For Faughie's Sake Page 4

  ‘Good boy,’ she said enthusiastically, as she fondled his ears.

  I took my cue from Dinah and patted her little dog. Mimi was adorable, with a cute wee squashed face and dangly ears.

  ‘Oh, her fur is so soft!’ I cried in surprise. Not like Bouncer’s shag-pile coat.

  ‘Yes, and she makes an excellent foot warmer,’ said Dinah. ‘Oh crumbs, what have we here? I’m afraid your little chap has a tick.’

  I didn’t know what she was talking about.

  ‘Just here, behind his ear. See? They get them all the time in this long grass.’

  I peered down while she held Bouncer’s collar and separated his fur.

  ‘Oh my god, it’s moving!’

  Something was embedded in his skin, something alive with flailing limbs and tentacles.

  ‘Sheep tick. Don’t worry, it’s easily removed,’ said Dinah evenly, reaching into her other back pocket and producing a green plastic thing that looked like a miniature crochet hook. ‘This is what I use when Mimi has one, I swear by ’em. Now, it’s important to get the whole of the little beggar, head and all, so slide it in like this, twirl it round, pull upwards and, there!’

  Dinah held up for my inspection the blood-bloated beastie, head and all.

  Not sure how to respond, I nodded. Dinah scraped the tick off the hook with her boot and ground it into the sand where it left a faint pink stain. She held out the small green hook for me to take.

  ‘Now that you know how to use it,’ she said, ‘keep it for next time he picks one up.’

  ‘Oh,’ I blustered, baffled by this casual kindness, ‘that’s kind of you but …’

  ‘Oh, don’t be silly, I have another one at home and it’ll save you a fortune in vet bills.’

  ‘I’m hopeless with that kind of thing. I’ve never had a dog before. Sorry, I meant to say, my name’s …’

  Somewhere deep in her clothes Dinah’s phone began to ring. She smiled an apology and stuck her hand down the neck of her jumper.

  ‘Trixie, pleased to – meet you…’ I tailed off.

  Dinah fumbled and jiggled until she located the phone and immediately opened it.

  ‘Sorry, I have to take this. Here,’ she whispered, thrusting the tick-winkling tool into my hand.

  I stood for a few minutes while she shouted into the phone.

  ‘Oh Georgie, please, you know I can’t do that. There must be another option,’ she wailed.

  Dinah turned away out of the wind and remained with her back to me, intermittently shouting and pleading with her caller. I wasn’t sure what to do. Which was more rude: listening in to her private business or leaving without saying goodbye? Slowly I began to realise that she didn’t expect, or indeed, want me to wait, but by then I had foolishly lingered too long.

  ‘Oh for goodness’s sake,’ she yelled, ‘I’m back in London tomorrow. I’ll do it then.’

  So she was just a tourist, then, a high plains drifter, just passing through. That was a shame, we could have walked our dogs together, maybe got together socially. The main reason I’d given up drinking was because I’d had no one to drink with, and I’d never been comfortable with what they say about people who drink alone. She was kind. It was frustrating.

  Now I began to understand a little of what the locals felt about the tourists. What was the point of getting to know them? Why even bother learning their names? They were only here for the weekend, they were free to leave any time they liked, they had a life to return to.

  I dragged the toe of my walking boots through the wet sand and scraped out ‘thank you’. She was still shouting down the phone and didn’t even notice. It was an intense conversation and it looked like it might be a long one. Her mind was probably on the glamorous life she lived in London. By tomorrow Inverfaughie would be a memory, nothing more, but I hoped she’d at least see my pathetic little sand message before the tide came in and washed it away.

  Chapter 9

  Bouncer and I came home to discover a canvas shopping bag that had been stuffed through the front door. It was from Ethecom, a free gift for everyone in town apparently. The bag was of untreated calico, not exactly a fashion item, but it looked like it could hold a few kilos of potatoes and it had a certain rustic charm. The hippies were always coming up with ideas to make Inverfaughie more green. Last week they had set up a stall in the village and offered home-made sweets for the kids and a free compost bin for every household. They even gave demonstrations on how to compost. Their philosophy seemed to be that there was no such thing as rubbish, everything was recyclable.

