The argument closed at that point.
But the next day Jim was back. ‘You mentioned four,’ he began.
‘Four?’ the minister said.
‘Four men that died while working on the bridge.’
‘That’s right. And don’t forget the other five.’
‘What other five?’
‘The five who committed suicide by jumping off the bridge. They couldn’t have done that now, could they, if the thing hadn’t been built in the first place. Remember your friend, and mine too, of course, poor Tom Kingsmill.’
Jim decided he would not allow this to distract him from the point he was keen to make. ‘How about six?’ he asked.
‘What?’
‘Six men dead on a construction site.’
‘What are you talking about now?’
‘The Easter Kirk.’
Jim knew this would shock the minister into silence and it did. But after a few moments he said, ‘Whatever do you mean?’
‘I’ve had a look at the parish records,’ Jim said, ‘for the year when they started building the Easter Kirk.’
‘Eighteen forty-three.’
‘That’s right. I went through the burial lists and found that six men died in Caulder in eighteen forty-three as a result of injuries they acquired during construction of the kirk. They died in a single accident when a foundation gave way and the west wall collapsed on them. And then in eighteen ninety-three another man died. He was repairing the roof and his ladder slipped. That makes seven to my knowledge. There might be one or two more.’
The minister was shocked and for a moment Jim regretted the flat, almost indignant tone he had adopted in conveying this information.
‘Seven men,’ the minister said distantly. ‘Well I never. You know, I wasn’t aware of that.’ He seemed genuinely distressed.
‘But remember that nobody paid any attention to safety issues then,’ Jim said in an attempt to undo some of the hurt he’d clearly inflicted on the minister.
‘Well, even so,’ the minister said. ‘Even so it’s a terrible number. Terrible. And how could I have ministered in that very church for so long and not known about that?’
‘The information was quite hard to find,’ Jim admitted.
‘But it’s true, you say?’ He asked this as if there might still be some doubt.
‘Oh, it’s true all right,’ Jim replied.
‘Well . . .’ He was still struggling to accept this news.
‘I’ve had an idea about the book,’ Jim said.
‘The book?’
‘Our book about the bridge.’
‘Oh, that.’ The minister’s tone was uninterested, almost dismissive.
‘I think we should still do it.’
‘But we disagree about almost everything to do with that . . . that bridge.’
‘Maybe that’s just the point. We can present two views. I’m happy to put together the facts about its construction, the protests and all that – everything in that box of documents you collected – and then at the end we can each have a chapter on how we feel about the bridge now. And of course you would be free to say exactly what you want.’
‘Well, I should hope so,’ the minister said.
‘And I would too,’ Jim added.
The minister thought about this for a few moments. Then he said, ‘Why are you so keen to write this book now? You weren’t that enthusiastic before.’
‘It was you that gave me the enthusiasm.’
‘Me?’ He looked surprised but smiled. ‘Well, the chances of me being able to fill anyone with enthusiasm these days are pretty slim, I’d say. I’ve enough of a job managing my own enthusiasm. Just pulling on my socks in the morning fairly drains it all out of me.’
‘At first, I’ll admit,’ Jim said, ‘I wanted to do it mainly because it was important to you. But now I want to do it for myself, too. We need to produce some kind of record of events but then a bit more than that as well. I think it’s worth doing and I really want to do it.’
‘Well, then, we’d better do it,’ the minister said.
‘And I’ve got a title that might satisfy us both.’
‘You have?’
‘Yes. “The Duie Bridge: The Interpretations”.’
‘Well . . .’ The minister thought about this. ‘It sounds a bit pompous, don’t you think? A bit Biblical in tone, eh? For such a secular work, that is.’ Then he added, ‘But I suppose it’ll do.’
This agreement had been reached two years ago. Today Jim Fisher was going to visit the Reverend McFarren in order to present him with the first fully typed version of the book.
The two years had involved a lot of reading, a lot of talking, quite a number of arguments and a great deal of hard work. There was also one very important and potentially difficult task: to find a publisher.
