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Leaving Ella behind in Yarmouth felt strange after so many years making these journeys with her, and even stranger given the circumstances. Not only was Ella in this predicament, but their father was newly dead, so the family would be grief-stricken and, not knowing what had been happening in Yarmouth, they would be expecting the two sisters to arrive together, as they always had. She had never before heard of a Lerwick woman who had left her husband, far less one who was already pregnant by another man with whom she was now living in sin, but she didn’t have to imagine the reaction: it would, she knew, be explosive. The family was in mourning, and added to that they would be deeply ashamed of Ella’s behaviour. Whether that was merited or not wasn’t the issue; not for the moment, anyhow: the fact was that they would be.
Strangely enough, Ina didn’t feel any shame. She had been shocked and embarrassed that she hadn’t known something about her own sister that the entire universe seemed to have known for a very long time, or the universe of the herring lassies, at any rate. She wondered if any of the Shetland fishermen might already have found out about Ella and Eddie and have passed it on, then she realised that couldn’t have happened. For one thing there would have been some delegation sent to confront the couple if anyone at home had known, and for another the lassies lived in a world of their own. It was a matter of pride that they protected each other as much as they protected themselves, so Ella’s secret would have been kept, indeed it had been kept, even from Ina.
She would head for Lerwick for the weekend before reporting to the hospital near Aberdeen for whatever duties she had been assigned to carry out for the duration of the war. Safely tucked in her kist, with her working clothes and the presents bought with her Sutton’s money, was the letter Ella had written to Ronnie. Ina hadn’t read it, so she had no idea what words her sister had used to convey the enormity of this situation. On the long train journey to Aberdeen her mind constantly revised how she would break the news, then thoughts of her father would intrude, and how there hadn’t even been time for a last goodbye. She remembered the stories he had told her about their family in Canada, unwittingly setting the scene for Danny and Isobel’s elopement, and the things he had taught Ina about the stars. Together they had watched Halley’s Comet in 1910. She had been so young that she could remember only Magnus’s excitement; he had talked about it so often and in such detail that his memory had become hers. They had lain in the grass and watched the meteor showers of shooting stars together every year: fast, brilliant white Lyrids in April, blue Lyrids in June, bright, exploding Cygnids in August; no matter how often they saw the annual shows overhead they had been transfixed and elated.
On a previous reluctant trip home she had shown Magnus her cheap telescope, and he had been so captivated by it that she decided on the spot to tell him that she had bought it as a present for him. Once back at the fishing, she had to go through all the saving-up again to buy another, but it had been worth it to see her father’s face as he vainly searched the skies for Pluto, the new planet next door to Neptune. That was the year Danny and Isobel had eloped and her brother had been banished from the family, though Danny and Ina kept in touch by letter. Pluto appeared, she would think, and Danny disappeared, wondering if her Da had considered it a fair swap. But he had never mentioned it; only the stars seemed to matter to him. The times when they compared notes on what they could see; she could never see as many stars in Yarmouth or as clearly as he saw them in Shetland. Now those times were over and the gap was, she knew, unfillable; there would be less reason than ever to return to Lerwick at the end of every season now that Magnus had gone.
As ever, as the boat approached Lerwick, she was struck by how little her island home had changed, and yet how much smaller it seemed each time, as though it shrank in direct proportion to the time she was away and the width of her experiences in the outside world. One day, she thought, she might make this journey and find that there was nothing at the end of it – Lerwick and all the Shetland Isles would have shrunk to the size of a handful of pebbles and been washed away by the sea.
There hadn’t been time to tell the family when she would be arriving, so Ina had to make her own way to Cheyne Crescent. Not that there was ever a great deal of fuss – arrivals and departures were part of normal, ordinary life – but usually there would be someone to help with the kists, or kist, in this case. As she drew near to Cheyne Crescent she saw her brother, Sandy, and waved. Sandy still worked as a cooper, though he no longer followed the fleet. He had stayed in Lerwick when he married, the year Ina went off to the herring. He ran forward and took the kist from her, at first smiling, then remembering why she had come home this time. She patted his shoulder sadly.
