Authors: Catherine Czerkawska
‘Oh, they were fly. All of them. When the inspector was coming, they always knew, somebody must have tipped them the wink. They always had enough time to clean the place up. Put on a good front. Like a stage set. There would be proper delft on the tables. You’d get clean clothes. But as soon as the visitors went away, that was it. Back to what passed for normal.’
‘Didn’t people ever run away?’
‘They tried. But if you ran away, the guards, the police always brought you back, no questions asked, and the Brothers half killed you. I wet the bed every night for the first couple of years in that place. Why wouldn’t I? I never wet the bed at home, but I wet the bed there. They used to make you walk about with the pissy sheet on your head, to show the world what a devil you were. And I was doubly demonic because I wrote with my left hand. There was no hope for me at all. God, Kirsty, I haven’t the words. Even trying to put it into words for you makes it seem less than it was Do you remember Francis?’
‘I’ve never forgotten him. He died, didn’t he?’
‘He always got it worse than me. I had a thick skin and a knack for keeping my head down. You become kind of invisible after a while. You learn how to do it. But Francie never did. There was a farm at the school and we worked on that. Never saw any money for it, but as we got a bit bigger we were useful to them, I suppose. And one of the lay brothers – he was nicer than the rest. I don’t know if he did it to give us a break, but he managed to persuade them to send us away to the tatties, and that’s how we came here. It was Francie that needed the break. I was just sent along to look after him, I think. Francie would have got away. He’d have been home free if he had managed to hang on for a bit. When you got to sixteen, they used to find a job for you, and mostly you stuck it for a few years, because you thought that you had to. You didn’t know you could escape. But sooner or later, you would realise that you didn’t have to stay and there was nothing much they could do if you high tailed it over the water to England or Scotland. I didn’t know it myself till your grandfather sent that priest packing.’
‘So what happened to him? To Francis? You told me he fell down some stairs.’
He shook his head, his face grim, lost in the past.
‘I think there was more going on. He was this sweet lad, Francie. I think there were other things going on. Even worse things. Other kinds of abuse. He would try to tell me sometimes, but I didn’t want to know. Things were bad enough without that. I don’t think he fell. I still don’t know whether he jumped. Or was it even worse than that? He could have been pushed, for all I know. They said it was a terrible accident, but I’m still not sure, even to this day. That was when I knew that I had to get away. But I couldn’t see how I could do it. Until your grandfather helped me.’
‘Thank God he did.’
‘When I came here, that was the first real act of kindness I had known since I left my mother. Can you believe that? Your grandad saying “take a break, lad.” I remember it to this day. And you, of course. I couldn’t understand why you were both being nice to me.’
‘If I could have put everything right for you, I would.’
‘I know you would. But it doesn’t matter. Not now I have you. Not now we’re together.’
The terrible thought came to Kirsty that perhaps she had sacrificed her own children for Finn. To try to put something right that – in reality – never would or could be right. Not completely. Finn was damaged and there was nothing she could do except give him unconditional love. But that wasn’t really the truth of it either. The children seemed happy enough now, and no life was without upheavals. They had been very civilised about it all, she and Nicolas. That was always Nick’s way. The perfect gentleman. But how could you ever tell what damage might have been done? How could you ever tell what might lie ahead?
CHAPTER THIRTY SIX
Kirsty and Finn were married very quietly in the kirk, as soon as the divorce came through: just the two of them with Alasdair and a couple of witnesses from the village, but no other guests, no party, not even the girls. Alasdair lived with them for three more years and died in his sleep, in early summer. He had accepted the situation and admitted that he was delighted to have both Kirsty and Finn back at Dunshee. It was, he told her, what he would most have wished for and he was happy that they were all together again.
‘But I wouldn’t have wanted you to go about it in this way, Kirsty,’ he said. ‘Not quite in this way.’
‘I know. But the girls seem to be happy enough now.’
