The Return of John Macnab
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Synopsis
'Highly Engaging' - Sunday Herald 'You could easily make a case that Andrew Greig has the greatest range of any living Scottish writer' - Scotsman The wager To poach a salmon, grouse and a deer from three Royal Estates. The challengers Three men in a mid-life crisis who should know better. The wild card A flirtatious female journalist who won't take no for an answer. Striding over the Scottish Highlands with a poet's eye on the wilderness and a firm grip on the adventure, Andrew Greig re-imagines John Buchan's classic novel with a little less tweed, a little more sex, and just the right measure of whisky.
Release date: February 7, 2013
Publisher: RiverRun
Print pages: 324
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The Return of John Macnab
Andrew Greig
Begin the afternoon in August when an old blue Ford Escort quietly enters a small Highland town. Now beyond the last ghillie’s binoculars, it turns left at the barber’s and tackle shop, left again, and parks round the back of the Atholl Hotel. The driver checks the mirror for passers-by, then sits for a moment listening to the radiator grumble.
He gets out of the car. At this point in his life he would have turned forty. Most likely he was wearing black – dark jeans, black jacket, some worn old favourite shirt.
He looks up at the hills that circle the town, sees the upper slopes are purple with heather and reminds himself he mustn’t say so. Certain things about his country invite clichés. Certain things about his country are true.
Nevertheless, Neil Lindores nearly smiles as he takes out a suitcase and backpack. He leans protectively over the boot, then lifts out a bulky rod case which he holds on to while locking up. The sun’s full on his face. The lines around his eyes won’t go away – though lately he sleeps better – nor will the first grey streaks through the dark hair he cuts shorter as he gets older.
His movements are purposeful but still an imaginative person watching from the window of the near-empty hotel bar might think he’d once been in a bad accident, or been ill, and is now recovered but bears a trace of that shock inside.
Apart from that blend of energy and injury which only an extremely alert observer might guess at, and the oddly bulky rod case, there’s nothing remarkable about him, and as he picks up his baggage and heads for the back door of the hotel, anyone watching would likely have already turned away and gone back to their pint and newspaper and laptop.
He checks in with the barmaid-receptionist. Her name’s Shonagh, though he doesn’t know that yet. How long is he staying? Maybe a few days, maybe longer, he’s not sure – that all right? No problem at all. He’ll be up for the hillwalking? Ah, yes. She glances at his rod case. If he needs information about permits for Mavor, just come and ask.
Permits? He hesitates. Yes, if the weather’s poor he’ll maybe do some fishing.
His long mouth twitches slightly as he writes N. McGillivray in the register, then asks after the glassy-eyed stag’s head above Reception. That’s Mr MacPherson. The poor beast looks shocked, indignant, resigned, his mouth locked open in soundless protest.
‘Hi, Archie.’
‘How did you know he’s called Archie?’
He smiles and she thinks he looks quite different then.
‘It seemed a fair bet.’
Neil strokes the worn rust-coloured muzzle for luck, then quickly shoulders the rod case before Shonagh can, picks up his bags and hurries upstairs holding his room key like it’s the key to the kingdom.
* * *
Shonagh puts away the register and goes back through to the lounge bar and its single occupant sitting by the window.
‘Stranger in town?’
Shonagh nods.
‘Name’s McGillivray. Looks a Gael but talks Central Belt. Seems all right.’
‘And he’s maybe here for the hillwalking. Or maybe the fishing. I heard.’ She stretches and sighs. ‘Another man who can’t make up his mind. Check this out.’
Shonagh puts her hand on Kirsty’s shoulder and looks at the laptop’s screen: this week’s ‘Fiona’s Diary’. Just the usual tittle-tattle, Kirsty says defensively. Nothing ever happens round here. Three hillwalkers pulled off the Mavor estate by Lachie and the boys turned out to have nothing to do with the so-called John Macnab. But the estate intends to prosecute them anyway for Aggravated Trespass. She has views about that dubious piece of lawmaking but there’s no way old Dorward will let her air them, so she’s restricted herself to a couple of wisecracks.
‘When you first turned up here, m’eudail, I’d a notion you needed the quiet life for a while.’
‘So did I, damn it.’
Kirsty folds up the laptop and drains her pint. She glances up at the half-page circled in red and pinned above the bar. The biggest news for years and already it’s turning yellow at the edges.
‘And you might as well close the book on that one, Shonagh.’
‘So it’s a hoax?’
‘It’s a load of bollocks, that’s what it is. Somebody had a good idea one wet weekend then chickened out.’ Standing at the bar she glares at the empty glass in her right hand, then flips it over her shoulder. Without looking she catches it behind her back in her other hand. Thumps the glass on the counter. ‘I’ll away and file my column at the office. Catch you at the dance, lover.’
‘Hey, Kirsty—!’
She stops at the door.
‘Yes?’
‘You must have broken a few empty glasses practising.’
She laughs.
‘Na. Spilt a few full ones but.’
* * *
In the dim lobby Kirsty nips under the reception counter and opens the register. N. McGillivray. She frowns, unable to place what’s bothering her. On her way out she pats Mr MacPherson. Hang around here too long, my friend, you get stuffed.
* * *
Alone in the bar, Shonagh shakes her head. That Kirsty. She picks up the glass and turns it in her hand, tosses it up a little. Then a bit higher.
She catches the glass with both hands and swirls it out. She leans on the cash register and watches the water seep from the draining board. She’s feeling quite gruntled. The sky looks good for the weekend, and the dance tonight has possibilities, and though she always said second sight was a lot of haivers, she would later admit she knew something had already begun.
* * *
Neil locked his door, sighted along the rod case then put it carefully in the wardrobe along with a small heavy box. He piled a couple of blankets on top, unpacked his clothes, laid the maps out on the bed. He put his paperback John Macnab on the bedside table, the Munro book next to the maps. He checked the time, then moved the only chair so he had a clear view down on to the street, sat down and swung his legs up on to the window-sill. He pulled out a small notebook from his jacket and with a pencil added a few further notes, most of them ending in question marks.
