I had read that the pub also had on display the skull of the last witch hanged in Glasgow. I had a.s.sumed that the unfortunate remains had long since been granted burial in sanctified ground by the local coven or the Catholic Women"s Guild on a mission. But there she was squatting in a case on the wall above us, a gray amoeboid blob. Judging by its size witches were not the brightest creatures in 18th century Scotland. In her daft innocence she had mistaken the Sarry Heid for the local masonic lodge and never lived long enough to regret her error.
As we left the pub David stopped and stared at previously unseen gla.s.s cases screwed to the wall. Rarely had I seen him so animated as he provided a complete inventory of their contents; a 19th century cavalry sword (British), a n.a.z.i dirk, an Indian sabre, a seventeenth century cutla.s.s, a British bayonet from World War 1, a Ghurka kutri, a Mughal push dagger, a j.a.panese Katana, an Indonesian Kris and a gentleman"s dress sword.
The Light Brigade burst heroically from the gents where they had been hiding for 156 years; they galloped over the j.a.panese warriors. The Tommies charging in vain from the trenches encountered some resistance from the whirling Dervishes before sweeping aside the remnants of the SS and cantering into the Gallowgate where they fell into the hand of the local Tim Malloys and were ma.s.sacred, every last man.
Kilmarnock Auchinleck Loudoun Edinburgh
In Buchanan Street bus station a tall angry man stooped to stand nose to nose with a pet.i.te Chinese girl. It was either the end of a relationship or an aggressive ritual enacted after every afternoon drinking session. The fact that he wore a child"s woollen hat with sticky-out rabbit ears did little to diminish the threat he posed. I hoped he wouldn"t hit her.
The 76 to Kilmarnock jolted its way past four school kids who had skived off school, the girls" skirts wrenched up and their ties hanging like nooses. A man with one leg swung his way across the road cancer, war, a road accident, body dysmorphic disorder? He was watched by a line of men in overalls sitting on a low wall. An adjacent shop displayed a print of their iconic counterparts lunching on a girder high above New York. The grey Clyde was lined with graffitied pillars holding up various motorways as fabled elephants once held up the world. Where was the lone boatman whose life"s work was to drag bodies from the river?
Once out of the city the autumn colours fought a rearguard action before capitulating to the insidious bleakness of Fenwick Moor where even the brown spumy burns were escaping as fast as they could. The ragged flags flying valiantly from the Fenwick Hotel had already lost the war of the winds. Wheelie bins lay slain at the end of every track. A stolen Jaguar sat abandoned plastered with POLICE AWARE stickers.
Neither Boswell nor Johnson could be bothered to describe the journey to Auchenleck to visit the younger man"s father. It was an encounter that neither of the travellers would have relished. Johnson had already been urged to bite his tongue and behave when in the presence of the circuit judge who held diametrically opposed views about almost everything. Earlier Nigel Leask had pointed out that the meeting must have been difficult as, in so many ways, Johnson was the father whom Boswell had chosen.
Kilmarnock bus station is the circle that Dante forgot. It is a transit point for Unthank. The concourse is managed by crypto- fascists with shrill whistles which they blow incessantly, ostensibly to guide incoming buses but in fact to intimidate all within earshot and induce a sense of mounting dread in the poor and dispossessed. The refugees flatten themselves against the bilious billboards to let pa.s.s the surreal scarab machine hoovering up f.a.g ends and small children but not the gobbets of spit that emerge intact from under its brushes.
A line of very threatening men in their late twenties scowled at the innocents weighed down with plastic bags as they tried to squeeze past. It was impossible not to think of them in their day job at the barracks intimidating recruits stripped of clothes and dignity, cupping their genitals as they brave the line of kicks and abuse. As we leave the station a woman wrestles with her dog as if it were a playful lover. The bus picks up speed and I see another woman falling down in a car park and spilling her shopping and then she has gone. Was she all right? Did she get up and brush herself down? Did people rush to help her?
