(I know I may not be telling this right. If it's not completely clear, the scenery I mean, I apologize. I'm still a rookie, remember.)
From Grantown-on-Spey I took the B-939 north to Nairn, on the Moray Firth. From there I took the A-96 west, past the battlefield at Culloden (where in 1746 it seems a handful of crazy, overly-ambitious Scottish Highlanders got their butts kicked for good by the "great British Army", which then displayed its gallantry by butchering all 3000 Scottish captured and wounded), finally stopping for dinner at Inverness. "Inver" evidently means "mouth of", as in a river, the logic being that Mouth Of The Ness would obviously be too big of a mouthful for one town. From Inverness I headed south-by-southwest on the A-82, which runs along the west shore of Loch (lake) Ness; and no, I didn't see any stupid phony monsters. At Invermoriston I took the A-887 west. Another fifty miles or so, my Great Britain Touring Atlas told me, and I would be at the Kyle of Lochalsh, which is the northernmost crossing point to the Isle of Skye.
Now stupid me, I assumed that fifty miles of real estate between Invermoriston and the Kyle of Lochalsh was more than sufficient to locate a bed-and-breakfast at which to stay the night, and then I would explore the Isle of Skye the next day. I guess you could say, instead, that the A-887 marked the spot where my luck was to change again. And I'm sorry to say not for the better.
I couldn't get a room to save my life. I stopped at Dundreggan, Lundie, Morvich, a couple places near the Eilean Donan Castle, and even at all the luxurious resort hotels along the shore of Loch Alsh, but evidently there was not a single bed available on the mainland. But no problem, I told myself. No problem. 'Just hop the ferry to the Isle, and get a place over there.
I was relieved that you could take your car with you on the ferry. Turns out my ferry was the last ferry of the day, and I was the only paying customer. It cost three pounds and eighty pence. About seven bucks. I wonder how much fuel that ferry burned up, just to get my lousy seven bucks! Pretty inefficient, if you ask me. I found out later that the return ferry to the south---from Armadale to Mallaig---costs twelve pounds and fifty pence. Little did I know, at the time, that just to get back to the mainland how happy I would be to be ripped off like that. I didn't actually see anybody on the ferry. No workers, I mean. All you do is just drive your car onto the deck, and then the thing takes off, and then it drops you off, and you never see a soul.
The ferry dropped me off on the B-850, at Kyleakin. With no choice in the matter, I headed west. I stopped at towns called Breakish, Skulamus, Broadford, and a couple of less-weird- sounding places in between, with no luck. It never occurred to me that so many consecutive places would be full for the night, seeing as how Frieda, for instance, never seems to do much business at all. In fact, in each case, nobody even came to the door. When people know they're not going to get any money off you they can be downright anti-social.
At Broadford the B-850 turns into the B-863 and heads north. The water lapped at the beach to my right, and to my left a quarter-mile of flat earth sloped up to a rock-crested hill. I went about ten more miles, passed the village of Dunan, no sign of a B&B, anywhere, no houses even, and I was beginning to get a little discouraged. The narrow ill-paved road seemed to get narrower and narrower. After what seemed like hours, I saw a very large but quaint farmhouse up and off to the left, nestled up against the hill, and to my unfathomable delight I soon spied the cherished B&B sign about a hundred yards shy of it. There was no driveway. This is it, I assured myself, this has to be it or I'll die on this stupid island without ever getting to sleep again....
I parked the car on the side of this curbless road, and then started up the hill for the farmhouse.
But I stopped in my tracks when I saw this little old man. My initial reaction, I remember, was almost an excitement! I was just so happy to see somebody, anybody. He was across the road, making his way up from the beach. I knew it had to be his place. There wasn't another house for miles in either direction. You couldn't help but notice all the sheep he had with him. There must've been over thirty of the little buggers, his own personal private flock. You could tell they liked him, too. They were circled all around him. Wherever he went they went, always surrounding him on all sides, protecting his flanks so to speak, sort've like they were supposed to be his woolly little bodyguards or something.
As he got closer (and he was in no hurry, believe me) I came to realize just how old this old guy was. For one thing, he had white hair. I don't mean gray hair, I mean his hair was friggin' snow white! It was cut short and blown straight back and off to the sides as if by a constant breeze, giving him the look of sort've of a cross between a wild man and a bum. I liked it though. His beard was white too, narrow at the sides but with a rounder, wider clump of white stubble to cover the chin. Yeah, like a football chin strap. And all he had on was a lightweight sky blue sweater, baggy blue work pants, and sandals. Sandals! All his little brown toes sticking out....makes me shiver just thinking about it. As you might guess, Scots are virtually impervious to cold. His little scrunched-up face was brown as well, as if from too many decades of fighting with the sun. And he walked with the aid of a large tree branch. It's too bad I don't have a picture of this guy. He's probably the most interesting looking little old guy I ever saw.
