‘Every winter?’ a small, hushed voice was sure to ask.
‘Aye, and it would turn to ice so that we could play on sledges for weeks.’
‘For weeks?’ another voice would ask in awe.
Granny Ina would nod. ‘Everybody had great big sledges, big enough to take whole families, and we’d polish up the iron runners till you could see your face in them, so that they’d go faster down the hills – and the hills were that steep, mind. That was the worst part, of course, having to pull them back up again for another go. Once my brother was coming down a hill so fast that he couldn’t stop and he went through the legs of a horse and out the other side! We stayed out till three or four in the morning playing in the snow, till our hands were so cold we couldn’t feel them. Everybody did it. Funny how you could be that cold and barely feel it.’
The Acarsaid bairns would nod respectfully, but they didn’t really believe old Mrs Hamilton. Either she was spinning a yarn or she was talking about an exotic, mystical land that only existed in her mind and now in theirs, with the kind of snow they could only dream about in their village. They would have swapped their unique ‘last’ tag any day for snow like that. Margo Nicolson would listen to the tales as she worked about the house, a wry smile on her lips. The old one was an incomer here, just as Aeneas had been. It didn’t matter how long you’d lived in the village, if you hadn’t drawn your first breath there, you would forever be an incomer.
For Margo it was different. She had been born in this house four months after her incomer parents had moved up from Yarmouth, so Margo was a native. It was always said to her by the villagers as though she should be proud of it, but she never had been. They were stupid little people and she had longed all her life to get away from them, but circumstances had taken care of that, damn them to hell. Yet the funny thing was that old Ina, though she would never truly belong, loved Acarsaid and loved all the people. Since her legs had stopped working she had sat there by the fire, her feet forever slipping out of the slippers everyone thought she should wear. She was spending the last years of her life reading her books on astronomy – with difficulty despite her glasses and magnifying glass; and talking to her visitors – though she couldn’t hear much of what was said; or watching her TV programmes – though she could hardly hear them even with the hearing aid and the TV volume turned up full. She didn’t seem to understand that she was trapped here, as trapped as Margo herself was, or else she didn’t mind, or not as much as Margo did.
If only she hadn’t married Quintin Nicolson. That was the stick Margo beat herself with every day of her life. If she hadn’t married him, she wouldn’t have been here, trapped by her mother’s infirmities. She had planned the marriage as her escape route, but it had been the mistake that sealed her fate and anchored her to this detested place forever. If only she had waited a few years, her father would’ve been dead and she would’ve been free anyway; instead of which when that time came she was a widow with five bairns and another on the way. Her own fault, of course, it had always been her failing that she thought she was smarter than everyone else, something the doting Aeneas had told her with great pride many times. But it had been a failing, there was no doubt about that: look at the life it had condemned her to, and among people she despised. It had been her father’s fault first of all, because he had held on to her with such a firm grip of smothering affection that she had to devise a plan to loosen it, but it had all gone wrong, and here she was, listening to her old mother talking about snow to bairns who thought she was mad anyway. Bairns who thought they were something special, she smiled grimly to herself as she scrubbed the sink viciously, because they lived in the village that was the last one on the map. God damn whoever had thought that one up, she thought. Without it the entire place might’ve slipped in to the ocean and never surfaced again, and even if she went with it, she would at least be out of it for good. The last village! The end of the bloody universe, more like!
Even if it hadn’t exactly been the saving of Acarsaid, no one could deny that being the last village on the map had become a peculiarity that drew tourists, especially once the terrors of the old approach road had been dealt with in the sacred name of progress. Once it spiralled ever upwards through the hills, plunging down into the hamlet of Keppaig before sweeping on up the coast to Acarsaid. Now, though, the adrenalin rush of meeting another vehicle coming in the opposite direction round the next corner on the single-track road had given way to a pleasant drive on an almost straight dual carriageway. To the utter bemusement of the locals, though, one or two small roundabouts had been included in the construction. They didn’t bother much with them. One had been built in the centre of a slight bend in the road that didn’t actually connect to anything. It was a sure sign, they muttered darkly, that any day now some far-away pen-pusher intended building a stretch of six-lane superhighway there, in the middle of nowhere, even though parts of the road were so narrow that passing places were needed. ‘We’ll be having traffic lights any day now, too,’ the more suspicious would mutter darkly, ‘mark my words. And what’s more, we’ll be expected to obey them or go to jail.’
