Bird of Passage (8 page)

‘
You
couldn’t make one of those, however hard you tried!’ said the teacher.   Kirsty knew that she was right, because she had tried and it was impossible. She had assembled the materials, sure that she could do it, but everything just fell to pieces beneath her fingers. In May, Kirsty heard the sad song of the curlew over the farm by night as well as by day. Her grandad told her that curlews were residents, not summer visitors, like the martins and swallows and the mysterious corncrake with his strange, sawing cry that Kirsty often heard when she was in bed, on summer nights.

‘Where do they go in the winter then?’ she asked him, and he said ‘Oh they lie low, Kirsty. They just lie low.’ 

She waited anxiously for Finn to return, wondering if he had been lying low as well. The island climate was very mild, and the potato harvest started early, but she worried. Perhaps he wouldn’t come back. Perhaps ‘they’ – whoever they were -  wouldn’t let him. Isabel brushed her daughter’s long hair every night. She was very gentle, holding it twisted in her left hand, and combing it carefully with her right, to get the tangles out first, so that it didn’t tug too much.

‘You have lovely hair, God bless it!’ she would say.

‘Mum?’ said Kirsty, watching her mother’s reflection in the mirror. ‘Do you think the Irish boys will come to the tatties this year?’ She felt her mother’s grip on the thick strands of hair tighten and then relax.

‘I have no notion. Why do you ask?’

‘I thought you liked Francie,’ said Kirsty, cunningly. ‘He’s a nice lad, isn’t he?’

Isabel sighed. ‘He’s a poor soul right enough. And I was sorry for him last year. But there was nothing I could do about him.’

‘You used to try to feed him up a bit.’

‘Aye, I did. But maybe they’ll not come this year.’

 ‘You mean Finn, don’t you?’ she said. ‘You wouldn’t mind if Francie came back, but not if it means Finn comes too.

‘I wish you wouldn’t go on like this, Kirsty!’

‘You’re tugging!’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘I
like
Finn. He’s a nice boy. Why didn’t you like him?’

‘I didn’t
dis
like him.’

‘Grandad says he’s a good worker. He says he has plans for him. If he comes back that is.’

‘Well I hope he doesn’t.’

‘Why not?’

‘It’s not fair on him, treating him like one of the family. When all’s said and done, even if he
does
come back to the tatties this year, he’ll only be here for a few months, and then he’ll be gone, back to wherever he spends the winter. Back to that school. It’s not fair to do that. To give people a taste of something... different. Better. And then just take it away from them. It only makes things worse.’

Kirsty gazed at her mother in the mirror. ‘You didn’t mind treating Francie like one of the family.’

‘What did I ever do but give him the odd piece of cake and a few clothes for himself? What was the harm in that? And besides, that boy would never, ever take advantage. He would just take what he was given and be grateful.’

‘So would Finn.’

‘Leave it be, Kirsty. Leave it be, and get into bed!’

One morning, when Kirsty was sitting in the  schoolroom and struggling with arithmetic,  she glanced briefly out of the window, saw the truck come lumbering up the road and knew that the tattie howkers had arrived. It was raining heavily, and the windows were misted with droplets. She couldn’t see whether Finn and Francis were among them or not. She could hardly contain her excitement, and fidgeted for the rest of the day.

‘What’s wrong with you, Kirsty Galbreath?’ her teacher asked.

But she just shook her head, and sat on her hands, and said, ‘ Nothing, Miss.’

When she came home from school, the weather had improved, as it so often did after a morning of rain. Dog roses were unfurling in all the hedgerows, and a late, hot sun was conjuring steam from the fields. The Irish had arrived early, and were already at work. Kirsty came running up the hill, and paused on the brink of one of the tattie fields, shading her eyes, scanning the bent figures. There he was, wielding the big fork with a will, though the sandy soil was wet, and welded itself to the tines in heavy clumps. She felt another churning of excitement in her stomach. She stood up on the lower bar of the gate and shouted his name.

‘Finn! Hey! Finn O’Malley!’

He looked over at her but didn’t move, so she waved frantically, balancing on the gate. It left a line of rust along the front of her powder blue school dress.

‘Finn! Come here!’

He rested his fork on one of the carts, and came over, clumsily negotiating the edge of the field in his boots that were better than last year’s, but much too big for him, and then standing still, a few paces away from her. He didn’t know what to do with his hands, so he thrust them into his pockets.

‘You came back!’ she said.

‘I did so.’

He had grown taller. And he seemed to have grown shy again in the intervening months. But she was so obviously pleased to see him that he found himself smiling at her.

‘It’s nice to be back,’ he said.

To his surprise, she clambered over the gate, her sandals scrabbling on the rusted metal, rushed over to him, reached up and hugged him. He hardly knew where to put himself. And yet he liked it. She had been eating fruit gums, and her mouth was red. She smelled of raspberry jam.

‘I have to get back to work,’ he said.

‘Is Francie with you?’

‘He’s here.’

‘My mammy will be glad!’

 Micky agreed to bring both of us again. But I don’t know how he’ll do this year.’

‘Why not?’

‘He’s not so well.’

‘What’s wrong with him?’

She saw his expression change, a shutter closing over a window. He shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’

‘My mum likes Francie.’

‘Aye she does. She doesn’t like me much, but she likes Francie.’

‘She likes you well enough. I’ll see you later then. After tea.’ It was a command rather than a request, and he wasn’t inclined to argue with her.

‘Where?’

‘Hill Top Town, of course.’

She flew back to the gate, swarming up and over, skipping up the track towards the house. ‘He’s back, he’s back, he’s back!’ she was chanting to herself as she went.

Later on that evening, she told her mother and her grandad that she was going out to play for a bit.  

‘Where are you going?’ asked Isabel. ‘It’ll be time for bed soon.’

