When the Devil Drives

by Christopher Brookmyre

  There was a broad debate about the morality of presenting violence – and in particular the horror genre – as entertainment, with the outcry from the right-wing tabloids against public money being spent on it rendered no less shrill by being utterly moot. More soberly, in the broadsheet arts pages the spotlight was focused upon Sanquhar’s hand in the veto and whether his personal prejudice or even individual taste had played an inappropriate role. This largely derived from Sanquhar being on record regarding his profound dislike for horror cinema, amid reports that he had always been very squeamish about both violence and sex on screen.

  ‘I am not so naïve, like Keats’s Grecian urn, as to believe beauty is truth and truth beauty,’ he had once said. ‘If art is about truth, then art must necessarily reflect ugliness. But my problem with even the very idea of these films is that they trade only in ugliness. Ugly images, ugly emotions, ugly sentiments and, of course, very ugly acts. One can’t help but conclude that such works can only inspire ugly thoughts and ultimately inculcate ugly attitudes.’

  The film-maker whose application sparked the controversy was Russell Darius, a famously reclusive horror director whose media shyness would not have been much ameliorated by this particular storm. He restricted his response to a few well-chosen remarks that struck Jasmine as being ostensibly magnanimous but disguised an incendiary intended to ignite a different debate.

  ‘I do not believe Julian Sanquhar acted outwith his remit,’ he said in a written statement, ‘and I do not believe he was motivated by prudery, by religious belief or by the desire to avoid the political fall-out from publicly funding a horror film. I also do not believe he has ever actually watched a horror movie all the way through. This wasn’t a decision based upon moral concerns, but based upon artistic elitism.’

  And with that, the consensus was that Darius had truly hit the mark.

  ‘Why don’t we take a wee dawdle anyway,’ Sanquhar suggested. ‘So that our chit-chat doesn’t pollute Kirsteen’s delivery.’

  Kirsteen put her hands up briefly in a gesture of benevolently taking her leave. It was only as she turned away that Jasmine realised the presenter was effectively being dismissed, and for the second time. Saint Julian was a well liked and gentle natured man, but it was a timely reminder that he was also a powerful one.

  His voice was soft, his tones mellow: not one accustomed to oratory, but nonetheless accustomed to being listened to. She recalled the advice of a lecturer on the importance of dynamic range and the power that lay at both ends of the spectrum: ‘In the words of the late, great Bill Shankly, if you want people to listen, speak softly.’ Jasmine had remained under the impression that Shankly had been an influential theatre director until catching ten minutes of a documentary a few months back.

  Sanquhar’s accent was very similar to Hamish Queen’s. They had hailed from opposite ends of Scotland but neither was going to be taken for a Glaswegian or a Leither any time soon. Nonetheless, there was something charming about the way he tarried over the words ‘wee dawdle’, like they were a treat on his tongue, savoured like a sneaky bite of deep-fried Mars bar in a health-food restaurant.

  As they walked through the ancient churchyard in the watery afternoon sunshine it struck Jasmine that he hadn’t asked her what she wanted or whether she was with a particular paper or magazine. It made her appreciate that he was very used to interviews and consultations, and was perhaps ready with some one-size-fits-all answers. On the plus side, she had him to herself: no PA hovering around to pull him away if the going got tough.

  ‘I’d like to ask you about the Glass Shoe Company,’ she said, trying to disguise her scrutiny of his reaction.

  He didn’t miss a beat.

  ‘In that case, it’s a good thing you said no to coffee. I’d have covered all there is to know before we made it to the Brig o’ Doon hotel.’

  ‘I realise it was a short-lived venture, but that in itself poses some questions. You and Hamish Queen, that’s quite a combined pedigree. Yes, you were both young and inexperienced, but on paper it must have looked a formidable prospect. What brought you together? What was your shared goal? Why didn’t it work out?’

  Sanquhar gave a flustered but friendly sigh.

