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not far away, and wondered if it was something to do with them. It was a long time since there had been any

contact with them, but some distant suspicion, born of old, still lingered.

Whatever it meant, they were most unhappy that a strange fairy had boldly gone into an Italian bank, picked the lock of the vault and made off with a sporran full of money.

Kerry and Morag hunted the Lower East Side for the poppy with no success. After Cal's criminal act of removing it from her apartment then leaving it in the theatre, it had vanished.

Morag made efforts to lighten Kerry's mood by working out the guitar parts on 'Born to Lose', a Johnny Thunders classic, but neither Kerry's heart nor her fingers were in it. All she felt like doing was drinking beer.

Heather was most perturbed at Dinnie's refusal to play his fiddle. If she failed in her attempt to teach him, then Morag would subject her to terrible ridicule. Terrible ridicule from Morag was more than Heather could bear. She was already dreading that her rival might learn of the débâcle at the session.

'Why did I ever brag to that foul MacPherson that I would teach this useless lump to play? I was taken in by the beauty of his fiddle. It has the most exquisite tone, but I have staked my clan pride on an imbecile.'

'Come on Dinnie, practise.'

'No.'

'If you don't practise, Morag MacPherson will mock me and all the MacKintoshes,' cried the fairy in frustration.

'Aha!' said Dinnie. 'So that's why you're so keen for me to learn. I might have known you had an ulterior motive.

Well, I don't give a shit about the MacKintoshes, or the MacPhersons.'

Heather swallowed her outrage and spoke sweetly. She pleaded, persuaded, whined, nagged, flattered and cajoled him, finally appealing to his vanity by telling him that with his fiddle under his chin, he really was a fine figure of a man.

'Do you really think so?'

Heather nodded. 'Most attractive.'

Dinnie grinned, and Heather knew that she had found a weak spot. One of Dinnie's most profound desires was to be attractive.

'I shouldn't doubt,' she continued, 'that if you learn a few more tunes and go back to that session, the young Irish colleens will be clustering round you in no time. Even last week I noticed a few of them eyeing you up.'

Dinnie picked up his fiddle.

I have excelled myself, thought Heather. I have finally made him love the fiddle. She tripped happily downstairs on her way to the bar. Cal was on the steps, talking to a young woman.

'You will be a great Titania,' he said. 'Come and audition. You'll love it. You get to be the Fairy Queen on a stage strewn with flowers.'

The mention of flowers made Heather think of her estranged friend Morag. They had both been very friendly with flowers in Scotland. She decided to fly across the road and see what she was up to.

Across the road, Morag and Kerry were listening to old Lydia Lunch tapes and drinking beer. Kerry told Morag

about her childhood in Maine and her parents, who had died when she was young, leaving her nothing but a large health-insurance policy, which turned out to be very fortunate.

'And since then I have been poor. I have tried making money from my art here in New York but without much

success. It is very dispiriting.'

Kerry's last artistic effort had been a commission from friends of Cal to draw an album cover for them for a record they were putting out with their own money.

'I drew a beautiful woman, based on Botticelli's Venus — similar to me in fact — lying on a bed of rose petals. It was lovely, but the band said it didn't go with the album's title.'

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'What was that?'

'Rock Me, Fuck Me, Kill Me.
Lousy record.'

This had been Kerry's last commercial enterprise, since when she had been living on virtually no money. Now

Morag was here to help with the shoplifting and rob tills for the rent, things were a little easier.

'Now, Morag, where am I going to find a red, yellow and orange Welsh poppy? Without that flower the alphabet

will not be complete and it must be complete if I am going to beat Cal in the competition.'

At the mention of Cal, Kerry threw down her Indian headband in fury. Not only had he rejected her because of her colostomy bag, he had also sabotaged her flowers.

Magenta arrived at a small park in Houston Street and sat down to consult her copy of Xenophon. A few pigeons meandered round, picking up crumbs. Before she could begin reading she was interrupted by a tramp who knew

her well. He took some time off from washing windscreens at the traffic lights and sauntered over.

