by Su Bristow
Donald opened his mouth, though he had no idea what might come out of it. But Bridie intervened: ‘Well, you see, they met last summer when we visited, and they have … an understanding.’
‘Oh, well now. An understanding, is it? So am I to congratulate you, young Donald?’ Mrs Mackay’s sharp old eyes fixed him where he sat, blushing and stammering; but that was nothing out of the ordinary, so her gaze moved on to Mairhi, stirring her spoon around and around in her porridge. ‘I’m sorry for your loss,’ she said formally.
Mairhi looked up, smiling. She picked up her spoon, took a mouthful without spilling a drop, and looked to Bridie for applause. Donald tried to keep a straight face, but the old lady missed nothing. Again, Bridie came to the rescue.
‘The thing is, she’s a little … touched, you see. Scarlet fever, when she was a child – like Callum Campbell’s daughter. She couldn’t have managed on her own, and there was no-one who could take her in. And we’re hoping there’ll be a wedding, in the summer maybe.’
The silence stretched just a little too far this time. Mairhi put down her spoon, looking wary, and Bridie hastened to reassure her. ‘It’s all right, now, nothing to worry about.’ Over her shoulder she added, ‘She doesn’t understand, you see.’
‘I see,’ was all Mrs Mackay had to say, but the words were heavy with meaning. Whatever she saw, there was no doubt that, before sunset, the whole village would see it too. With luck, they would see no more than daft Donald finding a poor lass who knew no better than to accept him, and that would be the end of it. That was Bridie’s hope; but Donald himself was less certain. The older folk might well decide it was making the best of a bad job, but those nearer his own age – the ones who had made his life a torment in the schoolyard – they would hardly let such a grand joke pass them by. He began, dimly, to understand what he was in for.
7
It would have been right and proper for them to visit their own family next, but even Bridie’s stout optimism quailed at the thought of taking Mairhi into Hugh’s noisy household, with dogs and small children and shouting and questions. Bridie had married into one of the more prosperous families in the village. Her husband John had owned his own boat, and after John was lost, his younger brother, Hugh, had taken over the captaincy. In the bigger boats, you could go further out to sea, and stay there for days at a time. When the boats came in laden with riches, those were the festival times. Donald had the right to crew for his uncle, but he only went when Hugh was hard-pressed to make up the numbers, and he knew the rest were as relieved as he was when he made his excuses. He did not much like visiting the shieling, either; all that activity made his head spin, and he had never learned to cope with teasing. In the end, Bridie set out by herself, taking some medicines to give them, and leaving him to watch over Mairhi.
It was the first time they had been alone together since he had found her. She was less afraid of him now, or else she had learned to hide it; but still it felt different with Bridie gone. He went about, doing the everyday tasks, and she watched him solemnly. Then he banked the fire and fetched a heavy woollen shawl to wrap her in. It still made her itch, but there was nothing else to keep out the cold. She stood still, letting him pin the shawl, and then he took her hand and said, ‘We’re going for a walk now.’
She went along willingly enough as he led her down the path to the shore, the way they had come less than two weeks before. It was bright and windy today, with little waves dashing against the rocks and a knot of gulls quarrelling over something beached on the sand. Donald moved along the high-tide mark, scanning as he always did for anything useful that might have washed ashore. Up ahead, he saw part of an old barrel, the staves still attached to a hoop of rusty iron. He let go Mairhi’s hand and went to pull the wood free. ‘See here,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘We can burn this on the fire.’ Then he turned to the business of prising the staves loose; but all the time he was aware of her – not moving or even looking around, just standing there gazing at the sea.
It was a strange business, being with her. Other people came at him all the time, with their words and their looks and their judgments. He spent his life defending himself, waiting for the next squall to strike, never understanding what was going on. He did not understand her, either, but she asked nothing of him. And yet she needed him to make sense of it all. For the first time he could remember, here was someone more at a loss than he was. What went on inside her head? He set the wood down and went to her side, looking where she looked, out to sea. He had wondered if they might see seals, but there were none today. Her hands were clenched, and slow tears welled from her eyes.
