Burning Down George Orwell's House (3 page)

The hollering and cigarette stink assaulted Ray before he
got downstairs. Pitcairn was the loudest of the bunch by far: “So I says to him, ‘What do I look like? Some kind of taxi service?' For a so-called
genius
he sure is a simple fucker.”

“Actually, you
are
a taxi service,” someone else said, and that sent the others into convulsions of breathless laughter, which mutated into the kind of coughing made possible by lifelong smoking habits.

“Aye, but he doesn't know that, does he?”

“Here he is now, then,” said a man of impossible hairiness. He was the hairiest person Ray had ever seen. It was unreal. Five people occupied the lounge, six including Molly, who sat behind the bar reading. The crinkled book resembled his own paperbacks upstairs. The lounge had another fire that roared but gave off little heat. A pile of peat bricks sat on a browning newspaper next to the hearth and a cirrocumulus cloud of cigarette smoke clung to the ceiling.

“So nice of you to join us, Chappie.”

“Hello, gentlemen, I'm Ray.”

The hairy man stood up and shook his hand. Everyone else remained seated. “The name's Farkas,” he said. “This here's Pete, Sponge, Fuller, and you've met Gavin and Molly Pitcairn.”

“Watch out for Farkas, eh?” Pete said. “He bites.”

That drew a big laugh.

“And that Pete's a real salt of the earth type.”

“We've got some stew on for you,” Fuller said. “I hope you're hungry?”

“You have no idea. I'm so hungry I could eat a horse.”

“Well I'm afraid the menu's limited to venison this evening, Mr. Welter.”

“I suppose that'll work. Now who do I have to talk to in order to get a whisky around here?”

“Salt of the earth? Peat? Get it?”

Dozens of bottles—brands Ray had never heard of—covered the three-tiered counter behind the bar. They twinkled in gold and bronze in the firelight. The sight made him feel a little better about his life.

“You like your malts, do you?” Pete asked.

“Maybe a bit too much.”

“What'll it be, then, Chappie?” Pitcairn asked. “A dram of the local?”

“That sounds perfect, in fact.”

“You heard the man, Molly. Six of the local.”

She put her book down with a sigh and slid from her stool. After pulling the cork from the cello-shaped bottle, she poured six healthy drams of the scotch distilled here in Craighouse. Ray wondered if it would taste different so close to the source. He couldn't wait to find out.

“Should I charge these to your room?” she asked.

“Sure, I'll pick up this round. Room—”

“Room eleven, I know.”

Molly distributed the whiskies. The men diluted them with water poured from small pitchers the way some people put milk in their coffee.

“Thank you, Welter, eh?” Pete said. He looked to be about fifty with prematurely wrinkled skin and thinning hair. If Ray didn't know better, he would've thought the man possessed a deep and permanent sunburn.

“Please call me Ray.”

“Or Chappie!”

The first sip tasted like the sweet ambrosia of the gods. It came as a revelation, a divine benediction, and it immediately washed away the hunger and exhaustion of his journey. Ray had drunk from the River Lethe. The second swallow tasted even better. The world began to feel stable. The voices around him grew vague and indistinct. Some moments later, Pitcairn's coughing fit shook him from his swoon. “Goddamn that's good,” Ray said.

“A man who likes his malt, now there's a good sign, eh?” Pete said. He wore a tracksuit so out of fashion that were it dry cleaned and disinfected it would fetch hundreds of dollars at one of the boutiques back in Ray's old neighborhood.

Two of them—Pitcairn and Fuller—were approximately his age, maybe four or five years older. It was hard to get a good look at Farkas beneath all that hair. Sponge appeared to be in his eighties. He sported a wool jacket and a stained tartan tie and sat silently at the head of the table, content to listen to the others. “What kind of name is Sponge?” Ray asked.

“One word of advice,” Fuller said, placing an enormous bowl of stew and a basket of bread in front of him. “Don't
take your eye off your whisky for one instant whilst that man is present. Good appetite.”

“Thank you. This smells … interesting.”

When Fuller retook his seat he found that his dram had been drained. Only an empty glass remained. “Oh for fuck's sake, Sponge.”

