Walker

I walked a good few miles in Marwick and Sandwick today. I took a lot of photographs along the cliffs but have uploaded this. The last couple of miles on the road, this walker was ahead of me. I like the image as he reached the top of the hill. He had a ponytail, a leather satchel and a magic staff; he may have been a wizard.

The last I saw, he was heading for Stromness as I reached the Bridge of Quholmslie.

That was as far as I went; I can't cross running water.

The Death of Alan Daw

Iain was the first to realise that Alan was missing. The whole crowd is here but him, he thought, or should that be ‘he’? Anyway, gossip and laughter, the usual hubbub lacking only Alan’s ebullient contributions. Iain glanced over his shoulder. Not there either. He started to feel a little concerned. It was an unwritten law that everyone got together at day’s end; a short period every evening when problems could be shared, adventures related and gags groaned over. Iain couldn’t remember Alan ever missing the evening blether. Should he go and look for him? It would be dark soon; if he was going to search, it had better be right now. He spread his black wings and launched himself from his perch on the highest branch of the ancient tree.
He banked to the left and spiralled downward around the tree, checking each branch, hoping Alan was perhaps huddled silently by the trunk, maybe in a huff about something or feeling a bit off-colour. The air hummed over each black feather, Ian’s mind subconsciously checking to ensure that all was well, like a driver listening to a thousand engines. No Alan. He veered off toward the Abbey. Flying vertically, he swept past a lighted window, startling a woman who had been looking out into the gathering darkness.
It was unlikely, but perhaps his friend was on the roof; had given the gathering a body-swerve and gone straight to roost. Methodically, he checked each eave, each chimney-pot, especially the one in which Alan had been born, right next to Iain’s own birthnest.
A gloom thicker than the evening was setting on Iain. He flew back to the sycamore and consulted with the colony elders. Consternation spread from branch to branch, laughter being replaced by a worried muttering.
By now darkness had settled in and made itself comfortable. Pipistrelle bats winged silently while looping out their sound nets, young tawnies made a laughable hash of the solemnity of hooting. But the Colony was cheerless. No search was possible until first light, many hours away. Iain tried to sleep and managed a little, but only disturbed by dreaming of the single full-grown dead jackdaw he had seen. The previous winter he had come across Eilidh Jackdaw, frozen beneath a red oak. She had seemed to merely be sleeping, but her nightblack plumage was cobwebbed by frost, a cage from which she seemed uninterested in escaping. But Eilidh was old and died in the depths of winter: this was summer and Alan was young. Hopefully. Still.
It was decided by the Elders in the morning, that enquiries should be made of other colonies and kinships, and everyone was given their instructions. It seemed to Iain that, young as he was, he was chosen to be sent to non-‘daws as a way to avoid embarrassment to the more venerable Colony members; that the envoys would fail and bring the Colony into some disrepute as badly-run and a bit wayward. But as a junior member, he could not turn down his assignment, and his discomfiture hardly mattered if there was a chance of tracking down his friend.
It was barely worth asking the Singers for information. Their heads were full of song and sex, thoughts of how to improve their performance in both fields and how poor their neighbours were at either. They were too busy to notice anything of anything else, but would be questioned on the off-chance. The magpies, known as ‘the Motley Crew’, disliked being questioned, denying knowledge of anything as a matter of principle. More likely to be of help were the more sensible and responsible woodpigeons and the rooks. The pigeons were nearer so Iain turned to them first.
They were usually to be found on the wide Abbey lawns. Their solemn demeanour led to their being known as ‘the Bishop’s Conference’. Portly and garbed in muted but impressive vestments, they seemed to walk the lawns in search of spiritual enlightenment rather than base food. They never expressed irritation at the raucous jackdaws, but would sigh as the Colony tumbled overhead, and continue their cogitations, wings clasped behind their backs.
Iain did not know the correct procedure in approaching such dignified figures, so he merely bounced down onto the lawn in front of the nearest Bishop. He was regarded with quiet surprise.
‘My word, young ‘daw, such energy at such an early hour! You will not be so spry at my age, you can be sure of that.’
‘Us ‘daws are just naturally spry your worsh…sir. Even the elders. I did not mean to make you jump, but we are missing a young friend of mine, Alan Jackdaw, and I was wondering if you or any of your colleagues may have noticed him?’
‘We do not notice too much, young ‘daw, as we stroll these hallowed lawns. Our minds are on a higher plane. Or food. But I will most certainly ask my associates if they have noticed anything untoward in regard to your friend. What does he look like?’
‘Eh…black, sir,’ said Iain, realising at the question that his enquiry was pointless, the Bishops only noticed the jackdaws, he realised, as they might dead leaves blown across the sky above the abbey, woods and lawns. But, being a courteous young ‘daw, he thanked the Bishop and flew back to the sycamore to make a brief report before visiting his next assigned group, the rooks.
