by Zoe Strachan
0
I pulled my knees up to my chest and felt the lumpy chaise-longue shift beneath me. Luke was hunched down by the fireplace, scrunching scraps of old newspaper together and stuffing them in the grate. He held a match to them, let the flame caress the yellowing edge of paper until it turned brown and then black. Although we’d found the shutters closed and fastened it seemed a risk and hardly likely to warm us, but I couldn’t muster the energy to care.
There’s nobody around, Richard, he said, as if I had protested. The workmen have gone home, if they were even here, and the gatehouse was all shut up. The place is ours now.
I don’t know why we came, I said.
Because it’s better than sitting at home with the curtains drawn, Luke said, and with a whoosh the flames leapt up, wrapping themselves around the old wooden coathangers he’d stacked on top and then dying as quickly as they’d flared. He sighed and began to shred more newspaper.
The post-exam vacuum of the Whitsun term had been filled with talk of Lucy, missing. And now that she was found the whole town seemed to be buzzing with the news. I’d been sick when I heard, in the gutter outside Mr Singh’s shop. He’d always seemed a benign presence when I went to buy cigarettes or a pan loaf, but he looked disappointed when he saw me doubled over and retching while Calum stood to one side, dismayed at the effect of his news.
How did you get it going, I asked Luke, staring at the blaze.
He scrambled to his feet, his shadow leaping against the wall behind him and wavering in the firelight. He was holding a tin of lighter fuel.
I looked at it, uncomprehending, and then he pulled the nozzle open again and turned in a slow circle, the lighter fuel arcing around him onto the floor. I jumped up and tried to take the can from him but he managed to twist out of my way, splashing it faster, until I grabbed his arm and tried to prise the tin from his hand. He shoved me down and the chaise screeched across the floor as I fell against it but I held on to him, toppling him over as well, until we were grappling for possession of the can. I forgot, I think, who it was I was struggling against and why, got lost in the physical sensation of the fight. We were too close and tangled up to hit or even kick each other, but I managed to lean on his arm and almost got the can off him before he ducked in and somehow yanked the nozzle open with his teeth.
It’s empty, he said, as the last of the lighter fuel seeped into the horsehair of the chaise. It’s empty now you stupid bastard.
He turned away and spat on the floor, and I gave him another shove. I was still sitting on his legs, kind of, my knees sore against the floorboards, and I wasn’t sure whether I was going to punch him while I had the chance or burst into tears.
You’re a cunt Luke, I said.
He pulled one of his arms free and for an instant I thought he was going to strike me, but he opened his palm as if to prove that it was empty and wiped his mouth instead. My breath seemed to be rasping, with the exertion and the stench of the lighter fuel. Luke was panting too, and I realised that he was looking at me and that our bodies were touching. This was the moment, my chance, to reach out and push the hair back from his face, to lean in and kiss him. He was still looking at me, waiting, as though he expected me to hit him still, and then he frowned and I saw the expression in his eyes alter, like the changing scene through the window of a train. My gaze broke and I adjusted my weight, moved my hand from where it was pinning his shoulder to the hard frame of the chaise-longue. He clambered to his feet.
Don’t you get it Richard? he said. I’ve got to do something.
I got to my feet as well, backed away from him. His fingers were black with newsprint, I noticed, as he delved into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out a small box of Bluebell matches. As he struck the match the fire in the grate seemed to surge. He held it over the chaise-longue and then dropped it, grabbed his rucksack just in time and jumped back as the lighter fuel caught. A spark must have hit the floor too, because then we both leapt out of the way, into the doorway.
I hadn’t thought it would burn like that, that the fire would slip and fizz along paint and plaster and tinder-dry wood with such ease. But it did. It burned until the chill air inside the castle thickened and warmed. We retreated along the corridor, Luke throwing open each door as he went. There’s no going back now, I thought I heard him say, but his words were swallowed by a noise like a small explosion; the end of the lighter fuel canister. We ran down the stairs and along the cool tiled passageway towards the window we’d climbed through, the one he’d smashed with a brick to get to the lock. He eased it open and stood back to let me scramble out first. I stood up and dusted the moss and grit from my hands, giving Luke space to climb through, but he didn’t follow.
