The Last Summer, page 1
The Last
Summer
Karen Swan
Contents
Prologue
BEFORE
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
AFTER
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Acknowledgements
For Laura Tinkl, who is part of our story now
Glossary
BOTHY: A basic shelter or dwelling, usually made of stone or wood.
CATCH A SUPPER: To receive a scolding.
CLEIT: A domed stone storage hut or bothy, only found on St Kilda.
CRAGGING: Climbing a cliff or crag; a CRAGGER is a climber.
DREICH: Dreary, bleak (to describe weather).
FANK: A walled enclosure for sheep, a sheepfold.
GREET: To cry or weep.
HIRTA: Principal island in the St Kilda archipelago and the only one inhabited. The other islands are Dun, Boreray and Soay.
LAZYBEDS: Parallel banks of ridges with drainage ditches between them; a traditional, now mostly extinct method of arable cultivation.
PEELY-WALLY: Looking pale or sickly.
QUERN: A simple stone hand mill used for grinding grains.
SOUTERRAIN: An underground chamber or dwelling.
STAC: A sea stack – a column of rock standing in the sea – usually created as a leftover after cliff erosion.
Prologue
21 June 1930
Glen Bay, St Kilda
The three young women sat cross-legged in the grass, their shadows long behind them as the sun softly dropped from its high arch. Sheep dozed on the slopes, tails flicking at the flies as they sought pale shelter against the stone dykes, waiting for the fluttering kiss of a breeze. It was summer’s longest day and the sky was holding its breath, the dry heat suspended above their heads like a tethered veil. Their fingers worked in unison as they pulled feathers from the bird carcasses, plumes of white down speckling the meadow like daisies.
Flora pressed the back of her hand to her brow. ‘I’ll not miss this.’
‘Of course you won’t. You won’t even remember it,’ Effie said with a wry glance. ‘You’ll be a grand lady in your house with stairs and you’ll have lipstick and a wireless and you simply won’t believe that you ever had to pluck the fulmars.’
Flora preened, delighted by the image. ‘You must come to visit. James says there’ll be a bedroom for each of you and we’ll get you a new dress every time you come to stay, and we’ll go to shows and we’ll dine in restaurants . . .’
Mhairi frowned. ‘Real-life restaurants?’
Effie laughed. ‘Yes! Actual places where they pluck and cook the birds for you.’
‘Oh . . . That must be nice.’
‘James says in Glasgow you could go out every night for a month and not eat in the same place twice.’ Flora tossed her long dark hair back from her face.
‘So long as m’ belly’s full, I’ll not much care what’s in it,’ Effie shrugged.
Mhairi’s hands had fallen still and the sudden absence of activity was jarring to the others. They looked up to find her biting her lip, trying to hold back tears.
‘Hush now, Mhairi,’ Flora said quickly. ‘You’ll be fine.’
‘How can you say that? It’s not the same for me as it is for you. When we cross over, you’ll get everything you ever wanted. But I’m going to lose everything. And nothing can stop it.’
‘A wave will rise on quiet water, Mhairi,’ Flora said, smoothing back Mhairi’s flame-coloured hair and reaching for her hand. ‘You have to just trust your happiness lies in another place.’
Mhairi snatched her hand away. ‘You keep saying that, but what’s being asked of me . . . it’s too much!’ Her grey eyes burned. She was rarely given to anger. She had a gentle nature and an open heart, but neither had served her well in bringing her to this point.
‘I know. And I’d be raging too. I’d be mad with grief if it was me who had to do it,’ Flora agreed warmly. ‘But you’re a better person than me. You’re good all the way through. I’m not even good skin deep.’
‘You’re not that bad,’ Effie protested, rolling her eyes.
‘Aren’t I? I lose my temper if the wind messes my hair. I curse if I bang my knee in kirk. If it wasn’t for this . . .’ She framed her beautiful face with cupped hands. ‘They’d have thrown me over the top years ago.’
There was a short silence. Slowly, Flora gave an impish smile.
Mhairi chuckled softly, in spite of herself. ‘They would not,’ she chided, fondly slapping Flora’s knee. ‘You have lots of good qualities.’
‘I’m a beautiful monster,’ Flora argued, looking not in the least concerned by it. ‘And Effie’s a tow-haired wildling . . .’
‘Oi!’ Effie protested, her long trousers covering the multitude of scabs on her knees and shins from scrambling over the rocks.
‘You’re the best of us, Mhairi. There’s no way you’re not going to get your reward. It is coming,’ Flora said with her usual determination. ‘Even if you can’t see it yet. You have to believe it’s coming.’
Mhairi shook her head sadly, but she gave no more reply. Flora’s passion could normally convince them all that the sky was green and the sea was black, but Mhairi had no wish to imagine an unseeable future when all that she wanted, she already had. If they could only stay here . . . But their paths had been set and the outcome couldn’t be altered now. Not for any of them.
‘The same goes for you.’
