Authors: Catherine Czerkawska
It was a warm evening and very light. The sea was glassy, the bland, impassive face of the moon just showing in a blue sky. Finn faced Kirsty, took up the oars and sculled quietly out into the bay. Kirsty trailed her fingers in the water and relaxed into her cushions, saying nothing. Finn seemed beyond sorrow, gazing at her as though he could never have enough of the sight of her.
He shipped the oars and sat very still in the centre of the boat. They drifted below Dunshee, listening to the sharp calls of wading birds along the shoreline, moving with the tide. A big seal came to look at them, popping its head out of the water a couple of times and snorting at them, to Kirsty’s absolute delight .
‘Do you remember?’ she said to Finn, ‘Do you remember how the seals would always come when we were fishing? And you could have seen them far enough because you said they always scared the fish away? But I liked them so much that I didn’t care.’
When an evening breeze sprang up and ruffled the surface of the sea, he leant forward to arrange the shawl more closely around her. She caught at his fingers and kissed them.
‘My darling!’ she said with infinite tenderness.
‘All of me. To the last drop of my blood.’ He rubbed at his eyes and cheeks. ‘The wind’s in my eyes, that’s all.’
‘I know, my love,’ she said. ‘I know.’
The light drained slowly out of the sky. He wanted to bring the boat in, but she protested. ‘Wait,’ she said. ‘Just a while longer. It’s alright. I’m warm enough.’
She dipped her hand in the sea again and, as she raised it, her fingers left an iridescent trail, a stream of opals, tumbling and shimmering into the water, tiny life forms, each generating its own spark of light.
I’m sorry’ she said, at last, her voice slightly slurred. ‘You don’t have anything to be sorry about. It’s me who should be sorry. I should never have left you. Never. It was the worst thing I ever did.’
‘Forgive me. What possessed me to do that to you, my love? Where is a knife that will cut it? Search the sheathe where you left it. Do you hear it? Do you hear it?’
‘Hear what?’
‘The heron screaming and the sad song of the corncrake in the meadow.’
At last, she allowed Finn to row her back to shore. He hauled the boat onto the sand, lifted her out and carried her tenderly back to Dunshee. As they approached the house, she reached up and clasped his neck so that her head was nestling against him. In the warm kitchen, he tried to put her down on the sofa while he went to get her a drink, but she wouldn’t let him.
‘Don’t!’ she said. ‘Don’t let me go, Finn, please. Not just yet. Let’s sit for a while. Till I feel better.’
He sat down on the nearest chair, her grandfather’s old rocking chair, with Kirsty all bundled up on his lap, his arms fast around her.
He bent to kiss her. ‘Ah Kirsty, my darling Kirsty! We wasted so many years. We should have had our whole lives together!’
‘We have,’ she said. ‘We have been together our whole lives, haven’t we? Just not always in the same place. Don’t be angry with me now. I can’t bear it if you’re angry!’
‘I’m not angry with you. I was never angry with you. I would have gone to the ends of the earth for you, Kirsty, my dearest, darling Cairistiona!’ He rocked her gently.
She tried to say, ‘To hell in a handcart!’ but her lips were dry and she could only whisper the words.
‘Listen to me now. Close your eyes. I’ll rock you till you fall asleep. Go to sleep, my darling, my sweetheart. Go to sleep.’
The room fell very quiet. At last, the only sounds were the muted rustle of the fire in the grate as a log slowly dwindled to white ash, and the squeak of the chair, moving back and forth, back and forth.
Time passed. When, holding her close as ever, he looked down, he could see that she lay cold and still in his arms.
Finn carried Kirsty upstairs and placed her gently on the bed, in her old room. She looked peaceful, lying there with the plaid still wrapped around her, but she looked strange and empty as well. Everything that had animated her, everything that had made her so uniquely his Kirsty, had gone and he did not know where to find her. He didn’t stay in the room long. Instead he went downstairs and phoned the island nurse who said that she would inform the doctor on the mainland. Then he called the minister, who seemed very shocked. He hadn’t realised quite how ill she was, but she had hidden her illness well, even from her family.
