Suddenly I was tired. So I trudged along with the open moorland on either side until I found a small bothy by the road, where I spent the night curled up in a corner on a pile of dusty straw. Next morning I drank from the cold, clear water of a nearby burn and then walked on, munching my last Glasgow apple for breakfast. Steeply down to Berriedale, across its pair of bridges and then steeply up again. Now the open moorland was giving way to walls, neat fields, and scattered low cottages – but always, on my right, and ahead of me was the sea. Down the hill to Dunbeath, across the river there, and on upwards – walking, walking – surely Helspie couldn’t be far now? And where was the cliff path Apa had told me about, which cut along behind the Gob and on down to the harbour?
I was desperately trying to remember the map he’d drawn for me when I spotted it, leading off to my right. Confident now, I left the road and headed for the cliffs – and so I came to the Gob.
There was no missing it; it reared high up above the sea looking like a great beak – just as it had to those Gaelic-speaking refugees who’d first named it. I remembered Apa telling me about those men and women and children who’d been banished from their homes and come to this barren coast to make a new beginning. Now I would do the same.
Abandoning the path I headed straight for the highest part of the Gob, and stood there on the very edge of the cliff, buffeted by the wind and exhilarated by the wild waves beneath me. And saw the boats – the boats! For the first time I watched the herring fleet come sailing home to Helspie harbour, bounding and skipping over the sparkling waves below like a flight of dark-winged birds.
I realise now that what I felt on the Gob that morning was more than just excitement; as I stood there watching the small dark figures hauling on ropes and wheels and the sun glinting on the shining silver of their catch I felt the first stirrings of hope again.
The leaping ships of the herring fleet curved round the foot of the cliff and on into the hidden harbour. As the final boat skimmed lightly past me I turned and ran, running back to the cliff path, running down the steeply shelving hillside to that harbour – running back to life.
The brown-sailed ships were all safe home by now, with the inner harbour wall curving protectively round them. The wall of the outer harbour tried to do the same – but beneath the spray spewed up by each battering wave I could see its abrupt, jagged end; it was still broken, just as Apa had told me.
Back in the tightly packed inner harbour a single larger vessel was using its steam winch to unload a cargo of long wooden planks. Gusts of thick grey smoke from its funnel blew down into the faces of the men at work on the fishing boats either side. As the swooping seagulls shrieked above them these men shouted their news to each other in unfamiliar words that I knew must be Gaelic – but they never paused in their rapid heaving of loaded baskets over the side of their ships and down on to the quay. Once there the baskets were hurried along to the women, who were already hard at work over great troughs of shining herrings. Knives flashed – blood and guts and silver scales bespattered mackintosh aprons and bare arms – even down-bent faces – but their rapid rhythm never faltered.
Already I was scrambling down the last steep slope, irresistibly drawn to all that purposeful activity – so different from the artificial world of school.
Along the quay I breathed in the pungent scents of coal smoke and tar, blood and fish – and fast-dissolving salt from the barrels already filling up with layer upon layer of gutted herring. I drew closer and closer to it all – too close, and suddenly my own face was bloodied too. I leapt back, laughing – but after the laughter came sadness, because Apa was not there with me to share my delight in this exciting new world.
But even then, I think, that beneath the sadness of the child was a more mature awareness – I think I did realise that it was only because of Apa I was there at all. Apa, who’d encouraged me to make my own choices, and given me the confidence to carry them out. So now here I was in Helspie. And Aunt Ethel was waiting for me.
A dog barked, and I turned my back on the harbour and set off towards the row of small stone houses, looking for someone to tell me the way to the Gunn croft. I met an old man, and he pointed with his stick to the green entrance of a narrow valley, and in slow, careful English told me I must follow the burn up the strath – the croft house was on the left, before the bridge. To reach the strath I must turn up beyond the post office. The post office! I had a sudden bright idea.
I wrote out a telegram to send to school: HAVE COME TO LIVE WITH AUNT ETHEL GUNN STOP SEND LUGGAGE. Rather reluctantly I added, PLEASE, before finishing with: STOP EVELYN COURTNEY, and handing it to the girl behind the counter. After counting the words she said with a smile, ‘It will be nice for the old lady to have company’, but then pointed out that I’d not said where I wanted the luggage to be sent to. Seizing the form back I briskly wrote: GUNN CROFT STOP HELSPIE STOP CAITHNESS STOP NB STOP. I smiled in a moment of triumph at that N.B.; North Britain – almost as far north as I could be! Then I paid with the last of my small change and set off for the strath.
