Bird of Passage

by Catherine Czerkawska

  Early in the New Year, Flora was ill with influenza for several weeks. Nicolas came and went between the island and the mainland, with frequent trips further afield, fuming about some new setback to the family finances. Annabel had taken over an office beside Kirsty’s gallery at Ealachan House and was spending more time on the island, although she still made frequent trips to the family home in London. At Ealachan, she devoted a great deal of her time to Flora, who had become a favourite with her.

  ‘She’s such a sweetie,’ she told Kirsty. ‘I love India very much but she’s so …’

  ‘I know what you mean,’ said Kirsty. India had many wonderful qualities, and Kirsty loved her dearly, but you would never call her a sweetie. Flora was softer and less sure of herself, loving everyone indiscriminately and therefore – thought Kirsty, with a pang of apprehension for her daughter – vulnerable to the occasional disappointment.

  When Annabel was not reading to Flora or playing games of Happy Families, she was trying to work on designs for a new jewellery collection. She had also taken to walking down to the beach at Dunshee, looking for driftwood and semi-precious stones, ‘hunting for inspirational objects’ she called it. Flora was too wobbly on her feet to walk far yet.

  ‘I saw your friend Finn, this morning.’

  Annabel and Kirsty were sitting together in the gallery. Kirsty was trying to work, but she was listless and looking for any distraction. Annabel had made coffee.

  ‘I asked him if he wanted to come for a walk with me but he wouldn’t. Actually, I was angling for a ride on that fabulous bike. But I suppose that’s out of the question. What a bird of ill omen he is, Christine!’

  ‘No, he isn’t!’

  ‘You know what I mean. He’d be quite good looking if only he would smile a bit more. What does he have to be so dismal about?’

  ‘Oh that’s just Finn!’ It was the way she always fended off enquiries about him.

  ‘Maybe you see a different side to him.’

  ‘Maybe I do.’

  ‘I’d like to get to know him better.’

  ‘You didn’t think much of him when we were kids.’

  ‘That was different. Kids are little savages anyway.’

  Kirsty found that the thought of Annabel getting to know Finn better was faintly upsetting. ‘You probably wouldn’t like him very much if you did get to know him,’ she ventured.

  ‘Surely there must be a nice, normal chap, buried somewhere beneath that grim exterior.’

  ‘Must there?’

  ‘So tell me more about him. I’m interested.’

  Kirsty wished she had never started this conversation but felt forced to continue. ‘I think maybe there’s something lacking in him. Sympathy. Or do I mean empathy?’

  ‘God, Christine!’ said Annabel in astonishment. ‘This is your friend you’re talking about.’

  ‘I don’t mean he’s dangerous or anything like that. And I know we haven’t always seen eye to eye, you and me, but I wouldn’t like you to get hurt.’

  Without ever growing particularly close or even understanding each other very well, they had become friends over the years. She had seen a vulnerable side to Annabel. None of her countless relationships had ever come to anything. Perhaps the men in her life were scared of her or perhaps she had just made wrong choices all the time and yet she was an attractive woman, always travelling hopefully, never quite arriving. Even her design business seemed faintly amateurish and was only moderately successful in spite of the Laurence family connections.

  ‘He’s my good friend,’ Kirsty conceded. ‘He was like a brother to me when we were younger. Still is, in some ways. But he’s not a very easy man to know.’

  ‘He’s been amazingly kind to Alasdair. Even Nicolas is forced to admit that. Grudgingly.’

  ‘But then my grandfather was always very kind to him. When it really mattered. With Finn you get what you give. No more, no less.’

  ‘You mean I couldn’t handle him?’ Annabel asked, only half in jest.

  ‘I think I’m trying to say that he’s not like other people. He isn’t just different. I think in many ways he’s indifferent. He ... he had some terrible experiences as a child.’

  ‘What experiences?’

