And the Land Lay Still (50 page)

Croick was unperturbed. Right enough, he said. He smiled. We didn’t need your input, that’s all.

Input? What input? I don’t do bloody anything!

Calm down, Peter, calm down.

Peter wanted to hit him. That smile, that word
input
. It was like he was being tested. That was what it was always like. Testing his loyalty, his discipline, his fucking commitment. To what? And had he just failed, with his outburst, or passed? He didn’t know, he never knew. So he calmed down, and Croick said, You do enough, Peter, I assure you. Do you know what you achieve, by doing what you’re told, by playing the subtle game you play? You matter, believe me.

Why should I believe anything you tell me?

What’s that Greek thing? Croick said. Euripides, is it? Whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad. That’s what you’ve helped to do over these last few years. This desire for Scottish … whatever you want to call it, Home Rule, self-government, independence … you help to make it what it is, a form of
madness. As soon as there’s a possibility of it happening, well … blood on the lavvy walls, as I said.

But what have I done?

It’s not what
you’ve
done, it’s what
we’ve
done. You’re in a team but you don’t know any of the other players. That’s okay, you don’t have to. It’s better if you don’t. It’s necessary that you don’t.

I don’t even know what the game is.

Croick raised an eyebrow. Aye you do. I’ll tell you anyway, in a minute, but you do. The game is up and running, and to be honest we don’t even have to get involved much these days. The civil servants are doing everything they can to
not
deliver devolution, but just in case they have to they’re also busy redrawing maps of the North Sea and changing the way oil and gas revenues are assigned. You have to admire the way they kill ambition. Nothing saps the energy like a Whitehall mandarin dragging his heels. And now that the politicians have finally got their act together everything is ticking along nicely.

What do you mean? The politicians are all over the place. They don’t know what they want.

Precisely. I take my hat off to Wilson – a genius when it comes to creating plenty of smoke with very little fire. His party might not like floundering around in the bog of devolution but what his tactics ensured was that the SNP would get sucked in too. They did and now there’s a full-blown argument going on in
their
ranks between the fundamentalists and the gradualists, the ones who want independence and nothing less and the ones who think an assembly is better than nothing. You know what devolution is? It’s the longest way to make sure nothing happens. And now Wilson’s away and Callaghan’s in charge, and do you think anything much is going to change?

But what about the other parties?

Croick laughed. What about them? The Tories are on our side. Even if a few of them make weird hyooching noises every once in a while, they don’t mean anything more than if they were doing an eightsome reel. The Liberals are useful pissers in the swamp of gradualism but who really gives a damn what the Liberals think? In another couple of years people will be sick and tired of devolution and all its works. What on earth were
we thinking of? they’ll say. We must have been insane. Yes, truly insane. And it’ll fade away back to wherever it came from and we can get on with our lives. And you’ll have contributed to that.

Peter felt like a wee boy being praised, stroked almost, by a stern but friendly teacher. He could hardly look at the other man.

Croick put his mug on the table. We’ll go and get a drink somewhere, eh? I could do with a drink. So could you. But let me tell you something first. My father was a proud Scotsman. Really he was. But he was a proud Briton too. And he knew his history. He used to say to me, the Scots were never any good at running their own affairs. Whenever they were left to their own devices, they started fighting. They murdered their kings and each other, they were treacherous, violent, fanatical, incompetent, poor, hungry and cold. And when the chance of union with England came along the smart ones couldn’t believe their luck, they took the bribes and signed the deal and grabbed it with both hands, while the stupid ones, the idiot tendency, sulked and drowned their sorrows and eventually followed that Polack-Italian buffoon Bonnie Prince Charlie to Culloden. And that, my old man said, was Scottish history, and the lesson was, some of us knew which way our bread was buttered and some didn’t, but so long as the ones that did had the upper hand we need never be afraid of making a mess of things again.

Is that supposed to make me feel better? Peter asked.

