Our bus arrived in Sconser seconds after the ferry had left the harbour. It was already four metres away from the jetty en route to Raasay. Resigned to waiting at least an eternity for the next boat we realised that someone on the bridge had seen us, reversed the engines, lowered the ramps and let us come aboard. This doesn"t happen in Edinburgh where bus drivers have been known to drag pensioners along Princes Street, their walking sticks jammed in the doors, hob-nailed boots unleashing arcs of sparks as they grind along the kerb.
The ferry"s return was as hospitable in its own way as the circ.u.mstances of Boswell and Johnson"s journey to Raasay. John Macleod, the laird, had sent his "coach and six" as he called his six oared boat equipped with the finest bales of straw. He had also sent Donald McQueen, an ancient minister, and Donald Macleod, a relic from the "45 to entertain Johnson on the crossing. Boswell seemed taken with the latter, "a fellow half naked, with a bare black head, robust and spirited, something half wild Indian, half English tar." Johnson seems to have ignored the learned rent-a-crew, preferring to "sit high on the stern of the boat like a magnificent Triton".
David eschewed Triton impersonation for a perfunctory inspection of the three vehicles...o...b..ard, one of which was a scaffy lorry. The driver and his mate were the Greek G.o.ds of bin men. Their destiny was to spend part of each day island-hopping and swigging on ambrosia while their urban peers scattered improvised bowling alleys of Buckfast bottles and shovelled away the remains of tortured cats.
As they pa.s.sed Scalpay Johnson suggested that Boswell should buy the island, open a school and establish an Episcopal church. At least it would have got rid of him.
When no longer in the lee of the island the wind shook their boat or in Boswell"s childlike words, "the sea was very rough. I did not like it."
The tame Jacobite legend, perhaps irritated by the large aloof Triton squeezed into the prow, or upset at being described as a half wild Indian, retaliated by singing a song "in Erse". Perceptibly riled, Johnson concentrated on the brewing storm and mentally composed a letter to his beloved Hester, "The wind blew enough to give the boat a kind of dancing agitation."
He soon experienced his own agitation when Joseph, the ever present but rarely mentioned retainer, dropped his spurs over the side of the boat. Why did he have them out in the first place? Was he cleaning them, picking off the flesh flayed from the flanks of numerous put upon horses? Was he dangling them before Johnson to provoke him? "One more sea shanty in Latin and I"m dropping these effing spurs overboard?" I considered borrowing David"s beloved Swiss army knife and consigning it to the deep in a comparable 18th century existential gesture but thought better of the idea.
After his initial anger Johnson turned the loss of his spurs into a discourse on the second sight saying he had dreamed the night before that he dipped his staff into a river and it floated away. Not to be outdone the tame minister steered the conversation back to himself. He claimed to have banished all vestiges of superst.i.tion from his parish by boldly inviting all of the local witches to do their worst and wither the udders on his cattle. The women"s guild knitted spells and baked imprecations long into the night.
The rowers drowned out the minister"s hubristic tale by improvising a chorus to the erse song probably along the lines of, Seall air an duin" uasal reamhar, is a sporan is a chiall air seachran! or "Look at the fat gentleman, with his spurs and his sense gone a"wandering!"
As the boat drew near to the land the singing of the reapers on sh.o.r.e mingled with the song of the rowers. This romantic tableau was orchestrated by the Laird of Raasay, determined to milk the moment for every piece of cliched Highland kitsch. "Right lads when I click my fingers I want you to swing your sickles yes son, it"s called a sickle from left to right and sing that song I taught you yesterday." The pantomime worked. Boswell and Johnson were delighted with their reception.
Boswell, having promised to walk barefoot to Jerusalem if spared from the storm at sea, kissed with udder-curdling fervor a primitive cross carved in the sea wall.
We failed to find the cross. In our defence the new pier works may have swamped the symbol in concrete. We certainly attracted muted derision from the navvies working on the improvements.
Raasay House was gutted by fire four years ago. It had suffered the same fate in 1745 when every house on the island was reduced to charred embers. It had been common knowledge that someone on Raasay had given shelter to the Young Pretender. At present it is an impressive ruin with blind black holes where the windows blew out.
Johnson declared, "Our reception exceeded our expectations. We found nothing but civility, elegance and plenty."
Boswell is more inclined to itemise the snack prepared for them, "We found here coffee and tea in genteel order upon the table ... diet loaf, marmalade of oranges, currant jelly ... excellent brandy ... mutton chops and tarts, with porter, claret, mountain and punch."
