Song of the Selkies

by Cathie Dunsford

  [13]

  Sixteen small black dots floating on the gentle, large swell suddenly decide to take flight as they near the top of the cliff. They wheel around and over the rocks and soar up towards the cliff edge. Flashes of black and white, orange beaks and legs. The puffins pass so close they almost touch the noses of the onlookers, then one by one they each return to their mate nesting in the rocky crags on the seaward side of the Brough of Birsay. Cowrie and Sasha dangle their legs over the towering ledges, the full force of the wind in their faces and shout with glee. Fulmars with outstretched wings, glide as if surfing on the wind, almost touching the tufts of pink thrift poking out from the rocky outcrops as they sail past. One scoops over Sasha’s head, forcing her to duck down and it looks back, as if pleased with its swift flight and skilful negotiation of the humans. Below, the surf throws itself onto the sandstone and rolls up the sides of the brough to gather speed to tumble down again, taking seaweed, rocks and stones back with it.

  Today is glorious, the first sunny, warm day since they arrived. The initial week of settling in had its traumas once the excitement wore off, but things have now turned out well. Cowrie, Sasha and Monique are in one cottage, DK and Uretsete in the other and Camilla has stayed with Morrigan to keep house. She sees it her role to make sure Morrigan is looked after and Morrigan enjoys being waited on, so their strange union works well, so long as they keep off political issues. Sasha and Monique enjoyed travelling together through Scotland, but Monique wants to take time out for her other great passion — photography — leaving Cowrie and Sasha to explore the archeological sites and beaches while DK and Uretsete are meditating in isolated places, easy to find in Orkney.

  Bobbing on the water below are some common seals, a few floating, some diving and others frolicking in the seaweed. Cowrie and Sasha watch, entranced.

  ‘I wouldn’t mind joining them if it wasn’t so damn cold in the water here,’ Cowrie says, nodding toward the seals.

  ‘Cold? What a joke! This is at least twenty degrees celsius above what we endure before we begin saying it’s cold.’ Sasha laughs, her voice blowing back on the wind.

  Cowrie grins, admitting it’s all a matter of degree. She pours more ginger and honey tea from the flask they have bought with them and hands a cup to Sasha, who flashes her dark lashes in thanks and returns her gaze to the puffins nesting below them. Cowrie pours herself a cup and uses it to warm her hands. The sun here is always cancelled out by the wind, no matter how strong it is, but the views are breathtaking and more than make up for the lack of warmth. Especially now Sasha is here. Last night they stayed up much longer than the others, keeping the peat fire burning and talking intensely and intimately. They hatched a plan to visit the Brough of Birsay, checked the tides, and set out at dawn leaving a note for the others. They parked opposite the island and walked across the causeway, surrounded by magnificent species of seaweed — light to dark green, red, pink, brown and from long, thick leathery branches to small, delicate bright green sea lettuces with ferny fronds and waving arms in the rock pools.

  At the other side, they scaled the rocks to the Viking and Pictish settlement ruins then kept climbing until they reached the peak of the brough where they now sit watching the puffins and fulmars.

  Below them, a large dorsal fin steals through the waves and suddenly there is a wild splashing as an orca whale grabs one of the young seals and flicks it up into the air. Cowrie grabs Sasha’s arm. ‘Look at that. The whale is playing with the seal pup in preparation for the kill.’ The other seals scatter in all directions then regroup further inland where the whale is unlikely to swim. One seal stays nearby, watching in terror, as her offspring is about to be devoured. Near the end, she swims away, defeated.

  ‘It’s life, Cowrie. Out in the kayaks, we see that almost daily back home. It’s hard to find food in the arctic region and anywhere snow and ice are plentiful, so the whales take what they can, when they can. But unlike us humans, they never kill more than they can eat, despite the fact that they have ready-made freezers to store food in our land.’ Sasha chuckles at the thought.

  ‘You know that story you told about the seals at the festival? Well, do you reckon there are such people as sealfolk or is this just myth?’