“Please excuse me,” Ray said and moved his bowl and the bread to a table next to the fire. He wondered how many fireplaces the hotel possessed. “All my clothes are wet, I'm freezing.”

“That stew will warm you right up,” Fuller said.

“Not to mention the malt, eh? Best thing for you on an evening such as this.”

Upon closer inspection in the firelight, the chunks of animal material
—meat
would've been a generous exaggeration—appeared half-cooked at best. The severed white tendons gaped open and one of them winked at him from amid the gristly pool. A blue oil spill floated atop the broth. His hiking boots might have been added to the pot for additional flavor, but Ray had an audience and so he forced himself to lift the spoon to his mouth. The texture resisted his attempts at mastication. He ground every tooth he owned against it, but the chunk of meat would not disintegrate. Fortunately, the eye-watering amount of salt came close to masking the rotten meat flavor. If he wasn't being watched, and if he had possessed a napkin, he would've spat the chunk out. Swallowing the meat proved to be a separate ordeal. The whisky chaser
helped. He finished his dram and asked for another, and then another, which Molly brought over, each time complaining the entire way. The men watched him with obvious amusement. He hoped they didn't see how repulsed he felt.

“Not bad, is it?” Fuller wanted to know.

“No—not
bad
. But I'm stuffed.”

“I bet you are,” Pitcairn said and the other men laughed.

He tried to soak up some of the salt and gasoline in his gut with a slice of bread, but it was so stale that he thought it might be toasted. He snapped off a piece, dipped it in the broth, and tried not to wince when he put it in his mouth. “Well, that was great,” Ray said. He pushed the bowl away from his body. “But I need to get some sleep, gentlemen.”

“How about one more wee dram?”

His mouth filled with rancid saliva, which he forced back down his gullet with an audible gulp. “Next time. It's been a long day.”

“Aye, you must be exhausted,” Farkas said. His hairiness was remarkable. His eyes blinked from within a forest of bristly beard and eyebrow.

“One word of advice,” Fuller said. “However hot Mrs. Campbell has your room, keep your windows closed tonight. The birds down at the beach make a terrible racket in the morning.”

“Not to mention the festivities this evening,” Molly said.

The adults shot her nasty looks.

“Festivities?” Ray asked.

“It's nothing,” Pitcairn told him. “Some old Jura superstition. That's all it is.”

“That's all it is, eh?” Pete said.

Any other night, Ray might have pressed the issue.

“Tonight's the equinox,” Molly said. “Not that you seem like the kind of guy who'd enjoy watching fat men dance naked around a fire and shoot off guns.”

“Dance around a fire?”

“Naked men?” Fuller asked.

“Where
do
you get these ideas, eh? Where does she get these ideas, Pitcairn?”

“It's that fucking school over there putting ideas in her head.”

“Fuckin' Islay,” Sponge said: the first words he had spoken all evening.

Ray stood and tried to put as much distance between himself and that stew as possible, but he felt drunker than he had realized and had to grip the table for support. The men chuckled at his clumsiness. Molly rolled her eyes in embarrassment.

“Not much of a drinker, are you, Chappie?”

“I do all right. It's just been a long day. Enjoy your nude fire dance or whatever it is you have planned.”

“Just a little expedition, that's all, eh?”

“Thanks for the dram,” Farkas said. He was by far the friendliest of the bunch.

“What time will you be needing a ride up to Barnhill, then?” Pitcairn asked.

“A ride?”

“It's over twenty miles, isn't it? And there are your supplies from The Stores. What are you going to do, carry them on your back?”

“I—”

The other men were laughing at him now.

“I'll come pick you up after breakfast, how does that sound?”

“Nine o'clock?”

“Six o'clock, seven o'clock, eight o'clock. I don't know. Jesus. After breakfast.”

“One word of advice,” Fuller said, “you won't be needing your watch any longer, not here.”

“Not unless you're hoping to catch old Singer down at the ferry,” Farkas said.

“Fuckin' Islay,” Sponge said.

“Where is Singer? That codger said he'd be here.”

“Doing some preparations, I imagine, eh?”

“Trying to shoot a nonexistent animal, I imagine,” Molly said.

