The Last Wanderer

by Meg Henderson

  ‘So you didn’t ever love him?’ Rose asked.

  Margo shook her head. ‘Don’t even know what the word means.’

  ‘And all my life I’ve heard stories about you and Sorley Mor,’ Rose said. ‘Was there never anything between you and him either?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Rose laughed. ‘Everyone here wanted to marry us off, just as they’re trying to marry you off to that Gavin—’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Ach, stop being silly, you know fine they have their hearts set on it. It would tie up all the loose ends nicely. But you can’t let it happen, Rose.’

  ‘But he’s just a friend!’ Rose protested. ‘Do they think I can forget Sorley Og that easily?’

  ‘That’s how it starts, Rose, you drift into situations; everybody does it. Are you really so naive that you think that when every couple here came together there were fireworks in the sky? People marry for convenience, they settle for what they can have. Look around you. Are there many men here who look, think or behave like romantic heroes? For God’s sake, for your own sake, stop being a tragic widow, and stop trying to make Sorley Og into a hero. He was just a man, and now he’s gone. Make the most of it.’ She shrugged and Rose started weeping quietly.

  ‘Be honest with yourself. If he’d lived, would you have been content to sit here in this great, daft house for the rest of your life, being his wife, bringing up his bairns, not using your brain?’

  ‘We were going to travel,’ Rose said defensively.

  ‘And come back,’ Rose smiled wryly. ‘You would never have got him away from Acarsaid, Rose, never. The end of the road,’ Margo said dismissively, ‘and they’re so proud of it they print it on T-shirts without seeing the irony! My God, the end of the bloody universe would’ve been a better name for the place! Don’t fool yourself, Rose, you would always have that need to see other places, to do other things. Even if you did suppress them, it would be within you forever, that regret that you didn’t do everything you could have done. And now you have a choice. You can get away from this place and live, and if you ever do come back at least you’ll have had enough experience to choose to be here, or you can stay instead and end up like me, a trapped, bitter, twisted old bitch who resents everyone.’

  Rose opened her mouth to deny it.

  ‘Don’t, Rose,’ Margo said, holding her hand up to end any protest. ‘That’s what I am and that’s what I’ll always be. All the do-gooders here got it half right. “Poor Margo”, that’s what they said when your father died, then it was “Bitter Margo”, because, they thought, I’d been left a widow at that age. Their descriptions were right, but their reasons were wrong. Sometimes I thought of telling them the truth just to see their faces, but then I’d think, why bother? Affronting little minds is no victory.’ She sighed. ‘I cheated myself of my life all those years ago, and all I have to show for it are my bairns and their bairns. That’s just basic reproduction; it’s hardly an achievement. First I was trapped here looking after them, looking out for you, and now old Ina has me trapped. She’s gone down a lot in the last year or so, I suppose you’ve noticed that.’

  Rose nodded, then looked at her mother and thought to herself that she was indeed ‘poor Margo’ in ways that she had probably never thought of; that she deserved sympathy precisely because she had been unable to feel anything for Quintin. Poor Quintin, too, come to that. They sat in silence for a long time.

  ‘So you’ve never been in love?’ Rose asked, thinking over the conversation.

  ‘Never,’ Margo said simply. ‘You have the advantage there, Rose, or disadvantage, depending on your point of view, I suppose. I don’t think I was capable of it, but there you are, you play with the cards you’re dealt. What I’m saying to you is that you’ve been dealt better cards. Don’t waste them, lassie. Leave. Go. Do it now!’

  ‘But just where do you see me going?’ Rose asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Margo said, exasperated. ‘Go and look up Uncle Murdo’s lot in Canada, or Danny’s family: see if they really exist beyond old Ina’s imagination. Go and see the land of trees, or whatever the old woman calls it. It’s not where you go that’s important, just the fact that you do.’

  Then she unlocked the door and left, no hugs, no touching of hands, and certainly not a motherly kiss on the brow. Outside the house Margo climbed into Dougie’s car.

  ‘What happened?’ Dougie asked.

  ‘Nothing,’ Margo replied crisply.

  ‘Nothing?’

