On the Heroism of Mortals

by Allan Cameron

  The bank manager felt deflated. Or rather elation and guilt cohabited his brain. He had spoken up and righted a wrong, but was there something shallow in his behaviour? He was not given to moral assertions, and he had acted on instinct. He looked towards the driver in search of a smile perhaps, or worse, an expression of gratitude. To his surprise, he saw that the man had heard nothing. He was staring at the paramedics about to lift the stretcher into the back of the ambulance, and was lost in thought. The brief scene had been nothing and the bank manager was a bit part in a modern tragedy. The driver’s problems were unchanged.

  The couple set off again. She was visibly shaken and said, “Nobody knows. I know better than most what’ll happen to me, but nobody knows.” He nodded glumly to show he understood, but had no desire to revisit that conversation.

  They sat down at a table and ordered teas. In the corner of the room a tall, gangly and large-boned woman was hunched beautifully at the piano. She started to play a ripple of fast notes. The music manipulated the minds that ruminated in the crowded café, uniting them in a sensation of melancholic joy that tingles the nerves of the arms and legs, and communicating to them a sweetness that each interpreted in an entirely different manner. She finished with another flourish, rose from her chair and turned – her long, curling, black hair parting to reveal an older face than expected, a kindly one that spoke of trials and suffering overcome at great cost, but overcome nonetheless.

  Three Grumpy, Half-“Celtic” Authors, a Fool and a Peer of the Realm Get Along Unswimmingly

  The arty-farties, what a lot! Personally I’ve always kept a wide berth. And the worst of them are writers. So I have to tell you about the motley crew I met on the Isle of Archasamby last summer. A rum affair, and that’s for sure.

  I’m a doer, not a talker, so this does not come easy. How did it happen? Well, I went to do some shooting on the estate of our old school chum Bumper Jones. A fat kid with jug ears, extravagant freckles and an obsession with Black Sabbath. His father was a brewer. Now, I’m not the type who likes to waste his time; I like to get out there and bag them from day one. It started to rain as soon as I got there, and it was unrelenting. We did go out in the wet on the first morning, but frankly it was miserable. The following day we sat around and played Monopoly and Trivial Pursuit, while imbibing some damn good whisky or ooshka baya as they call it there. I always say, “Drink the local tipple and you get the right type of hangover for wherever you are.” But on the third day, this became a bit of a bore. Really, what do the natives do in a place like this? No shops to speak of. No clubs. No women you’d want to sleep with or have on your arm in smart society. No smart society. No money circulating and making you and others rich. That last one of course is all the attraction. Even a City gent like me has to get away from it now and then. Recharge the old batteries.

  The day after that, I had to get out of the house. Bumper, it’s true, has a damn good house. A Victorian statement of power. Of course such places really need a large crew of chambermaids, preferably pretty, but Bumper doesn’t make serious money and can’t afford chambermaids, pretty or not. So there are just a couple of old ladies who come in three days a week for a bit of desultory dusting. Bumper asked his guests to help with the washing-up, which was a bit thick. I refused of course. “Bumper,” I said, “I haven’t touched a dishcloth in forty years; not since I went to stay with my demented grandmother at the age of sixteen, and I can tell you, I did not like it. I have no intention of taking up dish drying at my age.”

  Bumper looked offended as Bumper often does. But that just makes me go on the attack: “Bumper, another thing I’ve been meaning to tell you: what sort of entertainment have you put on for your guests? I’ve been here for three days now, and apart from the odd glass of good whisky, it has been a complete disaster. Now, what are you going to do for us?”

  Bumper has always been a bit wet. Inherited the brewery business from a father who was as wet as he is. Not just wet, but boring too. Still, they are called Jones, so what can you expect? So, instead of getting angry over my outburst, he became terribly, terribly apologetic. Vomit-makingly apologetic. A regular Uriah Heep. He would see what he could do and so forth.

