Entry Island (32 page)

Blanc sucked a mouthful of smoke into his lungs. ‘What about his father?’

‘His father was shot dead trying to poach deer on the estate during the potato famine.’

‘I thought that was an Irish thing.’

Sime shook his head. ‘The famine was just as bad in parts of Scotland.’ He nodded towards the port. ‘When he got here he went searching records at the harbour master’s office, trying to establish when the boat his family came on had arrived. So he could try and find them. A boat called the
Heather
.’

‘And?’

‘There was no record of it. And he was told it was presumed lost at sea. In those days, if a boat went down no one ever knew.’ He recalled only too clearly his grandmother reading that passage from the diaries. How his ancestor had got drunk, and been rescued from the hands of unsavoury characters by an Irishman he’d met. He shook his head. ‘Hard to imagine what it must have been like. Thrown off your land and forced on to boats. Arriving in a strange land with nothing. No family, no friends.’

‘What happened to him?’

Sime shrugged. ‘He did all right for himself in the end. Ended up making a bit of a reputation as an artist, of all things.’

‘You got any of his paintings?’

‘Just the one. A landscape. I guess it must be the Hebrides. A pretty bleak-looking place. No trees, nothing.’ And it occurred to him that the imagery that coloured the backdrop to his dreams must have come from that painting hanging in his apartment. He turned to Blanc. ‘What about you? What are your roots?’

Blanc said, ‘I can trace my ancestry all the way back to the early Acadians who first settled in Canada. They came from a town in the Poitou-Charentes region of western France called Loudun.’ He grinned. ‘So I’m a real pure-blood Frenchy. I guess the difference between my people and yours is that mine came voluntarily. Pioneers.’

A taxi pulled up at the kerb and beeped its horn. Both men stood up quickly and Blanc left some coins on the table.

They were in the air shortly after midday and would be back on the islands by two. Crozes had told Blanc on the phone that he was calling a team meeting at the Sûreté to assess the evidence gathered to date and decide what further steps to take.

Sime let his head fall back in the seat and closed his eyes only to find Kirsty Cowell’s face there, waiting for him, somehow etched on his retinas. He thought about what Blanc had said to him at the café about the way he was with her.
There’s something personal there, and it’s not right. It’s not professional
. And he wondered if he was losing all objectivity in this case.

He felt the plane bank left as it circled over the city below to set a course that would follow the river north towards the Gulf. Blanc nudged his arm. He was in the window seat peering down on the landscape beneath them as they made the turn. It was a beautiful crisp, clear autumn day and the colours of the forest lining the banks of the river were spectacular in the sunlight, as if they had been enhanced by photo-manipulation software. ‘Look,’ he said. ‘See that string of islands in the river?’

Sime leaned over him to try to catch a glimpse. And there they were, standing out in sharp relief against the flow of dark water in the St Lawrence. Grey rock and fall foliage.
Nine or ten of them, varying in size, stretched out along the course of the St Lawrence to the north-east of the city.

‘Third one up from the Île d’Orléans,’ Blanc said. ‘That’s Grosse Île. That’s where they had the quarantine station for immigrants in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. You ever hear about it?’

Sime nodded grimly. ‘Yes.’

‘Poor bastards. It was sheer hell, they say.’

And Sime’s recollection of his ancestor’s experience there came flooding back.

This voyage is a nightmare beyond anything I might ever have imagined. And it has only just begun! God only knows what miseries lie ahead.

I have learned not to think about Ciorstaidh, for it brings only pain and increases my depression. Had she been aboard with me as planned, we would have been in one of the few passenger cabins above deck. She had our papers, and when it was discovered that I had none, and no proof that my passage had been paid for, I was told by the first mate that I would have to pay my way, and was assigned to the kitchen to cook for the passengers below deck, among whom I would have to find a place.

The kitchen is really just a crude preparation area, and the three of us designated as cooks find it almost impossible to work when the seas are rough, as they have been since we left.

The drinking water in the barrels provided is green. Almost undrinkable. And half the grain in the sacks is mouldy. There is precious little in the way of meat, and it
won’t keep long anyway. I have no idea how we are going to eke out the potatoes and onions and turnips for the length of the journey.

I have learned that most of the 269 folk in steerage are from the Isle of Skye. Cleared from their land and sent to Glasgow by their landlord, who has paid their passage to Canada. Most of them possess no more than they stand up in. They have no money, and no idea what will happen to them when they arrive at their destination.

The
Eliza
was never intended as a passenger vessel. She is a cargo ship. She will return to the British Isles laden with goods from the New World, and the people in steerage on the way out are little more than paying ballast.

What they call steerage is a cargo hold crudely adapted to take people. Stalls have been constructed along each side of the hull, and down the centre of the ship. The stalls are on two levels, squeezed between the upper and lower decks. They provide little more room on filthy, stained planking than you can lie down on.

Families are squeezed in, eight or ten to a stall. There are no toilets. Just tin chanties that you have to carry, sloshing and spilling, up to the top deck to empty overboard. The air is thick with the stench of human waste and there is no water for washing.

Neither is there privacy when you perform your toilet. Which is embarrassing for everyone, but for the women in particular. Most use blankets held up by family members to screen them.

It is dark down here, and oppressive. In bad weather they batten down the hatches and we see no daylight for days on end. The only illumination comes from the oil lamps that swing overhead, releasing their fumes into already unbreathable air. There are times I cannot even see to write this account of my life, and when the boat yaws and pitches in a storm I am inclined to think that no one will ever get to read it. I have been fortunate to be taken under the wing of the captain’s wife, as almost the only passenger in steerage who speaks English. She has provided me with materials to write my journal and a place to keep it safe. The writing of it is the only thing that keeps my sanity intact during these interminable hours and days.

