by Tony Parsons
Later, in Inveraray, they rang Anne, Moira and Angus and found that everything was going well at home. Anne told him he was a fusspot to worry about her and not to hurry back. Finally, he rang the Riverina and spoke with Bruce McClymont’s daughter, Marilyn.
‘I’m ringing from Inveraray in Scotland, Marilyn. We didn’t know about Bruce until yesterday evening when we picked up Moira’s card at the post office. We’ve been in the west of Scotland for the past three weeks. Cat and I want to say how very sorry we are to know that Bruce has gone. He was one of my very best friends and a man for whom I had the utmost respect. I would have gone through fire and flood to be at Bruce’s funeral, Marilyn. I’m pleased Moira could stand in for me. We made that arrangement before Cat and I left.
‘As soon as you feel up to it, Cat and I want you and Ian to come up and see us. Will you do that? Bruce was anxious for me to meet Ian and to help him with some handling tips. You will come? Splendid. We’ll be home within the fortnight, Marilyn. I’ll ring from High Peaks,’ he said, and put the phone down.
Catriona, who had been standing next to him as he talked to Marilyn Taylor, patted his arm. ‘Will they come?’ she asked.
‘They’ll come.’
‘I don’t know why I ever let you get away with calling me Cat, David. I cut people dead for doing that,’ Catriona said.
‘What brought that up?’ he asked as he started the van.
‘Calling me Cat to people I’ve never met. They must wonder who you’re talking about,’ she said. ‘It’s not as if Catriona isn’t a nice name. Next to Flora it must be the most celebrated name in Scottish literature. Robert Louis Stevenson wouldn’t have referred to his heroine as Cat.’
‘I wouldn’t know about that. Catriona always seemed a mouthful of a name for a little blonde girl. As to why you allow me to call you Cat, the fact of the matter was that you wanted me so much you would have allowed me to call you almost anything,’ he teased.
‘Ha,’ she said as she dug him in the ribs.
‘We won’t get to Iona if you keep doing that to the driver,’ he said. ‘How far is it to that place with the unpronounceable name?’
Their destination was Oban, where Angus Campbell had taken a boat for Mull, but they had opted for a longer drive down Loch Fyne rather than go back via the A819. They agreed that it would be preferable to see new country than to look at country they had already traversed. The place David referred to was Lochgilphead, which was not far from where the southern road joined the Inveraray road. It was near where Loch Fyne joined a smaller loch close by the island of Eilean Mor.
Alisdair Grant had given them the name of a fisherman who lived in Oban and who was known to supplement his income by ferrying tourists to Mull and Iona. This man was a kinsman by name of Hector Grant. They could probably have picked up a boat lower down the coast than Oban but Catriona preferred to follow as closely as possible in her father’s footsteps.
‘It’s only a hop, step and a jump by Australian standards,’ Catriona answered.
‘Then there’s a fair haul to Oban.’
The boat trip from Oban to Iona occupied a little less than three hours and was a summer-only excursion for tourists. Winter gales made the trip too hazardous for small craft. You could get to Iona by slipping up the Sound of Mull (which separates the island from the Scottish mainland) to Tobermory and then after rounding the tip of the island, heading south between a string of small islands that included Staffa, which inspired Mendelssohn to write Fingal’s Cave. This trip took something under four hours and although full of interest, it exposed travellers to a greater stretch of sea than the southern route. David considered the latter was by far the best bet for a wife who turned green in any kind of swell. Catriona was hardly ever sick but she very soon became ill in a boat. David, who had never been in a boat of any kind before this trip, was unaffected by chop or swell.
They passed through Lochgilphead and drove on to Kilmartin where they had lunch by the cairns. From there it was a leisurely drive to Oban, and from Kiltraw on the Barbreck River they were more or less in sight of the sea until they reached the northern extremity of Loch Melfort at Melfort.
‘How can Loch Melfort be a loch?’ Catriona asked. ‘I thought a loch was a lake surrounded by country. This loch runs into the sea.’