The rooks were a much different kettle of fish to the woodpigeons, thought Iain, and an image of a woodpigeon and a rook gazing into a steaming potful of fish almost made him grin. They were cousins of the jackdaws, its true, but were regarded by them with a mixture of amusement and respect. The rooks were known as the Society of Advocates. The name had spread from the clan of ‘daws that lived in the spire of St Giles’ Cathedral, from their sharp observance of centuries of black-gowned lawyers issuing from the neighbouring courts and gathering in knots on the cobbles far below. Just like rooks in looks and just like rooks in behaviour too. The human rooks seemed to have vanished but the real rooks, the real McCaw, had too many pressing cases in hand to disappear. They could be found in small clusters in fields, deep in legalistic discussions, brows furrowed and only missing the red-tape bound papers of their human counterparts tucked under their wings. Less amusing, though, was the fact that these disputations were not always without consequence. Occasionally, an advocate might be struck off and sent in exile from the colony. Such a thought sent a shiver down Iain’s spine.
The Society of Advocates met in a muddy field beyond the river and Iain had only to fly for a few minutes before he could see them below, fustian blending with the soil. He glided down nervously, aware that many beady eyes would be observing his approach. Iain knew that the rooks’ court held no jurisdiction over him, yet the knowledge did not seem to help.
He landed a respectful distance from the court and waited to be called. Some minutes passed and a rook approached at a dignified pace. Iain realised that although these birds were cousins, they were somewhat cousins at several removes. This rook seemed awfully tall. His legs were heavily trousered in feathers, making Iain feel exposed and childish, just a kid in shorts. The rook had a face that appeared to be composed of very ancient parchment, as if pages of decaying old law-books had stuck to it as the old rook peered short-sightedly into their depths.
‘Have you an appointment? No?’ The rook was a little displeased but cheered up on noticing an injudicious leatherjacket that had popped out of the ground by his foot. A swift bob and it was gone. He is now wearing that leatherjacket, thought Iain, or is it wearing him? Confusing, concentrate. Iain explained the reason for his visit. The advocate nodded a few times, listening intently while gazing into the distance over Iain’s head. He flapped his wings as if plunging about for a handkerchief. But he aint, thought Iain, rooks don’t use ‘em.
‘We will certainly look into this for you. I should think that an investigation could be up and running within four to six weeks. Depending on the availability of personnel, of course, everyone has a very heavy caseload at the moment.’
Iain would have thought that he was being teased if it were not for the well-known fact that rooks are humourless.
‘Your wayward friend will prob’ly have turned up long before then, I wager, having put us to lots of bother.’
‘What bother if you haven’t begun your investigation?’
The advocate raised his eyebrows at the impertinence of the young 'daw, or at least Iain thought that he did, it can be difficult to detect when a rook raises his eyebrows.
‘Meetings will have been rearranged, schedules disrupted, confabs confused! Our diaries are set months ahead.’
Papershufflers! Desk jockeys! Red tape wranglers! Quill quiverers! Iain tried to content himself with thinking up a series of derisory names for the august body of advocate rooks
He tried to forage a little on his way home. He had eaten nothing all day, but had little appetite. He checked in at the evening meet, no news of Alan, made his report to the elders and then turned in early. Already he was aware of rumours in the colony…Alan had left to join a more prestigious clan or he had fallen for a young ‘daw from elsewhere and mated out. But that was just crazy talk. Abandoning the colony was almost unheard of and Alan loved it here, you’d have to break his wings, his legs to keep him from home. He tried to settle down to sleep. For such a young ‘daw, Iain had quite a decent roost. In the lee of a large chimney and sheltered by corners of slate and lead, it was a comfortable spot. But tonight the wind got up something fierce. It tore around the roof, the chimneypots keened dully, the woods boomed like a maddened sea. Iain, sleepless, gazed at a large moon occasionally hidden by hastening, ragged cloud. His pale blue eyes seemed to hold onto a little moonlight whenever the shadows fell.
Soon after daybreak Iain set off again. The rest of the colony watched him go. They would search too, but the general opinion was that Alan was dead, they would find, if anything, only his corpse.
Iain headed out over the woods. They stretched for hundreds of wingbeats around. As he flew, he kept an eye out for big sparrowhawk. The missus hawk. Her husband wasn’t anything to worry about but she, she would rip your wings off as soon as spit. He did not notice the large black shape that dogged his path.
He was resting on an oak branch when he heard the voice. It was low and appeared to come from several directions at once, even from within his own skull.
The voice said, ‘Young jackdaw, you will never find your friend in this land. He has long reached Farflight.’
Iain could now make out the speaker. A large lustrous carrion crow sat on a branch a couple of wingbeats above and behind him, the sun beyond making it difficult to see his features. But he sounded old.
‘I have been informed of your search. You should have come to me first.’
The last words carried a note of amusement, the creature knew that a young ‘daw would fly a mile rather than approach a carrion crow.
