Strip the Willow (19 page)

The symposium was held in an oval conference room, out past the Bridge of Don. Oval was ideal for conferences: it allowed a measure of face-to-face without being in your face. It fostered the illusion of one world and a common interest. There was also a gap in the oval, on one of the broad sides, for key presentations.

Mineral water originated from volcanic aquifers, or glacier melt filtered through sand, or secretly channelled chalk streams, or reservoirs of rain under granite – apparently. Mineral water springs, when analysed in the lab, were variously rich in sodium,
potassium
, fluoride, magnesium, calcium, silica, sulphates, bicarbonates, nitrates and chlorides, all of which were deemed to be beneficial to dental longevity, brain tone, skin gleam and other vital signs, in exactly the quantities found – it seemed. Thus to adulterate these quantities would be anathema, and any adulterator would be
immediately
banned from the bottled water global community – they were warned. For if the odd drugged Olympic sprinter threatened the credibility of an exercise form, one bottle of water with a dash of uranium could threaten empires – was the dire message. Chemicals as such had a poor image, and the only permissible additions to bottled water were zest of lemon, zing of lime or squeeze of orange, all of which spurting citroids were known to be full of sunny
stimulation
, without a cancerous ion or ageing free radical between them – it was asserted.

The open session was very informative.

Peem moved between the ovalled rows, which were luxuriously spaced, checking that no alien bottle or jug of tap had infiltrated, and making sure that 500ml containers of the main sponsors – Purer, Valvic, Badwasser, Pîche, Irrigay, Oosh and Mountain Heart
– were open and available for the hydration and oral satisfaction of each delegate. They were thus revitalised, sip by sip, to focus on the second part of the day, when the symposium went into strictly closed session. Audits, bubble-maintenance. Calories, the eight-glass-day. Gassiness, grassiness. Jeremiahs, kidneys. Pesticide masking,
vichissitudes,
trout. Extrapolations of world shortage.

It seemed to Peem as he listened intently – when he wasn’t locked in a death-struggle with some stuck blue bottle-cap – that the litany of commodity barely began to skim the surface of what he cared about.

This time of year, you had to burn serious fuel to find a decent mark of herring. So he had plenty long watches off Barra, the Butt, the Noup and Foula in which to turn things over. But the simple,
absolute
fact for Spermy was that his shore financier would never let him off the hook. Every seven years or so, Spermy had gone for a faster boat, grander net, bigger block power, vaster capacity. And now a second boat, keeping him company, with his son skippering.

But because, since the outset, 77% had been owned ashore, he could never amass the capital to buy the boats outright himself. Always the profit was being siphoned ashore, as though through a giant straw.

A straw called Swink.

So even well into the new century, when Spermy went for the
Girl Julie,
and his son Finbar took over
Spare Me V
– both built in Finland and fitted out in Denmark, the father’s boat 300 feet long, the son’s 297 – William Swink II kept the SwinkFoods share of the enterprise at 77%, and kept the vessels’ pressure stock licences and vital quota documents in his business office, safe.

Yet it was not as though Spermy and Finbar did not have a very good living, getting the biggest prices when they ran their fish across the North Sea to Skagen, at the north tip of Denmark. And it was not
as though their crew, who attended the machinery and monitored the monitors but did very little old style work, were not in clover too. They could gross ten or fifteen thousand pounds per man on an exceptional night, if the market was right; then perhaps a very sustainable nothing for a couple of months.

A very sustainable official nothing.

Covert fishing, circumvention of quotas, and black landings on secluded piers kept the operation ticking over.

He knew his wife approved of the extra blackfish cash in the Swiss account. Julie was sussed. The cash from her own consultancy, BSI, Big Shrimp International, she kept well separate. She still flew out east several times a year, to South-East Asia, helping to make the case for the uprooting of another 100 or 1000 hectares of mangrove, so as to facilitate the meteoric tail-snap of the tiger prawn. The thing was she was a classic pioneer, a bit like him, she had been in at the start.

Greenpeace had targeted her survey boat more than once. The time she fired a rocket flare over their self-righteous heads, she was able to find a powerful enough lawyer to keep her out of jail. The case was tried in Kuching, in the old colonial courthouse of Rajah Brooke. Half way through the first afternoon the air conditioning broke down, but the conditioning of the judge did not.

Self-defence. Not guilty. Case dismissed.

Julie seldom dived these days. Her youthful protests about Dow Chemical had soon faded, and no-one reminded her of them. So? She might have done little to hinder the manufacturers of napalm, but she had opened up, in her own way, much of the coast of Vietnam.

Spermy called up the pair boat on the radiophone. Night was falling.

– Aye, aye, Finbar. Seein muckle?

– Fuckin desert.

– A wee mark jist back a while, I thocht. Nae worth shootin.

Peem was taken aback when he went to see the CAB man the second time. The whole place was being packed into boxes, ready to go into storage until the Mounthooly underpass service could be instated. He had forgotten when his appointment with Clan Reunited
Counselling
was, so he had missed it, and now there was a two month waiting list.

