What about Charlie? I asked. Was he still alive when his mother died? Aye he was, Don said. He came to see her a couple of times. He’d have come more often but he was in the army by then, you see. He came these two or three times and while he was seeing her I came out here into the garden. We hardly said a word to one another. When we knew she hadn’t long left I got a message to him through his regiment and he came one last time – compassionate leave – and I asked him if he’d come back for the funeral and he said, No, why would I do that? He’d said goodbye to her and he didn’t need to say anything to anybody else. And he went back to the army and that was the last time I saw him.
He looked at me and said, Listen to me, I’ll be frightening you off spouting all this stuff at you. I said he wouldn’t and then it just kind of happened, I took his hand to assure him of that, and we went back into the house holding hands and we didn’t let go till he made some more coffee and that was when he told me more about his sons. And our hands met again over the table and that was it really, I knew we were going to be together even though nothing else happened that time, we just held hands.
It was all over with Charlie by then. He’d been dead a year and Don could talk about it without too much trouble. Charlie had been wild as a young man, he left home and ended up in Granthill, which is about the worst bit of Drumkirk there is, and he got involved in a lot of crime, gang-related stuff, which was when he and Don fell out, they had a big confrontation and Charlie nearly killed his father, and that was the end of their relationship. Well then, years passed and Liz used to see Charlie but Don and he didn’t communicate and then something happened. Don never found out what it was he did, but he heard things through a friend of his who worked on the local paper. Charlie could be violent and he did something very bad, he overstepped some boundary and the other gangs gave him an ultimatum, it was either get out or they’d shop him to the police, so he got out, he joined the army. And it saved him. No, that’s not true. That’s my interpretation and I don’t know and anyway it didn’t save him, that’s a stupid thing to say. But it changed him, or at least it controlled him. Maybe by going into the army he found a way of channelling all his anger or something. Don and I have talked about that and he says maybe I’m right but it’s not exactly something you want to think about, is it – young men channelling their anger armed with assault rifles. And the truth is we’ll never know and it still didn’t bring about a reconciliation between them, not even when Liz died.
He was in the army for seventeen years altogether. He served in Northern Ireland and the Falklands and some fathers would be proud of a record like that but Don said he’d had enough war fifty years before to knock the pride out of him and anyway the Falklands was the stupidest, most pointless war anyone could have fought in. I didn’t think so and we discussed that but we didn’t fall out over it, we just agreed to differ. And then there was the Gulf War and Charlie was out in it but he came home safely from that too. Don didn’t know this at the time because there was no contact between them. He only found out after Charlie died. An officer came to see him to tell him the news, and it was from him that he learned some of the details of where Charlie had been on service. Don talked about the officer visiting, I think it was the next night, when he took me out for our first meal.
This officer turned up at the door one evening. He asked for Mrs Elizabeth Lennie and Don said she was dead and the officer looked a bit awkward and asked who he was and Don said he was her husband. The officer asked if he was the father of Sergeant Charles Lennie, and when Don said yes the officer said he had some bad news. He came straight out with it, he said Charlie had been killed during a training exercise on Salisbury Plain. He’d been in a jeep which collided with an armoured vehicle and overturned, there were three of them in the jeep but the other two were thrown clear, only Charlie was killed. He was driving. It seemed the jeep had been in an area where it wasn’t supposed to be and the armoured vehicle came over a hill and pretty much rolled over it. Don said, And how does a thing like that happen? And the officer said, It was an accident, there’ll be a coroner’s inquiry but it was just a terrible accident. One of those things. And that was the irony. Charlie had been in all these places where the enemy had tried to shoot him or blow him up and in the end he was run over by a British tank.
The officer came back a few days later and talked more about the accident and the inquiry, and he had a whole lot of notes in a briefcase, in case Don needed to ask any questions, but Don said he only had one, and that was whether Charlie had made a good soldier.
The officer looked a bit surprised and shuffled through his papers and said yes, he’d been a good soldier, he’d been in the army for all those years, he’d served his country well, that kind of thing. And Don said he didn’t give a damn about any of that, he’d barely spoken to his son in twenty years and maybe he should rephrase the question because what he wanted to know was whether the army had made something of him. And the officer looked through his papers again and said yes, I think we did. It’s not uncommon for there to be disciplinary problems with new recruits, Mr Lennie, but Charlie came through them, and after all he did end up a sergeant. Don asked what he meant by disciplinary problems and the officer said he didn’t have all the details but it seemed Charlie had taken some time to adjust to the military regime. He said, We sorted him out, Mr Lennie. Often young men join us because there is a lack in their lives, and we supply whatever it is that’s missing. A sense of self-worth, duty, comradeship, a sense of family. When your son signed up it was a two-way contract. Perhaps you could say we remoulded him. And then he said that he hoped the answers he’d given were some kind of comfort, and Don said no, not really, but Charlie was dead now and there was nothing more to be said or done about it.
