Three Things You Need to Know About Rockets

by Jessica Fox

  I was touched by the way he viewed my seemingly random impulse to work at a bookshop by the sea as brave.

  He smiled, continuing, “Anyway, it’s not every day we get someone so determined to come to Wigtown.”

  We pulled out into the highway. Although we were still in the city, the relatively empty, four-lane motorway seemed small and quaint compared to the eight-lane, congested traffic madness that greeted me each morning in LA.

  Everything out of the window looked green and alive; the browns of winter had yet to arrive. The open landscape was filled with petrol stations (or, as I noted then, “gas stations”), unexcitingly familiar fast-food joints and pebble-dashed houses. Euan would later tell me, to my surprise, that the houses were low-income council houses. To my untrained American eyes, they looked like expensive, country holiday cottages. I realised then that I had entered a truly different world, one not just with different social cues, but with different visual cues, and I would be completely hopeless at reading both.

  Euan started chuckling, as he glanced across at my glowing face and Cheshire-cat smile.

  “It’s so beautiful here,” I said, half delirious from jet-lag and half believing this was a lucid dream.

  “Just you wait. We’re barely out of Glasgow yet.” Euan’s phone buzzed; as he checked it, his face clouded over.

  I suddenly wondered if my presence there was an imposition. “Everything okay?” I hadn’t thought of it before, but Euan had driven two hours to pick me up, on a work day.

  He shook his head, like an etch-a-sketch, as if he wanted to erase whatever thought had just come to mind. “It’s fine. Not a problem.” He slid his phone into his pocket and adjusted his glasses.

  The facts of my current situation might, on paper, have looked worrisome: I was alone, without any kind of (what my father would call) “communication device”, in another country, unaware of where I was going, alone with a stranger in his van. However, I felt completely safe. It wasn’t that I had a naive or happy-go-lucky personality. The opposite, in fact, was true.

  At eight years old, I had been obsessed with a missing girl my age, named Molly, who had been picked up by strangers on a country road in New Hampshire. Missing posters of her were plastered around my town and littered the memory of my childhood. Daily walks to the elementary school then became a personal battle. My mind filled with abducting scenarios and I used to run the entire way there, my heavy backpack thudding up and down on my small shoulders, in an effort to make myself impossible to kidnap. Later, as a teenager, that fear still there, I would walk to school in my steel-toed Doc Martens, confident for the first time since I hit puberty that I could look after myself.

  And yet here I was, in a seemingly vulnerable situation, completely at ease. If I had thought about it more at the time, I would have realised it was either a miracle or a testament to the flow of fate. Or more likely my serenity was because of Euan. It was as easy to see that he was a gentle, generous soul as it was to see his bright blue eyes through his clear glasses.

  As if Euan could read my thoughts, he mused, “So was I your first choice of bookshop?”

  “First… and only,” I said. “I didn’t contact anyone else.”

  “Really? You have no idea how lucky you are.”

  I raised an eyebrow.

  “Not to say I’m great or anything,” he continued, “but, you’ll see.”

  “See what?”

  “Someone else may have made you work.” He was teasing, but I detected some truth in his “you have no idea how lucky you are” and it made me curious. I knew Euan had grown up in the area, and he was young and that he was a key figure in the literary life of Wigtown. Though I hadn’t been able to learn much about the town or the other bookshops online, I could guess at what Euan meant. In terms of timing, my age and interests, I might well have hit the jackpot.

  “Well, I have to admit I was agreeing with you, until thoughts that I might have been entrapped by a sexual deviant crossed my mind.” I pointed to his “I heart Tongue” sticker on the window.

  Euan laughed and blushed. “Tongue is a place I visited. An old lady was selling those – she had no idea why they were funny, which made it all the better.”

  “But this is your work car. Clients see that when you do book deals?”

  “Yes,” he said proudly. It was another interesting contrast to his personality; sincerity coated with a thin veneer of punk rock.

