After that I’d no more excuses for avoiding a visit to the home of my youth. Three miles away. Fourteen years ago.
I drove out of the marina, turned left and left again, and drove slowly along the single-track road that led to Muckle Roe. This was the road I’d gone to school on, sandwiched between Inga and Martin in a rattling minibus. Every twist and turn was familiar, although there were more houses than I remembered, spaced out at hundred-metre intervals on each side of the road. The banks were lined with clumps of grey-green spikes, daffodil leaves with the first yellow splitting the long buds. I drove below the modern standing stone the roadymen had set up when they’d re-tarred the road, and above the older one set out on its headland to guide the Neolithic fishermen home, past the corbelled white height of Busta House Hotel, and at last, a mile from the boating club, across the cattle grid and into proper country. Below me, the green fields sloped down to the pebbled shore and the polished steel water; above the road was the dark green of the first heather shoots. There were a number of hill sheep grazing, traditional Shetland sheep, not much bigger than a collie dog, and coloured black, rust-brown, speckled. A good number of them were down at the road verge, enjoying the new grass and putting paid to the first primroses. No lambs as yet; they wouldn’t come till late April, although I’d spotted one or two earlier cross-breeds in sheltered green parks.
I drove across the Muckle Roe bridge and along the single track road until the Y-shape of Swarback’s Minn opened out in front of me, with the voe down to Eid clear and open, and the deep channel of the Rona ahead, and the Atlantic breaking on my right hand against red granite cliffs and sea stacks. I drew into the next passing place, switched the engine off, and sat there a moment, arms across the steering wheel, chin resting on my hands.
Now my childhood was spread before me. Behind me was the long arm of Busta Voe, where Martin and I had sailed my Mirror dinghy every summer day, launching from the red-sand beach just ahead. I’d paddled in that burn spreading across the sand, caught little fish in my lime-green net, and scooped up jam-jars of frogspawn, which Maman had made me pour back. ‘Je ne veux pas de grenouilles à la maison.’ Inga, Martin, and I had made hoosies in the roofless walls of the old croft, and lit fires on the beach with purloined matches. We’d gone swimming on summer days, teeth chattering after three minutes in the water, and skimmed the flat beach stones to try to beat Martin’s record of nine bounces.
It was up this hill that I’d stormed until I was breathless when Dad had suddenly announced that the oil company had asked him to go to the Gulf, and I was to leave all my life and friends here and join Maman. The raging hadn’t done any good, of course. Dad had got more authoritarian and I’d got more angry, and we’d stopped speaking by the time he marched me onto the Sumburgh plane. By the time he’d got back from the Gulf, I was in Scotland, going from one ship to the next.
After Alain’s death, I’d phoned him. Not to talk about that, just because. But I hadn’t gone home.
Our drive-end where I’d waited for the bus day after day was fifty yards ahead. The grey tarmac of the single-track road went on past, to Inga and Martin’s house. After them there was only the wide Atlantic. I wondered now if that was part of what had driven bourgeois town-dwelling Maman away. She’d been the selkie wife in reverse, brought up in the chalk-silver Poitevin countryside of fields fringed by elegant, upright poplars, and suddenly trapped by winter storms that frothed the sea up and threw the spray at the windows until they were white with encrusted salt. Perhaps she’d have stayed if Dad had built his beautiful new house with all mod cons in Brae, where the shops and leisure centre were within walking distance, and Lerwick was only twenty-one miles of dual carriageway away.
No. She’d never have stayed.
I walked briskly down to the open front door.
I’d expected to find it smaller, and so it was, in the disconcerting way of a cliché come true. I crouched slightly and it became familiar again, the brown-tile lino, the white-painted walls with the shelf for the postman to leave the letters on. Radio 4 was playing, and the house smelt of lemon polish. I called ‘Hello’ and Jessie Matthewson came out to greet me, a duster in one hand and another slung over her round shoulder, making an orange splash against the pink-checked nylon overall. There were two cans of spray in the pouch pocket, Pledge and Windowlene, just as there had always been.
