Sitting on the front step, enjoying some unseasonal sunshine.
A crow flies down and lands on the lamp post. I’m thinking that would be a great picture for those stories I’m writing.
Yeah, I know. Who calls their collection, even a short collection, “Death”? It’s hardly one for the impulse buyer. Nobody’s sitting on the couch on a Saturday morning thinking, I fancy a wee book called Death. Nobody’s browsing the library shelves or gets handed one by a pal saying, “saw this and thought of you.”
I like the title, there’s life, love, humour and passion in the collection too and some of my favourite writing including “Ten Pounds.”
The sun was setting behind the old multi-storey. He remembered coming through to town when he was young, walking down the thin corridor in the shadows between the car park and the shops and out into brilliant sunshine. The sun was setting now and there were a few folks coming and going. The line of taxis hadn’t really moved for hours.
Uncle Jim had been over to see him. He had his security badge from the bus station and that some big scraggly beard. He had slipped Andy a bottle of juice and a tenner and told him to get himself some lunch. The juice was sweet but he still had the ten pound note. You couldn’t give up the ten pound note just like that. That had to be invested carefully.
Two wee guys from the school had seen him on the bench and come and sat next to him. He hadn’t told them about the ten pounds or much of anything. They showed him a couple of videos of the science experiments they had been doing. This brought back memories, his cousin had been right into it and they had made little rockets on the spare grass round the back. No garden, it was communal. The Gillespies hadn’t liked it though. He remembered his mum calling them sour-faced miseries.
He missed his mum. And his cousin had got into uni up in the city. His dad said he had fallen in with a bad crowd and was drinking away his money and meeting women. That didn’t sound so bad. He remembered Jean from the support centre. She croaked like a frog and smoked like a chimney but they had some big laughs together.
After the boys had gone for their bus he had sat there on his own for a while. People coming and going and a swarm of pigeons nearly took him out. The postie came and sat next to him for awhile. Offered him half a sandwich. It was tongue and mustard. His mouth had felt like fire and the postie had given an apologetic shrug. “Takes some getting used to I guess big man,” he had said with a chuckle.
After lunch he was watching the pigeons, and down the way he could see that old statue of Burns keeping an eye on the town. He kept the bag between his ankles.
“Don’t let that bag out of your sight son, bring it with you.”
He sighed. What would he do with this ten pounds. He looked around. There was a newsagent with seats and juice and magazines. A couple of takeaway shops and the fishmonger. He didn’t like the smell of the fishmonger. And the fishes’ faces in the window gave him the creeps.
And there was that wee bookshop on the corner. Raising money for the heart charity. Heart Disease. Broken hearts. Like his mum’s.
He ran his teeth over the bottom of his lip and scrunched his hands into fists. Till he breathed in deep, his lungs filling, and then he breathed out slow. Something buzzed past his ear and he jumped. A wasp darted around his head. “Fuck off,” he shouted, and a few folk turned around but no one really paid him much mind. Couple of grannies and pappas chuckled and one said,
“That wee fella isn’t right in the head, never has been.”
The wasp buzzed his ear again. He scooped down and picked up his bag and moved, half stumbling and half rumbling across the pedestrianised square, past the fish shop.
He burst through the door of the charity shop and sent some papers flying. A woman at the counter said,
“Careful there, you’re making an awful mess.”
“S…s…sorry,” he muttered and moved slowly into the shop. Past a couple of folk trying on jackets and hats that looked like they were out of the pantomime. He made his way through to the back and there it was, two bookcases absolutely stuffed with books. All kinds as far as he could see. A complete history of World War 2 and a thriller by some American author he had never heard of.
The woman came over, her face softer now, and said, “sorry about that son, you gave me a fright that’s for sure, you in for anything in particular?”
He smiled and said quietly, “just browsing, thanks.”
