Sound of Mull
Another nick-of-time sprint for Victoria Coach Station landed me on the overnight to Glasgow, where I’d be catching another bus to Oban: quaintly seaside and port for the 5-hour Calmac ferry that would, nearly 24 hours after the initial dash, deposit me in the village of Castlebay, Barra, from where I’d begin my trip northward. The adventure (or at least the sleeplessness) began on the coach. A temporary, alcohol-fueled stay of xenophobia spurred the Preston supporters next to me, down to London for the football, to attempt conversation with a group of Poles inexplicably bound for Perth (Scotland, not Australia). They were a jolly bunch, though; they’d lost their friend in the post-match drinking melée and, when it came time to head home, abandoned him in London to the rough sleepers and free-newspaper hawkers. “We hate London,” they confided. Even if their friend didn’t before, bedding down on a park bench after being ditched by his buddies would surely have him seconding that. We chugged along to Glasgow, leaving a trail of dazed passengers at Preston and a series of nameless towns behind us in the night.
Oban seemed pretty much the same since I was last there, 8 years ago. In fact, so little had changed that I was bamboozled again by what I call the “Scottish Burger Paradox”. In a past life I’d walked into a chippy there and ordered a “beefburger”. This turned out to be two battered, deep-fried patties in greaseproof paper, buns conspicuously absent. This time, I walked into a restaurant and ordered a “venison burger”: lunch that day was two juicy patties, on a hill of mashed potatoes. I think buns in Scotland are shy and don’t like to be eaten: somewhere in the Highlands there’s a lost colony of survivors, bread products who’ve escaped their fate and live together in a slightly moldy but utopian society.
Five hours of ocean swells, half-sleep, and fevered, yeasty maunderings later we’d crossed the Sea of the Hebrides. Walked off the ferry, onto the jetty and into the darkened village. The breeze had freshened a bit; my ludicrously overpacked bag provided the ballast to keep me from getting blown away into the departing ferry’s wake.
The hostel was a little clean, well-lighted place facing the inky bay. There I met John the bipolar
Glaswegian. He never married: the lost love of his life, a Barra woman, spurned him because he’s Protestant and she was, as most Barra people are, Catholic. Like a true tourist, wide-eyed and heartless, I thought “That’s great, my first tragic Scottish island story! I smell movie rights.” He went on to relate how he’d had a dream earlier that day, foretelling the arrival of a Chinese guy from Canada. He was to take the ferry to the mainland to seek medical help in the morning; apparently I was a sign from God that He was watching over him.
Heaven-sent but utterly fatigued, I collapsed into bed and only woke the next morning when the village constable came through the hostel, gathering up John’s things. He’d been airlifted to Glasgow early; we never heard what happened to him. 24 hours into my trip and I’d already been entrusted with a divine mission. Travelling through this isolated, most palpably religious part of Scotland, it wouldn’t be the last time I’d have a near-God experience.