Jessie had been our cleaner as far back as I could remember. She lived overlooking the marina, in a big, square-built house called Efstigarth that had once been the farm for Busta House, and was now a B&B. Maman would tell me to keep out from under her feet, and Jessie’d echoed her, ‘Now, lass get out from under my feet!’ but with a smile that told me she didn’t really mean it. She’d tell me stories as she worked: about the time she’d spilled ink on her jotter at school and got the cane, or how her father had taken her out fishing and helped her land a skate as big as herself. She’d talked about her mother and father, her grandparents, her aunts and uncles, her cousins all the way to fourth cousins once removed, and her neighbours, to say nothing of the strange habits of her B&B guests. She’d follow the stories with a sweetie and a hug, then chase me out so she could mop the floor.
Now she’d gone from resolute middle-age to discouraged elderly, as if she’d decided that nothing good would ever happen to her. The curly hair that I remembered as glossily black was an indeterminate fake-fur brown, and there were tired lines running from her nose to the corner of her rather small mouth. Bruised shadows gave a blue hollow under her rather small, dark eyes, which widened and brightened at the sight of me standing there.
‘Now, then, Cassie! My, what a bonny lass you’ve turned out.’ Like Magnie, she didn’t even glance at the scar across my cheek, though she couldn’t help but notice it. ‘Come in, come in. I wasn’t sure when you’d come over. I thought it might be yesterday, and I’d miss you.’
Damn it, I wasn’t going to apologise for not going hot-foot to Dad’s door.
‘How are you, Jessie? It’s good to see you again.’ I gave her a kiss on the cheek, which seemed to please her.
‘Oh, doing away. Busy, you ken. I’m still cleaning here, and at the school every evening, and then I go once a week to Mrs Cheyne over at the Grind, and once to Inga Anderson, Inga Nicolson that was, that was used to be your best pal at the school, to keep the peerie thing for her while she goes to the swimming pool and the gym, although I don’t know if I’ll keep doing that much longer.’
‘Inga’s got a baby?’ I said.
‘Lass, she has three – the two lasses are well through the school.’ A sideways look, as if she was checking whether I’d heard some rumour. ‘Her man’s Charlie Anderson, he’s a cousin o’ mine through my midder. But –’ Her nostrils flared in disapproval, and she gave her head a little toss. I wondered what this Charlie had been up to – another woman? She’d always been very strong on keeping marriage vows: It’s no’ just for a fun, du kens, du has to tak the rough wi’ the smooth. Things dinna turn out the way you expect when you’re young, and you just have to get on wi’ them. ‘Well, never mind, never mind.’ She finished hastily, as if sorry she’d started on that one, ‘Now, how did you find your longship? What condition is she in?’
‘Fair,’ I said. ‘A bit of work needing done, but nothing too major.’
‘I’d heard that, yes. You’ll be pleased to be in charge of her. That’s a good chance for you, and a fine thing for the place, that’s what your dad said when he heard about it being filmed here. “A lot of jobs,” he said. “Repairing the boat, and crew for her, and the film crew will all need accommodation and catering. Early season, too, so there should be no bother finding space for them.’”
‘Have you many coming to you?’
She flushed; a fleeting, furtive look crossed her face. ‘I’ll likely be busy later.’
‘Everyone’ll be busy later,’ I said, ‘once the film lot arrive. By the time the camera crew and best boys and sound men and all are squeezed in, there
won’t be a spare bed in the place.’
‘You’re fairly right,’ she agreed, but didn’t expand on it, as I’d have expected, with the numbers she’d got, and full details of each person that their mother could hardly have bettered. Instead she went pink, shot a nervous glance towards the sitting room, and began twiddling the duster round in her work-worn hands. ‘I have just the one, this Baker lass, she’s taken the whole house – but you’ll likely ken all about that.’ Her cheeks went from pink to crimson. ‘Now, your dad’s just through by. He’ll be pleased to see you.’
