For Faughie's Sake (16 page)

There was someone at the counter when I walked in so I lurked at the back of the shop.

‘Ah, it’s yourself, Trixie,’ said Jenny, rather more pointedly than necessary, ‘I’m just finishing Morag’s order. I’ll not be a minute.’

It was Morag Fenton. I couldn’t see her face, but I knew her from the coil of beautiful burnished copper hair that rolled in thick waves down her back.

I leaned awkwardly round her so that I could address her face to face.

‘Hello’ I gushed, smiling and nodding.

‘Hello.’

Morag smiled nervously.

‘Well done getting the part in the film. Jenny and I saw your audition, which we thought was terrific. We knew you were going to get it, didn’t we, Jenny?’

Jenny didn’t back me up.

‘Thanks,’ Morag mumbled.

‘Acting in a Hollywood movie! Your parents must be proud, and getting to kiss Tony Ramos, I bet your mum’s jealous, eh?’

Morag looked at Jenny and then gave a confused noddy shake of the head that was neither yes nor no. She lifted her Ethecom canvas bag and turned to leave.

‘I’m Trixie McNicholl, by the way, Steven’s mum.’ I’d hoped that this would clear Morag’s confusion, but she was no more friendly. She mumbled something polite and generic and scooted out the shop.

‘What’s her problem?’ I asked Jenny.

‘Well, for starters,’ said Jenny, tippy-tapping away on Computer, ‘she doesn’t have a mum.’

‘Oh no.’

‘Dropped dead four years ago. Massive stroke. Overworked. Dairy farming isn’t the cushy number it used to be.’

‘Poor woman. Poor Morag.’

‘Och, Morag is a grand wee soldier. She stepped right into her mother’s shoes and she’d hardly even started the secondary school. Her mother had her well trained,’ Jenny stopped typing, spoke slowly and did her dramatic face, ‘almost as if she knew. She’s only fifteen but Morag practically runs that farm now. She’ll make a terrific farmer and a good wee wife for some lucky man some day.’

‘Well she didn’t seem that impressed when I told her I was Steven’s mother. I hope they haven’t fallen out. I’m pretty sure Steven’s still seeing her; he sneaks away up to that farm every morning on the pretext of walking Bouncer.’

‘Och aye, he’s still seeing her; twice I’ve driven past them out by the lighthouse, hand in hand, love’s young dream the pair of them. And talking of romance: you and Jan were conspicuous by your absence at the public meeting – were you off on a lover’s tryst?’

‘Jenny, how many times do I have to tell you? There’s absolutely hee-haw going on between me and Jan. But anyway, sorry I didn’t make the meeting, bit of a plumbing emergency,’ I lied.

‘Well, you were missed. It was noted,’ said Jenny sharply.

‘Brenda said it was difficult.’

‘Difficult? There was nearly a riot.’

‘She told me. She says you’re thinking of taking it to the European Court of Justice?’

‘I’m not holding out much hope there, too long-drawn-out,’ said Jenny. ‘Some people preferred the general strike idea. No
government likes popular revolt, it gives the peasantry ideas. Jackie says it would embarrass them and give us international press coverage.’

I was surprised that Jenny would bring up Jackie’s name with me. ‘What’s he going to do?’

I had a vision of Jackie, like Enjolras out of
Les Mis
, striking a heroic pose at the barricades, waving the flag for freedom.

‘Is Jackie organising a strike?’

‘I don’t know. We couldn’t vote. The meeting broke up before we could. There were strangers there, outsiders, probably spies and agents provocateurs, who knows. They tried to start a fight, stirring up factions, trying to fragment opinion. It turned quite nasty, actually; I thought there was going to be a lynching. We had to close the meeting before anything kicked off; folk had brought their kiddies. Divide and conquer, that’s what they’re up to. The whole thing’s a shambles. When we shut the hall Jackie and some of the others were so fired up they wanted to storm the machair.’

‘Hmmm,’ I pondered. I was naturally excited about Jackie leading the charge, I’d have paid good money to watch him take back the machair, but at the same time I was worried he might hurt himself. ‘Is that not a wee bit risky?’

