7

Tears and Twisters

ONE VERY EARLY morning, before it was properly light, I walked dejectedly along the shore at Dhubaig, kicking the pebbles and occasionally hurling one into the sea. I was engrossed in sad thoughts, and angry at what I felt was the injustice of fate. We were such a small community that it was impossible not to get emotionally involved sometimes.

I had just lost a patient; a dear, sweet, uncomplaining lady called Minnie, whom I had been attending daily since my arrival on Papavray. I knew that I was being irrational; she was nearing eighty, but she was so much more than a patient; more like a grandmother. Her death was not even really unexpected: she had been deteriorating for some time, having suffered yet another stroke.

The phone had rung at three in the morning; I dressed hurriedly and contacted my long-suffering neighbour to say that Andy would be on his own for an unspecified time. (Of course, George was away – again.) Leaving lights blazing and the door unlocked for Janey to get in, I drove off at speed. She would spend the rest of the night (or however long it took) on the sofa.

I stumbled up the slope to Mary-Anne’s house. Lights were on and the door was open. Mary-Anne, usually the soul of good cheer, stood in the hall with tears streaming down her face.

‘Oh, Nurse, Nurse. She’s gone! She’s gone, and I didna know. I never said goodbye.’

A storm of weeping followed and she hid her face in my coat. I was shocked! I should not have been surprised, but I think I had persuaded myself that Minnie would rally once more and her life and my visits would go on as before. With a very heavy heart, I attempted to soothe the distraught woman.

I went into the bedroom. Minnie looked so peaceful and natural! I had often found her asleep when I visited and now she looked no different. Lying amongst the snowy pillows, with the flowered eiderdown pulled up to her chin, she had almost certainly died in her sleep. I hoped so. The room was littered with all the paraphernalia of the long-term sick or disabled – a commode, a walking frame, a pile of extra pillows, crutches and specially-made shoes. It all represented the last ten years of a life that had previously been lived entirely for others: a childless life; a life of hard croft work and caring for her family; a devout Free Kirk life.

Over the years, I had heard the story as we chatted, while I bathed her, combed or washed her hair, dressed her and tidied the bedroom. Then I would help her to the chair by the fire in the kitchen and Mary-Anne would bustle about, insisting on making me a ‘strupak’. So the conversation would become more general, and Mary-Anne’s opinion of Minnie’s self-sacrificing ways would tell me all that this modest lady would not have done.

Minnie had been the oldest of six children and the only girl, born to a brutal father and his cowed, ineffectual wife. Angus Mor, a big man as his name implies, frequently beat his wife and thrashed the children. The boys had to help with the croft work and the fishing from the age of about eight, while Minnie looked after the latest baby and did most of the housework and washing. As soon as they could, the boys left and ran off to sea or found work elsewhere. Minnie’s mother complained constantly about everything and Angus took to the drink in a big way, becoming ever more violent.

By now, Minnie was in her twenties and had a ‘young man’. He could not have been a very strong character, said Mary-Anne, because Angus frightened him away. So the miserable situation continued, until Angus got in a fight one night, killed a man and was jailed for manslaughter. Relief at the freedom from his tempers was short-lived, however, as Rory, the oldest brother, came home, having been dismissed from his job for drunkenness.

So the years passed: Minnie looking after an increasingly cantankerous mother, (Mary-Anne maintained that she was not ill at all, but just liked being waited on) while Rory was in the pub every night, drinking away his unemployment benefit. He did nothing on the croft, and expected Minnie to look after him, the house, the animals and their mother, and to clean for the Laird to earn some much-needed money. All this, Minnie did with stoicism, upheld, she said, by her faith.

I once said to her, ‘You have not had much of a life, Minnie – with all the drudgery and no thanks for it.’

‘Ach, it was no too bad. I had my faith y’see, so my life was not joyless.’

I had to accept this, as the Free Kirk had obviously sustained Minnie, but I always felt that particular denomination to be, in itself, oppressive and joyless.

Time went on. The mother died (Angus had died in prison many years before) and, following tradition, the croft went to the brother, who promptly turned Minnie out. So Mary-Anne, a widow of many years, happily took Minnie in and it must have seemed that, at last, she would have an easier life. But the fates were against her: she had a massive stroke just two months later. How unkind life can be!

