Beautiful Just! (3 page)

I dropped my sack on the shingle beside Morag and sat down.

‘I'm thinkin' what you have there makes a softer seat than driftwood,' she observed, indicating my sack. I nodded. There had been several drums of kapok washed up on the shore and the men of the village had chopped open some of them so those of us who fancied making cushions or eiderdowns from the kapok could take along our sacks and fill them. Of course officially the drums were the property of the Receiver of Wrecks but Bruach had its own strict code of practice so far as flotsam and jetsam were concerned. Bodies and explosives were reported to the police; useful items were finder's property while those of no use but likely to bring in salvage money were notified to the ‘Customs mannie'; the rest was left to come and go as it pleased. The kapok was about a mile away along the shore from Bruach but since a sack stuffed tight full made only a light burden the necessary journey to collect it was a pleasure rather than a chore. ‘Behag was after gettin' herself some of it yesterday,' Morag informed me.

‘I know,' I admitted. ‘I met her there. I got a sackful yesterday too. And another one the day before,' I added.

‘Whatever will you be wantin' with all that?' asked Morag. ‘I thought you were sayin' you needed enough for a cushion or two just.'

I smiled ruefully. It was true that I needed and had intended to get only enough kapok for a few cushions but life in Bruach was making me acquisitive: the constant frustrations one encountered when trying to obtain the things one needed at the time one needed them was responsible for my hoarding a variety of articles which I was unlikely to have any use for but since I hated to see anything going to waste whether it was a trawl bobbin or a tin of shaving cream my pile of treasures from the shore continued to mount steadily over the years until it threatened to take up as much space on my croft as did my henhouse. And now, here I was carrying home my third sack of kapok when already I had amassed many times the quantity needed to stuff a few cushions and since kapok requires to be stored in a dry place and the dry places in and around my home were already packed to capacity with far more vital supplies than cushion filling Morag's question made me suspect, not for the first time, that perhaps my acquisitiveness was becoming something of an obsession.

‘Oh well,' I said defensively, ‘it's a grand day for beach-combing.' It was indeed a grand day, not just for beach-combing but for sitting and staring and listening and chatting in the warm sunshine. The sky was veined with thin cloud like the grain in old wood; the sea was netted with silver; the tide rustled among the rocks, and a low seeking wind harried shreds of dry seaweed along the shingle.

‘You would think there must be plenty of fish out there,' observed Morag, her eyes on a turmoil of gulls which was concentrated on a patch of sea about halfway between Bruach and the island of Rhuna. She turned and called to the men at their boats. ‘The gulls is findin' fish, I doubt.'

Erchy and Hector looked up and screening their eyes against the sun focussed their attention on the birds. ‘Aye, it's sooyan, likely,' Erchy called back. Glad of the flimsiest excuse to stop work Hector sprackled over to sit on the shingle beside us.

‘I think if some of these scientist fellows would watch the gulls an' find out more about them they wouldn't be needin' to invent all these machines they have for findin' the fish,' said Morag. ‘They would need just to train the gulls to find it for them.'

‘Aye,' agreed Hector. ‘Tse gulls would find tse fish all right but would folks want to eat tse sort of fish tse gulls found?' He screwed his face into an expression of distaste. ‘I mind seein' gulls eatin' some mighty queer fish at times.'

Erchy came over to join us. ‘I've not seen so much of you since you were back from your tour,' he told Morag.

‘Indeed an' that's true,' returned Morag. ‘I'm that tired since I was back I believe I could sleep on a plank on edge. That's what my tour has done for me.'

Morag had recently spent three weeks' holiday visiting various relatives in and around Glasgow and having returned to plunge immediately into the spring work on the croft neither she nor anyone else had found much time for ceilidhing.

‘I'm hearin' you enjoyed yourself, then,' Erchy's voice sounded almost accusing, justifiably perhaps since Morag was in the habit of disparaging not only Glasgow but most of its inhabitants.

‘I enjoyed myself fine but for the last week of it I was in Glasgow. I believe it was that took the strength out of me. It's a gey fast city,' she added disapprovingly.

‘It's fast right enough,' agreed Hector. ‘When I was tsere lookin' for a boat I seen tse folks rushin' at everytsin' like hens to a feedin' bowl; tsen as soon as tsey were in tsey were wantin' out an' pushin' one another tse same as sheep through a gap when tsey has a dog at tsem. I used to stand an' watch tsem just tryin' to make sense of it all.'

‘Aye well,' rejoined Erchy, ‘there's one thing nobody will ever see you do an' that's rush.'

Hector smiled blandly. ‘No indeed,' he replied. ‘Why would I rush when tsere's plenty to do tsat for me?'

