The Sea-wreck Stranger

by Anna Mackenzie

  Setting the saucepan over the flames I busy myself with the ragged strips of cloth that serve as bandages. I can feel him watching me and I’m careful to avoid his eyes. Once the water is steaming I squeeze out a cloth and lay it gently on his wound.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I tell him, as he flinches. ‘It has to be cleaned.’

  He nods, once, his hands clenched tight and a muscle jumping in his jaw. I’m as quick as I can be, laying hot compresses then binding the wound with a fresh strip of cloth. The used bandages I throw into the still steaming water, pushing the pan back over the embers.

  ‘Thank you,’ Davie says, the words forced out on his ragged breath.

  ‘You’re welcome,’ I tell him, a flush climbing my cheeks. ‘I’ll fetch fresh water.’

  Outside, I’m startled to find how high the sun has already climbed. I’ve no time to linger.

  When I return to the ledge Davie’s eyes are closed and his breathing is more regular. I’m glad, for rest is his best weapon against infection. I add a few sticks of driftwood to the fire and hang the bandages over an angled branch to dry. Thinking of how thirsty he’ll be when he wakes, I arrange the jar of water within reach and set a heel of bread alongside in case he’s ready to eat. He can soak it in the water if he’s not yet strong enough to chew. Finally, there’s nothing left for me to do.

  ‘Davie,’ I say quietly, ‘I have to go.’ His eyelids flutter at the sound of my voice.

  ‘Devdan,’ he mutters, his voice so low it’s nearly lost before it escapes his lips. ‘My name’s Devdan.’

  ‘Devdan,’ I repeat, echoing the unfamiliar syllables. ‘Rest now, Devdan. I’ll come back tomorrow.’

  If I can. Devdan’s gratitude is misplaced, I think, for his life is far from saved – but I’m not ready to give up yet, and nor, it would seem, is he.

  Chapter 8

  Merryn greets me with a nod and hands me a barley-cake which finds its way to my mouth before I’ve even finished muttering my thanks.

  ‘Are things well with Marn and Tilda?’ Merryn asks, and I nod through the crumbs.

  ‘And Ty and Sophie? I haven’t seen either of them since the fair in Tarbet last autumn,’ she adds.

  ‘Ty’s grown some more, right out of the arms and legs of his clothes but not yet into Marn’s cast-offs, and Sophie just keeps getting prettier. She’s awful thin though,’ I add, only realising it myself as I hear the words slip from my mouth.

  Merryn snorts. ‘You’d be the better for a touch of fattening yourself, Ness.’ She says it hard, like an insult, but I know the barb’s not aimed at me. Merryn never hides from speaking the truth, which keeps her less popular than she might be in the village.

  I like Merryn. She has a sharp tongue to hide a soft heart, that’s what I think. She’s younger than Marn – though you might not guess it at a glance. Her hair is greying and she wears it twisted back in a plait that hangs straight down her back, while her eyes are set with lines. She doesn’t smile much but she isn’t curdled with bitterness either, even though she’s lost most everyone who’s been close to her, one way or another.

  ‘I’d have thought Marn’s farm would produce enough to feed three children,’ she says, tartly.

  I study the grains in the table, knowing full well that it does; knowing, too, that it’s not Marn who ekes out the food we have so meanly. When I look up, there’s a pastry sitting on a plate in front of me.

  ‘Eat that,’ Merryn commands, ‘while I find something for you to take back for Ty and Sophie.’ My stomach squeals like a fresh weaned piglet, despite the barley-cake.

  ‘And thank Tilda for sending the eggs,’ Merryn adds. She has her own, I know, but there’s little else to offer at this time of year. As I bite into the pastry my mouth fills with wonderful tastes and my fingers hasten to collect the crumbs I’ve made, so that none of it is wasted. Merryn hands me a glass of honey cordial and lets a question fall between us that stops me in mid-swallow.

  ‘Who hurt your arm, Ness?’

  I drop my hands to my lap, hiding the fresh circlet that stands out red against my skin. ‘It was an accident,’ I mutter.

  Merryn doesn’t answer. After a minute she gets up to fetch ointment from a cupboard. ‘This’ll help the bruising,’ she tells me, smearing the cool cream gently onto my arm. It seems the perfect opportunity, so I twist my tongue around a question.

