Burning Down George Orwell's House, page 18
“When the whisky’s good and ready, and not a moment before, I store it in oak casks to put some years on it. And it might just interest you to know that some of those casks come from none other than your America. We buy them from the bourbon manufacturers as a matter of fact, so however much our Gavin wants to cry about outside influences—that’s what he calls anything that didn’t originate on Jura—the malt he’s drinking relies on your people for its flavor. Try to keep up,” Farkas said.
Ray followed him downstairs and outside, through a courtyard and to a barn topped with a pagoda-shaped cupola. A bank of clouds approached from the seaside.
“We have one more stop. Once the malt has been casked, we store it in here. Three years is the absolute minimum, and even that is a disgrace. A good whisky doesn’t even know its own name before the age of twelve, and that’s the problem with that cack you’re carrying around in your pocket tonight, I might add. It has no years on it yet. Again, like your America. Now feast your eyes upon this.”
He pulled open the doors and Ray beheld the kingdom of heaven. The warehouse contained hundreds of casks of single-malt scotch stacked to the rafters. A row of open-air windows near the top welcomed in the evening mist. “It’s beautiful,” he said.
“Aye, that it is. We house the whisky here for decades in many cases, and you’ll notice that the casks get exposed to the elements, to the rain and the sea air. See those wee little ones? Those are called pins and contain four and a half gallons. The next one up, a firkin, holds twice that. Most of these are barrels, which hold thirty-six gallons of liquid gold. While I’m sad to report that we don’t have one on the premises, the biggest cask of all is called a butt and it contains one hundred and eight gallons. The size of the cask and the location, that’s how every malt gets its distinct flavors. And from the geographical location of the distillery and the tiniest variations of coastline and altitude too. Is it made inland, as in the Highlands? Or perhaps near the water in a small bight such as we are in Craighouse. Over on Islay, you have Bowmore sheltered in a deep bay, but also Ardbeg or Lagavulin smack on the quay and exposed to the full teeth of the sea. Over there they will rotate their casks for consistency—for uniformity—until the entire bottling tastes the same. Bah! With my malt, I can tell you from appearance how long it has aged and, from the taste, where in my warehouse it slept. So if you ask me if the change in our atmosphere is all bad, if the pollution and the rising temperature of the globe and the deforestation is all bad, I say aye. Aye! Because it means the end not just of this bottle”—he took a small pull from his own flask, closed his eyes—“but the end of an era. I’m a historian, if you will. The bottle of single malt is a time capsule. A record of the natural life of Jura.”
“You’re making me very thirsty,” Ray said.
“To tell you the truth, all this talking has given me quite a thirst too. Now, technically, I’m not supposed to do this, but we have some experimental batches over here. What the marketing people call our boutique barrels. These don’t often travel far beyond Craighouse.” Farkas extracted the cork from a cask. “Sometimes I’ll fill a barrel with madeira or dessert wine or whatever comes to mind, simply to see how the malt takes to the treated wood. That’s a fairly common practice these days, but I’ve had the idea of setting the insides of a cask on fire and aging some malt in the charred remains. Let’s see how she looks!” Ray followed him over to another cask. “Here we are,” Farkas said. He used a thin hose to extract two drams of black, opaque whisky. “Now that’s something! Slàinte!”
“Thank you, cheers!”
The scotch tasted like a forest fire, all smoky and ashy. It made Ray thirsty and quenched the thirst at the same time. It was unique, and kind of gross.
“Not quite ready yet, is it?”
“It’s pretty interesting.”
“Aye, that it is. We’ll try her again another day and see if she behaves a bit better. Now let’s get you to the hotel. I imagine you’ve already missed supper.”
“That’s all right, I’m not very hungry.” Not for Fuller’s stew, anyway. “I really appreciate your showing me around. You’re like a mad scientist.”