His funeral was more of a celebration than a wake. Nicolas didn’t come but Annabel picked up India and Flora from school and brought them to the island. Flora was sad but India was distraught.
‘I’m so used to him being there,’ she said to her mother. ‘If I had any troubles, I could take them to him. What am I going to do without him?’
Just before the funeral, Finn took her into the kitchen at Dunshee and presented her with her great grandfather’s old fiddle.
‘He asked me to give it to you. My playing isn’t a patch on yours. It’s a lovely instrument, and I think you should have it. Why don’t you play something at the service?’
She played a series of light-hearted jigs and reels that her great grandad had played at weddings, and which made everybody smile but she finished with the sad song of the fairy folk that Finn had learned all those years ago, and that made her mother cry.
It was some ten years later, around the time of the millennium, that Kirsty fell ill. Her symptoms were vague and worrying: shortness of breath, fatigue, night time sweats, inexplicable bruising. Eventually, Finn took her to a mainland hospital, the same one her mother had spent so much time in, all those years before and, quite quickly, she was diagnosed with leukaemia. She kept her illness a secret. India and Flora still went to visit their mother at Dunshee, but she always managed to hide it from them. She only told them that she was run down, a bit anaemic, had been advised to take it easy. She had treatment, lost her hair, grew it again, just in time for the girls’ next visit.
‘Why have you had your hair cut so short again, mum?’ asked India.
‘The hairdresser got carried away.’
‘It isn’t very nice,’ said Flora, thoughtfully. ‘You ought to grow it.’
‘I’m doing my best.’
‘You should tell them,’ said Finn, when they had left the island.
‘No. I don’t want any fuss. I don’t want anyone feeling sorry for me.’
She fought the disease long and hard, with every possible treatment. Finn would have moved heaven and earth for her. He would gladly have taken the illness upon himself, if that were possible. But after the last remission proved to be just that – a temporary respite - Kirsty put her foot down. She didn’t want to be away from the island and she didn’t want to be away from Finn any longer. Nothing he could do or say would change her mind. She took such palliative treatment as they could offer her, while she stayed at home, but refused to go back into hospital and her health steadily deteriorated through that winter and early spring.
At Easter, her daughters came to Dunshee for a few days, and Kirsty rallied all her strength to behave normally with them; so much so that India and Flora noticed little amiss with their mother, beyond the fact that she seemed very tired and needed constant catnaps.
They spent more time with Finn than ever before. He was shy, but kind to them. Afterwards, India suspected that Kirsty had asked him to be nice to them and, as always, he had obeyed. He carried their picnic things down to the beach, arranged fishing trips for them, and escorted them to and from ceilidhs in the village hall or quiz nights in the hotel, where they could chat up visiting yachtsmen.
India had finished college by then, had managed to get herself an agent and was intent on making her mark in the world of music. Flora was doing a Business Studies course in Edinburgh. Physically, Flora was the image of her mother, but much more reserved and precise. She had a lustre about her, as though she had just stepped out of a photograph. There was never a hair out of place, and she was never seen in public without carefully applied make-up, in sharp contrast to her sister. India only wore make-up on stage, and even then, usually had to be reminded about it. Once, when they had gone on holiday to Italy with Annabel, their luggage had gone missing, along with Flora’s make-up case. India watched in astonishment as her younger sister dissolved into angry tears.
‘But it’s Sunday!’ she kept saying. ‘I can’t buy anything!’
She was only placated the following day when the shops opened and she was able to replace her lipstick and mascara, even though the missing luggage turned up within a few hours.
‘I love her, but she drives me nuts!’ said India, to Finn, in an unguarded moment. ‘She’s so high maintenance. She was never like that when we were younger. I was the neat one. Now she takes an hour to do her hair and makeup. A whole hour every bloody day and then she has to take it all off again at night! What a waste of time!’
