by John Mayer
Grey flat granite and castellated, with small windows to keep out the lashing Aberdeenshire rain which howled in off the North Sea, Mayfield House stood atop two and a half thousand acres of fine farmland with three tenanted villages, a church which could seat a hundred protestant souls and a three-room school which in its day had seen some very bright young minds indeed. In the distance, a winding river glistened:
‘I’m supposed to go fishing with him. If I want to. Tomorrow morning, after breakfast.’
Craning her neck to see as her husband drove, Lady McLane noticed first a village and then the church in the distance:
‘Does he own everything around here?’
‘Yup. So I’m told.’
‘Oh God, Brogan. I really hope I don’t embarrass myself, or you. And I hope she’s nice.’
Waiting with the servants lined up to one side, Lord and Lady Mayfield weren’t at all a disappointment to Lady McLane; in fact, they were something of a relief. He was much older and even taller than Brogan. The tweed suit he was wearing must’ve been forty years old. His shoes looked even older than that. Lady Mayfield was a silver haired, plumpish woman, obviously very well bred and slightly older than him Joanne thought; or maybe she just looked it. Their two black Labradors lay by his side as though they did this every day.
A man wearing a chauffeur’s uniform and cap approached with his hand out, into which McLane dropped the keys of the Range Rover. The seamless way they changed sides was the Mayfield’s first concession to these strangers; but it was done with such elegance that only the servants noticed. Now that they were on the correct sides, Mayfield put out his hand:
‘McLane. Welcome to the Fields of May. We’re very glad you could come.’
Glad that his host’s handshake was firm and honest, McLane looked into the older man’s eyes: ‘Mayfield. Thank you for inviting us. We’re delighted to be here.’
Only a few times before - mostly in the hotel in London after the Induction - had Joanne been addressed as Lady McLane and she really didn’t like it. It felt like being someone else and made her very uncomfortable. When Lady Mayfield approached with her hand straight out and said: ‘Clementine. But everyone calls me Clemmie, so you must too. How are you my dear?’ Joanne felt a lot better:
‘Joanne. Joanne McLane. I’m really sorry, I hope it’s alright. I’m just not used to being called Lady McLane.’
Patting Joanne gently on the back of her hand, Clemmie smiled reassuringly: ‘I know my dear. I’ve had it all my life and I still don’t like it much. Of course, the staff still use my title, but no-one else does. Well, not up here. In London, they always do of course. I expect you find that too.’
Joanne didn’t know what to say to that and was glad when Clemmie led her towards the staff. Joanne thought it was with honest kindness that she introduced the Ladies Maid who would attend her during her stay. The woman curtseyed but said nothing more than ‘Ma’am’, as did the cook, the other kitchen staff and the under butler whom she could call upon to do chores or fetch this or that. What ‘this or that’ might be required, Joanne didn’t quite know, but she smiled at the young man anyway.
The men were just making their way in and seemed to Joanne to have hit it off. He was slapping Brogan on the back and Brogan was nodding and smiling when a noise in the sky caught everyone’s attention. The kitchen staff held on to their bonnets. The dogs went into a frenzy of barking. Mayfield himself looked askance at this intrusion and was about to march out onto the west lawn to give them a piece of his mind when McLane gripped his arm:
‘Please. I’m so sorry but I think that’s for me. I’ve only ever had them come to me at home or in Parliament House. Sorry.’
With everyone looking on, McLane ducked under the blades of the helicopter and opened the back door. The pilot was in uniform and McLane was a little relieved to see that the sole occupant in the back was his usual guy. With the noise of the idling rotors, there was no need for the normal protocol of whispering into each other’s ears.
After only half a minute or so of looking at some photos, nodding along with the briefing and signing something, it was a worried looking McLane who shut the door, checked it was flush and gave a thumbs-up to the pilot who lifted off into the grey Aberdeenshire sky.
Up in their rooms, Joanne flung herself flat on the bed and laughed out loud: ‘Brogan McLane! Did you arrange that? The poor man thought it was the press landing on his lawn for a tabloid picture.’