“You’re wrong on both counts. I’m neither mad, contrary to what everybody believes, and I’m certainly no scientist, just a humble man charged with recording Jura’s natural history one bottle at a time. Now I know what you’re thinking, Ray,” Farkas said. They stopped at the road to take in the sights. The fog had swallowed the water and was coming for the hotel next. Cars, trucks, motorbikes, and the odd horse or two filled the parking lot. People had gathered together from all over the island to hunt down a wild animal and far more importantly, Ray now surmised, to maintain the vestiges of Jura’s traditions. They were here out of a sense of shared responsibility, but also to celebrate themselves. “You’re a smart man. A man who can see beyond the trappings of his present circumstances. And that’s why I’m so glad you’ve come to stay with us. You’re a man of vision. You’re thinking that the natural life of the present is equally worthy of recording, am I right? Certainly it is. Here you go. Slàinte.”
He handed Ray his flask one last time. The whisky tasted different yet again, as if Farkas had been secretly switching them. The flavors—licorice, sour cherry, honey—came one after the other and were followed by a burst of laughter and the squawk of bagpipes. The party was in full swing. There were maybe fifty people in all, with more stragglers pulling in every few minutes.
“And here’s what I want you to try to understand,” Farkas said. “You have already affected the natural life of Jura, we all have, and I would not want for it to be any other way. Unlike our Gavin here”—Pitcairn had appeared, coughing into a handkerchief, on the hotel’s porch—“I recognize that change is unavoidable and I appreciate the likes of you who try to affect things for the better. Even your visit today will have an effect.” He took his flask back and drained the final, precious drops.
“I find it tragic,” Ray said, “that that scotch is gone now and it’ll never exist again.”
“Now I’m not prone to excessive philosophizing, not even about such important topics as malt whisky, but that particular batch was made to be drunk and enjoyed, and it was. It’s gone, aye, but that’s the way of all things. And that’s one reason we’ll continue to make more this year and next year and the year after that and every year until the seas rise and reclaim our little island. The batch you had a small hand in today will tell some lucky sod in the future a great deal about who we were and where we lived, just like this one has done. Even your three minutes of stirring will make a difference down the road in one bottle or another.”
Ray looked around. It was a glorious night: damp and so misty that he couldn’t see more than a few feet in front of him. The fog demanded a certain presence of mind, a being here that did not come easily otherwise, like everything that mattered in the entire world was contained in his immediate vicinity. The party was raging, and he couldn’t wait to join in.
He had watched enough overblown PBS costume dramas with Helen to expect the full foxhunting circus. Buglers and beagles, tweed waistcoats and whinnying steeds snorting their oat-breath into the mist. The reality wasn’t all that far off. Cigarette smoke and the salty stench of whisky hung in the air. A pack of braying dogs was tied up someplace behind the hotel. The assembled men ranged in age from young teenagers to the antiquated ferryman, Singer, and taken together they resembled a good, old-fashioned mob. Many wore kilts in the tartans of their proud, if dwindling, clans. They sang crude songs and told familiar jokes and spat in the dirt. They carried hunting rifles, pitchforks, torches that fought off the encroaching night. Bagpipers wheezed out nationalistic hymns and drunken-sailor ditties. The mist made it difficult to see from one side of the parking lot to the other, but he recognized a few faces from his first night on the island. Was that already three months ago? Even the dour Mr. Harris was sulking around. Pitcairn’s phlegmatic chortle rose above the commotion. The periodic discharge of a rifle cracked through the conversations and songs and they silenced the men and hounds alike for an instant, only to have them resume their boasts and oaths and threats and wagers. Bottles of scotch better than what Ray had brought got passed around freely and he availed himself of a swig from each and every last one. A ten-year-old and then another, and another. A sixteen came by—rich caramel and brine and seaweed and cotton candy—and another ten or maybe one he had already sampled. He felt loose, and ready for the evening’s spectacle. He was going to shoot a werewolf! Only he hadn’t brought a gun; maybe that was okay.
The ferryman ambled over. He brandished a rifle even older than himself. It might as well have been a musket and should have been in a museum.
“Hello, Mr. Singer,” Ray said.
“If it isn’t our Orwell aficionado!” He was so far along in his booze that he couldn’t stand straight. He held the rifle by its iron barrel and leaned on it like a cane.
“Farkas tells me that you knew him?”
“Who’s that?” Singer asked. “Farkas?”
“Orwell.”