‘An' the drinkin'!' Morag resumed, cutting short their chaff. ‘The drinkin' was terrible just! I've never seen the like.' I slid a glance at Erchy who, given the opportunity, could himself give an impressive drinking performance but he affected not to notice and continued staring at the feeding gulls. ‘An' not just the men,' Morag went on, her tone growing more sanctimonious. ‘I was invited to take tea with a swanky friend of Ina's at three in the afternoon an' when we got there didn't the woman bring out a bottle of whisky an' pour out a dram for each of us?' She turned to me. ‘Whisky!' she repeated. ‘For a woman, at three o'clock in the afternoon. Can you believe that now?'

I hoped my expression was suitably scandalized. ‘Did you refuse it?' I asked.

‘Indeed I did not then, seein' it was set out for me I couldn't very well not drink it for fear of offendin' the woman,' she countered virtuously.

‘Whereabouts did you go when you were away then?' Erchy asked.

‘All kinds of places,' said Morag. ‘We went to what they called a ceilidh but the singin' was on the stage mostly.'

‘Were they good singers?' asked Hector.

‘Oh, right enough some of them were good,' she conceded with some reluctance. ‘But I believe I've heard better here in Bruach.' Morag secretly believed that Bruach was bursting with every sort of skill and talent. She paused. ‘An' they had a fiddler there on the stage that was so long sharpenin' his strings before he would start to play I was thinkin' he'd wear through them first.'

We were interrupted by one of the children who came skipping over the shingle calling and beckoning. ‘Are you wantin' to see a killer?' he asked, looking directly at me. ‘He's right inshore there.' I leapt up and clambering on to a rock was in time to see the bulk of a rounded body and a long sword-like fin disappearing beneath the water but though I continued watching for some minutes the whale did not break surface again and I returned to my companions.

Accustomed to such sights they had not bothered to stir from where they sat. ‘It was huge!' I told them excitedly. ‘Honestly, I'd say the fin was six foot high above the water.'

‘Aye.' Erchy's tone was indulgent. ‘It would be a bull likely.'

I continued to gaze fascinatedly at the sea. ‘What strange creatures there could be down there without our ever having seen them,' I mused.

‘Maybe a mermaid or two,' suggested Erchy with a faint smile.

‘If there was mermaids there surely Hector here wouldn't be for stayin' on the shore,' said Morag.

‘No, nor me,' Erchy was quick to add. ‘I would be out there with a net soon enough.'

‘And what would you do supposing you caught a mermaid?' I asked.

‘I wouldn't be tellin' you,' he replied flippantly.

‘No, seriously,' I persisted. ‘Supposing one day you did actually catch a mermaid in the net and haul it aboard your boat what would you do with it?' Erchy looked self-conscious.

‘We'd make our fortunes out of it, tsat's what we'd do wis it,' said Hector. ‘We'd have all tse papers an' tse fillums payin' us good money just to get a look at it.'

Erchy drew up his knees and hugged them. His expression had become thoughtful. ‘No, I would not then,' he said. ‘If I was to get a mermaid in the net then I would put her back in the sea again.'

‘Never!' protested Morag.

‘Aye,' insisted Erchy.

‘You would surely try an' get hold of a camera an' take a picture of her first?' challenged Morag.

‘I don't believe I would do even that,' asserted Erchy.

We all looked at him but he ignored us and continued to stare reflectively at the sea.

‘Why?' I asked him.

‘Ach, mermaids is mermaids an' people is people,' he said evasively but I repeated my question. He shifted uneasily. ‘The way I see it then is if I was to get a mermaid in the net I'm damty sure she would be scared enough without a lot of strangers after excitin' themselves over her. An' if the papers an' the fillums got to know of it she would get not a moment's peace from then till the day she died.'

‘But, man, it is you would get tse money,' expostulated Hector. ‘You would be a millionaire likely.'

‘I wouldn't care about that,' said Erchy. ‘I wouldn't even take a camera to her unless I could make the picture without anyone else seein' it.'

‘You would make plenty of money from a picture of her just,' Morag assured him.

‘Aye, an' wouldn't a picture of her bring every boat in the country here with nets searchin' for her?' Erchy demanded. ‘No,' he repeated, ‘the day I catch a mermaid will be the day I throw a fortune back into the sea an' there's no one but myself will be the wiser.'

‘The Dear help you then,' murmured Morag. I slanted her a wry smile and recalling how these same Highlanders had once scorned the fortune offered by the English for the capture of Bonnie Prince Charlie I suspected that faced with the problem her reaction would be the same as Erchy's.