There was no great excitement as Ina entered the house: they were a family in mourning, after all. At first no one mentioned Ella’s absence, thinking she had gone to her own home first. Nothing much had changed, as the years had passed there were more nieces and nephews, and as they had grown and married, grandbairns had arrived for Magnus and Dolina. Dolina was sitting by the fire when Ina entered, looking up at her daughter with those sad eyes, now even sadder. She seemed so small, so old and so defeated as well. Ina heard the account of Magnus’s death that had obviously been gone over time after time so that it could be accepted. He had gone to Staney Hill to bring back a kilshie of peats. He had been feeling off-colour before he set out. Dolina had thought he looked pale and told him to get one of the grandbairns to go instead. He had said no, it would be quicker just to go himself and he could have a rest when he got back and, anyway, it was just a wee bit pain. He’d touched his chest, though Dolina hadn’t remembered that fleeting gesture till much later, and as she related this part of the story she touched her chest just as he had.
When Magnus came back he had dropped the peats outside, opened the door and, as Dolina looked up, he had fallen to the floor in front of her. That was it, not a word more had passed his lips, not a look even. The doctor said he had gone at that very moment when he had opened his own front door and seen his wife looking up at him. As her mother recounted the sad tale, the other family members listened intently, though they had doubtless heard it many times. Ina followed the unfolding tale in her mind, looking at the door as she heard how Magnus left, watching it open again, staring at the floor where he had fallen and died. Dolina was dry-eyed; she must’ve have cried herself out, Ina thought.
Magnus had been buried beside Angus and, even now, as Ina thought of them lying there in the cold earth together, she saw her aged father and the beautiful boy she had never been able to replace in her mother’s affections. As a child she saw him in her mind’s eye growing and becoming more beautiful, more perfect, but now she suddenly realised that he had stopped growing when she had gone away for the first time at the age of fifteen. That was her last picture of Angus, as a handsome teenager. She couldn’t see him growing older, and now he had his father with him. ‘Angus will take care of him,’ Dolina said, as though she had heard Ina’s thoughts, ‘and he will take care of Angus. I always felt anxious knowing my boy was lying there alone.’ Then she nodded her head contentedly. It was how people made sense of their grief, Ina supposed; they made up in their minds whatever little scenarios would bring them comfort so that they could move on with their lives.
After a while Dolina looked up. ‘When is Ella coming at all?’ she asked tetchily.
Ina took a deep breath, swallowed, then said in a small voice that Ella was still in Yarmouth.
‘I see,’ said Dolina, ‘you came along first, then.’
‘No, mother,’ Ina said. ‘She won’t be coming.’
Dolina looked confused and shocked. ‘And her father dead? What is she thinking about? And it’s the end of the season, too. What can she be doing that’s more important than coming home here to her family at a time like this?’
All eyes were on her, but Ina didn’t reply. All the prepared explanations she had rehearsed so carefully on the train and on the boat had disap
peared like a morning haar in the heat of the sun.
‘And she’ll be needed up at the croft, too. Whatever can she be she thinking about?’ Dolina demanded again, her eyes and her voice quietly angry as she looked around her family for their agreement.
‘She’s not coming back here, ever,’ Ina said.
There was a sharp intake of breath all round the room and Ina was so surprised at the sound of her own voice that she almost joined in.
‘She’s found someone,’ she rushed on. ‘His name’s Eddie, he’s a fisherman.’
‘What are you saying?’ Dolina demanded, her voice like a shard of ice. ‘What kind of thing is that to say about your own sister?’
Ina felt their stares turn more disapproving, hardening. ‘Mother, you have to listen to what I’m going to tell you,’ she said with a sigh. ‘It’s important that you understand.’ She looked around the room. ‘Ella’s never been happy with Ronnie. He beat her, did you know that?’
There was no reply.
‘Well, did you?’ she asked, her confidence buoyed by the silence that remained unbroken.
