The Interpretations

by David Shaw Mackenzie

  ‘All of them dead?’

  ‘As I said, yes. All of them.’

  ‘Anyone we know?’

  Jim said, ‘We knew one of them, by reputation if nothing else.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Well, the passengers were a couple of lads called McGillvray, from Newton Ards. Young kids. Late teens. Awful business altogether.’

  Mike tried to shrug but failed. He said, ‘Never heard of them.’

  ‘Nor me. But the driver was a fellow called Gilfedder.’

  ‘Gilfedder?’

  ‘That’s the name.’

  ‘Any relation . . . ?’

  ‘Oh yes. Oh yes indeed,’ Jim said. ‘Archie Gilfedder, Donnie Gilfedder’s brother.’

  Both men took a few moments to think about this information then Jim went on, ‘Now, I don’t know about the McGillvrays but Archie . . . well, let’s say Donnie used him as a role model. A nasty piece of work altogether. Quite a bit of relief all round that he’s gone, I’d say.’

  ‘Don’t think I ever met him.’

  ‘No? You were lucky.’

  ‘Did you know him then?’

  ‘No, not at all, but I sort of met him once. Must have been . . . oh, eighty-nine, ninety, something like that. I was on court duty . . .’

  ‘A break from horoscopes?’

  Jim smiled. ‘I’ve managed to avoid horoscopes for quite a while now. In fact . . . oh, shite . . .’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’ve just remembered. Miss Crystal’s retiring at the end of the week. Maybe I’ll go away . . .’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Our astrologer,’ Jim explained. ‘He’s off at the end of the week and they haven’t got a replacement yet. And I’m usually first off the bench in cases like that. Christ, I hope not . . .’

  ‘What about Gilfedder?’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Gilfedder. The court case.’

  ‘Oh, right. Yes, he was up for assault. Quite serious, in fact. Went down for quite a while anyway, because he’d done stuff like that before. In fact, when there was all that bother with Tom and Donnie at the plant and then the shooting . . . well, Archie was inside at the time, finishing a stretch for some other nasty little enterprise. No, there won’t be too many people crying about Archie.’

  ‘Wives,’ Mike said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘They both had wives, didn’t they? I mean, Archie and Donnie, both.’

  ‘Oh, they certainly did. Battered ones.’

  ‘Well . . .’

  Jim said, ‘I’d better be off.’

  ‘Next time,’ Mike said, ‘peaches.’

  ‘I’ll try and remember. Since it’s yourself.’ He stood up.

  ‘Oh, hold on a minute,’ Mike said. ‘Could you . . .’ He tried to turn his head.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Could you just get that letter on the side there.’ He pointed, not very accurately, with his left hand.

  ‘This one?’ Jim picked up a cream-coloured business envelope. It was addressed to Michael Delvan Esq and PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL was stamped on it.

  ‘Looks a bit serious.’

  ‘Could you open it for me?’

  ‘Are you sure? It’s telling me here that it’s private.’

  ‘Look, it’ll be really very private if you don’t open it because I can’t open it myself.’

  ‘OK.’ Jim sat down again. He slit open the envelope with his finger and drew out a single sheet of A4 paper that had been folded neatly in three to make it fit the envelope. He unfolded it and held it out to Mike.

  ‘You read it,’ Mike said.

  ‘Well, if that’s what you want . . . Let’s see . . . It’s from Forbes McElwin.’

  ‘Who’s he?’

  ‘Solicitor. McElwin and Partners. A good man, actually. Helped me out with my divorce. Anyway . . . “Dear Mr Delvan, I have in my possession certain items which were placed in my care by a client of mine who asked me to pass them on to you when certain circumstances should arise. As these circumstances now obtain, it is my duty to ask you to visit my office at your earliest convenience in order to collect these items. I understand that at present you are receiving medical attention in Dalmore Royal Infirmary following an accident. I hope that you are much improved and that I will see you soon.

  ‘ “I would rather not give further details of the matter in this letter but look forward to discussing them with you in person. I feel, however, that I am at liberty to say that my fulfillment of the instructions given to me by my client is not unconnected to your present unfortunate situation.Yours most sincerely, Forbes McElwin.” ’

  ‘Well,’ Mike said, ‘any idea what that’s all about?’