It seemed, according to the CAB man, that everybody and their granny wanted advice on how to weld bits of a family together again, without splits at the seams arising at the first whiff of sexual wandering, financial insolvency, mental derangement or slight displeasure.

The trouble was, due to TV relationship shows like
Uncle Fesster
– and the Scottish one,
Up Your Close
– the standard for tolerable, liveable, acceptable families seemed to have gone through the roof, and any lightly dysfunctional member risked being adjudged as welcome as—

– As what—? said Peem.

– As a limp prick in a barrel of fannies, said the CAB man.

– Thanks for sharing that concept with me, said Peem.

– My pleasure.

– So what are you going to do? Peem asked him.

– Take a month off. Chance to get a bit of perspective.

– That’s always good, I think, said Peem.

– Probably head off somewhere. The Algarve. I think I’ll go to the Algarve.

– Do you have people there?

– I don’t need people everywhere I go. Bit of a busman’s holiday for me, people.

– What then?

– Birds will do me. There’s plenty birds on the marsh out there. Do you want to come?

– No dough.

– The fare will be about thirty quid, and you can live for tuppence.

– Wouldn’t I count as
people
for you?

– Na, bit of company never hurt. Come on, I’ll sub you.

– I’ve saved up thirteen pounds from my paper round.

– There you go, deposit I call that. Let’s go.

– I don’t know your name.

– Not that old business. Charles McGinn, Charlie to you. Are you going to say hello to your family first? I’m not saying you should.

– I might drive past. If I knew where they stayed.

– Sounds a bit bloody royal to me, that. Come on, let’s go. You’ll be in a better state to face them when you come back. Browner anyway.

– It was deep snow when I left the house. They won’t expect me to be brown.

– How long ago was that?

– Forty years. Or so.

– People change. They’ll make allowances. I wouldn’t worry.

– Maybe they’re a nest of dysfunctionality, said Peem.

– When they got rid of you, chum, they probably sorted that, said Charlie, and gave a laugh.

When Lucy landed in Marrakech, dashing in the rain with her driver to the riad’s own taxi, parked beyond the masses of Mercs and Audis, driving through the uniform avenues of identical palms and bakebrown villas, gawping at the snowy High Atlas across the plain in the near distance, then swerving through the stone archway into the Medina, the old town, she immediately felt challenged, and at home.

The taxi slowed through the streets, but not much. There were Moroccans standing and squatting everywhere, their scarves and cakes and bread and shoes, pirate discs and cones of spices, spread
out the length of the main lanes on luminous prints and rugs.

The taxi couldn’t make it up the final alley, narrow, tall, with a scatter of shabby or plain doors along the way. The door of her riad at the very end, though, was broad, prepossessing; oiled, a dark-grained wood, with enough studs to suggest a measure of impregnability. It was not a door Theo would have liked: it was not progressive. But it was the kind of door she needed, at that moment, to be behind.

Inside, round two dim corners, then under the blue of the courtyard sky, a faltering fountain played an immemorial music, splashing under an orange tree.

While Peem and Charlie were in the air, on the easyJet cheap job out to Lisbon, Charlie asked a question or two. There was no such thing as a free meal on easyJet, and the inflight magazine’s offers on perfume and paste jewellery quickly palled.

– So the memory smash-up, said Charlie. How did that come about?

Peem sighed and blew out.

– Head knock.

– Uhuh?

– Head knock.

– Okay, start again. Been to Portugal before?

– Never out of the country overmuch, said Peem. You know the good thing about a scabby memory? Every day seems rich and strange.

– So if we want to cut aviation carbon, all we need do is hit
everybody
over the head? Ritually, of course – price of a few hammers. Always said this green thing could turn damn quick into a species of fascism.

– This green thing, said Peem, after a longish pause. I’ve been hearing about it. I think my carbon footprint must have been
teeny-weeny
for years. If you don’t have a washing machine or a car or a roof, it seems you’re doing great.

– But did you aspire to have them?

– I just aspired to exist, I suppose. All that Lucy asked me to do was
learn to exist
. That’s what I did, exist in limbo, here and there, foraging on an island, a futon, a set of outside stairs.

Charlie was quiet for a while.

– You okay? said Peem.

– Yeah. It’s just that I make a profession of giving citizens advice.

Maybe you should be doing it. You could come in and do surgeries for us.

–
Dopey Fucker Explains All,
or something?
Ex-Fucker
make that.

– How is your love life? said Charlie.

– Post, said Peem. Post-hope, I would say. You?

– This and that, said Charlie. I meet a lot of vulnerable people. Some of them take advantage of me.

The owner of the riad, Ingmar, was very impressive. Tall, Swedish, experienced, relaxed, with time for everyone and, if you allowed for a degree of disdain and his charging policy, impeccable manners. She was aware of his presence for a day or so before he engaged her in conversation. He asked whether, now that she seemed settled, she might want to explore.

