by Laura Marney
‘You’re not giving up the shop?’
‘Keep your knickers on, Trixie. I’m not closing it. I couldn’t, the villagers would lynch me. No, there’s a salary for being an M.S.P.; I’ll get in a manager for the shop, become an employment provider, whatever it takes.’
What an opportunist, I thought. Jenny obviously saw the death of Malcolm as a chance to get the hell out from behind that counter. She was clearly dressing up her personal ambition as altruism, she’d just said so. After so many years behind the counter of that wee shop, the bright lights of the big city were calling her again.
A few weeks ago, Jenny had told me that she’d lived in London through the swinging sixties.
‘There were tons of Highlanders in London if you knew where to find them, and Irish and Australian, American, you name it. Musicians, actors, painters, London was full of it. I met them all, you know,’ she’d claimed. ‘Mick Jagger, Mary Quant, I even knew Jimi Hendrix. Aye, all you see is a wee Highland spinster, but let me tell you, Trixie, I won’t die wondering.’
She’d been assistant manageress of a Woolworths on Oxford Street for twelve years before they offered her her own shop out in Kent.
‘I know that doesn’t sound very grand, but that was in the days before women were managers.’
But after twelve years in the metropolis, she had ended up permanently back in Inverfaughie.
‘Ach,’ she’d shrugged, ‘I never liked Kent anyway, too many English.’
It was just selfishness. She was going to bail out and leave me here to rot. Jenny was the only friend I had in this godforsaken dump. Standing gossiping in this shop was the only entertainment I ever got.
‘But if you don’t have any experience? It’s a wonderful gesture, but seriously, Jenny, politics these days is no place for the well-intentioned amateur. I’d be worried for you.’
‘Thanks for your concern,’ she said dryly.
‘I’m only thinking of you, Jenny. Are you sure you’re fit enough? You’re not getting any younger.’
‘There’s no one else to do it. All the young people go off to university and don’t come back. What have they got to come back to? To work in the tourist trade or the mill, and if we don’t fight they won’t even have that. The town is dying, even the incomers have retired before they get here. Seriously, we need everyone on board with this. Everyone thinks it’s great now, while the filum’s here, and it’s big bucks all round.’
‘I’m not seeing any bucks from the filum,’I said.
Most people in the village called it a ‘filum’– something to do with there always being a vowel between consonants in Gaelic.
‘You will, we all will, but what we need to remember is: it’s temporary. In a few weeks the circus will have moved on and the mill workers will still be under threat of redundancy. This village will go down the toilet if we lose our mill.’
‘Well, you don’t need to worry. It said in the paper that this is a safe seat for the LibDems.’
‘Och, give me credit for some intelligence, Trixie. I’m not standing as a LibDem.’
My mouth fell open. ‘But – wasn’t Malcolm …?’
‘Look, Malcolm could have stood as the Monster Raving Loony Party candidate, dressed as a giraffe, and he’d have been elected. People liked Malcolm, we all trusted him. He was always a constituency M.S.P., an honest man, it hardly made a difference what party he was in.’
‘So if you’re not going with the LibDems, what are you standing as then?’
‘Well, there aren’t a lot of choices, are there? Tory?’ she snorted. ‘SNP? I spent years in London, remember, and if I ever did hold with any of that petty-minded nationalism rubbish, I’ve outgrown it.’
‘Which only leaves Labour. No, I couldn’t go Labour, I’d have to support that Westminster crowd; they’re more Tory than the Tories.’
‘Well that only leaves the Monster Raving Loony Party,’ I said. ‘All you need now is a giraffe costume.’
‘Hah! That might inject a bit of fun into the proceedings, get people engaged with politics, but,’ Jenny sighed, ‘knowing Betty, she’d veto it.’
‘That Betty Robertson would veto her own mother, oooh I’d love to …’
‘Hey,’ said Jenny clapping her hands together, ‘d’you know what would really sicken Betty Robertson?’
‘What?’
‘If you joined Faughie Council.’
‘Aye right.’
‘I mean it, I can propose you, Walter will second you, not a thing Betty can do about it. We’re meeting tonight.’
