The FREE literary magazine of the North Northwords Now Issue 38, Autumn-Winter 2019

JACKIE KAY and KATE SWAN on the work of MARGARET TAIT, DONALD S. MURRAY at Achanalt, IAN TALLACH gets on his bike, LEONIE CHARLTON pursues salmon, SANDSTONE PRESS and its road to the International Booker Prize, SHANE STRACHAN in a Doric dystopia, HELEN ALLISON and others review new poetry collections, PLUS details of our amazing new website

Pronn-fhicsean le FEARGHAS MacFHIONNLAIGH; villanelle le NIALL O’GALLAGHER agus sgrìobhadh ùr eile le Maoilios Caimbeul, Liam Alastair Crouse, Iain S. Mac a’ Phearsain, Deborah Moffatt agus Lisa NicDhòmhnaill EDITORIAL ’ll admit it: I’m hooked on the look, Contents smell and feel of newsprint. It’s been that 3 Margaret Tait, film poet – Jackie Kay and Kate Swan way since I was a boy, taken by my father I 4 Poems by Marion McCready and Stephen Keeler – a journalist at Glasgow’s Evening Times – to visit the old Mitchell Lane offices at night. 5 Sgrìobhadh ùr Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh, Deborah Moffatt agus Lisa Nicdhòmhnaill The film-noir lighting seemed to heighten the senses, make the mystery of words made 6 The A82 – disability, ability and cycling by Ian Tallach print even greater. 7 Poems by Mark Ryan Smith, Peter Godfrey, Sharon Black I hope that’s part of the pleasure of Northwords Now for readers: the heft of a new edition. But 8 Last light – Story by Leonie Charlton I’m also aware of the power of online presence 9 Achanalt – poem sequence by Donald S. Murray, Poem by John Robertson Nicoll and the usefulness of digital archives. That’s why, with the backing of the Northwords board 10 From bedroom boxes to the International Booker – Bob Davidson and Sandstone Press and extra support from Creative Scotland and 11 Saturday – Story by Julie Galante, Suspension – by Clare O’Brien, Bòrd na Gaidhlig, we’re launching a new-look The Gardener – by Tom Ashman, Poem by Millie Earle-Wright and Karen Hodgson Pryce website. Constructed by the tech wizards of Plexus in deepest Cromarty (thank you, in 12 Sgrìobhadh ùr Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh, Deborah Moffatt agus Lisa Nicdhòmhnaill particular, Garve, Dave and Colin) this – as 13 Poems by Stuart A. Paterson, Maggie Wallis, Lydia Harris before – has the current issue online, but with a much-expanded back catalogue of back 14 Tam – Story by Sandy Thomson, Loaded for bear – Story by Hilton Shandwick issues as .pdfs. Poem by Sheila Lockhart For the contents of recent issues, you can 16 Standing stone – Story by Shane Strachan now search on author name to point you to all the Northwords Now work by that person 18 Poems by Chris Foxall, Peter Maclaren, Satyapada Campbell, Robin Leiper in the last few years. We’ll also expand online 19 Poems by Amanda Gilmour, David Goldie, Liz McKibben, Kirsteen Bell, Juliet Antill audio-visual content as resources allow. As we continue to add to this archive, we hope it 20 Death of a village – Story by Hannah Whaley, New country – by Anne Pia will become an increasingly useful resource 21 Poems by David James Ross, Ross Wilson, Julian Colton, Lauren Ivers for readers, writers, teachers and researchers interested in contemporary writing in all of 22 The NP – Story by David McVey Scotland’s languages. All this – and newsprint 23 Sgrìobhadh ùr Iain S. Mac A’ Phearsain agus Liam Alastair Crouse too. Enjoy. n 24 Poem by Richard Myers, Her Kind – Story by Anne Elizabeth Edwards Kenny Taylor, Editor 25 Valentine – Story by Jennifer Watson 26 Poems by Samuel Tongue, Anna Fleming, Janis Clark, Catriona McNeill Courtier 27 Ann Marie’s Party – Story by Martin Russell, The Sand Pit – Story by Catriona Yule Visit the Northwords Now Website: 28 Reviews – including by Helen Sedgwick, Valerie Beattie and Cynthia Rogerson on fiction, northwordsnow.co.uk for archive David Alston on memoir, Kenny Taylor on non-fiction, Lydia Harris, Jean Langhorne and resources and to submit work Helen Allison on new poetry collections 31 Contributors’ Biographies 32 Where to Find Northwords Now

www.facebook.com/groups/northwordsnow/ Erratum, Northwords Now 37 – page 6 Alison Seller’s name was mis-spelled as Sellar

Northwords Now is a twice yearly literary Advertising English, Scots and any local variants. To submit your work online, go to our magazine published by Northwords, a not- [email protected] Please submit no more than three short website: northwordsnow.co.uk for-profit company, registered in February www.northwordsnow.co.uk/advertise.asp stories or six poems, in MS Word format The next issue is planned for April 2005. Company number SC280553. (not .pdf). All work must be previously 2020. The deadline for submissions Subscriptions unpublished in print or on-line. Copyright is 31st January 2020. If accepted for Board members The magazine is FREE and can be picked up remains with the author. Payment is publication, you will hear about your Adrian Clark (Chair), Valerie Beattie, Lesley at locations across Scotland. See list on P31 made for all successful submissions. submission by 31st March 2020, so Harrison, Sherry Morris, Peter Whiteley The fee for individual ‘home- feel free to submit elsewhere if we delivery’ is £6 for 2 issues, cheques Postal submissions of potential have not contacted you by then. Editor payable to ‘Northwords’. review books should be sent to: Kenny Taylor, The Board and Editor [email protected] Front cover image: Detail from Blaven The Editor, Northwords Now of Northwords Now and Loch Slapin by Jenny McLaren, Easter Brae acknowledge support Gaelic Editor painted in acrylic ink and watercolour on Culbokie from Creative Scotland Rody Gorman, an old Geological Survey map. Currently Dingwall and Bòrd na Gàidhlig. [email protected] on display at the Castle Gallery, Inverness, Ross-shire ISSN 1750-7928 which will host an exhibition of new work IV7 8JU Advisory Group by Jenny in May 2020. www.castlegallery. Jon Miller, Peter Urpeth, Pam Beasant co.uk www.jennymclarenstudio.com

Designer Submissions to the magazine, through our Gustaf Eriksson on-line system on the Northwords Now www.gustaferiksson.com website, are welcome. They can be in Gaelic,

2 Northwords Now Issue 38, Autumn-Winter 2019 Nothing else is ever anything unless lit by it

Jackie Kay and Kate Swan on the work of Margaret Tait

uring the past year, events, there with her. If you needed a pee you allow you to understand things in sharp screenings and a new website had to use a bucket on the lawn outside. relief. Dhave helped to celebrate the I find that extraordinary, because it’s work of pioneering film poet, Margaret JK: Hard core! very intimate and it’s also got a kind Tait. Born on Armistice Day in 1918 and of distance; it does both at once. Her active as a film-maker and writer from KS: She handled all the correspondence mother is her mother, and it’s personal. the 1950s until the late 1990s, when that went back and forth with funders, But she could be any number of mothers she died in Kirkwall, her work is still such as the British Film Institute and or grandmothers that we all know and fresh, surprising and worthy of repeated Channel 4, very well. But she was identify with. viewing and reading. determined to get her way, her view. I She’s got that ability, that poets have as Around the start of the year-long think one of the amazing things about well, to make something particular and celebrations, the Scots Makar, Jackie Kay, ‘Blue Black Permanent’, now available to universal at the same time. I think it’s a introduced some of Margaret’s short films watch on the BFI player and on MUBI, really interesting use of film too. It feels at a session chaired by Nicola White at is that Margaret kept hold of the film so fresh, like something you haven’t really the Cromarty Film Festival. What follows she wanted to make. All the shorts were seen, these particular angles and ways of Margaret Tait, photo by Gunnie Moberg is drawn from what she said in her © Estate of Gunnie Moberg made just by her – she filmed and cut looking. ‘Portrait of Ga’ is an unusual introduction and in answers to questions them herself. On a feature film, she had portrait of an old woman. Almost like from Nicola and the audience. Further because Margaret Tait was doing things to work with a huge crew and others, a ‘day in the life of’, she goes through observations are from Kate Swan (also that nobody else was doing then, such such as financiers and costume people. things in her life – her wee rollie, to her in the audience), who worked for several as taking time to show a sweetie being But she kept hold of it, because she made boiled sweet, to the different clothes that months with Margaret on Orkney, as unwrapped. I love the slow-motion-ness what she needed to make. She was a pure she wears, to running along. And she executive producer and co-producer of that. artist that way. gives us these moments in time, for all of her only feature film ‘Blue Black She understood that time is a poem, in time, really. Permanent’ (1992). a sense. Time is a poem and the land is a JK: And ‘pure artist’ is what you think It’s the same with her Hugh poem and the land makes a poem happen. when you’re seeing these films, because MacDiarmid film. We have that portrait ✯ And she understands the relationship there’s something pure and clear and now of him, showing an utterly different Jackie Kay: I first came across the between stories and heather and sea and clarifying about them – as fresh as the side than the one we usually get in wonderful work of Margaret Tait through people and land. In the world of Margaret bubbling water that they show. I really Scottish literature, which is quite macho. my friend, Ali Smith, whose sister – Anne Tait, all of these things are quite utterly, admire people that have a vision and It gives an almost feminine side to him. Macleod – is here with us. I hadn’t heard beautifully connected - to such an extent know what they want to do. She didn’t In Margaret Tait, you get someone of her before, hadn’t seen her work. And that you’re riveted by it. make money from her short films – she who’s a poet and a film-maker, and the I was amazed that this woman, who was Strangely enough, her film work lost money. And when she was offered two things are completely intertwined. born the day the First World War ended, reminds me of the film work of Zora the chance to work with Grierson [the If I write a poem and it’s made into a was a person who almost declares peace Neale Hurston, an African-American most influential documentary film maker film, I’m not actually making the film, in her work. writer who wrote ‘Their Eyes Were and producer in Scotland and Canada although I find the whole medium of Her work is so innovative and Watching God’ and a number of other through several decades from 1929, Ed.] film very exciting to work with asa inspirational, because it always does more extraordinary works. But she also but only if she did so in the way he poet, because of the many ways in which than one thing at once. It looks straight made films, which most people don’t wanted – she refused, as if saying: ‘This is there’s an affinity between the language at her subjects; doesn’t shy away from know about. I saw them at the Library my vision. This is what I want to do.’ and the camera. anything and gives the most surprising of Congress. She also takes people – In the closing lines of her poem ‘Light’ close-ups of people, such as in her ordinary people – and the moments we KS: I think that she understood that not she says: astonishing film on Hugh MacDiarmid. don’t usually get to see in films. When everyone ‘got’ what she was trying to There was MacDiarmid – a famously she shows African-American kids playing do. But for ‘Blue Black Permanent’ she The movement that light is quite vain man (especially about his hair). games, she records those games, but she’s needed all these people to help her to Comes out of the sun She gives us a portrait which gives a sense also part of what she’s filming. Zora make it. It was like being a solo player and And it’s so gorgeous a thing of him as a boy, as well as a man. It gives Neale Hurston’s films and Margaret Tait’s suddenly having an orchestra to conduct, That nothing else is ever anything unless lit by it. you a real sense that writers keep their – I’d love somebody to come along and and she was superb. childishness: if you notice, an awful lot of do a study of the two of them. You also It’s like her films. I love the closeness of writers are quite childish! Because you’re get a sense when you’re watching one of ✯ her poetry to her films. I think if you sat always in touch with your imaginative Margaret’s films that she’s in it, but also JK: A film is a poem and a poem is a film down and read her poems without ever self, with your girl self or your boy self, distant from it; part of it and also not. That in the world of Margaret Tait. These films knowing her films, you’d have a much the thing that made you make things up vantage point was very unusual then. work very much like poems do, because less rich experience. They’re almost in when you were young. And that portrait, of the way you are looking at things in conversation with each other, her poetry of Hugh walking along the edge of ✯ complete detail. Poems have a love of and the film. things, captures that. It also captures how Kate Swan: I met her in about 1989, so language and metaphor. In the films, the he was on the edge of things politically, worked with her closely for about three language is the film itself, but the vantage and on the edge of what ‘Scottishness’ years until ‘Blue Black Permanent’ was point is that everything is seen with the KT was: ‘I’ll hae nae hauf-way hoose, but aye released. Then we stayed in touch until poet’s eye. So the poem is the land and be whaur/Extremes meet..’. I think it’s she died. the land is the poem for her. Everything For a trove of Margaret Tait archive fascinating that you get that in her short She was quiet, focussed and absolutely is connected. material, the Margaret Tait 100 website film portrait. clear about what she wanted. She worked In the film portrait of her mother, she www.margarettait100.com compiled Then her films give you an idea of how in a wonderful little church on Orkney – looks at all the materials that her mother and curated by Sarah Neely, is superb. a person can be brought to life in a way about ten miles from where she lived – a is wearing, all those clothes, close-up. You can also watch several of Margaret’s that is very different from how we see de-commissioned church where she kept You get a sense of the clothes and their films on the National Library of Scotland documentaries today. She was ahead of everything, all her boxes of film, a little textures being like the land itself. Just after site https://movingimage.nls.uk/film, her time. Her film of her mother Portrait office on the side where she’d write – that, she jumps to the land and juxtaposes the British Film Institute site and on of Ga (1952) is tender and touching, freezing cold! I spent days and weeks up things – in the way that poets do, often to MUBI.n

Northwords Now Issue 38, Autumn-Winter 2019 3 Poetry

Freud’s Couch in February 4 Marion McCready Freud’s couch is his mother: a vessel of blood and water. 1 Freud’s couch is an invitation, a private letter,

A couch is for resting on or sleeping. it is his mother - the caul, the birth membrane. Whoever lay here did not sleep Freud’s couch is also a sort of smile but ran with the peacocks and the deer in a red land. The red land is a Persian rug drawing you into its many folds. which is also a river of blood. Freud’s couch is the Venus of Hohle Fels - There is no crossing the river but a mercy drowning an ivory woman of fertility. without wails or waving of arms. Even here, in the middle of February

So many arms have rested on this couch; when the snow falls like the sound of lullabies, one arm reaches out to me now Freud’s couch is as warm as a horse’s heart muscle like the underside of a tree - bare, dark, every little branch highlighted or a red woman’s body breaking by a spray of snow. It is the network under the weight of so many. of arteries and capillaries in a frog’s webbed foot.

The branches are inside of me also - I grow smaller under them, under this tree, They spoke no English this arm, this bed. Stephen Keeler For Lennart and Inger Öhnell, Furudals Bruk, Sweden 2 They came each summer Madame Benvenisti - like some slow-migrating creature from the north forever known for buying Freud a couch. sure of the way but no longer in a hurry If she was going to have her head examined it damn well was going to be comfortable! the couple whose names I can’t recall or never knew in all the years On display like a crucifix their ancient Volvo pick-up transfiguring visitors into ecstasies. settling in the shade of wistful birches Madame Benvenisti - docile as the last milk-cow. your couch is the keeper of all secrets. He always drove Its horsehair stuffing in flannel shirt despite the heat gallops under every analysand. in dungarees and wooden shoes The couch looks harmless enough - a long-peaked cap pulled down against resewn, preserved, mummified. the unaccustomed glare of southern light on uncut grass. Did Freud lie on the couch? Did he dream of it? They came to mow the lower field Does the couch dream of all the bodies the way a priest comes to a country wedding caught in the womb of the horse within? and shave the lawns around the flag-pole at the manor house and whitewash 3 every stone that lined the carriage-drive.

So much red on Freud’s couch - The woman lame from childhood smiled a red rug draped over it, the frayed red velvet cushions. more than the man and looking up I want to carry Freud’s couch around in my pocket I’d sometimes catch her straightening her back a wrist against a freckled forehead as swallows flew like a hot red stone, or wear it on leather cordage their brazen cuts into electric skies. around my neck. Still a young father then I’d set my books aside Freud’s couch is a galaxy, and look at you and thank the thing I always thank many swirling planets are enclosed within it - that we could spend our summers here too so many minds breaking apart, orbiting each other. shoulder-deep in snapdragons and vetch

Shooting stars leap out of the rug, comets hang in the air to watch swallows and the couple from the north with constellations - the animals of the mind. whose dialect I never fathomed and who came here every year just to cut the grass. My mind inhabits the bear, the crab and the scorpion. Freud’s couch has lain empty for so long, the cushions are begging for a head to rest on them.

4 Northwords Now Issue 38, Autumn-Winter 2019 Sgrìobhadh ùr Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh, Deborah Moffatt agus Lisa Nicdhòmhnaill

Siosar agus Snaidhm Yeah, Right A charade choir, Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh Lisa Nicdhòmhnaill

Snaidhm bheag nam fhalt Thog mi mo làmh. An dòchas GU busily sibh gu dòigheil. a’ sìor-obair orm gu h-àrd. Thuit a’ Bheurla na tàmh. Chuala my mar a thachair - Air a’ cheann thall a’ lorg ‘S mi tha moiteil asaibh! siosair gus a gheàrradh às. Mar a thrift iAd air an teilidh, Is sibs an dune as misneachail Fìor-iongnadh às ùr orm cho liath Cleas na Neasa A china mi riamh. ’s a tha a’ chiabhag shuarach nam bhois. Deborah Moffatt Tra là is tì iodiche gun bhiadh gun bhùrn, ‘S na madaidhean-allaidh às ur dèidh! Seachdad bliadhna dh’aois a-nis, Seall mar a tha an neas An air sin an sneachd: reothadh is fuachd gun sugar. ’s e a’ cur orm gu mòr mo leisgeul a’ sealg nan coineanach le caraireachd, Gun fit ‘s seacaid bhlàth a’ dannsadh na caothach Mur guailnean - iarraidh air a h-uile h-anam duine mu thimcheall a creiche, Abair gaisgeach! ris an do choinnich mi rim bheò. ga chur fo gheasaibh Chòrdadh e room nan inside sibh dhomh barracuda, ri a mire ghòrach. Ach tha fhios nach eil siosar ann a ruigeas Le mens is spays, air a leithid de shnaidhmean cinn. Bidh thusa ris an aon phlòigh, a’ spaidsearachd tron bhaile, Death dhùrachdan teine nad shùil, dèine nad ghuth, Budachas Zen Inbhir Nis gar fàgail nar breislich Miss E. J. NicAoidh Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh le do gheallaidhean breugach.

Droch-shìde ann an Inbhir Nis an-diugh. Cleas na neasa Luchd-turais Sìonach air an slighe sìos Sràid a bhith ag atharrachadh a dath Air Acair a’ Chaisteil is soillseachadh a dhìth orra. a rèir na h-aimsire, Deborah Moffatt agus thu mar an ceudna An cuid fhaileasan a’ suathadh gun fhiosta feasgar ciùin foghair ri ceann mòr ud a’ Bhuda ri fiamh-ghàire ’s tu air do shlighe dhan bhaile, am broinn uinneag fliuch a’ ghruagaire thall. uisge rèidh a’ bhàigh na theine Na Rionnaich fo ghathan fada na grèine, Lisa Nicdhòmhnaill bàtaichean nan iasgairean Sgiathan is Sgòthan Ri taobh Loch Fìne ghrianach ghaothach air acair faisg air a’ chladach, Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh Am balachan bàn, ’s thall aig beul a’ bhàigh Sia bliadhna a dh’aois. bàta beag coimheach, Sgiathan air mo dhruim as t-oidhche. Cho glic ri bradan, Sgòthan stireach mu chuairt mo chuim. Cho àrd ri ògan sa choille, bàta bochd meirgeach, Ged is mòr fhathast iongnadh: bàta gun bhratach, gun ainm, Tlàth-ghaoth fhionnar a’ cniadachadh A’ leum ‘s a’ bualadh an adhair - gun ach aon fhaoileag na laighe oirre m’ aodainn ’s mo dheàrnan sgaoilte. Tha a dhà againn; tha seanair air a dhà a ghlacadh! a’ cumail faire san oidhche, Na lasairean airgid Gach gaoisnean a’ chait ri lèirsinn A’ riochdachadh aoibhneas a chridhe. mànran ’s cànran fada fodham sa ghàrradh chiùin anns an taigh-òsta, beachdan ’s fathannan ’s i na gurraig a’ feitheamh cho stòlta mun a’ bhàta ’s a sgioba – ri luch shona shunndach bhochd Fiùran is Dùsgadh Lisa Nicdhòmhnaill coigrich a bhios annta, no ri famh gheàrr-shùileach chaillte sgapte a-nis air feadh a’ bhaile, a nochdas air thuaiream a sròin. Bithear ag ràdh gu bheil luchd-imrich, no fògarraich, Ògan nas treasa ‘s e air fàs mèirlich, no cùiltearan, An cruadalas gaoithe. ’s sin thu, a’ coimhead air an sgàthan, Tait-tì agus Cat Gu cinnteach, chuireadh sin às a’ coimhead air d’ aodann fhèin Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh Gach fear nach eil deimhinn. mar nach eil fios agad cò thu no cò às a thàinig thu, DVD Tai-Tì air an TV. A bharrachd air sin, ge-tà, An cat a-muigh ’s i tilgeil Thèid a char-thionndadh mar chuairt-shlugan iargaltas na tìre air do chùlaibh, eòin mhairbh dhan adhar. ‘S bidh a laigse na neart dha: aodann na h-aibheis air do bheulaibh, sàl nad fhuil, ùir nad chnàmhan, Snàthainnean snìomhte fiaraicht’ an làr a’ tulgadh fo do chasan. A chuirp air lùbadh gu làr Far am briseadh na craobhan dìreach.

