Sunwise

an extract from a novel in three voices

by Ian Stephen

Anna turned the handle on the window. A thin current of air came in with a whistle. It must be a southwesterly, funneling down the street. It would blast between the lantern tower of the new arts centre and Martin's Memorial spire. She breathed in at last and realised she'd been holding her breath as if she was underwater. There still wasn't enough air coming through. She turned her head. There were card folders and loose papers amongst the piles. It would be a right paperchase if she let the window tilt to the next setting. She left it at that with a bit more than a trickle coming through. A whine in the gusts.

Anna retraced her route, across the room, more slowly this time. She looked at the office chair, the ancient 17 inch screen, deep like tellies used to be when she was young. It was perched on a raw, blockboard stand which housed the bulky driver. She didn't sit but put her hand out to a brass-scoop handle in the desk drawer. She pulled. The secret of the universe wouldn't be there but there might be something more than a pile of crumpled receipts.

There was quite a neat pile, CDs in cases and all of them had a name, in bold type, on a lined label. The sort you printed out yourself, a whole A4 sheet of them. You peeled them off the backing sheet.

The three titles couldn't have been much clearer. THESIS. JOHNNY BELL AND THE GOPHERS. SUNWISE. There was also a tobacco tin, an old one she recognised.

The oldest joke not in the book. The lettering had been scratched, many moons ago so it read ' ...OLD VIRGIN... ' It had come from a watchmate of the olman's. He'd finally jacked it in. In turn, the new owner had fished it back out of the bin a couple of times. A lot of people said they found it easier to stop smoking if they knew there was tobacco stashed away, somewhere. Just in case the cravings got out of hand. Other folk said it was mostly about hands and something to do with them.

Her fingers closed over it first. Then she unclenched them. More slowly, she pocketed the tin. Next she reached for one of the CD cases from the three now stacked in their own little coffins. The choice wasn't an accident. She knew the guts of the olman’s thesis – they'd been spilled out before her often enough. She didn't have to read the final version now. She couldn't bear the thought of trying to print out, far less read, any file that contained the Johnnie Bell stories. Peter had made them up for her alone. She wasn’t even sure she wanted to consider a written version. So her tight palm held SUNWISE. That was new to her.

It had to be more digestible than the huge typescript she just had not been able to face. Two book-sized volumes of it were handed over by Michael, the executor. It was supposed to be a Will of some kind but even the practical bits pointed out to her had made little sense. And she had no idea why he’d wanted to tackle a PhD at his age. 'Sunwise' was packaged up a bit different. He'd lined the plastic case with old cards. Publicity for plays. They looked a bit hand-done so maybe they'd been made to advertise student productions. One was for Brecht's, 'Drums in the Night'. The other had a black and white photo of a group of guys, done up like gangsters. 'The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui'. That was a bit topical. Political gangsters were on the rise again.

Judging from the computer, the discs would be in some god-forsaken format. Not her own strong point but she knew just where to take that problem. The high road to the University of the Highlands and Islands. That lay up the tarmac road by the golf club. Instead of continuing on to the rough and even higher road to Gallows Hill she'd to swing a right into the campus. That Janet MacLeod could fix just about any computer issue known to womankind. She also fixed all the software issues on the laptops of the Ukrainians and Bulgarians crewing the SY trawlers. Come a Friday afa and she'd get the call to collect a monkfish with a head bigger than your own. She'd give you one of the fillets if you did the butchering. 'I get it, you gut it.' Anna had the skills, to earn her share. But her olman would have made good use of every single bit. There wouldn't be a thing this Friday. Not a single boat had moved in the port for the best part of a week. Janet would be in credit. A monster fry, next time.

Now that really was a pity. The guy who could have prepared a monkfish feast as well as anyone was not in a position to repay this posthumous favour. His out of date files could be made readable again. Just another wee contemporary miracle. That Peter MacAulay was a good cook, a sharp cookie but a daft bastard. He could have looked after himself. His ancient version of a Word Doc would get deciphered to be intelligible to his daughter and any other interested parties.

Peter MacAulay's name was fixed to all these folders of stories but it was no longer on the title deeds of this house. She was at the door to the hallway quick as a cat. There was a clear corridor alongside the row of neat, regular, cardboard boxes, The Packaging Company stamped on every one of them. Someone had started the clear-up. Hell, what was it like, before?

