The author's beloved Orkney is brought vividly to life in this classic collection, peopled with crofters, fishermen, ferrymen and tinkers. History plays a part too, for Norse and Scottish legend are revived in tales of witch trials, priest hunts and Viking raids, all endowed with the stark beauty of George Mackay Brown's masterful storytelling.
Release date:
March 27, 2014
Publisher:
John Murray
Print pages:
160
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The fisherman Peter lived in a tarred hut above the rocks with his boat, his creels, his Bible.
Jean Scarth lived with her father (men called him Snipe) in the pub at the end of the village. Snipe lay in bed now all the time. The doctor said he would never see another New Year.
Thorfinn Vik the crofter lived in a new wooden house at the edge of the moor. His father and mother were dead now. His married sister lived in Canada.
Jean opened the pub at six o’clock. Peter was standing outside with three haddocks in his hand. He didn’t come in, he gave Jean the fish and walked off into the darkness. He had his black suit on, the one he wore to the gospel meetings.
Thorfinn came at half past six. His face was gaunt and grey after the New Year drinking. He asked for beer and stood over the counter drinking it. Other men from the hill came in. Seatter of Stark and Eric Weyland came in and began to play draughts. Three tinkers came in.
Jean said to Thorfinn, ‘Peter from the shore was here tonight. He’s a good man, that.’
‘Give me a whisky,’ said Thorfinn. ‘I must keep my strength up for the ploughing.’
‘He had three fish but he never uttered a word,’ said Jean.
The men from the hill went out, then the tinkers. Seatter of Stark and Eric Weyland sat over the draughtboard.
Thorfinn said, ‘The croft’s still empty, up by.’
Jean said, ‘I have a pub to work and a sick man to nurse. I can’t come.’
‘I love thee well,’ said Thorfinn.
‘And I think well of you,’ said Jean. ‘But I think little of your drinking and carry-on.’
Seatter of Stark and Eric Weyland began to grumble at each other over the draughtboard.
‘It’s past nine,’ said Jean. ‘Drink up and go.’
Thorfinn finished his whisky and went out. After a time Jean followed him to the door, The black footprints went off into the snow-brimmed village.
From the door of the Mission Hall opposite Peter stood watching her. The prayer meeting was over. His black Bible was in his hand.
FEBRUARY
After the gale in the second week of February there was much sea for days. Peter sat over his stove with the evangelical magazines. The ten lost tribes of Israel were not lost at all! They were here, in the islands of Britain, and Peter was one of them, Peter was an Israelite! He read on and on.
The van cost Thorfinn fifty pounds second-hand. Now he could go to dances in the farthest parishes and see new women. He had not passed the driving test, he had neither licence nor insurance, but he took the risk, driving at night, with no L-plates.
The old man, who had been so patient and carefree since he took to his bed, now began to summon Jean a hundred times a day. She would have to leave her beer-tap running and go up to him. He had become like a child. He wept and prayed in the darkness … ‘Don’t bury me beside Mary Ann,’ said Snipe, ‘nor yet beside my father and mother. There must be a new grave, and I want a granite stone with an anchor on it.’
Thorfinn was in the bar. ‘A sheep was run over, up for Birsay the way, last night. It was me,’ he said. ‘If the police come, you must say I was here, alone in the parlour, drinking till closing time.’
‘I won’t tell them any such thing,’ said Jean. ‘That would be a lie.’
‘There’s a well-like lass in Birsay,’ said Thorfinn. ‘I saw her last week at the dance. Sadie Flett, that’s her name.’
‘I wish you luck of her,’ said Jean, ‘and would you drink up, for it’s closing time.’
The thin cry came from upstairs: ‘Jean … Jean …’
At midnight the old man was still not sleeping. He was remembering ships and men from sixty years ago, and every memory was a torture.
‘For God’s sake and for God’s sake go to sleep,’ whispered Jean against the wall, ‘for the strength and the patience are nearly out of me.’
There was a gentle knock at the outer door. Peter stood there in the moonlight.
‘I saw the light in your father’s room,’ he said.
‘He’s far from well,’ said Jean. ‘The old bad things are troubling him.’
‘I’ll sit with him till the morning,’ said Peter.
The night passed.
In the morning Jean found them as she had left them at midnight, Peter awake in the chair and Snipe in bed, but sleeping now as quiet as a stone.
‘A morning for haddocks,’ said Peter. ‘I’ll sleep in the afternoon. I’ll watch again tonight … And as for thee,’ he went on, ‘thu must get out in the fresh air. Thu’re as pale as a candle.’
MARCH
‘I love thee,’ said Thorfinn, ‘I love thee well.’
‘I love thee too,’ said Jean.
Through the van window was the island of Gairsay, and birds, and a flowing sea. It was a Sunday evening – the police were presumably all at home.
