Davie stood on his own by the grave, while everyone else wandered back to the cars. The hems of his trousers dragged in the fresh earth.
What can I do? What can I do to make it up to you?
I know it's shite compared to what I should have done, but I'll finish those books for you. I'll come out here and read them to you, so you know what happens at the end. I promise you'll get to know what happens. I know it's stupid, but it's all I can think to give you right now.
It's hard to concentrate but I'm determined to do it. So much has happened to me since I made that promise. The world keeps on turning even though he's gone. It's hard for me to keep up. I want to stay with him, so I'm always running behind everyone else. The birds are singing and my face is aching and in the back of my head I'm thinking about what comes next? What comes next? What comes next? It's all a distraction. I try to shut it out, focus on the words on the page. Why can't I shut out those birds, the way I can shut out the in-store radio at work?
A nightingale knows over three hundred love songs, that's more than Frank Sinatra and Edith Piaf put together. I love that I don't understand what Edith Piaf is singing about. It would spoil it if you translated the words into English, huh? The beauty's in the mystery, in the way the words sound.
I think that fucker broke my tooth, I can't stop playing with it. Pushing my tongue into the crack and wobbling it from side to side, side to side, side to side.
He ran his tongue over her teeth feeling for the gap, and his cock stiffened.
Focus, Davie, focus. One finger, one thumb, one finger, one thumb. Jamesy vibrates against me, like he's breathing. In. Out. In. Out. In. Out. In. Out. It's comforting. He comforts me.
Davie woke in the night with a start. It was one of those dreams where you're falling, and then suddenly you wake up on your bed feeling like you've just fallen from a height. His eyes opened at the same time as he sucked in a mouthful of air. He had to sit up and suck, suck, suck, just to keep his lungs working. He needed to get out of the house. Had to do something. He'd got so desperate recently he'd tried all sorts of things. Things to comfort and forget. Alcohol, drugs, counselling, casual sex. What was left? Religion?
Davie hadn't prayed since he'd been in Primary School and they made them say The Lord's Prayer in assembly. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, he still knew it word for word. Davie didn't know if he believed in God, if he believed in anything, but he had to do something. He was willing to try anything to find some comfort.
Keep the faith.
He got dressed and left the house, walked to where he knew the nearest church was. He didn't even know if it was the right church for him, what religion was he? Did it matter? They didn't discriminate, or they shouldn't anyway. A church was a church. He tried the front door but it was locked. He kept walking until he found another. It was locked too. So was the next one. And the next. Locked. Locked. Locked. Locked. Locked. Locked.
For fuck sake, he thought churches were always open, he banged his fist on the church door, is this how bad it had got? Broken, fucking Britain.
Davie kept walking, tried three more churches before he found one that was open.
Thank God, he said as he pulled open the door. It was only when he stepped inside that he noticed the panel of buzzers, names taped underneath each one, assigned to a number. This church wasn't a church anymore, but a block of flats. He slammed the door behind him as he left.
Religious songs.
I keep reading. Read, read read, read, read. I don't take any of it in, I'm reading aloud but I've no idea what's happening in the story anymore. I don't know who any of the characters are, or who's dead and who's alive. I just need to do this for him. Finish it.
I don't know what time it is. Early, I think. It's light. The birds are still singing. Maybe it's the dawn chorus? Do you get that in a city?
Read, read, read, read, read, read, read, read.
There's mist in the air, the har from the sea. Dew sparkles on the spider webs linking the trees and the bushes and the headstones together. I never even noticed any spiders, and yet look at all the fucking webs. When did they do that? All that hard work, every night spent spinning webs, only for them all to be destroyed in the morning.
Did Mum and Dad think that? All that hard work they put into Lewey. The son who had the most chance of being somebody, gone. All gone.
It's just such a waste.
'Lewey, why did you do it? You were the nice one, the clever one, the good one. Much better than me.'
