Greenvoe

by George Mackay Brown

Genres: General Fiction; Literary Fiction

Synopsis

The small Orcadian community of Greevoe has remained unchanged for generations. Now a shady government project, Operation Black Star, threatens to destroy the islander's way of life. George Mackay Brown's first novel describes a week in the life of the islanders as the come to terms with the repercussions of Operation Black Star in a masterful mix of prose and poetry from one of Scotland's greatest writers.

Release date: March 13, 2014

Publisher: John Murray

Print pages: 256

Sample

Slowly the night shadow passed from the island and the Sound. In the village of Greenvoe lights burned in the windows of three fishermen’s cottages above the pier.

A small dark knotted man came out of one of the doors. He picked up a half-dozen lobster creels from the white wall and carried them across to the pier and down a few stone steps. A motor-boat called the Ellen was tied up there. Bert Kerston stowed his creels on board. He untied the Ellen and pushed off. He swung the starting handle. The Ellen kicked and coughed into life. Her bow tore the quiet water apart.

From the second open door came a mild chant. Samuel Whaness the fisherman was reading scripture with his wife Rachel. ‘He maketh the deep to boil as a pot: he maketh the sea like a pot of ointment. He maketh a path to shine after him; one would think the deep to be hoary. Upon earth there is not his like, who is made without fear. He beholdeth all high things: he is a king over all the children of pride’ … They knelt down together. ‘Lord,’ said Samuel Whaness earnestly, ‘protect us in our goings this day and always, and be thou merciful unto us. Amen.’

‘Amen,’ said Rachel.

Samuel Whaness stood at the door in a thick grey jersey and rubber boots. Gravely he and Rachel saluted each other, their necks intersecting, a Hebraic farewell. Then he crossed over to the pier, went down the stone steps, rowed out in his dinghy to the moored motor-boat, started up the engine, and steered the Siloam the opposite way to the Ellen, into the open Atlantic.

There was a stirring in the third fisherman’s house. The door opened very slowly. A thin face with huge glinting rounds in it peered out. A long finger was licked and held up to the sky. The head shook. ‘No,’ said The Skarf, ‘not this morning. I was out all Saturday for one lobster and two crabs. I might make a start on the history. Joseph Evie will sign the unemployment paper. Anyway, I haven’t got any petrol.’ He closed his door. Smoke rose presently from his chimney. Anyone looking in through his webbed window could see The Skarf moving between boxes of books and a table covered with writing paraphernalia. He read all morning from a spread of books on the table; his face hopped from one to the other like a bird. Occasionally he would make a note in an old cash-book that Joseph Evie the merchant had thrown out and that Timmy Folster the beachcomber had found on the shore. At his desk he still wore his oilskin and thigh-boots.

A door in a small cottage at the other end of the village opened. Isabella Budge threw oats and bits of bread from the bowl she carried to a white flurry of chickens. ‘Cluck cluck cluck,’ said the old woman. ‘Kitty kitty kitty. Kitty cluck kit.’

‘Bella,’ shouted a voice from inside. It was not entirely a local voice; it was the voice of an old seaman who had been sailing all his life; it was seasoned with Geordie and Scouse and Cockney and Clydeside; a voice that belonged to the brotherhood of the sea.

‘What ails thee, Ben?’ said Bella. ‘Cluck kit.’

‘Make less goddam noise,’ roared Ben. ‘You make more row than the Calcutta bazaar.’

‘Kitty cluck. Kitty cluck,’ said Bella among the chickens.

‘Bella,’ shouted Ben.

‘Kitty,’ whispered Bella.

‘Come in and light the fire,’ said Ben. ‘It’s cold. I want my goddam breakfast.’

Mr Joseph Evie, postmaster, merchant, county councillor, justice of the peace, took the wooden shutters from the window of his general merchant’s store. The first bluebottles rose from the slices of melon and boxes of liquorice-allsorts inside. They bounced and droned on the pane. Mrs Olive Evie stood in the door that led from kitchen to shop; her eyes took in the wakening village in one caustic probe. Ivan Westray the ferryman was the first customer. He wanted his can filled with petrol. Mr Joseph Evie went out to the tank to fill the can.

