The Ossians

by Doug Johnstone

  ‘Anyway,’ said Murray, ‘back to this hydroponic shit. I fancy a blast, so everyone stay where you are and I’ll be right back.’

  Connor could feel Danny looking at him. He wondered if Danny had told Kate about the seagulls. He wondered how long it had been going on between him and Kate. Why hadn’t they said anything? Did everyone know except him? Were they all laughing at him behind his back? Did they think he was a maniac, and they couldn’t tell him the news about his best friend and his twin sister? He thought about the stalker, the guy on the beach. Was he really being followed? Maybe it was just a punter on the beach, who ran off when some psycho started chasing him and shouting at him. What about the phone call? The note? His life was a mess of secrets and confusion, half-truths and half-seen faces. He wondered if he was going insane. But thinking about it meant he wasn’t, right? Had he really seen Danny and Kate together? He was so loaded that he wasn’t sure about anything he’d seen over the last week, now he thought about it. Maybe it had been entirely innocent. No, that was stupid, they were naked. Fuck, he just didn’t know any more.

  He finished his drink and went to the kitchen to fix another, stronger one.

  Murray had the Crow’s vibe bang on. A fudge-coloured, L-shaped building next to a petrol station near the edge of town, the Crow declared itself with a cheap, dirty-white seventies sign above the door, the low-slung bar area adjoining a dozen bedrooms that hadn’t seen a lick of paint in a long time. Posters in the bar advertised some decent gigs, mainly from other bands on the Scottish indie scene like My Latest Novel, 1990s and Idlewild. While that might’ve indicated a reasonable amount of musical taste in the Highland capital, the band currently murdering their instruments on stage said otherwise.

  Contrary to their standard garage-rock name, The Stretchmarks were a ghoulish goth-rock disaster, like The Damned on a very bad day or The Mission on a particularly good one. As their powder-faced singer writhed about on the floor, eyes tight shut and spit flying from the corner of his mouth, The Ossians crowded around one end of the bar in high spirits. Much of their buoyancy was down to Murray. Not only was the man a tonic in himself, but his hydroponic hash pipe got everyone giggling in five minutes flat. An afternoon of lazy smoking and drinking had gently propelled them into a good mood, if perhaps a little too relaxed to get psyched up for the gig.

  Worried about being too chilled, Connor had spent the last few minutes rubbing speed on his gums in the toilets before popping a pill from his pocket. He was now illicitly pouring gin from a half-bottle he’d picked up into an empty glass, and swigging it straight down, only a slight grimace to show for the drink’s strength. He remembered the phone in his pocket, took it out and switched it on. There were four messages from Nick. He went out to the car park and phoned. The call was answered on the second ring.

  ‘Where the fuck have you been?’

  ‘Switched the phone off.’

  ‘You arsehole. I told you never to switch it off.’

  ‘It’s the ringtone, it’s killing me. I couldn’t take it any more.’

  ‘I don’t fucking care. Change it then, dickhead.’

  ‘I don’t know how.’

  ‘Jesus Christ. Anyway, how did it go?’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘You met Kenny all right?’

  ‘He seemed a bit of a fuckwit.’

  ‘What does that make you?’

  ‘Fuck knows.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘I think someone’s following me.’

  ‘Are you being careful?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Then stop being paranoid. No one’s following you.’

  ‘Someone phoned this mobile.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘I don’t know. It said “No Number”.’

  ‘What did they say?’

  ‘That my secrets were safe with them.’

  ‘Shit. Really?’

  ‘Yeah. Any ideas?’

  ‘In a word, no. Let me think about it.’

  ‘I also found a note in my pocket to the same effect.’

  ‘What other secrets do you have?’

  ‘None.’

  ‘Yeah, right. A cunt like you always has secrets. What is it? Kiddie porn?’

  ‘I don’t want to do this any more, someone’s definitely following me.’

  ‘So that’s what this is about. You want out, so you invent some shit to make it sound like you’re being followed. Nice try.’

  ‘That’s not how it is.’

  ‘Don’t fucking bother, Con. You’re going through with this, or you’re fucking dead. How many times do I need to tell you? If the police were on to you, you’d be in chokey by now.’

