‘So did every other waster in this town, Billy. Get some clothes on, unless you want to go like that.’
He shuffles into his bedroom and drops his dressing gown onto the floor, revealing the bowed ridge of his spine and the blue stain of an old tattoo on his left upper arm.
Take a good look, boyo. That could be you in a year or two.
Fuck off, Mitch.
That’s what you turn into if you sit about feeling sorry for yourself. Gollum’s body double.
I go to the window and look out at desolation of the sort we Scots are so good at: slimy paper in the corners, flaking roughcast walls and graffiti.
Look at this place. This is where you’ve left me.
Bollocks. This is what you chose.
You took the better part of me with you. Tell me what to do.
No.
Mitch . . .
‘Tell me something, Sean, why do you fucking care, anyway?’
I turn around. Billy has propped himself in the doorway, chest rising and falling heavily with the effort of dressing himself. Sweat beads at his temples.
‘Because for some reason I can’t fathom, Harry’s still paying you to sit on your scrawny arse and get high, we’re losing money, and I’m not prepared to let you take the rest of us down with you. And at the end of the day, neither are you.’
A meek nod. He’s too exhausted to be anything other than compliant.
‘Come on, I’ll get you to the shop.’
‘I’ll go myself.’
‘No you won’t. Let’s go.’
We leave the flat and he walks up the road beside me, then stops at the door of the shop. Both hands come up toward my chest as if to push me away. ‘Sean, just . . . let me go in myself. Dinnae frogmarch me in there.’
‘Fine.’ I step backwards. ‘Do the right thing, Billy, yeah?’
‘The right thing . . . aye.’ He squints into the sun and shields his eyes. ‘There’s nae such thing, sunshine. Maybe the fucking Royal Marines’d have ye believe it, but oot here in the real world . . . nuh. But ye’ll need tae figure that oot for yersel, eh? Been nice workin’ wi’ ye.’
He backs through the door and leaves me standing on the pavement outside. I pull in a long breath of sweet, spring air and take a walk up the street. My clothes and hair carry the sickly toilet smell of Billy’s flat, and briefly I consider going home for a shower before heading back to work. Instead, I pause outside a new barbershop run by pair of smartly dressed Turkish brothers. One of them opens the door, releasing a waft of wet hair and aftershave, and holds his hand out in a gesture of welcome.
‘Hello there, my friend. We got no queue, come in please.’
I smile and sweep hair away from my eyes. ‘It looks that bad you had to drag me in off the street.’
He shrugs. ‘You want to keep it long, I will just tidy it up for you.’
‘No.’ I sit on the chair and let him drape the cape around me. ‘Chop it all off, mate. Short back and sides.’
‘Ah, okay.’ He pats my shoulder. ‘I’ll make you brand new. For your lady, eh?’
‘I wish.’
He laughs and selects his scissors for a big job, then attacks the shoulder length mop with obvious relish. I watch the familiar old hard-edged version of myself emerge from the prison I sent him to a year and a half ago. He acquitted himself reasonably with Darren and Billy, but whether he’s ready for release, whether he’s penitent enough – whether he ever can be – is still to be established.
An idea floats into my head and lodges there. I pull my phone from my pocket and punch in a text to Jack Wilson:
Want to give us a hand shifting some furniture? Reckon you owe me one.
I send this off, and a couple of minutes later the reply comes. Anything to get me oot the hoose, mate.
The barber runs the clippers up the back of my neck and around my ears, then brushes the fallen hair off my shoulders. ‘Alright. You want shave?’
‘Eh . . . no. I’m alright.’
‘Okay. Your lady will like you better now.’
‘Insha’Allah.’ I give him a little nod of prayer, then pull a tenner out of my wallet. ‘Keep the change, mate.’
‘Good man.’ He laughs and holds the door for me a second time.
The Saddos are out as usual, smoking in front of the bookies and shuffling out of the Spar with their bottled provisions. One of them eyeballs me as I walk toward him, scoping me in a way that has my right hand sliding down my hip in search of a weapon. As I draw nearer, I recognise Duncan, the shepherd and would-be owner of Cauldhill Farm.
‘Alright?’ I say as I pass.
He gives me a single, curt nod. ‘Aye. I ken you, by the way.’
