Whirligig (9 page)

‘Welcome, everyone. As most of you know, I'm Tommy Thompson, and I'm the chairman of the planning committee. The other members of the committee are also here: Helen MacDougall and John Bruce…'

As Tommy Thompson continued his introduction, Claypole turned around as surreptitiously as he could to scan the audience. All eyes seemed to be either bored or angry, but they were all looking at Claypole. He turned quickly back to face the stage.

‘So, with no further delay, I would like to introduce you to the new spokesman for the wind farm, Gordon Claypole…' Tommy Thompson looked at the audience and added with featherweight amusement, ‘from London.'

Abruptly, Tommy Thompson sat down. There were coughs and shiftings in the audience as Claypole rose from his chair. He turned and raised a hand in greeting and gave a clipped nod. His eyes found the dark-haired man in the donkey jacket. Mid-forties, the man was six foot of twisted steel cable with a woodsman's tan and an expression of disgust on his wrinkled smoker's lips. They met eyes, and to Claypole's shock, the man raised his forefinger and slowly drew it across his throat.

Claypole turned quickly to see Tommy Thompson
smiling and gesturing to the front of the stage. Claypole gathered himself and stepped slowly onto the stage, and then looked back at the audience. Peregrine was the only one smiling.

‘Hello. Brr. I'm Claypole. I'll be… representing the wind farm.'

‘Speak up!' said someone from the back of the hall.

‘Right… brr,' said Claypole. ‘Right!' Now his voice was raised. ‘Now, you must all understand that I haven't had much of a chance to get to grips with the detail of the project… you know… but I'll do my best to…'

He thought for a moment and took a breath in an attempt to regain his disintegrated confidence. The image of the crusty drawing his finger across his throat kept replaying in his mind. He looked at Peregrine who was beaming beatifically. Agincourt, thought Claypole.

‘We can all agree, I think, that global warming is the biggest threat facing the world in the next century. Brr. It's a… big deal. So we have to do something about it. Right? I mean we can't just… So, it's up to all of us to make a difference, and to make sure that we… save the…' He gulped. He couldn't help himself. Nothing else was entering his mind. ‘… save the planet.'

Claypole looked around the audience. Should he go on? He saw Coky, who was biting a fingernail, and remembered her advice to keep it short.

‘That's it, really,' he said, and went to leave the stage.

‘Thank you, Mr Claypole,' said Tommy Thompson. ‘Perhaps you would like to stay up here for the moment.'

Claypole, who was halfway down the steps at the
front of the stage, turned around and went back up them. He stood, hands in pockets.

‘Bonnie, you wanted to say a few words…'

While Tommy Thompson pointed to a spare chair on the stage and Claypole sat down, a woman in her early sixties drew out a typed script from a bulging bag and walked slowly to the front. With long curls of grey hair, she was heavily mascaraed, her eyes a moonlike expanse of white with small green pools in the centre. Green-suited, she wore no jewellery save for a leather necklace holding a single shark's tooth. She gave Claypole a severe look, flicked her voluminous hair back and began.

Bonnie Straughan's speech to the Loch Garvach community hall that afternoon was passionate, long and confusing. She had spent many hours writing it, but had denied herself the benefit of an edit. As a result she regularly became lost, which she covered by returning to certain stock phrases, more often than not ‘so that's what I think', which she would follow quickly with ‘and another thing I strongly feel', which was the only pause before another tirade. She railed broadly against the ugliness of modern life, the terrible toll that development of the countryside took on its inhabitants, and stressed how the natural world needed to be safeguarded. In regard to wind farming, she referred only to ‘these hideous machines', and spat the phrase ‘scarring the landscape' often. In her view, wind power was a confidence trick perpetrated by city-dwellers and power companies and should be rejected wholesale. Eventually, she sat down to a short blast of applause.

‘Are there any questions for Mr Claypole?' asked Tommy Thompson breezily.

‘Ah, well, no,' Claypole began, but stopped in horror
when almost every hand in the audience immediately rose in the air. Tommy Thompson pointed to the second row of chairs and a woman stood up.

‘Mary Hislop,' said the woman in a whisper. ‘I have heard that wind farming requires more energy to make the windmills than is – '

‘Turbines,' corrected Tommy Thompson.

