Before applying the wrecking ball to all this industry, I must tie up some loose ends. Diversionary tactics, I know. Closing the door on the museum, I go to sit at my desk and phone Jim Struan.
“I just wanted to prevail on your memories of Finnverinnity House one more time…No. Not about Grigor McWatt. I know you drew a blank there. Another name. Geoffrey. Geoffrey Watkins.”
All I hear is Jim’s laboured breathing at the other end of the line and I feel such guilt for pressing him further. Jim must be in his nineties himself now. Can’t I just leave him alone to get on with what remains of his life?
When he finally speaks, though, he sounds cheerful and alert, delighted by a new challenge and eager to help.
“Watkins…Geoffrey…Now that might stir something. The faintest echo. A funny wee fellow? Bit of an oddball? He wasn’t one of us, strictly speaking. Could he have been a conchie? Look, I may be completely wrong here. Let me ask around and I’ll get back to you.”
Outside, the rain has turned to snow. It is 3 p.m. and soon it will be dark as midnight.
INVENTORY OF GAELIC AND SCOTS WORDS DESCRIBING FASCARAY WEATHER. CONTINUED…
cold n: caal, cald, caul, cauld, fuachd, fuarachd, jeel.
dark n and adj: daurk, derk, doilleir, dorch, douth, dubh, mirk.
drench v: bogaich, dook, drook, druidh, fliuch, sap.
drizzle n and adj: braon, dreezle, dribble, drowe, mug, rag, skiff, smirr.
dull adj: dorcha, dowie, dreich, dùmhail, loorie, oorie.
mist n: ceathach, citheach, drowe, gull, gum, haar, rouk, sgleò, smuchter.
rain n: blash, fearr-shìon, frasachd, saft, smirr, uisge, weet; v (to rain heavily): blatter, ding, ding doon, doirt, fras, pish, pish doon, plump, teem, trom-shileadh, tuil; v (to rain softly): sileadh, skiff, skirp, smirr, snith; n (continuous rain or snow and the consequent foulness of roads and paths): glashtrocht.
rainbow n: bogha-frois, watergaw.
snow n: snaw, sneachda, snyauve, stour.
storm n: ànradh, an-uair, blatter, doinionn, doireann, gaillionn, snifter.
wet n: drookit, fliuch, fiuchadh, sypit, uisge.
wind n: gaoth, oiteag, souch, tirl, ween, win, wun.
—Grigor McWatt, 1 January 2013, The Fascaray Compendium
14 December 2014
Agnes has just finished Skyping her father—what do they find to say to each other for a full thirty minutes?—and I’ve sent her, too excited to sleep, up to bed to read. I pick up the final volume of the Compendium, dated Winter 2013, and riffle through it.
There is a brief inventory of “flotsam and jetsam” washed up beneath Calasay cliffs after a storm—“two left shoes, of the kind called by Scots ‘sand shoes’; one pink rubber hot-water bottle; two yellow plastic bottles that once contained bleach; a rusty boot-polish tin, empty; lengths of serviceable nylon rope; a tiny peaked cap, which looks as if it was made for a doll or a monkey (probably a sailor’s shrunken hat); two old fish boxes, stamped ‘Peterhead,’ useful for kindling; a coconut; a bottle of cognac, empty; a 13-point deer antler, picked clean by crows and bleached by the sea; two clear plastic bottles that once contained mineral water.”
Here he is, banging on about grouse shooting again: “The burning of heather on grouse moors to facilitate this inane so-called sport causes the disintegration of peat, damages our delicate ecosystem and releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, thus accelerating climate change.” Probably a draft column, one of his last, for the Auchwinnie Pibroch. There are more lists—“predators of the earth: pine martens, badgers, wildcats, hill foxes; predators of the air: eagles, falcons, ravens, buzzards, hooded crows, hen harriers”—and further fulminations—“To protect the alien pheasants, so they can live long enough in their prison pens to die at the hands of wealthy tweed-breeked killers from the south, gamekeepers hunt down and destroy our beautiful native predators. The hen harrier, with its elegant aerial displays and exultant song—its Scots name, gled, is somewhere between gladness and the bright fire of gleed—is now an endangered species. And so, once more, I conclude that the most ravening predator in Scotland, without ameliorating physical grace or nobility of spirit, is the Englishman.”