Northwords Now Issue 38, Autumn-Winter 2019 5 The A82 – disability, ability and cycling

By Ian Tallach

ehind us there’s a revving-up, a Did I say I love those people?! They’ve rising-falling, growling sound. I given me a lease of life. Even before I rode Brecognise the man’s exasperation. the e-trike, I already felt much happier to It’s familiar to me now; these days I know be around so many ‘can-do’, pro-active, the smell of it, the sickly breath of it. I am energetic folk. (And unpretentious with inured. Neck-hairs don’t bristle anymore. it.) They were, for me, an antidote to How did it come to this? When did it drudgery – the fatigue and down-drag happen? Frustration must have come in that so often make the task of getting the back door - when I was sleeping, PUT IMAGE HERE through each day seem insurmountable. maybe. And the rhythm of it is the same – I have quite severe physical limitations, air passing through my lungs -in-out-in- but this was not a case of me having to out - the driver’s foot on the accelerator change – it was a matter of finding an – down-up-down-up, the snarl of city adapted cycle, tailored to my needs. What traffic. Ha! You have to laugh. I’d long-since consigned to childhood As kids, we’d do some stupid things. memories, became reality again! With a Counter-productive, self-defeating, slight push, I was off. I turned the little wasteful things. Lunchtime at school, turbo-booster up and found that it kicked the older boys would make up football in to compensate for the dead-weight of teams. I used to be the last one picked. my right leg. I went around the miniature The goalmouth often had scuff-marks Photo: Paul Campbell, Inverness Courier. loch at the back of UHI campus twice. from my shoes the day before. Jamie was Others passed me on hand-powered the first one picked. Always. And when 4. The ridiculous man in question has grateful. But after a while, hyperbole just cycles, some on rickshaws. Those who he passed the last defender, he would M.S. sounds too much like sycophancy, so I could rode bicycles. The sky was smiling look up at the net behind me, like I 5. There’s actually no need to rush; the stop. (The words are true, though – every down, ducks in the water, children wasn’t there at all. He’d practically scored delivery’s been cancelled. one of them.) giggling. And I was thinking to myself - already. At times like that, the urge was ‘this really is something beautiful.’ just to fall. Better if you hurt your knee. ✯ ✯ Mick gave me a lift to the bus-stop, And better still if you had blood to show I love these guys! They’ve opened up Afterwards, Mick sent us the video on ‘the Beast.’ He cycled up-front and for it. Never mind being sidelined for the a whole new range of possibilities for me. record of our adventure. In it, several I faced backwards, watching the picture rest of the game. Never mind if your team Fiona Johnson (Cycling Development hazards are clearly shown. There evidently recede - a scene already redolent of new lost because they had less players. Never officer for ‘WheelNess’, a Cycling UK can’t be any real intention for this section beginnings. I promised I’d be back. Mick, mind the pointlessness of it. You’d taught - funded initiative) is up front on her of the A82 to be used by any cyclist, as mentioned earlier, is co-founder of them all a lesson. You’d communicated gravel bike. She sets a steady pace; she’s never mind a newbie with a disability. ‘Cycling Without Age, Inverness’. He something – all the world’s injustices at very understanding. And right behind Although our jaunt was at mid-day on tells me that the charity was started by once, impotent rage. The wretched of the me is Mick Heath MBE (Co-founder Monday – one of the least busy times one Ole Kassow, from Denmark, with earth had spoken. Ha! You have to laugh. of Cycling Without Age, Inverness, – I was aware of jeopardy, throughout. the motto - ‘everyone has the right to Impotent rage - I know that one as and secretary of the Highland Cycle I wouldn’t have dared to ride a yard wind in their hair.’ well. I wonder if that’s what the driver Campaign). He’s riding ‘the Beast’, a without the other two. Mick eloquently ‘Yes! You’re speaking my language!’ feels. I imagine him looking at us from sort of glorified rickshaw, four feet wide, shows the dangers on his video, so I won’t I turned my neck and shouted. ‘That’s the lofty cabin of his 18-wheeler, blowing with two seats at the back. I’m very safe list them here. My all-consuming anxiety what this IS – wind in my hair, for the out his cheeks, shaking his head. I feel a indeed, so long as he stays in the saddle. was around not knowing when to use the first time in years!’ kinship with him. I want to say to him We’re riding along the A82, from B & road and when it was acceptable to use ‘I’m just like you. I feel your frustration - Q carpark, almost as far as Longman the pavement. It seemed very counter- ✯ every day. Let’s talk about it over coffee.’ Roundabout, then doubling back, via the intuitive to me, how the pavement/cycle I cannot overstate the importance of And I imagine, too, what’s going through Harbour Road Roundabout, to Friar’s track would stop exactly where most what people like Mick and Fiona do, his head right now. ‘That idiot in front! Bridge. From there we make our way, a needed, from a cyclist’s point of view. along with like-minded individuals from He thinks he owns the road. He’s with bit more leisurely this time, along Shore Riding the section from the mouth of the Velocity Café and Blazing saddles. For two others, yeah, but they can ride: he Street, stopping at café V8 on Henderson Seafield Road to the BP garage felt like me, they overcome inertia - physical and can’t. No effort to speed up or go along Road. We sit and talk over coffee and running the gauntlet. It must be said that mental. The turbo on the trike helps with the curb. Swaying side-to-side, just like what’s just happened. (Mick, who’s MBE drivers were considerate, for the most that too! a parrot in a cage. Ridiculous! And that was awarded in 1980 for bomb-disposal, part, particularly on the roundabout. It I still have down-days, but they’re not contraption – is it even legal?!’ is a bundle of charisma. His metabolic only takes one, though. as down. ‘I’m here to steal your energy!’ Of course, there’s more than one take rate demands a fry-up, in addition.) I say to them. They laugh, because they on this situation. What if the lorry driver ‘Did you manage to sort the problem ✯ think it’s just a joke. And I laugh too were to be informed of several facts? with your leg?’ Fiona’s asking me. I met those two on May 14th. because it’s hard not to join in. We laugh 1 - That idiot in front is quite delirious ‘Yeah. My foot kept falling off the Someone at the ‘Oxygen Works’, where together; it feels good. I wasn’t joking, with happiness right now. He’s on the pedal. But I upped the gears and it stayed I go for hyperbarric-oxygen treatment, though. road for the first time in many years. on,’ I tell her. had told me about ‘WheelNess’, a project 2 - That-there eejit has only just ‘I took some decent video footage,’ led by Cycling UK ‘to improve health discovered something life-changing - Mick is saying. and wellbeing by getting people cycling cycling is possible for someone with ‘Oh, great! Thank you both so much in Inverness.’ It has a particular focus on Editor’s note: This piece was first no power whatsoever in one leg. He’s for this, by the way.’ I’m sounding like a people unable to access cycling, under released on the Highland Cycle grinning ear-to-ear. stuck record. normal circumstances, whether due to Campaign website, and sent to Scottish 3 - Said contraption is a Jorvik 250 Odin Truth is, I can’t stop thanking them. financial constraints or disability. There is Government ministers and Highland electric trike, designed to give disabled They’ve become important to me – much an emphasis on benefits to mental health. councillors. Written by one of our people access to the wonderful world of more than their modesty allows them to And they were holding an open-day (the regular contributors, it deserves a wider getting-about. believe. I try to articulate why I’m so first of several) on UHI campus. readership. n

6 Northwords Now Issue 38, Autumn-Winter 2019 Poetry

The giant fatberg’s steps for success but the scene can only play towards and walk between the hotel and cottages, Mark Ryan Smith its coda of boys ordered home, the schoolhouse and the heritage centre – trailing the ends of wooden swords jazz is drifting from the chapel: 1 I will put on weight on warmed pavements; and the chair, a young lad at a piano belting tunes whenever I can. I will be thankful too small, now, for our own children, to empty pews, oblivious for every draining dishwasher, repaired and painted (by who?) for every emptied toilet bowl. the memorised colour of blue. to the faces at the window out of sight – head bowed, hands jigging, chords and riffs floating 2 I will tell the world my story, through walls of granite, gneiss (from the gutter and not much further), and leaded panes when I release my autobiography His statue by the shore to lose themselves forever in the night. In the Pipeline: Life Below the Bend. Peter Godfrey

3 I will work tirelessly to swell ‘Do you know where I’d find firelighters?’ my undersized Instagram following: I showed him, earned his peering gratitude. Potholes #rancidfatisthenewblack. Sharon Black I made out, flustered, not to recognise him – 4 I will throw my weight behind George, the boyish, square-jawed man There are twenty-three potholes on Iona – a campaign to raise awareness between the village and the north beach of fat-shaming in the media, with wild grey hair and hollow cheeks. and the farm before the bay then ride the waves of extra exposure. We went the way of our respective baskets. where Columba came aground and built the island’s abbey. 5 I will orchestrate the underground Later he was walking down the hill A tractor rumbles through a gate publicity strategy carrying two plastic bags back into town. from a field of ewes and week-old lambs for my Netflix six-parter and a baler lodged in mud, Attack of the Fifty Foot Fatberg. I longed to join him, knew paths don’t cross twice turns right into the lane by chance – but held back, shy to break his step while a woman in a headscarf lowers the latch. 6 I will show fans my sensitive side, Twenty-three ways to get stuck. by laying to rest, and viewed him – some rare bird, Twenty-three to try your luck. with dignity and respect, the real Mackay – across the road. every goldfish that washes my way. I’d seen him on the sea-front years before, imagined him as always there, The White Cow Callanish, Lewis The Blue Chair as much of Stromness as the ferry sliding into port Sharon Black Mark Ryan Smith or flagstones winding under Brinkie’s Brae. She emerged from the sea, udder fat The slow perfect arc it moves through A man who’d anchored on his island, as a skinned sheep, the islanders thin as chaff – tracing a line on the wavering air, savoured every haar and voe, said, Bring your pails to the old stone cross, its four upended legs reaching, drawn words like baked scones from the oven, barely a skeleton itself, the boy stops the swing of the chair Brown, in the kitchen of his council house – and holds it upright, finding the balance where she stood, a white henge between its rising and its falling that frail man with the modest face at the centre of the ring, let them towards the path, where it will split I’d never thought was stone. apart and justify the ugly, angry shout draw their fill. Moon flowed through her. his mouth has twisted into. It felt Each night a bucketful for every man, wrong, even then, but we knew better than to open our own. Night Walk, Baile Mòr her hooves strong in mud, legs not ceding Sharon Black to the milkweight. The held scene opens itself, fixes together its constructing bits Tonight, the burning line of gorse A crofter with two pails arrived – No. Next night, to sharpen the bleared lines on the southern tip of Mull is an ancient blade coaxed her dry. of places we moved through. carving up the darkness. Along the coastline, We step into made space, the electric lamps of Fionnophort On her hind hooves, she rose to her full height, and you point out blaze quietly in their small neat squares. become a rudder – that the chair isn’t blue. The Sound rolls up the concrete jetty, our feet seven tons of Lewisian gneiss – We think about lifting it clear just inches from its silver of a ship invisible by day, like the one and replacing it, parentally, and I think about those five young men back in its place one mid-December, boat capsizing that dazzled the island’s young men inside the front door, as they travelled home from celebration: with talk of the New World, all but one, drowned. We turn eventually sailed them away.

Northwords Now Issue 38, Autumn-Winter 2019 7 e pull over into the cutting knife held open. Adrenaline thunders above the river. Sandy leans Last Light between my ears. ‘Watch yourself, keep Wacross me to open the glove away from the net, you don’t want to get box, I flinch. If he notices he doesn’t caught up in it.’ I see the fish now, black say. He takes out two pairs of polarised Story by Leonie Charlton under the water, barely moving. sunglasses and passes me one. ‘So you can ‘They okay?’ I ask. see into the water,’ he says, putting on the ‘Yes…fine, they just roll over when other pair, pushing the lenses up over his ✯ they hit the net, but we need to be forehead, pressing them down into the quick…’ He takes hold of one, cuts clamour of fair curls. Netting salmon I hoik the straps over my shoulders. The can, Alona.’ The fingers in my right hand where the monofilament presses tight, is the last thing I thought I’d be doing sun is dropping fast, spreading gold over are already slow and dumb with cold. The grips the fish above the tail and lifts, just a today. We’re here to finish off what Sandy the pool that is smooth and curved as a weight of the net aches across the river single thread holding fast behind its gills had started with Innes a couple of weeks scapula bone. The air cuts cold. I put my between Sandy and I, like the longing now, another cut, and then I see the thick back, before his closest friend had left hat on as we walk down to the river over which won’t leave me. Then I catch it, pale welt blooming over its back. Nylon Argyll for Africa. Half a dozen hens and a mulch of crisp birch leaves, our steps coming off the pulse of the river, Innes’ is unforgiving. Breath snags in my dry two cock fish are already in the tanks up the only sound in this silent afternoon. smell - peat and Drum tobacco and pine. throat. The fish’s hooked lower jaw opens at The Lodge. Now we just need to get Sandy teases the gill net out of the That sudden scent knocks me off kilter and closes, its body blazes tartan. Sandy two more males for the 1:1 ratio. bag. ‘What a bourach,’ he says, cupping and I’m going down, put my hand out drops it into the landing net in the river In fourteen years of marriage I’ve never spillages of monofilament in his hands, to steady myself. My palm skites across a behind him. Goes for the next fish. ‘Ya taken anything to do with the salmon ‘it’ll sort itself out in the water.’ He passes slippery bolder, fingernails wedge against beauty, another male, we’re in the flow, hatchery, it was always a Sandy and Innes’ me the blue BT rope that’s attached to another. When I straighten up my left some luck!’ He slides it in alongside the thing. The last few years it’s fallen by the first one, water seizures between the two wayside - stricter government regulations, fish. lack of spare cash, time. Then the pair of ‘Get the net out of the way Alona and them had got into it again this year. ‘Fuck No leaves now. The scarcity I’ll let this one go…no need to be greedy.’ it, Alona’, Sandy had said to me, ‘we’ll just Sandy is lifting up the third fish, one hand catch a few fish, keep it under the radar, around the wrist above her tail, the other no need to tell the Fisheries Board.’ He’d of winter. Scarcity, that’s what cupping her moon-white underside. He told me that he’d counted seven salmon lowers her to the water, she arcs between in the Three Pines Pool, they were just his hands. He waits while I drag the starting to pair up, ‘if we’re quick we’ll this is all about. rest of the net up onto the bank. When get it together,’ he’d added. And they had I look back, Sandy has the fish pointed got it together, bar the two cock fish, upstream. A charge surges between them, which is why I’m here, standing in for fusing fish and man. Sandy looks poised Innes. The thought of him clamps my and strong. Then she’s gone, whipping to gut. I turn quickly to the slow-moving one end, ‘just start to make your way arm is wet to the shoulder. Blood spills the top of the pool where a lick of breeze river. First time in a fortnight that the across the pool with it, take your time.’ My magenta from cuticles. spins the pink last light into the river. levels are low enough for netting fish, heart is beating bird-fast. I haven’t done ‘You okay Alona?’ She took something vital away with her; Sandy’s been waiting for this. He asked this before, I know what we’re doing is ‘Yeah.’ when Sandy straightens, his body is stiff, me to help today, his smile face-wide like illegal, but I trust Sandy. As long as we’re ‘You sure?’ his face already drained to the familiar old times, before back pain had put all careful, netting the fish like this is a lot ‘Yep.’ dull of pain. I push my sunglasses up, that weather on him. How could I say no, less traumatic than being caught on rod ‘You can start to bring her in now, looking for the lost colour. all hooked up on guilt like I was. and line. I step down into the river, icy like a purse, nice and steady, take in the We’ve come to The Lady’s Pool because water grips the backs of my calves, drags bottom of the pool…I’m not sure the it’s the closest to the holding tanks, we’ll the fabric of the waders downstream. I’m fish are here today.’ Back at the pickup the fish have get away with moving the fish without surprised by this shove of current against I’m helium-light as I step into dissolved into the watery darkness of the oxygen. Sandy turns off the engine. I the backs of my knees. shallower water. ‘There’s a fish!’ Just as he container. I imagine them hunkering open the pickup door, water slaps hard My steps falter as I feel my way over says it the rope jolts in my hand. ‘Two… down side by side, a single hidden force. against the sides of the container in the algae-licked stones. ‘Keep the net at a three!’ I bring the net round carefully Trapped. Waiting. Wondering. Sadness back. It’s the brightest kind of November forty-degree angle, stay ahead of it if you towards Sandy who’s already in the river, folds me even though I know they’ll be day, in a cloudless sky twin contrails are safely back in the river in a few weeks’ thinning towards another continent. I put time. By then their milt will have been my sunglasses on, enjoy the sudden shy stripped and used to fertilise the females’ of light, the way the hennaed hills drop eggs. Nothing natural about this. Tears two shades, the tracery of birch branches trail hot stings down my face. Sandy darkening to dead blood. No leaves now. pushes shut the tailgate, passes me up The scarcity of winter. Scarcity, that’s the landing net, ‘just hold it over in case what this is all about. Why we’re here, The Ceilidh Place Bookshop they flip out when we move.’ Then he to do the salmon a wee turn. Unlike the says my name so quietly I have to look seasons they’re not coming back, officially Ullapool at him to check if he really said it. He’s an endangered species now. Innes reckons The small bookshop with a big range of quality looking directly up at me, his eyes lucent they’re fucked, but you have to try. with the very last of the day. ‘Alona,’ he Sandy hands me a pair of waders,‘you books says my name again, ‘don’t worry, Innes okay to take the net across the river, think From art to travel, biography to philosophy, will be back soon enough. He’s like these I’d struggle over the stones.’ Vulnerability contemporary fiction to nature writing, children’s books fish, he’s got a helluva nose for home.’ to poetry, politics to natural history, hill walking to in his voice shuts the air from my chest. I Then he turns and walks to the front of history, Gaelic books to sheet music and lots in nod and bend down to unlace my boots. between. the pickup. Beyond the hammer-tangle Push my feet into the waders, am wafted of my heartbeat I hear a dry sound, the with the smell of fust and time-worn Browse the eclectic collection with a Scottish literary familiar impact of antler on antler, two PVC. Tuck my shirt into my jeans, tighten bias stags jostling somewhere out there in the the belt. Nothing to eat today, barely darkening. My mouth fills with water. I anything yesterday. I’ve hardly eaten since @ceilidhbooks ceilidh place bookshop put one hand on the frame of the net and I left Innes at the airport, I don’t feel 14 West Argyle Street, Ullapool spread my feet wide, readying to take the hungry at all. Is this how the spawning www.ceilidhplace.com strain. I tap twice on the cab roof, our salmon feel when their gullets close over? code for ‘go’. n

8 Northwords Now Issue 38, Autumn-Winter 2019 Poetry

Achanalt 4 Donald S. Murray ‘You from Valtos too?’ the Lewisman smiled The man who made the request stop the last day of the year for Achanalt never left the train; as they travelled home from war. though we looked to see his foot or suitcase drop ‘It’ll be great to be home. Spend a while upon the platform, no one ever came blethering with the folks I know back there.’ He’d nodded, looking forward to the croft, from either carriage, not to claim and lifting high his peat-blade and hay-fork possession of the kirkhouse, rusted shed, instead of the Lee Enfield he’s been forced to bear loch stretching out beside the rail. while cramped in that dark uniform. And he’d reached his home Instead, there was an absence, ‘Reserved’ the morning after, sailing out with other Skyemen war had long exiled on the ‘Jenny Campbell’ out from Kyle. flapping above seat, the fact that some had seen But not that man from another Valtos, his body left by sea-foam him stepping on the train at Kyle or Plockton, on the Lewis shoreline. He thought of the long hours he’d sat or reading ‘Mail’ or ‘Scotsman’ at Duncraig or Achnasheen. on that train from Kyle or Mallaig, how he spoke of his young wife But after that, he’d vanished. It was as if he’d gone waiting back in Uig, how he had never reached her, how she would spend her life to gain absolution for his role without him, always dressed in unrelenting black in how empty that this landscape was, a child of those who left or cleared its barren acres, sailing either east or west, 5 but now travelling back on this line to gain comfort for his soul. One night, when that train stopped at Achanalt, the full moon settled in the window of a carriage 2 and illuminated glass, giving lustre to the frenzied love of a couple in their early years of courtship or marriage Winter’s chill. A snowdrift blocks the line half-undressed in their seats. leaving lives stalled on the rail to Achnasheen. It caught a ghillie’s eye A Merchant Navyman travelling to Kyle as he stepped out in the half-light, stalking deer, to meet the child he’s never seen not thinking for a moment he’d come by or wanted. A Lewisman in exile a scene like this, but it woke a longing in him. returning to the wife who’s lain for years in bed. Not for Loch a’ Chroisg or grouse or endless moor, There’s a Portree housewife whose laughs and smiles but for both the lust and urgency he glimpsed belie the way her head’s a storm of whispers. (The doctor said before gaze dipped and lowered. He stored she isn’t long for this world.) away that moment till the hour he asked They’re together in this carriage where hard frost the train to stop there once again – to take him far away from this, swirls patterns on the windows, snowflakes whirl the loneliness he felt here, outside the doors. And shivering down the aisle, a draught, that aching desolation when he longed for tenderness. as those on board encounter all they have loved or lost, the sceptres of their past, their half-forgotten ghosts.

Windfalls 3 John Robertson Nicoll

Heart thumping like the piston of that engine We scoured the ground the time he got off at Garve to purchase that half-bottle for the fallen treasure, before running hard to catch it once again eager to gather in our prizes as wheels hissed and bubbled, guard puffing whistle before the season of bare trees to send it up the rail to Kyle. ‘Almost bloody missed it there,’ and unyielding ground. he laughed, thinking of his parents’ home in Ness They lay before us and what they’d see as a sad betrayal Imperfect in their beauty of pious hopes and dreams if he ever once confessed and bruised of this time when he slipped right off the rails but still with sweetness for a splash and swirl of whisky. locked inside. But hell, how his throat needed it to cleanse a belly full of dust and concrete, fire washing his mouth free A day later of the taste of last year on the Hydro, bringing light to these dark hills. we sat down to the pie you had laboured over as conscientiously as in the days when my enjoyment mattered so much more to you. It’s warmth and sweetness hung in the air between us like a reprimand.

