Hell’s teeth, that last will and testament set something going like a train. When I say the last, I mean the first one. It got a bit much. I had to lay it all aside. Picked it up at different times and then other stuff happened. Years and years of other stuff. You know how a dictionary is out of date as soon as it’s printed.
I’m reminded now of the notes on the form which set the whole thing in motion. Off and on. Lengthy though they are, these musings can’t claim to be the product of any perpetual motion. Efficient we can sometimes do but perpetual is tricky. Not even the blacksmith down the road has managed that yet, though he’s come close. It’s maybe no accident that the typeface used in Admiralty charts, for general information, is Perpetua. Come to think of it, the one used to highlight warnings is Univers. Modest people, the Admiralty, as represented by the Hydrographic Office. It took them a hell of a time before they acknowledged the significant survey work done by one Dr John Rae, of Orkney. Not a naval officer.
The practical stuff in my first attempt at a Will is a bit out of date now so I’m going to have another go at that now.
TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN, please accept this as the last and final document to the date fixed thereon and signed by myself and witnessed by my friend the Reverend Armitage, who you may be interested to know is now back in the fold. Or operating the gate to the fold. Anyway, he’s got his old job back. I don’t think you have to believe in God to be an Episcopalian minister. Or priest.
The most important thing to say is that the cod appear to be coming back. Well, not the same guys exactly, but their progeny. I left a few behind in the fridge in the townhouse kitchen. I hope the message got out. The key’s under the usual stone. People still drop off fresh fish when they know you’re not well enough to catch your own. They came from the west side, of course. The Minch has still not recovered. You might not rate cod but these were line-caught. Their delicate frameworks were not crunched. So the mottles and marbling changed in tone from a kelp-tinged russet to best butter. The very tint of the pats you’ll find simply wrapped in greaseproof paper.
You hear more of the news when you live close to the hoil. I can tell you the thumping big cod are being taken on the searoad to Muckle Flugga. Balta Sound is still sad. The sailor reported that there are only a few saturated timber piles to hint of the bustling piers, the commerce and banter. We have to imagine my Lewis grandmother, and maybe my Broch one as well, taking their picnic on the Sunday when the boats’ ropes remained secure on the rafts of black fishing ships.
Outskerries is a rich looking place, though, he said, and the port of Lerwick has all the signs of a Scandinavian city, with oil revenue stacked in the warehouses. The trawlers and purse-seiners rise high but they have to remain tied up on designated days (not necessarily Sundays). So the mate returns to Whalsay or Outskerries to whitewash his house again and set a few creels with the lad. The surviving trawlers, sheltering in the home haven, show more and more signs of terminal decline. Their registrations are seldom SY. Most were bought after doing their short commercial life’s work on the east coast. The BF or FR ship is patched and paint is thrown in its direction now and again. There are exceptions. There’s a fine AB whalebacked boat in signal red and a timber ship with an all-over deck casing of steel that’s well painted in a very fetching lilac. The skipper’s a cove, not a blone, but pride is taken. Most of the voices you’ll hear when they’re mending nets are Romanian or Bulgarian but there are also deckhands from the Philippines.
So what’s so different from the hotchpotch of voices you might have heard in the days of the great herring trade – Ukrainian or Russian or German or Polish or Swedish or Danish or Cockney, or Geordie or Buchan or man of Hoy or any other tone of any other trader who has passed through our hoil?
But I’m not going to prolong the rant. You already know the predisposition of the Long Island male towards preaching. Even if the faith is skepticism.
FIRST, the menu. The most important thing about this Will is the gathering to read it so we’ll try to make the most of that. I hope my surviving friends will have made the arrangements for the scoff to take place in my house on Kenneth Street. Gurnard and mackerel. Serve them up as Hebridean tapas and this is how, if you will. There will be enough in the kitty for a deoch of choice to wash it down.
I’d like you please to fillet the gurnard – red ones or grey, doesn’t matter. But conserve the carcasses to produce a stock. If it’s not too fancy a term – can we call it a jus? Anyway, a reduction of that stock with a bay leaf in it and some fino sherry. Take parsley from the boxes out the back door.
Then please tap them dry on a clean cloth. (Is that why they’re called tapas?) Moisten them again but with lemon or lime juice or both. This is an anti-scurvy device but it also brings out the taste. Maybe some finely chopped fresh chilli but not too much. Take some fine polenta flour in a separate plate and season it. If there’s any of the black designer-salt left in the jar, sprinkle some of that in it. It won’t taste much different but it will look very fine. Failing that, substitute a good twist of black pepper but if you do, you probably want to leave out the chilli.
