I read the newspapers aloud to my hoosie girls, none of them readers much themselves, and it sometimes turned out that they would rather do my chores so they could listen. Think of that, lambsie: I got to read instead of scraping potatoes for next day’s tea!

Those newspapers, they gave us a picture of the world close by, news that concerned us. Sometimes was even about us. The roving reporter, his name not said, seemed very interested in gutting quines. To see ourselves through the eyes of the people of Lerwick was curious.

We fishworkers who came as strangers were needed but not always welcome. And some of us were less welcome than others. I read out the reporter’s view that among the girls from Aberdeen, Gadlehead and those parts is a rough, undesirable element that one does not find in lasses from the Firth of Moray or the Highlands.

Clementina grabbed the pages out of my hand and thrust them on the fire outside our hoosie. If my mother heard that, she’d have me on the next boat home, she declared. But first she’d seek out Mr Newspaper hisself an’ give him somethin’ rough an’ undesirable to be gettin’ on with!

I found a letter to the Shetland Times from someone calling herself ‘Modest Married Woman’, who complained about the number of stranger-women who were seen in Lerwick under the influence of drink and making a night of it. I glanced across at Jeannie, sweet as can be with her knitting, and decided it was a letter best kept to myself. But happy I was to read to the girls that a certain John Noble, fisherman from the Ivy Lass out of Wick, had received a fine of four pounds for drunk and disorderly conduct and disturbing the peace of the fishworkers at Gremista.

8

All week Kitta avoided being alone with me. She knew I wanted to know about the man, and I couldn’t ask when there were others around to hear. Did she plan to go to town again come Saturday? She didn’t suggest it, and nor did I. Shawls and sugar biscuits aside, I was happy to leave Lerwick to the crowds. More lightsome it was, and safer, to see out the end of the week on station. Every fishing boat had a musician or two, and up they’d come to make a ragged orchestra for our reels, our quadrilles, our strip-the-willows. Music could be heard all over the bay and long into the night.

Still, when we were near to finishing at the farlins that Saturday, Kitta seemed jumpy, and slow with the knife.

Eh, quinie, ye great clumsy-drawers, what d’ye think ye’re about? Clementina was pulling a dozen mattie-fulls from Kitta’s mattie basket.

Perhaps Kitta was planning to walk to town, after all.