by Magnus Mills
I tried a different approach. “OK. We’ll sort this lot out and then go to Mr McCrindle’s.”
“What time are we having our break?” he asked.
“You’ve just had it,” I replied.
“When?”
“When you had your sandwiches.”
“Oh.”
“Well, can we have a fag first?” said Tam.
“I suppose so,” I said.
“Like one?”
“Oh. Er…no thanks. Thanks anyway.”
So we sat in the truck for another few minutes while they smoked two more of Richie’s cigarettes.
“Donald got a bit heavy, didn’t he?” I remarked after a while.
“Fucking right,” said Richie.
There was a brief silence, then Tam spoke. “I fucking hate it when he calls us into the office.”
I nodded.
“So what was this Mr McCrindle like then?” I asked.
“He kept sneaking up on us,” replied Tam.
“Did he?”
“Asking questions about the fence all the time. We could never get rid of him.”
“Maybe he found it interesting,” I suggested.
“Huh,” said Tam.
“I thought he was alright,” said Richie. “He made us a cup of tea one day.”
“Fucking big deal!” snapped Tam. “He was always interfering. What about when he was watching us behind that tree?”
“Oh,” said Richie. “I forgot about that.”
“What was that then?” I asked.
“He was spying on us,” said Tam.
“Was he?”
“Then he comes along. ‘How’s it going, boys?’”
“Perhaps he was just trying to be friendly,” I said.
“Too fucking friendly,” said Tam.
They finished smoking.
“So why do you think his fence has gone slack?” I asked.
Tam looked at me. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Well,” I said. “Why do you think it has? I’m just asking, that’s all. So we know what tools we’ll need.”
“Must be something wrong with the wire,” he said.
“Donald seems to think it’s faulty workmanship.”
“He would.”
“But you’re saying it isn’t.”
“I’ve just told you it’s the wire.”
“So you don’t think a post could have come loose then?”
Tam hardened his look. “Our posts never come loose,” he announced.
“Here’s Robert,” said Richie.
Ralph had just appeared from round the corner of the outbuildings, which meant that Robert wasn’t far behind. A moment later he came into sight. Without a word from me, Tam and Richie both got out of the truck and disappeared into the store room.
When they were gone Robert came and spoke to me. I noticed he was carrying Richie’s Irn-Bru bottle in his hand.
“I had a word with them,” he said.
“Yes…er…thanks,” I replied.
He studied the label on the bottle. “So they’re being alright, are they?”
“Yes, yes,” I said. “Fine.”
“No problems?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Certain.”
“Good. We like all our gangs to be balanced.”
He nodded and smiled at Tam and Richie as they emerged again. Then he wandered off, still carrying the empty bottle, followed by Ralph. I watched as they crossed the yard and entered an office adjoining, but separate from, Donald’s.
I felt a bit sorry for Robert because he didn’t really have enough to do. Ever since Donald had taken over the management of the company, Robert’s role had been gradually whittled away. That was why he spent so much time going for walks. These consisted of a vague meander across the fields surrounding the company premises, along a route apparently chosen by Ralph. Afterwards they would come back and Robert would sit in his office again. Nobody was sure what he did in there. He didn’t even have a telephone these days. Donald ran the company more or less on his own, setting up contracts, dispatching gangs and so forth. This was done with the utmost efficiency. No more than one gang was allowed ‘home’ at any one time, to the extent that I’d hardly ever actually set eyes on any other employees. I had no idea where Nos. 1 and 2 gangs were working or when they were expected to return. The company premises, as a result, always seemed quiet. Donald controlled everything and Robert was only kept on hand to perform the occasional duty. His task today, for example, had been to tell Tam and Richie they would shortly be going to England with their new foreman. Whereas Donald chose to impart the news himself that Mr McCrindle’s fence had gone slack.
♦
Mr McCrindle had a sloping field. A sloping field! As if a farmer didn’t have enough to worry about. It was the curse of his life: always had been. Not only was there a terrible problem with surface water during the winter months, but now all the government drainage grants were beginning to dry up. Worst of all, the bottom part of the field was so steep it was no use to him because his cows wouldn’t go down there. And if they did they wouldn’t come back!
Mr McCrindle told us all this as we stood at the top of the field wishing he would go away. Tam and Richie had heard it all before, of course, and now they kept slightly aloof, leaving me to deal with him.
“Sounds like you’d be better off with sheep,” I remarked.
Mr McCrindle looked at me. “Sheep?”
“Yes,” I said. “With it being sloping, like. They might prefer it.”
“I’m a dairy farmer,” he said. “What would I want with sheep?”
“Er…don’t know. Just a suggestion, really.”
The difficulty with talking to Mr McCrindle was that he had very watery eyes which made him look as though he was going to burst into tears at any moment. You felt you had to be very careful what you said to him. I’d only mentioned sheep in a half-hearted attempt to change the subject of conversation. Up until then we’d been talking about Mr McCrindle’s new fence, and he’d made it quite clear just how disappointed he was.
“I’m very disappointed, boys,” he kept saying, with a glance at Tam and Richie. “Very disappointed indeed.”
