Crime in the Community

by Cecilia Peartree

  Chapter 4 You say gorilla and I say guerilla

  'So it's war,' said Christopher a few days later in the Queen of Scots. 'Only we don't have any generals, or big guns, or any equipment for that matter.'

  He had mulled over the situation after leaving the Holiday Inn. PLIF – his group of friends – their cosy evenings in the Queen of Scots - Steve Paxman’s vaguely threatening manner and proposal to involve the local council in something they had no right to get involved in – and he had decided to make a stand. It wasn’t like him to dig his heels in, but he felt responsible for the whole thing, and wanted to do what was best for Pitkirtly. In any case, he knew this was the one area of his life where he had any chance of exerting any control; his rôle in the community anchored him, in effect, to the kind of reality he wanted to live in. If he lost that, he would be adrift in an open boat.

  'A guerilla campaign,' said Amaryllis, who had listened intently. This close attention in itself unnerved Christopher, since Amaryllis's intentness seemed to him more aggressive than many other people's active hostility. 'We'll have to fight a guerilla campaign. That's what local activists do when they have no power and very few resources.'

  'Yes, I think some of us know that already,' said Jock, who before he retired had attempted to teach history to a bunch of ungrateful teenagers who were only interested in themselves. Christopher had often heard him ranting on in this vein, sometimes for hours on end.

  'Gorillas? Those big black hairy things they keep in the zoo?' said the alleged youth worker Darren, perfectly illustrating the point Jock had made on numerous occasions about education being wasted on the young.

  Jock gave him a quick rundown on the history and logistics of guerilla warfare, while the rest of them talked among themselves about the allotment situation, among other pressing local issues. Mrs Stevenson was particularly vocal on the topic of organic gardeners and their general pickiness and intolerance. They had given up trying to explain it all to her. Amaryllis showed a polite interest and enquired about getting an allotment, but was quickly left with the impression that it was impossible unless your parents had been particularly far-sighted and had put your name down for it well before your birth.

  Once Christopher called the meeting to order, after a fashion, they talked a bit more about the guerilla campaign.

  'You're not just using the term in a loose populist sense, meaning a guerilla marketing campaign, are you?’ said Young Dave. ‘Only I’m not that keen on marketing myself.’

  'Nobody's asking you to market yourself!' said Big Dave scathingly. 'You wouldn't get many takers, that's for sure!'

  'It's got nothing to do with marketing,' said Amaryllis. 'Well - only in the sense that we need to sell people on our own ideas before the Council come along and present their ideas wrapped up with red tape.'

  'What are our own ideas then?' said Jock McLean, ever the stirrer.

  'We don't need to bother about that yet,' said Amaryllis airily. 'They can't be worse than the ones the faceless apparatchiks at the Council come up with.'

  Christopher noticed how she relished the phrase - it lent a gleeful air to the whole sentence, like a lovely sunrise spreading light and warmth across the earth. He paused for a moment, rewound his thoughts and wondered when he had started to think like a revivalist preacher. He just hoped the tendency hadn't come out in his speech too, without him noticing.

  Amaryllis had discarded a couple of layers of clothing as she became more and more relaxed in the company of PLIF. She was leaning forward slightly to emphasise what she was saying. The sight of her chest in a tight-fitting top seemed almost too much for some of their number. Jock McLean was leaning forward too, and Big Dave, standing over them all as he often did, apparently to emphasise further how much bigger he was than any of them, had bent so far towards her that he almost fell over. Steadying himself he noticed Christopher looking at him, and said gruffly,

  'The lassie's quite right. Faceless apparatchiks.'

  'All we need is to know what outcome we want, and everything else follows,' continued Amaryllis. She sat up straighter and glanced round at the group members. 'So - what do we want?'

  'We want things to stay as they are,' said Young Dave wistfully. He was young enough to think that particular outcome was possible or desirable.

  'Don't be daft, man!' said Big Dave. 'Things don't stay the same. Either you embrace change or it washes over you like a massive wave full of the rubbish that people flush into the sea these days.'

  'Have you ever written a poem, Dave?' said Amaryllis.

  Big Dave blushed.

  'Well, it's funny you should say that, but I once won a prize for poetry.'

  'Sometimes you sound very poetic. Maybe if we do get the village hall off the ground we should try and start a writers' group. Anybody else interested?'

  There was a silence. In fact Christopher himself dabbled in writing from time to time, and on one occasion when he had had to escort Mrs Stevenson home because she was too drunk to stand up properly, she had shown him a whole suitcase full of her writings. Apparently she had written twenty-three novels, all unpublished. He hadn't had the heart to ask her why she bothered. Presumably the activity must fulfil something inside her. Christopher found it unsettling even to think about all this, but he wasn’t sure why. Perhaps it was the sad waste of potential, perhaps that nobody would ever see the novels....He had resisted the temptation to offer any help with getting them published, since he realised that by the following day she would have forgotten she ever showed him the suitcase.