  ‘Even I don’t know all the details. He was put in a boarding school back in Ireland. An industrial school.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘I don’t know exactly. I think they used to be a bit like workhouses. All I know is, Finn was sent to an industrial school and it was a terrible place. He was very badly treated. Don’t ever tell him we discussed this. But it’s as if it made him switch something off. Some capacity to love and be loved. I think it’s buried so deep inside him that he’ll maybe never find it again. He isn’t like the rest of us.’

  ‘So what is he like?’

  ‘What you see is exactly what you get. It isn’t a pose. He won’t mellow over time. Won’t grow to like you when he knows you better. I think he really is indifferent to most people.’

  ‘But he isn’t like that with you, surely.’

  ‘We go back a long way. And sometimes... I don’t think…’

  ‘What? Don’t stop now.’

  ‘I don’t think I count as somebody else. Not for Finn, anyway.’

  ‘What a very strange thing to say!’

  ‘Well, maybe I’m just havering.’

  Kirsty had a pad on her knee. As she spoke, she had been sketching little images of shells and flowers and seaweed. Annabel looked at them.

  ‘Lovely’

  ‘Do you think so? They’re just doodles.’

  ‘Even your doodles are more interesting than mine.’

  ‘Your jewellery? I’ll do a bit of work on the designs if you like. I didn’t know whether you wanted help or not.’

  ‘I need all the help I can get. And I suppose I’ll just have to take your word for it about Finn. You think he wouldn’t let me get close.’

  ‘Feel free to try, but he lets almost nobody get close to him. Hardly even me. He left here without a second glance, you know. Not a letter, not a phonecall. But I know a little bit about what he is and why. I know that whatever happened to him was the kind of cruelty that makes you retreat deep inside yourself. I think Finn finds it very hard to escape.’

  Annabel smiled, ruefully. ‘I doubt if he even notices me, and maybe that upsets my vanity a bit.’

  ‘Haven’t you got enough good-looking guys trailing around after you without adding one more scalp?’

  ‘But we all want what we can’t have. There’s something so attractive about the unattainable, don’t you think?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  But what do I want, thought Kirsty. She stared out of the window at the gardens. There was the faintest haze of green over the shrubs and the purple and yellow of early crocuses on the grass. Up at Dunshee though, the snowdrops would still be in bloom, drifts of white against the grey stone walls. Finn was up there, a short walk away, but it might as well be a thousand miles.

  CHAPTER THIRTY ONE

  Even down at sheltered Ealachan, Kirsty could hear the wind moaning about the old pitched roofs, a hostile creature, stalking the inhabitants of the house. Spring might be coming, but the Atlantic lows were still rolling in from the west to buffet the island again and again. Lying beside Nicolas, or alone, during his increasingly frequent absences, she imagined the magnified din of the storms up at Dunshee. She thought about Finn, wakeful in her old bed, for nobody could sleep through these gales. The noise was always monstrous up there, a relentless, deafening roar that engulfed the house and shook it to its ancient foundations. She remembered how often she had woken with a start from a restless doze, imagining that somebody or something was outside her room, tapping on the wood, desperate to gain access.

  Since Christmas, she and Finn had met from time to time in the island shop, where curious eyes observed them constantly. Gossip about them had been rife at first. ‘Have you seen him? Have you seen the bike? Some change eh? Wha
t will she do? How will her husband take it?’ Then things had calmed down. People had got used to seeing Finn about the place again. But the Christmas kiss had made her wary and for the past few weeks, they had talked only of trivialities, of things that didn’t matter: the work at Dunshee, the weather, the prospects for the coming summer.

  ‘He’s certainly changed for the better,’ admitted Nicolas.

  ‘How do you mean – for the better?’

  ‘Well, he seems more civilized for a start. He can hold an intelligent conversation these days.’

  ‘Since when did you ever hold an intelligent conversation with Finn ?’

  ‘We do meet occasionally, Kirsty. In the village. In the hotel.’

  ‘You mean you wouldn’t be ashamed to introduce him to your friends?’

  ‘I do mean that, yes.’

