On his way back across the room he spoke to Catriona. ‘That’s the best I’ve ever heard you sing,’ he said. ‘I’ve been learning Gaelic pretty intensely for two years,’ she said. ‘Soon I’ll be speaking it like a native. That’s a joke, Mike. I am a native, I just didn’t have the language before. But the more I’ve learned the more I think I must have heard my grandparents speaking it when I was wee. I think I don’t know a word and then it just pops up from somewhere. They thought they weren’t speaking it in front of us but they were.’
‘Why wouldn’t they speak it in front of you?’
‘They were ashamed of it. Or, at least, they didn’t think we should have it. The future was English. My granda’s dead now, but last year I went to my granny and said to her, in Gaelic, why did you hide it from us? And when she realised how much I could speak she started crying. She said they’d thought it was for the best. Gaelic would handicap us. But now I speak nothing but Gaelic to her and she loves it. I’m learning loads from her. I’m not fluent yet, but I’m getting close.’
Mike felt a sting of jealousy that she had rescued something so deep in herself that it had barely been there. He asked her about her song and she said it was the song of a woman to her former lover. ‘She says she’ll never stop loving him even though he’s deserted her. And she sings of his beauty and her grief, and how she’ll not take another lover as long as she lives, and then, in the final verse, she apologises for not being good enough for him and – and this is the bit that breaks the heart – gives him her blessing to go with another. All in three minutes,’ she added. ‘Olivia Newton John, eat your heart out.’
He could have read much into her explanation but there was nothing to read. It was nothing to do with him. She looked happy and strong and confident. ‘It’s good to see you, Catriona,’ he said. ‘You’re looking great.’
‘And you too,’ she said. ‘And, you know, you shouldn’t be too shy over there. I was speaking to him earlier. He’s a very nice man, I think. And he’s gay.’
‘How do you know?’ he said, suddenly hopeful.
‘Because I have a track record on this, remember? And anyway, he told me. Go for it, a’ bhalaich,’ she said. She landed a kiss on his cheek and turned away to speak to someone else.
Adam was supposed to be staying the night with friends in Marchmont. They’d given him a key so that he could let himself in whenever he liked, but when Mike said he was thinking of going home Adam said he’d see him along the road. Catriona, noticing them leaving together, called out, ‘Oidhche mhath, a’ Mhicheil,’ and gave Mike a not very discreet thumbs-up. And so they went. They reached the infirmary, where their roads should have parted, and Mike said about the beating he’d received crossing the Meadows, and Adam said he would walk the long way round, and they continued down to Tollcross. They’d got on to politics, and Adam was going on about devolution, which he wholeheartedly supported. The Bill for a Scottish Assembly was making its snail-like way through Parliament, and Adam was vitriolic against those in his own party who were trying to destroy the whole project. ‘The assembly’ll no be perfect,’ he said, ‘but it’ll be better than nothing.’ ‘Aye, it will.’ ‘And better than the shite we put up wi in Westminster.’ ‘Aye, it will.’ ‘And once we hae it they’ll never be able tae take it away.’ ‘No, they won’t. Are you coming in for a coffee?’ ‘Aye, and another thing is …’ ‘Adam?’ ‘What?’ ‘Shut up, would you?’ And they went into the close, and up the stair, and somewhere between the street and the flat their hands clasped and Adam said, ‘Actually, forget aboot the coffee.’ And in the morning he had to take his borrowed key back to his friends and shamefacedly – or so Mike likes to imagine when he thinks about it – let himself in just as they were sitting down for breakfast.
§
Adam was a busy man, steeped in politics. He’d been an official in the health workers’ union before he was elected as district councillor for Borlanslogie, and he was a key figure in his local Labour Party branch. Still, he managed to come through to Edinburgh often after that first night. Most Saturdays he’d arrive in the late afternoon, and they’d eat in or go out for a drink or to a party, and on Sunday buy the papers and spend the morning in bed reading them, with bacon rolls and mug after mug of tea, and make love with sunlight invading the room and Joan Armatrading playing on the cassette player. Or they’d drag themselves out of the flat and go to the National Gallery or an early feature at the Cameo, or just for a walk round the city. Precious times. Mike still thinks of them with fondness.
