The Ossians

by Doug Johnstone

  ‘No offence, but I really hope never to see you ever again.’

  ‘Harsh, dude, but I take your point.’

  Kenny held out his hand again, but Connor was already taking the steps two at a time.

  When he walked back into the bar he re-stashed the bag and headed back to Paul and Hannah, who were just being joined by Danny and Kate.

  ‘Where have you been?’ Hannah asked. ‘Off having secret rendezvous with amorous fans?’

  ‘What?’ said Connor.

  ‘Only joking,’ said Hannah. ‘Just saw you chatting to that long-haired bloke, then the pair of you were gone.’

  ‘Oh aye, he was just saying he liked the band,’ said Connor. ‘Then I went to the bogs.’

  Danny spluttered into his pint and Kate seemed to go pale. They exchanged a raised-eyebrow look. Connor wondered how much money was now in his kitbag in those two envelopes, if indeed they were full of money, and what he could do with all that cash. He imagined jumping on a random plane and jetting into the sunset to avoid all this stupid cloak-and-dagger pish, but even as he did, he realised he was revelling in it all, perversely beginning to enjoy sneaking around, avoiding prying eyes and doing dodgy deals with fuckwits. He looked around, hoping to see a familiar face among the crowd. All he could see were fans of The Ossians, kids with futures ahead of them and a worry-free weekend to look forward to and none of this pish filling up their half-formed little lives. He stopped looking around and headed to the bar.

  They were staying in Gerry’s poky flat on a bleak stretch of road with the incongruously sunny name of Beach Boulevard. The street’s frosty, spindly birch trees looked over them as they skited down the icy pavement and into the flat.

  ‘At least you never got a punch in the face this time, Con,’ said Danny, passing a joint around the small living room once they’d settled in.

  ‘A first for the tour, eh? Four gigs and three beatings. I’ll need to get the ratio back up tomorrow, maybe try to get two beatings in one night. What do you reckon, Han?’

  ‘If it’s getting late and you still need a slap, you let me know.’

  They got more stoned, chilling out after the buzz of the gig. Gerry wasn’t drinking or smoking much. He explained he would have to make a delivery soon and wanted to stay straight for driving. Just then his mobile went off.

  ‘Yup,’ said Gerry into the handset. ‘No problem. I’ll pop round now. See you in a bit.’ He put his phone away then said to the room, ‘Anyone fancy coming for a drive?’

  ‘Can we get some munchies on the way?’ said Danny, lifting his head from skinning up.

  ‘No bother.’ Gerry was already digging car keys out his pocket.

  ‘I fancy a bit of fresh air,’ said Connor, pushing himself up from the sofa.

  ‘Don’t know if that’s a good idea,’ said Paul, giving him a look.

  ‘Paul’s right,’ said Hannah.

  ‘Hey, there’s no problem, people,’ said Gerry. ‘This delivery’s for a mate of mine. I’m just doing him a favour. We’ll be back in twenty minutes.’

  ‘You heard the man,’ said Connor. He glanced at Danny. ‘You finished that doob for the road?’ Danny pushed the roach in and nodded. ‘Right, let’s go. See you in a bit.’

  ‘Reckon they’ll be all right?’ said Paul after they’d left.

  ‘Danny’ll look after Con,’ said Kate.

  ‘You’d know all about that,’ said Hannah, instantly regretting it.

  ‘What’s that mean?’ said Paul.

  Kate gave Hannah a ferocious look before turning to Paul. ‘She just means we’re all good at making sure Con doesn’t kill himself.’

  Paul smiled as he took in Kate and Hannah’s faces. ‘That’s not what she meant at all. Come on, what’s up?’

  Kate sighed, then swept her hand out, giving Hannah the floor.

  ‘Kate and Danny are an item,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry, Kate, it just slipped out before. I forgot Paul didn’t know.’

  ‘How long’s this been going on?’ said Paul.

  ‘A week or so,’ said Kate, looking down and playing with the foil on her beer bottle. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I think it’s great. Is it serious?’

  Kate just shrugged.

  ‘What did Con say when he found out?’

  ‘Ah,’ said Hannah. ‘He doesn’t know yet.’

  ‘Hannah’s been hassling me to tell him.’

  ‘Quite right,’ said Paul.

  ‘I’m going to, I promise. I’ve just been waiting for the right time.’

  ‘Soon, eh?’ said Paul. ‘Especially now me and Hannah know.’