‘It isn’t the only one, Cat. Some of the other lochs run into the sea, including the Linnhe Loch that splits the country. But there are plenty of drowned lakes that don’t run into the sea. They’re replenished each spring by melting snow. Some of them are beautiful.’
‘There’s a distinctive sort of wild beauty about a lot of Scotland,’ Catriona said. ‘There’s so much … there’s so much that is picturesque, particularly on this coast, but there’s a wildness never far away. There are gales and snow that one has to live with all winter. Gales come out of the Atlantic with very little warning. I couldn’t live on some of these islands – how would you get off them in bad weather?’
‘I dare say the locals are well used to such conditions, Cat. They’re a hardy breed, these islanders. They’ve lived here for a long time, and some wouldn’t live anywhere else,’ David reflected.
They camped that night by Loch Feochan, got up early next morning and hunted up Hector Grant, who lived in a small cottage not far from the Oban waterfront. Hector was ready for them because they planned to be back at Oban that evening. Everything depended on the weather because even in mid-summer a storm could spring up from anywhere and this could mean staying on Iona for the night. Against this possibility, David rolled up a swag of blankets in plastic and Catriona packed food into a backpack emblazoned with the word ‘Australia’. They took enough food for Hector Grant but the fisherman told them he always carried his own.
It was shortly after seven and a bright clear morning when they slipped down the Sound of Kerrera and out into the Firth of Lorn. Here there was a gentle swell that increased slightly as they came out from behind the protection of Mull. David looked anxiously at Catriona who gave him a quick smile. Following her seasickness at Skye she had purchased pills to ward off the malady and had taken the first before they left Oban. So far, so good, he thought. It was important that Catriona remain well because this excursion to Iona was perhaps the highlight of the whole trip for her.
He thought the best thing he could do for his wife was keep her mind off the sea and occupied with other matters. To this end he had a big map of the Hebrides spread out on his knee and was following every aspect of their sea trip with keen interest. The hills and mountains of Mull some distance to their right were always in sight until the boat swung away to clear Sgeir Dhoirbh at the southern extremity of the Torran Rocks.
‘Whew, just imagine hitting them at night,’ David said, and pointed to the rocks.
‘It was no a rare thing in the old days,’ Hector Grant said from the wheel.
Once clear of the rocks the skipper turned the boat northwards towards the channel known as the Sound of Iona that separated the small island from the most easterly point of Mull. The swell was greater here before subsiding marginally as the boat slipped into the protection afforded by the island. Catriona took her husband’s hand and squeezed it. He felt it damp on his palm and knew she was pent-up with anticipation about what she might find on Iona.
Presently, the boat came abreast of Baile Mor on the eastern shore of Iona. Grant anchored the boat and put the dinghy in the water. It was a short row to the shore where, before they did anything else, David said he had to have smoko.
‘Smoko?’ Grant said with a look of bemusement on his face.
‘It’s Australian for morning tea or something to eat. Not lunch, something between breakfast and lunch,’ Catriona explained.
‘I ken you now,’ Grant said. He looked at her husband’s tall figure and nodded. ‘Your man would take some filling.’
‘You can say that again,’ Catriona said, and laughed. She had picked up cake and shortbread when they bought their bread and other provisions in
Inveraray.
‘Will you be all right here until we get back, skipper?’ David asked.
‘As right as could be,’ Grant said. His English was remarkably clear for a west-coast Scot. ‘They’re long evenings but I’d like to be awa’ by four. That would put us back in Oban about seven.’
David nodded. That gave them five hours. The island was about three and a half miles long and the abbey was only a mile or so to the north of Baile Mor. ‘We’ll be back here at four, skipper.’
Encumbered only by his backpack they set out for the abbey. They passed by a nunnery and then came across the first of the several crosses they were to see that day. They inspected a shell-littered beach, watched over by mewing gulls. Before long they reached the renovated cathedral. Here, close by the site of the monastery St Columba had established in AD 563, a new Dominican abbey had been built in AD 1203. Some relics of this building still remain.
