The Silver Darlings (48 page)

The boats were in early, and while walking with Callum across the flat towards the gutting stations, Finn saw Una. He saw her in the moment that she stepped back from four others, swayed, and bent forward slightly in laughter. Her laugh was not merry and quick; it was slow-noted and rich and rather awkward. Her body swayed, too, in a poised living motion all its own. “Hey, Finn!” called Jim, the clerk, who had obviously made the joke. Donnie was there and the two other girls of Una’s crew. “Busy!” called Finn, with a smiling salute, and went on.

A cold flush had gone over his body, and when they reached the store he tried not to let Callum see his hands. The physical sensation was extremely unpleasant and for a little while his brain would not work. He thought of a natural excuse to leave Callum, but could not risk going across the green alone. As the weakening sensation slowly ebbed, anger against himself began to flow. Una had
nothing
to do with this, or Jim, or anyone else. It was entirely a personal weakness of which he was intolerantly and bitterly ashamed. And even all this he could have overcome, if it weren’t that he knew he could not face them and be natural. A horror came upon him that he would be weak and stammer and have the words choke in his throat.

A penetrating hatred of the girl Una assailed him, and the only wary thought in his head wondered how he could dodge her, now and always.

When Callum and himself came out the women were gone, and Finn knew a sweet relief. But as they turned the corner of the store, he saw the same five, well in front but over to the left, making for the foot of the green braes. And now a completely irrational desire came over him to hasten, for his path lay up the riverside, and thus he would not overtake them directly but yet might be seen by them. “What’s your hurry?” asked Callum. “I thought you’d be wanting your bed,” answered Finn. “And anyway, I have a good bit farther than you to go.” He made Callum step out and spoke in a loud voice gaily. When he saw out of the corner of his eye that they were observed by the others, he passed a remark about Rob that set Callum chuckling. He himself laughed outright. “You’re in good form to-day!” said Callum. At that moment he felt in extremely good form. But his mother thought he was
looking
tired and packed him off to bed at once. When sleep would not come, he ground his teeth. He turned and rolled. Sleep pierced his eyelids with its sharp needles, but his brain was sharper. It is a great misery for the body to be desperately in need of sleep and for sleep not to come. He loathed the thought of Una and all the appalling nonsense of the green. He heard his mother whisper to Barbara, anxious not to wake him. He had tried not to make any noise. When he could no longer endure the torture, he got up.

Una swayed back and laughed in the half-dream of the grey morning,

Finn knew days of misery, but he won through them to a dull, dogged state. All this time he had no strong desire for Una; he was not even aware of any jealousy or similar emotion against Jim; in fact he would have experienced a desperate relief had Una been definitely attached to Jim. She was like a sickness that he wanted to be rid of; because it was a shameful sickness; a weakness that he had a horror
of someone’s discovering, and particularly Una and her crowd.

On the fourth morning at sea, Henry said, “They’re here, boys.” Finn shouted in Callum’s ear. “What? Where?” cried Callum, starting up. “So you’ve come to pay us a visit,” said Rob to the silver darlings as they danced in over the gunnel, blue and green and silver.

The old happy harmony came upon the crew. And Finn felt himself renewed, but with the difference that he wanted passively to absorb the fun rather than light-heartedly to increase it. This, however, had a riches of its own. It was like drinking from a cool well on a hot day and lying back. There was a profound satisfaction in it. Callum and Rob were sparring.

“Pull down your sleeve, man, Rob. Your shirt is getting dirty.”

Finn was skimming the big herring as they fell from the net, for the catch was not heavy, though of fine, full quality.

“If only the herring had been as big as this in
Stornoway
!” said Henry.

“I knew something in Stornoway,” said Callum, “that was fully bigger, even more developed, as you would say.”

“What was that?”

“Ask Rob.”

“I knew something bigger myself,” said Rob, in his slow, droll fashion.

“No man could have got his arms round anything bigger,” said Callum. “Impossible.”

“I wouldn’t say you could get your arms round it. No, nor your legs.”

“But what would you be using your legs for, anyway?”

