Seasons on Harris (13 page)

And we hoped—we even began to believe—that he was right and those sounds and smells and the birthing of fresh tweed would soon become a daily part of the warp and weft of Harris life—once again…

Y
OU LEARN YOUR HISTORY FAST
here. You have to. The locals assume all outsiders are fully familiar with the intricacies of Highland traumas and, to one extent or another, might even possibly be responsible for them.

And one of the most notorious places for such crash courses in island historical intricacies is the Clisham Keel Bar at the MacLeod Motel just across from the ferry terminal in Tarbert.

Anne usually preferred the more refined ambience (relatively speaking, of course) of the nearby Harris Hotel, a sturdy haven of hospitality built around 1865. But from the very first day I strolled into the Keel—and come to think of it, it actually was on my very first day—I sensed that this was the kind of place in which I'd find the
Hearaich
spirit alive, well, and fully primed on generous measures of the malt washed down with frothy pints of Tennent's and McEwan's ale.

The Clisham Keel is not a pretty place by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, it has the distinctly battered, smoky, warped, and worn appearance of a pub fully accustomed to the antics of local youths, raucous rock and
ceilidh
bands, occasional beery brawls, and the bawdy brouhahas of the older “salts” who invariably occupy key positions along the small, brightly lit serving bar. Younger imbibers tend to choose the random scattering of Formica tables and the scratched and knife-slashed red Naugahyde benches around the edge of this small, but kind of cozy, watering hole.

And I shall long remember my first encounter here with the scrum of older patrons huddled in a corner by the beer pumps—a tight (in more ways than one) coterie of geriatric alcoholic alpha males. I had only planned to pop in, sample a half-pint to see what hoppy delights might await me on future occasions, sit quietly for a few minutes observing the pace and mood, and then return to our cottage to be debriefed by Anne on my discoveries. However, that's not quite what happened.

“So—what's y'tek on the Jacobean rebellion then, y'damn Sassunach…or m'be worse, d'y'ken.”

I quickly “kenned” that the dumpy bull of a man at the bar with a red face, bright as a beer sign, was out to make an instant fool of this neophyte “incomer” (although not a “white settler,” which is a definite term of derision in these parts) who had just walked through the door. But I had to smile too. Despite his bulk, his purple-veined face set in a wild tundra of cheeks and jowls, and aggressive “don't you eyeball
me
, laddie, or I'll decorate mi sporran wi' y'guts” look of ripe antagonism, the top of his balding head barely reached my shoulder and his huge walrus mustache, totally out of scale with the rest of his face, made him appear like Danny DeVito in dire dotage.

“Sorry…what are you talking about…?”

“Culloden, y'great ignoramus. The greatest battle ever fought on Scottish soil!”

“Which—and please correct me if I'm wrong—I believe the Scottish lost. Rather badly, I think. Which led to the end of all your clans and your Bonnie Prince Charlie and—”

“Y'd not be insultin'our bonnie prince, now—the Great Pretender!”

“Pretender! I never understood that name. But I guess that's just about what he must have been…”

I knew I'd already pushed this mild bit of sportive repartee a little too far. And, quite frankly, I'd forgotten just about all my British history. But, as a Yorkshireman, I felt I had to do a little pretending of my own and fudge my way through this unexpected foray. After all, we lads south of the Hadrian's Wall border of Roman times had to put up with an awful lot of cattle rustling and wife stealing and daughter deflowering from
these kilted and bearded Scots, and at Culloden (odd how flickers of historical trivia return from the mysterious recesses of our memory banks), we finally kicked ass and paid the hairy tartan-clad hordes back for all their centuries of pillaging and plundering.

The little man was showing distinct signs of terminal apoplexy and I decided it was time to calm things down a bit: “Listen—can I buy you a drink?”

That stopped him cold just as he was about to rustle up a posse of locals leaning on the bar and pound me into the pavement outside for daring to malign his beloved prince.

“A dram, are y'askin'?”

“Yes. I see you're drinking the Macallan—a fine single malt. Let me buy you another one.”

“No!” he said loudly, mustache quivering with bruised pride. “I will
not
, d'y'ken.”