There are more “reimaginings”—of Donne, Shakespeare and Tennyson—and I’m beginning to wonder whether he was no more a poet than he was a Scotsman. The translations—for that, in the end, is surely what they are—are fine as far as they go but the only original poems I’ve found are the acrostic verse to Lilias and the lyrics of “Hame tae Fascaray,” which he tried to disown anyway. He looked like a poet, though, wild-haired, kilted and frowning in the majestic wilderness, and he thought he was a poet, and other people thought—and continue to think—he was a poet. Maybe that’s enough.
The landline rings and for an irrational moment, in which I’m both pleased and annoyed, I think it’s Marco. To my relief, and disappointment, it’s Jim Struan.
“Mhairi. I’ve something for you. I finally got through to Tex Bertaud in Arizona. He’d been in hospital. Prostate trouble. Doing fine now. A big character, an oil man by trade, with a prodigious memory. He’s helped me out on several queries—missing bits of the jigsaw—in the past. He was one of the first American recruits in 1943 who came from Greentop Camp in New York to help with resistance work in France. Arrived in Gourock after a five-day voyage on board the converted Queen Elizabeth—couldn’t believe their luck with their cabins, the ballroom—before slumming it for the rest of the journey to Fascaray.
“Remembered your Watkins instantly. Had several run-ins with him at Finnverinnity. ‘An ornery son of a bitch,’ he called him. Aye, Watkins was at Finnverinnity House. But I was right. He definitely wasn’t one of us. He’d come up from London for one of the ‘warfare weekend schools’ we used to run for the Home Guard, you know the miscellaneous bunch of amateurs who were going to defend our realm, in the event of invasion, with pitchforks and catapaults, God help us.
“He was a hopeless soldier by all accounts. Chippy too. Bit of a joke even among the Home Guard. But he took a shine to the place, the life, and volunteered for the selection course. He loved to tramp about the hills, though manoeuvres and any kind of soldiery were beyond him. We had a bit of a problem with the dropouts and failures in fact. Those who didn’t make the grade were considered a security risk, usually through no fault of their own.
“Policy was to keep them on for a few months before sending them back to their units, not internment, strictly speaking—they never knew they were doing anything but making a valuable contribution to the war effort. We just kept them isolated, busy and occupied doing those pointless tasks: brass cleaning, that sort of thing, daft routines that our boys have always been so good at devising. We set up a foundry there, using scrap metal to make climbing gear and crampons, boat hooks and training equipment—tin targets on the firing ranges, that sort of thing. Watkins also cleaned latrines and worked in the kitchens. We were short-handed and he made himself useful. Up to a point. He was partly responsible for the terrible food we had to put up with there.
“Tex used to joke that Geoffrey’s cooking was part of the training—a toughening-up preparation for the catering arrangements in the POW camps. But he had staying power, Watkins, by all accounts. Saw out the war in the Big House, anyway. So what’s your interest in him? And did you turn up any info on your poet? The Bard of Fascaray?”
Ma Hidlin Life
Yer richt, ma duds hae seen
Faur better days, an Ah’m fair skint
But ben ma hert Ah’ve faur mair wealth,
Than onie tycoon’s fantoosh pelf.
Fur Ah’ve a hidlin life naebdy
Can aye howp tae see;
A preevat girtholl nane
Micht skair wi me.
Abeich Ah staund oot frae the fray
An ben ma hert’s a sang,
An here on lownly Calasay
Ah tae masel belang.
Ginst lairds an tyrants Ah rebel,
Fur tae ma datchie citidaille
Ah’ll aye retreat.
Och ye who hae a hidlin life
Forby this dowie day,
When greed an grief are runnin rife
Gang cannily away.
Haud yer refuge tae yer hert,
Untae yersel be true,
An aye protect frae dreich despair
The Rael You.
—Grigor McWatt, efter Robert Service, 2012*
* * *
* That’s Me Awa, Smeddum Beuks, 2013.