“George Orwell?” He took a long swig from a bottle of whisky and made faces like he was chewing it without teeth. Some of it dribbled down his white-bristled chin and glistened in the lamplight.
“The very same.”
“I spoke to him on several occasions, aye.” He looked around to be sure no one was eavesdropping and lowered his voice to a whisper. “I can let you in on a little-known fact about our George Orwell.”
“What is it?” Ray asked.
“I don’t suppose there’s any harm in telling you this,” Singer said.
“Yes?”
“I mean, the man is dead and gone, as they say, so I don’t really see the harm.”
“Yes?”
“Enough time has passed and we need to let bygones be bygones.”
“Yes? Yes?”
Singer took another long drink. “You will be surprised to learn, young man, that George Orwell was not his real, God given name.”
That was it? That was Singer’s big secret? “You don’t say,” he said.
“No, no.” Singer looked around again. “His real name—and you should write this down—his real name was Eric Blair. E-R-I-C.”
“Eric Blair. Got it. Thank you, Mr. Singer.”
“Not at all, not at all.” Singer took another gulp and examined the barrel of his gun as if looking through a peephole, and found it clogged with mud. Ray took the opportunity to slip into the hotel. He had important matters to discuss with Molly, as far from her father’s earshot as possible. Mrs. Campbell stood waiting for him behind the desk. Damn. “Good evening, Mrs. Campbell,” he said. “You’re looking well.”
“Mr. Welter, some correspondence has arrived for you.”
She handed him a small stack—more cards from his mother and something in a green envelope—and he was surprised that they hadn’t been torn open and pored over. He shoved them into a pants pocket. “Thank you, Mrs. Campbell. Is Molly here, by any chance?”
“What would you want with her, then?”
“Frankly, I’m not sure how that’s any of your concern.”
“Being equally frank, Mr. Welter, we can’t imagine the sort of sordid business a grown man such as yourself might have with a young girl like Molly.”
“Mrs. Campbell, does it please you to single-handedly destroy the Highlanders’ otherwise deserved reputation as the most hospitable and friendly people in the world?”
“You leave that girl alone and get out of this hotel this instant.”
“Leave her alone?” he asked, walking away. “I’ve done nothing wrong, you old bat. In fact, where were you when her father was beating her up? You weren’t so protective then, were you?”
“Mr. Welter!” she called after him. “Mr. Welter!”
Molly sat perched behind the bar in the lounge, a book open on her lap. “That was awesome,” she said. “Mind you, you won’t be seeing any more of your mail.”
“Doesn’t matter. There’s no one I want to hear from anyway,” he said and then realized that it wasn’t entirely true.
“I suppose you’re here to murder some animals tonight?”
“Yeah—I mean, no. I’m not even sure there’s a wolf, much less a werewolf. It’s absurd.”
“Of course it’s absurd, but if you want to get by on Jura you need to embrace the absurdity, not run from it.”
“If Farkas thinks he’s a werewolf, and if I simultaneously think I see him turn into one, then he is a werewolf?”
“Exactly,” Molly said. “All happenings are in the mind. Whatever happens in all minds, truly happens.”
“Clever girl.”
“Why can’t two plus two equal five?”
“Because they just can’t.”
“You’re a lost cause, Ray.”
“So how do you explain the dead animals at my door?”
“I can’t help you with that one. Some things can’t be explained, not with all the logic in the world.”
“Maybe you’re right. Either way, I have some good news for you.” He lowered his voice so the old bat wouldn’t hear. “My divorce went through and—”
“Hold on, Ray,” Molly said. “Are you asking me to marry you? Because if so, I don’t think—”
“No! My wife—my ex-wife—teaches at a very prestigious university in Chicago. It took some finagling, but as part of my divorce settlement I insisted on a full scholarship for you. You will have four years, all expenses paid. Housing, room and board, an allowance for books and living expenses. It’s not entir—”
Molly screamed. She held her hands to her face and belted out a scream than would’ve made Edvard Munch proud. The iron chandelier swayed. The candles flickered. The men outside probably heard her above their gunfire and revelry.