  'We want to improve the town,' said Christopher, remembering vaguely that had been their reason for nurturing the infant PLIF in the first place.

  'In what way?' said Amaryllis. Honestly, the woman was worse than Steve Paxman. Or even Jeremy Paxman.

  He shrugged his shoulders. 'Make it a better place to live.'

  'Better than what?’ Amaryllis persisted. ‘Better than Torryburn? Better than Burntisland? Better than it used to be in the eighteenth century?'

  'What did you retire from?' said Christopher, finally losing patience with her. 'The KGB?'

  She was silent for just a moment, then rallied with, 'You wouldn't believe me if I told you.'

  He wondered if he had imagined the fleeting expression of panic in her eyes. Surely Amaryllis wasn't an underground Al Qaida operative?

  'I think we're losing track of the agenda here,' she added. 'You want to improve the town - how? By building a new shopping mall, or encouraging people to keep their houses in better condition, or putting up new street lights, or painting the school pink? Or none of the above. Tick as applicable.'

  'None of the above,' said Jock McLean. 'There are plenty of shops already. As long as I can still get my pipe tobacco and a haggis from time to time. What we need is another pub where other people can go so we'll have more room in here. It's getting a bit crowded these days.'

  He stared pointedly at a noisy group of women who were exchanging hugs and squealing like teenage girls.

  'I'm guessing the Council won't cough up for a new pub,' said Young Dave. 'They're more likely to go for painting the school pink, in my experience. Or running clubs for lesbian single mothers.'

  They were seeing a whole new side of Young Dave, thought Christopher, and probably not his best side either. He had a lot more irrational prejudices than Big Dave had, and there was a whining undertone to a lot of his speeches that really wasn't very appealing. Christopher didn’t like stereotypes, but what did anyone expect from a lawyer?

  ‘Look out,’ said Jock McLean in an undertone. ‘Bandits at three o’clock.’

  ‘Bandits?’ Christopher’s bafflement caused him to glance all round, and, fatally, to catch someone’s eye.

  The swarm of squealing woman had formed itself into a phalanx with a bright-haired, well-groomed woman at its head, and was coming straight for them in a menacing fashion. Taking eye contact as encouragement, the bright-haired woman accelerated.

  ‘Got
to go,’ muttered Young Dave, slithering expertly from his chair and sliding past the swarm without meeting anyone’s eye.

  The lead woman, or queen bee as Christopher couldn’t help thinking of her, stopped at their table and addressed them. There was a low buzz in the background from the rest of the group, about seven in number. Since the others were all female too, Christopher assumed they were worker bees.

  ‘Is this the Local Improvement Forum meeting?’ she asked, smiling. Her teeth were white and perfect, which identified her as American, had her accent not already done so.

  ‘Not really,’ said Christopher. He didn’t feel the need to say any more at this stage. Unfortunately she did.

  ‘We’ve heard tell that you’re the big shots around here. That if we want anything done we should approach you... Well, we want something done.’

  She stared at him as if daring him to ask what she wanted done.

  ‘I think you’ve been misinformed,’ said Christopher, as politely as he could manage considering that it was nearly the end of a long and trying evening. ‘Even if this was a meeting, we don’t have any power or official remit.’

  ‘So you won’t help us?’ she said, staring at him without blinking in a way which reminded him unpleasantly of a lizard. She had a face of a rather reptilian shape, now he came to think of it.

  ‘Tell us what you want,’ said Amaryllis, perhaps sensing deadlock. ‘And we’ll see if we can be of any help. This is Christopher, and my name’s Amaryllis.’

  ‘Well, now, that’s very neighbourly of you,’ said the queen bee – or leader of the lizard pack, if that was the collective name for a group of lizards – and pulled up a chair to sit down at their table. The rest of the swarm, now humming amiably enough, gathered behind her. She gave Christopher a sour look, smiled at Amaryllis and said,

  ‘My name’s Maisie Sue McPherson? From Idaho? We’ve started a quilting group, right here in Pitkirtly!’

  There was a pause, then Amaryllis said smoothly, ‘That’s – interesting.’

  Christopher admired the way she said it – almost as if she meant it.

  ‘The Quilting and Embroidery League of Pitkirtly?’ said Maisie Sue. ‘QELP. We’re affiliated to the International League of Quilters. We plan to compete in the Quilting Olympics.’

  ‘Oh, really?’ said Amaryllis, now sounding faint with amazement - or possibly suppressed humour, Christopher thought. ‘I didn’t know quilting was an Olympic sport.’

  ‘To be truthful, it wasn’t one of the original Olympic sports,’ said Maisie Sue, ‘but what else would you call an international competition to find the best in the world? Anyway – don’t let me run on, dear, I get carried away once I start – we were just setting around my kitchen table one afternoon eating blueberry muffins, when the door opened and what do you think?’

  ‘I can’t imagine,’ said Amaryllis.

