O Caledonia

Nanny was bearing down with a face like the North Sea. Janet had one thing to do before doom cracked above her. “Please may I touch your arm?” she asked. The man stared at her, still smiling. Her knees were shaking but she stretched her fingers up and gently she stroked his puckered stump; it was like paper, dry and smooth, even where the violent scar lines twisted and rippled and enlaced it was smooth like the bark on branches. Nanny seized her and dealt her a resounding swipe on the backs of her calves. “Your father will hear of this when he’s home. You’ll sit with me now.” She dragged her up the hall again. “Showing off. Talking to men. I never saw the like. Your poor grandfather.” Janet’s eyes stung and her legs burned and stung, but she was filled with happiness. She had rid her life of one haunting fear. And she had known the toxic joy of power.

Now she sat, thumb in mouth, eyes glazed, quiet and good. The other children were dancing Oranges and Lemons and the Grand Old Duke of York but she might not join them. Nanny was talking to Miss Pettigrew, one of two ancient sisters. The other sister was having tea in the first sitting of grown-ups, the very old, the war-wounded, and the men. Nanny and the younger Miss Pettigrew would have their turn in more refined company. The men ate with intense absorption; some of them had tucked handkerchiefs into their collars for bibs. They were like the little children at tea, even the ones whom Janet had seen come lurching and ranting out of the Ship Inn on a blast so pungent with smoke and whisky that for a moment she could not smell the sea; even those wild tattooed men were as homely and douce with their scones and jam as the fat-bellied tea cosies clothing the brown teapots. O Caledonia.

Very old Miss Pettigrew came trembling up, leaning on her stick. “Here you are then, Annie,” she said to her sister. Her jaw dropped loose, her mouth hung limp and open; in went her black-veined claw; out came a set of pinkly glistening false teeth. Her sister grabbed them; with no ado she popped them into her own mouth. She paused for a moment, sucking noisily. “Macaroons!” she cried. “Och, that’s braw!” She and Nanny headed briskly for the tea table. Janet and the ancient sat silent together, both dribbling a little.

Now that Janet and Francis were older, Grandpa would let them visit him in his study, where the parrot lived. Grandpa came from a long line of parrot-keeping men, and Polly’s predecessor, a white cockatoo, had fought with Wellington’s armies in the Napoleonic Wars. Janet’s father’s earliest memories were of the astonishing oaths known to this bird, who was then a hundred and two years old and spoke in ripe gamey accents long since gone from the world of men. Grandpa believed there must be a fair number of such long-lived birds in Scotland — even perhaps in England — and it would be a fine thing to have them all gathered in a great dining hall, invoking ghostly midshipmen and dragoons, violent drinkers and merry rhymesters, perhaps even occasionally an elderly lady of refinement. This, he said, would afford a historical experience of rare value; indeed, ancient parrots should be feted and cultivated as true archivists.

The current parrot was unfriendly but interesting, with his black tongue like a neat sea-smoothed stone and his sarcastic sideways stare. If they sang “Away in a Manger” to him he would dance, swaying from side to side, lifting his feet high and raising his wings. Janet tried chanting “Hink, minx” but it was too fast and drove Polly into such a frenzy of action that he collapsed palpitating on the floor. Francis laughed a lot, but Janet was appalled. She fed him toast in placation and he bit her finger. Blood spurted disgustingly onto his gravel floor, but Janet was glad. Justice had been done. This Polly, too, had lived for a long time and much of his enigmatic utterance was addressed to a host of invisible dogs, cats and visitors. “Go to your basket, Donald,” he would yell, and “Wipe your feet,” “Goodnight, Miss McPhail,” “Wet dog.” His two favourite sentences were “Would you care for a dram?” and “Mr. Baird has a short beard,” both compellingly effective. He could also reproduce the sound of whisky being poured into tumblers, and one day Janet discovered a great secret, to be known only to herself and Grandpa. He could imitate Grandpa’s typewriter in busy action, so that people knocking on the study door would steal away again, finger to lip. “We mustn’t disturb him; he’s writing his sermon.”