by Stan Arnold
‘Aye,’ said Hamish. ‘Gold Blend Instant - get it fra yon supply ship. Comes up river aboot every two months, that’s if the idle gowks deceed tae shift their arses.’
‘Oh, and sorry for yez all, the air-con’s no on. Timer’s set for aboot nine.’
That did it. Everyone was sat down with their coffee. The lighting was pleasantly subdued. I was time, Mrs Hathaway thought, to go on the offensive, in the nicest possible way.
‘Hamish? It’s alright if I call you Hamish?’
‘Nae probs, hen.’
I have to say there are somethings here we weren’t expecting.
‘Like the lecky?’ he said with a broad smile.
‘Yes.’
‘Like the Glasgae accent?’
‘Yes.’
‘But not the Gold Blend Instant?’
‘That too.’
‘Right then,’ said Hamish. ‘It’s a long story.’
‘That isn't a problem.’
‘And it’ll be in slo-mo. Ma heed’s banging like a Govan riveter’s kneecaps.’
Mrs Hathaway sat forward, put her elbows on her knees and cupped her hands around her pretty chin. She stared right into Hamish’s eyes.
‘We’ll listen.’
Chapter 53
The early morning mist swirled around the young man on the end of the pier. He was, obviously, a local. He was slim and naked, apart from a loincloth and several necklaces. He had jet-black hair in a ‘pudding basin’ haircut, and eyes that caught the rays of the morning sun. He carried a long wooden spear. As yet, he carried no air of authority. He just happened to be the one hanging around the end of the pier, doing a bit of early morning fishing.
He stopped spearing his breakfast of grilled piranha and listened. He’d picked up the asthmatic chugging of an approaching craft.
After about five minutes, the boat appeared. It seemed it was all it could do to push through the mist as it burped and backfired its way towards the pier. If he’d been a cinema buff, the young man would have recognised the craft as similar to one featured in the 1951 film, African Queen, starring Humphrey Bogart and Katherine Hepburn, directed by John Houston, adapted from the 1935 novel of the same name by C. S. Forester, produced by Sam Spiegel and John Wolf.
But as the nearest cinema was a 700-mile walk away, and was still waiting to have sound installed, he was unable to make that rather interesting comparison.
He had to deal with what he saw. And what he saw was a just-about-floating disaster, with a thin black central chimney coughing out clouds of mustard-coloured smoke. His attention soon turned to its occupant - a large, red-faced man, with wild, silvery hair. He was wearing strange clothes - a black suit and a black shirt with a strange white band at the neck.
He took a hand from the tiller and waved it high above his head. ‘The Lord be praised! Hallelujah! Humanity!’
He pulled the boat alongside the pier, threw a looped rope around one of the supports, then went back and slammed the furnace door. This resulted in a loud explosion and an enormous sheet of flame, which created a 30-foot high, mushroom cloud directly over the boat, which somehow failed to sink. Emerging from the shelter of the boiler, he patted out the fires that had started on various parts of his suit, and looked up at the man in the loincloth.
‘Is there anywhere I can have a wee shit? Every time I hang my arse over the side, some caiman has a go at it.’
It was obvious to the Reverend Zachariah McFee, that the young man wasn’t understanding, but, after a few rather vulgar mimes, with accompanying noises, he got his message across, and was led to a small encampment about 100 yards from the river bank.
‘Where’s the cludgie?’
No response.
‘The lavvy?’
Shake of the head.
‘The caramel?’
Shrug - possibly with an indication he could go into the jungle to relieve himself.
There was no way the Reverend McFee was going to bare his buttocks to a load of carnivorous plants crawling with leeches, snakes and poisonous spiders.
Purple-faced, he turned and scampered back to the pier, crouched double - rather like a speeded-up version of Charles Laughton in Hunchback of Notre Dame. He got to the end of the pier, just in time. The structure was about four feet high, which, he fervently hoped, would place his bits well out of caiman reach.
Nature having taken its course, the Reverend McFee stepped onto the boat, collected his suitcase and walked back to the village, where people were waking up.
