by Ian Stephen
If I’d moved quickly, I could have recovered some of the catch. I just looked down. There had to be a gaff aboard. The booted figure kept his stance. He knew that there wasn’t any gaff or long-handled net so there wasn’t much point in rushing about. So he was calm. The few other people who saw what happened – they gasped. Big Iain’s prize-winning catch. The fish would be wasted. The fat harbour seals would get them.
Maybe these watching people stopped me from trying something. Maybe it was just the thought of clambering down a weeded ladder, in clogs or bare feet, to try to recover the fish by hand. All this rational stuff comes only now, after it’s all in the past.
We couldn’t bring these fish back to the pier. So there was no point in stumbling around. That would have felt wrong, like the jerking tensions on the rope, working against the swing of the gantry. So I didn’t make a big thing of saying sorry, looking down to the angler I knew.
Someone showed me then, to bring my end of the rope round to the other side of the post, so the angle was correct. Hooks went into handles again and this time boxes came up, smoothly enough, one by one. This time, hands were waiting, to take the handles in the boxes.
So, Gabriele, that’s the full story of the ‘Schellfisch’. I didn’t tell it all, at the time. So you just saw it as a miracle, me arriving back at the house with a large Broad Bay haddie.
It was my mother’s bridge night. We had the house to ourselves. I just pointed to the bundle of newspapers by the sink. We unwrapped them together and, even now it was faded, it was still a very fine, line-caught fish. It was you who said it then. This could be St Peter’s fish.
All I said was yes, you’d been right, there was still some haddocks came in to that bay. Some people I knew had taken their share. No lies but not the whole story.
I took the knife to it and you shuddered. I left the head on and I took the white liver to mix with the oatmeal, seasoning and a touch of chopped onion. The stuffing went back through the mouth, down to the gills. You were horrified. But this was the most traditional Lewis dish. The whole thing poached in milk. Pale green rings of leeks. The milk thickened to a sauce. The stuffing eaten with the fish and our dry potatoes. I’d grown up on it.
After sharing all that, neither of us were bothering to move hands or feet out of the way. So we came close together over a gift of a dead fish. I could have told you a bit more of my own part in the waste of some of the catch. But that was too much. Maybe I was being kind, leaving the angst out of it.
That’s what people do when they tell their stories. Leave bits out. It’s all history once it’s happened. The match is over and here are the selected highlights.
A Letter from Köln
I don’t know why recycled paper always had to have squares. In a weak blue. The paper itself was the colour of the whites I tried to wash. So far, I hadn’t managed to achieve the standards of either my mother or Kirsty.
Unbleached paper. Natural cotton. Gabriele’s joke. There weren’t that many so I can remember most of them. ‘Why are the Greens having so many babies these days? Because hessian is better than plastic.’
Makes you shiver, doesn’t it boys?
But it was Gabriele’s letter all right. It was right there in one of the box files, the ones with three or four labels, with numbers or dates, marking a new attempt to organise the MacAulay archive.
The squares are a good grid for handwriting. The loops are never allowed to stray too far to impinge on too many graduations of the grid. I don’t know why the pen was red – but it stood out from the grey and the pale scaffolding. Maybe there was a job lot of red ink for her fountain pen. Maybe it was a clue to a passionate side which had to surface somehow before being subdued again. I’ve typed it all in for you so it’s with all this other stuff. It was a way of getting my head back there. I didn’t really know what my heart was doing at the time and I probably still don’t.
My dear Peter,
I hope you are well and in good spirits. Do you still cycle to work in winter? There were storms all over Europe. We had snowploughs but I think you had the strongest winds. I read that in the newspaper but I know you can’t think in metres-per-second so I have not copied the recorded speeds for you. Perhaps my contact with British culture is now too strong (even if you are Scottish) because I now realise I have begun my letter with a discussion of the weather in Europe.
But I really wanted to tell you I’ve completely stopped smoking now. I know it was not fair on you, when you were trying so hard and I would arrive with my allowance of duty-free Shag. And all your friends saying of course, it was time for another shag and looking at me. British humour – it’s really not improved since I was a student. Is it all still about farts and arses and suggestions about sex? We don’t rate toilet humour so high in Germany.
You know what was difficult? I could remember my father – every time I smoked. That’s something you do not want to lose. I think I know why. It was after sailing. I know you are more into engines but we share a love of wooden boats. My father had the boat built for him. I would visit the boatbuilder in the Netherlands with him and see how the shape grew on the frames. From some angles it looked quite fat, like a goose and from others it was streamlined. Also like a goose. We did the lacquer work ourselves. The wood is very light yellow, like a German woman’s hair was supposed to be like. The timber grew a little darker after twelve coats of lacquer but it still shone.
My father would always hoist the sails. It was very funny, the day he realised I was now taller than him. He kept trying to reach a rope that was loose on the mast. The wind was blowing it away from him and he kept trying to reach it. I stretched out, by instinct, and he looked so surprised when I handed the end to him.
