Island of Wings

by Karin Altenberg

  It was late afternoon when Lizzie left the vigil for the boy who was to die at dawn. She could not bear to see the cramps and convulsions again. The mist had cleared, and as she got home she could see that her husband had been waiting for her. He was sitting at the table in his shirtsleeves with his head in his hands but rose quickly as she came through the door. He stood looking at her, at the tired face which was familiar and kind. ‘What?’ she said, exhausted and irritated by his muteness, but he could not put words to his feeling – how could he ever find the right words for those feelings? – he could only hold her, which he did; in one step, one movement, he held her hard against his chest, but he was soft and so was she as she felt his heart against her own. They stood together for a long time, swaying slowly from side to side, as their bodies slotted together and they were able to comfort each other in spite of their separate pains.

  Iain was buried three days later. A sheep was slaughtered, barley was ground and bread was baked while women came and went, watching and keening over the body of the dead boy. As evening fell a few young men went into the burial ground to dig the grave while some others were sent off to find a broad turf to cover it. There was no wood for this coffin so the baby was shrouded and carried high along the course of the sun around the clachan. Three times did the procession encircle the houses and gardens before they entered the graveyard. Mrs MacKenzie was standing by her husband’s side. It was not the custom to read the funerary sermon by the open grave; the service would take place in the kirk on the following Sabbath. Lizzie looked into the dark hole in the ground and saw that the bottom of the grave had been lined with something white. She took a couple of steps forward to see better and saw that somebody had put a single wing of a white swan in the grave. She gasped and looked up at her husband. He looked her straight in the eyes; it is all right, he seemed to say, let it happen in this way. She was relieved. The baby was lowered on to the wing. It was one of the most beautiful things she had ever seen, Lizzie thought. The tiny bundle looked like a perfect angel, and as the men started filling the grave Lizzie had to look away, it seemed so brutal that such whiteness should be soiled. Her husband had told her that because of the frequency of infant deaths, the St Kildans saw their island plague as providence, as an inevitable part of life. But as she glanced quickly back into the filling grave she knew that these ghost children, who would never be kissed and cared for, were mourned and loved just as hopelessly in spite of their fate. Their spirits were forever there, in the lap of a wing or the ripple of water.

  Once the grave was filled and the turf placed on top, everyone sat down on the grass or on nearby stones and shared a meal of mutton and bread as the sun set in the west and the warm August night lowered its blue shadow over Village Bay.

  Back in the manse MacKenzie said to his wife, ‘I have been thinking that perhaps we should get a maid, a young woman who speaks English so that you can have some company ­– what do you think?’

  Mrs MacKenzie had got used to coping on her own and did not think their small household needed a maid. ‘I am not sure . . .’ she replied hesitantly.

  ‘Well, I will ask the taxman if he can recommend some suitable young woman from the mainland.’ He was quite set on the idea now and pleased by his own generosity.

  Later Lizzie was lying sleepless in bed. Her husband was breathing heavily; she watched his upper lip slacken and shudder like a sail driven by a trade wind. She liked to watch him sleep – he seemed more vulnerable then and she could believe that she belonged to him. Her eyes scanned his face and his strong shoulders, which were white as snow below the line where his shirt cut off the tan. It was very hot in the room and she could not lie still. There was a great restlessness inside her. The night was soft as fur outside the window, and the darkness seemed to pull at her. She got out of bed and threw a woollen shawl around her shoulders. She stood for a while looking out the window before she left the room, her bare feet silent on the carpet. Outside the thick night was starry, but the barley moon was still hiding behind the massive bulk of Conachair. Lizzie breathed in all the heavy scents of the night. She walked dreamily through the dewy grass; the fresh clover and buttery cowslips washed her feet and shed their last petals between her toes as she descended towards the beach. The white sand there would soon be sieved away by the autumn storms, but for now it was cool and soft under her feet. Lizzie looked out across the blank disc of the bay. There was something strange about its deep darkness. She looked harder until her gaze floated on the surface where a faint sparkling like a million tiny diamonds seemed to reflect the firmament. It was as if the Pleiades had sunk into the sea and were looking back up at the sky. She picked up a pebble and dropped it into the shallows – an explosion of fluorescent brilliance expanded and flickered through the ripples. ‘Oh!’ she exhaled and stepped back. She looked around and listened – the village was quiet and dark; she was all alone with this miracle. Carefully she hitched up her white nightgown and stepped into the water. Her feet lit up like St Peter’s – she proceeded further out. A jellyfish glided past, shining like a green corn moon or a drowned meteor. Lizzie stared at its suspended glowing sphere in awe. Suddenly she knew what she had to do – she needed to be washed in this light – she needed to be enlightened by the life force that illuminated it. Quickly she pulled off her shawl and nightgown and bundled them safely on to a rock. Naked, with her loose hair flowing down her back, she stepped further into the cold water, carefully avoiding sharp rocks and stones with barnacles. She stretched her arms on the surface and dragged them like wands through the white-green glare. Her whole body was outlined by the starry light; she spread her limbs like a giant starfish and floated on her back as if carried by the Milky Way.

