Murray finished, the song fading gradually into nothing, and Connor sat motionless and silent as raucous applause exploded around the bar. All about him, people were shouting, whistling and clapping. Connor sat there feeling the presence of Hannah next to him. Murray smiled sheepishly as he took off the guitar and returned to their table, ignoring cries for more.
‘That was amazing,’ said Hannah, as Murray beamed.
‘New song,’ explained Murray, finishing his pint. He turned to Connor. ‘What did you think?’
Connor shook his head. ‘You don’t need me to tell you it was fucking brilliant. You know it was.’
Murray shrugged.
‘Listen, I’m beginning to feel things catching up with me,’ said Hannah. ‘Think I’ll head up the road.’ She looked at Connor. ‘Walk me home?’
Connor looked at the pint and the whisky in front of him, then at Hannah. She was beautiful and selfless, thoughtful and caring, and she was his. Why had he been taking her for granted for so long? Why had he been treating her like shit?
‘Sure.’
They grabbed their coats, said goodbye and headed out the door.
‘That cousin of yours is quite something,’ said Hannah.
They stood on the wobbly footbridge, leaning over the side, the Ness moving like syrup below.
‘Yeah, he’s something all right.’
‘How do you think he gets to be so…’
‘Talented?’
‘I was going to say contented.’
Connor sighed. ‘I wish I fucking knew.’
Hannah looked at him. ‘You’ll get there.’
‘Will I?’
‘Sure, when you’re old and past it like Murray.’
Connor laughed. ‘I feel old and past it now.’ He turned to look at her, taking her hand. ‘How are you anyway?’
‘Oh, you know, surviving.’
They were silent for a while.
‘I shat myself last night,’ said Connor quietly. ‘When you had that fit.’
‘Really?’
‘Yeah.’
‘So did I, to be honest.’
‘What would I do without you?’
‘I’m not going anywhere.’
‘I wouldn’t blame you if you did. Leave me, I mean.’ He felt Hannah squeeze his hand tightly. ‘I’ve not exactly been easy to live with.’
‘You’re just a bit wound up, Con. You need to relax. Be more like Murray.’
‘Maybe in fifteen years’ time, eh?’
‘If everyone took a leaf out of Murray’s book, the world would be a better place.’
Connor sat there feeling the pressure of Hannah’s hand and watching the thick water treacle past below.
‘You know I love you, don’t you?’ he said.
‘I know.’
She leant her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes. He listened to her breathe, feeling the weight of her head on his shoulder and the pressure of her hand in his. He closed his eyes and tried to relax.
8
Thurso
‘Wrap your cold and clammy arms around me
Soak into my bones
Whisper in my ear you’ll never leave me
Make yourself at home’
The Ossians, ‘The Haar’
The van grumbled over the Kessock Bridge heading north to the Black Isle. Ahead of them a clump of dark hills mottled with snow disappeared into a muffle of thick, black cloud. The swish of passing cars as they sprayed along the wet dual carriageway was the only sound, until Connor couldn’t stand the weight of the silence and the clouds and stuck on some vintage Teenage Fanclub to cheer them up.
Three o’clock on a Sunday afternoon and they were running late again. The Thurso gig was just a pub job so there wasn’t a specific get-in time, but they had a long drive ahead and precious little energy. Connor was ragged. He tried to add up how much sleep he’d had since they left Edinburgh. He came to a different number each time, the highest of which was fifteen hours. That was over six nights. He had to get a grip. His bones ached with exhaustion but his mind was whirring like the workings of a great mechanical clock, thanks to all the amphetamine. Among all the drinking and weed smoking, speed was his anchor drug, a lifeline that kept him tethered to something like reality. But there’s a reason why speed’s under a tenner a wrap. Today’s comedown was brutal, and he’d started getting stomach cramps to add to his headaches, which never seemed to go away except when he was extremely drunk. He’d taken more speed and a couple of hits of gin for breakfast just to take the edge off but he still felt like absolute shit. He tried to think of the last time he’d eaten properly. He could recall sitting down for a meal in Arbroath, but hadn’t eaten any of it. How long ago was that? It seemed like that happened in a previous life, to a different person. He used his fingers to count back and realised it was only four days ago. Shit.