Jim had an idea here. The Dalmore Herald would publish the book under an imprint called Sheeppark Publications. When he first suggested this idea to Bloomingfield the editor had been just a little bit sceptical. ‘You’re out of your tiny mind, Fisher,’ he’d said. The negotiations had not started on a promising note.
But Jim had persisted. He’d also done his homework. He knew how much a print run of one thousand copies would cost and he offered to underwrite any losses that might be incurred. He also pointed out that he would ensure the book received a great deal of publicity locally, through the Herald, of course, but also on Duie Firth Radio, in local bookshops and at the Inverness Book Fair.
Bloomingfield finally agreed. And so Sheeppark Pub-lications was born.
‘It’s not Thursday, is it?’ The Reverend McFarren asked.
‘No, it’s not Thursday, as you well know.’
‘Do I? Oh, I’m not so sure about that. Knowing something well . . .’ He shook his head. ‘. . . No, at my age you can never be sure when the most obvious things will start to disappear. So tell me . . . Is Mr Blair still Prime Minister?’
‘Yes.’
‘And Queen Elizabeth is still on the throne?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then it must be Saturday.’
‘It is. And this is why I’m here.’ Jim placed on the minister’s bed the typescript of their book.
‘It’s quite big, isn’t it,’ the minister said. He leaned forward from his easy chair and picked up the title page. He read, ‘ “The Duie Bridge: The Interpretations”, by J P McFarren and James Fisher. McFarren and Fisher, eh? Considering the work you put in I’d say Fisher and McFarren would be more accurate.’
‘It’s fine as it is.’
The minister shrugged. ‘Well, I’m not so sure. Any-way . . .’ He picked up the second sheet. “‘Sheeppark Publications number 2”. I like that. Oh, very much.’ And with sincerity he said, ‘Thank you, James. Thank you so very much.’
He replaced the pages. ‘It’ll take me a while to read it . . .’
‘D’you think you could manage it by Thursday?’
‘I’ll give it a try.’
‘Fine,’ Jim said. ‘I’ll see you then.’ He rose to go.
‘Oh, I have something for you,’ the minister said. ‘I was . . . I mean, I hope you’ll agree . . . I was thinking of a dedication.’
‘A dedication?’
‘I thought we could dedicate the book to those people who died while building the bridge.’
Jim nodded. ‘Yes, well . . . That’s fine by me.’
‘Good.’ The minister took a sheet of paper from his bedside table. ‘I made a list,’ he said. He held it out.
Jim took the sheet of paper, folded it and slipped it into his pocket. ‘I’ll type it up,’ he said. ‘No problem. Oh, by the way,’ he added. ‘Dedications. Yes, that reminds me. That book I lent you . . .’
‘Island Years?’
‘That’s the one.’
‘Most interesting,’ the minister said. ‘I’m enjoying it immensely.’
‘I wonder . . . I wonder if I could borrow it back. Just for a day or two . . .’
‘I’m sorry it’ll interrupt your reading and . . . and I know it sounds a bit odd but there’s something I need it for. I can pop back with it tomorrow, if that’s OK.’
‘Oh, don’t worry about it. It’s not as if I’m short of reading material.’ He smiled as he gestured towards the books sitting on top of his bureau. ‘Besides, a little break will enable me to savour the second half of the book more. Please, take it.’ He picked it up from his bedside table and handed it to Jim who slipped it into an outer pocket of his jacket.
It wasn’t until later, when he got back to his office at the Herald, that Jim remembered about the piece of paper, the dedication page that the Reverend McFarren had given him. He read, ‘This book is dedicated to the four men who died during the construction of the Duie Bridge: Angus Bethune Matheson, Alexander James Petrie, Brian Inglis and Jensen Fairclough.’
But the minister had decided to add something else: ‘The bridge also played a part in the deaths of the following:’
This time there were five names. They were the five men and one woman who had committed suicide by jumping from the bridge. Tom Kingsmill was there, of course, and the Tulloch girl. But it was the last name that provided a real shock: Peter Clinghurst.