He looked even smaller because he was so thin. They say a lot of people who survived the war were small, thin types. They could stay alive on less food than people with bigger frames. You know I have inherited his build but perhaps not for very much longer. I thought it was propaganda from tobacco companies, the gain of weight when you stopped but it has started to happen. I remember you saying Lewis-men like their vessels a bit on the wide side. You might get tested, on that, next visit.
You said I was like Popeye with the round muscle popping up from a long bony arm. You might not win at an arm wrestle now, Mr Peter MacAulay, so you had better watch what you say in future.
And I must warn you I have let my hair grow a bit, just to my shoulder. It’s cut straight there. It makes me feel good. I think you call it a bob. I know a shilling used to be a bob too. Five new pence, I remember.
Writing this, I am thinking back to being on the boat with my father. I became good on deck. There are two ropes to pull as the sail goes up. It’s a lot of sailcloth for quite a slim boat. But when the mainsail is nearly up, you tie one rope and pull the other till the top of the sail – the gaff – stretches up higher. Here is a little drawing for you.
I learned to watch the sails and slacken this or tighten that to get the boat moving better. I read books and did training on a dinghy. I had to bully my father a bit to make him move his weight out to the side, or forward or back. When the boat is light, your weight makes a big difference.
Sometimes we argued. Some days he said he just wanted to get away from being the man in charge. Difficult phone calls with anxious clients. He didn’t want to have to give his best performance on the water. But I did. I could not be happy if I saw a chance to make the boat go better. She would lean over a bit but there would be very little splashing. She could carry a lot of sail because she had a heavy, iron centreboard that dropped to make a keel.
The club became crowded. More pontoons were installed on the wide river. We could sail into a lake. It was a day-boat – no berths for sleeping but it was worth the long drive. Soon there were Saturday races. I persuaded him to enter. Our boat was new and still light. We would get her back on the trailer when were finished. I scrubbed and scrubbed till my father said I’d wear the wood away. A boat goes faster whe
n it’s smooth.
We were usually second or third. The day we won, the wind was behind us on the last section of the course. There was a big wave on the lake. I got the pole on the big foresail but I tied it to the shroud so I didn’t have to hold it. Then I took my weight back, right beside my father and we crouched close so there was less of us to catch the wind. The boat made a hiss that told us we were fast. We were across the line first and all the boats were the same type. We hugged and then I said, ‘God, I could do with a smoke now.’
My father looked a bit shocked because he had not guessed his little daughter (taller than him now) could possibly smoke. He just made a shrug and passed me his packet. Just this once. He had been trying to hide it too, to set an example. It was about the time people were starting to talk about lung cancer and warnings on packets.
Once or twice we had a smoke at the door of the house. It was not yet finished. You know about the shoes on the children of the cobbler? Well this was the architect’s house. But my mother had her kitchen organised now. She was making Sauerbraten – like a marinated pot-roast, with vinegar. Mutti still believes in pot-roast. It keeps in the juices. It’s her religion now. There was a lot of moving things from a bowl to a pan and Mutti got angry when I wasn’t there to help.
‘What are you two finding to talk about?’ she asked. We were smoking at the door and talking about this and that. I knew she was apart – left out – but I just knew there would not be many conversations like this with my father. Before the weight came back on him.
Then my mother was banging pans and I had to go back in. He stayed out, looking at the unfinished walls, the piles of sand and stones. It was his dream house and he looked lost.
He asked for my help later, with the cough mixture. I was to tell him if I found bottles in cupboards. Hidden away anywhere. I think I knew already my mother was always having flu and had sore heads and had to go to lie down. But it was after my father was reported missing that my brother and myself got Mutti to go for help. There were clinics. It was a common problem. People who could not cope with life, day after day, they would swallow spoons and spoons of this cough medicine.
Now, dear Peter, you know another family secret. I want you to know all about me. But I do not want to be always like a German full of angst, so now for happier matters.
Michel has a new camera. It is an SLR with three lenses. Our father’s Leica rangefinder is old-fashioned now. I love it but I don’t want to use it. Michel doesn’t want it either because it is like something from a shrine. We still use his dark-room. The house was not completely finished until after he was gone.
Here are Michel’s pictures. You can see the boat. You will get on well with my brother. He is mainly interested in engines. All kinds of engines, not sailing. That is why my father asked me to sail with him. Here is Michel’s photo of the new me. Where’s your Popeye now? I remember you saying how I was the nearest you’d come to having a boyfriend. You can see I don’t have my hair cut short any more. You need to be thin for that. I hope you like my new look, all the same. I’m happy in my self.
Love, Gabriele
PS. Did you find out if we could take out the dinghy of your friends? I can teach you everything in two or three days. We could go to that island you talk about, the one with the stone arch. I will send my dates. Write back soon. Thank you for the sad story about the haddock. I think it was good for you to write your story. It was good for me to read it. It made me close to you again.