  He slipped his phone out of his pocket, typed in a number and handed it to me. It was already ringing. “Tell the shop we’ll be a bit late. There’s something I want to show you on the way home. That is, if you’re not too tired?”

  I wasn’t. I was more awake, more alive, than I had been in years.

  Chapter 7

  “Far away in the heavenly abode of the great god Indra, there is a wonderful net which has been hung by some cunning artificer in such a manner that it stretches out indefinitely in all directions. In accordance with the extravagant tastes of the deities, the artificer has hung a single glittering jewel at the net’s every node, and since the net itself is infinite in dimension, the jewels are infinite in number. There hang the jewels, glittering like stars of the first magnitude, a wonderful sight to behold.

  If we now arbitrarily select one of these jewels for inspection and look closely at it, we will discover that in its polished surface there are reflected all the other jewels in the net, infinite in number. Not only that, but each of the jewels reflected in this one jewel is also reflecting all the other jewels, so that the process of reflection is infinite.” – The Avatamska Sutra described by Francis H. Cook, HUA-YEN BUDDHISM: THE JEWEL NET OF INDRA: Philosophy section, last bookshelf by the back door on the left.

  The way to Wigtown was long. Out of the window, the suburbs gradually gave way to green fields, interrupted only by cows and ancient stone cottages. It was like an idyllic Scottish postcard had come to life. The farther south we went, the more dramatic the topography became, as if the rolling fields were reflected in a fairground mirror, with vast expanses of dipping canyons and dramatic hills. Waterfalls and meandering rivers cut into the landscape, trees disappeared and were replaced, now and then, by wind farms. Herds of rugged sheep ambled down from the hillsides onto the road. We slowed to let them cross, their deep baas echoing in the van as we inched along the winding road. The further we went, the smaller the road and the more exotic the world became.

  Conversation flowed easily between us. Euan asked me what I thought of the upcoming American presidential election, and of the democratic candidates, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. I was surprised by how informed he was on American politics and history. He had studied it at school. Nervous that I would get into a political disagreement this early into my trip, I tried to stay neutral, but Euan seemed to agree with every point I made.

  “You’re not just being polite?” I asked.

  “No, honestly. I would have said the same things myself.” He looked a bit bewildered. It was as if he had found an alien from another planet, only to find it spoke the same language.

  The large red van made its way over ever-narrower, precarious one-track roads. Euan, with the grace of someone well practised, manoeuvred the hair-raising turns with ease. I looked out of the opposite window, down at the sheer cliff to my right, and wondered how long the narrow road would go on for.

  Euan, it transpired, had wanted to be a filmmaker before owning the Bookshop. It was at this moment that I started to wonder if someone would shake me awake. He told me he had worked on the sound for some BBC documentaries, and although it was hard to break into the industry, he had never lost the bug for creating films. We tripped over each other, listing films that had inspired us.

  Once high into the hills, the landscape changed again and became intimidatingly remote. The stone cottages disappeared revealing on either side a wilderness of long brown grass, rust-coloured bracken and wandering sheep. The horizon was gone too; the once open views were now blocked out by
a sea of dark-green pines.

  “It’s an ugly tree,” Euan sighed, looking out the window, “and not native to Scotland. They planted it because they needed fast-growing lumber after cutting down most of the trees for the First World War.”

  “It certainly feels a bit desolate here.” I hoped I sounded sympathetic rather than critical. “It is. You have to be especially careful in the winter,” Euan said. “A long time back, a postman and his truck got stuck up here in a snowdrift for days. No one came by and the poor man died.”

  If the landscape hadn’t done it, Euan’s story painted a lasting picture in my mind. We were not just rambling along some country lane; we were now far away, utterly disconnected from the modern world, in some liminal realm between farmland and whatever lay beyond. I could feel myself nodding off, soothed by the gentle bends in the road and the warmth of the car.

  *

  “Sleeping Fox, wake up,” Euan gently shook my shoulder.

  I jolted awake. The sun was now shining in the car with an increased intensity. I could hear the murmur of people, a sound that meant we were back in society, down from the hills.

