by Ann Swinfen
‘Settling in, settling in. He’s going to spend the day with Joey tomorrow.’
Tirza strung some of the blueberry pails on her handlebars and tied the rest to the carrier over her back wheel. All the way back to Flamboro she thought she sounded like Walter’s old pickup which was falling apart because he’d spent every penny on Reliant and had to keep his truck together – as Nathan said – with string and chewing gum.
The next morning Tirza handed over the day’s crabs to Pierre at seven thirty and was back on the pier by twenty to eight. If Sandy didn’t come on time, she would not wait for him, she told herself. But a couple of minutes later he arrived with his new camera hanging in a case from a cord round his neck and a satchel full of food on his shoulder. He passed these down to her, followed by his sticks, then eased himself in a sitting position out to the edge of the pier with his legs dangling above the cockpit of Stormy Petrel.
‘Don’t help me,’ he said. ‘I can do it if I don’t try to rush things.’
He leaned forward and grabbed the mast with one hand, then lowered himself carefully into the boat while Tirza leaned outward to balance his weight. He collapsed awkwardly into the bottom of the boat laughing.
‘Did it! Not very elegantly, I admit. Still, I’ll soon be fit and fighting again.’
Tirza stowed his sticks under the side deck and put the camera and lunch in the watertight locker under the foredeck. After she had hoisted the sail and set a course out to sea, she perched on the windward coaming and looked at him.
‘Do you mean that? Are you really going to be fit to leave soon?’
‘Well, it’s a manner of speaking. The doctor reckons just a few weeks now. Much as I’d like to stay, there’s a war on and every pilot is needed. I’m older than most of the boys who are flying, you know. Eighteen, nineteen, they are. I’ve more experience. And it’s good for morale, too, when the youngsters can see that a few of us do manage to survive to my advanced years.’
‘How old are you, then?’ Tirza asked. She knew it was rude to ask a person’s age, but he almost seemed to be inviting her.
‘Thirty-two. Ancient.’ He glanced casually towards the approaching loom of the island. ‘How old is your cousin?’
‘Simon? Thirteen and three-quarters.’
‘No, I meant... Martha?’
‘Oh. Martha will be... twenty-seven next birthday.’
‘Twenty-seven. And you’ll be thirteen soon, didn’t you say?’
‘In a few weeks. My birthday is the first of October.’
‘First of October.’ He smiled. ‘Is it, indeed? I might just be here still. And when is Simon’s birthday?’
‘Eighteenth of December. He always complains it’s too near Christmas.’
‘So it is. And Martha’s birthday?’
‘Oh, that was back in February. Tenth of February.’ Tirza couldn’t see the point of all this. The Libby family did not make much fuss of birthdays. But she asked politely, ‘And when’s your birthday?’
He grinned again. ‘First of October. Same day as you. Now there’s a coincidence.’
Tirza put the helm over and brought Stormy Petrel fluttering into the wind with just enough way on to ground her softly on the beach. She felt obscurely flattered that she shared a birthday with Sandy.
‘So that’s when you’ll be thirty-three.’
She jumped into the shallow water and began hauling the boat further on to the beach.
‘No. I should have said I’m almost thirty-two. That’s the age I’ll be then.’
He swung his legs over the side in a businesslike way.
‘Now, let’s see which of us can pick the most blueberries.’
At the top of the rise above the ruined farmhouse, the blueberry bushes stretched away in all directions. As they approached the thicket, a cloud of curlews which had been feeding there rose like a summer blizzard in flashes of silver against the sun. The bushes they revealed were so thickly studded with fruit that the island seemed to be covered with expanses of blue water, dotted here and there with woods. Tirza gave a grunt of satisfaction. She plucked a berry off the nearest bush and examined it. It was the size of a small cherry, with a dusky blue bloom to the skin like some exotic butterfly. Tirza tasted the berry, rolling it over in her mouth.
‘Ayuh. Just right. Ripe enough, but not gone too far.’
Sandy picked one to taste.
‘These must be related to our blaeberries,’ he said, ‘but they never tasted like this. Look at the size of them!’
