Moon Country
Page 18
INT. CALLANDER POLICE
STATION – OFFICE – DAY
We see Macreesh, still wrapped in a blanket, on a bench, now in the front office. On the phone is Superintendent Bellamy.
BELLAMY
Mister Lawrence, if Tommy Hunter is there, we’d like you to try and keep him there until we can get a team to you.
CUT TO:
9.6.2.2.2.1.1
INT. BIDE A WEE HOTEL – LOBBY – DAY
Lawrence is on the phone.
LAWRENCE
Keep him here?
CUT TO:
9.6.2.2.2.1.2
INT. POLICE STATION – OFFICE – DAY
Bellamy is on the phone. Frank and Joe look on, tense, waiting for the off. Macreesh sneezes.
BELLAMY
Yes. If you can. We should have somebody with you in about twenty minutes.
CUT TO:
9.6.3
INT. BIDE A WEE HOTEL – LOBBY – DAY
Lawrence on the phone makes no reply to Bellamy. He looks through the front door to see Hunter pacing. He puts the phone down.
CUT TO:
9.6.3.1
INT. POLICE STATION – OFFICE – DAY
FRANK
If they take him alive, we talk to him first. Is that understood?
BELLAMY
Oh, there’s nothing to be understood, Mr Wheen.
Frank’s eyes narrow, suspicious. He doesn’t trust this cunt any more than anyone in this room can trust anyone in this room. Joe laughs unaccountably. Macreesh farts quietly.
CUT TO:
9.6.4
INT. BIDE A WEE HOTEL – DINING ROOM – DAY
Ronnie and Janette argue at the table.
RONNIE
God, I am starvin … can’t I just EAT?
JANETTE
No …
RONNIE
Just a ROLL …
JANETTE
Shut it, Ronnie.
CUT TO:
9.6.4.1
EXT. BIDE A WEE HOTEL – DAY
Hunter walks up and down, muttering to himself.
CUT TO:
9.6.4.1.1
INT. LOBBY – DAY
Mrs Lawrence has joined her husband. She is putting the newly sawed-off shotgun behind the counter like we were in Wyoming or somewhere.
MRS LAWRENCE
We could make the room complimentary. Maybe he likes fishing, he could have the boat. I think you should go and talk to him.
He stares at her. This day, which started as badly as he imagined a day could, is getting unbelievably worse by the minute.
CUT TO:
9.6.4.1.2
INT. BIDE A WEE HOTEL – DINING ROOM – DAY
RONNIE
He came efter us wi a GUN … he stuck ma social worker in the BOOT ae the MOTOR. What was ah supposed tae do?
JANETTE
Ye mean … he kidnapped ye?
RONNIE
(exasperated)
Aye!
JANETTE
Jesus CHRIST!
She stands up and heads straight for the exit.
RONNIE
Where ye gaun noo?
She storms off. Ronnie fills his napkin with sausages.
CUT TO:
9.6.4.1.3
EXT. BIDE A WEE HOTEL – DAY
Hunter breathes the air. He looks at the car … he could just leave. He could just leave the kids. Get out of all this complication and emotion. Maybe he should. Would they miss him? Surely not. He could just leave them some money and go. Maybe everyone would be better off? Maybe he’d be better off. He certainly wouldn’t feel as challenged as he feels now. Maybe he’d even be better back in prison, knowing what’s going to happen every day.
In his own brown study, Mr Lawrence approaches him, no longer telling him to leave but all solicitous, working very hard for some reason to get him to stay.
Hunter stares at him, impatient to either get back to his kids or go. He wishes everyone would make up their minds so he didn’t have to.
CUT TO:
9.6.4.1.3.1
INT. BIDE A WEE HOTEL – LOBBY – DAY
Janette storms through the lobby.
JANETTE
(to Mrs Lawrence)
Is my Dad out here?
Mrs Lawrence doesn’t answer, and Janette doesn’t wait. She goes out of the front door.
MRS LAWRENCE
(calling after her)
Janette …
As Janette exits, Ronnie comes into the lobby, with his napkin folded like a bag.
