Pearl Fishers

by Robin Jenkins

  ‘Why have they stopped?’

  ‘Maybe she wants to ask Mrs McTeague if she can use her toilet.’

  ‘They don’t need toilets. As Angus said they just piss behind bushes.’

  There was laughter, some of it uneasy. They had daughters of their own.

  ‘My God, she’s coming over.’

  ‘She must have heard it’s pay day.’

  ‘That’s it,’ cried Angus. ‘She’s coming to beg. Give her nothing, not a penny. Mind that, Hamilton.’

  There were grins. If Hamilton decided to give the girl something, maybe his whole pay packet, he wouldn’t ask for Angus’s permission.

  ‘Just look at her,’ muttered Angus. ‘You’d think she was proud of herself. Shameless young besom.’

  She was walking with remarkable grace. She wasn’t trying to provoke Angus. She did not know she was doing it.

  All the same, thought Hamilton, Angus was right. Surely she ought to be showing some shame, some humility anyway, considering how degrading a life she led, whether it was through her own fault or not. It must be stupidity.

  Then she was close enough for him to see that, whatever it was, it wasn’t stupidity. On the contrary, she looked too sensitive and intelligent for her own good. With increasing astonishment he saw that she was very good-looking. No, that was too tame a word; beautiful was more like it, ridiculous though it seemed. Her eyes were an unusual shade of brown and, in spite of her tiredness, were eager and alert. He was reminded of a deer. She had the same grace, the same air of wildness, as if she was poised to flee, into the forest and up onto the tops of the hills. As brown as a Native American, she was wearing a necklace of blue stones and pinned to her jumper between her breasts was a single white wild rose. As gestures of pride and self-respect they were insignificant but somehow very effective. Even Angus was finding it harder to wish her ill.

  There was a whiff of dried sweat off her; it had been a hot day. She must know it, she must find it mortifying, but she still held up her head. She was having to pay for it, though. Hamilton saw her shiver once and for a few moments the light went out of her eyes.

  ‘Wouldn’t it have been better for her,’ whispered old Dugald, ‘if she’d been born glaikit-looking and humphy-backed? In the camps where she lives they’ll be after her like dogs after a bitch in heat.’ He sniggered.

  And you’d be one of the pursuing dogs, thought Hamilton.

  The boy on the cart shouted, ‘I’m hungry, Effie.’

  ‘I know, pet. We’ll eat soon.’

  ‘When did they last eat?’ asked Hamilton.

  She stared at him as if minded to ask what business it was of his. Instead she said, with a meekness that was obviously against her nature, ‘Seven o’clock this morning.’

  ‘That was more than five hours ago.’

  ‘I do my best, Mister.’ She was speaking in English. She had noticed his Gaelic was uncertain.

  ‘I would like to speak to the man in charge,’ she said.

  The door of the hut opened and Hugh McTeague, the forester, appeared. ‘That’s me, lass. What can I do for you? If you need anything ask at the house. My wife will do what she can for you.’

  He had two children of his own. His wife, Sheila, was sharp-tongued and good-hearted. She came from Glasgow, he from the isle of Eigg.

  ‘We’re not beggars,’ said the girl. ‘We can pay for what we need.’

  There were some sceptical grins.

  From her trouser pocket she took a small red tin that had once contained Oxo cubes. She opened it and revealed some small round objects that glowed in the sun.

  ‘Pearls,’ she said, ‘Scottish pearls. We’re not tinkers if that’s what you’ve been thinking. We’re pearl-fishers.’

  ‘I’ve heard about the pearl fishing,’ said McTeague. ‘They’re found in mussels, in rivers in Sutherland.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘How much are these worth?’

  ‘I should get twenty pounds for them.’

  There were gasps. It took a forestry worker ten weeks to earn as much.

  ‘It took us four months to gather these. All of us.’

  ‘Even the children?’ asked Hamilton.

  ‘I’ve been doing it since I was four.’

  He was noticing how beautiful her hands were. Pure was the word that occurred to him. He thought of their immersion for many hours in the cold waters of Scottish rivers. If she kept doing it much longer those hands would lose their beauty and become swollen and contorted.