The bus provided much needed respite. It was after all an ECO Bus which presumably ran happily on recycled horse dung and old copies of the Daily Record. Its exterior was decorated with daisies. Everyone who got on knew and greeted at least three other people. Seats were gladly swapped to make the chat easier. The warm fug of community washed through the bus. The peaks on the conversation monitor indicated the outbreaks of laughter as days were swapped and embellished to give them structure and interest. The adolescent legs swinging from the bench reserved for heavier items belonged to people who were just listening to each other; not teasing, just listening. A fierce young man, his mane of electric red hair barely tamed by a reinforced headband chatted animatedly to his tiny and severely disabled partner. Whenever someone got off the courtesy was there again, "Much obliged, driver, thanks a lot."
The hamlets through which we pa.s.sed were never more than one house thick. The back gardens had fought a lost battle with the encroaching moorland which was oozing its cold slaver over sheds and abandoned toys. A lone farmer marked out a muted green Saltire with his quad bike; a hidden act of agrarian patriotism.
All roads led to Kilmarnock prison, which was probably a fair reflection of life"s realities for many.
An ill-drawn silhouette of Robert Burns" head swung from the sign that marked the borders of Mauchline. Our village may be as poor but, heh, the boy stayed here. A pity though they had not been blessed with real heroes like that place in Lanarkshire that could boast Matt Busby, Barry Ferguson, Tom Cowan and Sheena Easton. Still, beggars can"t be choosers.
There was also no immediate sign that the Mauchline Belles had established a dynasty in the town. Burns must have been thirteen or thereabouts and living a few miles away when the post chaise swept by carrying Boswell and Johnson to the Auchinleck Estate. The only oblique connection between them is Burns" derogatory reference to Boswell in The Author"s Earnest Cry and Prayer.
Alas! I"m but a nameless wight, Trod i" the mire out o" sight!
But could I like MONTGOMERIES fight, Or gab like BOSWELL, There"s some sark-necks I wad draw tight, An" tye some hose well.
Boswell must have been gabbing nervously as the meeting between the two men came ever closer.
In Catrine a man wearing an army surplus green and brown camouflage jacket left the bus and instantly disappeared apart from his disembodied head which bobbed briefly past the woodlands.
In a cold Auchinleck we sought directions to the estate and castle from an enthusiastic butcher who also doubled as the postmaster, surely an informed and respectable member of the local community. Appearances however lived up to their reputation for deception. Despite greeting us like long-lost and greatly-missed blood relations who owed him money, he pointed us in completely the wrong direction. He may have been beset with folk memories of preparing Auchinleck to withstand n.a.z.i invasion, choosing the verbal equivalent of turning all sign posts to face the wrong way and hence gain valuable time during which the Lowland Division of Dad"s Army would regroup and stick it up them, whether they liked it or not. The outcome was the same as we wandered through a housing estate wondering where all the human beings had got to. Eventually a woman taking shopping from her car was cornered by David until she provided accurate directions.
The bus when it came was of the bendy variety. Although our expectations and pleasure thresholds had both appreciably lowered since entering Auchinleck this was a welcome intrusion of 21st century Manhattan into a bleak corner of Ayrshire. We shared this mobile accordion with a father and son, blue clones, both of whom had chosen every item of their clothing from the Rangers FC on line catalogue. They looked us up and down for any subtle indicators of religious affiliation, a Vincent de Paul lapel badge perhaps or a stray set of rosary beads hanging from a careless pocket. Beyond the black concertina a woman rested her head on the seat in front, her eyes on springs like a toy caterpillar.
