The FREE literary magazine of the North Northwords Now Issue 35, Spring 2018

Land, water and northern skies DONALD S MURRAY digs light from dark peat, LYDIA HARRIS sees moons over Westray, ANNA LEVIN goes with the flow, STEPHEN KEELER learns Swedish Plus Tuath supplement of new Gaelic writing, Short Stories, Poems, Articles and Reviews EDITORIAL s befits its links to the magnetism of the Contents whole planet, ‘north’ is a word with powerful Aattractions. Whether for those who feel they 3 A Silver Year for Moniack Mhor live distant from it, or people who consider themselves 4 Magnie’s Boat - Story by Hannah Nicholson northern, there’s a sense of something wider and further; beyond immediate grasp, but worth striving 5 Poem by Maggie Wallis to approach. Journeys can follow, in person or in mind; writing and wider art result. 6 Poetry by David James Ross That’s part of why I was both inspired and 7 Poetry by Lydia Harris and Ingrid Leonard challenged by some of the ideas shared in Edinburgh last autumn, when the Scottish Government hosted 8 An Excursion – Story by David Carson a meeting of the Arctic Circle Forum. Scotland – Undoing – Story by Barry Graham Arctic? At first, the connection seems tenuous. But as delegates from across much of the upper part of 9 Poetry by Gerrie Fellows, Beth McDonough and Paula Jennings the hemisphere – from Alaska, Canada, Iceland, the Faroe Islands, Scandinavia and Scotland – shared 10 Poetry by Kenneth Steven, Stewart Sanderson and Jane Picton Smith information, the linkage began to make more sense. 11 The Day the Clocks Restarted – Story by Ian Tallach For in both geopolitical and environmental terms, the northern world is changing very fast. Melting of ice A Fishy Tail – Story by Selena Hardisty means that the Northwest Passage will soon readily be 12 Monument – Story by Richard W. Strachan navigable by large vessels for much of the year. Goods will ship faster from China to Europe by this route. 13 Poetry by Michael Stephenson, Vance Roberts, Aoife Lyall and Bridget Norway and Finland are already cooperating on major infrastructure projects to receive Chinese containers. Khursheed In just a handful of years, Iceland has become a global 14 Deericide – story by Liam Murray Bell communications hub. From the growing disaster of global warming, entrepreneurs across the wider north Reincarnation – Story by Lucy MacRae are plucking business opportunities. 15 Da Shipwrecked Forester – Poems by James Sinclair It’s an uneasy combination. But like it or loathe it, this is the reality of the new north. For writers whose 16 A Lighter Look at the Dark Stuff – Donald S Murray ponders peat work draws on northern energies, that’s important, both through increased scope for international 18 Unravelling – Story by Christine Grant collaboration and through the tensions of changing 19 Poems by John Young and Molly Donachie environments, economies and cultures. The magnetism of ‘north’ has just become stronger to many people, 20 Poetry by Sara Clark and Seth Crook including some who might surprise you. It’s scarier 21 Henry’s Playtime – Story by Marka Rifat than ever, and just as inspirational. n Kenny Taylor, Editor Eden in the Morning – Story by Roddy Murray 22 Flowing – Story by Anna Levin At the Northwords Now Website soon: 24 ‘Learning Swedish’ – Poems by Stephen Keeler northwordsnow.co.uk 25 Poetry by Grahaeme Barrasford Young, Robert Leach, Carolyn Yates, Podcasts Donald Goodbrand Saunders, Finola Scott and Sue Pepper A chat in the kitchen at Moniack Mhor Some poetry from the current issue 26 Tiramisu – Story by Maureen Cullen 27 Poetry by Hamish Scott, Miriam Sulhunt and Irene Evens

28 Alex Cluness – an appreciation www.facebook.com/groups/northwordsnow/ 29 Reviews

Northwords Now is a twice-yearly Designer Williamson, www.garywilliamson.co.uk To submit your work literary magazine published by Gustaf Eriksson online, go to our website: Northwords, a not-for-profit company, www.gustaferiksson.com Submissions to the magazine are welcome. northwordsnow.co.uk registered in February 2005. They can be in Gaelic, English, Scots and The next issue is planned Company number SC280553 Advertising any local variants. Please submit no more for September 2018. The [email protected] than three short stories or six poems. deadline for submissions Board members www.northwordsnow.co.uk/advertise.asp Contact details – an email address or is 27th July 2018. You will Adrian Clark (Chair), Valerie Beattie, an SAE – should be included. We cannot hear about your submission Lesley Harrison, Kristin Pedroja, Subscriptions return work that has no SAE. Copyright by 30th September 2018. Anne Macleod, Peter Whiteley The magazine is FREE and can be picked remains with the author. Payment is up at locations across Scotland. See made for all successful submissions. The Board and Editor of Northwords Editor list on page 31. The fee for individual Now acknowledge support from Creative Kenny Taylor ‘home delivery’ is £6 for 2 issues, Postal submissions should be sent to: Scotland and Bòrd na Gàidhlig. [email protected] cheques payable to ‘Northwords’. The Editor, Northwords Now ISSN 1750-7928 Easter Brae Gaelic Editor Front cover image Culbokie Rody Gorman Beach at Mellon Udrigle, Wester Ross, Dingwall [email protected] as seen from a powered paraglider Ross-shire piloted by Highland photographer Gary IV7 8JU

2 Northwords Now Issue 35, Spring 2018 Silver in the hills, gold in the hearth fire

Moniack Mhor turns twenty-five By Kenny Taylor

he track to Moniack Mhor is my eigtht year) it felt like there were Edwin Morgan among them – so, huge show the success of the move, including a crunchy with snow, as squalls voices in the walls.” support. This year, we’ve got some of steady rise in occupancy of courses, with Tof sleet whirl in from the east. There’s also been a remarkable link our original tutors, including Liz, Tom 96 per cent of places filled last year. Fast-moving clouds smudge charcoal between past and present quite recently. Pow, A. L. Kennedy and Janice Galloway, “So, no pressure!” quips Rich. across the sky, over nearby fields and a The mother of Jamie MacRae, a young coming back. If it wasn’t for the support forest half-obscured in the glen below. participant in a songwriting course of writers of that calibre back then, I ✯ Blue-grey smoke rises from a glint of in 2017, used to deliver milk to the don’t think we’d still be in existence. stove pipe poking from a cluster of small last person to live in the cottage. Jamie “Support from the Arvon Foundation Among new work, three-year funding buildings. Thank goodness they’ve a fire performed his song ‘Wolves’ at Abriachan was also huge. We worked in partnership from the Life Changes Trust from this lit, I think, as I knock at the door. Hall, just down the single-track road from for 21 years; and the Scottish Arts Council year will support programmes of activity Minutes later, there’s also warmth from here towards Loch Ness, as part of that also helped a great deal. for young people between 14 and 26, mugs of coffee shared at the kitchen table course. It was the first time he’d sung in Coming to Moniack in those early from anywhere in Scotland, who’ve with Rachel Humphries, Director of the public. The work impressed course tutors, years must have been a bit like visiting had experience of the care system. That writing centre and Richmond Clements, Kathryn Williams and Roddy Woomble, a hill bothy, I suggest. Rachel and Rich will include taster writing sessions and Moniack’s resident ‘Cyber-Wizard’. The so much that they helped Jamie to record agree, but reckon that, in some ways, it’s working with individuals to discover glow widens as we chat, through tales of it. still rather like that. what kinds of writing most appeal to what once was here, what it became and “He’s now on his way to becoming “Even though you’re only twenty them. The young people will also play a what is yet to be. a recording artist,” says Rich, “and has minutes from town, it feels isolated here,” key part in how the work is steered. People have worked the land and lived performed at the Iona Music Festival and says Rich. “Another exciting thing that’s on this hilltop for centuries, says Rachel. Belladrum since then.” “And everyone still cooks together”, happening is that we’re going to launch So there’s a long tradition of meeting A participant in another songwriting adds Rachel. “People cook in teams of a small programme of Gaelic arts activity. and sharing stories here, she reckons, course, Heather Fyson, has just released four, so that they can get to know each This year, Bòrd na Gàidhlig are supporting going back much further than the start her first album ‘Shift in Time’ this year, other. It’s a great formula, so we’ve been us to deliver immersive courses in Gaelic of Moniack Mhor as a residential centre thanks to advice at Moniack from tutors careful not to change it too much. songwriting and poetry, which will in the early 1990s. Inspiration for that Karine Polwart, Findlay Napier and Mike “Writing can be quite a solitary include all participants coming together development came from a dynamic Vass. Now That’s What I Call Mentoring process. So being able to connect with for a public performance in Abriachan brother-and-sister duo, Kit and Sophia (2018…). like-minded people is worth its weight Hall. Heather Clyne, our administrator, Fraser. Further strengthening of local in gold, really.” is a fluent Gaelic speaker and she’ll be “Kit had connections with the connections to Highland writers and the doing the delivery.” Arvon Foundation,” Rachel tells me. He Abriachan community comes through ✯ Then there’s the inaugural Highland brought Arvon founder Ted Hughes up both the Jessie Kesson residential Book Prize, launched last year with here and suggested that this spot, with fellowship and the new Katharine Stewart The major change in the centre’s recent support from the Highland Society of its inspirational hilltop views, would be a Award. Jessie lived at Abriachan for a history was in 2014, when it decided to go London, for a writer resident or once good place to run an Arvon course. while, early in the 20th century. When it alone, independent of Arvon. A strong resident in the Highlands or whose book “Ted agreed. He thought the place I visited, the 2018 Jessie Kesson Fellow, driving factor for that move was that is set in the Highlands. More than 70 was fantastic and said that Kit should do Ryan Van Winkle (whose work featured Moniack wanted to further strengthen its readers volunteered to read the 56 titles it, but that Arvon didn’t have the money in Northwords Now 34) was ensconced connections to both the local Highland submitted. for it at that time. So Kit and Sophia at his writing desk in Moniack’s cottage, community and the wider community of “We’ll announce the winner at the arranged a ‘Poethon’ – a big, UK-wide, staying snug as the snow kept falling. Scottish writers. Despite sleepless nights Ullapool Book Festival in May,’ says 24-hour, fundraising poetry reading. Katharine Stewart, best known for her leading to independence – “It’s the most Rachel. “It’s great to be working in They had readings on Arthur’s Seat, in books based on her running ‘A Post in stressful thing I’ve done in my life”, partnership with them, as we’re also now London, in the Highlands.” the Hills’ and working with her family laughs Rachel, it’s paid dividends. doing with the Scottish Poetry Library The Poethon raised enough money to at ‘A Croft in the Hills’ at Abriachan, was In some ways, the move to and the Scottish Book Trust.” contribute to the purchase and renovation also an astonishingly prolific writer of independence seemed to make no Meanwhile, interest in Moniack from of the property. Support also came from further non-fiction titles in her nineties, business sense, she says. “We reduced our some very notable literary figures, evident The Highland Council and the Scottish including her last book ‘Cattle on a prices, reduced the number of people we from the outset in 1993, continues to Arts Council. Moniack Mhor became an Thousand Hills’, published just three years could get on courses. be strong. “The beauty of Highland Arvon centre at that point, and ran 14 or before her death in 2013, aged 98. Much “Then we appealed to all the writing community is that we can welcome 15 courses during the summer. In winter, loved, both locally and as a figure in the clubs in Scotland and Scottish literary famous and very successful writers here everything closed. Scottish literary scene, I know she’d smile organisations, everyone we could, to get simply as human beings,” says Rachel, Facilities were basic back then. “When with pleasure (as she often did at things behind us. And it was incredible, because “who can join in with life at Moniack, Ted Hughes came to look around, this she liked) at how the award in her name they did! When we started marketing including through cooking or unloading kitchen didn’t exist. The long building will provide a place for a Highland-based Moniack in Scotland and tapping on the dishwasher. beside us was a cow byre – knee-high in writer on a nature writing or historical those doors, they opened, and we were “Whether you’re a participant or a manure – and the cottage was derelict. It non-fiction course at Moniack this year. welcomed with open arms. teacher, there’s a connection through hadn’t been inhabited since the 1960s.” “Thanks to Creative Scotland, it was a common goal. It brings us down to But although there was a gap between ✯ a measured risk. They gave us funding earth.” that last resident and the opening of to take us through the transition. Now Moniack as ‘Scotland’s Creative Writing But what were the courses like in the they’ve given us a three-year funding ✯ Centre’ in May 1993, there’s a sense of earliest days here? The very first was led commitment until 2021, which will allow And back to the tales around the fire. previous occupants giving the place by Liz Lochhead and Roger McGough, us to experiment more with courses and That’s where the magic can happen, as a ‘long thread’ of oral tradition, says says Rachel. try new ventures.” it always has done and will continue to Rachel. “We’ve a lovely photo montage of Although the first year of independence do, while havens like this thrive. Happy “When I first came here (this is now people involved in Year One. There was was ‘emotionally, physically and mentally 25th, Moniack Mhor. Lang may yir lum Jim Kelman, Iain Crichton Smith and tiring’ some of the statistics since then reek. n

Northwords Now Issue 35, Spring 2018 3 agnie disappeared on a bright “Da waddir wis da boannie yisterdee, sunny afternoon in May, with Magnie’s Boat – Chapter 1 a beautiful fishin’ day, an da soond wis Monly the lightest breeze in flat calm. Dey wir nae sign o’ da watters the air that had rustled the fresh green turnin’. Whit could be come at him?” grass that made up the family’s land near By Hannah Nicholson “I dinna keen, my lass,” Ertie replied, Gutcher, in the north end of the island going to her and placing his hands on of Yell. His sister, Merran, who had only her shoulders in a half-hearted attempt been nine, remembered the sky had been ✯ to console her. “A’less dir been a whaal a brilliant shade of blue, with only the gotten separated fae its pod an’ laandit up occasional white cloud, and the sun’s here.” rays glittering on the surface of Colgrave “Wid it o’ gone fir him?” Ruby Sound, the long stretch of sea water “Tak’ guid care oot yundir, Magnie,” calm and bright blue. Ertie came in for asked. between Yell and the neighbouring island Ruby admonished him as he left. “Da his tea, along with Lowrie and Peter, “No’ on purpose,” Ertie explained. of Fetlar. Merran had never been there watters oot yundir at Bluemull kin Merran’s other two brothers. “Yun kin worry dem, an dey sweem before, but on such a clear day she could cheenge ithoot ony prior keenin’.” “Whan time did he say he wid be aboot in a blind panic.” see it from the front door of her family’s “Dinna du worry aboot me, Midder,” back, Ruby?” Ertie asked. “No lik’ him Ruby’s pained expression didn’t but-and-ben. She could also see Linga, Magnie assured her. “Am been fishin yun tae be dis laet.” change at this. Merran and her brothers the island that Magnie had told her about watters fae I wis owld anoff tae hadd a “He said tae time,” Ruby replied, as looked uneasily at each other when she’d been younger. It was said that pole. If am no’ back be tae time, send oot she gazed out of the ben end window There had still been no news when a man called Jan Tait had fought a bear a search pairty.” towards Bluemull Sound, her brow they went to bed that night either. in Norway as punishment for not paying With that, he set off out the front gate furrowed. “Dir somethin’ no’ juist aafil Then, the following day, their neighbour his taxes, and when he’d beaten it, he had and down the hill, and onwards to the right wi’ dis, Ertie. We’ll need tae geng Bertie Fraser came striding up the hill been pardoned and allowed to take it pier. Since it was May, a lot was going an’ look fir him.” and shouted to Ertie. Ertie called on the home. He’d left it on that island, tied to a on at the Williamson family’s croft, most So Ertie and his two younger sons family and they all made their way down post. Magnie had told her there were still notably the lambing. Ruby warmed up made their way down to Breckon beach to Breckon beach. As they walked, none circles in the ground in the place where a bottle of milk, and sent Merran with in order to see if there was any sign of of them looked at one another, although the bear had once been. Merran had been it to the byre to feed the three orphan Magnie or his boat. After an hour the Merran slipped her hand into Ruby’s. enthralled. Maybe she would get him to lambs being kept in there – she was three of them returned. This time Ertie Upon their arrival, they were greeted take her to the island next time he was the only one that did this job without was frowning, and his face was paler than by the sight of an upturned little boat off and he could show them to her. complaint, as Ertie and the boys all usual. being dragged ashore by some of their Since the weather was so beautiful, neighbours. Merran recognised it Magnie had declared his intention to immediately; it was finished with cream- head out in his little rowing boat and coloured paint and had a blue trim. fish for mackerel for the family’s tea. When it had been pulled up on to dry He would only be on Bluemull Sound, “Tak’ guid care oot yundir, land, she let go of her mother’s hand and the sheltered strait between Yell and ran towards it. As she did, tears spilled Unst–another island nearby. He’d been Magnie,” Ruby admonished him down her cheeks, leaving salty tracks as in ownership of his vessel for around a they did. When she reached the boat, year, having bought it with some of his as he left. “Da watters oot yundir she threw herself upon it and the sobs Merchant Navy wages, and he revelled in engulfed her. She was so shrouded in her his newfound freedom. at Bluemull kin cheenge ithoot ony own sorrow she didn’t notice her mother “Kin I come aff wi’ de?” Merran asked collapse and have to be carried back up Magnie. prior keenin’.” the hill to the croft. Finally, she felt a hand Magnie looked out of the window, on her shoulder and peered up. Bertie’s then back at Merran, frowning. kind face peered back at her. “I doot no’ da day, peerie wife,” “Come alang noo, my bairn,” he said he replied, ruffling his hand through softly. “Du canna lay here aa’ day.” his youngest sister’s long brown hair. “Laeve me,” she choked through her “Anidder day, mebbe.” sobs. “Juist laeve me.” “Oh, a’right,” Merran sighed. Magnie “Nah, Merran,” Bertie soothed, “come smiled. du, lass. Come hame tae de fokk, dey “Al come back wi’ a guid haal,” he considered the orphans to be a nuisance. “Dir nae sign o’ him, or da boat,” he need de wi’ dem.” assured her. When she had finished feeding them, she said, his voice heavy with worry. He gathered her up in his arms “Will it be lik’ yun Galilee at we went back into the house and got to her Merran felt her chest tighten. She and carried her back up the hill. Weak learned aboot in Sundee skule?” Merran knitting, which was her and Ruby’s way looked up at her mother. Ruby looked from sobbing, all she could do was lean wondered. of contributing to the household income even more anxious than she had before. helplessly over Bertie’s shoulder and allow “Better as yun,” Magnie said, winking – and that of her sister, Betty, when she When the family went to bed that him to take her away from the scene. at her. had still been living at home. Betty now night, none of them got a great deal of Merran didn’t remember much about The two exchanged smiles. Magnie lived in Lerwick and made a comfortable sleep. The following morning, the search the days that immediately followed. may have been nineteen, and the oldest wage gutting fish down at the docks, parties were sent out to dredge Bluemull Ruby spent most of them lying in bed, of the five, but he had always had a a job which left her with little time to Sound. Lowrie, Peter and Merran went swallowed by grief. Upon hearing the strong bond with his youngest sibling. knit. Merran wasn’t jealous – she didn’t to school as normal, but Merran found news of her brother’s apparent death, This hadn’t changed even when he had want to spend the rest of her life knitting she couldn’t concentrate on her work – Betty returned from Lerwick. It was left been in charge of the croft during the clothes or gutting fish in order to earn she often found herself looking out the mostly to her and Merran to keep the Great War years, when their father, Ertie, money. She preferred to read, and hoped window at nothing in particular. The house in order and to cook the evening was a prisoner of war in Holland. Merran to become a teacher. She read as often teacher caught her and moved her to a meal although they themselves were hoped Magnie would manage all those as she could, but Ruby told her off for different seat, but this wasn’t much help grieving. Meanwhile, Ertie, Lowrie and fish on his own. doing so when she should be knitting. to her. Peter kept the croft going as best they “Nixt time du’s aff,” she asked him, Outwardly Merran was obedient, but When she and her brothers got home, could. Since there was no body to bury, “will du tak’ me tae da bear’s island as secretly she decided that if she had a they found that Ruby had done little a memorial service was held in the kirk. weel?” daughter, she would never discourage her around the house. She had spent the day Magnie had made many friends during “Yea, I likely could,” Magnie said. from reading. pacing the floor of the but-end of the his time in the Merchant Navy, and the “Canna be sure at da bear’ll be yundir, Magnie still hadn’t come back by the house and looking anxiously out of the presence of those who weren’t still away though.” time Ruby was due to start making the window, frowning at the sea. kept the turnout large. Still there was no Merran giggled. family’s evening meal. The day remained “I dinna understand it,” she fretted.

4 Northwords Now Issue 35, Spring 2018 good reason that this had come to pass, and having to knit clothes to sell it was for how could Magnie have possibly safe to say her parents managed to keep got into difficulty when there was no her busy. rio abaho rio obvious sign of trouble on the water? During this time, Magnie’s boat Maggie Wallis Ertie’s suggestion about the upset stray remained upturned on the spot where whale was the only explanation anyone it had come to rest on Breckon beach. spawned in stillness came up with. Steadily the paint peeled and the wood flanked by hill-top pines Some days after the memorial service, mouldered, and so the little vessel that glassy-eyed Ruby took all the photographs of Magnie had served to feed the family so many she moistens her lips down and put them away in a box, which times fell into disrepair. Merran often and murmurs into being she then placed in a drawer in the living thought how heartbroken Magnie would room. When her mother wasn’t looking, have been by this – the boat had been one clear call another Merran found the box and went through his pride and joy for the last year of his falling back the photographs. Her lost brother gazed life. He’d bought it with his hard-earned to silence steadily out at her from them. Merran Merchant Navy wages, and he had been could picture the blue of his eyes and enormously enjoying the freedom it had and she gathers each rivulet the black of his hair even through the brought him. He and his brothers had braiding wet strands sepia tinge of the pictures. She could hoped to eventually save to buy a proper into a single plait also envision his smile, mischievous and fishing boat together so they never had of twists warm, even though he was straight-faced to go back to the whaling or Merchant and tumbles in many of the photos. Her favourite Navy, and, in honour of their brother, was one of him at the peat hill from the Lowrie and Peter still planned to do this such eager babble but previous summer, taken shortly after when they found others willing to jointly you’ve only just met… his return from sea. He was wearing buy a suitable vessel. the same outfit he’d had on the day he Even as the years passed, Merran this hand sweeping away debris vanished–his blue flat cap, a knitted Fair never walked by Breckon beach without from her path Isle jumper, dark blue trousers and a pair acknowledging her brother’s boat – needles of gold of rubber boots. He was smoking his without a grave it was all they had to sticks and silt father’s pipe and smirking as he did so. remember him by. Sometimes while and the timbre of her talk Merran compared it to another photo of on the beach she would go and stand lightens him in his Merchant Navy uniform. In with it, and she would feel his presence. and quickens that one he was neatly turned out and Merran sometimes couldn’t help but had a serious expression, and Merran think of what Magnie would have made do you remember? could see his resemblance to their father – of himself, had he lived. He had been a listen! although Magnie was much more gentle handsome and cheerful young man, and here is your voice and laid back than Ertie could ever be. had caught the eye of many a lass on the before this channel got choked She took her favourite photo and kept island. Perhaps he would have married and you found it in her bed, under her pillow. Magnie one of them, and they would have had a different way to wander might have been dead, but she didn’t lots of children. want his presence to disappear from the One particularly ordinary day, five hear now your eagerness house, like those of her grandparents years after Magnie’s accident, Merran was the onward flow when they had passed. walking home from an uneventful day and this dried-up streambed Of course, despite everything, life at school when she felt the wind begin yesterday’s single option for the Williamsons had to go on. Betty to pick up. She shivered, and swept her stayed at home for a few months until long brown hair out of her face as best on a bed of soft sand she was certain that Ruby could manage she could, then tightly pulled her shawl languorous without her, then she returned to around her shoulders. She quickened her she ripples like silk Lerwick. Lowrie left school that summer step, but as she passed by Breckon beach combing through long rushes and also remained on the croft to help out a figure standing next to Magnie’s boat his father. Merran and Peter both went caught her eye. She squinted. From that from slow sleep back to school. Merran continued to do distance it looked like a woman, and she wakens well, both with words and numbers, but judging by how she was looking around open trembling when she was eleven – at the age when she seemed to be lost. Despite having she would have been sent on to Lerwick never seen her before, Merran felt drawn the wide river beckons to further this plan – her father was less to the woman, and decided to descend keen. down the hill to the beach to speak to she skelters “Dinna be sae stupeet, lass,” he scoffed her. down at her. “De, a teacher?” The whole time that Merran made her the final slope “Oh, but Faedir,” she protested, “I wid way down, the woman never took her and joins the Orrin love tae…” eyes from the rotting corpse of Magnie’s “Oh, of coorse,” Ertie sneered, “I sood boat. She certainly didn’t seem to register they crosshatch send de awa’ tae hae an education, an’ Merran’s presence, no matter how close a web of voices intermingling den du’ll mairry an’ hae bairns an gie it she got. When she was only a couple of aa’ up, an hit’ll o’ been a total waste. Du’ll feet away, Merran spoke up. beneath Aultgowrie bridge do as du’s telt!” “Hello?” she called. n the rowdy river Merran pleaded and begged, but her jostling for space father wasn’t for backing down. Her teacher didn’t get much further with her voices trying to convince him, and so Merran, drowned in the multitude too, was destined to leave school at still fourteen like her siblings before her. She in the underflow she had to settle for the brief chances she the river beneath the river got to read her books when there wasn’t much to do, although between helping on the croft, keeping the house in order,

Northwords Now Issue 35, Spring 2018 5 Poems by D James Ross

Carnyx Sir James Sinclair’s Rant In the still of the evening see them standing like Moai Brooding and silent, high on the headland, [Dedicated to John Purser and John Kenny] [Linksness, Orkney, 1536] Watching for the men bringing harbans and halibut, Blocking out the sunset with their legs like fence posts. They had gouged its eyes out Alone at last in his pomp and vainglory, And torn out its brash tongue, Sir James has unwrapped the Royal writ, Now sitting in a ring round a spluttering crusie, So when earth-mother parted wet lips And at once everything has fallen away. Hear them spinning skeins of yarn and saga, To receive their gift, all was silence. Thus late into this his last night Supping black brew from a battered old bride’s cog, He has sat on in his hollow finery Chewing dried cuithe with their teeth like clothes pegs. Centuries passed, then in silence While the candles spluttered and died. The circle witnessed its rebirth, And as night draws in, to the rasping of corncrakes, Its bristled head, bog-swaddled, Then at first frantic light, with no-one See under acres of patchwork covers Wide-eyed, mutely gasping for air. Around, all at once he erupts from his The Braeland Women, dead to the world, Bedroom, jigging like some mad thing Each in her box bed, snoring like a grampus. In a mixture of awe and disgust, Through gutters thick as gossip The minister recorded its form, He dances past the peat stack, Wondered about its heathen roots, Scattering peats like accusations. Note: moai – Easter Island statues Before in silence they bore it away. Capering, he hurls high his fancy bonnet! But now in a cave, dark as wet peat, Cavorting, he flings off his fine clothes! It fills its ancient lungs once more Prancing pale as a skinned rabbit, he goes Knitters And resumes roaring, snorting, Haring headlong up the headland, Bogling its primordial song. Skipping, skirling his head off, For five minutes Skirting the gloup’s curled lip. They stood together intently reading And now darkness has reached up The Fair Isle jumper in the window, And seized him under the oxters, Learning up between them GMB’s Rocking Chair Sucking him into the sea’s sinkhole. The narrative twists and Still jigging, if in ever-slowing motion, Turns of its moorit saga. In a corner of the museum, He is sliding over the event horizon, Marginalised by an exhibition Swirling into oblivion, into unbeing. For the rest of the day On the explorer Dr John Rae - It lay in secret ciphers George Mackay Brown’s rocker. Later that morning, his waking widow In the archives of their heads. Will find, and not find, his bed unslept. Absurdly domestic beside And slipped, or not, under her pillow, For quarter of an hour, Harpoons, fish-spears, compass In a gesture so meaningless Back at home, they plotted together And inflatable sealskin raft, And so poignant, his signet ring With conspiratorial pencil Quaintly mundane, homely even. And his tarnished name. And squared paper,

But between its spindle arms Editor’s note: Sir James Sinclair, Governor of Kirkwall And in two weeks George too has journeyed far, Castle, was given a feudal grant of the islands of Sanday and Of wool-weaving and needle-nattering, Has cast off and gone exploring Eday in 1535, having wrongly described them, it is said, as They had conjured up On insistent iambs of its rocking, infertile places. The following year, when he heard that King Its vivid identical twin. James V was intending to visit Orkney, he ‘sought refuge in Has traversed blank wastes death’, says one source, by throwing himself into the Gloup of Under shifting northern lights, Linksness. Has risked all to confront and Interrogate that final silence. The Braeland Women

At the scraich of dawn see the Braeland Women, Gathering eggs in their arms like gammons, Swinging their milk-pails, lipping full, frothing, Bustling round the range baking mountains of bannocks.

And now see the Women carrying the men-folk, Booted and oil-skinned, to yole and dinghy, One on each shoulder, broad as a heifer’s, Striding through the tang with their feet like flounders.

Then clearing boulders from off the moorland, See them pile them neatly in drystane dyking, Then tearing out the hill with their horny fingers, Scarifying the heath-land with their toes like boat hooks.