He attracted a lot of attention from the villagers. Mainly because his skin was such a funny shade of red, and because they had never seen a man with smouldering clothes.
Once they had finished pointing and giggling, they damped down some of the areas that were starting to re-ignite, then left him alone and went off to start their daily tasks.
The young man took him into the long house and showed him an area with a bed made of palm leaves, and, with actions, indicated this was somewhere he could sleep.
‘Well,’ said the Reverend McFee, ‘I’ve seen better wank chariots in my time, but that will do nicely thank you.’
They shook hands, and the young man smiled.
‘Look, Hamish, you don't mind if I call you Hamish do you? Hamish, this place may be paradise for you, but to me, when you go up somewhere without a paddle, in your worst nightmares, this is where you end up.’
The young man smiled.
‘But this,’ he patted his shabby brown suitcase. ‘This is the future. This is your future. This is the Sodom and Gomorrah of all futures.’
He hugged the suitcase to him.
‘This will blow your fuckin’ socks off, then blow them back on again with all the holes mended. And Holy Jesus, Mary Mother of God, wait ‘til you see what we’ve got for you in the hold.’
The young man smiled.
At that exact moment, back in Aberdeen, the head of the steering committee for the Society of Global Missionary Zeal and Probity was not smiling. She was displaying psychopathic symptoms, rarely found outside secure facilities.
Chapter 54
Moira McPherson’s Bri-Nylon cardigan bristled with static, while she bristled with indignation. The other committee members sat on bare ladderback chairs around a scrubbed bare wooden table - no expense incurred at the headquarters of the Society of Global Missionary Zeal and Probity.
Actually, the committee members were not sitting, they were cowering. Cowering in the face of Moira’s piercing eyes, threatening personality and enormous bosom. Apart from Moira, the committee was made up of elderly gentlemen, frail, shaking slightly, but as scrubbed and as thoroughly disinfected as the tabletop.
Moira’s solid frame and intimidating personality would make an SAS commando think twice about the consequences of lobbing a stun grenade in her direction. But it was the solidity and size of her gigantic breasts that won each and every argument at SOGMZAP. The elderly men would vote her way on anything, as long as she and her bosoms stayed in the room.
‘We are gathered here today,’ she started. The elderly gentlemen all nodded.
She paused to let her power flow over them.
‘We are gathered here today to conduct a case review for one Zachariah McFee, who I believe is adding a 100 per cent fraudulent ‘Reverend’ in front of his current name.’
‘We are all familiar with Mr McFee, also known as Andy Murray, Sean Connery and Alex Salmond, if some of the bounced cheques arriving at these premises are to be believed.’
‘Not to mention his other alias - Sparky Bill, the owner of the website www.ifyourelectricsarefuckednaebotha.com. which, as you know is currently the subject of an investigation by Interpol.’
‘I’m sure we can all remember how Mr McFee came to SOGMZAP. He’d been a highly qualified electrical engineer who had fallen on hard times. And, I believe, not only did he fall on hard times, but he gave hard times a good kicking while he was falling.’
The elderly gentlemen nodded.
‘He was drinking two bottles of whisky a day when he arrived at one of our shelters. He’d been living in an up-market squat in Glasgow, where the police had formed a special division to deal with the consequences of his actions. He had been regularly involved in serious physical assaults on members of the public, charity workers, law enforcement officers, police dogs, court officials, clergymen and large groups of Rangers and Celtic fans. He ran a number of illicit alcoholic drink production facilities and a nationwide distribution network for the aforementioned products.’
‘Despite our best efforts, he failed to improve, until one day, he approached this committee concerning a prize being offered by a TV company for The Most Reformed Man in Scotland. His proposal was that he would reform his ways, and split the sizeable amount of prize money with SOGMZAP.’
‘This was an unusual request, but, as we know, our principal, potential benefactor, 95-year old Delbert MacSiegfeld, CEO of MacSiegfeld Saturday Night Specials, Dayton, Ohio, married a 17-year old actress, and in three weeks, he was dead. He left her all his fortune. And she, understandably, disappeared.’