RONNIE
(to Mrs Lawrence)
Hiya.
He heads to the exit. Mrs Lawrence picks up the shotgun.
CUT TO:
EXT. BIDE A WEE HOTEL – DAY
A moment earlier. Lawrence talks to Hunter.
LAWRENCE
I was just going to say I was very sorry about the sausages … and if there’s anything else you would like off the menu, please, take it with our compliments.
Janette comes out of the front of the hotel.
JANETTE
(furious)
What’s goin on?
LAWRENCE
We’re very fond of Janet here, Mister Hunter.
HUNTER
(to Janette)
What?
JANETTE
Mister Lawrence!
LAWRENCE
(panicking)
I didn’t do anything wrong.
HUNTER
What?
LAWRENCE
(turns to her as she arrives)
Janette …
Mr Lawrence looks between them.
I’ve done nothin I’m ashamed of. I’m not ashamed.
HUNTER
(alarm slowly dawning in him)
What?
LAWRENCE
It was nothing.
HUNTER
What was nothing?
JANETTE
(realising, hands over eyes)
Aw Jesus …
(to Lawrence)
You’ve never said anythin to him, have ye?
HUNTER
(eyes narrowing dangerously, his past feckless wish to run away from his family responsibilities now subsumed by a growing apprehension of his daughter being of an age of sexual activity, and this weird wee bloke with his weird wee wife … Said whit?
There is the sudden blast of a shotgun from indoors. Janette and Lawrence freeze. Hunter starts to run towards the door but Lawrence hurls himself at him with a despairing cry which ends up in a sort of rugby tackle. The two of them crash to the gravel and scuffle … Mrs Lawrence appears in the doorway with the smoking gun in her hand.
MRS LAWRENCE
(to Hunter, less posh)
Stop it. Gerrawayfrumim!
Then Ronnie emerges from behind her and punches her in the back of the head. She goes down like a stalk of wet broccoli. Ronnie shakes his sore hand.
RONNIE
It was only a fuckin sausage. She tried tae fuckin SHOOT me.
Hunter goes for the shotgun. But Lawrence is only interested in his wife. Bless him.
LAWRENCE
Margaret …
HUNTER
Get the money, Ronnie.
Ronnie scampers back indoors.
(to Janette)
Get yer stuff. Get in that motor.
JANETTE
Tae hell. No way.
HUNTER
I don’t think you’re workin here.
JANETTE
I fuckin LIVE here!
She looks over to where Mrs Lawrence is coming to.
Lawrence is with her. Hunter grabs Janette.
HUNTER
Were you SHAGGIN him?
JANETTE
(hesitant)
No … no …
Hunter turns to stare at Lawrence. He starts to move towards him.
(grabbing Hunter)
No, Jesus, leave him alone … all right.
Hunter pulls away from her. She makes an extraordina
ry decision.
I said all right. I’ll be as quick as I can …
She runs inside. Hunter goes over to Lawrence who is desperate by now that his guests should be gone.
LAWRENCE
The police are coming!
HUNTER
The police?
LAWRENCE
They were just on the phone. They’ll be here in twenty minutes. Take the old road …
Janette and Ronnie emerge together. She carries a suitcase, Ronnie has the carpet bag.
HUNTER
Give me that.
Hunter takes the bag from the reluctant Ronnie, and draws his pistol from it.
JANETTE
Dad …
HUNTER
(his voice is clipped, as an outraged proper parent suddenly)
Get in that car, my girl. I’ll deal with you later.
(Hunter crosses to Lawrence.)
You been shagging my wee lassie, Mister Lawrence?
JANETTE
(having followed)
Christ … NO!
Lawrence sees the gun, howls and collapses to the ground beside his wife.
He never touched me. Honest tae
CHRIST he never TOUCHED me.
HUNTER
Are you telling me the truth, young lady?
JANETTE
Yes … yes … I am …
(dragging Hunter away)
Will you get in the fuckin CAR?
HUNTER
(tutting like a hen) In the name of the wee man!