  ‘I’ll tell him tomorrow, OK?’

  ‘Cool. It’s great news, Kate, but you can’t go keeping secrets from each other, not in this band.’

  ‘I know.’

  Paul stood up and headed towards the kitchenette. ‘Now, let me get you ladies a refill.’

  ‘What are we delivering anyway?’ said Connor in the front passenger seat.

  They were driving through cold, wet, empty streets, heading for the university area.

  ‘Ketamine,’ said Gerry. ‘Want one? I’ve got loads spare if you’re interested.’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘Don’t worry about it. Just have one.’ Gerry held out a large powdery-looking pill. ‘Better just take half now, see how you get on.’

  Connor took the pill, broke it roughly along the line and washed one half down with beer, offering the other half to Danny, who shook his head.

  ‘I’m all right with this, thanks,’ he said, waving his joint.

  Connor put the other half-pill in his pocket. ‘So how’s Aberdeen to live in?’ he said.

  ‘All right,’ Gerry replied. ‘Bit of a craphole, but where isn’t?’

  ‘Isn’t everyone meant to be loaded with oil money?’

  ‘You think I’d be staying in that fucking dump of a flat if I had any oil money? Anyway, all that is running out. I reckon this place is heading for the shitter pretty soon. The smack’s been kicking every cunt in the teeth for the last ten years now. Give it another few years and this place’ll be dead on its feet.’

  ‘There must be something good about it, though?’

  ‘The talent’s all right, with the uni and that. But then there’s all the fucking hassle you get between them and the locals. Some folk just cannae seem to get along.’

  Connor looked out the window and wondered when the pill would kick in.

  ‘Same thing in Edinburgh,’ he said. ‘Fucking worse down there, cos all the students are posh bastards.’

  ‘It’s not so bad,’ said Danny. ‘Sure there’s trouble, but you go out your way to find it, Con. In Belfast you learn to keep your head down, or you get in some serious shit.’

  ‘What do you mean, I go looking for trouble?’

  ‘You’re always stirring it up. All I’m saying is, if you came from somewhere with paramilitary organisations, kneecappings, beatings, murders and fucking drug lords, you might not be so quick to shoot your mouth off.’

  It was sleeting now, and the windscreen wipers squeaked backwards and forwards as Gerry swung the car into a side street and pulled over.

  ‘I’ll be two minutes,’ he said, switching the engine off. ‘You pair aren’t going to start fighting are you?’

  They both laughed as Gerry opened the door and got out, letting swirling sleet in, then disappeared into a doorway. With the engine off, they could hear the wind whistling. The sleet was thick now, and they passed the joint between them. After a while Connor said, ‘Maybe you’re right. But sometimes I can’t help myself, you know? I don’t mean to stir things up, it just happens. Before I know it, bam, my mouth’s open and the bullshit is coming out. Maybe I’ll bite my tongue from now on.’

  Danny laughed, leant forwards and ruffled his hair. ‘Then you wouldn’t be you, would you?’

  ‘Perhaps that’d be a good thing.’

  Gerry opened the door and dived into the driver’s seat, bre
athing out heavily and blowing on his hands. He had a thin covering of icy snow on his hair as he stuck the key in the ignition and pulled away.

  ‘Another happy customer,’ he said, then to Connor, ‘How’s that pill? Anything yet?’

  Connor thought he could feel something, like he was being rolled in bubble wrap. Gerry’s words seemed to be coming from further away than the width of a car, and when Danny offered him the joint it seemed to take an age for his outstretched hand to grab it.

  Connor remembered a time when he was eight or nine, playing with Kate in the park. They were daring each other to do stuff like run across the railway line, or throw stones at a passing dog walker. It came to Kate’s turn, and he dared her to jump off the high wall of the old folks’ home. Without fear or hesitation she did it, but landed awkwardly on a piece of broken bottle, slicing right into her knee so that pinky white bone jutted out. She looked down at her knee and was silent for what seemed like ages, then started screaming for Connor to get help. He just stood there, paralysed, the whole scene appearing through a vaselined lens with the sound turned down. He ran away in the opposite direction from their house, running until he could hardly breathe, the burning in his lungs making him cough until he was sick. Then he wandered around the streets for hours worrying about his sister, too scared and ashamed to go home.

