The Brides of Rollrock Island

by Margo Lanagan

  But then Misskaella whistled.

  ‘Oh, what is that?’ said the ladies.

  ‘What? They’re not done,’ said Os Cawdron down from me. ‘They’re hardly even begun.’

  But Misskaella had not whistled to signal the end of the washing. The dads on the wharf turned. They saw the box-man and came running. Up at Wholeman’s men pushed out the door and along the rail, and two of them spilled under it and began to run down.

  ‘Oh dear, Mister Thornly,’ said one of the ladies, ‘I think they don’t want you taking photographs of their women.’

  Ah, photographs – Mister Paste up at the school had told us about those. This, then, was a camera – a box for keeping light out, with an eye for letting light in.

  ‘Now, excuse me, sir,’ called out Mister Bannister, rounding off the sea-front onto the mole. ‘We’ll have none of that.’

  The camera-man straightened from his fiddling with the box, and watched our menfolk hurry at him. They stopped a few yards away, and the townswomen slightly clustered and clutched together at the sight. Beside these Cordlin clothes, our fathers’ dress looked dark and not quite clean; beside their small smooth faces, our dads’ were crumpled, darkened also. But that is not dirt, I protested to myself; that is sun and wind and weather – and whisky, for a couple of them, I admitted.

  The man stood hands on hips. ‘But I came here specifically to make a photographic record.’

  ‘And I’m sure we’re very happy for you to do that,’ said Bannister, smoothing down the air while some of the men bristled behind him. ‘But we weren’t expecting you so early, and the women were planning to have this blanket-work done before the boat came in. They’re not respectable, and we don’t want you taking unrespectable pictures back to mainland, do we?’

  ‘We certainly don’t,’ said Bern O’Day crisply, and a touch threateningly.

  ‘And showing them about,’ said Bannister. ‘And Cordlin people thinking we let our wives get about like that, all barelegged.’

  The mams eyed each other’s water-thickened shins, exchanged baffled looks.

  ‘What is wrong with legs?’ muttered Oswald, bending his head to look at his own. The sunshine fizzed in the red bristles on the back of his head.

  ‘We don’t wish to offend, I’m sure,’ said the pink-cheeked lady loudly. ‘But Mister Thornly here is both an anthropologist and an artist. I think you can rest easy that he will make no inappropriate use of his pictures.’

  ‘Can we now?’ said Corbell snakily, back in the crowd.

  ‘I’m sure we can,’ said Bannister, smoothing the air again.

  ‘It is his project,’ the lady trumpeted on, giving a little flick of her parasol as if to say she would not allow herself, or any of her people there, to be trifled with, ‘to document all the customs and habits of the people of these isles, for posterity.’

  ‘I think your wives are beautiful!’ said the camera-man. How white he looked after our dads, like a man made of china – and how could he think they wanted to hear such a thing from his mouth? Misskaella was walking slowly towards us from the mole-end; Trudle danced along behind her as if bored. Everything was so unusual, I did not think it improbable that Misskaella would pick up the man, or his photographic camera, and smash one or the other of them on the rocks.

  ‘And while they are engaged in this traditional …’ The man looked at the blankets properly for the first time. ‘What is it, exactly?’

  The younger lady said very distinctly and flatly, ‘They are soaking and mending their private blankets.’ I heard the tiniest snort from the lady next to her, and another of the younger ladies turned my way to cover her laughter, saw me looking and brought her parasol down over her face, where it shook a little. Very suddenly I wanted to snatch and throw that parasol, or poke her with its sharp point, or wallop her head free of its little ornamental hat.

  ‘Private blankets?’ said the camera-man as if all the wind had gone out of him. ‘Well, then, I suppose …’

  ‘Oh, but I’m sure this has never been recorded before!’ cried one of the young ladies, from sheer mischief – just look at her swaying there, her wide eyes.

  ‘Of course not, Georgette,’ said Missus Pink-Cheeks, putting a heavy hand on Georgette’s arm. ‘Because it is private.’

  ‘I’m only saying, it is a valuable anthropological record—’

  ‘Hush, now.’

  And the camera-man folded his black cloth – very precisely, and you could tell from the folds that he always folded it exactly this way. When he was done, he collapsed his camera into its box and gathered its legs together.

