The Gathering Night (12 page)

‘
One day
is too far-off!' Sorné held up three, and then four fingers. ‘That many Years far-off, at the very least. Our little Esti has to grow first. Would you snatch her mother's milk out of her poor little mouth, sister? You'd surely kill her! And Haizea's still as skinny as a stick. No point thinking about getting a boy just yet, Hilargi. Alaia, you'll just have to persuade your father to give up River Mouth Camp. Tell him you can come along with us to Big Pines Camp, and Amets can hunt with Sendoa and my sons.'

I let my work fall into my lap, and stared at her. ‘Father won't agree to that! He and my mother have always gone to River Mouth Camp.'

‘But there were a round hand-full of men in those days! Things change, Alaia. He must see that. You have to make him see it.'

‘What! You'd have
me
tell my
father
. . .'

‘Well, Nekané won't,' said Hilargi.

Sorné agreed. ‘Nekané has no more sense than a beached jellyfish. Hold your hands up, Alaia, so I can coil this twine.'

‘Never did have. Alaia, you listen to what we're telling you. If you don't do something about it, you'll lose your man.'

I flinched at the very thought. Lose my man! Lose Amets! That's the worst thing that can happen to a woman. If Amets went away, I thought, we'd have no one to hunt for us, and Esti would have no father to look after her. Children without fathers usually die. Besides, I wanted Amets for myself.

‘Don't look like that, child. Your old aunts only say these things because they care for you.'

‘And it needn't be so difficult,' added Sorné. ‘If you look around, you'll always find that the spirits have provided, if you only have eyes to see. They don't always do it in the way you'd expect.'

‘Why, Aunt, what do you see?'

‘I see
Kemen
,' whispered my aunt, nodding her head significantly. ‘What the spirits take with one hand, they give with another. But only to those who do a little thinking for themselves.'

I thought a great deal about what my aunts had said to me. A few days later I spoke to my little sister. We'd been collecting terns' eggs, and when we'd each got a basketful of pale-blue eggs we strolled along the shore above the beach. It was a relief to get away from the terns diving and shrieking and shitting over us. I'd left Esti with my aunt; it was good to walk with a light step and remember how it felt to be unburdened. The sea was wrinkly smooth, green over the sand and dark blue further out where the tides met. Haizea wanted to pick couch grass, so we sat down at the top of the beach. While I waited for Haizea, I absent-mindedly pushed my fingers into the warm sand, following the roots of the couch grass. On the surface each single blade of grass seemed to stand alone, but under the sand they were all joined together by long strands of yellow roots. It's like that with kin, I thought.

When Haizea had collected what she wanted, she came and sat beside me. I watched her plaiting her grass stems. Presently I said, as casually as possible, ‘What do you think of Kemen?'

Clearly Haizea was only thinking about the twine she was making, because she just said, ‘He can't do twine patterns, anyway.'

I tried again. ‘What would you think about Kemen staying in our family?'

‘Instead of Sendoa's?' Haizea didn't sound in the least interested. She twisted her twine into a circle and knotted the ends together. ‘Nothing, really. Alaia, can you show me how to do Fish in a Basket?'

I saw it was useless, so I just said to her, ‘I used to know. Give it here.'

At River Mouth Camp, when we were so lonely and bereft, I'd started thinking of Haizea as an ally, but now she was among the children again we'd stopped being close. She was often with her cousin Ortzi. He'd seen one more winter than she had; if there'd been boys his own age around he'd have had nothing to do with Haizea, but all the other boys at White Beach Camp were much younger. Children must grow up, and I guessed – though she didn't – that when we got to Gathering Camp Haizea would lose Ortzi for ever. I encouraged her to go around with Itsaso instead. Itsaso was willing: she didn't have any girls her age at White Beach Camp either. Haizea liked Itsaso, but Itsaso wouldn't play games. She just wanted to hang around with the women. After River Mouth Camp Haizea wanted to be a little girl again. So she and Ortzi went off on their own adventures, and if Haizea did listen to anything we women said when we were out gathering, or sitting working at the hearth, she showed no interest. She'd only join in when we were singing.

