When I wept in the face of my loss, her loss, in fear for all she was returning to, when I watched her stricken face grow ever further from me, I had no premonition, no knowledge, that this was a distance I could never breach again.

~

For a while it seemed that Nicol & Mair might send us back too—Clementina was good, but not even the best packer could manage with only one gutter on her team. And then Limpy Davy turned up at the yard with a wee girl a step behind him.

Daisy, he announced. Me sister.

Clementina lifted a brow. An’ what are we to do with a wee bairnikie like this one? We’re here to gut herrin’, not play Knifey with bairns.

But Daisy pulled a gipper from her skirt and said, I can gut herrin’ an’ all, I can. Me Mam showed me how. Good as you I are.

And so she was, although Limpy Davy had to set her on a box so she could reach into the farlin. It was a funny thing to watch, lambsie.

Me, I wanted to hug Limpy Davy’s Daisy every day. I would miss my Kitta more than I could say to anyone, and I worried myself sick for her hurt hand and the hurting no-one else could see. But … I am shamed to admit to such selfishness but … This is the truth, lambsie: I didn’t want to leave. There were weeks yet until the season was done and I did not want to go back to Roanhaven until the last herring of the year left Great Yarmouth in a barrel.

~

Less than a week later, another departure, unexpected. Bella Strahan disappeared, with not a word of goodbye nor reason—packed off back to Aberdeen, so it was whispered around the yards. I wasn’t grieved to see her gone, I couldn’t say otherwise, but I was curious, aye.

D’ye know? I asked Clementina that night, staring up at the staircase with its spidery shadows reaching into darkness. About Bella Strahan? Did she leave word, or has anybody told ye why?

She shook her head and snorted. A cradle bairn, is it ye are still, Fish Meggie? Is no need for anybody to say when ye can use the two eyes God gave ye.

I frowned helplessly in the dark. What was it I was supposed to have seen? But Clementina Slater was disgusted with me and pinched out the candle. The mattress rustled as she turned her ample self to face the wall of our little room. Which now smelled of camphor and only two gutting girls.

~

Christmas was near upon us and I was filled with dread. The herring season of 1905 was winding up with the year. In just a few months I had made my life over, left behind the wee quinie I had been. And now I had to return to Roanhaven.

July 1973

July 1973