The Sea Detective (13 page)

‘Was that my grandmother?’

‘Yes, Ishbel Stewart was her name then. She was from Aberdeen. Her parents moved to Eastern Township, the settlement nearest to the island on the mainland. They inherited the general store from an aunt. Uilleam fell in love with Ishbel the moment he saw her.’ She rapped her knuckles on her Bible to emphasise the suddenness of it.

‘It must have been difficult for you.’

Another thin smile, this one of disappointment, faded as quickly as it formed. ‘It was hard seeing him so happy with her. We were living so close. I don’t suppose I behaved as I should, but I’d grown up knowing I would marry Uilleam. The whole island knew.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Cal commiserated, realising with a shock that she loved Uilleam still.

She drifted off with her memories, talking softly to herself. Then looking at Cal, she said, ‘My mama wouldn’t say a word to him or Ishbel even though they were living next door. I was scarcely more welcoming, God forgive me.’

Cal noticed her lips trembling.

‘You see, Ishbel wasn’t from a fishing family and she was Episcopalian, not Church of Scotland like the rest of us. She didn’t have the Gaelic. It set her apart. The MacKays and the Raes wouldn’t speak to her, though they had their own reasons.’ Grace Ann appeared distressed recalling it. ‘When she was expecting a baby the Raes skinned a baby rabbit and nailed it to the Sinclair door.’

‘Why?’

‘They wanted to frighten Ishbel off the island. The Raes and the MacKays knew they’d never get the Sinclair croft if Ishbel had her baby and it was a boy.’

‘The baby was my mother?’

‘It was, and now even the bairn’s dead.’ Grace Ann stared out of the window.

After a while, Cal prompted her. ‘The boat … didn’t it become an anti-submarine trawler?’ He knew it did but he wanted to keep the story going.

She nodded. ‘I can still remember the day: the Eilean Iasgaich coming into the bay for the first time with her gun; the men all lining the deck; Hector MacKay, the skipper, leading his crew ashore. Oh, we were proud: our island sending a boat to war.’ Her face said something different: what fools they’d been. ‘The women and children stood on the steps to the pier and hugged the men as they passed by, all except Uilleam who walked untouched all the way to the top where his mother and Ishbel waited for him.’

Grace Ann laid her cheek against the back of her chair where her eyes were hidden from Cal. After a while her head rolled back towards him. ‘If only I’d held him then. Everything would have been different.’

‘He’d hurt you,’ Cal said with understanding.

She gazed out of the window once more, her face etched with regret.

‘When all the men had gone by us we cried; the women first followed by the children. My mama said it was a cold wind blowing from one generation to the next. I’ll never forget her saying that.’

‘How long after was it …?’ He didn’t like to say ‘the men died’.

Grace Ann shivered as though she felt that cold wind still. ‘That October, after the first storm of autumn, the Eilean Iasgaich tied up at the pier. The news went round the island. Seven men had been lost. The boat had been to Archangelsk, with an Arctic convoy. Hector MacKay appeared alone on the track and the women ran for their Bibles. They closed their doors and begged for Hector to go to their neighbour’s door, not theirs.

‘My Mama and me prayed out aloud.’ Now she pressed her hands together as if in prayer. ‘And we listened for my brother Sandy’s foot on the loose slab on the path, but it was Hector’s we heard. My mama ran at him and beat him with her fists. How dare you come to my house? How dare you?’

She clenched a hand and beat the air with it.

‘Hector, who was a big man, stood there letting her hit him, him not saying a word. Then she fell to the floor and Hector took me aside and told me, ‘We lost him Grace Ann, we lost him.’ I carried mama back into our house and the next thing there was a cry from Uilleam’s mother next door. Uilleam had gone too. So had the Gunn brothers, Alexander and Sinclair, and Alasdair Murray, as well as Donal and Angus MacKay, Hector’s two brothers. No wonder he let my mama strike him. He was half-deranged with his own loss, though it’s said Sandy’s death weighed heaviest with him because he was the youngest.’

