Martinmas reflections part 2
Finding new meanings in old memories
Pitching camp again in the Old Union Cafe the next morning, I find myself a seat in a curved booth down a couple of steps from the counter, underneath the plaque which commemorates a refurbishment in 2002. The renovation was funded by donations from the painter Jack Vettriano, a painter who does moody, cinematic, figurative works in the mode of Edward Hopper. Some people think of him as cliched and shallow, his works being nothing more than nostalgic pastiche. However, there is an undercurrent of loneliness and cruelty in his work that I have always liked, something the reminds me of Scorsese films and the grim classicism of Jacques-Louis David’s French Revolution paintings. Vettriano seems a strange benefactor for this small, fifties-style cantina, with its red, terracotta floor tiles and its white-washed stone arches. The painter’s big-name patronage, however, will probably preserve it from any interfering modernisations. It is one of the few little pockets of the old world that have been protected from meddling.
I do not do much reading, and my brief spell of writing is pretty much the same as yesterday—collating and refamiliarising myself with my notes. I am looking, in particular, for two pieces of hand-written notes. One, a list of questions I had scribbled, which I want to send to a professor of literary theory in North America. Second, a poem which I remembered setting aside to work on during this holiday. I find the professor’s questions, but I eventually come to realise that I’ve left the poetry notes in another book. There is one poem that I do have notes for—an exercise based on a model poem by Frank O’Hara. It is nothing special but does capture the sense of looking back, and its images are my memories of this time of year—the Martinmas term—in St. Andrews. I jot down a few hand-written changes to my first scrawled draft. I will work on this poem later when I get back to my hostel room in Dundee, the piece eventually numbering eight drafts. Here it is:
Have you forgotten the way the night comes down vennels of ice and bone and the horned walls of ashlar flint go cherry hot against a sky green with fog? Have you forgotten the hum of the Mac labs after tea and the way the door weight chugs on cement and wood as you make a dash through mud-smoke and the massed peels from brassy sycamores to the sound of night sands, to the lager’s prickle on your chapped tongue, where no tutor’s scoff, no Marlboro soot or girl’s shrug can bruise our boys’ lung bellowed with punchlines to spit at the turn of cloud and leaves? Our cracks and railleries are still there, up where the stars chant and stomp in a peak of frost and wind, unfazed by time’s snicker.
Next, I go back to the library. Bursts of rain come in heavy, and the leaves of the cherry tree outside the computer labs are slicked on the concrete paving stones. They are thin, with prickled edges, coloured in harsh yellows and pinkish red. I pick up my new library card from the friendly lady at the desk and go upstairs to the art history section. I am not looking for anything in particular, but simply want to take a walk around, to feel a sense of belonging in the library that I do not feel in Oxford’s Bodleian, even though that is my local library now. I rummage through some old guidebooks from exhibitions of Victorian art held in the 1970s and 1980s. I take photos of certain pages that might come in useful, but the library is getting busy quickly, and there is nowhere really to sit. On the stairs I keep bumping into undergraduate girls who seemed puzzled at the prospect of a middle aged hobbit jostling with them for space as they bicker and gossip on the landing. It’s time to escape.
Revisiting Bouquiniste, the small independent bookshop at the top of North Street, which I have written about before, the owner is talking to two management students from France. He is reminiscing about the time he spent in Bordeaux as an exchange student in the early 1970s, but the young boy and girl seem eager to leave, uncomfortable with the show of enthusiasm from this elderly Scots bookseller. He recognises me and smiles with his reddish cheeks and grey eyes. We fall easily into a conversation. He speaks to me about how he nearly got a job in French Libya before Gaddafi came to power, and how he travelled well into the mid-1970s, putting off his inevitable career in teaching. He had started off doing law at Edinburgh, but switched to English. We talk also about the education system, and how most of the students who come back to see him in the bookshop have ended up working in financial services. I tell him that there is not much incentive to take up any other profession now. Teaching and academia are increasingly just admin jobs. Government bureaucracy would be soul-crushing. Journalism is no longer a career at all.
