For Faughie's Sake (27 page)

As soon as I got back to the house I collared Steven.

‘Haw you,’ I said, right in front of his Claymore pals, ‘I want a word with you.’

His pals deserted him, melting away out of the room. The big Highland warriors that were about to face an invading force were scared of me.

‘Consider yourself grounded. You’re going to stay here with me and we are going to have a wee night in the house – watch a video, have a bit of family time. Why not invite Morag over to have dinner with us?’

Steven laughed and shook his head.

‘You know, Trixie, I can’t take you seriously when you start that disciplinarian shite.’

‘You watch your mouth!’

‘That’s what you’re worried about? My mouth?’

He shook his head again, as if I was a lost cause.

‘Look, Steven, there’s no use lying to me, I know what’s going on,’ I said.

‘Well, if you know, then there’s no use lying, is there?’

He had me there.

‘Well, I … och I don’t know what to do!’ I wailed.

‘Look, I understand,’ he said, as if he were the adult, ‘you’re just trying to do your job protecting me and it’s sweet. I appreciate it.’

‘Please, son, don’t go, I’m scared, please.’

I burst out crying again but the tears that had been so effective with Jackie made no impact on Steven. He didn’t hold my hand or let me cry on his shoulder, but at least he didn’t leave the room.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said, once I’d got my sobbing under control. Once I realised that he wouldn’t bend, ‘I’m really scared about what’s going to happen.’

‘Go back to Glasgow. I’ll be ok.’

‘I’m not leaving here without you, Steven, we’ve been through this. I don’t know what to do!’

‘Well then, just do what Walter asks of you. Or not. Either way is fine. I’ll still love you, you’ll still be my mum.’

‘But what if …’

‘Look, the worst that’ll happen is that we’ll be arrested.’

‘But Steven,’ I wailed, ‘I can’t get arrested;
you
can’t get arrested, you’ll have a criminal record! What about uni; what about your future?’

‘I’ve told you, my future’s here. Look, Mag’s waiting for me, I need to go.’

Left with nothing else, I started crying again, not howling any more but weeping, and now he came and cuddled me.

‘I’m glad you’re staying, Mum,’ he whispered.

Jan pulled the bus up outside and waited. I thought he’d come into the house and try to talk me into it at least, but he’d probably been briefed by Walter. The house was empty, the Claymores had left, tooled up to the teeth. They each gave me a hug as they left and told me not to worry; Dave promised they wouldn’t do anything stupid or heroic, but it was an emotional farewell.

As soon as they left I went to the hall cupboard and rummaged around behind the boots until I found what I was looking for stuffed down a welly. Whisky. There were maybe three fingers left in the bottle that I had planked one night after an intense poker game when nobody was looking. Three fingers was too much to
down in a wannie, but too little to leave. I unscrewed the lid, held the bottle to my lips and finished it in two long exhilarating slugs.

Jan left the engine running outside; the fried fish and chip smell of the recycled vegetable oil was starting to permeate the house, making my mouth water, and still he wouldn’t come in. I didn’t want Bouncer getting mixed up in this so I left him sleeping, found the Extra Strong Mints and grabbed my jacket.

‘Don’t be getting any ideas that I’m a Faughie patriot. I’m only here for Steven’s sake,’ I huffed, as I climbed up and hung at the driver’s door.

‘That’s why we’re all doing this, Trixie, for our children.’

‘I didn’t know you had kids, Jan.’

‘Not yet I don’t.’

I was relieved to hear him say that; it made me smile. I didn’t like to think of Jan having a life beyond Faughie.

‘Maybe some day,’ he said, giving me a look he’d given me before. It was a look that suggested he was saying a lot more than he was saying. Which caused me to do something.

I leaned into his driver’s cage and kissed him. I never even blushed. He reciprocated, thank the good lord.

‘That was most unexpected, and very nice,’ he said when we came up for air, ‘I like a lady with good oral hygiene.’

I looked at him quizzically.

‘You’ve used mouthwash, haven’t you?’ he said, tasting the remnants of my saliva in his mouth. ‘I’m loving the minty-fresh flavour. Zingy.’

‘Cheers,’ I sighed. I shouldn’t be having this good a time. ‘Right, here’s the map with the route Walter wants us to take. I suppose we’d better get this referendum on the road.’

I’d have squeezed in beside him, but there was no room. I had to get aboard and sit in a passenger seat and, from there, as the bus rattled along the country roads, it wasn’t long before the euphoria of the snog wore off.

