Waterloo swept him off the train in an immense, sucking tide of workers. He had to struggle like a spider in a bathtub to break free of the flow into the Underground and join the queue for taxis.
‘Kings Cross Station.’ He had spoken the words. He was gliding over the river and up Kingsway, the traffic flowing fast and sure, stealing his breath.
He was out of the taxi now, checking the platform on the departure-board, swimming against another tide of commuters. He was making his way towards a train that quivered with potential like a rocket at Cape Canaveral.
The grey-suited crowds were left behind. Here were others, dressed like himself in greens and browns, backs to the teeming centre, faces to the outermost reaches. His heart was lifting on a rush of certainty. Fear and doubt were dropping away. His ticket was in his hand, his carriage was in sight. In a few minutes he would be flying, clear and straight to the heart of the glen, where his love awaited him.
Then. What? No! His brother!
In crumpled grubby black as usual. Shambling ahead with that unmistakable half-saunter-half-fidget, glancing back along the platform as he reached for a door, sending Henry bolting into his carriage, where he sat shaking and panting and confused.
How the hell was Peter here? Was this a set-up? No one knew about Marjorie. Did they?
His euphoria took a nosedive. The romantic hero tumbled from the stepladder. In a flash of clear vision, he saw himself through his brother’s eyes, laughably past it, acting crazily, dotty about some stranger who would tell him to get lost, tell him, in Peter’s unkind phrase, to ‘get a life’.
Goddamit, he needed a drink.
Chapter Three
Peter
At the far end of the train, Peter Jennings did furious battle with himself. What was he thinking of, shelling out next month’s rent on a February trek to brass-monkey land? What in hell’s name was this about? Fucking rip-off wild-goose chase, sure as wild-goose eggs, and he the mug. But what? What con? What brand of joker? Bloody mind games. Straight through the crap, no messing, he’d give them hell, making some kind of fool of him.
Growl under his breath. Then slump. Big deal, no less the sucker. Blowing the scam, then pissing off bedraggled through the no doubt freezing rain to some crummy B&B. He could see it now: massive granite, mangy cardboard cells, guarded money-up-front by a grim teetotal widow, mummified in twenty-seven layers of her own laborious knitting, her multitudinous cats in baskets mulched in layers of knitted squares and ancient fur-balls, jumping with fleas. Skint and sober into bed, with prospect of no breakfast, breathing in the unaffordable stench of the other fuckers’ kippers, before another eight hours courtesy of Signal Failures Inc, scratching the bumps red-raw.
Shit.
Yet still excitement batted inside the cynicism like a fly in a balloon. The bastards had him high and hooked, one whiff and he was craving more. Potent as the cries of encore on the pub performance trail.
And yes. Why not? Keep moving. Inverness, wherever: somewhere to go. A change from waiting for Fortune to step into the corner caff, where the diet of black coffee and shortbread began to seem more repetitious than inspirational. Or into the office stacked with malign heaps of envelopes demanding to be stuffed with survey forms, plus tea to be made for the suits with privet hedges, flush with loot like big brother Henry, insulting him with their smiles.
Or for it to fall through his letterbox, like the occasional come-on: Thank you for sending poems. Interested in reading more. To be followed, just once, for fuck’s sake please just once, by YES YES YES and large advance, not unfortunately unable, no call for genius here, mate, and wishing you luck elsewhere.
But now, who knew but Fortune had fallen fair, as always in the end she did, if you were her child, which definitely he was, or would be, it was only a matter of time. And okay, nothing might come of this, but a child of Fortune must fly with the wild geese, must keep the stream of consciousness flowing smooth and lucid, open to the monster of a poem that would one day rise from the depths uncoiling itself into words that no one could possibly ignore.
Yes! Chew finger-end and glare through dust-streaked window. Spray-paint signatures giving way to brave stretch of greenery, atop which Ally Pally sailing by. Yes, yesterday morning, though not through letterbox, too big for the pathetic flap in the Wind-in-the-Willows door of his mouldering, rented houseboat in fucking Suburbiton. And morning was an overstatement, middle of the night more like. Anyway long before any self-respecting poet was awake, let alone out of bed, for who gave a tuppenny toss about Personnel’s mispunctuated little essays on the abuse of flexitime? Yes, Thursday, far too early, through festering dreams had come the knock knock knocking, like a frantic audition for the Scottish play, or the KGB come to grab him for the gulag archipelago, which was one sure route to make the world sit up and take note, lucky bugger, knock knock knock and a ‘Sign here, mate’ and the departing back of merry, whistling Postman Pat.
