by T. Traynor
“He’d run away from home,” I say.
“Who had?” They’re all confused at this turn in the conversation.
“Stuart Coulter. He’d run away from home. The book in his bag was the only thing he was able to take with him – that and some food, just enough to keep him going for a couple of days.”
Lemur starts to interrupt but I just make my voice louder.
“Life at home was really tough, unbearable, since his mother had married again. His stepfather used to hit him. So he decided he’d go and find his dad’s brother, who lived in the Borders. He could stay there. He’d been walking for a long time and he needed somewhere to sleep and he thought the overgrown park was the perfect place. He’d be safe there. He kept patting his bag to make sure the book was in there. It had been a present from his dad. His dad had written Stuart’s name—”
“THAT’S – NOT – TRUE!” Lemur roars.
“Isn’t it?” I say. “How do you know? The fact is, Lemur, that he had a life and he had a story that you nicked from him. You never gave him the chance to tell you!”
“I didn’t do it on purpose!”
“Not the first time,” I say. “But after that you did. I bet there was a wee girl! What about the wee girl?”
“No—”
“Did you even know all their names? Yes, because you would have become friends with them, just friendly enough to suggest exploring the deserted park together. Just enough to get them in here. So, the wee girl. I’m guessing she was called – Mary. She really trusted you. Or maybe she felt sorry for you—”
Lemur has his hands over his ears now. He’s yelling at me to stop.
“I’ll shut up if you tell us about them.”
“I don’t know about—”
“Yes, Mary felt sorry for you. She had a big family and she could see that you—”
“Stop. Please… stop. I’ll tell you.”
“No lies. And no half-truths. And nothing missed out, Lemur.”
“I’ll tell you everything.”
Lemur takes a deep breath, as if to steady himself.
“You’re right I didn’t know anything about Stuart Coulter. When I met him again – and this was more than thirty years after that day he fell asleep at the bottom of the tree – there was something in his eyes that made me think he knew I was somehow important to him. But he couldn’t work out how. He’d only caught a glimpse of me, remember? But I knew it was him. It was like he had found me, even after all that time.
“I didn’t want to know anything about him. I kept my distance and I watched. And as I watched I started to feel different.”
“How?”
“Weaker, slower, paler. I remembered that empty feeling. I didn’t want to go back there.”
“How long did that last?
“Until I found someone else.”
“Whose time did you steal next?
“His name was Eric Gemmell. His father had a stall in the market. We came into the park to collect blackberries to sell.” Lemur pauses. “He was a fast runner, faster even than you, Bru. He had a dog, a scruffy little terrier called Patch. It followed me around for months afterwards.
“And yes, there was a girl. Her name was Sarah – I never found out her surname. By that time they had cleared some of the park and built on the land. Only the space in between was safe, my den. Sarah lived in one of the big houses on May Terrace. She was exploring when she found me, lying here weak and totally out of time. She liked stories – I told her all about Mount Lorredan Hall. If it hadn’t been too late for me I would have let her go. I think we would have become friends…
“She found me later too. I met her, forty, fifty years afterwards. The same pale hair, the same blue eyes.”
“Did she still think you were fun, Lemur?” I ask. “Was she still asking you to tell her stories?”
He ignores me. “They kept finding me. It always warned me that I was running out of time.”
“And what about them? How much time have they got after they see you again?”
I don’t need an answer. I know where Kit is and what’s happening to her. She’s not anywhere. She’s waiting – waiting like those other children waited. She’ll have plenty of time to wonder if I was part of it, if I said it was OK to use her and helped Lemur make it happen. She’s waiting for the moment when she will reappear, in a time she doesn’t know, among people she doesn’t recognise. Until one day she will see Lemur again. And the only consolation he’ll give her is that, although her new life is confusing and scary, it won’t be a very long one.
27
“And after her,” says Hector, “it was Mr Murphy.”
There’s an “Oh…” from Skooshie, as he catches up and the last pieces fall into place for him. “So that’s why he tried to strangle you. That’s why he called you a thief!”
