Her almost abstract rendering of these same events in greys and greens, blacks and yellows brought her back to the anger at their making – the cross-hatching, the savaging of the paper surface. Always she wanted to be open to the accidental. These large works had been done from sketches and notebooks she’d retrieved from her camp the summer after. They were part of the healing process. Of the cat there had been no sign.
Alongside each was a framed picture with compartments. Every item – be it a grey stone or an oystercatcher’s feather or a limpet shell or a page of a notebook – had a compartment to itself within the frame. They had the beauty of being themselves as well as the balance they achieved against or alongside one another. The cheap tear-off notebook pages with their pale blue lines covered in her dense, distinctive scribble had yellowed after so many years – changed colour like verdigris on sculpture – as they’d come to an accommodation with their surroundings.
Several works in the third room had been landscapes painted onto assemblies of these same writings and sketches – page after page after page, their content partly obscured by rough brush strokes – sea colours of Prussian blue and ultramarine. She approached one of the works and adjusted her glasses on the bridge of her nose to read the handwriting. Her handwriting. Her thoughts from so long ago made her cringe. Had she been so self-important? It was something about the tone:
Day 2.
I am amazed at the changes in the light here – not hour to hour, but minute to minute. So difficult to pin down. The landscape and seascape has such colour. I’d like to be able to do an Ivon Hitchens here but inhabited – highlighting the transience of people in such a place as this – borders and boundaries between one colour and the next, the shade and light. The balance between representation and allowing the paint its head.
When I get time to sit down and look around me this place is truly amazing. Yesterday was about practicalities. When I landed it was wet and blustery and the mountains, whose shape I knew from the April visit, had disappeared altogether. Shrouded, as they say. The black rocks in the bay spilled with white waterfalls after being swamped by wave after wave. Worst possible conditions for putting up a tent.
Today is what is required. The sky is blue and cloudless, the mountains magnificent. Green foothills become sand dunes, become the beach. Most black rocks are covered with lichen the colour of mustard. And the sea. It is such a presence continually roaring onto the beach. Waves are amazing things. Far out they rise as dark parallels. The best moment is when they break, the dark turquoise colour before the white spills curving down the face. Then the white spreads its length with a roar. On the gravel beaches to the north as the wave rushes in – the crest has such force it sets the tiny black stones hopping against the white foam.
It’s always changing. Far out it is grey – it is blue – it is slate – it is shining like the bevel of a blade where it meets the sky. Was anything ever so straight as the line at the horizon?
From the maps the peninsula is about 30 miles long and at its narrowest about 10 miles wide. Where I am – the north-west – it’s wild and virtually uninhabited – except for deer. I have a notion that it is only here, in solitude, that I might encounter my true self. With no interruptions I will become more and more conscious of myself and my place, however microscopic, in the universe. But then again I read somewhere about one of the medieval monks who refused to go on pilgrimage. ‘If God was overseas, d’you think I’d be here?’ Maybe it’s the same with art. Maybe I should have stayed at home and worked.
The next morning he got up early and made himself some sandwiches. He buttered slices of white bread and filled them with the only thing in the fridge – cheese. He used his hunting knife to cut away the mildewed faces from the block even though there were plenty of knives in the drawer. He smeared the cheese with tomato ketchup.
The light was clear and harsh. It would be a good day. The sea was the right colour. He washed his blade under the tap, wiped it dry on a towel and returned it to its sheath at his waist. The sandwiches he wrapped in waxed paper from around the loaf. His Dad complained that bread went stale out of its wrapper. Fuck him, he could make toast. Anyway he’d still be too pissed from the night before to notice. Plus a hangover.
He walked down into the village, the sea on his right-hand side. Gulls squawked and screamed. After yesterday’s storm there was no wind at all – smoke rose straight up from Loudan’s chimney. Just as he passed the bastard came out his back door with a shovel in his hand and waved to him. Nod the head – that’s enough for that cunt. The fishing boat must have sailed at first light or when the storm died down. There was a gap where it had tied up the night before. Brown seaweed had blown onto the road and there were strings of straw caught up on Loudan’s wire fence.
He stopped at the hotel above the harbour and went round the back to see if anybody was up. Plastic crates and aluminium kegs were stacked beneath the kitchen window. Bottle caps of different colours were all over the yard and embedded in the mud at the back door. He arched his hand between the side of his head and the glass and tried to see into the kitchen. Empty stout bottles, a filled ashtray, a mug of tea not drunk from the night before. If he got anybody out of bed they’d tell him to fuck off. He sat down on the rim of an aluminium keg to wait.
After a while he heard a woman coughing. A lavatory flushed and the water rattled down inside the pipe at his shoulder. He stood and waited. Old Jenny came into the kitchen and put the kettle on. He knocked the frosted glass of the kitchen door.
‘Who is it?’
‘It’s me,’ he said.
Jenny drew the bolt and opened the door.
‘Whatdya want at this time of the morning?’
‘I need a couple of cans.’
The door swung open and he stepped inside. Jenny bent to light a cigarette at the blue flame beneath the kettle. She coughed and her face became red and pumped up. She steadied herself with her hand on the draining board until the fit of coughing was over.
