Whirligig (33 page)

Notable among the mourners were Coky Viveksananda and her mother, the redoubtable Bonnie Straughan, along with Dorcas MacGilp. They made a handsome coven, thought the Minister, all in smart black dresses and dark overcoats. Bonnie even sported an elaborate black hat, pinned invisibly in place with what to Jim Fry was mysterious female know-how in defiance of the wind. There was Councillor Tommy Thompson, his eyes pleasingly closed in reverence, and either side of him the farmers and their families from the Loch Garvach estate. Lachlan Black held the
hand of Jade, his heavily pregnant girlfriend. (Or was it wife? Fry could not remember having married them.) The only absentee that Jim Fry considered worthy of note was Ronald ‘Milky' Duffy. But rumour had it that Milky had gone to County Antrim to visit a friend, and it was not known when, or whether, he would be back.

‘Welcome, everyone,' said Jim Fry, and paused. ‘We are here to celebrate the life of –'

The Minister broke off, hearing a small crash behind him. He followed the eyes of his congregation, and turned to see a fat man in a deerstalker hat re-erecting a lawn chair that he had just knocked over. The man looked up at him and smiled weakly.

‘Sorry,' said Gordon Claypole, reddening. ‘Sorry I'm late. Brr. The bloody Land Rover wouldn't… Sorry.'

‘No matter,' said Jim Fry beneficently as Claypole squeezed into a seat as quickly as he could. ‘Claypole, isn't it?'

‘Gordon,' said Claypole.

‘Gordon, yes. I'm so glad you could make it.'

Claypole, or rather Gordon, nodded weakly.

‘As I was saying,' Jim Fry continued. ‘Let us now give thanks for the life of Peregrine MacGilp.'

Gordon, as he tried not to breathe lest he draw further attention, cursed himself that he had, for one last time, contrived to arrive late for Peregrine. He had in fact elected to walk to the funeral, and should have called an earlier halt to his raking of the first of the autumn leaves on the lower lawn of MacGilp House. Perhaps, he thought now, it was pride. He wanted the raking job finished so that he could start work on the out-of-control rhododendrons in earnest the next day. But perhaps it was the fact that, since he had been doing a
few odd jobs around the gardens, he had started to lose a bit of weight and felt so much better for it. Gordon went to touch his head and realised that he still had a hat on. He whipped off his deerstalker to reveal the beginnings of patchy ginger curls and tried to focus on Jim Fry's words.

‘The last ten days have been a difficult time for all of us in Loch Garvach, and particularly for Peregrine's family and friends,' Jim Fry pronounced.

There was an extra gust of wind, and Gordon shivered as he thought of all the jumpers in his chest of drawers in London. Had the jumpers, the chest of drawers and the flat itself not been about to be sold to pay off some of his whopping debts, he would now be wearing something with a smart designer's name neatly sown into the collar. Instead, he wore a shirt that had belonged to Peregrine, and an ancient waxed jacket that could have belonged to any number of the dead relatives whose portraits no longer hung in the dining room of the big house, and sported a pair of wellingtons that were three sizes too large and made comfortable only by the wearing of multiple pairs of kilt hose.

‘Before I hand over to Peregrine's older sister,' the Minister was saying, ‘I feel there are some thanks we should give. We should thank the North-Western Constabulary for establishing so efficiently the circumstances of Peregrine's untimely death, sparing the family more distress than was absolutely necessary.'

Gordon glanced across at Lachlan before focusing severely on the Minister. Jim Fry himself seemed unaware of the growing wrinkles of disapproval on the brows of his congregation.

‘Indeed, it was only following the coroner's report
that the Procurator Fiscal could be absolutely satisfied that the bruises on our late friend's torso had been caused by the attempts of Lachlan Black to revive Peregrine following his heartattack. And we are so very grateful to Lachlan for that.'

Fry inclined his head graciously, but Lachlan had his head bowed.