6 Northwords Now Issue 35, Spring 2018 Poetry

Georgina Seatter’s ‘Specimen Moon of the Well Industry of the hearth, Needlework Book’ Between Clifton and the mill Teemo demmles the tin pail she knew the measure of grain Lydia Harris in the rock wall. The cows in the byre glippit it up, every by the cup of her palm, drop. Moon trembles at the thrust of their tongues. the stove time for its boiling

Georgina slashes the opening, overcasts the edge. Moon of the Maul Plough The bellies of children She threads moonskin to linen, a wee strip in the sky. She comes when the clay gets all packit solid and were filled with bread, Knits around the thumb hole of a mitten, Teemo chucks the muck on the top of the ditch brae. butter at room temperature cuts a cuff from white cotton, appliqués Moon slinks through the clumsy shadows. and freckled eggs moons to swatches, one the colour of Colin’s field, another the surface of Swartmill. Moon of the Drift Block She served tea by the gallon Where the anvil sits held fast by nails. Sea-steeped. The at dances, cut bread Her stitches tilt into the wind tide long-gone that once oozed between its grains. into rounds for fêtes made with a point of sharp steel. and the neighbour’s funeral She teases threads from the warp, wraps the weft Boat Moon into lines of flags at the field’s edge, bastes reeds ‘The Thrift’ passes between Eday’s Red Heads. Look, Her house was the antidote from the Burness shore to the moon, calls Marcus, light open! The arch in cliff slides like to the muck of the farm, tracks across the wastes. a door to let the day in. The first page of ‘The Moon the corners of rooms scunnered Almanac’. This is where the fish must lie. at her sweep, the unmistakeable She turns a heel, folds and oversews the sheet’s worn centre, patches a blanket, Groundwater Moon kinswoman, you know her. eases strands from unbleached linen. Enters the seams under the house, steeps the rock, Scourer of dirt and more Her stitches are creeping steps, floats single grains of sand in the calm that hovers between tiny as grubs, seed pearls in cotton, between the footings. It means no harm. Smoothes folds of pressed cloth. crumbs of new bunno in the kirn milk. the slow stone. Knows the lines. ii. On the wrong side of her darn, Moon of the Buckled Bolt On a dresser in a room the stitches dip and swim the two-ply swatch, Forced out of true when the gate slammed shut. in Skara Brae a pebble rests, roots feeling the earth for water veins. Teemo sets it on the anvil, swings the hammer with virgin oblation on flagstone Right side up, her darn is almost unbroken, the flowing tide under the Scaun in his arm. to the hearth-toil of women, just a light song in silvery blue, their swept cupboards and skulls a hint of a moon stitched to a day-lit sky. Diviner’s Moon of fresh water a resolve When he speaks to the wires they jerk. He begs them to the equation of stars. to judder at the stir of secret water. Other days, he takes the pain out of folks. I am no kinswoman. The Bride’s Boots I seek her perfume in the words Jeannie Inkster, Rousay 1915 Pulley Moon I write. Truly, I bid her step down Lydia Harris Teemo ropes it to the cupples. The endless chain swings from the stars each night through the roof space. to stream language, a liquid How rivets and brads find their home, The wheel sprouts spokes thick as rowans, the cog that spills and cradles, laces criss-cross the tongue, squats like a weatherman inside his metal house. It lifts the skim and dreg of stones 18 eyelets climb to the cuff. the engine. Catches the frame in its hook, hoists the glancing in the scullery. car on its side. Moon coats the brake casing. Her ankles are keys in silk locks. She shifts on the fan of tacks Sale Day Moon tapped in on the old man’s triple last. Teemo drags the anvil to the cart. It’s the size of the Thinkan o’ Skare Brae bull’s head, horn at one end. Face and shoulders, no (after Robert Rendall) The whiff of the crust of wax eyes but a Pritchel hole, no mouth but a Hardie hole. Ingrid Leonard left in the tin, in her nose. Carbon black. Moon of the Deck Cargo The tide’s flowing. Twenty batons with a strap round them At Bay o’ Skaill there lies a toon Buffed to a shine. lie some piece, sodden and weet with sea geese. set upon the sand as if by a stone wave They’re those rocks on the Taing struck aboot, haeved by hand. Covered walls when the tide’s pulled back. Moon of the Byre thick as veins o’ a whale line flint-cut sett Teemo says to the kye, ‘Don’t forget her, she hangs that link each cell whaur families bloomed behind the day, waiting’. in labyrinthine shade, kent fae outside by tufted domes ower thick-laid slab, New Moons over Westray an’ a deuless curl o’ smok. Lydia Harris The Kinswoman Or mibbe they were more learned folk, Moon in the Forge Ingrid Leonard scalan Orion, gaugan thur worth, The men fill their pipes, their faces wax in the glow. i. makan sense o’ thur place in the star- Teemo unbends a maul plough, hammers the buckled In the morning, she laid a fire clustered firth. The ring on Brodgar’s slope bolt flat. Moon is a face in the doorway. of wood-scuffs and newspaper shares its breadth wi’ sooth circles – which she rolled and folded wis this a geometrist’s bower for those in luciferan twists who stopped in by for numbers, but an’ ben in the New Stone Age? Whar wid ken.

Northwords Now Issue 35, Spring 2018 7 ello Mrs. McCafferty. you’ll can haud his ashes.” She takes the This is, um, a nice An Excursion tin from her carrier bag and throws it to “Hsurprise.” Vincent. She stands on his doorstep, a plastic Short Story by David Carson Vincent catches it and walks towards carrier bag in one hand. Vincent stares the water’s edge. Gingerly he pokes a and frowns, and thinks, how small and ✯ toe beneath the surface. He wades out dumpy she is. And untidy looking. He towards the rock. looks down at her. Then he remembers. “That’ll dae, Mr. V. Ye can do the deed Poor thing, she probably can’t help it, “Anything I can do to help, you’re “Make yourself comfortable Mrs. the noo.” under the circumstances. very welcome Mrs. McCafferty.” McCafferty. Which way?” Vincent tries to turn the lid of the “Hope Ah’m no’ disturbin’ ye, Mr. V.” “That’s braw. Weel noo, ye ken Andra “Oot the toon, up the brae, alang by tin. Vincent winces. He dislikes the use of enjoyed the fishin’. He had this favourite the river. It’s no’ ower far.” “I can’t manage it Mrs, McCafferty. a letter in place of his name. place, used tae spend hours there, went She picks up the tin. “Dinna fash The top has stuck.” “Aye, Ah’d hae cam’ tae yer factory on his own, couldnae wait tae get awa’ Andra.” She shakes the tin vigorously “Michty me. Jist bang it oan the rock. but, seein’ it’s Seturday, Ah didna’ think oot the hoose. Ah tell ye, Mr. V., Ah aince “Ye’ll soon be at peace.” She turns to That’ll fix it.” ye’d be warkin’. Andra allus said ye were jaloused he hid a hizzie. Then Ah thocht, face Vincent. “He wisna a bad chappie, Vincent hits the tin off the rock. The like a’ the ither bosses - a five day a week naw, thon’s nae possible, he’s goat me, an’ ma Andra. Mind you, he wisna altimes lid stays where it is. He tries again, with chiel.” richt enough, it wis a’ jonick.” bonny, if ye get ma meanin’. Ye see, tae increased force. He is losing control. Vincent takes a step back. He thinks, Vincent is incredulous. He can barely begin wi’, it wis houghmagandie a’ the “Jesus bloody Christ. Open up for what a nerve talking to me like that. follow this tirade. He wants to laugh out time. Ah wis fair fauchinless come the god‘s sake!” “Oh, yes, of course, Andrew. It was loud. He says, comfortingly: morn. Wis it like thon wi’ you an’ Mrs He smashes the tin downwards again. very sudden, wasn’t it? The whole thing. “Mrs. McCafferty, please don’t get V., Mr. V?” It bounces up, and Vincent loses his grip Sorry I didn’t make the funeral, I was still upset. What would you like me to do?” Vincent has no idea what Mrs. on it. The tin soars into the air and falls away on holiday.” “Ah thocht ye’d nivver ask. Ah need McCafferty is talking about. back into the water. The current begins “Disna matter noo. At least yer tae get his ashes intae the river. Ah ken “Absolutely, just as you describe it.” to carry it away. office printit the deid sheet.” Vincent is his spot. He described it aftimes tae me. “Dearie me. A’ Ah’m sayin’, Mr. V., is Vincent starts to chase it, loses his puzzled. Mrs. McCaffert explains, with a It’s at the bend, whaur thon big rock that Andra went at it like a stag in the footing and falls head first under the hint of impatience, “Ye ken, the thing ye sticks oot o’ the watter. We’ll can gae in rut, ye ken. Aye, but then he stairts tae water. He staggers upright and sees Mrs. gie tae the mourners when they arrive, your car.” lose interest. Ah couldn’a fathom it. Even McCafferty lift her skirts and plunge after wi’Andra’s details. Got Andra’s dates Vincent is angry now. How dare she when ah pit oan ma gaudy knickers. him. wrang, mind. Naebody noticed until the impose, assume. He puts a hand on her They’re braw aren’t they, Mr. V?” “Andra bluidy McCafferty, ye were a meenister startit oan the tribute, began wi’ shoulder. Vincent is aghast. thrawn bugger when ye wir alive, can ye his date o’ birth. Michty me, ah thocht , “Of course Mrs. McCafferty, I’ll be “Perhaps you should pull down your no behave yersel noo yer deid!” surely he’s naw gaun tae gie’ us the hale delighted to help.” dress, Mrs. McCafferty.” She brandishes the carrier bag like a life story caboodle. But naw, he skipped “Ah kennt ye wid. Ah nivver believed “Aye, Andra’s words tae, though he net and yanks up the tin. a’ thae borin’ bits, then went oan aboot Andra when he said ye wir too meeserable wisna allus sae polite. Ah jist couldn’a “Come here ye bastart. It’s a’ richt Mr. Andra’s family an’ a ‘ that shite. Ye’d hae tae gie’ a crumlick tae a birdie.” comprise it.” V., Ah’ve goat him”. thocht he didna’ hae a wifie.” Vincent is close to losing his temper. “How far now, Mrs. McCafferty?” Vincent is soaked and shivering. Mrs. Vincent is shocked. He smiles. “It will be a pleasure. When would “Jist roon the corner. That’s it, see, McCafferty wrenches the lid from the “Andrew did talk about you from time to you like to make the trip?” doon by the picnic table.” top of the tin, and prepares to throw the time, said you were…” Vincent searches “The noo. In that.” Her finger is Vincent stops the car contents to the four winds. Then she for a word “…direct.” pointing at Vincent’s car. “We’ll can walk fae here. That’s guid. stops. “Oh aye. Weel, Ah need a wee favour “Well, I’m a bit busy just now.” See, there’s thon big rock. A’ ye hae tae “Naw, it canna’ be true.” She peers fae ye, Mr V. That is, Andra does.” “Ach, it’ll nae tak lang.” do noo is tak yer shoon aff an’wade oot into the tin. Vincent is perplexed. He looks Vincent is now resentful. tae it. Then ye jist unscrew the tin an’ “Ye’ll no’ believe this, Mr. V. We’ll jist enquiringly at Mrs. McCafferty. “Right-o, Mrs. McCafferty. No time haud it tapsalteerie, an’awa’ he’ll fly.” hae’tae’come back the morn an’dae it a’ “Andra needs tae feenish his journey. like the present. I’ll fetch my keys.” Vincent has had enough. again. Whit’s the matter, Mr. V.?” Ah’ve goat him here.” He returns and opens the car door. “Mrs. McCafferty, you come to my Vincent is sitting on the rock, With a flourish she pulls out from her He hears Mrs. McCafferty chuckling and house, interrupt my Saturday afternoon, shivering, head in hands. He is near to carrier bag what looks to Vincent like a muttering. make me drive you to God knows where, tears. “Please let this not be happening, tin can. “Och Andra, whit ye said is richt true. and then you expect me to wade into an Mrs. McC. What’s the matter?” “It’s whit’s left o’ him, ye ken. Ashes. The only smairt bit aboot Mr. V. is his icy river with a tin full of ashes!” “Ah,ve picked up the wrang tin, Mr.V. There his tae be a scatterin’.” motor!” “Ach, yer nae sic a daft gowk efter This is the feckin’ tea caddy.” n Vincent has a sinking feeling. He hates Vincent is incensed. How dare she a’, Mr. V. Here, Ah’ll haud yer things an’ being put upon. He says: mock him like that. He says:

he packs boxes. He sits in a chair. the packed boxes and says, “I’ll come over She has her back to him as she works. Undoing with a van on Saturday.” SShe occasionally turns to face him “Okay.” as she searches for another item to pack. “Okay. I’ll see you then, if you’re Each time she turns in his direction, he Short Story by Barry Graham here.” looks away from her, pretending he is not She picks up her bag, and leaves. watching her. ✯ He sits there, drinking coffee. He stands He gets up and goes over to a table on up and goes to the table. He puts his cup which there is a pot of coffee and some her cup. She takes one sip from it, then “This is yours,” she says. on the table and picks up the cup she left. cups. He pours coffee into two cups, then puts it back on the table. “It’s yours too. You really like it, I He drinks from it. He picks up the CD. picks up the cups and extends one toward She resumes packing, and he resumes thought.” He goes back to his chair with the CD her. She takes it. watching her. “You like it more. I can get another.” in one hand and her cup in the other. He He goes back to his chair and sits, She sorts through CDs and cassettes, “So can I.” drinks coffee and looks at the CD.n drinking his coffee and not looking at putting them in a box. She looks at one “It’s okay. You can have it.” her. She stands looking at him, holding CD, ponders, and then turns around to He does not answer. She goes the table face him. He looks away as she turns. and puts the CD on it. Then she looks at

8 Northwords Now Issue 35, Spring 2018 Poetry

deer talk little apple trees bend their crabbed Years later the man says to his son Gerrie Fellows fishwives’ backs, thrawn as they claw You have the eyes of that wolf, Ande. into cliff, crumbling out to Auchmithie. And the son says, shout-louts Because you gave me protection clod-footing through mud No fools. Their bark remembers I chose you to be my father. odd body bright things sea’s harsher moods. They turn, face not ear-lifting brown-red fields, furrowing opened Angus. This is the story of the shaman, to wind body tree who is also a professor of law, squash underfoot who is also that son. bark crisp tasty gills Spirits of the Lavvu watch little body Paula Jennings the wind does not enter Uksakka is beside the door The Song with nose talk where people come and go. Paula Jennings hoof tapping She cares for your life ‘You can burn my drum but you can never, you are ear up in the shelter of the lavvu ever burn the song that is inside me.’ (Sami saying) and shifting and your being in the world. wait She shapes the foetus His mother taught him to yoik in the mother’s womb lift nose slow and is a midwife at the birth. in the days when it was still hidden, only their light and dark the songs banned, the drums burned. their out-of-place On the opposite side not going between the trees is the ‘wrong door’. Food She showed him how to sing the wind, only in clear space is carried in through here the creak of ice, crunch and slush of snow, the hind-hoofers and the dead taken out. songs that growl and whine and roar, strange ones under birch roof The tundra’s harsh beauty that slide between pitches, that have wait lays bare the life cycle. no symmetry, no beginning, no end. Juksakka protects children When the singer stops the song remains, ear snap and guards this second door. uncontained as shifting silences of winter eye gone in the naked tundra, raucous as birds odd bodies On the hearth of five stones returning in the Arctic spring. take their spell away sits Sarakka. A kindling of aromatic mushrooms He says, fast little body culled from birch trees You have to become what you yoik… into ferny place fills the room with scent. when you yoik a wolf you are also a wolf, soft under hooves Wood embers begin to glow. you have to meet the wolf that is inside you through leaf net The guardian of love and sex and also meet the wolves inside those who listen. into tree shade holds the fire in her lap. frond flitter ear-lift to leaf shift Notes to poems by Paula Jennings: A Lavvu is nose to body reek a temporary dwelling used by the Sami people of Wolf northern Norway. The yoik is the traditional song Paula Jennings of the Sami people who live in the northern part hidden of the Nordic countries and the far northwest in sweet nodding cud This is the story told by the shaman: peninsula of Russia. Ande Somby is a traditional under stipple grass Sami yoik artist and an associate professor at A man is sitting alone by the fire. the Faculty of Law at the University of Tromsø, in myriad Reindeer skins are thick specializing in Indigenous Rights Law. on the birch-branch floor, the smoke is rising through the pointed roof of the lavvu. Seaton Cliffs, lowest water A panting shape appears, Beth Mcdonough has slipped through the door, a lone wolf seeking refuge Ancient, Arbroath’s flairs rise, rock seabeds from a hunting pack, paddling pool chain all the way to the tide, a wolf with tundra in its eyes, strange as Pamukkale’s pockets. wild stink filling the lavvu, and the man choosing to be calm, Now this calm invites bathers, depletes sitting all night, absorbing wolf squally congregations of birds through eyes, nose, skin; shit-pewed at the Mermaid’s Kirk cleft. Sarakka between them, holding the flames. Even the Deil’s Heid suns, grins his so-benign side. Norway seems only a tough swim away. But soon

Illustration by Vawdrey Taylor

Northwords Now Issue 35, Spring 2018 9 Poetry

The Gift Olrig By Kenneth Steven Stewart Sanderson

That night they knew the foal would be born “A fine corn country, two miles and a half in length, and a mile broad, or they went down, she and he, with all the day done – thereabouts. Nothing memorable in it.” the summer in heat and the night skies still, a blue like the shallows of a white shell cove ‘Brother.’ The word cut and the bats about them with pattering wings. into silence like a tushkar They went down, the quiet easy between them, through black layers of peat. till suddenly the whole moon broke from the hilltop – scarred and shining. They stopped to watch, faces filled ‘Do you remember as the moon rose up like some balloon and held Olrig? A bheil cuimhne agad there in the silent skies. Only then they went on air sin, a bhrathair? to the hollow where the pear trees grew, and the scent rose sweet. There before them the mare and foal: The old tongue sounded he staggered to his feet, the strangeness of those stilts strange to both of us by then and she mothering him, tender and slow, her eyes as snow fell outside full of him, giving and giving her tongue to bring him complete to this world, to this life. our tiny cabin And the girl and the man knelt down, for this on the Hudson Bay; yet I was bigger than they understood. had not forgotten

what it was to be at Olrig, an age ago Coll and neither had he. By Kenneth Steven In Iroquois I said so. I got up long before the dawn; opened an unlocked door into a landscape made of moor and loch. Twelve years old: the only danger barbed wire fences. Naiad I ran until the hillside turned to sand, Jane Picton Smith and under me the whole Atlantic softening the white rim of the island I should have guessed you were here, like a sigh. I chased down all the dunes, since a jet stream of swans barefooting sand so white it might have been barely cleared the treeline a kind of snow. Sea breathed (you counted sixteen). in ledges and descents, in many blues This startled corps de ballet that melded into one. I dared undress and the intrusion of coots to tread out deep until I lifted signalled your presence, held and unafraid, breath by the mouth of the pow. caught and stolen by the cold. The clinging tangle of roots I entered another world; on the cusp of riparian woods melted into something else. and riverbank; I came out strange and shining, new the green lustre of a kingfisher’s wing, and wandered slowly home, the same like the filter of a half-remembered dream. yet never quite the same again. Your chosen craft: a paddleboard, no less at one with its surroundings, as it forms a second skin Donald Angus, Harris on the water. By Kenneth Steven Emerging from a screen of reeds near Carthagena Bank, Three days beyond his death by turns culled and reborn they carried him to Luskentyre; with each indecisive tide, the graves that lie against the sea, you are part pre-Raphaelite muse, the blue-green breathing of that tide. part able barge woman, The threads in him all left intact; framed against a wintery waterway. the woven pattern of the eighty years to make this place called home – In your hands the love that brought the three strong sons, a single oar, that spoke and laughed his Gaelic; momentarily still. the knowledge of the rise and fall of psalms – the sung wave that underheld the hand, carried high the sureness of the heart. All this they brought that day and buried there beside the vastness of the inblown sea, to sleep against the light of Luskentyre.

10 Northwords Now Issue 35, Spring 2018 t the school where Larkey Larkey runs after him. ‘Fff - for how should have been that day, the The Day the Clocks Restarted long will we be… like THIS?’ Apupils didn’t know his name. The old man doesn’t answer. On They called him ‘Larkey’, yes, but his real the promenade he turns and says ‘Now, name was lost - most likely taken by the Short Story by Ian Tallach Larkie. Let me show you things. Things… mists of time. that can change your life.’ ‘What is your name, laddie?’ The man ‘How is that POSSIBLE if… if what over by the café window must have been ✯ you say is true – about there being no almost a hundred. memory of this?’ The tears are on his Larkey blinked and cleared his throat. out. It began to engulf the remains of his ‘Wh – what’s happening?’ Larkey cheeks, but dry. He feels anger, terror and This was his first time skipping school breakfast – half a muffin and a slice of blurts. curiosity, all mixed together. and he’d begun to wander, in his mind, toast. Larkey smiled; he’d seen something ‘Nothing. Precisely nothing. Time… is The old man swivels like a dancer, to more exotic places than Inverluib. similar on David Attenborough – starfish elsewhere. We find ourselves… outwith touches his nose and winks. ‘Just follow ‘Ehm… Larkey?’ His voice came out all on time-lapse hoovering up clams and the times. Poised, like a wave about to me. Careful! The grass is sharp! You see shaky, like he wasn’t sure. At times like mussels. break… a dewdrop in the brittle air… that bird in flight? Let’s go and see its this, he simply wished to disappear. When he’d slipped into the café he an isolated incident… of calm.’ There is yellow feathers. ‘You feel’n guilty, son?’ The old man’s had chosen a rustic orange sofa, perfect something hypnotic about the old man’s face was hidden, for the most part, by a for slouching. But now he seemed to voice: the ebb and flow of tides. ✯ generous white beard. sink a little further. The cushions slowly ‘Will I go back?’ In the café, Larkey watched the old ‘G - guilty?’ Larkey stammered. He enveloped him. He found himself under ‘Aye. You will. You are back… and you man staring at the clock. sat up straight and did his best to look the shadow of the padded armrest and, have gone back.’ ‘Mister,’ he ventured timidly. ‘Why are defiant. ‘Why would you think that?’ His feeling he was being swallowed, he ‘I - I’m scared! My friends will never you staring at the clock?’ banana split was long-since finished, but began to grasp about until, with all the BELIEVE this.’ ‘Because, my son, it stopped. Most the dregs of ice-cream at the bottom desperation he could muster, he got out. ‘Your friends don’t know.’ curious. It’s started though… again.’ suddenly became of interest. ‘Y - yes. But they WILL... when I tell Larkey thought the old man might ‘Man gives his name like it’s a ✯ them.’ have lost his marbles. But then he thought question is most likely feel’n guilty; so He lies there on the floor, catching his ‘No. The future has no purchase here. some more. ‘Maybe not,’ he decided. says a hundred years’ experience. Besides, breath. There is no memory of this in time. ‘Perhaps he knows more than he’s letting Larkey’s not your real name… is it?’ The old man is staring at the clock. This… is a moment.’ on.’ Then, digging deep into the pockets The boy, making to leave, let out a ‘HEY, MISTER!’ Larkey shouts. ‘Did ‘Tears well up in Larkey’s eyes. ‘Are we of his dungarees, he found just enough nervous chortle, but the other’s eyes had you SEE that? I almost disappeared!’ trapped… in a moment? change to pay for his banana split. such a warmth and humour in them The old man doesn’t move. And there ‘On the contrary, my son. There’s that he changed his mind. The old man is something else a little strange – absolute much more in a moment than you think. ✯ laughed and Larky laughed again and silence; nothing from the kitchen; no more Let me take you outside.’ Larkey often goes back to the café. They then they laughed together. There was conversation; no cars passing outside; not ‘B - but, how can we MOVE? … when expect him now – mostly at weekends something comforting and timeless in the even that hissing sound that waves make everyone else is… is frozen… coffee cups and during the holidays. He likes to sit on old man’s smile – that and the smell of on the beach beyond the promenade. The and all? Look… even the crumbs - stuck that old rustic orange couch and close his coffee and the sounds of chinking cutlery other customers sit motionless, holding in the air.’ eyes. And when he does, he thinks of giant and crockery and chatter from the other their mugs. Some look a bit like gargoyles, ‘They’re not frozen,’ the old man waves, dewdrops and fleeting things – not customers. Larkey relaxed. with their mouths wide open. laughs. ‘We’re just taking a break from very boyish things – like hummingbirds The old man closed his eyes. He ‘Larkey.’ The old man’s voice is them. Be careful where you put your feet.’ and butterflies and Golden Orioles.n nodded by degrees and gradually his sonorous and deep; it seems to come from And with that, he leaps up and makes his beard descended to the table and spread far away. way towards the door.

eautiful day – lightest of over that face in a tank full of spirit. Ha! breezes, sun, walking the beach A Fishy Tail Damien Hirst, eat your heart out! But Bis a pleasure. Tide’s just dropping, too disrespectful, utterly inappropriate plenty of time, easy walking on the (though it would be interesting to know sand. A scatter of seaweed, a few shells Short Story by Selena Hardisty . . . oh, so much!) – and, oho, a sea bean! Gleaming dark Should I go for a minister? Or a priest? red, lovely unblemished rounded seed, a They’re all a bit thin on the ground these lucky find all the way from Central or ✯ days. Aren’t mermaids supposed not to South America. Nice feel to it, too. have souls? In fact, are they supposed to On to the tidal island, just getting be immortal? Who would believe it and across to it and working round the rocky that I can see. It’s not breathing. No gills Is it a hallucination? I’ve never had one scramble out here? And that would still shore to the ocean side. Scrambling visible, so it must breathe. before - can one touch a hallucination? mean formal burial. Would the council round a rocky outcrop, glimpse of a fish Back down again and make my way So, here we are. Dead mermaid, take half a fish – even if she were ever tail ahead – a BIG fish tail. Wasn’t a tuna round a bit and peer from the side – not apparently, in an unfrequented nook on a allowed to have a burial without someone washed up a few years ago? On round too close. The human part is female and tidal island. Not so easy to get to, can’t get interfering and making off with her for – and it is, a big fish tail – lovely scales, looks full grown, though perhaps a little word to anyone before the tide comes in. science or display? No rights for the fey. shining bluey-green, very fresh looking. on the small side. Long dark hair, only on So, who do I tell? The marine animal I sit down and think it all through No smell. Just beyond – looks like hair, the head, but spread to cover quite a lot people in Inverness? But is this an animal? again. I should take photographs – but too fine to be that seaweed – part ofa of the body. The front half – er, the top half? is human that doesn’t seem right, snapping a corpse. bare back! Someone hugging the fish? How do they keep warm? No fur, and the other half is fish – Dunstaffnage I could try a sketch, though; somehow Hmm, let’s climb up a bit – someone doesn’t look as though there’s much fat do fish. Suppose I sent them a photo of that’s different, not disrespectful. And lying starkers on the shore hugging a fish on it – no insulation to speak of. Could the fish bit – so fresh – and they’d say it leaves time to see if perhaps with a could be dangerous. View from higher up they have a lower temperature than we “What’s the head end like?” – then what different metabolism, she’s not dead after and - Oh, no, not someone hugging the do? The fish part must be cold blooded. do I do? And they wouldn’t believe me all. fish – someone joined to the fish around Two different systems like birds’legs and anyway. Amazing what you can do with So I sit a while. A gull hovers close by the hips – skin and then the scales start. feet? photoshop – well, not me, but some can. and I wave it away. And think – there is Handy rock here to sit on. Is it asleep? Anyhow, not breathing. Anyway, could you just post mortem a another option. I leave my sea bean beside Or pretending, hoping not to be noticed? I move closer, touch an arm, tentatively. part person? Could be tricky – there can’t her, cover her gently with fresh seaweed Stuck here now until the tide comes in. Cold, no movement. be any legal protocol. Or she’d be cast, and make my way back, before the tide But there’s no movement in the back or stuffed, or pickled. That hair, floating comes in n.

