Seasons on Harris (14 page)

The young Englishman couldn't help but be amused by his own folly at being trapped into such a dialogue and he smiled but said nothing.

“Aye, weel, y'll know all these people I'm talkin' about—all these clever Scots—we had so many. And now I'm chust thinkin'—didn'a we have some wee kind o' drinkin' bet on all this? I've forgotten now…,” said the elderly gentleman, with a beguiling grin.

The Englishman laughed. “No, we did not, but what would you like anyway?”

“Och, a wee dram would be chust fine. An' ver' gude o' ye t'ask, laddie!”

“Fine,” said the Englishman gracefully, and rose to go to the bar.

“I'll have Talisker—if y'd be so kind” (a very fine and expensive single malt whisky made on Skye).

“Okay. Talisker it is, then.”

“An' while y're at it, might as well make it a double. All this talkin' makes y'so thirsty, d'y'ken.”

His beaten opponent smiled, “Oh, yes, I do indeed ken.”

I heard a male voice whisper to someone at at an adjoining table. The lines had a familiar ring—something from a Jack Nicholson movie, I think: “Smart-ass! And if he's so fuckin' smart, how come he's so fuckin' dead. Dead by Donnie!”

“And what a blush on his face!” murmured another with dismissive flippancy. “Brighter'n a baboon's bum!”

I was about to leave the Keel after that diverting little incident, but saw someone signaling to me from the bar. It was Angus MacLeod, who, with his father, runs this lucrative little complex of pub, restaurant, hotel, and self-catering cottages. Angus was a handsome, young, sparkle-eyed individual with a great sense of humor and a welter of island tales, although, to give him his due, he always claims his father tells them much better than he does.

“So—did y'see old Donnie up to his tricks?”

“Is that who it is…he's a sly old so-and-so.”

“Och—y've no idea. Gets 'em every time. Hardly ever needs t'buy a drink hiself. Sometimes it's sad to watch 'em gettin' snared. But they all usually end up laughin' and drinkin' the night away with 'im. He's harmless—but he knows how to get the hook into 'em.”

Angus and I had chatted on many occasions. Anne particularly enjoyed his company. He seemed to have little of the island “angst” that we detected in many of the older residents. He'd lived an active and varied life, even spending some time in Manhattan—and having a wild old time there too. “Can you imagine that?” he once told us. “Coming all the way back to Tarbert from a magnificent place like Manhattan. But I missed the people…the spirit of the people here and the family closeness. Most of my friends still live on-island and those who've left don't have a quarter of the fun that we have. We've got the boats, the fishing, surfing, singing, drinking, climbing, football—you name it. And even the winters—people laugh at me for spending the winters here because we close down much of the place, but I look forward to it. Best thing is, what happens is the closeness, the hard core of the community—we're all still here and we take it deeper and we have an even better time! And there's always stuff going on. I've done quite a bit of acting. BBC. I got involved in that crazy
Castaway
project on Taransay.” (
Castaway
was one of the first
Survivor
-type reality TV shows, of which there are many tales on-island here, particularly those told by Bill Lawson.) “And I got a part when they made the film of Finlay J. Macdonald's book
Crowdie and Cream
, and I got a couple of lines in that film
The Rocket Post
. Do you remember that story?”

I did, but Anne didn't and she asked him to tell us about it. So Angus recounted how a German inventor, Gerhard Zucher, in 1936, tried to persuade the British government that mail and medicines and the like could be easily and cheaply delivered to remote islands by rocket. He claimed that such a device would survive any kind of wind and weather and he set up a demonstration on the nearby islet of Scarp, but unfortunately the rocket and all its contents of letters and supplies blew up. Twice.

“Poor guy,” said Angus. “He never seemed to get much luck. He went on to develop rockets for the Germans which did some damage
to London during the Second World War, but for some reason, Hitler didn't like him and had him ‘liquidated.' It could have been a great film. From the bits I saw, it
was
a great film. Cost over ten million pounds to make. Originally there was going to be a real heavy-hitter cast—Albert Finney and Sean Connery. But something went wrong—in fact, everything went wrong and somehow the money vanished, and even the incomplete film itself vanished. It's been found again recently, and there's even talk of releasing it, but I've heard that my lines were cut so I guess I'm never going to be famous as a film star. I'll just be stuck here with my dad, lookin' after all our locals an' watchin' the tourists come in—and get fleeced by Donnie.”

“Well—they certainly seem to like this place. By the way, how did it get its name?”

