Next day was a long one at the farlins, on through dusk and into slow twilight. Drifters kept arriving, the farlins kept filling, and we didn’t stop even for the broth and doughboys Izzy made for our tea. All day in blood and slime, with the pull at my back, my stomach bloated like a week-old fish, holding out, holding out. But even if there had been a break allowed for the laavie, I would have held out still. You’d to be desperate to use the rough shelter with its panless seat open to the sea and in full view of returning boats. If your belly muscles weren’t strong when you arrived at Gremista, they were when you left. They had to be.

And much else besides. The stations were no place for weaklings. I was already having trouble with my hands, burning in the salt. I was beginning to think I would never toughen up, never be anything more than a disaster.

March 1973

March 1973

Many things happened in that first season at Gremista when it was all so new to me, but I canna think they would interest anyone but those who lived through them, who share the same memories. Some have their place in the order of things that I want to write for you, lambsie. But you’ll have to be patient a while still, because I am learning as I go that we don’t always recognise the way parts fit together. We look back and it’s not always clear that this thing was important, and yes, if it hadn’t been for that …

I will just keep writing and hope the story will find its way.

7

In Gremista I discovered newspapers. Coopers would leave them in the salt stores, fuel to help light our fires. I’d not let Jeannie set ours alight until I had read every page—every piece of gossip, every report on the herring, every outraged letter to the editor, and all the advertisements besides.

Oh, how I missed school, for the pleasure of reading. Word was that Miss Birnie had been angry to see me pulled from school before my fourteenth birthday. She’d wanted me to come see her, but I didn’t go, and it was then that she’d sent me the book. Miss Birnie was an educated woman from Aberdeen. I didn’t want to look into her face and see disgust. I’d have had to tell her it was me who had begged to leave school, leave the village, go to the fish. An educated woman might have understood how I felt about what happened, aye, but not what I’d chosen. Not my way out.