Lightly Poached

by Lillian Beckwith

  ‘Aye, well,’ he said, throwing the words over his shoulder, ‘I’d best go an’ make some breakfast.’

  ‘D’you know,’ I told him, ‘I recall feeling quite hungry for my breakfast before I saw the eagle but since then the thought of food hasn’t crossed my mind.’

  He paused and looked at me with a gentle understanding smile.

  ‘Ach, Miss Peckwitt,’ he pronounced, ‘when anyone has seen such a sight as you have seen this morning they have had food and drink for the day.’ He turned his back on me and we went our separate ways.

  Pears in Brine

  ‘Well, that’s us near ready,’ announced Erchy, indicating the forty or so lobster creels spread on the cobbled ground at the side of the house. ‘This is the last one.’ He was tying a flat stone to a creel bottom and beside him sat Hector expertly plying a netting needle which, being a sedentary occupation, was the only one he cared to undertake.

  ‘When Hector’s finished that net we’ll have forty-two creels for tarrin’ tomorrow an’ if the weather holds they’ll be in the water by Wednesday surely.’

  ‘It’s a pity you have to put in the stones before you net them,’ I said, lifting one of the creels. ‘It makes them terribly heavy to carry.’ I picked up another creel. ‘Two of them balance quite well, though,’ I observed, weighing one against the other. ‘Would you like me to take these two down to the shore for you, seeing I’m going down anyway?’

  I thought Erchy was about to refuse my offer but Hector interrupted quickly. ‘Aye, let her,’ he said magnanimously. ‘It’ll be two less for us to carry.’

  ‘Aye.’ Erchy’s voice was dubious. ‘So long as she doesn’t fall an’ break them.’ He finished tying the stone. ‘Where did you put your own creel?’ he asked me.

  I nodded towards the house. ‘Beside the door,’ I told him.

  ‘Aye, well you’d best fetch it here. I’ll be ready to sort it for you just now.’

  I brought him my one creel which he had promised to mend for me. He inspected it with a disgruntled air. ‘Ach, you’d best have a new creel. This one is like matchwood.’

  ‘It will do me,’ I argued, knowing that if this one was not repaired I should be without a creel for the rest of the season and I dearly fancied a fresh lobster.

  Erchy sat down and began tearing off the old net which was like a ravel of dirty string.

  ‘If you boys hasn’t got your creels in the sea yet you’d be best leavin’ them on the shore!’ Angy, who had forsaken his job as a fisherman to come and take over the deceased Fergus’s croft, appeared from the direction of the house. He was a small man with a thin, bouncy figure, red hair and sea-blue eyes. He looked at my creel. ‘You’re surely not thinkin’ of puttin’ that in the water?’ he asked contemptuously. ‘Surely the lobster would be walkin’ in an out of it as if it was its own kitchen.’

  ‘That’s what I’ve been sayin’ to her myself,’ agreed Erchy. ‘But she’s that thrawn. She’ll no’ listen.’

  Hector smiled impishly. ‘You’d best be careful what you’re sayin’,’ he jested. ‘She might be catchin’ more wiss her one than us wiss our forty.’

  ‘Indeed an’ that will be the way of it unless we get ours into the water pretty soon,’ returned Erchy.

  I ought to have left them to their work and their chat but Erchy’s mother had made me promise to await her return from the well so that she could give me a pat of homemade butter for my supper and it was pleasant outside in the silky breeze with the bright sun gentled by drifts of clouds that looked soft and white as a rabbit’s belly.

  ‘Are you tarrin’ them here or down at the shore?’ asked Angy.

  ‘On the shore,’ Erchy replied.

  Hands in pockets, cigarette in the side of his mouth, Angy studied the assembled creek. ‘How will you get this lot down anyway? You’ll need to hire a lorry.’

  ‘We’re hirin’ no lorry,’ retorted Erchy.

  ‘You’ll surely not be thinkin’ of carryin’ them down yourself?’ Angy, having been a professional fisherman, was inclined to be scornful of Bruach’s part-timers. ‘You’ll need help if you are.’

  ‘We’re carryin’ them down but we’ll have help all right.’ There was a combative look in Erchy’s eyes.

  ‘I’m taking two on my way home,’ I interpolated. ‘And I expect there’ll be others willing.’

  ‘I’m no meanin’ that sort of help,’ exclaimed Erchy. ‘What we’ll do is wait till it gets a wee bit dark an’ then we’ll take the bier from the church an’ carry them down on that.’

