Boswell's Bus Pass (11 page)

Johnson and Boswell spent most of their time in Elgin inspecting the ruins of the cathedral in the rain. Presumably they didn’t have to wait until the custodian returned from lunch. As Boswell seemed delighted to have discovered the monument to a nun I asked if it could still be seen. Blank incomprehension is the most positive interpretation I can put on the reaction. A subsequent question about references to the visit in any of the guide books elicited the comment that tourists only wanted to look at pictures. I tried hard to convince myself that this reaction was evidence of the
unrelenting
anti-Johnson feeling provoked by the publication of his
Journey
in 1775.

One of the reasons why the nun’s stone was no longer there was attributable to the enlightened church authorities who in 1825 indulged a local labourer who made it his life’s work to clean up the cathedral and cart away all ancient pieces of masonry. John Shanks emptied 2866 barrow loads of rubbish into the Order Pot, an offshoot of the River Lossie, once considered bottomless and hence the ideal place in which to dunk the local witches.

Despite the scale of the destruction Johnson was less moved than he had been by the ruins at St. Andrews for the simple reason that, on this occasion, John Knox was not to blame. The culprit was a simple Highland hooligan and serial pillager, the Wolf of Badenoch who fell out with the local bishop in the 1380s for taking sides with his estranged wife. It is not too difficult to see why the church failed to support the son of King Robert II whose main recreational activity was siring upwards of forty illegitimate children. The Wolf threw his toys out of one of his many prams and went on an arson,
rapine and plundering spree that made the raid on Dresden seem like a mild rebuke. In the best Catholic tradition the threat of
excommunication
was sufficient to induce a sincere contrition and serene repentance in the Wolf who was finally honoured by burial in Dunkeld Cathedral.

Determined to demonstrate that every cloud has a lead lining the local authorities then proceeded to strip the roof and ship the cladding to Holland. Johnson noted gleefully that the boats with their leaden cargo both floundered in the North Sea and all hands were lost.

A sign next to the cathedral announced the proximity of the Biblical Garden. Ever eager to shake the tree of knowledge and sample the odd forbidden fruit I was disappointed to discover that I would have to wait until at least the discovery of the Ark or the second coming, depending on which happened first, before the gardens opened for the season. I did though climb the wall hoping to catch a glimpse of the Gethsemane theme ride under its tarpaulins.

Johnson considered Elgin ‘A place of little trade and thinly inhabited.’ The writer of the
First Statistical Account of Scotland
noted the same trend some twenty years later and attributed the cause to the locals choosing to marry ‘when they are advanced in years, and then a puny helpless race of children is produced. Hence, how many men of every description remain single, and how many women of every rank are never married, who in the beginning of this century, and even so late as 1745, would have been the parents of a numerous and healthy progeny?’

A further cause was to be found in the fact ‘that everything cold is in disuse. Clothing is warmer. Warm liquors, as punch, tea, etc are the fashion, even among the lower classes. On the whole we have come more effeminate … The women lead sedentary lives in spinning, from which arise obstructions etc that often terminate fatally.’

A glance at the punters in Wetherspoons did suggest that even now few were burdened with the responsibilities of either child rearing or spouse pleasing. Having said that, there was not much of the effeminate about the exiled Hearts supporters applauding their
victory
; punch was not on sale and few of the women were spinning.

That evening at his steading John and I spoke long into the night about families, work, retirement, the past, dead friends, football, and whisky. This last topic assumed a less than theoretical aspect as John
had amassed an astonishing collection of malts from long defunct distilleries. I thanked him for his drink, his company and general nonsense only regretting that he was unable to accompany me on my next leg.

With time to spare at the bus station I wandered into the associated shopping complex. The store called Whispers paraded lines of huge lurid fantasy bras and florid plastic suitcases emblazoned with
Just married
, and by implication subtle promises of perfect sex, 2.4 children, a mortgage and happiness without end. The years flew past in the twinkling of an eye. Next door was Shopmobility, its
wheelchairs
lined up for a Brands Hatch start, mobility scooters straining at the leash, paraplegic ramps ramping and a sexy line in Classic Canes. With your arthritic wrist clamped over the carved skull of a small bird or an ivory fleur-de-lys you can stride off into your personal sunset with great confidence and a song in your heart.