In the ten years since then, her brother had not visited her once. Now she had gone! I hoped that the faith which had sustained her to the end would grant her the rest she believed would be hers after death.

And here I was on the shore, trying to throw off the depression I felt, before going home. Dawn was beginning to break and Andy would be waking. Janey would have guessed that Minnie had ‘passed on’, and would be ready to scuttle away to spread the news, and offer Mary-Anne help and support. I sat on a rather damp rock in the early morning gloom and gazed unseeingly out across the ocean towards the distant isles – and wept. After a while, I pulled myself together and turned for home.

A sudden strong gust of wind blew my hair over my face and I realised that the early morning had been unnaturally calm and quiet. The sea, usually pounding on the shore where I had been walking, was glassy, lapping gently on the pebbles. Before that sudden gust, there had been a quiet stillness. Sunk in my thoughts, I had not been aware of the unusual weather.

As I returned to my car, I could see an area of water, about ten or twelve feet in diameter, ruffle and churn, and a moment later a foaming wave broke noisily on the shore and rattled among the pebbles. Just one – no more! As I drove the short distance home, leaves on the road began to dance and swirl, lifting and shivering before disappearing skywards. Gravelly dust formed mini tornados, rising and falling in small circles several feet or more from the ground. The glen and the village, however, seemed to be quiet and I was just dismissing the small episodes from my mind, when I saw Fergie’s flat, corrugated iron byre roof lift, fall back into place, lift again and rise several feet into the air before settling back once more onto the stout stone walls of the building. Something very odd was happening!

I stopped the car at the top of the track leading down to our home, and watched, puzzled and fascinated, as the weird flurries of wind struck randomly in the village. Some washing on a line hanging limp and motionless one minute, leapt into the air, was ripped from the line and flapped off towards the sea. Towards the sea? Our weather usually came from the sea – the Atlantic – but this strange wind was from the east.

Looking towards the mountains on the islands to the north, I saw blue-black clouds finding their way between the peaks, while swirling, grey-white ones raced round and round below them, leaving trails of mist. I had not seen anything quite so odd, even here in the Hebrides where we seemed prone to all manner of strange phenomena. Last November, for instance, we had had a week of unnaturally icy, Arctic conditions with no wind at all. This time it was the wind that was unnatural.

I looked down towards our home. We had some small, scrubby trees beside the byre and, as I watched, the two on the east side of the little copse suddenly bent over, broke and were blown along the ground, while nearby, some late flowering dahlias remained standing tall and undisturbed.

I descended the track. Andy was up. ‘Mum. The chimney rattled just now and Janey’s fire went whoomph!’

‘I dinna know what happened foreby, Nurse. I was lighting it as I always do when this wind roared down the chimney. Just look at everything!’

‘Don’t worry, Janey, I’ll see to this.’ I looked at her. ‘You need to clean up, though.’

Janey departed, but was back immediately.

‘Nurse, your window’s gone.’

‘What?’

‘The window in the shower room. It’s gone.’

Unable to believe my ears, I hastened to the shower room. The window really had gone – not just broken or loosened, but gone completely – and was lying on the ground outside, some feet away.

‘Well! Whatever is happening is beyond me. But I think you had better hurry off home, Janey. All this must be the forerunner of some very wild weather. Many, many thanks, as always.’

Janey departed, tutting over the news about Minnie, and I rang Doctor Mac.

‘I think you should stay put for a while, Nurse. The weather is so very strange and I feel that there is worse to come. There is no wind at all here but it is raining stair-rods. Most unusual.’ Doctor Mac was not perturbed. He never was, no matter what the elements threw at us.

As I put the phone down, the house gave a sudden shudder: doors rattled, window catches loosened and a window flew open. In an instant, small ornaments, towels and a sliced loaf of bread seemed to be flying about the room. The fire, which had started to ‘draw’, blew out of the fireplace, sparks and glowing peats landing on the carpet and nearby chairs. I beat at the sparks with a cushion, and then lifted the smouldering peat from the singed carpet back onto the hearth.

