A Book of Death and Fish (48 page)

Remember I gave you a bit of the history of the pram. Here’s a bit of an update.

The pram is now outside the workshop on Leverhulme Drive. Why is it not inside the workshop designed for the purpose of protecting vehicles (of land or sea) from the assaults of weather? Other people had other priorities for covered storage. It was a bit of a mistake to build that structure on land you were going to leave. But I had not yet admitted that there was a need to leave, not even to myself.

All the seams are now epoxy-taped, to strengthen ageing joints. The plan is to put lighter, whitewood thwarts in place – well, bits of a staircase to be precise. We don’t have an America’s Cup budget. I don’t really have any budget. The outside of the pram’s been painted already, to protect the epoxy which, though a miraculous material, is subject to UV degradation, if not coated. The hull is no longer black but another shade of blue. Looking at the inside, I’m fair tempted to go back to black and signal red.

But the frost got into the transom, last winter. That’s the board which forms the back of this boat, a vital part of the structure. So the pram built by the co-operative of two Lochies is in a critical condition. It’s borderline. She’s a life and death case but the operating theatre is still occupied with other people’s projects. If I could step back a few yards I could tell you she’s dying gracefully, fading into the grass. But a certain builder thought that, of a certain Type 2 VW, which lived to go ‘put-put’ again. For a time.

Shit, boats. What are they like? Stories are just as bad. Tangents are the main issue of West-Coast storytelling. This is like we’re standing at the door. We’re up from the table. The yarns ain’t over yet and we’re standing at the gate outside. It’s a fair night. It’s time for the purpose of the visit. You never hear it till folk are just about at the gate.

Now I need to describe a dream. Not last night but the night before. No, none of that, foot in the rope stuff. A weight falling through water and a line rasping out behind it, as far as its length can go. That’s a waking dream. So it should be. This was different. I woke up sweating. I have to tell you why.

The dream is, I’m on Isle of Skye. The neighbouring island has got a few decent hills, it’s got be said. And a couple of impressive sections of spate river. I’m casting a fly. Maybe that’s why I’m there. The adrenalin surges when you see a fin in the water. Just like when you lean back and brace with your boots against the cliff, trusting the rope. There’s tension involved. But now it’s a rod and line, cutting through the water and a shape you can’t see powers up below the surface. It’s so strong it’s got to be a salmon.

But it’s the Norwegian pram that comes up from the vortex under the fall. With her trim in signal red again. How could she be under the water? But the transom – the back bit – is missing. Just gone. Nothing makes sense. How she got across the North or the Little Minch. How she got up a river. How she’s back to the pale blue that’s close to silver, under the black water.

A boat has a pattern, whether it’s built from plans or not. It’s got to be symmetrical at least, for fuck’s sake. But I don’t see any pattern to this story. Why she should come up in my dreams, with her stern ripped apart. It’s more like a story my mother once wrote down. A Land Girl following a memory of the loom of a lighthouse.

I’m awake and shaking and just about to get into the van. I want to get up the road and make sure she’s still settled into the grass, by the workshop. Not a smart idea. That would go down really well. Arriving in the middle of the night at the building I’ve signed over, with everything else. So my wife will agree to transfer her half-share of the olaid’s house, to me. So I can buy another roof, a few more streets away. No-one is going to give me a mortgage on the strength of my business record or my cooking abilities. Slightly better chance on the second of these.

There’s something else behind the dream of the pram in the limbo of turbulence. It’s another story. I heard it from one of the cleaners at Uig School
in north Skye, from the grannie of one of the pupils. Not yesterday. A Coastguard liaison visit. Some guy had the crazy idea that there could be a bit more dialogue between staff on different Scottish islands.

So here is the story, the way I remember it told to me. In the interest of historical accuracy, I did some research in Portree Library and found a contemporary account of the same incident. I photocopied that and you can find it somewhere amongst these papers, as a comparison. But this is the way I remember one woman telling it.

These boats are toys. Reds, blues, purple and green. Mixes. Marbles. Spots. There are trailers with stacks of them but mostly they come in pairs or threes, a family, huddled on the roof rack. Don’t think kayaks. Sea kayaks are long. The length and sleekness give you speed. Guys have crossed to Flannans, Kilda, Sula Sgeir, North Rona. They make them from all kinds of composites these days, resins and strands of lightweight matting. Same kind of principle as the skin stretched over a delicate lattice of bone or bleached wood. Strong as hell.