‘Of course it is!’ said Jenny, as if I was an idiot. ‘Not to mention stupid and pointless, I told him that. It’s exactly what they want. Then they can make arrests and portray us as dangerous extremists. Brenda talked Jackie and the others out of it, eventually, but now he’s taken the huff with me.’

So, I thought, with a small delicious butter-cream satisfaction, now I wasn’t the only one Jackie wouldn’t speak to. Now, like me, Jenny would know the cold chill of being ignored by him.

‘But Jenny, how will you live without the radiant glow of Jackie’s smile in your life?’

‘I’ll manage, somehow,’ she said dryly.

‘But seriously, I hope you two make up.’

And I meant it. She was my only Jackie source.

‘The whole village knows about my relationship to Jackie,’ I said.

Jenny shrugged.

‘And before you say anything, I know that’s my own fault. I shouldn’t have got drunk and shot my mouth off at the ceilidh, but you don’t know how hard it is to live here, to see him and be ignored by him every day. It’s humiliating.’

‘Whoa there,’ said Jenny, suddenly businesslike, ‘no crying at the counter please, it makes the mags damp, smudges the ink. Now, what can I get you?’

I had embarrassed her. I shouldn’t have been surprised – villagers always closed ranks against outsiders – but I was a little shocked by the brutality of the brush-off. I fumbled in my bag while I decided how to respond.

‘Eh, I’m just returning the DVD, a bit late I’m afraid.’

‘Och, we’ll not worry about that,’ said Jenny, her voice softening a bit. ‘Did you watch the film?’

She seemed to be indicating that she was willing to chat so long as the topic moved away from the subject of Jackie. I grasped the opportunity to return to more amicable ground.

‘No, we never got around to it, is it good?’

‘Aye, it’s old but it’s good.
Passport to Pimlico
, but of course …’

Here it comes, I thought. Now she’s going to do that really annoying thing of telling me how the film ends and, as usual, I’m just going to let her.

‘… the person I’m most annoyed with is that knob-end Walter.’

This was the last thing I’d expected to hear.

‘I mean it this time: finished, finito, good night Vienna.’

I gulped air. Was she finally giving up the pretence that she and Walter were just good friends? Not only that, but she was actually confiding that she’d chucked him. This was huge. This was proper girl talk. Jenny was sharing. With me. Real, intimate, heartfelt stuff.

‘Knob-head said he couldn’t come to the meeting, and do you know why?’

It was Jenny’s prerogative to insult him all she liked, but I had to be more circumspect. Apart from the fact that I genuinely liked Walter, if I slagged him off she’d probably end up forgiving him anyway and then I’d be the bad guy. She’d tell Walter the unpleasant knob-based names I’d called him, which would cause awkwardness.
I resolved to stay sympathetic, no matter what.

‘Did he get stuck in Glasgow with his professor pals?’

‘No, he went to Italy,’ she said flatly, ‘at a time like this, in the midst of the biggest crisis this village has ever known. Walter and his professor pals jumped on a plane to Florence, or “Firenze” as he called it on the phone. Knob. I told him he had to be here but he said the meeting in Florence was much more important. FFS. How can one of his fusty history meetings be more important than the future of our village? Crumbling ancient history, how can that be more important?’ She moaned, ‘Our history’s being made right now. That knob can’t see what’s right in front of his eyes.’

It was my job to be supportive, not to bring up the fact that this was the complete opposite of what she’d said the last time we discussed Walter’s history obsession.

‘What’s happening right here, right firkin now,’ Jenny said, banging the counter, ‘New history. That’s what’s important.’

‘No way, hers is blonde, guaranteed,’ said Steven.

‘Think about it,’ said Mag, ‘that bright blonde colour is out of a bottle, it’s got to be.’

‘Nah, she’s a natural.’

‘Are you kidding? Her eyes are brown, and look how dark her eyebrows are. And her skin is sallow.’

‘You are so full of it,’ scoffed Steven.

‘I’m telling you, I can confidently predict that hers is dark and rich.’

‘Rich?’

They had forgotten I was there. If I kept ironing, kept my head down and kept quiet, I could keep earywigging on their conversation, puerile though it was. I was in the kitchen, they were in the lounge, but I had left the door open a crack and I could hear everything.