  ‘We need the money for Grandfather’s funeral,’ she said.

  ‘Is he as ill as that?’ asked McTeague.

  ‘We don’t think he’ll last another week.’

  ‘In that case shouldn’t he be in hospital?’

  ‘He doesn’t want to die in a hospital.’

  ‘Why have you brought him here?’

  ‘He was born in Kilcalmonell, eighty years ago. He wants to be buried here.’

  There was some shaking of heads. The old fellow’s soul might be welcome in heaven but his body wouldn’t be in the kirkyard at Kilcalmonell, if Miss Fiona, the minister’s sister, had anything to do with it.

  ‘We need a place to camp,’ she said. ‘We’ll pay.’

  ‘I’m sorry I can’t help you there, lass. At this time of year there’s great danger of fire.’

  ‘We heard there are sands on the loch. Couldn’t we camp there?’

  ‘No, you couldn’t,’ said Angus. ‘People bring their children to play on those sands. They wouldn’t want to be bothered with rubbish like you.’

  He was ashamed that he had said it but he would say it again.

  ‘That’s not a very nice thing to say, Angus,’ said McTeague.

  ‘It was a very offensive thing to say,’ said Hamilton, angrily. ‘You should apologise, Angus.’

  ‘To the likes of her? Never.’

  If she was blushing it could not be seen for her tan, but her voice trembled a little. ‘We’re not rubbish. Grandfather’s a Gaelic poet. Men from universities have come to record him reciting his poems.’

  ‘There’s a field behind my house. You’re welcome to camp there.’

  It was Hamilton who had spoken.

  She turned to him eagerly but asked with a trace of doubt in her voice. ‘Whose land is it, Mister?’

  ‘Mine. You would be safe there.’

  ‘Wouldn’t your wife object?’

  ‘I’m not married.’

  ‘You have no business encouraging them,’ said Angus. ‘That’s what they do, send somebody like her on ahead, and then descend in dozens.’

  ‘Only one man will come,’ she said. ‘For the funeral.’

  ‘Is he your man?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Are you his woman?’

  ‘I’m nobody’s woman. Did you mean it, Mister?’

  ‘Yes, I meant it,’ said Hamilton.

  One of those beautiful hands was clenched against her breast.

  ‘It’s not far,’ he said. ‘Half a mile or so. Opposite the sands.’

  ‘Are you sure about this, Gavin?’ said McTeague. ‘No disrespect to you, Miss, but this is not an ordinary house.’

  ‘How many rooms is it again, Gavin?’ someone asked. ‘Ten or twelve?’

  She looked in wonder at Hamilton, a forestry worker with so large a house.

  ‘There are postcards with pictures of the Old Manse on them,’ said McTeague.

  ‘They can’t camp in that field,’ said Angus. ‘People cross it on their way to the Chinese gardens. They won’t want to walk past filthy tents.’

  ‘What are the Chinese gardens?’ asked the girl.

  ‘Oh, it’s just a name the local people give it,’ said McTeague. ‘It’s the original water supply for the house. Half a dozen small reservoirs joined by hump-backed bridges. It is a beautiful place, to be sure.’

  ‘We wouldn’t have to go near them, would we?’

  ‘No, you wouldn’t,’ said Hamilt
on. ‘Tell me, what’s your name?’

  ‘Effie. Effie Williamson.’

  ‘Mine’s Gavin Hamilton.’

  ‘We’ll pay you, Mr Hamilton.’

  ‘There’s no need. I’ll go on ahead and wait at the gate. You can’t see the house from the road, because of the trees.’

  He retrieved his bicycle from the tangle leaning against the hut. He gave the girl a nod and then wheeled his bicycle to the cart where the two children sat crouched together. He stopped and spoke to them briefly. Then he got on his bicycle and rode off.

  ‘Has he really got a field?’ asked the girl.

  ‘Yes, indeed he has. It’s where the schoolchildren hold their sports. You will be very comfortable there.’

  ‘Does the house belong to him too?’

  ‘Yes, but he has promised it to Glasgow Corporation as a holiday home for children from the slums.’

