A Time to Keep

by George Mackay Brown

Genres: Short Stories

Synopsis

The second collection of stories published by George Mackay Brown, this volume includes 12 stories arising from both ancient and modern life on the island of Orkney.

Release date: March 27, 2014

Publisher: John Murray

Print pages: 192

Sample

THE Norwegian whaler Erika tied up at the pier in the middle of Monday afternoon, and when the pubs opened at five o’clock all six of the crew went into the Hamnavoe Bar. Per Bjorling the skipper was with them, but about seven o’clock he bought a full bottle of vodka and left them drinking their whiskies and lagers and went outside. It was getting dark. He walked along the street till he came to an opening that descended step by step to a small pier with a house on it. From inside the house came the thwack of a hammer driving nails into leather. One room of the house had a lamp burning in the window but the other room next the sea was dark. Per Bjorling was about to knock at the door when it was opened from inside. He smiled and raised his sailor’s cap and went in.

‘What kind of a man is it this time?’ shouted a voice from the lighted room. ‘Is it that bloody foreigner? …’ All the people in the neighbouring houses could hear what was being said. Maisie Ness came to the end of her pier and stood listening, her head cocked to one side.

The hammer smacked on leather, a rapid tattoo.

The seaward room remained dark; or rather, the window flushed a little as if a poker had suddenly woken flames from the coal.

‘Yes,’ yelled the shoemaker, ‘a bloody drunken foreign sailor.’

Then silence returned to the piers and one by one the lights went on in all the houses round about.

The Erika and three other Norwegian whalers caught the morning tide on Tuesday and it was quiet again in the harbour. In the house on the small pier the shoe-repairing began early, the leisurely smack of the hammer on the moulded leather in between periods of quiet stitching. At ten o’clock Maisie Ness from the next close came with a pair of shoes to be soled. She walked straight in through the open door and turned into the room on the left next the street. The shoemaker sat on his stool, his mouth full of tacks. Maisie laid her shoes on the bench, soles upward.

‘Celia isn’t up yet, surely. I don’t hear her,’ she said.

‘Celia’s a good girl,’ said the shoemaker.

‘I don’t believe you’ve had your breakfast,’ cried Maisie Ness, ‘and it’s past ten o’clock. You need your food, or you’ll be ill same as you were in the winter-time.’

‘I’ll get my breakfast,’ said the shoemaker. ‘Just leave the shoes on the bench. All they need is rubber soles and a protector or two in the right heel to keep it level. You’re an impudent woman. Ignorant too. Could you read the deep books that Celia reads? I don’t believe you can sign your name. I’ll get my breakfast all right. Celia’s a good girl. Just keep your tongue off her.’

Maisie Ness went up the steps of the pier shaking her head. She managed to look pleased and outraged at the same time.

‘Celia,’ the shoemaker called out, ‘I’ll make you a cup of tea. Just you lie in bed for an hour or two yet.’

It was early spring. Darkness was still long but the light was slowly encroaching and the days grew colder. The last of the snow still scarred the Orphir hills. Onesensed a latent fertility; under the hard earth the seeds were awake and astir; their long journey to blossom and ripeness was beginning. But in Hamnavoe, the fishermen’s town, the lamps still had to be lit early.

On Tuesday night every week Mr Spence the jeweller paid his visit. He would hesitate at the head of the close, look swiftly right and left along the street, then quickly descend the steps.

The shoemaker heard his precise footsteps on the flagstones outside and immediately took down from the shelf the draught-board and the set of draughtsmen. He had the pieces arranged on the board before Mr Spence was at the threshold.

‘Come in, Mr Spence,’ he shouted, ‘come in. I heard your feet.’

And Mr Spence, without a single glance at the dark seaward window, went straight into the work-room on the left, bending his head under the lintel and smiling in the lamplight. ‘Well, Thomas,’ he said.

They always played for about an hour, best of three games. Mr Spence generally lost. Perhaps he was a poor player; perhaps he was nervous (he shuffled and blinked and cleared his throat a good deal); perhaps he genuinely liked to give the shoemaker the pleasure of winning; perhaps he was anxious to get this empty ritual over with. They played this night without speaking, the old man in his leather apron and the middle-aged bachelor in his smart serge tailor-made suit. The shoemaker won two games right away, inside half an hour, so that there was no need that night to play a decider.

‘You put up a very poor show tonight,’ said the shoemaker.

‘I’m not in the same class as you, Thomas,’ said Mr Spence.

He went over to his coat hanging on a peg and brought a half-bottle of whisky out of the pocket. ‘Perhaps, Thomas,’ he said, ‘you’d care for a drink.’

‘You know fine,’ said the shoemaker, ‘I never drink that filthy trash. The poison!’