Northwords Now Issue 35, Spring 2018 11 t came at night, a whisper in the unveiled and lessened in some way of blood, but like most men it took Monument their disturbing power. Ihim months to slip his indolence and He took his gifted copies home, his see a doctor. He had bared his teeth to ravaged organs, and in the long nights the mystery of those pains for weeks; Short Story by Richard W. Strachan that followed he cradled those ruptured a narrative in a language he couldn’t globes, embracing the world inside understand, speaking of some disturbance him even as it broke apart and fell to in his core. In the darkness he would listen ✯ ruin. He placed the models on the to the hollow midnight sea across the mantelpiece and considered them in the street, the shore abraded another inch or mornings, when the light fell in slant two. Turning his head to the pillow he’d the ‘war’ against it, the fight. Hooked up For long periods after he gave up the beams through half-open curtains. In press both hands nervously to his ribcage, to the chemical feed, he would sit and treatment, he would sit and meditate on the afternoons, fatigue like a coat around the softening grid of his abdominals. sketch his ideas of the organs’ rebellion. He the changes inside him, trying to imagine his shoulders, he would run his fingers When his name was called in the drew strategic maps of his jungly interior, what his organs looked like now, those over the lesions of the disease, feeling the waiting room he strolled on unexpectedly plotting the attacks and counterattacks, vital sacs that he’d never given more corresponding parts of his own body and weak legs through to the doctor’s the spleen’s feint against his lines while than a moment’s thought to in all the matching the great bubbling froth of one surgery; this young woman who glowed the liver swung around his left flank, the years he’d been using them. Deep in the model tumour with the tender lump that with hard work and health, a stranger to heart’s artillery raining blood and fire on heightened slumber of his thought, he swelled beneath his ribs, wondering if the sickness. He gave her his story, reluctant his positions from the rear. It was a swift, tried to send benevolent waves towards shortening of his breath had anything to to emphasise any of the details and trying well-organised offensive, but they hadn’t the disease, welcoming gestures of do with all those malformed studs and to make it all sound as innocuous as it taken into account the heavy cavalry of forgiveness and reconciliation. There is buttons that he could see on his plastic probably was. his chemotherapy, which swept in to more than enough space here for all of lungs. ‘It’s this pain,’ he said. He patted his smash the organs’ formation and scatter us, he said. We can live together, happy He built up rituals for their use. Every stomach, as if torpidly satisfied at the end it to the winds. Incendiary cocktails of and free. day he was weaker, but he would still of a huge meal. ‘Not just a pain, but this industrial drugs rained down on the In his mind the lashing tendrils of his make his way downstairs in the morning sense of … I feel almost that there’s more conscript forces of his lower intestine, sickness became hands reaching out in and arrange them on the living room of me now.’ He gave up. He couldn’t while the shock troops of his support fellowship and those burgeoning clusters floor into some rough approximation explain this sense of mass and density, like group literature mopped up the stunned that were distending the walls of his of their inner order. Crouching down, he was displacing more of the world. As survivors. He chuckled to himself, the stomach were just the first homesteads chanting the name of each organ in turn, the doctor nodded and tapped the end of field marshall drawing arrows of advance of a frontier people, joyfully sharing in a polishing them and gilding them with her pen against the gleam of her bottom and barbed wire defences, fleshing out a mutual prosperity. The dislocating frenzy metallic acryllics, he laboured in the last lip, he seemed to drift from the warm campaign that could surely end only in of war was over; now was the time to fits of his illness to appease the thing that room to the sun-struck car park outside; his comprehensive victory. rebuild. was consuming him, even if at the same the vacant street, the crisp fringes of the It will be over soon, he thought. They time he felt that this still wasn’t enough; autumn leaves on the oak tree across the never stood a chance. It should be more than just somehow the scale was wrong. Mundane, road. accommodation though. He had been too anchored to the human level, when Then he was finished and the tests When the chemotherapy didn’t work touched in some way by this presence all this was so much bigger than him; began. Before long, he knew exactly he was switched to radiation. Near- inside him, marked out and distinguished, it was a universe in there, a depthless when he was going to die. comotose with drugs, he was strapped to and he began to feel that this great power ocean. the gantry under the rotating lens of the was worthy of more than just an amiable This is monumental, he thought. He surprised himself with a brief flurry linear accelerator machine, which, like the arrangement. Reverence was due to the Whoever looks on this should feel of industry, administrating his final months eye of God, saw right to his secret core and master of change, this swelling incubation, like nothing, or like the mere shell of to deflect attention from the savage pared him down to atoms. Conventional and like an alchemist or a Rosicrucian of something vast and incomprehensible. eclipse that was going to overwhelm him. warfare had proved impossible, and only old he felt that what bubbled away inside He retched, patted fingertips to lips He got his affairs in order and took great the most radical solution was left to him must have its outside correspondence. He now frothed in blood. satisfaction in thinking of them in those - the nuclear option. wanted to feel them with his hands, to terms; as ‘affairs’, weighty matters that As he lay there though, half-deafened understand their forms in the only way He sourced the materials online and had real-world consequence. Sometimes by the clattering violence of the he knew how. contracted the job, emptying his bank he would pause as he rifled through his treatment, he wondered what on earth He spoke to his doctors. They put him account of his savings. He forwarded the bank or mortgage statements and feel as would be left of him if he was forced to in touch with research schools, consultants image files that the research centre had if here, in his petty savings and property take such measures? What was the world who had been thinking along the same given him, and with grim perseverance accounts, were the unquenchable relics going to look like after the war? It felt lines. What he had in mind would be clung on to the last of his life so he could of an empire. This, he thought, holding like this path would lead to nothing but an invaluable teaching tool for the next see it through. When the truck came he up an annual interest payment form, is utter devastation, and he would become generation of practitioners, they said. staggered out on his crutches to oversee my Machu Picchu. This draft will and in the end just a shattered landscape of ‘If you’ve no interest in helping their transport, directing the delivery men testament is my Great Pyramid of Giza. carbonised ruins, host to grim survivors yourself,’ the consultant told him, without to the back garden where the scaffolding At other times though, when the scrabbling in the muck for human flesh. recrimination, ‘then at least you’ll be was ready. pain would tilt its lance against him, he When those are the ends, he thought, doing something to help others.’ Some of the more complex pieces would scatter the documents from the how can the means ever be justified? He nodded in eager agreement; a had been cast and printed on gigantic desk and press his burning forehead to Hooked over the toilet bowl, spewing out martyr, a pioneer. sprues, an intricate, Cyclopaean model the window. Out there was his garden, a radioactive stream, he knew it couldn’t The process was almost the same as the kit, but it was easy enough for him to the blue grass dying in the dusk; there, his go on like this. All wars must end, and radiotherapy. Back into the imaging unit cut and strip the mould lines on each garden shed, his apple tree that he would from either defeat or victory must come he went, lying prone while the invisible section and apply industrial glue. There never see in bloom again. The inscrutable peace. Peace is all that really matters. pen mapped out that wild country inside was a pleasing magic in seeing four or facts of his body disturbed him. In that The language had to change for a him. When it was over he was invited to five abstract shapes slot neatly together to humid chamber, what were those organs start. No more of the struggle, no longer see the results, the gridlines smoothed out form a perfect image of his failing gut, or doing? He couldn’t picture them at all. the fight, the words turning his body into on-screen into rotating three-dimensional the wreckage of a kidney that was bloated He had only the sketchiest idea of how a contested space, his interior no more shapes; the cluttered chamber of his with metastasising tumours; testament to each fitted to each, and now they were than a scorched no-man’s land where the stomach, the web of intestine jewelled the skill of the AutoCAD-technicians in open rebellion, insurrectionists against embattled ‘I’ of his self fought bitterly with tumours. They showed him the 3D who had produced them. As he worked, his lifetime indifference. against the invader. The conferences with printer and he stood by it for hours as modelling away from dawn to as long as When he started the treatment, he his doctors broke down, the Yaltas and the thin stream spooled out in glistening the light lasted, he often thought back found it helpful to fall into the direction Casablancas, and he couldn’t measure the polylactic acid a perfect representation of to carefree times of lost childhood, his in which the language seemed to be relief he felt as he finally demobilised his his former enemies; those organs given bedroom and toy soldiers, those games of guiding him; his ‘battle’ with the disease, troops. outward shape, brought into the light, rulers and dice; death on the tabletop in

12 Northwords Now Issue 35, Spring 2018 the days when the forms of death were section that formed the hollow right it stayed where he had planted it in the fingers across the bumps and protrusions always cinematic. Every morning he ventricle of his monumental heart and garden, an outsider art selling-point in he had rendered in such careful detail. As swept the pain of his advancing illness slowly dragged himself inside, breaking the estate agent’s catalogue. When the sea the central chamber was finally opened to aside and crawled out onto the gantries through the web of his pain and kicking finally came for the street and the bluff’s reveal its mysteries, everyone who looked with buckets of paint and varnish, and as back to cast the scaffolding to the ground. last crenellated edge sheared off to tip on his sheltered bones and the preserved he worked it was like all the fronds and He pasted a thick line of glue onto the all the empty houses into the water, the assemblage of his grave goods would drift tendrils of the real disease were quivering connecting plane of the moulded plastic, monument went with them. A tall column into a puzzled revery about the long-lost in response. To sweep the brush in one and with great care drew it back in of weather-beaten gilt and crimson, world where such things had been made, leisurely stroke across the crab-like pincer place before him, until he was sealed in it toppled and fell gracefully into the all of them wondering if perhaps those of a plastic tumour was to feel the real a darkness that was lit only by the faint ocean, drifting through the effervescent unimaginably distant people had raised thing tense and relax inside him, and as and bloody glow of the setting sun. He green until it came to rest on the sea bed such lurid icons on their crumbling shores he worked in this reciprocal scale all his closed his eyes to a deeper darkness, at the base of the cliff; where, in time, as no more than a superstitious gesture to organs thrummed and muttered with a fastened inside himself at last, and as he many centuries from now, after all the ward off the invading seas; mad totems of complementary music. vanished from the sight and memory of land had been pared away another mile a last and undefeated disorder. n On the last day of his labours, he all who knew him, at peace, he listened to or more, future archaeologists dredging woke with a stone crushing his chest and the sea’s fading shout as it shattered into the water for the artefacts of this lost broken glass grinding in his lungs. He was a line of glinting fractals, alive with light civilisation would snag their tools on the almost finished, and although it took him and breaking ever closer to the mumbled monument’s hidden marvels and bring it the best part of an hour to fall from bed, shore. back up to the surface; and there, wide- he still managed to stagger out into the eyed, they would look on the salt-rimed garden and mount the scaffolding, where Long after he had disappeared, jewels of his construction, the coils and he crowned his structure with a final dab presumed dead, the monument he had segments he had with awe put into their of gold. Then, he unlocked the curved built remained. When the house was sold proper order, and they would run their Poetry

Fareweel Soft Spot Michael Stephenson Aoife Lyall a version in Scots of a poem by Yü Hsüan Chi, Tang dynasty It is early. The cereal boxes are still Aw thae tender nichts we spent thegither clustered together on the kitchen table up the stair in oor auld city flat patchworked with leaflets and leftovers. content tae lose oursels in ane anither - I niver thocht the love o ma hert wid leave. I sit and watch your daily habit- trousers, shirtsleeves carefully rolled back- Nou, I lie masel, doverin an wakenin peeling potatoes at the morning sink. while clouds drift whaur they will. The lamp is lowed yet. A blind-bat You guide the knife under the soil-soaked flichters roon the flame, again an again. potato skin as gentle as the first time you held her sleeping:

thumbing the smell from her new-born Variations on a form (a tinker with a triolet) head, easing around the knots, Looking back the soft spot, humming. Vance Roberts

Perhaps my vision is a little blurred. The universe as demonstrated by birds (No, please do not adjust your set.) Bridget Khursheed Your face less clear, your voice half-heard: Perhaps my vision is a little blurred, The pampas grass is full of sparrows harvesting While somehow I remember ev’ry word last year’s seedheads - they are the children of the As if you lay beside me yet. children of the children since I have been here Perhaps my memory’s a little blurred (But pleas cannot adjust heart’s set.) trying to control weeds.

They vector it and make an astrolabe demonstrating all the planets, asteroids and circling orbits;

the flutter of their wings like the sound my ears hear sometimes when waking from the dream of meadow when I shrink below the grass

an atom - rerum - everything growing out of me and contains itself and the seedheads chatter like old friends; perhaps death.

Northwords Now Issue 35, Spring 2018 13 fter the last exam, Gemma sat Gemma placed some strands of hair with her father in the pebbled deericide (noun): the killing or in her mouth. Just a few. This time, her Agarden and looked up at the pine father saw. He gave her a look, so she let trees on the hillside. The last of the sun killer of deer them fall. The look softened. squinted through. Her father sipped on ‘Listen honey,’ he said. ‘I was genuinely a beer, but she shook her head when he Short Story by Liam Murray Bell worried about that deer. And there was offered it. enough… I thought it was worth your ‘I know the last year’s been tough,’ he being upset for a few days if it spared you said. ‘At school.’ ✯ some torment at school.’ ‘Not just the last year.’ ‘What do you mean?’ ‘All of it,’ he nodded. ‘I know.’ Her father sipped his beer. The sun had Gemma tried a smile; no-one could gone. Gemma felt it not as a single shiver, ever make her go back. unsteadily on stick-thin legs. Like Bambi with animals. Not as a vet, but in a cat but as a spreading chill. She remembered ‘I’m proud of you,’ her father said. finding his feet on the ice. shelter or a pet store. Darren had been the morning she’d lost Darren; the search ‘Your mum would have been too. For ‘That was the summer after your supportive, but he wanted her to aim starting as frantic, switching to methodical, making the effort. Those kids… life isn’t mother,’ her father said. ‘And I worried higher. Maybe History at university, and then reverting to frantic. like that. You’ll find friends, there’ll be that you might want to take it to school if she could avoid group-work and ‘What did you do with Darren?’ she folk who’ll share your interests.’ – you took it everywhere. Things were presentations. hissed. ‘My interests?’ Gemma frowned. bad enough, I’m not sure anyone could She’d taken Darren on the bus, in her ‘I took it up into the woods. The idea ‘Not all of them. But board games or have protected you if they’d found a schoolbag, to Glasgow and found the was to empty the jar, so the thing could history books…’ taxidermied deer in your schoolbag.’ building where they taught it. She didn’t rot naturally. But the seal was tight. And ‘Ah, the normal ones.’ ‘I don’t think Darren was speak to anyone, but she got a leaflet. when I tried to smash it, the jar just Her father took a drink of beer. ‘You taxidermied.’ Then they’d wandered in the Hunterian bounced up off the pine needles.’ remember that hideous deer-thing you ‘Sorry?’ Museum, where Darren’s brethren stared ‘So…?’ found when we first moved in. Grotesque ‘He wasn’t stuffed, he was preserved. down from the shelves; dozens of bell-jars ‘So I buried it. In the jar.’ bloody thing.’ ‘You know where he is?’ ‘Darren.’ ‘We’d never find it now.’ ‘Yes, you called it Darren.’ Gemma had found Darren on the shelf in Gemma waited until her father met Gemma had found Darren on the shelf her eye. ‘You’re sick,’ she said. in the cluttered shed. He must have been the cluttered shed. He must have been left by Her father raised himself from the left by the previous owner. He was a tiny seat, lifted the empty beer bottle. Before fallow deer, the size of a kitten, curled the previous owner. he turned his back, Gemma took a fistful inside a sealed bell-jar and preserved in of hair and stuffed it into her mouth. He some greenish liquid. You could see the passed no comment on that. outline of the muscles, of the jawbone, ‘It was for the best,’ he said, instead. beneath orange and white fur. The ears Gemma shook her head, kept her stare were exquisite. And his eyes were closed, focused on the silhouetted trees on the as if in sleep. He was whole.’ with all kinds of different animals, both hillside. She heard her father’s sigh, the ‘What made you think of him?’ ‘Embalmed then.’ taxidermied and embalmed. crunch of his shoes on the pebbles. Gemma asked. Gemma nodded, accepting the word. ‘He wasn’t grotesque,’ she said, to her Tomorrow was the first day. She ‘I worried… for a spell… about the She took a twist of her hair and set it father. wouldn’t spend it typing up a CV or attachment you had to it.’ between her teeth. Then she let it fall, ‘Who wasn’t?’ searching online for college courses. She had trundled Darren around the because her father hated that habit. She ‘Darren.’ Instead, she would go into their neatly- garden in the wheelbarrow and taken him looked across; he hadn’t noticed. ‘It was a tiny deer in a jar, Gemma.’ ordered shed and look out a spade. Then down to the burn. There they used sticks ‘We got through it,’ he said. ‘All of ‘If he had been a doll, though, or a she would go up to the woods and start to build a raft that wouldn’t float and then it. And now you can go off and find cuddly toy…’ digging. Hole after hole. And when she a pyre that wouldn’t burn. At night, she something you want to do. With decent ‘Then I’d have accepted you taking it found him, she’d tell him all the things placed him on the windowsill so that he people, folk who’ll just leave you be.’ to bed with you, or setting it on the table she’d saved up over the years. Things that could see the stars; if he ever opened his ‘Like what?’ while you ate. A cuddly toy in your bike would finally open his eyes.n eyes. Gemma lay in bed wondering what ‘Sorry?’ basket is normal, a dead deer is not.’ the greenish liquid would smell like, if ‘What can I do?’ ‘There’s that word again.’ she opened the jar, or if, once it drained ‘Well, what would you like to do?’ ‘What word?’ away, the deer would shake itself and rise Gemma had once thought of working ‘Normal.’

1.The rebirth of a soul in another body. 2. A person or animal in whom a particular Reincarnation Perhaps I may become a highwayman again soul is believed to have been reborn. 3. A Or I may simply be a single drop of rain new version of something from the past. But I will remain Short Story by Lucy Macrae And I’ll be back again, It was August and, once again, I was and again leaving Donnie MacArthur for the last and again time. ✯ I winnowed my few possessions in The tape was so overplayed that the a whirlwind of resolve before stacking sound swelled and faded, as if borne aloft them and the children into my rust- I turned before I got in behind the twins stretch small sticky hands across the on a high wind. rimmed Ford Fiesta. Michael, my eldest, wheel but Donnie, my anti-hero, was carrier bag mountain between them. I’d be back in three weeks. n didn’t need to be asked twice. He sat not standing in the doorway, was not The tyres hummed on the gleaming squashing midges against the window chasing the car with waving arms. So I road. My seven league boots, each turn with his fingers as I bundled the twins let the handbrake off and bumped the taking me further away from the mobile into the back. A tricky task as they refused Fiesta down the track. At the main road I home of broken dreams. I’d get that perm. to let go of each other, as usual. turned right, heading for my mum’s semi I’d get that job. I flicked the wipers on A light rain was falling. When was it and another fresh start. and sang along to the Johnny Cash tape ever bloody not, I thought, swatting at my In the rear-view mirror I saw the that had been stuck in the stereo since neck. Midges, eating me alive. February.

14 Northwords Now Issue 35, Spring 2018 Da Shipwrecked Forester James Sinclair

1. 4. 7.

Weel yun’s yun, dat’s him planted. A sodden lump wuppit up in tang. He watched her takin da simmer air on da Sabbath, He has nae fock o his ain buried here. Da men oot lookin ower dir sheep her bible tuckit innanunder her okster, William Macdonald wis his name at birth. cam apon da krangs, no uncommon dan a days. strampin alang itill her best Sunday finery. But if du akses onyeen fae aroond here Tinkin da worst dey rolled him apo his back, Her skein da colour o mylk an blue een wi kent him as Willie Wid ur Gaelic Willie. his een blinkit open an he mumbled unken wirds. dat sparkled brichter dan ony gem stones an vari-orm. He washed up here monies da year fae syne. Dey kerried him ta hoose whaur an owld wife bed He wis smitten, riggin hisel up as best he could A forester fae sum big estate doon da wast coast. herlane. Willie med fur da kirk, staandin i da pew ahint. Yun simple widden cross wis his idea. Shu gaused dem lift him itill da box bed. Gadderin da courage up fae some idder wyes, A lok o years ago wi wir oot walkin da banks Dan shu climbed in ahint an baled da blankets ower. He aksed if he could walk her hame. whin wi cam across a tree stump i da back o a geo. haddin him close ta her fur a day an a nicht An as da knots in his stamach lowsened, hit Fur aa his kennin o wid he’d niver seen dis afore. Liza held him in her boasie, shu’d niver hed a bairn o lowsened his tongue an dey yarned aboot He laekit ta tink dat hit micht a floated her ain dis, dat an da nixt thing. Dey fan hit doon wan o da tributaries o da michty Amazon an little by little he cam at. Shu gaused him aesy ta spaek ta een annider, laek dey’d ur waashed oot ta sea fae da Congo in rainy saeson. sip blaand den some brö, a bowl o soup an bannocks kent wan annider aa dir days. dan a plate foo o saat fish an taaties. An afore lang he wis able ta set him afore da fire. 2. 8.

Da boy dat laekit trees. Sum fock 5. Willie an Margaret held a spring weddin even said he could spaek wi dem. an settled in twartree rooms i da lanes. He kent whit eens dug dir röts in deep, Willie cam at, he kuckered up, Hit gied him an her a sense o comfort whedder dey need a lang draa o waater but da pooer geed fae his leegs closed in wi buildins, itill a forest an whit wans grippit ta rocky hillsides whin he steppit outside da door o saandstone an granite wi laeves o slate. wi muckle haands an strong fingers. He wid an saw as far as his ee could see Da wind swieed aroond da concrete trunks ken by da smell o da saap an colour o da bark dir wis nothin, nedder bush nor tree. stone waas lookit ta sway afore da gale. whiteens wir mad livin ur if dey wir filt wi rot. His line o sicht med nae idder Trowe closs an coortyaard an nuek an crannie An dan dis man, his loard an maister as twartree bare hills wi mooskit waves shadows shortened as da flicker o da sun blinkit trowe. aksed him ta traivil oot ower lang ocean, streetchin ta far horizon an da lift A life lived oot abune da come an go o ships, bring him da best cuttings an finest saplins dat reached richt ta da heavens. da rise an faa o da tide, as owld Jamaica o aa yun unken trees dey said grew dere. Dir wis Owld Arthur took him wi him ee day clamb oot o da back o Bressa an fell ahint da Hillhied. wird dat da graetest tree o dem aa grew dere, ta cast der bank. Dey flaaed aff da turf If he felt da caa o hame, nair a wird wis braethed. an his vanity demanded da muckle redwid. dan cut, liftin da blue clods ower der shooders. Willie pickit up a paet an spotted an ancient tree röt, an wi dat sat him doon i da greff an grett. 3.

Fur sic a fine day at da back o da hairst 6. Dey sailed doon da wide an smooth river Clyde. Oot inta da muckle Atlantic swell dey med Davy Smith’s boatyaard i da toon, fur da pilgrim faiders an da shalter o Boston Harbour dey wir short-haanded, wi a full orderbook. Da howld filt ta da brim wi oaken casks bound in iron Willie cam ta wirk fur dem i da spring Willie stood apon da larch deckin in his warm cot an afore lang dey could aa see dat an wi da first haevins o da sea spewed his mugie. dis een wis a haandy extra pair o hands. His senses no able ta maister da motion an emptiness. Fur he could aesy tell wi wan rub o da grain Da wind, he cam up fae da Sooth Wast, fur sic an da very smell o da saap whedder a roar hit med drivin dem afore brakin spinrift. da wid wis any use avaa. An he could tell Da hiecht masts bent laek stalks o corn, wind whit wey ta cut hit ta keep strengt an suppleness. rivin da sails ta shreds, dem blawin aff, laeves i da Hit wis herd wark but he laekit hit. He swapit his storm. exe fur saw an chisel an da smell o fresh sawn timber Fairt, Willie lashed hisel wi ropp ta da mast. Dan in med his heart feel gled an as he wroucht ee muckle flan hit uprooted an snappit inta matchwid. wi da tools o his new trade he fan a fresh wey ta appreciate da glory o trees.

Northwords Now Issue 35, Spring 2018 15 A Lighter Look at the Dark Stuff By Donald S Murray

Dubh! Murchadh Dubh! Can you do the Barn dance?) For the writer, the smoke coils and embraces him, Aladdin-like, its power passing on the magic of its talent, its ability to inspire, think, provoke, produce works of real flair and content that are the northern equivalents of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, Percy Bysshe Shelley’s Prometheus Unbound, a blaze of genius illuminating each word.

Yet beneath the cliché is concealed a little truth. Even the cynical Kavanagh recognised this in his own poem, the unromantically titled Kerr’s Ass, when he wrote of the way in which:

‘…a world comes to life - Morning, the silent bog, And the God of imagination waking In a Mucker fog.’

Whether or not its magic can be ‘compressed’ into its smell or savour, there is something about its emptiness that wakes up the ‘God of imagination’ in the human mind. One can see its effect in the novel – from Hardy’s The Return Of The Native’ to Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights, Hogg’s Confessions of A Justified Sinner to Sir Arthur Conon Doyle’s The Hound of the Baskervilles. It is present, too, in poetry – from Seamus Heaney to Ted Hughes, Gerald Manley Hopkins’ Inversnaid to the work of Sorley Maclean, Norman MacCaig, R.S. Charity tractor run in Ness. Photo courtesy of Fios Nis Thomas. In this, the way we are compelled otorious for his grumpiness, we have had no shortage of ‘compressed Highlands, the wild and empty acres of to fill its blankness, it is similar to much the Irish writer Patrick Kavanagh turf or peat smoke’ in our folk and its landscape. Swallow it and be aware of of the writing about St Kilda, which I Nonce edited a magazine which cultural history. There were elements of the hidden depths of the moorland, its attempted to satirise in my earlier book used to create mock competitions for its this in our romantic songs. They included dark and timeless layers melting away The Guga Stone: Lies, Legends and Lunacies miniscule number of readers. Imitating such declarations as Sir Harry Lauder’s in your mouth. And, of course, raise a of St Kilda. (Luath 2013). In the case of the Sunday newspapers of his native vow of love for ‘a bonnie, bonnie lassie’ west coast whisky – Talisker, Bowmore the moor, it is frequently horror that country, he invited them to suggest goods who was ‘as sweet as the heather, the or Laphroaig, perhaps - to your lips and stalks there – as in the dead of the Moors and commodities that could be made for bonnie, blooming heather’ or the singer, see its peat-brown tincture, roll the fiery Murders, killed by Ian Brady and Myra export to America. These, he continued, Calum Kennedy’s ardent desire to go liquid round your tongue and sense how Hindley, and still lying in Saddleworth had to be ‘outlandish enough to deserve ‘rolling in the heather, no matter what ‘the summer time has come’ and how, too, Moor, or the ‘Disappeared’, those killed a Government subsidy’ with the winner the weather when a Heilan’ laddie falls the ‘wild mountain thyme grows around by the IRA and Loyalist terror gangs, obtaining the prize of becoming the in love’. Given the rigour and toughness the blooming heather’. There is romance, their remains stretched out somewhere ‘managing director of the new State- of that plant’s stalks and blooms, one it appears, in every throatful, each drop within the moorlands of Ireland with subsidised factory’ – one which was, would have thought that the only proper that tantalises taste-buds. little chance of ever being discovered. presumably, based on their product. The response from any young woman to this following week the winning suggestions particular invitation was – to use again And so it is with that powerful drug, There are a number of similar stories were announced. They included: the words of Sir Harry – to ‘stop your the peat-fire itself. For generations, both I write about in my new book, The Dark tickling, Jock’. writers and musicians have required no Stuff (Bloomsbury 2018), mainly – in its more than a quick whiff and puff to initial chapters - those that belong to the ‘Recordings of the Irish Constitution, There are, however, many Scottish settle down and compose literary and Highlands and Islands of Scotland. They Brogues and Clogs, Compressed Turf products in which ‘turf’ or ‘peat- musical masterpieces, all given – by include, among others, accounts of the Smoke and Mushroom Complete With smoke’ is clearly compressed. Consider sheer coincidence! – a title inspired by Gunnister Man, found in Shetland and Leprechaun’. Harris Tweed which, according to one the proximity of the peat-fire flame. the peat-embalmed bodies discovered advertiser, is imbued with ‘the expanses For the average accordionist, each spark in Cladh Hallan on the western coast of of the heathered moor and endless sky, and glow, each whoosh up the chimney South Uist in the Western Isles. There There is, perhaps, one of these … the intimacy of the croft-house and is the musical equivalent of Mozart’s are also ghost stories and accounts of ‘products’ that Scots can recognise. We peat-smoked fireside’. Dangle a thin slice starling, both echoing and transforming murders, often involving wild, untamed may, perhaps, be short of brogues, clogs of peat-smoked salmon or haddock from the Highland and Hebridean version figures not unlike the Heathcliff that both and mushroom-perched leprechauns, but a fork and breathe in the essence of the of Eine Kleine Nachtmusik. (Murchadh Kate Bush and Emily Bronte conjured

16 Northwords Now Issue 35, Spring 2018 Tuath Àireamh 2, Earrach 2018 Is treasa tuath na tighearna

Sgrìobhadh ùr le Paddy Bushe, Aonghas Phàdraig Caimbeul, Liam Alasdair Crowe, Dàibhidh Eyre, Rody Gorman, Coinneach Lindsay, Caoimhin MacNèill, Greg MacThòmais, Màiri NicGumaraid, Iain Urchardan

Photo: Dave Sinclair Dàin le Paddy Bushe, Aonghas Phàdraig Caimbeul, Liam Alasdair Crowe, Dàibhidh Eyre, Coinneach Lindsay

Sciurd faoi Screapadal In his old age, Sgoth Paddy Bushe he sat on a wooden box Aonghas Phàdraig Caimbeul do Meg Bateman at the end of the house, his eyes on the horizon. Turas rinn mi sgoth Bhí fiolar ar thóir creiche dar dtionlacan, a-mach à pìos maide agus luideag. Ar foluain os cionn na bhfothrach ciúin, When he spoke there was homesickness in his voice, Sheòl i sìos an t-sruth An lá niamhrach earraigh sin gur shiúlamar as if he was hearing the Appin dialect gus an do ràinig i Canada. Fad le Screapadal, ar lorg dán Shomhairle once more, in his native land.

Agus scáileanna Tharmaid is Eachainn Mhòir Ag breathnú anonn ar Chomraich Ma Ruibhe. Boat Anns an dachaigh-chùraim Ach níor ardaigh aon tuiréad sleamhain dubh Aonghas Phàdraig Caimbeul I once made a boat É féin go bagarthach trí chrothloinnir na farraige, out of a stick of wood and a rag. Tha dà chailleach a’ fighe, Is níor bhodhraigh sianaíl aon scaird-bhuamaire cluich hopscotch She sailed down the stream Méiligh na n-uan agus portaireacht na n-éan taobh muigh na sgoile. till she arrived in Canada.

