Fatherland

Rolf Rae-Hansen

When thinking of Scotland I imagine my father, not some generic paternal entity but specifically my old man. It's an easy analogy, this land is where I am from, a country like my father in many ways: a nation that is strong yet not afraid to show its emotion and aware (perhaps too aware) of its weaknesses; a place that is kind yet canny; a land that is aglow but has its hidden darkness, pains it deals with in secret; a place industrious yet alive with intellect and the colour of creativity.

My father passed away five years ago but, like the Scottish landscape, he is always with me, alive in the hills, whispering through the wind, dancing upon the branch with birdsong. When calling up memories of my father it's the early days I recall most keenly, one in particular that is the figurehead for all my days in Scotland, all my days with my father, a day glowing like sunken treasure on the ocean floor.

Being a teacher allowed my father six weeks every summer to spend with us children, and whenever the weather allowed - and occasionally when it didn't - we headed outside to play. A keen angler, he didn't so much drag us along on his trips to the riverbank as give the word then rein us in. The Spey flowed through my childhood like the melody of a favourite song. It was more than a stretch of water for him too; that river and my father, standing by its side, in its depths, early mornings, late evenings, in sun and rain, waiting patiently, often irritated, urging salmon to the fly. (Years later I would join him, olive green waders, hopeful gaze hidden by a haze of midges.)

We parked the car in a shaded spot, skipped passed rapids crashing over rocks toward deep dark pools where hidden undercurrents menaced below the placid surface, where my father hoped silver fish lay in wait. The river was in all its summer glory, just one of many guises. Later in the season it might dry and shrink, later still spate and burst, brown water snatching surrounding land from under the farmer's nose. The river that travelled all the way down from the Highlands, carving its path towards us, our village placed upon the broad floodplain. I doubt I appreciated the landscape then, all I cared for was knowledge that this was the fastest flowing river in Scotland and that my father would stand brave, waist deep in its treacherous swirl.

While he set fly upon water, landed over and over with graceful ease, we splashed through rock pools at the river's edge, casting bandy nets for minnows and other creatures we saw only as shadows. We hid and sought in the tall ferns, climbed trees and trained imaginary rifles upon the far bank, livestock transformed to enemy invaders. Time passed more slowly back then and it was only a few hours later that we lay exhausted in the tall grass, soaking in sunlight, trying to decipher between the soft hush of wind and water. Were those words carried upon the air secret messages sent from the river's source?

Lunchtime came and was it his call and our stomachs' rumble that alerted? A scramble back to the edge of the woods brought us beetroot sandwiches, served from the boot of the Austin Allegro. Initially we doubted the viability of those purple beetroot butties, but my father had made them and none of us ever questioned him - not that we didn't dare, just that he was always right. We all looked up to our fathers back then, to mine especially. One bite and we believed.

He listened to the breathless tales of our adventures, high branches reached, the scores of that morning's games, and then it was his turn to talk of exploits, describing in detail the ones that got away before the eventual catch. That particular contest lay in the grass at our feet, silver scales reflecting the sunlight, the dark eye fierce but slowly clouding, moth agape with soft pink tongue and sharp, shining teeth. We each tried to pick it up as my father did, index finger hooked inside the gill, but none had his strength, each slightly afraid of the monster fish.

The funny thing is (or is it sadness I feel?) that's as far as my day goes, the limit that my memory has reached. For what happened after that I can only conclude, drawing upon the memories of other times, other days. Perhaps this reminiscence isn't even one single day but an amalgam of many, like waking form a happy dream my mind has arranged the images into a narrative, to make sense, to create an orderly archive. I am certain that my father would have been happy with his catch but eager for more. His coffee would have been gulped, the picnic basket repacked, the children and adult back to their games. So the day ends there and to recall I have to return once again to the morning, to the car parked in the shady spot, my father in his waders, that salmon in the river downstream.