a) North Chapt 1-2

NORTH



CHAPTER
ONE



1. Man and
wife.



It was a quiet life, a
still life. They woke with the sun and slept when that day's work was
done. Not that there wasn't enough to do. The roof leaked until he
replaced the cracked, black flagstone. By the time she had found a
thin, pure stone half hidden in the dry ruins nearby; by the time he
had chipped it into shape; by the time they had removed the old stone,
levering it up from the dark, sweet wood beams and had carefully
hoisted up the new stone, dropping it into place; by the time a simple
job had been done with care, rats had bored a hole into the chicken hut
and the tar on the boat was flaking and dry.

So she
boarded up the hole to let the chickens lay in peace and he coated the
timbers of the boat in new, shiny pitch. Then it was harvest time and
the oats needed cutting before the first of the Autumn gales, and the
potatoes should be gathered before Winter, and there might be time to
dry and salt some fish in the pale sunlight, and mushrooms to gather
and string above the stove and the work was never
done.

Still, they rarely rushed and nothing was
done in haste and things fixed stayed fixed, at least until, in due
time, they broke again. The daily chores, the weekly chores, the
Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter chores took up their time and they
rarely thought of another way of life.

Sometimes,
he paused as he moved the cows from the byre to the first field of
Spring and he watched the Eastern sky as the cows kicked and raced in
the clean, fresh air. On clear days, he could see, floating an inch off
the horizon the thin grey strip of another island, held shimmering in
banks of warmer air. His face would shift from stillness to stillness
and he could hang there, his eyes caught on the mirage in the distance
until the wind gusted, or the sun. slipping from the thin clouds
changed the quality of the light. Then he would blink, turn, swing and
tie the gate shut and move on.

And sometimes in the
Spring, she would gather sea-pinks and wild iris and marsh-marigold and
place them so they caught the light. He would return to find a piece of
egg-shell on the window ledge and a smooth stone by the door stop. Or a
collection of feathers gathered above the bed. And he would shake his
head, a tiny movement, nothing unnecessary there, and would prepare his
own food that day. And though the island was small, he knew better than
to search for her. She would come as the curlew called and the last
light lifted from the curve of her smile. And though there were no more
words spoken that night than on any other, he could feel a pull as if a
thousand tiny fishhooks were caught in his chest and wherever she
moved, he could not help but follow with the tilt of his shoulders or
the stretch of his thigh. She had power, he knew.


He had power, her man. There was a weight to him, a deliberation that
made her ache with the loneliness of being a man. His emotions were
steady dark flows, his love a dark red current that swept around and
under her. Oh, and proud. His pride, shiny blue, reflected the world in
lines and curves. Sometimes she knew the shapes he saw. Sometimes an
unexpected arrogance would make her catch her breath. And sometimes he
caught her playing with him, guiding him, clearing the path before a
decision to come and she would hold herself still as his anger cut the
air around her. Oh slow, she would whisper inside, oh subtle, and
sooner or later he would pronounce the decision that she had made weeks
ago.

"I`m off to the mainland, the morn`," he would
say as she turned from the stove."I`ll order some timber." And three
months later, the laughs and curses of the mainland boys would ring as
they unloaded lengths of smooth blond wood. She watched from the
cottage door, never caught their eyes and served them tea brewed from
mint that grew in the marshy ground behind the
barn.

And she would smile a gentle smile when a new
room was built on the side of the cottage, and as she turned from the
stove;

"We need another cow."


"As you say."

He wondered at her calm when after
years of careful thought, he said,

"I could do wi`
a son to help me round the farm."

But the next day
when he returned from the sea with a basket of glittering, curving
fish, there was a hush over the yard. He moved to the door and saw a
figure made of stalk and rag above the lintel. Another lay on the
table. Another hugged the iron chimney pipe. A line of dried flowers
led from the stove to the bed and the air in the room was held still in
a dusty, waiting silence.

He turned. There were
three blood red stones on the threshold where he had stepped over them.
He turned again and she was there in the bed with a smile and her
breath pulled him down as the glittering fish-scales fell from his arms
and hands to softly glow in the shadows of the
floor.




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2.
Names.



"I am taking the boat
today." He looked at her from the door. There was a tilt to her jaw and
a steadiness in her gaze he had not seen before.


"Why?" he asked. She laid a hand on her stomach and her eyes never left
his.

"I am taking the boat."

"I
can plough the mold today." he said and watched as she gathered a grey
wool scarf around her shoulders. He saw her pick up the three red
stones and he reached for her arm as she passed.


"We will need to stock up," she said.