Wait on me, he shouted, running from the room, his rucksack flapping on his back.
I pressed my face up to the glass, ready to go back in and get him, scared now even though the castle was screened from the nearest house by woodland. If someone did come, I didn’t want to face them alone. I could hear the crackle of flames, I thought, although it might just have been the trees shifting in the breeze. At last I heard the sound of running footsteps and Luke appeared and launched himself out through the open window. We ran over to the edge of the trees, where a rise in the ground gave us a view of the castle.
We stood there watching the window panes glint orange as though caught in the gleam of a streetlamp. The castle looked inhabited again, alive. Then came a bang, a sudden shatter, and we saw the first flame dart from an upper window, flicker and swell in the dusky air.
Look, I said, pointing to the other side of the castle, towards the terrace where we’d peered through the French doors and into the room we’d thought must have been a ballroom. The windows were glowing there too, as though all the wall sconces were lit and the candlelight was dancing in the mirrors above the mantels. Luke nodded, and I realised that he must have had more lighter fuel in his bag. We kept watching, exhilarated, and if the fire was an act of mourning I think it was for ourselves rather than Lucy. At last we heard a distant shrill of siren come to call time.
That’s it, Luke said, his voice soft. It’s over.
I felt his arm around me, his hand fleeting on my upper arm, and then we began to walk home across the fields, our clothes and hair reeking of smoke, and I knew that he was right, that we couldn’t go back now.
24
Luke wasn’t coming, Richard knew it. He’d leave Stephie a while longer then phone her and suggest that they met in a pub. That place they’d passed earlier, the one with the plate glass windows that looked like a wine bar. Somewhere clean and free from the patina of the past. She’d be disappointed; he guessed she’d been desperate for a glimpse of Luke. Richard tucked his feet up beside him, thought of sitting on the sea wall with Loren. The water here was greyer than it had been in Argyll, and instead of zigzags the waves were slipping into dully hypnotic curves. The lease on his house was due to expire at the end of September and although he expected he’d be able to renew it there was no obligation to do so. Rupe had mentioned Hamburg to him again, and Richard thought of the docks there, how he imagined the water to be greyer still. When he turned to glance along the pier again Luke was almost in front of him.
‘Hey,’ Richard said. Although he recognised Luke straight away – his slimness, his close-fitting jeans – he was unfamiliar too. A new style of jacket, not seventies any more, and his hair was different, still dishevelled but cut closer in a way that accentuated his cheekbones.
Luke grinned. ‘It’s been a while,’ he said, and with that glimpse of white teeth, the hint of dryness on his lips, that gently mocking expression when Richard looked into his eyes, with all of that he was just the same.
‘Yes.’ Richard moved along a little so that there was space for Luke to sit down. Luke patted his pockets, a gesture that seemed achingly familiar. He held the cigarette packet out to Richard, who shook his head.
‘No one smokes anymore, eh?’ Luke said, and Richard could hear the
east coast in his voice. He watched Luke lean his head back against the stone behind them, saw his Adam’s apple outlined as he inhaled. He turned away to blow out the smoke but even so Richard caught the scent of it. Luke must have noticed. ‘Changed your mind?’ he said, and dug out the packet again.
Richard shook his head again. Over in the harbour two men in overalls were working on a boat, doing something with a welding tool. Sparks sprinkled out, brilliant for a second and then fading before they hit the water below.
‘So what was it like, coming back here?’ he asked.
Luke sighed. ‘The lecture halls are the same, unless they’ve got new seats or whiteboards instead of black. The library’s the same. I’m very studious now.’ He smiled again, and Richard noticed his blue-grey eyes, the swiftness with which their mood flickered. ‘Here’s hoping it’s paid off.’
‘Is that …’
‘Yeah, that’s me done. Finished my finals. Only a few years late, eh?’
Richard nodded, thinking of all the things he’d rehearsed to say, about himself, about his successes. ‘I heard that Lucy’s parents set up a scholarship fund.’
