Annie Christie's Family Fictions:
Episode Three
Genre: Drama
Swearwords: None.
Description: Ghosts on the trail.
_____________________________________________________________________
The next morning dad was most insistent that we didn’t waste a minute. I guess when you’ve been stuck in an office for twenty odd years adding up figures, you either never want to go out again or you are itching to. And my dad was itching to have the life he’d missed out on all these years. And to make sure that we had it too.
Mum’s not much of a walker. She’d walk the dog when we had one. We didn’t have one now, mainly because when the last one died and we talked about getting another one, no one but mum would commit to walking him. Ellie had dancing and riding and Ollie was at the stage where he didn’t go out while the sun was up. And I didn’t want to be saddled with a slobbering pooch demanding my attention. Once there was no dog, there was no reason for Mum to walk. So she stopped. Don’t get me wrong, she was active enough; she went riding with Ellie and she played tennis with a private coach and she was always busy enough so she kept her model-like figure. But she didn’t have a dog so she didn’t go for walks. We left the Botanics behind in a big way and started on our own individual life journeys.
But on 2nd August dad decided we were off on a family adventure. I suppose for him, now that it was no longer Alasdair’s special day, he was ready to try and start a whole new life for us. And we went along with it, albeit in the sense of humouring the old man who was little more than a personal bank to us, if truth be told.
But mum didn’t want to go on a walk. She said she was tired. Ellie offered to stay with her, but mum said, no, she was happy to have a bit of time to herself. And though I thought that dad slightly flinched at that, and wondered if maybe he’d hoped she’d want to come and be part of the family adventure, he was too fair a man to pressure her to take part.
Ollie wasn’t that keen to go either. But that was situation normal for Ollie. Unless he was forced, he’d do nothing And then he’d do it with bad grace. But even Ollie didn’t want to be stuck in the house with mum all day, so he reluctantly agreed to join in and we set off with a packed lunch. Ellie kept saying it was a picnic, but it wasn’t. It was just some sandwiches and crisps and juice in our backpacks. And the odd bit of lame fruit for company. But Ellie always had a good imagination. And perhaps too romantic a notion of the fine art of picnicking.
Dad had it all planned. We should have known. Even though actuaries deal in risk for a living, his life was all about planning and leaving nothing to chance. So he’d checked it all out in advance and decided we were off to visit ‘The Fossil Tree’.
To give it it’s proper name is ‘MacCulloch’s Fossil Tree’ and it’s a good five mile walk over rough terrain along the side of Loch Scridain from Tiroran House where we were staying. You would love the walk, Casey, I know you would, and if things were different I would have loved to take you there on our honeymoon. Ellie loved it too.
When I think of you as a child, Casey, I expect you were a lot like Ellie was. Not a total tomboy, but not a ‘my little pony’ ‘pink’ type girl. For sure Ellie’s backpack was pink and she was dreaming of picnics but she hit those rough paths with the same enthusiasm as the rest of us. More than Ollie! And it was quite hard going for a twelve year old who isn’t used to walking. We all came back with blisters and everyone complained apart from Ellie. But I looked at her feet and her blisters were the worst of us all.
The Fossil Tree was our goal, but by the time we got to Burg and found that there was a car park there, some of us were flagging a bit.
‘Why didn’t we just drive here, dad?’ Ollie whined.
‘It’s a beautiful walk,’ dad replied.
Ollie snorted like beauty was something of no importance. Which of course it isn’t to a sixteen year old boy. Well, not the beauty of nature anyway.
To avoid an argument developing, we stopped at the National Trust property at Burg and dad bought us a drink. I had coffee, the same as dad because I wanted to seem grown up. I didn’t much like it, even with three spoonfuls of sugar. Ellie had ginger beer. Ollie didn’t have anything.
Dad was on a roll and so he joined us up as a family to the National Trust for Scotland then and there. It seemed a bit rash to me, but I guess he hoped we’d have many more days like this, all the family, with mum as well of course – and when you have three children it really makes it value for money. At least that was his theory. Ollie pointed out that the Burg was free anyway. But Ellie was insistent we should give a donation and dad wanted to show her that being charitable is all very well, but it’s good to get something for your money too. So there we were, National Trust for Scotland members. That’s my dad. I don’t think he ever learned that throwing money at a problem won’t solve it – or even make it that much better except in the short term. He just wanted to give us what we wanted, to make us happy, to make the sun shine. It’s not much of a crime, is it, to want to make your family happy?