No. None of this is about you, or me. I keep telling you, keep your emotions out of it. But you should know that everything we do is designed to ensure that the present state of affairs continues. It’s not heroic or glamorous, but it is the right thing. And you’re a part of that.

EDGAR
: A part of that. Were you a part of … whatever he was talking about?

BOND
: Oh aye. I was. (
His head lurches and the cargo slides once more.
) Well, no, I wasn’t.

EDGAR
: What was he talking about anyway?

BOND
: You should know. There were plenty of people in Intelligence who thought Wilson’s Labour government was
beyond the pale, virtually handing the country over to the trade unions. Some of them even thought Wilson was a Russian mole, for God’s sake.

EDGAR
: Croick?

BOND
: No. He wasn’t that stupid. But the general thesis – that there had to be back-up, a contingency plan – he subscribed to that. It wasn’t primarily about Scotland. Scotland was an adjunct, but it was his patch, his particular responsibility. That’s what he was telling me: once this is sorted we can get on with our lives. I was part of his plan to keep Scotland British.

EDGAR
: But
you
knew that. You’d been working at it for years.

BOND
: Well, I’d had enough. I tried to get out, a year or so later. This time I used the system to set up a meeting with Croick. I had a good excuse. I was about to be unemployed. The bookshop was going out of business and I thought I’d take the chance. And you know what? I thought Croick would just shrug and let me go. Good riddance. How naive can you get? So we arranged to meet, in this pub on the Southside, in Shawlands.

EDGAR
(
as
CROICK
): I heard about the shop. A shame, but hardly a surprise. Neither is this, Peter. I can see you’re tired.

BOND
: I’m not tired. I’m finished, done. It’s over.

CROICK
: So you want a wee rest? Why not? Recharge your batteries.

BOND
: I don’t want to recharge my fucking batteries. I want out.

CROICK
: Oh, I don’t think so. Not after all this time. Let’s not lose touch now. We
can’t
lose touch.

BOND
: What’s that, a threat?

CROICK
: A statement of fact. We’re connected. But what am I saying? Things are under control, so, aye, go off and do your own thing for a while. No reason why you have to stay in Glasgow either. Edinburgh would be good. Get yourself a job in Edinburgh. Go into business. Any idea what you might do?

BOND
: You’re not taking this seriously, are you?

CROICK
: I take everything seriously. Even jokes. I hate it when a joke isn’t funny, don’t you? Here’s one. Why won’t Scotland ever be independent? Because whenever the Scots get offered the chance of a free Scotland they know there must be a catch. A bargain-basement Scotland? Sounds interesting. A cheapish one?
Aye, maybe … But a free one? No thanks. Think we came up the Clyde in a wheelbarrow? Now, you tell me, is that funny? Think about it. (
He stands up, goes to the bar and orders another round. While he’s waiting he goes over to the jukebox and puts in a coin, punches in a selection. He collects the drinks and brings them back to the table.
) Now. Where were we? Oh aye, that joke.

BOND
: Forget the joke. What about me?

CROICK
(
laughing
): What about you? Your future career? All right. Know what I think, Peter? I think you should go private. You’d be good at it. You’ve had plenty of training.

BOND
: What the fuck are you talking about?

CROICK
: Set up on your own. Private detection. Divorces, surveillance, missing persons, dodgy insurance claims. There’s a market. Plus you’d keep your skills honed, should we ever need them again.

BOND
: I’m telling you, I’m finished.

CROICK
: I can put you to sleep for a while, Peter. Maybe for years. But I can’t let you go. Not completely. You’re an investment. Maybe you’ll never hear from me. But you need to know that you might. I’d be lying if I told you anything different.

BOND
: Future exploitation.

CROICK
: That’s it.

BOND
: What about Denny Hogg. Did you ever exploit him?

CROICK
: Who?

BOND
: You know. The lucky bank robber. Don’t tell me he got out early for good behaviour. Is he an investment?

CROICK
: Let’s say he’s got an account at the Cooperative Bank.

BOND
: And what if he won’t cooperate?