‘There are those in the community,' continued Fry with a frown, ‘who have cruelly wondered what three grown men were doing in an abandoned churchyard in the middle of the Loch Garvach forest at midnight. But it is no business of ours if a man wishes to celebrate the granting of planning permission for his wind farm with some of the “superskunk” to which he was so partial.'

One of the farmers coughed into a handkerchief.

‘Nor is it our business to speculate on, or to judge, the quantity of alcohol to be found in Peregrine's blood. But alas for those he has left behind, the precipitous climb to the old church, the champagne, and the forty cigarettes a day for fifty years, must have concatenated to precipitate his massive and fatal myocardial infarction.'

Dorcas emitted a ‘tsk', but Fry gave a supercilious smile.

‘But there is another person to whom we must all be particularly grateful. Peregrine himself. For, without him, we would not have the Loch Garvach Wind Farm. In due course, when the wind farm has been built, Garvachhead School can have its new technology centre and its playing fields, and the parish council may be in a position, for example, to renovate my own church, or… whatever other purpose it may see fit… with its extra… funds. So thank you, Peregrine MacGilp, from us all.'

Fry smiled, folded his notes and nodded to Dorcas. She rose without looking at the Minister and took her place in front of the assembled mourners. She looked at the wicker coffin thoughtfully and sniffed once before she proceeded to give a perfectly measured eulogy. She spoke of her brother's attachment to MacGilp House and the Loch Garvach estate, and his love of travel, of sailing the
Lady of the Isles
and of ‘the fun things in life‘. He avoided doctors and paid employment, but ‘said no to little else‘. She was glad that he had lived to see his wind project through, if not to completion, at least to a more certain future. When it was eventually built, it would see his beloved estate funded for the next twenty-five years and become a huge contributor to the local community. Dorcas ended with a heartfelt regret that Peregrine and his sisters had not been better friends in their late middle age, but asserted that he had loved his niece Coky most sincerely. It was only right and proper that she should inherit the estate.

After Coky had read a poem by Ted Hughes about foxes going to ground, to more discreet sniffs they all stood while George and Vesper put Peregrine MacGilp of MacGilp in the ground with touching simplicity. Everyone was invited to throw a handful of earth on top of him, and a healthy-looking three-year-old pear tree stood by, waiting to be planted in the loose earth. Whisky was handed round, received in solemn gratitude. Coky, looking pale and dignified, raised her glass.

‘To Peregrine,' she said.

‘Peregrine,' they all said, and drank deeply.

Later, while the mourners sombrely drank tea and ate sandwiches in MacGilp House, Gordon went through the papers in Peregrine's library office, as requested by
Coky. In the evening, when all the guests at the wake had gone, he confirmed to Coky and Dorcas what they already suspected, viz. that Peregrine had no money.

‘He wasn't just, you know, poor for a rich guy. He really had absolutely no dosh,' said Gordon. He had sold pictures, furniture and books for years to meet the gap between the estate's income and its expenses. But Peregrine had never got into debt – a principle that Gordon could admire, it being one that he had found so impossible to follow.

‘Thank goodness for the insurance money, then,' said Coky.

‘Huh?' This was Gordon.

‘From Perry's boat,' added Dorcas, and then her eyebrows furrowed. ‘You know, I still find it odd that Peregrine managed to get so drunk that he unmoored his own yacht in the harbour with the result that it wrecked itself on the bridge at Glenmorie, and yet he was sober enough to take a dinghy across the loch and walk through a forest and up a hill. Don't you think that's odd?'

Gordon addressed Coky, ignoring Dorcas. ‘Yeah, but… brr… that money won't last long, and even if you get the wind farm built in three years' time, the estate is going to need to pull its socks up well before then. You'll need some income.'

Dorcas and Coky nodded gravely, and the three of them sat down to have some ideas.

