For Faughie's Sake (24 page)

Of course Rudi was right. A few nights later they started trailing a documentary, ‘Inverfaughie, the Inside Story’, which was going to be on telly the following Thursday. The village was buzzing with it. The trailer promised to reveal the scandalous goings-on of the committee members as well as showing spectacular views of almost everyone’s house. We could not wait. Ali organised a big screen in the function suite of the Caley, offering hot pies during the adverts, and sold tickets in aid of the Yes campaign. You had to hand it to Ali Karim – the guy was a marketing mastermind. Even though you could watch it at home for free, tickets sold out within the hour.

Meanwhile, back at Ethecom, we had a crisis. What Jan hadn’t told me when I’d first volunteered, because if he had I’d have run a mile, was that our chickens were being bitten by red mites. That’s why they didn’t want to go into the coop at night: the bugs were waiting for them. The poor wee chooks couldn’t get a decent night’s kip for those blood-sucking pests feasting on them, leaving them drained, knackered, and with infected wounds under their feathers. No wonder they ran away from us; I wouldn’t have wanted to go in either.

Jan was a gentleman; he insisted that he be the one to go into the coop and dust the birds with home-made chemical-free insecticide while I watched from the door.

‘Don’t come in!’ he yelled at me. ‘It’s hoaching with red mites in here.’

He’d said this in all seriousness and I had to bite my cheeks not to laugh. If I did he might get all sensitive and self-conscious. Other people teased him about his wholesale adoption of the Scottish vernacular with his thick Dutch accent, but I enjoyed it.

‘You’re awful rough,’ I tutted, ‘can you not be a wee bit gentler?’

As he gave each chicken a liberal dusting with mite powder he grasped their feet and tipped them over his knee until they were dangling almost upside down.

‘The powder has to cover all their feathers,’ he said as he struggled with Jacqueline, who was flapping her wings.

‘C’mon, Jacqueline,’ I said in a sing-song tone, ‘you’re ok, nearly there. That’s it, good girl.’

‘Jacqueline’s a cute name for a chicken,’ Jan admitted, ‘though if Brenda finds out you’re naming them she’ll not be pleased.’ But on hearing me call her name, Jacqueline stopped flapping.

‘That’s brilliant,’ said Jan, obviously impressed with the hypnotic effect of my honeyed chicken tones. ‘Aye, Trixie, you’re right, it calms the birds.’

He next scooped up a lovely wee white chicken.

‘Och, be gentle, Jan, she’s my favourite. Good girl, Ellen, there, just a wee minute, that’s it, all done.’

Next up was Holly, a gloriously golden-feathered hen, who was smart enough to make for the door. Intercepting her escape, I bent down and gathered her into my arms, snuggling to try to relax her.

‘Baaalk, baaalk,’ said Holly.

‘It’s ok, sweetheart,’ I soothed, ‘it won’t hurt, it’s just a bit of powder; it’ll make you feel better, get those nasty bugs off.’

While Holly buried her head in my chest, Jan took the opportunity to dust her feathers, accidentally brushing my fingers, and my bosom, as he stroked her. I suppose I could have moved my fingers but she was settling.

‘Shhh, there now, Holly, don’t worry, you’re my favourite too.’

‘Baaalk,’ she replied, but her body no longer felt so tight.

Jan smiled, ‘You shouldn’t have touched her. You’ll probably have mites on you too now.’

‘Och, it’s ok, they’ll wash off.’

‘But it’s a bit more complicated than that, Trixie. Even if you don’t mind the mites crawling on your skin, which is pretty gross, by the way, you don’t want further contamination of the hens, do you?’

‘No, of course not. The girls have been through enough.’

‘I knew you’d say something like that, but,’ and here Jan hesitated and shifted his weight, ‘if you want to prevent further spread we’ll have to wash together; co-ordinate our decontamination strategy.’

I was still stroking Holly, calmed by the fact that her heartbeat had slowed.

‘Ok,’ I said, ‘I’ll co-ordinate. I have no problem co-ordinating.’

Jan cleared his throat.

‘Just so’s you understand: to be completely thorough, we’ll need to completely strip off and put all our clothes in the wash.’

‘Aye, I can do that,’ I said, feeling a sudden rise in temperature all the way to the roots of my hair.

‘Really?’

He seemed more surprised than me by the turn things had taken, but Jan softly raking his fingers across my breast had awakened an old familiar sensation, a confusing but not unwelcome signal my body had all but forgotten, now radiating south towards my nether regions.

‘Yeah, what else?’

‘Eh,’ he hesitated again, ‘so: to ensure eradication we shower.’

‘Together?’

‘Aye, I think it’s for the best.’