She stopped again and Cal asked, ‘What age was he?’

‘Just sixteen he was with his blond hair and freckles. He joined the crew two months before. It broke my mama’s heart, though any boy of 16 would have wanted the same, to be with the men at sea.’

‘Mama,’ I used to say when we stood on the cliff waving the boat off, ‘He’s with his cousins and with Uilleam. Uilleam will take care of him mama, you’ll see.’ Despite the difficulties between me and Uilleam, the two of them were like brothers, always looking out for each other, though my mama became angry with me when I said it. She had no time for Uilleam after he married your grandmother.’

Now it was Cal’s turn to exclaim. ‘So the Alexander MacKay who died with my grandfather was your brother?’

She nodded.

‘I didn’t realise.’

After a pause, he said, ‘Wasn’t the boat returning from Archangelsk when they died? Hadn’t they gone to secure a depth charge which had broken loose?’

‘Yes.’ She followed it with a hoarse cry: what a thing to die for, it meant. ‘Five were killed by German planes on the way out to Archangelsk. Uilleam and my Sandy died together on the way back. There had been a storm and Sandy had gone on deck and Uilleam went after him, as I knew he would. The same wave took them both away.’

Grace Ann held her Bible to her mouth and said in a whisper, ‘God bless them both.’

Not knowing what else to say, Cal muttered ‘amen’. He bowed his head because it seemed the appropriate thing to do.

A minute passed, maybe more. He glanced at her and saw her eyes were closed again. Cal wondered if she was sleeping when without warning she began talking, softly, quickly, hurrying to finish her story, as if she’d rehearsed it so often she knew it off by heart, as if she was living it again.

‘I had no rest that first night what with my own grief and my mama’s crying. The next morning, I went to leave the house and when mama heard the hinge of the door, she shouted after me ‘Don’t be wasting your sympathies on the Sinclairs. They killed my Sandy.’

I ran back to her and said, ‘What are you saying?’

‘She gripped me by the hand. ‘They killed him, Grace Ann.’

‘I couldn’t bear to listen to her and I ran outside. Half way to the hill I came upon Ishbel. She was crying, her arms wrapped round her unborn child; your mother, Cal. Unlike me, Ishbel was a talker and something she said that morning didn’t sound right.

‘Surely it was Hector MacKay, who came to your door,’ I said to her. She looked surprised at my interruption. ‘No, it was Hamish Sutherland as I told you.’

‘I didn’t say any more for Ishbel, not being from the island, didn’t know our custom. For as long as anyone could remember the skipper of the boat had delivered the news which made widows of wives. Why had Hamish gone to the Sinclair door when Hector MacKay had been to ours? I walked home with Ishbel, each of us going to our separate houses, and when I went inside my mama flew at me. ‘We’ve tragedy enough without you bringing disgrace on us too?’

‘Mama, Ishbel is a widow with an unborn child.’

‘She gave me a look I’ll never forget. ‘Sandy would be alive today but for her husband,’ she said.

‘Later, in spite of my mama’s opposition, I visited the Sinclairs to pay my respects to Margaret, Uilleam’s mother. She and Ishbel were sitting in silence and I sat with them too.

‘In time Margaret said to me, ‘Why do they blame Uilleam for your Sandy’s death?’

‘Why would they,’ I said, ‘for they died together, one 16, one 21, two brave young men?’

‘Margaret replied, ‘They say the depth charge breaking loose was Uilleam’s fault. They say he repaired the rack after the German planes had damaged it, that it was Uilleam’s responsibility that it came loose, his job to go and secure it.’

‘He did, with Sandy.’

‘They say Sandy went to it first and when Uilleam followed him Sandy had already been swept overboard.’

‘I said, ‘Well, if that’s what they say where’s the fault between two brave young men like them? The war is to blame, not them.’