‘Cauldhill Farm. Helping Molly clear the house.’
He doesn’t seem to register this, but smiles and repeats himself. ‘Aye . . . I ken you, son.’
I nearly stop. For half a second, my foot hovers above the ground, mid-stride. But then it makes contact with the pavement and propels me another step away from the old man. I turn my eyes away and head back to the shop.
XV
‘Elaine’s fuckin’ movin’ in wi the new man. Alister. He’s some kind of biotech researcher up at Roslin, got seventeen bloody letters after his name or whatever, and a bungalow in Colinton. Fucking prick.’ Jack hawks and spits into the ditch at the side of the road. ‘She’s not his type. I mean, I dinnae ken what he can see in her, like.’
We’re running past Rosewell toward Cauldhill Farm after work. Harry has agreed to take Jack on a casual basis in between his bits of building work, and we’ve managed to clear the day’s jobs by mid afternoon. He’s been silent and distracted all day, chewing over some gristly piece of news, eyes fixed on a different view entirely to the one in front of him.
‘You alright today, Jackie?’ I made the mistake of asking him a moment ago, and unleashed a torrent.
‘I mean, Elaine’s rough as anything. She’d have you believe she’s no, like, she spends a fucking fortune on herself. Racked up thousands on the credit cards, which I’m still paying back. She knows how to dress classy, and when she puts on the phone voice you’d think she was yin o’ they Morningside lassies, ken. It’s all sweetie and luvvy and honey bunny. A fucking scientist, ken? I mean, what does she bloody know about stem cell research and that? She’s a bloody secretary oot there, that’s it. She types up the minutes of their meetings, so she thinks she kens. She thinks she’s clever, that’s her problem. Thinks she’s better than us.’
His voice breaks and he falls back, stops, stands there at the side of the road staring at a discarded beer can under a gorse bush. His big square shoulders start to shake. I lean on the stone dyke, watch a couple of magpies tussling over a dead rabbit and let him cry it out.
After a couple of minutes, he wipes his face on his shirt. ‘You must think I’m pretty fuckin’ soft, eh? After everywhere you’ve been and that.’
‘I dinnae. I’ve seen some of the meanest bastards in 45 Commando reduced to blubbering wrecks by Dear John letters.’
‘Never happened to you?’
‘I never had anyone to cry over, mate.’
He turns back toward me with a doubtful look in his watery eyes. ‘Sorry.’
‘What for? Come on.’ I resume running. He falls in beside me again and carries on blethering, except now he’s on my deaf side and over the sounds of our footsteps and my own breath I don’t manage to take in very much of what he says. Also, somewhere in the background, Mitch is singing Ring of Fire.
Eventually we reach the rutted drive at Cauldhill Farm and fall down to a walk. Everything is quiet and still except a few seagulls overhead and the gravel grinding under our shoes.
He looks around, at the big house with its shutters like closed eyelids, the tumbledown outbuildings, the trees and the hills behind.
‘Nice spot, eh?’
‘Aye.’
‘D’you ken, I always wanted to buy a broken doon pile like this and fix it up. I only ever want
ed to be a joiner like my Da. Elaine never fucking got it, Sean. She just didnae get it. She thinks a man who works wi’ his hands is a failure. But look at these.’ He holds up massive, scarred mitts the size of bear paws. ‘Too big for a computer keyboard, eh? What the fuck else am I meant to dae?’
I’m relieved he’s not crying again. ‘Find yourself a woman who likes real men, brother. There’s bound to be a few of them around. I want to show you something.’
He follows me to the barn. The door creaks as I pull it open, and we step to the damp, stony interior and wait for our eyes to adjust before I crane up into the beams.
‘There he is, look.’ I point at the little white cylinder above us. The owl watches us calmly and Jack stares up like an entranced kid.
‘Braw,’ he whispers.
‘Aye.’
We watch the owl for a minute or two, until it opens its eyes more widely and stretches on its perch, craning its neck in the direction of the door. Its sudden alertness sets my heart going and I turn and walk slowly toward the door, eyes scanning for movement or shadows.
‘Whit is it?’ Jack says, following me, and I hold up a hand to silence him. The wide barn door is sticking out into the yard, a barrier I can’t see around, and I curse my carelessness for leaving it like that.
