Bird of Passage

by Catherine Czerkawska

  ‘I like Finn. He’s a nice boy. Why didn’t you like him?’

  ‘I didn’t dislike him.’

  ‘Grandad says he’s a good worker. He says he has plans for him. If he comes back that is.’

  ‘Well I hope he doesn’t.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘It’s not fair on him, treating him like one of the family. When all’s said and done, even if he does come back to the tatties this year, he’ll only be here for a few months, and then he’ll be gone, back to wherever he spends the winter. Back to that school. It’s not fair to do that. To give people a taste of something... different. Better. And then just take it away from them. It only makes things worse.’

  Kirsty gazed at her mother in the mirror. ‘You didn’t mind treating Francie like one of the family.’

  ‘What did I ever do but give him the odd piece of cake and a few clothes for himself? What was the harm in that? And besides, that boy would never, ever take advantage. He would just take what he was given and be grateful.’

  ‘So would Finn.’

  ‘Leave it be, Kirsty. Leave it be, and get into bed!’

  One morning, when Kirsty was sitting in the schoolroom and struggling with arithmetic, she glanced briefly out of the window, saw the truck come lumbering up the road and knew that the tattie howkers had arrived. It was raining heavily, and the windows were misted with droplets. She couldn’t see whether Finn and Francis were among them or not. She could hardly contain her excitement, and fidgeted for the rest of the day.

  ‘What’s wrong with you, Kirsty Galbreath?’ her teacher asked.

  But she just shook her head, and sat on her hands, and said, ‘ Nothing, Miss.’

  When she came home from school, the weather had improved, as it so often did after a morning of rain. Dog roses were unfurling in all the hedgerows, and a late, hot sun was conjuring steam from the fields. The Irish had arrived early, and were already at work. Kirsty came running up the hill, and paused on the brink of one of the tattie fields, shading her eyes, scanning the bent figures. There he was, wielding the big fork with a will, though the sandy soil was wet, and welded itself to the tines in heavy clumps. She felt another churning of excitement in her stomach. She stood up on the lower bar of the gate and shouted his name.

  ‘Finn! Hey! Finn O’Malley!’

  He looked over at her but didn’t move, so she waved frantically, balancing on the gate. It left a line of rust along the front of her powder blue school dress.

  ‘Finn! Come here!’

  He rested his fork on one of the carts, and came over, clumsily negotiating the edge of the field in his boots that were better than last year’s, but much too big for him, and then standing still, a few paces away from her. He didn’t know what to do with his hands, so he thrust them into his pockets.

  ‘You came back!’ she said.

  ‘I did so.’

  He had grown taller. And he seemed to have grown shy again in the intervening months. But she was so obviously pleased to see him that he found himself smiling at her.

  ‘It’s nice to be back,’ he said.

  To his surprise, she clambered over the gate, her sandals scrabbling on the rusted metal, rushed over to him, reached up and hugged him. He hardly knew where to put himself. And yet he liked it. She had been eating fruit gums, and her mouth was red. She smelled of raspberry jam.

  ‘I have to get back to work,’ he said.

  ‘Is Francie with you?’

  ‘He’s here.’

  ‘My mammy will be glad!’

  Micky agreed to bring both of us again. But I don’t know how he’ll do this year.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘He’s not so well.’

  ‘What’s wrong with him?’

  She saw his expression change, a shutter closing over a window. He shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘My mum likes Francie.’

  ‘Aye she does. She doesn’t like me much, but she likes Francie.’

  ‘She likes you well enough. I’ll see you later then. After tea.’ It was a command rather than a request, and he wasn’t inclined to argue with her.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Hill Top Town, of course.’

  She flew back to the gate, swarming up and over, skipping up the track towards the house. ‘He’s back, he’s back, he’s back!’ she was chanting to herself as she went.

  Later on that evening, she told her mother and her grandad that she was going out to play for a bit.

  ‘Where are you going?’ asked Isabel. ‘It’ll be time for bed soon.’

