Page 9 of On The Edge

6

Cat threw back the curtains and greeted the morning sun. From her window she watched the small fishing boats leave the harbour, with the blue sky highlighting the hills in the distance. The sea looked like a liquid mirror, with the surroundings reflecting on its surface. What a painting this would make, thought Cat. She washed her hair, dried it and got ready for breakfast. Grabbing a pen and pad on her way down the stairs, she decided today was going to be productive. Monique came through the swinging kitchen door into the dining room, holding a jug of coffee and went around the few tables of guests. Cat guessed Monique's origins might be American, but couldn’t quite identify her accent. The continuous holding of the coffee jug, however, and filling up everyone’s cups regularly seemed to Cat a very American-waitress sort of thing to do. She pondered this a moment until Monique came up to her small table at the window.

“Coffee?” she held up the jug with a smile. Wearing a tight skirt and cream silk blouse, Cat was impressed again by her fashion sense.

“Yes please,” Cat said as she took out her notepad and pen. “Monique, do you know anywhere I might find work, and also where I might learn to drive?” Cat was a little uneasy thinking of both these things, but there was nothing for it, she had to make a living and learn how to drive. No longer in the city, where she could hop on public transport, at a moment's notice, she needed to finally face up to the dreaded task.

Monique looked up to the ceiling as if there was something of interest there then sighed, “Mrs Hughes is a driving instructor, well at least she used to be. I will check with my husband Iain. As regards to work, well, it just so happens that I have – had - a barmaid who left to go back to Poland last week; the poor love was just too homesick. So you can help behind the bar if you’d like?”

Cat was a little stunned and didn’t know what she thought about working in a bar. She had never worked in a pub before. Stopping herself from thinking negatively she accepted immediately before the rational side of her brain had a chance to refuse her timely, and potentially only job offer. “I would love to!”

Monique gave her a pat on the shoulder. “Lovely darling, I’ll get Jim to show you the ropes tomorrow night.” Cat gulped down her coffee and nodded for another refill.

Standing at the bus stop outside the ferry terminal, Cat wished she had brought her gloves and hat. It was a bit early in the year to wear these, but today’s weather had a severe nip in the air. A small empty bus stopped for Cat and took her to the nearest town. On the speeding bus she looked out the window at the outstretched sea meeting the never-ending bright blue sky, while spiralling clouds floated across. Cat lay back, put on her headphones and observed the views to whimsical folk music that swirled intriguingly in her ears.

They arrived at a small group of buses, that Cat could only assume was the terminal. The bus driver had muttered something and left the vehicle, so Cat wandered out into the cool crisp air in search of the shops. After looking at a street map she had found in the hotel, she walked only a few minutes until she came upon a cobbled street lined with shops and cafes. Glancing in the windows, she peered at all sorts different goods on display, and couldn’t help but be tempted. She found a sweet shop and selected some toffee for herself, then couldn’t resist a paisley embroidered scarf she found in a craft shop. “That’s made locally,” the large, homely saleswomen said to her as Cat looked in the mirror admiring its rainbow of colours.

“It’s beautiful, I think I have too many scarves though,” Cat reflected uncertainly.

“Never!” the saleswomen said aloud dramatically, “a person cannot have enough scarves”. Cat laughed and eventually agreed to buy the item.

After a light lunch in a nearby cafe, she made her way to a very grand ancient cathedral, which loomed over the main street, standing to attention as people walked around it in admiring groups. Cat slipped inside and walked across the very centre of the echoing hall, taking in the beauty of the vaulted structures as different tour guides spoke at length to various huddles of visitors: on old folklore, Viking history, and ancient customs: information that Cat found herself drinking in and wanting to explore further. She overheard one small group of English tourists in particular speaking with their guide. “And there are standing stones here too?” a younger girl in glasses asked an old lady wearing a blue cap and jumper.

“Golly yes! There are standing stones and tombs. Not right here, but they are dotted all over the island, and the smaller isles scattered around us have them too!” She beamed down at the captivated girl, whose eyes widened in anticipation of her next question.

“And are there any stories around the stones? Like, has anyone gone missing?” The girl bit her lip and smiled as a laugh from another visitor echoed in the arching space.

