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  In due course, and not a moment too soon for any of those involved in it, the little tableau reached the chemist’s in Montague Street.

  Para Handy held the shop door open, and Sunny Jim heaved the barrow over the shallow lip of the step into the narrow gas-lit interior of the pharmacy. A low counter displayed a range of toiletries of every description and a stock of specifics for virtually every known ailment, real or imagined, which might afflict the citizenry of Bute. The wall behind the counter was lined with rows of small mahogany-fronted drawers to shoulder height, each with a lettered and gilded glass plate proclaiming its contents. The wall on the other side of the pharmacy was shelved from floor to ceiling and the light glinted on porcelain canisters and ribbed specie jars and bottles lettered in Latin and in gilt.

  “Well, well, it’s yourself then Mr Maxwell,” said the Captain as the white-jacketed figure of the pharmacist appeared from behind the frosted-glass screen which concealed the dispensary at the far end of the shop. “You’re keepin’ weel, I hope?”

  “Can’t complain, Captain,” said Maxwell genially, pushing his horn-rimmed spectacles up onto his high forehead: “and yourself too, I hope. What can I do for you all?”

  Sunny Jim pushed forward past the barrow and its teetering occupant. “Ah’ll hae twa pennyworth o’ cinnamon,” he asked, fishing in his trouser pocket for the coppers. The chemist opened one of the drawers behind him, took out half-a-dozen of the brittle brown sticks and wrapped them in a screw of paper.

  “And I’ll have chust a smaal bottle of Bay Rum,” said the mate, “seein’ ass we’re aal here onyway,” and handed his sixpence to the proprietor.

  A croak of protest from behind them suddenly reminded the crew of the real reason for their presence in the pharmacy.

  “Well,” said Para Handy, “we have got ourselves chust a wee bit of a problem wi’ the enchineer here.”

  “It’s no’ you that’s got the problem, you eejit,” protested Macphail through clenched teeth. “It’s me that’s got it, for peety’s sake, and if it wis you staundin’ where Ah’m staundin’ ye’d no’ be callin’ it a wee problem either.”

  “Whateffer,” said Para Handy, “but we wass efter wonderin’, Mr Maxwell, if you have onythin’ for a sore beck. The poor man can scarcely move.”

  “An’ there’s a lot of coals needin’ shuvvled afore this day’s oot,” interrupted Sunny Jim pointedly, “an’ Ah’m no’ gaun tae shuvvle them, that’s for sure.”

  “There’s not really a lot I can give him for a bad back,” said the chemist, “except maybe some laudanum if he’s in pain. Are you in pain?” he asked, turning to Macphail.

  “Naw, naw,” said the Engineer with heavy sarcasm. “Ah dae this for the fun o’ the whole thing: ye can surely see jist hoo mich Ah’m enjoyin’ masel’?

  “Pain? Of course Ah’m in pain! Or in purgatory, mair like!”

  “Have you tried ironing it?” Maxwell enquired of the Captain. “Often a hot iron will simply lift the cramps out of the pulled muscles, or ease any twisted tendons back into place…”

  “There’s nane o’ this lot comin’ near me wi’ an iron, hot or cauld!” spluttered Macphail. “Ah wudna trust ony wan o’ them for it. They’d be sure to scar me for life, or maybe drap it on my fit forbye, or whatever.

  “See’s yer laudanum, an’ let’s get oot o’ here!”

  “If you would just try to straighten up, Mr Macphail,” said the Doctor, “I think you would find that once you’d done so, your problems would be over.”

  The Engineer, his shirt pushed up to his neck and his back laid bare as he clung to the top of the examination couch in the High Street surgery, said nothing.

  “You’ve pulled a tendon,” the Doctor continued, “just below the right shoulder-blade here…” he scarcely touched the spot with the tip of his finger but Macphail let out a yell which made the hairs on the back of the necks of his audience stand up to be counted. The crew jumped but the Doctor carried on just as if there had been no interruption “…but if you could force yourself to jerk upright, I am certain it would slip back and you would be right as ninepence.”

  Macphail turned his head slowly, cautiously, as if fearful of putting any sort of strain on neck or back, and favoured the Doctor with the sort of look that an early martyr might have reserved for his persecutors.