'What you got there? Xenophon?' He burst out laughing.

'Xenophon is a pile of crap. All the most recent literary— archeological authorities show that he was not as

important in the expedition as he made out.'

Magenta did not stop to listen to any more. She checked that her new booty, a priceless triple-bloomed flower, was safely tucked in her shopping bag and marched off.

'Wait till Joshua catches up with you!' he shouted after her.

'I see a sewage spill closed three Long Island beaches yesterday. Also Nassau County health authority received a flurry of calls from people who became ill after eating contaminated clams.'

Morag was reading a newspaper after a Kerry attempt at a guitar solo had ended in defeat. She was persistent in her love of the New York Dolls, though, and would never entirely give up.

'And a Brooklyn teenager was stabbed to death in Sunset Park after an argument.'

'Mmmm.'

'And two muggers went on a crime spree in Midtown, doing three knife-point robberies in five minutes.'

Kerry grimaced.

'Perhaps you should tell me a tale about Scotland instead.'

'If you absolutely insist.'

Morag swallowed an oatcake, washed it down with a little beer, and began.

'James MacPherson was a famous Scottish robber and a great fiddle player. He was afraid of no one and his

exploits were legendary, but eventually he was captured by treachery in Keith market. This was around 1700,1

think. MacPherson was a good friend of the fairies and even had a happy relationship with a mermaid, which is a sort of fairy.

'Now, the most famous fiddle-maker of the MacPherson fairies, Red Dougal MacPherson, lived around then, and

he was very fond of MacPherson the Robber. They used to drink and play music together in the hills around Banff.

Red Dougal taught James many fairy fiddling techniques and it is said that no fiddling duo before or since could match them. In return for this, MacPherson the Robber used to bring Red Dougal and the other MacPherson fairies muckle great skins full of whisky and choice jewels from his robbing.

'Eventually they were such good friends that Red Dougal made a violin with all his skill and craft and took it to the great Annie MacPherson, who was head of the MacPherson fairy clan. She gave the fiddle shape-changing

powers so it could become big enough for a human to play, and Red Dougal presented it to James.

'The instrument had a matchless tone. In the right hands it could hypnotise an audience. It could make you laugh or cry. It could send warriors marching through the glens or send a baby to sleep. It was famous throughout

Scotland, and although MacPherson carried it with him, it was counted as one of the three great Scottish fairy artefacts, and belonged to the clan as a whole.

'Then MacPherson the Robber was betrayed and captured and sentenced to death by the sherriff. He was locked up in prison in Banff. The fairies tried to free him but the sherriff was too strong with English magic and we could do nothing. MacPherson sat in his cell and composed one last tune, the famous "MacPherson's Lament".

'Annie MacPherson did manage, through her great power, to secure a pardon for the robber, and this would have file:///Users/lisa/Downloads/Martin%20Millar%20-%20The%20Good%20Fairies%20of%20New%20York.html

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pleased all the Scottish folk, for he never robbed the poor, only the rich. But the sherriff knew the reprieve was on its way and cunningly moved the town clock on an hour. So the execution went ahead an hour early, and the

reprieve arrived too late.

'When James MacPherson stood on the gallows he played the tune he'd composed in his cell, the "MacPherson's Lament". MacPherson fairies were watching and they remembered the tune, which is how it still survives. Then the robber smashed his fiddle to bits over his knee in anger and cried his defiance to the world. After that he was hanged.

'And that was the end of the famous MacPherson Fiddle. No one even knew what happened to the pieces.'

Heather crouched outside Kerry's second-floor window, listening.

'A terrible shame it was lost,' Morag was saying, 'because Red Dougal was the best fairy violin maker that ever graced the country, and by all accounts the MacPherson Fiddle was the finest instrument he ever made.'

Outside the window Heather clutched her brow. She was awestruck. She raced back to Dinnie's rooms.