And there it was. It was in his rucksack now. Take it out. Examine it suspiciously. Draw savage breath. Jiffybag with typed address. Contents: a dog-eared bundle of A4, covered – in spidery script of faded blue ink – with two hundred numbered quatrains of Scottish Gaelic, signed Angus Urquhart 1999. Plus library compliments slip with cryptic message.
Peter, This is precious. Please return it, soon and in person. The reward will surprise you. Ask at the library. FU.
And FU too!
No dosh. No wherefore. No ‘Mr Jennings’. Just, ‘Do as I say.’
Cheek of the devil, like hell he would. And what in fuck’s name was he doing, chasing off to some godforsaken Scottish library to play some game of pass-the-parcel?
Too late. Next stop The Frozen North, and fuck it he’d had nothing to eat today and he was famished.
Elena
‘Ay!’
‘Sorry.’
‘De nada.’
In the buffet car, Elena briefly registered the young man’s scowl and strong blue eyes as he turned and pushed past her. The scowl warmed her. It was good to find anger beyond her own head. She stepped forward through the hot cotton-wool smell of microwaved burgers and fired some words at el camarero.
‘That sandwich, please. And juice. Naranja. Orange. Thank you.’ She banged her money down.
Her English was poor; she had learned it from a bored teacher. Her fury against el malo had swollen to encompass the language he spoke. It shamed her mouth to utter it.
Trust me, Carlos. Urquhart. Two English words. Two names. Making one filthy lie. On a yellowing, unfranked picture-postcard of the Loch Ness monster.
Blind with fury, she collided with yet more passengers and wrenched at the sliding doors. Silently she repeated the vow that was keeping her strong. I will find him, Aunt. I will find him, Mother, I promise. He will not escape.
What revenge would she have? She hardly knew. Let him only be alive – Oor-coo-art, el malo, el bastardo – then she would know. She would denounce him, yes, but more. She would shame him somehow, as cruelly and indelibly as he had shamed her family. It would not be enough; nothing could be enough.
The train swayed as she neared her seat. She stumbled over someone’s leg. Two faces turned sleepily towards her, then resumed their kissing. And suddenly she was back in Brussels, her hand on Mikhail’s crumpled sheet. Warm, and slightly damp as though with sweat. Why was it so, in the afternoon? Was he unwell?
A child had stolen her place by the train window. The child’s mother refused to meet her eye. Elena controlled her temper; this was not el malo. She threw herself into another seat, beside a boy whose shaven head nodded to the ‘scratch scratch’ of his headphones. She ripped the packaging from her food and began bolting the sandwich, gulping the juice, barely tasting either.
There were plates in Mikhail’s sink, she remembered, and a newspaper on the table. She could see the paper clearly, its headline in favour of the euro.
The bread and chicken congealed in her mouth. The headline was in French. The paper was
in French.
Mikhail did not speak French.
The bed was warm and damp.
No.
She swallowed the hard lump of food, fished for her mobile, pressed redial.
‘Thank you for calling. Mikhail Kilvanev is not presently available. Please leave a message.’
She hit the off button.
No. No. No.
Peter
Angus Urquhart 1999?
Back in his seat, one KitKat down and one to go, scan opening lines again.
Tha cuimhne agam gun do sgrìobh mi pìos bàrdachd
I remember I wrote a poem
nuair a bha mi sia bliadhna a dh’aois.
when I was six years old.
Tha e agam fhathast.
I have it still.
Precious, said the note from FU. Could it be? Blue treasure trail on narrow feint.
LOST BARD RETURNS FROM GRAVE?
Angus Urquhart 1999. Yesterday, crack of dawn, no one he’d cared to know. He’d only glanced at the thing to lull himself back to sleep. Then, come again, whose work was this? Leap up, stub toe, bang head on beam, grab Gaelic dictionary.
