And the Land Lay Still (12 page)

Jean paused, looked slowly round the room, and found Mike watching her. Their gazes held.

‘But an odd thing happened, something that isn’t recorded in any account of the return of the stone I’ve ever seen. Just before the three men leave, a couple emerge from behind the south transept. A man and a woman. God knows how they got in and how long they’ve been there but they stroll over towards the group and the man starts whistling a tune – the very same tune that that song Walter’s just sung is set to. You see, “The Wee Magic Stane” has been doing the rounds of the pubs and clubs for weeks. And it’s as if the man, by whistling those notes, is giving a password or a code. And he and the young woman smile and shake the hands of everybody there and that’s odd too, a handshake but nothing said, as if they’re all members of some resistance movement or something. Resisting what? Who knows? And then the man and woman walk out of the gate and away, and no doubt the men in the abbey can still hear that tune being whistled in the distance.

‘It was funny and yet serious. As if they were being told they’d done something symbolic and special and it was being acknowledged
but without making too much fuss about it. Maybe that was what the whistling man wanted them to feel anyway.’

‘How do you know about that,’ someone asked, ‘if you’ve never seen it written down? How do you know it happened?’

‘Maybe it didn’t,’ Jean said. ‘As you say, if it’s not written down, where’s the evidence? Maybe it didn’t happen at all.’

‘It was you, wasn’t it?’ somebody else said. ‘That’s the only way you could know.’

‘That would be one way,’ Jean said. ‘Or somebody could have told me.’ She smiled what Mike supposed was meant to be a disingenuous smile. ‘Anyway, that’s enough of that,’ she said. ‘Somebody give us another song.’

§

Maybe Isobel’s fears were not so far-fetched. Because of the miners’ action coal was in short supply and because of the railway workers’ action a lot of the coal on the surface wasn’t getting to the power stations. From the first day of the new year the government imposed a three-day working week on industry, to conserve energy. The speed limit on roads was restricted to fifty miles per hour. Television closed down at ten-thirty every night: people had to talk to each other instead, or read books, or go to bed. Shops ran short of bread and sugar. Power cuts were frequent. Negotiations between the TUC and the government dragged on for days, weeks, until the end of February, when Ted Heath called a General Election to decide who was in charge of the country. Mike was nineteen. He’d be able to vote for the first time.

One evening, a week before the election, he was in Sandy Bell’s and the biker was there again. He wouldn’t leave Mike be. It turned out he wasn’t a biker at all, he just wore the leather jacket. His name was Sam and he didn’t merely glance at Mike now, he stared at him as they talked, long meaningful stares, and Mike knew what they meant and he didn’t want it. He wanted to find Catriona and have a drink that didn’t come with complications. He wanted to go to Jean’s but not with Sam tagging along. There were two Irish fiddlers and a whistle player going like madmen in the corner and a good crowd encouraging them with rounds of Guinness and applause. Sam said it wasn’t really his scene, the folk music, and Mike asked
what the fuck was he doing drinking in Sandy Bell’s then? Sam said he liked a change and anyway the place was an institution, you had to try everything once or twice, see if you liked it. And now he’d made up his mind: he didn’t. His scene was more New Town, he liked things a little more sophisticated. Mike said the Old Town was fine for him. Sam said, as if they’d made a deal, come on, I’ve tried this, you should try the bars down there. He named some: the Kenilworth, Paddy’s, the Marquis. Mike said, no thanks. He finished his pint quickly and went to the toilet, intending to walk straight out when he came back. He did but Sam drained his glass too and caught up with Mike on the street, just before Greyfriars Bobby.

‘Come on,’ Sam said, crowding in on him. ‘Come down the road with me. Live a little.’

‘I’m not going your way,’ Mike said. Sam had an arm round his shoulder. There was a crowd of students coming towards them, a couple of faces Mike knew. ‘Fuck’s sake,’ he said, and allowed himself to be pushed into the shadows, in through the gate of Greyfriars kirkyard. There was a rough wall and Sam had him pressed up against it, one hand between Mike’s legs, kneading his crotch. Mike pushed back. ‘Fuck off, will you?’

‘It’s what you want,’ Sam said.

‘It fucking is not.’

‘I can see it in your eyes. You want it as much as I do, you just don’t know it yet, that’s all.’