The minister came driving up the track in his elderly Golf, said a prayer over Kirsty, and sat with Finn for a bit, but seemed embarrassed by his silence and scared by his stony face. He left just as the district nurse arrived. She was professionally brisk and left Finn a couple of sleeping tablets, promising to send the undertaker up as soon as possible.
‘It will be tomorrow morning, now.’
‘No hurry,’ he said.
‘Will you be alright?’ she asked. ‘Sometimes people get very frightened… you know…’
She glanced upwards, indicating the room where Kirsty lay.
‘I was never scared of her when she was alive, so why the hell should I start now?’
Nevertheless, he could feel the intense silence in the house, pressing in on his ears. He had never known it so quiet before. He switched on the television, but the foolish babble was unbearable, so he drank a glass of whisky and then went out, climbing up to Hill Top Town. Already, there was a gleam of light in the eastern sky. The short night-time was ending. He stumbled among primroses, violets and bluebells, their colours muted and strange in this light. Gradually they gave way to willow scrub and last year’s dried heather with the wind whistling through the stems. And then he was on the open hillside, with seabirds whirling around him, angrily, and he shouted with them, screamed wordlessly into the breeze that came from Ireland. He lost all track of time, but eventually hunger and thirst and the weakness in his own legs forced him back down to the house. He couldn’t remember when he had last eaten, and all he had drunk had been the whisky. He made a pot of tea, put sugar in it, sliced and buttered bread, set it aside, and forgot about it. Overcome by dizziness, he sat down next to the kitchen fire.
The old cat came and tried to sit on his lap, but he pushed the creature away, sweeping it off with his hand. It mewed a protest, then crouched uneasily in front of the cold range, looking up at him with accusing eyes.
Eventually, he went up to the room where Kirsty lay. He thought that he could lie beside her a while, but she seemed so cold, and he couldn’t warm her. He pulled up the blanket from the bottom of the bed and tucked it round her, as well as the plaid, with some confused idea of warming her. The cat had followed him and, before he could stop it, it jumped onto the bed. It crouched beside her for a moment, looking into her face, and then it gave a single, wailing cry and was gone, leaping down the stairs. He followed after, and found it crouched in the hearth, its fur standing on end, its eyes wide and fixed. He sat down again and, presently, it jumped onto his knee and when it padded a bed there, he did not move it.
He dozed for an hour or so, warmed by the weight of the animal on his lap, until full daylight crept in the window. Then he got up and phoned Nicolas, who sounded shocked but surprisingly calm. Finn wondered if maybe he had seen it coming and then the thought struck him that Kirsty may even have written to her ex-husband without his knowledge.
‘Did you know she was so ill?’ he asked.
‘She told me she was ill. But she also asked me not to visit. Not until she was feeling better. I thought she was getting treatment. I thought things would improve again.’
‘I hoped for the same thing. How do you think the girls will take it?’
‘They’ll be devastated.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Just tell me, Finn. Tell me that somebody was with her. You didn’t let her… you didn’t…’ Nicolas’s composure deserted him and he choked on the words.
‘I was with her. All the time. What do you take me for?’
‘You should have told me.’
‘I wanted to. But she didn’t want the girls to know. She was adamant.’
‘I know.’
‘She wanted them to remember her the way she was.’
‘And do you think that’ll be a comfort to them? Or do you think they might just be furious. Hurt and furious.’
‘I don’t know, and to be honest with you, I don’t have the energy to argue with you right now.’
‘Alright, Finn,’ said Nicolas, and Finn could hear the capitulation in his voice. They spoke briefly about funeral arrangements and all the people who would want to come. Kirsty would be buried not far from her mother and her grandmother in the island cemetery.