They crouched down and began to pick. There was never any question who would pick most. Tirza had first gone blueberrying at the age of two, and she knew instinctively just how to cup the berries and how much pressure to apply so that they came away sweetly from the branch without disintegrating. Sandy’s fingers were soon purple and spattered with small seeds, while Tirza’s hands moved rhythmically over the bushes.
The rich winey smell of the blueberries rose around them as they pushed further and further into the thicket. It mingled with the astringent scent of the pines, sun-warmed overhead, and the strong smell of the deep ocean coming in with the onshore wind. For a long time they were silent, except for the rustling of the bushes and the plop of the berries into the pails. Then Sandy straightened his back and groaned a little, and Tirza straightened to keep him company.
‘Don’t strain your legs, now.’
‘No, just a bit cramped.’
He shaded his eyes and peered out through the trunks of the trees at the sea.
‘The waves seem big today. Yet there isn’t all that much wind.’
‘That’s what we call an old sea. Means there’s been a big storm somewhere. The ocean is stirred up right from the bottom and it goes on rolling for a while. Like a bucket when you start it swaying. The water keeps slopping back and forth.’
‘I see. I remember stirring up the bath water when I was a lad and then getting in a panic when I couldn’t stop it splashing over the edge. I knew I’d be in trouble.’
‘This is the hurricane season,’ said Tirza. ‘It’s probably the leftover edge of one that’s blown out south’ards.’
‘You don’t often get them here, do you?’
‘Sometimes. They start down in the Caribbean and usually they’ve worn themselves out before they reach Maine, but we can get the edge of one, or sometimes a real bad one like four years ago.’
She bent and began picking again. The hot still air, the rich scent of pine and blueberries, and the buzzing of bees in the carpet of wildflowers about their feet gave the island a strange, isolated air, like some dream landscape. After a time, the flock of curlews overcame their fear and settled at the far end of the blueberry thicket, feeding up for their long migration south. Gulls, too, made sudden squawking forays, waddling boldly amongst the bushes nearer to hand and eyeing them with their bright cold gaze.
Suddenly Tirza stilled. She put out a cautious hand and caught Sandy by the wrist. He looked at her enquiringly and she jerked her head slightly to the left. Trotting out of the pine woods above the eastern cliff came a big dog fox. He looked in their direction but seemed unperturbed. The bushes swayed as he waded into them and began to tug the berries off the branches. Sandy chuckled softly. For a moment the fox paused with a cluster of berries hanging from his jaw. Then he resumed his meal, quite unafraid. Half an hour at least passed while they continued to pick – man, fox and girl – then the fox lifted his head as though he heard something they did not, and trotted off into the trees again.
Sandy let his breath out in a gust as though he had been holding it.
‘Extraordinary! How did a fox manage to come out to the island?’
‘Oh, there’s a whole tribe of foxes. And rabbits too. I reckon their ancestors came over when there used to be regular boats carrying goods and crops. Probably stowed on board. Plenty for them to eat, and nobody to trouble them. I guess he’s so tame because he isn’t used to folks chasing after him.’
‘Let’s have ou
r lunch,’ Sandy said. ‘I’m famished.’
They sat down in the smaller cove by the site of the old Indian settlement to eat the picnic Pierre had packed for them. Then Sandy took a photograph of the cove with the ruined farmhouse in the background, and several of Tirza sitting on the Indian shell heap and standing on the rocks at the water’s edge.
After lunch they finished filling the blueberry pails and Tirza showed Sandy round the rest of the island. She could see that he was walking much more easily now, and that meant only one thing: he would be leaving, as he said, before long. She didn’t want to look ahead to that, or to the thought of days empty of any hope of being with him.
At the southernmost tip of the island, beyond the tumbled walls of the third deserted farmhouse, there was a small boggy patch with cranberries growing in it.
‘Shall we pick these?’ Sandy asked.
‘They won’t be ready yet. Anyway, the ones on our marsh are much better. Even those I showed you near the schoolhouse.’
Sandy picked one of the hard shiny berries and held it up between his finger and thumb.
