by Val Wood
He let his gaze drift seawards again. ‘When I was on my own I was,’ he answered softly. ‘It was exciting until Jed and Sammy went over and then it was just me and Mark. I was scared then. Mark helped me tie myself to the mast. It was that what saved me. If it hadn’t been for him—’ He broke off.
‘He was a hero then, wasn’t he?’ she said. ‘He saved your life.’
Ethan pressed his lips together, and then spoke in a choking voice and she knew that he was close to crying. ‘Aye, he was. My brother a hero.’
Jeannie tentatively put her arm round his shoulder. It was what her mother did if she knew that Jeannie was upset about something and it always helped; it somehow made her feel comforted, but she wasn’t sure it had the same effect on Ethan for he suddenly stood up, gave a loud sniff and wiped his nose on his sleeve.
‘It’s my ma’s funeral on Monday,’ he said. ‘And Da says I have to go. He says I’ve to go and repor— erm, represent Mark, cos he was the eldest son and now I am. My da wasn’t Mark’s da,’ he added. ‘Mark’s da used to work on the railway. He was run over by a train.’ He turned to walk away. ‘Be seeing you then, Jeannie.’
And for some reason those few words made her feel warm inside and she smiled and nodded and went in search of Tom.
The Scottish herring girls were due to arrive the following week and Jeannie was hopping with excitement. She was fond of her Scottish grandmother, who always brought them shortbread and rich fruit cake and told ghost stories in bed; such scary stories that even Tom hid under the blanket.
‘Can I have a day off school?’ she begged her mother. ‘Like last time?’
‘We’ll see.’ Her mother was non-committal. ‘Your education is important.’
‘But if I’m going to be a herring girl, I need to watch what you do.’
Mary smiled. ‘Plenty of time,’ she said. ‘Don’t be in a hurry to grow up. Life is short.’
Jeannie wasn’t in a hurry to grow up. She didn’t object to school generally; she was quick with numbers and good at reading. What she didn’t like was to be indoors when the sun was shining and the golden sands and glittering sea beckoned and rock pools were warm and crawling with crabs; in the summer months and school holidays she and her friends used to race down the sands to see the fashionable visitors who had come to the Spa to take the medicinal waters, or peep at the ladies as they were driven down to the sea in bathing huts from which they would descend to dip their toes in the water, squealing at the coldness of the sea before quickly immersing themselves up to their necks and then rushing back to their huts to dry themselves. Jeannie and her friends, who were all perfectly at home in the water, would position themselves so that they could observe the antics of these strange creatures. The sight of the maid within the hut waiting with a large robe or towel to wrap the returning bather in sent the children into shrieks of laughter.
But now the town was preparing for the herring girls who followed the fishing fleet down the coast. They were not rich and they worked long hours for the money they earned but they were not afraid to spend it; bakers bought in extra flour and prepared to make large quantities of bread and cake and the hostelries polished their brasses, for where the girls were, so were the men. The girls took lodgings with the bottom-enders of the old town who opened up their homes for as long as they were there, usually about a month or until the fleet moved on to follow a shoal; then they packed up their possessions, their oilskins, boots or clogs, into their wooden trunks and moved down the coast to another port, to Lowestoft or Yarmouth.
Mary opened up her old wooden trunk and shook out her oilskin apron, and stood her wooden clogs by the door in readiness. Although she wasn’t on an official agent’s list, she was regularly employed by a local curer, who also took on her mother and one of her friends and put them to work as a team. Mary was going to ask them if she could do the packing of the barrels this time, as she thought she had lost some of her skill and speed with the gutting knife.
She walked Tom and Jeannie to school, making sure that Tom went through the door and didn’t sneak out when he thought she wasn’t watching. Then she went on to the railway station to await the train bringing her mother and the other herring girls.
The train steamed in and within a minute the platform was a seething hub of women and noise as they descended from the train, many of them carrying their trunks on their shoulders and others with packs on their backs, for these were strong and independent women. Mary craned her neck to seek her mother. She looked out for Fiona’s red hair, brighter and more fiery than her own, but greying, she’d noticed the previous year.