Fad a dheineamar dán Shomhairle a reic, ‘Seall – chaill thu stiods’ Gàidhlig agus Gaeilge, os ard i measc tithe bánaithe. mar gun robh a’ chaileag eile air leum a-mach às a’ bhogsa, An Saighdear I bhfianaise an tseanchaisleáin a thit le faill, ’s cha robh aig Seònaid a-nis Agus Carraig na hEaglaise Bréige scoite ón dtalamh; ach danns, gu cinnteach, gu ceann na cleas. Nuair a thill an saighdear Gàidhealach In ainneoin na gceannlínte ós na ceithre harda, air ais dhachaigh on chogadh Sotal rachmasóirí agus slad an mhargaidh; bha dùil aig a h-uile duine In the nursing home gun robh e fada marbh. I bhfianaise na gcaorach caidéiseach ar fhallaí Agus féile na gréine ar fhiailí is ar fhásach; Two old women are knitting, Thàinig e air a shocair fhèin, playing hopscotch gun ghuth, In ainneoin bhréaginsint na scéalaithe in the school playground. tarsainn na mòintich, A scaipeann scéalta de réir toil na máistrí; suas seachad air Ceapal Bhrianain ‘Look – you’ve dropped a stitch’ agus a-null taobh Ba bheag ná go gcreidfeá go raibh deireadh i ndán as if the other lassie Loch an Dùin Mhòir Don tsaint, don chos-ar-bholg agus don gcreach. had hopped out of the box far an robh na bric cho pailt and all Jessie had to do now was to dance, perfectly, to the cat’s cradle. agus na sheasamh àrd air Creag na Cuthaige Am Maraiche chunnaic e am baile sgaoilte fodha, Aonghas Phàdraig Caimbeul ceò às na similearan Foghar agus cuideigin a’ feadaireachd Sheòl e na seachd cuantan Aonghas Phàdraig Caimbeul fad’ às le cù mu shàilean. a’ faicinn na grèine ag èirigh os cionn Beinn Fujiyama Thig Foghar mar a thig i, Bha bhean air madainn shamhraidh. òr eadar uain’ is geal. aig doras an taighe le triùir chloinne mu casan Na sheann aois, Na strì ’son ràith eile agus fear le bonaid ruadh shuidh e air bogsa fiodha ach creid an t-seann fhìrinn agus speal thairis a’ ghuailne aig ceann an taighe, a’ coiseachd dhachaigh thuice a shùilean air fàire. gun suidh gach mìos sìos mar chearc-ghuir, gus am bris an là. agus thionndaidh e air a shàilean Nuair bhruidhneadh e ’s tha iad ag ràdh nach do thill e riamh bha cianalas na ghuth, à Canada. mar gun robh e cluinntinn dualchainnt Apainn a-rithist, na dhùthaich fhèin. Autumn

Take Autumn as she comes, The Soldier gold between green and white. The Mariner When the Do not strive for another season Highland soldier He’d sailed the seven seas but believe the old truth returned from the war seeing the sun rising everyone believed over Mount Fujiyiama that every month will nestle down like a roosting-hen, him to be long dead. on a June morning. until the day breaks. He came quietly, unannounced, walking across the moor,

2 Tuath Àireamh 2, Earrach 2018 up past Brianan’s Chapel The Fingalian Chant Uncail Dòmhnall and over by Aonghas Phàdraig Caimbeul the Loch of the Big Fort No matter how old the tale, where the trout were plentiful time itself cannot tell it. Bhiodh e seinn na chadal: ‘An t-urram thar gach beinn aig Beinn Dòbhrain’, and standing high I knew a man whose story ’s nuair ghabhadh e smùid mhùineadh e a bhriogais on Cuckoo Rock was so old you could believe gus an èireadh ceò mar sgòth air Beinn a’ Cheathaich. he saw the village spread below, the hills themselves smoke from the chimneys would speak it. Nuair phòs Maighread am balach à Lunnainn and someone whistling far off thug iad cead dha tighinn chun na bainnse with a dog at his heel. But they were silent. fhad ’s a chumadh e sòbaire, sàmhach, agus glan.

His wife They only told Agus air latha a’ phòsaidh, was in the doorway of sheep and grass, and rain, na sheann dheise clòimh’ agus na lèine gheal with three children about her feet ghabh e tè mhòr and a man with a brown bonnet so the man told his story and a scythe over his shoulder to the beasts and to the birds is leum na cnuic is dhanns na creagan walking home towards her is dhòirt na h-aibhnichean nan tuil le bròn. and when they didn’t listen, so he turned on his heels to the rocks themselves. and they say he never came back from Canada. The tale was a Fingalian one Uncle Donald and the narrative was irrelevant. He’d sing in his sleep: What mattered were the rhythms ‘An t-urram thar gach beinn aig Beinn Dòrain’ Duan na Fèinne which he sang, out there on his own and when drunk he’d piss his trousers Aonghas Phàdraig Caimbeul till steam rose like a cloud on Beinn a’ Cheathaich. silently on the moor. If you listen Ge brith dè cho aosta ’s a tha an sgeul, carefully you think you can still hear When Mairead married the boy from London chan innis tìm fhèin i. he was allowed to come to the wedding the song. But you don’t, for what on condition he remained sober, quiet, and clean. Bha mi eòlach air fear aig an robh sgeul you hear is the wind murmuring through the bog. cho sean ’s gun creideadh tu And on the day of the marriage gun innseadh na cnuic fhèin The master story-teller in his old woollen suit and white shirt an duan. has gone, and all that’s left is someone he went on the spree

Ach bha iad nan tost. who half-heard the story in the air and the hills skipped and the rocks danced far off, like the speech of birds. and the rivers flowed in floods of grief. Dh’innis iad dìreach mu chaoraich ’s mu fheur, ’s mun uisge

’s b’ fheudar dhan bhodach a sgeul innse An Runnach dha na h-ainmhidhean ’s dha na h-eòin Poca Liam Alasdair Crowe Aonghas Phàdraig Caimbeul ’s nuair nach do dh’èist iadsan, Ciamar a dh’ionnsaichinn dhut am facal runnach dha na creagan fhèin. Nuair dh’fhaighnicheadh tu Gun a chomharrachadh aig oir Loch Chill Donnain, do Iain Sheonaidh Far an do dh’ionnsaich mi fhìn i B’ e sgeul na Fèinne a bh’ aige, an robh an sgeul seo aige Agus mo nàbaidh ag innse sgeulachd a h-òige ’s chan eil na thachair gu diofar. chanadh e Mu a màthair a’ toirt rabhadh an Smeircleit “O, cha tug mi leam idir i”, ‘na tig faisg air an runnaich’? B’ e na ruitheaman a b’ fhiach, mar gun robh poca air a dhruim a bhiodh e caoin, a-muigh leis fhèin làn mòna Ciamar a dh’ionnsaichinn dhut sùil-chruthaich ’son losgadh air oidhche geamhraidh. Às aonais mìneachadh Iain Iòsaiph gu socair air an t-sliabh. Ma dh’èisteas Gur e th’ ann ach sùil dhan chruthaidheachd tu gu faiceallach saoilidh tu gun cluinn thu fhathast A chì thu fhèin ma thig thu na comhair? an duan. Ach cha chluinn, oir ’s e tha siud Sack Nan ionnsaichinn dhut làthach, ach crònan na gaoithe tron mhòintich. An e ciall an taobh siar a dh’aisigeas mi – When you’d ask Greim gainmheach a shluigeas tu sìos; Tha an seanchaidh Iain Sheonaidh No ciall an taobh sear de pholl air falbh, ’s chan eil air fhàgail ach fear if he had a particular story Làn feamad, dhuilleag is eabar? he’d say a chuala an sgeul air leth-chluais “O, I didn’t carry it with me” Agus ciamar a dh’ionnsaicheas mi dhut fad’ às, mar ghlòr nan eun. as if he had a sack on his back Mar a thàinig am Prionnsa air tìr full of peat Gun sealltainn dhut cuach a shàile air a’ Choilleag, for burning on a winter’s night. Agus a’ seinn ‘moch sa mhadainn ’s mi dùsgadh’ Ann an Dùthaich Chlann Raghnaill?

Ciamar a dh’ionnsaicheas mi dhut do dhìleab daonnda Agus Gàidhlig nan Gàidheal, Agus tu am baile mòr air Ghalltachd?

Tuath Àireamh 2, Earrach 2018 3 Gaol rònach Reifreann Dlighe Dàibhidh Eyre Coinneach Lindsay

Tha e cunnartach an seo A’ chiad thuras a thug thu gaol dhomh, ann an doimhneachd na mara Às dèidh dhomh coiseachd dhad ionnsaigh far am bi mi a’ snàmh, Ann an spiorad; a’ sealg d’ àilleachd. Ach tha e doirbh a shealg Fosgailte, so-leònte, deiseil ‘son creideamh ann am fuachd an uisge A’ tuiteam nam dheann-ruith tro do shùilean agus tha m’ fhalt a’ tionndadh gu feamainn. Dha do chridhe.

Is neamhnaid thusa, Cha do dh’fhidir mi am bacadh a bh’ ann: paisgte ann an slige Carson a bhithinn-sa dligheach ort, a tha tiugh air m’ fhiaclan, ‘S mi gun airgead? garbh air mo theanga, slige nach gabh a bristeadh le fiacail neo facal, Saobh-chràbhadh agus, le sin, tha thu sàbhailte bhuam. Coinneach Lindsay Ag Òl Cofaidh anns a’ Chathadh Caoimhin MacNèill Is tha sin mar bu chòir - Soirbhichidh gaol air saobh-chràbhadh, thig d’ fhosgladh leat fhèin, Gabhaidh an t-àbhaisteach mìneachadh ùr Tha mi nam sheasamh anns a’ chathadh, air tràigh bhlàth làn solais A thogas dùil bho gach rud làitheil ‘s na bleideagan a’ plumadh sìos dha mo chofaidh. air latha socair ciùin, Sealltainn dàn an gach nì fo shùil. Bha mi saobh, uaireigin, saobh-sgeulach, latha nuair a chì iad saobh-mhiannach. Bha mi a’ gabhail cofaidh na chunnaic mise o chionn fhada, Chan e eòin a tha sna h-eòin, no clach sa chlach: le siùcar, le ruma. Soraidh leis a’ mhìlseachd; iongantas àillidh do chumadh. Nach e manaidhean a th’ annta, tighinn beò? soraidh leis a’ phuinnsean. Chan iarr mi air ‘S iad a’ toirt eòlas dhuinn air na rudan ri teachd, a’ bheatha seo ach maitheanas a thoirt dhomh Agus chì iad mo cheann Dall ‘s a tha sinn gu comharraidhean dubh-bhròin. ‘s mi nam sheasamh an seo sa chathadh àlainn. air uachdar na mara, falt a-nist na bian, Oir dè an fhios a th’ againne ach creideas mo shùilean mòr’ dubha, Agus mac-meanmna air an àm ri teachd? agus chì iad an corp agam Is sinn a tha ath-chruthachadh, eadhon, The Blizzard na laighe air an uisge, ar n-eachdraidh fhèin a rèir ar beachd. Caoimhin MacNèill ’s e reamhar. Cho reamhar ri ròn. Manaidhean, ‘s iad a tha nar tròcair, I stand in the blizzard. Gar glasadh air fad an aintighearnas an dòchais Snowflakes whirl into my coffee. I was once mad, false tongued, An t-eilean is an tìr craving vain things. I drank coffee Dàibhidh Eyre with sugar, with rum. Farewell, sweetness. Cath nam Bàrd Farewell, poison. I ask only forgiveness. Thug am bàt’-aiseig mi air falbh bhon eilean Coinneach Lindsay I stand in the lovely blizzard. a dh’ionnsaigh beanntan mòra na tìr’ agus thòisich mi a’ coiseachd, le pian. ESAN: Thoir dhomh bàrdachd a tha soilleir is dìoghrasach; Thoir dhomh ealain a tha so-thuigse ach innleachdach. Agus chunnaic mi bho sgùrr, air bhioran, Bruidhinn rinn uile ann an dòigh a tha pongail. nuair a bhios mi aonaranach nach robh san tìr mhòr ach eilean ciar. Innis dhuinn an fhìrinn is leig fios dhuinn gur e sin a th’ ann. (le misuzu kaneko) Thug bàt’-aiseig eile mi air falbh bhon eilean. Caoimhin MacNèill ISE. Thoir dhomhsa bàrdachd làn fhuaim is chruadal, Air an taobh thall, ann an dùthaich chèin, Le spionnadh gun chiall a bhios caithte air na h-aineolaich. nuair a bhios mi aonaranach thòisich mo thuigse a’ tighinn gu ìre, Oir tha sinn uile beò ann an saoghal a tha faoin; cha bhi fios aig coigrich agus thòisich mi a’ coiseachd, le pian. Ma nì thu ciall dhith, dh’innseadh tu breug. nuair a bhios mi aonaranach Chan eil cuimhne a’m na h-uimhir de mhìltean bidh mo chàirdean ri gàireachdaich a dh’innis dhomh fìrinneachd na mòr-thìr’ - thug bàta mi air falbh, oir bha i na h-eilean. nuair a bhios mi aonaranach Seòladh gun sgur air na h-uimhir de bhàtaichean bidh mo mhàthair coibhneil agus a’ siubhal air mòr-thìrean eile, mas fhìor - eileanan far an robh mi a’ coiseachd, le pian. nuair a bhios mi aonaranach bidh am Buddha Mòr aonaranach Le ùine dh’fhàs mi sgìth is seann - thill mi gu far an do thòisich mo bhuille-cridh’. Thug an t-aiseag mi air ais dhan eilean agus choisich mi dhachaigh, le pian.

4 Tuath Àireamh 2, Earrach 2018 idh bàs ann agus bidh breith Mu dheireadh thall bhris mi fhèin an ann.” Cha tuirt i ach sin Thèid a’ Chuibhle mun Cuairt sàmhchair. “Ruairidh Ailean a bheir sinn “Bagus a guth fann a’ briseadh air.” Bha Donna den aon bheachd ‘s a air ceann eile a’ fòn. Thug seanchas mo Sgeulachd le Greg MacThòmais bha mi fhèin gun robh e cudromach gun mhàthar orm stad. Cha robh ach beagan cumadh sinn ainmean nan teaghlaichean is trì seachdainean air a dhol seachad ✯ againn a’ dol agus chuir sinn romhainn bhon a chaill sinn m’ athair. Ciamar nach nuair a fhuair sinn a-mach gur e gille a bitheadh i a’ beachdachadh air a’ bhreith sam bith airson cuideigin a bh’ ann an bhiodh againn gun cuireamaid ainmean gu feallsanachail? Bha comas aice a ràdh Theab mi a ràdh rithe gum biodh staing a chuideachadh. m’ athar agus mo sheanar air. ann am beagan na bha air a bhith a’ goil Dad air a bhith toilichte air mo shon nam inntinn-sa fad mìos bhon a chaidh ach chuir mi stad orm fhèin is shaoil B’ i mo mhàthair an croitear bho is “Tha sin snog,” fhreagair mo mhàthair a thoirt a-nall gu h-obann on eilean don mi nach b’ e mo chuid-sa innse dhi-se cuimhne leamsa. B’ ise a rachadh a-mach gu sèimh. Cha tuirt i gu robh i toilichte ospadal cheudna, gun dòchas sam bith na bhiodh a cèile dà fhichead bliadhna don mhòintich a thrusadh nan caorach, b’ air ar son. Airson an fhìrinn innse chan gum fàgadh e an t-àite. a’ faireachdainn. “Tha thu ceart, Mam,” ise a spothadh nan uan, b’ ise a bheireadh eil fhios agam an robh. “Chòrdadh sin ri arsa mi fhèin. Sin uile a bh’ annam, sin tacsa do na bà-laoigh nuair a bhiodh iad Seanair.” Cha b’ urrainn dhi fiù ‘s Dad Is iomadh uair a bhios breith agus bàs uile a b’ urrainn dhomh canail rithe. Dè a’ breith agus b’ ise a thiodhlaiceadh iad ainmeachadh. Bha i briste. a’ tighinn le chèile. Thachair e iomadh eile a bha ri ràdh? Bha mise air m’ athair- nuair a gheibheadh iad bàs. Cha robh turas sa bhaile againne, nar teaghlach fhèin sa a chall ach bha beatha ùr agam fhèin cothrom air, bhiodh m’ athair anns an “Ok, Mam,” arsa mise agus blàths m’ turas no dhà, mas math mo chuimhne. A agus aig Donna ri àrach a-nis. Bha bàs m’ oifis no ann an coinneamhan o mhoch anail-sa a’ measgachadh le toit an luchd- rèir mar a dh’innseadh mo sheanmhair athar air a bhith cràiteach gu dearbh, gu gu dubh agus cò eile a dhèanadh an smocaidh. “Feumaidh mi a dhol a-steach dhomh, rugadh m’ athair-sa agus a chàraid, h-àraid aig àm nuair a bha iomadh seòrsa obair chroitearachd? Sheas i a-mach o a-rithist. Thoir an aire a-nis. Thig sinn Seonaidh Ailean, air an dearbh latha a faireachdainn air am fighe an lùib a chèile bhoireannaich eile a’ bhaile air sgàth sin, a-null cho luath ‘s as urrainn dhuinn.” dh’eug an seanair. Cha robh ann ach co- ach bha dleastanasan ùra agam airson ged a bha buntanas aice a shìn air ais na thuiteamasan ach aig a’ cheart àm bha e mo shlaodadh-sa tron phian. Bha ise na linntean mòra. Rachadh i don eaglais ceart Chuir mi dheth am fòn is air ais nam iongantach mar a bhiodh an dà cheann h-aonar a-nis, a ceathrar chloinne air tìr- gu leòr gach Sàbaid ach cha robh ùine phòcaid. Leig na dorsan dealanach leam de bheatha a’ feuchainn ri greimeachadh mòr no thall thairis, a duine air bàsachadh aice airson nan coinneamhan ùrnaigh a mo chùl a chur ri fuachd na maidne. air càch a chèile. is i air a cuairteachadh le croitean bàna bhiodh ann a h-uile oidhche. Bhiodh i air is taighean-samhraidh, cuimhneachain is a h-uabhasachadh nan abradh tu a leithid ‘S e faireachdainn neònach a bh’ ann Bha mi nam sheasamh leis am fòn- coigrich. ach bha mi a-riamh a’ smaoineachadh nuair a bh’ agam ri tilleadh do uàrd nan làimhe faisg air casad is ceò nan smocairean gum faca i an eaglais mar dhleastanas, gun leanabhan, na màthraichean claoidhte, na taobh a-muigh an dorais-aghaidh. Bha a’ Bha mo phàrantan cho diofraichte nan robh creideamh na bu shine aice, na bu h-athraichean moiteil, balùnaichean pinc mhadainn puinnseanta fuar. Thug mi sùil cuid ùidhean is chreideamhan. Bha m’ nàdarra, na bu shaoire nach robh air a is gorm, an t-àite sin làn sonais is dòchais air ais thar mo ghuailne. ‘S ann shuas an athair na chomhairliche agus na èildear cheangal le ginealaichean is linntean de an dèidh còmhradh stadach, pianail le sin air an t-seachdamh làr a dh’fhàg an is rachadh e air a h-uile comataidh riaghailtean agus deas-ghnàthan. boireannach is a saoghal air a thighinn gu deò m’ athair, mac mo sheanmhar, seanair is buidheann a bha a’ dol. Bha cliù crìch. mo mhic-sa a bha dìreach air ùr-bhreith. aige agus urram ga shealltainn dha sa Bhruidhneadh Mam gun sgur nan Shaoil mi fad diog car faoin an robh choimhearsnachd, cha b’ ann air sàillibh leiginn leatha, ach lean an tosd seo Cha robh Ruairidh Ailean ach bliadhna beagan de a spiorad-san air a bhith a’ a chuid dhleastanasan ach air sgàth mar eadarainn air a’ fòn fad diogan fada a gu leth a dh’aois agus Donna dìreach air feitheamh mun àite seo gus an cuireadh a a bhiodh e ga ghiùlan fhèin. Thigeadh dh’fhairich annasach. ‘S iomadh uair a faighinn a-mach gun robh i trom leis an shinnsearan fàilte air an leanaban ach cha daoine thuige airson a chuid comhairle. shuidheadh an dithis againn sa chidsin dàrna leanabh againn nuair a fhuair sinn robh an sin ach buaidh mo mhàthar a bha B’ esan an aon duine air na buidhnean sin aca air ais san eilean nuair a thillinn as fios gun do lorg nàbaidh mo mhàthair dualtach a bhith a’ tarraing air creideamh a bhuineadh don àite. Bha e mar cheangal t-samhradh is sinn a’ ceartachadh cùisean na suidhe na tosd anns a’ ghàrradh, ann os-nàdarrach mar sin. Bha leth-chas aice- do na làithean a dh’aom. ‘S e fear dìreach a mòra an t-saoghail fhad ‘s a chluinneamaid an cathair m’ athar, a’ coimhead a-mach se a-riamh ann an saoghal eile nach fhaca bh’ ann on taobh a-muigh, caran gruamach Dad a’ brunndail air ar cùlaibh ag air an loch. Bha a cridhe air a briseadh mise o làithean m’ òige. Bha cus reusain na choltas airson an fhìrinn innse ach bha easaontachadh, mar bu dual dha. Cha aig a’ cheann-thall ach bha i còmhla ris agam a-nis airson a leithid a chreidsinn an a chridhe blàth agus nan robh eòlas agad robh e na chleachdadh dhi a bhith cho a-rithist. Cumaidh a’ chuibhle oirre, a’ cur da-rìribh. ‘S ann bho thaobh m’ athar a air chitheadh tu gun lùbadh e riaghailtean sàmhach, trom-inntinneach. nan caran. Bidh bàs ann agus bidh breith fhuair mi sin gu cinnteach. is gun rachadh e an aghaidh ùghdarrais ann. n

Dà Chraoibh-chaorainn air Haiku Dàin le Greg MacThòmais Monadh Chamas Chros Earrach Baoghlach, Craobh-chaorainn lom Curracag air a’ mhachair - Thill a’ chearc-choille - A dh’fhàg fichead geamhradh cam, lùbte Raon rocaid air fàire. Liath-reothadh mun bhruaich Crodh Dhonnchaidh Air a’ bhrat chrìon. Ag ionaltradh mu na feannagan Chaochail neach-dàimh. A bha torrach uair Rùchdail mu Allt Dhuisdeil, Sgread na cailliche An dèidh saothair iomadh glùn Uisg’ nan seachd sìan. On bhad feàrna mun allt: An cuid todhair, an cuid feamad Bhèineas a’ brath falbh. A bhris cnàmh agus spiorad Caorann de dheirge Air an giùlan on tràigh Nach fhacas o linn nan laoch: Agus a-nis tha an t-sùil-chruthaich Tha las na bilean. Bonn Cruinn Òr Gan coimhead le sannt A’ sùghadh uidh air n-uidh Sultain Shlèiteach. An dèidh tilleadh às Èirinn thug mi m’ iomlaid às mo phòca Làmhan dubha làn sùgh, Am measg ìomhaighean dar ban-mhòrachd rìoghail Dh’fhàg mi spaid uair sa pholl-mhòna ud thall Toradh driseach air a gnùis. Bha bonn cruinn òr nach do thaitinn leis a’ chòrr Faisg air a’ chrodh Buailte air dealbh na h-Eòrpa Ach chùm i a gleus Lon-dubh is liath-truisg An latha a chuir sinn cùl rithe Dh’fhàg tìm craobh eile sa bhoglaich sìnte Am boile a’ goid dhearcan: Air ceann thall a’ bhuinn cruit nam filidh Reòtht’ mar a thuit fad mìle bliadhna is còrr Dh’fhalbh i an-dè. A’ chlàrsach Èireannach dèante an Ceann Tìre Agus gheàrr mi tro fhàd a’ chaorain Samhlaidhean nan slighe eadar dà sheann tìr Agus troimhpe-se Caorann seasgach air Gach ceangal snìomhte nar fèithean nar ceòl Le gleus sìth-bheò. Cnoc na Buaile Càrnaich – A dh’aindeoin cò theireadh e Sannt air an rùda. Cha bhris inntinnean dùinte bannan buan

Tuath Àireamh 2, Earrach 2018 5 Gaelic Offcuts Mary Montgomery

Nàbaidhean In our ‘pre-Gaelic-exclusion’ days, eile aig amannan eadar-dhealaichte, agus evolving classical language status; in we had one very significant element fada, bho chèile. artistic application. nfortunately, I don’t in our immediate neighbourhood, our possess a copy of MacAlpine’s immediate vicinity : that was the local Chleachd taighean-coinneimh a bhi It was with the latter in mind, and in UPronouncing Gaelic Dictionary village school, so, naturally, it seemed to san nàbaidheachd againn cuideachd – anticipation of drawing upon these in which Dwelly, under his listing for me, the children grew to look forward, àiteachan don tigeadh sluagh a’ bhaile seeking to establish what I’ve suspected “nàbaidh” (plural “nàbaidhean”) draws and anticipate quite eagerly, the time còmhladh gu adhradh Dhè. for some time – that Gaelic suffers no upon to state that nàbaidh is “a neighbour” when they would be able to attend the dearth of possibility as regards catering in the North, and “a North Highlander” in school, which happened to be not just Dwelly’s provides the same spelling as for alternative perceptions of ways of the West”. in the vicinity of our home, but in close Thomson in “adhradh”, but provides the learning – that I compiled the following. proximity to it. alternative, “aoradh” also, and lists “Ag I expect that the Western Isles might, Their father even built a safe access aoradh dha” as ‘worshipping him’ [sic]. Tha grunnan mhodhan-cainnte san at the time Mr MacAlpine was collating route for them to go to and from the Interestingly, he also lists “aoradh fèin- taghadh. his Dictionary, have leaned towards the school in order to avoid what we, as thoileil” and gives English ‘will-worship’ Mar eisimpleir: ‘Western’ meaning. But, then, the stretch their parents, perceived as dangers on the as an equivalent, though I haven’t yet of water known as the Minch might busy main road, situated just outside our been able to locate ‘will-worship’ in an bith-chainnt : babblement, senseless ill- have had some socio-geographic bearing home. English dictionary. Elsewhere, Dwelly lists timed prate on the meaning of the term, if adopted “fèin-thoil” as a noun, singular, feminine, cainnt bhallsgach : burlesque in the Western Isles. Perhaps nàbaidh in Sadly, even despite the fact that Donald and provides ‘arbitrament’ as a translation, cainnt gun sgòd : language without the North Highlander sense was not a and John were not permitted to remain along with ‘self-will’ which he drew from affectation neighbour if a stretch of water like the in Balallan School, in its role as a school, Armstrong’s Gaelic Dictionary (of the cainnt sgaiteach : cutting language Minch lay between you and the North a place of education – which I naturally region Mid Perthshire). MacAlpine’s, I cros-chainnt : antithesis Highlands! assumed my children would be entitled should have said, locates chiefly in Islay cùl-chainnt : backbiting, slandering to receive – the building itself no longer and neighbourhood. deagh-chainnt ; eloquence Dwelly doesn’t dwell (forgive the functions as a school. Islay and neighbourhood. dual-chainnt : dialect, branch of a sense of pun) a great deal on the word language “nàbaidh” – whilst in other instances he It may have other functions, I expect Clearly, then, Islay’s island status fachainnt ; scoffing, derision, ridicule expands and expounds on meanings and it does. encompassed ‘a neighbourhood’. sìth-chainnt : words of peace, peaceful examples and connotations, taking the language trouble to provide much enlightenment, Mar sin, tha Sgoil Bhaile Ailein, sgoil Perhaps the Western Isles might yet tàir-chaint : reproachful speech enjoyment, and sometimes even na nàbaidheachd/an nàbachais, air a dhol too. entertainment. à bith mar sgoil oideachaidh. Mar a tha Tha grunnan shuidheachaidhean ann. sgoiltean iomadaidh baile eile feadh nan Mar eisimpleir: He does, however, provide a related, or eileanan siar, agus air am beàrnan fhèin Speech and Drama (1) derived, adjective: nàbachail; he indicates fhàgail gu tric, thairis air dìreach trusadh ais-innseadh : telling, rehearsing, repeating nàbachas (like nàbaidh itself) is in Number thogalaichean, anns gach nàbaidheachd can scarcely envisage a time when aisneis : rehearsing, tattle, very exaggerated singular, and in masculine noun form. dom buineadh iad aig aon àm. the full range of what Gaelic has to account of an incident He gives the possessive of the noun, or Ioffer would be used in language arts, alla-ghlòir : gibberish, jargon genitive case, ending in –ais, and provides Na mo bheachd sa, se call tha sin air such as Speech and Drama. badhsgaireachd : nonsensical talking, no plural for nàbaidheachd. gach nàbaidheachd, oir bha ciall is ceangal blustering de sheòrsa shònraichte an cois brìgh, bith, Still, I guess there is no harm in bith-labhairt : perpetual talking As well as ‘neighbourhood’, he offers is beatha sgoil, agus taigh-sgoile, ann am exploring some, at least, of the less used blagaireachd ; boasting up ‘vicinity’ and ‘neighbourliness’ as baile. possibilities which might be re-cycled for borbhan ; murmuring alternative translations. He states nàbachd what has, in my view, become virtually an faoin-chòmhradh : vain talk, babbling is a provincial form of nàbaidheachd Co-dhiù, dh’fhalbh ’s cha till. art form in its own right i.e. the language cas-bhàrdachd : satire, invective which is an indeclinable (meaning itself : a’ Ghàidhlig i fèin mar eigse-cainnt, cron-seanchais : anachronism, error in words that the word doesn’t change form in Dè eile air am faodar suathadh a thoirt na fìor-ealain. daitheasg : eloquence, remonstrance different grammatical tenses) feminine an cois cùisean nàbaidheachd? deas-labhairt : fluency of speech noun (where the adjective following, for Gaelic absorbs features of other art duailbhearta : dialect example “mòr”, would remain in that Againne tha talla baile cuideachd – forms, of course, as I mentioned, for duibhearach : vernacular same “mòr” form for nàbachd, but would agus tha sin fhathast air a chumail a’ dol. instance, Speech and Drama. dùrdan : murmuring alter its leading consonant sound with fad-labhairt : loquacity feminine Noun nàbaidheachd, becoming Agus na togalaichean taighe a tha gun Facets of Speech which have been taidheam : meaning, import “mhòr”). teagamh nam pàirt den nàbaidheachd. defined and preserved in aspects of taisg-ghuthachd : mellowness of voice language no longer used in functional taitheasg : repartee Again, the English forms for Na nàbaidhean fhèin cuideachd – gu everyday life, but which are concerned tapag : blunder in speech, slip of the tongue nàbachd, are the same as those given for sònraichte an fheadhainn dhiubh aig a with areas of human interchange and nàbaidheachd: ‘neighbourhood’, ‘vicinity’, bheil an seòrsa suim do nàbaidheachd experience can still, in my view, be A grammatical mix consisting of some also ‘neighbourliness’. One alternative (‘neighbourhood’, if I may) agus nàbachas available to explore within a range of nouns, some present participles of verbs, he does give is the –uidh ending, in (‘neighbourliness’, if I may) a tha faisg, different disciplines e.g. etymologically, also verbal nouns, and adjectives, refers place of –aidh, which in my view is fairly thaobh tuigse is ciall, eadhon ged a and in relation to etymology, literally, to Speech and begins to suggest possible inconsequential. bhiodh beachdan, mar bhlasan cainnt is and in relation to literature, historically, connections with Drama: and in relation to history; in terms of