“Oh. Okay. I just thought…” My personality now seemed to be developing distinctly limp-shrimp characteristics.

“A stranger is a guest here in Harris. Y'must drink the first dram on me. In fact, y'look like a drinkin' man, so y'll be havin'a double…Dierdre, a double o' the malt f' t' man 'ere…and y'might as well splash one f'me too.”

“Well—that's very kind of you” (limp-shrimp becoming less limp now).

He dismissed my thanks with a florid wave of his fat, horny-skinned fist, and the storm of confrontation seemed to pass as he smiled and we clinked glasses.

“
Slainte!”
he said.

“
Slainte!”
I replied in my best pretend-to-be-Scottish accent. And I thought, I can't remember the last time a stranger offered to buy me a drink in a British pub. And come to think of it, I can't remember when I've seen so many mature gentlemen so looped in a pub before. In England, pub drinking is more of a social occasion. But here on Harris, apparently, even at eight-thirty in the evening, it's a serious form of mutual decimation.

“Competitive drinking is Scotland's scourge,” I'd read in a north-of-
the-border newspaper, warning of the chaos normally experienced on days like Mad Friday, just before Christmas, and the whole of the holiday season. There didn't seem to be much in the way of competition here, though. They were all winners. They were all drunk. But still talking and cheerfully confirming that old adage, “Lots of truth in a full bottle of whisky, lots of lies in an empty one.”

All in all, from what I can remember, the evening ended amicably enough. My initial antagonist introduced me to all his old friends around the bar and shared with me a very long, and possibly overly intimate, story of his checkered life (hardly what you'd call an eloquent avant-garde monologue but certainly very colorfully vibrant). And I rolled home, somewhat later than I'd intended, to share with Anne the details of the evening or whatever I could remember—which, if I remember rightly, wasn't much…

 

A
WEEK OR SO LATER
there was yet another emotive exchange of ideas at the Keel. Most of the time things were pretty quiet here. Even boring on occasion. But I found the bar a pleasant place to while away an hour or so, catching up with my newspaper reading and generally enjoying the slow, rhythmic routines of island life.

But not on this particular occasion—which I can only liken to a “quiz,” a popular evening pastime in British pubs. Only this one was a little different from most of the others I'd experienced…

“Like what?! Like what has Scotland done for England or for the rest of the world?!” This was a young man speaking rather pompously and aggressively—in flurries of narcissistic fury. He was tall, lean-faced, lardy-skinned, dandyishly dressed in what seemed to be a brand-new Harris Tweed jacket. He possessed one of those rather irritating “plummy” voices, reminiscent a little of Prince Charles in one of his more arrogant of moods. “Other, that is, than inventing porridge, haggis…what else…cock a' leekie soup…and kippers? No, not kippers. They're from Yorkshire. Whitby. Oh, and Scotch—right. Scotch whisky. And kilts—but no one wears those anymore—in fact they were never really traditional anyway. And…what else…oh, of course, bag
pipes. And thank you so much for those. They sound like a bucket of screaming cats.”

“And that's it, is it? That's all you can come up with?” This came from an elderly man with whisky-reddened cheeks, a broad brow furrowed like a freshly cut peat bed, and a huge mat of Santa Claus–white hair. He seemed to take the young man's outburst lightly, smilingly, but I sensed that traps and lures might be awaiting this strident outsider.

“Well, Scotland's only a tiny part of the world, isn't it? Can't expect too much, can you…”

“Weel now,” the elderly gentleman said in a slow, laconic tone, thick with brogue, “how would y'feel if I told you just about every part of y'daily life has something to do with a Scotsman. Every single part. Now would that be worth a dram or two?”

That's an intriguing idea, I thought. I was sitting by the window, pretending to be reading my
Stornoway Gazette,
but actually wondering if the elderly man—so ready to wave the banner of Scottish pride in front of the sniggery face of this rather impudent young Englishman—could back up his extravagant claim.

“For example,” he began, “what wa' that y'were wearin' when y'came in an' sat down 'ere?”

The Englishman was nonplused at first and then realized the old man must be referring to his raincoat. “Er…a raincoat. So?”

“And what's another name f'y'raincoat, d'y'think?”

