The croft door was ajar. I knocked on it, stepped inside, and along a short passageway to a kitchen. An old lady was stooping over a small primus stove.
She lifted her head. With her hawk-nose, sunken cheeks and brown-mottled face she looked much older than I’d expected. I smiled. ‘Good morning, Aunt Ethel – I’m Eve, your great niece.’
Steadying herself on the back of a chair she slowly straightened up and moved towards me. ‘Eve – Evelyn’s daughter?’ She looked astounded, then extended her hand with a smile, ‘How nice to see you. Would you care for a cup of tea?’
‘Yes please.’ I subsided onto an upright chair. She moved awkwardly about, finding a cup and a chipped saucer which didn’t match it. The tea was extremely stewed, but I swallowed its bitterness gratefully.
She sat down opposite me. ‘I was so sorry to hear of the death of your father. He was such a fine man – a man of true principles.’ My eyes prickled, but I didn’t cry, not any more. Aunt Ethel continued, ‘I would have written to you, Eve, but I didn’t know your address.’
As I told her about being sent to school I thought, so that’s why she hadn’t come to visit me while I was there. Now she asked, ‘Are you on holiday – staying nearby with friends?’ Before I could correct her she added warmly, ‘How thoughtful of you to drop in and see me.’
‘No, Aunt Ethel, I haven’t dropped in – I’ve come to live here.’
‘In Helspie?’ She looked puzzled.
I nodded. ‘Yes, here in the croft, with you.’
And as I watched, puzzlement turned to dismay and she raised her knobbly-knuckled hand in protest, ‘But Eve, my child, I really don’t think—’
I wouldn’t, couldn’t, let her finish. Interrupting I said loudly, ‘In my half of the croft.’
There was silence. Then her hand dropped back and she said, ‘Of course – yes, it is half yours – your father wrote to me about the matter. Yes, it is your right to live here. Yes. Yes.’
She didn’t want me.
Then, ‘But – I really don’t feel able to take charge of a child, and you did say you were at a boarding school – so wouldn’t it be better if you – ?’
Again I interrupted. ‘I’ve left. They’re going to send on my luggage.’
Still she was stalling, ‘But are you sure it’s all settled—’
I knew it wasn’t, but I had to make her think so. ‘I’m here now, Aunt Ethel. But I’m a bit tired from the journey – and I haven’t had a proper breakfast yet.’
She hobbled over to a cupboard and rummaged around in it to find some stale bread and even staler cheese – it was so hard I could scarcely get my teeth into it. A well-wrinkled apple helped the last crumbs down. By now I was dazed with sleep. ‘May I go to bed, now, Aunt Ethel?’
‘Yes, yes – in here.’ There was a door leading off from the kitchen, back into a room in the middle of the croft, which was set behind the chimney breast – just as Apa had drawn on his plan for me. The bed was inside a sort of long wardrobe – just as Apa had told me. Oh, Apa, Apa – but Aunt Ethel was thrusting sheets, a pillow, and a blanket into my arms. As she closed the door behind her I dumped the bedding in an untidy bundle on the bed, rolled myself into the middle of it – and slept.
I woke to a moment of confusion after my two-day journey, then remembered where I was: in the croft at Helspie, with Aunt Ethel – who didn’t want me. Aunt Ethel didn’t – No, Eve, don’t even think.
I got up and went to find the water supply – an open tank behind the barn. I dipped in a waiting pail, hauled it back to fill the china basin in my bedroom, and painstakingly washed off the grime of two days’ travel. Aunt Ethel didn’t want me. I knew it, but I wouldn’t accept it. There was too much at stake. I was not leaving Helspie and going back to school. I’d decided on a new life and I was going to live it, somehow.
But I was very upset.
At tea-time Aunt Ethel opened a tin of corned beef – she had a whole cupboard filled with nothing but tins – and gave me half. I ate it with the bread, which was even staler by now. She asked me if I’d slept well; I muttered, yes, and then neither of us spoke again. The minute she’d finished her sandwich and cup of tea she stood up, said she had to get back to her books, and left, closing the door of her room firmly behind her. Very firmly. I found my way across the fields to the cliffs and sat there for ages, staring out to sea. Then I came back and went to bed again.