  ‘Nothing you’d understand, Dougie son. Just take me home,’ Margo said.

  ‘Do you want to see Chrissie before we go?’

  ‘I don’t do chit-chat, Dougie,’ Margo said in a bored voice. ‘Just take me home.’

  28

  Over the next two days Rose did a lot of thinking, but for the first time in two years her thoughts were not about the loss of the boat. In the deepest recesses of her mind she knew that even after she and Sorley Og married there had been a restlessness, a nagging kind of panic that this might be all there was. She felt guilty admitting it, but it was true. She loved him, there was no doubt about that, and if he had lived she would have loved him and only him for the rest of her life, but sometimes it had all felt like an illusion. Just over three years ago she had got her first degree, and had been going to study for another. Her life’s ambition had lain within reach, until she had come home on holiday and looked towards the harbour for Ocean Wanderer, as she always did. She had been looking for Sorley Mor, that familiar, comforting presence, and there he was, waving to her from the wheelhouse. Then Sorley Og had turned round to see who his father was greeting, and it was like looking at Sorley Mor as a young man. That was it; from that moment her fate had been sealed, and now here she was, standing by the big window, trying to make sense of it.

  Sometimes, when he was away at sea, she had wondered whether she had married Sorley Og or a younger Sorley Mor. Even though she banished the thought from her mind instantly, it had still occurred, it was still there. Even while they were both alive, when she dreamt of them she often got them mixed up, as though her mind couldn’t decide which was which. There were times, if she was being entirely truthful, when she wondered if any of it had been real. Was that part of the anger she had been feeling in these last two years as a widow? Was part of it at least because she knew this wasn’t the life she had wanted and now she was trapped here, without the reason, without the cause, now that Sorley Og wasn’t ever coming back? And wasn’t she angry at him sometimes, bizarre though she knew it was, for leaving her here without him, isolated and deserted?

  At other times she dismissed all of it. It was warped thinking brought on by her distress. Her marriage and her life in Acarsaid were the only reality she had, but still the same thoughts kept creeping back. She only realised she had been asleep when she awoke that Sunday morning; five hours she had slept, longer than at any time since the sinking, and her mind was clearer than it had been, too. A shower first, then coffee, then a final thought or two to sort out before she paid a visit to Chrissie.

  ‘Chrissie, I’ve decided to go away,’ she told her.

  Chrissie looked shocked, as Rose had expected. ‘But where? Why?’ she stammered.

  ‘I just need to be somewhere different for a while,’ she said, to soften the blow.

  ‘On your own?’

  Rose nodded. ‘You’ve got a key, could you empty out the fridge and freezer for me?’ Somewhere in there was half of an ice cream she knew she couldn’t face seeing again. ‘Just throw out what you can’t use yourself,’ she said. ‘I’ll give Dougie a key, too. I just want you to keep an eye on the house for me.’

  ‘Maybe that’s what you need right enough,’ Chrissie said, trying to sound bright, ‘a break, a wee holiday.’

  ‘That’s it,’ Rose lied and, as she looked at Chrissie, she knew Chrissie was lying too.

  ‘So when are you off, then?’ Chrissie asked, turning away to dust something, a familiar ploy.

  ‘I’ve got
a few things to do first, but soon. Where’s Gannet?’

  ‘He’s been off wandering,’ Chrissie replied, and they looked at each other and smiled. ‘He goes to the Keppaig house sometimes when he wants to do his Greta Garbo routine.’

  Rose hugged Chrissie briefly, climbed into the Beetle and drove down to Dougie’s office.

  ‘I’ll be in touch when I know where I’m staying,’ she told him. ‘I haven’t decided what to do about the house. If you could just make sure it’s OK, do any repairs that need to be done, that kind of thing … I’ve written a letter to the bank and one to Gavin, will you make sure they get them?’

  ‘You sound as if you’re going to be away for a while,’ he suggested.

  ‘I don’t know, Dougie, but I want everything covered, just in case.’

  Then she drove up the Brae to Granny Ina’s house. Her mother looked up expectantly as she walked in.

  ‘If I go, what about Granny Ina?’ Rose asked.