Farflight. Iain’s beak made an absurd clopping sound as he tried to say something, anything to hide his fear. The crow shrugged his shoulders a little, his plumage shifting like an oversized, borrowed greatcoat.
‘My name is Aleister Crow. It is a name with which you may be familiar?’
Iain tried to nod his head, tried to say that he had, but could not.
‘Cat got your tongue? No mind. If you can stir your little wings, I can show you the remains of your kinsman.’
Iain thought for a moment that he was in the middle of a very nasty dream. That he was at his roost and not transfixed on a branch being told of the death of his best friend by the most infamous member of the Coven, the collective name for all carrion crows. But the moment passed, and Aleister Crow remained real, corporeal, a dense fragment of feathered ill-luck.
‘Follow me and stay close, Mrs Sparrowhawk has just given up on her latest diet.’
Iain took his advice. Two wingbeats of his own for every one of Crow’s soon took its toll and he was relieved when they arced down to an alder by the river. Below them on the river path was a young human. Iain was puzzled at the creature’s plumage, broken browns and greens, until he realised that the human was trying to look like the woods, like a woodcock blending with bracken.
‘Watch what he does.’
The human slowly pointed a long object toward a robin singing powerfully on a hawthorn.
‘Watch yourself, young Robbie!’ Aleister Crow rapped out in his allaround voice.
The robin jumped and disappeared into the bushes as the object held by the human made a tremendous crack. The branch that the robin had sat on splintered.
Iain found his voice, ‘What do you call that object?’
‘Some call it a thunderstick, and some, the branch that kills, but I find it simpler to call it a twenty-two. This human used it to kill your friend.’
Iain felt a shiver go through him, a shiver totally different from the one that helped him wake up on a frosty morning. The human’s face twisted on missing the robin, and he scanned the trees for his target or the noisy crow that had scared it off. But he was unable to penetrate the shadows with his paltry human vision.
Aleister said, ‘He’ll keep. Follow me.’
Within a hundred wingbeats they had stopped again. Crow said nothing, merely nodded groundward, his eyes remaining on Iain.
Alan lay on a deer-path below. Still as a rock. There were no signs of injury, no wing broken on wire or wall, no decapitation by hawk.
Crow seemed to read Iain’s mind. ‘The twenty-two throws a tiny fragment like a hard little pebble into the target. I’ve put some rowan leaves around him. Nothing like rowan leaves for a warning to keep off.
Iain barely understood what Crow was talking about. He sat and considered the carcase of his friend.
‘This day is going to get worse before it gets better’, said the crow, ‘you have never, I assume, carried out the necessary ritual on a departed kinsman?’
No, he hadn’t. But to Crow’s surprise, the young ‘daw dropped from the branch and landed gently by Alan. And plucked out his dead blue eyes.
This would allow a bond to remain between Alan and the clan, allow him to see a little, through Iain’s eyes, of the lives of his friends and family when he wished, from Farflight, where all birds’ understanding goes when the body fails.
Above him, Aleister Crow looked impressed in spite of himself.
As Iain had dropped through the air he wondered how he would feel on ingesting his dead friend’s eyes. On doing so, he felt invigorated; happy that Alan had, in a way, been brought back to the colony, would be able to laugh at the jokes and tricks of the clan at play.
It began to rain. Waterdrops like tiny bones began to clatter off every leaf in the wood. Millions of snaps, clicks that filled Iain’s head and drove out thoughts of Alan, clan and even Crow. It grew heavier and shook Iain from his trance. Crow indicated with a sweep of his wing that Iain should follow and plunged into the open, ignoring the elements. Iain wished that he was a raven, because they can fly in the rain without being touched by a single drop. Within moments they were in sight again of the human, now more bush-like than ever with his collar up and a hat pulled low down his face peering out like that of a pig trapped in a holly.
‘We can catch up with him again’, said Crow, ‘see ya’. He disappeared into the murk.
Iain flew home and told the elders what had happened. They were grim at the news and talked of how such things were once common, the humans with the loud sticks, the lines of the fallen strung barbarously on fences.
‘Nor is it a good thing, young ‘daw, that you have been in the company of Aleister Crow. He is not fit company for any self-respecting jackdaw. The Society of Advocates have a file on him as fat as a Bishop’s arse. We know that most humans mean us no harm and so we deign to treat their roofs as our own, but the carrion crows hold them only in great contempt. Wickedness from humans is no excuse for wickedness from jackdaw nor crow neither. As long as you live on our roof, you must abide by our rules, and a prime one is: No fraternisation with Aleister Crow!’
The chief jackdaw’s term of office would be over by the new moon, but Iain guessed that the next elder to serve would be just as strict on the subject of Crow. The young jackdaw had a feeling that Crow would not be easily ignored, and had a nagging temptation to seek out the crow and seek his aid in avenging the slaying of Alan.
As he flew from the Abbey the next day, it did not seem to him entirely accidental that he saw Crow winging across the parkland and into the cover of an enormous lime tree. It was as if Crow knew that Iain would want to see him and was casually making himself available. But this did not occur to the naïve young jackdaw as he glided on Crow’s path into the cavern of lime leaves.