‘From the day they were married, he’s hit her. Every night she’s spent on this island ever since, she’s slept with a knife under her pillow.’
Still silence, then Dolina said quietly, ‘What goes on between a man and a woman is their business, Ina.’
They did know! she thought furiously. ‘And she stopped being your daughter the minute she married that … that beast?’ she demanded, trying to control herself. ‘She was seventeen years old!’
‘Old enough to be a married woman,’ Dolina said severely, wringing her hands. ‘And she had done well. There was a croft and a living there for her: many a woman’s had less.’
‘I don’t understand you,’ Ina said, getting up and walking around the dark room that had once been her home. ‘Do you really believe that when a man marries he can treat his wife worse than he’d be allowed to treat an animal? If you knew she was unhappy, did you never think of asking her why? And did none of you big, strapping men,’ she looked around at them, ‘never think they should have a word with Ronnie about what was going on?’
Silence.
‘Did Da know?’ she demanded.
‘Don’t you be saying things about your father,’ Dolina shouted at her, ‘and him barely cold in his grave!’
‘He was Ella’s father as well,’ Ina replied angrily. ‘I just want to know, did he know what was happening to her?’
‘He didn’t really know,’ said a voice guiltily. ‘None of us did.’
She looked up into the eyes of her brother, Sandy, and held his gaze. ‘You didn’t know?’ she asked him directly.
‘Not for sure,’ Sandy said.
‘Well that makes it all right then,’ she laughed bitterly. ‘As long as you didn’t know for sure, you didn’t have to take your courage in your hands and do anything about it, is that what you mean?’
Sandy looked down wordlessly at the floor.
‘Does Ronnie know about her fancy man yet?’ Dolina demanded sourly.
‘He’s not her fancy man; he’s the only real man she’s ever known.’ She looked around the room. ‘And that,’ she said, ‘takes in every one of you.’
‘What kind of man would take another man’s wife?’ Sandy demanded angrily, more in an attempt, she suspected, to deflect blame from himself and the family than to criticise Eddie.
‘A better man than any here it seems!’ Ina spat back at him. ‘The kind of man who won’t beat her and kick her; the kind of man who would stop anyone else doing it as well!’
‘So who’ll tell Ronnie?’ Dolina asked. ‘The poor man will be devastated. The hussy! A daughter of mine no better than a whore. What he’ll think of us, I don’t know!’
Ina stopped herself from turning on her mother, reminding herself that she was newly widowed after all.
‘Oh, no need to worry about that,’ she said with relish, ‘I’ll tell Ronnie. I wouldn’t have anyone else do it!’
She walked to her kist, rummaged around inside, found Ella’s letter and turned towards the door.
‘Wait,’ said Dolina from the corner, ‘you’d better take one of the men with you.’
‘Men?’ Ina said savagely from the doorway, looking every one in the eye. ‘I don’t see any men here. I’d have to go back to Yarmouth for one of those!’
Ronnie was in the byre when she arrived. He was busy with the animals and didn’t see her at first. She stood looking at him. He was good-looking, all the girls had fancied him, she knew that; a tall, well-built, grey-eyed man, his hair more golden than red. He was much taller and heavier than Ella, she mused, shutting her eyes as she pictured him punching her sister. He looked up and smiled. ‘Bastard!’ she thought viciously. He looked behind her for Ella.
‘Is she in the house?’ he asked.
‘No,’ Ina said shortly. ‘She’s not coming home. She gave me this for you.’
She held out the letter and he wiped his hands down his sides and took it from her.
‘What’s in it?’ he asked, turning it from side to side.
‘You’d better read it,’ Ina replied, standing in front of him.
He tore the end of the envelope open and stared inside, then he pulled the letter out and began reading, his eyes squinting slightly. Ina kept her eyes on his face, saw the changing expressions, watched his muscles clench and his lips narrow as he read. She could see that Ella had written only a few lines, but Ronnie kept staring at them.
‘Is this true?’ he asked eventually, more to himself than her. ‘It must be a joke!’