He suggested she go out and visit the Djemma el Fna no later than early evening, eat at a stall, be firm but never rude with the beggars, and enjoy herself. The huge, lopsided, cobra-packed
story-telling
square was no longer red and dusty but, even paved, she would find it had endless charm. She should try the freshly-pressed orange juice, avoid the henna tattoo merchants, and when she had picked out the best of the thirty identical stalls, sit down and order a pigeon, raisin and almond tajine.

– Seems quite a show, said Lucy.

– Oh, it’s not a show, not by any means, not more than 50%. The stories, for example, they’re for the Berbers down from the hills, you won’t understand them.

– I’m quite good at not understanding stories. Especially long ones.

– I wish I could come with you. Not that I could translate. But my wife is due back from Casablanca on the last plane.

– Sounds as though there’s a story in that?

– Who knows? In Marrakech one never finally knows anything. She is having some dental reconstruction, and prefers her own dentist to have it done. An affair with a prune stone, she told me. Have you been up on the roof much?

– Briefly, said Lucy.

– You know, I think this is the best time. I’ll have juice sent up. I have to supervise the plasterer now, he is refurbishing the delicate screens on the old wing.

– Thanks. I appreciate it.

– Perhaps, later in the week, a tour?

Lucy felt cared for but not intruded upon. She felt she almost belonged.

When Peem and Charlie debouched from the Metro, the very clean Metro, they were clearly in a different city. There was a civilised square in front of them, and at least three others promised quite close by.

– That gets me down in Uberdeen sometimes, said Charlie. The lack of a square.

– Nowhere decent to sit in the centre, said Peem. I know what you mean.

– There’s Golden Square, of course, said Charlie. Which up till last week had no seats, but was dedicated as a rest home for the motor car. Correction, there were a lot of seats, but they were all locked up inside painted metal boxes. Now, the whole thing’s been screened off. UberStreet is becoming a hellhole.

– Where are we staying tonight? said Peem.

– Oh, we’re heading off to the Algarve. We have under an hour before we need to catch the Metro again for Oriente.

Peem decided not to demur, though he would have liked to sit all afternoon in the square and listen to the Bolivian band playing, before the sun dipped out of it.

But he didn’t say anything. It was extraordinarily easy to fall out with somebody, he had found with Lucy. He wanted to find out if there was a knack of not doing it. Probably self-effacement was the best. It was just as well they were going to Oriente. He was starting to feel quite Eastern about his life.

They went through Rossio and walked down a very straight street grid to the enormous Praça do Comércio.

– They shot a king here, said Charlie.

– Kings come and go, said Peem.

– And they had an earthquake, 250-odd years ago.

– Sometimes an earthquake’s not so bad, I think Voltaire said.

– Nothing was left here. It was rebuilt.

– What advice do you think they gave them? said Peem. The Citizens’ Advice Bureau of the day?

– Keep well clear of churches, said Charlie. I think that would have been it. It was All Saints’ Day and they were half way through morning mass, 9.30 exactly, in their fifty churches, when the first tremors hit. If they weren’t crushed by crashing naves and glass and fallen angels, they were burned in a whacking conflagration of toppled candles.

– But they rebuilt the churches?

– Yes, the survivors gave their usual thanks. The perished were less grateful. But I would have pointed out to them one thing, said Charlie.

– What?

– The brothel quarter survived intact.

– The poor whores were probably sleeping, said Peem.

He didn’t know if this was what tourists always did. Freewheeling.

All the way south in the train to the Algarve, he stood at the very rear of the train, in the small cabin reserved for smokers. There was a reek about the cabin, but no new smokers came. Only Charlie popped in a couple of times to see how he was doing, and that was okay. The window looked back down the tracks.

He gazed at the glistening rails, balanced on their sleepers,
immaculately
ballasted, fleeing from him like iron snakes, as from behind his future rushed, or so it seemed, pressed into view on either side – embankments, emptiness, animals, men, stations unstopped at, slopes attacked – until, composing and recomposing, his present flipped round a bend, or zoomed off small, as the irretrievable past.

One field with tall white storky birds. Well, they were white like storks, but elegant like herons. Egrets, said Charlie. It was strange, seeing a brilliant white bird in a field, comporting itself, dipping for bugs amongst cattle legs, then sliding off, dismissed by speed, itself shrinking with everything else, to the palest of specks between dull wedges.

He stood for hours as each brief future rushed on by, swooped into a perfect past.

By the end of that time, he knew.

He knew what perfect had to do with. It wasn’t beauty, as you dreamed when young.

It meant it was finished, that was all.

– This green thing, he said, when Charlie came to join him a second time.

– We spoke about it, said Charlie. We dealt with that.

– No, said Peem. But I was at this conference on bottled water.

– Swinkie’s Symposium, said Charlie, was that the one?

– ’Fraid so.

– What about it?

– I felt I was drowning amongst these people. You feel so helpless.