The Sea House: A Novel (32 page)

MacIntyre’s voice had risen to a pitch of indignation, appearing to feel greatly for the poor kayaker whose boat and jacket had been stolen. He tugged at the high-knotted cravat round his neck as if it were impeding him. One longed for him to remove the jacket with its overlarge collar and great buttons, which he must have chosen to wear as an item of impressive tailoring, forgetting the likely warmth of the room. He picked up the end of his now unknotted cravat and wiped at his perspiring brow in a way that did not entirely serve his delivery.

‘It is a matter of speculation as to when the first kayakers reached our shores. Perhaps some ten thousand years ago, when the ice sheets extended this far south. But such sightings of kayakers believed to be mermaids have been reported even within our own century. Sirs, I give to you this evening the proposition that within our native fireside fairy tales we may find essential historical evidence that is unavailable to us elsewhere. And I give to you, sirs, that in the legend of the Selkie we are hearing an account of a meeting between two cultures; between the Celtic farmers who arrived from the south, and the polar tribes who visited our shores from the north. And I propose, sirs, that in this hall tonight, we may well have among us men descended from such polar ancestors. Yes, the Selkie tale is a folk tale, a mere fairy story, but held within that fable we may find historical truths, about the diverse tribes that make up our great nation.’

MacIntyre ended his lecture, but there was scant applause. The room bristled with hands ready to quiz him.

MacIntyre removed his heavy jacket and in limply rolled shirtsleeves and exposed braces, he began to take questions from the floor, grasping the lectern like some workman to the task.

A belligerent student caught his attention and stood up to speak.

‘You say a kayak can stay in the water for three days?’

‘Yes, until the skin becomes waterlogged.’

‘And how many days then would you estimate that it takes for such a kayak to cross from the nearest polar landmass inhabited by Eskimo tribes, which is, I believe, Greenland?’

‘It would take approximately eight days from Greenland to the Faeroes.’

‘Eight days. And would there be rocks or islands where an Eskimo could dry out his kayak?’

‘Not before the Faeroes.’

‘I see. So by your own account, such a journey from the Arctic Circle must be impossible.’

‘I agree with you that the feat is an impossibility, for a kayaker travelling from Iceland or Greenland,’ replied MacIntyre.

‘Then you must admit that your theory of polar kayakers reaching the north of Scotland is unfounded,’ the student concluded triumphantly.

‘Let me make a further suggestion,’ said MacIntyre, ‘if you will bear with me for a few minutes longer. It is my belief that our fair and tall Viking ancestors were not the only people to travel down from Norway. The far north of that land is also home to a native polar people of Eskimo type, shorter and dark-haired, who continue with their Stone Age customs of following reindeer herds, building skin tents and wearing skin clothes. They are known as the Sami tribe, sometimes called Finns or Lapps. I would like to postulate that among these Arctic aboriginals there once existed a seafaring branch, who lived on the inaccessible islands along Norway’s coast and travelled the seas in seal skin kayaks. It is highly likely, sir, that it was these Sami kayakers who visited our coasts in seal skin canoes, following the same route taken by the Viking longships.’

A second young student stood up, his thumb in his lapel, anxious to make his mark.

‘This is a fascinating hypothesis, and one would wish it to be fact, the idea is so appealing, but we must look for empirical evidence. Have any remains been found to prove this race of Sea Sami?’

‘Regretfully, none. It is the case that their fragile culture seems to have become extinct, and with it any artefacts. There were continued sightings over the turn of the last century, but sadly, in modern times, such reports have dwindled to one mermaid sighting in Benbecula.’

‘Then has anyone produced an example of a skin kayak, as used specifically by a member of the Norwegian races?’

‘To this date, no. There remains to us only the anecdotal evidence taken from the folk tales of seal men and mermaids.’

‘Then where is the archaeological evidence for your theory, sir? The empirical methodology? What you offer, though very entertaining, is no more than a patchwork of suppositions – a fairy story.’

Laughter around the room.

