A Handful of Ash Read online

  It was only when I was back on Khalida, making a cup of tea, that I remembered Hallowe’en. All my Shetland childhood, the Hallowe’en party had been the Saturday before All Saints Day, so I’d never really associated it with a particular date. Of course, Monday was the eve of All Hallows. You’ll be back here for Monday night, then … Did Kevin really think I was going to join a coven dancing around a bonfire for their big night of the year?

  How big a night was it anyway? I switched on my laptop and googled ‘witches hallowe’en’. A wardrobeful of costumes leapt up. Witches’ festivals got me a page on Wikipedia, which explained the wheel of the year. I read it carefully, then sat back, thinking.

  It seemed there were eight pagan festivals, linked to the sun and moon, and celebrating the change of the seasons, one for each change, then a height-of season one. I knew some of the names. The old Shetlanders had a Beltane fire at midsummer, and the young boys of the place had to leap the flames for good luck in the coming year. The witches’ Beltane was the start of summer, followed by Lammas, the harvest festival, and then Samhain (pronounced sow-in, Wikipedia added helpfully), the Night of the Dead, around the end of October, considered by Wiccans to be one of the four Greater Sabbats. It could be held on a particular calendar night, or at the night of a full moon. I didn’t need a tide-table, with the moon gleaming silver on the water and the waves reaching towards the top of the beach, to know that Monday would also be full moon.

  I was just contemplating that one when my phone rang. It was Gavin. ‘Shall I bring tea along, or can I lure you out for a meal?’

  He’d bought the Chinese yesterday. I couldn’t let him pay for me again, and my finances didn’t stretch to the Scalloway Hotel. I did a quick calculation of the food aboard. I’d made a double portion of rice in the thermos flask. If I fried extra onions and carrots up with the kidney, and added the meat from the chops, they could stretch to two. ‘Tea’s just cooking, if you can eat kidneys.’

  ‘Sounds good. How are you going to cook them?’

  I hadn’t visualised him as one of those fussy men who have to have their meals just so. ‘Don’t you trust my cooking?’

  ‘I do. I just wanted to have the thought in my head to comfort me as I do paperwork. Remembering what I saw my mother chopping up as I left home is a great encouragement as I fight through the end-of-day Inverness rush hour.’

  ‘Fried,’ I said, ‘with onions and carrots.’

  ‘Rice or potatoes?’

  ‘On board, rice happens by itself in a flask, with just one boiling of the kettle, while potatoes take twenty minutes of gas and fill the cabin with steam to boot.’

  ‘That will be rice, then. Shall I bring a pudding?’ Dash! He was beginning to know my weaknesses.

  ‘I’ve got apples,’ I said, austerely.

  I could hear the smile in his voice. ‘Something with lemon and cream.’

  ‘Sounds good,’ I conceded.

  ‘What time would suit you?’

  We fixed on six o’clock. I closed the laptop and began chopping onions and carrots, sliver-thin, as I’d been taught by the Danish chef on board the Sorlandet, my first voyage on her – what had been his name, now? It had been only my second voyage aboard a tall ship, and a golden one, with a brisk wind, and all sails set. Just thinking of it reminded me why I was here, at this college, with people who thought I was a witch: to belong under those tiers of white sails, with the great wheel in my hands. I’d have my own cabin aboard, instead of sleeping with the paying crew in the long row of berths that had to be tidied away by eleven. I’d be part of the dinners around the captain’s mess, and the conferences at sea, to plan course and set watches.

  I didn’t see how Jimmy could think I was a witch. I went to Mass every Sunday, rain or wind, leaving Khalida at quarter to nine, and striding out up the hill. Sometimes I got a lift straight away; other times I had to walk a third, half, two thirds of the six miles to Lerwick before someone stopped to ask where I was off to. Maybe Scalloway gossip didn’t spread the way it did in the country. Everyone in Brae would have known I went to church.

  Maybe he heard only what he wanted to hear. It was nearly a century since women had fought their way to the vote, yet you still heard contemptuous jokes about blondes, or women drivers. Men still called women ‘dear’, and talked about ‘girls’, without meaning to be patronising, then complained we didn’t have a sense of humour when we objected. In their heads, nothing had changed. Maybe they still felt threatened by a woman who was visibly doing fine without them, who didn’t bow to their own idea that they were lords of the universe, and covered their uneasiness by deciding there was something wrong with her: a witch, a lesbian.

