Song of the Selkies

by Cathie Dunsford

  ‘Hold on, my love, hold on, for it is not time yet.’ Morrigan pleads with the seal’s destiny, but fate has already made her decision. Bit by bit, the seal shivers and trembles, each time getting weaker and weaker, then finally sleeps. It is only in this moment of peace that Morrigan has the courage to let go. ‘Farewell, my love. I will see thee on t’other side again. Thank you for these last final days together.’ She weeps into the soft fur of the seal, grieving more than when he first left her to go to sea. The seal dies peacefully in Morrigan’s arms and she lies with him for the first few hours of sleep she has had in a week. She then rises before dawn, makes a cross from two pieces of driftwood tied together with flax, takes the shovel from the shed and starts digging.

  From the cottage, Cowrie, waking for a glass of water after all the wine, glances out the window. The smoke from the shed is barely visible. But there is a figure, probably Morrigan, out in the field digging. Could this be the end? She watches as the earth and stones fly through the air and finally Morrigan slumps over the shovel. Cowrie fights the urge to go and help her. Sasha was adamant that they should leave her to her grieving. But it is hard to do so when you feel the hurt deeply inside. Maybe she’ll wander on down in the morning and see if Morrigan is okay. Act casual, like she’s just interested in who might be at the shed and buzz off if it feels uncomfortable and she senses Morrigan needs to be alone. Cowrie sighs, drinks the last of the water and joins Sasha in bed.

  Morrigan walks to the shed and drags the dead seal on the tarpaulin he’d lain on while being removed from the boat. She gently rolls him into the grave and then lays a ring on top of his body, clutched in his fins. It is the ring that Kelpie gave her. She then plants the driftwood cross at his head. She walks back solemnly to the shed, picking up her coat, turning her back on the bay, and slowly starts up the track through the heather to her cottage.

  [29]

  Chop, chop, chop! The knife crashes through the Golden Wonder potatoes at an alarming rate as they are diced into squares and thrown into a huge pot on the coal range. Next under the axe are a pile of yellow turnips wincing at the fate of the tatties, then the painful process of peeling onions begins. Morrigan is glad of the excuse to cry salt tears onto the sliced and diced onions. She slides them into the pot with the blade, adds boiling water to cover and sets to cleaning the coal range and collecting more fuel for the fire from the large pile of coals in the box beside the kitchen. She attacks the huge beast of a stove with vigour, using a fork to get into the cracks, and scraping the top around the simmering pot. The smell of turnips and tatties permeates through the house, out the window and into the nearby cottages.

  Cowrie wakes, sniffing the air. A strange and appealing odour of cooking vegetables greets her constantly-alert nose. She sneaks out of bed and clambers into the clothes lying on the Orkney auction chair they’d picked up for two quid. She smiles, recalling the vigorous bids for antiques and the easy pickings of everyday items. As she passes the herb garden, she picks a few chives. By the time she reaches the kitchen, Morrigan is mashing the soft turnips and tatties with milk and butter, and chucking in generous quantities of salt and pepper.

  ‘Want a few chives to go with that?’ Cowrie asks, casually.

  ‘How did yee know they came next?’ she grunts, a bit startled anybody else would be awake at this hour.

  ‘Clapshot, right?’ Cowrie grins as Morrigan nods.

  ‘Read about it in George Mackay Brown’s work. Besides, we had some soon after arriving.’

  ‘What makes you think you’d get any?’ replies Morrigan, deadpan.

  ‘I reckoned it was to share by the size of the pot.’

  ‘You able to see pot size through stone walls, then, Kiwi?’

  This is the first time Morrigan has used the national nickname and Cowrie takes it as a small token of affection in Morrigan’s own unique language of nods and grunts and half-disguised insults. ‘Na. Was the smell that woke me up and called me in. Then my stomach smiled to see the size of the pot.’

