The Sea Detective (23 page)

Cal moved into student lodgings during the term. In the short vacations he went on research trips to the west coast and the islands, or stayed with friends. In the summers he went to his father, paying for his trip with the rent money.

On one of these visits, a beach holiday in New Zealand, his father had said he didn’t think he could go back to the house in Edinburgh.

‘Why not?’

‘Oh it’s too full of memories.’

‘Why don’t you sell it?’ Cal had said.

‘No I couldn’t. I’d be betraying her. She loved that house.’

His father looked at him, his mouth flinching, with an expression of desolation. ‘Anyway it’s all that’s left of her.’

It was then Cal understood his father couldn’t go home. He’d become displaced, as Cal’s mother had been in childhood, as her mother Ishbel had been in pregnancy, and as Cal now was, standing on the gloomy back landing of his family home like an intruder. If displacement was his family’s inheritance it was a legacy which originated on Eilean Iasgaich with Uilleam Sinclair’s death.

In the gloom at the top of the back stairs, Cal fumbled for the padlock which he’d fitted to the store room door after helping his father carry boxes of his and his mother’s possessions to it. The lock was stiff: Cal had to twist the key four times back and forwards to open it. When he opened the door, the room was dark and smelt dusty; the closed shutters prevented the city outside from penetrating. Cal flicked on the light, a bare cobwebbed bulb dangling from the ceiling above the corner fireplace. Along the wall to the right were two rails of bagged clothes, his mother’s. In front of them were her personal things, packed away in large cardboard boxes.

In one of these boxes were three old photograph albums, square and squat with thick card pages and filled with sepia prints of family groups: the men with serious faces in tweed suits, watch chains and pigeon chests; the women, modest in hats, jackets and long skirts, with thin smiles, their lips pursed together; the children miniature versions of their parents, except for the mischief in their eyes. These were the Stewart forebears, his grandmother Ishbel’s family, merchants and shopkeepers from Aberdeen.

In the same box, he remembered, had been two ledgers with lined pages bordered with vertical columns in black, blue and red inks for entries of pounds, shillings and pence. These were Ishbel’s journals. He hadn’t known of their existence until his father found them in his mother’s chest when they were packing up the house. Cal flicked through a few pages before wrapping them in newspaper and storing them away – there had been too much else to do that day. All he could recall was his grandmother’s hand-writing which was neat and plain apart from her capitals which she drew with flamboyance. T appeared to be a favourite. When it was the first letter of a diary entry she gave the cross stroke a looping flourish which became a cloud with the rays of the sun shining through it, or spots of rain falling from it. Cal had wondered whether it illustrated her mood that day, or the weather. But he hadn’t been curious enough to go to the bother of unpacking her journals again, especially when tenants moved in.

Now he wanted to find them for the light they would shed on Eilean Iasgaich and the injustice done to his grandfather, his grandmother and the two generations which came after them. It was time for the truth to be told.

The first box he tried contained some of his mother’s books. The next had the contents of her roll top desk, legal papers mostly. Cal’s fingers fumbled clumsily at the tape of the next box. He opened the lid and inside was her wool, layered in colours, red on top, blue underneath, white, green and brown below; skeins as well as balls. He had packed it that way to protect the photograph albums and the two ledgers at the bottom. Cal emptied out the wool and removed the books one at a time, taking off their newspaper wrapping. The journals were identical in size and appearance with black covers and triangular red flashes at the top and bottom corners. The spines were matching red. Inside the front covers, on the facing pages, in printed handwriting and blue-black ink, his grandmother had written her name and the dates each of her journals spanned. In the first ledger, she’d written ‘Ishbel Stewart 1939–1941’, and in the second ‘Ishbel Sinclair 1941–1943’. 1941 was the year she married Uilleam Sinclair.

Cal turned to the next page of the second ledger. The writing there was neat and economical, as he’d remembered it. Each day began with the date and a colon, followed immediately by his grandmother’s trademark flourish on the first capital letter. Cal read the first entry. It was October 22, 1941.

‘This is my first day on the island. My Uilleam carried me from the boat and Mrs Sinclair (I daren’t call her Margaret though she urges me to do so) was there to welcome me. The others were fishing or working the land and too occupied to greet me, according to Uilleam, though I know when he is trying to protect my feelings. I will work hard, be a dutiful wife and with God’s assistance I shall be accepted here.’