  I scowled in the direction of Scalloway. Even the witches had to have a male leader, Nate or some other shadowy figure … my hand stilled on my chopping knife. They didn’t have to. If there was a coven of witches in Scalloway – or, I added in the PC part of my mind, peaceably practising Wiccans celebrating the turn of the seasons – there was nothing to stop them all being female. Maybe Rachel compensated for having to make Lawrence’s tea on time by sneaking out at night to lead the ceremony to the mother earth goddess, along with all the other women whose days were set rigidly to a husband’s timetable.

  Just before six my phone bleeped. The text read V sorry slower be along by half past. Normal for policeman. G

  Normal for sailors 2 kidneys not yet on stove . I turned the onions off so they wouldn’t overcook, then spent the half hour re-stowing the sails in the forepeak. I’d be sailing tomorrow. Excitement bubbled up in me just at the thought of casting off these ropes that chained Khalida to her berth. We’d feel the wind again, and the swell of the sea. I refused to watch the clock for any man. Gavin arrived sometime about the time he’d said, after I’d finished laying the geneker out on deck, ready to hoist in the morning, and while I was busy re-coiling the rope to its furler. I saw him striding along the sea-front as soon as he’d passed the last building, the shed after the one where the government had done some kind of top-secret experiment in the fifties – heavy water, according to Magnie. Naturally it hadn’t been top-secret in Shetland. I waited until he’d reached the dinghy slip before I went to the gate. ‘Aye aye.’

  ‘Halo leat, Cass.’ Hello to you. He had a carrier bag in one hand, with a pudding-style box distending it, but no bottle; still on duty.

  I’d had a shot at reviving the Gaelic that had been spoken all around me in my childhood Christmases in Dublin, with my dad’s Mam and Da, and all my Irish cousins, particularly my tearaway contemporaries, Sean and Seamus, who’d led me into all sorts of trouble. Irish Gaelic was slightly less close to Scottish than Danish was to Norwegian, but I reckoned we’d communicate in time. ‘Conas atá tú?’ How are you?

  ‘A long day.’ He closed the gate behind him. ‘But good news at the end of it for your friends.’

  I paused by Khalida’s guard rail, looking at him enquiringly. He nodded and came past me in a swing of pleats, then turned in the cockpit. ‘Annette died of natural causes.’

  ‘Oh!’ Gladness welled up through me. This was good indeed: no news coverage or press intrusion for Kate and Peter, no long trial, no constantly re-living how their child had met her death. I motioned him into the cabin. ‘A heart attack? But she was so young!’

  ‘Not exactly.’ He sat down in his usual place, leaving the far end of the cabin free for me to manoeuvre round the cooker. ‘The cause was a spasm the body goes into when someone else comes up suddenly and places their hands around the person’s neck. It’s a sort of shock. Death’s unusual, but not unknown. We’ll still be investigating the full circumstances, but we can release the body to the family now, and let their grieving go on.’

  ‘So she died of fright?’ I remembered what James had said of her phobia about having her neck touched. Had someone known that?

  ‘The pathologist was more complicated than that. Essentially, yes. Whoever killed her probably didn’t mean to. The Procurator Fiscal w
ants the story cleared up, but it’s a case for the local force now.’

  A rush of disappointment swept over me. It was an effort to keep my voice casual. ‘So you’re going home?’

  His dark lashes flicked up, then veiled his eyes. His answer was as careless. ‘I thought I might stay on for the weekend. There’s no sense in carrying the paperwork home.’

  To occupy my hands, I took down the lantern I’d blown out while I was on deck, and began to open it. I was just framing a casual invitation to join me in tomorrow’s sail when there was a disturbance on the pontoon: a clang at the gate, followed by the stomping kerfuffle of a number of feet on the pontoon, and children’s voices from above us.

  ‘There aren’t any lights on. She’s not there after all.’

  ‘She’s a witch,’ said a very young voice. ‘I told you. She’ll be flying her broomstick.’ Across the table, Gavin frowned, his eyes flying to my face: What are you not telling me? His level brows rose, and his lips echoed, ‘A witch?’