He walked right up to me and just stood there. He just stood there and looked up at me. His stupid sheep completely blocked the road. This tree branch he had, his "walking staff" if you will, was gnarled but reasonably straight, about as tall as me. But the old man was only about five feet tall, if that, and so he really had to look up to look me in the eye. I kept waiting for him to say something.
But he didn't. He just smiled, softly, mouth closed. He never did stop smiling.
"Good evening."
"Aye."
"Nice sheep," I lied.
"Aye. They my children!"
"Got a room available for a tired young man?"
He looked up the hill at his farmhouse, and then slowly back at me. He was really taking his time. Smiling like mad. And always a closed-mouth smile, I remember distinctly. For a second there I thought he might be mentally ill or partially deaf or something.
"The auld house....is no' set up f'er tem'pery lodgers."
"But it says B and B!" I protested.
"It's an auld sign," he said.
I was about to say something about how stupid that was, when I caught one of his sheep looking at me. I mean he was really looking at me.
"Well then, do you know anywhere around here where I can get a room?"
"It's mighty late, son. I canney think of where y'might a-go. Rooms this late are dear." (which means either very expensive or simply very hard to come by)
"If it's so damn late how come it's not getting dark?" I said. I was half pissed off and the other half of me really was curious about it. It was weird. After ten o'clock and still light.
"Come winter, 'gets pitch black 'long 'bout foor," he replied, not really answering my question.
"How charming."
"The next town's Sconser. Joost a wee village. No' a great deal there. After that, Portree. Mebbe yoo'll 'ave better fortune in Portree. Aye."
"Portree?"
"A man shoodn't coome 'the Isle, 'less e's prepaired t'stay."
Things were starting to get a little creepy. For one thing, it was at about this point in the conversation when I realized that virtually all his damn sheep were staring at me. And that's when I noticed that some had horns and some didn't. I also noticed that some of them had black faces and some had white. White or black, they all had expressions on their faces. I can't tell you what expressions, just expressions damn it. Like people have. I didn't like it at all. So I looked away, looked back down into the old man's face, really looked him over, and I'll be damned to hell if that old mug wasn't the strangest mug on the face of the earth. Yes it was old, and sun-browned, and yes the jaw and cheekbones had that ironhard cocksureness of old age to them, old as the land, but the skin itself was baby-butt smooth. A f
ace old and young at the same time, if you follow me. The twinkly blue eyes were the closest things to stars in this blank Scottish sky, and they seemed to reflect exactly the color of his sweater. They were the eyes of a young man. It was strange. He was just so pleasant and interesting to look at. But I didn't like his lousy sheep looking at me like that. Period.
"Your sheep act like they've never seen an American before," I said in sort've a sarcastic way.
He didn't answer (this guy didn't like to talk much, even when he was spoken to), but rather turned around and waved his six-foot staff at them. Instantly, they dropped their heads and backed up a couple steps. He only had to wave it once. Well-trained sheep.
"So you think---"
"---The Blackface sheep all 'ave horns, son, the rams and the ewes. The Suffolk sheep, the white-faced ones, oonly the rams," he suddenly revealed, smiling, practically reading my mind, obviously feeling a great need to educate me on the different types of sheep in Scotland. And I have to admit I was actually curious. Funny. It was the only thing he said to me on his own.
"You learn something new every day. But you think I may get a room up in Portree, right?"
"Y'may. Y'may not. Folks no' coome oop 'ere this late, usually, 'less they already go' a room. Drive cairful. I reckon y'might a-coome upon a few 'me wee children, lyin' in the road. Gude luck, son. Gude luck'n God speed. I grant thee God speed."
And just like that he was striding slowly back down to the beach, I watched him all the way, his horned, woolly "children" in tow. Quite a sight. I know he was a pint-sized little guy, but I swear there was a certain....a certain strength in the way he carried himself, the way he moved. He didn't even need that big walking stick. He wasn't limping at all.
It was getting really cold now, so I zipped my ski jacket up around my sweater, popped back inside my MG, revved up the heat, and headed up the road for Portree. Nice little sheep farmer, the old man. Seemed pretty darned content with his simple, unspoiled life. Shortest full-grown man who wasn't a dwarf I ever saw. He sort've reminded me of Nigel, except for the white hair and the smoother skin and the browner face and all those friggin' worthless sheep all over the place.
It was right around this time when I started getting worried. It was after eleven, and I still hadn't come close to finding a place to sleep. And the old man, cute and interesting as he was to talk to, didn't exactly fill me with confidence that my luck was going to change.
