Farewell Tour of a Terminal Optimist

by John Young

  It starts to sleet so we nip into a café with free WiFi behind Costco to check bus routes and prison rules. I would have just turned up and banged on the prison doors, but Skeates knows the score. I pull out my phone and he goes to buy me a bottle of water and himself a black coffee. He grabs a seat and snatches my phone out of my hand. He googles the prison, reads the bumph and turns to me.

  “What day is it?”

  “Saturday,” I tell him.

  “So we have five days to get there.”

  “Five days? Can we not just catch a train to Glasgow now?”

  “Look, the prison rules say that children have to arrange a visit by phone and visiting times are only on certain days.” He points to the screen.

  “Normally the inmates make the arrangements and tell visitors the date and time. But we can’t get in touch with your dad.” He looks to me, “Can we?”

  I shake my head.

  “So we have to phone the prison and book a day.”

  “What days can we visit?”

  “Thursday and Friday if we book, and Saturday and Sunday with special permission. We’ve missed our chance this week, so let’s aim for Thursday.”

  Shit! My optimistic assessment of no drugs was based on us being away for a couple of days at the most, not a week.

  “What’s the difference between booking and special permission?” I ask him, hoping that ‘special permission’ encompasses our situation.

  “No idea, maybe we have to have special reasons to visit on a Saturday or Sunday, like our ears have been eaten by aliens or something,” he snaps.

  “Alright, alright, I was just asking. Go on, give them a ring and book us in for Thursday.”

  Skeates takes out his mobile. It’s a big old Nokia – none of this fancy smartphone nonsense. “Where’s the dial? Do you need to call the operator to get a line?”

  “It works, and do I look like the sort of loser who needs a phone to play games?” he says. He dials the number. “Auto answer system. Press one for murderers, two for grave robbers, three for crimes against good taste. Ah four, prison visits.” He presses the four on his phone and puts it back to his ear.

  I grin at him. “You’re radge, man.”

  He smiles and nods his head, agreeing with my psychological profiling. He sits up, indicating that the music is off and a real person is on the other end.

  Suddenly, I’m both terrified and thrilled about the prospect of visiting my dad. This call is the first proper step on the journey – it makes it feel real and possible, yet so far in the distance that I can barely get a grip on it. The enormity of the prospect begins to dawn on me. Nine years since I’ve seen my dad. Nine years of being prevented from going, being told that I can’t see him until he is released. Nine years of being kept in the dark about what he did to deserve to be locked up for so long. Nine years of punishing me, too! They don’t think about the effect absent fathers have on children when they lock them up.

  And, why wouldn’t they tell me? Not knowing magnifies the billion doubts pestering the back of my head: maybe I’ll hate him, perhaps his crime is so disturbing that I’ll despise him, maybe the polis will lift us before we make it to Shotts anyway. And shit, my meds. What if I collapse like before?

  Nope. I swallow hard to dispel the doubts; it’s only five days and I can manage, even if I feel crappy at the end. I can make up for it later. I’m on such an upper with the mere possibility of seeing my dad that all this negativity feels irrelevant. My thoughts are interrupted as Skeates starts havering.

  “Yeah, I want to make arrangements to visit my mate,” says Skeates into his mobile. “His name?” He puts his hand over the phone and raises his eyebrows at me.

  “Angus Lambert. Angus, his name is Angus.” I had to think about the name and I stumble over it. I can’t remember if I’ve ever said it aloud. I worry that my hesitation will jeopardise the chance of us getting to see him.

  “Angus Lambert, aye.” Skeates nods his head as if the person on the other end can see him. “My name? Eh… Connor.”

  I raise my hands and whisper loudly, “Not the real names, the polis will be waiting for us!”

  He looks distracted for a second. “Connor Skeates,” he mumbles. “Eh yeah, we’ll bring ID.”

  This is nuts, I think, but before I can work out his logic at mixing our names up he’s asking more questions.

  “My address?” Skeates looks to me for inspiration. Getting none he gives the address of Dachaigh House, says bye and hangs up.