‘Aw Christ I’m dying.’ She lifted the keys and went into the hallway. He followed her.
‘Three Super lager.’
Jenny opened the bar. The place smelt of beer and stale cigarette smoke. The curtains were still pulled and it was almost dark. She switched on the light behind the bar and ducked beneath the counter. He watched her through the slats of the drawn shutters. She was still clearing her throat from the coughing.
‘That was some night last night,’ she said. ‘Those ones from the north are wild men.’
‘Aye – anyone off the boats is mad. And twenty Regal.’ She put the cans in the pocket of her apron and came out bent double from beneath the counter flap. He could have got her like that – with a single rabbit punch. The oul girl was sticking her neck out. She straightened and set the things on the counter among last night’s dirty glasses.
‘It’s a good day,’ he said.
‘I haven’t had time to look yet.’
He tugged each can from its plastic loop and slipped one in each side pocket. The last one he zippered into his breast pocket with the sandwiches. The empty plastic loops he threw on the bar.
‘Could you put it on the slate? The boss knows. He says it’s OK.’
Jenny looked at him and shook her head.
‘I’ll tell him.’
You will too, y’oul hoor.
He set out at a good pace. His Ammo boots were very quiet for the size of them. Boots that big should’ve given more warning. After a couple of hours the road began to show a line of grass and weeds in the middle. He passed the last house, burned and left derelict some twenty years ago, and the road reduced to a track. The sun was becoming hotter and the effort of walking fast made him feel sweaty. His Dad would be up now – snarling and eating his toast. In the hotel Jenny would be adding water to the packets of ‘home-made broth’. The track veered off to the sea. Sometimes farmers took a tractor-load of gravel off the beach but nothing had been up here for months.
; He left the track and headed up the hill. His boots rattled through the heather and the sky was full of the sound of larks. He looked up but could see nothing. The hill was steep at this point and he had to lean into it stepping up like stairs – pressing on his thighs with his hands. Every now and then he would stop to get his breath back, breathing through his mouth. He should really give up the fags. There was a good view from here but it would be better from the top. When the noise of his breathing disappeared he heard a grasshopper. And insects came in, buzzing close to his ear, then away again. You never know. You never know what might happen. It was just luck there had been a storm and the fishing boat had been driven in to shelter. The crew had been good crack. He didn’t remember everything they’d said – there had been too much drink taken – but he remembered enough. The boys off the boats had always plenty of money and bought drink like there was no tomorrow. You could be on the edge of company like that and get pished without them knowing you couldn’t afford your round. He was always broke. But what else could he be? He was for the most part unemployed. Sometimes he did a bit of gardening – grass cutting and tidying up for cash. Occasionally, on account of his father, he’d get a day or two’s work on a clam boat but he was prone to throwing up and began making excuses when he was asked. He tried the Army but it coincided with an appearance at the Sheriff Court for having a go at a cunt of a bus driver – he’d had a few drinks and the driver kept yapping on about not smoking, even though there was hardly anybody on the fucking bus. So he gubbed him. After that the Army didn’t want to know – the bastards. So cash was a novelty.
It was the fishing-boat skipper who had told them about her. It was him who’d dropped her off a couple of weeks ago. Up here on the mountain – now – he was getting a hard-on just thinking about it. He put his hands down the front of his trousers and arranged it so that he was more comfortable. Not yet. He was only looking – sniffing around.
Day 6.
Hadn’t time to write anything yesterday. But there will be days like that. I am not going to oblige myself like some kind of schoolgirl to annotate each day. What is important is that I make things based on the nature of these ruins. That’s the priority. Whether paintings or sculptures or photographs or notes towards such things. And yet the diary keeping is important to give a perspective of the overall project.
The more I try to render these networks of tumbled walls – the danger is to make them not abstract enough – the more I feel the presence of the people who lived here a hundred and fifty years ago. They were me and the likes of me before they were driven out by hunger and landlords.
I am outside in my sleeping bag because of the cold, sitting with my back to a stone wall writing this. The fire is cracking and hissing. The gathering of driftwood is one of my favourite chores. I walk the foreshore and spy dead branches and planks and whoop and pounce on them and drag them back. My Uncle would have been proud of me. It was him told me about this place. When he was stationed at the airfield during the war he came here many times. According to him in the mid-1800s the people of the village were evicted by the landlord, Lord Somebody-or-other, to make way for sheep. Or maybe they’d fled of their own accord in search of a better life, away from constant famine, leaving their homes to tumble. He said it was full of ghosts. Inverannich, he called it. ‘A deserted village but you’ll not find it on any map.’ The ruins provide some shelter for my tent. The sea must have encroached since this place was built because it seems too close, too threatening. I can hear it now. On my doorstep, if a tent can be said to have a doorstep.
Day 8.
Hot, idyllic weather. Blue sky and calm water. Tiny wavelets wash in – a kind of tongue roll – just one at a time. The sea is mirror flat reflecting the sky. Black and yellow bladderwrack breaks the surface between the dark rocks which are covered with tiny white pin limpets.
