by Owen Mullen
We hung on his descriptions of places beyond our experience. Videk would take Ian through to the kitchen to have a word with the chefs. Sometimes he wandered in on his own and helped himself to vegetable pakora, fresh from the hot fat.
‘These are unbelievable. Try one.’
And when we passed he’d put on an Indian/Scottish accent, say ‘Pure dead fucking brilliant’, and make Mr Rani laugh. No one thought it out of the ordinary. That was how it was. He would put his arm round Ian Selkirk. ‘This is my third son,’ he’d tell us, and, to Fiona, ‘this is my second daughter.’
With me he just smiled. When her father didn’t see, Geeta smiled too. The sons fell under Ian’s spell. They huddled with him at the end of the night, grinning and giggling at his patter.
Ian and Fiona never discussed their relationship though every time I called his flat she answered. It hadn’t been an act in the QM; Ian pushed his luck with everybody. He was outrageous, irreverent and amusing. And he always had good dope. On an odd occasion when he went too far I saw Fiona shake her head, or take him aside and speak to him. Then he would behave – for a while.
Vanity wasn’t one of my weaknesses. Girls had told me I was handsome though I hadn’t given it too much thought. At five eleven, with brown hair, blue eyes and no obvious flaws I supposed I was acceptable enough. Still, I got why she was attracted to him and considered myself dull by comparison.
During the second semester I made half-hearted attempts at classes without taking much in. A law degree was my father’s idea, not mine. The exam results were due. I feared the worst – with good reason. I hadn’t done enough to even scrape a pass. I felt trapped and depressed. A failure. Almost twenty, stuck on a path I didn’t give a damn about and bombing; if anyone had asked what I wanted to do with my life I couldn’t have told them.
All that kept me sane was my friendship with Ian Selkirk and Fiona Ramsay.
Family was a no-go subject; uni was the same. I had known them five months and still wasn’t sure what courses they were on. They weren’t secretive; that kind of stuff just wasn’t important to them. Everything was about the moment. Everything was about now.
One night we left the pub, bought some wine and went back to Ian’s flat on Hyndland Road. He put on music and rolled a joint. Fiona got glasses. The wine was cheap German plonk, ideal for the undiscerning young people we were. I understood, later, they were sounding me out. At the time I thought it was him, at it as usual, having a laugh.
They were side by side on a faded sofa. I was on an orange beanbag on the floor. He lit up and put his arm round her. ‘We’re leaving Glasgow,’ he said. ‘It isn’t right for us anymore.’
I scoffed through the alcohol. ‘What’re you talking about? You can’t just leave.’
‘Yeah we can. We’ve discussed it, it’s happening.’
They waited for my reaction. ‘Fiona,’ I said, ‘he’s winding me up, isn’t he?’
‘No, we’re leaving, Charlie.’
‘Uni?’
‘Everything.’
I sat forward. ‘To go where?’
He gave the spliff to her and answered for them. ‘Thailand.’
She pulled on it, closed her eyes and handed it to me. Dope smoke burned my throat.
‘What’s brought this on? What about your careers, your future?’
‘Fuck the future. I’m telling you the future. We’re going to Thailand.’
My head swam; fear churned inside me more acid than the wine. I was losing my best friends. ‘What’ll you do in Thailand, for Christ’s sake?’
A look passed between them. Fiona’s lips parted in a slow smile, her eyelids, made lazy by the drug, fluttered in half time. It was the most sensual thing I’d ever seen.
‘Have fun,’ she said. ‘Want to come?’
* * *
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* * *
Remembering distracted me. Traffic on the A82 thinned. The crowded central belt disappeared, replaced by the scenic route north and Tourist Board Scotland. On a straight piece of road before the turn off to Aldochlay a car appeared from nowhere, accelerated effortlessly ahead and startled me back into the present. It was silver. I was sure it was the VW I’d noticed at Anniesland; it must have been behind me all the way from Glasgow and I didn’t see it because my mind was in another place.