When he’d finished he stared into space for a while, turning the gold ring on his finger. If asked, he’d have admitted the way he felt was honest enough but the way he lived was no longer truthful. He nodded to himself, then with some difficulty eased the ring off and placed it gently on the bedside table.
He went back to the window and looked out over the little town. He thought of a piece of doggerel his uncle once wrote. How ill advised I was and rash / To start upon this foolish dash.
* * *
Even in Kirkintilloch the sun was shining as Murray Hamilton eased the screws off the front licence plate on his old Kawasaki. His eleven-year-old sat on the steps of the council house with her guitar, hesitating between one chord and the next. His boy Jamie was kicking a football against the lean-to.
‘So,’ Tricia said, ‘is this the end of a glittering political career?’
He took the new plate from her and squinted into the light. Five years on the Council till he’d resigned, a thousand committee meetings, ten thousand doorsteps – and what had changed?
‘Time to try anither way, Trish.’
The thread caught in the bolt and he began to tighten.
‘You’ll not be much of a dad in jail.’
He put down the spanner.
‘I’ll stop right now if you want me tae.’
Behind them Eve at last found the new chord and strummed it cautiously.
‘I just said be careful. And don’t get hurt.’
‘Right, darlin.’
Tricia began loosening the rear plate. She glanced at her husband’s bowed head and for the first time saw that his tight red-gold hair was starting to thin around the crown, and the edge of his beard was touched with grey like the first touch of frost. Still, she grinned as she put the screws down carefully beside her. Might as well be a bit daft before we’re all past it.
* * *
In the office of what we’ll agree to call the Deeside Courier, Kirsty scratched away at a peeling wainscot panel as old Dorward checked through the printout of ‘Fiona’s Diary’. At the same time, with much twiddling of his glasses and apologetic coughing, he informed her that he was soon taking retirement on his doctor’s advice. His nephew Alec would take over the paper.
‘I don’t think you two get on so well?’
‘Not since he pushed his luck at the Highland Show and got a swift smack in the kisser, no.’
Old Wormwood coughed and suggested she should maybe start looking elsewhere. Admittedly young Eck was morally and intellectually challenged, but he was family and an undisturbed retirement was called for. She should try a few features for the nationals, and he’d keep his ears open. Something would come up.
Kirsty shrugged and got her nail under a particularly satisfying strip. No problem, Mr D.
She’d find a job somewhere, he assured her. She was quite good at this, whatever she’d done before.
That was almost a question. She chose to let it go by and die among the other bugs entangled in the cobweb over the door. Old Wormwood coughed and continued.
‘Even if your heart’s not entirely in it.’
She perched on the side of his desk and grinned at him.
‘My heart went out to lunch some years ago and hasn’t been seen since. I expect it’s sunning itself on a beach somewhere.’
Dorward looked at her over his half-moons. He was deeply fond of Kirsty and just as glad she wasn’t the daughter he’d never had. He sighed and made another couple of cuts to Fiona’s deathless prose, then handed it back.
‘I’ve cut yon wisecrack about the Criminal Justice Act. This isn’t the West Highland Free Press. The rest’s fine. Cheeky, but fine.’
She nodded and took back her copy.
‘I’ll finish this off at home.’
‘A right pity John Macnab didn’t show up. We could have done with some shenanigans round here – grand for circulation.’
She paused for a moment at the door.
‘Does the name McGillivray mean anything to you, Mr Dorward?’
He thought about it, shook his head.
‘What should it mean?’
‘Something. Anything. Wouldn’t it be nice if once in a while something, anything, meant something?’
He nodded sympathetically.
‘I find a large whisky helps, Kirsty.’
‘It will. Bye …’
He watched her go and heard her bounding whistling down the stairs, and then the office seemed a little dimmer and he felt a little older. He sighed and went back to his editorial on the abiding problem of drink in Highland life.
* * *
In a garage on the outskirts of Fort William, a man in battered fatigues and a streaked Barbour jacket finally laid down his spray gun, stepped back and checked out his van. It had taken three coats of black to obscure Sutherland’s Mountain Highs and the phone number. Pity, but it had to be done. Now to paint out the windows.
The mobile phone on the front seat beeped. He grabbed it but the caller wasn’t the one he’d been trying not to wait for. He listened and nodded.
‘Eighteen hundred hours then, matey. And max operational security, right? See you …’
He probably hummed the theme from Danger Man as he went back to work.
* * *
Behind the bar someone had pinned up a familiar newspaper cutting. TO WHOM IT CONCERNS … The name Mavor was underlined in red. It struck Neil that the Macnab Challenge read as though written by committee. As in a way it had been.
He sipped his pint, rolled a cigarette and looked round the big empty lounge bar. Faded tartan carpet, the fifties woodveneer panelling, scuffed linoleum dance floor, the plywood stage.
Seventies pastel plastic lampshades. Another stag’s head, absurd and so familiar, its stilled cry something else about his country that was true. Coal-effect gas fire in one corner, a real log fire burning low at the far end of the bar near the windows.
The room looked like it had seen some good nights. He glanced at his watch. He’d thought at least one of them would be on time. He wandered over to the window, picked up a copy of the local paper left lying on the table there. He sat down and flicked through it. Seemed like nothing much was happening. Three letters about John Macnab, two for, one against.
He lit the cigarette and played a few minor chords on the table. The barmaid was reading a book at the far end of the counter, and something about her short curly hair and solid shoulders was vaguely familiar. But he couldn’t place it, so he opened the map and the Munro book and settled down to study them both, to envisage for the hundredth time the lie of the land. No matter how closely you read the contours and rehearse your plans, the reality on the ground is always different. Always. He thought he accepted that.
* * *
Heading up the gradients towards the Spittal of Glenshee, the bike was losing power. Murray Hamilton changed down but something wasn’t right. He pulled in at the side of the road. Gasket shot, Scotland’s oil sprayed to the winds.