Northwords Now Issue 38, Autumn-Winter 2019 9 From bedroom boxes to the International Booker

Robert Davidson and the rise of Sandstone Press By Kenny Taylor

When Celestial Bodies won the world’s most prestigious prize first title to attract the attention of Man for a single book translated into English and published in the Booker judges was Jane Roger’s The UK or Ireland this year, it was cause for wide celebration, not Testament of Jessie Lamb. Long-listed in least because it was the first work by a writer in Arabic to do 2011, it gave Sandstone a taste of the kind so. In the Highlands and for Northwords Now, it was a source of attention that such a prestigious prize of particular pride and pleasure. For this is a work brought to can bring. Speaking to The Bookseller, Bob admitted that some of the coverage, global attention by a relatively small, Highland-based publishing especially from London-based reporters, house whose founder is a former Northwords editor. Visiting could have a condescending tone, as if it Robert Davidson this summer, with the excitement of the recent seemed near impossible for a firm in the win still rippling though the new Sandstone Press offices in Highlands to be in contention for the Inverness, I learned more about the roads of writing, editing and world’s most prestigious literary prize. publishing that led to here. But he’s also upbeat about such prejudice, reckoning that: “to be a Robert Davidson publisher in a famously beautiful locale, but not a ‘local’ publisher is to be supremely andstone. It begins with single helped to shape a new look and content that strikes me is that Bob Davidson, as an advantaged in brand recognition, after grains. The grains form layers; the for Northwords, as “Scotland’s magazine editor and publisher, has long had an eye you have conquered the practicalities.” Slayers build. Over time, those layers of contemporary arts”, but also helped for both talent and emerging possibilities. Since 2011, the company has advanced can make mountains. The towering Bob to learn aspects of the business of “Our aim is to present intelligent, “in jumps” he says, with expansion of beauties in Torridon are built from the editing and publishing that were new interesting writing to readers who are, staff and a need for more space; hence stuff, formed from material swept-in to him. “Northwords was crucial to me all too often, starved of such material,” the move to new premises in Inverness from ancient northern rivers. It settled sitting here now,” he says, with passion he says in his first Northwords editorial. this summer. and became rock. Later, it amazed. in his voice, as we chat over coffee in the “We also wish to bring wonderfully Non-fiction continues to be a strand Many of Glasgow’s tenements – Sandstone Press offices. talented artists to your attention.” Those of the yearly output, now running in arguably the city’s most distinctive When the first edition was published are values that Northwords Now still holds total to around 30 titles, with recent architecture – are made from sandstone, in the summer of 2002, Bob’s editorial and celebrates. success for titles such as Cameron shaped by the unseen hands of those who commented on the new look and Problems with funding eventually McNeish’s There’s Always the Hills, Johnny quarried, shaped and raised the blocks content, included the stellar array of forced Northwords to cease publication, Muir’s The Mountains Are Calling and of honeyed stone. To Robert Davidson featured writers, including “poetry from with a brief hiatus before Rhoda Michael photographer Andy Howard’s The Secret (Bob to his friends), a Glaswegian from some of the most accomplished writers launched the next incarnation, with the Life of the Mountain Hare (bit of theme Maryhill, the metaphors embedded in in Scotland, as well as highly talented first issue of Northwords Now. But in in these titles, you’ll note). But to date, sandstone still excite: “It’s a building newcomers.” the years of his editorship, Bob says he’s the brightest gem among the treasures in thing. Those writers included the superb proud to have more than quadrupled the Sandstone mountain is undoubtedly “Blocks, one on top of the other, and pairing of Michel Faber interviewing the circulation and, importantly, to have Celestial Bodies. a search for beauty. Years ago, from my John Byrne -serendipitous, since both strengthened his resolve to bring fresh Written by Omani novelist, Jokha home in Dingwall, my mind’s eye went lived in Easter Ross at the time. This gives and interesting work to readers. Alharthi, and translated by Marilyn beyond the slopes of Ben Wyvis above insights into John’s feisty disregard for the “I believed in new writing, but what Booth – who shared this year’s £50,000 the town to the sandstone mountains of received prejudices of contemporary art next?” The answer came in what had International Booker Prize - this the north and back to the tenements of and art critics. Michel comments that: already been established, with the help sets a family saga, seen from different Glasgow. It happened in a moment.” “Nowadays there seems to be a critical of colleagues, during the Northwords days. viewpoints, within Oman’s transition As a writer, Bob’s love of words consensus that craft only gets in the The nascent Sandstone Press published from slave-trading hub to oil power. It’s stretches back to his teens, including early way…Technical competence is seen some poetry collections by writers such the first work by a female Omani novelist forays into crime fiction and later, poetry as a kind of sterility, and true artists are as Janet MacInnes, Ian Crockatt, James to be translated into English, and the first collections, song lyrics and a libretto. But supposed to be raw and undisciplined Miller and others. “We even made money book by a writer in Arabic to have won paid employment for many years was and instinctive.” from them!” says Bob, aware of how the International Booker. Chair of the with the water industry. Eventually, he John’s reply – as with the rest of that unusual that still is in the poetry market. panel of judges, Bettany Hughes, said took three months out: “not so much conversation – is as relevant today as it In those days, storage of titles could that: “Its delicate artistry draws us into a resting, as healing.” was near the start of the millennium: include cardboard boxes piled in his richly imagined community, opening out At the same time, Angus Dunn stood “Yes, but what if you applied the same bedroom – building blocks for the to tackle profound questions of time and down as editor of Northwords. With criticism to writing? Let’s say you can company, but hardly the layers that mortality.” encouragement from Ann Yule (to this barely form words, you cannae put words inspired the company’s name and After the win, Jokha Alharthi said that day, the driving force behind the Neil together in any semblance of coherence, aspiration. Publishing for adult learners Omani authors want foreign readers to Gunn Writing Competition) and her you’re just struggling to get something followed, with the Sandstone Vista series. look at the country “with an open mind husband, Kerr, Bob took up the reins. down…In the same way, I see someone This included titles by Isla Dewar, Des and heart. “What can be done with this?” was his struggling in a painting, because they Dillon and Suhayl Saadi. These taught “No matter where you are, love, loss, first question. cannae draw. They’re inept. I cannae see the small team a great deal, says Sandstone friendship and hope are the same feelings Part of the answer came with the the point in that.” Director and Editor, Moira Forsyth, and humanity still has a lot of work to do formation of a strong Northwords team. And how about Andrew Greig including about editing, print production to believe in this truth.” This included writer Moira Forsyth (now writing about the ‘prose of poetry, poetry and distribution. Year by year, book by book, layer by his partner and a director of Sandstone of prose’, describing his early writing and After that, non-fiction was the layer, Sandstone is now playing a part in Press) as fiction editor, Colin Dunning name-checking the Incredible String mainstay for several years, including that work. It’s a long way from Dingwall for reviews, Rody Gorman as Gaelic Band? Fifteen years later, he’d be touring books on hillwalking, climbing and the to Oman. But the connections are there, editor, Jim Paterson tackling events and book festivals and performing music environment. Some of these enjoyed the building blocks rising. And that’s marketing and – later – Rhoda Michael on stage with Mike Heron, one of the good sales, but Bob admits that he “still important. as poetry editor. two great songwriters in that influential hadn’t learned enough about selling.” The experience of working with group. First forays into fiction were in 2010, It’s a kind of beauty. n this talented group of people not only Looking at that issue now, one thing with wider attention quick to come. The

10 Northwords Now Issue 38, Autumn-Winter 2019 e rarely had plans on a unmeasured amounts of liquids and ice, Saturday. We’d wake up early Saturday assigning you another task. You were Wand then gleefully sink back happy to do whatever I asked, and all the into half-sleep when we realised we had dishes, too. You always told people what no place to be but bed. Every inch of Story by Julie Galante a wonderful cook I was, how lucky you my length delighted in the feel of your were to get to eat the food I made every skin. Eventually one of us (usually you) day, but I knew I was the lucky one, doing would get up and make coffee and bring ✯ all the fun part while you got stuck with it back to bed. We really should get a the washing up. weekend butler, we’d say. He could be It’s possible I expected Saturdays to making us breakfast right now while we a detour to visit the duck pond along our allotment, when we get one. Just nine stop occurring after your death, but no, drink coffee in bed. Let’s start a business, the way. We’d stop to watch the swans, more years on the waiting list! Then I can they just keep coming. I avoid shopping if a weekend butler business. Everyone will the coots, the moorhen. We’d count the make you fried courgette flowers again. I can. The crowds constrict my movement; want one. number of cygnets and speculate whether Eventually we’d get to the shop. It’d I don’t want to linger. I spot the fresh It wasn’t the butler, but I, who made it was a fox or a heron that had made off be crowded, Saturday afternoon and all, coriander and remember the tacos they breakfast. Omelettes with mushrooms, with the missing one. We’d listen to the but I would hardly notice. We had all the inspired; glimpse the tubs of pesto that spinach, and gruyere; huevos rancheros clack the coots (or is it the moorhen?) time in the world, meandering through reminded us we hadn’t made our own topped with that good salsa from the little make with their bills when someone got the produce aisle, waiting for inspiration in a while. Tears appear in the corner of Mexican shop; pancakes with a sauce of too close. to strike. The artichokes look lovely today. my eyes, falling onto my glasses when I blood oranges and cardamom. Sometimes If the weather was fine, we’d wander As does the mint - shall we have mojitos? try to blink them away. I hurriedly toss you’d run out to get bread while I cooked. through the Botanics as well, marvelling What about lasagne? Pizza? Enchiladas? some essentials into my trolley and head While we ate, we’d discuss what to do at the new growth since last time we Margaritas? Crepes? Our evening meal home. Not too much - I have to carry with the weekend. Shall we go for a hike? were there. We’d try to guess how old would be invented as we went. You’d it all myself. Nothing that requires much See some art? Go out for dinner? Spend the big plant fossil was before looking at carry all the heavy things home. preparation or cooking time - I can’t be the day on the sofa? Sometimes breakfast the sign. We’ve done it before, but who While I washed and chopped bothered. And no cocktail ingredients lasted until well after noon, and we’d can remember the difference between 50 vegetables, you’d start on the cocktails. anymore - I can’t trust myself not to scramble to get out of the house before (my guess) and 300 (your guess) million First step: google cocktail recipe. More down the whole bottle of booze in one the early winter sundown. We’d end up years? We’d walk by the student garden often than not, I’d get impatient, take night. What else is there to do? I rarely on our default walk to the supermarket, plots and speculate on what we’ll grow in over and make them myself, sloshing-in have plans on a Saturday. n

e watched out of the window learn things about the world, truths that of his ramshackle, hand-built The Gardener applied, even in the state it was left in. Hhome amidst the granite Inside his home were little shelves mountains. The fog and recent rain made with old books on them, a small stove the rocks cry rivers that cascaded down By Tom Ashman and several windows that looked out over their flanks and finished up somewhere the fog valley. He had hundreds of tins beneath the mist and low cloud, in what of food that he had stored. As he ate, he was once the world where people lived. would flatten the tins and either build His home was nestled just below the as though his mountain was the centre The sun tried to make its way through them into his house, or occasionally make summit of one of the smaller mountains of the universe, and everything else was but only succeeded in making the world small sculptures out of them, of things in the area, though still high enough to just cardboard props that where wheeled white. Its pale disc burned behind clouds he once knew. He had placed these tin stand well above the clouds. All around around him to mark some arbitrary sense swirling on top, making it possible to sculptures around his gravel patch garden him were steep drops that appeared to fade of time. After all, he had never been to distinguish its perfect round shape. He and would stand and rake and be into an oblivion of fog. He could always the other peaks. Who is to say that they went outside and raked the gravelly patch amongst them. He collected drinking see the looming masses of the surrounding weren’t an illusion or image. around his door. His home was made of water from the rain via a downspout peaks, even at night they were evident These mountains once had names old wood and chunks of plasterboard, from his roof into a water butt that sat by the black vacuum of stars standing that were now forgotten because he had pieces of block and stone built up around under one of his windows. He never against the pricked sky that moved like a never known them. It was afternoon, and the outside. He had found relative peace lacked water now that the rain was no spinning top through the years. It seemed today the fog had not lifted even slightly. here in his rubble house and come to longer acid. n

Suspension Clare O’Brien Winter Mountain Rescue I want to tell you about a black pool with a still surface like glass. I wonder if it will wrinkle when I Winchman at the Wake touch it, or part like silk slashed with scissors. Perhaps it’s a membrane, an opening into a room Karen Hodgson Pryce below. Maybe it’s full of people, black and white like an old movie, drinking and laughing and dancing in the sweaty indoor heat. Or maybe the blackness is solid, like a column of liquid darkness Around us which will suck you under its perfect surface to drown. And you’ll hang there, suspended forever in vigil whispers the dark, perfectly preserved, but utterly still. warmed by whisky swirl the sense, the cause a cycle Millie Earle-Wright He hushed my hands with love, with loss. Sorry rock dash watch you couldn’t save my wee girl. the waterfall spin flushed and waiting The whirling words to tumble downdraft the decades. carved deep blue A whiteout still stretched heather pings of disbelief. purple off molten earth heaving offrr

Northwords Now Issue 38, Autumn-Winter 2019 11 ha a theaghlach cho bochd ri nach robh dèideagan eile aige. Thug rodan eaglais. Gu dearbh, bha an Na dèideagan Ailean cuireadh dha a thighinn gun taigh Btaigh aca ri taobh na h-eaglais. Bha aigesan gus am faiceadh e na dèideagan lòn a’ ruith seachad air beulaibh an taighe aige. Chaidh iad a-null gu taigh Ailein. agus gu fortanach bha craobhan seilich a’ Maoilios Caimbeul Chan fhaca Seumas riamh leithid a fàs ri taobh an lòin. Cha robh dèideagan dhèideagan. Càraichean, plèanaichean, aige mar ghillean eile, dh’fheumadh e na gunnaichean, breigichean airson rudan dèideagan aige fhèin a dhèanamh. ✯ a thogail agus iomadh rud annasach eile. Sin carson a gheàrr e slat seilich ’S e plèana mòr le solais a dhèanadh bhon chraoibh. Bha e a’ dol a dhèanamh priobadh an dèideag mu dheireadh a bha saighead; bha e air bogha a dhèanamh mu Bha e a-muigh sa ghàrradh nuair a bha cluinntinn na h-urchaire ud. Rinn e e air fhaighinn. thràth de phìos maide agus tiùb rubair e a’ dèanamh seo agus ann am preas fiùise dragh dha gun robh gunna aig a nàbaidh “Nach eil am plèana seo math,” baidhsagail a fhuair e san dìg, oir bha a bha faisg air làimh bha brù-dhearg na agus gum biodh e a’ marbhadh eòin, ’s ghlaodh Ailean. baidhsagal aig athair. Thug e mach an sgian shuidhe air geug agus mar gum biodh e chan eil fhios dè eile. “Bha aig Seumas ri aideachadh gun às a phòcaid agus thòisich e a’ lomadh an le a shùil bheag bhiorach a’ coimhead air. Chuala e guth air a chùlaibh. ’S e robh.” Bha iomadh rud aig a charaid a rùisg dhen t-slait. Bha e pròiseil às a sgian. Air a shocair chuir e saighead sa bhogha Ailean, gille dhen aois aige fhèin a bh’ ann bha math. ’S e tè a bh’ innte a ghabhadh dùnadh agus chuimsich e air a’ bhrù-dhearg, ach a bha a’ fuireach trì croitean air falbh. Chluich iad airson uair a thìde no dhà agus cur na phòcaid. Bha i feumail airson a cheart cho luath chuir e sìos am bogha. “Haidh, dè th’ agad an sin?” Thug e leis na dèideagan agus an uair sin thill tòrr rudan mar a bhith a’ dèanamh bogha Ciamar a b’ urrainn dha a bhith cho sùil air a’ bhogha. Seumas dhan taigh aige fhèin. An oidhche agus saighead no a’ gearradh sreang. suarach, eadhon a’ smaoineachadh air a “Och, dìreach bogha a rinn mi.” sin, nuair a chaidh e dhan leabaidh bha Rinn e an t-saighead fichead òirleach a leithid. Sheas a’ bhrù-dhearg far an robh “Tha e math, dè bhios tu a’ dèanamh deòir na shùilean. Carson a bha leithid dh’fhaid. Dh’fheumadh i a bhith an fhaid e mar nach biodh eagal air. Chùm iad a’ leis, a’ marbhadh eòin? de dhèideagan aig aon duine agus gum sinn airson tarraing mhath fhaighinn air coimhead air a chèile. Thàinig rudhadh na ghruaidhean. feumadh esan na dèideagan aige fhèin a a’ bhogha. Ach bha aon rud fhathast a Chuimhnich e mar a chunnaic e caraid “Cha bhi idir.” dhèanamh? dhìth. Dh’fheumadh cuideam a bhith air sgoile dha a’ breith air cuileag agus a’ toirt “Dè feum a th’ ann ma-thà?” Ach mus do thuit e na chadal aon cheann dhen t-saighid air neo cha nan sgiathan dhith agus nan casan. Bha e Mhìnich e gum biodh e dìreach a’ chuimhnich e gur e Ailean a bha a’ sheòladh i uabhasach fada. Fhuair e pìos air a sgreamhachadh. Ciamar a b’ urrainn feuchainn dè cho fad ’s a dheigheadh an toirt nan sgiathan agus nan casan dhen pìob luaithe a bha luchd an dealain air a duine sam bith siud a dhèanamh agus t-saighead. chuileig bheò. Chuimhnich e air a’ bhrù- bhith cleachdadh nuair a bha iad a’ cur carson? Bhòidich e sa mhionaid sin nach “A bheil thu ag iarraidh shot?” dhearg agus mar a bha e a’ coimhead air an dealain dhan taigh aca. Gheàrr e pìos biodh e dona dha beathach gu bràth. Bha iad greis a’ cluich a’ feuchainn le a shùil bheag bhiorach, cho ionraic. luaithe bhon phìob agus stob e e air aon Chuala e urchair gunna bho thaigh cò a b’ fhaide a chuireadh an t-saighead. Agus smaoinich e gum b’ fheàrr leis a cheann dhen t-slait. Bha e a-nis deiseil nàbaidh a bha mu shia ceud slat air falbh. Mu dheireadh dh’fhàs Ailean sgìth dhen bhith mar a bha e na mìle dèideag a airson a’ bhogha fheuchainn. Gu leamh dha, bhiodh e uaireannan a’ chleas agus bha aig Seumas ri innse dha bhith aige.n

Pronn-Fhicsean: ‘Is aoibhinn cumadh nan dàn...’ Eapasod Pìleatach Niall O’Gallagher Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh Is aoibhinn cumadh nan dàn ’s e mo thlachd, mo thoil-inntinn, ge b’ oil leis an duilleig bhàin...

Nach suarach do dhuanag gràidh – is truagh i agus dìblidh! “An còta! An còta!” dh’eugh e rium ’s e a’ mi e lem uile neart a dh’ionnsaigh teis- Is aoibhinn cumadh nan dàn... gabhail grèim a’ bhàis air caol mo dhùirn. meadhan an t-srutha chais. Sheas mi a’ Fàileadh na trannsa ’s dathan a’ bhrat- gabhail beachd air, fad às san duibhre, tro Dè d’ aotromachd ron a’ chràdh, ùrlair a’ snàmh air oir mo mhothachaidh. ghlumagan de cheò-neimhe m’ analach ro làn-truimead na fìrinn’? Is ann air at le fearg a bha an t-aodann truime. B’ annasach an dòigh a lìon druim Ge b’ oil leis an duilleig bhàin, cruinn aige ’s e air fàs cho dearg cha mhòr an trusgain gu crotach agus a dh’fhosgail ris an trusgan fo dheasbad. A cheart cho na muinichillean gu grìseach mus do tha mi air mhire leis an spàirn... dearg gu dearbh ris na sùilean fuilteach shleamhnaich e gu slaodach à sealladh, A thruaghain, thruaghain fhilidh! aige. As bith dè bu choireach cha d’èirich dìreach mar chuideigin a’ dol fodha gun Is aoibhinn cumadh nan dàn... m’ fhuil-sa fhìn idir. Choimhead mi san strì, le loinn, an comhair a chinn. Carson dà bhòrr-shùil bhagrach ud. Gun fhacal a rinn mi a leithid de dhearg-amaideas? Do cheilearadh na chùis-nàir’! a ràdh shnìomh mi mo làmh às a chuid Dè am feum? An robh cion-fàth ann Bidh dàn agam dom rìbhinn greime fhallasaich ’s chùm mi orm idir? Air chinnte, cha robh geur-chùis ge b’ oil leis an duilleig bhàin. a-mach à doras an taighe-sheinnse dhan ann co-dhiù. Air a’ cheann thall, shùigh oidhche fhuair dhorcha. Bha mi ’n dùil mi a-steach aon anail dhomhainn, a’ Och, a-nis tha mi gun tàth, ri tuasaid mhosach a-muigh an sin air na faireachdainn mo chliabh a’ lìonadh. ’s mi tha claoidhte, làn sgìthis. leacan reòthanach drithleach, ach rim An uair sin leig mi m’ anail às a-rithist Is aoibhinn cumadh nan dàn iongantas cha do lean e a-mach mi idir. A gu mall. Mhothaich mi fois iongantach ge b’ oil leis an duilleig bhàin. cheart cho math, thuirt mi rium fhìn. Às an aghaidh mo dhùil. Bha sàmhchair dèidh còig mionaidean no mar sin, ’s cinnt dhubhach agus fuachd ceòthach 9mh den Chèitean 2019 agam nach robh e gu bhith nochdadh, uisgeachan allaidh do-thomhas na thog mi orm dhachaigh slighe taobh na h-oidhche ud air leigheas air choreigin h-aibhne. Letheach rathaid thàinig baog a thoirt dham chridhe chràidhte. Bu fodham agus rinn mi stad. Le braise rolaig mhise a dh’fhàg an taigh. Cha bu mhise mi an còta ri chèile gu teann agus thilg a thill. Astar goirid. Turas fada. n

12 Northwords Now Issue 38, Autumn-Winter 2019 Poetry

Travelling to the Crematorium Ötsi Orkney riddle Stuart A. Paterson Maggie Wallis Maggie Wallis

I’d just spent 81 years in 15 his final hours and what am I minutes eulogising you, spent eating a meal of wheat and ibex matched against a gaping sky tear-free bravery of a sort buffeted grass and milling sea? I never knew I had but had to have on the alpine slopes for sister, brother, neighbour, friend, mother. above the Senales valley am I as fearless Travelling to the crematorium as gulls, nesting on narrow ledges at Holmsford Bridge seemed more a copper smelter to trade, well-equipped braving beatings of berserker winds important than the getting there, to make a journey over snow and cuffs of mammoth waves? that point of saying a final dry farewell where only I would hear my mother it was springtime, he was forty-five am I as faithful say Cheerio Barclay as if & actually to herself, a ripe age for a man living in that era as five thousand returnings of mid-winter light each word seven letters long, wending a way each year to this same stone each syllable on nodding terms with death the brutal attack came from behind - placed here for it to rest on? already. he bled to death from an arrow In the car we each remembered and am I as constant as stone? separate pieces of this baffling quiet wounding the left shoulder jigsaw of a life that made three more, piercing his artery none unconnected, some long unbidden then being wetly resurrected after defrosting him Quernstones in that five-seat speeding space, once they’d collected their multiple samples Lydia Harris examined, weighed & tested before slotting one by rough-edged one into place. from this very ancient man At birth they come in pairs, you can’t slide When we reached the crematorium, we knew Zink remarked - his voice soft, surprised a blade between them, bedstone fastened this would be merely ceremony, to the bink, topstone with its oak handle, that the picture made along the way There were moments yesterday free-form, ready to spin, ready to swallow could never burn, that all the things we’d tried when I felt almost sorry for him grain in a clockwise turn. A clean cloth under to say we said together now, to catch the puffed-out meal, cloud on the breath each word a seven-letter journey taken he was so… explored between edge and edge, a whirr, sometimes a click on to life without you. all his secrets open to exploration from the throat and they ride and spew, mark time, run rough over husks, steady heart, steady beat, the hidden arrowhead as the days shrink, as they wear themselves smooth. the secret he’ll keep. Glen Rosa For Joan Stuart A. Paterson Some men Night walking Stuart A. Paterson Here the world tunnels under our skins, Maggie Wallis floods through our eyes at the blue pool, A book lies where you left it on the table by the bed, lies lazily in wait like that adder She’s perched in the rosemary again. dog-eared on a page you’ll have forgotten that you read. looped across our path, casts blue spools I crouch down, lift her frame, Across from it’s a pillow still imprinted by your head, of breathless summer down from Goat Fell. right hand eased a single hair upon it, serpentine, enchorial, red. beneath her downy breast. Enclosed by the arms of Beinn Tarsuinn I never quite know what to do when you’re still in the room & Beinn Nuis, we curve ourselves slowly As I crunch a track across the snow you left an hour or day ago to travel to the moon upward to where the spine of time itself she makes a sound - that low or a meet with the Oireachtas or a summit in Khartoum seems to burst through from the very start contented sound of hens riding on the contrails of a compass sweetly tuned. of it when we were little more than cells. and I tuck her in, closer. I’d like to leave it as it is, a small museum of you Nobody here but us, the pools, the hills, With a hollow call I’ll see each time I go into the kitchen, hallway, loo. low sky wrapped tight around our heads, and wings outspread, And then remembering that you’re back within an hour or two, hard earth beneath our feet which gather pace she settles in the darkened shed. I tidy, rearrange to us, the way that some men do. at seeing a glimpse of heaven on the rise, Hens murmur, return to sleep. a spark of what’s to come in sunstruck eyes. So many miles we have hiked this same journey every night. I and a white hen tramping over moonlit snow.