They crossed the Cromarty Firth over a low bridge and crawled up its northern edge as the rain fell in swirls. Massive oil rigs stood waiting to be repaired in the water like giant alien ships preparing to attack, crouching with their colossal legs in the slapping water and not giving a damn. Their vastness so close to land was unnerving, and all four of the band couldn’t keep their eyes off them, watching silently as the road turned northwards towards Dornoch Firth and the wilderness of Sutherland.
The road took on a rhythmical pattern. For a while they would drive alongside the sea, raging waves sending spray on to the windscreen, large puddles filling the dips in the road. Then they would rise dramatically, snaking up a hillside as Paul dropped down the gears, their ears popping as the rain turned to sleet and patches of snow speckled the roadside. This continued for miles and miles, Paul complaining all the time about the state of the roads. As heads cleared and Teenage Fanclub did their work, things brightened in the van despite the weather outside. Connor was amazed at the bleak, brown expanses of heather and bracken. There were no trees anywhere.
They passed a sign saying ‘Caithness Glass welcomes you to our county’ and after a while the road headed inland towards Thurso on the north coast, the long straight stretch of tarmac cutting through a flat plain of low gorse and heather. They didn’t see another car for twenty minutes.
‘Jesus,’ said Danny, ‘this must be the arse end of nowhere. Where’s all the traffic?’
They came over a rise and spotted the sea in front of them. The grey, hunched form of Thurso lay ahead, sheltering in a bay against the ferocious rain that battered the countryside into submission.
As they hit Thurso, Connor felt depressed. He didn’t know what he was expecting from a town on the north coast of Scotland, but a smaller version of his hometown definitely wasn’t it. Within two minutes they’d driven round the centre, a small grid of houses in mushy brown and splashy grey with shopfronts poking out on the ground floor, and a tiny pedestrian precinct that looked straight out of an Edinburgh housing scheme.
When they found the hostel they were booked into they couldn’t believe it. It was a chippie. ‘Sandra’s Snack Bar, Takeaway, Internet Café and Backpackers Hostel’, it said in curvy red and green lettering above the door. A sign to the side of the building said ‘Hostel Reception In Snack Bar’, except someone had changed ‘Hostel’ to ‘Hostile’.
It was already dark and they dodged in through the rain, the slimy smell of chip fat hitting them instantly. Luminous orange cardboard signs with jagged edges covered all available wall space behind the counter; handwritten marker-pen scrawls advertising every conceivable combination of greasy food. A small, wiry, moustachioed man of fifty presided behind the counter, flanked by two chubby, goth-looking teenage girls squeezed into short skirts and bust-enhancing corsets. The girls looked like they’d rather be anywhere than in a chippie in Thurso. Two long-haired metalheads in biker jackets and a couple of spindly lads in Rangers tops and baseball caps stood in front of them in the queue. Once that lot had their fish suppers dished up – all of them eyeing The Ossians as they waited – Paul checked into
the hostel with the boss.
Connor spotted a cupboard with the door half open, a pair of feet poking out and the flickering light of a screen inside. He wandered over to take a closer look and it turned out this was the ‘Internet Café’ advertised outside. A curly-haired skater boy was checking out surfing websites on an ancient PC, the three walls covered in scrawled website addresses. The cupboard was so small the boy had to sit side-on to the screen, his long legs sticking out the door. Connor chuckled to himself as Paul came back with keys and motioned towards the door.
Upstairs Hannah and Kate dumped their bags and checked for stains on the sheets while the boys dicked around in the other dingy room.
