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“What’s it like?” Harry wanted to know.
As Harry himself often says, when it comes to travel, he’s a slut. He’ll go anywhere, anytime. Even the Orkney Islands for the purpose of laying a crazy old woman to rest had sounded good to him. He’d stayed behind only because his foreman, Jerad, who’d been with him for a good ten years now and always handled things when Harry and I took a trip, had already been on vacation himself when the fateful call had come from Captain MacKay.
“Rainy,” I assured him. “Cold and windy.”
“Well, okay, but — ”
I knew what he wanted. I was being obtuse because I was grumpy. It had been a long day. The scotch had lost its edge after the meal, and now I was just tired.
“Well, let’s see. Kirkwall is very . . . grey.”
“Grey?”
“Lots of grey stone. And it has a distinctly provincial feel. Very proper. A town that somebody’s grandmother would approve of. Not mine, somebody else’s. Very — sober. Not at all like the policeman who stopped by. But bustling, busy with shoppers and I suppose tourists. Lots of history here. Narrow streets. Hilly. Everyone I’ve met, barring my hostess, is extremely polite. But I honestly haven’t seen much, Harry. My hotel, which again, could have been designed by somebody’s grandmother. They haven’t heard of Zen minimalism here yet, I don’t think. The funeral parlor, ditto.”
“Are there lots of sheep?” Harry wanted to know.
Now he was making me impatient. Sheep? In the middle of town?
“Harry, I’m in Scotland. Sheep, rocks, and rain. There you have it.”
“And scotch,” he reminded me.
Despite my fatigue, I smiled. Harry has a way of saying a few words on the phone and making me feel like I’ve been hugged.
“Well, yes. There is that.”
“So what’s the game plan?”
“No cremation until the cause of death is definitely known. But nobody seems to anticipate a problem with that. She was in her easy chair with her feet up and a book open on her lap. That afghan I crocheted her when I was fourteen over her knees — ”
I had to stop to clear my throat.
“The dampness is getting to you,” Harry observed quietly.
**
The following morning, I was collected by the young man who’d been recommended by Officer Russell and had agreed to be my driver for as many days as I needed him. On break from university, he was happy for the opportunity to pick up a few extra pounds. I suspected his father, who’d lent the lad his own car, was happy to have him out of the house for a few days.
His name was Charles and he handled the old Vauxhall as if it were a race car.
In case you’re wondering whether the brisk island air had made me suddenly alert to automobile brands, I should explain that I know it was a Vauxhall simply because that is how Charles referred to it. As in: “I’ll bring the Vauxhall round and collect you at the door,” and “Aye, this old Vauxhall’s a bit of a rattle-trap, but she handles well.” Otherwise, it would have been to me merely a tiny black car, old and not very nice.
Or, now that I was in Scotland, perhaps a wee black car.
I do love the way they use words in Scotland: Collect. Wee. Even perhaps.)
So.
The drive from Kirkwall was enlightening.
I learned, for instance, that I wasn’t to refer to the group of islands on which we were situated as The Orkneys, but simply Orkney. And that the particular island on which I was currently shivering was called Mainland.
I’d been surprised enough to discover on the previous day that my Gran didn’t live in a one-room flat in town, within walking distance of all the shops, as I’d expected. Such an arrangement was what she’d had in Glasgow before moving to Michigan, and what she had claimed, for years, to want again.
That she’d ended up in a cottage surrounded by sheep was a shock, particularly given how isolated the place was. I wondered whether she had told me in one of those many letters of hers that I had tossed aside unread, unwilling in my outrage to give up the time it took to read a few hand-written pages from the woman who’d had the gall to abandon me.
The cottage was probably not much more than ten miles from Kirkwall, but what desolate miles they were. Ten miles on a two-lane road that winds over hills studded with rock and a very occassional cottage, with sweeping views of yet more green but otherwise barren hills on the one hand, and glimpses now and then of a large body of water on the other — and not much else — well, it all felt very desolate to me.
And I live in the countryside.
We drew nearer to the body of water as we drew nearer to my Gran’s cottage. It was, Charles informed me, the Scapa Flow, imparting this information in a way that suggested of course I had heard of the Scapa Flow and would be thrilled to be seeing it at long last. I recalled that Officer George Russell had mentioned the Scapa Flow the previous afternoon with much the same regard.
We passed a pub, one of the very few commercial establishments we’d encountered since leaving Kirkwall, turned onto a narrow, rugged road and chugged up a steep hill past the stone house and out-buildings of a sheep farm. A little farther along, and quite a bit higher, we turned in at Gran’s cottage.
I stepped out of the Vauxhall (I was already picking up Charles’ habit) and into a fresh, blustery morning. Turning my back on the cottage and my face toward the scene below, I suddenly understood Gran’s decision to live here.
Before me rolled green, rock-strewn hills, tumbling ever downwards, dotted with stone cottages that might have stood, just like this, hundreds of years ago. Without trees to block the view (and there were very few of them, appearing mostly in close proximity to the cottages), the land was exposed, rather like a beautiful woman with her clothing removed, so that every undulating fold and curve is revealed. Far below, the naked land stretched two arms around a bay, sheltering it from the waves of the Scapa Flow. The coastline was rugged and rocky, the outstretched arms ranged with hills like the one on which I stood, verdant, yet muscled with stone. Far off to the right, a cliff loomed over the bay. Closer by, a small headland invited exploration.