There was a pause, and then, realizing that a trap was possibly being set by the crafty old Scotsman, he mumbled, “Macintosh.”

“Wha'—a dinna hear ye.”

“A Macintosh,” said the Englishman a little louder.

“Veery gude, young man. Invented by our ver' famous Mr. Charles Macintosh of Glasgow. An' of course, I see you're wearin' a jacket of the great
Clo Mor
. Our Harris Tweed. Known the world over. An' now—how did y'get 'ere t'day?”

“What—here, to this pub?”

“Aye, of course. Where else?”

“By car.”

“And what makes y'car move d'y'think?”

“The engine.”

“Aye, well, there're plenty of engine parts made by Scottish inventors, but what helps your wee car move along the ground?”

“Wheels. I suppose you'll tell me Scotland invented the wheel too…”

Silence—but an ominous scowl on the old man's face.

“Okay—tires.”

“Now tha's right. Now y'thinkin'! An' who, may I ask, invented your tires—the inflated ones?”

“I have no idea at all—and I'm honestly not sure I really care,” replied the Englishman, maintaining his quixotically arrogant stance.

“Ah—weel. That would be our dear Mr. Dunlop now, wouldn't it? Another fine Scottish gentleman.”

No comment here from the Englishman, but one could sense a distinct deflation of bloated bombast.

“An' what did y'car drive on t'get 'ere t'day?”

“Roads?”

“Weel, yes, that's true—roads. But what were the roads covered with?”

“Tar.”

“Weel, actually, the proper name is macadam—as in Mr. John MacAdam—and before w'had petrol motors, what kind of engines did we use?”

“Oh, I don't know,” said the Englishman with increasing frustration. “Steam?”

“Veery gude, indeed. Y're doin' well, young man. An' d'y'remember who invented the steam engine by any chance?”

“Er…Watt. James Watt.”

“From…?”

“Scotland, I suppose.”

“Naturally. From Greenock, actually. Near Glasgow.”

“Fine. I get your point. But that's just a few things.”

“A few!? Is that what y'think now? Well—may y'should remember a lot of other things too, like the telephone invented by our Alexander Graham Bell, and then the television by our clever Mr. Baird, an' the bicycle, an' penicillin, an' the Bank of England—now that's a surprise
f'ye, isn't it—but that was started by our Mr. William Patterson of Dumfries.”

“Yes—however…,” said the Englishman, showing signs of a fragile psyche fraught with fractures. But the old man was on a roll.

“And that fine sandwich y're eatin'…what's in it?”

“Beef.”

“An' what kind o' beef would you be thinkin' that might be?”

“No idea.”

“More likely, it'll be our famous Aberdeen Angus. And if it's not, it should be. And if you had marmalade with y'breakfast, that's Mrs. Keiller's creation from Dundee—isn't it?”

There was no response at all now from the Englishman, so the old man continued: “And I won't bore you with all our great writers and poets like Robbie Burns, Sir Walter Scott, and Robert Louis Stevenson because I'm sure y'know all 'bout them. But the greatest book of all—we can claim that, too. And what d'y'think that might be, young man?”

“Oh, I don't know. The Bible, I suppose.”

“And you suppose correctly! My, what a fine brain y'have. Y'could almost be a contender for a Scotsman…and who was it that made sure the Bible was translated into a language w' could all understand?”

“I forget.”

“No, c'mon now. Think a wee bit. King…?”

“King…James.”

“Yes! Well done. And which one of the Jameses d'y'think it was?”

“Eh…the Fifth…no—the Sixth.”

“Ah, that's right. My—y'should be in one o' those millionaire quizzes. And where d'y'think the good king was from?”

A long, reluctant silence followed.

“C'mon now. Y've got most of y'other answers right so far.”

“Okay. Scotland.”

“Well—now there's a fine young man! That wasn't too difficult at all, was it? And of course, there's a lot more, y'know—a lot more, to be sure. Many other inventors we have. Great engineers and builders. In fact, if y'study y'history carefully, y'll see that the British Empire—y'know, all those great sweeps of red that once covered the world maps in school
classrooms—well, who d'y'think really controlled all that? Y'know—managed it, made it work…made it very, very profitable…who d'y'-think that might have been, a' wonder? Who?”