‘Not to put too fine a point on it, we needed funds, badly. So we agreed to his scheme. Or should I say, you agreed to his scheme.’
The elderly gentlemen nodded. Moira’s bosom heaved. Their increased levels of concentration caused a significant rise in room temperature.
‘As you know,’ she continued, ‘he became a model client. He gave up alcohol, and began training 12 hours a day at our Missionary School. He researched and wrote an article on The Heathen Women's Friend, the first Methodist women's missionary magazine. He started amassing a mountain of evidence to show how bad he’d been before he got back on the straight and narrow. You probably remember the court photographs of battered faces, the variety of improvised weapons he’d used, him lying in his squat surrounded by mouldy pizzas and cheap sherry bottles. And who could forget that full colour, close-up of the veterinarian’s kidney bowl with that poor Alsatian’s gnawed testicles.’
The elderly gentlemen nodded, and one or two of them winced.
‘Then, thanks to us offering him an honorary missionary posting to the Vatican - he won. Lots of TV coverage, handing over the big cheque and all that malarkey.’
‘We were all there to wave him goodbye as he flew off to Rome. It was first item on the 6 o’clock news. But I think it was a mistake when you decided to arrange for him to stay at a monastery. Now, we all have to live with the consequences of your decision.’
‘I’m sure you recall that, within two hours of his arrival, he had propositioned three novices, used convent funds to join several strip clubs and obtain membership of a number of very private gentlemens’ establishments. He also raided the communion wine cellar and imbibed a significant amount, with disastrous results.’
‘His fight with the Mother Superior after Matins on the second day was vicious, but brief. I certainly wouldn’t want to go ten rounds with Sister Mary of the Holy Gentleness of St Chasm. When he came out of hospital, he refused to answer our emails demanding our half of the cheque.’
‘Within days, he’d disappeared. We know a Reverend Zachariah McFee left Italy a few days later, having cleared his bank account of every last penny. And we know he used his, no doubt, perfectly forged passport for a flight to Brazil. And that’s where the trail runs cold.’
‘So the situation as is stands is we have no money and the TV company are calling me, wanting to know how things are going with Scotland’s Most Reformed Man, and can they pop over to the Vatican and do a follow-up.’
‘If they keep on pushing, and I think you know they will, we’ll be exposed as fraudsters, they'll be exposed as innocent victims, and we’ll lose all the meagre funds we currently receive from the general public. It will be a total and absolute disaster. We’ll be facing bankruptcy, and all the good work we do will have come to nothing. Nothing! Nothing! Nothing!’
Moira banged the table - and when she banged the table, you knew it had been banged.
She looked accusingly at the elderly gentlemen. She stood up and screwed her knuckles into the tabletop surface.
‘Well,’ she said, ‘what have you got to say to Moira?’
The elderly gentlemen looked down at the table, hardly daring to breathe.
‘Come on,’ she goaded. ‘You’ve been much too quiet, for my liking.’
They stayed quiet.
‘Gentlemen, Moira is waiting to hear what you have to say. I do not want to lose my temper!’
Suddenly, one elderly gentleman, at the end of the table, bravely raised his hand.
‘Yes?’ hissed Moira, with as much venom as she could generate.
‘This Sister Mary,’ he said. ‘I don't suppose you’ve got any pictures?’
Chapter 55
While Moira was mercilessly dealing with the elderly committee member’s Sister Mary enquiry, Hamish and the Reverend Zac, had used a bizarre form of communication - all action, drawings and noises - to agree that the next job was to get some muscle and bring things up from the boat.
A team of fifteen women was soon assembled and, working in a chain, they soon had everything neatly stored under the long house. Hamish was very interested in the boxes full of batteries, transformers, gear systems, large copper flasks and piping, electrical components, lights, switches and plugs.
‘Later,’ said Zac, ‘al gemmasel a wee kip, then we’ll gerra few plans on the goo.’
He slept all day and all night, despite the fact that it was a communal long house. Several times in the night, teenage girls pulled back his blankets to check whether such a strange looking person had a willy.
