by Mark Neilson
‘That’s what I expected,’ Eric sighed. ‘But I hoped for the best.’
‘On my way home, I dropped into a couple of local landowners,’ Jonathon continued. ‘They were sympathetic, but said they had neither money nor property to spare. Maybe I should have waited for you and Gus …’
‘It would have made no difference,’ Eric said. ‘In any case, Gus is in Aberdeen by now, maybe even Eyemouth. He was keen to take his teams there quickly, and let them make up the wages that they’d lost.’
He grimaced. ‘You’re not the only one to bring back bad news. I spoke to the harbour businesses. They’re willing to help – but at best they can spare only a few pounds. Then I spoke to the bank about us maybe having a committee, and getting a loan from them. The manager had me through the door before I finished the sentence.’
‘Where does that leave us?’ Chrissie asked bleakly.
‘I honestly don’t know,’ Jonathon replied, his heavy heart reflected in the words. ‘Have you spoken to the local lads?’ he asked Eric.
‘They’re with us – but have only pennies.’ Eric began to search through his pockets for tobacco. ‘We’re going bottom-up,’ he growled. ‘We can dip into our hip pockets and help each other out – but whose hip pocket is big enough to buy back the hospital?’
‘You said we’d fight!’ accused Chrissie.
‘Oh, we will,’ he reassured. ‘But we’ll have to find something other than money to throw at them.’
There was a bleak silence, broken by the distant clamour of gulls.
‘Mind you, I have still other landowners to visit,’ Jonathon said. ‘But don’t hold your breath. Landowners, for generations, have hung on like bulldogs to whatever land they had.’
Eric lit a match, staring at it absently until it burned his fingers. ‘We’ll think of something,’ he said, hurriedly waving out the flame. ‘They’re not going to walk away with our hospital. Not without a fight.’
Defiance wasn’t enough, thought Jonathon. They needed a new plan. He wished with all his heart that Mary and Aggie were here to offer ideas. Two bonny women with brains to match their looks. He stopped. Aggie was his friend: he had never thought of her before as bonny. Yet she was. From nowhere, he saw a curl of dark hair against her neck. He fought to clear his mind, be sensible.
‘If only …’ he said.
‘Aye,’ said Chrissie. ‘The girls. We’re missing their enthusiasm and their energy. Their courage. They’re young, and the world belongs to them – to make, or mend. Old folk like Eric and me, we only see its problems.’
Eric took the unlit pipe out of his mouth, as if to speak.
Then put it back, and began his search for matches.
This sheltered corner of Eyemouth harbour was Buckiein-exile. Elsie smiled at the thought. The five of them had drawn up fish crates and sat in an easy circle, chatting. After ten days working here, she liked Eyemouth best in the fishings. It was the first time she had ever seen a harbour stretching up the banks of a river running through the town. Where the narrow streets, with their haphazard collection of tall houses and shops, kept the worst of the cold wind from the gutting tables.
She smiled across the group to Andy: he winked back.
‘So they’re finding it harder than they thought, back home?’ Neil mused.
‘Jonathon’s letter says they’ve raised plenty of goodwill – but no money. So where we go from there, to buy the hospital, I don’t know.’
‘We can’t just give up,’ said Aggie.
Andy perched on his crate: he had a fit man’s sense of discomfort at the thought of hospitals. ‘Something will turn up,’ he said. ‘It always does.’
‘But what? And from where?’ Mary demanded. He shrugged.
‘Has Jonathon spoken to the landowners yet?’ Neil asked.
‘Yes, but they didn’t want to know.’
Neil frowned at his booted feet. ‘The Johnnies-comelately, maybe.’
‘Who?’ Aggie asked.
‘Maybe these were the small lordlings whose families stole crumbs of land from bigger tables. These will hang into every inch of ground they’ve got. Maybe Jonathon should try the Seafields, the biggest landowners in the north?’
‘Don’t they come from Cullen?’ Mary asked.
‘Maybe, but their lands stretch right up along the coast.’
‘I’ll mention them. And he was asking when we’ll be coming home – he wants a town meeting, before we leave for Yarmouth.’