The lime tree stood isolated on the grass. It had an air of secrecy about it; the air of an uncharted island on a green ocean where the great beeches, ships in full sail, could see the island but not approach it. Inside the island tree the light was almost submarine, filtered into greenness. It took Iain a few moments for his eyes to adjust. He felt more like a frog in a pond than a bird in a tree. The trunk and branches were covered with a powdery stuff like green soot, which helped to muffle to almost nothing all outside sounds, few as they were. Iain decided that he preferred the black soot on the chimney- pots of his home.
Crow’s words were made flat, uninflected and stripped of the undercurrent of amusement that Iain had detected in his previous meeting.
‘It is doubtless that you have been warned against associating with such a blackguard as myself. Yet it was obvious to me from watching you fly that you desired a meeting, something in the dip of a shoulder, a hesitant turn. Different to the clumsiness of a merely youthful and inexperienced aviator. I think that the death of your friend has revealed to you that the world is no mere playground.’
Crow, sitting on a branch near to its meeting with the trunk, reached out a foot and crushed a shield bug, then flicked the remains into the gloom below.
‘A human, long ago, described life, human life, as encapsulated in that period when a bird flies out of the night through a window, across a firelit hall, and into the night again through a window opposite. A few moments of light, vision, in surrounding depths of darkness, blindness.
For us birds, the humans, probably, if they were to think on it at all, think the hall a very narrow one, the firelight flickering and dim. But, of course, we fly in night as well as day, our existences not constrained by mere human understanding of it.
So it is most vexing when one of them crushes one of us as I did that bug. The little creature’s myriad family might wish to avenge him, though I doubt they think much of that kind of thing, and if they did I think that they would be incapable. We, on the other hand, wing, are very capable. Do you wish vengeance? Shall the human suffer?’
Iain began to speak and immediately halted, shocked at the sound of his voice in the dead still air. It was as if his voice had been changed just as he had been changed by Alan’s death. He realized that the choice given him by Crow was just the latest in millions of choices made by every creature every day and night, largely without even recognizing the fact. An image came into his head. He was standing on the lawn in front of one of the huge beeches in an autumnal gale. As the wind stripped the tree of its thousands of leaves, he had to identify which would be the next to be torn away. If he chose wrongly he would die. Then memory intruded, the memory of the moment before plunging from the abbey roof on his first flight. He had practised for that, short flight-hops from chimney to chimney, and watched friends and family make the leap, had been coaxed and encouraged by his parents. But this trial was to be endured alone. Alone but for the shade of his dead friend and the presence of the dread Aleister Crow. There can be only one maiden flight.
‘Well, Iain Jackdaw? Shall we go a-hunting?’
‘As he aims I can stoop upon him- a brush of the wing on his right cheek and he turns, I pluck with a peck his eye from its orbit. Swallowing it will give me insight into the human ways. Humour. Aqueous. Do you get the joke? No, I think my humour goes over your head. The insight is real enough but it fades with time.’ He glowered down at the jackdaw below him.
‘It is something I have done before. Without the eye he will be unable to kill. You might object that he will simply use the other eye, but humans are peculiar, they seem weaker on one side than the other, their hands for example, if they were birds, they would fly only in circles. Strange creatures.’
Iain knew that the elders did not lightly try to restrict the activities of the colony. Adventurousness, curiosity, were elements to be encouraged, the means by which new sources of food were found, new dangers to be given a wide berth. A colony of jackdaws that turned inward, that looked away from the world, was likely to have its collective head torn from its shoulders by a passing goshawk.
Crow was no jackdaw-killing hawk, but at the same time he appeared just as dangerous. The elders and the Advocates must have heard this kind of thing from Crow and his ilk before. Had heard it and rejected it. Yet that had not stopped the human in his destructive ways. What would Alan have done? Satisfaction in putting an end to the human’s evil actions through another evil action would not have been Alan’s way. If he was watching from Farflight now, Iain knew that his friend would be hoping that he would make the right decision, choose the right oak leaf.
‘I will not follow you in this, Aleister Crow. I am not an owl to fly in the darkness that you describe. Vengeance may be something indulged in by your fraternity, but it is not by mine. I will inform the Colony fully of the human’s behaviour. They will tell the Bishops, the Advocates, the Motley Crew, the Singers. Everyone. Perhaps even the unrained on ravens. The human will find the woods a silent and empty world when he walks them, they will reawaken on his departure. Perhaps the silence of his path will allow him to hear a small voice of conscience within. I thank you for bringing me to Alan and thus allowing the ritual of passing to be performed, and now I must return to the clan.’
Pompous little twit, thought Crow, as he watched Iain fly off abbeyward, that little jackdaw needs some devil in him. This reminded him of a poem. He struggled to remember the title, narrowing his eyes in thought, “The Jackdaw of Reims”, that was it. Impressed by his own feat of memory he flew off in search of the human.