‘There’s a skylark’s nest up at Hill Top Town that I want a sight of.’‘Well don’t be disturbing the bird on her eggs!’ said her grandfather.

 ‘I won’t.’

She and Finn sat together, watching the sun sink towards the furthermost islands. Finn had given Francis the slip after their evening meal. It had not been difficult. Francis had been so tired out by the journey and the afternoon’s work that he had given himself a sketchy wash, and tumbled into bed, practically as soon as Finn had made it up, spreading the blankets over the straw mattress. Finn had watched him anxiously for a few moments, watched the long lashes fluttering on thin cheeks, and then – satisfied that the boy was sleeping – had taken himself up to Hill Top Town where Kirsty was waiting for him.

Far, far away they could see a couple of ring netters, like toy boats, red and green, working together on the flat waters.

‘I’ve missed this place,’ said Finn. ‘I kept wishing I was here. Sometimes it was only the thought of it that kept me going.’

‘I’m sure I don’t know why,’ said Kirsty, ‘For they work you so hard.’

‘They work me hard back there, as well.’ 

‘What have you been doing?’ Kirsty asked him. ‘Have they let you see your mammy yet?’

‘Not yet, no.’

He didn’t want to talk about it, but it was only natural that she should ask. He had never explained things to her. How could he, when he didn’t really understand them himself?

‘Does she not write to you?’

‘No. She’s not allowed.’

Kirsty wanted to ask why, what his mother had done to be so punished, but she bit her tongue, suddenly shy of pressing the point. If he wanted her to know, he would tell her

‘And do you write to
her
?’

 ‘How would I ever do that?’

 ‘I could give you some paper. I have plenty. And pens. You could write her a letter from here, Finn, and I could post it for you down in the village.’

He shook his head. ‘I’m no hand with a pen, Kirsty.’

‘Why not?’

‘I’m just not.’

‘But you told me you were at the school.’

‘So I am.’

‘And you’re a big boy now. Do they not teach you to read and write there?’

‘A bit. But I wanted to write with my left hand and they won’t let me do it. The say it’s the devil’s work.’

He pronounced it ‘divil’, which made her smile.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I have to pray for the devil to go out of me.’

‘What devil?’

‘I don’t know, do I? For writing left handed.’

He was afraid of the pen now. That was the long and short of it. Every time he took it up in his left hand, he had a vision of Brother Bernard, his face purple with rage, his fists flying like a boxer’s, and just as deadly. But when Finn tried to make the letters with his right hand, they sloped backwards and – although reasonably neat – were practically illegible, a fact which seemed to throw Brother Bernard into even more of a passion. ‘You’re... doing... that... on... purpose!’ he had bellowed, punctuating the sentence with blows. ‘Take... your... pen and ...
write
as I tell you!
Write! Write! Write
!’

Mercifully, Kirsty interrupted his train of thought. ‘Like me with my red hair do you mean?’

‘What about your red hair?’

When Kirsty had first started school, she had met an old fisherman going down to his boat. She had been walking that road since she could toddle, and she knew everyone along the way, so her mother just took her down to the Dunshee road end, and sent her off by herself each morning. She would pass the man and say  ‘Good morning,’ politely, as her grandad had told her. She was surprised to see that he just grunted at her in return, crossed himself, turned right round and went back the way he had come. Then, a few days later, a letter came through the door. It was from this same old man, except that his sister had written it for him, and it asked if wee Kirsty Galbreath could please leave for school fifteen minutes earlier or perhaps fifteen minutes later, so as not to be passing him by on the road to his boat, because not a day’s luck had he had with his fishing – when he could get to his boat - since the start of term. Her grandad had read the letter, and laughed out loud. Isabel had been very indignant, but Alasdair had just started laughing.

‘Silly old bugger!’ he said. ‘You leave it to me.’

‘What will you do?’ asked her mother.

‘I’ll write back to him.’

‘And what will you say?’

‘I will just tell him that he can leave earlier or later himself if he wants, so that he can avoid the terror of seeing our red headed monster on the road!’

‘What’s wrong with your hair?’ asked Finn.

‘There are people on this island who don’t like my red hair. They think it’s unlucky. So maybe it’s the same for you if you’re left handed.’

‘They beat me for it. But I can’t do it. I can’t write properly. Not with my right hand.’

‘That’s so unfair. Our teacher doesn’t much like it when folk write with their left hand either, but she doesn’t beat them for it. ‘

‘They’re lucky.’

‘You should hit them back,’ she declared, robustly.

‘That’ll be the day! Will you come and fight them for me, Kirsty?’ He started to laugh, imagining her confronting Brother Bernard, arms akimbo, or flying at him in a rage, her red hair streaming out behind her. And then the thought of brave Kirsty, only a little girl, rushing in where the angels themselves would fear to tread, gave him a strange, queasy feeling.

‘I would too. I’d fight them all for you!’ She looked at him, and gave a sigh of pleasure. In her eyes at least he was a hero, even now, when it seemed to her that his laughter was very close to tears. But big boys weren’t supposed to cry, were they?

CHAPTER SIX

In late July of that year, Finn and Francis worked elsewhere on the island all day, but came back to Dunshee at nights. Sometimes, Alasdair would borrow Finn for the day,  to do this or that job about the farm, slipping a little money to Micky Terrans to keep him sweet. Often he would take Finn out on the water to help him with his creels, and now that the boy could handle the boat competently, he was allowed to take Kirsty out fishing as well. They took mackerel flies, and sometimes they caught a box full of striped fish and sometimes they caught nothing at all. That was always the way of it with mackerel: none or a dozen. Alasdair had rigged up a miniature smokehouse in one of the outhouses,  where he could smoke mackerel and trout and the occasional salmon for their own use.