was kindness personified, but even that good woman would not allow herself to be seen to be spoiling the Whelan brood with such fripperies as chocolate. I’m certain, however, that she had a deal going with soft-touch Willie. He would often call us into the barn and ceremoniously close the door after ensuring, somewhat theatrically, that his wife was out of earshot. Bars of Cadbury’s Dairy Milk would appear as if by magic from his dungaree pocket. As he broke up the chocolate into equal shares, he would say, ‘Wheesht now. Don’t tell Morag. She’ll have my guts if she finds out I’ve been spoiling you.’ We would wolf down the chocolate, promising never to reveal our secret.
Soon after, I would be required to keep other secrets, terrible secrets, but I still delight in the ones we shared with Willie, a good and honest man.
Long before we returned to the bad times, the croft would echo to our laughter. We were content. Life was anything but easy. Morag and Willie were disciplinarians, insisting on the maintenance of Christian values that were adhered to strictly. The Sabbath is a big day in the Hebrides, the last bastion of Presbyterianism. No games were allowed, no playing, no washing on the line, no radio. Reading the Bible was the only recreation permitted. In spite of being nominally a Protestant, something in my Irish Catholic genes railed against the notion. I was content to go along with it, though.
On the Sabbath, we went to church three times. The Reverend Ian MacDonald had a particular talent for making scripture as unutterably boring as it could possibly be. Hollywood may have by that time injected high drama into the Old Testament tales of Moses and Samson, but the Reverend Ian could not. I recall there was much talk of heathens, hellfire and damnation.
The church was fashioned from grey stone as dull as his sermons. It was typically Protestant, devoid of decoration. There were no statues, paintings or stained glass to reflect a rainbow of colours that might have illuminated the Reverend Ian’s dreary monologue. I prayed for the day the strong gusts of Atlantic wind might blow off the corrugated-iron roof. It was as cold inside as it was outside and our legs required to be swung to and fro to maintain circulation. This did not please Morag. ‘Don’t think God doesn’t see you, Davie Whelan – playing instead of praying.’
There would be a brief, if welcome, respite for lunch before afternoon Sunday school. The final service at 6.30 p.m. was mercifully shorter than the morning version. I never worked out why God required our presence three times on a Sunday. Morag declared it to be representative of His love. God must have loved us an awful lot.
School was just as stern, although even our teacher, ‘Corky’ – more properly Miss McCorquodale – could show compassion to young boys. In one of my small acts of rebellion I was sucking a gobstopper during a lesson when it lodged in my throat and I began choking. The teacher was clearly not familiar with the subtleties of the Heimlich manoeuvre, so she bent me over and started beating me on the back. When that failed to dislodge the offending confection, she proceeded to stuff her fingers down my throat in an effort to make me sick. Blue in the face, I vomited the sweet and watched as the gobstopper, red and magnificent, clattered to the floor and smashed to smithereens. I had been so enjoying it.
‘That’ll teach you,’ said Corky, rather unsympathetically, I thought.
There is little room in the island mentality for moral weakness or gobstoppers. I believe moral weakness was expected of us – we were the ‘city slickers’, for ever the outsiders, but we were strangers who were exotic and welcomed because of it. Even our surname set us apart among friends with names such as Mary McIntosh, Alistair McDougall, Donald Archie McKay, Susan McCluskey and the gloriously named Marina Sherwood. There were also more MacDonalds than you could shake a stick at.
Many of the children arrived at the village school in boats, which fascinated me no end. It was Irene’s job to ring the big hand bell that demanded they come to class, a task she performed with relish. Mr Blance, the headmaster, ruled with a rod of iron over the proceedings, and while the tawse – a leather belt used for corporal punishment – stayed in his desk drawer mostly, the threat of it was ever present.
My introduction to the Gaelic had already begun around Morag’s great Aga, but it was reinforced every morning as I passed the wall chart that recorded the days of the week and numbers up to 10 in both languages. Despite our being different from these uncomplicated island folk, so secure in their heritage and place in the world, they welcomed us with their revered Highland hospitality. Long days passed in an atmosphere of kindness and laughter.
It wasn’t all drifting along on fluffy white clouds, however. Youngsters of today could not conceive of children, from the youngest to the eldest, working in the fields – the back-breaking work of scything hay and cutting peat until the blisters on your hands are transformed into calluses. I can feel them still today.
If Morag ruled the home, Willie’s domain was the fields. Willie was a typical crofter, forever mucking out, herding cattle and shearing sheep. His sheepdog, Tidy, would round up Billy and his ilk, answering Willie’s every shrill whistle of command. When he was not tending animals, Willie would deploy his enormous strength to the crops. He could swing the scythe through hay as if he were cutting tissue paper. Willie appeared to work every daylight hour that God sent. When the Aga in the kitchen was not providing food, it was drying his outer clothes after a day in the elements.
He had one despicable bad habit that to this day makes me queasy. He would blow his nose and deposit the contents on the ground. Even a snotty-nosed ‘keelie’ from Glasgow had enough manners to know a hankie should be used. However, in the scheme of things, it was a forgivable fault. And for those with the experience, there is no finer feeling in the world than laying down your tools at the end of a hard day’s work. What a glorious feeling to see the arrival of the tractor that would take you home to one of Morag’s dinners. By now, my belly aches were a thing