Luci and the Ba

Luci and the Ba Helen Woodsford-Dean 2 Luci and the Ba The moral right of Helen Woodsford-Dean to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988. All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be copied, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for only you to read (for example, as a gift), then please return to www.spiritualorkney.co.uk/books and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. Text and images © Helen Woodsford-Dean 2018. First published in 2020 by Spiritual Orkney, Craigielea, Harray, Orkney, KW17 2JU. This novel is a work of fiction. Any similarities to people alive or dead are entirely coincidental. Although I was tempted to give some of my friends ‘cameo’ appearances, I resisted. However, Kirkwall is a real city, most of the places mentioned do exist, and every winter the Ba game is still played between the Uppies and Doonies (the Kirkwall Ba is one of the few remaining games of medieval ‘street football’ still played in the British Isles – read more in the ‘Background’ section). In order to lend this novel some authenticity, I have used traditional Orkney surnames; this may inadvertently result in some Orkney family businesses being mentioned but this is entirely coincidental. The conversations, recommendations, behaviour and observations made by the staff who work at the various locations named in this novel are fictitious. These depictions are solely plot devices: they are not intended to be representative nor typical of actual practice; neither are they intended to be comments upon the organisations, sites, charities, public bodies, authorities and committees mentioned, nor on past or present professional practice, nor on any members of staff or representatives who currently, or previously, work or are employed there. The Ba Committee does exist but its depiction in this novel is entirely fictitious and the product of my imagination. Likewise, although victims of domestic abuse are supported in Orkney, all references to a refuge, suggestions as to its location and security, its organisation, the nature of the support provision, and ethos, are all plot devices and the product of my imagination. Whether the Norse (Viking) Gods still exist is a matter of belief, and entirely between you and Them. 3 Map of the Orkney Islands, showing most of the inhabited islands and the distance from Scotland, plus the position of Kirkwall on the largest Orkney island (called ‘Mainland’) 4 Map of Kirkwall showing location of most of the places named in this novel ‘Windy Towers’ The Ayre Freya’s house The Basin (Kirkwall harbour) – Doonie’s St Magnus Lane Goal Victoria Street Bridge Street ‘The Peedie Sea’ – Parliament Close all that remains of the Norse harbour Willows Car park opposite Tesco Albert Street Tesco Merkat Cross Rodin’s house St Magnus Cathedral Gallow’ha Broad Street Uppie’s goal The Bishop’s and Earl’s Palaces Luci’s school The Orkney Museum 5 Contents Chapter 1 – First Impressions 7 Interlude 13 Chapter 2 – Uppies and Doonies 14 Chapter 3 – Kirkwall 18 Chapter 4 – Family 24 Interlude 34 Chapter 5 – The Ba 35 Chapter 6 – Saturday 39 Chapter 7 – Committee Meeting 43 Interlude 48 Chapter 8 – Monday 49 Chapter 9 – Ravens 55 Chapter 10 – Waiting 61 Interlude 69 Background 70 About the author 73 6 Chapter 1 – First Impressions Luci had arrived in Orkney less than a week ago but already she hated everything about it. She hated the rain and the wind, both of which were constant. She hated the way the days were so short and, consequently, the way the nights were interminably long, so all she wanted to do was sleep. She missed her entire life back in southern England; she yearned for her friends, all her things, and her dogs: Trick and Treat. Back in Hampshire she’d had a life; now she was just surviving. She hated this school. She hated the way she was quietly studying for GCSEs one minute and was now doing Standards. She hated the way that everyone knew everyone and everything about everyone and everything. She hated the cliquiness; how you had to belong to one group or another and how she belonged to exactly none of them. She hated the way they spoke and how she couldn’t understand what they were saying. It was Scottish but not quite: there were dialect words for everything; she’d never learn them all – it would have been easier if they’d gone to the Western Isles and she’d had to learn Gaelic from scratch because then there would at least have been formal lessons, but oh no, they’d gone north. She glanced around the dining hall. She hadn’t any friends. Yet. Her mum kept saying ‘yet’ as if it was ‘Amen’ or ‘Abracadabara’. She sat alone, pretending to read whilst stealing surreptitious glances around the room. A girl with long ginger hair locked gazes with her, smiled cautiously, looking for a moment as if she might come over and try to be friendly. Well, Luci didn’t need anyone’s charity, so she glared defiantly back, emanating hatred and disdain. The girl dropped her smile and rejoined the conversation at her table. Luci sneered at the way the girl had given up indecently quickly; clearly nobody really wanted to be friends with her and any advances were just shallow. It was really shit being new. Luci went back to reading her book. It was a collection of Orkney folk tales. They had to read it for part of an English lesson – ‘English’ being rather ironic given where they were. Homework was to choose a character from one of the tales and place them within a modern context. Luci had been reading about the mischievous Hogboys. She could imagine a Hogboy now, flitting invisibly amongst the diners, perhaps slipping a bogey into a sandwich or sitting on a bag of crisps to burst it in a flurry of crumbs. Those thoughts made her smile to herself, albeit an unpleasant smile. She’d quite like to see all the other pupils suffer a bit, just to spring them out of their smugness. The morning break would be over in five minutes. Checking her timetable yet again, she saw that the next lesson was chemistry. Luci had already learnt that she could draw less attention to herself if she got to class a bit before everyone else, let herself in, and sat quietly at the back with her book. Teachers always liked compliant ‘good’ pupils. So she finished her sandwich, picked up her bag, and slouched off. She deliberately kept her hunched body close to the walls of the corridor and her gaze fixed to the ground. The lesson was boring. The class size was small, only twenty pupils instead of the thirty five plus she was used to, and they were massively ahead in the syllabus. She had no idea what this lesson was about; she hadn’t covered any of this stuff in her previous school, and she didn’t have the foundation skills to understand what was being taught. She tried to keep her head down and go unnoticed but her teacher, Mrs Sinclair, was asking questions around the class and it was only a matter of time. ‘Who can tell me what an atom is made of? Perhaps our new student will know, Luci?’ Luci widened her eyes and shook her head. ‘No? Really? Not even a guess?’ Luci shook her head more vigorously. ‘Well, there are protons and neutrons in the nucleus, and electrons around the outside. Remember?’ Luci nodded rapidly, hoping to persuade Mrs Sinclair that she was just shy, not stupid. She sat as quietly as possible for the rest of the lesson, terrified that Mrs Sinclair would suss her out and she’d be put down into a lower class. Convinced that it was only a matter of time before it was revealed that she 7 couldn’t cope, even amongst all these stupid, backwards bumpkins who never went anywhere and never did anything, and who were just obsessed with Orkney, Orkney, Orkney. And if that happened, that would give her mum something else to worry about. So Luci put her head down and tried to look like she understood or that she was at least ‘making an effort’. Teachers appreciated pupils who ‘made an effort’. As long as she wasn’t being disruptive, as long as she was appearing to be focused, she hoped she’d be able to get away with this for a week or so, perhaps last out until the end of term, even in these smaller classes where it was so much more difficult to go unnoticed. When the lesson finished, she made sure she wasn’t the first one to leave the classroom, but made a point of neatly tidying away, eyes still down, written work handed in – what there was of it – shuffling out, keeping to the sides of the corridor to get to a maths lesson, followed by history, then finally it was over and she was out into the open and the outside world.

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