‘It looks like a bead.’
‘When I was little, I used to make myself necklaces out of them. They’re some hard.’
Sandy put the berry into his mouth and bit on it.
‘Ugh! That’s disgusting!’
‘Told you they weren’t ready.’ Tirza laughed at his expression. ‘You can’t eat them raw anyway. Bitter as sorrow, they are.’
They walked back across the island, following the remains of the disused farm track and pointing out to each other the paths made by other creatures – the fox, probably, and the rabbits, whose holes could be seen in the sandy banks.
‘Porcupine too, most likely,’ said Tirza, ‘though I’ve only ever seen one over here. Could be the Indians brought them over. Then they’d be easy to catch, for eating and for their quills.’
‘Have you ever eaten porcupine?’
‘Never have, though the Indians did. And they used the quills for decoration on boxes and head-dresses, and ceremonial clothes.’
By the blueberry thicket they collected the filled pails, which Tirza had covered with flat stones in case the fox or the gulls came nosing around. When they reached Stormy Petrel, Sandy said he must have a photograph of Tirza sailing her, so she had to push off and sail parallel to the shore until he was satisfied with his picture. When she came back to pick him up, she eyed the camera longingly.
‘Can I try it? Haven’t ever used a camera.’
‘Of course you can. What do you want to photograph?’
Tirza considered, standing on the beach with the painter in her hand.
‘You go and stand in Stormy Petrel and I’ll take the two of you together.’
‘OK.’
He showed her how to aim the camera by looking into the viewfinder, where the world swam grey and soft-edged, like a scene under water. Then he pointed out the button to press and climbed into the boat, propping his sticks against the gunwale.
‘How do you want me? Like this?’
He flung an arm around Stormy Petrel’s mast like an embrace, laughing. Before Tirza could think whether she had aimed the camera right, she clicked the shutter.
‘Oh, I hope I didn’t spoil it!’
‘Of course you didn’t. Tell you what. Let’s sail back to Flamboro instead of the hotel, and you can take some more pictures there.’
They made a rapid journey back to the mainland, before the rising wind. Tirza was quite relieved to make fast to the wharf and after she had passed the pails up to Sandy she stared out to sea again. There was an ominous greenish-grey light along the horizon.
For a while they pottered around Flamboro, Sandy explaining about focus and shutter openings on complicated cameras.
‘You know as much as I do now. Luckily a Box Brownie is about the easiest camera to use, and you don’t need to worry about all that. Why don’t you take a picture of those lobster pots?’
‘A photograph of lobster pots!’ She was astonished.
‘They’re very decorative, with their bowed tops and those netting funnels at the ends – what do you call them?’
‘Heads.’
‘And the carved floats all in different colours. Do the colours mean something?’
‘Each lobsterman has his own design. So when they’re laid at sea, nobody can mistake which is which. Then there’s no excuse for poaching.’
‘I see. Well, it’s a pity the colours won’t show up. You can get colour film, but it’s fearfully expensive. Only for professionals. Go on, take the lobster pots.’
When she looked at the wharf-side heap of pots through the viewfinder, she suddenly saw what he meant. The arrangement seemed to separate itself from the daily toil of her father and the other men and become an intriguing pattern in its own right. She would like to talk to Girna about this. Her grandmother had often tried to interest her in drawing wild flowers and animals, but Tirza didn’t have the talent or the patience.
Afterwards Tirza persuaded Charlie Flett to pose on the porch of the store, though he was much embarrassed.
‘I don’t know what Mary would say,’ he complained. ‘Getting my picture took in my work clothes. I’ve just been moving barrels out of the storeroom.’
‘You’re just fine,’ said Tirza, who was gaining confidence. ‘Sandy is letting me take some pictures of Flamboro the way it is every day. Nothing fancy.’