So he stood
with the harness and tackle in his hands as she untied the painter
after laying her stones at the bottom of the boat. He watched as she
struggled, pulling the little craft down the rocks to the sea. He stood
as she gathered her skirts and pushed the boat into the grey waves and
pulled herself up and in. She faced him as she rowed out, then angled
North to the open sea. He watched her until the boat was lost in the
silver, rolling shadows then he turned, hung up the harness for the
ploughing, closed the door and climbed up the slope to the rocky point
on the Northern edge of the island. He thought he could see a faint
grey shape shifting in the distance on the sea and once he thought he
heard a someone cry out but it was probably a gull in the
wind.

That night a thin rain fell as he sat on the
North Point, his eyes on the horizon, a lantern sheltered between his
raised knees, warming his chest.

The next day, the
sea was sluggish and the sky grey. He felt a rat as it brushed past his
feet and some seals watched him, black heads bobbing out past the
rocks. His hands met that day, under his knees and very slightly he
rocked, back and forth.

Towards dusk, the sky
cleared as the sun set and aching distances of silver blue stretched
above and around him. A snipe`s drumming wingbeat powdered the air. He
lit the lantern.

It did not take long, the next
morning, for the sun to lift the thin lace of dew that dusted his hair
and face. His eyes held the horizon steady, pinned the sea into
shifting planes, burned the black islands into the
sky.

On the third night, he did not light the lamp.
His eyes blazed.

Late on the fourth morning, he saw
her, pulling into the wind. Slowly the boat crept around the point and
he ran back down past the cottage and into the sea to meet her. He
moaned when he saw her hands.

"I rowed John." Her
voice was harsh through cracked lips.

"Hush
now."

"I rowed North and I caught the wings of the
gulls and I rowed with them, John. I passed the Shetlands and I saw the
ice."

"No, hush now."

"And the
sun set and the sea froze about me and on the first night I saw a horse
on the water. A steady, solid horse with lowered head, pushing against
the wind. And it pulled a house, John, behind it in the night and
though the light was warm from the windows and I could see a family
through the glass, I could hear no joy. I held the first stone to the
horse and it took it in it`s lips and his name will be
Peter."

"Aye." He said as he carried her up the
banks to the cottage.

"And the next night, the sea
froze and I saw a bird stepping high over the crests and it carried a
cup of wine that steamed in the wind and I put the stone in the cup and
her name will be Margaret though she will not answer to
it."

"Aye." He said, as he laid her on the
bed.

"And the third night, the sea froze but I saw
nothing. Nothing at all and I waited until I could see the sun glinting
through the green sea, waiting to rise and oh, John, I smelt the South.
Trees, John and lush grass and the warmth of the forest where I was
born. And I saw a tide of black, spreading over the white sea, heard a
humming and a buzzing in the air and I threw the stone over the side
and it moved, John. It moved away, on its own over the frozen sea and
the black tide took it away. And he will have to choose his own name
for none came to me."

"Aye." He said as she
murmured, "It is done now.", and slept.

And as she
slept, he pulled up the boat and tied it and washed the blood from the
oar handles. Then he fed the cows and the chickens, chased the ducks
into the sea to make their yolks yellow, swept the yard and pumped
fresh, sweet water from the well into the tank. Then, ignoring the
harness and tackle, he pulled the plough himself until the mold was
turned in gleaming furrows and, at last, when his steps were wild and
his arms hung in the air, aching and singing with blood, he
slept.

The sun rose and set thrice more before
either of them woke but he made sure he was up first with a cool cloth
for her brow and eggs for her
breakfast.




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3.
Blessing



That was a perfect
Summer. Years later, he looked back and it seemed as if he remembered
the days through a haze of gold. Each morning, he would leave a trail
through lush, wet dew and each day the sun shone clear and high. The
oats grew strong and green though he could never remember a rain and
the two cows had twins each, early in the Spring, all healthy calves
although old Tam the bull could barely pull the plough. Each week, he
came back from the sea as the sky shaded to purple with his boat
swimming in fish of all shapes and sizes. He laughed as he stood knee
deep in fish and she watched from the garden, one hand to her back, the
other in her hair, a smile on her lips and her eyes dark and
rich.

"That`s it.", He said one day, "I`m done. Any
more I get, I can sell on the Mainland." She looked at
him.

"There will be more than one mouth to feed,
John."

"You know this?" And she
nodded.

So he caught more fish and still they were
drawn to his lines. And she tended strawberries and rhubarb and he
would swear that never had so many chickens been broody and never had
so many ducklings followed in strings, dotting the banks and the
sea.

And so passed the first three
months.