We too were desperate for food and ordered breakfast at the Raasay Hotel. Instantly insolvent, bankrupt and broke, we staggered penniless towards Raasay House.
When they stayed Johnson computed that thirty seven revelers were crammed into eight rooms. "I suppose they put up temporary beds in the dining room, where they stowed all the young ladies." Boswell must have thought he had died and gone to heaven. He had stumbled across his own private island seraglio. How many excuses did he fabricate to visit the dining room? "Sorry to disturb you again ladies, I wonder if the doctor left his spurs by the settee ..."
Long-resigned to the dullish sport of geriatric trespa.s.s we ignored the keep out signs and walked past the portacabins and dumper trucks. We were interrupted by a small woman in a hard hat. After explaining our mission she relaxed her site-manager veneer and introduced herself as Lynn, one of the four trustees of Raasay House. She described how she had been closing the curtains in Johnson"s bedroom when the fire started. The cause had never been discovered. In her more rueful moments she blamed Johnson himself who may have disapproved of the half-completed renovations. She made no secret of how traumatised she had been by the fire and was still bitter that various national bodies had declined to fund the renovation of yet another decayed and ruined home.
Before its partial relaunch as an outdoor centre the house and its considerable contents had been boarded up. Over time the building was violated by both the elements and a succession of chuckling thieves who carted away boatloads of furniture and most of the library.
She said the acute sense of distress returned every morning when she arrived on site. She was certainly not in the mood to entertain tourists with hok.u.m tales of hauntings but still outlined her strong suspicion that Johnson had returned after his death to the house where he had been so happy. She had frequently caught sight of a large figure skulking round the edges of her peripheral vision. I tried to repress the thought that this was the lot of most married Scottish women. As if embarra.s.sed she counterbalanced her narrative with references to projection and wish fulfilment.
We left Lynn to brood and oversee. It was difficult not to glance backwards at Raasay House and see through her eyes the blowsy curtains dancing promiscuously in the night sky and hear the cracking gla.s.s, her own screams and the thunk of burning ceiling beams landing on each other, a charred haphazard wigwam. Meanwhile a black manna of scorched confetti pages from the Dictionary of the English Language fluttered onto the foresh.o.r.e.
The ancient overgrown churchyard slightly up the hill from the house was another gem in the collection of beautiful and peaceful ruined places that was becoming a motif of this journey. Johnson had been less impressed and sardonically lambasted the slothful guardians who let such places fall into disrepair.
Boswell and Johnson were shown an Iron Age tunnel used when they visited to store oars. It subsequently saw service as a rubbish tip before being restored as, well, a tunnel. Compelled where possible to place our feet in precisely the same spot as the earlier travellers we entered the darkness. Claustrophobia has become an unwanted companion in recent years. I"m not certain where he came from; perhaps an intimation of entering the final long airless tunnel in a decade or so. On this occasion claustrophobia was less of a challenge than stupidity. I stood up quickly and inflicted several flesh wounds on my bald pate. Streaming blood I emerged only to startle a gaggle of young children gathered outside. They ran away shrieking at the sight of the aging zombie, a refugee from the world of the undead.
When I had been staunched we hired bikes from the relocated outdoor centre as Raasay is entirely bus-free. We shared something of Boswell"s childlike eagerness to explore the island. "I last night obtained my fellow-traveller"s permission to leave him for a day, he being unable to take so hardy a walk." We have no reason to believe that Johnson could not have coped with the challenges presented by Raasay. He was not beyond the odd spot of physical recklessness. On occasions throughout his life he would, on a whim, hurl himself into the nearest river or swim in the sea. In his twilight years he looked at a wall which he used to climb, "with a degree of rapture ... and determined to try my skill and dexterity I laid aside my hat and wig, pulled off my coat, and leapt over it twice."The truth of the matter was that he had had enough of Boswell"s unctuous and irritating company. He must have relished the thought of a day spent annotating the books in the library with marginalia and huffy corrections.
I was increasingly reconciled to this cycling business but never found it easy. Pathetically neither David nor I could be the first to dismount and wheel the bikes up the steeper hills. Instead we resorted to using ridiculously low gears that required disproportionate amounts of energy just to stop falling off.