Effie flinched, her breath catching high in her throat, as Flora’s keen gaze fell upon her too. She closed her eyes, willing it to be true, but knowing that to get any sort of happy ending, she had to do more than step onto a boat. It wasn’t a distant time or another place that blocked her future from view but the threat of something unspeakable. Unthinkable. It hung over her at all times, a swinging scythe above her head as she cut the peats or hoed the beds, a shadow that crept through her dreams.
‘You’ll be free there,’ Flora said fervently.
Effie swallowed and nodded, wishing she could believe it. No one spoke for several moments. It still didn’t seem possible that horror could touch them here on their secluded isle, but this summer everything had changed.
‘There’s only a few weeks to go now, but you must be ready just in case,’ Flora said. ‘You must dig your bait while the tide is out.’
‘I know.’ Effie had been slowly gathering what she needed, taking care to spread apart the petty thefts so that no one noticed the missing length of rope or the rusted knife that used to lie in the bottom of the skiff. There was one more thing she needed but she knew it couldn’t be found anywhere on the isle. ‘And I’m almost there, if Captain McGregor will help me.’
‘When is he hauling anchor?’ Mhairi asked anxiously.
Effie glanced towards the setting sun, gauging the time. It had dropped below the Mullach Bi cliffs; there was maybe another three hours of light. But with a two-hour walk back to the other side of the isle . . . ‘Soon. I should be heading back.’ She tucked her legs in to stand but Flora reached for her hand first.
‘Before you go.’
They sat joined together in their small circle, the crash of the sea and the chatter of wrens a symphony around them.
‘I know it’s hard. Hardest of all on the two of you. In a couple of months, our lives are going to change forever. We’ll leave here and everything we know will be different. Every single thing. Some will be better, some will be worse. But I also know a day will come when we’ll look back on this moment – on the three of us sitting on the grass, with feathers in our hair and dead birds by our feet – and there’ll be something of it that still remains.’
‘What?’ Mhairi blinked.
‘Us. This.’ Flora squeezed their hands tighter. ‘We’ll always be Kilda girls, no matter where we end up. Ma’s forever saying there’s no secret if three know it, but she’s wrong in our case. What we three do, only we three will ever know.’ She pressed her finger to her lips. ‘We’re sisters. Yes?’
Mhairi nodded, Effie too; she felt an unfamiliar lump in her throat. She wasn’t one for sentimentality but emotions were trying to press through her thick skin. She got up, her shoulders held high, her lithe body as brittle as a stick. ‘I’ll be back over when I can.’
She could feel their apprehension at her back as she turned away and began striding for the ridge. She wanted to stay with her friends. She wanted to pretend they were still just girls and life was, if not easy, then at least fair. But those days had sunk with other suns and she knew the moment was upon her to face her future. Flora was right; she was always right: the tide was out. It was time to d
BEFORE
Chapter One
A month earlier – 13 May 1930
The dogs were barking on the beach. The old women came to stand at their doors, looking out with hard frowns across the curve of the bay. The tide was going out and there’d been a testy wind all day, whipping up the waves and making the birds wheel with delight.
Effie didn’t move from her position on the milking stone. She had her cheek to Iona’s belly and was filling the pail with relaxed indifference. She knew it could be another twenty minutes before a boat nosed around the headland, though it would probably be sooner today, given these winds. Her collie Poppit – brown-faced, with a white patch over one eye – sat beside her, ears up and looking out over the water, already awaiting the far-off sea intruders, though she wouldn’t leave Effie’s side.
She watched the movements of the villagers from her elevated perch. The milking enclosure was a good third of the way up the hill and she always enjoyed the view. It was a Tuesday, which meant washing day, and she could see the younger women standing in the burns, skirts tucked up and scrubbing the linens as they talked. They wouldn’t like having their sheets flying in the wind if visitors were coming. None of the tourist boats were scheduled to come this week, but if it was a trawler, it wouldn’t be so bad; most of the captains were friends.
The indignity of airing their linens before strangers was taken seriously in a village where privacy was merely a concept. The layout alone meant anyone could see the comings and goings of the villagers from almost any point in the glen; it was shaped like a cone with smooth but steep slopes two-thirds of the way round, leading up to towering cliffs that dropped sharply and precipitously on the other sides to the crashing sea below. The cliffs only dipped, like a dairy bowl’s lip, on the south-easterly corner, skimming down to a shingle beach. There was nowhere else to land on the isle but here. The seas were heavy and torrid all around but by a stroke of luck, the neighbouring isle, Dun – no more than a bony finger of rock – almost abutted the shores of Hirta, creating a natural breakwater and rendering Village Bay as a safe haven in the churning grey waters of the North Atlantic. During some storms they had as many as twenty ships taking refuge there.
Trawlermen, whalers, navy men, they all rhapsodized, as they took shelter, about the welcoming and cosy sight of the village tucked beneath the high-shouldered ellipse, chimneys puffing, oil lamps twinkling. The grey stone cottages – interspersed with the older traditional blackhouses, which had been steadily abandoned since the 1860s – sat shoulder to shoulder and fanned around the east side of the bay, bordered by a strong stone dyke. Looking down from the ridges on high, they were like teeth in a jaw. Giant’s teeth, Effie’s mother used to say.
