69 Things to Do With a Dead Princess

by Stewart Home

  Berrybrae was situated six and a half miles south-east of Fraserburgh and we could see the stone circle from the road. Alan threw Dudley across his back and we climbed over a gate and walked through a field to the recumbent stone circle. The stanes were situated in a clump of trees, fenced off so that the cows that grazed close by wouldn’t damage them. The cattle had clocked us and, being bored, wandered over to see what we were doing. It was at this point that I noticed one of the ‘cows’ snorting and marking the earth with a front hoof. Looking for an udder and seeing instead a huge prick, I realised almost immediately that this beast was a bull. I cried out in fear. Alan told me to shut up and stand still. After about ten minutes the cattle lost interest in us and began to wander off. Leaving the protection of the fenced-off monument, we made our way smartly across the field in the opposite direction to the herd.

  Alan chuckled over this incident as he drove me back to Aberdeen. He parked the car outside his flat on Union Grove and we stumbled up the road to a bistro called The Rendezvous. That night I dreamt I was lost in a subterranean maze and that, upon reaching the centre, I was confronted by a white bull, which gored me to death. I awoke screaming. Alan took me in his arms and before long we were making sweet love to each other.

  TEN

  RISING FROM the dead, I kicked Alan out of bed. He’d slept long enough and we had a full day ahead of us. I was eager to get up the road and insisted that rather than having breakfast at home, it would be quicker to get something on the way. We pushed through the heavy traffic on Union Street and then swung north up King Street. Alan wanted to pick up some books from his flat but I insisted he retrieve them on our way back into town. I was eager to get at least as far as Ellon before we stopped. As I drove I told Alan about a book I’d been reading, A Long Time Burning: A History of Literary Censorship in England by Donald Thomas. What had impressed me was a section in which the Gothic novel was described as giving socially acceptable expression to the type of sadism and morbid sexuality found in banned pornographic literature. Of course, as Thomas pointed out, Matthew Lewis in The Monk overstepped the mark and only escaped prosecution by producing a bowdlerised version of his macabre classic.

  I pulled up outside the Safeway at Ellon and we ventured in, hoping to find a café. Alan was horribly disappointed to discover there wasn’t even a customer toilet. We left the car where it was and walked to a greasy spoon for a fry-up. As we ate I reflected on the huge changes Ellon had undergone since Boswell and Johnson’s visit on Tuesday 24 August 1773. Boswell: ‘We set out about eight in the morning, and breakfasted at Ellon. The landlady said to me, “Is not this the great Doctor that is going about through the country?” – I said, “Yes,” – “Ay”, (said she,) “we have heard of him, I made an errand into the room on purpose to see him. There’s something great in his appearance: it is a pleasure to have such a man in one’s house; a man who does so much good. If I had thought of it, I would have shewn him a child of mine, who has had a lump on his throat for some time.” – “But, (said I,), he is not a doctor of physic.” – “Is he an occultist?” said the landlord – “No, (said I,) he is only a very learned man.” – Landlord. “They say he is the greatest man in England, except Lord Mansfield.” – Dr Johnson was highly entertained with this, and I do think he was pleased too. He said, “I like the exception: to have called me the greatest man in England, would have been an unmeaning compliment: but the exception marked that the praise was in earnest; and in Scotland, the exception must be Lord Mansfield, or Sir John Pringle.”’

  Johnson, of course, passes over not only this incident but the entire episode of the breakfast in Ellon saying only that ‘the road beyond Aberdeen grew more stony, and continued equally naked of all vegetable decoration. We travelled over a tract of ground near the sea, which, not long ago, suffered a very uncommon and unexpected calamity. The sand of the shore was raised by a tempest in such quantities, and carried to such a distance, that an estate was overwhelmed and lost. Such and so hopeless was the barrenness superinduced, that the owner, when he was required to pay the usual tax, desired rather to resign the ground …’

  Having run a slice around my plate to mop up the remains of my eggs and beans, I downed the grounds of my coffee and paid the bill. After retrieving my motor from the Safeway car park I cut through the back roads. First we travelled along the B9005 and soon after crossing the Elvie Burn detoured north to the Candle Stane. We found the standing stone easily enough since it was visible from the road as we trundled along. I parked the car and we paced uphill. The stone was positioned just below the summit of a gentle slope and Bennachie was displayed to magnificent effect in the background. The Candle Stane was massive, no wonder it had never been cleared from the field. While there were no cattle grazing when we visited, I imagined cows rubbing themselves contentedly against this gigantic rock.