There was an old lady sitting outside the place who gave us the drinks and joined us up to the National Trust for Scotland. When I say old lady I mean one of those really, really old ladies with the sort of whiskery chins. She took to Ellie immediately and while we had our drinks, she filled Ellie with stories of the past. And she pointed us in the direction of The Daisy Cheape memorial on Dun Bhuirg (which is the Gaelic for Burg – I think Dun means Castle but Bhuirg means Burgh not Dare). A few words from the old woman and Ellie was smitten with the romanticism bug.
Dad had done his pre-walk planning but he hadn’t known about Daisy Cheape. So the old woman filled us all in on the story. She told us that Daisy Cheape had been a ‘wee lassie about the size o’ yon’, pointing at Ellie, ‘who drowned in the loch a hundred years ago.’
So of course we had to go and look at the memorial. And Ellie wanted to know why Daisy Cheape had drowned and the old lady said she couldn’t tell us. But she told us in the sort of way that suggested it wasn’t because she didn’t know but because she didn’t think we should know. So of course that made us want to know all the more. There’s nothing like a mystery to whet the imagination, though of course Ollie said he didn’t care why some stupid little girl who couldn’t swim drowned and thought it was ridiculous they’d made a memorial to her like she was someone important.
‘When you’re dead you should be forgotten,’ he said and we all knew he was talking about Alasdair and were glad mum wasn’t there to hear him say it.
Dad was keen that we push on towards our ‘real’ goal, MacCulloch’s Fossil Tree and it was quite a hike from there because you have to get down onto the shore via some pretty treacherous rocks and just when you’re wondering why you are even bothering, there you are.
I don’t know about the ancient wonders of the world but MacCulloch’s Fossil Tree should be right up there with them. It’s like someone had just made a mould of a huge pine tree, hundreds of feet high, and then lifted off half the mould and left the impression there for you to see. I’d love you to see it, Casey. You’d love it. And one day, maybe we will. In fact, I’ll promise you. To make up for not having our wedding on Mull, when we have enough children to make it worth taking out National Trust membership, we’ll go there on holiday and walk to the Fossil Tree. It’s been there millions of years so I’m sure you can wait a few more. I’m not ready to go back there again just yet. But one day we will. You and I. We’ll make it a family adventure. With a proper picnic, I promise.
I remember that day as a happy one. Perhaps the last happy one. Things aren’t as clear cut as that of course. I mean, for dad I expect when he found Alasdair’s limp, dead body his life changed in an instant, but usually endings don’t happen that starkly. I remember looking up at the Fossil Tree and thinking, ‘Yes. This is perfect. This is what life should be. I am totally happy in this moment.’ But I didn’t realise that the moment would pass so quickly. I guess that’s what moments do. It’s folly to try and hang on to them. Change is inevitable. But right then, I just wanted to hold onto that precious moment for as long as I could.
I didn’t know at the time, but I found out later that Ellie felt that way when she stood at the Daisy Cheape monument for the first time. She had found her ‘perfect’ there and while she loved the Fossil Tree and didn’t complain at all about the heavy going to get there (unlike Ollie who moaned all the way and as I remember gave up just before the last bend and sat on the rock sulking) Ellie could have stayed with Daisy Cheape, soaking up the view and the mystery and that would be her version of what I felt when I looked right up at the Fossil Tree.
As for Dad, I don’t know. Parents do so much for children and how can they ever get back what they expect, anticipate, or think they deserve. Was it really enough for him that two out of his three children had a good time? I don’t think any of us really told him what a good time we had. Ellie might have, but I certainly didn’t. We just ate our sandwiches and turned around and walked back home. He probably thought he’d totally wasted his time.
How could you get pleasure out of taking a bunch of kids anywhere? Even though I was thinking how amazing a place it was, I’m sure dad got nothing more than ‘wow’ or ‘cool’ from me. Oh, and he got a photo. Of us – well, me Ellie and him, because Ollie was still sulking round the corner – he set up the camera on a rock and got us with a bit of the tree in the background. But it was so big that we didn’t get it all in and we were just little specs in the foreground. Some experiences you can’t photograph and some memories you cannot hold onto, however hard you try. While other memories just never let you go. I don’t know why that is, I just know it’s the truth.