‘Some place,’ said Kate, thinking how little time the two of them had spent alone together since they’d started on tour. Kate had a lot of time for Hannah. She had her head screwed on properly, and didn’t take any shit from anyone, especially Connor. She was a calming influence on him, although he did seem to be losing it on this tour. So God knows what he would’ve been like if it wasn’t for her. It was strange for Kate to consider why girls were attracted to Connor, because of the brother thing, obviously, but also because he’d always annoyed the crap out of her. She realised he was good-looking, although she would never have told him so, it would’ve been too weird, and anyway, it would just make his head swell. So on that level, she could see why Hannah was first attracted to Connor. But he was an odd little bundle of energy, and she knew she would never have put up with all that hyper, high-maintenance shit from any boyfriend of hers. That’s why she was happy with straightforward, no-nonsense Danny. She admired Hannah’s patience, in a way, her ability to soak up anything Connor dished out. Then again, perhaps Hannah had a completely different relationship with him, perhaps she saw a totally different side to him. Who knew what any couple was like in private? Who was she to judge them?
She and Hannah were two women in the idiotic blokes’ world of rock, playing mostly to blokes, and hanging around with blokes all the time. Sometimes Kate thought that Scotland wasn’t a million miles away from countries in the Middle East, the ones where women were expected to cover up and stay at home, while the menfolk sat around in Cafés and village squares putting the world to rights. Any visit to a pub in a small Scottish town would tell you it wasn’t like Monarch of the Glen or whatever new piece of scenic garbage was on Sunday-night telly. There was always a vast majority of men – ignorant, bigoted men – in these places. Which, of course, meant she and Hannah always got grief, which then meant Connor would overreact, go off the deep end, and the night would end in trouble.
Hannah hadn’t spoken, and seemed in a dreamworld. Kate worried that the incident in Inverness had taken more out of her than she would admit.
‘You all right, love?’
Hannah was sitting on the bed, the anaemic streetlight making her look sickly. She said, ‘Yeah, fine,’ in a way that sounded anything but. Kate sat down next to her and Hannah fiddled with a thin, leather bracelet on her wrist.
‘Is it the whole fit thing?’ said Kate.
‘Yeah. Kind of.’
‘Does “kind of” mean “no, something else”?’
Hannah laughed a little, more of an exhale than anything.
‘Yeah. Kind of.’
‘You can tell me. Is it that arsehole brother of mine? What’s he done this time?’
‘It’s not him. Not really. It’s just…’ Hannah looked around the room like she was looking for a way out. ‘It might be connected with the fit. Maybe I’m just worrying over nothing, but…’
There was another long pause.
‘OK,’ said Hannah finally. ‘I haven’t had my period.’ She looked across at Kate’s knees rather than her eyes.
‘When was it due?’
‘Just after we started the tour. Five, six days ago, maybe? It’s no massive deal, I’m not particularly regular anyway. I figured with all the partying, and now this… fit, or whatever. It’s probably just my body telling me to sort my shit out. I dunno. What do you think?’
Hannah looked up at her now, and Kate saw a worried face.
‘You have to find out,’ she said. ‘Get a test. Just to be sure, if nothing else. You can’t go the rest of the tour without knowing if you’re pregnant or not, it’ll drive you nuts. I’m sure you’re right, everything’ll be OK. Try not to worry about it. Do you want me to nip out now, see if I can find an open chemist?’
‘No, no,’ said Hannah quickly. ‘It’ll keep for a day, I guess. You can’t tell Con, though. Promise? You know what he’s like, he’d just worry like mad about it, which won’t do any good.’
Kate smiled. ‘What do you take me for?’ she said. ‘I won’t tell him. But you’ll have to find out one way or the other, don’t you think?’
‘Sure,’ said Hannah, pushing her hair away from her face.
The door opened and Danny poked his head round.
‘How are my two favourite ladies?’
‘Fine,’ said Hannah, standing up and heading for the toilet.
‘You seen Con?’ said Danny once Hannah left the room.
‘Thought he was with you,’ said Kate.
‘He was, but he wandered off. Seems to be wandering off a lot.’
‘Do you think he’s upset about… you know… us?’
‘Don’t know. Don’t think so. He seemed fine about it yesterday. How’s he been with you?’
‘His usual nippy self.’
Danny sat down next to Kate. ‘And how are you?’
‘I’m fantastic, Danny boy.’ Kate leant over and kissed him on the cheek. She thought about Hannah and her late period.
‘Yes, you are,’ said Danny.