I place my hand on his headstone and trace his name with my finger.
Jamesy is waiting for me to finish. Waiting for me to get to the end of the book. It's the end of the world as we know it (And I feel fine).
It's dumb but I'm scared to finish this fucking book. For months and months this promise has been keeping Lewey alive for me. As I finish each paragraph, turn each page, I feel like he's slipping away from me. It's not just the end of the book, but the end of Lewey too. Promise fulfilled. Obligation over. I slow down my reading. I'm not taking anything in. It's just words. One word followed by another word followed by another word followed by another. They don't join up for me. I'm just getting through them, one at a time.
You've got to take each day as it comes, don't think too far ahead. You'll have good days and you'll have bad days. Eventually you'll have more good than bad.
The traffic is getting louder. It must be getting close to rush hour. How long have I been here? It feels like days, but it also feels like no time at all. I'm on the final chapter now. Word after word after word after word, pages turn and turn and turn and turn, and then I'm there. The end.
I'm finished. I close the book.
'The end, Lewey, it's finished. Was it worth the wait? I hope so.'
Davie, you have to read this book I got from the library. It's brilliant.
What's it about?
It's about this boy, right? And he has a really horrible life, and then one day he discovers he's a wizard and everything gets better.
It would have got better, Lewey. If you'd only fucking held on, it would have got better. I place the book on the ground in front of Lewey's headstone. He'd like that better than flowers, and it's not going to wither and die, end up as mulch at the bottom of some bin.
It's all a bit of an anticlimax. I thought there'd be some kind of sign. I hoped there'd be a sign. Deep, deep down, I hoped I'd see Lewis. Or maybe just hear his voice. Some kind of final contact. A breath on the back of my neck, a voice just behind me, a glimpse out of the corner of my eye. Something to let me know he heard me and he forgives me now.
Nothing. Even the birds are quiet. All I can hear is the hum of traffic and the branches of the trees creaking. That's it. Nothing else. I can't even pretend to feel something else.
'See you later, heartbreaker,' I pat Lewey's headstone.
When you were a baby, everyone kept saying you would grow up to be a heartbreaker.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Nothing.
'I might not be back to see you for a while. I'm going to go and be the Trackman, see if I can do a bit of good, eh? You'd like Jamesy, you'd understand what we're doing. We can help more people if we're out and about. There's so many people out there, Lewey, people who are sad inside. Like you were.
'All Jamesy and I do is stop and concentrate on them for the length of a song. That's all they need, someone to spend a few minutes with. Be on the end of an unselfish act. There's so much shite going on, I can feel it. When bad stuff happens in the news, like soldiers getting killed in Afghanistan, I can feel it around me. This sinking feeling, more people in need of us. In need of the Trackman. Jamesy and I are trying to fight that sinking feeling. It's hard because there's so much bad stuff going on, but the more we do it, the more we can try to fight back. Fight back the misery. I'm not explaining myself very well, you were always better at the words, eh?'
I'm not afraid to die, I'm afraid of staying alive.
'I've been looking for something for so long, some kind of comfort, and I've got that with Jamesy. Someone to follow, someone to lead me through. Anyway, I'll get going. I miss you, Lewey, see you later, heartbreaker.'
I pick up my bag and head out of the cemetery. I turn quickly at the gate, spin round so I'm facing his headstone again. Hopeful that I might catch a glimpse of him watching me as I leave.
Davie used to believe his toys came alive when he left his bedroom. He'd try to catch them at it. I'm going downstairs, or to the garden, he'd say in a loud voice, trying to fool them. Then he'd stamp along the corridor and down the stairs, before sneaking back on his tiptoes. He'd hold his breath and listen at the door, before flinging it wide open. He never caught the toys.
Lewis isn't there. I can't see him, can't hear him. He'll never grow up, he'll always be stuck as that twelve-year-old kid.
Only the good die young. Don't give me that cliché; that's bullshit.
