Up North

North.

A1 then Scotch Corner, Kendal and Central Scotland.

Glasgow appears

With signs to Old Lanark

Then Strathclyde Country Park.

Garthamlock.

I drive on the orbital that circles the city,

Signs to Easterhouse and

Niddrie.

Bearsden and Milgavie.

The cemetery shuts in 15 minutes

I squeeze through the gate.

The stones

Flat, black and grey granite

A reminder of the solemnity.

I look for mum and dad,

Retracing the steps

I took at their funerals.

Over here.

I look at the modern graves, perhaps laid in the past 20 years.

Most are flat with low-lying stones

A prophylactic against vandals

Who take pleasure in knocking them over.

At least there are no swastikas

At least the place is quiet

No youths,

No Kaffiyeh protesters.

We are about to close

The man says.

He has a splint on his little finger,

Perhaps an injury from grave digging.

He has white ear buds and seems sympathetic.

Can I help you?

I’m looking for my parent’s graves. I thought they were there. (I point).

Plot 44, he says. You’re at 22.

He shows me the way.

We pass-by the graves of aunts and uncles, family friends, I recognise surnames from my youth. Outlandish names that differ from the McEwan’s, Hamilton’s and Campbells of my classmates. Rabinowitz, Sneader, Sniper, Wolfe. Names that are descriptive more than merely family appointments, Goodman, Mandel, Singer.

I discover that the stonemason who advertised in the Jewish Echo of my youth, Lipton, is also buried here.

My parent’s graves are silent. I lay a stone on each that I have brought from Doncaster. Smooth, one red, one white with dark swirls that I have brought from my garden.

We Jews don’t bring flowers.

The crest on my mum’s grave, a Norse Icon of her favourite necklace has lost some of the gold inset lettering. Not sure whether moss or dirt of fading away. I don’t have time to linger. I worry about the grave attendant.

I think, I should give him £20, that’s what they did when I came, back in the day with my parents. I have no cash. I think £20 isn’t much. Inflation. What to do. I think, maybe if I don’t give him money, he will think that I don’t have money to spare. Or, will he think, miserly Jew, killer of innocents? Impossible to say. I consider that were our positions switched I would have shown someone their parent’s grave without a tip, I would not expect anything. Then again, our places are not switched; he stands in muddy graves for a living, I visit them occasionally.

And I leave. I return to my car. He walks off, hood-up, it’s raining.

I drive past the traffic of Glasgow, over the Erskine Bridge in the direction of Loch Lomond.

I remember a visit not long after the outbreak of the first Gulf War. I remember Saddam threatening Israel with chemical warfare. My family testing their gas masks. My young niece and nephew too young to understand the events yet knowing their lives were threatened.

October 1990, I took the day off college and travelled on the train to spend time alone. I remember the ice, hanging off the mountainside. The cold and the quiet.

Onwards to Bridge of Orchy and Glen Etive, Past Crianlarich, I eventually reach the campsite.

The rain has stopped. It is green. Verdant. Midges abound. Very different from the Negev or the Arava. Different parts of me, different times and places.

I pitch my tent.

A struggle as the midges are here.

I describe them in an email to an Israeli friend as like silent mosquitos, in their millions.

They swarm in the stillness. Everywhere. Cocooning myself in coat and hat and switching my shorts for trackies I get on with the tent pegs and tension lines.

I spend time with the Swallow nesting in a nearby shelter, drinking my hibiscus tea and planning the next day.

Wish me luck.