“What do you call that tune you were playing?” asked my brother as he turned the fiddle within his hands.
“I call it ‘Crossing the Minch,’ ” he said and nodded towards the fiddle. “That’s the name that came down with it.”
“Come with us,” said my brother, “and we will get you something to eat.”
At the security gates Calum said, “Cousin agam fhein,” and gestured towards James MacDonald. And then in response to the guard’s puzzlement he added, “He’s with us.”
My brother and the guard looked into one another’s eyes for an instant. And then the guard, who was nearing the end of his shift and did not want to be involved in a confrontation, waved us through.
We took James MacDonald to our bunkhouse and someone went to the cookhouse and brought back a basket of food. Mounds of bacon and toast, and hard-boiled eggs wrapped in a napkin, and stacks of hotcakes, and a thermos of coffee. He was ravenous and seemed to eat almost one-third of his fragile weight at a single sitting. And then he took his fiddle and went outside and sat on one of the benches.
He was, as Calum said, “a wonderful player” and my brothers brought out their own fiddle and took turns playing with him. And then out of the bunkhouses of the French Canadians came their leader, big Fern Picard, with some of his men. They watched us for a moment from a distance, and then went inside and returned with their own fiddles and their spoons. Two of them brought harmonicas and one of them a button accordion. They sat on the benches beside us, which we had never seen them do before, and joined in the music. After a while one of them got up and went into his bunkhouse, where he ripped two sheets of plywood off the wall and brought them out to the sundrenched benches.
“For la Bastringue,” he said. “La danse d’étapes.”
He slid one sheet under the feet of the French musicians and as he did so they lifted their legs but remained seated and continued to play without missing a note, and when the wood was in place their feet came down in perfect unison. The toes of their shoes struck the wood as one, and then the sound of leather on wood became one with the music. The staccato rhythm of the percussion blended with the clacking of the spoons and echoed and amplified the soaring sound of the more conventional instruments.
“Le gigeur,” said the man who had brought the plywood, nodding in the direction of his nearest fiddler. The man smiled and nodded his head slightly to the left, without raising his chin, which was tucked tightly into the angled base of his violin. As his fingers and feet flew and as he moved to and with the music, only the area around his waist remained still. I noticed that he was wearing one of my brothers’ belts.
The sun moved higher and heatedly across the sky, yet no one seemed to think of sleep. It was as if we had missed the train to sleep and there was nothing we could do about it in our present state.
The music dipped and soared and the leather-soled shoes snapped against the reverberating wood. Sometimes a fiddler would announce the name of a tune and the others would nod in recognition and join him in “The Crooked Stovepipe” or “Deeside” or “Saint Anne’s Reel,” “The Farmer’s Daughter” or “Brandy Canadien.” At other times the titles seemed lost or perhaps never known, although the tunes themselves would be recognizable after the first few bars. “Ah yes,” the fiddlers would nod in recognition, “A ha,” “Mais oui,” and they would join one another in the common fabric of the music. Gradually the titles from the different languages seemed to fade away almost entirely, and the music was largely unannounced or identified merely as “la bastringue;” “an old hornpipe,” “la guigue”; “a wedding reel”; “un reel sans nom.”
“Sometimes,” said James MacDonald after finishing a tune which everyone knew by sound though not by name, “it is like a man have a son and he is far away and does not give the son a name.” He paused. “But the son is there anyways,” he added shyly, as though embarrassed by the fact that he had said so much.
The music continued and its tempo seemed to rise. Someone dragged the second sheet of plywood into the dusty square in front of the musicians and tried to arrange it evenly as a primitive platform for stepdancing. It was difficult because of the ribs of rock which protruded through the scanty soil. Small stones were placed under the wood at strategic corners in an attempt to construct a level surface. The dancers took turns, although sometimes two men would attempt to share the quivering wooden rectangle. Some danced in the “old” way with their torsos straight and their arms held stiffly by their sides. Others moved their whole bodies.
“We need some beer,” someone said.
A hat was placed by the dancer’s platform and soon it was filled with money. Someone placed a stone on top of the money so it would not blow away, although there did not seem to be any breeze. Later, the hat and money vanished and still later the cases of warm beer appeared, purchased from the nervous bootleggers in the parking lot and smuggled somehow past or around the security guard’s post. Some opened the beer with bottle openers attached to key chains, others with the blades of pocket knives, others with their teeth, spitting the caps before them onto the dusty rock. The perspiration beaded on the foreheads of the musicians and the dancers and formed dark circles beneath their arms.
“What the hell are you guys doing?” said the superintendent as he unexpectedly appeared from around the corner of one of the bunkhouses.
The fiddlers fell silent and the dancing feet stilled. The silence seemed even more profound in the absence of the music.
“Who the hell are you?” he said, stepping in front of James MacDonald, who averted his eyes and began to put away his fiddle.