  I told Alan to drop his pants. Needless to say he had an erection by the time his trousers were around his ankles. I bent my body and took Alan’s cock in my mouth. After I’d given his fat, juicy prick a bit of a suck, I leant back against the Candle Stane and twirled my partner around. Once my breasts were pressed against Alan’s back my hand snaked around his waist and began to finger his balls. Sunlight glinted against glass and I saw a girl in her late teens standing behind the upper window of a house close to where I’d parked my car. With one hand she pressed a pair of binoculars against her eyes, the flies of her jeans were undone and her other hand was in her panties. I put my hand around Alan’s cock and jerked slowly, steadily increasing my tempo. The girl kept time with me, her rhythm changing with mine. My hand was a blur of motion by the time Alan came, the girl collapsed backwards at the same moment, evidently in the throes of orgasm. Alan took five to catch his breath and adjust his clothing. When we got to the car there was a note under one of the wipers. On it was written the name Janet, a telephone number and a message asking us to give advance notice next time we were visiting the Candle Stane.

  As we threaded our way back to Ellon, I grew tired of Alan complaining he was missing Dudley and told him to shut up. As far as I was concerned, if my friend wanted a three-way fuck fest, then he should do it with real live pervs. I found his attachment to the ventriloquist’s dummy peculiar, to say the least. I also made it clear that I was sick to death of hearing about 69 Things to Do with a Dead Princess. The book wasn’t even coherent. I’d counted the number of sites the author claimed to have visited with the royal corpse and had come up with the figure of 169. Alan defended his favourite work of faction by claiming the title must have been a typo, insisting a one had been lost by the typesetter and that the author obviously intended to call it 169 Things to Do with a Dead Princess.

  When we reached Ellon I pulled up in the Safeway car park and we made our way to a café for coffee. Our cappuccinos were a tad weak. Until the 60s Ellon was just a wee village but with the oil boom it had swelled into a town that was quite literally awash with money. I decided to make things up with Alan after our argument in the car, so I told him that once we got home I was going to call up one of my college friends and make him take his pants down in front of her before ordering him to lick the girl out. This not only got Alan excited, the idea appealed to a woman who overheard our conversation. Her husband was away working on a rig, so we headed back to her place and I watched as Alan shagged the middle-aged wanton.

  Alan always enjoyed sex with bored housewives but once we were heading north he began bickering about 69 Things to Do with a Dead Princess. To cut a long story short, by the time we got to Cruden Bay I’d made it clear that while I was more than happy to visit stone circles, there was no way I’d trot around all the Grampian distilleries and castles allegedly visited by the dead princess. The whole thing was really quite disgusting, since once the corpse was badly decomposed K. L. Callan described decapitating it and ripping out the heart before placing this organ in the royal mouth. These body parts were wrapped in plastic and placed in a rucksack to expedite travel on the cast
le and malt-whisky trails. Although dismemberment made the incidents described in parts two and three of 69 Things to Do with a Dead Princess physically possible, the narrative still strained credulity. During the course of this argument we’d got out of the car and ascended the grassy knoll on the north side of Cruden Bay. Reaching the top, we could see Slains Castle half a mile away.