‘You’ll be home in a couple of weeks. A month here is normal.’
Andy stood up. Restless by nature, he knew they were putting out to sea in the early dusk. Time was precious, and was being wasted. He glanced across at Elsie. ‘Fancy a cup of tea, up the town?’ he asked. She was a pretty quine, and would fill the time in nicely.
Elsie was on her feet in a flash. Aggie gently pulled her down again.
‘What’s the fishing been like?’ she asked sweetly.
Andy shrugged. ‘We’ve caught our share.’
‘Then you can treat her to a fruit scone as well?’
Andy stared, then grinned. ‘If she pays half. Or bakes it herself.’
‘Listen to him! There’s more than small lordlings that are tight with their money!’ Aggie laughed. ‘And him halfway to making his first million pounds. I’ve said it before – Andy is Buckie’s answer to Andrew Carnegie …’
She stopped. ‘That’s it!’ she whispered.
‘What is?’ Mary asked.
‘Forget the Seafields,’ Aggie said intensely. ‘They’re only rich because they sewed up their pockets centuries ago. Who is the richest man in the world? Andrew Carnegie, in America. And he’s a Scotsman. Why don’t we write, and ask him to help us buy back our hospital? He’s always building new libraries and things. If anyone has money to spare, and is in the habit of giving … it’s him.’
Once stated, the truth was obvious. But there was a flaw.
‘Isn’t Carnegie dead?’ asked Mary. ‘I think he died last year.’
‘Rats!’ said Aggie.
‘Didn’t a foundation take over all his charity work?’ Neil muttered.
‘Then write to that,’ said Aggie. She gripped Mary’s wrist. ‘Write back to Jonathon. Tell him to get in touch with Dunfermline. They’ve just built a big library there – maybe they’ll know how to reach this foundation.’
Mary absently rubbed her wrist. ‘I’ve a better idea,’ she said.
‘What’s that?’ demanded Aggie.
‘You write to Jonathon, and tell him,’ Mary said gently. ‘The idea is yours – so why don’t you tell him yourself?’
Daylight had almost gone, and the lights of the fishing fleet along the quays were growing brighter by the minute.
‘Will they really help us?’ asked Mary.
‘The Carnegie Foundation? Why not?’ Neil replied. ‘Carnegie was a Scotsman, and proud of it. This is a Scottish cry for help. If the foundation’s taken over his charity work, they’ll listen. Even if they say “no”, are we any worse off?’
He turned round to face her. ‘But will Aggie write to the doctor?’
‘Jonathon? They’ve been friends all their lives. If one of them got into a scrape, the other jumped in and fought beside them – right or wrong. There was never just one bloody nose. If there was trouble, there was always two. Of course she’ll write …’
She was suddenly very conscious of standing close to him.
He looked down: her face was an oval blur in the dusk.
He thought he had never known a brighter, or a bonnier woman. Then sensed her face tilt back, her lips rise to meet his own. His arms went around her, without thought. He felt her hands clasp, behind his neck. Their gentle kiss became intense, passionate.
Mary pushed herself away: he made no attempt to draw her back.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said breathlessly. ‘I don’t know what …’
She sensed him smile. ‘I’m not sorry in the least, Mary Cowie,’ he said. ‘I�
�ve been wanting to do that for as long as I can remember.’
‘You never said.’
‘You never asked.’
‘You always seemed such a sober, serious man …’
‘That’s only on the outside.’ There was laughter in his voice.
She felt as if she had glimpsed a side to him that she had never known existed. His hands were still holding her arms gently: she liked that. Felt secure, beside his tall shadow. Wanted to burrow in, lay her face against his chest.
Gently, he pushed her away. ‘I’d better go. They’ll be sailing without me – and the eight of them would starve to death. There’s not one can make a sandwich.’
With all her heart, she wanted him to lean down, and kiss her again.
Instead, he raised his finger to his lips, kissed it, and set it gently against her own lips. Where he had touched, began to tingle.
