#and i want to inveigle other people into showing me THEIR stationery...

[reekierevelator]

The Bloody Saltire

 a short story by Brian Bourner

I noticed the cross made up of vapour trails as I walked back to the car from the stream.  It was a sign, of course, not mere condensation streaming from the planes as they passed one another across a clear blue sky.

After all, the book had detailed how in the year 832AD, Angus mac Fergus, High King of Alba, facing a force of Angles and Saxons led by Athelstan, was encouraged by the appearance of the white cross of St Andrew in an otherwise blue sky, and the combined Scots and Picts had gone on to win the battle. Indeed the place was still called Athelstaneford.

Yes, I remember thinking, Ellen McBride, it’s time you stopped procrastinating, time you stopped pottering around the North Downs in these green and pleasant home counties. Time you returned this hired car and got on with what you returned to Britain to do in the first place.

On arrival at Heathrow I’d spent the first couple of days readjusting to the delights of modern Britain. I’d quickly discovered that the trains still ran late and the streets were still perpetually clogged with litter. Hiring the car had allowed me to escape from London; the quiet of the North Downs reminding me of my previous existence on Bali’s north coast.

When my train pulled into Waverley Station, juddering to a halt before wearily exhaling. I already had my coat on.  Grabbing the small brown suitcase, which had lain on my lap all the way from King’s Cross, I stood up, squeezed the wheeled suitcase out from the space behind the seat, and joined the mass exodus.  

At last, I’d thought, it’s my turn at last. Fifteen years of unpleasantly meandering through Indonesia, picking up the odd casual job as an English language assistant, all the while taking pains to avoid authority and British embassy staff - just in case. And then those last two years in Singapore – but anyway, it’s all behind me now.  Still, I can’t deny I left Singapore under a cloud. It still rankles.  I was so badly treated, a victim of all those bitchy comments about competence from the other teachers, and misguided complaints from students’ parents. Even my physical approach to classroom discipline was apparently no longer appreciated. In fact it had hardly even been worth acquiring the references.

So there I was, forty-three years old, greying hair, with nothing much in the way of savings, and any meagre pension entitlement still a long way off. I had no options left but the book. I had to take a chance and return home.

And back in Edinburgh, emerging from the Waverley Steps escalator on to Princes Street, and my attention was inevitably drawn to the flag fluttering from the General Register Office across the road, the white cross on its sky-blue field. And to my right another saltire was flying proudly over the entrance to the Balmoral Hotel.  Suddenly the sign was everywhere.  Some passing coaches were painted in an all-over saltire livery. Smaller versions of the device proliferate on the city buses too – advertising everything from haggis to holidays. Only glancing behind me at the Old Town vista did I see a small union flag, flying apologetically on top of Edinburgh Castle.

There I was, home at last in the land of the Saltire. I clung ever more tightly to the small scuffed brown case while scanning the street in vain for a taxi rank.  Fortunately I managed to hail a cab as it hurried away from the Balmoral Hotel.

The train’s late arrival had left me no time to book in at my hotel. ‘Black and Brown, the publishers’ I’d shouted to the driver after hauling my suitcase aboard, retracting its telescopic handle, and slamming the cab door. The driver put his foot to the accelerator and the cab rocketed off along Princes Street.

Inside that small brown case I knew there lay a manuscript that Black and Brown had been expecting for decades, ever since Malky had shown them the first few chapters and they’d paid him that huge advance of four hundred and fifty pounds.  I remember his excitement.

I’d just started out as a trainee teacher, 1988, allocated for practical experience to that awful McLaughlan’s school. And then I’d been inveigled into attending their ludicrous staff Awayday. That stuffy little hotel where Malky was working as a waiter. But he told me he’d finished his history degree, told me he’d started work on a book, and when I looked dubious he showed me the cheque he’d received that morning.

So when Malky declared he was off to Bali and would like to take me with him for a wonderful holiday I immediately saw a future for myself as the future Mrs Arbuthnott, wife of an aspiring academic. I quickly packed a couple of changes of clothes in my old brown weekend case and grabbed my passport. I thought it would be for or a few weeks, maybe a month or two. Of course I should have seen the warning signs. Malky arriving at the airport with a huge old rucksack stuffed full of history books and assorted stationery, including reams of paper, and insisting it was all essential for a holiday. An old canvas tent hung from the bottom straps of the rucksack. Holiday? More like some kind of research sabbatical.

By the time five months in Bali had passed, the novelty of the place had entirely worn off. I complained relentlessly about having to live in a tent like a beach bum on the black sand of that remote northern shore.  But Malky barely listened.  He was exasperating. He did nothing but read and scribble away, writing his book all day every day.

My initial conviction that Malky had done something wonderfully generous by bringing me to Bali, and that it might be the start of our life together, faded very fast.  I quickly discovered I was really only there to provide meals and sex. Malky pretended he couldn’t understand why I felt bored and neglected, and anyway he couldn’t care less. My resentment multiplied by the day, especially after he dropped the bombshell that he’d have no money for flights home until his book was published.

