Bright Stars Page 2

  He lunges at me with the tea towel but for once I am quick on my feet. I swipe the letter from the table and join Myrtle who has heard the ‘W’ word and is waiting by the front door, hopeful eyes, tail flapping, short stumpy legs barely holding her stomach up from the ground.

  Myrtle’s legs work fast, taking me for a walk around Newington, streets where I grew up, played out with my brothers who thought it hilarious to tranny me up in girls’ clothes and push me around in the old big pram.

  Myrtle addresses every lamp post with a cocked leg. She is a confused dog in many respects. She strains at the lead, pulling my arm and throttling herself, inhaling every whiff of canine urine along the pavements and against garden walls. We end up in a café that allows well-behaved dogs. Myrtle wouldn’t win any awards but she has done her business, which I scooped up in a bag, warm and somehow comforting in my hand, though I was glad to get rid of it in the poo bin. We never had poo bins when we were young, piles of turds everywhere and always one of us treading dog dirt in the carpet, so in the end Dad ripped them up and sanded the floorboards.

  It was by the poo bin that I opened the envelope – a strange juxtaposition, I’ll give you that.

  It was from Christie as I knew it would be. But I wasn’t expecting an invitation. I had to sit down.

  We find a window seat and a waitress – young, dumpy, metal threaded through various parts of her face – takes our order. I go for a large cappuccino. (No Brooke Bond in this establishment.)

  I need to think now.

  The date. Next week. An email address to RSVP.

  And I do what I’ve resisted doing ever since I first heard of search engines.

  Google.

  She’s everywhere, quite the famous one, surviving against the odds, a thriving businesswoman running her family’s winery, heading up a charity. She’s navigated her way into her future.

  And the images. The blonde hair, maybe slightly shorter, sleeker, paler. The big smile with the white teeth. The perfect skin. She hasn’t changed. Still beautiful. Still youthful. You can’t tell at all.

  But why Britain?

  Why would Christie ever want to set foot – oh God. Why would she ever want to come back?

  The be-metalled waitress delivers my cappuccino to the table with a slickness I could never attain. I am one of those men who always manages to catch an elbow on a door frame, who invariably kicks a table leg as he sits down, who can be relied on to spill the milk, the beans, the dirt. To tread dog poo into a carpet. That’s me, dyspraxic loser that I am. If I was a ghost, I wouldn’t even be able to walk through walls.

  The waitress gives me a smile that I do my best to reflect, but she’s already turned away.

  I’m not so good at smiling.

  Mum always made us smile at the camera. It felt false; I didn’t know how to do it. But I tried my best for her.

  There’s a photo on the mantelpiece – that mantelpiece – of the four of us brothers, smiling. We are standing in order of size from left to right, me the bairn, being on the far right. Andy has his arm around a shorter, younger Gavin’s shoulder, Gavin has his arm around a shorter, younger Edward’s shoulder and Edward has his arm around the shoulder of a much shorter, younger me. We all have someone to lean on, except of course for me. My arm is clutching a teddy bear. I am five years old. I am wearing a school uniform as it is the first day of school. Soon that teddy bear – Frank – will be left at home and I will have nothing to clutch and no one to lean on. I will have to rely on myself. I actually cry all morning, leaving my poor teacher tearing her hair out. Eventually I puke all over the Ladybird books in the reading corner.

  I am Peter. I am Jane.

  I am sick on Peter. I am sick on Jane.

  The sudsy coffee is making me nauseous now. I can smell the sick congealed on those Ladybird books, dried up and crusty on my hand-me-down bobbly jumper.

  Myrtle sits on my foot. She’s the weight of a small dinosaur rather than a ridiculous stumpy-legged, wee-and-poo machine.

  Good boy, Pat. Good girl, Myrtle.

  I push my coffee away, scan the interior of the café, its arty photos on the shabby chic walls, reclaimed shelving stacked with packets of Fairtrade tea and coffee, students on their iPhones and Macs, nothing like our day of anti-Thatcher protests and phone cards and chips and gravy.

  My phone. Dad. Should I answer? I should answer.

  ‘Dad?’ Deep breath. ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘I’m fine, son.’ His usual reply. ‘I wondered if you were on your way home. Your brother’s bringing back his new girlfriend and I might need some help.’