‘Twenty Woodbines,’ said Ivan Westray to Mrs Olive Evie.

‘She’s a well-like lass,’ said Mrs Olive Evie.

‘Who?’ said Ivan Westray.

‘Miss Inverary the new school-teacher,’ said Mrs Olive Evie.

‘Is she?’ said Ivan Westray.

‘Who’s crossing over today?’ said Mrs Olive Evie. ‘The ferry’s early.’

‘President Nixon and Mao Tse-tung,’ said Ivan Westray. He paid for his cigarettes, then went out to get his can of petrol from Mr Joseph Evie at the pump.

Bella Budge came into the shop for a quarter-pound of bacon for Ben’s breakfast.

‘What way is your brother?’ said Mrs Olive Evie.

‘Lean bacon,’ said Bella. ‘The last bacon was nothing but fat. He’s fine.’

‘Watch him,’ said Mrs Olive Evie. ‘Watch an old man when he starts to shout for food. They get ravenous in the end. The death hunger.’

‘My brother Benjamin Andrew James is quite well,’ said Bella. ‘A writing pad with lines. After he gets his breakfast he’s going to write a letter to Tom in Canada, our nephew. Tom has a very good job in Vancouver, B.C. A box of matches.’

Mr Joseph Evie came back into the shop, smelling of petrol.

Bella gathered her errands under her shawl and slipped out past him.

The sun was brimming all the eastern windows of Greenvoe now with cold fire.

‘You know this, Mr Evie,’ said Mrs Olive Evie to her husband. ‘You know why Ivan Westray’s up so early. The laird’s granddaughter is coming for the summer. From that boarding-school in England. She’ll have been biding in a hotel in Kirkwall all night. So she’s crossing over to Hellya today. That’s what it is, Dear me. A young girl like her won’t find much to set her up in Greenvoe. That Voar woman with a new illegitimate bairn. Scorradale the publican open every weekend till four in the morning. The Skarf preaching socialism and atheism to all the young folk as hard as he can. Some place to come to!’

‘It is a lovely morning, Mrs Evie,’ said Mr Joseph Evie.

‘There’s something not right going on up at the manse,’ said Mrs Olive Evie. ‘I didn’t see the minister’s old mother all day yesterday. There’s something very queer about that woman, more queer even than ever I thought.’

‘The lupins are up early,’ said Mr Joseph Evie.

‘That new school-teacher would give anything for a man,’ said Mrs Olive Evie.

‘We’re out of fisherman’s stockings, I see,’ said Mr Joseph Evie.

Miss Margaret Inverary appeared at the school door and agitated a handbell. The clangour rolled from end to end of the village. From the Kerston door Tom and Ernie and Judy ran to school. A dozen children from the farms and crofts of Hellya ran helter-skelter down the brae. From the house of Alice Voar at the back of the village five children straggled, some of them cramming their mouths with bread and jam and dry cornflakes. The youngest one had nothing on but a vest.

‘Run, Sidney,’ cried Alice Voar, herding them along the road. ‘Sophie, you’ll be late. Now, Sander, hurry. The clever peedie Shirley, on with you. Sam, the teacher has a strap. No, peedie Skarf, you can’t go to the school till you’re a big boy – run in, see if the bairn’s sleeping, Skarf … The learning’s a grand thing,’ Alice Voar remarked through the shop door to Mr Joseph Evie and Mrs Olive Evie; then she took peedie Skarf by the hand and led him back to the cottage and put his trousers on at the doorstep.

‘Seven children,’ said Mrs Olive Evie, ‘all to different fathers. Fancy.’

‘I think we will have a week of fine weather,’ said Mr Joseph Evie.

The Skarf, in his oilskin and sea-boots, pushed the door of the shop open.

‘You’re not at the fishing today, I see,’ said Mrs Olive Evie. ‘That was the worst thing you ever did, Skarf, going to work with your old uncle at the lobsters. You with all that brains. You should have gone on to the school, then the university. There were plenty of bursaries going, goodness knows. You’d have been a high-up man now, a professor maybe.’

‘The Lord works in a mysterious way, his wonders to perform,’ said The Skarf.

‘Morning,’ said Mr Joseph Evie to The Skarf, not cordially.