  She turned to Angus. ‘I’m sorry you don’t like us, Mister. We don’t mean any harm. After Grandfather’s buried we’ll go away and you’ll never see us again.’

  Angus turned his back on her.

  ‘Excuse me,’ she said, and walked proudly to the cart where her mother was watching anxiously.

  ‘What was all that about, Effie?’

  ‘It’s all right. We’ve got a place to camp.’

  ‘Where is it?’

  ‘About half a mile along the road. Behind a big house.’

  ‘Whose house? We don’t want them setting their dogs on us.’

  ‘It belongs to the man with the beard.’

  ‘He was very interested in the children.’

  ‘He was just concerned about them.’

  ‘What’s he charging for the use of his field?’

  ‘Nothing. He said it wasn’t necessary to pay.’

  ‘I hope he’s not one of those that wants something else from you.’

  ‘He thinks too much of himself for that.’

  ‘Is that so? If I get a chance I’ll tell him to his face that the man that gets my Effie will be the luckiest man on God’s earth.’

  ‘Don’t be silly, mother.’

  Effie felt depressed. She had thought she could cope but was now afraid she couldn’t. She had a headache. Her period had started. Things were getting too much for her. There was Grandfather dying, his funeral to arrange and pay for. He wanted to be buried in a certain place, in the forest, where his family had been buried eighty years ago. She didn’t think it would be allowed. The old horse Maggie was lame. One of the cart wheels had developed a wobble. Morag wasn’t well. The doctor in Tain had warned that she might slip into consumption if she didn’t get proper food and rest. Daniel was coming, with a paper in his pocket, signed by Grandfather, giving him permission to marry Effie. With Grandfather dead and no man in the family the authorities might take Morag and Eddie into care. They had threatened to do so. Effie’s own hopes of escaping her present way of life were almost extinguished. Who would come and rescue her? No one in the whole world.

  Trying to look cheerful, she went over to the children.

  ‘Have we got a place to camp, Effie?’ asked Morag.

  ‘I think so, pet. The man with the beard that spoke to you, he said we could camp in a field behind his house.’

  ‘Good. I liked him.’ Morag was always too trusting.

  ‘What did he say to you?’

  ‘He just asked our names.’

  ‘Will we get there soon, Effie?’ said Eddie. ‘I’m hungry.’

  ‘We’ll be there in ten minutes. We can’t go very fast. Maggie’s lame.’

  They set off.

  ‘Can we have tatties and sausages?’ asked Eddie.

  ‘I’m not sure about tatties. They take too long. But there’s bread, new bread. You like that.’

  In the baker’s and the butcher’s people had moved away discreetly.

  The cart behind had stopped. Unable to wait any longer her mother was climbing down, with some difficulty. She crept behind some whin bushes at the side of the road. The thorns would catch in her skirt. She would probably wet herself.

  Rubbish, the big man had called them. Effie sighed.

  She was so relieved to see Hamilton waiting by an open gate that she almost burst into tears. She had been dreading that he had changed his mind. She should have felt grateful, and so she did, but she felt resentful too. She did not want to be beholden to him.

  She looked down at him. ‘Why are you doing this, Mr Hamilton? You’ll get nothing from me.’

  It was a stupid thing to say. What did she have that he would want?

  Morag was smiling at him and he was smiling back. There was already an understanding between them. Effie felt shut out.

  ‘If you really want to know,’ he said, ‘I’m doing it for the children.’

  That was a reason she was willing to accept.

  The second cart arrived.

  Led by Hamilton, the two carts crunched up the gravel track, through the trees, and there suddenly was the house, built of sandstone, large and splendid.

  ‘It’s like a church, Effie,’ whispered Morag.

  They went round the side of the house, and there was the promised field, with lush grass and magnificent beech trees.

  ‘I could play football here,’ said Eddie.

  There were stone outhouses, perhaps in the past they had been used as stables. They would be a shelter if there was heavy rain, but permission would have to be sought, and Effie would never seek it. Yonder was a rose garden, with a high fence round it to keep out deer.

