Red Bones (19 page)
It seemed to Sandy that the funeral service in the kirk passed in no time, like a kind of dream. The place was full of people. The tradition was that it was mostly men who came to a Shetland funeral and when a woman had passed away there were fewer people in the congregation, but today the kirk was packed and there were as many women as men. He wasn’t sure why that was – more because they didn’t want to miss out on the drama, he thought, than that they’d miss her. She’d always had more male friends than women. Sandy remembered sitting there in the front row and thinking that Mima would have liked the singing. She’d always been one for a great tune. Joseph hadn’t said anything throughout the service, but Sandy could hear his mother’s voice speaking the Lord’s Prayer and in the hymns. She had a high, piping voice that could keep a tune but that still wasn’t very pretty. Sandy thought he’d like to marry a woman with a pretty voice.
Then they were outside in the sunshine watching the coffin being lowered into the ground. There was a crowd of gulls fishing from the point below the kirk and he wondered if that meant there was a shoal of mackerel there; that led him to think about Mima frying fresh mackerel on the Rayburn at Setter when he was a boy. She’d roll it in oatmeal and throw it in the pan. When he came to again the service was over and it was just him and his father and brother standing by the grave. His mother had gone back to the house to prepare the tea and the people left behind were hanging around, wanting to give their condolences, but not liking to intrude either. The breeze blew at the women’s skirts and messed up their hair.
Ronald came up while they were still standing there. Sandy could tell folk were watching, wondering what the response of the family would be. Michael had said hard words about Ronald when he’d arrived on the island, his big hire car packed with so much stuff for the baby you’d think he was staying for a month: ‘Completely irresponsible. He should have known better than to take out a gun after he’d been drinking. I can’t believe the Fiscal intends to let him get away with it.’ Sandy had thought it sounded more like Amelia speaking than Michael. She’d let slip at one point that she thought the family should sue if the Fiscal refused to prosecute. Now Sandy was worried there might be a scene and that Michael would shoot his mouth off in that pompous, arrogant way he sometimes had about him these days. But seeing Ronald, he seemed to come to his senses. Ronald said how sorry he was. He looked grey and gaunt to Sandy, worse even than when Sandy had found him in the bar the morning after Mima had died. Michael must have realized he meant it, because he took his hand and smiled. It was the old Whalsay Michael, not the new one who lived in Edinburgh and never took a drink.
Back in Utra, Sandy felt more himself. He would have liked to go upstairs to change out of his suit but the baby was in his room having an afternoon nap, so he had to leave it on. He had clothes in Setter and he could have gone there to change, but it didn’t seem right to leave the house. His mother would have been cross anyway if he’d come back in jeans and a sweater and he didn’t think he could face her scolding today. There’d been some talk of having the tea in the community hall, but Joseph had wanted people back to the house. There were folks in the living room and the kitchen and a few of the boys were standing in the yard having a smoke. Amelia must have taken the time while the baby was sleeping to get her smart clothes on. She was wearing a suit in grey and black and little black shoes with heels. Sandy thought she was very keen that people should admire her, even though she made a show of covering herself up with an apron once they’d all had a chance to see what her clothes were like. She helped Evelyn to hand out the tea and the sandwiches and was polite to everyone to show what a good Christian she was. Later, when the baby woke up, she brought her down and showed her off. Evelyn was flushed with the pleasure of the occasion and you’d have thought it was a baptism they were marking, not a funeral.
Sandy couldn’t stand it any more and went through into the living room where the men were gathered and his father was handing out drams.
‘Tell me,’ one of the men said, ‘what plans do you have for Setter?’ It was Robert who was a skipper of the pelagic boat
Artemis
. He was a big man in his fifties with a face that was red even before he’d started drinking. ‘I’d give you a good price for the house. My Jennifer’s getting married next year and it would suit her fine.’
Joseph looked at him sharply. ‘It’s not for sale.’
‘I’d give you the market value. Cash in your hand.’
‘Not everything has a price,’ Joseph said. ‘I’ve told you, Setter is not for sale.’
Robert shrugged as if Joseph was mad, and turned away to talk to his friends. Sandy watched Joseph pour himself another drink and tip it quickly into his mouth. He wished all the people would go home so his father could grieve in peace.
It was almost dark by the time the visitors had all gone, and the lights were on in the house. Michael and Amelia were upstairs trying to settle the baby. Evelyn was at the sink rinsing the dishes for the machine. Sandy put the kettle on and offered to make them tea. He was relieved that it was all over. Soon he’d get back to Setter. He thought Perez might drop by to tell him what he’d found out from Hattie’s letters. Joseph brought a tray of empty glasses through from the living room. He looked more tired than Sandy had ever seen him, more tired than when he’d been travelling out on the first ferry every day to work for Duncan Hunter.
‘I’ll just light a fire in there,’ Joseph said. ‘A day like this, a fire would be kind of comforting.’
