Lou Goldfinch
r c i l c e n d E by water
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Lindsay Johnston
Islands are magic. Arran, to me, the most magical. Capable of performing tricks. Its magic is needed this weekend. Harried, post-viral and running late for the ferry that will spirit me to my weekend retreat, my effortful drive from the city is rewarded with confirmation that, despite the weather, this late-winter crossing hasn’t been cancelled. I take it as a sign and follow the attendant’s hand signals through the smirry glass to join the queue.
Before I board the well-worn vessel, I sit higher in my seat intent to catch sight of my destination. It's hard enough today to see the sea, let alone Arran. I smile at this, for it’s one of the tricks this island has performed for me all my life.
Growing up with an unspoiled view across the Firth of Clyde – the deepest section of coastal water surrounding the British Isles –I’d observe Arran performing the disappearing act. The Sleeping Warrior would be there one day, gone the next. It was a simple but effective trick. Kept you guessing.
My favourite, though, was the one it performed more rarely.
Arran cast a spell on our family as we set sail from Troon. The pull of the island landlocked any upset at my dad’s leaving or my mother’s ill health, even if only for a while. Something hard to articulate loosened in seven, eight or nine year old me after our navigation had been plotted with brass callipers on the agesoftened map.
….
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We’d motor beyond the harbour walls and unfurl the sails before assuming our favoured positions: my grandfather in the wheelhouse; the women in the galley and my younger brother in the aft cabin with a stack of Beanos. Me? I’d head for the bow. Grip the wooden guardrail I’d helped sand and stain while the boat had over-wintered in the yard behind our grandparents’ house, which had suddenly become mine, too. Step up from the bleached deck onto the first rung of curved metal. Lean forward until my view of the sea was unobscured. There would have been a life jacket, yes, but I was trusted to keep myself safe.
I loved it choppy. Had no concept of quite how deep the water was as I enjoyed the thrill of crashing wave after crashing wave. The spray alone was better than any waterpark ride. On calmer crossings, the boat ploughed its course through glassy ripples, causing foaming curls of sea to peel away from the bow like softened butter on a knife. It created a sudden obstacle, too, for clutches of opalescent jellyfish that appeared from time to time, forcing them to choose which side to drift along.
I’d watch as Arran drew ever closer – its features becoming more distinct – and before
long it would be time for the dropping of anchor as we entered the shallows at Lochranza or Lamlash. We’d clamber down into the dinghy to row ashore for paddling, stone skimming and a bar lunch though my memories of those days spent ashore are less clear. It wasn’t the being on the island that enchanted me.
On the return trip, I would be the only one to switch position. Make my way to the stern and watch the island shapeshift; shrink to assume its familiar form. By our return, Arran would be again the place I’d watch with careful eyes for it to perform the disappearing trick; our family’s concerns coming back into focus.
On this grey afternoon crossing with little prospect of a view, I head up the white metal stairs to while away the hour indoors. Coffee purchased, I sit in the restaurant and think of the significance this island has had for generations past. How it kept them afloat even when the future was – like the island –hard to see.
…..
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Lochgreen, Troon, Ayrshire
Tuesday 19th March ‘46
Darling,
Nothing out of the ordinary has happened since you left. I haven’t been quite so miserable today, though. I’ve managed to keep at bay a lot of disturbing thoughts by cleaning this lady’s house and making believe it was my own. Do you know where you’ve been? In the nursery. No, you weren’t playing with the children, you were up steps and down steps till you were blue in the face. About 3 o’clock, we looked out the window over to Arran and the sun was shining. Do you know what I’ve just gone and had, dearest? A lovely glass of port wine. I made a toast all to myself. I said, ‘May Tom always be as he is now.’ I can feel the port beginning to take effect now, so I have an excited feeling. Far better than earlier. There’s a terrible gale blowing tonight. Shall we go to bed now? Did you close all the windows, Darling? Now, what are you laughing at? Yes, of course I’m already under the covers! Come in beside me and get yourself warm. That’s better. May God watch over you and keep you safe for me.
Your very own Helen x ….
Port Edgar
Sat morning 1.45am
Hello my sweet, This is me writing in the dead of night. I’m on watch as usual and felt pretty tired when I was called. I believe that the less work a person does, the more sleep he needs. We are doing little else but eating and sleeping, yet we are always tired. Today a sheet came aboard with the names of another two of the crew due for demob. One is the wireman. This means there is no one to take his job and the officers are relying on me! It puts me in a bind, and I hope they don’t come to depend upon me.
