And the Land Lay Still (43 page)

And then suddenly things looked better, as though events might have conspired to drop him in the right place at the right time. Something, he realised,
was
stirring in the undergrowth. In March there was a by-election in the safe Labour seat of Glasgow Pollok: the SNP candidate got 22 per cent of the vote, allowing the Tory to slip through and win. In May the Nationalists won a raft of seats at the county and burgh elections and registered twice as many votes as they’d scored in the General Election the year before. The Secretary of State for Scotland, Willie Ross, was scathing, dubbing the Nats ‘tartan Tories’ in his best no-nonsense manner, but what was happening?

At the end of May Jock Stein’s Celtic won the European Cup in Lisbon, and on 1 June the Beatles released
Sergeant Pepper
, but Peter didn’t give a toss about either. What caught his attention was the appearance of a new, radical nationalist organisation, the 1320 Club, a ‘research group’ loosely connected, mainly through dual membership, to the SNP. Its president was Hugh MacDiarmid, now in his mid-seventies but apparently as keen to stir things up as he’d ever been. At last there was some meat for Peter to get his teeth into.

In September, the Queen came to Clydebank to launch the new Cunard liner, the
QE
2
. Thousands of people lined the streets, cheering and waving at the royal party, cheering and waving as the massive ship slid into the water. There was bunting, there were banners and flags, happy smiling people, a sense of achievement and celebration even though the yard that had built the liner, John Brown’s, was losing its name and being absorbed into the new Upper Clyde Shipbuilders consortium. It was a launch, a beginning, but also it was a conclusion. Peter saw a woman turn her head away from the spectacle as if there were something else catching her attention; he saw in a man’s eyes a deeper assessment of what was going on. But what
was
going on?
There was a mood Peter couldn’t quite measure. Was he imagining things?

And then, in November, came the Hamilton by-election, and the summons.

Canterbury said, How the
hell
did it happen?

The room swayed, tipped. Peter righted it by shifting slightly in his seat. He wanted a window open or the door but there wasn’t a window and you didn’t have meetings like this with the door open and anyway clearly the other two weren’t finding the atmosphere as oppressive as he was. Then, they hadn’t endured a seven-hour bevvy session on the overnight train from Glasgow. All in the call of duty, he might have joked, but he was afraid to open his mouth in case he wasn’t able to speak properly.

He was by now a paid-up member of the SNP, and had been in Hamilton often during the by-election, leafleting, canvassing, watching, listening. The contest had been caused by the resignation of the sitting MP, Tom Fraser, who’d gone off to become chairman of the North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board. The Labour Party could be forgiven for a certain level of complacency – Fraser had won 70 per cent of the vote at the General Election – but the man chosen to succeed Fraser, an ex-miner and local councillor called Alex Wilson, failed to convince people that they weren’t being taken for granted. The contrast with the SNP candidate, a vivacious solicitor called Winnie Ewing, was marked. Hamilton wasn’t the most prepossessing place in the world, but Ewing was paying it serious attention. In return, the local people started paying attention to her, and to the wider cause of her party: some gut feeling grew that it was time to
do
something about who they were and what they wanted, even if it was just putting an X next to the word
Scottish
. Polling day arrived and at the end of it Ewing had beaten Wilson with two thousand votes to spare.

After the victory, the triumph. An entire train, dubbed the Tartan Express, was ordered to carry Ewing south to take her seat in the House of Commons, and Peter had to move fast for a ticket to be on it. An opportunity, he thought, to gauge the mood and report in style the next day. A couple of Hillman Imps, symbols of
sturdy wee Scotland, were used to bring Ewing and her family to the train. Central Station was crowded, awash with lions rampant and saltires. The train was crammed, everybody desperate to be part of the occasion. The singing started before the train pulled out. At Hamilton the platform was lined with cheering supporters, and more folk piled in. At Edinburgh it was the same, even at Newcastle. Then it was non-stop to London. Winnie did a kind of processional through the carriages then retired to the only sleeper carriage so she could be fresh for her induction the next day. For everybody else it was an all-night party. Just when you thought things were winding down another piper would start to blow or a fiddler scrape out another set of tunes and somebody, from somewhere, would produce another bottle of whisky.
Sleep no more. Johnnie Walker hath murdered sleep
. Peter had managed, finally, an hour of semi-consciousness with another man’s elbow in his ribs before stumbling off the train in search of a café. Then he’d made his way, as instructed, to an alley off a side street a few minutes from King’s Cross. There was an unmarked door at the back of an anonymous building, and a bell. He rang it. After a while a woman opened it, regarded him as if he were a vagrant but let him in anyway, and escorted him along featureless corridors to a featureless room, to meet Henry Canterbury and the man who would be his contact from then on, John Croick.