We pa.s.sed the A-frame memorial at the site of the former Barony pit which is presumably visible from the moon, an angry piece of machinery straddling the land below. If this represents but one letter of the alphabet what bitter, proud message would a complete sentence spell? The website dedicated to recording the names and lives of those who died in Ayrshire mines makes for salutary reading: falling rocks, suffocating fumes, runaway hatches, a man dragged along the pit by a frightened horse trailing a chain; a man stunned by a falling stone and knocked into a moving conveyor belt; a man who fell down the shaft, a dark nightmare tumble; a man crushed between a shunting pole and a wagon and the man dragged into the pit"s monstrous washing machine. Many of the dead had connections with junior football.
Because of daftness or because we were blinded by the rain we took the wrong path after pa.s.sing the gatehouse at the entrance to the Auchinleck estate. An already bleak day was made worse by the jacket-penetrating, will-sapping intensity of the downpour. Death by hypothermia was a comforting option. Brandy-bearing St Bernards cowered in their kennels, meteorologists in waders gleefully calibrated the flood waters rising in the burn and we shivered. I promised never again to think disparaging thoughts about Rangers supporters and would, next time, intervene whenever David looked like cornering innocent women getting out of their cars anything if only the rain would stop. It didn"t and we floundered towards the only woodcutter"s cottage in a blasted landscape. Bring on the big bad wolf.
Parked round the side was a psychedelic relic of a camper van decorated with fluffy clouds and the reminder that LOVE IS ALL. Our spirits lifted as we were ushered into a dope-smoke filled room by a tall beautiful woman with flowers in her hair who offered to help us remove our sodden clothes with a knowing look that promised much much, more. "Sah-ahr-geant Pepper"s Lonely Hearts Club Band ..."
The sole occupant was not Mrs Kite whose husband would perform tricks tonight but a small elderly woman who exuded Christian comfort and good advice. We would have to retrace our wet steps for at least two miles. After one of those miles a 4x4 slowed down to let the redneck driver get a good look at us in case he returned to discover that his little old mum had been trussed up and gagged by pension stealing visitors.
After a few more sodden sodding miles we are blown into a clutch of dilapidated farm buildings, broken machinery and weeds. Despite the prevalence of KEEP OUT DANGEROUS BUILDING and related signs that must have used up a year"s supply of exclamation marks we caught sight of someone moving at a window and knocked at the door which was eventually opened by a giant. The ma.s.sively tall man with cap stared down at us, quickly decided we are harmless and pointed out that we had completed a circular tour of the River Lugar and had unknowingly pa.s.sed within 100 metres of Auchinleck House.
It is undeniably an imposing structure, now fully restored to its 18th century grandeur and is rented out as holiday accommodation. There were few signs of life and no one we could ask for a peek inside. Through which window did Boswell gaze miserably in the aftermath of the blazing row between his two fathers?
Johnson had been instructed to keep clear of raising any contentious subject but the armed truce was unsustainable. "In the course of their altercation", writes Boswell, "Whiggism and Presbyterianism, Toryism and Episcopacy, were terribly buffeted." In his cartoon version of events Rowlandson shows Johnson about to wallop Old Auchinleck over the head with a tome at least as big as volume 1 (A K) of his own dictionary. Boswell simpers in the background with his fingers rammed into his mouth while several coins roll about the floor. The coins were part of the old judge"s coin collection. He had already shown Johnson his Brooke Bond tea card alb.u.m (Fresh-water Fish) and Star Wars collections without incident. It was the head of Oliver Cromwell on the new 50p that provoked Johnson to apoplexy.
As part of the negotiated truce they walked down to look at the castle in the grounds. Johnson declared himself, "less delighted with the elegance of the modern mansion, than with the sullen dignity of the old castle. I clambered with Mr Boswell among the ruins, which afford striking images of ancient life." I clambered among the ruins with David and we were struck by images of modern life in the form of empty lager cans and f.a.g packets. The ruins are now precarious and must soon topple. Fully grown trees sprout from the remaining walls. Only their roots hold the frail edifice together as if the stones are being wrenched upwards by a huge bird holding them in its overstretched talons; Angkor Wat has relocated to Ayrshire.
