For Faughie's Sake (2 page)

‘Hooch Aye the Noo!’ the sign said, ‘The Management would like to extend a warm Highland welcome to Harrosie: Bed and Breakfast, all mod cons, groovy atmos.’

I’d found the wooden sign at the back of the garden shed, dusted it off, painted it and, in a fit of optimism, hung it back on the rusting bracket outside the front door. But that was before the house next door was fenced off like a condemned building, a place of plague.

The place that I’d lived in for the last three months, and that I’d grudgingly had to accept was my home – for the moment at least – was one of two houses that sat on a hill overlooking the dreich village of Inverfaughie.

If you enjoyed dreichicity, Harrosie was an ideal B&B: there were eight bedrooms, three with their own bathrooms, another bathroom and toilet, a big kitchen, dining room, a wee back room and a long lounge facing the front. The view to the right was of purple and grey mountains that skulked around Loch Faughie. To the left it looked out to sea at the islands, swathed in mist, like tropical islands, except with a sub-tropical, sub-zero climate. All the bedrooms even had brass plaques on the doors and were all named after whiskies.

When I repainted the sign I picked out the letters in heather colours, purple and yellow. The bit about groovy atmos I’d added
myself, anything for a laugh. Underneath I’d reinstated the three thistles. Until I’d lived in the Highlands, using thistles as a mark of excellence had struck me as weird; thistles were jaggy and inhospitable, but now I totally got it. For an accommodation rating system, they could just as well have used midgies.

Elton John was dead right: life was a circle. My old mum Elsie, god rest her soul, had come here to Harrosie all those years ago to work as a housemaid. After my fortieth birthday, forty years after mum had left Inverfaughie, I’d returned. Just because I was a bit fed up with my job and wasn’t getting on with my ex, just because some distant relative had left me something in his will, just because I was bored and lonely and horny and, seeking excitement, I’d thrown the dummy out of the pram. It might have been my mid-life crisis, or something to do with my ex-husband being shacked up with an au pair half his age, but I’d given up my home, my teenage son, my pals, my well-paid job and all my worldly pleasures. What a donkey.

And now I was about to carry on the work that Elsie had begun – changing sweaty sheets and cleaning stain-streaked toilets for paying guests. Not because I was going to enjoy performing intimate ablutions for strangers, but because it was the only way I’d ever earn enough money to go home. The mid-life crisis had been a huge mistake, I knew that now. I could hear how Elsie would have laughed: Miss High and Mighty Medical Sales Rep of the Month (April Thru Oct), scrubbing kitchen pots and toilet pans. But I’d have the last laugh. My mother had been a mere housemaid; I might not own the building but I was the proprietress of the B&B business, the Mistress of Harrosie.

I’d been reluctant to move out of ‘Glenmorangie’, the best-appointed room in the house. The wee room at the back, ‘Tullibardine’, would have to do as my bedroom – that was, if I ever managed to get rid of the smell of boiled sheep. In the olden days when Harrosie had been a farm building, this wee back room must have been where they did those quaint agrarian things like sheep boiling, although why they would haul sheep up two flights and a landing was a mystery to me. With persistent rumours of sheepshaggery
it was better not to think about it. No, the wee room would do me fine. The slightly bigger room, ‘Old Pulteney’, next door to mine, would do for Steven. That would leave me six bedrooms; six lucrative revenue streams. And this was set to be Inverfaughie’s best ever summer. Not because of the mintcake-munching climbers, but because of the movie.

When I’d first arrived in this wee village I’d tried to integrate: I volunteered with the guitar group, worked at the annual gala day. Ok, I’d got a bit drunk at the ceilidh, aye, fair enough, I’d said some things, been a bit inappropriate, but it was hardly a hanging offence. Highland villages were hard unforgiving places, loyal to their own. I’d never be accepted here, I was a white settler, and a gobby Glaswegian into the bargain. I was as welcome as an outbreak of Legionnaires’ Disease in high season.

