It Takes a Thief

by Niels Hammer

  “Good afternoon, may I have the wine list, please, and the menu?”

  “Here ye are!”

  So buxom – blithe and debonaire – about thirty – a little stout maybe – but rosy with vivacity.

  “Thank you, oh, you have a Piesporter, may I have a bottle of that? And a grilled trout with prawns, rice and tomatoes?”

  “Aye, it’ll be doin in hauf an oor.”

  She left him to savour her smile and the swell of her dolphin-plump hips that epitomised the Sea – but where would he be marooned after such a gambol in the bore? He went out to get the tape recorder – the papers and two bottles – and when he returned she was coming with the wine.

  “Excellent, excellent! May I ask you a question?”

  “Aye, o’ coorse.”

  Holding the bottle balanced in her right hand – as eager to give as to take – she stood poised to sniff out his scent.

  “Well, you see, I am doing a bit of research in Scots accents, and if you happen to be from Buckie or somewhere in the vicinity, I would really appreciate if you could do me the favour of saying a few words to boost our archives. My name is Aubrey Saint-Clair, Doctor Aubrey Saint-Clair, from the University of Milwaukee.”

  “An A’m fae Buckie!”

  Taking her origin – herself – and life for granted she filled his glass.

  “Splendid! Thanks!”

  He switched on the microphone. It had to be number nine – four – two and two.

  “So could you say ‘Oh! Heaven! Nae!’ with as much dismay, anger and annoyance as you can, just as you would to anybody you know here if you happened to be really upset?”

  “Number nine, Buckie.”

  “Aye, Oh! Hivven! Nae! Oh! Hivven! Nae!”

  That was precisely what he had not dared to hope to hear – and for a second he was thrown back in time to see the astonished and enraged expression in her eyes as she cursed her luck and blessed him.

  “Fabulous! That was very impressive. Full of vigour and conviction. Could you also count to eleven?”

  “Een, twa, threi, fower, five, sax, sivven, aucht, nyne, ten, elivven!”

  That /ivv/ made it definite. A distinguished couple roosting in the corner sat – hewn out in time – with their delicately tilted spoons resting in mid air between their pea-soup plates and their tightened lips – but she was quite at ease. A natural woman – straight from the Sea.

  “Spectacular! That’s just the melody, the tone and the intonation I hoped to hear. Would you say that you had a typical Buckie accent, a Claik?”

  “I spyke like everybody daes aroond aboot here.”

  “And how would you say ‘ if I’m never in it’”.

  “‘If A’m nivver in it,’ but now there’s anither customer wantin somethin.”

  “All right and thanks for your cooperation.”

  So she would have been born in Buckie – Moray or Banff – and not in Inverness – Wick – Thurso or Orkney – but of course he would have to hear the accents of Aberdeen as well. Still he felt confident that this was the area from where she came. The matching pitch – melody and intonation were unmistakable – but he would definitely have to carry out two or three more interviews. He emptied his glass slowly to let the clear pure taste of the ripe grapes fuse with his intuitive appreciation of having succeeded in his first task. She would have shared her life with the Sea he saw outside the windows. She would have walked along the beach there – adroitly skipping the long lazy tongues of the waves as they rolled in over the shingles just as they did now – to dream about someone whom she did not know yet but who closely resembled – the waitress – saved him from himself as she came with the trout and the tomatoes.

  “Thank you.”

  He was hungry and the fish was fresh enough to have a discreet and pure quality which of course also – but to a greater extent – was present in vegetables and fruits – but wholly lacking in venison. The prawns added flavour to the insipid white tissue like mushrooms did to meat – and the fried tomatoes alleviated the heaviness of the vertebrate death that otherwise would have oppressed his conscience – but such considerations only succeeded in explaining that away which they pretended to explain. There was no escape from reality or responsibility. He would have to do his own killings in the future – but when would the future come to pass? To-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow. Having finished he waited till the waitress passed his table.

  “Could I have the bill, please?”

  “O coorse!”

  She came back with the bill on a plate and he placed the notes neatly upon the little piece of folded paper – and grateful for her help – he gave her a large tip.

  Oh! Thank ye ivver so much.”

  “And in appreciation of your dramatic performance I would like to give you two small bottles of Sauterne, a fine French wine which is best when chilled a little. You can drink it just as it is or with a cake if you like.”

  “A canna wyte tae taste it.”

  The surprise sharpened the features of her face with clarity.

  “Would you mind if I took a stroll down the beach and came back to drink the last half of the bottle a little later?”

  “Nae, nae. Jist tak yer time.”

  Remembering the tape-recorder he went out to take two bottles and two questionnaires in the car. The wind had slackened and the afternoon was quite warm. The centre-ville would be best perhaps. He would have liked to go down to the harbour but there he would mainly have met fishermen and tourists. The area here was residential with low grey but very human houses that all had the same crouching look of seeking shelter from the north-easterlies. The fog and the icy blasts from the Sea had resulted in the clusters of chimneys that adorned the gables. So far he had only met school children in uniforms and two elderly men with crooked fingers and oaken faces on their way to trawl their nets across the seabed – but there was a young woman pushing a perambulator – together with her mother or her mother-in-law. So he could ask them both.