  It had been our intention to walk to Slains Castle but there was a rumble of thunder and it began to piss down. The castle had been built at the end of the 16th century and was given a Gothic make-over in the 19th. Brooding blackly above the sea, Slains Castle is said to have provided Bram Stoker with the inspiration to write Dracula. It is perhaps better to pass over what Boswell wrote about the castle since his strength as a writer lay in describing people and social situations, while the sublime was most definitely one of his weak spots. Johnson’s comments were brief and lucid. ‘We came in the afternoon to Slanes Castle, built upon the margin of the sea, so that the walls of one of the towers seem only a continuation of a perpendicular rock, the foot of which is beaten by the waves. To walk round the house seemed impracticable. From the windows the eye wanders over the sea that separates Scotland from Norway, and when the winds beat them with violence they must enjoy all the terrific grandeur of the tempestuous ocean. I would not for my amusement wish for a storm; but as storms, whether wished or not, will sometimes happen, I may say, without violation of humanity, that I should willingly look out upon them from Slanes Castle.’

  We made our way back to the car and, thoroughly soaked, drove to a geological feature known as the Bullers Of Buchan. It is a rock perpendicularly tabulated, united on one side with a high shore, and on the other rising steep to a great height, above the main sea. The top is open, from which may be seen a dark gulf of water which flows into the cavity, through a breach made in the lower part of the enclosing rock. It has the appearance of a vast well bordered with a wall. The edge of the Buller is not wide, and to those that walk around appears very narrow. He that ventures to look downwards sees that if his foot should slip, he must fall from his dreadful elevation upon stones on one side, or into the water on the other. We, however, went round, and were glad when the circuit was completed, for although the rain had eased off, it was a slippery walk.

  On going down to the sea, we saw some boats and rowers, and resolved to explore the Buller at the bottom. We entered the arch that the water had made and found ourselves in a place, which, though we could not think ourselves in danger, we could scarcely survey without some recoil of the mind. The basin in which we floated was nearly circular, perhaps 30 yards in diameter. We were enclosed by a natural wall, rising steep on every side, to a height which produced the idea of insurmountable confinement. The interception of all lateral light caused a dismal gloom. Round us was a perpendicular rock, above us the distant sky, and below an unknown profundity of water. If I had any malice against a walking spirit, instead of laying him in the Red Sea, I would condemn him to reside in the Bullers of Buchan.

  But terror without danger is only one of the sports of fancy, a voluntary agitation of the mind that is permitted no longer than it pleases. We were soon at leisure to examine the place with minute inspection, and found many cavities which, as the watermen told us, went backwards to a depth which they had never explored. Their extent we had not time to try; for the rain came on hard again and once we’d been let ashore we made our way back to the car.

  Upon reaching Peterhead, we immediately sought a café in which to dry out. I asked for two double espressos in a single cup. At first this was refused, the waitress saying she’d never heard of such a thing. Since I persisted in my request it was eventually agreed that I could have my coffee served whatever way I wanted, but that it was on my own head if I fell ill. The waitress and several of her customers stared at me as I slurped the beverage, so I decided to give them something to really talk about. In a loud clear voice I told Alan of a visit I’d once made to Turku Cathedral in Finland. The tombs in several chapels contained the mortal remains of those who’d fought on behalf of Sweden as it oppressed its little neighbour. Several of these imperial mercenaries were Scottish soldiers of fortune or their descendants as was obvious from names such as Cockburn and Wedderburn.

  The monument to General Cockburn in Turku Cathedral is particularly striking, the thistle being conspicuous in the carved design. Through all the early history of the Swedish occupation of Finland the deeds of Scots are woven. Families descended from those wandering, warring Scots now form a large part of the Swedish-speaking aristocracy that for long centuries oppressed the Finns and among them one will come across such names as Ramsay, Fraser, Douglas, Montgomery and Hamilton. My little speech did not go down well and I was asked to leave the café, which I did without settling the bill. The rain was easing up and on the way to the car Alan attempted to discuss a biographical work entitled Antonin Artaud: Blows and Bombs by Stephen Barber, but I told him to put a sock in it. My mood was as foul as the weather.

  I drove Alan to Netherton, the best-preserved recumbent stone circle in Buchan. I parked just north of the village of Crimond. Like a lot of places we’d been visiting, this ancient monument was on private land but I couldn’t be arsed to get the permission of the owner to view it. Since the circle is situated just off the main road between Fraserburgh and Peterhead, I guess a lot of those drawn to it simply trespassed. Both flankers were still standing, as were five other stones. There was a mess of stones inside the circle which might be the remains of a cairn. I lay back against the recumbent. It had stopped raining but the sky was completely overcast and there was very little light.

