In this month’s blog post, we continue the sharing of stories from the many people who have touched lives with Moniack Mhor over the last 30 years. Long-time friend and tutor, Michel Faber shares his memory:
My most treasured memory of Moniack Mhor doesn’t actually concern any of the times I taught or was guest reader there. It concerns the time I had the accident with the dead deer.
It was September 2015. I’d been a widower for more than a year, slowly sorting through the remnants of the life I’d shared with Eva. Our home in the Highlands had been a hive of creativity while she was alive but now that she was gone, it was just a house in the middle of nowhere and I didn’t drive a car. Still grieving, I didn’t want other people’s help, so I fetched my groceries by bike, travelling up the A9 to the nearest town. Cycling for miles in snow and sleet was grim, and far-northern roads are not what you’d call bike-friendly.
Still, that day in September 2015 started off promisingly. It had been a wet morning and I’d almost argued myself out of heading for the shops, but forced myself onto the road. As I emerged from the forest onto the motorway, the sun came out and the sky turned a miraculous blue. And I became aware that in the fields to my left, a roe deer complete with antlers was bounding along, keeping pace with me. Could the day get any better than this?
As if in answer, the deer decided he wanted to be on the opposite side of the A9, and leapt across the road about twenty metres ahead. He was instantly hit by a southbound car. There was something about the WHUMP that made me understand he was already stone dead as his body slid across the road towards me and my bike. A second later I was flying through the air.
I could’ve been killed that day. As it was, I sustained some injuries which rendered me somewhat disabled for a while. Cooking one-handed, for example, is surprisingly difficult. I can’t recall why I got in touch with Rachel at Moniack, or she with me. Maybe she wanted to discuss the following year’s programme or something. But as soon as she heard that I’d been clobbered by a deer corpse, she invited me to come to Moniack for a week or two. Not to teach or do anything useful, but so that she and the other lovely people at the centre could cook for me and generally take care of me.
I said no, of course. I would tough it out. It was the year of toughing it out. The deer had clarified that my quarter-century in the Highlands had come to an end and that I must move to somewhere more practical. But Rachel’s offer of help touched me, and I like to imagine that in an alternate reality I really did have that fortnight at Moniack, mending.