by Laura Marney
‘I’ll miss you Trixie,’ she gulped, ‘and you too Bouncer.’
When she hugged me it wasn’t easy to let her go.
Once the taxi had pulled away and the noise of the distressed young family faded, their house was like a bricked-up tomb.
‘Bring out your dead!’ I cried into the wilderness.
They had left me their keys, mumbling something about letting the estate agent in, but it was builders who came.
The builders didn’t want the keys, they didn’t need access to the house, they said. They rolled up with two huge trucks and within three days had built an eight-foot-high perimeter fence. No matter how much I plied them with tea and my home baking, the foreman couldn’t, or wouldn’t, tell me who had instructed the work and, more importantly, why.
Harrosie now stood, isolated on top of the hill next to a sealed fortress within an ugly fence of untreated wood. It was like living next door to Guantanamo.
‘Bring out your dead,’ I shouted as the builders drove away.
I phoned Steven but he was more curious than outraged.
‘But what’s the purpose of this mysterious erection?’ he said.
‘That’ll do, Steven.’
‘Is the fence keeping something out?’ He took a loud theatrical in-breath. ‘Or keeping something sinister in?’
Chapter 3
‘You’re looking well, Trixie!’ Jenny gushed as I entered her shop. ‘Your wee detox programme is working wonders.’
Although it sounded like a compliment, you had to watch with Jenny. Though often entertaining, she could be hard work. I’d been toying with the idea of treating myself to a wee half-bottle, well earned I thought after all my frantic cleaning, but Jenny’s mention of my ‘wee detox’ instantly scuppered that plan. A girl has her pride. And her vanity. Perhaps Jenny was right, maybe I did look better. My pink mottled skin and red alky nose were definitely heading towards a beige tone. It was true, these last few days I’d been feeling a bit healthier.
‘What can I get you?’
‘Just a Twix please, a packet of cheese and onion, a Bounty and a big bottle of Diet Coke. Oh, and I’ll take one of those family bags of Minstrels.’
That lot should get me through an evening’s TV viewing. Since I’d given up my best friend, whisky, I’d built a comfortable nest of loneliness and disappointment, nestling down every night under my rustling sweetie wrappers.
While Jenny was assembling my order, Walter walked in. I had wandered away from the counter, into a dark corner where I was examining a multipack of toilet seat seals, so Walter probably didn’t realise there was anyone else in the shop. I did nothing to warn him I was there. I wanted to see what happened next.
Holding out his arms, Walter waltzed slowly, in his graceful old geezer way, towards Jenny. He was going to kiss her: he was headed behind the counter where he was going to grab her into a passionate clinch and winch her, right in front of me.
‘Toilet seat seals!’ Jenny squawked, ‘I have them on special, Trixie, they’re a popular seller.’
Alerted, Walter smoothly altered course for the customer side of the counter. There would be no clinch and no winch, not while I was there to witness it.
‘Hello Trixie,’ said Walter, in his dignified Highland whisper, ‘Malcolm has asked me to pass on his appreciation of your help and to enquire after your health. I’ll be pleased to report that you’re looking well.’
‘I’m grand, Walter, and you? You’re looking great too,’ I said, ‘they’ll be wanting you to star in the film. All the girls will be after you, Jenny’ll be jealous.’
Walter smiled tightly, politely, but otherwise they both body-swerved it. This was the annoying thing about Inverfaughie, the bare-faced hypocrisy of the town. I knew Jenny was his girlfriend, everybody must have known, it was obvious, but for some reason she and Walter always insisted on pretending, even to me, that they were just good friends. Jenny now glared at Walter.
‘I’ve only come to bring you more leaflets,’ he said defensively.
Walter went into his rucksack and produced a clipboard and a bundle of leaflets. I assumed it was more ‘Vote for Malcolm’ leaflets but these were different. As I peered at them he explained.
‘We’re trying to keep the tweed mill open. Would you like to sign the petition?’
‘Eh, ok,’ I agreed.
‘Leave it on the counter and I’ll ask everybody to sign,’ said Jenny as she buzzed about filling my order. ‘God knows, most of Inverfaughie depends on that mill one way or another. What the firk were they thinking? Excuse the language, but I knew this would happen.’
