The Sea for Breakfast (7 page)

‘Yes, a little,' I had admitted briefly.

‘And last Thursday week, no it wasn't Thursday but Friday. You were cross with him then too, were you not?'

‘Perhaps. I can't remember.'

‘I can,' she had said sorrowfully. ‘I can always tell.'

‘Can you? But how?' I had asked.

‘Because if you won't let him kiss you good-bye, he comes home and he kicks the cats,' she had told me with infinite pathos.

Today, Hector wanted a ‘tsing' for his engine. It was time his boat was launched for the summer tourist trade, he said, and though he had scraped and ‘bottomed' her and patched any leaks with tingles he was now having trouble with the engine. My shed was by now reasonably tidy. If only Hector had shifted the boxes of ancient engine parts he so much cherished I might have been able to whitewash it and fit it out for its eventual use as a dairy. He tipped up one of the boxes, cascaded wheels, nuts, washers and unidentifiable lumps of rust on to the floor and scrabbled through them. I watched him unhelpfully.

‘I wonder at you, Hector,' I said. ‘You've had such a lot of work to do on this boat and yet you told me you spent quite a long time looking for a good one when you were in Glasgow.'

Hector sat back on his heels and clasped his chin with rusty fingers. ‘Well, you know how it is,' he explained slowly. ‘You go lookin' for a boat like you go lookin' for a wife. You wander from place to place having a good look first at one and tsen at another. If you find exactly what you want and tse price is right, tsen you say, “Ach, she's too cheap, tsere must be somsing wrong with her,” and like as not you end up with gettin' the worst.' He bent again over the scatter of things on the floor and extracted an object which seemed to give him some satisfaction.

‘I'll just try will tsis do,' he said. ‘I'll need to come back and clear up tsese tsings for you.'

That was the last I saw of him for about a week.

When he came again I was at the far end of the croft from the house, trying my skill at building up a collapsed drystone wall. Hector must have seen me but he sprackled across the croft with the deceptive aimlessness of a hen on her way to a secret nest.

‘You're busy,' he greeted me.

‘Yes. Are you any good at building up walls, Hector?'

‘No indeed, I was never any good at it, tsough I remember my grandfather always used to say to keep my middle well filled.' He teetered one or two of the stones I thought I had wedged in position but he was too polite to comment.

‘She looks as tsough she'll make a nice day yet,' he murmured.

‘You think so?'

‘Aye. Too nice for a funeral, anyway.'

‘Whose funeral?'

‘Well, you see, an uncle of Behag's has died and he's bein' buried today and Behag tsinks I should go. What do you tsink yourself?'

‘If Behag thinks you should go she's probably right,' I replied. ‘But how will you get there if the funeral's today. The bus has gone long ago.'

‘Well,' he admitted, ‘tsat's tse way of it.'

I realized that I was going to have to insist on taking him in ‘Joanna'.

‘Ach, it's no right. I'm givin' you too much trouble,' he said as I expected him to.

‘Not at all,' I replied, as he expected me to. ‘How soon do you want to go?'

‘I was wonderin'. You see I have a box of mackerel I got tsis mornin' just and I tsought maybe if we could put it in tse back I could sell it to one or two of tse hotels on tse way. If we could start out early enough, say in about an hour's time.'

I left my stone-building and went to get myself and ‘Joanna' ready, not really sorry to be taken away from my work for a day out even if it were for a funeral. The service was to take place at the hospital where the old man had died and I should not be expected to attend it. It was just a matter of taking Hector up, collecting him after an hour or so and then bringing him back. At least, that is what I thought in my innocence.

All dressed up in his best blue suit and cap, Hector was waiting by the gate of Morag's cottage when I stopped ‘Joanna'. He lifted the box of fish into the boot and came and got in beside me. Morag and Behag, colourful figures in the silvery morning sunshine, waved to us from their work on the croft.

‘Tse cailleach tsinks it's goin' to rain,' said Hector as he settled himself. ‘She's wantin' to get all the tatties cleaned before she comes.' I wondered fleetingly if it really was at Behag's insistence that Hector was dashing away to her uncle's funeral.

