Mairi’s Wedding By Andrew Hendry A Novel by Peter Stickland Foreword by Marie-Anne Mancio This novel is a tribute to Neil Munro The author has used numerous quotations from the novels and stories of Neil Munro in this modern day romance and much of the language is inspired by Munro’s delightful lyricism. This novel is a tribute to Neil Munro The author has used numerous quotations from the novels and stories of Neil Munro in this modern day romance and much of the language is inspired by Munro’s delightful lyricism. Published in Great Britain, 2009 by 77 books 69 Osbaldeston Road, London N16 7DL www.77books.co.uk Copyright © Peter Stickland 2009 The author has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988 to be identified as the author of this work. ISBN 978-0-9560121-3-5 This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. The front cover painting is by Louise Blair. Book design and layout by Dennis Mariner. 4 For Mairi, Don, Ria, Louise and Cordelia ‘From the outset it was apparent that someone had played a colossal trick on something. The switches had been tripped, as it were; the entire world or one’s limited but accurate idea of it was bathed in glowing love, of a sort that need never have come into being but was now indispensable as air is to living creatures.’ John Ashbery, from Three Poems 5 A Note from Ronnie Renton, Acknowledgements chairman of the Neil Munro Society. To have had the support of Marie-Anne Mancio during the writing of this novel was a luxury. A perfect indication of the warmth and intelligence of her contribution can be gleaned from the insights Lesley Lendrum, the granddaughter and biographer she offers in her foreword. I am deeply indebted to of Neil Munro, and The Neil Munro Society are Clare Carolan for her enthusiastic response to the delighted that the writings of Neil Munro have novel and for her editorial advice. Her contribution been the inspiration for Mairi’s Wedding By to many aspects of its fine tuning both in terms Andrew Hendry. The use of such a substantial of detail and content kept the spirit of it alive to amount of quotation from Neil Munro is in itself a the end. I am also indebted to Ronnie Renton for tribute to him and a clear indication of the author’s discussing this book with the family of Neil Munro admiration of his work. and members of the Neil Munro Society and for his numerous suggestions that were taken up during Mairi’s Wedding, written in a modern and exper- the final editing process. imental manner, is unusual in the Scottish literary tradition, but it is greatly welcomed and we hope My thanks are also due to Dennis Mariner, whose it will bring Neil Munro to a totally different and commitment to the design and layout was, as wider readership. always, generous; to Julian Maynard Smith, whose company is always a pleasure; to Joy Flanagan who expressed her delight in these pages so poignantly; to Andrea Parry for proof-reading; to Georgia Mancio who inspired my words about Annie the jazz singer; to Guillermo Rozenthuler who has inspired my listening and to Martin Green, who by chance, one fine evening, leaped to his library shelves and handed me a novel by Neil Munro. 6 A Note from Ronnie Renton, Acknowledgements chairman of the Neil Munro Society. To have had the support of Marie-Anne Mancio during the writing of this novel was a luxury. A perfect indication of the warmth and intelligence of her contribution can be gleaned from the insights Lesley Lendrum, the granddaughter and biographer she offers in her foreword. I am deeply indebted to of Neil Munro, and The Neil Munro Society are Clare Carolan for her enthusiastic response to the delighted that the writings of Neil Munro have novel and for her editorial advice. Her contribution been the inspiration for Mairi’s Wedding By to many aspects of its fine tuning both in terms Andrew Hendry. The use of such a substantial of detail and content kept the spirit of it alive to amount of quotation from Neil Munro is in itself a the end. I am also indebted to Ronnie Renton for tribute to him and a clear indication of the author’s discussing this book with the family of Neil Munro admiration of his work. and members of the Neil Munro Society and for his numerous suggestions that were taken up during Mairi’s Wedding, written in a modern