He sighed and set off towards the call-box a mile or so up the road, sweating inside his leathers in the heat of the afternoon. Occasionally drivers slowed, then something about this small, stocky, bearded figure made them drive on.
He pushed in the coins.
‘Alasdair? A wee change in plans. Bike’s knackered.’
‘No problem, old sport. I’m on my way. Plan F.’
‘Whit’s Plan F?’
Alasdair’s sigh swooshed down the phone.
‘Plan F is you’re F’d and I bail you out as usual. Don’t move.’
* * *
‘Finished with my paper, mister?’
Neil looked up, covering the map with his elbow. Youngish woman. Tall. Then the colour clash resolved into a bright orange jacket and a spray of ginger hair. She put one foot up on the window-seat.
‘You’ll be up for the hillwalking?’
The hair pulled back loosely from her wide forehead wasn’t ginger but some kind of burnt autumn.
‘Oh, uh – maybe. Here’s your paper,’ he added lamely.
She nodded, more to herself than to him. The colour of beech leaves at the very end of autumn, he thought. A kind of burning red-brown. And crinkly, the kind that can never quite be controlled.
‘Not exactly the best time of year for it.’
‘The midgies? Ach, they’re usually not bad on the tops.’
She was silent for a moment. Her eyes were watchful, wideset under that flare of hair.
‘I was thinking of the stalking restrictions,’ she said. ‘What with the Criminal Justice Act and all. Unless you want the gamies chasing you.’
He laughed and looked away, pulling on his cigarette.
‘Sounds a bit wild for me.’
‘Really?’ she said. ‘You look game enough to me.’
It was his turn to stare and hers to look away with maybe a faint flush under that freckled skin.
‘I just came over for my paper,’ she said, ‘but I’ll join you if you want.’
He sighed and folded up the map and a vision of stalking two ghillies across a bealach in the moonlight. She came back with a whisky and stood with her back to the window.
‘Our Mavor estate here will throw you off even on a Sunday. Don’t you think that’s wrong?’
He took his time.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘But it doesn’t concern me. I can maybe do a bit of rock climbing.’
‘Not maybe fishing? Or even real salmon fishing?’
He stared at her. He could do without this. Strong straight nose, high inquiring eyebrows. A mouth ready to laugh or scorn. The cool eyes belonged to someone else altogether.
‘I was looking out the window and saw your case of rods,’ she said. ‘Sorry, we’re kind of nosy round here.’
‘No, really? I’d be after trout,’ he continued after a pause. ‘But why don’t you sit down and continue this interrogation in comfort?’
They discussed rods and casts and flies, and established each knew a little about it but were mostly bluffing. Was he waiting for anyone? No, but it was possible he might run into a pal or two. What did she do round here? She did this and that, mostly this, she said, and ordered another whisky. Would he have another pint while waiting for his pals?
He would. But he wasn’t particularly expecting anyone. Cheers.
What did he think about this John Macnab lark? What John Macnab lark? She pointed to the newspaper.
ESTATE OWNERS STILL ON ALERT. No comment from Palace. SECRETARY OF STATE CONDEMNS POACHING WAGER. SNP DIVIDED. HOAX? See Editorial and Letters inside.
Oh, that Macnab. He’d seen the Challenge pinned above the bar. She said it read like it was written by committee.
He looked at her while she tucked her hair behind her ears again. He murmured it seemed all right to him. She shook her head and the first few strands escaped and fell over the collar of the orange jacket. Cobbled together, she insisted. Didn’t he find that instructive?
He shrugged, said it sounded like a silly-season story and probably wouldn’t come to anything. She agreed Mr Macnab was leaving it a bit late.
Neil nodded and lifted his pint. And inquired whether she thought the salmon was possible.
She agreed that maybe it was. But anyway not many folk round here gave Mr Macnab much of a chance. Now one of the local lads could maybe pull off the salmon at least. It was not entirely unknown round these parts.
Neil rolled another cigarette and said he was sure it wasn’t. Where did they go if the poaching mood took them? Up above where the wee river joins the Alt na Harrie, she said vaguely. But she knew for a fact that Mr Aziz who owned the estate had hired extra men, including most of the local wide-boys. Without inside knowledge this Macnab had little chance. They’d even opened a book on it. He could get good odds.
What odds?
Ten to one against pulling off Mavor.
Ah. Like he said, he wasn’t really a betting person. But were most people for or against this Macnab?
She hesitated. Divided, she said. A lot were for, even some of the Tories. But he had to remember that people made their living from the estates one way or another and they knew what they were paid to do and who paid them. Even if one or two had done the odd spot of poaching in the past, that wouldn’t stop them going all out to catch another poacher. It was almost a matter of honour. And then there was the bonus. What bonus?
Five hundred quid for whoever catches him.
Neil said he’d put a fiver on Macnab pulling off his first objective.
She laughed. Good on him. She’d already put on a fiver herself. Just following the healthy Scottish instinct to back a loser.
He glanced at her then.
‘You don’t sound Scottish.’
‘Army childhood,’ she said briefly. ‘The Rhine, Cyprus, the Rock.’ She looked away through her glass. ‘From nowhere, really. Hey, Shonagh – come and take this sucker’s bet and add it to the book? Just write your name here.’
As he wrote out his name and an address there was a bang on the window. He looked and saw Murray and Alasdair grinning and waving in the street outside.
Idiots. They might as well have run up a flag. He quickly excused himself, picked up his map and book and went to head them off.
She looked closely at the entry in the betting book before handing it back to Shonagh.
‘That one seemed able to resist your charms, Kirsty. It’s extraordinary.’
‘It’s unprecedented, that’s what it is.’ She looked thoughtfully out of the window. ‘Maybe Mr Maybe has something else on his mind.’
* * *
‘You’re supposed to arrive separately,’ Neil hissed as they shook hands. ‘What kept you?’
‘Transport logistical problems, old sport,’ Alasdair said.
‘Aye – ma bike’s fucked.’