  ‘Now don’t use the old woman to get out of going,’ Margo replied tartly.

  ‘You never give anyone a break, do you?’ Rose said.

  Margo sighed. ‘She’s lived longer than Methuselah; she won’t even know you’ve gone. She isn’t with us any longer: she’s in Lowestoft or Great Yarmouth more often than she’s here, lucky bugger! She spends most of her time talking to people who’ve been dead for years, and seeing supernovas exploding in the sky. She’s probably happier where she is than she would be if she knew where she was.’

  Rose looked at her sharply.

  ‘Rose,’ Margo sighed, ‘she’s waiting to die, she wants to die, she’s had enough of life. Given the way she is, is it any wonder that she’s finding escape routes? Everything’s disintegrating. She can’t hear, she can’t see and every bone in her body aches with arthritis.

  ‘She’ll just sleep away what’s left of her time,’ she said quietly. ‘You wouldn’t be allowed to let an animal linger like this. Go and see her if you want, but you’ll only upset her, and, anyway, you’d be far better remembering her as she was. This isn’t the picture you want to take away with you.’

  Rose thought for a moment then shook her head. ‘I won’t see her,’ she said.

  ‘So you’re off?’ Margo said.

  ‘Yes.’

  That was it, no long farewells, no emotional goodbyes; Margo Nicolson didn’t do them either.

  Further up the Brae was the chapel house. She had stopped at Hamish Dubh’s store to buy a half-bottle of Islay Mist, and she handed it to Father Mick as he opened the door.

  ‘I’ve always said, young Rose,’ he smiled, taking the bottle, holding it out and looking at it admiringly, ‘that you have a heart of pure gold!’

  ‘Father, I’m going away,’ she said.

  ‘And now I’m not so sure,’ he said in a bemused tone.

  Rose laughed. ‘It’s no big deal. I just need to get away for a while.’

  ‘A while,’ Father Mick repeated, ‘is that all it is?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she confessed. ‘We’ll see.’

  He looked at her. She’d had a rough time, he could see that from her face, from her eyes. If ever someone needed to escape it was Rose. Still, he opened his mouth to protest, then thought better of it and shut it again: trying to persuade her to stay would be entirely selfish.

  ‘You’ll keep in touch?’ he asked eventually.

  She nodded. ‘Of course. And when I come back I’ll make sure I stock up with duty-free!’ she laughed.

  After he’d waved her off he sat down and poured a large glass of Islay Mist. Life in Acarsaid had gone on for years and years without a thing changing, he thought, and with the deaths of six men it had started to disintegrate. There was no telling where or when it would end. The map of the place had been obliterated as surely as if an earthquake had hit it. The only thing he could count on in the entire universe, he decided, holding up his glass and admiring the falling-down stuff of his choice, was the glorious Islay Mist.

  Heading back home, Rose packed a few things, placed another pebble on the cairn outside the house, then picked up the bright lump of quartz she had planned to add to it when Sorley Og came home from the last trip, holding it for a moment before putting it in the car. Then she looked around the house for the last time and found that she didn’t feel as emotional about it as she thought she would. She smiled. She was in control; she was handling it. Her eyes fell on the unfinished model of Ocean Wanderer in the far corner, Sorley Og’s hostage to fortune. She had covered it with a piece of clear plastic two years ago, and it had sat there ever since, looking deserted and forlorn. On a whim she lifted it carefully, collected all the paint pots, brushes, bit of wood and glue and put them in the boot of the car. As she moved away she didn’t see Chrissie, but she waved anyway, knowing that she was there. She drove to the cemetery, high above the village, and made her way to the grave where Sorley Mor and Sorley Og lay. She placed the quartz stone at the base of the head-stone: he was home. Turning to leave she blew a kiss to all the others lying there: her father, the other lads from the Wanderer; all the people she had known throughout her life who were now lying there, too.

  Gannet’s house was her next stop. He was sitting on a wooden bench outside, a pile of books by his side and a pair of binoculars in his hands.

  ‘I just came to say I’m going away for a while,’ she told him.

  Gannet nodded in his calm, accepting way.