Next morning Aunt Ethel gave me some money and sent me down to the harbour to buy a fresh loaf and some butter. When I came back she opened a tin of sardines and gave me half for breakfast. After a ritual exchange about the weather neither of us spoke a word until she told me her books were waiting, and, going off to her bedroom, closed the door behind her.
I decided to explore – not that there was much to explore, since the croft was simply a row of rooms, except for the short passageway behind the front door, which led on the right to Aunt Ethel’s room and on the left to the kitchen. As I’ve already said, my room was between those two, but the only way in to it was through the kitchen. On the opposite wall of the kitchen was another door, this time leading into what had been a cowshed. Now it was a sort of scullery, with mangle and washtub mixed in with milking yoke, butter churn, and even an old wooden cradle on rockers.
A door in the end wall of the byre led on into the barn, with a collection of spades, hoes and assorted agricultural-looking implements. But one corner was filled with a pile of cut turves – presumably that was the peat Apa had mentioned – Don’t think, Eve – just keep exploring.
I discovered that the water supply came from a spring – it formed a tiny burn and then was piped into the tank, with an overflow diverted down to the strath. Behind the barn, huddling in the shelter of its back wall, was the small stone-built hut containing the thunderbox – I’d already located that, of course. Otherwise the croft consisted of several fields, one of them with sheep in. On the other side of the road was another long, low building, set in its own allocation of fields, and I could see yet another croft beyond it, while others lay in front – that was the pattern. Turning my back on them I went inside again.
The kitchen had a stone-flagged floor with a very worn mat in front of the dusty hearth. The hearth consisted merely of an empty grate between a pair of brick-built ledges for standing saucepans on, and a metal hook hanging down over it for the cast-iron kettle – which appeared not to have been used this century. Instead a small tin kettle stood by the primus stove. What else? Two wooden armchairs, two upright chairs, a couple of stools, a pair of oil lamps; one dresser, one zinc-meshed food cabinet and the tin cupboard – I mean, the cupboard containing the tins. The only other piece of furniture was a low, deep wooden chest, placed along the wall opposite the window. I stepped up on to its flat lid and sank down to sit on it, legs crossed and tucked in under my knees, Indian-style. At least no-one here was going to keep telling me off for sitting like that, as they’d kept doing at that rotten school. So I sat and stared out of the window.
After a while the view palled. I got up, went out – and stayed out until tin time. Corned beef again.
You’re probably thinking by now that the croft must have seemed very primitive to me after school, with its bathrooms, electric lights and host of modern conveniences – but remember, I’d only been at school for a few months. Whereas in India I’d been used to camping – and, what’s more, camping in Kumaon, where you only took the bare essentials on tour with you. And even our bungalow in Almora had been pretty basic, as Mrs Benham had pointed out every Christmas. But Apa and I weren’t bothered.
So now the basic nature of the croft didn’t strike me – not even the thunderbox. After all, they were normal for Europeans in India. But also normal for Europeans in India were servants – lots of them. Servants to cook, to clean, servants to talk to, to laugh with – and, of course, to empty the thunderbox. Whenever you finished what you had to do, a cheerful yell of, ‘Koi hai?’ as you left the bathroom was all that was n
eeded. ‘Koi hai?’ just means: ‘Is there anyone there?’ and there always was – the sweeper, who would come in by the other door and remove the contents of the thunderbox for disposal.
So although in Almora I’d often ‘helped’ with the cooking, and played at packing, never, ever, had I emptied my own thunderbox. And I had no intention of starting now, when Aunt Ethel said to me the next morning, ‘But Eve, it’s your turn – after all, you filled half of it.’
‘That’s the sweeper’s job.’
‘We have no sweeper.’
Remembering housemaids at school I said, ‘A maid’s, then.’
‘Eve, we have no maids – we have no servants. I pay a woman down at the harbour to do the weekly wash, and Mr McLeod agreed to dig my peat in return for using the grazing – he offered to dig the latrine pit, too – but, that’s all. So you will have to take your turn.’