After my aunts had talked to me I treated Kemen with great friendliness, offering him titbits from the food I'd gathered, and inviting him to sit on our side of the hearth when the smoke was blowing the other way. It wasn't hard, because I liked him. I encouraged Amets to go fishing and sea-bird hunting with him.

Towards the end of Light Moon everyone began to talk about where they'd make Salmon Camp this Year. My aunts and their children always went to Salmon Spirit Loch. They had their fish traps at the mouth of the loch, and the men hunted all summer in the hills around Mother Mountain. There'd be plenty of food there for our family as well. I wanted my father to see how wise it was to stay with my mother's sisters for a while. I feared he wouldn't listen, because our own Salmon Camp, which lies only half a day's sail from White Beach Island, is my father's Birth Place, and I feared he'd insist on going there as usual. It took me a few days to put another idea into his mind without him noticing.

I talked to my father when my mother was out one evening collecting gulls' eggs. He told me he'd been thinking that it was a long while since we'd let the Animals have our Salmon Camp to themselves in Seed Moon and Salmon Moon, and perhaps we should go elsewhere for a change. He asked me if I'd mind making Salmon Camp with my aunts and cousins at Salmon Spirit Loch just for this once. I looked surprised and seemed to take a little while to think it over. Then I said yes, and I told my father how happy I was that he thought so well for all of us.

In all this I was encouraged by my aunts Sorné and Hilargi. If the men had any idea what we were up to, they gave no sign of it. Which meant that either they didn't notice – which was probably the case – or they thought – rightly – that life would be easiest if they just let us sort things out in our own way.

T
HIRD
N
IGHT
: G
ATHERING
C
AMP

Haizea said:

Shall I begin the story tonight? Be quiet, boys! This is
your
story we're telling. Listen to us, and you'll soon find out how much these things matter to you.

At Gathering Camp my cousin Itsaso let me come with her friends. I always used to play with her younger brother Ortzi, but when we got to Gathering Camp Ortzi stopped speaking to me.

Oh, but . . . before we get to Gathering Camp I need to tell you how Itsaso became a woman at Salmon Camp. We had a feast for her there. We'd sent the men off to their Hunting Camp on Mother Mountain; the men couldn't wait to get away. Men are always terrified of the spirits who watch over a girl as she becomes a woman! But then – maybe some of you have noticed this – men aren't always as overflowing with courage as they want us to think! Ortzi wanted to go with the men. They said he was still too young. When they wouldn't let him, he went off fishing by himself. He came back when the food was ready though, and ate just as much as the other children.

Once we'd got rid of the men from Salmon Camp we spent all day getting ready. My aunts took down bundles of reed and grasses – it so happened they already had just the right sort hanging from one of the wands that made their tent frame – and sat by the hearth plaiting them together into soft lengths. It took them all day to twine the plaits to and fro until they'd made a woman's skirt for Itsaso. Meanwhile the rest of us built up the fire and roasted salmon, trout and some ducks we'd snared in the shore traps. We stuffed the birds with charlock leaves and pignuts, and added yarrow, self-heal and water-mint, because that helps with bleeding. I went with my cousins and we picked meadowsweet flowers and raspberries, elderberries, hips, hawthorn berries . . . you never saw so many berries as we got that day!

When we got back to Salmon Camp my aunt Sorné had laid out a woman-stone and quartz on a piece of birchbark. She let me wet the woman-stone and rub it on the quartz to make red. We painted patterns on each other's faces, and our arms and shoulders too, and some of us even did our feet and legs – it was summer so there was lots of bare skin to paint. Itsaso plaited my hair into sixteen plaits.