Seablues

The Snowbridge

　
It always seemed a longer route on the way home. That made sense; he was tired after a long day at the office. It was worth the imaginary extra half-mile, though, better than sitting on the underground train or a bus, gave him the chance to stretch his legs. And, in spite of tiredness, he seemed all the more alert to the scenes around him, a result perhaps, of being a worker in a windowless office of a hospital. He saw dozens of patients a day in wheelchairs or lying on trolleys, come five o’clock he was striding out like he was wearing seven-league boots.
Tonight he noticed how the blue cigarette smoke of the man ahead of him matched the evening colours of the air. He still slowed down though, hating smoke in his lungs. And those two beer cans in an over-crammed bin hanging lopsidedly on a lamp-post; their tops were like a pair of owlets’ faces peering from a tree hole nest.
When he got in the flat the first thing she asked was had he sent that letter?
‘I did, course I did. And before you ask, no, I did not post it in the pillar box at the corner because that is an honourable Japanese warrior and you do not go pushing letters into the mouth of an honourable Japanese warrior.’
‘Honourable! Did you know that the Japanese have a verb that means to test your new sword edge on a peasant met at a crossroads?’
Where had she come up with such a crushing question? He was stunned.
‘Is that so? That’s some verb.’ Playing for time he walked over to the window. She had already pulled shut the curtains. The sofa blocked the way. To save reaching, he picked up a roe deer antler from a shelf and used it to part the curtains.
‘You should have left that in the wood you found it,’ she said, ‘you know, deer eat them for the calcium. Some wee deer is wandering around that wood feeling under the weather because of you, not quite up to the mark, sick in the sitkas, coughing in the conifers.’
‘I should have kept that red deer antler I found, I wouldn’t have to reach so far.’
But he knew that reaching was exactly what he was doing. That was two in a row she‘d zinged back at him. Where was she coming up with this stuff? He peered into the gloomy evening at the back court of the tenement, the bins, the graffiti scrawled back wall of the pub. ‘ We need to leave the big city behind,’ he sighed.
She looked at his broad figure. ‘Talking of the ‘big city behind’ have you quit the gym?’
This was intolerable. He concentrated on the graffiti. ‘You know, I wouldn’t mind that graffiti so much if it was saying something. ‘Peace’, ‘End the War’, ‘Love Is the Answer’. She wasn’t listening, was already in the kitchen. ‘When I were but a radical lad I was out on the beer with a pal one night. I’d a can of spray-paint in my pocket that I’d pinched from an art supply shop, a beautiful shad of blue it was, and even the spray was different, the way it came out, gave the words another way of looking different to other graffiti. So, we’re in the High street and there’s this lovely space of wall between two shops and I said to Stevie to keep a look-out and over I go. He probably thought I was going to do a big anarchy sign, but I put ’ In the society that has destroyed all real adventure, the only adventure is the destruction of society‘. Took a while, especially given it was the High Street. And all cursive, much more attractive than capitals. Stevie was having kittens across the road, me taking so long. It didn’t survive long, though. That kind of challenging stuff never did. Not like that crap up there, been there years, probably will be for more. It’s just egoism, you see, a ’tag’ they call it, like a label on some stupid pair of jeans., no challenge to the power, the Man. So they let it sit up there for years, the Powers That Be. Hey I thought of a new one…’The best place to study twisted logic? Colig!‘. She didn’t hear , had zoned him out. She came out of the kitchen, pots bubbling on the cooker in the tiny space behind her. He turned from the window and she looked at his face. It was a face, she thought, that looked less lived in than slept in.
There was a river quite near the flat. When there was little traffic you could hear the water flowing. He could hear it one evening as he came home a little later than usual, the rush-hour past. He saw her leaving the tenement and turn into the park heading in the same direction as the river flows. It was immediately apparent to him that it was carrying her away. It carried her away a dozen or more times that month.
The gym classes she attended were in that direction, but he saw little evidence that she was shedding any weight, though he did not tell her so. One evening he followed her. She soon came close to the big Victorian building that housed the gym, but she did not go in. The man who walked up to her and clasped her in his arms prevented that.
Hold on, wait a minute, that can’t be right, that’s my wife! What’s going on? No,no, this is a mistake on my part. He felt a little faint. I must have missed her, that’s not her, they must have passed each other in the park and I followed the wrong one. Their paths crossed, that’s it, while I was round a corner or something and I picked up the wrong trail there, fella, the wrong scent, can happen to any tracker, soddin’ darkness, corners, bushes, lamps with no bulbs.
It was her, all right.