  ‘Do you have anything for an infection? Only, Ty has a cut on his foot that’s starting to go red and I don’t like the way it smells.’

  My heart’s beating at my lie, and at the risk of telling it. Merryn is no fool.

  ‘Depends how bad it is,’ Merryn replies. ‘Is he running a fever?’

  ‘Maybe a little,’ I say.

  ‘What did he cut himself on?’

  ‘Rocks,’ I guess, my face reddening.

  Merryn nods slowly. ‘And he got sea water in the cut?’ she asks. My face grows redder still as I nod but she makes no comment.

  ‘I’ll give you a paste. Put it on thick and keep the cut clean. Change the bandages every day and boil them each time.’ She pauses. ‘If you think he’s not mending, bring him to see me.’

  I nod, thinking I’ll stop to dress Devdan’s wound on the way home. Merryn’s medicines are the best on the island and the worry that’s nagging me eases a little. Elsie Barritt once complained that Merryn’s cures were too effective, pinching her lips and puffing her cheeks to give the impression there was plenty more she could say if she chose. Elsie is a master at leaving accusations hanging in the air behind her words. To me the important thing is whether a medicine works rather than whether it breaks the bans – which is what Elsie was hinting.

  ‘Merryn, do you think the old ways are bad?’ I ask, edging towards the subject. ‘Pa didn’t,’ I add. ‘He said that in times back, they knew a lot more’n we do about some things.’

  Merryn shrugs, eyes on mine. ‘There are always things to be learnt from the past,’ she says. ‘Even when it’s what you shouldn’t do as much as what you should. It’s not always easy knowing which is which,’ she adds.

  I sigh, and she slides me another cake. ‘I’ll get you that ointment and Tilda’s tonic. She gets more irritable with her headaches?’

  ‘Not so’s you’d notice,’ I answer sourly, knowing by the tightening around Merryn’s mouth that she takes my meaning perfectly. More than once, Merryn’s been on the short end of Tilda’s temper. It occurs to me that Merryn thinks it was Tilda who hurt my arm.

  I frown, not wanting to be drawn on it. ‘I’d better get going,’ I say. ‘Tilda said I was to hurry.’

  ‘And you’re going by the old sea-path,’ she says. ‘Oh, I know more than you think, little urchin. Besides which, there was sand all over your boots when you arrived, which is now mostly all over my kitchen.’

  My face flames and I look about, seeing that she’s right. ‘I’ll sweep it up for you,’ I say, springing up from the table.

  ‘You can sweep for me when I’m past being able to do it for myself.’ Her voice is sharp, I’m not sure why. As if to take the sting from her words, she reaches over and pushes me gently back onto the chair. ‘Sit a moment more, Ness, while I pack up your things,’ she says.

  That night, as I listen to Sophie’s breathing and the spattering of rain against the window glass, I wonder about Merryn, alone in her cottage above the sea – but thinking of the sea leads me as ever to thinking of Pa. Tossing impatiently, so that Sophie sighs and mumbles in the bed beside me, I shrug my Pa aside. All I have left of him is words, and no matter which way I set them they won’t fit a pattern that holds steady with my life.

  Devdan rises up in my thoughts instead. He doesn’t fit either but he proves harder to turn aside. About Devdan I’ve so many questions that it’s hard to stay on any one for long. It’s not just whether he can fight off the infection, but where he’s from, and why he came, and what it will all come to mean. The more I think, the more tangled it all becomes, so that by the time sleep finally reac
hes out to take me the questions are as knotted as seaweed cast up on the sand by a storm.

  ‘What’s the matter, Pa?’ I ask, watching the sadness fall over his face like cloud shadows on water.

  ‘I miss the sea, Nessie,’ Pa says, his eyes straying out across the bay. ‘You and me, we’ve got a current of salt running cool through our blood. Though yours runs a little hot at times,’ he adds, laughing to show he doesn’t mind how hot my blood might be. A minute later he’s hoisted me into the air and dropped me down astride his shoulders. ‘It can be wild out on the ocean,’ he says, swaying and dipping so that I shriek and clutch his head. ‘But show the sea your respect and she’ll pick you up and carry you wherever you want to go.’

