Dearest Dacha

by Norman Maclean

  A NOTE ON THE AUTHOR

  Born in Glasgow in 1936, Norman Maclean was educated at school and university there before abandoning his childhood ambition of becoming a helicopter pilot – or was it a cowboy? – and drifting into the role of educationalist and spending fourteen miserable years as a teacher of Latin and Mathematics in schools all over Scotland. He garnered much fame after winning two Gold Medals at the National Mod – for poetry and singing – in the same year, 1967; the only person ever to do so. Shortly afterwards he began a career, as he would say himself, as a clown. The twenty odd years he spent as a stand-up comedian performing in variegated venues throughout the English-speaking world has caused him to book a place on a daytime television show renowned for its shouty, self-righteous former-salesman presenter. However, that said, it is in the roles of comic and musician Maclean is still best known today. In 2009 Birlinn published his acclaimed autobiography, The Leper’s Bell.

  Dearest Dacha

  Norman Maclean

  First published as Dacha Mo Ghaoil in 2005 by Clàr

  This edition published in 2011 by

  Birlinn Limited

  West Newington House

  10 Newington Road

  Edinburgh

  EH9 1QS

  www.birlinn.co.uk

  Copyright © Norman Maclean 2011

  The moral right of Norman Maclean to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form without the express written permission of the publisher.

  ISBN 978 1 78027 006 7

  eBook ISBN 978 0 85790 059 3

  British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Designed and typeset by Iolaire Typesetting, Newtonmore

  Printed and bound by Bell & Bain Ltd, Glasgow

  To

  Calum MacKinnon

  and

  Davie Walker

  and

  Duncan MacNeil

  for whom I first wrote this story as a radio script

  Contents

  1 The Godfather and the two fools

  2 Go for the rifle

  3 Duncan’s plan

  4 On the ferry

  5 Accident at a wedding

  6 Dalliance or business?

  7 Old age comes not alone

  8 Davy enjoys the good life

  9 Watch it, MacAskill!

  10 The deed you do in the back will come to the front door

  11 Fear is worse than war

  12 A goat’s eyes in the head of the Elder

  13 A visit to the house of the ostriches

  14 He who is always jumping about will eventually fall over the cliff

  15 Lord! Things are going wrong!

  16 The Elder’s breakdown

  17 When bad things happen, they happen with a vengeance

  18 Women are often cunning

  19 ‘White they’ll never be,’ said the crow as she washed her feet

  20 A dash down north

  21 Parting has to come

  1

  The Godfather and the two fools

  At the Askernish turn-off in South Uist, Calum Macdonald violently wrenched the steering wheel of his little van to the left and took the turn at thirty miles an hour. Six and a half feet tall, twenty-five years of age, he was dressed from boots to cap in camouflage gear. His teeth were bared and his shoulders hunched over the wheel. He stamped on the brake pedal and halted about ten feet from the front door of a house that had no roof.

  ‘God be round about us,’ said Davy MacIsaac. Twenty, thin, untidily dressed, he slouched in the passenger seat. He stretched out his hand and killed the engine. He threw the keys into his companion’s lap. ‘Come on,’ he said, ‘Duncan’s expecting us.’

  Davy knocked on the door. He stood perfectly erect, listening to the noise of a hammer on metal and a woman’s voice speaking in a foreign language with a man’s voice responding to her. About a yard behind him Calum sat astride a child’s bicycle. ‘Davy,’ he said, ‘what the fuck’s going on?’

  Davy turned and smirked. ‘He’s got a woman with him.’

  Calum roared, ‘Open the door, you dirty little man.’

  ‘Maybe this is a bad time for Duncan,’ Davy said.

  The door opened, revealing Duncan carrying a hammer. A heavy-set little man, approaching fifty, he wore a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up above his elbows and a pair of jeans that were too tight. Sawdust speckled the crotch. Little remained of his black, thinning hair. A smile came to his face when he saw Davy. ‘My very good friend,’ he said, ‘good to see you.’ He frowned when he noticed Calum. ‘And . . . you’ve brought this guy along? You’d better come in.’

  From the discarded rubbish lying throughout the room – lengths of copper piping, electrical cables, planks of wood – it was clear that Duncan was in the process of refurbishing the place. The three of them stood awkwardly staring at one another.