  ‘None at all, unless you’ve got an aged relative who’s just passed on . . .’

  ‘Not to my knowledge no.’

  Jim looked at the letter again. ‘ “Not unconnected with your present unfortunate situation” . . . Somebody waiting till you nearly killed yourself? Or . . . hold on, I bet it’s got something to do with Archie Gilfedder.’

  ‘I never met the man.’

  ‘Well, just the once, eh?’ Jim said. ‘A very short acquaintance.’

  Mike said, ‘Ring him.’

  ‘McElwin?’

  ‘Yes. Ring him and tell him I can’t come and see him but I authorize you to go instead.’

  ‘Well, if that’s what you want . . . Anyway, here you are. Speak to him yourself.’ Jim took his mobile phone from his pocket and tapped out McElwin’s number. Then he passed the phone to Mike who held it in his undamaged left hand.

  ‘Mr McElwin? Yes . . . Mike Delvan here . . . Yes . . . I got your letter. Thanks, yes . . . Yes . . . Yes . . . I see that, yes . . . Well, no, it’s . . . No, I’ll be here for some time, which is why I’m phoning . . . Yes . . . You see, I’m keen to find out about this and I appreciate that you can’t discuss it on the phone, so I was wondering . . . Yes . . . So, perhaps you could give the items to James Fisher . . . That’s right, yes . . . No, he understands the situation . . . I see . . . OK, OK . . . Yes, of course I can do that, yes . . . Fine . . . Thank you, yes. Thank you very much. Goodbye, goodbye.’

  ‘OK?’ Jim asked.

  ‘Fine. But he needs written confirmation from me that I’ve asked you to collect the stuff on my behalf.’

  ‘Right. So . . . so how good are you at writing with your left hand?’

  Alltduie House was situated on the edge of Dalmore, just north of North Treshie. It was a large sandstone building of two storeys with a total of thirty-seven rooms. It was set in fine, well-kept gardens mostly laid to lawn, and it overlooked the sea.

  Built in 1879 as a monastery for the Benedictine order, it had lost its ecclesiastical links in 1923 when, after lying empty for three years, it was reopened as the Dalmore Highland Hotel. As a hotel its fortunes fluctuated with the prevailing economic situation of the time. The 1930s and 40s were lean years, the late 1950s and 1960s quite prosperous. But it couldn’t survive the recession of the late 1980s and it closed early in 1990. Again, it stood empty for a while but this time for only a few months rather than years. In the autumn of 1990 it was bought by Dalmore Council and converted to its present purpose: a care home for the elderly.

  The building’s solid structure did not lend itself easily to the several conversions it had been subject to over the years. Now, as a care home, it struggled to accommodate the alterations demanded by successive regulatory changes. At various points in the last ten years it had been rumoured that Alltduie House was to be closed down or privatized or converted into flats or knocked down to make way for a new stadium for Dalmore United FC. But it had survived so far. It was still there, offering care to its twenty-six elderly residents.

  One big advantage of the care home’s situation was its proximity to North Treshie in the middle of which sat, like a large white box, the Royal Infirmary. There was less than a mile and a half between the two buildings. Traffic flowed regularly from one to the ot
her, those requiring specialist treatment in one direction and, in the other, those for whom the hospital had done its best and whose needs now extended to recuperation and monitored decline.

  This morning Jim Fisher drove, for the first time, from the Royal Infirmary to Alltduie House and realised, also for the first time, how close the buildings were to one another. It was Thursday and on Thursdays he always went to Alltduie. Today, following his visit to Mike Delvan, he was later than usual and this was not good. The person he was going to visit was keen on punctuality even though, at ninety-two, he was Alltduie’s oldest resident. Jim was going to visit the Reverend J P McFarren.