It was decidedly pleasant sitting and chatting in the sunshine but I had much to do at home so picking up my sack I made a move to go. Morag struggled to her feet, intimating that she too must be on her way. I had gone only a few paces when Erchy called after me. ‘You must have more than enough of that stuff!' He nodded at my sack. I confessed I had. ‘I don't know why you bother with it at all then when there's plenty other things you could be gatherin' on the shore an' maybe earnin' yourself good money doin' it,' he informed me.

‘What sort of things?' I asked sceptically. From time to time I had heard stories of lucrative finds on the shore some of which stories I suspected to be wildly exaggerated but I had never been lucky enough to come across anything that could be considered of even scant market value.

‘Net floats,' Erchy replied. ‘There's a fellow in the fishin' paper sayin' there's a shortage of net floats an' he's willin' to buy secondhand ones for good money so long as they're sound.'

‘Glass floats?' I asked, still unimpressed. I had been collecting coloured glass net floats from the shore ever since I had come to live in Bruach and they were among my most cherished trophies. I was certainly not interested in selling them to anyone.

‘No, but the aluminium ones,' Erchy explained.

‘Honestly?' There was always an abundance of aluminium net floats washed up during the storms and apart from splitting them to make rather unstable feeding bowls they were of little use. One either left them on the shore to be taken away by the next high tide or, if one was feeling sportive, one threw them back into the sea. It sounded too good to be true that a time had now come when one could actually sell them for money.

‘Aye, true as I'm here,' asserted Erchy. ‘I'll bring you the paper with the advertisement in it. You will get the name of the man for yourself.'

A few days later, returning from milking the cow, I found the promised paper on the table. As I slipped off my jacket my startled eye lit on a banner headline across the front page. ‘Writ Nailed to Purser' it read. I dropped my jacket on a chair and picking up the paper was relieved to discover that the victim of the impaling was not a human being but a type of boat described as a ‘Purse-net Seiner', esoterically referred to as a ‘Purser'. I settled down with a cup of coffee and the fishing paper and soon found myself chuckling over other intriguing headlines. ‘Skipper Buried' stated one baldly and I found myself wondering how skippers were usually disposed of that the burial of one should merit a headline. Then there was ‘Firemen Hose Down Skipper!' which reported an incident at a certain port where the amateur fire fighters holding their very first practice drill had, due to a complexity of instructions, unintentionally directed their hose on to a trawler which had just moored alongside the pier. As the wheelhouse door opened the skipper had emerged to be met by a sudden jet of water which had knocked him sprawling on the deck. The paper gave only the bare facts of the incident but visualizing the scene and being aware of the shortness of temper attributed to most trawler skippers I could imagine that in this particular instance water, so far from quenching, would more likely have fuelled a roaring fire of invective.

When I had browsed over the headlines I quickly scanned the text which was of little interest to the uninitiated except for a delightful sentence which I copied down in my notebook:

‘Forty fish filleters from Fraserburgh spent their Fair Fortnight visiting freezer factories …'

If only the freezer factories had been in Frankfurt, I thought, the sentence would have provided a tongue twister to rival ‘Peter Piper'. Reminding myself that I had been loaned the paper for a more serious purpose I turned to the advertisements and eventually found the address of the man who was prepared to buy washed-up net floats. So for a few weeks I was able to feel virtuous in combining the pleasure of roaming the shore with the serious business of collecting net floats. When I had amassed a suitable quantity I prevailed upon the postman to provide me with a mailbag in which I could send them away. There seemed to be an unlimited supply of unused mailbags in Bruach and though officially I supposed they were classed as damaged or soiled most of them were in fact in perfect condition. They were used for carrying hay to the cattle; they were opened out and used as covers for haycocks or as cloaks for humans. I had even dyed one and made myself a very efficient windcheater out of it. The postman obligingly turned up the next day with a mailbag and my floats were duly despatched via the carrier. A few weeks later I was delighted to receive a money order. So I collected more floats, begged another mailbag and sent off a second consignment. It was six weeks this time before I heard anything and then it was not the postman bringing the expected money order but the carrier who deposited an entirely unexpected bundle outside my gate. Since I had not ordered any goods to arrive via the carrier I naturally assumed he had made a mistake but examining the label I saw that the bundle was from the float buyer and that there could be no mistake about its being addressed to me. On investigation I was puzzled to find that the bundle contained a piece of herring net and a length of creel rope and since neither were of any use to me I was certain that the float buyer had made a mistake when addressing the label. Undoubtedly it should have been sent to one of the fishermen of Bruach so I asked Erchy if he knew of anyone who had ordered net and rope.