There were minor distractions: the synchronized breathy cromping of the feeding cattle; the Icarus bird larking skywards; the smaller tinny voice of an unidentified bird and above all else the insistent thump of blood in the ears. David contributed an improvised quiz: "How many teats on the following creatures, the cow, the sheep, unicorn and dodo?" (4, 2, 1 and 0). This note of foolishness was echoed in the behavior of the various sheep that wandered into the road. There was the high noon, transvest.i.te sheep in high heels, holster and handbag half hidden in the fleece. She was followed by several carnival sheep either garlanded with wreaths of ferny sticky fingers or waddling in hula hoops of unwanted wool. Out of sight their peers were either endlessly bidding against each other in a pointless auction or activating methane-powered fog horns.
Eventually we enjoyed the deliriously long and fast descent to the bay dominated by the remains of Brochel Castle. When Boswell and his entourage visited, the ancient family seat had recently been abandoned for the mod cons of Raasay House. The estate agent"s notice was just legible: Dilapidated bijou castle-ette, excellent sea views, security a strong feature, would suit small clan. The stones still standing on the outcrop of rock suggested a mean bleak home within which the residents huddled together for warmth in the winter, blinded and choked by the emetic smoke backing up in the chimney and constantly taunted by the ogre waves.
Boswell had visited the sea caves on the West coast of Raasay. Having taken directions at the outdoor centre we dropped the bikes into the heather and trekked towards the sea. The carca.s.s of a dead lamb pointed the way, its fleece flayed and its eyes pecked out. Lying spread out on a small hillock it was hardly an unusual sight but was still oddly poignant; starkly unmourned, an irrelevant, infinitesimal speck of innocence. Next to it was a single ram"s horn.
At the foot of a gradual incline we found a small bay festooned with the usual flotsam. Which obscure bylaw decreed that every hundred yards of coast round Britain must contain at least one blue plastic glove? This one, sea-bloated, was fingering the air for its stolen Excalibur. There was also a huge roll of still serviceable sellotape. What flotsam would Boswell have tripped over? Timber planks, wooden struts, shards and splinters, pieces of heavy green and brown gla.s.s with sea smoothed edges, fishing creels, barrel staves, hempen rope and probably the ubiquitous single leather shoe; the legacy of shipwrecks, misfortune, drunken nights and poorly constructed harbours.
The bay must have seemed a cornucopia of possibility for whichever boat load of impoverished fishermen landed here. There was a small s.n.a.t.c.h of arable land and caves for shelter and storage. Good cupboard s.p.a.ce, satellite dish and own boat shed.
As we walked back up the hill we stumbled through several separate stone cairns, each heap a memorial to unknown, long-dead inhabitants who lived the bleakest of short and brutal lives.
It was a large extended family perhaps. This heap belonged to the seemingly indestructible matriarch who was the scourge of both her married offspring. Over there lived the two brothers who never spoke to each other. That pile set back from the others belonged to the unpopular girning widow who would shake her fist at the high-jinking children. Those stones were home to the man of G.o.d who consoled the grieving and named the wicked.
Neither Johnson nor Boswell mentions the deserted crofts on Raasay. By this stage of their journey they had seen so many they hardly noticed. The reality of c.u.mberland"s revenge would have strained the credulity of a Hague war tribunal. It is unlikely that the commanding officer would have politely chapped on doors with his prepared speech, "Please step outside madam, unfortunately I have no alternative but to douse your humble dwelling with petrol. Please remove any items of sentimental value. I am merely following orders."
Women scream. Outer and undergarments are rent. The flames light up the excited mad-eyed faces of the expectant soldiers. Rag carca.s.s heaps proliferate as thin spirals of smoke rise from charred reptile skinned beams. Overhead the carrion birds circle.
Being basically old and unfit the bike ride and sea trek had taken their toll and yet there were miles to go before we slept, and miles to go before the summit of Dun Caan which Boswell and his party had climbed.
Deluded by his hard days in the paras David had strangely decreed that our rations for the trip should not exceed one apple each.
The penultimate straw was the act of pushing the bikes 2.9k up a steep and rocky path, along which good intentions were decreasingly being strewn. We both developed an incipient envy of dead people and rested at ever more frequent intervals until they virtually joined up and I fell asleep sitting upright like an Aztec warrior waiting to be buried.
The ultimate straw was the realisation that having reached the end of the path with Dun Caan seemingly just yards away we would have to descend steeply to sea level before climbing back up. We were tempted to hurl the bikes to the bottom and sulk, thumbs in mouths waiting either for our mammies or the Mountain Rescue helicopter.