It had been a puzzle to Heather why Dinnie's fiddle had such a stirring tone even in the hands of such a bad

player, and she had just had a startling psychic insight, which she was not at all famous for.

'Dinnie! This is none other than the legendary fairy instrument, the MacPherson Fiddle.'

Dinnie lounged in front of the TV and paid Heather no attention.

'Oh baby, I'd love to suck your hard cock,' cooed a woman in a bikini down a red phone. Phone 970 S-U—C—K

for the hottest phone sex in town.'

I might have to kill this person some time, thought Heather.

Morag rode, walked and fluttered through the city, but failed to find any trace of Kerry's missing flower. The competition was less than three weeks away. There was only one thing to do. She climbed a fire escape, looked up at the sky, and prayed to Dianna, Goddess of the Fairies.

When she glided back down to street level, there was Magenta, marching towards her, and poking out of her

shopping bag was the preserved bloom.

'Thank you, Dianna,' said Morag, and materialised.

She briefly explained about the flower and asked for it back.

Magenta fled, calling orders for her troops to. form a square, archers and horsemen at the rear.

'Could we possibly find another one somewhere?' asked Morag, back at Kerry's.

'No,' said Dinnie. 'No, no, no. You can't have it.'

He grabbed hold of the violin.

'But you don't even like it.'

'Yes I do. It makes me attractive. Young Irish girls will soon be flocking round. You said so yourself.'

Heather glowered in hopeless frustration. She had made Dinnie love his instrument, and now she needed it.

'Anyway,' protested Dinnie. 'I don't believe you. How can this be the famous MacPherson Fiddle, whatever that is?'

'It's one of Scotland's most famous fairy icons. I don't know how it ended up in New York, but it has. I recognise its tone. Any Scottish fairy would. Except we all thought it was lost centuries ago. I must have it. If I go back to Scotland with the MacPherson Fiddle, I will be forgiven for the damage I did to the MacLeod Banner.'

'How could it be a fairy instrument? It's too big.'

'It's a shape-changing instrument.'

'It would be.'

Dinnie and Heather glared at each other.

'I could steal it.'

'No you couldn't,' said Dinnie triumphantly. 'You're a good fairy. You're not allowed to steal a human's favourite thing. Especially a fellow MacKintosh's.'

Heather thought frantically. What did fairies do when they needed something from a human and were unable to

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steal it? Of course. They bargained.

'I'll trade you for it.'

Cal was suffering from stress. Trying to put on a production of
A Midsummer Night's Dream
on a minimal budget was proving to be extremely difficult. To make things worse, he seemed to have landed himself with a highly

strung group of performers, and interruptions from mad bag ladies were more than they could cope with.

He plugged in his guitar to relax. Cal was a good guitarist. He could play almost anything; he could play along to the noise of the traffic, or the rattle from his air-conditioner.

He played through some riffs and chord sequences, then his fingers slid easily over some of his favourite guitar solos.

He frowned. Playing old New York Dolls guitar solos made him feel slightly guilty, since he had promised to

teach them to Kerry, then left her before doing so.

'Listen,' said Johnny, up in Heaven.

'What?' said Billy.

'Somewhere down there. They're still playing my stuff.'

Johnny Thunders and Billy Murcia, deceased members of the New York Dolls, picked up the vague vibrations of

the lead break from 'Rock and Roll Nurse'.

'I really wish I knew what happened to my guitar,' repeated Johnny. 'I miss that Gibson Tiger Top. There was

never another one like it. Even here I can't find a replacement.'

Across the blessed heavenly field from them, Chinese spirits were still making their preparations to visit earth for the Festival of Hungry Ghosts.

'A thistle fairy engaged in a trade is empowered to offer anything,' claimed Heather. 'Just name it.'

Dinnie looked at Heather suspiciously.

'Okay,' he said, 'I'll give you it for a million dollars.'

'Eh, well, I can't really do that.'