He moved across to his left, up onto the lawn of the museum, across the sights of the Lewis gunners of the war memorial. The blank-faced gunner seemed to aim directly at embracing couple on the steps of the Kelvin Hall which housed the gym.. He felt like climbing up there- tapping the soldier on the shoulder- feeding the belt of cartridges through as his mate opened up on the embracing couple, bullets spraying the Old Red sandstone of the Kelvin Hall which housed the gym which she was obviously, now, not attending at all. No wonder she wasn’t looking any slimmer. The lovers were walking away now toward the lights of cafés and bars he walked in parallel, onto the lawn in front of the museum and through the bare cherry trees. Walking with his head turned to one side, ignoring the hazard of tree, of flowerbed or wall, he thought the lovers looked like two strange dark fish in a greenish aquarium until he realized that he was looking through tear-filled eyes.
Over the next few weeks she grew happier and grew more morose. He asked her about it with an innocent air and she said it was all thanks to her great work-outs at the gym.
With the ‘gym’, you mean, ‘gym’ with an ‘I’ at the end, ‘gym’, as in ‘Jimmy’, he could see the words in his head, nonsense crowding out the need to think seriously. And anyway, he wouldn’t be called Jimmy anyway, no-one was anymore.
He began to delay his return from work on her ‘gym days’, would go for a pint, or two, or more than several. I’m going to the State Bar. I’m going to get in a state in the State Bar. I’m stating that I’m going to get in a state in the State Bar. I should’ve stayed in the State Bar. I should have state in bed. That’s the kind of nonsense that’s tired her of me. He had a couple more, drummed farewell on the bar-top and walked home. She’d only liked him in the first place, he had recognised, because she saw him as a broken person. He saw that when he met her ex-boyfriend and recognised another as someone he had known years before. Broken people. Maybe being with her had helped him become less broken and so less interesting. Maybe she had just grown up and got tired of the broken people she had around her, had gone out and found a normal functioning person. Someone he didn’t know, the kind of person he didn’t know, like the people who live in the houses you pass in trains, the houses that have turned their backs on the passing trains and their inquisitive passengers. How do they live, the people who are not me, how can they live? How do they live, the people in far away cars you can only see as moving points of reflected sunlight? He asked the opinion of the samurai post-box, but it just grimaced, he imagined that it was unimpressed by solipsistic passers-by.
It came to a head one night, the first night, the only night of heavy snow that winter. He was in the pub looking out t the street. Well, he couldn’t see the street because of the frosted glass that served as a barrier to vision; that old British custom that saves the impressionable passer-by from seeing into pubs and having their innocent, abstemious heads turned by the visions of bonhomie and jollity within. Or maybe it was the publicans’ idea to stop people seeing all the lonely losers. So he was looking out the top half of the window, the half frost-free at snow, which struck him as faintly amusing as he watched the snowflakes fall slowly by the hanging baskets of plastic flowers. An hour later he was walking home when he realised that she would be going to the gym in an hour or so. He reached their street and bought a newspaper then took up position across the street and down a few doorways from the doorway to their tenement. He inserted earphones and readied a tune on his digital music player, but did not start the little machine. He almost missed her by becoming absorbed in a story about people increasingly becoming allergic to fruit and vegetables. He imagined the street in a few decades. People might be stopping at lamp-post-like feeding-stations to suck on tubes of meat-like pap like some creepy race of two-legged ants as people became ever more alienated from their own planet. The thought was making him feel pretty sick when he noticed her leave. That would make him feel better, thinking of her and her lover. He folded his paper, turned on the music, and followed her through the snow. The tune was from a compilation of film themes, the one he played was from a spy movie from the ‘sixties;’ The Ipcress File.’ He could feel the cold and wet through the thin, cheap leather of his shoes, but that was alright, it made him feel even more like Harry Palmer.
They moved along the road past shops and restaurants spilling different neon colours onto the snow covering the pavements. She turned, as expected, and continued on to Kelvin Way and then right into the part of the park that lies between the university and the art galleries. The snow was getting deeper now and the colour of the light from the streetlamps had changed too, from the blue-white that seemed to complement the snow, to the orange light that seems especially designed to make you think there’s no world beyond the concrete and brick. He thought of how the snow, in his memory, would be whiter than it was here because snow is not orange, even though it is not white either, falling orange, lying orange, it was no less snow and no more or less the ‘right’ than the ‘wrong’ colour, but memory would edit the scene, shift the colour balance to a ‘truer’ rendition, white snow, maybe becoming blue as the darkness deepened.
As they neared the edge of the park he began to hurry, narrowing the gap in a shuffling run. Passers-by noticed, but it was still busy enough for everyone to assume there was no evil intent as he began to catch up with the woman in front of him; there were too many witnesses and anyway, he seemed more interested in the pieces of snow his boots kicked up in front of him, than the woman ahead. What determines the size of those chunks of snow? he wondered. His feet were the same size at each step and the snow of the same consistency, so why did the pieces come in different sizes? Or were they the same as they left his boot caps and only broke up differently? But why would they break apart differently? And what determines the size of raindrops? He realized she would soon be on the main road, but managed to catch up just as she was crossing Old Partick bridge.
‘Hey, wait for me, it’s me, wait a bit.’