‘That’s just the way she is’ said Finn, mildly. ‘And perhaps it’s just her way of ordering her world, making herself feel safe and unassailable, you know?’
By May, Kirsty was desperately ill. Again, Finn suggested that he must tell the rest of her family what was going on, but she refused. She became so agitated when he argued with her that he couldn’t bring himself to do anything but capitulate. She knew that she was being impossibly selfish, but she didn’t care.
The morphine made her sick and vague and she would only take the tablets when she couldn’t bear the aching in her joints any more. Her temperature fluctuated alarmingly and she had terrible nosebleeds. Just lifting her would cause her skin to bruise. Where Finn had held her – and there was no doubt that she needed his support - there would be two sets of five blue fingerprints on the white flesh. He feared all the time that his touch would damage her. Finn couldn’t bear to think of her illness. He sometimes found himself pretending that it was some minor condition, from which she would recover in time. He couldn’t bear his sense of panic, which could only be controlled when he focussed on caring for her, on her day-to-day needs.
She was so frail that he wondered how she could stand upright, but she would insist on getting up and going into the garden, so that she could watch the sea from a basket chair, or smell the sweet coconut scent of the whins on the winds that blew down from Hill Top Town.
‘I wish I was sitting up there with you,’ she said to Finn, one May evening, when she had been more restless and unwell than usual. ‘I wish we were there, the two of us together, watching the western sea. It would make me better just to be there, I’m sure it would! Can’t you carry me up there? Can’t you? Please Finn !’
‘Kirsty how can I? There’s no strength left in you! It would kill you to go up there. I’m as strong as a horse, but I couldn’t carry you up there safely, sweetheart. I’d be afraid that you’d break in my arms. We’ll go when you’re better. I promise.’
She was silent for a moment, gazing up at him.
At last, she sighed. ‘Well, Hill Top Town will just have to wait then. But what about the boat? We could go out on the boat couldn’t we? I wouldn’t have to do a thing. You could bring it in to the beach and carry me down there. I don’t weigh very much.’
‘You’re thistledown. And just as fragile. But I’m so afraid of breaking you.’
‘I don’t care. What’s a few broken bones? I want to be out there on the water with you, one last time.’
He winced, but said nothing, shaking his head.
‘Listen, you have to do what I want.’ She smiled at him, with a look of sheer devilment, a flash of the old Kirsty. ‘You never know, it might be my last request.’
‘Don’t!’ he said. ‘Don’t do this to me. I can’t bear it, Kirsty!’
‘Well I won’t,’ she relented. ‘But it’s a very calm night. It’ll be alright, really it will.’
‘I’ll fetch the boat in,’ he said.
It was the nut brown, clinker-built rowing boat that had belonged to her grandfather. It was afloat already, tied to the iron stanchion on the beach below Dunshee. Finn wrapped Kirsty in the black and white shepherd’s plaid that he had found in one of the upstairs cupboards.
She snuggled into it. ‘I’d forgotten all about this. Do you remember how we used to wrap it round us in the barn, when we were young? My grandad used to wear it on the hills sometimes. He once told me that it was more than a hundred years old. I wish I’d worn half so well.’
Finn gathered her gingerly in his arms. She winced, but set her lips in a firm line, and would not cry out. He carried her carefully down the meandering track to the beach, trying hard not to jar her bones, trying hard to take small, safe steps. Afterwards, he would remember the powerful scent of bluebells. He left her sitting on a low rock, still wrapped in the shawl, while he went down, drew the boat onto the beach, made a nest of cushions there and came back for her.
‘How are you?’ It seemed a foolish question, she was so obviously not alright, but what else was he to ask?
‘I’ll do. Come on. Let’s go.’
Lifting her as though she were made of blown glass, he walked across the beach and lowered her gently among the cushions. Then he pushed the nut brown boat over the white sand into the water, and stepped in at the last moment, holding his breath, trying to steady the boat, trying to give Kirsty as little discomfort as possible.