  ‘The funeral bier?’ I echoed.

  ‘Aye,’ affirmed Erchy, ‘it will hold a good few creels at a time will that.’

  ‘People won’t like it,’ I pointed out.

  ‘Why should they complain?’ asked Erchy. ‘It’s not as if we’re tarrin’ the creels first. Right enough I wouldn’t think it right to get the bier all covered in tar,’ he added virtuously.

  Angy’s eyes sparkled. He was already beginning to get the reputation of being a practical joker and now he nodded appreciatively. ‘By God! I wish I’d thought of that myself,’ he said.

  ‘I’m sure some people are going to be offended,’ I repeated.

  ‘Not more than a couple of fresh lobsters will cure,’ declared Erchy confidently. He turned to me. ‘You’d best not let on you know anythin’, all the same,’ he warned. ‘Just keep your eyes an’ your door tight shut if you hear some strange noises near the place tonight.’

  ‘You’re aimin’ to take them down this night?’ asked Angy.

  ‘We are so,’ responded Erchy. ‘We’re meanin’ to spend the day tarrin’ them tomorrow.’

  Angy looked downcast. ‘You’re not wantin’ the job I spoke about, then?’

  ‘We are not,’ replied Erchy. ‘Like you said, if we don’t get these creels into the water soon we’re as well leavin’ them ashore.’ His voice became emphatic. ‘We’re tarrin’ them tomorrow an’ puttin’ them into the sea the next day if we’re spared. There’ll be no time to do any job save that.’

  ‘There’ll be good money in it,’ said Angy persuasively.

  At the mention of money Hector evinced a mild interest in the conversation. ‘How much?’ he asked.

  ‘Ach, I couldn’t say for sure, but plenty. The family’s rich enough anyway.’

  ‘How would you know that?’ demanded Erchy.

  ‘They must be,’ asserted Angy. ‘They pay income tax anyway.’

  Hector enveloped the three of us in his broad guileful smile. ‘If tsey pay income tax tsey must be daft as well as rich, I’m tsinkin’,’ he commented.

  ‘I cannot see why the boat you were on yourself doesn’t drop it off,’ suggested Erchy. ‘Do they not pass near to the island most every day?’

  ‘With herrin’ the price it is how would they take time off from the fishin’ just to deliver a corpse?’ argued Angy. ‘Anyway, fishermen don’t take to coffins aboard their boats. They say it brings bad luck.’

  ‘An’ aren’t we expectin’ to be fishermen?’ responded Erchy.

  Angy hastily pushed another cigarette between his lips. ‘Not herrin’ fishermen, you’re not,’ he replied. ‘I believe corpses only affect herrin’. I don’t believe the lobsters mind them at all.’

  I had pricked up my ears at the mention of a corpse but deemed it wiser to ask no questions and there was an appreciable silence before anyone spoke again.

  ‘It would set us back wiss tse creels, right enough,’ remarked Hector. ‘We’d need a good pound for tsat.’

  ‘Well, I’m gettin’ nothin’ out of it,’ said Angy offhandedly. ‘I only said I’d ask you seein’ they weren’t findin’ it easy to get a boat an’ I thought you’d be keen on the money.’

  ‘Not that keen,’ muttered Erchy.

  ‘Ach, then, I’ll away to the Post Office an’ telephone to say you’re not comin’, will I?’ said Angy.

  At that moment Erchy’s mother returned and I went with her into the house. When I le
ft there was no sign of any of the three men but the next morning Hector and Erchy’s boat had gone from its moorings and the untarred creels were piled in a mound on the shore.

  ‘Where have they gone?’ I asked Morag.

  ‘Ach, they’re away to take a corpse to one of the islands, though the Dear knows why,’ she replied.

  ‘I heard them discussing it yesterday and they seemed determined they weren’t going to take it,’ I told her.

  ‘They were not indeed but, ach, I think it was the money tempted them in the end,’ she explained.

  Later in the day whilst I was repairing the stone dyke which surrounded my cottage I was surprised to see a fishing boat come into the bay and drop anchor. The sound of a klaxon horn hit the village followed some time later by the noise of booted feet clumping down the brae. It was Angy and I guessed that this was the boat on which he had worked. I watched him row out and climb aboard.