She checked she'd put the keys back in the envelope. Safe in her snug pocket with the velcro tabs. The CD case fitted into the safe breast pocket, also zipped. Anna left the rest. She just pulled the door shut and didn't bother with the second lock. The olman probably never used that one anyway. At once, she was walking north, wind-assisted. Getting the turn in before the steep fall to Bayhead. Crossing the road by the gable end of the model-shop. There wasn't too much wind coming along the harbour. There she was. Peace and Plenty. Moored as described by Michael, the formerly swinging vicar. Maybe the swinging former vicar. The executor. Not right now. She couldn’t walk from that room right into another domain of the late Peter MacAulay.

If she carried on and swung the left over the bridge she might find Janet still in the office.

Sunwise –

an account of an exceptional voyage to outlying isles
by Peter MacAulay, Esquire

With a brief introduction and additional contributions by
Mrs Isabella Morrison, spouse to the former steward of St Kilda

This introduction will indeed be brief for the conventionally given reason that none is required. It will become immediately apparent to the reader that the chronicler of these journeys is eminently qualified for the task, both in maritime knowledge and in his natural abilities as a storyteller. My own main role has merely been to insist on his competence for the duty and the suggestion of the above title. I cannot deny that there are some phrases in the narrative which would not have been my own choice and some comments which I must admit I would have thought better unsaid, yet you cannot consent, in fairness, to a narrator having his free hand and then apply censorship. It is an honest account and that is that.

Under duress, I have also provided my own narration of a very small part of our story. This has been felt necessary only where Mr MacAulay, through events, was not privy to some possibly pertinent aspects, at first hand.

We are very grateful to the Estate of MacLeod of Harris. This body has long been the feudal superior of the island of Hirta, St Kilda. As will become apparent, it was my husband John Morrison's duties as Steward to the MacLeod of Harris Estate which prompted the adventures we will describe in this volume. We must, however state, for the avoidance of doubt, that the publication is the responsibility of the authors alone, although our vessel was in the ownership of that Estate and skippered by a seaman in its employ. We are very grateful to the care taken by the printers, Mssrs Sands, Donaldson, Murray and Cochran of Edinburgh.  It was Mr Donaldson’s suggestion that the English face, Baskerville was most appropriate for this purpose. I can only add that Mr Baskerville’s own words convinced us, if any convincing was required, that this was indeed most suitable:

“Having been an early admirer of the beauty of Letters, I became insensibly desirous of contributing to the perfection of them. I formed to myself ideas of greater accuracy than had yet appeared, and had endeavoured to produce a Set of Types according to what I conceived to be their true proportion. It is not my desire to print many books, but such only as are books of Consequence, of intrinsic merit or established Reputation, and which the public may be pleased to see in an elegant dress, and to purchase at such a price as will repay the extraordinary care and expense that must necessarily be bestowed upon them.”

Baskerville’s preface to Milton

With no further preamble I now urge you to give time to Mr MacAulay for you will not regret it. The Isles of the Outer Hebrides are blessed with more than their share of the natural storyteller (seannachie). It is sadly still all too unusual to encounter one who moves with such ease through printed pages.

Narrative of Peter MacAulay Esquire

I was christened Peadar. You can call me Peter. It matters very little to this narrative, who I am. Who are my people?  That would be the more relevant question and the one to be asked first in my own homeland, the Isle of Harris. Let us say for now that I have made a sort of a living for myself, more from the sea than the land. Yet I possess no certificates to say I can read the tides or splice manilla, long, short, eye and backsplice. I can keep a log but with apologies that this is not your copperplate. It appears to be tidy enough for others to follow and I am grateful to Mrs Morrison for casting her eye over it, correcting some of the errors and contributing her own account of certain events. Some have said I happen to be one of those who can tell a story.  If that be the case, it is due to no praiseworthy efforts of my own but to those gone before me.
Let us say for now that I was taken under a good set of wings. Those kept the weather off and let me thrive in this hard place. Stories were passed to me. Now that I have grown more conscious of the worth of these, I try to look after them by the simple method of casting them out into the world again. There is a “knack” to telling a story, people say, as in any craft, say boatbuilding. Yet a boatbuilder will say you simply allow one plank to lie, neat and snug, on another and that is all there is to it. All I can say about it is this. You possess but one voice to use and that is your own. Maybe those who reared me could see a story as if it were a thread in the dark. Any one of them could follow a pattern in knitting or weaving. But if there was no pattern to follow, my own natural forebears could still make something that would work. I have taken on the duty of telling this story because people have said it is worth the telling. It is no tradition, handed down, but an attempt, as memory permits, of an accurate account of an eventful journey.

