James Robertson - The Fanatic

Hugh shrugged. ‘I can’t help history. Give the people what they want, that’s my motto. I don’t see many of them signing up for the Edinburgh Social and Economic History Perambulating Lecture, do you?’

‘All right, point taken. What about the book?’

‘The blurb would relate it to the tour, so that hopefully people who picked up the book somewhere would come along to do the real thing, and vice versa. But it would stand on its own too, and sell as a good read to visitors and locals alike. Now, I don’t have time myself to mug up all the stories that would be in it, but we could commission someone to do the research and write it all up. Then all we need is a spooky, eye-catching cover design and a snappy title. I had in mind Major Weir’s Weird Tales of Old Edinburgh for that, by the way.’

‘Wait a minute,’ said Jackie. ‘Commission someone to write it? Who’s going to do that, you? And who’s Major Weir when he’s at home?’

‘A very good question. He’s one of the characters on the tour. I thought he could maybe do an intro to the book – from beyond the grave kind of thing. We don’t want it too po-faced after all. Which reminds me, you wouldn’t happen to know of anybody who might want a bit of casual evening work, would you?’

‘Don’t dodge out of it, Mr Hardie. If you’re not going to write this book, I hope you’re not expecting us to pay someone else to.’

‘You’re a publisher, Jackie. Surely that’s your job. No gain without pain. And let’s face it, you’d get the bulk of the profits. I mean, I’d only be looking for a fifteen or twenty per cent royalty depending on the print-run and the cover-price.’

‘Hugh, in a moment you’re going to get up and buy us another drink, but before you do, listen to me a second. One, I – the company – wouldn’t pay a fee up front for a book that hasn’t been written. All we can afford to take on are finished manuscripts that we think are going to sell, and publish on the basis of the author getting paid a royalty. Two, in the unlikely event that we did pay a writing fee, we certainly wouldn’t be paying a royalty on top of that. Three, the absolute maximum royalty you can expect is ten per cent – if you write the book. You know all the publishing jargon, Hugh, but you’re short on the realities.’

‘But don’t you think it’s a great idea for a book? We’re talking about three or four different overlapping markets: local history, ghosts, tourists –’

‘Sure. If you had a finished or even a half-finished manuscript, I’d read it. I’d consider it. But I couldn’t commit to anything on the basis of what you’ve told me. To be honest, Hugh, you should think about publishing it yourself.’

‘I wouldn’t know where to begin.’

‘Well, go back to the pocket guide to publishing you’ve obviously been reading and look in there. It’s really not that difficult these days. All you need is a computer and a DTP package. The technology’s sitting waiting for you, and once you’ve paid the printers, so is all the profit.’

Hugh gave an incredulous laugh. ‘Listen to you, you’re talking yourself out of business.’

She laughed back. ‘Publishing isn’t like any other business. Scottish publishing isn’t like any other publishing.’

‘Bullshit.’

‘It’s true. It may not be how it should be but it is. Scottish publishing is about avoiding anything that might drag you into a swamp of debt and drown you in it.’

‘No wonder it’s the country cousin of London then.’

‘Quite. Now get us another drink.’

Hardie went up to the bar and ordered in his loud, boolie voice. It wasn’t offensive to Jackie, it went with his friendly, disarming smile, but she saw the old men glower at him suspiciously. Dawson’s was used to students but not to entrepreneurs. Jackie could still make out the Edinburgh merchant’s school accent underlying the mid-Atlantic drawl, but only because she knew it was there. The auld yins probably thought he was English.

Waiting at the bar, Hardie thought about his chances with Jackie. She might have knocked him back on the book proposal, but she’d asked for another drink. She was nice enough looking – but not so she could afford to be choosy. She had thick dark hair and brown eyes, and cheeks that must have been podgy ten years before and would be again in another ten. The same went for her figure – short and tending to dumpiness. But warm and inviting for all that. He imagined her in a white fluffy bathrobe, pink from the bath. It was a heart-stirring thought.

He also thought about his ghost. The old ghost had quit on him that morning, complaining of poor wages and conditions. He’d handed over the cape, staff, wig and rat, demanded the twenty pounds lie wage held back against the return of these ghostly accoutrements, and walked off, never to be seen again. You’d have thought he might have treated the twenty pounds as a kind of bonus, but no. His last words had been to the effect that Hardie was a miserable tight-arsed capitalist bastard and he hoped his trade would drop off. Hardie wasn’t unduly upset. The guy hadn’t done a convincing haunt for months.

‘This is probably a stupid question,’ said Jackie, when he told her his problem, ‘but why do you have to have a ghost anyway? Surely you can do the tour without one.’

‘Sure I can, Jackie, but a ghost tour without a ghost …? Come on. Look, in the main season we do three tours a day. The one in the afternoon doesn’t need a ghost, it’s broad daylight and it tends to be more, how can I put it, historical. Mary Queen of Scots, John Knox, Bonnie Prince Charlie, that kind of stuff. The six o’clock tour doesn’t need a ghost either: it’s still daylight, and it caters for the fat Yanks who are about to hurry back to their hotels for the usual haggis and bagpipes tartan extravaganza that’s laid on for them there. The tour is just an hors d’oeuvre. BPC features heavily again. But the nine o’ clock tour – that’s different. That’s the cream of ghost tours. It starts’ – his voice dropped and assumed an exaggerated tremor – ‘as the night draws in, and ends in darkness. The people who come on this tour expect a ghost. Some of them have been drinking all evening. They’re in high spirits. They’re Swedish inter-railers and rowdy English students and gobsmacked Australian backpackers. I charge extra for this tour. There are little tricks and hidden delights in store for the people who come on it. One of them is a ghost. I must have a ghost.’

‘You must have a ghost,’ Jackie repeated. She was looking past his shoulder towards the door. ‘How about him over there, then?’

Hugh half-turned to look. A tall, slightly stooping man had just come in. He reached the bar in three long strides that seemed almost liquid in their execution, or as if he were treading through shallow water and the splashes of each step were left for a moment in the space where his foot had just been. He was over six feet, skinny and gaunt, his face so white you’d think he’d just walked through a storm of flour. He was almost bald apart from a few wild bursts of hair above the ears. He ordered a pint and while it was being poured stared grimly into space, seeming to aim his gaze along the length of his nose. Hugh Hardie was transfixed.

‘He’s perfect. My God, he’s perfect. You’re absolutely right, Jackie.’

‘He’s not the ghost to solve your problems. He’s out of my past.’

‘You mean to say you actually know this person?’

‘Sure. Haven’t seen him for years, right enough. We were at the uni together.’

‘This is uncanny. Quick, call him over.’

‘Now just hold on a minute. Like I said, I’ve not seen him for ages. I’m not sure that I want to renew the acquaintance.’