  Jock McLean had started to edge away, no doubt hoping to melt into the crowd at the bar before anybody noticed, but Christopher gave him a look and he moved back towards the table again. Christopher had a momentary qualm of guilt, which he then immediately rationalized by asking himself why Jock shouldn’t suffer with the rest of them.

  ‘The Easter bunny came in with a basket of chocolate eggs?’ he suggested to Maisie Sue.

  ‘But it was only the twenty-third of February!’ said Maisie Sue reproachfully. ‘No – Mrs Fotheringham came in and there wasn’t anywhere for her to sit!’

  She paused; Christopher, Amaryllis, Jock, Big Dave, Darren and Mrs Stevenson looked at each other. Christopher tried to work out from the others’ expressions what this last sentence had meant, but they all looked as baffled as he felt.

  ‘There wasn’t anywhere for her to sit,’ Maisie Sue repeated, no doubt used to Brits being slow on the uptake. ‘That was when I knew.’

  ‘You knew?’ said Christopher and Big Dave, almost but not quite in sync.

  ‘I knew we had to find somewhere else to meet!’ said Maisie Sue. There was a louder, more agitated buzz from the swarm. It definitely sounded threatening. Maisie Sue fixed big blue eyes on Christopher. ‘I know you can get us a place to hold our meetings.’

  ‘What makes you think we can do anything about it?’ said Christopher, conscious of Amaryllis at his side – he imagined she would be smiling and nodding, but he couldn’t tear his gaze away from Maisie Sue’s for long enough to find out. He guessed that the rest of the group would lose any interest now that Maisie Sue had turned out to want something from them.

  Maisie Sue shook her head. Her blonde curly hair didn’t move – Christopher decided it must be glued to her skull. The swarm started to look ugly again.

  ‘I just don’t understand you Brits!’ said Maisie Sue in a low dangerous voice. ‘How can you sit there and say that? If you had any get-up-and-go you’d have built yourselves a village hall by now instead of sitting there drinking your English pints and talking about things!’

  ‘I’m afraid if we had any get-up-and-go we just wouldn’t be British,’ said Amaryllis. Maisie Sue stared at her, and then the perfect teeth showed themselves again in a grin. She started to laugh. Christopher didn’t see the joke but he smiled anyway.

  ‘As it happens,’ he said, unbending a little, ’we’re about to consider a project to refurbish the old village hall. Maybe you’d like to join in with the fund-raising.’

  By ‘join in’ he of course meant ‘run’. He imagined Americans – especially the slightly scary, domineering kind like Maisie Sue – would be rather good at that kind of thing.

  ‘Great!’ said Maisie Sue. ‘Just say the word, and we’ll do anything we can – leaflets, banners, bake sales, lobbying... When can we start?’

  Christopher had the all-too-familiar sense that events were about to run away with him. He opened his mouth to try and fob the women off, but Amaryllis came to his rescue again.

  ‘Let me take your mobile number and email address,’ she said firmly to Maisie Sue. She keyed the information into her phone and produced a business card from her pocket which she handed over.

  ‘I thought you said your name was Amaryllis,’ said Maisie Sue suspiciously. ‘This card says you’re Yelena von Strohheim. That sounds kinda foreign to me.’

  ‘Whoops,’ said Amaryllis. She took away the card and, after a bit of rummaging, found another one to give to Maisie Sue, who scrutinised it carefully. ‘It’s all right,’ added Amaryllis. ‘The other one wasn’t mine – somebody gave it to me at a Star Trek convention.’

  ‘That is so quirky and wonderful!’ said Maisie Sue. Fortunately Amaryllis’s quirkiness seemed to have satisfied her for the moment. She got up and led the swarm out. Christopher felt as if all his energies had been drained and he would need to lie down for a while to recuperate.

  ‘Interesting,’ said Amaryllis, eyes narrowed. ‘I wonder what that approach meant.’

  ‘What?’ said Jock, surprised out of his self-imposed silence. ‘It was about the Quilting Olympics, wasn’t it?’

  Mrs Stevenson laughed scornfully. ‘Of all the silly ideas – that ice-dancing stuff was bad enough.’

  ‘I like ice-dancing,’ said Big Dave. ‘Not doing it, mind – just watching.’

  ‘Americans never do anything for just one reason,’ said Amaryllis. ‘There must be an ulterior motive behind it.’

  Christopher wondered what sort of experience she had based that conclusion on.

  The meeting broke up shortly after that - it was fairly obvious to Christopher at least that they had run out of sensible conversation. Amaryllis insisted there should be at least one action point, and by a narrow majority they had voted for her to think of an action that would really annoy Steve Paxman. Of course all the others could have thought of several annoying things before breakfast, but the woman was so keen, it was a shame not to take advantage of it.

  Christopher had to leave promptly, because he had something to do that evening. He caught Amaryllis's eye but didn't make the mistake of mentioning kids again. Ma
ybe after a while she would forget about them. Although it might have been better to tell her the full story from the start.

  This just wasn't the right time.