Idea in Stone (33 page)

Peter spat out the firecracker. “Two words for you,” he said slowly and quietly to Square-head, “tool... shed.”

A look of horror flashed across Square-head’s face. “Shut up. Just shut up,” he said. “Let him go. He’s learnt his lesson.”

The men let go of Peter. “I thought yeh wouldn’t want me telling yer mates about that. So why don’t yehs all just pack it in an’ let me nephew get some kip? Go get drunk or something. I know yer good at that. Nighty-night, Jimmy,” he said, leaning forward and putting his hands around Square-head as if to kiss him. Square-head recoiled. “Ha! Buncha stupid oiks. C’mon Ste.”

Fiona rushed up to them with several other men in tow. “You alright? It looked like you were in trouble, so I got some help.”

“We’re fine,” said Peter, coolly. “Thanks anyway, Fi.”

He and Stefan continued walking to the bar next to the dance-floor. “I’m the groom’s brother,” he announced to the bartender, crossing behind the bar. “I’m just gonna take these, okay?” He lifted up a cardboard case of beer. Before the bartender could answer, Peter said, “Thanks.”

They stopped at the front desk. “This is a stunning establishment,” Peter said to the clerk, pocketing all their match-boxes, “I want to tell everyone I know about it.”

“What are we doing?” asked Stefan, following him up to their room, where Peter stowed the case of beer.

“We’re going to have our own private party. But we’ve got something to do first.” They walked out to the car-park beside the manor. “Let’s see. Which one do you think they came in?” Among the serviceable cars from Barry’s side of the party and the luxury vehicles of Christine’s side stood one small white cheap sportscar with tinted black windows, shiny wheel-rims, and an enormous white manatee tail.

Peter flipped the handkerchief from his breast-pocket like a magician. “Could you hold this, please?” he asked, handing it to Stefan. He emptied the boxes of matches one by one into his hand, then expertly hunkered down in his kilt, not showing anything inappropriate, though Stefan had seen it all already, and stuffed the matches up the car’s tail-pipe by the handful. “Observe,” he said, looking up at Stefan, as he produced from his pockets a small box of fireworks and the larger tube that had been in his mouth.

“When did you—?”

“I got the little ones when I hugged Jimmy there, and they gave me the other one before.”

“You’re devious.”

Peter smiled. He opened the box and poked the fireworks into the tailpipe after the matches. Then he popped in the large tube. “My handkerchief, please.” Stefan presented it to him. Peter wrapped it around the tail-pipe, then took apart the carnation boutonniere that had been pinned to his jacket. He unwound the green tape from the flowers and cinched it tightly around the handkerchief over the tail-pipe. “All done. Let’s go.”

“Er, okay,” said Stefan, looking at the car as they headed back to the manor.

“So where did you learn that,” asked Peter, “what you did back there?”

“It was my mother’s idea. She knew I was different, and didn’t want anyone picking on me for it, so we went through this period when she had me taking all kinds of self-defence classes.”

“That was cool.”

“I didn’t know if it would work. I’ve never got to use it before. But you know, they had you, and—”

“You’re my hero,” said Peter, and kissed him.

“Hardly. What about you? What did—Jimmy, was it?—what did he not want you to say? You guys didn’t, you know—?”

“God, Ste, give me some credit.”

“Sorry.”

“Well, we kinda did. Not really. There was him and his sister and me. We were all in this tool-shed one time with our jeans and pants down. His parents had given him this book about how babies were made, and he showed it to us. He was curious, and stuck his little willy in his sister.”

“No way!”

“Yeah. So he’s a bit uncomfortable about that.”

“I can imagine,” said Stefan with a feigned shudder.

Back in the room, Peter picked up the beer. “Get the covers,” he said, indicating with his head. Stefan, unsure, pulled the blankets and duvet from the bed. He followed Peter back outside. They walked from the manor grounds, crossed the adjoining golf course, and continued out to the landscape beyond.

“Here,” said Peter. Stefan dropped the blankets and spread them out. They took off their jackets and shoes and lay down.

