The Island
It always made me feel a bit claustrophobic watching the last ferry leave. I figured that was normal enough, with me being from the mainland. I just felt stranded once I knew I was stuck on the island for the night. This would fade once I was there for a few nights, but the feeling of being cut off was always in the back of my mind.
I was one of a dozen or so passengers on the last Friday ferry from Oban, and I did not recognise any of my fellow travellers. This had suited me fine, I was happy to spend the ninety minute crossing drinking a couple of bottles of Innis and Gunn, plugged into my ipod. I had some Scottish folk stuff on, which worked with the surroundings. King Creosote, that sort of thing, not Capercaillie and the like.
It was a lovely night, and I sat outside watching Oban shrink into the distance then Ailsa’s lights draw closer and closer until eventually we docked. Standing at the familiar pier, I did feel relieved to be back. It wasn’t home, but I always enjoyed spending time here, and after a long year in Edinburgh the slower pace of the lifestyle appealed to me.
There was very little on the island. A couple of hotels, a shop, a smattering of those terrible faux-Swiss holiday chalets and the islanders’ houses and crofts. Of course, it was absolutely idyllic in the summer, notwithstanding the midges and occasional weeks of relentless rain.
The population had reached the dizzy heights of five hundred and something before the Second World War, which had accounted for a good proportion of the young male stock. Afterwards, many who had lived there for generations had turned their backs on the island for good. I think the hole left by the war dead just could never be filled for some, and for others I guess the trials of living in the middle of nowhere just got too much.
In the early seventies, it had reached an all time low of two hundred, and there was some fear that the whole place may end up going the same way as St Kilda but since the eighties things had picked up.
More recently, the new Scottish Parliament had thrown some grants around, and the long closed primary school had reopened. BBC One had shown some documentary about the bird life, which was lauded in the Broadsheets, and all of a sudden there was a population influx from middle England. You know the sort, solicitors, accountants and the like, usually called something like Jeremy or Henry or Toby, married to Priscilla or Hermione.
They would drive a Prius and eat free range eggs, and when they saw this idyllic spot on the television they simply know it’s the right place to bring the kids up. This, of course, is often before any realistic assessment of everyday factors like the amount of time it takes to get to the nearest supermarket, or the lack of any form of entertainment outside of the local bars. No cinemas here, Jeremy, and the nearest Waitrose must be a good five hours drive.
Add to that the sheer absolute horror of the weather in winter and you can figure out why there might be a high turnaround in the ‘non local’ population. Mind you, we had broadband and Sky Sports, so were positively futuristic compared to a few years previously.
I’d been visiting for most of my life, sometimes for months at a time. Uncle James, Mum’s brother, owned the bigger of the two local hotels, the unimaginatively named Seaview Hotel. Fairly run down when he bought it, he had turned it into something approaching luxurious over the years.
He catered mainly for those interested in fishing and shooting – there are a couple of lochs renowned for their brown trout and all the deer you can shoot. There was also a public bar which would keep the place ticking over during winter.
Anyway, I had always got on well with him and had ended up agreeing to help out one summer I was still in school, which turned into another, then another until I’d been there right through university. It was very handy to be honest, it got me away from the city and I could get some money together without the distractions I’d face in Edinburgh.
There were other bonuses too, both hotels had the bare minimum of staff during the winter months so had no option but to import staff every April from the mainland. This generally meant students and / or travellers from all sorts of places, most of them female. Latterly we’ve had an influx of Eastern Europeans, which is sound. I love that Eastern Bloc accent.
Anyway, this was me back for yet another summer. I should have been out looking for a real job, I suppose, but there would no doubt be time enough for that in the future.
Uncle James had called a couple of months back telling me the job was mine if I wanted it. I think he understood my reluctance to get caught up in the employment rat race straight after leaving Uni, in fact given his self imposed solitude on the island for twenty years I was sure of it.
In a previous life he’d been a manager of some sort at one of the big banks head offices in Edinburgh. I remember him coming to visit when I was wee, smelling of expensive cologne and even more expensive car leather. He always had a different car, never like ours. My Dad would have the same Fiesta or Escort or Mondeo for three years, because that was when it was economical to trade it in. Uncle James would have a Porsche and then a classic MG and then the new Jaguar just because he fancied it.
He always looked smart, did James, very much out of place around these parts with his Armani loafers and shirts. He was great though, used to always bring us presents and give us money and take us for hair raising drives along the single track roads with the roof down and the stereo blaring David Bowie or the Stones, us screaming with excitement and him with that boyish grin on his face shouting “Shall we go a bit faster?”
My Dad used to call him a flash cunt under his breath, making a show of being a family man and taking a bizarre moral high ground any time he could. Settled down yet James? He’d say, or Meet a woman yet James? Either that or he’d talk at length about ridiculous salaries paid down south and the injustice of it all as if he was socialist of the year. He wasn’t, he’d always been a liberal voter, as far as I was aware. He’d talk about the building trade and how he was working himself into an early grave but could hardly scrape by, and how some people got paid ten times as much for sitting on their arse s doing fuck all.
