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her mother’s box. ‘Don’t I know what you always want as soon as you get here?’
    ‘Aye, you do. Where are the wee bairns? I thought they’d be here to greet me.’
    ‘They would have been had they had their own way. They’re in school,’ Mary told her. ‘You can have a rest before they come home, for you’ll have none once they set eyes on you.’
    ‘School!’ her mother said benevolently. ‘Well there’s a thing. Tom too? Is he not too big for school now?’
    ‘No, Ma. He’s only nine. Three more years and then he can leave.’ She led the way down the hill towards her cottage. ‘He wants to finish and go fishing,’ she said. ‘Or at least he did,’ she added thoughtfully. ‘We had a big storm. A lot of boats were wrecked and he’s not mentioned it since. I think he got scared.’
    ‘Aye, and well he might,’ Nola chipped in. ‘Poor bairn. We heard about the storm. It ran havoc right along the coast. Held up the fishing – we were without work for nearly a week.’
    Mary made them tea when they got home and Fiona drank hers down in seconds and then went to lie on the bed.
    ‘Ah dinnae ken why I’m so weary,’ she complained. ‘I’m pure done in.’
    ‘You’ll feel better after a rest,’ Mary told her. ‘Sleep now and I’ll keep Nola and Nell quiet; mebbe we’ll go out for a wee stroll. The bairns’ll wake you when they come home.’
    Her mother heaved a sigh. Turning over, she tucked herself into her shawl and instantly fell asleep.
    ‘It’s hard on the old women,’ Nola said softly. ‘Not the gutting, they’re as fast as anybody, but the travelling gets them down.’
    ‘She’s not old!’ Mary exclaimed. ‘She’s not yet fifty. She’s got years of work in her.’ The thought of her mother giving up her work horrified her. Who would look after her? Mary’s father was dead and both her brothers had large families to look after. ‘She’d have to come and live here with me if she gave up work,’ she thought aloud, and her companions glanced at each other.
    ‘She’d never do that,’ Nell said. ‘Not in a million years.’
    ‘She’s tired, that’s all,’ Nola said. ‘We all are, but we’ll be fine in the morning. Come on now, let’s go out. I want to buy a present from Scarborough.’

CHAPTER FIVE
    FEW OF THE children from the fishing families attended school during the first few days of the herring season. The boys positioned themselves as near as they dared to where the herring boxes would be deposited and shuffled about, nudging one another, ready to dart forward as soon as they saw any of the silver fish drop to the floor.
    Jeannie cosied up to her grandmother. She was still sleepy, for they had been up since five o’clock and down at the harbour half an hour later, ready and waiting for the boats. Her grandmother, like the other herring girls, was decked out in her long rubber apron and boots, her head wrapped in a shawl which wound round her neck and fastened at the back leaving not a single red hair showing. In her hand she held her gutting knife.
    ‘Don’t come too close, lassie,’ she told Jeannie. ‘If I give you a nick with the blade you’ll bleed to death.’
    Jeannie took a step back. Her mother was always warning her about the gutting knife, but her grandmother’s threat seemed especially grim.
    ‘I just want to watch how you do it,’ she said in a small voice. ‘So that I’ll know.’
    ‘We’ll teach you, have no fear,’ Fiona told her. ‘But not now, you skinny malinky, not when we’re about to start work. Look at my fingers. Why have I got them bandaged, eh? So that I don’t cut myself, that’s why.’
    Jeannie nodded. She did know. All of the herring girls bandaged their fingers to avoid cutting themselves and to prevent the salt which was used for preserving the fish from entering a cut and stinging them or even turning them septic.
    They were still waiting at half past six and everyone was becoming impatient.
    ‘Come on,