The Words of the Mouth

by Ronald Smith

CHAPTER SEVEN

  Dougie told me of three good joiners in Leuchars, and a stonemason called Donald who was also an excellent brickie. Unfortunately, this paragon lived some twenty-five miles away, so picking him up in the morning and taking him home at night meant a one-hundred mile round trip every day.

  When I arrived at seven a.m. he would greet me warmly, “Hullo Will, how are ye the day?” – nauseating me with the putrid smell of his breath. Donald was totally deaf in one ear and looked like a Neanderthal Man, with beetling brows and a strong, squat body. His wife was a wee thin woman with a speech defect, but he was so terrified of her that he jumped at any chance to work late or over the weekend, rather than return home.

  Donald had the craftsman’s touch with all his materials; when he was building a wall, he always picked up the right-shaped stone; if it wasn’t just right, one blow with his hammer would break it to perfection. But he was so crazy that no one would carry his bricks or mix his mortar; he had to be his own labourer.

  “Ha ha! I’m the wicked Fu Man Chu!” he would chortle while trowelling the wet cement onto a brick.

  Once a month he would boil over, shrieking “Ah’ve hud enough! Ah’ve hud enough! Ah’m no havin ye shout at me ony mair!” and run down to the main road, where he would wait for me to beg him to return. But I used to ignore him and eventually he would come back, sulking, to take up his trowel again.

  I soon discovered how to humour Donald; he could not hear me walking up behind him until I was right next to him; then he would start suddenly, exclaiming “EH! Ye geid me sic a fricht!” I began playing games, creeping up on him while he was laying bricks and saying “BOO!” Although he would screech and go into a nervous flap, he enjoyed the attention.

  The squad of joiners from Leuchars were the best tradesmen I worked with. Every weekend they came up and repaired all the bad work done by Jamie’s crew, then forged ahead with the other buildings. All week I would work tidying up from last week and getting whatever materials they needed and doing odd labouring jobs to have everything ready for them.

  After an ex-convict told me of the joinery workshop at Saughton Prison, I arranged to have doors and windows made there at half-price, by telling them I was a Charity Organization. Periodically I appeared with my van to pick up orders, dressed in a suit and my hair neatly brushed because I was apprehensive about attracting the attention of policemen who might recognize me and check up.

  But when I became bored with this routine and turned up one day scruffy and unkempt, the man in the office glanced aloofly in my direction and went on writing, ignoring me for the next twenty minutes or so, just to demonstrate his authority and power over someone of my apparently lowly rank. I hate supercilious officials who use their position to humiliate people.

  When he eventually called me over, I told him my name and said “I’ve come to pick up two window frames on order,” he looked aghast as he realized I had official backing and he should have taken me straight through to the workshop.

  Seeing this crack in his armour, I struck hard in my most authoritarian tone: “Never ever keep people waiting like that! If you keep me waiting again, I’ll report you to the Governor and have your hide.” Smugly I thought to myself that he will never be quite sure someone is of inferior status again.