THE JOURNAL OF ELLIOT CRIPPLESBY
We left the car in a gravelled car park ringed with boulders. A solid, wooden sign was painted with the warning that the reader was now well and truly in bear country, so be careful not to leave any food either in the car or out in the open.
Hidden or exposed, it doesn’t matter to the bears, who will happily smash through car windows without a second thought to get at something the owners might have thought was tucked away out of sight. This wilderness certainly gives you a fresh spring in your step, as your senses become more alive than they could ever be in the hum-drum domesticated landscapes we have built up around ourselves in our over-planned and uniform urban culture. Out here it really is dog eat dog - but not, if we could possibly avoid it, bear (or wolf) eat humans. An occurrence that, whilst rare, is by no means unheard of.
Mount Amery itself is a towering flat topped peak, clad in thick, evergreen forest up to a distinct line, at which point the trees instantly give way to bare rock, snow and ice, giving it the rather odd appearance of the tonsured head of a monk. The river at the base is wide and quite deep at this time of year with all the melt-water still spilling down off the slopes and beginning its long, winding journey southwards.
I had not given much thought as to what we would do once we got here, it must be said. Just look for obvious signs of the Professor I guess, in whatever shape or form they might come in.
There were three other cars in the car park, but we didn’t know which one was his – we really should have thought to ask Abigail if she knew what vehicle he was driving, if not me then certainly Geeza; he is the detective after all. I suppose we were both feeling so pleased with ourselves at having picked up the trail so easily that it just slipped our minds that there might be more we could learn. Mind you, she might not have remembered.
Besides, even if we had known, would it have helped? I suppose we could have deflated all of his tyres, or immobilised him some other way - I don’t know, pulled a few wires or take his battery out or something, but as we didn’t know which of the three was his, we could not take any action, simple as that.
I began to look far off into the horizon, ever hopeful in much the same way that men gather beneath the bonnets of cars, supposedly knowing what they are looking for (I myself am guilty at having done this, despite the fact that I wouldn’t be able to distinguish a carburettor from a head gasket). Instead I had to be contented in simply gazing away, looking for a sign. Looking for something, anything, without quite knowing what it was.
Alan Humphries jumping up and down, screaming “Over here!” and waving a big flag would have been nice, or else a friendly set of footprints leading us straight to him, curled up asleep on the sunny side of a large rock, fat and contented with an empty flap-jack tray lying by his side. Unfortunately he must have been well fed and rested already and had left his flag behind on this occasion.
Ok, so I was dithering; I admit it. Geeza on the other hand seemed to be on the lookout for something specific and when he saw what it was he whooped with delight. Three young aspen trees, red in colour - which was peculiar for this time of year - danced ever so slightly in the icy breeze, away in the distance.
“That’s it!” he exclaimed triumphantly.
“What’s what?” I replied. Without bothering to enlighten me any further though, he rushed over towards them. I sighed and then followed.
We were well off the beaten track by now, but he would not answer any of my questions as to what exactly we were heading towards. However, when we reached the aspens it was fairly obvious and I think what we found surprised us both, him as much as me.
“Mr. Vermies, you have excelled yourself once again,” I congratulated him as he squatted down beside a well worn path which led to a small pool set into the river bank.
It was not quite the footprints I had been hoping for, but it was just as good! It would be impossible to see from any of the tourist trails, and the very way the path wound this way and that into the nearby woods gave the impression that its meandering route had been trodden quite deliberately, over a not inconsiderable period of time. It didn’t even cross our minds that it could have been an animal track: bear, wolf, coyote, even a mountain lion. God knows what lives out there! I don’t know what we would have done if it had led us to a dark cave mouth, strewn with bones…
Thankfully it didn’t and following the track silently for nearly twenty minutes we came across a small, but neatly maintained log cabin nestled in a clearing in the middle of a tall pine forest. It was right out of a picture book, fully equipped with a little rock lined path leading right up to the raised wooden porch. There was a rough stone chimney and log piles neatly stacked up, water barrels - the lot. Very old fashioned and antiquated and, by the thin stream of smoke rising faintly from the chimney, very obviously lived in.
I felt like Goldilocks as we approached the small door, sawn in half, but with both parts fully closed at the moment. We knocked gently and stepped backwards, not knowing who, or what, to expect on the other side.
There was silence for a moment - well, not silence exactly. The creaking of the trees and the numerous bird calls that drifted down from the forest in which we were now completely enveloped floated down to us from all angles. But the house itself was quiet for a moment or two before we heard slow, heavy footsteps and then the top half of the door opened outwards - we were wise to have taken those steps back.