The next entry was October 24. ‘I must be patient. I must persevere. All will be well, I am certain of it. Uilleam is by my side and I pray to God.’

There were five entries on the first page. The last was dated October 28. ‘I have lived in dread of this day. Uilleam has gone to sea. He assured me he will be back soon. He did not say so but I overheard the other women talk of 10 days perhaps more. Our neighbours are the MacKays: the mother is called Ina, her daughter is Grace Ann and the boy is called Sandy. The boy is a delight and visits Uilleam often but neither Mrs MacKay nor Grace Ann will address me. Indeed Mrs MacKay shouts names at me. Mrs Sinclair told me it was on account of my marriage to Uilleam. Mrs MacKay had expected Uilleam and Grace Ann to marry, as had Mrs Sinclair ‘though it is of no importance to me if you do your duty and provide Uilleam with a son and me with a grandson’. Mrs Sinclair had provided a male heir for the Sinclair croft and a share-holder for the boat, now the duty was mine.’

Cal let his eye run down the entries on the opposite page. They were more of the same; his grandmother missing Uilleam and wishing for his safe return; and hurtful confrontations with Mrs MacKay.

Cal turned the pages until he came to 1942. The writing was the same but her tone more despairing and there was an enigmatic reference in March of that year. ‘If only I could persuade Uilleam to come with me, we would be content, I know we would.’

In May she recorded the day the Eilean Iasgaich arrived in its new livery as an anti-submarine trawler. ‘I am so proud of Uilleam and frightened for us both. When I saw the boat with its fresh paint and its gun, the men lined up on deck and my Uilleam among them, I became sick with worry. I would have cried all night except that Uilleam would have heard me.’

There was a brief burst of euphoria on July 23. ‘I am pregnant as I suspected though I didn’t dare to write it here until now. The doctor has come and I can expect our baby before next spring. My prayers have been answered, though Mrs Sinclair told me that her prayers had not, not yet, and she would not be celebrating until she knew it was a boy because ‘if it is not it will have been nine wasted months’. Uilleam is at sea. I will go to the hill every day and watch for the boat returning so I can be first at the pier.’

Then on July 24 she wrote, ‘I hate this island and the people on it. Some person has nailed a rabbit’s skin to the door of our house. Mrs Sinclair said it was the Raes who have desired the Sinclair croft for more years than she can remember. They want to frighten me, she said, to make me lose the baby or leave the island. I told her firmly ‘I will do nothing of the sort’. The talk is that it was Murdo Rae’s doing – a man who has never said a word to me, kind or cruel, not in all the months I have been here. Nor does he speak to Uilleam even though they work side by side on the boat.’

Cal turned hurriedly to September 29, the day Uilleam was washed overboard, forgetting his grandmother did not hear news of it until later, when the boat returned to the island with seven men missing.

‘The baby kicks me mercilessly. It must be a boy. Pray God that it is.’

Cal found the entry he was looking for on October 7. It was brief and underlined with two lines of black ink. ‘Uilleam is gone. I cannot bear to write another thing this cruel night in this cruel place.’

The following day her journal seemed to bring her comfort of a sort, because the entry was long, filling almost a page. She wrote of Mrs Sinclair ‘screeching and howling’ all night, of hiding her own grief because she didn’t feel comfortable displaying it. She was a 19-year old who had known Uilleam for so short a time and ‘what comparison was that with a mother who had borne him, raised him and loved him all his life’. She added, ‘though who could have loved Uilleam more than I?’

Ishbel related how she went out intending to climb Cnoc a’ Mhonaidh to be alone in her misery and to scan the sea ‘to look for Uilleam’. She had collapsed, exhausted by her grief, before reaching the hill, when she was surprised by Grace Ann MacKay. ‘She embraced me and said tragedy had now brought us together. ‘Our men are dead and we must be strong for each other.’ She apologised for the way she had been. The hurt of Uilleam’s marriage had set her against me and him though now it shamed her. She said she had loved Uilleam too but he had not loved her as he loved me. We hugged and cried and I said how sorry I was about the loss of her fine brother Sandy and for Hamish Sutherland who had to bring the dreadful news to our door. Grace Ann looked surprised and said it was surely Hector MacKay. I told her I was certain it was Mr Sutherland and she let the subject pass. When I returned to our house, I asked Mrs Sinclair about it. ‘Grace Ann said I must be mistaken about Hamish Sutherland but I wasn’t, was I?’ ‘No, Ishbel you were not. Hector MacKay went to the houses of all the other dead men.’