  Sasha turns to face Cowrie, smiling. ‘There is no doubt in my mind and heart that the sealfolk did and do still exist. Remember, we are used to seeing life at surface level, literally and metaphorically. But our elders saw into people. They saw us from the inner out, rather than the outer in. And they made stories from what they saw inside us. These stories have an inner truth and wisdom. They are there for a purpose, to remind us of why we are here and what we are here for.’ Sasha reaches for a salmon sandwich. Just as she brings it to her lips, a fulmar skims past and steals the bread from her hand. She laughs wildly. ‘Go for it, Fulmar. Good shot!’ and sticks her arm into the basket for another, still grinning at the wild audacity of the gliding bird. Cowrie smiles, loving her connectedness to nature, her instinctual responses. Suddenly Sasha starts flinging the sandwiches off the cliff and fulmars dive, catching them mid-flight and taking them back to their nests to share with their lifelong mates. Cowrie adores this, despite it being her share of the salmon flying off the cliff edge.

  ‘Hey Sasha, that’s my brunch. You’ll pay dearly for this.’

  ‘What’s the currency, Cowrie? Not in pounds I hope. They are beyond my Inuit pocket.’

  Without thinking, Cowrie replies, ‘No. In hugs and kisses.’ Before she has a chance to withdraw or cover over her slip, Sasha grabs her, bends her gently back onto the blanket and kisses her slowly, deliciously, unexpectedly. The wind tries to tip them off balance, but Sasha digs her foot into the rock ledge and braces herself while working her tongue around the edges of Cowrie’s mouth then out again and over the lips, only to dive back in, like a seal playing in a sea cave. They kiss, gently, delicately, lusciously as the waves pound against the rocks below and the fulmars shriek in delight from the air above. They enter into that sensuous dreamworld for those who savour the imagery of touch.

  In the distance, a floating iceberg. The sea is sleek and calm, deep green with slashes of blue. A rainbow plunges from the sky into the water beside the iceberg and a dolphin rises up next to the kayak, nudging the skin sides of the craft, her fin touching Cowrie’s arm dangling near the water. She looks into the eyes of the dolphin, so gentle, wise, clear, intimate. It is Peta. The eyes dissolve into those of Sasha. She feels the tongue of the dolphin on hers.

  ‘Cowrie, are you okay?’ Sasha bends her face over her friend, who seems lost in another world, her brilliant eyes soaking sensuously through Cowrie.

  ‘Ae. I’m okay, I think.’ Cowrie rises from the deep, meeting Sasha’s gaze fully. ‘You took me by surprise, sent me diving into the dreamspace.’

  ‘Oh, yeah, and I was a dolphin kissing you, right?’ Sasha grins.

  ‘How did you know that?’

  ‘I’m descended from dolphins, and I know I’ve been sent to you for some reason. Right now, kissing seems a good enough excuse to find out why.’ Sasha smiles. ‘Besides, I have wanted to do that ever since we met at that sunny, outdoor seafood restaurant off Royal Mile in Edinburgh. I remember wanting to take you away swimming with me, but you seemed to be with Sahara, so I held back.’ Sasha leans her head on her hand, lying beside Cowrie with her other hand stroking Cowrie’s face.

  ‘I was in love with Sahara, and I still love her. But she is in love with a West Indian dancer, and after our time in the Antarctic, we came to realise we had differing needs.’ Cowrie kisses Sasha’s hand. ‘I also felt a surge of energy with you, first in the performance and then at the cafe, but then when you talked of travelling through Scotland with Monique, I wondered if you were going to be lovers.’

  Sasha laughs into the wind. ‘Monique, as gorgeous as she is, has a male Afro-German lover back in Frankfurt, and a child he is looking after while she is away. They both work together at the African-German Culture Cafe and org
anise readings and support for other Afro-Germans.’

  ‘So, you’d’ve been tempted but for that, like me with Sahara?’

  ‘Yes. Who wouldn’t with a passionate woman like Monique, so devoted to her work. But remember, sweet Turtle, you were my first choice.’ Sasha breathes hot air into Cowrie’s neck which is getting cold with the wind.

  ‘Oh, never let that stop,’ moans Cowrie, enjoying the sensation. ‘Hey, how come you called me turtle just then?’

  ‘I attended all your storytelling sessions in Edinburgh and if you are not a turtle, then I am not a dolphin!’ Sasha laughs, prodding Cowrie’s arms. ‘Look, wee fins, cute wee fins.’ She starts moving them in a swimming motion and they nearly topple off the cliff edge.

