you think I haven’t seen a man naked before? Now come on. Get out and explain what you’ve been up to.’ And she kept the torch full on me all the time I was stumbling ashore over the boulders. I heard Fuller trying to explain, but by then I was past caring.I just reached for my clothes and dragged them on without bothering to dry myself. I thought she was some farmer’s wife out after sheep or ponies, and then I heard her say, ‘Sharks. You’re like sharks, coming out here in the dark –’ Her voice was wild and high – ‘sniffing round the ship as though it is a bloody carcase.’
I grabbed the torch and turned it on her, the violence of her emotions warning me. Her face was no longer that of the young woman I had seen following the coffin that morning. Gone was the serenity, the tight-lipped control. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. What else? I knew how she must feel. I could see it in her eyes, the blaze of anger brightened by tears. And she was right. Sandford, Fuller, myself, others probably – all of us for our different reasons wanting to know whether the trawler could be floated again. ‘You shouldn’t have come –’
‘Shouldn’t have come! My ship, an’ you tell me –’
‘Feeling the way you do about her.’ I lowered the beam of the torch, not wishing to intrude into the private world of her emotions. ‘We’ll go now.’ I heard a sob in the darkness. That was all. She didn’t say anything. ‘If I had known …’ I murmured, then left it at that. No good making excuses when to her we were sharks with our teeth into the prey. But whether the ship was just an outlet for her grief, or something more, I didn’t know. Men grieve over the loss of their ships, but for a woman …
I was thinking about her most of the time Fuller was driving me back to Hamnavoe. I’d never met a woman owner before. I was still thinking about her next morning as I took the road to Brough again, walking through a light drizzle. Fuller had said he would put my proposition to Villiers and I was remembering the blaze of anger in her eyes, wondering whether she would attend the auction. I was quite sure she had been on board when her father-in-law had died, and this I was able to confirm when I stopped at Miss Manson’s cottage. ‘She has always gone out with them, even when Jan was alive. He was her husband and she had to, him being so sickly, you see.’
She couldn’t tell me very much. The Petersens had only been on East Burra four or five years. Jan Petersen had died about two years ago – of pneumonia, she thought. He had been in the hospital at Lerwick, and after his death the trawler had been anchored between voyages in the shelter of The Taing instead of at Hamnavoe. ‘So it’s not often we see Gertrude now.’ And she added, ‘She’s Norwegian, you know. The old man, too, and most of the crew, they’re all Norwegians.’
I walked on then to Grundsound and the little church, but it was the grave with its bunches of daffodils I saw; I wasn’t thinking about my father. I paused for a moment on the bridge, gazing across at the mound of fresh earth. I think I had half hoped to find her there. I could have explained to her then … But perhaps not. I went slowly on and ate my lunch in a field with three Shetland ponies watching me and a view of the calm circle of water sheltered by a tongue of land that was marked on my map as The Taing. Her house, which was an old farmhouse little bigger than a cottage, stood at the base of the tongue. It was built of stone with a slate roof, superbly set against the steep backdrop of the hills beyond Clift Sound. I could just imagine how it would have been for her, coming back after a week’s trawling and waking up in the morning to look out of the window at her own ship lying snug to its reflection. But the inlet was empty now and the house looked deserted, no sign of life.
I walked on through Houss, across Ayre Dyke and over the Ward of Symbister to a view of the
I grabbed the torch and turned it on her, the violence of her emotions warning me. Her face was no longer that of the young woman I had seen following the coffin that morning. Gone was the serenity, the tight-lipped control. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. What else? I knew how she must feel. I could see it in her eyes, the blaze of anger brightened by tears. And she was right. Sandford, Fuller, myself, others probably – all of us for our different reasons wanting to know whether the trawler could be floated again. ‘You shouldn’t have come –’
‘Shouldn’t have come! My ship, an’ you tell me –’
‘Feeling the way you do about her.’ I lowered the beam of the torch, not wishing to intrude into the private world of her emotions. ‘We’ll go now.’ I heard a sob in the darkness. That was all. She didn’t say anything. ‘If I had known …’ I murmured, then left it at that. No good making excuses when to her we were sharks with our teeth into the prey. But whether the ship was just an outlet for her grief, or something more, I didn’t know. Men grieve over the loss of their ships, but for a woman …
I was thinking about her most of the time Fuller was driving me back to Hamnavoe. I’d never met a woman owner before. I was still thinking about her next morning as I took the road to Brough again, walking through a light drizzle. Fuller had said he would put my proposition to Villiers and I was remembering the blaze of anger in her eyes, wondering whether she would attend the auction. I was quite sure she had been on board when her father-in-law had died, and this I was able to confirm when I stopped at Miss Manson’s cottage. ‘She has always gone out with them, even when Jan was alive. He was her husband and she had to, him being so sickly, you see.’
She couldn’t tell me very much. The Petersens had only been on East Burra four or five years. Jan Petersen had died about two years ago – of pneumonia, she thought. He had been in the hospital at Lerwick, and after his death the trawler had been anchored between voyages in the shelter of The Taing instead of at Hamnavoe. ‘So it’s not often we see Gertrude now.’ And she added, ‘She’s Norwegian, you know. The old man, too, and most of the crew, they’re all Norwegians.’
I walked on then to Grundsound and the little church, but it was the grave with its bunches of daffodils I saw; I wasn’t thinking about my father. I paused for a moment on the bridge, gazing across at the mound of fresh earth. I think I had half hoped to find her there. I could have explained to her then … But perhaps not. I went slowly on and ate my lunch in a field with three Shetland ponies watching me and a view of the calm circle of water sheltered by a tongue of land that was marked on my map as The Taing. Her house, which was an old farmhouse little bigger than a cottage, stood at the base of the tongue. It was built of stone with a slate roof, superbly set against the steep backdrop of the hills beyond Clift Sound. I could just imagine how it would have been for her, coming back after a week’s trawling and waking up in the morning to look out of the window at her own ship lying snug to its reflection. But the inlet was empty now and the house looked deserted, no sign of life.
I walked on through Houss, across Ayre Dyke and over the Ward of Symbister to a view of the
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