I’ve been thinking over our honeymoon plans and have returned once more to Arran. I’m still not sure we’ll get the use of my uncle’s boat, but we could have a go at asking him. Would you enjoy staying on a small motorboat for a honeymoon? Going ashore at Lamlash or Lochranza?
If you’re going to be my wife, you’ll know more about machines and trees than many woodmen do! Would you be bored to death with me talking of engines all the time? At least I’m practically my own boss. That means a lot to a bloke like me, as independence is a great thing. I would like to start in the woods over on Arran as well so
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perhaps we could find a home and live there for a few months in the summer? Or get a big decent hut built and live on the job?
Oh, for the day when we don’t have to write our feelings to one another. It’s hard to believe, though, that perhaps soon, we may have written our last letters to one another. Keep your fingers crossed, perhaps a sailor will come strolling into Lochgreen one of these days. I’m sure my ghost must be around that place somewhere.
Tom x
I think of the courting letters I found while clearing out the upstairs cupboard at the family home. Still my mother’s, it had once been mine. My grandparents’. These missives revealed far more than just who my grandparents had been before they married. They told of the place that Arran held for them as they romanticised the post-war life they hoped lay ahead.
The simple life they planned would elude them. There would be time on Arran, yes. But far more significantly they’d be beset by further separation, hardship and loss. Trauma that would impact my mother’s life. Mine, too. Yet each of us in turn would go on to place our faith in Arran in times of crisis.
If trauma is inheritable, I wonder, is a
generations-old belief in a place, too?
My mother’s story was one I’d learn in December 2020 as I exercised my carer’s right, driving south to take her on a beach walk.
My mother’s story was one I’d learn in December 2020 as I exercised my carer’s right, driving south to take her on a beach walk. That day, we’d gotten out of the car, me taking her arm as we braced ourselves against the strong onshore wind. My hair whipped my face, and I reached into the back seat to grab my hat.
“Are you cold, Mum?”
“No, I’m alright, Darlin’,” she replied as we made for the path that runs along the final stretch of the River Irvine towards the harbour before the fresh water opens out into the sea.
I told her I’d finally finished reading the hundreds of letters my grandparents had exchanged before they married. The ones she’d never been able to bring herself to look at.
“So what were they like, your gran and papa?”
I filled her in. Youthful. Clear-eyed. Optimistic.
“Is that the Marabeth?” Mum asked, diverted suddenly to more immediate concerns.
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She let go of my arm and walked more quickly in the direction of a small wooden boat berthed along the path. “No,” she confirmed, turning back to me. “It just looked awful like it there.”
“When did you have the Marabeth? What age were you then?” I asked. She was a wee girl, she told me. Five. Six. Seven.
“We’d set off on a Friday night over to Arran from here. Oh, I loved it. This was long after your papa had stopped working the mobile sawmill over there. I liked knowing there was no way your papa could be called back to his work and your gran was better for it. She never drank when we were on the boat, neither she did.
“On the Sunday, it would be hellish trying to get back into the harbour. Your papa would be trying to navigate through the stacks – you see those things poking out of the water? Well, it would be bloody awful, some nights. I’d be down in the galley with your gran –she’d have the rosary beads out, you know – ” I laughed, knowing exactly what she meant.
“Anyway, your papa would get us back into the harbour and everything would calm down. The best times were when we got back in late when it was too late to pack up and go home. We’d stay on the boat overnight and I’d get dropped straight at the school on the Monday morning. I always wanted us to be
too late to go home. Because as soon as we got back to Auchengate, it would all go wrong, again.”
We stood, the pair of us, silently staring across the water for a time. Arran was nowhere to be seen. Were we both looking for it? Waiting for some magic? I like to think so. ….. Those childhood journeys of mine, then, were steeped in a history I couldn’t have expected to know nor understand but still, the spell Arran cast was so powerful that it impacted generation after generation of us. And though I acknowledge my fortune and that the escape I seek is only temporary respite from the everyday business of family life, its import is no less profound.
Ten minutes remain until we alight at Brodick’s newish terminal. There is only one thing left I must do. This ferry is nothing like the boat of my childhood. I know that the whipping winds won’t be the only obstacle between me and the bow but, still, I walk. I need to feel again that sensation of childhood.
I step outside starboard, one hand on my hair and the other on the guardrail. The wind is fierce. The rain is biting. But I keep going. What greets me makes it worthwhile, for the view has changed somewhere across the Firth of Clyde. Arran has appeared. Just like magic.