A fair bit of clear oil, nothing too strong-tasting in itself and not too hot but enough to crisp the polenta coating. Drain and serve with a few spoons of the intense jus, in a separate small bowl, as a dip.
Grab your own bit for quality control and get on with the mogs (AKA in SY as mackerel, runag, mogerero). If they’re small fish, the sort we seldom used to see, but which taste even sweeter, cut slits in the flanks so the flavourings enter. If they’re large, cut a fillet from each side. The head, backbone, guts and tail will come off in a one-er but don’t keep them for stock. Ideally you want to get them in a pot as soon as possible but the other kind of pot. Just take it aboard a small craft and row far enough to take shrimp or prawn or crab from the mouth of the Creed. (The river.) As my olaid once said, a visitor to SY heard the phrase The Mouth of the Creed and wondered what cultish religious practices took place in this town.
Have the oven quite hot. Sauté onions and garlic and ginger with fresh ground masala, composed to your taste. But please consider splitting some cardamoms and getting the seeds in there. Smoky paprika is good for the look as well as the taste. Tumeric is a bit powerful but the smallest hint is not terrible. You can stuff the cavities of the fish with a bit of greenery – coriander is good but please, not the individual packets air-freighted in from Israel.
With luck the conversation will be going full pelt over the first course, so the mogs will have a chance to bake till they’re about as crisp as they get on the barbecue. Remember, that’s not cats. I’ll never get that way folk on the mainland use our words for fish, for animals.
Someone nearly as fussy as me should attend to the basmati so it should be steaming ready with something close to a crust happening at the base of the pan. And the dhal should be Beluga black lentils or, failing that, I’d go for Puy. I realise that these staples were probably not grown on the Peninsula or anywhere else on our own long Island but it seems a bit more sensible to import sacks of these, slow-time, than flying delicate sproutings around the globe. Plus, it’s good to keep some mariners in trade.
If you can’t get hold of mogs, I’d go for megrim. A firm and tasty fish and more common in the trawl than lemons or Dover sole.
As to music, we may have done that already. A small but select gathering. Sorry if you missed the tunes. We were blessed with fiddle and guitar and chopstick percussion, not long before I made my exit from Kenneth St. I had a feeling I wouldn’t need to make a return booking for the cab.
I could have given the cancer of the bowel a good run for its money but they sussed out I’ve had poor lungs for some time. The heart wasn’t that great either. I thought I was eating a healthy diet of fresh fish. I thought that using butter again, for a fair number of years, rather than the low cholesterol oils and spreads, was quite balanced.
When I failed the MOT they advised me that prawns and scallops are very high in the bad sort of cholesterol. ‘How many years have you been living like this?’
‘A couple.’
‘And exercise?’
‘I have been walking well-defined routes,’ I said. There wasn’t a lot of point in adding that these were between the kettle and the computer, avoiding the growing heights of papers.
I did take one proper day off, helping out on The Real McCaughey, in Loch Erisort. The usual deckhand was taking part in either the peat-revival or the religious one. The skipper was very happy to let me take the wheel for the day. I was just not fit enough to do any hauling or even sorting. But I could still steer the boat while he did all that physical stuff.
Davie is fishing a lot of territory I know. He finds the edges and borders where the big langoustines dig in. He has detail on his colour sounder and he targets these tight ribbons that have escaped the trawl and the dredge. He tubes the catch, to protect it, on its travels. I think he might know each prawn by name, the way he talks about them. Good job I help him out, when the Garyvard lad has skidaddled, or he’d probably be talking to them too. And come on, it wouldn’t be a day off if I came to sea with coriander and lime and lemongrass. So Davie throws butter on the pan and sautés the smaller prawns in the shell. He hails his mate, back from his dives, and a bag of scallop shells comes over on the boathook in exchange for a bucket of our own catch. If Anna is back home, I make sure a fry of each goes round the corner for her and her mother.
We served up a wee starter of each, that last kitchen party on Kenneth Street. Anna was on an expedition, out of contact. Cambodian rivers. Gabriele sent a card but it included a note saying she was sure I didn’t want her attending but bawling. She was right. Mairi and Davie came along. So did their lads. Mairi must have decided she’d left it too late to have her own offspring but the two lads came to the Island along with Davie. Their mother fell for an Indian traveller and she’d gone back there with him to discover herself.