The strath – narrow burn below, bare, open fields above, and on the slope between a gently winding path leading upwards through clustering trees whose whispering leaves still glowed with that special fresh green of spring – though by the calendar we were well into summer now. None of the trees were very tall, or thickset of trunk – only in this narrow valley could they withstand the winds of Caithness – and even in that shelter there was a fragility about them all.
Child of a forest officer I began to identify those I could: silver birch, hazel, sycamore – and there was one with all its trunk and branches covered in lichen! I turned to tell Apa – Shock stunned me – I stood numb and rigid on the path. Then the familiar rustling of leaves and chattering of fast-flowing water gradually loosened my body, and I reached out and put my hand firmly on the slender trunk of a silver birch. The rough feel of its bark under my fingers brought me back to the present. I would tell Aunt Ethel about the lichen-covered tree, she’d be interested in what I’d noticed. I set off again, faster now.
I came upon it suddenly: a long, low building growing out of the edge of the field high above the path. I bent to unbutton the knees of my breeches, tugged off my cap to free my plaits, and then remembered to scrub the herring blood and scales off my cheek before scrambling up the bank, over the wall into the field, and round the corner of the building to the front door.
The croft door was ajar. I knocked on it, stepped inside, and along a short passageway to a kitchen. An old lady was stooping over a small primus stove.
She lifted her head. With her hawk-nose, sunken cheeks and brown-mottled face she looked much older than I’d expected. I smiled. ‘Good morning, Aunt Ethel – I’m Eve, your great niece.’
Steadying herself on the back of a chair she slowly straightened up and moved towards me. ‘Eve – Evelyn’s daughter?’ She looked astounded, then extended her hand with a smile, ‘How nice to see you. Would you care for a cup of tea?’
‘Yes please.’ I subsided onto an upright chair. She moved awkwardly about, finding a cup and a chipped saucer which didn’t match it. The tea was extremely stewed, but I swallowed its bitterness gratefully.
She sat down opposite me. ‘I was so sorry to hear of the death of your father. He was such a fine man – a man of true principles.’ My eyes prickled, but I didn’t cry, not any more. Aunt Ethel continued, ‘I would have written to you, Eve, but I didn’t know your address.’
As I told her about being sent to school I thought, so that’s why she hadn’t come to visit me while I was there. Now she asked, ‘Are you on holiday – staying nearby with friends?’ Before I could correct her she added warmly, ‘How thoughtful of you to drop in and see me.’
‘No, Aunt Ethel, I haven’t dropped in – I’ve come to live here.’
‘In Helspie?’ She looked puzzled.
I nodded. ‘Yes, here in the croft, with you.’
And as I watched, puzzlement turned to dismay and she raised her knobbly-knuckled hand in protest, ‘But Eve, my child, I really don’t think—’
I wouldn’t, couldn’t, let her finish. Interrupting I said loudly, ‘In my half of the croft.’
There was silence. Then her hand dropped back and she said, ‘Of course – yes, it is half yours – your father wrote to me about the matter. Yes, it is your right to live here. Yes. Yes.’
She didn’t want me.
Then, ‘But – I really don’t feel able to take charge of a child, and you did say you were at a boarding school – so wouldn’t it be better if you – ?’
Again I interrupted. ‘I’ve left. They’re going to send on my luggage.’
Still she was stalling, ‘But are you sure it’s all settled—’
I knew it wasn’t, but I had to make her think so. ‘I’m here now, Aunt Ethel. But I’m a bit tired from the journey – and I haven’t had a proper breakfast yet.’
She hobbled over to a cupboard and rummaged around in it to find some stale bread and even staler cheese – it was so hard I could scarcely get my teeth into it. A well-wrinkled apple helped the last crumbs down. By now I was dazed with sleep. ‘May I go to bed, now, Aunt Ethel?’
