After he left Janet stood by the window, looking out to the harbor. She ran her fingers over the cold, polished brass of the lamp while she thought about Kenneth. He seemed decent enough and she hoped that Jeannie would give him a chance. It would be her own free choice, whatever she decided. She was still very young and her parents would leave her to choose. As a girl, Janet had shuddered when she saw lively young women coupled with dried-out graybeards for the sake of having a roof over their heads. She had believed then that it was only right to marry for love. She hadn’t known that love couldn’t stop the rot of disappointment. If she had the gift of second sight, would she still have taken him? She had been dazzled by him but maybe if her parents had not been so vehement in their opposition, she wouldn’t have held him so close. Too closely to see him clearly. She shook her head in exasperation. It was no use brooding on what was over and done with. It was the lad’s name that had thrown her back into the past to her own Kenneth. This Kenneth seemed steady, a little dull even, but he had held his ground when she had questioned him. His visit had left her thoughts scuttling and scurrying, small sea creatures pried from their hiding place by an oyster catcher’s beak.
Her Kenneth was an outsider too, from Lochalsh in Kintail. Well set up with his own boat, carrying meal, tools and gossip to the villages along the coast and among the islands. He provided luxuries for those who could afford them, spirits, sugar, and tea. He came into the harbor with the news of the wider world filling his sails. He threw his head back as he laughed, his tawny hair lapping around his ears and neck. He wore it longer through vanity, but it was only much later that she came to realize that. At the time she just wanted to reach out and stroke the burnished threads. He had blown her over, gusting into her parents’ staid house in Kilmuir.
“I have my suspicions about that fellow. His prices are too good to be true.”
“How do you mean, Papa?”
“They’re smuggled goods, if you ask me.”
“But you still buy them from him, none the less.”
His glare silenced her. Mama said, “You can’t trust a man who’s always traveling. How do you know what he’s up to? Don’t be led astray.”
But the whiff of danger only made him more alluring. It was a warm summer and it was easy to slip away to a quiet place where they could stretch out among the sheltering trees. She was entranced with him. But the spell was broken when her parents found out that she was expecting a child. They consented to her marriage but they never forgave her. There was no softening even when she named her daughter Catherine, after her mother.
It was fortunate that Kenneth had saved enough money to get the lease on Big Harbour, but the land was poor and the rents meagre. So he carried on with the trading and the fishing. He provided for her, but after a year or two she suspected he had a wandering eye. But she smothered her doubts before they could draw breath.
This new Kenneth’s visit was a surprise but not an unwelcome one. Maybe there would be a wedding soon to look forward to, a distraction from her unease about the lighthouse.
He returned each week, as agreed. He would unclench his fist so that she could pick up the coins, tied together in a twist of cloth. She would take it, carefully tip out the money into the drawer, fold the fabric and return it to his open palm, pressing it down with her hand. Once the silent ceremony was over, they never lingered in conversation. He smiled and thanked her before going to the kitchen for his strupag. She would hear him mumbling through a mouthful of oatcake as he talked with Effie and Louis.
One day a few weeks later she was out when he arrived. She had been walking along the shore and returned to find the door ajar. He was standing in front of the press. He’ll be putting this week’s wages in the drawer, she thought, surprised that he was being so presumptuous. Then she saw to her fury that he had opened the drawer below the one where his money was stored. The blue scarf she kept there was on the floor. He seemed deep in thought as he looked at the small boot in his cupped hand. She held her breath as he ran a curious finger over the cracked, bleached upper. He prodded the toecap as if it was some sort of wee beast that he was trying to poke back to life. Finally she could bear it no longer, “What do you think you’re doing?”
He started and dropped the boot. He picked it up in a shaking hand and looked dumbly at her, a dark red stain blotching his neck and face.
“How dare you pick through my belongings.”
He hung his head, “I’m sorry. I just wondered what the old things were doing there.”
“Old! They’re priceless to me. All I’ve got left from that terrible day.”
“I meant no harm. I’ll put them back.”
“No! Get out of my sight.” Her voice cracked. He held them out to her at arm’s length and stumbled toward the door. After he left she stood still, her eyes closed. She held the boot against her breast, her hands folded over it as it were an injured chick. Sighing, she opened her eyes and took it back to drawer. She made a nest of the scarf and settled the small boot inside it.
That night she slept fitfully. She was furious with him for betraying her trust. She hated the idea of him pawing over the poor battered things.
When she eventually slept, she was trapped in a nightmare that still held her in its clammy tentacles as she awoke. In the dream she was standing on the beach in front of her house on a wild night. Sea and sky merged together, inked black with the wind-lashed rain. Her eyes strained to see a boat being thrown by the storm toward the harbor. Suddenly, a gust snatched her feet away and she was aloft, out at sea and looking down on the vessel. She could see the breakers hurling themselves at it, smashing into the hull. As they did so, the waves molded themselves into living shapes. Creatures from the sea and of the sea, blue-green and transparent. Leaping like fish they launched themselves up and into the boat and let loose a hideous wailing sound.
“The Fir Gorm,” she cried out as she was jolted awake. The blue-gray sea creatures who climbed aboard a vessel and made the passengers copy their strange songs. They would continue until one of the terrified people stumbled in their singing. Then the furious creatures would sink the boat. In the light of day the nightmare loosened its slithering grip, but she was left stranded on the edge of the sea wondering over its meaning. Was it a warning from the past or an omen for the future? Was it about Kenneth’s shame when she caught him out? Did he see her as a fearsome sea monster, one green with envy? Would he return again, next Sunday? If he wanted his money back, he would have to show his mettle and face her again. She smiled grimly to herself.