  ‘You’re a hardy!’ Behag’s voice startled me momentarily and one of my carefully placed stones rolled out of position. ‘That’s Angy’s friends come for a ceilidh with him,’ she enlightened me, shielding her eyes as she studied the boat. Under her arm Behag had the new skirt which she wished me to ‘gather her in round the middle’ so I left my dyke mending and went with her back to the cottage where she slipped out of her old skirt and tried on the new one. I was just pinning in some darts when we heard heavy footsteps approaching.

  ‘Who can it be?’ gasped Behag and sooner than risk having her skirt fall down and despite all the pins I had inserted she promptly sat on the nearest chair, pulling her jersey well down over her waistline. Angy stood in the doorway.

  ‘It’s my mates that was,’ he explained after the preliminary greetings had been exchanged. ‘They’re sayin’ all their bread’s gone mouldy on them an’ they’re thinkin’ maybe they’d get a loaf from you. Just what will do them till mornin’ when they’ll be back in port.’

  ‘They’ve no bread at the shop,’ interjected Behag, ‘I was up there this mornin’ an’ there’s none till the bus comes this evenin’.’

  ‘Ach, you wouldn’t expect the shop to have bread at this time of day,’ scoffed Angy.

  ‘I’ve no bread either,’ I told him. ‘But I’ve plenty of oatcakes and it won’t take me a minute to bake them some girdle scories.’

  ‘Aye, that will do them fine,’ Angy accepted and sat down to wait.

  I heated the girdle over the fire and tipped flour into a basin. ‘Behag,’ I said, ‘will you brew the tea? The kettle is boiling and I daresay Angy will be glad of a cup.’ She did not move and when I glanced at her enquiringly I saw she was biting her lip and looking rather coyly distressed. I remembered her predicament with the pinned skirt and wondered if I dared ask Angy to make the tea.

  ‘Angy! How about brewing the tea?’

  ‘Eh?’ His voice was pained and he looked uncomprehendingly from me to Behag and back to me again.

  ‘Well, you’ll either have to brew the tea yourself or go outside while Behag changes her skirt. My hands are thick with flour,’ I told him.

  Angy got up. ‘It’s a damty fine thing when a woman has first to change her skirt before she can make the tea,’ he remarked sourly as he went outside. Behag slipped into my bedroom and returned her respectable self. Angy, whistling loudly as if to warn us of his reappearance, ambled in and sat down again.

  ‘So you managed to persuade Hector and Erchy to go for the coffin?’ I taxed him.

  ‘Ach, there was no persuadin’ in it at all,’ he replied. ‘They were keen enough to go all the time, I could see that.’

  I raised my eyebrows. ‘They didn’t sound in the least keen to me,’ I observed.

  ‘Indeed, only the devil himself knows what those two are keen on.’ Angy loaded his tea with several spoonfuls of sugar.

  ‘You did!’ Behag challenged. Angy responded with a mischievous grin.

  ‘I hope the weather stays calm for them,’ I said.

  ‘Indeed I hope so too,’ murmured Behag. ‘I was hearin’ them sayin’ the boat was leakin’ a good bit since they scraped that rock a week or two back.’

  ‘They’ll be safe enough anyway with a coffin aboard,’ Angy told her cheerfully.

  ‘What do you mean?’ I asked.

  ‘Well, with a coffin aboard supposin’ the boat sinks under them they’d still be all right.’ He saw my bewilderment. ‘Coffins float,’ he explained. ‘If the boat sinks they’d get into the coffin. It stands to reason for with a couple of oars they’d make land sure enough.’

  ‘It’s not an empty coffin,’ I reminded him.

  Angy shot me a withering glance. ‘Aye but two live men’s not goin’ to drown to save a dead one, are they?’ he said reasonably.

  As soon as the scones were browned on both sides I wrapped them and a few oatcakes in a teacloth and handed them to Angy. ‘You could take some fresh milk for their tea,’ I suggested. ‘I’ve plenty and I know fishing boats don’t see fresh milk from one week-end to another. I poured some from the setting bowl into a can. ‘Bring me back my cloth and my can,’ I called to him as he set off for the shore.

  Behag was just being pinned up for the second time when we heard what sounded like the same footsteps again approaching the cottage. Sure enough it was Angy.

  ‘They’re sayin’ why don’t you come aboard an’ take a wee strupach with them?’ he invited. ‘They’ve just taken their meal an’ they’re goin’ to have a cup of tea and a bite to chase it down.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ I asked, pleasantly surprised.

  ‘Aye, that’s what they said.’