“And that’s why he told me to watch out for Lemur! He wasn’t telling me to look after him – it was a warning.”
“Joe Murphy was my friend,” says Lemur emphatically. “I went to see him when he asked me to.”
“When did you see him?” asks Hector.
“The day Midge saw me and waited for me, because he thought I was coming for him.”
“When we said Midge was imagining things?”
“Yes.”
“And I said he needed glasses?” Skooshie appears more outraged at having been misled in this than by anything else so far.
“You really went?”
“Yes, Hector, I really went!” Lemur sighs. “I realised I was being a coward, avoiding him.”
He looks quickly round us, maybe hoping somebody will say, “Hey, Lemur, that was really brave of you.” We don’t. We’re waiting to hear what happened.
“Well?” I say when Lemur doesn’t speak. “What did Joe Murphy really say to you when you went to see him?”
“He talked about Third Lanark.”
“The football team?”
“No, Skooshie, Third Lanark the famous brand of ginger. Now shut up and let Lemur talk.”
“Joe was a big Third Lanark fan. That’s where I first saw him – coming out of the park with his dad. He talked about them all the time.”
“So when was this?”
“Some time in the 1920s.”
Skooshie looks as though he’s about to raise an objection but Bru dunts him in the ribs with his elbow.
“He talked about the last match he’d seen. His favourite player, Anderson, had scored. He described the goal blow by blow. All the passes that led up to it – he remembered every one.”
“You told us about that match,” Bru interrupted, earning a glare from Skooshie. “You described it to us.”
“Yes. I got that from Joe. I wasn’t able to get inside the ground. It’s funny. Though I’ve been around since Cathkin was just a field and I saw the stand and the terraces being built and the park being laid out, I had never been inside until we went. Going there with you was the most special thing I’ve ever done.”
We look at each other. Cathkin. Just one of the many things that glue us together.
“Joe – Mr Murphy – told me when I went to his flat that he could still feel how cold it had been standing on the terraces, that he remembered stamping his feet to try and keep warm. It had been so cold that he’d wrapped his football scarf three times around his head covering his mouth – but he’d had to push it down because he couldn’t cheer properly. That he could still taste the bar of chocolate that his mother had given him to eat at half time. That he still heard the noise of the fans’ football rattles in his dreams.
“Then he reminded me about how he’d come straight to see me after the game, to tell me about it.
“Look.” He fishes a scrap of pink paper out of his pocket, unfolds it and holds it out to us.
It’s a ticket for a football match. THE THIRD LANARK ATHLETIC CLUB stands out at the top, and further down the words Saturday, 10 November, 1923. It’s in surprisingly good condition.
“That’s his ticket.
He still had it when I went to see him.”
“So how do you have it now?”
“He made me take it. So that I wouldn’t forget what I’d done. Ever.”
Lemur puts the ticket back in his pocket and continues. “Joe was so excited that day. Not just about the game but also because he’d found out he was going away. His family were emigrating to America.
“‘But you won’t go?’ I said. I couldn’t bear the thought of being on my own again. I was so close to telling Joe everything.
“He said, ‘Of course I’m going! Have you any idea what opportunities I’ll have there? I’ll miss you, of course, Christy, I will. Maybe you can come and visit me some time.’
“I don’t know if he meant it. I only knew that there was no possibility that I could ever leave here. Away from my den, I would have nowhere to hide and no way to keep going.
“So now it was too late to tell Joe. I didn’t have time to persuade him to stay, let alone explain how I needed his help. And he was so keen to go. He didn’t care that he was leaving me. That made me angry with him.”
“So he was the next one?”
“Yes… I didn’t need to do it. I had time left over. I could have waited a while but I didn’t. I took his time there and then. And his parents went off to America not even remembering they’d ever had a son.”
Lemur looks directly at me for the first time. “I missed Joe. He was a lot of fun. You wouldn’t believe how much he loved football. But hopeless at playing – two left feet. Worse than me even, Midge.”