  Blinking the fog of jet-lag away, my voice sounded sleepy and quiet. “Where are we?”

  “I thought I’d show you Culzean Castle. It has lovely grounds, right on the cliffs.” Euan hopped out of the van, and I followed, the promise of my first castle rousing me instantly.

  My childhood dream, besides being an Agatha Christie detective, had been to live in a castle, though I had never seen a real one. Perhaps this vision was not a unique one for a little girl, but mine did not involve me being a princess in fancy dress. Rather, I wanted to run around with a sword and dig in the back garden for treasure. Now, walking over an impressive stone bridge, watching as the grand Culzean Castle rose before us, I realised that the dream still held appeal.

  The gardens were surprisingly tropical-looking, with long stretches of manicured lawns and palm trees. The castle itself did not have the sense of dilapidated mystery that I was expecting. It was disappointingly well maintained, as if it had been built yesterday, though Euan explained that was far from the case.

  “Eisenhower stayed here but the original tower is from the fifteenth century,” he explained.

  “Wow,” I tried to sound impressed, though I would have liked it more if he had told me the place was haunted.

  As we approached the castle’s wind-whipped front courtyard and looked down over the white foamy waves smashing against the cliffs below us, my desire for a sense of majesty was finally met. In front of us the blue horizon, as far as I could see, was sky meeting water.

  Euan smiled, watching my thoughts written clear across my face. “It’s an amazing spot, isn’t it?” he yelled over the wind.

  I nodded. “It’s really kind of you to have brought me here. I realise it’s a work day for you.” I moved the windblown wisps of hair from my face and found Euan staring at me. He quickly looked away.

  “It’s a pleasure.” He shoved his hands in his pockets and the first awkward moment passed between us. He immediately turned on his heels and disappeared down the path into the castle.

  After the windswept walk and then a tour of the castle’s elaborate interior, I was wide awake. Euan, however, had grown quiet, and even as we emerged back into the gardens, he said nothing. We walked in silence under a grey stormy sky, and I hoped I hadn’t offended him somehow. He smiled when I re-thanked him for taking me there, but I felt something had shifted. I was growing concerned that because of the ease of our conversation in the van, I had assumed a level of immediate intimacy that didn’t actually exist.

  I wrapped my jacket tighter around me. The sky was becoming dark and the air had a slicing chill. It was a damp cold that seemed to seep into every pore. I shivered as we reached the red van, a beacon of cheerfulness in an otherwise grey car park.

  “Here,” Euan suddenly said, his voice formal and distant. “You can help me load.”

  He walked to the small gift shop on the other side of the car park and emerged with a large box of books. “There’s more in there.” He gestured behind him with a nod.

  Just as he passed me, he reached into his coat pocket. “Oh. I got you this.”

  I took the package from his hands and opened it. It was a book, Folktales of Scotland. “I thought you’d like it.” Euan shifted nervously.

  “Thank you.” He had remembered that I had studied stories. I looked at him curiously, unable to read his mood changes. “That’s so thoughtful. I am sure I will love it.”

  Euan shrugged and walked towards the van. I said nothing else and headed into the gift shop. Box after box, I helped load the van till my skin, chilled from the sea air became flushed with heat and a sticky sweat clung to my neck. This, and not the castle, I realised, was my true baptism by fire. I was actually working for a bookshop by the sea in Scotland.

  Chapter 8

  “Imagination is a monastery and I am its monk.” – Percy Bysshe Shelley, ADONAIS: Poetry section, right of fireplace, third shelf from the bottom.

  The sound of a cow mooing roused me from a deep slumber. My body felt heavy, drugged by jet-lag. My legs shifted beneath stiff, white sheets, and my nose tickled with the scent of lavender – alerting my consciousness to the alien air, sounds and smells that surrounded me. I was not in LA, I thought. I was actually here. I was in Wigtown.

  The room was still dark. It must be about 6 or 7am, I guessed, but it was hard to tell as my blurry, tired eyes began to adjust and take everything in. Willing myself to sit upright, I looked past the foot of the bed at a large window covered by a long, heavy curtain that cloaked the morning sun. A sliver of bright light came in though the cracks, illuminating the white wall behind me.

