by Su Bristow
‘Donald Macfarlane, I’m sorry for your loss,’ said Mrs Mackay formally. Waiting for her next words, he discovered suddenly that he was not afraid, any more, of her judgments and condemnations. It made no difference what anyone thought; none of them knew how it really was. When she said, ‘But I can’t say I’m surprised,’ he almost laughed aloud. Was that all? He made no reply, only stared at her, hard and fierce. No-one stood up to Peggy Mackay, but then on this day of all days, nothing was as it should be. She dropped her gaze, and he walked on by. His aunt had not moved at all.
Down at the harbour, he found that James and Aly were getting ready to go out, with Sam Bain helping after a fashion.
‘The weather’s changing,’ he said as he got close. ‘We might have better luck today.’
James made no move to help him aboard. ‘Go home, Donald,’ he said, looking down at the deck. ‘We’ll manage. You need your feet on dry land the day.’
‘I’ll be fine,’ he said, though in truth he was yearning to go back to the beach again. What if Mairhi had returned while he was away? He had banked the fire, but she would need hot food, dry clothes. Gentle holding. His arms tingled.
James, he saw, was at a loss. Good friend that he was, he did not know what to do with misfortune like this. In his life, he had known only fair weather.
It was Aly who said, ‘We’ll take Sam out with us; it’s time he started to learn. Go home, man.’ And when Donald made no move, he said, ‘Her kind don’t bide for long. Go home. Look after your children, or you’ll lose them too. I should know.’
Donald stared. ‘What do you mean, her kind?’
Aly shrugged. ‘She’s a special one, isn’t she? They don’t stay, not with the likes of us. But maybe she’ll watch out for us still, d’you think?’ He looked away, then, with a quick sidelong glance, said, ‘I’ll still come out with you. If you’ll have me.’
Donald shivered, though the wind was mild. ‘I need to go,’ he said. He walked away down the harbour, fighting the urge to run, until he rounded the corner of the last house.
He had meant to walk back along the strand, just in case, but as he left the houses behind, he saw that on the cliff there stood a woman, small and upright, shawled against the light rain that had begun to fall. Through the drizzle, he could make out only that her face was turned towards him.
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Now he did run, as fast as he dared over the rough ground, looking up as often as he could to make sure that she had not vanished. But she stood quite still, waiting. Joy surged through him; he wanted to shout, ‘You’re wrong, all of you!’ But his breath was coming hard and his heart was pounding as though it would burst from his chest and take to the air. He got closer, and she made no move. And then his steps slowed, came almost to a stop. It was his aunt Annie.
She held out her hand, then. ‘Walk with me a way, Donald,’ she said.
Almost, in his bitter disappointment, he turned his back on her. But this was his aunt, who had always been kind to him. She waited while he got his breath back, and then, slowly, they began to walk along the cliff together.
Neither of them spoke for some time. Donald scanned the rocks below as he walked, always searching. They passed the first headland, and his eyes went at once to the place where the seals liked to bask. Was there some movement there? His aunt had stopped beside him, looking where he looked.
‘Donald,’ she said, ‘she’s not coming back.’ And when he made no answer, she said, ‘I mind the day I saw them here, and you watching.’
He swung round to stare at her. ‘That was you on the clifftop, that day?’
‘Aye. It was.’
‘You followed us from the village! Why would you do that?’
She sighed. ‘I had begun to wonder, a while back, even before what happened with Aly Bain. The way she was, the pictures she put into your mind …’
‘And what were you wondering?’
She looked up at him, and he saw that her eyes were misted with age. ‘I don’t see so well now, but my eyes were keener then. I could make out the seals, down there on the warm rocks. And Mairhi, when she came along the beach and saw them. She went right up close, and they never moved. That was when I knew for certain.’
‘But you never said a word! Not to us, nor anybody. Did you?’