‘Nah, I don’t …’
‘You know, Trixie, as a local businessperson you might want to think about joining.’
‘Well, thanks to Betty Robertson’s licensing inspectorate, I’m not a businessperson.’
‘Not yet, but maybe if you joined the council …’ Jenny dipped her head to the side. ‘I can think of lots of reasons why a person might want to volunteer on the council, get involved in local decisions.’
‘I’ve told you before, Jenny, I’m not political.’
‘Course you are, everybody is, well everybody who wants gas and electric and roads and street lights is. You want your licence, don’t you? Aye, so you are political.’
‘Are you saying that if I want an accommodation licence, I need to join the council?’
Jenny dipped her head again, a longer slower dip. ‘It couldn’t hurt.’
Chapter 12
The Faughie Council and Business Club second quarterly meeting lasted not quite two hours but it felt like a week in the jail.
The great and the good were here. There being no show without Punch, Jenny was in attendance, of course, and of course her clandestine consort, Walter. To preserve the secret of their love, they sat at opposite ends of the big table, but they weren’t fooling me. Caley Ali from the Caledonian Hotel nodded hello and I recognised the Faughie FM radio DJ Andy Robertson from when he’d hosted the gala day. A group of men stood around together who, from their turned-down wellies and the faint whiff of manure, I took to be farmers. I was surprised to see them engaged in conversation with Brenda and her son Mag. Brenda was much more of a weirdo outsider than I was but she seemed able to chat to people. Since influential opinion leader Jenny had endorsed Ethecom’s canvas bags, they had become de rigueur around the village.
I smiled at Brenda and she gracefully brought me in to their conversation, which seemed to be about bore holes and heat pumps. They might as well have been speaking Gaelic. After a few tedious minutes I excused myself and made for the tea urn where I encountered Mrs Moira Henderson, the guide from the Auchensadie Distillery, unmistakeable in her big tartan cape. I could only hope she wouldn’t remember me.
A few weeks ago when Steven had visited he’d insisted we take a tour of the local distillery. I’d had a heinous hangover and was begging god to just let me slip away quietly, so I wasn’t really up for it but, so that Steven could get a free whisky, we had to endure a guided tour led by Mrs Henderson in her kilt, tartan tammy and big daft tartan cape. Long story short: Steven shoved my head in a huge circular vat and the smell made me boak into the whisky mash. That batch was going to have an interesting tang. Maybe that’s what was called ‘whisky sour’.
There were a few notable absences. I knew Jackie was on the council because Jenny had told me. She’d also told me Jackie had sent his apologies, probably because he’d heard I was coming. No sign of Jan either, no doubt for the same reason. Betty Robertson looked at me as if I’d come in with something unpleasant on my shoe, but as chairwoman she called the meeting to order and everyone sat down around the big table.
‘I’d like to open this meeting by paying tribute to a man we all knew and loved,’ she began, ‘our M.S.P., Malcolm Robertson, who shall be sadly missed.’
Everyone nodded gravely and made approving comments. I chimed in with my own muted ‘hearhear’.
‘Mr Walter Robertson will now deliver a eulogy that will form part of our formal minutes.�
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Walter spoke for a few minutes in a husky grief-worn voice and everyone kept their heads down. He talked of Malcolm’s many years’ unstinting service: the meetings, the personal guarantees he’d often made to his constituents, the petitions, the early train to Edinburgh in all weathers, the late nights on committees, speech writing into the wee small hours, the fundraising, the marches, the protests, his work on the Cross-Party Transgender Adoption Group. I had no idea there even were transgender kiddies, but good on him, I thought.
‘As you all know, I was Malcolm’s election agent,’ Walter said, ‘and I’m proud to announce tonight that his legacy of sterling work will not be forgotten but will be continued and built upon by the new candidate, Miss Jenny Robertson, to whom I have offered my services.’
Everyone looked at Jenny, who nodded in confirmation of this news.
‘Jenny will stand as an independent M.S.P. supporting our tweed mill among other local concerns,’ he continued, ‘and we hope we can count on your votes.’