’What are you doing out here? Has something happened?’ Have you been home or just in the pub again?’ her voice was muffled, he thought it the snow, but it was the earphones he still had in, though he music had finished.
’The music is over. I have no home. And alcohol is not the comfort it was.’
’So you’re teetotal? And homeless? And the music is over, is it? You’re covered in snow, you look like a snowman mugger. A snowman who mugs, I mean, not a mugger of snowmen.’ This irritating flippancy was, he realized, probably something she had picked up from him. At least she would carry his virus of quippery always.
’I’m just out for a walk in the snow, a little night music and a following of you to meet your boyfriend ‘Jym‘, as I call him, that’s Jim with a ’y’ not an ’i’ , since you say your…well, you get it.’
She leant back on the ornate, spiked iron fence that most people thought gave the bridge charm, but which he was always afraid was going to gouge out his eyes if he stumbled while walking over to look into the river. He always looked over bridge parapets, thought it a necessary thing, though afraid of spikes and stone walls that might crumble and pitch him downward. He reached out and held onto a spike, at least now he was sure exactly where the spikes were.
‘Yes, I’ve known for quite a while now. You and Jym. When I say ‘homeless’, it’s because we’re breaking up, aren’t we?’
She looked away, toward the bell-tower of the University, flood-lit but made ghostly by the curtain of snow.
‘ Did you know that John Betjeman called that a Victorian cake-stand?’ Of course he knew, he was the one who had told her! That and lots of other interesting junk. Of Joseph Conrad drunkenly pitching pebbles into the top hat held by a statue in George Square in a contest with Neil Munro, novelist and newspaper editor, stuff of that sort. Bet Jym didn’t have arcane knowledge like that at his fingertips. If he even had fingertips, probably made do with the knuckles he doubtlessly dragged along the ground.
‘I suppose you probably told me that. It’s something I think I’ll miss, but you can’t really base a relationship on curious facts, you know. Us being together is the most curious fact of all. I’ll ove out, I won’t stay with that view either, though it was better than us moving to some blasted heath with no-one else for miles, Christ I’d’ve done you in in a week.’
Well, if she was going to be like that.
’I’ll manage, thanks, I’ll find someone else, someone with better taste than you have.’
‘It took you long enough to find someone with as little taste as I have, but the best of luck.’
He did not want this to be it, thought of how each word we say to someone brings us one word closer to the last word we will ever say to them. She glanced toward where her new man must be getting impatient.
‘It’s an appropriate place to meet this, on a night like tonight.’
She turned back to him.’Why is that, then?.’
‘Well, this used to be called ‘the ‘Snowbridge’ at one time. See, the fences have gates in them that don’t lead anywhere. They would be opened during a big snowfall and the snow shovelled through into the river, when this was the main road, before they built that,’ he pointed to the big bridge a few metres downstream across which cars and buses still passed, ‘before this one was demoted to just a footbridge. That was when there were still lots of snow every year, not like now, just one or two days and nights of snow lying. There’s a line about that in French..‘where are the snows of yesteryear?’
She smiled. ‘When they opened the gates, it must have made angel’s wings in the snow.’ She used her arms to illustrate the gates’ sweep through the long-gone deep snow.
‘Maybe. Maybe they just opened the gates before it got that deep.’
‘No angels’ wings?’
‘Not then. Not now.’
She shrugged her shoulders. ‘ I better get going. I’ll stay at my sister’s tonight. We can sort everything out tomorrow, next week, whenever suits you. You’ll be alright? No brooding?’
‘Don’t worry about me, I’ll be right as rain. Cold, wet, rain.’ She walked off into the shadows. He looked down into the river. The Kelvin, he thought, from the Gaelic meaning ’stream of the narrows.’
The river was running swiftly, surface unbroken but for one spot by the bank, where an overhanging tree dipped a branch into the water. The current pushed the branch in a curve and when it could go no further, it swept back leaving a dark wake like the sweep of ink from a Japanese artist’s brush. Again and again the ink swept across the paper surface of the river only to be instantly erased.

Angled light

Dispatched

Dispatched
　
I am not a bad person, I just like beer lots. And you know the price of it these days. Well, alright, it’s never been cheaper, but that’s even worse. Now you can afford to get drunk quicker and your wits depart that much quicker too. You spend what you have and more. I spent the money dad had given me for the vet.
The old man had finally given up on the dog. The old bugger was on his last legs, the dog that is, for ages, but he would never hear of it getting put down while mum was alive. And now she wasn’t. I will remember her last days as if there had been a bumble bee flying around the room, because she had had a little gadget implanted under her skin. Every couple of minutes it would release painkillers into her system with a friendly little, bee-like buzz.
Dad had wanted to keep the dog until she was gone; even though it was no kindness because the dog was racked with cancers as much as mum had been.
So after the funeral, dad said to take the dog top the vet and have her put down, the vet had wanted to do it ages ago so would be only too happy to do it. A mercy. Here’s the money.