  Brenda, bless her heart, had popped a small goat’s cheese into my canvas bag, thereby rendering the bag useless, at least until it had been through a boil wash. This time the cheese wasn’t wrapped in hygienic plastic, but in recycled paper with a note scrawled on it. ‘Lovely to meet you, Trixie, hope we’ll see you at the meeting tonight?’

  One of Ethecom’s latest projects was the setting up of a credit union. A meeting was planned in the village hall to introduce the idea to Inverfaughie. They had talked about it at dinner that night but I hadn’t paid much attention. Before ‘Fat of the Land’ had changed their lives forever, they’d all been IT programmers and bankers. Brenda had been some kind of corporate lawyer. Between them they had now devised an online local bank. It was a wee night out. God help me, I was so stuck for a social life I was actually looking forward to spending my evening at a talk on personal finance.

  *

  The village hall smelled of damp tweed and Scotch broth, a reminder of the pensioner lunches that were held there. I had expected to see Jan there too but there was no sign of him and I was relieved. The turnout wasn’t great, but those who had come seemed prepared to give it a fair hearing. Three different speakers outlined what the credit union offered: current and savings accounts, cheap loans, insurance, mortgage advice and help with budgeting. It was going well until someone raised the question of cash. I had assumed that we’d be able to get money the usual way – from the mobile bank that trundled round the village three times a week but no, the Inverfaughie Credit Union was to be a virtual bank. There would be no bank building, not even an office. Everything was supposed to happen online. Cash could be deposited and withdrawn only once a week here in the village hall between the hours of 5 and 7 pm on a Friday. The atmosphere changed after that. People started whispering amongst themselves and rumfling in their pockets, digging out car keys, impatient to go. When the presentations were over the crowd quickly thinned out.

  Jenny caught my eye and made her way towards me against the traffic of people exiting.

  ‘Take-up is low. Disappointing,’ she said, shaking her head.

  There was only a handful of people filling in the application forms. I was surprised that Jenny would be supportive of this initiative; I had only ever heard her disparage the hippies as incomers, them and their free love.

  ‘I think people prefer the convenience of getting cash from the mobile bank,’ I said.

  ‘They prefer the convenience of buying pirate DVDs from Hamish, more like.’

  ‘No way! Hamish sells pirate videos out of the mobile bank?’

  ‘Hah! And the firkin rest,’ said Jenny, still shaking her head, ‘excuse language.’

  I used the mobile bank all the time. Hamish had never even hinted at the offer of dodgy DVDs. Another sign, if I ever needed one, that I’d always be an outsider in this distant town.

  ‘He’s killing my rental business. I’ve a good mind to report him to his superiors.’

  ‘Why don’t you then?’

  ‘I know, but – then we’d have no bank at all.’

  For a bit of banter I said, ‘I see you’re sporting Inverfaughie’s latest fashion accessory. You’re really working that eco look.’

  Jenny laughed and struck a modelling pose. I thought she would scoff at the plain canvas bags, but she had one casually slung over her shoulder.

  ‘D’you know how much I’ve paid that cash and carry for poly ba
gs over the years?’

  ‘No, how much?’

  I was impressed that she had such a handle on costs.

  ‘I’ve no idea,’ she said, disappointing me, ‘but it’s a lot. I’ve kept this town in free bin liners for years. It’s time we were all doing our bit for the environment. From now on if anyone wants a poly bag in my shop I’ll be charging them 5p.’

  ‘That seems a bit steep.’

  ‘If it’s good enough for Marks it’s good enough for me. The free poly bag gravy train stops here.’

  After exchanging pleasantries with Brenda, Mag and some of the others from Ethecom, I joined the small queue to sign up for the credit union, more out of solidarity with my fellow outsiders than anything else, but I was pleased when Jenny fell in behind me. Her motives were probably more of a protest against Hamish’s contraband but at least we were making up the numbers. It was only as we were leaving the hall that Old Thistle Knickers herself, Betty Robertson, wafted past us. I wasn’t about to ask her about my application to the licensing committee, I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction. Jenny at least had been tactful enough not to mention it, but Betty volunteered the information, or rather, the lack of it.

