In spite of myself, I looked for the cooper boy, the one who said he would dance with me. But he wasn’t to be seen. He’d been needed in the west, an extra hand at Nicol & Mair’s Scalloway yards—or so I was told. I’d not asked, mind, but there were those who made it their business to say, apparently at the boy’s bidding. I shrugged, indifferent—what was it to me? Why should I care? But I listened when the other boys spoke of when he’d be back. And I learned, from their talk, that the boy was older than I’d thought: seventeen. And that his name was Magnus Tulloch.

6

Singing and dancing in the starless dusk, warming our hands by the fishers’ fires, sharing the griddle cakes we’d made, the tea the coopers brewed—these joyful ceilidhs at work’s end every Saturday seemed adventure enough for me. But there were girls more daring. In little clusters, they’d walk to Lerwick to join the crowds of townsfolk, fishermen, sailors from ports all over the world, and quines stationed at yards within easy distance of the town.

One Sunday, while we tramped along the Gremista road to kirk, I listened to the talk about Saturday Night Lerwick. I hung on every word, and words became pictures. Dutch sailors in their clogs and baggy trousers. Men from Norway boats in dark dress, silver buttons on their jackets. Preachers gathering in Market Square, shouting hell and damnation—and here I thought of Pastor McNab, and didn’t that make me shrink a little into my woollen shawl! Men atop wooden boxes, men with Things to Say, calling through cones of stiff paper. Groups of girls linking arms, swearing sailors, drunken shopboys, fishers in gangs, all of them dancing up and down Commercial Street, sliding on banana skins and twists of orange peel. A fiddler on each corner, or a man with a button accordion, or a makeshift choir. A babble of voices, foreign words. And the things you could buy in shops! Feathered hats, drawers with lace, dresses with ribbons. Icecream, marble cake, sweeties in rainbow colours, extra-strong peppermints. You could buy anything in Lerwick, the girls said. Anything!

Such stories. There was nothing like this in the Forget-Me-Not Annual.

Kitta was walking arm in arm with Bella Strahan, an older girl from Aberdeen. Clementina and I struggled to keep up.

They go mad for peppermints, those Dutchmen do, I heard Kitta say, laughing.

I nearly tripped over my own boots. I stared, open-mouthed, at the back of her head. I wanted to put my hand out, stop her right there. Blunder in like a little girl, the little girl they would all think me. Instead, I turned to Clementina.

Have ye ever been to Lerwick on Saturday night?

Course I have, she puffed.