What could he possibly say, or do? If he had come across a creature in that much pain – a lamb, say, or a deer – he would have known how to deal with it. But she was not a creature, not any more. He knew that, now. His own fists had closed so tight the nails were cutting into his palms. He made himself uncurl them, stepped away, busied himself gathering more wood for the fire. When he came back to her, she had not moved at all.
‘Here,’ he said, lifting her hand and opening it. Into it he put a stone, shiny from the water, granite veined with pink and green, sparkling where the sun caught it. She gazed at it, and he turned the stone about to make it glitter. ‘That’s for you,’ he said, and closed her hand around it. She raised her eyes to his. ‘You never know what you’ll come across, down here. We’ll walk on a bit and gather the wood on our way back. Come on now.’ He started to trudge along through the shingle. After a moment, he heard the crunch of her feet on the stones, following him.
They had eaten supper and he had washed up by the time Bridie returned. She emptied her basket onto the table, talking, filling up the silence. ‘Here’s a good piece of mutton for the pot, and some of Hugh’s latest batch of ale. And clothes for Mairhi; I told them we’d had to burn all of hers, and nothing would do but they had to turn out all the chests. There’s your cousin Catriona’s old shoes, too; they’ll fit her better than my boots. I couldn’t carry it all, but no matter. They’ll all be along soon enough to have a look at her. You’re quite the curiosity, my lass! See here,’ she went on, shaking out a dress dyed a faded moss green. ‘This’ll suit you well. We can take it up a bit for you.’ She held the dress out to Mairhi, and a smile passed between them. Donald had not seen her smile all day, but she had kept the stone. It lay beside her now on the table, and she held it out to Bridie. Something of her own, perhaps, to trade for all these gifts.
‘I gave her that,’ said Donald.
Both women looked at him, and he began to blush. He got up, scraping his chair on the flagstones, and went out into the cool darkness to fetch more wood.
8
It was his cousin Catriona who showed up first, bearing more gifts and a flood of talk.
She came down the path to meet him as he returned from the crab pots. ‘So, you’ve got yourself a sweetheart!’ she said, taking his arm as they walked. ‘But such a strange one, she is. Tell me how you met, and everything. Typical Donald, to find someone who can’t talk back! Is it true love, Donald my dear?’ She stopped, so that he had to stop too, and gazed intently up at him.
Catriona was one of those who came at him, touching and guessing and dragging things out into the light, never noticing – or not caring – if she was welcome or not. A year older, and much more worldly-wise, she had been both a bane and a blessing when they were children. Sometimes a protector, but never to be relied on. Sometimes a tormentor, when it suited her. Most of the time Donald thought she was laughing at him; it was safer to assume that, at any rate.
She was laughing now. ‘Cat got your tongue? You’re as dumb as she is! What times you’ll have together, to be sure. There can’t have been much talking in this courtship, I’m guessing.’ She laughed again as he blushed. ‘Oh, Donald, you’ve got a lot to learn.’
She pushed the door open ahead of him, talking as she went. ‘Well, Auntie Bridie, look what the tide washed up! Now, how shall we make this handsome
young lad into a bridegroom fit to walk at your side, eh, Mairhi? Come here now,’ and she took Mairhi by the shoulders. ‘Stand by Donald and let’s see how you look. Goodness, you’re as small as a fairy’s child!’ She darted a quick look at Bridie.
His mother was busy laying the table; her hands barely paused as she counted out the knives and forks. But Donald froze, like a wild thing when the shadow of the eagle passes over. Unknowingly, he squeezed Mairhi’s hand, and she looked up at him in wonder.
‘That would be from the fever when she was a bairn,’ said Bridie, as casually as if Catriona had suggested it might rain later. Then she stood beside her niece and inspected the happy couple. ‘Donald, you’re a taller man than your father. I’ll need to let down the trouser hems on his suit. Wait while I fetch the measure, and we’ll see if the sleeves need altering, too. We’ll sort Mairhi out when you’re out of the way.’ She and Catriona exchanged a conspiratorial glance, and Donald breathed again. Maybe Catriona had meant nothing; maybe it was just her running on, coming out with whatever entered her head. But he had seen the way she looked at Bridie, and he did not think so.
