Maestro
by Brendan Gisby
Genre: Drama
Swearwords: A couple of mild ones.
Description: “It taks a lang spain tae sup wi' a fly Fifer!”
Swearwords: A couple of mild ones.
Description: “It taks a lang spain tae sup wi' a fly Fifer!”
The Summer of ’68. A year after the Summer of Love, when all the rich American kids stuck flowers in their hair and flocked to San Francisco, while this non-rich Scots kid worked his arse off serving pints to drunken matelots in the lounge bar of the Queensferry Arms Hotel. A year on, and I was still doing the same things: looking after the lounge bar and running the hotel when the Bossman wasn’t around, only this time I was a live-in member of staff with my own room. And there I was once more, perched on a barstool afterhours with a pint of lager in front of me, listening to the Bossman prattle on to his latest guest about his time in Egypt during National Service, and watching him work his way through his nightly quota of a dozen pink gins.
Things were about to change, though. After the summer, I would be at University, studying for a BA in Commerce, and then hopefully eventually using my degree to find a good job in business – but definitely not in the hotel one. I would keep my room in the hotel in the meantime and I would still serve in the lounge bar at weekends, but there were bound to be fewer midweek afterhours sessions like tonight’s. That was the plan, anyway. And it was the reaction of the Bossman’s guest to the plan that had pissed me off during this particular session.
The guest was an officer in the Canadian Naval Reserve, whose ship would be taking part in a big NATO exercise on the Forth during the coming weekend. He was staying at the hotel with his family and planning to take a holiday in the Highlands with them after the exercise. He was a bumptious guy, to say the least. The Bossman had introduced him to malt whisky, and he was growing more bumptious after every glass of it. Earlier on, having been informed by the Bossman that I would be going to University soon, he asked what I intended to study. When I told him, this was his derisory response:
“A Commerce degree? Huh, they’re two-a-penny back home, buddy. In fact, you couldn’t even get a job on a construction site over there with one of those.”
The rest of his conversation had a similar theme: Scotland was a pissy wee backward country; Canada was the land of opportunity.
His wife was equally rude and dismissive. I had met her with him and their two noisy, spoilt children when I checked the family into their accommodation earlier in the day. I showed the parents their bedroom first. The largest one in the hotel, with the best view, it was usually used by the brewery’s Chairman when he was on his frequent trips around the country, and it had been specially refurbished for him. As well as a panoramic view of the Forth estuary and the two bridges, it had double-glazing, an ensuite bathroom and a king-size bed with real goose down pillows. But neither of the parents seemed to be particularly impressed by those features.
I then led the family across the landing and down a couple of steps to show them the next biggest room, which had been reserved for their children. When we all returned to the parents’ room, the Canuck’s wife asked bluntly, “Why can’t the children have the room next door? Or at least one on the same landing? I’ll have to walk halfway across the hotel every time I want to see them.”
“I’m sorry, but all the other rooms in the hotel are booked,” I replied. “This is August, the tourist season,” I added.
“Tourists?” She was incredulous. “Why would tourists want to come to this place?”
I took her over to that double-glazed window and pointed out that panoramic view.
“To see the two bridges, for a start,” I explained. “The road bridge, which was opened only recently, but especially the rail bridge, which is famous all over the world.”
She gave the road bridge a cursory glance and hardly took in the splendour of the old bridge, bathed as it was in the afternoon sunshine, before saying, “Hmph, you’ve obviously never been to Vancouver, where we live.”
Even this backward, kilt-wearing, haggis-eating, bagpipe-skirling wee Scot knew that Vancouver had one of the biggest suspension bridges in the world, but I said nothing, handed her the keys to the two rooms and returned downstairs.
And now the Canuck himself was sitting on the barstool along from me, tie askew, shirtsleeves rolled up and eyes bulging. When the Bossman launched into the oft-related tale of his experiences as a conscriptee in a Cairo brothel, I decided I’d had enough of both him and his guest for the night. So I finished my pint and left them to it.
“Can’t take the pace, buddy?” was the Canuck’s parting jibe.
A strange thing occurred later that night. I was awakened from a deep sleep by the sound of music. The music didn’t come from a single instrument or a small number of instruments, but from what seemed to be a full orchestra. And it was loud enough to fill the room. Not having any interest in classical music at that age, I had no idea what the orchestra was playing. I knew only that the sound was enchanting and peaceful. The window of my room, which I kept open during the summer, looked down into a tiny quadrangle, one of those sunless, lost spaces often found in old buildings that have been added to and subdivided over hundreds of years. I could only guess that the music had found its way into the space and then into my room, perhaps wafted ashore from one of the yachts moored out in the estuary. I drifted back to sleep, listening to the music and imagining the notes floating on top of the incoming waves.
I was roused from that sleep early the next morning by a commotion on the landing across from my room. I dressed hurriedly, went out to investigate and saw the Bossman struggling to slide the up-ended mattress from the Chairman’s king-size bed into the fire escape corridor, whose internal and external doors had been wedged open. The Bossman, who was wee and fat with an angina face, was puffing loudly, so I rushed to help him.