The passenger stared at me as they glided past; a hard stare and a hard face, scarred on the left side from ear to chin.
I made the turn and entered a world asleep and at peace. Yards from the road a dozen small boats at anchor on the loch waited for an artist to capture the scene in watercolours. Tranquil would be selling it short; serene was nearer the mark. Late afternoon sunshine fell across nearby fields. It would soon be gone; the mountains stole two hours of light every day – the price of their inspiring presence. Luss was deserted. I pulled into the car park of the Loch Lomond Arms Hotel and got out. Pier Road ran in a straight line to the water. On both sides, brown stone cottages with slate roofs stood as they had since eighteen hundred, owned no doubt by retired Sassenachs, delighted with the little piece of heaven that was theirs.
These days, English accents, clipped and rounded like my parents’, were common in the beautiful parts of the country. In the city they were few and far between. Mine was a mongrel, my childhood in Edinburgh stripped away by a decade of money-no-object private schools in the south; four years at Willington, six at Bonnerhill. I could claim to have been born on the right side of Hadrian’s Wall even if I didn’t sound much like it. The source of the Cameron family fortune was distilled and matured here; the single malt was famous all over the world. I never drank it, a rebellion that went unrecorded.
Strathclyde University was an academic failure for me. In every other respect it was a success. It was my way back home, to Scotland. Without it I wouldn’t have met Ian Selkirk and Fiona Ramsay. And life would’ve been very different.
A man in his seventies dipped a paintbrush in a tin and dabbed the fence outside one of the cottages in bright blue. He stuck to his task even when my shadow darkened the wood at his hand. Visitors were all too common in Luss. Ignoring them was a necessary response. I headed for the church then cut down to the shore. I saw the officer before he saw me; he was young, gazing into the distance, pausing on his patrol. Blue and white tape stretched between metal stakes along the sandy beach where Ian’s body had been found. I knew the form: until the crime scene manager was satisfied the area would remain cordoned. The constable nodded to me and started walking. I must have looked like a ghoul, the kind who charges after ambulances for reasons of their own.
Of course there was nothing. I hadn’t expected there would be. The sand was wet and unmarked; further along, stumps of wood grew out of the water. I imagined the shock to the canoeists who discovered him and hoped they were all right.
The policeman paced the distance in measured steps that left deep indents in the tan earth. When he reached the end he stopped. A sense of unease made me glance along the path to the church; a tall man was standing in the cemetery, staring at me. Our eyes met. He folded his arms across his chest in a deliberate gesture and didn’t look away. It was too far to be certain but, for a moment, I thought I was seeing the scarred angry face of the guy in the silver car.
Nonsense of course. Ian Selkirk’s dead body and the mortuary attendant’s whispered dramatics had spooked me. I was rattled.
Above my head a gull made a noisy pass, chased by another, bringing me back to reality as the sun disappeared behind the hills. I’d come here with a woman once. She wanted to talk things through. It was summer; a group of teenage girls giggled and goaded each other into jumping off the pier. When they surfaced, their faces said it hadn’t been worth it. They didn’t learn. Soon they were squealing and shrieking again, the memory of the cold water forgotten.
The woman and I had our chat, but it was still over.
That night in Ian’s flat I became one of them. Fiona’s smile, her lips, the words; as much a dare
as an invitation. No different from the kids on the pier.
Have fun. Want to come?
We arrived at Bangkok airport in darkness, collected our luggage and sat around until flights to the coast started in the morning. If my companions had a specific destination in mind they didn’t share it with me. University, my father and Glasgow were far away. This was another world, where soldiers with guns cradled in their arms eyed travellers queuing to check in, and Alsatian dogs straining at the leash sniffed bags and cases. If they found what they were looking for, signs posted where their chilling message couldn’t be missed made clear what to expect.
THE PUNISHMENT FOR DRUG
TRAFFICKING IS DEATH
Fiona seemed relaxed but the atmosphere made me uneasy. Ian felt the same. He tapped his feet and played with his fingers. No jokes now and when he spoke it was a whisper.