‘Is she in the habit of laughing with you?’ Ina asked coldly.
‘She’s expecting by this man?’
Ina nodded. His face changed from red to white and back again.
‘How long has this been going on?’ he asked.
‘Does that matter?’ Ina asked.
He tore the letter into pieces and threw them down on the hay, pacing about angrily, unable to think of what he should do.
‘And you knew?’ he demanded, advancing towards her.
‘Not at the time,’ she said, looking up at him, ‘but that was my fault. Everyone else knew.’
‘Other people knew? Who is he?’ he demanded, his fists clenching as he stomped about. ‘I’ll kill him! I’ll go down there and I’ll kill him!’
‘Well, you’d better take an army with you,’ Ina said tartly. ‘He’s not a lassie, he’ll hit back. And don’t think the crew of Ocean Wanderer will stand by and let anything happen to him either.’
‘What do you mean by that?’ he demanded, but she saw by his eyes that he knew perfectly well what she had meant.
‘You’ve been hitting Ella all these years, that’s what I mean,’ she said calmly, then she looked down at his feet. ‘And kicking her as well. She should’ve stuck that knife in you. If I’d known what you were doing to my sister, I’d have stuck it in you myself.’
‘You don’t know—’ he shouted.
‘What? That she refused to sleep with you after you’d punched her then raped her on her wedding night?’ Ina said in a loud, calm voice. She had her hands deep in the pockets of her coat, and she felt the little pile of money there that she had screwed up inside an envelope to give to her mother. From the corner of her eye she saw a pitchfork lying against the byre wall, nearer to her than to him; if need be she would grab it to protect herself. Then she changed her mind; she wouldn’t protect herself, she’d get him with it. She thought of places to hurt him. His handsome face; between his legs. Yes, that was it, lift the mucky pitchfork and stick its prongs between his legs, and twist them hard! Please, let him try to hit me, please!
Ronnie stopped in his tracks and stared at her, his eyes ablaze. ‘I don’t suppose,’ he said tightly, ‘she even gave you her barrel money to bring with this letter?’
Ina gasped. ‘Now you are joking!’ she replied, getting angrier by the second. She wanted to goad him into coming at her so that she c
ould hit back, not just for Ella, but for herself, too.
‘I’ll give you his name and address if you want,’ she said. ‘Ella tells me he’s twice the man you ever were, and in every department, if you know what I mean. Not that she had much to go on with you.’
He stood still three feet from her, his face so suffused with anger that she thought he’d explode. She imagined the scene: big handsome Ronnie’s rubber boots standing there in the byre and the rest of him dripping from the walls and ceiling and running into the hay the animals were crapping on. She laughed at the thought.
‘I wonder how many people here know that, Ronnie – that you only managed to bed her once and you had to rape her to do that? Wouldn’t that make them laugh?’
He took a step towards her and she darted forward and grabbed the pitchfork, holding it menacingly towards him. He stopped.
‘Come on, Ronnie, you’re not going to take that from a lassie, are you? I’m going to tell everyone, you see if I don’t! I’ll tell them big Ronnie’s wife is having another man’s bairn because he can’t get it up!’
He moved closer.
Please, another step, she pleaded silently.
‘And even if he could, it’s not worth the bother. Nothing there to see, so Ella says.’
Suddenly Ronnie slumped to the floor and knelt, crying, in front of her, and Ina felt so disappointed that she almost joined him. She watched him, trying to think of something more she could say to get him in fighting trim again, but her repertoire had been exhausted. She laughed out loud again. All the smutty talk she had heard over the years, the banter she didn’t take part in, the conversations full of crude innuendo that she’d so disliked: who could’ve known that one day it would come pouring from her mouth so effectively? It was true what they said then: nothing in life is ever wasted! Then she turned to leave and, finding the pitchfork still in her hand, threw it against the byre wall and walked out, still laughing.
Back at Cheyne Crescent she found the family all still discussing the situation, but they fell silent as soon as she walked in. She looked around at them.
The Last Wanderer Page 7