by Peter May
“Come on, we’d better go inside and get you dried off.”
She wants me to go in off the deck. But I don’t want to go back to the Smoke Room. It’s even worse than steerage. All these men smoking, and the stink of stale beer. I’ll throw up again if I have to sit in there on those worn old leather benches with no air to breathe.
Oh, there’s a bed here. I didn’t realize they had cabins on board. She wants to take off my wet trousers, but I’m not having any of it. I push her away. “Stop that!” It’s not the done thing. A man has a right to his dignity.
“Oh, Dad, you can’t sit here in wet clothes. You’ll catch your death.”
I shake my head and feel the rolling of the boat beneath me. “How long have we been at sea now, Catherine?”
She looks at me so strangely.
“What boat is it we’re on, Dad?”
“The RMS Claymore. Not a name I’m ever likely to forget. First boat I ever was on.”
“And where are we sailing to?”
Who knows? It’s almost dark now, and we left the mainland behind us so long ago. I never knew Scotland was so big. We’ve been travelling for days. “I heard someone in the Saloon talking about Big Kenneth.”
“Is that someone you know?”
“No. Never heard of him.”
She sits down beside me now and takes my hand. I don’t know why she’s crying. I’ll look after her. I’ll look after both of them. I’m the eldest, so it’s my responsibility.
“Oh, Dad . . .” she says.
It was on the second day after Patrick’s fall that the priest came. Matron told us to pack up our things, not that we had much. We were waiting for him at the top of the steps when the big black car drew up. Me, Peter and Catherine. The place was deserted, because all the other kids were back at school again. There was no sign of Mr. Anderson, and we never did see him again. Which didn’t break my heart.
The priest was a small man, an inch or so shorter than me, and almost completely bald on the top of his head. But he had grown his remaining hair long at one side and combed it over to the other, plastering it down with oil or Brylcreem or something of that sort. I suppose he imagined it hid the fact that he was bald, but really it just looked silly. I have since learned never to trust men with comb-overs. They have absolutely no judgement.
He wasn’t very impressive, and seemed a little nervous. Much more daunting were the two nuns who accompanied him. Both were taller than him, eagle-eyed, unsmiling, middle-aged ladies in black skirts and severe white coifs. One sat in the front with the priest, who was driving, and the other was squeezed into the back with us, right next to me. So intimidated by her was I, and so anxious not to press against her bony body, that I barely noticed The Dean disappearing behind us. It was only at the last that I turned, and saw its empty bell towers for the last time before it vanished behind the trees.
The priest’s car bumped and rattled its way over the cobbles, around tree-filled circuses, and broad avenues lined by smoke-stained tenements. Snow still lay in patches, blackened by the traffic where it had piled up at the sides of the road. None of us dared speak, sitting silently among God’s representatives on earth, watching an alien world pass by us in a wintry blur.
I have no idea where they took us. Somewhere on the south side of the city, I think. We arrived at a large house set back behind naked trees, and a lawn where leaves lay in drifts among the snow. Inside it was warmer, more welcoming than The Dean. I had never been in a house like this in my life. Polished wood panelling and chandeliers, flock wallpaper and shiny tiled floors. We were led up carpeted stairs to where Peter and I were put in one room, and Catherine in another. Silk sheets and the scent of rosewater.
“Where are we going, Johnny?” Peter had asked me several times, but I had no answer for him. We had, it seemed, no rights, human or otherwise. We were goods and chattels. Just kids with no parents, and no place to call home. You’d think we would have been used to it by now. But you never are. You only have to look around you, and life will always remind you that you are not like others. I’d have given anything right then for the touch of my mother’s fingers on my face, her warm gentle lips on my forehead, her voice breathing softly in my ear to tell me that everything was going to be all right. But she was long gone, and in my heart of hearts I knew that everything would not be all right. Not that I was going to tell Peter that.
“We’ll see,” I said to him on the umpteenth time of asking. “Don’t worry, I’ll look after us.”