‘Andy, sit on the floor behind the sofa.’ It seemed the safest place – away from the windows and the fireplace. The dogs began to bark as more small objects and bits of food were hurled to the floor. I crouched beside Andy and the dogs, but then I wondered if the cats were outside, so I peeped out of the open window. I was just in time to see two chickens fly past. But they were not flying! Not of their own volition, anyway: they were being hurled through the air by the wind. Then the chicken coop followed, breaking up as it flew past. There was nothing I could do for the chickens so I ducked in, out of the fury. But not in time! Just at that moment, a gust of wind threw the window against my head. Andy screamed as he saw blood rushing from my scalp, and had the presence of mind to fetch a towel, which I held tightly to my head. I explained that it looked much worse than it really was as scalps bleed profusely for ‘any little thing’.

‘Little thing! Mum, you are covered in blood!’

The towel was now wet and I was feeling a bit shaky so I sat on the floor and leaned against the sofa. After a while, the bleeding began to lessen, so I wrapped another towel round my head like a turban. Somehow, a nurse in uniform with a blood-soaked turban round her head seemed so ridiculous that we were able to laugh.

‘Mum, it’s stopped!’

Everything was suddenly still: the window stopped swinging, the door ceased to rattle. Slices of bread, pieces of paper and other odds and ends gradually fell to the floor, while the fire sulked quietly in the hearth. It was eerily calm, although I could still hear a roaring in the distance. We peeped out (very cautiously, this time). We could see a funnel of black cloud and dust swirling round and round as it hurried over the crofts to the sea. It was picking up bits of tin, animal feed bags, feathers, hay and bits of plants. A tornado? Here, in Scotland? But what else?

We started to move around picking things up, shutting windows (those that would shut) closing doors and preventing the dogs from gorging themselves on all the bits of food lying on the floor. A lump of marmalade had been thrown against the hot Rayburn and was sizzling happily as it burned and solidified – I would never get that off! – pictures were askew, some clothes, stacked ready for ironing, were on the floor and a plant pot, complete with plant, was upside down on the dining table.

I cautiously opened the back door to look for the cats. The byre door had disappeared and there was a big dent in the side of my car, presumably where the door had been thrown against it on its way to freedom. (We found the door the next day in the burn, some fifty yards from the house.) The cats appeared from the hay shed and rushed indoors, heads down but unhurt. Upstairs, we found windows broken but the hinges had held. Dressing-table accoutrements were scattered everywhere. In the bathroom, there was similar mayhem, including two toothbrushes down the toilet! Andy guffawed at this, his schoolboy humour to the fore. The muddle was severe, but the actual damage was minimal, even outside. The copse and much of the ‘garden’ had been flattened, but our sturdy house seemed intact.

‘What’s that thing over there, Mum?’

A piece of blackened and twisted metal lay in the burn. The chimney cowl! No wonder the fire had ‘blown down’ and ‘whoomphed’!

Everywhere was still and quiet, but gradually I began to hear voices as people ventured out to inspect the damage and exclaim to each other. I felt it was now safe to send Andy round the village, to see if anyone was injured and might need help.

Surprisingly, I seemed to have been the only casualty and my cuts were not serious.

On Sunday, I took the dogs for a walk on the shore. It was only two days ago that I had been here, walking and thinking; but the beach had changed dramatically. Where there had been pebbles, there was now black sand, like the beaches on volcanic islands. The sea, too, appeared dirty and all manner of flotsam was floating in the shallows. But the vertiginous hills looked clean, bright and rain-washed, and a silvery sun shone between the peaks of the distant mountains in a deep blue sky.

I sat on the same rock and felt the return of peace in my soul. The burn, widened by the storm, chattered nearby, finding its new route to the sea; oyster catchers skimmed the waves, while gannets performed their skilful dives, emerging with shining fish. A small boat rocked gently in the bay as two figures cast their lines. I could smell peat smoke from some of the croft houses and the musty aroma of warm seaweed. Sea pinks nonchalantly waved their heads, and a robin perched on the grassy bank and eyed me speculatively.

Nature is resilient, unperturbed by its own recent outburst. The hills, the sea, the glen were all at peace in the sunlight on this – the day that we call ‘Sunday’.

At peace. Minnie, too, was now at peace, and I was able to be more rational about her death. Maybe, she would not have wanted to go on living the half-life with which she had been left by the strokes. Now, her spirit, at least, was whole and happy, resting in God’s arms, as she had believed that it would.

The island would mourn Minnie, but with great respect for the way that she had lived her life. However, no-one would ever forget the day she died.

‘The day that Minnie died? ’Twas the day of the tornado.’