Grace Ann sighed, her eyes still closed, her head shaking. Hadn’t Agnes warned him about her living in the past? He didn’t like to speak, to disturb her in case she was sleeping.

He’d begun to look around the room when she started again. ‘I thought these poor women were deluded by grief but they weren’t. Hector MacKay wouldn’t speak of Uilleam except to say he never wanted to hear mention of his name on the island again. The Rae brothers – all three of them survived – were the same. Two days after the tragedy Hamish Sutherland went to the Sinclair house and told Margaret and Ishbel they wouldn’t be welcome at the memorial service on the pier.’

‘Why ever not?’ Cal almost shouted, forgetting himself.

Grace Ann’s eyes flashed open. She looked at Cal, as if startled. ‘I never knew for certain except that Sandy’s death had to be avenged somehow.’

‘Is that when my grandmother left the island?’

‘It was. Ishbel went to live with her parents on the mainland in December 1942, though her mother-in-law Margaret pleaded with her to stay, for the baby to inherit the croft, so determined was she it would be a boy …’

Grace Ann broke off and Cal prompted her again. ‘My mother was born early the following year?’

Grace Ann nodded. ‘When your great grandmother heard the baby was a girl she left the island too, to go to her sister in Thurso. Murdo Rae and his family took over the Sinclair house and croft as they’d always wanted.’

Neither of them spoke for a few moments, Cal reflecting on what he thought was the end of the story, Grace Ann taking another sip of tea.

After returning the mug to the trolley, she glanced up at Cal and then quickly away. Suddenly she seemed nervous of him again. ‘Did you know my brother’s body was found?’

‘No I didn’t.’ Cal sounded surprised.

‘A letter came to my mother the following spring. It was from the Admiralty informing her Sandy’s body had been washed up on the Lofoten Islands near the Norwegian coast. The commander of the German garrison there had identified Sandy by his wrist watch. He’d been buried where he was found, on the south-east coast of an island called Moskenesoy.’

‘My mother never mentioned it.’

Grace Ann went on as if she hadn’t heard Cal’s comment. ‘I hoped it would bring peace to my mama but she died of a broken heart by the autumn. The morning I buried her I left the island for good.’

She paused again, the emotion of the memory robbing her of words, before stretching her left hand to the stool. She picked up a small red box which had faded in parts to pink. ‘My brother’s watch was returned to my mama with the letter from the Admiralty.’

Grace Ann offered Cal the box.

She said softly, ‘Your grandfather wore one too. All the men were given them when they joined the boat’s crew.’

The watch, like the model of the boat, lay on a bed of cotton wool. The face was cracked and cloudy as if a sea mist was trapped inside it. Only the 1 and 2 in Roman numerals were visible on the hour dial. The leather strap was black, twisted and hard.

‘Would you mind if I held it?’ Cal asked.

Grace Ann shook her head and Cal picked it out and turned it over. ‘Alexander MacKay, Eilean Iasgaich 1942.’ He read aloud the inscription on the back.

‘1942 was when he joined the crew,’ Grace Ann said.

When Cal replaced the watch on the cotton wool, he said, ‘It must be a comfort knowing he’s buried and having his watch …’

‘Yes.’

Once again the emotion seemed to overwhelm her. Warily, he attempted reassurance, expecting another ticking off. ‘Thank you, for telling me this. It must be hard, going back over such painful memories.’

‘Oh it’s not finished,’ Grace Ann said abruptly.

‘I’m sorry,’ Cal said.

Then she told him a story he knew already, though he didn’t admit to it: how the depleted crew had continued anti-submarine patrols along the north coast and Orkney; how in 1944 the Eilean Iasgaich had come upon a U-boat on the surface attacking a boat-load of Norwegian resistance fighters, how it rammed the U-boat with the loss of both vessels. The last of the island’s able bodied men died. ‘Every last one of them,’ Grace Ann said.

‘The island was abandoned the following year wasn’t it?’ Cal said.

‘The women tried to struggle on but without their men … well …’ Her voice trailed away.