Betty swiftly shut him down. ‘Yes thank you, Walter,’ she simpered, ‘I’m sure we all wish Jenny our best, now if we can move on, we have rather a lot of business to get through tonight.’
Once they had circulated the sederunt and apologies were noted, Betty moved straight to the business of new members. This was just as well because, just like on my distillery visit, the fear in my stomach was threatening to make a dramatic entrance on to the committee table. I was the only new member being proposed. Jenny stood up and read, with frequent smiles in my direction, a paragraph from a prepared statement on my suitability as a member of the Faughie Council, mentioning my supposed friendship with the local landed gentry. So that’s why she wanted me to join! The wily old vixen. She cited my exemplary voluntary work with the kids’ guitar group. With no shortage of superlatives and blandishments she was bumming me up to be Philanthropist of the Year.
‘In short, I believe Trixie McNicholl would be an asset to Faughie Council and wish to propose her,’ said Jenny.
‘Seconded,’ said Walter.
Within minutes it was ratified and I was confirmed as a member of Faughie Council; as quick and painless as that. A shoogly tooth extracted by a string tied to a slammed door.
Chapter 13
The meeting moved on. Andy Robertson reported to the meeting on Faughie FM’s appeal, Visit a Veteran, to find volunteer ‘friends’ to visit old people who lived in outlying districts. I’d heard him talk it up on the radio. The idea was to phone them, visit them, maybe even invite them to lunch occasionally. I could see this would be good PR for a community radio station but obviously doomed to failure: who in their right mind would voluntarily spend time with cantankerous oldsters? God knows I’d done my time with my own mum. But Andy dumbfounded me. He was pleased to report that Faughie FM had identified twenty-three volunteer visitors for the elderly and he was now requesting the disbursement of funds to pay travel expenses. A ripple of approval went round before it went to a vote. Betty was staring at me with one eyebrow almost meeting her hairline.
‘Do you intend to vote, Trixie, or would you prefer to abstain?’
‘Eh, sorry,’ I bleated, as I raised my hand.
Bringing joy to the lonely lives of local coffin dodgers, this was important work we were doing here. I sneaked a glance at my watch and wondered what time I’d get home; there was a good film starting soon.
‘Support for this and our other outreach projects has only been made possible due to a very generous endowment from our funding partners, Global Imperial. And today I’m delighted to welcome their representative, Miss Jacqueline Yip,’ Betty said, a full curtsey in her voice.
I followed Betty’s fawning expression up the table where it rested on a young woman. Miss Jacqueline Yip was a tiny wee thing, no more than a child really. In her exquisitely cut suit, top-knot hair-do and designer specs, she had all the accessories of an expensive corporate lawyer. She reminded me of a toddler in her mum’s high heels but when she slowly bowed her head in receipt of Betty’s tribute, Miss Yip displayed the delicate mannerisms of an Oriental princess. She was delightful.
‘We have another application to the welfare fund,’ said Betty, ‘and I believe we are to have a presentation from Ethecom. Brenda?’
All eyes on Brenda, whose lips were closed.
‘Eureka!’ shouted a voice from the back of the hall.
People recoiled in fright.
‘Who famously said that?’
‘Archimedes,’ piped up Walter, like the class swot, ‘Greek scholar and mathematician.’
‘Correct,’ said Mag, Brenda’s weird kid, as he wheeled the tea trolley to the table.
People tutted, perhaps because of the loud theatricality of the presentation or perhaps because, like me, they had no idea what the hell Mag was on about.
‘What has this to do with your funding application?’ asked Betty, glaring at Brenda while her glance alternatively flicked towards Miss Yip.
Brenda, probably mortified by Mag’s shenanigans, made an apologetic face.
‘He famously ran through the streets naked but he also invented the Archimedes screw,’ said Mag, scrunching two fingers into inverted commas, ‘a machine for transporting low-lying water to irrigation ditches. I’ve made a model.’
On the tea trolley he had rigged up two basins of water, one six inches higher than the other on top of a cardboard box. Bridged between the basins was a plastic spiral glued round a wooden stick. He turned the stick and, sure enough, water was transferred from the lower basin to the higher one.