6 Tuath Àireamh 2, Earrach 2018 briodal : language and manner of lovers great many words with little substance to them, car fhaclach : quibbling and Cha tug mi taidheam as a chaint (I coimheachas : sourness of disposition did not comprehend his meaning) would be coimheachas an teanga : the strangeness of unfavourable judgements. With deasachd their tongue (aptitude), more positive in tone would be eallach : gregarious ’S ann is làidir a gheibhear thu : you act ag earaileach : urging surprisingly well, and better than Tha e cho faclach : wordy, full of words daoidh (daobhaidh) ’s ged bu phàiste : he is sgeilmeil : tattling, impudently garrulous as difficult to coax as a child would be. sgeultach : female gossip Mar Aon sgiorr-fhaclach : using random expression, Whilst for a keen performer it might Màiri NicGumaraid committing errors of speech be said Is e sgìos a’ chosnaich a bhith na siubhlach : fluent thàmh : it fatigues the good worker to be idle, Mar aon neo ’n uile sgapte a’ tagradh : pleading the word easaraich might best suit the Nar leantainneachd nam buadh critic, referring to the state of requiring On thug ar leasachadh a rac much attendance and service without moving Gun èireamaid nar stuadh Speech and Drama (2) from your seat! Bu dàn do dh’ionnsaigh teachdaire aelic provides a number of key A number of other states, or character Chaidh feallsanachd nan nàmh words which lead one towards insights, are conveyed as follows: On dh’fhidreadh dhaibh a bhuile neirt Gvisual activity and stage drama. Leag rèisimeid na tàmh Cleasaiche, or dealbh-chluicheadair, is biorsadh : eager impatience familiar as stage player or actor, of course; earbsadh : confiding, trusting Mar aon neo ’n uile sgapte cuirmear less familiar as entertainer. Cuirm dalbachd : impudence, pertness, forwardness Nar comhlaireachd gun dhìth itself may be taken as entertainment. làn-bheachdail : confident On fhuair ar n-aideachadh a lèir làn-fhiosrach : fully assured or certain Bu cheadaicht’ bràth dhuinn sìth Less used Drama-related terms are sigeanta : cheerful perhaps : sìth-aigneach : peaceful, concilatory cidhis : mask, disguise Agus mu dheireadh, trusadh fhaclan lùib Inuksuk ’s Innunguaq luchd-cidhis : masqueraders coltas is gluasad a dh’fhaodte nochdadh Iain Urchardan cidhisearachd : masquerade an cois dràma is cleasaireachd: Sheas Inuksuk, Play we know as dealbh-chluich, of ag aithneadh : commanding, ordering mar fhianais dhuinne, course; dàn-chluich is a dramatic poem. briosg : start, leap, jerk or move suddenlyt cho cruaidh ri creag Poet we know most commonly, I think as brùilligeachd : clumsiness, awkwardness of san fhuachd ghuineach. bàrd, but also cliar. The Cliar Sheanachain gait or movement was a mythic bardic company which a’ deasachadh : act of preparing or dressing Cairt-iùil cloiche travelled around. Cuanal, however, is deas-ghluasad : proper gestures a’ comharrachadh càite; also a company, or a band of singers, or dul-chaoin : wailing toiseach slighe, a choir. easgaidheachd : nimbleness a’ sònrachadh àite: gu faite : timidly The act of (im)personating is a’ falbhan : moving about, easy walking àite seilg, taisealbhadh and taisealbh is to personate fannadh : fainting àite iasgaich, or represent. meanbh-chrith : trembling from fear or àite còmhnaidh, cowardice àite biadhaidh, Basdalachd is showiness or gaiety, rolaiseach : slip-shod and maise sgèimh an caoin-shruth : the rongach : lounging idly àite adhraidh, exquisite beauty of their fair forms. ròpach: slovenly àite seòlaidh; sgàthadh : act of hurting or injuring is taigh-spadaidh Ròghalachd is a romantic disposition, sgeunach : skittish, easily frightened charibou feòla. mèinn an expression of countenance, sgiab : start or move suddenly sgeilmear a neatly-dressed person, whilst gun sgiorradh gun thubaist : without slip or Càrn nan daoine: bonnie rather than graceful is bòidheachd ’s mishap Inupiat is Inuit, chan ann dàicheil. Walking with a stately sgrub : act in a niggardly manner Crìoch-àit’ tro ùine step would be le ceum dàicheil. However, sgudachd : sweeping gait, nimble motion Yupik is Kalaallit. of someone with a lady’s gait, tha gluasad siolp : dè tha thu a’ siolpadh? what are you mnà uaisle aice would be said. Ruggedness sneaking off with? of manner, on the other hand, would be spailpeadh : strutting, act of strutting Sheas innunguaq bodachas. stalcadh : stiffening “an coltas duine” cho cruaidh ri creag Long-limbed striding would be sith-fhad, A thaobh nan cleasairean, bhithte an san fhuachd ghuineach ... but walking unsteadily would be coiseachd dòchas gum biodh iad ag iomairt an creubhach. Exotic is deòranta and amorous làmhan a chèile (that they understand is deothasach. each other, that there is collusion between them) ’s an dùil gun clodhaich (draw close Dà fhacal a bhuineas do thùsanaich Chanada a tuath: Cronadair is reprover, critic, one together) iad fo shaothair a tha dealbh- Inuksuk = comharra cloiche a tha dèanta de dhiofar chlachan. who finds fault and it may be accurate inntinneach (ideal) agus air aon sgeul Innunguaq = fear dhiubh a tha na “dhuine mas fhìor”: le ceann, gàirdeanan is to suggest “Is fheàrr an cumadair na (united). n casan. ’n cronadair” (the maker is better than the critic); it might also be true to say, ‘premier-wise’ “is e do chliù do cheud alladh” (the estimate of you goes according to the first report of you). Certainly, chuir e sgriotal (sgriothail) dheth : he spoke a

Tuath Àireamh 2, Earrach 2018 7 Sreath le Rody Gorman

Là Buidhe Bealltainn

Là Buidhe Bealltainn ‘s an t-sòbhrag a’ fàs tonn-a’-chladaich shìos bhuam a’ fàs anns a’ bhruaich air Bruach Sheumais, air mo shiubhal dhomh ‘n Òb Chamas Chros, Alba ‘s a’ Bhreatann Mhòr ann no às Alba ‘s a’ Bhreatann Mhòr ann no às

on May day the primroses are wildernessgrowing in the bank at Bruach Sheumais whether sea pink down there wildernessgrowing as I deathseekwalk in Camuscross Bay whether there’s a Scotland and Great Britain or not there’s a Scotland and Great Britain or not

an t-seileastair-bhuidhe bhuam a’ fàs, Là Fèill Brìghde ‘s a’ ghealag-làir a’ fàs an cois na Clachaig Chlachaig ann am fras, air a’ Chruard san t-sneachda fo mo chois, Alba ‘s a’ Bhreatann Mhòr ann no às Alba ‘s a’ Bhreatann Mhòr ann no às the yellow iris wildernessgrowing legbeside the shore at Clachaig in a drizzle whther there’s on the first day of spring the snowdrops are wildernessgrowing in Cruard in the snow a Scotland or Great Britain, or not beneath my feet whether there’s a Scotland and Great Britain or not

an raineach-ruadh a’ cinntinn ‘s a’ dol bàs lus an aisig air ais a’ fàs air a’ Chruard taobh ris a’ chlais, madainn as t-earrach air a’ Chreig Ghlais, Alba ‘s a’ Bhreatann Mhòr ann no às Alba ‘s a’ Bhreatann Mhòr ann no às the bracken growing and dying in Cruard beside the ditch whether there’s a Scotland and daffodils wildernessgrowing a morning in spring on the rock at Creag Ghlas whether there’s Great Britain or not a Scotland and Great Britain or not

anns a’ bhruaich an luachair-bhog a’ fàs creamh-na-muice-fiadhaich a’ fàs agus Allt Tarsainn a’ ruith seachad gu bras, air feadh an làir an Tobhta Sheumais, Alba ‘s a’ Bhreatann Mhòr ann no às Alba ‘s a’ Bhreatann Mhòr ann no às on the bank the common rush wildernessgrows and the burn of Allt Tarsainn flows on past wild garlic wildernessgrowing on the centreground in the ruins of Tobhta Sheumais whether fast whether there’s a Scotland and Great Britain or not there’s a Scotland and Great Britain or not

an claisean an Camas Chros, othaisg an sàs – och, bròg-na-cuthaig’ a’ dol bàs thig i às no thèid i bàs, air a’ Chruard ach nach tig i air ais, Alba ‘s a’ Bhreatann Mhòr ann no às Alba ‘s a’ Bhreatann Mhòr ann no às? in a wee draingutterfurrowditch in Camuscross a simpletoneweteg distress-stuckfast – she’ll och blubells dying in Cruard but won’t they come back whether there’s a Scotland and come out of or she’ll die whether there’s a Scotland or a Great Britain or not Great Britain or not?

na neòineanan air a’ Chruard a’ fàs mas mall mu dheireadh thall ‘s a-bhos, Alba ‘s a’ Bhreatann Mhòr ann no às

the common daisies in Cruard wildernessgrowing however late at long last whether there’s a Scotland and Great Britain or not

Paddy Bushe A’ fuireach ann an Dàibhidh Eyre À Siorrachd Tha e na òraidiche aig Oilthigh h-Alba bliadhna no dhà air Iain Urchardan Às na Hearadh. Ciarraighe. Na bhall de Aos Dána. Lannraig a Tuath. Bàrd na Shruighlea. Tha e air bàrdachd, ais. Stuth leis ann an Cabhsair, Thug e a-mach nobhail Breab Fèise aig Fèis Stanza am- nobhailean, dealbhan-cluiche agus Gutter agus an leithid. Breab Breab ann an 2017. Aonghas Phàdraig Caimbeul bliadhna. Nobhail Glainne. fiolmaichean a sgrìobhadh. Am À Uibhist a Deas. An sàs ann an measg nan leabhraichean aige tha Màiri Nic Gumaraid / iomadh seòrsa sgrìobhaidh. Coinneach Lindsay A’ fuireach ‘The Brilliant & Forever’ agus Mary Montgomery Às na ann an Slèite. Cleasaiche. Nobhail ‘The Diary of Archie the Alpaca’. Lochan. Cruinneachaidhean Liam Alastair Crowe A’ A’ Choille Fhiadhaich 2017. leithid Eadar Mi ‘s a’ Bhreug. fuireach ann an Uibhist a Deas. Greg MacThòmais A’ fuireach An sàs anns an iris Dàna. Rugadh is thogadh Caoimhin ann an Slèite. Fhuair e Duais MacNèill ann an Leòdhas. bho Urras Leabhraichean na

8 Tuath Àireamh 2, Earrach 2018 in song and story, full of ‘a half-civilised the constraints of the Soviet Union. A his song with a couple of verses summing caused the outbreak of World War One ferocity’ that ‘lurked yet in the depressed vegetarian and breatharian who believed up the entire affair. with both France and Germany reliant on brows and eyes full of dark fire’. When that food was not essential for human it for their heavy industry and desperate one reads of him and his gaze like ‘devil’s survival, she walked from John O’Groats ‘Tha cruach an Righ ‘nis dùint’ againn, to gain control of the coal mines found spies’, it is not hard to think of him as to Land’s End – as well as San Francisco Chan eil a samhail ann an àite, in regions like Alsace. the West Yorkshire equivalent of Mac an to New York – in 1960, eating only Tha de dh”empties” anns an stèidheadh aic’ t-Sronaich, the legendary murderer who nuts and vegetable juice along the way. ‘S nach mòr gum faic thu fàd innt’ And this led to an entirely different was said to stalk my native isle of Lewis Noting her surname’s connections to O mòine ‘n Righ bha i sàraicht’ habit of mind from the one found at one time. the landscape that stretched out from his among the crofters and fishermen of village, Murdo noted that; Gu dearbh b’e ‘n sealladh àlainn i, the Highlands and Islands. Peat-cutting What I more rarely obtained in Nuair bhitheas a’ ghrian na h-àirde, and gathering became – in itself - an literature was that sense of the anarchic ‘ ‘s truagh nach robh thu ‘n Eilean Leodhas’, Chi thu lasradh man na’ daoimein aist, industry, highly disciplined, organised we found in the Lewis moors while ‘S i mar an òr ri deàlradh, and unionised. It is not by accident that growing up, particularly in our early (it’s a shame you weren’t on the isle of Lewis) O mòine ‘n Righ bha i sàraicht’…’ the first Socialist representative in the years. (It is – rather oddly – found in Dutch Parliament, Ferdinand Domela Enid Blyton’s Famous Five books where where she would prove incredibly Nieuwenhuis, emerged from the peat the children are continually escaping useful both for carrying a creel and ‘The King’s peat-stack is closed now, industry. It is also the case that, hard there to find adventure.) As young boys working in the peats more generally. Its likes not anywhere, though it might be for those working in Ness, we were like that largely Irish Even for the majority of people, The empties giving it such support in the ‘King’s peats’ to imagine, many phenomenon, will-of-the wisps, burning however, the sense of the anarchic that That to find a turf is rare. industrial disputes and strikes occurred off our abundant energy away from bubbles below Murdo’s words clung O the King’s peats were such a strain among those employed on the peat-banks. adult eyes. At one moment, we’d be on till early adulthood – and even well Finally, too, the effects of harvesting peat impersonating our distant ancestors, the beyond. It would be found in the tales There’s no doubt that it’s a lovely sight as a fuel created a great deal of ecological Morrisons and MacAulays, brandishing we sometimes heard when we shared a When the sun’s high in the sky. damage in both the German and Dutch broadswords in battle as we chased one flask of tea while out cutting peats on It sparkles bright like diamonds countryside, causing flooding because another down the slope glen. The next, the moor, the grind and sweat of manual Or gold when you pass by. their landscape now lacked the moors that we’d be exploring rathad an stail – the labour occasionally loosening mouth and O the King’s peats were such a strain…’ sucked and held the rain-water within its ‘still road’ - near the Dell River, trying to tongue. It was especially discovered these depths, allowing, too, the sea to encroach work out where exactly illegal hooch had moments when a tractor’s wheels sank The anarchy of a day like this would upon more and more of its acres when a bubbled and been distilled at one time. below the surface of the moor, digging be rarely found in the Netherlands dyke was broken or breached. through the turf and tiers of ‘dark stuff’ or Germany. In these places, the peats It is this sense of the anarchic that often that lay below, grinding and spinning were regarded not as an occasion for There is much else about this that distinguished the Irish and Hebridean until – it seemed sometimes – that in a social gathering or even revelry on a is contained within The Dark Stuff. view of the moor from, say, the way it is true Jules Verne style, the centre of the Saturday morning and afternoon, when Among the ‘Stories from the Peatland’ portrayed in English literature or, indeed, earth might be revealed. Old enmities people were free from the constraints of found within the book are stories that the Dutch and German outlook that it would be forgotten in the rush to tug the everyday employment like Murdo John involve punishment and imprisonment, is also examined in The Dark Stuff. It trapped vehicle from the moor. There and his companions. Instead, it was the the attempt to reform the individual and is found, for instance, not only in the were moments when it seemed a new basis for heavy industry. Without any society in a similar manner to the way in work of Patrick Kavanagh but also in form of traffic jam would occur where large seams of coal, the Dutch relied on which the landscape was ‘improved’, even the writings of Flann O’Brien or, indeed, no wheels – or roads – had ever gone it on the production of both beer and the early beginnings of the Nazi regime; those of Patrick McCabe, the creator before, three or four tractors sinking pottery, even distilling for all that many (all these three are undoubtedly linked). of ‘The Butcher Boy’ and ‘Breakfast slowly downward in their efforts to get in the Netherlands – like my and Murdo Reflecting on this, I can only look back On Pluto’, in his novels featuring the the first one out. John’s community – preached and prayed to how different these peatlands were for small towns of the Irish Midlands, each against it. This was also true of Germany, the likes of me growing up in a place one surrounded by an ocean of turf. Paradoxically, there were a large a nation which until the Franco-Prussian where the moorland in itself helped to Calum Kennedy’s rollicking and rocking number of positives to be gained from war of 1870-71 possessed very little coal engender a sense of community and ‘Rolling In The Heather’, for instance, such experiences. Each drowning, within its borders. One could even argue when moments like the following were may have had its beginnings in Gaelic sinking tractor caused the community that it was the lack of this fuel that partly valued and became possible. n songs and stories, all featuring life around to come together; each skidding, sliding the ‘airighean’ or sheilings of Lewis. One wheel becoming the stuff of legend, example of this is Oidhche dhomh ‘s mi transmitted in either story or song from Charity Tractor Run, Ness, Isle Of suirghe s mi na bhalachan og, a tale of woe lip to lip whenever or wherever villagers Lewis and romance composed by Murchadh gathered. The same was true of these ‘An Domhnall Bhig (Murdo Macleod) moments during the cutting, gathering (April 2015) from South Shawbost. It ends with the and harvesting of peat when matters cynical advice that instead of acting in went incredibly wrong. One of the most There are tailbacks all the way from Dell to Port, the manner the writer apparently did, if remarkable of these was composed by my congestion in a crofting district, snarl-ups, traffic jams you meet a beautiful, young lady from fellow Nessman, Murdo John Morrison and tangles as tractors puff and cough to show support Lewis, you should: from the village of Fivepenny. He tells for one whose days might be slammed of a day in the mid-seventies when the short by illness. Men come from throughout the island, ‘thoir tairgs is airgead posaidh dhith ‘bith comhla young men from the district assembled all these ghosts clearing smoke from exhausts, rithe gu brath’. to take home peats for his uncle, a man giving it full throttle. They fix their rear-view mirrors, scan nicknamed an Righ or the ‘King’. It was those behind them that they’ve already lost. (provide her a vow and a dowry and be with an experience which involved lashings of Aonghas Mor steaming down the Aird Road to collect her always’.) liquid, both tumbling from the sky and his pension. Dolaidh taking home peats. poured down the throats of the workforce Dad heading out in winter to correct Sometimes, too, these very peatlands who were involved. The tractor driver – some fault in the engine, his feet enable the writer to cast a wry glance at apparently – required windscreen wipers leaving prints in mud or snow. And then there is that train the outside world and all its eccentricities. for his glasses. Several of the more sober travelling out the peat-road, seeking to haul Typical of these is a work by Murchadh members of the workforce were confused and take the strain off some tractor stuck in that terrain, Iain Tharmoid Dhomhnuill Bhig, a by the white foam that mingled with tyres skidding through its surface as it halts and stalls nephew of the previous gentleman the raindrops, continually gushing from deep within that morass, sinking further down from South Shawbost. His eye focussed the many cans of lager that were being till it’s engulfed by darkness like these souls on Dr Barbara Moore, a Russian born opened while they worked. He rounds off who never - these days - wheel their way around ... motorcycle champion and exile from

Northwords Now Issue 35, Spring 2018 17 he old lady was quiet today, She thought that he was her brother, his gazing out the kitchen window. Unravelling long-dead uncle Donny, back from his TShe smelt faintly of fresh urine. travels across the world. Several packs of incontinence pads sat in Short Story by Christine Grant “‘S mise Niall,” Neil affirmed his the back porch beside the potatoes and identity, letting her lean on his arm as she the tumbler drier. They hadn’t been there ✯ steadied herself. the last time Neil was home. “’S fada bhon a chunnaic sinn thu, a The machair, the flat, sandy ground Dhòmhnaill?” Granny shakily pushed leading down to the sea was grey-green, attack. He had come back alright, to the Donald. She knew which seaweeds and herself up from the chair and reached out under a cloudy sky. The ferry had docked cemetery on the machair. lichens could be used for dyes and jellies a hand to greet her long-lost brother. after two days of gales, and Neil’s mother She let Neil go, pushing his hand away as well as the use of plants for healing. “Seo Niall, am mac agam.” Neil’s had driven out to stock up on food for with a slight smile. He rubbed his fingers During his first visit back from London, mother shouted that he was her son even the New Year’s dinner. He was minding where the rings had gouged into them he tried to hold onto every moment though she was only on the other side his grandmother; someone had to be and bent to kiss her lightly on the cheek with his grandmother, and store it up for of the kitchen table. She opened a bag with her all the time now. before setting off, the future ahead of the time when he would be rattling to of pasta, shook the contents into a glass Granny was prone to wandering. him. work on a crowded train full of strangers. container, and dropped her voice to ask Most of the time, she tottered around The graduate wage which had looked However, Granny seemed fuzzy at the how Granny had been. “Ciamar a bha the house, in and out of rooms, as if so good on paper, barely covered a room edges, as if she was travelling away and i?” she was looking for something she had in a shared house in Islington. Neil’s becoming smaller and more blurred as “Ceart gu leor,” Neil said. “Bha i lost, but now and then she managed to mother phoned weekly, and unburdened she disappeared into the distance. direach a’ cadail.” She had been peacefully slip out and walk down the road to the her worries about her Granny. At Five months passed, almost six, before sleeping most of the time. house where she lived most of her life. first, she took over weekly chores like Neil returned for Christmas and New He helped his mother put away the After she moved in with them, Neil’s shopping and washing and hoovering, but Year. He was shocked by the change in shopping, while she kept up a non-stop parents refurbished Granny’s house for eventually she went in every day to help his grandmother although the others commentary on the people she had met holiday lets. From time to time, Granny Granny with the cooking and washing seemed to have accepted her reduced in the supermarket. She had bumped into shuffled into the living room of the old up. On Sunday morning, Neil’s brother capacities and adjusted. Conversations Alec Donn’s mother. Alec Donn worked house, spaideil now with a leather sofa Angus popped in to remind her that it were difficult, like channel hopping on on the fishing and had a reputation as a and a wood-burning stove, and startled was Didomhnaich and time for Mass. the television. Sometimes she latched on roving bachelor. He’d been pinned down the tourists. Sometimes, she went further, On his first visit home, Neil walked to a word like London and began a long, by an Irish girl who was working for the walking down the single- track road in down to Granny’s house, eager to see rambling anecdote which might have environment agency, and trying to learn her slippers and cardigan. There wasn’t her again. She was sitting by the window, something to do with a distant cousin Gaelic. Nice-looking girl, red hair. Alec’s much traffic, but the young guys liked to looking out towards the sea. The whites who had gone to live in London, mixed mother was delighted. The wedding was step on the accelerator when they reached of her eyes were parchment yellow, the up with a story about ordering a dress set for the following summer, and they the straight stretch near the house. pupils filmed and blotchy like a stagnant from a company in London when she were going to live in a caravan while they Granny’s mind was unravelling like pool. He made tea and conversation was very young. Complete memories built a house on the croft. a piece of knitting. It was hard to say for the two of them. Granny nodded were now only broken mixed-up shards. Behind the words, Neil heard what when it started. A few years ago, she occasionally, but said almost nothing. Granny stayed with them so that she his mother didn’t say. She would like one became quieter, forgetting arrangements, He wondered if she was even listening. wouldn’t be on her own at New Year. She of her younger sons to settle down, so surprised to find that Sunday was After half an hour, she seemed tired, and helped with the dishes, wiping one or two that she, too, could go to the local shop Monday or Saturday Sunday. She stopped he got up to leave. She clutched him so dry and then wandering into other rooms, and announce an engagement. It was cooking, and bought only tins of soup tightly that he felt her nails through his leaving a cup on the piano and a tea towel unlikely. Angus was almost thirty, still and packs of biscuits and cakes. Neil’s sweatshirt. Things weren’t what they had neatly folded over the back of the sofa. In living at home and showing no sign of mother began bringing in fresh food and been, and she knew. the original plan, Granny was going to acquiring a girlfriend, whilst Neil was in cooked meals. As a child, Neil had always been in and return to her own house after a few day’s London, trying out women she would After finishing his degree in Edinburgh, out of the old croft house down the road rest, but she never went back. It was clear never meet. Neil had gone back to the island, helping where his grandmother lived. She sang that she was no longer able to cope. Neil stowed away a packet of crackers his father on the croft, earning a bit of while she baked oatcakes, or scrubbed After Neil returned to London, his and looked around. The wing chair was money doing jobs here and there, while potatoes, or tried to capture the changing mother took Granny to the doctor for empty. He found his grandmother in the he tried to find a job. He was eventually landscape and weather in thick smears of a problem with her eyes. They came hall cupboard, arranging cans of food offered work with a marketing firm in paint, and he learnt the tunes too. Her back with a bottle of eye ointment and beside the shoes. That was where she had London. The day before he left, he walked own grandfather had composed some of confirmation of what they already knew: kept the tinned food in her own house. down to Granny’s house to say good-bye. these songs when he was away at sea. a diagnosis of dementia. He led her back to the kitchen, glad that A painting she had started months ago Neil was a teenager before he saw Neil’s grandmother was dozing now his mother had moved onto another sat half-finished on an easel in the back his grandmother’s wedding photo. She with her mouth open and her cheek topic, a friend who needed to go to the porch, and a thin layer of dust covered brought it out from the back of the resting against the winged armchair mainland for an operation. the surfaces in the living room. sideboard where it was wrapped in tissue in the kitchen. He wished that he had A smile faded on Granny’s lips as she “Where are you going?” she asked. paper, and when he asked why she didn’t asked her more while her mind was still settled back against the side of the chair “I’m off to London. Remember?” put it up, she said that it made her feel intact. The essence of her was still there, and closed her eyes. She was weary. Neil She shook her head and gazed through too sad. They sat together on the sofa locked deep down. However, she was looked out the window to the fence the window with eyes that were a shade looking at the serious young woman increasingly unable to interact with the which sheltered the potato patch. Beyond darker than the thin blue line of sea. with dark hair curling over her shoulders. world, as if she was looking out through were the fields, exposed to the relentless “Why?” She stood beside a lanky young man who a grimy window which became dirtier wind from the sea. “I’ve got a job. A good one.” would never age in photos or memories; all the time. He thought about all the people who She grasped his hand. “Can you not he had died in a fishing accident, leaving Gulls wheeled over the machair. The had struggled to cultivate this piece work here?” Her rings dug into his palm four young children. Neil felt emotion clouds moved slowly in the lull between of land on the edge of the sea so that and her skin felt dry and papery. blocking his throat and stinging his eyes. the gales. The ragged edges of one seemed the cycle would go on, each generation “There’s no jobs here. You know that.” He asked his grandmother how she had to form into the crinkled face of an old subtly different from the last. They had The opportunities were all away. If you managed to keep going, and she said, lady. laboured so that he would have the got an education, you had to leave. Neil’s “Cha robh doigh eile ann.” There was no The kitchen door opened, and Neil’s choice to leave, jostle his way to work Uncle, Donny, had become an engineer other way. mother bustled in, bringing bags and a through crowded city streets, sit in front and travelled the world, living in Africa She taught Neil his name, and his place draught of cold air, rousing him out of of a screen breathing recycled office air and the far east. He’d always planned in the long chain of people stretching the dreamy, quiet state he had reached and eat microwave-ready meals off plastic to come back when he retired, and was back through the generations. He was sitting beside his grandmother. trays. working in England, a few months away Niall ‘ic Iain ‘ic Alasdair ‘ic Dhòmhnaill: “An do thill thu, a Dhòmhnaill?” His It was all unravelling, and he was the from retirement, when he died of a heart Neil, son of John, son of Alastair, son of grandmother woke up and looked at him. weak link in the chain. n