  Back he came with two glasses of whisky and an idea, which actually turned out to be quite a good one if you are into that sociological kind of thing. Well, it was a change, and I got to see how some curious chaps like to pass their time. “Jonathan,” he said, “I’ve thought of something to get you out of the house. I’ve just been on the phone to Crawford-Mackenzie.” He paused as though he expected a reaction.

  “The author,” he said.

  “Never heard of him,” I clarified.

  “You must have heard of Crawford-Mackenzie. The famous writer. He wrote an autobiographical masterpiece called The Road to Perdition, and his Bountiful Booze in Barra was turned into a highly successful movie.”

  I hate it when people try to fill my brain with such rubbish. “Never heard of him,” I insisted.

  Bumper looked a little put out, and less certain of his good idea. “Well, he is famous, and he lives down the road. And I thought you would like to meet him.”

  “What are the alternatives?”

  Bumper shrugged his shoulders.

  “Okay then. When are we going?”

  “Ah well, this is the interesting bit. It turns out that he is having a couple of writer friends over at four o’clock tomorrow afternoon, and he’s got a house guest who is some kind of scribbler too, although I couldn’t quite understand where he fits in.”

  Clearly Bumper and I have different ideas of what is interesting.

  “One,” he continued, “is a likeable chap who does travel books and writes funny poetry. Geoffrey Hamilton-MacNiff he’s called. His I Crossed the Channel is an aloof and fanciful study of just how strange the French really are.”

  “What about the other one?” I asked hopefully.

  “What other one?”

  “The other writer?”

  “Oh well, you won’t have heard of him. No one has. A strange fellow. Bit of a leftie. Hans Bonetti-MacDonald. His Golden Symposium is a dialogue between Jesus Christ, Mohammed, Buddha and John Lennon.”

  “Bit of a rum do.”

  “Heap of shit actually. I only read it because he lives over on the other side of the Island. If you ask me, the fellow isn’t all there, but all sorts wash up here. I don’t know how the locals can put up with it.”

  Well the prognosis was not good. But what can a chap do? In the absence of any other entertainment and with another three days of torrential rain likely to follow, I decided to join the fun.

  At four the next day we all set off. I almost changed my mind. Why, I said to myself, would I want to listen to a few arty-farties sounding off? Who knows if this Crawford-Mackenzie fellow’s whisky is as good as Bumper’s? But out of inertia, I let myself be drawn along. Good job too. Quite a scene it was.

  I was well equipped for the weather, but Bumper, who lives on this sodden island all year round, only put an anorak over his tweed jacket, so the legs of his corduroy trousers were soaking by the time we reached the home of the writer everyone had heard of, except me. It was an agreeably plain early nineteenth-century house – a Telford manse, I was told – and it combined Presbyterian solidity with middle-class cosiness. A high wall surrounded the house, and a tall birch tree stood proudly in a corner of the front garden – an unusual sight on this treeless and windswept island.

  Well, Crawford-Mackenzie’s secretary met us at the door and ushered us in to a small but welcoming hall that smelt of damp wood and dusty carpet, which seemed appropriate to the spartan but comforting antiquity of a house to be visited but not lived in. We were told that Crawford-Mackenzie was only just getting up. So we sat around and she brought us some whisky. Hamilton-MacNiff was already there and complaining about how slowly people move on the Isle of Archasamby, but he didn’t seem to move much himself. In fact he seemed to spend his time on absurdly long, solitar
y walks across deserted areas and sitting around in bars observing other people while they were pausing for a quick drink. I’m not sure how he can make a living, but clearly his parents can afford to keep him. They may not have sent him to Eton like us, but they apparently could afford some minor public school.

  Crawford-Mackenzie came in wearing his dressing-gown, and he is quite a character. He belongs to another age, and only in that remote spot could such an intractably old-fashioned man of indisputable intelligence survive and even flourish. He smiled cordially at me and Hamilton-MacNiff. “Geoffrey, good to see you,” he said in a deep, sonorous but rather subdued voice. To me he said nothing as, clearly in early-morning mode, he had no idea who I was, which was the first surprise of the evening.

