For Faughie's Sake (17 page)

‘Hello Jackie,’ I said, my voice squeaking with the effort of controlling it, ‘think this is funny, do you?’

Jackie had been laughing with Steven, but their mirth evaporated as soon as they saw me.

‘We’ll be right outside if you need us, Ma’am,’ said Galbraith as he and his CIA Secret Police-type associate walked out of the kitchen.

‘Thanks lads,’ said Jackie giving them a sarcastic thumbs up. ‘Appreciate the hospitality.’

Steven stifled a snigger.

Jackie and Steven were standing together obviously relaxed and enjoying themselves. Four boys I didn’t recognise sat at the opposite end of the long kitchen table. Mag was sitting with his legs hugged tight to his chest up on the counter as far from the rest of them as it was possible to get.

‘Are you here to spring us, Trixie?’ said Jackie, causing Steven to giggle.

I ignored him and spoke directly to Steven, ‘What the hell were you doing?’

In reply Steven put his head down and sulked.

‘We didn’t do anything, Mrs McNicholl,’ whined Mag.

I ignored Mag and turned my beam on Jackie, ‘You should
be ashamed of yourself, getting kids involved in your anarchistic carry on.’

‘Och, it was just high jinks, nothing to worry about,’ said Jackie.

‘Jackie stopped them, Mrs McNicholl!’ said Mag, his voice high with indignation. ‘He came to help us.’

‘I wasn’t speaking to you,’ I barked towards Mag.

‘Well I’m speaking to you,’ Jackie boomed back.

Stunned by his masterful authority, my gas was instantly at a peep. Everyone’s was.

‘Steven and his pal got chased in here by these hooligans,’ Jackie continued, nodding towards the four boys sat at the other end of the table. The boys looked nervous and did nothing to deny it.

‘It’s true, Trixie,’ said Mag, ‘we had to run for our lives. If it hadn’t’ve been for Jackie – we’d’ve been dead men.’

‘They said you had weapons and tools.’

‘That wee psycho did,’ said Jackie, pointing to one of the boys, ‘he was running through the woods with a tomahawk.’

‘It missed my head by inches,’ Mag squealed.

I looked at Steven but he refused to return my glance. I sat down and took three deep breaths. Then I took a few more. Then I stood up again and leaned into the face of Tomahawk Boy.

‘Listen, Geronimo,’ I said between gritted teeth, ‘if you as much as look at my boy again I will personally chop up your goolies for firewood, got it? What’s your name?’

Geronimo sat staring straight ahead, as did the other three stooges. They’d probably never encountered a Weegie psycho before, especially a Weegie psycho
mum
whose child they had threatened.

‘Micky Smith’s your name, eh?’ said Jackie, ‘Live out Annacryne way. I know your faither.’

Micky Smith was a small overweight kid with shockingly bad acne, the kind of acne that, although he couldn’t have been more than seventeen, had left him with deep permanent craters in his face.

I felt sorry for his mother. I imagined her in pregnancy, giddy with anticipation, joyful when she delivered a healthy son, a cute pink-cheeked bouncing boy that grew into a bright-eyed
clear-skinned schoolboy who, with the cruel onslaught of puberty, became a festering gargoyle of boils, suppurating sores and pus-filled carbuncles. A face that, literally, only a mother could love.

‘Mr Robertson had a big spade,’ said Micky, suddenly finding his voice and pointing at Jackie. As his face muscles worked to speak, his sores wept a little – it was painful to watch. ‘He said he was going to stove my head in with it.’

‘Well, lucky for you he didn’t,’ I spat, ‘and you’re lucky you’re not all being arrested.’

‘But we didn’t do anything!’ wailed Mag. ‘Not fair!’

‘I don’t mean you, Mag, or Steven, or … Jackie, why were you in the woods –’

‘That’s my business.’

‘– with a spade?’

‘He told them he was ferreting,’ said Mag, ‘you know, trapping rabbits.’

‘But,’ I said carefully, I didn’t want to say something stupid, ‘don’t you need a ferret for that?’

Steven and Jackie smirked again.

‘Jackie told them it had escaped. He said his ferret is a free man, a Faughian, a Scot, a European, and not subject to American imperialism. He’s going to sue for loss of ferret income.’

Everyone sniggered at that, even Micky. Clearly, despite the conflict with the tomahawk and the spade, they all admired Jackie’s rebellious stance.

‘Still and all,’ I said, maintaining my serious tone, ‘this is private land.’

‘No such thing in Scotland,’ said Jackie. ‘The Land Reform Scotland Act of 2003 provides that we can all enjoy access rights, here and anywhere else for that matter.’

‘Dinah could have had you arrested for criminal damage, and with good reason: you had tomahawks and spades after all,’ I insisted. ‘Just lucky I was able to talk her out of it. It wasn’t easy, you know.’