We were kept in those rooms for the rest of the day and only allowed out to go to the toilet. That night we were led downstairs to a large dining room where the walls were lined with many coloured books, and a long, shiny dining table ran from a bay window at one end to double doors at the other.
There were three places set at one end, and the nun who had brought us down said, “Keep your fingers off the table. If I find a single mark on it you will all be beaten.”
I was almost frightened to eat my soup in case it spilled or splashed on the table top. We had one slice of buttered bread each with our soup, and afterwards a slice of ham with cold boiled potatoes. Water was provided in heavy-bottomed glasses, and when we were finished we were marched back upstairs.
It was a long, restless night, Peter and I curled up together in one bed. He slept within minutes of us slipping beneath the covers. But I lay awake for a long, long time. There was a light beneath our door, and occasionally I heard the sound of distant voices, low and conspiratorial, talking somewhere deep in the house, before finally I drifted off into a shallow slumber.
The next morning we were up at first light, and bundled back into the big black car. No breakfast, no time to wash. This time we took a different route through town, and I had no idea where we were until I saw the castle away to our right, and the houses that piled up high above The Mound. We drove down a steep ramp on to a large concourse lit by a glass roof supported on an elaborate framework of metal struts. Steam trains stood chuffing impatiently at platforms along the far side of the concourse, and the nuns led us hurriedly through the crowds, almost running, to show our tickets to the guard at the gate before climbing aboard to find our seats in a six-person compartment off a long corridor. We were joined by a man in a dark suit and bowler hat, who seemed ill at ease in the presence of the nuns, and sat uncomfortably with his hat on his knees.
It was the first time I had been on a train, and in spite of everything, I felt quite excited. I could see that Peter was, too. We were glued to the window for the whole journey, watching the city give way to rolling green countryside, stopping at smaller stations with exotic names like Linlithgow and Falkirk, before another city grew up out of the earth. An altogether different city. Black with industrial pollution. Factory chimneys belching bile into a sulphurous sky. A long, dark tunnel, then the roar of the steam engine in the confined space of the station as we pulled into the platform at Queen Street in Glasgow, the screech of metal on metal ringing in our ears.
Several times I had glanced at Catherine, trying to catch her eye, but she had steadfastly refused to meet mine, staring at her hands in her lap in front of her, never once glancing from the window. I had no way to read what was going on in her head, but sensed her fear. Even at that age I knew that girls had much more to be afraid of in this world than boys.
We sat waiting for nearly two hours at Queen Street before boarding another train. A train that took us north this time and further west, through the most spectacular countryside I had ever seen. Snow-capped mountains, and bridges spanning crystal-clear tumbling waters, vast forests and viaducts over gorges and lochs. I can remember seeing one tiny whitewashed cottage in the middle of nowhere, mountain peaks rising up all around it. And I wondered who on earth lived in a place like that. It might as well have been on the moon.
It was getting dark by the time we arrived in the west coast port of Oban. It was a pretty town, with the houses painted in different colours, and a huge fishing fleet berthe
d at the quayside. The first time I’d seen the sea. The bay was ringed by hills, and a vast stone cathedral stood on the shore looking out over waters turned blood-red by the setting sun.
We spent the night in a house not far from the cathedral. There was another priest there. But he didn’t speak to us. A housekeeper led us to two rooms up in the attic. Tiny rooms with dormer windows in the slope of the roof. All we’d had to eat all day were sandwiches on the train, and a bowl of soup when we arrived. I could hear my stomach growling as I lay in bed, keeping me awake. If Peter heard me, it didn’t affect him. He slept like a baby, as he always did. But I couldn’t get Catherine out of my mind.
I waited until after midnight, when all the lights went off in the house, before getting quietly out of bed. For a long time I stood at the door, straining to hear the slightest sound, before opening it and slipping out into the hall. Catherine’s room was just a few paces away. I hesitated outside her door, listening to what sounded awfully like stifled sobs coming from the other side of it, and I had a feeling of sick anticipation rising from my stomach. She was a real hard case, was wee Catherine. If something had reduced her to tears then it had to be bad. I had never seen her cry once in the year I’d known her, except for that time in the moonlight on the roof of The Dean. But I’m sure she didn’t know I’d noticed that.
