by Ann Swinfen
‘Morning, pet,’ said Moira, wiping down the counter in front of her. Moira came from a long way south of here, somewhere in the north of England, Tirza guessed, and her cheerful terms of endearment sounded strange in this reserved community.
‘What can I get you?’
‘I’ll have your salmon salad, please, Moira.’
‘We’re very honoured,’ said Moira, bringing a salad across from the back counter and passing Tirza cutlery wrapped in a green paper napkin. ‘Supper last night and lunch today. Last of the big spenders, are you?’
Tirza grinned at her as she forked up the fresh-caught salmon, covered with a light, mustardy mayonnaise.
‘Just lazy. And your cooking is so good. It exercises my brain to open a can of baked beans.’
Moira laughed.
‘Well, we all have our different talents. Those photographs of yours...well! I saw that feature in the Sunday supplement. I can hardly credit that you’re living here, quiet as anything, after you’ve been in Vietnam and Brazil and India and all those places.’
‘Maybe that’s why I like it here. We can’t spend all of our lives living on the edge of danger. Besides, I was younger then.’
‘Get along with you! Those pictures of India were only taken a couple of years ago.’
‘Yes, I know. But I’ve been quite ill since then, and that makes you feel your age.’
‘Well, love, I don’t suppose it’s my place to say it, but I said to Donnie just the other day, I said, Our climate must suit Tirza Libby. She’s looking ten years younger than she did when she first stayed here. Remember how I told you about the island that evening? I never thought you’d go and buy it! You never can tell where an idle word will lead, can you?’
‘No, indeed,’ Tirza agreed. ‘You never can.’
After lunch she went for a walk north along the seafront to the point where the tarmac road dwindled away into a dusty track which led on round the coast to a scattered group of crofts. These had been saved from near desolation by a few determined men and women who had brought the land back into heart. Like most Highland crofts they were dotted about the hillside apparently at random, each surrounded by its small acreage. Some were farmed for self-sufficiency with little in the way of cash crops except a few eggs and chickens. These tended to be occupied by couples where either the husband or the wife had a paid job. In one the husband was the local telephone repairman and the wife the crofter. In another the husband farmed while the wife worked as a freelance copy-editor.
Three or four of the crofts were fully economic farms. They grew basic food for the family, but more effort went into some specialist cash crop. The Maclarens had a herd of pedigree Nubian goats. Their milk and ice-cream went every other day by refrigerated lorry to Inverness, and once a fortnight Celia Maclaren loaded up her small dented van with cheeses and drove them down to a delicatessen in Glasgow. Another crofter was experimenting with angora rabbits; his wife spun and dyed the yarn, shipping it off to an expensive wool shop in Oxford. On a third croft, almost all the cultivable land was laid out to commercial herbs. The herbs seemed to like the rather poor soil of the hillside.
The crofts occupied a shallow slope which rose gradually to a shoulder of grassy hillside. Beyond this first height the ground seemed to gather together and then heaved itself upwards into the towering summits which formed the western edge of the Highlands. Below the crofts a smooth slope fell away to the sea. Tirza sat down on a patch of warm grass here and looked out over the bay where her island lay like pointed hat with a wide flat brim. Beyond it the ocean stretched to the horizon, interrupted by a long arm of one of the outer isles.
This was where Donnie said holiday cottages might be built. Tirza could see the commercial potential and the temptations it offered. She had never met the local laird, but he was well spoken of. Surely he would not be so unfeeling as to sacrifice all this for money?
‘Excuse me.’
A voice almost at her side made her jump. The man had approached soundlessly over the mossy turf, the wind carrying away any noise made by his supple, worn boots on the grass.
‘I’m sorry, I’ve startled you.’
‘No, no. Not at all.’
Tirza shaded her eyes with her hand and looked up at him. Dazzled with the reflections of the summer sun on the waves, she saw him first through a mist of jumping lights. He towered above her against the pale blue sky, but she could see now that he was smiling.