I braced myself for one of Jenny’s well-worn rants. I’d been hearing this for weeks since the mill, which had previously made more than eight thousand individual tweeds, had reduced production to just a handful of popular patterns.
‘Here’s a perfect case in point,’ she said, tugging at the sleeve of Walter’s tweed jacket to demonstrate, ‘look at the colours through that. Is that not a thing of beauty? That’s a work of art,’ she declared, answering her own question.
‘That’s why I’m wearing it: in solidarity with the mill workers.’
As I dutifully stared at his jacket I saw that Jenny was right; what seemed at a distance to be boring grey twill, when looked at closely, with its bright yellow, green and pink threads woven together, was really quite beautiful.
‘Now they’ve realised what sells tweed isn’t a few restricted patterns on trendy trainers,’ Jenny fumed, ‘Now they’ve realised, when twenty-three people are being made redundant and this village is losing the only industry it has left. Now they get it. When it’s too late.’
‘It’s not too late yet,’ said Walter, ‘Malcolm’s working with the government to find a buyer.’
‘Are you kidding me on? The Scottish government? Jeezo, if they were any more apathetic they’d be sleeping.’
‘Now don’t get yourself all worked up, Moo, it’s not fair to the customers,’ he said, winking at me. ‘Many thanks for taking the petition, if you give me my parcel I’ll be off home.’
‘Och,’ said Jenny, impatiently, ‘can you not wait for Jan to deliver it? I’ve never met such an impatient man.’
Jenny spoke with such familiar contempt and Walter, long used to it, hardly seemed to notice. Like a kid at Christmas, he ripped the parcel open right there and then. It was a book, a heavy tome, dirty with yellowed dog-eared pages.
‘Don’t be getting your fusty book dust all over my clean shop,’ Jenny warned, as she shooed him out of the shop, his book under his arm and his feet hardly touching the floor.
‘Cheerio Trixie!’ he called cheerfully.
‘Bye, Walter, happy reading!’ I called back.
I was ready for her.
‘Moo?’ I smirked, as Jenny came back into the shop.
Chapter 4
Jenny returned behind her counter shaking her head and smiling.
‘Walter and his history books.’
‘Yeah,’ I agreed, ‘I don’t understand why people get so excited about history.’
‘You might not understand this, Trixie, but that man is a superbly political animal and esteemed scholar,’ said Jenny, pointing in the direction she had just hustled him out. ‘Don’t write him off just because he had to retire.’
‘I wasn’t going to.’
‘He’s successfully run Malcolm’s campaign every election as far back as I can remember and he’s not even a LibDem. He does it to get people to engage with politics.’
‘That’s very –’ I struggled for a positive about something that was so clearly a waste of time ‘– admirable.’
‘And politics isn’t the only string to his bow; he’s actually better known for his Highland history, a recognised authority.’
‘I wasn’t saying anything against Walter, I just meant that history in general was a bit boring, I hated it at school.’
‘Well you know nothing. Walter’s right: history explains to us who we are,
and why we are the way we are.’
I was offended and was torn between taking the huff and letting it pass; we’d just got over her tweed mill tirade, I’d been looking forward to a bit more light-hearted chat.
‘They’re always phoning him; asking him to come on the radio: Radio Scotland, Radio Four, they’re all after him. Walter’s been on the radio more times than …’
‘Terry Wogan?’ I ventured.
‘Than you’ve had …’
‘Terry Wogan?’
‘Help ma Boab! You’ve had Terry Wogan?’ she asked, mock wide-eyed.
‘Tee hee,’ I said, in acknowledgement of her old-fashioned ‘Oor Wullie’-type banter.
‘Onyhow,’ she continued, ‘Walter’s been on the radio plenty, that’s all you need to know. Now, what was it you wanted again? Aye, that was it: Twix, cheese and onion, Bounty, Minstrels and diet coke. Anything else I can get you?’
‘Eh, no, I think that’s it. Got to watch the old figure, you know.’