Inverfaughie was no place for incomers; my English neighbours had worked that out before me. They’d left suddenly, packed up their kids and their suitcases. They didn’t even stop to take their furniture. The first I knew of it was early last Sunday morning when I saw them standing in the rain like bedraggled refugees. The kids were wailing, their thin shoulders heaving in the Highland drizzle. Rebecca, their eight year old, and my only friend in this friendless place, clung to Bouncer and wiped her tears on his fur. She sobbed so hard she induced a bout of hiccups.

‘I’ll miss you Trixie,’ she gulped, ‘and you too Bouncer.’

When she hugged me it wasn’t easy to let her go.

Once the taxi had pulled away and the noise of the distressed young family faded, their house was like a bricked-up tomb.

‘Bring out your dead!’ I cried into the wilderness.

They had left me their keys, mumbling something about letting the estate agent in, but it was builders who came.

The builders didn’t want the keys, they didn’t need access to the house, they said. They rolled up with two huge trucks and within three days had built an eight-foot-high perimeter fence. No matter how much I plied them with tea and my home baking, the foreman couldn’t, or wouldn’t, tell me who had instructed the work and, more importantly, why.

Harrosie now stood, isolated on top of the hill next to a sealed fortress within an ugly fence of untreated wood. It was like living next door to Guantanamo.

‘Bring out your dead,’ I shouted as the builders drove away.

I phoned Steven but he was more curious than outraged.

‘But what’s the purpose of this mysterious erection?’ he said.

‘That’ll do, Steven.’

‘Is the fence keeping something out?’ He took a loud theatrical in-breath. ‘Or keeping something sinister in?’

‘You’re looking well, Trixie!’ Jenny gushed as I entered her shop. ‘Your wee detox programme is working wonders.’

Although it sounded like a compliment, you had to watch with Jenny. Though often entertaining, she could be hard work. I’d been toying with the idea of treating myself to a wee half-bottle, well earned I thought after all my frantic cleaning, but Jenny’s mention of my ‘wee detox’ instantly scuppered that plan. A girl has her pride. And her vanity. Perhaps Jenny was right, maybe I did look better. My pink mottled skin and red alky nose were definitely heading towards a beige tone. It was true, these last few days I’d been feeling a bit healthier.

‘What can I get you?’

‘Just a Twix please, a packet of cheese and onion, a Bounty and a big bottle of Diet Coke. Oh, and I’ll take one of those family bags of Minstrels.’

That lot should get me through an evening’s TV viewing. Since I’d given up my best friend, whisky, I’d built a comfortable nest of loneliness and disappointment, nestling down every night under my rustling sweetie wrappers.

While Jenny was assembling my order, Walter walked in. I had wandered away from the counter, into a dark corner where I was examining a multipack of toilet seat seals, so Walter probably didn’t realise there was anyone else in the shop. I did nothing to warn him I was there. I wanted to see what happened next.

Holding out his arms, Walter waltzed slowly, in his graceful old geezer way, towards Jenny. He was going to kiss her: he was headed behind the counter where he was going to grab her into a passionate clinch and winch her, right in front of me.

‘Toilet seat seals!’ Jenny squawked, ‘I have them on special, Trixie, they’re a popular seller.’

Alerted, Walter smoothly altered course for the customer side of the counter. There would be no clinch and no winch, not while I was there to witness it.

‘Hello Trixie,’ said Walter, in his dignified Highland whisper, ‘Malcolm has asked me to pass on his appreciation of your help and to enquire after your health. I’ll be pleased to report that you’re looking well.’

‘I’m grand, Walter, and you? You’re looking great too,’ I said, ‘they’ll be wanting you to star in the film. All the girls will be after you, Jenny’ll be jealous.’

Walter smiled tightly, politely, but otherwise they both body-swerved it. This was the annoying thing about Inverfaughie, the bare-faced hypocrisy of the town. I knew Jenny was his girlfriend, everybody must have known, it was obvious, but for some reason she and Walter always insisted on pretending, even to me, that they were just good friends. Jenny now glared at Walter.

‘I’ve only come to bring you more leaflets,’ he said defensively.

Walter went into his rucksack and produced a clipboard and a bundle of leaflets. I assumed it was more ‘Vote for Malcolm’ leaflets but these were different. As I peered at them he explained.

‘We’re trying to keep the tweed mill open. Would you like to sign the petition?’

