The Wind from the Sea

by Mark Neilson

  Over a long, lean spell, outside businessmen tended to sell on their shares: if the family couldn’t buy them back, then the bank might step in and buy another share, or several other shares. Each new purchase giving it a stronger voice in the running of the ship. Until it effectively owned it, and could sell it to recoup the debt.

  Eric took another gulp of tea. ‘When Donald Christie offered us his two shares last year, we couldn’t afford them. So the bank stepped in, and took over his investment.’

  ‘How many shares do they hold now?’ Neil asked. Thinking that it should be himself who was carrying the worry of finances, not his father.

  ‘Five.’ Eric’s answer was clipped.

  Neil pulled a face. The family held seven between them.

  ‘We can always buy them back,’ argued Andy.

  Eric stared at him. ‘With what?’ he asked. ‘Unless you bring up a treasure chest in your nets, we can only pay a dividend. That’s why it’s so important we have a good season. We have to make a big enough surplus to get them off our backs.’

  ‘If the other boats are no better off, then there’s a limit to what the banks can do,’ Neil argued. ‘They won’t force you to sell the Endeavour.’

  ‘Some of the boys coming back from the war might fancy having a go at being skippers. Then borrow the money to buy their boat,’ said Eric. ‘That’s always been the way, in the fishing industry. New lads take a gamble on themselves. While the banks are glad to sell boats that aren’t making money.’

  He stood up, abruptly. ‘We have to keep costs to a minimum. If repair work can be postponed until next year, then it will be. We must make a good surplus this season. Buy time. Worry about the cost of the repairs next year.’

  ‘The work on the boiler had to be done,’ exploded Andy.

  Eric nodded. ‘Therefore it was. When are you putting out to sea again?’

  Andy frowned. ‘We need to stock up with provisions, load coal, water, all the usual stuff. Day after tomorrow.’

  ‘Where are you heading?’

  ‘We’ve missed the Wick fishing,’ said Andy. ‘Better to head east and south, and work off Fraserburgh and Aberdeen for a bit. Get south of the shoals. Be waiting for them, not chasing after them, like we were in Orkney.’

  Eric nodded. ‘That’s what I’d do, myself.’ He pushed the empty mug towards Neil, a twinkle in his eye. ‘Here’s some dishes for you to wash,’ he said.

  Neil grinned. ‘My fingernails have never been so clean,’ he said.

  The old skipper headed out, sniffing the harbour air. ‘Weather’s going to break,’ he judged.

  ‘It’s all one to us,’ said Andy. He left his empty mug on the table. ‘I think I’ll take a turn through the town. See if I can find Mary Cowie. Take her out for tea at the hotel.’

  ‘Bring her home, and save your money,’ Eric advised. ‘You’ve been doing a fair bit of chasing after that Cowie quine?’

  Andy shrugged. ‘God put women on earth for men to chase,’ he said. Then climbed limberly up the rusting hoops of the quay ladder.

  Eric watched him go. ‘Will he ever settle down?’ he sighed.

  ‘He could do worse than Mary Cowie,’ Neil said quietly.

  Eric’s pipe had gone out. He took it from his mouth and stared at it. Then his shrewd blue eyes looked up from under iron-grey eyebrows. ‘What about you, my loon?’ he asked quietly. ‘When will you find a quine, and settle down?’ After Chrissie had raised the idea, he’d found that it wouldn’t go away.

  ‘Me?’ Neil snorted. ‘The mess I’m in, what woman would have me now?’

  Eric started searching for his matches again.

  ‘That’s for you to wonder, and her to say,’ he replied mildly.

  ‘Are you sure you can’t come with me?’ Andy demanded.

  ‘Absolutely,’ Mary replied. ‘I’ve been working all morning at the cottage hospital. Aggie and me are heading back there now.’

  ‘What’s up?’ he asked. ‘Has an epidemic broken out?’

  ‘Not yet,’ said Mary. A touch grimly.

  Andy shrugged. ‘Ah well,’ he said. ‘One woman’s misfortune is another’s good fortune.’ He smiled at Elsie, who was visiting Chrissie. ‘Can you drink tea with your pinky up in the air?’ he asked.

  ‘Indeed I can,’ she answered calmly.

  Although her heart was beating all over the place.