Eventually I decide to buy an ornate 1930s copy of Sir Walter Scott’s Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border. I had asked about this book years ago on a previous visit and I am pleased to finally get it here. Purchasing such an important work in the history of Scottish culture, in this shop, has a lot of meaning for me. My purchase prompts a further conversation about the Moxon Tennyson (a reprint of Tennyson’s poems illustrated by the Pre-Raphaelites) which the bookseller has in his possession, and about the original 13-volume edition of Sir James Frazer’s The Golden Bough. The bookshop owner tells me had only ever come across the first edition of this set once, in a house that was not selling it. I tell him that my granny and grandpa used to have a copy on the landing upstairs in their house in Glen Isla. It was in a bookshelf that held lots of antiquarian books, and I can see it in my mind’s eye now, stacked in the bottom left-hand corner as you passed into the large blue guest bedroom. I have been hunting for this copy of Frazer for years, and I have no idea what became of it.
Market Street is crowded with students and tourists. The clouds are hovering and dark, and it is only just after midday. I need open space and fresh air. With my Walter Scott in hand, I make my way for West Sands. Just as I come down to the beach, passing the Old Course clubhouse and the golf museum, it starts to rain heavily. There are patches of blue opening up, and sun streaks weakly through some thinning cloths of cloud. The rain is thick, but I ignore it. As I pass the dog walkers and navigate the large puddles in the sand path leading from the road, I see a brunette in black jeans and jacket striding alone up the beach. She walks fast, in a straight line. She has a contained and pre-occupied energy, tense with unresolved and important concerns. She will be a constant, distant dot ahead of me on my walk. Something about her determined walk, her prettiness and her all-black clothes, sticks in my mind. That she is alone and continues to walk all the way along to the estuary, captures my imagination. There must be a story there.
The wind and rain kick up, then die down. Then kick up again at intervals. I hide my new book under my jacket, walking out onto the flattest, hardest part of the beach, where razor shells and stones sit in the newly washed beach-edge, now clean and silver after the receding surf. The light plays on this glassy ground, going purple and green and white. Dogs run, panting and wagging, up to the water’s edge. Couples and families huddle in big coats chatting and laughing in the wind. After some time walking, my body starts to soften, my mind cools down. There is a skin of moisture like a mask on my face. The elements freshen my eyes and my breath. The water is a steely colour, crashing in low, ripples of black shadow and frothy white spray. The horizon is steady and almost totally straight. The varying shades of grey soothe my eyes.
I keep walking out until the girl in black totally disappears from view. When I turn back I get a view of St. Salvator’s tower, the gothic point at the top almost seeming to prick the curls of black and oatmeal sky. It is a timeless view, one that washes away any sense of loss at the passing of the years. The wide expanse of wet beach reflects the landscape outline of the town like the reflection in a lake. In my head, I think of everything but nothing in particular. I hope that I can be like Tennyson, using long walks in open spaces to let my poetry take shape, playing with the sound of one sentence, one word, one rhyme, and washing it all around in my mind till it is ready. But I feel guilty at my presumption. Tennyson! Who do I think I am?
It is still only mid afternoon when I return to my hostel in Dundee. In my dark, large and cold room, I have a nap, listening to the bustle of Dundee High Street outside. It is noisy, but there is something comforting about it. There seems to be more money in the city these days, but you can still hear the voices of drunks and angry mothers, the snarky accents of bored youths. Dundee has changed, but not all that much. I dose off listening to a busker outside Boots singing ‘Fisherman’s Blues’ by The Waterboys. That evening, I drink whisky and leaf through Scott’s Minstrelsy. In his introduction, Scott writes about the factionalism and tribal wars of the border clans. I am most interested, however, in a few particular ballads, one of which is Sir Patrick Spens. Scott’s version is almost identical to the one that I tend to sing, but the last verse is different. Scott has little historical introductions to each ballad, based on his own research. Many accuse Scott of inventing Scottish heritage out of thin air, but traditions are not something you can really invent. You can embellish them, creatively fill in the gaps, just like Robert Burns did. But that is not to obscure the truth, but to partake in it. Traditions are evolving things, but they do not evolve out of nothing. There is no fact of the matter when it comes to tradition, only handed-down interpretations. This doesn’t make them any less authentic. Countries are constantly re-imagining themselves, re-fashioning identity in a bid to maintain integrity. The same is true for human beings