A Book of Death and Fish (4 page)
Read A Book of Death and Fish Online
Authors: Ian Stephen
My grannie with the Spangles was always telling stories. So was my uncle Ruaraidh. He’d get his mother started and then something she said would get him going. My aunty Sheena said they were like collie dogs chasing each other out on the hill.
Usually my uncle took me out in the green Austin van. I liked its badge. It matched the chrome of the stick-out indicators which showed other drivers where you were going. Better than sticking your arm out the window in the rain. Ruaraidh showed me how to save petrol. He’d turn the key as we took the left fork, off the Ranais road, down the hill. We’d see if we could coast all the way to my grannie’s door.
It wasn’t like our house. You could see the stones it was made from. Some of them were huge. It was easy to see how the lower ones would get moved but how could they get the big ones up when the walls were already high? There were never any cranes out here. I never got a proper answer to my question.
The mantelpiece was wood, not tiles. It had china dogs, big as real ones, not collies but terrier-sized. It was usually just myself, the uncle took along. The sister would be helping the olaid, baking and things. There wasn’t an open fire like our house but a creamy Rayburn. If it was cold weather, my grannie opened the bottom oven door and told you to stick your feet in for a while. We’d have a cup of tea to start with. Then Ruaraidh would say, ‘This won’t pay the rent,
a bhalaich
. Nor put bread in the mouths of the bairns.’
Fanks were best. Other people would come and then there would be two or three dogs and a smell like Dettol. I liked that smell. So did most
of the people. One man put his dog in to the bath when the sheep were finished. Another said, well if he hadn’t gone bald he’d give his own hair a wash now. But when he took off his caydie his head was nearly as shiny as my olman’s. I wondered what had happened to him.
At first, my grannie came out to help a bit. She got carried away when she was shooing the sheep. She always said, ‘Kirie, Kirie, Kirie.’ Maybe the sheep know that means to go on ahead, the same way the dog knows to crouch down or to start chasing, from a word or a whistle. Then my grannie stopped coming out but she still made scones, stacks of them. They came off a thing like a heavy frying pan. They didn’t come out of the oven. She always timed it so there was a pile, still warm, when we came in. ‘Help yourselves now, you’ll get no waitress service here.’
People always started off with the weather then the news.
A coorse, coorse winter this, worst one for snow I can remember and I wasn’t born yesterday. That Eichmann was found guilty on all counts. The world’s getting smaller. You can’t run away forever. That was a terrible plane-crash in Rhodesia. The Secretary General on his way to talks on the Congo. Was it an accident? A man swam the Channel both ways, an Argentinean. Must be all that corned beef. Get some of that down the wee fellow. Even if he is a Catholic that President Kennedy is a lovely man. Aye, some would say the first lady is a fine specimen too. It would take more than pretty speeches to stop them building that wall in Berlin. Will Real Madrid take it again this year? Big challenges. At least we can’t do much worse than last year. We’ll need to watch that Charlton fellow. And Greaves is deadly.
I didn’t always know what they were talking about. But I got pictures in my mind, like listening to the radio. The Secretary on the Congo – you could see people typing letters, really fast while they were sitting on cushions floating on a wide river with jungle on each bank.
Then they’d get laughing, jumping back and fore between Gaelic and English. ‘I’ll tell you after,’ Ruaraidh would say but I’d tug at my grannie’s sleeve while she was laughing away. ‘
A ghràidh
, it’s not the same in English.
Here, do you like Spangles?’ Each one was wrapped separately in the packet. Sometimes it was fruit ones and sometimes it was sharper ones.
You only got the other kind of stories if it was getting dark early. My grannie would sometimes ask Ruaraidh to tell me one of his yarns, so I wasn’t left out, with all the political talk and the Gaelic. A story. For himself – that was me. Ruaraidh or someone else would say, ‘Listen to herself trying to stir it up. What about one of your own Mac an t-Sronaich stories?’
‘I don’t want to frighten the townie,’ she’d say. ‘They only go to the pictures to get scared. They don’t hear the real stories any more in Stornoway.’