  “Connor Skeates? You numpty! And where are we going to get ID for that name?”

  “We’ll use our own! Connor and Skeates will be there,” he says, all happy with himself. “We can argue that they made a mistake or that the line must have been bad. Do you still have your ID from Dachaigh House?”

  I nod and check anyway, unconvinced by his plan. Although I can’t think of anything better to have said.

  “What do we do until Thursday? We’ll be found.” Thursday feels like a century away with the polis and Trolls waiting behind every bush.

  “So we’ll keep moving. We have a few days to kill – time to go camping and party. Cheer up, I haven’t had a holiday for years.” He thumps me playfully on my arm and knocks me off my seat. “Oops.”

  The cafe owner gives me a dirty look as I swear at Skeates.

  “Camping?” I ask as I gather myself off the floor.

  He ignores my sceptical face and returns to the phone to search for a likely route to Shotts. “Look,” he points to the screen. “We have five nights and two-hundred-odd miles. Split the route up: Inverness, Perth, Glasgow, Shotts. What do you say?”

  I shrug, what choice have I got?

  “Cheer up, Conman, we’re going on a holiday to see your da!”

  I grin, and accept whatever’s coming my way. I can’t remember the last time I felt this excited. Or this terrified.

  He sees my worry, grins and eggs me on, “Come on, Conman, we’re outlaws, get with it!”

  ***

  We wander back to the port bus terminus, kicking stones all the way. Skeates picks one up as we approach a guy wearing a bus-driver’s uniform, sitting on the sea wall opposite the Inverness bus.

  “Hey man, what time do you leave?” Skeates asks him.

  “Four o’clock – in about fifteen minutes. Hop aboard, boys, I’ll get your tickets in a mo.”

  The door is open and I walk on first and grab the back seats. I park myself with my feet across the row and my back against the window. Skeates stands over me and tosses his stone in the air. He looks at my boots, one sole much thicker than the other.

  “What now, Taytie?” he says.

  “Stop calling me that!” I shout at him and sit up straight.

  “What, Taytie?”

  That really riles me. More so than ever before, because he’s deliberately winding me up, just as I’m starting to think we’re friends. My trust in him had just been settling – and here he goes shattering that illusion. It really gets to me, in fact, so I jump up and give him a right crack in the temple. “I told you to stop calling me that!”

  “Shit, Connor,” he shouts. Despite his surprise at my turn of speed, he has me pinned to the floor of the bus in a nanosecond. I don’t care; I kick and scream. “Temper temper, Connor.” He holds me so heavily I have no way of pulling free, so I squirm and wait for him to hit me.

  Instead, he apologises, slow and deliberate. “Sorry, Connor, I’ll cut out the ‘Taytie’, OK?”

  I stare at him.

  “I’m letting you up, Connor. OK?”

  I nod. He releases me and hops onto the back seat, mirroring where I sat earlier, feet straight out along the bench. I return to where I was before, our shoes nearly touching in the middle.

  “Look, Connor. I was just checking to make sure I read things right. I thought you were pissed at me back on Lewis. I only called you Taytie to wind you up before going into Slots-o-Fun, to get you angry so you could help with the raid. I didn’
t mean nothing by it.”

  I nearly fall off my seat. “You what?”

  “Look, I’m sorry. I promise, no more Taytie.”

  I just gape at him.

  “I’ll think of something that suits you. Unless you really piss me off!”

  He laughs, I don’t.

  “Seriously though, I mean it, Connor.”

  I’m not sure what to say, so I don’t say anything. I’m too busy worrying about what I’m doing here with this psycho.

  He carries on, “Do you remember that first day at school, when you turned up in our classroom and the others ribbed you about your bald head?”

  I nod. I’ll never forget that day. First day at high school, not long after chemo, skinny, bald and frightened.

  “I was trying to be friendly and you hit me. What was that about?”

  “You were only nice to me because I was ill and limping. You only wanted to talk to the cancer. I knew who you were and I wasn’t going to take pity from anyone. If I was a regular kid you wouldn’t have singled me out, would you?”