I do remember what Dad said when Ellie asked him if he thought it was worth the journey (she was always a bit more thoughtful than me, she wanted to know how he felt while I was just obsessed with my own feelings and happy to keep them to myself).
‘It’s like an image of something that isn’t there any more,’ he said.
‘Like a ghost?’ she asked.
‘I suppose,’ he said. ‘But I don’t believe in ghosts, of course.’
‘Don’t you?’ said Ellie and skipped off towards a rock pool.
‘Do you?’ he asked and sounded a bit worried. A twelve year old girl is an impressionable thing after all.
‘Sometimes,’ she said.
And I remember being worried that one of them was going to mention Alasdair. Because I didn’t want to believe in ghosts, not the way most people do. Mainly I didn’t dare to believe, in case Alasdair was a ghost and would come and haunt me. He haunted us enough as it was. I didn’t need a manifestation of his spirit.
And it strikes me now, looking back at it, that what dad saw in the Fossil Tree was like how we saw Alasdair. And maybe that’s why he’d taken us there. To try and explain it. Looking at the Fossil Tree was essentially looking at something that isn’t there any more but still has the most incredible impact on your life. Of course that might just be me making it up. I can’t begin to know what my dad felt then. So I suppose what I’m telling you is what I felt when I looked at it. And I think that’s where I let Alasdair go. He became like the image of the tree. I hope it was like that for dad too. But maybe it wasn’t. It was something quite different for Ellie, we found that out. And maybe that’s the point of this family story – that each of us has our own story because we are all individuals and while we share a family name, we don’t share the same perspective on any event in our family history.
Swearwords: None.
Description: Ghosts on the trail.
_____________________________________________________________________
The next morning dad was most insistent that we didn’t waste a minute. I guess when you’ve been stuck in an office for twenty odd years adding up figures, you either never want to go out again or you are itching to. And my dad was itching to have the life he’d missed out on all these years. And to make sure that we had it too.
Mum’s not much of a walker. She’d walk the dog when we had one. We didn’t have one now, mainly because when the last one died and we talked about getting another one, no one but mum would commit to walking him. Ellie had dancing and riding and Ollie was at the stage where he didn’t go out while the sun was up. And I didn’t want to be saddled with a slobbering pooch demanding my attention. Once there was no dog, there was no reason for Mum to walk. So she stopped. Don’t get me wrong, she was active enough; she went riding with Ellie and she played tennis with a private coach and she was always busy enough so she kept her model-like figure. But she didn’t have a dog so she didn’t go for walks. We left the Botanics behind in a big way and started on our own individual life journeys.
But on 2nd August dad decided we were off on a family adventure. I suppose for him, now that it was no longer Alasdair’s special day, he was ready to try and start a whole new life for us. And we went along with it, albeit in the sense of humouring the old man who was little more than a personal bank to us, if truth be told.
But mum didn’t want to go on a walk. She said she was tired. Ellie offered to stay with her, but mum said, no, she was happy to have a bit of time to herself. And though I thought that dad slightly flinched at that, and wondered if maybe he’d hoped she’d want to come and be part of the family adventure, he was too fair a man to pressure her to take part.
Ollie wasn’t that keen to go either. But that was situation normal for Ollie. Unless he was forced, he’d do nothing And then he’d do it with bad grace. But even Ollie didn’t want to be stuck in the house with mum all day, so he reluctantly agreed to join in and we set off with a packed lunch. Ellie kept saying it was a picnic, but it wasn’t. It was just some sandwiches and crisps and juice in our backpacks. And the odd bit of lame fruit for company. But Ellie always had a good imagination. And perhaps too romantic a notion of the fine art of picnicking.
Dad had it all planned. We should have known. Even though actuaries deal in risk for a living, his life was all about planning and leaving nothing to chance. So he’d checked it all out in advance and decided we were off to visit ‘The Fossil Tree’.
To give it it’s proper name is ‘MacCulloch’s Fossil Tree’ and it’s a good five mile walk over rough terrain along the side of Loch Scridain from Tiroran House where we were staying. You would love the walk, Casey, I know you would, and if things were different I would have loved to take you there on our honeymoon. Ellie loved it too.