  ‘Edward?’

  ‘Aye, Edward, being that the other two have wives.’

  ‘I know that, Dad. I mean, Edward has a girlfriend?’

  ‘A lassie from work. English.’

  He says that last word with difficulty.

  ‘So you need back-up?’

  ‘I thought you might want to meet her…’ His voice trails off, leaving that suggestion of family loyalty lingering in the ether between us.

  ‘I’m coming back now.’

  ‘Oh right… that’s good… so I’ll be seeing you soon.’

  And in that breath between him speaking and me responding, I make a decision. ‘But I’ll be away next week.’

  ‘Away?’

  ‘London.’

  A pause.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I’ve been invited to this event.’

  ‘Event?’

  ‘A launch of a new wine label.’

  I let this sink in for a moment, wait for the inevitable question.

  ‘By the Canadian lassie?’

  ‘Aye.’ Now I’ve said it, I’ll do it. I’ll go. ‘I’m on my way back now, Dad.’

  ‘Right, son. See you soon. Don’t forget that dog.’

  I can’t forget that dog. Right now she is licking her privates. I pull her further under the table so she can do her ablutions unseen. My younger self would have been mortified, blushing with embarrassment. But now I don’t care so much.

  It’s the ghost of my younger self I’m more bothered about. And Christie. And what if the other two are included in this, whatever ‘this’ is? The four of us back together is something I never thought would happen. I parcelled up Bex, Tommo and Christie in a box many years ago. I never wanted to open that box ever again so I secured it with string, tape, padlock, a label marked DANGER: DO NOT OPEN. CONTENTS WILL CAUSE HARM.

  But what do you do when you are forbidden something? Do you ignore the warning? Or do you do as you’re told? When I was small, maybe three or four, Mum told me not to touch the oven because it was hot. So what did I do? I touched the oven. It was hot. I got burnt. I never touched the oven again.

  So Edward isn’t the only one who has a girlfriend. Sheena is ‘walking out’ with Dad. Her words. Dad’s words are ‘she cheers me up’. I don’t delve into the hows and whys of this cheering up as that would be too much information.

  We sit around the kitchen table, Edward holding hands with his girlfriend, Katie, Dad not holding hands with his girlfriend, Sheena. And me. The one whose wife has kicked him out, who said she couldn’t live with him anymore, not with everything that’s going on. She wants a baby. How can she bring a baby into such an uncertain world? Meaning, she places great importance on the investigation, as if it’s something to be ashamed of.

  And your wife, who promised you it didn’t matter about your past, it was a long time ago, your wife suddenly decides you are obviously a criminal at heart, and that there is no smoke without fire.

  ‘Will you have a piece of fruitcake with your tea?’ Sheena prises the lid off Mum’s Tupperware container to reveal what looks like the Blue Peter birdfeed cake. She saws us a wedge each. It’s not how I remember my mum’s, but it’s nice to have something home-made nevertheless. Amanda’s never baked anything in her life. Nor have I for that matter, so I shouldn’t be sexist. What would Bex say?

  Bex.

  And what wo
uld Bex have to say about ghosts? She’d scare them away. Boo.

  ‘What’s it like down in those vaults?’ askes Katie, her posh English voice, a lecturer at the university, who can see into my mind or so it seems. A witch. She would’ve been drowned in the Nor Loch for sure.

  ‘I’ll get you some tickets so you can see for yourself.’

  ‘You’ve still got a job then?’ This is Edward, joking, not funny. I confided in him about the incident and he finds it all amusing. It’s not amusing.

  ‘I have still got a job.’ I eyeball him. ‘There’s just a health and safety matter to sort out, that’s all. I’ll be back before you know it.’

  ‘And what about Amanda?’

  ‘Really, Eddy, not now.’ This is Dad, not knowing what’s going on but not liking the way it’s going, certainly not in front of guests (and English ones at that).

  ‘Have a piece of cake, Katie,’ Sheena urges. ‘And I’ll fetch us some more tea.’ She’s out of her seat like a whippet.

  Katie accepts another piece of cake and nibbles at it obediently. Eddy squeezes her hand and this gesture almost brings a tear to my eye.

