‘Oh, and a couple of things,’ she said, ‘favours.’
‘Anything,’ Gannet said, still looking at Sorley Og’s model.
‘At the house, there’s a cairn outside the door.’
He nodded.
‘Will you put a wee stone on it every week while I’m away? I believe in that chance, too.’
‘I will, Rose,’ he smiled.
‘And will you look in on Granny Ina sometimes?’
He nodded. ‘I always do,’ he smiled. ‘She’s a fine woman, Granny Ina. Sometimes I think she’s the only one who has ever taken me seriously.’
‘That’s because she’s always had a crush on you,’ Rose smiled. ‘She’s always said that if she’d met you a generation earlier she wouldn’t have let you get away.’
Gannet struck his forehead with the flat of his hand. ‘Now you tell me!’ he gasped theatrically.
She got back into the car and drove off through Keppaig on the road southwards; then the enormity of what she was doing suddenly hit her like a blow and she pulled in to the side of the road, put her head on the steering wheel and cried for a long time. She had known what she was going to do, it was settled. She would head for St Andrew’s to do the degree she didn’t do three years ago, the one that would make her a marine archaeologist, exploring wrecks just like Ocean Wanderer, where other people’s husbands, sons and fathers had lost their lives, and she knew when she did so she would have a different perspective. And there were Uncle Andro and Uncle Danny’s descendants ready and willing to welcome her to Canada; there was a whole other world waiting for her out there.
She would probably not return to Acarsaid for many years, if at all; that was what she had decided earlier. But now that she was finally going, all her resolve and control had left her and she began to have doubts about whether she was making the right decision. She could turn the car around and go home, she thought, return to MacEwan’s Castle, to the house that Sorley Og had built for his princess, return to the safe life she knew – and for a moment that’s what she decided to do. She started the engine, then hesitated.
From the bench outside his official residence, Gannet had his binoculars trained on Rose’s stationary car. ‘Go on,’ he whispered. ‘Don’t turn back! Go on, Rose!’ Then he smiled as he saw the car finally move on, and watched it until it had disappeared from view.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Colin MacDougall and Michael Currie for sharing their personal knowledge of the fishing industry and their unending patience with all the daft questions; various members of the Marine Accident Investigation Branch for their help; and special thanks to Ann Currie, who gave me some insight into the lives of fishermen’s wives and families, and John Crone of C. Crone Ltd and Dr Susan Bowie for their knowledge and experience of kippering.
Also Susan Telford, who wrote an excellent book about her grandmother, who was a Lerwick Herring Lassie, and kindly let me use it as a loose pattern for Granny Ina’s working life. I want to stress, however, that the similarities end there, and the family relationships in Ina’s life are entirely fictional.
And my gratitude to everyone else who provided answers to odd questions that arrived out of the blue at all hours without blowing up and telling me where to go, and thanks even to those who did.
Sources
’In a World a’ Wir Ain’, by Susan Telford, published by Shetland Times Ltd.
‘Fishing and Whaling’, by Angus Martin, National Museums of Scotland.
MAIB for reports and charts.
ALSO AVAILABLE FROM BIRLINN BY MEG HENDERSON
A SCENT OF BLUEBELLS
Family prejudice forces a young couple to flee to Glasgow in World War One, where tragedy and deceit shapes their future. They called her Auld Nally – the local moneylender in one of Glasgow’s roughest areas, Inchcraig. But once she’d been Alice McInally from Belfast, beautiful and beloved by her childhood sweetheart. Though his family was Catholic and her Protestant, their families had been close for generations, and the young couple were too naïve to anticipate the angry opposition their marriage plans would unleash. Their only hope is to leave Ireland, knowing they will be cast out by their well-to-do families and can never go home again. But the couple’s dream of a bright future founders in the realities of war-torn Glasgow, and Alice ends up struggling to make ends meet in the only way she can. Somehow she must protect the children in her care, even if that means relying on the man Inchcraig knows as ‘him’, and living among people far from her background, people she comes to like and admire and doesn’t want to leave. Every day, though, she must live with a lie told many years ago with the best of intentions, a lie that could unravel and destroy everything, unless she can find the exact time to put it right…
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Kathy Kelly, born in the heart of Glasgow’s East End, comes from a family torn apart by conflict. She grows up with a sharp wit and a quick temper, constantly challenging those who cross her: her reproving grandmother, Con, her hard-drinking father, even the local priest – Kathy takes no prisoners. But at least she copes, unlike her older brother Peter, who disappears as fast as he can. Kathy also escapes – to the Highlands. Here she finds work and a home with the Macdonalds, an eccentric, easy-going couple. But Con’s death drags Kathy back to Glasgow, where she is forced to look at things afresh, at past events and the people she knew so well – and begin the search for her missing brother, a search which will result in an extraordinary, devastating discovery.
THE LAST WANDERER
This rich and moving saga tells the story of Ina, Margo and Rose – grandmother, daughter and granddaughter – from the small fishing community of Acarsaid on the west coast of Scotland. Each has led a very different existence, but all three find themselves, despite their restless spirits, caught up in the life of the sea. Told with great understanding and infectious wit, The Last Wanderer is a fascinating story of the ups and downs, the laughs and tragedies of families bound together by an extraordinary shared history.
DAISY’S WARS
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The Last Wanderer Page 43