The true starting point is the town of Stornoway for that is where we found the vessel which brought us on our way. Are you ready for the shock of it? We were not. The boatyard out on Goat Island was smoking and the hammers beating. There was  a lot of shouting going on, from the high walls down to the boats and from boat to boat across the raft of black shapes. You could step from one to the other and just about reach the shore on the far side. But the thing that hit you first was neither the sound nor the sight of the harbour. It was the stink: the catch of pitch; boiling bark; herring and the guts of them.

Let  me stand back and try to see what our unlikely group must have looked like, to a passer-by.  John Morrison, steward of Macleod of Harris, and his wife, were both both tall folk. They were well-dressed in a practical way, wrapped in their tweeds as defence against the biting east wind of the spring season. The skipper was Mìcheal and his nephew Ruaraidh kept close to him. That young fellow would be the apprentice. He had a good head of curls  on him.  More red and a good bit thicker than the thatch on his uncle. The skipper was not  that tall but he had a wide set of shoulders on him. He was quiet-spoken. The others would lean over to listen to him. As I am in the crew, I had better step aside to sketch myself, also.  I would be close to Mr Morrison in height and very near black in hair and beard.

I suppose I would be called  the mate, if we could find the vessel that would carry us out to the west. That was our purpose here in the town of Stornoway. We were dropped off here on a skiff that was sailing light to join the herring fleet in the town. Our intention was to sail back through the Sound of Shiants in a skiff of our own choosing, if we could find one to meet the demands of the skipper. She would have to be fit for an intended voyage into the Atlantic to St Kilda.

I saw Mrs Morrison bury her face in her scarf.  She made no complaints. She was here by  her own choice and we all knew it: a woman who wanted to come on a voyage, whatever it took. But she wasn’t the only one  shocked by what they smelled. Mìcheal and myself and maybe John Morrison the steward had smelled a harbour town before but maybe forgotten the force of it. That was a lot of houses, a lot of boats and  hundreds of buckets being emptied into that soup every day. Young Ruaraidh  had a look of horror on him.

‘That’s a powerful smell. That’s your education beginning,’ said his uncle.

The town was dry. There was not a single jig nor reel to be heard. It had its own music and that was  as strange a mix as the Babel of voices that floated around us.  We could pick up the Gaelic although that had something foreign to us in the tone of it. The spoken English too had something you would not encounter in any other harbour.

“Look you over there now,” said Tormod. “There is a regatta here, every tide. It was a dance of vessels, composed of a great number of individual movements. Many of these high tan sails we were observing would have been cut and stitched in lofts on our own island and some of these Scaffies had Lewismen and Harrismen at the helm. Once the leading boat began its tack, the rest of them followed, gannets in a squadron. Their mainsails fell, but only so far, before each one was dipped with a single sweep. That was the great yard pivoting to the other side of the mast. Then all the rigs were down but only for seconds before they were rising again on the other tack. And then the flock was off again, continuing the beat out. Tonight, these crews would cast their nets of black cotton and take their share, God willing.

The Morrisons were silent but I could see they had been affected by this sight. The lairds might be financing this industry, laying oak keels and setting up kippering sheds to use even the shavings of these. But the vessels were giving us our confidence. We could read a compass or a star like the rest of them and get ourselves out into the world on our own terms.

Another dance took place on the high pier. The curers and the merchants, the packers and gutters and the fishers were plying their trades. Once you caught your breath you got the hammering in your ears, the clenching of planks, the hoops going down the barrels. There were the high masts of the traders from Gothenborg or Kiel.
There might be the spars of the Hudson Bay Company ship, taking on a few Gaels before they put in to Stromness for the Norsemen. Others from the Scottish islands had sailed for the new England. There was word of trouble out there. Plenty sailed away but only a few would ever return to set foot on their own rock again.