“Oh,” said Angus, with a grin, “that's quite a story.
The Clisham
was a tough little cargo boat owned by my great-grandfather. Used to run coal and salt. Originally it was owned by some Dutch gin runners—a ‘gin cutter' is what they used to call it at the turn of the century. And once it was runnin' booze and tobacco and perfume off the coast of Ireland and the coast guard grabbed 'em and impounded the boat in 1901. They imprisoned the crew and were selling off the boat cheaply so my grandfather bought it and he used it sometimes to run all the way to Poland for coal. Eventually it got beached and was pretty much destroyed in a storm. All that remained was the keel—the iron keel—which we still have just across the road. So we named this place after the boat and my grandfather.”

“And have you seen many changes since you got back from New York?” asked Anne.

“Oh yes, maybe too many. Tweed is one of the saddest things. I don't think it'll ever die, but it just doesn't seem to be a modern kind of fabric at the moment. Maybe if y'mix it with cashmere an' things…problem is, it's too strong and heavy. It lasts forever! Y'buy one jacket an' that's it for the rest of y'life…but…I hear there are some new things happening. It may have a comeback…again. But tourism, I suppose, is definitely the key to our future. The challenge is balancing what brings people here—the remoteness and the solitude and the wild beauty of
the place—with the increasing number of people who may want to visit. I tell them it's not for everybody. It's magnificent, but you have to be able to handle all those days of rain and wind—and midges! Not everybody can see its beauty in the wind and rain…but we don't want a Spanish tourist–type market. We need what we have. We possibly also need another Lord Leverhulme to come and get us organized again. There's always lots of meetings going on and lots of new projects thrown about—most of which we
Hearaich
seem to oppose. But I don't think we do it just to be difficult. I think we all know that this island, despite how strong it looks, is still fragile, and keeping a balance here between the wildness and all these wonderful new schemes and dreams of the ‘white settlers' and others is our biggest challenge.”

“Well, Anne and I certainly sense an awful lot of pride here on this island.”

“Oh aye, there's plenty of pride about,” said Angus, laughing, “and with people like Donnie around braggin' as to how we Scots invented everything an' run the whole blinkin' world, that pride'll never die!”

We toasted Scottish pride.

Then Angus, still laughing, said, “Listen, have y'heard this one. Could apply to quite a few of our regulars here.” He gestured toward the huddle of dram-and-chaser geriatrics at the bar. “This old guy comes into his local and spots a fine young thing at the bar. ‘Oooh, that one's for me,'he thinks, but a long day's drinkin' has not done much for his mental agility, as he leans over and slurs out, ‘'Scuse m'miss…but plis would y'be tellin' me now—do I come here often?'”

Angus was right. That could just as well have happened—and possibly has—at the dear old Clisham Keel.

L
OOKS LIKE A NICE CALM DAY,”
I said in morning-buoyant mood. Very early morning, actually. Quicksilver-light time. Around 6:00
A.M
. The traditional Hebridean time to go prawn fishing or lobstering. And The Minch did indeed seem calm, blue and sparkling despite gauzy frills of dawn mist around the rocky inlets, and I was looking forward to my first day out on a fishing boat with three experienced reapers of the deep.

My jaunty comment elicited no response other than a whispery grunt from Angus Campbell, the tall, forty-two-year-old owner of
Harmony
, his fishing boat, a foxy kind of grin from his leaner brother, John, and a wee chuckle from Duncan, their apprentice and third cousin removed on their mother's side. (Or something like that. Everyone seems to be related to everyone else on Harris.)

“Did y'have y'breakfast already?” asked Angus in what I assumed was a kindly expression of concern for my gustatory well-being.

“Actually, no. Just coffee,” I said. “But I brought sandwiches.”

“Best keep those for the time bein'. Until y'get…adjusted,” said Angus, his large chin wagging ominously.

“Adjusted—to what?!” I asked with neophyte nonchalance.

“To the sea, man…to the sea.”

I stared again eastward across the twenty-mile-wide Minch toward Skye. Had I missed some key indicator of trepidatious conditions out there? A spiraling water spout? A surging tsunami? A boat-sucking whirlpool?

“Looks smooth enough from here,” I said complacently.

“It's not here I'm talkin' about. It's there. Out there five miles. Can y'see those whitetops?”

I stared again. Yes, I could see something but I assumed it was just lines of sun-glitter striations across the water. Signs, I assumed, of a benevolent calm.

“I thought it was just reflected sunshine.”

“Ah, did y'now?” said Angus, now with the same foxy smile as his brother. “Well—we'll just have to wait and see, won't we?”