Jan held his breath and waited for me to speak.

‘Yup,’ I said, nodding thoughtfully, ‘I can see that makes good hygiene sense.’

Now on more solid ground, Jan became quite enthusiastic. My eyes were drawn to his twinkly eyes and full lips as I watched him whisper.

‘We’ll have to soap up; get a good lather going and wash each other, intensively; the soap has to get everywhere.’

I caught my breath and tried to clear my head. I tried to put my misgivings and my throbbing loins to one side, but, after all, what could be more natural? We were two lonely people with a raging sex drive, some scabby chickens and a good excuse to soap up.

Ach, it came to nothing. Before we even got to Jan’s cottage, walking quickly, but not too quickly, the game was up. Steven and Mag were waiting on his doorstep, after him to help lift their new wind turbine onto the truck.

It was a prototype and they were anxious to get it ‘planted’, tested and take a reading. They were setting up Faughie’s own power grid against the day Westminster turned off the lights. Everyone seemed convinced that day was coming. As Mag argued in his squeaky voice, even if it never came, supplying Faughie with free renewable power would show the world and the Faughie committee that with a bit of ingenuity – trademark Magenius, patent pending – it could be done. Now that they didn’t need Dinah’s approval they had placed water turbines all down the river, which were showing great results. From welding bits of scrap metal together, Steven and Mag had fashioned a unique, and apparently 40 per cent more efficient, wind turbine. As the three lads enthused about the innovative rotor blade design, I felt my loins cool and my excitement fade. I was grateful when Brenda showed up and offered me a bath at her place.

My lust for Jan was probably only momentary; more to do with the exciting times we were living in. I hardly knew the man – how could I fancy someone I hardly knew?

I was dying to run the whole confusing episode past Jenny, but of course she was away in Luxembourg. Jenny, Walter, Brenda, Moira Henderson and Dr McKenzie had been airlifted out to go and tell the Luxembourg court how wonderful it was living in a free Faughie. They were wined and dined and two days later came back as conquering heroes to a tremendous fanfare. Like everyone else in the village, I’d received a text asking me to turn out and welcome them back, but I hadn’t time for that kind of staged nonsense. Some of us were too busy doing real work, like keeping Faughie in fresh eggs, to hang about the helipad waving stupid wee flags.

The next time I saw Jenny was at the grand showing of the documentary in the Caley. The place was stowed out, a noisy festive atmosphere with everyone dressed up for the occasion. On walking in I quickly mapped out who was positioned where: on the left at the front Betty Robertson was sitting laughing with some of her No camp, affecting social blindness. The blindness was mutual. I was just as happy to blank her. On the same side at the back Jackie was on an all-male table with his mate Spider and some fishermen. He saw me straight away and nodded: a perfunctory nod without warmth, a clear warning not to approach; he would acknowledge me but he wasn’t rolling out the red carpet.

Turning to the other side of the room my heart sank. The Claymores were crowded round one table – there wasn’t space for me. Steven had got in before me and had sat at an Ethecom table. No sign of his burd, but maybe Morag wasn’t the political type. More likely, she had an early start with morning milking. Steven didn’t look like he was missing her; he was laughing and chatting away as he sat with Mag, Brenda and Jan. Awkward.

Seeing me falter, Jan stood up and offered me his seat while Brenda smiled and waved me towards their table. As I reluctantly approached I found that I couldn’t look at him. I could not bring myself to be gracious: to smile, thank him and acknowledge his kindness. I couldn’t see his face, but I hoped he’d understand and not be hurt by my rudeness. A few seconds later, though she didn’t realise it, Jenny rescued me.

She and the committee top brass had been allocated the top table: front and centre. Jenny signalled to me that there was a spare chair at their table between her and Walter. As this was not official committee business, more of a social outing, they both kept their guard up. Even now Walter and Jenny wouldn’t be seen publicly enjoying themselves together. Relieved to find somewhere I could finally relax, I hardly minded that they were using me as a decoy.

Jenny seemed nervous.

‘Are you ok?’ I asked.

But she only had time to nod distractedly before the lights went down.

The first three or four minutes of the documentary provided a historical context through a montage of old black-and-white photos and film stock of Inverfaughie. People milking cows, threshing barley, cutting peat, heaving nets, gutting fish, their bright young faces prematurely lined with the back-breaking work. What struck me most was that although things had changed and most of that hard manual labour was now gone, thank goodness, the village of Inverfaughie was completely unchanged. All of the buildings still looked exactly the same, still in exactly the same place.

