The Gran Tour

by Ben Aitken

  We’re on the A68, heading north-west towards Edinburgh. Pauline enjoyed her lunch – just some sandwiches her son made this morning. Her son reckons Pauline’s got it easy, reckons she’s living the life of Riley, whoever he was. I ask how Pauline knows that Riley was a man, and she says that if he had it that good then he must have been. Anyway, Pauline’s son goes to work and she goes to Menorca – that’s what he likes to say. And it’s true. She goes at least twice a year. She goes with her family (the ones who aren’t working, anyway) and they always stay in the same villa. One time, Pauline’s daughter came along with the grandkids, but Pauline just ended up babysitting so that won’t be happening again. The grandkids are nine and thirteen. The latter has a French exam today now she comes to think of it. He’s been stressed all weekend. Pauline told him not to worry because what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, but he said in response that her statement was objectively false. ‘They just won’t be told,’ she says.

  Steve Wright’s on the radio. Malcolm must be a fan because he’s turned it up a bit. I know the voice well. When I was about thirteen, I used to work in the homebrew shop my grandad managed. We had a radio out the back and in my memory, Steve Wright was the only person that was ever on it. It wasn’t the busiest shop in the world so there was plenty of time when Grandad and I would just chew the fat while he did the books and I picked my nose for two quid an hour. We’ve got a good relationship now and it probably owes a lot to those long quiet days when we got to know each other without meaning to, with me bagging up hops and him checking we had enough yeast. Steve Wright must be well into his 60s by now. His voice hasn’t aged a day.

  19.00. The Pitlochry Hydro Hotel. I’ve been sat with the only other diner under 50. Craig’s not on holiday though. He’s in town to oversee the construction of a road in the forest. He supports Celtic because he’s a Catholic, but that’s not to say there aren’t people who switch trenches. (That is, Catholics who support Rangers, and Protestants who support Celtic.) He says you’ll get the odd scrap after the football but it’ll probably be Celtic fans fighting each other over a decision the referee made. He says Glasgow has transformed in his lifetime. He charts the city’s progress over vegetable soup: Capital of Culture in 1990; a decent wedge of money from the European Union; Commonwealth Games in 2014. Then he gives me a quick lap of the country over Spanish chicken: Glasgow is music and gigs; Edinburgh – Auld Reekie – is the festival and the castle and Hogmanay; Dundee is the arts and gaming; Aberdeen is oil; Stirling is William Wallace and Robert the Bruce and Bannockburn; Inverness is … ‘Actually, to be honest, I have nae a clue wha’ Inverness is up tae.’

  When he’s done with Scotland, he points to the older diners with his spoon.

  ‘Ah feel sorry for this lot ye know,’ he says.

  I give this some thought and then say, ‘That’s good of you, Craig, but don’t forget that you’re the one project managing a trunk road.’

  24

  She grew beetroot and potatoes all day and in return she wasn’t shot

  I study a map of the local area in bed. There are some intriguing places in Perthshire, that’s for sure. Carpow is obviously where your car blows up. Powmill must be where they grind down the exploded cars and turn them into shortbread. Pool of Muckhart is where you go when you’re sad because your car’s now a biscuit. Killin is where you go if you’ve got a really bad back (because you were in the car when it blew up). Balbeggie suggests a droopy testicle; Findo Gassk is surely a mechanic; Innerwick is strength you didn’t know you had; Moneydie is constantly in recession; Dollar isn’t; Dull is the least interesting place on the planet; Loch Drunkie is where you go if you live in Dull; and finally, Loch na Ba is what you’d say if you were trying tae reason with a sheep. All things considered, perhaps the most suggestive region of the UK.36

  I sit with Flicker and Mary for breakfast. We talk about their church over kippers and porridge. In short, it’s a busy wee place. There are several mums-and-tots sessions; there are women fellowship sessions; there’s ongoing destitution relief activities; and there’s light entertainment most days like speed dating and book clubs.

  ‘Speed dating?’

  ‘Oh aye, people pop in on their lunch breaks.’

  ‘And I suppose if one thing led to another they could, you know …’

  ‘Not in God’s home, they couldn’t. We wouldn’t allow it. Would we, Flicker?’

  ‘I think Ben meant get married, Mary.’

