For Faughie's Sake (3 page)

Jenny had guessed right: Jan’s friends had fed me oats. That sounds like they hooked a nose bag round my ears and called me Dobbin, but actually they served up a lip-smacking dish of smoked mackerel and ‘skirlie’, which turns out to be fried oatmeal and onion. They had grown the onions themselves and caught the mackerel in the loch. They apologised that the oats were shop-bought but they’d had a minor crop failure. The soil was all wrong apparently, but they were planning another crop with their own organic oats later in the year. I’d never eaten skirlie before, it was delicious.

‘Like a furry worm in your belly,’ said Brenda, which sounded weird in such a posh English accent.

I recognised Brenda and some of the others from ‘Fat of the Land’, the TV show that had been on telly about two years previously. I’d never met anyone off the telly before and I had to resist the impulse to ask for their autographs. They were so nice, so down to earth. They were much less skinny than they had been on TV . On telly they’d been positively emaciated and TV was supposed to make you look ten pounds heavier. Maybe since then, having successfully lived off the fat of the land, they’d each gained at least ten pounds. Of fat. Of the land.

A TV company had taken a group of city folk, businesspeople and the like, out to an uninhabited island north of Faughie. Like
most of them, Brenda and her son had never set foot in the countryside, never mind north of the border. Once on the island they were housed in portakabins and experts were brought in to teach them self-sufficiency. After the most basic of training they gave them some livestock and a bag of seeds and left them to it. That’s not to say they left them alone – they filmed every throbbing minute of it – but they did nothing to help them. Their cameras simply observed them maiming themselves on farm machinery or slowly starving to death. It was riveting. Me and Mum had been avid viewers. Of course, the participants eventually turned it around. Some of the people who had started out totally useless, the flashy car salesman, crusty university lecturer, ditzy fashion model, these were the very ones who began to thrive in this environment. By the time the series ended they were competent farmers with roses in their cheeks swearing that they’d never return to the city. And some of them didn’t.

They came here, to Inverfaughie. They clubbed together, leased some land and a row of broken-down cottages and called themselves Ethecom, short for Ethical, Ecological Community. They were restoring the cottages, slowly building the place up, and doing it all sustainably. Like Old MacDonald’s Farm, they had every kind of farmyard animal, a few of each running round. They had planted crops, they even had horses and carts instead of cars. It was really cute. And Jenny was wrong: it wasn’t true that they all lived together, that was just village gossip. And, disappointingly, there wasn’t any free love either.

Jan was about to become their first local member. They had allocated him one of the knackered old cottages, which he had agreed to restore. He was moving in next week and the dinner was to welcome him. The only reason he invited me was because, as a Dutchman and therefore a rank outsider, he had no friends in the village. The only reason I agreed was because I hoped that after a good dinner and a few glasses of wine, Jan might feel the urge to jump on my bones.

Brenda and her son Mag, who were our hosts, were a respectable family, as were the rest of them, and hospitable; they made
me very welcome. They had become friends with Jan the same way I had, through his guitar lessons. Mag was about Steven’s age and was exactly like Steven in that he was difficult and deliberately weird. He barely acknowledged Jan and me when we arrived. In their living room was a wall of books stacked from floor to ceiling, no doubt providing excellent and sustainable heat insulation, not to mention a fire hazard. Always stuck for reading material I cocked my head sideways and looked for titles I might enjoy but there was no fiction, they were all manuals: every kind of ‘how to’ book imaginable. Before dinner, Mag sat with his head buried in a book called
Electromagnetics for Dummies
. It didn’t look like much of a page turner but he was totally absorbed in it. When his mother called him to the table he leaned over and whispered to me in a conspiratorial way, ‘If you’re not part of the solution …’

I rocked on the back foot. Was there a problem? Was I part of it? I was about to ask when Mag continued:

‘You’re part of the precipitate!’ he cackled and rushed past me to the dinner table.

Weird kid.