‘Loaf, gallon of paraffin, four candles, half pound margarine, two clothes pegs, a black ball-point,’ said The Skarf. ‘I’ll pay on Saturday. And I need my unemployment paper signed.’

Mr Joseph Evie took a ledger from his desk. He opened it and ran his finger down the items. ‘I find you owe three pounds eight and threepence,’ he said.

‘All will be paid,’ said The Skarf patiently.

‘I can’t extend credit indefinitely,’ said Mr Joseph Evie.

‘No,’ said The Skarf, ‘and the hawks don’t fly south in the winter either. I’ll take the ninepenny biro now.’

A singing lesson was proceeding in the school. Miss Inverary thumped the piano. A score of faces had lost all human expression and were caught up in one cold seraphic trance. The mouths opened and shut.

Speed, bonny boat, like a bird on the wing

‘Onward,’ the sailors cry.

‘Carry the lad that’s born to be king

Over the sea to Skye.’

‘That was nice,’ said Miss Inverary. ‘Ernie Kerston, take your finger out of your nose. Now I’m going to write the next verse on the blackboard. Those who can write, copy it down in your exercise books, neatly. Now tell me, who has a boat like the boat in the song? Think hard. Hands up.’

‘My dad,’ said Ernie Kerston, and drew a long pale worm out of his left nostril with the nail of his right forefinger.

‘No, Ernie,’ said Miss Inverary, ‘your father has a fishing boat, but it isn’t exactly like a bird on the wing, is it? Think hard.’

‘Ivan Westray,’ said a boy from the farms whose jacket smelt of peats.

‘Very good, John Corrigall,’ said Miss Inverary.

There was one cottage in Greenove that had a charred façade, as if it had been built on the lip of a volcano. There was nothing quite so terrible in its situation. But three years before, the occupant, Timmy Folster, had overset the primus stove when he was frying onions for his supper. The curtain had never been renewed – a scorched rag still hung at the window. The fire had burst out three panes, which had been replaced with cardboard squares. In place of the door was a sheet of corrugated iron held in place with a huge stone at the base and two crossed slats of wood higher up. Timmy Folster emerged, as he always did since the burning, through the window. He ambled towards the pier. He bent down and picked up a cigarette end that Ivan Westray had dropped and put it in his pocket. He sat down ona soap box outside the general store and poked the tobacco from three cigarette ends into a pipe. He spoke to himself amiably all the time. ‘Timmy’s a good boy. Timmy never did harm to a living soul. They can’t put Timmy in the poorhouse. Timmy can look after himself. Timmy’s no fool. Timmy knows a thing or two. He does so.’

He took his national assistance order book carefully from his inside pocket. He studied the amount due, and his signature. He went into the shop.

‘Well, Timmy,’ said Mr Joseph Evie.

‘National assistance day, Mr Evie,’ said Timmy. ‘I see this is the last order in the book. I hope you have a new book for me.’

Mr Joseph Evie stamped the order book and opened the tin box where he kept the Post Office money. ‘Four pounds six shillings and sixpence, Timmy,’ he said.

‘Timmy requires a loaf and a pound pot of raspberry jam, a half pound of margarine, three tins cat food, a bottle of methylated spirits.’

‘Now, Timmy, I’m going to speak seriously to you,’ said Mr Joseph Evie. ‘You always sign a declaration in my book that the meth you buy is for your primus stove.’

‘And my tilley lamp,’ said Timmy.

‘Well, Timmy, now,’ said Mr Joseph Evie, ‘see that you use it for that purpose only.’

‘Of course, Mr Evie,’ said Timmy. ‘What else?’

Greenvoe was suddenly shaken out of its dream. People appeared at every door. A car coughed and rattled at the end of the village. It approached in a cloud of dust and fumes. It entered the village and stopped at the pier, shuddering. It was a very old car with a canvas hood and brass headlamps belted on to it. Colonel Fortin-Bell the laird got out and opened the other door for his niece, Miss Agatha Fortin-Bell.