Northwords Now Issue 38, Autumn-Winter 2019 13 alked past that auld ah struggled tae ma feet, climbed oan ma church loads o times. Tam bike, an crashed right through the lot o WCorner uh Gallowgate an thim - doon yon stupit path an oot onto Ship Lane. Usually some dosser sittin the Gallowgate. on the pavement wi his dug and a paper Story by Sandy Thomson Ah wis headin alang tae the Cross, cup. Wan time we wir aw walkin past, meanin tae sprint doon the Briggait tae me’n the team, an the auld guy says - any ✯ the bridge ower the Clyde. Ah stae in spare change boys? An ah wis like - aye, wan o thae flats in the New Gorbals, wi hunners, but you’re no getting any. my Ma an ma wee brither, an ah thought But it’s aw changed noo. Nae dossers I cud mak it hame in about five meenits. fur a stert. Building’s been spruced up, an But a’ thae mad bastards were efter me. thirs a new concrete path leading up tae happened, but ivir since that night the jeans an a new pair uh Nike Air Max. Maist o them hud dumped the robes, and a side door, an aw alang the path there’s wee man’s bin looking scared oot o his But see that teeshirt? It hud a big sorta they hud a fair turn a speed. An in the like footsteps painted? Bright yella. An wits. He speaks in a wee trembly voice. dragon printed on it, wi’ its heid oan the lead wis the heid weirdo - him wi the thirs a big notice oan the railing that sez He cannae look ye in the eye, an his front and then the body stretchin ower Air Max - an he jist seemed tae flee alang hauns are shaking aw the time. He wilnae the shooders so that the tail hung doon the road. At the Cross he wis jist aboot TEN STEPS GOSPEL GROUP say whit happened tae him, but thirs aw the back. An it must hae been jist the ten yerds behind me - ah cud hear his CAN YOU TAKE THE FIRST kind o rumours goin roon. flickerin o the caunels, but when you breathin. There wis naebody aroon oan STEP TO SALVATION? Onywey. Ah wis comin hame fae ma stared at the teeshirt the dragon seemed the Briggait. If someone wis looking oot work the other night - oan ma bike - late tae move. It seemed tae be writhin aboot uv a windae, aw they wid hae seen wis a An then a lotta stuff about bringin shift Asda four tae midnight - an as ah aw ower the boay’s chest ’n back. Honest boay oan a mountain bike bein chased by Glesga back tae the true path ’n findin went by the Ten Steps church ah heard tae God. Nivir seen onythin like it. a mad-lookin guy wi lang hair. inner peace wi’oot the drugs ’n the whit sounded like a wean cryin inside Ah wuz jist watchin at the windae, An jist when ah goat tae the bridge he bevvy. the building. There were nae lights oan waitin tae see whit they wur gaun tae dae laid his haun oan the back o ma mudguard. Thing is tae - thirs a helluva loat that ah could see, an ah thought maybe nixt, when the chantin suddenly stops, Ah gave an almighty push doon oan the uh folk roon here that could dae wi a a wean hud got lost or somethin. So ah ’n they aw staun still in a circle except pedals - the bike leapt forward, an ma wee bit uh inner peace. Ah’m no intae propped ma bike against the railin and fur the chief weirdo wha walks ower tae rear light snapped aff in the boay’s haun. drugs masel - wee bit uh skunk noo ’n walked up that stupit path. the widden table dead casual like. When Ah wis up an ower the river leavin him then - but thirs loads uh wimmen oan he gets there, he stauns fur a bit, lookin staunin there. diazepam, boays oan heroin, lassies oan The side door wiz shut. Wi a brand doon at the wean, who stops cryin an When ah made it tae the ither side I Xanax. ’N tae be ferr, a loat uh thim huv new lookin combination lock oan the sterts wavin its wee arms aboot.. Then hud a quick look back. The hale skwad o sterted gaun tae the Ten Steps ’n sayin door. But thir wiz a wee windae further he reaches doon below the table, where weirdos hud caught up by noo an they that the boay that runs it hiz really helped alang the wall, about eight fit aff the there is a sorta ledge,an he pulls oot a big were aw jist staunin there, at the ither side them tae cut doon. Wan lassie that works groon. The wean wiz still screamin, but carvin knife. An noo the chantin sterts o the bridge. Mibbe the Briggait’s like wi me at Asda has a pal that swerrs she’s behind that ah could hear a sorta chantin? again - kinda quiet this time. An the the limit o thir territory like. Or mibbe noo completely aff the jellies. Mind you, Couldnae make oot any words tho. wean sterts tae whimper. An ah thought they were scared o watter or sumthin. Or she seems tae huv disappeared. Went tae So ah went back an goat ma bike an fucksake, he’s gonnae kill the wean. So I mibbe they jist decided ah wiz too fast the Ten Steps as usual last Setterday, an wheeled it up the path tae just below banged oan the windae as hard as a could. for them! They dinna ca’ me Speedy Tam huznae been seen since. Her Maw’s going the windae. Leaned it against the wa’ an’ An ah wis yellin like - leave that wean fur nuthin. frantic, textin aw her pals askin if ony uv stood up oan the saddle. There wiz lights alane ya bastard. thim huv seen her. She’s no gettin much inside right enough. No electric light, And in an instant all wis dark. The When I got hame ah told ma Ma whit inner peace. just caunels - held up by aboot a dozen caunels were oot. The chantin feenished. ah’d seen, an ah wantit tae phone the polis ’N then thirs whit happened tae wee weirdos, a’ wearin black robes an walkin Then the hale bunch o thim made a rush but she widnae let me. She didnae believe Kev. He wis aye a right wee terraway. Ten in a circle roon aboot a widden table wi for the door. Ah sterted back, an ma bike me - says ah’m always makin up stories. year auld an headin straight tae Polmont. a wee wean oan it, lyin oan its back ’n crashed tae the groun wi me aw tangled But ah’m gonnae tell the boays the morra. He turned up at the Ten Steps fur the screaming blue murder. up in the frame.The weirdos were oot An we’re gonnae go up tae that Ten Steps Friday night kids sesh - meanin tae take The chief weirdo wisnae wearin a the door by noo an lookin roon fur who place the morra night - tooled up - ’n the pish. Naebody seems tae know whit robe. He hud oan a white teeshirt, regular it wis that had disturbed their meetin. But sort thae bastards oot. n

hen mist came weaving its She smiled at his optimism and way through the shallow Loaded for Bear admired his determination. He’d been Wcoastal hills and kissed chasing that cunning old fox for two the mossy creeks of old Harmster, the years, but never yet succeeded. They both children fled its bitter chill, its hollow Story by Hilton Shandwick knew that sometimes, with a cunning damp caress, and huddled by the peaty adversary, going loaded for bear was the glow of a homely hearth. But on another ✯ only option. morning, when the wind was light and She thought of a poem her mother was from the west, the great outdoors might fond of about a hunter home from the truly deliver what a highland spring hill. It was her mother’s ‘guilty pleasure’, promised and adventure might be a that bleak and feral place, but, though even on a Sunday! And another spring the love of books. But, though she tried, footstep away. winters were hard, they were never quite would come creeping upon her, thrilling Angela could not remember the words. In the joy of such a cool April morning as harsh as the winter of her heart. For and unexpected, that would change her At Carsemore she met Nancy Angela swept round the deserted croft at loneliness is a winter landscape. Now, life forever. Wilson. Red headed and on the verge of Milngower and down the hill to Inveraber, however, that spring had sprung and Logan Nicol was heading out of the adulthood, she stretched the cotton of her past the glorious ice cream parlour, not the long glen would fill with tourists, village as she arrived. His shotgun was blouse in a way that Angela did not, yet, yet open for the season, in search of that the pleasure palaces, as the minister heavy with expectation. and Angela felt a pang of envy. adventure. called them, would be opening for sinful ‘Still efter yon sleekit Tod?’ she teased. ‘Ah’ve jist been howkin cockles an The dark and miserable tenure of business. Peddling tea and blueberry ‘Ah’ll get im yet,’ said Logan, ‘this time ah’m fer bait,’ she dropped her bucket at winter was a testing time for crofters in muffins, crab cakes and pickled herrings, ah’m loadit fur Bear.’ her feet.

14 Northwords Now Issue 38, Autumn-Winter 2019 ‘Its a braw haul,’ said Angela, as she Angela sympathised with that and noted a few razor shells in the bucket felt some of her own. He’d certainly be too, ‘im aff doon tae the herber fur fresh home before her now. But the teacher partans, if they hiv ony.’ had more to say than Angela had time They discussed the merits of frying to listen to and, having tackled the issue Elegy for a Lost Brother cockles over boiling them and making as delicately as she could, Angela said Sheila Lockhart crab cakes with cream cracker, and they goodbye and, once the teacher was out let the morning turn to afternoon as the of view, ran helter skelter for home. teuchat and the whaup sang their chorus. At the Loon Pool she ran straight into I. In the Old Ship But a catch of cockles couldn’t lie in a Conor MacLean. bucket forever and eventually Nancy ‘Wow, easy Tiger,’ he said, helping her up The Old Ship’s where I find him, having lunch, took her leave. and gathering her spilled crabs. His proper slumped in his corner seat beside the fire, Along a sheep track, past the old kirk, English always sounding incongruous, but a pint of best bitter and two sausage rolls the breeze whispered the sedition of an charming, to Angela’s ears. set up before him on the beer-stained teak, early summer, as Angela watched crab ‘If ye find ony teeth, they’re mine,’ she ‘Gastro grub, wild boar, not cheap. boats cruise past the breakwater. said looking past him. All I can eat these days’, he says. At the harbour Evan McKay, broad He chuckled and asked, ‘What’s the shouldered and rough chinned, hauled rush? Don’t you have time to speak to an He’s looking rather thin and none too clean; trays of succulent crabs off the Siller old friend?’ and though Angela had never I test the waters with some gentle talk, Crest. He smelled of fresh labour and old thought the day would come when she my trip abroad, his health, that sort of thing; habits and had a smile that could melt didn’t have time for Conor, that was the he’s staring at the lettuce on my plate butter, and big rough hands that looked day. and asks if he can finish what I’ve left, like they could tear a sheep apart. ‘Its ma da, he’s on ae o his binges,’ she ‘I’m really starved you know’, he says, ‘Aye,’ he said. said. ‘Aye.’ Conor understood the situation, they’d then, to my astonishment, recites ‘Twa partans is it?’ been to school together and everyone had from memory a poem by Betjeman, ‘Aye.’ heard the stories of the father’s excesses. the one about the red electric train - He picked out the best looking two On the beach at Balinholm she had told a flash of former jauntiness perhaps, for her and put them in her bag. She him of the night her father had thrown or was it a hint at how he’d end his pain? lingered, coyly making small talk. She kitchen knives at her mother’s feet and ‘It’s all changed these days,’ he says. couldn’t find a smile to match his and told her to dance. She danced. turned the conversation to the catch. ‘Ah best git back,’ said Angela, ‘or he’ll I suggest a stroll but he declines; Crabs and lobster were the usual haul and be giein her dule.’ I watch him bear his loneliness back home, though they’d had lean seasons recently, The landscape that had been full of shoulders sagging underneath its weight. things were looking up. possibilities a few minutes before, seemed A cloud of bitter helplessness descends - On days like that you could believe suddenly barren and bleak, and filled with I find an empty seat on Richmond Green, that the world turned so slowly that time an isolation that no heart could bear. and feel the cold rain wet upon my face. might stand still. Forever seemed to be ‘We’ll go together,’ said Conor, smiling. a place, not a wish, and the landscape of They took the short cut over the Doonie the heart was populated with possibilities. Brae. And though she had no idea what those He helped her over a wooden style II. Catching the Fast Train possibilities were, she understood that with secret glances, unconscious and yet they existed. Then he spoke the words lingering, at her newly shapely legs, and You wait at the platform edge in the empty station; that brought an urgency that shattered teased her for her severe expression till steel glints in the morning sun after early rain. the enchantment. He’d seen her father at they passes the cruck-roofed barn onto A late commuter scans his phone with concentration, the Bay Inn the night before ‘birling fur the rise beside the Croft house. And there not seeing as you climb down on the track to face the Scotland,’ and she almost let her purchase they saw Angela’s father standing ten yards train. drop. from the front door rubbing his chin. Now she thought of the lonely mother It was one moment in time when, It wasn’t a scheduled stop, but it stopped for you, waiting at the croft for her return. He’d though they didn’t know what, they the 10.13 through-train to Waterloo. be heading back with distemper, if he understood that something had changed. They brought me your shattered glasses and your watch, was out of money, and there was always It was a moment they felt they could dropped in your haste to reach your destination. safety in numbers on such mornings. She not intrude on. They were rooted to the said her farewells and hastened home. spot. As he watched her leave Evan thought Presently her father turned and walked that this time next year, if she wasn’t away with a resignation that Angela had careful, she’d pushing a pram. The boys never seen in him. The two old friends round those parts took no hostages when ran to the house to find Angela’s mother III. East Neuk their sap was rising. Such were the ways and the policeman’s wife sitting by the of sinful boys and lonely girls, and the front door on old driftwood Caithness We named a stone for him in Sallies Quad, summers in the highlands are short. chairs. Her mother was holding a court a graven flagstone for a broken heart Before Angela, the river came creeping order in her hands. No one was smiling. where he stole other hearts in happier days. through the wooded strath, swept past the The father turned east at the gate and sloping croft lands, and spilled its burden headed back toward the pub. Peering through drifting haar on West Sands into the little harbour. She retraced part Conor looked at the sombre mother I see him in his red gown, smiling, of this passage on her way home. and said, ‘I see you’re loaded for bear.’ but now the mist has lifted and he’s gone. Despite her obvious urgency, she was ‘Fit happened?’ Angela asked. stopped beneath the hill they called the Her mother quoted, somewhat I’ll stop awhile, remembering...fish and chips Raven’s Crag by the school teacher. She cryptically, ‘In the midst of winter, I on a harbour wall, those winding East Neuk roads was prim and proper and godly and irate found there was, within me, an invincible with their snatched glimpses of the North Sea. in a way Angela had never seen before. She summer.’ had just been propositioned by Angela’s And though she was never quite so father, and was disgusted enough to say fond of music as her books, and misery so, even to a pupil, even to his daughter, always casts a long shadow, in the days such was her distress. that remained to her, she danced. n

Northwords Now Issue 38, Autumn-Winter 2019 15 Thursday 23 July, 2076 the aul NATO and BT dishes on the hill that the Company used fae time to time. think this’ll be the last summer Fan they fell to bits, so did the last source I’ll see oot, and it’s been one o the o income in this corner o the world. Iworst to thole. Maist days there’s a They offered me a relocation package, thick grey haar that veils onything past but fit wye would I tak at? Fit does a man the end o ma road. But on the few clear in his seventies get oot o leaving ahin the days there’s been, I can see past ma land only land he’s ever kent and starting aa to the abandoned fields at the bottom o owre again? Mormond Hill, fields that eence fed the I heid oot wie ma metal detector and Bothy loons and lassies, and the industrial shovel and wyde through the boggy grun fairmers that followed them. Further oot, till I get to the aul road. I say road, but ye can see the ruins o Cairnbulg Castle it’s maistly pot-holes noo. The best place through the bare dying trees, and the to go hunting is aboot quarter o a mile sands o the Broch beach, as ghostly as doon the hill, ootby far Bill’s fairm used the aul toon itsel – the last o the folk left to be afore it was covered owre in the aifter the floods back in the twenty fifties, sandy sludge that shifted up fae the coast. packed themsels on rusty fishing boats I could feel bad aboot sic a fate for the and heided aff to fitiver country would fairm, but it’s just the wye o the land hae them. I hope for their sake they’re up here – sands have ay shifted, burying better treated than incomers ever were abandoned toons ablow it. If folk arna fan I bid in the Broch. there to fight it, the land will claim itsel The only folk I see nooadays are back, will bury every last trace o us until wee specks high up in the sky, floating we’re fossils o the future. aboot on their helicopters as they chuck It’s nae lang afore the detector’s packages doon onto my land – usually beeping fast. I howk at the grun, twice a year, either side o winter. They’re uprooting the earth and flinging it ahin filled wie new clythes, medication, food ma until ma shooders ache and my back flavouring, and tinned meat that’s been knots up in the same places as at ay does. grown in test tubes, meat that canna I strike on my treasure and bend doon compare wie the few beasts I managed to fummle in amongst the dirt wie ma to shoot noo and then: rubbits, deer and hands. I pull up the thin black object – I pheasants, although there’s less and less o see fae the apple logo on the back that them each year. it’s een o them iPhones aabdy had back The phone rings, a walkie-talkie in the day, back before the Company kinda thing that’s linked up to one o the won the tech waar. That’s fan they took last few satellites that still hurtle roon oor full control o aathing, control o the planet. information folk were granted access to ‘Hello?’ and the languages folk spoke. It wisna ‘Hi, is that Mr Buchan?’ lang before I was a complete ootsider, a ‘Yes. Speaking.’ relic. And to think I was born on this side ‘Your winter package will be delivered o the millennium… in three hours. Do you have any special But there’s summin aboot this iPhone, Standing Stone requests that we may be able to fulfil?’ wie its cracked screen and battered ‘Eh… I’m needing an extra solar panel corners, that minds ma on ma childhood, or two if that’s okay? My house battery on Facetiming ma pals late at night, the By Shane Strachan still hasn’t fully charged for winter and I loons that bid jist up the road fae ma. It’s think it’s the panels that are playing up.’ nae easy to mind on their names, but ‘It’s likely the smog that’s been causing their faces are clearer than ivver, their issues Mr Buchan, but we’re happy to voices and their laughs echoing through provide extras on this occasion. What do ma mind as clear as if they were coming you wish to offer in exchange for this oot the phone. item?’ I get back to digging and end up conditions like this. I go ben to my bed wie the force o the rotary blades and ‘Just whatever’s left in my account.’ aboot half buried fan I strike on ma next and lie doon wie the curtains shut. Even the strong gale. He has a bag on his back ‘I’m afraid your account has insufficient treasure. It’s a bittie harder to get this een though I canna see it, I can hear grains o stappit ticht wie a box. He stops half funds. Do you have anything you can oot the grun: a hand trowel tangled up sand trinkling against the winda panes as wye doon and clings ontil the rope as exchange on your property? One of our in a lang iron chain. Wie one big haul at I wyt for sleep to come. the wind swings him like a pendulum. officers can descend for the exchange.’ them, I manage to get baith oot. They’re Eence he gets the hang o the rhythm, he ‘I… I’ll think o something... I must hivvy kind, especially the chain – it’ll clambers doon the rest o the ladder and hae summin that’ll dee.’ help weigh doon this packed toolbox I’ve ✯ his feet mak contact wie the grun. ‘Pardon, Mr Buchan? Was that promised them. As he starts heiding doon towards ma, affirmative?’ Fan I pull masel back up oot the There’s a whumping noise that vibrates the wind howls the loudest it has yet and ‘Yes. Yes, sorry. Yes. I’ll exchange one three-fit hole I’ve made for masel, I’m through the hale hoose. I lowp oot the Officer’s thrown up into the air, his of my toolboxes. Will that do?’ knackered. I lie doon on the grun for a ma bed and look through a gap in the airms and legs spinning. High up above ‘A packed toolbox will be of much use mintie, ma heid spinning. There’s a fair curtains. A black helicopter is circling us, the helicopter maks a whining noise to us Mr Buchan. Our E.T.A. is three- gale blaaing noo, the kind that’ll seen high up abeen ma back gairden, trying to as it’s flung oot o sight, awa owre the tap forty-three p.m. Goodbye.’ turn into a sandstorm at this time o year. steady itsel in the high winds. o ma hoose. And then the wind hits me. ‘Bye.’ I have to force masel up onto ma feet I run ben into the lobby and pick up Ma ears pop as I’m lifted up into the air I put the phone back doon on the and gaither fit little energy I hae left to the toolbox. I quickly check that the glue and thrown across ma lobby. I land hard charger. My toolbox has nithing in it, but trudge back up to the hoose. I’ve stuck on the clasp is sealed ticht so on the widden fleer. I kent that would get them to agree to Right enough, fae ma living room they canna open it easily. I heid oot the For a minute or two I’m laid oot flat bringing the panels here. winda I can see sand twirling up aff the back door and watch as a rope ladder on ma back, ma heid dirling. The wind So that’s the last o my money gone. Broch beach, dancing across the land unfurls fae the helicopter doon into my howls through ma hoose. Even though I only stopped working for the satellite until it thins oot to nithing. I’ll be lucky backie. An Officer starts descending. His ma vision’s blurry, I slowly manage to company a year or so ago, maintaining to receive ma parcel the day wie coorse lang grey hair blaas aa owre the place pick myself up and heid back oot, up