An old man with a neatly trimmed beard and thin framed, tinted spectacles appeared. “What do you want?” he said - not exactly abruptly, but it was clear that we could have picked a better time, whoever we were. Or better still, not bothered to come at all.
“Err, we were kind of looking for someone. We think he was up here in the last few days.”
“You’re not journalists are you?”
“No.”
“Police?”
“No.”
“MTV?”
“What?” I said, surprised. “Err, no.” Bizarre.
“You’d better come in then,” he said and showed us through.
Looking back now I suppose I should have noticed before I did, but this being America and all – sorry, sorry! Canada! You know what I mean though - you hear so many stories don’t you? Sorry, I’m getting ahead of myself. To continue.
The insides of the cabin were surprisingly luxurious - well, more comfortable than I was expecting anyway, with a flowery three piece suite, dark wood coffee tables, frilly lampshades and what I thought at first to be wallpaper although as it transpired, it was in fact a variety of thick drapes and wall hangings that stretched fully from the ceiling to the floor. Equally as decorative as wallpaper, but with the added luxury, or perhaps that should be ‘necessity’, of providing vital insulation in the winter.
There was a seventies style Panasonic stereo system and a number of 12” LPs in a bookcase by its side. Displayed proudly on the wall above the door to the bedroom was a Gibson Les Paul six string guitar, with black neck and a unique tartan body, the pattern of which I was unfamiliar with.
The man himself spoke in a naggingly familiar way, and immediately gave the impression of being a wily old customer. His snowy haired wife seemed a lovely, if a little diminutive lady, who looked to be enjoying her middle years, despite the somewhat crazed look in her eyes. Cabin fever, we learned in a later conversation, was only the tip of the iceberg.
“You’ll have to excuse us,” he drawled in a thick southern accent, positively dripping with the moisture from the swamps of Tennessee, “but we don’t get many guests up here, so if our hospitality is a little lacking, it ain’t nothing personal.”
I knew I had heard his voice before, but where?
“No, no, that’s quite alright. I can imagine you wouldn’t exactly have folk popping in every day. It’s quite a place you’ve got here.” I sipped politely from the cup the lady had poured me. It was some kind of home-made, fruit tea, blackberry or black currant I think.
“Thank you very much,” he sai
d. I knew him, I knew him! But from where? “So tell me, what brings you all the way out here? There’s nothing for miles round here this time of year, ‘cept for snow, fish and bears.”
I fought down the butterflies in my stomach that thrashed about like kids in a club whenever the word ‘bears’ was mentioned – why do they all keep going on about them like that? Is it true or just a joke they all play, scaring the tourists? They way they talk you keep expecting to find one behind every tree. I wish they’d pack it in.
“As I said, we’re actually looking for someone.”
“Uh-huh,” he replied with a hauntingly familiar grunt.
It screamed at me again that I should know this man. Not personally – I had realised by now that perhaps he was somebody famous. Oh, who was it? It was on the tip of my tongue, the forefront of my mind, but I still couldn’t make the connection!
I reached a hand into my coat pocket and pulled out the newspaper cutting of Humphries. “It’s unlikely I know, but I don’t suppose you’ve seen this man have you? Has he been by at all? It’s really quite important.”
His face visibly darkened. “Uh-huh,” he grunted again. “Yeah we saw him alright! Hey, when I said we didn’t get many visitors round here what I meant was we ain’t had any visitors, not since the guy came to install the solar panels out back.” That was for the electric and to heat the water tank. “Back in early 1979 that was. We ain’t seen no one since we came here and that’s just how we want it! Not another human soul in thirty years. Right up until yesterday evening.”
The day before we got there.
“This guy,” he flicked the photo with utter disgust, “swanks up here right out of the blue. Knocks on my door claiming to be an historian tracing the roots of several old Scottish families.”
Obviously a good deal more learned than I in the rich heritage of Caledonia, the Professor apparently took one look at the guitar and immediately recognised it as being the long lost McPresley tartan!
I’m sorry if this becomes just a load of incoherent babble now, with more tangents than a cubist’s painting, but I cannot keep my mind on the same train of thought long enough to write this in any kind of orderly fashion. I simply have to get this down before I continue any further. I took some convincing at the time before I fully believed it, but it is true. All of it is true. Beyond the shadow of a doubt.
This man, this elderly gentleman cooped up here in a remote, rustic log cabin out in the wilds of central Canada is none other than - are you ready for this? Elvis.