  The idea behind all of the above is a simple one – to be there for the community. The idea isn’t to convert or take confession. It’s simply to open doors and arms and hearts and say – come on, let’s have a cup of tea and a natter. It’s about compassion, says Flicker. ‘We all have our ups and downs, don’t we? So it’s good that there’s something there when we’re having the downs. It doesn’t need to be much, but it needs to be something. I can tell you that if it wasn’t for my church I would have jumped out of a window several times by now.’ ‘Aye, and not a ground floor one I bet,’ says Mary.

  09.00. Pitlochry train station. I carry Monica’s walker across the footbridge. She was standing at the bottom of the steps, giving the impression that getting up them with her hands full wasn’t going to be a piece of cake. When we get to the other side, an announcement is made that our train to Aviemore will now arrive on platform one. Some take the news better than others. Monica says, ‘That’s bloody typical, that is.’ And her friend Kitty says, ‘Is it? When did it last happen to you then?’ And Monica says, ‘Well never, but still – it’s typical isn’t it.’ I love how the mind works sometimes.

  We head north-west towards Killiecrankie. The scenery is pleasant from the off – lots of heathery hills, lots of thistly braes, the odd Munro – but mostly, I chat with a couple of immigrants.

  Basia was born in Nottingham to Polish parents. Her dad escaped Poland just after it had been invaded by the Germans in 1939, but was soon captured by the Soviets and sent to a Siberian prison. He was released a few years later when the Soviets switched teams, and ended up in England, where he joined the British Army. Basia’s mum, meanwhile, had been deported to Magdeburg in Germany at the start of the war to be an agricultural labourer. She grew beetroot and potatoes all day and in return, she wasn’t shot. In 1946, Basia’s dad was posted to Magdeburg to serve as a peacekeeper. By this time, Basia’s mum was no longer obligated to spend all day every day growing beetroot and potatoes, and was therefore at liberty to fall in love with Basia’s dad when she met him on a tram. He heard her speaking Polish and then asked her if she came here often. About a year later, they returned to Nottingham together and bashed out a family – Basia not the least of it.

  Zoltan, Basia’s husband, is Hungarian. He says he’s lived in England for 63 years and of those years, the first 60 were the toughest. Zoltan reckons that, for some reason, people understand him more when he speaks English with a Welsh accent – which explains why he sounds like a tipsy, but perfectly intelligible, Tom Jones. He fled Hungary in 1956, during the uprising against the Russians. He got as far as Austria, where he bumped into a bloke from Barnsley who offered him a job in a coal mine.

  ‘The bloke said, “Sign ’ere son and we’ll be off tomorrow.”’

  ‘And did you?’

  ‘Of course I did.’

  ‘Did you know anything about Barnsley?’

  ‘No, thank God, else I might not have come.’

  By the time Zoltan got to Barnsley, he was surplus to requirements. The boss of the coal miners’ union had decided that the imported Hungarians weren’t in the best interest of the local miners. Zoltan didn’t mind, not least because he’d already been paid. For about two months, he just played football down the park. Then he moved to Nottingham and got a job digging tunnels. He met Basia at the Polish Catholic Club, where she was a barmaid. Their first date was at the Goose Fair, the mention of which makes me think of Gordon and Rowan, and specifically the former brushing his teeth with his gardening gloves on.
Odd – but nice – how things come together.

  I’ve hardly glanced out the window. I’ve missed the grouse and the glens and the lochs and the Tay. I might have even missed East Kilbride. I don’t mind though. Sometimes things heard are better than things seen. More often than not, a landscape will still be there tomorrow (and tomorrow and tomorrow) – there’ll be another chance to have a look, that’s the point. Conversations are different. They don’t stick around. The constellation of unlikely elements that brings them about will expire and unform by the time you reach the next station. My conversation with Basia and Zoltan ends when the guard comes through to check tickets. She knows that the Shearings lot are on a group ticket but needs some persuading that I’m a part of it. ‘He’s one of us!’ says Kitty.

  At Aviemore, the group scatters in the station car park. I haven’t got much shopping to do, so walk up the Grampian Road to a chip shop called Smiffy’s. I have haddock and chips, and then a battered Mars bar.37 A television above the counter gives awkward news about the state visit of President Trump. The news is awkward chiefly because the subtitles are getting the wrong end of the stick. Apparently, Trump just said: ‘Arm hair to dismember the deaf.’