He tosses an envelope onto the ground beside the Lawrences who, swear to God, are NEVER going to recover from this.
That’s twenty quid for the sausages.
They were okay, actually.
He turns for the car, keeping the few onlookers who are gathering covered. He gets to the car and finds Ronnie, holding the gun and the carpet bag, in the driver’s seat.
RONNIE
Can I drive?
HUNTER
Get tae fuck over there.
Janette gets in the back as Hunter gets in the front.
9.7
£24,587.04
FADE TO BLACK.
10.0
As indicated earlier, all the stories about Tommy Hunter turn out to be true: even when they can’t all be accurate or verified as such, or even logically consistent.
10.0.1
By way of example, there are multiply attested sightings of the Hunter family that Thursday afternoon as they enjoyed their brief Highland vacation which simply cannot all be “true”, for reasons of time and relative geography, but each of which may as well be, poetically and thematically speaking.
10.0.1.1
Mr Arnold McHugh of Birnam will swear blind to this day, if anyone should ask him, that he it was who accepted a reconditioned vintage racing green Jaguar off a suited, gravel-voiced man and his two sullen teenagers in exchange for the 1986 Hiace Camper van he’d advertised by means of a cardboard sign in his driveway on the afternoon in question. He has attested further that this had been a private transaction between consenting economic agents and was therefore, in and of itself, no concern of the authorities. (He had been delighted, of course, thinking he’d got a hell of a bargain!) The credibility of Mr McHugh’s account of the change of vehicles in this informal manner lies in that by some means or another, Hunter did indeed “lose the motor” as he may have put it, and thereby threw the Wheens and the Busies off the trail for long enough for the events which we now know to have happened later on (which were publicly known to have involved a Hiace van) to have actually happened.
10.0.1.2
The car the authorities and their associated gangsters were still looking for hours later was described by Mr Lawrence in his statement to the Pitlochry constabulary at 1.45 p.m. when they arrived at Kinloch Rannoch. Mr Lawrence’s memory was later exactly matched to the description of a car reported stolen in Bishopbriggs a week or so beforehand … and the registration number that Mr Lawrence, even in extremis, had remembered so exactly, was in fact a dummy that had been originally assigned by the DVLA to a Ford Transit van written off four years before that. This was indeed the same car that turned up for sale through the next week’s issue of What Car? as advertised by Mr McHugh, who was later unsuccessfully prosecuted as a receiver of stolen goods by the said Busies in an act of petty attempted vengeance at their renewed humiliation. Mr McHugh successfully defended the case but lost the car and was never compensated for the van, which he will tell you about at inescapable length no matter how soon you have to catch your train.
10.0.1.2.1
So it would seem that Mr McHugh was indeed the source of the almost parodically family-friendly transportation that evaded detection for a vital further twenty-four hours before the powers that be put two and two and two together and came up with the Ossian’s Viewpoint Estate Incident as being the next properly verified sighting of Tommy Hunter and his offspring (see 12.4.2.2).
10.0.1.3
On the other hand, Lothar Wendt and Matthias Erzberger, a recently happily married couple of Scotophile Schweitzers who had purchased a holiday retreat in Fortingall, also testified quite compellingly the following Monday (once all this had been on the telly over the weekend), that they had been approached on foot by a man and his two teenaged children at 1.40 in the afternoon that Thursday, when they had just parked their right-hand-drive Hiace van in Glen Lyon (in the car park of the forestry commission hillside walk to Bridge of Balgie — which can be thoroughly recommended not only on the grounds of the scenery and historic interests of the Campbells’ Eastern Glen, but also for the cardiovascular benefits of the short but steep excursion from that car park through the forest and on to the hillside, and for the cholesterol-laden cream tea awaiting the rewarding of sweat and virtue in the Bridge of Balgie cafe after).