  Dad meanwhile has got up – making that old man noise as he struggles to his feet – to switch on his spaceship of a CD player. Barbara Dickson. The sound of my childhood that has become his passion. Some might say ‘obsession’. There’s nothing that can’t be put right by listening to Barbara. Apartheid, the Taliban, Independence, all put to rights by she of the husky voice and fine head of hair.

  We sit and listen to a very loud rendition of ‘January, February’. I know all the words. Before it is over, Edward and Katie have made their excuses and slunk off upstairs. He doesn’t live here anymore but like our other two brothers, he still lays claim to his bedroom.* And soon enough no doubt Edward will be laying claim to Katie. Like a teenager. When he’s nearly fifty, for goodness’ sake.

  I make my excuses too and escape to the front room, leaving Dad alone with Sheena and Barbara who is now belting out ‘MacCrimmons Lament’. Myrtle scampers after me, claws clicking on the boards like a tart in high heels.

  What’s it like down in those vaults? Is it normal to see things out of the corner of your eye? Am I in tune with the spirit world having mixed with several of its members for such a long time?

  It’s more than imagination. I do see ghosts. I hear them. I feel them, the cold swirling around me, kissing my cheek as I pass from one vault to another, a drop in temperature alerting me to recent or current ‘activity’. I’m not a paranormal investigator. I’m a historian. I tell the facts as I know them, I dispel myths where I have the evidence but I am open-minded enough to know that this is my version of events as I believe them. Not everyone will agree with me. Amanda, for example. She thinks I’m to blame for what happened in the vault that day. But really it was a silly mix-up. I could have handled the situation better, granted. I could’ve reacted differently, but there you go. None of it was intentional. So I see the investigation as a positive thing where the truth will out.

  Hours later and I am jolted awake by Myrtle licking my face. She has the breath of a dragon. It is dark outside; the streetlamp beams a light across the rug and up the wall. My left arm has gone to sleep and feels like it will drop off. When the numbness becomes a fizzing pins-and-needles, I gather myself and stagger down the hallway, wondering why Dad hasn’t woken me up.

  He’s been hard at it in the kitchen, piles of paper strewn across the table, but he’s nowhere to be seen now. A stew has been abandoned mid-construction on the draining board. Hacked up chunks of carrots, onions and peppers. A chicken carcass, its skin puckered like a scrotum.

  Myrtle sits and looks with determination at her empty food bowl. It’s past her suppertime. Dad must’ve wandered off and forgotten what he was doing.

  Just as I am contemplating the possibility that he might’ve had a stroke or a heart attack, the front door opens and there’s the familiar sound of Dad’s heavy gait down the hallway.

  ‘Is that you, son?’ he calls out.

  ‘No, it’s a robber.’

  ‘Help yerself. We’ve got it all boxed up and ready for you to sell on e-amazon or whatever it is.’

  Ever the joker.

  As he enters the kitchen, he blinks in the light, claps his hands together, rubs them, warms them by the radiator, surveys his abandoned meal and paperwork. Gives me a shy look.

  His hair is dishevelled.

  ‘I’ll get back to this chicken stew,’ he says. ‘I got distracted. Had to call in next door for something.’

  His hands are empty.

  ‘I’ve been hankering after chicken stew all day.’

  ‘Okay, well, I’ll let you hanker away while I get sorted.’

  ‘Stay and have a beer with me, son. I’ll get this in the oven and clear the table.’

  ‘Why don’t you use the dining room, Dad? As a study. Or any of the bedrooms.’

  ‘I’m happy here.’ He surveys the hillock of correspondence on the table.

  ‘You could get a laptop. Go paperless.’

  ‘Her fans like writing letters.’

  ‘They could write emails.’

  ‘Maybe some of us like the old ways.’

  ‘You’re not that old.’

  ‘We’re a different generation. Even Barbara is back to her folk roots.’

  Yes, my father, who runs a Barbara Dickson fan club. The other woman he has loved all his adult life.

  ‘I’ll skip the beer, Dad. Maybe later. I should make a start on those boxes. And I have some emails of my own to send.’

  And some more digging to do.

  So.

  Back to my wee bedroom, the wicker chair, laptop balanced on my legs, fighting with the dongle to get a signal in this pre-historic house. Finally back to Google. This time Tommo. A shoddy website. A band. Based in a hippy town in Devon.