‘Yes, yes – in here.’ There was a door leading off from the kitchen, back into a room in the middle of the croft, which was set behind the chimney breast – just as Apa had drawn on his plan for me. The bed was inside a sort of long wardrobe – just as Apa had told me. Oh, Apa, Apa – but Aunt Ethel was thrusting sheets, a pillow, and a blanket into my arms. As she closed the door behind her I dumped the bedding in an untidy bundle on the bed, rolled myself into the middle of it – and slept.
I woke to a moment of confusion after my two-day journey, then remembered where I was: in the croft at Helspie, with Aunt Ethel – who didn’t want me. Aunt Ethel didn’t – No, Eve, don’t even think.
I got up and went to find the water supply – an open tank behind the barn. I dipped in a waiting pail, hauled it back to fill the china basin in my bedroom, and painstakingly washed off the grime of two days’ travel. Aunt Ethel didn’t want me. I knew it, but I wouldn’t accept it. There was too much at stake. I was not leaving Helspie and going back to school. I’d decided on a new life and I was going to live it, somehow.
But I was very upset.
At tea-time Aunt Ethel opened a tin of corned beef – she had a whole cupboard filled with nothing but tins – and gave me half. I ate it with the bread, which was even staler by now. She asked me if I’d slept well; I muttered, yes, and then neither of us spoke again. The minute she’d finished her sandwich and cup of tea she stood up, said she had to get back to her books, and left, closing the door of her room firmly behind her. Very firmly. I found my way across the fields to the cliffs and sat there for ages, staring out to sea. Then I came back and went to bed again.
Next morning Aunt Ethel gave me some money and sent me down to the harbour to buy a fresh loaf and some butter. When I came back she opened a tin of sardines and gave me half for breakfast. After a ritual exchange about the weather neither of us spoke a word until she told me her books were waiting, and, going off to her bedroom, closed the door behind her.
I decided to explore – not that there was much to explore, since the croft was simply a row of rooms, except for the short passageway behind the front door, which led on the right to Aunt Ethel’s room and on the left to the kitchen. As I’ve already said, my room was between those two, but the only way in to it was through the kitchen. On the opposite wall of the kitchen was another door, this time leading into what had been a cowshed. Now it was a sort of scullery, with mangle and washtub mixed in with milking yoke, butter churn, and even an old wooden cradle on rockers.
A door in the end wall of the byre led on into the barn, with a collection of spades, hoes and assorted agricultural-looking implements. But one corner was filled with a pile of cut turves – presumably that was the peat Apa had mentioned – Don’t think, Eve – just keep exploring.
I discovered that the water supply came from a spring – it formed a tiny burn and then was piped into the tank, with an overflow diverted down to the strath. Behind the barn, huddling in the shelter of its back wall, was the small stone-built hut containing the thunderbox – I’d already located that, of course. Otherwise the croft consisted of several fields, one of them with sheep in. On the other side of the road was another long, low building, set in its own allocation of fields, and I could see yet another croft beyond it, while others lay in front – that was the pattern. Turning my back on them I went inside again.
The kitchen had a stone-flagged floor with a very worn mat in front of the dusty hearth. The hearth consisted merely of an empty grate between a pair of brick-built ledges for standing saucepans on, and a metal hook hanging down over it for the cast-iron kettle – which appeared not to have been used this century. Instead a small tin kettle stood by the primus stove. What else? Two wooden armchairs, two upright chairs, a couple of stools, a pair of oil lamps; one dresser, one zinc-meshed food cabinet and the tin cupboard – I mean, the cupboard containing the tins. The only other piece of furniture was a low, deep wooden chest, placed along the wall opposite the window. I stepped up on to its flat lid and sank down to sit on it, legs crossed and tucked in under my knees, Indian-style. At least no-one here was going to keep telling me off for sitting like that, as they’d kept doing at that rotten school. So I sat and stared out of the window.
After a while the view palled. I got up, went out – and stayed out until tin time. Corned beef again.
You’re probably thinking by now that the croft must have seemed very primitive to me after school, with its bathrooms, electric lights and host of modern conveniences – but remember, I’d only been at school for a few months. Whereas in India I’d been used to camping – and, what’s more, camping in Kumaon, where you only took the bare essentials on tour with you. And even our bungalow in Almora had been pretty basic, as Mrs Benham had pointed out every Christmas. But Apa and I weren’t bothered.
