Saskia's Journey

by Theresa Breslin

  ‘My grandfather was a fisherman and so was my dad. But now my parents run a bed and breakfast in St Andrews. My father does some inshore fishing along the Fife coast, but my mother fears the sea. She calls it “the Widow-Maker”. She’s glad my job is land-based.’

  They had walked as far as the long fish-market sheds. On the side facing the sea a few boats were tied up, unloading their catch. The men moved swiftly, winching the boxes full of fish up from the hold and swinging them across to the quayside. Here the boxes were stacked on little forklift trucks and then taken through one of the many doors that opened out all along the sheds. Ben and Saskia watched the men working for a few minutes before going inside.

  ‘Slosh some disinfectant on the soles of your shoes,’ said Ben, showing Saskia the trough just inside the door.

  They stopped at the office to read the spreadsheet pinned up outside. Beside the name of each boat was a list of type of fish caught: MONKS, HADDOCK, DOGS, SHELLFISH.

  ‘If the boats are supposed to catch only a certain type of fish,’ said Saskia, ‘how can they prevent other fish from swimming into their nets?’

  ‘They can’t,’ said Ben. ‘And the fish are very thrawn,’ he laughed, ‘because they stubbornly refuse to co-operate with the Common Fisheries Policy by swimming together in the same species, in certain sizes, and in specified numbers. Neil Buchan is right when he says the legislation is a mess. The decision-makers in Europe are blundering about and not getting it right on all counts. Their regulations cause endless problems for the fishermen, and as far as the scientists are concerned, the catch quotas set are above their ideal recommendations, so nobody is pleased. Fishermen have a big problem with the quotas. If it’s the wrong type of fish, or their catch is over quota, what can they do? Throw the dead fish back into the sea? Many fishermen would consider that an offence against creation. And from a financial point of view it doesn’t make sense. The fish are dead anyway: why not sell them anywhere you can?’

  They arrived inside the market hall just as the auction began. Forklifts drove swiftly to and fro depositing more and more boxes full of fish piled with crushed ice. The huge shed was filling up rapidly with long lines of boxes, and buyers stepped among the boxes, examining the fish, and then gathered round the auctioneers as they moved through the shed.

  Saskia and Ben walked into a rising surge of sound. The frantic gabble of the auctioneer and the buyers checking prices on their walkie-talkies battled against the shouts of market workers and the drag of the boxes on the concrete floor. Opposite the doors on the seaward side a row of metal shuttered doors opened onto the loading bays, where transport lorries were backed up. Every so often, with a roar of its engines, a lorry would leave its loading bay, growling away in the dawn to take the fish to the south and the continent of Europe. Some fishermen leaning against the wall watched their catch being sold. Saskia saw weariness in their posture, and thought the haggling almost disrespectful considering the effort required to bring in the fish.

  ‘Why do they empty out some boxes?’ asked Saskia, looking at a pile of fish and crushed ice lying beside one upturned box.

  ‘The buyers do it with an odd one or two,’ said Ben. ‘They’re checking to make sure the box has been packed properly and that there are no smaller fish below covered up with the bigger, better fish.’

  Saskia recalled the herring barrels in Alessandra’s cellar with the marks scorched on the outside to show the contents.

  Near a loading bay Ben spoke to one of the fishermen to ask if he had seen much seal activity. Saskia was only catching about one word in five, but could follow the conversation enough to know that the fisherman thought that the seal flu was spreading.

  ‘Dead seals in the water,’ she heard the man say. ‘More than last week.’

  ‘Denmark,’ said another. ‘It started ower there. Anholt Island.’

  ‘There’s a lot more seals dying than we thought at first,’ said Ben. ‘Trying to keep tabs on it is giving us a big headache.’

  Saskia saw the buyers scattering little oblongs of paper in the boxes of sold fish and asked Ben what they were.

  ‘They’re markers with the buyers’ names so that the men loading the lorries know where each consignment is going,’ Ben explained.

  The variety of the fish fascinated Saskia. It was the first time she had seen so many different species so close that she could touch them. She admired the colour, their sleek compacted bodies, their beauty, even in death.