One stanza . . . two . . . then three. Surely not, yet unmistakable. The chipped, plain statements blossoming into subtext.
B’àbhaist dhomh a bhith a’ sgrìobhadh tric nuar a bha mi òg.
I used to write often when I was young.
Sann, sann anns a’ Ghàidhlig as bha mi a’ sgrìobhadh mar bu trice.
Yes, it was in Gaelic I most often wrote.
Angus Urquhart had to be Calum Calum! Yell and whoop, boat rocking, brain exploding.
DERELICT GENIUS FINALLY FLIPS!
Be calm. Stay sane. Compare and cross-compare. It couldn’t be, but strike him dead it was, it had to be. Original, unpublished and – 1999? – blimey, a recent poem by the Gaelic bard himself! And still it went on being true.
Tha am bàrd ainmeil a-staigh comhla rium an-diugh.
The famous poet is here with me today.
Henry
He unscrewed the top of the first little Martell bottle and swigged it dry. He had to steady his nerves. He had to concentrate.
The brandy burned under his ribs. The carriage swayed as the train sped between frozen fields. He had to sort out what was what. He was acting crazily – yes all right, no doubt about it – haring off to Inverness in pursuit of a total stranger. But that was his business. Why was Peter here?
He had the compartment to himself, thank goodness, so he could pick his mother’s brains. He conjured her easily on the seat opposite and begged her, ‘Why?’
‘Let’s hope it’s just coincidence, dear,’ she said. ‘If not, if Peter means to laugh at you or spoil your chances, then it’s unforgivably bad of him. It’s high time he grew up.’
Her sympathy solved nothing. Henry was hit by an acute awareness that he was inventing it. His mother vanished into the upholstery, and the carriage was as abruptly empty as an opened airlock.
He gasped for breath. The pressure built in his chest, and his pulse began to race. He felt drunk with fear. ‘No. Please. Mother.’
She was struggling to re-materialise. ‘It’s all right, dear. I’m still here.’
Only she wasn’t, not really, and he was doubting Marjorie too. Only Peter was real, harbouring grudges at the other end of this train.
Henry’s swag. Henry’s loot. His brother’s words still stung. He opened the second little bottle and knocked it back. Five years and it got no easier. It was too bad. Grossly unfair. The whole blasted lot left to him like Midas’s gold.
‘You’ve got to stop upsetting yourself.’ His mother’s ghost came and went on the seat opposite. ‘I’ve told you, your father was old-fashioned. He simply meant to appoint you head of the family.’
Dearest Mother. She hadn’t minded Father’s rotten will one bit. She’d continued in her home that suddenly he owned. Drawn cheerfully on the bank account he’d rushed to open for her. It was Peter who was the problem. Bloody Peter.
‘Come on. Please. It’s yours, of course it is. Don’t be pigheaded. Don’t wait for me to kick the bucket too. Take the money and have done.’
But no, his malevolent little brother, earning peanuts, living in squalor, for five relentless years had refused to touch one penny, preferring to scowl and snipe.
His mother’d had no patience. ‘There was no love lost between you and Pa,’ she scolded Peter. ‘Henry has offered you half and you’ve refused it. Let that be an end to the matter.’
Had it really been his mother speaking? Taking his part against Peter? Yes, dear Mother. At the end of her life, years after he’d ceased to hope for it, she’d begun to smile at him in the old way. Just as her ghost, fully restored, was smiling at him now.
He grinned back in relief. It was a bad habit he knew, communing with thin air. It verged on the unbalanced, like his yen for Marjorie, but he’d never managed to do without it, not even during his short, mistaken marriage to Ingrid. All his life he’d had ghosts for company. And was it so unbalanced actually? Probably lots of people did it. People like him, lonely in childhood, who’d grown to depend on imaginary friends.
The second miniature Martell was empty. He frowned at the third and decided to open it, what the hell.
Damn it, he wasn’t by nature a lonely child. He’d have been fine if they’d served up some other children for him to play with. But all he’d had was his mother’s concentrated love. She was lonely, that much was obvious. Chock-full of imagination, romanticising her Scottish childhood. He exchanged another smile with her ghost, remembering the fantasy world they’d created together. Glens and mountains, battles against the Sassenachs. What great times they’d had, rescuing each other from danger and working themselves into storms of tears over each other’s tragic fates. He wouldn’t have missed that for the world.