  As Alan came towards me he shimmered, his body was translucent. I thought of the pathless mountains of Iceland, but as the spectre advanced it struck me that the ghosts of the north came from no land known to man or woman. These were the secret people, their kingdom was the north under the Fir Chlisneach, the polar aurora. They were always young there. Their bodies were white as the wild swan, their hair yellow as honey, their eyes blue as ice. Their feet left no mark on the snow. The women were white as milk, with eyes like sloes, and lips like red rowans. They fought with shadows and were glad; but the shadows were not shadows to them. The Shee slew great numbers at the full moon; but never hunted on moonless nights, or at the rising of the moon, or when the dew was falling. Their lances were made of reeds that glittered like shafts of ice, and it was ill for a mortal to find one of these lances, for they are tipped with the salt of a wave that no living thing has touched, neither the wailing mew nor the finned sgádan nor his tribe, nor the narwhal. There were no men of the human clans there, and no shores, and the tides were forbidden.

  As Alan advanced I screamed and my cry was drowned in rolls of thunder and the pealing of lightning. The heavens opened, rain lashed against me and as I lay on that stone altar my legs were forced apart by some unearthly force. Alan pierced me with his lance, then melted into my body and in that terrible downpour the countryside was ruggedly and boldly beautiful, with a sullen suggestion of freedom about it. I thought of my parents and simultaneously banished them from my mind. I’d come to Aberdeenshire to get away from my family. My father had wanted a son and dressed me as a boy until I was twelve. I’d been Anna at school and Alan at home but even after I’d reached puberty Alan would not leave me alone. I’d tried to divorce myself from Alan but what happened at Netherton was better. Alan was melting into me. We were merging just as Old Aberdeen and New Aberdeen, Woodside, Torry and Ruthrieston had been melded into a single city by the sheer force of a growing population. If I could not expel Alan, then I had to gather him up, not to imprison him but to integrate him into my being.

  I had to let what was separate exist separately and embrace what remained in all its unity. Aberdeen was quite distinct from the countryside spread before me at Netherton, even if the road north to Ellon and Peterhead was basically an extension of King Street, where I’d once lived. The Don was a natural barrier and the Brig o’ Don that had car
ried me over the river was a marker on my line of flight. The bridge, a fine Gothic arch, was flung over the river, from one rock to the other, the height from the top of the arch to the water is 60 feet, in width 72 feet. It was built by Henry de Cheye, Bishop of Aberdeen, who, on returning to the city after being exiled, applied all the profits that had accumulated during his absence towards the cost of construction. As I looked around me thoughts of water receded, instead I found infinite peace in a frightful disarray of bush and grass, sprinkled with heather and demure bluebells that blushed in the wind and rain. I saw the land as it was, and would be and had been. There was an invoking calm of things past and things to come in dark green woods with arabesque parterres of tinted leaves and mosses with pine needles and pine cones embedded amongst them. Once the skies cleared, the sun would be baffled by the boughs that weaved their shade.

  I pictured myself going slowly through the remnant of a forest of old, round about which the woodmen had been terribly busy. Quite suddenly the music of a matchless voice struck my ears, trilling through the listening air like notes from a faultless lute. I stood still and listened. A peasant girl was singing a melodious north-east ballad, for Buchan and Aberdeenshire were the land of the song. It was with the Bronze-Age farmers that the song first invaded what is sometimes called Scotland but might be better understood as south-west Scandinavia. Here the chants of those that had erected the recumbent stone circles were preserved for ages in human hearts, living ever new on human lips, and attuned to undying music and to the strident tones of rushing and falling waters. The history of this part of Scotland, like that of most borderlands, is one of storm and stress; but the raging waters of the North Sea maintained the eastern border of Aberdeenshire intact. Thus the work of the dialectician consists of listening closely to the journeyman and the labourer, since the entire human history of this land is enfolded in the melodious voice of the proletariat. The language of Picts, Celts, Norse, Africans and Saxons is sublated in the Doric.