It sounded brutal but Luke smiled, or at least Richard thought he was smiling; he’d looked away towards the men on the boat again, following the clang of their tools, their indiscernible shouts. ‘I didn’t apply.’
‘No.’
In his darkest, most paranoid moments he’d imagined Luke with Lucy on the pier, sitting exactly where they were now, or standing maybe, her drunk and pliable in Luke’s arms, full of the pills her friend had bought from him, the ones Richard had counted out and tucked up in a little brown envelope which he’d licked and sealed and handed over. It would have been easy to edge her to the brink though harder, surely, to walk away. He wondered why Luke had suggested meeting there, on the pier, but such thoughts seemed out of place in the afternoon. Even though the sun was obscured by a fine layer of cloud the sky overhead was bright. A group of tourists was standing by the harbour, listening as a guide pointed up towards the abbey and then out to sea.
Luke ground his cigarette out on the concrete. ‘Do you want to go and get a drink or something?’ he said.
Did you ever think of me, Richard wanted to ask, in all those years? ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘I’ve got to meet someone later though.’ It sounded priggish, he thought, and he hoped that Luke wouldn’t ask who he was meeting.
‘Sure,’ Luke said, getting up and stretching. His cuffs were frayed, Richard noticed.
As they walked they spoke about Calum and various lecturers who were still around, as though the movement had somehow liberated them from the initial awkwardness of their meeting. Richard mentioned his job, aware of his own faµade and sure he could detect the same reticence in Luke as well. It was as easy to recognise students as Richard supposed it always had been, although he was struck by how boring their dress sense seemed in comparison with some of he and Luke’s more outlandish peers.
‘Where do you go now?’ Richard asked, as Luke took a left off College Street and followed the narrow street down to the square by the church. They might bump into Stephie here in the touristy heart of the town, and he felt already as if he was straddling past and present.
‘Do you want to go to the Union or the Earl or somewhere, for old time’s sake?’
‘No. I think it would be unbearable.’
‘Yeah, the students are just the same. Only younger, or it seems as if they’re younger than we ever were.’
They walked until they came to a bar that Luke said wasn’t bad, one that seemed to cater more to locals than students or tourists. Richard thought about insisting on paying for the drinks but didn’t want to seem patronising.
‘So what did you do, afterwards?’ he said, once they were sitting at a table made from an old Singer sewing machine. It was early to be drinking and he’d been unable to eat at lunchtime. He felt the effect of the first few mouthfuls like a friendly tug on his arm, a promise.
Luke understood what he was asking straight away. ‘Went back with Dan. Do you remember him?’
Richard nodded.
‘Yeah,’ Luke said, turning his glass in his hands. ‘It wasn’t the best decision I’ve ever made.’ His lip curled upwards into a half-smile.
‘No?’
Luke let out a harsh bark of laughter. ‘No. Let’s just say that I … couldn’t afford the rent. So then I went back to Edinburgh, to my mum’s. Ran into a few old acquaintances, went off the rails a bit.’
‘But you could have stayed. Come back after the summer, I mean. Finished your degree.’
‘There didn’t seem much point.’ He met Richard’s eye, his gaze direct below his long eyelashes. There might have been an apology there, or not. ‘Maybe a few of my decisions weren’t my best ones.’
Richard looked down at Luke’s arms on the table, the host of dark hairs against pale skin. An image darted through his mind and he tried to chase it away, but felt an answering kick in his body just the same. After all this time, he thought. It’s still there. His phone buzzed with a message but he ignored it.
‘It’s okay,’ Luke said. ‘Check it.’
Richard had expected it to be Stephie but it was from Rupe, a video message. Traffic lights changing from red through amber to green. It stopped on the green light. He forced himself to smile, tried to feel relief as he pressed the off button.
‘Good news?’ Luke said.
‘Yeah.’ This time the smile felt easier, although there wasn’t the elation he’d expected. ‘Really good news. Want another drink?’