  ‘Calum’s the name,’ Calum declared, stepping in front of his companion. ‘Where’s the bird?’

  ‘Bird?’ Duncan said. ‘Oh, right. That’s a tape. Trying to learn a little bit of Russian.’

  ‘That’ll be handy, Tiny,’ Calum said, ‘when you’re trying to buy a carry-out in Creagorry at closing time Saturday night.’

  ‘ “Duncan” around here,’ Duncan said. ‘You can call me “Duncan” in here. Lads who work for me call me “Mister MacCormack”, but you can call me “Duncan”. That’ll be all right.’

  ‘I’ll try to do that, Tiny,’ Calum said. ‘I’ll do my very best.’

  ‘You could’ve got someone else, Davy,’ Duncan said.

  ‘This guy’s getting up my nose. I’ve got to put up with shit like this?’

  ‘I could’ve got someone else,’ Davy said, ‘but you asked me, you know, get somebody absolutely fearless. Calum here, he’s pretty cocky, but, really, he’ll go through a house on fire if it comes to a fight.’

  ‘Personally,’ Duncan said, ‘I’d like someone who’d see that the house was on fire and walk round it.’

  ‘I’ve got excellent eyesight, Tiny,’ Calum said. ‘All I can see in front of me just now, Tiny, is a little squirt, and I’d think nothing of giving him a good clap on the ear.’

  ‘I really don’t like this prick,’ Duncan said. ‘How about going over to Eriskay, Davy, see if you can get me a good-looking kid with dark hair? This halfwit’s so offensive I don’t want to tell him what I want.’

  ‘For God’s sake, Calum,’ Davy said, ‘won’t you shut your gob till we hear what work he’s offering us?’

  ‘What I fancy doing,’ Duncan said, ‘the two guys I pick to do it, they’ll get two thousand pounds each. But this one, I don’t want.’

  ‘Remember MacLean?’ Davy said.

  ‘MacLean? Which one?’ Duncan said. ‘Sorley, the poet? That clown, Norman Maclean? There are hundreds of them about. Which MacLean?’

  ‘Killer MacLean, Eochar School,’ Davy said.

  ‘That bastard, yeah,’ Duncan said, ‘the guy who nearly killed me the time he caught us smoking.’

  ‘He’s not working there now,’ Davy said.

  ‘Glad to hear it,’ Duncan said. ‘I hope he died.’

  ‘He very nearly did,’ Davy said. ‘Saw him on the pier at Lochboisdale the night he escaped from Uist. He was missing an ear and both his arms were in plaster.’

  ‘Wow!’ Duncan said.

  ‘Him,’ Davy said.

  ‘You don’t say,’ Duncan said.

  ‘Kicked him, jumped on him and leathered him.’<
br />
  ‘Took a chunk of his ear off with my teeth too,’ Calum said.

  ‘He gave you the belt too?’ Duncan said.

  ‘He tried,’ Calum said. ‘I was in Second Year at the time. One day, me and Patrick Michael’s son were up the back of the class nipping at a bottle of rum we got in our lunch hour from the Co-operative. Heard the roar: “MacKinnon and Macdonald, out to the floor”. Asked me to put my hand out, palm upwards, brought the belt down and I grabbed hold of it and dragged the bugger out into the playground. Never went back to the big classroom, though.’

  ‘He’s my man,’ Davy said. ‘He’s hard to get on with, but nobody between Carinish and Ludag can fight like him.’

  ‘Old MacLean was never the same after our little fight,’ Calum said. ‘He’s in a nursing home in Glasgow now, I heard. May not remember his own name these days or even where he put his glasses, but every time he has to turn up the sound on the television because he’s so deaf he remembers Calum Macdonald.’

  ‘Is this guy still drinking?’ Duncan said. ‘Both you guys getting ripped?’

  ‘Oh, dry my perspiration!’ Calum said. ‘Davy, you been at the shandies?’

  ‘Holy Mother,’ Davy said, ‘will you shut the fuck up, Calum? No, can’t even buy a pint with the money I’ve got.’

  ‘No drinking,’ Duncan said. ‘Davy, I asked you to find somebody for me and I’ve got this job takes two guys, and all they’ve got to do is do it and we get a nice chunk of money. We’re not playing at this thing, you know. I want the money. That’s what I need.’

