He wanted his grandmother to have a good send-off, of course he did, but she wouldn’t have wanted all this fuss. She’d have been happy just to know all her friends were there in the kirk. The place she’d been married. The kirk was on a spit of land to the west of Whalsay known as the Houb. It was surrounded on three sides by the sea, and Mima always said that being there made her think of her sailor husband: it was a bit like being in a ship. She’d have wanted lusty singing during the hymns and a bit of a party afterwards. Nothing else would have mattered to her. Now his mother was wound up about getting rooms ready for Michael, Amelia and the baby, planning the food as if she was preparing for a thirty-day siege, working herself into a state about who else they should invite.
He relived the scene at breakfast. His mother had been at the kitchen table, drinking her second cup of tea, surrounded by lists. Lists of food and drink and people who should be told. Joseph had had the sense to make himself scarce and was already out on the croft, checking the ewes.
‘Do you think Paul Berglund would want to come?’ His mother’s question had come out of the blue, sharp, underlaid by a barely controlled hysteria.
‘I don’t know.’ Sandy thought it unlikely. Why would someone with a life want to go to the funeral of an old lady he barely knew?
‘He’s a professor,’ Evelyn said.
‘What has that to do with the price of fish?’
‘I was thinking Michael might get on with him.’
‘Michael will get on just fine with Ronald and the rest of the lads.’ But was that true? The last time Michael had been home it was like he was a different man.
Sandy sat on the grass and watched the boat come in against a stiff south-easterly breeze. It was one of those bright and gusty days: one minute there was sunshine and the next a bit of a squall would come up. At least the fog had cleared. He wished his mother could relax more. When she was relaxed she was a lovely woman. He’d thought with his father working at home and both of the boys gone she’d be able to enjoy herself, become less tense. He didn’t know what to do to help her. Once, confiscating cannabis from a couple of German students who’d been camping on Fetlar. he’d wondered flippantly if that might provide an answer. Chill her out a bit. Years ago he’d gone to visit Michael at Edinburgh University and someone had made hash cakes. He laughed at the thought of slipping some dope into his mother’s baking, wondered what Michael would say about the idea. Once he’d have laughed too, but now Sandy wasn’t so sure. That evening when they’d sat round with his friends in the student house, candles lit, music in the background, was probably the last time they’d really talked.
Maybe he should suggest to his mother that she should see a doctor. His understanding about women’s health was sketchy, but perhaps this anxiety, these swings in her mood were to do with her age. Wasn’t there a pill she could take? Like the cannabis but legal? He knew he’d never bring up the subject with her though, partly because he would be too embarrassed and partly because he was scared of what her response might be. It was pathetic, but she could still terrify him when she was angry.
Something positive had come out of the discussion over breakfast: he was going to move into Setter when Michael and Amelia came up from the south. His mother had agreed as soon as he’d suggested it. Sandy knew she was worried he’d show himself up in front of Michael’s smart wife, though she made out it was because they needed his room for the baby. It occurred to him that she might like Joseph to move out too, in case Amelia got upset by his drinking, his table manners and his limited conversation. He hoped so. He and his father would get on fine together there.
The boat was getting closer, bucking and twisting where the tides met. Sandy thought he’d drive down to the harbour at Symbister and wait at the Pier House for the boys to come in. They’d been out all night but they might be ready for a few pints before they hit their beds. He knew he was supposed to be making discreet enquiries into Mima’s death and he didn’t want to let Perez down, but everyone was entitled to some time off.
Besides, perhaps he might learn something from sitting with the boys in the bar. That was how Perez worked, after all. The inspector listened to folk talking, just throwing in a question occasionally, like tossing a pebble into a pool and waiting to see what the ripples stirred up.
Sandy was in the Pier House Hotel with the gang of men. Davy was there, but there were boys from the pelagic boats too. By now it was mid-afternoon. Sandy had had a couple of pints while he was waiting for his friends to come in, but they’d already caught him up and now they were steaming. They were laughing and joking because Sophie had come to look round the big boat the day before. One of the older men had said it was bad luck having an Englishwoman aboard. There were lots of superstitions about the fishing – words you shouldn’t say, rituals to follow – but Sandy had never heard that one before. Ronald wasn’t in the bar. Sandy had asked Davy where he was, but the man just made a gesture with his thumb to show that Ronald was well under Anna’s control. ‘These days he seems to spend all his free time with that stuck-up wife of his. He’s as daft about the new baby as a lassie. Anyway, he says he’s given up the drink.’
The men gathered at the bar looked at each other and began to laugh. Sandy felt excluded. It was as if they were sharing a joke he couldn’t understand. Because he lived in Lerwick he didn’t really belong here any more.
‘Aye well,’ Sandy said, aware that his words weren’t as clear as they should be. ‘If I’d shot a woman, I’d stop drinking too.’
There was a brief lull in the conversation then, before someone shouted to Cedric for more drink and the talk moved on.
Soon after, Sandy decided he would leave. It didn’t feel right to be here drinking when Perez thought he was working. He shouldn’t let his mother get to him in this way, niggling away at him until he was as tense as she was. He should be more like his father and just let her panic wash over him.
After the dark of the bar it was a shock to come out in to bright sunshine, to realize that it was still daytime. A couple of bairns ran up the street ahead of him, whooping and laughing until a pretty young woman came out of a house near the High School and called them in to their tea. He decided he would leave the car where it was and walk back to Utra. On the way he’d call into the Clouston house and see how Ronald was.
At first it seemed that the bungalow was empty. He opened the front door and everything was quiet. Then he thought perhaps the baby was asleep and Anna was resting. He didn’t want to shout in case he woke them so he closed the door quietly and started to walk back up the path.
‘Sandy!’ It was Anna. She was leaning out of the workshop window. ‘Sorry, I didn’t see you. I was dyeing some yarn. Come on in.’ Ronald had explained to Sandy about Anna’s ambitions to set up courses in spinning and knitting. It seemed odd to him: an Englishwoman presuming to teach other folk the traditional island crafts. He would have understood if that had annoyed his mother, but she’d said very little about it.
He went into the large room that was already kitted out for students. She lifted a hank of yarn out of a big old pan with a pair of stained wooden tongs. The wool was a sludgy green colour. He couldn’t imagine anyone choosing to wear it.
‘What do you think?’ she said. ‘It’s a new recipe. Lichen. Pretty, isn’t it?’
‘Aye.’
He was surprised to see her working so soon after the baby was born. Amelia had taken to her bed for what seemed like weeks after the birth of his niece. Evelyn had gone down to Edinburgh to help out, to cook and clean and shop.