We eventually forced the bikes down the path as if wrestling with unruly adolescents. At the bottom we looked longingly at the loch. It was the self pitying Lochan of Lethe twinkling seductively, "Come on lads, sink into my cold waters and all will be well ..."
A sort of salvation seemed at hand when David pointed out that Dun Caan no longer existed; it had simply disappeared. It can never have been more than a figment of Boswell"s imagination. The mist had indeed rubbed out Raasay"s cap. "Totally dangerous" p.r.o.nounced David. Twenty minutes later we reached the top.
"... and then we mounted up to the top of Duncaan, where we sat down, ate cold mutton and bread and cheese and drank brandy and punch. Then we had a Highland song from Malcolm; then we danced a reel ..." Boswell"s sh.e.l.l shocked companions may have been the same retainers who were bribed to mime to the tape of Gaelic stomping songs when the visitors first arrived. As tour guides their behaviour was exemplary; if in doubt tout the tartan, flog the plaid, bring out the shortbread and if all else fails, stick an arm in the air, hop on one leg and dance with the client irrespective of gender.
The Victorian Birkbeck Hill, struggling to justify this unseemly outburst of male dancing, sought refuge in a quote from a contemporary traveller. Edward Topham declared that "In most countries the men have a partiality for dancing with a woman: but here I have frequently seen four gentlemen perform one of these reels seemingly with the same pleasure as if they had the most sprightly girl for a partner. They give you the idea that they could with equal glee cast off round a joint-stool or set to a corner cupboard."
David and I peered into the mist but failing to locate either a joint-stool or a corner cupboard settled for each other and shared a manly reel. The gulp of brandy on an empty and dehydrated stomach was ma.s.sively welcome but equally unwise. David led me gently back from the precipitous edge to the safe path we had climbed earlier. I felt the self-righteous disappointment of a failed lemming.
It was the first time I had used a mountain bike to bike down a mountain. The photographer would have captured two black figures in a sedate, slow motion 45 degree descent silhouetted against the reddening sky. We could have been Home Guard cyclists in a Hovis advertis.e.m.e.nt. The inner projector screened a different show. Vegetation, hidden trunks, rocks, stones and black bog rushed towards me. There was no consciousness but this. Initially the thin frame interceded as a thousand small bargains were struck with gravity, probability and foolhardiness. A constant compulsive, wheedling monologue; accelerate, take the risk, ride hard into it ... I told you so, you didn"t listen. The front wheel stuck fast, concreted into a plinth while the back end rose and threatened to toss me a.r.s.e over tip. There followed a short reconciliation based on the promise to learn. Trust the bike, trust the bike. The mantra instantly neutralised by the punitive whelp of pain as leg muscle sc.r.a.ped against rock. Go again. Go again. The gouts of adrenalin no longer masking the peaks of fear and cowardice on the tacograph. A final tumble, sitting up, heart thumping with a close up view of a wire fence and a wood beyond. Finally an endorphin-driven sense of total stillness and an enhanced sense of each pale lichened tree.
G.o.d only knew where David had got to. He was probably stuck up to his neck in a bog somewhere. Not to worry.
Once back on tarmac I freewheeled at ridiculous speed towards the Raasay Hotel pursued not only by Lance Armstrong but also Graeme Obree, Bernard Hinault, Eddie Merckx and that cartoon character from Bellville Rendez-vous David was more cautious but only because he had frequently dropped out of the sky on the end of a parachute and had seen some horrible things on oil rigs. Indeed he once had a particularly nasty experience with a second year cla.s.s in a Fife school that he still won"t talk about.
On the descent I tried to be mindful of every physical sensation, bottling it so that I could uncork the experience at a future time when unable to sleep. I would scour the insomniac"s library for the video marked Fast Cycle Ride hopeful that it would distract demons and sooth unwanted worry.
Boswell recorded "the plenty and elegance, beauty and gaiety, the song and the dance" that characterised their four nights on the island. That was nothing compared to the potent ambrosial impact of our first pint in the hotel. As we eat our fish and chips the barman kept offering additional unsolicited dishes: another bucket of chips, a blue cheese salad, a cow pie, savoury dips, curry. The kitchen was closing and the chef saw us as an acceptable alternative to the waste bin. Happy to oblige we stuffed ourselves: Gargantua and Pantagruel, Falstaff and Billy Bunter, before offering the leftovers to our fellow drinkers all of whom made odd feinting movements when they picked at the dishes to avoid being disemboweled by the snooker cues lancing all available s.p.a.ce.
