You have inherited the title of the Laird of Scottyburn. . .
said the official-looking missive from the solicitors, Bailey, Brimicome and Balderdash. I blinked, totally nonplussed, reading down to find that the firm was employed by the government to trace relatives of people who had died intestate, and that I, Philip Arthur Spraddlegate, had inherited this honour from the recently deceased Archie Macorquodale, a man I had never heard of, because by some strange twist of fate I happened to be his sole surviving next of kin.
More excitingly, I had also inherited all his worldly goods!
“Being designated as The Laird in Scottish parlance is a bit like the English Lord of the Manor title that goes with land or property,” Mr Balderdash explained when I phoned him up. “It’s just a nominal thing, it’s not a real, inherited title like an earldom.”
“And I’ve inherited his worldly goods?”
“Yes you have, sir. Congratulations. I don’t know any details – the best thing is for you to contact the local solicitors we’ve appointed in Inverness.”
I looked at the accompanying list of Mr Macorquodale’s assets, and did a double-take. There was his house, The Manor House, Moonlight Lane, Scottyburn, and an undisclosed sum of money in a couple of bank accounts. I looked up Scottyburn on the map, and it appeared to be a small village in the highlands of Scotland, not far from Inverness. Google described it as a ‘small hamlet, most famous for the Battle of Sprogmire in 1776’.
I imagined the manor house of a lord: a grand detached building, no doubt in the centre of rolling acres of land, perhaps there was a farm attached? It would be very large and very old, with a huge semicircular front drive. Perhaps Scottyburn village itself was owned by the Laird, and I was now a kind of Lord of the Manor, and people would doff their caps as I passed?
That letter came when I was at a particularly low point in my life. You see I’ve always had a talent for losing things. Keys, tools, phones, spectacles, you name it, I can lose it.
But just recently the things I’ve lost have been quite important.
A year ago I lost my wife, Hermione.
“Honestly, David, I find I just can’t talk to you anymore,” she’d told me tearfully, spending six hours telling me how impossible it was to talk to me. As a psychologist and counsellor Hermione was prone to long discussions about mental health and believed that everyone is basically insane and we should all embark on plans for mental improvement and self discovery. Quite frankly I did not miss her. She had run off with a parking meter attendant who she was trying to cure of his proclivity for climbing tall buildings in the nude. I smiled when I read in the local paper a week later that he’d been arrested for indecent exposure, having brandished his penis to a roomful of diners on the sixth floor of a luxury restaurant.
But losing my job was the next bad blow.
“Sorry mate,” my boss and friend Chris had said to me. “Everyone likes you and you’re the best computer engineer we’ve got. But the whole company is going down the pan, I’ll be out of a job myself in a few weeks.”
Times were getting tough, money was tight, and truth to tell I was pretty lonely too. Most of my friends had been from work, or else they were my wife’s friends too, and they took her side. Life in a flat in a north London suburb, where neighbours are strangers and everyone keeps to themselves, was hard, lonely, miserable and boring.
To make ends meet I’d started doing the odd painting and decorating and building job, but soon found I couldn’t keep up with the local competition – much younger people, who could work faster and more efficiently than an overweight slob in his late 50s, who always seemed to end up underquoting and underperforming.
But now I knew that finally all the bad times were behind me.
Because now I was a Lord!
The following day I drove up to Scotland, buoyed up with excitement.
Once I was well north of the border, snow set in as night began to descend.
Right about then my car’s heater packed up.
My bad luck again? No. I refused to be downhearted. Everyone knows that Scotland has bad weather, but I knew that it also has wonderful scenery and mountains, lochs and forests and marvellous towns and architecture.
So why dwell on the bad stuff?
Fortunately I had nearly arrived at my destination, but by now it was dark and it had been snowing for some time. Driving was difficult and dangerous, and I nearly skidded a couple of times. However, finally, my headlights picked out the road sign ‘SCOTTYBURN WELCOMES CAREFUL DRIVERS’, with an absurd image of a smiling cow.
Luck was with me, when I saw Moonlight Lane on my right and turned down there. I drove all along its length, but I couldn’t see a turn off to a country estate, as I had expected. I turned back, staring along the road on the other side, with a bit of help from some moonlight.
Finally, about halfway along, I saw what looked like a tiny old cottage, which looked as if it was partly collapsed, with a hole in the roof. I parked and got out, planning to knock on the door and ask if the inhabitants knew where ethe manor house was.
Then I saw the sign in brass letters on the front door saying: THE ANOR OUSE, and I deduced that the M and H had fallen off. With a sinking heart, I tried the key in the front door, and to my horror, it turned in the lock and I went inside.
There was a pile of snow in the front room below the huge hole in the ceiling and the roof above. The light switch didn’t work, so I fetched a torch from the car and went upstairs and saw the bare landing with two doors leading off it and a view of the sky and stars between the roof joists.
“Hello?”
I heard the call from downstairs, and came down.
A man was standing in the doorway, with his own torch, directing the beam around.
“Hi,” I said, coming downstairs to meet him. “It’s okay, I’m not a squatter or a burglar. I seem to have inherited this house. I can show you – my key fits the door.”
“You’re old Archie’s relative?” he replied as I met him in the front room, seizing my hand and shaking it warmly. “The agent told us someone was taking over. I’m Hamish, one of your neighbours. We live down the road a wee way.”