Obviously I’m paraphrasing. I wasn’t there but when Don talks about something from the past it’s very intense. He didn’t describe what the officer looked like or anything, but it was as if he was there at the table beside us, as if Don was seeing him and not me, having that same conversation with him. But after a minute he was back with me. He said, Marjory, I feel like I can tell you almost anything. And I said, That’s good, that’s the way I feel too. He said, I’d like you to meet Billy some time, I think you’d really like him. And I said, I’d like you to meet my children too. Well, you don’t say things like that at our age without realising the significance. We knew what we were saying all right.
And of course I did meet Billy and I do like him, very much. He’s quiet and deep but he has a generous spirit, like his father. And Billy’s a wonderful father. Another lifetime, or a fair bit of one, seems to have gone by since Don and I got together. Billy and Catriona have their children, growing up bilingual in Glasgow – trilingual, Don says, because he feeds them as much Scots as he can on top of the Gaelic and English – and I have seven grandchildren and there’s a serious danger I’ll be a great-grandmother before I die, I can hardly believe that. And we lead a life of contentment. I don’t know how else to put it. We don’t fight, we don’t argue, and it’s not because we bite our tongues or one of us defers to the other, we just get on. What fortune is that! To live in this beautiful country and be old and healthy and be with someone you love and respect every minute of the day, every day of the week. What fortune is that!
I’ve asked him once what he meant when he said he always kept a thought of me in his heart. He said, I mean just that, I never forgot you. He said, I think most people go through life a wee bit disappointed in themselves. I think we all keep a memory of a moment when we missed someone or something, when we could have gone down another path, a happier or better or just a different path. Just because they’re in the past doesn’t mean you can’t treasure the possibilities. I said, But there was no possibility, not for us, not then. You had a wife and two young children. We weren’t possible then. Aye, he said, you’re right of course. So we didn’t really miss each other, I said. No, he said, but maybe we put down a marker for another time. And now’s t
he time. Now we can do whatever we want to do.
And that’s it, isn’t it? We’ve reached that place, that stage. It’s a shame there’s not that much time left, but we can do whatever we like with it. And we do. We do.
A time came when you knew the time was coming. Your bones were sore, the vast distances you’d once covered were no longer possible. You had become an old man, aged by seasons and weather and the fierce grace of your journey. You put your crooked hand to your cheek and the hollow hardness of it was satisfying to you. The woman you had married, if she still lived, would not be an old woman, not in the same way. The child you had had, whose name you could not remember, would be a woman of advancing years. They were lost to you, and surely you were lost to them. You did not regret. Regret was somewhere far, far back and it did not touch you.
It was autumn, the merciful season of decay. You had always thought that when you finally surrendered it would be winter. You’d imagined a walk in a night of snow and ice, your senses closing down as the cold closed in around you. So when you felt the time coming and it was autumn, a little well of gratitude bubbled within you, though you did not consider what it was you were thankful for. Slowly, slowly, as the days diminished and the leaves fell and the land lowered itself through red and ochre and yellow and gold and brown into sleep, you travelled north and west, pointing yourself like an arrow to the distant corner, the turning point of the land. You were heading for something you knew but did not know, like a fish, like a bird. Perhaps at last you were heading towards yourself.
You left the last of the houses, the last of the people behind. You followed a track and the track led through great dunes to a bay. The wind had the last warmth of the south in it and drove spume and veils of sand across the beach. The great ocean roared and crashed beside you. Gull feathers and the empty armour of crabs scurried before your steps. You crossed shallow waters rushing like ropework. The sky piled up in the distance. You stopped, looked back. Nobody. You were alone in the vast expanse of land meeting water. You trudged on, your steps heavy now as you counted them down, the last of all the millions you had taken.
You’d not eaten for days. You had no hunger left. No hunger, no cold, no heat, no pain. Memory was draining from you. You were pouring from yourself like the water to the sea. Your time was coming.
You knew the meaning of everything and the meaning of nothing. You were ready to leave. Afterwards, everything would be as if you had never been.
You settled on a bank of sand under a low cliff. The debris of birds and fish and stone and shell was there. Some years perhaps the sea would reach you. The wind wrapped itself around you. Sand shifted and bedded in your folds.
Night came. Morning came. Night came. Morning came. You did not move.
Nobody else was there.
Your fading hand reached into the pocket where the stones were. There were hardly any left. All the others you had gathered and sown were gone. Now it was your turn.
You were going.
The smooth white pebbles sat cool in your mouth. You sucked, creating a moist coat for each one. You swallowed them slowly, one after another.
You were going.
You ate the stones, and the sea faded, and the land faded, and the sand filled your ears and eyes and nose, and you faded into the land, into the sea. You were going, and you were not coming back.
You were gone.
PART SIX
The Gift of the Moment
Applause. A cheer or two, clapping that roars then dies away like the sea over a pebble beach. He nods, smiles, thank you thank you. Clears his throat and – a hint of nerves? – taps the microphone even though they all know it’s working.
‘Well. Here we are. Thank you, Duncan, for those kind words. I’d like to endorse what you said about Ellen Imlach’s introductory essay. She wrote it at very short notice and it’s both provocative and reflective and says things about my father and his work that I don’t think I could ever have articulated. So, thank you, Ellen. And thank you all, for turning up. Actually, thank you for sticking around.’ Laughter from the front rank. ‘As Duncan’s just said, this show has been a long time in the making.’