We endured a final unsteady uphill ride to the youth hostel where we were welcomed by a delightful couple in their seventies who worked as summer volunteers for the SYHA. They ministered to our modest needs while helping a party of French students cope with the complexity of Monopoly. I felt I had parents again. We shared the bunkhouse with the couple"s 16 year old grandson who had apparently decided to emerge from his chrysalis bed in the top right hand corner only when his adolescence had pa.s.sed. In two years time he will burst through the wooden roof and soar arms outstretched and now a properly formed well-mannered young man towards the mainland.
When they sailed back to Skye Boswell mentions pa.s.sing by "a cave where Martin says fowls were catched by lighting fire in the mouth of it ... We spoke of death."
Our sail over to Sconser was so short as to preclude talk of any importance let alone death, although we did regret not catching sight of the fast-food outlet with the cave branding.
A smattering of school kids joined us on the CalMac ferry and then into the bus-shelter where we waited for the 916 to Portree. The father of one of the lads was on the bridge of the ferry still hovering in the harbour. His paranoid son was convinced that dad"s binoculars were trained on the shelter looking for tell-tale signs of smoke. He begged his peers to form a human barrier so that he could light up hidden from view. "Beat it!" they replied with one beautifully accented voice.
There were similar signs of non-conformity on the bus. Each double seat was occupied by a sprawling adolescent, every square inch of upholstery monopolised by the talisman possessions that defined and protected them: mobile phone, schoolbag, handbag, magazines. The bubbles of solitude were burst in Portree where they route-marched towards the school in a shared community of silent gloom.
After travelling on the same bus Johnson wrote to the Skye and Lochalsh Area Education Office complaining that "the children are taught to read; but by the rule of their inst.i.tution, they teach only English, so that the natives read a language which they may never use or understand."
Portree Kingsburgh
The early travellers dined at the Royal Hotel in Portree where they had a good dinner of porter, port and punch (a special offer on all drinks beginning with the letter P). We did the same and had a pie and a pint.
A queue was forming outsidef the hospice shop. Either a large number of the locals were on the point of death and the relatives wished to show a lugubrious solidarity or else rumours had spread of an imminent delivery of second hand tea cosies, cracked willow pattern plates and a three year run of Model Railway Magazine. It could equally have been a case of simple expectation and pleasure thresholds not hyper-inflated by urban greed.
The pub in the square from which the bus left for Kingsburgh was challenging in its own way. The fact that one of the punters had established a complex relationship with the juke box should have been a clue; he alternately caressed it, fingered its b.u.t.tons, whispered endearments and then gave it a good kicking. I hoped he wasn"t married. The effort of not staring at any of the drunken denizens meant that our cone of vision was restricted to beer mat and pint.
The 186 to Kingsburgh was driven by a pet.i.te, feisty cow girl with Alamo hat, sequined jeans and high heeled boots, one of which frequently rested in the dashboard tapping out the rhythm of a country and western number that only she could hear. She was more than a match for the miasma of kids who caterwauled aboard at the high school. The early morning moody self absorption had been replaced by a rampant rowdiness. The lad who had ruined every lesson of the day with cheeky non sequiteurs, irritating animal noises, loud farts and general belligerence was unable to switch off and continued to fight with phantoms and spout nonsense at no one in particular. "The bus is nice and clean!" roared the cow girl. A quiet boy who had been teased and taunted at lunchtime walked slowly, his crest fallen, towards the back of the bus where two fat boys grabbed hold of him and tried hard to squeeze out any remaining life. A golden-tinged liquid flowed underfoot. It was probably Irn-Bru but there was just sufficient doubt for David to regret wearing sandals.
The bus seemed tied by an invisible thread to Portree Co-op which it visited several times. Just when the vehicle had got out of third gear a voice from the back shouted, "That woman wanted on." Surprisingly Cow Girl morphed into the Good Samaritan. The bus turned (via the Co-op) and stopped for the old woman who spent most of her days watching buses pa.s.s her by. The driver left her cab to pick up the woman"s bags. "Drive the bus away!" shouted the back row.
Once settled the woman gripped her shopping trolley with tight liver-spotted hands and stared ahead. She needed to be rescued from much more than a nearly missed bus but there was no respite from her intermittent dalliance with dementia or the frantic internal Mexican dance with the skeletons of dead relatives.
The bus stopped in the middle of the back of beyond and cow girl suggested we get off. Sensing that we felt we were being blamed for the golden liquid incident she patiently explained that this was as close to Kingsburgh as we could get by public transport.