Pitcairn slapped the table with both palms. “Would you kindly shut the fuck up, girlie?” he yelled.

“Be a good girl now,” Farkas said.

“Okay, I'll see you after breakfast,” Ray said. He needed to lie down. “Good night.”

“Good night,” Farkas said.

Pitcairn's angry whispers followed him to the lobby and
up the stairs. Ray stopped at the landing to eavesdrop but couldn't make out what the men were saying. He was curious about what they had planned but felt way too exhausted to care.

Then it hit him. He raced his legs back up the stairs, pushed through the unlocked door, and tore off his damp pants just in time to relieve his bowels of that stew. It poured out of him in torrents. He expelled what felt like a lifetime's accumulation of poison, then crawled naked under the damp quilt and closed his eyes. Sleep—that was all he required now. Eight uninterrupted, unmoving hours.

They did not arrive.

Sleep and Ray Welter had never learned to play well together. Every night, as long as he could remember, he had always looked forward to morning. He hoped things would be different here, where he wouldn't need to wake up at any certain time to get to a job he hated. He no longer had to do anything. Yet he remained awake for hours with his eyes propped open by excitement, alcohol, jet lag, anxiety.

The hands of the bedside clock didn't budge and Ray realized that the batteries had gone dead or the cord had come unplugged. The bed grew less comfortable by the minute. Hard lumps in the mattress familiarized themselves with the tenderest parts of his back. He heard noises—not necessarily in the room, but not necessarily outside either. Then there was some commotion down in the parking lot. Car doors slamming. Something that sounded like a gunshot followed
by a lot of laughter. There might have been a party going on. The noise got to be too much. He threw the covers off and crept to the window. It looked as if the entire population of the island had gathered. They formed a rowdy convoy of rusted trucks with squeaky axles and drove off into the night. Ray put a pillow over his head.

After another hour, or maybe two or three, he threw the blanket off and got up. The noise outside had stopped. He found the driest of his clothes and slipped down the stairs, which creaked enough to wake the other hotel guests, if there were any.

A voice asked from the lounge, “Is that you, Ray?”

It took a moment to discern the hirsute shape sitting next to the dying fire. Spilt or drooled whisky glimmered in Farkas's beard. Only a few small embers remained in the fireplace.

“What are you doing up?”

“Oh just enjoying a wee dram. Pour yourself one.”

Ray went to the bar and grabbed the first bottle within reach. It opened with a corky pop. He picked up two glasses that smelled mostly clean.

“Just a wee bit for me. Do you see that slip of paper that says ‘Wolfman' on it?”

“Not really.”

“That's my tab. Put two tick marks on it.”

“Is that your nickname?”

“Gavin's idea of a joke,” he said, “not that I find it all that humorous. You might have noticed that he's what you might
call unhinged, especially when it comes to outsiders. I'll ask you to stay on his good side, if you can find it.”

“That's good to know—I'll stay out of his way.”

“Aye, please do. I once watched him pummel a tourist senseless in the hotel parking lot for no reason anyone could see. They had to airlift the poor sod to a hospital.” Ray took the chair next to Farkas's and handed him the glass, which he held to his nose. “A bit of the cask strength, then? A good choice.”

“Cask strength?”

“Not watered down, like we do. This is the pure thing. Slàinte.”

“Is that Gaelic?”

“Aye. ‘To your health.' ”

“Slàinte.”

The whisky was stronger than anything Ray had ever tasted. It felt like molten lead in his windpipe. The pain felt great.

“I don't mean to pry,” Farkas said, “but I would be remiss if I didn't ask what you're doing here. You're obviously a clever man—we've all read about your advertising awards.”

“Thanks,” Ray said, but heard more sarcasm in his voice than he might have preferred. “It's hard to explain. I knew I needed to get out of Chicago. I considered Nova Scotia, but that didn't feel authentic or something. I'm kind of obsessed with George Orwell, so I decided I wanted to see—I
needed
to see—where he wrote
Nineteen Eighty-Four
.”

“I can respect that, I suppose. But most sensible people
might have come for a short holiday, a couple of days at most, but six months?”