  When she saw Connor run off, Kate had simply stopped screaming and hobbled home with a hankie wrapped around her knee. When Connor eventually got up the courage to head back, there was a note explaining that his mum had taken her to hospital. Kate told their mum she’d been on her own. She looked at him impassively when she got home, and he couldn’t meet her gaze. He’d never got up the bottle to mention it to her since, and she’d never brought it up. It made him feel ill now, thinking about it.

  ‘Hey, want to see something cool?’

  Gerry was talking to them. He swung the car down a narrow one-way street and they emerged at the other end with a view of large ships to their right, a harbour entrance in front of them, and a long pier stretching out to their left.

  ‘I didn’t even realise Aberdeen had a harbour,’ said Danny. ‘Although thinking about it, that’s pretty stupid.’

  ‘A harbour and a beach and everything, my friend,’ said Gerry. ‘You fancy scaring some birds?’

  ‘Birds?’ said Danny.

  ‘I’ll show you.’ Gerry turned the car left, and crawled out along the pier. He was hunched over the steering wheel, leaning forwards like an old man on a Sunday drive. A third of the way up the pier they came to a rusted iron gate sitting open with ‘North Pier’ in small ferric letters on the side. Gerry switched the headlights to full beam and stopped the car. It was snowing heavily now, and the flakes slapped the windscreen with a faint, fat sound before being wiped away. Connor and Danny peered into the light. They could see hundreds of grey and white shapes stretched out along the pier in front of them, starting about thirty yards away.

  ‘What are they?’ said Connor, feeling seasick from the motion of the wipers and the snowflakes on the windscreen.

  ‘Sleeping seagulls,’ said Gerry. ‘They come here every night. I’ve been down here a few times before, it’s funny as fuck. You rev up and bomb into them, and they scatter in a fucking panic, flapping everywhere. Two minutes later they’re all back down, snoozing away like nothing’s happened.’

  They sat for what seemed to Connor a very long time gazing at the birds. Looking closely, he thought he could see the occasional feathered breast rising and falling. They looked so peaceful and snug, he wished he was out there sleeping with them.

  ‘Why don’t we just leave them?’ he said.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Danny. ‘Let’s get back to the flat. I’ve run out of beer and grass back here anyway.’

  ‘You sure?’ said Gerry, looking at the pair of them. They both nodded.

  They waited another few seconds, then heard the car’s engine straining as Gerry ramped it up to full revs, shouting at the top of his voice, ‘Fuck that! Come on you feathered fucks, let’s see you fly!’

  They felt a jolt as the car leapt forward, and Gerry whooped and screamed as he fired up through the gears. They were only a few yards away from the first bird and travelling at fuck knows what speed, then at the very last second Gerry realised the seagulls weren’t going to get out the way, they weren’t even trying, they were just sitting there, mostly still sleeping, the odd head bobbing up from under a wing, then whump! They hit the first row of birds, Danny shouting from the back, Con holding on to the dashboard, Gerry realising what was happening and lunging for the brakes.

  But he wasn’t quick enough. Crumpling thumps and sickening, muffled whacking sounds filled the car, as they steamrollered over bird after bird. In the distance some gulls had flapped off from the end of the pier in a faint fluster, and as Gerry slammed on the brakes the car skidded to the left, then the opposite direction, then back again as its nose brushed the small wall flanking the side of the pier.

  Finally they stopped. The three of them sat in silence for a few seconds, but already they could hear distressed cries from outside the car, dying and injured birds frantically trying to take off, flapping broken and ripped wings helplessly.

  ‘What the fuck!’ said Danny.

  ‘I don’t understand it, I don’t understand it,’ Gerry was saying under his breath, gazing glassy-eyed at the steering wheel. ‘They usually take off. I don’t understand it.’

  ‘Never mind that,’ Danny shouted at him. ‘What the fuck are we going to do?’

  ‘We’ve got to get the fuck out of here,’ said Connor, his mind snapping into focus.

  ‘Shouldn’t we help them?’ said Gerry.

  ‘How the hell do you propose to do that? Call the fucking RSPB?’ said Danny. ‘Con’s right. Let’s get the fuck out of here.’

  ‘But we’ve got to reverse,’ said Gerry. ‘We’ve got to go back over them.’

  They sat there with the engine throbbing, the windscreen wipers swatting away snowflakes to a beat, the cries of dozens of birds swirling in the snowy air outside. Eventually Danny spoke.

  ‘Look, it’s probably for the best. The ones that are still alive are probably fucked now anyway.’ He sounded like he was trying to convince himself as much as anyone else. ‘Don’t think about it. Just get us out of here.’