‘You’re not wrong there,’ she said, looking me up and down over her specs as she scanned and bleeped and bagged my items, ‘And will you be wanting any toothpaste today?’
What was this? A barb at my tooth-rotting confectionery consumption?
‘I’ve plenty toothpaste at home, thanks.’
‘Are you sure? Computer says you haven’t ordered any for two months, you must be running out by now. And didn’t you say your Steven is visiting next weekend?’
‘See, this is where your superfast, all-whistling, all-farting computer system falls down, Jenny. What Computer doesn’t know is that the last time Steven came he brought a large tube of Colgate and left without it. I’m up to my stumps in toothpaste.’
‘But you’ll be needing to stock up for your B&B guests. Actors take dental hygiene very seriously, you know, especially Americans. They must drink bleach to get their teeth that white. It wouldn’t be me.’
‘Well,’ I said, bewildered by her determination, ‘I’d kind of assumed that guests would bring their own toiletries.’
‘Ah, but the odd time someone will have forgotten to pack their toilet bag and there you’ll be: ready to supply them with a nice fresh tube of toothpaste, deodorant or what have you, and make a nice mark-up on it too. Upselling, that’s how to maximise profits. God love you, Trixie, but you’ve a lot to learn about running a business.’
Did she really think I hadn’t noticed she was trying to upsell to me?
‘Yes, but as I keep trying to tell you: I won’t have any guests unless I get my B&B licence and I might not get it because of that godawful fence.’
‘Don’t you be worrying your head about that fence,’ Jenny said, ‘you just make sure Harrosie is spick and span for the Licensing Inspectorate.’
‘It is,’ I said. ‘It couldn’t be spicker or any more span.’
My cleaning of Harrosie was so thorough I’d even hosed down Bouncer’s manky basket. He’d sulked for a day and half. Whenever I came into the room he made a great show of getting up slowly, in that passive aggressive way, and skulking out with his head low and his tail wedged tight in his undercarriage. If I tried to speak to him he only gave me those lingering reproachful looks that were supposed to make me feel guilty.
‘The Inspectorate will be the judge of that,’ said Jenny. ‘And by the bye,’ she added, as if butter wouldn’t melt, ‘your boyfriend will be here in a minute.’
‘Which one?’
Her eyes narrowed. ‘How many boyfriends have you got?’
‘You tell me, you seem to know everything that goes on in this village.’
‘Oh now, I wasn’t meaning Jackie,’ she said softly. ‘You know fine I meant Jan. He’ll be in to pick up the postbag; I thought you’d be pleased to see him. You two have been spending a lot of time together.’
‘Jan teaches the guitar club, I help out with the guitar club kids, that’s it. Sorry to disappoint you, Jenny.’
And I was. The bored, lonely, horny thing hadn’t gone away.
‘Aye, but Jan told me this morning he took you up to the hippies’ place for your dinner.’
Thanks Jan.
‘They’re not hippies.’
‘Och, those New-Agers he’s moving in with, you know who I mean. They’re all living together, whatever you want to call it,’ she continued.
The shop was empty, I was her only customer, but Jenny was not one to stand around shooting the breeze. She preferred to get on with stocktaking or wiping down tins while she was breeze-shooting, gossip-mongering, or just generally character-assassinating.
‘What did they feed you? Something oaty? Oats are the only thing they buy from me. I don’t know what they live on, it must be air, and porridge, and free love. I hear they have a couple of goats now. God save us. And the young fella, a nice enough boy, but he’s not right in the head. You know, those hippies are as close to family as Jan’s got here in Scotland. Things must be getting serious between you two.’
She was fishing, throwing chum out the back of the boat.
‘Actually, you’re right,’ I murmured, ‘he doesn’t want me to say anything but you’ve guessed it …’
Jenny had been dusting a tin of sweetcorn but her cloth stopped mid-wipe. She gave me a quick suspicious glance and then leaned in, she couldn’t help herself.
‘Steven is coming up next weekend, I think I will take some toothpaste, thanks.’
