In the nineteen-sixties, Iain had become known as a very fine poet, mostly through poems written in his second language, though he also wrote many important ones in Gaelic. In 1968 his first and most famous novel in English, Consider the Lilies, had been published. It enjoys – at least in the Highlands – the status of a classic, exploring the cruel historical realities of the Clearances from the point of view of a vulnerable, stubborn but admirable old woman. As a Gael, educated at Aberdeen University during the years of the second world war, Iain was formed between these two changing cultures, neither of which he was ever able to fully embrace; that is of a Gaelic, rural world in a small, religious, traditional community and that of an English-speaking, modern intellectual in a technologising society. While he cared passionately about Gaelic culture and language, he did not sentimentalise that culture. He was never prepared to pretend the islands were some sort of Eden which could be contrasted to the turmoil and horrors of the twentieth century. As a high school English teacher who taught war poetry, we can see in these stories his fascination with the two world wars, which took so many young men from the islands.
I have included several of his hilarious Murdo stories as I believe they are among the finest things he ever wrote. With the creation of Murdo, Iain was able to reconcile in fiction, the serious intellectual side of his character – which loved ideas and modern literature – with his natural and huge sense of humour. This results in a disarming salvo of send-up, scorning any lofty attitudes. Murdo emerges as one of the most unpredictable and certainly one of the most welcome characters in recent Scottish writing. Murdo should have his own Facebook page!
Like all interesting writers, Iain made joy, and wonder and fascination for us out of his own inner turmoil. I hope you enjoy all these stories as much as I did re-reading them.
ALAN WARNER
Edinburgh. July 2013
Murdo Leaves the Bank
‘I want to see you in my office,’ said Mr Maxwell the bank manager, to Murdo. When Murdo entered, Mr Maxwell, with his hands clasped behind his back, was gazing out at the yachts in the bay. He turned round and said, ‘Imphm.’
Then he continued, ‘Murdo, you are not happy here. I can see that.
‘The fact is, your behaviour has been odd. Leaving aside the question of the mask, and the toy gun, there have been other peculiarities. First of all, as I have often told you, your clothes are not suitable. Your kilt is not the attire most suitable for a bank. There have been complaints from other sources as well. Mrs Carruthers objected to your long tirade on the evils of capitalism and the idle rich. Major Shaw said you delivered to him a lecture on Marxism and what you were pleased to call the dialectic.
‘Some of your other activities have been odd as well. Why for instance did you put up a notice saying, THIS IS A BANK WHEREON THE WILD THYME BLOWS? And why, when I entrusted you with buying a watch for Mr Gray’s retirement did you buy an alarm clock?
‘Why did you say to Mrs Harper that it was time the two of you escaped to South America with, I quote, “the takings”: and show her what purported to be two air tickets in the name of Olivera? You told her, and I quote, “I’ll be the driver while you bring the money out to me. I have arranged everything, even to the matter of disguises.”
‘You also said, and I quote, “The mild breezes of the Pacific will smoothe away our sin.”
‘No wonder Mrs Harper left the bank and joined the staff of Woolworths. Other oddnesses of yours can be catalogued, as for instance the advertisement you designed saying, THIS IS THE BANK THAT LIKES TO SAY ‘PERHAPS’.
‘I have therefore decided, Murdo, that banking is not your forte, and that we have come to the parting of the ways: and this I may say has been confirmed by Head Office. I understand, however, that you are writing a book, and that you have always intended to be an author. We cannot, however, have such odd behaviour in an institution such as this. Imphm.
‘Also, you phoned Mrs Carruthers to tell her that her investments were in imminent danger because of a war in Ecuador but that you were quite willing to fly out for a fortnight to act as her agent. When she asked you who you were, you said, “Mr Maxwell, and his ilk.”
‘You also suggested that an eye should be kept on Mr Gray as, in your opinion, he was going blind, but he was too proud to tell the bank owing to his sense of loyalty and to his fear that he might lose his job, as he was supporting three grandchildren. Such a man deserved more than money, you said, he required respect, even veneration.
‘You have in fact been a disruptive influence on this office, with your various-coloured suits, your balloons, and your random bursting into song.
‘Have you anything to say for yourself?’
‘It is true,’ said Murdo, after a long pause, ‘that I have been writing a book, which I shall continue after I have suffered your brutal action of dismissal. It will be about the work of a clerk in a bank, and how he fought for Blake’s grain of sand against watches and umbrellas. Banks, in my opinion, should be havens of joy and pulsing realities. That is why I have introduced fictions, balloons, masks, toy guns, and songs.
‘You yourself, if I may say so, have become to my sorrow little better than an automaton. I do not advert to your sex life, and to your obsession with yachts, but I do