They say an Inuit paddler arrived in Aberdeen around 1720 but died shortly afterwards. There is indeed a fine example of an Inuit kayak in Marischal College and it can of course be accurately dated. But the story of its acquisition needs careful scrutiny. There are records of Dutch whalers landing Inuit people and vessels, captured alive along with the dead whales. I don’t think you can say that the documentation proves that anyone paddled all the way from Greenland to Aberdeen.

I couldn’t tell you the difference between surf boats and river boats. I know they’re both short so they can spin in a tight space. They look squat, maybe for buoyancy so they should come back up when the turbulence just drives them down. Anna does both. Surf and rivers. Mostly rivers these days. She told me about this meet. A memorial. Surfers, climbers, paddlers all do that. Folk remember someone killed on the mountain, or in the water, by gathering in mass.

I think most people believe in remembering.

I hadn’t clocked it was Invermoriston. Great Glen. Not consciously, anyway. I was just driving the same way. Working in Argyll. The obvious
way to go. I pulled in right away. My car looked conspicuous without a roof rack. I was maybe intruding. But folk were still arriving. Stalls were set up. I had a look around for the old Peugeot estate I’d given over to Anna. No sign of it.

I walked down to where other cars and vans were parked. More were arriving, all the time. It was a big event. I sent a text. She would be driving. This was definitely the place. But she’d been down in the dumps, last time we’d talked on the phone. The boyfriend had told her he wanted some time apart to think things out. So maybe she didn’t have the stomach. No, all the more reason she’d be here. The alternative family. The community of river boats.

I thought of getting coffee. Waiting. There wasn’t a ferry to catch tonight. But I did have a rendezvous to make. The scenery should have been in black and white. Ealing era. A meeting in Ardnamurchan at the Strontian crossroads. Mairi was coming back from Mull. She was getting a fair bit of work now. Helping folk who worked from home in areas where the broadband was slow or iffy. I didn’t have a job to do. The trouble with independent boatbuilders is they’re usually very creative so they install the engines, themselves.

But the weather had been decent and tourists were prolific. The pound was low in Europe. Ferry fares were down, with Road Equivalent Tariff for the islands – the ones with falling populations, anyway. Orkney and Shetland didn’t qualify. Nothing to do with the way they voted.

I’d done a good few shifts on the pans and had the ferry fare for the 205. We could meet up and stay with mates of hers. It might be easier than when we were on the Island.

So I’d to get to the crossroads by a definite time. And right here now, I could be intruding. The text was enough. Just so Anna would know I was thinking of her. Doesn’t matter what you say. I wanted her to know I’d thought of her. Simple as that.

It was sun after rain. Pretty ideal for these guys – or maybe they needed a week of torrents for some of the runs.

I got that chill again. The lazy wind, as my olman called it. Goes right through you. Can’t be bothered to go round you. The submariner’s
gansey wouldn’t help. It was in the car, picked up in a classy thrift shop in Inverness. A fiver’s worth of ex-Admiralty contract. The big chill’s worse when you’re close to lively groups. Worst of all when you’re living next door to the action. You’re a step aside. Cars dropping folk off. Chinks of supermarket bags with bottles of beer and wine and gin.

But I was off the Island and still feeling that chill in the marrow. Movement helps. I got back in the car.

The flashing and siren registered just after I pulled out. I indicated and pulled back in, to let the ambulance get ahead. The car in front did the same. The way was clear now for the emergency services, speeding down the road. That was the punch in the gut. I was winded. As sure as if I’d just been driven against a submerged bridge by a mountain torrent.

It was a fine day. Just into September. All these paddlers, a UK-wide community, they were gathering here like Jacobites. Bit more tasteful though. Thousands of tourists were still going up and down the road. But that’s what being a parent is. First you think of your own. A red Peugeot estate with the front crumpled in. Then you think, whoever it is, it’s someone’s family. But that’s the second thought.

You’d think, after the experience we’d shared, that water should have been something for her to fill the kettle with. But she went from sea kayaking to rivers. Then the specialised stuff. Studying the rainfall, the snowmelt. Reading the gradients on the OS map. Looking for trickles that you could paddle in a spate. She has a talent for reading what’s under a weight of water. She’s good at sensing the obstructions.

Sure she knows there’s risks. But that’s not a simple equation. There’s risks in everything you do and don’t do. The minibus went over on the way to a river. No-one was hurt.

It wasn’t
her
car in the road accident, that day of the commemoration. The incident that got me started on all this. I don’t know the story behind the flashing lights, that day. But they would have affected someone else’s family.