While we were eating, Jan asked him how he was getting on with a new guitar piece. I expected Mag to sulk and give the standard teenage ‘dunno’ but he surprised me by jumping up and hurrying out. This teenager didn’t slouch in a bored, reluctant-to-shift way – instead he tore around crashing into things like an excited toddler. He returned swiftly with his guitar and stood over us while we ate, practising scales over and over again until his mother loudly cleared her throat.

‘Can you play the new grade eight piece for us, Mag, please?’ Jan asked diplomatically.

He did, faultlessly. It should have been romantic to eat a candlelit dinner while being serenaded by beautiful guitar music, but it wasn’t. Mag’s excruciating expression of concentration, which made him look constipated, put paid to that.

As we left, Brenda discreetly pressed a small wrapped parcel into Jan’s hand.

Jan wasn’t moving to the Ethecom community for another week so I offered him a lift back to the village. I’d made the mistake of telling him about my ‘wee detox’, and to encourage me, Jan and his friends put a cork in their home-made elderberry wine. It was a more abstemious affair than I was used to, but despite not drinking and being, probably for the first time in my life, the designated driver, I felt relaxed. Of course it couldn’t last.

Within a few minutes a dreadful guff began to soak up the air and poison the available oxygen in the car. It smelled like pond slime, or putrefied rodent. Or putrefied rodent lightly drizzled in pond slime.

Maybe Jan was a little too relaxed. He wasn’t even embarrassed and made no move to open a window. It might have been the scent of muck spreading from the fields but it didn’t smell like the light sweet manure odour I had gradually come to enjoy. This was a heavyweight stench and getting stronger by the minute. Why was Jan not reacting to it? Surely he didn’t think it was me? I tried to take shallow breaths but my gag reflex kicked in.

‘It’s pretty strong,
ja
?’ said Jan, at last rolling down the window.

I was by this time parked outside Jan’s house. I’d cut the engine, I’d even unclipped my seat belt, all he had to do was invite me in.

He removed the parcel off the dashboard and held it at arm’s length out the open window.

‘I think it was getting too hot on the dashboard.’

‘Oh, is that what’s stinking? What the hell is it?’

‘It’s a goat cheese,’ said Jan. ‘Ethecom encourages everyone to pay where possible with goods or services, like a barter system. Brenda gives me cheese for Mag’s guitar lesson. Although it smells pretty strong, it’s really delicious. Would you like to try some? I can give you half to take home.’

Jan began hauling his arm, and the howfing cheese, back in the window.

‘No, no, you’re alright.’

To grab a breath, I rolled down my own window, turned my head sideways and sooked up two lungfuls. I wanted Jan to put the moves on me but I was also trying not to yack. Ok, he wasn’t the handsomest, he was actually quite ugly: big jaw, big nose, scowly face; but outsized features looked better on a man, I always thought, and anyway, what made Jan irresistibly attractive to me was his rarity. But despite being the only available man in downtown Inverfaughie, if he was going to invite me in and jump my bones, he’d better be ready to wash his hands. It would take the full four-minute surgical scrub to get that honk off him.

When I turned back, Jan was suddenly much closer to me, right up against me. By the hurt on his face I realised that, at the moment he’d sidled over, I’d turned away. He’d made his move and I’d missed it, inadvertently dodging his kiss.

Jan slid defeated back to his own side. The atmosphere, which might earlier have been described as sexually charged, was now ripe with mortification and the stench of nanny goat.

Our timing was all wrong.

Crestfallen, Jan made his excuses and left. Which, I later reflected, was just as well.

If there had been any bone jumping, it would have been for one night only. Jan was a decent man. He was looking for a long-term relationship, a nice girlfriend who was going to stick around. I was only looking to get out of this dreich waiting-room of a town.

