Willum had done well for himself. He’d got out of the Academy and along to the Buchan College as soon as he could and got to grips with his navigation. He worked through his second mate’s exams, sponsored by the company, then quit and went trawling. But he didn’t just jump on a boat as a deckhand and go straight to the money. No, he did the one-year course in Aberdeen and picked up all the skills, the netmending and wire work and shut his mind off when the lectures in basic seamanship went on. He didn’t appear aloof or anything and the younger guys kind of looked up to him. He was a skipper already, in waiting, and everyone knew it. The last days of the trawling in Aberdeen were rough. The fleet was run down or looked it anyway. I went along to the market once, took my flat-mate, Robbie, with me, to ogle at the catch and eat dripping rowies with the rest of them, the porters and salesmen. That was the starter, for breakfast, before bacon rolls, served with a bucket of instant coffee. We saw a taxi or two arrive. A skipper was rounding up his drunken deckhands while the engineer was coaxing the machinery back to life. They’d be in debt again. They’d need to make one more trip, Iceland way. The cod war was over but the UN deal was going to keep most British trawlers 200 miles out from the coasts of Iceland. Working conditions were just not that great.
Willum had done his stint on the rustbuckets. He earned his ticket and saved up his deposit. He was up on the game, the shift away from Aberdeen to working the west coast.
‘See that catch, swinging in now, teuchter?’ Willum said, ‘Rockall warriors. We got them over your way. Dinna ken fit way your Stornoway trawlers willna gang oot fir their share o it. It willna be oot at Rockall for lang, fishin the likes o this.’
The warriors were the cod themselves. One to a full box.
That’s how he made his money. He was canny with it too. Of course he had the nice motor. The girlfriend, Sheila, kept the seat warm while he was at sea. It was always parked away from the harbour, out of the salt.
I only spoke to him on the VHF once. Coastguard to fishing vessel. When we got to the working channel I could talk normal.
‘Just heard you calling the other boat and thought I’d shout you. That’s Willum, aye?’
‘Aye and I think I’m talking to the teuchter cousin. Are you nae bored in there when there’s a picking to be had oot here?’
‘You’re out Kilda way?’
‘Well, I’m jist not free tae tell onybody exactly the whereaboots o this vessel at this moment but I can tell ye noo it’s no that fine a mornin oot here.’
He was in the fish again.
I saw him only the once or twice in The Broch, in the new house. He wasn’t that much for the drink but there was a dram out for us both as he spread out the plans. Folk were saying it was a done. Aye, the Aberdeen trawlers were done but plenty Broch and Banff boats making good livings working out of Kinlochbervie. The crewbus was parked outside. He knew I liked VWs and he fired up the turbo-diesel so I could hear her purr. A Type 4 Caravelle. Oilskins were left on the boat. The lads all had a shower when they landed. And a hurl back to The Broch for every second Sunday.
He told me KLB was second only to Peterhead for white fish. Aberdeen was done. Ullapool was booming with the Klondykers, the shotties o mackerel.
This was the new ship. Steel was the way to go. And the blueprints were spread out. Willum took me down to the engine room first, of course. Twin Caterpillars. Then we took the tour right up to the bridge. You couldn’t call that a wheelhouse.
And then he said, ‘But I’m off down the road to pick up young Andra. I’ve only the one loonie. Indoor fitba – that’s his thing. I like tae pick him up. The Broch’s no the quiet place you kent on your holidays. You just talk your Dostoyevskies wi Sheila. She’s back til teaching English. At the Academy. I couldna wait tae git clear o it.’
And we did. And I met his lad, also Andra, named after his grampa. ‘So,’ I says, ‘if I’ve got this right, you’re Andra’s Willum’s Andra.’
‘Aye.’
I hit it off with Sheila. We were soon on the historical novel. Sheila was saying how she could get right inside Raskolnikov’s head. Everything just builds up. ‘Yons like a symphony playing in somebody’s mind and the thocht process canna be shifted nor stoppit. So it hid tae end in the swinging o an axe. But that’s jist the beginnin o the mental journey.’
The next few years did definitely accelerate. Willum’s new ship had her dents but she was still shiny red. Signal red, I think, with that hint of international orange. A safe colour. I was hoping maybe Anna’s team would get to the semi-finals in The Broch and maybe she’d be playing against her cousin. Five-a-side is a big event these days. But it didn’t work out quite like that.
Willum was tied up in business. Nearly as restricted as his ship. The bank was squeezing him and the Fisheries Officers were on top of the vessel. Every vessel. KLB was a quiet place and a lot of the stuff coming through Peterhead was imported from Iceland. They caught their own fish these days. Who could blame them?
‘We should hae done the same. The Common Market was a richt for the farmers but the fisherman was payin the price,’ Willum said.
The VW Caravelle, out the door, was the same turquoise green colour and, I was amazed to see, the same reg. And it wasn’t a customised plate. The skippers would have the boat’s name on the plate, which went from vehicle to vehicle, changed every year or two. There used to be money in the East.
Anna’s team did get to the semis and they did play The Broch. She didn’t meet her cousin. She asked about him but people just said no, Willum Sim’s Andra hadnae been aroon the club for a while.
She didn’t have to go to church on the Sunday though most of her mates did. She just said she had relations to visit. She had her dinner with them but there was still no sign of Andra. Sheila told her pretty well straight out. Anna was shocked by it all. Good that she heard it though. And she reported it back to me.
‘Ah dinna ken fit like Stornoway is these days, but The Broch has its problems. Ane big problem. You must have heard we’re bein cried the heroin capital o Scotland.
‘Some of them are bairns still. They smoke it. They’re thinkin that wilna dae much. Then they’re gettin sick if they dinna get it. That’s when they start injectin, tae get the maist oot o the bag. Your young cousin Andra has a these pals on the boaties. They dinna go tae the pub these days, they hiv pockets fu o cash and they go and git a bag for the weekend. And the ones that dinna hae the cash, they lie an steal. There’s nane o them you could trust.
‘That’s ane o the reasons Willum is thinking o givin up the boat. It’s that dangerous like. He disna ken if the loonies aboard on a Monday is still high. If they’ve sneaked something oot wi them. An there’s wires runnin an swell runnin and there’s been a hell o a number o accidents. Mair than ony time.’
As my lawyer and former classmate advised me, when I thought of tackling a certain builder, justice is for the next world. This one is all about probabilities. Sir James Matheson was only able to become a benefactor (mainly to himself) by distributing drug-fuelled havoc in Asia. There might have been some Old Testament justice if Stornoway had been hit by the epidemic which ravaged The Broch and Alness and other unlikely towns. Or maybe it has been bad enough here. Just that you’re out of touch with it, another stage of your own life. A guy was done for taking a serious amount of cocaine across the Minch, not that long ago.
It was Sheila on the phone.
‘It’ll be a very quiet funeral. There’s no need for you to come over but you’ve kept up wi your Broch relations and Willum thocht you’d want tae ken.’
I thought of old Andra, the one surviving brother of my mother. I’d missed seeing him, last visit. He’d also had a stroke. He was recovering but he was in dry dock at Foresterhill Hospital. I didn’t make it through to Aberdeen.
‘No no it’s nae your uncle. Aul Andra is nae baud. He’s an army o hame helps and he’s gettin by. I hiv to tell you, our ain young Andra has passed awa.’