  The first conversation of note concerned the islands. Crawford-Mackenzie has strong – and somewhat barmy – opinions on this subject, and this was good because in itself the question was of no interest to me. The other writer, Hans Bonetti-MacDonald, had just come in. He, too, looked like he had swum to the house underwater with his clothes on. He had removed his boots on entering, and a blackened toe was protruding from one of his once white socks. His dark hair was turning grey, but he could not have been over forty. He sat down heavily in an armchair, as though he were in his own house, and, having caught his breath, he looked up at Crawford-Mackenzie and said, “Hi there, Charles, good to see you again.”

  Crawford-Mackenzie seemed genuinely pleased to see him. He said, “And it’s always a pleasure to see you, Hans. Help yourself to whisky. Dorothy left the tray in the corner.” What they had in common, God knows.

  Hamilton-MacNiff returned to what appeared to be his favourite subject: the supposed indolence of the natives. Crawford-Mackenzie seemed angered by these speculations, but he was too much of a gentleman to deny or attack them. Instead he came up with his lunatic thesis: “But it’s the place that makes them like that, damn it! It’s the west wind that makes them so distinct. It bludgeons them constantly and they survive. Only the toughest can avoid being twisted and stunted by the endless power of the wind. Like the trees. Of course, it always saps your strength: that is why the Gaels are lazier than the Shetland Islanders; that is why the Gaels are more reflective and creative.”

  “Oh, please, do we have to talk in endless stereotypes,” Bonetti-MacDonald remarked drearily, taking his first sip of whisky.

  “You’d prefer to be hemmed in by every politically correct prejudice against prejudice,” Crawford-Mackenzie laughed. “That is why you’re so boring, Hans. Do they have a west wind in Italy?”

  “Of course they have a west wind. Everyone has a west wind. In fact the Italians have special names for three winds: the northwesterly Maestrale, the northerly Tramontana which brings the cold and damp down from the mountains, and the Scirocco which carries the hot, dry and sometimes dusty air of the African desert.”

  “Small wonder the Italians are a befuddled people. Better to be battered always from the same direction.”

  I was delightfully confused by these people. At this stage, principally by their strange names, so I made my first foray into their madness. “Why just the Italian winds, Mr. Bonetti-MacDonald? You must be an expert in German ones too.”

  “My mother was half-German and half-Gael, and my father Italian. I never learnt German; nor did I ever live in Germany.”

  “An exotic background.”

  “Hardly” was his curt reply.

  “How did you end up here?”

  “I inherited my maternal grandmother’s croft. One place is as good as another.”

  “I see that you like to make your own way in life,” I said sarcastically.

  But he replied, “I do.”

  Then he took a real swig of his whisky, squared towards me and smiled provocatively: “Who do you vote for?”

  “Do you need to ask?” I answered a little stiffly – you know me when I pretend to be offended.

  “I do. You see I’m always looking for interesting people who defy their own stereotypes.”

  “Sorry to disappoint you, then. I vote in accordance with what is expected of me. I vote Tory. How could I vote for anything else?”

  “Well, I thought there was a good chance of your being Lib-Dem or UKIP, just for the hell of it. But surely someone like you could now go with Labour? Why not? Very reliable – for you!”

  Now I was enjoying myself. The little twit was getting wound up. I stretched myself as though I were supremely comfortable, not only in Crawford-Mackenzie’s baggy and badly sprung armchair but also in the whole of my worldly existence – as though I had never felt a moment of panic, pain or loss, which of course I have, and I asked expansively, “Why is it that human beings so often believe mistakenly that, whatever our political, religious and philosophical differences, we all share a common morality and thought process? That’s the reason for your insane but rather touching faith in persuasion through sound reasoning. I’m not political like you people. I’m not political at all. I don’t even like the Tories. They’re venal and often stupid. People shouldn’t vote for people because they like them.”

  “I can agree with that – at least in part – but why do you vote for them?”

  “You’re right, I do find Labour very reliable these days, and they should be let into government every now and then, just to stop them from feeling hurt and restless – and going off into a leftward tailspin. But how can I put it? – When the Conservative Party is in power, it is as though God is in His heaven and everything and everybody is in its proper place. And the proper place for the Tories is in government, even though most of them are jumped-up shopkeepers or old Etonians too stupid to find a proper job.”