CROICK
: He will. You will too. I can make it worth your while, one way or the other. I know what you like.

BOND
: Maybe I’ll change.

CROICK
: Maybe you will. I’m not betting on it, but if I can’t buy you I can always sell you. Damaged goods. Going cheap.

BOND
: You think you’ve got me for ever, then?

CROICK
: Aye, or as long as I need you. You’re not stupid, Peter. You’re just a little slow. I always reckoned that about you, right from that very first interview.

BOND
: What interview? In London?

CROICK: No, before that.
(as
EDGAR
)
You will learn things about the world, and about yourself, that you would never otherwise know.
(as
CROICK
)
How true, how true.

BOND
(
looking at him suddenly and closely
): Wait a minute. You just said … That was the other guy. Edgar. When I was a kid doing my National Service.
He
said that.

CROICK
: Said what?

BOND
: What you just said. Word for word. But there was another man in the room. Wait a minute.

(
There is a long silence. It might be a minute, it might be an hour. That’s the way time is now.
BOND
is sunk in thought. Eventually he looks up.
EDGAR
is still there, sitting across from him.
)

BOND
: He said what
you
said. He was there. He was the one in the corner, with the glasses. It was Croick, wasn’t it?

EDGAR
:

BOND
: He picked me. He chose me right at the beginning.

EDGAR
:

BOND
: You bastards. Did he choose me?

EDGAR
:

BOND
: I should have walked out then.

EDGAR
: You were just a boy.

BOND
: And I should have walked out of that pub in Shawlands.

EDGAR
: By which time you were a man. Getting on a bit. But you still didn’t.

BOND
: He bought another round, and then another. I didn’t put my hand in my pocket all night. That was the only satisfaction he gave me. I should have walked out but I knew it wouldn’t make any odds and I wanted him to go on paying for the drinks. And then, when I was too pissed to stop him, it was him that got up to go. But before that, before he left, his selection came up on the jukebox. You know what it was? The Eagles. ‘Hotel California’. It was being played everywhere that year. And he leaned in to me when the chorus started and joined in but he changed the words, he was singing, Welcome to the Hotel Caledonia. And we sat and listened to that fucking song, the guitar solos, the choruses, and those lines at the end, the whole fucking thing. I couldn’t speak I was so drunk. And then he got up and left me there. And I knew I was doomed.

EDGAR
(
singing softly
): You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.

BOND
: Aye, that’s the one.

You kind of step out of yourself, watch yourself. When you’re a kid, real life is a game of imagination you play at one remove. Not so different when you grow up. You watched Bob and Bill concocting stories for the
Drumkirk Gazette
and pictured yourself in their shoes, doing it better. In London, when you rented hookers, that’s what you did, stepped out and spectated. When Canterbury came to your grey room by the Thames, you floated up to the ceiling and observed his stupidities from a height. When you first saw you were drinking too much you were only a few feet away but you made no effort to reach out and check the hand that tipped the bottle. You didn’t argue with the decision, if it was a decision, not to stop. Story of your life: the constant spy. And so it continued after Croick let you go but didn’t let you go. You watched yourself barrelling down the highway – brakes on or brakes off it didn’t matter, you were heading for a crash anyway and you saw the whole thing and somehow there was nothing you could do to avoid it.

He was determined to cut himself loose from Croick’s influence, but it was Croick’s suggestion about setting up on his own that lodged in his mind. Sole trader. No dependants, no dependency. Sink, probably, or swim. But not in Glasgow, a city he now just wanted to get out of. He made a couple of reconnoitring trips to Edinburgh, looking for office space that could double as accommodation. The second time he found what he wanted, in a dismal quarter of Leith. A grim wee hole with one window on to the street, a window so filthy you couldn’t see in or out, and a crusted venetian blind behind it just to make sure. Behind this room another with a stained stainless-steel sink and a two-ring hob, and squeezed in at the back a toilet with a cracked seat and a shower with several tiles lying in the tray.