He kept going along the book shelf, and then there it was. Billy Connolly’s Route 66. He picked it up from the shelf and held it in his hands. There was a sticker on it, £2, that took up most of the cover, but it was the book, that’s for sure. His mum had loved it. The Big Yin on his bike the whole way across America, breaking out the banjo in every wee town. She’d read him the funny bits with the old records on, laughing till she nearly burst.
He felt the book between his fingers, opened it and flicked through the rough pages. He turned back to the woman at the counter and told her firmly. “I’ll have this one please.”
She rang it up and he paid the money down. £8 back, and he put a couple of pounds in the box. For the hearts. He stepped back outside into the square. The light was different, the sun getting low in the sky.
“Andy, that you?”
He looked across. It was his dad. The same face set against the sun. The hair greying but he still moved with purpose, like nothing was ever going to stop him.
“Mon son.”
They met in the middle of the square.
“Have you got the bag?”
“Aye Dad.”
He opened the bag and his dad reached in and felt the urn for just a moment.
“I’ll carry it from here son. We’ll go and spread the ashes down by the river. You remember playing there when you were wee with your cousin.”
“I remember.”
They walked off together through the streets of this town.
“I’m tired, man. I’ve been working all day. I just want to go to my bed, put some songs on, and then just sleep.”
“Ah ok, well, fair enough, but what did you do last night?”
“Couch. TV.”
“And the night before?”
“Couch. TV.”
He took a drag on his cigarette.
“You know that will kill you, aye?”
“Nae one thinks you look good with that smoke, by the way. They just think you look like an arse.”
He laughed so hard he nearly coughed up a lung.
“See what I mean?”
“Well, sitting about on your arse isn’t going to do you much good either. That’s what all they companies say now, get up and move around every hour on the hour. Office blocks across the land, everybody off for a walk. Hell of a queue for a coffee or at the toilets, but there you go, eh?”
“Haud up, what are you actually talking about here?”
“I’m talking about playing a couple of songs. With the band. Music. You remember. Not sitting on your arse getting fatter.”
“Well, I happen to fucking love 20-year-old American sitcoms. Always have done.”
“Listen, get your guitar and just come down the way with me, alright? I’ve got Chubs playing bass and that lassie that used to play with Charlie in Sideline Surfers on drums. Me on guitar, and you on guitar and vocals.”
“Fuck’s sake, is this a fait accompli or something?”
“Nah, it’s already decided,” he laughed.
“Alright, smartarse. But listen, Davey… it’s different now. I don’t smoke. I don’t drink. I don’t even smoke weed these days.”
“Christ, you are more straight-edge than peak Henry fucking Rollins.”
“Ah, he wasnae straight edge.”
“Alright Professor Kerrang. How does Henry become Hank anyway? I’ve never met a Scottish Hank. Or a Scottish Henry, for that matter.”
“Do you no’ remember wee Henners from the football? Five foot two, played in goals. Looked like a car between two skyscrapers, still couldn’t score past him.”
Life is a firecracker sometimes, and sometimes it’s a little bar like this. This just suits me down to the ground.
The Harbour Pub, it never stops surprising me just how many people it fits when it looks like someone’s front room. The library round the corner, quiet on a Tuesday afternoon. Get a book and come in here for a pint or two.
The river rolling on like it knows better than to stick around, door open in the summer with the sunshine fading out. In winter, the door’s closed and if you hold it open too long when you go outside for a smoke you’ll be sure to know about it.
Maisey behind the bar is my kind of woman, a little bit grumpy but honest, you know. Doesn’t have to be the centre of attention all the time so I get peace to read.
Friday lunchtime I go and get her and me a ticket for the lottery, £5 each and if we win we split it between us. We used to just go for it when the winnings went above £100 million. High rollers, eh. But now we just do it out of habit.
She says she wouldn’t change a thing if she won. Not a thing. I like that. I think we have that in common, though I would like to travel, visit a few places.
Paul Andrew Sneddon 