‘I mean plenty of it. A big healthy bush. Just the way I like it,’ squeaked Mag.

Steven packed up laughing. I had to stifle a giggle too. They were discussing a young actress on TV.

‘So what colour are Morag’s?’

‘Hey!’ said Steven with a warning snarl.

‘Ok, well then, take Charlotte Wilson, for instance, hers are indubitably red. She’s got red hair on her head, ergo red pubes.
Hot Asian girl who works for G.I. – black hair on her head: black pubes. When they’ve dyed their hair then it’s down to skin tone and eye colour. I can tell the colour of any woman’s pubes just by looking at them,’ Mag boasted.

‘By looking at their pubes?’ teased Steven.

‘I wish,’ said Mag ruefully.

Mag had become a regular visitor to Harrosie. They took it in turns: one day Steven would cycle over to Ethecom and help Mag on his inventing projects, and the next Mag would come to Harrosie. I didn’t mind. After what Brenda had said about the kids in the village picking on him, I preferred it when they were where I could see them. Mag talked absolute nonsense, but it was sometimes entertaining nonsense and he didn’t seem to notice or mind that I was often within earshot. Like most sixteen-year-old boys, Mag and Steven spent a lot of time discussing the anatomy of girls. If it wasn’t pubes it was most likely breasts..

‘H ha h ha h ha, a foam dome! That’s brilliant, Stevo,’ Mag was slapping his thigh and screaming with laughter.

‘You’ve honestly never heard that before?’ said Steven incredulous.

‘Never, but it’s brilliant. That’s what Charlotte Wilson wears, h ha h ha, a foam dome. Or rather, two domes filled with high-density foam.’

‘You fancy Charlotte Wilson; you’re always talking about her.’

‘I do not!’ said Mag, outraged. ‘Oh! Oh! Oh!’

Mag couldn’t contain his excitement and slapped himself repeatedly on the chest, ‘I’ve got a brilliant one, wait for it: a bresticle receptacle!’

Mag collapsed screaming and laughing again, but Steven maintained his composure. If I knew Steven and how competitive he could be, he’d be desperately trying to top Mag’s suggestion. I put the iron down as quietly as I could and keeked through the kitchen door.

Steven nodded and grinned, ‘Did you just make that up?’

‘Of course!’ screeched Mag.

‘Quality,’ says Steven, ‘but bresticle isn’t an actual word, and
technically you said a bresticle receptacle. Technically, there are usually two. Is it a technical bresticle receptacle?’

‘Are you sceptical?’ said Mag, generously feeding Steven the line.

Steven nodded, ‘I’m sceptical about the bresticle receptacle.’

‘I wouldn’t worry, it’s an ethical bresticle receptacle.’

And so it went. I tip-toed back to the ironing board and left them to it.

Although Mag was an oddball, Steven seemed to recognise that there was a lot he might learn from him.

Mag was always coming up with new schemes; he saw opportunities in everything and his enthusiasm and inventiveness were breathtaking. For instance, at the back of our garden the boys had found an abandoned nest of three raven chicks that had fallen out of a tree. Mag insisted that they keep them in our shed and both boys took great delight in caring for the chicks. Mag read up everything he could find about the breed,
C corvus corax,
he informed us, and, realising that the birds could be trained to follow certain basic commands, came up with an audacious plan to sell them as pets to the highest bidder on a Goth website.

He reckoned, and he was probably right, that affluent middle-class young Goths might pay good money for a black sinister-looking bird to sit on their shoulder. A raven might fulfil the role of witch’s familiar: a shape-shifting vampire, it would look cool, attract black-lipped Goth girls and, best of all, scare the shit out of the Neds who harassed them. After all, it was only fair: Neds kept Rottweilers to tear Goths’ throats out. Why shouldn’t ravens peck Neds’ eyes out? Luckily Brenda managed to talk Mag out of it and the birds were eventually returned to the wild.

Steven obviously enjoyed Mag’s company, but I was still nervous about them going about together in public, being seen by the village kids. It had to happen; it was bound to happen sooner or later, and it did. One afternoon, when my hands were covered in flour and I was just getting ready to put an apple pie in the oven, my worst fears were realised.