So of course I’d to push out my chest. Proud because I’d done my share at the fank. Even got blood on my hand when the ram pulled me against the fence and they all said I’d seen too many Westerns at the Playhouse.
My grannie with the Spangles would top up everyone’s tea then Ruaraidh might start.
‘Did you hear now, the Ranais seaman’s story about the coffin?’ So of course everyone laughs and asks which of the thousand and one stories about a coffin this is. ‘The true one,’ he said and they all laughed again, but once my uncle was in full flight they’d all be leaning over to catch every word.
Someone said these yarns were better when the Tilley lamp was whirring away. But my grannie said we were supposed to be moving forward, not going backward. ‘It wasn’t that long ago electricity and running water came to this house. Maybe you’d rather just go out the back to the old chemical toilet but you can all use my WC if you ask nicely.’
My grannie admitted, though, that she kept the Tilley handy for power-cuts. ‘What about Mac an t-Sronaich now before the boy had to be getting home?’ someone said. Why did he have to get home tonight at all? There was a spare bed made up. His father could surely pick him up tomorrow.
‘What about me though?’ Ruaraidh said. ‘I’ll be scared stiff driving across the moor on my own after one of my mother’s stories.’
But my grannie got me to phone home and it was decided.
‘Have you seen Mac an t-Sronaich’s cave, out the castle grounds at the mouth of the Creed?’
‘Course I have.’
That big smooth slab, out there, where he cut up any animal he could steal. And the chimney in the rock where he roasted them. Now when the Creed river is low it’s an easy crossing, maybe at the island and you’re well out the Arnish moor. Then you wouldn’t have to go near the lighthouse, not even the farm. You could dodge round the back at Prince Charlie’s loch and get across the burn that goes into the Tob. Sometimes it’s slow going in the heather and bogs. But it’s not a long walk for a fit man. And they said Mac an t-Sronaich was fit all right, wiry as they come.
See when you come out at Griomsiadair, if you come over the shore way, you stumble on the last croft, a bit apart from the rest. You’ll still see them, the lazy-beds, for oats and potatoes, enough for half the village. They’re mostly out that way. So he wouldn’t risk coming out there, in case there was a squad from the village working late. But see if you follow the lochs, you come to the end of our own croft and the houses were further apart then. Now you’ve got to think back a few years. They didn’t even have the chemical toilet. No corrugated iron even. Just a blackhouse. Just a thatch and a rough door and the fire in the middle of the floor. A lean-to barn so you got the heat of the animals as well.
Mostly it was big families then but this poor wee boy’s mother had died, having him. So the boy and his father just looked after each other and the boy helped with everything. Now they only had the one cow and they were very attached to her. She was Anabladh – a proper Highland cow, hardy as anything. Every evening she would come in from the grazings on her own when it was milking time. Without fail. And she had a fine calf, a red one so that was Anabladh Ruadh. She’d be worth a bit, end of the season.
So this night when the cow and calf didn’t appear, they were worried. It crossed his father’s mind that there were stories Mac an t-Sronaich was on the prowl again but he didn’t want to frighten the boy. So he just said, ‘Look now, you stay here and don’t open the door to anyone till I get back. I’m just off to the end of the croft for the cow. I’ll not be long.’
It was just on dark, the dips as they say, and the boy pulled the wooden bar over on the door. It was just against drafts really because nobody locked doors then.
His father was out near the moor and there was still no sign of the cow. He went further, careful with his footing in the dark and he was calling, ‘Anabladh. Anabladh Ruadh.’
Then he was hearing the cow but she was distressed, you know, bothered about something. He found her then but there was no sign of the calf.
So the poor man started calling out again, ‘Anabladh Ruadh.’
Next thing, this gruff voice came back and he couldn’t tell where it was coming from.
‘Half your Anabladh Ruadh is in the pot now and the other half will do for my breakfast.’
The father was really mad now and he would have had a go at Mac an t-Sronaich with his bare hands. He stumbled out further and heard the voice again.
‘Half your Anabladh Ruadh is in my stomach now and the other half is roasting for my breakfast.’
