whisky from each of its eight distilleries. I bought the first dram but before it was knocked back, Alan set the scene by describing a trip he’d made to the Hebrides. He began at Kennacraig, where he caught the ferry from the mainland. I was to imagine sitting on the deck with magnificent views to my left of the Kintyre peninsula, and on my right the Isle of Jura. The sun would be shining and fluffy white clouds scudding across the sky. Alan told me that it takes a little more than two hours to reach Port Ellen, a planned village of beautiful white houses laid out in 1821. The Port Ellen distillery has been closed for more than 20 years and the site is now used exclusively for malting. Fortunately, you can still buy Port Ellen whisky and Alan made me nose the malt before I drank it.
After we’d downed our first drink, Alan got up and ordered seven different malts, he brought the single shots back on a tray. The 14 glasses rattled as he placed them on our table. Alan had to be careful as he put down the drams, the whiskies had been lined up in the order we would drink them and he made sure they didn’t slide out of their assigned places. Alan told me that the Laphroaig distillery is only a few minutes’ drive from Port Ellen. I was to imagine walking from the public highway through the whitewashed distillery buildings to the sea. Laphroaig is a large distillery and from the seashore close to the visitor hospitality suite we would look across the water to the coast of Antrim, only twelve miles away. Like Port Ellen, Laphroaig has a peaty flavour but with a distinctive medicinal quality. I’d never been much of a malt drinker but Alan was converting me, I liked the fiery Islay flavours.
Our next stop was Lagavulin, just a short ride along the coast. Alan told me to imagine I was standing by the stream that runs through the distillery. By looking out onto a promontory I’d be able to see the ruins of Dunyveg Castle, the oldest parts of which dated from the 14th century. I nosed my malt then drained the glass. The amber fluid boasted an impressive heaviness, the taste was smoky and medicinal. Ardbeg was to be our last port of call on Islay’s south coast, Alan told me to think of seals sunning themselves on the rocks close by this distillery. I nosed my shot and allowed it to sit on my tongue. I conjured up a tracking shot of the wildlife attracted to the wooded coastline that stretched up past the Victorian Kildalton Castle.
Our next dram was Caol Ila. The distillery is snuggled just along the coast from Port Askaig on the Sound of Jura. To get there we had to backtrack, since there was no direct route. We sped through Port Ellen and along the A846. The peatbogs flanking this remarkably straight road play a major role in giving Islay whiskies their distinctive flavour. We didn’t stop in Bowmore, Alan said we’d return later, we simply sped on through Bridgend to Port Askaig. I was told a five-minute ferry ride to Feolin on Jura would provide me with the best view of Caol Ila. I was to picture the boat putting out, then imagine looking back at Islay and seeing the distillery just north of the ferry terminal. Once I was off the ferry, I was to climb up to the track that runs from Feolin to Inver. Looking across the Sound would provide a perfect view of the distillery with the sea shimmering in the foreground. The malt was less smoky than those from the south of Islay but still highly enjoyable.
Alan had been to Craighouse, eight or so miles from Feolin, the main settlement for Jura’s 200 inhabitants and hence home to the island’s whisky stills. However, he wasn’t a fan of the whisky produced at the Jura distillery and since it wasn’t an item on our fantasy itinerary, we simply caught the ferry back to Port Askaig. The road north to Bunnahabhain was frighteningly narrow. Alan said he would park the car in the shoreside car park close to the distillery, then we would wander north along the coast before turning west. We’d cut across the north tip of the island, a two-hour trek each way with no roads to spoil the view and hundreds of deer all around us. On the way back, we’d get a brilliant view of the distillery with the Paps of Jura dominating the landscape from across the Sound. As I nosed and then drank my Bunnahabhain I was beginning to feel tipsy.
I imagined I was falling asleep in the car as Alan doubled back through Port Askaig and Bridgend. I was tired after our long walk. The Bowmore distillery was in the centre of a planned village of the same name. Despite being on a sea loch, Bowmore is the psychogeographical – as well as the administrative – centre of Islay. A single Bowmore Legend was my seventh successive dram and my palate was shot to pieces. Alan’s imaginary journey followed its own logic, a serious whisky drinker would have concluded with the heavier malts from the south of Islay, we had started with them. Alan told me to picture doubling back once again to Bridgend, then instead of heading for Port Askaig, we’d follow the road around Loch Indaal to Bruichladdich. This is the most westerly distillery in Scotland and after I’d downed my dram, we left the pub. Alan wanted to go home alone and read. Before we parted he gave me a copy of 69 Things to Do with a Dead Princess, saying he’d like to know what I thought of it. I made my way to King Street, had a bath and took to my bed.
THREE
IN MY dream I was flying and then I was running along tracks. I was the Vienna-to-Belgrade express train. I collapsed into human form as the train pulled into Budapest. The station was old and had been conceived on a grand scale but the roof was smashed and dirty. I alighted from the train and Dudley the ventriloquist’s dummy was waiting for me on the platform. We ran a gauntlet of impoverished Hungarians offering cheap accommodation before we finally made it out through the subway and onto the street. It was sunny and Dudley was using a 1989 edition of Hungary: The Rough Guide to find his way around town. All the street names had changed since the book had been published and it thus provided us with a wonderfully disorientating psychogeographical experience.
It was three hours since I’d left Vienna and I felt famished. We ate in a restaurant just off Erzsébet Körút called Pizza Bella Italia. We ordered pasta. The waitress was young and flirted with all the male customers. The room was too small for the murals of Italian buildings and a blue sky with clouds to work effectively. A red rose and a yellow banana indicated the gender divide of the toilets. I made my excuses and watched from the street as the waitress engaged Dudley in animated conversation. I was studying graffiti on a door when Dudley caught up with me. He liked the picture of a nude woman with a speech bubble above her head that read ‘GYERC EREZM AKARON AWYELK ED!!!’ This was followed by a telephone number and what appeared to be a name.
We wandered through the back streets and booked into the International Youth Hostel on Andrassy at the Octagon. Then we headed up to the Müvéz to enjoy one of Budapest’s traditional coffee houses. We sat at a table on the street. Cars thundered down the road. After paying for our refreshments we moved on to Café Mozart for a post-modern simulation of the coffee house experience. There was an enormous selection of drinks but rather than providing different types of coffee, the variations consisted in strength, amount of milk or cream and the addition of flavours. The waitresses were dressed up in 18th-century costumes and the murals on the wall represented aspects of old-time Vienna. Mozart melodies were being piped through concealed speakers. I should have pinched myself, then I’d have gained immediate release from this nightmare landscape.
After what seemed an eternity, we left Café Mozart and headed through the red-light district to a bar called The Blue Elephant. We drank cherry brandy, while the working-class clientele played chess, drank and sang. For our second drink, Dudley had Unicum, while I had a pear brandy. The tables in the bar were chipped, the whole place was in need of redecoration. Once it got dark we ventured out onto the street and there were plenty of girls around. I saw Dudley standing under a street lamp. He’d got himself up in drag. Since I’d geared up as a man, I said I wanted sex. Dudley got in my car and we drove to the river. I told him to give me a blow job. I could feel the dummy’s hands undoing my flies and sensed his irritation as he searched for my cock. I took a hammer from the glove compartment and smashed it into Dudley’s skull. There was blood everywhere. I dragged the body down to the water and threw it into the Danube.
I walked downstream to Gresham Palace, a huge building decorated with the face of Sir Thomas Gresham, the man who’d founded the stock exchange in the City of London. One of the bottom corners of the building was now occupied by Casino Gresham. I turned around and looked at the river. Dudley was