The back door opened and beech leaves in autumn came out whistling.
‘So you’ve found each other then,’ she said. ‘Hi guys. See you around, Neil.’
‘Aye, cheerio.’
She stopped and turned after a couple of strides.
‘I do hope we haven’t thrown away our money,’ she said.
And she strode out of the car park, long-legged in blue jeans, hands in the pockets of the orange jacket, the bush of autumnal hair bouncing jauntily along behind her. She was still whistling something, a tune Neil couldn’t quite place.
‘You haven’t been wasting your time,’ Alasdair said. ‘Who’s she?’
‘Miss Colour Clash of the year? She just descended on me with a lot of questions. I gave nothing away.’
Murray looked round uneasily.
‘Let’s stop standing around like stookies and get aff the street.’
They hurried towards Alasdair’s van. It was late afternoon and the sun was melting over the sandstone of that Highland town.
‘You’re the folkie, Murray,’ Neil said. ‘Remind me what “Annie Laurie” sounds like.’
‘Afore my time, pal.’
Neil and Murray climbed into the back among the piles of gear.
‘Where to, youth?’
‘Operational HQ, matey. Pete’s place.’
‘Is Pete discreet?’ Neil asked, leaning back on the defunct Kawasaki.
‘Na. But he’s in Tibet …’
The van pulled out and headed north.
* * *
This is the bird that was winged but flew on. This is the fish that was seen in the sky. This is the stag that was shot but not wounded. This is the story that cannot be told.
Save what can be saved, then resume. As Neil used to say.
Some details glow, some turn to ash. That Ford Escort was certainly bog-standard, blue and heavily rusted along the sills, but Neil could as well have been carrying a green tweed jacket that August afternoon as wearing a black one. And surely Kirsty was drinking whisky not beer – she only did that over-the-shoulder trick with a shot glass. And perhaps Neil exaggerated her hair, though she’d have wanted people to know the colour was natural and the orange jacket in the best possible taste.
But about her age that day we can be precise: it was her thirtieth birthday, though not even Shonagh knew that.
* * *
Kirsty Fowler drove up the hill road in the old green Wolseley that was the second-last item she kept from her former life. Up on the brae where her rented cottage looked over the village (principal occupations: tourism, forestry, sport and rumour masquerading as news), the summer breeze was strong enough to clear away the midgies. She had no excuses left.
She stood by the car for a moment in the late afternoon sun, smelling the sharp resin of the pine trees around the cottage, and a faint peppery sweetness in the wind off the hills. For a moment she was walking up the High Street past the Heart of Midlothian, turning to the law courts with the smell of the breweries drifting up from Fountainbridge … She shook her head, walked quickly across the yard and pushed open the ill-fitting door.
Charlie lolloped through to greet her. She passed a hand over his shaggy but loyal head, then stooped to pick up the cards lying on the mat. Two of them. She checked the postmarks, then dropped the birthday cards unopened on the kitchen table. Deal with that later.
She went through to the bedroom and picked her copy of John Macnab from the shelf. She flicked through the pages, whistling a tune that seemed to have got stuck in her head. No luck. She put the book back next to the other Buchans. Another might-have-been.
She changed from working clothes into old cords and the faded Black Watch shirt while Charlie whined at the door. She glanced out at the pile of logs Hamish and Gerry had delivered off the back of a Forestry Commission pick-up, sighed and picked up the axe. She’d read somewhere that if you force yourself to smile, a smiley mood will follow. It was not entirely untrue. She opened the door and Charlie bounded into the yard, barking joyfully. She followed, determinedly singing, ‘It’s a ha-ha-happy day’ under her breath.
She selected a fat log, set it upright on the chopping block, steadied herself – the two whiskies with cool and distant Mr Maybe had left her light-headed. She swung the axe out wide, right hand up near the axe-head, looped it over her shoulder (‘Let the weight do the work,’ Lachie had told her, ‘just relax’). With a slight pause at the top of the swing, she drove the axe down, sliding her right hand into her left. The blade chonked clean through and split off a segment. The log toppled off the block. She bent over, set it up again, brought the axe up and out and down again.
Only steady concentration without hurry or expectation could do this job well. She’d learned that much living here. Only solid work and hard play could stop you thinking about the things you didn’t want to think about.
It’s a ha-ha-happy day. The blade swung, the sun shone yellow-white on the newly-split logs that would do her till winter if she stayed that long.
* * *
‘Come on down, space cadet!’
Neil came out of his dwam as Alasdair brushed by with another box of provisions, mostly bottles and cans. Already Murray had the bike out round the back of the cottage out of sight of the road, and was working away on it, silent and methodical.
Neil grinned to himself as his friend – the kind you’ve known so long you can’t remember why you are friends or even if you are – paused to push up the sleeves of his pullover. It was his reflex whenever he got down to things, a reassertion that he at least was a working man. And within minutes the sleeves would slip down his muscular forearms. Neil watched him and decided to see Murray’s life as the battle of the sleeve. He never really wins and he never gives up and he needs something to kick against.
Neil followed Alasdair into the kitchen and looked round at the piles of clothes and rod and ropes, packs and sleeping bags, telescopes and radios and climbing gear. For a moment he saw Helen shake her head then turn away to hide her smile, and then he couldn’t see her.
‘So when do we start, Al?’
Alasdair put a bottle of whisky on the table, then pulled a shotgun from a pack. He wiped the barrel on his sleeve then sighted along it. He passed it to Neil and grinned.
‘We just have, old sport. Call in the red dwarf.’
* * *
Kirsty paused and straightened her back, and rubbed her rising blister. This country-girl shit was ruining her hands. She’d be stiff tomorrow, but she wasn’t totally unfit, not at all.
After a certain age a girl had to look after herself. In nearly two years here she’d given up the fags and switched from urban gin to rural whisky. She’d learned how to do a lot of things well enough, from loading sheep on to a Land Rover to holding her own at drunken ceilidhs. She could be a passable local journalist. Under Lachie’s instruction she could now keep the wood-burning stove going all night, adapt her voice to the country and western that was the folk music of these parts, play competitive pool without being an embarrassment, and flick a reasonable cast. And in return she’d taught young Lachie a thing or two.
