“Five of Scotland’s worst social problems solved at a stroke. Wonderful!” says Jim, awestruck. Linda, unimpressed, tells them grimly, “The deer botfly, Calliphora Vomitaria — ”
“Sorry dear, but I have to interrupt,” Jim tells her. “Bill is a troubleshooter. Exactly what trouble are you here to shoot, Bill?”
“The midges are not biting.”
“Why?” asks Jim.
“Nudists are using midge repellents.”
“Calliphora Vomitaria — ” begins Linda but her husband talks over her. “I’m sorry dear, but this really is important. You must know, Bill, that International Pharmaceuticals who want the midges also make the repellent sprays. They can make the sprays sold in Scotland ineffective by weakening the contents!”
“They’ve done that,” says Bill, “but local chemists have stockpiled enough of the old effective stuff to repel midges for the next ten years.”
Linda, trying again, says, “Calliphora Vom — ” but Jim almost angrily says, “I told you this is important Linda. Listen Bilclass="underline" the pharmaceutical companies must tell local chemists that the repellents that they’ve stockpiled may induce cancer because they’ve been insufficiently tested, so will replace them with completely safe stuff free of charge.”
Bill, shaking his head, says, “Too dangerous. If that lie turns out to be true, the pharmaceuticals will have no defence if people start suing them.”
“So what can they do?”
“S.L.I.C.Q.E. have called in T.I.Q.T.S. who — ”
“What,” shouts Linda, “is T?I?Q?T?S?”
“My firm: Troubleshooter International Quick Termination Service,” says Bill, modestly, and Jim asks, fascinated, “What will you do?”
In a low voice Bill asks if he can keep a secret. Jim quietly explains that he was once a Boys Brigade captain, so never clypes. He is then told something in a voice so low that Linda cannot hear a word, and resumes knitting.
Jim is strangely affected by what he hears. Admiration contends with horror as he asks, “You can do that nowadays?”
Bill nods.
“But when Communist governments did such things everyone thought… I mean, in Britain, Europe and the U.S.A. most people thought… I mean, even the cheapest newspapers said that kind of thing was… er… wrong. Bad. Dirty. I think we even had laws against it.”
Bill tells him happily, “We’re living in a new age, Max.”
Gently correcting him, Jim says, “Jim.”
“I’m sorry?” says Bill, puzzled.
Treating the matter as a joke they will share Jim says, “I am not Max. I’m your old friend Jim Barclay.”
Bill, thunderstruck, says, “You’re… not Max Fenstersturmer?”
“No. I’m Jim Barclay, whose life you once saved.”
Bill jumps up, cries, “Is this not sixteen Conniston Place, Strathnaver?”
“It is sixteen Denniston Place, Strathinver.”
Bill responds in a new and strangely American-sounding voice: “No wonder nothing you’ve said to me has made sense. O but you’ve been very very smart. I have to admire how you screwed what you did out of me.”
Jim, slightly disturbed, stands up saying, “It’s you who made the first mistake. I simply answered you as politely and agreeably as possible.”
“But you didn’t go out of your way to correct me, did you? Exactly who are you working for?” Bill asks on a note of naked menace, after which the quiet dignity of Jim’s reply sounds unusually British: “I am not working at all. I am a tax avoidance accountant who took early retirement. My hobby is cultivating friendship and you are suddenly making it very, very difficult.”
“They all make feeble excuses of that kind. I will now tell you what I came north to tell Fenstersturmer and you’d better believe it. If you’re working for one of the other sides, come clean and we’ll do a deal, because we can always do a deal with the other sides. But if you’re a loose cannon you haven’t a hope in hell. Get this. Everything you’ve heard, everything you know, everything you think comes under The Official Secrets Act, and if you breathe one word of it to a living soul you can kiss your ass goodbye. And if they come for me first I’ll make sure that we both go down the chute together.”
“Calliphora Vomitaria,” announces Linda, “commonly called the deer botfly, deposits larvae in the nostrils of young deer. The larvae live in the nasal or throat passages, attached by their mouth hooks and living on the secretions of the host. When full-fed they are passed out with the deer’s droppings and pupate on the soil.”
During this Bill strides to the door, opens it and tells Jim, “Remember this, Fensterbacher! The crocodiles at the bottom of that chute have needle-sharp teeth and take years to make a meal of a man!”
Do You Ken John Peel? summons him from his pocket as he rushes out from the house, slamming the front door behind him.
Jim looks at Linda, perhaps hoping for an adequate comment. She sighs, shrugs her shoulders and resumes knitting, so he wanders around the room with hands in pockets murmuring, “Well well well,” at intervals in slightly different tones of voice. At last he says, “I enjoyed his company before he turned nasty… I wonder if he was all he cracked himself up to be… I’ll know for sure if chemists’ stockrooms start exploding. Linda! Should I phone the police and warn them about that?”
She says, “He was the police — a special branch of it.”
“Not a troubleshooter for a private corporation?”
“That too. The police are half-privatised now, like most of the government,” and she sadly adds, “I wish you were him.”
“Why?”
“He and I nearly had a conversation before you butted in — almost the first intelligent talk I’ve had with a man since we married. Before that you sometimes talked to me. Never since. Not nowadays.”
“Not now, no,” he says absentmindedly going to the window and looking out. She stops knitting, looks at his back and says softly, “What if we — both you and me — were always listening — I mean really listening to the silence. Would we hear, — really hear and heed — the importance of waiting, — really waiting — for the right moment — to begin the song?”
There is a long silence, then without turning he asks if she said something. She says, “A poem I remembered.”
He says, “For a moment I thought you were talking to me.” She resumes knitting. He resumes wondering about the state of the weather outside, and sometimes (as a result of his conversation with Bill) also worrying idly about the state of Britain.
WHISKY AND WATER
A PUBLIC HOUSE has been expensively refurnished and redecorated by owners who hope it will now attract a richer class of client, but while other pubs in the district are crowded as usual, this has only one customer. He sits at the bar, slowly sipping whisky while talking, though not conversing, with the barmaid. He wants a female audience to punctuate his monologue with agreeable sounds, and the barmaid does this easily while looking through a fashion magazine. Her most frequent sound is “mhm”, a Scottish word of agreement which can be said without opening the mouth. The regular customer asks, “You know my brother the artist?” “Mhm.”
“He is more than an artist now. He is now chief arts administrator for the whole of North Lanarkshire. He has shagged nearly every woman in North Lanarkshire. Has he shagged you?”
“No.”
“Where do you live when you’re at home?”
“West Dumbartonshire.”
“That explains it. He is also a property genius. He collects property like some folk collect postage stamps. You know the tenement at the corner of Boghead Road and Sheriff Irvine Smith Street? That’s his.”