The Orkney Scroll (12 page)

In the COLD hard light of dawn, my optimism evaporated. Gone was the lovely buzz of the champagne, the good cheer generated by pleasant company and exceptional surroundings. Gone, too, was the pale sunshine of the day before, to be replaced by a dismal drizzle. I was back to replaying my conversation with Percy. What had that conversation with Percy actually meant? I kept trying to recall his exact words and the possible interpretation of them. He could have been lying about his knowledge or the lack thereof of the writing cabinet’s value, but he’d have to be a pretty good actor to look as surprised as he had. This did not bode well for this ridiculous trip to Orkney.

Then there was the small matter of John A. Macdonald Antiques. It didn’t exist. I was sure there was something hugely important in this, beyond the obvious fact that it put the actual transaction into grave doubt. But this bogus transaction had to be part of something much bigger, something involving not one but two writing cabinets. I just could not fathom what this big something might be. After all, Trevor could have imported two writing cabinets from two different places with perfectly genuine paperwork for each piece. Did that mean that he’d stolen one of them? I’d checked all international databases that listed stolen items such as this, Interpol, for example, before I left. If it had turned up, then the fake invoice made sense. But it hadn’t, so I was right back where I started.

These ruminations made me exceptionally irritable, and I stayed that way when the rain stopped somewhere between Glasgow and Inverness and even when the sun came out just as the aircraft crossed the coastline. Below were lines of oil rigs, a blight on the landscape, but interesting nonetheless, and farther out, visible through wisps of white clouds, a chain of the greenest islands I had ever seen. Given our flying time, I could only assume those islands were my destination.

The truth of the matter was that if it hadn’t been for my rather quixotic quest, to use Percy’s word, for a second writing cabinet, I wouldn’t know where Orkney was. Oh, I knew what we call the Orkney Islands, and Rendall the publican called Orkney, were somewhere off the coast of Scotland, but where, exactly, I wasn’t sure, and until now I hadn’t had cause to ask. There were all those islands, some of them apparently quite beautiful, the Hebrides, Skye, the Shetlands, the Isles of Man and Arran, different, or at least I thought so, from the Irish Aran Islands where I’d actually been. Really, I didn’t have a clue which was which. I think I had labored under the illusion that I would go to Glasgow, civilized place that it was, would find the antique dealer, and all would be made right. Instead I was reduced to consulting the route map in the magazine in the seat pocket in front of me, to find out that Orkney lay north and east of Scotland. Even with that, I still had no idea what the climate was like, had not booked a hotel, and just hoped that transportation would be available, whatever transportation, that is, that was required. From the air, I could see there were several islands, and I could only hope and pray that my destination was the one with the airport.

This is an embarrassing admission for someone who plans her buying trips with military precision, and who makes a point of knowing as much as possible about her destination before she arrives, but there you are. I was entering uncharted territory, and this fact alone left me feeling anxious and out of sorts.

The trouble was, all efforts to the contrary, I couldn’t hold on to my vile mood. The airport was a dear little thing, and I had my suitcase within five minutes of entering it. Or maybe it was only three minutes. I was so nonplussed by this unseemly haste in unloading the baggage from the aircraft and getting it into the passengers’ hands that I was about to say to the staff person who called out to ask if this was my luggage, now spinning all by itself on a miniature carousel, that it might look like mine but it couldn’t possibly be mine, given I’d only just arrived. I hadn’t even bothered to go look for it right away. I figured I had at least a half hour before the luggage carousel beeped loudly and turned on, only to circle empty for an eternity, and had gone to the gift shop to buy a map.

Ten minutes after that shock to my system, I had a car. The car rental agency was a counter in what would be a closet at home. The woman staffing it took my credit card imprint, and then, stuffing it into a drawer, told me it was a bank holiday of some sort, and she wouldn’t be putting the charges through on my credit card for a couple of days or three. She didn’t have one of those machines that charge you in a nanosecond, nor did she phone the credit card company to verify that I could actually pay for this vehicle of hers. She just handed me the keys, told me to enjoy my stay, and advised that if she wasn’t there when I departed, I could just throw the keys in a box.