The shirt clung to her back. Tom’s shirt. The only thing she’d kept of him.
She unbuttoned the cuffs and folded them back up her arms. After all, a shirt is only a shirt. And she liked her sweating self. This sweat, at least, was honest.
She looked round the yard. The l. . .
He gets out of the car. At this point in his life he would have turned forty. Most likely he was wearing black – dark jeans, black jacket, some worn old favourite shirt.
He looks up at the hills that circle the town, sees the upper slopes are purple with heather and reminds himself he mustn’t say so. Certain things about his country invite clichés. Certain things about his country are true.
Nevertheless, Neil Lindores nearly smiles as he takes out a suitcase and backpack. He leans protectively over the boot, then lifts out a bulky rod case which he holds on to while locking up. The sun’s full on his face. The lines around his eyes won’t go away – though lately he sleeps better – nor will the first grey streaks through the dark hair he cuts shorter as he gets older.
His movements are purposeful but still an imaginative person watching from the window of the near-empty hotel bar might think he’d once been in a bad accident, or been ill, and is now recovered but bears a trace of that shock inside.
Apart from that blend of energy and injury which only an extremely alert observer might guess at, and the oddly bulky rod case, there’s nothing remarkable about him, and as he picks up his baggage and heads for the back door of the hotel, anyone watching would likely have already turned away and gone back to their pint and newspaper and laptop.
He checks in with the barmaid-receptionist. Her name’s Shonagh, though he doesn’t know that yet. How long is he staying? Maybe a few days, maybe longer, he’s not sure – that all right? No problem at all. He’ll be up for the hillwalking? Ah, yes. She glances at his rod case. If he needs information about permits for Mavor, just come and ask.
Permits? He hesitates. Yes, if the weather’s poor he’ll maybe do some fishing.
His long mouth twitches slightly as he writes N. McGillivray in the register, then asks after the glassy-eyed stag’s head above Reception. That’s Mr MacPherson. The poor beast looks shocked, indignant, resigned, his mouth locked open in soundless protest.
‘Hi, Archie.’
‘How did you know he’s called Archie?’
He smiles and she thinks he looks quite different then.
‘It seemed a fair bet.’
Neil strokes the worn rust-coloured muzzle for luck, then quickly shoulders the rod case before Shonagh can, picks up his bags and hurries upstairs holding his room key like it’s the key to the kingdom.
* * *
Shonagh puts away the register and goes back through to the lounge bar and its single occupant sitting by the window.
‘Stranger in town?’
Shonagh nods.
‘Name’s McGillivray. Looks a Gael but talks Central Belt. Seems all right.’
‘And he’s maybe here for the hillwalking. Or maybe the fishing. I heard.’ She stretches and sighs. ‘Another man who can’t make up his mind. Check this out.’
Shonagh puts her hand on Kirsty’s shoulder and looks at the laptop’s screen: this week’s ‘Fiona’s Diary’. Just the usual tittle-tattle, Kirsty says defensively. Nothing ever happens round here. Three hillwalkers pulled off the Mavor estate by Lachie and the boys turned out to have nothing to do with the so-called John Macnab. But the estate intends to prosecute them anyway for Aggravated Trespass. She has views about that dubious piece of lawmaking but there’s no way old Dorward will let her air them, so she’s restricted herself to a couple of wisecracks.
‘When you first turned up here, m’eudail, I’d a notion you needed the quiet life for a while.’
‘So did I, damn it.’
Kirsty folds up the laptop and drains her pint. She glances up at the half-page circled in red and pinned above the bar. The biggest news for years and already it’s turning yellow at the edges.
‘And you might as well close the book on that one, Shonagh.’
‘So it’s a hoax?’
‘It’s a load of bollocks, that’s what it is. Somebody had a good idea one wet weekend then chickened out.’ Standing at the bar she glares at the empty glass in her right hand, then flips it over her shoulder. Without looking she catches it behind her back in her other hand. Thumps the glass on the counter. ‘I’ll away and file my column at the office. Catch you at the dance, lover.’
‘Hey, Kirsty—!’
She stops at the door.
‘Yes?’
‘You must have broken a few empty glasses practising.’
She laughs.
‘Na. Spilt a few full ones but.’
* * *
In the dim lobby Kirsty nips under the reception counter and opens the register. N. McGillivray. She frowns, unable to place what’s bothering her. On her way out she pats Mr MacPherson. Hang around here too long, my friend, you get stuffed.
* * *
Alone in the bar, Shonagh shakes her head. That Kirsty. She picks up the glass and turns it in her hand, tosses it up a little. Then a bit higher.
She catches the glass with both hands and swirls it out. She leans on the cash register and watches the water seep from the draining board. She’s feeling quite gruntled. The sky looks good for the weekend, and the dance tonight has possibilities, and though she always said second sight was a lot of haivers, she would later admit she knew something had already begun.
* * *
Neil locked his door, sighted along the rod case then put it carefully in the wardrobe along with a small heavy box. He piled a couple of blankets on top, unpacked his clothes, laid the maps out on the bed. He put his paperback John Macnab on the bedside table, the Munro book next to the maps. He checked the time, then moved the only chair so he had a clear view down on to the street, sat down and swung his legs up on to the window-sill. He pulled out a small notebook from his jacket and with a pencil added a few further notes, most of them ending in question marks.
When he’d finished he stared into space for a while, turning the gold ring on his finger. If asked, he’d have admitted the way he felt was honest enough but the way he lived was no longer truthful. He nodded to himself, then with some difficulty eased the ring off and placed it gently on the bedside table.
He went back to the window and looked out over the little town. He thought of a piece of doggerel his uncle once wrote. How ill advised I was and rash / To start upon this foolish dash.