The village’s position afforded the best protection from winds that would funnel down the slopes at speeds that lifted rocks and tore the steel roofs from the stone walls (at least until the landlord, Sir John MacLeod of MacLeod, had had them strapped down with metal ties).
The Street – and there was only one – was a wide grassy path, set between the cottages and a thick low wall that topped the allotments. It was the beating heart of island life. Everyone congregated there, protected further from the wind by their own homes and able to bask in the sun on fine days. The old women sat knitting and spinning by their front doors; the children ran along the wall, cows occasionally nodding over it. Every morning, the men would meet outside number 5 and number 6 for their daily parliament to decide upon and allocate chores; and after tea, the villagers would amble down it to pick up from their neighbours ‘the evening news’.
In front of each cottage, across the Street, was a long, narrow walled plot that ran down towards the beach. It was here that the villagers planted their potatoes in lazybeds, hung their washing and allowed their few cattle to overwinter. During the summer months, the cows were kept behind the head dyke, whilst the many sheep were grazed on the pastures of Glen Bay, on the other side of the island. Separated from Village Bay by a high ridge, Am Blaid, Glen Bay spiralled down to a sharply shelved cove. There was no beach to speak of over there, for the northerly waves were relentless and though the villagers kept a skiff there for emergencies, heading out and coming ashore were only possible on the rare occasions when the prevailing wind switched and the sea lay fully at rest.
Iona stopped munching and moved with a twitch of irritation. Unperturbed, Effie reached down for the pile of dock leaves she had picked on her way up and wordlessly passed her another few. The cow gave a sigh of contentment and Effie resumed milking. This was their usual morning routine and both were accustomed to its gentle rhythms.
A few minutes later, the pail was almost full and Effie sat up, patting Iona on the flank. ‘Good girl,’ she murmured, standing up off the milking stone and looking down the slope. As predicted, the prow of a sloop was just nosing round the headland of Dun.
She watched keenly as the ship slipped silently into the embrace of the bay and threw out an anchor, sails drawing down. Not a trawler, then. The women would be displeased. This vessel with its slim-fingered triple masts and low curved hull was a finessed creature, more likely found in the azure waters off France than the outermost Hebrides.
‘Friend or foe?!’
The question echoed around the caldera.
The crew were just black dots from here but she could see the locals already readying the dinghy; the men would need to row powerfully against waves that were pounding the shore. The passengers aboard the sloop had chosen a bad day to sail. The open water would have tossed them like a cork and although Dun’s presence granted mercy, it was no free pass; a south-easterly made the bay’s usually sheltered water froth and roil like a witch’s cauldron and there was no guarantee they would be able to disembark.
Only one thing was certain: if the men were able to land them, no one would be coming back dry, and the villagers knew it. Already faint twists of grey smoke were beginning to twirl from the chimneys, people rushing in and out of the arc of low cottages that smiled around the bay and taking in their washing, sweeping floors, putting on shoes, moving the spinning wheels to their prominent positions so that their visitors might watch.
They all knew the drill. Catering to the tourists had become a quietly profitable sideline. It couldn’t help feed them – with not a single shop on the isle, they had little use for money on Hirta itself – but it was useful for asking the more familiar captains to bring back treats when they were next passing, or to give as extra credit to the factor when he came wanting the rents. Or in Flora’s case, to purchase a brightly coloured lipstick she’d once seen on one of the well-heeled lady visitors – even though it would be wasted on the three hundred sheep she was currently herding in Glen Bay for the summer.
None of the villagers understood quite why the world at large took an interest in them, but the postmaster, Mhairi’s father, Ian McKinnon, had been told by colleagues on the mainland that a St Kilda-stamped postcard was now considered desirable, if not valuable. Their way of life, they were told, was being rapidly left behind by the rest of the world. Industrialization meant society was changing at a more rapid pace than any other time in centuries and they were becoming living relics, curiosities from a bygone age. Some people pitied them, perhaps, but the St Kildans cared naught for sympathy. They had learnt to play the game to their advantage – Effie chief among them.
She lifted the pail and began to walk down the slope, her eyes never fixing off the black dots as they transferred from one heaving vessel to the other. Once they’d dried off and recovered from the swell, she knew they were going to want a show. And she was going to give it to them.
‘Where’ll they do it?’ her father asked gruffly as she finished with churning the butter. He was standing by the window, looking out, his pipe dangling from his bottom lip.
‘Sgeir nan Sgarbh, I should say,’ she replied, closing the lid of the churn and going to stand beside him. ‘It’ll be more protected from the wind round there.’
‘Over the top, aye, but will they get the dinghies round on the water?’
‘Archie MacQueen’s got the arms on him,’ she murmured.
‘Just not the legs.’
‘No, not the legs.’ She watched a trio of men walking down the Street. One she recognized by his distinctive gait – Frank Mathieson, the factor, their landlord’s representative and the islanders’ de facto ruler – but the other men were strangers. They were wearing well-cut dark brown suits and wool hats, but from beneath one of them she caught the gleam of golden blonde hair and a tanned neck. She willed him to turn around, wanting just to glimpse the face that went with that hair and elegant physique; but the path curved, taking them out of sight.