‘Eh, ok,’ I agreed.

‘Leave it on the counter and I’ll ask everybody to sign,’ said Jenny as she buzzed about filling my order. ‘God knows, most of Inverfaughie depends on that mill one way or another. What the firk were they thinking? Excuse the language, but I knew this would happen.’

I braced myself for one of Jenny’s well-worn rants. I’d been hearing this for weeks since the mill, which had previously made
more than eight thousand individual tweeds, had reduced production to just a handful of popular patterns.

‘Here’s a perfect case in point,’ she said, tugging at the sleeve of Walter’s tweed jacket to demonstrate, ‘look at the colours through that. Is that not a thing of beauty? That’s a work of art,’ she declared, answering her own question.

‘That’s why I’m wearing it: in solidarity with the mill workers.’

As I dutifully stared at his jacket I saw that Jenny was right; what seemed at a distance to be boring grey twill, when looked at closely, with its bright yellow, green and pink threads woven together, was really quite beautiful.

‘
Now
they’ve realised what sells tweed isn’t a few restricted patterns on trendy trainers,’ Jenny fumed, ‘
Now
they’ve realised, when twenty-three people are being made redundant and this village is losing the only industry it has left.
Now
they get it. When it’s too late.’

‘It’s not too late yet,’ said Walter, ‘Malcolm’s working with the government to find a buyer.’

‘Are you kidding me on? The Scottish government? Jeezo, if they were any more apathetic they’d be sleeping.’

‘Now don’t get yourself all worked up, Moo, it’s not fair to the customers,’ he said, winking at me. ‘Many thanks for taking the petition, if you give me my parcel I’ll be off home.’

‘Och,’ said Jenny, impatiently, ‘can you not wait for Jan to deliver it? I’ve never met such an impatient man.’

Jenny spoke with such familiar contempt and Walter, long used to it, hardly seemed to notice. Like a kid at Christmas, he ripped the parcel open right there and then. It was a book, a heavy tome, dirty with yellowed dog-eared pages.

‘Don’t be getting your fusty book dust all over my clean shop,’ Jenny warned, as she shooed him out of the shop, his book under his arm and his feet hardly touching the floor.

‘Cheerio Trixie!’ he called cheerfully.

‘Bye, Walter, happy reading!’ I called back.

I was ready for her.

‘Moo?’ I smirked, as Jenny came back into the shop.

Jenny returned behind her counter shaking her head and smiling.

‘Walter and his history books.’

‘Yeah,’ I agreed, ‘I don’t understand why people get so excited about history.’

‘You might not understand this, Trixie, but that man is a superbly political animal and esteemed scholar,’ said Jenny, pointing in the direction she had just hustled him out. ‘Don’t write him off just because he had to retire.’

‘I wasn’t going to.’

‘He’s successfully run Malcolm’s campaign every election as far back as I can remember and he’s not even a LibDem. He does it to get people to engage with politics.’

‘That’s very –’ I struggled for a positive about something that was so clearly a waste of time ‘– admirable.’

‘And politics isn’t the only string to his bow; he’s actually better known for his Highland history, a recognised authority.’

‘I wasn’t saying anything against Walter, I just meant that history in general was a bit boring, I hated it at school.’

‘Well you know nothing. Walter’s right: history explains to us who we are, and why we are the way we are.’

I was offended and was torn between taking the huff and letting it pass; we’d just got over her tweed mill tirade, I’d been looking forward to a bit more light-hearted chat.

‘They’re always phoning him; asking him to come on the radio: Radio Scotland, Radio Four, they’re all after him. Walter’s been on the radio more times than …’

‘Terry Wogan?’ I ventured.

‘Than you’ve had …’

‘Terry Wogan?’

‘Help ma Boab! You’ve
had
Terry Wogan?’ she asked, mock wide-eyed.

‘Tee hee,’ I said, in acknowledgement of her old-fashioned ‘Oor Wullie’-type banter.

‘Onyhow,’ she continued, ‘Walter’s been on the radio plenty, that’s all you need to know. Now, what was it you wanted again? Aye, that was it: Twix, cheese and onion, Bounty, Minstrels and diet coke. Anything else I can get you?’