18 Northwords Now Issue 35, Spring 2018 Poetry

Ae Day I Thaim liftin ilk deid rickle thare Rowan Hamish Scott an on thair hurlie-barraes pile; John Young syne, pittin in a muckle graff The sun cums oot the kirk o nicht an kiverin thaim aa wi sile Full fifty years since she moved off the croft an brings the kennin o the licht she’s back again, with me in tow, til ilka thing ootwith the kirk, An syne A turn ma een awa, to oystercatchers wheeping by the lochan it brings the licht ti redd the mirk tae that at fills this biggin leuks, and skies as wide as your imagination. an sees deid leafs furthsetter fowk haes hudged thegither intae beuks Strange territory for me, an urban dweller Brought up where streetlights were our stars Ae Day II The muckle feck’s bi fowk that’s deid, And dockland hooters wailed out Hamish Scott the lave is near the same forby The divisions of the day – and Hollywood In here thair lifes haes fan an en: Via Saturday morning movies The sun cums oot the kirk o nicht as ilka stane-dum beuk thai ly Gave us an off-the-shelf mythology. a virgin day its wyfe an daw, the twasum’s hinnie month, Thaim pat in here bi leibrie fowk, That rowan standing sentinel by the gate, I say, the stert o thair new life athin thir waas, ablo this ruif: it blocks the view, I’d better cut it down. A’m in a graff, a muckle graff, You can’t do that, she answers, An cums the mornin, sun an day wi aa this deid - an me that nuif my father planted it when first he came here gets yokit ti thair wark: to welcome strangers and ward off evil spirits. ti fend aathings wi licht an heat an redd awa the mirk I’m not sure what to do; I’ve often upset her Carpe Diem with my uncouth townie ways, The sun gets hie an day auld-yung: Hamish Scott but leaving that aside, why should I take on board thai win til efternuin; the superstitions of a long gone age? the time thair licht an heat maist strang, This is the day, the ainlie day, A rational atheist, I - or so I’d like to think, thair gretest wark is duin the ainlie day ye can hae blood red berries and pentagrams hold no mystique for me; For sun an day the eenin cums and yet an awkward need for reverence gnaws an thus retirement sterts; insistently. thai skair the lave o mairrit life Gin until wi daith diverts Hamish Scott My mind’s made up, Gin Dostoyevsky shot thon day, I’ll not take metal to the rowan’s flesh. An faas the nicht, the day is deid; malaria MacDiarmid fell’d, the sun’s back ti the kirk whit wark wad no been made ti see the wyfe i nicht’s kirk-yaird intir’d intil its mirk Gin Burns pass’d thertie seeven year, The Remains an flu no teuk Apollinaire, Molly Donachie whit things thai wad a say’d After all, a small room, At the leibrarie Haed Virgil’s Aeneid been destroy’d, with its finger on its cracked lips: Hamish Scott novelles o Kafka brunt an aa, a chair, well-couched, an ashtray of ash, whit wark wad no abade photographs on an upper shelf - A wale twa beuks tae hae a read this inventory an tae an oot-the-gate wee neuk Gin Ovid’s Medea no tint, not what you’d expect. A like tae think ma ain wee bit, nor maist the plays Aeschylus wrate, A like tae gae wi twa-three beuks whit wark we wad a haed A wreck yes, a mynah bird squawking perhaps, Tae whar a windae sits abuin Sae far as makars mak wir warld, the debris from his heart attacks. a widden table an a seat, thair warks we hae’s the warld we hae, Even, sometimes the case, a drawer brimful an whar a radiator nar thair kittle weird display’d of loose change. on days lik this fair ootpits heat Not this A win the table, on it pit neat life - folded sheets, a few the beuks A’m gaun tae gie a deek, Luvin life, luvin daith bottles of beer, St.Theresa of Carmel hung over pou back the seat, plunk doun, sit in, Hamish Scott the kitchen bin. an by the radiator beek Not the picture that would spring immediately to It’s aye that easy luvin life, mind, A than leuk ower the windae whar A niver want it en; if you knew him. a scaffie soops deid leafs in heaps; but luvin daith, A canna yit, syne, pits thaim in his scaffie-cairt its luve A’m still tae ken whar kiver’d unner lids he keeps

A mynd again thon auld newsreel o Bergen-Belsen efter freed: parteiclar whar the fillum shaws the umwhile gairds gart redd the deid

Northwords Now Issue 35, Spring 2018 19 Poetry

A Wairnin Tae the Ayeweys Aff A Lane Girl’s Howps Time to swing the gate; an On Sara Clark follow the ruts. Sara Clark Howpfu, as tho ma hairt wis kirnin fire, Nothing much. Howpfu, wi ma dreams presst in the cauld paum o snaw, I pass a fallen byre full of bracken; It’s awfy dreich tae leeve Howpfu, tho ma greetin’s the soond o a blowsterie windae, outlines of lazy beds, Wi a man ye divna luve. Howpfu, gowerin up at the muin’s bleart edges no sheep, no cattle, a clan The haurd pairt is deekin it, The doorstane cheeps, a hairtbeat flees awa, of pert marsh orchids. Howpfu suin again, courin in the lamplit close, No likin the guy Howpfu, joys tae tottie tae howd are tovin skyward, Until I reach a ruined croft house. Ye bide wi, Howpfu, for the staurns leam bonnie bricht abuin the gairden, No car, no council bin, no caravan. No kennin why, Howpfu, awtho deith strides mirksome roond its waws, Only a rusty spud spinner, Howpfu for the honour o a leear the reel still hanging. Wirrit ye micht come aff rude Howpfu as a jakie at a clased door Ye stairt tae cleck up excuises, Howpfu for a deek at a gowden shore So I enter, where the door should be, (PMT / bad muid) Still hopefu, terrifee’d e’en nou o heiven. see small bags lying about. Hopefu, ma buitless feet aw droukelt up wi gress Inside: more coins and notes. If yer list o raisons tae stey Hopefu, an daikin oot a wee grave for ma hert “Hey, here’s your money.” Has “weans,” or “weddin” in it, Hopefu, an kneelin, an pitten it in. Or the wirds “thi boy micht chynge” “You need to start picking it up, man.” “Good eggs, but your box is full.” Get the hell oot. “Dear Sir/Madam, for many weeks...” If ye ken deep doun While Workin At Subway He’s no whit yer aboot, Sara Clark Draw pouches, canvas sacks, wren-sided farthings, Or the sicht o him eatin, The shaidae on the wall wis sae beautifu - embossed envelopes from the 1950s, Smilin or watchin the TV Licht gowden neuks wi ebony leafs a-flauchter, Maks ye want tae scream Sae bonnie, as ah passt, ah nearlins gasped. threepenny bits, sixpences, Ah let it daidle a seicont in ma mynd - Edwardian pennies, It’s time tae leave. Gan doun the stair tae fesh the dough, the ageing faces of Queen Victoria. If he niver seems Hauntit bi the cantie tints o gowd, To unnerstaund whit ye mean, An widdie-wands o black that birlt sae merrily. Fae a stymie, ah’d stuid in feudal Japan, An ye ayeweys imagine Govin intae a glowin paper screen, Signs of Pre-Spring Bein wi anither man As empie-free as they daurk brainches. Seth Crook Or like tae daunder doon When ah clammert back, nae sign o sun bade oan An the wall wis dour an flat - a thing to claucht us in. A new fence-post rammer The stair at midnicht, banged with authority; a stob gavel. Fer a skaur o peace, The crofter re-stating his field. It means he isnae richt. Eggbox Leaky hopes, leakier doubts. Sun out, You willnae believe this, Seth Crook but ice rings still in puddles at 2.00, But, efter the tears even reformed crunch by 3.00. An the stooshies, Eggs for sale: beside a farm gate, And the bald farmer from Barra, He’ll aw at ance appear beside a daubed sign. who always turns up at the garage, Relieved. Ye see ma dear, Please Put Your Money in the Box. a January Jim, with his 4 by 4, He doesnae luve you either. Every Thursday I pull up, his broken springs, brakes gone, select my half a dozen. Large. alternator packing up; who, Drop in my cash. Exact. like the season, always says, I’ll wait.

Until there’s little room for coins. Fresh eggs keep arriving, No money goes. Metal climbs on metal.

I start a tower of fifty pences. I bring a cardboard sign, “Dear crofter, pick up your cash”. But no pick up.

Eggs keep arriving. The tower topples. The board turns soggy, sags.

One morning: I’ve had enough.

20 Northwords Now Issue 35, Spring 2018 here’s someone coming’ I said, wasn’t open. Was the window open? How ‘there’s a car on the machair’. I Eden in the Morning come we didn’t hear it?” ‘Tlooked at Morry and said ‘It’ll But when I looked again I saw that it be him. It’ll be him. I told you I fucking wasn’t alive. It was still moving though. Its told you he’d check’. Morry said ‘Shut up. Short Story by Roddy Murray entire chest cavity was crammed with a Where? No way. He never checks.’ She seething, heaving colony of maggots. looked through the narrow split in the ✯ For a second I was sure I was going drawn curtains in the caravan window. to retch. A dark blue Volvo estate was slowly I thought about leaving it where it undulating its way over the shimmering out, throw some stuff on top and hope he door. She was saying “I’m sorry Dr Grieve, was. Just ship out. Lock the windows, grass and flowers towards us. wouldn’t spot me. please don’t misunderstand …” He said shut the door. Bottle it up. Let the larvae It was a Saturday morning in July, No chance. Not with all my gear lying something about being disappointed, that consume the host and ripen into a dense, early enough for the machair to be still about. It was bloody obvious she wasn’t he was an old-fashioned sort and how he black swarm of flies. So that when Grieve damp with dew. We’d only been there a alone. I could see him pulling the duvet felt let down and expected better. And returned the following weekend, he night. I’d been in the bunk-bed when I off. Me underneath. Naked. Mortified. It then, just when I thought he was going to would find Beelzebub in residence. first heard the engine. I noticed because didn’t even bear thinking about. What a leave it at that, the cheerless incantation But I didn’t. I swallowed my disgust. it didn’t recede, it got louder. fucking farce. Christ, I was thirty eight went on. How he’d misjudged her. A I gripped a wingtip between thumb and Morry was already up. She wasn’t years old. And Morry wasn’t his daughter betrayal of trust. forefinger, whipped the bird out and paying attention. Rummaging in her bag. or his wife. It brought to mind a Victorian dad flicked it through the open door onto the Hadn’t yet bothered getting dressed. Well, But she wasn’t my wife either. thrashing his kids. More in sorrow than lush, verdant machair. she had better get her kit on pretty damn I jumped into last night’s shorts, in anger. For your own good. One day Then I sat down again. And breathed. quick. Then I thought, oh Christ, I hope scrambled a t-shirt, grabbed my paperback you’ll thank me. This hurts me more than And put my head in my hands. the caravan wasn’t rocking when he of The Crow Road and desperately threw it hurts you. Soon the sun would grow and gather in turned off the main road towards us. myself into a sprawling, casual, been-up- It sure was old school. And it took me brightness and heat. I went outside, shaded There was no doubt. It was him. for-a-while pose along the bench-seating right back to it. my eyes and looked across the brightly- Doctor Grieve. Our landlord for the at the other end of the caravan. He didn’t even have to say we had to speckled grass towards the dazzling white weekend. Morry knew him through As a pre-emptive measure, Morry had leave. sands, the turquoise water and the islands being a patient in his practice the couple already gone out and I could now hear When the car door shut and the beyond. It was a rare, perfect day for the of years she lived over in Valtos. She’d them talking. Sounded amicable enough. engine faded-off, Morry came back in. beach. That had been the plan. cleaned house for him. Still knew him just Couldn’t make it out. Pleasantries. Maybe She looked wrecked, drained, beaten. She Instead, I stuffed our gear into bags and well enough to ask if she could stay in his it would be ok. Maybe he wouldn’t look said “we have to go”. I said “I know”. She put them in the car boot with our box caravan sometime. By herself, obviously, in. slumped down beside me on the bench- of food and bottles of wine while Morry otherwise there would have been no But he did. The door opened. Morry seat and we sat with our backs against the freneticaly wrote out a letter of apology point in asking. Not without a wedding said “Donnie, this is Dr Grieve.” I raised end-window. Didn’t say anything else. It to Grieve in her sketchbook. It ran to ring on her finger. my eyes lazily from the book and said felt like we’d been ambushed, ransacked. three long pages and there wasn’t much ‘Remember Lot’s wife’ he had said “Morning. It looks like it’s going to be I had glazed-over. I was looking punctuation. When we drove through when he took his family from their a nice day”. It really was as lame and vacantly towards the other end of the the village on the way back, I stopped at enclave in the Midlands to head for Lewis phoney as that. My voice sounded like caravan where barely five minutes earlier his house and she leapt out of the car and all these years ago. To a place where there it was coming out of an old transistor I had lain in a woolly-headed, semi- shoved it under the front door. was still some decency left to protect radio. conscious cocoon. We headed back to Stornoway in and conserve. Like a theological national There was eye contact for a frozen I became aware that I was staring at silence. park. A kind of Eden unscathed by moral fraction of a second. The moment something under the bed. Last night’s Forty miles later we sat opposite each collapse. And where better? expanded. And petrified. bed. An object. No. “Jesus, Morry” I other at the window in her first-floor What the fuck did he want? Later when replaying the encounter, said “There’s a dead bird under there.” A flat overlooking Church Street watching There was less than a minute to react. we were unable to recall anything that was glimpse of iridescence. “It’s … a starling. the traffic and the usual Saturday people. Morry was already dressed. I’d never said or happened within that blank space. How come we didn’t notice it till now?” I More silence. Morry said “I’m going to seen her do it so fast. Still haven’t. The It was like we’d had a spontaneous black- stood up, walked over and crouched down make some coffee.” situation hadn’t so much unfolded as out. I think he wore a khaki waistcoat. to investigate when, with another start, I I looked at my watch. It was 8.57am. n fallen on us like a collapsed roof. I had With pockets. But I’m not sure. saw that it was breathing. “It’s alive” I said, two options. Get dressed and try to act The next thing I did remember was turning round “How is it alive? Did it normal, or hide under the duvet, flatten Morry’s voice coming through the open come in during the night? The window

enry sat on the edge of the and flew up, some crashing through the hard, slate-grey sofa. His little Henry’s Playtime triple-glazed windows, some embeddng Hlegs swung over the polished themselves into the bone white walls, and ash wood floor. He wanted badly to play, Short Story by Marka Rifat one smashed into the kitchen sink with but that meant washing his hands before its sharp taps, and water gushed out and he could open his toy box, a bright white ✯ splattered over the floor, and best of all, the chest with a sliding top, because handles wire bannisters were caught in the blast and finger marks were not allowed in this wall because, somehow, even his clean machine gun at the white porcelain on and they leapt and twisted, screeching in house. hands left a mark. the dining table. He strafed the whole the air like a mad dragon. Then he’d have to carry the toys up And when he did reach the top floor, room, silently mouthing the exciting Henry rocked back on his heels, two flights of pale floating steps. The he had to whisper with his toys because noises. With two fingers of each hand, he panting with exhilaration. staircase still frightened him, although the double height atrium (Daddy’s word) shot out the recessed lights and splintered “Henry,” his father called from the he considered himself a big boy now. carried sounds down as well as up and all the handle-less kitchen cupboards. upstairs studio. Henry quickly resumed You could see daylight between each then Daddy would come and check that He levelled his aim at the orchids in his original seated position and looked tread, while the bannisters and balustrade Henry was not being conflict-orientated the meditation alcove and watched the up. His father’s head appeared from the (Grandma taught him those words) were or gender-biased. dark soil explode from its cream bowl first floor gallery. not like his grandparents’ stairs, all warm, Henry decided it would be easier to and settle onto the white carpet below. “You can’t sit there doing nothing. dark brown wood, but were taut wire just stay put. Gradually, the rhythm of his Finally, he hauled a rocket launcher, from Come up and we’ll do some yoga. cords fastened to cold steel poles. The swinging legs became faster and his hands his extensive armoury, into position. He Ashtanga or Hatha – you get to choose!” wires were sore to hold and he did not became fists. Then he smiled. braced himself for the recoil. The staircase Henry put a grenade in each pocket dare support himself by pressing on the Kneeling on the sofa, he angled a took a direct hit. The planks fractured and marched towards the stairs. n

Northwords Now Issue 35, Spring 2018 21 he way he’s looking at me, he exactly where to go and the bow flowed knows she was at mine. He’s two Flowing smooth and easy. The fiddle blends so Tahead of me in the checkout well with the sound of the accordion that queue at the Coop, hackles raised, puffed I could hardly hear myself, just became up and bristling like an angry cat. He Short Story by Anna Levin part of her big, complete sound. The stares ahead then glances back, glowering, end of the tune lifts and swirls into the but he looks kind of wobbly, and I’m not ✯ beginning and so it circles on and on. As sure if he’s going to thump me or burst we turned into yet another repeat, she into tears. I don’t know what the hell caught my eye and we both laughed out to say or how to explain. The truth is I were rocking through a set of reels, the joined in a bit, but mostly just basked in loud. never touched her, despite what they’re fiddlers going full throttle and the music the warmth of the fire, the whisky and all saying, and the rest of the band all surging and rushing forward like a river the music. The next time she held back, playing smirking and giggling like schoolgirls. in full flood. There she was at the heart of only chords and checking I was secure Not that I didn’t want to. Jesus I did, but it all, playing with grace and guts, those Gradually people drifted away and with the tune, then she slipped away into it wasn’t like that. I mean I didn’t, we strong arms pushing and pulling away. somehow it happened that everyone else an exquisite harmony. I stared at her, didn’t… it wasn’t… nothing happened. I squeezed alongside Martin, who was had gone. Of course I found out after that delighted and exhilarated, hanging on having trouble already accommodating they’d slipped away deliberately – ‘You tight to my melody as the tunes looped Nothing happened? Yet something his double bass and his elbows in the didn’t take your bloody eyes off her all and twisted around each other like otters did. crowded corner, reached for my fiddle, night, thought we’d better leave you to it,’ at play. tightened the bow and plunged straight Matt said later – but at the time I thought ‘Now you,’ she said. This is what happened. into the racing current. it was just amazing synchronicity that, ‘Me?’ miraculously, there were only the two of ‘Be brave,’ she commanded. ‘Relax. I was down by the harbour last It’s become customary for the session us left there. Make it up.’ Saturday afternoon, just coming out of to drift round to my place when the pub I panicked then, I didn’t know how the hardware store, when I heard this eventually closes at some random hour She was looking down into the to make it up, didn’t want to screw it up tune – no, I felt this tune, it stopped of the night. The flats above and below accordion, her face bright with the now. But somehow my bow came down me in my tracks like a physical force, are now holiday homes, only used a few firelight, figuring out some of the tunes across the strings and music came out, right there in the shop doorway. It weeks a year so there are no neighbours the harpist had played, experimenting flowing and weaving its own meandering seemed to be coming from all around, to disturb. I didn’t dare ask her to join us, with different chord sequences. way around the tune. a mesmerising, lilting melody, lifted up but then I’ve never asked anyone, they all ‘The tune you were playing on the by a strong rhythm and spiralling sweet just drift along. I was walking ahead with harbour steps,’ I said. ‘Will you teach it We played on and on, relentless, like and high. Now I’ve been playing music Martin and glanced back, pretending to me?’ children wanting endless repeats of a as long as I can remember, but I’ve never check that Matt had remembered his We sat together by the fire and she bedtime story: again, again, again. We heard a tune like this before – so strange, banjo, and I saw that she was coming played the tune slowly, phrase by phrase. drank in the melody like thirsty creatures but immensely satisfying, it would get to with us. My heart did a strange, fluttery I found it hard to learn, all those twists sucking at some vital nutrient. Circling exactly where you wanted it to go, but dance. and turns, unfamiliar keys and accidental round and round, and round again, on by all sorts of twists and turns along an notes. our enchanted carousel. unexpected route. Back at the flat we chucked some logs ‘Put down the fiddle and sing it,’ she on the fire and it was soon blazing away suggested. I think it was me who broke the spell I was enchanted, first by the tune, and nicely. Someone had brought a bottle of ‘Sing it?’ when I finally stopped to go for a pee. then by the girl playing it. She was sitting whisky and Martin’s cousin had brought ‘Yeah.’ She glanced at her watch. on the steps of the harbour wall, and the her clarsach. Sometimes the session just Embarrassed, I hummed and diddle- ‘Oh shit!’ She looked genuinely music was coming from the accordion carries on rolling at mine, all blasting away, dummed along, she kept me at it until horrified. in her arms. Not a piano accordion like but other times there’s a different quality I could diddle-dum it with conviction. ‘What’s wrong?’ you’d normally see here, but rows and to it, and we listen more and learn tunes Then I picked up the fiddle again, and ‘It’s nearly half four! Oh god, I’ve got rows of buttons on each side. She played from each other. That Martin’s cousin suddenly I had it. Something clicked, to get back, Ruaridh will be worried with her whole body – her foot beating a played a lot, gorgeous rippling airs. We my fingers grasped the dance, they knew sick’. rhythm on the quayside, her head moving ‘Ruaridh?’ gently from side to side, her arms strong ‘My boyfriend.’ and steady while her fingers leapt and Shit! danced in intricate steps across all those ‘I’ve been living in London, I’m buttons. staying up here for the summer with him…’ she started telling me hurriedly, She played, and I listened, until clouds packing up her accordion as she was coming in from the bay brought the first speaking, as if she’d suddenly realised splashes of rain. Bigger, darker clouds we haven’t had a single conversation were muscling up behind them. She all night. I don’t even know her name. glanced skywards, scooped up the coins The Ceilidh Place Bookshop ‘He works late in the restaurant up on West from her case and packed up to go. Brae, but he’ll have been back for hours Ullapool now and wondering where the hell I am...’ Dazed, I returned to my shopping, the ‘Ruaridh Anderson?’ I asked. She nodded. tune still rippling and rolling in my head The small bookshop with a big range of quality Big guy, a few years ahead of me when as the rain came lashing down. I ran in books we were at school. and out of shops, forgetting in each what From art to travel, biography to philosophy, I was looking for, then dashed home to contemporary fiction to nature writing, children’s books I walked her back, through the dark light the fire and make something to eat, to poetry, politics to natural history, hill walking to streets, past the docks and down towards but found I wasn’t hungry, my stomach history, Gaelic books to sheet music and lots in the harbour. There was a wild wind was tense. between. coming off the sea, the fishing boats all tucked in snug against the harbour wall, By the time I got to the pub that Browse the eclectic collection with a Scottish literary but the yachts tethered out in the bay night, the session at the Anchor was in bias were tugging at their anchors like wild full swing. It was packed, the musicians animals trying to bolt, their white masts all squashed into a corner and the tunes @ceilidhbooks ceilidh place bookshop swaying as they reared and rocked in the pouring out and swirling above the 14 West Argyle Street, Ullapool swell. I hunched into my jacket, my hands chatter of the foot-tapping crowd. They www.ceilidhplace.com deep in the pockets and she slipped her

22 Northwords Now Issue 35, Spring 2018 arm through mine, leaning slightly with in his hands – a pen or cutlery or the hungrily, three at a time, staring at the feel what I feel when we play it? But the weight of the accordion on the other remote control for the TV – and if there’s sea and feeling full of hope. Then I feel hang on, the hall is emptying from the shoulder. nothing in his hands, his feet tap away someone’s watching me. It’s her. She back, layers of our crowd peeling away. or his fingers dance on the table, adding peels away from two other girls who They’re leaving! There’s no panic, just On the corner of the street she incredible rhythms to whatever’s on the are heading for the chip van and comes a pulse of excitement, something being wriggled her arm free and said goodbye. I radio, or ads on the telly, or dad playing towards me. My mouth is full of chips. communicated. The tune carries on, and moved towards her, as if to kiss her, what the odd tune on the banjo – anything. ‘Mmmh. Oh. Hi!’ I manage eventually, carries us along, but they’re all looking to was I thinking? She stepped back slightly, swallowing and rummaging clumsily in my me, asking should we stop? But I don’t deftly avoiding me, but she smiled. My parents think the world of him. I pockets for something to wipe my hands on. know, don’t know where to stop, what ‘I’d better go,’ she said quietly. remember one time we were all in the She smiles, says hi, and: ‘still got that tune?’ to do, I can’t remember how to stop, I’m And she went. kitchen making pancakes, and Simon ‘Yes!’ I say, too emphatically. ‘We’re trapped on the roundabout and keep on picked up the mixing bowl and whisk going to play it… my band! … circling until there’s hardly anyone left So that was it. As I said, nothing and began to beat a rhythm, moving the next Saturday at the Town Hall…’ in the hall, just a few guys slumped over happened, but something happened. But whisk back and forward through the ‘You’ve got a band?’ their pints around the bar. how to explain all that to a glowering mixture and against the side of the bowl. ‘Yes!’ I answer too loud, and all the It’s Matt who finally breaks it, he boyfriend in the Coop queue? We didn’t Dad fetched the banjo and played a jig and bum notes we’ve ever played and doesn’t even finish the phrase, just stops so much lose track of time as transcend it Simon kept on beating, keeping perfectly the corny lines I’ve written rear up dead, puts down his guitar and says: altogether, time lost track of us and set us in time as the mixture thickened. At the around me as I say it. ‘Will you come?’ “What the fuck is going on?” free in an altogether different space. We’re end of the tune he had a bowl of perfect, ‘Hope so,’ she smiles and walks away to through the checkout now but he’s still creamy pancake mix and handed it back joins the other girls at the chip van. We put down our instruments on stage there, pretending to read the notice board to my delighted mum. and follow the crowd out of the hall and so I can’t go out without passing him. The week slips by and now it’s on to the quayside. It’s raining gently, a ‘Err…sorry it got late the other night,’ I Despite my brother’s indignant scowl, Saturday. The Saturday. Memories come soft drizzle, and there are loads of people mutter simply, stupidly, as I pass. Better to Simon’s keen to join my band. He turns rolling out to meet me like waves as I out here. Kids as well, though it’s late say nothing. ‘We were just playing music,’ up for rehearsal after school on Friday enter the Town Hall: of drunken teenage at night. Everyone’s packed against the I continue, against my better judgement. with a bodhran and a strange percussion nights, of visiting bands, discovering railings, staring into the dark water. We ‘Till four in the fucking morning?’ contraption that seems to be composed music, wondering what it’s like to be on squeeze into the crowd and look where He looks bewildered but I can’t think of bar stools strapped together with bits the stage. Now this is me. Here. Doing everyone else is looking. The water’s of anything else to say. At least he doesn’t attached. Another guy comes with him, this. Now. Tuning up, plugging in, taping surface is quite still, gilded with splashes thump me or burst into tears, just frowns presumably to help him carry it all, but set lists to amps. We’ve got a nice mix of of orange from the streetlights and lightly and walks away. he turns out to be a flute player called tunes and songs, but I’m nervous about pockmarked with raindrops. Mike, who joins us as well. Simon takes playing my own stuff, feeling exposed Nothing happened, everything charge, this floppy-haired 17-year-old and vulnerable. Will she like them? Will Something is moving in the water, happened. That night changed me. Like in his trainers and baggy jeans, a boy she be here? I can see pale flashes and an enormous I’m still here, the same person doing the too young to buy a pint, he sorts out dark bulk rising fast towards the surface. same things, but looking at it all from a the running order and even who stands The hall is filling up now, packed tight “It’s a fucking submarine,” whispers completely different angle. Am I in love? where on stage. around the bar. I feel strangely sick. I pace Matt beside me. I’m dazzled by her, excited by her and ‘You need to lighten up,’ he informs and glance nervously around, scanning the A thin black triangle slices through her music, but also by something in me, me half way through. crowd, praying she’ll be here, then almost the water, and someone screams “Shark!” the way I played when she was with me. ‘But I thought you said we needed to hoping she won’t be. But imagining her But there’s a soft explosion of sound, be tighter?’ not here, I feel a sudden stab of emptiness. ‘phteweeee’, and a burst of spray catching Fortunately there’s not much time to ‘Yeah, lighten up, tighten up.’ He likes No, I want her to hear this. I want to play the streetlights. The black fin is getting ponder whether or not I’m in love with that, he’s found another rhythm: ‘lighten for her. taller and taller, and a huge gleaming someone else’s girlfriend. My changed up tighten up lighten up tighten up’, and shape rises up. Jeesusfuckingchrist it’s a perspective focuses all my energy on he beats it out on his barstool drums. Shit this is it. We’re on. I knock back whale! And another looms beside it, this an urgent matter: my band have got a a whisky and take to the stage. I’m one with a curved fin, smaller but still support gig at the Town Hall in a few Now I can pick up a bodhran and weirdly disconnected from everyone enormous. Pale streaks behind the black weeks. It’s by far the biggest venue we’ve join in a session, playing along with any and everything, watching past versions fins. Killer whales. They curve back in to ever played. It’s the first time my own reel or jig, but that’s just the thing, I’m of myself out there in the hall and the water again, then reappear, breathing songs will ever be performed in public. playing along, keeping the beat – when wondering what am I doing up here? out, ‘phteweee’ and the assembled crowd And the band are shite. Not impossibly, Simon plays, whether he’s tapping away I’m talking, but I can’t make any sense of breathes in with a collective gasp. irredeemably shite, we’re all competent with a ball point pen or pelting a drum what I’m saying, words are coming out of enough musicians, but we’re not holding kit, he’s creating the beat and everyone my mouth in strange hieroglyphics. I look Everyone’s standing completely still, together well. Something is kind of else plays along. In rehearsals he picks us to Martin, panic stricken, and he offers watching, waiting, mesmerised, but I’m sagging. I know what I have to do. all up with his crazy rhythms, takes us me a reassuring smile and some stirring full of restless energy, still rushing with wherever he wants to go, but carries the notes on the double bass. The tune – her adrenalin. I slip away from Matt and pace Now I’ve never pinched anyone’s whole band with him and never drops tune – has begun and the others join in through the crowd, hearing snatches of girlfriend, and, come to think of it, I’ve anyone. one by one, building up the music in soft, whispered conversation. never dumped anyone either, but now sweet layers. Then my bow moves to my ‘Aye you see them sometimes, they I have to ditch our bodhran player and A week to go, and things are good. We’re fiddle and I’m playing too. It’s going to pass by the islands in the spring, heading steal a drummer from my brother’s a tight, five-piece band now: Simon and be OK. With the lights on us now I can’t North’… ‘loads of them up there, band. My brother’s band really are shite, Mike, then me on fiddle, Martin with his see the faces in the crowd anymore, but they chase the seals right up on to the irredeemably so, and they play crap covers double bass and Matt on guitar, mando, I play for her anyway, just in case she’s beaches’…‘They’re called orcas or killer of crap songs. And they’re totally, utterly banjo, occasional bouzouki and anything here, or sending the tune out towards her whales and that’s called a dorsal fin’ outclassed by Simon, their shining jewel else going. I teach them the tune, her tune, wherever she is. …‘Mummy do they eat people?’ of a drummer. and it works. The flute and fiddle swoop and soar, and the guitar meets us with a The music circles up and on, and Then I see her. She’s standing by the Simon hangs around after school with rocking accompaniment and sprinkles of I’m back on our carousel again. But harbour wall, slightly apart from the my wee brother, so he’s often round at delicate notes. They’re all grinning, loving Matt is looking at me, trying to catch crowd, holding on to the railings as if our parent’s house. When I call in, he’s it too. We’re going to start the set with my eye, raising his eyebrows with a to steady herself. There’s rain in her hair. there – sitting at the kitchen table, floppy it. I feel elated, triumphant. We’ve got quizzical look. Something is happening Her mouth is slightly open. She’s gazing hair and blue school blazer, holding a something solid here, it won’t let us down. out there in the crowd. A movement, a at the whales, and her eyes are shining. n pen loosely like a bodhran beater and muttering, a prickle of electricity. Is it drumming away as he chats. He’s always After the rehearsal I head down to the tune – are we creating this? Can they beating out a rhythm with whatever’s the chip van on the pier. I eat my chips