  Morrigan has just the edge of a grin on her face. ‘Aye, it’s aboot time you wrapped yer molars around some good Orkney clapshot, girlie.’ She deftly piles the hot clapshot onto a plate so it is steaming and adds a huge dollop of Orkney butter on the top, which melts and slides down the large mound, resembling the Brough of Birsay, like warm, golden snow. The stains from her tears have dried on her face, which is grimy from her week long vigil in the shed. Morrigan lays two plates and two forks on the table and places the mountain of clapshot in the middle. Steam issues from it like hot lava and the flow from Kilauea crater seeping toward the ocean fills Cowrie with a longing to be back in the welcoming warmth of the Pacific. She digs into the clapshot, filling herself with its hot, comforting sweet savoury tastes. ‘Like our Orkney clapshot then aye, lassie?’ asks Morrigan, her mouth full.

  ‘Sure do,’ replies Cowrie, mumbling through the tatties and turnips. She finishes her mouth full. ‘So how’s the fishing been this week?’

  Morrigan looks up, knowing from Cowrie’s face that she is aware she has not been fishing and she has probably seen her at the shed. ‘Not so good. Got a damned seal in the net then had to look after him.’

  ‘Did he survive?’ asks Cowrie, almost afraid to hear the answer.

  ‘No, lassie. They seldom do. Even the strong ones.’ Morrigan concentrates hard on eating until the next helping of clapshot and gives the clear impression she does not want to talk further about it. ‘So how was your week? Hope you ferryloopers didn’t smash up my van.’ She reaches for more salt and sprinkles it liberally over the clapshot.

  ‘Just a few minor dents,’ grins Cowrie, ‘nothing too bad.’

  For a moment Morrigan nearly takes the bait, then realises she is being set up. ‘Yee’ll be baiting lobster creels, a day for every dent, lassie,’ blurts Morrigan, a slight grin betraying her.

  ‘I’d love it,’ replies Cowrie, quick as a shot. ‘And the lobsters at the end.’ She helps herself to another pile of clapshot. ‘Wouldn’t mind going fishing with ya sometime, actually. I’m a keen fisher at home. Mostly kahawai trawling from my kayak, schnapper, mullet, the odd kingfish if ya lucky.’

  Morrigan shows interest for the first time since they sat down. ‘Kaha-why, what the hell’s that?’

  ‘About the size of a good haddock but with dark flesh, almost red in places when smoked and brown with creamy flesh. Luscious smoked over wet manuka.’

  ‘Manuka? Some kind of peat?’ Morrigan wipes her tongue around her lips to savour the clapshot.

  ‘Nup. It’s a native. You might know it as tea tree. Good for making a fresh brew after it’s steeped a few days, but it’s best for smoking kahawai, any fish really.’ Cowrie reaches for the pepper to spice her remaining bites of the delicious Orkney dish.

  ‘How’s it smoked then? You hang it up in a shed and smoke it a few days or what?’

  Morrigan and Cowrie enter deep into a conversation about the differences between Orcadian and Aotearoan fish-smoking practices, enjoying the familiar ones and learning from the new tips. For a half-an-hour, Morrigan relaxes and her ordeal of the past week slides gently into the deeper recesses of her heart. She loves fishing and this is the first time she and Cowrie have had a chance to have a true heart-to-heart on the things that matter in life. She’s relieved the kiwi does not ask any more questions about the past week. Wise to put it behind her now. It lays to rest a whole unfinished saga from the past and maybe it’s better left that way; in the past. Except for her promise to Kelpie. Morrigan yawns widely.

  ‘I’m sorry, Morrigan. You’ve had a helluva week. You must be exhausted. Why don’t I do the dishes and you take yourself off to bed?’ Cowrie starts collecting the plates.

  Morrigan stretches, yawning again. ‘Best idea you’ve had all day.’ She lifts herself wearily from the old wooden chair leaving mud stains on the straw bottom, and pushes it back into its place beside the table. Cowrie clears the remains of their dawn feast. From the doorway, Morriga
n whispers gently, so as not to wake Camilla, ‘Thanks, Turtle,’ and exits to her bedroom.

  Cowrie is left stunned. She had no idea Morrigan even knew of her nickname nor of the story behind it. And she seldom uses intimate language like this. Maybe it is a sign of some kind of acceptance? After all, they got along well at the Edinburgh Festival, though Morrigan was almost a different person then, parading under the name of Ellen and much more out-going than here in Orkney. Strange she has these names. There’s still something about Morrigan Cowrie cannot quite fathom. She boils the water for the dishes and stacks the dinner plates first, tea cups next and then the large pot.