  An email address.

  How do you write to someone you haven’t seen since Cagney and Lacey were on prime-time telly? Especially when the last time you were together was in a prison.

  Dear Tommo?

  Hi there, Tommo?

  Dear Ptolemy?

  How’s it going, my old mucker?

  I hope life is treating you well.

  Are you and Bex still together?

  Why have you never got in touch to see if I was okay?

  Sincerely, Cameron.

  Best wishes, Cameron.

  Yours, Cameron Spark.

  This is pathetic.

  Hi Tommo

  Been a while. Wondered if you were going to Christie’s launch in London. If you are, I will see you there. Is Bex going too? It would be good to catch up.

  Regards, Cameron

  Send.

  A week and maybe I’ll finally know if I made the right decision back on that cold starry night in 1986.

  Lancaster University

  The main architect was Gabriel Epstein of Shepherd and Epstein. On a barren hilltop on a windswept day in 1963 the two architectural partners surveyed the future site of the university. Peter Shepherd recalled that day. ‘We went up there on a windy day, and it was freezing cold. Every time we opened a plan it blew away. And we said, Christ! What are we going to do with these students, where are they going to sit in the sun and all that? Well, we decided, it’s got to be cloisters. All of the buildings have got to touch at the ground. We then devised this system and it had an absolutely firm principle: it had a great spine down the middle where everybody walked. That led everywhere.*

  _________________________

  *You might wonder why I didn’t choose a university in Scotland? It was a matter of grades. I got my place through Clearing. Lancaster squeezed me in at the eleventh hour. Enough said.

  *‘His’ bedroom is actually ‘our’ bedroom. We had to share, being the youngest. But now, as an otherwise homeless adult, I am claiming it as ‘my’ bedroom.

  *‘Building the New Universities’, Tony Birks, David and Charles, 1972, p.115.

&
nbsp; Edinburgh, Michaelmas Term, 1985

  Trunk

  The old steamer trunk was right at the back, deep in the cobwebby recesses of the attic. Dad was going to drive me down from Edinburgh later, when we were ready, whenever that might be. If Mum had still been here, she would have had us organised days before but, as with everything else in this family, it was all last minute.

  It took four of us to ease the trunk down the ladder. At one point Edward let it slip and I thought it was going to crush me, ending my life as an undergraduate before it even began. But Gavin saved the day, with his body-building muscles, and caught it, holding it up one-handed, like he was Popeye. That’s what his friends at school had called him. Popeye. I would’ve settled for that. I’d had much worse. But that was all behind me now. A new start. A new life. Hopefully some new friends. Some friends full stop would be nice.

  We heaved the trunk into the kitchen, crashing into the door frame and chipping some paint, to add to the other scars that marked most of the woodwork in our house. The trunk itself was bashed-up, its metal dented, various old names and addresses scrawled and scratched out and replaced with new ones, among them, my mother’s. Annie Brown and her childhood home, in the heart of Glasgow.*

  Gavin and Edward skulked away, back to their weights and dartboard. Dad had that pained expression on his face so I knew he’d also read the name of his dead wife.

  ‘She’d be proud of you, son,’ he said. Just like that. He rarely talked about her. I so wanted to say something, build a conversation, make her alive for a moment, back in our kitchen, cooking bangers and tatties. But the words got stuck and all I could say was ‘Thanks, Dad.’ And she was gone like a magician’s trick. Pouf! And it was me and Dad alone in the kitchen, only her name to remind us she’d once been there.

  I opened the trunk.

  Old baby clothes. Romper suits. Woolly jumpers Granny Spark had knitted, way up on the Mainland of Orkney, in her croft by the Churchill Barriers, itchy and scratchy but each stitch looped and purled with love, the intricate Fair Isle pattern, proud and rich in its heritage. I was a Spark. And Granny would never let me forget it.†

  ‘Look at this one.’ Dad held up a tiny navy and red affair. ‘One of your own, I seem to remember, instead of a hand-me-down.’ He sniffed the jumper, his litmus test for laundry. ‘She’s always had a soft spot for you. Wanted to be here to see you off. But… well… She did send something. It came in the post this morning. I’ll away and fetch it from the mantelpiece.’