And Malky didn’t think much of me planning to be a teacher either, denigrating it as ‘a childminding job; ok if you’re desperate, but not really living, just a vicarious form of life.’ He insisted he was going to be a famous novelist, not some tweedy ivory-tower academic – and this from the man living in a tent on an isolated beach!  He would regularly repeat the tired old dictum that ‘those who can do, those who can’t…’ and so on, and on, and on until I felt I couldn’t bear it any longer. And then Malky wanted to use even the little money I’d saved to support our frugal lifestyle.

But still I thought that he was the creative one.  I didn’t see myself as having much imagination at all. And then, one day, the seed of a plan was planted in my head.

I’d been trekking around the sparsely populated northern shore looking for a farm that might sell me some cheap rice when I stopped to rest at a little family temple.  Sitting under the ornate columns and arches, all those weird, carved people and animals, the Pemangku, the temple priest, silently joined me. He could see how unhappy I was. He spoke English in that strange sing-song, halting kind of way. He explained that all things pass, but a person's atman, spirit, is permanent and cannot change. Only the physical body is transient and subject to change. The atman, he said, is reborn many times, and this is called samsara, the cycle of reincarnation. Death, he maintained, is a natural event, and it is necessary to allow the atman to move nearer the ultimate release from rebirth, to moksha. So death is really a good thing.

After months on that strange island, with its unique culture, living under a hot sun, and with barely enough to eat, my train of thought drifted easily and was maybe even a little disturbed. There was a certain malevolent element in my nature that I’d generally managed to suppress, but now it was fighting very hard to re-surface.

Malky had totally ignored me again that day and I was feeling increasingly spiteful towards him. The thought took hold that if death was something that could really help Malky, it might as well happen sooner rather than later.

The very next day Malky surprisingly announced that his book was more or less finished. He said he only had to complete some work on the footnotes. ‘It’ll be all wrapped up in a week or two’, he’d announced gleefully. But I knew it would inevitably take much longer before any money was paid.  And in any case, even a fortnight was more that I could now bear to wait.  I checked what money I had left and found just barely enough for a very basic boat passage back west to Java.

In his delight at having virtually finished the book I was for once able to entice Malky away from the tent, away from his scribbling for at least one day. He left the tent so seldom that hardly anyone knew he was there. His skin was still almost as white as a newly arrived tourist. I led him to a densely forested area and showed him the waterfalls I’d found, thinking how easy it would be for someone to slip and drown, and maybe end up buried in a shallow grave beneath the thick undergrowth. But no, I encouraged him to climb on, up the north side of Mount Agung, a trip I’d been forced to make several times before in my hunt for food. Approaching the top Malky agreed to sit down and unpack the basic picnic I’d brought. That was when I picked up a heavy stone and struck him repeatedly over the back of his head.  I hauled his body to one of the smoking fissure on the sacred volcano’s hillside and tipped it in, watching as it quickly disappeared into the black depths.

Later, of course, I took down the tent and packed all my meagre possessions into the old rucksack. The history tomes were pointless.  I built a bonfire on the beach from driftwood and burned them all. No-one was there to show any interest. But I kept the manuscript of Malky’s book, together with the publisher’s letters. I stuffed them into my little brown case which Malky had taken over, using it to store his paper and pens.

Arriving in Java I’d found there was occasional demand in schools for native English speakers and so I managed to earn an erratic living as a peripatetic English language demonstrator.  As such, I drifted across the villages of Java and Sumatra, adopting the coarse mud-coloured tops and floppy trousers of the locals as my own clothes turned to rags. Everyone looked the same in those clothes, the men the same as the women, and that gave me the germ of an idea. Eventually I arrived in the densely forested west coast of Sumatra and found a boat to take me across the straits to Singapore.

Of course, over the years I’d had more than enough time to read the manuscript.  In fact I read it several times. The title page was handwritten in big letters – ‘The Bloody Saltire’ by Malcolm Arbuthnott MA(Hons).  It turned out to be a long historical novel, a family saga covering the full sweep of Scotland’s ancient history. The initial main character was a Pict, a self-obsessed character, not unlike Malky, who helped fight off the Romans and founded a family dynasty. His descendants, also uncannily similar to Malky, later fight the Northumbrian Angles at Nechtansmere and Athelstaneford, the Vikings at Largs, conduct firm treaty negotiations with the Normans, and eventually battle with the English at Stirling Bridge and Bannockburn. Besides blood and thunder the book contained a lot of romance.  The original Pict and his belligerent descendants always seemed to end up with slave girls whose snub noses, green eyes, and lustrous black hair matched my own twenty year old self to a tee. Of course, the tale eventually wound up with Mary Queen of Scots and the ultimate descendant, her son, the King of Scotland, becoming the King of England as well, and the two independent countries eventually forming a parliamentary union of supposed equals under the one royal line. At which point they even merged their two flags into one but, for Malky, that apparently unfortunate event warranted merely a footnote. I liked the book. The story seemed very real to me, the fact there was so much of me in it. It was really my book. I felt Mary Queen of Scots had certainly earned reincarnation. The book became my constant companion on my travels. I recognised that, if published, it might well sell lots of copies.  A primary reason for keeping it close to me all those years was as a reminder, a memento of my successful struggle against domination by men. I even tore up the title page and made a new one in even bigger writing: The Bloody Saltire, by Ellen McBryde