Still debating with himself whether to tell Joanne now or wait until they got home, McLane hoped his darling wife couldn’t look through his face and see those pictures. Having been assured that her now five-man detail was what they called 5-24, McLane prayed Joanne never found out that five military intelligence guys were now protecting her lovely daughter every second of every day. Feigning a jovial tone, he retorted:
‘Arrange it? Are you mad? I can’t arrange for a National Security briefing on Lord Mayfield’s lawn. They decide when to come to me. I can’t just call them and order a helicopter to fly to Aberdeen. Arrange it, indeed!’
Whether it was something in his jerky movements or his unusual phraseology, Joanne couldn’t decide. Still slightly unsure whether to believe her husband, Joanne got the surprise of her life when there was a tiny knock at the door and the Ladies Maid walked straight in.
‘Begging your pardon, Ma’am. I just want to turn down the bedding, plump the pillows once more and check the flowers.’
Doing her work as though Lord McLane was invisible, the woman wasn’t two minutes in the room when she curtseyed and left. Looking at each other as though they’d seen an alien land in their room, the McLanes were open-mouthed.
When about two hours later, the sound of the dinner gong pervaded the House, McLane took Joanne’s arm and they descended the widest staircase Joanne had ever set foot upon. Carpeted in the Mayfield tartan, they passed coats of arms, baronial weaponry and paintings of the family going back several hundred years.
Dinner itself was served by the butler in the ‘half room’ due to their small numbers. With the butler and two footmen standing waiting to serve, Joanne could only wonder at the grandeur of the state room which Clemmie said sat forty with ease. The glowing red bonfire in the walk-in sized fireplace heated the room more than adequately. The random shadows it created helped too, in lending a note of informality. Through cook’s own soup, the line caught salmon, the locally farmed beef steak and the French crème, the criss-cross conversation was quiet, cordial and comfortable. Two iced silver champagne buckets kept the Laurent Perrier Grand Siècle 1812 chilled to perfection. When Mayfield waved away the butler and poured for everyone, the atmosphere relaxed even further. The Mayfields had obviously performed this service before. The conversation between the men was kept well away from the House of Lords and Parliament House in favour of shooting and fishing on the one part and Celtic football club and the Calton Bar on the other. Mayfield seemed genuinely interested in what McLane had to say about his upbringing while Clemmie kept Joanne on the subject of their beautiful adopted daughter and the horrible circumstances of her arrival.
When the butler signalled for the footmen to clear away, Joanne became a little nervous. But Clemmie put her at ease when she patted the back of her hand and asked if she’d like to see the rest of the House:
‘There are toys up in the children’s rooms that are over a hundred years old.’
In the library, McLane waved his hand at the offer of a cigar but readily accepted whisky which he poured himself. Mayfield plumped himself down into an ancient Club chair and sighed. Looking straight at his guest, Mayfield’s face had a friendly look about it:
‘Good of you to come, old boy. I’ve enjoyed myself tonight. I’ve enjoyed your honesty, don’t you know. So many people who come up here try to compete with us. They’ve got more land. Their investments in the Far East are sky high. They know more important people. That sort of horse-shit. I don’t like those sorts of evenings and neither does Clem
mie. Puts a damper on one’s dinner going down, don’t you agree?’
Sipping the best that the Isle of Skye produces, McLane swirled the Talisker around his mouth, swallowed and replied: ‘Well, we don’t get ‘more land’ but we do get ‘more important cases’ from the Parliament House crowd. So I have some appreciation of what you mean.’
Mayfield puffed out a satisfied cloud of cigar smoke and draped his arms over the sides of the chair: ‘Rum business that recent decision. Bloody rum.’
McLane didn’t want to appear to be too much of the new boy, but neither would he ever pretend to know something he didn’t. So instinct took over: Sorry. Which matter are you referring to?’
‘Why the only one we have in common, old boy.’
McLane sort of narrowed his eyes, tilted his head and sort of stuttered out: ‘Forgive me Mayfield, but I don’t exactly follow you. Other than being Members of The House, what do we have in common?’