‘Thank you,' she said gracefully. ‘To make the
turbines
… than they produce. Is this true?'

Claypole smiled. ‘Nah. Can't possibly be true,' he said with confidence.

‘But you don't
know,
' offered the woman.

‘Well, I… It can't be the case, can it? Otherwise they wouldn't do it.'

‘They?'

‘Well, us. We.' Claypole coughed. ‘Look, I'll… Brr… I'll find out and get back to you on that.'

The woman might have wished to continue the debate, but Tommy Thompson was pointing at a man with large spectacles.

‘Will any of the wind farm be visible from Ballaig Point?' said the man.

‘I… don't know, I'm afraid,' said Claypole. He looked at the smiling Peregrine, who seemed in no danger of intervening.

‘Oh,' said the man, ‘what about from the Giant's Table?'

Claypole smiled weakly. ‘Dunno. Sorry.'

The man sat down. Many hands rose again.

‘Kayleigh, you have a question?' said Tommy Thompson.

‘I want to know,' said Kayleigh, a child of no more than ten, ‘whether any buds will be hut by the windmills.'

Claypole could not disguise his confusion. ‘Any
buds
… will be…
hut
? I'm sorry, I don't…'

‘Are there,'
Tommy Thompson translated, ‘going to be any avian casualties as a result of the wind farm?'

‘Oh,
birds
!' said Claypole brightening, ‘will be…
hurt
… I see. Brr… Look… Time out, OK?' He pointed at the child severely. ‘I became a partner in this scheme only today. I don't know the detail yet.'

Claypole looked at Peregrine with wide-eyed appeal. Peregrine gave him a surreptitious double thumbs-up.

‘The chair recognises Carrie McMichael,' said Tommy Thompson.

A pretty young woman stood and smiled at Claypole. ‘I would like to know what Mr Claypole thinks are going to be the benefits to the community of the scheme.'

There were many mutterings of approval at the question. Claypole swallowed.

‘As chairman of the committee,' Tommy Thompson began slyly, ‘let me give some background to this.'

Claypole breathed out deeply as Tommy Thompson spoke. ‘In a scheme of this kind, as with most developments, the local community is usually entitled to receive what is known as “planning gain”. That is to say, some sort of amenity for having to put up with disruption caused by building works and the like. We, the planners, are not allowed to take such considerations into account, of course, but perhaps Mr Claypole has such a benefit in mind?'

Claypole closed his eyes and held his breath. He opened them again, and saw only expectant faces.

‘Well, yes. Brr. Planning gain. Yes.' The tuts and fidgets in the audience had stopped. Claypole felt the sweat chilling on his forehead as he tried to remember the contract he had signed that afternoon, it being
the only document he had read in regard to the Loch Garvach Wind Farm. The audience seemed to blink at him as one. The silence continued until suddenly Claypole brightened.

‘Of course there is the 2,000 quid thing!' he said in triumph.

‘What's that?' asked someone from the back.

‘Well, you… the community… gets £2,000 per turbine…' Claypole hesitated. ‘Sorry, £2,000 per megawatt…' He frowned. ‘Maybe it
is
per turbine… or… rr. Well, one of them, anyway, ha ha… which will go to…' He was looking at Peregrine, who nodded at him encouragingly. ‘It's a fund which you, the community, will… you know…
have
. So you can buy more pigs, or whatever.'

There were confused faces. Bonnie Straughan was scribbling furiously.

‘I reckon,' announced Claypole brightly, ‘that the question for you is not, “Shall we allow this wind farm to go ahead?”. Instead you should be saying to yourselves, “How shall we spend the wonga?” ' He beamed.

‘What is it?' asked a voice.

‘Sorry?' said Claypole.

‘How much is it over all?' said another voice.

Finally, here was a question to which Claypole knew the answer.

‘Ah, well. Here's the good news. It's a couple of hun –' he began, but Peregrine had sprung to his feet.

‘I think it would be more appropriate if
I
answered that question, Mr Chairman.'

‘The chair acknowledges MacGilp of MacGilp,' said Tommy Thompson.