“Did you know Archie well?”
“Oh aye, everyone knew dear old Archie. He used to be the local handyman until he got too old to do anything and he took to the drink.” He smiled in the darkness. “Do you know they tell me when he was younger he bought the title of laird, meaning Lord of the Manor as a wee joke, and called this hovel The Manor House! We used to tease him about it, and he was a good guy, he always laughed along. But in his later years he had hard times, ye ken? He was pretty much destitute, and we used to make him his meals, my wife Jane would make sure the place wasn’t too bad – course since he died it’s gone to rack and ruin, as you can see. Where are you staying?”
“Well, I had planned to stay here.”
“Och no, you’d freeze to death, there’s no heating or even electric, his generator hasna worked for ages.”
“Is there a hotel nearby?”
“Och no! Nearest place it Inverness. No, you come along with me and stay as our guest. Any relative of dear old Archie’s is welcome around here.”
“That’s so kind of you.”
And it was. Hamish was great company, and so was his wife Jane. They gave me an excellent meal and a bed for the night, and made every effort to make me feel welcome,
Next day Hamish came back with me to the manor house, where we met Hamish’s friend Mike. They insisted on repairing the generator for me, and when I told them I hadn’t got any cash with me to pay them, they laughed and shrugged it off, saying they were doing it for Archie.
Next day I saw the solicitor in inverness, discovering that Archie had £20 in one account and £30 in the other, and no other assets at all except the house.
The following morning, at breakfast, I was introduced to Jane’s sister Maggi, a widow of about my own age, who was the head teacher of the school in the village. She was talking about their computer systems, how they weren’t working, the children couldn’t do their projects, and the governors were trying to get an IT specialist to come but no one was available.
“Maybe I can help,” I offered. “Repairing IT systems used to be my job.”
“That would be marvellous,” she thanked me, “but I don’t have any authority for payment.”
“Good heavens, I couldn’t charge you anything,” I told her. “It’s the least I can do.”
The estate agent from Inverness came to look at the house in the afternoon. He was a fast-talking young man with a cheerful smile, a natty suit and a long brown beard. . .
“Well, Mr Spraddlegate, even though the house is in a bad state, you might get someone to make you a reasonable offer.”
“But what about the roof and the repairs that need doing?” I replied, “Surely if it was fixed up I could ask a better price?”
“Aye, but there’s a shortage of builders around here,” he explained. “You’d have to get a firm from Inverness to agree to take it on, and there’s always a long waiting list, weeks, mebbe months. My advice would be to cut your losses, we’ll handle things for you. After all, I’m sure you must be keen to get back to your commitments in London, it must seem pretty dull and boring for you up here in the sticks.”
Hamish had invited me to the pub that night, and we met his friends, Graham and John. John had just bought s 1963 Ford Anglia car as a restoration project and I went back with them to look at it, got swept up in their enthusiasm for the project and we all nattered away and admired the car for hours. Earlier that evening in the pub I also met a fascinating old man called James, who told me all about the history of the area.
I spent the next few days sorting out the school’s computer system. One of the teachers was moaning about her mobile phone that was going wrong and I managed to fix it. My neighbour in the lane was an elderly widow with a broken fence, so I borrowed her husband’s tools and repaired it in a couple of hours.
“You know, we could do with a guy like you around here,” the old lady said to me as I refused to take the money she tried to give me. “Everyone has trouble getting their laptops, phones and so on fixed, and since Archie died, there’s been no local handyman, we have to take our stuff into Inverness to get anything technical fixed, and wait ages for builders to come. Mind you, I’m guessing that a quiet place like this must seem very dull to you, coming from a lively place like London. I bet you can’t wait to get back to your family and friends.”
On Saturday night I went out to the nearby pub with Jane’s sister Maggi for a meal. We had a great time – Maggi was a real chatterer, the kind of girl I like, and we never stopped talking. On Sunday, Graham and John had invited me to help them with the Ford Anglia project.
And to my surprise, my nephew, who works for a big company in the Midlands, phoned me on Sunday night.
“My company’s offered me a promotion but the job is in London,” he told me excitedly. “Can you look into finding me and Celia a flat in your area? Doesn’t matter how high the rent is, because the company is paying.”
I made the decision on the spot. “Look why don’t you stay in my flat? I’ll be working up in Scotland for a few months, so you’ll have the place to yourselves.”
“Really? Thanks a million Uncle Phil! That would be awesome!”
I realised that the rent would cover my mortgage with a bit on top, so my immediate money worries were over.
And since I’d come to Scotland I hadn’t felt lonely once. Oddly enough it felt more like home than home ever had.
“I’m going to stay in the cottage and renovate it myself,” I told Hamish in the pub that evening, after I’d repaired the landlord’s laptop.
“Great news, Phil,” Hamish said cheerfully. “So that means you can help us with the Ford Anglia. And something tells me that Maggi will be very pleased you’re staying on for a while.”
“Maybe for more than just a while. Do you know, Hamish, for years I’ve done nothing but lose things. Keys, tools, spectacles, wives, jobs. I just seem to have had a talent for losing them all.”
“Oh aye?”
“But finally for a change I think I’ve actually found something.”
“What’s that then?”
“Something money can’t buy. A little thing called happiness.”