Tarradale's Option

Tarradale's Option

Ed Bruce (c) 2001

In the Crofting Township of Borganhill, almost every household has its
own source of winter fuel. The peat bogs are located "up the hill,"
which is local speak for a large valley some distance into the moors.
There they toil at regular intervals throughout the spring and summer,
cutting, lifting and stacking their peats to ensure a cosy fire when
the short summer ends. The trail, fit only for tractors, leads off the
Tongue to Thurso road, twisting and slanting its way through heather
and over rocks for three miles, then it ends abruptly as it meets the
loch. This supplies the rambling village with peat-flavoured,
whisky-coloured tap water.

But over to the left, just as you leave the main road, there's a rocky
mound flanked by a clump of shrubbery and beyond that, hidden from
view, a small sunken glen. A lochan, no bigger than a duck pond, forms
a centrepiece and the level ground around lies mysteriously denuded of
heather. This perfect peat bank was overlooked by generations of
crofters until Tarradale claimed it. Trust him to find a different
option.

Soon afterwards there was talk of a burial ground. Wags were saying
things about Tarradale's wives. This could have been jealousy; he would
hardly spread that kind of rumour about himself; then again, they could
never be sure with John MacKay. His reputation was bad enough before he
got corrupted down the line, but everyone knew that both women brought
his children back to visit him regularly. And who can argue with
that?

Students of archaeology from Aberdeen University, on a working break at
Borganhill at the time, meticulously cleared an area of fifty square
metres or more. Nothing of significance was ever found, but the removal
of the top divots, the most backbreaking task in peat cutting,
uncovered a dark, heavy peat of perfect consistency. These dried as
hard as coal briquettes and burned just as slowly. Tarradale's bank is
the envy of smallholders for miles around.

The crofter and the rich Canadians first met aboard a minibus at the
Kyle of Tongue. John MacKay, commonly known as Tarradale after his
family croft, had undertaken to drive some hotel residents on a
sightseeing tour, since Dougal, the owner of the little school bus, had
had a few too many whiskies the night before.
With the lambing season over, he was glad of the job; choices were few
enough since he refused to work at the nearby Dounreay Atomic Power
Station, the only source of regular employment in the area. In season
he might have found work as a water bailiff, but for his poaching
conviction, so he compromised by netting the pools on the river at
night and selling his salmon catch to the hoteliers in Thurso before
daylight crept in. As he saw it, he had no alternative.

The landlady at the Borganhill Hotel had briefed John on places of
interest he should visit, even rehearsing appropriate remarks for John
to recite at each. But the crofter had been drinking with Dougal the
previous evening and the resultant hangover was causing him worrisome
memory lapses.

He parked up at the causeway as advised, but as he pointed towards the
towering and majestic Ben Loyal the suggested phrase, The Queen of
Scottish Mountains, eluded him.
"Ben Loyal is famous as, as..." he searched the faces of half a dozen
passengers for inspiration, then seemed to find it in the features of
an elderly couple at the back, "the oldest mountain in Scotland."

Some nodded acceptance and John's eyes twinkled, maintaining his
deadpan expression as he reached for the ignition switch. But the big
man in the seat opposite strained against his safety belt in an effort
to interrupt.
"That's bullshit! You're talking absolute rubbish...and you know
it!"
The couple were living at the hotel while the cottage they had bought
was being renovated. Local builders grumbled about the man's arrogance
and impatience.

Stealing an appreciative glance at the passenger's attractive blond
wife, John stayed his hand on the switch. "Ah, you know an older one
then sir? Well, so be it, I bow to your superior knowledge of
history."
"Geology, for God's sake!"
John smiled broadly, slipped the gear lever into second, checked his
mirrors and drove west across the moor.

At Loch Eriboll Tarradale suggested the passengers ate their packed
lunches, although it wasn't a scheduled stop. Up ahead, a tourist, his
car pulling a caravan, overshot a passing place on the single-track
road. The vehicles slowed, then came to a halt facing each other a yard
apart. John indicated the passing place the other driver had chosen to
ignore, only to be answered by obscenities and abusive gestures. The
car driver had killed his engine and lit a cigarette.