  ‘That’s reassuring.’

  ‘Just get on with it. Be a fucking man for once.’

  ‘You certainly know how to motivate your workforce, don’t you?’

  ‘Fuck off. I’ll be in touch.’

  Dial tone. Connor wandered back inside. The Stretchmarks were finishing in a humdrum mash of feedback and crash of cymbals, skulking offstage to a spark of polite applause. About three hundred kids had arrived by this time, most of them dressed in black with pierced lips, small tattoos, dyed hair and pocket chains everywhere. The same goth kids you saw hanging around the top of Cockburn Street in Edinburgh, thought Connor, the ones that the local paper was always up in arms about. Kids hanging about in the street? What the fuck next? Kids drinking and smoking and fucking? Good.

  Part of him had expected things to be different on tour. Wasn’t that the reason he’d picked out these places? That, and the claustrophobia. Having been brought up in a poxy, run-down fishing town, Connor felt strangely claustrophobic away from the coast. He only realised when Danny asked him why there were no inland gigs on the tour. He had to be near the sea. So Stirling, Aviemore and Pitlochry were out and Thurso, Ullapool and Kyle were in. And, of course, Inverness. A television in the corner of the bar showed MTV2 with the sound down. The same channel could be picked up anywhere in the fucking world, thought Connor, so there must be little pockets of goth, emo and nu-metal kids scattered around the globe. So what? Part of him thought it was a shame to lose the individuality of different towns to the forces of globalisation, but did that really happen? Did it happen more now than in the past? Haven’t kids in small towns always looked to other cultures, to American culture, for kicks? Connor found it hard to summon up any moral outrage about it. There were worse things in the world. Maybe he was just too stoned or tired to give a fuck. Or maybe he had other shit on his mind.

  Their set started well. With Murray grinning side-stage, ostensibly acting as guitar tech but really just getting more loaded, the band were slow into the creepy menace of ‘Melancholia’, but picked up through ‘St Andrew’s Day’. When they got into a groove during ‘Alcohol’, Connor noticed Kate and Danny smiling at each other. He smiled a little to himself and looked away. Weaned on nu-metal, the kids in the crowd automatically went for the heavier numbers, but seemed to be getting some of the subtler stuff, at least that’s the impression Connor got from the stage. Maybe it was that hydroponic shit from the afternoon, but his antagonism levels were unusually low, and he felt himself getting drawn in by the goodwill of the crowd.

  Half an hour in they played ‘Geometry’. Starting with a simple picky guitar part, they built up layer upon layer of noise, Connor and Kate’s harmonies intertwining until the song exploded in a climax of guitars, Hannah firing out the kind of solo that sounds like all the right notes played in the wrong order. Only it didn’t happen. Connor turned round. Hannah was standing still, the guitar hanging limply round her neck. She was pinching her brow, her eyes tight shut and her other hand was groping around for something to lean on. She started swaying, then she was on the ground. The guitar rang and clattered as Hannah lay there. A blinking red stage light made it look as if she was asleep in a bedroom with neon street signs outside the window. By the time Connor got over to her she was twitching violently, her whole body thrown in
to spasms. Her head banged off the wooden floor and her legs thrashed as if she was trying to shake her shoes off. Her eyes rolled back in their sockets and a thick spit appeared at the sides of her mouth as Connor tried to hold her head and stop it beating against the stage. Panicking, he thought he should get her on to her side, then somehow she was on her side anyway. He tried to get her mouth open, but her jaws were clamped shut like they’d been wired together. Connor could see the muscles in her neck strain, and sensed waves of rigidity wash through her body as he held her, trying to grapple with her left arm which waved around violently.

  All of a sudden it was over. Danny and Kate had only just noticed what was happening and stopped playing to scramble over the stage to them. Hannah was slumped, her body loose in Connor’s hands as if a terrible tornado had passed through her. Murray ran onstage and crouched next to them, unsure what to do.

  ‘What the fuck happened?’ shouted Danny over feedback, but no one answered. Kate went over and turned Hannah’s amp off. The absence of noise was startling. The crowd didn’t know what to do. They stood looking at each other, then at the stage.