I eyed her suspiciously. In those three days, was she going on a buying spree with my credit card documentation, or even, heaven forbid, stealing my identity? Even if she had no such plans, was there sufficient security on this closet of hers, that my credit card documents wouldn’t be stolen in the night? Those of us who live in big cities, especially those of us in a place of business that has recently suffered not one but two robberies in short order, know we have to be eternally vigilant. I decided I was just going to have to risk it. I asked for directions for St. Margaret’s Hope, and rather than whipping some unreadable map off a desk pad, she painstakingly wrote out the directions by hand, explaining everything carefully as she did so.

But that was not the end of the startling events. Even more disconcerting, if not downright alarming, was the fact that actually getting to the rental car did not require a bus or train to transport me to the real car rental office a hundred miles or so from the airport. Indeed it was only a few steps from the terminal door to my car.

I was transfixed. I felt as if I had fallen off the edge of the civilized world, or more accurately, that I had fallen off the edge of an uncivilized world into paradise. There was one small problem in paradise ahead of me, though, and that was the right-hand drive, and the consequent necessity to shift gears with my left hand. I was a tiny bit apprehensive about pulling my little gray Ford into traffic, so I decided to circle the airport parking lot once before I headed out, just to get the feel of the car. That took approximately twenty seconds, thirty if you count the time it took me to find reverse and back out of the parking place. I crept up to the road in first gear, foot resting on the clutch the whole way so I’d be ready for anything, then stopped and carefully looked both ways. You have to do that when you start to drive on the left. It’s hard to know until you get used to it, from which direction they’ll be coming at you. Astonishingly, there was no car in sight, in either direction. “Good grief, where am I?” I said to the windshield, as I pulled out on to what my map said was a numbered highway. In what outpost, far from the aggravations of life as I knew it, was I exactly?

I had a rather jolly time of it, coasting along in third gear, no other vehicles in sight, and admiring the scenery, heading, at least I hoped that was what I was doing, for St Margaret’s Hope, home to one of the writing cabinets, if Trevor’s documentation could be believed, which obviously it couldn’t, given the business about John A. Macdonald Antiques. Somehow, despite the directions, I made the wrong turn, and found myself heading, not for St. Margaret’s Hope, but rather into the capital city of Kirkwall. By and large I try to avoid driving in foreign capitals, especially on my first visit. They are large, aggressive, and scary if you don’t know your way about. I can even get lost in Washington, or rather not lost exactly: I know where I am. I’m just always in the wrong lane for where I want to go. I’ve driven in London, Rome, and Paris and therefore don’t think I need to prove anything anymore. So Kirkwall was to be avoided.

In a few minutes, however, the highway—I use the term reluctantly—turned into a street lined with houses, a handful of cars appeared to share the road with me, and shortly after that I found myself on a very narrow street, what I’d call a lane at home, with a tree in the middle of it, a tree that required some maneuvering to get around, I might add. Just ahead was a soaring cathedral in rather beautiful red stone that dominated the entire town.
Kirk,
“church,” I thought. This really is Kirkwall. It was, well, small. It was also a bit complicated, at least for me. In my efforts to get out of town again, I did the unforgivable: I turned on to a one-way street from the wrong direction right in front of a policeman. Needless to say I was pulled over.

“I am so sorry,” I said, putting on my very best contrite face. “I’m terribly lost. I was trying to get to St. Margaret’s Hope.”

“I’m afraid you’re a long way from there,” the policeman said. “I’m sorry about our street signage. We all know where we’re going, you see, and sometimes the street signs are not as clear as they might be. You’ll find that, especially outside of Kirkwall. You’ll be following signs for places and then all of a sudden they’ll disappear.”

A couple of pedestrians came up at this point. “She’s trying to get to St. Margaret’s Hope,” the policeman told them.

“That’s a peedie bit of a drive,” one of the women said.

“Aye. At least twenty minutes, maybe more,” the other added. I didn’t ask what peedie meant, although I was to later learn it meant small. Apparently they intended the opposite at that moment. I declined to mention that I have a twenty-minute drive to my local dry cleaners.

