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their contacts in the media (me, for one) to produce a huge free advertising
campaign in the shape of articles about themselves and the business. The shop
and its mail-order catalogue were an immediate success. In less than five
years Andy and his partner opened another twenty branches, made a modest
fortune, and then sold out for an immodest one to a big retail chain a couple
of months before the stock-market crash of '87.
Andy took six months off, went on a world trip - travelling first class -
toured America on a Harley, and cruised round the Caribbean in a yacht. He was
on a trans-Saharan trip when his sister Clare died. After the funeral he
mooched around the family estate at Strathspeld for a few months, then spent
some time in
London doing nothing much except seeing old friends and clubbing. After that
he seemed to lose it, somehow. He became quiet, then reclusive, and bought a
big, old decaying hotel in the western Highlands and retired to live there
alone, practically broke apparently and still not really doing anything apart
from drinking too much, getting wrecked most nights, going a bit hippy - I
mean, like, man - fishing from his dinghy, walking in the hills, and just
lying in bed sleeping while the hotel - in a quiet, dark village that was busy
once, before they built a new road and the ferry service stopped - crumbles
quietly around him.
*
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'Cameron! Kirkton of Bourtie.'
'What's that, Frank?'
'It's a wee village near Inverurie.'
'Where?'
'Never mind. Guess what -?'
'Give in.'
'"Kickoff of Blurted"! Ha ha ha!'
'Stop, I can't breathe.'
I've taken the weekend off and spent it detoxing myself, laying off the powder
and drinking nothing more deleterious to the system than strong tea. This
regime has had the added advantage of helping to keep my tobacco cravings in
check. I've played
Despot a lot, ramping my era-level into something resembling the beginnings of
an industrial revolution before my nobles revolted, the barbarians from the
south and west struck together, and there was a major earthquake which
resulted in a plague. By the time I've finished dealing with that lot I'd
dropped back to an era-level comparable to Rome after the schism with the
Eastern Empire and there was even a danger that the southern barbarians
weren't so barbaric after all;
maybe they were more civilised than my lot. This could be shaping up to a
strategic defeat. My Empire licked its wounds and I took great delight in
ordering the ceremonial execution of several generals.
Meanwhile my cough's getting worse and I think I'm coming down with a cold and
Mr bloody Archer never did call but on the other hand the credit-card company
wrote to me being nice for a change and hiked my limit so I've got a bit more
money to play with.
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'Think that nice Mr Major's going to get away with the Maastricht vote?' Frank
asks, his big ruddy face appearing round the side of my screen like the moon
from behind a hill.
'Easily,' I tell him. 'His backbenchers are a bunch of spineless brown-noses
and, even if there was any danger, those asshole Lib-Dems'll save the Tories'
skins as usual.'
'Care to make a small wager?' Frank twinkles.
'On the result?'
'On the size of Uncle John's majority.'
'Twenty says the margin's into double figures.'
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Complicity
Frank thinks about this. He nods. 'You're on.'
I've been back on naval stuff again today, interviewing people at Rosyth
dockyard, which may or may not be closed soon, putting another six thousand on
the local dole queue. A lot depends on whether they get the contract to
service the Trident subs or not.
I'm a few hundred words into the story when the phone goes.
'Hello. Cameron Colley.'
'Cameron, oh Cameron, oh thank goodness you're there. I was sure I'd got the
time difference wrong again; convinced. I really was. Cameron, it's
ridiculous; I mean it really is. I'm just at my wits' end, I
really am. I just can't talk to him. He's impossible. I don't know why I
married him, I really don't. He's mad. I mean literally mad. I wouldn't mind
so much but I think he's driving me mad, too. I wish you'd talk to him; I wish
you'd say something, I really do. I mean I'm sure he won't listen to you
either but, but, but
... well, at least he might listen to you.'
'Hello, Mum,' I say wearily, and reach for my jacket pocket where the
cigarette packet ought to be.
'Cameron, what am I to do? Just tell me that. Just tell me what on earth
anybody's supposed to do with such an impossible man. I swear he's getting
worse, he really is. I wish it was just my imagination but it isn't, I swear
it isn't. He's getting worse, he really is. It's not me. It's him; I mean, my
friends agree. He'll be the -'
'What's the problem, Mum?' I lift a pencil from the desk and start gnawing the
end.
'My stupid husband! Haven't you been listening?'
'Yes, but what -?'
'He wants to buy a farm! A farm! At his age!'
'What, is it a sheep farm?' I ask, because she's phoning from New Zealand and
I understand they aren't short of a sheep or two out there.
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