The Call of the Haggis

- Haggis? The national dish of Scotland? It's a wee animal, the Haggis, it lives on the mountains in the Highlands, it has its right legs longer than its left ones, that way when it stands on the crag it stays horizontal. If you visit me in october or september I'll take you to hunt the Haggis, because of its legs it can only run counter-clock, so I'll creep silently up behind the Haggis and then yell in its ear, and it'll run away counter-clock with a hoot and a yelp, for they're nervous wee things, right towards where you will be waiting with the net, right into the net, we'll boil him and eat him warm with clootie dumplings, very tasty.
- I don't believe you.
- But they are indeed very tasty and they sing too, when it's the season you can hear in the glens a lonely sound, between a rustle and a squeak, high and musical, it's the mating call of the Haggis.

Yes, Katrina and when he had taken the decision to follow the line of gravity falling towards the far North to visit her in Scotland, on the evening before the trip he'd spent so long in front of the mirror practising things to say to her, when they'd see eachother again, when exactly he should raise his left eyebrow, so many words saved from when he was using all his attention to counter the effect of Katrina-gravity or at least not make it obvious to the others and so hadn't had spare room in his brain to talk. So much practice all for nothing because when he passed the border between England and Scotland there appeared, out of the cold rain-heavy air, the little cloud.

- Haggis? (malicious smile) You take a cow's intestine - yes I know, mad cow disease and all that, however you take a cow's intestine, and its heart and liver, and wrap it up in fat, the fat from a sheep's kidney to be precise, you stuff the lot into a sheep's stomach, put it in a saucepan and steam it for three hours.
- Bleargh!
- You think so? Good, I'll eat your helping!
- Beast, you said that just to put me off, what's Haggis really?

The little cloud was humid, the colour of porridge. It changed size but was never larger than a football. Its centre was a centimetre in front of the top of his nose. Sometimes it became hard as metal and pressed him between the eyebrows. Sometimes he breathed it up his nose, blocking it. Sometimes it coated his spectacles making them semi-opaque, the world the colour of porridge, or entered his head and drizzled into his eyes and mouth and particularly his nose. Every so often it would grab the two inner corners of his eyebrows, pulling them together and down to make him scowl, or up to give him a desperate look with a wrinkled forehead.
At a motorway service station he bought an anti-cloud powder of sodium citrate, sucrose, aspartame, acesulfane K, real whole lemons, paracetamol, phenylephrine and ascorbic acid, and drank it in a mug of hot water; without success. Insulated by the cloud, his forehead and the top of his nose were warm and fuzzy.

- Really? It's a pudding. You make it from crumbs of old griddle-cakes and scones. You mix the crumbs with honey, fry the result and cover it with rice paper. It's an economical recipe, favoured by the frugal old scots wives, hence the name, Haggis cake from Hag's cake. Are you no familiar with the poem by Burns, Now Heaven bless your sonsie face, great chieftain o' the pudding race? Ode to a Haggis.
- (laughing) I don't believe you! Ode to a Haggis? And I don't believe the derivation of the name either, go on, tell me what Haggis is.

The flu-cloud had surrounded his voce; he spoke with a voice unnaturally low and unfocussed. In the middle of a long sentence he felt his words become thicker and thicker until there wasn't enough space for them in his mouth. His voice was stuck in his throat, he had to cough to let it out.
When he passed Edinburgh, thinking of Katrina from inside the cloud, he felt a tremor of shyness, and then a little tug in his throat and his voice escaped. It jumped out of the car window and walked to the base of the Scott Monument, where a bagpiper in McFarlane tartan was playing pibrochs and being photographed by three japanese tourists. It sat down on top of the bagpipe and sang a descant. The tourists photographed it. The car continued North.

- In actual fact the derivation is from Haig's, from the legend that Lord Haig, dying after being stabbed by his mortal enemy, with his last breath laid a curse, a currrse, on his enemy's favourite food, Haggis, that every time it was cooked it would scrrream as Lord Haig screamed when the dagger entered between his shoulders. And in fact it does make a noise a bit like a scream when you cook it, don't look at me like that dear, it's true.