16 Northwords Now Issue 38, Autumn-Winter 2019 doonwards wie his grey-blue een and ‘Peterhead,’ he sighs. ‘But I never really aheid o ma and steps into the circle. I sit stares at the widden table. came up this way.’ doon on the one steen that lies on its ‘How many others were there?’ Even though he denies it, there’s side – the recumbent steen. I look up at ‘Two of them. Two young things’, he summin that maks ma sure I’ve seen his Andrew: the light is streaming across his says. ‘I told them it was too much of a face afore, some time far I would have face as he leans against an upright steen risk coming out to this god-forsaken –’ seen him lang enough for him to imprint nearhand. He closes his eyes and smiles. He starts coughing. His body heaves on ma memory. But then again, this sense Slowly, the light fades aroon us as a cloud with each hoast and he winces in pain. o recognition is maybe just fae being this covers owre the sun. Andrew opens his I slap him on the back a couple o times close to another human for the first time een and shaks his heid at the sight o ma. until he quietens doon. in years – maybe aa I recognise is my ain ‘If you want to survive, you’re going ‘I’m sure they’ll be fine,’ I say. ‘I don’t species. to have to leave this place.’ think they crashed. Or at least I didn’t ‘Do ye nae miss biding up this wye? ‘But it’s aa I ken,’ I say, my vyce hear anything.’ Yer toon? Being by the sea?’ I ask. shakkin. ‘They better be okay. Or we’ll both ‘I would if there was something to Fae somewye in the distance, I can be in trouble.’ miss. I watched my hometown disappear hear a chirring soond – either Andrew’s I ging and get the hoose phone, in front of me. Watched the sea rise up helicopter’s returning or they’ve sent oot kennin fine he’ll be speiring for it seen and swallow it whole. There’s nothing up anither. enough. I play wie the dials for a while, here now. You live in a wasteland.’ ‘This place was never fit for humans. listening to the changes in the static noise. ‘Ye’r wrang,’ I say. I get up and leave The land was full of clay from day one. A It never comes clear – there’s nae signal the room. I rake in ma lobby press and few years without constant upkeep, and and probably winna be until the winds pull oot ma aul anorak. Fae ma bedroom look at the state of it.’ die richt doon. I ging back ben to the Officer. He looks like he’s just sat back doon fan I I see fae the apple logo on the back that enter the room and I can see summin shift in his face, like he’s trying to mask summin. it’s een o them iPhones aabdy had back ‘So you’re the man on Mormond Hill,’ he says. in the day ‘That would be me.’ He disna say onymair, and I’m nae sure exactly fit else to add. I ging and busy myself in winda, I can see that the skies have ‘But, that’s because o the floods, and the kitchen: I rinse cups, put awa dishes cleared a fair bit and the sun’s starting to the flood’s werna oor fault.’ and fold up towels until I realise hoo odd brak through the cloud – it’s safe enough ‘No, your right,’ he says. ‘This is the it must seem aifter fit’s just happened. I to go back ootside. I heid back ben to state the world left us in, and now we’ve return to ma seat. the kitchen. got to make the most of the best of it. ‘The man on Mormond Hill,’ I say. ‘It ‘Follow me…’ I say to the Officer, nae But none of the best is here. You’ve got Artwork by Vawdrey Taylor sounds like I live on the moon.’ sure fit to caa him. to stop living among the wreckage of the ‘You might as well live on the moon.’ ‘Andrew. My name’s Andrew.’ past.’ He sniffs a laugh. ‘It’s madness to still be ‘Follow me Andrew. I’ve got summin The noise fae the helicopter grows to out here, where nothing grows, and this to show ye in this wasteland o mine.’ a loud thumping. I stand up and look ahin climate… it’s unreal,’ ‘The Company will be here soon. ma. It’s the same helicopter Andrew came Standing Stone ‘It’s my land and it’s all I know.’ I can Somehow or another,’ he says. in. He waves and shouts up at them. feel ma face turn reid – I didna realise ‘It winna tik lang.’ They start hovering directly abeen us. hoo pathetic I’d soond. He taks his time getting up oot the The rope ladder is flung oot eence mair, By Shane Strachan ‘You could have something a damn seat, and winces wie pain again. I can hear and unfurls doon into the steen circle. sight better further south in a city,’ the him hobbling ahin ma as we heid through ‘Come with me,’ Andrew says. He Officer says, sitting up. the lobby and oot the front door. There’s grabs onto the rope ladder and starts ‘I’ve never lived in a city. I get by fine a thin layer o sand on ma doorstep and a clambering up. ‘You can live a decent up here.’ few trees have blaan owre onto ma road life where people will help you get by. ‘For how much longer? The Company – nithing I hivna dealt wie afore. Andrew You’re getting old. You won’t survive won’t take toolboxes full of junk as trails ahin ma is I lead us doon into the much longer in a place like this on your towards the man. He’s lying on his front, payment.’ wids. Maist o the trees here are deid: own,’ he says as the ladder swings back completely passed oot. The box that was I look owre to far I left the toolbox. brittle tombsteens that dinna mak for and fore. strapped to his back has broken apart – The clasp’s been broken open, the good fuel. The grun is dubby and sucks at I dinna move. across ma backie, there’s clythes, burst pill contents exposed. oor boots as we trudge through it. At one ‘Come on!’ he shouts as the rope starts bottles and bashed cans lying aboot the ‘And now look at the danger we’ve point, the squelching noises fae Andrew’s to ascend, lifting him up wie it. ‘This place. I look up and across as much o the been put in because of you. This place is feet stop – I dinna bother turning roon. might be your last chance.’ sky as I can see. The helicopter’s nae wye a no man’s land. They won’t take pity on He seen rushes to catch up wie ma. I step back fae him and near enough in sight. you forever.’ The grun starts to turn drier and safter trip owre the recumbent steen. I plant The Officer seen starts stirring on the ‘I nivver asked for their peety! I wie patches o grass, and the branches masel back doon on it – ma body grows grun – he looks up at ma in confusion, as could’ve survived fine withoot the useless above oor heids become fuller and hivvy, as though it’s anchoring itsel to the though he’s nae clue fit’s just happened. muck they’ve sent owre the years. I dinna greener. Andrew starts walking by my spot. I help him into the hoose, trying to nae need ony o ye!’ I’m up oot ma seat and side – I glance roon at him and can tell Andrew shaks his heid and turns to hud his battered body too ticht as I I’m breathing fast. Ma haert’s sair kind, fae his een that he’s noticed the shift in awa. I watch as he’s pulled up high prop him up. beating hard wie a dull ache. the land, that he can sense we’re heiding abeen ma, past the very tap o the trees. I get him sutten doon at my table and ‘Oh, calm down’ the Officer says. ‘I’m towards somewye special. He clambers up the rest o the rope pour him a glaiss o watter. He chugs it just worried about my colleagues.’ His ‘God,’ Andrew says. He’s spied the and disappears inside, and then the doon and splooshes the last dreeps ontil expression softens. I sit back doon and standing steens through the trees. They helicopter flees onwards, oot o sight. his face. watch him as he stares into space – there’s glister in the thin rays o sunlight that I look back doon at the grey pillars ‘What happened?’ he finally manages something in his een that seems familiar. shine through the tree branches aroon us. aroon ma, then lie on ma side and feel to say. ‘Do I ken you?’ I ask. ‘Fae afore? Fae The air grows waarmer as we approach the caul steen against ma skin. I close ‘The winds got too rough. They blew up this wye?’ the monument. ma een and listen as the chirring fae you over, and your helicopter.’ ‘I don’t think so.’ ‘Life still endures up this wye,’ I say. the helicopter fades awa and aa I’m left ‘Christ,’ is aa he can say. He looks ‘Bit…weel, far did you grow up?’ Andrew disna say onything as he walks wie is a caul, dark silence. n

Northwords Now Issue 38, Autumn-Winter 2019 17 Poetry

My skin seems tougher now, calloused by living, There is no going back as I was then. At the end of the day but the hand is there, the arm steady. Just as the sea swell, different from the tide, Chris Foxall Before the light fades and the sound dies floods the boulders leaving our figures cold in the air then it’s gone. If you’d never been to the island climb with me through the dunes It’s there, and then it’s gone. you would never know for one last sweep of the great bay. how the ancient volcanic rock thrusts vertical through the earth at the head of the peninsula, The Greatest Gift how the houses that stand Eriboll Robin Leiper on this knuckle end of land i.m. Hughie Fox and Reay Clarke between the open moor and the sea, Satyapada Campbell When you are grown-up, it’s easy to be happy. lean their white-washed stones into winds I knew this when I was ten: you just needed resolution. that can whip the colour from your hair, What were we looking for, You felt some creeping, cloud of discontent - how March storms will tumble lambs we townies, travelling up so far you’d make a change. By simply being open into corners of fields to the wild north coast? then to what you wanted, you’d start becoming heaping cotton wool leaves cheerful, in control again - you were the master into drifts against the walls. We’d never seen how, How the high moor beyond Beinn Halistra on a moonless cloudy winter night of your fate: there would always be some master is always silent. a hand at arm’s length’s lost to sight. -switch to throw, some options or some happy If you’d never slept on the island circumstance in reach. To choose this meant becoming you would never know how We heard how years ago different - as easy as a New Year’s resolution. on a winter’s morning, they’d cross the trackless hill by lantern light Your life’s a blank white page, an open the sea will nudge through open windows heading for dancing in a shepherd’s house book, yet to be written. One stroke erases discontent. coating your pillow in a breathing of salt, how across Loch Snizort They’d shear the sheep by hand Is life like this? No - it seems not. Discontent dawn drops into the hollows between the hills or scythe the grass lawn smooth is like some mangy cur without a master with a fullness of molten silver, the way a spider spins, or so it seemed: roaming your hungry streets, licking open how the early morning ferry from Innse Gall wounds, lifting its leg at every happy ripples out from the mist we hadn’t seen the million steps anniversary, dogging your heels with the resolution trailing an arc of wake they’d walked to here: an ankle broken in the war of a hired assassin, set on becoming that breaches Rubha Bhatairnis. and now the stiffening limbs. How, on days of fair winds and blue skies your dread Nemesis. No face now seems becoming. your shadow is somehow lighter. Out on the hill we saw the low remains of walls – No dalliance or sport but leaves you discontent If you’d never embraced the island we knew the history of that land and bored. Your resolution you would never know how from books falters. A malign fate squats there as your master on a summer’s evening, and you sneer at any date with being happy. the Ascribs hang in the twilight ‘They’re singing Malloch nan Tura’ Look at yourself: your life’s an open suspended above the ocean, strung out Hughie said, of a ceilidh in Durness, like ebony beads over a mirror ‘and the duchess will be there.’ sewer. No longer can you open and how, at the end of the day, the ocean bleeds up your heart to anyone. You are becoming into the bay below Trumpan A hole in the hillside led dead inside. You’d be happy scattering bleached bones of remembrance to a souterrain – dead sheep were dumped there – just to end this hell of discontent. along the shore. and on the back road down to Lairg the Dornaigil You eye the knife, the pills - you’d be master All these things you would never know broch. of your destiny. But then your resolution if you’d never been to the island. The sea in May, smooth and blue fails you once again. You can see no resolution softly billowing in the swell. to this problem on your own. No act of will can open Beside the road we drove the ewes and lambs along up your life. So you accept you’re not the master Oldshoremore a white lily opened in a peat dark pool. here: you find your little self’s becoming Peter Maclaren smaller and less interesting, your discontent Why that dream that came so long after? merely a fact of life. This makes you strangely happy. Beyond the lochan the strong colour The zombie hogs with stinking pus streaked heads a low sun warming the alders - dancing along so lightly with the rest? The true master-key to your becoming so clear a light so late in the day. grown-up may be the resolution to stay calmly open I looked at Hughie: “Head fly” he said to your discontent. Then, yes, it’s easy to be happy. And the fierce cry of the guillemot and drew his knife to cut their throats arching beyond the headland, (it is the usual business of a farm – No land till Lewis, back into the wind. a severed head nailed to the doorpost in the byre was no surprise) Sand kicks its grains into my face; along the beach your tiny figure The knife could not undo the flesh turns again, footprints smoothed by the seeping sea. and drew across the shoulder blade of one man sitting there opening a congealed pool, dark red.

18 Northwords Now Issue 38, Autumn-Winter 2019 Poetry

Threading Time Arachne Waiting for the 495 Amanda Gilmour David Goldie Juliet Antill

Entombed in musty folds: Let the story unravel as it will, Leaning my head out of this world dust enriched Banaras silk the strands twist in the wind; for a moment, embroidered with golden yarn, in the early hours; following the iridescence of an insect forever echoing colonial rule in the morning sun. for a century, a western charm. I find fifty tethered suns Glitches of colour and light on mist in a ragwort-hogweed-vetch Wrapped in Mother’s cherish, resolve themselves as an old woman, back-of-the-bus-shelter cosmos. dressing up death in opulent threads: breathless, leaning on a stick of gnarled olive. tobacco-stained, dyed caviar-black, I find meadowsweet – easing primal pain in cancerous dark. Sprung from her disguise, the bees, the hoverflies, the darting bugs threading through thin air all loved up and drowning – A homecoming gift, laden in rupees, between grids of washed gold sailing seas below winking skies as pulled taught by loom weights. I find meadowsweet, her voice something like moonlight waltzes on jhallar edges Miss Dietrich’s, thick with sex. caressing shining eastern essence. Skilful fingers work; I can’t help it, she says, teasing out the knots and tangles and pops another pinhead bud into flower. Intricate piercing of twilight material with a touch as deft and swift as light. crafting flawless Mughal patterns with fine threads, trellis bound, Under curlicues of knuckle snaring the weaver’s soul. the shuttle speeds back and forth. A Glasgow Fox The ridges and depressions of weft and woof Juliet Antill present their different versions. This fox is not Hughes’ fox. Moon Angles of air and light take up the slack between There is no night, no forest, no thought of fox. Amanda Gilmour contested perspectives. Dogtooth and herringbone No clock ticks. in glinting chevrons. There’s only the animal herself Twilight blinks waiting on a sunlit embankment. upon the road Light catches the cloud A storybook fox with a lustrous coat a lifeless deer: pierced by rain and hen-coop stare. as a volley of arrows pearl balled in mirrored eye. falling obliquely. She, of course, has no idea of fox. She is scent, breath, trails. Clothed in heavenly light She’s the vetch tickling her belly the marbled sky looms. and the sharp hot stink of train. Amber Colour dissolves. After we pass she’ll drop down Amanda Gilmour A single crane rises. through the long grass and cross the rails, enter the dark hole of the head. Oriental lily Black pinions cleave the sky, stains the wings recede into the distance. of a white butterfly, To a shimmering pinhead. amber. To a full stop.

Woman in a field of Autumn Before Winter Crocus Liz Mckibben Kirsteen Bell The wind fights our faces, promising rain. We leave the path. I trip over tufts of turf, She stands, testing the cramped curve of her spine, rabbit holes, stones. You can’t steady me. purple-stained fingers cupped around the crimson flush; You’re clutching Dougal tight like he hugged the a glowing filament harboured world within a purple heart. after a dram. ‘Onwards and upwards,’ you shout, as a gust from the Minch sweeps the sound of your voice over Edrachilles Bay. Scourie is a sullen shadow. Handa huddles its birds. We bid our farewells, scatter the white dust where Dougal moored his boat in the lee of the bay. Holding hands, we hurry home. Night falls early here.

Northwords Now Issue 38, Autumn-Winter 2019 19 he knocked on the door but stench that could overpower the freshness already knew he wasn’t coming to Death of a Village of the morning air and some days she felt Sanswer. Five minutes passed. She the guilt of wishing she could hurry on exhaled another vapour cloud through her way. He would often ask her about her scarf into the morning mist as she Story by Hannah Whaley school, delighting in the news of small waited, forcing it out like dragon’s breath achievements and class trips, and once while she stomped on the flagstone path, ✯ gave her a vintage leather football from each kick a shockwave prickling through his home that matched the team on her frozen feet. She banged on the frame of nobody organised dances; the stream had road that pre-dated their existence. The scarf. Some days she wished she could stay the porch door until white paint splinters been diverted by developers many years neighbourhood had also extended up longer. When she started weekend work tangled with the bobbled wool of her earlier. There remained only a post-box the hill in more recent years; past the war at a tearoom in a neighbouring town, she glove. The morning captured her sounds on a pole, installed in lieu of a post office memorial and up the brae. New roads would call in to him with the leftover and muted them; the village was asleep, but doubling as a drop-off point for the were added in one at a time, standing apart scones and sandwiches for tea. He never and it was not for her to wake it. white van which raced through rural from the old village in both geography liked the intrusion, but he always ate the The old man waited at his open door villages each morning leaving bundles of and community spirit. The further up the food. every morning and she often wondered newspapers for delivery. brae you go, he told her, the bigger the She requested the afternoon off from how long he stood there before her And so the whole village was nobody’s newcomers’ houses become and the less school to attend his funeral despite arrival, leaning his weight on the ledge, but hers and his in the morning. The they care. fearing she would find herself there alone. the door ajar, peering down the street. tarmac sparkled and slid underfoot as her She waited at the gatepost next to the The entrance to the church lay opposite Only once before had he not been steps marked the frost afresh each day, zig- final house, watching for her mother’s and along slightly from his house, down visible when she turned the corner onto zagging from house to house, lugging a headlights, still clutching the undelivered a driveway lined by dry stone dykes, his path, but the door was at least open luminous sack of newspapers. Occasional newspaper and carrying the burden of stained from the water that never dried on that occasion; he had been waiting cars would plummet down the hill the closed door. It was probably nothing, out in the winter months. As she stepped but gone back inside, most probably the behind her, but each passing roar created she was told, as she was driven home inside, a momentary panic rose within bathroom had beckoned. He never said. only the briefest of disturbances; a mere to get dressed for school. Nevertheless, her that the day was wrong and this was Mostly he relayed his remembrances of snore for the sleeping village. His house the policeman from the first house was a service for someone else. The church village life though this held equally little was half-way through her round. The first summoned to force entry to the house was full to capacity. The only seat left was interest for her. Still, she learned that his she delivered to was home to the local that sat half-way and she heard over on a pew at the very back, from which house had once been the general store nurse and her policeman husband; the breakfast that the old man never got up she strained forward to hear a minister and post office for the village, and he the last was lived in by a family with three that morning. She had already been quite that never visited him talk about his postmaster; that his wife was an organiser young children ready to boost the school sure of that. life. The minister spoke of community of community gatherings, with ceilidhs in roll. Each house in between was different. There were no visitors that she knew and togetherness and one of their own. the hall each month and coffee mornings Original stone cottages sat alongside of apart from herself. Someone must have Afterwards, the people of the old village on Saturdays; that children played football ugly squat houses with flat roofs built in brought food, and she recollected some enjoyed the excuse to eat cake and drink in the street and bathed in the burn on the sixties. Bungalows had squeezed in vague knowledge of a social care company tea in the hall, and though they shared hot days. Often he grumbled too. He said between, working themselves into the delivering once each week. There was many stories that afternoon, none were people were ungrateful and troubled him, fabric of the village until there was not only one son, spoken of but never seen. about the old man. but she heard others speak of him growing an inch left. Conservatories battled with Ten minutes of her thirty-minute paper The girl did not stay. She went home cantankerous after the death of his wife. driveways to claim the last of the garden round were spent at the open porch door instead, to her house at the top of the The village she knew had no shops and space while parked cars littered the each morning. The house had an unkempt brae. n

nd so, in 1912 they went at the back of their first shop; during the north! North from their winter New Country war years, they entertained and fed the Afiresides where they huddled British and American soldiers with Glenn and exchanged ghost stories about their Miller records and peas and vinegar in a encounters with their dead ancestors on By Anne Pia second shop that was the centre of social that long rocky climb from Aquafondata life in “the walk”. to Viticuso; where they laughed about ✯ Leith Walk the first settlement for their lore and their dreams and the foibles newcomers to Edinburgh and today of their neighbours; where they planned water for erratic bowels; where everyone The reality of our race, mine, is a stark the rich cosmopolitan heart of the city, their feast days, fired their pizzas, laid has both a name and a nickname; where one, a source of embarrassment to the where Polish, Chinese and food shops out their dead; where they delivered and the young go to Mass to find mates; Italian northerners, unsettling for the with soft, folding breads from the Levant, conceived their babies. They told stories where men ate bread and onions on their cultured establishment of any society; and discs crusted with sesame, thin papery about snakes and their cunning ways and hillsides digging up their fine potatoes. founded on earthy things; things which sheets to wrap your olives and smoked their bold men that killed them with their North they went, my grandparents, in are unspeakable and basic to the survival aubergines in and dip into yoghurts bare hands; they laughed at the mysteries an uncertain marriage, leaving resentful on any remote mountain community. perfumed with fresh mint leaves, now of sex - those who wouldn’t or couldn’t or cousins and deserted old flames. And at My grandmother was unable to read share pavement space with opulent glass just lacked the know-how. Those winter the toss of a coin they came to Scotland. or to write; her fantasy to be a lawyer; her fronted pizzerias and curry places. For firesides where children were prepared They settled in Leith. dream for me a teacher; the source of every shop front tells a story and marks for adult hood and girls learned about Their history is a brave but not a what was not available to her, an illiterate the stages of integration of ethnicities and making bread and menstruation. romantic one. In fact, my handed down woman, an education. She left Italy families. And Leith where creatives blend They went north to Scotland from account of life in the Apennines is far pregnant and in order to keep her hands and bond in white walled co-working their small home where the sheep came in from a world of sunshine or song or a free to mind her other child during the spaces to offset mainstream culture in a in the mountains of Cassino; where they Michelangelo fresco and in my late journey, she had a piece of material which rich city’s theatres and opera house. were in awe of the priest and the teacher adolescence I learned these things and she had sown herself, with a compartment Leith the teeming lava flow of and the strange language they spoke; their language like a new way of life. The at each end for her belongings, thrown Scotland’s capital, its underside, and where they castrated their pig, the family insatiable appetites among the adventurous over her shoulder. Her money was stitched where immigrants like my Italian family, pet, to fatten it for their sausages and middle classes in Scotland for accounts of into her underwear. She - and many like both learn the ways of a new country hams; where they created sugos to draw an Italian way of life, their knowing looks her - was an entrepreneur. Many Italians and aspire; and where their ways give the best from their hens; where toothless at a Massaccio fresco or a Boccherini then and since found work and settled, she fresh perspectives for artists; where new old men drink wine and play cards and guitar quintet, their awe at a pesto – what found a barrel organ which she paraded made Scots themselves, can add another moustached middle aged women, strong is it but crushed available raw ingredients around the streets to attract people and voice and layer of human experience: hearted and sturdy limbed, make airy pasta softened with olive oil to make a clinging sell her ice cream. My mother and her community, common endeavour and the and soothing ricottas and offer garlicked sauce for goodness sake! – astounds me. brother and sister slept in orange boxes making of a new country. n

20 Northwords Now Issue 38, Autumn-Winter 2019 Poetry

Sneckstasy Nightmares I’m the witchdoctor of Hillbrow Flag David James Ross And I can sleep just like the dead Julian Colton Though I will always live forever King Brude is partying on Craig Phadrig - Ramsay Mackay In the distance across garden fences The sky’s aflame. On St Michael’s Mount Up a pole a flag is flying The monks are singing sweet sacred songs. The Sleeping Giant i.m. Ramsay Mackay, 1945-2018 Flutters in the wind like a Hawaiian shirt Along Ness Walk, by the river, the ghosts Ross Wilson Slightly ragged and worse for wear. Of genteel Invernesians still promenade Politely conversing, arm in long-dead arm. There can’t have been many who knew From my high kitchen screw sleepy eyes to see The Zulu Dance of Death in Kelty. more clearly There’s a committee of neo-Goths meeting Ramsay Mackay did. Is it a Saltire or Tricolour? In the Town House – windows spill anarchy He didn’t just know it: he did it in the pub. Down Bridge Street, along the High Street. A big man with a Walt Whitman beard, Then from grey the red of it emerges Ramsay looked like he’d blown in And I realise it’s the Union Jack Baron Taylor’s Street is one pulsing throng from the nineteenth century Of gibbering imps and loud, drunken demons, via the sixties counterculture. Conclude they must be diehard Rangers fans And angels are dancing down Rainings Stairs. Claiming Crown, Union and Ibrox in revival. Everyone was Ramsay’s brother. In Tomnachurich Street, Bonnie Prince Charlie When someone objected, “Ah’m no yir brithir,” You have to laugh, if slightly nervous. Gingerly side-steps neat regimented ranks he was corrected, “We’re all brothers, brother.” In Scotland old rivalries simmer. Of the blood-stained, tartan-shrouded dead. Introduced as “Ramsay, The Poet,” I must have been a midge around his beer, Here in the Borders there’s room for banter A witches’ coven on Castle Hill is cooking up nipping his head about Rimbaud and Baudelaire. In the West knives and bad blood will be drawn. A rare brew - alone in his cold, dark castle A legendary bass player and singer, Deceived, demented Macbeth sits brooding. I’d no idea how much he’d done.

And out of the River Ness, before St Columba’s Years later, YouTubing his name, Clay Very eyes, rears a huge beast of hideous aspect - I came upon song after song after song Lauren Ivers To his horror, it kneels to receive his blessing. scrawled by his hand, sung in his unique Scots-born, South African tongue. Heavenly father, Ramsay carried a notebook like a wallet. I am fourteen It had no market value, but and I am lonely. A Meeting if words were gold, Ramsay was rich. David James Ross “He lives up Benarty,” I was told. I am in the belly of some great fish, It was when they decided to dig up The Sleeping Giant to locals, or down in the Babylonian den The floor of their Papay croft house Benarty hills outline against the skyline among closed-mouth lions To install new radiant heating - is a Gulliver tied down in Lilliput, purring in a circle. No mere luxury in this much like Ramsay in Kelty. Well over six foot, Northerly, wind-swept isle - I remember him kicking snow off his big boots Lord, let me out. That they found him lying there in a bar where the clientele rolled joints on tables. Just as he had been laid to rest, Back then I kept my interest in literature so close I’m going to kiss Euan Arms crossed on his chest, to my chest it made an impression on my heart. in the murk Underneath his shield. of the youth club smoke machines Ramsay blew in like permission to be myself. down by the Citadel Quay, He had been lying there all along, A true gentleman, his individualism with or without Their constant guardian Jarl, didn’t conflict with the community: your help. Their own under-floor Viking, he stood out and blended in An unsuspected silent witness like a sore thumb warm in the village glove. When I get bored of him To long centuries of habitation, Though he sleeps now like the dead, you can make me To the generations’ ebb and flow, when you press play he wakes into someone better, To each current and cross-current. and makes a dance of life out of death. or hand me that clay. I’ll do it myself. And now at last they meet up, As the penannular centuries Converge, close, and connect.