All I can see is the book lying there. A flash of colour against the grey headstone.
Right, where to, Jamesy? I'm all yours now.
Someone has drawn chalk arrows on the pavement below my feet. Some kid, or someone organising a treasure hunt?
They seem as good a way as any, eh?
Fuck, I can't be arsed carrying this bag. I don't even need it anyway. Aye, I'm just going to leave it.
I put my bag down, then follow the chalk arrows. Head down. Go in the direction they're pointing.
24
The End
It was only when he shut the fridge door that he noticed: something different about that corner of the kitchen.
Davie dropped the orange juice.
I FOLLOW THE CHALK arrows until they disappear. I don't know where it was they ran out. Maybe I took a wrong turn? I just keep walking. Eyes ahead.
One foot after the other.
One foot after the other.
Left, right, left, right, left, right, left, right, left, right.
One finger, one thumb, one arm, one leg.
I didn't realise how small Edinburgh was. My whole life, I've hardly been out of the city, always lived near the centre of it. Busy streets. Folk everywhere. Buildings and cars and people.
But it only takes a couple of hours of walking and we're out of the city. Me and Jamesy, the long straight of Queensferry Road, past Cramond, then the footpath along the side of the A90.
I can't believe how small the city is, eh? I didn't realise I could just get up and walk right out of it.
Where to, Jamesy? Keep going until we find someone to play to?
One foot after the other.
One foot after the other.
One arm, one leg.
The Forth Road Bridge looms up in the distance, like a dinosaur.
We're not going to find anyone out here, Jamesy.
I've no idea what time it is, my watch has stopped, but I can tell by the sky that it's getting on. People come out here to stroll during the day, not when it's getting late. Should we head down into South Queensferry? No, okay then, keep going forward.
Grey pavement turns into the green footpath of the bridge. I can hardly hear what Jamesy is saying, the noise of the traffic is so loud out here. There's never a break; it's a constant flow of cars and vans and lorries and motorbikes going in both directions.
I've never noticed it in the car before, but out here walking you can tell it's a suspension bridge. The ground below me starts to vibrate and I know I've left solid pavement behind.
There's an up and down, up and down bounce to the bridge. It's worse when the big lorries go past.
One finger, one thumb, one arm, one leg, one nod of the head.
I run my hand along the railing as I walk, a banister for support.
A metal sign for The Samaritans hums against the railing where it's attached with plastic clips.
How many people come out here to jump?
Does the sign stop them? Saved by the knowledge that someone is out here saying, wait, you're not alone, we can help.
Is this why you brought me out here?
Do you want me to put up a sign?
Remember our catchphrase?
It looks like a Caramac bar.
You don't choose, you just listen. Don't jump! Call Jamesy and the Trackman on...Bit hard seeing as we don't have a phone anymore. We could spend our days patrolling backwards and forwards across the bridge, some kind of borderline guard.
I don't know if this is going to work, Jamesy, the sway of the bridge is already making me queasy. I don't think I've got the stomach for it.
Back.
Forth.
Back.
Forth.
Firth of Forth.
I stop walking and look down. The water is dark and mottled on top like the inside of a steel drum. It makes me dizzy and my glasses slip; I just manage to grab them before they slide off the end of my nose.
I can hardly see anything below the waterline, just the occasional black lump of seaweed or a floating jellyfish.
I feel the bridge more, now that I've stopped walking. Up and down, up and down, up and down. Jamesy dares me to jump.
You're joking. Oh right, on the spot you mean, not off the bridge.
Jump, jump, jump: get the bounces going.
No chance, don't you realise how sick this is making me feel? If I was a kid on a wobbly-bridge in a play-park then maybe, but I'm not. I press my hand into my belly, need to stop the bouncing.