Here we are. Rows of faces. A semicircle of heads, seven or eight deep. Mike Pendreich can’t quite believe how many people have come. Everybody looking up at him at the top of the short flight of steps. He’s in that slightly hunched position adopted by people who aren’t used to microphones. The mike stand – he could take that personally. Duncan Roxburgh off to one side, looking proudly proprietorial, as well he might after the blood and sweat he’s expended, most of it not his, to get this place established. People are craning their necks, shuffling sideways for a view. In other circumstances it would be Mike doing the stretching and shifting, trying to get the right line, the right background. Trying to capture the subject. But today, now, they’re all looking at him. As if there’s a camera inside every head, and every blink is a shutter action. As if all the faces he’s ever photographed are busy taking him with their eyes. And it makes him think of something else and he decides to depart from his prepared speech. Only he doesn’t because he doesn’t have a prepared speech, he was just going to step up to the microphone after Duncan and say a few words people would instantly forget, but suddenly it’s important to say something they’ll remember. He’s never been much good at forward planning. Let the moment dictate what you say, what you do. And now, this is the moment. He feels the density of it, he hefts it like a glass paperweight, or one of those perfectly smooth, tide-rolled stones from a particular bay on the north coast, not far from Cnoc nan Gobhar, where the retreating waves sometimes sound like rounds of applause, and he wants to hold it out to this crowd of people and say, Look at this. This is what we have. Treasure it. Remember it.
‘A long time in the making,’ he says. He hears himself, the familiar, unfamiliar sound of his own voice amplified. ‘I’m thinking of that massive painting that David Octavius Hill, one of the fathers of Scottish photography, did of the Disruption of 1843.’ Should he go down this road? Will they get what he’s talking about? Too late, he’s started. ‘You know the one I mean?’ A few nods, thank you, this is the temple of the camera, the National Gallery of Photography, after all. ‘Over a period of years Hill and Robert Adamson made calotype portraits of most of the ministers who walked out of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland that day to found the Free Church. And then Hill recreated the scene in a painting, using the calotypes as the models for the people in it. And this painting, which hangs in the Free Church buildings on the Mound to this day, it’s huge. How big is it, Duncan?’
‘Oh, about five feet high by twelve feet long.’
‘About five feet by twelve feet. And there are hundreds of people in it, I can’t remember exactly how many …’
‘Four hundred and fifty-seven.’
‘You see how useful it is to have an oracle at your side?’ Laughter. ‘And some of the people in the painting weren’t present on the day but were instrumental in setting up the Free Church, and many of those who were present were photographed years after the event, looking much older than they were in 1843, so the whole exercise is like a reverse of the process of airbrushing people out of history. Hill brushed them in to his painting. Yes, the Scots invented everything – including Stalinist methodology long before Stalin was even born.’ A few knowing, appropriately grim chuckles. ‘So. Not a historically accurate picture, but a representation of a moment, a movement, in history. And it took Hill, with his wife’s assistance, twenty-three years to complete it. A long time in the making.’
He pauses. Some eager, attentive expressions, some glazing over, a bit more shuffling. He’s trying to say something here, but what? These people have come to celebrate the opening of an exhibition of his father’s work and what do they get? A lecture about a Victorian religious schism most of them, even if they’ve actually heard of it, know nothing about. Make the point, Mike, and move on.
‘The Disruption,’ h
e says – and it starts to spill out, it amazes him that he sounds so confident when he feels so unsure, it astounds him that he’s accumulated such vast amounts of information and can access it so easily, but what is it for, what is it for? – ‘the Disruption is a moment from the past that doesn’t seem to have anything to do with us. What was it about? Whether a congregation had the right to elect its own minister or was obliged to accept the choice of the local patron? Who gives a damn? It’s hard to believe that an issue like that could split a country down the middle, but it did. It was traumatic and it mattered. It made Francis Jeffrey, one of the founders of the Edinburgh Review, say he was proud of his country, that there wasn’t another on earth where such a thing could have happened. How strange is that, to be proud that people stuck to a principle that created division and disharmony throughout the land? Or is it strange? Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. We could have an argument about that. We could argue that it was the supporters of patronage, the government, the establishment, who caused the division and disharmony. But even at this distance, don’t we understand precisely what Francis Jeffrey meant? Because although most of us have rejected organised religion and don’t believe in God any more, we absolutely believe that no other bastard, and particularly no other rich bastard, had the right to impose his brand of religion on our ancestors.’
More laughter. Even in this year not of our Lord 2008, some people in gatherings of this kind still get a kick out of the odd mild swearie word relayed through a PA system. Or maybe it’s just relief, he’s lost them with all this talk of painted ministers and calotypes but they appreciate the tonal value of bastard. Or they appreciate the historical referencing, the overlap of different eras. What’s that thing William Faulkner’s supposed to have said? ‘The past is never dead. It’s not even past.’ Aye, quite. He can use that. Anyway …
And the Land Lay Still Page 74
