Herring Girl

by Debbie Taylor

  I waited under the clock and the lass seemed pleased to see me, but it must have been a disappointment not to have her mother there. She had found a porter to bring her trunk. I gave him sixpence, but he made a face so it probably wasn’t enough.

  The lass comes up to my chin now, but still looks like she needs feeding up. She was shy at first, but was soon chattering away. She seems so grown up these days, asking how I am and what I’ve been doing, just like a proper lady. To hear her, you’d never know she was from Shields. It makes me wonder how much longer they’ll be needing me.

  She had a front door key with her, which was a blessing as the doctor had forgotten to leave one for me. But the fridge was practically empty and I couldn’t see anything suitable in the larder for the lass’s tea. So we went out to the Co-op for fish fingers and a tin of baked beans. I brought some proper tea too, and a pint of milk. I don’t know how people drink that dusty tea-bag rubbish.

  After tea I helped the lass unpack, then got out the Scrabble and she beat me! I realized later she would probably have preferred to watch the television, but I didn’t think and she never mentioned it, bless her. She’s such a polite lass. It can’t be much fun being looked after by an old lady, but she never complains.

  Dr C. (Mr) came in around 6 and went straight out again, and Dr C. (Mrs) didn’t get back till 7.30. She looked all in (she’d been trying to get some poor mad lady into a mental hospital), but she gave the lass a hug, which is more than her husband did!

  ‌Chapter Forty-Four

  29 July 1967

  The lad’s started going out on two-nighters, but he says the herring have disappeared. Last year they could still find a few, if they cast about a bit. But this year he says it’s spooky how empty the fishing grounds are. I said I would pray for him, but he said it’s too late for that. The time to do something was when the smaller fish started to go a few years back, because then you knew there’d be no full-size ones coming through.

  It’s sad to see the Fish Quay these days. When I was a girl you could walk from one side of the Gut to the other on the decks of herring boats, and the town was full of herring girls and crews up from Aberdeen and Peterhead.

  I was talking about it to Mr M. this morning. He used to be a cook on a drifter, he says, and minds when the holds were so full, they had to heap the fish up on the decks. He said the old lads warned about taking too many, but nobody listened. “Klondyking”, he said they called it, as if the fish were gold. It’s an ugly thing, Lord, the sin of greed.

  I wonder sometimes whether Mr M. losing his legs is a punishment from You, Lord, to teach him self-restraint in this life, so that he has a chance of being reunited with You in heaven when he dies. I tried to talk to him about it today, saying he could look on the operation as a chance to change his ways.

  But he just laughed and threw the paper at me, where there was a headline saying the government have just passed a law to make it legal for men to have relations with each other! “So even the Prime Minister approves of b–––,” said Mr M. The paper was calling it “the queer’s law”. I don’t know what the world is coming to. They’ll be allowing homosexual priests next. At least if it’s illegal, people will try to stop themselves doing it. Pope Pius had the right idea. He knew that if you allow women to have sex without getting pregnant, soon everyone will be doing it whether they’re married or not. Then where would we be? It’s already starting to happen, with the pill and that, if them loose lasses down the Jungle are anything to go by.

  Mr M. was on about it all the time I was there, but Davy could see I was upset. He’s such a sensitive lad. I worry about him, working in that place, and spending so much time with Mr M. What if it rubs off on him?

  He calls Mr M. “Lord Jim”, of course, because that’s what they call him at work, or ‘your majesty’, which is a sort of joke between them. And Mr M. calls him “Laura”, which I can’t understand at all, but the lad doesn’t seem to mind.

  I did ask Mr M. today if he still needed me, what with Davy coming in, but he said let’s see how it goes.

  30 July 1967

  I went to the 8 o’clock Mass today, because I can’t stand what he’s done to the High Mass. Mrs J. was there too, and Mrs C. – so that’s all the Flower Ladies going to the 8 o’clock now. I wonder if he’s noticed?

  They started on Davy’s cookery lessons upstairs this morning, which is good in a way, as it gives Mr M. something to do, but it means that diet’s gone straight out the window. I asked Davy to pop in to see me on his way out and had a word about it.

