For Faughie's Sake (5 page)

I couldn’t believe it, there she was, exactly where I’d left her yesterday on the machair, still shouting down the phone, giving someone a right ear bashing. Did she still have the same clothes on? I couldn’t remember.

After my last faux pas, hanging about waiting for her to get off the phone, I was all set to give her a friendly wave and walk past but the posh woman held out her arm to stop me.

‘Got to go,’ she shouted into the phone. ‘No, seriously, Julian; I’ve just run into an old friend, I’ll call you later.’

And with that she hung up.

‘Hello!’ she cried, with an enthusiasm bordering on hysteria. This was more than was appropriate to the occasion and required me to stop.

‘Hello Dinah,’ I replied, ‘nice to see you again. It’s Trixie by the way, Trixie McNicholl.’

‘Oh crumbs yes, Trixie,’ she said, and promptly dried up, leaving me standing there like a numpty.

Clearly she couldn’t think of the next pleasantry. I smiled. The wind blew a fine layer of sand along the beach. The moments ticked past. Bouncer and Mimi were by now barking and jumping all over each other, joyfully reunited, making our human discomfort all the more conspicuous.

‘Sorry about last time,’ she said, taking an awkward half-step towards me, slapping her leg and then retreating. She was much more jolly hockey sticks than I remembered her. She made an exaggerated phone gesture, her thumb and pinky at her ear, shrugged and pulled a face. ‘Business.’

She went quiet again, forcing me to state the obvious.

‘So, did you decide to stay on?’ I asked.

Dinah looked puzzled. I almost blurted out that because the last I’d heard, she was off to London in the morning. I managed to stop myself. I didn’t want her to think I’d been listening to her conversation. I wasn’t listening, I was involuntarily hearing. Two different things.

‘Have you extended your holiday?’ I said by way of trying to rescue a dead-in-the-water conversation.

Dinah laughed. ‘Golly, no!’ she said, ‘I’m not on holiday. I only wish I were.’

‘Oh,’ I said. Now it was my turn to look stupid.

‘I live here. Over there.’

She bobbed her head towards the other side of the loch. Did she really mean the castle on that huge big rambling estate across the loch?

‘You don’t mean Faughie Castle?’

‘Yup,’ she said, fists shoved in pockets, rocking forward on to the ball of her foot and then down again, her head bobbing. She seemed almost embarrassed. ‘Although I think the term “castle” is a bit of a stretch these days for the old ancestral pile.’

‘Have you just bought it?’

Only that day I’d read in the
Inverfaughie Chanter
that the place was up for sale. Wow, I thought, she must be mega loaded. Even an old broken-down place like that, the land alone must be worth millions.

‘Bought it? God no. I was born here.’

So, I reasoned, if she wasn’t buying she must be selling. There was some famous American billionaire interested in turning it into a polo resort, so the paper had said. The local council was backing his bid; they were right behind the jobs and the dollars it would bring into the area.

The dogs ran along the lochside and, now that the rust had been scraped off the wheels of our conversation, Dinah and I walked together towards them.

‘We moved away when I was eight,’ she continued, ‘but we always open the house every summer for a few weeks. Or at least we always did. We used to have such good times here. I don’t know if it was the cold clean Highland air or just being with my family but I remember summers in Faughie when I’d feel almost hysterical with happiness, high on life, you know?’

She looked at me, perhaps expecting me to recognise this hysteria of happiness. If I’d ever had such a feeling I’d long since forgotten it, but it was only polite to nod earnestly.

She slowed down her walk and I was obliged to do the same, which seemed to bring a greater intensity to the conversation.

‘I never get that any more.’ She smiled. ‘I’m usually too hungover.’

How did she know? Was this just dog-walking chat, a passing observation, or did she instinctively recognise in me a fellow alky?

‘Me too,’ I blurted, ‘although I’m trying to stay off it.’

‘Me too,’ she echoed.

Neither of us mentioned yesterday’s hip flask and we carried on, following behind the jubilant dogs, in silence.

The next morning I scurried down to Jenny’s shop for baking soda. Truth be told, I had a sufficiency of baking soda, as Computer would no doubt be able to tell me, but I was dying to quiz Jenny about my new friend.