Some people stood up to get a closer look.
‘This principle has been established for hundreds of years, but only very recently did we experiment with reversing it.’
Mag stopped turning the stick and tilted the top basin slightly. Water now began pouring through the screw in the opposite direction into the lower basin.
‘But what alchemy is this? As the water falls, the weight of it pushes on the flights and rotates the screw. With a generator connected to the main shaft, the rotational energy can be turned, not into gold, ladies and gentlemen, but electricity.’
Mag went on to explain, in his hammy stage-magician style, how he had designed a hydrodynamic turbine to put on the weir on the River Faughie. This would provide electricity for Ethecom’s domestic and farm use. He’d obviously done his homework because he easily batted away every objection: a middle-aged man wearing a canvas hat decorated with colourful fly-fishing hooks who introduced himself as Calum McLean was worried that a hydro-turbine would kill the fish.
‘Not this kind, Mr McLean,’ said Mag, dropping the theatricality and becoming pragmatic, ‘Archimedes screws are fish friendly. Think of it as the luge in the Winter Olympics,’ he said curving his hand to demonstrate. ‘It lets the fish, even the big ones, safely pass down the screw. As the water passes through the turbine it gets churned and oxygenated, improving the water quality and, subsequently, the quantity of fish. Until, of course,’ he said in a quieter voice, ‘they get hooked and yanked out.’
I was impressed with his nerve; Mag was probably Steven’s age, sixteen. He was weird but there was no doubt he was smart.
‘We work hard at Auchensadie to create the right atmosphere for our visitors to enjoy a little piece of Highland magic,’ said Mrs Henderson, ‘a Scottish idyll, if you will.’
It was true: Auchensadie distillery was immaculate, the gardens so scrupulously tended there wasn’t a leaf out of place; oak barrels, sherry casks and antique equipment artfully placed around the courtyard, buildings so white they hurt your eyes. It was perfect, a whisky paradise. It occurred to me then that if drug dens were this appealing, lots of people might switch from alcohol to heroin. Drug dealers simply hadn’t worked hard enough at getting the marketing right.
‘I’m a little bit concerned that the turbine will be, well, I’m sorry, there’s no nice way of saying this – an eyesore,’ continued Mrs Henderson, ‘and for that reason,’ she said,
apparently mistaking herself for a dragon out of Dragons’ Den, ‘I’m out.’
‘Hang on,’ piped up one of the farmers, ‘I’ve got sheep up that way. What happens if one of my animals falls into your screw? It’ll get all chewed up; that’s not exactly going to enhance the tourists’ experience!’
The farmers all laughed at that one, clearly tickled by the image of live minced lamb.
Brenda now found her voice and chipped in.
‘We can put a guard over the turbine so that nothing can fall into it.’
‘I don’t see a costing for a guard,’ said Betty, reading from the application form. ‘What do you think, Miss Yip?’
Miss Yip leaned forward to see and be seen by everyone around the table. She was obviously dying to get her oar in and had just been politely waiting to be asked.
Although she looked lighter than a soap bubble, Miss Yip’s opinion was heavyweight.
‘Members will be wise enough to make their own decisions,’ she began respectfully in a gentle but firm American accent, ‘but if I understand your objectives correctly, Faughie Council desires not only to be performing good works but also to be seen to be performing those good works.’
‘You understand our objectives perfectly,’ Betty simpered.
‘Perhaps this project,’ Miss Yip continued, ‘as it is located outside the main village, is not quite visible enough.’
‘Not visible enough to whom?’ asked Mag.
No one answered him.
Again he made a good point. Miss Yip was hinting that Global Imperial had given the council funds to spend however they pleased – so long as they did what Global Imperial wanted. So long as it made them look good.
‘Now,’ said Betty with an exhausted exhalation, ‘are we finally ready to vote?’
‘Point of order, please, Mrs Chairperson,’ said Miss Yip. ‘With great respect: as it’s owned by Faughie estate, the River Faughie is not within the purview of the council. It is Global Imperial’s assertion that to place anything on the river would require permission, along the lines of a fishing permit, from the laird.’