“I know I made an illegal turn,” I said. “And I’m going the wrong way.”

“Sorry. It’s not easy to find your way here,” the other woman said. What followed was a polite disagreement on the subject of whose fault it was I found myself in this particular spot. I couldn’t believe my ears, and I’m a Canadian: Step on my toe and I’ll apologize to you. These people were arguing it was their fault I was going the wrong way on a one-way street. Not only that, when they’d given me new directions, the policeman made two drivers who had the legal right of way back out of the street so I could proceed! In some places in the world, I’d have been in handcuffs by then. There was something seriously the matter with these people.

In about two minutes, I was out of the bustling metropolis of Kirkwall, and on my way again. So unnerved was I by the display of the milk of human kindness I had just witnessed, however, that even with the new set of directions, I got lost a second time, and found myself on a road signed not for St. Margaret’s Hope, but for Ophir. For some reason, I didn’t care anymore. I rather liked the sound of someplace called Ophir; it had a rather exotic ring to it. Exotic it wasn’t, although it was very pleasant, just a few houses on the side of the road. I barely had time to gear down before it was time to pick up the pace again.

Just outside of Ophir, there was a sign for something called a Bu, and the Orkneyinga Saga Centre, and having no idea what either might be, but curious, I turned off and had a look. I found the ruins of an old church and dining hall, called the Earl’s Bu, once the haunt of Vikings and the site of a rather gruesome murder, if the film in an empty visitor center was anything to go by. In the film, which obviously was linked to some kind of motion detector because I didn’t see another soul anywhere and it turned itself on the minute I sat down, they told some of the stories in something called the Orkneyinga Saga, the history of the Viking earls of Orkney. These Viking earls lived in what were obviously rather violent times. Still, I thought it was all very nice, except for the murder part, particularly alarming given axes were a weapon of choice. I was, however, surprised to learn that Orkney had been an important part of the Viking world, and indeed remained more Scandinavian than Scottish for a very long time. I gathered that the people here were rather proud of their Scandinavian heritage. I’m not sure what entitled me to be surprised, given that until a few hours ago I had had no clear idea of Orkney at all, but I was.

Soon, much better informed, I was back on the road. The sea was to my left, beautiful, really, and to my right, some hills. Across the water even higher hills were shrouded in mist. It was spectacularly beautiful, really, in a sedate, well-managed sort of way. But still, no people. I was beginning to wonder if this particular bank holiday was one in which everyone left the island, or indeed, if the world had come to end since I’d left Kirkwall and somehow I’d missed it. One car overtook and passed me, but that was all. Then I found myself heading downhill in the direction of a little town, its name, according to the sign, Stromness.

Stromness is built on a steep hill sloping down to a harbor. There is a ferry terminal, and indeed a large white ferry was just pulling away. The houses are mostly stone, and the streets the same, even narrower, if anything, than Kirkwall. I edged my way through the town in first gear. I had to keep my eye on the road ahead, as in several places the main street went down to one lane because of the corners of buildings that jutted out into the road. At the far edge of town I decided I had enough driving for one day, and was going to stay in Stromness, to regroup and get my bearings, but also to see if it really was as nice as it looked. After all, what was the rush?

I abandoned my car in a parking area that appeared to be free, as unlikely as that might be. I couldn’t find any way to pay, but perhaps this was what they did to foreigners: they hid the meters and then towed our cars. After several passes up and down the main street on foot, admiring the lovely gray stone houses, the cobbled streets and charming steep laneways with amusing names like Khyber Pass, and the last flowers of the season still blooming in window boxes, and actually having been smiled at by several people, I chose a bed-and-breakfast run by one Mrs. Olive Brown. She wasn’t much for conversation, our Mrs. Brown, but she was pleasant enough and the place was spotless. She even had a place for my car, although the place I’d left my car was okay, too, and no, of course I didn’t have to pay to park there. I told her I’d be staying a day or two. She didn’t ask for a deposit, but I insisted on paying for two nights on the spot. I mean, certain people must be protected from themselves, and Mrs. Brown was one of them.