Grandfather

Whenever I write a story, or listen to one being read, I can forget everything of my own life and live over the scenes. This ability first revealed itself, I recall, when in the company of my Grandfather. I listened to his many stories; one about a ship wrecked off the Cape of Good Hope. As Grandfather read the story, so his voice rose and fell with each wave that flooded over the bow, lifting his hands to protect himself as the mast came crashing to the deck, ‘The mast has gone!’ he yelled, ‘Crash it goes!’ Leaving me breathless, thinking we would all perish right at that moment. It was gripping stuff and I sat at his feet, utterly carried away.

Grandfather was a Scot who, for the better part of his life, studied and practiced law. Had he not been born a cripple he would certainly have been an adventurer, but being a cripple had been a blessing in disguise, he insisted, though I never understood why as a child.

As the years passed and I became an adult I learned that Grandfather’s heart was not in his law profession at the end; he wanted to write romantic novels; or roam over the heather-covered hills of Selkirkshire, wandering in the glorious free open air with his dogs, and working his sheep. Grandfather, in the end, was an unhappy individual; at his worst when visited by relatives, sniveling his repugnance of their intrusion into his solitariness after Grandmother died. When asked about his health, his response never more than a mumble, its meaning lost in a painful scene of old aged pride.

The thing about Grandfather that family and friends just didn’t get, was that he could feel himself walking out of the house, preferring the company of his dirty dogs. Of course, yes, he was bound to his chair, even though he would wriggle his body when he thought no-one was watching. Secretly I was watching, wanting him to engage his legs, feel himself running as he bolts from us all. I never really knew when it was that the appalling ignominy of forms and conveyances left him too little time to turn his attention to the kind of writing he loved. He was eighty-four years old when he retired and could then write to his heart’s content.

Grandpa and Grandma live in a cottage that sat on the banks of the River Tweed, near Melrose. They call the cottage ‘Muineacháin’ (Bay of Defeat) and it is. It’s been in the family since 1811, and though the cottage is small, each room is darkly imposing, with swords, and all manner of flags and relics adorning the walls. It’s a trip back into Scottish history, and I could never visit when a teenager and not feel that ‘Rob Roy’ might walk in at any moment.

Grandfather's two sheepdogs are buried beneath a yew tree at the foot of the garden, but they continue to live on in his stories. Ivan, a Scottish terrier, named after his hero, ‘Ivanhoe’, and Shack, a Border collie, who he named in honor of ‘Shackleton’, lived long and colorful lives among the scattered castle ruins and the beautiful, if sometimes satanic hills. Grandfather bitterly maintained he heard the cries of warriors fallen at Flodden Field and Bannockburn when once he was lost in those hills during a blizzard, and were it not for his two dogs keeping him warm, he told me, he would surely have perished among those warrior cries. But Grandfather was a cripple and had been since childhood. They were just stories, his romance, his adventures, sought by fellow drinkers in the locality, and kindly thought of as art.

My mother told me on numerous occasions that I had been infected by my Grandfather’s ‘fibs’. This is quite true, which is why I like to write my lies down and pass them on in the hope you’ll see what I saw. To romance, to lie, it is a gift, and used in the right context can bring much joy. Thinking up lies is not so difficult; you just want to have to believe what you write…today I wrote: ‘Whenever I write a story, or listen to one being read, I can forget everything of my own life and live over the scenes.’