  ‘Hello Mrs McNicholl. The Inverfaughie Council sub-committee are yet to deliberate on your case,’ she said, making me sound like a criminal. ‘You’ll be informed of our decision.’

  She was so obviously enjoying her game of bait-the-incomer. I would rather appear on ‘Embarrassing Illnesses’ than let Betty Robertson humiliate me like this, but what could I do?

  Chapter 10

  I couldn’t believe it, there she was, exactly where I’d left her yesterday on the machair, still shouting down the phone, giving someone a right ear bashing. Did she still have the same clothes on? I couldn’t remember.

  After my last faux pas, hanging about waiting for her to get off the phone, I was all set to give her a friendly wave and walk past but the posh woman held out her arm to stop me.

  ‘Got to go,’ she shouted into the phone. ‘No, seriously, Julian; I’ve just run into an old friend, I’ll call you later.’

  And with that she hung up.

  ‘Hello!’ she cried, with an enthusiasm bordering on hysteria. This was more than was appropriate to the occasion and required me to stop.

  ‘Hello Dinah,’ I replied, ‘nice to see you again. It’s Trixie by the way, Trixie McNicholl.’

  ‘Oh crumbs yes, Trixie,’ she said, and promptly dried up, leaving me standing there like a numpty.

  Clearly she couldn’t think of the next pleasantry. I smiled. The wind blew a fine layer of sand along the beach. The moments ticked past. Bouncer and Mimi were by now barking and jumping all over each other, joyfully reunited, making our human discomfort all the more conspicuous.

  ‘Sorry about last time,’ she said, taking an awkward half-step towards me, slapping her leg and then retreating. She was much more jolly hockey sticks than I remembered her. She made an exaggerated phone gesture, her thumb and pinky at her ear, shrugged and pulled a face. ‘Business.’

  She went quiet again, forcing me to state the obvious.

  ‘So, did you decide to stay on?’ I asked.

  Dinah looked puzzled. I almost blurted out that because the last I’d heard, she was off to London in the morning. I managed to stop myself. I didn’t want her to think I’d been listening to her conversation. I wasn’t listening, I was involuntarily hearing. Two different things.

  ‘Have you extended your holiday?’ I said by way of trying to rescue a dead-in-the-water conversation.

  Dinah laughed. ‘Golly, no!’ she said, ‘I’m not on holiday. I only wish I were.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said. Now it was my turn to look stupid.

  ‘I live here. Over there.’

  She bobbed her head towards the other side of the loch. Did she really mean the castle on that huge big rambling estate across the loch?

  ‘You don’t mean Faughie Castle?’

  ‘Yup,’ she said, fists shoved in pockets, rocking forward on to the ball of her foot and then down again, her head bobbing. She seemed almost embarrassed. ‘Although I think the term “castle” is a bit of a stretch these days for the old ancestral pile.’

  ‘Have you just bought it?’

  Only that day I’d read in the Inverfaughie Chanter that the place was up for sale. Wow, I thought, she must be mega loaded. Even an old broken-down place like that, the land alone must be worth millions.

  ‘Bought it? God no. I was born here.’

  So, I reasoned, if she wasn’t buying she must be selling. There was some famous American billionaire interested in turning it into a polo resort, so the paper had said. The local council was backing his bid; they were right behind the jobs and the dollars it would bring into the area.

  The dogs ran along the lochside and, now that the rust had been scraped off the wheels of our conversation, Dinah and I walked together towards them.

  ‘We moved away when I was eight,’ she continued, ‘but we always open the house every summer for a few weeks. Or at least we always did. We used to have such good times here. I don’t know if it was the cold clean Highland air or just being with my family but I remember summers in Faughie when I’d feel almost hysterical with happiness, high on life, you know?’

  She looked at me, perhaps expecting me to recognise this hysteria of happiness. If I’d ever had such a feeling I’d long since forgotten it, but it was only polite to nod earnestly.

  She slowed down her walk and I was obliged to do the same, which seemed to bring a greater intensity to the conversation.