And then it was 2005 and I was being welcomed at Black and Brown’s office in the New Town by a young Mr Black, as it turned out the son of the man who’d originally dealt with Malky; a pleasant well-spoken man, with black-framed glasses perched on the end of his nose. He ushered me into his warm, walnut-panelled office, shelves on three sides stuffed with books. There was even a real wood-burning stove. He directed me to a chair covered in red velvet next to his mahogany desk.

I explained the rather extended gestation period for the novel was a consequence of it having been written when I was still a man and, well, things had been different twenty years ago.  But I said I hoped it wouldn’t be held against me and that the original contract, which I still held a copy of in my case, though the paper was now brown and faded, would still be honoured.

Mr Black was very sympathetic, solicitous even. He said ‘Of course, I quite understand.’ He explained that far from being out of date, with devolution and the subsequent calls for Scottish independence increasing almost daily, the novel’s themes were actually rendered more topical than ever. There were even those, he said, who argue that within the next ten years Scotland might vote on becoming an independent county again, finally disentangling the saltire from union flag. I nodded appreciatively. He said ‘Once I’ve had a chance to read through the manuscript, and do any editing necessary, I feel the publishing contract is sure to be honoured.’  Smiling benignly he added that ‘If the book is as good as my father hoped and expected then I foresee a long print run, hefty sales, and significant royalty cheques.’ I was bursting with joy at having finally made a good decision. Twenty years of lonely wandering had not been in vain. I was about to reap my just reward. ‘Of course,’ he murmured discreetly, ‘just for the sake of contractual protocol you understand, perhaps you have some documentation regarding your change of name and, er, gender re-allocation.’

I couldn’t help myself. I exploded with anger and leapt to my feet. There always had to be something turning up to make me suffer, wrecking my life. The horrible feeling of again being used and exploited by men, of being denied my due return for all those years living a miserable displaced life, had returned in a terrific rush. The stupid documents he wanted were unavailable. I knew I wouldn’t be able to get someone to forge them as I had the teacher references. Something snapped. And as Mr Black calmly tried to reason with me, I grabbed an old-fashioned paper knife from his desk and stabbed him with it repeatedly.  He’d be better off in his next life anyway.  But his loud gurgling noises attracted a receptionist who screamed disconcertingly loudly before running hysterically from the room. I extracted any papers mentioning that evil Malcolm Arbuthnott’s name from my brown suitcase and tossed them in the fire. I left the manuscript on the table.

In a way I wasn’t surprised when I was arrested.  By then I was reconciled again to suffering one injustice after another. The High Court jury found me guilty but for some reason also insane.  The judge spoke some nonsense about me having a deranged condition, and said it had obviously been exacerbated by years poverty and soulless wandering in the East.  When I was in the witness box they’d asked about my original travelling companion and I’d had no hesitation in explaining that I’d helped him move onwards and upwards in the great cycle of reincarnation. Somehow the jury seemed unhappy about it.

And now news reaches me that the book itself has been published to great acclaim; its success such that the income earned by its author is rapidly accumulating into something quite enormous. Although my name is on the cover so I am obviously the real author it’s some distant relation I’ve never heard of who is becoming wealthy.

And the huge blaze of publicity that surrounded the publisher’s bloody death was doing the sales of ‘The Bloody Saltire’ absolutely no harm at all.  No-one seemed concerned enough to give any thought to the destination of Mr Black’s atman. The cover of the book was plastered on billboards throughout Scotland. And by virtue of the Scottish diaspora sales of the book were growing almost exponentially across the world. The blurb on the book’s cover stressed that the author was a recluse, someone who never did interviews or promoted their work in any way. I also saw it reported that, in Bali, tourist guides were happily showing interested tourists round various buildings that I’d never lived in. Schools in Singapore were using it almost as a textbook, with some of the older teachers apparently even whispering to pupils that they’d encountered the author in real life.

So now I live in the castle, Castle Carstairs. My white-coated retinue look after me very carefully and know that I’ve lived many times already.  They never dare to disagree with me.  I remind them regularly that I will be re-born as Queen of Scotland, the latest incarnation of Mary Queen of Scots though, like her, at the moment I have to endure various restrictions on the exercise of my absolute authority.   One day I’ll not only rule over the whole country as the true Queen of Scotland, I’m also planning to make royal visits all across South East Asia. I intend to re-build Scotland’s military might and, just as in the past, my army will crush any enemies who dare to oppose the great power of the Saltire.