‘Do that.’ Evelyn looked round from the sink and smiled at him.
The fire was made and they sat in there drinking tea. The weather had changed and there was a rattling of rain against the window. Drawing the curtains, Sandy thought the wind had gone northerly; a north wind always brought the weather into this side of the house. The baby was quiet now, but Michael and Amelia hadn’t reappeared. Evelyn took up her knitting. She found it impossible to sit and do nothing, even on a day like today.
Suddenly she seemed to make up her mind about something.
‘Robert spoke to me,’ she said. ‘He wants you to sell Setter to him.’
‘I know.’ Joseph looked up from his tea. ‘He spoke to me about it too.’
Sandy could tell his father was angry, though there was nothing in his voice to give him away. It was quiet and even.
‘You won’t sell it to him, will you?’ Evelyn continued to knit, the needles clacking a background rhythm to her words.
‘I won’t. I told him: Setter is not for sale.’
Evelyn seemed not to hear the last words, or perhaps she already had her own speech prepared in her head and nothing would stop it coming out. ‘Because if you are going to sell, I think we should approach the Amenity Trust. We need the money right enough, and I think they would give us a decent price. The coins the lasses found would give the place an even greater value, don’t you think?’
‘Don’t you listen to a word I say, woman? Setter is not for sale.’ It came out as a cry. Not so loud but much louder than he usually spoke, the words passionate and bitter. The sound was so shocking that the room fell silent. Even the knitting stopped. Looking around the room, Sandy saw Michael in the door, frozen and horrified.
Sandy didn’t know what to do. Occasionally his father teased his mother about her projects and her meddling into other folks’ business but he never raised his voice to her. Sandy hated what was going on in his family. For the first time he began to think he would find it hard to forgive Ronald for killing Mima. He hoped Perez was right and someone else was responsible. Someone he would feel it was OK to hate.
In the end it was his mother who put things right. She set down her knitting and went up to his father and put her arms around his shoulder. ‘Oh my dear boy,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.’
Over Joseph’s head she motioned to her sons to leave them alone. Sandy thought his father was crying.
Embarrassed, Sandy and Michael stood in the kitchen. Sandy longed to get out of the house. ‘You’ve not been into Setter since you got back,’ he said. ‘Would you like to come? See the old place?’
‘Aye. Why not? Amelia’s asleep on our bed. She finds this sort of family occasion exhausting.’
Sandy bit his tongue. Another sign of his greater maturity.
They walked to Setter despite the wind, which made it feel like winter again, and the sudden showers of rain. Sandy felt more awake than he had all day. The range was still alight in the kitchen. Sandy brought in peat from the pile outside and set it beside the Rayburn to dry for later. Without thinking he poured a dram for both of them.
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Mother tells me you don’t drink any more.’
Michael smiled. ‘Oh, don’t believe everything she tells you. I make an exception for special occasions.’
‘It seems so strange in here without Mima, don’t you think so?’
‘When I was growing up,’ Michael said, ‘there was one time when I believed Mima was a trowie wife. Did you ever hear those stories?’
Sandy shook his head. The trows were part of Shetland folklore, but he’d never believed in them, even when he was a peerie boy.
‘Maybe it was before you started school. It was one of those crazes that start suddenly then disappear. They said she was a trowie wife and she’d put a spell on her husband and made him die. For a couple of weeks I wouldn’t come here on my own. Then the kids had something else to talk about and I forgot all about it. Until now.’
‘Are you saying it was a trow killed Mima?’
Michael laughed out loud. ‘A trow named Ronald? I think he’s kind of large, don’t you?’
Sandy was tempted to tell Michael that maybe Ronald wasn’t the culprit but things between the men seemed easy now and he didn’t want to spoil that.
‘Mother’s right about Setter,’ Michael said. ‘Father should sell it.’
‘He’ll never do that.’
‘I don’t think he’ll have any choice,’ Michael said. ‘How much do you think he makes from the crofting? I doubt Duncan Hunter gave him a pension plan and he’s not getting any younger.’
‘They manage OK.’
‘Do they? I don’t understand how.’
They sat for a while in silence. Sandy offered Michael another dram but he shook his head. ‘I should get back and see how Amelia’s getting on.’
Sandy would have liked to ask about Amelia.
What possessed you to take up with a woman like that?
But what good would it do? They were married with a bairn. Michael would have to make the best of it. ‘Will you find your way back?’ Michael laughed again. ‘Oh, I think I’ll manage.’ The first thing Sandy did when he was on his own was to change out of his suit. Then he began to think of what Michael had said about their parents’ income and the implications of it. It kept him up late into the night. Once he got up to make coffee, but the rest of the time he sat in Mima’s chair, thinking. He would have liked to discuss his thoughts with Perez. Perez would likely reassure him that he wasn’t on the right track at all. He was Sandy Wilson and he always got things wrong. But Perez must have thought Sandy would want to be on his own on the evening of his grandmother’s funeral and he never turned up.