The Silver Darlings

by Neil M. Gunn

  At that moment there was a tremendous shout from the shore.

  “Your mother and Roddie!” exclaimed Donnie.

  In the flush of embarrassed weakness that went over Finn, the eel gained more line.

  Roddie was shouting at them through cupped hands. Then Donnie understood and yelled, “Finn, we’re surrounded by the sea!”

  The eel had gained the forest of seaweed.

  “Come on!” screamed Donnie.

  Panic was in Finn, too, but there was also the pull on the line, pulling at his hunting instinct, his courage He suddenly lost all fear of the eel and tugged angrily, madly, with all his might. The snood broke at the eel’s teeth and Finn landed on his back. As he got up he glanced sideways and saw his mother stumbling down towards Roddie, who was on the tide’s edge. Then he turned his back on them and rolled in the line.

  Donnie was already splashing his way, the water to his waist. Finn deliberately lifted the four principal items of the catch by sticking a finger under the cheek of each and slowly climbed off the skerry and deliberately selected his spot. Donnie had struck in too quickly and was nearly off his feet. It was shallower, taking it at a slant. With the sea-water over his hips, he felt for each foothold carefully, casting his eye around at the same time. Roddie had waded in to steady Donnie and haul him out. When Finn saw Roddie coming towards him, he shouted, “I’m all right,” in a gruff voice. Roddie stopped, and Finn, still holding to his line and fish, waded out.

  His mother’s face was very pale. She was also so angry that for a moment she could not speak. Then her voice issued thick and thin at the same time, asking him what he meant by coming here when she had told him never to come. What did he mean? And her voice cracked. It was an ugly voice. The way she was behaving shamed him. His face grew darkly flushed. He did not look at her. And all in Roddie’s hearing.

  Roddie had politely turned away and was now talking to Donnie as they went back towards the curing stations Donnie was telling him about the great eel.

  His mother suddenly stopped and turned her back. Finn glanced round and saw her shoulders heaving, though she kept quite straight, with her head up. The folk who had been coming, attracted by the shouting, now paused and, after exchanging a word and a laugh with Roddie, went drifting back.

  Finn went on, hoping Roddie would not look back; but after a minute he did and Finn saw, by the way his eyes steadied a moment and narrowed, that his mother must still be standing with her back to them. Finn looked on the ground and slowed up, a dark smile twisting his face in moody embarrassment. He stooped to squeeze the water from his clothes, then followed Roddie as he moved on again. Half-turning his head, he saw his mother coming. He sloped away from the path to the beach. His mother called him, but he paid no attention, and went along until he came to Roddie’s boat. There he tightly wound the end of the line on to the forked stick and left it in the stern where he had found it. A bitter impulse came on him to throw the four fish into the sea, but he resisted it. Some men who were looking after the boats called to him cheerfully about his good fishing, but he hadn’t much to say. They knew what had happened, for half the world must have heard the shouting, and he avoided the humour in their faces. Going off along the beach by himself, he presently turned up the bank of the river, leaving Donnie waiting for him over at the curing stations. He did not want Donnie or anyone else. He had not liked that concentrated look in Roddie’s face, a look of silent condemnation, condemnation of a situation for which he, Finn, was to blame.

  He walked without hurrying his steps, for his mind was dark and angry and he was not running away from anything. When at last he came to the cairn by the House of Peace, he drew the stones away, pulled out the rabbit, and pushed it up under his jersey. Then he threaded the four fish on a hazel stick, crossed the burn, and went up by the big pools towards his home.

  He heard Kirsty’s voice yelling at the cattle before he saw her. His eyes narrowed and his mouth gave a small twist. This was the next of it!

  “My lad! where have you been all the day?”

  Then she saw the fish and looked piercingly at him. “To the shore!” she said in almost a small voice.

  “Donnie had to go a message and I went with him.”

  “So! You told your Grannie a lie?”