‘A simply lovely morning,’ announced Miss Fortin-Bell. ‘She’s coming. That must be her now.’ She spoke as if she were shouting into a gale. (The islanders could never understand why the gentry spoke in such heroic voices – their own speech was slow and wondering, like water lapping among stones.) Miss Fortin-Bell faced seawards. The ferry-boat Skua entered the bay in a wide curve and glided towards the pier with shut-off engine. Ivan Westray stood at the wheel. A young girl waved from the stern, a little white flutter of hand, and smiled, and stroked down her dark wind-blown hair. ‘Welcome to the island, darling,’ shouted Miss Fortin-Bell. ‘Isn’t this lovely, all the village has come out to welcome you …’

Ivan Westray leapt ashore and handed Miss Inga Fortin-Bell on to the steps.

The village watched with sardonic awe as the grand folk greeted each other with shouts and kisses. (Their own greeting, even after a decade of absence, was a murmur and a dropping of eyes.)

Ivan Westray passed from boat to pier Inga’s trunk and cases and coat; a flaccid mail-bag; a box marked School Books – With Care; and a tea-box full of new loaves from the town, a faint incense wafting from it.

‘Fifteen bob,’ said Ivan Westray to Inga.

Inga laid down her paperback copy of Women in Love on the sea wall and took her purse out of her skirt pocket.

‘You must be utterly worn out, you poor darling,’ shouted Miss Fortin-Bell. Then she turned to the villagers. ‘Thank you, one and all, for turning out to welcome Inga. It was jolly nice.’

The school rushed out for dinner with a medley of cries. Then the children were suddenly silent. They stood around the gentry like pigeons round a crushed cake, making little astonished noises and silences through rounded lips.

‘Bloody parasites,’ said The Skarf, and went back to his desk.

‘Thank you very much, boatman,’ said Inga. Ivan Westray looked at the small sweet hidden curves under her sweater, and nodded. She smiled back at him. He nodded again, unsmiling.

Miss Fortin-Bell pushed the girl into the back of the car. Mr Joseph Evie stowed the trunk and cases on to the back rack and lashed them down with a piece of rope from the store. Colonel Fortin-Bell flung the handle round and the car racketed and shuddered. The colonel got back in. The car jerked forward. A dozen hands fluttered. Inga looked back at Ivan Westray until the car turned the corner of the general store.

Mr Joseph Evie picked up the mail and took it into the shop.

Timmy Folster went into the stone latrine. He took the blue bottle out of his coat pocket and uncorked it. Then he remembered Mr Joseph Evie’s stern warning. He corked the bottle again. He put it back in his pocket. ‘Timmy must try to be good,’ he said. ‘They’ll stop his money if he isn’t. They will.’

Alice Voar’s children and Ellen Kerston’s drifted indoors for their dinner. The children from the farms ate their pieces sitting on the sea wall. Gino Manson ate a scone by himself, on Bella Budge’s doorstep.

The excitement was over.

The laird’s car stuttered distantly among the hills of Hellya.

In the following silence Miss Inverary crossed the road from the schoolhouse and entered the shop. She rapped on the counter. Mrs Olive Evie appeared at the between-door with a steaming soup ladle in her hand. Miss Inverary asked Mrs Evie for a pound of eating apples. Mrs Evie selected the best apples from a hoard that was beginning to fester slowly in the barrel, and said, ‘The Westrays were never right in the head. Clever but tainted. His uncle and grandfather died in the Edinburgh asylum. Evelyn Westray committed suicide in the quarry, a girl of seventeen. She was his cousin …’ Miss Inverary stroked the black cat that was curled on top of the counter.

Afternoon was always the quietest time in the village. The fishermen were still at sea. The crofters had not yet unyoked. There was little sound in Greenvoe on a summer afternoon but the murmur of multiplication tables through the tall school window, and the drone of bluebottles among Mr Joseph Evie’s confectionery, and the lapping of water against the pier.

