Oh, aye, even more than ye if I knew what it were. Expori-what?

Expectorations, I said, looking up. Spitting!

And we laughed until Kitta wailed that she’d wet her pants. Which made us laugh more.

~

I was glad to have Isobel by me at the farlins, and Mary on the other side of her. I missed them at night, the Cruden Bay girls. I even missed Jeannie’s snoring. If it were not for my hands, the mess it made of them, the sting of salt eating into the sores, I would never have minded the nights when the drifters kept arriving and we worked past twelve under the light of naphtha flares, which turned our scaly arms as silver as the herring. Exhausting, aye, but the routine was a comfort. We would send Limpy Davy, a cooper boy, up to the Fishwharf stalls to fetch us bread and jam and flasks of tea. But on days when we were done by four, well, I was lost. I longed for the community of girls in the wee hoosies of Gremista, our evening singing as we cooked broth or fried some herring for tea.

Mrs Booth would not allow us in the kitchen. Too scaly, we were, too smelly, yew know. We bought penny buns for supper and then walked awhile in little groups, looking at funcy things in shop windows. But the evenings were dark early, and the cold was closing in, and there was plenty of trouble about in the port side of town. Too soon we were back in the fuggy room under Mrs Booth’s staircase. Too much fuggy time for wishing we were somewhere else.

Ye think too much, quinie, Clementina Slater said when I sighed yet again. Be glad ye’re here, eh! Just think of that!

A picture of Roanhaven threatened like a sudden heavy squall. Oh, aye, I am glad to be here. But Gremista … There’s something … the air is not the same here. Don’t ye think, Clementina? Don’t ye think so?

Ooh-hoo! Listen to this one, complainin’ about the air now! Bella Strahan minced across the room, hands flouncing about.

I just mean … I stopped, flummoxed. I couldn’t talk to Bella Strahan.

We-e-ell, Clementina said slyly, I don’t believe it be the Gremista air ye’re pinin’ for, quinie.

Ooh-hoo, no, that’s right! This one’s walkin’ out with a wee loon! A bairn an’ a bairn!

Ach, hush your mouth. I’d had enough. An’ away with ye to Banff an’ be boiled in a pot!

Kitta had been half dozing, half knitting all the while. The whole conversation passed her by.

~

It wasn’t long before Bella Strahan found herself somewhere more enlivening to go after supper. This would not have caused me any grief but that she was taking Kitta with her.

What place is it? I asked when Kitta told me to walk straight home with Clementina.