  ‘Tiny,’ Calum said, ‘I’ve been drinking since I was in the cradle. When I was cutting teeth the old lady used to give me the dummy-teat dipped in whisky. I’d be lying in the pram, not a tooth in my head, but I was happy.’

  ‘Oh, sure,’ Duncan said, ‘but I don’t want you to be happy on this mission. I want you to be sober.’

  ‘He’ll be all right, Duncan,’ Davy said.

  ‘Maybe,’ Duncan said. ‘Want to be sure. I don’t want to rush into this.’

  ‘Tiny, you’re doing this for the money, right?’ Calum said.

  ‘Too right,’ Duncan said. ‘Love I can get at home. Well . . . occasionally.’

  ‘Duncan,’ Davy said, ‘I need money. It’s a year since I left the uni. I haven’t earned a penny since. Delay a thing too long and it’s forgotten.’

  ‘My friend,’ Duncan said, ‘my wife, Isa? She was at the uni. Department of Folklore, you know? She worked there for eight years. She’d been down there in Edinburgh five years before we got married. One time I asked her why she’d never published a collection of Angus Macdonald’s poetry – she’d been collecting stuff since she was at school. She told me, she said, “Duncan, do you know how long Alex Archie, the department head, and Margaret, that Harris dame who never ever delivered more than a dozen lectures to the students each year, took before they finally published a tape of the songs of Mary MacPhee? Twenty-four fuckin’ years!”

  ‘So, I’m goin’ to be just like the academics this time. I’m goin’ to bide my time. Phone me Wednesday. Wednesday, I’ll know. I’ll let you know then.’

  Duncan turned his back on them and switched on the electric drill.

  2

  Go for the rifle

  In the front seat of the van Calum and Davy sat motionless without talking, as far from each other as possible, staring at the ruined house.

  Finally Calum spoke. ‘Right, what you goin’ to do?’

  ‘Suppose,’ Davy said, ‘I’ll just head for home . . . well, my sister’s home.’

  ‘Please yourself,’ Calum said. ‘I’m goin’ up to Polochar. I’ve got a meeting there at four o’clock. After that, I’m calling on a French bit of stuff I met last night at Liniclate School.’

  ‘I’ve got a meeting at four o’clock too,’ Davy said. ‘With Postman Pat. No wonder the folk at home think I’ve turned queer.’

  ‘Why don’t you go down to Benbecula to the school there?’ Calum said. ‘The place is jam-packed with young things from all over Europe. All you have to say is you know where the corncrake’s nesting and they’re round you like flies.’

  ‘That’s easy for you to say,’ Davy said. ‘I’m a bit shy around women these days.’

  ‘Och,’ Calum said, ‘I’ve been chasing women ever since Lazarus finished his nap. Lack of practice, that’s your problem.’

  ‘How do I get down there without wheels?’ Davy said. ‘Well, the brother-in-law has an old wreck of a bicycle right enough, but even though I got a loan of it, and I doubt I would – he’s a real tight bastard – by the time I got to Benbecula from Boisdale the corncrake would be off on holiday to Tenerife. And I’d be so knackered I’d need a holiday in Tenerife myself.’

  ‘Well,’ Calum said, ‘I think I’ll be taking off shortly myself. Give it a month or two, something like that, if me and Tommy keep at this thing we’ve got going for us just now, I’ll have a new van – refrigerated, boy – and I’ll be selling venison to the Germans.’

  ‘Wish I had some of that energy myself,’ Davy said. ‘Seems to me I spend most of my time arguing with Alina and her man. When I was at the uni down in Glasgow, I used to think, boy, if I ever get out of this fuckin’ place, the girls back home better watch themselves, you know? Know what? The only thing that’s hot in my life just now is my hairdryer. And that fucker’s broke.’

  ‘Go for the rifle,’ Calum said. ‘We’ll get into these stags on Eabhal. I’ll get rid of Tommy. He’s only a dirty Proddy from North Uist, anyway. We’ll sell venison in Germany. They can’t get enough of it.’