He’d been onto us ever since the moment we arrived. No sooner had we got out of the truck to survey the situation, than he had come chugging into the field in his van. I would have preferred to have a chance to work out what had gone wrong before he turned up. Maybe have a walk down the fence line to consider our position and prepare ourselves for awkward questions. But, in the event, he was on the scene straight away, so there was nothing I could do.
“It’s a very sorry state of affairs,” he said, the tears welling up in his eyes.
Mr McCrindle had every right to be disappointed. He had particularly specified a high-tensile fence, even though it was much more expensive than a conventional one. That was why he had contacted the company in the first place. It specialized in high-tensile fencing and had been a pioneer in developing the technique to its present state. Only best-quality galvanized spring-steel wire and weather-resistant posts were used, every fence being erected by highly experienced personnel. He knew this because it was all outlined in the illustrated company brochure (written by Donald).
Mr McCrindle now surprised me by producing a copy from his inside pocket.
“It says here,” he said, reading aloud. “‘A high-tensile fence should retain its tension for the first five years at least’.”
He poked his finger at the line of print. “See? Five years. Cost me a fortune and it went slack overnight!”
We looked across at the evidence, a line of brand new posts marching off down one side of the field, with all the wires hanging limp.
“No use to man nor beast!” he announced.
Poor Mr McCrindle. I thought he was going to break down in front of me. All he wanted to do was get his cows turned into the field, but he couldn’t. Of course he
was disappointed! He was a livestock farmer whose new fence had gone slack, and I wanted to put my arm around his shoulder and say, “There there.”
“Let’s see what the problem is then,” I said, striding towards the fence. As I approached I remembered Donald’s injunction about checking that it was straight. To do so it was necessary to perform a sort of genuflection at one end of the fence and glance along the line of posts. I was just doing this when I became aware that Mr McCrindle had followed me and was looking puzzled.
“What are you doing?” he asked, as I stood upright again.
“Nothing really,” I replied. “Just making sure it’s straight.”
Behind Mr McCrindle I noticed Tam and Richie exchanging glances.
“What’s that got to do with the price of tea in China?” he asked.
“Well…I just thought I’d look, that’s all.”
“And is it?”
“Take a look for yourself.”
Mr McCrindle stood at the end of the fence and genuflected with a grunt. “Oh, me bloody back!” He shut one eye, then the other. “What am I supposed to be lining it up with?”
“Itself.”
I left Mr McCrindle squinting along the line of posts and set off down the fence to see if I could find the fault. Realizing that they were now alone with him, Tam and Richie quickly followed after me.
I inspected every post as I went, to make sure each one was firmly embedded in the ground. They all were. I examined the condition of the wire. It was shining and new, straight from the factory. All the time I was aware of Tam and Richie watching me, watching the tests I carried out on their fence. Eventually we got down to the other end.
“See?” said Tam.
“What?” I said.
“You said a post must be loose.”
“No I didn’t. I just wondered why the fence had gone slack, that’s all.”
Tam looked at me but said nothing.
“So why has it then?” I asked.
“Mr McCrindle shouldn’t have kept interfering.”
“Yeah, alright, but that’s no reason…”
“Well I don’t fucking know!” he snapped. “I’m not fucking foreman, am I?”
“What difference does that make?” I said, but Tam had already turned and gone stomping off up the field.
I looked at Richie. “Now what?”
“Tam used to be foreman.”
“When?”
“Until you came along.”
“What, today?”
He nodded.
“I didn’t know that,” I said. “Who was he foreman of?”
“Me.”
“I thought you were both equal.”
“He’s been a fencer longer than me…or you,” he said.
I sighed. “It’s not my fault. This was Donald’s idea.”
“Oh.” Richie was now idly toying with a fence wire.
“By the way,” I said. “Why do you think it’s gone slack?”
“Mr McCrindle kept interfering,” he replied.
Well, maybe, but it looked to me as if the wires simply hadn’t been tightened up properly in the first place. The fence bore all the hallmarks of a job that had been rushed in the final stages, and in a way Mr McCrindle probably could be held to blame. Tam had complained earlier about how he was forever sneaking up on them and poking about while they were building the fence. I came to the conclusion that Tam and Richie had simply failed to tighten the wires properly because of their haste to escape the attentions of Mr McCrindle. It was no excuse, but, nevertheless, it was probably the reason.
“Is that what you want me to tell Donald then?” I asked.
“Dunno,” said Richie.
Well I knew, and I could just imagine what Donald would say. After all, the company was hardly going to make a profit on a job that had gone wrong like this. Tam seemed to have conveniently forgotten that it would be me, not him, who would have to report back to Donald. It was me who had to take responsibility for restoring the tension in Mr McCrindle’s fence. I could see already that we were going to have to come back again the next day. It had taken so long to get all Tam and Richie’s equipment sorted out and straightened up, before driving out to Mr McCrindle’s, that the light had already started to fade by the time we got there. At this time of the year the darkness crept up on you so slowly you barely noticed, and it was far too late to start tightening wires now. Which meant we’d have to return tomorrow. All highly inefficient. It wasn’t really a job for three men over two days, yet what could I do? I could hardly send Tam and Richie back here unsupervised tomorrow, especially not with Mr McCrindle lurking around. And it seemed unthinkable to split them up and just bring Tam. Or just Richie. As far as I knew that had never been done. Fortunately, Donald seemed to have washed his hands of the Mr McCrindle episode and wanted nothing more to do with it.