‘The only reason they didn’t call the cops is because they don’t want any bad publicity, not when the deal hasn’t gone through yet.’

Jackie might be right.

‘You, Micky Smith,’ he said, ‘if your tomahawk had hit that boy you’d be getting arrested now for murder. You’d get ten years at least. How would a good-looking bitch like you cope in prison?’

Micky Smith gulped, the others wriggled, scraping their chairs on the kitchen floor.

‘Watch your back, laddie, because I’ll be watching you.’

‘Sorry, Mr Robertson,’ Micky squeaked.

‘I don’t need your apology.’

‘Sorry, Magnus, sorry Stevo.’

‘That’s more like it. Play nice, boys, eh?’

Jackie winked at me. I wasn’t sure if it was an inclusive us-adults-together wink or he was showing off his reconciliation skills.

This wasn’t the first time he’d saved Steven’s neck and it probably wouldn’t be the last. I didn’t know what Jackie was doing in the woods, but when I thought about the damage that tomahawk could have done, I thanked god he was.

All the while I was processing this I looked at Jackie. Instead of turning away, as he usually did, he smiled. He walked over and gave the back of my chair a wee encouraging pat. There was no physical contact between us, he had only briefly touched the wood on the back of the chair, but my body surged with heat and relief.

Maybe he had finally forgiven me. Maybe now we’d move on and build a more lasting relationship. I really hoped so. This rapprochement, if this was what it was, was long overdue.

‘Anyway,’ said Jackie, ‘they can’t hold us here. I was only staying until you came. Dinah told me they’d called you; I didn’t want you worrying.’

I smiled. ‘Thank you so much, Jackie,’ I gushed, ‘I hardly know how to thank you, I …’

‘Come on lads,’ he said briskly, ‘we don’t want to outstay our welcome. Who wants a lift? You can all pile in the back of the van.’

I knew Steven wouldn’t want to come home in my car. I was glad he was going in the van with Jackie and the rest of them. Not
that I had any warm feelings towards Smith and his cronies, but it was probably safer for Steven and Mag to at least have the veneer of friendship with these village thugs. Jackie had the right idea: throwing them together and making them ‘play nice’. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer, that’s what my mum Elsie always used to say, and she and Jackie had a lot in common.

As they were standing up to leave we could hear Dinah’s heels clip-clop down the corridor.

‘Has everything been sorted out?’ she said, addressing both me and Jackie.

Jackie ignored her and stood by the door.

‘Thank you so much, Jackie,’ I repeated.

He smiled and gave me a mock military salute as he led the boys out. I turned to Steven but he hurried past me towards Jackie. I should have been frustrated by his rudeness but I was too happy to care. Steven was safe and Jackie liked me again, that was all that mattered.

‘Handsome, isn’t he?’ said Dinah as she watched Jackie and the boys being escorted off the premises by the security guards. ‘What’s his name?’

‘Jackie Robertson,’ I said, my voice betraying my pride.

Dinah stood leaning in the doorway facing down the corridor but now swung round to face me, her arms folded.

‘Oh,’ she said flirtatiously, ‘I think someone’s been smitten.’

I laughed. I looked down and suddenly realised that my hands were spotted with white splodges of dried flour. I’d rushed out of the house in such a hurry I’d forgotten to wash up and now as I picked at each stubborn flour plaque I wondered what Dinah would think if she knew I’d tried to kiss Jackie that time. She’d probably think I was sick.

‘You like him, don’t you?’ she teased.

‘Actually it’s a bit more complicated than that.’

‘Oooh, complicated! I love complicated. I thought I sensed a tension between you two.’

‘Well, there’s certainly been plenty of tension, but not the kind you mean.’

‘Oh, poo!’ Dinah pouted. ‘Don’t be a spoilsport, Trixie, why ever not?’

‘Because,’ I said, preparing to say out loud the words that had puzzled and hurt and frustrated me for so long, ‘because Jackie’s my father.’

After that bombshell, Dinah made tea and insisted on hearing my complicated family history. I told her how I’d inherited Harrosie and moved here, how the gardener had offered his services, how I’d fancied him, thrown myself at him. How I’d tried to snog him before discovering the awful truth:

That the man from whom I’d inherited was actually my grandfather – Jackie’s dad. That while working here as a chambermaid my mum had had an affair with the sixteen-year-old son of the house, Jackie, of which I was the result. That, because of a bitter family feud, Jackie’s father had passed him over and left the house to me. That Jackie, although he knew I was his daughter and knew that I was unaware of this, didn’t have to guts to tell me. Hence me chucking myself at him. That, because he was so bitter, Jackie refused to acknowledge me, and, because I was so hurt, I’d drunkenly tried to out him at the ceilidh. The whole thing was a humiliating mess but I was glad I was finally able to talk about it. When I got to the bit about trying to snog Jackie I thought Dinah would be shocked, but she was confused.