  Mr MacKenzie, who had woken up as his wife left their bed, was watching her from the dark shadows of the landing rock. He knew, of course, about the plankton which lit up the late summer seas, but the scene in front of him was still unworldly. He could not take his eyes off his wife as she swam calmly and quietly in a halo of bright light. He was not sure if he was witnessing vice or a mystery. Suddenly she stood, illuminated, and waded towards the beach with her back half turned to him. She lifted her arms to wring the saltwater out of her hair, and her husband watched with his fist pressed into his mouth as a few flakes of light clung to the glimmering pearls of her vertebrae. She turned to fetch her nightgown from the rock, her hard nipples standing out from her dark silhouette. She dried herself quickly on the shawl and slipped back into the white linen gown. Mr MacKenzie let out his breath. Was this his wife – this woman who glided like a bright angel over the dark sand? He stretched soundlessly and hurried back to the manse. His eyes were misty with shame and humiliation for this lurid desire which had overcome him – this passion for an unknown and otherworldly woman. A woman he had never known.

  Lizzie felt clean and calm and she was once again convinced of her youth. She had reclaimed a place of her own, and by becoming individual she was once again human. Her teeth were chattering in the cold and she hurried back to the manse. As she slipped under the sheets her husband turned to her and kissed the salt from her freezing lips. His hands slipped under her damp nightgown and rubbed heat back into her body until she shivered from more than the cold. She clung to his lips and drank him down. As the August moon rose over the summit of Conachair the rekindled flare of love brought them together in sharp pain and hot, sweet beauty.

  Later, as he slept, spent and fulfilled, Lizzie listened to the whispers of all the days of light and darkness that lay ahead of them on this island.

  3

  AUGUST 1834 – CHANGE

  The little girl was turning slowly in a falling whiteness. She looked down at her feet, which were covered in a drift of light. All around her soft frost was lifting and falling, whirling and dancing in the breeze. This was very different from the world the child had known so far – a world of contrasts and seasons – light and dark, even and perpendicular, sile
nt and roaring. Here was only one aspect but the girl was not afraid as feathers of snowy white settled on her dress and turned hot summer to winter. Wonder had only just awakened in her along with the recognition of beauty, the power of expression and the ability to move freely, to run down a hill through budding cowslips or climb the high back of her father’s armchair. If there were sounds around her she did not hear them: the world was as silent as a storm in a fairy-tale snow globe. Only she understood that this was something important – that this was all at once and nothing at all.

  There was a movement nearby and then there were arms around her as somebody stooped to pick her up. Noise came back to her as if she had surfaced from under water. There was light and joy as she went up through the air which was thick and white and made her want to sneeze. As she was carried away the child buried her face in the warm, musky smell of a girl who was turning into a young woman. She was perfectly happy.

  It was the third week of August and the fulmar harvest was at its peak. Women and children were plucking tens of thousands of birds in order to salt them into barrels for the winter. Bundles of live birds, tied together and awaiting their fate, hung from hooks on the walls. Feathers covered the hamlet and made it look like a perfect watercolour of a wintery Alpine landscape.

  ‘Betty, Betty, where are you, girl? Hurry. I will be late!’ A woman’s voice cut through the babble of birds.

  ‘Yes, ma’am. Sorry, ma’am. I took Eliza to see all the feathers,’ cried the young woman breathlessly as she was still carrying the child in her arms.

  ‘For pity’s sake, Betty, don’t call me ma’am – it makes me feel old!’ cried the woman, who could not get used to having a servant.

  ‘Yes, Mrs MacKenzie, I am sorry.’ Betty managed to look rather downcast, but she was not sorry; she was a cheerful girl and rebuke ran off her like water off the wings of a solan goose.

  Mrs MacKenzie laughed. ‘I am sure you managed to see young Calum MacDonald while Eliza played with the feathers?’

  Betty blushed and looked at her naked feet. ‘Calum was trying to teach Dog to sniff for puffins.’

  ‘Ah, was he now . . . ? Well, I am sure that was not very successful,’ Mrs MacKenzie muttered mockingly, and looked down on the dog, which pricked up its ears on hearing the name which had not really been given to it. Dog looked slightly bewildered – seabirds frightened him, and he placed his paws delicately wherever he went.

  ‘Oh, Mrs MacKenzie, everyone is so frightfully excited, what with the fulmar harvest and the ship and the gentlefolk and all!’ Betty, it seemed, was most excited of all. She had never used any form of the word frightful before, but she thought it was appropriate under the circumstances.