“He must’ve been bad,” I say with half a smile, though I try not to.
“Then he reappeared here at the end,” says Lemur gloomily. “Like they always do. They find me, just before they die.”
“Why did he want to see you?” asked Hector.
“He wanted Lemur to change things back,” says Bru before Lemur can answer.
“Yes,” says Lemur. “He wanted to be twelve again.”
“But you couldn’t do it?” I ask.
“Not by then. It was too late. I had used up all his time.”
“Did you tell him that?”
“No. But I think he knew.”
Oh, he knew all right. I think about Mr Murphy crying and now I know why.
“And that’s what will happen to Kit?” asks Bru. “Some day in about sixty years’ time you’ll bump into her. She’ll be an old lady but you’ll look exactly the same. She’ll know who you are, she’ll remember what happened. She’ll remember Midge, and Hector and Skoosh and me as well, but she won’t know us any more. She’ll be all on her own, with no story and hardly any time left.”
“But I can’t let go,” says Lemur. He looks like he’s about to start crying. “I can’t. I want to stay here. I want to stay with you.”
“It isn’t fair, Lemur,” I say. “Can you see Hector doing this? D’you think Bru would do it? Or Skooshie?”
He looks at me. This time he’s not avoiding the questions.
“No,” he says.
“It’s not your turn any more, Lemur.”
28
You know by now that we are really good at not talking about stuff we don’t want to discuss. Well, that day, as my dad would say, we surpass ourselves. No one would have guessed that it was Lemur’s last day. It could have been any day in that long, hot summer.
We follow the route marched by Mary’s army up and over Prospecthill Road, making appropriate military sound effects along the way. In the recs we go into action. The five of us charge forward with fearsome battle cries so scary that the (totally invisible) forces against us scatter in confusion and we win the day.
Once inside the park gates, we split up for the scavy hunt: Bru, Hector and Skooshie in one team; me and Lemur in the other. The goal is the flagpole. But on the way you have to collect stuff. Today these are: a pine cone, an ice-lolly stick, an orange handprint.
“An actual print,” says Hector. “You can’t just turn up with an orange hand.”
Apart from that there are no rules. Winners are the first team with all the items to touch the flagpole.
Bru, Hector and Skoosh set off at a run, straight up the hill. But Lemur and I pause to discuss tactics.
“OK,” I say. “There’s only one set of tennis courts between here and the flagpole so that’s where we need to get the dust for the handprint. It’s near here so we should do it first.”
“Agree.”
“But first we need a bit of paper to do the handprint on. That must be what they’ve gone to look for.”
“Disagree,” says Lemur. And he’s off and running. “C’mon!”
The tennis courts are made of the same dusty orange stuff as the pitches in the recs. So it’s easy enough to get a handprint. The tricky part is getting onto the courts. You have to get by the man in the booth. He’s really only interested in letting people who want to play tennis onto the courts. People who can pay.
“Talk to him, Midge,” says Lemur.
“Good morning,” I say, planting my elbows on the booth.
He is instantly suspicious. “Yeah?”
“I was wondering,” (I’m aware of Lemur at the height of my ankles trying to sneak in unnoticed), “if you would perhaps be good enough to tell me the actual cost in money for me and some friends – some very good friends of mine – to play on these lovely courts.”
“Look, son, do you actually have any money or are you just wasting my time?”
“How could it be a waste of time when it’s a lovely sunny day and we’re having this nice conversation?” I realise I may have gone too far because he’s got up out of his seat now and he’s looking annoyed. Then Lemur pops up beside me.
“Got it!”
“Thanks, mister!” I say and we run off. The man throws a few swear words after us but it’s half-hearted. It’s too hot for him to really care.
“So where do we get the paper for the handprint?” I ask.
“We don’t,” says Lemur. “Stand still.”
He clamps his left hand to my back, then pushes my chest really hard with his right hand. “See?”
