Reid in Braid

2016

The checks at the border between England and Scotland had loosened considerably in the past few years, but for His Majesty’s Principal Secretary of State for Transport it was still the most tedious experience he had ever endured for entering a foreign country. Although he had never travelled abroad by land – being born to an island nation tended to render few options for that, particularly in one whose only land border was shared with a notoriously isolationist, at times verging on rogue, state – his previous experience travelling by air had been unadventurous and without let or hindrance.

He supposed his treatment at Gretna couldn’t compare to some of the horror stories told by the Foreign Secretary of his reception in various nations on the Indian subcontinent, but he could not help but remember all the blood draining from his legs as the tall, stony-faced border guard regarded him with suspicion and asked Whit’s yer business in the Scots Democratic Republict? If he had not already been seated he would have probably collapsed. Being born and raised in Lancashire, he was often frightened into behaving by elderly relatives with tales of the Red Reivers who would come down from Scotland in the dead of night and steal naughty children from their beds, never to be returned. The idea of Scots shock troopers on horseback riding from the border to Preston and back in a single night may have seemed ridiculous in the light of day, but facing that border guard he had wanted to confess to everything from Edward I’s invasion of Scotland to the Highland Clearances to the North Sea boundary dispute. Even after being nudged by his travelling companion, his hand was shaking as he handed over the letter of introduction from his opposite number in the Scottish government, and was worried as the guard read and re-read it that he would say he had never heard of the woman named in the letter.

All these feelings of ill-ease would have to change; in the year since the current Heid-Secretar had been named by the Party Conference the policies of Mendit towards the old political system and Pautent towards international relations had caused a fair share of ripples globally and tidal waves in the British Isles. The talks of a jointly-owned rail service from Edinburgh and Glasgow, through the North of England and the Midlands to London – and beyond to the continent, through the soon to be completed Channel Tunnel – was just one small aspect of the rapprochement between the governments in Edinburgh and London that he had come north to discuss.

...Tim?

The Secretary of State for Transport was brought back to reality from his musings by his travelling companion. Sorry, Dan, was miles away. So was Gretna, and the scenic countryside of Galloway; they were well now well into the sprawl of Greater Glasgow. How long until we arrive?

A few minutes, as soon as we cross the Clyde. The station is right on the other side of the river. Dan spoke with confidence, but was still trying to get access to the infonet on his phone to double check. Telecommunication standards north of Willie’s Wall were not quite what they were to the south, it appeared.

Neither of them had visited Scotland before, for business or pleasure. At least, that was the official line. Tim knew the closest he had come to Scotland was a drunken drive north form Newcastle with some university friends to drop their trousers in the presence of the barbed wire fence and machine gun towers, though finally seeing it in person after a long drive and the exhaustion of their beer supply meant that they dared not follow through. Well, except one, who was too far drunk not to follow through, and who proceeded to drop his trousers, then his pants, and shake his member in the direction of one of the towers. They were close enough to see the sniper take aim, and then to see him and the rest of the guards in the tower double over laughing when all the beer consumed by their friend met the final fate of all beer to enter the human body. It was in fact quite fortuitous that he had dropped his trousers, otherwise he would have had to face the car journey back soaked through. That was Tim’s closest journey to Scotland before today, but Dan claimed never to have even seen the border fence, nor the pillboxes along the Rivers Esk and Tweed. However, Dan’s history in the British Army before he joined the Civil Service was often left in such vague terms that when he issued a solid answer to anything Tim was liable to be suspect – rumours of assassination of war criminals from the Scots Internaitional Volunteers or terrorists from the Ulstèr-Scotch Liberatioun Front had been reported in the British papers for the better part of half a century. He also suspected that it was Dan’s background in the military that saw his hasty appointment as his Principal Private Secretary.

This is us, said Dan, nodding to Tim. They began to gather up their bags and raincoats – some of the more senior civil servants had suggested that rolled umbrellas might mark them out in Glasgow – and prepared to alight after six hours of travel north on the first train from London Euston that morning. Tim stole a glance out of the window; they were passing over the River Clyde. He could see the tall cranes to the west silhouetted against the bright grey sky like dinosaurs in some old black and white adventure film. He could see the strip of skyscrapers – small by modern standards – stretching north from, if he remembered the street map he pored over before travelling, Anderston to the confusingly named, at least for an Englishman, Charing Cross, a mix of residences, local services and small-scale cooperatives designed to rehouse the population of Glasgow’s slums during the 1950s. The non-Catholic population of Glasgow’s slums, at least.