I had a sudden urge to pull on my hiking boots and head down the hills, to explore the nooks and crannies.
Like Gran had done.
The thought, when it popped into my mind, surprised me. Never, ever, in my life had I shared an interest of any kind with my Gran.
But this! My, oh my.
I’d seen photos of the Scottish highlands all my life, and my impression had always been of a bleak landscape under brooding skies. Yet in the flesh — the thin, green, rocky flesh — this land possessed an ancient and (I know I’m going out on a limb here) even mystical quality. There was the color. Green yes, exceedingly green nearby, but shifting into shades of deep blue and gray with distance.
And what a distance I could see from my perch on Gran’s hill. The Scapa Flow was scattered with islands, littered with them. Each possessed of ancient-looking hills wearing the same mystical colors and ringed with rugged shores.
“It’s breathtaking,” I whispered.
“Aye, it is, init?” Charles responded, making me jump.
I’d thought I was speaking to myself, not having realized that he’d come to stand beside me.
“Will you be taking your holidays here then?” he asked.
“Oh, no,” I replied. “I’m not rich enough for a second home. I’ll just be clearing out my grandmother’s belongings. I have to leave in a few days so I’ve got my work cut out for me. I’m hoping I can find someone to clean it for me. Maybe you or your mother could recommend someone? I don’t know what the security deposit was, but I’m sure landlords are the same the world over.”
As I’d spoken, I’d seen a change come over Charles’ face. He’d begun to look puzzled, then all at once his face had cleared and now he looked like nothing more than a boy with a secret.
“But there is no landlord, Mrs. Davidson.”
Now it was my turn to look puzzled.
“Why? What do you mean?”
“My da’s a manager at the bank, aye? He was talkin’ about it this mornin’, at our breakfast.”
He pronounced it, charmingly I thought, as brakefast.
“The croft belonged to your gran. Been in the family for generations, my da said. One of the oldest families on the island. So unless there’s somebody else in line, I expect it now belongs to you.”
I stared at him.
“Belongs to me,” I murmured, disbelieving.
“Aye. Oh, and I was to tell you that the lawyer would be by to see you later today. Well, I’ll just go and see about the Vauxhall then.”
I stared after him, blinking, then turned to consider the cottage.
Ancient. It had to be. Built entirely of stone with what appeared to be a tiled roof and three — count them, three — chimneys. Also a smattering of stone outbuildings, and a low stone wall that completely surrounded the property.
Mine?
But how could it be?
Gran had nothing. She’d left Glasgow with a meager pension and all of her belongings in two suitcases, belongings which over her years in Michigan had swelled to her infamous — in my mind — three-suitcases’ worth. She wasn’t even from Orkney. She was from Glasgow. Her own parents had died during the Clydebank Blitz. Which was also in Glasgow.
I’d grown up hearing my mother’s stories of her childhood in Glasgow tenements, of air raids during the war, and the poverty that had lingered for so long afterwards. Never, ever, not once, had she mentioned Orkney. Neither had my Gran.
Or had she?
Her tales. I had learned early in life to discount her tales as pure fiction. By the time I’d reached adolescence, I’d mostly tuned them out. Perhaps I’d been precipitate. I searched my memory for the few traces that remained. There was one about island people who turned into seals — or was it seals that turned into people? Another of a dwarf who lived inside a stone, a feat I’d never been able to reconcile in my imagination. Others of little people who dwelt underground or inside hills or some such and only came out at night.
Nothing whatsoever about a family cottage that would someday belong to me. Nothing particular to Orkney.
Charles must be mistaken.
Determined to clear up the confusion at once, I approached Charles, who had his head buried under the Vauxhall’s hood. A box of tools lay open on the ground beside him. Hearing me, he glanced up.
“I promised my da I would —
“Charles,” I said, interrupting him but too disturbed to apologize. “I need to speak with your father. I just can’t believe . . . if you could just give me the number of his office, I’d like to give him a call right now.”
Half an hour later, sitting on the stone wall, I turned off my phone and considered the cottage.
My cottage.
Worth, if Charles’ father the banker was to believed, far more than my home in Michigan.
And yes, it truly was mine.
I was having a hard time putting a finger on what exactly my feelings were about that.
Harry and I lived a simple life. I know, I’ve heard the stories too about building contractors who fleece their clients and live like doctors. But that’s not the way Harry operates. Before we were married, when it had become clear to both of us that that was the direction in which we were headed, he had warned me, “My goal is to never be rich.”
That was fine with me before we were married and it was fine with me today. Life, to both Harry and I, is not about money. I know a lot of people scent a skunk when I say that, but it’s true. Harry charges his customers a fair price, he does quality work, and he always pays his sub-contractors, even on those occasions when a customer stiffs him for the bill.
He is, in short, an honorable man.
Talk about an aphrodisiac!
