A Day Without Yesterday - E-book - ePub

Set against a backdrop of a pristine southern Cape beach and the magnificent Scottish Highlands, and immersed in religio-historicity this is a psychosomatic story of deep religious convictions, tragedy, love, compassion, and of faith. The life of William Murray is turned upside down the night of the cold fire - his bedridden wife passes away and his faithful dog is cruelly slain. Dorothy Sutherland, the woman from Scotland whom he met on the beach and who had awoken in him a new interest in life with her fascinating tales of Scotland has vanished like the smoke of the devastating fire; and the man she claimed was her invalid husband dies in the fire.
But it transpires the charred body was not that of the man she claimed, that he was murdered, and, even more perplexing, the police find no vestige of a Dorothy. William is a fourth generation Afrikaner of Scottish origin and a retired minister of the church, a shy and modest man going on sixty. Having lost what was dearest to him he travels to the Highlands to search for Dorothy where he experiences a day without yesterday when he meets Eilidh, Dorothy's Gaelic-speaking identical twin sister.
However, his pious traditions soon falter when he cannot distinguish which twin is in bed with him; when he is drawn into the web of a centuries' old conflict between the Scots and the English; when a mystical Druid confronts and tells him his grandson will one-day see the return of the Stane (ancients have a saying . where lies the Stane, from there Scotland will be governed, for the Stane is the soul of Scotland); and when he becomes inspired by the views of Alex Ferguson minister of the local Presbytery.
Alex tells William many scholars believe Stane o' Destiny and the Holy Grail are one and the same. The real significance of the Stane o' Destiny lies in the fact whether you believe the Holy Grail is a bowl or a stone. Two poems written as fictional cryptograms gave rise to this discrepancy. The first reference ever to the Holy Grail appeared in a romantic poem Le Conte del Graal written in 1182 by the French poet Chrétien de Troyes, that spoke of a bowl or chalice.
The word grail comes from an Old French word gradale, or gradalis in Latin, which was a receptacle or hollowed-out vessel in which food was served. The poem Parzival, however, written between 1195 and 1210 by the German poet Wolfram von Eschenbach spoke of a stone, not a bowl. Le Conte del Graal never said the bowl contained the blood of Christ; this was a sentiment that religious or Christian scholars subsequently added.
In the same way legend has it that the Stane o' Destiny is the original anointed Stone of the Covenant, or Jacob's Pillow as described in Genesis. Steeped in Celtic and Druidic lore, Alex represents Christian forces who believe in the need for the Church to change, and who are doing something about it, whereas the retired William is set in his Calvinist ways of Biblical faith and conviction. William is nevertheless taken on a fascinating journey through space and time that tosses his religious beliefs about like a maelstrom.
He also learns how the Celts and Druids did not just believe in an Earth Mother, or Mother Goddess, they were in total harmony with this cosmic deity, and with Nature. To them Earth was a living being and we only have life because Earth gives us life. Tragedy made William to go to the Highlands to search for Dorothy and tragedy forces him to return home. But will he still be the same towards his children, friends, and, as important, his Church? And when he resumes his daily walk on the Betty's Bay beach does he still think of Dorothy?'Who kenn'd whare lies the Stane, thocht I;Och aye, in the Hi'lands o' AlbaWhilk is whare lies me ain sowl too, thocht I;Och aye, in the Hi'lands o' Alba.'