I had a feeling I was being made the butt of some undisclosed joke, so I changed the subject. After all, I was a guest on their boat and maybe a not particularly welcome one at that. It had been Angus's wife, Christina, a sprightly individual with a generous spirit, who had suggested the idea and nudged Angus into acceptance. Reluctant or otherwise, I wasn't sure. This is what he and his crew did for a living every day, and maybe the idea of having some curious outsider getting in the way of hauling up his fleets of creels—hundreds of creels—didn't seem as enticing to them as it was to me.

“So, what are the plans for today? Prawning? Lobstering? Or what?” I asked.

Angus grinned benignly. “No, no lobstering today. To do that we'd have to be on the west side of Harris, going out into the Atlantic from the other pier in Tarbert. Seabed's rocky there and lobsters like rocky hiding places. We're on the east side today.”

“So that means prawns?”

“Prawns it is—they like the sandy, muddy bottoms. Though maybe not so many today. The creels have been out too long and the bait will be eaten up by now. We couldn'a get out for the last five days. Weather was too bad.”

“So if the bait's gone, the prawns won't come to the creels?”

“Right.”

“But what about all the prawns that ate the bait in the first place? Won't they still be in the creels?”

“Unlikely.”

“But I thought they were designed so that once the prawns got in, they couldn't get out again.”

Another smile, a little patronizing this time. “Well—y'd be right if it were lobsters. They're too big to get out. But the prawns—actually they're langoustines—like small lobsters, claws and all. They're small and they're pretty canny. They can get back out easy 'nough and we end up with hermit crabs, starfish, and whelks. Nothing we can sell.”

Something seemed a bit wrong about all this. Why design creels that can't keep their catch? Especially when bad weather is a regular state of affairs in these parts and boats can't always go out to collect their catch on a preplanned basis? I put the question to Angus but all I got was a shrug of acceptance, as if to say “That's the way things are and that's the way they have been from time immemorial.” It was the kind of answer you get to a lot of questions—perfectly logical questions—on Harris. You accept it after a while and either stop asking questions or wait until you find someone with a broader purview. So, I stopped asking questions, settled myself into a sunny corner of the boat near the small cabin, and watched as the three of them went through the preparations for our journey out into The Minch.

Which, as Angus had hinted, was not calm at all.

In fact, as soon as we chugged out of the narrow rock-bound harbor, the change came. The docile demeanor of our forty-foot-long boat was quickly lost as a vigorous swell sent her lolling and rolling into five-foot waves, white-crested and erratically rhythmed.

“That's The Minch f'ye,” growled Angus from the wheelhouse, carefully studying half a dozen electronic devices that gave him depth analyses, warnings of pernicious subaquatic rock ridges, weather forecasts, fish-shoal indicators, our GPS position down to a few yards, and even the precise location of his precious fleets of creels, miles farther out in the now truculent waters.

I kept my eyes focused on the horizon. On previous boat adventures in various parts of the world I found that I am by no means a natural-born sailor. Green-gilled nausea rapidly surges in, wavelike and stomach-churning, unless I have the horizon in view and blasts of ocean air that I can suck in deeply like cans of cold soda to settle my tumultuous intestines.

“Y'okay?” asked Angus.

“Me? Oh, I'm fine…thanks. Fine.”

All three of them smiled together, like members of a club amused at the behavior of some errant outsider.

“When we get to the first fleet, we'll have some tea,” said John. “Tea always helps.”

“Helps what?”

“Well…y'know,” he replied, grinning wider now. “If y'feelin' a bit…y'know…”

“Oh, don't worry about me. I'm fine,” I tried again. “But a cup of tea would be nice.”

“It'll ward off the Blue Men,” said John mysteriously.

Angus Campbell's
Harmony

“Oh, right—the Blue Men. I've heard all about them.”

“Ah, y' know the story? I thought m'be y'hadn'a heard.”

“Well—it's only an old folktale. Nothing to be fretting about, is it?”

“Oh, no. Many did, mind ye. In the past. When boats were smaller, an' all that. But not so much now. Things are much better, y'ken. Much better now…usually.”

“How d'y' mean—‘usually'?”

“Well, it's still best to keep y'wits 'bout ye,” said John, smiling that mysterious smile again.

And, as if to emphasize his point, a sudden double-punch of waves moving in different directions caught us all by surprise. Angus gripped the wheelhouse door frame, John grabbed the anchor chain, Duncan slid a ways before hitting the rail, and I missed my handhold and ended up sprawled on the wet deck awash in wave spume, until I grabbed a leg of the sorting table and held fast.

“Hang on!” shouted John. As if I had plans to do anything else.

Slowly the boat righted itself and the surge diminished, and the now familiar bounce 'n' buck rhythm returned.

“Y'okay?” asked Duncan. Even he looked a little perturbed by his hasty skid across the deck, and I must admit I felt comforted by that look. They were all obviously experienced sailors, but they also knew, far better than me, that the sea is a pernicious companion whose friendship and felicitude can never be assumed.