The hostile behaviour from my old man didn’t really need any degree in psychology to work out. Jealousy. My mother adored James, her only sibling and the last close member of her family still alive. She could barely tolerate Dad by then, his constant moaning and woe is me attitude having killed off any love she may once have had for him a long time ago. It was one of those old fashioned marriages, they couldn’t really stand the sight of each other, but put up with it because that generation did.
When James announced he was leaving the city and buying the hotel on the Island, everyone assumed he’d had some sort of breakdown. I’d find out later what the story really was. It was fair to say that he’d lost his way a bit and needed to get out of the life he’d been living. We all need a break now and again, his was just a bit more permanent than most.
He told Mum once that the hotel, together with the land surrounding it and ample money to do it up came from selling the flat in Edinburgh’s New Town. She told me years later that he’d begged her to take me and join him, the two of us, but that she’d been scared Dad would drink himself to death.
So anyway, here I was, backpack full of most of my worldly possessions, watching MV Scotland’s Glory pulling away from the dock with no idea of what I was going to do after the summer. None. Part of me had vague notions about doing a year in Australia or New Zealand, but I don’t know whether that was serious or just a bog standard idea of what you did when you left University with no clue of what you were going to do.
I sat on the bench beside the locked up tourist office and checked I had everything, not that there was anything much I could do if I didn’t. It’s a nervous tick of sorts. I check constantly for my wallet and keys, always patting pockets to the point I probably look half mental some of the time if you don’t know me. There was no lift coming, James was working in the hotel and didn’t have anyone else yet. I was left to trudge the mile or so up the road to where the hotel stood on the slope of the hill which rose behind the small village.
Once I got there, I saw he had been busy over the quiet season. The garden had been totally modernised, new walls and water features with brilliantly white metal furniture. All set up and ready for those days when you could eat and drink outside. Although it was a bit windy, as it tended to be, it wasn’t cold – I would happily have sat outside with a pint and a fag myself. I’d sit for hours staring out over the sea and the harbour where the trails left by the ferry had disappeared and the couple of lonely fishing boats bobbed in the current.
I knew that there wouldn’t be time for any of that though. James had sounded a bit stressed last time I spoke to him, predictably not having arranged his summer staff in time. I was no doubt going to be flung straight in to working life. There was noise coming from the public bar, and as I approached the back of the hotel I caught the smell of cigarette smoke and part of a whispered conversation between two well known local worthies, Dennis Wellies and Jacob Up The Hill.
“I’m fucking telling you Dennis, I saw it. Clear as fucking day, I saw it.” Jacob Up The Hill, so called because he lived on a slope above the village, was whispering. Going by the speech he’d either had a heavy knock on the head since the last time I saw him or was on the verge of being very drunk.”
“You saw fuck all man, ‘cept for maybe a shooting star or something. No such thing as spaceships. You’d better no be going shouting about it either, or everyone’s just going to think you’re half daft.” Dennis Wellies also sounded pretty much the worse for wear, unsurprisingly given that I think I’d yet to see him sober.
I thought this was maybe a decent time to go past them, and made a point of crunching the gravel so they’d hear me coming.
“Well, fuck me, if it isn’t the young Lord,” Wellies exclaimed when he saw me. He attempted to give what I assumed to be a theatrical bow, but ended up unable to keep his balance and sprawled in a heap on the ground.
“Nice to see you’ve embraced sobriety since I last saw you, Wellies,” I laughed. “I take it the new minister hasn’t managed to get you to embrace the Church yet?” I offered him a hand and pulled him up.
“Naw, but it’s no for want of trying. Honest to God, every time I hear a car go past in the village these days I’m jumping for cover. He’s keen, I’ll give him that.”
They were on fine form, and the cheek I got was no more than I expected. Most of the regulars in the pub gave me a hard time for being the ‘Heir to Lord James’s throne’ any time they got the opportunity.
We headed into the bar, which was absolutely jumping. There was a darts competition of sorts going on at one end, although it didn’t appear to be particularly serious going by the noise. James was behind the bar on his own, fighting what appeared to be a losing battle against the stream of people wanting served.
Predictably, Runrig were blasting out of the stereo, and despite the smoking ban the atmosphere suggested that there were several patrons taking advantage of his lack of control. My Uncle still looked dapper, never having given up his expensive clothes and haircuts despite the advancing years. I guessed he must be touching sixty now, but compared to many of his regulars of similar age he looked decades younger.
The strain was showing on him tonight, though, his face red and sweating and a dirty dish towel slung over the shoulder of his black polo shirt.
“Thank God you’re here, mate,” he shouted across the bar when he saw me. “Not a second too soon, I swear I was just about to chuck them all out and end it all,” he continued with a roll of his eyes.
“No worries, man. I’ll just go up and have a shower, maybe get something to eat, then I’ll help out,” I called back, grinning. He’d have kicked my arse if I’d dared to even think about doing something like this. I would be lucky to get out for a fag myself before closing time.
Twenty minutes later, and we’d managed to get some semblance of control, although we were kept busy. I did learn that he was fully booked for most of the summer, though, and that we had reinforcements coming from the mainland the following week.
“Thought we’d have six this year,” he said, “Four Poles and a couple of young lassies from Oban. “You’ll need to train them yourself; I’ve to go to Glasgow for a day or two. It’s been crazy here the last couple of months.” He’d had some help from people in the village when he needed it, but nothing he could rely on long term.