Boswell might well have told the still-seething Johnson how in earlier times the castle"s owner had received a parcel containing a decaying sheep"s head delivered at the end of a rope strung from a neighbouring property. The upshot was general revenge, carnage and b.l.o.o.d.y murder. As he glanced at Old Auchinleck Johnson may have found this an attractive option.
We had hoped to embark on a mini grand tour of the other n.o.ble Ayrshire piles that the tourists visited but as the day was cold and getting darker we cut our losses and decided to restrict ourselves to Loudoun Castle where Boswell and Johnson were wonderfully entertained by John, Earl of Loudoun and his mother "who, in her ninety-fifth year, had all her faculties quite unimpaired. This was a very cheering sight to Dr Johnson who had an extraordinary desire for long life."
Long life seemed a less than attractive thought as we squelched our way back down the interminable drive way, the end of which would have disappeared into a perfect vanishing point had the watery mist not claimed it first.
The bus to Kilmarnock dragged itself up the hill towards Auchinleck Academy its situation symbolic of a past era when education was both an aspiration and a way out. The gradual ascent took us up past a co-operative store the roof of which was coiled with barbed wire recycled from a grey grainy World War 1 battle field. The end wall of a boarded up house had been repainted to hide the foot high graffiti. What words of hate had been hidden from view? Were they sectarian, racial, personal? GRa.s.s, NONCE, Sc.u.m?
I instantly regretted wiping the condensation from the window through which I saw a cow lying dead in the corner of a field. It was dead. It was not resting or sleeping, it was dead. It had fallen by a fence, its legs splayed at an unnatural angle. To complete the tableau a crow pecked its hide in a pastiche of a safari doc.u.mentary.
A crumpled mother and four weans got on at the stop nearest to Kilmarnock Prison. While she looked desolate, her children were excited at having seen dad in his new surroundings. Perhaps she knew that most prison violence happens in the hour after visiting time when the pain of separation meets the frustration in those who have not had a visit.
By intentionally blurring my vision I tried to inure myself from reliving the horror that was the bus station. To an extent I succeeded until David pointed out the verbal inanity of the sign reminding us that THE PUBLIC MUST REFRAIN FROM WALKING ON THE VEHICLE RUNNING SURFACE. I blame the teachers.
It was late when we got off and walked the mile or so to Loudoun Castle. Fabulously floodlit it was impossible to miss. The gates were also fabulously shut. We managed to avoid them altogether by hugging the ditch but were twice stopped by security staff who emerged from the gloom to ask us where we thought we were going. On realising that our bizarre mission posed little threat to national security we were allowed to continue.
The castle had recently abandoned its theme park, the Dutch owner claiming that increases in VAT, coupled with the bad weather made financial viability impossible. He may not have been able to antic.i.p.ate the first obstacle but the second should not have come as a great surprise. Most of the rides, slides, flumes, carousels and whirligigs had been dismantled and taken away. A few cranes remained and the silhouette of something large, perhaps the Looping Twist N Shout or the Vertical Launch Double Shot Barnstorm. The air above the fairground site was turbulent with the ghosts of grand days out and the sticky energized excitement of countless children. Loudoun Castle was brazenly lit with a cavalier disregard for global warning, the early evening crows diving in and out of the black window gaps.
Boswell, in gushing unctuous mode, praised his host to the hilt of his regimental sword, "I cannot figure a more honest politician ... While I live, I shall honour the memory of this amiable man". This despite the fact that Lord John"s Hanovarian army had been scared witless by a few members of the Clan Chatton, banging old kettles and generally making a lot of noise, at the ignominious Rout of Moy. He had an equally undistinguished military record in both America and Portugal. Nevertheless, "His kind and dutiful attention to his mother was unremitted. At his house was true hospitality; a plain but a plentiful table." In other words, a rubbish sodger but aye guid to his mammy and he put on a fine spread.