‘Then,’ said Mr Spence, ‘perhaps I’ll go and see if Miss Celia would care to have a little drink. A toddy, seeing it’s a cold night.’

‘No,’ said the shoemaker anxiously, ‘I don’t think you should do that. Or if you do, only a very small drop.’

But Mr Spence was already tiptoeing along the lobby towards the dark room, carrying the half-bottle in his hand. He tapped on the door, and opened it gently. The girl was bending over the black range, stabbing the coal with a poker. At once the ribs were thronged with red and yellow flames, and the shadow of the girl leapt over him before she herself turned slowly to the voice in the doorway.

‘My dear,” said Mr Spence.

‘How are you, Thomas?’ said Dr Wilson on the Wednesday morning, sitting down on the bench among bits and scrapings of leather.

‘I’m fine,’ said the shoemaker.

‘The chest all right?’

‘I still get a bit of a wheeze when the wind’s easterly,’ said the shoemaker, ‘but I’m not complaining.’

There was silence in the room for a half-minute.

‘And Celia?’ said Dr Wilson.

‘Celia’s fine,’ said the shoemaker. ‘I wish she would eat more and get more exercise. I’m a nuisance to her, I keep her tied to the house. But she keeps her health. She’s fine.’

‘I’m glad to hear it,’ said Dr Wilson.

‘Celia’s a good girl,’ said the shoemaker.

‘I know she’s a good girl,’ said Dr Wilson. Then his voice dropped a tone. ‘Thomas,’ he said, ‘I don’t want to worry you, but there are complaints in the town.’

‘She’s a good girl,’ said the old man, ‘a very good girl to me.’

‘Complaints,’ said Dr Wilson quietly, ‘that this is a house of bad repute. I’m not saying it, for I know you’re both good people, you and Celia. But the scandal-mongers are saying it along the street. You know the way it is. I’ve heard it twenty times this past week if I’ve heard it once. That all kinds of men come here, at all hours of the night, and there’s drinking and carrying-on. I don’t want to annoy you, Thomas, but I think it’s right you should know what they’re saying in the public, Maisie Ness and the other women. All this worry is not good for your lungs.’

‘I don’t drink,’ said the shoemaker. ‘How do I know who comes and goes in the night? That Maisie Ness should have her tongue cut out. Celia has a sweetheart, Ronald Leask of Clett, and she’s applied to be a member of the Kirk. The minister’s coming to see her Friday evening. She’s a good girl.’

‘Perhaps I could see Celia for a minute?’ said Dr Wilson and got to his feet.

‘No,’ said the shoemaker, ‘she’s sleeping. She needs her rest. She’s sleeping late. Celia is a very good girl to me. If it wasn’t for Celia I know I’d have died in the winter time.’

‘Good morning, Thomas,’ said Dr Wilson. ‘I’ll be back next Wednesday. You have plenty of tablets to be getting on with. Tell Celia I’m asking for her. Send for me if you need me, any time.’

‘Go away,’ said the shoemaker to Mr William Snoddy the builder’s clerk. ‘Just you go away from this house and never come back, never so much as darken the door again. I know what you’re after. I’m not a fool exactly.’

‘I want you to make me a pair of light shoes for the summer,’ said Mr Snoddy. ‘That’s all I want.’

‘Is it?’ said the shoemaker. ‘Then you can go some other place, for I have no intention of doing the job for you.’

They were standing at the door of the house on the pier. It was Wednesday evening and the lamp was burning in the work-room but the room next the sea was in darkness.

‘Last Saturday,’ said Mr Snoddy, ‘at the pier-head, you promised to make me a pair of light shoes for the summer.’

‘I didn’t know then,’ said the shoemaker, ‘what I know now. You and your fancy-women. Think shame of yourself. You have a wife and three bairns waiting for you in your house at the South End. And all you can do is run after other women here, there and everywhere. I’m making no shoes for whore-mastering expeditions. You can take that for sure and certain.’

‘You’ve been listening,’ said Mr Snoddy, ‘to cruel groundless gossip.’

‘And I believe the gossip,’ said the shoemaker. ‘I don’t usually believe gossip but I believe this particular piece of gossip. You’re an immoral man.’

‘There’s such a thing as a court of law,’ said Mr Snoddy, ‘and if ever I hear of these slanders being repeated again, I’ll take steps to silence the slanderers.’

‘You’ll have your work cut out,’ said the shoemaker, ‘because you’ve been seen going to this house and that house when the men have been away at the fishing. I’ve seen you with my own two eyes. And if you want names I’ll supply them to you with pleasure.’

‘Let’s go inside,’ said Mr Snoddy in a suddenly pleasant voice, ‘and we’ll talk about something else. We’ll have a game of draughts.’