The new road bypassed Keppaig completely, leaving it marooned on the right-hand side, separated from the sea on the left by a strip of tarmac and white road markings. From there, instead of meandering along the old coastal path, the new three-mile route had been blasted through hills of solid rock that had once cushioned the southern aspect of Acarsaid from the sea, so that approaching it in modern times meant driving straight through what had once been the lower reaches of a mountain. On the right stood what was left of the green hills, with houses nestling beyond, while on the left the road finally met up again with the coastal path and widened it, with tantalising glimpses of the pounding surf through the jagged remnants where once the mountain had become a hill, before sloping down and becoming a cliff that had held back the waves for many centuries.
Follow the road to the right and you would pass the curing sheds where Aeneas Hamilton’s smokery had stood a long time ago. After many years of lying derelict, the remaining smokery building was now used as a museum of fisheries. As an added bonus you could still smell the distinctive aroma of smouldering oak flakes and fish about the place to give it authenticity. Beyond that, on the right, beside the railway station, stood the Railway Hotel, the only one in town. The tourists liked to stay there because it was so near to the harbour, and the kind of tourists who made their way to Acarsaid usually had romantic notions about the fishing; that, after all, was why they came. Then suddenly you were in the heart of Acarsaid, the fabled ‘Last Village on the Map’. The dramatic approach, new road or not, taking tourists to the end of the trail, enabled them to think of Acarsaid as a kind of Brigadoon – and it was in its way, mainly because the villagers colluded in the illusion.
During the summer months the place was so busy that you could hardly move in the centre, but the real Acarsaid somehow purred along beneath the surface, like a sound too high or low for outsiders to hear, or a language they couldn’t understand. To the poor souls who were forced to live in cities for all but a couple of weeks a year, it was indeed a bit like a Highland Disneyland, with pleasant locals always happy to give directions in their soft, lilting accents. And providing every opportunity to enhance the fantasy was the working harbour with fishing boats going to sea and coming back in again to unload their catches, a scene that couldn’t help looking picturesque. The overall impression was that this happy atmosphere was the permanent way of life here. It was a harmless enough deception and, because they could tell the difference between reality and fantasy, the people of Acarsaid went along with it. After all, it did their village no harm and a lot of financial good.
Mind you, the notions of some tourists soon wore off after a day, and certainly after a night, as the noise of a working fleet going to and coming back from sea knocked the romance out of their heads. This coincided with a quick rethink about the hotel, too, as what they had determinedly thought of as q
uaintness was suddenly revealed as dilapidation. The service was appalling, too, when they came to think of it. Add to that the noise of the younger fishermen racing around in souped-up Vauxhall Novas half the night, and it was amazing how the scales seemed to fall from even the most determinedly romantic eyes, and after just a single sleepless night, too.
The more realistic dreamers among Acarsaid’s admirers knew that it was better by far not to stay in the centre of the village. Instead, from the safe distance of one of the many B&Bs on the outskirts, or up the Brae on the now unused road, the illusion could be preserved without too much effort. But the Station Hotel had at one time really been something, they would tell each other, all red chintz and gold flocked wallpaper, the kitchen dominated by a chef who wouldn’t have been out of place in the Café Royal in Paris. That was in the glory days, of course, the 1960s and 1970s, when fishing paid, when the fish came out of the water not just silver, but gold-plated; days now long gone.