He couldn’t guess where the voice was coming from till he realised he was now a long way out from the village. It could be coming from the other direction, back where he’d come from, nearer the house. They say Mac an t-Sronaich could be very cunning. Maybe he was just being lured further out so that thief could circle back towards the house. They say he’d just take what he wanted, steal your food and he’d be away back over the moor with it. They say he could jump over the moor like a goat. They say he wouldn’t let anybody stand in the way.
So that father started running for home but he twisted his ankle in the bog and it slowed him down. He could only hobble back towards the house. And a big squall of wind and sleet got up so no-one was going to hear him trying to shout. All the pain in his ankle was nothing to what was going on in his mind. He wasn’t worrying about his fine calf any more.
Now back at the house, this very spot. Probably some of the same stones are in the walls of this house we’re in right now. The boy heard a tapping at the door above the wind and hail. He ignored it and the door started rattling and shaking. Then there was a tapping at the one window. He could just make out a thin figure, bent over.
‘Will you not give a minute’s shelter to an old man on a night like this?’
But the boy just said they’ve been told not to open the door to anyone.
‘Your father would want you to help a poor stranger.’
And the hail is rattling till the boy is thinking he has to take pity on the old fellow.
‘You’ll be alone in there now?’
He’s saying nothing but he’s thinking maybe Mac an t-Sronaich’s been spying on the house, looking for his chance. And just then the figure outside starts hurling his frame at the door. There’s real force there and something’s got to go. The boy is looking at the wooden pin. A short piece of wood is a very strong thing but it’s a matter of time before the door gives way. The rattling and thumps and the creaking wood – noises that go right through you.
Till the boy shouts back, louder than the hail and the rattling door. ‘I’ll need to get my brothers and sisters, through the house,’ he said. ‘We’ll see what they have to say. Mairi. Calum. Torcuil. Ishbel. Sheena. Coinneach. Tormod…’ The boy was shouting out the names that came into his head. But he soon heard the scurry outside as Mac an t-Sronaich ran for it, fleeing back out the moor.
His father was so happy his son was unharmed and so impressed with his quick thinking that the loss of the calf was no worry. As long as they had each other they could build everything up again. And Mac an t-Sronaich never bothered the village of Griomsiadair again. So that boy got the better of him.
Like a lot of folk on this planet I owe my existence to herring. That and the Ross and Cromarty Council points system for allocating new council houses. The market for abundant herring brought the trade which created rafts of black small ships across bays and harbours, following the routes of the migrating fish. Stornoway was a main port. You could smell the scales along with the cotton nets and the burning coal. Diesel was in the air too but all the boats, with their slanting or rounding sterns, had chimneys. They all had black ranges then, though the Calor Gas shop was open on the pier. There was usually a smell of chops and bacon, from the boats.
When we visited The Broch, I knew that smell. But there was a different one, too. Some days there would be a tearing, sour stink behind the general mix. If the wind was blowing in from the outskirts, out Rosehearty way, you’d get a whiff of the gut factory. We used the same name in SY. Ours was out Seaforth Road. It wasn’t just guts went there. Scad and mackerel, caught amongst the herring – there was no market for them. And if the herring catch missed its own market, sometimes you’d see the baskets getting tipped into lorries.
When you see fish in that amount you don’t really notice the details of the species. The Arthur Mee books also had colour plates with different fish and the herring looked like a tropical species. All sorts of colours. I don’t know why, but I got interested in fish. All these single herring swam in shoals which could keep the boats chasing them for days on end.
I think the gut factory smell was stronger in The Broch than it was at home.
But in SY or The Broch they had curing and kippering and commerce. So a Broch quine could typewrite her way into the ironclad hexagon that was Stornoway fishmart. She could chaave awa wi the merchants o th borough. She might hear a hame voice on the quay. ‘Na ye’re nivver Sandy Sim’s quine, Andra’s sister?’
Maybe her own pedigree would show in a foxtrot. And her sure sense of rhythm would find the equally certain timing of the Lewis weaver. The relationships of the day were built on dancing as much as conversation.