‘Do you mind if I join you?’
Tirza made a gesture towards the grass.
‘Help yourself. It’s beautiful here, isn’t it?’
For a fleeting moment she wondered whether he was some sort of surveyor, sent to spy out the land for development, incognito. It was the unknown fisherman from the hotel, the owner of the Range Rover with the dried red clay stuck to the wheel-arches. Someone used to driving over rough country, and country with a different soil from here.
He lowered himself to the ground, carefully, as though his back hurt him. When he came down from his height to the level of her eyes, his face – hidden previously in the dark corner of the inn – came into focus. Something about it hit her in the stomach with a sharp physical reflex.
He clasped his hands around his knees and stared out over the bay.
‘It’s a beautiful island, Miss Libby. I can see why you don’t want anyone to trouble you here. But I think we need to talk.’
Tirza stiffened.
‘Did you write to me? Is your name Alexander Wrycroft?’
He nodded, and held out his hand politely. Automatically, she shook it.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘You must find my intrusion very distasteful. But I think, in the end, you will want to hear what I have to say.’
‘How did you find me?’
‘It wasn’t difficult. Although there was no address on your letter, the postmark was perfectly clear. As you know, I don’t live so very far away. I farm about twenty miles from Inverness.’
That seemed credible. The car, the boots, the tweed jacket – worn and patched with leather at the elbows, but originally of excellent quality. He was about her own age, tall and sturdy but not heavily built, with an air of tranquillity about him that was reassuring. Tirza realised suddenly that she would like to photograph him, but that face...
‘I think it is somewhat inconsiderate,’ she replied, ‘not to say impertinent, after my letter to you.’
‘Forgive me.’ He laid his hand on her arm. ‘Just listen for a moment.’
Then, in spite of what he said, he was silent for minutes, looking out at the ocean.
‘On the television, when you were being interviewed by that woman, you suddenly lost your composure. She asked you about your first camera. A perfectly innocent question, I would have thought. But you were completely disconcerted. Then you said that it was a Box Brownie, given to you by a British airman.’
Tirza twisted her fingers in the turf, pulling up a handful of tiny wildflowers, no more than an inch high.
‘Yes.’
‘That roused my interest. That, and your name. I’m ashamed to say I hadn’t heard your name before, though when I saw your pictures, of course I recognised them. Not much of a reader of the newspapers, I’m afraid. Apart from the farming prices.’
He paused again.
‘Anyway, when I could manage to take the time from the spring ploughing, I went down to Edinburgh to see your exhibition.’ The steady, disciplined tone of his voice suddenly changed and he beamed at her, that oddly familiar smile, so that she felt sick. ‘Wonderful! I’ve never seen anything like it. Some day, I’d like to talk it all through with you.’
His voice became sombre again.
‘I went round everything twice. I suppose I must have spent about three hours in there and I came out almost light-headed with fatigue and hunger. But it was only on my way out that I noticed the little group of photographs half-hidden by the open door in the first room. They’re labelled “Juvenilia”. Do you know t
he ones I mean?’
Tirza nodded dumbly, not looking at him.
‘When I saw those, I knew my instincts had been right. There he was, large as life. One of the photographs was very clear. He was standing in a sailing boat, with one arm round the mast. I couldn’t quite read the name of the boat. There was some sort of tackle hanging over it.’
Tirza’s mouth tasted of salt.
‘Stormy Petrel,’ she said.
10
Maine: Summer 1942
In June there came a period of hot, lazy days and quiet nights. Work at the fishing and on the farms did not stop, but the long hours of daylight, the sun and the sense of summer stretching ahead slowed the pace. Life moved to a different rhythm. Tobias was haying now, taking his time over it and fitting it around the other chores, like hoeing the vegetable fields and checking on the heifers. This year’s calves had now been moved to a pasture on the far side of the county road and needed salt taken over regularly in the hot weather.
