An Eclectic Circus
Chapter 42
Look at that sky, life’s begun.
Nights are warm and the days are young
“You have a coffee with a back-packer at a railway station in Milan. Three months later, they turn up at your flat. Do you invite them in?”
We’re sat on the rocks under an ugly old brick construction at the edge of Cramond Island. Nessie had the idea to come over to celebrate the end of the exams, so we all did. Nessie, Kat, Fi, Cat, Pall, Gav, and me. Of course, it was just another day for me, not having exams, but they invited me and it seemed like a good idea.
So we all loaded onto the bus on the Mound and headed out. Not the bus. A bus. One of the many provided for us by the kindly ones at Lothian Region Transport. The 41. Probably not the 41. A 41. One of the handful of 41s they had running that route.
Over Princes Street, along George St, across Charlotte Square and up Queensferry over the river. Past all the tourist places. We were like kids on a school trip. Excited and fidgeting on our seats. Telling each other what we could see. At least most of us were. Pall and Gav were a little more subdued. Like prefects. Then, once you get past the fancy old school, we’re all subdued cos the buildings start to get dull. Ordinary houses. Miles and miles of them. I came this way once or twice when I went out running. I remember it being deadly dull from the bus and deadly dull on foot.
We turn right and head out into the country. Looks like fields or woods on either side. Pall asks Nessie if she’s sure this is the right way. Of course it is. We’re on the bus. A bus. With Cramond written on the front of it. Before Nessie answers, we can see we’re back in more dull housing. The bus stops and we’ve to get off and walk the rest of the way. Down a narrow, tree lined road, past a church, and then, a glimpse of the Firth, and we’re there. An empty, windswept car park.
Pall and Gav don’t look impressed. Fi and Cat don’t look much happier. It’s cold. More April than June. It’s dull. What’s not to like? You can walk along the river to the left, walk along the shore to the right, or walk along the causeway in front of you. Across the narrow path to the island. That’s where Nessie is heading with Kat, so the rest of us follow, bunched together, along the path headed out to the island, our route guarded by a hundred or more silent upright brutish concrete watchmen. Kat counted them, so you should ask her exactly how many there were. Guardians of a loveless isle, solemn, perverse serenity.
We scramble round the island. There’s a bit of a beach to the left; a few tracks across the grass, a wood in the middle; and old, beaten up buildings at each end: concrete boxes, unused stores and stuff from the last war.
Most of us soon end up next to the brick building by the causeway, seeking shelter. Nessie and Kat are off exploring. You’d expect that of Nessie, but I’m surprised Kat’s still going. She wasn’t really dressed for a scramble over rough ground today – a pair of oxford bags and a blazer. At least she had sensible shoes on, though.
“So, this backpacker turns up. You’d spent twenty minutes with them at the station the previous summer. What do you do?”
Wee Fi is playing this game, posing hypothetical questions to test the strength of our characters. Pete had had this cutting from a newspaper ages back. You can probably guess which paper. It was “How Scottish are you?” One of those that just had questions that you got points for. Stupid questions.
“Do you have ginger hair?” Score one point.
“Do you show off your bare knees in public?” Score one point.
“Do you play golf?” Score one point
“Do you play the bagpipes?” Score one point
Add up your points. If you score more than five; you are Scottish. That sort of tosh.
Pete had tried to wind Fi and Cat up with it, but it didn’t work. It just made him look foolish. And now Fi was doing something similar. Probably as a joke on Pete that we could all get. Except Pete. He wouldn’t know about it. He wasn’t invited that day.
“You walk past St Giles’ Cathedral and notice cobbles on the ground in the shape of a heart. What do you do?”
No-one gets any points here. Not even Gav is going to gob in public.
“You’re late for a gig at the Odeon. Trouble is, you haven’t eaten all day. The main act is on stage in five minutes. What do you grab at the carry out? Sausage and chips or Irn Bru and Spud-u-like?”
That divides us neatly: me and Pall are having the Brattisani sausage and Gav is going for Spud-u-like, although he asks why whisky and haggis is not an option. And he isn’t being sarcastic. Cat and Fi were also big on haggis. They made me haggis one evening and very tasty it was too. They got it from this place just round the corner from them on Bruntsfield Place1.
“So, this backpacker in Milan. You met them at the station. You shared a coffee with them, that’s all. Do you let them stay?”
Gav: I’d invite him in.
Pall: no, I’d send them over to Minto Street or some other place for bed and breakfast.
Me: I’d let ‘em stay over. That is presumably why I gave them my address in the first place.
Fi says: “Well done, the Ned! We’ll make a Scotsman of you yet.”
Me: “It’s the noble tradition of hospitality…”
So Gav asks: “But seriously, does this mean that you can become Scottish just by acting that way?” He’s not going to let just any southron in so easily. “Are you saying that being born in Scotland is not the main factor. Is nationality just a social construct?”
Fi’s definition is wider. “Are you suggesting you have to be born in Scotland?” she asks. “It’s not a question of geography. It’s not just about where you were born.”