The first real sign that there is someone hiding behind it is the smell of whisky fumes, strong even outside in the breeze. Then the shuffle of an unsteady gait in the gravel.
‘Duncan, is that you?’
The shepherd comes barrelling around the door, more falling than running, growling incomprehensible syllables. I restrain him and pin him face first against the wall with his hands behind his back. Although he’s a big bugger, there isn’t much resistance in him and I hold him gently so he doesn’t tear his face up on the stone.
‘Fucking kids comin’ oot here wi’ yer drugs, this is breakin’ an’ enterin’. Yer trespassin’ on private property.’ His voice is slurred, muffled.
I speak to him in the clearest voice I can summon. ‘Duncan, I’m Sean. You’ve seen me before. I’m just looking after the place for Molly. I’m going to let go of you now, mate. I promise I’m not going to hurt you. Just calm down, eh?’
I release him, and he turns around and leans heavily against the wall, his knees bent like he’s about to slide down and sit on the ground. His face is a mess of grey stubble and there is a sheen of drool on his chin. My eyes are enough to pin him there, and he makes no attempt to move.
‘Who the hell is this, Sean?’ Jack says behind me.
‘Duncan lives in the cottage up the hill,’ I say, without removing my eyes from the man’s face. A shadow crosses my mind: a memory from so long ago it’s possible I didn’t even have language to give it substance. Somewhere back in the murky ooze of my early childhood, I have met this man before.
‘He’s a bit worse for wear. Duncan, mate, why don’t you let us take you home to sleep it off, eh?’
‘Ah dinnae need ye tae tak me hame. This is ma fuckin’ hoose, and ah’m the yin lookin’ aifter it. The auld man telt me tae because he kent she wouldnae.’
‘What old man? George Finlayson?’
‘Aye. Yon wee bitch whae thinks it’s hers, she disnae ken anything. I’ll get this hoose, ye’ll see. It’s mines.’
‘Alright, Duncan. Molly asked me to pop up from time to time just to make sure everything is okay. Do you understand?’
He narrows his eyes and considers this, obviously working out whether I’m trying to trick him. Then he raises a finger and pokes it toward me.
‘Whit’s yer name?’
‘I told you, I’m Sean. Sean McNicol.’
His eyes widen. ‘Ah ken you.’
‘So you’ve said. You’ve seen me here before.’
‘Naw, I ken you fae . . . fae before. I ken yer ma’
‘No you don’t, Duncan,’ I hear myself saying but even as I do I feel the blood rushing to my face. I feel a tic in my cheek and press my fingers over it.
‘Aye, I dae. Diana McNicol. I ken her. And I met ye . . . yince or twice. Yer . . . her . . . yer . . . the wee laddie she . . .’ He’s trying his damndest to focus on me. ‘Ask her. She’ll mind me.’ He laughs. ‘Aye, she’ll mind me awright.’
I take a deep breath and let it out slowly. It shakes. ‘I’m afraid she won’t. She’s dead. How’d you know her, Duncan?’
He’s staring at me with a mixture of malevolence and curiosity. He’ll be seeing the same thing I’m seeing, if he’s coherent enough to notice it. The fumes coming off him make my eyes water.
‘Duncan, how did you know Diana McNicol?’
‘Dinnae ken where I met her. In a pub, maist like. Aye . . . it wis . . . the Scotsman bar up the toon. It was a long time ago. Thirty-odd year. How’d she die, like?’
I clear my throat. ‘In intensive care, with tubes coming in and out of her and skin as yellow as fresh piss. That’s how she died, and that’s how you’ll die as well, if anybody bothers enough about you to take you to hospital.’ I back away from him. ‘Go on home.’
He doesn’t move. I grab him by the front of his jacket and manhandle him toward the gate. He stumbles but comes with me, nowhere near strong enough to refuse even if he wanted to. I bawl at him, ‘Get the fuck out of my sight now, or I’ll kick your sorry arse from here to Peebles!’
Duncan trips out onto the road and wobbles there, but manages to save himself from collapsing. He pauses for a moment, staring at me, then growls, ‘Ach, fuck ye,’ and hirples away, two steps forward one step back, toward the road’s end.
I stand there watching him until I’m sure he’s not going to come back, only after several minutes remembering that Jack is standing behind me.