They went into the cathedral and knelt while Catriona almost inaudibly whispered a short prayer for her father. Outside again they walked to the old cemetery where the remains of half a hundred or so Scottish kings are buried, together with the remains of kings of Europe. This island was considered not only the holiest place in all Scotland but one of the holiest places in the world.
On a rocky rise they paused in their wanderings to have lunch. With their faces to the west they were looking out towards the Atlantic. David, the map across his knees, pointed out to sea. ‘Why this place, Cat? Why of all the islands in the western Hebrides did St Columba choose Iona? Look here. If he sailed from Ireland he’d have passed Islay and Colonsay before he got to this rocky little place,’ he said.
‘Maybe he was meant to come here and not some more salubrious place,’ Catriona said. ‘Maybe it was uninhabited because it was so unattractive for settlement in comparison with the bigger islands. And remember, darling, there was no Christianity here until St Columba brought it. Would Christian missionaries have been received with open arms on this wild coastline?’
‘I don’t know, Cat. All I know is that it would have been a damned tough place to live on. There would have been fish but you have to catch them and in winter that wouldn’t have been easy. I suppose you could grow spuds and a few other things here because it rains a lot. No doubt they brought food of some kind with them to keep them going but there was no refrigeration. I reckon they were pretty marvellous fellows to exist here. It wouldn’t be the easiest place to live today, let alone in the sixth century. But why this island was the chosen one beats me,’ he said.
Catriona leant her head against his chest and he put his arms around her. ‘It’s a very long way from High Peaks,’ she murmured.
‘A very, very long way,’ he whispered in her ear.
‘You’re homesick?’ she said.
‘I can’t help that, Cat. High Peaks is my country. I know it all so well. And I’m worried about Mum,’ he said.
‘Moira said she was all right.’
‘Mum would tell Moira she was all right no matter what. She wouldn’t say anything to bring us home one day earlier,’ he said.
He had been thinking a lot about his mother lately. He had taken her too much for granted. His father had been his inspiration but his mother had been the rock he had built his life on. He hadn’t told her that for a long time and now it seemed important that he should.
Catriona felt him stiffen and leant back and looked up at him. It was their intimacy in moments like these, on days like these, that thrilled her. The whole trip had been wonderful and had indeed been a second honeymoon as she had intended.
‘Look up there, Cat,’ he said, and pulled her to her feet with him.
She followed his finger and saw it. It was a line of white clouds that seemed suspended in mid-sky. A golden ray of light shone clean through the cloud and danced upon the waves. All at once it seemed that there was absolute silence; the wind was still, no gulls cried above them and there was no sound from anywhere. Neither could speak or even whisper. Then in seconds the golden rod of light was gone and overhead the gulls were screaming.
‘Do you think that it was something like that Daddy saw?’ Catriona said at last.
‘That, or something more, or maybe he imagined more than he saw, Cat. If there is a God, He would be just as likely to appear here as anywhere. This is the most sacred place in Scotland. Whatever Angus saw, he went to his death in peace and that’s more than a lot have done.’
Catriona looked out over the sea – the endless, rolling sea that stretched all the way to North America. ‘Just up there is Staffa,’ she said. ‘It’s even smaller than Iona. The first thing I shall do when we got home is buy Mendelssohn’s Hebrides Overture. I shall shut my eyes and remember this place. It would be nice to see the cave on Staffa that inspired it but I’m ready to go home now, darling,’ she said.
‘Then let’s go home, Cat,’ he agreed.
Hand in hand they walked back to Baile Mor where Hector Grant awaited them. ‘You’ll na doubt be ready for afternoon smoko,’ he said with a poorly concealed grin.
‘Now that you mention it, skipper, I could do with a drink of tea and spot of cake before that trip back,’ David said. ‘There might be just enough tea in the last thermos to eke out three cups.’
‘And I’ll take some more pills. I don’t want to spoil this day by being sick on the way back to Oban,’ Catriona said.