While they ate their picnic, with other travellers gradually converging
upon the blocked road from both directions, Tarradale entertained his
passengers with the story of Donald "Sailor" MacKay, his distant
ancestor who, as a youth, had been kidnapped from these shores and
press-ganged into service on a pirate ship. Eventually, the car driver
relented, but reversed his caravan into a deep ditch dragging the car
with it, to derisive laughter from the passengers. The mishap left the
road and the passing place clear for traffic to flow normally.
At Durness Craft Village, John described the merchandise for sale as
pseudo-Scottish garbage, imported and assembled by failed art student
refugees from Glasgow and Edinburgh, existing on a subsidy while
pretending to be new age travellers.

Arriving back at Tongue too early, they detoured along Loch Loyal to
Altnaharra, then swung back towards the coast, along a valley peppered
with small, dilapidated crofts, well off the tourist beat.

As the skies clouded over, John stopped at Syre church and spoke to his
passengers about this glen, Strathnaver, and of man's inhumanity to
man. He told them about the crofters, his ancestors, many of whom died
after being evicted from their homes by their landlord, The Duke of
Sutherland. He spoke of the Highland Clearances and how sheep replaced
humans. He related extensively of those who perished on their journey
to North America, and other distant relatives who didn't survive
resettlement on the rugged coast. He ended his discourse with a
moment's silence. As he raised his head there were murmurings of
approval and appreciation.

The Canadian extended his hand and gripped the driver's firmly. "Put it
there fella. I'm Bob Morrison and this is my wife Lois," he said. "OK,
so you're no geologist, but you sure as hell know your history."
John withdrew his hand then started the engine. "That's oral tradition,
Bob, there's a difference; history books lie."

Tarradale was less than a mile from the Canadian's rebuilt cottage on
the Borgan river estuary and so it was that in that scattered community
Bob and Lois formed an uneasy friendship with John and his daughter
Morag. The only thing the two men had in common was an appreciation of
malt whisky and the love of a good argument. But for a while those
similarities seemed enough to sustain them, whereas the ladies seemed
to blend easily.

The crofter would listen with genuine interest as Bob described the
life he'd left behind in Winnipeg; how he'd started as a junior
accountant in a chain store, made it to general manager in ten years
and married Lois. He told John about the many exotic parts of the world
they had visited on vacation and how, on returning from a trip to
Scotland, he and Lois decided to make a clean break from the rat race
and suburbia. With no kids to influence their decision and a healthy
share portfolio, they opted for the quiet life by choosing the most
sparsely populated place they could find. It was also something of a
homecoming, since he had traced relatives on his father's side to the
fishing village of Kinlochbervie on the West Coast.
John's own reminiscences amounted to a hard luck story by comparison.
The only son of staunchly religious parents, he left home at sixteen
simply to escape the strict, stifling home atmosphere. The common thing
he shared with his parents was an instinctive distrust of Dounreay. The
largely infertile smallholding couldn't sustain three adults
indefinitely.

Although tall, strong and eager to please, the young Highlander was
worldly na?ve and learned all his lessons the hard way. Now forty, with
two failed marriages behind him, he was the father of four
children.

He inherited Tarradale upon the death of his parents. Both his wives
had been from the city and failed to adjust to the primitive and
relatively impoverished life on the croft. But Morag, from his second
marriage, took to that countryside like a true native and refused to
leave. The others kept in contact and visited often.
When the twelve-year-old malt whisky had hit the spot, John MacKay
would often philosophise, not unkindly, about misguided parents, barren
soil and fertile women. Where the latter were concerned, he had never
abandoned his dream of meeting a kindred spirit, but as the years
slipped by, with options dwindling, he increasingly sought spiritual
solace in the whisky bottle.

The other subject close to John's heart was the ownership of salmon and
how a fish that had travelled from as far away as Iceland to spawn,
could possibly become the property of a Scottish landowner. It was an
issue the Canadian had few thoughts on at the time, but would later
cause him to make a decision with far-reaching consequences.

Bob particularly admired his neighbour's stack of firm, coal-black
peat, built like a large brick outhouse. Having made a feature of the
open fireplace in their new home, he wasted no time in scouring the
moor and claiming a peat bank of his own. From a Thurso blacksmith he
purchased a flaughter, rutter and tusker, the standard peat-cutting
tools, and worked tirelessly and alone on his project.