Sitting up in his chair, Mayfield pressed one elbow into the leather and looked over at McLane: ‘Ah. I wondered if you’d remember. And I can see that you don’t. You’re a straightforward honest man McLane and I like that. Not an ounce of pretence about you. You really don’t remember, do you?’
‘Remember? No. Sorry. Do you mean in The House? I admit I was a little overwhelmed that day.’
‘No, no, not that. Of course I was there, but you wouldn’t have seen me among their lordships. No. I mean we’ve met before. Over thirty years ago.’
Open mouthed and astonished, McLane almost let go of the crystal tumbler in his hand. Now he could see it. It was his height and something about the jaw line and those distinctive eyebrows. And there was that smile as he’d waved goodbye, which McLane thought was genuine.
‘No? I don’t believe it. That day in St Joseph’s in the Calton. Was it really you?’
‘Of course, old boy. You read very well. Easily the best in your class. I was thoroughly impressed and very glad to be there.’
With those boyhood classroom memories now flooding back, McLane too leaned on the arm of his chair and pointed at Mayfield: ‘Mr Thomson our teacher said you were Secretary of State for Education.’
‘That’s right, I was at the time.’
‘And were you on a tour of schools or something?’
‘Tour? Oh no. I wasn’t on any tour. I just wanted to see the Secondary school in the Calton.’
McLane let out a sort of chuckle of disbelief: ‘What? In God’s name, why?’
Now it was Mayfield’s turn to look surprised: ‘Why? Well, it was my duty. But a pleasurable one it turned out to be.’
The legal word hadn’t escaped McLane and sent his mind wondering what sort of legal duty the Secretary of State for Education could possibly have that could be satisfied by a single visit to one school in the Calton:
‘Well I’m glad to hear that. But however pleasurable it was, I’m struggling to find a legal duty that could be satisfied by one visit to a school in the Calton.’
Mayfield took a long drink of his Talisker and laughed good-heartedly in the way only old men can at younger men: ‘Oh McLane. I wasn’t under a legal duty quoad my Office of State, I meant it was a family duty.’
‘Family duty? In the Calton? Now you’ve lost me. How could that possibly arise?’
Raising his finger, Mayfield looked disappointed: ‘Ah, McLane. Do you mean to say that with all the shit that’s recently been rained down on the Calton by Glasgow City Council, you haven’t read the original Deed of Disposition which provided the land to build the Calton?’
The wind dropped out of his sails and McLane felt like a rookie in Court One in Parliament House when the Lord Justice General can tell perfectly well that you haven’t, asks if you’ve read the principal precedent case on the subject in hand.
‘I’ve err, seen it - on screen, I mean - and had a quick look at the title page. I was going to print it when I saw that it’s nearly a thousand pages long; and we don’t print documents that long. I haven’t had time to return to it, but it sounds like I should.’
‘Oh indeed so, dear boy. Indeed so. A thousand pages. Hmm, that must be the version that contains all of the tenancies, farm stock and even a census from just before World War Two. That’s why it’s so long. If you’d read the original twelve-page parchment, you would’ve seen that the land to build the Calton was sold to the Burghers of Glasgow by none other than my ancestor the Fourth Earl of Mayfield. Didn’t you recognise the stone from which this House is built?’
‘I have to say that I didn’t actually. But now that you mention it, they do look something like those from which the Calton tenements are built.’
Blowing out his cheeks, the present Lord Mayfield made a sort of Chuff sound: ‘Oh dear boy, they’re not something like the stones from which the Calton is built. The Calton ones are covered in more than two centuries worth of city soot and grime whereas ours are as clean as the day they were erected. But I do assure you that the stones themselves are identical.’
Now bewildered, McLane got up to refill his glass. Turning over his shoulder, he asked: ‘Well I’m bound to ask. How the hell could that happen?’