At one point he got so freaked she took him to a corner beyond a fast food outlet. He stood in front of her like a naughty child, head lowered, chin on his chest while she laid into him. I had never seen her angry before, her teeth bared in a silent snarl, a finger admonishing our over-anxious friend. A different Fiona. She put her hands on his shoulders, their heads almost touched. The intimacy of the pose provoked a feeling I had never lost. Envy.
Whatever she said worked, Ian returned, sheepish but calm. At the ticket desk Fiona insisted on going to Koh Tao; she’d read about it in a magazine. Apparently it was paradise.
It was. We got accommodation within an hour: chalet-style huts, more functional than anything, so close to the beach you drifted to sleep to the sound of the sea. In Koh Tao Ian and Fiona had separate rooms. Whatever had happened at the airport still lay between them.
Now we were settled on the coast, Ian was back to normal. By day two he was on first name terms with everyone. I spotted him on the beach, deep in conversation with a tall sunburned guy. Later he burst through the door, breathless and excited. It was sorted, he said. All fixed. We had jobs, starting the next day. How easy was that? The guy was hiring; he needed someone who could dive. That didn’t let me out – Ian had told him I could drive the boat. I hated boats and avoided them; a detail, not a problem. Fiona would serve in the shop. Ian signed on as an instructor; he persuaded his new friend he had a PADI qualification. Maybe he did but it was the first I’d heard about it.
Driving the boat turned out to be steering the small craft the diving school owned, and it wasn’t difficult. After a while I actually enjoyed it. The weather was humid and cloudy. Most days we would have two or three people out with us. I had to admit, Ian did seem to know what he was doing. He had a gift for gaining people’s confidence and put it to good use.
A week after the scene at Bangkok airport Fiona and Ian still hadn’t made up. He took to cruising the bars that sprawled for miles along the coast. He didn’t invite her or me, where he went and what he did never got discussed. We found ourselves in each other’s company and, of course, the talk turned to him. I took a leaf out of his book and asked straight out. ‘What’s wrong with you two?’
She didn’t understand. ‘Nothing. What do you mean?’
The cheap Thai beer made me bold. ‘He’s out alone every night. Separate rooms. You were so close in Glasgow.’
She laughed and shook her head, her eyes a mix of amusement and affection. ‘You’re sweet, Charlie, do you know that?’
‘So I’ve been told.’
‘You are. Really. We aren’t involved. How could you think that?’
‘Because you’re always together, you sit next to each other, hold hands. Whenever I called his flat you answered. What else was there to think?’
She leaned towards me and squeezed my hand. ‘Charlie,’ she said, ‘how can you not have noticed? Ian’s gay.’
‘Gay!’
‘Absolutely. He’s especially partial to blonde guys. I’m the sister he never had, that’s all. We haven’t had a fight. He gets emotional sometimes. I talk to him. There’s nothing wrong.’
‘So?’
‘Young, free and single. It was me who asked if you wanted to come. Now why would I do that?’
* * *
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* * *
Our bodies bronzed in the months that followed. We walked on the beach as the sun went down. And I fell in love with Fiona Ramsay. I may already have been in love with her. That summer was the happiest time of my life.
One afternoon there were no tourists booked. I hung round what passed for the town, browsing for things I didn’t need. I had learned to filter the noise of the street, drift with the crowd and keep my hand on my wallet.
They were sitting in a cafe under a yellow awning drinking coffee; their body language told me all was not well. It reminded me of the airport, except this time Ian was giving as good as he got; his face contorted, going at it hard. Flecks of spit flew from his mouth in a fine spray. Fiona stared, paralysed, unable to control him. He got up, towering above her, still raving. In his final gesture he struck the table with enough force to make the cups dance and stormed off. She stayed where she was. My instinct was to go to her but something held me back. Minutes later she put down money and left.