15 December 2014
Eck Campbell and Chic McIntosh have patched up the Silver Darling’s hull and wheeled the boat to the beach outside the museum. It looks a long way from seaworthy but Eck is confident. Even under canvas drapes she’s attracting a crowd of admiring children and reminiscing seniors.
The school breaks up for the holidays next week and Agnes is excited about Christmas—maybe unreasonably excited. I’m not sure I can deliver the fiesta of high-octane pleasure she seems to be anticipating. She’s writing out her lists—one of presents she would like from “Santa” (I notice she has started putting the name in quotes), the other of presents she wants to buy for friends and family.
She has already, in some secrecy, wrapped and posted, with Margaret’s help, a small present to her father. She’s now angling for a shopping trip to Auchwinnie.
“The village store is okay for basics,” she says, authoritatively making the case for urban life, “but Auchwinnie’s got more to choose from?”
She is even more excited about the Hogmanay ceilidh and the Ne’erday Ba’; Lori at Watergaw House plans to reintroduce the traditional island shinty match on New Year’s Day.
“It’s kind of like hockey? Only she’s using, like, a foam ball? So no one will get hurt. It’ll be so fun. I can’t wait.”
I can. The ceilidh will mark the New Year and the official “soft” opening of the museum, with Gordon Nesbitt, islanders, local press and the provost of Auchwinnie Council. I haven’t been able to reach Nesbitt—he’s on annual leave until 29 December. I have to see him then and tell him the truth, blow up the whole project three days before its launch. I can’t believe I’ve let this happen, that the exhibits will all be in place, the museum will be up and running on schedule, and then I’ll light the blue touchpaper and retreat.
They’ve been practising the ceilidh dances at school, Agnes tells me.
“It’s like a barn dance? Only more fun.”
Finn O’Kane stood on her foot during the Strip the Willow, she says, and Kirsty spun out of control and collided with a chair during the Dashing White Sergeant.
“What do you think I should wear?” she asks. “My plaid skirt? Or the red dress? Or maybe my jeans and sneakers would be better for dancing?”
This concern about her appearance is new, too.
She talks me through the Gay Gordons and the Bluebell Polka: “and then you take your partner—there are more girls than boys so I’m dancing the boys’ part—and you do this little skip to the side…”
I listen vaguely, knowing I should be taking pleasure in her excitement but I am absorbed in my gloomy task as I go through my last box of Calasay papers—more displacement activity. I pack up the books from McWatt’s collection; still I think of him as McWatt. Agnes kicks off her sneakers to demonstrate.
“So in the Eightsome Reel there’s lots of steps to remember and you can spin real fast and you make, like, this little scream…”
My arms are full as I walk across the room.
“Only you’re screaming cos it’s fun…” she continues.
“Damn!” I shout, stumbling over her discarded shoes. I put my hand out to steady myself on a chair and drop my armful of books.
“Sorry,” she says, crushed, all gaiety gone. You’d think she’d endured a childhood of slights and smacks.
Jamieson’s, M to W is the only casualty. The pages have fanned open and the spine seems to have cracked.
I quickly pick it up to avoid further damage and a manila A4 envelope falls to the floor. There are several letters inside, some documents and an old chequebook. A few weeks ago I would have been exhilarated by the find. Today I feel only despair. What does it matter now? The old professional instincts soon kick in, however—I must see this project through to its end, to the crack of doom—as Agnes apologetically tidies away her shoes and fills the kettle to make me a cup of tea.
Opening the envelope carefully, I feel a churn of self-loathing.
“Shit.”
“I said sorry,” says Agnes, her lower lip jutting.
“No. No. I’m not cross with you. I’m cross with me,” I say.
Here I am, even at this stage, still hoping at some level to find the proof that vindicates the Bard of Fascaray, that ensures the legend of Grigor McWatt can prevail.
Inside the envelope is a document: a small folded booklet, yellowing pages bound with rusty staples and a waxed board cover. A “Soldier’s Release Book.” The frontispiece is stamped with the words “Home Guard. Any person finding this book is requested to hand it in to any Barracks, Post Office or Police Station for transmission to the Under Secretary of State, The War Office, London SW1.” The name on the booklet is “Geoffrey Watkins.”