“Some people use them one way, and some people another, and some people use them to run away on, if they can manage.”

“Boys, this is a conundrum!” said Callum.

“Maybe it is a conundrum,” said Rob, “and if it is, then it is a w-whale of a one.”

All of ten crans. It was a good start and many of the boats were already hauled, like themselves, and making for home. Finn felt at ease, and knew again in his bones the peace and companionship of men in the toil of common adventure.

As he tipped the herring into the box an elderly,
quick-fingered
woman said, “Scales to-day on you, Finn.”

“A few to keep you going.”

“That’s what we like.” Scores of women were
bobbing
along the gutting stations, men were carrying quickly, criss-crossing over the green, in a babel of talk and cries.

Una was on the other side and to the left and the girl beside her gave Finn a shout. “You can’t see ordinary folk since you came back from abroad!”

“So long as you haven’t forgotten me,” he cried, quite naturally, and as he went back to the boat, with his heart beating, he felt the stirring of self-confidence. He had not looked at Una, though he had seen her glance at him. If only he could carry things off like that!

When they had spread their nets and were returning to the boat, he said to Rob, “I don’t think you should be so hard on Callum.”

“Me! I wouldn’t hurt boys, surely.”

“If only you would stick to the boys,” said Callum, “it would be all right. Or even the widow women. Look, Rob, man, at Una there. Wouldn’t she make a fine, warm armful for you now? And she’s fond of the boys.” He winked at Finn.

“She might do,” said Rob thoughtfully. “She has the looks.”

“She’s got more than looks.”

“Yes, she’s got that loud-voiced gomeril from Wick with the boots,” said Rob.

“But surely you could see the boots off him?”

At that moment, Donnie Grant and another young blade, Angie Ganson, created a slight diversion and Una stepped
back with a yelp, wiping a smother of scales that Angie had deftly smeared on her chin.

“Now, now, young fellows-my-lads, none of that here,” bellowed George. “Leave honest folk to get on with their work.”

“Who’s stopping them?” demanded Angie.

“You keep that, my hero, for the Birch Wood. There’s a place for everything.”

In the laughter, Una happened to look straight at Finn’s face. The face was calm and set and she got back to her work amid chaff from the other women.

As they continued towards the boat, Callum rallied Rob again, for Una had appeared very attractive, with her flush of colour and swaying body.

“Ach, she has too many sniffing after her for my fancy,” said Rob.

“But surely you don’t want an easy conquest? What do you say, Finn?”

With a terrific effort through his choked throat, Finn answered, “I don’t know,” and tried to smile.

He felt Callum’s eyes narrow on him and knew that the smile remained stuck in a sickly way on his face. But he fixed his eyes on a boy and called, “Well, Dan?”

“Hullo!” answered Dan, and he came to walk beside Finn. Men and boys were everywhere, and Callum was stopped.

On the way to sea that afternoon, Finn left the path, climbed over the thick, ruined wall, and came into the little quiet field that led to the knoll of the House of Peace. The grey stones were still and silent as they had always been, but now they seemed immemorially old and heedless, somehow tired and spent. There was no hidden spirit in them, no invisible eyes.

All things pass and die; useless stones sink into the dead earth. There was no sun. The sky was grey. A pace or two up the knoll, he paused to look back and around. He was
alone, anyway. A stone moved from under the weight of his foot and two red worms, surprised by the light, quickly disappeared, leaving tracks like empty veins. The stone came to rest with the smeared side uppermost.

On top, he sat down at the old spot by the empty stone rings. He thought of the figure he had once imagined here, the figure of the old, quiet man, and his features grew faintly satiric, like Henry’s. But there was no bitterness in the satire, hardly feeling of any kind. Even misery was empty of feeling, like a vacant eye. Here, misery itself got drained, as so much folly, leaving nothing at its heart. But in this emptiness there was at least a heedless freedom. He lay back and slowly settled into the earth like one of the heavy grey stones. This was relief and in a few moments he came into the core of himself, where he was alone, and felt strangely companioned, not by anyone or anything, but by himself. The rejected self found refuge here, not a cowed refuge, but somehow a wandering ease; as if it were indestructible, and had its own final pride, its own secret eyes.