But there was a problem. Probably it was there from the start, in the way Adam framed his questions in that slightly condescending manner that first night at Jean’s. And probably Mike saw it but chose to ignore it, because there was something comforting in the rough paternalism. Adam was eleven years older and never disguised his greater experience of life. He seemed to know about everything – in particular everything concerning the history, music, art and literature of Scotland that Mike’s education had entirely omitted. Mike was embarrassed at how little he knew.
‘I have some catching up to do,’ he said.
‘Aye, well, we all hae tae start somewhere.’
‘But I’m so ignorant.’
‘So was I once. Ellen, she was a demon for finding things oot when we were bairns. Gavin and me, we just wanted tae be ootside, playing football or whatever, but Ellen was aye reading. I thought she was stupid but we were the stupid ones. I was aboot fifteen before I saw that, and from then on it was me and Ellen, baith o us wi oor noses in books, and Gavin was ootside on his ain. It took me years but I eventually caught up wi Ellen. Ye could dae it if ye applied yersel.’
‘What, catch up with you?’
‘Aye.’ And they both laughed, because neither of them believed it.
‘That’s when Gavin and I began tae go oor ain ways, when we were that age,’ Adam said. ‘I kent I was gay, though we didna call it that then, and he kent it tae, and for a lang time he couldna reconcile himself tae the fact that we were twins yet there was this fundamental difference between us. But we’re fine noo. He’s all right, ye ken, he’s my brother.’
‘What does he do?’
‘He’s a lecturer in Politics at the university here. Ironic, eh? He ended up studying mair books than I ever did. Disna sound like himsel ony mair but we still get on. Ye’ll meet him sometime.’
‘You said you knew you were gay?’
‘Aye, of course I did. Kent it as soon as I kent onything aboot sex. No that I said anything tae onybody, forbye Gavin, and later Ellen. It wasna easy in a place like Borlanslogie but there were others tae, ye just had tae ken where tae look. How tae look.’
‘So when did you first have sex?’
‘Aboot then. Aye, I would hae been fifteen. We did it in the moonlight, up on the bings. A man would go oot for a smoke at night, just say tae his wife he was away for a walk, and ye’d meet up there. There was nae hairm in it. It was harder for them, though. They had tae be mairrit. And they loved their faimlies, maist o them, same as onybody. But they wanted this other thing, and sae did I.’
‘I didn’t know about myself,’ Mike said. ‘Not for ages.’
‘Ach.’ Adam shook his head. ‘What a waste o time. Ye were brought up tae believe ye should like lassies, that’s all. Nae wonder ye were confused. They wanted tae confuse us. Dae ye think your average straight person wastes a lot o time wondering aboot what way they are? They just get on wi it. And sae did I.’
‘Well, I didn’t,’ Mike said. ‘And look. Everything comes to he who waits.’
‘Bollocks. Suffer on earth and ye’ll get your reward in heaven? To hell wi that! Anyway, how could ye no hae kent, gaun tae that school ye were at? There must have been plenty opportunity.’
‘It wasn’t like that.’
‘I bet it was, if ye’d looked.’
§
Eric had proposed to Moira, and she had accepted, the same night that Mike and Adam got together. For a whole year the Tollcross flat humm
ed with contentment. Eric and Adam had little in common but they tolerated each other when they met. Two things they did share were self-confidence and a reality-defying faith in Scotland’s footballing prowess, but in this they were not alone, especially not then. It was 1978, the summer of the World Cup in Argentina. Whatever differences might have divided them, Eric and Adam were united in their conviction that Scotland was going to win the competition.
It’s easy, Mike knows, looking back, to see Argentina 1978 as the surreal rehearsal to the political events of 1979. Even Karl Marx might have struggled to determine which was the tragedy and which the farce. Would the outcome of the devolution referendum of March 1979 have been different if the national team had triumphed, or even performed with reasonable dignity and adequate skill, over those nine humid days of June 1978? Such speculation is purely academic now, and maybe there never was a connection, but both are indelibly stamped with the phrases ‘what if?’ and ‘if only’. And Mike has no interest in football! He regards it as a circus of deception, a mad and useless expenditure of emotion, physical energy and money – yet even he cannot prise the two episodes apart in memory. And even he could not – quite – avoid being caught up in the excitement.