  The dads’ shoulders had dropped, and Job Cress and Michael Lexly were walking away back to the boat. Misskaella had stopped halfway to us. The mams sat quietly, watching the ladies, and all us boys glanced about like chickens looking for seed, keeping an eye on everyone.

  ‘Well, where is a good prospect for capturing some scenic views of the island?’ said the camera-man. ‘If you’ve no objection to that.’

  ‘Watch-Out Hill, I should say,’ said Bannister.

  As he described how the man should reach there, the Cordlin ladies took a last look at our mams there in the shallows with the blankets nodding and bubbling all around them, and drifted after the menfolk.

  Seal-ladies. Why had they called our mams seals? They had strange ideas, mainlanders, and they were not shy to spread them about.

  John Abut trickled out of the group of dads and round to Misskaella as she moved up again, to resume her usual pacing beside the blanket-menders. ‘Be as quick as you can,’ I heard him mutter to her, ‘and get them out of sight.’

  ‘I did not bring the Fey early,’ she said. I was glad I was not Abut, the look she gave him.

  ‘Of course you didn’t. But we don’t want any more busy-bodying, that’s all. Cordlin people making fun.’

  ‘Why should you care,’ said Misskaella, quite loudly, though the Cordlin people had already wandered too far along the mole to hear. ‘Why should it matter what Cordlin people think, when you have the most beautiful wives in the world?’

  * * *

  One cold, windy afternoon a gaggle of us took shelter in the back of the pub. The first snow had fallen, but that was days ago, and it was only rotten bits lying in the shade of walls, nothing useful. We had made a man of what we could find in the yard at the back, but he was not much more than a snow-blob, it had gone to such slop – although we had given him a fine rod, the brace of a broken bar stool that Wholeman had put out the back for mending, so you knew at least he was a man-blob.

  Anyway, it was beastly cold and the wind had begun to nip and numb us, so we came in the back door, and it felt like heaven just the little heat that had leaked out into the hall from the snug. No one was about, to tell us to hie on out again before our ears turned blue from the language we might hear, so we milled there thawing out and being quiet.

  I had hold of the lid of the chest against the wall and was about to see if I could haul it open, when Aran Bannister said, ‘Hey, lads,’ in a soft voice that made us all look up. He stood at the storeroom door, its padlock in his hand.

  ‘How is that?’ whispered Raditch. The door stood a crack open. All the bigger boys were stilled, frightened by the sight – and perhaps by the smell that spilled out, sea-water, sour and cold.

  ‘Wholeman must have left it,’ said Raditch. ‘Wholeman must store other stuff in there.’

  ‘What stuff?’ said Johnny Baker. ‘Would there be food, mebbe? Would they notice a little gone? Peanuts or something?’

  Aran’s frightened look changed to hopeful naughtiness, and he pulled the door wider. We crowded forward to see, but none of us went in. There seemed hardly room for us.

  ‘Lemme see!’ Kit Cawdron pushed among us to the front and stopped there, baffled. ‘Why, it’s full of … coats, are they?’

  ‘Of course they’re coats, you gosling,’ said Aran. ‘They’re the mams’ coats. Your mam’s is in there somewhere.’


  ‘My mam’s coat is on the hook at home, thank you very much,’ said Kit. ‘Why would she wear one of these?’

  ‘Hush, Kit,’ said Raditch, ‘or the dads’ll hear and belt us. You should shut this, Aran, and lock it properly.’ But he craned his neck just as hard as the rest of us.

  ‘It’s her seal-coat.’ Aran bent to Kit and spoke most carefully and quietly, as if Kit were very stupid. ‘From when she was in the sea. That she shook off to have you and Os.’

  I stared in at the things. Now I could see their shapes better in the dimness. I shivered. ‘I don’t like the way their heads go.’

  ‘They’re more capes than coats, aren’t they?’ said Angast beside me. ‘They’ve no arms, that I can see.’

  ‘No, they come in at the bottom,’ breathed Toddy Marten at my shoulder. ‘That’s not like a cape.’

  ‘They’re not capes nor coats,’ said Grinny sturdily. ‘They’re skins, off seals, and so they look like seal.’

  ‘Off our mams?’ said Kit, disbelieving.