Stefan walked his hand up Peter’s thigh to explore under his kilt, something he’d been wanting to do all day. But they were both too shaken from the earlier confrontation to feel aroused. Instead, Stefan pulled open the box of beer and popped one open for each of them. They sat looking at the sky, content to be silent in each other’s company. Stefan looked around at the landscape, which featured little more than lumps and oddly scattered rocks—seemingly dropped from the sky—stretching off for miles to the mountains beyond. The ground was covered with heather, still faintly purple in the moonlight, despite the late season. Something about it all seemed strangely familiar.

Neither of them had any sense of time, except for the slow arc of the moon. Peter cleared their empty cans and their current half-full ones from the blankets and pulled them over him and Stefan. They dozed until a huge bang woke them up. A flaming red shape like a fiery palm tree filled the sky, with tiny green fronds around it.

“Oh my God!” said Stefan.

Peter laughed with perverse pleasure. “Cheers,” he said, lifting a can of beer.

Stefan grabbed one and clunked it against Peter’s. As he sipped it, he watched the lights fading in the sky. Looking at the moon-like landscape around them, it dawned on him slowly. “This is a dream.”

“Yeah,” said Peter, smiling, “it is.” He kissed him.

No
, thought Stefan,
I dreamt this.
A year ago.
But he didn’t correct Peter, because he was right, too.

Eighteen

Misplaced

Peter pulled on his coat, then climbed back onto the bed where Stefan was reading a newspaper.

“Seems there was a riot in Rome last week following the performance of a play,” said Stefan.

“So?”

“It was my dad’s play,” he added.

“You’re kidding!”

“Nope. It’s right here: ‘Show Sparks Demonstration’,” said Stefan, holding up the paper.

“I don’t have time, Ste, I’ve got to get to the restaurant. The posh folk are hungry, and it’s up to me to make sure they’re properly fed.” He stopped as he saw the excitement in Stefan’s face. “It’s great, though. That must really be some show. Tell me more about it later. I just—I really have to go.” He wrapped a scarf around his neck. “Can you believe we slept outside just a week ago? And today it’s threatening to snow.”

“Any word from the newlyweds?”

“Yeah, they called last night after you went to bed. Barry says hi—expressive as always. But Christine wanted me to tell you how happy she was that you were at the wedding.”

“Aww, that’s nice.”

“Well, it was good of you to be there.” He kissed Stefan on the cheek. “So what are you going to do with yourself today?”

“Well, this article has got me thinking. I’m going to try to find my father... Somewhere.”

“Er, okay,” said Peter. “Good luck. I’ll see you when I get home.”

~

Stefan sat in the grey cavern that was Saint Giles Cathedral. The space was nearly empty, except for a few tourists who occasionally snapped pictures. Though he didn’t have a religious background, an instinct told Stefan that photographing a holy space was taboo, or at least in poor taste.

He heard singing from several directions, hymns and chanting, intermixed with some mumbling. These sounds weren’t coming from the tourists, or the tidy, wizened woman who sat at an information table. The songs and utterances came from the statues and carvings around the cathedral. No one else reacted to them, so Stefan figured he was the only one who heard them. His mother always told him how sensitive he was, and went to great lengths to expound on the richness of their aboriginal culture’s spiritual traditions. It had occurred to him on several occasions that he might just be insane and Delonia overcompensating. But events lately had fallen together in a way that reassured him that not only was he of sound mind, perhaps things were also working out as they were supposed to. His experiences had been tumultuous, but the payoffs—seeing his father, working with the theatre company, and now finding Peter—made it all worthwhile.

His father was nowhere to be found here in the church. Somehow he knew this. He stood up from the small wooden chair in the side chapel where’d he’d been sitting. He put a hand on the armoured glove of the marble man who lay there with a sword across his chest, and mentally thanked him for letting him stop for a while in his space. Stefan didn’t know why, but statues of the dead, laid out and resting, didn’t speak or stir in any way. The statuary in Edinburgh seemed to be growing more and more restless, so Stefan appreciated the relative quiet of this space.