Chapter 5
Jenny had guessed right: Jan’s friends had fed me oats. That sounds like they hooked a nose bag round my ears and called me Dobbin, but actually they served up a lip-smacking dish of smoked mackerel and ‘skirlie’, which turns out to be fried oatmeal and onion. They had grown the onions themselves and caught the mackerel in the loch. They apologised that the oats were shop-bought but they’d had a minor crop failure. The soil was all wrong apparently, but they were planning another crop with their own organic oats later in the year. I’d never eaten skirlie before, it was delicious.
‘Like a furry worm in your belly,’ said Brenda, which sounded weird in such a posh English accent.
I recognised Brenda and some of the others from ‘Fat of the Land’, the TV show that had been on telly about two years previously. I’d never met anyone off the telly before and I had to resist the impulse to ask for their autographs. They were so nice, so down to earth. They were much less skinny than they had been on TV . On telly they’d been positively emaciated and TV was supposed to make you look ten pounds heavier. Maybe since then, having successfully lived off the fat of the land, they’d each gained at least ten pounds. Of fat. Of the land.
A TV company had taken a group of city folk, businesspeople and the like, out to an uninhabited island north of Faughie. Like most of them, Brenda and her son had never set foot in the countryside, never mind north of the border. Once on the island they were housed in portakabins and experts were brought in to teach them self-sufficiency. After the most basic of training they gave them some livestock and a bag of seeds and left them to it. That’s not to say they left them alone – they filmed every throbbing minute of it – but they did nothing to help them. Their cameras simply observed them maiming themselves on farm machinery or slowly starving to death. It was riveting. Me and Mum had been avid viewers. Of course, the participants eventually turned it around. Some of the people who had started out totally useless, the flashy car salesman, crusty university lecturer, ditzy fashion model, these were the very ones who began to thrive in this environment. By the time the series ended they were competent farmers with roses in their cheeks swearing that they’d never return to the city. And some of them didn’t.
They came here, to Inverfaughie. They clubbed together, leased some land and a row of broken-down cottages and called themselves Ethecom, short for Ethical, Ecological Community. They were restoring the cottages, slowly building the place up, and doing it all sustainably. Like Old MacDonald’s Farm, they had every kind of farmyard animal, a few of each running round. They had planted crops, the
y even had horses and carts instead of cars. It was really cute. And Jenny was wrong: it wasn’t true that they all lived together, that was just village gossip. And, disappointingly, there wasn’t any free love either.
Jan was about to become their first local member. They had allocated him one of the knackered old cottages, which he had agreed to restore. He was moving in next week and the dinner was to welcome him. The only reason he invited me was because, as a Dutchman and therefore a rank outsider, he had no friends in the village. The only reason I agreed was because I hoped that after a good dinner and a few glasses of wine, Jan might feel the urge to jump on my bones.
Brenda and her son Mag, who were our hosts, were a respectable family, as were the rest of them, and hospitable; they made me very welcome. They had become friends with Jan the same way I had, through his guitar lessons. Mag was about Steven’s age and was exactly like Steven in that he was difficult and deliberately weird. He barely acknowledged Jan and me when we arrived. In their living room was a wall of books stacked from floor to ceiling, no doubt providing excellent and sustainable heat insulation, not to mention a fire hazard. Always stuck for reading material I cocked my head sideways and looked for titles I might enjoy but there was no fiction, they were all manuals: every kind of ‘how to’ book imaginable. Before dinner, Mag sat with his head buried in a book called Electromagnetics for Dummies. It didn’t look like much of a page turner but he was totally absorbed in it. When his mother called him to the table he leaned over and whispered to me in a conspiratorial way, ‘If you’re not part of the solution …’
I rocked on the back foot. Was there a problem? Was I part of it? I was about to ask when Mag continued:
‘You’re part of the precipitate!’ he cackled and rushed past me to the dinner table.
Weird kid.
While we were eating, Jan asked him how he was getting on with a new guitar piece. I expected Mag to sulk and give the standard teenage ‘dunno’ but he surprised me by jumping up and hurrying out. This teenager didn’t slouch in a bored, reluctant-to-shift way – instead he tore around crashing into things like an excited toddler. He returned swiftly with his guitar and stood over us while we ate, practising scales over and over again until his mother loudly cleared her throat.