The Kilmarnock to Glasgow bus was a revelation, warm, comfortable, clean, spanking new and no one sitting in the front upstairs seats. David gripped the hand rail and made revving noises. My fantasy was quite different; any sane person could see that we were coc.o.o.ned in a simulator set for low flying, and surrounded by winking lights. We glided silently across the surface of our new found planet, easily dodging the incoming flack from ill prepared aliens. It was bonfire night and Glasgow seen from the perspective of the moors was catching fire.
The sky was crowded with falling angels with lit sparkly wings. A whole carousel appeared on the horizon over Rutherglen and then morphed into a darting sand-dancer of light while a strange blazing mushroom quickly extinguished itself with a crenellated popping sound. On tenement back greens across the city kids were experiencing a type of joy never to be replicated in adulthood and a thousand cats arched beneath spiky fur. Some wanton profligate hurled her pearl necklace into the night; the clown retaliated by tossing his chrysanthemums which disintegrated into a million vermillion spores.
As we entered St Vincent Street the crew prepared to land. A man stood proudly at a traffic light as if he owned the city; the Great Controller, all in all, a job well done. "That"s all folks," he said, throwing the switch and turning the sky dark.
Another double decker for the trip back to Edinburgh but this time all front seats had been commandeered by six or seven young lads who had skillfully improvised their own c.o.c.ktail cabinet on the front ledge; all that was missing was a single optic for the vodka bottle. One of their number destined for a career in catering or the caring professions solicitously administered the mixers while the others decibelled ever louder. Their party progressed well and even prompted envious comments from the less fortunate travellers until we hit the outskirts of Baillieston. The bus stopped. The driver, a huge man, came up the stairs and told the lads to get off. "Ave seen yous on the CCTV, get aff?" "A bit harsh" muttered one of the observers until fixed with a viperous stare by the driver who was starting to resemble everyone"s least favourite teacher, probably the techi teacher, a fat man with his Lochgelly Special neatly resting beneath the shoulder of his jacket. The peacemaker shrugged and returned to the soft p.o.r.n of Men"s Health, his lips moving as he looked at the pictures. Unexpectedly the driver relented, "Get aff ... or ditch the booze." The compromise was instantly accepted and the lads tottered their way down the stairs and tipped the now minimal vodka dregs into the gutter. What a nice man.
After a brief interval act two started. There was only one actor on stage. He stood up pacing the aisle and roared into his phone. "Julie, dinnae embarra.s.s me, yer steamin", totally steamin". Ah cannae walk tae Musselburgh. Ah havnae got one twenty. It"s ten miles!" He put the phone down and waited patiently for his audience to react. In addition to spontaneous applause most of those present wanted to give a more tangible sign of their appreciation. He graciously accepted the coins offered from all sides before returning to his seat to discreetly unwrap his vacuum sealed packet of Marks and Spencers sandwiches.
I left David in town and took the 31 bus back to Gorgie. The night was dark and wet. A tiny splash of colour on the pavement turned out to be a dead pheasant looking for all the world as if it had flown blind into the tenement building and brained itself. What was the bird doing in an urban street? It couldn"t have flown there. I could understand the odd errant c.o.c.k if the French had been playing at Murrayfield but not a pheasant. Had it been dropped by a returning poacher? Had it been stolen and dropped when the butcher gave chase in his pheasant blood stained ap.r.o.n? It had been a strange day.
Sat.u.r.day 6th November Auchinleck, My Dearest Margaret, I am mixed up jealous man.
No I start letter again, this not letter of friend. Soon I see you, this is good news. My heart soar like eagle bird above sea where fishies swim (my writing get better and better) but I know you send letters to master and not me. I know you his good wife and must write him, and not me. But I want to seize letters and rub in my face and smell pages for perfume from you. I tell you master say he very pleased when he get letter from Margaret but soon he in gloomy mood again.