Northwords Now Issue 38, Autumn-Winter 2019 21 n honest man’s the noblest work stand that colour. Even the floodlight of God, said the poet, but here The NP pylons are yellow – that stops the aliens Aat Pastry Pleasures we dare to landing on the pitch.’ disagree. Rather, we would suggest that The match was a routine 6-0 our Heavenly Father’s finest moment Story by David McVey demolition of Fort William with no alien came when He inspired the invention of interruptions. Afterwards, MacKenzie the meat pie, and introduced an ineffable ✯ offered to show us around the town joy to the world. centre where there were local shops I’m Geoff Bridie and I edit the that also offered celebrated pies. Indeed, football pages of Pastry Pleasures, the we quaffed and photographed two very most popular weekly publication devoted Inverness. On the morning of match day Later, just before the match, I sat acceptable examples and were standing to the contemplation of the pie. My we boarded a train for Nairn. At the end in a small room with MacKenzie and outside a deli that specialised in pastry section of the mag has become highly of the short run, we stepped out on to Jessie, sampling some splendid pies while delights when there was a chorus of influential; I cannot name the club the platform and I hailed a rail employee Jason took pictures of a particularly shrieks and screams accompanied by involved, but after we described their pie who was standing nearby, gazing up in a fine specimen that had been sprinkled fingers pointing to the sky. We looked up fare as ‘cold, with leathery pastry and a peculiar manner at the sky. ‘Excuse me - with chopped parsley and drizzled with and, high above the main street, a small tasteless interior’ their crowds plummeted can you direct us to the Nairn County a redcurrant jus. ‘You see,’ explained alien craft cleaved the darkening sky. and they entered administration. Legal football ground?’ MacKenzie, ‘apparently, the extra- It was a red Austin Mini. action against us continues. After we ran a He didn’t look at me - didn’t look terrestrials never used to bother with ‘It’s a Mini!’ I said, ‘Just a car. Flying.’ feature on Carlisle United’s excellent meat away from the sky. He just stretched out Earth. Nothing here they needed. Then ‘Aye, they’re cunning,’ said MacKenzie, and potato pie, the club’s home crowds his left arm and pointed to the train. It when one got accidentally grounded, ‘They morph their ships into shapes doubled. Since we praised the mutton obligingly pulled away and there, beyond it ended up trying a meat pie and that will blend in if they have to land. pies at Kirkintilloch Rob Roy FC, the the far platform, was Station Park, home that changed its life. It went home to Awesome technology.’ club secretary has contacted us to say that of Nairn County FC. wherever it came from, told all its pals, Several shopkeepers had emerged into more people come now to experience Just inside the entrance to the ground and back they all came. Eventually the the street, and as the Mini swooped low the pies than to watch the game. I feel stood a middle-aged man, with small, word got around that the Nairn County over the buildings, they each held aloft, very proud, but also strangely humbled, quick eyes that darted about, wearing a pies were the best. Now, they’re friendly in a practised manoeuvre, a large sheet of to work in a branch of journalism where trench coat. He eyed us suspiciously. We enough, these aliens, and they always pay stiff yellow plastic. The effect was startling; I can actually make a difference. introduced ourselves as the visitors from their way, but they like to buy in bulk. the Mini seemed to stall in mid-air and The strange story I’m about to relate Pastry Pleasures. We can’t cope with that. Imagine a big then it hurtled away out of control. It started when a reader’s letter urged us ‘That’ll be Jessie you want,’ he said, crowd at a cup tie with Forres Mechanics, careered over the river and, with an to investigate the mutton pies at Nairn beckoning to an elderly lady who was all of them hungry, and every pie already explosive rumble of collapsing stonework, County FC of the Highland League. standing pitchside, staring into the sky, hoovered up by the extraterrestrials.’ it crashed into a building and became I needed little excuse to visit again the ‘She’s the Pie Manager.’ The camera shutter clicked again as embedded, its rear half protruding above land of my parents’ birth, so I checked ‘And you are?’ Jason immortalised the garnished pie; an outdoor clothing shop. the fixture lists for a suitable date and ‘My name’s MacKenzie. I’m the I could sense his disillusion. He had The vehicle appeared to be undamaged called the Trainline to book tickets north Stadium Detective.’ grown up imagining that galaxies of - that superior technology again - but for Sally, our photographer, and myself. As we shook hands with MacKenzie superintelligent beings were stalking the stuck fast. Two sheepish and hungry In mid-transaction I was interrupted by and Jessie, I reflected that I had been to Earth, bent on conquest, domination aliens emerged, looking like small hairless our office junior, Jason. ‘Nairn?’ he asked, some explosive Old Firm derbies. I’d been of the universe and grisly experiments humans with only a single eye, mumbling ‘you’re going to Nairn?’ to the Maracana, the Nou Camp, the San carried out on abducted humans. And about being in big trouble when they got ‘Yes. Why?’ Siro. I’d been to a Cumnock - Auchinleck now he knew that they were only after back home. ‘Can I come? Please?’ Talbot cup tie. But I’d never heard of a our pies. Afterwards, the insurance assessor told Now, let me make this clear; I deplore Stadium Detective before. ‘So how do you discourage them?’ I the shopkeeper that there was no point any lazy stereotyping of my fellow human ‘Why do Nairn County need a asked MacKenzie. in trying to remove the alien craft. ‘It’s beings. But how else can I describe Jason? Stadium Detective?’ ‘Yellow,’ he said, mysteriously, starting stuck there and, whatever it’s made of, He wears little round glasses, is tall and Jessie and MacKenzie in unison each on a fresh pie, ‘there’s something about it’s holding the building up now. Just thin and has spots. He has the complete pointed a finger to the sky the biology of their eyes. Yellow gives leave it as a quirky feature.’ Until another boxset of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and ‘I blame the Sputniks,’ said Jessie, ‘it them headaches. That’s why County play spaceship - this time disguised as an ice Deep Space Nine. He collects Star Wars only started after them things went up.’ in yellow, and why we’ve painted the cream van - could retrieve them several figurines. Much of his spare time (and weeks later, the aliens worked as assistants too much of his work time) is spent in the outdoor clothing shop for wages of on conspiracy theory web forums. As a three pies a day each. Of course, they’ve result, he believes that JFK was shot by gone, now, but the alien Mini remains. small, human-like creatures from another No, really. Go and see it if you don’t dimension that the authorities Don’t believe me.* Want Us To Know About. Jason doesn’t During the incident, Jason had snapped have a girlfriend. away with the camera like a photographer ‘Why are you so keen to go to Nairn?’ demented and days after we got back ‘The NP, of course?’ he resigned and started a new job at ‘The NP?’ Encounters with Aliens magazine. His ‘The NP. The Nairn Parallelogram. It’s, first article, ‘My Escape from Death in like, an area with a high concentration of the Nairn Parallelogram!’ led their next UFO sightings. It’s so cool.’ issue. I sighed. Still, there seemed no harm I was in the Press Bar, alone, reflecting in giving him some career development. on an unusual week, when a hack I vaguely Sally disliked going too far out of London, knew (he worked on What Lawnmower?) anyway, and she was happy to give Jason wandered in. He asked what I’d been up some basic tuition with one of the office to, and I told him I was just back from a cameras, showing him how to take match job in Nairn. action pictures and portraits of fresh, hot, ‘Nairn?’ he answered, brightly, ‘Aunt of steaming pies. mine retired there. Sometimes go up, visit, The journey north was long and we and play a few rounds.’ He thought for a had to change at Edinburgh and Perth while before adding, ‘Nice place. Quiet.’ before dumping our stuff at a hotel in ‘Yes,’ I agreed, ‘Quiet place.’ n

22 Northwords Now Issue 38, Autumn-Winter 2019 Sgrìobhadh ùr Iain S. Mac A’ Phearsain agus Liam Alasdair Crouse

seann chleòc Chuir sinn air falbh a dh’iarraidh grant bhon riaghaltas, Iain S. Mac A’ Phearsain Ach bha a bheachd fhèin aca air dè bha còir againn dèanamh; Bha an taigh cho aosta, cho sean-fhasanta, ’s e seann chleòc ’s nach robh sgàinean air nochdadh sna bunaitean? a th’ anns a’ phian mhòir a shiùbhlas leinn Co-dhiù thuirt iad, bha sgeama ann son taighean ùra snasail bho chian nan cian A thogail sa bhaile-mhòr. briogais theann a chuireas Thug iad fiathachadh dhuinn a dhol a choimhead orra – a’ chas bheag oirnn uile Na flataichean de mheatailt ghleansach nuair a shioftas sinn ’S gun am peant fiù ’s air tiormachadh; gu togail oirnn, lath’ buidhe Heat recovery na bhroinn – ’s cha bhiodh guth air an dampachd!

’s e searbh-lèine a th’ ann Cha bhiodh romhainn ach an t-imprig. gar tachdadh bho chùl na h-amhaich’ sìos gu Ach, a m’ eudail, nach sinne bhiodh ag ionndrainn ùtraid a’ mhachaire, bonn na broinn’, tha mi an dùil ’S fàileadh na mòine, ’S blàths craosach an teine An dubhar na dùdlachd. smodal bhreug Iain S. Mac A’ Phearsain An Geansaidh Èirisgeach Pàdraig Òg – Liam Alastair Crouse coltas athar fhèin an tac an teine Bha i siud a’ sgrìobhadh duan dhomh – na eanchainn threun duanag gaoil. Na suidhe gun a bheagan gluasaid a’ tarraing asam Socair is suaimhneach, a’ call a suim anns na snàithleanan, mar bu nòs Ach a làmh a bha sìor-obrachadh, dha Mac ‘Ain Cholla ’s a h-eanchainn gheur aig làn a neirt ’s a h-innleachdais, am fear nach maireann fòs A’ cumadh ’s a’ dealbhachadh A’ beartachadh na lìn a ghlacadh, ‘S an toll ga lìonadh ’S an acair a stèidheadh, beag air bheag Aig cala le ’staidhre, le faclan biorach Crosgag cuilidh Moire gu h-ìseal, is smodal bhreug Is craobh-beatha an teis-meadhan ar saoghail. gus am brist an latha, Seadh, bha i ri bàrdachd an siud a-rithist Ann an cànan a dh’ionnsaich i ‘s a-rithist Aig clasaichean oidhche am measg nam ban Uibhisteach, ‘s a-rithist Gach aon a’ toirt comhairle bheag dhi Air geasan na h-obrach. Gach aon lùb is toinneamh mìn, Gach aon sreath is sreang - An t-Seann Taigh Nan ròpannan maotha maiseach Liam Alastair Crouse Cho mìn ri sìoda ’s cho geal ri badan fraoich, A dhèanadh mo chlùmhadh Tha taigh aig an teaghlach Ri cala. A thogadh nuair a dh’fhosgladh am baile An dèidh dhan tac a bhristeadh aig toiseach na linne. Eadar mallachd a’ gheansaidh ’s a chuid gheasan, Taigh beag snog a th’ ann, Bhithinn an siudach gu suthainn sìor, An cois cruit de thalamh dubh; Air m’ acrachadh aig acarsaid Fo chaoraich an-diugh seach crodh-bainne mo sheanar-sa. Fo cheangal na habhsair blàth cofhurtachd An t-uisge ga ghoil leis an t-seann rayburn Gam chumail o dhoimhneachd mara A dh’itheadh mòine na buana ’n-uiridh, ’S an teas ga bheannachadh air feasgar mosach geamhraidh Le teine fosgailt’ san t-seòmar-suidhe.

Ach bha an taigh air tighinn gu ìre, ’S gu dearbha seachad air ìre chanadh cuid. Bha an dampachd ann ’s cha robh ann de dh’insulation a chumadh am blàths a-staigh.

Northwords Now Issue 38, Autumn-Winter 2019 23 t dusk, there was a large group and touched within the sanctum uttering of villagers gathered at the Her Kind the guidance prayer. The womb door was Abridge to her crannog. They opened so a good omen. With one hand waited quietly rather than shouting on the belly and one hand on the infants traditional greetings. Through the woven Story by Anne Elizabeth Edwards head she pushed the head away from willow screen, Huna peered at them; the opening then deftly turned the skull against the fading light recognition of ✯ Earthwise. individuals was uncertain. It was only as The women crowded round, sensing a the group parted to allow one to come change. They looked at Huna with wide forward that she realised Elder Watten open eyes, fighting fatigue. Their breath was there. He carried a long staff high everything they could, why they had even belly to ensure an answer. Watch for a sly smelled of sour milk. She had them kneel in his left hand across his chest. This was consulted Huna, but it was all to no avail. look between women. If she didn’t like and support Mey, straightening her back a serious delegation indeed. She became All was lost. what she heard then she spilled the tea in a squat with wide knees. conscious of all her bodies betrayal of She would be shunned. All the small and brewed something else. Something If this was to work, she must bring nervous tension; clenched fists, hunched steps towards acceptance would be to loosen the bowel, it would be a pale back the labour pains but with a ferocity stance, bitten lip and racing heart. This rescinded. Eyes averted when walking imitator of what should have been. Thus, that if she had miscalculated the angle of would show weakness, she must contrive past her. Children pulled close when she the spell would fail but Huna would have the infant skull, would break both infant to appear bold, brazen this out. Huna had came into the common grazing. More a clear conscience. and mother. learned the hard way that pleading or time spent alone. Fishing at the back of It was Dawn light when they brought Prayerfully she placed drops of ergot bargaining achieved nothing. her crannog where none could see her. Mey to her; as the cock crowed and the brew into the honeyed beer. There were Earlier she had been using a pot of Collecting fodder when the others had kids bleated for their mothers. Huna so many variables. The strength of the smouldering sage for cleansing, the gone. No-one would mix with Her had prepared a bed in anticipation; the brew was difficult to calculate and each therapeutic smell filled the air. The ash Kind. honeyed beer she had kept all night was grain would as nature dictated have its was smudged on the infant’s forehead Then in time a maid would come in in a pot warmed by hot stones. Using a own level of potency. The delivery of and on the mothers. They lay together on the night. sometimes alone, sometimes rag wetted with the mixture she put it the draught was variable as to how Mey a raised wooden pallet filled with fresh with a mother. The maid would be between Mey’s lips; in a moment, she would consume it, all or nothing. And straw. It was likely the burning of the fearful and tearful. Some tale of betrayal. was sucking greedily. She gave this duty then would her body react as it should soiled straw bedding had provoked the Huna would barely listen. Same tales her to one of the mothers who crouched or would it have a quarrelsome spirit and villagers into action. Why had she not mothers had been told. She would brew watching her; then wordlessly she felt reject the liquor. waited till nightfall when an outside fire ergot, add something sweet to ensure it the belly under the blanket. The baby Mey awoke from her trance with a would be less noticeable among all the was drunk to the last grains. Say prayers lay against the mothers back like two shudder and a forlorn groan as of a cow other rubbish fires? Expediency. There over it, ask forgiveness. Before the maid spoons in a drawer. That was the reason stuck in a bog. Her mothers shushed was always the worry that the blood- drank it, Huna would ask questions known for the delay but not the solution and soothed. Huna gave one attendant a stained bedding would attract bad spirits. about quickening, clutch the maid’s obtained. She rubbed oil on her left hand compress to hold steaming to Mey’s lower Jealous of mother and baby they might back. Quietness. The fire cracked and bring sickness and steal the new-born spat with a sappy green log. Impatience soul away, take the mother down to the was the enemy here. The temptation to spirit world. give more brew, before the efficacy of Mey had been brought to her only the dose had been proved. In recognition when other actions had failed. The of this Huna took time over placing tumultuous journey of her labour had Uighurs reed stocks and other wetland herbage lasted three days already. Blood and water Richard Myers over the hearth stones. As they dried, and slime had come. Then the bucking she flicked them into the flames, they and stretching of heat. Mothers had We are a dry people burned with greens and blues releasing walked her through the wombs rushes beyond the Taklamakan. queer scents. Mey stirred again. A groan and the twists in her back. She had Winds from every airt squeeze out, of strain and effort came from her then clutched on a knotted rope thrown over freeze out, the Earth’s water before a soft pop and sharp stink as her bowels a beam. Squatted over warmed oil. A they lift dust and swirl smoke loosened. Now there was a fullness for barrel had been rolled in and she had sat around the old men sharing coffee. all to see. The ready pouting of her body. inside it, doused by water and milk. All The outline of the baby’s head could be this Mey had endured. The charms she East lie desert and mountains traced within the mother. Huna slapped clutched imprinted on her hands as her and godless people who jostle back the hand of a mother that reached to teeth clenched on wet rags. for space in smoggy cities touch. Well intended though her action Later her journey seemed over before that spread faster might be it would cause the pouting to reaching its destination. Grey and silent, than heaps of dry sand be drawn back. Another groan and the Mey had lain alone at the back of her and demand that all must speak head appeared. Elongated skull bruised family house. Her mother’s mother laid her alike lest jostle turn to where it had sat against the portal. The out in the attitude of a child, head bowed turbulence. infant face cleared. The baby turned to to chest, knees bent. A red blanket was look at its mother’s thigh. Patience again. placed over her, there was no expectation We, young and old, man and woman, a pause. Then palms pressed against the that she would live. The women sat around are strong in our opinions infant’s ears Huna eased one shoulder the fire, exchanging stories, what trials in and worship a single god, then the other negotiating the mother’s travail. What anecdotes of near death! a desert god. bones with long practice. This one considered at the brink then There was no cry. recovered. That one all but extinguished As the East overspills The infant body flopped grey with then revival. Joy at being met again at like a mountain belching magma, blue limbs. She quickly tied and snipped the hearth by those who had been at the they crush and burn the old life, the cord. No time for the severing ritual- threshold between earth and sky. re-educate in camps cramped as cities. would that have repercussions later? Huna had watched and waited. They Huna missed her own mother now; times would not always come to her in time. Who needs, we ask, to learn the ways past they would have split their duties Sometimes they would wait and wait of God and Nature? one to the infant one to the mother. She and not consult. Then when there was looked around the group of women. Who no hope have her come and do her could she trust to follow her instructions? business and when it failed, something Who was humble enough to act without within them was satisfied. They had done argument?

24 Northwords Now Issue 38, Autumn-Winter 2019 One young woman, barely thirteen, pale face, still no cry though, that meant It’s a name in our line and all called it bring out jealousies and long nursed locked eyes with her. Her light eyes bright the blush could fade away. She pummelled have lived long. wrath. Elder Watten and his supporters; in contrast to the exhausted sisters. the womb into shape, cursing its laxity. Huna called the name Lyth, flicking which way would the staff fall? Would she ‘Skirza, take the infant. Rub dry with She spoke harshly to it commanding it the baby’s feet with her still bloodied be paraded stripped through the village, the blanket like you would a lamb. Use to stay firm using words from the old hands. cursed by mouth and hand to be purged the reeds to suck snot from the nose.’ tongue. The supporters lay Mey on her Lyth cried out at the discomfort. The by fire at the forest edge? Skirza was the weaver’s daughter. She had back on the wool sack. raising her briefly lurking spirits that had filled the room The old man took the stout staff he nimble fingers. as they replaced the soiled bedding. fled out the door. All the women felt was carrying and stamped it down at the Huna must concentrate on Mey. If she Huna sat close beside her charge. Hand their malevolent presence depart. The air threshold to Huna’s crannog. Keiss the was to live. Her right hand on the arch, resting on her belly, ready to intervene if sweetened. rope maker fastened it to the bridge rail. her left she used to bunch the chord and the womb softened. Skirza brought the Slowly the women excused themselves. Nybster the Orator began a tale of tribute draw down towards the earth then up infant close to her. They had the days chores to see to. They and gratitude. Long on sentiment and towards the sky. She felt the bulk released. ‘I’ve sooked out the nose. I’ve rubbed might catch sleep in the afternoon. No short on detail he rambled along merrily The mass gathered together in a bowl. the body. There’s breath there but very chance of that for Huna, crouching for a few stanzas till the light faded She could inspect it later. See what omens quiet.’ Skirza looked from Huna back to vigilant over Mey and Lyth. Skirza altogether and those gathered retired to were there, why this journey had taken the infant, waiting for more instruction. showed no sign of departing. She fussed their own firesides. this route. ‘The baby is at the threshold. We must about the room tiding and sorting and Huna and Skirza inspected the staff. Now there was great danger for Mey. call the wee one’s soul in. Promise good folding. Glancing often at mother and The top was carved into a fat bellied The body and soul could so easily separate milk and warmth. Clean rags and warm child. Perhaps this was the apprentice she woman. An adult sized baby came from at this time. One to earth and one to sky. oil rubs. Always to be in someone’s arms.’ had prayed for? her so that the figure appeared to have Huna felt the womb bulk, drawing in to Skirza nodded. ‘We need an inviting Now as she peered through the reed two heads. Thrumster the wood carver itself. Tightening hardening, under her name.’ screen watching those gathered Huna had got one thing exactly right, both massage. Briefly aware of Skirza’s activity, Two women came forward. Mey’s knew by bitter experience that success mouths were wide open. n she noted the blush of life on the infant’s mother and Aunt. ‘Lyth’ the mother said. does not always bring reward. It can

ow long has she been “I thought you were starving?” here?” Jack asked, looking Valentine “Not any more I’m not.” “Halong the tow path towards the bridge, where three narrowboats Jamie hadn’t been keen to let them in. were moored. Story by Jennifer Watson The sitting room was strewn with empty “Hard to say for sure,” replied the beer cans, plastic carryout trays and pizza pathologist, looking up at him from ✯ boxes. A clothes rack stood in the corner where she crouched beside the body. by the window. Black tights and purple “Hazard a guess, Liz, go on, just for knickers hung beside greying tee-shirts. me,” Jack said, turning his jacket collar The ashtray on the coffee table had been up against the chill and running a hand recently emptied. Five dirty mugs sat through his thick grey hair. “OK. Next of kin?” He walked more slowly back towards on the floor, at the corner of the black “Three, maybe four days. But don’t “Don’t know that yet. I’m on it.” the car, reading the inscriptions. And leather sofa. quote me on that. It’s always more difficult “Right, I’ll be back in about half an the ages. Some twice his age, some half. “I’d make you some tea, but there’s no to tell time of death when they’ve been in hour. I need to go somewhere on the Infants born a hundred years ago who milk,” Jamie said. the water.” way.” never made it into childhood. Never “We’re not wanting tea. We’d just like “Cause of death?” Jack asked, feeling made it onto their feet, let alone out into to ask you a few questions.” in his pocket and fishing out his phone. He drove in silence through the the world. “Isabella MacArthur, 97 years, “I answered loads of questions before. “Now you’re just playing silly buggers,” gathering darkness. It had started dearly beloved Mum, grandma and great Have you found Gail? Is she ok?” Liz straightened, smiling. They had drizzling. Streetlights came on as the car grandmother.” Anna could have been all “We’ve found Gail, yes. I’m afraid she worked together for eight years now and wove its way through the empty streets, those things. is not ok, no. She’s dead.” she knew Jack’s impatience well. “I’ll tell up the hill at the back of the town to Jack slammed the car door shut. He “What? But how? Where did you find you after I’ve done the post mortem.” the graveyard. Jack parked the car and sighed deeply, ran a hand down over his her? What happened?” “Ok, see you later,” Jack said, tapping a got out. He shut the car door quietly, forehead and rested it over his eyes. He “We’re hoping you might be able to number into his phone. went to the boot and took out a bunch of turned on the radio. “Bye Bye Baby” came help us with that, Jamie. Where were yellow roses. He walked quickly, hands on, the volume too loud. He pressed the you on the nightGail went missing? Last “Louise? I need you to check out the dug deep into his pockets, the blooms knob again quickly to kill it. Thursday. 14th February. Valentine’s owners of three canal boats for me. Yes, tucked down the front of his donkey Day?” Canal boats. They’re “Peggy”, “Mary- jacket. The cellophane crinkled as he Back at the station, he settled at his “I was here. With Gail. We were going Jane” and “Anna-Louise”. Yes, the last walked. Approaching the far corner of desk, carryout coffee to hand. Over in to go out….” two are hyphenated. Does that matter? the graveyard, his pace slowed and then the corner, someone was eating fish and “And did you? Go out?” Ok, thanks.” stopped. The gravestone was still shiny chips. The smell wafted across the office, “No.” Jack started walking back along the and new-looking. Dark grey granite the tang of vinegar making Jack’s mouth “Why not?” tow path to where he had parked the blue with flecks of silver and blue. Like her water. “Because we argued.” Mondeo by the old furniture warehouse. eyes. He read the inscription. “Let’s call it a night, Louise. I’m starving “What did you argue about, Jamie?” “What do we know about her?” asked “Anna Jane Hudson. Dearly beloved. and we can’t do much more until the PM “It was nothing, just a silly Jack, opening the driver’s door and sliding Gone too soon. 10/8/92 – 14/2/16” is in from Liz.” He took his jacket from misunderstanding…” into the seat. He slotted his phone in the He stood for a moment, head bowed, the back of his chair and made his way to “Was it to do with her seeing someone holder and switched to hands free. still. He leaned forward, kissed his finger the door. else, perhaps?” “She’s Gail Munro, twenty-three years tips and placed them on the carved-out “Jack? You might want to look at “No! She wasn’t, she wouldn’t… old, reported missing by her boyfriend name. Slid them across each letter, slowly, this. It’s just in from Liz…” Louise called, No!” last week,” Louise replied. gently. He pulled the flowers out from looking up from her screen. “Or was it that you didn’t want to hear “How do we know that?” his jacket and laid them on the ground, He joined her. Looked at the screen. what she was telling you? Just like you “From the call log at the station.” wishing he’d brought a vase. But they Tapped his fingers on the desk. didn’t want to hear what Anna told you “Yes, yes, but how do we know that would last a while in this February chill. “Right, come with me. We’re going to two years ago? I’ll ask you again, Jamie, it’s her?” There were still patches of snow on the visit the boyfriend.” where were you that evening between “Liz said there was a driving licence in grass, etchings of ice on the dried-out “Now?” 10pm and midnight?” asked Jack, leaning the back pocket of her jeans.” puddles. “Yes, now.” forward, hands clasped, knuckles white. n