In the end the Scottish team in Argentina exhibited very little dignity, and only occasional flashes of skill, and just one burst of brilliance as the team crashed out of the competition in the first round. First was the fire, fed by all but a sober few in the media, that blazed briefly then turned to ash against Peru; then was the ash that was pissed on by Iran; and last was the fire again, miraculously brought back to life against the Netherlands and as suddenly snuffed out. Mike carries in his head two images of that short campaign, each game of which he watched with Adam, Eric and Moira on the television in the flat in Tollcross. The first is of Archie Gemmill’s goal against the Dutch, the only time Mike truly understood the meaning of the phrase ‘the beautiful game’. The other is of the hapless manager, Ally MacLeod, with his head in his hands during the game against Iran. And they are images, one forever in motion, one forever still. No words could be more articulate.
§
On a Saturday in late June, Mike went by train to Stirling, to witness the annual SNP rally at Bannockburn. This was the day before the World Cup final – which, as if anybody cared by then, the hosts Argentina would win against the Netherlands. (Actually, some people did care, deeply. Because Scotland had beaten the Netherlands, and because the Netherlands were beaten by Argentina, it followed that Scotland, if you contorted your logic enough, were theoretical runners-up in the World Cup. There were folk desperate enough to think like that in 1978.)
For a site of national significance – the battlefield on which Scotland’s medieval independence from England was won – Bannockburn is an unspectacular place, hemmed in by housing schemes and roads. Angus had taken Mike there as a boy, but Mike had never been to the Nationalists’ rally. In the aftermath of Argentina, he thought it might yield some interesting images. All through the 1970s the event had attracted big numbers as the SNP’s popularity grew, but the tide was beginning to turn. The Nationalists’ confidence had recently taken a couple of knocks from Labour. In April, a forty-year-old lawyer, Donald Dewar, had beaten them, with relative ease, in a by-election in Glasgow. And on the last day of May they had been defeated again in Hamilton, scene of Winnie Ewing’s triumph in 1967, the one M. Lucas had been so ecstatic about. It seemed to Mike that the air at Bannockburn was failing to lift the saltires or make the lions rampant; the pipes and drums sounded thin and plaintive, and the speeches, relayed through a ropy PA system, sounded more anxious than celebratory. And was there not a touch of disdain in the way Robert the Bruce, armour-clad and mounted on his warhorse, looked down from his plinth on the bright yellows, blues and reds of the banners, on the abundance of kilts and plaids of every shade of tartan, and on the pale or sun-blotched faces of the milling crowd? Has it come to this, here, Mike imagined Bruce thinking. He took his pictures with discretion. Not everybody was happy to be photographed.
After wandering among the crowd for an hour or so, he’d had enough. He was about to leave when he found himself in front of an extraordinary but familiar figure. Wearing a kilt that hung down below one knee and was hoisted up above the other, sporting an enormous hairy sporran, a tweed jacket and a Glengarry bonnet, and supported by a shooting stick embedded in the ground at one end and in the tartan glen of his substantial rear at the other, was his old French teacher. He had aged greatly in the ten years since Mike had last seen him, but it was, without question, M. Lucas.
‘M. Lucas?’ he said. The older man looked around wildly. Mike went closer. ‘Do you remember me? You taught me at school. I’m Michael Pendreich.’
He was just a yard away, stretching a hand towards him, yet M. Lucas stared in his direction uncomprehendingly. Then his whole face brightened. He leaned forward on his stick, found the hand and grasped it. He did not let go but drew Mike closer to him.
‘M. Michel? Comment ça va? You are here? This is wonderful, merveilleux! My life, then, has not been entirely wasted.’
M. Lucas, Mike realised, was almost totally blind.
‘I’m here to take photos,’ Mike said. ‘It’s what I do for a living. I’m not a party member.’
‘Cela n’a pas d’importance!’ M. Lucas roared. ‘Who cares about membership? You are here, that’s all that matters. It’s good to hear your voice! But don’t take my photograph, s’il vous plaît!’
‘I was hoping you’d allow me.’
‘I forbid it. I hate to have my photograph taken.’