When I think of you as a child, Casey, I expect you were a lot like Ellie was. Not a total tomboy, but not a ‘my little pony’ ‘pink’ type girl. For sure Ellie’s backpack was pink and she was dreaming of picnics but she hit those rough paths with the same enthusiasm as the rest of us. More than Ollie! And it was quite hard going for a twelve year old who isn’t used to walking. We all came back with blisters and everyone complained apart from Ellie. But I looked at her feet and her blisters were the worst of us all.
The Fossil Tree was our goal, but by the time we got to Burg and found that there was a car park there, some of us were flagging a bit.
‘Why didn’t we just drive here, dad?’ Ollie whined.
‘It’s a beautiful walk,’ dad replied.
Ollie snorted like beauty was something of no importance. Which of course it isn’t to a sixteen year old boy. Well, not the beauty of nature anyway.
To avoid an argument developing, we stopped at the National Trust property at Burg and dad bought us a drink. I had coffee, the same as dad because I wanted to seem grown up. I didn’t much like it, even with three spoonfuls of sugar. Ellie had ginger beer. Ollie didn’t have anything.
Dad was on a roll and so he joined us up as a family to the National Trust for Scotland then and there. It seemed a bit rash to me, but I guess he hoped we’d have many more days like this, all the family, with mum as well of course – and when you have three children it really makes it value for money. At least that was his theory. Ollie pointed out that the Burg was free anyway. But Ellie was insistent we should give a donation and dad wanted to show her that being charitable is all very well, but it’s good to get something for your money too. So there we were, National Trust for Scotland members. That’s my dad. I don’t think he ever learned that throwing money at a problem won’t solve it – or even make it that much better except in the short term. He just wanted to give us what we wanted, to make us happy, to make the sun shine. It’s not much of a crime, is it, to want to make your family happy?
There was an old lady sitting outside the place who gave us the drinks and joined us up to the National Trust for Scotland. When I say old lady I mean one of those really, really old ladies with the sort of whiskery chins. She took to Ellie immediately and while we had our drinks, she filled Ellie with stories of the past. And she pointed us in the direction of The Daisy Cheape memorial on Dun Bhuirg (which is the Gaelic for Burg – I think Dun means Castle but Bhuirg means Burgh not Dare). A few words from the old woman and Ellie was smitten with the romanticism bug.
Dad had done his pre-walk planning but he hadn’t known about Daisy Cheape. So the old woman filled us all in on the story. She told us that Daisy Cheape had been a ‘wee lassie about the size o’ yon’, pointing at Ellie, ‘who drowned in the loch a hundred years ago.’
So of course we had to go and look at the memorial. And Ellie wanted to know why Daisy Cheape had drowned and the old lady said she couldn’t tell us. But she told us in the sort of way that suggested it wasn’t because she didn’t know but because she didn’t think we should know. So of course that made us want to know all the more. There’s nothing like a mystery to whet the imagination, though of course Ollie said he didn’t care why some stupid little girl who couldn’t swim drowned and thought it was ridiculous they’d made a memorial to her like she was someone important.
‘When you’re dead you should be forgotten,’ he said and we all knew he was talking about Alasdair and were glad mum wasn’t there to hear him say it.
Dad was keen that we push on towards our ‘real’ goal, MacCulloch’s Fossil Tree and it was quite a hike from there because you have to get down onto the shore via some pretty treacherous rocks and just when you’re wondering why you are even bothering, there you are.
I don’t know about the ancient wonders of the world but MacCulloch’s Fossil Tree should be right up there with them. It’s like someone had just made a mould of a huge pine tree, hundreds of feet high, and then lifted off half the mould and left the impression there for you to see. I’d love you to see it, Casey. You’d love it. And one day, maybe we will. In fact, I’ll promise you. To make up for not having our wedding on Mull, when we have enough children to make it worth taking out National Trust membership, we’ll go there on holiday and walk to the Fossil Tree. It’s been there millions of years so I’m sure you can wait a few more. I’m not ready to go back there again just yet. But one day we will. You and I. We’ll make it a family adventure. With a proper picnic, I promise.
I remember that day as a happy one. Perhaps the last happy one. Things aren’t as clear cut as that of course. I mean, for dad I expect when he found Alasdair’s limp, dead body his life changed in an instant, but usually endings don’t happen that starkly. I remember looking up at the Fossil Tree and thinking, ‘Yes. This is perfect. This is what life should be. I am totally happy in this moment.’ But I didn’t realise that the moment would pass so quickly. I guess that’s what moments do. It’s folly to try and hang on to them. Change is inevitable. But right then, I just wanted to hold onto that precious moment for as long as I could.
