In the end, I surprise her; turn up at Stornoway Airport to see my girl off after four weeks in the isle of Lewis.
asserted
I → surprise → Lewis
She struggles to hide her delight.
asserted
She → struggle → delight
Those dark eyes as acute as ever: arrayed in well-fitted black – the colour has always suited her – with sequined detail and jewellery.
asserted
colour → array → detail
She yet sews or alters her own clothes; for the magnificent, bouffant up-do she wore through the years of our first acquaintance, they whisper she even made her own hats.
asserted
she → sew → hats
We hold hands for a minute or two, and chat.
asserted
We → hold → minute
A couple of weeks back I lent her the most recent biographies of our late Queen – works by Hugo Vickers and Robert Hardman: she is taking both books home with her, and we argue fondly as to which account is superior.
asserted
account → lend → her
She is totes Team Vickers; gurgles, in her abiding joy at life, in perennial mischief.
asserted
She → gurgle → mischief
And then she is ushered aboard her flight and in no mean dignity.
asserted
she → usher → dignity
I’d really rather not forsake our day of USB-rechargeable this and that, nor hail the return of corporal punishment to our schools.
asserted
I → forsake → schools
Or that island just in the edge of living memory when my grandmother did the laundry in the village river, when women often died in childbed, when schoolfellows succumbed to tuberculosis and, if Norman emigrated to Canada, it was most unlikely he would ever see his parents again.
asserted
he → live → parents
A woman leading her cow along a Hebridean track in 1955 while carrying a milking stool and bucket
Yet untold whens and wheres I remember.
asserted
I → lead → s
The earliest is of lying in my pram – in an era when Baby was routinely put outside for a bit – utterly safe and cosy as the rain pattered upon it.
asserted
rain → lie → it
Held in my father’s arms in 1970, as my twinkle-eyed great-grandfather with hands like shovels hailed my latest baby brother, the first child in the fourth generation named for him.
asserted
grandfather → hold → him
It was my privilege to meet some very old people in my boyhood: folk born in the 1870s and 1880s.
asserted
It → meet → 1870s
I remember being alone in the manse with a very old minister.
asserted
I → remember → minister
Both of us most comfortable in the silence but I sensed heavy memory.
asserted
I → sense → memory
Over a decade later, in another manse, I asked him about the Kaiser’s war.
asserted
I → ask → war
His eyes would not meet mine.
asserted
eyes → meet → mine
‘I came back,’ murmured the Reverend Professor Finlayson, ‘but many others didn’t…
asserted
others → come → ?
I was always at ease with the aged, pumping them for stories and memories.
asserted
I → age → stories
It used to exasperate my late father that I knew the family history better than he did.
asserted
he → use → history
When we lost my grandmother, in 1997, he demanded all my collated notes and papers – the assorted war service records, the telegrams to her wedding, letters from the 1910s – and bore them south.
asserted
he → lose → them
They did not survive him: he binned or burned the lot.
asserted
he → survive → lot
These national struggles for survival claimed more casualties, even decades thereafter, than we like to think.
asserted
we → claim → casualties
Months ago I daily visited a certain oak tree by the grounds of my old school in Jordanhill, sprawled in its shade and eyeing that stately Locharbriggs-stone building, every corner redolent with memory.
asserted
corner → visit → memory
The gentle, twitchy French teacher, a 60-something bundle of nerves who could not have maintained classroom order with the 101st Airborne Division.
uncertain
who → maintain → Division
On return to class, one January, he did not show up for work.
asserted
he → show → work
The concerned headmaster broke into his home and found him dead.
asserted
headmaster → break → him
Mr Graveson, we learned, had four decades before been captured and tortured by the Gestapo.
asserted
we → learn → Gestapo
Another lass, felled by cancer before she made 40; the boy who, in the wake of a bad head injury, took his own life.
asserted
who → fell → life
And here was I, decades hence, spared, 60, and faintly ridiculous, remembering them and many others under that oak tree.
asserted
I → spar → tree
There are milestone events I am pleased to remember, like Richard Nixon leaving the White House in disgrace, or the April 1976 funeral of Montgomery of Alamein.
asserted
Nixon → be → Alamein
Others I wish I did not, like tightrope star Karl Wallenda’s fatal Puerto Rico plummet in March 1978.
asserted
I → wish → March
News coverage was far less herbivorous in those days: his scream as he fell haunts me still.
asserted
he → fall → me
I saw things you are unlikely to see again.
asserted
you → see → things
I have in my day been roped in to help dig the odd grave; remember the soothing stillness of the past Lewis Sabbath when – save for sermon – no one ventured outside their house.
asserted
one → rope → house
I have lived, too, into a era when sneerers and strangers have done their best to profane it.
asserted
sneerers → live → it
Many of the strongest memories involve food.
asserted
Many → involve → food
On August 12, 1977 – I can date it precisely because the broadcaster on the Scottish Home Service was enthusing about the Glorious Twelfth; it was a few days before Elvis died – we had a memorable extended-family outing to Dalmore beach, legendary for its thunderous breakers.
asserted
we → date → breakers
We still talk about it.
asserted
We → talk → it
…and 7 more, not listed.
The Aporia