The last of winter, a hard grey lump of snow, blocked the ditch. Silently, imperceptibly, the little rill of ditch-water unwove the stubborn snow, carried it off, a cold shining music, down to the loch and the swans.
For a long time they did not speak.
‘Throw everything … all thy sins … thy weaknesses … in the arms … of the eternal … the everlasting …’ said Peter earnestly and hopelessly over the shape in the bed.
‘No, but listen,’ said Snipe. ‘It was in Montevideo they all got drunk and the next morning the skipper mustered the crew and eight were missing and the same morning the South American police came aboard and said they had seven of them in jail and to bail them out would cost a hundred and eight quid so the skipper –’
‘Mr Scarth,’ said Peter, ‘O man, you’re dying. Are you not sorry before Almighty God?’
‘– because he had to sail,’ said Snipe, ‘that very day. So he paid up, or rather the consul paid. And it was a month before Jock Slater was dragged out of the harbour. He was the eighth one but they didn’t have to pay a penny for him –’
‘Listen,’ cried Peter, ‘in Revelation it says –’
But soon Snipe was out on his own, in a place beyond scriptures and seaports and bad foreign hooch.
Peter met Jean on the stair, ‘Thy father’s dead,’ he said.
Later, beside the fire, he said, ‘Bury thy father and sell this bad place. I love thee.’
‘You’re a good man, Peter,’ said Jean.
She went once more to look at the dead face. She came back crying. ‘O Thorfinn,’ she said.
‘Thorfinn!’ said Peter. ‘Do you want that badness all over again? Your father died speaking of drink. God help him, that’s the truth. Do you want to go on living that way?’
‘No,’ said Jean, ‘and you’re a good man.’
‘Do you want to go on staying in this place?’ said Peter.
‘No,’ said Jean, and kissed him gently. And again.
He took her in his hard religious arms.
In the grey of morning Peter went out and knocked at the undertaker’s door and went on home.
He went down on his knees among the nets and oars, and prayed.
APRIL
A stone went up in the churchyard:
In memory of
JOHN SCARTH
Inn-Keeper in this Parish
Formerly a Seaman
1880–1962
‘May There Be No Moaning Of The BarWhen I Put Out To Sea’
Carved anchors, dolphins, waves, sailing ships, tumbled after each other round the edge of the white marble.
‘There should have been barrels of sour beer too, and naked women,’ said Thorfinn.
And later he said, ‘Many a poor bloody drunkard’s last shilling went to pay for that stone.’
And to Jean he said, ‘It’s a credit to you, the stone you put up to Snipe …’
‘Where are you going in the van tonight?’ said Jean.
‘Nowhere,’ said Thorfinn.
‘Tell me,’ said Jean, ‘so I won’t need to hear it from the gossip-mongers.’
‘I’m going to Holm,’ said Thorfinn.
‘To Hazel Groat,’ said Jean.
Thorfinn drank his whisky down and went out.
Peter didn’t come near the village now, not even for the gospel meetings. He bought his provisions from the grocery van.
‘That’s a fine stone they’ve raised for Snipe Scarth in the kirkyard,’ said Josiah of the Shore to Peter across a black stretch of net.
‘I never saw it,’ said Peter.
‘Tell me now,’ said Josiah, ‘would you say Snipe’s in Heaven or in Hell?’
‘It’s not for me to say,’ said Peter.
‘Just so,’ said Josiah. ‘Poor man … And he has a daughter.’
‘He has,’ said Peter.
‘The business is being carried on,’ said Josiah. ‘She has a sharp tongue in her head, that one. She’ll comb the head of some poor man. Ay.’
‘There’s another tear in the net,’ said Peter. ‘What’s needed here is a good woman that knows how to mend things, and to clean and to cook. The price of a good woman is above rubies …’
MAY
Jean, dreaming, walked on a green hill. There were swans in the water below her, and clouds like swans in the sky above.
A man walked along the road from the sea. He was all wet from a shipwreck. ‘Gideon’s fleece is not more glorious,’ Peter said (for it was Peter). He was walking not towards her but towards Thorfinn who was having difficulty in ploughing a field with the axle of a car.
Thorfinn turned and hewed at Peter with his plough-axle but it buckled on Peter’s shoulder like cardboard. He touched Thorfinn with his black book. Formally, gently, Thorfinn fell across the furrow.
Jean was carrying a vase. She knelt to put it in a small grave in the corner of the field but a bird looked out of it, a blue bird with sweet frightened eyes. She gathered it in her hands. Its wings were cold. It was a bird of ice.
She was going into a church with a broken arch, where a service was going on. It was night. Her hands were cut and bleeding – inside she would find a cure. O, her hand was a thorn, a flame, such agony! Peter in a black cloak stood at the arch. He looked at her with blank eyes.
Farther in, hidden from her, voices were singing among cold, bright images.
Jean woke with a cry in the dawn.
Pe. . .
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