I didn’t know at the time, but I found out later that Ellie felt that way when she stood at the Daisy Cheape monument for the first time. She had found her ‘perfect’ there and while she loved the Fossil Tree and didn’t complain at all about the heavy going to get there (unlike Ollie who moaned all the way and as I remember gave up just before the last bend and sat on the rock sulking) Ellie could have stayed with Daisy Cheape, soaking up the view and the mystery and that would be her version of what I felt when I looked right up at the Fossil Tree.
As for Dad, I don’t know. Parents do so much for children and how can they ever get back what they expect, anticipate, or think they deserve. Was it really enough for him that two out of his three children had a good time? I don’t think any of us really told him what a good time we had. Ellie might have, but I certainly didn’t. We just ate our sandwiches and turned around and walked back home. He probably thought he’d totally wasted his time.
How could you get pleasure out of taking a bunch of kids anywhere? Even though I was thinking how amazing a place it was, I’m sure dad got nothing more than ‘wow’ or ‘cool’ from me. Oh, and he got a photo. Of us – well, me Ellie and him, because Ollie was still sulking round the corner – he set up the camera on a rock and got us with a bit of the tree in the background. But it was so big that we didn’t get it all in and we were just little specs in the foreground. Some experiences you can’t photograph and some memories you cannot hold onto, however hard you try. While other memories just never let you go. I don’t know why that is, I just know it’s the truth.
I do remember what Dad said when Ellie asked him if he thought it was worth the journey (she was always a bit more thoughtful than me, she wanted to know how he felt while I was just obsessed with my own feelings and happy to keep them to myself).
‘It’s like an image of something that isn’t there any more,’ he said.
‘Like a ghost?’ she asked.
‘I suppose,’ he said. ‘But I don’t believe in ghosts, of course.’
‘Don’t you?’ said Ellie and skipped off towards a rock pool.
‘Do you?’ he asked and sounded a bit worried. A twelve year old girl is an impressionable thing after all.
‘Sometimes,’ she said.
And I remember being worried that one of them was going to mention Alasdair. Because I didn’t want to believe in ghosts, not the way most people do. Mainly I didn’t dare to believe, in case Alasdair was a ghost and would come and haunt me. He haunted us enough as it was. I didn’t need a manifestation of his spirit.
And it strikes me now, looking back at it, that what dad saw in the Fossil Tree was like how we saw Alasdair. And maybe that’s why he’d taken us there. To try and explain it. Looking at the Fossil Tree was essentially looking at something that isn’t there any more but still has the most incredible impact on your life. Of course that might just be me making it up. I can’t begin to know what my dad felt then. So I suppose what I’m telling you is what I felt when I looked at it. And I think that’s where I let Alasdair go. He became like the image of the tree. I hope it was like that for dad too. But maybe it wasn’t. It was something quite different for Ellie, we found that out. And maybe that’s the point of this family story – that each of us has our own story because we are all individuals and while we share a family name, we don’t share the same perspective on any event in our family history.
About the Author
Annie Christie is a pretty ordinary person, except that she was born Annie Christie and then married a man called Christie and so is still called Christie despite having taken on her husband’s name. She sometimes wonders if she should have called herself Christie-Christie: but who would believe that?
Born near Drum of Wartle in Aberdeenshire, Annie moved as swiftly as possible to a place with a less bizarre name – Edinburgh – but the bizarreness chased her and she now lives with her husband Rab in rural Galloway, with a Kirkcudbrightshire postcode. (That's Cur coo bree shire to the uninitiated.) She is an active member of the Infinite Jigsaw Project and is now happy to be welcomed into McStorytellers with her first published serial, Family Fictions.
Born near Drum of Wartle in Aberdeenshire, Annie moved as swiftly as possible to a place with a less bizarre name – Edinburgh – but the bizarreness chased her and she now lives with her husband Rab in rural Galloway, with a Kirkcudbrightshire postcode. (That's Cur coo bree shire to the uninitiated.) She is an active member of the Infinite Jigsaw Project and is now happy to be welcomed into McStorytellers with her first published serial, Family Fictions.