‘Eh, no, I think that’s it. Got to watch the old figure, you know.’

‘You’re not wrong there,’ she said, looking me up and down over her specs as she scanned and bleeped and bagged my items, ‘And will you be wanting any toothpaste today?’

What was this? A barb at my tooth-rotting confectionery consumption?

‘I’ve plenty toothpaste at home, thanks.’

‘Are you sure? Computer says you haven’t ordered any for two months, you must be running out by now. And didn’t you say your Steven is visiting next weekend?’

‘See, this is where your superfast, all-whistling, all-farting computer system falls down, Jenny. What Computer doesn’t know is that the last time Steven came he brought a large tube of Colgate and left without it. I’m up to my stumps in toothpaste.’

‘But you’ll be needing to stock up for your B&B guests. Actors take dental hygiene very seriously, you know, especially Americans. They must drink bleach to get their teeth that white. It wouldn’t be me.’

‘Well,’ I said, bewildered by her determination, ‘I’d kind of assumed that guests would bring their own toiletries.’

‘Ah, but the odd time someone will have forgotten to pack their toilet bag and there you’ll be: ready to supply them with a nice fresh
tube of toothpaste, deodorant or what have you, and make a nice mark-up on it too. Upselling, that’s how to maximise profits. God love you, Trixie, but you’ve a lot to learn about running a business.’

Did she really think I hadn’t noticed she was trying to upsell to me?

‘Yes, but as I keep trying to tell you: I won’t have any guests unless I get my B&B licence and I might not get it because of that godawful fence.’

‘Don’t you be worrying your head about that fence,’ Jenny said, ‘you just make sure Harrosie is spick and span for the Licensing Inspectorate.’

‘It is,’ I said. ‘It couldn’t be spicker or any more span.’

My cleaning of Harrosie was so thorough I’d even hosed down Bouncer’s manky basket. He’d sulked for a day and half. Whenever I came into the room he made a great show of getting up slowly, in that passive aggressive way, and skulking out with his head low and his tail wedged tight in his undercarriage. If I tried to speak to him he only gave me those lingering reproachful looks that were supposed to make me feel guilty.

‘The Inspectorate will be the judge of that,’ said Jenny. ‘And by the bye,’ she added, as if butter wouldn’t melt, ‘your boyfriend will be here in a minute.’

‘Which one?’

Her eyes narrowed. ‘How many boyfriends have you got?’

‘You tell me, you seem to know everything that goes on in this village.’

‘Oh now, I wasn’t meaning Jackie,’ she said softly. ‘You know fine I meant Jan. He’ll be in to pick up the postbag; I thought you’d be pleased to see him. You two have been spending a lot of time together.’

‘Jan teaches the guitar club, I help out with the guitar club kids, that’s it. Sorry to disappoint you, Jenny.’

And I was. The bored, lonely, horny thing hadn’t gone away.

‘Aye, but Jan told me this morning he took you up to the hippies’ place for your dinner.’

Thanks Jan.

‘They’re not hippies.’

‘Och, those New-Agers he’s moving in with, you know who I mean. They’re all living together, whatever you want to call it,’ she continued.

The shop was empty, I was her only customer, but Jenny was not one to stand around shooting the breeze. She preferred to get on with stocktaking or wiping down tins while she was breeze-shooting, gossip-mongering, or just generally character-assassinating.

‘What did they feed you? Something oaty? Oats are the only thing they buy from me. I don’t know what they live on, it must be air, and porridge, and free love. I hear they have a couple of goats now. God save us. And the young fella, a nice enough boy, but he’s not right in the head. You know, those hippies are as close to family as Jan’s got here in Scotland. Things must be getting serious between you two.’

She was fishing, throwing chum out the back of the boat.

‘Actually, you’re right,’ I murmured, ‘he doesn’t want me to say anything but you’ve guessed it …’

Jenny had been dusting a tin of sweetcorn but her cloth stopped mid-wipe. She gave me a quick suspicious glance and then leaned in, she couldn’t help herself.

‘Steven
is
coming up next weekend, I think I will take some toothpaste, thanks.’