Most sunny days there was haying to be done. As well as the main farm, which lay mostly between the county road and the sea, the Libbys owned a sizeable portion of land on the other side of the road, adjacent to Swansons’ farm. Scattered here and there around Flamboro there were other parcels of land, some of which had been put down to crops when old Mr Libby had been in charge. When his sons were well grown and he also employed two hired men, it had been possible to tend this land. Now the only practical crop for much of it was hay. Even in a wet summer, Tobias could harvest enough for all his winter needs. In a good year he had spare to sell on.
On the long sun-laden days he and Sam, sometimes with Simon helping, would cut the hay in the morning. They left it lying while the midday heat warmed it and other chores were tended to. Then in the afternoon they would turn it. After a further couple of days, turning and drying, they would rake and then load it on to the horse-drawn hayrack and bring it back to the farm.
During haymaking Tirza had started going up to the farm most days at dinnertime and helping in the afternoon. Tobias used the tractor to tow the mowing machine, then saved fuel during the rest of the haying by using one of the horses hitched to the hay turner and hay rake. He would not allow Tirza to handle the tractor, though Simon now drove it for simple jobs. On level fields Tobias let Simon mow while he and Sam followed behind scything the field edges by hand. Despite her best efforts, Tirza was not yet tall enough to handle one of the big scythes, though she could use a small sickle as well as Simon.
In the afternoons, without the novelty of driving the tractor, Simon lost interest and slipped away to Flamboro. He had made friends with several of the regular crews manning the gun up by the burying-ground – they gave him chewing gum and Hershey bars and taught him to chain-smoke Camels. One of them, a young fellow not much older than he, also introduced him to the trick of chewing a strong peppermint afterwards to hide the smell of tobacco on his breath from his family.
Tirza, walking or cycling along the coastal path to help on the farm in the afternoons, often met Simon going the other way. They rarely stopped to talk, but she had learned that Martha was getting better, had been into Portland with her mother to buy shoes and was now coming out to sit on the porch instead of hiding in her room. But still, whenever one of the patrol planes came over, she lost all self-control. She would grab Billy if he was anywhere near and dive for cover – under tables, into the cellar, once – at Flett’s Stores – behind the counter amongst the sacks of feed and flour.
From overhearing talk in the village, Tirza knew that Martha’s behaviour had provoked comment. Sympathy for her was increasingly tinged with condemnation. The story of Martha emerging from behind Flett’s counter, with grass seed in her hair and best white flour smudging the front of her red cotton dress, had gained some additional colour in the retelling. Tirza knew, because she had been in the store when it had happened.
She was sitting cross-legged on the floor, leaning against the pot-bellied stove – unlit during the summer months – reading a Dick Tracy comic borrowed from Johnny Flett and sucking an acid ball. Martha, Harriet and Billy came in to deliver the eggs and buy some dry goods, and right in the middle of the transaction had come the now familiar sound of a four-engine plane flying overhead. Martha had given that shriek – not so loud now, but still disconcerting – and dragged a furiously struggling Billy behind the counter. Mary, startled and jostled as they passed, had dropped one of the eggs she was counting. It spread across the counter and began to drip over the edge in a long slimy trail. Watching over the top of her comic, Tirza bit her lip, caught between shame and laughter. When Martha emerged after the sound of the plane died away she looked a sight, but she was not – as later versions suggested – covered with the entire ingredients for a cake.
‘Put her in the oven and bake her right there!’ Walter Pelham was heard to crow to some of his cronies sitting outside the Schooner Bar in the long summer evening.
One day on her way to the farm, Tirza noticed a faint trail leading through the ragged uncut grass at the edge of the Tremaynes’ neglected garden, just where it ran up to the stone wall marking the start of the Libby farm. She could not be sure what animal had made it, but – seeing Simon approach – she walked past without investigating further. Whatever it was, Simon would probably shoot it, and she wanted to have a look for herself first.