  I was in the largest of Euan’s three guest rooms. He had kept it empty of authors this past week, leading up to the festival, especially for my arrival. The other two rooms were empty for now but one was reserved for a visiting author and the other for the imminent arrival of his cousin and best friend.

  “But don’t worry. You’ll be staying in the big guest room for the whole time you’re here,” Euan had casually mentioned. He made it seem like no big deal, but I knew he had probably said no to many people in order to let me stay.

  I was warm enough under the covers, but the cold, early-autumn air greeted me outside the duvet. I quickly tucked my arms back underneath, happy to stay in bed a while longer and look around the bedroom. There were a couple of nice bits of antique furniture; a few oil paintings decorated the walls, and a small fireplace with a wood-burning stove, with a vase full of dried lavender on the mantel, dominated the far end. I felt like one of Jane Austen’s heroines – either Anne or Elizabeth – as they woke in their quaint country homes.

  My eyes closed. The journey to the castle had been beautiful enough, but the last leg – as we continued on through Galloway to Wigtown itself – had been spectacular. Galloway afforded the most pristine view of Scotland’s best-kept secret: the Machars, a peninsula with its series of small parishes between Wigtown Bay and Luce Bay, boasting soft rolling hills, majestic and gentle, against an ever-changing backdrop of dramatic snow-capped mountains, indigenous forests and the sea.

  “My grandmother would say it’s like mini-Scotland,” Euan had said suddenly. He had been answering the expression of bewilderment on my face, and broke the long stretch of silence in the car. “It’s like all the most wonderful parts of Scotland rolled into one. You have everything here, sea, mountains, forest, highlands.”

  “It’s the most beautiful place I have ever seen,” I said and I wasn’t exaggerating. Euan laughed. “I’m serious. Why isn’t this place more loaded with visitors? Doesn’t everyone come here?”

  I had felt as if I’d discovered the holy grail of beauty. Expanses of green, rugged open coastline would pass without any house to interrupt the view, except for the odd stone cottage or mysterious ruin. Empty beaches flashed by, with caves and coves to explore. The landscape was pure,
remote and breathtaking. This was a Scotland that I hadn’t believed still existed. There was no sign of tourist buses, or billboards, or commercialism of any kind. It was timeless, untouched.

  Euan had shrugged. “Probably because it’s hard to get to, but the fact that it’s still undiscovered is one of its charms.” Euan had then pointed to a large brown sign that read in clear white letters: “Scotland’s National Book Town, Next Left”. “We’re almost there.”

  We’d arrived at the Bookshop as it was getting dark – following the main road into Wigtown until it came to an end in a large town square. This was unlike any town square that my New England eyes were used to, where there would have been wooden colonial houses, large side yards and perhaps a church, sitting highest in its centre, like the crown jewel. Instead, lining Wigtown’s square and glowing in the setting sun, there were ancient stone cottages painted in pastel colours: mint, peach and white. On one side of the square rested a Victorian red-brick town hall while, opposite, a road wound its way up a hill and disappeared at its crest.

  Bookshops were everywhere, or so it had seemed through the delirium of my exhaustion and the dwindling light. I passed signs above doors that read “The Book Corner”, “Reading Lasses”, and the “Old Bank Bookshop” and more, out of eyesight, extended down the street.

  Euan pulled the red van up in front of a large Georgian town house with a shop below. Peering through the windscreen at the sign above, I made out the words “The Bookshop” in green paint and gold letters. Two book spirals, DNA helixes of literature, rose on either side of the door like columns.

  A thrill shot through me. Here I was, about to step into a town that I had conjured up in my imagination when I sat in my hot studio apartment in LA. I felt as if I was Neil Armstrong, about to take my momentous first step onto the moon. I was nervous, perhaps like Armstrong, wondering if the ground below was not solid but dust. Was all this really happening or was it only in the ephemeral ether of my imagination?