I took the dog and the money to the pub and had a few pints and next thing the dog’s still there but the money isn’t. So I took the old dog back to my flat until the next day so I could at least take her to dad’s sober. Me, I mean. Next day I was walking up the road very slowly, partly because I didn’t feel too good, partly because I didn’t want to face dad and partly because the dog couldn’t go very fast; legs knackered, lungs too probably. Poor old thing is always starving, even her digestive system must be gone, food goes straight through her, so I suppose that slows her down too, no energy.
The old man would be mad, take out his grief in anger on me, quite right too, I could hardly blame him. I was walking past a derelict mill site and had to stop. The dog had slumped onto her belly, five minutes recuperation needed at least. For maybe the first time ever, I noticed a carving on the wall; a whatyemaycallit, a mortar and pestle. Which bits which, I can never remember, don’t exactly use them much. I suppose it was there as a symbol of industry, not as one of the mill-workers being ground into dust. The company shut up shop years ago and moved to parts of the world where they don’t have to worry about troublesome newfangled ideas like safety, pollution laws or paying a fair days wage for a fair weeks work. The main mill is gone. It had four cupolas on the corners, green with age. I got on the roof once to take some photographs; the verdigrised domes made it seem like some papal palace.
Standing in a daydream I didn’t hear the voice. A finger poked me on the shoulder.
‘Don’t touch’, I said, ‘I suffer from tactile hallucinations.’
‘You’ll suffer from my boot up your arse if you don’t wake up, yah dozy get.’ Davey MacMillan. Scrawny bugger, biking jacket, rides a clapped-out Kawasaki at great speed with no concern for other road-users. He nodded at the dog.
‘Who’s this, Patch?’
‘It’s a Golden Labrador. Why would it be called Patch?’
‘Golden? More like a sort of washed-out yella. Is he called Yella?’
‘Don’t let my old man hear you call his dog Yella. And he’s a she. Name’s Iona.’
‘You own a?’
‘It’s an island.’
‘There’s an island called ‘you own a’?’
‘It’s off Mull.’
‘There’s an island called Mull?’
He grinned and poked me with a bony finger again.
‘Well, Iona isn’t looking too clever, is she? Maybe you should stick her on a skateboard and wheel her home.’
As if in disgust at having to listen to this, Iona slowly rose and we continued up the road. I told Davey about messing up her big date with the vet.
‘She looks like she’s had a good kick of the ball. How old is she? Fourteen! That’s like eighty in dog years, ninety. That’s like saying she was born when the doggy Queen Victoria was still on the throne.’ This all happened a while back, so he wasn’t far off. I had the image of a doggy Victoria in my head. What breed would she be? King Charles spaniel, I suppose, since he was an ancestor. Big floppy ears sticking out of that old-fashioned bonnet.
Ever the helpful lad, Davey came up with a plan and went off home, he promised to be back soon. I sat on a broken wall and waited, Iona slumped in the shade of the broken masonry. Davey only lived five minutes away so he was soon beck, a holdall slung over one shoulder.
‘Follow me.’ He headed into the waste ground where the mill had stood.
Although the main building was long demolished, some of the smaller buildings still stood. Davey led the way through the wreckage of a stone gateway and up what had been a garden path. It led to a fairly complete and grand looking honey-coloured sandstone house; maybe the home of the mill manager, keep an eye on those feckless workers. Davey stopped and unslung the bag. He unzipped it and took out a shotgun.
‘That’s bloody well sawn-off! What the bloody hell are you doing with a sawn-off shotgun?’
‘Shooting short rabbits? Low-flying clay pigeons? I saw an American film where a guy called it a ‘sawed-off’! Ha! Get it? Sounds like ‘sod off ya bastard’, bang! We’ll finish off old but gold here and be on our way, yer old man’ll never know.’
I was going right off the idea. Fine, it wasn’t costing me anything, but poor old Iona. Could I stand by and watch this?
I told Davey that maybe it was all a bad idea and I couldn’t watch him shoot the poor old bitch.
‘I’ve an idea,’ he said,’ give me the lead.’ He walked up the path and led the dog through the door of the villa. As I made to follow, he put a hand up to stop me and forced close the front door. He shouldered it to shut it as tight as possible. I stood there and the handle of the lead popped out of the letter box.
‘Grab hold.’
I took it and stood there. I heard Davey walk further up the hall. Silence. Click. Boom. Pigeons erupted through the upper windows.
The severed end of the lead slithered through the letter box, dangled from my hand, it was bloody . I chucked it into the weeds and walked off.
Davey got the jail soon after for robbing his local shop, the one he bought milk and cigarettes in. He wore a ski-mask but they knew him right off, the girl went to school with his little sister, daft bastard.
The honey-coloured house was turned into expensive flats when the site was developed. I don’t suppose any bloodstains show on the walls of the hallway as the residents walk out of a morning to their flash cars.

Wild Fuchsia