  ‘That’s a lot of questions. In response to the last I’ll just say it’s unanswerable, because even in retrospect it’s impossible to pick apart what went wrong in theatrical ventures. I could just scream out: “It was everybody else’s fault” and that would be authentically luvvie, wouldn’t it?’

  He gave a wry smile and cast an eye back towards the church ruin, where Kirsteen was now talking to the sound engineer.

  ‘Hamish and I met at school, at Gordonstoun. It would sound terribly precious to say that our common love of theatre forged a bond between us, but I’m not sure that our common love bonded us as much as our common disdain. Unlike most of our peers, we didn’t much care for rugby and nor did we fancy ourselves as chancellor of the exchequer, head of a multinational or dictator of a small republic.

  ‘We went our separate ways after school: he to Cambridge, myself to Oxford, but we kept in touch. I acted a bit at college and didn’t do too badly, I’m told, but frankly I was always terrified. It really is a lot scarier than it looks, which nobody can understand unless they’ve tried it. Have you ever …?’

  ‘I trained at the SATD, but didn’t finish.’

  ‘Oh really? Why not?’

  ‘My mother … she was ill, and she died.’

  ‘Oh, I’m terribly sorry.’

  ‘She was an actress too,’ Jasmine added, hurrying past this. ‘Before I came along.’

  ‘So if it’s in the family, you’ll understand what I’m talking about. Scary stuff, but I loved being part of the shows. In college productions I loved the mucking in, the business of everybody having a dozen different jobs.’

  ‘Less so a dozen different parts,’ Jasmine suggested.

  ‘Quite. That was actually worse than a lead role. When you’re five different spear-carriers as well as an old woman it’s like juggling knives. But they were good times. Great times. That’s why I was always drawn to working with smaller companies, regional theatres. There’s a strong sense of shared purpose and the ever-present excitement of flying by the seat of your pants. One might also call it the ever-present threat of imminent disaster, but there’s no thrill where there’s no danger. That’s why I was tempted by Hamish’s proposal.’

  ‘He came to you?’

  ‘Yes. Hamish is originally from the Highlands, as you may know. The summer before he left for Cambridge he saw 7:84 touring John McGrath’s play The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black Black Oil when it came to Balnavon, the village closest to his family’s estate. They performed it in the church hall and it made an enormous impression on him.’

  ‘Politically?’ Jasmine asked, aware of the play’s history.

  ‘To some extent, yes. I think it taught him a perspective upon his native Highlands that he’d never got from the family hearth and certainly not at Gordonstoun. But its true impact on Hamish was theatrical: the way it engaged with audiences right there in the heart of their communities. It didn’t just bring the play to them, it brought them into the play, joining in the songs, reminding them that as Highlanders it was their story.’

  ‘Did you see it too?’ Jasmine asked.

  ‘Only on television: Play for Today. I didn’t experience what Hamish did, but at least it meant I understood what he was so enthused about. From then on he kept talking about these two elements that had stuck with him: making theatre come alive for an audience and producing plays that were about modern Scotland.’

  ‘Hence the name Glass Shoe,’ Jasmine said, allowing him to skip a few pages.

  ‘Indeed,’ he replied, fixing her with a scrutinising stare, seeming both impressed that she knew this and a little wary. They were at the eastern boundary of the graveyard, as far from the kirk as the grounds extended, and he really wouldn’t have a quick rescue if the conversation took an awk
ward turn.

  ‘The problem was that Hamish was not what one would describe as politically literate, never mind politically driven. He understood spectacle and emotion: that’s what had truly grabbed him about seeing 7:84. But the ideological motivation that was so clear and passionate in someone like McGrath became really just a woolly mix of duty and good intention in Hamish’s case.’

  ‘A kind of liberal guilt?’

  ‘A little, yes. All the agitprop gusto that had initially energised him soon became a rather nagging sense of obligation. When we talked about starting our own touring company, one of my first tasks was to make him accept that although he’d been inspired by 7:84, and might feel he owed certain debts, in truth he didn’t want to be 7:84. Yes, he wanted to make theatre come alive for audiences in places like Balnavon church hall, but he was more aesthete than activist and I had to make him accept how that was okay.’