* * *
Even in Kirkintilloch the sun was shining as Murray Hamilton eased the screws off the front licence plate on his old Kawasaki. His eleven-year-old sat on the steps of the council house with her guitar, hesitating between one chord and the next. His boy Jamie was kicking a football against the lean-to.
‘So,’ Tricia said, ‘is this the end of a glittering political career?’
He took the new plate from her and squinted into the light. Five years on the Council till he’d resigned, a thousand committee meetings, ten thousand doorsteps – and what had changed?
‘Time to try anither way, Trish.’
The thread caught in the bolt and he began to tighten.
‘You’ll not be much of a dad in jail.’
He put down the spanner.
‘I’ll stop right now if you want me tae.’
Behind them Eve at last found the new chord and strummed it cautiously.
‘I just said be careful. And don’t get hurt.’
‘Right, darlin.’
Tricia began loosening the rear plate. She glanced at her husband’s bowed head and for the first time saw that his tight red-gold hair was starting to thin around the crown, and the edge of his beard was touched with grey like the first touch of frost. Still, she grinned as she put the screws down carefully beside her. Might as well be a bit daft before we’re all past it.
* * *
In the office of what we’ll agree to call the Deeside Courier, Kirsty scratched away at a peeling wainscot panel as old Dorward checked through the printout of ‘Fiona’s Diary’. At the same time, with much twiddling of his glasses and apologetic coughing, he informed her that he was soon taking retirement on his doctor’s advice. His nephew Alec would take over the paper.
‘I don’t think you two get on so well?’
‘Not since he pushed his luck at the Highland Show and got a swift smack in the kisser, no.’
Old Wormwood coughed and suggested she should maybe start looking elsewhere. Admittedly young Eck was morally and intellectually challenged, but he was family and an undisturbed retirement was called for. She should try a few features for the nationals, and he’d keep his ears open. Something would come up.
Kirsty shrugged and got her nail under a particularly satisfying strip. No problem, Mr D.
She’d find a job somewhere, he assured her. She was quite good at this, whatever she’d done before.
That was almost a question. She chose to let it go by and die among the other bugs entangled in the cobweb over the door. Old Wormwood coughed and continued.
‘Even if your heart’s not entirely in it.’
She perched on the side of his desk and grinned at him.
‘My heart went out to lunch some years ago and hasn’t been seen since. I expect it’s sunning itself on a beach somewhere.’
Dorward looked at her over his half-moons. He was deeply fond of Kirsty and just as glad she wasn’t the daughter he’d never had. He sighed and made another couple of cuts to Fiona’s deathless prose, then handed it back.
‘I’ve cut yon wisecrack about the Criminal Justice Act. This isn’t the West Highland Free Press. The rest’s fine. Cheeky, but fine.’
She nodded and took back her copy.
‘I’ll finish this off at home.’
‘A right pity John Macnab didn’t show up. We could have done with some shenanigans round here – grand for circulation.’
She paused for a moment at the door.
‘Does the name McGillivray mean anything to you, Mr Dorward?’
He thought about it, shook his head.
‘What should it mean?’
‘Something. Anything. Wouldn’t it be nice if once in a while something, anything, meant something?’
He nodded sympathetically.
‘I find a large whisky helps, Kirsty.’
‘It will. Bye …’
He watched her go and heard her bounding whistling down the stairs, and then the office seemed a little dimmer and he felt a little older. He sighed and went back to his editorial on the abiding problem of drink in Highland life.
* * *
In a garage on the outskirts of Fort William, a man in battered fatigues and a streaked Barbour jacket finally laid down his spray gun, stepped back and checked out his van. It had taken three coats of black to obscure Sutherland’s Mountain Highs and the phone number. Pity, but it had to be done. Now to paint out the windows.
The mobile phone on the front seat beeped. He grabbed it but the caller wasn’t the one he’d been trying not to wait for. He listened and nodded.
‘Eighteen hundred hours then, matey. And max operational security, right? See you …’
He probably hummed the theme from Danger Man as he went back to work.
* * *
Behind the bar someone had pinned up a familiar newspaper cutting. TO WHOM IT CONCERNS … The name Mavor was underlined in red. It struck Neil that the Macnab Challenge read as though written by committee. As in a way it had been.
He sipped his pint, rolled a cigarette and looked round the big empty lounge bar. Faded tartan carpet, the fifties woodveneer panelling, scuffed linoleum dance floor, the plywood stage.
Seventies pastel plastic lampshades. Another stag’s head, absurd and so familiar, its stilled cry something else about his country that was true. Coal-effect gas fire in one corner, a real log fire burning low at the far end of the bar near the windows.
The room looked like it had seen some good nights. He glanced at his watch. He’d thought at least one of them would be on time. He wandered over to the window, picked up a copy of the local paper left lying on the table there. He sat down and flicked through it. Seemed like nothing much was happening. Three letters about John Macnab, two for, one against.
He lit the cigarette and played a few minor chords on the table. The barmaid was reading a book at the far end of the counter, and something about her short curly hair and solid shoulders was vaguely familiar. But he couldn’t place it, so he opened the map and the Munro book and settled down to study them both, to envisage for the hundredth time the lie of the land. No matter how closely you read the contours and rehearse your plans, the reality on the ground is always different. Always. He thought he accepted that.
* * *
Heading up the gradients towards the Spittal of Glenshee, the bike was losing power. Murray Hamilton changed down but something wasn’t right. He pulled in at the side of the road. Gasket shot, Scotland’s oil sprayed to the winds.
He sighed and set off towards the call-box a mile or so up the road, sweating inside his leathers in the heat of the afternoon. Occasionally drivers slowed, then something about this small, stocky, bearded figure made them drive on.
He pushed in the coins.
‘Alasdair? A wee change in plans. Bike’s knackered.’
‘No problem, old sport. I’m on my way. Plan F.’
‘Whit’s Plan F?’
Alasdair’s sigh swooshed down the phone.
‘Plan F is you’re F’d and I bail you out as usual. Don’t move.’