  ‘Then come on,’ Andy ordered, rather than invited. ‘I’ll treat you to scones and tea at the hotel.’

  ‘Listen to him!’ said Aggie. ‘Buckie’s answer to Andrew Carnegie …’

  ‘You’re just jealous I asked Elsie first.’

  ‘More like relieved,’ Aggie replied.

  Andy grinned: he had a good sense of humour. With women, anyway.

  They watched the young couple stride off towards the town. ‘They look the part,’ observed Mary. ‘But he’ll lead her a merry dance. Are you ready then?’

  ‘Just about,’ said Aggie. ‘Wait till I kiss the Wee Man goodbye.’

  They trudged up towards the cottage hospital. The sky was full of racing high grey clouds, the westerly wind blustery. Mary breathed deeply and contentedly: it was these wild, wind-torn skies that she had missed down south.

  ‘What does Jonathon say about this?’ Aggie asked suddenly.

  ‘About you coming?’

  ‘About us scrubbing out his hospital.’

  ‘He doesn’t know.’ Mary had only decided this morning that she could suffer the dust and cobwebs no longer. Things had been neglected: none of the matrons she had worked for would have tolerated it. Dirt in the wards, or the theatre, was an infection waiting to happen.

  When she’d challenged the young nurse, the woman had bristled: the place was swept out twice a week. Not good enough, Mary thought. Even if dealing with the problem herself was going to make an enemy for life, she could live with that.

  They reached the cottage hospital, and Mary went in through the back door to the kitchen. With Aggie hesitant behind her, she searched the cupboards for pails and scrubbing brushes. There were pails to spare, but only one good scrubbing brush – the other looked as if it had been used by Mrs Noah, after the flood.

  ‘I’d be better with the mop,’ Aggie judged.

  ‘If you mop the floors, I’ll take the scrubbing brush and do the corners. And the surfaces and the beds need a wipe-down with disinfectant in the water.’

  Aggie rolled up her sleeves. ‘Where do we start?’ she asked.

  ‘In the theatre.’ Mary saw Aggie’s face. ‘Relax, there’s nobody in it.’

  ‘What about the man who was hurt in the boatyard?’

  ‘He’s through in the men’s ward. I changed his dressing today. He’s coming along fine – he was trying to learn how to play cards one-handed when I saw him last.’ Mary frowned. Operating tables and equipment would be threatening to anyone who hadn’t worked with them on a daily basis. Plus it was crucial that these should be absolutely sterile. Therefore better if she did them herself.

  ‘You do the floor of the theatre, and I’ll do the rest,’ she decided.

  It took an hour of solid work. Then they moved into the main women’s ward, where only two beds were occupied. They pushed the other beds into the middle of the floor, and Aggie volunteered to make a cup of tea for the invalids, while Mary started scrubbing.

  She was blowing hair away from her hot face, when Jonathon came in.

  A startled silence, when he saw her on hands and knees.

  ‘What are you doing down there?’ he demanded.

  ‘Giving the place a proper clean-out,’ she replied. ‘The first step in good nursing. When did your last nurse leave?’

  ‘Six weeks ago.’

  ‘It looks like it.’

  Jonathon coloured. He’d been meaning to chivvy the young nurse into doing a better job. Then, in the pressure of work, he had forgotten. The other nurse had made sure the place was spotless for him. He’d never had to think of it before.

&nbs
p; Aggie came in with a tray of teacups.

  ‘Typical!’ she snorted. ‘Make a cup of tea, and men come out of hiding.’

  ‘You too!’ he exclaimed. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘Clearing up the mess you’ve made,’ she said. ‘Mary brought me here to help her. I’m her apprentice.’

  ‘And you’re starting by making tea?’

  ‘We’ve all got to start somewhere.’

  ‘Then where’s my cup?’

  She made a great pretence of checking a list. ‘I don’t have your order,’ she said. ‘But I see your name down here for the washing up.’

  ‘That’s all I’m fit for,’ he mourned. ‘Where’s Julie?’

  ‘Through in the men’s ward,’ said Mary over her shoulder, working away.

  ‘I’ll go and get her,’ Jonathon said.

  Aggie sighed. ‘So that’s two more cups of tea?’