  It was very quiet, the kind of quiet that lulls you to sleep. Keppaig was a backwater; it had none of the noise and bustle of Acarsaid just a few miles up the road.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she asked, sitting beside him.

  ‘Well, I’ll tell you if you promise not to tell Chrissie,’ he smiled.

  ‘Promise.’

  ‘There’s some otters down by the shore there. I like to watch them. I watch the birds too these days, I read this book about birdwatching a while back and, once I tried it, I found it very, very, what’s the word?’

  ‘Therapeutic?’

  ‘Aye, that’s the word. She’d never give me a minute’s peace if she found out,’ he laughed gently.

  ‘Neither would the skipper!’ Rose said.

  ‘Aye, well, luckily it didn’t happen till he’d gone, but he’ll be laughing at me somewhere, I’ve no doubt.’

  They sat in companionable silence for a while.

  ‘You know what would be good on the side of the house there?’ Rose suggested. ‘A porch.’

  ‘Conservatory, woman!’ Gannet corrected her. They laughed, then fell silent again.

  ‘And you’ll be all right?’ she asked him.

  Gannet nodded. ‘You?’

  ‘Oh, I suppose so,’ she sighed, ‘though I’ll never understand why you aren’t angrier about the whole thing.’

  He shrugged. ‘That’s what the fishing is like, Rose,’ he said. ‘It could’ve happened anytime. You could bring a boat out of the water every month and check over every single thing, but a plank could still spring, a pipe could burst in the engine room, the pumps could pack in, you could fall in the winch gear or get run down by a freighter whose skipper isn’t as alert as he should be. With the best will in the world, you can’t stop these things happening. Your father knew this, so did Sorley Mor and Sorley Og. It’s all part of what makes the fishing a dangerous job.’

  ‘Wow!’ Rose said, blinking her eyes furiously, ‘quite a speech for a sober Gannet!’

  ‘Aye,’ Gannet chuckled, concentrating on the binoculars in his hands, ‘I’ve been thinking it was time to get back in character. All this talking isn’t good for me!’

  After a while she asked, ‘Did you read the report?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’ she asked, surprised.

  ‘Now why would I do that?’ he returned, smiling gently. ‘I could’ve told you what it would say from the minute I first heard how the boat had gone down; what else could it say? Besides, I had no reason to doubt Sorley Mor’s seamanship. He was the
best, and not just because he said so. If I had read the report it would mean I had doubts, and I don’t, so I have no reason to read it. Besides, I find I can cope for long stretches if I don’t actually believe it happened.’

  Rose realised that had been why he had gone elsewhere when Dougie was going over the reports at Chrissie’s house. She swallowed and looked away.

  ‘That’s why I didn’t identify the bodies,’ he continued quietly. ‘I said it was because I had to stay with Chrissie, but that was a lie. Sorley Mor chose wisely with that one, he always said she could cope with anything, even us. But all my life he was one step behind me wherever we went. I didn’t see him dead, so in my mixed-up mind I have it that it might not have been him, there’s still that chance, and that chance will keep me from going insane. Sometimes the only way I can get through the day is to believe he’s still there, two steps behind me.’

  She put her hand over his and they sat in silence again.

  ‘I have something for you,’ she said at last, getting up and going back to the car. She returned with the unfinished model of Ocean Wanderer. ‘Sorley Og has been building this for God knows how long,’ she smiled. ‘He refused to accept that it was superstition, but it was, just as surely as Sorley Mor’s refusal to allow Father Mick on the boat.’

  They both laughed.

  ‘Anyway, he thought as long as he didn’t finish it there was always a reason to come back. I thought you’d maybe like to finish it for him.’

  Gannet looked at it, examining it with a smile. ‘He had it to perfection,’ he said. ‘This really is it, isn’t it? The very last Wanderer. I’ll keep it, but I won’t finish it, Rose, if that’s all right?’

  ‘Why?’ she asked.

  ‘That chance again,’ he grinned self-consciously. ‘As long as it’s not finished there’s always the chance he’ll come back and do it himself. The same reason Dan keeps that banner in the loft at the inn, I suppose.’ He looked down at her and shrugged helplessly, and she hugged him.