  Pa runs so that the wind sifts through my hair and my heart beats like gull’s wings in my chest. ‘Do me a storm,’ I call, slipping into the familiar game. ‘Do me a wild roaring storm, Pa.’ I tighten my hold on his head and tuck my feet back under his arms, laughing already.

  ‘Storms are dangerous,’ Pa says. ‘A storm is the sea’s way of showing you her power.’

  ‘It can’t scare me!’ I shout, weaving my fingers through his curly hair. ‘I like the sea, and the sea likes me!’

  Pa doesn’t answer, and I feel a sudden rush of sadness come into him. I lean forward and lay my cheek against his hair, my arms circling his face like the ties of Mama’s summer bonnet as he walks us back along the cliff-top.

  ‘Pa,’ I say, as he lays me sleepily down on my bed, but when I open my eyes I see it’s not Pa at all, it’s a face dark and angry, and there are hands grabbing roughly at my arms. ‘You!’ a voice cries, ‘you’ll answer for this!’ I want my Pa back but I know he’s gone and maybe this man is part of why. I cry out, then he’s shaking me, shaking and shushing and I fling out my arms to try to get away.

  ‘Ness! Ness, stop! Wake up, Ness. It’s a nightmare, that’s all.’

  I open my eyes and Sophie’s face is above me, her eyes wide with alarm. ‘You’ll wake Tilda,’ she hisses. ‘You were dreaming, Ness, and calling out.’

  It’s a year or more since Sophie’s needed to soothe my nightmares. I push her arms away and roll onto my side, still caught in the remnants of my dream, my cheeks wet with tears.

  ‘What was it?’ Sophie asks. ‘What was it about?’

  I shake my head and smear a hand across my face. Sophie can’t understand how much I miss my Pa. Bella died before Sophie was old enough to know her, like Mama did with Ty, and Sophie’s Pa is safe and snoring in the room beneath our attic.

  ‘It was just a dream,’ I mutter. ‘Go to sleep, Sophie. I’m fine now.’

  I try not to lie to Sophie. When I do it’s only because the lie is easier than the truth.

  Chapter 9

  Marn grunts when I set his bowl of porridge in front of him and I glance at his face to try to find its mood.

  ‘Tilda’s still poorly,’ he says.

  I nod and feed another log into the firebox as Marn watches critically.

  ‘We’ve used more wood than I expected this winter.’

  ‘It won’t be long till we don’t need the fire so much,’ I answer. The weather today feels more like winter than spring, but there’s often a cold snap while the coming season sorts out its plans.

  ‘I’ll split more logs this evening,’ he says. ‘If you keep the fire damped down, the wood will last the day.’ I nod. ‘Tilda says the pigs need mucking out,’ he adds.

  ‘I did it just two days ago,’ I tell him. ‘Maybe she’s forgotten.’

  Marn frowns and I decide to rest my tongue. ‘How was Merryn?’ he asks, sudden.

  The question catches me by surprise because it’s not like Marn to chat. ‘She’s well,’ I stutter. ‘She was asking after you.’

  He looks up at me and away. Merryn’s husband died only a few months after Marn and Tilda married, and it’s always seemed to me that if Marn had waited he could have made a better choice for his second wife.

  ‘There’s talk in the village,’ he says. ‘Ton Barritt is stirring folk up with some nonsense about Merryn going against the bans.’

  ‘Ton Barritt and that son of his is who folk should be thinking on!’ I say hotly, and Marn stares me down so hard I could about bite off my tongue.

  ‘The Barritts are our neighbours, Ness. Remember it.’ I turn my eyes to the floor and nod. The silence stretches so long I judge Marn’s said all he intends, but when I look up I find him staring at me still, an expression I can’t judge on his face. ‘Ton spoke to me a few months back about seeing the farms joined in the future,’ he says slowly. ‘Joined by marriage,’ he adds.

  I blush hot with horror. The Barritts haven’t any daughters to marry off, only their bully of a son. My hands screw themselves into fists in my apron and I struggle not to let my thoughts show on my face.

  ‘I don’t hold with this talk about Merryn,’ Marn continues, ‘but there’s a lot of good could come from running the farms as one. The fields that lie east of Cullin Hill could be ploughed and sown in less time together than separate, and we could plant summer crops on the flats by our boundary if we had access to Ton’s creek. You could do worse,’ he adds.