“How did you get in here?” he asked, this time more forcefully while towering over the small man who was still seated on the bench. James MacDonald shrugged his shoulders in a non-committal fashion and turned the palms of his hands upward to complete the gesture.
“He’s with us,” said my brother, stepping forward from the small knot of men which had gathered at one side.
“Cousin agam fhein,” said someone from the crowd and there was a nervous ripple of laughter.
The superintendent turned sharply in the direction of the voice. He was a man who understood neither French nor Gaelic nor Cree and he did not like hearing phrases in languages he did not understand.
“Get him out of here,” he said, turning back to my brother and indicating James MacDonald with his foot. They looked at one another for what seemed like a long time.
“And get the beer out of here too,” he said more quietly and averting his gaze. “You know it’s illegal within the camp gates. I’ll expect you all on your shifts tonight.”
He turned on his heel and walked away.
The musicians began to gather up their instruments. Someone threw a beer bottle into the bush and we waited until we heard its distant explosion on an unseen rock. The man who had brought the plywood sheets carried a case of beer into his bunkhouse and left the wood behind. James MacDonald said something to himself in Cree and smiled resignedly, as if he had seen it all before.
“Never mind him,” said my brother to James MacDonald. “You don’t have to go if you don’t want to. You can stay with us as long as you like.”
That night we went to work with the sound of the music still in our ears. For the first hour we were quiet and almost lightheaded because of all the beer and the fact we had not eaten or slept all day. And the air seemed fouler than usual and the stench of the powder stronger. Later the pounding of the steel drill bits into the stone contributed to our mild nausea and seemed to evoke a similar pounding within our heads. Our underwear was drenched with sweat and we rummaged in our lunch cans for oranges to ease our dehydration.
When we came to the surface in the morning the music seemed to have happened a long time ago. We stood under the showers as the water lashed down upon us. The hair on our bodies flattened against our skins, all of it lying in the same direction. Far away when the wind and the sea blew across the Calum Ruadh’s Point the grass
lay flat upon the flesh of earth, clinging by its roots in water and in wind and rising again when the storm subsided. When we left the wash house we realized that it had rained heavily during the night and as we approached the bunkhouses we noticed the two sheets of plywood from the previous day. They were muddied and dirty and seemed already to be warping due to the pressure of the rain. The French Canadians took one sheet and we the other, and we threw them into the bush behind our dwellings.
James MacDonald was asleep with all his clothes on in Calum’s bed. The cap which read “Last Stop Hotel” was on the floor beside him. My brother crawled into the bed of one of our cousins who had gone to his shift as we were coming off ours.
James MacDonald remained with us for two days. He had no money and asked for work. My brother took him with us on two shifts and paid him in cash at the end of each. We all contributed some kind of underground clothing, although it was difficult to find garments and footwear to fit his small stature. He was deadly frightened of the underground and could not adjust to the confined spaces and the darkness, and the stench of powder, and the assault of noise. And he was not strong enough to do even the lightest tasks, and mucking machines and the loud and unexpected noises caused him to jump and cower against the walls of stone. Once, on one of his rounds the superintendent noticed him but did not say anything. We were making good progress at the time and our footage was ahead of schedule. One early afternoon when we awoke from our post-shift sleep, we realized that both James MacDonald and his fiddle were gone.
“He was not made to do this anyway” said my brother after the realization had settled in. “He’s better off away from the underground.” Two weeks later someone told us we were wanted at the camp gates. One of the native girls was there and led us to the shell of the once-elegant Crown Victoria. Lying on the seat was a haunch of moosemeat carefully wrapped in cheesecloth, although the blood was seeping through. Pinned to the cheesecloth was the torn sheet from a calendar. “Thanks,” read the single word printed in pencil, and then there was a picture of a fiddle and a sketch of a gigantic fish leaping towards a lure.
Once, said my sister in Calgary, she was in the oil city of Aberdeen with her husband, the petroleum engineer named Pankovich. They had been to a splendid dinner at one of the grand hotels and were in the company of oil executives and their wives from Houston and Denver. They had eaten too much and drunk too much and wobbled their way through parodies of Scottish dancing. Later as they ascended the stairs to their room, she met a young woman, perhaps it was one of the maids, she could not be sure, who brushed against her and murmured something to her in Gaelic. When the phrase registered, she looked around, but the woman was gone.
Later, as she slept, she was strangely awakened and there was the form of a woman standing by her bedside. She sat up and the form moved to the foot of the bed and seemed to beckon to her. She dug her elbow into her husband’s back but could not awaken him. The room was in semi-darkness, but because it was summer and Aberdeen so far north it was brighter than one might expect. She looked more closely, straining her eyes. The form moved towards the door and then seemed to vanish. She got up slowly and walked towards the door herself. She tried it cautiously, but it was locked. She opened the door and looked down the hall. Halfway down there was a man in a kilt, sleeping on the floor with his room key still clutched in his hand. She went back into her room and pulled open the drapes. She looked out the window. It was quite bright, but the street was deserted. The only sound came from the gulls hanging in the air. She went to the hallway once again. The man was gone. It was four a.m.