  ‘She’s not a witch,’ said what had to be the voice’s big sister, impatiently. I knew that voice: it was Shaela, one of my sailors from the summer in Brae.

  ‘Mam wouldn’t have let us come if she was,’ said another girl. She didn’t sound totally sure.

  ‘Anyway, she’s not in,’ Shaela said. ‘There’s no light.’

  ‘Sssshhh!’ someone scolded. ‘I saw her come in.’ I couldn’t recognise the whisper, but the sound was familiar.

  ‘It’s guizers,’ I explained to Gavin. ‘Children in fancy dress. I’ll bring them aboard.’

  I called, ‘Aye aye’ as I came up the companionway, so they knew who I was, and swung onto the pontoon. ‘Were you looking for me?’

  The moon cast a cold, clear light over the five strange shapes, two at waist-height, two just below my size, and a taller one at the back, an adult crouching down. That made sense; they wouldn’t have been able to get on the pontoon without a key.

  ‘Come aboard,’ I invited them. They nodded solemnly, then filed after me to Khalida. Not speaking was part of the game; we had to guess who they were. Gavin moved to the heads space as they came in, head bent under the wooden lintel, kilt bright against the white paint. Squeezed in, the visitors were sinister, with their masked faces turning silently from Gavin to me. It took me straight back to my own childhood. Inga and her brother Martin and I had gone round the houses like this, in costumes made from our parents’ old clothes. I’d taken one of Maman’s dresses after she’d gone, and ruined it dodging in ditches. She’d never come back to notice.

  I lit the lantern to see the guizers better. There was a collective gasp as the candlelight flickered gold over Khalida’s wooden walls, the bookshelves, the brass fish medallion. I could hear them forcing themselves not to ask questions. The witch with a green face and a black bin-bag gown looked the right height for Shaela. Beside her was a very small ghost with two eye-holes cut in a sheet, then a soldier in khaki with one of those black balaclavas, and a pink sparkling fairy with a Venetian carnival mask. Last in was a scarecrow with a blue mask under a battered hat, and straw sticking out of the ends of his jacket. He was the tall one, knees bent in the baggy breeks to give an impression of a child. The eyes glittered at me in the candlelight. The fairy crept closer to the witch, and took her hand.

  ‘Shaela,’ I said, looking at the witch, ‘and your peerie sister.’ I nodded at the fairy. ‘I canna mind your name.’ They took their masks off. ‘I heard you speaking on the pontoon,’ I explained, and turned to the others, trying to remember who Shaela’s best pal had been. She’d usually sailed with a dark girl called Dorothy, but I would spoil their fun if I guessed too easily. I looked at the scarecrow, and named another sailor at random. ‘Dawn?’

  He shook his head, triumphantly. I turned my head to the soldier. ‘Francesca?’ A headshake, and a stifled giggle. ‘Are you Dorothy, then?’

  She nodded, and took the balaclava off. She’d painted her face khaki, so it still wasn’t easy to recognise her. Now, did Dorothy have a sister? I looked at the ghost. ‘And her peerie sis – ’ He was shaking his head before I’d finished the word. ‘Brother,’ I substituted.

  He nodded and untangled himself from the sheet. Now I had four faces turned to me expectantly, with that air of suppressed glee which suggested I was going to have difficulty guessing the scarecrow. I looked at him carefully. Khalida’s headroom was nearly six foot, and I reckoned that if he stood up straight he would be not much below the ceiling. I asked Shaela, ‘Is he someone I know?’

  She nodded and giggled.

  ‘Does he come sailing?’

  The scarecrow shook his head. ‘He’s too old!’ Dorothy’s little brother said, and they all giggled again.

  ‘Does he live in Brae?’ Shaken heads. ‘Lerwick?’ The heads shook again. ‘Here in Scalloway?’ Everyone nodded.

  I looked at the scarecrow again. Kevin had talked about going guizing. ‘Kevin?’

  The battered hat shook so hard it almost fell off. The gloved hands grabbed it. I tried to think of the other members of my class. ‘Jimmy? John?’

  ‘He doesn’t go to the college.’ Shaela put the emphasis on the ‘go’.

  ‘He doesn’t go,’ I said, thinking, ‘but is he there anyway?’

  Shaela gave the scarecrow a guilty look. He stood up to his full height, and I saw the black hair edging the blue mask. ‘Nate,’ I said.