Joseph is wet man. My ears run with rain, my breeches look like I have bad accident. It fall from sky like G.o.d is angry with me for write letters to married woman. Perhaps G.o.d is right. He want me to drown. I see too many inns, they all the same, I want my small and damping bed in James Court close to Margaret. We leave sea but still we go to islands, at least no caves, no bones.(1) Master still point out trees to Johnson, I want hit him hard and shout, "It only b.l.o.o.d.y tree!" We stay in Glasgow inn where everyone wear green and talk football. What is this football? Then big man come in and he pick fight with Doctor. Lady at bar get ready to throw man in street. The mad man called Adam from bible. The doctor shake like plague and make bull noises, he stare at mad man and call him son of a *****. I not want Margaret to read this word. It is time for journey to end. It all go bad now.(2) We stay then with master"s old father in country. Things still bad as the master not notice father"s new wife. He not say word to her. Very rude, like small boy. (3)Then more fight happen. This time the doctor throw old father"s money on floor and say he spit on Cromwell man.(4) I hold doctor and stop him hit master"s old father.
This nightmare now. Oh Margaret, I want to be in your bosoms but that not happen ever, because you love master and not his servant. Perhaps I go back to Bohemia.
See, dear Margaret, Joseph is sad jealous man who just love you with no hope.
Your Jo (1) Presumably this is a reference to the island in Loch Lomond.
(2) Here then is confirmation that Adam Smith visited Johnson in Glasgow. John Wilson Croker in his 1844 edition of The Life was the first to repeat the rumour that Johnson used the occasion to call Smith a son of a b.i.t.c.h.
(3) That Boswell makes not the merest mention of his father"s new bride is indeed strange.
(4) This is obviously the famous falling-out over the coin collection.
STAGE ELEVEN.
EDINBURGH AND THE LOTHIANS.
A Visit to a Museum of Curiosities and a Short Inventory of Several Specimens- Entertaining Anecdotes from a Bookseller An Enterprising Beggar A Brush with the Sport of Kings The ten days Boswell and Johnson spent in Edinburgh at the end of the tour were limbo times; they had had enough of each other"s company. Johnson was desperate for the salons of London, and t.i.tillated by the prospect of rekindling his coded conversations with Hester Thrale. Boswell too must have looked forward to seeing Margaret after one hundred days apart but he makes no mention of their reunion. His infidelities squatted in the s.p.a.ce between them. His less than witty tee-shirt WHAT GOES ON TOUR STAYS ON TOUR cut no ice with her, she had a drawer of them, and why was he still dragging that opinionated bear of a man after him? The maid had only just picked the last of the candle wax from their best carpet.
Boswell felt flat. "It was near ten before I got up. I had a certain degree of uneasiness from fearing that after my hardy and spirited tour I should sink into indolence. But I made myself easy by considering that it was allowable, natural, and happy that I should enjoy the comfort of repose when returned home." Nevertheless by his own admission Boswell"s narrative loses its momentum. "As I kept no journal of anything that pa.s.sed after this morning (Thursday 11th November), I shall, from memory, group together this and the other days till that on which Dr Johnson departed for London. They were in all nine days."
There follows a desultory list of the minor Edinburgh literary and legal dignitaries who invite Johnson to various meals or who traipse round to James Court to hear his disparaging comments about their backward land. They visit Edinburgh castle but Johnson is unimpressed and doesn"t even mention it in his narrative. Boswell scuttles round and fills the gap, "Dr Johnson affected to despise it, observing that "it would make a good prison in England."""
Boswell had engineered the perfect excuse not to spend any more time in Johnson"s company, "I could not attend him, being obliged to be in the Court of Session; but my wife was so good as to devote the greater part of the morning to the endless task of pouring out tea for my friend and his visitors." Sorry Doctor, but some of us have to work.