So now the basic nature of the croft didn’t strike me – not even the thunderbox. After all, they were normal for Europeans in India. But also normal for Europeans in India were servants – lots of them. Servants to cook, to clean, servants to talk to, to laugh with – and, of course, to empty the thunderbox. Whenever you finished what you had to do, a cheerful yell of, ‘Koi hai?’ as you left the bathroom was all that was needed. ‘Koi hai?’ just means: ‘Is there anyone there?’ and there always was – the sweeper, who would come in by the other door and remove the contents of the thunderbox for disposal.
So although in Almora I’d often ‘helped’ with the cooking, and played at packing, never, ever, had I emptied my own thunderbox. And I had no intention of starting now, when Aunt Ethel said to me the next morning, ‘But Eve, it’s your turn – after all, you filled half of it.’
‘That’s the sweeper’s job.’
‘We have no sweeper.’
Remembering housemaids at school I said, ‘A maid’s, then.’
‘Eve, we have no maids – we have no servants. I pay a woman down at the harbour to do the weekly wash, and Mr McLeod agreed to dig my peat in return for using the grazing – he offered to dig the latrine pit, too – but, that’s all. So you will have to take your turn.’
I retorted, ‘If we hadn’t had any servants in India, then Apa would have emptied the thunderbox for me.’
‘I am not your father, Eve.’
‘You’re my aunt.’
‘I am your great-aunt. You chose to come and live here – and you have every right to do so – but if you stay, it must be as an equal. I simply cannot be responsible for a child.’
I shouted, ‘I’m not a child. I’m nearly fourteen – I’m grown up.’
‘Then please behave so.’ She closed the door of her room behind her.
Very sulkily I emptied the contents of the thunderbox into the trench, fetched the spade and dug some earth over them. Then I marched back into the croft, thrust open the door of Aunt Ethel’s room and barged in with the announcement, ‘There, I’ve emptied your rotten old thunderbox for you.’
Aunt Ethel was sitting at a desk in front of the window. I stood in the middle of the floor, looking around me. Apart from the box bed the walls were completely lined with over-flowing book shelves, and more books were piled up on a small table beside the bed. Lying on top of them was a Tibetan prayer wheel – I picked it up and whirred it round and round. Aunt Ethel exclaimed, ‘Eve, I would not dream of entering your room without an invitation – please extend to me the same courtesy!’
‘But—’
‘I need peace and quiet, for studying and meditating.’ She sounded almost desperate. She went on, ‘The only terms on which we can live together are by respecting each other’s privacy.’ I could tell she meant it.
After that I kept out of her way. I’d had such hopes of Aunt Ethel before I came to Helspie. Not hopes that she’d be a replacement for Apa – nobody could be that. But I had expected her to care about me, to want to look after me, listen to me. It had never crossed my mind that she wouldn’t even want me. So I decided that I wouldn’t let the thought cross my mind now, either – and yet I knew it.
I knew it, but I chose not to believe it. Does that count as true self-deception? And if so, is self-deception all that different from Apa’s advice to see the good in the most unpromising of circumstances? And in the end, is wilful self-deceit always a mistake? Even now, I still don’t know the answer to that one.
So that morning, I ignored Aunt Ethel’s obvious dismay at my determination to stay in Helspie and set off down the strath to the harbour, where I found the narrow, rocky path that ran south along the base of the cliffs. My destination was the foot of the Gob – and my intention was to climb up it.
Apa would never have allowed me to climb that cliff without the aid of ropes, and a couple of companions – as he had had when he climbed it with his mother as a boy. I knew that, but I had no choice. I had no ropes, no companions, so I had to climb it by myself.
Yes, I know what you’d say to that – you’d tell me that I did have a choice – that I could have chosen not to climb the Gob at all. But I couldn’t see that then. And actually I can’t see it now. If I was going to have to make my own life, take charge of it, not go back to school – then I had to climb the Gob.
And I think I was right to do it. Reckless, maybe, but right. After all, I have survived to tell the tale!
In any case, recklessness isn’t the same as stupidity. Oh, I’ve been stupid, alright – we both have, haven’t we? But that time I wasn’t. I knew the Gob was climbable – after all, Apa had climbed it with my grandmother. And although they had used ropes, I was pretty sure Seamus Gunn had climbed it without. And so would I.