Peregrine turned towards the audience. He spoke fast. ‘It's prejudicial to project an exact figure, because of
several factors. Accruals, depreciation and exchange rate fluctuations, for example.'

Some in the audience looked at each other. Peregrine smiled condescendingly.

‘In other words, at today's adjusted, pre-construction prices, and what with overages, and with the eurozone as it is, one set of projected figures could be examined and even postulated, but in order to pre-finance the after-tax ratios, and based on estimates over several fiscal cycles, you would have to adjust for inflation and then amortise the results. I'm sure you understand.'

Peregrine sat again, leaving a black hole of silence.

‘Put it like this,' said Claypole helpfully. ‘If it was a small number, we wouldn't be doing it.'

He beheld only dark looks and tutting. So he tried again.

‘What I mean is… we're in this for the money, and you could be too!'

There were gasps and one cry of ‘shame'.

‘I'm just saying,' said Claypole, glancing briefly at Coky and seeing her massaging both temples. ‘There'll be plenty of dosh to go around, OK?'

Tommy Thompson quelled the harrumphing with an authoritative hand. ‘We'll have one more question,' he said, and selected a young man with a notepad. Claypole vowed to answer more like a politician.

‘Hullo, Mr Claypole,' said the young man.

‘Hi,' said Claypole guardedly.

‘May I ask what qualifies you to stand where you are?'

‘Brr. Well, what qualifies you to ask that question?' said Claypole.

‘I'm Kevin Watt. I'm a journalist with the
Glenmorie Herald
.'

‘Ah,' said Claypole, ‘right. Well then… good.'

There was silence.

‘Mr Claypole?'

‘Yup?'

‘You haven't answered my question.'

‘What was the question again?'

‘What are your qualifications to be the spokesman for a wind farm? I believe you have spent your career in children's television.'

‘Apps for pre-school… Well, yeah. Yes, I have. But, look. When Branson launches a line of Virgin underwear or whatever, he doesn't have any qualifications, does he? He's not a woman, or an underwear model, and he's never been in the schmutter business. Doesn't matter. He's Richard Branson and he can do whatever he likes… Right?'

The journalist squinted. ‘Are you saying you're Sir Richard Branson?'

‘No.'

‘Are you saying you can do whatever you like?'

‘No, mate.' Claypole gritted his teeth. ‘I'm saying that I'm a spokesman, not an expert. You want an expert? Hire your own.'

The young man scribbled energetically.

‘Thank you, Mr Claypole,' said Tommy Thompson.

‘It's just Claypole,' muttered Claypole bleakly, and sat down.

While the audience burbled, Claypole brooded. He couldn't bring himself to look at Coky, and fixed instead on Peregrine's face, which still held a smile, although a somewhat fractured one. Tommy Thompson called for quiet again.

‘Before I close this meeting I have two suggestions. First, that the Loch Garvach Wind Farm Company
replies in writing to the questions asked here today. Second, that we have another meeting where we can ask questions on any points which we feel need further elaboration. Perhaps Mr Claypole will have had a chance to become more familiar with the project by then. After that, the committee will make its decision.'

To more hubbub, Tommy Thompson and the other two councillors conferred as Claypole left the stage and slumped into the seat next to Coky.

‘Who,' whispered Claypole, ‘is that vile woman?'

Coky's wrinkled brow told Claypole that she had not understood him.

‘The harridan who wanged on about the bloody view and saving the badgers or whatever. Must be who Peregrine meant by the wicked witch.'

Again the wrinkled brow. Coky seemed to be ignoring him. But he was desperate to deflect attention away from his own disastrous performance, so he ploughed on.

‘That one.' He waved his finger at Bonnie Straughan in frustration. ‘Looks like she used to be a hooker.'

‘Bonnie Straughan,' said Coky slowly, ‘is my mother.'

‘We're agreed then,' Tommy Thompson concluded, picking up a gavel and looking at his fellow committee members, who nodded gravely. ‘We meet again at five o'clock a week today. Meeting adjourned.'

With a bang that sounded to Claypole like the last nail going into a coffin lid, Tommy Thompson brought the gavel down on the formica table.

Outside every thin woman is a fat man trying to get in.