“Don’t be cross with yourself, Mom,” says Agnes.
She has no idea.
The package also contains several bills, invoices and a letter, Grigor to Lilias, with a note, attached by paper clip, written by Lilias, which reads: “Oh what a tangled web we weave…” She must have returned his letter to him in one of their periodic stand-offs.
The chequebook is from the Royal Bank of Scotland. It’s empty, apart from the stubs, which he has scrupulously filled in with the names of payees, sums and dates—from November 1972 to August 1973. Most of his cheques were made out that year to Lilias Hogg. £200, £550, £150. In February, he paid £500 to Murdo McIntyre, the original fiddler of “Hame tae Fascaray.” There are two cheques each for £2,000 dated 31 March. The payees were Marsaili and Jessie MacDonald, recently widowed by the Morag May disaster. The final stub in the chequebook, made out in August 1973, makes me start. It’s for £10,000—a fantastic sum in 1973—and was paid to Jean Turner. Full and final payment. So the wily old blackmailer got her conservatory and central heating.
There are two receipts from a private nursing home in Perth, from 1973 and 1974, for “payment for the care and treatment of Miss Lilias Hogg” and three from an Aberdeenshire convalescent home in 1980 and 1981, also in Lilias’s name. A receipt, dated seven years later, is from an Edinburgh undertaker acknowledging payment for Lilias’s funeral and headstone.
I turn back to his letter, dated September 1973. The handwriting is as familiar to me now as Marco’s and the tone is concerned and solicitous, even loving. He writes, “You must take better care of yourself dear Lilias. I worry for you.” But there are also signs of tentative disengagement—“Though I might wish to, I cannot drop everything, leave this place and journey south to come to what you call your ‘rescue.’ The hard fact, dearest lass, is that the only person who can rescue you is yourself.”
Across the top in red ink, partially obscuring his address, she has written in an angry scrawl: “A poet with no soul. Mean of spirit, tight of fist…Fause, Fause, Fause.”
Poor Grigor, I find myself thinking for the first time. Or Poor Geoffrey.
Vieveness
Fause life, a blaflum an nae mair, when
Will ye win awa?
Ye sleekit cheatrie o aw men,
Ye jink the suith, ye wampler.
Yer a muin-like darg, a blin
Self-murgeonin fash,
A mirkie sprattle o bowds an brinn,
A mere carnaptious stramash.
—Grigor McWatt, efter Henry Vaughan, 2013*
* * *
* That’s Me Awa, Smeddum Beuks, 2013.
In Scotland, we’ve never had much time for Christmas. To good Presbyterians
, there’s something offensively papist about the celebration; with its combined focus on women and childbirth, gluttony and financial extravagance, it is seen as an incitement to incontinence of every sort. In Fascaray’s harbour village of Finnverinnity, under the eye of the manse, the only concession to Yuletide is the sudden appearance in the village shop several days before the event of fresh fruit—apples, oranges, bananas and the occasional exotic Conference pear.
We go about our business as usual on the day itself. Until the last decade, local children were expected to attend school on 25 December. But over in Lusnaharra, where the left foot is dominant, Christmas Eve ushers in three days of excess, marked in the poorest of households with feasting, the exchange of gifts and long, operatic Masses in the Church of the Sacred Heart and Immaculate Mary. These revels, no matter how profligate, are but a pallid run-through for the wild bacchanal that is Hogmanay.
On this, Catholic and Presbyterian agree (unless the Presbyterian is teetotal, or the Catholic a drink-forswearing Pioneer, or unless Hogmanay falls on a Sunday, which rules out celebration for the Presbyterian community) and the lanes and paths are busy with the menfolk on their unsteady first-footing rounds with lumps of coal, a bannock and a half-bottle of whisky, while our isle is suddenly full of noises—bagpipes, fiddles, accordions. Every house (bar the manse and Mistress Geddes’ Temperance Hotel) is transformed into a Ceilidh House and an outbreak of dancing is general throughout Fascaray.
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