As long as I got it sorted out ‘before the beginning of next week’ he would not intervene. Hopefully, by the time the question of profit and loss came up, Mr McCrindle would be a forgotten name in the accounts.
We found Tam brooding about halfway up the fence. There didn’t seem to be any sign of Mr McCrindle anywhere, and we decided he must have cleared off for the time being. So at least we had some respite.
“Got a fag, Rich?” said Tam, as we approached. Richie reached for the lump in his shirt pocket and produced his pack of cigarettes, then fished the lighter out of his jeans. As they lit up I wondered with irritation why he didn’t keep them together in the same pocket.
Tam turned to me. “We’ll have to come back tomorrow, will we?”
“Looks like it.”
“That’s a cunt, isn’t it?”
Yes, I agreed, it was. Dusk was now approaching quickly. I left them smoking and went and stood looking down the steep part of the field into the gloom.
To my dismay I saw Robert coming up the other way. What was he doing there? I turned to warn Tam and Richie, whom I could just see in the fading light. I got their attention, put my finger to my lips, and beckoned them to join me quietly.
“He’s come to snoop on us,” murmured Tam.
We could now see that Robert had Ralph with him. It was interesting to watch their progress up the slope. Instead of scrambling alongside the fence, as we had done, Robert was following the ‘correct’ route for his ascent, taking a very meandering path that gained height gradually in a series of switchbacks. This also suited Ralph, who was getting on in years. However, looking from above, Robert hardly appeared to be getting anywhere at all. First he would move across the slope to the right for several yards, then over to the left, back to the right, and so on. With Ralph plodding behind. It seemed to take for ever. Robert never looked up to see how far he’d got. He just kept his eyes carefully on the ground as he chose his path. It was not until he finally reached the top of the slope that he saw us all standing there watching.
“Good evening,” he said.
I must admit I was impressed by Robert’s demeanour. Not only had he just ascended a steep slope without a pause, but he had also come face to face with three people he evidently meant to surprise. Yet Robert greeted us with a casual ‘good evening’ as though we had been expecting him. A bit of a gent really, although Tam and Richie probably regarded him as ‘posh’.
“Everything under control?”
“Yes,” I said. “We’ve just got to add the finishing touches tomorrow.”
“Good.”
“Are you going to speak to Mr McCrindle?” I asked.
“No, that’s your job,” he replied.
“What about Donald?”
“I’m here on my own account,” he said. “You need to report direct to him…if and when appropriate.”
Then, after a polite nod to Tam and Richie, Robert turned and went back the way he had come, with Ralph trailing after him. Why he’d journeyed all this way to see us remained unclear. If he was merely snooping, as Tam put it, then it was only in a most harmless way because he’d given th
e fence nothing more than a cursory inspection in passing. He was unfamiliar with the technical side of fencing anyway, and was probably only taking a proprietorial interest in a business he could no longer influence. It was like a powerless head of state paying a visit to foreign subjects about whom he knew little. He stayed a short while just to remind us that he existed, and then he went away again. His role was generally unimportant, and as he disappeared into the gathering dusk I couldn’t help feeling sorry for him.
“It’s the dog I feel sorry for,” remarked Tam.
When we were convinced Robert had definitely gone the three of us trudged back up the field. We found the truck in the darkness and headed for the gate. On the way out we passed Mr McCrindle’s van coming in. He flashed his headlights. I flashed back in a friendly way and we fled.
♦
By the time I’d got home, washed and changed and gone out again, the Leslie Fairbanks evening was in full swing. Leslie Fairbanks had a residency at the Crown Hotel Public Bar. Once a week he performed his musical programme entitled ‘Reflections of Elvis’ to what seemed to be the entire local population. We lived in a quiet place on the road to Perth, and the Crown Hotel was the only establishment you could get a drink apart from the Co-Op off-licence. It occupied one side of a small square opposite the bank at the top of the main street. Which was, in fact, the only street. I don’t think Leslie Fairbanks was his real name: I’d seen him once or twice behind the wheel of a lorry with the words ‘L. G. Banks, Road Haulage’ stencilled on the side of the cab. Leslie Fairbanks was his chosen stage persona for the nights he appeared with his accordion. Sometimes the show was billed as ‘Reflections of Hank’ by way of a change, but he always remained Leslie Fairbanks. He generally wore a spangled waistcoat for the occasion. A hundred or so people turned up on such evenings at the Crown Hotel, and they needed to be entertained. Leslie Fairbanks had acquired an amplifier for this purpose, and always spent an hour beforehand setting up his equipment and carrying out a sound check, assisted by a youth in dark glasses. Jock the barman, polishing the surface of his counter, could never for the life of him understand why they had to turn it up so loud. It was more than a man could bear. Jock kept a pair of spectacles on a chain round his neck, and he would frequently peer through them at the tangle of cables running from the low stage to the mixing desk.
