He was aware of the party going on at the Herring House. He hadn’t been invited, but he knew just the same. At one time Bella had always invited him. She’d drive up the track in that smart four-wheel-drive – although why she needed a car like that when she only went these days to Lerwick or to Sumburgh to get the plane south, he couldn’t say – and come into his house, not waiting to be asked.
‘You will come, Kenny, won’t you? You and Edith. I’d like you to be there. We wouldn’t have the Herring House if it hadn’t been for all the hard work you and Lawrence put in.’
And that was true too. Once she’d taken it into her head to buy the place and do it up, they’d been there most nights after he’d finished with the sheep or in the fields, working on the building. Most of the labouring work had been theirs. A labour of love, Lawrence had called it. And it was true they’d been paid very little. But it had been hard to make any sort of living from crofting then and with the children growing up the extra money had been useful. Bella had probably thought she was doing them a favour. Those days all the men could turn their hands to anything.
After they’d finished working Kenny would go home to Edith, leaving Lawrence to talk to Bella. Sometimes it would be so late when Kenny walked up the track to the house that he’d be sure Edith would already be asleep. But she was always awake, waiting for him. She’d never been one for an early night. In the winter she’d be sitting by the fire knitting. He’d known it was late because the house was tidy – the only time it was ever tidy, with the two children there during the day. This time of year she’d be outside working in the garden, even in the small hours of the morning. She’d spit out one of her sharp comments about Bella taking advantage of him before going with him into the house. It might even have been before Eric had started school, and that was hard to imagine. Now they were both grown up. Ingirid was about to have a child of her own. She was a midwife close to Aberdeen and Eric was farming in Orkney.
Now Bella didn’t ask any more. She knew Kenny wouldn’t go. Edith might have been glad of a chance to dress up at one time. To go to the fancy party and drink the wine and listen to the talk about art and books. One way of getting their money’s worth out of Bella, at least. But Kenny had always put his foot down. Usually his wife was the one who laid down the law, but when it came to Bella Sinclair he was firm. ‘Lawrence might still be here if it wasn’t for her.’ Once he had almost added, That woman broke his heart. But Edith would have mocked him for being so sentimental. She’d always had a wicked tongue in her head, even as a child. She still did. He smiled. More than thirty years married and he was still scared of her.
He looked at his watch. It was nine-thirty, later than he’d thought. At this time of year it was easy to lose track. He came up on to the hill every night unless the weather was so bad that there was no point to it. To check the sheep, he said, though that was an excuse. It was an escape from Edith tapping away on the computer, a time for himself. When Edith was working, he felt that the house was just an extension of her office and he never felt comfortable there. In the winter he’d sometimes drive over the hill with a shotgun and a torch, after rabbits. The rabbits got caught in the glare of the spotlight and then they were easy enough to take. He had a silencer on the gun so he didn’t make a noise getting the first one; he wouldn’t want to frighten the others away. He didn’t much like the taste of rabbit, the flesh was too sweet and slimy, but hidden in a pie with plenty of onion and chunks of bacon he’d eat it occasionally. Usually though he ended up throwing most of the carcases away.
A waste, Edith said. There had been no spare money when she was a child and she still imagined the return of the bad times, even though she had a good job and he took on a bit of building work beside the croft. She resented money ill spent. But they had savings now. They wouldn’t starve in their old age or be dependent on their children.
He called to Vaila, his dog, and turned back towards his house. He could see it on a slight rise in the land just in from the water, with the Herring House much taller beyond. Further along the shore was the graveyard. In the old days before the roads were built they’d carried the corpses for burial by boat. That was why in Shetland the graveyards were always close to the water. He thought he’d quite like his body to be carried to its grave in his own boat, but he supposed there’d be some reason why it couldn’t happen like that now.
His attention was caught by movement on the road. His eyes weren’t as good as they had been, but he thought he saw someone leaving the gallery. He watched. He pretended not to be interested in Bella’s doings but he couldn’t help being curious. Usually her parties didn’t finish this soon and this guest didn’t get into a car and drive back down the length of the voe to the big road towards Lerwick. Instead the person turned up the road the other way, past the post office and the three houses on the shore towards the jetty. After that it only led to the old manse where Bella lived, and to Kenny and Edith’s house. Beyond Skoles the track petered away into a footpath across the hill to the next valley. The only people to use that were Kenny, when he was checking on his sheep, and holidaymakers walking.
Kenny stood and watched the figure until it disappeared out of sight where the road fell into a dip. He was running, a strange loping run, leaning forward so it looked as if he was going to tip over. Kenny thought that was typical of the people Bella knocked around with. Artists. They couldn’t even run like other folk. She’d always attracted strange people to her. The summers when they were all younger the Manse had been full of outsiders, drifting in and out with their odd clothes, weird music coming through the open windows, and always the sound of their talking. Yet now she was quite alone, apart from that nephew of hers. She should have stayed with Lawrence.
He carried on up to the hill, making a rough count of the sheep in his head. Later in the week he’d have to round them up and bring them down for clipping. There were a couple of chaps from Unst who were coming to help him, and Martin Williamson had said that he’d give a hand too.
When he got to the house it was gone eleven o’clock, but Edith was still in the garden. She was hoeing between a row of beans, pushing away the weeds with short aggressive jabs. She must have been stuck on the computer for most of the evening though, because she hadn’t done so much. When she heard him coming she looked up. He thought she looked very tired. She’d had a meeting in Lerwick all day and that always wore her out.
‘Come away inside,’ he said. ‘The mosquitoes will bite us both to death.’
‘Just let me finish this row.’ He stood watching her bending over the work and he thought how stubborn she was and how strong.
‘Did you see that man?’ he asked, when she straightened at last and rested the hoe against the wall of the house.
‘What man?’ She looked up, pushed a stray hair from her face. He thought she was prettier now than she had been when she was young. When she’d been young her face had been a bit pinched and there’d been no flesh at all on her. What he’d felt for her then, it hadn’t been love. Not the sort of love they showed on films, at least. The sort of love Lawrence had felt for Bella. It hadn’t been that way for him or for Edith. But they’d got on and he’d known it would work out. They wouldn’t irritate each other unduly. Now that she’d reached fifty, sometimes he looked at her with wonder. Her face was hardly lined, her eyes so blue. There was a passion between them that they’d never had the energy for when the children had been young.
‘What man?’ she repeated. Not annoyed that she’d had to repeat herself, but half smiling as if she could tell what he was thinking.