Lothar and Matthias both spoke excellent English when they made their statement to DS Boyle, but confessed to having been baffled by the sub-Gaelic patois of the stone-faced man they had encountered, let alone whatever tongue was spoken by his unnervingly Goblin-like, skipping son and his apologetic daughter, who translated for them, being used to tourists, that what the gruff-voiced man wanted from them was to hire their van for a couple of days and here was five hundred pounds in a white envelope for their trouble.
10.0.1.3.1
However, despite circumstantial details of their account tending to corroborate their story, their being visibly both foreign and homosexual meant that their account was dismissed by the puritanical and parochial DS Boyle. Maggie Singleton opined to him (in order to shore up his prejudice with something like a rationale) that maybe Lothar and Matthias had simply read about Tommy Hunter in the papers and wanted to join in with the Jacobite romance of his flight from the redcoats. To confirm her suspicion of their enthusiasm, they were found to have the translated, collected works of Sir Walter Scott in their possession (in a rather nice nineteenth-century German edition) and were later bound over to keep the peace in the same spirit of petty resentment that initiated the unsuccessful attempt to prosecute Mr McHugh.
10.0.1.4
Then there is also the later discovery of a burnt-out Hiace van (the same type of van that was testified to have broken through the security cordon at the Ossian View site very early the next morning). It was found abandoned in the similarly burnt-out remains of the Indian Encampment. This was felt to be a very satisfying result. Except that the scorched number plate in fact proved that THIS wee camper had been reported lifted from the Landmark Forest Adventure Park near Aviemore that Thursday afternoon.
10.0.1.4.1
There were, of course, several dozen vehicles belonging to the Ossian View encampment found abandoned that weekend after the battle that ended the occupation, so there was nothing more than circumstantial evidence to tie this burnt-out van specifically to the Hunters.
10.0.1.4.2
Further potential circumstantial corroboration that this may however have been their vehicle temporarily
, is that Ronnie may well have remembered and remarked that “Landmark” was actually a place he had been to before on one of Mr Macreesh’s Away Days … an “away weekend”, in fact … where Ronnie, then nine years old, had been one of a group of waifs taken up north for some free air and self-expression back in those prerecession days of social liberalism, when it was believed that preventative redemption of underclass juveniles might be effected by introducing them to the outdoor pursuits of their distant social superiors, on the theory that giving the unwanted offspring of the lumpenproletariat a bit of the skiing and snowboarding and tobogganing on Cairngorm enjoyed by lads from public schools might result in a bit of that rugged, tweedy character-building rubbing off on their ill-clad personalities.
Included in this trip, there had been a morning of diving on and off the treeline platforms and water slides of the park. “We fucking wrecked the joint,” Ronnie could have happily recalled. This may have prompted his father to sanction a return visit in the spirit of holiday-making where novelty and nostalgia can sometimes so happily congeal. One can also picture Hunter himself, in his suit, making a giddy goat of himself, whooping and laughing and turning the air blue as he enjoyed, for once, physical thrills that were of no harm or threat of harm to himself or anyone else. One can see Janette, in a newly adult, vaguely uneasy posture as she stood and watched this strange man and her young brother, seeing how Ronnie had actually become young for maybe the first time she could remember, finding the boy in himself in the presence of the older man.
10.0.1.4.3
And what did Janette find herself feeling (if this touching family scene ever, in fact, took place) is the intriguing question? This young woman who had endured abuse and boredom, neglect and very occasional disinterested encouragement from one sadly short-lived substitute teacher; this girl, almost a child herself still, who had essentially schooled herself in the box making skills of dividing her experience into discreet, watertight compartments, with the tiniest allowance of space for hope that one day she would be someone, that she would run things, that she’d be looked up to as a strong and capable employer of a small but hard-working team of professional, imaginative, attractive young people like herself, a team who by skill and dedication to the art of catering would take a rundown caricature of their country like the tartan nightmare of the Bide a Wee Hotel, and turn it into a hip and groovy rest stop for the hip and groovy traveller, a place where for a modest outgoing, the best of local produce sourced with global consciousness would afford repast and accommodation to the kind of people who make the world a better place one square mile of lifestyle at a time, what did she make of her new and unlooked-for situation?