  He says he hasn’t the heart to stop Mr M. eating, because it’s one of the only pleasures he’s got left. He says Mr M. knows it’s bad for his diabetes, but he’d rather die fat and happy than “live on in misery gnawing on a lettuce leaf” as he puts it. So I suppose it’s only a matter of time before he goes bad again.

  Davy’s got some big lads from the Jungle coming round every Friday and Saturday now to help him carry the wheelchair down the stairs. Then they all go off to the Jungle for the evening, and wheel him back home at some ungodly hour. Mr M. calls the big lads “my babysitters”, because they look out for him while Davy’s working in the kitchen. He’s got the chair all decked out with ribbons and velvet cushions these days, and has one of those sequinned embroidered bedspreads over his stumps so you’d never know.

  Yesterday I noticed that Davy was wearing a bit make-up too, when they set off, so I had a word with him about that today as well. It’s partly my doing that he’s working for Mr M., so I don’t want him being turned.

  He said lots of young men these days are “rebelling against the macho image”. That’s what he called it. That’s why lads are growing their hair and wearing flowery shirts. The make-up’s all part of it, he says. It doesn’t mean he’s turned homosexual. Still, it bothers me, seeing such a handsome young lad in eyeshadow and mascara, so I think I’ll have to have a word with Mr M. about it too.

  The lad was home when I got in. He’s jacked it in on that herring boat and is going back on the trawlers. He’s got a place on a boat going to Iceland tomorrow night, so he was getting all his stuff ready. He was seeing to his own washing, bless him. I hope it will be dry in time.

  31 July 1967

  I went up ten minutes early this morning, to be sure of catching Mr M. on his own. I said my piece about corrupting the lad but he just laughed and called me a “silly old trout”. Usually I’d just let it go, thinking I’ve done my bit and now it’s up to You, Lord. But this time I just couldn’t let him laugh it off. I thought, that Davy deserves better, so I kept on about it, telling him that the lad really wants to make a go of his caff business, but there’s a risk he’ll go off the rails with all them bad influences at the Jungle. So I don’t want Mr M. encouraging him in immoral behaviour.

  I told him I’d seen Davy in make-up on Saturday and I was worried he was heading down the wrong path.

  “What if that’s the path he’s chosen?” said Mr M. So I said that it’s our duty to help him resist temptation, because he’s only young still, and he’s got a chance to make something of his life. And Mr M. says, “What you mean is, you don’t want him turning out like me.” So I said yes, I was sorry, but even if the Government allowed it, I didn’t think wearing women’s clothes and going with men was how God intended a man to live.

  So Mr M. says, “What about love thy neighbour as thyself? What do you think God meant by that?” (Except he always says “Goddess” instead of “God”, which is a sort of blasphemy I suppose, but I don’t think he means any harm by it.) He was trying to be smart, but I wasn’t having any. So I made him promise not to encourage the lad in any of that ‘gay’ business.

  Davy arrived then, so we had to leave off, and I sent them out of the kitchen so I could do the floor. When I was done I had a quick cup of coffee and went round the lass’s house.

  It was a nice sunny day, so we took a picnic to the beach. Her mother’s keen to get her in the water this year, but I can’
t see it myself. She’s brought her a copy of The Observer Book of Sea Life, so we took that along and spent a while peering into rock pools.

  It reminded me of going flither-picking for the long lines as a lass. We’d tuck our skirts into our drawers and clamber all over the Black Middens, looking for mussels and limpets and that.

  The lad left after tea. I always want to wave him off, but he says it’s bad luck, so I’ve to pretend I never even heard the door closing behind him. I’ll say a special prayer for him later.

  11 August 1967

  My hands are shaking as I write this. Dear Lord, please have mercy on Your servant. I am so upset I hardly know what to do with myself, so I thought I’d try writing to see if it would calm me, even though it’s only 4 in the afternoon.

  I popped upstairs to give Mr M. his change at about 1. He’d paid me too much, and said to keep the rest, but I wasn’t comfortable with that, so when I had the right coins I thought I’d take them up. I wish now that I hadn’t bothered.