  ‘Hence Shakespeare instead of agitprop. Albeit Scottish and Highland-set.’

  ‘Well, the great thing about the Bard is that it always saves on paying a playwright. I think it was me who suggested it, just as a for-instance, to help re-focus Hamish’s vision. He seized upon it and from there on in we fairly fired each other up.’

  He leaned back against a headstone and gave a self-deprecatory grin.

  ‘Oh, we set the theatre world to rights in a few pubs, let me tell you. Ranting to each other about how patronising it was to suggest that these village halls would only respond to leftist rabble-rousing. We firmly believed there was an audience there who would come out for fresh, lively, exciting theatre. Get the right players together, talented actors who could share our passion, and we’d play a different church hall or community centre each night for months, then on the back of that we’d have longer runs in the cities, garnering plaudits and filling the coffers to fund the next production.

  ‘When I say we believed, I mean we really believed, and we put our money where our mouths were. I gave up a position with a company in Leeds, Hamish walked away from the Pantechnicon and we both put in a stake. I was happy to because it was that college thing again: everybody mucking in, doing everything from painting flats to selling tickets on the door.’

  Sanquhar looked away, beyond the church to somewhere much further away. He had this strange look of remembered optimism and regret. Jasmine waited for him to resume, but his focus remained momentarily elsewhere.

  ‘So what went wrong?’ she prompted. ‘It’s my understanding that the company imploded during rehearsals for its first production. Was the chemistry wrong somehow? Clashes of personalities? Artistic incompatibilities?’

  She was hoping to edge him towards discussion of the personnel but, mindful of Hamish Queen’s lies and evasion, she was treading lightly lest the shutters come down.

  ‘It wouldn’t be healthy to apportion blame. It’s all too far back and we’ve all lived long lives since. We were all culpable in our own different ways.’

  ‘That sounds like a politician’s answer.’

  ‘As it should. I’ve been a politician of sorts my whole career. The only difference is that in the arts you have to be twice as delicate.’

  ‘Yes, but when a politician says something like that it just makes it all the more obvious that there’s something else he’s not saying. What happened in rehearsals?’

  He shrugged.

  ‘All the things you said: the wrong chemistry, personality clashes, artistic incompatibilities.’

  As Sanquhar spoke, he was gazing east towards the sea: looking to his right, where Uncle Jim said your eyes strayed when you were lying. She’d trod lightly and the shutters had come down anyway. Time to be more direct.

  ‘When I asked Hamish Queen about this he claimed he could only remember the names of two of the people involved, and yours wasn’t one of them. I only learned you were partners from Glass Shoe’s official records at Companies House.’

  She watched for a response and got it. He looked back at her sharply: not exactly reeling, but there was a hardening of his expression.

  ‘I think that level of obfuscation indicates we’re talking about more than just a few luvvie tantrums. And your own reluctance to apportion blame suggests to me that there’s someone you would apportion it to if you weren’t being “delicate”.’

  He stood up straight, taking his weight from the headstone. Jasmine thought he might be about to storm off, and she wondered whether this would be the moment he demanded to know who she was with and what was her angle.

  He stared past her, back towards the auld kirk, but he wasn’t signalling for rescue. It was as though he could see something there other than the production crew, something that was making him very uncomfortable.

  ‘I know why you’re here, Miss Sharp,’ he stated, his tone still soft but an underlying edge to it. ‘You’re looking for Tessa Garrion. Hamish told me. He was on the phone as soon as he’d finished talking to you.’

  So that was why he hadn’t inquired in any depth about who she was: he already knew.

  ‘Well, I’m glad we’ve got our cards out on the table. Here’s an odd thing though, Mr Sanquhar. I never told Hamish Queen that I was looking for Tessa Garrion. I only said I was delving into her past. Why would he think she was missing?’

  He stared at the kirk again, then back at Jasmine. No glance to the right.

