Poor Angus by Robin Jenkins

Author:Robin Jenkins [Jenkins, Robin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780857863676
Publisher: Canongate Books

18

As they set off, Angus driving, at Nell’s insistence, the sadness and despair that he had felt when making the same journey 33 years ago descended upon him again. It had been January then, with snow on the ground and the sky cloudy. Though it was warm and sunny now with blue skies, he kept shivering.

Beside him Nell patted his thigh.

The driver’s whiskers had had white in them. In his bewilderment Angus had wondered if it was frost. His name was Geordie McLachlan and he had kept taking fly swigs of whisky. Only Angus had noticed. Geordie had winked. Angus’s father’s eyes had been frozen with grief, so that they saw nothing and tears could not flow, not then or any time afterwards. The other person in the big black car, which had smelled of leather polish had been his mother’s sister, Aunt Isobel from Dumfries, herself long since dead. She had kept sniffing, so regularly that Angus, counting, had found that the sniffs were exactly five seconds apart, like the flashes of the Sanaig Light.

The misery in the car had been like an enormous lump of ice.

When someone you loved and on whom you had depended died, you never completely recovered. Angus had discovered that as a small boy and he still knew it as a grown man. Perhaps it had something to do with his unwillingness or inability to let any other person become as dear to him and as indispensable. Was he making this pilgrimage to his mother’s grave in an attempt to find out if Fidelia, for instance, could take his mother’s place?

They came to a steep brae. Geordie had had to be cautious here, for the surface had been slippery. Today it was dry and safe, with the hedgerows fragrant with meadowsweet, cow parsley, honeysuckle, and foxgloves. Then, they had been bare. Butterflies twinkled. Then, it had been flakes of snow.

A sandy track led from the main road to the graveyard, which was close to the sea. Among the dunes on either side rabbits darted about. It was said that, after the myxomatosis, their fur was silkier but their flesh was still suspect. It was curious how seeing them healthy and lively today comforted not only him as he was now but also as he had been all those years ago. There had been no rabbits to be seen then.

The track stopped at a wide flat green space among the dunes. Here the mourners had gathered, waiting to follow the coffin to the grave. Bottles of the island’s own malts had been passed round. When empty, they had been tossed into a deep hole like a golf-course bunker. Indeed, the golf course was not far distant. Its red flags could be seen. There had been a reverent wiping of mouths.

In the graveyard, which had a wall round it protecting it from sheep, the gravelled paths were very narrow. Coffin-bearers often stumbled on to the edges of graves. None of the gravestones was grandiose. The oldest were slates, not unlike those used in the school 50 years ago.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.