Composed Page 17

  In 2007, three and a half years after my dad’s death, his house burned to the ground. We had sold it to Barry Gibb and his wife, Linda, and they were in the process of an extensive renovation. A sealant being used on the wood was accidentally ignited, and the old timbers went up like newspaper. My sister-in-law Laura called me while it was happening, and I screamed as if someone had just dropped dead. My sister Kathy called me as I was talking to Laura, and gave me the cell phone number of the fire chief. (Kathy has an uncanny ability to come up with the phone number of anyone on the planet.) I called him while the house was still burning, and he was still on the site.

  “This is a total loss, ma’am,” he said solemnly. “I’m sorry. There will be a complete investigation, however.”

  The following week I went down to Nashville to present an award on television to Kris Kristofferson, my dear friend and the closest link I have to my dad now, in many ways. Country Music Television was giving him something called the Johnny Cash Visionary Award. Kris and his wife, Lisa, who were perhaps closer to Dad and June than anyone else outside the family, hired a car and driver to take me and Chelsea out to look at the damage. Each of us had our own memories of the house, and our own particular sadness about its loss. As we walked around the ruins and blackened wood, I mapped out in my head each room, each fireplace, each staircase, each light fixture, window, and door. None of what I was seeing made sense; I might have been looking at a hologram or a film set. The damage was staggering, but there was no silent rebuke in the ash and charred ruins. What I experienced was, in fact, the opposite of a rebuke—what I felt was, I realized, a benediction. I became oddly liberated, as though something difficult was finally at an end. All those fires of my youth, the mountainside my dad had set on fire with a spark from his tractor, the forest fire he had accidentally set while camping in the wilderness in California (through which he became the first individual ever sued by the state of California), the periodic wildfires that scorched the hills of Ventura and those of Malibu Canyon while I was growing up and then as a young wife and mother—all of them coalesced in this singular ruined house. I walked around the debris and fallen timbers—the single frame of a window still standing, the new view of the lake where before had been a wall—and my tears stopped. I looked at the result of this fire, and suddenly I was looking at the end of all fires. There was no reproach, no portent of further disasters, only the conclusion of something long and sad, and whatever that something was would reveal itself to me on its own, without my having to search or to struggle to understand.

  In December of 2003 I traveled to Oslo for the first time since an odd little gig I had done there in 1997 in a small club for practically no money. At that time it hardly seemed a wise business decision, as I hadn’t sold more than a hundred records in Oslo, and the promoter was, at best, halfhearted in his offer. But I liked the idea of Norway and its cold weather, and going only with John to play for fifty or so people with just our two guitars. As it turned out, I overestimated the size of the audience by five hundred percent. When we arrived at the club, we found a handful of Norwegian cowboys wearing tight jeans with big belt buckles and Stetson hats milling about. They clapped politely during my set and restrained themselves admirably, shouting out requests for “Ring of Fire” only a couple of times. Despite the meager attendance, John and I enjoyed ourselves, and after the show I went to the bar, where a lanky, ruddy-faced man in a black cowboy hat ambled—if Scandinavians can be said to amble—up to me.

  He stared at me, unsmiling and silent. I extended my hand, a little nervously. He shook it, then said sternly, “Do you luff your fater?”

  I was taken aback. “Yes,” I said uncertainly.

  “No!” he bellowed in response. “I luff your fater!” He stabbed his forefinger into his chest to accentuate his point.

  On this trip I would be performing at the Nobel Peace Prize concert, as a guest of the Chieftains. A month or so before I was scheduled to leave, however, I had received an e-mail inviting me to come to Oslo a day early, to attend a concert in honor of my father by Norwegian artists, who would be performing his songs at Oslo prison. I was intrigued, to say the least. I arrived in Oslo on the morning of December 9 and that night was picked up at my hotel and taken to the prison. It was foggy and mercilessly cold as we walked through the gates and down a cobblestone path, past milky yellow lamps that diffused only slightly in the heavy fog, and then inside the thick stone walls and into the maze of the official rooms of the prison. We finally arrived at a large room where all the Norwegian artists who were to perform were waiting, some dressed in cowboy shirts and hats (articles my dad seldom wore, but people do insist on their own version of authenticity), and most wearing black.

  Seated in the audience with the prisoners, I found myself crying my way through the entire concert. It was ineffably poignant to hear Dad’s songs sung with such serious conviction (sometimes with slight Norwegian inflection) by musicians who were unexpectedly skilled and deeply versed in every nuance of the lexicon of Johnny Cash. At the end I was asked to say something to the audience and the performers, and I began by apologizing that I could not speak to them in their own language. A big, rough voice from the back yelled out, “It’s all right!” and everyone laughed. When I returned to my hotel very late that night, I called Rick Rubin, Dad’s dear friend and the producer of his “American” recordings, in Los Angeles. I told him about the concert and tried to convey how moved I was, how special it was.

  “Did they record it?” he asked.

  They did record the show, but I have never heard the tapes.