Once I heard my mother, back in the voice of her hometown, I realised how her language was never really flowing, when she was on the Island. The Morris Traveller got us to The Broch more than once. That’s where I heard the olaid clacking away, steady as the olman’s Hattersley loom. It all happened in the pre-cast walls of the pre-fab house. The buildings that were only going to have to stand for ten years, as an answer to the post-war housing shortage. When she got home to SY, I think she might have typed out her story, right away, before going back to work. This is it.
I’d ging aff tae a dance wi ten Woodbine in a Players packet. Aa the quines did. The few men still hingin aroon likely didna hae tae bather. A lot o them didna bather muckle aboot learning tae dance aither. Ane o the qiunes quid get the works truck, nae the bus like. Jist the richt size to tak the sax or seevin o’s, fae The Broch tae Peterheid. Aa aboot the toon. Ane o oor crood fae Inverallochy, anither fae Cairnbulg, ane fae Rosehearty if I mind richt. Syne ane awa oot in New Aberdour.
The time we spent gettin deen up for the Peterheid dance. You’d tae get the big reid lips richt and syne the thin black line doon the back o yer legs tae mak it look like proper stockins. Heels an aa. They aye had a real swing band in the blue toon – trombones, the lot.
Ae wye it was the loons in uniform you went for. Anither wye ye kent they were aa gettin ready tae ging awa, an there was a fair chance they widna be comin back. Us quines wid agree tae shy clear o the navy types if ye quid. The odds werena jist that great for thon puir loons.
An the Merchant Navy loons might get a hard time o it ashore, in their civies but we kent they’d likely nivver be comin hame. The convoys wid sail gey close in, past us.
Fair gettin the sangs goin on the drive there. Best time I ivver hid, in a wye, if that disna soun terrible. Working aa thae oors at the Toolies, gettin a wage and kine o pleasin yersel.
But the claik atween us wis the thing. We fixed the van oorselves ae nicht. That quine that drove kent fit she wis aboot, so fan the thing dees on us, the lichts gingin doon, she kens it’s the fan-belt. An she heard someplace or ither a stockin’s the thing for a temporary repair. Only thing is naebody’s wintin tae admit they’ve a real pair o stockings on because they ken they’ll lose them. So we’re aa grabbin at each ither’s legs, sayin tae come clean – and sure enough ane o the crood has the real MacCoy. So we gie her a good slug fae the half-bottle o gin as compensation, like. That driver o oors ties a gweed ticht knot and we’re aff again. Took us there, got us hame again.
The crack wisna quite the same though efter that puir loon in Orkney wis kilt. D’ye ken aboot that? Think he’s in the history books as the first civilian casualty. Plinty eftir him. The Broch got hit mair than aince. Some fowk said it wis the defences they were aifter, ithers the fishing industry, feeding the country. Ithers again said na, na, they werena targeting The Broch, like, we shouldna flatter wirsells. They were jist dumpin their boombs if they hidna seen a Convoy i the North Sea. Bofors guns were getting made i the toon but we were makin Merlin engines for Rolls Royce. We coulna admit til wersels that we were the targets. There wis ane or twa terrible nichts. The fifth o November, 1940, that wis ane.
Souns bloody terrible to say it, like, but it wis gweed times for us workin quines. Tell ye a funny thing, though. Some nichts, dance or no, we’d tak that van, us aa packed in, jist for a spin, like. Richt there on the back road, oot the wye o the lichthoose, Kinnaird Heid, there. It’s my shotty up front, ridin shotgun and I think I’m seeing this aafa dim licht up aheid.
There’s a lot o gigglin gaun on as per usual, but I’m telling aabody tae shoosh, as if that’s goin tae mak me see better. Slow it richt doon, noo, slow. It wis a tail licht on a bicycle run affy a dynamo. So of coorse it’s helluva dim there, wi the slope gaun uphill. We damn near ran that puir lassie doon.
She wis on her last legs. I said tae her, jokin like, it looked like she’d come aa the wye fae Aiberdeen. Fae Surrey, mair like. She wis a Land-Girl. Cyclin, and gittin lifts fae lorries part the wye. Kippin doon far she could, an that lichthoose was the eyn o her road. That’s far she’d been makkin for the hale time.