A fellow Scot, Canterbury said, doing the introductions, and Peter, peering at Croick through his hangover, thought he looked vaguely familiar but was pretty sure he’d not previously come across him. No surprise there. In the game of circles you didn’t meet people who mattered until they had a reason to meet you. Peter knew at once that Croick mattered.

Well? Canterbury said accusingly, as if it were Peter’s fault. How does a political party – any political party – come from nowhere, absolutely nowhere, and win eighteen thousand votes and a seat in the Commons? Tell me that.

Peter had a foul-tasting mouth and a sore head. They couldn’t not be smelling the alcohol on his breath. Canterbury probably thought he’d reverted to type, the drunken Scot decanted on to London’s streets. What a contrast with the thin-lipped, cool, dry-as-dust Croick. Yet in spite of everything, maybe because of
everything, Peter didn’t care. Perversely he felt, for once, that he was in charge. Wrong again.

Not quite from nowhere, he said, savouring the absence of ‘sir’ at the end of his sentences: after what they’d done to him, fucked if he was going to call Canterbury anything that hinted at respect.

The SNP didn’t put up a candidate in Hamilton at the General Election last year. Or the one before that. That’s nowhere, isn’t it?

There have been signs of growth, Peter said. He made a real effort and carried on. They’ve been building quite an impressive network of branches over the last few years. Fund-raising like mad. They poured their people into Hamilton because they sensed the voters might be ready for a change. The Labour man wasn’t going to give them that. Mrs Ewing, on the other hand, was a very good candidate. Young, articulate, sparky, female. It was Hamilton but it might have happened anywhere.

Wonderful candidate, Canterbury said drily. Good luck to her. But what next? Is this an isolated incident, or can we expect to see seats starting to fall like ninepins?

STOP THE WORLD, SCOTLAND WANTS TO GET ON, Croick intoned, repeating Ewing’s campaign slogan. He spoke English like a learned foreigner, faultlessly and without passion. There was a strong accent hidden away in the recesses. Peter tried to pinpoint it: Aberdeen, Buchan, somewhere up there perhaps? He thought, have I met this guy before?

It could be seen as a warning shot, Peter said. Start paying us attention.

How much bloody attention? Canterbury snapped. You’ve been given a steelworks, car plants, a bridge across the Forth, hydro schemes, new universities, motorways, better housing. It’s not as if things haven’t got better. What more do you want from us?

Not
us
, Croick said gently. This isn’t a you-and-us situation.

Of course not. I meant, what more does Scotland want? The Scots. He threw an angry glance at Peter.

If it were, Croick said, you’d be alone and outnumbered. Eh, Peter?

Peter grinned, warmed by the slight menace in Croick’s voice.

From what Peter’s been saying, Croick went on, and from a wider political analysis, we can assess that Hamilton is not,
necessarily, an isolated incident. The important question is, how do we make it one? How do we ensure it doesn’t happen again?

There was a suitable pause while they all considered that, or it seemed to Peter that that was what they were doing. He said:

That’s not really our job, is it?

Canterbury said, What isn’t?

Fixing elections.

Croick shook his head sadly, implying that of course we wouldn’t stoop so low.

Canterbury said, Why not? but not as if he was disputing the issue, more like a teacher coaching a promising pupil, or a quizmaster on TV:
Come on, ten points if you get this right
.

Well, it’s democracy, isn’t it? The SNP is a legitimate political party. You can’t stop people voting for that, not in this country.