  ‘He’s my cousin,’ Shaela said.

  Nate unmasked, and looked around with interest. ‘So this is what it’s like aboard. I like all the wood. What would happen if you had a fire?’

  I indicated the two fire extinguishers. ‘And there’s a fire blanket too.’ I wasn’t going to tell him the truth: between wood inside and fibreglass outside, she’d go up like a torch, and heaven help anyone who didn’t get out of her within thirty seconds. I didn’t like the way his mind worked – but maybe he’d just had kitchen safety drilled into him. Annette had dreamed of being hustled up the burn with her arms tied, and everyone laughing and jeering, and the smell of peat reek filling her mouth …

  ‘Well,’ I said, looking round. The next bit was that I had to give them sweets or money. ‘I wasn’t expecting guizers, so there isn’t a sweetie aboard, but have a ginger nut.’ I unscrewed the biscuit tub and passed it round. ‘Are you collecting?’

  I didn’t like this, Nate here, aboard, looking round at where I kept things. I fished in my jacket pocket for my purse and found two pound coins. ‘Here.’

  The small ghost tucked it solemnly in a black leather bag hung around his neck, like an old-fashioned ticket-collector’s satchel. ‘Thank you.’

  Gavin had opened his sporran at the same moment, and passed over a five-pound note. ‘Do you buy sweets with it?’

  The small ghost was so busy staring at his kilt that Dorothy had to answer for him. ‘It’s for fireworks, for bonfire night.’

  I remembered our other Hallowe’en ploy. ‘Are you going kale-casting tonight?’

  All the heads shook. ‘Tomorrow.’ Shaela grinned. ‘We’ll do it properly, wi’ peats, but the older bairns have got eggs.’

  ‘My big sister said,’ Dorothy added. ‘They bought a whole box of boxes from Tesco. They’re all going out, the whole class.’

  ‘Secrets,’ Nate warned them.

  ‘We used to kale-cast round Brae, wi’ kale,’ I said. Kale was a form of cabbage, dark green and so tough you had to boil it for twenty minutes before you could chew it. ‘We had to steal it from Magnie’s rig first, and he’d wait up with his shotgun.’ That had been part of the fun, trying to be so quiet that he never spotted us, to loose off a volley of shots in the air.

  The little ghost’s eyes went round. ‘Did he ever shoot you?’

  I shook my head. ‘We were very, very quiet. Then we’d take the kale and throw a few leaves in each porch, guttery roots and all, until we ran out. We’d save the gutteriest one for Magnie’s house on the way home, and he’d send his sheepdog, Bess, after us.’
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  She’d never have hurt a soul, but she’d circle round us, as if we were sheep to round up. There was always one of us who got frogmarched into the house. Magnie’s mam, Jessie, would shove a bucket of hot water at the unfortunate, and stand over them, arms folded, while they scrubbed the porch floor.

  Shaela said to her little sister, ‘You see? I telt you Cass is no’ a witch.’

  The sister set her lip stubbornly. ‘There are witches in Scalloway, though. We learned all about them in school.’

  ‘That’s a long time ago,’ I said. ‘There aren’t any now.’

  I could see she didn’t believe me. Her glance went up to Nate, as if checking what she could tell, then back to me. She took refuge in past facts. ‘They used to burn them. There’s a circle up on the hill that’s all ash, right down.’

  ‘No any more,’ Dorothy said. ‘Jim o’ Shalders’ Ayre ploughed it over. He said it was a superstition and a shame, and the women were poor folk who deserved a better burial.’

  ‘But they still meet up there,’ the sister insisted. ‘You have to pass an ordeal to join, and they’ll maybe consider me when I’m older.’

  Behind her, Nate made an abrupt movement, as if he wanted to stop her. His eyes flicked to me, then away; he put his mask back on. ‘Time to go, bairns.’ There was a collective ‘Awww’. The little ghost was looking longingly at my bed, running back under the cockpit.

  ‘If your shoes are clean,’ I told him, ‘you can try it.’

  ‘Quickly,’ Dorothy said.

  He didn’t need a second telling. He dived into the space and cuddled himself down comfortably, head on my pillow, then rolled over on to his back and contemplated the ceiling. ‘You can hear the water.’