I was worried sick about Steven. I tried his mobile number, not to try to talk him out of it – I knew it was too late for that – but just to tell him again how much I loved him. His phone was switched off,
which panicked me before I remembered that Walter had insisted upon it. I prayed that Steven, and everyone else – but most importantly Jackie and Steven – would be safe. I thought of parents whose kids had joined the army and gone to war zones – how the hell did people cope with that? How did I get myself messed up in all this, and worse: how did I manage to get Steven embroiled in it? Yeah, sure, people all around the world fought for self-determination, but it wasn’t as if we were in Syria or under some other horribly repressive regime. As horribly repressive regimes went, Britain really wasn’t that bad. I didn’t mind it. So what was I doing here?

Jan was pulling up a narrow farm road.

‘First stop, Fentons’ Farm,’ he shouted.

The rain soaked us through while we waited for them to open the door.

‘It’s ok,’ I said, ‘we don’t need to both get wet. You wait in the bus, I’ll bring people out.’

Jan grasped my hand. ‘Nah, it’s ok. I like getting wet,’ he said through a huge grin.

Morag opened the door and let us in. She was in her jammies and slippers wearing her hair in a pony-tail, but she still managed to look beautiful. She really suited her hair up. Good genes, and, as it was just her and her dad, she was likely to inherit the dairy business. Steven had chosen his burd well.

‘Hello, Mrs McNicholl, Jan. I’m sorry, Dad’s in bed,’ she said, ‘we’re up early for the milking. What did you want to see him about?’

‘Oh, Morag,’ I said, ‘this is really important.’

Morag looked worried. And guilty. I dreaded to think what she and Steven had got up to, but that would have to wait.

‘It’s ok,’ said Jan, ‘nothing to worry about. We’ve had to move the referendum forward a few days. Can you ask him to come out to the bus to cast his vote, please?’

‘What?’ she asked, horrified, ‘wake him up?’

‘Well, yeah,’ I said, ‘he needs to come out to the bus to vote.’

Morag rolled her eyes, ‘I’ll try.’

A few moments later she was back downstairs.

‘He says bugger off, he’s trying to sleep and it’s pelting down. He says come back in the morning.’

‘No, but …’

‘I’m not asking him again.’

‘Miss Fenton,’ said Jan, oozing charm, ‘I see your name here on the roll. You turned sixteen only three days ago, congratulations, an adult now, eh? Would you care to step outside and cast your vote?’

‘Can I not do it tomorrow?
Don’t Tell the Bride
is starting in a minute.’

‘And that’s all it’ll take of your time, Morag, one teeny wee minute.’

‘Och,’ she moaned, pulling her housecoat over her head, ‘what a load of fuss over nothing.’

The three of us ran together to the bus. Jan had her sign the list and gave her the voting papers. He showed her the private voting booth and she hesitated.

‘I don’t even know what I’m voting for,’ said Morag.

‘Surely you’ve seen the campaigns down in the village?’ I said. ‘You can’t avoid them.’

‘Aye, but what I mean is, maybe it’s safer not to vote. Look what happened the last time Dad voted. We had no grazing for ages.’

‘Well one thing’s certain,’ said Jan, ‘if we don’t vote for change then things won’t get better and they could get worse.’

Morag had pulled open the curtain ready to enter the booth, but this stopped her in her tracks.

‘Worse than having no grazing?’

We were about to lose our first and only voter so far. Walter was going to go radge. Jan joined me on the bench seat in front of the voting booth and invited Morag to sit on another seat opposite, as though we were three day-tripping pensioners, with all the time in the world.

‘Morag, you’re a farmer, you’re running a fine business here. Let’s imagine you had a cow that had voting rights.’

She smirked, ‘What? A magic cow?’

I fidgeted. We really didn’t have time for this.

‘Not really, a normal cow, a milker, that’s what you call them, isn’t it?’

She nodded.
Don’t Tell the Bride
must have started by now, but so far she was going along with the magic voting cow idea.

‘But let’s agree this cow can vote, ok?’

‘Ok,’ Morag reluctantly agreed.

‘The cow has two choices: one, it can roam Faughie, eating what it likes, when it likes; or two, it stays in the barn and lets you decide how much you’re going to feed it, ok?’

‘Ok.’

‘Now, no matter how much – or how little – you feed it, it still has to produce the same quantity of milk.’

‘Hah, that would be magic.’

‘So, it chooses option two: it stays in the barn and lets you make the decisions. How much will you feed it?’

‘I get the same yield no matter what I feed it?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, I feed it less then, obviously,’ she said. ‘It’ll increase my margins. That’s just good business.’