She shook her head. ‘Only to the lassie herself. She used to come and sit with me sometimes, when you were out at sea, and Bridie away over the hills. Did you know that?’
‘I didn’t know. So many things I didn’t know, and she couldn’t say.’
Auntie Annie gazed down at the shoreline that she could no longer see. ‘I was angry with you, Donald.’
He was quiet for a minute, and then said, speaking low, ‘You had the right.’
‘I had the right. True enough. But then I saw how set you were on making the best of it, and how much you cared for her. And I thought, “Her skin must be lost. She can’t go back.” Was that the way of it?’
‘It was. But she cares for me too. And the children! We’ve made a good life together. Surely you can see that?’
‘Of course. You’ve made a fine job of your marriage, Donald, never doubt it. No man could have done more.’
‘But then, why do you say she’s not coming back? She meant to, I’m sure of it. She never would have left the children alone like that, and no-one else near by!’
‘I think you’re right, at that. But how did this happen, Donald? How did she come to find it after so long?’
He walked away a few paces, trying to master himself. It felt so strange, after keeping silent all this time, to be speaking these things aloud. Even with his mother, as her illness grew worse, he had not talked. His mother, who had always been so strong, so certain. She would have known what to do. That loss, obscured until now by relief that her suffering was at an end, and then by his own dilemma over the sealskin – came home to him with devastating force. Tears sprang to his eyes.
‘It was mother,’ he said, and now he let the tears fall unheeded. ‘She took it and hid it away; and cared for it all the while. I never knew until her last illness. She told me then. It wasn’t right, she said. Mairhi should be able to choose. And I meant to talk with her, when the weather was better, and tell her what had happened, and … and give it back to her. I was going to give it back!’ He drew a deep, ragged breath. ‘It was John who came upon it and showed his mother. And she’ll be thinking I had it all the time, that I kept it from her! She has to come back, d’you see? I have to tell her!’
His aunt had not moved. ‘So it was Bridie,’ she said softly. ‘I should have guessed that. And once she’d decided on a thing, nothing on earth would move her.’
‘I think she always meant to give it back one day,’ said Donald. ‘Or why would she have cared for it all that time? Why not just get rid of it?’
‘There’s that, at least,’ said his aunt. ‘But it would have been a hard secret to keep. A thing like that, it eats at you. For all the good that came of it.’
‘How can you say that?’
She smiled. ‘When you’re old, you see things differently. Maybe you’ll understand one day.’ She watched him for a few moments, and then turned away. ‘Well, I’m away home now. It’s cold up here in the wind.’
‘Wait!’ He caught hold of her hand. ‘We’ve a good marriage; she’s a good mother, you said so yourself. So why would you think she’s not coming back? Has something happened to her? For God’s sake, tell me!’
‘Oh, Donald. I’m sure she meant to, even if she was angry with you. But she can’t.’
‘Why would you say that?’ There was a dreadful certainty in her voice, but still he could not let go.
‘Think about the old stories, Donald. In all the tales you’ve ever heard, does it ever happen more than once? They change, the selkies, they change once in a lifetime. Then they go back to the sea, and there’s an end of it.’
He was shaking his head. ‘That can’t be right. If she’d known that, she never
would have done it.’
‘But I don’t think she did know. Or in that moment, she wouldn’t have thought. Could you stand back, if someone offered you the birthright you thought you’d lost for ever, and not take it?’
‘Oh, dear God. There must be a way! You’re wrong; you can’t know that for certain. How could you?’
‘Donald,’ she said, suddenly fierce. ‘Do you think you’re the only fisherman to go out on a moonlit night and catch more than he bargained for?’
He hardly took in her words at first. Too full of his own thoughts, his own growing terror. What was to be done? He was pacing again, unable to be still. And then the sense of it came to him, and he stopped and stared at her.
‘Auntie,’ he said, but now she would not look at him. ‘You were married, weren’t you?’