It’s a strange kinda story this. A lang time ago. We kent we quid bend a bike into that van, for we’d deen it afore. So we did, and first we’re just gaun to help her alang tae the Lichthoose. Then, ye’re thinkin, like it’s such a queer story, is this gaun tae be aa richt? Nane o’ us kent the keepers oot there, or their faimlies. So we didna funcy jist drappin her aff again.
Naitral like, we aa end up back for a filie at ane o the quines wi a bit mair space in the hoose. So she’s tae bide there for the nicht. But of coorse we’ve aa got the late nicht hunger noo. There’s nae breid; nithin. She’s still in thae khaki breeches, gey strange things, blouse and gansey.
She’s nae lookin sae roch for somebody that’s been sleepin oot or takin a chance on a bed here an there. We aa tak til her. Nae a Scot, but nae a strang English twang aither. And some o the pack are gabbin tae her fan I’m awa oot the back wi a graip and liftin new tatties. Some ither biddie’s heating up the fat and seen we’re aa sitting tae egg an chips at that time o nicht – an us aa due tae ging tae work the next day. You quid aye get eggs that bit oot o toon.
Then we’re aa cravin for somethin for a sweet tooth an it’s back oot tae the van for a wee stashie o tins. Emergency rations. Condensed milk to bile up wi a handfu o puddin rice an a puckle raisins. Talk aboot ambrosia! The land-girl quinie jist laps it up. Energy gaun back intil her.
Suppose that wis aa there wis til’t, like. Missed some o her yarn fan I wis oot the back and scraping tatties. Then she was awa on her bike again, afore we were feenished.
Canna mind hoo she kent aboot Kinnaird Heid. Wis it her faither or her man that was stationed there? Bit we nivver saw her again. We aa meant tae drive oot tae speir if things had worked oot and she was aaricht, but we quidna get hud o the van for a while. Talked aboot her though. Maybe she’d just faan heid ower heels for a loon that had been stationed doon her wye – bit I dinna think so. Somethin aboot her. As if she was migratin. Like geese or that, nae choice. She might hae been the dochter o a lichtkeeper raised in the loom o that licht and needin tae get back til’t, jist tae cope wi somethin. Or else she was gaun tae hae a bairn by a loon that wis noo tendin that licht on Kinnaird. It’s nae jist ma memory. Nane o wis quid get that muckle sense oot o her that nicht. But I’ll nivver forget her gettin stuck into that rice puddin we’d biled up. Lickin the spoon she wis, an us aa grinnin like mither hens, lookin aifter her.
Telt you it was a strange kind o a story. Dinna ken noo fit pynt I saw in it fan I started oot. That mony bits missin.
First free nicht efter that we got hud o the truck again, and of course heided straight aff tae the Peterheid dance. That was our ain wee migration. Desperate tae get there. She just went oot o mind efir that.
I’m seeing her again. Richt noo. First that dim, dim reid. And her nae lookin much at the road in front o her. Jist following the big wide sweep o Kinnaird. She’d taen a sense o that licht a the wye fae Surrey.
But I didn’t think the Land Girl was like a stray goose, out of the formation. I was thinking of her first in her uniform, in a line of others in a field. Working in that moving line, a shoal of girls in brown breeches and greenish jerseys. That one breaking away, one night. Finding a way north, up the east coast of Britain. Getting lifts on lorries. Taking short cuts she found out all by herself.
So she became more like one single herring in a colour plate in Arthur Mee. A brown and green herring swimming along B roads. I was thinking that when I heard my mother tell it on her home turf. Then I smelled what was cooking. Sandy’s quinie, my olaid, was helping in the kitchen. She was showing my sister how to edge the backbone out with your thumb – you didn’t need the knife for that. Then they were dipped into the oatmeal and then put in the pan.
The coating turned more yellow than brown and got crispy. First the bones tickled you a bit then you stopped bothering and ate the whole thing. Then I forgot about herring being single things with eyes that could catch the glint of plankton, mouths that sucked in food from the sea.