I retorted, ‘If we hadn’t had any servants in India, then Apa would have emptied the thunderbox for me.’
‘I am not your father, Eve.’
‘You’re my aunt.’
‘I am your great-aunt. You chose to come and live here – and you have every right to do so – but if you stay, it must be as an equal. I simply cannot be responsible for a child.’
I shouted, ‘I’m not a child. I’m nearly fourteen – I’m grown up.’
‘Then please behave so.’ She closed the door of her room behind her.
Very sulkily I emptied the contents of the thunderbox into the trench, fetched the spade and dug some earth over them. Then I marched back into the croft, thrust open the door of Aunt Ethel’s room and barged in with the announcement, ‘There, I’ve emptied your rotten old thunderbox for you.’
Aunt Ethel was sitting at a desk in front of the window. I stood in the middle of the floor, looking around me. Apart from the box bed the walls were completely lined with over-flowing book shelves, and more books were piled up on a small table beside the bed. Lying on top of them was a Tibetan prayer wheel – I picked it up and whirred it round and round. Aunt Ethel exclaimed, ‘Eve, I would not dream of entering your room without an invitation – please extend to me the same courtesy!’
‘But—’
‘I need peace and quiet, for studying and meditating.’ She sounded almost desperate. She went on, ‘The only terms on which we can live together are by respecting each other’s privacy.’ I could tell she meant it.
After that I kept out of her way. I’d had such hopes of Aunt Ethel before I came to Helspie. Not hopes that she’d be a replacement for Apa – nobody could be that. But I had expected her to care about me, to want to look after me, listen to me. It had never crossed my mind that she wouldn’t even want me. So I decided that I wouldn’t let the thought cross my mind now, either – and yet I knew it.
I knew it, but I chose not to believe it. Does that count as true self-deception? And if so, is self-deception all that different from Apa’s advice to see the good in the most unpromising of circumstances? And in the end, is wilful self-deceit always a mistake? Even now, I still don’t know the answer to that one.
So that morning, I ignored Aunt Ethel’s obvious dismay at my determination to stay in Helspie and set off down the strath to the harbour, where I found the narrow, rocky path that ran south along the base of the cliffs. My destination was the foot of the Gob – and my intention was to climb up it.
Apa would never have allowed me to climb that cliff without the aid of ropes, and a couple of companions – as he had had when he climbed it with his mother as a boy. I knew that, but I had no choice. I had no ropes, no companions, so I had to climb it by myself.
Yes, I know what you’d say to that – you’d tell me that I did have a choice – that I could have chosen not to climb the Gob at all. But I couldn’t see that then. And actually I can’t see it now. If I was going to have to make my own life, take charge of it, not go back to school – then I had to climb the Gob.
And I think I was right to do it. Reckless, maybe, but right. After all, I have survived to tell the tale!
In any case, recklessness isn’t the same as stupidity. Oh, I’ve been stupid, alright – we both have, haven’t we? But that time I wasn’t. I knew the Gob was climbable – after all, Apa had climbed it with my grandmother. And although they had used ropes, I was pretty sure Seamus Gunn had climbed it without. And so would I.
Chapter Ten
The good red sandstone of the Gob is sound and strong, and I grew very attached to it over the following days. I didn’t rush at that cliff, you know – I had that much sense – or rather, had been too well-trained by my Apa. Instead, I worked at it as though it were an exercise. Trying different routes, climbing further each day, finding a good deep crack here, a nice secure niche there. Think – test – move – stop. Think – test – move – stop. And discovering in the process that whichever route I used, half-way up the cliff I always arrived at the same point: a shelf about a foot wide and ten feet long which had to be traversed if I were to go any higher.
But the problem with this shelf was that although it was wide enough for me to walk along, I couldn’t risk it – because for almost the entire length of the ledge the cliff bulged out at about the level of my waist, and that bulge would throw me off balance. So think, Eve – think.