Getting MacGilp House into a state in which it might be a tourist attraction would take too long and cost too much, and it was Coky who suggested regenerating the Victorian walled garden. Gordon approved, but thought that the plan needed an extra twist. He suggested a model organic garden, comprising the
walled garden and the upper field next to it. Produce could be sold almost all year round to local restaurants, and the public could be charged to visit. This would need everyone to pitch in, they decided. Aside from an enormous amount of energy and determination from Coky, and Lachlan working more or less full time just keeping the buildings from falling down, Dorcas would need to advise on the gardening aspect. While she was willing, Dorcas was of the view that the project would need an under-gardener who could also help Coky to manage the estate. While the beach-dwellers might be a source of casual employment, if they wanted it, the estate needed someone permanent with a business head on them who could also use a spade. This was quite a demand, considering that the money available to pay this person was small. They all tapped their chins as they wondered who might fill this role, or whether such a person existed.

When Dorcas had gone home, Gordon had a question for Coky.

‘Does all this make you feel guilty, at all?' he said.

‘What?' She poured herself some more mint tea, and pushed the bottle of Knockenglachgach towards Gordon. In answer, he swept his hand around the room grandly.

Coky said, ‘I don't know a lot of people who inherit a 3,000-acre estate and then spend a lot of time feeling guilty. It wouldn't look good, would it? And anyway, there isn't time.'

Claypole shrugged. ‘I don't know many people who inherit anything.'

Coky nodded, and they were silent for a moment.

‘So are you going to help me do this?' She smiled as he frowned. ‘You know, run the place… as a full-time job?'

‘Me? But…'

‘I can't pay you much,' she said. ‘But I can put a roof over your head. And there's the wind farm to sort out.'

‘But,' Gordon protested, ‘I've got to go to London and dismantle my life. I don't…' He trailed off.

‘You've been well educated. You can do all the numbers and stuff.'

‘Pff,' he said.

‘My education was rubbish, considering what it must have cost. All my school taught me was how to shoot, dance and paint a lovely picture of hollyhocks. But someone's got to talk to the accountant.'

He crinkled his mouth into a smile. ‘Just because I know the causes of the First World War, doesn't mean I can run a Scottish estate.'

‘Well, I know a bit about that. You have certain other skills and characteristics that I don't, and… you know, we might be a team.'

Gordon thought. He knew that it would require a lot more than talk to get the Loch Garvach estate into decent and sustainable order, especially when they had so little capital. It would require what real entrepreneurs have. Unquenchable zeal, ingenuity and adaptability. Whether he could find these qualities in himself he did not know, but it was possible that her flair, personability and local knowledge would compliment his logic, attention to detail, and his business experience… or rather, his experience in getting it all so wrong. He might have questioned whether he was the ideal candidate for the job of getting the wind farm straightened out, but he found
himself saying, ‘Perhaps I can learn.'

‘That's the spirit,' she said, and they put the dinner things in the dishwasher.

At first, Gordon had started work as factor of the Loch Garvach estate and part-time under-gardener with a heavy heart. He felt he had missed his opportunity to confess to Coky. The memory of the episode twenty-five years ago still burdened him. It had haunted him over the weeks since Peregrine's death, and every time he remembered it, it stung afresh. But he couldn't tell Coky now that she was his employer. It might jeopardise his accommodation, apart from anything else.

His initial disappointment at not being given one of the two beautiful if dilapidated Victorian gate lodges at the bottom of the drive, and instead being billeted in a caravan, turned unexpectedly to joy. The caravan was not, as he had expected, some 1970s horror that rocked perilously when you went from one side to the other. It was a sturdy Edwardian showman's caravan, extravagantly painted in the traditional gaudy colours by Coky herself the previous summer. A log-fired stove got the place from icy to snug in ten minutes, and all the gilded mirrors gave the impression of space. The bed was deep if narrow and as long as he didn't move much, he slept well. And these days, he never moved when sleeping. He was simply too physically tired.