  “We can only thank you for your time, Doctor,” said the Captain apologetically, as they manhandled Macphail back onto the barrow with the sort of level of difficulty that might have been expected had rigor mortis already set in, “but I’m afraid Dan is thrawn, thrawn when it comes to his health.”

  “I am getting chust sick and tired of aal this,” complained the Captain an hour later as he, Dougie and Sunny Jim leaned reflectively on the bar counter of the Harbour Inn. Macphail they had left outside, despite his protests, the wheelbarrow leant up against the Inn wall alongside a couple of push-bikes, a knifegrinder’s handcart and a (sold out) stop-me-and-buy-one trike, the owners of all of which were now playing four-handed cribbage at a corner table.

  Since leaving the Surgery they had been along to the Glenburn Hydropathic in a vain attempt to have Macphail admitted to its saltwater hot spa baths (they had been unceremoniously ejected from the hotel foyer by an outraged duty manager) and then spent 20 fruitless minutes trying to persuade the Engineer that a donkey-ride along the sands of the west bay might just shoogle the twisted tendon back into place.

  Ignoring the occasional calls of protest from their shipmate in the street outside, and the now less-frequent and, it must be said, rather less-convincing howls of anguish as well, Para Handy called for beer and scratched his head in some perplexity.

  “What in bleezes are we goin’ to do wi’ the man?” he enquired of nobody in particular. “I am thinkin’ the Doctor iss probably right, if we could chust persuade him to move his beck, then it wud aal fall into place. But he’ll no’ do it, the duvvle.”

  His voice tailed off in mid-sentence and a sudden gleam came into his eye.

  “Lads!” he cried: “I think I see the light! Drink up, and we shall see what we can do…”

  “We will chust have to take you back to the shup, Dan,” said the Captain two minutes later as they wheeled their ungainly cargo down towards the quayside.

  At the Square beside the Esplanade the barrow dunted across the cobblestones and the gleaming metal rails of the double-track of the Rothesay tramway, each such tremor producing a croak of protest from the Engineer.

  Then, at a signal from the Captain, Sunny Jim lowered the handles at the rear of the barrow and let it stand, supported by its front wheel and rear legs, right between the rails of one of the tramway tracks at the very corner where the trams came hurtling round from the Esplanade and into the terminus.

  The three men backed away, leaving Macphail teetering on the barrow, gazing after them beseechingly. From the near-distance and getting nearer all the time could be heard the distinctive and imperious clang of the bell of a fast-approaching tram.

  “The Doctor said somethin’ had to mak’ you move, Dan, for your ain good!” shouted Para Handy. “And if you don’t look lively and chump oot o’ that barrow like a good laad, I think that wan o’ the skoosh-caurs is goin’ to fetch you a right dunt — ony meenit noo!”

  There was the teeth-gritting screech of metal on metal as the still-unseen tram flung itself into the turn and the wheels bit at the rails in protest as it took the 90 degree curve. Just as the blunt nose of the speeding vehicle appeared round the corner, Macphail gave an agonised yell, an agonised leap — and threw himself out of the barrow in a desperate flurry of limbs and sprinted for the safety of the pavement, as swift and as supple as an athlete.

  Within seconds he was at the side of his fellows, all his back problems forgotten, heaving with rage.

  “Ye left me to dee!” he roared, wagging an accusing finger.

  “Not really, Dan,” said the skipper. “For a start I knew fine that hearin’ the skoosh-caur com
in’ wud mak’ you leap for your life, if you were fit. And if you weren’t fit then I knew what you obviously don’t — that the wee bitty track we left you on hasn’t been used for years, ever since they brought in the electric caurs to replace the auld horse yins! It’s as deid as the dodo! They only use a single-track nooadays, no’ the two, and the caur wud have passed ye on the ither side!”

  FACTNOTE

  It was only after I had finished writing this story that I recalled an episode in the TV series with Roddy MacMillan as Para Handy in which Macphail had a back problem (in Arran) and rolled off the pier on a luggage trolley. I remember no other details. I apologise for any unconscious plagiarism but I have kept this story in as I think it is sufficiently different, and above all since there is too much personal nostalgia in it for me to abandon it.