She bustled me through the kitchen into what Maman had called the salon and Dad the living room. It hadn’t changed either. The square-cornered leather suite, the moss-velvet curtains, the Chinese rug, had been made to last, and Maman’s baby grand piano still took up a quarter of the room. Dad was sitting in his usual armchair, reading the business section of yesterday’s Irish Independent. All I could see of him was the long legs, black-trousered, and shining black shoes.
‘Now, Dermot, look who’s arrived.’
‘The prodigal daughter,’ I said cheerfully. ‘Hi, Dad, how are you?’
The newspaper was lowered instantly, folded, and laid aside in one quick movement. Nothing had changed about him either. His hair was dark and thick as ever above his rather beaky nose, and he sprang up like a two-year old.
‘Cassie! Now, then, girl, it’s good to see you!’ He gave me a bear-hug, slightly awkward, then stood back to look at me. ‘Well. Well now. It’s good to see you. You’re looking well. Did you have a good journey from Norway? How did you find the Stormfugl?’
It seemed everyone knew what I was doing better than I knew it myself. I sat down on the edge of one of the leather armchairs, facing the picture window that gave a sweeping view of the sea. ‘She’s good.’
‘That’s fine, that’s fine. We have to toast this.’ He rose and went to the glass-fronted drinks cabinet, took out two glasses. ‘A gin and tonic? A sherry?’
‘I’ll have a whisky with you,’ I said.
He poured himself a generous measure and me a lady’s finger. ‘Jessie, you’ll drink with us, won’t you?’ He poured her a sherry. ‘To your new command.’
‘Your good health,’ I countered.
Now I had the chance to get a good look at him, I could see tiny differences. His face was heavier than I remembered, harder, as if the businessman had taken over, the jaw and neck thickened to a stubborn line, the set of the brows determined. If I was meeting him for the first time now, as my new skipper – and I didn’t see him being satisfied with mate – I’d walk warily. There were white hairs at his ears and in his brows. His blue eyes, that blazing Irish blue I’d inherited, had faded to the misted blue of the far horizon, but they were quick, alert, ticking off the changes in me. His voice was as vigorous as ever, bouncing cheerfully off the glass of the cabinet and setting the piano wires buzzing, and he was grinning with satisfaction.
‘Now, girl, it’s fine to have you back home. Fine. Where are you thinking to sleep?’
An odd, sly eagerness about the way he said that. I’d been wondering if I should be asking if we could move into the house, for Anders’ sake, because Khalida was still pretty chilly at night, but suddenly I decided against that. I’d broken free, and I’d stay that way. The nights were getting warmer, and I could always buy a fleece blanket.
‘Aboard, of course,’ I said.
‘Of course, of course.’ I couldn’t read his face. ‘Have you got a crew for Stormfugl yet?’
‘Anders and I,’ I said.
‘Anders, that’s your young man?’
I was going to get very fed up of correcting that one. ‘My engineer,’ I said clearly.
There was a fleeting look of disappointment, followed by a smooth recover. ‘I bumped into him at the Co-op – well, someone pointed him out, so I introduced myself. Nice young man. Seems to know what he’s talking about when it comes to engines.’
As if Dad did. I reminded myself that I came home as a conquering heroine, and swallowed the ‘Dad, I know what I’m doing’ that rose to my throat. ‘I need to get one more crewman, a general deck-hand. Someone well used to boats, maybe a retired fisherman.’ I could afford to throw a sop to Cerberus. ‘You don’t know anyone?’
He looked at Jessie. ‘Well, it happens I do. Jessie was just wondering about that the other day, weren’t you? Her husband’s at a bit of a loose end these days since he gave the boat up.’
Jessie nodded. ‘Under my feet.’ She reddened again and spoke stiffly. ‘He heard about the longship on the wireless and thought I could maybe mention that he’d be interested, if you were looking for someone. He’s been a fisherman all his days, until this government quota nonsense. Conserving fish stocks, as if there weren’t just as many fish in the sea as ever there were.’
‘He worked a shellfish boat too for a bit, didn’t he?’ I said. An intimate acquaintance with the cliffs and stacks around Swarback’s Minn could be very useful. I tried to act like a skipper. ‘I may need to advertise the post, but tell him to come along and talk to me at the marina. I’ll be there this evening, if he’s free. Here.’ I scribbled my mobile number on the telephone pad and gave it to her.