Having passed the few shops in the village and, on the right, the now largely unused Brae running straight up from the harbour; the road followed a long, lazy curve to the left and climbed high above the bay to the plateau called Mac-Ewan’s Row, and even the most enthusiastic tourist had seen all there was to see of Acarsaid. Where the road rose above the village and looked down on the harbour and the fishing boats was where the houses of the richer residents stood; then, well, then nothing, because MacEwan’s Row was where it came to its famous sudden halt. On the plus side this did give the place a tourist trade, a second string to its fishing bow, with every other sign including the word ‘last’: the last petrol pump, last shop, last chance to part with your money. It made the tourists think that they belonged somehow, that they’d bought an ounce of genuine Acarsaid essence.
Those who came back year after year felt that they knew it and its people, felt that they belonged. They didn’t, of course. Even if they did hail the shopkeepers by name every time they returned, or ‘came home’, as they liked to put it, they would inevitably remain outsiders because they didn’t share the daily ups and downs of the place. They didn’t live through the winters as well as the summers, knew nothing of the generations of tragedies and the hand-to-mouth existences that were part and parcel of being a fishing community – though of course that was hardly their fault. Whether the tourists knew it or not, their attachment to Acarsaid was superficial; but the villagers were kindly, welcoming people in the main, and no one ever resented the fact that the visitors danced to a tune that only they could hear.
If there was a downside it was that the accident of geography which made the tourists buy everything they could bearing some ‘last’ legend also added to the traffic and bustle, so that in summer it took longer for the locals to get where they were going. The younger fishermen were always complaining that they couldn’t find a parking space in their own village, while the older ones reminded them that they were lucky to have cars to park; in their day you worked hard at sea then walked home, after stopping in at the Inn, naturally, when your boat docked. The younger ones, like younger ones anywhere, would shake their heads and smile quietly at each other, but everyone in Acarsaid still knew everyone else, so at least there was no verbal abuse of the old ones; for that your mother would still give you a slap about the ear in these parts.
And if your boat was tied up at the picturesque little harbour and you were doing something, sorting a net, maybe, or hosing down the deck after the catch had gone, the tourists were always hanging about asking damn fool questions. Not that you really objected, it just made you feel a bit daft, answering them as the other crews looked on, laughing at you behind their blank faces, just as you did when it was their turn to be questioned. In truth, it wasn’t so much the questioning that you tried to avoid as the looks and silent laughter of the others, and the ribbing that you knew would follow. As soon as the tourists appeared, festooned with cameras, their smart casual clothes in ice-cream colours contrasting sharply with the blacks, greys and navy blues of the fishermen, a voice somewhere would mutter, ‘Aye, aye, here they come!’
The fishermen would try to look too busy to be interrupted, or at least less approachable than the man on the next boat. Not that it really worked, but it was worth a try. ‘Is that a net?’ a stranger would ask, snapping away as you stood there with one in your hands, checking it for tears, or, ‘Are you a fisherman?’, and the scales covering every part of you and tripping over the top of your wellies. ‘Aye, aye, but you’ll likely find your picture in one of they fancy magazines,’ one would say quietly to the hapless interviewee in the Inn later, ‘but I never knew you were such an expert. I just wish I knew as much about seafaring as you do yourself!’ Heads would nod in solemn agreement with each other as pints were sipped and eyes exchanged amused glances over the rims of glasses. ‘And tell me,’ another would ask seriously, ‘that round affair sticking out the floor inside the wee house thing on top of your boatie there, would that be what they call the wheel, then?’ and they’d all laugh out loud, relieved that it hadn’t been them this time, and knowing full well it could be next.
Sorley Mor handled the tourists best, which was just as well, because they usually made straight for his boat. At thirty-four metres and, in the herring and mackerel seasons, carrying up to ten men, Ocean Wanderer was the biggest boat in the harbour, easily dwarfing the others, which were mostly thirteen-and fourteen-metre shellfish boats with crews of three or four men. As the industry had gradually declined since the heydays of the 1960s and 1970s, most of the smaller boats had increasingly concentrated on fishing for prawns, lobsters, crabs and scallops, many with crews that had never worked in the deeper ocean, but they still knew better than to believe any of Sorley Mor’s exotic stories. The tourists were easier victims, though, and the skipper would spin them yarns about huge whales, catches that nearly tipped the boat over, storms so severe that he never thought he’d see harbour again. The other fishermen, checking ropes and nets and washing down decks on their own boats, listened and laughed quietly as they caught each other’s eyes.