On his prolonged absences up the hill, Lois became a regular visitor to
Tarradale. She and Morag became close friends and often, while John
slept after his dubious nocturnal activities, they would swim together
at the sandy river estuary. Occasionally in the early evening, with Bob
still toiling on the hill, John would take them both out on his small
boat to catch mackerel. Somebody said that Morag sometimes stayed
behind and another that the boat was once seen at Coldbackie beach and
a couple walking arm-in-arm into the cave there when the tide was out.
Such was Post Office gossip.

After a while Bob brought home a peat sample for John's inspection. The
crofter weighed it in his hand then poked his fingers into the fibrous
stringy texture.
"Depends if you want to use it for burning or for scrubbing your back,"
he said. "Never dig where you find bog myrtle growing Bob; they'll be
lightweight and fit only for kindling."
Some mentioned a bank being fired up the hill next day. Bob said he was
just smoking off a swarm of midges, but all the peats he had cut were
reduced to ashes and he didn't drop in on Tarradale with the customary
bottle of Macallan that week, nor for weeks to come.

As summer replaced spring, the Canadians did their best to become part
of the community, attending ceilidhs and fund-raising events at the
local hall. On the common grazing land surrounding Tarradale, where
chomping Cheviots had trimmed the grass to putting green texture, Bob
could sometimes be seen practising his golf swing while Morag showed
Lois where to find the wild mushrooms.

It was about this time that Lois told Morag about her husband's mood
swings. While she herself felt she had blossomed in the changed
environment, Bob was missing the stimulation and companionship of his
peers. Their marriage appeared to become secondary to him as his mind
leapt from one obsession to another. Once outgoing and open, he now
seemed introverted, petty-minded and bitter. At least once a week,
since the salmon-fishing season started, he would take Lois to dine at
the Borganhill Hotel, just to hobnob with the wealthy businessmen who
annually rented a room and a stretch of the river from the hotel.
After a while he, too, bought a rod and paid for the privilege of
mixing with people of his own class, difficult though it was for him
since he lacked the necessary patience for the sport. As if to make
matters worse it had been one of the driest seasons in living memory
and river pools that normally yielded twenty or thirty-pound salmon
were too shallow to sustain them. While his fellow fishermen grumbled
about the parched river, Bob would look downstream towards Tarradale
and be reminded of another reason for the shortage of fish.
But most mornings the Canadian walked to the hill carrying a packed
lunch and he would sometimes stay there 'till dusk. When he deigned to
speak, he would tell Lois about an overgrown, disused area nearby where
the peat was a rich dark mould. He had cut at least a year's supply and
built them into storrows to dry in the wind. Eventually he would buy a
bottle of Scotch and talk to John about transporting them home.

If Bob's neighbour was concerned about the lapse in their friendship,
he showed little sign. There was talk of a falling out and it had been
noticed that they never walked to the hill together. More puzzling was
the fact that this year John hadn't gone there at all, although he did
still have a good winter's supply of peat in the stack. Word was he was
preoccupied with other matters and building up trouble for himself in
more ways than one.

oo 00 oo

Jimmy Anderson didn't know his Christian name was Hamish until he moved
from Aberdeen to Borganhill some years ago. At first he put it down to
mistaken identity although, being the only resident policeman, that was
unlikely. He soon realised that everyone in that Gaelic community, who
was baptised James, would thereafter answer to Hamish. Jimmy didn't
particularly like the name but he loved his new posting; therefore he
didn't try to buck the trend.
His first call out had been to a drunk and disorderly at the hotel,
where a crofter had been challenging everyone in the public bar to a
fistfight. When Jimmy arrived, the man was slumped in a paralytic state
by the door. It was easy enough, in spite of his stature, to transfer
him to the back seat of the police car. The landlady and several
customers went to some lengths to explain that the drunk was not a
violent person, but had been drowning his sorrows for weeks since his
second wife left him. A lift home was all that was called for.
At Tarradale croft, the man came to his senses under a verbal onslaught
from his daughter, and was soon pouring liberal measures of whisky as
"a token of gratitude." In Borganhill no one knocked before entering a
house and to refuse a drink was to insult the host.
When he awoke late next day, Jimmy had no recollection of travelling
home. He had vague memories of a once inebriated crofter gradually
drinking himself sober; a phenomenon he had heard of, but never
witnessed, while he himself became increasingly mellow in the convivial
company. He recalled Morag with her disapproving glances and rebukes,
the warmth of the peat fire flame, the oft repeated phrase "one for the
road" - and nothing else. He found the car keys on his table and the
vehicle parked neatly out front.
If he chanced to meet John MacKay in the days that followed, they would
nod and exchange knowing looks - but nothing more.
When Jimmy got the tip-off he spent the whole day worrying about it.
While John MacKay was the only person he knew who made a living from
poaching, he did go about his business discreetly and any conflict was
always between the poacher and the water bailiffs, with John always one
move ahead. Jimmy only became involved when an arrest was necessary and
he was aware that an offender's car could be confiscated as part of the
penalty. He knew he had to contact his colleagues in Caithness and pass
on Tarradale's car registration number, but before that he made a local
call.