She heard her name called, saw an arm waving and then another, and at last made out her mother and her friends Nola and Nell coming towards her.
Mary gave her mother a hug, and a big welcoming smile and a pat on the shoulder to Nola and Nell, whom she had known since childhood. ‘Did you have a good journey?’
‘Aye, well enough, but I’m fair weary now,’ Fiona answered. ‘These two have blethered all the way here. A guid cup of tea is what I’m after, lassie.’
‘The kettle’s on the fire and the teapot’s on the table.’ Mary laughed, shouldering her mother’s box. ‘Don’t I know what you always want as soon as you get here?’
‘Aye, you do. Where are the wee bairns? I thought they’d be here to greet me.’
‘They would have been had they had their own way. They’re in school,’ Mary told her. ‘You can have a rest before they come home, for you’ll have none once they set eyes on you.’
‘School!’ her mother said benevolently. ‘Well there’s a thing. Tom too? Is he not too big for school now?’
‘No, Ma. He’s only nine. Three more years and then he can leave.’ She led the way down the hill towards her cottage. ‘He wants to finish and go fishing,’ she said. ‘Or at least he did,’ she added thoughtfully. ‘We had a big storm. A lot of boats were wrecked and he’s not mentioned it since. I think he got scared.’
‘Aye, and well he might,’ Nola chipped in. ‘Poor bairn. We heard about the storm. It ran havoc right along the coast. Held up the fishing – we were without work for nearly a week.’
Mary made them tea when they got home and Fiona drank hers down in seconds and then went to lie on the bed.
‘Ah dinnae ken why I’m so weary,’ she complained. ‘I’m pure done in.’
‘You’ll feel better after a rest,’ Mary told her. ‘Sleep now and I’ll keep Nola and Nell quiet; mebbe we’ll go out for a wee stroll. The bairns’ll wake you when they come home.’
Her mother heaved a sigh. Turning over, she tucked herself into her shawl and instantly fell asleep.
‘It’s hard on the old women,’ Nola said softly. ‘Not the gutting, they’re as fast as anybody, but the travelling gets them down.’
‘She’s not old!’ Mary exclaimed. ‘She’s not yet fifty. She’s got years of work in her.’ The thought of her mother giving up her work horrified her. Who would look after her? Mary’s father was dead and both her brothers had large families to look after. ‘She’d have to come and live here with me if she gave up work,’ she thought aloud, and her companions glanced at each other.
‘She’d never do that,’ Nell said. ‘Not in a million years.’
‘She’s tired, that’s all,’ Nola said. ‘We all are, but we’ll be fine in the morning. Come on now, let’s go out. I want to buy a present from Scarborough.’
CHAPTER FIVE
FEW OF THE children from the fishing families attended school during the first few days of the herring season. The boys positioned themselves as near as they dared to where the herring boxes would be deposited and shuffled about, nudging one another, ready to dart forward as soon as they saw any of the silver fish drop to the floor.
Jeannie cosied up to her grandmother. She was still sleepy, for they had been up since five o’clock and down at the harbour half an hour later, ready and waiting for the boats. Her grandmother, like the other herring girls, was decked out
in her long rubber apron and boots, her head wrapped in a shawl which wound round her neck and fastened at the back leaving not a single red hair showing. In her hand she held her gutting knife.
‘Don’t come too close, lassie,’ she told Jeannie. ‘If I give you a nick with the blade you’ll bleed to death.’
Jeannie took a step back. Her mother was always warning her about the gutting knife, but her grandmother’s threat seemed especially grim.
‘I just want to watch how you do it,’ she said in a small voice. ‘So that I’ll know.’
‘We’ll teach you, have no fear,’ Fiona told her. ‘But not now, you skinny malinky, not when we’re about to start work. Look at my fingers. Why have I got them bandaged, eh? So that I don’t cut myself, that’s why.’
Jeannie nodded. She did know. All of the herring girls bandaged their fingers to avoid cutting themselves and to prevent the salt which was used for preserving the fish from entering a cut and stinging them or even turning them septic.
They were still waiting at half past six and everyone was becoming impatient.