* * *
‘Finished with my paper, mister?’
Neil looked up, covering the map with his elbow. Youngish woman. Tall. Then the colour clash resolved into a bright orange jacket and a spray of ginger hair. She put one foot up on the window-seat.
‘You’ll be up for the hillwalking?’
The hair pulled back loosely from her wide forehead wasn’t ginger but some kind of burnt autumn.
‘Oh, uh – maybe. Here’s your paper,’ he added lamely.
She nodded, more to herself than to him. The colour of beech leaves at the very end of autumn, he thought. A kind of burning red-brown. And crinkly, the kind that can never quite be controlled.
‘Not exactly the best time of year for it.’
‘The midgies? Ach, they’re usually not bad on the tops.’
She was silent for a moment. Her eyes were watchful, wideset under that flare of hair.
‘I was thinking of the stalking restrictions,’ she said. ‘What with the Criminal Justice Act and all. Unless you want the gamies chasing you.’
He laughed and looked away, pulling on his cigarette.
‘Sounds a bit wild for me.’
‘Really?’ she said. ‘You look game enough to me.’
It was his turn to stare and hers to look away with maybe a faint flush under that freckled skin.
‘I just came over for my paper,’ she said, ‘but I’ll join you if you want.’
He sighed and folded up the map and a vision of stalking two ghillies across a bealach in the moonlight. She came back with a whisky and stood with her back to the window.
‘Our Mavor estate here will throw you off even on a Sunday. Don’t you think that’s wrong?’
He took his time.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘But it doesn’t concern me. I can maybe do a bit of rock climbing.’
‘Not maybe fishing? Or even real salmon fishing?’
He stared at her. He could do without this. Strong straight nose, high inquiring eyebrows. A mouth ready to laugh or scorn. The cool eyes belonged to someone else altogether.
‘I was looking out the window and saw your case of rods,’ she said. ‘Sorry, we’re kind of nosy round here.’
‘No, really? I’d be after trout,’ he continued after a pause. ‘But why don’t you sit down and continue this interrogation in comfort?’
They discussed rods and casts and flies, and established each knew a little about it but were mostly bluffing. Was he waiting for anyone? No, but it was possible he might run into a pal or two. What did she do round here? She did this and that, mostly this, she said, and ordered another whisky. Would he have another pint while waiting for his pals?
He would. But he wasn’t particularly expecting anyone. Cheers.
What did he think about this John Macnab lark? What John Macnab lark? She pointed to the newspaper.
ESTATE OWNERS STILL ON ALERT. No comment from Palace. SECRETARY OF STATE CONDEMNS POACHING WAGER. SNP DIVIDED. HOAX? See Editorial and Letters inside.
Oh, that Macnab. He’d seen the Challenge pinned above the bar. She said it read like it was written by committee.
He looked at her while she tucked her hair behind her ears again. He murmured it seemed all right to him. She shook her head and the first few strands escaped and fell over the collar of the orange jacket. Cobbled together, she insisted. Didn’t he find that instructive?
He shrugged, said it sounded like a silly-season story and probably wouldn’t come to anything. She agreed Mr Macnab was leaving it a bit late.
Neil nodded and lifted his pint. And inquired whether she thought the salmon was possible.
She agreed that maybe it was. But anyway not many folk round here gave Mr Macnab much of a chance. Now one of the local lads could maybe pull off the salmon at least. It was not entirely unknown round these parts.
Neil rolled another cigarette and said he was sure it wasn’t. Where did they go if the poaching mood took them? Up above where the wee river joins the Alt na Harrie, she said vaguely. But she knew for a fact that Mr Aziz who owned the estate had hired extra men, including most of the local wide-boys. Without inside knowledge this Macnab had little chance. They’d even opened a book on it. He could get good odds.
What odds?
Ten to one against pulling off Mavor.
Ah. Like he said, he wasn’t really a betting person. But were most people for or against this Macnab?
She hesitated. Divided, she said. A lot were for, even some of the Tories. But he had to remember that people made their living from the estates one way or another and they knew what they were paid to do and who paid them. Even if one or two had done the odd spot of poaching in the past, that wouldn’t stop them going all out to catch another poacher. It was almost a matter of honour. And then there was the bonus. What bonus?
Five hundred quid for whoever catches him.
Neil said he’d put a fiver on Macnab pulling off his first objective.
She laughed. Good on him. She’d already put on a fiver herself. Just following the healthy Scottish instinct to back a loser.
He glanced at her then.
‘You don’t sound Scottish.’
‘Army childhood,’ she said briefly. ‘The Rhine, Cyprus, the Rock.’ She looked away through her glass. ‘From nowhere, really. Hey, Shonagh – come and take this sucker’s bet and add it to the book? Just write your name here.’
As he wrote out his name and an address there was a bang on the window. He looked and saw Murray and Alasdair grinning and waving in the street outside.
Idiots. They might as well have run up a flag. He quickly excused himself, picked up his map and book and went to head them off.
She looked closely at the entry in the betting book before handing it back to Shonagh.
‘That one seemed able to resist your charms, Kirsty. It’s extraordinary.’
‘It’s unprecedented, that’s what it is.’ She looked thoughtfully out of the window. ‘Maybe Mr Maybe has something else on his mind.’
* * *
‘You’re supposed to arrive separately,’ Neil hissed as they shook hands. ‘What kept you?’
‘Transport logistical problems, old sport,’ Alasdair said.
‘Aye – ma bike’s fucked.’
The back door opened and beech leaves in autumn came out whistling.
‘So you’ve found each other then,’ she said. ‘Hi guys. See you around, Neil.’
‘Aye, cheerio.’
She stopped and turned after a couple of strides.
‘I do hope we haven’t thrown away our money,’ she said.
And she strode out of the car park, long-legged in blue jeans, hands in the pockets of the orange jacket, the bush of autumnal hair bouncing jauntily along behind her. She was still whistling something, a tune Neil couldn’t quite place.
‘You haven’t been wasting your time,’ Alasdair said. ‘Who’s she?’
