To Scotland

Sunday. A trip to the health club for a swim and a sauna, then back home for lunch. Sitting at the dining table, chomping on a slice of Ole and Steen chia rye bread with some brie elegantly balanced atop (yes, I am now sufficiently grown up to like such things – took a while) I gazed out upon our South West London garden and said to my brilliant and beautiful best friend, “There’s a hint of spring in the air.”

What kind of fool takes a statement like that, shoves it in the face of fate and says, “There! Do with that what you will!” As sure as God made little green apples, winter is now set to return with a vengeance. We may even have sleet. Sleet, I tells ya!

People – and by people, I mean you – tend to say to me, “But you grew up in Scotland. On the coast. You must be used to the cold.” Well, I did and quite frankly had my fill of dreich and miserable weather to last me a lifetime. These days, I much prefer the heat and seek out the sun whenever I can. So, it’s somewhat ironic that I am shortly off to Scotland. On the coast.

I am, you will no doubt be impressed to read, suffering for my art. The latest peerless work of fiction upon which I currently labour takes place in the very area in which I was raised by my long-suffering parents, and I need to head beyond the wall in order to carry out some research. My sister, who is also a writer and who is also, entirely coincidentally, writing a novel set in the same location, has temporarily but quite understandably fled her home in America for a few months to seek comparative shelter on the wind-swept Firth of Forth and has invited me to stay with her for a few days. Most kind.

She sent me a photograph of her standing on the sea wall outside the house we grew up in, a layer of snow powdering the ground, and a piercing east wind whipping up anything not nailed down.

The house we grew up in to the left of the church tower. Sunny, not snowing, obvs

Now, as everyone knows – well, I know you do – the salt air and water in coastal areas lowers freezing point because - as I realise you are fully aware - it interferes with the ability of water molecules to form ice. It doesn’t completely prevent ice forming – it just means that for snow to stay lying on the ground, it has to be a lot blimmin’ colder than in, I dunno, Surrey for instance.

I don’t recall noticing the cold when I was a kid as much as I do now. I do remember my mother making me wear two jumpers to school when I was about six years old and being hit by my teacher for being so feeble. Not sure that that was in any teaching manual available at the time, but both the primary and secondary schools I attended were very, very keen on inflicting violence upon children. One small boy in my reception class was belted for being unable to play the recorder. Seems entirely fair.

AN UNEXPECTED TRIP

It was from that very same primary school on one of those very same icy days that were colder than Greenland (Don, do you have any idea quite how cold it is there, you great lump of lunacy?) that I made my way home in the company of my friend, Bruce. The notion of salting or gritting the pavements was for big Jessies, so they were very slippery, which was great! It meant you could take a good run and then slide along the pavement sideways for yards. Which is how Bruce and I progressed.

Until, that is, I found myself sitting in one of the chairs in the hall of my house, my forehead being dabbed with a warm, damp sponge by the mother of a girl whom I found, even at my pre-pubescent age, very attractive.

This was both unexpected and somewhat disorientating. (The sponging, not the attraction.)

Why was I sitting here? Why was she crouching there? How had she managed to find that bowl and that sponge? I mean, the house was enormous and rambling, and even finding the door to the next room was akin to Hogwarts. And where was my mother, for heaven’s sake?

The East Neuk of Fife had its issues back in the mid-sixties, chief among them being raging homophobia and a seething hatred of anyone who came from further than three miles away. But conversely, you could leave your front door unlocked without fear of being robbed, and you could go out to do some shopping and not be worried if you arrived home five minutes later than your child.

The East Neuk - looking lovely and not at all homophobic

When my mother duly arrived five minutes after I did, she was just as surprised to find my schoolmate’s mother tending to me as I had been.

So, what exactly had transpired, I hear you ask. Well, if you wouldn’t mind conjuring up a bit of a wavy transition effect in your mind’s eye as we travel a short distance back in time…thank you…I had taken a particularly long run-up in preparation for an especially long and spectacular slide, but must have hit a dry spot, devoid of ice, with the consequence that my feet came to an instant halt and the rest of my body executed something of a 180 flip, with the result that I landed on my head and knocked myself out.

Bruce, being of similarly tender years and not yet trained in CPR, ran home to get his mum. My rescuer had been driving past and saw me slumped alone upon the ground. Recognising me and knowing exactly where I lived – it was a village after all – she picked me up and carried me down the street to my home, which, given her small stature, was no mean feat.

My mother expressed her undying gratitude and proceeded to minister to my every need, and I, in turn, proceeded to milk every possible advantage I could from the situation. I mean, I had a sore head and all and an impressive lump on my forehead, but I was basically fine. This didn’t stop me from allowing myself to be fussed over, eating whatever I demanded and watching as much TV as I wanted, not that the choice was exactly wide in the mid-sixties.

THE SHOW MUST GO ON

One thing I was sure of from a very early age was that I wanted to be an actor (cowboy and detective were possible alternatives, but actor was resolutely at the top of the list). I belonged to a children’s theatre group, and that weekend, we were due to give a performance of a Christmas piece based vaguely on The Story of the Babushka in which I played the central, not to say vital role of ‘The Cat’. I’m sure you’re more than familiar with it.

Given I was behaving as one who might expire at any moment unless hand-fed more ice cream, my mother was of the opinion that I would not be sufficiently recovered to make the performance. I, on the other hand, never thought for one moment that I would not be there; the concept of “The Show Must Go On” already deeply embedded in my infant psyche.

After much persuasion and reassuring my mother that I had made a miraculous recovery, there I was in full cat costume and full makeup (which jolly well hurt when it was applied to my bump), giving it my everything on all fours. (Which may or may not be a phrase from Fifty Shades of Grey.)

It’s not exactly revelatory to say that tackling what is important to us can distract us from pain or illness or misery, but there is something rather impressive in the way performing artists habitually rise above debilitating circumstances in order to be on stage when the curtain rises. That’s obviously true about other professions too, but given that performing artists can often be regarded as being a bit mimsy-pimsy, I’m going out to bat for them and saying that in my experience, they can be tough as old boots.

THE LATE, GREAT BOB HEWIS

Many years later, I was in a production of The Scottish Play at The Everyman Theatre in Liverpool in which the part of Macduff was played by the mighty Bob Hewis, tragically no longer with us. If ever there was an exponent of ‘The Show Must Go On’ creed, it was Bob.

I can’t remember why, although I’m sure there was a perfectly sound creative reason, he was at one point required to exit stage right and then sprint beneath the stage before re-emerging stage left very shortly thereafter. There wasn’t a great deal of headroom under the stage of The Liverpool Everyman, nor was there a great deal of light, and on the final dress rehearsal, Bob ran full pelt into an iron beam supporting the stage. It was a hell of a whack and would have felled a lesser actor – me for instance – but sure enough, he reappeared right on cue, clearly dazed but still performing at full throttle.

Bob as Macduff and me as Malcolm - Liverpool Everyman

Although that ‘Show Must Go On’ attitude arguably has less imperative when one spends one’s working life sitting at a desk writing, it still has its benefits. Writing requires discipline and routine, and an ability to ignore distraction. The words don’t always come tumbling out; sometimes they must be cajoled, eked, hauled into place.

Since I discovered just over a year ago that foreign things had been growing silently and sinisterly inside my body, the stoicism that years in the theatre and a Scottish upbringing has given me have supplied the fortitude to battle these unwelcome invaders and to tolerate the effects of the formidable medication I need to take.

Life is joyous. It may still be a tad chilly, but spring will be here soon. I’ve seen snowdrops and cyclamen, so all is well with the world.

And I’m off to Scotland. On the coast. Who could ask for more?