  Gerry sat motionless over the wheel looking lost.

  ‘Come on,’ said Connor, grabbing his arm and shaking. ‘Let’s go. Someone might hear them and call the police.’

  Gerry looked up, then slowly put the car into reverse. They sat like that for a long time. Gerry’s eyes began to clear and he shook his head as if trying to get rid of cobwebs.

  ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Are you ready? Let’s get this over with.’

  He revved the engine, pulled the handbrake off and they bolted backwards. Like driving over a ploughed field, the car rocked from side to side as more sickening thuds came to their ears. Connor slammed the heel of his hand into his forehead trying to ignore the sound, except it wasn’t sound it was juddering motion. He could feel the bodies being crushed underneath them and felt sick.

  Then the rocking stopped. Gerry was still reversing as fast as possible, out past the rusting gate and into the nearly empty car park at the end of the pier. The car was now running smoothly. They turned and stopped, as Gerry opened his door and vomited on to the pavement, followed by a few spits. He closed the door, put the car into gear and slowly drove off, not looking at the other two. Connor slipped the other half of the ketamine into his mouth without saying anything.

  Outside the flat, Gerry switched the engine off and they sat. No one had spoken since they’d left the pier.

  ‘We never mention this, understand?’ said Gerry.

  ‘Yeah, like we’d go around telling every fucker about it,’ said Connor.

  ‘Fucking hell,’ said Danny. ‘Fucking hell.’

  They left the car and went inside.

  They’d only been away half an hour, b
ut it seemed like years to Connor. The three of them put on smiles and eased themselves back into conversation.

  ‘How was it?’ said Paul.

  ‘Aye, fine,’ said Gerry, heading for the fridge. ‘I could do with a drink now, though. Who’s needing?’

  ‘I thought you were getting munchies?’ said Kate, looking at Danny.

  ‘Oh yeah,’ he said, laughing and sitting down next to her. ‘Shit. Totally forgot. Sorry.’

  ‘Too busy smoking and drinking, eh? Doesn’t matter, not really hungry anyway.’

  Hannah looked at Connor, whose glassy eyes shifted round the room, failing to focus on anything. He sat on a stool next to a worktop in the kitchenette adjoining the living room and propped his chin up on his hand. Gerry came back from the fridge with a handful of beers.

  ‘What have you been doing to him?’ said Hannah, pointing a Marlboro Light at Connor.

  ‘How d’ya mean?’ said Gerry, handing her a bottle.

  ‘Look at the state of him. He can’t even sit up straight. What did you give him?’

  ‘I didn’t give him anything. He took something. Just a wee half-K, he’ll be fine in a bit, once he bottoms out.’

  ‘Ketamine? Do you not think he was out of it enough?’

  ‘Look, he wanted it, so I gave it to him. What’s the big deal?’

  Paul jumped in. ‘No problem, Ger, it’s just that Con’s hammering it pretty hard at the moment, and we’re looking out for him, you know?’

  ‘Fine,’ said Gerry. ‘Whatever. Let’s just start playing catch up, eh?’

  He produced a large wrap of coke and started chopping out fat lines on a CD case with a credit card. He snorted the first two himself, then passed the CD and the rolled-up tenner around.

  ‘Go on, then,’ said Paul, crouching over the table and blocking a nostril before taking a hit.

  ‘What the hell, eh?’ said Kate. She followed suit, as did Danny and Hannah, before the CD went back to Gerry.

  ‘Don’t think laughing boy needs any of this, do you?’ he said,nodding in Connor’s direction. Hannah smiled nervously. Gerry snorted the last line and sniffed violently for a few seconds.

  Connor was lost. Looking the wrong way down a telescope, he could see the rest of them away in the distance. He sensed they were talking to him, or about him, the body language pointing in his direction, but he couldn’t make out what they were saying, and wasn’t too bothered anyway. They were passing round lines of something, and he tried to say he wanted one, but his mouth wouldn’t move. His legs felt made of fatigue and heavy as hell, like two long fishtanks full of murky water. He felt the edges of his mouth becoming moist, and wondered if he was drooling. Where the heel of his hand touched his jaw, he imagined it glowing like ET’s finger. Connor wanted to phone home. He wanted his fingers to light up like ET’s, and he wanted a bicycle that would fly, with a perfect full moon as a backdrop.