When the tourists went away, happy that they’d been given a glimpse into the hardy but romantic life of a deep-sea fisherman, the others would shout out to Sorley Mor, ‘Ach, you told that one better last week!’ or, ‘You missed the one where you saved the crew from yon pack of hammerhead sharks up by the Minch! You’re slipping, Sorley Mor!’, and Sorley Mor would take off his Dylan cap, bow deeply to all sides as though their catcalls were applause, and make his way through the harbour to the Inn, the tall, thin figure of Gannet by his side, or more usually, a step or two ahead, smiling graciously to his tormentors. When he was sober Gannet would whisper that Sorley Mor had walked one step behind him all his life, that wherever they went he always arrived first, because the skipper took so long to run the gauntlet of wisecracks and throw a few back.
‘Is that a fish you’ve been catching then, Duncan?’ he would call as he passed a boat unloading. ‘My, my. A whole fish, eh? You’ve done well the day. You’ll have to try and remember where you got that one and maybe you can get another tomorrow!’
‘And no thanks to you, Sorley Mor!’ Duncan would shout back from the deck of Southern Star. ‘There you were, up to your ears in fish, and not a word to a friend!’
‘Ach, Duncan,’ Sorely Mor would return, all hurt innocence, ‘you’re not suggesting that I’d be selfish, are you?’ A ripple of laughter would run around the harbour. Brothers under the skin they might be, but no fisherman would ever let another know when he was in the middle of a shoal. ‘When you called me my radio kept breaking up – is that not true, Gannet? I tried to get hold of you time and time again to give you our position, almost in tears of remorse I was – wasn’t I, Gannet? It must’ve been them atmospherics that was to blame!’
A few steps on, Lachie Macdonald, skipper of the Barbara Jean, would call out from the deck of his boat. ‘My, but that’s a helluva bright jersey you’re wearing, Sorley Mor. You look like a tourist, man!’
‘Ach now, Lachie, don’t let Chrissie hear you saying that!’ Sorley Mor would lie, his voice full of mock hurt. ‘I don’t mind for myself, you understand, but Chrissie knitted this for me herself, knitted it with love and devotion, so she did. She’d be cut to the quick to hear you making fun of it.’ Then he’d turn around as he passed, if he hadn’t meant to all along, ‘And those nice green wellies I saw you with last week, Lachie, man,’ he’d say. ‘I was wondering where a man could buy a pair?’
‘I’ve got no green—’
‘They go well with that pink shirt you had on the other day, and I for one don’t believe there’s any truth in a word they say, Lachie. I’ll always stick up for you, you can be sure of that.’
‘What d’you mean?’
‘Well, when they say you’re light on your feet,’ Sorley Mor would reply kindly. ‘I know fine that they’re just admiring yon quick way you jump about the deck. In your green wellies, too.’
When Sorley Mor married Chrissie, being the most successful skipper in Acarsaid, he had a house built up on the plateau where the road ran out, which was when it had become known as MacEwan’s Row. Most of the houses in the village belonged to the MacEwan clan; as everyone knew, Acarsaid could just as well have been called MacEwanville. They were all related to each other, but it wasn’t always easy to work out how closely, because they were descended from the larger families of long ago, when birth control depended on how long the men were at sea. There was that other kind, of course: post-birth control, the men lost at sea. Many a big family had been whittled down by that. And even those who weren’t called MacEwan any longer, the women who had married and taken other names and their families, they were still MacEwans anyway. MacEwan blood, as everyone knew, was stronger than any other variety, so it was a dangerous business to speak ill of any of the clan.
The Last Wanderer Page 11