She watched his dark figure walk towards the ships’ lights, some of which were already moving down the river. ‘Come back safe,’ she called after him.
He raised an arm. Then he was just another anonymous dark figure, working with the mooring ropes, casting off from the quay. Mary watched, shivering, as one by one the ships’ lights slipped past, down the river, and began to rise to meet the waves of the open sea.
Chrissie shook her head in resignation. Men!
‘You’ll be ready for a cup of tea, you two?’ she asked.
‘Not half!’ panted Jonathon.
She pointed an accusing finger at Eric’s red face. ‘And you’re too old to be playing football …’
He grinned back at her. ‘Not me. I’ve still a trick or two to show the bairn.’
Jonathon picked up the makeshift ball. ‘Where did you learn to do this?’ he asked, examining the tightly rolled layers of newspaper, held together by knotted bands of string. It made a ball which was surprisingly light – just ideal for a four-year-old to take a swipe at, and send anywhere. Leaving the two men to chase after his miscues like sheepdogs.
‘From my dad. We could never afford a proper ball.’
Small hands reached up to take the ball from Jonathon. It was dropped to meet a mighty kick, glanced off it, and shot sideways into the rose bed.
‘Just watch that he doesn’t break any windows,’ Chrissie sighed.
Rather than wait to see the accident happen, she retreated to her kitchen, shaking her head. As bad as each other, she thought. Men never grew up from being children: scrape away the serious surface, and the unruly boy was usually still inside. She smiled.
What a nice man Jonathon had become. Dropping in, then getting off his jacket and taking over from a purple-faced Eric as chaser-in-chief. Giving wee Tommy the best day he’d known since his mother had gone back to Aberdeen.
What a pity Gus had switched his girls directly down to Eyemouth.
As the tea infused, she moved slowly round her kitchen, reaching up for the biscuit tin, and slicing some homemade cake. She knew that Jonathon would eat his way through anything she set in front of him. Like any man who hadn’t a wife to look after him properly.
She glanced through the kitchen window. Without much thought, she could find him a wife. If only – but Aggie was too close: he saw in her a lifelong friend, through thick and thin. Not a woman who was still young and vibrant.
Chrissie sighed. Men were strange. The woman he would choose would appeal to his mind, as well as his senses. Someone like that bonny Cowie quine, who had gone to the war a young girl, and come back a woman, with a mind to match her looks. She would make a perfect doctor’s wife – although he’d find her a handful, with all these radical political views. Women’s rights indeed! Chrissie sniffed. No sensible woman needed rights, because she should be more than capable of getting her own way – as often as was good for her.
‘That’s your tea ready!’ she called.
They trooped in, Eric mopping his face with a blue handkerchief, Jonathon with a healthy glow of colour on his cheeks. That man didn’t take enough time off his work, to play.
‘Help yourself to cake,’ she encouraged, pouring tea. ‘I’ll never get the Wee Man calmed down. Having Eric playing with him is bad enough … but when there’s two of you …’
Jonathon took a huge bite of cake. ‘He’s a nice bairn,’ he said, speaking with some difficulty. ‘There’s not many who would be so happy, without his mum.’
‘He has no choice,’ Chrissie said bleakly. ‘Nor has she.’
‘I know.’ Jonathon helped himself to another piece of cake. ‘I got a letter from Aggie this morning,’ he said. ‘That’s why I’m here. I told you the girls would come up with something that might save us. Well, she has.’ He glanced over to Eric. ‘She says we should write to the Carnegie Foundation, and ask for their help to buy back the hospital.’
‘Carnegie, the steel millionaire?’ Eric paused, cup halfway to his mouth.
‘What a great idea!’ Chrissie exclaimed. ‘If anybody can help us, Carnegie’s the man. He’s built libraries and colleges, all across Scotland.’
‘Carnegie’s dead,’ Jonathon said. ‘But his charity work goes on, with Scotland as a major beneficiary.’ He handed over the letter. ‘I’d never have thought of them. Not in a million years. Aggie did. What a girl! But don’t tell her – she’s big-headed enough already.’