  ‘Just one,’ he replied quietly. ‘I want her to see what she should be doing – then down on her hands and knees, and doing it too. If she’s going to learn the job of nursing, how better than by working with experts?’

  ‘Am I included as an expert?’ Aggie asked hopefully.

  ‘I’ll tell you once I’ve tasted your tea,’ he said.

  *

  For once, the northern sun shone from a cloudless sky, and a shimmering heat haze danced over Buckie. Jonathon was setting out for Strathlene, all windows open in his tiny car to create a much-needed breeze.

  At the far end of town, he saw a young woman walking along the dusty road, with a tiny child in tow. Aggie. Slowing down, he stopped alongside.

  ‘Where are you walking to this time?’ he asked.

  ‘Wee Tommy was restless. I’m taking him to the beach.’

  ‘At Strathlene?’

  She nodded.

  Only a shingle and boulder beach, he thought. He could do better than that – repay her for the work she had done at the hospital.

  ‘Hop in,’ he said. The words were only half out his mouth, when the child had bolted into the back seat.

  ‘The wee devil,’ sighed Aggie. ‘I thought I had him in a proper grip.’ She opened the door. ‘You’re getting him far too used to travelling in comfort.’

  ‘Boys love anything mechanical,’ he said. ‘In my day, it was steam trains.’

  ‘I thought it was Roman chariots,’ she teased.

  ‘Oh, them too,’ he laughed.

  ‘Where are you heading?’ she asked.

  ‘To see a patient. I’m quiet, today. So, how about me taking the rest of the afternoon off, and going for a run to Cullen? A proper sandy beach for Tommy to play on?’

  ‘I couldn’t possibly,’ Aggie demurred.

  ‘Why not? If he gets stung by a jellyfish or nipped by a crab, you have your own physician waiting. What more could you ask?’

  Not much, thought Aggie. ‘But my mother’s expecting me back …’ she said.

  ‘Not for hours, if you were walking to Strathlene. I’ll drive you home, in good time. What do you say to it, Tommy?’

  ‘Yes!’ The little boy bounced up and down in the back seat.

  ‘Yes, please,’ reprimanded his mother.

  ‘You’re outvoted, two to one,’ laughed Jonathon.

  ‘Why do men always stick together?’ lamented Aggie.

  It was the start of a near-perfect afternoon. They waited for twenty minutes while Jonathon visited his patient, then drove through Findochty and Portknockie, the two fishing villages on the road to Cullen. There, he parked the car underneath the railway viaduct, and they turned Tommy loose on the sandy beach.

  The small boy ran, tumbled, got up covered in sand and ran again. Was into the water before his mother could swoop down on him and take off socks and shoes: but these dried in her hands as they walked along.

  ‘I’ve never really played at the shore,’ she sighed. ‘The sea always meant work for me. From collecting mussels to baiting my father’s longlines, when I got home from school, to following the herring as a gutter quine after that. We never had time to play … Look at him, dragging that dead seaweed through the edges of the waves. He’ll be soaking wet, when we get him back the car.’

  The sun was warm on their backs. They sat down, watching the child.

  She turned, smiling. ‘You’re teaching me to be idle, Jonathon.’

  ‘You’re giving me an excuse to hide from my patients,’ he said. ‘I’m enjoying this break as much as you – which is half as much as he’s doing.’ He took out his pocket watch. ‘Let’s give him another half hour. Then we can go up to the Cullen Hotel for a pot of tea.’

  ‘I’m not dressed for it,’ Aggie protested. ‘Besides, he’ll leave a trail of seawater and sand.’

  ‘It’s a holiday town,’ he laughed. ‘They’re used to it.’

  Later, in the hotel, they sat sipping tea. The cake stand the waitress had placed in front of them had been emptied. Two cakes for Tommy, two for Jonathon to encourage the child, and one for herself – until she decided to make it two all round. It wasn’t a day for half measures, Aggie decided.

  She glanced around the posh tearoom. They looked just like any other family in the place, she thought. It was a thought which made her unreasonably happy.

  ‘It’s been a perfect day,’ she said.

  Jonathon shrugged. ‘Look on it as wages-in-kind,’ he said. ‘A thank you, for all the work you and Mary did in cleaning the hospital. More tea?’

  She shook her head. Jonathon poured himself another cup.