  “I have the rabbit here,” he replied, giving the bulge in his jersey a thrust. Without looking at her, he walked slowly on.

  “Did your mother see you?”

  “She did.”

  As she accompanied him, Kirsty’s head kept nodding as if it were on a swivel and couldn’t stop, the lips tight. “And what did she say to you?”

  Finn did not answer, and they entered the house, where he laid down his varied catch.

  Kirsty looked at the rabbit, the flounder (of which she was very fond), the rock cod and the two lythe, and nodded once or twice grimly. “Where did you get the fish?”

  “At the shore,” replied Finn, turning to walk out.

  “Come here!” she called peremptorily. “Do you think you can live without food?”

  “I don’t want anything.” And he went out, ignoring her further summons.

  So! thought Kirsty, it was like that! It would be! She put a small pan of milk on the fire. For a quick dish when he was hungry, Finn liked nothing better than milk brose. When the milk was boiling, she poured it over a fistful of raw oatmeal in a wooden bowl, stirred, went hurriedly out, and sent Finn in. She looked after him with an expression in which there was a glimmer of amusement. The man was stirring!

  After eating, Finn drove the cattle towards the edge of the moor, then sat down by a clump of gorse, and presently saw Roddie and Donnie appear in the distance. They stopped and looked in his direction, but Finn remained hidden and so they crossed the burn and went towards their homes. Roddie would now try for a couple of hours’ sleep, before going back to lift the nest and put to sea again. Some time afterwards, Shiela and Catrine appeared. They stood talking for a long time together before they parted. Shiela was married and had two of a family. Her husband had been on one of the first boats to come in and was already asleep. His mother lived with them and looked after the croft and young children when they were both away. Through the bush, Finn saw Catrine go up towards the house. He did not deliberately hide. In fact, he got to his feet before she could have reached the house and idly strolled down the brae.

  No-one came near him until, a long time afterwards, Kirsty’s voice shouted him to supper. Slowly he drove the young beasts into the enclosure and tethered the two milch cows. He knew he must go in, but he put off as much time as possible, so that he might eat alone.

  Kirsty came and called again. Then he went in. He did not look at his mother. The skeleton of the flounder, clean as a new comb, lay on Kirsty’s plate. She put a lump of butter on his rock cod and remarked abruptly, “Say your grace.” He lifted his hand to his forehead and muttered into its palm. She closed her lips, denying herself. When he had finished eating, she rose and went out. Between his mother and himself no word had passed.

  But he could see that between Kirsty and his mother there had been quite a few words, and he had the odd feeling that Kirsty had stuck up for him.

  He did not return to the house until it was time for bed. Catrine had to be up and off very early in the morning. His mother and himself still slept in the kitchen and he now strongly wished it were otherwise. As she sat before the fire, her back to him, he said his simple prayer silently, stripped to his shirt, and slipped in between the blankets. Then she smoored the fire, as she always did before undressing, kneeled, and got into her own bed.

  In the darkness, the awful burden of their silence was easier for Finn to bear. He was glad that was over! One would think his mother was stricken dumb the way she went about! He had got through it much better than he had expected—because he had got through it intact. He was whole, and if his mind was dark it had a queer smile in it, bitter a little, but still his own. He got this feel of himself, knit together, in the roun
d, under the blankets, his own body curling up, his very own. It was fine!

  Only he didn’t feel in the least sleepy. He was as wide awake as anything. And—he had won his way. He had gone to the shore; he had come back; and here he was. Roddie might look like yon—but what did he care? The monstrous eel came out of the forest of seaweed. The clear water, with the faint green that seemed to make it clearer; the slow-waving weed; the sea. He had held on! He hadn’t let go…. The sea: what a size of a place it was! And soon the schooners would be coming to take the barrels away to foreign places, the large ships with the tall masts and the great sails. He had seen one last year from the cliff-heads, though no-one knew that but Donnie. Their own boats took out the barrels of herring and loaded them on to the schooner. Sometimes they needed an extra man on the schooner and he was called a sailor. Sailors sailed the seven seas, sailed all over the globe that “the professor” had in the schoolroom. If anyone tried to keep you back, to keep you shut into a croft—you could go away and sail over the seven seas to strange lands, and so be free in yourself to wave your arms to distant things, to shout, and to go with other men on adventures….