The rock face beneath the shelf was bare of footholds, as was the cliff above me – so that shelf simply had to be crossed if I was going to climb the Gob. And I was going to climb the Gob – I’d made up my mind on that one. So, keep thinking, Eve – keep thinking.
Eventually I spotted the answer – one of those blindingly simple answers that are so obvious you don’t see them for ages. I sat down on the shelf, turned to face the sea and let my feet dangle below me as I shuffled along on my backside until I reached the break at the end of the shelf. Turning into the cliff again I found one foothold and then by thrusting my fist deep into a narrow crack above was able to reach a second. I was on my way again.
But not all the way up, not yet. I took my time over that cliff, learning it as though my life depended on it. As it did. Not just my physical life but my confidence, and my self-respect. So it took me several days of hard work to reach the point where I felt ready to tackle the last fifty feet to the top.
But when I did tackle that I was pleasantly surprised, because a steady, staightforward climb soon took me another thirty feet or so higher, up to a wide, sound ledge which ran directly below the crest itself. And as I hauled myself up on to it I decided smugly that Seamus Gunn hadn’t been as clever as all that – then I saw the catch.
No, it wasn’t a bulge this time – I could stand upright, no problem – but above me the rockface was sheer. For the whole length of rock running directly below the crest itself, and beyond, there wasn’t one single handhold within my reach. Not just not within my reach, but not within the reach of a tall adult, either. And yet the crest was still at least twenty feet above me – so how on earth had Seamus Gunn managed to climb down over it?
Then I spotted what just had to be the answer, a beautiful hand hold. True, it was several feet too high – but that hold was what Apa used to call a jug handle, a hold so good that you could dangle comfortably from it and then drop on to the ledge below – that ledge on which I was now standing.
That was it. That was why Seamus Gunn was famed for climbing down over the crest – because that was the only way you could climb it – down, but not up! However, I failed to see the significance of his other claim to fame – that he was only sixteen when he did it. That drop from the jug handle was a move an adult would question – was the ledge below really wide enough? Suppose one overbalanced… But sixteen year old boys don’t think like that – and nor do almost-fourteen year old girls who are mountain-born.
All I was interested in now was the route down from the crest to that oh-so-convenient jug handle. I already had an idea about that, but I’d have to reconnoitre again from above. There was no problem about reaching the top of the cliff from where I wa
s – a sidle leftwards along my ledge and an easy scramble over slabby rock took me up and over on to the grass, at a point ten or so feet below the crest – which I was soon lying on the edge of, peering over. Yes, there it was – a fissure I’d already noticed before – a deep, smooth crack that I could use to slide safely down from the crest, and arrive at a narrow but sound-looking shelf from which I would be able to reach down and grab the jug handle below. Well, probably reach it.
The next question, obviously, was that if I couldn’t reach the jug handle from that shelf – did I have sufficient strength to get back up that extremely smooth crack…?
But, I told myself firmly, Seamus Gunn must have reached it – and there was no reason to assume his arms were longer than mine – was there?
I decided not to dwell on this one – besides, it must be half-past tin time by now, so I ran back to the croft and ate the remainder of the opened tin of corned beef that Aunt Ethel had left out for me, followed by two oranges from the crate she kept in the scullery. Then I was off back to my cliff.
That afternoon I climbed all the way up again to that nice, wide ledge under the crest, where I stood craning my neck up and telling myself firmly that even allowing for the foreshortening effect, of course I would be able to reach the jug handle from the shelf below the top fissure. Then I sidled along until I could scramble up to the grass again. Tomorrow, over the crest. After all, tomorrow was my birthday.
I’ve changed my mind about that earlier comment of mine – looking back I have to admit that my decision to go ahead regardless was pretty stupid. There, I’ve saved you the trouble of saying it, haven’t I?
When I arrived back from the harbour with the loaf next morning, I saw that Aunt Ethel had obviously been hovering by her door, waiting for my return. ‘Eve, may I just have a word with you.’ For a moment I thought she’d remembered my birthday, but no—’When the postman came this morning, he told me you’d been seen climbing on the Gob.’ She sounded almost as if she were worried.
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