‘Come on, laddies, where are you?’ Nola shouted. ‘We’re wasting the day.’
‘And money,’ another girl called. ‘We’ve to get our quota in before the day is out.’
‘Here they come!’ someone else called. ‘The lads are coming.’
All eyes turned to the fishing fleet, the Fifies and the Zulus, coming towards the harbour; a cheer went up and some of the girls broke into song.
‘Wha’ll buy my caller herrin’ / they’re bonnie fish and halesome fairin’ / Wha’ll buy my caller herrin’ / new drawn frae the Forth.’
Mary smiled at their enthusiasm, though she felt emotional at being once more with her Scottish companions. They were jolly women full of laughter and anecdotes and worked hard all day often in difficult conditions; it was not always sunny as this morning was. If it was raining they continued as usual, trying their best to earn enough money to pay for lodgings, food and a ticket home at the end of the season.
The herring were unloaded from the ships’ baskets, tipped into troughs and covered with rough salt so that they weren’t so slippery to handle, and the girls began their job of sizing and gutting each fish, a task which took only seconds. In their team Mary had taken on the role of packer with her mother and Nola as gutters and hoped she hadn’t lost her skill as she arranged the herring in tiers, slit bellies uppermost and heads towards the barrel edge, and sprinkled each layer with salt. Each barrel held about seven hundred fish, and the cooper who was watching Mary as she worked ensured that all the barrels were properly packed and salted.
Jeannie made herself useful by going on errands for the girls; sometimes running to the bakery to buy them bread or scones, fetching water from the pump, or carrying messages from one to another. Tom, she knew, was with the other barefoot lads, dashing to pick up the fallen fish and scooting off to hawk them.
At the end of the day, when they had packed thirty barrels of herring, Fiona’s crew, as she called them, packed up for the night. It had been a reasonably good day, they agreed, but maybe it would be even better tomorrow. They rinsed off their aprons and boots and hung them to dry outside Mary’s door, then went inside for supper.
Jeannie climbed into bed at Tom’s side at about seven o’clock. They were both tired after the early start, but Tom was jubilant for he had made a shilling from his catch.
‘I’ll give you a penny to spend, Jeannie,’ he said sleepily, ‘and I’ll keep tuppence cos I was the one to work for it, ’n’ I’ll give the rest to Ma.’
‘Thank you,’ she said, and as she drifted into sleep the last thing she heard was her grandmother saying, ‘Have ye not found another man to wed, Mary?’ and her mother’s reply: ‘No, Ma. I’m not looking. Have you?’
Fiona glanced towards the bed. Seeing the children asleep, she said softly, ‘Aye, as a matter of fact I have.’
‘What!’ Mary said, and Nell and Nola both grinned. ‘You’re joking!’
‘No, I’m not.’ Fiona flushed a little. ‘I said I’d give my answer after this trip and I will. It’ll be aye, I will; so this will be my last season with the silver darlings.’
Mary was speechless; then she swallowed. ‘Who?’ she said. ‘Who are you going to marry?’
‘Andrew Duncan. You don’t know him. I met him at a ceilidh about three years ago.’
‘A ceilidh! Three years ago?’ Mary was aghast. ‘What do you know about him?’
Fiona laughed. ‘Wheesht, lassie. He’s not marrying me for my money, that I can tell you.’ Then she patted her daughter’s knee. ‘You’re a long time deid, Mary, and I’m getting tired,’ she said soberly. ‘I can’t keep on with this work for much longer. Andrew wants me to give it up and live with him. He’s got a nice little croft with a few sheep and a mite o’ money put by. Enough, he says, to last us out our days. He’s nice,’ she added. ‘You’d like him.’
Mary was astonished. Not only that her mother was considering marrying again, but also that she had been at a ceilidh when Mary would have thought her dancing days were over.
‘Did you two know?’ she asked Nell and Nola.
They hummed and hawed. ‘We guessed,’ they said in unison.
‘So you don’t have to worry about me any more,’ Fiona added, ‘for I know that you do. And the wee bairns can come and stay with us sometimes.’
