The Great Golden Fish
Dee Raspin
Angus sat on a rough stone, overlooking the glen where his croft lay. Propping his crook by his side, he raised his eyes to the shifting storm clouds, and sighed. The croft had lost its heart since Mary died. He couldn’t bear to sit at the big table alone, with nothing but the crackle of logs on the fire to break the silence.
With Mary there was never silence, rest, or peace. There was always something needing doing. Dying wool, carding it, spinning it, knitting it, making him wear it—though it never fit. Or she’d be out in the fields, tilling the earth with all the pull of a barrel-backed pony. She was a strong lass, Mary.
The first time they’d met at old Campbell’s cèilidh, that’s what he’d noticed: her strength. It shone in her broad, fearless smile, in the red of her cheeks, in the dark glitter of her eyes. When she danced, there was something wild in her movements.
Angus had been fine-looking in his youth, and all the lassies blushed and giggled when he walked by.
All but one—and she was hurling the menfolk about like hayricks, as she raced through the dance.
There was a woman who could work! Angus wasn’t for wanting a fireside decoration. He wasn’t for cow-like docility, good manners and old-fashioned respect. He propped himself against the barn wall, waiting to catch her eye. One by one, she left her partners exhausted. Even Rob Mackay, the big miller’s son, was starting to slow. But not Mary—the more she spun, stomped and reeled, the brighter her eyes grew and the redder her cheeks.
She looked up, and locked eyes with Angus.
It wasn’t an invitation to dance, it was a challenge to battle—and he knew it. Throwing back her head, black ringlets falling around her neck and shoulders, she took him by the hand and pulled him to the floor. The men roared with laughter, the women rolled their eyes.
Surely bonny Angus wasn’t after big Mary?
The rest of the night he and she danced every dance together. They twisted each other’s arms, trampled each other’s feet and laughed loud enough to drown out the band.
Hours later, when the dance ended, they headed out into the hills in search of the sunrise. Their breath fell heavy on the chill air, and the little clouds of mist they made mingled together. When they reached the big cairn, they sat down—gazing into the distance. There the world stretched out before them—golden, bathed in the first light of morning. Everything fresh, and new.
Angus turned to Mary, and she met his glance with a steady eye and firm smile.
‘Mary.’ he said, and she knew what he was about. ‘If yer as brutal with my cows as yer are wi’ me, ye’ll be my ruin.’
And that was that. They married the following month.
Not long after, Angus saw a new side to the wild lass. With animals, she was calm—yet stern. There was a depth in her that seemed to soothe them. Even the stags in season would cease their bellowing for Mary. The years Angus shared with her were happy and quick.
But then, one winter, sad news came drifting down into the glen. They heard of folk turned out of their crofts, without a stitch, forced to make way for sheep. The sheep made more money than the crofters paid rent, they said. It was called ‘The Clearances.’
But what of the people? They were sent to the coast, to fish.
To fish! Men and women that’d never seen the sea.
Angus shivered.
But there was more to come. Mary’s father was ill. He’d had news of a close friend’s death, and taken it badly. Mary’s father and Hamish Mackenzie had been friends for years. Even when Mary’s father moved down into the glen, Hamish would send messages by travelling men with news and talk.
It was a dark afternoon when the messenger came knocking. His face was grave, his eyes downcast. The men had come, chasing folks out their houses. But old Hamish was stubborn—he’d refused to leave. More than that, he’d grown frail. How could he, at his age, make a journey to the coast and start afresh? How could he learn to fish; a man who’d worked the fields all his life?
When they threatened him, he laughed in their faces. Better die here, in his boyhood home, than some godforsaken coast.
And die, he did.
That night they came and set his croft alight—with Hamish inside. His screams echoed through the hills, but there was no help to be had: the place went up so fast.
Mary tried to console her father, but it was useless—he lay in bed, unresponsive. His eyes were clouded with thoughts of another place, and he saw and heard nothing. Day after day, he grew thinner. A week later, he died. The grief had been too much.
And as is often the case with sorrow, it spread like disease.
Mary, the woman who’d never known illness, started to grow pale.
At first Angus didn’t notice. Then, he wouldn’t notice. It didn’t make sense. Illness was for other people. Mary was constant, like the hills: something time passed by, not something it changed. She was strong, like the rocks—nothing could bend her.
But, soon, Angus had to accept his mistake—Mary was mortal. He saw the difference in her eyes. They’d grown dark, and the light had left. Now she would sit by the fire, staring into the flames for hours on end—hands by her side, empty. If it weren’t for Angus, the cows would have gone unfed and the crops untended.
The extra work didn’t bother him. Mary bothered him. To see her as she was now—so close by his side, but so far from him in her mind—tore him up. She seldom spoke. And when she did, she talked of strange fanciful stuff—and that was worse. She didn’t ask after the cows, tell him to fetch firewood, or sweep the floor. Now, with her eyes lifted to the skies, she would babble of fish.
‘The fish, Angus.’ she would say. ‘It’s coming. I can see it’ and she would clench her fists, and smile. ‘It’s getting nearer, it’s getting closer.’
He would pull a seat up by her side, pat her back in a way he’d seen other men pet their wives, and ask what she meant.
‘A flying fish.’ she would whisper. ‘It’s coming through the skies, with a ladder to escape.’
And Angus would withdraw his hand from her back, head out onto the hills, and try to clear his mind. Try to understand how this could have happened to Mary. Try to understand when all this madness and sorrow had started. In truth, something in her words made his skin prickle. She spoke with such conviction. Her tone, so calm. To her, this madness was truth. She absolutely believed a flying fish was coming to save them.
And then, when he was sure he was alone, he would cry.
A few days later, Mary grew worse. All day she spoke of her father, golden fish, iron discs and strange singing.
Angus never strayed from her side. Hour by hour, he watched her fade. After all these years, she was leaving him.