In the manse parlour old Mrs McKee knew without a shadow of a doubt that with her it was once more the season of assize. On every bright and dark wind they came, her accusers, four times a year; they gathered in the manse of Hellya to inquire into certain hidden events of her life. The assize lasted for many days and generally covered the same ground, though occasionally new material would be led that she had entirely forgotten about. All the counts in the indictment had to be answered in some way or other. This was the summer assize; it was a shame that all these beautiful days (not that she ever went out much to enjoy the weather) must be wasted with charge and objection and cross-examination. Moreover, the tribunal was secret; nobody in the village or island knew about it but herself, not even her son Simon who was the parish minister; though Simon shrewdly guessed, she felt sure, that something preoccupied his mother sorely on such occasions; and moreover – this was very strange – the assize usually assembled when Simon was bearing or was about to bear his own little private cross. For a few days, sometimes for as long as a week, the manse was an abode of secret suffering. It should not be supposed, though, that for the prisoner it was all unmitigated pain. In a strange way Mrs Elizabeth McKee actually looked forward to her sequence of trials; she enjoyed the vivid resurrection of the past, however painful. There was a whole team of accusers, and it gave her pleasure to recognize their distinctive turns of phrase and the rhythms of their speaking (though some of them no doubt were very unpleasant dangerous persons indeed). It was all too plain what their purpose was: they wished to nip her as soon as possible from the tree of living, to gather her for good and all among ancient shadows and memories; and she was equally determined not to go until such time as the finger of God stroked her leaf from the branch. Beyond tacitly recognizing that she was their prisoner she refused to have any part in their proceedings; would not say she was guilty or not guilty; would not even start to her feet when some damnable untruth was being uttered concerning her. She knew this: as soon as she involved herself actively in the series of trials that was mounted against her again and again, that would be the hour of her shame, she would be exposed to the whole world as a wicked woman. Then her substance would crumble into shadow; but not like those dear dead ones, a fragrant shadow; no, a cursed shadow that could only be lifted from the gates with the candles and waters of exorcism.

Mrs McKee sat in the parlour rocking chair that was now, for a week or so, to be her prisoner’s dock. The curtained room was all a crepitation: whispering, rustling of papers, shuffle of feet. Who would today’s prosecutor be? She waited. A voice at the edge of the shadows began to speak. It was the advocate with the thin precise gnat-like voice who invariably dealt with her financial and other material misdemeanours. She did not like him, he was mean and trivial. She prepared herself for a rather wearisome afternoon.

‘I think it might be interesting,’ said the voice, ‘if we were to consider this afternoon a china teapot with a willow pattern design in blue upon it. Mrs Elizabeth McKee, or Alder, keeps it at present on the top shelf of her china cabinet, in quite a prominent position. As I hope to show you, that teapot belonged originally to Mrs McKee’s aunt, a Miss Annabella Chisholm, who at the time of her decease resided in the town of Perth, Scotland. By the terms of Miss Chisholm’s will (which I intend to read to you presently) all her moveable possessions – I repeat, all of them – were bequeathed to Mrs McKee’s younger sister Flora – Miss Flora Alder, lately resident at number two Marchmont Square, Edinburgh, Scotland. Mrs McKee was remembered financially, in a modest way, in the same will. Now, then …’

The tribunal was well and truly in session. The thin voice scratched on and on as if it scurried over a disc of worn ancient wax. Mrs McKee turned round once and looked in the direction of the china cabinet. Yes, there it stood, Flora’s china teapot that had somehow got mixed up with her own furniture the time they moved north four years ago. It was a beautiful object, but now it began to glow like a lamp of evil in the shadows. (She had always thought somehow that Flora had given her the teapot.) It was the first time it had ever been brought up in the tribunal. It might prove to be a rather interesting afternoon.

