St Cuthbert’s Idea of a Joke

It is ninety minutes to Lindisfarne on the A1 from Edinburgh. In better weather, V told me, we would see it on the approach, the castle on its crag of rock, and Bamburgh Castle to the west nearby; but all was obscured, submerged. The rain was falling as we left, and at the coast we drove into a protracted cloud of fog, which hid the sea so that there was only a brief glimpse of the winding road before us. We didn’t see Holy Island until we were right upon it, the causeway clear in the quintessential low tide. Across the exposed ground of sand and pools and seaweed, poles mark the pilgrims’ way by foot. Once or twice over the route there is a little refuge twelve feet in the air, a stairway to nowhere; if you have ignored the signs plastering the crossing, and misjudged the pace of the rising tide, you might bolt here for safety as the water gallops recklessly upon you.

There is something elemental about this place. V wound down the windows as we drove across, and I looked out on an ethereal landscape, a horizontal expanse so vast it perplexed the human eye, a great flatness of land and sky and far-off sea. The town, as we walked towards the old site of the monastery, felt incongruous. Tarmac and houses and even trees seemed out of place. My mind’s eye saw an encroachment of water and sand, and I thought about rising sea levels as we made our way tentatively out over bladderwrack and craggy rock to St Cuthbert’s Island – a tidal island off a tidal island: the ultimate retreat. Seaweed popped and crackled satisfyingly underfoot; cuttlefish lay strewn about the higher ground, moss and rock below; a young herring gull flew silent, close, within reach of an outstretched arm. I wondered what it wanted, whether it was a benediction, or a warning.

As we climbed up the steep path to the heugh, a rocky outcrop exposed to the wind and famed for its summer wildflowers, Hope raced in and out of sight, fleet of foot, wheeling like a bird herself upon grass and crag while long breakers dashed far below and away. With her four-paw drive, she could dash up and down and round, twenty steps for every one of mine. Great boughs of kelp were briefly compelling, periwinkles were sniffed, birds chased. We watched, and walked, and V told me about the miracles of St Cuthbert, a monk at Lindisfarne in the seventh century, and now patron saint of Northumbria. The Venerable Bede tells of how Cuthbert stepped into the North Sea to pray at night, remaining there through the wee hours, unmoved by the freezing cold of wind and waves. In the morning he returned to the shore, and two otters emerged from the sea, warming and drying him with their fur, breathing on his numb feet. St Cuthbert’s miracles often involve animals, V said, and from our height on the heugh we watched a seal’s head flicker above the water, cormorants ducking and bobbing.

It seemed fitting that the castle should be last before lunch. Out the back of the heugh lies a route down and round to the castle, rock-like itself, growing out of a volcanic plug like in the oldest fairy tales. There is a small bay to traverse along the way, and so we found ourselves walking through the boatyard, by piles of crab and lobster nets, sheds built like boats, sleek-hulled against the gales, small trawlers lurking in the calmer waters. The beach here is pebble, shingle, pink-hued, an elegant sweep of driftwood and kelp that draws the eye to the castle on the other side.

That is why I did not see the dead seal.

Was there ever a better camouflage for a long-dead cetacean than a speckled beach; a better distraction for an innocent, History-degreed dog owner than an ancient castle; a truer nose than that of a dog, heading for something putrescent? By the time I realised that Hope was rolling luxuriantly in something very, very dead, it was too late. I called her and she bounded back to me in joy, liberally smeared with dead seal. Her eyes were alive with delight: this was the best thing that had happened to her for years. Invisible waves of rancidity wafted towards me, and images from teenage viewings of CSI boxsets flashed before my mind. Then a mental picture arose of the three of us in V’s car on the ninety-minute journey home. An enclosed space; a heedless dog; a teeth-chatteringly, jaw-droppingly, retch-inducingly hideous smell. Nature, it seemed, was unspeakably red in tooth, claw, and decay.

I was aghast with the horror of the situation. All I could think was that I needed to wash her. But the tide – that magical, ethereal, otherworldly tide – was too far out to even think about wading and dunking my revolting dog as I would in Edinburgh. The castle, the boats, St Cuthbert, the magic of the place seemed suddenly turned upside down. Then, wild-eyed, my gaze fell upon the signs to the public toilets. If there were to be a shower…or a large basin…or a pump…

There were none of these things. But there were soap dispensers, freshly filled with bright pink liquid soap; there was a floor so wet from the rain that, I figured, some extra wouldn’t be much noticed; there was hot water; and there was, in my bag, a water bottle that would have to act as a jug. And so I semi-stripped, filled my hands to the brim with cheerful-smelling pink soap, grabbed Hope by the scruff of her micro-organism-caked neck, and I scrubbed that dog with my bare hands.

Round and round I went, bottlefuls of water, handfuls of soap, until the floor frothed and her coat bubbled and her ears dripped, bedraggled, down the sides of her deceptively sweet face. This improved matters thoroughly. At least, I was no longer sure whether I was smelling soap or dead seal. I could barely speak by the time I emerged; it was well past lunch-time, and I was pretty sure I would leave Hope on the island if she so much as pulled on the lead once more.

But we found some lunch, and got back in the car – we kept the air conditioner low – and went for a walk on the north shore. It was deserted, the tide thunderous even from several hundred metres’ distance. Sand rippled away from us as far as the eye could see. That transcendent flatness of land and sky and sea; I walked, and looked for shells, and began to feel better.

It was not until later, when I had got the dog home, and put her straight in the shower, and scrubbed her with washing-up liquid, and baby shampoo, and then, lastly, with bicarbonate of soda, and put her in the hallway overnight so that l’eau de dead seal didn’t permeate my bedroom, and slowly, over the subsequent days, returned to speaking, indeed stroking terms – it was not until after all of that that it occurred to me that, somewhere, St Cuthbert was laughing. There is coming out of the cold North Sea to be warmed and dried by otters, and then there is scrubbing deceased cetacean effluviant off your dog in the public toilets. But that, you see, is life, and maybe even Lindisfarne. Ancient, magical, holy, with a cosmic jab in the ribs.

Warm wishes,

Kitty