I had to get B&B certification. I’d spent a week, and a small fortune, preparing for the licensing board inspection; there was a lot riding on it. All the rooms had fresh new bedding and towels, the bathrooms stocked with upmarket soap, shampoo and shower caps. I’d even bought a 500 pack of Jenny’s seals that read, ‘hygienically cleaned and sealed for your protection’, and stretched them across the toilet lids. The toilets weren’t sealed, obviously; a thin strip of plastic had limited powers when it came to preventing germs, but it looked professional. Business was all about the customer’s perception. In my previous life as a medical sales rep that was always a key point at sales training. With the customer’s, and more importantly the Inspectorate’s, perception in mind, I folded the toilet roll ends into a wee point. I drew the line at leaving chocolate on the pillows. That reminded me too much of my previous life. So many times after falling into my hotel bed drunk at a conference I’d woken up with an After Eight stuck to my face.

On the morning of the inspection the house squeaked with cleanliness. If the Inspectorate wiped a white glove across any of my surfaces he would find not a speck. The doorbell rang at 10:57, three minutes early, but I was ready for him.

I had envisioned a council employee, an official in a suit with a measuring tape and a clipboard, but I opened the door and there stood Betty Robertson, the blowsy bitch who’d stolen my rose bowl. Two weeks earlier I’d won that trophy fair and square, but fair and square wasn’t a concept that was familiar to the judges of the Inverfaughie Gala Day Flower Show. Nepotism; out and out Robertsonism was much more their line. My roses had been the obvious standout winners, admired by everyone who came into the marquee; a blind man with a head cold knew that.

‘She only won because her name’s Robertson like the rest of them,’ said Steven when he’d phoned, trying to cheer me up, ‘that way they don’t have to get it engraved, and anyway, they probably can’t spell any other names.’

Betty Robertson was held up to be a pillar of the community, though you wouldn’t know it after the way she’d comported herself at the ceilidh: throwing her head back and showing everyone her fillings; throwing her legs wide and showing everyone what she’d had for breakfast. She was a fine one to be inspectorating anything. And there was someone else with her.

‘Well, if it isn’t my old friend Jenny,’ I said, smiling sweetly. I was using the word ‘old’ to mean geriatric, not long-standing. ‘Please do come in.’

I indicated towards the front lounge where I had put in a trendy new rug and curtains, but they swept past me and headed straight for the kitchen. By the time I caught up with them Betty Robertson had her head in my freezer. What was she so frantically searching for? Body parts? She would find nothing more damning than a multipack of Magnums and half a Black Forest gateau. A girl had to have some pleasures. Betty Robertson emerged looking disappointed and slightly snow-tinged.

‘Now, as the appointed representatives of the licensing board,’ she began.

‘In a voluntary capacity, you understand,’ interjected Jenny.

‘Thank you, Jenny,’ said Betty, ‘Miss Robertson and myself have been instructed to undertake an inspection of your premises to ensure that they meet the minimum criteria for the issuing of an accommodation licence and to ascertain the appropriate number of thistles you may be awarded.’

I assented and Miss Robertson and Mrs Robertson then worked their way through every room in the house, inspecting. Or, to be more accurate: having a right good nosey. They were very thorough. They were inside pillowcases, under mattresses, I half expected them to strip search me. And then the dog.

‘I’ve laid out the tea things in the lounge, ladies.’ I said, once they’d exhausted their rummaging. ‘If you’d like to follow me through.’

‘No thank you,’ said Betty. ‘We can’t accept refreshments of any kind.’

She made it sound like an inducement when I had only been trying to be hospitable.

‘It could be interpreted as undue influence,’ she explained. ‘The committee takes a very dim view.’

I found this suggestion of bribery offensive. I was annoyed after all the trouble I’d gone to, making such extravagant cup cakes. I’d done a double batch and had planned to give them a box each to take home. Still, they wouldn’t go to waste.

Their resolve weakened when they actually saw my cakes. Jenny was salivating. After the sell-out success at the gala day, my home
baking had already gained a reputation in the village. I’d pushed the boat out and finished these with butter cream, fresh strawberries and chocolate shavings.

