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Caledonia – Dougie MacLean
Look forward, wee birdie. Obsession with the past is for failures. Winners keep their eye on the prize.My fingers tightened on the steering wheel as memories of my grandfather’s favourite motto filtered through the cramped interior of my Mini Cooper.
As a self-indulgent seven-year-old whose singular joy in life was locating the next occasion that would putmecentre stage, I’d wholeheartedly agreed with him.
Looking back was for failures.
“The irony.” I chuckled to myself now as I watched the minutes tick away slowly, my fingers drumming steadily on the dashboard. The elderly man who held every ounce of my attention, stooped as he was, raised a frail hand and urged my vehicle one car closer. Eager to take the cue, I pulled forward to the bobbing ramp at the stern of the ferry that made the twice-daily connection between the Isle of Skye and the Scottish mainland.One car closer to freedom.
The rented motorhome ahead of me—I knew it was rented because I’d spent the last forty minutes staring at a bumper sticker that read“Highland motorhomes: the adventure starts here!”—pulled alongside him. The old man appeared, the sides of his too-big anorak whipping like the wings of a tiny bird caught in a storm. Still, he grinned toothily as he stamped their tickets and gestured to the obstructed mountainous island over his shoulder. With the rain came the mist, blocking out the shock of green with ghostly hands and rolling so low you only had to reach out to touch it.
I could practically read the words on his weathered lips;Skye in Gaelic actually translates to mist, how appropriate!His large knuckled hands twisted this way and that before he finally pulled a creased map from his pocket. Laminated, of course—a man who worked outside knew the challenges of Scottish weather like he knew his own face in the mirror.
Believe it or not, we’d had bright sunlight only fifteen minutes before.
Dudley,my wire-haired Dachshund, gave an irritated whine from the backseat where I’d strapped his carrier.“Almost there, buddy. I mean it this time.” His answering huff called me the liar I was proving to be. I could have wept as the motorhome’s engine revved, pulling away.“See,” I said, glancing at his little face in the mirror.
“Hullo, lass.” The man’s sunny voice greeted me the moment I lowered my window, pressing a hand to the roof of my car.“Ah, hope yer have a ticket or ye’ll be swimmin’back tae the mainland.”
I offered a tired little chuckle at the joke. I would bet all the money in my bank account (less than you’d think) he’d repeated it to every person he saw this week. Smiling best I could, I handed him my one-way ferry ticket, ignoring the rain soaking into my sleeve. He didn’t take it. Instead, he peered into the back of my compact car, noting the stack of boxes and bin liners I’d hastily slung my clothes into.“What brings yer tae Skye?”
“Just visiting.”
“Family, ay?”
“Something like that,” I answered, purposely vague.
He looked delighted.“Anyone ah ken?”
“Probably not.”
He tapped a finger to his lips, scanning me again from beneath his hood, entirely unperturbed by the raindrops cascading down his long nose.“A’m sure ah ken ye fae somewhere, lass.”
ThatI couldn’t deal with right now.“I doubt it.” I extended the ticket further, rain soaking up to my elbow until he finally understood my meaning. Giving the ticket a discontented stamp, he motioned for me to drive on.
“Welcome tae Skye.” His tone was decidedly less sunny.
Pulling away, I felt terrible. He was a talker and as afellowtalker, I understood the sting of that kind of brush-off. The man wasmy people. But it turned out, even the sunniest of personalities could be dimmed after a twelve-hour car journey from London. Throw in the white-knuckled driving of a human who’d forgotten what it was like to drive on the winding roads of the Scottish Highlands? I hadn’t burnt the candle on both ends, I’d set the entire bloody thing alight.
The only thing I was fit for was food and a bed.
The entrance to Skye was delivered with very littlefanfare.A narrow pier transcended the rocky Armadale Bay at the southern end of the island, shining prettily under the grey cloud cover. You could think of the island itself as resembling a hand with five stretched-out fingers, each finger a peninsula. We were in the thumb.
Despite the long journey, my Mini purred beneath me, completely at ease as I steered onto the shore-hugging lane that began to feel familiar. The road that would carry me fifteen minutes north to my childhood home was flanked along one side by half-bent trees. All that stood between my car and the expanse of reflective blue water on the other side was a low stone-built wall, giving way to the rugged mountain peaks of the mainland rising through clouds of fog.
The moment I passed the sign“Kinleith welcomes you,” I hit my indicator and slowed. My eyes automatically scanned for the sharp bend so hidden amongst my grandfather’s shrubbery, it had fooled even him on occasion, much to my grandmother’s amusement. I could picture her chuckling from the passenger seat every time he was forced to swing the car around on the narrow country lane. So you could imagine my surprise at finding them not only cut back and neatly squared off, but a large wrought-iron gate sitting across the entrance.
“What the hell?” I murmured, coming to a stop. Kier had passed away almost three months ago. He was my last living relative unless you counted my mother, which I didn’t. She was currently living her best untethered life in Thailand, or was it Bali now? Regardless, she was more like that friend from school who contacted you once a year to ask you to invest in their new wax melt company. And Kier… well, my grandfather wouldn’t have spent money on something like this.
Turning in, I pulled the handbrake and clicked off my seat belt. Dudley gave a pathetic yowl that saidif I don’t eat in the next thirty seconds, death is imminent.
“I fed you two hours ago, you little monster.” A hastily scarfed-down meal by the side of the road as I’d attempted to pee behind a bush while simultaneously keeping my eyes peeled for anyone with a camera. I could already picture the headline:“Disgraced Starlet Damages Endangered Ecosystem via Urination.” The paranoia was second nature at this point.
I bet Julia Roberts never had to deal with this shit.