  “Well, no. I saw you, you were ill and looking pathetic so…”

  “So you said something like, ‘Because you’re a limping idiot, I won’t give you a hard time.’”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “Maybe not, but that’s what you meant.”

  “No, Connor, that was the way you interpreted it.”

  I shrug, worrying that he may be right. I was going through a big change in my life back then. Once I understood what cancer could mean for me I didn’t want people to notice – I stopped studying in case the amount of school I missed affected my grades, started fights with anyone who pitied me. Secondary school wasn’t really the best place to test these new personality traits out.

  “You’re a numpty.”

  “No!” I shout. “Don’t befriend my cancer – no one does that. It is the worst thing anyone can do.”

  Skeates holds his hands up in mock surrender. “OK, OK, Connor. I meant nothing by it. I just got it wrong.” He laughs. “I wanted to help. No more goodie two-shoes!”

  I don’t acknowledge him and hang my head.

  The bus is now half full and the driver wanders down to collect tickets. “What’s with you two? Fallen out already? Where you heading?”

  “Inverness,” says Skeates.

  “Eighteen forty, please.”

  “Eighteen quid? We aren’t buying the bloody bus.”

  “I don’t make the rules. Eighteen forty.”

  Skeates hands over the cash, takes the change and the driver makes his way back down the bus.

  “Connor, you never stayed down, did you?” Skeates continues from where we left off. “I kept asking you to stay down. I had nothing against you, but I had to save face. I couldn’t let you get the better of me, ever! And you had to keep trying to get one over on me.”

  Inside I feel chuffed that he noticed my efforts. He never showed it before. But I’m angry that he expected me or anyone else to give in to him.

  “Why should I stay down? Eh?” He looks surprised at this. “It’s called bullying, what you did! It’s weak and stupid.” I slump back against the window. “I only retaliated, I never started anything.”

  “Never started anything?” Skeates guffaws. “You give a dead-bird sandwich to all your pals?”

  I can’t help but smile at that one. “Still, you always went overboard with the thumps.”

  “I never hit you hard, though,” he says seriously, and chucks the stone at me. I sneer at him and catch the stone. “If I had hit you proper, you wouldn’t have got up again.”

  “Properly,” I say and chuck the stone back.

  “What?” he catches it.

  “‘If you had hit me properly.’”

  “Piss off, you my English teacher now?”

  He laughs and I laugh too, glad that the tension has eased. The bus starts off, wending its way along the narrow roads to Inverness.

  “Do you miss not doing things?” Skeates flings the stone.

  “What do you mean?” I barely catch it.

  “With being ill, do you miss things, like, I don’t know, riding bikes and stuff?”

  “Never ridden a bike so never missed it.” I sling the stone hard. “What about you? There must be plenty of things you wanted to do but couldn’t with your parents not around.”

  Skeates catches the stone with ease. “Connor, you nearly took my ear off! I guess I’d like to try climbing or skiing, stuff like that,” he says and flings the stone at my head.

  I duck and crash to the floor. I can hear him laughing. We get some dirty looks from the other passengers, so I leave the stone where it is.

  “Bastart.” I laugh as I climb back onto the seat. “Skiing seems like fun. I don’t love heights, so climbing isn’t on my list. You should join the army.”

  He laughs. “Me in the army? Are you nuts?”

  “Not really – psychos with anger management issues might be useful in a combat situation.”

  “Piss off,” he says. “So what shall we do when we get to Inverness?”

  “The funny thing is, I’ve been to Inverness so many times but never really seen it, because the hospital is a bit out of the centre.” I’m not used to being asked what to do by someone like Skeates, so I seize my chance with as much confidence as I can muster. “So let’s take a look about, see a film and grab a pizza.”

  “Hasta la pizza, baby!”

  Chapter 13

  Escape From Pizzatraz

  The hour or so journey from Ullapool to Inverness is easy chat and laughs. Skeates clowns about like a kid OD-ing on gummy bears all the way. The driver plays a CD of Scottish bands and we sing along to Paolo Nutini, Primal Scream and even dance around the back of the coach to Franz Ferdinand. The atmosphere, created by a happy cocktail of music, adventure, an upcoming family reunion and a new and increasingly understanding friend, add to my unrealistic assessment of my health.