‘Och, I think we can make a wee exception,’ said Jenny. ‘Trixie’s cakes are mouthgasmic, Betty, you should try one. Box those up for me would you, dear?’

As they left, with their cake boxes under their arms, I enquired as to whether Harrosie had passed muster.

‘Oh, we have to present our findings to the committee,’ said Betty loftily. ‘I’m afraid I can’t predict the outcome, but it is by no means certain.’

Four days later and not a dickie bird from the licensing committee. New B&Bs, restaurants and cafes were opening on a daily basis. Everyone was soaking up the rich gravy that was sloshing around the village, everyone except me. I wasn’t going to ask Jenny, I wouldn’t beg, I had my dignity.

Day five and another van rocks up next door, this time it’s a removals van. There are three guys squashed together in the front. The driver, a fat guy, gets out, unlocks the gate in the fence and drives the van inside. That fence; not only had it destroyed my view over the loch, it also meant I couldn’t see a damn thing that was going on next door.

An hour later the van emerged and drove off, this time with only two guys in it. One of them must be in the house. Next thing my front door was being chapped.

‘Hello, I’m Tony, pleased to meet you. I’m going to be staying next door, thought I’d introduce myself.’

‘Oh hello, I’m Trixie. Come away in, I’ll get the kettle on.’

He was a young guy, a Glaswegian, thank you Jesus. He said he’d rented next door for the summer. I didn’t want to ask too many questions too soon, didn’t want to scare him off, I’d have all summer to interrogate him. And anyway, Bouncer, who was as starved for company as I was, got a bit excited. He started what
I sometimes called his mad half-hour: dashing from one end of the house to the other. He’d rush up to Tony, jump up to lick him, and then bound off again. It was difficult to sustain a conversation when a furry bullet blasted through the kitchen every few seconds.

‘Calm down, Bouncer, get a grip! Sorry about this, he likes you.’

‘He’s a great wee guy. He’s got plenty of energy, hasn’t he?’

‘Oooft,’ I agreed, ‘he could run from here to Byres Road and back again if he’d forgotten his keys.’

Even just sharing a wee joke and the memory of Byres Road with a fellow Weegie was cheering me up. Tony laughed and said, ‘Are you from Byres Road? I thought I knew your face.’

‘Funnily enough, you look familiar to me too.’

That was one of the things I missed about Glasgow and particularly the West End: the ability to see people on the street on a regular basis without them having to know all your business. Byres Road had the feel of a village but the anonymity of the city.

Tony stared hard at me and then suddenly snapped his fingers and pointed.

‘Double vodka and diet coke, no ice. Right?’

‘Absolutely spot on. How did you know that?’

‘I used to work in Tennent’s, years ago. I can’t remember customers’ names but I never forget an order.’

‘Double vodka diet coke no ice’, that had been my tipple of choice back in the good old days. In the good old days, I used to drop by Tennent’s for a sly drink after a hard day’s medical repping. From this distance they still seemed like the good old days. How I longed for a double vodka now.

‘You don’t remember me, do you?’ he said, smiling.

‘Not specifically, but you look familiar.’

Tony shrugged. He was a good-looking guy but he was only about twenty-five, a bit young for me. Put that tiddler back in the water, I thought, probably wouldn’t see much of him anyway. He’d probably be working round the clock in one of the hotel bars. There was plenty of money to be made now that the film company were coming to town. Americans were famously good tippers.

‘Have you come up because of the filming?’

‘Yeah.’

‘You’ll be working your arse off, the whole town will. Probably not see much of you then.’

‘Probably not, but it’s got to be done.’

‘Oh, I’ve got something for you.’ I fumbled in the kitchen drawer for the keys Polly had left with me. ‘There you go.’

‘Oh,’ said Tony, surprised, shoving them deep into his pocket, ‘cheers. Wouldn’t want the paps getting their hands on these.’

‘Yeah,’ I said. I didn’t know what he was talking about, but I smiled and passed him his tea.