  ‘The same reason as our little enterprise imploded. She walked out during rehearsals and none of us ever heard from her again.’

  ‘And was she the individual you’re delicately not blaming?’

  ‘No, most definitely not. None of us were blameless, though if anyone came closest to that distinction it was Tessa. But you’re right: it wasn’t arguments and tantrums that drove her away.’

  ‘What did?’

  ‘If I was going to give you another politician’s answer, I’d say lack of professionalism, but as you’re being paid to look into this in depth, you ought to know the true nature of what you’re dealing with.’

  He glanced again towards the ruin and the ancient graveyard before it. It was as though he was afraid of being jumped by an assailant hidden behind one of the headstones.

  ‘I have a reputation – I would say an unfair reputation – in certain circles for being something of a prude. I’m no fool: I’m aware the Saint Julian nickname isn’t always intended generously. I don’t get on my soapbox, but there are things I disapprove of, and I do so because I’ve seen them in extremis. When we rehearsed our ill-starred first play we did so at Hamish’s estate. His family were abroad for a month so we had the run of the place.’

  A glowering darkness came over his face, mixing distaste with genuine anger.

  ‘These were not teenagers overdosing on the unaccustomed freedom of their parents being gone for the weekend. We were all grown adults, twenty-four, twenty-three at the youngest. This wasn’t letting your hair down. This was letting something else in.’

  The anger in him seemed to choke his voice and he fell silent.

  ‘What are we talking here,’ Jasmine prompted. ‘Booze, drugs … orgies?’

  He shot her an impatient look: she really wasn’t getting it.

  ‘William Blake said the road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom, which is true if you’re sixteen years old and have woken up with a chastening hangover the morning after raiding your father’s drinks cabinet. On the road of excess this wretched company was walking, there may well have been a palace of wisdom at the end but there were many crossroads to be negotiated and we were always travelling at midnight. Do you know what is said to wait at the crossroads at midnight?’

  ‘No,’ Jasmine confessed.

  ‘Do you know where you are, Miss Sharp?’

  That edge to his voice was hardening, like he was aware of a threat and not from her.

  ‘I mean, do you understand why we’re filming Kirsteen here?’

  She nodded, and realised she knew also what he was alluding to regarding the crossroads myth.

  ‘“A
winnock-bunker in the east,”’ she quoted, casting her eyes to the very spot. ‘“There sat auld Nick, in shape o’ beast.”’

  Sanquhar nodded approvingly, though his expression didn’t brighten any.

  ‘Are you suggesting there was some kind of ritualism going on?’ she asked, trying to keep incredulity from sounding like outright scorn.

  ‘I was once less circumspect than I ought to have been regarding certain of my views,’ he replied, demonstrating that she’d failed. ‘What I was trying to convey is not something that is easy for people to understand. It’s far easier to caricature what I was alluding to, because then it can be more easily dismissed: a cloven-hoofed devil with horns and a pitchfork is clearly absurd, so we don’t need to be afraid of it. But it was what I witnessed at Kildrachan House that made me believe there is something that feeds off the worst in men and further emboldens them. When there is a wanton will in man to seek the darkness, then there is something out there that listens, and it whispers back.’

  Sanquhar’s voice was low and dry, his eyes unblinking in the intensity of their stare. She recalled the unsensational tone of the Sunday Times article, the interviewer not sharing Sanquhar’s belief but in no doubt about his conviction. Then, as now, he was said to seem genuinely afraid of whatever had inspired it.

  ‘Tessa left because she was disgusted – and not a little scared, I should imagine. It’s small wonder she never got back in touch with any of us.’

  ‘But what actually happened? What kind of things are you talking about?’

  He shook his head once, the gesture all the more final for its brevity.

  ‘These are not memories I care to revisit. And you should understand that nobody else will either.’

  Jasmine let out a small, measured sigh of frustration, less than she felt but precisely as much as she wished to convey.

  ‘Do you at least recall the names of the people you’re talking about, or are you going to lie to me like Hamish Queen did?’