Stefan walked across the bridges into the New Town. A small group of soldiers from the Great War stood on a plinth halfway across, mounted to one side of the pavement. They shouted battlefield instructions to each other and looked around, confused.

“The enemy is out there,” said one.

“Where?” asked another. He reloaded his rifle, knelt down, pulled his wide-brimmed bowl of a helmet down and adjusted to keep from sinking into the mud.

“I don’t know,” said the first.

“Where are we?” asked the third.

“I don’t know!” said the first.

Stefan pretended that he, like the others crossing the bridge, didn’t see them. He had an idea for figuring out what was happening with the statues. It was strange, but he was growing accustomed to strange. He walked through a small ravine formed on one side by a concrete mass containing a shopping mall and on the other side by a glass movie theatre that clung to the base of Calton Hill like a giant aquarium full of neon lights, escalators, and people.

He crossed a busy street and walked to a statue he’d noticed a while ago. He looked up at the bronze man who stood on a concrete base. The man’s face was narrow and pensive. He wore a hunting cap with two peaks, a long cloak-like overcoat, and held a pipe. “Mister Holmes?” asked Stefan.

“Hello, yes?” Statue-Holmes looked down. “You can see me?” he asked curtly and incredulously.

“Yes, I can. I was wondering if you could help me.”

“I’m not so sure that I can. I don’t feel quite myself.” He paused as if searching for something half-remembered. “My faculties are not what they once were. I—Where am I?”

“You’re in Edinburgh, Mister Holmes.”

He turned about and looked at the modern buildings around him. The dense traffic didn’t register in his carved-out eyes. The dark metal features of his face squinted. “I can’t recall—” he began, but interrupted himself, distressed by an emerging awareness. “I am not Sherlock Holmes.”

“No, sir,” said Stefan, “you’re a statue of him.”

“What do you know of this Sherlock Holmes?” the statue demanded.

“He was a character. In books. A series of books by a man named Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. It says on this plaque that he was born near here. Doyle, that is.”

“Have you read these books?”

“Uh, no,” Stefan admitted quietly. “But I did see a play once based on one of them!”

“Was it good?”

“Uh, not really.” Stefan buried his hands in the pockets of the heavy jacket he’d borrowed from Peter.

“I’m not sure how helpful I can be to you,” said the statue. “I’m afraid I’ve very little with which to work.” He angled one foot on the pedestal and tapped his pipe against his lip as he thought, just as Stefan figured he might. The statue seemed to be balancing ideas against his moment-to-moment experiences of himself. Finally, he pronounced: “I am not even so much as a statue of this Sherlock Holmes. I am a statue of an artist’s
idea
of Sherlock Holmes—several times removed from even a fictional source of origin, I’m afraid. The fact that you know next to nothing about me is further limiting.”

Stefan struggled to keep up with the statue’s line of thinking. The statue was clearly cleverer than he was. Or, rather, Stefan corrected himself, he was based on the idea of someone cleverer. “That’s it, what you said. You just answered my question. You’re an idea. Hume—another statue across town—he said something similar to me. He asked who I was, and when I told him my name, he said that was just an idea. I get it now: he didn’t know who he was because
I
didn’t have any idea who he was.”

“Do people still read these books by Doyle?” asked the panic-stricken statue.

“Oh yeah, they’re still very popular.”

“Thank goodness. I’m safe.”

“Yes,” said Stefan. An alarmed look took over his face. “You mean, if enough people forget... I’ve gotta go. Thank you!” Before the statue could respond, Stefan ran away. His coat flapped open in the wind as he ran back across the bridges, back to the Royal Mile to the spot where he’d spoken to the statue of Hume.

The statue was gone.

~

Peter walked into the flat, still wearing his chequered kitchen-worker’s trousers and white smock. He hung his thin jacket on the wall over the heavy one he’d given Stefan. “What’s going on?” he asked. Fiona sat bouncing her son on her leg. She looked relieved to see him. Stefan sat on a footstool in front of her, leaning with his elbows on his knees. Roddy stared at the ceiling, bewildered.