Luke nodded and Richard went up to the bar. Somme had been greenlit, it was going ahead. An entire game spun from just one quote he’d pulled from a history book, neglecting to jot down the name of the soldier who’d said it. An old man at the time of the interview, still proud of his dress uniform, living for reunions with the handful of veterans still left. ‘I lived my whole life between the ages of eighteen and twenty-one,’ he’d told the tape recorder. ‘The rest is just the credits.’ Richard caught his own reflection behind the gantry, distorted behind rows of glasses like something in a hall of mirrors. While the pints were being pulled – Guiness, extra cold; as soon as Luke had said it Richard realised it was what he wanted too – he stared at the fragments of his face, trying to catch sight of something that he’d recognise as his past self.
‘So,’ he said, returning to the table. ‘You went off the rails. And then …’ The cold glasses in his hand made him want to let go, to get drunk, to see if it could ever feel like it had back then.
‘I got back on the rails. Sorted myself out. Came here.’
‘Why?’
‘It was easier. The different degree system, you know?’
‘No, I meant what made you sort yourself out.’
Luke held out his hands, another familiar gesture. ‘Dunno. I’ve fucked up a few times, I guess. Didn’t want to do it again.’
His knuckles looked rough, and Richard remembered how much Luke had hated his skin’s propensity to crack and burst and scab. Once he’d stretched his palm open and Richard had watched as red fissures appeared, a pattern the size of a fifty pence piece etched in raw, moistening flesh. Luke’s face had been vulnerable, all of a sudden, as if he was asking for it to be made better. Richard couldn’t remember how he’d reacted, what he’d done.
‘So Calum’s married with a kid, then,’ Luke said.
‘Yes. A kid named after a character in Star Wars. What about you?’
‘What about me?’ Luke said, grinning.
‘Kids?’ Richard said. ‘Girls?’
Luke shrugged. ‘There are always girls, aren’t there? But … well, maybe I’m just not very good at relationships.’
‘Me neither.’
‘But you’ve got to meet someone tonight.’
Richard looked at the clock above the bar. Time seemed to have moved quickly. ‘Yes,’ he said.
‘Bring them along.’
‘It’s okay. And it … i
sn’t anything like that anyway. Thanks though.’
That morning he’d taken Stephie around the old part of the university, into the chapel and through the quadrangle. He’d seen for the first time the little wrought iron memorial bench, erected to Lucy, in memory of ‘her cheerful smile, her caring nature and her love of life.’ Luke must have walked past it several times a week.
‘Do you ever think …’ Richard began but Luke spoke at the same time:
‘They rebuilt the castle, you know. Turned it into luxury apartments for posh golfers. You’d never know to look at it.’
Richard thought of the images he’d seen in the paper, the castle roofless and charred, its windows broken. Vandals strike. Then he thought of Luke walking there alone, wondered if he scaled the fence or strode through the gates, head held high. And what had he found? Security cameras, automatic lights, fancy cars in the drive; the same, but not the same. He must have wanted to remember, to touch the past, rub it between his fingertips and feel it once more. It’s over, he’d said all those years ago, and yet he’d gone back anyway.
‘What are you going to do,’ Richard said, not sure what he was asking.
Luke’s face was closed, distant. ‘Stay here, finish this pint, have another one.’
Richard nodded. It wasn’t enough, not yet. He didn’t know if it would ever be enough. ‘Can I have a cigarette?’ he said.
Luke nudged the packet across the table to him, felt for his lighter. Richard took them and went outside, where he stood next to the etched glass that concealed the interior of the bar. The sky was blazing pink and red, like a west coast sunset. He reached for his phone, switched it on again.
Stay out. I have date with SATC reruns. Love u. S x
He felt disembodied, as though part of him was elsewhere, held the cigarette in his hand but didn’t light it. The stone slabs of the pavement were glowing in the light, and he knew he should walk away, follow them back to his B&B, back to Stephie. He took a few steps but couldn’t contain the memory of walking along those gilded pavements with Luke, back to Herrick, back to the flat. Transitory moments, replete with the sheer and not-quite-certain potential of what was to come. Richard wanted one of them back, just one, to experience again a hope so fierce that the sins of the past were cleansed, the gleam of the future untarnished. He turned and walked back to the bar, pushed open the door.