Another Letter
Another letter, fat in the envelope. Pale blue squares on flecked off-white with red ink, weak now. It’s difficult not to change the phrasing, just reproduce the handwritten words, in type.
My dear Peter,
I’ve handed in my notice. Don’t get anxious. It’s nothing final. The city of Köln will give me a year’s leave of absence. As a lecturer in literature I am a civil servant with terms of employment that includes the chance to take a sabbatical. It is also a time to think. I do not know if I really want to be a teacher, for life. I have the feeling that my own research in literature is not complete. To be specific, I feel that your Ms Austen has been accepted as a feminist icon without careful scrutiny of the work. Her status is secure in Germany as well as in Great Britain (I know not to say England) but I do not think enough attention has been paid to the study of how she achieves her results. I think she uses language the way a careful surgeon might use a scalpel. I must confess I have never witnessed an operation. I also think of my father working at a drawing board. There is a delicate balance, achieved by a system of suspended weights. There is a need for precision. I think also of my father’s way of lifting his glasses and rubbing his eyebows.
Do you think that a careful author is a bit like an architect? She imagines buildings and gardens and draws them but the reader has her own pictures in her mind. Jane Austen draws and describes to provide a clear perception of the people who move in the buildings she has created – the structures she has imagined. But then there is something in her tone of voice. It is as if she can step aside and rub her glasses and let her characters say what they must say.
Your mother is very kind to invite me again but of course I worry about being a German person in Britain. It is not so many years and people still remember what it was like in the war. I think most families have lost someone.
I have enough savings to rent a room and this will also be good for my spoken English. But I do hope Peter that we will be able to spend time together. I hope we can spend long enough to know how our friendship might develop. What it is and what it might become.
Yes, history is certainly complex but our generation knows all too well there are some black and white issues. The generation of my mother and father kept their heads down and so the Nazis knew they would not be challenged.
I have to stop writing now. Please know I am thinking of you Peter. Please write and cheer me up,
Love, Gabriele
In Black and White
The olaid always says she wants it in black and white. That goes for an estimate from the plumber or a politician’s promise. I got the chance she never had, nor her husband either. I went to the college of knowledge and found that truth seems to come between the lines of different accounts. Something in Gabriele’s letter set me thinking. I always seem to be returning to the years when we settled back on the Island. That’s when I really got into history, in reaction to a guy who said it was just another subject to tick off on the score sheet. Maybe that reaction was part of the cynical bastard’s intention.
None of you have any interest in history. I know this. Please don’t bother to argue. It’s unlikely to be a problem. You are all here because you wish to pass Higher History at the best grade possible. Some of you will need the grade so you will be accepted for a university or college course. Your reasons for being in this class are not really my main concern. I can help you to achieve the passes you are capable of but only if we understand one another.
Some of you are diligent workers, some of you are lazy. You are all capable of achieving a good pass in Higher Grade History if you pay attention and are willing to put in a moderate amount of work into learning and arranging some information. I will be showing you some techniques for passing this exam. I will attempt to minimise the amount of time necessary to achieve a good result. With your agreement, ladies and gentlemen of the fifth year, we will start now.
When I write on the board, it will be necessary for you to take notes. Let’s take the example of the French Revolution.
Please copy this.
Standard Introduction Number One
• The Revolution which took place in France in 1789 had several underlying causes. A strong case can be made out for ……… being the main cause.
(Select any one of the Causes and insert in the blank.)
Causes of the French Revolution – see handout A.
Change of Argument Number One
• However, many other causes also played a signific
ant role.
(List remaining causes from handout A. Take care not to repeat the one previously chosen as the main cause.)
Conclusion Number One
• In balance it would appear that ……… was the fundamental cause.
(Choose one cause at your own discretion. If possible, give a sensible reason for your choice.)
The more intelligent of you here may be aware that it would be a little repetitive if the examiner had to read through twenty-eight identical answers. Therefore in the following weeks I will be providing you with Standard Introductions Two to Four; Changes of Argument Two to Four and a choice of four phrases to introduce your conclusion. We will then move on to apply the same approach to such questions as Constitutional Reform in Britain and the Causes of the First World War.
When we are approaching the Higher Prelims in January, I will be providing you with assessments of the probability of each particular topic occurring as a question, based on the frequency of its appearance in the past five years. We cannot of course be absolutely certain of all but a few questions appearing. Therefore I am sure you will agree it is prudent to cover a few eventualities.
Now, can I have four volunteers to distribute these handouts?
He was always dressed like a bank manager. Decent dark suit but not at all flashy. Shone shoes and slicked hair. That’s back in fashion again (some histories do seem to go in cycles) but they call it gel now. He moved quietly about the room. Never seemed either slow or in a hurry. It was like the cove had Brylcreem under his shoes as well and he was gliding. I don’t remember him losing the rag or shouting or anything. He’d have been good in wartime. Great organisational skills and he was an effective communicator.