  ‘Steady on, dancing dolphin. You just about had us in the water, and I doubt even we would have survived a fall that vast.’ Cowrie edges her body further from the cliff edge, Sasha moving with her, as if they are one creature crawling toward the pink thrift tufting its way through the rock crevices. They find themselves in a small grassy hollow, sheltered from the strength of the wind, and continue exploring their tongued caves in the cathedral of nature, high up from the crashing sea and far away from human interference, with only the fulmars and puffins flying over them, uttering calls of ecstacy and gliding down to tell their mates. Into the dreamworld they enter fully, aware that each of them touches the other, literally and imaginatively, as if one soaring entity, where each touch sends sensuous waves of energy flying through the other, reaches parts of them that no other human ever has.

  When they surface, they stay in silence for some time, drinking in the gaze of the other. Cowrie is reminded so much of Peta, her Chumash lover on Great Turtle Island. It’s almost as if Peta has come to her in the form of Sasha. She recalls dreams of Peta falling from the Rainbow Bridge created by Hutash, and turning into a dolphin, swimming off to be with her new lover, Nanduye. Nature has rewarded her by sending back another dolphin lover in the form of Sasha, one whose lips speak of other lands and of stories and seas that Cowrie longs to explore.

  ‘Calling all turtles. Dolphin to Turtle. Please tune in. The causeway we walked to get here at low tide is now covered in water. Are you ready to swim home with the blanket and thermos and binoculars?’ Sasha points down behind them to the far side of the brough. Sure enough, the tide has turned and the walkway is covered by at least three feet of water. They quickly gather together their picnic brunch, stuff it into their backpacks, and gallop down the slopes they’d climbed so slowly before. They wave to the Norse ruins as they pass by and splash onto the walkway to find the tide is up to their waists and surging in fast.

  From the other shore, people look on anxiously at the two people stranded on the island. But when the women dive into the sea, clothes, backpacks and all, a wave of shock enters them. Few Orcadians swim in local waters since they are so cold, and fewer fully clothed. But these two fin their way to the beach skilfully between the oncoming waves, as if they were used to the water. ‘Must be ferryloopers,’ says one man to his wife. ‘No Orcadian would do that unless they were about to miss their clapshot for tea.’ His wife smiles, admiring the strength and audacity of the women, wishing she could be with them instead of returning home to cook tatties for eight hungry mouths.

  [14]

  By the time they get home, DK and Uretsete have the peat fire going and two whole oak-smoked salmon stuffed with fresh herbs ready. Monique is still at Skara Brae taking photographs and Camilla and Morrigan are at Finstown working on cleaning the boat. The four of them settle around the fire for feasting and talkstory. Uretsete has made some corn bread and Cowrie has not tasted any so good since Peta’s recipe which she often did for a treat. It seems right to share such bread tonight. DK and Uretsete are so excited by their day that they do not at first notice the new layers of intimacy between Sasha and Cowrie.

  Between the cornbread laden with Orkney butter and delicious Swanney cheese, the oak-smoked salmon dripping with moisture as it cooks over the peat fire and a salad made from lettuce and fresh herbs, DK and Uretsete fill Cowrie in on the progress made by their performing talkstory group, Siliyik, representing a range of cultures from Great Turtle Island. The young students had been the talk of the fringe festival alongside Sasha’s work, and they revelled in the feedback from the audiences. Most have now flown home to study but DK and Uretsete planned to do a working holiday after the festival and when the Orkney invitation came from Ellen, oops, Morrigan, as DK finds it hard to remember now, they jumped at the chance.

  ‘Today we walked through Binscarth Wood. We’d been told Orkney had no trees, but it turns out this woodland was planted by some dudes in the nineteenth century. Cool!’ DK downs some mineral water and takes a breath. ‘There were bluebells and all sorts of birds I’d never, like never, seen before. Awesome!’