“Yeah,” I say. “Look at Joe Baker. He’s Scottish through and through. And it isn’t a question of inheritance, either. No-one has Scottish genes or English genes.”
Fi says: “It’s like Cat says: if nationality is all about the stories we tell, then those who believe the relevant stories can qualify.”
Cat doesn’t say anything, just listens and smiles.
Fi continues: “If you feel more in line with the atmosphere, the culture, the tradition up here, then why not? Your being Scottish does not impact my being Scottish. If you align with my stories, you reinforce my Scottishness, not diminish it. We’ve been extending our noble tradition of hospitality to folk for years. We’ll continue to welcome people as long as there is a Scottish nation. From all over the world.”
Cat backs her up in her own particular style:
“In your hoose a’ the bairns o’ Adam
Can find breid, barley-bree and painted room.2“
It goes quiet for a bit while Gav thinks this over. He’s not really got an answer to being told that accepting non-Scots as Scots is actually a very Scottish thing to do. Pall tries to add his own take on the discussion. He’s a bit like Cat in that he’ll let others hog most of the conversation and then try to summarise it or close it with his own conclusion.
He says: “We hold two slightly contradictory thoughts: we don’t necessarily see any major difference between the nationalities – between Scots and English for example – yet at the same time, we want to be part of one group and not another.
“There are more sides to this. The simplest is the geographic one which is what a lot of people see and which is often the only thing they see. Like you say Fi, it doesn’t mean anything.
“Then there are the cultural elements. The social attributes or whatever. Many of them are stereotypes but you learn them and remember them and recognise them in others. They may change over time, but, taken as a whole, they define what most people think it means to be of a nation.
“Then there’s what you feel internally. It doesn’t matter where you were born or where your parents were born. It doesn’t matter which of these cultural roles you play and which you don’t. What matters is how you feel deep down inside and how strongly you feel that.
“For myself, I don’t really care which nation I belong to,” he concludes. “I’m me. That’s what really counts.”
“You mean, you could play football for Scotland, if selected?” I ask him, knowing he’s not the slightest bit interested in football.
He gives that high pitched three note giggle of his. The one that I’m coming to believe has an element of contempt in it. “No, not football. Cricket maybe. Or chess.”
But Cat says that how strongly you feel your identity and how strongly you express it relates to whether you are in the majority or not. If not, you feel every difference and every slight more acutely. Of course, back then the word heteropatriarchy hadn’t been invented and all anyone knew about “Privilege” was that it was a Paul Jones song (from the film of the same name).
Gav repeats what he said when Pete had first brought up showing off your knees. He hasn’t given up his claim to be the arbiter.
“For me, the kilt is the deciding factor. In order to be Scottish, you need to know what your tartan is; you need to own at least one proper, full length kilt in that tartan; you need to know when you can wear the hunting tartan or the dress tartan; and you need to wear the right tartan kilt at the right time with all the right gear – sporran, skene-dhu, ghillies, the lot.”
“And with the right stuff underneath?” asks Fi which causes Gav to redden up so brightly and so quickly that we all burst out laughing.
That’s when Nessie and Kat come back. They’ve been exploring much more than we have, playing in the old 2nd world war gun emplacements, fortifications, and searchlight housings. It looks like they’ve had fun. Ness certainly looks happy. Before we get a chance to say anything, Kat says:
“You can see the docks at Leith and the Granton gas holder and Calton Hill and Salisbury Crags and Arthur’s Seat and the Scott Monument and Saint Columba’s and the Castle and Saint Mary’s and …”
Impressive! I used to know the stations on the train into Birmingham, but I don’t think I could ever name the major sights of Edinburgh from east to west. Also, a little surprising. She’s said more in the last minute than I’ve previously heard her say in the last three months.
She carries on and finishes her list: “… and you can see the Forth rail bridge too.”
So I ask her if she’s had a good time and her normally impassive face breaks out in an enormous smile that takes her already beautiful face to the next level, like when you’ve just had an excellent entree at a Michelin starred restaurant and they bring out the poire belle Hélène or like the instrumental break bursting out in the middle of Del Shannon’s Runaway. Years later, whenever I saw Sinead O’Connor’s wonderful smile, it reminded me of Kat on that day. She obviously enjoyed herself even if most of the rest of the crew – Fi, Gav, Cat, and Pall didn’t.
We’re all getting a bit chilly. It may be June, but today isn’t that warm, so we decide to move on back across the causeway before the tide comes in. Nessie’s up for trying to walk towards the Forth Bridge, but Pall, Gav, Fi, and Cat have had enough and want to head back. Or at least find somewhere warm to sit and have a drink. Maybe it’ll just be me, Nessie, and Kat for the rest of the day – I’m up for it – but, no, Kat is worn out and wants to go back to town, so we all trudge back over up the hill to find the bus. Not just any bus. The bus. The one that will take us back home while we all doze in the back.
The Ned Wood Archive 