Death of a Scriptwriter

Patricia looked and quickly averted her eyes.

“It’s like this, Minister,” said Jamie Gallagher with a false smile and truculent eyes. “Lady Harriet is head of this commune in the Highlands, and – ”

“My Lady Harriet!” Patricia was now as white as she had been red a moment before. She had consoled herself on the road over with the thought that the naked Penelope Gates on the cover of her book had just been a publicity stunt. Had she not seen weird and wonderful covers on paperback editions of Dickens? But for this slut to play Lady Harriet, noble, gallant, intelligent Lady Harriet, was past bearing.

“I forbid it,” she said. “There is nothing in my book about any hippie commune.”

“There’s nothing in your book that’s filmable,” said Jamie. “Och, calm down, woman. It’s just a bit of poetic licence.”

“I shall have it stopped!”

“You can’t do anything about it,” said Jamie. “You signed the contract.”

Patricia stared at Fiona. “Is this true?”

“Well, yes.”

“And who is this man?” demanded Patricia, who had forgotten what Jamie looked like.

“This is Jamie Gallagher, our scriptwriter.”

“You are a charlatan,” said Patricia to Jamie. “Why say you are going to film my book and then change the whole thing?”

“I am making it suitable for television,” said Jamie. “Can someone get this woman off the set and keep her off?”

“You are not filming pornography in my parish,” howled the minister.

“I think we should all go to the castle and talk this through,” said Fiona.

¦

“How are things going in there?” Hamish asked Major Neal.

“Stormy, I think. I’m sorry for Miss Martyn-Broyd. She seems to be in shock.”

“They seem quieter now,” said Hamish, cocking an ear in the direction of Fiona’s office. “I’m surprised to hear that BBC Scotland think so highly of Jamie. You wouldn’t think he could write anything intelligent.”

“Oh, did you see Football Fever?”

“Who didn’t?” replied Hamish. Football Fever had been a television documentary on the lives and passions of Scottish football fans. It had been witty, clever and fascinating and had sold all over the world.

“Well, that was Jamie’s script.”

“You can’t tell a book from its cover,” said Hamish sententiously.

“It’ll probably look all slick and clever when we see the finished result.”

“You could be right,” said Hamish. “Here they come.”

The minister emerged with Fiona, Giles Brown and the production manager, Hal Forsyth. They were all laughing and chatting.

“So that’s all settled,” said Giles, clapping the minister on the back.

“Most generous of you,” said the minister.

Greased his palm, thought Hamish.

Then came Jamie, who strode past without a word. Where’s Patricia? wondered Hamish.

When they had all left, he found her sitting alone in Fiona’s office, clutching a script.

She looked up and saw Hamish. Her eyes were bleak. “I’ll kill him before I let him get away with this.”

“Who?”

“Jamie Gallagher. I told him right in front of all of them. ‘I’ll kill you.’” She began to cry.

Hamish sat down next to her and put an arm around her shoulders. “There now,” he said. “Just think about your books.”

“I am thinking about them,” sobbed Patricia. “Look, at this!”

She unfastened the clasp of her large handbag and took out one of the book jackets.

“Oh, my,” said Hamish. “The things they do. But I saw a paperback of Jane Austen’s Emma and if you didn’t know the work, you’d have thought it was porn. Before I came up to the castle, I saw some press down by the waterfront. Why don’t you go and say your piece to them? It pays to advertise.”

Patricia dried her eyes and blew her nose. “It’s all a nightmare. I just want to forget about the whole thing. It’s the end of a dream.”

“You’ll have a whole new readership. It could be the start of the dream.”

“I don’t want the sort of readers who will be attracted by that cover.” Patricia put the cover back in the handbag and closed it with a snap. “What happened to the world?” she said, looking about her in a dazed way.

It moved on and left you behind, thought Hamish, but he did not say so.

After he had said goodbye to Patricia, he went back to the waterfront. “How did you square it with the minister?” he asked Fiona.

“Contribution to the church – and that.” She pointed at Penelope.

Penelope was in the same gown, but underneath she wore a long silk underdress.

“Cleaning up the act?”

“Oh, we’ll have the saucy bits in a set where we can keep the public out,” said Fiona. “Where’s Patricia?”

“Gone home to have a good cry, I should think. Why the hell buy her book if you want to change it that much?”

“We wanted a Scottish location, and the plot isn’t bad. She should be grateful and shut up.”

The locals were beginning to drift off. It was all very boring. There seemed to be so many takes, so many long pauses, so little action.

Hamish reluctantly decided to go back to the police station and see if he was wanted for any duties.

His uneasy feeling about the whole business was melting away under the sunlight. Patricia now knew the worst and would get over her shock.

He had feared that the arrival of the television company would start up jealousies and rivalries among the village women, but the locals now looked bored with the whole thing.

¦

Above the general store in Drim, Ailsa Kennedy, wife of the proprietor, Jock, was studying her new hairstyle in the mirror and wondering if that cow Alice MacQueen had gone out of her way to sabotage her chances of appearing on television. Before she went to Alice’s, her fiery red hair had been long, almost to her waist. Now it had been chopped off and framed her face in one of those old·fashioned sixties styles with flicked-up ends. Alice could only manage old·fashioned styles. Ailsa scowled at her reflection. Her husband’s face appeared in the mirror behind her.

“What have you done to your hair?”

“Got it cut,” said Ailsa.

“You look a fright. I thought you said you’d never go near Alice’s. It’s this stupid fillum, and you’re to have nothing to do with it, lass. Did you see thon actress? Near naked, if the minister hadn’t made her cover up.”

“Oh, go away,” snapped Ailsa. “You give me a headache.”

¦

Jamie Gallagher heard the beat of music from the community hall and strolled inside. Village women were performing aerobics under the direction of Edie Aubrey.

He stared at them for a long moment and then went out again to search for Fiona. “You’ll never believe it,” he said when he found her. “There’s a whole time warp o’ women in the community hall. You’ve never seen so many sixties hairstyles.”

“I’ll have a look,” said Fiona.

¦

Ailsa Kennedy had just finished washing out the last of the offending hairstyle and was drying her hair into a smooth bob when she heard her latest friend, Holly Andrews, calling from the shop below. “Are you up there, Ailsa?”