Elvis Presley. The Elvis Presley!
Amazed? Well hold your breath, because there is more. Much more.
The lady was Elvis’ wife Gretta and we were stood in the house they had lived in as recluses since he faked his own death, back in 1977! And that still isn’t all! The most astounding part of all?
He is Scottish!
Elvis Aaron Presley is a Scotsman and should actually be known as McPresley, as he is a direct descendant of the very same Eoan McPresley that I have already heard so much about!
It has been said that the course of history is usually shaped by just a few special individuals, remarkable men and women whose actions bring about sometimes deliberate, but often unforeseen consequences. It is down to these people alone that sociological inertia is shaken off and any change occurs, allowing Humanity to be steered off along a new path, hopefully more enlightened path. An interesting theory, possibly not all that far from the truth.
It would appear that our Mr. McPresley, Eoan that is, was one of these very people. Not only was he the first European to tread on American soil, he inadvertently caused the Haggis to be brought into existence and he is also the distant ancestor of Elvis himself - who, after all, is another of these ‘makers of history’ in his own right. Perhaps there is something in the blood. It would be damnably difficult to do, but maybe it would be interesting at some point to try and trace a few more members of this remarkable family and see if any of the rest of them has had any notable achievements.
I must marshal my thoughts. I feel this account is going to go all over the place. OK – I’ll tell Elvis’ story first, a précis version at least, and leave the actions of our adversary for later. Right? Here goes.
“Long before I became famous,” Elvis told me, “when I was only a little boy actually, my mother took me on a trip to Scotland, to trace our roots.”
“So you knew you were from Scotland, the family?”
“My maw had some iddy-biddy bits of our story, scraps that got handed down for generations. Using what she knew, we started off in the Grampian Mountains. We went from the Forest of Atholl and headed north-east from there.
“You see, although to the rest of the world the McPresley Clan had faded into obscurity when the name was stricken from the record books, the individual members of the family were still very proud of their name, of their kin, and were loathe to give it up. So the memory of the name carried on in private, behind closed doors.”
It turns out that young Master McPresley found out a lot about his heritage on that trip, his youthful mind soaking it up like a sponge and he remembered it all, every little bit of it. Later in life he filled his songs with the things he had learned, written in as hidden meanings that went largely unnoticed by the world. Only the members of his own original clan had any inkling of what he was really saying and of course they were not going to be telling anyone.
“That hairstyle I had? The quiff?” he laughed at the memory of it. “That was the traditional way of wearing your hair if you were a McPresley. You go to our country, the land we still look on as McPresley land and you’ll see loads of ‘em, quiffed up and greased and all dyed black.
“So where is your land? I’ve heard all about your ancestor Eoan, but he lived around Skye and I didn’t see any quiffs while I was there.”
“Uh-huh. That’s because Eoan was a wanderer, see? He moved away. No, no, the McPresley’s have always been – because we’re still there you understand - based in the Cairngorm Mountains. The heart of our territory is the grand peak of Ben Macdui.”
He explained the real message behind his music, which was quite simply a tribute to his own family, the Clan McPresley. He also gave us the real meanings and stories behind some of his songs.
“There’s a particular spot at the foot of Ben Macdui where all our internal clan disputes were traditionally settled. Criminals or the accused were judged there and sentences were passed out by the tribal elders.”
“And you went there?” I interrupted in my excitement.
“Sure I went there. Now, because of this, the mountain was known throughout the Clan McPresley as the Jailhouse Rock. After the self imposed exile of Eoan, the entire clan, or at least those who were able, would meet once a year on the anniversary of the day we were forced to renounce our name - the blackest date in the McPresley calendar. They would gather in secret on this day and hold a clandestine celebration of all things McPresley, to keep the memory alive. To honour this I wrote the song ‘Jailhouse Rock’, but my manager misinterpreted it.”
“Unbelievable.”
“Well, I could see the funny side, so I went along with it.”
Most of his songs followed a similar pattern. Elvis, always seeing the humour in the mistakes, allowed them to take the forms that are now known by people all over the world. Not every alteration was taken so lightly though. Something he was forced to change and was never happy about - and it still rankles him to this day - was one of his songs being split into two distinct titles by his record company.
The songs ‘Love Me Tender’ and ‘Return To Sender’ were, in their original format, only one song, all about the love he had found for a local girl on one his trips back home. He had met and fallen deeply in love with a young Scottish lassie and they had made the promise to each other that one day they would be married, when they reached the appropriate age. However, as the years went by, with them writing to each other once a month, she suddenly stopped all correspondence w
ith the young man and he found himself cut off from her without warning.