  ‘There’s a skylark’s nest up at Hill Top Town that I want a sight of.’‘Well don’t be disturbing the bird on her eggs!’ said her grandfather.

  ‘I won’t.’

  She and Finn sat together, watching the sun sink towards the furthermost islands. Finn had given Francis the slip after their evening meal. It had not been difficult. Francis had been so tired out by the journey and the afternoon’s work that he had given himself a sketchy wash, and tumbled into bed, practically as soon as Finn had made it up, spreading the blankets over the straw mattress. Finn had watched him anxiously for a few moments, watched the long lashes fluttering on thin cheeks, and then – satisfied that the boy was sleeping – had taken himself up to Hill Top Town where Kirsty was waiting for him.

  Far, far away they could see a couple of ring netters, like toy boats, red and green, working together on the flat waters.

  ‘I’ve missed this place,’ said Finn. ‘I kept wishing I was here. Sometimes it was only the thought of it that kept me going.’

  ‘I’m sure I don’t know why,’ said Kirsty, ‘For they work you so hard.’

  ‘They work me hard back there, as well.’

  ‘What have you been doing?’ Kirsty asked him. ‘Have they let you see your mammy yet?’

  ‘Not yet, no.’

  He didn’t want to talk about it, but it was only natural that she should ask. He had never explained things to her. How could he, when he didn’t really understand them himself?

  ‘Does she not write to you?’

  ‘No. She’s not allowed.’

  Kirsty wanted to ask why, what his mother had done to be so punished, but she bit her tongue, suddenly shy of pressing the point. If he wanted her to know, he would tell her

  ‘And do you write to her?’

  ‘How would I ever do that?’

  ‘I could give you some paper. I have plenty. And pens. You could write her a letter from here, Finn, and I could post it for you down in the village.’

  He shook his head. ‘I’m no hand with a pen, Kirsty.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I’m just not.’

  ‘But you told me you were at the school.’

  ‘So I am.’

  ‘And you’re a big boy now. Do they not teach you to read and write there?’

  ‘A bit. But I wanted to write with my left hand and they won’t let me do it. The say it’s the devil’s work.’

  He pronounced it ‘divil’, which made her smile.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I have to pray for the devil to go out of me.’

  ‘What devil?’

  ‘I don’t know, do I? For writing left handed.’

  He was afraid of the pen now. That was the long and short of it. Every time he took it up in his left hand, he had a vision of Brother Bernard, his face purple with rage, his fists flying like a boxer’s, and just as deadly. But when Finn tried to make the letters with his right hand, they sloped backwards and – although reasonably neat – were practically illegible, a fact which seemed to throw Brother Bernard into even more of a passion. ‘You’re... doing... that... on... purpose!’ he had bellowed, punctuating the sentence with blows. ‘Take... your... pen and ... write as I tell you! Write! Write! Write!’

  Mercifully, Kirsty interrupted his train of thought. ‘Like me with my red hair do you mean?’

  ‘What about your red hair?’

  When
Kirsty had first started school, she had met an old fisherman going down to his boat. She had been walking that road since she could toddle, and she knew everyone along the way, so her mother just took her down to the Dunshee road end, and sent her off by herself each morning. She would pass the man and say ‘Good morning,’ politely, as her grandad had told her. She was surprised to see that he just grunted at her in return, crossed himself, turned right round and went back the way he had come. Then, a few days later, a letter came through the door. It was from this same old man, except that his sister had written it for him, and it asked if wee Kirsty Galbreath could please leave for school fifteen minutes earlier or perhaps fifteen minutes later, so as not to be passing him by on the road to his boat, because not a day’s luck had he had with his fishing – when he could get to his boat - since the start of term. Her grandad had read the letter, and laughed out loud. Isabel had been very indignant, but Alasdair had just started laughing.

  ‘Silly old bugger!’ he said. ‘You leave it to me.’

  ‘What will you do?’ asked her mother.

  ‘I’ll write back to him.’

  ‘And what will you say?’

  ‘I will just tell him that he can leave earlier or later himself if he wants, so that he can avoid the terror of seeing our red headed monster on the road!’