The Piscie minister presided when I got a bit short of breath. Michael has kept up his wee property on the Peninsula. He claims to have an eye to the future but I think he’s looking to a rise in Island property prices rather than any possible progress of his own soul.
In case you’re anxious about an ending to my rant, to rival Rocket Post, can I confirm for you that Davie, the cove from away, has made Mairi a happy woman. I’ve a feeling that her computer consultancy fuels the Ford Mermaid but the boat’s in safe hands when that cove drives her. His boys think she’s cool and she seems really easy with them. Davie says they came back to life when they got going on the fishing and boats. I’ve shown them a couple of marks, myself. They take it all in.
Mairi has never got back in touch with Kenny. I’ve phoned him a couple of times. When the house was quiet around the New Year. My old mate from Westview is still on the tack except for the occasional break-out. He did up an ex-council flat in Brixton, now Grade C listed. He’s been with the same blone for years but they don’t live together. She’s never been up this way. He says she keeps her own flat in another block, a couple of bus stops away. She just carries on with her normal life whenever Kenny goes AWOL. It’s usually over in a week, these days. He must have something to come back to. I only got all this gen the week we buried his mother.
As far as I know Angus is still alive but not responding to anyone. Kenny did go along but he said he didn’t think there was much point. He didn’t stay long. Not a flicker. Our skipper is likely to outlive me but I think I’ve had the best deal.
Enough of the merry banter. It’s time to talk property.
Dear Anna, love for you has been the sustaining and constant factor. But I’m not leaving you the house. You’re doing not too bad, young woman. I’ve no idea how your mother will dispose of the empire on Leverhulme Drive. If all that stuff I built is still intact then there’s a fair chance one or other building will provide some income. They don’t belong to me, so I can’t give you what I don’t now have.
It was great to know you were making good use of the garage-cum-library. Not everyone would see why you’d need the both of them in one building. I’ve no idea what the arrangement is with your mother but you tell her something from me: if she’s charging you rent for it, I’m coming back to haunt her. If she thought my obsessions were boring in life wait till she hears me intone the specifications of all these engines, as a ghost. It will be constant, the dimensions, tolerances, servicing instructions, repeating in her ears for the rest of her own life.
It seems to me that the legacy of that troubled architect who was the grandfather you never met, included a fine house and a fine boat which are now outwith the family. But he also left a pretty sensible portfolio of property and your mother’s share should be enough to give you a good start. That’s nothing to do with me but I’ll tell you now what is. Because I made a shit job of explaining it at the time.
I was happy to put my own research on the back-burner when I knew you were on the way. It’s nothing to do with being led to believe you were a son and heir, at the time. It didn’t come naturally, biting the lip and taking the queen’s shilling but it was a worthwhile job and it fed the family. It was right for the time but then I had to get out.
Living with your mother was like that too. Leaving her, wasn’t leaving you. It wasn’t really about meeting or re-meeting any other woman. My aspirations had become different to your mother’s. Pity I didn’t think all this out before putting up all these extensions. None of them provided space. Never mind, the shared equity from the Kenneth Street abode helped the both of us complete our studies. So I’m turning full circle, back to the faith of my labouring grandfathers, in education as the way ahead. The house did its job for me as it did in the past, for a good few folk now already in the land of the dead. But I no longer really own it.
Anna, a ghráidh, I think the ones that judge us might be our offspring or the ones nearest to that. I managed to organise getting a boat put back together but I broke up one family. I don’t think it would have been any easier for you or your mother if I’d been able to hold on a bit longer. But you might say, what was so important that it was worth all that damage?
If I don’t really think that spelling out details of past actions is going to make that much difference to the future, why did I have to get back to my subject? I’m sorry but I don’t know. It just seemed to matter. We might have free will but I don’t think I had a choice.
I regret that we missed a bit of theatre, in my box coming out the storm windows, up top but I hope that the idea raised a smile. What I very much hope is that I’ve passed on some stories to you.
A bit more practical stuff now. I suspect that a sensitive hospital staff might have legally helped me on my way, by omission or otherwise, and if so I thank them for it.
Young Al the undertaker, who’s not that young now, nudged me one time down Sandwick and told me not to worry. The olaid bought a plot for me and one for the sister too. Bad manners to refuse a present so don’t burn me after all. Go for the standard local option. Anna, you could probably have the sister’s but it won’t be much good to you either if you go diving down Victoria Falls or somewhere like that.