‘It is my prediction that we may yet find a kayak where the struts are constructed, not from the whalebone used by Eskimo craftsmen, but from northern pinewood. But, yes, you are right: at present, my only proof comes from the legends themselves, and from the descendants of the
sliochd nan ron,
who unshakeably believe themselves to be the people of the sea.’

There were no more questions. MacIntyre gathered his papers, visibly upset by such a hostile response. As the audience began to disperse, I left my seat and took the little kayak model back to its owner.

‘Thank you for your most interesting talk.’

Dr MacIntyre looked up. He seemed exhausted by the evening, more like a man who has run a race and pained to keep up than a man engaged in academic debate. He shook my hand, seemingly glad to hear a friendly note in what must have been a horrible evening. He had a large wet patch down the back of his shirt and I feared that he might have over-exerted himself given his advanced years.

‘My name is Alexander Ferguson. I found your talk fascinating. My grandmother was a McOdrum and always claimed to be a descendant of one of the seal people.’

MacIntyre kept shaking my hand, staring into my face with narrowed eyes. ‘Well, I can see it in the set of your eyes and your cheekbones. Have you ever thought about that when you’ve looked at yourself in a mirror?’

‘Now you mention it, I suppose there was a cast to my mother’s face that some praised as an exotic type of beauty. Although she always bemoaned her looks, despairing because her hair would never keep its curls.’

‘Ah, well, the Eskimo and Asiatic have a different kind of hair, and the children are never born with hair that curls. I must say, I am delighted to make your acquaintance. It’s a nice change to meet a believer.’

‘Sir, I must tell you that I have been searching for the creature that lies behind the Selkie and mermaid myths for some time. I cannot thank you enough for your most enlightening lecture. The only smart for me is that I did not arrive at this revelation by myself.’

‘We all progress on the theories of others, my friend; no one does these things alone. But sadly for me, I can go no further without finding some kind of archaeological evidence.’

He shook his head and began to pack the kayak model away in its box.

‘Dr MacIntyre, forgive me if I am mistaken in a way that may cause you to hope unduly, but I think I might know where one can find just the proof that you are seeking, right here in Edinburgh.’

I did, I am ashamed to admit it, hesitate a moment before making this offer; for doing so was to hammer in the final nail in my now discredited hopes of discovering some fresh link in the transmutation of species. It was a sore blow to my pride, to watch the intricate scaffold of my theories of men adapted to the sea, all collapsed in a moment. I prickled to think of the hours spent, the notebooks filled, the volumes purchased and read – and then to be given the answer without the least sweat from my brow, in MacIntyre’s lecture.

At Dr MacIntyre’s insistence, I agreed to continue our discussion and accompanied him back to his lodgings. We made our way to a tenement in a cobbled wynd that ran under a bridge supporting a row of shops near to Princes Street. I saw little of comfortable living in his narrow rooms, piled as they were with documents and books, and removed a plate with the remains of sardine bones from a pile of papers, and then removed the papers before I might sit down on a chair.

We passed a convivial evening sharing our discoveries, and it was very late when we found his half bottle of Talisker empty.

As I left down the winding staircase of MacIntyre’s tenement, my heart contracted to reflect on the narrowing down of a life; the intransigent obsessions, the neglected career, the block of cheese wrapped in greaseproof paper, a lonely supper in a meagre room.

And I saw mapped before me, the small parameters of my own life to come.

*   *   *

I must confess that I pressed Carfax to allow us to view the museum storerooms most urgently. He was nonplussed by my gabbled stories of historical facts enfolded within folk tales, but conceded that we might visit his museum attics that same afternoon.

My intention was to locate the canoe that I had seen removed for storage some months before, for I recalled – though it had seemed to me nothing unusual at the time – that when the kayak was dropped, the tear to its skin had revealed an inner strut made not from white whalebone but from a type of dark-stained wood.

The workmen sent to aid us in searching through the dusty mansards were all for discouraging us from ever setting eyes on the object, but with a donation towards their evening beer, they gained courage. After an hour or so displacing boxes, we found, hidden behind a wall of trunks and covered over by dustsheets, the very article.