  I can feel a lot of things bubbling up in my throat and I turn to lift the kettle from the hob, pretending I have a use for it to buy myself some time. ‘Jed Barritt got me on my own last summer,’ I say at last, my voice small. ‘What he tried to do was …’ I can’t think of a way to say it to Marn, and I feel as if I might die of shame for even trying, but I don’t see any other way of putting him off this fool idea. With my chin near down on my chest I turn my head sideways to see if he’s somehow grasped my meaning, but he’s sitting there with a grin as broad as a late pickle on his face.

  ‘It shows that he likes you, Ness.’

  I feel an urge to hit him with the kettle so I put it down quick.

  ‘You’re too young yet to understand,’ Marn says. ‘I wouldn’t have spoken, except that I’ve been thinking that someone should make mention of how things stand to Merryn. She’d be wise to take a little more care of what folk think.’ He stands up, leaving his empty bowl on the table, and lifts his jacket from the hook by the door before he turns to look at me again.

  ‘Ton Barritt holds a place on the Council, Ness. No good would come of crossing him.’

  For a long time after the door closes, I stand flat-footed and winded by the stove. I should be readying Tilda’s breakfast and setting a tray to take it in to her, but my hands are as unsteady as my turbulent thoughts. I’ll not marry Jed Barritt, not for Marn, certainly not for our loud-mouthed neighbour Ton; not even for Ty and the benefits there might be in joining the two farms. Ty and Sophie here; me and that, that bully, over there. No!

  ‘It’s cold this morning,’ Sophie’s voice announces as she skips into the kitchen, empty bucket swinging from one hand. ‘There’s ice on the water butt and the hens aren’t yet stepping out in their yard. And you should see Sal! She’s – are you all right, Ness?’

  She stops, watching me critically as I pull my face back into order. I shake my head and wipe my hands on my apron. ‘I’m fine,’ I say, and even I can hear that the words sound less than convincing.

  Sophie frowns. ‘You don’t look fine. Maybe it’s those dreams that kept you tossing about all night? Maybe you’re just tired?’

  ‘I’m not tired!’ I sound as short-tempered as Tilda and I take a deep breath and hold it as she clatters the scrap bucket in beneath the sink.

  My hands are settled and I turn them to Tilda’s breakfast. ‘Marn says Tilda’s still poorly,’ I tell her, gathering bowl and cup onto the tray. ‘Will you take this in to her, Sophie?’

  Sophie nods, voice lost somewhere inside her. She doesn’t like to be on the wrong side of me.

  ‘I’m just cross at something Marn said,’ I tell her. ‘I’m sorry for snapping.’

  ‘He looked in a good mood when I saw him crossing the yard,’ she says, not willing to let it drop.

  I
snort, feeling the flush rush back up to my face as I recall what put Marn’s smile in place. I walk stiffly to the pantry so Sophie won’t see my expression. ‘We’ll give her some blackberry jam; that should cheer her up a little.’

  ‘It’s the last jar,’ Sophie observes. ‘She’ll be cross if it’s wasted.’

  ‘What’s it for if not eating?’ I answer, dipping a finger-full out for myself, pleased with the small rebellion. My feelings lift a little at the thought that, with Tilda keeping to her bed, I’ll be able to check on Devdan. I’ll take him a lick of jam, and maybe visit Merryn. It was Marn, after all, who asked me to take her a message. Once I’ve given her his warning, I’ll ask her advice. She’ll surely be able to think of something to help me.

  As the rain sneaks its way down the neck of my jacket and my toes squelch inside my boots, I’m thinking I should have known better than planning on Tilda’s co-operation. Even when she doesn’t know she’s doing it, she has a way of spoiling my plans.

  Come mid morning I ran down to the bay, standing a moment to watch the waves crash up against the headland as the wind chased along behind. Devdan was restless and hot, not waking when I cleaned and dressed his wound with Merryn’s ointment. I didn’t think he looked worse, though I couldn’t say either that he looked any better. He took a little water and muttered a few words, but none that made any sense.

  By the time I got home Tilda was up and tetchy, querying where I’d been and who gave me permission to go off ignoring my responsibilities. There wasn’t a job I hadn’t done but Tilda didn’t let that crimp her carping. Sophie was combing out wool by the fire but it would have been out of character for Tilda to let me off as easy. We always pay a price for her sick days – leastways, I do.