  But I knew it was true. With a thump like a storm-wave’s onto Forward Beach it came true for me. I come from the sea, Mam said. I had always thought she meant from a boat there; I had imagined each mam of ours had her own boat, that she stood at the helm of, her hair streaming on the wind, her face joyful with being afloat and in command. But no, it was this; I could tell from the sea-smell, and the other with it, of animal. It was exactly the smell of my mam when she lay with her tears-blanket. Except that she was warm then, whereas this smell pouring from the door chilled us, froze us all together in a lump.

  Deep in among us, Johnny Baker hissed, ‘Can anyone see the peanuts?’

  And that unfroze our solemn-ness, him thinking of his stomach. A couple of snorts sounded, and a John-ee, show respect!

  ‘Come, let’s have a look,’ said Aran, pretending to be brave, and some of us followed him in – not many, for the skins filled the room up pretty thoroughly.

  ‘Ain’t they strange?’ said Angast among the glimmering, glooming shapes. ‘Like people themselves.’

  ‘They’re pretty,’ said Raditch. ‘All different speckles. And smooth. Have a feel.’

  ‘Pretty and smooth, just like a mam,’ said Grinny from the door. Some giggled, and some jumped on Grinny and started quietly fighting.

  ‘I wish I could see,’ said Raditch. ‘I’m sure the heads should not look so frightening. What have they done to them?’

  ‘Bring one out,’ suggested Angast, ‘to the better light.’

  I was glad to go out ahead of him; that room was too much for me, the heavy things pressing us, rustling, hung so closely. They made noises as we pushed among them, as if they were alive – they sighed and squeaked and clicked in their throats. And the unhappy smell weighed in my chest more like water than air.

  We managed to get one of the smaller ones out. Aran took the wooden ball from where it had shaped the head skin, the hook protruding out the mouth-hole. We passed it boy to boy, while each had a stroke of the coat-stuff, sheeny and dark, the markings more faded than on a live seal. And each boy tried the skin on awhile, except Kit Cawdron, who would not. I cannot describe to you the feeling of putting it on. It was as if you found yourself suddenly right down in the slime at the bottom of the sea, with nothing above you but black water.

  ‘How do they swim in these things?’ said Raditch, elbowing inside so that the flipper flapped.

  ‘It is bonded to them properly,’ said Aran. ‘And the water holds them up, you know. You have seen seals a-plenty.’

  Jakes Trumbell was the only one who pulled the hood over his face, and we made him stop when he looked out the eyes and lurched at us, for he had dark, mam-type eyes, and it was too eerie.

  ‘It smells,’ he said, taking it off. I sniffed the arm of my woolly to see if the smell had stuck. It was hard to say. The whole air, the whole hall there, was greenish with latening afternoon and seaweedishness. Would Mam smell it on me later? Would it send her into a mood?

  ‘Cawn, Kit,’ said Aran to Cawdron, ‘let us see you in it; you will make a great little mam, you’re so pretty.’

  ‘Not on your nelly,’ Cawdron said. ‘It’ll drown me, that will.’

  ‘Come on; it will suit you so well.’

  And seeing as there was nothing else to do but persuade him, we set to it, and Jakes hauled out another bigger coat and put it on, and urged some more, and before too long we had weakened the poor lad sufficiently to drape the thing on him, dark and gleaming.

  Along the hall the snug door opened. We scrambled to hide what we were doing. Somehow the coat-room door got closed and the coats were hid behind legs and we were all lounging idle and innocent when Batton-and-Johnny’s dad passed us on his way out to the pisser.

  ‘What you lads brewing?’ he said, taking a step back when he saw all our eyes.

  But none of us needed to answer, for he opened the yard door then, and the wind hit him to staggering.

  ‘It’s perishin’ out there, Mister Baker,’ said Grinny in just the right voice, dour and respectful.

  ‘I’ll freeze my man off, pissing in that.’ Baker squinted into the darkening yard. ‘I see a chap who’s frozen out there already,’ he added with a laugh. ‘A fine upstanding chap, if I’m not mistaken.’

  And out he went, banging the door.

  ‘He sees so much as a sleeve-edge, we are beaten,’ said Grinny, into the quiet of our relief. ‘Beaten and put in our rooms and no suppers for ever – and our mams so disappointed.’