  ‘She’s quite a girl, that Mary Cowie of yours,’ he said cheerfully.

  Aggie’s smile froze.

  ‘It’s not often you get all these qualities in a woman,’ he continued. ‘Obvious intelligence, ability to make her own decisions – and a wealth of nursing experience which both the town and myself could use.’

  He sipped his tea. ‘You should have seen her, during that amputation. So calm, so much in control. Watching the patient, anticipating whatever I needed – steering me like one of her famous lady surgeons would have done. I drew on her strength. I owe her a huge debt of thanks.’

  ‘Mary’s one of the best,’ Aggie said. Her voice dead.

  ‘She’s absolutely wasted as a gutter quine – no offence, Aggie.’

  ‘None taken.’

  But there was. His unthinking comment left a deep and silent hurt.

  Jonathon checked his pocket watch. ‘Well, we had better be getting back, or your mother will be wondering where you are,’ he said.

  They drove home in silence, the child asleep in the back, Aggie retreating deep into herself, and Jonathon relaxed and happy as he drove home.

  ‘We must do that again,’ he said, when he dropped them off, and lifted the sleeping child onto his mother’s shoulder.

  ‘Thanks. It was a wonderful day,’ said Aggie. Forcing a smile.

  There was something in that smile or the tone of her voice which made him stare, puzzled, after her.

  Aggie brushed past her mother. ‘I’ll put the bairn to bed,’ she said. Fighting back tears that wanted to come, no matter how she suppressed them.

  Chrissie stood in the doorway, waving goodbye to Jonathon. Then turned, frowning down the empty hallway. All her instincts on red alert: something had happened. Something which had hurt her daughter deeply. It couldn’t be Jonathon – he would never hurt Aggie. They had been friends from childhood: thick as thieves. The two of them had scarcely ever fallen out.

  Unless. Chrissie’s mind leapt to a possibility, a conclusion.

  She sighed. That would never happen. Firstly, Jonathon came from a totally different world to the one they lived in. Secondly, and worse, she suspected that her lonely daughter had just discovered the widow’s curse. The thing that happens when, no matter how young you are, or how bonny, the man looks past you and sees the child at your skirts. Then, often without even realizing it, feels unable to clear the final hurdle. The one which involves taking into his own name a child which another ma
n has fathered.

  ‘I’ll put the kettle on,’ she called up the stairs. To silence.

  Mary shivered. They were waiting for the morning train to Aberdeen, and a cold haar from the sea was drifting over the station platform.

  ‘This is worse than Orkney,’ Elsie said. Putting a brave face on things, trying to block out of her mind that she was leaving home for four or five weeks.

  Aggie said nothing. Mary had never known her so quiet. Was it worry about leaving young Tommy behind?

  ‘We’ll soon be back,’ she encouraged. ‘Aberdeen’s the nearest place we’ll ever work. You can nip back for a weekend, if you can beg a lift.’

  ‘Can we do that?’ Elsie asked eagerly.

  ‘If you’re lucky. Sometimes a crew steams home to their families on Saturday, then heads back to Aberdeen over Sunday night.’

  ‘I wonder if Andy will do that?’ Elsie said.

  ‘Don’t throw yourself at him,’ warned Mary.

  ‘Don’t throw yourself at any man,’ Aggie said darkly.

  It was the first time she had spoken. Mary looked at her, surprised.

  Through the mist streaming past the station building, they heard a car door slam. Someone else catching the early train. Jonathon came through the station doors, rubbing his hands.

  ‘Good,’ he said. ‘I was scared I’d missed you.’

  ‘Are you going to Aberdeen too?’ Mary asked.

  ‘Too busy for day trips. I came to see you off, and thank you for the work you’ve done at the hospital. I don’t know how we’ll cope, with you away.’ He turned to Aggie. ‘Nobody has insulted me for two whole weeks. Where have you been?’

  She shrugged. ‘Busy.’

  ‘Was Tommy any the worse for his soaking in the sea?’

  ‘He was fine.’

  ‘A great day that,’ said Jonathon.

  But his eyes and voice were troubled. Something had gone badly wrong. He sensed it but, like most men, had no idea of what he’d done to cause it. Therefore he didn’t know what to say, to put it right. He hated this awkwardness. For the first time ever, there was an invisible barrier between himself and Aggie.