  ‘I thought they didn’t like women on fishing boats,’ I demurred. ‘Don’t women bring bad luck the same as corpses?’

  ‘Not while the boat’s moored,’ Angy retorted. ‘No indeed they’re keen enough you should come. See, they don’t wish to feel obliged to you for the milk an’ the scones. If they had a fry of herrin’ aboard now you’d get that instead.’

  I understood, and turned to Behag. ‘Shall we go?’ I asked.

  Her expression was eager. ‘I believe my cousin’s wife’s brother is in the crew, is he not?’ she asked. ‘Him they call “Dodo”?’

  ‘Aye, he’s there,’ replied Angy. ‘At least, the pieces of him are,’ he added obscurely.

  ‘I’d love to come,’ I admitted. ‘I’ve never been on a real working fishing boat.’

  ‘You’d best hurry then,’ instructed Angy. He went outside and Behag again rushed into my bedroom to change.

  The skipper and crew hauled Behag and me aboard their boat with awkward gallantry and the cook came up on deck to show us the grey-green loaf which he had taken from its wrapper only that morning. ‘Not that the fresh stuff we get is much better,’ he complained. ‘It’s that soft an’ doughy you’d think the pollis could use it for takin’ fingerprints.’ With an expression of disgust he tossed the loaf into the sea.

  He invited us into the fo’c’sle where a dusty grey, hot-smelling iron stove was almost covered with kettles and metal teapots. ‘Sit you down,’ he commanded hospitably and Behag and I inserted ourselves into position on the narrow bench between the bunks and the table. Angy sat beside Behag and the skipper and the two members of the crew took the opposite bench. The cook remained standing, pouring out black tea into permanently tanned mugs and sliding them one at a time along to us.

  ‘I see Hector’s boat’s away,’ observed the skipper in a voice that ‘glugged’ as if it was being poured out from a bottle.

  ‘Aye, they’re takin’ that corpse from the mainland,’ Angy told him.

  ‘They’re takin’ it?’ The skipper sounded astonished. ‘I never thought a Bruach boat would take on a Roman Catholic corpse,’ he remarked, stirring his tea perfunctorily before passing on the spoon to his crew.

  ‘Do they know it’s a Roman Catholic?’ I asked, thinking of Bruach’s rabid presbyterianism and abhorrence of ‘Papists’.

  Angy nodded.

  ‘So that’s why t
hey were so reluctant,’ I said.

  ‘Ach, they wouldn’t have taken it except for bein’ paid double,’ replied Angy with a smile.

  ‘Oh, that’s terrible,’ said Behag, trying hard to disguise her approval for the deal.

  ‘It would be the same if it was the other way round,’ said Angy.

  I smiled. ‘You know,’ I told them, ‘I’ve always thought of Bruach people as being some of the most tolerant in the world and yet they have this fearful prejudice against Roman Catholics. I just don’t understand it at all.’

  ‘Are you a Papist?’ asked Dodo suspiciously.

  ‘No,’ I replied, ‘but some of my friends are.’

  ‘An’ can you trust them?’

  ‘Of course,’ I replied, chuckling.

  ‘Aye well,’ summed up the skipper. ‘It’s just the way they have hereabouts. I get on all right myself with them but all the same, there’s a somethin’.’ He nodded towards one of the lockers. ‘Come on, Sammy, with that stuff,’ he said.

  The cook opened the locker and took out a large tin of pears which he opened.

  ‘You’ll take a wee bitty fruit?’ he asked me.

  At that moment I was not really feeling much like eating anything let alone sweet tinned fruit since the boat was rolling steadily and the fo’c’sle was at the same time both draughty and fuggy. It felt as if someone was packing round my feet with ice cubes while swathing my head in hot towels. However, I smiled acceptance, and the cook carefully slid the tin of pears along the table towards me along with a spoon and a tin of evaporated milk.

  ‘Help yourself,’ he invited.

  I waited for the expected bowl or plate but to my surprise saw that the cook was opening another large tin of pears which he slid along the table, again with a tin of milk and a spoon, to Behag. Next the skipper was presented with his tins, then the crew and Angy. Finally the cook was able to sit down with his own allotment in front of him. I felt shaken. Seven large tins of pears and seven tins of milk for seven people. The skipper’s eye was on me. ‘Go on, don’t be waitin’ for everybody else,’ he urged, mistaking my hesitation for politeness. He tipped milk into his tin of pears and began spooning the fruit into his mouth.