and exper- the final editing process. imental manner, is unusual in the Scottish literary tradition, but it is greatly welcomed and we hope My thanks are also due to Dennis Mariner, whose it will bring Neil Munro to a totally different and commitment to the design and layout was, as wider readership. always, generous; to Julian Maynard Smith, whose company is always a pleasure; to Joy Flanagan who expressed her delight in these pages so poignantly; to Andrea Parry for proof-reading; to Georgia Mancio who inspired my words about Annie the jazz singer; to Guillermo Rozenthuler who has inspired my listening and to Martin Green, who by chance, one fine evening, leaped to his library shelves and handed me a novel by Neil Munro. 7 8 Contents Part 1 Part 2 The Gathering The Wedding 1 Finlay 100 Intrigue And Sabotage 5 Cordelia 103 A Sudden Connection 9 Esther 106 The First Day Of Spring 13 Clyde 109 As The Moon Throws The Clouds Apart 17 Mairi 112 A Voyage Of Ecstasy 21 Andrew 115 Awakened By Music 25 Alastair 118 Too Much To Lose 29 Christine 121 A Salve For A Sore Heart 33 Ethan 124 In A Flame Of Colour 37 Donald 127 The Soaring Lark 41 Aileen 130 Running On Fairy Isles 45 Murdo 133 Where Comes No Grief Or Ageing 49 James 53 Duncan 136 References to the Novels of Neil Munro 57 Cathy 61 Craig 65 Mary 69 Neil 73 Annie 77 Eilidh 81 Sebastian 85 Flora 89 Emile 93 Alban i ii Foreword Marie-Anne Mancio In this foreword I refer to the novel’s title as Mairi’s Wedding, its title in the narrative, rather than the full published title, Mairi’s Wedding By Andrew Hendry. The reason for this will become clear. A foreword to Mairi’s Wedding already exists elsewhere in this book but you’ll have to wait until you reach page sixty-five to read it. In a strategy typical of Peter Stickland’s playful attention to meta-fiction, Mary, one of the characters, is writing it for a book that is to be a wedding gift to Mairi. In the narrative, the novel is the creation of three authors; Andrew the intended, Mairi’s brother-in-law Finlay, and Ethan, a guest who has travelled to the Scottish Highlands for the event. It is they who decide the author should be called ‘Andrew Hendry’ (a marriage of bride and groom’s names) ‘so that no known person can be credited with writing it’. The other ‘unofficial’ foreword to Mairi’s Wedding might be the entire output of one of Scotland’s most loved authors, Neil Munro, whose words and spirit infuse both the real and the fictional novels presented here. Munro is mentioned early on as Mairi lends Gilian The Dreamer to her friend, Esther as the best introduction she has to the Scottish landscape. Enchanted, Esther then passes the iii novel to her twin brother Ethan. Both landscapes – the fictive and the real – soon become conflated. There’s even a character called Clyde (a reference perhaps to the subject of Munro’s travelogue The Clyde, River And Firth) whose erroneous map-reading takes him to Dunderawe Castle, Loch Fyne, the setting of Munro’s third novel Doom Castle. Munro was born in nearby Inverary in 1863 and though his paternity was never officially declared, local lore says he was related to the Duke of Argyll. His mother Ann was a kitchen maid at the Duke’s castle in Inverary and she took him to live with his maternal grandmother on a farm in Glen Aray. He had local schooling until the age of thirteen so never attended university; his knowledge of Gaelic derived from his family and he was self-taught in Latin after a stint as a clerk in a lawyer’s office. Just before he turned eighteen he moved to Glasgow to find employment and worked as a journalist for various papers including The Glasgow News, The Falkirk Herald and as chief reporter at The Glasgow Evening News. He wrote his popular, humorous stories about Para Handy, Master Mariner of the puffer Vital Spark under the pseudonym of Hugh Foulis in order to separate them from what he thought of as his ‘serious’ fiction. The latter included nine, primarily historical, novels one of which was unfinished, beginning in 1898 with John Splendid serialised in Blackwood’s Magazine. Set in 1645, the story examines the effect of social turmoil on the Highland psyche. His last, highly accomplished novel The New Road (1914) displays his ambivalence towards the increasing changes iv in Highland life.