Mike struck down hard on Sam’s wrist with one fist, slammed him in the chest with the other, and made a run for it. He reached the gate, astonished at how breathless he’d suddenly become. He wasn’t being pursued. Sam was still among the gravestones, leaning on one, waiting for him.

‘It’s what you want,’ Sam called. And Mike knew he could go back, that half the reason he was breathless was because the choice was there. But it
wasn’t
what he wanted. Not like that. Not then and not there, and not with Sam.

§

They’ve just about finished the Highland Park. Mike shares out the last half-inch and indicates the Clynelish on the table. ‘Is that wise?’

‘Very unwise,’ Jean says. ‘But we don’t have to drink it all, do we?’

Mike fetches it over, feeling the malt waves crash through him. Earlier he brought a big jug of water and a couple more glasses through from the kitchen, and when he remembers to do so he gulps down some water to offset the whisky. Jean doesn’t bother. He takes the Clynelish out of its box but doesn’t open it.

‘If we drink even a quarter of this we will die,’ he says.

‘Aye we will,’ Jean says. ‘But we’re going to anyway, remember?’

‘You are. I’m not ready yet.’

‘Good.’

‘You’ve corrupted me. When I first met you I didn’t drink this stuff. Made me throw up.’

‘You were a bairn. You had a lot of growing up to do.’

‘Aye. You’re not wrong there.’

‘You were still trying out lassies, if I remember correctly.’

‘Couldn’t make my mind up.’

‘It wasn’t about your mind, of course. Or it was but only because you needed to chase the fear and ignorance out of it.’

‘We all needed to do that,’ he says. ‘You knew right away, didn’t you?’

‘Pretty much. Don’t ask me how, and I certainly wasn’t going to
tell
you. You had to find out for yourself. And you did.’

‘Do you remember Catriona MacKay? Who came down from Inverness, and I thought she was the one?’

‘You
thought
you thought she was the one. The lovely Catriona. Drank like a fish. Aye, I do remember her. She had a very fine voice.’

‘We were almost an item for a few weeks in my first year. We really liked each other and I feel bad about it now because she didn’t know what was wrong and I didn’t know for certain so I couldn’t tell her.’

‘You don’t need to feel bad about it. She was growing up too.’

‘We were both so inexperienced. She was doing Languages. She was going to be a teacher. It was when the power cuts were happening because of the three-day week, and we’d been here one evening and were both a bit drunk and she said I could go back to her flat and we could save electricity by having a shower together. Remember all that stuff? Save hot water, shower with a friend? So that’s what we did. She suggested it as a joke and then we both realised we were going to do it and suddenly it wasn’t a joke. We hadn’t even kissed properly up till then. We kissed on the way to her flat and a
bit more in her bedroom and then we got undressed and went through to the bathroom. I remember we held hands crossing the hallway. If there was anybody else in the flat they were asleep. We stood in the bath under the shower in the dark until the hot water ran out and it was lovely but I knew it wasn’t right. She had a beautiful body, perfect skin. I remember us kissing and the water running into our mouths and me soaping her breasts and her thighs and her bum and then her doing me, she was soaping me down there and it should have been the start of something but it wasn’t. I closed my eyes and it wasn’t her I imagined being there with, even though I didn’t have anybody in mind it wasn’t
a
her
. Then we towelled each other dry and went to bed and hugged each other and she said, “Mike, is it you or is it me?” And I said, “It’s me.” And she said, “Yes, it is, isn’t it?” which was when I really knew, for certain, and then we went to sleep and when we woke up it was like we were just friends, like I was one of her girlfriends or something, and I walked out of her flat and I finally knew who I was.’

Jean is smiling. Mike has the vague sense of having woken from a dream.

‘Did I just say all that?’

‘You did.’

‘Jesus, I must be pissed.’

‘You are.’

‘Sorry.’

‘Don’t apologise,’ Jean says. ‘We’re way past that.’

He smiles back at her. She even looks quite healthy again.

‘The lovely Catriona,’ she says. ‘She was out for fun, that was clear. I wonder what happened to her.’

‘She got serious in the ’80s,’ he says. ‘Very active in Gaelic, environmentalism, land ownership, those issues. I think she gave up teaching to concentrate on all of that. She stays in Glasgow. I haven’t seen her for years.’ He thinks, I still have an address for her, I’ll invite her to the opening.