They were drawing up to the platform inside the cavernous station that the signs called Glesga Mid. Moving to the door, Tim offered himself one final reflection before he focused solely on the business at hand: he had visited four continents; met people whose native tongues covered some two dozen languages; he had even been to Cornwall... but he felt that he was about to step into the most alien culture he had ever encountered. It was odd to think this nation and his were one country less than a century ago.

At first glance, it did not seem dissimilar from any number of large rail stations anywhere in the United Kingdom. Then you looked closer – instead of posters enticing you to drink Coca-Cola they were reminding you to drink Iron Brew; the ubiquitous coffee stands of the rest of the modern world were replaced by Darjeeling tea urns; the newsstands only offered one newspaper as opposed to the cacophony of different shouting headlines he would see back home. He grew self-conscious of the copy of the Times folded under his arm; if a rolled umbrella would mark him out, a copy of a London newspaper would probably be a flashing light on his head playing an air raid siren in comparison. Tim had begun looking for the nearest bin in which to deposit his capitalist rag when he felt a tap on the shoulder. That strange compulsion to confess again hit him, and he was sure he was probably in some way responsible for the occupation of Shetland since the Second World War.

When he turned around to face the man behind the tap he found himself face to face with a middle-aged man in a plain business suit. He wore thick rimmed glasses and had a certain impish quality to his smile; Tim’s fear left him, and he was struck now with a strong urge to slap that face.

If you are finished with your paper, do you mind if I have it?

Dan whipped round like a shot to interject, but his glance froze when he saw the man. Before things grew any more awkward Tim took the initiative and responded to the man.

Not at all.

Very kind; I’m always very keen to read what our English friends think of oor wee republict, he said, taking the paper.

Tim was taken aback at this; the received pronunciation he had started speaking in was so pronounced he had presumed the man was English. Now he worried that he may have condemned the man to a length of service on one of the remaining oil rigs in the North Sea, or whatever punishment work dissidents were made to do before the discovery of the oil. He noted the uniformed men and women taking tickets at the end of the platform, and was about to offer to carry the newspaper past them for him before the man again spoke.

I believe I can be of assistance to you here, gentlemen.

The man in the glasses took the lead and approached from the edge of the platform towards the largest platform guard in the most intimidating Scots Rail uniform. Producing a black wallet from his inner jacket pocket, the man in the glasses flashed it and gestured to the two following Englishmen, advising the guard that Thay’re wi’ me. To Tim’s slight surprise, the guard stepped aside and motioned for them all to go right through; so keen was the guard to let them pass that the man in the glasses had to remind the guard to collect the tickets from the Englishmen. Tim garbled something that might have been gratitude to the man in the glasses.

You’re very welcome; I trust you will be successful in your discussions today. Good day, sirs.

The man stepped into the early afternoon crowd on the station concourse and soon disappeared. Unable to process what had just occurred, he turned to Dan to find him ashen-faced.

What? asked a clueless Tim.

Do you know who that was? replied a gobsmacked Dan.

Should I have?

That was Graham Maclean.

The head of State Security?

Yes. Dan looked again at Tim. He must have been sizing you up.

Why?

"There are rumours he fancies the top job if this Mendit nonsense doesn’t take; I suppose he feels he can do with as many people in the English government who don’t think of him as just the monster in charge of their State Security. You know he used to work for the Times?"

What?! Tim burst out laughing.

There’s been a longstanding rumour that at one point he worked for them in the ‘80s under a fake name and using that English accent he was using on you.

Tim simply stared back at Dan.

"The joke has always been that he didn’t care if he was a Times journalist posing as a Scottish spy or a Scottish spy posing as a Times journalist, but he got found out before he could defect officially. We’d best get our skates on or we’ll be late."

Tim was still flabbergasted by the identity of the man who saw them past the platform guards that he didn’t notice he was walking in the opposite direction from Dan.

Wrong way, Tim, Dan called, as quietly as he could, but the accent still attracted a few amused stares. That’s the exit towards Maclean Street; we want to head the other way out into Wheatley Street and on to Red Square.

Tim quickly changed direction; he hoped he looked less like a rabbit in the headlights when he met his Scottish counterpart.

Dan?

Yes?

Why is the Transport Department-

Committee.

Why are they based in Glasgow when the Assembly is in Edinburgh?

They’ve got ministries dotted all about the country. Transport and Labour are here, Agriculture is in Inverness, Energy is in Aberdeen, and that’s just off the top of my head. Though most are still located in Edinburgh.

Why are they so spread apart, though? Instead of like ours in London or Ireland’s in Dublin?

"Well, my knowledge is a bit basic, but most of the time since independence it’s been a running battle between Glasgow and Edinburgh interests. During the Free State period everything