Dearest Dacha

By Norman Maclean

“Perhaps the first Gaelic black comedy” from the renowned Scottish television entertainer, comedian, and writer (John Murray, RTE Radio 1).
  Norman MacLean is a living legend in the Gaelic world. Based in the Uists in the Outer Hebrides, with side trips to Glasgow, Hamburg and Amsterdam, this dotty adventure embraces frustrated sex, drugs, eightsome reels and a memorable cast of oddball characters: three inept would-be criminals, a demented care-home resident, an ex-communicant of the Free Church of Scotland who moonlights as an enforcer, a pair of Russian weight-lifters who raise ostriches by day and mud-wrestle by night, and a formidable woman lawyer determined to cleanse the island of wrongdoing before HM The Queen arrives on her annual visit. Something akin to a mad Gaelic version of The Sopranos as directed by the Coen brothers, this novella is a masterclass of understatement, pitch-perfect dialogue and confident narration.

“Norman is a 24-carat comedy jewel that just keeps sparkling.” —Bruce Morton, BBC Radio Scotland

“Norman MacLean is the Billy Connolly of the Gaidhealtachd.” —Calum MacDonald, Runrig

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Jul 1, 2011
• ISBN: 9780857900593

Norman Maclean

Born in Glasgow in 1936, Norman Maclean was educated at school and university in Glasgow, before going on to teach all over Scotland. He garnered much fame after winning two Gold Medals at the National Mod - for poetry and singing - in the same year, 1967, the only person ever to do so. Shortly afterwards he began a career, as he would say himself, as a clown, and it is in that role, and that of a musician, that he is still best-known today.

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A NOTE ON THE AUTHOR

Born in Glasgow in 1936, Norman Maclean was educated at school and university there before abandoning his childhood ambition of becoming a helicopter pilot – or was it a cowboy? – and drifting into the role of educationalist and spending fourteen miserable years as a teacher of Latin and Mathematics in schools all over Scotland. He garnered much fame after winning two Gold Medals at the National Mod – for poetry and singing – in the same year, 1967; the only person ever to do so. Shortly afterwards he began a career, as he would say himself, as a clown. The twenty odd years he spent as a stand-up comedian performing in variegated venues throughout the English-speaking world has caused him to book a place on a daytime television show renowned for its shouty, self-righteous former-salesman presenter. However, that said, it is in the roles of comic and musician Maclean is still best known today. In 2009 Birlinn published his acclaimed autobiography, The Leper’s Bell.

Dearest Dacha

Norman Maclean

First published as Dacha Mo Ghaoil in 2005 by Clàr

This edition published in 2011 by

Birlinn Limited

West Newington House

10 Newington Road

Edinburgh

EH9 1QS

www.birlinn.co.uk

Copyright © Norman Maclean 2011

The moral right of Norman Maclean to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form without the express written permission of the publisher.

ISBN 978 1 78027 006 7

eBook ISBN 978 0 85790 059 3

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Designed and typeset by Iolaire Typesetting, Newtonmore

Printed and bound by Bell & Bain Ltd, Glasgow

To

Calum MacKinnon

and

Davie Walker

and

Duncan MacNeil

for whom I first wrote this story as a radio script

Contents

1   The Godfather and the two fools

2   Go for the rifle

3   Duncan’s plan

4   On the ferry

5   Accident at a wedding

6   Dalliance or business?

7   Old age comes not alone

8   Davy enjoys the good life

9   Watch it, MacAskill!

10   The deed you do in the back will come to the front door

11   Fear is worse than war

12   A goat’s eyes in the head of the Elder

13   A visit to the house of the ostriches

14   He who is always jumping about will eventually fall over the cliff

15   Lord! Things are going wrong!

16   The Elder’s breakdown

17   When bad things happen, they happen with a vengeance

18   Women are often cunning

19   ‘White they’ll never be,’ said the crow as she washed her feet

20   A dash down north

21   Parting has to come

1

The Godfather and the two fools

At the Askernish turn-off in South Uist, Calum Macdonald violently wrenched the steering wheel of his little van to the left and took the turn at thirty miles an hour. Six and a half feet tall, twenty-five years of age, he was dressed from boots to cap in camouflage gear. His teeth were bared and his shoulders hunched over the wheel. He stamped on the brake pedal and halted about ten feet from the front door of a house that had no roof.

‘God be round about us,’ said Davy MacIsaac. Twenty, thin, untidily dressed, he slouched in the passenger seat. He stretched out his hand and killed the engine. He threw the keys into his companion’s lap. ‘Come on,’ he said, ‘Duncan’s expecting us.’

Davy knocked on the door. He stood perfectly erect, listening to the noise of a hammer on metal and a woman’s voice speaking in a foreign language with a man’s voice responding to her. About a yard behind him Calum sat astride a child’s bicycle. ‘Davy,’ he said, ‘what the fuck’s going on?’

Davy turned and smirked. ‘He’s got a woman with him.’

Calum roared, ‘Open the door, you dirty little man.’

‘Maybe this is a bad time for Duncan,’ Davy said.

The door opened, revealing Duncan carrying a hammer. A heavy-set little man, approaching fifty, he wore a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up above his elbows and a pair of jeans that were too tight. Sawdust speckled the crotch. Little remained of his black, thinning hair. A smile came to his face when he saw Davy. ‘My very good friend,’ he said, ‘good to see you.’ He frowned when he noticed Calum. ‘And . . . you’ve brought this guy along? You’d better come in.’

From the discarded rubbish lying throughout the room – lengths of copper piping, electrical cables, planks of wood – it was clear that Duncan was in the process of refurbishing the place. The three of them stood awkwardly staring at one another.

‘Calum’s the name,’ Calum declared, stepping in front of his companion. ‘Where’s the bird?’

‘Bird?’ Duncan said. ‘Oh, right. That’s a tape. Trying to learn a little bit of Russian.’

‘That’ll be handy, Tiny,’ Calum said, ‘when you’re trying to buy a carry-out in Creagorry at closing time Saturday night.’

‘ Duncan around here,’ Duncan said. ‘You can call me Duncan in here. Lads who work for me call me Mister MacCormack, but you can call me Duncan. That’ll be all right.’

‘I’ll try to do that, Tiny,’ Calum said. ‘I’ll do my very best.’

‘You could’ve got someone else, Davy,’ Duncan said.

‘This guy’s getting up my nose. I’ve got to put up with shit like this?’

‘I could’ve got someone else,’ Davy said, ‘but you asked me, you know, get somebody absolutely fearless. Calum here, he’s pretty cocky, but, really, he’ll go through a house on fire if it comes to a fight.’

‘Personally,’ Duncan said, ‘I’d like someone who’d see that the house was on fire and walk round it.’

‘I’ve got excellent eyesight, Tiny,’ Calum said. ‘All I can see in front of me just now, Tiny, is a little squirt, and I’d think nothing of giving him a good clap on the ear.’

‘I really don’t like this prick,’ Duncan said. ‘How about going over to Eriskay, Davy, see if you can get me a good-looking kid with dark hair? This halfwit’s so offensive I don’t want to tell him what I want.’

‘For God’s sake, Calum,’ Davy said, ‘won’t you shut your gob till we hear what work he’s offering us?’

‘What I fancy doing,’ Duncan said, ‘the two guys I pick to do it, they’ll get two thousand pounds each. But this one, I don’t want.’

‘Remember MacLean?’ Davy said.

‘MacLean? Which one?’ Duncan said. ‘Sorley, the poet? That clown, Norman Maclean? There are hundreds of them about. Which MacLean?’