  Hannah’s eyes opened and she looked around, confused.

  ‘What’s going on?’ she whispered.

  ‘Shhhh,’ said Connor, stroking her hair away from her face. ‘You’ve had some kind of fit or something. It’s all right.’

  She tried to get up but only managed to prop herself on to her elbows. She saw the crowd looking at her. She tried to get up further but her body was weak and she wanted to go to sleep.

  ‘Let’s get you to hospital,’ said Connor. Hannah tried to wave this idea away, as if swatting a fly. She felt so tired she could barely speak and desperately wanted to get offstage, so she let herself be lifted to her feet and guided to the side, where she lay on a bench under the window and closed her eyes. After a while she opened them again and saw concerned faces.

  ‘I don’t need to go to the hospital,’ she said, but even as the words came out she found them unconvincing, and thought of a big hospital bed where she could sleep for hours.

  ‘I think you do, love,’ said Kate, smiling. ‘Hell of a way to get out of playing that solo.’

  Hannah smiled a bleached-out smile.

  ‘I never liked that bloody solo anyway.’

  Raigmore Hospital was only a hundred yards down Old Perth Road but they drove it, immediately getting lost in a maze of roadworks, traffic cones, diggers, No Entry signs, car-park barriers and pay machines. After parking they had to walk about a hundred yards anyway, which had Connor fuming by the time they reached the doors of A&E. After being admitted and led to a painfully bright bed area screened off by a blue plastic curtain, they sat and waited for three hours while nothing happened.

  Weekend nights in Scottish hospitals are awash with booze casualties. Several times while they waited someone stumbled into their area, offering garbled apologies or incoherently shouting at them. Singing, screaming and crying could be heard from the other side of the curtain, as harassed nurses and doctors hurried by with bloodied patients on beds or in wheelchairs.

  Each time someone official went past Connor was up hustling, gesticulating and shouting until he got threatened with ejection. Each time he secured a promise that someone would be with them soon. On one wander in search of someone to harangue he found himself next to an unattended girl, maybe twenty, either asleep or unconscious and gently dribbling in a wheelchair. On her lap, her handbag was open and Connor could see two medication blister packs inside. Without thinking he pocketed them. The pulse in his throat became so strong that he realised he wasn’t breathing. He walked round a corner and stood taking small, shallow breaths, waiting as his pulse gradually slowed and his head stopped swimming. He returned to Hannah, a stone in his stomach as he imagined how the others would react if they knew what he’d just done. Fuck them, secrets seemed to be order of the day at the moment.

  Around half twelve Murray, Paul and Danny returned to the Crow to pack up the gear before they closed, while Connor and Kate stayed with Hannah. She drifted in and out of sleep, occasionally waking surprised and irritated by the brightness of the place. As she dozed, Connor and Kate sat quietly for a while until Connor spoke.

  ‘How long?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘How long has it been going on?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I saw you and Danny last night.’

  ‘Uh-huh?’

  ‘Together.’

  ‘We’re always together. With you and Han being a couple we don’t have much choice.’

  ‘Kate, come on. I saw you. Together. In a sleeping bag. In Gerry’s spare room.’

  There was a long silence. Kate played with the button of her jacket.

  ‘A week or so,’ she said eventually.

  ‘Does anyone else know?’

  Another long silence.

  ‘Danny told Hannah. And she let slip to Paul last night. I was going to tell you, but it never seemed like the right time.’

  ‘What did you think I was going to do? Throw a wobbly?’

  ‘No, of course not. But you’ve been a bit…’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Volatile, recently, I guess.’

  Connor thought about the bag full of drugs and money, the note, the anonymous phone call and the figure on the beach. He thought about Hannah lying next to them in a hospital bed. She knew about Kate and Danny, and hadn’t told him. He didn’t exactly have a moral high ground on keeping secrets.

  ‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘For what it’s worth, I think it’s great the two of you have got together. I always said you’d make a great couple.’

  Kate gave out a relieved laugh. ‘You never said any such thing. I bet the thought never crossed your mind. It never crossed my mind until recently. And anyway, I don’t even know if we are a couple yet.’

