By the time Wendy, Sue and I arrived on Mull in the Scottish Inner Hebrides, I had spent nine hours on a plane, ten hours on trains and an hour on a boat. The three of us were still an hour by car from our holiday cottage not counting stopping for groceries in the island’s only town, Tobermory. Our immediate problem was that there was no car.

The origin story of this expected car is quite involved. Sue had started negotiations for it a year ago at which time the hire car guy, Billy, had required Wendy’s (the driver) license and driver history, her car inspection history, everything it seems except the bra sizes of those of us who would actually be in the car. He also demanded to know exactly when we required the car, down to the quarter hour, something Sue patiently explained she could only give him once the boat schedules were published for 2024, with the ominous rider that if we were late, he would not be waiting around with the car. Sue had exchanged several emails the week prior to our arrival to confirm and re-confirm.

So it was a bit rich when the car was nowhere to be seen. The air was damp, the hour growing late and we were cold and tired. Craignure is little more than a boat dock, a tourist office and a few cafes. Sue texted, emailed and called Billy while we stood by the side of the road with our suitcases. The boat left. A bus to town came and went; I watched it longingly.

Finally, I went into the warm tourist office to see if they could help. The woman behind the desk told me that Billy was often late and that he was a “very busy fellow.” She looked sympathetically at me and stopped just shy of rolling her eyes. She pointed to a collection of buildings a half mile down the road, saying that was Billy’s Caravan Park and where he kept most of his hire cars. She thought it was worth a walk to see if he was there.

“Your friends can wait in here where it’s warm,” she added.

I looked at Wendy and Sue grumped over our cases. I have seen them that way when the tea was late. “I think they’d rather freeze to death than chance missing the car,” I said.

I walked the half mile down the road on a gravel path lined with daffodils which I might be rhapsodizing about now if the memory didn’t retrieve how tired and cold I was. I was also blinking back tears. The turn off to Billy’s Caravan Park took me past the police station, a fact I filed away. And there at the end of the road was Billy tinkering with a car.

“We hired one of your cars for today and we’ve been waiting an hour.”

“Oh, was that for today?”

He disappeared inside his shack and came back out saying he didn’t see anything in his diary. “But, just a minute.” Another dive inside brought up this information: “I saw all the emails. You are 100% correct. It’s my fault.”

I stood looking at him, thinking, “And .  .  .?”

“A car has just come in. I need to get it cleaned up.” He looked at me. “You don’t need an automatic, do you?”

Huh? What was he asking? Was the car that just came in an automatic? What difference did that make? I knew that Wendy always drove a manual but I didn’t know what Sue had specified other than a small car. Wendy wasn’t comfortable with a large one.

“Is an American driving?”

OK, this guy’s communication skills were not great.

“No.”

“A manual will be fine then.”

What was that supposed to mean? People skills not all that great either.

“How long will it take?”

“You can wait or I’ll have it there by the time you walk back.”

I hesitated. I didn’t want to let this guy out of my sight.

“Look,” he snapped. “I have to clean the car. You waitin’ or walkin’?”

I walked back to the tourist office. I preferred the company of Wendy and Sue. At least we were all complaining about the same thing. We waited another 45 minutes.

“How long did he think it would take me to walk back? “I demanded. “And what was that crack about Americans and automatic transmissions? I feel doubly insulted. I can drive a stick.”

Billy finally showed up with a large Vauxhall. He popped the boot and put one large case in and reached for another.

“We ordered a small car,” Sue said.

At this Billy became Someone Else. He yanked the case out of the boot and slammed the door. “I can cancel this contract any time I want,” He snapped. “I already apologized.”

We stepped back in surprise. Good grief, what a situation. Sue appeared poised to insist on the small car. I sensed that if Billy drove off, we’d never see him in either a large or small car again. It was late, it was cold. Mull is a remote island with bad roads and few people. The only town was an hour away and the bus to it had just left. Billy’s was one of two car hire companies on the island.

“No, don’t do that!” Somebody said this. It might have been me. It might have been Wendy. I don’t think it was Sue.

“I can go get a small car, which will take at least an hour or you can take this one or I can just leave you here.”  His preference was clearly the last option apparently on the grounds that he had already apologized.

Three women in their 60s in the cold and damp on a remote island in the Hebrides? He’d leave us there? It was 5:00 and another hour, my Aunt Fanny. It’d be 9:00 before he get a small car to us if at all. We still needed to get groceries and find our way home in the dark (the Brits weren’t yet on Summertime) on winding one lane roads, not necessarily paved, taking an hour even in the daylight.

“Look,” he turned to me. “Didn’t I apologize? Did you tell them I apologized?”

I walked up to him and put both hands three inches from his chest. “Yes, I did,” I soothed. “I also said you were very good-looking.”

He gave me a wry grin as if to acknowledge that he knew what I was doing and to a small extent, it was working.

More huffing and threatening, he was dismissive of Sue because he assumed Wendy, as the driver, had done the booking. Of the three of us, Sue is the most dangerous to insult (with me running a close second and Wendy almost not at all.) One look at Sue’s face and I knew Billy had made a tactical error that he would pay for later. (Stay tuned.)

We managed to talk him down off his ledge and he showed Wendy how to drive the car. He seemed different at that point. Patient, calm, maybe even kind. Maybe it was just that he had no people skills. I’m really dredging the bottom to find anything to round out his character.

I went into the tourist office to make my report and see them properly horrified. It makes all of Mull look bad when something like this happens.

Finally, we were on our way to Tobermory. I wrote to Andrew that night and he responded: “Does he have ticks holding on under his kilt or something? ” And thus the car hire guy became Tick Billy. He seemed to accompany us wherever we went and by the time we left, a week later, we had thoroughly dissected him, as is only right and proper.

Tobermory

Western Isles Hotel (See the movie “I Know Where I’m Going”)