No, Croick said, in a careful, perhaps regretful tone. But you could say that about the CP too. That doesn’t mean we don’t watch what they’re up to.

What if people don’t really know what they’re voting for? Canterbury said. They think they’re voting for a fairer, more equal society, or they’re asserting a bit of local pride, but then one morning they wake up and find they’re living in Albania only with worse weather. Surely we shouldn’t allow that to happen?

Do they get good weather in Albania? Croick said.

Are we talking about Communists or Nationalists now? Peter said.

What’s the difference? Canterbury said. They’d both change the country irrevocably if they could. There’s a balance to be struck between people’s aspirations and what, realistically, is in their best interests. You know that as well as I do, Bond. We don’t interfere in the political process, but we monitor it.

When necessary, we manage it, Croick said. Peter’s right. It goes without saying that we have to respect the democratic will. We
do
respect it. You’re both right. But people should be aware of the dangers, the unintended consequences, of indulging their emotions. They need to be
made
aware of them. We can help there.

Yes, we can, Canterbury said.

That’s why we have men like you on the ground, Croick said to Peter. This isn’t just about Scotland, this is about the whole
country. There are groups and individuals all over this island who, well intentioned or otherwise, want to undermine its stability, overthrow its institutions, and impose their own views on everybody else. We guard against that. We secure the premises. That’s what we do.

Any state has to protect itself, Canterbury said. If somebody sets out to destroy the state, we take steps to prevent them. It’s a legitimate response.

I take it we’re all agreed on that, Croick said.

Peter nodded. He was having a relapse. He was also having difficulty remembering that he wasn’t inside any more. The way they were talking, the three of them, it was as if he’d been granted special privileges, an old boy who could still remember the school rules. But he hadn’t been to that kind of school. He wanted to get out his handkerchief and wipe from his face the clamminess that was threatening to turn into a full-on sweat, but he didn’t do it. He thought, there’s a double act going on here and I’m not one half of it.

This 1320 Club, Croick said.

Why 1320 again? Canterbury asked. Probably he already knew, but maybe not.

Declaration of Arbroath, Peter said. A letter sent to the Pope by the barons of Scotland six years after Bannockburn, asserting Scotland’s independence.

For so long as one hundred of us remain alive, we will never give in to the English
, or words to that effect, Croick said helpfully. Anyway, this club. Sounds like it’s all over the place ideologically, and half-in, half-out as far as membership of the SNP is concerned. We like that.

The party leadership don’t like it, Peter said. It makes them nervous. Anything involving Hugh MacDiarmid makes them nervous.

You said we could ignore him, Canterbury said.

We
can, Peter said.

We want you as close as you can get to this club, Croick said. Join if they’ll let you. And tell us what they’re up to.

I already know what they’re up to, Peter said. They’re not very discreet. They think they’re a think tank. They’re busy setting up
committees of themselves to develop policies for an independent Scotland – foreign affairs, defence, natural resources. They think independence is coming soon but England won’t allow it to happen so there’ll need to be a violent struggle. A provisional army directed by a provisional government. Some of them think about this kind of thing so much they’re convinced it’s going to happen. They
are
the provisional government-in-waiting.

Comic-book stuff, Croick said, and winked at Peter. Have you come across a man called Derek Boothby?

Indirectly, yes, Peter said. In person, no. He produces a monthly paper called
Sgian Dubh
. I’m a subscriber. That’s nothing to do with the 1320 Club, but he’s also the club’s Organiser. That’s what he calls himself.

By all accounts he couldn’t organise a piss-up in a brewery, Croick said. (Years later, Peter remembers that one.
By all accounts?
) We think he’s someone to watch, possibly someone to cultivate. Army background, good connections, very self-assured.

Peter nodded. Things slid inside his head like unsecured cargo on a listing ship. He pictured the densely packed, marginless foolscap sheets of
Sgian Dubh
, saw in the uneven print the passion with which Boothby bashed out prejudices and proposals on his typewriter.

He drops a lot of hints about military training and units scattered about the country, he said. Ninety per cent of it’s what you said, comic-book stuff. Maybe all of it.