Boogaloo Dudes

Mar 23, 2020 | Covid-19 Diary, Dead Water, Writing

Saddle relief

Another spin on the bicycle this morning, though this time with added cushioning. Slightly longer than 15 minutes, though, because when Shine On You Crazy Diamond finished shuffle brought up All The Young Dudes–the version with Mott the Hoople playing but David Bowie on vocals. It would have been rude to turn it off.

Later this evening I went for a walk round our block which involves the steep-ish road up the hill we’re on. It seemed to be easier than usual, though maybe that’s my imagination. The streets were very quiet and the main road likewise. A couple of buses passed me, but one was empty and the other had maybe half a dozen people on it. Alas, no wildlife was out (I frequently see foxes and, more rarely, badgers).

*

I knew that both the PM and First Minister had televised press conferences lined up for 8.30 and 8.45 respectively so it was no surprise to get home to find the country going into lockdown. After the TV pictures of my fellow countrymen over the weekend this was inevitable. I understand why they’ve put a time limit on for review, but given there’s a 14 day lag between action and measurable effect in the stats, a three-week review won’t be particularly useful, and in any event they’re worried about relaxing measures and the thing flaring up again. So I’ll stick with June as a minimum and September as more likely.

*

I’ve been able to do some revision to some writing, updating a short story to make reference to Covid-19 and also typing revisions into the draft of the novel I finished last year. What I need to do now is to get back into the stalled sequel novel. I’m about 60,000 words in and I’ve written myself into a corner. Now is the ideal time to figure out how to unwind it and fix it 🙂

As for the one I finished, here’s the first few paragraphs (apologies for the formatting, I can’t get the HTML to behave itself):

Shadows held a slick life of their own in the wet gloom; odd pools of darkness twitched and shrugged, sheltering watchers only my subconscious could see. I pulled into a parking place above the road, a viewpoint over swirling grey nothingness. Red deer huddled under a crag to my right out of the force of the rain, black eyes marking me for a stranger.

 

I knew there’d be trouble. I knew it when the road climbed away from Loch Assynt and the black bulk of Quinag vanished into cloud. Sure enough, just across the Kylesku Bridge, the rain fell as though the Minch were scooped up by a giant hand and dropped on the road in front of me. Twice the car tried to aquaplane, tyres ungripping the sleek surface.

 

Suicidal campervans hissed by on the road below in blind pursuit of mythic northland. They’d come for a shortbread-tin Scotland where the winters are mild and the rain is soft, but the northern landscape is harsh. North of Ullapool the peat is stretched taut on ancient rock, a fragile epidermis over old bone and sinew. By Scourie and Rhiconich, any un-whitewashed crofts look like outcrops of gneiss in a moonscape. It’s a long way from my suburban parish and my flock.

 

As flocks go St. Joseph’s aren’t bad. There’s the usual mixture of the committed and the conformist, mostly ageing, desperate for reassurance in the face of mortality. They didn’t bother me much, except for the usual hatching, matching and despatching. I even liked some of them, especially Miss Boards, Betty to people she likes, with her surprisingly famous friends.

 

Every Sunday they all stand there staring into space, mouthing the words while I chassé the old soft-shoe shuffle at the altar. I read the words and wave my hands about with occult choreography: Strictly Come Liturgy. I instruct them to stand up, sit down, stand up, kneel, sing, pray, and all of them, obedient to their instructions, abasement hard wired into muscle memory, comply, waiting for the workaday magic of death and resurrection in a silver chalice.

 

     Do this in remembrance of Me.

 

The words come and go, an oblation here, a touch of anamnesis there, and I barely notice when, somewhere along the way, probably while I’m thinking about being somewhere else, the sliver of ersatz ‘bread’ and the cheap communion wine become the body and blood of the poor sod nailed up on His cross.

 

I often wonder if they can tell that half the time I don’t give a shit.

*

Temperature tonight is 35.4° so we go into lockdown with no apparent symptoms. That’s a good thing.

Tonight’s music to relax to, Freddie Hubbard from 1971 with some tasty guitar from a young George Benson.