  His mother moved restlessly in her bed, and at once his mind gave a whirl like a caught eel. He knew perfectly well she was wide awake and wanting to say things. He felt the dark dumb burden that was pressing down on her and decided to go to sleep at once. So cunningly he slowed up his breathing and let it come regularly and more and more audibly.

  “Are you sleeping?”

  It was a deep, sad whisper. He did not answer.

  “Finn.”

  The way she called his name, softly, drawn out a little, like a far-away forlorn bird’s cry, touched the quick of his heart. Swift responses came pressing up inside him, but he breathed steadily.

  Then he heard her turn away, and the world rolled over. Her soft shuddering sigh sank into the dark places where all is formless and incomplete.

  This incompleteness could not be borne. The responses got past his throat to press against his eyeballs. It was difficult to keep breathing regularly. It was too much. Having to swallow the tears in his throat broke his effort, and a choked sound got out before he could bite on it.

  She heard. She sat up. She was coming. Oh, he knew it! She shouldn’t come now! He hated her coming to find him broken.

  She knelt beside his low bed and put an arm out over him. He turned away angrily, pulling the clothes about his shoulders.

  “I’m sorry, Finn,” she said. “Won’t you speak to me?”

  “Go away.” The tears were getting completely the better of him now. He bit the bolster.

  “Listen, Finn. You mustn’t be angry with me. The sea has not been kind to me. And then—we have been living here, though it is not our croft, our home. I cannot do a man’s work, taking in new land. You and me—we are wanderers, who found a home. The only way we can pay back is if you——” She stopped, for though she knew what she was going to say was true enough—how she herself was making a little at the gutting for the use of the house, the need for working the croft properly and breaking in land lest the ground officer get at them, for Finn to concentrate on the home and grow up into a man to take the burden from Granny (there was no extra man here as on other crofts)—all were not so much reasons, however true, as excuses for covering over the ultimate truth, which was simply her fear of what the sea might do to Finn; and because she knew this, and was honest in her ultimate self, she stopped talking; her hand fell limp and her head drooped. There was no way of making the boy understand. No way. She saw it was inevitable and natural. This was the beginning of the new loneliness.

  But her stillness was invaded by the movement of Finn’s body. She heard him gathering his resources, choking back his sobs, and then, as if he understood in his own way all that troubled her, he got out: “I’m sorry.”

  “Oh, Finn,” she said swiftly and stretched both arms over the clothes, buried her face, and sobbed.

  “Don’t cry, Mama!” he said, his own tears gushing again. “Don’t cry.” His groping hands got caught in her hair.

  She did not lift her face until she had control of herself. His hands on her head, fumbling to comfort her, had a deep effect upon her, and she had all she could do to keep herself from kissing his fingers wildly.

  “Now go to your bed, Mama; you’ll get cold.”

  “All right,” said Catrine, as if accepting his wise advice; “I’ll go. Good night, Finn.” Her voice was happy. She offered him no endearment.

  “Good night,” he answered.

  Life was light again as thistledown. His mother had obeyed him as if he were a man. He loved her. He would fight for her. He would fight ten thousand….

  And though they both felt wide awake as sunlight, yet in a very short time they were in a deep sleep.

  *

  In the year, there were many particular seasons: the long festival of the New Year, when folk visited one another’s houses, the men with a snatch of song in their mouths as they advanced with their bottles and offered the strong product of the barley, which was tasted after a little speech of good wishes for health and happiness; the preparing of the land for the spring sowing; the cutting of the peats in May; this new and overpowering excitement of the herring fishing in July and August; and, lastly, the harvesting of the crops, followed by the November market and the long winter nights of inside work, when women carded and spun and knitted, and men and boys sat round the fire discussing the world and telling stories.