‘Better for you if the cow lets you make the decision.’

‘Not so good for the Faughie cow,’ said Morag, laughing.

I laughed too; so did Jan before he turned serious. ‘Exactly. It all depends on whether you want your calves, or your children – and I’m sure that one day you’ll have very beautiful children, Morag – to stay in the barn or decide their own future, because that’s what’s at stake.’

Morag filled her cheeks with air and huffed out her breath. ‘Ok, ok,’ she said, pulling closed the curtain in the booth, ‘I’ll be glad when it’s finished.’ She yelled from behind the curtain, ‘It’ll be finished tomorrow, won’t it?’

Suddenly one side of the sky lit up.

‘One way or the other,’ Jan called in agreement, ‘it will be finished.’

Jan and I kneeled up on the bench and stared out of the window. The light was coming from the loch side, a bright diffuse glow that bounced off the clouds.

‘Floodlights,’ said Jan, ‘the lookouts must have spotted activity at the mouth of the loch.’

Now we heard the slow dreadful moan of the lighthouse fog warning. Everyone in the village would be taking up their positions. This was all getting a bit too real. I knew Steven and Mag would be working to keep the generators going, powering the big lights for the cameras. I felt sick when I thought about what might happen to them. I felt the vulnerability of their young bodies to Tasers or rubber bullets or whatever. I felt
my
body vulnerable and unprotected, as though it was happening to me. I’d rather it was happening to me. I wished at that moment that I was standing beside Steven and Jackie instead of being stuck on this bus. I reached for Jan’s hand.

Jenny told me ages ago that, whether I liked it or not, I was already bound to this place. Steven might end up staying in Inverfaughie all his days, Jackie almost certainly would. Steven might have a family here, Morag might end up being his wife, the mother of his children. The mother of my grandchildren. Jan and I might get it together; I was only forty, there were still plenty of eggs in my basket; I might be the mother of his children. So many ifs, buts and maybes. Maybes aye, as Walter had said, maybes naw.

Morag emerged from behind the curtain.

‘Oh, is there something going on in the village? Oh god,’ she moaned, ‘it’s not the Claymores doing one of their historical re-enactments again, is it?’

Jan looked at me and I smiled. No point in worrying her.

‘Aye, I suppose you could call it that,’ I said.

‘I’ve been a good citizen, I’ve filled it in,’ said Morag, waving her form at us, ‘I’m not sure I’ve even done it right, but I’ve done it. Where do I put it?’

These last few months in Faughie had been full of upheaval. When I’d first pitched up in this wee Highland village I’d been as lonely and miserable as I’d ever been in my life; it was only in the last few weeks that things had started to change. Of course, Steven being with me and Jackie finally acknowledging me had begun the process, but it wasn’t just my family that had made me feel better. It was my friends: Walter and Jenny, and Brenda and Mag, Dinah and Betty even, and Keek and Moira Henderson and Andy
Robertson and everyone who mucked in on the council and at Ethecom. And Jan. I’d been so reluctant to join Faughie Council, but now I realised that Jenny had been right: getting involved with other people had given me my accommodation licence, my means of escape, but it had also given me a reason to stay.

As the lights down at the loch side flickered, Jan and I pricked up our ears. What was happening down there now? Were the Claymores rushing with their swords aloft into bloody battle? I sincerely hoped not. I couldn’t bear to think of my friends being hurt or hurting anyone. No, no amount of sword play was going to win this fight. I only hoped that the world would bear witness to our democratic procedure. The battle was now going to be won or lost by what the people of Faughie put in the ballot box.

‘Aye, thank you, Morag,’ I said, ‘just put it in the box.’

Obviously if you’ve ever seen the 1949 Ealing comedy
Passport to Pimlico
, you’ll know where I got the plot. I prefer to think of it not as a direct rip-off but as a ‘difplag’, (diffuse plagiarism) to borrow Alasdair Gray’s portmanteau word. And talking of great Scottish writers and artists, books such as Andy Wightman’s
The Poor Had No Lawyers
, James Robertson’s
And the Land Lay Still
, Lesley Riddoch’s
Blossom
as well as Anthony Baxter’s documentary
You’ve Been Trumped
were all terrific spurs. I hope you will seek them out. They’re not generally funny, in fact they might make you cry, they did me, but they are essential reading. I had invaluable help from first readers: Karen Jones, David Fernandes, Cynthia Rogerson and Alison Stroak. Sara Hunt and Jenny Brown have been brilliant as usual. David Fernandes not only read it, he also let me obsessively discuss characters and plot twists and gave me loads of help and useful ideas.