Ben Budge sat at the scrubbed table and wrote on a blue-lined writing pad with a stub of pencil: ‘The Biggings, Greenvoe, Isle of Hellya, Orkney. Monday. Dear Tom, I take pen in hand to acquaint you with our news. Here we are much as usual. Not a thing happens in this place. Your aunt and I are as well as can be expected considering our age. We would like it if you came home for a spell. You aunt is worried about you. Eddie Ainslie from Quoylay came back from a Pacific trip last week and he blazed it all over Greenvoe that you are down and out in Vancouver, B.C. A real wharf-side bum, that’s what he called you – Tom Groat is walking on his uppers, he said to everybody in the pub. It soon came round to your Aunt Bella’s ears, she hears every cat’s fart of news. Now, Tom, we know Eddie Ainslie is if not a liar exactly, a gross exaggerator, but there’s no smoke without fire and it could be that you are hard up and out of work for the time being. Just write and let us know. Your Aunt Bella and I are not bare-handed, we could send you your passage money, we get the pension every week and we put it by as our needs are not great and we can live fine off the egg money and as you know all we have will be yours after we are gone. Now for the village news. The laird’s granddaughter came on holiday today from England where she is at school. She doesn’t usually come till the middle of August to be in time for the regatta and agricultural show. Miss Fortin-Bell, old Horse Face, likes us more than ever. She was gushing all over the village like a broken jar of syrup. A new school-teacher came at the beginning of May, a Miss Inverary from Edinburgh, a prim prissy bit of a thing but Ivan Westray the ferryman is casting his eyes on her and if he does to her what he did to the croft lasses at the other end of the island I guess we’ll soon stand in need of a new school-mistress. Timmy Folster has been off the meth for a week or two, I hope he keeps that way, the poor thing that he is. I reckon old Evie in the store knows Timmy drinks the meth he supplies, a bloody shame, and Evie a kirk elder too. Ellen Kerston is expecting her sixth any day now. Maybe you don’t know her, a Quoylay girl, she’s married to Bert Kerston the fisherman, a little runt of a man, a damned awkward thing in drink, you wouldn’t think he had it in him. Well, Tom, that’s all for today. I am feeling a bit tired. I’ll write with more news tomorrow. The rain came pissing down at the weekend and our thatch is leaking.’

‘I’m not writing any goddam more today, Bella,’ said Ben. ‘My wrist is sore and the goddam words are swimming in front of my eyes. What about some dinner?’

‘My, you write a good letter, Ben,’ said Bella.

An immense woman crossed over from the Kerston house to the shop.

‘A pound of raisins when you’re ready,’ she said to Mrs Olive Evie, ‘and twenty Woodbines for Bert Kerston.’

Mrs Olive Evie paid no attention to Ellen Kerston until she had finished telling Rachel Whaness, who was already in the shop, that it was high time Timmy Folster was put in the County Home for good and all, she had seen a louse crawling up his coat when he was in for his assistance money.

Alice Voar came in with young Skarf clutching her apron and whining for sweeties like a sick dove.

‘Rachel,’ said Ellen.

‘Ellen,’ said Rachel.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Ellen, ‘for what Bert Kerston called you and Samuel on Saturday night when he was drunk.’

‘It’s all right, Ellen,’ said Rachel.

‘“Whited sepulchres”,’ said Ellen. ‘He was drunk at the time!’

‘Never mind, Ellen,’ said Rachel.

‘It was the drink speaking,’ said Ellen. ‘You’re not a whited sepulchre anyway, Rachel.’

‘Don’t worry about it, Ellen,’ said Rachel.

‘I just thought I would apologize,’ said Ellen. ‘He doesn’t know what he says when he has a fill of drink. Whited sepulchres – I gave him whited sepulchres when he got home.’

‘He called me a whore the same night,’ said Alice Voar mildly. ‘I never took a ha’penny from a man in my life.’

‘I’m sorry, Alice,’ said Ellen.

‘When is your time?’ said Mrs Olive Evie to Ellen Kerston. ‘It’s not good for you, having all them bairns. One every year. It’ll kill you. I’m telling you that as a medical woman. I was a nurse and a midwife before I married Mr Evie. What is it you want?’

‘Peedie Skarfie wants a liquorice strap,’ said Alice Voar, ‘when you’re ready. Serve Ellen first.’

Mr Joseph Evie sorted the mail at his desk: a new national assistance book for Timothy John Folster; British Weekly for Rev. Simon McKee; a long plain sealed envelope for Ivan Westray; four letters for Colonel Fortin-Bell, also Punch and Illustrated London News; a brewer’s account for Mr William Scorradale; a letter from Edinburgh for Miss Margaret Inverary; New Prophecy for Mr Samuel Whaness; a parcel of books from the County Library for Jeremias Jonathan Skarf, Esq.

‘What’s in the mail?’ said Mrs Olive Evie when the shop was empty once more.

Mr Joseph Evie put the mail inside his desk. ‘Nothing,’ he said.

The school came out at four o’clock. The pupils whirled like a flock of starlings round Miss Inverary and then darted in every direction across the playgroun. . .