  ‘Then,’ continues Uretsete, ‘we went to Finstown. We saw Morrigan and Camilla at the Pomona Inn where we stopped for lunch. I think Camilla was a bit drunk. She was swaying about and she was much less uptight than usual. Anyway, we wandered about the shoreline and met up with Shelley, you know, that cute woman who sold us all the fresh shellfish the day we arrived? It was her break and we shared some mineral water with her. She told us she’d been born on the island and had lived in Finstown all her life. Her dad was a fisherman named Kelpie. Anyway, one day he never returned from fishing and they found his boat drifting later, as if he’d dived overboard. His wife was despondent, took to the bottle and disappeared within a year of his going. Some reckoned he had been taken so fast that the seals had come to drag him back into the sea and she missed him so much she went to join him. Anyway, nobody has ever found either of their bodies. Shelley was adopted by her grandmother and stayed in Finstown despite all the gossip. The kids at school called her Sealface. She tried her hand at typing and waitressing at the Pomona Inn, but always felt the call of the sea. Eventually, she was offered the job at Seafayre and that suited her fine because she was returned to the fishing industry and life she grew up with. Sometimes, she says, she hears her father’s voice on the wind, as if he is calling to her. She doesn’t get too near the water now and never goes out on the boats in case she gets pulled in to join the seals. Amazing, eh?’

  ‘I reckon she’s at least one sausage short of a barbecue. If you ask me there’s some fantasy going on there,’ admits DK.

  ‘Don’t be too sure, DK,’ warns Sasha, finishing a mouth full of salmon. ‘These stories are not so strange in Orcadian or Hebridean waters. There’s more than a few people related to the seals.’

  ‘Yeah, but most are fantasy, right? I mean, like, you’d have to have a few screws loose to really think a seal could pull a human into the water and he could grow gills and live there.’ DK pulls the fin off her salmon and throws it into the fire.

  ‘It isn’t that literal, but seals have a way of charming people and come when humans most need them. I’d give the story a little more respect if I were you.’ Sasha chews the last piece of the fish and the tail pokes out of her mouth as she moves her jaws up and down, up and down. DK cannot help noticing that she looks like a seal munching on a fish in the water. She has to suppress her mirth.

  ‘But weren’t most of the seal stories about guys who stole and hid the skins of their selkie wives and thus prevented them from returning to the water? I heard several variations on that in the Scottish storytelling sessions at the festival.’ DK tries to dislodge a bone from between her teeth, but is having trouble budging it.

  ‘That’s true, but while the themes might be about women needing their freedom, represented by their sealskins in this case, there are still many sightings of sealpeople and far too many stories to dismiss it outright,’ ventures Cowrie.

  ‘Hey, DK, that’s true. Remember when I took you to see that John Sayles film, ‘Roan Inish’ at the Pacific Film Archives at University? About the little girl, Fiona, who was called back to find her brother who had been taken by the seals as a child. She found him flo
ating in a little rounded boat, a coracle, that looked like a wooden clog, and eventually he was reunited with his family when they returned to the island they all left because the work had ended there. It was as if he and she were the symbolic link, the youth bringing the folk back home to their birthplaces to live and work instead of selling out to industrial interests and abandoning their heritage. I recall you being moved to tears if I remember correctly. You asked me if I felt the same being moved from our Chumash land and placed on a reservation and if I longed to return home again, like an ache inside the body.’ Uretsete puts her hand on DK’s knee.

  DK’s face lights up. ‘Yeah, now I remember. Magic film. Isn’t that why we wanted to visit Scotland and also explore Iona? It was that elemental feeling of belonging to something ancient, like, with more spiritual depth than just getting your degree and making money.’

  ‘Right. And you said you’d love to be that little boy, Jamie, with the old stone house on the island, thatching the roof and fishing for food each day. You were right into it and into the sealfolk then, DK,’ Uretsete reminds her.

  DK blushes. ‘Maybe so. But I sure am not afraid of some seal swimming up the Bay of Skaill to nab me. That’s the least of my worries.’

  ‘Then again, your folks did not just disappear without trace did they? I really felt for Shelley and I think she was very brave to tell us.’

  ‘Maybe she wanted to do so before we heard it from others. Morrigan says the Orkney grapevine is faster than quicksilver. There’s evidently one old codger who just sits in the Stromness pub and listens. The next day, it’s all about town. So any time Morrigan wants to get word about, like when she is selling some cheap fish, she simply tells him and before she is back home people have started contacting her.’ DK laughs at the thought.