There was footage of Faughie Castle having what looked like a garden party. An incredibly dapper young man was playing croquet
on the lawn with his guests. I looked around but couldn’t see Dinah anywhere; then I remembered she’d told me she’d been summoned to give evidence in Luxembourg in a few days’ time. She was probably packing. I quickly texted her telling her what channel it was on in case she wasn’t already watching.

The footage exploded into full colour with a 1979 TV news item on how remote Highland villages were coping during the Winter of Discontent. Not well, as far as I could see: it looked cold and miserable. Considering we’d soon be heading into a Highland winter and might be cut off from the national grid, I was suddenly grateful for Mag and his wacky renewable schemes.

Squeals of pleasure burst from tables as people recognised themselves or family members from 1979, jumping up and pointing at the screen, ridiculing their long hair and loon pants. This dissolved into contemporary shots all around the village and people cheered when they saw their own house.

The stunning views of the yellow broom, green fields, purple mountains and mist rolling across the loch painted an idyllic picture of Inverfaughie. I caught Jenny’s eye and gave her a wee reassuring wink. The documentary wasn’t the hatchet job some people had feared after all. Until recently, Inverfaughie had rarely been on the news. Now they were making documentaries about us and everybody was a celebrity.

But even before they went to the first advert break the documentary had begun hinting at a more sinister side to life here. They showed committee members caught on camera entering or leaving Jenny’s shop. It must have been shot secretly; there was the sound of the camera shutter whirring and then a blurry freeze frame with the person’s name stamped on it as if from a top secret dossier. Most damning of all was Walter’s shifty expression as he checked the coast was clear before slipping into the shop. I felt like I was attending an espionage briefing on an undercover gang.

During the first ad break, I saw Jackie go across the room seeking out Steven as avidly as he’d avoided me. Of course, I was glad that Steven and Jackie got on so well, but it wasn’t fair. When Jackie found him he squatted down at his seat and the two of them went
into a huddle. Nodding their heads, they had a handshake and a manly hug, before moving swiftly into a hetero backslap. What was this all about? I’d investigate after the film. Jackie better not be involving my son in any of his illegal activities.

During the adverts and while the pies were being passed round, Jenny shifted in her seat and tutted a fair bit.

Walter leaned across me to whisper to her.

‘Will you relax woman?’

She shook her head. No, she couldn’t relax.

And then the adverts were over and we began to see the story the documentary really wanted to tell. The celebration of Inverfaughie’s pastoral joy quickly turned sour and became more like a Hogarth painting with drunkenness and violence everywhere.

This was hardly an accurate representation. Yes, there had been drunkenness and violence, but not from Faughians. There simply weren’t enough young people in the village to make that much trouble. These were tourists who’d come for the unlicensed drinking and party atmosphere; a cheap out-of-season debauched Spring Break.

And to be fair, it hadn’t lasted long. The mayhem on the streets had been a brief but regrettable period while Faughie businesses adjusted to the huge influx of visitors and increased demand. Due to Walter’s sobering influence it wasn’t like that anymore, but the documentary made out that this once unspoilt village was now being exploited by greedy tax dodgers. As everyone in the room began to understand how they were being stitched up, the cheering turned to boos.

Having established that Inverfaughie had now become a modern-day Sodom and Gomorrah, the documentary’s focus now turned to the evil committee members, and especially the committee’s evil Interim Leader, Jenny Haddock Robertson. There was footage, again secretly shot, of Jenny selling a bottle of whisky to someone in the shop: shoogly close-ups on her smiling face, the exchange of bottle for cash, cash going into the till. This overlaid with a cynical kerrching sound effect. It was so obvious it was laughable. There was a dizzying sequence of drunks being
sick, Jenny smiling, taking cash, kerrching, drunks having sex, Jenny smiling, taking cash, kerrching, drunks starting fights, Jenny smiling, taking cash, kerrching, pitched battles by gangs of youths in the car park, not one of them from around here but waving Faughie flags, each of them clearly displaying their Faughie rosettes, kerrching, kerrching, kerrching.

The voiceover asked the question, ‘Who is Jenny Haddock Robertson?’ And this was where the hatchet job really kicked in: how she’d lived in London mixing with rock stars – it was true, she actually had met Jimi Hendrix! There was a picture of them at a club called The Scotch of St James. Admittedly it was primarily of him, stiffly posed with other rock icons, but Jenny’s cheeky young face gate-crashed the photo, muscling in and making a V-sign above their heads. Jackie and a few of his pals old enough to remember who Jimi Hendrix was whistled their respect.

How she’d dabbled in drugs – a series of photos, presumably taken at a party, of Jenny with a dodgy-looking perm, lingering on a photo of her with a giant spliff in her hand. Predictably there were catcalls, some good natured, but there were loud tuts from random oldsters and all of the No tables.