‘I know the woman who’s selling Faughie Castle.’

‘Dinah?’

‘Yes,’ I reluctantly admitted, my thunder stolen, ‘d’you know her?’

‘Of course I know her. Lady Murdina Anglicus, to give her her full title, has been coming into this shop since she learned to say “dolly mixtures”, but she’s too posh to mix with the peasantry.’

I wasn’t about to tell Jenny why Dinah was mixing with me: the reasons being we both happened to have dogs and an alcohol problem.

‘Ah, well,’ I bantered, ‘that’s obviously why she wants to be pals with me. Amongst the unwashed peasants of Inverfaughie she’s finally found a fellow Patrician.’

Jenny snorted. ‘So,’ she began the interrogation, ‘was it buttered scones for tea at her place then? They haven’t had any staff in there for years. I imagine the castle must be in a right state these days.’

‘I haven’t seen the castle,’ I answered honestly. ‘We mostly just walk the dogs together,’ I continued slightly dishonestly. ‘Dinah loves Bouncer, she gave me a present for him.’

Having implied regular meetings with Dinah, I didn’t want Jenny cross-examining me any further, exposing my pathetic imaginary friendship as lonesome wishful thinking.

‘Is she really a lady?’ I asked, throwing the gossip ball back to Jenny.

She gave me a stare that begged me to stop being so naive.

‘Murdina Anglicus ain’t no lady. But she has a title. Lady of the Heather. Her family have been lording it over us for centuries. They own all the land in these pairts. Her father Murdo, the old laird, was never here. Absentee landlord; he was always off down in London chasing skirt. And her half-brother, the new laird, Robin – god love the wee soul – he died last November. She must be devastated. When they were kids they were always close those two. And as for that son of hers …’

‘She’s got a son?’ I blurted.

Dinah hadn’t mentioned a son to me, but then, why would she?

‘And no husband.’

Something else Dinah and I had in common.

‘Never has had,’ Jenny continued in her whispery gossipy voice. ‘People say she used a turkey baster, you know …’

For one horrible moment I thought Jenny was going to give me a demonstration of how Dinah had used the turkey baster. Time to change the subject.

‘How old is her son?’ I asked. I was still hoping Steven would come and spend the summer with me. Maybe he and Steven could be friends. ‘Och, he’ll be grown up now,’ said Jenny. ‘Haven’t seen him up here for years.’

Poor Dinah. Her family was dead, no husband, no son; we had so much in common we really should be friends.

‘So, you might as well know, I’m going to run for M.S.P.,’ said Jenny.

I inhaled.

‘No way.’

‘Yes way. Well, you know that Malcolm died.’

I exhaled. Yes, I knew that. Other than the movie coming to town, old people dying was the only thing that ever happened in Inverfaughie.

‘So H.M.B., I’m running for M.S.P. I know. It’s madness, I’m too old and I’ve no experience, and Walter would make a far better M.S.P., but he can’t be running up and down to Edinburgh every week. He’s not fit for it, not in that parliament of …’

By the look on her face she seemed to be fumbling for a derogatory term.

‘Badgers?’

‘What?’

‘That’s the collective term: a parliament of badgers,’ I explained.

‘Huh! I wish they were badgers, I’d cull the lot of them.’

‘Jenny, don’t do it.’

‘Somebody has to go down there and, let’s face it, it’s the only way I’ll ever get out of this fusty wee shop.’

‘You’re not giving up the shop?’

‘Keep your knickers on, Trixie. I’m not closing it. I couldn’t, the villagers would lynch me. No, there’s a salary for being an
M.S.P.; I’ll get in a manager for the shop, become an employment provider, whatever it takes.’

What an opportunist, I thought. Jenny obviously saw the death of Malcolm as a chance to get the hell out from behind that counter. She was clearly dressing up her personal ambition as altruism, she’d just said so. After so many years behind the counter of that wee shop, the bright lights of the big city were calling her again.

A few weeks ago, Jenny had told me that she’d lived in London through the swinging sixties.

‘There were tons of Highlanders in London if you knew where to find them, and Irish and Australian, American, you name it. Musicians, actors, painters, London was full of it. I met them all, you know,’ she’d claimed. ‘Mick Jagger, Mary Quant, I even knew Jimi Hendrix. Aye, all you see is a wee Highland spinster, but let me tell you, Trixie, I won’t die wondering.’