  But Kirsty thought that this so-called civilization was only a veneer, although she didn’t say as much to Nicolas. Her warning to Annabel had been no exaggeration. She knew that Finn was a stunted tree, like one of the fairy thorns behind the farm. Even she, who liked to name things, didn’t have the words to describe him properly, although time and distance had given her a clearer perspective on him. Sometimes it seemed to her as though, all those years ago, a changeling had been left at Dunshee. This feeling was quite separate from her affection for him, which ran, strong and true, through every inch of her.

  In February, a Russian trawler, one of the large ‘Klondikers’ that fished these waters, ran aground on a reef, at a place called Port Carrick on the western side of the island. All the able bodied islanders turned out to help.

  Nicolas and Annabel were both away when the phone rang at Ealachan.

  ‘I’m sorry to waken you, Kirsty,’ said Robert Dunlop, a farmer from the north end, who was helping to co-ordinate the rescue and mustering assistance from all over the island. ‘I thought Nick was at home.’

  ‘No. He and Annabel were meant to be back yesterday but the ferry was cancelled because of the weather.’

  ‘So it was. Never mind then.’

  ‘I’ll come though.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes. Heather will be here for Flora. And we can put some people up at this house if necessary. We’ve got plenty of space.’

  ‘That’s very generous of you. But I think the hotel can probably cope.’

  ‘Well, the offer’s there. Have you phoned Dunshee yet?’

  ‘Not yet. But I will if you think …’

  ‘Finn will want to help. But do tell him not to let my grandad get involved. He’s not up to it.’

  ‘I’ll do that, Kirsty.’

  Daylight, if this gloomy, grey haze could be called light at all, revealed the big trawler, a stranded whale, wallowing in the heaving, green seas of the cove. The lifeboat couldn’t get alongside in these conditions. They had managed to rig up a breeches buoy to take the crew from the shattered ship to the shore. Local fishermen and farmers had mustered, and Finn was in among them, lending expertise, muscle and encouragement. Watching from the shore, Kirsty felt a surge of panic, remembering that other night when she had seen him on television, after the rig disaster.

  The Klondiker would lie out there for months while the authorities haggled over salvage rights. The mackerel in her hold would rot and the stench would be appalling. Then, more gales would break her back and for a while, the seashore would be littered with bits of wood, metal, plastic and torn papers with mysterious Cyrillic script on them - great treasure for the island children when first discovered. A winter or so later, nothing would remain, wind and water having settled the salvage problem once and for all. The crew were all saved and the islanders took a dozen or so seamen to the hotel where they could be medicated, fed and housed, until they could be sent home.

  The wreck held a great fascination for the islanders and in spite of the foul weather, people lingered on the shore for a long time after the rescue, watching the surge and swell of the waves breaking against the hull. Kirsty found Finn, sitting alone, on a rock. She picked her way among boulders and hummocks of drenched heather.

  ‘You did a great job there!’

  He looked up and tried to smile at her, but she saw, to her distress, that he was shivering. She sat down beside him and slipped her arm around him.

  ‘People will see,’ he muttered.

  ‘Nobody’s looking at us. They’re all looking at … that.’ She nodded at the wreck. ‘You can’t help but look at it, can you?’

  ‘No. ‘

  ‘Are you OK?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘Have you hurt yourself?’

  ‘No. No I’m fine. Grazed my hand on the ropes that’s all.’

  They sat together in silence for a while. ‘Does it bring it back?’ she asked eventually. ‘The rig and all that?’

  ‘A bit.’

  ‘I was thinking about it as well. It must have been appalling for you.’

  ‘Sometimes I dream about it. I dream about being in the water. I’m trying to cry out, but I can’t. I can’t get the sounds out. And sometimes I can just be – I don’t know - watching TV, cleaning my teeth, and it’s like somebody switches it on. Like a movie. Like a daydream, but you can’t stop yourself from thinking about it. And there I am, in the middle of it all again.’

  One more thing to add to the terrible images that haunted him. His private library. Except that he had no control over what he was forced to see. The images assaulted him at random.

  She tried to pull him closer, but he resisted her.

  ‘The worst thing was…’ he stopped.

  ‘What?’

