The Safety and Comfort of Passengers

By Bruce Whitehead

THE YOUNG sales rep clutched the Pillans's pie in one hand whilst steering the Vauxhall Cavalier with the other, wondering if he could risk a bite without either veering onto the wrong side of the road, or more importantly, spilling any of the precious juice on his trousers. He decided to go for the instant gratification of the squelchy meat, so naturally the vehicle promptly wandered across the road, almost smacking into an old lady crossing on the way to the bowling. She continued shuffling kerb-wards, the saloon gently buffeting her with a pressure wave she scarcely noticed.

            But as the young man regained control of the car, he lost control of the pie, its entrails gushing like a stuck haggis onto the pleated seams of his blue trousers. The heat was still considerable as the car scrubbed to a halt, the door already open, seatbelt unclipped; then it was a lightning exit in a bid to save his thighs from scalding. This was the consequence of over-heating a Pillans's pie: potentially hazardous to the skin.

            The greasy stain was already spreading like oil on sea, and the trousers were sopping with the juice. Cursing colourfully, the sales rep finally managed to get a piece of steaming mechanically recovered meat into his gob, and started gingerly to chew, but despite his care, scalding occurred to the roof of mouth, tongue, etcetera. Why was it that revolting Scottish fast food could induce people to self-harm like this?

            The parking space hastily occupied during the pie emergency overlooked the Methil fabrication yard in Fife. The driver's gaze drifted to the enormous 500-foot long oil platforms being welded together on their sides. Despite his engineering degree, he'd gone for a more lucrative salary in freight sales, and was just finished a morning of calls with whisky shippers up the road at Markinch. The firm expected its reps to dine with customers as inducement to get their business; with prices fixed by a cartel, entertainment was seen by the clean-cut American owners as a fair way to compete for business. The salesman was supposed to consume two dinners and four lunches a week with customers, but this target was seldom reached and no lunch appointment had been possible today. He hated eating with clients anyway- and his Pillans's pie was a treat.

            But there had been moderate damage to the new suit, provided by the company under the sartorial code of the pioneering self-help book, "Dress for Success". The key advice therein was never to wear "plaid" (his American bosses spoke the word as if it rhymed with 'mad') along with check or stripes. This guidance had caused his sister, now studying at St Andrews, to laugh like a drain. He might visit her later at her halls, along with sundry of her pals, and buy them drinks. It would depend on which sales calls were firmed up when he called the office after lunch. He would try to make a credible itinerary of customer visits to St Andrews, as it was always good to see his kid sister, and to flirt with her room-mate, who he'd once snogged.

            The rep switched on the news, and during a headline, as he chewed, an item registered. The name took a wee moment to identify... oh aye. It was Tam Honeyman, a genial instructor who had taught him to drive a bus a few years before, as a student on summer holidays. Back then the bus operator had deemed it worthwhile to recruit students to provide holiday relief for its crews. The trainees would be put through a two-week instruction course, and then it was a case of sitting their public service vehicle driving test - at Seafield garage, down at Portobello. If successful they would spend the afternoon familiarising themselves with the latest automatic buses in the fleet, and then it was drive for the rest of the summer, filling-in for crews on leave. A college mate of his had come up with the idea of bus driving; a worthy, man's calling he said.

            These recollections took only a moment as his brain followed the news bulletin. Pie consumption halted. An accident had killed several passengers on an express coach driven by the rep's former instructor. On a fast trunk road, Honeyman had anticipated the flasher of an approaching lorry as a certain indication of its intention to turn right, so the instructor had also turned right. Wrong assumption. The flasher capacitor unit in the goods vehicle would later be found faulty by the Board of Transport investigation. The rep recalled Tam's mantra about speeding. "You might get your books for running early, but you'll never get your books for running late" Tam would remind drivers at any opportunity. It appeared that on this occasion it was not speeding, but wrongly anticipating the lorry's next move that had been his undoing. The orange flasher signalled that the vehicle was about to turn right, but it had not done so. The instructor was in intensive care at the Western General Hospital, remarked the announcer.