  Perhaps this conversation would have wandered on. Perhaps I would have really riled them. Fate or chance had decided otherwise: we had an unexpected visitor. Lord Macmillan of Archasamby is a tall, cadaverous man. He is energetic and intelligent, and has an almost religious belief in the omniscience, perspicacity and bountifulness of a single entity: himself. In this he differs little from most politicians. And these are necessary men: someone has to take unpopular decisions and coat them with a sugar of lies. Of course this is a trade that requires lashings of self-deception. I call a spade a spade, as does Bumper in his hesitant self-deprecating way. So do these writer fellows in their absurdly tortuous, show-offy way. But a politician must call it by another name, and believe in whatever distortion circumstance demands. How that must poison their lives, poor things.

  The body language was fascinating. Lord Macmillan was in a hurry and clearly wanted to speak to the master of the house – alone. I also got the impression that he did not take a liking to Hamilton-MacNiff, who he didn’t know, and detested Bonetti-MacDonald, who clearly he did. When I was introduced to him, his face brightened up wonderfully, and he squeezed my hand hard with all the strength from his thin but sinewy arms. “I’ve always wanted to make your acquaintance, Mr. Kentley,” he said.

  “How do you know of my existence,” I asked wearily.

  “Our government was very conscious of the city’s importance. I made it my business to know who the movers and shakers were.”

  “Call me Peregrine,” I said coldly. I cannot stand New Labour politicians. They have no taste.

  He of course was only too pleased to make a great display of his newly acquired status. It was to be Peregrine this and Peregrine that all evening. And he did stay once he was aware of my presence.

  Bonetti-MacDonald was continuing the conversation without us, and they were still talking about these people called Gaels, who quite frankly I had never heard of. “The Gaels, like all other minority cultures in Europe, will only be Gaels for as long as they keep their language. If they lose it, they will be like everyone else – and any pretence to retain their distinctiveness will be a stupid ethnic myth. No one’s ethnicity is distinct, only their culture.”

  “You lot are not Gaels,” said Lord Macmillan dismissively, “so what can you know about it.”


  “We’re more Gaelic than you are,” the three writers replied in unison, and somehow their English, public-school accents made this statement sound ridiculous. There followed a long, heated and rather scholastic debate about what constituted a Gael and what did not. It appeared that Lord Macmillan came from the main town on the island and did not, in fact, speak Gaelic, while the three writers lost points ethnically because none of their fathers were Gaels: a Lowlander, an Englishman and, good heavens, an Italian.

  “Do you mind me adding a note of reality to your discussion?” I said grandly, and you know how I enjoy lording it up, as though I cared a damn. “Surely in this globalised world in which people are migrating by the million from one continent to another, there can be little point in arguing over whether a person is wholly or one-quarter Gael. Does it really matter if this person speaks or doesn’t speak a dying language? Sorry if I say things as they are, rather than as they appear to you in your febrile imaginations.”

  “Peregrine, you’re quite right to bring them back down to earth,” said Lord Macmillan, who had been denying the right of his fellow human beings to pronounce on a particular subject if they didn’t come from one-hundred-per-cent island stock.

  Hamilton-MacNiff was off from the blocks before his New-Labour lordship had finished talking: “You think we’re guided by our imaginations? How wrong can a person be? We’re guided by the overriding problems of our time – the global ones and the local ones. For centuries – millennia perhaps – we’ve been trashing this ball of molten rock coated with a thin layer of solid rock and earth, but only now that pollution is reaching critical levels are we giving the question any thought – and we’re reacting far too slowly. Humanity has not invented a system capable of conserving our shrinking world, and probably never will. We spend billions on preserving old buildings and ancient artefacts, but when a corporation dumps toxic waste in the Ivory Coast, a judge issues a super-injunction to protect the culprit: could we get further away from a proper tutelage of the environment that sustains us?”