Before the feast began, my aunts stood Itsaso between them, and wound the strings of her new skirt around her waist. The plaited aprons fell almost to her knees at the front and back. Now everyone could see she was a woman. It came into my head that before many more Moons had passed the women of my family would be plaiting a woman's skirt for me. I didn't want to think about it. I was standing next to Ortzi, and I was happy to think we looked just the same, each with a child's length of deerskin wrapped round our middle. That was quite enough for anyone to wear in summer. I wished with all my heart I need never change.

After the feast we danced right through the night, and sang all the songs about men that they never hear. The other children went to sleep, but I didn't. I was surprised that old women – even my aunts – even my
mother
– would sing those songs. I was still a child – I didn't know much at all! But I made sure I stayed awake, and I saw the other things too – the spirits know what I mean.

But yes – the day after we arrived at Gathering Camp I went with the older girls to get hazelnuts. There are so many Animal and People paths all round Gathering Camp I kept close to the other girls. I would be shamed for ever if I got lost! We walked past oak, aspen and birch, and quite a lot of hazel growing in their shade. We didn't bother with it: we were going to the hazel grove. Only hazel trees grow in the grove because at every Gathering the Auk People cut down the other saplings that try to get in, so as to leave more light for the hazel. That pleases the Hazel spirits, because without the other trees in the way they can reach the Sun, and now there are lots of hazel trees all growing together.

The others sent me up first to see if the nuts were ripe. I was a good tree-climber, and I was lighter than the rest of them. That was good: I needed to show I was the best at
something
, and not just Itsaso's little puppy. Hazel never grows very tall, even when it's allowed to grow alone and feel the Sun on its leaves, but we were high on the hillside, so from my tree I could look down on the treetops in the glen. They looked like the sea: oak and pine, aspen and hazel, rowan and birch making a pattern of greens like the ebb and flow of different-coloured tides. A hunting peregrine swooped and soared over the wood. Even as I heard its mewing cry, the small birds round me twittered into flight.

‘Haizea, what are you doing? Have you gone to sleep up there?'

‘Are there any nuts?'

I peered into the dark green leaves. ‘Yes! The hazelnuts are ready for us! Come on!'

I sat in the fork of a branch and watched the others unroll the hides we'd brought and spread them under the trees. They scrambled up, two or three to each tree. Itsaso joined me in my tree. We started shaking the branches. Nuts pattered on to the hides below. Lots more nuts stayed clinging to their twigs. We swung our baskets round so they hung down in front of us, and started picking. As we searched out where the nuts were hiding we gradually climbed up to the highest branches that could only just take our weight.

Itsaso said, ‘Look Haizea – two hazelnuts in one shell – that means a marriage. Do you know why?'

‘A man and a woman under one fur?'

‘No, stupid!' Itsaso dangled the twig under my nose. ‘Two
nuts
!'

We giggled. A breeze soughed among the leaves, rocking us as we picked.

When our baskets were full we came down and gathered up the fallen nuts in the hides. We stacked everything round a tree trunk and tied leafy twigs over the baskets in case the squirrels came thieving. Then we climbed up for a rest before we went back. I sat on the highest branch, with Itsaso lying back on a branch below me, her arms spread wide, making sure we could all see she didn't need to hold on. A hand-full of others were there, some close cousins I knew quite well, and some far-off. I felt shy of the ones I hardly knew.

We were quiet for a bit, lazily picking any stray nuts within our reach and stuffing them in our pouches. We'd left the cracking-stones at the bottom of the tree. Someone suggested fetching them but no one could be bothered. Above our heads the leaves stirred, making the light move like running water over our bare arms and legs. Squirrels scuttled among the leaves, their fur glistening like hazelnuts. Doves cooed; the other birds were resting in the heat, except for a woodpecker that kept knocking on a birch trunk. A red dragonfly settled on my knee, polished his long front legs together, and then took off again. I rubbed the soles of my feet against the rough hazel bark; it felt good. Perched high on my branch, I could hear the spirits breathing as they drowsed.

My far-off cousin Zorioné broke the silence. ‘Is it true, Haizea, that your mother's Go-Between?'