Next morning, refreshed, and totally unaware of the nocturnal inspections, Zac was ready for action.
First job was to find a power source. After more drawings, actions and noises, he discovered there was a large waterfall on a tributary to the main river, about 15 minutes away. The recce went well. The waterfall was big and provided a fantastic 150-foot drop.
Within a few days, and with the help of the Amazon ladies, he had transported and built a six-foot diameter waterwheel, geared it to an alternator with pure sine-wave invertors in a little shed, and run armoured, 3-phase cable back to the long house. The result? A lovely 120 volts of smoothly alternating current.
Hamish was with him all the time, and, while having no idea about the electrics, was slowly began learn Zac’s interpretation of the English language.
Zac was flattered by the attention, and soon started Hamish on formal lessons, beginning with the essential Glaswegian vocabulary. This included words for the more private body parts and functions, before moving on to vocabulary describing the various levels of readiness with which young women were prepared to indulge in sexual intercourse. Eventually, the lessons gravitated to useful, everyday words like gizza (could I have), brammer (excellent) and electric soup (cheap wine).
The next job was the still. Fortunately, Zac had prepared one earlier, so it was easy. A small electric heater was plugged into the new supply and condensing water pumped from the river, using garden hose from the hold. Within minutes, a mash was on the go, and the village was on the verge of its first interactive experience with Zac’s special - 120% proof Glenfiddich Urban Alternative.
Zac now had everything a man could want, a small microwave, a fridge, a Cona coffee machine and an endless supply of extremely potent whisky, and, who knows, maybe one of the village girls would come across with the goods.
He also realised that, for the first time he could remember, he was, sort of, developing a family. Since he’d done a runner from Rome, he’d been thinking. There were only so many illegal scams and swindles you could think up, only so many bints you could hit on, and the pulverizing he’d received from Sister Mary, had made him think that maybe he was getting too old to get into fights.
He liked it here, wherever it was.
And the villagers liked him. They now had illumination, alcoholic beverages and, care of the hold, m
osquito-zapping machines and a small refrigerator.
What more could we want, thought Zac. And the answer was nothing. Nothing at all. This was paradise.
And for several months, it remained paradise, until, a week before Mrs Hathaway arrived, Hamish turned up for his morning lesson, and found Zac was gone.
Chapter 56
‘Gone?’ said Mrs Hathaway.
‘Aye,’ said Hamish, solemnly, ‘nae there.’
‘Any ideas?’
‘Well,’ said Hamish with a sigh, ‘punters disappear. Is heavy oot there. Y’nerra-noo whas goon t’bite, poison or crush yous to deeth. Could happen tae anyone, anytime.’
‘We have got enough fuel to get back, haven’t we?’ said Jim.
Mrs Hathaway nodded.
Hamish explained how Zac had left his trunk and all his spare clothes. The only thing missing was a large adjustable spanner. Hamish had immediately checked the water wheel, where he’d seen Zac use the adjustable before. There was nothing.
For the next week, search parties had gone out, every day, without the slightest sign. Eventually, just the day before yesterday, they resigned themselves to the fact that he was gone. A little remembrance ceremony was held in the clearing. The whole village attended. He might have been a maniac, but he was a clever, friendly maniac, and he would be missed.
Hamish cheered up a little, and took them on a tour of the long house and showed them where they would be sleeping.
On Mrs Hathaway’s pile of palm leaves was a golden envelope.
‘How did that get there?’ she asked.
Hamish explained how a helicopter had dropped a pack a couple of weeks ago, and that there was a letter with it saying to expect a Mrs Hathaway, and it would be nice if whoever was in the village could put her and her fellow travellers up for a few nights.
Apparently, Zac was very excited when he read out the letter, because the pack also contained an advanced copy of the latest Daring Dooz magazine. Mrs Hathaway saw the well-thumbed magazine was underneath the gold envelope. It featured a sixteen-page, special international exclusive, Tallulah’s Titanic Trip. The front cover was splashed with a sensational still from the video where she was using Aubrey to beat off the shark. The caption read, Stowaway v Shark - Gory Results Inside!