Our run was extremely pleasant. The sun spent long periods in moody retirement but the rain disported itself only across the outlying islands, and left us alone. Hector pointed out a hotel and asked me to drive round to the back door. He disappeared inside and ten minutes later came out again followed by two very capable-looking ladies, one carrying a white pail and a cloth. They went round to the boot, some discussion went on and they all three went back into the hotel. I stayed in ‘Joanna', Hector soon came out, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth, and rejoined me and we drove on to another hotel where much the same thing happened. Hector finally emerged, once more wiping his mouth and growing noticeably more benign. At the third hotel, once the transaction was over, I was invited by the housekeeper into the kitchen for a cup of tea, an invitation which by this time I was very glad to accept. The kitchen of the hotel was large and cool and refreshingly clean. A long white wood table, scoured to perfection, ran down the centre; at one end was a tempting-looking tea-tray laid for two and at the opposite end there was a scale and a large dish of silvery trout. The grateful smile and the words of thanks I was uttering died away as I stared first at the trout and then at Hector.

‘Hector!' I ejaculated hoarsely. But Hector sat with his knees locked girlishly together, rubbing the palms of his hands slowly up and down his thighs, and except for a couple of furtive glances in my direction, concentrated his attention on the decorative fly-catcher which hung from the ceiling. I was appalled. Here I had been driving round with a box of illicit fish in the boot of my car and everyone who had seen me and the friends and relations of everyone who had seen me would be quite certain that I was in this poaching business up to my neck. I was so shocked at his treachery that I drank little and ate less of the ‘strupak' that was offered me and even that gave me indigestion.

‘Hector,' I upbraided when we were outside again, ‘I can't forgive you for this. You've really gone too far.'

‘Ach, but nobody worries about a bit of poachin' nowadays,' he soothed. ‘So long as it's not too much. And someone else would have tsem if I didn't take tsem myself.'

‘You could have been honest with me,' I said. ‘You could have told me they were trout, not mackerel.'

‘Ach, well now, surely you'd know tse hotels wouldn't want to be buyin' mackerel from me?'

‘Are there any more left?' I demanded, abashed at my own stupidity.

‘Just about four, maybe the half dozen. Ach, we'll not worry about tsem. You can take tsem for your dinner.'

‘You know perfectly well I wouldn't dream of taking them, but I do want them out of my car,' I told him.

‘Aye, tsem, I'll take tsem in a wee minute, but see and just come with me to the shop now before tsey close. I'd like you to help me choose a tsing for Behag,' he wheedled.

I yielded sufficiently to choose a lovely fair-isle jersey for Behag and to help him buy some sweets for Fiona and Morag. We were on our way back to the car when Hector muttered suddenly: ‘Oh, my God!'

‘What is it?' I asked. He was staring across the road at a policeman who was standing near the kerb. My knees started to feel a little weak. I recalled hearing of poaching penalties which included the confiscation of the offender's car.

‘He'll see me in a minute,' muttered Hector. ‘Here, take tsese.' He thrust the parcels at me.

‘What's the matter?' I asked agitatedly.

‘He'll want to shake hands with me,' Hector replied. ‘I used to know him well and I haven't seen him for years,' and then added by way of explanation, ‘I should have asked to wash my hands at that hotel, tsese bloody trout scales stick like glue. Are tsere any on my cuffs?' He displayed his right hand liberally dotted with unmistakeable trout scales and then rubbed it vigorously on the seat of his trousers. We were approaching the policeman who, turning, caught sight of Hector. His face split into a grin as he came across the road to greet him. Hector's hand rubbed even more vigorously behind him, ‘God!' I heard him mutter desperately.

The policeman put out his hand, grasped Hector's and shook it firmly. As soon as it was released Hector plunged both hands deep into his jacket pockets and kept them there.

‘Tsat's a nice fellow,' he told me when everything had passed off serenely, ‘but all tse same, if I'd known he was in tsis part of tse world I wouldn't have wanted him to see me.' I made no comment. ‘I'd best go to tse service now,' he said when we were putting the parcels in the car and after I had discovered that it was early-closing day so that my shopping would not get done.