She lifted her shoulders. ‘He was lost at sea, long before you were born. If he had a secret, it died with him.’
‘And you had no children. All that time alone … How could you bear it?’
She smiled at that. ‘You’d be surprised what you can bear, Donald. When you have to.’
‘And I do have to. That’s what you’re telling me, isn’t it?’
She said nothing. Then, as if it had only just come to her, ‘But you won’t be alone. People come together at times like this. It’s what we do.’
After a long moment, she turned again to leave. She had taken a few slow steps along the cliff path when he called out to her. ‘Auntie!’
She stopped. ‘Donald?’
‘Just tell me this. If such a thing happened to you; if you had the chance to … go back, now, would you take it?’
‘Even now, after all these years?’
‘Even now.’
He waited. And after a long moment, in a voice full of pity, she answered.
‘In a heartbeat.’
He comes down to the shore when he can, and he tells her the small details of his life. He brings her offerings: the shell of a robin’s egg, the flowers of the rowan tree, a curl of their daughter’s hair. Sometimes the children come with him, and sometimes they talk to her. More often, now, they wander off to play and gather treasures on the beach. Perhaps, one day, they will bring their own children here. Or perhaps, in time, they will forget.
He does not forget.
THE LEGEND
There are many stories told about the selkies along the northern coasts of Scotland, but this is the one I have chosen to work with.
Once, there was a fisherman who spent many nights fishing alone. One night at full moon, he witnessed a marvel: nine seals came ashore, put off their skins and became beautiful young women, dancing on the beach. The fisherman hid himself, and as he watched, he began to fall in love with one of them. Secretly, he hid her sealskin, so that when the others returned to the sea, she was left behind.
The fisherman took her home to be his wife, and he hid the skin at the bottom of a chest. They lived together for some years, and she bore him children. She seemed to be happy, but from time to time she would look out to sea and weep.
One day while he was out at sea, one of the children found the skin and showed it to his mother. When the fisherman returned at the end of the day, she was gone, and he never saw her again.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
First of all, enormous thanks to the inimitable Karen Sullivan of Orenda Books and to her team, especially West Camel, for championing and helping to shape this book.
To Broo Doherty of DHH Literary Agency, for awarding me the first Exeter Novel Prize and later for becoming my agent.
To the many friends and fellow writers who have listened, commented and given their time and support: especially Cathie Hartigan, Martin Wright, Dan Knibb, Margaret James and Jim Howell.
Thanks to the Creative Writing Matters team, who run the Exeter Novel Prize and other writing competitions; to the Write-Group, and to Exeter Writers.
Thanks always to Martin, Tom, Rosie, Paul and Orelie: my lovely family.
And finally, to all those storytellers who have shaped this legend, in all its many versions. We’ll never know your names, but we hear your voices still.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Su Bristow is a consultant medical herbalist by day. She’s the author of two books on herbal medicine: The Herbal Medicine Chest and The Herb Handbook; and two on relationship skills: The Courage to Love and Falling in Love, Staying in Love, co-written with psychotherapist, Malcolm Stern. Her published fiction includes ‘Troll Steps’ (in the anthology, Barcelona to Bihar), and ‘Changes’ which came second in the 2010 CreativeWritingMatters flash fiction competition. Sealskin is Su’s debut novel, and it won the Exeter Novel Prize in 2013. Her writing has been described as ‘magical realism; Angela Carter meets Eowyn Ivey’.
COPYRIGHT
Orenda Books
16 Carson Road
West Dulwich
London SE21 8HU
www.orendabooks.co.uk
This ebook edition published by Orenda Books 2016
Copyright © Su Bristow 2016
Su Bristow has asserted her moral right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the written permission of the publishers.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978-1-910633-61-8
Typeset in Garamond by MacGuru Ltd
Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon CR0 4YY
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Table of Contents
TITLE PAGE
DEDICATION
CONTENTS
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THE LEGEND
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
COPYRIGHT