Northwords Now Issue 35, Spring 2018 23 Poems from ’Learning Swedish’ Collection (In Progress) By Stephen Keeler

Late Summer Midsommarafton Listening to Jan Johansson I M Kate Mulvey Dalarna, Sweden ‘En Gång i min Ungdom’ [Once Upon A Time in My Youth] I drove to Furudal today through flashing forests, Unwilling as a child to leave reckless as the boy I was, on well-remembered roads, the grown-ups to the revels, There must be mornings to learn that you had died. the light dragged colour with it when you too begin to wake like a blanket, towards the forest. in foetal sunlight We sat, my grown-up child and I, and each called up our different ghosts through air Far enough away to be ignored, and before a half-thought as thick as uncut meadow grass. and seen, if anyone should chance to look, has become a history as though through painted gauze, and an outstretched arm And Sweden lay before us, a postcard of itself, the imprint of the day stood watching at the edge: has stopped at pain; infused with pine-wood and with dill and sun-baked stone and Maj-Britt’s apple paj. the fiddlers in embroidered coats; and having felt your way downstairs the girls in linen stockings; put on the coffee The afternoon was drugged on drifting thistledown: the solemn toddlers, overlooked; sliced the cheese a child’s sky – high and blue and yellow as the flag the red-faced same-old-story-tellers, and placed the napkin on the tray that day the village men set up the trestles and those who came differently compelled. you too stand and the aproned women brought their plates and bowls in the porcelain silence of crayfish, and there was hardbread and wooden knives A clumsy boat is shoved onto the lake and weep. and jugs of beer and chilled brännvin under the trees. and dips through reeds, becoming lighter; a pair of rusting bikes propped beyond the sagging barn; You cycled like an actress in the sun: the road, fenced blue on either side with Gaudi lupins. a hat, of course, pale legs, your freckles soft Stockholm as birch seeds blown on end-of-summer winds. The fiddlers bow and scrape for Robert Crawford as though afraid to let us go; the old folk smile, and fade I love how it has softly sat to face like family photos in the sun. the Baltic sun, and spread its boxes all Scandinavian Noir around, and etched a pencilled arc to touch Fornby, Siljansnäs Mosquitoes too are drunk, on blood that’s up, the clefted places in the shadowed rock. and only widows sleep: It’s not an act of spontaneity the night’s as ragged as the tree-tops, or merely ill-advised romance, to carve inflamed with fever. four hearts each meeting at their points to form a four-leaf clover branded on a tree Seven flowers placed with care under an unvisited pillow. At Lake Hornborga Watching as lovely as the birch at Midsommar. Cranes My first response would otherwise have been a smile of fond recall that once upon a time a day had been so perfect that Were there three of us or four, a proclamation, lightly etched with flint, our backs to which of us it was became compulsion, celebratory. had held the camera? The longer that I looked, this cut declared Me with borrowed field-glasses premeditation; an atrocity and zipped-up leather jacket required to disturb, unnerving in still trying out other people’s the sharpened chill approaching through the leaves personalities for size, watching each blowsy crane landing light as a waterboatman on a pond, an archduke’s hat, with pins, on loosely ploughed-up earth in a Swedish vodka field in spring.

24 Northwords Now Issue 35, Spring 2018 Poetry

How should we dare? Lipstick Scunnered frae Skara Brae Grahaeme Barrasford Young Carolyn Yates Finola Scott

A long climb over brittle rock. A swipe in teenage years, Ower excited, he waaks at crack o dawn, A mid-point lost in weather. tangerine dreams, shell pink, white pearl. grabs farls fresh frae the fire, an awa til moon-rise. Mirrored, plump lips kiss glass, His beardie rasps my cheek and he’s oot-loupin. We stop to brew, chocolate bars, the back of a hand, a sealed envelope. No a glance back, no a thocht o me. still but for out drinking hands, traced lines impress the clown’s garish gash. The bairns? Thay’re foo o the stanes as weel. companionably quiet. A slap for delving in my mother’s draw. Huv ye heard the like? Heavin bloody great rocks. Fir whit? A new hoose? Naw. He’ll haul them Mist oozes round us. My stepmother wore scarlet geranium. tae the Siller Loch tae staun in a bloody circle. Coty applied fast and furious, Ye’d think the sun rises an sets oan them. Six feet left, cloud eddies, Clothed in Jaeger, her mouth never still, twin suns appear. she forged a finely chiselled nub, He says he’s bin chosen, it’s an honour. Excitedly alerting you, used to its last creamy smear. Says Ah’ve no tae girn but be prood. Some chance. I bruise your ribs. Strength perfumed, powdered and glossed. But mibbe, he’ll bring back anither necklace. Second wife of a vicar. Ah mind whan he draped yin roon ma neck, aw Briefly perplexed, Aunty Wynn’s lipstick darker, gleamin. golden eyes consider, dismiss, more rose red. Sliding round her lips, Ah sweer the nicht wis caught up in the chuckies, amused by our presumption. redefining outer edges, a fairy-tale pout. dark as his een. Spinster of this parish. Och him an his stanes. Feathers flex in a shiver of mist. Lips mirror that secret place, Wings spread nearly to touch, the labia, pink and lush, a god slides out of reach. juicy, young. Paint them brazen red, A Kiss Whorled droplets caress it arch brows in dark and careful lines, Sue Pepper as we follow it out of sight. rework the magic, resurrect the siren call, pucker, pout, draw and fill. He and she It takes spirit with it, Open and close, sit side by side on the bus; leaves awe. a goldfish gasping for air. gnarled, worn, bent Forever distant like two old apple trees we are inextricably linked. frosted white.

Wood Anemones You can hear the clack of their bones Donald Goodbrand Saunders as they get to their feet Under Grizzled Skies and set off between the seats, Robert Leach So easily ravelled clutching at bars and helping hands in a child’s mouth in a soft shoe shuffle, Under grizzled skies the dark North Sea to ‘wooden enemies.’ a slow sideways two step Thumps and thumps the listless sands. An innocence not to the door. so easily disarmed. Gulls squat and paddle in the rushing shallows, Woods were dreams then They make a moon landing A handful of plovers peck a bit, of refuge and dread to the safety of the pavement Skip a step, run a yard or two where shadows crept, on the unreliable hinges of their knees, Through the dreary skeins of seaweed and how the forests trembled Yawing at the water’s edge, and a heron when the stick men marched! where he lifts her hand to his cheek, Lands lazily, stands The road out of memory kisses her fingers, Gravestone still, grey and black. was a rutted timber track. gently. In time we learned It’s barely a breath of boundless forests to the East, They walk on, In the lungs of eternity. Poland and Belarus, leaning together, Then – how beyond Minsk these little flowers her hand under his arm. are so numerous the woods A man with a dog – the dog, are named for them– Kurapaty, Frisky with freedom, trot-lollops how they carpet the springtime To the tide-line. The birds forest floor so densely, Bridle, reluctantly retreat. The dog, the walks and picnic sites Desolate as abandoned love, leaves and the five hundred grave pits of the fifty, one hundred, two hundred thousand – And there’s only the surf-topped swell (they guess, but who could number them? And fall, swell and fall – time’s nocturne Who would kneel Like a dull hammer on a dull anvil – to count wood anemones?) Till sulkily, the birds return. Flowers of the shaded places, nemorosa, the wooden enemies have their poppies now and the murdered your bone-white constellations.

Northwords Now Issue 35, Spring 2018 25 olly unlocked the borstal in her chest and threatened tae bubble kitchen door, hung her coat on Tiramisu ower. Dthe scullery peg, smoothed the ‘That’s terrible, I’m so sorry.’ papers in her apron pocket and got on ‘He said he wis lucky no tae have been wi the stew. She sliced onions and added Short Story by Maureen Cullen sent on the Arandora Star.’ them tae the pot wi carrot and turnip, left ‘Oh yes, all those Italian men killed.’ them tae sweat while she slapped a flank She moved forward, her chest of beef ontae the marble slab, inched her ✯ skimming the desk. ‘Scots, Welsh, English knife under the tarp, chopped the flesh Italians. Many lived in Britain aw their intae chunks and rolled them in flour, adult lives. Some had sons who were her palms padded white. She flung the fightin the Germans. Ma father fought clumps of beef intae the pot wi two pints When she wis a girl it wis her job tae but he does actually meet with … for Britain in the great war.’ of stock and left the lot tae simmer on polish they shoes. A dollop of wax ontae townspeople.’ ‘Of course, I didn’t mean…’ His face the gas. At half past ten she poured a cup a cloth, rubbed intae leather, circled ower The girl sniggered. Any of her boys wis the colour of cherryade. He fiddled of coffee tae steady her nerves. seams and inlets, her wrist aching. Papa tried that, their ears would smart for a wi his papers. Two and a half hours tae go. picked up each shoe, turned it aroon week, but Dolly allowed a lifted eyebrow The eejit wis confused by her line She took her usual seat at the front and aroon. ‘Magnifico, Dolores,’ he said, tae dae its work. The bizzum had the of talk. She’d set him right. And she wis of the empty canteen, plucked oot the placing it on newspaper tae dry, before sense tae step back, clattering intae the aboot tae dae jist that, when he moved envelope, laid it on the table and took a leaning doon tae where she knelt, his bin behind her. forward and said, ‘I’m very sorry. That sip of strong, black coffee, a habit handed lips soft on her forehead, his moustache Dolly stepped intae a large office was foolish of me.’ doon through the generations on her prickly. He slipped sideways tae the door, dominated by a mahogany, leather topped He looked at her full square. God, papa’s side. He drank it black fae a bone pinched finger and thumb intae his desk. he hadnae a clue. Of course he didnae. white cup, fragrance coiling through the waistcoat pocket and tossed her a silver A brass clock on the wall chimed one A young man. Whit did he remember of air like a ballerina. He’d take the handle thruppence. It hung in mid-air, spinning o’clock. war? She wanted tae bolt fae the room. between finger and thumb, tilt it tae light before her palms slapped thegither. When she recognised the man behind ‘War makes enemies. It’s hard tae his lips, moustache dipping behind the ‘Always be catching the rainbow, the desk she stalled. A relative for sure. forget,’ she said, brought up sharp by her rim and, efter a sigh of contentment, Dolores.’ ‘Mrs Deighan?’ He got up, extended his ain words. tell her stories aboot Italy. Her childish Eleven o’clock. Two hours tae go. hand. A young fella, maybe late-twenties, Begg looked doon, shuffled his enthusiasm pressed for mair on Grandma When the afternoon shift arrived at guid head of sandy hair. Soft, a pencil papers, cleared his throat. ‘Mrs Deighan, Dolores’s café in Roma, Grandma’s twelve, she went tae the toilet, sprayed pusher. She stared at the hand. ‘Pleased to your application for the tearooms at the bosom held aloft like a battering ram, another layer of lacquer, and turned in meet you,’ he said, taking it back, patting pavilion…’ black hair rising magically intae its bun, the mirror. Her hair wis still black and his pocket as though suddenly looking ‘Vandals were egged on by clipes and Grandma weaving aroon wrought iron her figure trim. Aye, she’d dae, except for something. bagotails.’ She couldnae shut up. tables wi her silver coffee pot lifted high. for the crow’s feet aroon her eyes and ‘Right,’ wis aw she could manage. He looked a wee bit tapioca aboot the Two hours and twenty minutes tae the the wee craters on her chin. Normally Papa’s protests. ‘You make mistake, I gills. ‘I’m sorry if coming here has upset interview. this didnae bother her but today? Och, no a Mussolini man. I a Scot now.’ Ma you…’ She put doon her cup, unfolded the it didnae matter. They’d never gie the gripping him by the shirtsleeve, Dolly ‘Ah’m no upset, Son.’ notice fae The Mail. daughter of an enemy alien a tender for held back by her pregnancy, two toddlers ‘Your application?’ the café, no the one in the park owned at her skirts. ‘Ah know, dinnae bother yersel, ye’ll Tenders invited from suitable interested by the Cooncil. But even if there wis the Sandy-hair sat doon, nearly missed the have gied it tae someone else. Must be parties for the café at the pavilion in the smallest chance, she must grab it. She’d chair. ‘Please sit down. I’m Connor Begg.’ plenty…’ She pulled herself oot of the park. Summer months only: April to done her sums. Wi her widow’s pension He scratched his heid, placed his palm on chair. September. Apply to Council Chief… and savings she could afford tae take the his tie, though it wis awready straight as ‘The Committee has approved your Mr Connor Begg. risk. Besides, the war wis a long time ago. a plank: green tartan, white shirt, clean application,’ he said. Nearly twenty years. collar, married. ‘Whit wis that?’ She sank back. She wis tae attend the cooncil offices at Connor Begg. No necessarily a relative She pursed her lips. Might be a son. ‘Yes, it’s already been approved.’ one o’clock. But she didnae want tae run of Archie Begg. Anyhow, this man wis the Maybe jist il nipote, a nephew. ‘But ah thought ah wis here tae be intae a relative of Archie Begg. This fella boss, he wouldnae be seeing the likes of He cleared his throat. ‘Your tender, interviewed.’ wis new tae the town, she’d no been able her, she’d be interviewed by a lackey. Nae Mrs Deighan?’ ‘No.’ tae get any gab on him. Anyhow, there’d point in getting worked up. She put on She closed her eyes. Archie Begg ‘But there must’ve been local be bigwigs efter the place, unlikely they’d her coat and checked her watch. grinning at the scene in the street: the businessmen…’ gie it tae a woman. Dolly rubbed at the At quarter tae one she wis alone in the man wi a grudge, the man her father He chuckled, swallowed it back age spots splashed across her hand. Whit waiting room. A lass, hardly oot of school, sacked the year before. He never had double-quick. ‘Aye, a few.’ would a suitable party be for such an skirt up her backside, came in and took time for wastrels as a gaffer. ‘How come me?’ establishment? Aye, it’d be a young local her name. Might as well be sure. She cut across ‘You’re the most qualified and in a dark suit. Dolly tried no tae look at the shire sandy-hair’s mumbles. ‘Yer Da wouldnae experienced applicant. Your references Well, she wouldnae gie up before she insignia on the wall. She knew some said be Archie Begg who worked as a welder are excellent and you’re a trained cook. I started. She wis prepared. she wisnae a true Scot, even though in her at the shipyard, oh, jist before the war?’ have to ask you to sign the contract.’ Stock? She knew a man for that. top drawer lay Papa’s letters tae Ma, sent His face darkened. ‘I believe he did He turned papers aroon and inched Furnishings? She knew a man for fae the Somme, telling how proud he wis work there in the thirties. A lot of folk them forward wi a pen. She splayed her that. tae be fighting wi his pals. She couldnae from around here worked there then, still fingers tae steady them, wrote oot her Help? She’d only trust a woman for read the words withoot seeing him being do.’ name, Dolores Lombardi Deighan, and that. dragged away fae his ain front door intae ‘Uh-huh.’ slid the ice white sheets back. Papa had lost his trust. He’d been the polis van, neighbours pelting stones at ‘Did you know my father, Mrs She had tae know. ‘Yer Da moved a vanilla stick in that hospital bed. ‘Oh her ma’s windae, shouting, ‘Dirty Tally.’ Deighan?’ away fae the town efter the war, if ah Dolores, never the trustin those people. She rummaged in her bag for her ‘Ma father knew him.’ remember right?’ Despite a slight squeak, Preten you one of them, then…’ He compact, slipped it oot and pressed some ‘And your father is…?’ she managed tae speak civil, as if asking sliced his throat wi an imaginary blade. dark tan on her cheeks. Scots-Italian, ‘Dead. Gabriele Lombardi.’ efter an auld acquaintance. The pungency of onions drew her tae Papa said, acid and sassy rolled intae one. ‘I don’t recall…’ He seemed tae take it as such. ‘Aye, we stir the stew. As she clicked her handbag shut, the The clock ticked half a lifetime away. moved to Corby, for work. I came back Couldnae be a son of Archie Begg, door opened and she of the chicken ‘Are you alright, Mrs Deighan?’ here after I married.’ could it? No son of his would be so thighs said, ‘Mrs Deighan. Mr Begg will ‘Ma papa wis never the same efter ‘And yer Da?’ high-up in the cooncil. Begg standing see you now.’ a year detained in Barlinnie Gaol. An ‘Passed away, Mrs Deighan.’ He shook in the road, the smirk before he spat on ‘No, ah thought he wis the boss.’ enemy alien.’ The pressure of the day rose his head. ‘Mum left him when I was a Papa’s shoes. ‘He’s the Head of Department boy. He had problems… She rarely spoke

26 Northwords Now Issue 35, Spring 2018 of him. But in the end, it was the cancer in the lungs that took him.’ Dolly buffed her mother’s wedding Poetry ring wi her thumb. He continued, ‘She remarried. I didn’t get to see him after that.’ Aye, that wis a turn for the best. He shifted in his seat. ‘I didn’t get Kick-Ass Coatbridge Wrong is a difficult word* the chance to know him well. There Miriam Solhunt Irene Evans was always something… You said your father knew him, but did you know him, Late one afternoon of rain, the train Tricky to spell. (The silent letter yourself?’ slunk into so-called Sunnyside Left over from an older language.) She had her ain café. Bone china and stopped beside the engine works. teacups, macaroons, tablet, Edinburgh And the heavy certainty of it Rock, coffee beans spilling fae hessian I saw a rust-fretted skeleton. When set against right’s lightness. sacks, ice cream rippling through stemmed Sundry broken window panes attracted gloom. glasses. Oh, the tinkle of the door as Water slicked the platform. No-one came. Wrong road, wrong name, wrong man. clientele arrived, the tinkle of the till as Somewhere a bell tolling. clientele left. Soon she’d be at the counter It was a place of extreme vacancy in her black dress, the one presently in Dismal streets, once jam-packed, red-lit The Co-op windae, serving cones bright night and day - were grey. *Quotation from Neil Gunn’s ‘Young Art and Old wi hundreds-and-thousands. Hector’ He wis waiting. Down the track a signal switched to green. Maybe he had a right tae know. But it Congested clouds slid sideways wis hard tae live wi hate. Hard tae die wi and glorious sun blazed above the heart of Scotland. it. Och, he wis jist a boy asking efter his father. Whit tae say? Papa answered. ‘Dolores, mia bella. You might be half-Scot, but you no a clipe.’ n Alex Cluness

Born 7th February 1969. Died 20th January 2018 An appreciation

By Donald S Murray

Sometimes real friendships emerge from Alex’s company, hours when we struggled surreal times. to stifle schoolboy giggles before going onto more serious discussions. I was not Alex Cluness and I first spent time alone in experiencing this. There was the together when I was working in - what occasion at a conference when a Faroese was beyond doubt - the most bizarre Government representative announced school in which I was ever employed. that there were grants of money available Among its many absurdities were posters to both travel and study the dialect of illustrating the work of Edward de Bono that island group. These words provided blu-tacked to the corridor walls in the the cue for an earnest academic to leap Alex Cluness. Shetland News Learning Support Department. to his feet. Providing a roll-call of his qualifications, he declared himself the It was this I recall fulminating ideal person for the task. He possessed a about one night in his home - how degree in this field, a doctorate in another, I was struggling to take seriously the a Masters in some obscure but clearly ‘educational philosophy’ this involved, closely related discipline. A lifetime or so Taigh Chearsabhagh in North Uist. When same affection in others. This ability was how it was impossible to contemplate for later, his litany was interrupted by Alex he died just before his 49th birthday, he mirrored by the fondness of his many a moment a crackerjack theory in which leaping to his feet. was staying in Carnoustie, while working friends and the strength of love and people were instructed to put on (and - at a distance - for the Poetry Archive. affection of his family. remove) caps that illustrated their thinking ‘But I’ve got a suitcase,’ he announced. skills, whether these were imaginative, There were constants in all of this. The It is the last whom we think of today organisational or motivational. It was Yet Alex’s humour never quite first was in his encouragement of both - his father Sandy and mother Elizabeth; during one of these diatribes, that Alex concealed his sense of dedication. This was others and their talents, being blessed sister Honor; his wife Leona; his children, disappeared into the toilet. He emerged especially true of his passion for literature. with a real ability in both recognising this Sandy, Robert and Eva. While he is absent speaking a cod-Hebridean accent a few This came through in all his labours. In in people and enabling it to shine. He was from all our lives, they are the ones who moments later, a towel tightly wrapped his working life, he was employed firstly also a gifted writer; his poetry in short will miss him most. n around his head. as an English teacher in Anderson High collections such as ‘Mend’ and ‘Disguise’ School in Lerwick before moving on to is both individual and unusual, as Kevin ‘Do you not think this improves my become Literature Development Officer Macneil recognised in his selection of imaginative thinking, Tonald?’ for Shetland Arts. His time there was island verse, ‘These Islands We Sing’. followed by two spells at Literature Works Thirdly, and most importantly, he had This obituary by Donald S Murray There were many such moments in in South-West England and a period at a rare capacity to love and inspire that also appears online this spring in the Scottish Review

Northwords Now Issue 35, Spring 2018 27 REVIEWS

Miss Blaine’s Prefect and the Muriel Spark. The book is a carefully very credible, and this in turn helps the There’s also a deep sense of intimacy Golden Samovar and delightfully constructed romp in the reader believe in the pouch-pregnancy about Gina Wilson’s It Was And It Wasn’t, by Olga Wojtas tradition of Gogol and of Wodehouse. scenario. not just because of the subject matter – Contraband There is something of Russian surrealism, houses, holidays, music practice, family Review by Stephen Keeler of European hauteur, of English farce and I read this book quickly and with life in general (and in particular) – but of nose-tapping Scottish wryness in this pleasure. An easy read, which nevertheless also because Gina Wilson understands There is so much to pack into a first fine writing. And lest the casual reader of packs a punch. n the power of ‘ordinary’ language to talk sentence about this book: alright, a second reviews departs with the notion that Miss about extraordinary things. Her phrasing sentence – deep breath, here goes! Blaine’s Prefect and the Golden Samovar Turning Over In A Strange Bed caches the ear, feels at the same time From “Edinburgh, the capital city is little more that a clever, joyous and by James McGonigal (Mariscat) 2017 familiar and striking. She trusts us to of Scotland” where she “had the finest slightly wild intellectual indulgence, it It Was And It Wasn’t understand what goes on under the skin education in the world” at the Marcia should be noted that Wojtas’s feminist by Gina Wilson (Mariscat) 2017 of life and we trust her to tell us well. Blaine School for Girls, comes our credentials are strung through this Review by Chris Powici In ‘Treasure’ she talks about necessity and multi-lingual, Doc Marten’s-wearing adventure like fairy-lights. She never the impossibility of ever really letting go: heroine, Shona Aurora Fergusovna makes the mistake of bludgeoning her Poetry is a wonderfully mobile and ‘Funny how people/can’t quite bury a McMonagle, one-time class prefect readers but she never lets them forget, adaptable form of literature. It can make treasure. My brother/dug up our dead and former captain of the gold-medal- either. Another rare accomplishment itself at home in a YouTube video or a rabbit by torchlight/to see if it was safe./ winning Scottish country dancing team, in a book which is set to be the first, I prayer book, in a dusty anthology or It was and it wasn’t.’ whose recording of the Sibelius violin hope, of many more adventures of Shona the poster on a tube train, but, if these It’s a collection brimming with these concerto at the annual prize-giving “still Aurora Fergus(ovna?) McMonagle. n two collections are anything go by, the small moments of revelation but the raises considerable sums for the fund- pamphlet remains an especially fertile voice is always attentive, patient and raising appeal” but who is “equally adept The Growing Season habitat. Publishers (Mariscat), designer nuanced; never hectoring or didactic. at traditional music, particularly on the by Helen Sedgwick (Gerry Cambridge) and the poets Again and again, I had the privileged mouth organ”, and at left-, right- and Harvill Secker themselves have forged collections that sense of stumbling across a truth with the double-handed knife throwing, a skill Review by Cynthia Rogerson are both modest and, in their different poet. In ‘I Haven’t Seen This Boy Before’ taught her by her understanding father – ways, rather precious. Gina Wilson describes saying goodbye “I’m fine, it’s only a flesh wound” – and This is a literary science fiction novel, The back page note to James to a loved one being wheelchaired into who, by her own declaration and the set in a not too distant future. Sedgwick McGonigal’s Turning Over In a Strange Bed hospital: ‘He turns at the end and waves./ endorsement of the founder of her alma takes the essential battle between the explains that many of the poems in this He looks like somebody being wheeled/ mater, is the crème de la crème. genders, grabs it by the scruff of the neck collection were ‘written for translation up the gangway of a cruise-ship./I hope Breathless? You will be. For not only and gives it a good shake. Think of The into an abandoned language’ and that he has a nice time.’ It takes insight and is the pace of the outrageous narrative Handmaid’s Tale, without the violence. their tone derives from ‘translatorese’ – skill to talk so delicately, so truly, about unrelenting to the final paragraph but What results is a highly original and the marginalia one finds in anthologies loss and hope and the way some goodbyes the premise on which it is constructed credible scenario, in which pregnancy is of Scottish and Irish Gaelic poetry. It’s taste so unmistakeably of death. It also is enough to have the reader reaching for no longer a uniquely female occupation. and enlightening description. These takes a really sure feel for how the ‘small the bottle marked Smelling Salts of the Babies can be conceived the traditional poems explore themes of translation stuff’ of life – somebody waving – can, if Suspension of Disbelief. way or IVF, but now they can also be and transformation, of moving between we look and listen well enough, teach us And here is just the first of Wojtas’s carried in gestation by anyone at all. worlds, between modes of thinking and about the ‘big stuff’. It Was And It Wasn’t many accomplishments in this novel: Father, mother, friend, paid help. Science expression, as if language is not just a is fine poetry – articulate, generous and this reader at least, had no difficulty with has developed a synthetic womb, called vehicle for communication but also for open-hearted. n the concept of the sainted Marcia Blaine a pouch, which can be tailor-made to transportation. herself appearing, albeit briefly, as a Time suit the family taste and income. The The poems themselves have a Tree standing small Lord with a mission, should she choose foetus is transferred to the pouch soon winning clarity of image and expression. By Helen Allison to accept it, for our heroine, the erstwhile after conception, which is worn on the In ‘Amateurs’ travel is not so much a Clochoderick Press custodian of books, and confiscator of front of the body. In addition, when physical activity but an inescapable fact Review by Lesley Harrison every copy of That Book (The Prime of the parents want a night off, or every of life: ‘I sit still – life casts off from the Miss Jean Brodie, yes, that book) at the night off, they simply sling the pouch shore/and I’m still watching it grow When was the last time a book of poems Morningside Public Library. on to a mechanical pouch-babysitter till smaller like any other/amateur painter actually made you cry? Shona might have had a notion morning. No more stretch marks, no of the time of day.’ A sense of loss – of I read my review copy; then had to wait a about the possibility or otherwise of her morning sickness, no labour pains, no indeed abandonment – suffuses other week or so until I’d pulled myself together mission, if only she’d known quite what risky deliveries, no still births. No giving poems but this is often accompanied before going back to it to write this it was – the hooded apparition of Miss up careers while pregnant, no giving up by a welcome touch of humour. The review. Tree Standing Small is a collection Blaine was somewhat vague if at the same parenthood if you are gay or sterile. poet even addresses his shirt: ‘Old friend of poems that grew out of the deaths of time reassuring on the details. Sufficient who knows my body more intimately Helen Allison’s parents. It concerns not here to say that Shona, whom I began So, what’s the problem? (Of course than most/I will add no codicil asking just the actual matter of death, and the to visualise as a cross between an über- there’s a problem. Otherwise there would to be buried or burnt in you.’ (‘Shirt’). way your childhood rushes towards you smart Calamity Jane and a girl without a be no story.) But it’s a sense of adventure that lingers, when your parents start to die; but the dragon tattoo, with a bit of Jane Austen Some believe the pouch is yet another whether this involves a journey through unsettling way they start to relive parts chucked in there somewhere, finds herself male attempt to steal power from women. the Gobi – ‘Cart-wheels revolve with of their lives from before you were even transported unfussily (for this is nothing if Others believe it is fundamentally constellations/all night through.’ (‘The born. definitely not science fiction) to Imperial unethical. The plot thickens when a Desert Mothers) – or a more intimate But this is not a maudlin book. Russia in a year which she spends much much-anticipated delivery does not go journey into the heart and into language These things have presence; they are set of the novel trying to determine as she well. itself: in the very midst of life. Nor is this a careens off to save the wrong man. sentimentalised hagiography: the account This is a novel stuffed with the most Because Sedgwick is an insightful I’m told I have a tendency of her father proposing to her mother as implausible of plausible absurdities, of writer, there are other reasons to keep to avoid expressing my emotions she pees in a building site is hysterical - a wise-cracking dialogue and brisk idiom turning the pages. The main characters except in this abandoned language great story for a funeral. which themselves become if not entirely used to be romantic partners, and in Allison is a master of the metaphor sub-plots then very effective running gags. a way, their path back to each other is to me it is like entering that paints a thousand words. Her parents Wojtas offers the knowledgeable reader a the stronger plot. The tension between someone else’s cottage flitted north to Moray, and “Glasgow scintillating array of reference and cross- them (which proves they still love each to shelter from rain shrank to a buttonhole”. “The book of reference, and not only to the novels of other) is handled with subtlety. It seems grief turns its own pages”, she writes of