‘Then that’s sorted,’ Dad said. ‘What time is it? Here, Cassie, let me take you out to lunch. Busta Hotel or the Mid Brae?’
I went for Busta. We drove the two miles back towards Brae, and parked beside one of the crumbling gargoyles that guarded the steps down to the entrance.
Busta House Hotel still felt like someone’s home inside, in spite of the board with advertisements for wildlife tours and the little reception hatch with its brass bell. The hall was hung with watercolours of local scenes, and opened up into a wider space, with a substantial carved staircase leading upwards. A Jacobean chair in black oak stood in one corner, and an array of waterproofs hung on the pegs by the back door, with their rubber boots lined up in pairs beneath them.
Dad motioned me into the bar, where tiny windows were set in thick, whitewashed walls, and blackened beams gloomed above our heads. We sat down at one of the beaten copper tables. Dad nodded to an older couple facing each other at the table across from us, and received a nod in return, but with a slight reserve, I thought, as if he’d done something unpopular recently – maybe they’d come out the worse of some business deal he’d been involved in, or maybe it was just the Shetland dubiousness about ‘oil folk fae sooth’ lingering more than forty years after the first barrelfuls had flowed onto Shetland land.
‘So, what are you up to now?’ I said, once we’d discussed the menu. Dad had ordered steak, I’d gone for local scallops in cheese sauce, and Dad had chosen a bottle of red. ‘Are you still involved with Sullom Voe?’
He spread his hands. ‘Oh, from time to time, when they need a consultant in my area. No, I’m one of the directors of a totally different company now, Shetland Eco-Energy.’
The name rang a bell. ‘Green energy?’
‘Wind farms. That’s the future, girl, not oil, and Shetland’s the place for it. A turbine here will produce double, three times the electricity of one on the mainland. We’re developing a proposal to site Europe’s biggest wind farm right here. We’re negotiating with the government right now to lay a cable to take the power down to the Scottish mainland, and once we’ve got that assurance we can get going. It’s not just Shetland that’ll never need oil or coal again, we could fuel half of Scotland. Just think of that.’
I’d done the older couple an injustice. The prejudice against incomer oil men had died out long ago. This was a new fight.
‘Where,’ I asked, ‘is this wind farm to go?’
‘Along the central spine of the mainland here.’ Dad drank half of his glass of wine in one go. ‘We’re not trying to hide anything. It will be big. The turbines will be visible, and some folk aren’t happy about that.’ He leaned forward, the businessman pushing the deal through. ‘See, girl, times have changed. It’s not a matter of spoiling the countryside
, it’s more important than that. What the folk who are against it aren’t seeing is that it’s a matter of survival. Things could be desperate if the political situation changed just a little bit. Where do people on the mainland get their gas from, for their central heating and cooking? Russia, the bulk of them. It all looked dodgy for a bit after that diplomat was murdered. It wouldn’t take much to get the Cold War back, and then where’d they be? Power rationing.’ He turned his head towards the older couple, raised his voice slightly. ‘Renewables, that’s the future, but tide turbines aren’t half as developed as wind power, and we need that power too soon to wait.’
Then he turned back to me, with a sudden change of mood. ‘Now, we’re celebrating. No business talk. Have you heard from your mother recently?’
‘Not very recently,’ I said.
‘What’s she singing just now, Zais? I think that’s this month. One of the castles, Chenonceau, Azay-le-Rideau, one of those. She’s a Sybil, the great priestess of love. They made a recording, you should listen to it.’
I wondered how he knew, imagined him googling Maman’s name to find her next performance. ‘Life’s too short,’ I said.
He shook his head at me. ‘Now, now, Cassie, you’ve not to be like that. I won’t say it didn’t take me a while to get into the style of it …’ His Irish accent was strengthening now. I wondered if he habitually drank this much in the middle of the day. ‘But singing to her is like the water to you. It’s in her blood. I knew that from the first moment I clapped eyes on her.’
Death on a Longship Page 4