  I feel better again, despite having no medication. That’s the sinister thing about cancer: it hides and tricks you. Even though I know this fact, I’m a gullible optimist and I take the good feeling as a clear sign that I’m well. Mum used to say that optimism is the religion of the stupid. I don’t know what she thinks pessimism is, but she’s a high priestess of that.

  We shuffle off the bus into the dark evening and stamp our feet to keep warm.

  “It’s bloody baltic, what time is it?” I ask in a hoarse whisper.

  “It’s about six p.m.” Skeates grins.

  I worry about why he looks so chipper. “What is it?”

  “You can’t be cold in that dress,” Skeates laughs, pointing at Gumbo’s sweater.

  I swing my arms about, making the big white sweater flop around me.

  “You look like that film star,” says Skeates.

  “Who, Tom Hardy?”

  “Naw, Marilyn Monroe,” he says and laughs at my woolly jumper. I don’t care, I’m glad of it. “That’s what I’m going to call you, Marilyn.”

  “Piss off!” I say.

  He ignores me. “Now, let’s go and see what Inverness has to offer on a dreich Saturday night.”

  As it turns out, Inverness has little else to offer us, at this time of day and this time of year, but the cinema. “Tarantino here we come, Connor. That’ll fill a few hours until dinner.”

  “That’s an over-eighteen, Skeates. We’re fifteen and I look, like, twelve.”

  Skeates sighs. “Over-eighteen for tickets. Outlaws don’t need tickets. Anyway, kids go free – especially us two.”

  I look at him quizzically.

  “Out of anyone in Scotland, us two are the freest of the lot of them. Isn’t that right?’

  It’s hard to fault him, so I don’t try. Instead I push my way through the swing doors and into the cinema.

  The Inverness cinema is a big multi-screen job with one person collecting tickets for all the films. While I stare at the popcorn, Skeates roots about in a bin and pick
s out two old ticket stubs. I don’t ask questions and follow behind him like a lame sheep in my woolly jumper. There’s a row of wheelchairs behind the ticket booth and he grabs one and shoves me in it.

  “Act stupid, OK?”

  “Stupid?” I ask, irritated at the implication.

  “Don’t say anything and smile.”

  I sit and he pushes me up towards the ticket guy. I can’t believe that Skeates is about to play to the prejudices of a normal bloke: Don’t look at the disabled guy. You might catch something, or worse, say the wrong thing.

  Skeates holds up the old stubs. “I had to take my mate Marilyn, here,” he nods to me, “to the bog.”

  “There’s one in there,” he says and points down the corridor towards the screens.

  “He needed the disabled toilet. There wasn’t one down there.”

  “Yeah, there is.”

  “Well, put up some larger signs,” says Skeates.

  Ticket Guy sees me in the chair without actually looking at me, so I let out a low grunt and fart. He reddens and nods us through. I can feel the wheelchair shaking with Skeates’s snickering.

  “What are you like, Connor? Farting! You’re a minger! I nearly gave the game up with your antics.”

  He pushes me to Screen Three for a blood-and-guts fest. We dump the wheelchair at the entrance and he goes directly for the gold-class seats in the middle. The place is nearly full and we’re lucky that there are a few seats left. Skeates starts to piss about.

  “Turn the lights on,” he squeaks. “Turn the lights on!” He puts this high-pitched wee bairn’s voice on. “I’m scared!”

  The woman in front of us giggles and her boyfriend grumbles.

  “What?” Skeates snaps back at the bloke and I laugh with his girlfriend. The film starts and we settle down.

  ***

  “That was awesome,” Skeates says as we leave.

  We talk in overexcited voices about all the action, and the boy at the gate gives us a filthy look as we walk out without the wheelchair. He looks away as Skeates hard-stares him back.

  “Now what?” I ask.

  “We’ve a few hours to kill before the hotel opens. You hungry?”