  ‘There was a part of me that wanted to let go, stop fighting, have done with it all. Too hard, I thought. It’s too hard. I’d been struggling for so many years. I just wanted to give in. Let the sea take me. And then you came into my mind, Kirsty. I had this sudden image of you, a bossy wee girl again. I was in the water and I thought I was going to die, and the idea of not seeing you one last time was unbearable. I knew then that I had to come back and see you. One way or another, I had to come back.’

  ‘What are we going to do, Finn ?’

  ‘How the fuck should I know? I thought things would just…I don’t know what I thought.’

  There was a sudden break in the weather, a patch of blue, a gleam of wintry sunshine. It would be an interval only. Already they could see the next band of clouds rolling in from the west, but Finn stood up and pulled her to her feet. ‘The jeep’s down on the track back there. There’s a flask in it. Come on. Let’s get some shelter.’

  They sat in the muddy vehicle and drank milky coffee, laced with whisky. Maybe the whisky loosened her tongue. Or maybe she couldn’t bear not knowing.

  ‘Why did you leave me?’ she asked him, staring through the window at the driving rain. ‘Why did you do that to me? And at such a moment!’

  ‘Because I had to. You were right. You said I needed to get away. And I did. I could see that I would only hold you back if I stayed. You had enough on your plate. There were things I had to do. Things to sort out. I had to find my mother, for one thing.’

  ‘And did you find her?’

  ‘Oh, God. Yes. I found her alright.’

  ‘Where? Where was she, Finn?’

  ‘Where she is still. In a convent. She’s a nun.’

  ‘Good Lord!’

  ‘That’s right.’ He gave a short laugh. ‘Good Lord is right. She was put to work for the nuns. In a laundry. It was virtual slavery. It happened to a lot of women. The courts committed them if they were judged to be leading immoral lives. But then, she couldn’t beat them, so she joined them.’

  Even as he said the words, he was aware that they were not quite true. He had come to believe that his mother’s vocation was genuine. He didn’t like it but whether he liked it or not didn’t matter. Mary had her own path to follow. Her life had been interrupted, just as his had been interrupted and the disruption had changed her irrevocably, just as it had changed him. B
ut he was forced to admit that she was doing what she wanted.

  ‘She’s Sister Dominica now. She seems happy enough. But she’s not the person I remember. You can’t trust anyone to stay the same.’

  ‘I would have stayed the same. I would have gone to hell in a handcart with you back then!’

  ‘Would you?’

  ‘You left me, remember!’

  ‘I thought if I went, you would go away too. Back to university, back to your painting. I didn’t want you thinking that you had to be tied to me when I had nothing to offer you. I thought your grandfather would probably persuade you to go back to Edinburgh. Once he had other help about the farm.’

  ‘But to leave without saying a word. Without so much as a note to tell me where you’d gone!’

  ‘I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know where I was going. You don’t know how often I almost came back. I planned to write to you. But time passed and then it seemed too late. I never imagined that you would marry Nicholas!’

  ‘Why wouldn’t I marry him? ’

  Because you loved me! He wanted to say it, but couldn’t bring himself to speak the words aloud.

  ‘How did you find out?’ she asked.

  He laughed, ruefully. ‘I saw it in a magazine.’

  ‘You didn’t!’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘Oh I’m sorry.’

  He had been sitting in a dentist’s waiting room in Glasgow with his tooth aching fiercely and he had been flicking through an old copy of Scottish Field to distract himself from the pain, when it had caught his eye. It was one of those typical ‘society’ wedding pictures with everyone grinning inanely: ‘Mr and Mrs Malcolm Laurence of Ealachan House, their son Nicolas and his bride Miss Christine Galbreath.’

  ‘I loved you so much, Finn. But you went away. What was I supposed to do with the rest of my life? I waited for you that night. I waited for you for ages and then I fell asleep because I was so exhausted. The next day, when I found that you had gone, oh Finn, you’ll never know what it did to me. I was heartbroken. Heartbroken.’

  ‘But you went and married Nicolas anyway.’

  ‘He was there and he was kind to me. He loved me.’