19
When Jim Fisher arrived at the Herald offices at two in the afternoon he was disappointed to see that Miss Crystal was drunk. Miss Crystal was now seventy-one. He was bald but still slim. He liked to be smartly dressed and this meant wearing a suit. He had five suits and today’s selection was a three-piece in dark green Harris tweed.
Although he had drunk quite a lot, he was still sober enough to know just how drunk he was and he knew, too, that if he drank much more this knowledge of his condition, at present held so slenderly, was in danger of disappearing altogether. But he didn’t care. It was his last day as Miss Crystal. ‘Yes, I’m returning from the stars,’ he said, ‘and retiring to an earthbound existence.’
The Herald offices were usually sparsely occupied on a Saturday as there was no Sunday edition but today was an exception. A small leaving party had been arranged. It was being held in what Bloomingfield grandly referred to as the conference room. This was a small office dominated by a large table which could accommodate eight people at a squeeze. More than adequate for the full-time staff of the Herald, the table could not cope if all those connected with the paper turned up. Like many provincial newspapers the Herald relied heavily on freelances and occasional contributors.
Quite a few of these had turned up and this had called for a rearrangement of the room. The table had been set to one side and the chairs ranged along the opposite wall. When Jim arrived the room was full. There were about twenty people. Most were standing. Miss Crystal was sitting down.
Exactly how much Miss Crystal had drunk was unclear but certainly large amounts of alcohol were being disposed of. Two of the five bottles of whisky on the table were already empty. Inroads had also been made into the stocks of gin and sherry. The two cartons of orange juice were untouched.
In the middle of the table there was a large package wrapped in red foil. This was Miss Crystal’s leaving present (a crystal decanter and six glasses). Next to it there was a big star-shaped chocolate cake on which had been written, in white icing, ‘Goodbye Miss C’.
Jim poured himself an orange juice and looked at Miss Crystal who raised his glass and smiled. Marjorie, the cleaner, was sitting next to him; her husband, Frank (van driver), was talking to Michelson (farming and fishing). Fitzgerald, the sub-editor, was chatting to cummings whose real name was Borthwick. He’d acquired the nickname of cummings as, when all the various specialities had been divvied up among the full-time staff, Borthwick had been given ‘ee’ which stood for ‘everything else’.
Bloomingfield leaned over the table to tap one of the empty whisky bottles and called for silence.
‘Well,’ he began, ‘let’s see . . . yes, welcome all. You know why we’re here, I’m sure. It’s to say thanks to Bob, here, for eighteen years of service to the Herald. Eighteen years is quite a while and I’ll say this – aye, and emphasise it for some of you here present – during that time he never missed a deadline. Not once.’
There was general laughter at this and some applause which served to cover up, but only partially, Miss Crystal’s comment: ‘Even though some of the stuff was shite.’ He had spoken these words not so quietly into his whisky glass. Quite a few people, including Bloomingfield, heard what he’d said; they all pretended they hadn’t.
‘So, Bob,’ Bloomingfield went on, ‘we wish you all the very best for the future. We don’t know what it holds for you – you, of course, do – but we hope you’ll have a grand time. And to say thanks for all your hard work, we’ve got a wee gift for you. And here it is.’
Cummings picked up the package from the table and passed it to Bloomingfield.
At this point Miss Crystal stood up, lost his balance and sat down abruptly. Then he stood up again more slowly. ‘Terrible stuff that orange juice,’ he said.
Bloomingfield and Miss Crystal shook hands; the presentation was made; there was a great deal of clapping and cheering.
Miss Crystal placed the gift on the seat behind him. As the applause died away he said, ‘Well now, yes, thank you. Thank you all very much indeed. Yes.’ He half-turned to look at the red parcel. ‘Tell me,’ he said, ‘is this gift in any way fragile?’
‘Aye, be careful,’ Frank the van driver said.
‘Fine. Well, look, I’ll tell you what. I’d better not open it now. I’ll leave it till later. But I thank you all. Oh yes. It’s been great working here; I’ve fair enjoyed myself. Yes.’ He paused. It was one of those awkward pauses. He seemed bemused. He might sit down, start talking again or just stand there silently for ten minutes.