He looked at Chrissie. ‘You can know someone all your life, think you understand every twist and turn of them. Then, one day, they surprise you – it’s like seeing them for the very first time. Aggie could have saved the cottage hospital.’
Eric grunted, reading slowly through the letter. ‘Aye,’ he said. ‘But there’s a long way to go, before Carnegie’s cheque comes through the letterbox. When do the lawyers want us out, to put the house on the market?’
Jonathon winced. ‘They’ve given us until the 3rd of January.’
They stared at each other, calculating. Not quite three months – when it took almost a fortnight for a letter to reach its destination in America. There, to lie on a busy foundation’s desk. Then another fortnight for the reply to come back.
‘Then we’d better start writing,’ Eric said gruffly.
The Endeavour steamed slowly through the harbour entrance, and immediately began to pitch in the turmoil of white waves outside. This October gale had lashed the coast for three full days, keeping all boats in the harbour. Wedged in the deckhouse, Neil tensely watched Andy fighting the steering wheel. The most dangerous time for any boat is when she’s close to shore. Here, the backwash from earlier waves sent the incoming waves into steep pyramids, torn apart by the gale, hurling solid water across the deckhouse windows.
Wasn’t this what his dad had sent him out to do? Stop Andy from taking reckless actions, which endangered the boat and the lives of his crew? They’d had a tearing argument on land. Watched unhappily by the crew, until they took it with them up into the relative privacy of the deckhouse.
But there was a time and a place for arguing – not when they were clawing their way clear of the harbour walls and the ragged rocks beyond them.
The ship shuddered with every boom of the waves hitting her wooden bows: the hatches were battened down storm-tight, and the crew huddled uneasily in their quarters. With the old engine at full ahead, they were scarcely making headway against the onslaught of the gale and its waves.
The drifter was tossed like a cork as the waves surged under her and past. Yard by yard, she fought clear of the shore, gradually leaving behind the utter madness of confused water outside the harbour. Shaking herself like a wet dog, the old boat settled to the endless battering of waves, driven before the wind.
Andy drew a shuddering breath of relief. ‘That was nasty,’ he admitted.
Neil shook his head. ‘I still think you’re crazy. You’ll lose your nets and half the crew, if you try to shoot them in seas like this.’
‘My choice,’ said Andy, peering through the streaming windows. ‘There hasn’t been a boat out of port in three whole days. We’re the onl
y one risking it tonight. This storm can’t last forever. If the wind eases off, then the seas will calm down. And if we bring back fish to the market tomorrow, we’ll have every merchant bidding for them. We can name our price, turning a fair fishing into a good one in a single night. This old ship has ridden out worse seas than these.’
Neil was silent. Any fish landed would command top price. But was the risk that Andy was taking worth it?
‘What’s up?’ Andy taunted. ‘Lost your tongue – or just your courage?’
‘So long as that’s all we lose,’ Neil replied quietly.
The ship buried her bows into the black slope of a huge wave rushing in on them. A couple of feet of white-laced water surged along the rising decks, while the deckhouse windows turned green, then cleared.
‘It’s a risk worth taking,’ Andy muttered.
At times like this, being a skipper was the loneliest job in the world.
In the cold light of dawn, the wicker baskets holding the samples of the catch of herring gleamed like dull silver. Merchants stood over them, assessing, while the crew of the Endeavour got ready to empty the main hold of its fish.
The auctioneer drew his thick coat more tightly about him. It would be a short and a merry round of bidding, he knew. Incomprehensible to any outsider, but he knew every nod, every scratch of an ear, every rub at the side of a nose for the bid it represented. With no sound other than the call of the seabirds and the drone of his voice as the bidding rose, the whole cargo of herrings was sold in a few short minutes. Then the lucky merchants went up to make sure that their quines were happed-up against the weather and ready to start.
Andy watched as the barrows came to wheel his catch away.
Only now would he admit to himself how tired he was. Both from living on the edge for twelve long hours, and from the weight of responsibility he had carried. He came stiffly down the deckhouse steps and walked over to peer down into the now-empty hold. The crew were hosing it down. Job done.