Having read that no vestige of Flora Macdonald"s house remains we had no great hopes of seeing anything of significance. On reflection the bull blocking our path was at least significant. It was the size of a First World War tank with a saliva and snot covered ring through its steaming nose, a cliched fashion statement that imparted a sort of bohemian insouciance to its malevolent demeanor. Since I had read a whole childhood of Beanos and Dandys, alarm bells sounded, sirens went off and my head clouded with images of red rags, china shops, the annual bull-running in Pamplona and general goring. David unhelpfully observed that it had an injured leg. A cursory count suggested five limbs. A randy bull nursing not only l.u.s.t for anything that moved but also a sense of grievance because of whatever it was that had happened to its injured leg was too much to bear. Astonishingly David reminded me that bulls are vegetarians and sauntered past its rancid stare without a second thought. I repeated the eye contact avoidance strategy that had stood us in good stead in Portree and shuffled after him. The bull hobbled world-wearily away.
The hamlet of Kingsburgh consisted of two bungalows, one of which was called Flora"s Field. This was a good omen. When the long-retired owner eventually appeared he answered our query with a warning look that would have done credit to Aunt Ada Doom from Cold Comfort Farm. After due deliberation he pointed us in the direction not of the wood shed but of a large property at the end of the track. "The original house was in there but the woman who lives there hates prowlers, she won"t let anyone in. You could always smile and hope for the best. She"ll see you before you see her."
I persuaded David to look less menacing by removing his camouflaged jungle hat and clutching a map ... I armed myself with my bus pa.s.s and an inane smile. Within seconds a super charged Betsy Trotwood figure stormed over the lawn. By way of greeting she bellowed, "No one gets to see the building!" I explained that we were recreating Boswell and Johnson"s journey using our bus pa.s.ses. She paused, mentally noting that it was perhaps the least likely excuse she had heard from any of the stalkers, hawkers, mendicants, intruders, trespa.s.sers, vagrants and busybodies who had made her life a misery down the years. "You can have a quick look as I"m expecting visitors, but no photographs." With that she disappeared whence she had come.
We stood on the lawn where Flora"s husband Kingsburgh had welcomed the visitors and looked across Loch Snizort at the distant mountains of Lewis.
Boswell, in his new role as a cub reporter for h.e.l.lo magazine drooled over his host"s outfit; "He had his tartan plaid thrown about him, a large blue bonnet with a knot of black ribbon like a c.o.c.kade, a brown short coat of a kind of duffle, a tartan vest with gold b.u.t.tons and gold b.u.t.tonholes, a bluish filibeg, and tartan hose. He had jet-black hair tied behind and with screwed ringlets on each side ..." Whenever Boswell subsequently dressed his fantasy Barbie doll it was always the screwed ringlets he kept until last.
They sat in front of the fire in the parlour, "a dram of admirable Holland"s gin went round. Flora joined them and promptly mixed up her guests saying she had heard that "Mr Boswell was coming to Skye, and one Mr Johnson, a young English buck, with him. This confusion provided incontrovertible evidence that Holland"s gin, like meths, attacks the eyesight. There followed "an excellent roasted turkey, porter to drink at table, and after supper claret and punch". Johnson got bored and went to bed early leaving Boswell to down three "superexcellent" bowls of punch. Drunk as several lords with screwed ringlets he eventually climbed to the upper chamber where "I slept in the same room with Mr Johnson."
The following day, in the grip of Delirium Tremens with the a.s.sociated symptoms of diarrhoea, agitation, catatonia, palpitations, irritability and tachycardia, he wrote, "Last night"s jovial bout disturbed me somewhat."
Sacked by h.e.l.lo magazine he then made his debut with Adventures for Boys and transcribed at breakneck speed second and third hand accounts of Prince Charlie"s adventures. He excitedly interpolated an entire picaresque novella into his narrative. The Wanderer himself became a cross dressing transs.e.xual called Betty who was given to hoisting her linen whenever he/she had to cross a river. She eventually swapped her dress for "a tartan short coat and waistcoat, with filibeg and short hose, a plaid, and a wig and bonnet". His coup de grace was being able to refer to an eye witness whom he subsequently met on Raasay, John Mackenzie who "eighteen years before, he hurt one of his legs when dancing, and being obliged to have it cut off, he now was going about with a wooden leg."