‘So,’ she said, ‘am I missing something?’

‘I don’t know, I …’

She put her hand over mine, talking gently but firmly.

‘If I’ve got this right you inherited Harrosie from your grandfather–’

‘Well, when I say I inherited it, it’s a bit more complicated than that. My grandfather never owned Harrosie outright, he owned a lease on it. I’ll never be able to sell it, but in as much as he left the lease to me, I inherited it. That’s what pissed Jackie off I think. He grew up in Harrosie, it had been his home until his father threw him out, he probably assumed the lease would come to him.’

‘Yes, but your grandfather was entitled to bequeath the lease to whomsoever he chose. You were not involved or even aware of his decision so you certainly didn’t steal anything, you did nothing wrong. Secondly, regarding the kiss: if a handsome man like Jackie is kind to a lonely woman she’s going to want to snog him; that’s a scientific fact.
You
didn’t know he was your biological father.
He
did, however, and he might have mentioned it to you before you embarrassed yourself. Here too, you did nothing wrong. And thirdly, when you told the people at the ceilidh that Jackie was your dad you did nothing more than tell the truth; a truth he should have been proud to acknowledge.’

Dinah put her arm around me and looked into my face, ‘You did nothing wrong.’

I stared into my tea not trusting myself to return her look. Dinah got the message and stood up and went to the tap to drip a little cold water in her tea.

Everybody loved Jackie, everybody in the village, including Walter and Jenny. My own family: Steven, Jackie’s grandson, thought he was great. Even my own mother liked him enough to bear his child.

‘Thanks, Dinah,’ I said, ‘you’re the first person who’s seen it from my side.’

Dinah sipped her tea and screwed up her face. She must have put too much cold water in it. She walked out of the kitchen, came back a moment later with a bottle of Auchensadie and poured a stiff measure into her tea cup.

‘Top-up?’ she offered, waving the bottle.

Without lifting my head I gave one short definite nod and she poured a generous glug in my cup.

‘There’s another thing we have in common,’ said Dinah, ‘we’re both living in the houses we were conceived in.’

‘Yeesh, I’ve never thought about that,’ I said, ‘I’d rather not dwell on my old mum doing the mattress mambo with Jackie.’

‘I had always thought that Faughie would be the place I would die,’ said Dinah, staring into the bottom of her mug.

‘Inverfaughie won’t be my final resting place,’ I said slugging my whisky-tea.

Dinah pulled a twenty packet of cigarettes out of her back pocket.

‘Want one?’ I shook my head. Even if I was unable to resist the whisky there was no way I was going back to smoking again. It was frightening.

So as not to tempt me, Dinah shifted to the other end of the table, sat down and lit up. She dragged so hard on her cigarette you would think it owed her money, sucking down every last molecule of the deliciously moreish nicotine. From this distance I liked the smell of the cigarette smoke. It reminded me of long-ago nights out in pubs and clubs, the exotic hypnotic romantic smell of immortality and youthful decadence, and I felt the haunting pangs of self-denial. Dinah had set out a plate of posh biscuits and I teeth-tore the wrapper off one.

But up close Dinah smelled quite differently. Up close her smell made me think of old pubs when they first opened in the morning. Her perfume had damp gothic top notes, the sweet decay of dead lilies, and when she’d leaned into my face I’d caught a whiff of rotting gums and guts. No wonder she had such a worrying cough.

I devoured the Fortnum & Mason biscuit. I scrunched up the wrapper and casually stuffed in it my jeans pocket. I’d show it to Jenny later and see if she could source an order from somewhere.

‘I’m even more worried now that MacIntyre might pull out of the deal,’ said Dinah.

I nodded, understanding her anxiety.

‘I know how you feel. I’m stuck here until Global Imperial pay up what they owe me. I suppose we’re both in the same boat: we both need cash and we’re both depending on rich Americans to decide our fate.’

‘You make it sound terribly dramatic. I suppose it is. And what will be your eventual fate, Trixie?’

‘Glasgow, my home town, that’s my destiny. I feel about Glasgow the way you feel about Faughie. I made a mistake coming here. I don’t have any of your happy childhood memories of this place.’

‘But that’s all they are: memories. My family are gone, there’s no one here who needs me.’

I couldn’t disagree. Dinah’s family had enjoyed the grace and favour of ancient monarchs but there was nothing left for her here now.

‘But you, Trixie, you still have your business.’

‘Och, away, I’m only running the B and B to raise the deposit for a flat in Glasgow. Believe me, Dinah, I’d do anything to get out of Faughie.’