‘Don’t worry,’ Nola whispered as they bedded down for the night. ‘We’ll report back to you on how she is. We’ll still be coming with the fleet, and the three of us can be a crew.’
But it means I shan’t see her again, Mary thought the next morning as she checked the previous day’s barrels and topped up those that had settled. The only time I get to see my mother is when she comes for the herring season; I can’t afford to visit her in Scotland, any more than I can send the children. She felt happy for her mother, but sad for herself as the last link with her homeland seemed to be dissolving.
When Tom reached twelve he told his mother he would rather be a boat builder than a fisherman. He had been out on a few fishing trips and been very sick. The skipper who had offered him a place with his crew had expressed his doubts to Mary.
‘If he’s sick when the weather’s calm,’ he explained, ‘he’ll be a liability when it’s rough. I don’t want to disappoint the lad – I know he’d set his heart on following in his father’s sea boots, so to speak – but I think you should talk to him about it.’
She asked Tom plainly what he wanted to do.
‘I’m sick as a dog, Ma,’ he said. ‘Last time I went out we got as far as the Dogger Bank and I thought I was going to die! I’d rather build boats than sail in ’em.’
‘You’d still have to go out in them to try them out, surely.’
‘Aye, I would, to make sure they were seaworthy, but not so often, not like fishing for a living and staying out at sea for a week or more.’
It turned out that Tom had already been to a boatyard to ask if he could do any work after school and had been given odd jobs of clearing up and polishing brasses. He had been complimented on his ability and it was suggested that his mother went in to see the owner.
‘You’re not mad at me, are you, Ma?’ he asked. ‘Not disappointed that I won’t be a fisherman like my da?’
She ruffled his hair. ‘Not a bit.’ She smiled. ‘It’ll be one worry less if I know you’re safe on dry land.’
For Jeannie’s ninth birthday Mary had given her a pair of scissors and a mending needle and then a lesson in how to pick up the broken strands of torn net and loop and knot the new twine to repair the hole. At first Jeannie had found it difficult and the net heavy but eventually she mastered it; her mother had been pleased with her progress and the fact that Jeannie would have some means of earning money when she was old enough. Then, as she had promised, when Jeannie was ten she taught her how to gut fish. ‘The secret is a very sharp knife,’ she told her daughter as she showed her how to bind up her fingers. ‘Bu
t that can slice fingers as well as fish bellies, so you have to be very careful.’
Mary’s mother had married her Mr Duncan and Mary had received a postcard from him, saying that he hoped he would meet her one day and that she and the children were always welcome to visit them, at which Mary had sighed, knowing that she never would.
Nell and Nola had come the following year for the herring, but they hadn’t seen Fiona since her marriage and so had nothing to report.
‘Wish someone would come along and tek care of me,’ the unmarried Nell had complained when they returned to Fraserburgh. ‘I’d have him like a shot.’
‘But you don’t want to wait until you’re forty,’ Nola had said, ‘so out on the town we’ll go tonight and find a couple of Scottish fisher lads.’
Which they did, and married them, but they still came to Scarborough for the silver herring.
Jeannie joined her mother and Nola when she was fourteen and made up the third in the crew, for Nell was pregnant with her second child. She was now quite swift with the knife and also adept as a packer, and out of the herring season she sat with her mother by the harbour and mended nets. When she was fifteen she began to walk out with Ethan.
It happened quite naturally. He never asked her especially to meet him, but whenever all the girls and boys congregated around the harbour or the sands the two of them paired off instinctively. He never held her hand as they walked, as she had seen other boys do with their girls, and she was too shy to take the initiative herself. He had never kissed her either, and she wanted him to do that too.
At nineteen he was tall and blond, with blue-green eyes and dark lashes. She knew that she loved him, but deduced that he had no feelings for her except for friendship. And I suppose, she thought hopelessly, I’ll have to be content with that. But it was not enough; that much she knew.
‘Is Ethan your beau?’ her mother asked her one day as they sat together mending nets.
Jeannie gave a little shrug but didn’t meet her mother’s eyes. ‘He’s a friend,’ she murmured. ‘Always has been.’