Davie didn't want to be hung-over in the morning. He'd drunk a lot and could feel the start of the hangover in his stomach. That feeling which tells you to stop drinking, that feeling you usually ignore. He needed to get some water, or better some juice, vitamin C and all that shite, that should help. He didn't bother with the kitchen light, just went straight to the fridge. His face was illuminated when he opened the door and he took out the carton and unscrewed the lid.
Davie dropped the orange juice.
There's something about being out here. Being out of the city. Can you feel it too?
I see the light from a plane overhead, flashing orange through the clouds. Descending into the airport. In the distance a train crosses the rail bridge.
People leaving Edinburgh, people arriving.
It looks so small from over here, like a caterpillar I could pick up and hold between finger and thumb.
One finger, one thumb.
It's so loud, eh? I can't even hear the train from here, the traffic drowns everything out. I want to say I can hardly hear myself think, but that's a load of shite. Out here my thoughts are becoming clearer. Things are coming out of hiding.
Want to hear a story? Alfie told me that when they built the rail bridge, one of the workies fell down the centre of one of those big support legs. Aye, they're hollow. He fell all the way down; looks like nothing from here, but it's a long, fucking way. A vertical flume with no splash pool at the bottom; he probably hit off the sides as he fell. They couldn't get him out, and they knew he'd never have survived so they just left him down there.
Urban myth? How the fuck do you know, eh? I know, Alfie likes his stories, but do you not think it's a bit creepy? It gives me a weird feeling thinking that there's some skeleton down there at the bottom. Must have been a long way down.
But the step off a kitchen chair can be a long way down too.
All around us people are leaving Edinburgh, and heading towards it. By car, by boat, by train, by plane.
Leaving on a jet plane.
People leaving Edinburgh, people arriving.
I'm going out to Australia to visit Aunt Chrissie and Uncle Mike, I don't know when I'll be back, I just need to get away from here.
At least she told him she was leaving. Davie's dad had just taken off. Moved to Glasgow to stay with that lassie he was shagging. She was fucking younger than Davie. Just a wee lassie. Davie's dad couldn't bear to stay in Edinburgh either. Davie wanted to warn the poor girl just what she was dealing with. He's started an a
ffair with you because he can't handle what's happened at home. His marriage is breaking up because he's lost a son. Don't you get that's not a healthy relationship?
It didn't matter what he said anymore though, nobody listened to him. His parents didn't listen. Couldn't listen. They were too full of grief and too distracted to notice anything, even if it was right in front of them.
I start walking again. It's a slight uphill climb towards the centre of the bridge, the dinosaur's hump back.
I look down at my feet as I walk. There are gaps in the pavement. Tiny gaps where the pavement sections are joined together. It feels like me and my folks. We're joined by a gap.
I look down as I walk, can see flashes of black water at each join. It's such a long way down. So far down.
The jump down from a kitchen chair can be enough to kill you.
There's a lot of emergency phones here, eh? One hangs from the railings every couple of metres or so.
Orange, plastic boxes, the phone caught between two words of panic.
SOS
CRISIS
Yeah, I know what it's like to make an emergency phone call. You know when.
Davie ran to the landline in the living room and dialled 999. Later when he thought about it, he couldn't work out why he hadn't just used his mobile. It had been in his pocket the whole time. It hadn't felt like him though. It had been like watching himself in a dream. His thoughts were dream thoughts: they made sense when you were asleep but not when you woke up and analysed them.
I can't remember what I said to them. The usual stuff. Why do you care anyway? Okay, if you must know I said I need an ambulance. Now. She asked me questions, and I couldn't answer half of them because the phone wouldn't stretch through to the kitchen. Then I pulled so hard the wire came out of the wall and we were cut off. But by then I heard them. The sirens, I mean. I was still holding the receiver when I answered the door, I never let go of it.
Help!
You know when John Lennon first played that song to the rest of the Beatles, they all just thought it was a nice wee pop tune. Didn't realise it was a cry for help. Even with the exclamation mark in the title. It's only if you listen to the words, eh, you realise it's in there, hiding behind the melody.
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