‘Miss Colour Clash of the year? She just descended on me with a lot of questions. I gave nothing away.’
Murray looked round uneasily.
‘Let’s stop standing around like stookies and get aff the street.’
They hurried towards Alasdair’s van. It was late afternoon and the sun was melting over the sandstone of that Highland town.
‘You’re the folkie, Murray,’ Neil said. ‘Remind me what “Annie Laurie” sounds like.’
‘Afore my time, pal.’
Neil and Murray climbed into the back among the piles of gear.
‘Where to, youth?’
‘Operational HQ, matey. Pete’s place.’
‘Is Pete discreet?’ Neil asked, leaning back on the defunct Kawasaki.
‘Na. But he’s in Tibet …’
The van pulled out and headed north.
* * *
This is the bird that was winged but flew on. This is the fish that was seen in the sky. This is the stag that was shot but not wounded. This is the story that cannot be told.
Save what can be saved, then resume. As Neil used to say.
Some details glow, some turn to ash. That Ford Escort was certainly bog-standard, blue and heavily rusted along the sills, but Neil could as well have been carrying a green tweed jacket that August afternoon as wearing a black one. And surely Kirsty was drinking whisky not beer – she only did that over-the-shoulder trick with a shot glass. And perhaps Neil exaggerated her hair, though she’d have wanted people to know the colour was natural and the orange jacket in the best possible taste.
But about her age that day we can be precise: it was her thirtieth birthday, though not even Shonagh knew that.
* * *
Kirsty Fowler drove up the hill road in the old green Wolseley that was the second-last item she kept from her former life. Up on the brae where her rented cottage looked over the village (principal occupations: tourism, forestry, sport and rumour masquerading as news), the summer breeze was strong enough to clear away the midgies. She had no excuses left.
She stood by the car for a moment in the late afternoon sun, smelling the sharp resin of the pine trees around the cottage, and a faint peppery sweetness in the wind off the hills. For a moment she was walking up the High Street past the Heart of Midlothian, turning to the law courts with the smell of the breweries drifting up from Fountainbridge … She shook her head, walked quickly across the yard and pushed open the ill-fitting door.
Charlie lolloped through to greet her. She passed a hand over his shaggy but loyal head, then stooped to pick up the cards lying on the mat. Two of them. She checked the postmarks, then dropped the birthday cards unopened on the kitchen table. Deal with that later.
She went through to the bedroom and picked her copy of John Macnab from the shelf. She flicked through the pages, whistling a tune that seemed to have got stuck in her head. No luck. She put the book back next to the other Buchans. Another might-have-been.
She changed from working clothes into old cords and the faded Black Watch shirt while Charlie whined at the door. She glanced out at the pile of logs Hamish and Gerry had delivered off the back of a Forestry Commission pick-up, sighed and picked up the axe. She’d read somewhere that if you force yourself to smile, a smiley mood will follow. It was not entirely untrue. She opened the door and Charlie bounded into the yard, barking joyfully. She followed, determinedly singing, ‘It’s a ha-ha-happy day’ under her breath.
She selected a fat log, set it upright on the chopping block, steadied herself – the two whiskies with cool and distant Mr Maybe had left her light-headed. She swung the axe out wide, right hand up near the axe-head, looped it over her shoulder (‘Let the weight do the work,’ Lachie had told her, ‘just relax’). With a slight pause at the top of the swing, she drove the axe down, sliding her right hand into her left. The blade chonked clean through and split off a segment. The log toppled off the block. She bent over, set it up again, brought the axe up and out and down again.
Only steady concentration without hurry or expectation could do this job well. She’d learned that much living here. Only solid work and hard play could stop you thinking about the things you didn’t want to think about.
It’s a ha-ha-happy day. The blade swung, the sun shone yellow-white on the newly-split logs that would do her till winter if she stayed that long.
* * *
‘Come on down, space cadet!’
Neil came out of his dwam as Alasdair brushed by with another box of provisions, mostly bottles and cans. Already Murray had the bike out round the back of the cottage out of sight of the road, and was working away on it, silent and methodical.
Neil grinned to himself as his friend – the kind you’ve known so long you can’t remember why you are friends or even if you are – paused to push up the sleeves of his pullover. It was his reflex whenever he got down to things, a reassertion that he at least was a working man. And within minutes the sleeves would slip down his muscular forearms. Neil watched him and decided to see Murray’s life as the battle of the sleeve. He never really wins and he never gives up and he needs something to kick against.
Neil followed Alasdair into the kitchen and looked round at the piles of clothes and rod and ropes, packs and sleeping bags, telescopes and radios and climbing gear. For a moment he saw Helen shake her head then turn away to hide her smile, and then he couldn’t see her.
‘So when do we start, Al?’
Alasdair put a bottle of whisky on the table, then pulled a shotgun from a pack. He wiped the barrel on his sleeve then sighted along it. He passed it to Neil and grinned.
‘We just have, old sport. Call in the red dwarf.’
* * *
Kirsty paused and straightened her back, and rubbed her rising blister. This country-girl shit was ruining her hands. She’d be stiff tomorrow, but she wasn’t totally unfit, not at all.
After a certain age a girl had to look after herself. In nearly two years here she’d given up the fags and switched from urban gin to rural whisky. She’d learned how to do a lot of things well enough, from loading sheep on to a Land Rover to holding her own at drunken ceilidhs. She could be a passable local journalist. Under Lachie’s instruction she could now keep the wood-burning stove going all night, adapt her voice to the country and western that was the folk music of these parts, play competitive pool without being an embarrassment, and flick a reasonable cast. And in return she’d taught young Lachie a thing or two.
The shirt clung to her back. Tom’s shirt. The only thing she’d kept of him.
She unbuttoned the cuffs and folded them back up her arms. After all, a shirt is only a shirt. And she liked her sweating self. This sweat, at least, was honest.
She looked round the yard. The l. . .
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The Return of John Macnab
Andrew Greig
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