With a smile all over his face like a grandfather placing check-mate before a grandson, Mayfield pointed to the corner of the room: ‘I want to take you somewhere tomorrow morning. Along the riverbank and around the hill there’s a quarry. One of the finest sources of granite in Aberdeenshire. Are you catching my drift, McLane?’
With the older man’s every word came the dawning of understanding. Taking deeper and deeper breaths and trying to sober himself a little, McLane slapped his hand over his mouth as though to keep the secret from falling out. Mayfield was obviously enjoying himself greatly and it took McLane a few moments to say: ‘The same quarry? You mean that this great House and the Calton were built from the same quarried stone?’
‘Of course. Not only are the two places built from the same stone, but the two were built roughly at the same time.’
McLane’s puzzled face was that of a man trying to put two and two together, but didn’t want to speculate too far. So he let Mayfield continue.
‘The Fourth Mayfield was a canny old sod. He was under pressure in The House and knew that if he didn’t sell what he called his ‘southern’ Fields of May, then the Burghers of Glasgow would gang up on him and have their friends try to force a Compulsory Purchase Order through the House of Commons. So he boxed cleverly. He pulled the old landlord’s trick of selling the Fields of May, but burdened the Deed of Disposition with conditions; one of which was that the Burghers would, free of charge, quarry and shape the stones for building this House. Only after they’d completed that undertaking to his satisfaction, could they get on with the much more extensive - and very expensive - quarrying of the stone they needed to build on the southern Fields of May. They also had to use our Estate labour. The whole venture made my ancestor a fortune and kept several estate families in very good wages for donkeys’ years.’
McLane’s head was nodding along exactly like a nodding donkey; sometimes up and down to indicate agreement and sometimes from side to side, to show his disbelief at how clever the old Mayfield had been. Draining his glass for the second time, Mayfield ran his tongue around his mouth, the better to appreciate the skill and talents of the Men of Skye. As he put his glass on the table beside him, he craned his neck to see McLane’s reaction to something that had almost slipped his mind:
‘Oh and I almost forgot. The Burghers were insistent on changing the name of the district. So they re-named the Fields of May after their champion in that battle; Lord Calton. He too was created a Baron. So you, dear boy, are in fact his indirect successor. Isn’t that ironic?’
McLane sat aghast at this revelation, unable even to drink his whisky.
‘So you see, when I visited your school, I was on a family mission to ensure that the successors to the Burghers of Glasgow were meeting one of the many conditions in that original Deed of Disposition; namely that they we
re properly educating the children of the Calton. I was delighted to see, that at least in your case, they were doing a fine job. Cheers, old boy.’
~~~o~~~
Chapter 26
Her face looked ten years younger, her laughter was loud and carefree and when she clapped her hands at a joke she’d heard before, it was with carefree abandon. All in all Joanne McLane had had a great time and McLane felt sure that the promised return dinner in Edinburgh would no longer be a burden to her. The worries she’d had about bringing in servants and having the dining room redecorated had all evaporated. Clemmie, she said, was a grand old stick who’d welcome a dinner made by her own hands and served with a healthy ladleful of friendship.
The call to Ababuo had been short and Joanne thought, full of curt answers to disguise the longer stories of which boys may have been at this party and who got off with whom. It was the usual teenage stuff and Joanne felt relaxed at how her trusted daughter had kept to the deal.
As they drove south with the sun going down, McLane thought it only right to forewarn her about a call he’d taken while she and Clemmie were walking in the gardens after breakfast.
‘Something’s come up. When we get home, it’s likely that Big Joe will be sitting watching our TV. And he’ll have a guest with him.’
‘Big Joe and a guest? Who’s the guest, for God’s sake?’
‘You remember the guy who walked in to the Calton Bar? Him.’
‘On a Sunday?’
‘Yeah. Well, some tenants, not all, are about to get letters. Probably tomorrow morning. But not in the mail. These will be hand-delivered by Officers of the Sheriff Court in Glasgow.’
Joanne McLane didn’t know much about the law, but she knew enough to know that using burly officers of court to deliver letters to tenants meant only one thing: summary evictions were coming.