His smile faded. The great times didn’t last. Aged eleven, he was sent away to the bullies and bad food of boarding school. And then, when he came back, his mother’s eyes seemed absent.
‘I’ve galloped all night with a saddlebag full of oatcakes,’ he told her.
‘Please, dear, not now. Haven’t you something you can be doing?’
He remembered, word for word, her first denial.
‘I’m sorry, Henry,’ her ghost whispered.
‘Yes, yes, Mother,’ he muttered. ‘It’s all right now.’
Back then though, it wasn’t. He’d tried everything he could think of to earn her smile, but each half-term, each holiday, she’d continued the same, as implacably remote as his father. He’d almost preferred to be at school. Loneliness had been dumped on him like a cold shower.
Then finally, that awful summer vacation when he was twelve, there was whingeing baby Peter. And there, with Peter in her arms, he’d recognised his mother at last. Doting, concentrated, occasionally in storms of tears. But not for him.
He blinked and drained the last few drops of brandy. He was forty-one, for goodness’ sake, yet still these memories hurt. Year after year he’d watched her lavish affection on his brother. From Peter’s cradle to her own grave, because there was never any talk of boarding school for Peter.
Henry sighed. He’d become inured to it. What else was there to do?
Peter
Yank dictionary from rucksack, apply himself to stanza fifty-two. Yes, no mistake, it went on being true. This voice last heard in nineteen thirty-eight. An unclaimed voice, owner missing, presumed dead somewhere in Europe’s evil convulsions.
Calum Calum.
Subject of his dazzling but incomplete PhD thesis. Incomplete from idleness, drawled prosaic prof, from lack of last words was the truth. Year after year refusing to yield, sucking itself scum and bubbles into the sand, like the tide from a child’s moat.
Why? Because voice not done with speaking, that was why. Owner not dead! The famous poet was here with him today. Here in his grasp last words. And maybe not the last, not even these? For tides turned, and moats filled, and maybe
even now, Angus Urquhart, alias Calum Calum, muse and mentor, the very same, was alive and spilling words like Noah’s flood.
Yes! Give in to certainty. Though who FU, and why? How had this come to him? Did Calum know him? Had old man Calum read the poems of Peter Jennings? Heard him perform them? Smiled blessings from the Edinburgh Festival shadows, while he stormed it night after brilliant night with Notes from Under Water and talked up his Gaelic roots?
Why not? For genius was for genius to discover, and he was Fortune’s child indeed. For wasn’t it poor Ma with her romantic notions of her Scottish ancestry who’d crooned the songs of Calum into his cradle? And hadn’t he toddled from it with his destiny issuing from his mouth, pronouncing the unpronounceable as efficiently as Hey Diddle Diddle?
Yes, until Pa came looming, bellowing, ‘Peter! Bloody well shut up, or learn to speak the Queen’s English, not that damned Scots drivel that sounds like German crossed with bloody Japanese. And Maggie, there’ll be hell to pay, I mean it.’ And Maggie’d never sung those songs again.
But hard luck, Pa, you loomed too fucking late.
Quick. Straighten face. Tosser opposite, tea-cosy hat and organic braces, beaming like Jodrell Bank. Leaning forward with some drivel about the niceness of the day on the tip of his clichéd tongue.
Piss off, mate. Arch brow, purse lips, stare hard and . . . yes, success, the loop-socked loon was blushing prettily and turning his frozen smirk to the window.
Hurtling between meadows now. Green grass, fat sheep, brown mud, thin horse, grey hedgerows, sleepy cows, still some remaining fields and farms despite old-maid Larkin’s going going. Plus frost there too in shadow, hollow, furrow, and maybe – if he knew what shape it was – an elm waiting to be discovered. As so was Calum Calum. As so was he. Peter Jennings! His unheard voice soon to be acclaimed by long-lost Gaelic bard. His Byronic image, skimming this landscape, soon to be cloned endlessly behind plate glass on heaped displays of elegant, black volumes.
And the awed reviews. NEW GENIUS FOR THE NEW MILLENNIUM!
Love, Revenge & Buttered Scones Page 3