  ‘What’s wrong with your hair?’ asked Finn.

  ‘There are people on this island who don’t like my red hair. They think it’s unlucky. So maybe it’s the same for you if you’re left handed.’

  ‘They beat me for it. But I can’t do it. I can’t write properly. Not with my right hand.’

  ‘That’s so unfair. Our teacher doesn’t much like it when folk write with their left hand either, but she doesn’t beat them for it. ‘

  ‘They’re lucky.’

  ‘You should hit them back,’ she declared, robustly.

  ‘That’ll be the day! Will you come and fight them for me, Kirsty?’ He started to laugh, imagining her confronting Brother Bernard, arms akimbo, or flying at him in a rage, her red hair streaming out behind her. And then the thought of brave Kirsty, only a little girl, rushing in where the angels themselves would fear to tread, gave him a strange, queasy feeling.

  ‘I would too. I’d fight them all for you!’ She looked at him, and gave a sigh of pleasure. In her eyes at least he was a hero, even now, when it seemed to her that his laughter was very close to tears. But big boys weren’t supposed to cry, were they?

  CHAPTER SIX

  In late July of that year, Finn and Francis worked elsewhere on the island all day, but came back to Dunshee at nights. Sometimes, Alasdair would borrow Finn for the day, to do this or that job about the farm, slipping a little money to Micky Terrans to keep him sweet. Often he would take Finn out on the water to help him with his creels, and now that the boy could handle the boat competently, he was allowed to take Kirsty out fishing as well. They took mackerel flies, and sometimes they caught a box full of striped fish and sometimes they caught nothing at all. That was always the way of it with mackerel: none or a dozen. Alasdair had rigged up a miniature smokehouse in one of the outhouses, where he could smoke mackerel and trout and the occasional salmon for their own use.

  Isabel was anxious, all the time they were gone.

  ‘I’m surprised you let her go with him!’ she said, gazing down towards the bay, where the boat was just visible, unmoving on the turquoise water, two heads in silhouette.

  ‘It’s flat calm out there. And the lad knows fine how to handle a boat now. You don’t think I would have let them go otherwise, do you?’

  ‘All I know is, if it was up to our Kirsty, they would be off to Eilean Ronan, looking for the brownie.’

  Eilean Ronan was a nearby island, little more than a rock, with a ruined chieftain’s house and chapel and not much else. The brownie was a magical creature who was said to live there. He would do all your housework for you, so long as you didn’t attempt to pay him. But once you offered him money, he would leave and never come back.

  ‘He’ll not take her to Ronan, no matter how much she nags him. I told him not to go so far, in case the weather changes, and whatever else you think about the lad, he always does as he’s told.’

  ‘Well I’m pleased to hear it!’

  In the bay, Finn had shipped the oars, and they put out the mackerel lines, slopping about in the evening sunlight. They still couldn’t persuade Francis to come out in the boat. He always made excuses. This time, he had agreed to walk into the village with a group of the older men.

  ‘This school of yours, is it up in the hills, then?’ Kirsty asked Finn. She had been reading the Chalet School books, and had conceived a romantic notion of Finn’s school as a sort of Irish equivalent.

  Finn sighed. He wished she wouldn’t keep asking. He didn’t want to talk about the school at all. He preferred to forget all about it when he was in Scotland.

  ‘No. You can see the hills in the distance, but that’s all. It’s very flat round about, and that’s all it is. No hills, no sea. There’s a stream. The cattle drink from it.’

  ‘And is the school nice? What about your dormitories? Do you share with Francis?’

  ‘We all share. Lots of us, rows of beds, all in the one room.’ He could smell it. Saying the words evoked the smell of unwashed bodies, the smell of sweat and piss, the smell of fear. The byre was sweet by comparison. He tried to change the subject. It was what he always did when she mentioned his school. ‘Look,’ he said. ‘Look at the seal, Kirsty!’