  If there are any old-fashioned pharmacies left, I would be glad to hear of them. My father was a chemist with his own business in the village of Kilmacolm, Renfrewshire. He died very suddenly in 1962 and at that time the premises had been little altered since the turn of the century: certainly after he acquired the business as a young man in the 1930s he changed nothing. The interior was much as I have described the Rothesay pharmacy. Though not gas-lit, it had a small gas jet, used to melt the scarlet wax by which every prescription he dispensed, each wrapped meticulously in shining white paper, was sealed using a metal monogram stamp. He was pleasingly old-fashioned in other ways too, sported a watch-and-chain daily and was most probably one of the last men in Scotland to wear spats — which he did, in winter at least, till the day he died.

  AN EDWARDIAN LEGACY — I was unable to trace any ‘untouched’ pharmacies which might resemble my late father’s shop in Kilmacolm or the pharmacy in Rothesay described in ‘Look back in Agony’, but the MacGrory collection includes this photograph — taken, presumably, on the occasion of the formal opening of the business — of Campbeltown grocer Eaglesome. It is still there in Reform Square, virtually unaltered in 90 years. The photographer and camera can be seen, reflected in the glass of the doorway.

  He also devised and sold many specifics of his own, as did many pharmacists of that generation. I am told this would be illegal nowadays. More’s the pity. My father’s hand lotion, headache powder, midge repellent, cough mixture and many more were much in demand in the village, and were mailed to customers not just in this country but overseas as well. Sadly, the secrets of all of them died with him.

  Kilmacolm was once well-known for its Hydropathic or spa hotel sited on a prominent hill on.the northern edge of the Parish. After it closed there was a brief unsuccessful attempt to turn the building into a Casino in the l960s before it was torn down and houses built on the site.

  Rothesay’s Glenburn Hydropathic was the most palatial of all the Clyde hotels, built in 1892 to replace an earlier version which had been destroyed by fire, and it is still in business today though no longer as a Hydropathic: the last hotels to carry that name, to the best of my knowledge, are Dunblane and Crieff Hydros in Perthshire and Peebles Hydro in the Borders.

  I’m not sure if Rothesay had donkey-rides in Para Handy’s day but it had everything else! It was the premier Clyde resort and as well as a huge range of boarding-houses and hotels for all tastes and pockets, it offered a yacht club, boat hire, water sports, bathing both indoor and out, tennis, golf, cricket, an aquarium, camera obscura, concert halls and much more.

  15

  The Incident at Tarbert

  There is a very genuine camaraderie amongst the vessels which crowd the Clyde. In part it stems from the struggle with the common enemy, the sea, which unites all those who go about their living upon it, whether on a crack transatlantic liner or an inshore fishing dorey.

  What particularly binds the puffer crews on the Firth, however, is an even deeper tie than that.

  It is the need to show solidarity against the slings and arrows of outrageous disdain to which they are all too often subjected by those ‘establishment’ figures who see their own calling or their own position in the marine hierarchy as being inherently superior to the humbler workhorses of the river.

  Such solidarity has rarely been better demonstrated than by an episode which occurred recently in East Loch Tarbert and news of which has now filtered through to Glasgow. The Vital Spark, of course, was well and truly involved in events, although Para Handy insists that her role was that of supporter rather than instigator.

  Given her reputation, coupled with Hurricane Jack’s presence on board in Dougie’s absence on leave (his wife was on the point of presenting him with their twelfth child), I have my doubts about that.

  The Tarbert piermaster is notorious for his brusque treatment of the puffers which are such regular visitors to the busy harbour. The huge local fishing-fleet he will tolerate (but only just) because on its activities is much of the wealth of the community founded. For him, though, the proudest moment of every day comes with the arrival of the Columba, unmatched jewel of the MacBrayne fleet, on her Glasgow to Ardrishaig run.

  Her posted berthing time on her outward passage — and rarely does she deviate from it by more than a minute or so — is five minutes before midday. By that time the pier is thronged with bystanders and sightseers, and traps and carriages stand at the pierhead ready to whisk those passengers bound for Islay or Jura across the narrow isthmus to the waiting steamer at West Loch Tarbert.