  ‘You know a Fraserburgh trawler caught a huge baby giant squid not so long ago,’ Ben told her. ‘Half a mile down in Atlantic waters, a huge thing, nearly twice the size of you or me.’

  ‘I’d love to see something like that,’ said Saskia.

  ‘It went to the National Marine Aquarium in Plymouth,’ said Ben, ‘but if you like looking at unusual species I can arrange for you to see round the Fhindhaven Marine Research Station if you’re free sometime next week.’

  ‘That would be great,’ said Saskia. She hesitated before she spoke. ‘I am due to go back to London at the end of next weekend.’

  ‘What are you doing for the summer?’ Ben asked as they left the shed and began to walk back to where his van was parked.

  ‘This and that,’ said Saskia. ‘I kind of promised that I’d help my father with his business. His books have been in a mess since his accountant left.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Why what?’

  ‘Why did your dad’s accountant leave?’

  ‘Oh . . .’ Saskia hesitated. ‘He emigrated or . . . something.’

  They had almost reached the place where the van was parked.

  ‘The reason I ask,’ Ben went on, ‘is that you might want to think about staying on here for the summer. The government has allocated extra funding to help out with the seal crisis and Fhindhaven Research Station could do with some assistance.’

  This was the second time Ben had suggested that she might stay on for the summer. Saskia glanced at his face. There was nothing there to indicate any special interest, no way for her to know if he cared personally whether she agreed or refused.

  The early start began to catch up with Saskia as Ben drove back to Fhindhaven from Peterhead. She didn’t realize that her eyes had closed until Ben nudged her awake.

  ‘Time to wake up, sleepyhead,’ he said. ‘We’re almost there.’

  Saskia sat up. They had reached the turn in the road where Neil had stopped the pick-up truck to let her see Cliff House. ‘Oh, stop here, please,’ she said. ‘I’d like to look at this view.’

  Ben pulled the van across the road. ‘This was my first sight of my great-aunt’s house,’ said Saskia. ‘Neil and I stopped to look down to the bay the day I arrived. Actually’ – she turned to Ben – ‘if you don’t mind I’ll just walk from here. I think I need some fresh air to wake me up.’

  Ben leaned across and opened the van door. ‘I’ll speak to the education officer at Fhindhaven Marine Research Station at the beginning of next week and ask her when she can give you a tour. It’ll probably be Wednesday afternoon, but I’ll call you, shall I?’

  ‘Fine,’ said Saskia. ‘And thanks for taking me to the fish market. I’m not really a morning person but that was worth the early rise.’

  ‘Good.’ Ben waited a second, as though he was going to say something else, but then only waved his hand and drove off.

  Saskia watched the van disappear round the bend in the road. Was she disappointed he hadn’t said anything more? If she had to be absolutely honest with herself, then yes, she probably was. Ben was more mature and confident than any of the boys she was friendly with at home, yet she was very much at ease with him. And then, there had been that moment at the harbour when he’d understood in an instant exactly what she had been thinking . . .

  She looked at her watch. It was only just gone eleven o’clock. Alessandra was delivering material to the Heritage Centre this morning so she had given Saskia a front door key, but Saskia was in no hurry to retur
n to Cliff House. From a chill dawn the day had brightened into a full spring morning and she wanted to take her time and enjoy it. Saskia wandered to the clifftop barrier. Beyond this was the section of the cliff that Neil had said was unsafe. Saskia realized that she was standing on the headland above the place where she had found the seal. Directly below would be the jagged rocks that her great-aunt thought dangerous. Now Saskia could understand why. Not far beyond the barrier the edge of the cliff had fallen away, exposing great chunks of crumbling earth and stones. It was dangerous. But despite this she was tempted to go nearer and so, with a quick jump, she climbed up and over the barrier, and walked a few steps towards the edge of the abyss.

  Saskia drew in her breath. A child’s picture-book illustration was spread before her: a sea of paint-box blue, little clouds feathered white across the sky, yellow sand scalloped with the creamy liqueur of curling waves. Immediately below her, massive jagged rocks guarded the headland. Around and between them the sea fretted, water sucking and churning in constant motion. The hypnotic swirling drew Saskia closer, hardly conscious that she had taken one or two more steps. She stopped. With an effort she pulled her eyes away.

