First, there was the blind man, the one Star met while outside smoking. Everyone in the pub knew him by name and we had a fine time with him discussing politics and writing and all sorts of things. He introduced us to Gordon Douglas, who had written a second book about the sons of the Mars. He gave us a copy of it, as a matter of fact. He told us about the old ship and how the stories stuck with him and he had to tell them. Go here to find out more and to get Gordon’s book–
Soon, we were joined by his lady friend/wife—an artist named Susan Wilson—and we had a genuine, an animated conversation about real things, as though we had known each other a long time.
Gordon was the second person to talk about the spirits of place. A taxi driver in Edinburgh had mentioned the haunted landscape of Glencoe and Gordon has lived near the place where the Mars had been moored, could see the spot from his kitchen window. He said each time he walked to the water, he could see the faces. They would “rise up” before him, is how he put it.
Those first two cities on this pilgrimage of mine—Edinburgh and Dundee—set a tone for the Invisible in these old and complicated urban areas. Here the faces that rise up before us are human ones. The land spirits, large and small, seem suppressed in so much stone, amidst so much human longing and striving. Even in the parks of the towns, the deeply-green places, the Beings were Ancestral and urban. Only the long lines of the ridges of Salisbury Crags gave shape to the beckoning fingers of the land folk, calling us to remember the time before human time.
Friends, we drank deep that night at the Phoenix. Terry soon arrived and we set to renewing our joking acquaintance and hearing about his mysterious ailment. We missed the cut-off for food and had to venture out in search of a meal. We returned after and found a new table and talked with the regulars. At one point, having gone to the barman for a packet of salt-and-vinegar crisps, I ended up discussing Trump with the fellas and the barman (they invited me to return to Scotland if he was elected) and a bit later I found myself discussing the American Civil War with the same group.
We had decided on a taxi home at the end of the evening and that was a very good idea, as it turned out. All in all, a very fine evening—though I was terribly sad to have missed my friend Mark and his son Allan. Next stop, Lockerbie and Mid Raeburn and a Rather Large and Amorous Dog.
Reiver country.
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