  The Nobel Peace Prize concert, held a few days later with the Norwegian royal family and Shirin Ebadi, the peace prize recipient, in attendance, could only be described as surreal in comparison to the prison concert.

  My performance with the Chieftains went well and was exciting for me, but the big finale of the show, with all the musical guests taking part, was John Lennon’s “Imagine.” During rehearsal Robert Plant asked me to change a line of the song—“Imagine no religion”—to avoid offending certain religious groups with whom he felt an affinity.

  “But—” I said, shocked. “It’s ‘Imagine.’ I can’t change John Lennon’s line!”

  We argued about it very politely and decided that since I could not, on principle, change any line John Lennon had written, Robert and I would switch verses so he could have that line and could sing it as he wished while I would pretend not to notice. I don’t actually remember how his version went, as I was, on the whole, out of my element. I found myself raising my arm in some melodramatic performance gesture. I was wearing a skirt and blouse—a perfectly stylish one—but not an evening gown, as the other women on the program were wearing. Throughout the night I kept thinking about the prisoners, and the Norwegian musicians, and about how in the European reversal of dates the concert in the prison happened on 9/12—December 9—which read to me as September 12, the day my dad died.

  In the months since my father’s passing I had come to understand that the loss of a parent expands you—or shrinks you, as the case may be—according to your own nature. If too much business is left unfinished, and guilt and regret take hold deep in the soul, mourning begins to diminish you, to constrict the heart, to truncate the vision of your own future, and to narrow the creative potential of the mind and spirit. If enough has been resolved—not everything, for everything will never be done, but just enough—then deep grief begins to transform the inner landscape, and space opens inside. You begin to realize that everyone has a tragedy, and that if he doesn’t, he will. You recognize how much is hidden behind the small courtesies and civilities of everyday existence. Deep sorrow and traces of great loss run through everyone’s lives, and yet they let others step into the elevator first, wave them ahead in a line of traffic, smile and greet their children and inquire about their lives, and never let on for a second that they, too, have lain awake at night in longing and regret, that they, too, have cried until it seemed
impossible that one person could hold so many tears, that they, too, keep a picture of someone locked in their heart and bring it out in quiet, solitary moments to caress and remember.

  Loss is the great unifier, the terrible club to which we all eventually belong.

  A few years before he died my dad and I were in a Lowe’s, a big hardware store, in Hendersonville, where he lived on the lake. I can’t remember what he needed, whether it was a tool or a filter or pool cleaner, or maybe he didn’t need anything at all. In his later years he loved to wander the aisles of the megastores and throw things in his cart that he would never look at again once he got home with them. By this point he wasn’t driving and he got around slowly. I had driven him to the store, and I was following him around the aisles, helping him carry things, and suddenly I felt the tears welling. I don’t remember what had happened, what had come up in conversation, but I stood in the aisle looking at my dad, who was staring at me. Perhaps I just needed to know that I could let my guard down in front of him and he wouldn’t run away. Whatever he said in that moment, it was good, it helped, it was sufficient. He reassured me, and he tried to get me to feel better. Like most men of his generation, he was uncomfortable when women became emotional, and he wanted to get the situation stabilized and over with as soon as possible. I let him off the hook and gave it up pretty quickly.

  We drove around for a while after leaving the hardware store, and I listened to him talk about the beginning of his relationship with June, how he had wrecked her Cadillac, how she had never berated him for it, but how there were other things that still gnawed at his heart that he had not forgotten. I barely remember what he said then, but the opening I had given him with my tears seemed to grant him license to express, in the most rambling way, his secret disappointments. Even though he was only in his late sixties at the time, he was unmistakably an old man. He had lived a long time, and he had lived a lot. He was looking back on more than most people could even imagine—four or five lives packed into one—and it had begun to exhaust him. He was fading; it was clear in the tone of his recollections. That was the day I felt the weight of authority shift to me, while driving him around so he could talk privately about his memories and his moments of bitterness, which burst like bubbles as he described them. It’s a hard day, and for a while you wear it like an ill-fitting jacket, the day the offer of membership to the terrible club is first extended.

  In the late 1970s, on an airplane headed for Asia, my father happened to be seated next to Major Michael Crichton-Stuart, who at that time was hereditary keeper of Falkland Palace, in Fife, Scotland. They began talking, and after learning the major’s occupation and where he lived, my dad mentioned that he thought he had Scottish ancestry but had never had it researched. Major Crichton-Stuart said he believed that my father might well have Scottish blood and that his ancestors may in fact have come from the exact area where the major lived, in the Kingdom of Fife, and more specifically the countryside around Strathmiglo and Falkland. There were ancient streets in Strathmiglo that contained the Cash name: Cash Easter, Cash Wester, Cash Feus, as well as a Cash mill and farm. Inspired by that chance conversation, my father became determined to find out more about his lineage, and he had our family tree traced back to the twelfth century. He learned that the Cash name did indeed originate in Fife, with Ada, half-sister of King Malcolm IV. She married Duncan, earl of Fife, and was given a land dowry of what is now Strathmiglo and the surrounding area, and the Falkland Forest, which comprised nine thousand acres in the year 1160. Ada and Duncan built a castle in the area, which has long since vanished, but our family roots and our visceral and spiritual connection to this area of Scotland run deep. My father developed a profound love and deep interest and passion for this part of Fife, and in 1981 he filmed a television special at Falkland Palace, where he reveled in the Scottish connection.