She’d been assistant manageress of a Woolworths on Oxford Street for twelve years before they offered her her own shop out in Kent.

‘I know that doesn’t sound very grand, but that was in the days before women were managers.’

But after twelve years in the metropolis, she had ended up permanently back in Inverfaughie.

‘Ach,’ she’d shrugged, ‘I never liked Kent anyway, too many English.’

It was just selfishness. She was going to bail out and leave me here to rot. Jenny was the only friend I had in this godforsaken dump. Standing gossiping in this shop was the only entertainment I ever got.

‘But if you don’t have any experience? It’s a wonderful gesture, but seriously, Jenny, politics these days is no place for the well-intentioned amateur. I’d be worried for you.’

‘Thanks for your concern,’ she said dryly.

‘I’m only thinking of you, Jenny. Are you sure you’re fit enough? You’re not getting any younger.’

‘There’s no one else to do it. All the young people go off to university and don’t come back. What have they got to come back
to? To work in the tourist trade or the mill, and if we don’t fight they won’t even have that. The town is dying, even the incomers have retired before they get here. Seriously, we need everyone on board with this. Everyone thinks it’s great now, while the filum’s here, and it’s big bucks all round.’

‘I’m not seeing
any
bucks from the filum,’I said.

Most people in the village called it a ‘filum’– something to do with there always being a vowel between consonants in Gaelic.

‘You will, we all will, but what we need to remember is: it’s temporary. In a few weeks the circus will have moved on and the mill workers will still be under threat of redundancy. This village will go down the toilet if we lose our mill.’

‘Well, you don’t need to worry. It said in the paper that this is a safe seat for the LibDems.’

‘Och, give me credit for some intelligence, Trixie. I’m not standing as a LibDem.’

My mouth fell open. ‘But – wasn’t Malcolm …?’

‘Look, Malcolm could have stood as the Monster Raving Loony Party candidate, dressed as a giraffe, and he’d have been elected. People liked Malcolm, we all trusted him. He was always a constituency M.S.P., an honest man, it hardly made a difference what party he was in.’

‘So if you’re not going with the LibDems, what are you standing as then?’

‘Well, there aren’t a lot of choices, are there? Tory?’ she snorted. ‘SNP? I spent years in London, remember, and if I ever did hold with any of that petty-minded nationalism rubbish, I’ve outgrown it.’

‘Which only leaves Labour. No, I couldn’t go Labour, I’d have to support that Westminster crowd; they’re more Tory than the Tories.’

‘Well that only leaves the Monster Raving Loony Party,’ I said. ‘All you need now is a giraffe costume.’

‘Hah! That might inject a bit of fun into the proceedings, get people engaged with politics, but,’ Jenny sighed, ‘knowing Betty, she’d veto it.’

‘That Betty Robertson would veto her own mother, oooh I’d love to …’

‘Hey,’ said Jenny clapping her hands together, ‘d’you know what would really sicken Betty Robertson?’

‘What?’

‘If you joined Faughie Council.’

‘Aye right.’

‘I mean it, I can propose you, Walter will second you, not a thing Betty can do about it. We’re meeting tonight.’

‘Nah, I don’t …’

‘You know, Trixie, as a local businessperson you might want to think about joining.’

‘Well, thanks to Betty Robertson’s licensing inspectorate, I’m not a businessperson.’

‘Not yet, but maybe if you joined the council …’ Jenny dipped her head to the side. ‘I can think of lots of reasons why a person might want to volunteer on the council, get involved in local decisions.’

‘I’ve told you before, Jenny, I’m not political.’

‘Course you are, everybody is, well everybody who wants gas and electric and roads and street lights is. You want your licence, don’t you? Aye, so you are political.’

‘Are you saying that if I want an accommodation licence, I need to join the council?’

Jenny dipped her head again, a longer slower dip. ‘It couldn’t hurt.’

The Faughie Council and Business Club second quarterly meeting lasted not quite two hours but it felt like a week in the jail.