He took himself off after dinner, leaving them to their pinning and tucking. They were going to bring out Bridie’s wedding dress and make Mairhi try it on; and all the time his cousin would be watching – judging, looking for clues. It was not going to work, and he did not know whether to be relieved or sorry.
Burdened with the biggest basket, full of crabs for sale, he made his slow way down to the harbour, stepping across ropes and piles of netting on the cobbled path between the sea wall and the first row of cottages. More than one man had taken an unexpected dive here after dark, stumbling home from the bar, and woe betide him if the tide was low. Donald was careful, but even so he nearly went sprawling over a sudden obstacle. He dropped the basket and grabbed at a rope hanging from the wall of the nearest cottage, where the Bains’ scabby mongrel spent most of its miserable existence, cowering from the wind and rain, and the passing feet. There was no dog there today though. Aly Bain, sitting on his doorstep mending nets, had stuck out his leg just as Donald was passing.
He giggled – a high, nasal whickering that took Donald straight back to the schoolroom. Aly’s seat had been directly behind Donald’s, and he had appointed himself tormentor-in-chief, scenting a victim from the very first day, though he was a runty little weasel of a boy, who, at first glance, looked ripe for picking on himself. His two elder brothers – strapping lads both – certainly thought so, taking their cue from their heavy-handed father; but Aly’s weapons were sharper than fists and more deadly. He used words like his blunt wooden netting needle, stabbing in and away before Donald could ever muster a reply. Words, and those other ways of the underdog: the sneer; the whispered joke sent rippling around the schoolyard; the sudden pinch as Donald started to answer a question in class. There was never any point in trying to fight back; the Bains would close ranks and, shoulder to shoulder, take swift and unsubtle revenge. Donald learned to lie low, just like Aly’s wretched dog and his sullen, scrawny wife. He bit his lip now, as he scrambled to gather up the crabs that had fallen from the basket.
‘Hey, Donald. I heard you’ve got yourself a halfwit for a wife! Nobody with any brains would have you, eh?’
Nor you, either, mused Donald, thinking of Jessie Bain, who cringed from the kindness of the other women and threw back their attempts at charity, knowing what the price would be. He dropped the last runaway into the basket and straightened up, looking down at Aly for the first time. ‘Going out tonight?’ he asked, prodding the tangle of netting with his foot. It was a feeble response, but the best he could do.
‘What’s it to you? You’re too scared to go out of sight of land. Maybe the sea monsters will reach over the side and drag you out of the boat, just like your daddy, eh? They’re waiting for you, Donald, and they’re getting very hungry now.’ Aly giggled again. Donald stood like an ox under the lash. He worried about the selkies these days, kept as far from seals as he could, but still imagined them coming up under the boat and rolling it over, dragging him down and battering the life from him. Mairhi’s husband should have been one of them – one of the great grey bull seals, longer than a man and twice as broad. Maybe he was out there, biding his time.
‘Oi, Macfarlane. You’re a halfwit yourself, d’you know that? Well, you might if you weren’t so stupid.’ Aly sniggered at his own cleverness. ‘You’ll make a fine pair. When do we get a look at her, then?’
‘Go to hell,’ said Donald, to his own surprise, and strode off as quickly as he could. He knew what kind of comments Aly would make, the kind of things he might do when he did meet Mairhi, and for one red moment there he had wanted to haul him out of his sheltering doorway and toss him onto the rocks beneath the harbour wall. The picture rose in his mind of his wife-to-be as he had first seen her – dancing lithe and free among her sisters – and sudden tears came to his eyes.