  They sat in silence for a while longer. Around two o’clock Hannah woke, and not long after a doctor arrived. He was tall and overly handsome with a square jaw and perfect teeth. He looked far too young to know his way around a human body. He insisted on examining Hannah in private. Connor, wary of this kid being left alone with her, refused.

  ‘Go on,’ sighed Hannah. ‘It’s fine.’

  The examination was over in seconds. The doctor pulled back the curtain with a swish.

  ‘As far as I can tell you’re fine,’ he said, half to Hannah and half to Connor and Kate.

  ‘But what happened?’ said Connor. ‘You didn’t see her, there’s obviously something wrong with her.’

  ‘I am bloody here, you know,’ said Hannah, a thin thread of anger in her voice.

  The doctor couldn’t work out who to speak to, so addressed the space between Hannah and the other two.

  ‘She’s had some kind of fit but it’s nothing to get too alarmed about. It could be epilepsy, but it could also be a number of other things. It could also very easily be nothing at all, just a one-off incident.’

  ‘Can’t you test for epilepsy?’ said Connor.

  ‘Well, yes, but not right now. For a start you have to wait twenty-four hours after a fit. Also there are a number of things to test for, and really her own GP should arrange it and go over the options. We recommend that she undergo a CT scan. Even if it is epilepsy, which is by no means certain, there are ways of managing that effectively these days. Again, her own doctor can go over all that with her in more detail after she’s had the appropriate tests.’

  ‘Isn’t there any medication you can give her?’ said Connor.

  ‘Fuck’s sake, Con, will you let me handle this?’ said Hannah, her raised voice making them all jump. She turned slowly to the doctor. ‘Well?’

  ‘There really isn’t anything I can give you that would make any difference at this stage. The best thing to do is take it easy. I strongly recommend you stay off alcohol and any other stimulants, legal or otherwise. Try to stay away from stressful situations. Make an appointment with your doctor when you get back to Edinburgh and try not to wor
ry about it.’

  ‘Is that the best you can do?’ said Connor. ‘Don’t fucking worry? What kind of half-arsed kid doctors do they employ up here?’

  ‘I really don’t think that’s necessary.’

  The doctor was backing away slightly.

  ‘Shut up, Con,’ said Hannah wearily. ‘He’s just doing his job.’ She turned to the doctor. ‘Thanks. I’ll take it easy.’

  ‘Excellent,’ said the doctor. ‘You’ll need to free up the bed, I’m afraid. If you could sign out over at reception, that would be great.’

  He headed down the corridor leaving Connor fizzing, like he needed to punch something or someone. Hannah looked him in the eye.

  ‘Let’s get out of here,’ she said, sighing for what seemed like the hundredth time that evening. ‘I need to go to bed.’

  ‘We should pack the fuck up and head home,’ said Connor as Murray opened the door to the flat.

  He wasn’t sure why he’d said it. Maybe part of him thought it, but he was also aware that he said it partially out of obligation. Actually, now he’d made the suggestion, it seemed like quite an appealing prospect, to leave all this bullshit behind and sleep for a week in his own bed. But how could he go back to Edinburgh, and Nick? And anyway, he was aware Hannah wouldn’t let this happen. He could predict the conversation they were about to have, as chess Grand Masters predict their opponents’ future moves.

  ‘Don’t be so melodramatic,’ said Hannah. ‘We’re not going anywhere. I feel fine, for Christ’s sake, just a little tired. We’ve got a day off tomorrow, right? If it’s all right with Uncle Murray, I intend to spend the next twenty-four hours catching up on some much-needed sleep.’

  ‘Hannah’s right,’ said Paul. ‘If she feels OK and gets plenty of rest, there’s no reason why we can’t keep going. We all just need to take it easy for a day or two.’

  Paul looked at Connor when he said this, but Connor’s eyes were following Hannah as she eased into the beanbag.

  ‘Can I get you anything, love?’

  ‘Just a beer,’ said Hannah.

  ‘But you heard what the doctor said.’

  ‘Just get me a fucking beer.’