‘Those were called fringe issues back then,’ Jean says. ‘They’re mainstream now.’

‘And it’s great that they are, but you lose something when you stop being on the edge. Things get sanitised, normalised. Somehow it’s disappointing.’

‘The realisation of hope always is. That’s why the early years of devolution were such a let-down. We expected miracles and we got the mundane.’

After a few moments she goes on. ‘I wonder what happened to all those other people who came through my door. Most of them were hopeful, I think. I wonder where they all ended up, and if they’re disappointed. God, there were a lot of them over the years.’

And suddenly the memory clicks into place for Mike. ‘Jesus, that’s who that was!’

‘Who what was?’

‘I saw this guy today, in a café. He used to come here. I just didn’t recognise him because he looked that much older. Out of context. But it was him, definitely. Duffelcoat Dick.’

‘Who?’

‘Do you not remember him?’

‘Remind me.’

‘Older than us students. He wasn’t one of us, but he wasn’t one of the people we came to listen to either. Like yourself, or Walter. He always wore a brown duffelcoat. I think he thought it made him look like a student, but actually it made him look like a prat. Like a middle-aged man pretending to be a schoolboy. That’s what we called him, Duffelcoat Dick, but his real name was … No, I’ve forgotten.’

‘Oh, him,’ Jean says. ‘He called himself Peter.’

‘Peter, that’s it. He was sitting in this café in the Grassmarket reading a paper. No duffelcoat and thirty-five years older, looking pretty rough, but it was him all right. Amazing.’

‘Not really. Edinburgh’s a wee place. Scotland’s a wee place.’

‘Aye, but still …’

‘He was a spook,’ Jean says.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Just that. He was a spook. A spy. He worked for the Intelligence services.’

‘You’re kidding.’

‘I can’t prove it, but I know I’m right. We were bound to attract the attention of the Brits, Mike, even though we weren’t doing anything wrong. We had all sorts dropping in on us back then. It was a very worrying time for the defenders of the Union, poor dears.’

‘I had no idea.’

‘I told you, you were a bairn. We had one lad who used to come who’d been mixed up in some of that tartan terrorism business. His pals had bombed an oil pipeline or an electricity substation or something and he’d been on the edge of it, although I think it was mostly wishful thinking on his part.’

‘We’ve all done our share of that,’ Mike says.

‘Anyway, this boy used to get drunk and talk about blowing up the Duke of Sutherland’s statue at Golspie. The Highland lassies loved that idea. Do you not mind him?’

He shakes his head. ‘I wasn’t here all the time.’

‘Well, if you had folk like that calling on you, you were bound to get visits from the Secret Service too. They assumed we were some kind of cell. What kind of cell I’ve no idea, but that Peter, that Duffelcoat Dick, he came along to investigate.’

‘What did he find? Did I miss some bomb-making workshops?’

‘He found a lot of people beginning to think themselves into a new place, a new country – some consciously, some unconsciously, but that’s what was happening. He dropped in for about six months on and off, between the first General Election in 1974 and the second one. Remember that? Two General Elections in a year. The Nats did well in February but they did even better in October. Anyway, I was fed up with him. He never contributed anything, he just sat around drinking other people’s wine and I’d had enough. I cornered him in the kitchen, it was just him and me and I said, “What is it you’re looking for?” and he said, “A corkscrew,” and I said, “You know what I mean,” and I shut the door and stood with my back to it. I said, “You sneak into my home and sit in the shadows with your lugs waggling like antennae and you think I don’t know who you are? Don’t worry, I’m not going to blow your cover, but what’s so special about us?” ’

‘And what did he say?’

‘He said, “There’s nothing special about you. Do you think this is the only place I go?” And I said, “I don’t care where else you go or who else you like eavesdropping on, but I’m interested to know what you’re doing here.” He said, “The same as I’m doing everywhere. I’m trying to gauge whether we’ve reached point critical.” And I said, “Meaning what?” He said, “The point of no return. The point where you can’t stop it even if you want to.” “And have we?” I
said. “No,” he said. “This will all pass. They’re not ready.” And I said, “Who? The people through in the other room?” And he said, “The people in general.” So I said, “Well, then, you’ll not need to come here any more, will you?” And I opened the kitchen door and stepped aside and he went down the passage and let himself out and I never saw him again.”