  Mrs MacKenzie smiled at the maid and kissed her daughter Eliza, who was nearly two years old. Eliza’s younger brother, James Bannatyne, had been born in December the previous year. He was sitting like a tiny Buddha on a blanket in the manse garden, pulling the petals of a meadowsweet in clumsy tufts. His chubby hands continued to tear at the soft flowers. The boy had been entrusted with a name which demanded something of him; it suggested that greatness was expected of him. He was the firstborn boy in the family, but throughout his life, as his many brothers and sisters were born and grew into single beings, he would have the feeling that there had been one before him against whom he was constantly measured. He listened carefully for hints that might reveal the secret to his origin and purpose, and as he grew and matured he searched for his lost brother in the lines around his mother’s mouth and behind the grief that would sometimes show in the dark depths of his father’s eyes.

  Both children were remarkably healthy, and life in the manse was busy and noisy where only a few years back it had been still and silent. Lizzie would often stand over the children’s beds at night and listen to their breathing – Eliza’s was barely audible, whereas James Bannatyne’s came in little staccato sighs. Soft and untroubled dreams would pass over their sleeping faces like the midday breeze across the sea. At such times she would occasionally be overcome by the familiar terror which had possessed her throughout the pregnancies – the fear that the fate of the island had somehow marked the growing life in her womb. While carrying Eliza her nerves had been so raw that she could not sleep or eat for days and nights on end. Back then MacKenzie had had little patience with her. Once he’d said, ‘The baby will live, Lizzie, you must have faith.’ ‘But how can you be so certain?’ she had asked quickly, lacking the breath to amplify the words. ‘Oh, I am redeemed, my dear. There is nothing to worry about. Just remember to pray.’ He had laughed as if she was a child unable to take instructions, and stooped to kiss her on the forehead. But despite herself she had felt her body stiffen. Blushing, she had wished him away, for he suddenly repulsed her.

  The taxman had brought young Betty Scott from the laird’s fishing station at Lochinver a couple of years previously. The fisheries had been established to accommodate the Highlanders who had been cleared from the lands of the Duchess of Sutherland. Those who refused to take up the new livelihood were forced to emigrate. But soon the fishing stations were overpopulated and there was poverty more miserable than ever before. The laird’s factor tried to control the population increase by deciding who could marry whom, and when. It was the factor who had decided that Betty should go to St Kilda, and Betty’s father had agreed. She had no future in Lochinver, and Betty was a practical girl – a job was a job, even though it meant that she would not see her family and friends for a long time. The girl, who spoke both Gaelic and English, was easy-going and strong, and Lizzie had grown very fond of her. Her features betrayed her Highland ancestry. Her soft ginger hair and chubby cheeks had been passed down generation after generation since her kinsmen first drove their cattle into the hills. She had inherited strong arms and an independent spirit. That she should now be a maidservant was only a twist of fate, and she knew in her heart that she would soon be mistress of her own home.

  ‘I need you to help me look after the children for a few hours. Mr MacKenzie and I have been invited to dine with Sir Thomas and Lady Lydia aboard the schooner.’ Mrs MacKenzie’s cheeks wore the roses of a young girl’s and her eyes were shining for the company that she would soon keep.

  ‘Oh, Mrs MacKenzie!’ There might have been tears in Betty’s eyes if only she had been a little less practically inclined and a little more experienced in romance. ‘How wonderful!’

  The elegant schooner was anchored in Village Bay. It was the grandest ship the natives had ever seen, and their pride and amazement knew no boundaries when they were told that it had been named after their island and that it was written clearly in gold letters on the aft: the Lady of St Kilda. The schooner was the property of Sir Thomas Dyke Acland, a rich landowner from Devon and a Member of Parliament. Sixteen years previously, as a young, newly wed couple, Sir Thomas and his wife Lydia had visited St Kilda on a hired boat while they were travelling around the Highlands and Islands of Scotland in search of the sublime. Some of the natives remembered the gentleman’s visit; he had drawn sketches of their dwellings and of the lofty, dark peaks around Village Bay. On acquiring the Lady of St Kilda, which was actually named after his wife, whom he assumed had been the first real Lady ever to set foot on St Kilda, Sir Thomas had decided that its maiden voyage should be to the island that had so impressed him in his youth. Lady Lydia, of whom it was said amongst the higher society of the West Country that she had an interesting and adventurous soul, had been only too pleased to accompany her husband on the journey. Audacious voyaging was not altogether agreeable, of course, but Lady Lydia was apt at putting certain things and events to one side in her mind. The episode with the rampant ram in Loch Awe was one such incident, which she had of course forgotten. She had got rid of the contemptuous dress she had worn that day and never thought of it again. She was convinced that her rare ability made her a superior traveller, and as travel was in itself an embodiment of the ideological appara
tus of Empire, it was suitable for her class.