He was not insensitive to the extent to which his guest wanted away, "Such was the disposition of his time at Edinburgh. He said one evening to me, in a fit of languor, Sir we have been hara.s.sed by invitations."
Boswell went through the motions of entertaining his guest; "(we) spent one forenoon at my Uncle Dr Boswell"s, who showed him his curious museum, and made him a present of a Scotch pebble. He afterwards had it cut into a pair of sleeve-b.u.t.tons, which he constantly wore." Who was his uncle and what on earth did he display in his most curious of museums, apart from pebbles? The pebble collecting must have been a family trait recalling as it does Boswell"s search of the beach on Coll. The nearest that Edinburgh has to a curious museum is the collection of anatomy specimens in the Royal College of Surgeons. We do know that Boswell"s strange uncle was a physician.
The anatomy museum exists in a parallel universe to our own. Here the surreal is king and the bizarre is worshipped, all wrapped up in the pretence that the exhibitions contribute in a meaningful way to the serious study of medicine.
A prominent portrait depicts Lord Sandy Wood, a former president of the college who was accompanied on his professional rounds by a raven and a sheep. He was also the first man in Edinburgh to carry an umbrella with which he bullied the sick into making a contribution to the Edgar Alan Poe Appreciation Society.
In an adjacent case is the pocket book bound with the skin peeled from the corpse of William Burke. Detailed instructions on how best to remove the flesh from a skeleton are followed by a line of skulls each with a neatly trepanned hole, reminiscent of the memorial to the victims of Pol Pot"s killing fields.
The truly squeamish can choose between the display of pickled aneurysms and the dissected eyes, no longer smiling at grandchildren or jokes from the cracker. By way of light relief there is a gangrenous foot.
In 1775 an alert doctor evidently discovered that chimney sweeps often developed cancer of the s.c.r.o.t.u.m. He was placed on a blacklist and members of the sweeping professions were warned that the aforementioned doctor might fondle their privates the moment they put their heads up the flue.
A line of jars contained a dubious yellow liquid and disease-carrying worms, some of them long enough to reach the moon if laid end to end.
The saddest display of all showed three tiny toddler skeletons trustingly following each other. Just when I thought it couldn"t get much worse it did, with a child"s skeleton seemingly hanging from a noose.
I escaped upstairs to look at war wounds and a.s.similate the subliminal message that our current military is full of state school weaklings. After the Battle of Waterloo, during which his arm was carried off by a cannon shot, Sergeant Anthony Twittmeyer of the King"s German Legion rode 15 miles into Brussels where he lapsed into unconsciousness, after which he recovered.
Outside the daylight was very welcome. Boswell, while feigning otherwise would have loved every artifact, every ghoulish, pinned specimen. Johnson would have demanded his money back within seconds of crossing the threshold, and would have exorcised his newly provoked demons by turning round three times in the street and reciting The Lord"s Prayer.
More than anything he wanted to leave Scotland. On Thursday November 18th he wrote to Mrs Thrale, "I long to be at home, and have taken a place in the coach for Monday; I hope, therefore, to be in London on Friday, the 26th, in the evening. Please to let Mrs Williams know."
There were still long days to be got through and endless fawning visitors to tolerate, or not. The exception was the elderly bookseller, Old Mr Drummond whom he had met in the past. Drummond"s name features often in the list of Johnson"s Edinburgh visitors. His own father had been a seller and binder of books in Lichfield. It was an occupation that was never far from Johnson"s thoughts although his own brief apprenticeship in the book trade was a notable failure. Apart from anything he owed his father a debt and in some small way the attention he bestowed on to Drummond allowed him to pay a first instalment.
I too enjoyed the friendship of an Edinburgh bookseller and binder and so arranged to meet Dougie Telfer in a pub that evening. A single parent of two adolescent boys, Dougie combines his day job at Letts with running his own book business in the evenings and at weekends. Books are his life and his love; he makes them, binds them, repairs them, sells them and gives them away in the box outside his shop. His bas.e.m.e.nt is a chaotic, inspired place where piles of leather tumble into bales of cloth; where gold dust forms a patina on spineless cowardly tomes and fat books are tortured flat in clamps and vices even Boswell could not have thought of.