When her husband awakened she asked him if he recalled the woman who brushed by them on the stairs. He said he didn’t remember. He was going out to look at the oil towers in the North Sea, he said. He would be gone for two days.
At breakfast she looked for both the young woman and the man in the kilt but could not find either.
“Why don’t you rent a car,” said her husband, “and take a drive? Go wherever you want.”
It was late in the day when she entered what she knew had been called the “rough bounds” of Moidart. Entered what the visiting scholar called “these horrid parts.” Passed the rhododendrons and the fassfern, went to look for Castle Tioram, the castle destroyed according to the prophecy, and walked across to see its remains at low tide. Could hardly get back to her car in time, she said, because the tide began to rise. Had to take off her shoes and hold them in her hand. Her skirt was wet and dripping. Got into her car and drove along the narrow winding tracks, watchful for the sheep and mindful to pull over to one side at the sight of rare approaching vehicles. Went to another spot near the sea and walked along the rocks looking at the seaweed and a pair of splashing seals. Listened to the crying of the gulls. Saw the form of an older woman approaching her, carrying a bag in her hand. Later she learned the bag contained winkles, which the woman had been gathering at low tide.
And then, she said, she met the woman face to face, and they looked into each other’s eyes.
“You are from here,” said the woman.
“No,” said my sister, “I’m from Canada.”
“That may be,” said the woman. “But you are really from here. You have just been away for a while.”
She walked with the woman to the low stone house and three brown and white dogs ran to meet them, running low to the ground with their ears flattened against their heads.
“They won’t bother you,” said the woman. “They will recognize you by your smell.”
The dogs licked her hand and wagged their tails.
“This woman is from Canada,” said my sister’s guide to an old man who sat on a wooden chair inside the house. “But she is really from here. She has just been away for a while.”
Although it was summer the inside of the stone house was cold and damp. “It reminded me of the cellars at home,” my sister said.
“Oh,” said the old man and my sister could not judge his degree of comprehension. He had on a soiled tartan shirt covered with a black sweater and wore a cloth cap. His eyes seemed rheumy and she thought he might be hard of hearing and that, perhaps, his mind wandered.
“Co tha seo?” he said, looking at her more closely.
“Clann Chalum Ruaidh,” she said.
“Ha,” he said, continuing his gaze.
“Wait here,” said the woman, and she went out, leaving them together.
“Did you come far?” he said.
“From Canada,” she said, again uncertain of his degree of comprehension.
“Ha,” he said, “the land of trees. A lot of the people went there on the ships. And some to America. And some to Australia, the country back of the sun. Almost all gone now,” he said, looking out of the window. “They are the lucky ones,” he added, as if talking to himself, “the ones who went to Canada.”
“Tell me,” he said, looking closely at her once again, “Is it true that in Canada the houses are made of wood?”
“Yes,” she said. “Some of them.”
“Oh,” he said. “But wouldn’t such houses be cold? Wouldn’t they rot?”
“No. Well, I don’t know. Maybe some of them in time.”
“What a strange thing,” he said. “I often wondered about it. Houses made of wood.”
There was a pause.
“The prince was here, you know,” he said suddenly.
“The prince?” she said.
“Yes, the prince. Bonnie Prince Charlie. Right at this very spot. He came from France in the summer of 1745 to fight for Scotland’s crown. We were always close to France,” he added dreamily, looking out the window again. “It was called ‘the auld alliance.’ ”
“Oh yes,” said my sister. “I’ve heard.”
“He was only twenty-five,” he said, suddenly becoming animated by the story. “Although he was our prince, he was raised in France and spoke mainly French, while we spoke Gaelic. Almost a thousand men went with him from here. The Bratach Ban, the white and crimson b
anner, was blessed at Glenfinnan by MacDonald. Most of the men went from here by boat, although some walked.
“We could have won” he said excitedly, “if the boats had come from France. We could have won if the rest of the country had joined with us. It was worth fighting for, our own land and our own people, and our own way of being.”
He had become so excited by his story that he leaned forward, from the waist, in my sister’s direction and his large hands which grasped his knees turned white along the ridges of his knuckles.
“The prince had red hair,” he said, suddenly changing his mind and lowering his voice in a quiet conspiracy. “And was said to be very fond of girls. Some of us,” he whispered, “may be descendants of the prince.”
The door opened and the older woman came in accompanied by a number of people of different ages.
“Some of them,” my sister recalled to me, “had red hair and some had hair as black or blacker than my own. All of them had the same eyes. It was like being in Grandpa and Grandma’s kitchen.” I sat back as my sister continued with her story:
No Great Mischief Page 14