Furthermore, I discovered that the reception meter on my car phone had gone completely blank. No blue rectangles, just grainy gray, with the words NO SERVICE occasionally blinking in the blank square. NO SERVICE. How impersonal can you get. I knew we were losing power and everything, but I still didn't expect it to go completely dead. So even if anyone had tried to call me, they wouldn't've been able to get through. I kept wondering who was calling me. The whole time I was on the island. I know, that might seem nutty to you, but it's hard to explain, and until you've walked in my shoes I advise you to hold your objections.
The old man was right about Sconser. Just a blink-of-the-eye town, I was so preoccupied I almost missed it. So I pressed right on to Portree. The sky had inked up a bit in the last hour (which did a lot to reassure me that the whole world wasn't going crazy on me) but you really couldn't call it dark. No, not dark. It was a funny blue color, sort've a dark blue that somebody was shining a giant flashlight through from the other side to make it a shade lighter. Tell you the truth, it sort of reminded me of the phony "sky-ceiling" over the Pirates Of The Caribbean ride at Disneyland. Sure, I know it's silly. Kid stuff. But that's the only thing I can compare it to.
Still, the muted light was a signal for me to get moving. I asked my MG for everything it had, and it responded like a champ; eighty on the straights, and easily holding the curves at forty-plus. And never another car in sight.
Almost midnight by the time I hit Portree.
Portree (or "Port Rish", as the authentic Gaelic sign said) was the closest thing to a town I saw up there. It had a town square and a police station and hotels, and all the sacred institutions that one associates with a town. But no rooms. I checked four or five of the hotels and they all had "No Vacancies" signs, no lights, and no desk clerks to tell me where to go. It was depressing as hell. The square was quiet as the proverbial church mouse. I walked across it, and then wandered down a side street. Soon I heard noises. I came upon a noisy bar at the end of the street. From the outside it sounded like two guitars playing soft rock music, but it was difficult to discern the actual words of the song. I could easily make out the obnoxious peals of laughter in the audience, though. Everybody was obviously having a good time. It was the first good thing that happened all night. I figured I could have a few well-deserved beers, and somebody inside would know of a place to stay.
But when I tried the door it wouldn't open.
I couldn't believe it. I tried it again, jiggled the handle, even put my shoulder to it figuring it was just stuck. Nothing. I knocked on the door a couple times but nobody came. And it was friggin' cold out there! I tried to look through the windows, but they were frosted over from the night's chill and I couldn't see a thing. At the time I sort've convinced myself I could actually make out the vague outlines of human shapes through the frost, but I know now I was just deluding myself. The whole thing was ridiculous. So then I started to pound on the door. Really pound on it. I mean there were people in there, legions of people, and having a great good time too, whooping it up to beat the band, in a nice warm tavern with pints of beer and women probably and maybe even a nice place to stay and they're having a goddam private party! It was too much to fathom. I was really pounding on the door now, and screaming for them to let me in. I mean I was really screaming. Pounding and screaming....and maybe by then even whining and whimpering a little, who knows. It's hard to remember everything. But I do remember that when I realized I was actually screaming I stopped.
It was pretty obvious they weren't going to let me in. I ran back to my car, thank God it started up right away, and got back on the B-855 heading north.
North of Portree the condition of the road deteriorated rapidly and dramatically and depressingly. So did my morale, for that matter. It soon became a single-track road, with "passing places" every so often, which was hysterical because I didn't come close to seeing a car. No need for streetlights; it was still light out at two a.m., incredible. You've got to see it for yourself to believe. I had my maps and all, but it just didn't seem like this road was really leading anywhere, except to more and more nothingness. It was eerie. Like driving off the end of the world....I finally pulled over at around 2:15, when it became clear that nobody was going to give me a goddam bed, clear that my only chance for sleep would be to catch a few restless winks in my car. I reclined the seat, and covered myself with about a half dozen sweaters and jackets I'd pulled from my suitcases. Boy was I getting cold. Nervous, too. My first instinct was to be worried that some late-night highwayman would happen by in my sleep, break in, tonk me on the head, and rob me of the two hundred or so pounds I had on me. What a joke. Any highwayman resigned to making a living on this deserted, god-forsaken dirt road, ought to consider getting into another line of work.
Before dropping off to sleep I looked out over The Little Minch, this quaintly-named channel off the north coast of the Isle, my car was pointing right into it, and I watched the way the hidden sun played its light against the softly tossing water. Glancing behind me, the rising hills actually looked dark by comparison. I was so tired, but my mind was racing. I started to think about Jane, what she was going to say to me when I got back, what to do about her, but it wasn't long before Sam's smooth tan face popped into my head, Christ, I couldn't help it. You'd be surprised how little I thought about basketball lying there! Finally I dropped off to sleep, and when I awoke it was still light. I remember being confused. I looked at my watch.
The Basketball Expatriate Page 15