The seasickness is bad, and the music of human misery that I am now used to hearing day and night is almost constantly punctuated by the sound of vomiting. I often think of my mother and sisters aboard the
Heather
, and how it must be for them, too. It is a thought I can hardly bear.

There is another sickness as well. Not caused by the motion of the boat, but by some malady. There is one man, I have noticed, who seems sicker than the rest. A young man, fit and strong, maybe five or six years older than myself. His name is John Angus Macdonald, and he has two young children and a wife pregnant with a third. He has violent sickness and diarrhoea and has not eaten for two days now. And just tonight I noticed an eruption of red spots on his chest and abdomen.

*

We have been at sea for two weeks, and John Angus Macdonald is dead. He and his family were in the stall next to mine and I watched him wither in front of my eyes.

We held a brief funeral service for him this morning. Just a handful of us allowed up on deck for the ceremony. I cannot describe how wonderful it was to breathe fresh air, although in the end it only made it harder to return below deck.

John Angus was wrapped in the sheet he died in. Crudely sewn into it. I was only there because I am one of the few aboard who can read and write, and someone thrust the Gaelic bible in my hand and asked me to read from it. I remembered the passage old blind Calum had recited over my father’s coffin. Although it took some time, I found it eventually: John, chapter 11, verse 25.
I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and believeth in me, shall never die
.

And they slid his body over the rail. I saw the tiny splash it made in heaving seas, and realised, possibly for the first time in my life, how utterly insignificant we all are.

I have no idea how many weeks his widow Catriona’s pregnancy has left to run, but her bulge is substantial, and it cannot be too long before she will give birth. A baby that will never know its father.

Somehow I feel a responsibility for her now that her man is gone. I am right there in the next stall, and the closest
thing to a father her children have. Even as I write this by the feeble light down here, the little boy and girl are curled up at my legs, sharing my sheet now that their father’s is gone. All that I can really do for them is try to make sure they each get a little extra food.

*

The weather continues to be abominable. The hatches have been shut for days to keep the weather out, and I feel that I could cut the air into slices with my knife.

I spoke earlier today with a member of crew who told me the average sailing time is normally four to six weeks. But because of this weather we are already well behind schedule, and he thinks it could take up to two months. I took an immediate inventory of our larder, such as it is, and did a quick reckoning. It seems to me that we will run out of food and water long before we get to our destination.

*

John Angus Macdonald’s sickness has spread. Eleven people have now died and been dropped overboard. Many of my fellow passengers have relentless diarrhoea. It soils the boards we sleep on. It makes a porridge along with vomit to render the floorboards treacherous underfoot. We have no way of cleaning it up, and the stink is beyond unbearable.

I am acutely aware of the symptoms of the sickness that stalks us in steerage, and watch keenly for any sign of it in myself. Thus far I have been spared the malady, but not the misery.

*

Tonight has been one of the most distressing of my life.

Catrìona Macdonald finally went into labour. The ship was pitching violently, and shadows cast by the swinging oil lamps danced among us like demons. It was well nigh impossible to see or focus clearly.

The poor woman was in terrible distress, and the more experienced older women gathered round to help with the delivery. Catrìona’s screams rose above even the roar of the storm, and her terrified children clung to me in the stall next door.

It quickly became clear that there was a problem. I led the children to the stall across the way so that they couldn’t see, although they could still hear well enough. But even in the semi-dark I could read the body language of the women gathered around the young widow. And their silent panic took me back to that day many years before when Annag and I crouched by the chicken wire at the door to the fire room of our blackhouse when my mother gave birth.

I left the children in the care of a family in the neighbouring stall and went to see for myself. At first the older women pushed me away. This was no place for a man, they said. But I forced my way through, bracing myself against the upright to see poor Catrìona Macdonald lying on her back with her legs held apart. The baby was coming out the wrong way, just as Murdag had done.

There was no experienced midwife on board, and the woman trying to help release the baby was hopelessly out of
her depth. I closed my eyes and saw clearly through the smoke of the fire room how the midwife in Baile Mhanais had turned the baby. And when I opened them again it was even clearer to me that if I did not do something this child was going to die.

I pushed the woman out of the way, and I heard the others gasp their surprise as I took her place. I braced my knees against the side of the stall to steady myself against the yaw of the ship so that I could take a hold of the baby. I had seen it done. I knew I could do it.

It was coming arse first, arms and legs still inside. A little girl. I pictured what I had seen the midwife do, freeing the baby’s legs one by one, then gently turning and twisting to release first one arm, then the other. The mother’s screams very nearly unnerved me. As with my own mother there was a terrible amount of blood, and my confidence started to desert me. The whole body was free now, but the head still trapped inside. Suffocating. The baby was drowning in blood and fluid.

I could feel the life of the child in my hands ebbing away, my own sweat almost blinding me. I tried to remember what it was the midwife had done to free the head, fighting hard to concentrate on what I had seen that day. I recalled how she had felt for the head through my mother’s belly. And then pushed down and forward with the palm of her hand.

The women were screaming at me to let go, but I was convinced now that I was the only one who could save the life of this little girl.

My hand slid over the blood on Catrìona’s belly, and I felt the head of the baby there, round and hard. I supported the child in the crook of my arm, and pushed down hard, yelling ‘Push!’ as I did. The head came out so unexpectedly that I staggered and almost fell. I felt the hands of many women grab and steady me. And I smacked that baby’s bottom so hard, just as I had seen the midwife do to Murdag.

For a moment, there was nothing. Then a cough and a cry, and I cut through the umbilical with my knife to release the baby into my hands. And there she was, this tiny creature covered in blood and mucus, held to my chest, eyes opening for the first time.

I was very nearly overwhelmed by the emotion of cradling this new life in my arms.