  “Excuse me, but may I detain you for a minute? I am doing some research concerning Scots accents and would appreciate if you could say a few words as examples of a Buckie accent. My name is Aubrey Saint-Clair, and I come from the university of Milwaukee.”

  He would soon repeat what he had just said in a dream from which he could not wake up.

  “Oh we’ll dee it baith. Fit’s we gaun tae say?”

  Mother and daughter – quite alike – about forty and twenty years old. Healthy children born of young mothers. Such an affinity for sweets which both was inherited and socially determined still took its toll of the teeth here. With scarves around their necks they had taken an afternoon walk – to do some shopping and fan the social airs.

  “Her wyme’s aa nakit, pull her clyes doon a bit, dear, it’s gettin a bit caal!”

  “Number ten. Buckie. So could you say Oh! Heaven nae! with as strong an annoyance and anger as you can, just like you might say it to someone you know and then count to eleven?”

  “Ye’ll begin, mither!”

  He handed the microphone to the elder of the two women – whose small black beret gave her a military or even a Bohemian air that matched the undaunted expression in her face.

  “Oh hivven nae! Oh hivven, nae! Een twa threi fower five sax sivven aucht nyne ten eleeven.”

  With small quick movements like those of a pecking bird her daughter rearranged the clothes to protect her little daughter from the sea air or perhaps from the heat of the Sun.

  “Excellent, excellent, and now it’s your turn. Buckie, number eleven.”

  “Oh hivven, Nae! Oh hivven, nae! Een twa threi fower five sax sivven aucht nyne ten elevin!”

  “Very good indeed! That was just what I hoped to hear, and may I as an appreciation of your efforts give you each a bottle of a sweet wine, Sauterne? It tastes best if it’s slightly
chilled, and if you want something to eat while you drink it, then a cake would be best.”

  “Thank ye, they look awfu gweed an they’re different even.”

  Putting the two clear bottles down beside the child they continued on their way busily discussing him and their own performance – until some other daily event on their path would catch all of their attention. He walked down the street towards the Sea. It would be difficult to survive here in the Winter – the risk of pneumonia – for some reason or other this thought kept coming back – either prompted by external signs of hardship or by an innate disposition to regard life north of Reims as a challenge to civilisation or indeed by fear of the frailty of all Springtime hopes. Only the hardiest could survive here – a fact reflected in the paucity of species – but associations connected with external reality averted his gaze from the abyss as the early Summer afternoon made the old pittoresque town choose an idyllic dress. A haze had gathered in the horizon toward the North but the west south-westlerly light made the water glitter along the shore so that he had to shield his eyes – and the froth of the tongues of the waves as they expired on the sand was zinc-white and pure. It was the same light here – fifty-seven degrees – forty-five minutes North – as at Skagen in Krøyer’s paintings of boys bathing in the shallows – of fishing boats along the coast and of white-robed muses watching the sunset illuminate the Sea. Roaring or silent – translucent or reflecting – the Sea – remained the most difficult element – to endow with life – as movement – depth or brilliance – on the flat or rugged surface of a canvas. At the restaurant he sat for a while – a guest among all the other guests of this Earth – drinking leisurely and watching trawlers coming in with their silvery catch. Little did they – the hard-working crews and the hard-headed proprietors – know and less did they care about a future – waiting round the corner – when all commercial fishing would cease because there would be no fish left to catch in a barren Sea. A Titmouse had foresight enough to provide for the Winter by storing grains and seeds. Humans had been given the same knowledge but the chattering majority failed to act on it. When all had been said and done he belonged to the most common species of large Mammals and to the most glaikit – and there was not a day in which he did not at one time or another feel ashamed of his family – but a trout had just died to nourish him – so how could he be critical? Nevertheless he had pinpointed her most likely birth place – somewhere here on the north-east coast – so waving goodbye to the waitress – who had given him this vital clue – he went out to the car – and parked – ten minutes later in front of the Brothers MacIntyre of Fochabers. If there were no vacant places left he would have to improvise for on no account could he disappoint Seymour who would be looking forward to the coming week-end far more keenly than any child to Christmass morning – although he would be too coy to admit it – except maybe when too full to care. There was no one in the office so he went out to have a look at the back of the house. As a slight noise from the shed caught his attention he approached the half closed door and knocked discreetly. A voice from inside answered him with the grunt of a Brown Bear woken from his winter sleep and a little later a square middle-aged man with a speckled beard came out to greet him.

  “Good afternoon, Mister MacIntyre, I presume?”

  “Aye, John MacIntyre. Fit can A dee fae ye?”

  He was still blinking in the sudden light.

  “My name is Ralph Drummond and due to an emergency I have not been able to contact you earlier, so I fear that I may come too late, but would there by any chance be one or possibly two places left for Saturday afternoon and most importantly for Sunday?”