28 Northwords Now Issue 35, Spring 2018 REVIEWS her widowed mum, “her sleeves full of visits to more than 60 different islands, doves … a sea of blankets / waiting to from populated and easily accessed to the be crossed”. A tree, hacked down, leaves downright challenging to reach. Meetings “his songs hung in the throats of birds”. with contemporary islanders enliven the Her trick of replacing “it” with “he” text, which is realistic about present day or “she” signals to us how she sees the island politics and aspects of local scene, whole process as one with the life forces giving the book value as both a good of the world. read and for future reference. There’s a All through, nature gives us our fine range of photographs that should place in the universe. A barn owl hits please both island-dwellers and would- a motorcyclist, who then continues be travellers alike, and although I’d have its flight through the forest. Grief is preferred slightly fewer of these with the movement. When her parents come back author centre stage, perhaps that’s just me (as they do) in dreams, they are passing letting my island-goer’s envy show. n through on a day trip without her; or are black holes in the cosmos which are just In search of diamond clarity about to draw her in. All these themes are summed up beautifully in the first poem The Song Weigher The Gooseberry Tree, which I found I Ian Crockatt had to return to after reading the final Arc Publications, 2017 one, Last Light. The order of these poems A Troubling Woman recreates the trajectory of bereavement: A C Clarke the swirl of sense and memory and bare Oversteps Books, 2017 grief, and astonishment at the new - the Shaping the Water Path sea rain at Scourie, “the jetty’s red lifebelt Morelle Smith like lipstick / on a saint”. Diehard, 2017 All credit to Clochoderick Press A Burrell Tapestry for publishing these sad, poignant, Sally Evans uncomfortable and joyous poems. Diehard, 2017 … Whit Grace Special mention for readers with a Anne Shivas liking for Haiku and fluency in Gaelic Word Poetry, 2017 should be made of the recently published Rawahi collection Trìtheamhan by our Gaelic Briar Wood, Anahera Press, 2017 editor, Rody Gorman (Diehard, 2017). Waiting for Guzlowski This elegantly designed slim volume Martin Stepek and John Guzlowski should be easy to spot, thanks to the Fleming Publications, 2017. splash of Hokusai’s ‘The Great Wave at Poetry Review by Mandy Haggith Kanagawa’ on its cover. n What can a poem do that prose can’t? It’s Walking with Cattle: In search of an intriguing question and last season’s the last drovers of Uist in her lively account of the later years of if the meaning refers to something arcane crop of new poetry books demonstrates By Terry J Williams (Birlinn) 2017 droving. or finely nuanced, so much the better. some possible answers. The Whisky Dictionary In this, she describes how island cattle Couple those universals of dictionary By Iain Hector Ross (Sandstone Press) continued to be bought at small sales in pleasure with Uisge bheatha and the The old Nordic bards, or ‘skalds’, 2017 the Uists, walked to ferries and taken combination can be heady as a sherry- knew fine well that one thing they could The Hebrides onward to markets in Dingwall and casked malt. That’s how The Whisky do with poetry was to make music with By Paul Murton (Birlinn) 2017 Oban as late as the 1960s. Part of her Dictionary reads if you’ve an eye and ear words, in order to help legends and tales of Review by Kenny Taylor story is a personal narrative of journeys for sometimes obscure words and phrases valour to be held in memory. Ian Crockatt by campervan to old market stances and and a friendly acquaintance with the has translated the complete poems of Nowadays, it can be hard to imagine drove routes, taking with her as talisman cratur. tenth century Viking and skald, Egill how noisy some straths and glens would an old cattle shoe gifted by another A few examples to savour include Skallagrimsson, and, most impressively, have been a couple of centuries ago, as droving expert, Janey Clarke. Part uses ‘gysen’ (dried out, as in the wood of a yielded them up in The Song Weigher with drovers and their herds passed by. Cattle extensive quotes from interviews with barrel that is parched, warped and leaky); a transfixing display of sound patterning by the thousands, bellowing and snorting; former drovers and people still involved cauld straik (a dram of raw, cask-strength and word play. If this is how the poems herders’ dogs barking to chivvy any beasts in the sale and transport of cattle in the spirit); miroculous (very drunk); and sounded a millennium ago, no wonder that strayed off the track or paused too islands and mainland. ‘tosie’ (a cheery glow on the cheeks). they haven’t been forgotten. long to grab a mouthful of grass; shouts ‘Places and people lose their purpose With witty pencil sketches by Ben Averis, from the drovers and the click and spark and eventually disappear and are this is a book to keep and uncork from I’ll harness the sea-horse of iron-shod cattle hooves: those would forgotten,’ says Terry, ‘unless they are time to time for the pleasures of its words - harbour mead-dwarves word-hoard – all have been part of it. somehow recorded.’ and facts. with a tight rein, entertain Droving of cattle to ‘trysts’ – former This farmer’s daughter from Cumbria, … ears tuned to skald-speak. Hear! livestock markets in Perthshire and long resident in the Highlands, is to From Gigha to North Rona and St Stirlingshire and then onward as far south be congratulated on providing such a Kilda to Lismore, the Inner and Outer Reading this rhythmical (and as London - was an important part of the readable record of an aspect of Hebridean Hebrides hold Atlantic-washed riches by thoroughly blood-thirsty!) poetry, your Highland economy until expansion of history recalled by some still alive to share the score. Both as a former resident of ears are guaranteed to ‘tune to skald- railways and improved shipping made their stories. Mull and now a multi-seasoned presenter speak’. The poems of Egill cover a huge the activity shrink in the late 1800s … of TV documentaries, Paul Murton has range of topics – from battle-boasts to and fade to near extinction early in the If you love the roll and timbre of been lucky to visit more Hebrides than praise-poems, from love-lines to satire – 20th century. In common with many words, dictionaries can often beguile. most. and use many different forms. These are people, I’d assumed that was the end of The surface rhythm of syllables fascinates This book draws on Paul’s decades of all helpfully explained in an appendix, the story. Not so, as Terry Williams shows even before you read the definition. And experience to inform accounts of recent along with a fascinating glossary of the

Northwords Now Issue 35, Spring 2018 29 REVIEWS

‘kennings’ (metaphorical phrases), which also telling the life story of a woman always light and wonderings from wanderings. The so enrich the poems. The title itself is one misunderstood in her time, is Sally Evans’ final section, called ‘Liminal’, is a stand- of these: a kenning for the poet himself. It collection about Marion Burrell and At other times it reaches deep into the alone piece with which to face the edge comes from an elegy for his drowned son her family, who were responsible for the terrifying heart of the holocaust. of the world, pondering the big questions and deceased parents, in which he says: collection of art housed in Pollock Park that poetry is best at: ‘the song-weigher’s/ sorrow bound’: in Glasgow. A Burrell Tapestry begins with G: The bodies a helpful introduction and outline of in the ovens Is it what we feel the most, that’s the measure A wave cut the story which is then told through a of Auschwitz of reality? this cruel breach, sequence of poems. The book is in two are still burning Or is it how opaque or clear broke my father’s halves. The first works in chronological the inner vision and the senses are, family’s ranks; order from 1775, when Marion’s S: The hearts their diamond clarity? careless seas ancestor George Burrell sets out from of the bodies burned cancelled my sons, Northumberland, to 1993, when a new in Auschwitz Equal Night left this gaping lifeboat is launched in Govan harbour, are still beating Graham Fulton wave-gouged gap. paid for by Marion. In between, a family The ovens ashen-faced Salmon Poetry, 2017 fortune is made from shipping and in shame The Year of the Crab You can hear the sea rocking the poet’s mostly spent by Marion’s father William Gordon Meade boat throughout this book. It certainly Burrell, who clearly loved beautiful A role that poetry can play much Cultured Llama, 2017 floated mine. things, particularly tapestries, more than better than prose is to revel in the Review by KT the people who shared his life. expansive possibilities of language, Another fascinating use of poetry to playing with old or obscure words or We musn’t ever talk about it, cast a light into the depths of history “Burrell” itself may mean “red cloth” phrases and thereby keeping them in Or write about it, or face up to it. is achieved by A C Clarke in her and gorgeous crimsons, gold and blacks, currency. In our globalised world, it can The king of taboo, don’t mention that word. mesmerising collection, A Troubling fiery titans, blues and silver, also act as a linguistic exchange, and two Woman, which relates the life and death flaming russets, browns and green, new collections bring to bear North So writes Graham Fulton in D***h, of a fourteenth century mystic called blood-reds, greys and cream – American and Antipodean perspectives, part of a remarkable sequence of poems Margery Kempe. The poems alternate of all the items I’ve acquired blending their lexicons with words from where he faces the taboo through the between four different points of view: my first preference is the tapestries. Scottish languages. Whit Grace, by Anne terminal illness and death of his mother, Margery herself, a trusting priest called Shivas, weaves (well-glossed) Doric Jessie. There’s an unflinching honesty Robert Spryngolde who is her confessor, The second part of the collection is a into musings from Israel and the USA, in the way he documents the everyday a much less sympathetic cleric who long poem sequence, ‘A Marion Burrell including translations into the east coast details of her decline, each poem inching acts as a scribe for her story, and finally Sampler’, which embroiders the life of dialect of poets as diverse as Galway towards and then beyond the inevitable. a modern woman called ‘A’ who is on William’s daughter through a thwarted Kinnell and Yehuda Amichai. She plays The effect is both unsettling and very her own spiritual journey from codified marriage, estrangement from family and cheerfully with words and forms, finding moving, as page by page, a feeling of religion to atheism. The distance between reinvention of a self. Marion Burrell language everywhere: warmth grows; a sense of love, rendered the worlds and beliefs of these four was clearly more than just the beautiful through small details, such as the way he poetic voices gives us space to reflect thing her father wished her to be, and the field a slate of runes spoon-feeds her: on questions thrown up by the life- she comes to life in these poems. It’s an written on the run – story of Margery and by the quotations intriguing story, deftly told. deer, snowshoe rabbit This is all I can do for you. from historical texts used as epigraphs coyote, fox, Facing death with half-price desserts, throughout the book. What is faith? Is One of the wonderful things about parallel tracks – a Kleenex bib to catch all the drips. love a spiritual force? How can we see poems is that they don’t need length for hieroglyphs This is what you did for me. beyond our culturally-defined limits? impact. This is perfectly shown by Waiting of faa and faar we are. Hazy time-filled years, a breath. Who should be trusted as authoritative? for Guzlowski, jointly authored by Martin It all comes back to where it begins. These are deep philosophical and Stepek, a Polish-Scots poet, and John Briar Wood, from New Zealand, has psychological questions, as relevant today Guzlowski, who is Polish-American. found the language that interests her Gordon Meade’s collection also as in the fourteenth century, and raised They share an interest in Buddhist further west in Britain, and blends Gaelic tackles the taboo, but more through with subtlety and grace by A C Clarke’s thought and both have harrowing family and Cornish with Maori in Rawahi, another uncomfortable word, describing finely-worked poetry: ‘Sometimes a brain histories of survival against the odds in sadly with no glossary. Perhaps the poet’s feelings and events in a year following flash lights up the shadowed room / in concentration camps during the horrors intention is that we should simply let his diagnosis with cancer. Some poems which our choices stumble.’ of war in Poland in the last century. ourselves be washed by the music of the look at aspects of the coastal scene in They have explored this shared heritage words, of which there is plenty: Fife – a dead seal washed up on rocks, a As well as being thoroughly holy, through a trans-Atlantic exchange of pair of woodpeckers across the park. But Margery is delightfully sensual, allowing short poems on Twitter. The social media On the border between these take their resonance, in part, from plenty of scope for vivid, even erotic, platform requires each message, or tweet, birch and larch – the context of the illness: the seal, for writing. Here is Margery on dress. to be limited in size, which lends itself to lifecraft light example, may be headless, but the poet the highly compressed form of haiku or isn’t quite sure. How much I loved tanka. This collection is the collaborative craobh-theaghlaich. Most are more direct meditations on result of that exchange. Sometimes it has A sag of wood his state of mind at different times through the slub of wool thick-woven, the slink of silk, the tone of a stylised debate between in each cremation stack. treatment, including his frustrations, fears brocades stiff with gilt thread. Look at me Buddhist monks, exploring zen paradoxes and delight in small pleasures, such as cried the slashes in my cloak, the lining and aphorisms: So the lifeboat floats biting into a fresh apricot. Even irritation on wordflows at what the cancer has brought him holds peeping through like the scarlet mouth G (Guzlowski): Monk Ikkyu stands alone skittering skiff scud a wider energy: of a wound… before the forest It’s dark but that doesn’t frighten him scooting skathweyth How long before I leave behind It’s impossible to overpraise this Everything is dark at night skewed into the tide the saline drips and Fybogel to replace them multi-voiced, insightful and readable and it’s always night riding and gliding… with the sounds of breaking waves and thunder? book. If only all history books were so compelling. S (Stepek): Monk Ikkyu sits still in the forest There’s less wordplay in Morelle By looking death in the eye and not It’s light but that doesn’t faze him Smith’s book, Shaping the Water Path, but blinking, the work of both these poets Another history-poetry book, Everything is made of light plenty of reflections on land and time, enriches life. n

30 Northwords Now Issue 35, Spring 2018 CONTRIBUTORS’ BIOGRAPHIES

Liam Murray Bell lives in Stirling Christine Grant lives in the West has published five collections of Hannah Nicholson is from Stewart Sanderson is a Ian Tallach was raised in and teaches at the university. He of Scotland with her family. She has poetry, including the epic The Brae in Shetland, and graduated poet from Glasgow. A second Taiwan and Hong Kong, worked is author of two novels: So It recently finished a novel about two Journey to Mount Kailash in 2010. from the University of Aberdeen pamphlet is forthcoming from in Botswana and retired from Is (2012) and The Busker (2014). islanders who meet in London. with an MLitt with Distinction Tapsalteerie later in 2018. paediatrics with progressive M.S. Ingrid Leonard comes from in Creative Writing in 2017. He now lives in Glenurquhart David Carson is enjoying Mandy Haggith writes from a Orkney, which inspires much of Donald Goodbrand Saunders has with his wife, daughter and son. retirement after teaching in Glasgow, croft in Assynt and teaches at the her work. She recently graduated Sue Pepper lives in Edinburgh been writing poems, in English and Perth and Forfar. He is a member University of the Highlands and from Newcastle University with and has written poetry over a Scots, for almost half a century. He Vawdrey Taylor is an artist and of Nethergate Writers Dundee. Islands. Her latest novel is The Walrus an MA in Writing Poetry. long lifetime of teaching and lives in Gartmore, in the Trossachs. writer from the Black Isle with an Mutterer. www.mandyhaggith.net travel. Curly Snake published interest in etching and illustration. Sara Clark is an award-winning Anna Levin is a writer and some of her work in 2015. Finola Scott’s work is widely poet and novelist from the Scottish Selena Hardisty was raised editor specialising in wildlife published in zines, mags Maggie Wallis has lived in Borders. She is currently an editor of in North London, has visited journalism. She is currently writing Chris Powici is a former editor of & anthologies. A seasoned the Highlands for twenty years. the literary magazine The Eildon Tree. North Scotland over many a book Incandescent, to be published Northwords Now who teaches English performance poet, she is proud She is interested in the natural years and absorbed its traditions. by Saraband in 2019. www. and Creative Writing and whose to be a slam-winning granny. world and how she interacts Seth Crook lives on Mull, loves She is a keen beachcomber. annalevinwriting.co.uk collection The Weight of Light is with it, especially how it informs puffins and has taught philosophy published by Red Squirrel Press. Hamish Scott’s fourth, and her way of living within it. at various universities. His poems Lydia Harris has made her home Aoife Lyall Shortlisted twice for latest, poetry collection is Tuk- have recently appeared in The in the Orkney island of Westray. In the Hennessy New Writers Award, Marka Rifat is a member of tuks, published under the Gary Williamson is a Highland- Rialto, Magma, Envoi, The Interpreter’s 2017 she held a Scottish Book Trust Lyall’s work has appeared in Poetry Mearns Writers who recently began Laverock’s Nest Press imprint. based landscape and sports House, Causeway, Poetry Scotland. New Writers’ Award for poetry. Ireland Review, The Stinging Fly and writing poetry, short stories, and photographer who uses his others. She lives in Inverness. plays, after careers in journalism James Sinclair’s work has paramotor (a powered paraglider) Maureen Cullen writes poetry Lesley Harrison’s new pamphlet and corporate communications. featured in several literary to access unique positions to and short fiction and lives in Blue Pearl was published by Lucy MacRae lectures in magazines and anthologies. He is show the beauty of the area Argyll and Bute. Her work has New Directions in 2017. A Scottish Ethnology at Edinburgh David James Ross lives in Culloden a committee member of the New www.garywilliamson.co.uk been published in a variety of collection is due out this year. University. She is writing a novel Moor, Inverness and has published Shetlander and Shetland Forwards. magazines and anthologies. called Nettles which features four poetry collections. He divides Carolyn Yates is a poet and Paula Jennings’ most recent folklore collectors, replica swords his time between music performance, Kenneth Steven is now living playwright inspired by feminism Molly Donachie won the poetry collection is Under a Spell and a missing grandmother. poetry and stand-up comedy. in Argyll. His latest sequence of and science. She lives in Dumfries Sentinel Publications Poetry Book Place, published by HappenStance. poems is Deirdre of the Sorrows and Galloway and runs a Competition 2017 and will shortly She facilitates poetry writing Beth McDonough is published in Jane Picton Smith is a mum of from Birlinn; his novel 2020 was youth theatre in Stranraer. be publishing her first collection. workshops in Fife and Edinburgh. Agenda, Causeway and elsewhere, her ‘two wonderful girls’. She was published last year by Saraband. reviews in DURA. In Handfast (with longlisted in the 2018 National Grahaeme Barrasford Young Irene Evans lives and writes Stephen Keeler is a poet who Ruth Aylett) her poems explore Poetry Competition and has a PhD Michael Stephenson Michael’s Widely published, Grahaeme in Muthill, Perthshire. lives and teaches creative writing familial experience of autism. in Contemporary Scottish Poetry first pamphlet is forthcoming from Barrasford Young’s most in Ullapool. He received a Scottish Mariscat in 2019. Recent poems recent collection is Routes of Gerrie Fellows, born in New Book Trust New Writing Award Donald S Murray is from Ness in Vance Roberts After twenty are in The Herald, Glasgow Review uncertainty (Original Plus). Zealand, has lived and worked in 2015. His debut chapbook the Isle of Lewis and now lives in years of teaching, Skye-based of Books and 404 ink’s F Word. in Scotland for thirty years, as a collection, While You Were Away, Shetland. His latest book The Dark Vance now spends his time silently John Young recently retired from creative writing tutor, writer- is published by Maquette Press. Stuff, Stories from the Peatlands was singing, walking and playing various Richard W. Strachan lives a career in education. He writes in-residence and most recently published by Bloomsbury this year. whistles in remote locations. in Edinburgh. He won a New short pieces as a preferred means as a mentor to new poets. Bridget Khursheed is a poet and Writer’s Award from the of exploring societal issues. geek based in the Borders and a R M Murray is from Lewis. A Cynthia Rogerson’s latest novel Scottish Book Trust in 2012. Dogo Barry Graham is a Scottish Book Trust New Writers Gaelic speaker, he is a graduate of Wait for Me Jack (written under novelist, poet, journalist and Award recipient @khursheb Glasgow School of Art and Founding the pseudonym Addison Jones) Miriam Sulhunt lives in Edinburgh Zen Buddhist monk. After 22 Director and Head of Visual Arts & is published by Sandstone. and writes in both English and Scots. years in the US, he recently Robert Leach is a theatre Literature at An Lanntair, Stornoway. Her poetry and haiku have been returned to his native Glasgow. director, academic and writer. He published in various magazines. Where to find a FREE Northwords Now Northwords thanks all the locations below for their support in distributing Northwords Now. Special thanks go to all the librarians who put us on display.

Inverness History Links, Dornoch Blackwell’s, Old Aberdeen, Aberdeen Out of the Blue, 36 Dalmeny St, Edinburgh Waterstones, 69 Eastgate Centre Dornoch T.I.C Aberdeen City Libraries Edinburgh Bookshop, 219 Bruntsfield Pl Eden Court Theatre, Bishop’s Road Neil Gunn Centre, Dunbeath Heritage Centre Woodend Barn, Burn o’Bennie, Banchory Golden Hare Books, 68 St Stephen St., Stockbridge Inverness College UHI The Pier, Lairg Yeadons of Banchory, 20 Dee St, Banchory Leakeys Bookshop, Greyfriars Hall, Church St Abriachan Forest Trust Aberdeenshire Libraries Glasgow Moniack Mhor Writing Centre, 4 Teaverran, Kiltarlity Torridon Visitor Centre Hammerton Store, 336 Gt Western Rd, Aberdeen Centre for Contemporary Arts, 350 Sauchiehall Street Highland Wholefoods, Unit 6, 13 Harbour Road Loch Ness Clayworks and Cafe, Drumnadrochit Spindrift Studio, The Marina, Banff Òran Mòr, 731 Gt. Western Road Museum & Art Gallery, Castle Wynd Tain Service Point Better Read Books, Ellon The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, 100 Renfrew St. Waterstone’s, 69 Eastgate Centre The Hub, Muir of Ord Banff Castle and Community Arts Centre The Piping Centre, 30 McPhater Street HICA, Dalcrombie, Loch Ruthven, by Dores Loch Torridon Community Centre Orbs Bookshop, 33A Deveron St, Huntly Caledonia Books, 483 Gt Western Road Visit Scotland, Castle Wynd The Bookmark, Grantown on Spey Tchai Ovna Teahouses, 42 Otago Lane Bogbain Farm, Drumossie, Inverness The Highland Bookshop, 60 High St, Fort William South Mono, King’s Court, 10 King Street Simpsons Garden Centre, Inverness Stirling Libraries Gallery of Modern Art, Royal Exchange Square. Hootananny, Church St Islands, West & North Midlothian and East Lothian Libraries Tell it Slant, 134 Renfrew St Culloden Battlefield Visitor Centre, Inverness Isle of Eigg Craftshop, Isle of Eigg Kings Bookshop, Callander, 91 Main St, Callander WASPS Studio, The Briggait, 141 The Bridge Gate Raigmore Hospital, Inverness Colonsay Bookshop, Isle of Colonsay Dundee Contemporary Arts, 52 Nethergate, Dundee Oxfam Books, 330 Byres Rd Caledonian MacBrayne Ferry Terminals Clementine, Gray Street, Broughty Ferry An Leanag, 22 Mansefield St, Glasgow Highlands (plus Moray and Perthshire) Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, Slèite, Isle of Skye Jessie’s Kitchen, Albert Street, Broughty Ferry Highland Libraries Blue Shed Cafe,Torrin, Isle of Skye Broughty Ferry Library, Queen St, Broughty Ferry The Community Centre, Tulloch St, Dingwall. Cafe Arriba, Portree, Isle of Skye The Byre Theatre, St Andrews Picaresque Books, High St, Dingwall MacIntosh’s Bookshop, Portree, Isle of Skye J & G Innes Bookshop, St. Andrews Kilmorack Gallery, by Beauly Carmina Gadelica, Portree, Isle of Skye The Forest Bookstore, 26 Market Pl, Selkirk Timespan, Dunrobin Street, Helmsdale An Buth Beag, Skeabost, Isle of Skye Kesley’s Bookshop, 29 Market St, Haddington, Dornoch Bookshop, High St, Dornoch Mor Books, Struan, Isle of Skye East Lothian The Nairn Bookshop, 94 High St, Nairn Ceol na Mara, Dunvegan, Isle of Skye Prestongrange Museum, Morrison’s Haven, Prestonpans Moray Libraries An Crubh, Camuscross, Isle of Skye Montrose Library, 214 High St, Montrose, Angus The Ceilidh Place, 14 West Argyll St, Ullapool Staffin Stores, Isle of Skye Su Casa, Lorne Arcade,115 High St, Ayr Ullapool Bookshop, Quay St., Ullapool Ravenspoint, Kershader, Lochs, Isle of Lewis Moffat Bookshop, 5 Well St, Moffat Storehouse of Foulis, Foulis Ferry An Lanntair, Kenneth St, Stornoway Giraffe Cafe, 51 South St, Perth Achins Bookshop, Inverkirkaig, Lochinver Hebridean Jewellery & Bookshop, 63 Cromwell St, Ewart Library, Dumfries Caithness Horizons, Old Town Hall, High St, Thurso Stornoway The Tolbooth and Albert Halls, Stirling VisitScotland, High St, Aviemore Taigh Chearsabagh, North Uist Birnam Arts Centre Shetland Arts Trust, Mareel, Lerwick Edinburgh Anderson Restaurant, Union St, Fortrose Shetland and Orkney Libraries John Muir Trust, Station Road, Pitlochry The Fruitmarket Gallery, 45 Market Street Western Isles libraries Blackwells Bookshop, 53-9 South Bridge The Bakehouse, Findhorn (village) Carraig Mhor, Isle of Islay The Blue Cafe, Findhorn Foundation Scottish Poetry Library, 5 Crichtons Close An Buth Bheag, Ferry Rd, Kyle Elephant House Café, 21 George IV Bridge Moray Arts Centre, Findhorn Foundation An Tobar, Tobermory, Mull Sutor Creek, Bank St, Cromarty The Village, 16 S. Fort Street Filmhouse, 88 Lothian Road Cromarty Arts, Church St, Cromarty Aberdeenshire Spa Pavilion, Strathpeffer MacNaughtons Bookshop, 3-3a Haddington Place Books & Beans, 12 Belmont St, Aberdeen St Margaret’s House, 151 London Road Invitation to readers to suggest additional locations - Waterstone’s, Elgin Lemon Tree, 5 West North St, Aberdeen contact [email protected]. We will also send Yeadons of Elgin Summerhall, 1 Summerhall Newton Dee Café, Newton Dee Village, Bieldside, packs of 12 or 25 or 50 to individuals who are keen to The Loft Bistro and Venue, E.Grange Farm Amnesty Bookshop, 12 Roseneath St, Marchmont Aberdeen Word Power, 4-5 Nicolson St distribute locally.

Northwords Now Issue 35, Spring 2018 31 Welcome to our New Board Members

orthwords Now is helped by Lesley Harrison lives on the Angus the expertise of its board, which coast. In her poetry and prose she explores Nincludes people with a wide what she describes as our instinctive range of experience in different kinds of responses to our ‘home’ environment – writing and of Scottish culture, not least physical, material, linguistic, psychological. the arts community in the Highlands and One of Lesley’s recent projects was to Islands. So it’s great to be able to welcome work with scientists and visual artists to two new members, who joined in the last produce a multimedia ‘deep map’ of the few months. Icelandic fishing village of Skagaströnd. Her most recent pamphlet is Blue Pearl Peter Whiteley is a retired secondary (New Directions, 2017) and a collection school teacher who was born in Yorkshire, will be published later this year. moved to Glasgow in 1963 and to the Highlands in 1985. He has written Peter and Lesley join Valerie Beattie, numerous plays for both adult and youth Anne Macleod and Kristin Pedroja, theatre groups and had plays performed under the able chairmanship of Adrian by both professional and community Clark (who has also worked wonders theatre companies. Peter has also had of distribution magic in recent years to poetry published in various publications ensure that the magazine can be found and anthologies, including the very first in outlets from the Borders and south to Lesley Harrison Peter Whiteley edition of Northwords. He now teaches a Shetland and the Hebrides). n weekly Creative Writing course at Eden Court Theatre, Inverness.

Submissions for Northwords the magazine Now The best way to submit work for consideration (In Gaelic, English, Scots and any local variants) is online through the website at www.northwordsnow.co.uk. Send the file as Seeks an MSWord document (please don’t send it as a .pdf). The next issue is planned for September 2018. The deadline for submissions is 27th July 2018. You will hear about your submission by 30th September 2018. Person or Persons

Keep in touch to undertake the effective distribution of Northwords Now throughout Scotland (9,500 copies to over 250 locations, twice a year) also to seek advertising and to pay (online) contributors and With occasional news about Northwords Now and suppliers and keep the books. other aspects of the literary scene in the north through following our Facebook page Requirements include: loading and dry storage space, large table, www.facebook.com/NorthwordsNow/ own transport, computer, availability especially end March to mid April, end September to mid October.

Position available on an annual basis for a modest fee, subject to funding.

For information please contact: [email protected] Informal chat 01349 830517

32 Northwords Now Issue 35, Spring 2018