Pools gather where they can on the black rocks and are edged with lettuce-green seaweeds. ‘You would never want a nicer day than this.’ I say it out loud to myself and the sound of my voice startles me. I realise I have not spoken for a week and have almost forgotten how to do so. I resolve to practise. At night, it being utterly clear, I look up at the stars transfixed. I say aloud, ‘You would never want a nicer night than this.’ My voice is strained because my head is back looking up. Pressure on the rusty vocal cords.
I just adore the solitude this week so far. Not a manmade sound, no smell of exhausts or cigarettes, not an artefact, except that which is washed up – the odd light bulb, plastic syringes, condoms, some trays each with an indentation to rest your glass. One of which I rescued for my own use. When you do lift your head here, whether it’s rain or shine, you see something worth looking at. Watching TV is a way of not thinking. Being by yourself in this remote place forces you into certain modes of thought and action. Work, apart from the main purpose, is a way of entertaining yourself. Making paintings passes the time. Indeed I know of nothing better for that purpose. If you start to make a painting after breakfast the next time you look up it will be supper time. All the time you have been thinking, making decisions – this or that? Darker or lighter? Is this line good enough? How to incorporate the ghosts without actually showing them?
I now know the surprise Robinson Crusoe must have felt when he came across the footprint.
A little further on he came across a stream, rising up. If you looked closely you could see pale flecks of sand rising and falling with the force of the spring. There was nothing purer than that. The source of a mountain stream.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw a herd of red deer. Property of the fuckin gentry. They don’t like you moving about on the hills – warn you off. Not personally – but there’s notices all over the place. On gates, on fences. You’re liable to be accidentally shot, they say. There’s more chance of being hit by a fuckin meteor. What they really don’t want is the dregs parading about their hills. Especially when they’ve spent hours stalking beasts and suddenly some cunt like me walks over the hill and they’re off. Fuckin zoom, never to be seen again.
He took out his binoculars and focused. The stag was out on his own, away from the hinds. It had a good spread of antlers and just as he watched it, it put its head back and barked. If he had a gun – the right kind of rifle with a scope – he could bring it down from here. No bother. A seven-millimetre Mauser snug between his cheek and his shoulder. The bastard would run for a bit, then crumple. Just like a chicken with its head chopped off. Or it would fall just where it stood – all legs and awkwardness, collapsing like an ironing board.
He had read in a magazine how to butcher a deer but had never had the chance to do it in practice. Rabbits he could skin, no bother – like pulling off a jumper.
The saw-toothed Bowie had arrived by post from the catalogue and he was surprised that it came up to his expectations. In fact it was bigger than he thought it would be. The blade was made of superb carbon steel which produced such a sweet ping when he plucked it with his fingernail.
He got up from his sitting position and broke the skyline. The herd galloped away. He climbed now with the determination that he would reach the top in one. Establish a rhythm. Pace the breathing. There was a pain barrier but once through that everything settled down. Sweat ran down his face and dripped from his chin. His thighs hurt but he continued stepping up. Over the top and then that view – headlands, islands and the Atlantic Ocean. Next stop America. He ran hop jumping down the other side. When he came to another stream he flopped down and immersed his face, then drank. The water was cold enough to make his teeth hurt.
Beside the spring was a kind of cliff face. He got his back against it. He smoked a cigarette and stared down at his tan boots. Here he could defend himself no matter what came at him. He liked the feeling he had in caves – with his back protected. That way there was no situation he couldn’t cope with. He could light a fire, kill a rabbit, catch a fish, he could survive. He read in the papers of these people who died of exposure on mountains, hill w
alkers even. Accountants from Manchester, fuckin hippies from Leeds. It would never happen to him because he knew how to handle himself.
He put all three cans into the water twisting and embedding them into the gravel. The sun was hot for June. He stripped to the waist and spread his T-shirt on the rock to let the sweat dry. His tattoo caught his eye and he liked it all over again. The one word. Simple. The granite held the heat of the sun and was comfortably warm as he leaned his back against it. He had been on the move for about four hours now and was starving.
He took his knife from its sheath, unwrapped his sandwiches and cut them in two. He sat looking down at the coastline. There was no sign of her. But then he hardly expected to see her first thing. There would have to be a bit of stalking. He chewed each bite ten times to get the best out of it. The long waves rolled in as far as he could see.
He couldn’t wait for the can to really cool down. He reached over and unstuck one and jerked the ring-pull. The lager exploded all over his face and chest.
‘Aw fuck.’ He laughed and held the frothing hole to his mouth. He drank until the lager was under control. A bite of the sandwich, a swill of the lager. The sun. This was it. Nobody to get on his wick. Just himself. When the can was finished he wondered if he should have another. Better not. They might come in useful. A can each.
When he had finished eating there was some cheese and tomato on the blade of his knife. He licked the food off then stabbed the blade into the sandy earth to clean it. It made the sound of the word sheath each time he drove it in. Sheath – sheath – sheath. He scanned the west side with his binoculars but could see nothing. He smoked a cigarette. Sometimes he thought the only reason he ate food was for the pleasure of having a cigarette afterwards.
Collected Stories Page 59