‘Wasn’t there quite a fuss? I’ve got some old newspaper cuttings.’

‘There was a public appeal to help the widows and children build houses on the mainland. The Norwegian government bought them land along the coast from Eastern Township. I’m told you can see the island from it.’

‘Did all the families move there?’

‘Some moved away altogether but the Raes and the MacKays settled there. They took legal title to the island.’

‘They own it.’

‘They do, and there’s a shop and a museum on it, in the old schoolhouse, for the day trippers. Hector MacKay’s log of the Archangelsk convoy is on display there. It was found among his widow’s possessions when she died, wrapped around with prayers he’d written on to sheets of paper.’

Cal said, ‘The memorial’s by the pier isn’t it? When I was a child I wanted to see it but my mother wouldn’t take me.’

‘It’s to the heroes of Eilean Iasgaich, the nine island men who died in the U-boat explosion as well as the ones who lost their lives on the Arctic convoy …’ she hesitated before looking straight at him, her eyes filled with anxiety. ‘Cal. I couldn’t tell you earlier. Your grandfather … his name isn’t on the memorial.’

‘They didn’t leave it off?’ Cal raised his voice in astonishment.

‘God forgive them, but they did too.’ Grace Ann said, closing her eyes and turning away, hiding from him in case he blamed her too.

If he’d lived Grace Ann’s life he’d have gone a little mad too, he thought.

Between 5 and 6pm on a Saturday, Buchanan Street in Glasgow becomes a place of transition. The shoppers begin to go home, or rest in the coffee shops and wine bars in the side streets. Teenage girls in flimsy mini-skirts and cheap white shoes with high heels emerge shrieking and giggling in expectation of the night’s drinking and partying. The boys, in gangs, roam among them watching for possibilities. Everywhere people are moving, mingling, separating. Everyone is going somewhere. Everyone has a direction of travel, except on this Saturday at 5.43pm one slender girl who walks awkwardly and hunched to disguise her height. She stays on the margins of the crowds, her face half hidden by a stained, grey hoodie she found on the railway embankment near her shelter. A distant group of women wearing pink ear mufflers and singing, out of tune, ‘Money, Money, Money’ by Abba are heading towards her. She recoils. It is as if an unseen force travels ahead of the group, a force that only Basanti feels. Everyone near her maintains their course but she stops and turns as though buffeted by it. The women are closer to her now; their singing louder. Their arms are linked. They stretch across fifteen metres of pedestrianised street. They will barely notice her, despite her matted hair and the stains on her clothes. But she doesn’t seem to know they will move aside for her. Their unseen force bears on her again, making her hurry back the way she has come, until she passes a lane. It pulls her in, a refuge. She walks half way up until she slumps on her heels. A wall is behind her. She feels the cold of the stone against her spine where her ill-fitting hoodie and loose shirt have exposed her skin. A black wheelie bin hides her from the street she has left. She hears the young women, more muffled now. ‘It’s a rich man’s world,’ they sing with a high pitch of tuneless shouts and cackles as they go to whichever venue is playing host to their friend’s hen party. She shakes as they pass the bottom of the lane. She isn’t used to crowds, or cities, or this country, or the hostility of the people: everywhere she goes hard, pinched faces stare at her. She’s alone and now she seems also to be lost. She has to travel to Edinburgh. A shopkeeper has told her it is 80 kilometres away. She asks about a bus. ‘Aye, hen, you’ll catch it at the Buchanan bus station. D’ye not know it?’ The woman tells her the way and when Basanti asks the cost of the journey, she replies ‘Six, maybe eight pounds, isn’t that so Billy?’ The boy who is loading up the cigarette gantry says, ‘Aye’ without looking round. ‘How do I get pounds?’ Basanti asks the woman, lowering her voice. The woman laughs, a smoker’s rasp. ‘Ach, away with you,’ she says, putting her hands on her hips, and nodding to the next customer.