Outside the shops the
Press and Journal
advertising board told an expectant world that
Moray Council move on Travellers
. Was the queue in which I stood about to be machine-gunned into compliance by some jobsworth in a high-visibility jacket?

We boarded the 305 Bluebird bus to Nairn without incident. The twelve year old driver was hiding his age behind dark glasses which made it easier for him to turn a blind eye to the woman peering out from behind a large bush which she manoeuvred into the seat next to her. Birnam Wood must be close. At this point in their journey Johnson had also started to make numerous references to
Macbeth
.

Hedge woman was followed by a man holding a single golf club. Presumably if he suspected the presence of a sniper behind the foliage across the aisle he would lay into her with his number 4 iron. Behind golf man came a youth hiding a massively elongated head in a smurf hat and wearing headphones as big as family-sized pizzas.

As we passed through Forres I caught sight of a plaster gnome on a swing in a front room window. Why had it been promoted from the garden? What small act of heroism had warranted this elevation? Was there a waiting list determined by seniority? Was it a punishment? ‘I’ll teach you to moon at the neighbours, you little bastard. You can just hang there for a few days.’

I misread a shop sign assuming it promised Trophy Witches and not trophies and watches. On balance I preferred the thought of
handsome
warlocks flaunting black-toothed Victoria Beckham
doppelgangers
on their arms. A witch hunt was under way.

A banner in a field urged me to
Put British Pork on my Fork
. There was something inexplicably gross about the image although I couldn’t explain why. For some reason I saw Blackshirts parading through Bethnal Green.

A roadside sign pointed to
Activities
. These activities must have been undefined for good cause. Presumably they were of an
unsavoury
nature.

Boswell also engaged in an unsavoury activity at this point in the journey. He stopped the chaise and in ghoulish tourist mode stood beneath the gibbet from which hung the semi-decomposed body of Kenneth Leal who must have regretted robbing the Elgin mail.

We passed a bus shelter designed as an alpine shrine.

One of the passengers again bore an uncanny resemblance to my mother. Why was she following me? It was definitely her sitting there, disapproving as she fiddled with her brown gloves and wearing her distinctive beige coat.

All of the passengers on the bus were travelling alone and were all huddled against the windows. There were no couples. This was strange. I had stumbled on a guarded local secret – this was the dating bus. They were in fact communicating in a variety of subliminal ways, putting out subtle signs of availability and preference. The hands crossed in the lap, left over right meant something. The scarf casually brushing both lapels was obviously a great come-on to the initiated. Not to mention the tapping foot. Before the bus arrived in Inverness phone numbers would have been swapped, pension books compared and long years of celibate widowhood were about to end in the nearest Premier Travel Inn to the A 96. At least I hoped so.

Boswell said of Nairn ‘It is a very poor place to be a county town and royal burgh.’The commentator in the
First Statistical Account
subsequently made the somewhat strange observation that the ‘natives were of average height.’ What had he expected, tribes of Oompa Loompas cavorting in the ditches, pygmies living in bins? A cursory glance down at the denizens of the High Street suggested they were still of average height. There could of course be giants in the adjacent schemes who spent their days leaning languidly on telegraph wires
between games of basketball played with the inflated bladders of small people. I would be watchful.

Johnson declared ‘At Nairn we may fix the verge of the Highlands; for here I first saw peat fires, and first heard the Erse language.’ Written Erse was apparent in the sign above the local library LEABHARLANN INBHIR NARANN. But not a word of Erse could be detected floating on the linguistic breeze. Just a loud Yorkshire voice and a woman whose RP vowels were so garrotted that they tumbled like dead things into her green wellies.