  I never ring the bell, because I’ve got my key and anyway he can’t get to the door any more. So I let myself in and I could hear him and Davy having a gay old time in the bedroom, laughing away. I didn’t think anything of it, because they always have a good laugh together, chatting away in that jokey language they use.

  So I came upstairs as usual, and the bedroom door’s open and there they are. Lord, I can hardly bear to write what I saw. Mr M. was in his wheelchair and he was dressed, if you can call it that, in his underwear (not the panties I brought from Markie’s) and that negligee. It was like he had started getting ready to go out, but hadn’t decided what to wear.

  The wardrobe was wide open and there were clothes hanging on the doors and lying all over the bed, scarves, kaftans, blouses, all sorts.

  But it was Davy that upset me. I thought at first I’d made a mistake and there was a lass in the room, but then I saw that it was Davy in one of Mr M.’s wigs (the long auburn one). He was wearing that purple silk kaftan, with a load of different beads, but from the state of the room, I’d say he’d had on half the clothes there.

  He was walking up and down in front of Mr M., just like one of the lasses on that Miss World contest, and Mr M. was clapping his hands and saying, “Fortuni! Fortuni!”, some nonsense like that, and, “Give me a twirl, heartface.”

  So Davy twirled around, sort of tossing his head to shake the wig hair back over his shoulders, then he must have seen my face, because he rushed straight past me to the bathroom and slammed the door.

  Anyway the upshot of all that is that I’ve left the job. Twenty-six years and it’s come to this! I said to Mr M. that he’d broken his promise, so I didn’t want to do for him anymore. I said he should be ashamed of himself corrupting a nice young lad like Davy. I said I couldn’t carry on knowing that sort of thing was going on as soon as my back was turned.

  Of course leaving won’t stop it from going on, but at least I won’t have to think about it now.

  I never saw Davy. He stayed in that bathroom the whole time I was there.

  Mr M. doesn’t really need me now anyway, so it’s not like I’m letting him down.

  I didn’t feel like eating, so I just had a bit of buttered toast for tea, then sat and tried to do my crochet. But I couldn’t settle, so I walked to St Cuthbert’s and lit a candle, and sat for a while praying to You for comfort. Then Father Gregory came in to lock up and asked if I wanted a word. But I just shook my head and left.

  At least I’ve got the lass on Monday to take my mind off it.

  ‌Chapter Forty-Five

  2007

  The following morning finds Mary sitting on her bench in the sunshine with a sheaf of typescript in her lap. She remembers typing it on her old Olivetti. Typing was so physical in those days, she reflects; one had to punch the keys really hard to make an impression; so different from those sensitive little flat squares on today’s computer keyboards. She’s on her third espresso and her umpteenth cigarette, toiling through Peggy’s unfortunate life – but here, at last, is one of the episodes she recalls from a different life story.

  She sees that she’s inserted a heading that reads: NOT PEGGY. WHO?

  K: … What can you see? etc.

  M: The boards are lurching. That lamp needs trimming, the glass is covered with soot. Why won’t he leave it be? Can’t he see she’s not interested? Oh—

  K: … Alarm sign used, then session resumed, subject asked to re-enter same life at an earlier time

  M: I’m feeling qualmy, like the beer’s sloshing around in my belly. And the taste of that bakkie’s making it worse. I’m looking down, trying to walk straight, but my feet feel heavy, somehow, and the boards like they’re tipping. And for a moment I’ve forgotten what I’m about, where I am, what I’ve come to do. Then I hear her voice saying something from inside, and it comes back to me, this great whoosh of anger and I reach up to check my knife’s there.

  Then I feel a chill and find my flies are unbuttoned – when did that happen? I can’t even remember going to the pisser – so I fumble a bit and get them done up, and I’m cursing myself, and her, and him. And now my jacket’s come undone, so I’ve to fix that too, but I’ve got the buttons out of order somehow, so I must be worse gone than I thought.

  So I’m trying to sort the buttons, but I’m so spitting angry my fingers won’t work, and I’m just ripping them open, and his tin’s come out of my pocket and’s clattering down onto the boards.