Although my own opinion of him wasn’t as high as before – I’d caught him screaming at my girlfriend after all – Ian was well thought of by the small community of booze-cruise sailors and diving instructors. They drank beer and swapped stories. They had a code, and support for each other was unconditional. We were on our way out with a German party when a returning boat warned us to be careful. An Australian, in cut-off trousers and a tattered shirt, balanced on the prow and hailed us.
‘Snakes. Sea snakes. Lots of them. Must be something driving them in. We’ve packed up for the day. Be careful, mate.’
The Germans hadn’t understood. I glanced across to Ian, his expression didn’t alter. I dropped anchor at our usual spot, fifteen feet above some orange and purple coral. The tourists suited-up. Ian did a final check and over the side they went. For a while everything was fine. I was thinking about Fiona, coming to a decision, when one of the tourists crashed to the surface, tearing at his mask. He got it off and started yelling. His friends came up beside him with Ian close behind. They shouted to each other; I don’t know what was said. They were thrashing the water, panicking, making a hell of a racket. I dragged them on board and turned to Ian. ‘What’s wrong with them, they’re terrified?’
He answered with a petulance I hadn’t noticed in Glasgow, ‘Fucked if I know.’
‘Was it the snakes?’
His reply came with a sneer. ‘There weren’t any snakes. Just drive the fucking boat, will you?’
The lesson was over. We got word the Germans had cancelled next morning. Ian banged around in a temper, cursing under his breath. Early in the afternoon a boat landed near us and hauled a figure over the side onto the sand. One of the crew knelt beside the body pressing hard on the chest, bending to the mouth. A crowd gathered. Where we were was close enough for me. A man staggered away; he was crying. It was the big Aussie. He shook his blonde head at us. ‘Those bloody snakes,’ he said. ‘They were in the coral. Those bloody snakes.’
* * *
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* * *
Ian didn’t speak about it though I knew we’d been lucky. In Glasgow I’d enjoyed the crazy side of Ian Selkirk, but he wasn’t funny anymore. I saw him as an irresponsible risk taker. Sea snakes are amongst the most poisonous creatures on earth. Attacks were rare because the reptiles are docile. Nevertheless we’d been told something unusual was going on and ignored it. A dead man on the sand reminded us that rare didn’t mean never. Ian had forgotten we were winging it. I hadn’t. Thailand was supposed to be about escaping, having fun. Suddenly it wasn’t for me. That made my mind up.
Ian didn’t go out that night; he got drunk and talked about moving on. India was mentioned. The stories of Mr Rani recalled. Fiona seemed keen. If she wanted to go then I would go too, although I had other plans.
Judgin
g the moment wasn’t easy – there was always someone in the way. When I couldn’t hold back any longer it just sort of came out. We were on the beach with the sun a flaming ball dipping below the horizon and stopped to watch the dying rays. I took her hands in mine.
I said, ‘This is wonderful but it can’t go on forever. Let’s make a real life. Let’s get married, Fiona.’
As soon as I spoke I knew what her answer would be. She ran a finger down my cheek. ‘Charlie,’ she said, ‘why spoil it? It’s fine just as it is, isn’t it?’
And that was that. The affair and the adventure ended together.
Two days later word came. My grandmother was dead. I flew back for the funeral. My father avoided me. Even my mother was distant: I’d let them down, I understood that well enough. I was their only son and, of course, they were entitled to their expectations.
A pity they weren’t the same as mine.
Five
Except my feelings for Fiona Ramsay remained unaltered.
One morning, a particularly vicious hangover and a female in my bed I couldn’t remember meeting, brought my attention to the mess I was making. I was proving my father correct, I couldn’t have that. A woman had turned me down. So what? I lacked purpose, I needed responsibility. I needed to get a grip. Catch myself on, as they say in Glasgow. Decisions got taken, even the odd good one, but I was still aimless.
Twelve months later the ghosts showed up to haunt me.
I was at the bar in the club, on stage a group of long-haired rockers were doing their thing. A blonde with the world’s longest eyelashes had me in her sights. I smiled, just enough to keep it friendly.