Huxley: Scotty Lou
Mayor of Huxley, Scotty Lou
We had dropped off the old faithful at Bob’s Grease Pit to get a full service with complimentary valet, and the courtesy car they lent us was far from ideal. Bright red, with advertising slogans on every external surface. The interior was proving a challenge as well.
Myrtle, being taller and more solidly built than myself, had managed to wedge herself up against the passenger window, and if she kept her knee on the glove box and foot pressed against the handbrake she could avoid being thrown around too much.
I, however, was really struggling. The seats were bolted to the floor with no adjustment possible, and I could hardly reach the controls. Any slight bump in the road bounced me up so hard that I hit my head on the roof, and despite the tight uncomfortable seat belts, the shiny plastic seats sent me skittering to either side, even on the gentlest of corners.
My colleague suggested we call in at the retail park on the edge of town, and see if they had ‘a cushion or something’ which might help. I was dubious if anything could fix the situation, but she insisted we try Gustav’s, because 'they have all sorts and you never know’.
The car park was fairly empty when we arrived, but I refused to actually go inside in case they were secretly filming me on the last visit when I accidentally stole some cookies.
After my uncomfortable wait in the car park, scanning the horizon for security staff, the happy shopper returned in triumph, carrying a rubber bottomed coir mat.
‘This will stop you sliding about’ she explained.
‘It was very cheap’, she continued,’ probably because the writing is in foreign’.
‘El Come’, Myrtle explained, seeing my puzzlement, ‘it means the house in Spanish’.
‘Come doesn’t mean house’, I objected, being forced against my will onto the newly bristly seat.
‘Of course it does’, she replied, ‘look, there’s a picture of a house on it.’
To my amazement, the door-mat on the seat hack seemed to work, and our test run of three times round the block gave me more confidence that we could actually reach Huxley in one piece.
The only remaining snag in our borrowed vehicle was the sound system, which had been replaced with a digital contraption blasting out popular classics reworked for an eighties style electric organ. Apparently Bob, CEO of the Grease Pit fancied himself as a musical performer, and treated his customers as a captive audience.
We became adept at switching the volume knob to minimum, and we needed to do this often, as the sound level would reset itself every time the eco-friendly engine turned itself off and on again at road junctions.
The drive to South Huxley passed more quickly than I had imagined, and with little incident, until we reached our last turning.
Waiting at the lights we saw a man in a yellow jumpsuit run across the road, and into the vehicle compound which sat behind the police station.
He then fiddled around by a freight lorry, the engine started, and to our astonishment the man drove the truck right through the fence and sped off behind us up the road.
The lights changed, and we were blasted out once more by stupid organ music from the substitute radio. Scrabbling for the controls we inadvertently turned up the volume knob to maximum and, to our horror, it jammed in position. Myrtle put her hands over her ears and wound down the window ‘to let the noise out’, while I retained just enough composure to steer the car unsteadily towards our destination.
We announced our arrival at Scotty Lou’s Mayoral home by broadcasting the Bossa Nova rhythm version of Ride of The Valkyries at high decibels out of every window of the car. It was a blessed relief to turn off the engine and cut the din.
I slid out of the vehicle, and peeled off the mat which had stuck to my posterior, while Myrtle drew my attention to the police dog handler guarding Mayor Lou’s gate.
‘Should we say something about the man stealing the lorry?’
We lost the chance though, as we were escorted rather brusquely through the Mayor’s front door, with the dog sniffing inquisitively at the stray bristles still adhering to my skirt.
We found Scotty Lou lurking in the hallway, inexplicably clutching a life sized plaster gnome.
Due to Myrtle having been romantically entwined with a Glaswegian Port Worker in her youth, we had agreed that my colleague would lead the interview, as she claimed a knack for translating the lingo.
‘Now then Jimmy’, she said carefully, as if she were speaking in capital letters, ‘Och aye the noo?’
This introductory greeting was followed by an experimental twirl of the highland fling as a further gesture of friendship.
Scotty looked bewildered. I began to suspect that Myrtle’s romantic liaison with ‘Jock the Docker’ had not been heavily focused on conversation, and so her grasp of the native Scottish tongue was possibly not as adept as she had thought. I pulled her back.
‘Mayor Lou,’ I tried, mouthing each word in an exaggerated fashion, ‘we are rep-orters from the Ballina Files, we are here to do an in-ter-view, you left us a message.’
Scotty sobbed into the cold embrace of his sinister red hatted gnome friend, and I reflected that he didn’t seem so cheerful as he had appeared in his answer machine message a week ago. Something must have happened.
In the corner of my eye I could see Myrtle handing the police guard a cup of Ovaltine from the flask we had stashed in the car, and obviously probing him for information. They all trotted inside, and the conspirator hissed in my ear ‘It’s about the jail, the voters are furious. Apparently there’s only one inmate and it’s costing a fortune.’
‘The curse of Macbeth,’ wailed the weeping Mayor.
‘Pardon me?’
‘The prisoner, James Tiberius Macbeth, fare dodger caught by the Ballina Ferry Company.’ Whispered the policeman, slurping his Ovaltine.
Mayor Scotty Lou, our supposed interviewee, dragged his peculiar plaster-moulded pal to the window, leaving a long groove scratched into the wooden parquet flooring. They both stared mournfully at the jail which was right next door.
‘The prisoner wasn’t a Llama Ag truck manure truck driver by any chance?’ I asked quietly. The policeman looked momentarily surprised.
‘It’s just, we think he might have, escaped….’
‘He’s gone, gone!!,’ a maddened lurch twisted the Mayor towards us, ‘The trembling earth resounds his tread!’.
This effort of communication overwhelmed the politician, and he slumped down unconscious onto a pile of unanswered correspondence, which had formed a large drift behind the front door.
‘I, er, gave him some of the dog’s tablets. They calm Sabre down a treat on fireworks night,’ the policeman gulped, ‘The poor fellah here was ranting something terrible before you came. I thought it might help.’
The police dog handler grabbed Scotty Lou under the armpits and, hindered by his furry assistant barking and running around in circles, dragged the snoring Mayor towards the ceremonial stair-case.
He paused on the bottom step, ‘’ere, you won’t write any of this down will you?’
We shook our heads, feeling guilty as we did so.
The later press release, from Huxley’s chief of police, briefed that the jail's single inmate was driven to despair by Mayor Lou’s regular visits, trying to cheer him up by playing Kumbayah on the guitar. Jim Macbeth had subsequently managed to tunnel his way out of Huxley’s secure facility using a potato peeler whilst on kitchen duty, and should not be approached by members of the public.
The journey back home was uneventful, and quiet. Myrtle, looking shifty, said that someone had ‘stolen’ the courtesy car sound system while we were distracted indoors. I said that she could explain that to the garage then.
We picked up our serviced car from Bob’s Grease Pit. They were not convinced that the organ music device had been stolen. They were also angry about their car valeting vacuum system, which was now completely clogged with glitter. We saved ourselves the angst of explaining why the courtesy car interior was coated in bristles, they could discover that parting gift for themselves.
It was only in the portacabin later, three mugs of Ovaltine later, that I started to have uncomfortable thoughts about prisoner Macbeth, and his supposed crimes. Maybe it would be worth reading up on the court reports, just to see the details.
I didn’t mention it to Myrtle, as she was happy enough outside the door, organising her new Elcome mat to the best advantage.
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