  Mary spots me through the window wiping my chops. She comes in and tells me to visit the public toilet while I can. When I say nothing, just look at her a bit confused, she adds that it’s meant to be 50p, but the gate’s open. Then she says she’s got something for me. She takes a small book out of her handbag and says, ‘Flicker and I were discussing it, and we’d like to give you this.’ It’s a copy of the New Testament. ‘That’ll sort you out,’ she says, tapping the side of her nose.

  The two of us find a bench in the sun and wait there for Flicker to reappear. Apparently, she’s in the bookshop. I bet she’s in there trying to persuade the bookseller that a big pile of New Testaments would look good on top of Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion. Mary tells me the last couple of years have been a challenge. First she lost her husband and a breast, and then she lost her son-in-law. But she got through it because the Lord is like a chemist. I try to picture the Lord in Boots. Mary mistakes my thinking for spirituality.

  ‘I can see it on your face,’ she says.

  ‘Can you?’

  ‘You’re searching for something.’ She nods to my New Testament. ‘And you might find it in there.’

  ‘And if I don’t?’

  ‘Go to Sri Lanka.’

  Flicker reappears and the pair head off to look at the ski lift (apparently the busiest in Britain). I’m not alone for long. About a minute later, Monica turns up – Monica who found the platform change typical. She sits down, looks at my New Testament, and then at me, and then at my New Testament, and then at me, and then at the Grampian Road, and says:

  ‘What’s that then?’

  ‘That’s the Grampian Road,’ I say.

  ‘No not that, that!’

  ‘That’s the New Testament.’

  ‘Well I can see that but what are you doing with it?’

  ‘Just having a flick through really. It was given to me by—’

  ‘Love is patient, love is kind, it keeps no record of wrongs. You can throw that away now.’

  ‘Nice.’

  ‘Corinthians. Did you have lunch at the chippy?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘Me too. What did you think?’

  ‘Decent.’

  ‘I thought it was crap.’

  We’re back on the coach, and Malcolm’s back on the mic. He points towards Killiecrankie and says that in 1689 there was a battle over there between a Catholic called James and a Protestant called William; that the battle was part of a wider Jacobite Rising whose casus belli was the replacement of the above James for the above William; and that, although the ’89 rising ended with the Glencoe Massacre in 1692, the final nail in the Jacobite coffin didn’t come until the Battle of Culloden in 1746.

  At least, I think that’s what Malcolm said. I can’t be sure because Pauline, bless her, has been telling me about a TV show called Outlander for the last God knows how long. To be fair to Pauline, she’s on point: Outlander is about a nurse who is transported from 1946 to 1743 to assist with the Jacobite Rebellions and fall in love with a Highlander called Jamie. Pauline says she tried to get her granddaughter to watch the series, but she wasn’t interested. Pauline’s worried about her granddaughter. She says the amount of time she spends on her phone isn’t healthy. She says it’s dreadful seeing her in tears because only 50 people liked her selfie. As far as Pauline’s concerned, all Pauline can do is keep telling her granddaughter that she’s beautiful without any of the makeup, without any of the treatments, without any of the likes, and that at the end of the day, it’s not what a person looks like that matters, but how much money they’ve got. No, she’s joking, of course she is – it’s how kind they are, it’s how nice it is talking to them – that’s what she tells her.38

  Pauline’s also worried about when her granddaughter graduates. A degree used to be a free pass to whatever job you wanted but not anymore. Pauline never went to university. Never even considered it. She’d never heard of the place until she started cleaning one when she was 27. She can’t think of one person from Washington of roughly her age that went to university. She’s not saying they’re not bright though. No way. Most of her friends are proper bookworms. She says you can learn a lot from books. She says you can’t always be sure what it is you’ve learnt, but it’ll be something, alright. Books put ideas in your head – things to do, things to say, things to have a think about. Netflix is good as well though. Don’t get her wrong. You can learn quite a bit off Netflix. Why, take Outlander for example. Pauline thought a Jacobite Rebellion was a type of biscuit before Outlander. Not that the knowledge has been much use to her. It hasn’t done the washing up or paid the bills. But still, there’s no harm in it being there.