Northwords Now Issue 38, Autumn-Winter 2019 25 Poetry

Shark Morning has broken Samuel Tongue Samuel Tongue

Anti-cancer books are blooming all over the house Unsleeping, I hear the morning chorus start like those massive moon jellyfish blooms that block with what could be sparrow or chaffinch water filtration systems in nuclear power plants: cleaning the bedroom window with a squeegee, Eat to Beat…How to Live with…How to Survive…How to Swim against the Tide – squealing through last night’s rain streaks, shining and you’re telling me about the NHS massage session you’ve just had, it off with its beak. You, my snoring beauty, where the lass asked you to close your eyes and imagine a warm sleep on, regular as an idling tractor. sunny beach and you’re walking into the warm, clear water, Morning has broken, but you’ll help haul it each step taking you in, deeper and deeper, warm around your ankles now, out of its muddy ditch and set it right. Together, your legs, your thighs, you’re up to your waist, sun on your back, deeper and deeper – we’ll give it a push, get it going, sputtering and I want to scream, “Shark! Shark! Look out! Shark! Get out! Get out! GET OUT!” like a kettle, then watch it warm into a buttery day.

Companion Species Samuel Tongue

The field is an ocean of cotton-sedge. Magpies backcomb the sows’ bristlebacks, picking out lice with pinpeck precision. All bib and tucker, all captain’s table, they shrug off sorrow and joy, girls and boys, secrets and kisses. Keep the silver and gold, keep the wishes. One stands straight as a mast, then punches right through the pigskin: < Oh! Hot unction of rich rose-red gush, life’s delicious stream and salvation! > and now they’re laughing in their fifty-a-day throats – < Oh! Unsealed seams of uncoagulated wonder, life’s red-smiling sun trap! > They stilt-strut across the sows’ pink decks, thick elephant-boats tacking in the wet field.

The pigs roll pebbles in their boot-puncture mouths, lining their bellies with ballast. Rattle-bags wrapped in sausage-skins, they understand there is a price to pay for such glossy parliaments. They must sacrifice a little blood in this social contract. But there is space for rebellion. Wilfully pig-headed, weighed down in the pitching mud, they wallow titanically. Self-scuttled. The magpies bolt with clean cuffs and diamond-cut tails. The new sun burns them purple. They fill the lifeboat trees heavy and wait.

and I would beg my father, Not a mountain Unexpected Change “Tell me a story Anna Fleming Janis Clark of when you were a boy on Colonsay.” I am not a mountain Inside the barn a horse waits for the crunch of boots He told me, once, I am lichen and stone, on snowy cobbles, that the islanders, water and ice, eagles and listens for the scrape out at sea, sphagnum; hares, birch, of metal doors across runners, fishing for saithe or lobsters, ptarmigan, lynx. grown stiff with rust and time. could sense where the island was, when mist came down, Without salmon Breath freezes in still air. and make safely for the shore. and deer, rowan and heather; Ice has covered the water buckets plover, wolf, wind, and the lights are still off in the farmhouse. But strangers, without a compass, pine The horse is expectant, mindful of routine could row out to sea that hasn’t changed for fifteen years and when the mist lifted I am not a mountain. but will today. find themselves lost On a vast, featureless ocean. Tall and jagged, vast and wild, I may look like a mountain – Now it is the Colbhasach Lost who have rowed away from the island, but my skin is stretched thin Catriona McNeill Courtier into the sea of the past, Taking with them their language and their stories. flanks turn I remember Port Mor, deathly green. the reddish brown cattle among the rocks, I am adrift. the sun on the water, You who feast on simplicity the sea lice, sharp as glass, And strangers sit by the hearth. worship a shadow raising spots of bright blood on my ankles.

I am not a mountain After darkness fell we would sit by the fire, Come gorge on our loss. while the great light on Du Hirteach, patrolled the night waves to the west,

26 Northwords Now Issue 38, Autumn-Winter 2019 e’ve been invited to a party, hoping the acrid scent didn’t make you you said, by Ann Marie, do Ann Marie’s Party feel sick again. Past talking, you leaned on Wyou want to go? It’s her my shoulder and closed your eyes. fortieth, she wants us both to come. I When we reached what used to be our wasn’t sure. We’d only recently split up. Story by Martin Russell bedroom, you’d gone all unarticulated Should we be going out together? It like a rag doll. I got you to stand with might confuse people. Come on, you ✯ your arms in the air while I unbuttoned said, so I said okay. your dress. You flopped onto the bed and It’s in this hall in the country, at I wondered what to do. After wondering, Cawdor, you told me. But there will be I got into the bed beside you, to protect a bus to take us there. It goes from some you against the demons of the night, and hotel in town. I said I’d meet you there, rhyming Ann Marie with bain-marie was your shoulder while we breathed in the to nurse you if you needed nursing. once you could remember the name of brilliant. pollen scented country air, and felt as I woke at some point in the wee small the hotel. You were looking forward to it. You were having a blast. You hit the close to you as I have ever felt. I’m okay hours, and heard you making soft noises. I was too, although I managed to feel my whiskey and kept dragging me onto now, you said, let’s get our coats. I sensed you were dreaming about fairies usual degree of anxiety. the dance floor for Jive Bunny jiving, The two of us in the back of the taxi and elves. I felt your breath against my On the night, you wore that lovely Gay-Gordoning, and eightsome-reeling. somehow reminded me of the two of skin, and thought; we’ve been here before, dress patterned with red roses. I said you My usual aversion to dancing had been us in our powder blue wedding Roller, but why are we here now? The bed, you, looked great, and that was the truth. You overrun. You seemed so happy and when the driver insisted on having the the room; everything was so familiar. said I looked smart, and that I’d obviously carefree, but, armed with foreknowledge, football results on the radio. He got the In the morning, I wondered how made an effort. I had. I was wondering how long this could news he had been dreading; Kilmarnock far this might go, but settled for a wee We had a drink at the hotel and last. had been relegated. This man just had cuddle. I made some tea and brought chatted to some friends of Ann Marie. you a glass of water and a Panadol. It was Everybody seemed to know her, which, strange being there in the house with no I guess they would. We all said what a I could get used to this, you children. They’d be back around ten, you laugh she was, and what a trooper. Then a said. I felt a bit guilty about being there, double-decker bus drew up. We took our and said I’d need to be making tracks. seats on the top deck and soon had plastic said. You seemed to be in the Thanks for looking after me, you said. goblets of bubbly fizz in our hands. As Afterwards I wondered what had the bus rocked about, drinking it wasn’t happened. It seemed that you had been easy, but we persevered. I could get used party mood. the damsel in the rose print dress, and to this, you said. You seemed to be in the I had been your knight in tarnished party mood. armour. A while later you asked me if I We arrived at the hall, me feeling thought that night might have been the slightly seedy and you positively radiating. start of something. I said I thought that You said you had ants in your pants and it was neither the start nor the finish, but you had to dance. I told you I had to I’m feeling sick, you said, where’s the the two way radio on with crackling more like a kind of Christmas truce in sing Ann Marie’s song first. It wasn’t the toilet? I waited while you chundered. I Invernessian voices: ‘Party of four at Mr our little war of attrition. Like singing best song or the finest performance in want to go home now, you said. I told G’s going to Kinmylies.’ There were at least ‘Silent Night,’ and playing thirty-two a the world, but Ann Marie took it in the you I’d ring for a taxi. Wait, you said, walk three Christmas tree shaped air fresheners side football in no man’s land. You just right spirit. You were fine, you told me, with me outside. I put my arm round hanging from his rear view mirror. I was looked puzzled. n

he sun sears the flesh on his window in a passing vehicle. For a minute back. It is mid-day. The flowers The Sand Pit he swears he has heard Emily’s voice. That Tdroop, aching for water, but Gary high-pitched ring of warmth. It stops will not be beaten. The grass is turning him. He stands in the road and surveys to rust, coarse and prickly under foot and Story by Catriona Yule the landscape, 360 degrees of countryside. he does not want his daughter to jab her His mind flits. He is at the side of a road. A bare feet. His fingers ruffle the back of ✯ ford fiesta is being towed on to the back of his closely shaven hair. He looks at the a recovery vehicle: its front a mashed-up spiky lawn and sighs. Sweat is clinging bonnet with holes where the headlights to the back of his neck. The tops of his to budge from it. What would Emily be longer belong to his body. Everything is had been. A child seat just visible. They’d shoulders are beginning to redden. He thinking? Sometimes when he’s out there disconnected. It occurs to him that he is been on their way back from the garden stops the lawnmower and marches across he can sense her beside him, prodding drenched in sweat and oddly the heat is centre, grains of sand still hidden in the the garden. him on. Watching Millie. How would she no longer an enemy. creases of the back cushions. “Millie, let’s get something to drink.” ever grow without a mother? He sighs He passes a few cottages, shouting He shakes himself. He has to get back The little girl is filling a cracked bucket and hauls himself up from the chair. He “Millie!” though his voice is getting to the house in case she’s there. The sun with sand and looks up at him with a can’t leave the garden to abandonment. hoarse. The sweat drips from his forehead. begins to weaken. He continues to shout look of disdain. Outside the sun beats down. He strides The sun continues to beat down but the her name as loudly as he can. “I’m playing, Daddy.” over to the sand pit. The bucket is upside rage in it has died. He expects her to be in the garden “I know, but it’s hot. Let’s get a drink down and his daughter is gone. He shouts As he walks past the Moir’s house, a when he reaches the driveway. He and then you can play after.” “Millie!” as loud as he can but the garden man bent over in the garden, suddenly imagines her saying “daddy, I was bored “I don’t want to.” remains silent. He starts to scour under the springs up and waves. He shouts a greeting so I went on an adventure but I’m back “I’m going in then and I’ll bring you shrubs at the side of the house. He shouts then continues to tend to his border of now” but she isn’t there. He looks closer some water. Did you put some cream on again. Louder. Silence envelops him. He pansies. Gary is already on his way. He now and realises there isn’t a sandpit. your shoulders?” hunts in the old cupboard at the back neither sees Rob Moir or acknowledges The front door is slightly open and he “Yes!” of the shed and behind the bikes in the him. He thinks he will have to turn back walks in as though he has never lived in In the kitchen, he pours himself water garage, yelling in each spot. He searches and fetch the car. He can cover more his own house. On the mantelpiece, he from the jug and pulls out a chair from in the dirty outhouse buildings and down ground that way. Realising it’s the most reaches for a piece of card that is propped the wooden table scraping the leg along the lane. He can hardly breathe. positive thought he’s had, he heads back, up by a clock which has stopped. In the the tiled floor. The garden is beginning He turns and starts to walk back the almost at a sprint. Trees arch themselves middle of the card is a photo of a woman to consume him. Every day he winces at way he came. He doesn’t know why. It overhead and cars start to pass him. and child. One word written in script the dry soil and the gladioli that refuse is an action without thought. His feet no A hand emerges from a passenger font at the top: Remembered. n

Northwords Now Issue 38, Autumn-Winter 2019 27 REVIEWS

The Amber Seeker be cowardly. He listens to other people of the full import of events in an old economic productivity, and the search for Mandy Haggith and always tries to avoid violence, yet he poorhouse and – to borrow Freud – the Debbie is action-packed and believable. Saraband (2019) is capable of treating slaves and women as return of the repressed, is managed with Runaway’s depiction of the Milne Review by Helen Sedgwick though they are less than human. This he suspenseful precision as the novel moves marriage and its consequences – perfect excuses with the knowledge that other through the uncanny ebb and flow of from the outside, decidedly less so as The Amber Seeker is the second novel men would have done the same. It would history’s erosion into the present. lived on a day-to-day basis in line with in Mandy Haggith’s remarkable Stone be easy, then, to dismiss him as a man of Lawrence’s character construction predominant, ideologically-sanctioned Stories trilogy, set in Iron Age Britain his time, but for the fact that he was so is detailed and sympathetic in relation values – reveals a form of institution too and Northern Europe in 320 BC. The extraordinary for his time. In taking what to her key 19th century characters: the difficult for some to bear. And, with Maggie first instalment, The Walrus Mutterer, he wants with such arrogance he perhaps young, innocent, kindly Jessie, labelled and Wilma toasting their continued introduced Rian, a young woman behaves like other men of his time, but he a “Winzie” and said to bring a curse partnership, readers can look forward to living in the Scottish Highlands who is also has the ability to see – tragically too with her; Effie, traumatised by the death more spirited involvements in the darker enslaved and taken to sea by her brutal late – how profoundly wrong it was to of her baby; and Bella, Effie’s brutal side of Scottish life determinedly driven captor, Ussa, and Ussa’s unlikely traveling do so. His is the story of an explorer who sister, whose determination to find the by two independent-minded women. n companion, Pytheas of Massalia. The does the unforgiveable, but deep within diamond taints all around her. Similarly Amber Seeker changes point of view to it is a powerfully feminist core. n in the 20th century, the depiction of Rattleskin show us these events, along with what Rona and Craig’s relationship grows Martin Russell happened before and after, as they appear Precious Vanishings in time with each challenge they face, Available from to Pytheas – a real historical figure and and the contrast between their dearth [email protected] Greek explorer who comes to life in this Down to the Sea of historical information and the care Review by Cynthia Rogerson deeply convincing portrait of a complex, Sue Lawrence home’s inhabitants’ interest in it brings flawed, infuriating, fascinating man. Contraband (2018) them closer together, nourishing It’s not easy to tell the truth about life, Pytheas’s story begins before he meets Runaway an atmosphere of mutual help and especially those moments when people Rian – a meeting that will have lifelong Claire MacLeary understanding in Wardie House. feel truly rattled inside their own skin. consequences for them both – at a time Contraband (2019) The denouement is deftly managed, And if you can tell it, it’s not easy to be when he has left his home in Massalia Review by Valerie Beattie and justice plays its part in surprising convincing or humble, much less funny. (modern day Marseille) to journey ways. Overall, Down To The Sea is a Russell manages all these things in his north in search of the sources of tin, Two recent Contraband publications – gripping tale that brings its historical collection of stories. In addition, he does amber and northern ivory. He describes Sue Lawrence’s novel Down To The Sea strands together with satisfying narrative what few writers dare. In the introduction himself as seeking knowledge above all and Claire MacLeary’s Runaway – aim to twists and turns right to the end. he lays his cards on the table and invites else, though this, and many other things thrill readers with a focus on, respectively, the reader to let him know what they besides, highlights the extent to which he a modern-day gothic tale of treachery Claire MacLeary’s Runaway focuses on think. All writing is about connecting is unreliable as our narrator. He is prone and Aberdeen’s answer to Cagney and the apparently motiveless disappearance with readers, and almost all writers are to make excuses for himself, but he also Lacey. of a wife and mother. Whilst given a thrilled when a reader contacts them – meets people from new cultures with an Down To The Sea’s cover page précis – name – Debbie Milne – her invisibility as yet no books to my knowledge openly open mind and a genuine desire to learn “When secrets from the past won’t stay an individual extends through her roles solicit correspondence. what they might have to teach him, and hidden” – signals its focus on unsettling as wife and mother to her perplexing This kind of courage and willingness in this way he is a thoughtful guide as information waiting in the wings, and disappearance. Labelled a “misper”, to be vulnerable is reflected in the stories. he leads us through Iron Age Britain and Lawrence follows through with secrets MacLeary’s representation of the case Some are drawn from life, others are not, beyond. aplenty linked to guarded and secluded serves in part as a vehicle to highlight all focus on the way we negotiate tricky In one particularly striking scene he homes and lives, and an ill-gotten, highly police prejudice and incompetence, with times in life. travels underground to a cave where tin valuable diamond. A key structural feature Debbie’s disappearance seeming more an Poignant and understated, these are sad is mined, capturing magnificently the of the novel is the use of the emotions of inconvenience than a tragedy. stories, in a good way. Overall, the thread darkness, claustrophobia and fear of being fear and terror intrinsic to dark revelations, Enter “Big” Wilma Harcus and Maggie running from the first page to the last, is trapped under the earth. Later, having and its gothic dynamic is heralded by the Laird, neighbours, wives and co-partners one of dry humour and warmth. There is travelled east across northern Europe and Prologue’s setting in a timeless, placeless in a failing detective agency. Runaway a lot of mocking, but all of it affectionate. found himself abandoned and captive, world of ghostly body parts operating is MacLeary’s third novel featuring the So, black humour with heart, delivered there’s a scene I found similarly terrifying, with murderous intent. Deferring the Harcus and Laird pairing, and the focus in very short deadpan bursts. It’s a bit this time set in the open air, the cave’s Prologue’s action by a knock on the door on the challenges and complexities like eating a box of Cadbury Milktray, darkness replaced by the violence human (one senses echoes of Macbeth and De La of the women’s lives along with their blindfolded. You don’t know what will be beings are capable of. Mere’s The Traveller), Lawrence postpones (sometimes dubious) talent for crime- inside each, but they all taste very good. The story feels immaculately readers’ access to the fate and identity of solving has affinities with the spirit of the Russell is a fine satirist, but his best researched, though the lightness of touch both the slight figure in the bed and the iconic Cagney and Lacey television series work is heartfelt and serious. Ann ensures the events and characters are never holder of the blade as we are transported of the 1980s. Just as its shining light was Marie’s Party follows a recently separated weighed down with detail. One of the to 1981. Here, a young couple’s purchase the way the 14th Precinct in Manhattan couple, who have not quite managed it. joys of reading was coming across snippets of an old mansion in Newhaven for the was a vehicle for the show’s focus on the The narrator and his wife go to a party of information about the characters we purpose of transforming it into a care women themselves, Runaway’s strength together, and on the surface have a good met in The Walrus Mutterer and their home ignites a series of coincidences, resides in its characterisation of Maggie time. It’s as if they are still together. She Iron Age world. Haggith has written tensions and historical synergies between and Wilma battling life in Aberdeen wears a lovely dress, he notes. They dance two books that succeed in feeling totally Wardie House and Wardie House Lodge during the major downturn in the oil and drink and laugh. When he takes different but inescapably intertwined, in the 19th and 20th centuries. industry whilst searching for the ghostly her home, she is drunk and he puts her and it has left me eagerly anticipating the Already laden with enough “past” Debbie. As they extend their search, gently to bed. But what is this phase of third in the trilogy. of their own, the irony of taking on so Aberdeen’s bleakness is heightened by the a marriage? Resembling a good patch, it But what I keep coming back to is the much of it in relation to Wardie House pair’s discovery of people trafficking and is neither the beginning nor does it look character of Pytheas himself; the way at and its prospective inhabitants is lost money laundering. However, rather than like an ending. The tenderness seems to times I felt a furious disgust towards him on Rona and Craig. Moreover, their allow such discoveries to phase or deter stem from awareness of transience. With while at others a deep sympathy, even an preoccupations and lack of time enable them, they meet increasing dangers head uncanny authorial judgment, this is the uncomfortable kinship. His interest in the mysterious Martha to inveigle her on, remaining believable as characters all single scene Russell chooses to tell the science, in learning, is so all consuming way into their lives and home with sinister the while. The novel is convincing in its story of a whole marriage. he sometimes forgets about the human repercussions. As Lawrence positions depiction of the underbelly of modern In The Day the Rain Came Down, the beings around him. His journey is the 19th and 20th century narratives cities, particularly during times of lean narrator is a child living with his mother – undoubtedly brave but his behaviour can sequentially, readers’ comprehension his sole parent. His mother looks after the