Sift 450g flour, 3/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda, pinch of salt, and 1 1/2 tsp cream of tartar, rub in 100g butter, add 100g raisins and 300ml milk. Roll out the dough into rounds 1cm thick. Cook on a griddle 5 minutes each side.

On the second evening, around eleven o'clock, he sent alone to the beach. In summer at this latitude it's never completely dark, there's always a feeble light, the simmer dim Katrina called it. He stood amongst the grey sand and the grey castle ruins and the grey mist and the grey stars, and looked at the sea. The sea rustled and wrinkled. He felt comfortable alone with it, the self-sufficient sea. He stayed immobile for a long time. He was asking the sea a question. Soft, full, light drops of rain spotted his pullover. The sea took hold of one end of his thoughts and unravelled them slowly, pulling them away with it over the horizon. It gave him in exchange a mottled grey pebble. The wind changed direction. A small flat calm pebble, smooth. He nodded slowly to the sea to show that he understood its answer. He turned to leave.
It was only then that he felt the cold. His shivers started as ripples and grew into waves as he climbed up the stairs to the flat.

As he stepped through the door into the soft humid heat, he sneezed ferociosly. So ferociously that the pebble that the sea had given him fell out of his hand. It skidded along the floor until a point under the kitchen table, where it bounced up again like when someone skims a stone on the surface of the sea, and then descended, and continued on down through the floor. Puzzled, he checked; there was no hole, at the last place where he had seen the pebble the floor was smooth and unmarked: but the pebble wasn't there.

- All right then, I'll tell you. But it's a secret, you mustn't tell. Haggis is made out of old bagpipes. When a bagpipe is irreparably broken, you cut it into pieces, you put them in a casserole dish with potatoes, turnips, onions, tomatoes, and a glass of whisky, and let it stew until it's tender. It's eaten especially on January 25th. On that day all over Scotland the Haggis is brought to table after songs and speeches, to the sound of the new bagpipe played by the owner of the dead instrument. It's a symbol of resurrection and of the cycle of life. But it's secret, understand? Swear not to tell a soul, swear?

Try this, she said. It complements the taste of the Haggis. He didn't say anything, he couldn't with his voice not there, but nodded thanks to Katrina as he took the glass of whisky, a Talisker, from her. The first sip made him splutter, the little cloud enlarged itself, but the second glided down. A golden liquid that made its own cloud of prickling warmth, out of which gilded rays cut through the flu-cloud like rays of sun. Burning burnished on lips palette tongue throat ears. He inhaled over the glass: sharp fire sped up his nose disolving the cloud. It felt magnificent. He looked at Katrina, who was observing him, elbow on table and chin on hand. The Talisker warmed his chest from inside. He rolled the fluid round his tongue to find the most sensitive parts of his mouth and sting them warm again too. He put the glass down on the table. His hand on the table was close to her. A force, pulling him.

- Did you never hear the expression, piping in the Haggis? You get it in pipes, like the oil under the North Sea, but Haggis is in the bogs created by primordial forests. The prehistoric forests of Scotland that underwent most pressure turned to coal, those under medium pressure became Haggis, all you have to do is put a pipe in the right place in the bog and the Haggis comes up, under the force of surface tension.
- And you eat it?
- Of course, don't you believe me? Delicious.

He looked at the Haggis on his plate. It was a round slice, speckled with black and white, like granite. It had a tasty, robust smell that he couldn't identify. He felt the presence of Katrina, as a pebble feels the current of the sea. He finally let his hand follow the line of her gravity, falling upwards to touch her arm.
- But tell me,
his voice was low and gruff, surprised to be back. It turned around in his throat to make itself more comfortable and tried again, still low but this time smoother.
- But tell me, Katrina, what is Haggis?

- It's a type of scottish lasagna. Minced goose meat and instead of pasta, potatoes.
- Oh. But (munching) it doesn't taste like it...
- Just joking! No goose, no potato.
- (laughing) so what is it then?
- If I told you, you wouldn't believe me.
- Go on, go on!
- Haggis? The national dish of Scotland? It's a wee animal...