  Effie got down. Hamilton put up his hand to help her but she ignored it.

  Morag and Eddie, though, were glad to accept his help.

  Morag put her arms round his neck, as trusting as if he were her father.

  Eddie ran off across the field, kicking an imaginary football.

  ‘My God, Effie,’ cried her mother, ‘it’s a bloody mansion. Would you be so kind, Mister, as to give me a hand to get down? I’m as stiff as a tree.’

  Effie went forward to help her mother but Hamilton was there before her.

  It was almost as if he regarded himself as one of the family. He would have to be stopped.

  Effie went and stood under one of the beech trees. Her legs were trembling. All of her was trembling. She was more intimidated by Hamilton’s officious kindness than by the big man’s abuse.

  If she had been by herself she would have left immediately.

  She could not have explained how he was doing it, perhaps he did not intend to do it, but Hamilton was taking from her in minutes what she had spent her life holding on to – not pride, for how could she be proud of the kind of life she led, but simply a resolution not to be ashamed or humiliated, for she had never done anything wrong nor harmed anyone.

  So easily was he weakening that resolution.

  Morag came and stood beside her. ‘Is there anything wrong, Effie?’

  ‘No, pet, there’s nothing wrong.’

  ‘This is a nice place, isn’t it?’

  ‘Very nice.’

  ‘Can we stay here for a long time?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘I would like to stay here always. Wouldn’t you, Effie?’

  Effie took a deep breath and managed to smile. ‘Yes, I think I would like to stay here always.’

  Hamilton was coming to join them.

  He spoke in English. He had already discovered that their English, even Eddie’s, was better than his Gaelic.

  ‘Do you hear the buzzards?’

  They were mewing like cats as they soared higher and higher in the blue sky.

  ‘They’re often here. I love watching them. They’re so joyful, so free.’

  He was letting her know he was more interested in the birds than in her and her family.

  ‘Excuse me,’ she said. ‘I’ll have to see to the tents.’

  ‘No.’ He repeated it emphatically. ‘No.’

  She had been waiting for this. He had changed his mind and wante
d them to leave.

  It would be a terrible disappointment to the children, and to be truthful, to herself too.

  Then, to her utter astonishment, he said, ‘I want you to sleep in the house, all of you.’

  Morag clapped her hands in delight. ‘Oh, I would like that. Wouldn’t you, Effie?’

  Effie was staring at Hamilton. ‘What are you trying to do? Are you trying to take away what little pride we have left?’

  ‘What pride, for God’s sake?’ cried her mother. ‘One thing our kind can’t afford is pride.’

  She saw that Effie had gone into one of her ominous silences. God knew what went on in her mind then.

  ‘She’s my daughter but I can’t say I understand her.’

  He thought he could. After a week or so living in a house and sleeping in a proper bed, Effie would know how purgatorial it must be having to go back, perhaps for the rest of her life, to crawling on hands and knees into a small dark smelly tent, like an animal into its burrow.

  Mrs Williamson took him aside. ‘I’ve got a favour to ask you, Mister, two favours. Do you have any whisky in the house?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But could you get some? Grandfather needs it to help him sleep.’

  It was probably the truth.

  ‘I could get some if it was really necessary.’

  ‘It’s necessary all right. The second thing’s a wee bit delicate, you not being a married man. Effie’s having her period and we’ve run out of clean clouts. If there’s a woman where you’re going would you ask her if we could have one or two sanitary towels? For God’s sake, say nothing about this to Effie.’

  Poor Effie, he thought.

  ‘While you’re away I’ll talk to Effie.’

  ‘Tell her I want you to use the house as if you were my guests.’

  She laughed. ‘Some guests.’

  ‘There are two bathrooms, one upstairs. Use the kitchen. There’s some food in the larder. You’re welcome to it.’

  ‘Thanks, Mister. There’s Morag coughing again. You’ll have noticed she’s not very well. We don’t expect her to be long after Grandfather.’

  He hurried away. There were tears in his eyes. He already loved that little girl.

  Mrs Williamson shook her head as she watched him go. He was a good man but like all good people he was simple, easy to take in.