The freshening wind from the great ocean to their west seemed to speed their way back to the mainland. It was just after seven when they docked, and the day held another two hours of daylight at least. David paid Grant and gave him a handsome bonus into the bargain.
‘What do you say, Cat, shall we hit the road for a couple of hours and see where night finds us?’ he asked.
‘Let’s,’ she agreed.
‘It will be two hours nearer to home,’ he said with a smile.
On the boat trip back from Iona Catriona, to keep her mind off the swell, had been tossing up whether to suggest they take in the border country before flying out from Edinburgh. It was the place of legends, and of both family and border feuds. It seemed a shame not to learn what she could while she was so close. Yet it could be the reason for another trip. Against this curiosity she had to balance the enthusiasm she had to begin work on the novel. David’s remark settled the matter. She had always known that he would have preferred not to make this trip but he had agreed because he realised she wanted it so badly. And David had been simply wonderful the whole time. Now he wanted to go home; home to High Peaks, home to his mother and to Moira and Angus, his dogs, his horses and the whole operation.
‘Do you think we could stay at an inn tonight, David? I’m sticky from salt water and I feel filthy,’ she said.
‘If we can find a decent one, Cat,’ he said. ‘You don’t look filthy.’
‘Thank you,’ she said, and smiled at him gratefully. ‘I assure you I feel it.’
They drove through Connel and Taynuilt and down the A85 to where the full sweep of Loch Awe lay golden in the westerly sun. Up past the legendary Lochawe of the Campbell dynasty and through Dalmally and still there was daylight. Catriona could hardly stay awake and as hard as she fought against losing concentration, her eyes kept closing. And then by the crossroads where the A85 joined the A82 they came to Crianlarich.
‘Crianlarich, Cat. This is far enough for tonight.’
It was definitely far enough, Catriona thought. Any longer and I’ll be asleep.
‘Strath Fillan is close by, David. The real Strath Fillan.’
‘What is so remarkable about Strath Fillan, Cat?’ he asked.
‘It’s mentioned in Scott’s A Legend of Montrose, darling. Montrose says, “Oh, for a guide through the skirts of Strath Fillan” or words to that effect.’
‘Who was Montrose?’ he asked.
‘He was … I’ll tell you about him when I’m not so sleepy. But our Strath Fillan would have been named after this place,’ she said.
‘Undoubtedly,’ he agre
ed. ‘We must find out who owned the place originally.’
A hot bath soothed the weary Catriona, and although she was still too sleepy to do justice to a late supper, she hung in there while David polished off a solid meal. She was asleep within five minutes of getting into bed.
It was nearly seven when she woke and she found David had bathed and shaved and even been for a walk. She was disappointed to find the bed empty because she had wanted David to make love to her this last morning in the Highlands. He, meanwhile, had probably imagined she simply wanted to sleep.
They drove to Edinburgh by Stirling and Catriona took pictures of the castle where so many grim deeds had taken place over the centuries. ‘What brutes we were,’ she murmured. ‘Perhaps some of your forebears ended their days here.’
‘Perhaps they did,’ he agreed. ‘But not all of them, thank goodness.’
They reached Edinburgh in the late afternoon and flew back to Australia the next day, eager to feast upon the hills and high-country air of High Peaks.
Moira drove down to pick them up at Mascot International Airport. She told them on the phone that she was quite up to coping with the traffic. David thought that she looked exceptionally lovely and he attributed the glow in his daughter’s eyes to her delight in having them back home. Catriona, far more perceptive in such matters than her husband, realised almost immediately that there was another reason for Moira’s radiance. Moira was in love, and Catriona had no doubt that a certain young man from the Riverina was responsible.
‘You look great, Moy. Haven’t had too much to do?’
‘I’ve had a fair bit to do, Daddy, but not too much,’ Moira replied.
Later, after they had cleared the Sydney traffic, Moira gave the wheel to her father and got in the back seat. ‘How was the trip?’ she asked to neither parent in particular.