He started talking again. ‘A special word of thanks to Jim here,’ he said, nodding towards Jim Fisher.
‘Me?’ Jim said.
‘Oh yes,’ Miss Crystal went on. ‘Yes, it was Jim here that got me the job in the first place. You see Jim was Miss Crystal before me and . . . well, he didn’t really take to the job.’
This produced some light laughter. Bloomingfield said, ‘An understatement, I’m sure.’
‘He devised a method, you see,’ Miss Crystal continued, ‘which involved copying horoscopes from earlier editions of the Herald. But I caught him out. Yes. You see Jim knew bugger all about astrological cycles. They don’t work year on year. No. Jim thinks a stellar intervention is moving from whisky to beer.’ He grinned and looked round at everybody. This was clearly a joke but nobody got it. They laughed politely, however.
‘Aye, well, anyway,’ Miss Crystal said. ‘So, when I wrote in to tell the Herald that the horoscopes were all wrong they said would I like to do them myself. And of course I said yes.’
‘And you’ve been doing them ever since,’ Bloomingfield said.
‘Exactly, exactly.’ Miss Crystal paused again but this time only to reach for his whisky tumbler which cummings had been holding for him. He swallowed two mouthfuls but instead of handing it back to cummings he turned and placed it on top of his present. Facing the group once more, his mouth twisted slightly as the whisky scoured his throat, he said, ‘Now, many of you . . . many of you, I’m sure, are a wee bit sceptical of all this astrology business. Aren’t you? Aren’t you, eh?’ He looked round the room. ‘Don’t be shy now. You can admit it.’
There were a few smiles, a few shrugs. Someone said, ‘Well, I don’t know . . .’
‘Oh, you like to take a wee look,’ Miss Crystal went on. ‘You like to check up. Just for curiosity, for comfort maybe. But you don’t believe, do you, eh? You don’t actually believe, eh?’
Naismith (arts and culture) said, ‘It’s just a bit of harmless fun, Bob. Nobody takes it that seriously, no.’
‘Oh, that’s fine,’ Miss Crystal said. ‘No, obviously not everyone believes this stuff and . . . and, to be honest . . .’ He paused. ‘. . . neit
her do I.’ He waited for a moment to let this sink in, then added, ‘It’s all complete shite, in fact.’
Bloomingfield said, ‘Well . . .’
The short silence that followed was another awkward one; amusement in conflict with embarrassment.
‘Oh yes,’ Miss Crystal went on. ‘Complete nonsense.’
‘Tell me, Bob, when did you arrive at this conclusion, exactly?’ Bloomingfield asked.
‘About five months after I started.’
‘Is that so?’
‘Yes. Right at the beginning. So I have to thank Jim again.’
‘Christ. Regular appreciation society we’ve got going here,’ Bloomingfield said. ‘What are you thanking him for this time?’
‘The method.’
Almost together, Bloomingfield and Jim said, ‘The method?’
‘It just needed a bit of tweaking, you see. That’s all. I mean, I’ve got enough astrological knowledge to do that. But the method was substantially the same. Go back a few years, get the old horoscopes, just amend them a wee bit. It worked fine.’
‘Did it?’ Bloomingfield asked. He’d been smiling before but he wasn’t exactly smiling now.
‘Did you get any complaints?’ Miss Crystal asked him.
Bloomingfield shrugged. ‘Well, to be fair, I don’t think we ever did.’
‘And how many letters did you get congratulating the Herald on its brilliant astrological predictions? Eh?’
‘Quite a few,’ Jim said. ‘I’ve seen the file.’
‘Now you just keep out of this,’ Bloomingfield said. But he was smiling. ‘You’re obviously in league with this . . . this fraud.’
Laughter followed. The tension eased. Glasses were refilled.
Jim said, ‘But Bob, how could you carry on doing it for eighteen years if it meant nothing to you?’
‘I did it for the money.’
This prompted the loudest laughter of the afternoon so far.
‘So, what were you on, Bob,’ Simon Pardew (Nature Notes) called out. ‘Ten grand a week?’
The Interpretations Page 19