  On a recent Friday morning the Vital Spark lay at the small stone jetty in the innermost recesses of the East Loch, in company with three other Glasgow-registered puffers, unloading building materials for a local contractor.

  “Would you look at that,” Para Handy suddenly exclaimed, “where does the Tuscan think she’s goin’? McSporran will no’ be at aal pleased when he sees this!” McSporran was the notoriously high-handed piermaster who presided over maritime proceedings at Tarbert.

  Another puffer had appeared in the harbour and was edging her way alongside the main steamer pier with the obvious intention of berthing in an area normally reserved exclusively for the passenger vessels and, on occasion, larger cargo carriers such as the Minard Castle.

  “No, Peter,” said Hurricane Jack, joining Para Handy at the rail and shading his eyes against the morning sun to stare across the water at the new arrival. “She’s aal right, she’s cairryin’ a flittin’.”

  There was an unwritten concession, usually honoured by all the piermasters in the large Firth ports, that a puffer carrying a domestic as opposed to a commercial cargo would be allowed to use the main piers. Sure enough, the Tuscan’s deck was covered with a jumble of wardrobes, bedsteads, chairs and the like, and a horse and cart were waiting to receive them at the inner corner of the pier, where their unloading would not interfere with the berthing arrangements of the Columba, expected within the next half hour.

  Since the new arrival’s skipper was a cousin of Para Handy’s whom he had not seen for some months, he and Hurricane Jack strolled round towards the steamer pier to exchange the gossip of the river.

  They got there just in time to witness the events which transpired as the Columba appeared round the protecting Tarbert headland, her decks thronged with passengers.

  The unloading of the puffer was in full swing when McSporran came rushing out onto the pier from his office at the turnstiles, waving the silver-topped ebony stick which was his unofficial staff-of-office.

  “MacFarlane,” he shouted to the skipper of the Tuscan, “will you get this rust-bucket aff my pier at once, and away to where she belongs, ower there wi’ the rest of the screp-yard fleet!”

  Para Handy bristled.

  “There’s no call for language like that, Mr McSporran,” he protested before his cousin Tommy could get a word in. “Besides she’s cerryin’ a flittin’ and it is chenerally agreed that the coal piers iss no place for hoosehold goods.”

  “You keep oot o’ this, Para Handy,” roared McSporran. “Besides this is the Royal Route, and what may be good enough for the likes o’ Wemyss Bay or Brodick is
certainly not good enough for Tarbert.

  “Get that thing shufted — and this dam’ cart as weel!”

  Before anyone could stop him, or take evasive action, he lifted his stick and struck the patient Clydesdale, waiting in the shafts of the cart, smartly across the rump. The horse kicked out once and careered off up the pier, the cart bucketing in its wake and spilling its contents onto the quayside.

  Ignoring the rumpus which that created, McSporran loosed from their bollards first the forward and then the stern ropes securing the Tuscan to the pier, and threw them contemptuously onto her deck.

  “Get oot of this, MacFarlane. And from noo on stick to where ye belong. This pier is for the gentry. The Coal Pier is for the likes o’ you. And that’s the way I intend to run this harbour!”

  “Somethin’s goin’ to have to be done aboot that man,” said Para Handy half-an-hour later as the crews of the two puffers stood lined up along the bar of a shoreside hostelry.

  “You can say that, Peter,” said Tommy MacFarlane. “He’s cost me a lot of money today, wi’ the damage to the flittin’ and me no’ insured for it. Not to say the damage to my reputation at the same time.”

  “I know he’s an awkward duvvle, boys,” said the barman, wiping the wooden counter with a damp cloth, “but he’s under a lot of pressure because of what’s happenin’ the morn.”

  “Eh?” said Para Handy. “What’s that, then?”

  “Hiv ye no heard? The Chook o’ Hamilton’s taken a shootings on Islay for the month, and he’s chartered the Duchess of Fife from Ardrossan to Tarbert first thing tomorrow, en route for Port Askaig, wi’ a whole gang o’ toffs.