The great and the good were here. There being no show without Punch, Jenny was in attendance, of course, and of course her clandestine consort, Walter. To preserve the secret of their love, they sat at opposite ends of the big table, but they weren’t fooling me. Caley Ali from the Caledonian Hotel nodded hello and I recognised the Faughie FM radio DJ Andy Robertson from when he’d hosted the gala day. A group of men stood around together who, from their turned-down wellies and the faint whiff of manure, I took to be farmers. I was surprised to see them engaged in conversation with Brenda and her son Mag. Brenda was much more of a weirdo outsider than I was but she seemed able to chat to people. Since influential opinion leader Jenny had endorsed Ethecom’s canvas bags, they had become de rigueur around the village.

I smiled at Brenda and she gracefully brought me in to their conversation, which seemed to be about bore holes and heat pumps. They might as well have been speaking Gaelic. After a few tedious minutes I excused myself and made for the tea urn where I encountered Mrs Moira Henderson, the guide from the Auchensadie Distillery, unmistakeable in her big tartan cape. I could only hope she wouldn’t remember me.

A few weeks ago when Steven had visited he’d insisted we take a tour of the local distillery. I’d had a heinous hangover and was begging god to just let me slip away quietly, so I wasn’t really up for it but, so that Steven could get a free whisky, we had to endure a guided tour led by Mrs Henderson in her kilt, tartan tammy and big daft tartan cape. Long story short: Steven shoved my head in a huge circular vat and the smell made me boak into the whisky mash. That batch was going to have an interesting tang. Maybe that’s what was called ‘whisky sour’.

There were a few notable absences. I knew Jackie was on the council because Jenny had told me. She’d also told me Jackie had sent his apologies, probably because he’d heard I was coming. No sign of Jan either, no doubt for the same reason. Betty Robertson looked at me as if I’d come in with something unpleasant on my shoe, but as chairwoman she called the meeting to order and everyone sat down around the big table.

‘I’d like to open this meeting by paying tribute to a man we all knew and loved,’ she began, ‘our M.S.P., Malcolm Robertson, who shall be sadly missed.’

Everyone nodded gravely and made approving comments. I chimed in with my own muted ‘hearhear’.

‘Mr Walter Robertson will now deliver a eulogy that will form part of our formal minutes.’

Walter spoke for a few minutes in a husky grief-worn voice and everyone kept their heads down. He talked of Malcolm’s many years’ unstinting service: the meetings, the personal guarantees he’d often made to his constituents, the petitions, the early train to Edinburgh in all weathers, the late nights on committees, speech writing into the wee small hours, the fundraising, the marches, the protests, his work on the Cross-Party Transgender Adoption Group. I had no idea there even were transgender kiddies, but good on him, I thought.

‘As you all know, I was Malcolm’s election agent,’ Walter said, ‘and I’m proud to announce tonight that his legacy of sterling work will not be forgotten but will be continued and built upon by the new candidate, Miss Jenny Robertson, to whom I have offered my services.’

Everyone looked at Jenny, who nodded in confirmation of this news.

‘Jenny will stand as an independent M.S.P. supporting our tweed mill among other local concerns,’ he continued, ‘and we hope we can count on your votes.’

Betty swiftly shut him down. ‘Yes thank you, Walter,’ she simpered, ‘I’m sure we all wish Jenny our best, now if we can move on, we have rather a lot of business to get through tonight.’

Once they had circulated the sederunt and apologies were noted, Betty moved straight to the business of new members. This was just as well because, just like on my distillery visit, the fear in my stomach was threatening to make a dramatic entrance on to the committee table. I was the only new member being proposed. Jenny stood up and read, with frequent smiles in my direction, a paragraph from a prepared statement on my suitability as a member of the Faughie Council, mentioning my supposed friendship with the local landed gentry. So that’s why she wanted me to join! The wily old vixen. She cited my exemplary voluntary work with the kids’ guitar group. With no shortage of superlatives and blandishments she was bumming me up to be Philanthropist of the Year.

‘In short, I believe Trixie McNicholl would be an asset to Faughie Council and wish to propose her,’ said Jenny.

‘Seconded,’ said Walter.

Within minutes it was ratified and I was confirmed as a member of Faughie Council; as quick and painless as that. A shoogly tooth extracted by a string tied to a slammed door.