Isn't life grand when we have opportunities to travel, especially free airfare overseas. This winter I took a three day 4 night excursion to Scotland without my golf clubs, to see the Locks on the western side of Scotland, knowing it was too cold to see Nessie, if she even exists.
One remote island intrigued me because we could only access it at low tide, when the road stretched from this low meandering isle to the mainland. We only had a few days to view the return of the seals and maybe Nessie, but before searching for the seals I heard a story.
A story of a beautiful woman, an artist named Vanessa, who once lived by herself on a remote island sometimes clouded and covered with icy fog. The seas often kept the color blue at bay and the skies remain gray. Access to the island was denied for 12 hours each day. When the tide was low there was a gap of about six hours when we could drive across the channel.
Several of us hiked the hills and touched the ancient trees, climbing over the fallen debris was heavy and hateful winter storms. There we found the cottage, the barn, and the studio where Vanessa, the artist, once lived. Her paintings showed the seasons changes and the skies turning from blues to grays to blacks. Her landscapes made her famous with shows from Edinburgh, London and Paris.
One reviewer wrote: She paints the sunrise over the hill of fiery orange to a rich yolky yellow. Ahead, the tide is high, the channel molten gold. Then slowly gradually the color begins to leach away, the clouds mellowing, now pale, orange, now primrose, the sky, finally settling on a clear and hopeful blue.
Those were the lines that drew me to this island, in search of that blue hour.
It was Vanessa's love life and sexual desires that created the scandal. The greater the scandal, the greater the interest in her paintings, then her ceramics, and sculptures uniquely staring at the public daring one to see the bones of the dead.
Lore has it that the early inhabitants of the west coast of Scotland, buried their dead on the island, so the wolves would not dig up the bones and souls of loved ones.
In Scotland, the land, even her island, comes under the law of "right to roam." The public, like me, could cross the channel and hike the woods and trails without permission from the owner. We wanted to see the place, to stand there and image.
Vanessa's notes read like she had won the lottery when at last she made enough money to buy the island of her dreams, of her retreats, of her distancing from others. Her husband, however, stole from her and sold her paintings and porcelain on the mainland of Europe to give him spending money that allowed him to lure wealthy ladies to his bed.
Ironically, it was a fall, a broken wrist that changed the course of her life. A woman doctor from Scotland came her rescue. After setting the broken wrist, the doctor realized that her patient could not drive home with the broken wrist. Being a logical and caring devoted doctor to the healing of others, she offered to drive this beautiful woman home, along with a week's supply of food.
For over twenty-years this doctor became a friend, a protector who tried to shield Vanessa from the public's eye. The island, alone by itself, seemed to be enough to offer protection, but their space had been invaded by a foul intruder, who's only intention was rape.
The artist, caught off guard, had no chance against a predator. The fisherman from the nearby village, who had admired her beauty from a distance forced his way into her studio that day. With Vanessa's arm twisted, in pain, she screamed. Suddenly, the man collapsed to his knees and began to pull at a wire now wrapped around his neck and choking him to death.
The good doctor had delivered food that day and heard the scream from the studio near the top of the ridge. Not intending to kill, or so the story goes, she skillfully held the hold painfully chocking and terrifying the man.
Fear began to set into the artist's mind. The artist craved for aloneness and at last pushed and shoved the doctor out of her life. Over time the husband returned for sexual pleasures and the need for money to support his lifestyle.
Another scandal occurred when the husband disappeared after a weekend on the island. His wallet later floated up near shore where a fisherman brought it in with his net. The red race car was never found. He had vanished.
It was the bones, that crept into the story twisting the lives of people who crossed over the line, the tidal .....
Somehow, over time Vanessa had found bones. The same bones that held a story together none the less. These bones now caught the attention of the art world, twisting this story one more time and leaving the listeners and readers one more death to resolve. Sitting at the bar that evening, no one shared the ending.
My trip was short and fast. It lasted only three days on the island but it was FREE. The entire trip, the hiking, the bones, story with only the sound of seals in the background, no Nessie. If you'd like to travel the world this winter like I do, for free, the public library offers free travel guides in nearly every book from romance and mystery novels to non-fiction, along with maps, and history.
This trip was brought to life by Paula Hawkins in her recent novel The Blue Hour.
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