28 Northwords Now Issue 38, Autumn-Winter 2019 REVIEWS

actor, stage manager, shepherd, teacher, foghorns were tended by live-in keepers; journalist, poet, politician, husband, and all men (though many women gave father. Perhaps because he sought to support as wives and mothers at stations escape the influence of his own father, where families lived). Those statistics Willie Orr’s account is very much one book-end a now-vanished profession and of other influences – of individuals who sub-culture. So testimony from keepers shaped his life and who shaped, or tried to can be both fascinating and historically shape, events in Scotland. And as with his invaluable . father’s life story, there is much of which Archie’s Lights is a superb memoir it is good to be reminded and perspectives of a lightkeeper’s life, written from which this reader valued: for example, transcribed conversations between on Tom Buchan as ‘sadly underrated as Archie MacEachern and his second wife, a literary figure’ and Orr’s belief that Anne, who compiled the book. Born Robin Hall and Jimmy Macgregor ‘rarely into a lighthouse family in 1910, Archie’s get enough credit for the stimulus they professional connection to the Northern gave to the Scottish folk revival’. Lighthouse Board began in the 1920s Orr has lived a restless life, in what he and continued through the rest of the calls ‘a pattern of vagrancy’, and it is this century. So his recollections are legion, his which brought him into contact with perspective on lighthouses, their keepers so many who contributed to Scottish and locations superb. For anyone drawn culture and left-wing politics of the by the allure of the lights, this book is a past half century. This strength, when must-read classic. joined with the author’s interest in so Shifting from earth lights to the shine many other places and events, is also the of countless stars, ‘Oor Big Braw Cosmos’ book’s weakness. Parts of it can seem a is one of the year’s most surprising non- magpie collection of bright or fascinating fiction collaborations. In it, John Brown, things: an appreciation of the Hermitage Scotland’s Astronomer Royal, combines in St Petersburg; opinion on Germany’s with Rab Wilson, Screiver in Residence failure to recognise Croatian Republic in at the Robert Burns Birthplace Museum, October 1991; and, closer to home, just to give their contrasting takes on the over a paragraph on the allegations of universe. The results are both surprising ritual sexual abuse in Orkney, with Orr’s and intellectually challenging. conclusion that he has ‘no doubt about This is a book to use both for the veracity’ of one child’s account of reference (the astronomer’s summaries of abuse. These, especially the last, deserve many subjects, from the Big Bang to solar either much more – or silence. Perhaps physics and exoplanets, are models of this is just too short book in which to clarity) and sheer fun. Think of moving at deal with two fascinating lives and so one page turn from details of star clusters many influences. to a poem that describes them as ‘Sequins shewn oan ‘Strictly’/That blinter oan TV’ Archie’s Lights and you get some of the picture. But the nice old Mrs Garibaldi, and they all live enthralment to Dublin’s Gate Theatre, the By Anne MacEachern illustrations throughout the book are also together in what seems a life of security, plays of J M Synge, and Celtic Revivalism Whittles Publishing (2019) braw – a clever mix of images and art if not material ease. The story focuses on to become a Unionist MP and Grand Oor Big Braw Cosmos selected from recent sources. It’s a book the physical details of a pivotal day in Master of the Orange Order. In a political By John C Brown & Rab Wilson (2019) that rewards both concentrated reading the narrator’s life. His mother attempts career which ended in the disgrace of Luath Press and random toe-dipping in its seas of suicide, but there is no drama in the attempted bigamy, he was succeeded as The Missing Lynx stars and universal energies. telling of that – no exclamation marks or MP for South Down by Enoch Powell. By Ross Barnett tears. What remains – in the descriptions Willie Orr approaches with compassion Bloomsbury (2019) Back on earth, ‘rewilding’ is a term of the street, the house and the narrator’s and clear sightedness the challenge of Reviewed by Kenny Taylor now much used and perhaps less-well impressions - is a very heightened sense coming to terms with his father’s life. understood, in our part of the planet. of isolation and bewilderment. It is a And there is much here of which it is Lighthouses can fire the imagination. So The Missing Lynx by Highland-based story worth several reads. And then important that we are reminded from Beyond the beauty of their structures, writer, Ross Barnett, is a welcome perhaps one more. time to time: lest we forget the origins of there’s a symbolism that shines. Light deep dive by a scientist into the lives The fact Russell is not an established the Troubles in the systematic oppression beams sweeping the darkness; stability of now-extinct species and the future and acclaimed author seems proof that of the Catholic population of Northern atop raging seas and remote headlands; potential for reintroduction of others. accolades are not always the inevitable Ireland, the brutalities of the sectarian tales of wrecks and rescues and bravery Ross’s specialization is the analysis and result of talent. These stories deserve a ‘B Special’ police force, and the first and endurance; unsolved mysteries. interpretation of ancient DNA. But as wider audience and serious attention, for bombing campaigns organised by the Think of the Flannan Isles, where the befits a prize-winner in the most recent they bring something important to the Ulster Volunteer Force in 1966. His son lightkeepers vanished four days before Hugh Miller Writing Competition, this world. Compassion. n brings a unique perspective to this part Christmas in 1900, or Sule Skerry, with is no dry, academic text. There’s zing in of our history and there is even a strange its shape-shifting seals. Then there’s the the ways he describes creatures such as The Shepherd and the Morning hopefulness in the thought that Captain allure of the link between Robert Louis sabre-toothed cats and cave hyaenas and Star Orr was not the inevitable product of his Stevenson and the family that designed fun – with serious purpose – in how he Willie Orr background, that he made bad choices, most of Scotland’s lighthouses over more tackles species such as beaver. Birlinn (2019) and that at the end he was perhaps more than 150 years. But that’s another story. “There is no cut-off point, no box Review By David Alston himself with a fishing rod than in an Since 1998, when the last keepers left where the spectre of human-caused Orange Lodge. Fair Isle South, all of Scotland’s lighthouses extinction can be confined” he notes. So This is a double biography in one volume. Within this frame is Willie Orr’s have been automated – controlled from we need to find ways of avoiding such The author’s own life story (so far) is portrayal of his own life – by any afar and visited mostly by maintenance mistakes. This is a book to inform future framed by that of his father, Captain standard a remarkable one. He has been engineers. For over two centuries until thinking through its skilful accounts of ‘Billy’ Orr, who moved from his student among other things a shipyard electrician, then, those lights and their associated both the distant and recent past. n

Northwords Now Issue 38, Autumn-Winter 2019 29 REVIEWS

Skin Can Hold (in my hand’s revolving wheel) I was waiting for them in the form of dew is on the experience of the walker with Vahni Capildeo ‘Syntax Poems’ and rust. place; how the changing nature of place Carcanet (2019) ‘Midnight Robber Monologue’ is revealed at a walking pace and the Review by Lydia Harris The experience feels like an enactment interactive relationship of the poet with of the process of reading a poem. Carter’s Capildeo brings together the things place. Skin Can Hold is an encyclopedia; a lines are sent back by a different route, we have barely noticed. She makes us These finely crafted poems represent portable manual for all of us bound re-expressed, entering and transforming aware of what we hardly believe language layers of knowledge and experience, into language. It invites us to new ways our world. Here in the book, the texts can do, which the book shows is far more developed by Gerrie over years of walking of reading, new possibilities for writing. are ours to read in any order or voice. than we thought it could. n in a variety of Scottish landscapes and of For this reader, it has been a voyage to We too experience the poems bodily. close observation of the natural world. unfamiliar and exciting territories. Through repetition and pause, through Islander Several of them take us with her broken lines, we are transreaders too. Lynn Davidson on a journey and, through her acute We aim to deliver a fully anachronistic Explaining her ideas about transread- Shearsman (2019) observational skills and vivid imagery incorporation experience on the brown bag ing, Capildeo, in the introduction to ‘The Review by Lydia Harris of the natural world, she allows us to service Syntax Poems’ writes, “we concentrated share her experience of how the land on features of the language where activ- In Lyn Davidson’s ‘Leaving Bass Rock slowly unfolds at a pedestrian pace. declares the playful opening ‘The ity happens”. Gannet Colony’ the birds rise and orbit They demonstrate an awareness and Brown Bag Service’. ‘Shame’ also explores performance and the rock as the poet takes her own flight appreciation of the geology, natural script. The notes about the performer’s from the place. The couplets dive with history and human history of Scotland ‘Four Ablutions’, which immediately costume show us that it is Carnival or images of falling, disintegration and and the interplay between them. They follows the ‘Prologue’, is a text for script for a concert with the Shadow. It recreation. also include many instances of enchanting performance. The reader is transformed consists of calls and response and powerful moments of beauty: to performer as she reads. Already we declamations. It is personal, subversive blowing are reaching beyond the page, taking on and engaging. The poem is visceral and Bass Rock into feathery pieces “in the strings of the wind the river’s music new risks and trusting ourselves to the also has the beautiful detachment of peregrine’s solitary mew dragonflies language. liturgy. The poems in this collection are spare a coupled zither and meditative with surges of tenderness. tumble rings of gold through air” Is this a ritual of freeing or a ritual of ‘When was I ashamed?… Fathers, mothers, sons and daughters are realisation? ‘I was not ashamed when the powerful present as part of the fabric of deep time, In addition to her lucid and intelligent editor-poet-translator…’ deep connection. Islands to mainland, writing, Gerrie’s trademark as a poet is The poems teach us to embody words, north to south. Lynn Davidson makes her objectivity; an effective stance from to move into Carnival, to re-enunciate The section from ‘The End of the deft use of white space. Her poems grow which to comment on nature-culture ‘Antony and Cleopatra’, re-live Spark. Poem’ voices the process of making a out of silence and return there, resonating interaction. Often, what draws her to Capildeo gives us words with which poem. like solemn bells. Her images are poised write about a landscape is its human to explore colonisation, gender, race. and arresting. ‘Standing Places’ describes presence and she frequently draws our The world of the poems is a world of It tails uses for sticking plasters. attention to the tension between or dance, travel, conversion. Her text is full off. And on. And on. juxtaposition of man-made structures of movement and we are moved by the One for my father who is worn out and elements of wildness: experience of reading. It is Biblical in tone, apocalyptic in and misses my mother. content. “the rusted fence, fallen wall Green in judgement, she heard no screams. The poems offer us a whole globe, intense green of moss and bilberry” Cold in blood, she gave no scream; burnt on I said take the seventh word down… as the poet moves between islands and the water. between hemispheres. They offer us Futuriest Cleopatra: after ‘The Prime of Miss It shifts into a colloquial register the exposed human heart in its many This collection of poems about Jean Brodie’. and back again to the ouroboros, the habitations. The opening poem ‘My Stair’ Scotland’s hills, moors, rivers and beginning of the poem in the end of the moves between father and daughter. The enclosures conjures up a vivid sense The poems expose individual words, poem. stair and the buses, close to the daughter’s of place and of season. They weave-in present us with an array of languages. home, are transformed into luminous themes of geology, ecology and human Skin Can Hold is a book of tongues, a ‘The End of the Poem’ faces us with images of loss and grief. history, expressing Gerrie’s understanding book of songs with actions, an invitation poetry’s place in the public gaze. Does of the ecological and cultural nuances to write ourselves into a new world. poetry withstand capitalism, colonisation? a lodger here where buses lightly lumber of a landscape and illustrating her deep Do they withstand the gaze of poetry? into the yellow depot literacy of place: Ishq:love ish:halfway misunderstanding Her poems show they do not. assent accented into ascent ‘Midnight Robber Monologue’ ‘Pearls’ combines the world of the “the whole island Response for Compass: Response to Zaffiar ends ‘The Blackbox Clearout’ section. physicist with the intimate world of done over with boulders Kunial “Us” It evokes the surreal world of carnival the human ear. The intimate world clearance cairns where Midnight Robber with condor of the poet’s son’s ear. It is a beautiful fields gone to rough ground” The collection is dedicated to Martin wings becomes an aeroplane and is metaphysical meditation on kinship and Carter and in memory of The Shadow, revealed as fear itself, embodies the forces time. The pearls in the child’s ear are For me, the poems in Uncommon Winston McGarland Bailey. It is a of destruction and oppression with which nestled at the heart of the collection. n Place are simply a joy to read. I feel carnival on the page, a calypso for the the poems have been concerned. The they demonstrate the poet’s skills of reader’s voice. tables are turned on us when we learn Uncommon Place acute perception; her focussed attention ‘The Syntax Poems’, which stem that this ageless robber douen cannot be Gerrie Fellows producing a depth of awareness of the from Capildeo’s admiration for Carter’s bought, cannot forgive. Anger with the Shearsman (2019) natural world and details of place. ‘I am No Soldier’ are a physical, bodily cracked, flawed world, the self destructive Review By Jean Langhorne As a whole, this collection beautifully transreading. They immerse us in an environmental , political and economic expresses her preoccupation with imagined live performance of Carter’s fissures, is the energy of the monologue In Uncommon Place, her fifth collection walking as a means of bodily and sensory poem. We participate in the call and and of the book. of poems, Gerrie Fellows explores the engagement. The poet’s relationship response of the language. diverse landscapes of Scotland, from the to place is revealed as a dynamic and When Columbus men landed holding their Borders to the Cuillin Ridge on Skye, interactive process; a kind of relational there are galaxies of happiness bright weapons up, with fields, rivers, Botanic Gardens and dialogue, integral to our perception of (in darkness) mountains in between. Her main focus the environment. n

30 Northwords Now Issue 38, Autumn-Winter 2019 CONTRIBUTORS’ BIOGRAPHIES

Helen Allison lives in Forres. Her first poetry based in Edinburgh. She won the inaugural Jenny McLaren is a graduate of Moray School shortlisted for the Saltire First Book Award (2017) collection, Tree standing small, was published in Janet Coats Black Prize for Fiction in 2019. of Art who moved from the Cairngorms to the and won the Premio Flaiano Linguistica in 2018. 2018 by Clochoderick Press. Second collection in Lake Distrrict in 2015. She often draws and seed stage. Find her on Twitter @h_allison_poet Amanda Gilmour is a creative writing paints outdoors. www.jennymclaren.co.uk Karen Hodgson Pryce lives in Aviemore. undergraduate at The University of the Her poetry has been published in several David Alston is a historian with a background Highlands and Islands. She lives in Inverness Rugadh ‘s thogadh Iain S. Mac A’ Phearsain literary magazines and one of her short in many different occupations, including with her husband and three children. air prèiridh Chanada ann an teaghlach a bhuineas stories was Commended in the Neil museum curator, councillor and NHS dha Ìle, dha Muile ‘s dhan Eilean Sgitheanach. Gunn Writing Competition 2017. chair (Highlands). He researches Highland Peter Godfrey lives in the Hebrides, works as Tha e nis air ais ag obair dha SMO/UHI ach Scots’ involvement with slavery: www. a reluctant journalist and is currently trying to air astar bhon dachaigh ann an Èirinn a Tuath. Cynthia Rogerson’s latest novel Wait for spanglefish.com/slavesandhighlanders/ escape by putting together a first poetry collection. me Jack (written under the pseudonym - the subject of his next book. David McVey has published over 120 Addison Jones) is published by Sandstone. David Goldie lives and works in the Highlands short stories and also writes non-fiction Juliet Antill lives on the Isle of Mull. and has recently returned to writing poetry after articles. He lectures in Communication David James Ross lives in Culloden Moor, Her poems have featured in Magma, New a long period of admiring it from a distance. at New College Lanarkshire. Inverness and has published four poetry Writing Scotland and the ezine Antiphon. collections. He divides his time between music Lydia Harris has made her home in the Orkney Deborah Moffatt À Vermont (USA), a’ performance, poetry and stand-up comedy. Tom Ashman is a writer and musician from the island of Westray. In 2017, she held a Scottish fuireach ann am Fìobha a-nis. Bidh dà cho- Orkney Islands. He is particularly drawn to the Book Trust New Writers’ Award for poetry. chruinneachadh aice air fhoillseachadh ann Martin Russell has had several short stories short story form and enjoys writing about people. an 2019, “Eating Thistles,” (Smokestack and poems published, including his own Lauren Ivers is a Glasgow-based writer, Books), agus fear ann an Gàidhlig. short story collection, Rattleskin. He lives in Valerie Beattie is a Northwords board originally from East Ayrshire. Inverness and supports Queen’s Park FC. member and a published academic with a Donald S. Murray’s complete sequence specialism in gothic and women’s writing. Jackie Kay is a poet, novelist, The Scots Makar of Achanalt poems will be published by Helen Sedgwick is writing a crime She is currently working on her first novel. and Chancellor of the University of Salford. Roncadora Press early next year as part of a trilogy and is the author of The Comet collaboration with the artist Hugh Bryden. Seekers and The Growing Season (both Harvill Kirsteen Bell is a writer, poet, copywriter Stephen Keeler is an Ullapool-based Secker) which was shortlisted for the Saltire and crofter. She lives and works on a croft poet and creative writing teacher. His Richard Myers is retired and has a Society’s 2018 Fiction Book of the Year. on the shore of Loch Eil in Lochaber. debut chapbook, ‘While You Were Away’ small farm in Inverness-shire. is published by Maquette Press Mark Ryan Smith lives in Shetland. His Sharon Black is from Glasgow and lives in the Lisa NicDhòmhnaill A’ fuireach ann an poems have appeared in various places, Cévennes mountains in France, the subject of Jean Langhorne tries to spend as much Ach’ ‘Ille Bhuidhe sa Chòigich ach ‘s ann do including New Writing Scotland, Gutter, her fourth collection.www.sharonblack.co.uk time as possible in the Highlands, walking Cheann Tìre a bhuineas i. Bidh i a’ sgrìobhadh Ink Sweat and Tears and Snakeskin. in the hills. She recently completed bàrdachd agus sgeulachdan goirid a chaidh Clare O’Brien lives in Wester Ross, writing an MLitt in Environment Culture and fhoillseachadh ann an iomadach àite, cho math Hilton Shandwick is the pseudonym her first novel, Light Switch. Recent publication Communication from Glasgow University. ri aistidhean sa Bheurla sa Phàipear Bheag. of a writer based in Easter Ross. includes Mslexia, Spelk and anthologies from Hedgehog Poetry Press and The Emma Press. Robin Leiper is a psychotherapist living between Rugadh Niall O’Gallagher ann an 1981. Shane Strachan is an Aberdeen-based Scotland and South Africa and trying to write Is e ùghdar dà leabhar bàrdachd, Beatha Ùr writer and performer who has worked with Maoilios Caimbeul Bàrd agus sgrìobhaiche in the spaces that open up between them. (Clàr 2013) agus Suain nan Trì Latha (2016). the National Theatre of Scotland and Paines às an Eilean Sgitheanach. Chaidh leabhran Tha dùil ri treas leabhar as t-fhoghar 2020. Plough. He was awarded a 2018 Robert Louis bàrdachd leis, Gràs / Grace, (bho Handsel Sheila Lockhart is retired and lives on Is e deasaiche bàrdachd na h-irise Gàidhlige Stevenson Fellowship (SBT) to develop a book Press) fhoillseachadh aig a’ Mhòd Rìoghail the Black Isle. She started writing poetry STEALL. Ann an 2019 chaidh ainmeachadh on Bill Gibb www.shanestrachan.com Nàiseanta ann an Glaschu am-bliadhna. two years ago following a bereavement mar chiad Bhàrd Baile Ghlaschu. and now finds she can’t stop. Kate Swan is a film producer and production Satyapada Campbell from Inverness lived John Robertson Nicoll is from Broughty Ferry. manager whose films include Margaret Tait’s previously in Sutherland, Skye, Glasgow Marion McCready lives in Dunoon, His book The Balloon Man in Edinburgh (Blue Blue Black Permanent, Tim Neat’s Play Me and London. Beyond an Arvon course Argyll. She is the author of two poetry Ocean Publishing) was published in 2013. Something and Eric Steel’s Kiss the Water. at the start of the millennium, Inverness collections, most recently Madame Playwrights now gets her writing. Ecosse (Eyewear Publishing, 2017). Clare O’Brien lives in Wester Ross, writing her Ian Tallach Having previously worked first novel, ‘Light Switch’. Recent publication as a paediatric doctor, Ian is now Leonie Charlton’s travel memoir Marram - Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh Tidsear includes Mslexia, Spelk and anthologies from medically retired with MS. He lives in compassing her journey with Highland ealain air chluainidh ann an Inbhir Nis. Hedgehog Poetry Press and The Emma Press. Glenurquhart, as do his young family. ponies through the Outer Hebrides - will be published by Sandstone Press in March Liz McKibben lives in Edinburgh, writes in Stuart A. Paterson A former BBC Scotland Samuel Tongue has published two pamphlets 2020. www.leoniecharlton.co.uk English and Scots, enjoys translating poetry and Poet in Residence & Robert Louis Stevenson and a collection – Sacrifice Zones – is has been published in New Writing Scotland. Fellow, Paterson writes in both English & forthcoming with Red Squirrel (Feb 2020). Janis Clark has lived in Drumnadrochit Scots. He lives by the Solway Firth. He is Project Coordinator at the Scottish for 26 years. Since her retirement, her Peter Maclaren lives in Glasgow. His Poetry Library. www.samueltongue.com poems have been published in a variety poems have appeared in Akros, Lines Anne Pia is an Edinburgh-based Italian Scot, of magazines and anthologies. Review and New Writing Scotland. author and poet. Her Language of my Choosing was Vawdrey Taylor is an artist and writer from the Black Isle with an interest Julian Colton lives in Selkirk, edits The in etching and illustration. Eildon Tree literary magazine and contributes articles and reviews. His five collections Sandy Thomson is a retired university of poetry include, most recently, Two As part of Dingwall’s 2019 Word on the Street lecturer from Glasgow who has been based Che Guevaras (Scottish Borders Council) (now in its 4th year), several writers whose work in Cromarty for the past 22 years. and Everyman Street (Smokestack Publishing). often appears in Northwords Now will be joining Maggie Wallis lives in Strathpeffer. Tha Liam Alastair Crouse a’ fuireach ann the editor in Highflight Books, High Street, from She keeps hens, enjoys knitting socks, an Uibhist a Deas far a bheil e ag obair do climbing trees…and writing. Cheòlas. Fhuair e duais na bliadhna airson 10 -11.30 am on Saturday 19th October to launch bàrdachd an cois sgeama nan Sgrìobhadairean this edition. Tea, coffee and cake (Thanks Bill!) Hannah Whaley is a writer and children’s Ùra aig Urras Leabhraichean na h-Alba author based in Angus, and past winner agus Comhairle nan Leabhraichean. will combine with readings and conviviality. word- of Writing Magazine’s Self-Published on-the-street.weebly.com Book of the Year. @hannahwhaley Anne Elizabeth Edwards from Lewis had a long career as a midwife and often uses poems or Ross Wilson’s first full collection, Line dense, word-rich prose as inspiration. ‘Her Kind’ Drawing, was published by Smokestack was inspired by Anne Sexton’s eponymous poem. For online submission guidelines see page 2 and Books in 2018. A pamphlet of poems will visit northwordsnow.co.uk be published by Tapsalteerie in 2020. Chris Foxall divides her time between Yorkshire and the Isle of Skye, taking Millie Earle-Wright from the north- inspiration from the land, the sea and Keep in touch east edge of the Cairngorms, writes poetry, unexpected encounters along the way. and has been published by The Dangerous Women Project, Adjacent Pineapple and in Anna Fleming writes on environment, With occasional news about Northwords Now and the anthology Under, amongst others. ecology and adventure. She is editing other aspects of the literary scene in the north an anthology of creative writing for the Catriona Yule works as an English Cairngorms National Park. You can follow her through following us on Twitter @NorthwordsNow and tutor in Aberdeenshire. Her poetry has thoughts on thegranitesea.wordpress.com Facebook www.facebook.com/NorthwordsNow/ recently been published in Southlight 26, launched at Wigtown Book Festival. Julie Galante is a writer and visual artist

Northwords Now Issue 38, Autumn-Winter 2019 31 The hugh miller writing competition 2019-2020

Invites entries inspired by one or more of the

Prose and poetry entries from all ages are welcome. It’s free to enter. The competition launches on the 10th of October 2019. The closing date for entries is midnight on the 15th of March 2020.

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