  Jim parked his three-year-old Renault 5 near the front door. In his wilder moments he wanted a Ferrari. But these days such wild moments were few and far between. He was a sober, law-abiding citizen, not subject to daft cravings such as his friend Mike’s for an Alfa Romeo. Beautiful car, though, he had to admit. Anyway, as far as Ferraris were concerned, he could have the colour, if nothing else. His Renault 5 was red, except for the bits in the wheel arches which had begun to rust.

  Three months before, an elderly care home resident had been attacked by a young mentally-ill man who’d wandered in off the street. The resident had had a heart attack and, two days later, died. This had happened not at Alltduie but at a care home in that distant place called London. Nevertheless, visiting regulations had changed for all care homes in the North. To let himself in to Alltduie, Jim pressed a four-digit code into a keypad on the front door. This released the lock and he stepped inside.

  ‘Hello, Ishbel,’ he said as he passed an elderly lady in a wheelchair. And then, ‘Hello, Geordie. Alec, how’re you doing? Jessie, how’s yourself?’

  The responses he got to these and other greetings varied from a smile and a nod, a word, even, to nothing at all.

  At the far end of the hall he met a thirty-year-old Filipina called Clara who was wearing the regulation pale blue uniform of a carer. ‘Good morning, Mr Fisher,’ she said to him.

  ‘Hi, Clara.’

  ‘Mr McFarren’s worried about you. You’re so late.’

  Jim shook his head. ‘I’m only ten minutes late and already he’s starting to fret.’

  ‘No, but . . .’ Clara looked at her watch. ‘Usually you come at ten o’clock, no?’

  ‘Well, exactly. So . . . so . . .’ Jim glanced at his watch. ‘Christ, how did that happen?’

  ‘Ten minutes and one hour late,’ Clara said, smiling.

  He took the stairs rather than the lift. The lift was slow. It moved slowly between floors and its doors opened and closed slowly. It was engineered to accommodate the pace of life in Alltduie which was slow. Jim knew he could easily reach the first floor in advance of the lift.

  The Reverend McFarren’s room, 123, was on the first floor and faced East, towards the sea.

  When he’d first arrived at Alltduie, eight years before, the minister had been given a south-facing room from whose window he could clearly see the two towers of the new suspension bridge. He had asked to be moved. ‘I do not wish to see or be seen by that abomination,’ he said.

  Unfortunately the Reverend McFarren’s arrival at that particular time had meant that all twenty-eight of the residents’ rooms were occupied so his request could not be granted. When this was explained to him he said that he was a patient man and that he would wait. Meanwhile he would stay in his present room with the curtains drawn at all times.

  The nursing staff did not like the idea of the minister sitting in some kind of permanent gloaming but he was a difficult man to argue with. Unlike many of the other residents whose conditions involved some degree of senile dementia, the Reverend McFarren’s mind was still sharp. He could state his position clearly and succinctly and he retained a certain gravitas. They tried to persuade him to allow them to part the curtains only a few inches so that some light would come in. His answer, firm but polite, was no.

  This whole business of the room affected him much more deeply than anyone realized. Although he desperately wanted to be out of sight of that dreadful bridge he knew that none of the residents wanted to swap rooms and that all the rooms were taken. He was aware, therefore, that the only way he could get another room was if someone died.

  This situation caused him almost intolerable anguish. To hope for a new room was to hope that someone would die. There was absolutely no way around that bit of logic. It was an appalling position to be in. At this time, during what was to be his five curtained weeks, he suffered greatly. His health declined and everyone said, mistakenly, that it was because of the light, or lack of it. It had nothing to do with the light. It had all to do with desire and duty and the strange dilemma these two had conspired to inflict upon him.

  What exactly should he pray for? A miracle? He believed in miracles but only old ones. A leper cured at the touch of a hand, water changed into wine, the depth of love that could raise a man from the dead. But today? Could there be miracles today? And even if there were, surely it was arrogance to believe that his tiny situation was worthy of miraculous intervention. No, his way was clear. He would endure what he was given to endure. He would pray for fortitude. He would ask the Lord to bless all the residents of Alltduie with long life. Above all, he would say, again and again, ‘Thy will be done.’

