Raw Spirit Read Free Page B

something for you.’
    My agent is called Mic Cheetham; she’s one of the best, kindest, nicest people I’ve ever met, but that’s in civilian mode; as an agent she has the great and invaluable merit of treating the authors she represents like her cubs. She’s the tigress, and you don’t get between her and them, or even think about doing anything unpleasant to them, unless you want to be professionally mauled. Mic is a very good friend but when she’s in full-on agent mode I’m just mainly glad that she’s on my side. What was Wellington’s remark about his troops? ‘I don’t know what effect they’ll have upon the enemy, but, by God, they frighten me.’ Something like that.
    Anyway, Mic knows through years of experience and a deep tolerance of my congenital laziness that at least 95 per cent of the proposals that people contact her with concerning spiffing projects they want me to be part of she can either say No to without even asking me – though she’ll always mention it later – or promise to pass on but with the warning that there’s relatively little hope that I’m actually going to say Yes.
    And if Mic says she might have something for me, it must be a proposal worth thinking about. The last time she sounded like this I ended up driving a Formula One car round the Magny-Cours circuit in deepest France for
Car
magazine and having a great time (with reservations; I discovered I’m really a pretty rubbish track driver).
    ‘Uh-huh?’ I said, successfully containing my excitement.
    ‘How do you fancy being driven round every distillery in Scotland in a taxi and drinking lots of whisky? And then writing a book about it? For a not insubstantial sum. What d’you think? Eh? Hmm? Interested?’
    I was so excited I think I took my feet off the desk.
    I thought quickly (no, really). ‘Can I drive the taxi?’
    ‘Then you can’t drink.’
    ‘I’ll do the drinking later.’
    ‘Then I don’t see why not.’
    ‘Why a taxi anyway?’
    ‘I think they’re going for the incongruity factor; a black cab round the Highlands, puttering through the misty glens beneath the fearsome peaks, that sort of thing.’
    ‘These people are from London, aren’t they?’
    ‘Where else? Plus they thought you might share some witty repartee with a garrulous Glasgow cabbie.’
    ‘So they don’t know me; good, good …’
    ‘Anyway, Banksie, what do you think?’
    ‘Can we ditch the taxi? I mean, they’re fine in cities, but some of these distilleries are hundreds of miles away in the middle of nowhere.’
    ‘What do you propose to do? Walk?’
    ‘No, I’ll just use my own wheels. I’ll drive myself. To drink. Ha!’
    ‘So you’d be alone?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Then where’s the witty repartee?’
    ‘Maybe I can get some of my pals to come along and help with the driving and the tasting and the repartee side of things. Some of my friends are quite witty. Well, they’re always insulting me. That’s the same thing, isn’t it?’
    ‘Of course it is, my dear.’
    ‘… Hmm. And we are talking expenses included here, right? Petrol, hotels? Umm … More petrol?’
    ‘Of course.’
    ‘And you really think they’ll fall – they’ll agree to this?’
    You can hear somebody smile over the phone sometimes, just by the quality of their voice. ‘Leave it with me.’
    ‘Brilliant! I’ll do it!’
    Which is why I find myself standing on the deck of this ferry, heading for sunny Dunoon, about to start the research phase of – gee! – my first non-fiction book. This next week on Islay should be fun if I don’t let the war get me down. And then there’s Jura, of course; I want to get across to Jura this time, to visit the distillery there and maybe get to see Orwell’s old house near the northern tip, and even – just possibly – finally see the Corryvrecken, the great tidal whirlpool between the north of Jura and the south of Scarba which I’ve heard about and seen some footage of (and mentioned in an earlier