“The offer doesn’t include airfare,” he said, “but I can try to help you with that. The university has an excellent art program and the best art museum in the nation is a couple of stops away on the L.”
Mrs. Campbell rushed in to investigate the noise. In her mind, Ray had probably torn the poor helpless child’s skirt off and started raping her behind the bar. She was surprised to see them both clothed and laughing. “You leave that girl alone! What is the meaning of this?”
“I’m going to Chicago!” Molly yelled. She jumped up and down. Her shoes hammered against the floor. The bottles rattled behind her.
“Chicago?” Mrs. Campbell asked. “We’ll just see what your father says about this! You are a wicked man, Mr. Welter. Shame on you.”
“All the information you’ll need is here,” he said and handed Molly a large envelope stuffed with paperwork. It also included enough cash for a replacement bicycle. “Now I’m going outside to murder a defenseless animal that both is and isn’t there.”
“Just one minute, Mr. Welter!”
He didn’t stop to discuss it. “Good evening, Mrs. Campbell,” he said and tracked his muddy sneakers back across her floor.
She followed behind. “Mr. Welter!” she said.
Ray ignored her until, outside, she pushed past him and found Pitcairn behind the wheel of his flatbed. Farkas stood on the porch taking in the excitement. The caravan had already started to pull away and Pitcairn’s truck sat idling, last in line at the hotel entrance. The area on the western side where Loch Tarbert emptied into the Sound of Islay was said to be prime wolf territory. Engines roared. The headlights of the pickup trucks carved at the fog. Innumerable dogs barked and howled like a Greek chorus foretelling some poor sucker’s fate. Peat smoke and diesel exhaust fought off the fresh sea air. All the men and boys filled the backs of the trucks to form a drunken parade of the deluded and kick up mud behind them. There’s no fucking wolf, Ray wanted to holler after them. It wouldn’t have done any good. Mrs. Campbell leaned in the open window of Pitcairn’s truck. Standing with Farkas on the porch, he couldn’t hear them, but it was clear that she was telling him about Molly’s scholarship. Pitcairn looked at Ray and leaned on his horn. On her way back inside Mrs. Campbell refused to as much as look at him. His comeuppance had been long, long overdue.
Pitcairn stepped out of the truck with a groan. Sponge and Pete sat fidgeting in the cab like bored children. Pitcairn stretched his shoulders and cracked something in his back. He looked calm, which was unnerving. Outright hostility, even violence, might have been preferable. He had already tried once to kill him. That was no joke—the man was capable of murder. “Care to join us, Farkas?” Pitcairn asked.
Farkas was already smashed out of his gourd. Whisky and drool glistened in his immense beard. He held to the railing of the porch for balance. “Not this time, Gavin,” he said.
“How about you, Chappie? You ready?”
“With all due respect,” Ray said, “I think I’ll stay here with Farkas.”
“Respect now, is it? Well there’s a lovely fucking change of scenery. Oh no—you’re coming with us. I’m not supposing you have a gun, now do you, Chappie?”
“No, unfortunately I don’t.”
“You’re not much of an American, are you? I thought all of you Yanks had guns.”
“Here’s where I’ll say my goodbyes,” Farkas said on his way back in to the lounge. “Catch me if you can!”
Farkas clearly didn’t want to know about whatever it was Pitcairn had in mind for Ray. He wasn’t going to stick his neck out for a foreigner. On Jura, as back in the advertising world, remaining noncommittal on all things was the key to self-preservation. It was a shame, but Ray couldn’t count on Farkas’s help, not even with someone as dangerous as Pitcairn.
The last of the other trucks rumbled off into the fog. The engine noise tapered to oblivion, leaving a pocket of silence. Behind the hotel, the water slapped against the docks and seawall. A slight wind sounded in the palm trees, the tops of which were rendered invisible by the mist. There were no lights to be seen beyond the hotel grounds. The mainland—and all of civilized, gridlocked Europe—was so close that Ray could feel its magnetism, but with no direct route of escape it seemed so distant. Jura was another planet unto itself. “I have an idea,” he said. “I’ll stay here at the hotel until you guys are done. At that point we can discuss anything that’s on your mind.”