  K: … Alarm sign used again. Session terminated. Poss. return to this life when Peggy finished?

  Aha, Mary thinks. So there’s the tobacco tin that’s been haunting her. She flicks forwards another few pages; she thinks there were several more episodes like this, from Peggy’s predecessors’ lives. Right, here’s another one: NOT PEGGY. WHO?

  K: … What can you see? etc.

  M: She’s gone down to the kitchen with the bairns to find out what’s happening about tea, if she’s supposed to make it or if they do and what time and that. So I take my chance to look in his ditty box again. I wrapped ticking round it, so it wouldn’t rattle and draw attention, so now I unwrap it. And there’s that photo where she’s looking like an angel, sat still for the camera. How’d they ever get her to sit that still?

  Now I’ve got his bakkie tin out and it’s popped open just like that, easy as blinking. And there’s his roll of Sweet Virginia and his papers, and his box of matches, little scattered wisps of dry bakkie. The smell’s that sweet, like toffee almost. And all the while I’m listening out for Mam coming back up the stairs, because I don’t want her seeing and getting upset. Maybe I’ll try smoking something myself, later when she’s not around, and it will remind me of him.

  So I shove it in the pocket of my jacket, so that’s him kept safe, like, even though she’s not bothered. And I’m going to the window and looking out, at all the lums belching smoke, and the seagulls paddling along the ridges of the roofs. I never realized how high we were, and I’m thinking I’m glad we’ve got the slops pot, for it’s a fair tramp down all them stairs for the nettie in the middle of the night—

  ‘Howay, Doctor. You alright?’

  Mary sets the pages aside and looks up. ‘Mr Skipper! Come and join me.’

  ‘Is that Mr Ian here yet, then?’

  ‘No, was he supposed to be?’

  ‘He said ten o’clock, so I’m a bit early.’

  Mary takes a breath, trying to control herself. This is getting beyond a joke. ‘This is the first I’ve heard of it,’ she says carefully. ‘What’s the plan, then? Did he say?’

  ‘Only that we were going to do another of them memory sessions and he was going to film it. You’re not going out, are you?’ he asks anxiously. ‘Only I’m sure he said it was today.’

  ‘I’ll call him, shall I? Maybe there’s been a misunderstanding.’ She goes inside and dials the number for the hotel. Ian’s not in his room, apparently, but the girl thinks she saw him going into the lounge. After a lengthy pause while she de
spatches some minion to locate him, Ian appears on the line.

  ‘Ian? It’s Mary. I’ve got Mr Skipper here saying you arranged—’

  ‘Shit, shit, shit! God, I’m so sorry. I completely forgot.’

  ‘What shall I tell him?’

  ‘I don’t know. Make up something. Look, I can’t talk now. Things are going crazy. There’s been all kinds of hassles with the film crew.’

  ‘When were you planning to inform me about this regression session?’

  ‘I tried to phone you.’

  ‘No you didn’t,’ she says crossly.

  ‘Yes I did. Check your answerphone.’

  ‘Well you didn’t try very hard. You just assumed you could waltz in here this morning and—’

  ‘Sorry, sorry. Look, I’ve really got to sort this. I’ll call you later, OK? Lots of love.’

  ‘No, it’s not OK. What’s going on, Ian? Why are you contacting all my old clients?’ But he’s hung up.

  Skip looks up expectantly when she comes back outside.

  ‘I’m afraid Mr Campbell’s been detained,’ she explains wearily. ‘Some crisis with the film crew apparently.’ Lots of love? What does he mean, lots of love?

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ he says, though it obviously does matter. His hair’s freshly washed, she notices, and his tweed jacket looks like it’s been to the cleaners.

  She hands him a couple of cigarettes and they sit in silence while he goes through the familiar intricate rigmarole of creating a handful of bidis.

  ‘How are you, anyway?’ she asks. ‘No after-effects from the other day, I hope.’

  ‘Right as rain, thank you, Doctor. Bit of a headache is all. But that’s to be expected if you’re off the Stella, isn’t it?’