The print is bold and clear against my (once) white t-shirt. I look down admiringly. “I quite like that. I might keep it.”
“Pine cone next.”
We spread out among the trees, looking hard. We wander along towards the gate at Victoria Road, then up the hill again, so we don’t get too far from the flagpole. We’re having no luck.
“It would help if we knew what a pine tree looked like,” grumbles Lemur.
“There!” I whisper.
“Where?” He’s looking for a tree but I’ve spotted something more useful. Hector bending down to pick up something from the ground. “Hector’s found one. There’ll be more round there.”
We wait until Hector’s moved away so he doesn’t see us. When we get to the patch of trees, we realise he’s tried to hide the other pine cones by kicking them into the bushes.
“Nice try, Hector,” I say. “But not quite smart enough to out-fox us.”
“Only the ice-lolly stick now,” says Lemur.
“Ice-lolly stick, ice-lolly stick…” We’re scanning the ground, but it’s a big park. There are plenty of sticks, but none of the lolly variety to be seen.
“Wee kids!” I say with sudden inspiration.
We start running towards the swings. And there is a wee kid there, halfway through a bright-red ice lolly. It’s melting faster than he can eat it, and there’s red stuff running down his arm.
“Hey,” I say. “Can we have your lolly stick when you’re done?”
He looks up at us and his lip starts to quiver. “Mu-u-um!”
“No, no! I don’t want your lolly, honest! Just the stick.” Now his mum’s arrived and she’s looking really unimpressed. “I wasn’t trying to take his lolly,” I say. “We’re playing this game and I just need a lolly stick—”
“Midge!” Lemur’s standing by the bin at side of the swing park. Well, not so much standing b
y it as half in it while he rummages through the contents. What a piece of brilliance!
I run over to him, shouting over my shoulder to the wee kid, “Sorry! Enjoy your lolly!”
I’m asking, “Any luck?” when Lemur turns to me, triumphantly waving a lolly stick. The wee kid’s mum is looking at us with a disgusted expression on her face.
“That’s it. Let’s go!”
The flagpole’s in sight. We’re heading for it full pelt when we see Bru sprinting in from the side. He’s really legging it.
“Run!”
We’re a bit nearer than Bru but he’s not giving up. We throw ourselves over the fencing and lunge at the pole. Bru touches it at exactly the same time we do.
“We won!” I shout, as Hector and Skooshie jog into view a few seconds later.
“Draw!” protests Bru.
“No – our whole team was here first! Yours has only just arrived.”
We look at Hector. He usually has the last word on rules.
“Aw, we didn’t think of that,” he says.
***
We don’t have enough money for the boats, but we sit on the swings by the boating pond and call out warnings, telling the people rowing and paddling to watch out for the dead soldiers lurking under the water.
“Whoah!” shouts Lemur as two boats collide. “Did you see that?”
“Those two hands reaching up out of the water?” says Bru.
“Yeah – they shoved that boat into the other one!”
“Watch out, mRS!” Skooshie shouts to a woman lying back in her boat, with her hand trailing in the water. “They’ll pull you over the side!” Unfortunately for her, she’s too far away to hear him.
We’re hoping for a sinking (very rare) or at least some daredevil ending up in the water (less rare), but today’s not the day for it. So we move on.
Between us we manage to scrape together enough money for two pokes of chips. We run up Victoria Road, with the chips wrapped in Hector’s t-shirt to keep them hot. We’re planning to get to the stones before we eat them but with the first waft of vinegar and hot chips, everybody agrees that’s a rubbish plan, and we drop onto the first bench we come to and eat them there. And then we wander up to the stones, the highest part of the park. There’s not much to do there but we always go. It’s in an area that’s wilder. The grass is allowed to grow long and there are dirt pathways, not tarmac. There are no flowers or neatly cut bushes – it all feels a bit neglected. It’s that and the remoteness and the view of the city that we like, I think. The stones look quite important but we don’t really wonder why they’re there. We just know you get a better view when you stand on them. And that it’s fun jumping from one to another.