The shoemaker stretched out foot and arm and blocked the door.

‘Stay where you are,’ he said. ‘Just bide where you are. What’s that you’ve got in the inside pocket of your coat, eh?’

‘It’s my wallet,’ said Mr Snoddy, touching the bulge at his chest.

‘It’s drink,’ said the shoemaker, ‘it’s spirits. I’m not exactly so blind or so stupid that I can’t recognize the shape of a half-bottle of whisky. I allow no drink into this house. Understand that.’

‘Please, Thomas,’ said Mr Snoddy. ‘It’s a cold night.’

‘Forby being a whore-master,’ said the shoemaker, ‘you’re a drunkard. Never a day passed that you aren’t three or four times in the pub. Just look in the mirror when you get home and see how red your nose is getting. I’m sorry for your wife and children.’

‘I mind my own business.’ said Mr Snoddy.

‘That’s fine,’ said the shoemaker. ‘That’s very good. Just mind your own business and don’t come bothering this house. There’s one thing I have to tell you before you go.’

‘What’s that?’ said Mr Snoddy.

‘Celia is not at home,’ shouted the old man. He suddenly stepped back into the lobby and slammed the door shut. Mr Snoddy stood alone in the darkness, his mouth twitching. Then he turned and began to walk up the pier slowly.

From inside the house came the sound of steel protectors being hammered violently into shoes.

Mr Snoddy’s foot was on the first step leading up to the street when a hand tugged at his sleeve. He turned round. It was Celia. She had a gray shawl over her head and her hair was tucked into it. Her face in the darkness was an oval oblique shadow.

‘Celia,’ said Mr Snoddy in a shaking voice.

‘Where are you off to so soon, Billy boy?’ said Celia. ‘Won’t you stop and speak for a minute to a poor lonely girl?’

Mr Snoddy put his hands round her shoulders. She pushed him away gently.

‘Billy,’ she said, ‘If you have a little drink on you I could be doing with it.’

The loud hammering went on inside the house.

Mr Snoddy took the flask from his inside pocket. ‘I think, dear,’ he said, ‘where we’re standing we’re a bit in the public eye. People passing in the street. Maybe if we move into that corner …’

Together they moved to the wall of the watchmaker’s house, into a segment of deeper darkness.

‘Dear Celia,’ muttered Mr Snoddy.

‘Just one little mouthful,’ said Celia. ‘I believe it’s gin you’ve gone and bought.’

Ronald Leask closed the door of the tractor shed. The whole field on the south side of the hill was ploughed now, a good day’s work. He looked round him, stretched his aching arms, and walked slowly a hundred yards down to the beach. The boat was secure. There had been south-westerly winds and high seas for two days, but during that afternoon the wind had veered further west and dropped. He thought he would be able to set his lobstercreels the next morning, Friday, under the Hoy crags. The Celia rocked gently at the pier like a furled sea bird.

Ronald went back towards his house. He filled a bucket with water from the rain barrel at the corner. He stripped off his soiled jersey and shirt and vest and washed quickly, shuddering and gasping as the cold water slapped into his shoulders and chest. He carried the pail inside and kicked off his boots and trousers and finished his washing. Then he dried himself at the dead hearth and put on his best clothes – the white shirt and tartan tie, the dark Sunday suit, the pigskin shoes. He combed his wet fair hair till it clung to both sides of his head like bronze wings. His face looked back at him from the square tarnished mirror on the mantelpiece, red and complacent and healthy. He put on his beret and pulled it a little to one side.

Ronald wheeled his bicycle out of the lobby on to the road, mounted, and cycled towards Hamnavoe.

He passed three cars and a county council lorry and a young couple out walking. It was too dark to see their faces. As he freewheeled down into the town there were lights here and there in the houses. It would be a dark night, with no moon.

Ronald Leask left his bicycle at the head of the shoemaker’s close and walked down the steps to the house. The lamp was lit in the old man’s window but Celia’s room, as usual, was dark. He knocked at the outer door. The clob-clob-clobbering of hammer against leather stopped. ‘Who’s that?’ cried the old man sharply.

‘It’s me, Ronald.’

‘Ronald,’ said the shoemaker. ‘Come in, Ronald.’ He appeared at the door. ‘I’m glad to see thee, Ronald.’ He took Ronald’s arm and guided him into the workroom. ‘Come in, boy, and sit down.’

‘How are you keeping, Thomas?’ said Ronald.

‘I’m fine, Ronald,’ said the shoemaker, and coughed.

‘And Celia?’ said Ronald.

‘Celia’s fine,’ said the shoemaker. ‘She’s wanting to see thee, I know that. It’s not much of a life for a girl, looking after a poor old thing like me. She’ll be glad of your company.’

‘Last time I came, la. . .