Lockdown Day 7: Sunday 29th March, 2020

I sit in the rear of the church, a fraying wicker seat at the end of my road to the aisles. The kirk is sparse, unadorned, a bare granite temple, typical Presbyterian gateway to the eternal dawn with a fire and brimstone gatekeeper. Some say Calvin was a cunt but his legacy lives long in Scotland.

  I arrived back in Glasgow late last night so no-one expects me. My comings and goings are accepted rumours, irregular at best, my lifestyle chaotic. My time is not my own. And I’ve been on the whisky diet recently. Last week I lost three days. But it suits me well now, as I sit with my own thoughts for company. The service is simple, providing the consolation of the unfortunate familiar. Drawn faces and thrawn traces of familial respect unite a clan disrobed once more in grief. Only death brings us together these days as we go our separate ways across this world, to explore our sundered empire, promote the brotherhood beyond. I see my mother and father towards the altar, my grandmothers, aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces, nephews, a century or so of life. Friends and acquaintances of the dear departed, my Aunt Vivien, swell the temple throng. Every pew is taken and the standing room at the rear of the church fills fast. For an unapologetic agnostic she fair packs out a house of worship. 

  Though my father is an elder in the Kirk and I grew up in its comfort, I am no fan of institutionalised religion. The celebrant sons and daughters of Abraham commemorate common ancestry with drawn sword across this world. The message is long lost in the words, in mistranslation, misconception and mistake. I see it as a toss-up as to whether church or state has murdered more people throughout history. Evil people are evil people no matter their excusing philosophy. Religion? KommunoFascism? Nationalism? All dogmatic bureaucrats of death for their exclusive definition of the elusive greater good all.

  The service seems over before it begins, little hellfire and damnation today. The pastoral preacher – an ex-Moderator piped from his Highland Cathedral – ministering to his temporary flock a conformist message of love and salvation, the 23^rd Psalm and Amazing Grace the soundtrack for a non-conformist life. I reaffirm to myself I would prefer a rousing blast of Born to Be Wild or Freebird but I’ll probably outlive everyone I know and be buried in a John Doe cardboard box. Irrationally, this concerns me. I would like my wild ashes scattered high above Loch Leven from the Aonach Eagach onto the carefree clouds scraping the walls of Glencoe as a lone piper laments my passing. But I can rest easy.

Whatever happens, I will never know the truth.

  The congregation rises and files down those hallowed aisles.
I nod to my parents as they pass supporting a grandmother. They flash me warm smiles of surprise. They are used to my lengthy unexplained absences and even now, always pleased when I turn up. I hear the murmuring commiserations and platitudes as my cousins line the vestibule and receive the steadfast, while I remain seated until the kirk falls silent, drinking in that granite hush entombed within the yesteryear smell I associate with childhood. Still the contradictions, a message of love corrupted in hate, the peace of the kirk amid the reverberations of war, the purity of the spirit and the tainting contaminations of bitter, bitter men.   We are human after all.

I brush away imaginary tears and follow the faithful, friends and family who have chosen to share this blessed day in this blessed way. The winter sun is low in the heavens and sharp as it slips its straightjacket of grey cloud and dazzles me momentarily when I rejoin the day. Cousin Duncan notices my ever-so-slightly puffed, red eyes and squeezes my hand strongly between both of his.

There is nothing to say. Big boys don’t cry.