They'd finished their evening meal and Morag was clearing up in the
kitchen while John watched the news on commercial television. For years
he had refused to pay the licence fee because homes in Borganhill were
unable to receive BBC transmissions. Indeed the only signal they could
pick up came from the Orkney Islands across the Pentland Firth. When
the Northern Times published a picture of a TV detector van arriving at
Wick harbour, the local post office did ten times its normal trade next
day. Tarradale remonstrated with his MP, but to no avail, then waited
six months until the van was reported crossing the border into
Sutherland before making his receiver legal.
Bob walked in more tentatively than previously, cleared his throat then
placed the bottle on the table with a thump. As John looked up, the
first thing he seemed to observe was the whisky, which, unusually, bore
the brand label of a common blend.
He indicated the easy chair opposite while switching off the television
set. "Have a seat Bob."
Morag came through, smiled at Bob and brought glasses from the
cupboard.
"No, this won't take long. And I won't have a drink, thanks
Morag."
The crofter's brow furrowed as he scrutinised his visitor's face, which
twitched a little as he moved his weight from one foot to
another.
"Yeah. Well John, I only have coupla things to say, then I'll leave.
It's best you hear this from me, I owe you that. You remember you asked
me once who owns the fish in the river? Yeah? OK, well I thought about
it, and it sure as hell isn't you! There are fishermen out there paying
big bucks to catch salmon and the pools are empty. With the drought
they have to fish for sea trout on the club stretch here on the
estuary. How does that make you feel?"
"It makes me angry that they're allowed to do it."
"That all you can say?"
"No, but it'll keep. What was the other thing?"
The Canadian's vacant face adopted an ironic smile as he shook his
head. "You don't get it, do you? I had to report you to the police
John. I'm sorry, but what you're doing is wrong by any standards, can't
you see that?"
Tarradale maintained his quizzical expression. "And the other
thing?"
His guest took some time to answer. "I have some peats on the hill, he
said, still shaking his head, "I'd like you to bring them home for me
with your tractor. I'll pay the going rate, but I'll understand if
you'd rather I asked someone else. Your call fella."
"They're legally mine Bob. You've been cutting my peat bank."
The other shook his head once more. "You're crazy! The ground was
overgrown with weeds; the site was abandoned."
"That happens over winter. You should've checked out crofters' rights
before you started digging. Anyone could have told you about
Tarradale's bank. I have plenty for my needs this year though; you can
keep them. Just ask somebody else to take them off the hill."
"I don't get it John. Why are you taking this so well, eh? I'd feel
better if you punched me on the jaw. I've put an end to your poaching
operation, taking away, I would guess, half your income? Now you tell
me I've been cutting your peat bank and that's OK. I play the stock
Market and I know about options. I'd say yours have ran out. If I were
in your shoes man, I'd make someone pay."
"There's damned few fish left now. Besides, netting a river isn't all
it's cracked up to be; you can catch your death out there. We were
friends once Bob, but you've broken the boundaries and involved
yourself in matters that don't concern you." He poured a measure of
whisky and held the bottle poised over the other glass. "I don't like
to admit it but I envied you once. You had everything going for you
when you came here; all you had to do was learn to live and let live.
You're going to need that drink now."
"What? No, I'm fine. Why'd you say that?"
"Because Lois is leaving you. She's moving in with Morag and me."

ooooooOOOOOOoooooo