  Saskia retraced her steps and began to walk briskly down the right side of the road towards the house. It struck her that although man-made, the building was at one with the cliff, coming out from, yet seeming to be part of, the landscape. And it was not only she who saw the house as a part of its setting. Saskia recalled Ben, the first day they had met, being impressed with the house and the bay. She wondered if the cove had been used at one time for smuggling, and thought of the boats laden with fine silks and barrels of brandy coming round past those dangerous reefs and beaching on the shingle.

  Saskia was almost at the point where the house would be hidden again by the turn of the road when her gaze caught the briefest of movements at one of the attic windows. Alessandra must have returned from the Heritage Centre. Perhaps she had gone into the attic to check it was safe, as she had promised Saskia she would. Saskia hurried down the road to the house. She was eager to see what childhood ‘treasures’ of hers were still up there.

  Twenty stairs to the top floor. Saskia turned the handle. The door was unlocked. She stepped inside.

  There was no one there.

  Beside the door were piles and piles of old fishing nets, heaped up almost to the low roof. Here and there lay other fishing gear, lobster creels, floats, a pile of blankets, one or two barrels, and some old shoe boxes filled with shells. Apart from these things the attic was empty.

  Saskia moved further into the room. A few thin tatters of old lace hung down on each side of the windows. Saskia fingered the remnants and felt the wind blow through the gap in the window frames. The movement she had seen from the road must have been these old curtains flapping in the breeze.

  There was a noise behind her. Saskia jumped. Someone was on the outside stairs. Silently the door handle began to turn. Saskia fixed her eyes on the door.

  The door opened slowly and her great-aunt stepped into the room.

  ‘Saskia!’ Alessandra cried.

  Saskia rocked back a little on her feet.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  Saskia nodded, suddenly aware that she had been slightly frightened.

  ‘I did ask you not to come up here,’ said Alessandra. ‘Parts of the roof aren’t safe.’

  ‘I was walking back along the coast road and I thought I saw you at the attic window. But it was just the net curtain flapping. This window frame is quite rotted and there’s a draught coming through.’

  Alessandra looked around her. ‘I don’t come up here very often.’ She stepped back out of the room.

  Saskia followed her and they walked together down the outside stairs and into the house.

  Alessandra put her shopping bags on the kitchen table. With forced cheerfulness she said, ‘Let’s eat dinner by the fire in the big room tonight. We might play some more of the interview tapes.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Saskia. She suddenly felt enormously tired. Too early a start to the day, she told herself, tension within Alessandra, and – she was sure – some unresolved issue to do with her visits to Cliff House in the past. By next week her mother would surely be home and then she could talk to her, and ask her about her childhood summers here.

  In the early evening Saskia and Alessandra prepared their meal together. The routine of peeling potatoes and chopping vegetables seemed to steady her great-aunt and, Saskia realized, had helped her regain her own equilibrium.

  She’d slept in the afternoon and on wakening had lain for a while on her bed listening and thinking. The sea outside her window was soothing. Even the urgent cries of the nesting birds were not intrusive, being as they were intrinsic to her surroundings. The house too was settled. But – Saskia propped herself up on her pillows – was there within it, within her, a restlessness? The building did shift and susurrate, as Alessandra said it did. This afternoon easing itself, from time to time, into the cliff, or . . .

  Saskia’s eyes blinked wide open. Did it mirror the mood of its occupants? Certainly she was calmer than she had been earlier. And she knew Alessandra was sitting quietly by the kitchen door splitting wood for kindling. When she thought back on the last few days Saskia could see that, to begin with, she had been on edge, nervous of living with a person known as slightly peculiar, wrong-footed from the beginning with her incomplete memories of former visits. But now she was becoming accustomed to the atmosphere of this place. Saskia got up and went over and patted the wall of her bedroom that rested against the cliff . . . and felt strangely better for having done it.