  In 1998, I visited Falkland myself for the first time. Ninian Crichton-Stuart, son of Major Crichton-Stuart and the current laird, was kind enough to show John and me around the palace. We were completely overwhelmed and thrilled with the beauty and history, not only of the palace itself but of the entirety of Falkland and its environs, and we were deeply proud of my own connection to this beautiful place, however lost in ancient history those ties might be. The local newspaper even took our photo in front of the palace and featured us in the following day’s edition.

  In December 2003, twenty-two years after my father filmed that television special at the palace, and a few weeks after the Oslo concert, I returned to Scotland. I had been invited to perform at the BBC’s Hogmanay show that New Year’s Eve, and I came to Glasgow for rehearsals several days early with a heavy heart. I planned a free day in my schedule before arriving, because I knew I wanted to make the trip from Glasgow to Fife to honor my father and our Scottish ancestry, to see the palace and the towns of Falkland and Strathmiglo again, and to find comfort in being in a place my father loved so very much. I think that on some level I also secretly hoped I would actually find him in Scotland as well. Carrie had accompanied me, and we set out from Glasgow by car early on the icy morning of December 28 to make the drive to Fife.

  On our arrival in Falkland late in the morning, we were disappointed to find that the palace was closed for the holiday week. Just about everything was closed down, in fact, except for the little restaurant at the top of the hill, where we had a ploughman’s lunch of bread, cheese, and pickles—a more satisfying meal than one offered by any four-star restaurant. After eating, we wandered next door to look in the window of the Old Violin Shop. Almost immediately my eye was caught by a beautiful old teapot, which was nearly identical to one I had inherited from June after her death the previous May. It was a squat, cream-colored porcelain vessel with a delicate pattern of pink and gold flowers and flourishes around its middle. I wanted it badly, but the shop, like all the others in town, was closed. I then noticed a note pinned to the door saying that if assistance was needed, to call a certain number. After several tries, I reached a very polite gentleman who said he was just finishing his lunch but promised to come shortly to let us in. Carrie and I waited in the car, as the weather was turning quite bitter. A few minutes later Bob Beveridge, the owner, appeared and invited us inside. After he carefully retrieved the teapot from the window, I began looking around at the instruments, books, china, paintings, and other collectibles. As Carrie and I began exclaiming to each other about the wondrous collection he had assembled, Bob noted our American accents and inquired if we had come to research our Scottish roots. I told him that I already knew the origin of my Scottish ancestry, and I was merely visiting the place my family name originated.

  “Like Johnny Cash?” he asked, in a friendly manner, after asking my surname.

  I hesitated, as I seldom told strangers who my father was, but I felt an impulse to confide in him.

  “Yes, like Johnny Cash. He was my father,” I said quietly.

  His eyes widened. “I have something to show you,” he said, and left the room.

  He came back with a photograph of himself with my father, taken during the filming of the television special. He then began telling me the story of my father’s visit.

  My father liked to sit on a small cement post in front of the palace, Bob recalled, and to gaze at the square. All the townspeople came to speak to him, and he was unfailingly gracious and kind, which drew even more of the locals to him. He remembered that, one day, my father was in his car and came upon a boy whose bicycle had broken down in the road, so he picked him up and took him home. This boy, Bob explained, was now a man in his thirties, lived around the corner, and still loved to tell the story of the day he was driven home by Johnny Cash. Bob knew about my dad’s fateful meeting with Major Crichton-Stuart on the plane to Asia, and he told me more stories of those few days, twenty-two years earlier, when Johnny Cash, along with a film crew and his special musical guest, Andy Williams, had taken over the town of Falkland, and how the people had loved him and he had loved them back.


  I stood in the Old Violin Shop with tears running down my face, my wide-eyed teenage daughter standing next to me. It was a moment out of ordinary time, a serendipitous meeting I knew I had come halfway around the world to make, propelled by love, grief, and mysterious, ancient connections.

  There is no place on earth like Fife. There is no town like Falkland, and no structure like its palace. The stones resonate with centuries of royal and familial history, tragedies and triumphs, beauty, glory, and tradition. It is a place that has a spirit large enough to contain the past, the present, and the future all at once. The original dowry given to Ada, so many centuries ago, stated that the land was given in liberum maritagium, or frank marriage; in other words, for the benefit of her heirs. Spiritually, I had claimed my inheritance.

  It didn’t surprise me that I had gone to Falkland searching for the part of my father that would always exist, and found a kind gentleman with a photograph of him standing near the very spot where I now stood. It didn’t surprise me that love and family ties permeated even the stones in the streets of this magical place, and that it was home to those who loved it, whether they resided there or not.