It was a remarkably shallow craft, truly no more than the height of a man’s pelvis, a long, flattened sheath tapering upwards to a point at each end. It was covered over in thin hide darkened to the colour of ancient parchment. In the centre was a hooped opening with a series of holes in the rim where one might lash the seaman’s jacket tight to the boat. MacIntyre paused and then knelt down in front of the craft like a hungry man presented with a good dinner and ran his hands along the smooth wooden laths inside the craft. After what seemed a considerable time, he sprang up again, dusting off his hands and looking delighted.

‘It is as you said, a kayak that is supported not with whalebone, but with struts made from some type of wood.’

We carried it into the dusty light of the attic windows to better examine it.

‘I’d say that’s pine, from the way the wood knots and the leak of resin there,’ he continued, tipping the craft to let the light reach inside, ‘but it is hard to find pine that’s hard and dense enough to cut into such lathe-thin pieces. This wood has surely been taken from a tree that grew slowly, in a cold climate, high up in the mountains – exactly the type of tree you would find along the mountainous coasts of Norway. Alexander, my sharp-eyed friend, I do believe that this is the evidence I have been seeking for our Sami kayaker.’

‘There’s a box here,’ called out the young lad apprenticed to the workmen. ‘The label says it goes with the little boat. Shall I drag it over?’

‘No, we don’t drag priceless relics about the floor,’ remonstrated his elder. ‘We lift it carefully, two of us together, and we carry it over, respectfully, like this.’

The box contained several artefacts of Eskimo origin, not connected to the boat, but demonstrating how a man might survive in the cold of the northern seas. We found luxurious seal skin jackets and mittens, cream-coloured carvings of seals made to fit round a spear and so support the weight of it in the hand, a leather bag for water.

Wrapped in layers of tissue paper was another Eskimo jacket, made of a material so light and flimsy that I doubted it had ever been worn at sea.

On seeing it, MacIntyre let out a delighted gasp.

‘A ghost jacket!’ he cried out. ‘I have heard of such a thing, but never seen one.’

He came over and took it from my hands, holding it up to the window. It was a garment made more of light than of material; thin as tissue paper, yellowed by time, it seemed the empty chrysalis of the man who once inhabited it.

I rubbed the silky stuff a little. The garment was constructed in narrow bands, held together by rows of minute stitches.

‘But surely the water would have penetrated the stitching?’

‘It may appear so,’ MacIntyre replied, ‘but once the garment is damp, the thread expands and becomes fully watertight. And you see, this delicate hide is in fact seal gut, the most impermeable material known to man. Once the string round the base of the jacket is secured to the kayak opening, the man inside becomes impervious to the sea. Your own ancestor would have arrived wearing a jacket very like this, Alexander.’

‘There’s another piece here, sir,’ called out the younger man, who was now investigating the contents of a second box.

‘You get out of there,’ the older workman scolded him, as the boy held up a long silk funnel with its tapered end sewed shut.

I followed MacIntyre to investigate the article. This garment was also constructed from transparent strips of seal gut and sewn together with the neatest of stitches.

‘Did you not tell me, Alexander, that you longed to have seen the little mermaid at Benbecula, to understand what it was the people there so earnestly believed was a woman that was half fish? See here, my friend, this is the companion to the jacket, worn inside the craft to keep the damp off the legs. Your poor wee mermaid, parted from her canoe, was most probably found on the beach with her legs encased in just such a cover. To the crofters, it must have appeared exactly like a smooth fish tail.’

‘So my mermaid was a little kayaker, a very long way from her northern home. I never considered it before, but there must surely have been people who waited for her return. How sad to think that they would never have known what became of her.’

The light was beginning to fade and we were forced to watch reluctantly as the artefacts were packed away. It had been a long afternoon and I was beginning to feel fatigued by that airless and dusty place, my head pounding. We went outside to rejoin the cold autumn air.

‘You do realise, MacIntyre, what a sore blow this is to my pride, to have all my theories swept off the table so thoroughly. I had dreamed of how I would stand as you did and astonish my audience with my demonstration of man evolving back into a fish, but it is clear to me now that I shall not be receiving any congratulatory letter from Mr Darwin.’