At last they had finished the third film and Sandy said he must be getting back to the hotel. Tirza realised with a start that it was time she did the evening lift of her crab line, and she cast an anxious eye out to sea again, wondering how long it would take her to sail to Todd’s Neck and back, and then attend to the crabs. The wind had shifted several points to a south-westerly, and was strengthening all the time. The lobstermen were in harbour already, hurrying back before they could be caught by an offshore rote. Most of the trawlers were coming in over the harbour bar in a cluster now, with one or two tagging along behind, still a mile or two out.
For the first time Sandy seemed to notice the weather.
‘I don’t think you should try to sail me back,’ he said. ‘Look, there’s the Portland bus about to leave. I’ll take that up to the county road and then hitch a lift as far as I can towards Todd’s Neck.’
‘But your legs...’
‘Much better. The doctor says exercise is good for me now. Don’t worry, I’ll take it slowly. I don’t want to think of you out at sea in this.’
Tirza nodded. She was secretly relieved.
‘It’s been a wonderful day,’ he said, touching her lightly on her bare arm. ‘Thank you.’
‘Your camera,’ she said, shying away from him and lifting the strap of the big case over her head.
‘Right. I’ll put a fresh film in, and we’ll take some more another day, shall we?’
Tirza had never under-run her line so quickly. She lost at least four good crabs and a couple of throw-backs through hurrying too much. They didn’t seem to be biting very well anyway, and she only had six crabs in her basket when she wound the line down and rowed the dory back to the wharf. She checked that both Stormy Petrel and the dories were securely moored fore and aft, then deposited the crabs in the holding trap and left her line beside her jars of bait in the bait shed. She went to pick up some of the full berry pails from where she had left them near the Louisa Mary.
‘It’s looking some bad out there,’ she said to Ben Flett, who was tidying away the gear on his boat and roping down everything in sight.
‘Ayuh. Best take your sails and loose gear indoors tonight,’ he said.
‘Is everyone in?’
‘Everyone except Reliant. Walter has been takin’ her further out than the rest of us, since the fishin’ has been poorly. Reckon he went out past Matinicus last night. Ain’t seen him since.’
It took Tirza four more trips to carry all the blueberries, the sail, rudder, oars and centreboard up to the house. Then Nathan he
lped her unstep the mast and rope the tarpaulin cover down over the cockpit of Stormy Petrel. Between them they carried the mast up to the boat shed.
‘It may not amount to anything,’ said Nathan as they came into the kitchen, ‘but better safe than sorry.’
‘There’s a weather warning on the radio,’ Abigail said. ‘They say the hurricane running up the coast is beginning to die out, but they’re forecasting severe gales at least. Maybe even the last of the hurricane.’
Nathan shook his head.
‘I don’t like to think of Walter out there with only Eli and Wayne to crew. Walter’s a pretty man with a boat, but Eli is past seventy and Wayne’s nothing but a boy.’
Darkness fell early. Tirza did not see the clouds finally come up. Instead the whole sky closed over suddenly, as if something had been clamped down on top of it, cutting out the evening sun. Abigail switched on the kitchen light while they ate their supper, like the middle of winter. Looking out of her bedroom later, Tirza could see fragments of leaves and twigs whirling in the band of light cast by her window. Instead of blowing steadily in one direction they spun in tiny circles, no more than six inches across, so that the air seemed to seethe like boiling water. Under the harbour lights she could see clumps of men gathering, the light reflecting from their sou’westers and oilskins. Reliant was four hours overdue.
It was unbearable to stay inside with this sense of approaching calamity. She knew Abigail would forbid her to go out of doors, so she crept downstairs quietly in her bare feet and slid past the kitchen where her grandmother was dozing over the newspaper. Her cut-down oilskins hung on a hook inside the boat shed door. She put them on and let herself out into the night.
The men and boys were gathered on the wharf, the women stood in separate groups nearer the seafront houses. Nathan and Ben and a few others had stepped down on to the lobster car, as if the few yards this brought them nearer to the sea somehow made them feel better. Now she was outside, Tirza caught the full force of the wind and had to clamp her sou’wester down on her head with both hands to stop it blowing away. She caught sight of Simon on the fringe of the crowd and struggled over to him. He grabbed her by the elbow as a gust threw her sideways, almost off the wharf.