And we are off, bleary-eyed, into the Ayrshire morning. Emmy looks gorgeous, her short blonde hair and a smile that I would never tire of seeing.
My car sitting on the street coughs up a cloud of exhaust fumes as I turn the key. A few commuters on their way to the station do a double-take, but we breeze past them, leaving them choking in our wake.
We get a good run of lights as we hit the dual carriageway.
I light up a smoke, and she flicks through the radio until she finds something she likes. The radio crackles to life with one of those old songs you know but can’t quite place.
For a moment, it’s like we aren’t ghosts at all.
We sing along to the chorus.
She looks at me, and I look straight back.
The engine opens up on the dual carriageway and we are cutting through the Ayrshire morning.
We’re analogue in a digital age; we’re radio in the streaming age. We are the words written on the page.
And we don’t give a fuck if that’s good enough for you.
She laughs.
Welcome to the moment.
Thanks for reading, you can read the full book on Kindle unlimited here.
This is chapter 6 of my book “Miserable Bastards”. It was one of the first longer stories I wrote, that I liked.
Mikey’s back, somehow looking worse than when he left.
“What the fuck happened to you?”
He’s bleeding from his lip and rubbing his eye. He looks like he’s been under police questioning for an hour.
“The polis found my hedgehog, called me a clatty bastard. I told her to get to fuck… so, er, she hit me.”
“Oh, for fucks sake,” says Frank as Bam comes round the bar and takes him by the hand over to a booth.
We all follow, and as I stand I feel a little unsteady on my feet. I’m getting a decent buzz from this whisky; let’s see what the fuck is going on.
I get there and Mikey’s cleaning himself up as Bam gives him another cross-examination.
“So, where is the hedgehog now?” she asks.
“Never mind that,” snaps Frank. “Where are the polis?”
Mikey is turning pale.
“Mikey?”
“Oh fuck, I just ran.” he says, looking over at the door.
“Christ, you, oot the back. Take some smokes, and we’ll shout you when it’s clear. Right, everyone else, back to where you were.”
Fuck’s sake.
We’re back to our seats, back to our places, trying to look innocent. This is one of those moments where it would be good to be drinking in a bar with windows.
It was an old rule of mine: don’t drink in a bar without windows or one with pool cues but no pool table.
“Fucking hell,” shouts Bam. “We’re sitting in here like a guilty party,” she turns up the music and starts moving, boogying, getting down.
And we’re all up. Even Pat is doing some kind of robot move.
Suddenly the door bursts open, and in walks a police woman, shorter than Bam. Face red, sweaty. This is Mikey’s attacker.
This.
She’s shouting.
“Where the fuck is he, where the fuck is he? Nae one, nae one. Nae one does this to Pam Wilson. PC Pam Wilson.”
I’m trying not to laugh. I look at Bam; she’s trying not to laugh. Frank’s going for the Oscar, straight-faced and smooth.
“What appears to be the trouble, officer?” he says in a radio DJ voice.
“Frank McTavish, I should’ve known that I’d find you in a shite hole like this. Where is he? I’m going to leather that wee arsehole.”
“No idea what you mean, Pam. How about a drink for old time’s sake?”
“A drink? I wouldn’t drink in here. Probably catch something. And it’s PC Wilson to the likes of you, alright.”
They are looking at each other, but no one says a word.
Suddenly the door swings open again, and a red-faced, puffed-up policeman bursts in.
“Pammy, Pammy, what the fuck…”
He stops as he sees this little standoff.
Pammy looks embarrassed. “I told you to wait outside, PC Findlay.”
“Come on, you. I’ve got reports of an aggressive mime threatening someone with an end of the world board on Sauchiehall Street.”
PC Wilson looks around the bar at everyone.
“I’ll be back,” she says and turns on her heels and storms outside. PC Findlay looks apologetic and leaves.
The door swings closed, and we all burst out laughing.
The waiter brought the mug from the front bar, just like the singer had requested: half full of white wine. The crowd was different through here, the buzz of the front bar seemed another world.
He left the mug by the piano and smiled at the singer.
She was sitting by the window, singing about some arsehole who had ripped her off. The little crowd in the back room was half watching, half studying their phones. They weren’t here for her, but when she hit the chorus and her voice lifted…
They stopped. They looked up. A few smiled. A head nodded.
And then.
Then they went back to their coffee. Their phones. Their conversations.
But she played on, a strand of her hair falling down over her face.
She played: G down to E. And sang: “The blue lights are shining tonight.” And again: “Sometimes we rise. Two souls in the light.”
She settled the notes down. To the major, the minor, fourth, and back.
She whispered, “Sometimes we fall.”
She heard another voice. She turned around. It was Frankie, from the front bar. Everyone else was gone.
She smiled.
His voice, baritone.
She played it again, and he sat by her at the piano. She played the chords gently. Swooping down low and rising back up.
He placed his hand by the keys, at the top of the piano. His fingers were rough. Worn. A lifetime of work.
She played round the chord progression. And this time he played a few notes. Like footsteps in the snow.
“Sometimes we fall. Sometimes we rise.”
The music got stronger. Their voices connected, rising together. He laughed.
She smiled.
She looked out the window. Saw the people on the street. A few heard the music. Looked up. Smiled. Or shook their heads.
At the two ghosts. Playing, just for themselves, just because they could.
Paul Andrew Sneddon 