“Fine,” I lied again. This was my fifth “fine” in less than five minutes and I'd lied every time.

“Gotta watch out fer those wee sneaky little bastards.” John was now only half smiling.

“Och—it's just the Blue Men playin' a bit wi' ye!” shouted Angus over the roar of the engine.

“Okay! Enough about these blasted Blue Men. Isn't it time for tea?”

And so it was, and we sat bobbing about like corn in a popper close to the orange buoys marking the first fleet of creels, slurping on Angus's strong, sweet tea. But the image of those demons of the deep waiting to lure us to a watery demise persisted and I kept my eyes fixed on the horizon, watching out for more of those pernicious waves.

When it came to the laboriously rhythmic process of hauling up the creels, I, of course, offered to lend a hand. And I assumed that such benevolence on my part would be met with good-natured gratitude and the promise of “extra rations” or something equally enticing for my endeavors.

“Oh—no, no, y're good jus' where y'are,” said Angus, maybe a little too hastily.

“Yeah, stay there and you'll need to hang on tight,” agreed John, obviously a reflection on my prior inability to stand upright when broadsided by errant surf.

Duncan just smiled. A trifle empathetically, I sensed, maybe because of his own lowly third-rung status as an “apprentice.”

Now, I suppose I could indulge in a little artistic license and claim that eventually, as the grueling haul continued, they gradually turned to this big strapping individual (me) lolling by the rail and begged for the use of his muscular prowess. But truth must out and that didn't happen. They were the very picture of perfect teamwork, with Angus operating the noisy, diesel-powered hauling winch, which lifted the heavy metal and nylon-net creels over five hundred feet from the depths of The Minch.

Each “fleet” line contained a hundred creels, and up they came every ten seconds or so. Angus quickly removed the lead weights that had kept each creel firmly on the prawn-littered Minch mud; John flipped open the flap of the creel, poured its contents onto the sorting table that stood waist high on middeck, and tossed back into the waves the “junk” of small “brown” crabs, whelks, hermit crabs, and starfish (much to the frenzied delight of a host of gulls and gannets following in our wake). He threw, with remarkable accuracy, the larger “velvet” crabs (apparently very popular with the Japanese market), small octopus, and the footlong, sharklike dogfish—ideal as bait for velvet crabs—into separate buckets by the wheelhouse, and in a rare break of silence, he shouted to me, “Y'like octopus and suchlike?”

“Sure,” I said. “Definitely.”

“Okay, well this one's for you, then.” He grinned, holding up a particularly large and gelatinous-looking specimen.

Then came the key task—Duncan's sorting of the langoustines, with their long flailing, lobsterlike claws—into three separate boxes, each box for a different size of langoustine and each slotted neatly, claws upward, into a grid of “tubes” within every box.

And so it went—a robotic regimen of creel hauling, opening, emptying out, throwing back, and meticulous size selection of the scores of scarlet and white, knobble-shelled creatures. I'd been told that as soon as we docked at the end of the day, these would be whisked away in a special refrigerated truck bound for Stornoway airport, and within a few hours, they'd be the specialty of the day at the dining tables of elegant tourist-resort restaurants and hotels in Spain.

The three of them worked silently and without pause until the first fleet of creels had been emptied and stacked in a rapidly growing pile at the rear of the boat.

“Fantastic,” I gushed. “Looks like a great catch.”

Certainly Duncan had managed to fill quite a few of his boxes and had never for a moment slowed in the rapidity and accuracy of his selection.

“S'terrible!” grunted Angus.

“No, s'not good at all,” agreed John.

Duncan just smiled as usual and shrugged.

“Normally,” Angus began to explain, “on a good run, we get anything up to twenty or thirty in a creel. Today we're less'n three or four. Like a' said—they've been down there too long because of the lousy weather. So the cheeky little buggers ate up all the salt herring bait and left.”

“So why hasn't someone designed a creel especially for langoustines,” I asked without thinking, “y'know, something with a narrower—maybe a more confusing—‘entrance' or whatever y'call it.”

There was a sort of hesitant pause until Angus stated the obvious: “Well, y'can get 'em if y'just a prawn man, but we do lobsters too and at a cost of twenty pounds plus a creel and twenty fleets—that's two thousand creels total—well, you work it out. We'd have to have double the investment—two lots of forty thousand pounds! Far too much outlay for a three-man boat. Even now, what with the oil, replacement creels,
ropes, tackle, and God knows what else—and all those damned taxes on top of everything—it's amazing we keep goin' even during the good months!”

“Ah,” I said.

More silence.