Andrew Ervin: Burning Down George Orwell's House

O Argo!

O Pequod!

O Eilean Dhiura!

The boat moved, and Ray was carried by a series of systemic forces: he paced in circles, port to starboard, starboard to port while the boat defied the sound’s pull, itself directed by the moon; gravity held him and the ferry and the captain and the sea fast to the spinning earth, which carried all of them around a sun, the existence of which was now speculative; a rivulet of mineral water curled its way through his digestive tract and into his circulatory and respiratory processes, while the pouring rain sought every millimeter of exposed flesh.

Even with the ferry nearing the shore, or the shore nearing the ferry, Ray still felt like he might never make it to Jura. Zeno’s paradox would take over. He would continue to travel half the distance, and then half of that, and half of that, and … The closer he got, the more he felt his body shutting down. Famine, dehydration, and fatigue nipped at his heels. Marshmallow-like mucus colonized his chest and bits of it escaped up his throat every time he coughed. The Paps loomed larger. He held on to the railing to maintain what remained of his balance. The motion of the boat felt too familiar now, as did the wind, which reminded him of Chicago. The brat schoolgirl kept her eyes buried in her wet copy of Civilization and Its Discontents .

The ferry stopped and there became here . He had made it. Singer lowered the plank and Ray stepped foot upon the Isle of Jura.

“I’ll be seeing you at the hotel just as soon as I’ve tightened her down here,” the ferryman said. “You’ve come at a good time.”

“Great,” Ray told him.

“Great,” the girl said, making fun of his American accent again.

“Don’t mind her,” Singer said. “She’s not a bad kid once you get to know her. Too smart for her own good, that’s her problem.”

The air was rich and clean, but he still had to hoof it several miles. He had received the directions via email: from the ferry port, Jura’s only paved road curled around the southern butt of the island and then ran two-thirds of the way up the eastern coastline to Craighouse, which sat in the mouth of a bay and faced the Scottish mainland. The caretaker of the hotel there, Mrs. Campbell, was expecting him. He had a reservation for one night.

After a good night of sleep he would pick some supplies up at the Jura Stores, which was owned by the same couple who would serve as his landlords for the next six months. Then he would hitchhike twenty-five miles up toward the northern tip to Barnhill, the estate where George Orwell wrote Nineteen Eighty-Four . That was where Ray would begin his new life. It was still difficult to believe.

Before donating his laptop to a Buddhist temple on the North Side, he had searched online for rental properties on Jura, but never imagined that Orwell’s very own house would be available. The rental agent he reached in Glasgow said he was very lucky that he phoned when he did. Just that morning a young couple from London had made serious inquiries about buying the property or perhaps renting it as a summer cottage. Barnhill was fully furnished, she had said, and would comfortably sleep eight. The rental had cost him every last dollar that remained in his own name, but getting off the grid for half a year would be worth any expense and hassle from Helen and her junta of divorce attorneys, even with the knowledge that when the lease expired he would be flat broke and have no place to live.

The girl pushed past Ray and climbed into the cab of an old flatbed truck. Bagpipe music blared from the radio and he couldn’t figure out if the effect was meant to be ironic. The driver leaned toward the passenger-side door and rolled down the window. He had a perfectly round head with a bulbous nose and slack double chin, his hair buzzed down to a military-style flattop. “You Welter?” he yelled.

“Yeah?”

“Then get the fuck in here.”

His legs would not have made it to Craighouse. “Great, I’d love a ride, thank you. I’m going to—”

“To the hotel, aye.”

“Look what he did to my book,” the girl said.

“You don’t need to be reading that shite anyway. You may have noticed that it’s raining, Chappie, so would you please get the fuck in here?”

The girl squeezed over so Ray could climb inside. The bagpipes might have been used for interrogational purposes. “Ray Welter,” he said, holding out his hand. The cab smelled of rancid meat and whisky —exceptional whisky.

The man wiped his fingers on his oily pants before shaking his hand. “I can see you met my Molly.”

“Charming girl.”

“She’s a little bitch. Aren’t you, Molly? Smartest person on Jura is why. Or she was before you graced us with your presence.” He laughed until spittle landed on the inside of the windshield. “Hey close the fucking door, Chappie.”

“And your name is?”

“You can call me Mr. Pitcairn.”

“It sounds like the whole island was expecting me, Mr. Pitcairn.”

“The whole island? Who do you think you are, the king? Did you think we’re one big happy family? That we were going to throw you a parade?”

“Dysfunctional family is more like it,” Molly said.

“Dysfunctional, eh. How do you like that? That’s my Molly for you. Do you think maybe I could be the famous advertising executive and you could drive my truck?”

“How do you know about that?”

Pitcairn made typing motions with his fingers. “We have the Internet here too, you know.”

“I’m far from famous, in fact,” Ray said, “but I’ll give the proposal some thought.”

“I’ll give the proposal some thought,” Pitcairn said, making fun of his American accent just like his daughter had done.

He couldn’t believe that this guy had looked him up online. It felt so … intrusive . One night in Craighouse, then he would be on his own and free — free from all the bullshit and hassle, from the meaningless social rituals and phony smiles, from the technological gadgets that had ruined his attention span and fucked up his very thinking.

“Okay, I’ve thought about it,” he said. “No way in hell.”

Pitcairn stepped on the accelerator. Ray rubbed his elbow on the window in order to see out, but that was a mistake. The narrow road adhered to the coastline and snaked its way between a series of cliffs and the shoreline. The slightest skid on the wet pavement would send them hurtling into the icy water. Pitcairn fumbled with a pack of cigarettes and took every treacherous bend at full speed. Ray bounced in his seat. The tires squealed with each blind turn.

They crossed a small bridge, and the road bent away from Islay and up a hill. Jura appeared to be little more than a collection of craggy mountains protruding from the sea. The shade of green was something else. The terrain was covered in patchy grass and weeds and exposed stone surfaces. Innumerous valleys housed depthless lakes. Blue-white boulders had been strewn everywhere and organized by forces beyond human understanding. The island looked desolate and windswept and raw — in other words, ideal.

The road — now too narrow for more than one car — climbed to a peak but the mist made it difficult to get much of a view.

“There’s a standing stone coming up,” Molly said. “One of the best preserved examples in the Inner Hebrides.”

“If you can fight past the fucking tourists to get at it.”

“You can’t miss it from the road, and we only get a couple of hundred fucking tourists a year.”

“Aye, and it’s a couple of hundred too many! Mind your fucking mouth.”

They drove through an area of farmland and past a few old houses, then ascended to another bend in the road, which Pitcairn again took at full speed. Ray had read about the enormity of the island’s sheep population, but the statistics did little justice to the reality. They were everywhere. Jura belonged to the sheep, not to the humans.