‘You'll get rid of those trout before you do anything else, Hector,' I insisted firmly.

‘Oh yes, aye, aye.' He heaved a big sigh. ‘I wonder what will I do with tsem?'

‘I was expecting you to to say you'd present them to the policeman,' I said with bitter sarcasm.

Hector looked at me with surprised approval. ‘I could do tsat too,' he rejoined. ‘I'll see will I get a wee bitty paper to wrap tsem in.'

‘Hector,' I called despairingly, but he was hurrying away. I cringed behind me wheel of ‘Joanna' and shut my eyes as he bowled confidently through the open door of the police station opposite. I opened them again when I heard him at the boot. He came round to the door of the car with a box tucked under his arm.

‘I won't be more tsan a minute,' he assured me happily. I could not bring myself to ask him what had happened, but before very long he was back at the car again, whistling discordantly. ‘I'm away to tse service now,' he said.

‘What did you do with the trout?' I managed to ask weakly.

‘Ach well, I went into tse pollis station and asked for him but tsey said he was takin' his dinner, so I went round to see his wife, and told her I wanted a wee bitty paper or a box to put somesing tasty in for her man's dinner. She gave me a box and so tsat's got rid of tsat lot.' He sighed. ‘Well, I'd best be away,' he repeated, but he had reckoned without the grateful attention of the policeman who now came hurrying towards the car. Hector beamed complacently as once again his hand was grasped and shaken. But this time it was the policeman's hands that were covered in fish scales.

When Hector returned from the service he asked me if I would mind very much following the hearse back to the burial ground instead of returning straight to Bruach, as we had originally intended. Behag's uncle, he explained, had been something of a reprobate and had cut himself off from the family. As a consequence Hector had been the only mourner and he thought Behag would not like it if he left the old man to go alone to his final resting place. Though I suspected in this arrangement a design to await the evening opening of the pubs before returning home I fell in with it because it meant that I should be able to see part of the Island I had never seen before. While Hector supervised the actual interment, I thought, I could wander over the moors looking for wild flowers of which there might be some species not found in Bruach.

When we arrived at the burial ground we were met by a trio of indignant grave diggers who roused themselves from their perches on listing tombstones to inform us that they had not received a word about preparing a grave until an hour ago. They had the cows to milk and other chores to do tonight and they couldn't get the grave finished until morning.

‘What'll we do with him for tse night tsen?' asked Hector

‘We could put him in the church,' suggested one of the trio. The grave diggers and the driver of the hearse carried the coffin into the church. Hector watched them impassively.

‘You know,' he said when we were seated again in ‘Joanna' and heading for Bruach, ‘I tsink tsat's likely tse first time tse old man has ever been in church in his life.'

I dropped Hector at Morag's cottage and because I was still feeling aggrieved over the business of the trout I made an excuse not to go in for a ‘strupak'. I supposed both Morag and Behag knew that it was a box of poached trout Hector had loaded into my car that morning but as no Bruachite really believes poaching in moderation to be a crime they would have assumed that I also knew and approved.

I had barely finished feeding my poultry and having my own tea when Hector sparked in through the gate in a new electric blue and viridian pullover. He came with a saucer of fresh-made butter from Morag and really sincere offers to help me with one or two jobs which he knew perfectly well I had already done for myself. He sat on the bench watching me as I cleared the table and washed the dishes, too ashamed and embarrassed to keep up a conversation but humming every now and then to show me how much at ease he felt. I had some letters to write and I wished he would go but I could not bring myself to say ‘I mustn't keep you back', which is the accepted Gaelic way of telling anyone ‘For goodness's sake, go!' My expression must have been a little forbidding because he tried several times to draw a smile from me by telling me feeble jokes. At last he could bear it no longer.

‘I wish I hadn't made you cross with tse fish,' he said miserably.

‘Oh, I suppose it's all right,' I conceded stiffly.

He got up and lumbered towards me, his arms outstretched. I remembered the cats, and capitulated.