When she reached the farmyard, Harriet was just blowing the long note on the dinner horn which had been used by the Libby family for four generations to summon the men in from the fields for their meals. Tirza joined the family for crab cakes, pickles and fresh bread. Harriet’s home-baked bread scented the kitchen, and when you broke open a roll, hot from the oven, the yeasty steam filled your nostrils. Abigail said she was getting too old to bake bread, so at home Tirza and Nathan had to eat white pulpy store-bought loaves, which chewed in the mouth like a wash-cloth – fluffy and soft against the tongue at first, then collapsing to a sour-tasting pap.
‘Saw Simon going into Flamboro,’ said Tirza, with her mouth full of the warm, grainy brown bread which had the finest taste on earth. ‘Doesn’t he want his dinner?’
‘He took some sandwiches,’ said Harriet. ‘He and Wayne are up to something again.’
Tobias grunted.
‘I could use his help this afternoon.’
‘I’m here to help,’ said Tirza. ‘Can I drive the rake again?’
‘Ayuh. I’ll turn in behind with the bull rake. Sam’s needed to hoe the turnips. That rain last week and all this sun, that’s bringing up a pesky lot of weeds in the field past the cow pasture.’
Tirza smiled to herself. Anybody but a Maine farmer would be glad of the fine summer weather, with rain only at night for the last three weeks. But if a farmer can’t complain about the weather, he can’t feel that he is confronting the real challenge of his life.
‘Is it the field over to Carey’s Corner today?’ she asked.
‘That’s it. If you’re done eating, let’s get over there. We cut four days ago and we’ve turned three times, so it’s ready for raking. And with this heat it’ll be dry enough to pitch and load.’
While Tobias hitched Dancer up, Tirza fetched the bull rake – five feet wide and toothed with wooden prongs as thick as her uncle’s thumb. She wedged this on top of the framework of the big hay rake, so it would not fall off as they drove along the road, then climbed up by means of the long horizontal bar to which the sharp, curved metal prongs were attached. These were raised now, and there was just enough room to squeeze in front of them, behind her uncle’s back where he sat on the seat. She braced her legs apart, gripping the metal bar with her bare toes, and wrapped her arms around his solid waist. Her nose was pressed against the back of his plaid cotton shirt, which smelled of Swan soap and hay and sweat.
‘OK?’ he asked.
‘OK.’
At the field beyond Swansons’ Tobias halted Dancer inside the gate, aligning the rake to run parallel with the stone wall edging the longer sid
e, then climbed down and Tirza took his place. The metal seat, curved like a saddle, was warm. He lifted down the bull rake.
‘Get going when you’re ready.’
Tirza picked up the reins in her left hand. With the right she reached behind her for the lever handle which worked the prongs of the rake, and lowered them. They hit the dry stubble with a faint twang like a distant banjo. Setting Dancer in line with the first swathe of cut hay, she chirruped her forward. The rake caught on the laid hay, jerked slightly, then began to move forward as the horse plodded along the field.
Driving down the long edge of the field, Tirza felt a sudden wave of happiness sweep over her. The springy bouncing of the rake underneath her, the music of a song sparrow from a sumac growing over the stone wall, the screech of the rake as she raised it to drop a perfect load, and then lowered it again – all these things filled her with contentment.
Through the quiet sunny afternoon Tirza drove the rake up and down the field in parallel lines while Tobias worked behind her, drawing the hay into mounds for pitching on. When half the field was finished, he called across to her to give Dancer a rest at the end of the row. Climbing down stiffly from the hard metal seat, she picked up the bucket which had held their food. She trudged off to fill the bucket for Dancer from the creek at the far end of the field, setting her bare feet carefully between the rows of sharp stubble. On the bank of the creek she lay down on her stomach and splashed water over her head and neck to cool down. Her arms were as brown as varnished wood and spangled all over with glinting fragments of chaff. She plunged them up to the armpits in the cool water.
Back at the other end of the field she set down the bucket for Dancer, who sucked up the water gratefully.
‘Hey, hey!’ said Tirza, ‘Not too fast! You’ll blow up like a balloon.’