Peace might have come were it not for the image which involuntarily created itself inside his head against
darkness
. This was the appalling trick it had. The inner eye never even focused the swaying body, the sting of colour in the face, the light in the black eyes, the black hair (which, somehow, it saw, although at the gutting her hair was covered). It refused the vision. Yet it was suddenly there, out of direct focus, but there, as if it were thought more than vision. The dark body, with a red flame of life inside it, showing in the face, swaying with the grace of a tongue of fire.

He was past groaning at this affliction. And he would not even allow himself to think that it meant anything. The mere approach of the idea of any such thing as love angered him, maddened him. He was reaping the penalty of having thought so much about her on the sea alone. And he had thought about her because one does think about someone.
Surely love, if there was any such thing, should be ease and tenderness, like the tenderness he had felt for the dark girl in Stornoway. He had confidence there, knew his body’s strength, and could have shouldered his way to her past any number of fellows.

But he would get over this disease. And when he did, and had cool command of himself, then—with a laughing, stinging tongue—wouldn’t he make them sit up?

He groaned and turned over and lay still. At once he began to sink again and, desiring the sweet luxury of a moment’s forgetfulness, fell sound asleep.

His eyes opened wide and stared at the circle of stones. There was something on his face. Rain. He sat up, looking about him. In the second it had taken him to realize where he was, he saw the grass and moss and grey stone and birch tree in a strangely static way, yet with a touch of almost panic intimacy, before their place in the normal world came upon him. He knew he had been asleep for hours, knew it by the very freshness of his body and, picking up his packet of bannocks and milk, went bounding down the knoll. They would be waiting for him. He had never yet been late.
Perhaps
they had gone to sea without him? Turning a bend, he saw Roddie going on alone a little way ahead. He stopped, panting. He could have been asleep only for a few minutes!

He laughed to himself and, giving Roddie a shout, soon joined him. “I had a grand sleep,” he said.

“Good,” answered Roddie. “I’m afraid we’re in for a night of rain.”

And Finn suddenly felt that the long, wet misery of a night of rain would be the finest thing in the world. “As long as it doesn’t blow,” he suggested.

Roddie gave him a glance and smiled. Finn felt more friendly to him at that moment than he had done for many a day.

There was, in truth, very little time during the rush of that successful fishing season for indulging the luxury of
private worries. And with the hard work went a contagious cheerfulness.

In the morning a woman would cry to man or boy, “Are the boats in?” or “What luck to-day?” The
questions
flew over the land. When the boats were well-fished, hearts were uplifted and the daily tasks accomplished with cheerfulness and spirit. Figures could be seen moving here and there, up the braes, along the paths, dangling a string of herring. There was work for everyone. Along the road from Wick, carriers brought goods at all hours. Crofts would be stocked; a new house built; and, above all, orders placed for new boats, not only in the flourishing yards at Wick but in many a creek along the coast. Young men like Finn dreamed of having their own boats. There was a warmth of communal life in which private worries could be comfortably smothered.

In the evening, when scores of boats headed for the
fishing
ground, men and women would marvel, looking on that pretty scene, at the change that had come over their coast. No enchanter in the oldest legend had ever waved a more magical wand. In the grey dawn light of a Saturday
morning
, when the fishermen themselves, heavy from lack of sleep and overwork, saw herring in the net, all their
faculties
came alive and brought the fish in with avid care, as though after long and ceaseless wandering they had for the first time come upon a silver mine.

For the idea of magic, of possible enchantment, did
persist
. A crew had good luck or bad luck. There was no
certainty
. Every night was a new night and every morning a fresh surprise. Lexy had now taken the place of her sister, Margad, the witch, and when she appeared early with slightly stooped body and head wrapped in a black shawl, she had not to ask a skipper for a fry of herring. She was given it freely, and on one morning had sold three crans to a curer at the full price. She was having a very successful season, and who could say but that she deserved all she got? There were herring on the ground, anyway.