I could never love a man like, oh, say Frank Sinatra. That song he sings about wanting to be number one, king of the hill, and so forth? Do you know what I visualize whenever I hear him belting out his pride about being on “top of the heap?” His shiny leather shoes standing on the cracked heads and broken backs of those who constitute the heap.
That is not my idea of an appealing man.
I think Harry is “A Number One” because he is the most ethical man I’ve ever known. He charges enough for us to live comfortably, once we add my salary to the mix. As for my salary, if money were my motivator, I wouldn’t work for a struggling-to-survive not-for-profit that in good years doles out annual raises in two percent increments. I work there because I like the variety of the work and I get to meet people from all over the world, all while living in our own quiet corner of it.
At the end of the month we can pay our bills and have enough left over for the trips we like to take. Why would we need more than that?
As Harry now likes to say, his goal was to not become rich, and he’s succeeded in his goal.
Whenever I hear him say that, I want to put my arms around him.
In fact, if there is one debate I’d like to have with Kurt Vonnegut (and there aren’t many, believe me — I think the man was brilliant), it would be regarding a comment one of his protagonists makes in Hocus Pocus. The protagonist is a teacher, and he believes that we should prepare our youth for failure rather than success. Failure, he asserts, is the most likely reward for anybody’s striving. So why not teach students how to fail?
What I would like to say to Mr. Vonnegut is that maybe people only believe they’ve failed because they have a skewed sense of what success is. After all, what are our society’s symbols of success? Expensive cars, mansion-like homes, built-in swimming pools, second homes. If you count people who possess all those things as successful, well then, I suppose you could accept Mr. Vonnegut’s protagonist’s statement as being on target.
But I don’t buy into it. Harry and I have none of those things, but I believe we are successful because after twenty-eight years of marriage we still get excited by the nearness of one another, we own a cozy home, we have cultivated the deep pleasure of growing fabulous food, and we have our own bit of soil in which to do so.
We have also raised a daughter we adore and who either returns the affection or is a magnificent actress. I recall taking her to see the family doctor when she was a young teenager. The visit must have been for something routine, perhaps a vaccination in preparation for one of our trips, so as we waited together in the examining room, we were relaxed and chatting. The doctor apparently overheard us before she came into the room. She didn’t comment on it that day, but during an appointment I had alone soon afterwards, she asked, “How do you do it? Your daughter was not only talking to you, she was laughing! At her age!”
Apparently the doctor’s own daughter, who would have been in Heather’s class if her parents had seen fit to send her to a public school, saw no reason to respond when her mother spoke to her. Saw no reason, in fact, to grant her mother the right to breathe. Was hateful and sullen and blah, blah, blah.
She was envious of me, this doctor who lived in a mansion overlooking Lake Michigan with a pair of tennis courts in her back yard.
And I felt sorry for her.
At that time, Heather still joined us on our vacations. She sometimes still does, if it’s to a destination that intrigues her.
Which brings me to another nice thing about my marriage. When Harry and I dream about where to take our next annual vacation, we’re both enticed by the same locations. Well, okay, when he first mentioned a safari in Africa, I did draw a line in the sand about camping anyplace where lions roam free. In the end though, I was talked into it, and one of my most vivid memories of that trip is huddling in my sleeping bag in a flimsy nylon tent while the roar of Serengeti lions filled the night.
I didn’t sleep a wink. But I have rarely felt more alive.
So, are we successful?
I’d say: extremely.
Expensive cars? Just more likely to get stolen. Add to that the constant worry about dents and scratches, and no thanks, I’ll pass. When my car gets a dent, I shrug it off. Swimming pool? A lot of unnecessary work, particularly with Lake Michigan only five miles away. Mansion-like home overlooking said lake? Too much crowding from other mansion-like homes, too many places to lose things, too many rooms to decorate — furniture, lamps, carpets, artwork. It goes on and on. Really, don’t people have better things to do with their time?
Bad enough having to suffer through the process for one home. But to do it for a second? I’ve always cringed at the notion.
Absolutely not, I’ve always said, when friends and neighbors suggest, as they often do, that we invest in a little cottage Up North, as they have done. I have a hard enough time keeping up with the house I have, I tell them. Why would I want another?
Harry agrees, adding, “Just more plumbing and another furnace to take care of.”
And once you’ve got it, you pretty well have to spend all your vacation time there, to justify the expense. I can’t imagine vacationing in the same place year after year. Why would I want to do that, when there’s a whole world waiting to be explored?
Which is all a long-winded way of saying that my feelings about suddenly finding myself in possession of a stone cottage in Orkney were probably not what you’d expect.
So.
I was still sitting on the stone wall, at the front of the property, with the road and Scapa Flow behind me. The cottage waited with an air of, “I’ve got all the time in the world.”
From the outside, it had a distinctly dilapidated air, so I wasn’t expecting much. No doubt it would be damp, dark, and moldering inside.
I got up and crossed the yard.
With some trepidation, I pushed open the door.
I found myself in a vestibule, confronted with three more doors.
All closed.
Feeling like a contestant on a game show, I turned the knob and opened Door Number One.