Then it was harvest time with crystal clear
nights and a huge yellow moon. There were baskets of grain and spills
of potatoes and John killed a calf for sausages and salted sides of
long, dark meat. There was back-breaking work though she never stopped
and always did her share. In September, they took the boat over to the
Mainland for the harvest-home.




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CHAPTER
2



The
Harvest-home.



The two old women
sat side by side, their knees together, hands folded in their laps.
They stared ahead but their eyes, hard and sharp, never missed a
movement. Every slightly weaving step or glance over a nonchalantly
raised tankard was noted and filed. Hessian raised an eyebrow, very
briefly revealing an eye of shocking blue.

"Fulmar
Alexander." She murmured, eyes focussed on the middle
distance.

"Seven.", noted Tincture, her lips barely
moving.

Hessian carefully lifted her hand to her
hair, as a man, all elbows and lengths of shin, his face flushed,
stumbled past, seeming supported by yet another tankard. There was a
whoop and a crash followed by a ragged cheer.


"There we go." said Hessian. Tincture`s head nodded once, the tiniest
of movements. Hessian smiled thinly and settled back in her new high
backed harvest chair. Perhaps it was her bones, but it wasn't as
comfortable as it could have been. Still. she wouldn't change it. It
was a magnificent chair, all of a piece in curves and stretches of ,
well, it didn't really matter what it was made of. She had bought it
from Meg, one of the tinker folk, when she had last visited the
mainland, and had kept it a secret until she could afford enough gold
paint to completely cover its smooth planes and surfaces. She had even
kept it a secret from Tincture, not an easy thing to do at all,
especially since she had known that Tincture had been looking for an
interesting chair of her own. The chair had been cheap; the cost of the
gold paint had nearly crippled her, but it didn't do to think about
that too much. However much it had cost, it was very cheap at the price
and it was a magnificent chair. A chair to be very proud of indeed.
Definitely the most impressive chair at this years harvest home.
Hessian glanced at Tincture, sitting bolt upright beside her, smiled
again and surveyed the room.

The tables had been
cleared away and above the clatter of dishes being quickly and
efficiently laid to soak, the last of the bairns could be heard
complaining loudly as they were packed off into the back. Jimmy Splint
`o the Bu was already sprinkling white wax dust on the floor of the
hall. Two young men followed him, kicking and spreading the dust evenly
over the wooden floor boards. There was a plinking and a strumming and
the steady note of a fiddle as the Baikie family band warmed up and
checked their instruments. The thin shriek of a tin whistle was heard,
then a sharp smack and a wail as young Semaphore Baikie was persuaded
to give up her musical career in favor of an early night. The hall
settled down expectantly. Young men adjusted their postures and their
trousers. Older men fixed their eyes on the quine of their choice. The
women folded their arms, put hands on hips, raised their eyebrows.
There was a pause.

"Gentlemen take your partners
for a strip the willow." There was a rush and a gathering and the
harvest home dance began.

Tincture watched the
swirling and shifting patterns of the dance with a faint expression of
distaste. Despite being thin and sprightly, the skin on her neck, hung
down in looping folds, sometimes, in bad weather, almost to her waist.
Tonight she wore a thin, black choker but, even with the majority of
her neck tucked down the front of her dress, the remainder still
trembled as she shook her head and clucked at the trivial gyrations of
the dancers on the floor. She had more important things on her
mind.

She shifted her thin, hard buttocks and laid
her hand on the heavy arm of her chair. It was dark wood, carved with
images of exotic fruits, clusters of round berries and birds that could
surely never exist. She had embroidered the tapestry back and seat
herself. Some had thought it presumptuous but she had thought it only
fitting for her chair. That chair. Her harvest home
chair.

Pretending to peer at young Jeremiah
Thompson who seemed on the point of asking a simpering Phyllis Tidestop
up to dance, she snuck a look at Hessians chair. Oh the shock, the
cheek, the downright outrageousness. There Hessian sat, serene on what
Tincture could only call a gilded monstrosity.

"My
Holy Heavens and don`t you two ladies look magnificent tonight?" A
voice intruded on her thoughts. A thin and bobbing Fulmar Alexander
stood blinking ominously down at them. He swayed slightly as they both
stared unwaveringly back. "And what charming chairs you're both got.
Fit for a queen. Or two queens rather. One chair for each. Harrumph."
Tincture didn't bother to reply. Hessian actually blushed. Fulmar
hiccupped. "Well, which one of you charming ladies would like to dance
with me the now?" He grinned a stretch of little pearly teeth somewhere
over their heads and to their left.