  The problem was resolved five weeks after the minister’s arrival in Alltduie when, in the space of three days, not one but three residents died. All three were in their nineties and had lived longer than expected. All three had east-facing rooms. The Reverend McFarren now had a choice of three rooms. Three! He regarded this as a sign, perhaps a substantial sign, but of what he was unsure. He prayed for forgiveness from sins he hardly dared name because by naming them he might commit them all over again. He reconciled himself to God’s Will for there was, ultimately, no other explanation of these events. Then he moved from room 105 to 123 where he opened his curtains wide to the sea.

  Room 123 was small and neat. Like all the others it was furnished with a single bed, a small chest of drawers, a free-standing pine wardrobe and an easy chair. Unlike the others it also contained a tiny bureau. When the minister wanted to write at this bureau, which he did most afternoons and some evenings, he had to ask one of the carers to bring in an upright chair because there was not enough space for this chair to reside in the room permanently. The bureau was full of carefully arranged papers, the drawers labelled using a system that only the Reverend McFarren understood fully.

  On one of these labels was the single word: KEY. Inside the drawer, one of the smallest in the bureau, were two collections of letters, each bundle held together by and elastic band. The largest of the two bundles contained letters from his wife, Millicent, who had written to him on those rare occasions – usually when she was visiting her sister in the Borders – when they were apart. The second, smaller bundle, held five letters he had received during his wife’s final illness. They were from Miss Comlyn.

  Underneath the two collections of letters sat the great key from the front door of the East Kirk. This was the key which he had worn round his neck for more than three decades. He now regarded this practice with disdain and himself as a fool for doing it for so long, for doing it at all. A profession of faith, he’d believed all those years ago, a reminder. The string, the little knot pressing on his neck a constant reminder of his faith. But now? Arrogance, he called it. Self-importance. Nothing more.

  But he had the key still, the only item he’d retained from the East Kirk. They would allow that, surely.

  On top of the bureau, between two ebony elephant bookends, sat the dozen or so books that the minister prized most highly. There were three bibles. One had belonged to his father; one had been given to him by his wife, Mill; the third he had won in a Bible Society competition at primary school. This last one was eighty-two years old.

  The remaining books included a Bible concordance, the complete works of Shakespeare, a separate volume of the Psalms of David and several commentaries on the g
ospel of Saint Mark. There was also a copy of Frank Fraser Darling’s ‘Island Years’, a book lent to the minister by the man who was now knocking on his door.

  ‘Good morning, minister. I’m sorry I’m so late. So very late.’

  The Reverend McFarren, who seemed to Jim to be smaller and more fragile on each succeeding visit, was sitting in his armchair by the window. ‘Jim,’ he said quietly. ‘No, it’s good to see you. Very good. I wasn’t about to run away.’ He smiled. He turned to look out of the window again. ‘You know,’ he went on, ‘I used to say that I could sit and watch the sea for hours. But I don’t say that any more.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No. Now I just do it.’ He laughed. ‘D’you see?’ He turned to look at Jim again. ‘I just sit here for hours, for days, even, and I watch the sea. And I enjoy it immensely. Sometimes I even forget to do all the things I should be doing. Yes, all those extremely important things I can’t for the life of me bring to mind right now.’ Then, without much difficulty, he stood up. ‘Shall we take a turn round the garden?’ he suggested.

  ‘Certainly.’

  ‘Good.’

  Jim helped the minister on with his coat and they made their way from the room to the lift, down to the ground floor and then out, via the main entrance, into the garden. The minister took Jim’s arm as they walked slowly round the grounds, pausing every so often to admire the spring bulbs or to take in the view.

  ‘I was unhappy for a long time, you know,’ the minister said.

  ‘You were?’

  ‘Yes, I was. For some years. Oh, I was happy before that time and, somewhat to my surprise, I have to admit that I’m relatively happy now.’

  ‘What was it that made you unhappy?’

  ‘The idea that I wasn’t doing enough. And then that maybe the little I was doing was the wrong thing, not what I should be doing at all. Difficult issues for anybody, I suppose, but especially for a minister. Well, I don’t know, maybe that’s just me being self-important. Shall we . . . shall we take a seat here?’