  And being thus so much more relaxed, as she and Alessandra sat that night, plates on knees, eating in front of the fire, instead of agreeing to listen to the interview tapes Saskia said, ‘Actually, I’d rather hear your memories, Alessandra. From when you were about my age. You told me that you packed herring in barrels. I noticed this morning that the fish in the market at Peterhead were sorted in boxes before they came off the boat.’

  ‘I only went the twice,’ said Alessandra. ‘And it was after the Second World War, so the great days of the herring fishing were passing even then.’

  ‘What happened during the war?’ asked Saskia.

  ‘Most of the men went away. To the Royal Navy or the Merchant Navy. We are an island. We needed the Atlantic convoys or we would have starved. A lot of fishermen did mine-sweeping duties. Many did not return. One in four of the merchant fleet lost their lives.’

  ‘Ben says that, even outside wartime, sea fishing is reckoned to be the most dangerous profession,’ said Saskia.

  ‘Aye, we work hard to win our living from the sea.’

  ‘And after the war?’ Saskia prompted.

  ‘After the war, Fraserburgh was the chief herring town in Scotland. The boats and the fishing methods were changing but men still hunted the herring. The shoals moved round the British Isles in what the old ones said was a magic circle. As we lived from one year’s end to another, so it was with the herring, passing as the seasons did. Winter fishing began early in the year, mainly up in the far north and the Western Isles. From May to September we had the summer fishing. It started in the Shetland Isles, and as the fish swam south, so the fishing fleet followed the shoals: Fraserburgh, Peterhead, Aberdeen, the Tyne ports, Grimsby, Yarmouth, Lowestoft.’

  ‘I know it was hard work,’ said Saskia, ‘but it must have been a change of routine to see different places.’

  ‘And the old photographs and film don’t show ye the colour,’ said Alessandra. ‘The boats were awfu’ braw, funnels and wheelhouses painted bright colours, red and dark blues and greens, lettering picked out in gold or yellow. When they came by into the harbour it was a sicht tae see. Mak’ ye proud to be a herring quine.’

  Alessandra looked into the fire. Saskia saw that she was smiling.

  ‘The boats would come in where their own lassies were working. We went down on the train mostly, although some girls trave
lled by boat. I was just sixteen the first time I went, and very excited to be away from home and going to a different place. Yarmouth was one of the better ports: there were lodging houses rather than huts to stay in.’

  ‘Huts?’ said Saskia. ‘That doesn’t sound very comfortable.’

  Alessandra almost laughed at this. ‘Comfort was not a consideration.’ She gestured at their empty plates lying beside the hearth. ‘For most of us the major concern was having a full stomach through the winter.’

  Saskia stretched out in her chair and rested her feet on the fender. On the other side of the fireplace her great-aunt did the same. We are at each end of an arc between three generations, Saskia thought. She recalled herself allowing Ben to throw away her can of juice despite the fact that there was some left in it. From hunger to waste in less than a lifetime.

  ‘Each girl brought a kist of belongings.’ Alessandra glanced at Saskia. ‘You know the word “kist”? It means a chest. A chest full of things to see you through the season – clothes, and hairbrush and comb and such like. We needed heavy clothes to keep us warm, and stout boots too. The girls wore different shawls depending on which village they came from: Inverallochy and Cairnbulg had black and red checks, St Combs and Fhindhaven, black and blue. We wore long oilskin aprons. By the end of a day they were covered in fish guts and blood. The rules were strict and it was a twelve-hour shift, longer if more boats came in, but for me it was a blessed freedom. An’ we had a’ Sunday to dress up and walk out. Ye’d link arms as ye walked about the town and the sea front, and all the lads would stand to watch ye stroll by, and call out as ye passed, but ye jist gave them no mind . . . or at least ye didn’t let on ye heard them.’

  Alessandra broke off and looked across the room at Saskia. ‘Ben,’ she said, ‘that young man you went into Peterhead with this morning. Do you like him?’

  ‘Alessandra!’ exclaimed Saskia. ‘What a question.’

  ‘Aye. So ye do then.’ Alessandra smiled at her.

  ‘Let’s go back to you gutting fish,’ said Saskia, but she too was smiling.