  ‘Aw, thanks, Calum,’ Davy said, ‘but I was never in the army like you . . . though I have travelled on Cal-Mac ferries a lot. And I’m a really poor shot. That’s why, this job Duncan’s got, I don’t know what he’s got in mind, but it’s the only thing I’ve got in front of me right now. I’ve got to listen to him.’

  ‘I was willing to listen to him,’ Calum said. ‘He just didn’t want to talk in front of me. He kept looking at me the way Samson must’ve looked at Delilah when she told him she was thinking of giving him a little trim. Fuck him, he doesn’t like me. Okay. But I’m not goin’ to be licking his arse just so’s I get a big pay-packet from him.’

  ‘Aren’t you the lucky guy!’ Davy said. ‘You don’t want the two thousand. Well, I do. And I don’t know anywhere else to get it. You do, though.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Calum, ‘but he didn’t say, he didn’t tell us how we were goin’ to get the two thousand pounds.’

  ‘Duncan’s straight enough . . . in his own way,’ Davy said.

  ‘Straight my arse,’ Calum said. ‘Tiny MacCormack’s so twisted he can’t lie straight in his bed.’

  ‘Does that mean,’ Davy said, ‘you’re not coming in with us, then?’

  ‘Look,’ Calum said, ‘go and meet the guy. See if you can find out what he’s got in mind. I’ll be around. You find out, and you think it’s worthwhile, makes no difference to me. You decide you want to do it, that’s all right with me, I’m with you. He doesn’t want me, I’m out. Doesn’t matter to me.’

  ‘I’ll go to his house on Wednesday,’ Davy said.

  ‘You do that,’ Calum said. ‘Now will you get the fuck out of the van, or are you goin’ to sit there and have your period again?’

  Davy got out of the van. He walked down the track. The van overtook him, engine screaming.

  3

  Duncan’s plan

  Davy stood in Duncan’s home in Garynamonie. The man of the house was poking a screwdriver at some piece of electrical equipment in the corner. The Russian tape was playing quietly in the background.

  ‘Duncan,’ Davy said, ‘why don’t you turn that bitch off?’

  ‘You’d better get used to that kind of chat,’ Duncan said as he switched off the tape recorder. ‘You’re goin’ to hear a lot of it very soon.’

  ‘What’d you say?’ Davy said.

  ‘Never mind that,’ Duncan said. ‘You’re
up for this thing, who else are we goin’ to get?’

  ‘Your man’s up for it too,’ Davy said. ‘He said if you wanted him, he’ll do what you want. If you didn’t want him, it wouldn’t bother him, he’s doing all right as it is.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Duncan said. ‘The kind of guy I’m looking for, he’s got to be more of a ladies’ man. Anyway, I don’t know if he’s single.’

  ‘Single?’ Davy said.

  ‘That’s it, unmarried,’ Duncan said. ‘Somebody like yourself who doesn’t have a woman giving him grief every single day of his life, talking through her nose because her mouth’s all worn out.’

  ‘Neither of us is married,’ Davy said.

  ‘How do you know,’ Duncan said, ‘he didn’t get married to some mouth-breather one time when he was drunk? Didn’t he try something like that when we were over in Tralee selling T-shirts at the Festival?’

  ‘ “Death Before The Free Church”,’ Davy said. ‘That’s what was written on them. Didn’t sell one. I didn’t have anybody to help me. My mate’s locked up in the bedroom with that tinker dame – what was her name again? – Mirren, that’s it, for a whole week. He had sex with her, I’m sure, but he didn’t marry her. He’d a lot of things on his mind that week, that’s all.’

  ‘He needs more,’ Duncan said. ‘A fine claw hammer alongside his head, for example.’

  ‘This isn’t goin’ to be . . . umh, violent, is it?’ Davy said.

  ‘No, no, kid,’ Duncan said. ‘You’re goin’ to have a nice time – “honeyed kisses” and all that . . . Listen, have you been with a woman since you came home?’

  ‘Since I came home?’ Davy said. ‘The most excitement I’ve had has been getting a haircut from the barber.’

  ‘The two I pick have got to be single,’ Duncan said.

  ‘Duncan,’ Davy said, ‘Calum’s single. I’m single . . . and I’m goin’ to be, I keep on like this, till I have a beard down to my knees.’

  ‘Still not got any work?’ Duncan said.