The guide shook her head with a look best described as quiet disappointment. “We have had a lot of visitors recently particularly interested in the stones, and the legends relating to mysterious disappearances, but I’m sorry to say I’ve never heard of anything personally; maybe it’s best we leave all that to Hollywood.” She nodded and pressed her lips together. “But that’s not to say these stones are not special, either. People would celebrate Beltane; the peak of spring and the welcoming of the summer to come; these sites were seen as powerful places for other reasons, with many tales and histories surrounding them.” The lady scratched the side of her throat with a contemplating look on her face and glanced at her watch, but then continued. “If you want to know a special story, then there is one I was told as a girl, of Jimmy Tulloch the shepherd. Jimmy had his own little cottage, right on the edge of the beach, overlooking the wild sea ahead. He cared for his goats and sheep, and lived a quiet, peaceful, but lonely life. Each evening he would lock up the animals safely before the darkness and cold winds set in, but, one night, after returning late from the market on the mainland, he remembered he still had to herd the sheep inside before turning in. Luckily the moon was out, helping him to see the way, because in those days we didn’t have electricity. Thankfully, he managed to gather all the sheep away into their pen, but as he was making his way back to the cottage, he saw a figure in the dark water below. The moonlight spilled down over her pale skin, showing him all her beauty, but before he could say a word, she had vanished.” The guide snapped her fingers, making some of the listeners jump. “The next night, he went out looking for her, and then the next night, but he saw nothing. Soon he thought he was going mad, but her strange beauty haunted him, and he needed to know if what he had seen was real or not. Slowly growing more obsessed with the girl from the water, he spent each day hungry to see her again, if only for one more time. Then one night, he went to the pub to try to distract himself from his torment, and encountered a storyteller by the smoky fire, who told him a tale of a selkie girl, who came close to shore, to see what it felt like to be human for a night, who then by day would return to the water to become a seal again." The guide continued the story to her quiet group, her words clear and crackling in the thick air around them: “And so it is known that to keep a selkie on dry land, for your own, you must take and hide their sealskin, so that they must live as we do on the shore. Well, the shepherd looked out day and night until the lady returned, and return she did. He found her skipping over the rocks one warm night when the haze of the day’s sun was just below the hills. He grabbed the skin, which she had left to dry on a nearby rock, when she wasn’t looking, and buried it in the stone circle not too far from his cottage, knowing it would be the last place she would think to go, as stone circles were thought to ward off magical beings. Well, didn’t he get his wish: the girl was trapped, as without her skin, she could not return to sea. So he took her into his cottage, and clothed her in soft lambskin, and married her. For a time, they seemed happy, and the girl would help with the animals, and keep house. Jimmy thought he was the happiest man in the world, with, as he thought, the most beautiful wife he had ever seen. But as time moved on, the lost selkie girl spent her days more on the rocks than in the cottage, looking sadly out to sea, mourning her lost life. The shepherd dismissed the uneasy feeling he experienced each time he caught sight of his bride depressed, and was not even aware that she often looked high and low for her missing seal skin about the fields and the yard. Years passed, and she birthed him a son, a handsome, inquisitive little thing, who gave his mother no little joy, and the shepherd reassured himself that all was well. But one day the boy went to play around the standing stones, and rolling around in the grass he came across a small wooden stick with a red rag tied around it. He dug with his hands at first, and then with the stick, and was confronted with a sealskin, wrapped in old cotton. He looked at the article, confused, then heard his mother calling him. He ran down the hill, carrying this new strange treasure in his hands. Approaching her, he was met with a madness in her eyes he had never seen before, and without a word, she snatched the skin from his hand and ran out into the water, disappearing completely under the waves. The old shepherd and his boy never saw her again. Father and son lived in that old cottage till the end of their days, vowing never to interfere with spirits, faeries and the like. Even now, it is said that on some winter nights, a woman’s shrieking can be heard echoing from the standing stones. People swear it is the selkie girl returning to find she spent too long away in the sea - years pass like mere minutes down there - and has returned to find her child long dead.” The guide gave a sad smile. “She haunts the standing stones, hoping they will return her boy like they returned her skin.”

Cat smiled to herself at the mystery, but felt the smallest shiver go down her spine. A sad story indeed, but Cat felt it was a warning- for men and women - to not ever fully trust anyone. She stepped away from the mesmerised group, locked in her own thoughts. Like the selkie girl’s treasure, waiting at the standing stones, if Cat went there, would she find what she was looking for?

Cat walked along the now much quieter street; tourists still meandered glancing down at brochures as they went, as some of the shops began to flip their “closed” signs on doors. Cat made her way home back on the bus. The evening air had begun to blow and Cat could feel the iciness nipping at her, spring had certainly not sprung here, when would the warmth come? She decided she would treat herself to a bath before dinner and heat herself by her fire. When she finally reached her hotel room, she found a note under the door waiting for her.

Only me just thought I’d see if you were here for lunch today. Mon said you went into town today to see the sights, hope you had fun! I opened the studio a bit late today, so feel free to pop into the shop - I may be working there well into the night!

P.S Last night was great by the way!

J x

That night Cat popped next door to the local chip shop and picked up two fish suppers. Walking up the street she saw Jessie’s shop-front lit up, but with the blind down. The evening sunlight spilled onto the stone flags, it’s last rays soaking everything with a rich gold before it sunk into the sea. Cat waddled with her two heavy bags up to the door and gave the hardest knock she could muster; trying to make a sound over the loud music she could hear within. After a second attempt she went around the back, where the door stood slightly ajar. She soon found Jess bent over and lifting canvases off the floor.

“Hey!” Cat shouted over the music.

Jess screamed and dropped the canvass on the floor hiding her face with both hands.

Cat screamed too in shock, and then dropped her bags. “Jess it’s me! You left a note under my door!”

Jess quickly realised and started laughing, leaning hastily over to turn down the music.

“Crazy girl! It’s only me, what did you think I was, a ghost?” Cat chuckled after her fright.

“I had no idea! It’s an automatic response. You could have been an axe-murderer!”

“Well I don’t think covering your face with your hands would have saved much of you!”

“Hmm maybe not!” Jess picked up her canvases and put them to one side as Cat carefully offered up the bags of dinner. “Hey I smell fish and chips! Please tell me I’m not hallucinating from the paint fumes? I’m starving!” Jess stomped her feet eagerly like a little girl.

“OK, OK!” Cat removed the newspaper packages while Jess got together some cushions and blankets and placed them on the floor of her studio. Both sat themselves on the mishmash heap and began eating.