  ‘I never get that any more.’ She smiled. ‘I’m usually too hungover.’

  How did she know? Was this just dog-walking chat, a passing observation, or did she instinctively recognise in me a fellow alky?

  ‘Me too,’ I blurted, ‘although I’m trying to stay off it.’

  ‘Me too,’ she echoed.

  Neither of us mentioned yesterday’s hip flask and we carried on, following behind the jubilant dogs, in silence.

  *

  The next morning I scurried down to Jenny’s shop for baking soda. Truth be told, I had a sufficiency of baking soda, as Computer would no doubt be able to tell me, but I was dying to quiz Jenny about my new friend.

  ‘I know the woman who’s selling Faughie Castle.’

  ‘Dinah?’

  ‘Yes,’ I reluctantly admitted, my thunder stolen, ‘d’you know her?’

  ‘Of course I know her. Lady Murdina Anglicus, to give her her full title, has been coming into this shop since she learned to say “dolly mixtures”, but she’s too posh to mix with the peasantry.’

  I wasn’t about to tell Jenny why Dinah was mixing with me: the reasons being we both happened to have dogs and an alcohol problem.

  ‘Ah, well,’ I bantered, ‘that’s obviously why she wants to be pals with me. Amongst the unwashed peasants of Inverfaughie she’s finally found a fellow Patrician.’

  Jenny snorted. ‘So,’ she began the interrogation, ‘was it buttered scones for tea at her place then? They haven’t had any staff in there for years. I imagine the castle must be in a right state these days.’

  ‘I haven’t seen the castle,’ I answered honestly. ‘We mostly just walk the dogs together,’ I continued slightly dishonestly. ‘Dinah loves Bouncer, she gave me a present for him.’

  Having implied regular meetings with Dinah, I didn’t want Jenny cross-examining me any further, exposing my pathetic imaginary friendship as lonesome wishful thinking.

  ‘Is she really a lady?’ I asked, throwing the gossip ball back to Jenny.

  She gave me a stare that begged me to stop being so naive.

  ‘Murdina Anglicus ain’t no lady. But she has a title. Lady of the Heather. Her family have been lording it over us for centuries. They own all the land in these pairts. Her father Murdo, the old laird, was never here. Absentee landlord; he was always off down in London chasing skirt. And her half-brother, the new laird, Robin – god love
the wee soul – he died last November. She must be devastated. When they were kids they were always close those two. And as for that son of hers …’

  ‘She’s got a son?’ I blurted.

  Dinah hadn’t mentioned a son to me, but then, why would she?

  ‘And no husband.’

  Something else Dinah and I had in common.

  ‘Never has had,’ Jenny continued in her whispery gossipy voice. ‘People say she used a turkey baster, you know …’

  For one horrible moment I thought Jenny was going to give me a demonstration of how Dinah had used the turkey baster. Time to change the subject.

  ‘How old is her son?’ I asked. I was still hoping Steven would come and spend the summer with me. Maybe he and Steven could be friends. ‘Och, he’ll be grown up now,’ said Jenny. ‘Haven’t seen him up here for years.’

  Poor Dinah. Her family was dead, no husband, no son; we had so much in common we really should be friends.

  Chapter 11

  ‘So, you might as well know, I’m going to run for M.S.P.,’ said Jenny.

  I inhaled.

  ‘No way.’

  ‘Yes way. Well, you know that Malcolm died.’

  I exhaled. Yes, I knew that. Other than the movie coming to town, old people dying was the only thing that ever happened in Inverfaughie.

  ‘So H.M.B., I’m running for M.S.P. I know. It’s madness, I’m too old and I’ve no experience, and Walter would make a far better M.S.P., but he can’t be running up and down to Edinburgh every week. He’s not fit for it, not in that parliament of …’

  By the look on her face she seemed to be fumbling for a derogatory term.

  ‘Badgers?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That’s the collective term: a parliament of badgers,’ I explained.

  ‘Huh! I wish they were badgers, I’d cull the lot of them.’

  ‘Jenny, don’t do it.’

  ‘Somebody has to go down there and, let’s face it, it’s the only way I’ll ever get out of this fusty wee shop.’