9
The next day, Bridie went to see the priest. She came back full of talk – too much and too fast. ‘He wants to see you both, give you the instructions about marriage and so on. I explained about Mairhi, but he said it was still right to do it. If she has any wits at all, he says, she must have some understanding of what it means, and if she doesn’t, she can’t be married in any case. I don’t know if she’s ready yet; what do you think?’ She turned to Donald, and for the first time he felt that she needed his support. Until now, he and Mairhi had been going along with her plan. Now, she wanted him to be her ally.
‘I wouldn’t know. She understands quite a lot now, but the way the priest talks will be beyond her, surely.’ He did not bother to mention the obvious thing: that the whole business had been against her will from the start. ‘Can’t it wait a bit? The more time we have, the more … like us … she gets. What’s the hurry?’ They both looked over at Mairhi throwing grain to the hens, laughing as they scrambled over each other.
‘Donald, have you no sense at all? The child will come in just over eight months now. It’s fine to marry when you know a girl can have children, but not when she’s too far along. The wedding will need to be in the next month or so at most.’
‘But you don’t even know for sure yet…’
‘Oh, I’m fairly sure now. I know the signs, after all; who better?’ She looked up at him, squinting against the sun, trying to see his expression. ‘You’re going to be a father, Donald.’
He could take no more. He turned without a word, and she did not try to hold him back. He strode down to the beach, his thoughts buzzing like wasps around his head. How long had she known? How dare she just assume that it was all fine by him? She had managed this whole ridiculous situation right from the start, and he had let himself be poked and prodded along like the halfwit everyone thought he was. Well, they were right; but no more. It was time to take matters into his own hands.
He flung himself into the boat and sat there, trying to breathe. His arms trembled as he gripped the oars, wanting to pull hard and fast, without thought or direction, out and away. And that’s how you go down, he reminded himself. The sea never lets you forget; the rocks are always there, under the surface. One lapse is all it takes. Despite everything, he was not ready for that, not yet. Carefully, he eased the boat into open water.
The wind was veering about, driving the waves every which way, and it took all of his concentration to make his way along the strand and then across to the skerry. No sign of seals today; where did they go when the sea was rough? He hadn’t been back since the night he saw them, three weeks ago or more, but still he glanced along the beach where they had been. No trace, not even a footprint. He turned away and went over to the rocks where he had stowed the sealskin.
It was not there.
It seemed then that he split in two: one part searched and searched again, went over every inch of the skerry, scanned the sea for watching seals in case they were out there, mocking him; the other simply stood and waited, thinking of nothing, listening
to the endless, meaningless drench and suck of the waves on the shingle. At last, worn out and heartsick, he came back to himself. The skin was gone, taken. Not by the sea, for there had been no great storms lately. Not by a stranger, either; nobody would ever steal another man’s salvage. It had to be someone who knew, maybe had even seen. What that might mean, he could not begin to imagine. But Mairhi could not go back. The pattern of her life, and his, was already woven, and there was nothing at all to be done about it.
He dropped to his knees by the clutter of boulders that had marked his hiding place. With both hands, he grasped at the nearest rock, pulling with all his strength. It did not budge. Still holding on, he threw back his head and roared defiance at the sky. Then he went at it again, straining until the veins stood out on his neck and arms, until at last the stone came free, slowly at first and then with a sudden rush and a swirl of foam. He gathered it in his arms, cradling it against his chest, then got to his feet and staggered down the beach into the sea. With another hoarse yell, which was partly a sob, he heaved the stone as far as he could. It fell a few feet away, and the waves swallowed it.
10
‘Well now, Donald, so this is your young lady! Welcome, my dear. Come in, come in out of the wind.’ The priest pushed the door shut against the squall that had blown them here. ‘You’re soaked through; come in by the fire now. Would you take some tea?’
In the pulpit, Father Finian spoke with divine authority and with no shadow of a doubt that God was with him, but in his own parlour he seemed less sure of himself. Kirsty, his housekeeper, hovered in the doorway, staring with frank curiosity.
‘Sit down, sit down,’ said the priest. ‘Kirsty, would you fetch us some tea? And how is your mother, Donald? Keeping well, hmm?’