  The same can’t be said of our driver, she says. But she’s only playing – he’s growing on her. Malcolm’s back on the mic now. He’s got a true story for us. He says he was on the phone earlier to his pal, who’s been going out with this really tasty bird, but had to dump her when he found various uniforms in her closet. Malcolm asked his pal what the problem was. And his pal replied, ‘Well she obviously can’t hold down a job, can she?’

  I ask the lad in the sauna – one of the kitchen staff, I think – if he’s ever had an achy face for about a month.

  ‘No, but what you want is a mug of whisky and some weed,’ he says.

  ‘You reckon?’

  ‘For sure. You’ll forget you’ve got a face, man.’

  I tell him that I’ve smoked weed once and never again; that I was about 21 and wanted to do a good job of the inhaling so took half a dozen big drags in quite a short period of time; that this was more than enough to make me want to take myself outside and walk around the block for the next six hours, convinced I was about to have a heart attack.

  ‘So just stick to the whisky,’ he says.

  ‘You know what I think’s causing it?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘My phone.’

  ‘How come?’

  ‘I got a smartphone a month ago and my face has been aching since.’

  ‘Wait – a month ago?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘What are you, a Mormon?’

  ‘Actually I’m borrowing it from my sister. To take notes on.’

  ‘Notes?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘What notes?’

  ‘Well, it depends.’

  ‘No wonder your face is aching if you’re taking notes. F*ck that.’

  I join Tom in the jacuzzi. He’s up to his neck in bubbles but is still willing to talk. Tom’s the husband of Pauline’s auntie. I tell him what Pauline told me about Newcastle back in the day – about the poverty, the lack of opportunities.

  ‘Aye, it was the army or the pit for me.’

  ‘And which did you go for?’

  ‘The army.’

  ‘A
ny scrapes?’

  ‘Belfast and Borneo spring to mind.’

  ‘What happened in Borneo?’

  ‘More than was necessary. Let’s put it that way.’

  Tom asks me to excuse his voice. (It’s a bit croaky and a bit quiet.) He’s never drunk or smoked and yet he went and got flipping mouth cancer. He explains how they replaced most of his tongue with a bit of his leg. He pokes it out at me – the tongue, not the leg – and says: ‘And three weeks later it started growing hair!’

  ‘You are kidding, Tom.’

  ‘I’m not. I’ve got a hairy tongue. But they got the cancer, so that’s good. It’s clever what they can do now.’

  Tom says that serving in Malay was hard because the Indonesian dictator was playing up at the time; that he lived in barracks in London for a while, not far from Regent’s Park; that he bought himself a moped and would nip around Camden and King’s Cross like there was no tomorrow; that in Belfast they slept in portacabins for longer than he cares to remember; that after the army he became a postman, which meant that he went from marching to walking and from one uniform to another; that yeah, he liked that joke Malcolm made about all the uniforms in the cupboard; that he retired at 60 and lost his wife to lung cancer two days before their 50th anniversary.

  The bubbles go off. Tom searches for the button but can’t find it. Never mind, I say, it’s easier to talk now. He says he joined a walking group and a choir – after his wife died, like. He says he sang at the Royal Albert Hall with 1,500 others, but they stuck him right in front of an organ so he could have been singing ‘Hakuna Matata’ for all the audience knew. He says there’s a line in a poem. The poet’s lost his wife and he says that her absence is his companion. Tom can see where he’s coming from, he recognises the emotion, but he wanted more than absence. He says that Mandy – Pauline’s auntie – helped him to heal. They met on a walk, up on the Pennines. She liked Tom’s stories, and he liked hers. They moved in together with the blessing of their families. He’s lucky, he says. Not just for Mandy but for everything, for this bubble bath, even. When he was a boy, he had to boil the kettle ten times on a coal fire to fill a tin bath every Friday. Tom was the youngest so would be the last one in, by which time it was like washing in the Ganges. I ask if he can think of any ways in which life has changed for the worse, but he can’t, not for the life of him. He says maybe his body has changed for the worse, but that’s alright, he can still do twenty pressups, and Mandy does a mile in the pool three times a week, and besides, they’re hardly after procreating. I ask if he can see anything on account of his glasses having steamed up. ‘I’ll be alright, Pauline,’ he says. He finds the button.