He made a few more phone calls and then he sat in the kitchen, listening to the sighs and creaks as the growing warmth of the sun woke the old building. He was aware that he was exhausted, but sleep still seemed very far off. He dozed and woke, made tea, took a shower and then went out, striding down to the beach, and only returning when he saw the undertaker’s car, pulling up at the house.
‘I’m sorry for your trouble,’ said Hamish, who had lived on the island for years. He looked narrowly at Finn. ‘You look very poorly, Finn, if you don’t mind me saying so.’
‘I was looking for her,’ Finn said, thickly, shaking the proffered hand. ‘But I couldn’t find her.’
Hamish knew something of their history. ‘It’s always a shock,’ he said. ‘Even when it’s expected, it’s always a shock.’
‘But she wouldn’t go without me, would she? She wouldn’t go off and leave me all alone. You would think that she would still want to be with me, wouldn’t you?’ Finn covered his face with his hands. ‘But I can’t find her anywhere. She left me. Jesus Christ, what will I do if I can’t ever find her again!’
Other people began arriving: the minister, the doctor, various islanders, and then friends and relatives from the mainland. Finn sat in the corner of the room and watched while other people came and took charge. Soon, the hotel too was full of mourners but he kept well out of their way. In the days before the funeral he took the boat out and just drifted about with the currents. Kirsty’s daughters came to the island the day before the funeral and stayed at the hotel with their father. Flora sat close to Annabel in the lounge, a damp tissue balled up in her hand, while India seemed more angry and hurt than sad. Eventually, however, and much against Nicolas’s advice, she went up to Dunshee and sought out Finn.
‘Why didn’t you tell us? Why the hell didn’t you let us know that she was so ill? What right had you to keep it from us?’
‘I couldn’t say anything. She didn’t want me to.‘
‘Oh yes. And your first loyalty was always to my mother wasn’t it? You didn’t think about
our
feelings! You never really wanted us here.’
‘It was nothing to do with you, India. I always wanted you here. Always. But you’re right. My first loyalty was to Kirsty. It had to be. It still is. She was all I had, and I couldn’t go against her wishes. If you can’t be selfish when you’re dying, when can you be?’
CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN
At the funeral service, India played the fiddle, her great grandad’s old fiddle, to which she had fallen heir, filling the kirk with the most glorious, heartrending sound. She played a lament, her grief stricken and gravely beautiful face bent over the instrument. The music would have wrung tears from a stone. That was what everyone said afterwards, curiously comforted by the perception that they were in the presence of an uncommon talent . Flora, her hair a cap of neat red curls, recited a sad poem which she had made up especially for Kirsty. Nicolas assumed the role of chief mourner which caused a few raised eyebrows on the island, but it wasn’t really his fault. Finn had abdicated all responsibility and somebody had to take charge.
Finn almost missed the funeral, but at the last moment, he crept into the back of the church, swathed in an old sheepskin jacket, shivering, although the day was warm. His mind was elsewhere. None of this was real to him. In the cemetery, he came forward to take one of the cords, and then threw a posy of spring blossoms: primroses, violets, celandines, in on top of the coffin, but went off again soon afterwards without speaking to anyone. He didn’t even go to the funeral tea, which Annabel had organised, in the hotel.
The evening after the funeral, India walked up to Dunshee again. Finding the house empty, all her cousins having left on the last ferry of the day, went down to the beach. Finn was sitting in the boat, which was floating in a few feet of calm water.
She hovered on the sand, watching him, willing him to speak first, but he said nothing.
‘You should have come down to the hotel, Finn,’ she said at last.
‘Why?’
‘It would have done you good to speak to other people.’
‘Who?’ he sneered. ‘What people? You mean Nicolas? I’m sure that would have done me a lot of good.’
‘No. I mean me. And Flora.’
‘Flora hates me.’
‘No she doesn’t.’
‘Dislikes me. She does dislike me. You can’t pretend she doesn’t.’
‘Well then. People from round here. People who knew and loved my mum.’ India could feel the tears starting as she said the words. She swallowed hard. ‘And me. I don’t hate you.’