‘What the bloody hell was that all about?’ he asks when I turn around.
I shake my head and walk past. ‘Nothing.’ I’ve lost the heart to go into the house now, so push the barn door shut and dust my hands on my shorts. ‘Let’s go.’ I start running, stretching my legs, desperate to be away. It feels like I could run full tilt all the way home.
Jack comes pounding up behind me. ‘Sean, what the fuck? Who was that? What was all that business about yer ma?’
‘Do you remember my mother?’
‘Once met, never forgotten.’
‘Duncan’s just another guy who fucked her in a pub toilet. Jack, just do me a favour and don’t ask, alright?’
‘Okay . . .’ his breathing is coming in sharp gasps. ‘Whatever you say. Jesus Christ man, you gonnae fucking slow doon or what?’
I stop dead, then deliver a swift kick to the stone wall at the side of the road. Pain explodes up my leg.
Jack grabs my shoulder before I can do it again. ‘You break your foot, I’m not carrying you back up this road.’ The weight of his enormous paw grounds me, and I close my eyes for a moment, my chest heaving up and down until I catch my breath. I feel calmer after a moment, but I can’t turn and look at him.
‘Don’t ask me, Jack. Okay?’
‘I willnae, I swear.’
I nod, then push myself into a jog although my body is starting to feel cold and stiff. The run home feels longer than normal and neither of us says much. My foot aches every time it meets the ground and I force my mind to focus on the pain so it doesn’t keep turning over a set of highly unpleasant possibilities. It’s getting dark by the time we pass the field behind my house, and I can see our kitchen light on.
Jack pauses outside my door, looking weary and cautious. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow, yeah?’
‘Yeah. Listen . . . that carry on back there . . . don’t mention it to anyone, right? I’ll tell you what it’s about sometime, if I figure it out myself.’
‘Sure. Dinnae worry, Sean, Ah’m no yin for gossip.’
He jogs off and I do some stretches, then go into the house. Janet’s in the living room watching Place in the Sun with her tea on her lap. I poke my head in, and she sets down her glass of wine on the coffee table and looks up.
‘Hi
. You alright?’
I open my mouth to say yes, but nothing comes out.
I can see her face fall at the prospect of one my tantrums. ‘What’s up?’ Her teeth are purple from the wine.
Whether she knows anything or not, or whether she’ll be willing to impart any broken shards of memory or understanding, I can’t face her purple teeth. I swallow hard and back away. ‘Nothing.’
‘Sean!’
I’m already halfway up the stairs. ‘I’m having a shower.’
In the shower I turn my face full into the water and stand there, wishing the spray could get into my head and clear it of memory. I wish brains had delete buttons. I wish I could rewrite myself as a braver person. I get out of the shower only when the steam becomes so thick it’s hard to breathe and I dry off, go into my room and pull on a pair of trackies. I search the crumpled pile at the bottom of the wardrobe for a t-shirt and pull out an old green one with the word COMMANDO in plain black letters across the shoulders and the dagger below it. I don’t like wearing it anymore. I wish when they’d given me that label they’d taken away the part of my brain that had a conscience.
I lean on the windowsill and stare out at the street. There is no movement except a black and white cat on night patrol. The moon is bright above the field, with Jupiter and Venus in line beneath it. I open the window and suck in a deep breath; the air smells of manure and the sea.
‘Mitch?’ I say aloud. ‘What do I do, mate?’
He doesn’t reply. I close the window, sit on my bed and stare at the photograph of the two of us that I keep on my bedside table. We’re sitting outside our tent in the shade of a scrubby little tree, our faces brown as old leather shoes, and his hair catches the sun like ripe wheat. He’s got his guitar on his lap: a little narrow bodied Gibson he bought off an American at Bastion. He used to sit there and pick out melodies or sing softly to himself, hillbilly songs in his lyrical Welsh tenor. The minute he started playing, we’d all stop whatever we were doing and gather around him and listen.
I have his guitar in my wardrobe. Somehow it ended up among my possessions when we were both shipped home, and I haven’t had the balls to bring it back to his parents. I remove the case from behind a pile of clothes and set it on the bed, sit with the instrument on my lap. I finger a G, a C and a D – the only chords he ever taught me. They sound dull and unmusical. The strings are choked with Afghan dust.
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