  From the kitchen window, she sees the driftwood cross marking the seal’s grave down the field by the shed. Beyond, the wind and sea sculpt new shapes into the rocky ledges and sandstone cliffs at the entrance to the Bay of Skaill. There is a moaning from the kelpy waters midway into the bay as the Skaill seals mourn the passing of their kin. The wailing resounds over the bay and is drawn up the fields by the inshore winds that batter the coast constantly. Morrigan hears it from her bed and a tear falls from her one open eye as she pulls the covers over her head and burrows deep into the blankets.

  [30]

  He lies still, as still as can be. The ferny fronds fall down over his face and around his body, touching his sides and making him ticklish. It circles around and over him, looking from side to side with its swivelling eyes, hungry and angry. Oblivious to the danger, a pair of sea horses cling tentatively to their weedy home and entwine their bodies affectionately around each other. Sandy knows the shark is after him. He watched from a distance while Fiona tried to distract him with the ink-shooting squid. That was a brave and very foolish move, but he was grateful for the time to dive down into the kelp bed they’d explored earlier, playing together.

  The shark moves closer every time he circles the bed of kelp. It is only a matter of time before he sees the seal and makes his attack. Sandy is still not sure if Fiona made it back safely to her ledge. Last he saw was a cloud of blue-black ink and the shark chasing Fiona at high speed, angry and flicking its tail rapidly. But there was no blood and none of the usual play that goes with the kill, so he took that as a sign that she had made it. He has no idea what he’d do without Fe now. They have bonded for life and it is hard to find other selkies with experience of the earthly Nofin existence, who will understand what choices they have made and why, and who do not long to return to the sandy shores to see what may lie in wait for them should they lose their skins to humans again. It is a fate neither he nor Fiona now want. They have made up their minds to stay and neither has any desire to return to a human existence now.

  Above him, the smell of blood lingers on the shark’s jaws as he begins to nose the kelp, looking for his prey. He knows the seal is down there somewhere and it is a waiting game to see who will give way first. The shark has plenty of time to cruise but he is hungry and eager for the sweet taste of sealmeat now. His probings get closer and closer, each time dislodging a few seahorses or scattering some mackerel feeding on the seaweed.

  Fiona lies hunched in the rocky ledge, her tail being nibbled by annoying shrimps who know she cannot turn in this space to flick them off with her fore-fin. They are eating the luscious algae creatures that attach themselves to passing mammals and go along for the ride. She has edged in as far as she can to the small elongated cave, just large enough for her body. She has not dared to move since the great white launched himself at her and she was deeply grateful the rock oysters took the brunt of the blow, wounding him on the jaw. She will have given Sandy time to hide, but where and for how long?

  The squid float near the surface sunning themselves in the light and glad big jaws is obsessed with the seal hiding among the kelp. It was enough to be used as potential fodder, so they’d squirt their ink at the shark, but the further indignity of having to endure a pursuit, knowing he’d catch at least two or three of them on the run, would not be their idea of a good day. They watch, idly, as the shark noses in amongst the bladderwrack, edging nearer and nearer to the seal. Suddenly, there is a fast lunge and the seaweed swirls with motion, a tussle which sends feeding flat fish and saithe rushing out in all directions and seahorses floating from their weedy branches. This is no play but a fight to the death, as the tail of the great white swings back and forth while its jaws cling on and crunch into flesh. All they can see is the shark tail and lower body flinging itself around above the kelp while the jaws lunge at their prey.

  Blood seeps out from the seaweed, swirling along and past the ledge Fiona hides under and her whole being freezes. She heard the lunge and realised Sandy was hiding amongst the kelp they swam through recently, so playfully then. Her fins beat helplessly against the rocky cave which feels more like a grave to her now. Will the shark take a bite and then swim away or will he be in for the kill today? More blood seeps past and she burrows her head deeper into the cave, unable to witness the scene to come when the shark will swim with Sandy to the surface of the water and fling him up in the air, taking pleasure in the crash as he hits the water and watching him weaken and weaken, biting his jaws into the flesh again and again until he is limp and not able to struggle any longer. Then he will eat seal flesh, every last scrap, with only a few morsels floating down past her for smaller fish to munch. If she had diverted the shark and taken the attack, she could at least have saved her Sandy.