His eyes teared up at the telling of what was obviously a very painful memory. I looked at Geeza, but although I’m sure he was listening, his attention was taken up elsewhere and I couldn’t catch his eye.
It transpired that poor Gretta had tragically developed schizophrenia and whilst one personality still loved Elvis dearly, the other more dominant one didn’t want to know, immersing herself instead in the study of crustaceans in a seaside town on the Moray Firth, between Portknockly and Fraserburgh. That town was called Banff and is still there today, on the mouth of the river Deveron.
The record company insisted that the song be changed, as in those days there was not the more liberal attitude towards insanity that we enjoy today. This splitting into two of what was for him his magnum opus, that he had wrenched from the depths of his heart and bled onto a song sheet, caused his view on life to become jaded.
“Every other song after that,” he said to me, “was rubbish.” Fairly harsh criticism I thought, but they’re his songs, so he should know.
“From that day on I began to see the industry for what it was - a money making parade of egos, where fat men in suits came away with most of the profits.” He leant forwards and gently touched my knee, his voice laden with sorrow. “They weren’t interested in me, in anything I had to say, anything I felt; just how much they could make out of me.
“Well now, once I’d realised that I thought, ‘fine’ and I chose to play the game. They didn’t know it, but I was making fun of all the people who thought they were pulling my strings. Look at Viva Las Vegas,” he said by way of an example.
“But how could you bear it?” I asked him. “Not only all the manipulation, but the loss of your love? Didn’t you get cynical, or bitter?”
“I didn’t have time for that. What, you think, I was sitting idly by all that time, eating burgers and smoking cigars? No sir! I was spending all my spare time and the best part of everything I made trying to find my childhood sweetheart.” I saw him sneak a glance at his snowy-haired companion. “Looking for my sweetheart…” He turned back to me.
“And let me tell you son, it wasn’t easy. Remember I was fully in the limelight back then – everything I did, what I ate, what I wore, where I went – everybody wanted to know. But I couldn’t let anybody find out what I was doing. Let me tell you, I had an army of private detectives on the payroll. You can’t believe how much I was paying them, for their silence as much as their work.”
“Pity Geeza wasn’t around for you,” I joked. “He’d have probably got her within the week.” Elvis looked questioningly over at my friend, but said nothing. “Did you find her?” I asked, already knowingly the answer.
“Oh I found her alright,” he turned again to Gretta, to where she was busying about with a pot of fish stew. The warmth and the tenderness in his smile was touching. It seemed to light up his whole face. He breathed deeply. “Yeah, I found her.”
When eventually he had found her, he flew over to Scotland immediately, managing to stay away from the prying eyes of the media. And there, on the windswept shores of the north-east coast, he won her heart once again – well come on, what girl could possibly refuse to succumb against the hopelessly romantic backdrop of Troupe Head on an overcast night in February?
Right there and then he began the intricate process of faking his death and escaping from the world he had grown to hate. They chose Banff – Canada - because not only would no-one ever find them here - until now - but also so that when the crustacean loving personality ‘came through’, she would think she was still at home, and happily scour the river for her beloved crabs and whelks. Without her glasses she was apparently so short-sighted that she was unaware of the ‘slight’ differences in her new and old homes - the vast, three thousand metre Mount Amery being but one of them.
What a world eh? And what a lamentable, yet beautiful tale. When I still betrayed a few doubts – hey come on, who wouldn’t have done? - he showed me the gold disc for Heartbreak Hotel and a silver lame suit that he wore on stage - both kept as reminders of the ironic lifestyle he had pretended to live.
Incredible. I am still pinching myself, and will be for some time to come I expect.
But now back to the darker side of the story - Humphries. He had arrived here the day before us and had seemed genuine enough to allow into the cabin. Elvis had talked with him at length about the McPresley name and history and had shown him some of the artefacts he held dear to him - the most significant of which was a two by four foot ancient wooden chest, carried over here all those years ago by Eoan McPresley himself. This chest, the most treasured family heirloom this side of the Atlantic was filled to the brim with possibly some of the most ancient Scottish coins on the face of the Earth.
I say ‘was filled’, but should really have written ‘used to be filled’ - well, in actual fact, the chest is more than likely still full of coins, but the point I am trying - rather unsuccessfully - to make, is that none of them were here any more. Like a thief in the night - or very early morning anyway - the mad Professor has made off with them.
***