I turned the handle and ducked quickly inside. Almost immediately the bedside light came on. Catherine was sitting up in the bed, her back against the headboard, knees drawn up to her chest, and a hand mirror from the dresser raised up in her right hand like a weapon. Her eyes were black with fear, her face the colour of the sheets.
“For God’s sake, Catherine, what are you doing?”
Her relief at seeing me almost overwhelmed her. She allowed her hand to fall to the bed again and let go of the mirror. I could see her lower lip trembling, her tear-stained cheeks catching the light from the lamp. I crossed the room and slipped on to the bed beside her, and she turned her face into my shoulder to choke off her sobs, her arm across my chest, holding on to me like a child. I slipped my arm around her shoulder.
“Hey girl. It’s okay. I’m here. What can be so bad?”
It took a long time for her to find her voice and trust herself to speak. “That dirty fucking priest!”
I frowned, not yet understanding. How naïve I was. “The one with the comb-over?”
She nodded, her face still pushed into my shoulder. “He came into my room last night. He said he thought I might need a little comfort . . . given the circumstances.”
“And?”
“And what?”
“What happened?”
She turned her head up to look at me now in disbelief. “What the fuck do you think?”
And it dawned on me.
At first I was shocked, that a priest of all people might do something like that. Then incensed that he had. And then almost overcome by the most powerful physical and mental urge to kick the living shit out of him. And I think, had he been there I would, and could, have killed him.
“Oh shit, Cathy,” was all I could say.
She buried her face in my shoulder again. “I thought the other one was coming for the same thing. I’m scared, Johnny. I don’t want anyone to touch me again, ever.”
“No one will,” I said. And all I could feel was anger and outrage.
I sat with her all night that night. There was no more talking. I felt her finally drift off to sleep after about an hour, and her body became a dead weight against mine.
We never ever spoke of it again.
The RMS Claymore left from the big pier the next morning. The nuns walked us through the town to the waiting room at the ferry terminal. Peter and I had one small cardboard suitcase between us, which I carried. Catherine had a tashed canvas holdall that she slung carelessly over her shoulder, as if train rides and ferries were everyday fare.
It wasn’t until we got to the pier that I realized we were going on the boat, and that the nuns weren’t coming with us. That came as a bit of a shock. The presence of the nuns these last two days, cold black shadows though they’d been, had provided a sense of safety and purpose. The thought of setting sail on this big boat that smelled of oil and salt water, all alone and with no idea of where we were going, filled me with an unaccountable dread.
While one of them stood aloof and silent, the other lined us up in the terminal and knelt down in front of us. Her face seemed softer, somehow, than at any time since they had picked us up from The Dean. She almost smiled, and I saw something that looked close to sympathy in her eyes. From somewhere beneath her skirts she drew out three pieces of card, about nine inches by six. They each had a loop of string hanging from the top edge, just like the notice we’d fashioned to hang around Peter’s neck when we were pretending he was blind. The ones she gave to me and Peter had the name GILLIES scrawled on them in bold black letters. Catherine’s read O’HENLEY.
“When you get off the boat,” she said, “put these around your necks and wait on the quayside. Someone will be there to meet you.”
Finally I summoned the courage to ask the question that Peter had been demanding of me for the last two days. “Where are we going?”
Her face darkened, as if a cloud had passed overhead and cast a shadow on it. “It doesn’t matter. Just stay off the deck. The sea can get rough out there.”