At Nairn Johnson and Boswell received an invitation to visit Kenneth Macaulay, the author of a
History of St. Kilda
at his manse in Cawdor. They had a quick word with the long suffering driver of the post chaise and journeyed along the banks of the River Nairn. We know nothing about this loyal soul who conveyed his odd passengers from Newcastle to Inverness. Had he been able to write he could have made a small fortune with his
Confessions of a Cabbie. Tit bits from the Mouths of the Great Overheard on a Journey. With Pretentious Speculations and Idle Erudition from Dictionary Johnson and his small friend
. Did Boswell slip him the occasional sovereign to secure the lustful services of the barefooted tavern maids? Did either of them ever speak to their anonymous driver?

At least they had a driver and a means of conveyance. Realising that there was no bus service from Nairn to Cawdor I hired a bike. I was warned against following the river path for the whole journey as it disappears after two miles into jungle so dense that the previous week three Japanese soldiers had emerged blinking into the daylight. They aggressively enquired if the war was over and steadfastly refused to surrender their weapons to the Highland Council peace and
reconciliation
team.

Not having cycled for years any initial exhilaration was soon replaced by disbelief at the sheer effort involved. I heard myself muttering ‘Piss off!’ at the numerous exhortations to slow down, drive carefully and beware of rumble strips. I couldn’t even spot any interesting road kill to distract me from the ordeal of turning ancient legs, only an ominous harvest of wing mirrors, a small price paid by boy racers for the joy of smacking cyclists into ditches and over hedges.

I tried to concentrate on the tableaux of feudal gentility that unfolded very, very slowly; large country seats set back from the
road and tended by serfs, their forelocks worn away by endless tugging as the 4x4s swept up the drive. I slowly passed a field of startled, haughty llamas as incongruous as chickens on the moon.

My legs told me that I was cycling in slow motion through a cloying mix of tar and treacle. I looked up at a sky totally devoid of vapour trails as all flights had been cancelled on account of the eruption of ash into the skies from an Icelandic volcano. In a self pitying cameo I saw an archaeologist from a future time carefully chipping away at my petrified body foetalled round what was thought to be a twenty first century mountain bike.

I was startled out of my reverie by the vacuum thump of a bus passing at speed. Where did that come from? There are no buses on this route. The super-charged post chaise was allegedly the 1A, a fantasy bus whose existence is a secret closely guarded by a few local masons and obviously en route to Brigadoon.

A vandalised road sign announced the apparent proximity to a C*UNT** FAYRE. Who drives out to the middle of nowhere, their glove compartment stuffed with an assortment of black permanent markers to indulge an adolescent and deeply unfunny sense of humour? Get a life. The sign did though provoke a moment of totally inappropriate speculation for an elderly person suffering from acute saddle-ache. How would the wares be displayed?

Distraction came in the form of another sign, this one untampered with and erected by the Scottish Tourist Board, Cawdor Tavern. Sweating like several pigs Lance Armstrong rested his bike against the stone wall, played idly with his
maillot jaune
and wondered where the rest of the race had got to.

At Cawdor Johnson and Boswell met a Mr Grant, minister at Daviot and Dunlichity, and Valentine White, a factor on the estate, both of whom are buried in the churchyard. The original manse has long gone but the graveyard is still there.

The clichéd dappled serenity of country churchyards masks the impact of individual deaths. The green idyll is a fraud. Despite the passage of time each crumbling stone with its unique indecipherable patina of letters and dates testifies to grief without expression, disbelief, abject despair and God damning. The dead included the weaver’s daughter who died young, extinguished; the young man who died of his wounds in France in 1917; the airman who failed to return in 1943. Nothing changes. The letter held at arm’s length.
Better not to open it; thrust it into the burning grate. Although anticipated in nightmares this is not happening to us. This is not me screaming in denial; that is not my husband holding me in a pieta of silent supportive agony.

Predictably there was no sign of either Grant or the delightfully christened Valentine. Surely John Shanks had not wheeled his barrow this far. As I passed among the stones old bodies leaned upwards towards my footsteps in case they were being looked for, before sinking back in small flurries of dust and exhalations of relief.