  We had time to hide the coats better before Baker came back. He shut the door and swayed and looked at us, all in our same places. ‘Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,’ he finally said, and tapped his nose and went off.

  And that might have ended it there and then, and everything stayed tip-top and as usual.

  Except, ‘Come, Kit,’ whispered Jakes. ‘You looked the perfect mam.’

  So we hauled the coat out and lumped it on Cawdron again, and Jakes put the other one on, and then they made us laugh, trying to walk about like mams, trying to move their hands all delicate and their heads all thoughtful. Cawdron was the best at it, of course, being so fine-made anyway, and with the colouring. Jakes was funnier, though, being more dad-like, all freckles and orange hair and hands like sausage-bunches.

  ‘I’ve been abed for days, so mis’rable, Missus Cawdron,’ he said, and the way he leaned and rolled his eyes, and his voice trying to trill and sing – we were holding each other up, it was so funny.

  And then Kit joined in and, my, he was good, because his voice was not yet begun to break, and he could really sound the part. ‘Because I’m to have another bair-beh,’ he said, and we were just about rolling on the slates there, but as quiet as we could.

  ‘I thought you just had one, Missus?’ said Jakes, through laughing.

  ‘Oh’m, I did. But ’twas only a girl, so I took her down and drowned her.’

  ‘It is not drowning, you goose!’ spluttered Raditch.

  But, ‘Grand!’ said Jakes over him. ‘Another sea-wife for our lads to net, come sixteen summers.’

  ‘Oh yes, but if only I could have another son like my lovely Christopher there! For it is daughters-daughters-daughters with me!’

  And he was just overacting a suffering mam, staggering, with the back of his hand to his forehead, when something behind us, and up from us, caught his eye. He snatched his hand down to his side, and tripped on his coat-edge, and banged up against the wall. His face was not mammish any more, and not at all playful; he was the littlest of us, and the most frightened. He and Jakes had the most to lose, after all, with Baker’s dad there at the back of us, and Mister Grinny, too, come soundless from the snug to catch us at whatever.

  We shrank into a bunch, back around Kit and Jakes against the wall there, staring at those men. Grinny’s dad’s face was white and stiff with the surprise, but Baker’s trembled, and red rage tided up it – jolly Mister Baker, who at any other time would have twinkled and mu
ssed our hair as soon as look at us. Honest, I thought his head was going to burst, it swelled and stared so.

  ‘What do you think you are up to?’ he hissed into the utter silence. Someone gave a little peeping fart, and nobody even snickered, we were all so close to shitting ourselves, every lad of us.

  Kit Cawdron didn’t make a sound. He was glued to the wall behind us, trying to melt away into it.

  I thought Baker would wade in and belt him. Everyone expected it. Grinny’s dad expected it, and decided it must not happen, and put a hand on Baker’s arm.

  ‘Take those off, lads,’ he said, gentle as gentle.

  The crowd of us loosened, but only a little. ‘Here,’ Raditch muttered, helping Cawdron behind. There was silence except for the fumbling, Cawdron’s unsteady breathing, the slither and clop of the coats.

  ‘Come, lads,’ said Mister Grinny, holding out his hands. I could not tell what he might be thinking – how does anyone else’s dad think? – but he was not so frozen-faced now. Good, I thought, they’ll not thrash them, then. This is too wicked even for that. ‘Hang them coats up, lads,’ he said, ‘and show some reverence as you do.’ And he stood there, one freckly hand ensausaging Kit’s white slip of a paw, and the other on Baker’s sleeve who was steaming and readying to roar and punch something, as we hauled the cursed things into the coat-room, and managed to re-hang them. Everybody was shaking like the leaves of the poplars on Watch-Out Hill; everyone was clumsy and needed each other’s help. The cupboard was full of our breaths and the coats. Beyond it, I heard Grinny say to Baker, ‘Fetch Wholeman. And Wholeman’s boy.’

  When we were done we closed the door, whisper-quiet, and turned to face our punishment. Mister Grinny was still there holding Cawdron. ‘Wholeman?’ Baker bellowed in the snug doorway, and the room went silent there. ‘And where’s young Rab?’ Bottles clinked, glasses knocked on tables, chairs squeaked under shifting men.

  Mister Grinny squatted among us. ‘You’ll not touch them skins again, all right?’ he said softly, almost sadly.