She gave us our tickets then, and stood up, and we were shepherded through crowds of people on to the pier and up a steep gangplank to the deck. The Claymore had one big red funnel with a strip of black around the top, and lifeboats mounted on winches on either side of the stern. Folk gathered at the rail, pressing and pushing, to wave goodbye to friends and relatives as the ship’s horn sounded and the thump of her motors came up through the deck, vibrating through our bodies. But the nuns didn’t wait to wave us off. I saw their black skirts and white headgear as they walked back towards the terminal building. I’ve often wondered if they turned their backs to us because they couldn’t bear to face us, afraid that somewhere deep inside of them, some long-buried spark of humanity might have pricked their conscience.
Desolate is how I felt in that first hour as the boat slid out across the grey waters of the bay, leaving a pale emerald trail in its wake, seagulls wheeling and cawing all around the masts like so many scraps of white paper flung into the wind. We became aware for the first time of the swell of the ocean, and watched the mainland retreating behind us. Until, in time, the green of the hills became smudged and distant, before vanishing altogether. And all that we saw around us was the sea rising and falling, with no idea of where we were going or when we would get there. Or what might be waiting for us when we arrived.
In the years to come I learned about the Clearances. How, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, absentee landlords, encouraged by the government in London, cleared the people off the land to make way for sheep. Tens of thousands of crofters evicted from their homes and forced aboard boats that took them off to the new world where many had been pre-sold, almost as slaves. I know now how they must have felt as they saw their homes and their country vanish in the haze, with nothing ahead of them but mounting seas and a hopeless uncertainty.
I looked then at my little brother, clinging on to the rail and staring back, the salt-filled wind dragging at his clothes and raking through his hair, and I almost envied him his innocence, his lack of awareness. There was a look in his face almost like exhilaration. He had nothing to fear, because he knew beyond any shadow of a doubt that his big brother would look after him. For the first time I felt almost crushed by the weight of that responsibility.
Maybe Catherine saw it, too. I caught her looking at me, and a little half-smile stretched her lips before her hand slipped into mine, and I cannot begin to describe the comfort and warmth of that little hand in mine.
The nuns had given us a box of sandwiches which we ate quite quickly, and within an hour had thrown up again. As all trace of land vanished, so the wind had whipped i
tself into a fury, and the sea with it. The big black-and-white painted tub that was the Claymore ploughed through white-topped waves, spray breaking over her bow to carry on the wind and soak anyone who ventured out on deck.
And so we took it in turns to throw up in the toilet off the non-smoking lounge where we had managed to bag ourselves some seats by a rain-streaked window, and where people smoked anyway, and drank beer, and in a language we didn’t understand shouted to be heard above the thud of the motors.
Sometimes in the distance we would see the blurry outline of some island come briefly into focus before vanishing again beyond the waves. Each time wondering if that was where we were headed. Hoping beyond hope that this nightmare was coming to an end. But it never did. Or so it seemed. Hour after hour we endured it. Wind and rain and sea, stomachs retching, with nothing more to give up but green bile. I am not sure that I have ever felt quite so miserable in my life.
We had left early that morning. And by now, late afternoon, it was starting to get dark. Mercifully the sea had calmed a little, and the approach of night offered the promise of smoother passage. Which was when I heard someone shouting, in English this time, that they could see Ben Kenneth, and everyone rushed on to the deck amid great excitement.
We went too, expecting to see someone called Kenneth, but if he was there among the crowd it was impossible to tell. It was only much later that I learned that Kenneth, or Coinneach in the Gaelic, was the name of the mountain that sheltered the harbour whose twinkling lights we saw for the first time emerging from the dusk.
The land rose darkly all around the town, and along the horizon lay a single line of bright silver light. The last of the day. Wherever we were, it was where we were going, and there was a great sense of anticipation among the other passengers.
A voice came over the Tannoy. “Will those passengers who are disembarking and have not yet purchased a ticket please make their way to the purser’s office.” There was a clanging of bells, and the deep, sonorous moan of the ship’s horn, as she came in to dock at the pier. Deckhands with mops and buckets were sloshing water over salt-caked planking as families gathered with suitcases to watch as a gangplank was manoeuvred into place.