When we had propped the mattress against the wall of the corridor, he pulled out the hanky from the top pocket of his morning suit, wiped his brow and said in a whisper, “We’ll jist leave this here tae dry in the sea air. Oor Canadian friend couldnae handle the drink and managed tae pee the bed last night. He wis in an awfie sorry state when he went aff tae jine his ship this moarnin’.”
We looked at each other and laughed silently.
Later that morning, I was standing with the Bossman outside the hotel’s reception office when the Canuck’s wife, with her two brats in tow, passed us without acknowledgement on her way to the dining room for breakfast.
“Apart fae that wee problem earlier oan, did ye sleep well last night?” the Bossman called after her, with a big grin across his face.
She stopped and turned to face us. “Actually, no, I didn’t,” she called back. “My sleep was disturbed by some God-awful music playing at some ridiculous hour. You really need to do something about that.”
“Music?” the Bossman exclaimed, looking surprised. “Naw, naw, it’ll no’ huv been music. Mair than likely it wis jist the pipes actin’ up in this auld building.”
She regarded him disdainfully for a few moments before turning on her heel and setting off in pursuit of her children.
When she had gone, I said to the Bossman, “I heard the music as well. It woke me up.”
“Och, aye,” he shrugged, with a mischievous wee smile on his lips. “Me ‘n’ the wife hear it aboot this time ev’ry year. But it disnae bother us. Ye’ll huv heard o’ Sir John Barbirolli, the famous conductor…”
Not knowing the guy from Adam, I sort of half-nodded.
“Weel, the story is that ev’ry time he came up tae Edinburgh tae conduct at the Festival he stayed at this hotel, preferrin’ the peace ‘n’ quiet here tae aw the cairry-oan in Edinburgh. Durin’ wan o’ his stays, he loast his baton, though. An’ it’s said that ev’ry August his ghost comes back tae look fur the baton. That’s when the music plays.”
I don’t think I was completely convinced by the Bossman’s explanation, but I smiled and nodded anyway.
“But dinnae be sayin’ a word aboot this tae that Canadian wumman,” he added quickly. “Otherwise, she’ll complain that the place is haunted an’ ask fur her money back.”
The Bossman used to say things like “Buckhine” instead of Buckhaven and “Meethle” instead of Methil, which was the area in Fife he came from. He was a Fifer, to be sure. But I never really knew what the term “Fly Fifer” meant until I heard him utter that last sentence. He was wrong about Sir John Barbirolli, though. The man was still alive when we all heard that music in the Summer of ‘68; he died of a heart attack a couple of years later. So the orchestra must have been conducted by the ghost of some other maestro who lost his baton in the hotel.
Things were about to change, though. After the summer, I would be at University, studying for a BA in Commerce, and then hopefully eventually using my degree to find a good job in business – but definitely not in the hotel one. I would keep my room in the hotel in the meantime and I would still serve in the lounge bar at weekends, but there were bound to be fewer midweek afterhours sessions like tonight’s. That was the plan, anyway. And it was the reaction of the Bossman’s guest to the plan that had pissed me off during this particular session.
The guest was an officer in the Canadian Naval Reserve, whose ship would be taking part in a big NATO exercise on the Forth during the coming weekend. He was staying at the hotel with his family and planning to take a holiday in the Highlands with them after the exercise. He was a bumptious guy, to say the least. The Bossman had introduced him to malt whisky, and he was growing more bumptious after every glass of it. Earlier on, having been informed by the Bossman that I would be going to University soon, he asked what I intended to study. When I told him, this was his derisory response:
“A Commerce degree? Huh, they’re two-a-penny back home, buddy. In fact, you couldn’t even get a job on a construction site over there with one of those.”
The rest of his conversation had a similar theme: Scotland was a pissy wee backward country; Canada was the land of opportunity.
His wife was equally rude and dismissive. I had met her with him and their two noisy, spoilt children when I checked the family into their accommodation earlier in the day. I showed the parents their bedroom first. The largest one in the hotel, with the best view, it was usually used by the brewery’s Chairman when he was on his frequent trips around the country, and it had been specially refurbished for him. As well as a panoramic view of the Forth estuary and the two bridges, it had double-glazing, an ensuite bathroom and a king-size bed with real goose down pillows. But neither of the parents seemed to be particularly impressed by those features.
I then led the family across the landing and down a couple of steps to show them the next biggest room, which had been reserved for their children. When we all returned to the parents’ room, the Canuck’s wife asked bluntly, “Why can’t the children have the room next door? Or at least one on the same landing? I’ll have to walk halfway across the hotel every time I want to see them.”
“I’m sorry, but all the other rooms in the hotel are booked,” I replied. “This is August, the tourist season,” I added.
“Tourists?” She was incredulous. “Why would tourists want to come to this place?”
I took her over to that double-glazed window and pointed out that panoramic view.