  Kirsty loved the grey seals that popped their heads up to watch them, and the shearwater skimming low with straight wings. She loved to watch Finn bending over the oars, his hair a glossy tangle, his bare brown feet planted firmly on either side of her sandshoes, and the way he looked at her, solemnly, from under dark brows.

  Afterwards, they took their fish ashore, and she helped him to haul the boat high up onto the beach below Dunshee and tie it to the stanchion. They sat together on a boulder, watching the light draining gently out of the sky. She picked up a swatch of dry bladderwrack and started cracking the little capsules, each one making a satisfying ‘pop’.

  ‘I wish you were here all year round,’ she said. ‘You and Francie both.’

  ‘You’d soon get tired of us.’

  ‘No I wouldn’t. I always wanted a big brother.’

  ‘Did you?’

  ‘I did!’

  ‘Well, you’d soon get tired of Francie trailing along behind us.’

  She looked round, as though expecting to see the boy wandering down the track to the shore, a combination of hope and timidity on his face at the sight of them.

  ‘He was going to the village,’ said Finn, reading her mind. ‘He’s afraid of the water. You know that.’

  ‘He’s afraid of everything.’

  ‘He can’t help it.’

  Finn was always staunch in defence of his friend. Kirsty threw away her seaweed. ‘Do you know any stories?’ she asked.

  ‘What kind of stories?’

  ‘Oh any kind. All kinds. What do you read? What’s your best book?’

  Kirsty loved stories, especially stories with pictures. She had a bookcase in her room with a whole shelf of Enid Blyton stories and a heap of old ‘Wonder Books’ which someone had given her mother when she was a girl. Kirsty pored over the words and pictures: the Wild Swans, the Tinder Box, the King of the Golden River, she knew and loved them all. When she was younger, her mother or her grandad would read to her, but now she read the stories for herself. She liked to read her favourites again and again but more than that, she liked to draw pictures to go with them.

  Finn was looking down at the sand. ‘I don’t read much,’ he said. ‘I told you before. I don’t write much and I don’t read much.’

  He was wearing a faded grey jumper that was too big for him. All his clothes seemed to be too big or too small, as though none of them really belonged to him. It was unravelling at the sleeves and he picked, compulsi
vely, at the threads. His nails were bitten to the quick and the tips of his fingers looked red and sore.

  ‘Can you still not do it?’ she asked him, candidly.

  ‘Well, I’m not the best scholar in the world, but I can get by,’ he admitted. ‘I’m better than Francie at any rate, but that’s not saying much. He’s as thick as two short planks, God love him. We don’t have any books in the school to speak of. The teachers write things up on the blackboard and we copy them out. We don’t learn very much. We once had a teacher who read to us, right enough. He wasn’t our usual teacher. He was just there because the real teacher was off sick. He read something called The Wind in the Willows and it was such a gas. But he never came back to finish it.’

  ‘That’s one of my best books as well.’

  ‘We were doubled up laughing. He put on all the different voices.’

  ‘Which bit did he read?’

  ‘He got through half of it before our proper teacher came back. He told us that we shouldn’t laugh out loud though. Brother Michael heard us laughing once and came in to find out what was happening and there was hell to pay.

  ‘Is that why you don’t laugh much, Finn?’

  ‘I do so laugh. Sometimes.’

  ‘Well, not much.’

  ‘They don’t like us laughing. We’re not supposed to make too much noise in the school. The one that read to us, he never hit us. I think he couldn’t stand it, couldn’t stand to see it happening and him not able to do anything about it, so he took himself off. He was a bit like Brother Patrick. He never hits us either.’

  ‘Do they really beat you?’ she asked, distracted by the repetition of something he had told her earlier. ‘I mean really?’

  He pulled a face. ‘All the time. Don’t they beat the children here?’

  ‘Well. The boys sometimes,’ she admitted. ‘The teacher keeps a tawse in her desk. She calls it her Lochgelly. That’s the name of the place where they make them. I hate it. It’s this brown belt with a split at the end, so it hurts more.’

  ‘That’s nothing at all. Brother Michael uses a piece of a car tyre with the metal still in it.’

  ‘He doesn’t!’