  Of these, harvest-time was still in some profound sense the most significant. When the last sheaf had been cut and stooked—or carried in as a trophy—a man’s eyes going over his land were satisfied. Whatever befell now, there would be meal in the girnel and straw for the beasts. It cleansed the mind, satisfied manhood, and released care. The rest was in the hands of God.

  Then a man might look at a woman in the gloaming, in the dim light of a barn, under the great harvest moon, and see her hair like the ripened corn or dark as sleep.

  The harvesting that followed Finn’s struggle with the eel and the quarrel with his mother, brought with it an incident that worked deeply in Finn’s mind. It was the custom for friendly neighbours to assist one another, and when the grain had been stooked at Roddie’s home, Roddie and Shiela and Duncan had come down to Kirsty’s. They were a happy party and the work had gone ahead in great style. Kirsty had appeared with bread and cheese, whisky and barley-water, to celebrate the beginning, and the proper words had been spoken and the right blessings invoked, for Kirsty knew how a thing should be done decently. Sandy Ware might talk of pagan practices: that did not worry Kirsty. The last sheaf was cut on the edge of the dark, and though there were folk who feared Kirsty’s tongue and thought she was hard, yet a few dropped in in the passing, for it does the heart good to see a harvest gathered anywhere at any time. Moreover, if Kirsty offered a dram, one could rely on its being “special”! So faces were smiling in the kitchen and every taste of the liquor was a speech.

  Finn, who was always conscious of Roddie’s presence anywhere, suddenly missed him and went out. The moon was rising and the new stooks were casting shadows. It was so lovely a night that it made him feel restless. The day’s labour lay warm and sluggish in his blood. Manhood was troubling his body with its premonitions of things to come, and the stooks were Kirsty’s, but they were also partly his, in the way that stooks were a man’s product, as articles made of wool were a woman’s. Roddie had said, “You have a good harvest here, Finn.” And he had looked it over and answered, “Not so bad.” The quiet, moonlit land and the peaked stooks like little folks’ houses: he gazed at them a moment as at something intimate and strange in his own mind, and wondered where Roddie had gone. Probably into the byre, where a man naturally goes now and then to be out of sight of womenkind. He went quickly, from the generous impulse the night put in his breast, and came on them just inside the byre door, Catrine with her face white and scared and Roddie, a yard from her, silent. They look
ed at him but did not speak, and in that queer, still moment Finn’s breast seemed to crush together and fall down inside him. A great awkwardness held his body so that he could not move.

  Roddie greeted him, but there was no warmth in his voice; it was quiet and cool; not angry or annoyed, but quiet and distant, like something smooth and fatal.

  Finn felt his body twisting. He wanted with all his heart to take it away, but it would not come. “Some more folk in,” his mouth muttered.

  “In that case, I’m off,” Roddie said.

  “You’d better come in and say good night to Kirsty,” Catrine suggested in a curious withdrawn voice.

  Finn got out of the door, but before he had managed a couple of clear steps Roddie called, “Good night.” Finn felt his mother coming behind him, but did not turn round, nor did he go into the house, passing the door as if he had something to see to.

  But he walked without seeing the ground he trod on, though his feet took him down into the hidden alleyways among the gorse bushes. He stood and gazed over the burn, silver-bright under the moon, but could not gaze long, so restless he felt, with a flutter in his mind, like the flutter of a tumbled bird.

  Roddie and his mother.

  He had never dreamt of anything between them. He knew all about flesh relations. He could not think, and chewed stalks of grass, and did not know what to do. A tremulous feeling began to beat up in his chest and made him feel sick.

  Roddie was thirty-eight and Catrine thirty-three. In Finn’s thought they were fixed in their courses like the sun and the moon. They were old people.

  His mother’s face had been white and scared and somehow extraordinarily pitiful.