Although the original house is no longer there its replacement is on the same site, surrounded by the original farm buildings and outhouses that the early visitors must have seen. The replacement building is destined to go the way of its predecessor. The black empty windows stare out of the grey farmhouse lurching drunkenly against its newer neighbour. Through the open front door it was apparent that the Adams Family staircase had plummeted into a room not designed to receive it. Inside a Miss Haversham figure draped in cobwebs proudly mutters that she is Flora"s great granddaughter and that the whole thing is a disgrace. That same s.p.a.ce once held the tartan clad bedroom that received Prince Charlie and twenty eight years later, the old buck, Johnson.
Dunvegan Portree
Before any pa.s.sengers were permitted to board the 56A to Dunvegan they had to be vetted against an exacting standard of adherence to national stereotypes. The American woman announced her abhorrence for the seat at the back of the bus: "They (sic) make me sick (sick)." Several Germans roared instructions into mobile phones checking co-ordinates while scanning the horizon for incoming fire. Most intriguing was the young j.a.panese man sitting in front, obsessively plaiting orange peel into an origami nosegay. It was undoubtedly a skill, perhaps marketable in Seville. I had to crouch in an upright position to get a better view of the finished artifact that he kept pressing to his nostrils.
The same American woman interrupted her partner: "When you wear a kilt, does the colour of the socks matter?" Yes Madam, the tartan etiquette police deployed at every tea room in Scotland take particular exception to fashion faux pas of this nature. You can expect to be hanged from your garters until you are dead.
Meanwhile Boswell and Johnson were finding the terrain treacherous. We could just see them across the moor. Even at this distance it was obvious that Johnson"s horse kept sinking up to its fetlocks in the sinking bog under his colossal weight. We caught a glimpse of him stepping off his now shorter horse and walking behind the others, all the while shaking his head. He was still sulking from having fallen "at his length upon the ground."
The bus infiltrated the long line of mobile homes carrying the latest wave of patrician tourists intent on colonising the Wild Western Isles. Their pa.s.sing was noted with nodding approval by the first settlers now trading in wind chimes and pottery bowls. At night these missionaries from warmer climes will circle their wagons and earnestly recreate the decent intimacies of suburban life. Smoke signals will rise from a hundred barbeques, St George"s Crosses will flutter from aerials, and Crime Watch will bounce round the enclosed s.p.a.ces. Meanwhile the natives scratch a living on the council owned reservations.
The coach park at Dunvegan is larger than the bus station at Agra and created a sense of antic.i.p.ation normally a.s.sociated with the Taj Mahal. Is the n.o.ble seat of the Macleods best viewed at sunrise or sunset? Is it true that urchin boys will steal your shoes when you take them off at the hallowed threshold of the dining room? Birkbeck Hill got it right in 1890; "An architect was employed who must surely have acquired his mischievous art in erecting sham fortresses on the banks of the Clyde for the wealthy traders of Glasgow. It is greatly to be wished that a judicious earthquake would bring to the ground his pepper-pot turrets." If "old firm footballers" is subst.i.tuted for "wealthy traders" it is still totally accurate.
The building is a pastiche of bad taste covered in Victorian excrescences, towers and turrets and crenellated walls. Prince Charles must have been organically o.r.g.a.s.mic whenever he rested his chin on his gnarled Harry Lauder walking stick to admire the latest architectural travesty; a detached stucco walled toilet with flying b.u.t.tresses.
Johnson was entranced by Dunvegan where he "tasted lotus and was in danger of forgetting that he was ever to depart". His young host was the nineteen year old laird, still living at home with his formidable mammy but nonetheless a remarkable young man wrestling with the challenges of his role. In an autobiographical fragment he provided an accurate a.s.sessment of his attempt to reconcile duty with firmness: "I called the people together; I laid before them the situation of our family; I acknowledged the hardships under which they laboured; I reminded them of the manner in which their ancestors had lived with mine; I combated their pa.s.sion for America; I promised to live among them." This fragment conjures a very depressed young man pursued by debt and driven by his family values and a strong moral sense. It is no surprise that Johnson was fond of the young laird.
We dutifully traipsed from room to room past the roped off bits and the fading artifacts. The bland labels explaining the provenance of the weapons in the gla.s.s cases should be rewritten. "One blow of this claymore would cut a man off at the knees leading to a rapid, hobbling, bleeding death ... The serrated edge on this dagger would seriously mess with the victim"s intestines."