“To see the two bridges, for a start,” I explained. “The road bridge, which was opened only recently, but especially the rail bridge, which is famous all over the world.”
She gave the road bridge a cursory glance and hardly took in the splendour of the old bridge, bathed as it was in the afternoon sunshine, before saying, “Hmph, you’ve obviously never been to Vancouver, where we live.”
Even this backward, kilt-wearing, haggis-eating, bagpipe-skirling wee Scot knew that Vancouver had one of the biggest suspension bridges in the world, but I said nothing, handed her the keys to the two rooms and returned downstairs.
And now the Canuck himself was sitting on the barstool along from me, tie askew, shirtsleeves rolled up and eyes bulging. When the Bossman launched into the oft-related tale of his experiences as a conscriptee in a Cairo brothel, I decided I’d had enough of both him and his guest for the night. So I finished my pint and left them to it.
“Can’t take the pace, buddy?” was the Canuck’s parting jibe.
A strange thing occurred later that night. I was awakened from a deep sleep by the sound of music. The music didn’t come from a single instrument or a small number of instruments, but from what seemed to be a full orchestra. And it was loud enough to fill the room. Not having any interest in classical music at that age, I had no idea what the orchestra was playing. I knew only that the sound was enchanting and peaceful. The window of my room, which I kept open during the summer, looked down into a tiny quadrangle, one of those sunless, lost spaces often found in old buildings that have been added to and subdivided over hundreds of years. I could only guess that the music had found its way into the space and then into my room, perhaps wafted ashore from one of the yachts moored out in the estuary. I drifted back to sleep, listening to the music and imagining the notes floating on top of the incoming waves.
I was roused from that sleep early the next morning by a commotion on the landing across from my room. I dressed hurriedly, went out to investigate and saw the Bossman struggling to slide the up-ended mattress from the Chairman’s king-size bed into the fire escape corridor, whose internal and external doors had been wedged open. The Bossman, who was wee and fat with an angina face, was puffing loudly, so I rushed to help him.
When we had propped the mattress against the wall of the corridor, he pulled out the hanky from the top pocket of his morning suit, wiped his brow and said in a whisper, “We’ll jist leave this here tae dry in the sea air. Oor Canadian friend couldnae handle the drink and managed tae pee the bed last night. He wis in an awfie sorry state when he went aff tae jine his ship this moarnin’.”
We looked at each other and laughed silently.
Later that morning, I was standing with the Bossman outside the hotel’s reception office when the Canuck’s wife, with her two brats in tow, passed us without acknowledgement on her way to the dining room for breakfast.
“Apart fae that wee problem earlier oan, did ye sleep well last night?” the Bossman called after her, with a big grin across his face.
She stopped and turned to face us. “Actually, no, I didn’t,” she called back. “My sleep was disturbed by some God-awful music playing at some ridiculous hour. You really need to do something about that.”
“Music?” the Bossman exclaimed, looking surprised. “Naw, naw, it’ll no’ huv been music. Mair than likely it wis jist the pipes actin’ up in this auld building.”
She regarded him disdainfully for a few moments before turning on her heel and setting off in pursuit of her children.
When she had gone, I said to the Bossman, “I heard the music as well. It woke me up.”
“Och, aye,” he shrugged, with a mischievous wee smile on his lips. “Me ‘n’ the wife hear it aboot this time ev’ry year. But it disnae bother us. Ye’ll huv heard o’ Sir John Barbirolli, the famous conductor…”
Not knowing the guy from Adam, I sort of half-nodded.
“Weel, the story is that ev’ry time he came up tae Edinburgh tae conduct at the Festival he stayed at this hotel, preferrin’ the peace ‘n’ quiet here tae aw the cairry-oan in Edinburgh. Durin’ wan o’ his stays, he loast his baton, though. An’ it’s said that ev’ry August his ghost comes back tae look fur the baton. That’s when the music plays.”
I don’t think I was completely convinced by the Bossman’s explanation, but I smiled and nodded anyway.
“But dinnae be sayin’ a word aboot this tae that Canadian wumman,” he added quickly. “Otherwise, she’ll complain that the place is haunted an’ ask fur her money back.”
The Bossman used to say things like “Buckhine” instead of Buckhaven and “Meethle” instead of Methil, which was the area in Fife he came from. He was a Fifer, to be sure. But I never really knew what the term “Fly Fifer” meant until I heard him utter that last sentence. He was wrong about Sir John Barbirolli, though. The man was still alive when we all heard that music in the Summer of ‘68; he died of a heart attack a couple of years later. So the orchestra must have been conducted by the ghost of some other maestro who lost his baton in the hotel.
About the Author
Brendan Gisby is McStoryteller-in-Residence. He's the author of four novels, three biographies and several short story collections.
His official author's website is Blazes Boylan's Book Bazaar. And his books are displayed at these links on Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com.
His official author's website is Blazes Boylan's Book Bazaar. And his books are displayed at these links on Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com.