"You know we
don`t dance till the Eva Three Step." snapped Tincture. She turned to
Hessian for support and saw to her
horror&;#8230;

"Oh well, since you`re asking."
Hessian stood, her hand vaguely stroked the gently curving arm of her
new golden chair. She smiled gently and took Fulmar`s proffered arm.
Tincture only just closed her mouth as the couple slid out into the
chaos of the floor and began that effortless and trim precision of the
dance that only old folks brought up on it can achieve. Calves flashing
and feet stepping high, they flew through the energetic groups of
younger dancers. The only sign of their speed was Fulmar`s hair which,
originally combed and oiled to his thinning scalp now whipped and hung
in the air as they took an especially fast corner.


Tincture considered tipping her thimbleful of whiskey over Hessian`s
seat cover which was an shade of dark red, or accidentally knocking an
oil lamp over its sculpted golden back. She began looking for more
subtle ways of revenge.

The door to the hall swung
open with a bang and everything changed.

The ranked
oil lamps flickered and seemed to concentrate their beams on the
figures entering. The dancers simultaneously stopped as the Baikie band
reached the climax of the strip the willow. There was
silence.

Tincture felt a tickling in the small of
her back. She shifted and felt a writhing in the carven, oak arms of
her chair. It was Hessian who broke the silence with a gasp. The
gathered islanders stared where her wavering finger pointed, her eyes
fully visible for the first time in years, staring wide from a cracked
web of wrinkles.

Tincture was framed in a twisted
mass of branches and vines that hung swaying and fanning above her
head. Clusters of berries, lush and ripe hung around her. As they
watched, with a creaking and a popping, the chair grew ever more
baroque; leaves and ferns peeking around her skirts, creepers twining
around the legs of Hessian`s, suddenly brazen golden chair. A small
bird burst from the foliage and, darting about the packed hall, shot
through the open door and out into the night.

Oh it
was a night to remember when John `o Papa Stour and his bride came over
the water for the harvest home. She slipped in through the door beside
him and very few noticed as she settled down in the empty chair next to
Tincture. A shadow seemed to hang over the golden chair, dimming its
brightness, dulling the decision and elegance of its shape. She watched
her husband.

John carried a basket of fish and a
basket of grain which he presented to the village counsellors. They
accepted gratefully, though the harvest had been prodigious in the
Isles that year. Margoloyd Flett supervised the storing of several of
the largest fish herself, under the solemn eye of her husband. The
grain, sad to say, was forgotten and later knocked and spilled over the
floor during an especially energetic Dashing White
Sergeant.

The dances were wild. The Baikie family
band played with a verve and precision previously unheard. When the
young children, stumbling and sleepy eyed, wandered back into the hall,
they too were swept into the ever increasing circles of Dashing White
Sergeants, Military Two Steps, Gay Gordons, St. Bernards Waltzes,
Quadrilles, Eva Three Steps, Squares and Circular Hayes, and the
dancing went on till dawn.

And the focuss of the
dancing was John. He shone with health and the broad circle of his arms
was never empty of a dancing partner. With a shy strength, a twinkle of
wit and coyness, the curve of his collar bone and the length of his
forearm, he had the women folk swooning and sparkling and the men
rising to the challenge in unprecedented shows of gallantry and
courting. Many families were begun that night, many old scores settled,
drinks drunk and partnerships formed.

Only Tincture
noticed John`s wife, that woman, what was her name?, as she sat quietly
beside her, dwarfed in Hessian`s chair. She was pregnant, that was sure
and though she too seemed to be blooming, there was a slight gauntness
to her cheek and a shadow under her eye. Though those eyes burned.


Tincture shivered as she saw the intensity and
concentration in the younger woman`s eyes. Wherever that gaze fell,
things happened. Couples were propelled to kiss, dancers to levitate,
cups to refill and floorboards to freshen and stretch. And with each
burst of growth, the shadows under those eyes grew and a little more of
the woman seemed to be burnt away. Tincture heard her murmur as she
placed her hands over her swollen belly.

"And this
is for you too, not too long now&;#8230;"


Tincture leant over and touched her arm. It was hot and cold at
once.

"Be careful, child. Save some for yourself
now." The younger eyes hardened.

"You don`t know
me. You do not know who I am."

"Ah, that`s right."
sighed Tincture and settled back into her forest of a chair. She
watched the whirling dancers with no thought for the proud and scowling
woman beside her.

Oh it was a night to remember
when John o` Papa Stour and his bride (what was her name?) came over
the water for the harvest home. Even Fulmar Alexander was heard to say,
as the last revellers were staggering home:

"And
would you credit it, I never even knew that she had eyes afore the
night, all bundled up in that round face o` hers. Oh but what eyes.
Blue they were, and bright like a summers
day."




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