The display of pale newspaper cuttings offered some respite from this bellicose hubris. Given the quality of austerity newsprint most of the captured images of ancient royalty will mutate from sepia to beige to total invisibility within a few years. Close examination of the picture beneath the headline GAY CLAN OUTING suggests that the MacLeod-Out-and-Proud movement has a decent history. Evidently some Brylcreemed chaps in Aran sweaters had a jolly good time together at some point in the 1950s.
The eccentric displays along the walls leading to the toilets were better value for money: the bra.s.s name plate from a 1930s steam locomotive; sepia photographs of St. Kilda"s last inhabitants including a rare snap of two morose women stamping on their drawers in a washing tub and two fine lads flaunting thick belts of dead fulmars.
St. Kilda was part of the Macleod fiefdom and Johnson seriously considered visiting the island. That would have been an account worth reading. Though whether sea sickness or whimpering cowardice would have claimed Boswell first is a moot point.
By way of joshing compliment the young laird told Johnson he would gift him the small island of Isa on the condition that he lived there for one month of the year. Johnson enjoyed the thought and wrote to Mrs. Thrale, "MacLeod has offered me an island; if it was not too far off I should hardly refuse it." He then strangely suggests that it would be a better place to live than Brighton. It was probably better than Skegness, Accrington and many other places come to that.
Neither Johnson nor Boswell mention the barbaric proximity of the dungeon, complete with its own bijou bottle-shaped pit, to Dunvegan"s living quarters. Generations of Macleods would bang the wall: "Stop that dreadful solitary moaning I can"t hear the telly." The note of explanation on the wall ruefully notes that "Cooking smells from the kitchen would drift down to torment the starving prisoners." But smell is a two-edged sword. The ragged t.i.the defaulter wafts his foul breeches towards the dimly lit aperture, "Get a load of that you mutton-chewing t.o.s.s.e.rs!"
The experience of sitting in the supermarket sized cafe/restaurant/small township situated in the car park induced nostalgia for an old fashioned tea room, with perhaps just a hint of the 18th century salon. It should at least be renamed Dr. Johnson"s Tea Basin in recognition of his prodigious tea drinking feat when in residence. Knox who visited Dunvegan thirteen years later records the following anecdote, "Lady Macleod, who had repeatedly helped Dr. Johnson to sixteen dishes or upwards of tea, asked him if a small basin would not save him trouble, and be more agreeable. "I wonder, Madam,"" answered he roughly, "why all the ladies ask me such impertinent questions. It is to save yourselves trouble, madam, and not me."" The lady was silent and went on with her task." Why did she stop at a basin, why not a bathtub of Liptons or a trough of Tetley"s finest?
It had been good to see Reynold"s portrait of Johnson and the thank-you note written as they waited "for a boat and a wind, Boswell grows impatient: but the kind treatment which I find wherever I go makes me leave with some heaviness of heart an island which I not likely to see again."
Walter Scott painted a more compelling picture of a grumpy old man trapped in the castle by the weather, too frequently in the presence of air-headed young girls who simpered in his presence. Exasperated, Johnson retired early to bed and having forgotten his nightcap would turn his stinking wig inside out and pull it over his head. Perhaps four days had been too long a stay. Both Boswell and Johnson secretly feared that this inactivity would provoke the malevolent twins of Melancholy and Madness who were never more than a change of horses behind them.
Mercifully neither of the twins were waiting in the bus queue for the return journey to Portree. Our own siblings were Disappointment and Frustration. Deploying his formidable mastery of bus timetables David had been able to plan a route that would include Talisker. Yet for no apparent reason an emergency and greatly truncated timetable had been implemented overnight which severely restricted our options. We sought consolation in reminding ourselves that Boswell and Johnson also changed their plans at the whim of wind and tide.
Monday 20th September Dunvegan Dear Margaret, I tell you of bad dream I have and I say this not to frighten you. In my dreams the big house where we first stay catch fire and the flames reach also to James Court. I know this not happen as no flame can travel so far. Just bad dream.(1) We leave this Sky island and sail to next. The sea is like wild animals and the waves come from devil. As ever the master is full of fear and hides in doctor"s big coat. And then bad thing happen. The water come in boat and our baggages sit in water. I take out doctors things and shake them dry, his pens, his other wig which he never wear, his big holy bible, his snuff which is now not good to put up nose, all stuck with water. And then the bad thing. I take out doctors spurs, big wave come and they fly off boat into the deep waters. They sink under waves and Joseph want sea to open and swallow him like Jonah. I think Joseph"s time to be hit with k.n.o.b stick as doctor he look angry and then he shake head and go back to thoughts.