Ruby
Visiting Lerwick always feels like a treat on the days when I come into town to do the supermarket shopping.
It’s a good distraction, too. I love wandering through the winding streets and narrow alleyways, down to the shore where the water laps at the walls of the lodberries, the name for the older houses built long ago by merchants so they could watch for their ships returning and unload the cargo straight into the stone sheds.
There’s always something going on in the harbor, as well—a ferry arriving, a fishing boat coming in accompanied by a cacophony of whirling gulls, or a ship leaving to service the oil fields that lie beyond the horizon.
Best of all is the bookshop on Da Street, where I could browse through the shelves for hours. When I walk into it today, I think of the bookshop in Narvik, of what a lifeline it must have been. And how brave those women were who ran the undercover newspaper from the back room.
I find what I’m looking for and pay for my purchases. When I emerge back into the street, someone calls my name. It’s Isobel, carrying a bag of her knitted pieces.
The door pings as I follow her inside. The shop is filled with souvenirs for the tourist trade—postcards and Fair Isle jumpers, pottery and the knitted hats known locally as toories.
One of the displays is given over to Isobel’s beautiful lace shawls and scarves, and I admire them as she talks to the shop owner and hands over the latest consignment of her work.
“Ruby!” She beckons me across to introduce me. “I was just saying to Mara here, she could maybe sell some of your paintings. Your pictures of the sheep and the birds and whatnot. You could make some cards, too. They’d be popular with the tourists.”
“Bring me a few samples next time you’re in town,” says Mara. “Sounds like the kind of thing that would do well.”
Once Isobel has concluded her business, we walk along the harbor a little way to a café. Over tea and scones, I take the opportunity to ask her about something that’s been preying on my mind.
While I was doing some of Hanna’s paperwork for the Crofting Association the other day, I came across a lawyer’s letter among the forms and copies of bills in her muddled files.
It was sent on behalf of Donald Kilgour.
Since she has no one to pass the croft on to, the letter stated, Donald Kilgour will formally apply to purchase Igdrasil, staking his claim for when the time comes, all too soon, that she can no longer work the land.
I recalled the conversation on the evening when we had dinner together at Greystane House. At the time, I’d assumed he was talking hypothetically about taking over the croft lands, but it seems he’s now grown impatient with Hanna and is trying to force her out.
When I first read that letter, I’d still thought it might be an irrelevance, just an empty threat, a bit of saber-rattling that could simply be ignored.
But in the bookshop today, I did a bit of research into crofting legislation, buying a book on it so I can better understand what’s really involved.
And the questions I ask Isobel now confirm what I’ve been starting to fear.
“Aye,” she says. “If the existing tenant cannot find anyone to pass the croft on to, it can be allocated to another interested party. It’s been happening more and more lately, as people turn their backs on the hardships of crofting to make easier money on the oil rigs or move away to find work in mainland cities. ”
Donald Kilgour knows his stuff. He’s been biding his time, like a vulture sitting on a dead branch, watching and waiting for the moment when he can swoop in and claim the land.
There’s probably no immediate threat, now he’s back in London for the foreseeable future, but I dread his return.
It’s no wonder Hanna gets so upset when he comes snooping around.
That letter throws a whole new light on just how tenuous her grasp is on Igdrasil.
I say goodbye to Isobel and retrieve the car.
As I drive back to the croft, I see the landscape around me in a different light.
If Donald Kilgour succeeds in his plan to force Hanna out, the croft will become part of his property, the farmhouse standing empty and the hay meadow disappearing, subsumed into his way of farming.
The peatlands will erode, and the corncrake will disappear again.
The tree of life, which she has defended with every shred of her stubborn, infuriating being, will finally be toppled.