Dave from the Claymores shouted, ‘Busted! Somebody call the cops!’

Some people, but by no means everybody, laughed.

‘You look baked in that one,’ I whispered to her, ‘although, to be fair, it’s hard to tell if it’s the effect of the perm lotion or the mareewhaana.’

But nothing would cheer Jenny up. She must have sensed what was coming next, and she didn’t have long to wait.

The story of how her fiancé had died in mysterious circumstances was illustrated with newspaper clippings from the
Inverfaughie Chanter
and national press showing a photo of the war hero Bernard. How they had argued and he had drowned, how there were no witnesses. How she had left town under a dark cloud of suspicion. How his mother had always accused Jenny of his murder.

‘It’s a damned lie!’

Walter had pulled himself to his feet and yelled, spittle flying from his mouth.

No one whistled or laughed or shouted anything.

Then the adverts came on. A cliffhanger break in the documentary. There was a noticeably more muted atmosphere during this ad break.

‘We’ll sue,’ said Walter, ‘this is a clear case of defamation, they won’t get away with this.’

Jenny kept her head down and shook her head.

‘Excuse me please, Trixie,’ said Walter, as he reached under the table and across my lap.

There was a moment of unsavoury groping under the table until Walter’s hand re-emerged, now grasping Jenny’s, refusing to let her go.

As everyone went to the loo, got the drinks in or finished their pies, Jenny silently struggled to break free. I would have liked to have stood up and moved away but both Jenny and Walter had gripped the arms of my chair, anchoring their weight with their free hand, effectively holding me prisoner. I could only watch helplessly as they put their all into this wrestling contest, their flabby old cheeks wobbling with the strain, until finally Jenny succumbed and her arm went limp.

She put her head down but allowed Walter to lovingly entwine his hand in hers. Their relationship, no longer repressed, was now on top of the table for everyone to see. It was wonderfully romantic. Or it would have been if I hadn’t been stuck between them like a forty-year-old gooseberry.

When the lights went down for the final time Jenny tried to pull her hand away from Walter but he held on tight. The last section of the documentary was no kinder or more truthful. It showed Betty’s Robertson’s play-acting charade during the propaganda food drop, to wild applause from the No tables. It suggested that the committee had links to terrorist organisations, citing a radical book shop that sold pro-IRA pamphlets and T-shirts from which Walter had ordered books. It showed messages of support sent from separatist groups around the world, including some with a history
of violence like ETA. It even showed footage of Walter’s ‘there will be no bevvying’ speech and used cutaway shots to make it look like people were scared of him. As if. It was so ridiculous: first Jenny as a murdering drug addict and now Walter as a feared despot.

As the credits rolled some people hissed and booed and before anyone had time to leave, Jackie walked quickly to our table. Steven suddenly materialised beside me as well. What was going on?

‘We’ve talked about it and we think now’s the time. I’m going to make a statement,’ Jackie whispered sternly in my ear, ‘but only if you’re ok with it. Stevo said you would be.’

I looked to Steven who nodded and made a reassuring face. I nodded.

‘Sure?’

I looked at Steven and nodded again.

‘Ok, let’s stand together then.’

Jackie took my arm as I got to my feet and Steven stood on the other side of me.

‘Please friends, before you go, I’d like to make a wee announcement.’

This stopped everyone in their tracks.

‘There’s been a lot of unpleasant accusations made in that programme. We all know what gossip is like in this wee village and how quickly nasty rumours fly around. Lots of things are said, and maybe a lot more should be said.’

Jackie looked quite pointedly at me when he said this.

‘But we can’t let our community be divided. We must stand together. So we, and when I say we, I mean me and my family: my daughter Trixie and my grandson Steven …’

After all these months under his nose my dad had finally acknowledged me. I may have gasped, but if I did I was the only one – everyone else seemed to be aware of our family ties.

‘… my family stands here by our friends Jenny and Walter, who we know to be honourable people. And I hope you’ll all join us in celebrating them as a couple.’

Again, no surprise. Most people stood and clapped, there were no more jokes or banter, no more whistles or catcalls, just supportive applause.

Jenny seemed almost overwhelmed. She looked like she might cry. I must have been close to tears myself because she gave me a secret wink and I took a big breath.

The evening had suddenly taken a tremendous turn for the better. Everyone in Inverfaughie now officially knew that I was Jackie’s daughter. It didn’t seem that big a deal. I never imagined this – if I had, I’d probably have thought I’d feel euphoric. What I felt instead was calm; a quiet satisfaction that something had finally clicked into place.

It was a big night too for Walter and Jenny: they were finally out of the closet and Jackie’s endorsement had turned the documentary’s hatchet job into a victory rally.