‘You resist it,’ Mike said, disappointed, but immediately sure that he would not go against a wish so vehemently expressed.
M. Lucas roared again, this time with laughter. ‘Oui, oui, I resist it. Bien sûr, what else is there to do but that!’ And he hooted and wheezed, and released Mike’s hand only once he had calmed down.
‘Now,’ he said, ‘my son Bernard is somewhere in the vicinity. He is my guide dog today. You will have noticed, mon ami, that my eyesight has not improved. You are, I regret to say, only’ – his voice took on the tone he had once used in class to tell spooky stories – ‘a shadow, a spectre. Do you see him anywhere?’
‘What does he look like?’
‘Like me,’ he said, ‘only less presentable.’
Mike could see nobody who might be Bernard. ‘I’ll wait till he comes back,’ he said.
‘Yes, I am grateful. He won’t be long. He has gone for some refreshments.’
‘Are you still at Bellcroft?’ Mike asked hesitatingly.
‘That school? Pfff! They put me out to graze three years ago. But I cannot blame them. I could barely find my way from one classroom to the next. Alors, je suis retraité. An O-A-P.’ He spelled the letters out with disgust. ‘Unfortunately there are some affairs in which resistance is useless.’
‘Your spirit,’ Mike said, ‘does not seem diminished.’
‘No, thank God. We are poor, but we are happy. The thing is to be happy. Everything is tolerable if you are happy.’
Bernard, neat in shirt and trousers and with his long black hair tied back in a ponytail, arrived bearing two ice-cream cones. He handed one to his father and M. Lucas went to work on it. A trickle of ice cream ran down his chin but when Bernard tried to wipe it off M. Lucas waved him away. ‘Plus tard, plus tard,’ he said. He introduced Mike to Bernard and they shook hands and exchanged a few pleasantries while M. Lucas was engrossed in his ice cream. Then Mike said he would have to go. He had a train to catch back to Edinburgh.
‘M. Michel,’ M. Lucas said dramatically, ‘we shall meet again. Or we shall not meet again. But you fill me with hope because you are here today. There are hard times coming, mon ami. But hard times come for a purpose. They are to be resisted. Remember that.’
‘I will,’ Mike said.
‘But then’ – he flung the last bit of his cone away and grabbed for Mike’s hand again, and when he found it claspe
d it stickily in both of his – ‘but then a time will come to accept. The time of resistance will be over, terminé! The ghosts of history will whisper in our ears, and we will go forward into the future. Oui, c’est vrai! You think I speak in strange tongues, but what I say is true. These things will come to pass.’
Mike glanced at Bernard, who nodded his head – to signify, it seemed, not that his father was to be humoured, but that he agreed with him.
‘Au revoir, M. Michel, au revoir,’ M. Lucas said. ‘Remember, until the time comes to accept, resist everything!’
The contrast between the glow of his optimism and the decrepitude of his appearance could not have been more stark. Mike retreated in confusion. He’d not gone twenty feet before another familiar voice greeted him.
‘Hello, Mike,’ Angus said.
‘Dad! What are you doing here?’
‘The same as you, I expect. Who was that you were speaking to?’
‘M. Lucas.’
‘A monsieur? Well, I have to thank you. While you were busy talking, I got some great shots. Who is he?’
‘My old French teacher from Bellcroft,’ Mike said. ‘If you’d taken more interest in my education you might have recognised him.’
Angus was oblivious to the criticism. ‘Really?’ he said. ‘You must have had interesting lessons with a guy like that in charge.’
‘You can’t use anything you’ve taken of him,’ Mike said hotly. ‘He doesn’t like being photographed.’
‘I didn’t see a sign round his neck saying “No Pictures”. Anyway, it’ll be down to the magazine editor what he uses. I’m on a commission. Scotland post-World Cup. Are we all about to commit suicide? I thought this would be a place worth coming to and I was right.’
‘Don’t use M. Lucas,’ Mike said.
‘Out of my hands,’ Angus said.
He had what he’d come for, and was leaving too. He offered Mike a lift back to the station at Stirling. The car he kept in Glasgow was parked a few streets away. They walked over to it. Angus started the engine and they moved off.
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