‘Am I speaking with Trixie McNicholl?’ said an American male voice.

‘Yes, this is she,’ I said grandly.

Another tourist looking for accommodation that I’d have to disappoint, no doubt.

‘Thank you, Ma’am. We have a white male Caucasian, blue eyes, sandy-coloured hair, sixteen to eighteen years old, approximately five feet ten inches, a hundred and twenty-five pounds. We believe he may be your son. Can you confirm?’

I never drove so fast in my life. I screeched up to the front door of Faughie Castle and jumped out to be met by a tall, slim, very serious-looking young man. I thought I recognised him as one of the security guards who had rushed to Knox MacIntyre’s side the other night.

‘This way, Ma’am.’

‘Where’s Steven? I want to see my son,’ I said, halfway between begging and demanding.

‘Please don’t worry, Trixie,’ said Dinah.

Dinah walked towards me smiling and holding out her hands in greeting.

‘Well, where is he?’

‘He’s here. He’s quite safe but I’m afraid there’s been an incident.’

‘I’ll kill him. What happened?’

Dinah laughed, ‘That’s exactly the way I am with my Roddy: once I know he’s safe I want to kill him. Please, Trixie, sit down and I’ll explain.’

Dinah’s laughter could have wound me up but it actually had the opposite effect: if she was laughing things couldn’t be all that bad. I took a deep breath, sat down, and relaxed a little. I felt my teeth, my buttocks and finally my blood vessels gradually unclench. Dinah’s wee dog, Mimi, came to me and as I stroked her I felt my blood pressure return to almost normal.

‘Can I offer you tea? I hesitate to offer you something stronger.’

I shook my head and Dinah and I shared a wee smile.

‘Trixie, this is Mr Galbraith. You’ve already met, although I don’t think you were introduced. Mr Galbraith and his colleagues are security experts, part of Mr MacIntyre’s retinue. An hour ago they detained six boys and a man within the grounds of the estate. Your son, we think, is one of them. They’re fine, all of them, they’re down in the kitchen where another of Mr MacIntyre’s staff is, I believe, offering them soup and crackers, but I’m afraid they haven’t been very co-operative. The gentleman who is with the boys refused to give his name, or any information, and the rest of them followed suit. I thought I recognised your son, I saw you with him in the village the other day, and that’s why I asked Mr Galbraith to call you. Thank you so much for coming, Trixie, I…’

‘Did you say you were detaining them?’

‘Eh,’ Dinah gave an embarrassed wee laugh and suppressed a bigger cough, ‘yes, I’m afraid so.’

‘Can I ask why?’

Dinah looked at the security guy.

‘It’s standard practice, Ma’am,’ said Galbraith, ‘when security has been breached.’

‘Right, but why are you detaining them? I mean, what have they done?’

‘These are private grounds; any encroachment on the estate is trespass and a security risk. Additionally we suspect criminal damage.’

Dinah interrupted him, ‘But we won’t press charges. These are difficult circumstances, you understand, with feeling running so high in the village …’

‘You suspect? What evidence do you have?’

‘Several of them were carrying tools or weapons,’ said Galbraith.

‘Honestly, it’s nothing to worry about, Trixie,’ said Dinah, ‘Mr MacIntyre feels this doesn’t need to become a police matter, that’s why we called you. We hoped you could talk to them, explain the situation.’

I’d talk to them alright. What the hell was Steven doing with tools and weapons? Thank god she wasn’t going to have him charged.

Dinah dropped her voice to a whisper now, ‘Although the sale of the machair has gone through, Mr MacIntyre hasn’t actually bought the castle yet, we’re still in negotiations.’

‘I understand. I’m so sorry my son has caused you this trouble, Dinah.’

‘Please don’t worry about it at all, I know what teenagers are like. Roddy was the same at that age.’

‘I’ll speak to them,’ I said, ‘don’t you worry about that.’

Mr Galbraith walked me down the dingy corridor to the kitchen and as I approached I heard a man laughing. This didn’t sound like a person who was worried about being arrested; this was the insouciant belly-rumbling chuckle of someone without a care in the world. It was a laugh I’d only heard a few times before but I knew it well enough.