‘Why didn’t he come to ours?’

‘Because of something that Uilleam has done.’

‘What has Uilleam done?’

Ishbel recorded that Mrs Sinclair left the question unanswered and became uncontrollable with grief.

‘October 9: Grace Ann visited today and made her condolences which we returned, for her brother Sandy who was like a younger brother to dear Uilleam. All three of us cried and when we were finished I asked why it was that no-one else had come to our door when I’d seen mourners visiting other houses. Grace Ann said she didn’t know but Mrs Sinclair said, ‘Why do they blame Uilleam for your Sandy’s death?’

‘Why would they indeed?’ I said in innocence.

‘Grace Ann replied, ‘It must be mistaken Mrs Sinclair for they died together, one 16, one 21, two brave young men.’

‘Mrs Sinclair persevered, ‘They say the depth charge breaking loose was Uilleam’s fault because the repair to the rack was his and he should have been the one to secure it.’

‘He did, with Sandy.’

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

‘Grace Ann said something about war being to blame, but this knowledge shocked me. Is this why we are being treated like outcasts?’

‘October 10: Hamish Sutherland came to the door but refused Mrs Sinclair’s invitation to enter. He said – and I will remember these words until I die – ‘Mrs Sinclair, you and your daughter-in-law will not be welcome at the memorial service for the men who died.’ Mrs Sinclair remonstrated with him. ‘Wasn’t Uilleam one of the crew, one of the men who died?’ ‘He will not be remembered Mrs Sinclair, for what he has done.’ Until that moment neither of us knew of the memorial service. What has my sweet Uilleam done?’

After that Ishbel’s diary entries became fewer.

‘November 20: A curious incident with Grace Ann. I saw her walking the path to Cnoc a’ Mhonaidh and, not having anything better to do, I went after her hoping for some company. I followed the path all the way to the sheepfold but there was no sign of her there. When I encountered her later, I asked, ‘Grace Ann, was that you I saw on the path to the hill this forenoon?’ She replied, ‘Indeed it wasn’t Ishbel. Why would I be going to the hill when I have work to do?’ Her manner was off-hand and she wouldn’t look me in the eye. Then she excused herself and hurried away indoors. Why, suddenly, does she want to avoid me when she has been so kind since the news of our bereavements? I have searched my memory for occasions when I might have offended her though I can think of none.

‘December 14: I am leaving this place. This is my final day; the last I will have to put up with these unfeeling people, the last I will have to listen to Mrs Sinclair telling me my duty to Uilleam is to remain here, to give birth to his son here and to secure the tenancy for the Sinclair family.’

‘February 24 1943’ – it was the first entry of that year – ‘Eilidh was born today. She is 7lbs 3oz and lovely in every way with Uilleam’s mouth. I am entranced by her.’

‘March 7: Mrs Sinclair called at the shop. She is leaving the island. She is disappointed in me ‘because your duty was to produce a boy and you failed and now my life’s work is wasted. The Raes have your husband’s inheritance and may it curse them and you’. I asked her to accompany me upstairs to see Eilidh, her granddaughter, and she replied ‘a girl is of no use to me’ and she turned and left the house for Thurso, to stay with her sister.’

The next entry was September 29, 1943. It was at the top of a page, three lines of text. The remainder of the page was empty.

‘I took Eilidh to the hill and we looked across the sea for Uilleam, this being the first anniversary of his death. I will do the same every year. I prayed for Uilleam, and also for Sandy. My comfort is that they are together in death and my blessing is Uilleam’s child, my sweet daughter Eilidh, whose nature is as kind and loving as her father’s.’

Cal read it again. Had she not known Sandy’s body was buried on the Lofoten Islands? The diary entry suggested she didn’t. According to Grace Ann, Sandy’s mother had received the letter five months before. Surely Cal’s grandmother would have made reference to it if she had known.

He turned the remaining pages of the ledger. They were empty. On the inside back cover he noticed a flap for documents and tissue poking from it. He pulled it out and a curl of white-blond hair dropped out. It fell on to the ledger. Cal touched it, wondering whether this was grandfather’s hair, or his mother’s, though she had been dark like Ishbel.