We talked of dyes and tints and tanning. Dougie reminded me that Adam Smith fell into a tanning pit when earnestly discussing The Wealth of Nations with Charles Templeton; a dangerous profession this bookbinding.
Dougie"s essential goodness extended to a benevolent view of all the customers he had known over the years with one notable exception which would have made Johnson snort with recognition. Some years back Dougie had rebound a fading copy of Ossian for a prominent civil servant who returned in a profoundly drunken state to collect his book. Declaring himself dissatisfied with the quality of the repair he hurled the book in Dougie"s face and ran out of the shop. Dougie gave chase and felled the man by skimming the disputed book through the air with the accuracy of a martial arts trained a.s.sa.s.sin.
Boswell, feeling compelled to make one last effort to entertain the ever gloomier Johnson, took a day off work and travelled with him to New Hailes, six or seven miles from Edinburgh town centre, to meet his first subst.i.tute father figure, Sir David Dalrymple. Although they had never met Johnson had admired Dalrymple from a distance and on one occasion drank a toast to him in The Turk"s Head coffee house in the Strand, "A man of worth, a scholar and a wit."
Musselburgh Aberlady Ballencrieff
I boarded the 44 to meet up with David who had again mastered the contradictory, serendipitous vagaries of the Lothian Bus timetable. On the front of the upper deck the CCTV camera mounted in a tasteful tartan-clad box took a suspicious interest in all of the pa.s.sengers. With an admirable sense of fairness it showed sequential shots of every seat and corner that might otherwise have hidden crimes against humanity, minor acts of vandalism and many moral transgressions in between. With very careful planning it would just be possible to happy-slap a pensioner at the back a nanosecond before being caught on camera and return to your seat undetected. This is how The Great Escape was conceived, difficult though to get a wartime motorbike upstairs. For most people the four seconds of fame on a bus CCTV screen is the best they can hope for.
Through the window of the number 30 Craigmillar Castle floated above the regenerated scheme of the same name as if it had broken free from a more romantic planet and couldn"t decide where to land. The journey past the line of reinforced shop fronts should be obligatory for any recession deniers. An Evening News billboard informed us that PORTABLE URINALS were being deployed TO BRING RELIEF TO DRINKERS.
Although New Hailes was closed for the season the National Trust for Scotland had obligingly agreed to arrange access for David and me. The dilapidated exterior hinted at mysteries not enjoyed since early black and white children"s television. The bal.u.s.trade had been repaired with inexpertly applied Polyfilla.
One of the Trust"s learning officers, Mark Mclean, led us into the shuttered hibernating building. The obligatory disposable overshoes suggested that a body had been found in the parlour, but Taggart was on his way. Every item of furniture, every small domestic artifact was protected by a custom-made dust sheet or handkerchief as appropriate. The removal firm had gone into administration some 237 years previously and they had been unable to bring the tea-chests. The wedding"s been cancelled. Get over it, old lady.
If, at a given signal, the sheets were to have been peeled back the 18th century would have coughed and spluttered into the room. Thousands upon thousands of leather volumes would have rematerialized in the stunning library, the empty shelves of which climbed towards a distant and invisible ceiling. Somewhere a virginal was playing. Lord Hailes raised himself from the armchair, stretched and hastened to welcome his guests. For some unaccountable reason he had liked Boswell ever since the 19 year old begged him to intercede with old Auchinleck and persuade him that his son would make the most of whatever educational opportunities arose in the courts of Utrecht.
Boswell"s descent into depression was unstoppable, "At Lord Hailes", we spent a most agreeable day, but again I must lament that I was so indolent as to let almost all that pa.s.sed evaporate into oblivion."