Mr Executor, there’s a bottle of Jura to say thanks for attending to details though I know you’d help, anyway. Please toast the brave and perceptive Mr Orwell when you take the cork off that one. My good friend Michael Armitage, who is very worldly for a minister of any breed, advises me that it is possible that a suitable charitable trust would be able to retain the Kenneth Street house by sub-letting a portion of it.
There’s been discussions on international exchanges. Residencies. It would be great if you were involved in some way, but it’s also great you know what matters to yourself. If Michael’s scheme proves feasible, I’d like to see a room left for the use of exchange students. Even though I won’t be seeing it. But what about encouraging:
• original enquiry in the sustainable energy, wave and tidal action preferred – the wind goes up and down but the sea does that all the time
• historians who believe that harping on about the atrocities of the past may mitigate those of the future
• conservation of fish stocks by a return to working with lines rather than trawls
I did seriously consider seeing if we could do some deal with the Arts Centre, along the road. It’s been grand to wander over for a yarn but their cinema programme has been depressing. I’d reconsider this bequest if there was an undertaking to show The Last Picture Show once a year. After all, it is about our home town though I don’t know why Bogdanovich felt it necessary to transpose the thing to Texas.
Anna, help yourself to any of the vinyl or the books that are still about. And that’s a nice record deck and amp by the way, if your mother’s one is kaput. There’s likely to be enough in the bank to finance an expedition you wouldn’t normally do. I’d like to think you might have a bit more thinking and writing time between the treks and the paddles. You see I’m a normal Da with a bourgeois tendency, after all.
I hope you’re not shocked by any of these revelations. I’ve at least two, possibly even three, lost loves in me but I’m pretty sure that most people do. Maybe the lessons of history are only worth serious discussion if we accept the premise that individual human animals aren’t as individual as they think they are.
I still hear the voice of a young lady who had cropped hair and slim fingers. The memory led me back to an area of research which I should have pursued a little earlier. At the age of fifty-seven, I submitted my PhD thesis, which did indeed explore attitudes to the slave trade in one area of Scotland, up to and after abolition.
My own parents made sacrifices so that I had the chance of a University Education. Now I’ve used part of what might have been my daughter’s inheritance to complete it. I can only hope that the published thesis is worth that. Let’s face it, the economy is falling in about our ears. Development at this pace never was sustainable. In the present climate, we can never take liberal values for granted.
You can only analyse events so far. My olman found the hot metal catch to a lid that let him out of a glorified sardine can of a tank. Then he was remembered and found and led up from a collapsed steel bunk in a doomed ship. One of these incidents was on the North African continent and one in North African territorial waters. I suggest that this is not evidence of any divine plan but the accidental circumstances which are part of his own story.
Here’s another one, since I’ve got an audience. I’m very grateful I lived long enough to read the Guardian of 22nd June 2012. By the skin of my teeth. And that Michael bought me a subscription. I was well enough for a couple of hours each day to read the paper and well enough to spout this response to the kind Macmillan nurse who plumbed it into the laptop for me.
We are of course all under sentence of death but the timing can sometimes be altered. Liam Holden was the last person in the UK to be sentenced to a legal death, by hanging. The measure was still available to judges in Northern Ireland after it was dropped (sorry) in England, Scotland and Wales. His conviction for the murder of a soldier in Ballymurphy, West Belfast, in 1972 was based only on his confession.
At his trial, Mr Holden described his interrogation by Army officers, before being handed over to the civil authorities. He told how wet towels were applied until he was sure he was going to drown. One of the officers in question had recently attended a training course in interrogation techniques. The jury was not present in the courtroom when this was disclosed. Mr Holden was not hung. He was imprisoned in The Maze until 1989. He has just been pardoned. Out of thirty-three similar appeals, twenty-six have, so far, been successful. Only four convictions have been upheld.
My own father was reprieved at least twice in his life, from drowning or choking. By luck rather than by law. If he had not survived, I would not have been born. I very much hope that none of you wish, in fact, that I hadn’t been brought to life. If you do think that, please keep your opinion to yourself for an hour and enjoy the scoff. I hope the quality of the rice and dhal is sufficient unto the needs of the vegetarians who must surely inherit what is left of the earth.
How can we judge if we used our time well? But I’ve no doubts at all about so much of a second of the time we put in to raising our daughter. In case any listeners have been switched off for a while and are just waking up for the business. Here we go.