  More scuffling, then in the distance she sees the shark swimming away, its prey lodged within its large jaws. She turns back into the dark pit of the cave, never wanting to swim out again.

  [31]

  A white dove hovers in mid-air, above two seraphim and cherubim. St Francis of Assisi and St Catherine of Siena shine out from their painted stained glass shrines. In the centre, above the altar, a madonna with child. Golden curtains embrace the sanctuary and the altar is flanked by exquisite candelabra. The semi-rounded shape of the chapel embraces them, makes them feel as if back in the womb. Hard to believe that the sanctuary gold curtains were paid for by prisoners of war, that the tabernacle wood came from a wrecked sailing ship, the stained glass windows are painted onto board over corrugated iron and the beautiful altar, rail and holy water stoop are all created from concrete.

  There is such a holy feeling as they stand in the Italian Chapel, built from two corrugated iron Nissen huts by prisoners of war on the island of Lambholm. They cannot keep back the tears. It is difficult to take in that they are now standing on the site of Camp 60 which housed several hundred Italian prisoners near the end of the Second World War in Orkney. The men were sent to construct the Churchill Barriers, a series of ugly concrete causeways designed to seal the eastern approaches to Scapa Flow where the British navy was housed during the war. Amidst the squalor and depression and pointlessness of war, the Italians transformed the huts of thirteen camps by making pathways, planting gardens with vibrant flowers, building a theatre with props and scenery and a recreation hut. Then, under the guidance of an inspired artist, Domenico Chioccetti, they began work on the chapel in 1943.

  ‘This is the first time I have stood inside a church and actually felt it was sacred,’ admits Monique, deeply touched by the experience. She runs her hand along the intricately carved wrought iron sanctuary screen and looks up to the most lovingly painted Madonna with child she has ever seen. ‘I wish my father could have seen this. His only memories of this decade are the scars his body still bears from being forcibly sterilised.’ Tears run down her cheeks as she looks longingly at the Madonna looking longingly at her child.

  Camilla touches her shoulder gently. ‘It is beautiful.’ She genuflects before the altar and crosses herself.

  DK reads from the Chapel Preservation Committee’s guidebook that the two Nissen huts were placed end-to-end and joined together, initially as both a school and a church, but once Chioccetti began work on the altar, the chapel had to be painted also and they used the entire space so all the prisoners could worship. Ideas flamed through the artist’s mind as h
e continued work, enlisting many other prisoners to help.

  ‘He only had recycled rubbish and scrap material to work from, and to create such an exquisite work of art from what others consider rubbish is what I find so inspirational.’ Cowrie is close to tears herself as she admires the beautiful stonework and carved stone latticework which is painted onto curved board laid over the corrugated iron.

  ‘Get this,’ exclaims DK. ‘You know that amazing statue of St George slaying the dragon which I liked so much at the entrance. The prisoners made that from barbed wire covered in concrete. Imagine sculpting something so intricate from that.’

  Cowrie glances out the window at the impressive statue, the Italian flag flying proudly to the right of it. The barbed wire brings back painful memories of deep cuts and gashes in her skin when they climbed the barriers of army-laid barbed wire to protest apartheid in South Africa. They had forced a racist tour to end and helped a regime to topple. A generation of kiwis wore the marks of barbed wire cuts on their arms and legs and bodies from that period. But to turn the image around, use it for an awesome work of art, is a truly radical act.

  DK informs them that after the war, the South European arm of the BBC broadcast a programme on the chapel in the summer of ’fifty-nine, including a conversation with Chioccetti who had been traced to Moena, a small village in the Dolomites. The Orkney Herald had subsequently run a series of articles reawakening interest in the chapel and the story of its construction and people flocked in from all over Orkney and further afield to see it. Local Orcadians brought Chioccetti back to the chapel in 1960, and he later did restoration work on it, and thus began a long and wonderful relationship between Chioccetti’s family, the village of Moena and Orkney. Some of the prisoners who worked on the chapel were also brought back for a service to honour their work in 1992.