They looked at each other for a moment then started kissing.
Hannah sat on the toilet with her face in her hands and sighed. This was all she needed. What she’d told Kate was true, her periods had never been regular, and she quite often skipped them completely, especially if she was drinking, smoking and taking drugs. She didn’t think she’d been hammering the drugs this tour, at least compared to the rest of them, but she’d still had a few joints, plus a wee bit of speed and coke. And she’d been tanning the booze and the Marlboro Lights the whole time. She didn’t feel pregnant, but then what on earth did pregnant feel like? All that guff you heard women spout about knowing when they were pregnant before they took a test – that was crap, wasn’t it? Every time she missed a period she worried a little, but she was usually pretty certain it wasn’t because she was pregnant. It was the same this time. But then there was the thing in Inverness to think about. She hadn’t felt any ill effects, except a little tiredness, much to her surprise. Was she epileptic? What if the fit had something to do with the missed period? Did the fit cause her to skip a period, or was it the fact she was pregnant which somehow made her have a fit? She’d never heard of anything like that before, but then she was no expert. She’d hardly even thought about pregnancy before now. Your mid-twenties were no time to be thinking about that sort of thing, not these days. Maybe when you hit thirty or something. What age had her mum been when she’d had her? Mid-twenties, right enough, but that was a generation ago, a different world. What if she was pregnant? She found to her surprise that she wasn’t completely horrified by the idea. She was kind of nervous and apprehensive, maybe, but she could just about stretch her imagination far enough to the thought of having a baby. What would Connor think? How would he react? He was all over the place at the moment, like he was being spooked by ghosts. They’d never talked about having kids, not once, not even when they were steaming drunk, so she had no idea how he’d react. For that matter, she had no idea how she’d react if she took a test and it was positive. She couldn’t stand not knowing, but then she couldn’t stand the idea of finding out, either. Jesus.
She got up, flushed the toilet and headed out the door.
‘Hey, lovebirds,’ said Paul, ‘leave it out.’
Kate and Danny were lying on the bed snogging when Paul came in.
They quickly disentangled as Hannah followed Paul into the room.
‘I take it you didn’t find laughing boy, then?’ said Paul, smiling.
‘Got a bit distracted,’ said Danny.
‘So I see.’
‘When’s soundcheck?’ said Hannah.
‘About an hour ago,’ said Paul. ‘But it’s only a pub gig with a vocal PA, so we’ll get away with a quick one, or even just a line check. I’ll give His Highness a call on his mobile.’
‘He’s got a mobile?’ said Kate. ‘Since when? I thought the Luddite was dead against them?’
‘He told me he got it for the tour,’ said Danny.
‘I never knew that,’ said Hannah.
‘Keep up, people,’ said Paul. ‘Yes, he’s got a mobile. And probably just as well, since he always seems to be doing a bloody disappearing act at the moment.’
Paul pulled out his own mobile and flipped it open.
‘Shit, no reception. I’ll try from outside. Can you head over to the venue, I’ll catch you up.’
Hannah, Kate and Danny looked at each other before slowly trooping out the door.
Connor pulled the phone out as he walked. He recognised Paul’s number, pressed cancel and stuck it back in his pocket. He wasn’t sure where he was heading, but surely this two-bit town wasn’t big enough to get lost in. He’d had a call ten minutes ago from Gav, telling him to head for the harbour and find the fish market. He grumped through a scabby pedestrian precinct, past a handful of cheap, weather-beaten houses, then found himself on a long stretch of promenade, with a large expanse of beach alongside and the roar of a livid sea in his ears. It was dark but a lemon-slice moon was out and he could see enormous pale breakers tumbling over the grainy shore. He’d never seen waves like it, except on television with people surfing on them. On television, though, the water was always an idiotic crystal blue, Hawaiian or Californian surf, full of chest-puffing young dicks and irritatingly beautiful, bikini-clad nymphets. These colossal beasts in front of him were untouched by human interference, and ashen grey, like a herd of watery elephants trumpeting their thundery arrival. Even from this distance he could feel the force of them, a shudder through his body that was elemental.
The Ossians Page 17